Mark McLaughlin Online

Back Online

2011-10-03T09:49:00.001-07:00

It's been almost a year now since I updated my blog which is pretty bad. However, it has been an eventful year and I've been too busy doing stuff to have time to write about stuff.

In the last year, I've started a new job and moved house so much of my mental energy has been expended doing that. I've also been unsure whether my responsibilities to my new employer would allow me to keep the blog but I've decided, with a few tweaks, I can keep it going as long as I don't stray too far into the realms of Scottish politics.

I've also received encouragement to continue from journalists and authors alike to keep the book blogging going. Apparently it makes me look brainy. Appearances can be deceptive.

READING: Larsson, Millenium trilogy

2011-10-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

Stieg Larrson
Millenium Trilogy:
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest
2005-07

I bought The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy on DVD in anticipation of the forthcoming Daniel Craig/David Fincher adaptation.

While the new extended editions offer more scope to explore Stieg Larrson's themes than the theatrical releases, much of what I liked about the books is still sadly but necessarily missing.

Larsson's Millennium trilogy was a masterclass in investigative reporting, with lots of trawling through secret documents, peering behind locked doors and firewalls, and exposing hidden injustices.

Unfortunately, this doesn't make for good telly but hidden in Millennium's pages is a wealth of innovative investigative tactics for journalists looking to expand their arsenal. However, some of the tactics employed by journalist Mikael Blomkvist and secretive hacker Lisbeth Salander are questionable.

With Fincher's film approaching at the end of a year that has seen one of the world's biggest newspapers collapse under the weight of hacking allegations and an infamous computer hacker facing untested allegations of sex crime in Sweden, one wonders how a fictional tale about an imprisoned Swedish journalist and a morally ambiguous promiscuous computer hacker will be received.

The moral dilemma that new Fans of the Dragon Tattoo will have to grapple with is whether they believe Salander and Blomkvist's legally questionable means were justified. Most of the trilogy's injustices could not have been exposed without data hacking.

One wonders how Murdoch's hacks may have been received if they had turned up something useful that the police missed. Larsson would have known this wasn't beyond the realms of possibility:

"Are policemen more talented than ordinary people?", wonders Blomkvist in The Girl Who Played With Fire. "Sometimes a private investigator is better at working things out than a real detective."

While Larsson knew journalists who "make a living writing drivel", such as his own creation Tony Scala, he knew that there were just as many Blomkvists out there.

The need for Scottish Blomkvists to complement real detectives has rarely been more acute. The most recent statistics available (2008/09) show a massive spike in the number of experienced policemen retiring. It is not inconceivable that some of Scotland's seasoned hacks have a few more investigative tricks up their sleeves than the new batch of detective constables.

The same could be said about the security services. The most interesting thing about Cablegate was not the secret information itself, but that so much of the information had already found its way into the public domain. Most of the diplomatic cables about the Scottish Government could have been drawn straight from The Herald or The Scotsman.

No one has done more to divide opinion on the ignoble pursuit of hacking than Wikileaks/Cablegate founder Julian Assange. The similarities between Salander and Assange are striking. Both have a "selective morality"; both are speculated to have autistic spectrum disorders; both are promiscuous up to - and perhaps beyond depending on who you ask - the point of disrepute; and both view their respective opposite sexes with what could at the very least be described as suspicion.

However, by the end of The Girl Who Kicks The Hornet's Nest, the stains on Salander's character are cleansed with revelations that her perceived immorality was little more than a construct of police chauvinism, a salacious media and ultimately an immoral government fighting to hide its own dirty secrets.

The jury is still out on Assange. Or, more accurately, the jury has yet to be called as he is still fighting extradition to Sweden where he is facing charges of sexual assault. It is unclear how Assange's story will play out. On the face of it his story is a simple "did he or didn't he" intrigue but speculation is rife that Assange was, like Salander, the victim of secretive international anti-espionage tactics. The honey trap is the oldest trick in the book. Perhaps the final word should go to Assange himself:

"I have never said that this is a honey-trap...I have never said that this is not a honey-trap. I'm not accusing anyone until I have proof."

Mikael Blomkvist couldn't have put it better himself.

READING: Ansary, Destiny Disrupted

2010-10-10T11:18:00.001-07:00

Tamim Ansary
Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
2009

THE first thing that strikes you about Tamim Ansary’s whistlestop tour through 1400 years of Islamic history is the title. Destiny Disrupted implies an unfulfilled entitlement co-opted by western hegemony, while boldly suggesting that this destiny is back on track and on course to be fulfilled.

As an Afghan-born author living in America, Ansary is well placed to analyse this “destiny” from both an Eastern and Western perspective, but as he outlines the circumstances that made the Islamic world the bastion of culture and knowledge for almost a millennium - and of its decline - he refrains from explicitly predicting how this supremacy could be achieved again.

“Although history is not over, the period since 9/11 has not mulched down enough to enter history yet: it still belongs to the journalists. It is not too soon, however, to reflect on this period as a manifestation of two great out-of-synch narratives intersecting.”

Speculation over the Islamic world’s possible resurgence is clearly, therefore, for other authors, but for Ansary the lessons are in the history.

In the course of 350-odd pages, in his own informal conversational style, he tells how a 6th century Arabian businessman in the middle of a “mid-life crisis” started a religion which, with a small band of followers, converted Mecca, conquered Medina and, through a mixture of theological persuasion and a series of unlikely military victories, spawned an empire that would stretch from the Atlantic coast to the borders of China.

In relating this period Ansary relegates some of the greatest events in Western history – the Crusades, the discovery of America [incidentally a voyage to find trade routes to the east], the Christian reformation and the resultant wars in Europe – to mere footnotes taking part in one small corner of the Eurasian continent while the great Ottoman, Safavid and Moghul Islamic empires held sway over much of the rest.

The closest Ansary comes to articulating the Islamic world’s disrupted “destiny” actually comes from university of Chicago historian Marshall Hodgson:

“In the sixteenth century of our era, a visitor from Mars could well have supposed that the human race was on the verge of becoming Muslim.”

However, Ansary shows how the Islamic world then went into a period of decline, largely through stagnation and mismanagement. Much of its territory fell to empires built on Judeo-Christian foundations, while the rest tried to adapt to the new world order.

However, Ansary’s unspoken implication is that the last 500 years of Judeo-Christian dominance in world history was just an interlude, that normal service will shortly be resumed. According to Ansary’s thesis, backed up by a wealth of undisputed historical facts, this resurgence has already begun and has been gathering pace for the last century.

From this point on Ansary’s simple, straightforward narration really begins to illuminate by boiling down the often impenetrable world of Middle East politics and Islamist aspirations in the last century into a series of simple fundamentals.

He declares the notion of “nation-statism”, the skeleton upon which most of the world’s principals of cooperation (The United Nations) and discord (from Arab nationalism right down to Scottish Nationalist backbiting) hangs, to be a modern-day invention, a phantom almost, and far from an established fact.

“It’s easy to forget that the organisation of the world into countries is less than a century old...Unfortunately, the ideology of ‘nationalism’ and the reality matched up only approximately if at all.”

But what does all this mean for Western hegemony?

Under the principles of “nation-statism” the United States of America, the chief exporter of Western hegemony today, is a unified entity, with a shared economy, military, official language and a constitution based on the principles of “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”.

However, once the veil of nationalism is stripped away and its status as the established locus of organisation and control is removed, other networks of co-operation become apparent.

Today, “nation-statism” and Islamism are already combining. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran are already fully fledged Islamic States, where Sharia law and the law of the land are indistinguishable, but beneath the level of nationalism and statehood there is already a shared Islamic economy, military and common constitution.

Groups like the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which promotes Muslim values within the United Nations on behalf of its 57 member countries with Islamic majorities, and the Organisation of Petrolium Exporting Countries (OPEC), which fixes oil prices on behalf its member countries, most with Islamic majorities, form the basis of a quasi-governmental constitution and shared economy. Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, imports British and American arms by the bucketload, while militant groups like Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, to name but a few, work towards similar ends and form the basis of a unified paramilitary force with international reach. Finally, the insistence that the Quran be read exclusively in Arabic ensures a common language across all Islamic and Islamic-majority states.

To cobble these links together and call them The United States of Islam would be a gross over-simplification, but it is clear that Islam fosters a common link between these nations that is 1000 years older than the nationalist glue that holds the United States of America together.

However, according to Ansary this reawakening of Islamic identity to re-establish its place in world history isn’t something to be feared. Some may find it unpalatable [and I’m going to nail my colours to the mast and state that I find all theocracies unpalatable whether Muslim, Jewish, Christian or other] but it’s not necessarily dangerous or incompatible with liberty:

“The conflict wracking the modern world is not, I think, best understood as a ‘clash of civilisations’, if that proposition means we’re-different-so-we-must-fight-until-there’s-only-one-of-us. It’s better understood as the friction generated by two mismatched world histories intersecting. Muslims were a crowd of people going somewhere. Europeans and their offshoots were a crowd of people going somewhere. When the two crowds crossed paths much bumping and crashing resulted, and the crashing is still going on...

“Islam is not the opposite of democracy; it’s a whole other framework. Within that framework there can be democracy, there can be tyranny, there can be many states in between.”

READING: Sands, Torture Team

2010-10-10T11:17:00.001-07:00

Philippe Sands
Torture Team
2008

FORMER British prime minister Tony Blair was advised that an invasion of Iraq would be illegal just hours before former US president George Bush presented him with his timetable for war.

This was the central claim put forward by leading British QC Philippe Sands when he came to Edinburgh to promote his latest book Torture Team.

Professor Sands pointed to documents uploaded online by The Iraq Inquiry which lay bare the claims he made in his earlier book Lawless World (2005), specifically that attorney general Lord Goldsmith was leaned on by the government to change his views on the legality of a war with Iraq.

He pointed to a memo drawn up by Lord Goldsmith on the eve of Blair’s meeting with Bush on 31 January 2003 – available here – in which Goldsmith categorically stated that UN resolution 1441, which offered Saddam a final chance to disarm his weapons, “does not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the security council”.

The existence of this memo has been known about for over five years, but Sands was particularly excited by the release of a new annotated version on The Iraq Inquiry website earlier this year which includes new and, Sands argues, damning notes by Tony Blair and his private secretary on foreign affairs Matthew Rycroft.

Prof Sands even suggested that Blair thought Lord Goldsmith was “a tosser” for writing this memo on the eve of such an important meeting.

Sands told the audience at Edinburgh Book Festival: “If you go on The Iraq Inquiry website and have a look at the declassified documents available on the site there’s a memo from attorney general Lord Goldsmith dated 30 January 2003. The memo states:

'In view of your meeting with President Bush on Friday, I thought you might wish to know where I stand on the question of whether a further decision of the Security Council is legally required in order to authorise the use of force against Iraq...

'You should be aware that, notwithstanding the additional arguments put to me since our last discussion, I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the security council.'

Sands went on: “Mischievously, and wonderfully, the Chilcot Inquiry didn’t put up the original copy – it put up the annotated Number 10 copy. In the top left hand corner someone has scribbled:

‘Clear advice from attorney on need for another resolution.’

“However, next to that is another note, by Tony Blair’s private secretary on foreign affairs Matthew Rycroft, which reads:

‘[We] specifically said we did not need further advice this week, Matthew.’

“At the bottom of the memo Goldsmith concludes: ‘I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of force without a further determination by the security council.’

“This phrase has been underlined and next to it, scribbled in Tony Blair's handwriting, is written: ‘I just don’t understand this.’

Sands continued: “In other words, Tony Blair is saying ‘I just don’t understand why this tosser is putting out advice saying that the war is illegal’.

“And what happened the next day? Blair’s chief foreign policy advisor [later US Ambassador] David Manning recorded a meeting between Bush and Blair which said that America was preparing for war. The advice is right there at the bottom of Manning’s Memo:

‘The start date for the military campaign was now pencilled in for 10 March. This was when the bombing would begin.’

“It was made clear that he was doing this with or without another resolution and Blair told Bush that he was ‘solidly behind him’" Sands continued. "Bush added that it would be good if another resolution could be achieved but only as an insurance policy.”

Sands is much more engaging in person than his writing, which is unfortunately but necessarily dry and methodical. However, his style compliments the sterile language of the memos he describes in which US defence chiefs such as Donald Rumsfeld and William Haynes discuss the degrading and inhumane treatments they were meting out to terror suspects.

He is the first to admit that he is no journalist, and is more at home wading through papers than navigating emotive prose. However, for Torture Team he had to learn the skills of a journalist as most of the evidence he needed for his exposé of the US government’s sanctioning of torture techniques in the wake of 9/11 was very deliberately not written down.

“I think many of the people I spoke to for the book met with me precisely because I wasn’t a journalist,” said Sands.

However, Sands’ paper chase to discover who-knew-what-and-when, and his pursuit of key witnesses to corroborate his assertions, would make even Woodward and Bernstein proud.

NEWS: Buses To Subsidise Trams For Four Years

2010-10-10T11:08:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN and CHRIS MARSHALL
Evening News (Edinburgh)
October 8, 2010, Friday

BUSES will have to subsidise an unfinished tram line for up to four years, tram bosses said today.

Despite fears about the economic viability of the trams project, a new business case has concluded that the incremental delivery of the line, starting with the section from the airport to St Andrew Square, will be profitable from day one.

However, that business case relies on the Capital's bus service shouldering most of the burden for three to four years when present operator Lothian Buses is amalgamated into the new bus and tram operator Transport Edinburgh Limited [TEL]. The bus to trams subsidy is thought to run to many millions of pounds a year.

It was previously reported that a line running only as far as Haymarket would need to be subsidised, but the new business case says a line reaching St Andrew Square would be viable.

The report does not say when TEL expects to complete the whole of line 1A to Ocean Terminal.

The News has seen details of the new report, which will be discussed by councillors next Thursday.

Lothian Buses made an operating profit of £9.29 million last year, after making the first loss in the company's history of £801,000 in 2008.

One source said it was unacceptable to expect Lothian Buses to prop up the ailing tram service.

The source said: "Spending public money on the trams is one thing, but sacrificing an excellent bus service is too far.

"To jeopardise the bus service across the city to build half a tram line defies any measure of common sense."

The report also confirms integrating the buses and trams has already begun, with the head of the tram project being controversially "parachuted" into the top job.

Richard Jeffrey, chief executive of tram firm TIE, has been handed the same designated position at TEL.

Ian Craig, managing director of Lothian Buses, has been given the position of TEL's chief operating officer.

There is anger that the positions have not been advertised and councillors could try to block the appointments.

One source said the appointments brought closer the possibility that tram bosses could use Lothian Buses to finance the beleaguered project.

A spokesman for TIE said: "The appointment of Richard Jeffrey and Ian Craig has been made based on the expertise these individuals will bring."

NEWS: Salt 'n' Snow

2010-10-10T11:05:00.002-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
October 5, 2010, Tuesday

THOUSANDS of tonnes of salt are being stockpiled in the Capital in preparation for another "whiteout" winter.

Road chiefs have also snapped up an extra five gritters and eight mini-tractors in an effort to keep the city moving in the face of predicted severe weather.

Forecasters who predicted last year's big freeze are warning the country is facing another "bitterly cold winter", with temperatures likely to plunge well below zero. Widespread fog is expected in December and heavy snow in January.

The city council has stockpiled 5200 tonnes of salt, with another 2000 tonnes on order, and cleared a storage "dome" at its Bankhead depot to provide space for a salt reserve 40 per cent bigger than last year.

A council spokesman said: "We have been stockpiling salt since August and are expecting more deliveries in the coming weeks so we're ahead of the game."

The council has also bought another five gritters to add to the 26 it used last winter and an extra eight mini-tractors to supplement its gritting fleet of 18.

The city spent almost its whole £1.4 million winter maintenance budget in the first week of January as it was forced to buy in more salt from the Highlands and hire private salting firms to shore up its own stretched service.

"It's worth noting that we never actually ran out of salt this year, unlike some other local authorities," the council spokesman added. "So we intend to follow a similar programme to last year, improved by the increased storage and stockpiling."

It is unclear yet how much this year's operation is likely to cost.

Forecasters Positive Weather Solutions said Scotland was in the unusual position of facing a second extremely severe winter in a row. Senior forecaster Jonathan Powell said: "Scotland has another bitterly cold winter in store. Temperatures will rival those seen last year, with snowfall a close match."

The firm, which uses long-term weather patterns, said a white Christmas is a distinct possibility. Last winter was the coldest recorded in Scotland for 31 years.

NEWS: Mosque Back On Track After Parking U-Turn

2010-10-10T11:05:00.001-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
October 4, 2010, Monday

THE expansion of an Islamic teaching centre in Polwarth is back on track following a U-turn by the council's transport department.

The Idara Centre on Temple Park Crescent - commonly known as the Polwarth Mosque - has been given the go-ahead to change the former Al-Hilal grocers at the junction of Yeaman Place into an extension of the existing centre following a traffic survey that found it would not cause parking problems.

The expansion was initially refused in May amid concerns the proposals would "attract further patrons to the existing centre putting an additional burden on street parking".

The centre re-submitted the application with only minimal alterations and gave an assurance that the plans were intended to create a more comfortable environment for existing users, not attract more people, convincing the department to lift its objection.

However, the centre's owner, The Idara Taleem-Ul Qur'an Trust, now faces another obstacle in realising its ambitions - the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Pakistan.

Most of the centre's users and staff are of Pakistani descent, and many have seen family displaced by the floods.

Idara chairman Amjed Hussain said: "Now that we've secured planning permission we will have to raise money to fund the expansion.

"Unfortunately, this will prove difficult with the ongoing situation in Pakistan. Many people are sending all the money they can back home which doesn't leave much for us, but this is understandable.

"Family, of course, comes first and we have been doing everything we can to raise funds for the appeal."

The Idara Centre has already hosted several fundraisers, most recently a dinner at Ingliston on Saturday.

Mr Hussain confirmed that the ultimate aim for the expanded unit remains the creation of an Islamic exhibition centre to engage with the non-Muslim local community.

The centre has been steadily expanding since its foundation at 8 Temple Park Crescent in 1986, when it catered for around 20 students. Within ten years its roll had expanded to around 200 students and the trust purchased two neighbouring units to accommodate its growing numbers.

However, Mr Hussain said the possibility of attracting more people was unlikely due to the small Islamic minority in the area.

Andrew McBride, development control manager at transport planning, said: "I now have no objection to this application. A survey has been undertaken monitoring the movements of patrons attending the existing facilities.

"The majority of attendees were pedestrians. Vehicle movements dropping off patrons were minimal.

"In light of this transport planning are satisfied that the change of use will not exacerbate parking levels."

NEWS: Government Shuts Up Council Planners Over Shutters

2010-10-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
September 30, 2010, Thursday

a JEWELLER has been told he can keep security shutters he fitted following a spate of attempted break-ins after appealing to the Scottish Government.

Mohammed Aslam, owner of Aslam Jeweller on Leith Walk, erected the shutters when his store was targeted by thieves several times, but he failed to secure planning permission.

The council issued an enforcement notice ordering him to take the shutters down on the grounds that they "fail to preserve or enhance the character and appearance of the conservation area".

However, the government's Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals has ruled that Leith Walk's "disharmonious" array of clashing shopfronts and tenements is in fact part of the street's character.

Appeals reporter David Buylla said: "Although the shop front is not particularly harmonious with the tenement block above, this is consistent with the established character and appearance of the conservation area and causes no harm."

Mr Aslam said he was "very happy" with the decision.

He added: "I would like to thank all of the members of the public and local businesses who have supported me. We would also like to thank our planning consultant Derek Scott."

Mr Scott, who compiled the planning application and appeal, said external shutters were the store's only viable security option.

He added: "I was delighted with the decision. My client had made a genuine error in installing the shopfront and associated roller shutters in the first place without the benefit of planning permission.

"Thankfully common sense has prevailed and the Reporter from the Scottish Government quickly recognised that the alterations did not detract from the character or appearance of the area and granted permission retrospectively.

"Whilst the Council's design guidelines on shop fronts and roller shutters still have an important role to play, this appeal decision clearly shows that they are only one of a number of considerations that need to be taken into account."

A council spokesman said: "When considering applications within a conservation area, the council has a statutory duty to assess whether the proposals preserve or enhance the character or appearance of that area. In our view, this proposal was contrary to adopted policies and guidance and was not acceptable. The Reporter, however, has taken a different view - as, of course, he is entitled to do - and we are currently considering the policy implications of his decision."

NEWS: Seamens' Memorial To Set Sail

2010-10-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
September 24, 2010, Friday

A STATUE to honour merchant seamen is set to be unveiled in the Capital later this year after its £100,000 price tag was raised in less than six months.

A flood of donations from around the world means the memorial celebrations for the thousands of merchant seamen who gave their lives in British conflicts is now progressing at full steam.

The Princess Royal, patron of the Merchant Navy Memorial Trust, is coming to Leith on November 16 to reveal the bronze statue, which will stand atop a 15-foot plinth outside the Malmaison Hotel at The Shore.

The memorial's sculptor Jill Watson said she is "delighted" that she will be given the honour of meeting the Princess Royal, who she described as "a wonderful supporter of the Trust".

She added: "I certainly hope the sculpture will be well received, but it is not for me to say.

"The story is so important and so many people so connected to it, not just in Leith but throughout Scotland. Everyone you meet, has some connection, memory or story to tell.

"I have family connections with the sea through the fishing industry. My grandfather had a timber business very near the site of the monument.

"A friend was a young chief officer on board the ship which took Winston Churchill across the Atlantic during the war."

The statue on top of the plinth will be a bronze, timber and steel representation of a merchant vessel.

Ms Watson added: "It is made up of modelled steel and timber bows with sails cast into bronze.

"I am enjoying the work enormously. The committee have been tremendously helpful.

"The whole thing has been a huge challenge, to do justice to the brave men who went to sea.

"It is an important and complex commission.

"Learning about the importance of foreign trade, the hard lives at sea, the war years, the dangers, has been an adventure in itself. It will have educational benefits for future generations."

The Trust now hopes to add to the donations they've received so far and raise a total pot of £250,000 to fund other projects in the future.

Lord Provost George Grubb said: "Preparations are well under way for the formal unveiling of this magnificent lasting tribute to those who sacrificed their lives on our behalf.

"The Port of Leith has played a critical role in Scotland's seafaring past, so it is entirely fitting that the new monument should take pride of place at the Shore.

"There are countless families here in Edinburgh, across Scotland and beyond whose forebears served this country at sea and this striking monument will be of national significance."

NEWS: Binmen Caught Out In A Backstreet

2010-10-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
September 23, 2010, Thursday

AN investigation has been launched after council bin men were caught on camera apparently collecting private rubbish from the back of a Ford Transit van on a city side street.

A local resident watched as the van reversed up to the bin lorry and the men began off-loading bags of rubbish, wood, and even an old fireplace.

The bin lorry involved was not one used for so-called special uplifts, where bulky items are collected for a £20 fee, or trade waste collections, which must be arranged on contract.

The bizarre exchange was captured on camera on Tuesday morning on Lindsay Street, behind the rundown Fort House block in Leith, and a probe has now been launched.

A city council spokeswoman confirmed that the photos were currently under investigation.

She added: "We welcome detailed reports into these types of incidents and would encourage the public to come forward to help us target mismanagement of waste and inappropriate use of resources.

"Any staff misuse of council vehicles or property could result in disciplinary action and improper disposal of commercial waste can result in prosecution."

The resident who photographed the incident said he started watching after a "shabby"-looking white van appeared on the street.

"It would only be seen by the small number of people still living in the block because it's due to be knocked down.

"They had what looked like and old fireplace, a van-load of wood and a couple of cement bags filled with various bits of junk. It looked like they were dumping stuff from a house clearance.

"The guys had a wee laugh and a joke with the bin men and then drove off, then the bin men went back on their rounds."

Businesses that do not have an official waste disposal contract with the council or other licensed waste carrier are liable for a fine of up to £2000.

The city council axed free special uplifts for domestic waste in April and now charge a £19.99 flat rate fee, in a move critics feared would lead to a rise in flytipping.

However, Councillor Maureen Child, environment spokeswoman for the council's Labour group said: "Without wishing to prejudge the outcome of the investigation, which may yet show that there was nothing untoward going on here, I would have serious concerns about such practices taking place as a result of the scrapping of free uplifts.

"If council bin lorries are being used to collect private waste it's a matter of great concern. It's just not on."

The last remaining residents of Fort House are expected to be removed by the end of the year, with demolition work set to begin shortly after.

NEWS: Saddling Up To Cut Fuel Prices

2010-10-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
September 22, 2010, Wednesday

UP to 700 bikers are expected to ride a "rolling roadblock" into Edinburgh this weekend in protest at the spiralling cost of fuel.

The fuel protest, organised by the Fife Bikers club, is due to leave from Kinross and arrive at the Capital's Kings Stables Road by around 1pm on Saturday.

The protest is a repeat of a similar stunt conducted in 2008, where around 350 bikers blocked both carriageways along sections of the A90 for around an hour.

Protest co-ordinator Stephen Forsyth, 45, of Fife Bikers, said: "We received quite a bit of attention the last time we did this, and this time we expect it to be even bigger.

"We honestly don't expect it to make a blind bit of difference because we received little response from MSPs, who said fuel taxation was a matter for Westminster, while most of the MPs couldn't care less.

"However, we received a very favourable response from the public, who were supportive of what we were trying to achieve.

"We're trying to minimise the disruption to the public. We actually wanted to do it last weekend but the police said no because of the Pope's visit, and they didn't want to have another major event in the city, so we changed it to this weekend.

"Police will be escorting us in a rolling road block, so only the sections of the road with motorcycles will be closed. We will be driving at a steady 30mph or so, so delays should be minimal."

The government plans to add 1p to petrol and diesel prices from 1 October, at a time when the cost of petrol and diesel is already likely to rise because of increasing crude oil prices and weaker sterling.

Mr Forsyth added: "It always seems to be the motorist that's hit the hardest. We are the easiest target because the Government knows we need fuel, and it's not just commuters but delivery drivers who rely on their vehicles for work.

"Many of our members use their motorcycles to commute into Edinburgh for work. There's a large number of motorcycle-only spaces in the city, and they're usually all full.

"Many people think that motorcycles are more of a recreational hobby but for many it's their main form of travel."

A Lothian and Borders Police spokeswoman said the force would be working with the organisers to facilitate the protest and will make all efforts to reduce the impact on the travelling public.

She added: "The route, which includes the A90 southwards from Kinross across the Forth Road Bridge then along the A90 into Central Edinburgh, may result in some delays for motorists. Police would encourage other road users who will be travelling on these roads from noon until 1.30pm on Saturday to consider revising their route or altering their travelling time.

"King's Stables Road is the only route that will be closed, all others will be on a traffic hold basis only."

NEWS: Questions Over Squaddie Death

2010-10-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
September 16, 2010, Thursday

A YOUNG judo champion and soldier has been laid to rest with full military honours as mourners were told of unanswered questions around her death.

Corporal Stephanie Hart, originally from Sighthill, died at the age of 29 while serving with 10th Queen's Own Gurkha Logistics Regiment.

A coroner's inquest is under way to discover the circumstances around her body being found on a recreation ground in Farnham, just outside Aldershot, where she was based.

Cpl Hart, known as Steph, was stationed in the town as part of a British force attached to the predominantly Nepalese regiment and had seen service in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Her family have spoken of the devastating loss of a "fantastic daughter" who took a bronze for Scotland at the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002 before signing up for the army shortly before the outbreak of the war in Iraq.

A eulogy from Cpl Hart's mother Janet, read out at her funeral at Edinburgh's Mortonhall Crematorium yesterday, spoke of unanswered questions.

She said: "To Stephanie, my daughter, so many questions, so few answers, so many things left unsaid.

"You were the light of my life and now that light has been diminished. You are in my thoughts and in my heart. Till we meet again, mum."

At her funeral, Cpl Hart was described as "a young woman who gave so much to all who knew her in the world of judo and in the army".

Standing over her coffin, which was draped in the British flag with a single red rose, her father Ian, 60, who lives in Broxburn, said: "This should have been my day, with Steph here and me in there, but it's not."

Cpl Hart won her first Scottish senior judo title at the age of 15 and represented Scotland at three Commonwealth Games. After joining the army, she led the Combined Services Ladies Team to the national team medal.

A spokesman for Cpl Hart's regiment refused to comment until the inquest has concluded.

A police spokeswoman said: "I can confirm that Cpl Stephanie Hart's body was found at Heath End Recreation Ground, Farnham, at 11.30am on 28 August 2010. Police have found no suspicious circumstances."

The coroner's inquest is not expected to return a verdict for another four weeks.

NEWS: Woman Miscarries After Assault

2010-10-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
September 15, 2010, Wednesday

A VULNERABLE pregnant woman suffered a miscarriage after she was hit over the head with a bottle and beaten as she tried to buy drugs for a friend in a Capital underpass.

Emma Flint, 27, suffered head injuries, cuts, bruising to her abdomen and bleeding during the assault, despite begging her attackers to stop because she was pregnant.

Last week her attacker, heroin addict Natalie Paterson, 40, was jailed for 14 months for the attack but both Ms Flint and her family believe she should have been given a far harsher sentence.

Miss Flint, of Craigentinny, said: "She ended a life that day and should have been given 10 years."

She said she had gone to the underpass in Murrayburn Drive in Wester Hailes to "buy some smoke" for a friend from the group.

She said: "When I arrived a gang of them set about me. Natalie hit me over the head with a bottle and I fell, then they all started laying into me.

"I kept saying to them 'stop, stop, I'm pregnant' but apparently that didn't matter to them.

