A petition signed by over 160 East London Street and other residents was presented to the Transport & Environment Committee yesterday. The TEC accepted the petition and resolved to consider a report on the topic by Council officers at its scheduled meeting in October.
Having arrived on the street unfortunately wearing the same outfit, they decided to ignore each other.
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Dear Spurtle,
I saw this van parked by the Water of Leith last week.
It's nice to see the National Bard immortalised by a business venture, and one hopes it is more successful than his own attempts to make money.
Some might argue that this goes against the animal-loving spirit of the original poem, but, to be fair, Burns might have felt differently about mice if they were running around his kitchen.
David McDowell
Dear Spurtle,
Referring to 'Tracking down the Broughton screech' (Spurtle No. 331, August 2023, page 2), it is not clear what the unholy screech sounds like. But a few years ago, I exorcised a recurring screech for a neighbour.
The screech would make itself heard at all hours, with no pattern, but with a (reported/perceived) preference for 04:00. It would be at an imprecise frequency of around 1000 Hz, i.e. the approximate vocal range of an excited young child, with a rich timbre of fluctuating harmonics. It would last somewhere between 10 and 30 seconds, and then stop completely. No verbal content could be distinguished.
Closing doors and double-glazed windows made no difference. Earplugs were useless.
The matter was complicated by a language difference. Between myself and my neighbour, you must understand, not between myself and the screech – I pride myself on semi-fluent Screech. However, to add a dash of mystery sauce to the riddle, only the affected neighbour had ever heard said screech.
It's such a good word, screech.
The screech, when I found it, turned out to be not human. Nor indeed superhuman. Nor was the screech external to the building. It came from below the floor!
To be precise - the downstairs neighbours were early risers, and they would hang up a load of laundry shortly before leaving their flat. They had a pulley laundry rail, and being a rental flat, the pulley axles had become dry and slightly rusty.
The screechorcism involved a chalk circle, seven white candles, three Jerusalem artichokes ... and an arcane ritual with a can of WD40.
Good luck to Annandale Street. :)
Mark von Delft
[EDITOR:—There have been developments. Full report in Issue 332 (September).
No. 22 in an occasional photo series celebrating Spurtleshire street-name signs.
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The Broughton Spurtle and 19 other independent local and hyperlocal news publications serving urban and rural communities across Scotland have joined forces to create The Scottish Beacon, a new national news platform which launched today.
The innovative website is the first collaborative journalism outlet of its kind in the country. The aim is to strengthen the independent community-based media sector and bring stories from Scotland’s communities to a wider audience.
A cautionary tale for visitors, from the Edinburgh Evening News, 3 Oct 1898.
The Edinburgh detective staff are at present investigating a case in which a young tailor, belonging to the Isle of Skye, got swindled out of close upon £10 by means of the confidence trick, in Picardy Place, on last Friday night.
Concert by the ever-popular community wind band. Tickets: £5. Under-18s free.
Warning! Contains superheroes.
Find your printed copy in shops, services and libraries throughout Broughton and beyond.
Or download your colour pdf here.
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My name is Jamie Forbes and I live on East London Street.
I work for Lloyds Banking Group and I am raising funds for our charity partner – Crisis. Crisis are the national charity for people experiencing homelessness. They help people directly out of homelessness and campaign for the changes needed to solve it altogether.