FAIR game. It's become the new national sport, getting wired into Wendy Alexander. Everybody seems to be having a right old go. Finding anybody sympathetic towards her is like finding anyone in this city who wants the trams.
I've never met the delectable Wendy. Never had the displeasure. For a long time I wouldn't have known her from Adam. But from most accounts she's not somebody you'd want to bump into in the Canongate. Not without a baseball bat.
Insiders in Holyro
od tell she's never been top of the pops there with "sundry" staff. All arrogance, they say. Sweeps into the building without as much as a by-your-leave, a good morning or a glimpse of recognition for the serfs who man the doors. A loser in this respect, least liked of the passing throng. They don't take any lip from her and, one likes to think, they wouldn't stand for it. Back in the unbelievably grim old days, when Donald Dewar was First Minister, he reportedly was this Glaswegian daughter of the manse's mentor.
It could never be claimed, though, that he had her in his pocket because Donald's troosers, it was well kent, often were stuffed with goodies from the buffet tables. Never mind the pies, who purloined all the sausage rolls and cucumber sandwiches?
Should our paths, in fact, cross in the Canongate I'd dare ask of the winsome Wendy, c'mon give us a pout, luv, if not a shout.
Meantime the Wendy house keeps quaking. Ten on the Richter seems a conservative read. Can't you feel the tremors?
Tent on the roofWherever they pitch their tent. The Glasshouse Hotel at Greenside have put up a permanent all-weather marquee on the roof to accommodate up to 90 people, almost on the slope of Calton Hill. Nothing else quite like it in the city.
Said general manager Daniel Pereira, showing it off to liberally champagned and sun-splashed guests at the launch: "We don't have quite as much grass up here as they do on the Parliament roof – where it costs the taxpayer £40,000 a year to maintain, against our £5000 – but obviously we'll be doing more receptions, birthdays, weddings, divorces. Renewal of vows if there's a demand."
The acoustics aren't bad either. "Play Misty for me," I asked the guest Chris Lyons Trio. And they did.
The full article contains 399 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
