CAMERAMBULATION 2

Spurtle volunteers, their friends and informants were busy in and around Broughton over the weekend.

First of their photos to arrive was this detail of a ground-floor flat in Bridge Place, Stockbridge.

'Could there be any connection,' Michael Finch asks, 'to the outdoor exhibition mounted on the wall opposite over the summer?' (Breaking news, 28.7.13) We don't know, but will enquire. 

Spurtle doesn’t normally like tags. These stylised signatures have all the ubiquity of dog pees but little of the latter’s underlying complexity. Winston begins to win us round, however, with this example attractively styled and jauntily placed like a raised eyebrow on the corner of a Rose Street back lane. 

Less edgy, so far, but still interesting, guerilla knitting or yarn-bombing is beginning to gather momentum across the Barony.

We’ve noticed two previous instances this summer (Breaking news, 17.5.13; 12.7.13), and now Laura of Bellevue sends us this this snap of one discovered on Herris Fencing at the former site of the Botanic Cottage in Haddington Place. Why the artist cares whether we’re ‘All right there, pal?’ is a mystery, but we thank him or her for asking.

Making the best of a bad job, staff at Lock_up Coffee on Broughton Street Lane have decorated their premises with a reference to Leith’s finest cinematic moment so far.

Intrigued by this description scrawled on the door, Spurtle inspected within. The loo’s interior was more spartan than mingin, for which most North American admirers of Irvine Welsh’s oeuvre present seemed profoundly grateful.

The pop-up café and Festival seafood restaurant have absolutely nothing to do with the film, and are squarely within Broughton, so we assume the intention is just an opportunist attempt to attract passing tourists or forms part of some viral marketing campaign.

It will be interesting to see if a reference to ‘the famous Sunshine on Leith hand basin’ follows shortly.

Mixed messages have become quite common on Drummond Place when it comes to welcoming newcomers. These signs attached to the front door of a basement flat there simultatneously greet and repel, perhaps not in the way they were intended to do.

Next, a chance glance drew this horse to Imogen Kennedy's attention on Northumberland Street, its gorgeous blood red highlighted against the dark of the first-floor interior.

Finally, have you noticed cars becoming more intelligent recently? We’re not talking about mere sat navs or advanced computerised traction controls. We mean, that peculiar ‘Hal moment’ when all the artificially intelligent items in a vehicle link up to form something more sentient and self-conscious than the sum of their parts?

Do you carry a camera in your pocket and have an eye for the odd and/or scenic? If so, we'd love to see your photos of Broughton and beyond. You can contact us by email spurtle@hotmail.co.uk on Facebook Broughton Spurtle or Twitter @theSpurtle