Journal articles on the topic 'Glasgow International Exhibition'

Pamela Howard designed Border Warfare and John Brown's Body at the Tramway, Glasgow, for John McGrath, and Wicked Old Man, which he wrote and directed for West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1992. Here, she recalls the highly distinctive visual language of the playwright, and the differences this made in seeing through a design from initial discussion to practical use in performance. Pamela Howard is a scenographer, director, writer, educator, exhibition curator, and international producer who has created theatre events in many countries and languages. She was awarded a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship in 1999 to write What is Scenography? (published by Routledge in 2001), and as adaptor, director, and scenographer created La Celestina at the Hopkins Center, USA, in February 2002, of which the text is forthcoming from Oberon Books.

Molly MacEwen’s design career took off after serving as Micheál mac Liammóir’s apprentice at the Dublin Gate during the mid-1930s and following her design work on the 1938 Empire Exhibition in Glasgow. MacEwen went on to make a significant contribution to Irish and Scottish theatre design that has received little recognition in existing theatre scholarship. Illustrated by images of materials from (for the most part) the Scottish Theatre Archive’s Molly MacEwen collection (1948-1961), this article comprises an introduction to MacEwen, followed by a composite of selected conversations from interviews with MacEwen’s niece, Sue Harries, and nephew, Alasdair MacEwen. We learn of MacEwan’s familial and personal links to continental Europe, her unrequited devotion to mac Liammóir, and her successes in designing at Glasgow’s Citizens’ Theatre and for the Edinburgh International Festival after leaving the Gate in 1947 to work in Scotland. The dialogues in this article also reveal that MacEwen was a very shy and retiring woman, and that the men with whom she worked – including Edwards, mac Liammóir, and Tyrone Guthrie – took her for granted and possibly diminished the extent of her work. This situation, combined with gender inequalities and the collaborative nature of MacEwen’s design roles, may have led to her work being overlooked at the time and in pertinent publications on design and theatre. This article seeks to go some way towards recovering MacEwen’s important achievements for theatre history. Key Words: Molly MacEwen, Dublin Gate Theatre, Scottish theatre, design, women in theatre, Edinburgh International Festival, Michéal mac Liammóir

The Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre provided the venue for the first truly International meeting of the Society for Acute Medicine in early October. Almost 600 delegates were treated to some unseasonal Glasgow sunshine and traditional Scottish hospitality, as they enjoyed the varied programme put together by Mike Jones, Derek Bell and Liz Myers. The long distance that the Society has travelled in the past 7 years to reach this size was emphasised repeatedly over the two days; in his inaugural address to the society as incoming President, Dr Rhid Dowdle told us that SAM is now playing in a much bigger league than ever before, but cautioned that the speciality still has a way to go to reach the ‘top division’. Some of the highlights of the meeting are summarised below, but for those delegates who did not make it to the event most of the presentations are now available on the SAM website (www.acutemedicine.org.uk)

It is a privilege to act as the conference editor for this issue of Pure and Applied Chemistry. The 11 papers in this issue constitute selected contributions from the 23rd International Congress on Heterocyclic Chemistry, which was held in the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow between 31 July and 4 August 2011. This congress of the International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry was attended by over 400 participants from over 40 different countries.The conference papers in this issue arise from plenary (Profs. Magid Abou-Gharbia and David O’Hagan), invited (Profs. Janine Cossy, Keiji Maruoka, Ganesh Pandey, Philippe Renaud, and Vinod Singh), and some selected exciting contributions from younger participants (Dr. David Barker, Prof. Tom Pettus, Dr. Jun Shimokawa, and Dr. Michael Smietana). These contributions reflect the main congress themes:- Synthetic methodology- Synthesis- Natural product and complex molecule synthesis materials- Medicinal chemistry- Nanochemistry- Chemical biology/biosynthesis- Chemical biology/DNA and nucleoside analoguesIt is a pleasure to acknowledge the valuable contributions made to the highly successful conference, especially by the conference chair, Prof. Colin Suckling, the local organizing and scientific advisory committees, and the sponsors of the event: Edward C. and Virginia Taylor, Astra Zeneca, Chemical Sciences Scotland, Eisai, EPSRC, Glasgow City Council, GSK, IUPAC, Pfizer, Scottish Enterprise, Syngenta, and the University of Strathclyde. The professional conference organizers, Meeting Makers, did a sterling service in keeping everything on track and the organizers in check.Of course, no conference is possible without the willing participation of the contributors to the scientific program, speakers and poster presenters, session chairs as well as the audience. I would also like to thank the contributors to this issue for agreeing to provide manuscripts and for their timely efforts and to the editorial staff for their valuable help.Colin GibsonConference Editor[Back to Contents]

