scotland – Page 10

4th party of christmas: it's a wonderful life

it's a wonderful life

Continuing our partyish season up to Christmas, our friends Mike & Emma took us all to catch up on the famous Christmas tale ‘It’s A Wonderful Life”, which by some quirky twist of fate (or general avoiding of Christmas movies) none of us had seen before. Our favourite movie watching institution the GFT (Glasgow Film Theatre) puts this 1946 movie on every day for at least two weeks, every Christmas!

In the final wash it was great – slapping on the sentimentality layer by layer, with not a dry eye in the house by the end. Although aparently having seen it 10 time previously, as most of the audience seemed to have done, only increases the effect.

pintxos

We followed the movie with a choice discovery of a fantastic new basque restaurant called Pintxos in supposed new dining hotspot of Thornwood (I couldn’t acutually see anything else open at the time), before chilling out in front of a roaring fire at Mike’s sisters Christmas party at her fantastic new house in the somewhat gritty southern suburb of Govan.

wilton st decks the hall

deck the halls

Our whole apartment block (all three of us anyway) teamed up for a fun party in our slightly opulent entrance hall last Friday. A (mildly illegal) open fire, strong mulled wine and the odd drape of tinsel created a great atmosphere that lasted until only slightly later than expected (the 6:30 am bedtime certainly wasn’t planned).

Our friend Jamie Flett performed an impromtu set accompanied by only the crackling of the fire, there was doric incantations, and even slightly surreal ‘ninja rug’ bouts introduced by our downstairs neighbours – was a great way to end the year aND fun to combine with every one else in our building!

gillespie kidd & coia at the lighthouse

gk&c

There is a great exhibition at Glasgow’s kewl Lighthouse Centre for Architecture, Design + the City – Scotland and the Mackintosh School of Architecture’s favourite modernists Gillespie Kidd & Coia. Some beautiful brutal poetic post war architecture – and yes some crap leaky grey boxes. Their churches are definitely worth looking at for any architects out there (we actually have a great example around the corner from our place) and the abandoned St Peter’s Seminary at Cardross is amazing – we have yet to (illegally) visit but it is high on our to-do list.

It was also good to see where all the Mac trained architects are coming from as the two principals of GK&C ran the school for about twenty years influencing many of the current crop of Glasgow architects.

interpol

Interpol played Glasgow last night – giving us our first taste of the Carling Academy – which part from being named after an awful beer (think the West End Institute for any South Australians) is actually an impressive converted former cinema. We were up in the seated balcony area though – so although the sound was great and the trendy New Yorkers produced an extremely polished sound from a very fancy set including some really cool screens that appeared to be totally two-dimensional – it didn’t quite capture the atmosphere of the last time we saw them. Then we had waited for close to three hours at the front of a packed and sweaty Splendour in the Grass tent (including watching the Beautiful Girls – an endurance test for Chhay). However their set list included plenty of classic tunes which had us rocking ever so politely in the aisles.

radiance07

radiance - cathederal

We had an enchanted evening wandering around the east end & Merchant City last night taking in the Radiance festival of light. Unusually for this time of year it was clear night and some of the installations looked magnificent. The cathedral(above) had an evocative coating of light adding another layer to its creepiness and at times resembling a blue ringed octopus or and particularly dedicated supporter of the Brisbane Lions covered in tattoos.

My personal favourite was a small doorway with images of fireflies protected onto the glazing accompanied by distant shortwave radio transmissions and voices from another room – it was particularly evocative. The most interesting aspect of the evening was discovering small lanes and courtyards in the east end that we didn’t know existed, combined with the energy generated by thousands of people milling about streets that would normally be deserted – there was a real sense of Glaswegians realising how interesting their city could be with more a more animated and activated street life.

radiance 07

by her majesty's leave

Looks as though the Home Office has decided that we are worthwhile hanging on to… Still a few admin steps to go but received approval of our Highly Skilled migrant visa this morning!

dundee or not to be

frank's maggie

Our friend Jude has just finished a run in a Dundee Rep performance of Ibsenâ€™s Peer Gynt. An adaptation by Colin Teevan of this apparently unstagable play has set it in a contemporary backwoods town full of manic characters and the vile Gynt himself.

peer gynt

It was a fantastic production – if a little lengthy (a bit over 3 hours) – strong direction, great performances and a superb pared back set that exposed all of the back of house elements. The performance started in the bar of the theatre (itself an eighties architectural gem) with a raucous wedding reception (below – Jude is singing) before we trooped into the theatre itself to follow Peer’s adventures.

peers party

As it was the last night of the production we headed to the wrap party afterwards, with most of the cast and crew plus hangers ons like ourselves cramming into a tiny one bed apartment till the wee hours. After a lesiurely late breakfast Mike gave us a locals tour of deepest darkest Fife, including a visit to the brooding Zaha Hadid Maggie’s centre in Kircaldy (below) to complement our visit to Frank Gehry’s more playful interpretation in Dundee (top) the previous afternoon.

zaha's maggie

king arthur's seat

edinburgh from king aurthur's seat

We swung into tour guide mode for a visit of one of Claire’s friends last month. In addition to covering all our usual Glasgow haunts we also snuck over to Edinburgh for hit & run tour, which included Chhay & my first assent of King Arthur’s seat, for great view over the city (above) and Leith.

forth & clyde canal: maryhill to spiers wharf

Spiers Warf, originally uploaded by the_greateastern.

For a spot of urban exploration we spent a lazy warm Sunday afternoon track the progress of the Glasgow branch of the Forth & Clyde Canal from where it secretly passes near our flat into Spiers Wharf, perched incongruously high above the city centre.

Abandoned factories, boarded up tenements and posh converted warehouses dot the route along with some great views out over the west end, it is a quite a hidden gem as it is very easy to miss – especially as many roads pass underneath it – you could be forgiven for thinking it was just another railway line.

jamie flett

oxjam

Our friend and sometime blues man Jamie Flett (nee Invisible Jim) played a low key set to kick off Oxfams’s Oxjam music festival. The set was so low key that there wasn’t even a representative from Oxfam there! They showed up eventually to pass around the tin, but in the meantime we enjoyed Jamie’s usual dose of acoustic blues followed by a somewhat cheesey folk set from – a band whose name I can no longer rember – although on eof them did shave their beard mid set to raise more cash!