I had such mixed feelings about this book. In the first place I find it surprising that anyone would publish a book about the day-to-day building of the Scottish parliament building. Maybe in the year 2000 this was big interest in Scotland. In 2002 I doubt if there is much of a market for this story. I found myself tired of the storyline about one third of the way through it.

Having said that I found the author had a readable and fun style. He has a way with words, which enhances the book greatly.

I have chosen one of the entries to show what I mean about subject and style.

1 December 1998

THE BUILDERS RETURNED TODAY but John Knox has vanished. At first it wasn't clear what the joiners working at the foot of the statue were up to as they laid their supplies of tools and timber around the base of the pedestal this morning. The framework of thin timbers first encircled the pedestal and then, as the shadows grew longer in the quad, the network of planks climbed higher and higher. When the framing had been completed, the joiners turned their hands to enclosing the statue in a large plywood box as if Knox were about to become an ambitious magician's unwilling volunteer. But by late afternoon it was clear that there would be no disappearing act for either the preacher or the newly arrived box which now surrounds him. The presence of the box is plain for all to see: a giant, clean, plywood polygon now stands where the preacher once stood. The location of Knox, on the other hand, is less easily determined. Passers-by must take it on faith that the finger tips which are barely visible above the top of the wood belong to the statue's up-stretched 'preaching' arm, for the rest of him has utterly vanished. And so, after more than a hundred years of standing watch in the quad, it has taken less than a day for Knox to be boxed up in a plywood sky-scraper. Now that he has disappeared from view, it is impossible to see how the man himself is taking this unexpected turn of events, but reaction from students and staff is one of muted surprise. How has this entombing of John Knox happened? And how has it gone unchallenged? Why has the Scottish Office decided that Knox's supervision of the quadrangle is neither required nor desired? Or is Donald Dewar perhaps afraid of being upstaged by the presence of the preacher? It may be that Knox has been boarded up to prevent the Nationalists from enlisting yet another famous Scot in the upcoming election campaign. But ff this is the case, Scottish Labour may have moved too quickly. For whether a reflection of the sculptor's own political affinities or a mere accident of art, the statue of Knox atop the pedestal leans ever so slightly to the right.

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