Page Text: Tod’s seat
Tod’s Seat
Tramping around the city I found street art that was either new, or that I had previously missed. The bird below, on Ruchill Street, is fairly recent I think. The white wall is the side of the Ubiquitous Chip restaurant on Ashton Lane, and has featured several times before because the mural changes quite regularly.
Ruchill Street art
Ashton Lane street art
This tribute to Scottish writer Alasdair Gray, and his novel Lanark, is in an entrance to a back yard off Maryhill Road. Judging by the peeling paint it has been there a long time, so I can’t understand how I’ve managed to miss it.
Alasdair Gray mural, Maryhill
Alasdair Gray mural, Maryhill
Alasdair Gray mural, Maryhill
Finally, this is definitely new – a legacy of COP26, the big climate conference which took place in Glasgow in November. Beacon of Hope by Steuart Padwick is in Central Station, and is one of three hope sculptures across the city (I haven’t seen the other two). To me, the figure looks rather rough and unfinished, but I enjoyed reading the inscriptions on all four sides of the base as I waited for my train. The one I’ve displayed is by Jackie Kay who, until recently, was our Makar (National Poet for Scotland).
Beacon of Hope, Glasgow Central
Words by Jackie Kay
Post script: an update from last month. You might remember that in February we gallivanted to Linlithgow where there was some controversy over the name of a pub. The Black Bitch was called after a local legend about a black female dog, but Greene King, the brewery which owns the pub, wanted to change that to something which sounds less offensive to modern ears. Their first suggestion was The Black Hound which lost the sense of the original story and caused a local outcry. Greene King has now rolled back on that and renamed the pub The Willow Tree, after a nearby tree which was planted to commemorate the 1832 Reform Act. (This introduced major changes to the electoral system, allowing more people – for which read men – to vote). However, the controversy rumbles on because Greene King’s founder, Benjamin Greene, was a slave owner and a fanatical opponent of the reform bill, so some local people think that his name is more offensive than the original pub name. Perhaps next month I will be able to add the next chapter in the saga, who knows? As long as we’re still here of course: given that Faslane, the UK’s nuclear base, is less than 30 miles from Glasgow I wouldn’t fancy our chances if Putin decided to take that out.
Oops, I said I would ignore world affairs, even flippantly, so pretend I didn’t – happy March!
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