"They stole everything from me, my mobile, money, keys and fags, and ran away. As she was running, Natalie turned around and said, 'if I see you round here again you'll end up in a box'.

"Somehow I managed to get up and make it to the main road. I nearly got hit by a cab because I was staggering around, and someone phoned the emergency services.

"I was in hospital for a few hours. Three days later I discovered I had miscarried. The attack has ruined my life and yet Natalie Paterson will probably be free in seven months. I know it's a cliche, but the law is an ass."

In a letter to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, Miss Flint's doctor Ewen Stewart, of Rose Garden Medical Centre, confirmed that she was pregnant at the time of the assault.

He said: "I can confirm that on 11 August 2008 we received a fax from the Pregnancy Support Centre at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh confirming that she had a complete miscarriage. This does appear to have been following the incident."

Paterson sobbed as she was jailed last Wednesday, having previously admitted to assault and robbery at the Murrayburn Drive underpass on 7 August 2008.

Two other people were charged in connection with the assault but their not-guilty pleas were accepted. Paterson was also sentenced to a further two months for a separate assault on a child in 2009.

Defence lawyer Paul Dunn told the court that Paterson had been the victim of a serious crime herself in 2005 and had spiralled into a series of crimes, but that she was taking steps to get off the drink and drugs she turned to after being the victim of a crime.

Sheriff Noble said: "You did participate in an assault and robbery on a woman with learning difficulties. It can only be dealt with by way of custody."

NEWS: A Death Off Barracks

2010-10-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
September 13, 2010, Monday

THE father of a former Scots judo champion who died suddenly while serving in the army in England has paid tribute to his "fantastic daughter".

Corporal Stephanie Hart, originally from Sighthill, took a bronze for Scotland at the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002 before signing up for the army shortly before the outbreak of the war in Iraq.

She died aged just 29 while serving in Aldershot, Hampshire, where she was stationed with 10th Queen's Own Gurkha Logistics Regiment.

Miss Hart, known as Steph, was stationed in the town as part of a British force attached to the predominantly Nepalese regiment. Her death on August 28 occurred off barracks.

Miss Hart's father Ian, 60, who lives in Broxburn, said: "I couldn't have asked for a better daughter. She wasn't only a friend to me but a friend to many.

"She was a fantastic daughter. She liked school, even though she didn't particularly excel. She was excellent at college, where she did sports science, and had ambitions to go to university but she put it on hold to train in judo for the Commonwealth Games. She was told that you only get one shot at it, whereas you can study any time, so she went for it.

"We were delighted when she got her lottery funding and I supported her every step of the way, but despite the funding I had to put a lot more money into her training than I ever had.

"In the end she decided to join the army to prove to everyone that she was able to stand on her own two feet and make a living."

Mr Hart declined to comment on the circumstances of her death, or discuss her military career, saying he would prefer to leave these matters to the army.

An army spokeswoman declined to comment on the cause of death, except to say that an initial police investigation found no suspicious circumstances.

She added: "A full inquest was also carried out and returned no outstanding questions. As far as the army is concerned the matter is now closed."

Miss Hart joined her local judo club aged eight. She won her first Scottish senior title at the age of 15 and represented Scotland at three Commonwealth Games.

After joining the army, she led the Combined Services Ladies Team to the national team medal in 2002.

Mr Hart added: "Stephanie was outstanding, as a sportswoman, as a soldier, a daughter, a sister, auntie and cousin. Everybody loved her.

"We loved her and the army loved her. She put into her 29 years ten times what most people put into their whole life. I couldn't be more proud of her."

A statement from the British Judo Association said: "Steph was the ultimate professional as well as a talented sportswoman, a true ambassador and role model for all.

"Steph will be sadly missed by her judo friends, who remember her as an effervescent player who always had time for everyone."

Miss Hart served in Iraq as part of the first British non-special forces unit across the border from Kuwait at the start of the war. She later transferred to the Royal Logistics Corps, and came back from a tour of duty to Afghanistan in March.

She is survived by her father, her mother Janet, siblings Phil, Sharon and Terry.

She is to be given a full military funeral at Mortonhall Crematorium Main Chapel on Wednesday.

NEWS: Drummond To Kenya

2010-10-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
September 11, 2010, Saturday

AS SCHOOL outings go, it was one of the more ambitious ones.

A group of sixth-year pupils from Drummond Community High School have recently returned from a trip to Kenya, as part of a partnership project with Muthambi Boys and Girls School in Marima, a town in the shadow of Mount Kenya.

In exchange for lessons in Scottish poetry and how to cook shortbread, the teenagers were given Swahili language tuition and a trip to a crocodile farm.

Drummond librarian Annie Scanlon, who accompanied the children on the trip, also helped to design a new school library out of "a motley collection of damp and ancient old books on rickety shelves".

She said: "With eight boys working as volunteer librarians, we cleared shelves and set up some of the new and exciting books that we had managed to take out with us.

"The library will now open for the boys in the evenings and we hope to send out more books in the future.

"In the girls school, we taught lessons on Scottish poetry and did cookery demonstrations, introducing the girls to shortbread.

"It was difficult to record their comments as their mouths were so full.

"We also took part in sports and games, music, tribal dancing and question and answer sessions on every topic under the sun, plus we made a short film on the life of a Muthambi schoolgirl."

As well as strengthening their curricular links, the school is hoping to raise £15,000 to bring eight students and two staff over to Drummond in June 2011.

Ms Scanlon added: "The trip far exceeded our expectations both educationally and socially and it would not be exaggerating to say that it has changed the lives of students and staff in all three schools.

"We embarked on a very full programme for our ten-day visit which was a combination of working and meeting with the Kenyan students and learning a bit about the life of ordinary Kenyans. The experience was far more fun than the usual 'safari' holiday."

"When we weren't in school we were out experiencing Kenyan life guided by Muthambi staff and students. We visited a crocodile farm and handled 'teenage' crocs with big teeth."

City education leader Councillor Marilyne MacLaren praised the school's visit.

She said: "Global citizenship is an important part of the curriculum for Edinburgh schools and visits like this strengthen relationships and broaden horizons for our pupils.

"Similar links are being nurtured and developed all across Edinburgh and I think it's something the city should take great pride in."

NEWS: Britain's Oldest Woman Dies Aged 111

2010-10-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
September 8, 2010, Wednesday

BRITAIN'S oldest woman, Annie Turnbull, has died just three weeks shy of what would have been her 112th birthday.

Mrs Turnbull passed away at the care home in Leith where she had moved three years ago, having lived semi-independently in sheltered accommodation until the age of 109.

Her strength and longevity astounded friends and family but her advancing years made her something of a reluctant celebrity, and she was never fully comfortable with the mantle of Britain's oldest woman.

Daughter Margaret Paterson, 77, said: "She didn't like to make a fuss. Everybody that knew her had a good word to say about her. You can make a lot of friends in 111 years.

"She was a wonderful woman and while she lived to a marvellous age the years always failed to show."

Mrs Turnbull lived during the reigns of six British monarchs, outlived the premierships of 26 prime ministers and survived two world wars.

Born on 21 September 1898 when Queen Victoria was on the throne, her life has witnessed the advent of TV, air travel and the birth of the NHS.

Born and brought up in Stoneyburn, West Lothian, Mrs Turnbull moved to the Capital after leaving school aged 14.

Dougie Donnelly, 74, whose mother was a close friend of Mrs Turnbull in Stoneyburn, said: "Annie was often fond of telling people that she used to push me around in my pram, which was a very long time ago considering my age now. She always used to tell me stories about life in Stoneyburn back in the day, about who worked in which pub and who lived where. She was the last link to the days of old.

"She was a marvellous woman, and to me she was always my auntie Annie."

The year of her birth saw the introduction of Edinburgh's first motor buses "the Penny Stinkers" as well as the opening of the Glenogle Baths in Stockbridge.

She went into service as a table-maid, a job she held for most of her working life.

The job gave her the chance to meet well-known people, including author Rudyard Kipling.

She lived in Easter Road until the age of 92, before moving to the Manderston Court sheltered housing complex.

Britain's oldest woman is now Elsie Steele, of Repton in Derbyshire, who is due to turn 112 on January 6 next year.

The world's current oldest living person remains Frenchwoman Eugenie Blanchard at 114 years and 204 days.

The oldest person in recorded history was Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who set the record at 122 before her death in 1997.

Mrs Turnbull died last Thursday, September 2, after a short illness. Her funeral will be held at Seafield Crematorium at 11am on Saturday.

NEWS: Police Investigate The BNP Over "Bizarre" Website

2010-10-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
September 6, 2010, Monday

CITY rocker Edwyn Collins demanded that the BNP remove his song from a "bizarre" party website that is being investigated by police.

The Edinburgh-born star's hit A Girl Like You featured on a Lothians British National Party website behind images of Asian men burning a union flag and veiled women waving banners saying "God Bless Hitler".

The "Lothians BNP Video" site has now been taken off-line and its creator, BNP Central Scotland organiser Mike Coyle, has resigned from the party.

Police are investigating whether any action can be taken against the site. Edwyn Collins' wife and manager, Grace Maxwell, warned the BNP against using copyrighted material on their websites.

Ms Maxwell said: "There are many iffy videos on YouTube using A Girl Like You without permission and we are normally very relaxed about it.

"Whilst we don't believe that viewers would imagine for a moment that Edwyn has sanctioned the use of his track in this bizarre setting, for the removal of any doubt, we will require it to be deleted and will take the necessary steps to ensure that this happens."

The site, which was accessed via a link on the BNP Scotland website, also featured Louis Armstrong's What A Wonderful World with a montage calling the founder of Islam a "murderer" and "a paedophile", and several original songs by a Whitburn-based heavy metal band called Mott & Bailey.

The tracks railed against "invaders marching through our land, coming in like the night" and "darkness bringing down the walls". Videos accompanying the tracks featured images of 9/11, the London bombings and processions of coffins being carried through Wootton Bassett intermixed with images of British mosques and protesting Muslims.

Mr Coyle initially defended the site, stating that he saw nothing criminal in its content and claiming that "the BNP are not in the business of upsetting people". However, within hours of being contacted by the News, copyrighted content had been removed and the site had been re-branded "The Unofficial BNP Video Site". Mr Coyle then resigned.

The father-of-four said: "My last act as a BNP member was to dismantle this site. I put my head above the parapet and ended up being lied to. I set up this website with the full approval of the Scottish party, but now that my name stands to be dragged through the newspapers they have failed to show me any support.

"When I stood as a candidate in the last election my children were subjected to death threats, but I stood firm. They have lied to me for the last time."

The BNP Scotland website carries contact details for party members, party news and a page of material written by BNP Scotland leader Gary Raikes. But Mr Raikes described it as "an unofficial blog". A line has been added to the site stating, "This is an unofficial BNP site".

He said Mr Coyle's site was set up with his support but was not officially sanctioned by the party.

He said: "We are sorry to lose Mr Coyle over this. Many sites support the BNP and we are glad for that support but cannot be held responsible for content. This would appear to be yet another witch hunt by the left-wing press."

BNP national leader Nick Griffin declined to comment.

Muslim activist Osama Saeed, founder of the Scottish-Islamic Foundation, said: "The videos show the BNP are stuck in a time warp, laden with images from the Crusades. The far-right always try to isolate and stigmatise particular groups and the latest is Muslims."

A police spokesman said: "Inquiries will be made in order to establish whether any further action can be taken."

NEWS: Sub-Standard Life

2010-10-10T10:42:00.001-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
September 2, 2010, Thursday

BANKS and business leaders have warned that more financial job losses are on the way, following the announcement that 600 posts are to be slashed at Standard Life.

The financial giant announced yesterday that the majority of the cuts - 480 posts - would come from its Edinburgh business, but said it would attempt to find new posts within the company for those affected.

However, with more financial cuts looming, many of those facing redundancy may struggle to find another job locally.

City development leader Tom Buchanan said: "We always knew that there would be more job losses in the financial sector. We just want to ensure that we can minimise these losses in Edinburgh and put appropriate measures in place to ensure re-employment."

Standard Life employs around 6000 people in Edinburgh, down from 10,000 in 2004.

The announcement comes on the back of a mass cull at RBS which has slashed 22,600 jobs since the banking crisis began.

Last week, the bank announced it was shedding a further 400 Scottish posts at its Direct Line insurance offices in Glasgow. RBS media relations manager Linda Harper today reiterated comments made by chief executive Stephen Hester that more cuts were on the way.

Insurer Aegon UK is expected to announce up to 600 more job losses later this month.

Standard Life public relations manager Nicola McGowan said: "We are aiming to reduce our reliance on contract staff so 100 of the posts to go will be contractors. We expect a further 100 to go through people moving out of the business naturally by the end of 2011.

"We have created 100 new posts in our technology and innovation business and will endeavour to recruit internally.

"We intend to centralise 50 jobs in the English regions to Edinburgh. Those filling these posts will have the opportunity to relocate."

Graham Birse, deputy chief executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, said: "Yesterday's announcement amounts to a reorganisation of their business rather than a dire warning on the future of the sector."

The news comes as it was confirmed that Edinburgh has slipped down from 28th on a list of the world's top financial cities - the Global Financial Centres report by research firm z/Yen.

NEWS: A room with a view

2010-10-10T10:39:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
August 25, 2010, Wednesday

THEY will be among the most sought-after flats in Edinburgh, if you're willing to pay for the view.

Developers have been granted planning permission to convert three upper-storey store rooms on Princes Street into six luxury flats, offering majestic views of Edinburgh Castle and Princes Street Gardens below.

Property experts expect the flats - to be created on the narrow upper floors above Bookworld - could fetch up to £300,000.

However, the flats are set to be extremely compact, with a combined lounge and kitchen with little room for more than a sofa, television and dining table, plus a master bedroom with en-suite bathroom and a small box room.

In addition, the lack of parking has led planners to demand a £7000 contribution from the developer to the City Car Club, in exchange for a year's free membership for residents.

The flats are being developed by Charlotte Square-based real estate investment firm City & Wharf.

Director Angus Forsyth said: "Given the location and the views, we have designed these flats to appeal to the luxury end of the market.

"I would think they would appeal to professionals given the proximity to the central business district, so they would be ideal for people working locally.

"The flats are not huge. They're probably about average size for a two-bedroom property in the city centre. There is a master bedroom and a second smaller room which could be used as a bedroom or study.

"We currently have no idea how much to market these flats for. Once the development is a little more advanced we'll get the professionals in to put a price tag on them."

There are very few residential properties on Princes Street. The last property to go up for sale, a three-bedroom penthouse overlooking The Mound, was sold for £380,000 earlier this year.

Sales negotiator Debra Lennie said: "That was a particularly nice flat with a balcony and we had a lot of interest from abroad for that one.

"We had enquiries from all over Europe and America from people who were thinking about moving here. I think people living in Edinburgh are slightly put off by living in the city centre, and the difficulties it can bring in relation to parking and noise, but Edinburgh is no different from some of the other great European cities such as Paris where city living is cherished."

Another property was sold through Leslie Deans & Co in 2007 for a similar price. Mr Deans said he would expect the new flats to go for slightly less.

He said: "I wouldn't expect the flats at the back, overlooking Rose Street, to go for much more than £200,000 but at the front you're paying for the view, and what a magnificent view you will get.

"I would expect that view to add another £50,000 on to the price, and if the flats are finished to an extremely high standard they could even fetch £300,000."

Conservation group The Cockburn Association has welcomed the plans, saying that the flats would add "round-the-clock vitality to the area".

However, potential buyers may have to wait a while before getting their foot in the door. Mr Forsyth said that City & Wharf would wait until market conditions improved before acting on the planning permission, which is valid for three years.

NEWS: Dr Livingstone, I presume you need a good clean-up

2010-10-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
August 24, 2010, Tuesday

DURING his life he would have been used to wading through the droppings of many a strange creature in the jungles of Africa, but his effigy has since come under attack from some less exotic mess.

Now a century of bird droppings is set to be cleaned from the famous statue of the explorer David Livingstone in the Capital.

The bronze statue, which stands near the Scott Monument in Princes Street Gardens, needs essential conservation work to prevent corrosion.

It will be scrubbed and gently cleaned to remove all the accumulated grime, particularly algae and bird droppings, which are acidic, before a specialist treatment is applied to stabilise any corrosion.

The bronze will then be re-patinated and a new layer of wax applied to protect it.

City centre councillor Charles Dundas said: "The work is being done as part of the city-wide 12 monuments scheme, which also includes the refurbishment of the Burns Monument, the Grassmarket Well, Nelson's Monument and the Time Ball.

"This is probably one of the easier stages of the project but no less important because they're probably some of the most photographed statues in the city.

"I think it's good that Livingstone is getting a clean-up as he's such an important figure in Scotland, with a legacy that continues to this day."

Two other statues, featuring the liberal politician and reformer Adam Black and writer and philosopher Professor John Wilson, will also be cleaned in the GBP16,550 project, which is funded by Edinburgh World Heritage, Edinburgh City Council and a donation from the Mount Royal Hotel on Princes Street.

The work will be carried out in part by volunteers and out-of-work youths under the Future Jobs Fund.

Livingstone was born in Blantyre, Lanarkshire in 1813. In 1841 he went to South Africa as a missionary doctor, and became an explorer, journeying to Lake Ngami, the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls.

Upon his return in 1856 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his discoveries.

He returned to Africa in 1858 and discovered Lake Nyasa. He died of malaria and internal bleeding due to dysentery in 1873, in Zambia, while searching for the source of the Nile.

Livingstone was one of the most popular national heroes of the late 19th century. He famously "disappeared" at one point, and his subsequent meeting with HM Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr Livingstone, I presume?"

His statue was created by the sculptor Amelia Paton Hill, one of the few women sculptors in 19th century Edinburgh.

NEWS: Guns won't keep Theresa away from Gaza

2010-10-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
August 23, 2010, Monday

AN EDINBURGH activist who was seized at gunpoint by Israeli troops in a raid on an aid flotilla that left nine dead is preparing for another sea mission to Gaza.

Theresa McDermott, 43, a postal worker from Pilrig, told how an Israeli soldier held a gun to her head and threatened to shoot her when forces boarded her boat, which was delivering supplies to the blockaded Palestinian strip on May 31.

Her boat was sailing nearby when the Israel Defence Force opened fire on board the MV Mavi Marmara after apparently coming up against fierce resistance from activists.

Despite the risks, Ms McDermott is now preparing another flotilla with the Free Gaza movement in October.

She said: "People keep asking me why I keep going back and all I can say is I'm stubborn. The people of Gaza have to put up with this treatment every day of their lives, and when we head out there we get the chance to show it to the world.

"As long as we're drawing attention to the siege conditions they're living under then we'll keep going back."

The BBC's Panorama programme this week showed Israeli troops preparing for the arrival of the next flotilla, alongside footage taken on the Mavi Marmara apparently showing activists with chainsaws and metal bars.

The programme suggested that the IDF had been provoked by a hard core of radical activists from the Turkish IHH group.

Ms McDermott said that while she was sceptical about some of the footage she was looking to obtain her next boat from the UK, and sail it solely under the banner of the British Free Gaza movement.

She said: "It's hard to organise a major aid effort with just one country, so if other groups want to come along we're not in a position to stop them.

"I can't comment on all of the footage as I wasn't on the Mavi Marmara, but we all heard the radio broadcasts and at no point did anyone hear activists shouting 'go back to Auschwitz' as the Israelis claimed.

"And one thing I can say for certain is that the IDF were firing on us before they had even boarded the ships, so the claim that they only opened fire after they were provoked is rubbish."

The plight of Gaza has figured highly in this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival, with a talk by Free Gaza activists Sharyn Lock and Sarah Irving, whose book Beneath The Bombs details their experiences in the Israeli bombing raid in December 2008.

This week also saw the launch of Before We Say Goodbye, a teenage fiction book based on the lives of an 18-year-old female suicide bomber and her victim, and a talk by Israeli journalist Gideon Levy.

NEWS: Bid to stave off the end of Hillend

2010-10-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
August 21, 2010, Saturday

A BID has been launched to form a community trust to save the cash-strapped Hillend ski slope.

Lothians MSP Ian McKee has written to more than 200 constituents to gather support for the idea before a meeting at the Scottish Parliament next month. It comes as campaigners have been struggling to find a solution to the centre's GBP500,000 deficit after Midlothian Council insisted it could no longer afford to run it single-handedly.

The council turned to national sporting body sportscotland to help fund the centre, which draws in snowsports enthusiasts from around the country, but it said it would only offer advice on how to operate "a more economically sustainable model".

The centre has already implemented a raft of cost-saving measures - including job cuts and price rises - but these were only projected to reduce the deficit by a third, suggesting the only option to save the centre will be external funding.

Dr McKee said: "There seems to be general support for the formation of a trust, either to support Midlothian Council or any other body that might take over the running of the centre, or even one day to run the centre directly. The next obvious step is to arrange a meeting of interested parties to share ideas and to try to plan the way forward."

Dr McKee hopes the establishment of a trust will generate enough money to clear the deficit and keep the centre open, and he is calling on anyone interested in the campaign to get in touch with his office.

He said that Edinburgh law firm, Morton Fraser WS, had offered to provide legal advice so that a trust could be established in the most efficient way.

Midlothian council leader Councillor Derek Milligan said: "Midlothian Council and sportscotland have been working to explore the options for Scotland's national ski centre and a report will be considered by the full council shortly."

Sinead Feltoe, regional director of VisitScotland, said; "Hillend Ski Centre is a great addition to the visitor experience in Edinburgh & the Lothians and we believe it's important that efforts are made to make Hillend as sustainable as possible allowing visitors here to enjoy what it has to offer for many years to come. Any positive moves to help Hillend in this way would be welcomed by us."

NEWS: Man dies after doc treats cancer with fungicide

2010-10-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
August 14, 2010, Saturday

A CANCER sufferer who raised GBP10,000 to visit Italy for controversial treatment has died.

In March, the Evening News told how father-of-six Robert Fyvie shunned chemotherapy in favour of a radical treatment.

The procedure - which sees cancer "as a fungus" - is overseen by Tullio Simoncini, and sees a catheter inserted straight into the liver in an intricate operation which cannot and will not be performed in the UK.

His other cancer treatments include baking soda.

Mr Fyvie, 59, of Eskview Terrace in Musselburgh, died peacefully at home last Friday, four months after the trip to Rome which was funded with his children's savings, money raised by his family and members of the local community.

Devastated wife Angie, 39, said: "There had been a bit of a problem with his treatment, getting the stuff delivered from Rome.

"He was in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for just over three weeks in June. By the time we got him back home we couldn't catch up with the medicine.

"It's terrible, but what is a great comfort to us is that I was sleeping beside him when he passed away so it was very peaceful. Now I just feel like I'm in limbo.

"He was the most courageous person you could have ever met. God broke the mould when he made him."

Mr Fyvie's son Marc, 15, had hoped that his dad would live to see him take part in his first boxing match at the Bronx Boxing Gym in Tranent on October 10.

Alex Brown, who runs the gym, said: "It was quite a shock, it was certainly a bit quicker than expected.

"He was still taking treatment when he got home here and I saw him about a week before he passed away.

"I knew Robert because his son comes in to do boxing at the gym. It was really sad that the treatment in Italy didn't prolong his life at all."

The former transport business owner was first diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2006 and underwent an operation to remove the tumour, but the cancer spread to his liver.

Doctors in Britain refused to operate, saying it was too close to his biliary system and could potentially kill him.

He had always refused chemotherapy as he feared that lowering his immune system would make him less able to fight the cancer.

Mr Fyvie's search for an alternative cure took him to Thailand last summer where he spent 12 weeks taking herbal medicines, which he said made him feel stronger.

Mrs Fyvie eventually found the treatment after endless internet searching for a solution.

A funeral takes place on Monday at Richmond Craigmillar Parish Church in Niddrie at 1pm, and then at Mortonhall Crematorium at 2pm.

NEWS: Banking on a decent dram

2010-10-10T10:27:00.001-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
August 13, 2010, Friday

AN award-winning Royal Mile bar is set to open a new "try before you buy" whisky store overlooking The Mound.

Gary Still, owner of Whiski, has applied to turn a section of a redundant Bank of Scotland branch and neighbouring Just Scottish gift store on North Bank Street into a "new concept in whisky retailing".

He said: "I'm going to split up the units into three rooms.

"One room is going to be the whisky store selling all-Scottish produce and the idea is you select your whisky and take it through to the tasting room and sample it before you buy it.

"I'm also planning to open a small bar and bistro in store but it's going to be very low key as I want to keep it completely separate from Whiski on the Mile, which is extremely successful in its own right."

Whiski hit the headlines last summer when Oasis spent seven hours eating and drinking there before their Murrayfield gig, while the bar also served as the backdrop for an advert featuring South American supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio and Essex bricklayer turned serial celebrity philanderer Paul Sculfor shortly after it opened in 2007.

If Mr Still gets the go-ahead by council planners, he hopes to call his new place The Whiski Still and has drafted in Belford Road-based architects KBAD to design the layout.

KBAD is responsible for a string of trendy bars in the city including Orocco Pier's Antico bar in South Queensferry, Grand Cru on Hanover Street and the Voodoo Rooms on West Register Street.

He added: "It's in a fantastic location with great views of the city and it's offering something different from the usual tartan souvenir stores in the area so hopefully it will be successful."

Meanwhile, the owners of Porto & Fi deli in Newhaven have applied to turn the rest of the bank into a bistro under the name Cairn Cakes.

North Bank Street is the second former Bank of Scotland branch facing conversion to leisure in the Old Town.

Antonio Crolla, owner of Dario's on Lothian Road and Bar Napoli on Hanover Street, is also awaiting permission to turn the former Bank of Scotland on Chambers Street into a restaurant.

Bank of Scotland parent company Lloyds Banking Group has agreed to sell off 175 branches in Scotland in the coming years, as part of the state aid remedies agreed with the European Commission in the wake of the credit crunch.

The two branches awaiting a change of use in North Bank Street and Chambers Street have been merged into Bank of Scotland's new flagship branch on the Royal Mile.

NEWS: "Brutal" office block transformed

2010-10-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

Evening News (Edinburgh)
MARK McLAUGHLIN
August 12, 2010, Thursday
1 Edition

A "BRUTAL" 1970s office block in Haymarket would be turned into a hotel under plans unveiled today.

Plans have been lodged to turn Haymarket House, the imposing former government office block opposite the station on Clifton Terrace, into a 157-bedroom hotel, with shops on the ground floor and two new mews houses at the back.

The project's architect, Moray Place-based Comprehensive Design Architects (CDA), also plans to spruce up the hotel's appearance by hiding its dull, grey brickwork behind more attractive sandstone cladding.

CDA architect David Hannah said: "The current brutal appearance of the building is particularly obvious from Haymarket station itself and also from Morrison Street where it is viewed axially.

"Haymarket House was designed as an office building in the early 1970s and as such has limited floor-to-floor heights making its use as a modern office building no longer viable.

"One of the key objectives was to create a new use for the building by retaining its structural frame and creating a dramatic improvement."

The hotel is intended to capitalise on the major developments going on in the area, particularly the expansion of the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

If approved, it is likely to be completed ahead of the Tiger Development's scaled-down hotel plan for the Morrison Street goods yard, after its towering 17-storey hotel was thrown out by Scottish ministers.

It will also benefit from a tram stop right outside its front door.

An operator for the hotel has yet to be chosen, but the developers plan to approach major operators and complete the final design to suit their needs.

Steven Black, associate director of planning agents Jones Lang LaSalle, said: "The primary element of the proposed development is a change of use to form a 157-bedroom hotel.

"This will involve stripping out much of the internal part of the building.

"It is also proposed that the external shell of the building is stripped and re-clad. This presents a significant opportunity to improve the visual appearance of the building.

"To complete the courtyard to the rear, two mews dwellings are proposed, designed to match the historical form and dimensions of the existing properties."

The plans were welcomed by city centre councillor David Beckett. He said: "I think its important that we get the building back into use because it's not the most attractive thing to look at, and it sits in a very prominent space.

"I'm impressed by the fact that the developers have taken into account how it's viewed from the street as well as how it's going to look inside. The sandstone cladding will make it more pleasing to the eye.

"It won't struggle to fill its capacity, particularly being so close to the EICC."

NEWS: Terrorised By Racist Thugs

2010-10-10T10:22:00.001-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
August 11, 2010, Wednesday

A FAMILY told today how they are living in fear of a gang of young racist thugs who have been laying siege to their home for months.

Abdur Rahim, 32, and his heavily-pregnant wife Nazama, who are originally from Bangladesh, have suffered a campaign of vandalism and harassment since the beginning of the year.

The gang throws stones, smashes windows and vandalises taxi driver Mr Rahim's car outside his Broomhouse home. In one of the latest incidents at the weekend, a stone crashed right through the window, leaving a golf ball-sized hole.

Police today confirmed they were treating the attacks as racially motivated and appealed for information as Mr Rahim said he was at a loss to explain why he was being targeted.

The couple, who have a seven-year-old daughter, have lived in Broomhouse Loan for ten years, but the problems only started in January when the gang of around five teenagers began to attack.

Mr Rahim said: "We've never done anything against them but they have suddenly taken exception to us being here, so I can only assume they have a problem with the fact that we're ethnic Asians.

"My family is originally from Bangladesh but my daughter is Scottish and my new baby will be Scottish as well.

"My neighbour is also Bangladeshi and he's had the same problems that I've had. We're the only two houses on the street that are being targeted by this gang so our ethnic origin is the only explanation for it.

"We just don't know what to do. There's a big hole in our window but when we replace it, it will only get smashed again."

