JONATHAN BROCKLEBANK: Trapped in a web of misery thanks to the new Spider-Man blockbuster (and why I wish he'd swoop off)
'I'm sorry, I know it's daft, but I can't let you past,' said the police officer.
'No, it's fine,' I said, feeling his pain. 'You're just doing your job.'
It was, in fact, insanely daft. It wasn't remotely fine. On this day the policeman's job was to stop members of the public going about their business so that Spider-Man could go about his.
There was no getting around it. Spider-Man had this city cop in his pocket. The constable didn't like it. Neither did I.
In the centre of Glasgow, that's been the way of it for a fortnight – a comic book superhero not saving the day but commandeering it for profit.
They're closing off whole streets for him, stopping people getting to their work for him, restricting parking for him, telling pedestrians where they may and may not walk for him … and Police Scotland, undermanned and overstretched, are among the many drafted in to do his bidding.
On some days Peter Parker's alter ego has run amok. Great balls of fire have been seen yards from our office. There goes yon Spider-Man again: a law unto himself.
For those perplexed by any of the above, let me confess that I share much of your confusion. Little of it makes any sense to me. But the apparent explanation for a fictional, arachnid-crazed crime fighter having dominion over a key area of my home city is they are making another Spider-Man movie.
You may wonder, as I do, whether there might be enough movies out there already about a spandex-clad do-gooder who catches criminals by shooting webs at them. The answer seems to be no. The existing 10 are insufficient.
You may also wonder what brings Spider-Man to Glasgow when everybody (who bothers about such matters) knows that his hood is New York.
Well, he is wreaking chaos here in Glasgow because it is too expensive to put him in a movie in his native city. Think of the levels of inconvenience it would bring to the Big Apple having Spider-Man scaling buildings, swinging above the traffic, jumping onto speeding tanks …
Understandably, the costs involved in gaining the city fathers' sanction for extreme disruption of this mature are prohibitive.
So, what then? Is Spider-Man on holiday in Scotland in this movie? No, silly, Glasgow's role here is to kid on that it is New York, to put on a disguise as any stunt double might do and pretend.
And the costs involved in gaining our city fathers' sanction to turn its busiest district into a movie set? Minimal. We're just charmed that they want to be here. Aren't we?
You may be aware that Glasgow has quite the filmography to its name as understudy for cities which were unavailable for the role.
It pretended to be Philadelphia for the 2013 movie World War Z in which marauding zombies swept across George Square. Fair enough. It was a decent movie.
It has acting credits for playing Gotham City, the crime-ridden metropolis where Batman does his caped crusading.
Gotham doesn't really exist, which makes Glasgow's participation more understandable. The Batgirl film shot here in 2022 was so dreadful it never saw the light of day, which makes it less so.
The city has been asked to play New York so many times it should have a complex about typecasting. Credits include doubling as vintage New York for Indiana Jones and as futuristic New York for the forthcoming Ghostwriter.
Nothing if not versatile, the Dear Green Place pretends to be London too. Several instalments of the Fast and Furious franchise have given our financial district the car chases, the crashes, bangs and wallops to avoid the hassle and expense of saddling the capital with them. Aren't we the lucky ones?
In short, Glasgow is out the door with offers to play cities other than itself. Why? Because it is happy to work for peanuts. Because, like some naïve teen starlet in need of a hard-nosed agent, it will go to the most extraordinary lengths to accommodate the most unreasonable demands of the movie business.
Run that by us again. You want us to jam up the city centre, shut down our busiest streets, re-route our buses, make it virtually impossible for emergency vehicles to get anywhere near emergencies, allow weeks of disruption to offices and shops, have our council tax and rate payers shunted out of the way by film set security types who suddenly think they own the place and see if the police will help out on crowd control?
Shouldn't be a problem. Where do we sign?
And all to save Hollywood the expense of shelling out for the real McCoy.
I might weather the inconvenience more stoically if Glasgow were the actual setting of these movies rather than the bargain basement stand-in for the locations the production couldn't afford.
It would trouble me less if I could tell myself we were suffering for someone's art. But an 11th Spider-Man movie? Fast and Furious 9? Let's us be frank. We are suffering for junk.
