Dear Spurtle,

We need to talk about these bin-hubs.

Not hard to see the attraction, is it? The local elite taken down a peg or two. Give ’em a taste of what the rest have to endure. Tweedy gents roused to apoplexy; fragrant ladies weeping at the sheer horror of it. What could be more delightful?

And quite frankly, who cares about aesthetics. If you like that sort of thing, go to Paris, you weirdo.

It’s levelling up, Edinburgh-style. A belief that we should all be equal in our trash-strewn misery. And equality is surely something to support.

And yet I must urge caution.

You may not know this, but New Towners themselves won’t go anywhere near these hubs. Of course they won’t. They have staff for that sort of thing; proletarian types mostly. And these dark, occluded places will give them somewhere to gather. And conspire.

And then what’ll happen? Revolution, obviously.

Sound good, does it, comrade? The red flag flying over Great King Street, workers councils on Heriot Row. Crimson trews at permanent half-mast.

You really haven’t thought this through. Seriously, think about it. The result would be catastrophic: you’d no longer be able to blame a New Town elite for everything that’s wrong with your lives. You’d turn on each other. And then on yourselves.  And we simply can’t risk this happening.

The consequences of Edinburgher self-reflection would undoubtedly consist of everything up to and including civil war and cannibalism.

You therefore need the New Town to remain just as it is: a cut above the rest. Peace and harmony depend on it. You cannot cope without their SUVs, Agas, and general air of superiority. You must insist that their streets remain free of unsightly hubs. For your own security and sanity, you need the New Town to be different.

Then, and only then, can you sleep safely in your beds at night. Gull-proof sacks must stay. For your sake and that of your children.

Bin-sanity must prevail.

The New Town Flaneur

(whereabouts unknown)

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