Is this the end for Kaye Adams?

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We’ve got a busy newsletter ahead. More drama at BBC Scotland, a new drug-checking facility, and corner shop recommendations… sort of. It’s time for your Glasgow in Brief.

Glasgow in Brief

📻 It’s not been the best of months at BBC Scotland. Following speculation last week on the future of Kaye Adams, who’s been presenting the mid-morning slot on BBC Radio Scotland since 2010, it’s been announced the presenter has been taken off air as an investigation into her conduct takes place. Adams faces accusations of bullying, according to the Mail on Sunday, having allegedly “shouted and screamed” at junior colleagues. 

Despite some of the allegations being around a year-old, events have unfolded rather abruptly. Adams was pulled from her show midweek, with Connie McLaughlin stepping in to present at the last minute. But the BBC is still yet to confirm what exactly is being investigated. A news story yesterday confirmed she has been taken off air following an “internal complaint about her behaviour”, but the corporation refused to comment on the nature of the allegations. They have confirmed one thing: Adams has “not permanently left the BBC”. Meanwhile, spare a thought for the team producing Mornings, who have yet to be given any official explanation for Adams’ absence. They found out not via management, but in the pages of the tabloids this weekend.   

The Mail reports that the complaints are believed to have been raised via the BBC's Call It Out scheme to address bad behaviour in the workplace, but incorrectly reports (along with almost every other news outlet that’s now picked up the story) that the initiative was set up in the aftermath of the scandal over former MasterChef presenters Gregg Wallace and John Torode. In fact, it was announced in the wake of a different high profile presenter scandal, that of Huw Edwards, but this hasn’t stopped people linking Adams and Wallace’s cases.

However, the two cases are of an entirely different nature and magnitude. Forty-five allegations about Gregg Wallace's behaviour were upheld, including unwelcome physical contact and another three of being in a state of undress, as well as another against co-host John Torode of using racist language. Whatever the bullying accusations against Adams, we can safely say that comparing the cases of Adams and Wallace is misleading, to say the very least.

🇵🇸 You don’t need us to tell you that GB News delighted in the ‘Raising the Colours’ campaign. They seem less than delighted with the recent flying of Palestine-Saltires in Glasgow. They even sent a reporter to the streets of Govanhill (who spoke to a grand total of three people) and declared in a news article that Scots are “outraged” by the flags. We watched the video so you don’t have to: outrage is overstating things by some stretch. Mildly unhappy would be more accurate.

We can confirm that at least one of the flags on Victoria Road was pulled down by a Scotland fan in a kilt on the way to Hampden on October 9, before promptly being re-flown by a local business owner. We noticed another further down had also been removed. Meanwhile, the group behind the flags, United in Resistance, was out on the Gallowgate, London Road and outside Celtic Park, putting up more Palestine-Saltires over the weekend, and aren’t showing any signs of stopping. 

💊 The Glasgow licence for a new drug-checking facility has been approved by the Home Office. The facility will be housed within the Thistle on Hunter Street, the UK’s first safe consumption room. Applications for similar services in Dundee and Aberdeen have also been submitted, with Edinburgh also working on an application. The approval is timely, with new synthetic opioids such as nitazenes significantly raising the risk of accidental overdose and death. The Bell spoke to Hannah Carver, an associate professor in substance use at the University of Stirling, who welcomed the decision. “It’s good news it’s going ahead in Glasgow and hopefully it will happen in the other cities soon,” she told us over the phone. 

The only similar facility in the UK is in Bristol, where the Loop runs a monthly drug-checking service in a mobile laboratory. This makes it Scotland’s first drug-checking facility and the first permanent facility in the UK. It will also be the first to be run by the NHS. “It makes sense that people might get their drugs checked then go and use them in the facility,” Carver explained. 

Carver voiced her concern about the rise in nitazenes, and a similar trend to previous overdoses linked to benzodiazepines. “People aren’t buying them as nitazenes, they are buying them as something else and don't know how strong they are, so they can overdose. That’s what drug checking is about — it tells you if it’s a pure form of something or something else entirely. [Service users] also get advice: ‘If you are going to take this, here’s how to do so more safely’.”

Carver told us that service users will bring a very small sample, or even just the remnants of a bag which contained drugs. They will be asked some questions, which will be used to build up knowledge in the databases at the Thistle. The user will then be told what the sample contains and in what percentages. “It’s then up to that person whether they use it, they can't confiscate it — the whole point of harm reduction is to allow people to make their own decisions. Hopefully people would then make judgements based on that. Whether taking a small amount with other people, or at the Thistle, or using an app for safety.” 

