Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Imagination was a bridge too far

A window displaying the shortlist of names for the new Forth Replacement Crossing at the Education Centre, South Queensferry.
A window displaying the shortlist of names for the new Forth Replacement Crossing at the Education Centre, South Queensferry.

Coming up with names for the new Forth bridge (or crossing as we seem to be required to call it) has been a long, drawn out process.

Making up the list of almost 8000 suggestions took months.The excitement was almost (but not quite) unbearable as the panel of experts painstakingly whittled the vast array of names down to just five potential monikers.

The Scottish public had shown no little wit in coming up with a vast array of contenders, many of which raised if not a titter at least a wry smile.And so it was that a respectful hush fell on The Courier newsroom come 8.45am on the appointed day.

While one may not have been able to hear a pin drop, a knitting needle clattering to the ground would probably have been audible, at least to those standing in the immediate vicinity. Actually even that is probably stretching the truth a bit, but suffice to say there was at least a modicum of interest.

That modicum, sadly, dissipated to statistically unmeasurable levels when the five names were finally revealed to an awe-struck world.

The Caledonia Bridge (yawn), Firth of Forth Crossing (zzzz), Queensferry Crossing (pah), Saltire Crossing (hmmm) and St Margaret’s Crossing (almost interesting) were unveiled as possibles.

To think that the bridge would be called “Bob” was probably a dream too far but surely there was room for a bit of humour.The “Back and Forth” bridge had a certain ring to it. As did the “Fifth Forth”.But it wasn’t to be and humour or even imagination – proved to be simply a bridge too far.

And so we are left with five names unlikely to inspire anything other than widespread apathy.Many have already discounted the Saltire or Caledonian Crossing, branding them “too political”.St Margaret’s, while at least historically significant and not without a relatively interesting back story, has been called “too obscure”.That leaves the Firth of Forth Crossing and the Queensferry Crossing as “just right” (in Goldilocks and the Three Bears parlance).Just right yet insufferably dull.

The huge number of suggestions to identify a span likely to define our generation shows just how successful the idea to involve the public was.A shame the final shortlist is likely to bring all that enthusiasm to a crushing halt.A brief search of social networking sites reveals there has not been a tremendously positive public response.

In fact, as one particularly erudite commentator on this very site rather succinctly sums up: “What a load of keech”.

Which opens up a whole new avenue of traditionally Scottish possibilities.The Keech Crossing? The Jakey Jaunt? The Pish Pont?Now that would surely engender healthy debate…