ALAN MACDERMID May 17 2005
ELVIS has appeared twice in Glasgow's Bridgeton, a top Edinburgh restaurant is listed under "brothels", and an Elgin tattie merchant who died in 1945 has found belated celebrity further south.
The surreal information has been revealed by Google, the internet search engine, in maps.google.co.uk, and local. google.co.uk, two new offerings.
The street maps of Glasgow, for instance, might confuse a stranger hunting some locales. King Street, formerly near Glasgow Cross, has disappeared, but two new ones called Elvis Street have been created off London Road.
The top end of Renfield Street has now become McDonald Court, possibly in tribute to Gus, the Scottish Television mogul and Labour peer, who once worked there.
Part of the Bridgegate has been turned into Jock Inkson's Brae. Jock who? you may ask. Google has the answer. There is, in fact, a Jock Inkson's Brae, but it's in Elgin, commemorating a celebrated vegetable merchant who had a clarion call of "Tatties, wives, tatties, hurry up!".
The local.google site is a normal business directory most of the time, but some parameters, like "brothels" and "Edinburgh" will direct you to any Google listings with both words. Thus the Witchery restaurant finds itself listed as a brothel, because Clarissa Dickson Wright, in a restaurant review, referred to waiters (not The Witchery's) that she wouldn't employ as bouncers in a brothel.
No-one from Google was available for comment.
Herald
