Category: The City Talks
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Ghosts of census past and present
Just for the hell of it, I hang Granny’s nighties and pretty petticoat by a range which has been here for 160 years, our smart new utility room still boasts the original Belfast sinks from the scullery where Elizabeth Leather would have laboured over dishes, pots and pans. How much of all this will be…
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Hyperlocal signs of life: welcome to a braver new world?
Are we so caught in the headlights of pandemic panic that we dare not pause for breath to look more closely at what is happening around us
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Take to the streets: Edinburgh’s green space is not for sale
A robin sings into the night from a bare branch tree. The sound, sad-sweet in the din and dazzle of Edinburgh’s Christmas markets, seems to come from another world.
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In search of the emotional museum
Can museums use popular culture to engage a wider audience? What better time could there be to explore what shapes our identities? Let’s hit the road…
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Putting HER story up in lights
My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky; It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by; Robert Louis Stevenson: The Lamplighter My daily walk was later than usual. After five o’clock in January the skies are dark and pavements less inviting. This is Leerie Lamplighter time in Edinburgh…
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Shame the devil, tell the truth
How history twists and turns. The at times black comedy tour, first improvised by comedians Jamie MacDonald and Harry Gooch six years ago, acquires newly topical significance at the finale in St Andrew Square. (Disclaimer: I’m a director of Walking Heads but there are many true words among the jests so I’m reblogging the story…
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SAY Award: so Paisley 2021
The Gender Neutral Toilets are warmly welcomed by ‘trans queer’ punk band Spook School though I tiptoe back out to the old school Ladies after encountering a row of urinals. ‘Hello World, welcome to Paisley,’ the smiling face of Paisley2021’s Jean Cameron beams a global greeting from the SAY award screen streamed live from Paisley…
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Seeding success: a new Paisley pattern
Tread softly on the way to Paisley Town Hall; it’s a journey threaded with names of the stuff that made a great civic centre. Here’s Gauze Street crossing the canal. Turn right at Abbey Place just before the road divides between Lawn Street and Cotton Street. And pause.
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Creative cities: built on can-do culture
All’s fair in love, war and creative city competition. Well, yes, maybe but losing a heartfelt City of Culture bid can hurt as Creative Dundee’s Gillian Easson freely admits.
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What on Earthy is this?
Just for the record, I objected to ugly plans for a new development at Canonmills on the banks of Edinburgh’s Water of Leith. Midnight was the deadline but my email to the Planning Committee prompted an auto response…the planning department officer was now away for two weeks. So I posted it on the City Council…
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Is Edinburgh finding its feet at last?
The news went more or less unnoticed last November. I heard it with some surprise but it sounded thoroughly good news to me. Edinburgh was preparing for a bold step towards becoming a modern city centre, a European city with a little more room for people and a little less room for cars. Since the…
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Poetry, politics and pedestrians
I’m walking home along Rose Street when writing on the wall catches my eye. Ron Butlin’s Recipe for Whisky. Perhaps not many people know it but this is the poem that launched Edinburgh’s Poetry Garden in St Andrew Square a full five years ago. It seems significant as I’ve just been to the Living Streets…