The good and bad of Princess Street

Having had a quiet blog, it is back to normal. Firstly I sat in the car and watched a lovely young postie lady packing lots of mail into her roadside post storage box. I was amazed at how much she was able to pack into it and it reminded me very much of the Tardis from the Dr. Who series, which was so much bigger in the inside than the outside.

BACK to the TRAMORK'S or lack of it - so having been away for three weeks, I firstly discovered that other than the fact that the holes were bigger than ever, nothing had progressed at West Maitland Street. I had a close look in one hole and saw the steel girders embedded in the roadway from the original tramways of over a Century ago. These will take some digging out at the next phase, that is, if it gets the go ahead in view of the present dispute between the Council and the contractors over the massively escalating costs. BUT I walked the length of the works from Haymarket to The Mound and I honestly felt that they were just ripping the heart out of the city. Princess Street was quiet, no traffic, buses diverted, it just did not seem to make sense - and then there were the so called workmen !! This has to be a major issue - there had to be at least one hundred men in yellow coats within the perimeter fencing BUT despite the fact it was a nice day most were standing with hands in pockets, talking and probably about 10 were working to the extent that they might even risk breaking sweat, totally unacceptable and once again a perfect example of classic idleness which have part resulted the many complaints being received.

To add insult to injury, there we were in the Standing Order when a group of "workies" arrived at 11.30 a.m. and started to down their pints - but wearing their "British Jobs, etc" jackets on - at the rate they were working nothing would ever get done and not only that they were really inciting trouble.

Our star of the morning was a local con man who is out regularly , supposedly collecting for Comic Relief but used the change in his bucket to quench his thirst.

He is, in my mind worse that the Romanian beggars who now just sit at the side of Princess Street with their begging cups- perhaps we should now be running a free bus back to Romania or Poland, just as is being done in London.