TIME FOR A RETHINK

Today Thomas and I went in to Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery to see what turned out to be a rather unimpressive Impressionist exhibition. They seemed to have moved half a dozen of the paintings from upstairs, which you can usually view for free, to the dark, dull basement. They then borrowed another dozen from the Edinburgh Gallery and the Burrell, also usually free, then charged you £5 to see them together in one room. They weren't all Impressionist paintings either. Some seemed only to qualify by being from the same era and being vaguely fuzzy in their nature! In fact, I'd go as far as to recommend a trip to the 2nd floor instead where the French gallery has just as many Impressionist period paintings on display in a much nicer and brighter room! It won't be long before any foreign visitors to Glasgow start feeling used and abused either! These donation boxes are beside all the exits. I suppose they'll all be wondering why they should suddenly pay much more than the Brits for the same experience! I guess the massive devaluation in the pound might at least lead to a job or two for people who makes signs like this!

SUSHI - GLASGOW STYLE

Today Thomas suggested we should go try the sushi bar in Silverburn shopping centre as we needed petrol at Tesco anyway. It turns out you can eat there for a reasonable price and it is fun to choose your dinner by colour-coded bowls rather than actually knowing what you are about to eat! We tried about 10 dishes for £25. The best, I think, was the salmon sushi, though I did like the deep-fried aubergines too. Not all Glaswegians are quite ready for sushi though. Standing in front of the sushi place a couple passed. He suggested 'trying sushi', she gave him a withering look and said she wasn't about to have 'sticky rice and deed fish' for her lunch - (I think you'll find it's raw, not just dead...) I was, however, touched by a slightly more adventurous couple, pictured here in the background of my photo. A grandson and grandmother sat down. He seemed genuinely pleased granny had joined him and asked what she was having. He took a prawn and rice something and tucked in with his chopsticks while she carried on cautiously watching the little dishes trundle by on the belt. Eventually, probably around when the octopus passed, she suddenly claimed not to be overly hungry and reached out to the belt. I was surprised this little old granny had the courage to try but of course she simply took the chocolate cheesecake in a little sushi bowl - one of only 3 desserts I saw passing while he ate all the other fishy delights.

IL PAVONE SUD - OVERPRICED CULINARY MEDIOCRITY

I forgot to blog this the other week, or rather Thomas and I both discussed blogging it and in the end neither of us got round to it. When we sold the flat we decided to go for a nice meal in the Village Curry house, for the 3rd time in as many weeks, taking my parents and Thomas's sister and family too. That night 6 adults, 3 kids and a baby ate an outstanding meal for £95 - amazing, no? A few days later with everyone gone, the kids with André for the night and both our fridge and freezer broken down, we decided a quick meal out for two would be an easy option. Figuring it was too soon to go back to the Village, and both feeling tired, we opted for the local Italian place - Il pavone sud. I had eaten in the Glasgow branch 10 years ago and it was fine so was quite looking forward to my dinner.
It didn't start wonderfully well. It was 7 o'clock on a Thursday night but there were only about 3 tables taken up despite the fact they had 20-30. We decided we wouldn't bother with alcohol as we just wanted some food, so ordered two cokes. When they brought the cokes they were in glasses about a third the size of your usual restaurant glass and half full of icecubes - no big deal. We looked around and were amused by the fact that they were mightily over-staffed - one chef for each person eating there that night, 3 waiters available per table and a restaurant manager wandering around. Maybe they expected it to get busy later.
For starters Thomas ordered the pâté and salad, I ordered the mushrooms. The pâté came discoloured, with less than half a slice of toast cut thinly and a tiny salad. My mushrooms were quite odd - they were boring button mushrooms that had been fried though not in much butter, but they came on sweet brioche bread with hollandaise sauce which was a bit like overthick garlic custard! Interesting - I'll try anything once.
For the main course Thomas had lasagne and I had risotto. The lasagne was unaccompanied - no salad, no garlic bread and about the size of portion I would serve Léon in the house. Thomas ordered a side portion of garlic bread to supplement and it came as two small slices (and was charged extra). The risotto was bland - the rice was cooked to the right consistency but had little or no butter or parmesan in it - like they were trying to make that fattest and most rich of Italian dishes into a healthy diet food - a bad move... give me one of Thomas's risotto's from Jamie Oliver's cookbook any day!
The dessert was cheesecake and though on the set menu, was charged £3 each extra. It was quite nice - green with a sprig of mint on top - but the actual cheesecake was not obviously a particular flavour - it might have been mint because it was green but it might even have been pistachio - I really don't know!
After all this we decided to opt for coffee at home instead.
We asked for the bill - 40 something quid. Not particularly overpriced, though nothing like the value we get at the village...until you consider the starters were hopeless, the maincourses were child portions and we had no alcohol or coffee.
Next time I feel like an easy meal and find myself in the shopping centre in Newton Mearns near Il Pavone sud, I will remember that I can have tiger prawns and two of Marks and Spencer's best steaks with a bottle of wine by walking a few steps further.