Mr Rahim's car is also covered in chips, dents and scratches left by the vandals.

Mrs Rahim, 31, a John Lewis assistant, is expecting the couple's second child later this month and fears for the safety of their family. She said: "They've smashed our windows and scratched our car, and who knows what they could do next.

"I've recently been diagnosed with diabetes and, coupled with the pregnancy, I'm already under a lot of strain, but the added stress has made me fear for the safety of my unborn child.

"The atmosphere in the house over the last eight months has been terrible."

A police spokesman said they were following a "positive line of inquiry" over the attacks.

He said: "We are currently working with our partner agencies to address this issue.

"Anyone with information that can assist us with our inquiries is asked to contact police immediately.

"Lothian and Borders Police will not tolerate racially- motivated crime."

Local councillor Eric Milligan, who sits on the police board, said he would be speaking to the chief constable to ensure that those responsible were prosecuted "to the full extent of the law".

He said: "Having been a member of the police board for many years now, I have been continuously impressed with how robustly the police deal with incidents such as this.

"We have made a lot of progress in community relations in recent years and reports of this kind have become increasingly rare.

"However, we cannot let this progress be spoiled by a few individuals, or allow their actions to besmirch the good name of Broomhouse."

NEWS: No love lost over puppy

2010-10-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
August 10, 2010, Tuesday

A MURDER investigation is under way in Wester Hailes after a man was stabbed to death following a reported row over a puppy.

The victim, named locally as 34-year-old Martin Hughes, was seen staggering out of a flat in Wester Hailes Park yesterday afternoon with a stab wound.

Emergency services found Mr Hughes lying in the street and he was taken to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary where he later died.

Neighbours claimed Mr Hughes had been involved in a dispute with his attacker, who is currently being hunted by police, in the days leading up to his death.

One local, who did not wish to be named, said: "He recently bought a rottweiler puppy but it was sick and it died shortly after he bought it.

"The word is that Martin didn't want to pay for the puppy, so the guy came round and stabbed him."

Sharon Sutherland, 34, said: "A friend of mine said she saw him staggering out of one of the flats and she thought he was drunk, and then he just collapsed.

"He loved his dogs and he was quite upset when the puppy died.

"There's a lot of violence in the area though."

Neighbours said Mr Hughes hadn't lived in the area long, but had become a popular member of the community.

Jimmy John, 21, a labourer, said: "He was popular with all of the kids because he used to look out for them and enjoyed getting a wee kick about with them in the street.

"If any of the kids had a fall he was always the first one to make sure they were okay.

Other neighbours have claimed the stabbing may have been drugs related.

Ricky Henderson, councillor for the Pentland Hills ward which covers the area where the stabbing took place said: "It is tragic when something like this happens.

"Wester Hailes Park has a good close-knit community and I hope that the police can get to the root of this very quickly."

A police spokesman confirmed they had launched a murder investigation.

FEATURE: Leith Boundaries

2010-10-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 31, 2010, Saturday

IT was a decision that split public opinion, sparked fierce debate and prompted strong displays of emotion from proud Leithers.

Should the port be merged with Edinburgh? That was the question of the day 90 years ago.

On August 3, 1920, the official answer became "yes" as the Edinburgh Boundaries Extension and Tramways Bill received Royal Assent, moving one step closer to its implementation in November of that year.

But it was not a decision ever favoured by the majority of Leithers, who in a referendum voted overwhelming 26,810 to 4340 against the planned merger with the Capital.

Despite this, they were defeated by the authorities of the day, as a decision was made to incorporate not only Leith, but Corstorphine, Colinton and Liberton into Edinburgh as officials argued it was in the public interest.

Unsurprisingly, the controversial decision still sparks debate today.

The boundaries of Leith have clearly changed dramatically over the years. Back in 1920, the borders of the new Leith local authority ward mirrored the old borders of the Municipal Borough of Leith, straddling Pilrig Street before cutting a straight line to the south-west corner of Lochend Loch and heading out to sea.

Crucially, the old borders encircled Easter Road Stadium, but by the 1950s the borders shifted up Hawkhill Avenue.

At that point, Hibernian FC ceased to be part of Leith and became part of the old Calton ward, but to its fans Hibs remained - and still remains to this day - a Leith club.

Today, it sits in the Edinburgh City Council ward of Leith Walk, well outside the heavily contracted council ward currently known as Leith.

One of Leith's most famous landmarks, the former Boundary Bar, straddled the original boundary between the port and Leith, with the official dividing line running through the middle.

BOOK FEST: Ambrosio, Before We Say Goodbye

2010-08-28T05:23:00.000-07:00

Gabriella Ambrosio
Before We Say Goodbye
2010

THE teenage book market is replete with books about monsters – particularly Stephenie Mayer’s hugely successful Twilight saga – and thanks to Amnesty International the shelves now have a new addition.

Gabriella Ambrosio’s Before We Say Goodbye, a semi-fictional account of a day in the life of a teenage female suicide bomber from Palestine and her Israeli victim, received a special endorsement by the human rights group at this month’s Edinburgh International Book Festival for its contribution to the understanding of the conflict. Like Twilight there are no shortage of monsters on both sides, and like the vampires of the saga these monsters are struggling to maintain their humanity against hateful, vengeful urges and an insatiable thirst for blood.

Before We Say Goodbye is based on the factual tale of Ayat al-Akhras, 19, who became Palestine’s youngest female suicide bomber when she killed herself and two Israelis including one Rachel Levy, 17, in a Jerusalem supermarket in 2002. The physical similarities between the two girls led the authorities to speculate initially that there had been two Palestinian suicide bombers, and that Levy was al-Akhras’s accomplice and perhaps even her sister.

The case starkly demonstrated the similarities between the communities on both sides, and in this book Ambrosio imagines the personal circumstances that brought these two girls together through the lives of two proxies, the Palestinian Dima and the Israeli Myriam, both 18.

Ayat al-Akhras and Rachel Levy on the cover of Newsweek

As the book is aimed at the teenage market, I have handed over my blog for this review to two Edinburgh teenagers, Andrew MacLean and Frances Singer, recent James Gillespie’s High School graduates who Amnesty pulled together for a chat with the author Gabriella Ambrosio at the book launch last week. I was struck by their different interpretations of the book, and conflicting sympathies, but as we shall see Ambrosio herself was not surprised.

“I seemed more sympathetic towards Myriam,” said Andrew, from Bruntsfield, who is going on to study biological sciences at Oxford next month. “Dima seemed a little naive, talking about how killing herself and others would make right all of the wrongs that that her family had suffered. There’s a line in the book about her actions taking all of the injustices away and making the Israelis pay, but I think this book showed that her actions were just part of a never ending process. By the end of it the Israelis were shouting, ‘death to the Arabs’, while the Palestinians celebrated.”

‘Dima had to blow herself up in the middle of a crowd. She had to blow up a crowd.
‘She wouldn’t be doing it if she weren’t sure she would kill lots of them. She would postpone it. Her life was not worth a few lives; it was worth a great many Jewish lives – at least a hundred. She would blow herself up and take a hundred people with her. A hundred Jewish families would have to suffer what they as Palestinians were suffering. And finally the camp would celebrate. The return of honour. Of a little justice.’ (Before We Say Goodbye, p.115)

Frances, from Newington, who is going travelling for a year before taking on a chemistry degree at York, had a slightly different take.

“I identified slightly more with Dima,” she said. “You can really feel her anger at the situation, whereas Myriam seemed quite empty. Myriam was upset about the death of her friend but it never seemed to sink in, whereas Dima’s response was more emotional. I don’t think I would do what Dima did [suicide bombing] but I can see why she did it. She felt there was nothing for her, and she was going to be stuck in the same situation unless she did something about it, but if she had just carried on she could have made much more of a difference. She wanted to be a journalist and she could have made much more of a difference doing that rather than blowing herself up.”

Two other characters stand out from the book who are worth noting. Myriam’s brother Nathan, 19, is doing his military service at the Erez checkpoint and is probably the closest thing to Mayer’s teenage vampires, a human child, a pacifist, unwillingly conscripted by older monsters who begins by being horrified by the brutality on both sides but ends up resigned to it.

' “You have to check everyone who crosses over [the checkpoint],” Nathan said flatly. “People are made to partly strip off, and their shoes and bags are passed through the metal detector. Often they have blades hidden in their soles...the first thing that came to mind was a scene from the Holocaust.
“I felt like I had got everything wrong...and then that awful thing happened...everyone saw Ariel’s head fly inside the blockhouse...
“They do this to us. Someone thinks it up and sends them to do this to us. The truth is, as far as their concerned we shouldn’t exist!"' (Before We Say Goodbye, pp72-73)

Then there is Ghassan, the Palestinian puppet-master, the man who “thinks it up” and sends “them” – ordinary Palestinians like Ayat al-Akhras and her fictional proxy Dima – to kill Israelis. Ghassan is the personification of every Hamas/Fatah/Hezbolla/Iranian/Al-Qaida hardliner who believes death and destruction is the only solution to the Israeli occupation but sends others to do their dirty work.

‘Peace. That is what Ghassan felt after every explosion. Peace at last. The blast, the trembling air, the pieces shooting away in all directions...
‘What must it be like, living as if you were always stuffed with explosives? What else could you want if not to get rid of them every so often? This is how it was for Ghassan, who sought every explosion the way another might seek an orgasm.’ (Before We Say Goodbye, pp76-77)

I had originally believed Ghassan to be not only the personification of Arab monsters but a dual personification of the monsters from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with his one brown eye representing the Arabs and his one blue eye a metaphor for the occupying European Jew stereotype, but according to Ambrosio his heterochromia is descriptive rather than metaphorical. Andrew’s and Frances’s insights, it seems, where more on the button than my own:

“His different coloured eyes are a result of the shrapnel in his head from one his grenades that exploded too close - nothing more,” said Ambrosio. “I am not surprised that Andrew and Frances came to different conclusions about the characters because when I read a book I identify with the people, not the politics. It’s the humans you identify with as they are your guides in this other world, and often the only way that you can understand how you would feel in this world is to understand how the characters feel."

READING: Cowley, The Last Game

2010-08-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

Jason Cowley
The Last Game
2009

The Last Game, ostensibly an extended essay about the Liverpool v Arsenal title decider in 1989, is about much more than football. It is part biography, part social commentary, part fanzine and a wholly passionate read. It’s about Cowley’s relationship with football, with his father, with journalism and with the world around him, often all four at once. The prologue provides an interesting insight into his psychology:

“I accepted the false dichotomy between the so called highbrow and lowbrow and had concluded that you couldn’t be both a book man and sports man – that the two cultures were separate, with no connecting bridge between them.”

As a bookish journalist living in Edinburgh, 60 miles from my derelict hometown of Linwood where ignorance is practically a virtue, and 60 miles from my football team St Mirren which I still visit most weeks largely to catch up with my brother and boyhood friends, I know all about this dichotomy and can identify with the polar forces pulling him apart.

But Cowley and I both know that this dichotomy is, indeed, false (many people still recoil in shock when I inform them novelist Christopher Brookmyre is also a St Mirren fan). Cowley approaches his sport like the giants of American literature approached their sports. He marries his bookish head with his sporting heart and does for football what Norman Mailer did for boxing, Ernest Hemingway did for bullfighting, and Hunter S Thomson did for desert racing - he chronicles the attitudes, troubles and prejudices of the day through the prism of a single sporting event.

He even measures his own theories on that other momentous sporting event of 1989, the Hillsborough disaster, not against those of contemporary British writers such as the divisive Kelvin MacKenzie but against another giant of modern American literature Don Dellilo, who described the fans’ suffering like a great religious painting, “a crowded twisted vision of a rush to death as only a master of the age could paint it”.

And he writes about Arsenal v Liverpool the way Mailer wrote about Ali v Foreman, as a titanic battle between gladiators rather than a lowbrow working class sport. He elevates Arsenal manager George Graham, a tough Scot born eight miles in the opposite direction of Glasgow as myself, to the status of an ageing warrior-poet:

“[As a player] Graham was a languid presence in midfield. He passed and moved so gracefully that he was known variously as the Stroller, the Ringmaster and The Peacock. ‘I had a quick brain but a slow body,’ he has said. ‘I needed time, which is not available in the English game today.’...

“[As a manager] Graham did not like strollers or peacocks: the footballer as the egoist or exhibitionist. He preferred grafters...Graham demanded toil and labour from his players and coaching staff.”

Even when he moves away from the football field to review the social change of the 80s he does so from the terraces, chronicling the changing attitudes to race through the eyes of John Barnes dodging bananas, likens a rave during 1988’s second summer of love to “an especially intense football match”, and conflates his Last Game thesis – that the ’89 title decider marked the transition between old and new football – with the other great social upheavals of the late 80s such as the decline of communism and Fukuyama’s theories on “the end of history”.

Running through it all is his own struggle to maintain his relationship with football and with his ailing father, his efforts to kindle his relationships with his wife and with journalism and the journey he took towards becoming the current editor of New Statesman and, as author of The Last Game, the thinking fans wordsmith.

BOOK FEST: Lock and Irving. Gaza: Beneath The Bombs

2010-08-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

Sharyn Lock with Sarah Irving
Gaza: Beneath The Bombs
2010

“Israelis don’t oppress Palestinians,” activist turned author Sarah Irving told a packed crowd at the opening show in Amnesty International’s Imprisoned Writers Series on the first day of the Edinburgh International Book Festival this afternoon.

Irving and her co-author Sharyn Lock are here to promote their new book Gaza: Beneath The Bombs, and their statement – while apparently jarring coming from one half of a team of committed pro-Palestinian activists – sums up the humanitarian message of the book.

“Israelis don’t oppress Palestinians...the Israeli government oppresses Palestinians,” Lock elaborated. “While a lot of racism undoubtedly exists if you speak to Palestinian taxi drivers in the West Bank many of them will tell you that some of their best friends are Israelis.

“However, such relationships are becoming more difficult because it’s hard for an Israeli to travel to the West Bank. Ariel Sharon actually made it illegal for some Israelis to travel into the West Bank, and it was a deliberate effort to cut these ties and foster separation and resentment.

“The vast majority on both sides are just people trying to get on with their lives, but one side is systematically having everything they hold dear stripped away from them.”

Both Irving and Lock have been visiting Palestine for the best part of the last decade, and their eyewitness accounts confirm many of the horror stories that continually flow out of the embattled Gaza strip and West Bank.

“I actually worry more about the West Bank than I do about Gaza,” adds Irving. “Despite the bombing going on in Gaza the extent of the institutionalisation and acceptance of Israel’s ongoing programme of settlement building concerns me.

It’s like it’s become a part of life, but I’m continually shocked by how large these settlements have become even in the last nine years that I’ve been visiting.”
Irving’s persistent activism has taken an awful toll on her health. Hobbling in on crutches she explains that her legs are slowly deteriorating from an injury she sustained after being thrown to the ground by an Israeli soldier.

Irving and Lock told the crowd of their experiences crouching in parsley fields dodging bullets, and getting drenched by Israeli water cannons firing on Gazan fishing boats. The boats fire putrid water which, the authors claim, is laced with some form of poison which makes the fishermen sick and contaminates the fish destined for an area where food is scarce.

Lock emotively related her experience to the comforts of home. “I often forget that the planes flying overhead are actually death machines, and sometime catch myself imagining that they’re actually passenger planes full of eager holidaymakers like the planes back home.

“I sometimes mistake Israeli tanks for roadworks. The noise is very similar and I suppose in a sense they are road works – they’re unmaking the roads.”

While much was said about the Israeli government’s oppression of the Palestinians, little was said about the counterpart governments in Gaza and the West Bank that arguably play their own part in oppressing the Palestinians by stoking Israeli anger – the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas and corrupt secularists Fatah.

Speaking after the event, Sharyn Lock explained why Hamas has yet to show its true colours – for good or for ill – in Gaza because the area has been under constant blockade and frequent bombardment since Hamas took power in free Palestinian elections in 2007.

“No one can really decide how well Hamas are doing because they’ve got nothing to judge it against. Any progress Hamas makes is immediately bombed out of existence by Israeli planes.

“What many people forget is that there is no such thing as a welfare state in Palestine, no health care or child support, and for a long time Hamas was the welfare state. They organised help for the communities suffering under the occupation.

“And while there are stories about Hamas forcing women to wear the veil it’s not something I’ve seen myself. Some women do wear the veil but no more than in previous years, and nobody seems to make a big deal about feeling oppressed under Hamas because they’re all so focussed on the infinitely larger oppression their suffering at the hands of Israel.

“It’s got to be remembered that 50 per cent of Palestinians are under 18, so you’ve got a community full of children who don’t engage in politics and don’t have any idea about elections. Those that did vote for Hamas had watched as the Fatah controlled Palestinian Authority failed to secure any gains for the Palestinians.

“Faced with no other option they thought – like many British people in the last election – ‘These guys aren’t working for me; let’s see what the other guys have got to offer.”

READING: Milton-Edwards & Farrell. Hamas.

2010-08-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

Beverley Milton-Edwards & Stephen Farrell
Hamas
2010

AS an RAF Spitfire screamed overhead at the annual air-show in my ancestral home of Sunderland last weekend, my mother remarked how frightening it must have been for my Nana growing up in this heavily-bombed shipbuilding town in World War II to hear that foreboding sound in the knowledge that death could shortly follow in its wake.

But as the Spitfire receded over the horizon it was followed by an even more bloodcurdling noise. Children covered their ears and adults looked to the skies as a Dutch F16 launched into a barrel-roll, the buzz of its engines growing to a deafening roar as it blasted the seafront with its fearsome afterburner. This sound must be a thousand times more frightening to the embattled people of Gaza, regularly bombed by Israeli F16s, largely, in latter years, as a result of their political support for Hamas.

"Hamas stunned the world when it won one of the only free elections in the Arab world,” writes James Hider, author of The Spiders of Allah and Middle East Bureau Chief of The Times, in his endorsement of Beverley Milton-Edwards’ and James Farrell’s eponymous study of the radical Islamist resistance group that has ruled Gaza with an iron-fist since its election in 2006. The stellar-list of endorsements that accompany this book is reason enough to make it compelling reading, from Hider, to former BBC Middle East correspondent Orla Guerin, to Guardian Middle East correspondent Rory McCarthy, plus a host of respected authors and academics, but the fact that Belfast Queen’s University politics professor Dr Milton-Edwards was able to recruit Farrell, the twice kidnapped former Times and now New York Times correspondent, as co-writer lifts it from what could have been a weighty and worthy academic tome to an indispensible and often gripping account of Hamas’s inception and rise to power.

Hamas’s origins can roughly be summarised as inspired by the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, infused with the spirit of 1930s anti-colonial fighter Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, stirred up by the foundation of Israel in 1948 and the six-day war of 1967, propelled by the foundation of Sheik Ahmed Yassin’s Mujamma following the Yom Kippur war of 1973 and finally ignited by the first intifada in 1987. The authors chronicle how Hamas’s brand of deadly resistance to Israel came into its own during the second intifada:

“The first intifada was the stone throwing intifada. Now who believes in stones.” (Hamas MP Jamila al-Shanti)

Hamas rise to power was essentially a reaction to years of ineffectual resistance to Israeli expansionism and oppression of the Palestinians, who watched as the secular politics of Nasser and Fatah failed to contain Israel within its 1948 borders and proved ineffectual in making their anti-Zionist protests heard.

“We tried the fiasco of liberalism in 1948 and we lost half of Palestine. We tried socialist communism in 1967 and we lost the rest of Palestine. We need to be more doctrinaire if Israel is to be overthrown. We need an Islamic state founded on the principles of the Koran.” (Unnamed Islamist student activist)

The authors piece together Hamas’s complex web of supporters and financiers. Following its election in 2006 the movement benefitted greatly from the resources it inherited (or commandeered) from its Western-approved predecessors Fatah and, after international sanctions and the Israeli blockade cut off Gaza’s lifeline, it took a leaf from Hezbolla’s book and looked East for its support, overcoming its sectarian opposition to Iran’s Shi’a theocracy to rely on its support and drawing further assistance from the Arab states.

The authors go to great lengths to distance Hamas from the mindless terrorists that many western leaders often portray them to be. Hamas’s founding fathers are here revealed to be articulate and often reasonable in their justification for their attacks on what they regard as invaders. Even the abhorrent act of suicide bombing, painstakingly deconstructed in this book by psychologists, politicians and families of “martyrs” interviewed by the authors, contains a touch of reason when deployed against an enemy that is vastly superior in weaponry, finance and international political backing:

“Believe me if we had F16s we would never use suicide attacks.” (Senior Hamas leader Dr Abdel Aziz Rantissi)

However, the inherent brutality of the movement frequently seeps through and can be seen writ-large in the days after it took control of Gaza and began to remodel it as an austere Islamic entity in the mould of Iran and, at times, approaching the brutality of the Afghan Taliban. Women were relegated to the status of incubators for future resistance fighters and forced to cover up under threat of an acid wash (in a region where short-skirts were not an uncommon sight during the swinging 60s). Men were encouraged to grow their beards and forced to subscribe to the Hamas doctrine wholesale or risk being shot. And yet the Palestinian people continue to support them because they appear to be the only effective resistance to the Israelis who have had them under the cosh for over 60 years, and certainly the only force that has been able to inflict any serious damage.

Parallels are occasionally drawn with the French resistance during WWII or the Provisional IRA, particularly in Hamas’s recent embrace of the ballot box, but these parallels quickly break down on closer analysis. Unlike Sinn Fein, the authors observe, Hamas went into politics to keep their arms not lay them down and its leaders admit that its policy is to continue to terrorise Israel, whose existence it steadfastly refuses to recognise. Hamas is also standing up to an enemy far more deadly and vindictive than the British. As one Irish observer in Palestine noted in the aftermath of the one tonne bomb that killed Salah Shehadeh, founder of Hamas’s military wing the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, in 2002, wiping out 145 civilians in the process:

“If the British wanted to wipe out Gerry Adams would they use a bomb that size in a residential area?”

Ultimately, it is horrors such as this, and the countless other examples listed in this book’s 300 odd pages, that makes it hard to entirely condemn Hamas as nihilistic thugs. Gaza freely chose an Islamic resistance group with a history of violence in one of the fairest and most transparent elections in the region, so it is tempting to say that Gaza deserves everything that it has suffered in their hands. But the lesson of this book is that the people of Gaza felt they had no alternative. The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority failed to halt Israeli settlements, failed to create a Palestinian state, failed to stop the indiscriminate killing of innocent Palestinians and, by all accounts, lined their own pockets at the people’s expense. It failed to prove that secularism was the way to battle an aggressive theocracy so the only alternative was Hamas.

And the final lesson of this book is that, for the foreseeable future at least, Hamas is in Palestine to stay.

NEWS: Brewdog Barking Up The Capital's Tree

2010-07-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 26, 2010, Monday
1 Edition

The glory days of Edinburgh's beer industry might be in the past, but now it is to get a shot in the arm - or a kick in the teeth, depending on your point of view - as Scotland's most controversial brewery heads for the city.

The owners of Aberdeenshire-based BrewDog are preparing to open a bar in the Capital, and with a range that includes beer bottles inside stuffed animals, it seems unlikely to be a quiet addition to Edinburgh's pub world.

The firm has courted controversy with its high-powered ales, and is planning to offer free drink for life to anyone who gets a tattoo of its logo on the opening night of its first bar in Aberdeen.

Alcohol-awareness campaigners have repeatedly condemned the firm for its super-strength brews: The animal skin-covered End of History, which was launched last week and costs £500 a bottle, is 55 per cent proof ABV.

BrewDog also offers its 41 per cent Sink The Bismarck and 9.2 per cent Hardcore IPA.

Managing director James Watt said he was on the hunt for a suitable site for the firm's first bar in Edinburgh. He said: "I think a site in the Old Town would suit our brand the most but we're open-minded. We would be equally at home in the New Town or Leith."

But BrewDog may face resistance to any city bar if it repeats the marketing gimmick planned for the Aberdeen opening later this year.

Mr Watt said: "We're going to have a tattoo artist in the pub on the opening night and we're offering free beer for life to anyone who will have the BrewDog logo tattooed on their body."

Steve Mudie, president of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, called the stunt "abhorrent", adding: "I would have to question whether such a stunt is entirely legal.

"The Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 comes down very strongly on licensed premises that offer incentives to customers that may encourage them to act irresponsibly.

"Think about an 18-year-old going in there on opening night thinking it would be a great laugh to get a tattoo for free beer. He's going to live for the next 60 years or so with this stupid tattoo, provided he doesn't end up with health problems due to the amount of free alcohol he's consumed."

Conservative councillor Jeremy Balfour, who sits on the city's licensing board, called the stunt "irresponsible".

He added: "While I wouldn't want to pre-judge a licensing application before it's even come before the board, I wouldn't think a gimmick like this would do it any favours."

NEWS: Supertot

2010-07-28T12:33:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 23, 2010, Friday

A TODDLER has survived falling 18 feet from his bedroom window without a scratch - after landing on a pile of rubbish.

Eighteen-month-old Jayden Douglas, who has been nicknamed Superman, is believed to have climbed out of his cot, on to the window sill and opened the window fully before tumbling out.

He landed on a discarded cardboard box and rubbish bags which were lying outside the family home in Denholm Avenue, Musselburgh. If he had fallen just a few inches further away he would have crashed through an old glass-topped table that was sitting on the patio waiting to be thrown out.

His mum, Tammie Thomson, 18, said: "I was cooking in the kitchen at around 8pm on Sunday and I heard a loud bang. I thought it was the cooker exploding and heard Jayden screaming.

"I ran upstairs and he wasn't in his room, but the window was open and the curtains were flapping in the breeze. I looked out of the window and there he was lying on top of a cardboard box in the garden.

"I ran downstairs and found him crawling towards the door screaming his eyes out. He could barely crawl. I called my mum and phoned for an ambulance and he was taken to hospital.

"They did X-rays and scans as they thought he might have hurt his neck in the fall, but they came back clear. He didn't even have a bruise or a scratch.

"They kept him in hospital for two days for observation but he's absolutely fine."

Miss Thomson, who is separated from Jayden's father and has only lived in the property for eight weeks, said she had left the window open just a crack in order to let air in.

She added: "I've asked the landlord to install window catches but we probably won't need them now. He's terrified of the window.

"My wee brother said to him the other day, 'did you fall out the window?' He pointed at the window and went 'uh oh!' and then started crying again, so it's obviously had a lasting impact.

"Otherwise he's fine. He's a very active boy and very funny.

"We're now calling him Superman and I think someone must be looking out for him."

Following Jayden's escape, police sealed the property off to conduct a routine investigation into his fall.

A spokesman said: "Lothian and Borders Police responded to an address in Denholm Avenue, Musselburgh, around 8pm on July 18 following reports that an 18-month-old baby boy had fallen from a window to the ground four metres below.

"The child was taken to the Sick Kids hospital for examination but had sustained no injuries and was kept in for observation. Inquiries are ongoing to determine the circumstances surrounding the incident."

NEWS: Rubber Bullet And Taser Treatment

2010-07-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 22, 2010, Thursday

A CRAZED knifeman who held a nurse hostage in her own home had to be brought down with a rubber bullet after a Taser failed to subdue him.

The Evening News told earlier this week how the controversial weapon was used on Rafal Swiderski after he had held 51-year-old nurse Mary Johnston at knifepoint for more than four hours.

It has now emerged that it failed to hit the target and officers were given permission to use the baton round before deploying the Taser again.

The case is only second time either weapon has been used by Lothian and Borders Police, and is the first time they have been deployed together.

Officers today defended the move as they told how 20-year-old Swiderski had turned his aggression towards firearms officers during the incident, threatening them with a knife and a broken bottle.

Chief Superintendent Charlie Common, head of operations for Lothian and Borders Police, said the decision to fire a Taser came after several hours of negotiations failed and Swiderski began charging at them with the knife.

The weapon failed when only one of the electrical barbs struck Swiderski. Both barbs needed to connect in order to complete the circuit and send a 50,000-volt charge through the knifeman's body.

Swiderski retreated into Ms Johnston's Broxburn home and re-emerged with a broken bottle and began charging at officers again.

Chief Supt Common said: "A baton round was discharged, which temporarily stunned the suspect, however, he picked up the broken glass again and as he did so a Taser was discharged at him. As a result, he was subdued and arrested.

"In view of the circumstances faced, the use of both Taser and baton round were considered to have been entirely appropriate."

The use of Tasers hit the headlines again following the shooting of Raoul Moat which has raised fresh controversy about their use.

Amnesty International, which is calling for a pilot project in Strathclyde where 30 ordinary officers have been issued with Tasers to be abandoned, said it supported the force.

John Watson, the organisation's programme director for Scotland, said: "Our position on Tasers is that we accept that they have a part to play in policing, particularly in incidents like this one where they were dealing with a violent individual posing a risk to life.

"We have no complaints about the use of Taser in this case because they were being used by trained firearms officers. Tasers are firearms and they should only be used by trained firearms officers.

"However, we have serious concerns about the scheme in Strathclyde which has lowered the threshold over what incidents they can be used for."

Ms Johnston, whose ordeal on May 22 this year began when she awoke to find Swiderski in her home, has also backed the officers who brought her attacker into custody. She had been barricaded inside until she managed to secretly text a plea for police help.

Swiderski was remanded in custody pending background reports after pleading guilty last week.

CONTROVERSIAL WEAPONS

The last time a baton round was used before the Swiderski case was in West Linton, on December 13, 2005, after a man fired an airgun at officers as they surrounded his home. It was the first time the weapon had been used since the force began trialling its in 2003.

