sarge
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peace and harmony
Posts: 224
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Post by sarge on Feb 20, 2005 12:09:13 GMT
Ruff I have just watched the best Edinburgh tattoo ever from SYDNEY AUSTRALIA!! and the best display of the whole night was the New Zealand army band. Whistler You may get to watch it next year unless your georgious prime minister thinks it is too Australian sarge ;D ;D
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Post by whistler on Feb 20, 2005 19:07:10 GMT
Thanks Sarge, Mmmmm......... With the statue of Robert Burns in Dunedin, Wilsons Whisky - The New Years Highland Fair, at Waipu Cove - (Waipu was settled by a lot of Scots from Nova Scotia) Pipe bands everywhere - surely there aren't anybody left in The Pictish Nation. Having seen the weather and the Gloom of Glen Coe. I understand why. ;D
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ruffashlar
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Lodge Milncroft No. 1515 (GLoS), Govanhill Royal Arch Chapter 523 (S.G.R.A.C.S.)
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Post by ruffashlar on Feb 21, 2005 1:20:02 GMT
I'm Glaswegian, what Edinburghers call a weegie. Despite claims to be the nation's Capital (well, it's where most of it has been spent), Auld Reekie might as well be on another planet as far as we're concerned.
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staffs
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Staffs
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Post by staffs on Feb 21, 2005 7:21:06 GMT
And there was me believing that a weggie was when someone horseplays and pulls your pants up the crack of your arse. ;D ;D ;D
Remind me to be careful when i am in Scotland.
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Post by whistler on Feb 21, 2005 7:42:36 GMT
And there was me believing that a weggie was when someone horseplays and pulls your pants up the crack of your arse. ;D ;D ;D Remind me to be careful when i am in Scotland. Thats what I thought was a weggie - but then Staffs the import of the Gesture would be lost on Ruff if he wears a Kilt.. Ah a see it now Scots don't wear Kilts they wear Anti - Weggie Dresses
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ruffashlar
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Lodge Milncroft No. 1515 (GLoS), Govanhill Royal Arch Chapter 523 (S.G.R.A.C.S.)
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Post by ruffashlar on Feb 21, 2005 8:08:57 GMT
I said weegie not wedgie.
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Post by whistler on Feb 21, 2005 8:14:31 GMT
Ruff, are they not the same? PS I am not sure about Staffs spelling of Wedgies
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staffs
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Staffs
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Post by staffs on Feb 21, 2005 8:35:00 GMT
Just a regional spelling difference ?
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Post by whistler on Feb 21, 2005 8:38:06 GMT
Just a regional spelling difference ? Ok Staffs in your region how would you give a guy wearing a Kilt a Wedgie
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staffs
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Staffs
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Post by staffs on Feb 21, 2005 8:55:52 GMT
Whistler : the thought would never enter my mind.
Cheeky though ;D
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Post by whistler on Feb 21, 2005 8:58:02 GMT
Whistler : the thought would never enter my mind. Cheeky though ;D mmm it would be tricky do they Goose in Scotland Still don't know if Ruff who started this debate wears a Kilt
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Post by taylorsman on Feb 21, 2005 9:29:13 GMT
I have had the pleasure of both Scots Cities and, pace Ruff, I vastly prefer Edinburgh, "Fair Dunedin".
On the kilt matter, from the Kilties I have met I feel that anyone trying to inflict a Wedgie or to Goose any of those big braw lads would end up, as is said in Scotland "Wi his heid in his hauns"
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ruffashlar
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Lodge Milncroft No. 1515 (GLoS), Govanhill Royal Arch Chapter 523 (S.G.R.A.C.S.)
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Post by ruffashlar on Feb 23, 2005 1:15:43 GMT
Well, the Edinburgh you see was designed to sit next to, and eventually to replace, the Old Town. Instead of everyone moving into the New Town and the derelict slums being demolished, the city was permitted to grow into itself, forming a patina of nostalgia and olde worlde bull5hit which now envelops it in a Venetian chrysalis. Edinburgh is allowed to shimmer above its own reflection.
Glasgow, on the other hand, did suffer the demolition of its historic quarter, the engulfment of its villages and burghs, and the subsequent botched operations to rip out its heart. The roll-call of erased communities, desolate new-towns, failed initiatives, cash-starved amenities and ignored social problems: the Konzentrazionslager of its drawn-out destruction.
