Correction of Alasdair Gray�s name will still leave mistake in engraving By Paul Hutcheon
THE spiralling cost of the Holyrood building project raised questions about their grasp of figures, but now the parliament's senior managers are being mocked for their inability to spell.
The parliament is to spend up to £3000 correcting the name of one of Scotland's greatest living authors, Alasdair Gray, that is incorrectly chiselled in its wall.
In a further embarrassment, Gray told the Sunday Herald that the quote attributed to him next to his falsely spelt name was not even his.
The parliament tried to embed a sense of culture into the £400million building by drilling 24 quotes into the controversial structure. Included are famous sayings by novelist Sir Walter Scott, 19th century industrialist Andrew Carnegie, architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and various proverbs.
Holyrood bosses also included a quotation they believed had been authored by Gray: "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation."
Gray, who is based in Glasgow, has written celebrated novels such as Lanark and Poor Things, and is a supporter of Scottish independence.
However, it has emerged that the inscription on the Canongate wall has the wrong spelling of the writer's name.
As part of the parliament's hunt to find a new addition to the 24 quotes, officials have confirmed that around £3000 will be spent when the error is corrected.
But Holyrood may end up spending the money on something that will still be wrong.
Gray said that his quotation, which first minister Alex Salmond invoked on the day after winning the Holyrood election, came from another writer.
He said: "It was based on a line of poetry by a Canadian poet called Dennis Lee. I shortened it a wee bit, and attributed it to him the first time I used it. Of course, people keep forgetting that."
He added: "I am very pleased they are changing it, as I am used to having my first name spelt wrongly. The parliament's publicity department phoned up to explain that this had been brought to their attention by some people at a Clan gathering. One of them had read enough of my books to remember the spelling."
The Gray error can be said to show the pitfalls of engraving.
In 2005, Edinburgh City Council unveiled a plaque in honour of Olympic sprinter Allan Wells that misspelt his first name and the word "achievement".
An inscription identifying Scottish poet Robert Fergusson in Edinburgh's Canongate area also contained an error.
A Scottish parliament spokeswoman said: "We knew about this misspelling and decided it was most cost-effective to correct the error at the same time the winning entry to our Canongate Wall quotation competition is carved in the wall. The cost of correcting the error will be fully absorbed in the cost of adding the new quotation."
Lothians MSP Margo Macdonald said: "This bears out the level of trust I have in the decisions and directions of the leaders of our parliament. If they are going to change it, for goodness sake get it right and attribute it to the right source."
