Churches

This is a view down the Great Western Road looking towards the direction of the city centre, showing first Lansdowne Parish Church and further away St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral.

In other news, today is Scotland’s patron saint St Andrew’s Day. Burns Night is more widely celebrated than St Andrew’s day, but have a good one if you’re celebrating, and happy name day to any Andrews who may be reading

Beanscene

Beanscene is a chain of coffee shops which has branches in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ayr and I guess other places in Scotland too (I’ve never seen them in England, but they’re all over Glasgow and I’ve been to at least one in Edinburgh too). I guess like a Scottish Starbucks. They all have these same comfy chairs (very comfy they are too) and do food as well as coffee. I like them – depending on the location they can be very relaxed (although the one nearest to Glasgow University has a bit of a reputation of being where all the yummy mummies hang out – at lunchtime you have to practically climb over the prams to get to your table).

This one is in the Battlefield Branch, near the Victoria Hospital.

The bells, the bells

Here’s a daytime close-up of some of the George Square Christmas lights. Note this isn’t a black & white picture

The coat of arms that gets everywhere!

One day I’ll have to tag all my photos, so I can find the various ones that show the elements of Glasgow’s coat of arms. Here it is again, this time as part of a street lamp in Cathedral Square.

Here is a link to the story of the coat of arms, for those who are newer to the blog (and to Glasgow!).

“Let Peace Flourish”

This mosaic, with its play on words (Glasgow’s motto is “Let Glasgow Flourish”) can be found brightening up Cathedral Square.

See Glasgow

This advertising hoarding, covering some scaffolding in George Square, is advertising “the official site for Metropolitan Glasgow”, seeglasgow.com – probably a site worth checking out if you are planning a trip here. You can perhaps just see the bells and holly Christmas lights in front of it.

To the right of this picture is a big stage that has been set up for the duration of the Winterfest celebrations, which is where the bands that see in Glasgow’s official Hogmanay celebration will be playing, this year headlined by local boy Paolo Nutini. Excuse me, I know I’m normally a woolly lefty Grauniad-type, but I can feel a Daily Mail moment coming on …

Winterfest? Good grief, it’s political correctness gone mad! It’s CHRISTMAS!! Harrumph.

That’s better.

Christmas is coming …

Since I took this picture in George Square last week, they have opened up the square (it was closed at this time as they were still building all the festive bits and bobs) and added a big carousel which would be in the foreground of this picture. I’ve got some pictures from the evening with the lights in all their glory which I’ll probably start sharing with you next week*, but I’ll try and get back this week too so you can see everything that’s going on in the square. These lights surround the square on 3 sides and are the same every year – it wouldn’t be a George Square Christmas without the bells and holly.

* Next week is December (eek, how did that happen?!) so I’ll feel less curmudgeonly about posting Christmas light photos!

Christmas market

The other day Marley at Cheltenham DP showed a picture of the Christmas market. Only a couple of days before I’d taken this picture in Argyle Street, where as you can see the market is still a work-in-progress. It’s looking like it will be up and running soon though. The stall with the bell tower (how grand!) is I think going to be a German sausage stall.

Q! Gallery

The Q! Gallery is on Saltmarket in the Merchant City. As well as a gallery it also has some studio space. It is currently (until 10th December) showing an Amnesty International exhibition of photos from the Gay Pride march in Riga, Latvia earlier this year, documenting the parade and the opposition it attracted. It’s well worth a visit if you’re in the area. More information on the exhibition is here.

Exhibition at Art de Caf

On Wednesday I went to an exhibition at this place, Art de Caf in the Merchant City. Art de Caf is a wine bar with an exhibition space, in the Old Sheriff’s Court Building (which is also the home of the Scottish National Youth Theatre). The exhibition I went to was by a friend of mine, and was very good – it’s on till this Sunday so if anyone local is around and fancies a bit of culture, it’s worth a look. Details of the exhibition are here and here’s an article about the most controversial piece in the exhibition from the Sunday Herald. I’m glad to give it a plug – too bad the paintings are way out of my price range, I just had to make do with spending a couple of quid on a Danish pastry