Oh, I'm always CHEERFUL ;D
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bod
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UGLE - MM (London), MMM RAM(Middx), OSM (London)
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Post by bod on Feb 23, 2005 7:45:10 GMT
My paternal line stems from Leith, so my loyallties should lie with Edinburgh, and it's no bad as a place, but I much prefer Glasgow. The 'vibe' is younger and more relaxed, especially around the 'West End' of the city, and their are some fantastic venues for the arts, and some very good restaurants - and they are cheaper than Edinburgh.
Edinburgh's nice, but Glasgow's miles better.....
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Post by taylorsman on Feb 23, 2005 9:29:10 GMT
I don't really want to start an Edinburgh Vs Glasgow Thread, it's not that relevant to this Forum but while I reject Ruff's anti Edinburgh polemic, I can agree that Glasgow since WW2 has had the sh1tty end of the stick from central planners both in Edinburgh and more over South of the Border were the real money and power still lies.
He is correct that Communities such as the Gorbals, Govan, Kinning Park, Bridgetown, etc have been destroyed and their former denizens exiled to the hideous and inhuman Ghettos of Castlemilk, Easterhouse, Pollok and Drumchapel, poor quality housing devoid of social facilities, and left to rot. The core of Glasgow, once a bustling and lively array of little shops and pubs and houses has been torn out and replaced by a multitude of Commercial Estates, Warehouses and Workshops which flash by on either side of the M8 Motorway. Even the River Clyde, an asset which in other cities would have had its banks alive with pubs, cafe's and other leisure, retail and housing developments, is drab and underutilised, just look at the "bomb site" on the South Bank in the Kinning Park- Cessnock area where the Garden Festival was held now occupied by a Tin Can poor relation to the Science Museum and a Tower which doesn't work, not to mention the neo-Stalinist Architecture of the Braehead Shopping Centre further down the Clyde.
Once the "Second City of the Empire" which contributed so much to the greatness of Britain in Victorian and Edwardian times, especially in Engineering and Science, and in Medicine, Glasgow is now treated like some old relation stuck in a home and ignored. They have even stripped away the historic names for the Parliamentary Constituencies such as Pollok, Govan, Shettleston, and imposed souless geographical designations such as "South West", "East" etc instead. Hardly likely to set the heart on fire and engender community spirit.
Knowing what that great City used to be like, I no longer enjoy visiting and will cease to do so when the one remaining reason for such journeys is no more.
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Feb 24, 2005 11:06:45 GMT
I wasn't aware of an "anti-Edinburgh polemic" in my post. I actually quite enjoy Edinburgh: I spent a wonderful day there during the summer with some friends old and new, and ate the biggest Chinese meal it is possible to consume without having surgery, for about a tenner a head. If you do go - and you should - take the train, and walk everywhere. The congestion charge is bad enough, but I seem to recall that driving there is a kind of street planner's sadistic fantasy: all the roads to Edinburgh seem to take you right past it. You should instead pretend to drive towards Corstorphine, and you'll find yourself in Edinburgh.
However, Taylorsman, your description of Glasgow is both accurate and depressing. It must be unbearable having known how it used to be and seeing it like this. It reminds me of a book by one of Glasgow's finest novelists and artists, the inimitable Alasdair Gray. Lanark: A Life in Four Books, though superficially a fantasy, is a fable of everything that went wrong with the city. There are two cities in the book: Glasgow, as it was in the author's recollection of the 1950s; and Unthank, an unreal landscape of squalor and spiritual decay, the image of Glasgow at the end of the 20th Century.
But it is the wonderful mystery of civic pride, the stay-at-home cousin of Patriotism, that one loves one's native town, no matter how vanquished it is in fact.
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Post by taylorsman on Feb 24, 2005 11:55:46 GMT
On this we can agree! (Gasps from the serried ranks of posters- hold the front page!).
Edinburgh Traffic Management is almost Kafkaesque. I imagine those responsible played with "Minic Motorways" as kids and are working out their fantasies with real vehicles and people for some sadistic pleasure.
Returning to poor old Glasgow. Miss Havisham comes to mind, the decaying framework of a once beautiful and vibrant being surrounded by the faded glories of a past life. On my last visit to "Unthank" as you put it I was struck by the down at heel shabbiness, thrown into counterpoint by the glitzy triviality of consumerdom as typified by the Wine Bars and Chain Eateries of the "Merchant City". The once renowned Art Galleries in Kelvingrove , now closed I understand for refurbshment, was sleezy and tatty, its once almost churchlike silence shattered by hoards of unrully and unsupervised kids, the parks, one of Glasgow's great assets, now overgrown, unkempt and neglected. The whole place had a Third World air to it, a once great Imperial City reduced to penury.