It would, of course, be disingenuous to suggest the whole of the city centre feels the way I do.
Much of it is awestruck. Behind every metal barrier stopping people getting where they need to be an army of rubberneckers demonstrate there is nowhere else they need to be.
What could be more important than standing there for hours, phone cameras in hand, in the hope of bagging a grainy picture of actor Tom Holland in a Spider-Man suit?
I've seen parents with infants dressed up as the superhero himself, which is cute, but I cannot imagine how the reality of a day on the edge of a film set – very little happening for too long from too far away to see it anyway – can match up to the magic they had in mind.
There are, I am assured, clear economic benefits to the Glasgow City Council strategy of charging Hollywood next to nothing to stage invasions at regular interviews.
Think of all the extra business for hotels, bars and shops the film crews bring. Think of the footfall resulting from those turning up to stare at them all day.
There are claims Glasgow's niche role in masquerading as other cities in the movies has earned it £500 million in recent years.
If true, someone is making a profit. But it isn't the council which, in common with every other one in Scotland, is pleading poverty. It isn't the businesses whose staff can't get to work because work is in this next shot. And it certainly isn't the majority of city centre users, displaced for an extended period by a comic book character.
If Glasgow thinks it is going places in the movie business, shouldn't it drive a harder bargain? Must our gridiron streets and the Victorian treasures lining them work for buttons on every script that comes along, however moronic?
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Scotland's national librarian is facing mounting pressure to reinstate a gender-critical book which she banned from a major exhibition, after a key donor joined a revolt against the move. Alex Graham, who has given around £300,000 to the library, said he had been 'shocked and angry' to learn that The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht had been excluded from an exhibit that he personally supported with a donation of about £20,000. Graham, the creator of the television show Who Do You Think You Are, urged Amina Shah, Scotland's chief librarian and the chief executive of the National Library of Scotland, to reverse her decision. He said that if she did not, he would have to consider whether or not to continue to provide lucrative donations to the library, as he has done for the past 12 years. The critically acclaimed book, a collection of essays by more than 30 women about their role in the feminist campaign against Nicola Sturgeon's gender self-ID law, was set to be included in its Dear Library exhibition, after it was nominated by several members of the public. However, The Times revealed on Wednesday that it was pulled after a backlash by the library's internal LGBT staff network, which claimed it contained 'hate speech' and that displaying it would cause 'severe harm' to workers. They threatened to 'notify LGBT+ partners of the library's endorsement of the book' if management did not cave in. Shah justified the decision by citing the potential impact on 'key stakeholders' and the library's reputation if the gender-critical book was included, but has faced intense opposition after her ban was made public. In a major intervention, Graham called on the library to admit its mistake and reinstate the book to Dear Library, which Shah had publicly thanked him for his role in funding. He said that if it did not, he would have no option but to publicly disassociate himself from the campaign, saying the library had given in to what he claimed was a 'censorious, bullying culture' instead of standing up for ideals of free speech. The book's editors, Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Susan Dalgety, have branded the removal of their work 'cowardly and anti-democratic' and repeated their call for the decision to be reversed. 'I think this was a fundamental mistake and the correct thing for the library to do would be to put up their hands, admit that and reinstate the book,' Graham said. 'Instead, there have been weaselly responses. 'The library is not saying they have taken it out because it contains hate speech, because it does not. They've taken it out because of some ill-conceived notion that someone might be upset by its presence. That's not a good enough reason for me.' Graham added: 'This is not about taking one side or the other on the trans debate. It's about the principles of open debate and free speech, which to the national library should be sacrosanct. 'It isn't too late to redeem the situation. But if there is not a change of heart, I feel I will have no choice but to publicly dissociate myself from the exhibition and the campaign that surrounds it. 'This stupid escapade does not undo the very good work the library does, but it should never have happened. 'I couldn't say definitely that I will not donate any more money if they stick to their guns on this, but it has certainly given me pause for thought. That makes me incredibly sad.' 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Although the library receives the bulk of its funding from the Scottish government, private donors such as Graham, who has been repeatedly acknowledged by the library for his philanthropy, are also essential to its work. Graham has been one of the library's major donors over the past decade, funding major projects such as the digitisation of medieval manuscripts. He funds a scholarship at the library which is named in his honour, as is a room at the National Library of Scotland's moving image library at Kelvin Hall, Glasgow. Graham's generosity in supporting the centenary celebrations was singled out for praise by Shah at the launch of the Dear Library exhibition in June. Graham said he was initially impressed with it, before discovering that The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht, which included a contribution from JK Rowling, had been excluded. 