Glasgow’s Games

This post was going to be about failure, but that can wait until another time because the momentous occasion of Glasgow’s successful bid for the 2014 Commonwealth Games has just been announced. Also, I was going to post the other post yesterday but my sister abducted me, blindfolded me and drove me into the suburbs, where I was deposited in a place halfway between American Beauty and Desperate Housewives. Lovely. I did admire the privet hedges and the occasional squirrel though. They take me right back. An anonymous quote says something along the lines of, “suburbs are places where they cut down all of the trees and name the streets after the trees they cut down.”

I’m going to embark on a slightly schizophrenic rant about this.
What I am about to say may go against this assertion, but I am quietly happy that Glasgow won. It will raise the profile of the city, and that can only be a good thing. It shouldn’t be forgotten that raising the profile of a place does not necessarily mean highlighting its good points, but it can also (arguably more importantly) highlight the existing problems and be an agent for change. In a more extreme example, the coming Olympic Games to China has managed to shine a torchlight on the problems of that country and has made it more aware that it must keep its teeth clean – at least for the next year or so. The agent of change is limited though. I was naively hopeful that Chinese intervention would save Myanmar but it never came.

Glasgow is of course not as bad as its reputation suggests. The violent city that people elsewhere have indelibly seared into their minds mostly died decades ago. The gangs that are supposed to be over-running the streets seem to be teenagers filming their adolescent fights for YouTube, and similar things could be witnessed in any town around the UK. Putting Glasgow under the spotlight may do something to justifiably weaken that reputation. But there are still serious problems, and while it is not immediately obvious while walking down the cosmetically overhauled Buchanan Street, it is the statistics (related to health and poverty in particular) that bear out the facts. And need it be mentioned that by far the ugliest and most venomous thing about this city is ostensibly sport-related and must be addressed if it is not to taint the whole spectacle. I dare not touch on that particular subject any further though.

It is difficult to take the temperature of a city, and it is even more difficult to measure concrete change and its causes. It may be that Glasgow is a far more prosperous place in seven years time than it is now, but it will be difficult to determine the effects the Games have on this improvement. Also, the age-old argument exists that money should be pumped more directly into where the problems are, such as improving housing and resolving unemployment, rather than only indirectly through building costly sporting venues. Also, I really hope that it benefits all of Glasgow, not just the east end. The east end is especially deserving of economic relief, but so are many other parts of the city and it would be a great shame for these to be overlooked. I am far from an expert though, and soon I will be waving my arms for help as if drowning in a corn silo (it happens), so soon I will get on to lighter things. Still, I have reason for optimism. There is an energy here that will get this city to the long overdue goal that it deserves, even if not by means of the Games.

2014 is a long long long time away though, and I doubt we have the momentum in our blood to continue celebrating for another seven years. But we’ll give it a shot. I say ‘we’, but by this time I will be safely inhabiting a rocking chair, as my hair greys and thins, while smoking illicit substances for medicinal purposes, you understand, by means of a suitably dour-looking foot-long pipe, and the smell of my own urine rises comforting around me, and my tweed jacket hosts all manner of fauna, including moths and cockroaches (which hate cucumbers apparently), all the while hoping that my kindly neighbour will come round and top up the card in my electricity meter and feed me a hearty broth of distilled buffalo getting very intimately acquainted with various root vegetables. Except that might not happen, because by then the neighbouring building will have been demolished to make way for a harmonica-hurling arena, or whatever.

The people interviewed in the build-up to the announcement were amazingly self-assured, there was a real sense that everyone knew Glasgow had it in the bag. All the while there was the usual hype of the extreme economic benefits and the intense promotion of sport that would result. Facts were toted about the problems of obesity and the curing prospects that lay ahead. I doubt many fish and chip shop owners are filing for bankruptcy just yet mind you. What was really interesting, both before and after the announcement, was the universal similarity between the opinions.

The typical ‘before’ opinion went: “It would be such a boost not only to Glasgow, but to Scotland. There really has been terrific spirit behind this bid, and Glasgow deserve to win it. This will boost jobs and help regenerate a run down area of the city. We have produced the better technical submission. Did I mention what a boost it would be to Glasgow and to Scotland as a whole? Um, I want to become a woman.”

Well perhaps not all of those were said by all parties but you get the gist. The ‘after’ opinion was basically the above but with the tenses changed. There was however one inspired comment about the fact that no games have ever had a lasting positive impact on the host city after the event, at least not without a continual injection of money and maintenance for years afterwards. A sound point.

Then they played the Proclaimers and they also had Deacon Blue representing Scotland. I can’t help thinking that a more contemporary display of talent would be the band my flatmate is in, Go Go Fiasco, and their “Robot Song”. It speaks volumes about the evils of our times and the slippery slope that results from having a circuit-board installed in your head so that you can play heads-up “Mind Tetris” at whim. Or it should.

In general, the winning of the games is a great thing for Glasgow, provided there is no pretence about the reasons that it is good...

Anyway, good on Glasgow, but you can’t help feeling sorry for Abuja in Nigeria, which simultaneously found out that they had lost. I also can’t help feeling that the Nigerians should have put forward Lagos instead. It would have been a riot. I have a strange fixation with Lagos as part of my occasional quest to find the most chaotic city in the world.

Lagos, it has been quoted, is a city of 16 million people and four traffic lights. This is most certainly a lie, as most of the photographs I have seen have many traffic lights. But the place seems genuinely exciting with that added pinch of danger that puts hair on your chest and turns your toe-nails blue and makes your hands shake with adrenalin as you hand over your wallet. In common with Glasgow, they seem to have a great sense of black humour as well: they call their buses Molues and Danfos, the local words for “mobile morgues” and “flying coffins”. I’m sure the corruption adds another playful twist to things. The “From Our Correspondent” section of the BBC News website had a great story a few months ago, in which their correspondent tried to make a journey between two Nigerian cities without handing over any bribes to the police. He was stopped by a policeman at a checkpoint with the familiar expression, “Anything for the boys?” and refused to pay. The policeman then looked about the vehicle, found something spuriously wrong with it (like a mismatching engine number, or something) and fined him a far greater amount. I still want to go though. I once met someone who grew up there and he sold it to me. I’m going to need some serious cash and a Coffin Pass though.

Enough, I have been inspired to forego my haggis supper for a nice bowl of muesli, after which I will triple-jump across the Bells Bridge.

A poncey “third person bit” that makes Kiran feel like an actual columnist not just an opinionated sap sitting on a sofa with frozen feet and a geriatric laptop:

This week, week two of the great job hunt, Kiran pounded the streets with his CV yet again – staying optimistic and feeling like he is getting closer. He watched “Casino” which did not inspire him to commit any acts of brutality, thus proving once and for all that violent films do not inspire violence. Except that horrific thing he did to the toaster with a baseball bat after it started singing about those business deals like a canary. He also watched “The Genius of Photography” on BBC4 which was fucking genius. Reviewing TV is not his forte.