bad news

Although I’ve tried to be very positive on this blog about all that Glasgow has to offer, it does also have its more unpleasant side, like any city. Since Thursday Queens Park, which regularly features here, has been closed, and this mobile Incident Unit parked in front of the entrance. On Thursday morning a woman’s body was found by one of the park rangers. They won’t reopen the park until the forensic team have finished combing the area - it’s not clear when that will be.

This is very close to home - I often refer to Queens Park as my back garden. I still feel very safe here, but still - it’s a very bad thing to happen. My thoughts and prayers are with the woman’s family and friends.

Ducks

A couple of weeks ago I went to Queen’s Park looking for ducklings and all I found was a bottle of Bucky floating in the pond. I must have only just missed them hatching though - I went back on Monday just gone, the Bank Holiday, and look how big they are already - they’ll be bigger than their mum soon!

More university sculpture

[Another old photo - what has happened to summer and can we have blue sky back please?!]

This is a picture of the side of the Rankine Building, which was built in 1969 and houses the engineering department. It’s not the most photogenic building, but it does have this interesting abstract sculpture on the side which is made of stainless steel and was erected in 1990. It’s by local artist Lucy Baird, and commemorates the 150th anniversary of the establishment of a Regius Chair of Civil Engineering and Mechanics.

“Knowledge and Inspiration”

This sculpture, called “Knowledge and Inspiration”, sits high up on the front of the Modern Languages Building of Glasgow University, in University Avenue. It is made of copper and bronze, and was made by Walter Pritchard from Glasgow School of Art.

Here’s wishing lots of knowledge and inspiration to all the students currently undergoing their exams (including mine, who have their exam today - good luck guys!).

One for the tourists

I’ve seen this young guy quite a bit in the city centre, busking away. Usually I’ve seen him in Buchanan Street, but this picture is from when he was in Sauchiehall Street a couple of weeks ago. He has a little sign asking for a donation if you want to take a picture, which I think is fair enough - he always sounds pretty good to me, and it must be pretty galling to expend all that energy to entertain the crowds (bagpiping looks like pretty hard work to me!) and see people like me take pictures but then not leave a little tip. So go on - if you see him up in town give him a donation, and enjoy some quality piping!

Forever Changes (4)

My final picture from the Forever Changes exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art might be a bit horrifying for any music lovers (particularly lovers of vinyl records) - there were a bunch of four or five of these blocks, where some vinyl records (or at least their covers) were set in concrete, which I guess is one way of stopping any warping! I like the angle of this picture, I took it from above the exhibit (as you can see it’s sitting on the mad vinyl floor), which makes it look a bit like the floor is a wall and the cube is sticking out of the wall. I can’t for the life of me remember if I took it as a landscape or portrait picture, but having tried it both ways I prefer it this way

Forever Changes (3)

This was my favourite sculpture of the exhibition - lots of brightly painted wooden chairs and sparkly mirrored handbags. I’ve no idea what it’s meant to mean, but I liked it

If you look closely you can see the black and white vinyl floor pattern that I showed you a couple of days ago.

Forever Changes (2)

This is the sculpture that greets you as you walk into the ground floor gallery. I really like the way he has used the shape of brickwork.

Forever Changes (1)

I’ve said before on this blog that I tend to prefer the building of the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) to the exhibits. The exhibit that is currently being shown, till the end of September, in the main hall on the ground floor though is getting quite a lot of press and publicity and so I took a look the other week and must say I really liked it. The artist is called Jim Lambie, he is Glasgow-based and has previously been shortlisted for the Turner Prize, amongst other things. The exhibition is called Forever Changes, and features some of his sculptures. This however is a picture of part of the floor, an integral part of the exhibition - this pattern, which is made of vinyl, takes up the entire floor of the ground floor gallery and is really effective. Over the next few days I’ll show you some of the sculptures in the exhibition.

Lost?

The other week along University Avenue I spotted (well, I heard the quacking before I spotted its source!) this duck, quite a way from the nearest source of water (which I presume is the River Kelvin). I hope he managed to find his way back home eventually! This is (if I remember correctly) just outside the Art History department of the Unversity.