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davidsterratt.bsky.social
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Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
spurtle.bsky.social
EVERYBODY'S DOING THE LOCOMOTION.—Another Reader's Letter deplores Spurtle's train service: www.broughtonspurtle.org.uk/letters/cros...
#Edinburgh #hyperlocal #news
Angry face on a steam locomotive.
November 8, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
spurtle.bsky.social
@davidsterratt.bsky.social
spurtle.bsky.social spurtle.bsky.social @spurtle.bsky.social · 2d
EVERYBODY'S DOING THE LOCOMOTION.—Another Reader's Letter deplores Spurtle's train service: www.broughtonspurtle.org.uk/letters/cros...
#Edinburgh #hyperlocal #news
Angry face on a steam locomotive.
November 8, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
lauravivanco.bsky.social
Still of a heist movie about stealing jewels from the Balmoral, featuring Harold Lloyd dangling from the massive clock face (the mechanism was slightly damaged during filming, which is why it's run 3 minutes fast ever since).
November 4, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
spurtle.bsky.social
CROSSED LINES, INTENSE PRESSURE, SPURTLE DERAILED.—Reader's letter: www.broughtonspurtle.org.uk/letters/cros...
#Edinburgh #hyperlocal #news #railwayhistory
The offending article from Issue 356.
November 3, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
spokes.org.uk
#Tram #Granton-#Bioquarter

🙋Early Spokes thoughts
-> www.spokes.org.uk/2025/09/tram...

@edi.bike @edinreporter.bsky.social @edinburghminute.bsky.social @thecockburn.bsky.social @ssc-edinburgh.bsky.social @stephenjenkinson.bsky.social @alastairdalton.bsky.social @transform.scot @edinburghlive.co.uk
Tram Granton to Bioquarter – initial Spokes thoughts With the consultation underway, we are publishing some initial thoughts from Spokes and welcome any feedback. You may also wish to consider our points in your own consultation response. Basically, Spokes supports the principle of the tram, but we have identified some problems and some missed opportunities on the integration of cycling. We urge a fuller treatment of cycling in the forthcoming stage of more detailed planning, and we urge that complete details on cycling provision are included in the next round of consultation. Decision criteria In all decisions on the tram project, Spokes considers that the following criteria are crucial.. Traffic reduction. Traffic reduction is a major factor in positive cycling, wheeling, walking and living conditions throughout the city, and a major contributor to desirable outcomes on congestion, public health and climate. Thus decisions, such as in the Bridges corridor, must have traffic reduction as a top objective. Improving cycling conditions. Every opportunity should be taken to improve cycling conditions – for example, if the Council selects the Roseburn route the project should incorporate a new active travel bridge over the mainline railway Not worsening cycling conditions. Our biggest concern from the tram project is dangers from onroad tramlines where the layout neglects proper consideration for cycling safety. This is a major concern in the Bridges and also in the sections at Orchard Brae and from Granton to Crewe Toll. General points relevant to the scheme as a whole, or all areas Bike carriage on the trams – Edinburgh was (and, we think, still is) a pioneer in the UK in catering for, albeit this is fairly common in many European and US tram systems. With the planned tram extensions, including eventually over long distances into the Lothians, it is vital that the policy continues and, in particular, that the design of further tram vehicles continues to enable this. City Centre to Bioquarter Top issues The section through North and South Bridges is of extreme concern, with no cycle provision, new tramlines and continued through traffic on a road where width is at a premium. The project should include a bus gate (as was planned, though never implemented, as part of the Covid proposals) potentially single track sections and fully segregated cycle provision. & Photo showing... Netherlands single-track tram shopping street section, allowing safe space for walking, wheeling and cycling Crewe Toll to City Centre, via Roseburn corridor Top issues The Council is to be congratulated on modifying the project north of Roseburn bridge to single track, and with battery running, enabling a 3m+ active travel path (with one pinch point). This follows the instruction to the tram team by councillors at the 1.2.24 Transport Committee, for which we again thank all members and others who contacted councillors at that time. However, south of Roseburn Bridge, to Russell Road, there is a lack of clarity, and indeed contradictions, in the consultation materials – see these clarifications from the tram team, the Roseburn bridge cross section, the path cross section, the artist impression and the map view. Further investigation is essential, with a firm intention to continue the 3m offroad path through this section. The tram project should incorporate a 3m active travel bridge over the mainline railway, thus providing a level offroad path from Leith right through Roseburn to Dalry and Fountainbridge. This bridge is included in the Council’s Mobility Plan, Active Travel Delivery [page 43]. To forget it now, with major earthworks likely for the tram project, would make a mockery of these intentions. Whilst costly, the cost would be lost in the overall tram project. Crewe Toll to City Centre, via Orchard Brae Top issues The onroad tramlines, combined with traffic pressures, including at several junctions and narrow sections, present a major hazard to cyclists, given the absence of segregated provision. Indeed, the current proposals actually remove existing segregation, presenting a situation similar to the first tramline. The Council needs to provide detailed plans of how these dangers will be averted if this route option is chosen. CEC should give consideration to single-tracking on Dean Bridge rather than stating “cross-section prohibits segregated cycle provision”.
September 9, 2025 at 2:58 PM
@tracygilbertmp.bsky.social if you've not already done so, I would ask you as my MP to support this proposal for a commission for electoral reform to start work this year on recommending a proportional replacement for First Past the Post.
September 27, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
peaceedu.quaker.org.uk
It's 8:15, and that's the time it's always been...
Setsuko Thurlow, tireless campaigner for the nuclear ban, graphically describes the morning of 6 August in Hiroshima in 1945.
Credit to WMD Awareness.
youtu.be/WVyWc0qdfuY?... #NoMoreHiroshimas
August 6, 2025 at 7:15 AM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
peace-campaigns.quaker.org.uk
On Hiroshima Day, let us draw strength from the tireless campaigning of the last Japanese survivors.

