10 Things You Didn't Know About the City of Edinburgh

1) Edinburgh, is the capital of Scotland and, like the city of Rome, was built on seven hills.

2) The City of Edinburgh is 100 square miles in area (26113 hectares).

3) Edinburgh was the first city in the world which had its own fire-brigade.

4) Like Chicago, Edinburgh is also known as the "Windy City".

5) Edinburgh is twinned with Dunedin in New Zealand. Dunedin is the Gaelic form of Edinburgh.

6) Edinburgh has three Universities; the University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University, and Napier University.

7) The population of Edinburgh includes 222,020 women but only 196,894 men!

8) The first animal to be bought by Edinburgh Zoo was a gannet, which cost 18p and now appears on the crest of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.

9) A full-scale model of Edinburgh Castle, used in the late 1990s when the Capital’s Tattoo visited Wellington, is still in storage in New Zealand.

10) The world-famous Mound linking the Old Town and New Town is an artificial hill begun in 1783. It contains 1,501,000 cartloads of earth from the foundations of Princes Street.

There is a chapter about the city of Edinburgh in Scottish Miscellany - Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scotland the Brave. Pre-order your copy today!

Loch Ness

Scotland is famous for its fresh water lakes - or lochs - and rightly so; there are over 600 square miles of them! One of the most famous, of course, is Loch Ness where a mysterious monster is said to dwell. But did you know that Ness (possibly meaning ‘rushing’) is also the name of the river that flows from the loch?

And Loch Ness isn’t the only Scottish lake rumoured to have a resident beastie. There is Morag, the monster of Loch Morar, for a start, Archie of Loch Arkaig, Lizzie of Loch Lochy, Wee Oichy of Loch Oich, and Quiochy of Loch Quoich. On top of those, there are another sixteen lochs where strange creatures have allegedly been sighted.

Scottish Miscellany is full of fascinating facts like these. Pre-order your copy today.

Did ye ken...?

Ever wondered how Scotch tape got its name?

Originally it was called cellophane tape but in 1921 the 3M Company hired Mr Richard Drew as a lab technician and put him to work at improving their products.

One day, Mr Drew was watching a painter spraying a car on which he had used gummed Kraft paper to cover up the details he didn't want painted. However, when the man attempted to remove the gummed paper, it stripped the paint away with it.

Drew promised the painter that he'd work on an adhesive which would leave a clean demarcation line. In time he produced a 2 inch wide masking tape with adhesive on each edge which he delivered to the auto painter.

While testing Mr Drew's first product the painter watched it fall off as he was preparing to apply the second color of a two-tone car. The tape came loose because it was not fully coated with adhesive. It had only a 1/2" wide strip of adhesive along each edge - a money saving measure.

The painter angrily told Mr Drew, "Take this back to your stingy Scotch bosses and tell them to put more adhesive on it." This ethnic slur regarding Scottish thrift may have been unjustified, but it eventually got him the stickier tape he wanted. And the name "Scotch" stuck.

On this day in History.... 6 July

1249 - Alexander II, King of Scotland, dies of a fever. His body is buried at Melrose Abbey, Roxburghshire.

1560 - The Treaty of Edinburgh is signed by Scotland and England. The Treaty was intended to replace the Auld Alliance with France with a new Anglo-Scottish accord but it was not ratified by Mary, Queen of Scots, the reigning monarch at the time.

1766 - Alexander Wilson, the Scottish naturalist is born. Born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1794 Wilson travelled to America in search of a better life. He is now regarded as the greatest American ornithologist prior to Audubon, who was himself probably inspired to produce a book of his own bird illustrations after meeting with Wilson.

1932 - Kenneth Grahame, the Scottish author, dies. Grahame is probably best known for his classic The Wind in the Willows, in which the animal characters - principally Mole, Rat, Badger and Toad - combine human traits with authentic animal habits.

2006 - Tom Weir, Scottish climber, author and broadcaster, dies. Weir was a pioneering campaigner for the protection of the Scottish environment, and wrote a column for The Scots Magazine for over 50 years.

Scotland offers a deluxe haven to the rest of Britain

A survey by the real estate agency Knight Frank shows that a plurality of buyers in Scotland (34%) come from the wealthy South East region of England and include those who work in the City of London. It seems that they can fund this glorious, luxury lifestyle thanks to their seemingly recession-proof bonuses.

All I can say is, it's all right for some! You can read more about this story here.

Did ye ken...?

Lossiemouth RAF base in Scotland could be launching tourists into space within the next five years! Sir Richard Branson's UK Space Agency has identified Lossiemouth as the 'ideal' location to launch a spaceflight from.

You can find out more about this story here.

Scottish Miscellany on Facebook

My new non-fiction book, Scottish Miscellany - Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scotland the Brave, now has its own Facebook page.

Follow this link to find it and then why not become a fan?