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IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 16years old!
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Strong smell of vinegar/acetic acid when passing NB distillery Gorgie at around 5:30pm. Every fire, ambulance and police appliance you can imagine in attendance. (At least 7 or 8 of each variety).
Not sure what was going on, possibly another chemical spill?
I was cycling into town along Gorgie Road this evening, about 5pm or just after, and three fire appliances were racing the other way as best they could. Two fire tenders and the fire control unit.
I don't know if it's related but the traditional aroma from the NB Distillery was very strong yesterday afternoon and this afternoon.
Not NB, heroin factory -
http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/firefighters-deal-with-gorgie-chemical-incident-1-3579490
Macfarlan Smith at the end of Wheatfield Road. Site has "previous" http://news.stv.tv/east-central/301562-firefighters-tackle-explosion-at-a-drugs-factory-in-edinburgh/
They make diamorphine (medical-grade Heroin) amongst other "controlled substances". Check out the specification of the fences and gates next time you pass in daylight.
We live just the other side of the Gorgie Road and had no idea that anything had happened... (I didn't even know about Macfarlan Smith - I'll take a look the next time I go that way. I think I thought that all of that area was North British Distillery.)
"I didn't even know about Macfarlan Smith"
It's a bit hidden. On a deadend road with a 'secret' path that's still missing a dropped kerb - years after Sainsbury's opened. (Slightly quieter route towards the WoL.)
a 'secret' path that's still missing a dropped kerb - years after Sainsbury's opened
Yes, that is a bug bear of mine. It would have been perfectly feasible for Sainbury's to create a segregated cycle path from this point, round 2 sides of the car park, to connect to the 'Sainsbury's' lights. In doing so, connecting Gorgie to WoL/Balgreen. It would've cost Sainsbury's nothing, there is already plenty of grass verge around the car park.
Instead you have to make a crazy dog leg around some recycling bins, broken glass and blind corners with peds approaching...
TIE
Oh, yes, right, I know about that "secret" path round the side of Sainsbury's - I run that way quite often, and it is also the quickest route from our flat to Murrayfield. I just hadn't paid much attention to the industrial units down there!
I went that way for the first time a few weeks back - I'm not sure why it hadn't occurred to me before to try it. Although I tend to avoid the WOL/Westfield Av route due to the tedious long wait at the traffic lights.
On that occasion I went via the Sainsbury's car park and via the recycling bins as mentioned by edd1e_h. That route seems to get round the dropped kerb problem at least.
Somebody must have spilt the ethanoic anhydride used to turn poppy juice into medicine.
I didn't know about that secret path. I think I've just found a new route home via sainsburys. was previously coming all the way around russel road or around via the horrible bus shortcut that's further along.
"think I've just found a new route home via sainsburys"
Beware, glass.
I cut through the carpark too so the (lack of) dropped kerb I meant was at the Wheatfield end. Not particularly big, but there is often a litter filled puddle too.
Coming from the WoL I keep imagining that the lights for the right turn into Sbury's should be a 'filter' but it doesn't seem to be - unless it just doesn't detect bikes(?)
I went past just after 6, and could see firemen coming out one of the buildings on the Westfield Road side. By the time I had walked to the front (I'm on foot because of a annoying couch/back end of a cold) The Fire incident response unit and another fire engine were leaving. So don't think it amounted to anything.
"ethanoic anhydride"? Is this a relative of dihydrogen monoxide?
Lots of good heritage wrapped up in this.
The site was originally the Daniel Bernard brewery. Daniel Bernard fell out with his brothers T & J Bernard who ran the successful Edinburgh Brewery on Robertson Avenue (under where all the new houses at the top are). He set up on his own at the Wheatfield site but it didn't prosper and soon closed. The original malthouse is incorporated into the current pharmaceuticals site.
Macraflan Smith were formed from the merger of three Edinburgh pharmaceuticals companies; J. F. Macfarlan, T. & H. Smith and Duncan & Flockhart. They have a long combined pedigree, including producing sterile dressings for Joseph Lister, were involved in the development and supply of Chloroform to James Young Simpson, produced the poison Strichnine in a factory on Northfield Broadway, produced "Lettuce Opium", had a medicinal drugs farm in Warriston (Tesco used to be the site of the Blandfield Chemical Works), invented the first liquid essence of Coffee (see this wonderful Victorian advertising poster), developed the first injectable morphine and to top it all off, discovered the bitterest substance known to man (Denatonium) in 1958, which is used to make industrial alcohol, solvents and detergents unpalatable.
They grow poppies under licence in England for refining into opiates.
@kaputnik
Fantastic, thanks! I have actually used products branded Duncan & Flockhart.
But the bitterest thing known to man is not Bitrex, it is Suze.
http://www.pernod.fr/english/marques/autres_boissons/suze.html
Adding Bitrex to Suze would make it more drinkable.
There was another "synthetic coffee essence" works in Beaverbank (just by Warriston) at one time, under the name Thomas Symington & Co. who marketed their product under the Dandelion brand. I'm not sure if it came from dandelions, chicory is more likely. Symingtons also made flavoured jelly crystals and "Instan-tea" tea crystals.
plaque to duncan flockhart on Balmoral hotel, bridges side
his DF118s beloved of many a 50p junkie in Castlemilk, the chaps I used to take to the GFT or the Trout Farm at Lanark.
to misquote that guy that left the Eagles before they made it
dihydrocodeine to kill the pain
but dihydrocodeine don't kill the pain
Whiskey sours was the real stuff
Cannot dredge his name (JJ Something? NOT JJ Cale), sorry, but he was good and obvioulsy kept his cred by leaving the Eagles
Trout farm replica, surely?
Ah IWRATS you are so right. The farm had a stocked pond that the 50p junkies and I went too, it was impossible not to catch trout. The chaps were a little squeamish so veggie gembo had to remove the fish from their hooks. They then carried them back to chateau au lait like the mighty hunters returning. You see what I did there I bigged up their self esteem got them out of the gutter to the point where they could resume domestic abuse of their wives and families.
The only other customers were three strange Italian chaps who also liked 100% strike rate when casting line into pond. The surface was virtually teaming with trout
Eagles guy was JJ Southern I believe, he came back to me cycling home
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