Glasgow

My final trip in the North was to Glasgow, home of excellent, if inexplicable, accents, and excellent Charles Rennie Mackintosh - one of the reasons that Art Nouveau is known as Glasgow Style, in Glasgow, if not anywhere else. I preferred Glasgow to Edinburgh, for the same reason I prefer Melbourne to Sydney - one has the looks but the other has a feeling that there is lots happening culturally, and that it is accessible.

On the train up to Glasgow I opened up the guide book to discover what it was I should see while I was there, and discovered that it mostly revolved around Charles Rennie Mackingtosh. Somewhere, just to the right of my cerebral cortex, there was a tiny 'ding!' of recognition, but I couldn't have said in relation to what - was it paintings of stags atop crags or something else? The latter fortunately. Dumping my stuff, I discovered that the place I stayed was right next door to the Glasgow School of Art, one of Mackingtosh's most completely realised designs - from the building down to the teaspoons. So I checked that out, bought the postcards, took the photos and so forth, and declared myself a fan. Then, and I do love this, I wandered down the road to the Mackingtosh designed Willow Tea Rooms - I could drink tea and have a snack while appreciating his work! I love being edumacational and still getting to have snacks.

Then I went to the Contemporary art gallery, possibly called GOMA, which I really liked, in a traditional stone & columns gallery but they have done a great job of installing pieces of contemporary art into the structure of the building. Including, oddly, a giant wooden womb, and I tell you what, it is strange to stand inside a giant wooden womb. Anyway, they had a cool exhibition of prints, paintings and some sculptures downstairs, including one called 'Blue Dogs' (or was it 'Black dogs'), a reference to Winston Churchill's description of his depression being the Blue (possibly black) dog - and the dogs looked like Churchill!

Underneath the gallery was the public library which was nice, lots of people sitting around drinking tea (see! they understand snacks!), reading books, and making the most of free internet.

Then, To the Lighthouse! Another Rennie Mackingtosh buidling, now a gallery devoted to Glaswegian art and architecture and featuring windows overlooking all Glasgow. Then I trotted off to get a bad haircut. Amazing how if people ask me things in a scottish accent I will always agree with them. Anyway, it looks ok if I style it, but when I can't be bothered, which is a lot, because I've been a student for too long, it looks as thought I've cut myself using hedgeclippers. Hedgeclippers.