The other day, Windows Live Local added high-resolution aerials of Edinburgh, and Alex and I promptly wasted hours and hours finding everything there was to see in our home city and arguing about the exact date the photos were taken.

I know we’re called Google Sightseeing, but I can’t resist posting Edinburgh Live Local sites, such as the Museum of Scotland, the flumes at the Commonwealth Swimming Pool, where I was married last year, where I studied at University and the Scott Monument. I could fill a whole website with these!

Anyway, one of the coolest things I found was this helicopter parked in the Meadows (a large park just beside Edinburgh University) and it reminded me of a Google Earth story which I’d meant to run a few weeks ago…

On December 1st, 2005 the Spanish opposition leader Mariano Rajoy hopped on a Police Helicopter which departed from a bullring in Mostoles, Spain and later crashed just outside the stadium, luckily no-one was badly injured.

Google Earth users spotted this picture of a helicopter in the bullring, and following some investigation, deduced that this satellite photo is in fact a picture of the helicopter that crashed on that very day, presumably only a few hours before departure.

Thanks: Simone & Amio Cajander

This is the Armadillo in Glasgow.

Oh all right, it’s really the Clyde Auditorium, but everyone calls it the Armadillo. It was designed to be a 3,000 seat extension to the boxy beige building to the north - the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, which was the largest exhibition hall in the whole of the UK anyway.

Obviously comparisions have been made between the design of the Cylde Auditorium and that of the Sydney Opera House, and yet the architects, Foster and Partners, claim it wasn’t the inspiration for the design.

I agree, it looks more like they just stole it outright.

Thanks to Tom.