Breaking news

Drummond CHS pupils are working hard to raise funds to enable their Kenyan partners to visit Edinburgh next year. Their latest event – 'Bags of Style' – will take place in the school on 18 November from 6:00–8:30pm.

One brown, floppy-eared, very well fed rabbit – bearing a striking resemblance to Geoffrey Howe without glasses – was found loose on Melgund Terrace this evening at 5:30pm and is now munching carrots in a place of safety: appears calm but capable of eating finders out of house and home.

Please call 556 4848 to arrange collection.

Municipal, provincial and even central authorities around the world are increasingly resorting to new methods to involve their electorates in consultation and decision making.

In part – as, arguably, in Edinburgh – these are politically motivated moves to stave off voter backlashes in difficult times; in part, they are genuine efforts to bolster democracies against voter indifference, cynicism or disengagement.

SPIRES (Supporting People who Investigate Research Environments and Spaces) is a Heriot-Watt University based project interested in what makes an effective research space.

SPIRES aims to better understand and enhance physical, technological and social aspects of reseach, and as part of this work is now building an online community of researchers. This already includes people from industry and academia, but SPIRES is also keen to attract 'leisure' researchers – amateur historians, for example, or genealogists, or anyone with a research passion that doesn't pay.

Perhaps anticipating hordes of ravenous Broughtonians arriving en masse and scoffing all the food and light refreshments, leaving half-chewed sausage rolls and bread crusts strewn across Charlotte Square and creating a ghastly din, Edinburgh World Heritage have asked us to make a small clarification.

City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) yesterday published a report on its recent 'budget information and engagement exercise' [www.edinburgh.gov.uk/budget], the biggest such process it has ever run.

CEC claims the findings prove consultees:

Maggie Chapman, Green councillor for the Leith Walk ward, has added her voice to calls for retention of postal services at Brunswick Road (Breaking news, 9.11.11).

As well as writing to Royal Mail, she has submitted the following motion to next week's full council meeting:

CITY OF EDINBURGH COUNCIL

Snow is reported in upland areas across Scotland including the Nevis Range, Glen Coe, Glenshee, Cairngorm and the Lecht. Wintry showers are also predicted for the East Coast over coming days.

In what is predicted to be another severe winter, Broughtonians may wish to keep track of what's falling where.

A Spurtle follower has tweeted us with news of an ingenious application which tracks Twitter reports to map snow density and quality across the UK: http://uksnow.benmarsh.co.uk/.

Proof that there is no issue so serious that a simple typo in its reporting cannot reduce otherwise responsible adults to puerile sniggering is yesterday's post by Mark Lazarowicz, MP to www.hearfromyourmp.com.

We quote carefully.

City of Edinburgh's Council (CEC) designs for some local flood defences have been entered into the Planning system by their agent Arup Scotland.