Cafe Mantra

There are restaurants which are good ....then there are the restaurants which you should travel across the city to go to.

Cafe Mantra, 406 Paisley Road West in Cessnock, is just one of those places. I've had a take away from them before, but the other night we decided to go along and eat in. We went around 5.30pm, as we were going to the Imax, and it was quite quiet. The interior of the cafe is simple but is spotlessly clean and the owners are attentive and friendly.

We ordered from their a La Carte Menu containing speciality Bengali and Gujarti dishes. I ordered the Paneer Pakora and the Chana Punjabi Masala, being a vegetarian I am always pleased when I find a restaurant with interesting veggie dishes. Our dishes arrived quickly after we ordered, my starter was really nice, though I secretly preferred Alburt's Aloo gobi Pakora which was fantastic [but then someone else's dish always tastes better than your own]. My main course was delicious, fresh and tasty and the perfect amount and our nan was perfectly cooked.
I am a big fan of indian food and I think I've just found a new favourite restaurant. If your going to the Imax or just want some really good food, get on the underground and visit Cafe Mantra. They are open every day for lunch 12pm -2.30pm and then 5pm to 11pm. Tel: 0141 427 7744 to book a table
**** very tasty

Up-date: Sadly Cafe Mantra has now closed

Fun in the Park

After getting back from London last week, we were still in touristy mode and decided to do some of the things we've been meaning to do for ages but never quite get round too. First stop was the Burrell Collection, in Pollok Park, which I'd not been too for about ten years.

Built in 1988, this award winning structure houses the private collection of art and antiquities collected by Sir William Burrell and his wife Constance during beginning of the 20th Century which they gifted to the people of Glasgow in 1944. Its a vast collection of over 9000 objects ranging from a tiny ivory carved pipe in the shape of a whale, to early paintings by Cezanne, sculptures by Rodin and complete replicas of the hall, dining room and drawing room of the Burrell's mansion home near Berwick upon Tweed.

The collection is really very interesting but one thing I never found out when I was there was exactly how Burrell came to own all these pieces as some of them are quite strange. He brought back doorways from Italian castles, Windows from English churches and bits of ceilings from around the world. He must have been a very odd tourist. "Hello there Mr foreign chap. I'd like to buy your door as a souvenir of my holiday." Guess it was the days before places started selling pencil sharpers with their name on so he didn't have much choice. As we walked around the collection I kept imagining a little Italian churches suddenly missing their stain glass windows as everyone stood staring "mama mia."

I think we will probably go back and this time we'll go on one of the official guided tours as I think you probably get a lot more out of the collection when the stories behind the pieces and the stories behind the collecting of the pieces are told. We did think we had joined the museums free tour just as we arrived, but embarrassingly after a few minutes we were informed we'd actually joined a private tour and had to scuttle away while a group of twenty odd pensioners gave us dirty looks. We did hang around the tour long enough to hear the story of own of the museums star pieces, the large urn in the central hall, which apparently is the template from which modern day trophies are based and which also has the likeness carved on its rear of a woman the sculptor disliked. She is easy to spot, she's the one that's been carved with donkeys ears.
Strangely my favourite piece in the museum was not actually part of Burrell's collection. It was part of an exhibition of kids art being held in the central changing exhibition space. For some reason I just find the above picture of Elvis very enjoyable and a far better tribute to the King than the nonsense BBC Elvis impersonator programme on Saturday nights.
Pollok Park is a great place, its so huge when you are walking in the middle, surrounded by woodland you really could be in the countryside. There is also so much going on to keep you interested, from the Golf courses, rugby and football clubs, dog training, horses, Pollok House etc its a brilliant place to bring a picnic and go for a walk or drop into the Burrell's cafe which appears to be a very popular place for Southside mum's to meet for a coffee. There is also an excellent play park beside the Burrell car park and it was absolutely chocka with kids when we went past. Not bad all free as well which after the £8 tickets for everything in London was very welcome.

Robots in disguise

On Thursday I dragged Ann along to the Imax, at Pacfic Quay to see the new Transformers movie on the big, big screen.
To begin with I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't in 3D but it turned out to be a blessing, as we would have left with a serious headache otherwise.

While I did enjoy the film, it does suffer from an overuse of the cgi camera. Directors can now use computers to achieve pretty much any shot they want, no angle or camera movement is out of bounds. But just because they can make the camera do a 360 spin, shoot up the side of a building, through an explosion and then fall to the earth doesn't mean they should.

The second half of the film is told almost entirely through this ever moving camera, which constantly flies up, over or around the Transformers, who themselves are made of thousands of constantly moving parts.

