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’.