Last night, the London Street Grocery closed its doors for the last time.

The shop – a staple of life in the barony for the last 53 years – is now shuttered and empty.

Business has dried up in the months since Covid struck, with many people staying at home and ordering deliveries to their doors. The prolonged suspension of Broughton’s restaurant trade (which the firm supplied with excellent fruit and veg) and the absence of Drummond pupils cannot have helped either.

Critics have raised serious doubts about suggestions for reinventing Edinburgh’s 'front-line civic stewardship' as potentially unfair, unworkable and unaccountable.

The proposals emerged yesterday in a leaked report by Leith-based policy think-tank Dark Blue Sky (DBS). It argues a three-tier system operating on capital streets could complement the work of police and make life in the increasingly crowded city centre safer and more pleasurable for visitors and residents alike.

As you read this, advanced copies of the April Spurtle are already dispersing across the barony like personal items storm-torn from a clothes line and caught in the branches of a tree just out of reach from your opposite neighbour’s first-floor kitchen window.

Page 1 looks at ways to address a tatty muddle that ought to be the capital’s tiara. It continues with a lumpen mess, reports Picardy residents’ demands for better, and concludes with first news of the forthcoming Spurtle election hustings. And there’s a view of a doo.

If hospitality firms reopen as planned on 26 April, Edinburgh Council will help them by waiving fees for outdoor area occupation permits and making additional space available in a largely pedestrianised area between Charlotte Square and Frederick Street.

The Scottish Government’s restricted hours for hospitality mean that up to 6 adults from 3 households will be able to be served alcohol until 10pm, and/or food without alcohol indoors until 8pm. Council-assisted outdoor bevvying will continue until ‘at least 30 September 2021’.

Below we reprint in full an article which first appeared in the Scotsman on 30 March 1901 and was later abridged in the Spurtle (Issue 305).

For the avoidance of doubt, Dr Hadwen’s opinions are not entirely shared by the Spurtle. Rather, we find them an interesting precursor of some people’s objections to inoculation today. The footnotes have been added by contributor AM.

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HOUSING OF EDINBURGH POOR.

ADDRESS BY JUDGE BROWN.

Under the auspices of the Edinburgh Citizens’ and Ratepayers’ Union, in the Freemasons’ Hall, George Street, Edinburgh, last night, Judge Brown addressed a crowded meeting on “How the Edinburgh Poor are Housed.’’[1]