I find that the constant movement while effective in moderation during fight sequences does have quite a distancing effect. I think subconsciously the brain knows that the movement the camera is going through is not actually physically possible and it draws your attention to the fact you are watching a film. While this can be used intentionally to a directors advantage for example the sectional pans in David Fincher's Fight Club it is just off putting in your average blockbuster where its sole use is to be flashy and show off.

In saying all that, it is a film about giant alien robots coming to earth to have a big fight so I probably am being a bit harsh. Don't go looking for high art, go looking for popcorntastic big old robotic fights, a bit of humour and some high speeding chases. The first half of the film is good fun, with our young hero first coming into contact with the big robots to humorous effect and showing off the bad guys at their genuinely menacing best.

The last hour or so however all gets a bit busy for its own good, with a huge raft of characters introduced for not much reason and with the bad guys lacking the killer punch they displayed at the beginning of the film.

At £8 its a bit pricey but the film does show off the Imax massive screen to good effect and I think it is probably worth the cost.
Harry Potter 5 is also still on in selected showings with the last half an hour a full 3D spectacular. Ann is keen we go see that while its still on. The Imax website has info on times and dates for these two films along with their regular short film format which gives you the Imax experience at a cheaper price.

M74 on the move

We received the following email

"If anyone has been down near TurriffSt/Egliton St/Devon St. you will have seen that work is progessing on the M74. There is a huge pile of earth now covering the Memorial Garden from one street to the next (The M74 road bridge is quickly rising from Caledonia Road direction.

However, the plaque to Walter is still erected on a pole at the side. I went into the site to ask if we could have it back and was told I would need to request in writing in case someone else has a prior claim!!
This seems to have been brought into play because of the dig at the ruins of an old tenement although they say they have found nothing of interest.

There is an open day at the site this Saturday 10 till 3 when I shall go down and hand in a letter of claim - I have to do it on Green Party paper to have some effect.
I will also do a little nosying. Will be there about 11.30am.

Anyone else is of course free to come along. I therefore won't be able to put up stall at Farmers Market at Queens Park.

Kay."

Use em or loose em

We don't really like writing pessimistic posts, usually we like to just talk about all that is good and positive about the South, but we had an interesting but slightly depressing walk around Shawlands and Govanhill yesterday which is worth mentioning. Our depression was partly due to the down pouring rain but mainly as a result of the number of shops that we noticed that have closed down.

If we had carried out the same walk six months ago we would have passed a craft shop, a book shop, a knitting shop, a handbag shop and a wedding hat shop to name but a few but sadly they now all stand empty.


The ever increasing of rates combined with a change in the shopping habits of locals is having a hugely detrimental effect on the unique shops of our high streets.
For example - a number of shops in Shawlands have the following opening hours, 9-5 mon - fri, 9-1 sat and closed on Sundays. A large percentage of Shawlands residents however work outwith the area and are therefore only in Shawlands on weekends or evenings after 6pm.

This means that the shops and the shoppers only coincide on Saturday mornings, which is fair enough if you are just buying a newspaper, a loaf of bread, or having a browse in the Charity shops but no good if you are after a hammer, nails, a pair of football boots, a wedding hat or the latest novel. These are things that if you need them, you're not going to wait all week to get. If you need them and you can buy them in the city or one of the late night shopping centres, you're probably just going to go get them elsewhere.

(Glasgow Model Shop Cathcart Road - one of the great specialist shops still open in the South but not Sundays as seen above)

With the new Silverburn Centre opening in Pollok very soon, with its late opening, free parking and covered mall, our high streets are going to find it increasingly hard to compete. But a strong, vibrant, mixed high street is one of the things that helps to make an area work, helps make it feel safe, useful and a pleasant place to be, and helps create community spirit. It also helps attract more people to the area to spend their money in the bars, cafes and restaurants which then pays the rates and allows money to improve the paving, lighting and street furniture.

There needs to be a strategic rethink of the Southsides, mini shopping centres, some suggestions, please post your comments, alternatives:

• Shawlands Arcade needs to be completly redesigned to make it attractive to shoppers and to give a bit of life to that stretch of Kilmarnock Road. (We've conacted the centres owners to find out their plans, but have had no responce, anyone any ideas what the plans are?)


• Need more specialist Shops to attract tourists, shoppers from elsewhere.


• Shops need to change opening hours. Maybe opening at 10am until 7pm.


• Shop Community meetings for the shop holders to meet, and plan how to work together to improve things.


• Govanhill should be promoted as an area of ethnic shops - like the way Brick Lane is, in London.


