KEY POINTS:
Various parts of Edinburgh were cordoned off last week as filming of the latest TV adaptation of Rebus started.
The gnarly detective made famous in the Ian Rankin books has become a tourism phenomenon.
Lovers of Rankin's work flock to the capital, in much the same way as
lovers of Lord of The Rings trek to New Zealand in the hope they can match various bits of landscape with the scenes they gawped at during Peter Jackson's epic trilogy.
The Rebus experience is a bit different, though. The booze-swilling Rebus spends much of his time in the Oxford, his favourite pub that is not coincidentally heavily frequented by Rankin himself.
When Rebus is not there, he's usually solving crime in some of the darker, more foreboding parts of Edinburgh.
But there's no stopping the Germans and Americans in particular who spend hours at the Oxford hoping to catch sight of Rankin or to get a sense of the brooding, disturbed detective.
There are several official Rebus Tours and it is now thought Rankin is the biggest drawcard in Scotland's blossoming literary tourism industry. The caf on Edinburgh's North Bridge where JK Rowling wrote much of the first Harry Potter novel is another site doing a roaring trade.
Literary tourism is big business, with officials estimating it brings in about £100m ($270m) a year.
It's certainly something for Tourism New Zealand to think about ahead of the 2011 World Cup. Official Piano tours to Karekare beach are easy to imagine. Maybe a bit harder to sell would be the authentic Once Were Warriors experience.
The New Zealand Rugby Union have several bodies in France, Wales and Scotland to conduct overt spying missions. The union wants to observe the logistics of the 2007 tournament to see what they can apply for the World Cup in 2011.
Hopefully, they had spies in Montpellier and Edinburgh last week and, again hopefully, those operatives will be giving a full debrief to the Auckland City Council (although knowing that organisation's love of a taxpayer-funded research junket, they probably had their own people over here).
In 1997, Montpellier's equivalent of the ACC decided to borrow ¬130 million to build a small, inner city tram network. In 2005, when they learned the city would host World Cup games they immediately borrowed ¬200m more to build a second line and expand the network to the outer-lying suburbs.
The reward for such bold, direct decision-making came last Sunday when nearly 24,000 people trammed to Stade de la Mosson to watch the Samoa versus Tonga game.
Every tram was on time and, for the commuters, the experience could not have been easier, more efficient or cheaper - just two euros.
Edinburgh's City Council have agreed to do much the same thing which is why visitors last week would have found Leith Walk, the main drag to the port, closed.
About £750m has been committed to rejuvenate the old tramlines that used to run throughout the city. It is hoped by 2010 the inner city will be free of cars and open only to trams and buses and that there will be a tram link to the airport.
While most New Zealanders take victory for granted at Murrayfield tomorrow, neither Graham Henry nor Steve Hansen feel so confident about playing in Edinburgh.
When Henry was coach of Wales, he never won in Scotland.
On his first visit in 1999, Scotland scored what was the fastest try in Six Nations history after just 10 seconds.
Funnily enough that try was scored by none other than John Leslie, a man who had quit New Zealand rugby at just about the same time as Henry did and shared another similarity in that he had done so because he too realised his All Black opportunity was never going to come.
Scotland went on to win 33-20 that day and, by the time the Welsh returned in 2001, Henry had been replaced as head coach by Hansen.
Wales should have won that year after leading 18-6 at half-time.
They lost their way, though, and Scotland fought back to draw 28-all and in Hansen's next visit in 2003, Scotland cruised to a 30-22 victory.
It wasn't until both men returned in 2005 with the All Blacks that they enjoyed victory on Scottish soil.
