Breaking news

Well-known Bellevue actor, writer and director Matthew Zajac will be busy this month with two shows running in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

First is a reprise of The Tailor of Inverness (Krawiec z Inverness), Zajac's highly acclaimed account of his father's tangled national and personal identities in war-ravaged Central Europe. First shown in 2008, when it won the Scotsman Fringe First, this one-man play – written and performed by Zajec – is moving and visually exciting, drawing universal themes from an individual's bewildering personal experience.

A 2+-hour ‘comedy extravaganza’ will tickle local funnybones whilst raising money for poor children’s education in Ghana.

Laugh4Africa at the Omni Centre (Greenside Place) will star best-selling, award-winning or just best Fringe acts Janey Godley, Tom Allen, Sanderson Jones, Luke Toulson and Bruce Fumney.

Tickets £12. Time: 7:00pm–midnight, 11 August, Highlight Comedy Club, Omni Centre.

To order tickets, Tel. 226 0000 or visit www.edfringe.com.

Christine Clark, the former Rodney Street artist whose work we featured in Issue 180, is exhibiting this summer on the Lawn Market.

'Up the Winding Staircase' comprises work by 6 Edinburgh-based artists: Imogen Alabaster, Adrian Baird Ba Than, Deborah Cameron, Christine Clark, Morag Dewar and Mark Edward.

Two Yale keys were found on Monday morning outside Hershaws hairdressing salon on Rodney Street.

They were linked by a distinctive kind of key ring, accurate description of which will secure their return.

Contact Spurtle at spurtle@hotmail.co.uk.

Bellevue Chapel's programme of events (outlined in Issue 185) for 7–15 August – 'Around the Block' – has now been detailed.

The Howe Street-based LGBT Centre for Health and Wellbeing has launched LGBT Age, a new service targeted  at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Edinburgh and the Lothians aged over 50.

Comedian, TV presenter and local resident Craig Hill has joined Shirley-Ann Somerville MSP, and other Scottish LGBT celebrities Edwin Morgan and Horse MacDonald, in hailing the initiative.

There are three chances to view the beautiful interior of St Bernard's Well, for free, this month.

Volunteers will staff the well-house (by the Water of Leith between Stockbridge and Dean Bridge) on 8, 15 and 22 August between noon and 3pm.

The structure was designed by the Broughton landscape painter, architect, scientist and engineer Alexander Nasmyth (1758–1840), whom we featured in Issue 181.

Spurtle's August issue (185) was completed yesterday and will be printed today

We're carrying: the latest news on New Town containerisation, and some New Town residents' response; planning stooshies; community events; pavement bicyclists (should they be banned, blasted or beatified?); youth activities; retail loss, replacement and repost; Festival highlights; bygone Broughton; missing dinosaurs; and an eel. Plus much more.

Funds worth £2.5 million are available to Scottish youth projects over the next 2 years thanks to a rumbled malefactor.

The sum represents the first tranche of some £6.5 million recovered from a Scottish-linked Russian money launderer. It is being disbursed by the Scottish Government's CashBack for Communities scheme, and will be focused on 'diversionary activities for young people'. Successful applications are unlikely to include projects involving the distraction of OAPs while a pal breaks in at the back.

Influential New Town interests – including those representing Drummond Place, Northumberland Street and Great King Street – met in City Chambers on Tuesday 27 July to discuss their response to Council plans for improving waste collection in the Edinburgh World Heritage Site.

They first acknowledged problems this year with spilt refuse due to pests taking advantage of later collection times during industrial action by City of Edinburgh staff. (No blame was attached to feckless residents presenting waste at the wrong times.)