Breaking news

Local athlete Kimberley Reed is progressing almost faster than we can report it.

Since featuring in Issue 183, she has won gold in the Girls B Hammer at the Scottish Schools Championships in Grangemouth on 11 June, not only winning her age group, but beating all other female competitors with a personal best of 46.98 metres.

This makes her 4th in the UK at under-17 level and 10th in the UK at under-20 level. She's also first in Scotland for her age group, and second at under-20.

Broughton Street Lane benefited from a 2-day clean-up on 14–15 June.

The Council Task Force and Specialist Services Team joined young people in repainting damaged areas, removing litter, and using chemicals and power washers to blast away graffiti.

The sixteen 16-18 year-olds involved attend the Right Track Project, a Broughton-based organisation which helps young people get to grips with social/behavioural or educational difficulties and prepares them for employment or further education.

Numerous animators and other former Django staff from around the world reassembled in the Cumberland Bar last night in advance of The Illusionist's opening gala at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Wednesday 16 June.

Over three years (2006–09), up to 80 filmmakers – mostly French or French-speaking – toiled at their George Street office on the 1950s, Scottish-set, animated reworking of this previously unrealised Jacques Tati script.

The lights at the Broughton Street/Picardy Place/York Place junction were out of action at 10.15am this morning. Wardens were directing traffic but expect delays until repairs are made.

The final component of Antony Gormley's 6 Times Horizon arrived in Bonnington today, in a backwater to the east of Newhaven Road.

Contractors MTEC – a firm specialising in the installation of artworks nationwide – set to work early, clearing submerged masonry from the riverbed to provide a level surface for the sculpture's base-plate. This was swung into position by a very large crane parked in Anderson Place.

Next, the figure itself was lowered into place and attached. The rubble was then restored to its former appearance midstream.

Three more components of Antony Gormley's 6 Times Horizon are now in place.

Yesterday, one figure was half-buried in the grounds of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and another positioned midstream in Stockbridge (see below).

Today, after a six-hour struggle with the current, a second figure was placed in St Mark's Park (see right, photo courtesy of Neil Jones).

In Stockbridge and St Mark's Park, the sculptures once again stopped passers-by in their tracks and prompted strangers to exchange opinions.

Draft revisions have been made to Edinburgh Planning Guidelines about Accessibility in the Built Environment. They can be seen (highlighted in yellow) at www.edinburgh.gov.uk.

A new online survey by City of Edinburgh Council seeks locals' views on city 'town centres'.

Economic Development's questionnaire – at www.surveymonkey.com – promises to make a 'real difference' in improving your local town centre (whatever that is) and ensuring that it meets 'current and future requirements' (whatever they are). It takes about 10 minutes.

The trams-related Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) was to have gone before CEC's Transport, Infrastructure and Environment Committee in July.

However, Council officials will announce on Monday that the TRO has been delayed until 21 September to allow time for further consideration of objections and comments received during the public 'deposit period'.

Spurtle understands that an impressive 59 per cent of the objections received concerned Blenheim Place, so the delay may bode well for those resisting the proposed ban on right-turns from London Road.

By 6pm this evening the contractors were packing up crane and tackle and tarpaulins and rowing boat, and preparing to leave. And Antony Gormley's figure stood alone in the evening sun, deep in reflection. It looks stunning.

A small group of strangers congregated on the nearby bridge, sharing information, comparing reactions.

An art student on his way to revise for a Modernism re-sit told me several things about Gormley which were incorrect.