The article is devoted to the creative heritage of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928), the outstanding Scottish architect and Margaret MacDonald Macintosh (1865–1933), his wife, an artist-designer. Their life and main character traits which predetermined the choice of their future profession are considered. A brief overview is given to the main stages of their professional development. In the Glasgow School of arts they organized the famous creative group „The Four‟ which created a unique Glasgow style. They participated in international exhibitions of Art Nouvea, engaged in successful architectural and design practice including the development of unique geometrical pictures and Macintosh style furniture, floral and landscape paintings. The paper describes the tragic end of their creative career, departure from Glasgow, posthumous rehabilitation and international recognition. Their style preferences in the world architecture and design are shown as well specific features of their unique style. The articlepresents three of the most famous design projects of the Macintosh spouses made in the tradition of Glasgow style. Here belong interiors of Cranston tea rooms, Hill House in Helensburgh, Scotland and Bassett-Lowke Northampton house. At present, many Macintoshes works are successfully restored, their museums and exhibitions are organized.

The world’s recovery from the pandemic is still fragile. Progress has been made in global vaccinations with 7.3 billion doses administrated by early November (51% of the world’s population having received at least one dose of vaccine). However, there is a huge disparity between countries such as the UAE, which is leading with more than 98% of its population vaccinated, compared to some African countries with less than 2% coverage. We are also seeing the emergence of a fifth wave of COVID-19 cases in the Northern Hemisphere, possibly because of the loosening of protection requirements. On the positive side, people’s mobility patterns have nearly recovered for land transportation. The International Air Transport Association, which monitors airline activity, noted a surge in travel bookings for the second half of 2022. This is a welcome relief for the airline industry, which has seen its worst crisis in more than 60 years, and recovery could be occurring before the anticipated time frame of 2025. The ability to travel safely is a critical requirement for SPE’s larger in-person events. The 2021 Annual Technology Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) held in Dubai a few weeks ago was excellent. ATCE sessions remain available on demand, so please check some very engaging discussions/presentations. We held a handful of hybrid events in November, including a large ADIPEC in Abu Dhabi and the first SPE Eastern Europe Subsurface Conference in Kyiv, Ukraine. Congratulations to the new Kyiv section that opened last month—great work by the volunteers, the supporting organizations, and the SPE support staff. The number of events will be increasing over the coming months, in particular the in-person part of Offshore Europe in February 2022 (the virtual conference was held in September 2021). We also held the SPE YP Congress in November (congratulations to the Young Member Engagement Committee and the volunteers). The event attracted many YPs and students from around the world to brainstorm via “ideathon” teams about innovative solutions to make the energy industry more sustainable. I was invited to the COP26 in Glasgow last month and had the opportunity to discuss critical aspects of the energy transition. As demonstrated by the IPCC Assessment Report 6, WG1, published in August, there are very concerning trends about the evolution of mean surface temperatures. The COP21 meeting in Paris in 2015 raised the level of ambition for action to safeguard our planet, but the Accord left some undefined clauses such as Article 6, which “aims at promoting integrated, holistic, and balanced approaches that will assist governments in implementing their National Determined Contributions through voluntary international cooperation.” A properly designated cooperation mechanism would establish a policy foundation for a global emission trading system.

