The GlasgOw Diaries Hal Cassidy Capitalism's admirers tend to equate calls for reform with looming socialism. But most reformers, seeking a fair shake for workers in this downsizing era, simply ask if capitalism is to be our slave or master Confidential report condems £6bn waterway scheme as deep slash across the nation's fabric Plan for English 'Panama Canal' to be scrutinized Why Cherie is The Big Earner happy in the Let him teach others how to sell background Chirac 'backs Major' in Is the Stone a fight over working hit or a myth? hours Guard of honour for the final mile Card sellers show little charity Shoppers go gullibly into sales frenzy Yesterdays shops threw their doors open to millions of bargain hunters. But should we believe those 'once only' offers? Major Tom Burns: give refs a voice floats on Cadete 'goal' the last straw stock market high Rangers shares CLINTON, THE LOVE-CHILD soar after AND THE MISSING HOOKER win over Celtic Double nightmare that looms over Bill's big day HE JUST LURVED SCOTLAND BUT CAN YOU SEE HIM LIVING HERE? A Jackson farce that masked the cold truth THE TRENDIEST WALL IN TOWN Trainspotting is this craze Attack of the 60ft among English kids for woman having trains run over them THE RUNAWAY GENE GENIE Dolly the sheep raises the possibilities of cloning children, growing new limbs and tuning the human species to higher levels of intelligence Crathie members fear restoration row could lead to Queen using Balmoral chapel Organs' threat to royal worship Exclusive: research shows telephone charges bear no relation to actual costs Calling for change SCOTTISH CHAPEL HOLDS CLUE TO CENTURIES-OLD MYSTERY, SAY INVESTIGATORS Turin Shroud? It must Go-ahead for rival lottery be Jacques the Mason that's faster on the draw All-green homes for people ... but Prince is out ofkilter at kirk who promise not to buy a car Blair wins a landslide in May Day massacre Sean's SNP warms to Labour's £5m lad says: proposals for devolution to go from this I'd vote Loony, BBC not SNP ... to this BBC THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE BEAUTIFUL 17-YEAR-OLD GIRL FAN AND THE BOY THE FAMILY-LOVING BEATLES STAR HAS NEVER ACKNOWLEDGED Is this McCartney's secret son? Labour Reacts Quickly To Corruption Allegation Party Orders Probe of Campaign Bribe Charge Toronto sprint Clergy attack showdown Charles for was a 'circus' missing church Why does the Queen allow herself to be a marketing tool for cigarette companies? ... fools rush in where angels fear to tread Pope, Essay on Criticism Thursday September 12, 1996 One doesn't arrive in a city and start separating the good from the bad in one big gargle. For one, I don't know much about Glasgow, other than what I've read or been told about from my Canadian stoop. You know, the basic survival kit; beer, football, and golf in that order with a joke or two about bagpipes and kilts. (e.g. What's the difference between a set of bagpipes and an onion? No one cries when you cut up a set of bagpipes.) Oh, sure, I've seen Gregory's Girl, Trainspotting, even Restless Natives, though I have no idea where Edinburgh ends and Glasgow begins. Robert Louis Stevenson, Robbie Burns, Robbie Coltrane are all just names to me. Charles Rennie Mackintosh a Glaswegian? Maybe? I do know, at least, that the first prime minister of Canada was born here.1 I doubt any of that mattered to Mr. McIlvanney my boss at Northco News when I told him I was following my wife to Scotland after she landed a year of post graduate studies in Decorative Arts at the University of Glasgow. He shook his head, muttered something about "youth," and reassigned me from Science Monthly where I'd been working as editor for four years to The Canadian Scotsman, Northco's fledgling expatriate bi-monthly, started by one James A. McIlvanney from Milngavie (the pronunciation of which he laboured well past bearing.) The deal was that I had to write stories about my experiences of which he assured me there would be plenty. And if I sent back the occasional newsworthy piece I could keep my job. If I got lost on some magical mystery tour tracking down lost ancestors I would not. At any rate, I had one year "to get it out of my system." Hurriedly, I did my reading, consisting of two books, oddly prescribed to me by McIlvanney as required reading. His choices shall undoubtedly skew my vision, but then aren't all eyes trained on what