February

“I’m interested in Marxist Impressionism, mostly.”

“What do you mean, Marxist Impressionism?”

It was becoming clear to the rest of gathering that Drummond had no idea what he was on about, but he’d got swept up trying to impress the gathering that he was inventing his opinions on the spot. Drummond was self-proclaimed radical and polymath, not realising that polymath isn’t someone with a good enough grasp the on contents of Stroud’s Calculus for Engineers to pass their degree nor someone who watches a few Youtube videos a week with titles like “Visualising the Fourier Transform”. Drummond’s radicalness was exemplified by his authoring of an impressive number of communist memes on Reddit. By doing this, he had become familiar with a decent amount of left-wing jargon. Drummond believed that because he understood how serious things, like concrete, worked, he should be able to do a good enough job at bullshitting his way through a conversation about a style of art he’d just made up mere moments ago.

“Well, I mean art where the focus is on the worker…”

Inspiration struck.

“and the means of production is the message. Anything where the lumpenproletariat can be shown that they have the means of production and how they are being are exploited for them. The means of production is the message, comrades.”

Drummond thought he’d nailed that. He’d really turned that quotation into something of his own. Of course, he wasn’t going to follow it up with any substance since he had no idea what he was on about, but that didn’t matter since it’d engaged most of the communists now that left-wing theory was being discussed instead of art. People didn’t care that Drummond was full of shit. It gave them a pass to try their hand at being card carrying members of the intelligentsia, and none of them felt like they were on solid ground with art. It just came up because one of the comrades was trying to better themselves by reading “the story of Art”, a book they thought was about art but was really about art history. Now they were back in comfortable conversation territory - discussing the plight of the proletariat.

Among the comrades, there were recently graduates who’d decided to take a few months off while they were figuring out how to live and a few people who needed to have a job, so they were doing shift work on zero hour contracts. None of the comrades could countenance a graduate scheme for a consultancy, go work in finance, join a Big Tech firm, drill for oil or build weapons. But they were keen to seize the means of production from their feudal masters despite the fact that none of them had ever produced something that anyone had found useful. The group’s most recent activism was a sit-in at the University of Glasgow, and vice-chancellor, the executives at Shell, the government and the Monarchy all had a hard look at themselves and decided to make the world fairer.

Maxwell ignite some red hatred in the group

“Yeah well, the fucking fascists that run the Burrell Collection are never going to put something that’d further the cause, comrade. The decadent bastards have spend £11 million doing it up instead of repatriating all those vases. If I ran this country, that place would be turned into gravel”

Maxwell was a rowdy drunk in his own way. When he was among laddish men, he was reserved and didn’t like to offer up his thoughts, but among his friends, he said what was on his mind without much of a filter, and that’s why his friends gravitated toward him. When he’d had a few, he’d start suggesting things like

“… and fuck Eton, that place ought to be turned into gravel” “… and fuck Oxford and the bastards that place turns out, we should turn it all into gravel” “… and fuck parliament. The place is full of posh cunts and we’d be better off turning that fucking building into gravel.”

At some point, Maxwell had amused himself with the concept of these old stone buildings into a material reserved for fire roads through forests and posh driveways, and now reiterated this joke despite it never landing the way he’d hoped. Drummond and Maxwell started scheming to bring down the Burrell Collection, as for too long it had a strangle hold on the culture of Glasgow. In their new order, there’d be no room for an establishment as decadent and Fascist as the Burrell Collection.

Apparently this gathering was a party. Most of the people there referred to their mates as comrades, much to the discomfort for the tangents of the group who’d only come because they didn’t know what they were agreeing to. The room had a cheap, naked, laminate floor from about 20 years ago and was furnished with a fridge and a sofa that faced a TV-less TV console. The walls were covered in a lavender and white flower pattern and there was no music. This accentuated the awkward interactions between communists and the tangents

“Comrades!”

Ruaridh clattered into the front room. He carried himself as if he was the captain of a ship, and he was keen to direct the conversation when he entered a room.

“So I heard there was a hot tub? Maxwell, who the fuck buys a hot tub around here.”

“I know, it just came with the place. The neighbours told me this used to be a swinger’s house.”

“Thats fucking lovely. This place is a real shit hole Maxwell, why’d you even move here. All the pubs had bars over the windows and I saw a guy on the bus eating a manky McDonalds out of his pockets.”

“Yeah, I saw a guy piss himself on it once. My Grandad died and left me a bit of money, and I thought a place with a hot tub would be living the life, but it turns out sitting in a hot tub by yourself is shite.”

“Turns out you say? No shit pal, it’s the same as having a bath but it’s on your patio.”

Ruaridh felt like communist. He’d read the manifesto and despised the land-owning elite. He would never forgive the English for Glencoe. Oh fie, MacKay, what gart ye lie! Born in Edinburgh to parents who he’d described as “working in media”, he’d attended a public school that in his words “was full of posh cunts”. He’d think less of people if they weren’t interested in something like obscure Requiems, Renoirs and Rembrandts, or Religious Schisms. A cynic would have thought he was just another posh twat having a go at being poor while it suited him, but an optimist would have noticed that at least he wasn’t donating money to the opera.

“Your street, man. Pebbledash makes an area look depressing. I’d much rather live in one of the tenements.”