The 42nd IUPAC Congress was held in Glasgow on 2-7 August 2009, under the patronage of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). More than 2200 delegates convened in the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre for this biennial event, evocatively subtitled “Chemistry Solutions” for the occasion. The Organizing Committee, chaired by Prof. Paul O’Brien (Manchester University), was responsible for overall planning and compilation of an outstanding scientific program, and orchestration by the RSC conference team and their management of facilities and activities during the Congress week were widely acclaimed as indispensable factors in ensuring a memorable international celebration of chemistry. For many delegates, this was also an opportunity to discover or renew acquaintance with the proud history and distinctive ambience of this great city, and to enjoy its progressive modern image.The scientific program of the Congress was highlighted by nine inspiring plenary lectures by leading luminaries in various aspects of the chemical sciences. In addition, multi-themed parallel sessions provided a platform for presentation of no less than about 600 lectures, under the following theme titles:- Analysis and Detection- Chemistry for Health- Communication and Education- Energy and Environment- Industry and Innovation- Materials- Synthesis and MechanismA program of symposia was presented in each of these themes, and catered for all interests from the most fundamental insights and interpretation of current advances in chemistry to the role of chemistry in meeting the growing technological challenges and aspirations of modern society. The scientific program was enriched by the display of over 1200 posters dealing in every imaginable area of pure and applied chemistry, and handsomely representing the contributions of a great number of the young scientists who attended the Congress.Publication coverage of events such as the 42nd IUPAC Congress is challenging. Invited participants are often confronted with competing commitments, and a large multidisciplinary scientific program militates against reconciling a fully representative publication record with the readership appeal of a thematically coherent collection of works. This addition to the illustrious publication record of the Congress series in Pure and Applied Chemistry (PAC) (www.iupac.org/publications/pac/conferences/family/CONGRESS/) adheres to the recent practice of concentrating on more selective publication of certain themes. It is thus a pleasure to introduce a representative collection of works, based upon a seminal plenary presentation by Sir Fraser Stoddart and lectures by a distinguished group of invited contributors to the themes of “Chemistry for Health” and “Synthesis and Mechanism”. The organizers are particularly grateful to these presenters for ensuring that readers of PAC have an opportunity to relive or engage vicariously in an outstanding IUPAC Congress.James R. BullScientific Editor

Summer is here, the weather is great and acute medicine teams across the country will be looking forward to 3 or 4 months with few (if any) acute admissions, long lunch breaks and plenty of time off……..OK so this is just wishful thinking! However, the misconception that bed pressures are seasonal still seems to abound in many circles. How often do we sit in bed management meetings in January and February and hear someone refer to ‘things getting better in the next couple of months’? Such optimism does help us to get through those dark winter days when the only daylight you see is glimpsed through the ward windows as you review the 11th COPD patient in succession. But seasonal bed pressures are not simply confined to Winter. Spring and Summer bring their own challenges. First is the Bank Holiday Trilogy: this year’s Easter backlog was hardly cleared in time for Mayday and Whitsun. On top of this we have pollen, ozone, Economy Class Syndrome and ‘barbeque bowel’, not to mention the dehydrating effect of any ‘heatwave’ which comes our way. But let’s be positive – Autumn will be with us soon, and with it another important event in the development of the Speciality of Acute Medicine. The Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow will be the location for the first truly International meeting of the Society for Acute Medicine. This should be a great opportunity for Acute Medicine to show the wider medical world how far we have come as a speciality over the past eight years, and I would urge as many of you as possible to sign up using the on-line registration system via the link: http://www.regonline.com/societyforacutemedicine . The excellent attendance at the Spring meeting in Halifax was encouraging, particularly the large number of SHOs and trainees who made the journey. One Trainee has submitted her own observations on the meeting, which I have included on p. 44. For those of you who were unable to attend I have also included the abstracts from the Free Paper session, along with summaries of the ‘breakout’ sessions. There will not be time in the packed Autumn programme for another Free Paper session (this is planned again for next Spring), but there will be an extensive poster display with a prize for the best poster. Information on how to submit an abstract can be found on the Society’s website. This edition of the journal contains a range of reviews and case reports, which I hope that readers will find interesting. Hammersley and Edge make a strong case for the development of combined paediatric and adult guidelines for the management of diabetic ketoacidosis, emphasising a more cautious approach to fluid replacement that has been traditionally employed in adult patients. The use of near-patient testing for ketone levels is also discussed, with speculation that this may be of use in the future for prevention of admissions in adults with DKA. Avian influenza may have disapperared from the front pages of Tabloid newspapers in recent times, but the need for vigilance amongst front-line clinicians remains as high as ever. Esmail and Aarons’ review should remind readers of the diagnostic algorithms and treatment options when faced with a suspected case. Syncope and pulmonary embolism complete the review section, the latter providing an extensive review of the diagnostic strategies for this important condition. Treatment of pulmonary embolism will follow in a future edition.

Spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (SICH) is a blood clot that arises in the brain parenchyma in the absence of trauma or surgery. This entity accounts for 10 to 15% of all strokes and is associated with a higher mortality rate than either ischemic stroke or subarachnoid hemorrhage. Common causes include hypertension, amyloid angiopathy, coagulopathy, vascular anomalies, tumors, and various drugs. Hypertension, however, remains the single greatest modifiable risk factor for SICH. Computerized tomography scanning is the initial diagnostic modality of choice in SICH, and angiography should be considered in all cases except those involving older patients with preexisting hypertension in thalamic, putaminal, or cerebellar hemorrhage. Medical management includes venous thrombosis prophylaxis, gastric cytoprotection, and aggressive rehabilitation. Anticonvulsant agents should be prescribed in supratentorial SICH, whereas the management of hypertension is controversial. To date, nine prospective randomized controlled studies have been conducted to compare surgical and medical management of SICH. Although definitive evidence favoring surgical intervention is lacking, there is good theoretical rationale for early surgical intervention. Surgery should be considered in patients with moderate to large lobar or basal ganglia hemorrhages and those suffering progressive neurological deterioration. Elderly patients in whom the Glasgow Coma Scale score is less than 5, those with brainstem hemorrhages, and those with small hemorrhages do not typically benefit from surgery. Patients with cerebellar hemorrhages larger than 3 cm, those with brainstem compression and hydrocephalus, or those exhibiting neurological deterioration should undergo surgical evacuation of the clot. It is hoped that the forthcoming results of the International Surgical Trial in IntraCerebral Hemorrhage will help formulate evidence-based recommendations regarding the role of surgery in SICH.

This paper explores the ways in which Scotland portrayed itself during the run of International Exhibitions in Edinburgh (1886, 1890, 1908) and Glasgow (1888, 1901, 1911, 1938). It will be shown that Scotland, as a fundamental component of the British Empire, served to increase visions of Britishness in these Exhibitions (or World’s Fairs) by hosting a number of colonial exhibits and focussing, for the most part, on modern technological advances in machinery and engineering. While all of these Scottish exhibits did self-reflect on history and Scottish nationhood (via literature, art, and architecture), this paper will show that the novelty of doing this, in sharp contrast with the pomp and exuberance of the imperial display, reduced Scottishness to yet another exotic ‘other’. Following the ‘Old London’ featured in 1884, Edinburgh and – later – Glasgow featured ‘old towns’ which offered visitors an impression of their lost cityscapes, dislocated from their original place and built among the many other temporary pavilions. In the twentieth century, both cities featured human displays: a nefarious turn in Exhibition culture across Europe which curated people from colonial lands on a level with their material culture. Scotland, as part of the British Empire, boasted Senegalese and West Africans as part of their popular attractions. Following this, Glasgow followed London in displaying the people of the Scottish Highlands as part of a pastiche village named ‘An Clahan’: a crystallising moment in Scotland’s disorienting self-portrayal in these British imperial contexts. In working through these case studies, this paper will consider scholarship from the fields of history and memory studies.

Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, Glasgow; 3-4th October 2013 A number of posters at the 7th International Conference of the Society for Acute Medicine were awarded ‘highly commended’ certificates by a panel of judges. The abstract text from these posters published here. The posters themselves can be accessed via the Society for Acute Medicine website: www.acutemedicine.org.uk

Formed in the autumn of 2013, Kelvin Biodiversity Network (KBN) focuses on the biodiversity of, and issues facing the lower River Kelvin, which is essentially the stretch of the waterway flowing through the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The network reaches about 30 organisations, mainly non-governmental organisations (NGOs). We describe KBN’s activities involving member groups working together, specifically on a conference, regular bio-recording and an annual exhibition, and discuss its achievements (especially in citizen science), limitations and possible futures.