they've seen? The first book, Growing up in the Gorbals by Ralph Glasser, seemed a peculiarly odd choice given that it is a book about a Glasgow no more, written by a man, who I presume, is a Glaswegian no more. It does say in his biography that he supports the working class and underdeveloped nations of the world, certainly noble credentials, but I can't help thinking he has escaped more than just the Gorbals. Even with the Glasgow artistic renaissance and the renewed vigour of all things Scottish lapping its way to the shores of Toronto, I somehow imagined that all British writers lived in London. Ah, vision is in the mouth of the publicist. The other book, The Old Firm, full of football statistics from the turn of the century to 1985, though certainly less literary, was somewhat more educational for a know-nothing like myself. Words like "Ibrox" and "Parkhead" carved space in my hard drive for the first time along side "Ranger" and "Celtic," of which I had some, albeit very minor, 1 John A. Macdonald 1815–91. understanding. It seemed not to matter, to me, if I didn't remember which was which, as long as I could conceptualize the two as opposites. Recall Ranger, see not-Celtic. Recall Celtic, see not-Ranger. That's all that matters to the newborn, whose training bounces him forward with basic ideas of hot and cold. Surely, I don't have to say whether I prefer hot to cold or visa versa? Not yet. If my naiveté gets me into trouble, I'll just nod when the man beside me nods. I've learned that much in politically-correct Canada, a country created in committee. If the man on my other side is shaking his head, then as any good Emily Post book would have me do, I'll oblige him too. "You must have Emily Post here?" I'll offer blubberingly if clenched too vigorously. Besides, there's always my accent to blame any indiscretions on. They're both two syllable words—Ran-ger, Cel-tic. Spoken really fast in one big mumble, under the influence and in my language, I'm sure they sound the same. I hope I'm not sounding too wishy-washy?—there'll be time to sing my tune—though The Old Firm has taught me to choose carefully, a luxury I can afford having been schooled in the outer soccer colonies. It does come down to the authoritative voice. If you will, a question of objectivity. True, I may not know which end is up on Byres Road, but I do know it has two (one at Dumbarton Road and one at Great Western Road as I soon learned). And I do know that the roads and sidewalks here are as shite as back home. Patchwork quilts up and down the streets, every bit stitched in tar. How is it that Roman roads lasted for centuries, yet we can't resist digging up the new every other year? Oh, there's always some excuse, workfare not being one. In fairness, I guess, the traffic jam hadn't been invented in 40 BC. But please, no one should care if I call football soccer. And tomato can be pronounced any way one pleases as long as it's red and round and goes well in a cheese and tomato toastie. Your ever-ready observer (his whole life spent in the bulging New World megalopolis of Toronto) will, of course, offer sound droppings from his new post in life. Hopefully a few aphorisms will pop out along the way. For example, this just in as I finally found the discount store in St. Enoch's Centre: "To mature is to acquire what you don't want instead of what you don't need." I'll even pretend not to notice when a local asks me for the millionth time how I like it here as an American. Of course, I may have to slip in the odd, "Oh, you English. So keen to evaluate." The only surprise upon landing, all fifteen bags intact, was that there was no surprise. There wasn't even a customs, which when I read the next day that John Major and, perhaps, the IRA would be planning on interrupting daily life in Glasgow, surprised the hell out of me. I was even travelling on an Irish passport, a quirk of family planning and my only way to remain in the UK for the duration of my wife's year. Surely, that would raise suspicions? Perhaps, in the land of Orwell and Winnie-the-Pooh, Big Brother wasn't such a bother. True, the plane had stopped in Belfast for half an hour before alighting for Glasgow, but no one had checked us there either. Had I found the Narnian hole to international smuggling? Was this my opportunity in beleaguered Britain, sure to be few having just left the Land of Opportunity.