As we have both remarked the lively little Urban Villages have long since gone, Govan is eviscerated, Kinning Park no more. In the Gorbals they are having a third attempt to correct the errors of the post war decades but I fear this will also end in failure. Sticking plaster solutions are applied to the problem Council Estates such as Easterhouse and Drumchapel, but founder after a few months.
Is there an answer? Too late I feel. Should I climb to the top of the hill at Bellahouston Park, look over the City and weep?
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Harmony
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Post by Harmony on Feb 24, 2005 16:20:40 GMT
On this we can agree! (Gasps from the serried ranks of posters- hold the front page!). Edinburgh Traffic Management is almost Kafkaesque. I imagine those responsible played with "Minic Motorways" as kids and are working out their fantasies with real vehicles and people for some sadistic pleasure. Returning to poor old Glasgow. Miss Havisham comes to mind, the decaying framework of a once beautiful and vibrant being surrounded by the faded glories of a past life. On my last visit to "Unthank" as you put it I was struck by the down at heel shabbiness, thrown into counterpoint by the glitzy triviality of consumerdom as typified by the Wine Bars and Chain Eateries of the "Merchant City". The once renowned Art Galleries in Kelvingrove , now closed I understand for refurbshment, was sleezy and tatty, its once almost churchlike silence shattered by hoards of unrully and unsupervised kids, the parks, one of Glasgow's great assets, now overgrown, unkempt and neglected. The whole place had a Third World air to it, a once great Imperial City reduced to penury. As we have both remarked the lively little Urban Villages have long since gone, Govan is eviscerated, Kinning Park no more. In the Gorbals they are having a third attempt to correct the errors of the post war decades but I fear this will also end in failure. Sticking plaster solutions are applied to the problem Council Estates such as Easterhouse and Drumchapel, but founder after a few months. Is there an answer? Too late I feel. Should I climb to the top of the hill at Bellahouston Park, look over the City and weep? In all critisism, there is hyperbole, and I hope this is what you are showing. Glasgow is a vibrant city, which has pulled itself out of its grimy past, and is moving on. I live and work here. It has some pretty down at heel parts - but no more than other areas. The shopping is as good as anywhere outside London. The city centre has been cleaned up, and is fast becoming the third biggest financial centre in Europe. Yes, the little urban villages have gone - they have gone everywhere. Wandsworth, or Pudsey, for example, are no better than Govan. The Clydeside is part of an enormous regeneration which will extend on both sides of the river from the City Centre to Partick & Govan. This has already started, and is moving fast. Urban regeneration is never easy, but we are trying, and it is getting better. The problem is, when harking back to the Urban village, that there is no heavy industry to base it round. When Govan, to take that example, was a community like that, there were the Shipyards, and just about everyone worked there, and at the same time. They left work at the same time, and drank together at the same time, and went to the Lodge at the same time. People don't work like that, or live like that anymore. The issue is society, not Glasgow.
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ruffashlar
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Post by ruffashlar on Feb 24, 2005 23:57:46 GMT
Fine points, Harmony, and well put. We weren't saying nasty things about Glasgow, but each in his own way - Taylorsman an old (i.e. former ;D) resident, I perhaps one who has stayed too long - shedding a tear or two, from pity or regret, for all that was, and might have been.
And what will be, will be. I think I feel a song coming on...
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Post by taylorsman on Feb 25, 2005 8:35:07 GMT
When we reach Middle Age we all have a nostalgic view of our teens, and no doubt my view of Glasgow, which I left in 1972, is informed by this. I have made my home here in the Home Counties of England and have assimilated as my entire adult life has been lived here, not in Glasgow. Visits back to Scotland to see my parents , and now only my ageing father, have resulted in greater and greater disappointment as more and more of the old Glasgow has gone for ever, and to my mind been replaced by a tawdry, plastic and somewhat phoney alternative, shops, pubs and restaurants that can be found in "Anytown UK". I cannot alas achieive a Marcel Proust moment from eating a Pudding Supper from the Chippy in St Enoch's Square.
No doubt had I continued to live in Glasgow I would have experienced the gradual metamorphosis of the City and Communities and not been shocked once or twice a year by the changes.
Finally, have I "stayed too long" here in England? A question to which there is no answer as I would not be the man I am now had the youth of 18 not taken the High Road. I will not return to live in Scotland as frankly, I have nothing now in common with the citizens of that Country apart from an accent and that is quite mild, far more Jean Brodie than Rab C Nesbitt.
"Let Glasgow Flourish?" I hope so, but won't hold my breath.
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