V & A Dundee

Razzle Dazzle Wullie outside the V&A

V&A and RRS Discovery

Time Magazine has made the newly opened V&A design museum in Dundee one of its top 100 locations to visit. It was a dull day and, as Dundee is only an hour away, we decided to check it out. The proposal to build another V&A museum outside London had been made in 2007. Dundee was quick to seize the opportunity and offer a site as a key component in the redevelopment of the waterfront. I remember some of the early discussions with the Scottish Government. Some of us baulked at the initial cost of £41m, with the majority of funding coming from the City Council and Scottish Government at a time when austerity was beginning to bite and Dundee had some of the worst social and economic problems in Scotland.

Since then the costs have risen to £80m with £65m coming from the public purse. This is hardly surprising when an internationally acclaimed architect wins a design competition, the cost is the last thought and once agreed on the techniques of cost escalation are well understood by the architect and the construction companies. Kengo Kuma, the acclaimed Japanese architect, is no different than many others in this respect. His design is said to be based upon sea cliffs of northeast Scotland, although the resulting building seems far more akin to the cliffs on Orkney and Shetland that host thousands of nesting seabirds. Whatever the provenance of the design concept, it is alien to the vernacular style of Dundee on the Tay estuary which is one of the few flatlands on the Scottish coastline. We were prepared to be wowed but on a grey day, the building just added to the grimness of the seafront with Kuma's inverted pyramids of dark grey slabs of concrete suggesting that this was a building where the function would follow form.

The irregular slabs of concrete that were bolted onto the outward-leaning concrete walls were mirrored on the inside by rectangular planks of oak that were fixed in a random pattern. We met an architect from Hong Kong who had made the visit to see Kengo Kumar's latest building. He explained the idea behind the concrete slabs and the wooden planks was to reflect the complexity of nature. He thought that the rubber strips that were attached to the concrete slabs were to prevent birds from nesting and defecating on the building. If so, it would be disappointing because a couple of thousand guillemots or cormorants would have given some life to the building, although at some cost to the fabled fishing along the Tay.

The architect had no strong feelings for the building saying that it was a failure compared to the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, which was the best museum that he had ever visited because it was designed with spaces to show off its collections. He thought the space in the V&A was largely wasted on cafes, and open spaces and that there was little exhibition space for such an expensive project. He thought it was probably a good place for older people to come for lunch.

Inside the building, there was plenty of space but most of it was located in the vast roof voids created by the inverted structure. It was unusable space and the main exhibition space, the Scottish Design Galleries, was no larger than could be found in the average municipal museum. The collection of Scottish Design artefacts from the V&A collection and sourced from other Scottish museum collections were eclectic and showed the importance of manufacturing, engineering excellence, textiles and video games.

The exhibits gave evidence of Scotland's inventiveness and name-checked the Scottish diaspora. The ironwork from the Saracan Foundry in Possilpark, Glasgow was exquisite and exported to all parts of the world. Along with the superb models of the Clyde-built boats, the collection provided interesting glimpses of Scottish Design. However, far more comprehensive collections of these items were previously found in the Kelvingrove and now the Transport Museum in Glasgow. The V&A provided only numerous snippets to this history of design although it had provided space for Mackintosh's Oak Tea Room to be on permanent display for the first time.

Another feature of the interior of the building was the narrow oblong portholes that were encased by the concrete external slabs. The minimal shafts of light were just a sample of what could and should have been picture frames for views of the Tay, with its snaking road and rail bridges and the Dundee waterfront. A poster of the 7:84 Theatre Group brought back fond memories of watching the plays during the late 1970s and 1980s at a time when Scotland was in meltdown from the collapse of its manufacturing industries and the decay of the public realm during the Thatcher years. Scotland will never forget this grim period in its history when it depended heavily on the EU for any new investment.

Whilst the visit had been worthwhile, it is not the sort of places like the Kelvingrove or the Museum of Scotland that demand repeat visits to savour the atmosphere as well as the splendid exhibits, it is too esoteric to reel you back. At £80m for 8500 square metres of floor space, it is a hugely expensive building, costing £9400 per square metre (psm). This compares with the typical UK construction costs for a hospital of £2580psm, a secondary school of £1750psm, a high rise air-conditioned office block of £1940psm, home for the elderly or mentally of £1830psm, or new social housing at £950psm.

Given that the main source of funding has been the Scottish public spending block, the question must be asked whether the V&A Dundee has merited the lavish expenditure that it has diverted from worthwhile and necessary public services. That excludes the £1.256m per annum contribution to the running costs that the Scottish government will be making for the next ten years in addition to the subsidies provided by Dundee City Council.