Two years later, on May 10 2007, police used a Taser, introduced the previous year, for the first time to stop a man who rampaged through Bar 53, in Broxburn's East Main Street, armed with two machetes.

Human rights group Amnesty International is mounting a legal challenge to a pilot scheme in Strathclyde to arm 30 regular beat officers with Tasers, as opposed to authorised firearms officers, amid links to almost 300 deaths in North America.

NEWS: 111 year old Annie is the oldest woman in Britain

2010-07-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

Mark McLaughlin
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 21, 2010, Wednesday

SHE has lived during the reigns of six British monarchs, outlived the premierships of 26 prime ministers and survived two world wars.

Born in 1898 when Queen Victoria was on the throne, her life has witnessed the advent of TV, air travel and the birth of the NHS. Now Annie Turnbull, who is set to be 112 in September, can celebrate becoming the oldest person in the UK.

On her 111th birthday, Annie was the oldest woman in Scotland, and the fourth oldest woman in the UK.

Staff at Victoria Park Care Home, where she has lived for just over two years after she decided to leave Manderston Court sheltered-housing complex for more focused care at the age of 109, said she wished to mark the event privately.

Care home manager Sue Donaldson said: "Annie doesn't want publicity so we wouldn't want to say anything beyond what was said already at her 111th birthday party. She is a very private woman.

"For our part, it's a great privilege to have her here and to look after her."

Annie became the oldest in UK this week following the death of Eunice Bowman, from Ince-in-Makerfield, Lancashire, on July 16, just a month before her 112th birthday. She is now the 27th oldest known living person in the world, and the seventh oldest in Europe.

The world's current oldest living person is Frenchwoman EugÃ©nie Blanchard at 114 years and 155 days.

However, they all have a long way to go if they aim to beat Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who set the record at 122 before her death in 1997.

Born and brought up in Stoneyburn, West Lothian, Mrs Turnbull moved to the Capital after leaving school aged 14.

The year of her birth saw the introduction of Edinburgh's first motor buses â€" the Penny Stinkers â€" as well as the opening of the Glenogle Baths in Stockbridge.

She went into service as a table-maid â€" a job she held for most of her working life.

Although the job was hard, it gave her the chance to meet well-known people, including author Rudyard Kipling. She lived in Easter Road until the age of 92, before moving to the Manderston Court sheltered-housing complex.

She said previously: "I've really been lucky, not having any illnesses.

"I feel well enough in myself, but my bones are all breaking to bits! It doesn't faze me. I know it's just age. It's certainly a wonderful thing, especially to feel so good."

NEWS: Tae Be Or No Tae Be...

2010-07-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

Mark McLaughlin
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 21, 2010, Wednesday

IF you find yourself accosted by a barefoot, oddly dressed stranger quoting Hamlet in a voice resembling a cross between Yoda and Braveheart don't panic- they're probably playing Edinburgh Festival Bingo.

A blogger and wannabe-comedienne has designed a bingo card that challenges revellers to carry out dares during the course of the festival.

The dares include ideas like "walk around barefoot", "wear completely irrelevant fancy dress", "recite Hamlet's 'to be, or not to be' soliloquy to the first person you see", "speak like Yoda" or "speak in a bad Scottish accent".

However, some challenges could land you in trouble with the authorities, or leave you with a sore face if you approach the wrong person.

For example, Fringe organisers might take exception to festivalgoers trying to "camp out on the Royal Mile".

Meanwhile, some performers may take offence at players ticking the box marked "heckle a comedian", while it would take a brave person to "ask people to vote Conservative".

The card was designed by 19-year-old student Lolly Adefope, an aspiring comedienne who is hoping to come to the Edinburgh Festival for the first time this year.

She said: "Me and a group of friends were trying to get a theatre troupe together for this year's Festival but it didn't quite come together, but I still wanted to do something.

"I thought it would be a brilliant idea to design something that would allow festivalgoers to engage with the Festival more closely.

"My friends and I had a brainstorming session to come up with some of the dares we could ask people to do and the bingo card was the result.

Miss Adefope, who is originally from Surrey and studies English, has published her card online in her Lols On Comedy section on A Younger Theatre, an arts blog.

A Younger Theatre editor Jake Orr, 22, said: "I think a lot of the dares are supposed to be tongue in cheek. Lolly doesn't actually want people to vote Conservative. The dare contains a bit of irony as it's a reaction to the looming cuts in arts funding.

"There's also a disclaimer at the bottom of the card which advises players that heckling should not be malicious."

The disclaimer goes on to suggest forms of benign heckling such as "random standing up and sitting down, or oinking". A further advisory provides tips on how to "organise a flashmob", a random act of madness carried out in unison by a group of people, with suggestions including the Cha Cha Slide or the Macarena.

Mr Orr added: "There's no overall prize for winning so it will be up to individual groups to decide on prizes, and make up the rest of the rules as they go along."

SPORT: Ajax Style Strip Is Hit And Miss For Hearts

2010-07-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 20, 2010, Tuesday

"THE boys in maroon are the best in the land," is the famous refrain that welcomes Hearts on to the pitch but fans might have to sing a different tune at Tynecastle this season.

The club's new "Ajax-style" home strip, with a white central panel offset by two maroon stripes at either side, has been met with a mixed response from former players and fans.

The strip has echoes of the 1972-73 season, which had a maroon central panel offset by white stripes down either side.

Former striker Donald Ford, 65, who wore that strip more than anyone else with a total of 44 appearances that season, remembers it well.

He said: "I'm really happy they're bringing that design back because the players really liked it , but I don't think the fans were too happy with it if I remember correctly.

"Probably my most memorable game in that strip was when I scored from a header at Ibrox [December 2 1972] to win 1-0,

"I think the maroon is the most important part of the strip so it's a shame they've decided to do it the other way."

However, former team-mate Ian Sneddon, who scored his first competitive goal in the strip, was partial to the white.

He said: "My favourite strip was always the away strip with the white top and maroon shorts.

"I think the new one looks quite nice with the white panel down the middle and the maroon at the sides."

One of the most notable former-players to wear maroon-and-white was current manager Jim Jefferies, who made eight appearances as a youngster in 72-73.

However, David Beveridge, of the Robertson's Bar Hearts Supporters Club, was surprised that Jefferies current team will be playing in a mostly white top.

He said: "I remember during his first spell as manager when we changed the strip from that horrible purpley-maroon colour and he said he liked his team playing in the classic maroon.

"I'm all for an all-maroon Hearts top and I'm not happy that we'll be walking out in white."

There was a similarly mixed response from regular fans, and not only for the radical home strip.

Jambo Keith Marsh, 45, a postman from Gorgie, said: "I think the Hearts strip should be mostly maroon but I do think the design is quite modern and stylish, and it will probably appeal to the kids and sell more replicas.

Fans are used to seeing Hearts march out in white while playing away, but their decision to go white at home has forced them to design an even more radical blue-and-white Argentina-style design away.

Scott Preston, 47, a road worker from Clermiston and lifelong season ticket holder, was not impressed. He said: "It looks like a Kilmarnock top."

Fellow road worker Craig Fowler, 32, from South Queensferry, said he won't be deterred by the radical new design.

He said: "I buy a new strip regardless of how it looks."

NEWS: Running For A Tuk Tuk

2010-07-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 20, 2010, Tuesday

A BUSINESSWOMAN is gearing up for a 150-mile charity run to help out an old friend trying to make ends meet on the streets of Delhi.

Caroline Williams, 46, owner of The Massage Place on Rodney Street, whose only previous running experience is a half-marathon 20 years ago, is aiming to complete the run from King Robert the Bruce's Cave, near Gretna, to Denbighshire in North Wales, in just six days.

She hopes to raise more than £6,000 to buy an auto rickshaw - a motorised carriage known in India as a "tuk-tuk" for the noise it makes - for her friend Dheeraj Lal, affectionately known as Champu, a former street child.

Caroline said: "I first met Champu while travelling in Delhi ten years ago. I was walking down the road trying my best to ignore all of the begging street kids, as we had been advised to do by our tour guides, when this little guy walked up to me and said something that really made me laugh.

"I can't recall what it was but I was totally taken with him. He didn't ask me for anything, he just wanted to walk with me and practise his English.

"I asked him if he ever got jealous of the tourists who arrived with pockets full of money, and he said no because he worked a really good corner of the street and he felt lucky that he had a house when others didn't.

"We struck up a friendship and he took me to a lot of the local festivals, and took me to meet his family where I got the chance to take a look at this 'house'.

"It was a shack about two-thirds of the size of a double bed and he was sleeping in there with his parents and two brothers.

"Despite this, he was very proud and still refused to ask me for anything. He even paid the taxi fare to his 'house'."

Champu is now in his mid-20s, with three children, meaning there are now eight people taking turns to sleep in his tiny shack, and he is frequently arrested for offering his services as an unofficial tour guide.

Caroline added: "With the Commonwealth Games coming to Delhi this year the Indian government have started cracking down hard on the street vendors, so Champu told me he was saving to buy a tuk-tuk. He proudly told me he already had the equivalent of GBP153 saved up, but the cheapest second-hand tuk-tuk costs GBP3,000 with a new one costing over GBP6,000 so it would take him a lifetime to save up.

"That's why I decided to raise money to buy him one because the money won't just be helping him. All of the money he raises is shared amongst his family and the other members of his community."

Caroline has already raised around a quarter of the money she needs and is holding several fundraising events in the Capital ahead of her Trans-Britain Challenge on September 11, including a quiz night at The Outhouse on July 28 and a 10km "Tapas Run" ending at Tapa Restaurant at The Shore on August 8.

Entry to the quiz night and Tapas Run costs £5 per head per event. To donate to Caroline's Trans-Britain Challenge visit www.justgiving.com/whenpathscross.

NEWS: Hostage Horror Ends With A Taser

2010-07-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

Mark McLaughlin
Evening News (Edinburgh)
Nurse tells of hostage terror

A NURSE was held hostage in her bedroom for four hours after waking to find a disturbed knife man in her room.

Mary Johnston, 51, was barricaded inside with Rafal Swiderski until she managed to secretly text a plea for police help.

Swiderski, 20, piled furniture against the bedroom door and pulled out his knife after Ms Johnston spotted him.

He then brandished the knife at her and threatened to stab himself, as well as banging and shouting, and pointing frantically at the empty street.

The Edinburgh Royal Infirmary staff nurse, of East Main Street, Broxburn, eventually managed to slip out after police arrived and started trying to convince him to let her go.

Swiderski was eventually arrested after being shot and immobilised by a taser stun gun.

Ms Johnston said: "I had been on the night shift and I was woken about 11.45am by someone coming into the house. The next thing I knew this strange man had walked into my bedroom.

"He kept saying, 'Shhh, please'. He clearly thought someone was after him.

"He went into the kitchen and I heard him raking around and when he came back he pushed my bed and my treadmill against the door, and when he turned around I saw that he had a knife in the back of his trousers.

"He pulled the knife out and didn't let go of it, and a few times he said he was going to stab himself with it.

"Then he told me to lift up the blinds so he could see out, and started pointing at nothing and shouting 'look, look'.

"I tried to calm him down by telling him that no-one was there, but whenever I let go of the blinds he held the knife to me and told me to lift them up."

Ms Johnston was able to grab her phone without Swiderski noticing, and discreetly text, "HELP. PHONE POLICE", to her last number.

She added: "I could hear the police arrive outside. This just made him more agitated and he began jumping on the bed, on the chest of drawers and throwing ornaments around.

"The police were saying, 'Rafal, Rafal, let the lady go. You don't need her.'

"I managed to push the bed away from the door until it was just wide enough to squeeze through. When I saw my chance, I ran for it. He saw me and ran after me, but I made it out the front door and managed to pull it shut behind me."

The case follows the shooting of Raoul Moat with a shotgun-style taser, which has raised fresh controversy about the use of the stun guns.

But Ms Johnston is adamant that the police did the right thing.

She said: "If the police hadn't tasered him, who knows what he would have done."

Last Thursday, Swiderski pled guilty to entering Ms Johnston's house without invitation, barricading her inside and brandishing a knife on May 22 this year.

He was remanded in custody pending background reports. Sentencing is due on August 5.

A police spokesman said: "Lothian and Borders Police issue tasers to authorised firearms officers, who are only permitted to use the device in circumstances where a suspect presents a clear risk to the public, the officers in attendance or even themselves.

"Before a taser is discharged, the suspect will be given clear warning to cease their actions and surrender."

NEWS: Rod Rage

2010-07-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 16, 2010, Friday

IT'S the kind of behaviour you might expect from some laddish fans at an Oasis concert â€" boorish and intimidating.

But it was the last thing anyone expected from the droves of middle aged rock fans who flocked to see Rod Stewart at Edinburgh Castle over the past two nights.

Yet for Mercy Breheny, 36, Wednesday night turned nasty when she refused to let some of the old rocker's fans shelter from the rain in her stairwell.

Ms Breheny, 36, called the police after one concert-goer broke into her close and shouted a barrage of abuse outside her door after she shut them out in the rain.

The trouble started after she cycled to her flat in Johnston Terrace shortly before Wednesday night's concert began to find middle aged fans sheltering in her stairwell doorway.

"I pulled up on my bike at around 8 o'clock and they were standing there drinking beer and smoking.

"I asked them to excuse me and let me into my stair, and when I turned around to close the door behind me they blocked the entrance," she said.

"I asked them to excuse me again about five times and they ignored me, so I pushed the door shut at their backs.

"On the way up the stair I could hear shouting and swearing. Then I heard the door being forced by a shoulder, then heard someone racing up the stairs to catch up with me.

"He was shouting and screaming. It was along the lines of, 'Don't f******* shut the door on me, you f******** b****', He sounded really mad.

"I ran into the house and closed my door behind me. I heard other voices behind him and I was worried I had a gang after me.

"I like to think I know how to look after myself but I was really scared that he'd come up and force my door as well.

"I actually thought he would do it. He had riled himself up to an absolutely insane degree."

Ms Breheny changed out of her wet clothes and worked up the courage to go back into the stairwell to see if the way was clear to find a police officer.

She said: "I went back out into the street and explained what happened to a policeman who was directing fans up to the gig, but he looked like he couldn't care less.

"He said, 'Can't you see that we're a bit busy here?'

"Busy doing what? Shepherding other harmless fans up the street while I'm being threatened in my own house?"

A police spokeswoman today said they had investigated the incident in the close, but by the time they arrived the people responsible had already headed to the concert.

NEWS: Rod In The Rain

2010-07-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 15, 2010, Thursday

"Where the ocean meets the sky, I'll be sailing," sang Rod Stewart last night as the ocean fell from the sky and threatened to send his stage sailing down the Royal Mile.

Torrential downpours soaked Rod's fans to the skin as they watched him belt out his hits at Edinburgh Castle.

"Does anybody want a wet programme," shouted desperate programme seller Kenneth Cameron at the gates prior to the gig, fearing his wares may not make it through the night.

The 20-year-old, who had travelled through from Glasgow, said: "I've only sold about 30 programmes. People just aren't buying them because there's no way to keep them dry. I don't have any bags or anything, and who wants to pay GBP15 for papier mache?"

The tunes on the long, wet walk up Castlehill before the gig didn't belong to Rod but to his adopted countrymen Travis, as the expectant crowds belted out an acappella version of Why Does It Always Rain On Me?.

Rod may have been thinking the same thing as he took to the stage just after 8pm, not that many people at the back would have seen him arrive as the big screens were rendered useless in the downpour.

The singer's ageing sex-god swagger was reduced to a comical Albert Steptoe trot as he struggled to stay on his feet, while his leggy blonde brass section had even more trouble in their short dresses and six-inch heels.

Meanwhile, the poor stagehands danced around like performance artists laying towel after towel in front of the singer to keep his winklepickers firmly rooted to the ground.

Fan Andrew Tait, 47, from Chesser, said: "He did the best he could in the rain, and he still had the people dancing."

Liz Morrison, also 47 from Chesser, said: "He's a great performer but you can't help the weather."

Rod's fans at the front resembled a dancing rainbow in their multicoloured ponchos â€" the most prominent colour being green.

"I'll never wear a blue darker than this," smiled Rod, pulling on his electric blue jacket and pointing at a flag of his beloved Celtic in the front row, to a mix of boos and cheers from the crowd.

It was a reminder that London-born Rod, the son of a Leith master builder, will always have a special place in his heart for Scotland.

NEWS: Factors Play With Dead Childrens' Memory

2010-07-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 13, 2010, Tuesday

THEY were promised a playpark so their memories of horror would fade amidst laughter and joy - but today all they've been left with is a bench.

Earlier this month, the Evening News told how the parents of tragic Blair Easton, 11, and Craig Quinn, 12, were turned away from a playpark supposedly erected in the boys' memory when it was locked up for the exclusive use of residents of the plush new estate on the site of the warehouse where the children perished in flames in 1999.

Now, disgusted mothers Donna Hume and Catherine Craig have been told that the park that they fought to see built - and even helped pick the outdoor play equipment for - was never intended to commemorate their boys at all.

Midlothian Council claims the only memorial it agreed with Applecross Homes, the now liquidated developers of the Eskbridge estate in Penicuik, was a solitary park bench.

The claim flies in the face of more than a decade of promises made to the families, friends, teachers and former schoolmates at Eastfield Primary School, who were closely consulted on the plans and all agreed that a playpark would be a fitting memorial.

Mrs Hume, who is divorced from Blair's father Derek Easton and now lives in Tranent, said: "If it's not the boys' playpark then why were we asked to choose the things that we would like to see in the park?

"The council doesn't seem to care any more. They were full of promises at the time but all we've been left with is lies."

The boys died in a fire which ripped through the former Borders Concrete warehouse in March 1998.

People visiting the memorial are now met with a grey metal fence built around the playpark, and the only publicly accessible area is a green bench on the edge of the park bearing the boys' names.

A Midlothian Council spokesperson said: "As a condition of the planning permission, details of the proposed memorial were submitted by Applecross and approved by the council.

"These details specified a circular metal bench, with a tree planted in the centre. The memorial was also to include a plaque, the wording of which was agreed by the families and by the school. The memorial was constructed in accordance with these details."

However, Midlothian Provost Adam Montgomery, who supported the idea of a memorial park, has challenged his council's official claim and pledged to see the "Residents Only" signs torn down. He said: "I understood that the playpark was the memorial agreed by the parents and the school, and that the bench with the plaques would form just one part of that memorial. I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

It is understood that the fence was erected by Eskbridge factors Charles White Limited following complaints about vandalism. Charles White property manager Sarah Wilson refused to comment.

NEWS: Rosslyn Repairs On The Rocks

2010-07-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 10, 2010, Saturday

REPAIRS to Rosslyn Chapel will be delayed for at least a year following the collapse of the historic chapel's stonemasons.

Stonemasons Hunter Clark, which was founded in 1900 by Glasgow masons Thomas Hunter and William Clark, folded last month leaving around 168 people unemployed.

The £9 million repair work - which was partly funded by a donation from Da Vinci Code star Tom Hanks following the chapel's appearance in the blockbuster - has been left half finished.

The chapel trust will now have to fork out more money in administration fees to find a new contractor to complete the job, and costs may rise even further if the new contractors present them with a higher revised estimate for completion.

Rosslyn had hoped to have the repair work fully completed this month in time for their peak summer season, but they have been forced to re-tender for the remainder of the work and don't expect to have it finished until at least summer 2011.

However, the good news for the chapel is that work on the roof, which has been hidden under canvas for over a decade, had been completed before Hunter Clark folded and it is set to be fully unveiled later this month.

Colin Glynne-Percy, director for the Rosslyn Chapel Trust, said: "The roof has been hidden for around 13 years, well before its profile was raised by the Da Vinci Code so many of the fans of the book will not have seen the chapel in its full glory.

"We have also removed the internal scaffolding that was obscuring the ceiling inside in time for the peak summer season."

The intricately-carved ceiling, made up of rectangles and cubes, has confounded historians for generations. Many have claimed that the ceiling contains some kind of message, and more recent research has put forward the theory that it may be a form of musical notation.

However, photos may have to wait as the floor is still half finished. Visitors were banned from taking photos of the chapel's ancient interior after a number of people tripped or fell while gazing up at the ornate carvings on the ceiling.

Mr Glynne-Percy said: "Overall, work on the chapel is about 50 per cent complete. We had hoped to have it finished by now but it looks like its going to have to wait until next year.

"The previous estimate for the job was £9 million, and we hope the final bill won't be much higher than that."

FEATURE: Help For Haiti

2010-07-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 9, 2010, Friday

'IMAGINE how difficult it would be trying to run Edinburgh when all of the MSPs, councillors, and police were living in tents because their houses and offices had crumbled to the ground," says Sciennes-based charity fund-raiser John Cunningham.

"The Capital would be gone and the whole country would fall apart. There would be no food, no water, dead people piling up...and nowhere to turn for help."

This was exactly the scenario facing relief charity Mercy Corps when they landed in Haiti six months ago in the wake of the devastating earthquake.

Within hours the charity had boots on the ground offering instant aid to thousands of people, and setting up bases that would help in the reconstruction in the months ahead.

"We wouldn't have been able to do it without the support the readers of the Edinburgh Evening News," said Mr Cunningham, director of fund-raising at the charity.

Residents in the Capital raised more than GBP430,000 in the first six months of the Evening News-backed appeal, with more than half of the money spent already on Mercy Corps ongoing projects.

With the money raised Mercy Corps has been able to provide:

Mr Cunningham said: "I deliberately didn't go out there myself as it became clear that we needed someone to stay behind to coordinate the massive fund-raising effort."

However, programme officer Carrie Beaumont, 29, from Granton, was one of the people sent out. She fed regular reports back to headquarters, and the picture she painted was grim.

"All the schools in the city came down and many thousands of people were crushed," said Mr Cunningham.

"We worked closely with the United Nations [UN] but they were badly affected. Their offices collapsed and they lost a large number of their staff."

In the early days of the relief effort many non-governmental organisations [NGOs] were criticised for a reportedly poorly coordinated response to the crisis.

However, Mr Cunningham said that - from the Mercy Corps' point of view at least - this lack of coordination was a symptom of the chaos that the country was in rather than a failing of the aid effort.

Mr Cunningham is full of praise for the people of Edinburgh, who rallied round their locally-based charity to help.

"There was an instant response," he said. "Personal donations came rolling in, and we had six people manning the phones six days a week.

"Amongst the biggest responses we received was from local schools. We put together a Power Point presentation for schools showing photographs about the earthquake, and what we did to help.

"The most interesting questions we got back was from primary school children, who are a lot less reserved than secondary schools so their questions came from the heart. They asked questions like: 'Where are they living now?'; 'What do they have to eat?' and; 'Have any of them lost their arms and legs?', personal questions that many adults might be too sensitive to ask.

"Six months on, the mood in Haiti is resolute. It was already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and before the earthquake many people were depressed and frustrated at the state that the country was in, but now they see it as an opportunity to rebuild the country."

Mr Cunningham pulls out a copy of Mercy Corps six-month report, and points to a quote by 23-year-old displaced student MoÃ¯se Mackendy.

"Before the earthquake I was disappointed with how things were going in Haiti, but now I understand I must be one of the people who will make Haiti different."

HONOURS FOR DONORS

03/01/10 Itihaas restaurant, Dalkeith Charity Night

16/01/10 The Rotary Club of Edinburgh Bhangra Ceilidh GBP 5,200.00

17/01/10 The Rotary Club of Corstorphine Collection GBP 2,000.00

20/01/10 Raj Restaurant, The Shore Fundraising Appeal

23/01/10 Rotary Club of Currie Balerno Airport Collection

23/01/10 Living and Giving charity shop, Stockbridge Donation

27/01/10 Artemis, Melville Street Donation GBP 10,000.00

27/01/10 Zest Restaurant, St Andrew Street Charity Night GBP 610.00

27/01/10 Hair and Image for Men, Andy Murray racquet auction GBP 500.00

27/01/10 RBS / Royal Mail Brussels L'Atelier hotel fundraiser GBP 6,354.00

30/01/10 The Rotary Club of Edinburgh City Centre Collection GBP 5,665.95

31/01/10 The Rotary Club of Edinburgh Jubilee Charity Fund

07/02/10 Traverse Theatre Comedy Fundraiser

07/02/10 The Queen's Hall, Clerk Street Edinburgh Bands Together for Haiti

19/02/10 Cinnamon Indian Restaurant 8.5 stone fish curry auction GBP 500.00

26/02/10 Middle East Festival Donation

28/02/10 The Queen's Hall, Clerk Street Poets For Haiti

25/03/10 HMV Picture House Edinburgh Schools Battle Of The Bands

23/04/10 Voodoo Rooms She-Bang Rave Unit

*where donations were disclosed

FEATURE: Never Mind The Pollocks...Or The Guitars

2010-07-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

Mark McLaughlin
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 9, 2010, Friday

'I JUST like doing certain things and painting and making music are two of them," a bored-looking John Squire once told a television interviewer in his Stone Roses heyday, in between fiddling with his shoelaces. "There's no contest between them."

It doesn't seem like 20 years since his paint splattered album covers and psychedelia-tinged guitars defined a generation, but two decades on those famous riffs that saw him lauded as one of the greatest British guitarists of all time have been silenced. Painting, it seems, has won.

John Squire today unveils his first Edinburgh exhibition, Nefertiti, at The Henderson Gallery on Thistle Street Lane, but Roses fans looking for shades of Jackson Pollock or hoping he'll belt out an impromptu rendition of Waterfall will be disappointed.

"The work is inspired by the music of Miles Davis," he explains. "It wasn't a plan of mine, it just sort of evolved from the work I did for Liberty fabrics and Penguin books.

"Liberty make fabrics for clothes and they asked me to do a couple of designs for them. I was working very graphically at the time for the Penguin book covers and I had a desire to do some stuff in lino print - where you take a sheet of lino and cut designs into it for print making. I was listening to a lot of Miles Davis albums at the time such as Nefertiti and ESP, and a lot of these shapes just occurred to me from listening to the music.

"It was the kind of stuff I used to do at school and it seemed like a good way forward for my latest art works. My mum's still got stuff that I did from before school, so I must have been creating some kind of art from an early age. I see it with my own kids. As soon as they're able to grip a pencil or a crayon they're trying to express themselves visually. It's a shame most kids grow out of that. I don't think I ever have - and I hope I never do."

In a sense Squire has come full circle from his childhood drawings and pre-Roses days as prop-maker with renowned Manchester-based animation house Cosgrove Hall, producers of Wind In The Willows and Dangermouse.

"There's a story going round that I was an animator that I need to clarify," says Squire. "I was the worst animator in the building. I was employed as a prop-maker, making little pots and pans, joints of beef and miniature onions, all on commission. I would sit in my bedroom listening to The Clash and making all of the s*** for kids' television, but it was great experience.

"They took me on full time, which was great. The studio was full of all these old hippies, and I created the first Stone Roses covers in the studio at work. They eventually gave me a shot at animating but I was awful. All of my characters looked like they needed a visit to the chiropracter once I'd got my hands on them."

Clearly Squire's poor grasp of the precision art of stop-frame animation was never going to challenge Nick Park, but he soon branched out into a more expressive form art. The first single cover he created at Cosgrove Hall was So Young/Tell Me, the heavily Clash inspired first single featuring a smashed up radio, but he would soon become known for the paint-splattered Jackson Pollock pastiches that would adorn the Roses greatest work.

"The Pollocks were basically just copies," explains Squire. "I knew we were never going to get the rights to use actual Pollocks on the sleeves but I knew this was the look and the sound I wanted for the Roses.

"A few punk albums used that drip paint effect on their covers. I seem to remember a single by Slaughter Joe and a few Clash posters.

"I was also listening to a lot of Jesus And Mary Chain at the time and wanted to emulate some of their sounds and also express it visually and the splatter paints seemed the best way to do it."

Many will be aghast that Squire has hung up his axe in favour of a paint brush but he's no stranger to confounding expectations.

When fans expected the Roses' Second Coming to come packed with more pop-tinged melodies he dropped an album full of Led Zeppelin riffs, dark lyrics and even darker sleeve to boot.

"The dark Second Coming sleeve was unintentional," admits Squire, before coming up with an even more confounding excuse for an album that was five years in the making. "I painted over the collage and intended to wash some of the paint off but I didn't have time."

Then, just as The Roses seemed to find their stride again, he dropped the bombshell that he was leaving the band to go into the studio with a busker and a couple of session musicians to create the first Seahorses album.

"I don't want to be in some sham of a band for one album before splitting," Squire was quoted as saying a little over a year before the band split after one album.

After the Seahorses he embarked on a fairly low-key solo career which yielded two albums, but by his second album, Marshall's House, featuring songs wholly inspired by American realist painter Edward Hopper, he found his heart being pulled towards his art.

"I did a show in London in 2004 featuring a lot of the old Roses stuff but a lot of that work isn't very big - probably only a few feet wide - so I started to really apply myself to create larger works. After Marshall's House I started to realise that maybe that's where my heart lay."

The only guitars in the new exhibition can be found in the canvas in the form of cryptic looking numbers which are actually inspired by printed guitar tablature of Miles Davis tracks.

"I don't read music so my only way into songs is through guitar tab. I transcribed Davis' trumpet for guitar and used the tab in the paintings." says Squire.

"I'm not much of an art historian either really. Most of my stuff is self-inspired. I think it's the kind of work that rewards really close study. I love a textured surface - something you can actually feel - as I think the analogue is becoming more and more important in a digital world."

Sage words from the man who created some of the last great sleeve covers of the LP generation, before they were eclipsed by the CD - compact in every form including the art - before being all but wiped out altogether by the iPod.

Squire may have created his last album cover but his greatest paintings may be yet to come.

