Breaking news

Bellevue Road residents are mystified and annoyed by strange nocturnal goings-on.

Broughton St Mary's Parish Church on Bellevue Crescent are seeking craftspeople for their fund-raising sale on Saturday 23 October,10:30am–1:00pm.

Tables are available – small £5.00, larger ones £10. 

If you would like to book a table to sell your crafts, contact Mrs Debbie Buckingham on  0131 557 5051. 

The two, local, flood-flattened Gormleys in the Water of Leith (Breaking news, 22.7.10) have been helped to their feet in the last few days.

Divers, crane operators and men waving their arms about re-erected the figures in St Mark's Park and Bonnington after an enforced 3-week sojourn underwater.

In an uncertain world, there is something reassuring about librarians: that combination of faith in the power of published ideas, confidence in the safe storage and rational organisation of thought.

Take today's posting by Edinburgh City Libraries. It concerns a book by the splendidly named Nathaniel Lachenmeyer – 13: The World's Most Popular Superstition – which apparently unravels the truth behind this 'most enduring of suspicions' (including its surprising 20th-century origin in a work of fiction).

Tommy Fitchet grew up in Dundee, moved via Glasgow and London to Arran, and recently – at first reluctantly – realised Edinburgh was the place to further his career as an easily accessible and mobile 21st-century artist. In January he settled in Stockbridge.

Despairing of ever finding an affordable dedicated studio in the capital, he astutely secured premises at 5 Rodney Street where he could combine active painting (at the back) with commercially remunerative exhibition space (to the front).

Singer/songwriter/performer Hannah Reade is organising a not-for-profit 'micro-festival', or 'informal performance, workshop, and discussion space' or 'Fringe of the Fringe' in the Pilrig Street home where she grew up.

In an August programme labelled 'The Living Room', her family's living room will loom large, but expect bedrooms and corridors to feature too, whilst homemade soup, scones and jam will be on offer in the kitchen café.

The Yakety Yak Language Café has announced local venues for its informal foreign-language conversation sessions.

Small interested groups, matched for current ability, meet to chat in French, Italian, German or Spanish (not all at once) under the guidance of a professional linguist.

Well-known Bellevue actor, writer and director Matthew Zajac will be busy this month with two shows running in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

First is a reprise of The Tailor of Inverness (Krawiec z Inverness), Zajac's highly acclaimed account of his father's tangled national and personal identities in war-ravaged Central Europe. First shown in 2008, when it won the Scotsman Fringe First, this one-man play – written and performed by Zajec – is moving and visually exciting, drawing universal themes from an individual's bewildering personal experience.

A 2+-hour ‘comedy extravaganza’ will tickle local funnybones whilst raising money for poor children’s education in Ghana.

Laugh4Africa at the Omni Centre (Greenside Place) will star best-selling, award-winning or just best Fringe acts Janey Godley, Tom Allen, Sanderson Jones, Luke Toulson and Bruce Fumney.

Tickets £12. Time: 7:00pm–midnight, 11 August, Highlight Comedy Club, Omni Centre.

To order tickets, Tel. 226 0000 or visit www.edfringe.com.

Christine Clark, the former Rodney Street artist whose work we featured in Issue 180, is exhibiting this summer on the Lawn Market.

'Up the Winding Staircase' comprises work by 6 Edinburgh-based artists: Imogen Alabaster, Adrian Baird Ba Than, Deborah Cameron, Christine Clark, Morag Dewar and Mark Edward.