Shocking stuff, but The Street is just a snapshot

It had to happen! Everything was fine and dandy and rolling along quite nicely.

Unemployment was going down and the economy was going up. Death through drink was at an all time low, as was the number of kids drinking.

The Scots were doing well at the Winter Olympics and the excitement for Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games was starting to ramp up a gear. Even the wind and the rain had stopped for a couple of hours.

Then we watched The Street . . .

Oh dear. It was a show that made Benefits Street look like the Royal Mile! A programme that managed in its first episode to burst any idyllic bubble or notion that some may have had that we as a nation were beyond reproach, that we were all civilised and had no axe to grind with anyone.

This was definitely not Glasgow’s finest hour. It was a terrible advert for the city, especially its legendary entertainment mile Sauchiehall Street.

And given what the city has to look forward to this year it couldn’t have been broadcast at a worse possible time.

As a proud Glaswegian and one who works late and long nights running many of the city’s clubs, pubs and restaurants in and around Sauchiehall Street and whose establishments look after thousands of people of all ages every week, The Street stopped me in my tracks.

I was embarrassed and enraged. It was such a grounding experience I think only the captain of the Concordia could have done a better job!

The racial abuse and assault on black busker Mello made horrific viewing and I’m sure all who watched this unprovoked attack were equally sickened and amazed that the morons who carried out the assault still walk our streets instead of being in a cage in a zoo!

The foul language, the litter, the drunks especially females caught by cameras lying in the street or on top of bins, benches or doorways, must have scared the beejezusus out of any potential visitors or any of the national teams invited to the Games.

We can only hope that the athletes attending were all too busy and focused on their training to turn the telly on or we might become the only nation ever awarded a gold medal for the amount of no shows!

Okay that’s a bit harsh, especially given that bigotry and crime exist in all the competing nations. But let’s face it, if all you ever saw was the snapshot view The Street gave you of Glasgow you would be changing your travel plans pronto.

And here in lies the problem because The Street is just a snapshot of reality. A tiny segment of what goes on. It’s not a real and true picture of everyday life in Glasgow because it can’t possibly be.

It can’t capture or show everybody’s everyday life. You see what programme makers Friel Kean Films want you to see and, given the audience figures for the first episode at nearly 350,000, it seems we can’t get enough.

It was the same with The Scheme and Channel 4’s Benefits Street.

Hundreds of thousands tuned in and we made heroes, or anti-heroes, of some of the characters.

Marvin and his dug Bullit, for example, and Benefits Street’s White Dee and Fungi, so no doubt Mello and others will also become legends as The Street plays out.

Good or bad for business? Well one thing is for sure, whether you class these reality shows as benefit porn exploiting the poor and vulnerable or cheap sensationalist fodder for the masses these tiny snapshots of celluloid do what most politicians and social commentators with their blurred microscopes of morality fail to do and that is force us to see ourselves as others see us.

And the results, like sneaky photographs taken by your friends when you are larking about, can be embarrassing and make for uncomfortable viewing.

But they also make you promise, for a short while at least, to change your ways. And if they continue to uncover ignorant racist scum like Francis Muir and Fraser Elliot then I say well done.

I just wish the punters outside The Garage would put their empty chip pokes in the bin though!

PS Speaking of The Garage, it’s 20 years old this Friday. Millions of clubbers and gig-goers have passed through its doors and superstar acts like Prince and One Direction have all graced its stage.

To mark the occasion The Garage is giving away a new Renault Twingo. However, if you win there will be no driving it out the door, especially if you’ve had a beer you never know who might be filming!