Winterfest? Wintershite.

I had the pleasure of going to Glasgow this weekend.

Though the 5-hour train journey was slightly taxing on the knees, and for the most part, on my delicate nostrils after being ferried into the foyer for the first 2 hours, surrounded by meaty sweat-buckets on their way to Newcastle for stag weekends.

After wanting to kill the small child with a West country accent who insisted on tramping round the 4 square centimetres of spare space in the vestibule area with her suitcase of DVD’s, constantly asking if we were at Leeds yet, I finally found a seat next to a chappy who kept asking if the next stop was Darlington in as few words as possible.

“Next stop, Darlington?”

“I dunno, mate.”

*Bing bong* “The next stop is York”

“Darlington?”

“Nah, York”

“Then Darlington?”

“I fucking hope so you tool.”

Oh alright, I didn’t say that.

Anyway, I digress.

The rest of my weekend passed in a wholly Scottish manner consisting of haggis and tatties, Irn Bru, square sausage, and getting suitably pissed.

My bug to bear was as I was leaving. I had to weave my way through a number of yellow-jacketed officials and snake past stinky Portaloos and metal fences. And what was all this in aid of?

Winterfest ’08.

You could forgive me for thinking I’d been transported from the knife capital of Scotland into the set of some crappy American coming-of-age 80’s movie.

For the uninitiated, it’s Glasgow’s version of Christmas.

Some marketing guru has seriously fucked up there.

Seriously guys. Winterfest?

It smacks of Frank Constanza’s Festivus, but with half the panache.

Even more disappointing was the switching on ceremony, which was a ticket only event. Yes. You needed a ticket to watch the lights being switched on.

We pulled the blinds incase we happened to see the illuminating moment through the window. We didn’t get a ticket. We didn’t deserve the light show.

The end result is that George Square looks like the set of Blade Runner, and they didn’t even bring in a crappy panto actor to flick the switch to on.

Poor show, Glasgow.

But 10 points for ridiculous political correctness.