PUBLIC display of cleavage may soon be no more, I fear. Male voices will here chorus: "And you're worried?" Yes. The cleavage set to vanish is the builder's bottom variety. And the cheeky builder is an icon, as well as a physique.
Let's start by reminding ourselves of this fine figure of a man, the quintessential Scottish building site bloke. He has a bacon buttie, a mug of tea with four sugars and he winks a lot. Yes, winks. He has a furled tabloid protruding from his back po
cket, which encourages his already nonchalantly worn jeans to sit low on the hips, ensuring display of the upper cheeks when the builder is engaged in brick-moving, bendy-over activities. Or whatever he does. Of course, he whistles at the passin' darlin's, if he's facing the right way. Basically, if he were a Roman emperor – and sometimes he feels he is – he would be Gluteus Maximus.
The circumstances leading to the possible disappearance of this man and his cheeks from Scotland's streets have been created by several news and business stories this week.
So, what are the threats? The first comes from the sugar in the builder's cuppa. To mark Fairtrade Fortnight, Tate & Lyle has announced plans to move its retail range to Fairtrade, in the biggest-ever switch by a UK company. Next, flick to the business pages and another threat to the Scottish builder bloke comes from the meat in his sandwich. This week, pig farmers said they could no longer feed their herd, following the doubling of wheat prices. Wheat is the main constituent of a pig's dinner and, farmers say, if we don't want our livestock to be wiped out, genetic modification of crops must be allowed.
Add all this to issues of bottom-cleavage already raised by Polish workmen, who show less upper cheek as they work, due either to religious modesty or better-cut denim in Warsaw. By introducing cleavage multiculturalism, Poles are eroding the old Scottish building traditions of bottom display. The cheek of that, frankly.
Having read his tabloid, a Scottish builder might remove his hard hat to scratch his head. Something will hit him, hopefully not falling masonry. "My four sugars have gone Fairtrade! My bacon buttie might go GM! And the brickie alongside is not just a Pole but he's got a belt! Key components of my image are being changed by the passage of time and, while I'm usually more interested in the passage of women, is it time for a whole new me? A new us? A new Scottish builder bloke? All these years we've been telling birds to cheer up, but we should have been urging ourselves to keep up!"
Before you know it, Scottish builders will be downloading Page 3 on a lightweight wi-fi laptop. But the greatest consequence, by far, of the traditional builder pulling his socks up will be the traditional builder pulling his jeans up. High-waisted denims are this season's silhouette. And if the rest of his image is being revamped, the Scottish builder may also be tempted to twist, look down and say: hello Gluteus Modestus.
Does this all really mean the end of traditional builder's bottom cleavage? "Aye, and pigs might fly," you may say (though they'd need to be fed on something else? Biofuel?) Yet deconstruct my cheek chagrin, and there are a lot of issues: the power of consumers to push iconic brands towards new business models; the unanticipated effects of GM bans being lifted; the cultural effect of economic migration. In many ways, the changing face of modern life is actually shown on our builders' rears.
Incidentally, should you catcall at this viewpoint, it would be a comfort. We have to keep some Scottish building site traditions alive.
The full article contains 639 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