Rowan Moore, in his work Why We Build: Power and Desire in Architecture, notes that “most people know that buildings are not purely functional, that there is an intangible something about them that has to do with emotion” (16). Emotion is critical to why and how we build. Indeed, there is a basic human desire to build—to leave a mark on the landscape or on our society. This issue of M/C Journal unpacks this idea of emotion, examining the functional and the creative in the design process, for a range of building projects, from the tangible: building transport infrastructure, exhibition centre, or a new-style museum; to those building projects that are more difficult to define: building an artwork, a community, or a reputation. In addition, this issue looks at how we also ‘unbuild’ the world around us. In the feature article Aleks Wansbrough critically takes up ideas of ‘build’ and ‘unbuild’ through an examination of how the role that the death of Man, which follows the death of God, has had on the idea of creation, and how Man is unbuilt in three works by three different artists: Francis Bacon’s “Study of a Baboon” (1953), Jan Švankmajer’s Darkness, Light, Darkness (1989) and Patricia Piccinini’s “The Young Family” (2002). In the first article, Ella Mudie also looks at ‘unbuild’. This is achieved with a review of how the Sydney Metro—a major transport infrastructure project—requires demolition work that will inevitably result in a reconfiguration of the character of Sydney’s inner city and the suburbs it intersects. Mudie questions unbuilding and rebuilding, drawing on literary texts in which demolition and infrastructure development are key preoccupations. In the second article on construction and destruction, Sarah Morley, looks at one of Sydney’s earliest iconic buildings. The Garden Palace—a purpose built facility designed to house the Colony’s first International Exhibition in 1879—was a famous, and favourite, building of New South Wales, prior to its destruction by fire in 1882. Morley explores the loss of the building and its contents; which included many Australian Aboriginal objects and ancestral remains.Simon Dwyer looks at building a story with light. Drawing upon a range of historical documents, this article investigates how world-renowned architect Jørn Utzon envisaged the use of natural and artificial light. In this way, he showed how light could contribute to the final build of the Sydney Opera House, through giving additional expression to the traditional building elements that he had carefully selected. Nadine Kozak highlights much smaller structures in her qualitative analysis of comments made by stewards about their Little Free Libraries. This, increasingly popular, movement offers opportunities for reading and to build community networks as people come together to build, maintain and stock Little Free Libraries. Kozak’s work also acknowledges some of the resistance to this movement and how communities are strengthened in their efforts to protect what they have built. The earliest detectives were forced to overcome significant resistance from a suspicious public. Rachel Franks investigates the efforts of Charles Dickens to change the perception of policing. Focusing on letters written about capital punishment and articles aimed at promoting the role of the detective, Franks unpacks how one of the great novelists of the Victorian age also assisted in building the reputation of a fledging detective branch. Moving forward in time, Hazel Ferguson also interrogates ideas of reputation. This work looks at the activities of early career researchers on social media which is increasingly being used to build communities around mutual support and professional development. Ferguson’s analysis, of the #ECRchat group on Twitter, aims to contribute to emerging discussions about academic labour and online reputation. In noting how the babble of a crowd can indicate the presence of others constructing ephemeral emergent communities where the voice of an individual is often lost, Rebecca Collins, identifies how sound informs our experience of space. In this article, she discusses the potential of sound to construct fictional spaces, build individual identities and evoke the presence of a crowd in relation to two artistic installations. Ben Egliston takes on another type of creative output with videogames. Egliston’s work considers how players build ingame competencies by engaging with media beyond the game itself; such as walkthrough guides or YouTube videos. This article provides a re-framing of the relationship between gameplay (and the development of competency) and the elements of games existing beyond the screen. Creativity is also central to George Jaramillo’s article which focuses on the relationship between Ionad Hiort and the Glasgow School of Art’s Institute of Design Innovation as a case study for understanding how design innovation can engender and build community capabilities. This work studies the development of a new type of heritage centre on the western coast of the Isle of Lewis in Scotland and the idea of a “place of interpretation” as an alternative to the “visitor centre”, to go “beyond the museum”. We bookend this issue with another piece on building infrastructure in the city of Sydney. Nicholas Richardson interrogates the New South Wales Government’s ‘making it happen’ campaign. This research explores whether the current build-at-any-cost mentality behind ‘making it happen’ is in either the long-term interest of the New South Wales constituency or the short-term interest of a political party.To build is to embark on a multi-disciplinary and multi-faceted project. These articles demonstrate the wide-ranging potential of exploring how different interpretations of, and ways to, build impacts our cultural, emotional, intellectual, private, and public lives. AcknowledgementsOur sincere thanks to our enthusiastic contributors, to those who gave their expertise and time in the blind peer review process, and to Axel Bruns. ReferenceMoore, Rowan. Why We Build: Power and Desire in Architecture. New York: HarperCollins, 2013.