Nefertiti: New Works By John Squire, Henderson Gallery, tomorrow - 19 August, 11am-6pm, www.edinburgh.artfestival.com ***

NEWS: Young Dad In Coma After Blaze

2010-07-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 6, 2010, Tuesday

A YOUNG father has been left fighting for his life after suffering a heart attack when he was pulled from his burning flat by firefighters.

Colin Juner, 27, had to be resuscitated by paramedics after being rescued from the blaze.

Mr Juner, known as Coco to friends, is now understood to be in an induced coma at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

He suffered severe smoke inhalation in the fire, which is thought to have broken out in the kitchen of his flat on South Street, Dalkeith, at around 8am on Sunday.

He was resuscitated on the way to hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest, and ambulance crews said he was conscious and breathing when he arrived at hospital.

Mr Juner is a regular at the nearby Buccleuch Pub, where he is well known to the bar staff.

Friend Tracy Lennon, who works at the bar, said: "He's in hospital in an induced coma at the moment. The hospital said they were going to put him under for three days and see if he improves, but he was in a pretty bad way.

"Everyone in the pub knows him well. He's a nice guy who would do anything for you.

"He was a handyman who could turn his hand to anything, and would take work wherever he could find it.

"We hope he's going to be all right."

Friends said Mr Juner has a three-year-old son, Leon, with his ex-partner Jayde Orme. He is a former pupil of St David's High.

On his Facebook page, Mr Juner said he "lives for the weekends" and loves spending time with his son, who he describes as "my number one".

Friends posted messages of support on his site yesterday.

Cassie Fuller said: "Please pull yourself through Coco. Get better soon."

Mr Juner's flat sits above the Riccio Gallery, an art and picture framing store, which was slightly damaged in the fire.

A spokesman for the gallery said: "He's a nice guy to chat to. I don't know him too well but I know his son comes and stays with him on a fairly regular basis.

"It's extremely fortunate that his son wasn't staying with him that night.

"There wasn't a great deal of damage to the gallery, just a bit of water damage that seeped through from the flat above but it could have been worse."

An ambulance spokeswoman said: "The man was rescued from the property with severe smoke inhalation and had gone into cardiac arrest as a result.

"The crew managed to precipitate the patient on route to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

"This obviously is quite unusual to get that as a result of a fire, especially at that age, although we don't know how long he was exposed to the smoke."

Police said the cause of the fire was not suspicious.

NEWS: Chinese Twitters

2010-07-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 5, 2010, Monday
MARK McLAUGHLIN

POLICE have moved to reassure parents that there are not child snatchers lurking in their area after an internet rumour spread like wildfire.

Panicked parents in Midlothian have fuelled the flames by posting updates on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

It follows an alleged incident in the Homebase car park in Straiton Retail Park, where a woman was reported to be acting suspiciously towards an eight-year-old boy. The youngster's mother later spoke of her fear that she had been trying to entice him into her car.

Police investigated but said they found "no information that can lead to us conclude that an attempt to abduct a child took place".

However, since then there have been several unsubstantiated "sightings" of the same yellow car lurking outside Gorebridge and Bonnyrigg primary schools, Cuicken Primary in Penicuik and Lasswade High.

Facebook and Twitter chat has been buzzing with the rumours, and the Evening News has received several e-mails calling for an investigation. Some even claim that the supposed child snatchers have actually been successful in abducting children.

One man e-mailed to say he heard about the "abductions" from a neighbour who works at Gorebridge Primary.

He said: "Over the past week or so there have been a number of child abductions in the Midlothian area.

"One at Straiton Retail Park, and at primary schools in Gorebridge and Penicuik. Parents are very concerned.

"A young foreign-looking couple are doing the attempted snatches, using a yellow car.

"Only coverage of this is really via Facebook. I think there needs to be more news coverage to alert parents. Everyone is scared and keeping their kids in the house. A lot of people are worried."

Scott Birse, from Buckstone, also claimed schools were being advised to be vigilant following the incident in Straiton.

He said: "There have been two further incidents, I believe in Gorebridge and Penicuik, possibly involving the same couple in a yellow car.

"There seem to be rumours of a further two incidents. This seems quite a big issue. I would like to hear that the police are on the case."

A Lothian and Borders Police spokesman confirmed that their officers responded to an incident on 23 June in the car park of Homebase at Straiton, where a woman was reported to be acting suspiciously.

However, he said they had received no calls about any more sightings, and dismissed the further claims as hearsay.

The spokesman added: "A full investigation has been carried out in respect of [the 23 June] incident, and there is no information that can lead us to conclude that an attempt to abduct a child took place.

"We have received no reports from the public regarding any further incidents of this nature that have taken place in Midlothian. However, we would appeal to anyone who has any information to contact police immediately.

"Lothian and Borders Police and partner agencies are committed to protecting our communities and everyone within them, and we will respond vigorously to any reports where there is a risk to children involved."

NORWAY: "Man eating fish and sea-mammal eating men..."

2010-07-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
2 June 2010, Friday

“I’LL have seal to start and whale for the main course,” I said to the smiling Norwegian waiter, conscious of the fact that this was a phrase I had never uttered before.

Norway is a land of firsts, a genuinely unique place where it’s possible to pack in more exclusive experiences in one long-weekend than you would probably have in a month elsewhere. Majestic landscapes, well-stocked fjords, midnight sun, quirky architecture and taboo menus and are just some of the experiences on offer in Norway this summer.

However, make no mistake that such distinctiveness comes at a price. The Arctic freezes-and-thaws that created the dramatic landscape is evidence that summer temperatures can fluctuate from below freezing to upwards of 30 degrees; the preservation of its centuries old tradition of whaling attracts persistent condemnation from conservationists; while the high taxation that maintains its efficient infrastructure means it’s a very expensive place to eat and, more especially, drink.

The extortionate price of a pint in Norway is, as my friendly tour-guide pointed out in the hope I wouldn’t mention it, probably the only thing that many booze-loving Scots know about this exciting country. However, he did point to a recent survey by Edinburgh-based flights comparison Skyscanner which found that Norway is cheaper than many popular destinations including France, Spain and Italy when factoring in a cup of coffee, beer, meal, accommodation and car hire.

I have to admit that prior to my visit in early June Norway wasn’t top of my travel plans, but after three days sampling some of the best the country has to offer I’ll definitely be back. Shortly after boarding the Wideroe plane to Bergen Airport I decided to learn my first Norwegian.

“Takk means ‘thank you’,” said the attractive blonde air hostess as she handed me a coffee (attractive blondes are an abundant feature in Norway). “Tock,” I replied, to her obvious amusement. “No, Takk!” she said, stifling her giggles. “Took!!” I attempted again before she lost interest and moved on...this was going to require some practice.

Flying over the coast of Bergen was unlike anything I have ever seen. Tiny islands dot the coastline, not so much rising from the sea as appearing to float upon it like moss on a still lake. I disembarked to the most unexpected site – sunshine – which was not entirely unsurprising in a city little more than 400 miles north-west of Edinburgh but remained most welcome on an excursion where I had been advised to pack waterproofs and sturdy shoes. The warm sunshine also allowed me to see much more of those attractive Scandinavian blondes than I had envisioned.

The climate isn’t the only similarity that Bergen shares with Edinburgh. It is home to the centuries-old trading port of Bryygen, a UNESCO World Heritage site which, like our Old Town, features row-upon-row of tightly packed medieval-style housing, but unlike the brick fortresses of the Royal Mile these houses are made out of wood, a tradition that has resulted in them being burnt-down and remade several times.

Bergen has also recently reinstated its tram network after 40 years, to a similarly mixed reception.

“The people are about 50/50 for and against it,” explained our Bergen-By-Expert history guide Eirik Brudvik. “It’s a bit like marriage. Norway has a 50 per cent divorce rate. Norwegian women are very hard to live with. Demanding...but very rewarding,” he added, with a wink.

Bergen’s most famous son is Edvard Grieg, a composer who had only crossed my consciousness as the guy who wrote the soundtrack to Alton Towers and seminal ‘80s platform game Manic Miner over a century before either had been invented. Grieg, of course, is famous for much more than my limited cultural scope and the best place to discover his legacy is at Troldhaugen, Grieg’s former home overlooking the spectacular Lake Nordas which has been preserved for posterity.

Following an overnight stay at the Bergen First Hotel Marin, it was back to the airport and onwards to Tromso, the world’s northernmost city lying 200 miles inside the Arctic Circle.

Tromso isn’t much to look at from the ground. Its architecture is largely grey and functional, with the exception of a few eccentric buildings such as the split-pyramid-shaped Arctic Cathedral and the fallen domino architecture of the Polaria aquarium. However, its real charms become apparent when either looking up at the sky, or looking down on the city from the surrounding peaks.

Tromso is a key destination for viewing two of the world’s most startling natural phenomena – 24-hour-sunshine in the summer and the eerie aurora borealis in the winter.

It is also home to some amazing restaurants including the mountaintop Fjellheisen, which is accessible only by cable-car but worth it to sample the panoramic views of Tromso harbour and perfectly cooked lamb, and the traditional Acatandria Seafood Restaurant which offers up a truly unique Norwegian menu including reindeer, seal and, most controversially, whale meat.

As a fish-allergy sufferer much of the non-mammalian menu was closed to me so it was with relatively little guilt that I took my first bite of seal, which is so abundant that their numbers are regularly culled. After sampling the seal, which tasted a little like rich bacon, I do admit to some trepidation at trying my first whale.

Whale meat tastes like an impossibly lean and tender beef steak, and it soon became clear why these animals are in such high demand in the whaling nations of Scandinavia, Russia and the Far East.

The waiter’s assurances that my minke whale came from a large extended family and was hunted sustainably, with a view to ensuring that only a few hundred more of its unlucky mates would make it onto Norwegian plates, placated my palate but my guilt soon returned when I related my dinner to some horrified friends who reminded me of the inhumane way the animals are hunted – almost exclusively from a canon-fired harpoon.

A visit to Tromso Museum further exacerbated my guilt when I was able to examine a full-size skeleton hanging from the ceiling, and discovered just how mammalian these aquatic creatures are. Its pectoral fins are powered by a five-digit paddle that looks remarkably like a large hand, while its cavernous ribcage, shoulder blades and spine resembles a scaled-up human torso. I’m clearly not the only visitor who has questioned their right to hunt these animals for food, with an interactive poll revealing that 60 per cent of English-speaking visitors would advocate a ban on whaling, compared to a moderate 45 per cent of Norwegian-speaking visitors.

Thankfully, very few whales venture into Lyngen Fjord, around two hours drive from Tromso and home to Lyngsfjord Adventure’s summer fishing expeditions, so I was spared the indignity of having to explain myself to my dinner’s buddies. However, I did encounter an altogether less-elegant but no less controversial animal.

Casting my line to the bottom of the Fjord, it wasn’t long before I felt a powerful tug on the hook. Struggling with the reel, I peered over the starboard side to come face-to-face with a grotesque grinning monster baring a fearsome looking row of teeth. The skipper immediately came to my aid warning me not to go anywhere near its mouth.

“It’s a wolf fish,” exclaimed my excited Lyngsfjord tour guide Morten Pettersen. “Its jaws have a very powerful reflex action that’ll have your hand off, even after it’s been dead for more than an hour. Very tasty though. I’ve never caught one before.”

Morten could barely contain his delight when he learned about my fish allergy and realised I wouldn’t be fighting him to take the beast home (which is prohibited anyway - or so my hungry looking guide claimed). Also, with my whale still giving me moral indigestion, I was in no hurry to sample another increasingly rare delight. The wolf fish, or seawolf, is currently listed on the US National Marine Fisheries Service’s “species of concern” list. Three days in Norway and I had already become a conservationists nightmare.

While I would have no hesitation in returning to Norway it was clearly time to leave, and thankfully the exits were clearly marked. The exit sign above the departure gate door said “Ut” – and after a weekend of high mountains, freezing fjords, man-eating fish and sea-mammal-eating men I was glad to make it “oot” alive.

• Free international flights are available to anyone buying Widerøe’s Explore Norway Ticket between June 22 and August 27 ranging from one-zone for £289; two zones £350; and all three zones, £415, with an additional week costing just £180. Children from two to 11 enjoy a 25 per cent discount when travelling with their parents or grandparents.

FOCUS: Neo's Gallery at Café Renroc

2010-07-04T14:37:00.000-07:00

Neo's Gallery at Café Renroc
89-91 Montgomery Street Edinburgh Midlothian EH7 5HZ 0131 556 0432

Current Exhibition
Edinburgh Digital Photography Meetup Group
Black and White Town

BIOGRAPHY
The Edinburgh Digital Photography Group was founded in March 2009, with the aim of bringing together local people who share an interest in digital photography – members range from beginners to more experienced photographers. We wish to foster a supportive, friendly atmosphere, often meeting up for photo walks or sometimes just for a bit of liquid refreshment and conversation in a local bar.

Our work has a wide range including landscapes, local events, portraiture, wildlife and botanical photography. If you wish to join us, please have a look at our website. Here we display the results of our work together, swap ideas, run competitions and organise our meetings.

This is our first exhibition and we have chosen to run with the theme of ‘Black and White Town’ which has given members a fantastic opportunity to exhibit their interpretations and perspectives on town and urban life. All pictures are on sale for £30 each. If you wish to purchase, please contact a member of Cafe Renroc staff.

Visit The Edinburgh Digital Photography Meetup Group’s website by clicking on this link:

The Edinburgh Digital Photography Meetup Group

NEWS: Libraries switch on to electronic lending with eBook scheme

2010-07-04T14:34:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 2, 2010, Friday

FLICKING through well-thumbed and yellowing paperbacks could soon be a thing of the past as Edinburgh libraries prepare to roll out their first electronic lending scheme.

With so-called eBooks becoming more popular, the city's libraries will soon be offering a wide range of books to download for a short spell.

Library members will be able to access the library catalogue remotely through the new YourLibrary online portal, and when the rental period expires the book will simply disappear from their device. The system removes the need to physically borrow and return books, and the automatic deletion removes the misery of overdue fees.

Liz McGettigan, the city council's head of libraries and information services, said: "Most people are getting into technology these days and this is something that our libraries have been keeping up with.

"People who buy books in bookshops are the same people who borrow from libraries and, in the same way, those that buy eBooks online would also consider borrowing them for a short-term download.

"It's early days yet as we've had a few technical difficulties getting the system up and running, but there's no rush because eBooks are still in their infancy.

"It's a bit like the battle between VHS and Betamax videos. There are so many different formats out there with no agreed standard, so producing something that works for everyone is still a bit off.

"The eBook system is just a part of our new virtual library portal, which is really easy to use and makes it simple for new people to join the library and browse our catalogue.

"We've now got one of the most innovative interactive library portals in Scotland, which is pretty amazing.

"However, it definitely won't spell the end of books altogether. We will always stock paperback and hardback books because people will always want to read them in this format, regardless of whatever new technology comes along."

As well as offering the service for eBook readers the portal will be available on any computer browser and some books will also be available in MP3 format, for audio book download on to an iPod or similar device.

Jim Thompson, the city's digital and information manager, said: "The cost of eBooks will be about 20 per cent of the cost of the money we're currently spending on audio books.

"The books are bought in by publication and there are restrictions in place on the browser to prevent people just cutting-and-pasting them into a word- processing file and keeping them for good."

A small selection of books are now available for download from the Bloomsbury Publications catalogue, accessible through the portal, with current titles including Sheila Hancock's memoir of her life with Inspector Morse actor John Thaw, entitled The Two of Us, and model-author-celebrity chef Sophie Dahl's novel Playing With The Grown Ups.

Librarians hope to have more than 50 titles online by the end of the year.

NEWS: Parents locked out of park built in children's memory

2010-07-04T14:33:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
July 1, 2010, Thursday

THE parents of two children who died in a horrific warehouse fire have been locked out of a playpark built in their memory.

Donna Hume and Catherine Craig campaigned for years to see a country park built over the site of a derelict warehouse in Penicuik where their boys Blair Easton, 11, and Craig Quinn, 12, died in 1998.

Midlothian Council, however, decided to award the site to private housebuilder Applecross Homes to create the new Eskbridge Estate, which was completed last year.

As a concession, the council insisted that a memorial be written into the plans and the families agreed on a playpark.

However, Craig's mother Catherine was horrified when she visited the park and was turned away by a sign warning that it was for "Eskbridge residents use only".

She said: "This was a memorial park for the boys so friends and family could visit but they have now put up sign up saying residents only.

"Although it's been over ten years it's still affecting us all."

Donna Hume, who is divorced from Blair's father Derek Easton and now lives in Tranent, added: "It's sickening that they've locked everyone out of the park except for the residents of these shiny new houses.

"Blair would have been 23 this year and getting to the age where he may have been thinking about having children himself.

"Some of his classmates have children of their own now and I'm sure they would have enjoyed taking their children down there."

The whole community was left in shock when the boys died in the fire which ripped through the former Borders Concrete warehouse in March 1998.

People visiting the memorial are now met with a grey metal fence built around the playpark, and the only publicly accessible area is a green bench on the edge of the park bearing the boys' names.

Two plaques on the bench read: "Full of fun and mischief and memories of Blair Easton (11) and Craig Quinn (12) who will live on through all those who knew and laughed with them."

A spokeswoman for the site's estate agents Strutt & Parker said the purpose of the park appeared to have been "lost in translation" when developer Applecross went into administration last year, and referred inquiries to the site's current factors, Charles White Limited.

Charles White property manager Sarah Wilson refused to comment.

Midlothian Provost Adam Montgomery, who has been a local councillor in the area since before the boys' deaths and supported the idea of a memorial park on the site, has now written to the council's chief executive to find a way to tear these signs down and open the park up to the public.

He said: "I have asked for an investigation into what has happened here and a look at the agreements we received when we permitted this development to go ahead.

"However, even if there wasn't any agreement to keep this park open to the public I will aim to get it reopened, because it's not right that relatives and friends of the youngsters are not allowed to gain access to it."

NEWS: Ex-Marine is gunning for world record

2010-07-04T14:32:00.001-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 30, 2010, Wednesday

IT'S a world record attempt that has a touch of the Buck Rogers about it.

Eighteen gamers will strap on their body armour and zap each other with ray guns for at least 24 hours to raise money for a host of local charities.

Portobello gaming arcade Dark Ocean hopes to hold the world's longest game of "laser tag" on Sunday.

The game involves kitting out gamers with light-sensitive targets and laser guns.

The stunt has never been attempted before, and if it is successful it will involve players battling it out without a break for a minimum of 24 hours.

The event is the brainchild of new Dark Ocean owner Ronald Gray, 35, from Leith.

The former Royal Marine swapped his rifle for ray guns when he took over the business two months ago.

He said: "We're raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support because one of my managers had cancer.

"As an ex-Royal Marine the forces charity Help for Heroes is also close to my heart, while my daughter is currently receiving treatment at the Sick Kids hospital, so we're raising money for the Friends Foundation.

"Some of the money will also go to Barnardo's and the Lothian Autistic Society."

Edinburgh East MSP Kenny MacAskill, who as justice secretary has launched several crackdowns on guns, will reveal that he has no objection to ray guns when he launches the event at 3pm on Sunday.

Mr MacAskill said: "I am pleased to be invited along.

"Although I have little experience of laser gaming, I am delighted to support a local event and raise some much-needed cash for a number of charities."

The bid will also receive support from the Edinburgh Wolves American football team.

Mr Gray said he had not set a fundraising target, but was committed to raising as much money as possible.

He said: "When you set a target there is the temptation for people to stop giving when the target is reached, so I've left it open."

He added that the business had been "flourishing" since he took over.

The arcade was at the centre of controversy when it opened in late 2007 after police warned it could become a "flashpoint venue" for rival gangs from Craigentinny/Lochend and Portobello/Northfield.

However, Mr Gray said fighting had never been a problem and the only battles that take place happen with fake weapons inside the building.

He said: "Before I took the business over I was a regular visitor and I never noticed any trouble at all.

"One of the locals who objected to the plans at the time is actually a frequent visitor now. She loves the place."

NEWS: Branching out on our own will Bia thrill

2010-07-04T14:31:00.001-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 30, 2010, Wednesday

A HUSBAND and wife chef team who have worked in a string of Michelin-starred restaurants around the world - including Gordon Ramsay's eateries in New York - are set open their first Edinburgh bistro.

Matthias Llorente and his wife Roisin have recently taken over a branch of The Olive Branch Bistro, in Colinton Road, after the owners of decided to downsize for family reasons.

The Llorentes will shortly rename their restaurant Bia Bistrot, promising a menu stocked with fresh, seasonal and locally sourced produce.

Mr Llorente, 32, from Grenoble in south-eastern France, said: "I met Roisin in Scotland ten years ago and we've since travelled the world, working in restaurants and gaining experience.

"We've been back about a year now and we're keen to get going with our own business. This is our first self-run restaurant but we've been working in the industry for more than 15 years.

"We will continue to run it as The Olive Branch Bistro for the time being, but hope to have it fully rebranded in August."

The name of their new bistro harks back to the days when it was known as Bistrot Des Arts - said to have been a favourite of Rebus author Ian Rankin.

Roisin, 31, from Donegal in Ireland, was most recently sous-chef in the double Michelin-starred Gordon Ramsay At The London, in New York, while Matthias held the same post at Ramsay's other New York restaurant, Maze.

Roisin has also held senior kitchen posts in Michelin-starred restaurants Michael Deane, in Belfast, and L'Ecrivain, in Dublin. Matthias has worked in the double Michelin-starred Domaine de Chateauvieux in Geneva.

The couple met while working in the kitchen of Edinburgh's Sheraton Grand Hotel in 2000.

The Llorentes will fill the void left by Stuart and Kerry Thom who have been forced to close two of their three Olive Branch Bistros after Mrs Thom contracted meningitis.

Their George IV Bridge branch is also closing along with the branch in Colinton, and they will instead focus their attentions on their original Broughton Street branch as well devoting more time to their three children and allowing Mrs Thom to make a full recovery.

Mr Thom said: "Kerry was really ill recently and although she's getting better we've decided to make things a little easier on ourselves.

"Trying to run a business while looking after three children is a tough job at the best of times, but there's only the two of us and with Kerry being ill we thought it was time to refocus.

"The Broughton bistro is still going strong."

NEWS: Fire victim's fiancé tells of torment

2010-07-04T14:29:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 29, 2010, Tuesday

THE former fiancé of a mum-of-three who died in a house fire said he is distraught that they won't get the chance to patch up their relationship.

Tommy Simpson has set up tribute websites to Angela Campbell, who died in the ferocious fire at her three-bedroom home in the Dedridge area of Livingston during the early hours of Saturday morning.

Miss Campbell, a former James Young High School pupil, had three children - Jordan, five, Ryan, two, and Mia, one - who were only spared because they were staying with relatives.

Mr Simpson wrote on the sites: "We were going to get back together. Ang, in my eyes you will always be my woman.

"The kids are totally great and missing you loads, but I know you are going to be with them every minute of every day.

"Everyone knows that Ang and I had our ups and downs just like everyone else and that we were engaged.

"At the end of the day she was always there for me and I was always there for her."

Mr Simpson was too upset to speak when contacted by the Evening News.

He has transformed Miss Campbell's former Facebook and Bebo sites into tribute pages, where friends have been leaving messages since her death.

Friend Leigh Doherty said: "You treasure those babies of yours. Spoil them even more now and remind them of mummy every day. Chin up Tommy. Try to be strong."

Miss Campbell had recently signed up for a college course at Stevenson College, to do adult learning classes in English, maths and information technology. She was also looking forward to a holiday in Magaluf with her friends next year.

Her site also reveals she was an indie and dance music fan, and a Rangers supporter.

Friends and neighbours were still stopping yesterday to lay flowers at her doorstep.

Isabell Martin, 70, who lives close to Angela's parents, said: "She was such a lovely young girl, it is really so sad for the mum and dad, and for the little kids.

"I know her family are taking it very hard, especially her dad Paul: I don't think he's coping too well. No wonder, though: no parent should ever have to say goodbye to their child."

A spokeswoman for Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue said that police and fire investigation teams are still trying to establish the cause of the blaze.

The spokeswoman added that council teams would decide whether the damage was severe enough to require demolition.

NEWS: Paolozzi Revisted

2010-07-04T14:28:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 28, 2010, Monday

A BOLD mural based on the work of renowned Edinburgh artist Eduardo Paolozzi could soon grace the playground of his old school.

Leith Walk Primary School is planning its first major celebration of the artist, who attended the school in the 1920s, with a massive painting on the back wall of a neighbouring two-storey building.

The mural looks similar to one of Paolozzi's famous colourful collages, on a massive scale, with geometric shapes and images drawn from fashion magazines, such as a high-heeled shoe, a make-up compact and a model with an oversized head.

Leith marketing firm Newhaven Communications has donated the wall, which overlooks the school playground, to honour the artist.

Head teacher Stewart Crabb said: "The playground is a bit of a concrete jungle at the moment, so we were looking for some sort of community project to revive it and make it a bit more lively.

"Paolozzi is an ex-pupil of the school, so we thought it would be a good idea to celebrate his work.

"Newhaven came up with the idea of creating a big mural on the wall, so we are hoping to do some fundraising in the near future to pay for it.

"It's such a massive painting, the size of a whole building. If we get the go-ahead, we will move to the fundraising stage. Newhaven has donated its time so we'll only have to pay for the paints."

Paolozzi was born in 1924 to Italian immigrant parents in Leith.

After beginning his education at Leith Walk School and Holy Cross Academy, he went on to attend evening classes at the Edinburgh College of Art.

During his time at ECA, as well as learning drawing and stone-cutting, he began to fill scrapbooks with images cut from magazines - a habit that was eventually to make him one of the fathers of Pop Art.

He was made a CBE in 1968, elected to the Royal Academy in 1979 and knighted in 1989.

His best-known work in the city is The Manuscript of Monte Cassino - the three-piece sculpture sited outside St Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral on York Place that includes a giant hand and foot. The Dean Gallery also hosts an exact replica of his art studio.

Mr Crabb added: "We've not really had the chance to do anything like this before.

"We would love to display some of his art at the school, but I would imagine it's worth a fortune now, so it will be a bit beyond our means.

"This will be the first major project we've undertaken to mark his time at the school."

NEWS: Defunct School Gets New Lease of Life

2010-07-04T14:26:00.002-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 25, 2010, Friday

A MYSTERY bidder is planning to run a new school in the building left vacant by the collapse of St Margaret's, it emerged today.

Parents fighting to save the school from closure have admitted defeat after they failed to raise enough money to take it over, but they have now turned their attention to other bids to resurrect parts of the campus for future use.

An announcement on the Save St Margaret's School Campaign website revealed there was at least one other bid which will include the school buildings as well as the nursery.

Val Devlin, who had two girls in the junior school and chaired the St Margaret's School Parents and Friends Association, said: "All that we know is that bids were taken for St Hilary House nursery, that the bids closed on Tuesday evening, and that they're currently under consideration.

"We also know that one of the bidders is interested in purchasing the junior school building with a view to setting up an entirely new junior school.

"However, the parents won't be involved in that, it will be a totally private bid, and the logistics of it all means that nothing will be in place for August."

St Margaret's looked after children's education right through their childhood and adolescent years, from three months to 18 years.

St Hilary House, which is subject to several bids, catered for three months up to five years.

However, it is the junior school building, which catered for ages five to 11, that is the subject of the new combined bid.

Ms Devlin said: "The are several bids for the nursery, which is being sold as a going concern as it's still a viable business.

"However, we know that there is one bid for the junior school building, but not for the actual school business which has now been liquidated.

"All of the teachers have been made redundant and most of the pupils have now been found other schools.

"If this gentleman's bid is accepted he will be setting up a brand new junior school for ages five to 11.

"We know that he has a chain of nurseries already and is looking to expand.

"However, we don't know the identity of this person and we don't expect to be told in advance by KPMG.

"KPMG have been as helpful as they can be under the circumstances, as they will obviously be operating under certain legal constraints regarding how much they can say.

"I've now found alternative schools for my girls and most people have been sorted, although not all of them which is obviously a cause for concern.

"However, if the old St Margaret's junior school is taken over in good time, and it offers a good service, then I would consider taking my children back there."

No-one from KPMG could be contacted for comment.

NEWS: Modern Art

2010-07-04T14:26:00.001-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 24, 2010, Thursday

AN UNDERGROUND gallery with a modern glass entrance is set to be created at Edinburgh College of Art.

Plans for the expansion, which will include a plastercast of "Winged Nike" to welcome visitors, have been lodged with the city council.

But they look sure to prove controversial, with critics saying the result would be an "incongruous add on" akin to the Usher Hall extension and planned expansion of Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

A college spokeswoman said the extension would offer new opportunities for showcasing art and design in Edinburgh. "We are also looking to improve the streetscape on Lauriston Place," she said.

"The main college building is really set back from the street, and it can be quite daunting for new students coming here for the first time."

However, Paul Beswick, chair of Tollcross Community Council, said

: "The Art College was designed with the red sandstone to fit in with the important fire station next door and this spoils the attractive look of the two buildings.

"This is the third application for an incongruous add on.

"The Usher Hall has a totally inappropriate add on to the side. The plans have been approved for another glass 'lean to' on the side of the Conference Centre, which is a truly iconic building.

"I won't be able to comment fully until I've seen all of the plans, but on first impression I would say that this type of detraction from important buildings should be resisted."

The Usher Hall glass extension - finally opened to the public in February after years of delays - attracted criticism from Edinburgh World Heritage Trust and The Royal Fine Art Commission for Scotland for its "awkward" design.

The proposed expansion of the EICC, which was expected to be given final approval today after a similarly protracted planning wrangle, has also been attacked by the Cockburn Association.

But the college spokeswoman rejected Mr Beswick's criticisms, stating that the ECA building "wasn't particularly old or historic".

She said: "Lauriston Place already has quite a lot of modern architecture, particularly in the new Quartermile development across the road.

"The college building itself has only been around for the last 50 years or so, and there's also quite an untidy looking car park out front which doesn't particularly enhance the street or the college.

"We did an exhibition a couple of years ago where we invited the community council along, and they said they would be really interested to find out more about the college, and work with us on future projects, so we would be happy to have their input on the current plans."

A spokesman for the ECA's architects, Oliver Chapman, said the vision for the new building is to "create a real street presence for the college and encourage access by the general public".

He added: "The extensive use of glass conveys a sense of openness and offers enticing views into the gallery space below.

"The principal stair extends into the gallery proper and draws the visitor into this space.

"The imposing plastercast of the 'Winged Nike' stands as a sentinel and draws the eye to the gallery entrance and acts as a gateway to the college campus."

NEWS: Parking Meters RIP?

2010-07-04T14:24:00.002-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 24, 2010, Thursday

PARKING meters in Edinburgh are set to be phased out to make way for a "cashless parking" system letting drivers pay with their mobile phone and credit card.

The city council is currently consulting on the new RingGo system, which will end the practice of buying a ticket to stick on the windscreen.

Instead, traffic wardens will be able to check a car has paid to be in a particular space with a handheld computer. The scheme is currently in operation in private parking bays at the Travelodge in St Mary's Street, as well as several cities throughout the UK.

It could result in the number of cash meters being reduced, meaning people who are unwilling or unable to pay by credit card may have further to walk to buy a ticket.

A council spokesman said: "The scheme uses location identification as a means of knowing what vehicles have paid to park in a street. This requires handheld devices to be able to communicate with a central database using real-time information.

"It allows for users to extend their stay. However, one issue that will need to be addressed is the fact that we have different maximum stay periods for parking bays throughout the city. The cost of an initial payment at a machine will be the same whatever the method of payment."

He said there would be no cost to the council in setting up the scheme as it would be included in the contract with NSL, which currently provides the city's parking attendants.

The attendants will have a handheld device with a readout showing all of the bays in the street, with details of the make, model and number plate of the cars that have paid to park there.

If the traffic warden sees a car which is not on the list, a parking ticket would be issued.

RingGo differs from the current mPark system, which uses the ticket machine to print a pay and display voucher which has to be displayed on the vehicle.

The spokesman said the system would end the trade in "black market tickets", whereby kind-spirited drivers give tickets to other drivers if they still have time left on them.

However, he added that the scheme was less about maximising revenues and more about making parking more convenient. Tim Cowen, director of communications at NSL, said: "I can't remember the last time I used a parking meter in London. It's a really good system, and really convenient.

"It makes it easier for the driver - you don't have to run to the shop to get change. You just phone the hotline, give your details and Bob's your uncle."

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Note down the unique identification number on your parking bay.

* Phone the hotline and give the make, colour and registration number of your car.

* Pay by credit card or have the charge added to your prearranged RingGo account.

* Note down time restrictions on the bay. Drivers can top up remotely provided they do not exceed the time limit.

* Traffic wardens will receive real-time updates of which cars have paid to occupy each space.

* If a car is parked in a space that doesn't appear on the warden's list a ticket will be issued.

NEWS: Bid To Rebuild Bar Where Hero Firefighter Died

2010-07-04T14:24:00.001-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 23, 2010, Wednesday

THE pub that was destroyed in the blaze which killed firefighter Ewan Williamson is set to be rebuilt and may even include a tribute to the fallen hero.

Plans have been submitted to restore The Balmoral, on Dalry Road, almost a year after the pub was gutted by flames.

Owner Trust Inns intends to restore it to its original design, while discussions have also been held about creating a memorial to the 35-year-old.

Ewan is already honoured with a plaque at Lothian's fire HQ on Lauriston Place and the Evening News has been running a campaign for him to be awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal.

A spokesman for planning agent Sludden Design, which is involved in rebuilding the bar, said: "I know there were some discussions about putting in some kind of tribute to Ewan Williamson, but I'm not sure how advanced these discussions are.

"The process to reinstate the bar has only now just begun. It's still in the same condition it was in following the fire a year ago.

"We have now made the planning application and building control warrant for the reinstatement of the bar, and are awaiting clearance by the council.

"All of the drawings have been submitted and we're in the process of tendering someone to do the work."

Ewan was among the team of firefighters that rescued more than 20 people, including a baby, from the flats above The Balmoral in the early hours of 12 July last year before he lost his life.

A police investigation to determine the cause of the blaze is ongoing.

A spokeswoman for the Crown Office said: "We can confirm that the procurator fiscal in Edinburgh received a report into the death of Ewan Williamson.

"The investigation by Lothian and Borders Police and HSE, under the direction of the procurator fiscal, is ongoing. No decision has been taken regarding proceedings."

All of the tenants rescued that day have been rehoused, following a short period in council temporary accommodation.

A council spokesman said: "The council involvement was minimal beyond rehousing the tenants for a short space of time and ensuring that the building had been made safe.

"All of the flats above The Balmoral were private lets but we understand that the tenants have all now found alternative accommodation."

A spokeswoman for Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue said: "We will be working with The Balmoral to ensure that the reinstated pub does not contain any fire risks, but not to any greater extent than we would with any other commercial property."

Trust Inns declined to comment.

NEWS: Burglar's Paradise

2010-07-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 22, 2010, Tuesday

A JEWELLER is being forced to remove security shutters he put up after a spate of attempted break-ins - because they do not have planning permission.

Mohammed Aslam, owner of Aslam Jeweller on Leith Walk, said his store had been targeted by thieves several times.

However, he failed to secure proper planning permission, and as a result an enforcement notice has been issued ordering him to take the shutters down.

Mr Aslam has now applied for retrospective permission to keep the shutters in place, but his hopes have been dealt a severe blow after city planners recommended his application be refused on the grounds shutters "do no preserve or enhance the character and appearance of the Leith conservation area".

Mr Aslam's planning consultant Derek Scott said: "We obviously disagree with the planners' assertion that the shutters have an adverse effect on the conservation area. Contrary to the planning officers' views it is actually an improvement to the character of the area, and there are plenty of other roller shutters on the street. They are an established part of Leith Walk.

"There's a fundamental requirement for some form of security on the premises but the council has served an enforcement notice which will effectively leave us without any.

"Due to structural pillars it's not possible to mount the shutters internally, as the council would prefer, and a removable metal grille is not an option for a jewellers because it does not protect the glass. Therefore, we hope the elected members will support us in our application to keep this premises secure."

Mr Aslam is calling on councillors at tomorrow's planning committee to take into account a 34-name petition and nine letters from neighbouring businesses in support of the roller shutters, and reject the recommendation of head of planning John Bury to refuse the retrospective planning permission.

Mr Bury said: "Taking into account the supporting statement and letters of support for this development, it is still considered that the solid roller shutter and external projecting housing fail to preserve or enhance the character and appearance of the conservation area.

"The roller shutter and external projecting housing do not comply with the development plan and non-statutory guidelines. Neither the character nor appearance of the conservation area is preserved or enhanced by the development. It is recommended that the committee refuses the proposal."

Leith Business Association's Gordon Burgess sympathised with Mr Aslam's plight but said: "Rules are there for a reason. I've spoken to the owner and he's now aware he should have gone down the appropriate road. Despite the fact he's running a jewellers and needs security, he must abide by the law."

NEWS: Tam White RIP

2010-07-04T14:21:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 22, 2010, Tuesday
1 Edition

TRIBUTES were today paid to legendary bluesman, reluctant actor and great-grandfather Tam White.

Considered one of Europe's greatest blues singers, Mr White was a fixture of the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival and played on the same stage as some of the world's famous musicians.

Friends said he had recently returned from a holiday in the Canary Islands, and collapsed yesterday after a trip to a health club. The 68-year-old was a heavy smoker, and suffered from emphysema.

Neil Warden, who had played guitar with him since the mid-1980s, said: "I'm devastated but he's left us with some very happy memories. He was the kind of guy that would always perform no matter what health he was in. I played a gig with him about six weeks ago and he was on form.

"He used to keep his work and his family separate but he doted on his grandchildren.

"A 100 per cent professional who always put on a good show, he was a true legend."

Mr White supported a string of stars including BB King, Al Green, Van Morrison, James Taylor, Paul Jones and Charlie Musselwhite, as well as fronting The Tam White Band in a sell-out week of shows at the prestigious Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London in the 1990s.

Despite acting alongside Mel Gibson in Braveheart, Geena Davis in Cutthroat Island and turning down a role with Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as making a string of TV appearances in everything from Rebus to River City, Mr White was reluctant to call himself an actor. "I'm always a bit suspect to call myself that," he told the Evening News last year.

Mr White was born in 1948 and brought up in the Grassmarket, where he lived till age 13 when the family moved to Saughtonhall. His mother, Marion, and grandmother, Agnes Sim, enjoyed singing and his great-grandfather was bandmaster in Gilmerton.

He completed a five-year apprenticeship in stonemasonry for James Turner's in Gorgie upon leaving school at 15, but found his true calling after hearing the Ray Charles hit What'd I Say on the car radio while hitch-hiking through Holland in a kilt at the age of 18.

He formed The Boston Dexters in Edinburgh in 1964 and, following a record deal with Columbia Records, moved to London to begin a six-month residency at the Pontiac Club in Putney alongside the legendary John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, featuring Eric Clapton on guitar. The band split after around three years and Mr White went solo.

He got his first acting break in 1987 when he provided the voiceover for Robbie Coltrane's Big Jazza in the BAFTA award-winning BBC TV series, Tutti Frutti, in 1987.

Fiona Alexander, producer of the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, had known him since his days on Tutti Frutti.

She said: "We're all devastated. I was only talking to him a week and a half a ago about the jazz festival. He was in fighting spirit. He had a fantastic way of delivering a song which showed that it came from the heart.

"We're going to let things settle for a few days and then start thinking about what we can do for a tribute. His musical presence and wonderful personality are irreplaceable."

Tommy Smith, artistic director and leader of the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, said: "All of the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra are devastated, shocked and saddened by the news of Tam White's demise.

"A voice much missed already."

DIGEST: 28 June 2010

2010-06-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

Today I listened to...

READING: Endorsement

2010-06-26T11:03:00.001-07:00

Received a very welcome endorsement from Jean Sasson following my review of her book Growing Up Bin Laden:

"Hi Mark, Thanks for your very insightful comments on Growing Up Bin Laden.
"As someone who became quite close to my hero/heroine, I think you have very precisely hit the nail on the head.
"Cheerio, Jean Sasson."

It's good to know I'm not shouting into a void. Cheers, Jean.

PAINTING: Pollocks

2010-06-26T10:57:00.001-07:00

Today I painted...

READING: Sasson & Bin Ladin: Growing Up Bin Laden

2010-06-25T04:14:00.000-07:00

Jean Sasson with Najwa & Omar Bin Laden
Growing Up Bin Laden: Osama’s Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World
2009

THOSE that maintain fictional novels more entertaining or diverting than non-fiction – particularly “heavy” non-fiction on terrorism, Islam and geopolitics – should read Growing Up Bin Laden.

There are those who would never consider reading a book with Bin Laden’s name on the cover, but think nothing of devouring Khaled Hosseini’s fictional Afghan tales The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns because they saw them on Richard & Judy.

Growing Up Bin Laden seems tailor-made for such reading groups. It looks, feels and reads like a Hosseini novel and confirms that many of his semi-fictional plot devices [coming of age in an Afghan war zone / dodging male-rape gangs / living with an austere and abusive husband and father] to be based in fact.

“There was a sickening incident when [my friend]...was abducted and brutally gang raped. The rapists added insult to injury by snapping photographs of the young man during and after the rape.

“Those damning photographs ended up in the hand of Dr. [Ayman] Zawahiri, the leader of the al-Jihad group [and later founder member of Al-Qaida]. Zawahiri was incensed, believing that the young teenage boy was somehow at fault. There were pictures to prove it! In our world, sex between men is punishable by death...He was arrested by the group leaders, put on trial, and condemned to death.” (Omar Bin Laden)

“My brothers and I all suffered from asthma...but my father was adamant that we should not take modern prescription drugs, no matter how serious our affliction...
“After only a month in Jalalabad, [Osama] announced that we were travelling to Tora Bora [the Bin Ladins’ Afghan mountain home with a name that means ‘Black Dust’].

“I was foolish not to have sneaked my medicine past my father, for my breathing difficulties were becoming worse with each passing day...Once when gasping, I though I caught the scent of grave dirt. I was ready to trade my share of the bin Laden mountain for a single puff from my inhaler.” (Omar)

I read this book looking for some semblance of humanity in Bin Laden, the man who orchestrated the murder of 2,976 people in New York and many more elsewhere under the pretence of protecting his home and allies from foreign influence and spreading his religion with missionary zeal, aims which are not too dissimilar from warmongering fundamentalists in the USA, Israel and other countries that the UK regards as allies rather than terrorists.

However, in Growing Up Bin Laden I failed to find a modern-day Saladin defending Islam from modern day Crusaders, but a sociopath who used his money, family connections, influence and war-hero status to bend people to his own warped worldview.

Najwa Bin Laden, the first of Osama’s five wives [arguably six if you count one “unconsummated” annulment], introduces her cousin Osama as a quiet, surly and serious teenager. Her love for him is palpable throughout the book and she refuses to criticise him directly, but her insights and those of her favourite son Omar, who is less reserved with his criticism, reveal the inner-rage that would turn Osama into a monster.

Critics of Islam should note that in this book Osama’s rage against the world doesn’t appear rooted in his fanatical religious devotion, although this undoubtedly plays a part, but in a complex psychology and dysfunctional family background similar to many other run-of-the-mill sociopaths. Osama comes across as an unappreciated war hero and bitter exile, harbouring resentment of being both an unloved middle-child and product of an abandoned single-mother*. If he grew up in America he would be Rambo [the original “don’t push me or I’ll give you a war” psycho in First Blood rather than the anaemic hero of the sequels], but equally if he grew up in Kilmarnock he’d be skinning up joints in The Scheme before signing up to the army to shoot “rag-heads”

*Osama is 18th son of 22 sons and 23 daughters born to Mohammed Bin Laden, and the only child from Mohammed’s short lived marriage to Allia Ghanem. Following his role in Afghanistan’s expulsion of Russia in the 1980s Osama was welcomed back to Saudi Arabia as a war hero, but soon exiled to Sudan for his objection to the USA’s protection of the kingdom in the first Gulf War, and later back to Afghanistan when he was subsequently kicked out by the Sudanese.

DIGEST: 23 June 2010

2010-06-23T17:11:00.000-07:00

Today I listened to:

BBC Radio Scotland: Old Hack, New Tricks
"Newsgathering is not what it used to be. Once upon a time newspaper journalists used to find their stories by getting out and about, pounding the streets, knocking on doors, and getting tip offs from ordinary people. Now they sit in offices peering at computer terminals. But which method delivers the best stories?"

It was good to hear from Jim Rougvie again (an old colleague from my Dundee Courier days), although I thought the young BBC lad was in for a bit of an unfair fight. Jim's an old hand but the BBC lad wasn't just less experienced at newsgathering, he didn't seem to know his way around the Internet either. There's more to Internet newsgathering than a few tweets and a glance at the council website.

DIGEST: 21 June 2010

2010-06-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Daily Digest
21 June 2010

I've decided to start a new digest of my own daily reading. Like the book reviews in the Personal Reading section, it should give an idea of what I'm reading when I'm not reporting on Edinburgh. Given that I don't get much time to read these articles while I'm busy writing others, let alone blog them, I'll need to see how regularly I can keep this up.

General Franco gave list of Spanish Jews to Nazis (The Guardian)

It was the list that would have sent thousands more Jews to their deaths in Auschwitz and other extermination camps run by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime during the second world war, but this time the victims were to be Spaniards.

Israel bows to pressure and agrees to ease Gaza blockade (The Guardian)

Israel agreed tonight to a significant easing of its blockade of Gaza, under intense pressure from the international community after its deadly interception last month of boats attempting to break the siege.

Plan to pump water into Dead Sea makes environmentalists see red (The Guardian)

The gradual disappearance of the Dead Sea has alarmed environmentalists, industrialists and tourist authorities for years. It has been caused mainly by three countries – Israel, Jordan and Syria – diverting an astonishing 98% of its source, the once-surging Jordan river, to provide water for their citizens.

NEWS: Costly "Rolls Royce repairs" on Edinburgh houses

2010-06-21T14:01:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 21, 2010, Monday

THERE have been calls for an inquiry into whether the city council is over-using its powers to force repairs on properties - after it emerged almost £30 million worth of work is currently underway in the city.

The Capital is in the unique position of being able to hire contractors to carry out urgent work and then recover the cost from residents or businesses. The statutory notices are often issued when repairs need to be carried out to tenement properties where several owners are involved.

All other authorities have to carry out such repair work from their own budgets so while Edinburgh has 800 contracts ongoing worth £28 million, the rest of Scotland only has £1.3 million.

While the council said the special legislation is designed to "save the built environment of the city", Labour councillor Ewan Aitken said there were now too many cases causing "severe difficulties for staff and extreme distress for residents".

He said: "I have six cases in my ward where there has been a huge variation between estimates and actual cost, and in each case residents feel they have no say on how their money is being spent.

"In one case a few thousand pounds rose to over £250,000.

"Statutory notices are a tool to help maintain the built environment of our historic city in good condition but work loads across the city are causing huge problems for staff.

"This means that communication breaks down, residents feel ignored whilst costs go up and no one ends up happy with the outcome."

Councillor Aitken added: "I don't blame the staff.

"They have an impossible job without the resources to do the task they have been given. A fundamental review is needed."

Councillor Aitken is set to forward a motion calling on the council to recognise the heavy burden of the statutory notice policy, and conduct a full review of the process.

The Labour councillor's call was echoed by the SNP's Stefan Tymkewycz, who has also questioned the existing process.

He said he received many complaints from Edinburgh residents regarding work carried out by the council's building conservation department through statutory notices.

A recent case came to light when the councillor was overseeing work being carried out on a community centre and when he questioned an item of work on the schedule costing GBP 1,368, he said it was removed from the schedule because it was "a mistake".

Councillor Tymkewycz said: "Through my own limited experience of the building trade I understood the technical jargon quoted on the schedule of works and spotted this item on the schedule and questioned it.

"I am left wondering if this and other items of work on this specific job were not challenged if these costs running into thousands of pounds would have been included in the final bill and how widespread are these 'mistakes' made?"

Cllr Tymkewycz also said that some of the complaints he receives refer to work that appears over priced and will be seeking a review of the tendering process to ensure that residents are receiving value for money.

A council spokeswoman said: "We are the only Council in the UK which has special powers to recover costs and we use Statutory Notices to proactively save the built environment of the city."

'We're paying for a Rolls Royce service'

WHEN Emma Jane Condon noticed a leak in the ceiling of her Queen's Park Avenue tenement, the neighbours couldn't agree on a price and the council took out a statutory repair notice.

Ms Condon, 41, said: "The council's tender to fix the roof was around GBP 6,000, double our original estimate, and of course once they got going they started to notice all sorts of problems that needed fixing.

"They told us that the rendering also needed repaired, but without consulting residents their contractors went out and bought a quarter of a million pounds worth of sandstone.

"The cost to each tenant has now shot up to £18,000. We're being asked to pay for a Rolls Royce service."

The council said it could not comment on individual cases.

NEWS: That's one way to beat Edinburgh's blue meanies

2010-06-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 19, 2010, Saturday

IT LOOKS like an innovative way to beat the city's parking enforcers.

An overturned car that seems to have ended up wedged down a hole outside the Roxy Art House has been bemusing passers-by for the last week.

It is actually the latest project by Edinburgh College of Art graduate Jake Rusby.

The artist has already confounded passers-by with an unexplained rock above the door of ECA which appeared set to crush departing students last winter, but unlike the ECA rock - which was made of polystyrene and insulation board - the Roxy car is real.

However, Mr Rusby, 24, from Marchmont, was keen to avoid spoiling the mystery.

He said: "I never like to give too much away about my arts projects, which is why I haven't included a plaque or any other explanatory material.

"I like to let people sit and ponder it.

"I was approached to find something to fill the space outside the Roxy, and I had this car that I wanted to get rid of, so everything came together. The car fits really well into the space."

The car, which was put into place on Roxburgh Place using a crane, has had its engine removed and is destined for the scrap heap once the installation is over. It will, however, be around long enough to confound thousands from around the world who will be visiting Edinburgh for the Festival.

Mr Rusby added: "I tend to get inspiration by just walking around the city and imagining how I can fit strange things in unusual places. There's quite a bit of daydreaming involved.

"I like to create art in public spaces so I can engage with a range of people, not just those who are into art.

"The ECA rock was really well received. I was hoping to keep it there, but health and safety wouldn't allow it. It was interesting to hear people talking about it down the local pub, wondering what it was and why it was there.

"I only put the car in place on Monday so I've yet to get a full reaction, but there were a few confused faces when I was putting it in there."

The installation - entitled Joyriding - is the centrepiece of the Embassy Gallery's Annuale summer exhibition, which opened last night at the Roxy with a party hosted by Radio Scotland DJ Vic Galloway.

Curator Ben Fallon said: "The Embassy Gallery has been going for the last seven years, and the Annuale has been a central part of our work throughout that time.

"It's essentially an open forum for people that don't work in the art world full time, although there are a few professional artists exhibiting and we have people coming over from Paris, and from Leeds, Newcastle and Manchester."

NEWS: A death on the stairs

2010-06-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 19, 2010, Saturday

A MAN has died after apparently falling down the stairs at home in a tragic accident.

The 34-year-old suffered fatal head injuries in the freak accident at his home in Little France.

Police are still investigating the death but do not believe that there are any suspicious circumstances. One neighbour in Upper Craigour said the quiet street had been left in shock as police and forensic officers descended on the house.

"He had only been in the area about six months, and just kept himself to himself.

"I think he had a partner and a daughter. No-one here has been told for definite what happened to him, but I've heard that he fell down the stairs."

Forensics officers were still on the scene yesterday following the death on Wednesday, but sources said the case was being treated as a "tragic accident".

A police spokeswoman said: "Police are investigating following the death of a 34-year-old man after he suffered a head injury inside his house in Upper Craigour."

NEWS: A ghostly speir through the heart of Linwood?

2010-06-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 15, 2010, Tuesday

I really enjoyed this one, especially as it allowed me to examine the history of my hometown of Linwood (yes, like most Evening Newsers I'm not originally from Edinburgh - but I've lived herE for over seven years) and get it in the Edinburgh Evening News.
It was also quite funny writing another story about another ghost being blamed for economic misfortune after hearing chef Rosario Sartore's fears that a ghost may have been to blame for the failure of his Broughton restaurant Bella Mbriana.

Town haunted by fears of curse as crypt to be opened

SHE was a member of one of the biggest landowning families in Scotland - but more than a century after her death her name is said with fear, not reverence.

Talk of Lady Anne Speirs still sends shivers down the spines of the people of Linwood, who blame her "curse" for 30 years of economic misfortune.

And now superstitious locals are warning that soon to be approved plans to move the remains of five people from a mausoleum and reunite them with their descendents in North Berwick will bring tragedy to the Renfrewshire town.

Linwood legend maintains that Lady Anne Speirs pledged a curse on anyone who disturbs the crypt.

That is unlikely to stop supermarket giant Tesco however, which is planning to move the remains to the East Lothian town to make way for a new supermarket and community facilities which it believes could regenerate the area.

The origin of the curse is shrouded in mystery, but the "wrath" of Lady Anne was first said to have been incurred in the early 1980s with the closure of the Rootes Car Plant, Linwood's main employer. The plant was built over the crypt and ceased operations in 1981.

The crypt was recently rediscovered by contractors working for Tesco.

It immediately moved to have the bodies disinterred, but a court order stalled the development after a judge ruled that the supermarket chain must wait 42 days for representations to be received from the local community.

Some locals said it is further evidence the remains should not be removed.

Iain Wilson, secretary of Linwood Community Council, said of the curse:

"It's a bit of a joke for most people but there are those that do believe it, and are keen to ascribe all sorts of misfortune to it."

However, historians have now debunked the "curse" as the product of mistaken identity.

Renfrewshire historian Derek Parker said: "The remains are definitely not of Lady Anne Speirs, who is buried in Houston Cemetery.

"Either way, the Speirs family were God-fearing people, devout Presbyterians who also gave a lot of support to the Houston and Killellan Church of Scotland, and probably wouldn't have been inclined to put a curse on anyone."

The genealogist discovered that the mausoleum contains the remains of the Speir family of Burnbrae House, no apparent relation to Lady Anne Speirs, whose stately home was situated in the grounds.

The Speir family later moved out of Linwood and their descendents are now scattered around the world

However, the family now regard North Berwick as their main ancestral home. Eight members of the family are buried in Whitekirk churchyard.

A Tesco spokesman said: "We are concluding a lengthy and sensitive legal process and have no further comment at this stage."

WHO IS BURIED IN THE LINWOOD CRYPT?

Thomas Speir of Blackstoun and Burnbrae
(1 January 1801 - 20 September 1874)
Died of chronic kidney disease and degeneration of the heart

Robert Speir of Culdees
(1 January 1801 - 18 February 1853)
Cause of death unknown

Mary Speir
(25 November 1793 - 1 April 1870)
Died of inflammatory diarrhoea of 16 days duration

Jane Speir
(c.1802 - 11 June 1868)
Died of disease of the liver that had lasted many months

Agnes Speir
(c.1815 - 1886)
Died of senile decay

NEWS: Pensioner dies in city brothel

2010-06-21T13:32:00.001-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 14, 2010, Monday

A PENSIONER has died after suffering a heart attack in a Leith massage parlour.

The 79-year-old took ill at Scorpio Leisure, on Albion Road, at around 6pm on Wednesday and was taken to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, where he later died.

The deceased man has not been named, and staff at the parlour declined to comment.

One eyewitness, who did not wish to be named, said: "I saw the police cars arrive and then the CID go in. There had clearly been a fatality. I watched the CID go in and out with brown paper bags, obviously full of someone's possessions."

He added: "The Scorpio is well-known in the area, and it's not the first time someone hasn't made it out alive."

A 42-year-old taxi driver, a married father-of-one, collapsed and died in similar circumstances in 2001.

Commenting on Wednesday night's incident, a police spokesman said: "Police were called to an address in Albion Road at around 6pm on Wednesday evening after a 79-year-old man suffered a heart attack within the premises.

"He was taken to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, where he passed away. There are no suspicious circumstances surrounding his death, and a report has been sent to the procurator fiscal."

The sauna has been a fixture on Albion Road for many years.

Last year, bosses at Scorpio Leisure contested a ruling by the Inland Revenue that they alone should be taxed on the entry money. A tax tribunal had found that the brothers, as director and secretary of owners Joppa Enterprises Ltd, were liable for costs on the whole fee.

Ian and Charles Haig argued that almost half the cash went back to the girls offering services at the Albion Road parlour, making them liable for any extra VAT costs.

However, Judge Lady Paton rejected their lawyer's argument and ruled that the bosses had only a "private agreement" with each "hostess" to split the money and were therefore solely liable for tax.

The court heard that the sauna had police approval and was licensed by the city council.

Customers were greeted at reception by one of the Haigs and the entry fee was "calculated on a sliding scale" - GBP 20 for 30 minutes, GBP 25 for 45 minutes, and GBP 35 for 60 minutes.

NEWS: Crolla on the ropes

2010-06-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 14, 2010, Monday

A MEMBER of one of the Capital's top food families has cancelled plans for his latest restaurant in Newington and says "restrictive" regulations will stop him ever embarking on another.

Vincent Crolla had secured planning permission to transform a basement shop on Marshall Street into a restaurant but has now decided to let it out rather than press on with his own plans.

Mr Crolla said he had been pushed to breaking point after years spent battling with council officials, who forced him to abandon plans for a restaurant on Slateford Road when he was refused permission to install a gas cooker in February.

Mr Crolla took over three adjoining units on Marshall Street and turned two of them into takeaways, but both have already fallen foul of red tape.

The first was his own Nyam Nyam Italian takeaway on the site of the former Potter Roll sandwich shop.

The council's road services department ordered him to remove al fresco dining tables that were allegedly obstructing the pavement outside Nyam Nyam four months after it opened.

Mr Crolla let the second unit out to a team of Lebanese chefs who transformed the former Copy Cat printing shop into Beirut Express. Despite being fitted with new cookers and branded signs it remains closed because environmental services had ordered sound-proofing.

Mr Crolla said: "I think the council regulations are too restrictive and as a result Nyam Nyam will probably be my last major business venture.

"I have been responsible for a lot of firsts in this city. Nyam Nyam is the first authentic Italian takeaway in Edinburgh, and Beirut Express will be the first Lebanese takeaway in Edinburgh, but I don't have the heart to open up the third one myself because I seem to get hammered at every turn.

"I hope the planning permission will make it more attractive to another tenant who will come in and open up something equally unique.

"It might yet end up being another first for Edinburgh."

A council spokesman said regulations governing al fresco tables differ from location to location so there is no standard measure of what constitutes an obstruction to the pavement, and also confirmed that planning permission had been granted for the basement unit for a change of use to a restaurant.

Meanwhile, Mr Crolla has reapplied to have his Slateford Road unit, which was being used as a warehouse outlet store, converted into a pizzeria following the rejection in February.

