glasgow

  • F is for Football

    In Glasgow, football isn’t a game. It’s a war, a religious war built on bigotry and ignorance. If you support Celtic you are a catholic, a Tim, a Tim cat, kick with the left foot, a papist bastard. If you support Rangers you are a Protestant, a proddy, a proddy dog, kick with the right…

  • E is for Easterhouse

    When you mention Easterhouse to most people, an image of deprivation, unemployment, gang warfare, mugging, glue-sniffing and drugs is what will often spring to mind. Well, try living there. I lived in the ‘Greater Area of Easterhouse’ – I won’t talk about exactly where today or I’ll have nothing to write about for ‘Q.’ Gang…

  • D is for Doon The Watter

    There can’t be any schoolchildren of my generation who don’t remember a school day trip ‘doon the watter’ on the Waverly paddle steamer. We would board at Broomielaw with our school-provided packed lunch (white bread sandwiches, weak orange juice and a Penguin biscuit) and, depending on the weather, jostle for a place above or below…

  • C is for Closes

    In Glasgow, a close is a communal stairwell of a tenement off which individual flats may be accessed. The best kind of close was the ‘wally (to rhyme with galley) close’. These were closes whose walls were tiled with glossy ceramic tiles, usually in dark reds and greens, and often with a decorative tile border…

  • B is for Barlinnie

    We didn’t live too far from Barlinnie prison in Glasgow. There was always someone whose “da had gone up to the big hoose” while the younger members of the family went to the local borstal. The prison was a big part of east end life. We even had a wee song we used to sing…

  • A to Z Challenge

    Against my better judgement, I’ve decided to have a bash at the A to Z Challenge again this year. Last year I chose a movies theme and got as far as G for “George of The Jungle.” This year I’m going to blog about growing up in Glasgow in the 60s and 70s. Expect dialect…

  • Glasgow Style

      ‘Hello there, doll,’ he says. ‘Hi,’ she says, smiling. ‘Mind if I sit here?’ He points to the barstool beside her. She sighs. ‘If you want to.’ ‘You’re no from around here, are you?’ ‘How observant.’ She attracts the barman’s eye. ‘Ah’ll get that for you, love.’ ‘I can pay for my own drinks.’…

  • Come Fly With Me!

    [tweetmeme source=”nettiewriter” http://www.URL.com] I’m sure I would like air travel if I had a personal jet. It’s not that I dislike flying with other people, it’s just…OK, it IS that I don’t like flying with other people. Especially on chartered flights. How many of us have boarded our holiday flight full of

  • Neds

    [tweetmeme source=”nettiewriter” http://www.URL.com] I have blogged about my bullying experiences before in two posts: Sticks and Stones One and Two. I spoke about how it was all in the past and that I was fine now. And until last night, I thought I was. We sat down as a family to watch Neds, a film set in…

  • Random by Craig Robertson

    [tweetmeme source=”nettiewriter” http://www.URL.com] We have a legal system so that the courts can take responsibility for meting out justice, taking decisions regarding punishment away from those who have been offended against and making that justice impartial instead of fueled  by revenge. But what if those courts let you down? This is the situation the main…