Paying the penance for Culture

Impossible to estimate how much the Scots have enriched the Life of Man. They gave us the Telephone (sorry, wrong number), Penicillin (much better today, thank you, doctor), the Television (but there’s nothing good on any more), and the Wandering Dipso (K’you spear us fufty peents, pal?). To this we must add their latest innovation: the weather-proof, bomb-proof, completion-proof building. The new Scottish Parliament is emerging, with Darwinian slowness, at the base of Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh. A pair of Y-shaped cranes stand over the scattered rubble, their huge limbs ladylike and prim, like fantastical herons dipping and pecking at the concrete.

The award-winning architect, Enric Miralles, is as Scottish as they come, by the way, as long as they come from Spain. The entire compound is sealed from public view by a cordon of hardboard fencing. This has two functions. It prevents the passer-by from halting conspicuously, tapping his watch and tutting ‘ahem’. It also serves as an advertising hoarding for cheery slogans that emphasise the glories of Scottish science and engineering. ‘If you took the Scots out of the world, it would fall apart,’ says one rash motto. If you took the Scots out of the Parliament, it might get built.

I peeped through a gap in the fence and saw scenes of purposeful activity. Strapping Highlanders strode about, like Village People extras, in lumberjack shirts, yellow hard-hats and those pus-green safety-blouses which prevent the wearer from being squashed by a reversing lorry. I called to one who was shovelling sand into the gob of a cement-mixer. ‘When will it be finished?’ He looked at me and burst out laughing.

The Parliament may be the loveliest building in the world, or the ugliest, it doesn’t matter.