It is a perfectly normal Saturday afternoon in Edinburgh city centre, by which I mean: Waverley station is packed and you are never more than six paces from bumping into the back of a tourist who has decided that a busy shopping street is the perfect place to stop with no warning to take four or five photographs of their friends. Or, better, some magnificent Georgian architecture.

Head down Princes Street, even more bustling than usual thanks to the gardens being shut after Storm Amy had raged rain and wind, and turn left at Haymarket station and you notice two things immediately: the foot traffic has subsided and all of it is walking in one direction. This is the start of the Maroon Mile, taking you all the way to Tynecastle Park.

Benson’s Bar and then the Tynecastle Arms are both doing

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