Sunday 9 August 2009

I must be stupid!


A friend of mine in the States sent me this the other day - apparently it's been going the rounds on the internet - but I must admit that it leaves me completely baffled. It seems that there is some town planning movement called New Urbanism which is quite like a religious movement. The leaders are figures like Andrew Duany and Leslie Krier though I must admit I've never heard of either of them. It seems that our very own Wee Jimmy Mackinnon - the Chief Planner of all of Scotland - is also involved in this. He's somewhere in the painting above. They get together each year for a big conference and it's a wee bit like the Jehovah's Witnesses and their Watchtower. In fact somebody told me that Leslie Krier had designed a watch tower for these New Urbanists at a place called Seaside - you can see the similarities below.

My friends in the States regard these people as very suspicious characters, distributing pamphlets and the like as if it was going out of fashion, trying to get people to plan and pray at the same time. Here's a picture of some of them in action.

I hope this sort of thing never happens in Scotland - especially in my lovely wee Auchterness. My father used to go to church but he never mixed up his religion with his full-time job. These folk are making a big mistake if they think that the cream of Scottish planners are going to start having religious feelings - it wouldn't be right, and I'm completely confused about why our own wee Jimmy Mackinnon is involved with these perverts.

4 comments:

Steve R said...

Strong stuff, Dave. I'm a little concerned that there may be paed*philes in the midst of our profession. I've never met Wee Jimmy... is he the short man in the foreground?

Dave Thompson said...

To be honest I don't know. I've never heard of paediatricians in the profession - just electricians and pedestrians - but if you put these together that's maybe what you get.

I think Wee Jimmy is the very small guy you can just see behind the big egit with the specs and the beard.

Anne Whitaker said...

I really think that Startrek fans and members of the cult of Scientology should know about this exciting town planning venture. Perhaps there could be some cross-fertilisation: eg Star Scientists plan new towns on Planet Zog?

I am excited.

Your fan, Anne W.

Dave Thompson said...

Thank you Anne. You're obviously bursting with ideas there. That probably means that you haven't had any town planning training. Seriously though, planning needs people like you to build bridges between different points of view and different planets!