This is a sight familiar to all visitors to Glasgow but it's not the only way in which traffic cones can be diverted from their designed use by the citizens of that fine city.

At the Argyle Street end of Buchanan Street the other day I saw a member of a busking group playing a cone rather in the manner of a didgeridoo.  At intervals he pounded the pavement with its base thus exploiting its percussive possibilities as well.  How long before the weegeehorn takes its rightful place in the concert hall at the other end of the street?

I was in Glasgow for my periodic school chum lunch after which we went to the exhibition on Mackintosh's architectural career running until January at the Hunterian.  A lot of it was fairly familiar because there are really only a handful of designs of his that turned into actual buildings.  More's the pity when you compare his three imaginative designs for a small gate lodge that were rejected in favour of a dumpy cube, no doubt practical but yawningly boring.