Tadayoshi Ogawa: 'We live on something akin to a spaceship...we can fight over borders, over resources, and the spaceship and the life on it will suffer.'

www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...
Quakers host two survivors of atomic bombing of Japan in 1945
Nagasaki must be the last city in the world to ever experience an atomic bomb, two survivors of the bombings of Japan by the USA told a gathering in Friends House, London, last weekend.
www.quaker.org.uk
August 6, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
nuclearban.bsky.social
At exactly 8:15 a.m. JST, around the time you’re reading this, 80 years ago, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Today, we remember the lives lost, the survivors who continue to speak out, and the urgent need for nuclear disarmament. Read more here: www.icanw.org/remembering_...
August 6, 2025 at 12:35 AM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
spurtle.bsky.social
SPOT THE PEDESTRIAN.—Leith Street go-see advert poses non-see-through danger. Reader's letter: broughtonspurtle.org.uk/letters/go-s...
#Edinburgh #hyperlocal #news
@edinburghcouncil.bsky.social @edi.bike @livingstreetsedi.bsky.social @ntbcc.bsky.social
Leith Street, looking south. Pole-mounted advert obscures view of pavement at one end of the pedestrian crossing.
August 4, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
spurtle.bsky.social
NORMAL SERVICE RESTORED.—Uninvited bats, mice, flamingos and kangaroos all now removed from the website. Download your free, colour copy of Issue 352 here: broughtonspurtle.org.uk
#Edinburgh #hyperlocal #news
Front page of July issue (No. 352).
July 2, 2025 at 7:26 AM
About to start our 2nd-last roll of Edinburgh District Council bin-bags, popped through a letter box ~30 years ago, long before container bins, bin hubs and gull-proof sacks.
April 28, 2025 at 11:12 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
quaker.org.uk
🚨 Outrage as 20 police officers break into Westminster Quaker Meeting House and arrest six. 🚨
This shocking violation of a place of worship is a direct result of crackdowns on protest and dissent - freedom of speech, assembly and democracy are at risk.🕊️
👉 www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...
Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House
Police broke into a Quaker Meeting House last night (27 March) and arrested six young people holding a meeting over concerns for the climate and Gaza.
www.quaker.org.uk
March 28, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
quaker.org.uk
We’re proud to share the story of Kathleen Lonsdale - scientist, Quaker, and fearless advocate for peace and prison reform.
One of the first female Fellows of the Royal Society, Lonsdale was imprisoned in WWII as a conscientious objector.
Watch @royalsociety.org new film here: 🎥 youtu.be/Jwcf23XJ8vI
The ethical science of Kathleen Lonsdale | The Royal Society
YouTube video by The Royal Society
youtu.be
March 26, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
darrenmcleanuk.bsky.social
About time too.