Lincolnshire, England. The crowd cheer when the ball breaks loose. From one end of the field to the other, the players chase, their snouts hovering just above the grass. It’s not a case of four legs being better, rather a novel way to attract customers to the Woodside Wildlife and Falconry Park. During the matches, volunteers are drawn from the crowd to hold goal posts at either end of the run the pigs usually race on. With five pigs playing, two teams of two and a referee, and a ball designed to leak feed as it rolls (Stevenson) the ten-minute competition is fraught with tension. While the pig’s contributions to “the beautiful game” (Fish and Pele 7) have not always been so obvious, it could be argued that specific parts of the animal have had a significant impact on a sport which, despite calls to fall into line with much of the rest of the world, people in Australia (and the US) are more likely to call soccer. The Football Precursors to the modern football were constructed around an inflated pig’s bladder (Price, Jones and Harland). Animal hide, usually from a cow, was stitched around the bladder to offer some degree of stability, but the bladder’s irregular and uneven form made for unpredictable movement in flight. This added some excitement and affected how ball games such as the often violent, calico matches in Florence, were played. In the early 1970s, the world’s oldest ball was discovered during a renovation in Stirling Castle, Scotland. The ball has a pig’s bladder inside its hand-stitched, deer-hide outer. It was found in the ceiling above the bed in, what was then Mary Queens of Scots’ bedroom. It has since been dated to the 1540s (McGinnes). Neglected and left in storage until the late 1990s, the ball found pride of place in an exhibition in the Smiths Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling, and only gained worldwide recognition (as we will see later) in 2006. Despite confirmed interest in a number of sports, there is no evidence to support Mary’s involvement with football (Springer). The deer-hide ball may have been placed to gather and trap untoward spirits attempting to enter the monarch’s sleep, or simply left by accident and forgotten (McGinnes in Springer). Mary, though, was not so fortunate. She was confined and forgotten, but only until she was put to death in 1587. The Executioner having gripped her hair to hold his prize aloft, realised too late it was a wig and Mary’s head bounced and rolled across the floor. Football Development The pig’s bladder was the central component in the construction of the football for the next three hundred years. However, the issue of the ball’s movement (the bounce and roll), the bladder’s propensity to burst when kicked, and an unfortunate wife’s end, conspired to push the pig from the ball before the close of the nineteenth-century. The game of football began to take its shape in 1848, when JC Thring and a few colleagues devised the Cambridge Rules. This compromised set of guidelines was developed from those used across the different ‘ball’ games played at England’s elite schools. The game involved far more kicking, and the pig’s bladders, prone to bursting under such conditions, soon became impractical. Charles Goodyear’s invention of vulcanisation in 1836 and the death of prestigious rugby and football maker Richard Lindon’s wife in 1870 facilitated the replacement of the animal bladder with a rubber-based alternative. Tragically, Mr Lindon’s chief inflator died as a result of blowing up too many infected pig’s bladders (Hawkesley). Before it closed earlier this year (Rhoads), the US Soccer Hall of Fame displayed a rubber football made in 1863 under the misleading claim that it was the oldest known football. By the late 1800s, professional, predominantly Scottish play-makers had transformed the game from its ‘kick-and-run’ origins into what is now called ‘the passing game’ (Sanders). Football, thanks in no small part to Scottish factory workers (Kay), quickly spread through Europe and consequently the rest of the world. National competitions emerged through the growing need for organisation, and the pig-free mass production of balls began in earnest. Mitre and Thomlinson’s of Glasgow were two of the first to make and sell their much rounder balls. With heavy leather panels sewn together and wrapped around a thick rubber inner, these balls were more likely to retain shape—a claim the pig’s bladder equivalent could not legitimately make. The rubber-bladdered balls bounced more too. Their weight and external stitching made them more painful to header, but also more than useful for kicking and particularly for passing from one player to another. The ball’s relatively quick advancement can thereafter be linked to the growth and success of the World Cup Finals tournament. Before the pig re-enters the fray, it is important to glance, however briefly, at the ball’s development through the international game. World Cup Footballs Pre-tournament favourites, Spain, won the 2010 FIFA World Cup, playing with “an undistorted, perfectly spherical ball” (Ghosh par. 7), the “roundest” ever designed (FIFA par.1). Their victory may speak to notions of predictability in the ball, the tournament and the most lucrative levels of professional endeavour, but this notion is not a new one to football. The ball’s construction