This might be subtitled A Tale of Two Cities. My Ayrshire background and Stirling residence make me, I hope, a dispassionate observer! -- Lesley Duncan

A TALE OF TWO BUSKERS

I

It’s the Festival city - bastion of the Enlightenment,
Seat of government, Athens of the North etc -
So how about some culture, Edinburgh-style?
The kilted figure on the corner
Plays the clichéd Scotchman (if not his bagpipes)
To perfection. His renderings of
Flower of Scotland and Scotland the Brave
Reverberate relentlessly up Princes Street.
Locals hurry past from Waverley Station,
Feeling very North British. Sir Walter Scott
In his pinnacled redoubt nearby
May consider himself far from blameless
In the matter of ersatz tradition.
It’s assumed that tourists enjoy the skraich-’n’-skirl.
Hmm…Maybe it simply drives them into
The conveniently parked sightseeing buses.

II

And so to Glasgow. No Mean City indeed,
Though not necessarily in the way the outside world
Has traditionally perceived it. Deprivation dogs its
Outskirts still, but razor gangs and Red Clydesiders
Are history, as they say, along with heavy industry.
This is the capital of cool now, Scotland’s media nexus,
Home to three universities (their names in obverse
Generality to their age and status), orchestras and opera,
Art and music schools. No great surprise, then, to walk
Down a sunlit Buchanan Street one April morning
To the languorously sensual strains of
Eric Satie’s Gymnopedie played on a flute.
The busker is French, accomplished, (and handsome too!).
He moves to Faure, Mozart, and Ravel.
People stop to listen; chat. Records fly off his stand.
Hmm…Is there a Caledonian Antisyzygy lurking here?


Note: Caledonian Antisyzygy merely means the Scottish capacity for uniting opposites or harbouring contradictions. Hugh MacDiarmid has a celebrated poem on the theme.