RIP DOUGAL

I can't help but notice that poor Dougal has finally died and his stuffed body is being used ornamentally outside Silverburn shopping centre - who on earth thought a stuffed Dougal was in any way aesthetically pleasing or a positive addition to the Pollock landscape? Who decides what is artistic and what isn't, I wonder?

BACK OR FRONT?

back court night1
Originally uploaded by chirgy

I was looking through flickr just now at Glasgow tenement photos (there are some lovely tiles on there btw) and what struck me was that 95% of the photos are of the fronts of tenements. I began to wonder if that means the photos were taken, for the most part, by people who were walking past these vertical villages, rather than the dwellers themselves. I mean I have always found the fronts extremely beautiful, and if I could afford a whole townhouse in sandstone in the West End I'd jump at it but I think real tenement dwellers love the backs equally, if in a different way. I haven't felt it quite so well in Rose Street because of the internal kitchen, but the nicest bit for me of tenement living, which I probably had best in Dowanhill, is that warm and cosy feeling you have, looking out your kitchen window at the backs of all the other tenements built around watching all those other people in their kitchens. I don't mean nosy, spy on your neighbour stuff. I just think that after dusk in a Glasgow tenement you feel almost like you belong to some extended family as you look across to all the other back closes and see everyone potter in their own kitchen. I think that is one of the great shames of converting tenements, the easiest way was always to turn the 2 huge bed recesses into and internal kitchen but you lose that vertical village feeling when you lose the window. I think deep down back closes make me warm and fuzzy :-)

OUCH!

Derek and Amanda used to live in Wilton Street in North Kelvinside. They'll be glad they moved, as I expect property prices may have taken a bit of a tumble last night! The photos are spectacularly horrendous. Considering the size of the flats in that street, I imagine the 4 that were destroyed must have been worth over £1.2M.

DANCING QUEEN

You Can Dance, You Can Jive....
Originally uploaded by copazetic

Not only did he come to see Barbra with me last month but this week he bought tickets to take me to see Dancing Queen at the Theatre Royal tonight. He's either crazy or he loves me. Neither of us had read what Dancing Queen actually was so assumed it was some kind of Mama Mia type stage play but it turned out to be more of a lavish Bjorn again type tribute concert with a bizarre 70s interlude in the middle - no matter - people were dancing in the aisles like crazy. We were in the front row of the circle and I was beginning to worry it would collapse in that old Glasgow theatre given the shoogling it was doing under the feet of the dancing spectators...it didn't. So it was a nice nostalgic evening, though it finished with a wee bit of a twist. As we walked down the stairs, the fire alarm started to ring, we strolled on then realized it was a real fire alarm so everyone was hustled outside quickly to make way for the 4 (or was it 5?) waiting fire engines. We're sitting here now wondering if we have just seen the last ever show at Glasgow's Theatre Royal, in true Glasgow Apollo style and if it is currently burning down, but unfortunately we are both too tired to walk the one block to check...maybe tomorrow...

Oh and Bart gave only 2 kicks during the entire performance which lasted from 7-30 to 10pm so I don't think (s)he's going to be a wee musical baby like Pudge, just a vaguely lazy lump!

DONALD DEWAR'S STATUE

 

We went to the West End Festival on Sunday afternoon. At first Pudge fell asleep and I was scared he was going to miss the big parade. I should have known better with all the drums and samba dancers. He woke up and looked puzzled as soon as it started. The kids seemed to enjoy themselves, though I managed to catch a cold somewhere :-( When asked individually the highlight, both Marcel and Charlotte said they liked the guy dressed as the Donald Dewar statue best. Funny, neither think of Donald as a person or politician, I doubt they know he was Scotland's first first minister - they simply know him as the statue with the broken glasses!

