An item of "Breaking News". Will appear on the Breaking News page and the front page.
Tommy Kemp, a former Broughton Court resident now in the Netherlands, has contacted Spurtle with an offer of help (Letters, 3.11.10).
In Issue 185, Ross Maclean had asked readers for assistance in finding out more about Peggy Desmond, a luminary of the stage in her heyday but now rather forgotten.
Last month we reported John Hein's campaign to retain late-posting and franked mail services on Brunswick Road (Breaking news 26.10.10).
Leith Walk ward Councillor Lang was one of several local politicians to take up Hein's case, and has now received a reply from Julie Morrison, Royal Mail's Head of External Relations (see pdf below).
Trevor Jones is a 40-year-old Canadian artist who graduated two years ago from Edinburgh University's MA in Fine Art Programme. 'He has,' says Union Gallery's Rob Dawkins, 'already forged himself a formidable reputation as an abstract painter of exceptional talent'.
Synæsthesia II, his first solo exhibition, opened on Broughton Street last night and will run until 29 November.
In addition to Multrees Walk and the Balmoral Hotel, this stencilled slogan has recently appeared on Barony Street's Glasite Meeting House.
The latter's austere, kale-reek-haunted interior is hardly the last word in bourgeois extravagance.
Can any reader explain?
[A reader has contacted Spurtle to say that the same graffiti briefly appeared on the Royal Bank of Scotland building in St Andrew Square before being removed. Any other spots?]
For the first year of her life my daughter Niamh was a normal growing baby. However, not long after she was weaned she started to lose weight, had little energy and was often very sick. The health visitors told me she was failing to thrive – a horrible term for any parent to hear. Makes you feel like a bit of a failure yourself really.
While other children her age started to walk, Niamh just sat about showing little interest in playing or crawling far. Doctors put it down to tummy bugs and told us it would get better. But it didn’t.
In Issue 188 we touched on some of the once familiar church landmarks which have now vanished from Broughton's streets. By following the links below, you can find photos of them.
To start, here is a modern view of the Albany/Broughton Street junction, taken from Forth Street. If you now look again at the photo of Alexander 'Greek' Thomson's St Vincent Street Church in Glasgow (Issue 188, p. 3), you can see roughly how his unsuccessful competition entry would have fitted into Broughton's topography.
The second of two art-graffiti in Rodney Place (see Issue 188, p. 4) is situated immediately opposite the Union Yoga building by the bus stop.
We had hoped to photograph the artist at work, but by the time we got there the bird had flown.
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Unreliable Geographies by Aeneas McHaar
No. 13: Pilrig, Johannesburg, South Africa
26º 12’ S, 28º 2’ E
The nights are drawing in and the mornings are fair nippy these days as well, so why not take yourself along to the Filmhouse Cinema for a bit of sunshine with the fifth Africa in Motion film festival? They’re showing over 70 films from 28 African countries, and closing the festivities on Bonfire night with a ‘Fashion Extravaganza’ at the Bongo Club – I don’t know what that is but it sounds glamorous.
In Issue 187 Spurtle criticised what we feared was emerging as a contrived and meaningless consultation process between the Council and public on the capital's budget crisis. Many people have since seconded those concerns, although of course Council employees have been unable to do so publicly.