• Other areas should try to specialise or at least promote different specialities ie Shawlands could promote small individual fashion stores from new designers.


• Better signage and maps connecting the Southside areas to the City Centre and Westend. (From speaking to a number of friends from these areas, they don't acutally know the southside exists or how to get there!!)

We've always had a great array of individual shops in the Southside but as more competition rises up around them, they are going to continue to struggle and decline if they don't get help. G41 have set up a petition about the future of Shawlands click here to add you name.

If we don't use them we're going to lose them.

We thought it would be interesting to generate a list of specialist shops within the Southside area so if you know of a great little shop in the Southside that saves you having to go into the City centre then let us know.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

One thing I miss about living in rural Scotland, is being able to see the stars on a cold winter night. However the Glasgow Science Centre is running a 'Winter Night Skies Evening Class' so maybe this will suffice.

The course is due to start on the 22nd October 2007, costs £48 and covers astronomy basics by exploring the winters night sky in the Science centres planetarium. If your interested in going along you can call them on 0141 330 1835/1860

If your an astronomy fan but don't fancy joining the evening class, there is also 'The tale of how modern astronomy began' a talk by Stuart Clark on the 4th of October at 7pm. Tickets are £4.50

call 0141 330 1835/1860 to book.

Govanhill Baths

There has been much talk about the Govanhill baths trust's new charity shop, at 73 Calder Street in Govanhill, which was opened by Elaine C Smith last month. We took a wander down today [as we're still both on holiday] It has a good selection of books, clothes and furniture. Alburt was tempted by some chairs but by that time it had started to rain and we had a wee bit to walk to get home. It's a really good cause, so if your around that area call in and buy something or donate your unwanted clothes and books to the store.

The trust has two years to raise £8.5 million pounds to transform the existing baths into a health and well being centre for the local community. Glasgow based Nord Architecture have worked closely with the trust to produce a feasibility study for the baths.

It's a lot of money but the trust are busy organising fund raising events. There is an event on the 30th of September @ 1.00pm at McNeils on Torrisdale Street [just of Victoria road] organised by the Pool Variety Club it's a 'Soup, a Song and a Swally'. It's £7 for a ticket but this includes a bowl of stew or soup. Tickets are available from the Govanhill baths charity shop, McNeills and Southside Music.

Doors Open Day

Every Year I look forward to doors open day, and every year I seem to have something else on that I just can't get out off, unfortunately this year is no exception, I'm in London for my cousins wedding...ah well there's alway next year.

So doors open day is on next weekend, 15/16 September, and the list of places open to the public has grown yet again. I quite like the idea of having a snoop around a building you don't normally get access to. So if I was around that weekend I'd like to go see Walmer Crescent, designed by Alexander 'Greek' Thomson, in Cessnock and also the Pierce Institute, I only ever get to see the cafe.

There is a good selection of guided walks around the Southside [and around other areas of the city]
I've listed them below, I am disappointed I'd be really interested in the Govan tour in fact they all sound good. If any one goes on them, e-mail us some pics and we'll upload them.

Carte Blanche
Sun 2pm Guided four mile walk along the White Cart Water from Pollok House, jewel of the Pollok Estate, via Newlands, Millbrae and the Snuff Mill to Holmwood House, Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson’s masterpiece. Explore the extraordinary heritage of this waterway with Roger Guthrie and local historian Brian Killen. Tea available. Free bus service returns to Pollok House. No dogs please.

Crosshill
Sat 11am Boasting some of Glasgow’s most dramatic and distinctive tenements, this community beside Queen’s Park has always been favoured by the City’s commuters. Tour led by renowned historian Roger Guthrie.

Dumbreck and Hazelwood
Sat 2pm The development of Glasgow’s Southside during the Victorian era sought to rival the grandeur of the west end. John Thomson, longstanding resident and a member of Pollokshields Heritage will provide new insights to the area’s grandeur and variety.

Historic Govan
Sat 11am & 1pm This tour led, by Ingrid Shearer and Chris Dalglish of Glasgow University Archaeological Division, will take in some of the main archaeological sites and historic buildings illustrating the history and development of Govan from it’s origins as a royal centre over a thousand years ago to the era of the great shipyards.

Langside Heritage Walk
Sat 11am& 2.30pm Covering the site of the Battle of Langside, several buildings designed by Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson and his circle, Millbrae Crescent and Mansionhouse Road and finishing at the Queens Park Glasshouses (refreshments will be available) this walk will be led by Evelyn Silber and Bob Marshall.

