John Gibson: Where the sweeties aren’t nippy

Bet you two liquorice allsorts to a dolly mixture she’s right. Telling me how miniscule it is, Debbie Anderson claims that Candersons, near the foot of Leith Walk, is the smallest in Edinburgh.

I delivered newspapers for the shop next door, allegedly the smallest newsagents in the in the country. But too much information.

“Kids are gobsmacked when they come in,” Debbie declares. “We’ve got 200 jars of sweets – all plastic, no glass – and they don’t quite know where to start gawking.”

She opened what she calls her “little venture” this year. Between The Pipe Shop, specialising in pipes and cigars (can Leithers afford them?) and The Tattie Creel, specialists in stovies, once a staple for impoverish people in the port.

Smallest in Edinburgh? Agreed. I could hardly swing a bonbon in it.

Vanity press-ups

You see her, of late, here, there and everywhere, Pamela Stevenson, Mrs Connolly if you prefer.

Here she’s mouthing: “I don’t like the idea of ageing. I will do anything to keep myself looking young, thereabouts at 62.”

Not just looking young. “I just did a 12-hour dance marathon and at the end I just had to go up on the stage and do some press-ups.

“I had to prove that I was not only the oldest person in the room but I was so fit I could do press-ups at the end.

“My vanity is about not wanting to be rejected,” Pam’s prattling on.

And she can say that again.