An item of "Breaking News". Will appear on the Breaking News page and the front page.
When Councillor Charles Dundas forwarded us a list of grit-bin locations in the City Centre ward on 6 December (Breaking news 6.12.10), we assumed that similar lists would soon be forthcoming from City of Edinburgh Council for other wards partially covered by the Spurtle: Leith Walk, Leith and Inverleith.
We had underestimated the capacity of a bureaucracy to make something seemingly straightforward mind-bendingly difficult.
Edinburgh City Council has published an update on refuse collection during the wintry weather on its website:
The Union Gallery's new exhibition – 'The Animals are Coming' – is an ecclectic assembly of works, unified chiefly by quality and the taste of gallery owners Bob Dawkins and Alison Auldjo. There are indeed animals in many of the offerings, but animals treated or alluded to in so many different ways that they do not coalesce around any particular theme.
Since October last year, Drummond Community High School has been running a Cultural Peer Project which both participants and independent observers are rating very highly.
Spurtle contacted Birgit Harris – adult eduction programme organiser at Drummond – for the low-down, since the Peer Project emerged from an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) conversation class which she has been teaching there since 2007.
City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) undertake to clear main routes of snow and ice, whilst – not unreasonably – expecting citizens themselves to make more effort to clear minor routes and pavements.
Back in January, they actively encouraged members of the public to use kerbside grit bins for this purpose.
On 30 November, Spurtle contacted the Council and asked for a map showing all grit bin locations in the Broughton area. A little later the reply came that no such map existed.
A decision on whether to open schools tomorrow will be made this evening around tea time. Most evening classes on school property appear to be cancelled.
Broughton Primary School
Will stay open today until 3:15pm, but if parents wish to pick up their children early then they can do so.
Broughton Spurtle Annual General Meeting
A decision on whether to push on with tomorrow's AGM will be taken at 12 noon tomorrow.
Drummond Community High School
Charles Dundas has effectively kaiboshed conspiracy theorists who claim there are no grit bins in Edinburgh.
The City Centre councillor this morning emailed Spurtle a list of 65 bin locations in his ward (see xls file below).
We are now working to secure similar lists from councillors in Leith Walk, Leith and Inverleith.
In Issue 189 we reported the aborted theft of lead from the roof of St Mary's Parish Church on Bellevue Crescent.
Local resident Peter Verity has since contacted the Spurtle with photographic evidence, snapped on 22 November.
Mr Verity, who has looked out onto St Mary's for roughly 30 years, reports feeling a certain involvement in the building's continued well-being.
Unreliable Geographies by Aeneas McHaar
No. 14: Part 2 — Pilrig, Johannesburg, South Africa
26º 12’ S, 28º 2’ E
In Issue 189 we looked into the murky past of Broughton's mounted caribou, but Spurtle's researches uncovered far more interesting and peculiar material than we had room for in the printed edition.
Here, then, are miscellaneous links and gleanings which didn't make it into the final article.