Shrub Place development – Clickety Chicks – Robert Burns – Saturday at the Cameo – Safety advice!

Planning permission was granted in 2008 for the site of the former bus depot on Leith Walk. Over the last two days there has been a pre-planning consultation exhibition running at MacDonald Road Library although the exhibition will remain in place for the public to view for another two weeks. Next week’s meeting of the Development Management Committee will consider the new application which is being made for a mixed use development. All the planning papers so far are on the council’s planning pages here on their website. While there are no details yet the main thrust of the application is for residential use which would fall within the local plan according to the report produced for the meeting.

The site has been empty for some considerable time.

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Tickets are now on sale for Clickety Chicks, Edinburgh’s glamorous bingo fundraising evening in aid of Action for Children Scotland.

 

Date: Friday 1 March 2013

Time: 6:30 pm – 11:30 pm

Venue: The George Hotel, Edinburgh

Ticket Price: £65 per person (or £650 for a table of ten), which includes:

• Drinks reception

• Bingo games hosted by Gala

• 3-course dinner

• Fabulous prizes

• Grand auction hosted by Grant Stott

 

To book contact katie.forsyth@actionforchildren.org.uk or call 0141 550 9022.

All the money raised on the night will go to Action for Children’s Gilmerton Road service which helps families across Edinburgh and the Lothians who have a child with a learning disability and severe behavioural problems. The charity helps them live the lives they choose by providing fun, inclusive and flexible support, including short break care, help for families in dealing with challenging behaviour and provision of specialist education and leisure opportunities. The project currently supports 40 children aged 0 – 19 years.

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Of course today is Robert Burns birthday and there will be many Burns Suppers across the city over the weekend. We mentioned those we could find in our article here.  You might be tempted to download the Burns app here…. created by the Stormid agency in Constitution Street. And in 1786 Burns penned a line or two about Edinburgh itself…

Edina! Scotia’s darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and tow’rs,
Where once, beneath a Monarch’s feet,
Sat Legislation’s sov’reign pow’rs:…..

The full poem is here.

A new poll has revealed ‘dreich’ as Scotland’s favourite word in the Scots language.

The You Gov survey asked adults across the country to select their number one Scots word from a list of options including some of Robert Burns’ own favourites.  With 23 per cent of the public vote, and perhaps proving Scotland’s love for talking about the weather, the word ‘dreich’ meaning ‘wet’, ‘cold’ and ‘gloomy’ trumped other classics such as ‘glaikit’ (20%), ‘blether’ (12%) and ‘crabbit’ (11%).

‘Sleekit’ (6%), ‘beastie’ (5%) and ‘braw’ (6%) – just some of the words made famous by our national Bard’s iconic songs and poetry – also featured.

Lassies across the country also proved their love for gossip with 17% of female Scots voting ‘blether’ as their number one word, while ‘glaikit’ came up trumps with 35 to 44 year old respondents at 26%.

This poll follows the launch of an online interactive game, ‘Rhyme with Rabbie’, which allows Scots to follow in the steps of the great poet and pen their very own Scots masterpiece.

Speaking ahead of this year’s Burns Night celebrations, Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop said:

“Scots is intrinsic to our nation’s culture, heritage, and identity. It is also one of our living languages which are as relevant today as they were in Robert Burns’ time – many of the words highlighted in this survey have no direct English translation, demonstrating their enduring appeal. My own personal favourite word is ‘bùrach’, which means ‘a right mess’, and is from the Gaelic. There’s also a Scottish folk rock group called Bùrach, and I think it’s a great name for a band.”

Burns Night is the culmination of Scotland’s Winter Festivals and celebratory events will be taking place across the country. Scotland’s friends the world over will also be joining in the fun with Burns Night celebrations happening across the globe from New York to Sydney and Toronto to Beijing.

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On Saturday night – very late mind you! – the Cameo is showing the wonderful Nicholas Cage in Con Air…. A bit of a thriller! More details on tickets here. 

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A newsreader in Birmingham had a narrow escape when walking and texting….she fell into the canal! Here she is talking about it on BBC Breakfast….So take care out there!

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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.