has had an influence on the way the game has been played since the days of Mary Queen of Scots. The first World Cup Final, in 1930, featured two heavy, leather, twelve-panelled footballs—not dissimilar to those being produced in Glasgow decades earlier. The players and officials of Uruguay and Argentina could not agree, so they played the first half with an Argentine ball. At half-time, Argentina led by two goals to one. In the second half, Uruguay scored three unanswered goals with their own ball (FIFA). The next Final was won by Italy, the home nation in 1934. Orsi, Italy’s adopted star, poked a wildly swerving shot beyond the outstretched Czech keeper. The next day Orsi, obligated to prove his goal was not luck or miracle, attempted to repeat the feat before an audience of gathered photographers. He failed. More than twenty times. The spin on his shot may have been due to the, not uncommon occurrence, of the ball being knocked out of shape during the match (FIFA). By 1954, the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) had sought to regulate ball size and structure and, in 1958, rigorously tested balls equal to the demands of world-class competition. The 1950s also marked the innovation of the swerving free kick. The technique, developed in the warm, dry conditions of the South American game, would not become popular elsewhere until ball technology improved. The heavy hand-stitched orb, like its early counterparts, was prone to water absorption, which increased the weight and made it less responsive, particularly for those playing during European winters (Bray). The 1970 World Cup in Mexico saw football progress even further. Pele, arguably the game’s greatest player, found his feet, and his national side, Brazil, cemented their international football prominence when they won the Jules Rimet trophy for the third time. Their innovative and stylish use of the football in curling passes and bending free kicks quickly spread to other teams. The same World Cup saw Adidas, the German sports goods manufacturer, enter into a long-standing partnership with FIFA. Following the competition, they sold an estimated six hundred thousand match and replica tournament footballs (FIFA). The ball, the ‘Telstar’, with its black and white hexagonal panels, became an icon of the modern era as the game itself gained something close to global popularity for the first time in its history. Over the next forty years, the ball became incrementally technologically superior. It became synthetic, water-resistant, and consistent in terms of rebound and flight characteristics. It was constructed to be stronger and more resistant to shape distortion. Internal layers of polyutherane and Syntactic Foam made it lighter, capable of greater velocity and more responsive to touch (FIFA). Adidas spent three years researching and developing the 2006 World Cup ball, the ‘Teamgeist’. Fourteen panels made it rounder and more precise, offering a lower bounce, and making it more difficult to curl due to its accuracy in flight. At the same time, audiences began to see less of players like Roberto Carlos (Brazil and Real Madrid CF) and David Beckham (Manchester United, LA Galaxy and England), who regularly scored goals that challenged the laws of physics (Gill). While Adidas announced the 2006 release of the world’s best performing ball in Berlin, the world’s oldest was on its way to the Museum fur Volkerkunde in Hamburg for the duration of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The Mary Queen of Scot’s ball took centre spot in an exhibit which also featured a pie stand—though not pork pies—from Hibernian Football Club (Strang). In terms of publicity and raising awareness of the Scots’ role in the game’s historical development, the installation was an unrivalled success for the Scottish Football Museum (McBrearty). It did, however, very little for the pig. Heads, not Tails In 2002, the pig or rather the head of a pig, bounced and rolled back into football’s limelight. For five years Luis Figo, Portugal’s most capped international player, led FC Barcelona to domestic and European success. In 2000, he had been lured to bitter rivals Real Madrid CF for a then-world record fee of around £37 million (Nash). On his return to the Catalan Camp Nou, wearing the shimmering white of Real Madrid CF, he was showered with beer cans, lighters, bottles and golf balls. Among the objects thrown, a suckling pig’s head chimed a psychological nod to the spear with two sharp ends in William Golding’s story. Play was suspended for sixteen minutes while police tried to quell the commotion (Lowe). In 2009, another pig’s head made its way into football for different reasons. Tightly held in the greasy fingers of an Orlando Pirates fan, it was described as a symbol of the ‘roasting’ his team would give the Kaiser Chiefs. After the game, he and his friend planned to eat their mascot and celebrate victory over their team’s most reviled competitors (Edwards). The game ended in a nil-all draw. Prior to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, it was not uncommon for a range of objects that European fans might find bizarre, to be allowed into South African league matches. They signified luck and good feeling, and in some cases even witchcraft. Cabbages, known locally for their medicinal qualities, were very common—common