Portobello Beach Edinburgh Day 330

Hardly a day for flying flags as I reflect on the outrage against the runners and spectators at the world's oldest annual marathon run first in Boston in 1897. Next month the Edinburgh Half and Full Marathon runners will pass this way - Sunday's turned off into Bath Street, just before these flags, as theirs was a circular rather than linear course.

Our thoughts and condolence are with all those affected by yesterday's unspeakable atrocity at the very point of those marathon runners' celebration on having finished; their supporters'pride and pleasure in witnessing that personal triumph and all those charities who are the worthy beneficiaries of such honest and sheer athletic human graft suddenly destroyed by two cowardly and utterly inhuman acts.