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LEITH WALK HUSTINGS

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‘EXPECTANT OF BELLEVUE’ EXAMINES THE ENTRAILS 

Cannibalistic seagulls, AK47s, belly dancing and the Napoleonic Wars are the last things you’d expect to hear about at a Council election hustings. None of these terms appeared in one audience member’s Leith Walk bingo card but there’s certainly potential for next time. 

THE GLUG-TOR WILL SEE YOU NOW

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When it comes to the positive health effects of alcohol consumption, and the likely advice one is likely to receive on the subject from members of the medical profession, Bacco Wine has a distinctly glass-half-full approach. 

The Dundas Street emporium’s current A-board displays eight ‘Doctor’s Prescriptions’. 

None of them, we suspect, matches current BMA best-practice guidelines, or would stand up (without wobbling) to any other kind of rigorous scientific scrutiny.

More a case of wishful drinking. 

HIGHLY SPRUNG AND SADLY FUN

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Easter may still be two weeks away, but guerilla gardener and installation artist Christina ‘Granny’ Thompson has never been one to let calendrical niceties get between her and a good time. 

The floral treasure trove she tends at the sunniest end of Bellevue Place is full of colour again this spring.

To the delight of children and puzzlement of passing teenagers, it's also filled with a sozzled-looking Humpty Dumpty …

HALF-SUNK WITHOUT TRACE

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… UNTIL NOW 

Cabinet papers newly released under the 30-year rule cast a surprising light on Edinburgh’s seascape. 

Inchmickery stands roughly two miles off the coast in the Firth of Forth. 

Members of the public may not land on this RSPB bird reserve, where ‘small but important populations of tern and breeding eider’ enjoy legal protection. Few pause to question the validity of that prohibition.

ISSUE 261 – OUT TOMORROW!

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Get out your brolly! It’s about to start raining Spurtles.

April's issue will begin to precipitate on the streets tomorrow, bringing a topical downplump of Planning, election and hustings news, a non-sighting of the talented George Osborne MP, and a plethora of bins and fag butts nobody likes but nobody thinks they’re responsible for.

We have slim pickings on particular pavements, a hole, and a youth hostel driving hospitality to new extremes.

BBC INTERVIEWS DRUMMOND PUPILS

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Jodie Hannan, Headteacher of Drummond Community High School, writes:

BBC News interviewed S5 pupils Mohsin Syed, Katherine Dempsie, Maria Correia, Peter Wright and Laiqha Mohammad (from left to right below) on Thursday 30 March about their thoughts on the triggering of Article 50, Brexit and the second Scottish independence referendum.

COUNCIL CANDIDATES NAMED

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The deadline for nomination of candidates in the forthcoming Council elections (4 May) passed yesterday. 

Candidates in the three wards that intersect Spurtleshire are as follows. 

Ward 5 - Inverleith - Four candidates will be elected

BAGSHAW, Nigel (Scottish Green Party)

BARRIE, Gavin (Scottish National Party (SNP))

DALGLEISH, James (Scottish Labour Party)

LAIRD, Tom (Scottish Libertarian Party)

MITCHELL, Max (Scottish Conservative and Unionist)

OSLER, Hal (Scottish Liberal Democrats)

MUM’S THE WORDS

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It’s that time of year when reminders of motherhood seem to be on every corner. 

And Broughton Street’s A-board artists are being as inventive as ever in their efforts to cajole, amuse or guilt-trip us into parting with money before Sunday.

At the top of the hill, the Basement Bar have departed from their usual line in morbid Latin American skeletons in favour of etymology. 

A QUESTION OF TRUST

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BANDSTAND PLANS STILL LEAVE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS 

Partially eclipsed by high-profile hoo-has over the old Royal High School, the Ross Development Trust (RDT) last week presented outline proposals for West Princes Street Gardens at a public meeting on 13 March organised by the Cockburn Association.