🚢 In nautical news, the Waverley — the world’s last seagoing paddle steamer — arrived home to Glasgow’s Pacific Quay having last week completed its first circumnavigation of the UK in 40 years. The steamboat typically travels back and forth to Great Britain’s south coast for seasonal work taking southerners on cruises. The classic red, white and black ship usually passes the Irish sea to get to Southampton and other southern ports. But this year, with forecasts of strong winds during August, the Waverley went “the long way round” according to her website. She passed Skye, Cape Wrath, round the north east coast, and all the way down to the Thames and the south coast, then up her original Irish sea route to arrive back in Glasgow last week, just in time for her final voyages of the season on the weekend.

In slightly further afield news, the 1878 Port Glasgow-built Falls of Clyde was deliberately sunk off the coast of Hawaiʻi last Wednesday. She was the last four mast iron-hulled sailing ship in existence and was brought to Hawaiʻi after use in Alaska in 1963. Ever since, custodianship of the Falls of Clyde had bounced around between museums and the Hawaii Department of Transportation, with campaign groups on both sides of the pond (we suppose Hawaiʻi is two ponds away) trying in vain to repatriate her to the Clyde. Glasgow resident David O’Neill was one such campaigner with Clyde Naval Heritage. He lamented to The Bell that, despite several interested parties believing there was an opportunity to secure funding to bring back Falls of Clyde by November, alas, “she is now lost”. 

Stories you might have missed:

Taxpayers face £40m loss as Scottish National Investment Bank’s first investment collapses, Scottish Financial News 

Reform UK momentum in Scotland ‘may have peaked prematurely’, The Times (£) 

Scottish Greens promise free bus travel for all, BBC 

Could the first international football stadium become flats? BBC

Read/listen/watch: Red Road Underground

Ten years have now passed since the Red Road flats were brought down by controlled explosives (not as part of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, despite the wishes of the City Fathers). Once the highest residential flats in Europe, over 4,000 people lived in the 30-storey behemoths in their heyday. Chris Leslie got access to the remains of Underground, a 1,000 seater bingo hall underneath the flats, for a final time before demolition, alongside a nautical-themed bar called the Brig. 

We also rec: 

• Who Owns the Clyde: journey to the source 
• Trackie McLeod’s latest exhibition explores queer youth
• Sandweegies: a new magazine dedicated to Glasgow’s best sandos

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Catch up and coming up:

• Michael Hättenschweiler (there’s a nom-de-plume, if ever we read one) was hopping on and off trains in the Southside over the weekend, growing increasingly flummoxed at the similarities between four of its stations’ names. It was a fascinating and funny read, and we’re glad many of you agreed. It was described as “fun” and “enjoyable”. “I have lived in Glasgow most of my life and have never been able to figure out the difference; and, at my age, I'm forgetting things rather than learning new ones. Does anyone have a handy mnemonic for this?” asked David.
  
  Another reader described it as “timely,” explaining that, “only yesterday did I get a mildly distressed call from my daughter asking me to pick her up from Pollokshaws West after her last day of work experience. (Her first day coming home herself.) Adamant it said Pollokshields on the board and the app. Adamant, she was…”. We got lots of suggestions on potential fixes and solutions to the problems. Hope on and have a read. 

Who Polloksed up the Southside’s station names?

Four almost identically named train stations lie within two miles of each other. Why?

The BellMichael Hättenschweiler

• Later this week, we’re digging into the data around Govan, just over a year on from the new bridge linking it to the north of the city. The area has a rich and fascinating history, but how much does it contribute to Glasgow’s economy? We’ll be crunching the numbers. 

Headline of the week

Endangered sea turtle washes up on Scots beach over 3,000 miles from habitat

Re:view: Corner Shop, 45 Old Dumbarton Rd

I’ve been dying to try the latest in Finnieston’s long line of small-plate natural wine bars-cum-restaurants (sue me). However, as a vegetarian, I was somewhat put off by the understandably meat-heavy menu; Corner Shop has a distinctly Basque and Catalan feel. Imagine how ‘seen’ I felt when I was treated to a meal there recently, thanks to the fact that every Monday they now serve a veggie-forward menu, joining Gloriosa just down the road who do an entirely vegan menu at the start of the week. I loved lots of the dishes: the croquetta, a garlic and herb flatbread, grilled hispi cabbage with romesco. One note though: by the end of the meal I was rather glad to have ample water on the table, as the food was firmly on the salty side. All in all, a delightful wee meal, and the waiter even wrapped our food up into three majestic tin foil swans (you don’t even get that kind of service in the Chip these days).—Robbie. 

Glasgow Calendar: Tartan Lighthouse Therapeutic

A new service offering accessible, trauma-informed support for children, families and professionals is opening in Easterhouse this week. The Lighthouse will offer one-to-one therapy sessions, parenting support, training and retreats. There’s an open day this Wednesday, 22 October. 1pm at Unit 1F, The Circle, Easterhouse, Glasgow G34 9HJ.

Another date for your diary:

• Community Pro Wrestling Govanniversay. Fairfield Club. 25th and 26th October. 

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