Mark Smith

I remember the first time I saw it: clambering through the heather and the ferns, climbing over the fences, wellies sinking into marsh and bog, looking for signs of life (badgers, deer, dogs, some humans) and wandering around the old Roman encampment. It was a beautiful but a rather forgotten and neglected piece of Scotland’s landscape.

Take a look because it could be the last time you see them. Schools. Police stations. Cinemas. Tenements. Buildings that tell the story of Glasgow and Glaswegians, but buildings too that are in serious danger of disappearing. They may still be standing now – damaged, decaying, and neglected examples of a great city’s history – but how much longer before we lose them?

Are there enough stations on the Glasgow to Edinburgh train line? A lot of the talk over the years has been about how efficient the service is and whether the line between Scotland’s biggest cities is fast enough. But another question is whether the service is properly linked to the communities along it. What’s the point of a train if you can’t get on it?

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer secretary of state for defence. Grant Shapps was out in Florida earlier this year for the test firing of a Trident missile. The aim was for the missile to fly several thousand miles and land in the Atlantic between Brazil and West Africa. It did not go well.

The first time apprentice Beth Atkinson tried to break the bottle of whisky against the hull, it failed to smash which is considered a very bad omen among the superstition-prone people who work at sea. But then the Glen Rosa slid into the water at Port Glasgow and it was hard not to feel inspired and a bit hopeful. Ship meets sea; man-made meets God-made; beautiful.

I should’ve seen it coming. For a couple of weeks now I’ve been working on a piece for The Herald, speaking to leading figures in architecture and heritage about the buildings in Glasgow that are at risk of disappearing. One of the names on the list was the India warehouse on Bridge Street and what do you know: part of it has just collapsed and it will now apparently have to be demolished. Rubble and dust and bulldozers and another one disappears. Wake up Glasgow!

April 1st. Day one of the Scottish Government’s new hate crime law. Would I like to go to a secret gig in Edinburgh arranged by comedians and activists opposed to the legislation? Yeah, why not, should be a laugh. Provided I can contain my barely suppressed inner hate of course.

There’s a friend of mine who for years had an old newspaper bill pinned to his wall that he nicked from outside a newsagent on the morning of Friday May 2nd 1997. “Tories wiped out in Scotland” it said in big black inky letters and my friend had much to say about how delighted he felt that day. Lots of people did.

Let me tell you about a stone. Not that one, we’ll talk about it in a while. Another one, on the edge of Clatteringshaws Loch in Galloway. I was visiting the area with an English friend of mine recently and what happened probably reveals quite a bit about me, and maybe lots of other Scots too.

You think you know Glasgow, then you discover something new, like the fact there’s a tunnel from the City Chambers to the cenotaph on George Square. It’s about 3ft high, it’s so narrow you can’t turn round in it, and it leads to an 8ft-square underground chamber. No one knows who put the tunnel there or why. It’s a bit of a mystery.