Randomly angled and pitched oak planks

External slabs 

Entrance cafe

Tay railway bridge through the oblong windows

RRS Discovery from the museum balcony

A walk across Flanders Moss

Start of the walk at Moss-side

The community were examining the opportunities to extend the local path network and I offered to investigate the routes to the west towards Flanders Moss. I have always had a notion to walk across Flanders Moss, the largest raised bog in Britain. I cycled to Moss-side and asked Kate if it was possible to walk across her land to reach the Nature Reserve. It was two or three kilometres via a circuitous route to the viewing tower at the Flanders Moss National Nature Reserve. The SNH sometimes guide students across by this route but it lacks any obvious paths.

It was a cool cloudy afternoon but the rain seemed unlikely. Kate came part of the way with me to point out features that would guide me across: old viewing towers, gates, trees and dykes. It took about half an hour with quite a few sections where I was balancing on clumps of heather and teetering on falling into the surrounding bog. I disturbed a couple of deer lying in the long grass by the field boundaries, a herd of Shetland cattle were grazing on the organic pastures and a flock of geese flew over in a V-shaped formation, do they know that autumn will be early?

I wobbled my way back across the bog and was met by Kate and her dog. She explained how SNH had removed the birch trees on the bog and the damage to the bog incurred by the peat extraction until the 1990s. This included the construction of dykes to drain the bog. I had hoped to identify a possible route across the east end of the Moss to reach the planned footpath along the old railway line but it would require at least a kilometre of boardwalks to make a safe passage.

Improved organic  pasture

Young deer disturbed in the long grass

Looking south to sentry box and Campsies

Dyke left from peat workings

Approaching the SNH looking tower

West view

North to Ben Ledi

Northeast across Poldar Moss

A Cabinet of Reprobates

Welcome to the Brexit Dome

And here is my new cabinet

Spot the ones not previously sacked, resigned in disgrace or serial sycophants

Well, that went well. Elected as PM by less than 0.2% of the UK electorate, Boris Johnson's first task was to choose a cabinet to provide the leadership for the whole of the UK, with responsibility for the economy, foreign and home affairs, social support, infrastructure and all public services. He has chosen a collage of disruptors, malcontents and dimwits, requiring them to pledge their support for a no-deal Brexit before offering them a post. 

The PM (Eton and Oxford) has appointed Jacob Rees-Mogg (Eton and Oxford) as leader of the House, and  Michael Gove (Oxford) as chief of staff and Deputy PM. That should ensure that we are not in hock to experts or the establishment! The rest of the cabinet is a motley assembly of recycled cabinet ministers who fell on hard times by either being sacked or having resigned in disgrace, brash brexiteers or sycophantic former remainers who have forsaken their integrity to 'doing or dying' for a no-deal Brexit. 

There has been little attempt to bring onboard new talent, with the possible exception of Rishi Sunak, who oozes intelligence if not worthy principles. Talented new one nation Tory MPs can fester on the backbenches until the next Tory leader is elected. If the first week of the Boris ascendency is anything to go by that should not be very long but these are Strange Days. We are led by a libertine and ruled by reprobates. Jim Morrison got it right, 'They are going to destroy our casual joys."

In his first week, he went to Birmingham and promised to bring back the 20,000 police that the government had removed since 2010 and then to Manchester to back a high-speed rail route from Manchester to Leeds that was first announced by George Osborne five years ago. There was even a nod in support of the Northern Powerhouse that had languished in the buried to-do box during Theresa May's premiership.

Over the next three days, he popped up to Scotland to examine his nuclear deterrent and submarines before falling out with the Firs Minister, no surprise there, as well as the leader of the Tories in Scotland. He failed to convince the Welsh farmers or the Welsh Government that his Brexit plans were in the best interest of Wales. He visited Northern Ireland for a cosy dinner with Arlene Foster of the DUP, which unsurprisingly upset the Sinn Fein leaders who then suggested a referendum on a reunited Ireland. So his attempts to safeguard the already fragile Union have evaporated within weeks, as is evidenced by the latest  Scotland poll on Independence, which following the PMs visit is showing a majority in favour of independence for the first time.

He also failed to visit the EU or the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar to discuss Brexit or renegotiating the withdrawal agreement, a matter of common courtesy you would think. He lost a by-election in Brecon and Radnorshire to the Lib Dems with a 9.6% drop in the Tory vote. He set aside another £2.1bn, making it £6bn so far to prepare for a no-deal Brexit. He then was scrambled up to Derbyshire to sprinkle some stardust after discovering that a dam was collapsing and threatening to wipe out a small town.

Welcome to the Brexit Dome, what a whirligig of wanton waffle.