Breaking news

If Edinburgh Council gets its way, colourful scenes like this could soon be gone forever.

The City Centre and Leith Neighbourhood Office seeks volunteers for a community clean-up on Friday, marking the end of a week-long anti-graffiti drive by officials.

Those taking part (10am–12.30pm) will meet under the Calton Road rail bridge. They’ll receive protective equipment, anti-graffiti solutions (no shotguns), and guidance.

They’ll also get a free lunch, courtesy of ‘local eateries’.

Such is the safety of modern international air travel that we tend to respond with shock – not just horror – when something goes terribly wrong. 

In the 19th century, these catastrophes were all too common for those who travelled by sea, but descriptions of their loved ones’ unresolved hope, distress and eventual resignation are painfully familiar. 

A catalogue of such loss and grief stretches across every cemetery in Edinburgh, not least Rosebank. Here we find a monument erected to the memory of Allan McLean, a Leith mariner who died, aged 25, in 1867.

MARTIN McKENZIE: LA MER DU SUD 

Welcome back to The Sutton Gallery, which this month returns with its first exhibition of the year – and what a wonderful show it is. 

Martyn McKenzie was first mentioned in my review of the gallery’s Winter Show in December, and this exhibition was already being mooted back then. 

The sun is out, the days are lengthening, and the light is definitely improving.

If your home suddenly feels dirty and covered in smudges, get out in the open air and take part in the first of our regular photographic quizzes running from Friday to Friday each week this spring and summer.

We’re looking at animals – not just in Broughton – but across the whole city. And not your boring old living animals, quacking and mooing and stinging people in the way of conventional wildlife, but dead-as-a-doornail animals shaped, sculpted or moulded by human hand.

Bellevue Chapel on Rodney Street seeks planning permission for extensions to the side (on Cornwallis Place) and rear (Ref. 16/02317/FUL).

The proposed development’s extra 122 sq.m would mostly be gained by building over the current area of railed-off chippings. The additional floorspace is intended to accommodate the independent evangelical church’s growing congregation and community events.

RHYS FULLERTON REVIEWS ILONA SZALAY: QUEEN OF SWORDS 

After less than a year, Ilona Szalay is back at the Arusha Gallery with another provocative exhibition. 

Her oil-on-glass paintings here in Witness last August were one of my highlights of the summer, and I’m pleased to see her return. But be warned – these exceptional new works are highly personal and often seem intrusive. 

To nobody’s great surprise, Provincial Property Holding Ltd (PPH) has appealed the Council’s refusal of planning permission for eight townhouses between Broughton Road and the Claremonts (Ref. 15/02335/FUL, see Breaking news, 10.2.16). 

Following the recommendations of an Edinburgh Schools report, Council Leader Andrew Burns today announced that CEC will set up an independently chaired inquiry into building faults at PPP1 schools across the city. 

Political group leaders will discuss the inquiry’s terms of reference this week,  and they will be discussed with the chair before work begins. Who that chair will be has not been confirmed, but Burns seeks someone ‘who commands respect within the construction industry’. 

Visitors to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on Saturday were very much enjoying looking at sheds. Yes, sheds! 

The Ideal Hut Show is an open-air installation consisting of 18 off-the-shelf garden sheds reinvented by architects and designers from home and abroad. 

Forget the sunshine – sheds were the highlight of the day.

The sheds on show (I can’t believe I just said that) come in a variety of shapes, colours and sizes. 

It’s hard to imagine – looking at scenes like these, captured yesterday – that waters so close to home can sometimes turn fatal, even in summer. 

Such was the case on Saturday 20 June 1936, as yachts competed in the Royal Forth Yacht Club’s regatta at Granton Harbour. 

In the last race of the day, five yachts made for the West Gunnet buoy in a strong north-easterly wind and heavy swell. All were struggling to complete the course, and another had already turned back.