BIZARRE EVENING

Finally the night of the big photo competition arrived. I ran the olds into town, then went home to pick up Thomas. Already things went a bit wrong. The 5 minute drive to the venue, with 15 minutes to spare started to look a bit tight when some idiot broke down in the middle of Great Western road and simply decided that abandoning his car in the middle of the road was an okay option. So as Thomas frantically texted mum with the news that we would be late, I fought my way through traffic to the West End.
The soirée was being held in the Oran Mor - the old church on the corner of Byres road that has been converted into a bar. On arrival the bouncers told us that if we were here for the photo competition, we'd to go in the side entrance. No problems... We rushed round to the side, flew up the stairs and burst into a rather sedate room, filled with pensioners - weird... an old man came up and asked if we had known the deceased - oops! gatecrashed a funeral - back downstairs we found the other side entrance, leading down, not up a flight of stairs, phew!
Mum and Dad had recruited Steve and Joyce to come as spare guests - figuring they might be somewhat interested in an open bar. The 4 had managed to get in without me to sign them in and had found us a wee table and about 320 free bottles of beer. Everyone else in the room was between 18 and 25 with messy chewed-up hair and funky clothing. After much faffing and munching on canapés (2 hours of faffing to be precise), followed by a very loud wee singing girl (Amy MacDonald somebody), some teuchter bloke got up and made a speech about this wonderful university competition. University competition? He announced that all of Glasgow's students had put their heart and soul into the competition and the overall winner would receive the much-deserved £500 worth of photographic equipment for their place of study! Huh?
This was truly bizarre - I reread the web page today. Nowhere does it mention universities or students. It simply says: We are going to wrap a key building in Glasgow with an iconic image celebrating your city. The iconic image will be created from a mosaic of photos, taken by you the people of Glasgow. This is our invite to you to get involved and be part of this unique work of art. No students mentioned, no prizes mentioned. And because it was being run by an alcohol company you had to give your date of birth to enter, though not your place of study. So it seems that Dad and I had made it through to a final that we were ineligible to win, given we couldn't give the prize money to our place of study. The press had even done an interview with dad so they knew for sure he wasn't a student! Weird.
Anyway, needless to say we didn't win. I thought Mum, Dad, Joyce and Steve would be disappointed but after 5 hours of free beer, they rolled down to the train station, their pockets and handbags filled with more free beer and seemed less than disappointed with the competition result. Dad has now emailed the jury to ask why 2 ineligible finalists were put forward to the judges, though thanking them profusely for the free alcohol. So if he finds out what exactly it was all about I will enlighten you.

Oh and for the record, the winning photo was a portrait of 5 or 6 students smiling into a camera. They looked happy enough, but iconic image of Glasgow? Huh? This photo said smiling students to me, not Glasgow - they could have been from anywhere in the Western world. I guess I must be getting old, I just don't get it.

HIYA GORDY, FANCY MEETING YOU HERE!

Hiya Gordy! fancy meeting you here!
Originally uploaded by phyl1.

It really is a very small world some times. For only the second time in 3 years I decided to go to Calderglen country park in East Kilbride. As Marcel was at Sam's birthday party, we couldn't go until 2pm, so arrived around 2-15pm. On approach, I could see the beautiful weather had drawn a bigger crowd than usual as the overflow car park was in use and cars were lined up in their hundreds. Imagine our shock as we got out the car and immediately walked into not only Derek, Amanda and Gordy but also my parents. My parents who haven't been near Calderglen since last July and Derek and Amanda who have never been at all! What are the chances of us all arriving in the same park - 10 miles from all our houses unarranged at exactly the same time, especially given there are dozens of parks closer to all our homes. My kids were, needless to say ecstatic at the discovery of this unexpected company, though I'm not sure the others were as thrilled. Given my parents see more than enough of my kids at the best of times and Derek and Amanda had had all 3 overnight for the first time ever just 2 days ago - they had all probably sneaked out to East Kilbride assuming it was a fairly safe Gautier-free zone! Haha - got you! Nowhere's safe!

THE DUEL IS ON!

Just got an email from the judge in the Miller competition saying I made the final too! So it looks like the fight is on to the death with dad. Anyway we have both been invited to a party at a secret location on 19 April where judges will reveal the winner, and apparently we will be interviewed next week by the press! Cool! Watch this space for news.

ANOTHER COCK-UP

So of course I entered the Glasgow competition. They chose 55 of the 70 or so photos I uploaded to be in their final selection (stick 'phyllis' in the search box to see which ones.) I then mentioned it to my dad and asked if he had any Glasgow photos. Not overly interested, I, myself went through his photo albums, signed him up and sent in a couple of his, not particularly interesting, as I thought, photos (stick 'dougie' in the search box to see these). As I had signed him up I used my mobile number, password etc for his application. I later got an email to say I had been shortlisted for the prize. Dad then got an email saying the same. The final 20, out of 2500 would be notified by phone. That was a problem - in the rush to sign up last week I skipped the phone number box on the form! Dad, of course, has now had a text on my mobile telling him he's in the final. I, on the other hand don't know how my photo was rated as they don't realize they need to phone what they think is my dad's mobile to tell me how I got on. I have a feeling I should definitely stop interfering in my parents' business this week!