enough for both sets of fans to take them (Edwards). FIFA, an organisation which has more members than the United Nations (McGregor), impressed their values on the South African Government. The VuVuZela was fine to take to games; indeed, it became a cultural artefact. Very little else would be accepted. Armed with their economy-altering engine, the world’s most watched tournament has a tendency to get what it wants. And the crowd respond accordingly. Incidentally, the ‘Jabulani’—the ball developed for the 2010 tournament—is the most consistent football ever designed. In an exhaustive series of tests, engineers at Loughborough University, England, learned, among other things, the added golf ball-like grooves on its surface made the ball’s flight more symmetrical and more controlled. The Jabulani is more reliable or, if you will, more predictable than any predecessor (Ghosh). Spanish Ham Through support from their Governing body, the Real Federación Española de Fútbol, Spain have built a national side with experience, and an unparalleled number of talented individuals, around the core of the current FC Barcelona club side. Their strength as a team is founded on the bond between those playing on a weekly basis at the Catalan club. Their style has allowed them to create and maintain momentum on the international stage. Victorious in the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship and undefeated in their run through the qualifying stages into the World Cup Finals in South Africa, they were tournament favourites before a Jabulani was rolled into touch. As Tim Parks noted in his New York Review of Books article, “The Shame of the World Cup”, “the Spanish were superior to an extent one rarely sees in the final stages of a major competition” (2010 par. 15). They have a “remarkable ability to control, hold and hide the ball under intense pressure,” and play “a passing game of great subtlety [ ... to] patiently wear down an opposing team” (Parks par. 16). Spain won the tournament having scored fewer goals per game than any previous winner. Perhaps, as Parks suggests, they scored as often as they needed to. They found the net eight times in their seven matches (Fletcher). This was the first time that Spain had won the prestigious trophy, and the first time a European country has won the tournament on a different continent. In this, they have broken the stranglehold of superpowers like Germany, Italy and Brazil. The Spanish brand of passing football is the new benchmark. Beautiful to watch, it has grace, flow and high entertainment value, but seems to lack something of an organic nature: that is, it lacks the chance for things to go wrong. An element of robotic aptitude has crept in. This occurred on a lesser scale across the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals, but it is possible to argue that teams and players, regardless of nation, have become interchangeable, that the world’s best players and the way they play have become identikits, formulas to be followed and manipulated by master tacticians. There was a great deal of concern in early rounds about boring matches. The world’s media focused on an octopus that successfully chose the winner of each of Germany’s matches and the winner of the final. Perhaps, in shaping the ‘most’ perfect ball and the ‘most’ perfect football, the World Cup has become the most predictable of tournaments. In Conclusion The origins of the ball, Orsi’s unrepeatable winner and the swerving free kick, popular for the best part of fifty years, are worth remembering. These issues ask the powers of football to turn back before the game is smothered by the hunt for faultlessness. The unpredictability of the ball goes hand in hand with the game. Its flaws underline its beauty. Football has so much more transformative power than lucrative evolutionary accretion. While the pig’s head was an ugly statement in European football, it is a symbol of hope in its South African counterpart. Either way its removal is a reminder of Golding’s message and the threat of homogeneity; a nod to the absence of the irregular in the modern era. Removing the curve from the free kick echoes the removal of the pig’s bladder from the ball. The fun is in the imperfection. Where will the game go when it becomes indefectible? Where does it go from here? Can there really be any validity in claiming yet another ‘roundest ball ever’? Chip technology will be introduced. The ball’s future replacements will be tracked by satellite and digitally-fed, reassured referees will determine the outcome of difficult decisions. Victory for the passing game underlines the notion that despite technological advancement, the game has changed very little since those pioneering Scotsmen took to the field. Shouldn’t we leave things the way they were? Like the pigs at Woodside Wildlife and Falconry Park, the level of improvement seems determined by the level of incentive. The pigs, at least, are playing to feed themselves. Acknowledgments The author thanks editors, Donna Lee Brien and Adele Wessell, and the two blind peer reviewers, for their constructive feedback and reflective insights. The remaining mistakes are his own. References “Adidas unveils Golden Ball for 2006 FIFA World Cup Final” Adidas. 18 Apr. 2006. 23 Aug. 2010 . 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