Glasgow’s George Square Is OUR Rectangle!

The six new shortlisted designs for the revamp of Glasgow’s George Square have been unveiled and I’m almost speechless at how terrible and charmless they all are. ALL of them.

Luckily, I’m not completely speechless and I’d just like to take this opportunity to say this:

George Square Is OUR Rectangle! Leave those Victorian statues EXACTLY where they are!

The moving of Glasgow’s many Victorian statues like gigantic chess pieces is nothing new and it’s not that I or the many other people who live close to the square are against change. As a matter of fact, everybody I’ve personally spoken to is all for a revitalisation of George Square but, and listen carefully, as a PUBLIC and VERY GREEN space!

The statues that surround George Square have been discreetly moved over the years more than once but c’mon! They look so settled where they stand today. And everybody knows it except for the people in charge who very shortly are about to completely ruin George Square as we have come to know it.

Let’s take a look at the six new shortlisted designs for the Square and as always, click on the images to enlarge them.

Design One:

Design Two:

Design Three:

Design Four:

Design Five:

Design Six:

Design Six is apparently the current “most popular” design with Glaswegians. The best of a bad bunch I’d say.

I’m not very good expressing myself when I’m angry without using extreme profanities so here are some photos of how George Square has looked in the past…

1878:

1880:

1929:

1975:

Fireworks Night 2012:

…and here are two panoramic shots of how George Square currently looks today…

Don’t tell me what you think.
Write to Glasgow City Council and/or a decent Glasgow Newspaper you trust.
So not The Daily Record.

Keep right up to date with everything by visiting: Restore George Square.

You May Also Be Interested In…
* Future Glasgow
* The Glasgow Alphabet By Rosemary Cunningham
* Al Cook’s “Necropolis”

Al Cook’s “Necropolis”: Please Give Blood.

Hi folks, this is the latest entry in my macabre Glaswegian comic-strip, Al Cook’s “Necropolis”.
It’s called “Please Give Blood” so please do!

As always, the main place to view Al Cook’s “Necropolis” in all of its complete and black biro penned, sinister hand-drawn wonder is HERE.

* Footnote:
I sent this “Please Give Blood” strip off to the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service asking them to get behind the comic etc… and they said:

“Hi Al,
Many thanks for your enquiry.
I’m afraid this is something we will not be able to support.
Best regards,
Leigh.

Leigh Taylor.
Donor Recruitment and Publicity Officer
Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service
25 Shelley Road
Glasgow
G12 0XB
Tel: 0141 357 7740“.

That aside, please do give blood. It’s very very important and not painful at all.

FACEBOOK LINKS:
* Give Blood For Scotland
* Al Cook’s “Necropolis”

You May Also Be Interested In:
* Cut Loose (Complete Version)
* Cracking Open A Cold One
* REDRUM

Al Cook’s “Necropolis”. Cut Loose: Part I.

Part II was supposed to be out long before now but I had conflicting ideas of where I wanted it to go.
Zip on over to Al Cook’s “Necropolis” to see Part I of ‘Cut Loose’ in all its glory and where Part II will appear in the not to distant future.

Oh aye!
Please become a pal on the Facebook Page because it’s pretty lonely over there.

Discovering John Byrne Again And Again.

I keep seing pictures in magazines and on telly of an old guy with  the best moustache and beard in the World!
He dresses just like me and I keep thinking to myself:
(a) Who is that guy?
(b) What does he do?
(c) That is exactly how I hope to look in later life.
It turned out to be playwright and artist John Byrne and although I didn’t know it, I’d been a great admirer of his work most of life!

Everything fell into place for me when John Byrne appeared in the recent BBC documentary on Gerry Rafferty.
“THERE’S THAT GUY!” I shouted at the screen.

I’ve only got one Gerry Rafferty album (“Can I Have My Money Back”) and I’ve always really liked the front cover but silly old me, I had no idea that John Byrne was the artist behind it.
I thought to myself: “If I was Gerry Rafferty, I’d want John Byrne’s artwork on all of my albums forever!”
…And that seems to be what Gerry did!

Can you believe how beautiful those album covers are!?
Looking through them all felt really familiar to me even although I don’t own any of them. It was like I’d seen them before but until Gerry Rafferty died, his albums were surprisingly hard to find in Glasgow so I think I can rule that one out.
The album covers reminded me of being really small and after some digging around on the internet, I found out why.

When I was young my folks used to take me to the People’s Palace in Glasgow where these paintings hang:

So there you go. it seems that I’ve been looking at these paintings all of my life and never once bothered to find out about the artist.
Shame on me but at least I made the connection in the end.
I’ve spend all week investigating John Byrne and as the days go on, I find myself thinking: “No way! that was him too?”

I remember being in a shop a few years ago and staring at the downright glorious DVD artwork for “Tutti Frutti”.
Yep, that was John Byrne too! Today I feel really stupid because John Byrne also wrote “Tutti Frutti” and I never even knew that.

My latest John Byrne surprise concerns The Beatles’ White Album.
I’m a huge Beatle fan and I have shelves of bootlegs and one of them is called “A Doll’s House”.
“A Doll’s House” was a sort of working title for “The White Album” and John Byrne was commisoned for the album cover which of course wasn’t used in the end but it’s on the bootleg I have and it was eventually used for “The Beatles Ballads”

I feel like I’ve been looking right at John Byrne’s work with my eyes closed for 25 years!
I learn something new every day.

EDIT:

My pal Natalie just got in touch to say that Mr. Byrne designed some posters for some plays which her theatre group performed. Also, John Byrne happened to write the plays.
I should’ve known.

The Soundtrack To My Life. 12/08/2011.

This week I’ve been mainly listening to bagpipes.
Bagpipes.
Bagpipes.
BAGPIPES!

How I love their strangled cat whiney out of tune sound.
It’s bagpipe season here in Glasgow and tomorrow morning I’ll be getting out of bed at 4.30am to work at the World Pipe Band Championships on Glasgow Green where there will be HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of bagpipers strangling out of tune whiney cats for 16 hours.

It’s gonna be a long day and I’ve brought it all on myself.
I’m Scottish through and through and I don’t really mind a lone piper as long as he’s ALONE and WAY up a hill somewhere but I think that the sound of thousands of pipers tomorrow is gonna properly unhinge me

UPDATE:
I really enjoyed The World Pipe Band Championships.
It turned out to be a great day!
Also, this guy was there: