EH3, WHAT?

No sooner has Hibu’s tissue of disappointments New Town Matters quietly dissolved than another free glossy flops onto the mat. 

A claimed ‘35,000 readers’ in ‘Scotland’s most expensive postcode’ are the lucky recipients. 

But EH3 residents have been left perplexed by the first issue of New Town Gazette (no relation of the late-lamented Gorgie-Dalry Gazette). Apart from anything else, it features a front-page photograph of Edinburgh’s historic Old Town. 

And then there's the fact that the 32-page magazine – which claims to focus on ‘interesting local news’ – is in fact dominated by articles on: Scottish castles; a tiger in Illinois; duck confit; property in the Pyrenees; crises with curtains, halls and sofa cushions; an Ipswich charity; city breaks in Amsterdam, Paris, London, Rome and Krakow; Kinross cashmere; healthy holidays; an architect in Milnathort; property on the Costa Blanca; the Fife Academy for Performing Arts; rescue pets; Perthshire squirrels; and six, odd, unconvincingly attributed spoutings on immigration by supposed locals.

Call us picky, but few of the overwhelmingly business-friendly pieces would look out of place in parent organisation Notice Me Publications’ other magazine the Kinross Gazette, whose November front page we reproduce (right) for purposes of comparison.

We wish the Gazette every success, but judging by its content so far we doubt whether the new arrival will be well received by readers.

In fact, we'd be surprised if it's still nuzzling up to the New Town come April.