Glasgow (42 page)

The importance to me then was considerable. But there is another factor which I want to raise with you which I think is important. The best way of raising it is to ask you to jump forward in time to about 1972–73. I went down to London to do a literary programme for London Weekend Television and Jonathan Miller was there. I introduced the question of the decline and fall of the novel. All the evidence suggests, in my opinion, that that particular art form has gone over the apex of its development. I am saying that now, more in sorrow than in joy, because to me it has made a colossal contribution to human knowledge. Anyway, we went into this in detail and after the programme, having a drink, he said to me, ‘Where did you study English Literature?' I said, ‘Govan Library', and he said, ‘Ah, come on. The library?' And I
did realise then that because I had not been reading in order to increase job expectations, or career prospects, or to pass an examination, there was a catholicity in my reading for which I am eternally grateful.

TOM JONES IN GLASGOW, 1983
Billy Sloan

For unfathomable reasons women attending performances by the Welsh singer Tom Jones like to throw their underwear at him. Glaswegians, it seems, were no less afflicted
.

Welsh superstar Tom Jones embarked on his first British concert tour in over ten years. I caught his show at Glasgow Apollo, and was impressed by his still powerful tonsils and explosive, sex-charged stage show.

Most of the audience were tipsy women – quarter bottles neatly concealed in handbags – who were determined to have a rerr terr and a good ogle. As Jones whipped off his jacket, exposing his he-man hairy chest and thrust his hips provocatively towards them, the excitement level reached fever pitch. His tight clothes left nothing to their imaginations. Then with 3,000 females simultaneously bursting a blood vessel, one of them rushed up to me and, in a mixture of ecstasy and obvious distress, screamed into my ear.

‘Wid ye just look at that boady. He's the only singer in the world I'd haud in a pee fur . . .'

Only in this fair city could twenty years of gold discs, Las Vegas sellouts, phenomenal riches and international acclaim be summed up by the self-discipline of a wee Glesga wummin's bladder movements.

MILES BETTER – THAN WHERE? 1983
Harry Diamond

If New York could have its image changed by a slogan, why not Glasgow? That was the thinking in the 1980s when the city was in need of a surge of energy and a dose of the feelgood factor. But where to start? As Harry Diamond (1930–99), who ran the City Council's PR operation recounts, it was actually a teenager who helped set the ball rolling, ably abetted by his father, who was in advertising. Thus was ‘Glasgow's Miles Better' born. Diamond was the son of a Russian alien
called Chatzkind who took the name Diamond because it was the first one an immigration officer saw on the board over a shopfront
.

John Struthers, a Glasgow advertising man, and his 14-year-old son Mark were doodling, John's own word, on sheets of paper on a flight to London trying to devise a campaign slogan for their native city.

Page after page was discarded as they wrote things like ‘GLASGOW TOPS FOR YOU, GET TO KNOW GLASGOW, GROW WITH GLASGOW, THE GLASGOW SMILE'. They still hadn't quite got it when they arrived in London. Then on a train from the airport to the centre of the city John wrote ‘GLASGOW'S MILES BETTER'. When they got home that night they substituted a smiling face for the letter ‘O'. And so was born the slogan that swept the world.

Struthers took his idea to Lord Provost Michael Kelly, who had the wit and foresight to see its possibilities. He persuaded the City Council to put up £150,000 towards a full-scale promotional campaign for the city. The business community put up £200,000. Kelly persuaded business leaders that what was good for Glasgow was good for them and businesses too. After all, if a lot of people were attracted to the city because of the things they read they would obviously spend money there.

The Glasgow's Miles Better campaign, which started in 1983, was one of the best promotions ever mounted by a British city. It won the International Film and Television Festival of New York award in 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1987. ‘The only reason we didn't win in 1986 is because we didn't enter the festival,' says Struthers.

Struthers devised a series of advertisements based on the things we had been publicising over the years: the city's international hotels, museums, parks, restaurants, sporting facilities. Then came badges, car stickers, umbrellas, tee-shirts, and plastic carrier bags, all carrying the miles better slogan.

No opportunity to spread the word was overlooked. Holiday-makers flying out of Glasgow had the miles better stickers on their luggage in a variety of languages. People like Jimmy Savile and Lulu were recruited by council departments. Even the Queen was pictured with Michael Kelly under a miles better umbrella.

At one point John Struthers devised a miles better advertisement to put on Edinburgh buses during the Edinburgh Festival but we were refused permission by the city's transport authority. We planned to spend about £2,000 on this exercise but the transport authority's refusal was reported worldwide and we received millions of pounds worth of publicity for nothing. I was even quoted on the front page of the
Wall Street Journal
.

