“Oh, I wish I was in Glasgow,
With some good old friends of mine,
Some good old rough companions,
And some good old smooth, red wine.”
Billy Connolly, from the song, “I wish I was in Glasgow”
I tuned in to the BBC World Service for a few minutes between English lessons last week and heard a discussion about “extreme economies”. They talked about the economic problems Japan is having because of its ageing population. To my surprise, they then talked about my hometown of Glasgow.
“A-ha!” I thought. “Glasgow is famous around the world!”
The writer of a recent book talked about the “Glasgow Effect”. That is the strange and difficult to explain fact that people from Glasgow die, on average, at a much younger age than people from other cities in Britain.
“Hmmm... Maybe some ways of being famous are not so great after all. So how long am I going to live?”
Life expectancy at birth for Glaswegian men is currently 71.6 years, compared to 78.2 years across the whole UK. Life expectancy for women born in Glasgow is 78 years, compared to 82.3 years across the whole UK. By the way, why do feminists always complain that life is so much harder for women? Have they seen how much longer they live?
“Ouch! I’ve got several students older than 71.6 years. I think I’d like to live a little longer than that. Maybe if I can understand the cause, I can work hard to avoid it...”
The interesting thing about the Glasgow effect is that nobody is sure what causes it. It is not just poverty, since there are other poor cities such as Liverpool and Manchester, whose citizens don’t die so young. The Economist newspaper summed up the mystery well in 2012 when it wrote, “It is as if a malign vapour rises from the [River] Clyde at night and settles in the lungs of sleeping Glaswegians.”
“[Kagh!] Sorry, I think I’ve got something stuck in my lungs.”
I had to turn off the radio and teach my student. It’s probably just as well. I don’t like mystery programmes. Where’s that smooth, red wine?
Vocabulary:
rough – of a person, not so polite or polished in their behaviour
to tune in to a programme – to set one’s radio or tv to receive a programme
life expectancy – how long someone is predicted to live
Glaswegian – of or from Glasgow
malign – evil or having evil effects
a vapour – a gas
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