The unit had also previously come under fire from environmental services, who took exception to its bright orange colour scheme.

Mr Crolla previously owned Da Vinci's in Livingston, as well as a number of other restaurants in the city.

The owners of Vittoria on Leith Walk and George IV Bridge, Valvona and Crolla on Elm Row and Multrees Walk, as well as Dario's Fish and Chip Shop, are all Mr Crolla's cousins.

NEWS: Tilda Swinton does Laurel and Hardy

2010-06-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 14, 2010, Monday

SHE'S used to making a song and dance about her love of the cinema, but now Oscar winner Tilda Swinton is inviting local residents to join her for a jig in Festival Square.

Ms Swinton hopes to lead a "flash mob" in a rendition of a classic Laurel and Hardy comedy dance routine to mark the launch of a new foundation to encourage youngsters to broaden their taste in movies.

Ms Swinton's is launching the 8 1/2 Foundation, which she has founded alongside filmmaker and former Edinburgh Film Festival director Mark Cousins.

The foundation aims to collect a bank of films suitable for viewing by eight-and-a-half year olds, the age at which the pair believe children should move on from Disney movies into more challenging territory.

Ms Swinton said: "Come rain or shine, having had our porridge, we're going to meet at Festival Square. We'll chat, read papers, suck a lolly, whatever.

"Then at exactly 11am The Avalon Boys' soft shoe ditty At the Ball will start. It's a song from Laurel and Hardy's funniest film, Way Out West.

"In the film, Stan and Ollie do a wee dance, which is rubbish compared to Cyd Charisse, Gene Kelly or any trained dancer, and yet it's one of the most charming, amusing, gentle, child-like musical numbers in the whole of cinema history.

"And so, in tribute to Stan and Ollie, and to the wee boys inside them, and to their movies, and to dancing in public in Edinburgh, possibly in the rain, and in pure unabashed celebration of doing something as a group and looking like dafties, when the music starts we will put down our newspapers and our adult selves, and do the Laurel and Hardy dance from the film."

Way Out West featured former George Watson's College and Edinburgh University graduate James Finlayson, a Laurel and Hardy stalwart who starred in 33 of their films.

Some fifty years later, Finlayson's frustrated catchphrase, a drawn-out "dohhhhhhh!", inspired the shorter version often exclaimed by Homer in The Simpsons.

The flash mob stunt will be similar to an advert for telephone company T Mobile which featured 400 people dancing in unison at Liverpool Street Station, and won advert of the year at this year's British advertising awards.

On one occasion, Police were forced to close the station when 13,000 people responded to a Facebook bid to stage a reenactment, packing out the platform with silent dancers and raising fears of overcrowding.

The organisers have no idea how many people will take part in the Festival Square event.

Ms Swinton added: "We need people to join us - especially if they are eight-and-a-half, or 85, or an accountant, or passing by, or on the bus, or Alex Salmond, or an Edinburgh International Film Festival movie-goer, or in high heels, or grumpy, or bevvied, or a bit bewildered by the fact that the bell clock has moved from one side of Lothian Road to the other, or if you've just bought a talking-point lamp from Ali's Cave or you don't usually dance in public.

"If people don't join us we will look like total fools, though not for the first time. Yes, we will all bump into each other, and yes it'll look nothing like those flash mobs you see on YouTube, but it should be very amusing."

Ms Swinton has revealed her plans today to give people two weeks notice to learn the dance -which can be viewed at their website eightandahalf.org - in time for the even, which is due to take place on 26 June.

NEWS: Methadone Baby Food

2010-06-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 9, 2010, Wednesday

AN INVESTIGATION has been carried out after it emerged council social workers visited the house of a drug addict the day before she fed a two-month-old baby methadone.

Susan Taylor, 29, is currently serving three years at Cornton Vale Prison after giving the baby boy a dummy dripping with the heroin substitute in a bid to keep him quiet.

Although Taylor admitted the charge last September, the case could not be reported until her lesbian partner had faced trial over the incident.

Fellow drug addict Lynn Cowan, 28, was yesterday reunited with Ms Taylor at Cornton Vale when she was given ten months for failing in her "duty to tell doctors" that the child had ingested the drug.

The court heard that social workers had visited the flat in Leith's Fort just a day before the incident on 22 November 2008 and nothing untoward was reported. They had even ensured all controlled drugs were out of reach of the baby, according to fiscal depute John Kirk.

The following day Ms Taylor rolled the child's dummy in her methadone measuring cup before putting it in his mouth.

The baby sucked on the dummy for around five minutes before passing out, his face grey and his lips blue.

By the time an ambulance arrived on the scene the baby wasn't breathing. The child suffered fits on the way to the Sick Kids Hospital and was rushed to intensive care.

Doctors say it is too early to know whether the boy will suffer any lasting effects.

A council spokesman today said a review had been carried out following the incident.

He said: "Whilst we cannot predict or prevent all instances of harm, we have well-established procedures for assessing risk and we take fast action when we become aware of concerns.

"Although cases like this are very rare, the Edinburgh child protection committee have carried out a multi-agency significant case review.

"We will consider its contents, as we do with all reviews, to continuously shape the way we deliver our service."

However, the case does not require any major changes in the council's social work procedures, which the spokesman added were "robust".

The case raises questions over whether drug addicts should be allowed to care for children, but charity Children 1st said youngsters should only be removed when there is a clear risk

Chief executive Anne Houston

said that Children 1st worked with stable methadone users who can care for children with support.

She continued: "However, there are instances where additional, very intensive, support is required or children may need to be removed to ensure their continued safety.

NEWS: Rebus Roaming

2010-06-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 4, 2010, Friday

IT DOESN'T take a detective to follow Ian Rankin around Edinburgh but those who need a helping hand will soon be able to follow him on their phone.

The Rebus author is currently recording content for a new online tour of the Capital for the Apple iPhone.

With almost hourly updates of his movements on social networking site Twitter, regular television and newspaper tours and his favourite pubs littering the pages of his Rebus novels, he is not shy of letting fans know where he likes to hang out.

But the new application will give fans another window into his favourite haunts, and those of his most popular character John Rebus.

Mr Rankin said: "When fans visit Edinburgh they will be able to find out more information about the locations in the books while walking around the city.

"I do get a lot of feedback from fans from outside Edinburgh who tell me they want to know more about the places that I write about, so anything that helps them to get a handle on the city is a good thing.

"Not everyone has time to go on the Rebus Walks, so this will allow them to do it in their own time."

The exact locations that will be featured in the Rankin App are still being finalised but Mr Rankin said he would endeavour to take fans where they wouldn't normally visit - such as the quiet banks of the Water of Leith - as well as the most popular destinations in his novels.

Julie MacBrayne, Orion marketing manager for paperbacks, said: "The app is still in the early stages, but we hope to have it up in time for the Festival.

"It's essentially going to be the Ian Rankin tour of Edinburgh. Ian is very much involved and it's going to be driven by his experiences of Edinburgh.

"He will be the unique selling point, especially amongst fans looking for an inside look at the places he visits and a behind the scenes look at his books.

"International fans will still be able to download the app and access its content, but they won't really get the full effect unless they walk the streets with him. We've got such a wealth of material from Ian already.

"It's the first time we've tried this with any of our authors. He's one of our bestselling authors and Edinburgh is the driving force behind all of his work so he was the obvious choice to launch this app."

NEWS: Nine coffins leave Israel

2010-06-21T13:22:00.002-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 3, 2010, Thursday

AN EDINBURGH activist seized in the Gaza aid flotilla is in Turkey today attending the funerals of the nine people who were massacred by Israeli troops.

Friends said Theresa McDermott called her partner Jim Burns from the airport in Istanbul yesterday to tell him she was safe.

Free Gaza Scotland co-ordinator Carl Abernethy said: "We had expected her home today but she said she's going to stay for the funerals of the nine people who were killed, which are expected to take place today.

"Although we do not yet know the identities of the nine people who were killed, they are likely to be Muslim and custom dictates that they are buried on the day of death or at the nearest possible opportunity.

"We expect her to fly home after that."

The IHH charity says they are having difficulty identifying five of the bodies. Four of them have been officially confirmed to be Turks.

There were unfounded fears that Ms McDermott had joined the MV Rachel Corrie, the Irish boat that was due to enter Gazan waters this morning.

Israel has said it will not bow to international pressure to let the boat through the blockade.

Mr Abernethy said: "I've just heard that the MV Rachel Corrie is heading for Gaza now and has formed a another convoy with three ships from Malaysia carrying humanitarian aid."

News that Ms McDermott is safe and well signals the end of a tense few days for friends who feared for her safety when the nine activists were killed by Israeli troops on the Gaza aid flotilla on Monday.

The boat she was travelling on, the Challenger 2, was taken without a fight and Ms McDermott was taken to Beersheeba Prison in Israel pending deportation.

One of the first activists to make it back from Israel, Hasan Nowarah from Bearsden, said he believed Ms McDermott, a postal worker from Pilrig, had been badly beaten up.

However, Ms McDermott's sister Winnie Chambers said she did not appear to be in any distress when she phoned her partner on Tuesday.

She said: "Her partner sent an e-mail round everyone yesterday saying that she was fine."

Free Gaza organisers in Cyprus will also be relieved to hear that Ms McDermott was safe, after their lawyer failed to track her down in the prison amid fears she had been hospitalised.

Spokeswoman Greta Berlin said Ms McDermott had been resisting deportation in solidarity with four Palestinian and Israeli nationals.

Israel today dropped plans to prosecute the activists to limit diplomatic damage.

Meanwhile, it has been claimed that IHH had "clear" links to terror groups.

However, IHH denies ties to radical groups and it is not among 45 groups listed as terrorists by the US.

NEWS: A beating in Israel

2010-06-21T13:22:00.001-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 2, 2010, Wednesday

AN EDINBURGH activist seized by Israel in the Gaza aid massacre was today reported to have been badly beaten.

Supporters said they hoped Theresa McDermott, 43, may be released today as the Israeli authorities continue their deportation of the hundreds of international activists detained in the raid on the aid flotilla in which nine people were killed.

One activist, Hasan Nowarah from Bearsden, who arrived back in Scotland last night, said he believed Ms McDermott, a postal worker from Pilrig, had been badly beaten up.

Carl Abernethy, who founded Free Gaza-Scotland along with Ms McDermott last year, said he had no information that she had been beaten.

He said: "We know she is being held in the Beersheba jail, but they seem to want rid of everyone as quickly as possible.

"It would be fantastic if Theresa were released today so we can find out how she is and she can tell us exactly what happened."

Ms McDermott was aboard the Challenger 1 passenger boat that was running alongside Turkish ship Mavi Marmara when it was boarded by gun-toting Israeli troops. Challenger 1 was taken without a fight.

Earlier reports suggested that she may have boarded MV Rachel Corrie, a converted Irish merchant ship which was held up by technical problems and may still be attempting to reach Gaza. The news that Ms McDermott was not on the Rachel Corrie came as a relief to her sister Winnie Chambers, but she is still awaiting news of her condition in prison and how she is being treated.

She said: "We have heard nothing from the Foreign Office. Our brother has been going through various official channels looking for information.

"We weren't sure if she had transferred on to the Rachel Corrie without telling us.

"It's the kind of thing she would do.

"I know she was due to set sail from Crete to Cyprus to pick up some Irish MPs, a couple of German politicians, and a girl called Alex, before setting off to Gaza.

"The last thing she said was that the passengers probably had more to fear from her cooking than they did from the Israelis."

Edinburgh North & Leith Labour MP Mark Lazarowicz said he had contacted Foreign Secretary William Hague, urging him to demand Ms McDermott's immediate release from Israeli custody.

He said: "This tragedy once again underlines the need for an end to the blockade of Gaza - the ships were carrying medical supplies and schoolbooks not guns and rockets."

NEWS: Tensions grow in Gaza

2010-06-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
June 1, 2010, Tuesday

Woman caught up in Gaza massacre 'committed' to cause

THE family of a city aid worker caught up in the Gaza aid ship massacre today told how she had never been one to shy away from danger, as they desperately wait for news.

Theresa McDermott, 43, from Pilrig, was thought to have been travelling on one of the smaller vessels in the six-ship flotilla which was stormed by Israeli troops.

Up to 15 people on the boats were killed when the commandos boarded ships carrying 10,000 tonnes of supplies.

Ms McDermott's sister Winnie Chambers, an Edinburgh University librarian said: "We're very concerned. We don't have a great deal of information at the moment.

"She's very brave and so committed to the cause of the people of Gaza, to the point where she's willing to put herself in harm's way and be imprisoned in dreadful conditions.

"She's her own person and nothing anyone says is going to change her mind."

Fellow activists in Edinburgh have been unable to contact Ms McDermott since Friday and they are not certain which ship she is on.

But Carl Abernethy, who co-founded Free Gaza Scotland with Ms McDermott last year, said she could be aboard the Irish vessel MV Rachel Corrie, which is still at sea and may still try to reach Gaza. All the rest of the convoy was escorted to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

Mr Abernethy said: "I can only assume at some point the Rachel Corrie has been separated. It may now be making an attempt to reach Gaza and in view of yesterday's PR disaster by the Israelis, it might actually get through."

Ms McDermott has been detained by the Israelis on three previous occasions while taking part in protests.

She was imprisoned and deported twice last year after two boats on which she was sailing were seized trying to breach the Gaza blockade.

In 2003 she was arrested in the West Bank Palestinian village of Bidu while protesting against Israel's illegal security wall.

Mr Abernethy said: "The Israelis have claimed that some of the boats were carrying weapons for use by terrorists, but our boats were fully examined before we left port and were found to be carrying aid supplies only.

"The boats were carrying items that are restricted under the Israeli blockade including crayons, jam, paints, as well as medicines and wheelchairs. They were also carrying several tons of concrete for the rebuilding, which is also restricted."

Edinburgh North & Leith Labour MP Mark Lazarowicz said he had asked the Foreign Office to intervene with the Israeli authorities to make sure Ms McDermott was released unharmed.

* Around 200 protesters took part in a demonstration at The Mound yesterday following the Gaza aid ship massacre.

Scores of people waving Palestine flags and placards reading "Enough is Enough" and "Massacre - Hold Israel to Account" gathered next to the National Gallery of Scotland.

NEWS: In Vino Pecunia

2010-06-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
May 31, 2010, Monday

Former managers take over stores from collapsed firm

A GROUP of redundant off-licence managers are going it alone with a new independent drinks chain.

Their new Vino stores will fill the void left by the collapse of First Quench, which saw 1,200 branches of Wine Rack, Threshers, Victoria Wine and The Local close down nationwide at the end of last year, including around 45 locally.

As managers of some the chain's most successful branches they were able to analyse old First Quench sales data and pick the most successful stores.

The first new Vino stores are expected to open on Broughton Street and Grange Loan next week, with a third branch on Comiston Road due a few weeks later.

If the first three branches prove successful the team will then look to expand their chain throughout the city.

The venture is the brainchild of former Grange Loan and Marchmont Wine Rack manager Andrew Lundy, 31.

Mr Lundy, who lives in Mayfield, had been working for First Quench for eight years.

He said: "I saw that the writing was on the wall for First Quench, but I had already been thinking about setting up my own off licence business.

"I was going through area manager training at the time so I had access to the area sales figures, and knew where all the good and bad shops were.

"It's been a long six months but we're now just waiting for the licences to come through, and we should hopefully open up by the end of next week.

"It's incredibly exciting, and we're really confident we can make it work. We're starting with eight staff initially with a combined 60 years of experience in the drinks industry."

The new chain will be lifeline to former managers such as Broughton Street manager Ciaran Moen, 31. He said: "First Quench collapsed on 29 October and I was out of a job on 16 December. It was lucky I had another job in a bar or it would have been a lean Christmas.

"Broughton Street was the biggest-selling branch in Scotland, and I'm looking forward to getting it going again.

"We've already had loads of people coming in and asking when we're going to open as we've been putting the displays up."

Mr Lundy said not being part of a national chain meant they would be able to stock more locally sourced products.

He added: "We've already got deals in place with Innes and Gunn, Inveralmond and Atlas breweries, and I'm a big whisky fan so we'll be stocking plenty of local brands.

"Although we won't be going down the three-for-two route, if we can buy in bulk we can still offer some fantastic deals.

"Most of those supermarket deals are a con anyway as they price up the ticket in order to sell at a 'discount', but my policy will be to stay honest to the customer and only sell alcohol for the price it's worth."

READING: Rose, ‘A Senseless, Squalid War’ : Voices From Palestine 1945-1948

2010-05-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

Norman Rose
‘A Senseless, Squalid War’ : Voices From Palestine 1945-1948
2009

Below is my own uncharacteristically self-indulgent exploration of the historical background to today’s lethal Israeli attacks on another Gaza aid flotilla, combining what we’ve learned today with the history of Israel as told by Norman Rose, with a bit of my own family history thrown in. It does go on a bit but it's worth sticking with it, if only to see the glaring parallels between the birth of Israel and today’s attempts to maintain its stranglehold on the region.

IT has often been remarked by my friends and colleagues that my bookshelf resembles a reading list from a dire Middle East studies course. Most react with horror when I tell them that I read these books for leisure as much as education. It’s difficult to pinpoint where my fascination with the Middle East began but perhaps, like Robert Fisk, it lies in a need to understand and atone for the sins of the father.

In his opus The Great War For Civilisation: The Conquest Of The Middle East [which I have shamefully yet to finish], Fisk recounts how his father Bill Fisk was duped, along with millions of other young men, into believing that the war he was fighting in 1914-18 was: “The Great War For Civilisation”. Nearly a century later, Robert Fisk is still reporting on “The Clash of Civilisations” between Christianity, Judaism and Islam in the Middle East, an area carved up in the spoils of what Fisk calls “my father’s war”.

My own atonement isn’t for the sins of my father, but for my grandfather Pte Richard McLaughlin, a sentryman in the King’s Own Scottish Borderers who fought in the last days of the British mandate in Palestine. Palestine 1945-1948 was “my grandfather’s war” [although it must be noted that this war was no more my grandfather’s than World War I was Bill Fisk’s. Both were conscripts.]

My grandfather died when I was very young, but when I was old enough to ask the ubiquitous question, “What did grandad do in the war?”, I recall being disappointed to hear that he was too young to fight in World War II but had completed his National Service in a mysterious land called Palestine.

He didn’t talk about it much, according to my father, save for a short, enigmatic, recollection of “dodging stones thrown from both sides of the road – with Arabs on the one side and Jews on the other”.

“Why would anyone fight in a war where neither side wanted you to be there?” I recall my child’s mind struggling to comprehend.

As I write, an adult still working to understand this “Clash of Civilisations” from my own little corner of the world, a diplomatic row is unfolding over Israel’s attack on an aid flotilla attempting to break their blockade on Gaza, an attack which left at least nine dead and dozens more injured. While reporting on fears for the wellbeing of Edinburgh-based Gaza aid worker Theresa McDermott today, I was struck by the parallels between this unfolding drama and the book I had already begun preparing for review on my blog’s ongoing list of personal reading.

For this reason, I have cast aside my usual thrifty editing to record my thoughts more deeply.

Norman Rose’s ‘A Senseless, Squalid War’ is the first book I’ve read that’s come close to clarifying my childish confusion about “my grandfather’s war.
The clearest statement I have yet found which comes close to articulating my childhood quandary can be found in chapter two of Rose’s relatively accessible history, from the first military and later civilian Governor of Jerusalem Ronald Storrs [the man T.E. Lawrence described in Seven Pillars as “the most brilliant Englishman in the Near East”].

“I am not wholly for either, but for both,” said Storrs in 1920. “Two hours of Arab grievances drive me to Synagogue, while after an intensive course of Zionist propaganda I am prepared to embrace Islam.”

Listening to the conflicting reports of today’s attack on the Gaza flotilla I find myself in the same position as Storrs. Today’s protestors were undoubtedly sailing in international waters, attempting to run a blockade which is legally questionable at best, while carrying aid to an area which resembles the Nazi ghettos that Israel’s founders used as moral justification for a Jewish homeland. This moral justification was articulated by sympathetic Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton: “There was a strong case for [a Jewish national home] before the war. There is an irresistible case now, after the unspeakable atrocities of [the Nazis].”

After listening to Israel’s defence today that their forces opened fire only after they were “clubbed, beaten and stabbed” [supported by television footage which seems to show supposedly “peaceful” protestors attacking Israel’s boarding party], and state their belief that the flotilla was, at least partly, organised by groups with “ties to Global Jihad, Al-Qaeda and Hamas” [something I have no evidence for but I don’t find entirely implausible that some Jihadi sympathisers were aboard] and I find myself back in the middle.

However, what Storrs was yet to witness was Israel’s disproportionate response to any provocation.

When British authorities carried out arms-raids on Jewish settlements during Operation Agatha in 1946, and the Zionists responded by blowing up British command HQ at the King David Hotel. When Egypt instigated a blockade on Israel in 1967 similar to the blockade that Israel now imposes on Gaza [with, it must be noted, the help of modern-day Egypt’s policing of Rafah], Israel launched a pre-emptive strike which annexed most of the region in six days. When Israel-friendly Lebanese president Bachir Gemayel was assassinated in 1982, the Israeli Defence Force [under orders from defence minister and future president Ariel Sharon] orchestrated a brutal massacre of hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. When Lebanese militants again enraged Israel in 2006 by killing a dozen soldiers, Israel responded with a devastating bombing raid killing at least 1,500 people.

Once again we see the disproportionate response in action. When protestors attacked with sticks, stones and knives they were dropped by automatic weapons.

Further parallel’s between today’s events and those recounted by Rose in 1945-48 can be found in one of the most decisive events in turning public opinion against Britain’s continuing mandate in Palestine, the bid to prevent the SS Exodus boat breaking a British blockade imposed to prevent uncontrolled post-war immigration into Palestine.

According to Rose, American journalist Izzy Stone “accused the British of murder and piracy on the high seas , pointing out that the Exodus had been attacked in international waters” [a charge levelled at Israel today] and includes an account by Captain Stanley Brian de Courcy-Ireland, commander of British blockade flagship Ajax, which is absolutely dripping with contemporary resonances:

“The [British] boarding parties soon learned what they were up against. Those that got over were assaulted from all angles...I was forced to draw my revolver and fired eleven warning shots. One of the last shots, however, I used to stop a lad of 17 or 18 from collecting my scalp with a meat axe. He got it in the stomach.”

Israel has already faced a wave of global condemnation for the deaths on the flotilla today, but the repercussions for this are yet to be seen. Britain may have been Israel’s midwife but its international influence is now too small for Israel to bother taking notice. It remains to be seen how USA, the nation that nurtured Israel through its troublesome adolescence first by turning a blind eye to illegal arms smuggling during the mandate and then becoming its chief arms supplier, responds in the long term.

The US remains in thrall to the Jewish lobby and one of the most entertaining episodes that shows this lobby at work in the last days of the mandate recounted in Rose involved future mayor of Jerusalem Teddy Kollek, Mafia boss Frank Costello’s New York nightclub the Copacabana and “Zionist sympathiser” Frank Sinatra taking centre stage in illegal arms smuggling, using tactics not too dissimilar to those allegedly used by Palestinian supporters in Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran today.

“Kollek recorded liaisons with spies, mobsters, movie moguls, statesmen bankers, professors, industrialists and newspapermen. The Hagana [the principle Jewish military organisation in mandated Palestine] arms mission profited greatly from the vast amounts of army surplus supplies left over from the war [including] rifles, machine guns, engine parts and aircraft...

“To finance their vast operation Kollek relied on donations from wealthy Jewish backers as well as from the Jewish agency...

“Transferring money – or bribes – to Kollek’s shady contacts was always a problem...It was common knowledge that Frank Sinatra was sympathetic to the Zionist cause. Only the previous autumn he had sung at a rally at the Hollywood Bowl attended by 20,000 Zionist supporters. The solution was logical. Kollek: “I walked out of the front door of the building with a satchel and the Feds followed me. Out of the back door went Sinatra, carrying a paper bag filled with cash.”

“Perhaps for the only time in his career, Sinatra had played an unscripted role, that of ‘bagman’ for the Haganah.”

NEWS: Blood Fued

2010-05-31T14:04:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
29 May 2010

A DRIVE-BY shooting on a Lothian home is being linked to a long-running feud which has already seen firebombings, vandalism and violent attacks.

Police are investigating after a shot was fired at the house in Dalkeith's Woodburn Avenue before the attacker sped off. The terrified family were at home at the time and called 999.

It is the home of the parents of George Rae, 39, who has been targeted several times over the past ten years.

Earlier this month, armed police swooped on a nearby house as part of an investigation into alleged threats made against him. No-one was injured in the latest attack at around 11:25pm on Wednesday, after the bullet missed a window and lodged in the gutter.

But neighbours said Mr Rae was now receiving round the clock police protection. A police van was parked outside his parents' home yesterday.

A police spokesman said they would not discuss the security arrangements of individuals, but appealed for witnesses to the shooting. He said: "Thankfully no-one was injured as a result of the reckless discharge of this firearm.

"Nevertheless, this is an incident we are treating extremely seriously, and we are appealing for anyone who may have seen what happened to come forward.

"We are particularly keen to speak to anyone who noticed a dark-coloured car being driven at speed in the area after the shot was fired."

Witnesses reported hearing a loud bang at the time of the incident and a car being driven away at speed immediately after.

One neighbour said: "It's getting too scary to feel it was just a fluke shot.

"The police have been in the area on and off for a while and they knew something was coming.

"I can see why you would think it looks like a normal family street.

"But we have to try and get on with our lives while the police are here and there's people shooting guns.

"I've got kids and they are curious about it and I don't know what to tell them."

Another neighbour told the Evening News how she is moving out of the street for good following the incident.

May Thompson, 48, said she watched armed police storm through her street looking for firearms, and then had her nerves shattered by the sound of a gunshot and screeching tyres outside her house. She said: "I just can't take it. I'm terrified of guns. I need to get out. I can't stay here any more."

Mr Rae previously told the Evening News how a campaign of hatred against him started after a "disturbance" at Dalkeith Miners Club ten years ago.

He was plagued with threatening phone calls, had cars repeatedly vandalised and was later ambushed and beaten up by six thugs with scaffolding poles.

On Boxing Day nine years ago, someone threw a petrol bomb at the window of the bedroom where he was sleeping with his pregnant partner and baby son.

The family were only saved when the Molotov cocktail bounced off the room's double glazing and exploded 20ft below.

The following year Mr Rae testified against killer Owen Anderson, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of father-of-three Gary Linn on 31 August 2001.

During the trial Mr Rae told prosecutors that he received a telephone call from prison in which Anderson warned him against testifying.

NEWS: "Goodnight Bella Mbriana"

2010-05-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
27 May 2010

AN award-winning Italian chef is refusing to be beaten after his efforts to self-finance his restaurant ended in bankruptcy.

Rosario Sartore, 38, has been left picking up the pieces after his bid to run Bella Mbriana on East London Street ended in bankruptcy last month.

Bella Mbriana, named after a spirit said to haunt Mr Sartore's hometown in Naples, opened to great fanfare in 2007 when he left his previous restaurant, La Partenope on Dalry Road. But despite rave reviews and awards, things were not going smoothly behind the scenes.

Soon after its inception, a business partner pulled out and shortly before the credit crunch hit, another partner withdrew his support. The bank also closed the restaurant's overdraft.

Despite packed houses, the eatery haemorrhaged money and a final business partner pulled out two months ago, leaving Mr Sartore to go it alone.

The father-of-four has now lost his house and both he and wife Maria have been declared bankrupt. Mr Sartori has now handed the business side over to countrymen Rocco Monaco and Mario Gagliardini, but intends to stay on as head chef and hopes a change of name to Locanda De Gusti will bring better luck.

He said: "Bella Mbriana is an Italian spirit who is supposed to bring luck to a house. It is customary to keep a chair by the door for Bella to come and rest, and my grandmothers in Italy still say 'good morning Bella Mbriana' every day.

"The name was supposed to bring me luck, but I think she ended up working against me. We had a statue in the corner downstairs which one reviewer called 'The Ghost of Bella', and that was the first thing to go when I redesigned the restaurant following the handover."

Mr Sartori has also cited another reason for his financial problems - his refusal to raise his prices or compromise on quality.

"You shouldn't have to take out a mortgage to have a good meal. I intend to continue under the same principles without the spiritual baggage that went with the old name - but I still say 'good morning Bella Mbriana' when I open up!"

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NEWS: The End Of The Delhi Deli?

2010-05-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
26 May 2010

AN INDIAN cafe is facing closure after it was found to be the latest in a string of businesses to be operating illegally.

10 to 10 in Delhi has been selling coffee and Indian snacks on the Southside for more than six months, but the council recently discovered that it only has permission to operate as a retail shop.

The enforcement action was only taken last week despite the fact that the Nicolson Street unit had housed various cafes for the last six years.

Council enforcement officers first suspected that it was operating as a takeaway as far back as 2003 when cooking equipment was found, but it was uninstalled and the former occupier said it was only being stored on the premises.

The case was closed but the premises soon began trading as Zoga Delicious Falafel and later Cafe Numedia.

The unauthorised use was finally discovered when 10 to 10 in Delhi opened on the premises.

Current tenant Aslan Akeel applied for retrospective planning permission to continue selling coffee and Indian snacks but councillors rejected his application on the grounds that it would "erode the number of retail units to the detriment of the local retail centre".

Mr Akeel said he intended to continue trading pending the outcome of an appeal against the "unfair" decision.

He said: "When I took the place on around a year ago I had no idea it didn't have permission to operate as a cafe, as we took it on as a sub-let from an existing cafe that was already on the premises.