'On the opening night of the exhibition, I thought it was fantastic, because I found at least two books in there that I consider to be among the worst ever written,' Graham said. 'I said to Amina I thought that was great, because the whole point was that while some people are inspired by a book, others will hate it. That's the joy of the society we live in and the freedom that we have. 'There are books that are beyond the pale, but there are very few of them. You need to be very careful before you ban anything. 'This book [The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht] was clearly selected to be included, and frankly the management were then bullied out of that by a staff lobby group. 'They say they've removed this book to protect relationships with stakeholders. But they certainly didn't consult me and if they had, I would have voiced strong opposition. I am angry and disappointed at the decision to remove the book as well as the implication that as a stakeholder, I am somehow supportive of it, which I am not.' Kate Forbes, the deputy first minister, has found herself at the centre of a similar row after staff and performers at Edinburgh's Summerhall arts venue criticised her views on trans rights. Summerhall's bosses said Forbes had been permitted to speak at the venue as 'an oversight' after some of the artists set up a 'safe room' while the 5ft 2in politician was present as they were 'terrified' because of her opinions. A whistleblower who works within the arts sector in Scotland said that activist staff members were becoming increasingly powerful within major publicly funded institutions. 'I have been in so many meetings where it is just taken as a given that everyone there is in lockstep on these issues — that everyone hates JK Rowling and that books like The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht are dangerous and harmful,' a source claimed. 'The internal LGBT networks are given carte blanche and it is very isolating to those of us who do not agree with their extreme views, who are forced to self-censor or face, at best, being socially ostracised at work. 'It sounds ridiculous but those of us who don't agree with them feel like we're in an underground network like the French resistance or something, secretly sending each other supportive messages.' The insider added: 'A major part of the problem across the cultural sector is the infantilisation of younger staff members, who can't cope with any type of conflict or opposition to their views. 'This has now led to the ridiculous situation where people intolerant of ideas and books are not only working in our national library, but are calling the shots. Management are terrified and pander to them every time they have a tantrum.' The NLS has sought to defend its decision not to platform the book at its exhibition by claiming there were only 200 spaces for public display, and it received more than 500 nominations. However, documents released under a freedom of information request show that all books with two or more nominations were initially to be included in the public display, with the Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht obtaining four. Joanna Cherry, the former SNP MP and one of the essayists in the book, accused Shah of attempting to mislead her own staff with a message that claimed the library was not 'banning or censoring' books. Although the library does hold a copy of the book — a legal obligation given its statutory role — its exclusion from the Dear Library exhibition was the direct result of complaints from the LGBT staff network who did not like its contents, the documents show. 'I'm concerned that the librarian seems to be misleading her staff as well as the public and the media about what has occurred here,' Cherry said. 'The issue is not whether the book is available within the library's collections but her decision to withdraw it from an exhibition where it had rightly earned its place because of the prejudiced demands of a small group of her staff.' Cherry added: 'There is an increasing pattern in Scottish society where zealots masquerading as LGBTQ+ activists seek to censor women who want to talk about their rights. 'This book was written by feminists, survivors and lesbians. To remove it from an exhibition is not only an attack on freedom of expression, it is also discriminatory.' Hunter Blackburn said: 'We are very saddened that it has come to this, but we understand why Mr Graham has reached what must have been a very difficult decision for him. 'We will continue to seek for this to be resolved by the library making an unreserved apology, putting the book back in the exhibition where it won its rightful place, and, it becomes increasingly clear, undertaking a root-and-branch review of its internal culture and practices.' A spokeswoman for the NLS said: 'We are engaged in a robust and respectful conversation with Mr Graham about this matter, and we will accept his decision regardless of the outcome. 'It goes without saying we are indebted to Mr Graham for his support to the national library over the years. His assistance has helped us to preserve collections, reach new audiences and give young people's careers that much needed start through our apprenticeship programme.'
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