Five things you need to know today Edinburgh!

2014_Sept Edinburgh12

Prime Minister to be questioned at Westminster 

An American in Paris (in Edinburgh!)

At Gorgie City Farm this week

Carrier Bags at the ready

Business Broadband vouchers

The Prime Minister David Cameron is scheduled to be questioned today, just a day after the UK Parliament reconvenes after Conference recess, before a Select Committee at Westminster about UK governance in light of the Scottish Referendum. (NOTE – this has now been postponed till November in light of the debate at Westminster today on the Scottish Referendum)

The Scottish Independence Referendum may have resulted in a No vote but the three leaders of the main political parties gave their undertaking to enter into a reform process to allow Scotland more devolved powers. Some critics said shortly after the result of the vote was known that the Prime Minister had given this undertaking without discussing anything with the Cabinet, so this might be an interesting start to the new session of the UK parliament.

Rt Hon Sir Alan Beith MP, the Chair of the Liaison Committee, said:

“Whatever the result of the Scottish Referendum, significant constitutional changes are in prospect and the Liaison Committee intends to question the Prime Minister in depth about his ideas for change and their implications for the various parts of the United Kingdom.”

You can watch live on TV online here.

Meanwhile William Hague on moving towards ‘English votes for English laws’ has been warned against partisan games according to The Guardian.

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At the Hawthornden Lecture Theatre this Thursday evening they are showing the film An American in Paris between 6 and 8pm. The film is a musical starring Gene Kelly as a struggling American painter in Paris in George Gershwin’s 1928 symphonic poem to Paris.

Free and unticketed this event is linked to the American Expressionism exhibition which ends this weekend.

The exhibition traces the discovery of Impressionism by American artists in the late 19th-century. Divided into four groups these include: major figures such as Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler who lived in Paris and were close personal friends of the French Impressionists, especially Degas and Monet; the group of American artists who trained in Paris and/ or settled near Monet at Giverny in 1887; American Impressionists working in the USA, including William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam and Theodore Robinson and Later Impressionism and the American group known as ‘The Ten’.

This exhibition is organized by the musée des impressionnismes Giverny and the Terra Foundation for American Art in collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. With the generous support of the Terra Foundation for American Art

The film is showing at the Hawthornden Lecture Theatre at the Scottish National Gallery (entering by Princes Street Gardens) at 6.00pm.

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Your younger children might like to help out at Gorgie City Farm?

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If you are going shopping from next Monday then you need to remember to take your own bags or you will be charged at least 5p for each single use carrier bag. All the information you need whether you are a shopowner or a customer is here.

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The council is one of the partners who can offer broadband vouchers worth up to £3000 to small businesses in Edinburgh. This is in the form of a grant not a loan so there is nothing to repay. The offer is open till the end of March 2015. More information here.