Talk of the town: Aspiring spin-doctors led down the wrong track

So you imagine our surprise at Talk of the Town when a job advert for a new £70,000-a-year PR chief was advertised online – and Edinburgh recruitment agencies began seeking top journalists to fill the role.

Candidates were warned they would have to be ready to turn their hand to “periodic crisis communications”.

However, no sooner had we contacted the tram press office about the move – it has already forked out £580k for crisis management from PR firm Media House – than TOTT was told they had never heard of the role.

Instead it seemed an overenthusiastic consultant at Blue Arrow recruitment had got the wrong end of the stick.

“An error appears to have occurred which we are investigating,” revealed a spokeswoman, crushing the hopes of prospective spinners looking for some easy cash.

Bakery hoping for sweet success at the Fringe

OVER the years Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival has spawned a raft of merchandise while launching the careers of hundreds of comedy acts.

But this year a city bakery is getting into the mix, by providing culture vultures with something a little more substantial to get their teeth into – other than laugh-a-minute gags. Cuckoo’s Bakery on Dundas Street has created a Fringe 2012 cupcake made with a lime and lychee curd filling, topped with lychee buttercream and a sugarcraft plaque.

It is understood the bitesize treats are sufficiently weighty to be deployed as delicious missiles at the notorious Late ‘n’ Live free-for-all at Gilded Balloon come August.

East Coast on write track

IF you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have already read in your Evening News today how a row on a train simultaneously broadcast on Twitter may be turned into a Fringe play.

But it seems Janey Godley isn’t the only person cocking an ear towards the words and wisdom of other passengers on our carriages. Rail provider East Coast, which connects Edinburgh with England, has appointed what it claims is the UK’s first writer-in-residence on a train.

Julia Crouch has already penned a story based on her journeys between London and Harrogate.

Let’s just hope she doesn’t turn her attention to the wrong conversation . . . or a sequel to Murder on the Orient Express could be in the offing.