No good reason to cancel gigs

I am appalled, as I am sure many others are, at this absurd decision on the basis of complaints by Historic Scotland.

Regular Music, the organisers, are seasoned hands at this type of event and everyone who has been to their concerts, or who has performed at them, knows that they have a long-established caring attitude - in my opinion second to none - towards every aspect of health and safety. The concert-goer knows that Regular Music will look after them.

So there are queues on the Royal Mile. There are queues to get in on Tattoo nights, but that’s, seemingly, OK.

Historic Scotland - what’s in a name? - is being not only unreasonable but myopic, presumably because it doesn’t like the idea of a horde of young people invading its territory.

The truth is that these concerts bring a tremendous buzz of excitement to the city, a buzz that is recognised even by the history-minded tourists who come here.

A queue of animated people snaking down the Royal Mile means that this historic place is still alive, not dead.

When these same tourists go home to Sydney or San Francisco, they may tell all of their friends about Edinburgh’s wonderful architecture. But, first, they will say: "Guess who we actually went to see playing at Edinburgh’s historic Castle? Bob Dylan and Sting! We were there!"

Only they won’t be able to say that now. They’ll just have to show their friends yet another shot of that quaint old close, just next to the Castle. What fun.

Alastair Clark, Linn Mill, South Queensferry