Close reading.

This is a view through Tweeddale Close looking towards Tweeddale House named after the First Earl of Tweeddale (of course!) who inherited it from his grandmother in 1645. A window lintel bears the date 1576, so by my reckoning that makes it 437 years old.

In later years the mansion house became the head office of the British Linen Bank and from around 1817 until 1973 it was occupied by the publishers Oliver and Boyd. Restored in the 1980s the building continues its long publishing association with one of the tenants being Canongate Books.

Canongate Books was founded in 1973 and following a management buyout in 1994 it has emerged as one of the more "dynamic" publishing houses in the UK. Amongst others it has published Lanark by Alasdair Gray and Life of Pi by Yann Martel, which won the Booker Prize in 2002.

I have no idea what book the lady is reading, it looks too intellectual for me, but the pose she is striking is down to the fact she is smoking a fag.