Dear Spurtle,

I see that the colours of New Town front doors must be ‘in keeping with the historic character’ of the area.

At least, they can’t be pink, but, going on the evidence, bright yellow or red ones are absolutely fine.

It’s not obvious, then, what principle or precedent is being applied here. Probably none. However, I’d like to suggest the following: if a colour is deemed acceptable for local trousers (most of which are remarkably historic in character), there’s no reason why it’s not also appropriate for a front door.

Incidentally, isn’t it interesting how it’s fine to clog New Town streets with non-heritage vehicles, and acceptable to convert kitchens into bedrooms and turn butlers into Airbnb hosts, but heaven forfend a porte en rose?

Petty controversies such as this usually arise in the Drummond Place area. This is because, being right on the edge of the New Town, residents here tend to overcompensate. Let’s not forget, they are virtually Leithers.

New Town Flaneur

(EH3)

Dear Spurtle,

You report in the October issue (p.1) that Police followed a protestor who had held up a blank placard at the royal funeral procession, in order to 'prevent possible disorder'.

The suggestion that this was a potential Everard incident seems extreme; was this not simply the latest incident in a long line of Police mis-steps which only show how difficult they find it to police freedom of expression with anything approaching nuance?  

What's interesting is that, previously, the Police seemed to have been recruited into the culture wars to serve solely on the side of the woke and the perenially-offended. The legal action against the owner of a Nazi-saluting dog; the recording of a 'non-crime hate incident' against the Home Secretary in 2017; Police attendance at a man's workplace to 'check his thinking' after a poor joke on Twitter; last week's threat that 'misgendering' a convicted paedophile who now identifies as a woman would be treated as a hate crime - are among many examples. The to-do around funeral placards seems like a long-awaited taste of the same medicine.  

Perhaps now we can all agree that policing potential thought-crimes of whatever political hue (or indeed simple rudeness and bad behaviour) is no role for the Police.

Caroline Roussot

Dear Spurtle,

I’m writing to report a mysterious occurrence on Brandon Terrace.

I'm a long-time resident of this locale and, for the last 20 years or so, have had a resident’s parking permit for Zone 6.

When the lockdown liberalisation of parking controls came to an end, Brandon Terrace’s mix of parking-permit and pay-and-display spaces were unified into combined places where anyone could park as long as they had either a permit or a ticket. They even changed the signs to reflect this change, and the space on the opposite side to the shops and tenements, between the bus stop and the traffic lights, had ta new sign put up in June 2021 (see below).

Having happily parked there ever since, I was surprised to find a parking ticket on the car last week. Further investigation showed that, in a mysterious turn of events, the sign has transformed itself and now states that it is in Zone 5a (see below).  

Having appealed the ticket, I’m waiting to hear back, but I’m mystified how it can be possible for the Council to have made this change apparently without any notice.

Does this mean that the parking space has been in a strange state of seeming to be one thing while actually being another and its identity crisis has now been resolved?

Is it facing an existential crisis, unable to know definitively which zone it belongs in, or is it perhaps a liminal parking space?

Most importantly, from a practical point of view, which sign is right?  

Nicholas Bone

Brandon Terrace

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