Keen Claremont carnivore Matthew Crehan is celebrating today. The local man has won a Q-Guild promotional competition, entitling him to £1,000-worth of Crombie's products.
He spent 5 minutes filling in an entry form at his favourite Broughton Street butcher over a month ago, and earned a £30 parking ticket for his pains. There was, he concedes, a short interlude of choice language. Now, though, he could hardly be happier. 'This really takes the brisket,' he told Spurtle.
Crehan is a loyal Crombie customer whose first choice in the shop is the Special Pork Sausage, a product he describes knowledgeably as 'firm to the touch and juicy to the bite'.
His prize means that he could, in theory, now purchase sufficient of them to stretch in a continuous string from the middle of Bellevue Crescent to halfway over the bridge at Canonmills.
However, he plans instead to splash out on a variety of top-end products such as Peebles-based Linda Dick's chickens – reputedly so free-range and ninja-fit that they regularly pursue and then traumatise marauding foxes.
This may not be true. Mr Crehan has an active imagination as well as a discerning palate and persuasive tongue.