Street life

Although I worked in Edinburgh for a long time and lived there for five years, I always feel like a stranger in town. Mostly, this means that I am wowed by it. But not today.

The west end of Princes Street has given up on retailing and is really shabby. The area around Haymarket is a mess, as they build the city's "transport hub" - ha! And the Army has tanks and trucks on the streets, with soldiers posing atop them. (OK, it's a recruitment drive - in the week that they've announced compulsory redundancies).

If anyone is thinking of filming a post-apocalyptic movie, Princes Street would be an ideal location.

The most cheerful sight was these elephants, which - ironically - are actually intended to highlight the problems of endangered species.