Robert McNeil: If I see another depressing Munch painting, I'll scream

Published on Thursday 9 July 2009 12:23

EVERY so often, I need my fix of Glasgow. It's a great city, and I like its people better than Edinburgh's for all the usual reasons: they're friendly, direct, and not hung up on social station.

In Glasgow, I even see people who look like me. Must be some kind of Highland or Irish or Celtic thing, since folk from the west and north-west generally headed for Glasgow rather than the capital, unless they were leaving their crofts to find work as lawyers or accountants.

I don't see much of myself in the dark Pictishness of the north-east nor in the Teutonic standoffishness of the south-east, by which again I mean mainly – oh, love-hate! Jekyll and Hyde! – Edinburgh (I exempt the Borders).

That said, you have to be careful talking about Glaswegians, as they are chippy about Edinburgh folk addressing them. Even when you come to praise rather than bury, they're suspicious. Perhaps they fear being patronised, but I don't feel in my soul that I'm doing that. There's genuinely something about Glaswegians that I like, and I think many people in Scotland share that feeling.

Among throngs in the city centre, one sees many eccentric and damaged-looking people. Here be losers – my people – and they're so much more interesting than winners. There are also many oddly shaped citizens with disproportionate heads. Of course, I am generalising to a degree.

To continue in this vein, Glaswegians are generally smaller than Edinbranians though, disturbingly, like their fellow orientals, they are showing signs of growth. Nowadays, I often find Chinese or Japanese people taller than me, a supposedly average-height Scot. It simply isn't acceptable.

I hear a cough, and you say: "These anthropological observations are very enlightening. But, do tell, was there any other motive for your visit to Glasgow?" Ah, you are veritable Sherlocks. Some would say Taggarts. There was a motive for my visit: I had come to see an exhibition of Edvard Munch prints, as I felt there was not enough despair in my life. I will not comment on the artistic merit of these prints, other than to say some of them spoke to me (they said: "Sod off, big nose"). Others seemed naff, and I began to wonder if Eddie wasn't a bit of a heidcase. All these black-shrouded eyes. Although I suffer deeply from depression (not bipolar – I am very rarely "up"), it is caused by a rational response to the world being awful and people being despicable. It's nothing to do with me. Personally, I like a laugh and so would probably have told Ed to get a grip. Still, it was encouraging that, despite his depression and boozing, he lived to a decent age. There, with the grace of godlessness, go I.

I prefer art galleries in other cities to Edinburgh's. More particularly, I dislike small, private galleries, which always have a posh young female person sitting by the door. By the toss of a different kidney, I also abhor public galleries when they are packed. I attend art galleries for the stillness. The stillness comes first from the painting. It reaches out and stills the viewer, too, but this is disrupted when surrounded by a baying mob.

Many people who are "into" art in a loud academic way are unpleasantly odd and should be made to remain in their homes. There were a few like this in the Hunterian, so it felt uncomfortably like Edinburgh. It came as a relief to hear the broad Glaswegian tones on the security guards' radios. They sounded so human and rooted, even over the airwaves.

Outside, too, the university area was similarly "cosmopolitan", with snatches of loud Home Counties voices. I am, I think, in favour of cosmopolitanism, but the irony is that, if everywhere becomes cosmopolitan, local distinctiveness – and hence variety – is lost. I had come to Glasgow for it to be Glasgow, not yet another cosmopolitan Anyplace.

Everywhere you go now, it's becoming just the same cosmopolitanism. It's uniform cosmopolitanism. But, then, all is paradox, as the sages have noted. Bloody irritating is another way of putting it.

Mind you, this was the university area, so I suppose you must expect some cosmopolitanism. The old hub of Glasgow University is architecturally splendid, in the only way that architecture is ever really splendid: the Gothic. Intrepidly exploring the buildings, I came across the Hunterian Museum. Here, people come to see Mr Hunter's splendid collection of sparrow testicles and other odd things pickled in jars. I did not linger long, as it was way past lunchtime, and I'd promised myself a visit to the city's John Lewis restaurant. Any more avian genitalia and I feared I might be quite put off my lunch.