In March 1984 Michael Kelly launched the campaign nationally with a breakfast at the Savoy Hotel in London hosted by Britoil. The list of guests from every walk of life was enormous. One of them was Billy Connolly. Mr Connolly was being what he considered amusing for the benefit of the crowd in a reception area when I approached him quietly at Michael Kelly's request and stopped a few feet away. I waited until he acknowledged my existence by looking in my direction and said, ‘Would you mind taking your place at the top table Mr Connolly so that we can get started.'

Mr Connolly looked me up and down and said in a voice that carried to Carlisle. ‘Whooo are yoooo? Fuck off.' A few self-conscious titters broke out at this brilliant riposte. Mr Connolly had obviously been misled by my immaculate appearance.

I put my hand under his armpit, assisted him to a nearby wall, and whispered in his ear in the idiom which he apparently understood best, ‘Listen pal, Ah'm a Glasgow man an' all and if you talk to me like that again I'll rip yer scruffy fucking heid aff and fling it to all yer admirers out there. Get the message, son?' Mr Connolly was taken aback, abashed and nonplussed. He went in for breakfast.

PURE MINCE, 1984
James Kelman

For many Glaswegians – not to mention many Scots – a plate of mince is as memory-laden as Proust's petite madeleine. Extraordinarily, Alexander Fenton's otherwise comprehensive, The Food of the Scots (2007) makes no mention of mince or, for that matter, minced beef, but it does contain a couple of references to mince pies, which of course have nothing to do with real mince. Nor, indeed, is there any mention of mince in Annette Hope's A Caledonian Feast (2002), though there is a recipe for a dish called minced collops, an essential ingredient of which is a handful of toasted oatmeal. Is this any way to treat a meal that made the lips of generations smack in anticipation? Thankfully, Booker Prize-winning novelist James Kelman (1946–), who was born and brought up in Glasgow, knows how to make the perfect plate of mince and tatties. Follow the instructions the Busconductor Hines delivers to his son, published in Kelman's novel of the same name. Follow them to the letter and you cannot go wrong. Be warned but, Hines is only just avoiding a nervous breakdown
.

¾lb beef links, 1lb of potatoes, 2 onions medium sized and 1 tin beans baked. And that's you with the sausage, chips and beans plus the juicy onions – and they're good for your blood whether you like it or no. This big pot with the grill type container is for the chips, it lets them drip so the fat goes back into the pot. Simple economics. And even if your mummy's sick to death of chips, what should be said is this: she isn't the fucking cook the day so enough said, let her go to a bastarn cafe. 2 nights on the trot is okay as long as it's not regularly the case. Fine: the items should get dished no more than 4 times per week but attempt to space it so that 1 day can pass without. 7 days in a week. What is that by christ is there an extra day floating about somewhere? Best to ignore fixed things like weeks and months and days. The minimum to cover all of the things i.e. breakfast, dinner, tea. Right: chips number 1 day, 3 day, 5 day, 7 day; missing 0 day, 2 day, 4 day and 6 day. Alright 8 times a fortnight. But 7 every 14 days. So there you are you can maybe get left having them twice on the trot but being a chip lover you just ignore it. Let's go then: right; Monday is fish day – rubbish. Monday is mince and potatoes. Simple, get your pot. Item: 1 pot. Item: ¾lb mince. Item: 2 onions medium sized, then a ½lb carrots, a tin of peas and also a no – not at all, don't use a frying pan to brown the mince; what you do is fry it lightly in the same pot you're doing the actual cooking in. Saves a utensil for the cleaning up carry on. So: stick mince into pot with drop cooking oil, lard or whatever the fuck – margarine maybe. Have onions peeled and chopped. Break up mince with wooden spoon. Put pot on at slow heat so that it doesn't sizzle too much. While breaking up mince all the time in order that it may not become too fucking lumpy. Toss in onions. The pepper and salt have been sprinkled while doing the breaking up. Next: have your water boiled. Pour a ½ pint measure in which you've already dumped gravy cube viz crumbled into the smallest bits possible. Stir. When mince brownish add mixture. Stir. Place lid on pot. Having already brought to boil. Then get simmering i.e. once boiling you turn gas so's it just bubbles and no more. Pardon. Once you've got ½ pint gravy water poured in you'll probably need extra. Lid on. Handle turned to inside lest accidents to person. Then sit on arse for following hour apart from occasional checks and stirring. 30 minutes before completion you get the spuds peeled and cut into appropriate sections and fill the other pot with boiling water, having already dumped said spuds in to pot while empty for fuck sake otherwise you'll splash yourself. Stick on at hot heat. Sit on arse for 15 to 20 minutes. Open tin peas of course. The bastarn fucking carrots. At the frying mince and onion stage you've
got them peeled and chopped and you add to same. The peas get placed in wee saucepan and can cook in matter of moments. When time's up you've got mince, potatoes and peas set to serve from a trio of pots.