Council

Edinburgh council buildings...

Around the other side is the Everyman statue, which is a man standing on a tall bit of scaffolding. I always think it looks like someone who is threatening to jump off and kill himself unless the ramp outside his sick mother's flat is installed 'as promised'. It is a fitting testimony to frustrated residents of any city.

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Quite enjoyed the program about Norman MacCaig tonight - the one with Ali Bain and Billy Connolly 'Fishing for Poetry'. One of the first of his poems I came across, and one of my favourites, is Basking Shark:

To stub an oar on a rock where none should be,
To have it rise with a slounge out of the sea
Is a thing that happened once (too often) to me.

But not too often - though enough. I count as gain
That i once met, on a sea tin-tacked with rain,
That roomsized monster with a matchbox brain.

He displaced more than water. He shoggled me
Centuries back - this decadent townee
Shook on a branch of his family tree.

Swish up the dirt and, when it settles, a spring
Is all the clearer. I saw me, in one fling,
Emerging from the slime of everything.

So who's the monster? The thought made me grow pale
For twenty seconds while, sail after sail,
The tall fin slid away and then the tail.
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