Pollokshields
Sat 2pm Led by Karin Currie of Pollokshields Heritage a bus tour of highlights of the UK’s biggest and best planned garden suburb, including a variety of the splendid houses, elegant tenemental streets and impressive public buildings of this large conservation area.

Here's the link to the full brochure

Rockon Tommy

When you mention comedy double acts I could list a host of famous duos, Bing and Crosby, Laurel and Hardy, Seinfeld and David, Morecombe and Wise even the Two Ronnies but the act that I am going to talk about is not in that league.
They are on a much higher plane - they are in the realms of true 1980's Saturday greats like Little and Large, The Krankies or even the ultimate champions - Paul and Barry Chuckle. They used to draw in millions every Saturday night for twelve years in their own TV show and sitcom. One of them is tall, one is short and has a moustache and braces - who are they? Well I guess the photo gave it away it's Cannon and Ball.

Quite bizarrely they are coming to Shawlands on Sunday for a free concert at 6pm in Destiny church on Pollokshaws Road, behind the arcade. Even more bizarre, its not the first time they've performed there.

Not sure if its a comedy show based around the bible but I guess from the venue that they are big Christians. Unfortunately I'm going to be in London and will miss it but can someone go along and tell us all about it after all its free and should have been worth at least £10.

calender?

Not sure whats up with the calender. We will try to sort it tonight and add info on our recent posts.

We've also added the minutes of the Queens Park Users Group (That sounds a bit like some kind of "Alcoholics Anonymous" meeting.) into our previous post about the killer rabbits.

For Auld Langside

It's great, since starting this wee blog we have been finding out all about the multitude of local goings that there are in the Southside and the range of different opportunities there are for people to get stuck in and make a difference. And we just received an email for Langside and Battlefield people to do just that.

COMMUNITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS

"Friday 14 September is the deadline for the receipt of applications to become a community councillor for Langside Battlefield and Camphill. Nominations forms are available from the Chair, Evelyn Silber (easilber2249@yahoo.co.uk) or the Secretary, Andy Russell (puffertrain@aol.com). If you are interested in improving the environment where you live why not take a more active role and meet other like-minded people. The Community Council meets once a month, on the first Monday of the month at 7.30 at 81 Carmichael Place. The next meeting is 1st of October."

We also received news of a very interesting project which will be available soon - the Langside heritage trail. When we get more info about when exactly it gets launched we'll let you know.

LANGSIDE HERITAGE TRAIL

"Find out Langside's mysterious ancient past, how it grew from a tiny village with a couple of big estates to the present day. This 40 page illustrated booklet, will help you explore with maps and fascinating details of 21 places of special interest, from the Battle of Langside to Battlefield Rest, from church and synagogue to park and villas.
Available free from late October from Langside Library and other venues. "

The above photo is of the old village of Langside which was Algie Street near the Battlefield Monument, a view from around 1900. The view looks towards what is now Langside Place but was then called Colquhoun Street. (Image courtesy of Mr & Mrs Shand)

Green Spaces not Concrete Places

There is an interesting event on at the Govan Hill Neighbourhood Centre, on Daisy Street, on Thursday night.

'Green Spaces not Concrete Spaces', is an event looking at the value of Green Spaces and the positive effect these have on the community.
They'll be live music and a couple of films on the subject, and the local housing association will be making a presentation on their future plans.

Event starts at 7 o clock.

A bit of colour down the Clyde - 'Poised Array'

I went over to the BBC Scotland Building after work tonight to have a look at the new public art piece by Toby Patterson. The piece cost the BBC £350,000 and is seemingly the most expensive piece of public art ever commissioned in Glasgow.

With a superstructure made from steel cast in Grangemouth, and its multi-coloured shapes also made, from glass fibre reinforced plastic plywood, in Scotland, the work, Paterson said, was intended to hint at the manufacturing history of the Pacific Quay site.

The 25 coloured shapes are based on portions of the Ordnance Survey map of Scotland. Paterson said: "I spent a while looking at maps, and the shapes are taken from them. It represents the topography of Scotland a wide range of different areas. I am not saying which shape is where - there is town and country, Highlands and islands."

I like the piece, I think we should have more public art in Glasgow, especially around the river. However the piece does appear quite isolated, that may be because the whole area around the BBC building is lacking life. There is nothing there to encourage people to use the space, but hopefully that will change.

The piece is entitled 'Poised Array' but Patterson is hoping that the Glasgow public give it a nickname....any ideas

Links: the herald

This Little Piggy went to M&S

My mum and my aunt love Marks and Spencers, when we were little myself and my cousins would be dragged around the store, getting school clothes, shoes for our mums or baskets full of smelly things, for old aunts at Christmas time. The loom of the green sign was enough to make my heart sink, ah the boredom. It played such a part in our lifes that my cousin called her cats Marks and Spencer, so after all this, you would think I wouldn't be a fan...

