A Better World

Much as I love Blipfoto, its willingness to cosy up to the government and to participate in fatuous campaigns such as the Year of Creative Scotland is embarrassing.

Here is Strathclyde Partnership for Transport getting creative. Behind this motto lies Alasdair Gray's soon-to-be-unveiled new mural for Hillhead subway station in Glasgow. It's very close to a much-quoted phrase that appears in several of his books - 'Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation' - a phrase he is happy to admit he adapted from a line by the Canadian poet Dennis Lee (in his 1968 poem Civil Elegies).

The last word was clearly too much for the wise men who run our trains who - in a quiet adaptation of their own - replaced it with something that had less of a whiff of party politics in a country somewhat divided over the issue of independence.

Quite apart from the pettiness of the intervention, the problem is, while Gray knows a thing or two about writing slogans, SPT clearly does not. It's lost a syllable and the meter is all wrong. And besides, if you start with 'work', you can't end with 'world' unless you're trying to make some point with the similarity. Instead of rousing us to better things, it just kind of tails off.

If you want to turn 'creativity' into a brand, it's as well to remember: all human activity is creative. And it's not always a good thing.