There was uproar in the Scottish Parliament today when it was announced that building work on the new Scottish Parliament building would be suspended with immediate effect.

How Parliament should have been built The small mistake the builders made

The Speaker, George Reid (Greid for short) announced that the projects' main contractor had admitted to him in a private meeting that they had in fact been building the Parliament upside down.

Thomson Watson Anderson and Thyssen (TWAT) insisted that they had made an honest mistake that any builder could have made. They had tried to contact Enric Miralles the Catalonian architect responsible for the design, in order to verify their understanding of his plans. Unfortunately Miralles had died in 2000 and despite a global search that lasted from February 2001 until December 2002, that had involved 140 consultants and cost in excess of £120 million, they had been unable to locate him.

Gried told Parliament that the builders "were very, very sorry and had promised it wouldn't happen again". He suggested that Parliament debate the following options that TWAT had suggested were available in the light of the revelations:

•	That all MSP's would be issued with iron boots and that all walkways, paths and access points would be built using magnetised iron. This would allow MSP's to keep a proper sense of perspective at all times, even though they would be walking upside down.
•	That all press personnel, photographers, camera-operators, would have to report on parliament and take film or photographs of the Scottish parliament whilst adopting an upside down position.
•	That the building be self-righted using a risky technique involving small nuclear warheads and several miles of strong elastic bands.
•	That they demolish the building and start again. This would mean tripling the overall cost for the project as the cost of demolition would be high.

A spokesperson for Greid said that the Scottish Executive would be recommending the re-building option.