BE afraid. Hamilton & Inches and all you elitist jewellers out there. Be very afraid. Sandra Murray's coming. She'll have you out of business before long.
Hang on a tick, I'm jesting. She's been renting a studio workshop at the Wasps complex in Albion Road at the back of Easter Road Stadium this past year and, from toying with the idea of working semi-professionally with metal to wear – silver's her sp
eciality – she is now doing it for a living. Precariously but she admits it might take time to get the big operators off the High Street.
It's been an uncertain trip to where she's at now. Edinburgh Art College, a metal-weaving course with a master goldsmith in Italy, a rented workshop in East Lothian at Fenton Barns. Edinburgh and Pentland Lapidary Society. Exhibitions at St John's Church in the West End, the RSA and she's going back to Glasgow's Compass Gallery for its Christmas Show.
Sandra's usually at Wasps night and day. Isn't this a dodgy time to be selling jewellery? "Not at all. In times of depression women want to boost their morale and look nice."
They won't want to bust their bank books either. At her current prices, with a £150 max and throwaway pieces at £19.19, she'll hardly have Hamilton & Inches and co in fear and trembling.
Well versed Could be you're a poet and you don't know it. You can't think of a rhyme at this moment in time. If you do have the gift, give your morale a lift. Just get out that pen and don't blow it.
Tomorrow is National Poetry Day and, you'll gather, I'm caught up in the excitement. Terse with my verse but maybe Kate or Chris at Colman Getty (0207-631 2666) could help you. Something's doing in the Canongate.
Legal trouble• The poor dears. Long hours and stress are driving lawyers to drink and drugs. Whenever we see an impoverished lawyer or solicitor we are in the habit of writing to the Times about it, as one automatically writes in about spotting the first cuckoo of spring.
A fact, if we are to believe the mag Legal Business, and who wouldn't believe a bona fide legal person? Add to the long hours and stress, the strength-sapping task of sticking a stamp on a letter that costs the client upwards of a hundred quid.
The full article contains 405 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
