TORTURE and murder on Arthur's Seat. What in the name of the wee polisman is this city of ours coming to? Panic ye not, though! The lads at East Fettes aren't onto it. But Gus Dury is.
Dury is drifting from Edinburgh pub to pub, drinking to forget a nasty divorce and his once lush life in journalism (there used to be a lot of us about) when he is dragged into a tangle of crime in the Capital, some real heavies at its core.
Dur
y's a Leither, son of a football internationalist, so he's made of the right stuff. He's the creation of Tony Black, as it happens a freelance journalist currently working in Edinburgh, and you can read about what happens on Arthur's Seat and Dury's further local exploits in Paying For It, Black's debut crime thriller.
"I've been writing for ten years – a decade of rejection, the familiar old story – and Paying For It is my fifth book, the first to make any impact now that I'm with an influential London publisher. It brought me a slot in the Book Festival and I'm doing a reading at Waterstones West End tomorrow at six.
For Black, 36, the rejection days are over. He's past the done-and-dusted stage with the follow-up Gus Dury. Gutted will be published next summer.
Scones gone ANY woman worth her weight in foundation garments will tell you . . . a "cream tea" (your granny loved them) just isn't the same without a scone, buttered or jammed.
But no longer. An EU directive has banned Scots from eating home-made scones and cakes at fairs and highland shows and the Scottish Woman's Rural Institutes are not best pleased. Ban this, ban that, ban every damn thing. Only the Taliban can't be banned.
Scones, likewise cakes, can still be entered at competitions but Brussels rules that everything be binned soon as the contest is over. Don't be sneaky either. Food Hygiene (Scotland) in their jackboots and swastika-d uniforms will be watching This has been your white ban man talking.
Afterwords . . . . . a stray bawl from Franco Zola, former star for Italy and new boss of London's West Ham: "My philosophy is to play offensive football."
We've had offensive football in Edinburgh for years and we've had to put up with it.
The full article contains 394 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
