Mouthpiece: A vision for Edinburgh’s future
For his final piece of the year, our resident columnist Kevin Fullerton has selflessly donated his page to Barry Bateman, Edinburgh’s leading building contractor, to discuss his plans for the Festival City
‘They paved paradise, put up a parking lot,’ sang Joni Mitchell in ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, my favourite song in support of the building industry. It’s a quote I parrot all the time as chief architect of the world-leading arts building demolition experts, F*ck*ng M*n*y-Gr*bb*ng C*lt*ral V*nd*ls Incorporated. The question I like to ask of investors is, ‘do you really want a leading arts institution in your city? Doesn’t that seem a bit la-di-da? A bit high and mighty? A wee bit of a bother?’ When every man in the boardroom nods (I’ll only speak to men on the matter), I show them a deck of budget student accommodation, towering hotels, vast car parks, ‘convening spaces’ that are ideal for parking cars, and ‘relaxation squares’ where cars can be parked. Once I’m done, these men treat me to a standing ovation, particularly after they’ve seen the profit margins. ‘Barry Bateman, you moral vacuum,’ they say, tumescent and smiling, ‘we love it!’
It was with this ethos that F*ck*ng M*n*y-Gr*bb*ng C*lt*ral V*nd*ls Incorporated approached Edinburgh. Our initial presentation, which has bowled over many businessmen in the city, is entitled ‘Festival City Or Economically Virile Mass Of Sad Grey Sludge?’ and depicts American tourists cooing over car parks where the Meadows once lay (‘just like the ones back home!’ they exclaim). The fusty Edinburgh Castle is demolished and converted into a giant student complex that can compete with Airbnb in undercutting hotels during Fringe season. Every arts venue from Cowgate to Newington is flooded with wall-to-wall concrete, lest some of that financially unsound thinky nonsense creeps in.
In all honesty, I’ve never really liked art. Why bother? Why don’t these wastrels put on a suit, get a bloody haircut and appreciate the allure of a good spreadsheet? Have they not heard of money? Or concrete? Perhaps what they get from art, I get from the loving grey slurry of sand, water and aggregates that slushes around a mixer in hypnotic rhythms, its patient paste laid and dried before thousands of cars settle their tyres on its smooth, inarguably sexual, texture. Sometimes I, one of Edinburgh’s leading luxury building developers, love nothing more than to undress and lie face-first on concrete, rubbing myself fervently while imagining all the cash this inordinately cheap mixture brings me, free from the bothersome complications of other people.
I’m devastated by the plight of artists I’ll be evicting for my next demolition project, where I will plant bombs in 15 arts studios across Edinburgh, converting the rubble into ‘luxury creation nodes’ for the fintech community who want a space to conduct affairs while pretending they’re cultivating a hobby in pottery. Maybe the artists I’ve slung onto the streets will one day be able to afford my new studios. I hope so. Perhaps I’ll even shed a tear as I watch them pack their supplies, the very materials that I’m told make this city a ‘vibrant hub of creativity’ (whatever that means) and move elsewhere. But my company will find them no matter where they land, making sure they play by our rules and our spreadsheets. After all, F*ck*ng M*n*y-Gr*bb*ng C*lt*ral V*nd*ls Incorporated is all about helping people.