This trama is set to try your temper

Published on 26/06/2008 09:21

TRAMCARNAGE. Cop the every-which-way chaos around teatime in the city centre tonight, just a hint of what's ahead these next couple of months, exacerbated by great hordes of festive visitors.

Put it down to the infernal trams that so many Edinburghers neither want nor need. Stop them in the street and they'll tell you they feel they've been conned into a tramway system bound to create horrendous hassle. For pedestrians and motorists, so much inconvenience. For shopkeeper hardship, inadequately compensated with a handful of sweeties, their businesses beyond restoration.

It can only get worse. Much, much worse. The perpetrators, the propagandists, keep telling us everything's hunky dory. Don't believe them. Believe me. This sad affair will run over budget and won't meet completion date.

Tramcarnage spells torrid times ahead for Edinburgh folk, as if everyday life itself hasn't become trial enough, and it will be 2011 before they see a tram on the road.

Think about that when you're all jammed up tonight. Mind you, maybe Edinburgh City Centre Mismanagement could placate you.

Five-star piano

About time, too. They've called in a pianist to the Balmoral's Palm Court worthy of a five-star hotel. Lincolnshire-born Robert Grimwood during his 25 years on America's east coast worked in and around Washington, where Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, separately, have been among his audiences.

Jazz-influenced, his repertoire brings a quality and professionalism to the room that's been missing far too long. "This piano's excellent," he reckons. "A couple of hundred pounds spent on it and it would be positively brilliant." Robert's been blind virtually from birth. Listen!

Afterwords . .

. . . the sheer gall of our politicians and Alistair Darling's no exception. He's urging everybody not to stoke inflation with pay rises when MPs are putting themselves in line for a 40k increase. He's taking us for chumps and, of course, we are when we should be out in the streets savaging his Government. Nil out of ten, Al, for your brick wall performance with Andy Marr.