THIS IS MY GLASGOW

While looking through flickr groups today I found a link to a Glasgow photo project and competition. Needless to say, I'll be on there as soon as the kids go to bed tonight to upload all my old favourites and I might even take some new ones, who knows since it runs for another week or more!

THE MIDDLE EAST? NO GLASGOW!

I have noticed over the past few months that several of Glasgow's most offensive 60s and 70s disasters of architecture are being pulled down. First the building opposite Habitat in Bothwell Street made its exit. Then, pictured here in this shot which is more reminiscent of a day in the middle East than Glasgow city centre, over the past few weeks we have witnessed the demolition of the old Strathclyde Regional Council Eyesore, sorry Headquarters. I wonder what they are planning to build instead. It will be interesting to watch, given they seem to have decided to incorporate Glasgow's hallmark sandstone into most of their very recent additions to the skyline.

BT BUILDING, GLASGOW

I don't think I am completely reactionary when it comes to architecture - sure I love old buildings like in Paris or the tenements in the West End in Glasgow, but I don't mind some modern stuff too (60s and 70s rough-cast monstrosities omitted, that goes without saying), however what on earth is this nonsense? I mean someone was probably paid more than my annual salary to design these 5 varyingly-coloured turds blocking the entrance to the BT telecom building in central Glasgow - come on - when did this become art?

LOTS AND LOTS!

I saw this staircase in Kelvingrove museum on Saturday and just knew it had to be the perfect setting for a clone photo! Given Charlotte hadn't had a clone shot done, she was more than happy to pose as soon as Thomas took out his tiny tripod!

QUITE A BUSY DAY IN TOWN

It started when I counted 49 people in front of me in the queue in Marks and Spencer food hall while I was trying to buy 5 croissants and a baguette for breakfast at around 9-30am (when I finally got to the front, I felt it necessary to be reasonably pleasant to the poor cashier as I could see the day she was going to have ahead of her, especially once stock inevitably began to dwindle and tempers began to fray later in the afternoon). Busy-ness culminated in this view of Buchanan street taken at around 3pm.

GLASGOW SCIENCE TOWER

That famous tower is opening again! Apparently it is to re-open this morning. I have been desperate to go up it ever since I discovered photo-stitching because I think I could do a really nice 360 degree panorama of Glasgow on a clear day. Not only does it open today but the weather is actually fairly clear. Given the tower's less than impressive reliability since 2001 when it opened (it feels like it's been open a dozen days at most since then!) I wonder if I shouldn't actually drop everything and attempt an ascent before twelve noon for fear it might be shut for another five years by five pm! Several problems though:

1) I am working from home today as Pudge is sick so actually have to produce some work.

2) Pudge is sick so probably doesn't feel like being dragged up a tower on a photographic expedition.

3) The kids would want to come too but by the time I pick them up from school after 3pm and get to the tower it'll be dark given today is the shortest day.

4) If I did actually have some free time I should probably spend it Xmas shopping :-(

So I guess I need to leave it till Saturday at the earliest...what are the chances I will live to regret that decision? Surely they can't close it yet again without losing all their street cred? (Mind you I think I said that the last time! :-( )

NO MORE CURRY!

I heard this morning the news that Café India had burnt down yesterday. I haven't been there since Marcel was a baby but it used to be one of my usual haunts in the 90s - It was the first big quality curry house in Glasgow to offer buffet options instead of an à la carte menu. Now they all offer buffet nights. It's sad to think of North Street without it.

KIBBLE AT LAST

I finally made it to the Kibble Palace after about 3 weeks of trying! It seemed odd to walk through its doors after 45 months.

From the kids were born, until March 2003 when the Kibble closed for restoration, we spent some time inside the glass house most weekends - we had picnics in it, or coffee or walked round the plants sheltering from the weather, or we even just dropped in the say hi to the goldfish.

Although I have missed it dreadfully, as it was closed only 45 months out of the 467 I have been alive, it didn't seem like a terribly long time. To my kids though it has been closed nearly or in Charlotte's case more than half their life. It was interesting to see the mixture of recognition and newness rolled into one as they entered it.

The first thing that I noticed when I entered was the missing tree fern in the middle of the fish pond. I could see a shape deep down in the water, so hope it is lurking down there ready to re-grow.

In the main part of the glass house there were many beautiful tree ferns, and all the familiar squirrel-sided benches around the perimeter for you to sit and read or picnic. The marble statues shone white in the winter sun. It was great to be back.

It did feel a tiny bit too bare though. In the old days it felt wild and overgrown with ferns pushing against the ceiling and branches overhanging the paths. It was so neat and tidy today. I will be wandering around it, probably on a weekly basis from now on but I will secretly be longing for it to get a wee bit wilder and messier. It'll be great once you can't see for the plants again and the smell of damp fern fills your nose as soon as you enter!