"I don't have any grievance with the council if that's their policy but it's a bit unfair as we're not your average takeaway.

"We specialise in chai teas with samosas and pakoras, which is unique to the area, so its a shame that we're being lumped in with all of the other takeaways.

"We're very popular with the locals and if the appeal fails we already have a few other premises lined up which already have the necessary permissions in place, so if we have to close in Nicolson Street it will be no big deal."

Southside Community Council had expressed its "very serious concerns" that the unit had been able to operate as a cafe for so long without permission.

Treasurer John Largue said: "It would set a dangerous precedent in the area if his retrospective application was simply rubber-stamped.

"Once again I am bound to point out that the community council has very grave reservations with regard to the creation of any restaurants, cafes or takeaways in the Southside generally.

"There is already a gross over-supply of such premises and it is considered that they have a seriously negative impact on the lives of local people as well as the local environment.

"It is not considered desirable to lose another retail unit to a cafe simply because it is already trading as one."

NEWS: The Singh Mile

2010-05-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
26 May 2010

YET another Scottish souvenir shop has opened up on the Royal Mile amid a growing battle between budget tartan retailers.

The Singh Landa family has converted the former Wine Rack off-licence on the High Street into The Best of Scottish Discount Souvenir Factory Outlet, selling the same cheap kilts, sportswear and souvenirs that can be found in dozens of similar shops up and down the Mile.

Owner Gino Landa admitted that his shop was not offering anything new, but said the ongoing success of his family's existing shops and those of his rivals - chiefly the Gold Brothers - proved that the tourist appetite for budget souvenirs currently knows no bounds.

The Singh Landas' conversion of the shop, which closed last year following the collapse of the First Quench chain of off-licences, comes just months after the Singh Golds - headed by Surinder, Galab and Dildar Singh Gold - scored a lucrative double-whammy by buying out leases of the former Crystal Clear new age store and Wannaburger restaurant, both on the High Street.

The purchases took their portfolio on the Mile to 12 stores, half of them on the High Street alone. They also own several other stores throughout the city.

However, the latest purchase by the Singh Landas - headed by Balwindar and Sukhbir Singh Landa - takes their portfolio to 15 stores on or around the Mile.

Gino Landa said that despite their decision to open another souvenir shop, the family have attempted to keep their portfolio as diverse as possible.

He cited their Elgin Cashmere and Scottish Experience jewellery stores across the street as examples. The family also own the Courtyard Cafe on the Lawnmarket.

However, neighbour Annie McCaig, owner of the Bonny Blue Gallery, was not impressed.

She said: "I know these shops have their place in a tourist city like Edinburgh but there's far too many of them.

"Most of them are run by just two families and what amazes me is they seem to know when a unit is coming up before it's even gone on the market.

"A lot of my customers complain about it but it sort of makes my place even more special as they see me as a little oasis on the High Street."

Last month, officials at Edinburgh City Council revealed moves to dictate what kind of shops operate on the Royal Mile in a bid to overhaul its tacky image.

As the biggest landlord on the Royal Mile, owning, in whole or in part, 45 of the 129 available retail properties, it has the power to decide which tenants it leases to and what goods they are allowed to sell.

However, only around a quarter of the 40-odd souvenir shops on the Mile are owned by the council, and it holds little sway over private landlords as long as they stick to planning rules.

Graham Birse, deputy chief executive of the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, said: "Our view is that the range and quality of retail offerings on the Mile should be more varied and the council's planning committee should seek to develop, in consultation with the local business community, some recommendations and guiding principles over what stores are allowed to operate.

"The current set-up is ad-hoc, sporadic and doesn't represent the quality people would like to see.

"Having said that, it must be recognised that these shops aren't operating without trade. We're not saying every tartan gift shop should be closed down. If there's a market for it who are we to say no?

"But there should be a more varied offering in what has always been one of the city's most seminal streets."

CHECK THEM ALL OUT

BUSINESS ADDRESS PROPRIETORS

Gifts of Scotland 3 Canongate RaymondMargiotta

The Genuine Article 97 Canongate Margaret Johnston

The Pride of Edinburgh 133-135 Canonogate Steven & Diaman Singh

Neanie Scot 131 Canongate Kathryn Erickson

Simply Scottish 187 Canongate Luckwinder & Ratan Singh

Gordon Nicolson Kiltmakers 189 Canongate Gordon Nicolson

I Heart Scotland 250 Canongate

Royal Mile Merchandise 11 High Street Stephen & Susan Scott

The Real Scot Shop 16 High Street Gillian / Rebecca Thorburn

The Scotland Shop 20 High Street GOLD BROS

Elgin Cashmere 1 28 High Street B & GS LANDA

Abercrombie Cashmere 46 High Street GOLD BROS

Really Scottish 50-51 High Street Gillian / Rebecca Thorburn

Scottish Gifts on the Netherbow 51-53 High Street

RoyalMile Jewellery 56 High Street GOLD BROS

Geoffrey (Tailor) Kiltmakers 57-59 High Street

JohnMorrison Kiltmaker 63 High Street GOLD BROS

The Wee Gift Shop 83 High Street GOLD BROS

Best of Scottish 97 High Street B & GS LANDA

Highland House 140 High Street B & GS LANDA

Stayedinburghcity.com apartment 150 High Street GOLD BROS

Argyll Cashmere 174 High Street B & GS LANDA

The Gold Brothers Shop 217 High Street GOLD BROS

Scottish Experience 324-326 Lawnmarket B & GS LANDA

Wha's Like Us 328 Lawnmarket GOLD BROS

Royal Mile Armoury 334 Lawnmarket GOLD BROS

Heritage of Scotland 459-463 Lawnmarket GOLD BROS

The Shetland Connection 491 Lawnmarket B & GS LANDA

Edinburgh Gift &Whisky Shop 495-497 Lawnmarket B & GS LANDA

Crag and Tail Restaurant 503 Lawnmarket B & GS LANDA

TheWeeWhisky Shop 515 Lawnmarket GOLD BROS

Simply Scarves 555 Lawnmarket GOLD BROS

James Court Factory Outlet 11 James Court, Lawnmarket B & GS LANDA

Stayedinburghcity.com apartment 11/6 James Court, Lawnmarket GOLD BROS

RoyalMile Factory Outlet 13 James Court, Lawnmarket B & GS LANDA

Courtyard Cafe 2 James Court, Lawnmarket B & GS LANDA

Self Catering Unit 2/9 Lady Stairs Close GOLD BROS

The Scotland Shop 107-108 South Bridge GOLD BROS

ScottishMills 20 Bank Street B & GS LANDA

Gold Brothers Shop Brodies Close GOLD BROS

Elgin Cashmere 2 Brodies Close B & GS LANDA

Thistle Do Nicely 3 & 5 Upper Bow B & GS LANDA

NEWS: No Wake For Finnegan

2010-05-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
24 May 2010

HE IS the much-loved mascot of a popular Irish watering hole who many feared had perished in flames, but it seems that a wake for Finnegan would have been premature.

The mannequin took pride of place behind the bar of Finnegan's Wake and was one of the few artifacts which survived a serious blaze in December 2008.

Now Finnegan, like his famous namesake in the James Joyce tale that lends the pub its name, is set to rise from the dead demanding whiskey.

Most of the sporting memorabilia, Irish-themed artifacts and bric-a-brac that gave the pub its character did not survive the blaze. It started in the neighbouring restaurant, Khushi's, before spreading to the pub, but Finnegan was spared.

For the last 18 months, the figure has been stored in a warehouse, but now Finnegan's Wake's owner, Tattershall Castle Group, plans to have the pub back in business in time for the Festival.

It has now applied for planning permission to install two new signboards and a hanging lantern outside the pub, while plans have been drawn up for a complete overhaul of its interior.

Christian Harvey, of interior designers Fusion by Design, said: "Rather than try to replicate it we're going to allow Finnegan's to grow again.

"Most of the artifacts were damaged by smoke, or water from the firemen's hoses, but there were a few Irish signposts, old Guinness ads and the odd sporting artifact that can still be polished up and put back in place, and the managers will no doubt be delighted that Finnegan himself has also survived. He was a bit of a mascot and they used to dress him as Santa and other outfits suitable to the time of year."

Bob Tait, of Format Design architects, said: "The bar has been moved from the centre of the pub to the side to make it more customer friendly, opening up the pub a bit more and making it more comfortable for disabled customers and staff.

"The layout will improve safety standards, and the standard of the toilets will be vastly improved.

"Overall, it's going to be a mixture of traditional designs befitting of a listed building, and designs reflecting modern conceptions of safety and hygiene."

NEWS: Mosque Denied Expansion Into Temple

2010-05-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
24 May 2010

AN ISLAMIC teaching centre in Polwarth has been refused permission to expand amid fears that it would attract too many worshippers by car.

The Idara Centre - commonly known as the Polwarth Mosque - on Temple Park Crescent also faced objections about loud prayers emanating from the building, and concerns that it intended to display "Islamic motifs" on the street.

Owner The Idara Taleem-Ul Qur'an Trust had applied for planning permission to change the former Al-Hilal grocers at the corner of Yeaman Place into an extension of the existing centre to create a new computer lab and reference library.

Its ultimate aim was to turn the spacious corner unit into an Islamic exhibition centre to "engage with the non-Muslim local community and help to remove barriers".

However, it faced objections from a city conservation group and a neighbour about parking, loud prayers and the design of the windows.

Marion Williams, director of the Cockburn Association, said the limited parking, hours of use, noise and "less than adequate" fire escapes made the unit "an unsuitable location for a use attracting regular visitors".

She added: "The association suggest that the introduction of Islamic motifs and symbols could be achieved by internal screens or opaque film on the glass without compromising the character of the building."

Ms Williams stressed that the concerns were from an architectural, rather than a cultural, point of view.

Neighbour Gerard Crawley also raised concerns about parking. He said: "At certain times of the day, there are quite a few cars waiting to pick up those about to leave. If this increases, it would become dangerous. Also, on occasion I have heard prayer through amplification."

The council rejected repeated assurances by Idara's agents that the expansion was intended to provide more comfortable facilities for existing worshippers, rather than invite more worshippers to the centre, and refused the change-of-use application.

Head of planning John Bury said: "The proposed change of use and resultant increased capacity of the centre will result in increased parking in this heavily parked area to the detriment of public safety and amenity."

Idara chairman Amjed Hussain questioned the decision and said it was up to the council to sort out the parking problems on the street, rather than allowing it to stifle development.

He added:

"The footfall and traffic around the new centre would have been no bigger than when it was a shop, so it seems odd that they've rejected the application on parking grounds.

"Our existing set-up is very low key, and doesn't look much different from your average community centre.

"We're going to have a word with the architects to see if it is worth appealing the decision, as we have no other plans for the unit."

NEWS: Piss'n'Shit Sandwich

2010-05-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
24 May 2010

THE discovery of an "uncontrolled mouse infestation" has closed a branch of sandwich chain Subway and could give rise to criminal charges.

Environmental health officers allegedly discovered droppings and urine on food preparation surfaces and throughout the branch on Forrest Road.

It is the third Forrest Road take-away to face action for mouse droppings in the last five months.

Franchisee Narinder Atwal has been served with a hygiene emergency prohibition order, the highest level of enforcement at the council's environmental health department, indicating that the premises posed an imminent risk to public health.

The order was imposed following a tip off from a member of the public, and officers confirmed the complaint and closed the store down.

Environmental health are currently preparing a case to present to the procurator fiscal, and if the fiscal decides that the hygiene breaches are serious enough, charges could be brought against the franchisee.

A public notice is currently displayed on the door informing would-be customers of the reasons for its closure.

However, while Subway accepts that droppings have been found, a spokeswoman denied the allegations that they were found on food preparation surfaces, and said the company will be speaking to the department to have this allegation removed.

She added: "The Subway chain is extremely concerned about the findings of the environmental health officer following a visit to the store at Forrest Road, Edinburgh.

"The store is closed and the franchisee will work closely with the environmental health officer to ensure it does not reopen until the issue has been dealt with.

"The Subway chain takes food safety extremely seriously and strictly adheres to food hygiene and health and safety standards.

"The store has regular independent inspections by a reputable pest control company and all recent reports have shown no issues with the store."

Last Month, the Evening News revealed Hierapolis takeaway, just three doors down from the offending Subway, and Uncle T's across the road were also slammed by hygiene inspectors after mouse droppings were found on the premises.

Hierapolis was voluntarily closed down by management in February and is now under new management, while Uncle T's was cleared in a follow-up inspection after mouse droppings were found in January.

The two takeaways were among 130 city restaurants that failed routine council hygiene inspections in the last year. Subway Forrest Road was not one of them.

Despite being sandwiched between Subway and Hierapolis, the manager of Forrest Road hairdresser Venus said the mice have never intruded into her store.

Manager Jill Aitchison said: "We had a problem with Subway leaving its bins piled up against the dividing wall, so that the smell was wafting through.

"The council's hygiene inspectors went in to have a word with them about the bins, and when they inspected the place they told me that it was one of the cleanest takeaways they had ever seen. That was about five years ago, though, so standards must have slipped in the last few years."

A council spokeswoman confirmed that a hygiene emergency prohibition order has been served on Subway Forrest Road, but said she was prohibited from commenting further.

ANALYSIS: Slim Pickings

2010-05-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
20 May 2010

With obesity a growing problem in Scotland, the demand for diets, slimming products and more extreme weight loss measures is also on the rise. MARK McLAUGHLIN investigates the best way to fight the flab

SCOTTISH consumers spend nearly GBP 90 per household on products such as slimming shakes, low-fat processed meals and weight-loss pills.

Recent Scottish Parliament figures show that 229 people in the Lothians had obesity listed on their death certificate in the last five years.

With obesity-related illness in the Lothians higher than anywhere in Scotland, local nutritionists Emma Conroy, of Edinburgh Nutrition, and Edinburgh University's Dr Fred Pender have their work cut out helping people navigate their way through the marketing spin toward a slimmer waistline.

Here, they cast their eye over some of the top fitness fads that promise to help us to achieve a healthy lifestyle, to see how likely they are to deliver on their pledge.

SLIMMING DRINKS / MEALS / PILLS

SCOTS are clearly being lured by the growing range of brands tempting us to eat ourselves thin on their products, with Weight Watchers increasing its product range by 14 per cent, Kellogg's Special K now available in 31 different varieties and muscle-sculpting range Maximuscle more than tripling its range in two years, while diet pills continue to spark controversy over their effectiveness and effect.

Emma said: "There's no substitute for eating good healthy food. You can't fool your brain with processed rubbish.

Dr Pender said: "There's nothing better for losing weight than a natural balanced diet.

"Some of these slimming drinks do very little to help."

GASTRIC BANDS

AROUND 3,000 people are on weight-loss waiting lists while about 155 surgeries are carried out across Scotland annually.

Emma said: "I find the fact that they're now offering gastric band surgery on the NHS depressing, especially when I read stories or encounter people who have had it at a young age.

"The obesity is often a symptom of an underlying emotional problem.

"The weight will come off initially but if you don't treat the emotional problem the weight will soon go back on again."

"It's a pretty drastic and brutal way to try to lose weight."

Dr Pender said: "It's a sign of the times that people are starting to accept more radical approaches to weight loss."

NINTENDO WII FIT TRAINING

NINTENDO'S Wii Fit range of games are widely seen as the antidote to sedentary computer geeks spending hours in the armchair moving nothing but their thumbs. It is currently the third best selling console game in history, and pits players against a series of fitness challenges intended to give them a workout while keeping them entertained.

Emma said: "I always believe outdoor exercise is best. Having said that, the games are very enjoyable and the way it measures your weight and performance is motivating for some people. If people are encouraged to use it regularly then it's fine."

Dr Pender said: "While Wii-fit is aerobic, I would question how regularly people are using it."

GYM

JOINING a gym is often the first step in any new weight-loss regime, but with private memberships costing as much as GBP 50 a month, few can afford to the break the bank to break a sweat. However, some city gyms are now offering annual memberships for as little as GBP 19.99 a month.

Emma said: "Some people love the gym or love going for a swim, which is great, but I think the best way to lose weight to is to incorporate exercise into your daily routine.

"Most of us lead pretty sedentary lives, at home and at work, but you can get a lot of benefit from ditching the car and walking."

Dr Pender said: "It's vital to remember that if you're going to the gym you have to work. Some people think that just walking through the door will make you lose weight."

FIVE-A-DAY

THE World Health Organisation recommends eating a minimum of 400g of fruit and vegetables a day to lower the risk of serious health problems, such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and obesity. The NHS has translated this to an easy to remember regime of five 80g portions a day.

Emma said: "Encouraging people to eat five portions of fruit and veg a day is really just the lowest number that the department of health thought they could get people to follow. In the Mediterranean most people eat over ten portions a day.

"I'm not a fan of these fruit juices and smoothies that claim to offer 'two of your five a day'. I'd prefer it if people just ate apples and oranges rather than something that's been heavily processed."

Dr Pender said: "Five a day is the minimum you should be eating, whereas ten a day would significantly increase the balance of your diet. If you're eating ten a day there's less room for rubbish like sweets."

NEWS: Shandwick Place "A Disaster"

2010-05-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
19 May 2010

SHANDWICK Place has become "a disaster" according to one developer hoping to attract a major supermarket to the area.

The owners of the unit currently occupied by Habitat fear the furniture retailer may pull out when the lease expires in around two years, and have been canvassing interest from supermarkets.

However, several major chains - including Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Sainsbury's
and Somerfield - have turned down owner Deramore Property Group's advances unless they can secure permission for a major refit of the shop floor.

Frank Montgomery, of property agents BNP Paribas Real Estate, said: "Shandwick Place has been a disaster for retailers in the recent hard economic times and arguably hit harder by the tram works on the street.

"The location currently lacks a major tenant who would be a catalyst for the street and be a reason for people to shop on the street.

"The marketing campaign did result in interest from strong high street names, primarily the food sector, including Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury's. Discussions and negotiations were progressed with these tenants but they all led to the unit being discounted due to the current configuration of the unit."

Habitat CEO Mark Saunders gave an assurance that "Habitat is committed to Shandwick Place and Edinburgh" but gave no indication how long this commitment would last.

As a "contingency" Deramore has applied for planning permission to refit the basement for storage, remove the central staircase to increase the ground floor space and create flats on the upper floors.

Deramore commercial director Darren Lonergan said: "We're not sure what Habitat's plans are.

"We are keeping an open dialogue with them but in the meantime we'd like to have a fallback, and we have been speaking to other retailers who have requested changes to the store layout."

Somerfield, which has a store on Shandwick Place, has rejected an offer to move into the Habitat unit across the road, triggering the prospect of a supermarket war.

Such a battle could have dire consequences for local independent retailers, including convenience retailer The Westend Store, in nearby Melville Place, where owner Joe Hussain has traded for over 20 years.

The next closest independent deli, Cockburn's, was one of the first victims of the tram work and credit crunch double-whammy in 2008.

However, Joshua Miller, manager of Charlie Miller hairdressers on Shandwick Place and vice chair of the West End Traders Association, said: "We think another supermarket on the street will be a good thing.

"It would be good to see someone big and stable coming into the area.

"Joe's place is a brilliant store and is packed full of stuff, and I think he will remain the place for locals to go for a pint of milk and loaf no matter who opens up on Shandwick Place."

NEWS: Cold War Escalates...With Planes And Badgers

2010-05-27T11:53:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
17 May 2010

ARCHITECTS and developers often run into objections, and the scheme to install a massive wind turbine on Corstorphine Hill is no exception.

But the ambitious plans have found themselves under fire from above and below ground over claims they will interfere with everything from planes to badgers.

The owners of a Cold War nuclear bunker on the site have applied to build a 190ft turbine to raise money for the bunker's restoration and eventual reopening as a tourist attraction.

The plans are yet to go before city planners, but the initial objections received by the council are not good news for the scheme.

The most serious objection comes from Edinburgh Airport, where safety bosses are raising concerns the turbine could pose an obstacle to low-flying aircraft, obstruct the view of incoming pilots and interfere with radar.

And on top of that, or rather below it, are fears from Scottish Natural Heritage that, as well as spoiling the view, it will upset the hill's resident badgers.

Susan Sweetman, SNH Forth & Borders area officer, said: "Corstorphine Hill is designated as a Local Nature Conservation Site and there are large numbers of badgers known to occupy it.

"The design statement does not address any potential disturbance to badgers or refer to the conservation designations, or consider potential impacts of the turbine on birds."

The group is also worried about the look of the turbine and its visual impact on the city.

She added: "The scheme would be highly visible from most parts of the city and from the undeveloped Pentland Hills to the south.

"Along with the large scale of the turbine, this would result in significant landscape and visual impacts with little potential for mitigation."

The nuclear bunker's owner, James Mitchell, has converted a similar bunker near Anstruther into a tourist attraction called Scotland's Secret Bunker, and hopes to generate enough revenue from the turbine to repair the Corstorphine bunker, which was heavily damaged by fire in 1993.

However, planners at East Lothian Council, who were consulted as a signatory to the Edinburgh & the Lothians Structure Plan, said building a turbine to fund a tourist attraction "is not considered a sufficient material consideration to warrant a departure from Structure Plan policy".

Christopher Butler, of BAA Aerodrome Safeguarding, said: "Our assessment shows that turbines of 99m high in this location would be visible to the radar at Edinburgh Airport.

"This causes noticeable returns to be generated on the radar screens and therefore the turbine will cause operational problems for Air Traffic Control at Edinburgh Airport."

Drum Brae Community Council has also objected "in the strongest possible terms"

Chairman Reginald Kingman said: "It is our view that this development would be out of all proportion for an area that has a high number of residences in very close proximity."

Kelvin Donaldson, director of Grassmarket-based architects Gilberts,

said: "We are examining whether a very much smaller turbine might avoid interfering with aviation operations."

NEWS: Lucky Escape Before The Grenades Started Flying

2010-05-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
12 May 2010

A HOLIDAY couple stranded by volcanic ash moved into a luxury hotel only to find themselves under siege.

Jim Raeburn, 63, from Duddingston, escaped from his hotel just hours before anti-government protesters launched a grenade attack which left one person dead and injured more than 80 people.

He was left stranded in the Thai capital with his wife Rosemary when the Icelandic volcano grounded his flights home from a far east cruise.

They booked a room in the Dusit Thani Hotel in the centre of Bangkok until their flights could be rescheduled, but they arrived to find that anti-government "red shirt" protesters had camped out directly outside.

Although they were allowed to move about the city freely, every time they left their hotel they had to run the gauntlet between protesters and riot police.

Mr Raeburn, director of the Scottish Newspaper Society, said: "The red shirts were very loud. There were speeches blaring during the day, and then loud music into the evening.

"They eventually erected a barricade around their camp, and we had police parked up in the hotel car park in case the protests spread into the hotel.

"We were allowed to move around Bangkok, but eventually, after a week, our tour operator suggested that we move to a different hotel for our own safety."

Less than 24 hours later, on 22 April, one person was killed and 86 wounded when five grenades blasted holes through the roof of a Skytrain station and shattered windows at the Dusit Thani.

Mr Raeburn added: "We had been keeping up with events unfolding in Bangkok throughout our cruise but I wasn't unduly worried about it.

"There wasn't much trouble when we were there, but we knew that there was the potential for trouble from the 'multi-coloured shirts', who want the red shirts to stop their protests because of the damage they're doing to Bangkok's economy.

"It was a bit of an adventure but the decision to move us was the right one."

NEWS: Suzanne Pilley - The Hunt Intensifies

2010-05-27T11:49:00.001-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
12 May 2010

Last known movements

POLICE today repeated their appeal for information about missing Suzanne Pilley despite a "positive" response to screening her last movements on a big screen in the city centre.

The police hunt for her has intensified with forensics squads probing her workplace and appeals for help from her family and colleagues.

Miss Pilley, 38, was last seen on 4 May, the first Tuesday after the May Day bank holiday, heading for work on what appeared to be a normal day.

Detectives say they are "gravely concerned" she may have fallen victim to "a criminal act".

Forensics teams are carrying out a painstaking examination of the offices of financial services firm Infrastructure Managers Limited (IML) where she worked on Thistle Street, and a secluded lane at the rear.

Miss Pilley, who has been employed for around two years as a bookkeeper at the firm, was last seen disembarking from a No 4 bus and visiting Sainsbury's on Rose Street at around 8:50am on the day she disappeared.

She sent a text message to her mother about 20 minutes before she was last seen reportedly saying she was fine and on her way to work. Her office is less than five minutes' walk from the supermarket but police have been unable to ascertain whether she ever arrived.

A police spokeswoman said: "The forensics squad was carrying out a routine search of her office for any sign that she had been there on the day of her disappearance."

IML managing director Alan Jessop appealed for information and said: "We're all obviously very concerned about Suzanne's disappearance and we hope police appeals will lead to a successful and happy conclusion. Suzanne is just a lovely lady. She is a very valued member of staff and we are all very shocked by her disappearance."

Mr Jessop said Miss Pilley had never missed a day of work without checking in with her bosses, and that there was nothing in her demeanour in the days leading up to her disappearance to indicate she was thinking of running away.

A team of 60 officers has been drafted in to hunt for Miss Pilley, and many are currently scouring CCTV recordings of the area.

Police erected a giant television screen in St Andrew Square yesterday showing CCTV footage of her bus journey on the morning of her disappearance.

Police also distributed thousands of leaflets and took hundreds of statements from pedestrians which generated "a very positive response".

Police said Miss Pilley had recently entered into a romantic relationship and neighbours confirmed that they had seen a man apparently living with her at her home on Whitson Drive, in Saughton, for around six months.

Neighbour Scott Campbell said: "She's only been here for about a year. You see her coming and going in the stairway, and she seemed like a fairly normal person. Quite quiet, though.

"She had a boyfriend who appeared on the scene about six months ago.

"His car, a Vauxhall Vectra, was parked outside every night and left every morning so I assumed they were living together. I last saw him about six to eight weeks ago."

The door at Miss Pilley's home has now been replaced with a heavy steel security screen.

Another neighbour, who asked not to be named, said Miss Pilley had recently redecorated her flat in time for spring, adding:

"I used to chat to her in the back green when she was hanging her washing out.

"She was the same as she always was, although I think she had just had her hair cut."

Detective Chief Inspector Gary Flannigan, leading the investigation, said:

"We have very grave - and I must underline the word grave - concerns for the wellbeing of Suzanne.

"We are desperate to speak to anyone who saw her walking with her shoulder bag and large water bottle last Tuesday."

PARENTS MAKE APPEAL FOR HELP

POLICE were alerted to Miss Pilley's disappearance when her parents, Robert and Sylvia, called them in the evening after their daughter failed to show up for work.

Speaking from their home in Stenhouse, father Robert, 67, said: "The family is very upset. We would have heard from her by now.

"It's right out of character for her.

"She's always texting and calling her mum and we have not heard anything from her at all since she went missing.

"We just hope somebody gets in touch with the police. It is in the hands of the police now. There's not much else we can say."

Sylvia, 67, added: "We just hope somebody has seen something.

"Suzanne is a very proud Scot - she loves the great outdoors and is always cycling, walking and loves keep fit.

"She is a great fundraiser for charity, even abseiling off the Forth Road Bridge recently. We miss her terribly as we were in touch with her daily. The past week has just been like our worst nightmare - we almost cannot believe it is actually happening.

"We are asking anyone who might have any information, however trivial, to get in touch with police and put our minds to rest. We would also like to thank the police for all their help and assistance."

NEWS: Drive By Oranging

2010-05-27T11:45:00.001-07:00

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
10 May 2010

POLICE are hunting a motorist who brought a bus to a standstill by cracking its windscreen with an orange.

The driver of the Lothian Buses 31 service was left "shaken but unharmed" after the windscreen was struck by the projectile while he was driving along Kenilworth Drive, in the Inch, last Tuesday night.

The orange appeared to have been thrown from a passing Vauxhall Astra, which sped off towards Kirk Brae.

Police were called and another bus was dispatched to the scene to take passengers on to their destinations.

One passenger, Thomas Gaynor, 54, from Bonnyrigg, said: "We heard this big bang and then the bus came to a stop.

"A woman who was sitting at the driver's side said she had just seen the driver of a passing Vauxhall Astra throw an orange at the windscreen. The speed of the car must have given the orange enough force to crack the windscreen, and the damage was so bad that the driver couldn't continue.

"We had to wait until the police arrived. Eventually, two police cars pulled up and the officers went and had a word with the driver.

"He told the police that the bus was fitted with CCTV cameras on the front, back and sides, so they will probably have footage of the car as it was coming towards the bus.

"The bus was unable to carry on in that condition, so another bus was sent out to pick us up.

"Why would anyone throw an orange at a bus? If it was intended as some sort of prank then it was a pretty stupid idea."

Police confirmed that an investigation was under way.

A spokesman said: "Investigations are ongoing. Something was clearly thrown at the windscreen, and officers are currently making further inquiries."

A spokesman for Lothian Buses said the bus was taken back to the depot, where it was fitted with a new windscreen overnight and sent back out on the road. He said: "The orange hit the windscreen with enough force to cause a crack and it also gave the driver a bit of a fright.

"The driver was shaken but otherwise unharmed, although it could potentially have been much worse.

"If it was something harder than an orange, like a brick, it could have gone right through the windscreen and injured the driver and his passengers.

"Hopefully, through working with the police, we will be able to help with their investigations to trace the driver responsible.

"The bus is fitted with CCTV cameras, so we'll hopefully be able to pick out a registration number that police will be able to use in their inquiries.

"This was a mindless attack which could have resulted in some very serious injuries."