*sniff*

I really wanted to hang around for a little while until a slightly larger puddle had collected at the downhill end of the trickle but I was already running slightly late.

When there are lovely healthy sources of street-nutrition such as this dotted around the place it's strange to see seagulls still insisting on fighting over an old sock and a wrapper from a Kit Kat in the nearby bins. They could probably quite easily get into those bags of nasty chewy rolls usually fond hanging from the handles of the doors of bacon sandwich-vendors' shops too. If enough of them ganged up they could probably make off with a fair few choice meatstuffs from the various regular open-air markets. Grindlay Street is very popular with manky bin-attacking seagulls and is barely ten seconds' flapping from the Saturday-morning Castle Terrace farmers' market.

I wonder how one would go about training seagulls. I wonder how one would go about smuggling a significant number of trained seagulls into Harvey Nichols' food hall. Perhaps conceal them under a large, fashionable coat. Perhaps velcro them together so that they resemble a really fashionable coat. Perhaps I should prepare to camp out on Bass Rock during the bird-spawning season so that all the seagulls think I'm their mother and will do my bidding.

I could even get a couple of spare ones to come and scrape the huge splatter of birdshit off the office window next to my desk so that I can see the gardens properly.