“If you have money, those places are alright. My one was a draughty and damp”

“Yeah but at least those houses are affordable” Drummond replied. He was trying to impress Ruaridh with his a astute sensitivity to the plight of the working family. He was disappointed that Ruaridh had missed that thing he’d said about Maxist art, and he’d spend the rest of the evening hoping it’d come up naturally again. Colin, a tangent, had, unlike the interlocutors, grown up in a scheme so felt he could join in with this

“Nah mate, trust me living there is shit. My wee upstairs neighbour used to call me a cunt and the alcoholic next door was a proper mess.”

“Well, its better than the affordable housing they’ve been approving recently. Did you see the plan they have for Hamilton hill? Who the fuck is going to be able to afford those flats?” said Maxwell.

“you know, Since covid, a bunch of Londoners bought the flats around my bit. Gentrification is ruining Glasgow. I used to be able to buy a coffee and a croissant from this cafe near my flat for pretty much nothing, but now its like £5 to do that.” Drummond responded. Drummond was talking about Govanhill, which had been slums until 1960.

The atmosphere in the gathering had turned into millennial anger. They were all pissed off they couldn’t afford to settle down anywhere. Being in this cold, slightly damp flat in a scheme in Maryhill had made the middle class comrades resent their parent’s generation for owning so much. It wasn’t fair that they couldn’t live on a quiet leafy street within eyesight of a botanical garden or an independent music venue. Maryhill was a thirty minute walk from those things. Their expectations that they’d just end up living somewhere pleasant and be able to work on instantiating a communist state three days a week had begun to seem unrealistic after university had finished and their parents mentioned to them that a grad scheme at Deloitte might be a good idea. Ruiridh was making a difference though,

“I’ve been making mirco-documentaries about poverty in Glasgow. One got over 10,000 views.”

“How’d you get into doing that” asked Colin.

“I got into it when I was 16. I went on a trip with my mum to Indonesia to interview fishermen about plastic. I’ve been building my portfolio while helping the comrades with their social media. It’s a powerful medium, film. People can read the same news story for 10 years, but when they hear a story told through film, the drama of it must speak to their right brain.”

“Sure, yeah I know what you mean Pal. Normally I rely on drinking six pints to get my right brain going.” replied Colin. He was enjoying how oblivious Ruiridh had revealed slightly more about his parent’s mysterious jobs in media. He’d met people like this before. They’d go on sunny holidays during the break between semesters at university while he worked gig shifts. He’d gone to university to study chemical engineering, and was pretty keen on being one of the first people in his family to benefit from capitalism. He’d recently got an Audi on finance.

Maxwell, Drummond and Ruridh got in the hot-tub. Ideas were abubbling abound. Which statue were they going to deface next? James Watt, the inventor of the means of production which they wished the seize, was a prime candidate.

“James Watt is a proper cunt”, declared Maxwell, “All our troubles basically started when some prick decided to connect steam up to wheels”. Drummond, being the worldly polymath he was, secretly admired Watt’s genius, but he felt Maxwell had a good point.

Maxwell continued, “And look what we did with it. Colonised half the planet, wrecked the environment and invented mass-produced war. And the cunt is just sat on a fucking chair in George Square as if all of that was totally wasn’t a fucking crime against humanity.”

“I reckon George square is pretty well covered by the polis” remarked Drummond, trying to affect a type of glaswegian which didn’t come to him easily so that he could impress his comrades. “I reckon that Burrell collection idea we had earlier would work though. We could, like, mess it right up?”

“What like, set it on fire or something?” Ruiridh ruminated.

“I mean we could. We could also throw some paint all over it?” replied Drummond.

Maxwell saw his chance “Who the fuck are you, Just Stop Oil?

“Yeah mate, I got some pretty original thoughts, you know me.” Drummond could laugh at himself, which is why the commrades didn’t mind when he started being pretentious.

Maxwell continued, not paying attention to anything apart from his own voice, Nah we could turn the Burrell Collection into a pile of gravel”, but yet again nobody seemed to listen.

Ruiridh spoke “aye, so you do Pal. No we need something really powerful. Like irreversible. Sort of like a face tattoo. Do either of you want some of my Prosecco? This hot tub is toasty.”

Drummond replied “Yeah, a glass would be well nice. The fire idea is alright, but it’s kind of dangerous. We could break in and just push over some of the exhibits?”

“That’d show those fascist pigs. Yeah, if all their ill-gotten gains were pushed over, I’m pretty sure we could instigate the uprising” scoffed Maxwell. He then caught a glimpse of how much of dick he was being in Drummond’s reply.

“Alright mate, I’m just coming up with other ideas. No bad ideas and that”

“I guess its not a completely shite idea. We could cancel the director?”

“Yeah, but they’re pretty fucking dull. I don’t think there’s much to say about them other than they are the head of a neo-fascist colonial institution.”

“You’re making it sound like they’re the fucking Ku Klux Klan. What the fuck are you on about.”

The group started laughing, and the hot-tub finally degenerated into something resembling people enjoying themselves.

“I mean, they’re pretty shitty. Probably not as shitty as the KKK, but they’re an institution that is central to the power structure in our society. Its exists to certify that there is a type of culture, a zeitgeist, that is legitimate, and if you’re outside of this, then you are wrong. You think wrong, you speak wrong, you see wrong. I think tearing this building down will be the start of the revolution. I’m serious. All it’d take is some power tools and we could fuck that place up beyond belief.”

“Alright, I think I’ve got a pretty idea. Get some power tools, fuck up the stuff in the collection, and if we can, try and burn the fucker down. Who’s committing?”

“Yeah, I’m down”.

“Aye, me too”.

“The presidium has come to a unanimous decision. Comrades, good, we’ll get to it proper planning tomorrow”