Well I must be turning into my mother [which isn't a bad thing really, as she's quite a cool lady], M&S Food, on Pollokshaws Road, opened today, and I was there buying dinner...good old Marks and Spencer's. I also bought a bag of percy pigs [above], they're my favourite...but I am afraid they've all gone.

idle be as idle do

We just received an email from Jennifer Claire the chieftess of the Southside Idlers Guild with the following news.

"The southside branch of the Scottish Idlers Guild will be meeting at the Granary in Shawlands on 06/09/07 at 7:30pm.

The main branch will be meeting up at The Lab in Springfield Court on 27/10/07. All welcome to both gatherings.

Am I alone in wanting to spend my days lazing drinking, reading, making things and laughing rather than dreary old work? Has anyone else read How To Be Idle or How To Be Free, by Tom Hodgkinson? Would you like to put some of the ideas into practice?Interested in meeting up with a view to ridding our lives of nasty, dreaded, pointless work? Then let's get together and share ideas, scheme, plan and plot a way to get off the work-mortgage-death cycle.Visionary timewasters welcome. All Hail Robin Cooper! The rest of you trot back to your workstations-the boss is calling. In other words if the height of your ambition is to spend a few hours in the pub on the time you have off from work, this group isn't for you. Membership is free but a small donation towards the meet up fees would be welcome."

So all idle souls drag yourselves out the house and join a fellow group of people happy doing nothing.

Raving Cyclepath

While walking down Minard Road this morning I noticed that there are signs up warning about road closures on September the 15th/ 16th when the Cycle Tour of Britain completes in Glasgow Green after a seven day race from London.

We'll try and find out more info about the route the bikes will take.

Fore he's a jolly good fellow

On Saturday I had the enjoyable experience of playing golf. This is not something I thought I would say as I remember playing twice before when i was a kid and I hadn't really enjoyed it all that much. From memory all it involved was walking about fields looking for lost golf balls with an enormous mass of metal sticks strapped to your back.

But as it was my cousins stag do, I was willing to make a fool of myself.

I was a little nervous, stepping up to the first tea, with the rest of our group, all semi-regular players, watching on.

I set myself, swung the borrowed club and instead of the swish of empty air I had expected, I was pleasantly surprised to see the ball zoom off into the distance. Success, I had hit the ball, the others were quite surprised but not as much as me. Sadly, my next shot sent it into a nearby field, but never mind.
The course that I proceeded to hack round was the Mearns Castle Golf Academy in Newton Mearns, which is a lot closer that I thought, though its maze of streets are a bit confusing to the uninitiated, but that might have been due to Google maps directions being wrong.

Despite being very enjoyable the course did seem to be a little on the difficult side as we lost a ton of golf balls into the trees, bushes and fields.

Its only nine holes, but I think that's probably enough for beginners - though its still a long walk and I'd recommend paying £1.50 and getting a trolley for the clubs. A round costs £9 weekdays for adults and £7 for kiddies but everyone pays £10 on weekends. They are open every day from 9am til 10pm but they advise phoning and booking just in case.
The club house was very nice, housing a golf shop, gym, tuition centre, (With driving range and classes in chipping, putting etc. See their website for beginners or kids classes) and a nice bar/ restaurant run by Mr. Singhs Indian restaurant from Charring Cross to stuff your face with once you are done. Thankfully, the course is open to non members and does not insist you wear silly long socks, badly coloured jumpers or daft wee hats and you can get away with jeans. (My cousin even got away playing the last hole in a leotard - it was his stag do after all.)

All in all I was pleasantly surprised and think I might go back for another game sometime soon and try and improve on my score. Is +27 any good?


Here's a list of other Southside courses for those that fancy a game. Be warned that we haven't investigated these and therefore some are probably private courses where you need to go through some kind of rigorous membership initiation involving black socks, chickens and balancing on one leg.

Queens Park, pitch and putt - free
Pollok Park Golf Club

Green Govan

Another event in Govan....The Greater Govan Environment trust and Sunny Govan Radio have organised a Green Zone event [12pm - 4pm] this Saturday in Elder Park in Govan and then later on at the Pierce Institute [8pm till Late].

Saturday 8th September 8pm till late. Pearce Institute Govan Greater Govan Environment Trust and Sunny Govan Radio are proud to presentJaad/SchemeSteg G and the Freestyle MasterSan ,Toy Futuro, Acoustic Butterfly, Rudy Alba