r/Glasgow Tools

Not a foreigner but looked into it a while back as I’d been passing by wellington while a walking tour was happening and heard the tour guide say that it was in a top 10 of the most bizarre monuments on earth by Lonely Planet.

I go down thought black holes sometime and look into these things to verify and learn more (I’m pretty useful at pub quizzes as a result, just don’t ask me music, sports or dates).

I ready several articles that talked about how it was a symbol that represented the attitudes of Scotland and Glasgow. Particularly the Scottish/Glaswegian sense of humour.

And that it represents the Scot’s continuous background level of rebellion against anything they see as authority going a bit too far (our outright taking the piss). In the 80s people started putting a cone on his head (generally while drunk of course) and it was costing the council £1000s to remove it every year. The then put the statue in the plinth it is on now to deter people from doing it. Just made it worse. Continuously had a cone. Council then said “screw it. Just leave it there”.

The most I’ve personally ever seen on top of his head is 7 cones at a time plus 2 on the horse at the same time (pub quiz knowledge; wellington’s horse was called Copenhagen). It always puts a smile on my face, even when i was going through a really rough patch a while back, so if the council ever decides it needs to stop, I’ll be among the many continuing to cause mischief to keep it there, even if I’m in my 80s when it’s needed.




Or it’s simply it looks different and funny