Emma Cowing: Pure Glasgow – still my kind of town

I WENT shopping in Asda Toryglen the other day. It is not the Glasgow Asda where a young man nicknamed “the Gerbil” was shot in the car park two years ago, but as retail destinations go it is scarcely more salubrious.

On my first visit I stood behind a woman in the checkout queue whose T-shirt proudly bore the legend “I’m A Benefit Cheat”, and I have, on occasion, seen something called a “bacon double cheeseburger pizza” for sale in the frozen section.

On this particular trip, I was contemplating the loose tea selection (small) when a pack of feral youths aged about nine roamed past me, their leader – a mere child – triumphantly holding aloft a can of Red Bull and declaring in a loud nasal voice: “Aye, this stuff gets you pure smashed.”

Drinks reviews aside, I suspect this young Glaswegian was not a regular reader of the New York Times and would therefore be unaware that the paper recently ranked his hometown ahead of the Italian renaissance city of Florence in a list of must-see places for 2012. In fact, I suspect his response to such a statement might be, “Whit’s Florence?”

That the NY Times has bestowed such an honour on the city that is my home is indeed a surprise. The Weeg comes in at number 12, just behind Moscow and ahead of the beautiful Halong Bay in Vietnam, the paradise island of St Vincent and the Grenadines and, er, Space. The reason? Well it’s all down to the remarkable redevelopment of Clydeside and in particular, Zaha Hadid’s recently opened Riverside Museum.

“The museum is housed in a stunning building on the waterfront, with a 3,000-piece collection devoted to Glasgow’s rich shipbuilding and engineering past,” waxes the paper, before describing the regeneration of the area around it. “There’s a pleasant riverside walkway with steel street furniture, cobblestones from Victorian GLasgow and maritime paraphernalia.”

It’s always nice for Glasgow to be recognised in this way, not least because it is an affectionate one in the eye for our cousins in Edinburgh, who were nowhere to be seen on the list. In fact, Glasgow was the only place in Scotland to get a mention, although elsewhere in the UK Birmingham and London came in for special praise, alongside Wales, which I do hope the readers of the New York Times realise is a nation in its own right, and not just a town with a decent shopping precinct.

There is, however, a double-edged sword to such accolades. I consider myself Glaswegian to the very (dyed) roots of my hair, but to be truly Glaswegian is to be truly, eternally, lovingly frustrated by the place.

Much like the exceptionally bright pupil in the school class that never quite tries hard enough, Glasgow is forever not quite meeting its potential. And so while there is indeed a remarkable new £74 million museum and a regenerated waterfront area, the Victorian city centre – one of the most architecturally stunning places in Europe – is growing more dilapidated by the day.

Littered with To Let signs and shops that have closed down and been allowed to fall into disrepair, there is a sad, neglected air to Glasgow’s centre that I have never before felt. Up in Sauchiehall Street the Willow Tearooms, one of the finest examples of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s architecture, is being slowly allowed to rot. One shop owner on the street last year told me privately that things were so bad he would be shut within two years – just in time for the Commonwealth Games in 2014.

Glasgow, of course, has always thrived because of its people – loud, abrasive, friendly, unreconstituted. But our people are dying, in higher numbers than they should. The city has one of the highest levels of coronary heart disease in the western world and is more prone to stomach and lung cancer than anywhere else in Scotland. Perhaps we should not be surprised when our nine-year-old children are already getting “smashed” on Red Bull.

Glasgow has always had a problem in loving itself, in thinking itself unworthy and drowning its sorrows down the pub. It is part of its charm, and a part of what holds it back.

I hope the New York Times encourages more people to make the trip. Glasgow needs all the tourism it can get, if only to remind us that, despite – even because of – its flaws, it truly can be a great city.