They should also be paying the costs of people who had to replace it.
A screenshot of the list of companies to be investigated as part of the Grenfell disaster The full article is here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg1eje2jg4o Screenshot of the article. The full article is here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg1eje2jg4o
February 26, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
ncdominie.bsky.social
Thorough in Edinburgh today for a talkything in one of the the big shiny buildings on Potterrow.

In tenuous honour of the event, here's what the Informatics Forum looked like from the top of Appleton Tower in 1965/66. [Photo: my dad.]
View obliquely downwards into a triangular back court wedged between high rows of tenements. Nothing is exactly derelict, but even then it wasn't the corner the tourists came to see.
February 21, 2025 at 7:37 AM
@threadinburgh.scot Just in case you've missed this delightful cocktail of Ladybird books and modernism...

dirtymodernscoundrel.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-...
The Ladybird Book of Postwar Rebuilding
Postwar British architecture, brutalism, modernism, design and social history from John Grindrod, author of Concretopia.
dirtymodernscoundrel.blogspot.com
February 18, 2025 at 11:44 PM
"The back green of a Scottish tenement provides little incentive to sociability."
February 8, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
lauravivanco.bsky.social
This showed up in my feed and it just struck me that it looked a lot like a mug shot (if a lemur had just been arrested for disorderly bouncing through a forest).
February 8, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
spurtle.bsky.social
SAD NEWS FOR BROUGHTON:—John Dickie, founding editor of the Broughton Spurtle, will stir no more: broughtonspurtle.org.uk/news/sad-new...
#Edinburgh #hyperlocal #news
John Dickie (top-left), pictured in the early 1990s, protesting against the Poll Tax.
December 28, 2024 at 5:37 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
lauravivanco.bsky.social
This is my latest 3D #HandEmbroidery creature. It's based on a #PaperCraft model from Canon (by ayumu saito) creativepark.canon/en/contents/... .
A hand-embroidered, 3D guinea pig (golden brown face, white band across the middle and golden brown at the rear, with pink paws and nose) stares at the camera.
December 13, 2024 at 2:46 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
hpsvanessa.bsky.social
The aim is to separate teaching & research, have one as a high status elite job for the few and the other as a low paid grind - let the elites do a seminar here & there so you can claim you’re doing “research led teaching”at a few rich unis. Everything is moving us to this goal. It’s deliberate.
eicathomefinn.bsky.social Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · Dec 7
'Budgets and vacancies are decided by research-oriented line managers, who still believe that an excellent researcher can in theory deliver excellence in teaching when reality proves otherwise.' Utter rubbish. Utterly unsubstantiated. If 'reality' proved otherwise, evidence would be adduced. 1/2
Weekend Reading: Education and Scholarship - An overlooked solution to the teaching dilemma - HEPI
Balancing research and teaching is critical for UK universities, yet undervaluation of teaching-focused roles hinders staff progression and satisfaction.
www.hepi.ac.uk
December 7, 2024 at 10:33 AM
As well as lots of coaches, this 1967 short shows footage of Edinburgh's St Cuthbert's milk horses, the now-demolished St James square area and the Caledonian station. The commentary is also worth a listen...
movingimage.nls.uk/film/5912
Full record for 'COACHBUILDERS, the' (5912) - Moving Image Archive catalogue
movingimage.nls.uk
November 15, 2024 at 9:32 PM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
spurtle.bsky.social
ISSUE 345 PUBLISHED TODAY.—Also available as a waterproof pdf here: www.broughtonspurtle.org.uk
#Edinburgh #hyperlocal #news
Front page of the November 2024 Spurtle.
November 1, 2024 at 11:24 AM
Reposted by davidsterratt.bsky.social
spurtle.bsky.social
AUGUST SPURTLE (Issue 342).—Available in shops, services, public libraries, railing dispensers & the odd red phonebox across Broughton and beyond.

Usual outlets are regularly topped up. Alternatively, download your free, colour, rain-resistant pdf from our website here: www.broughtonspurtle.org.uk
PAGE 1 of ISSUE 343 (AUGUST 2024).
August 9, 2024 at 4:04 PM