There's nowt so queer as folk, and no way of telling exactly what will annoy some of them whilst leaving others unperturbed.
Spurtle learns that this large, slightly battered advertisement for upmarket properties at 24 Great King Street has ignited pockets of indignation around Drummond Place.
It represents, to some, the 'creeping commercialisation of the New Town', and smoke is now billowing out of their trousers.
Viewed objectively, and from a little way off, the two-sided sign and accompanying front-facing banner do not appear to us to mark the end of Western civilisation, and will surely be gone before too long.
This is not the first time Retties have disgruntled locals hereabouts. The successful planning application for them to emblazon their company name across a disused and now privately owned police box on Heriot Row caused similar mutterings a few months ago, and the promised advertisement has still not appeared.
Perhaps its sponsors have been deterred by the disapproval of nearby residents, as witnessed today in this defiant declaration of 'No surrender!' to falling standards on railings around Queen Street Gardens.
No such misgivings attend this rather wonderful creation on Dundas Street. Apparently all that remains of the grass in St Andrew Square, he stands guard outside 17 Dundas Street: a newly opened basement branch of Lair – purveyors of mid-20th-century furniture and lighting.
In St Andrew Square itself, the lone and level mud stretches far away.
From 4 February to the end of March, it will be partially obscured by what even the Council describes as 'an invasion' of stop-motion stick figures. Eighty light sculptures will shine in sequence to an original musical composition to create the illusion of movement.
Something which could be done far more simply by allowing people to wander across the grass at will, as was originally promised by City of Edinburgh Council.
'Sound will envelop the whole area and entice visitors to get closer to the installation,' enthuses one of its creators Thomas Veyssiere.
It all sounds very exciting, but not much like a green haven of tranquility.
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Pamela Dobbie My god, St Andrews Square!!
Peter Nowicki Terrible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nicole Roberts What does the sign on the dog say? x
