The Glasgow Harvest

If you grow your own food on whatever scale or if you'd like to start then make sure you take part in Glasgow's biggest ever open-air meal. Go along to Glasgow Harvest tomorrow for a day packed full of home produce, live music and performance.

Get your own edible punk haircut, eat a poke of chips from the Great Scottish double Rubble Chip Challenge, compare Allotment Soups, make a giant Jam Wall, marvel at Glasgow's most Eccentric Sheds and help judge the Creative Containers competition. Bring some home-grown food to share, a jar of home-made jam to add to a sculpture or a planted creative container for the chance to win £50.

If you'd like to get involved you can: make food to share in a huge open-air meal. Bring a vegetarian dish, featuring at least one ingredient you've grown yourself. Design & plant up a creative container. Choose an unusual object to grow something in. The best 3 containers will win £50. Make a jar of jam. Help to build a three-dimensional Jam Wall

12 noon to 6pm at the Hidden Gardens, Tramway. Entry is free.

Ironmongers @ Albert Drive Studios

http://intoironmongers.com/

Another really fun little thing happening on in the Southside this month. There just is nowhere near enough time to visit everything.
Looks really a really good show - a photo journey around Scottish small town ironmongers. Sounds like the project comes from a similar idea to one we've been trying to put together to record all the old family run shops in the Southside. A celebration of a changing and simpler way of life. Not been to see the exhibition yet but from the few photos we've seen and from looking through Helene's website looks like she has captured the magic and mystery these old shops hold.

"Helene Witcher’s photographs celebrate traditional ironmongers shops across Scottish towns and villages. Although images like an old paraffin pump will prompt nostalgia, Helene recognises the shops’ contemporary importance. ‘Ironmongers’ practical knowledge and advice are an essential antidote to our throw away consumer culture.’ She says, ‘They help people learn, or relearn basic skills and to solve problems.’ ‘And the range of colours, textures, shapes and smells in traditional ironmongers shops means that shopping for something ordinary or practical takes place within a gentle assault on the senses.’

The photographs capture the pride and depth of knowledge of the individuals working behind the counter and show the colourful complexity of their stock. Many show shops that have been in the same family for generations, their busy interiors characterised by floor to ceiling shelving crammed with items with handwritten labels. They reveal, too, the satisfaction of customers from a girl with a goldfish to the woman who bought a lavatory brush to keep a cormorant from roosting on her mast.
Helene celebrates the shops’ capacity to ‘blend past and present, progress and sustainability, respect for what can be mended and pragmatism about what needs to be replaced. All wrapped up with kindliness and skill’. "
The exhibition is at Albert Drive Studios, 334 Albert Drive, Pollockshields, Glasgow and will be open from 10.00am – 4.00pm every Saturday and Sunday throughout August 2010.

Moyra Janes @ 20 Kildrostan Street

Went with a mate to Moyra Jane's last night for a bite to eat. I've walked past the place hundreds of times and until then had only ever had a couple of slices of cakes and never a proper meal.

We'd spotted that they are currently doing a deal during the week of 2 courses for £11.95 and 3 for £13.95 so thought we'd give it a go. We also thought we'd take advantage of the last remenants of the summer and sit out side where they have three small tables for two. Thankfully, unlike lots of other places with outdoor tables, the pavement is nice and wide and the road is very quiet. It was pretty pleasent sitting outside and watching others wander by, including spotting a few people who we knew. Made it feel a more sociable event, shame we don't have the sun all the time.

I've got to apologise as I was starving when we sat down so I didn't really take many photographs of our food before it was all wolfed down. I started with a goats cheese and caramalised pear dish served on a toasted cibbatta with freash salad. Not something I would normally order but I have to say it was delicious - I'd have happy eaten a bigger version for my main course as well. My mate had the Arbroath Smokie (pictured above) which he said was great but he did voice a preference for their Cullen Skink which he'd had the last time.

For the main I fancied some comfort food and was thinking about choosing the burger until I discovered they didn't serve it with chips. Instead we both went for the macaroni cheese with chorizo sausage. It was tasty too, though I think we should have ordered some garlic bread on the side, as a full bowl of macaroni on its own takes some eating.

By this point it was starting to get chilly so the waitress showed us to a table inside. The cafe is really nicely decorated inside with dark wood panels, tasteful lighting and black and white photos of the staff on the walls. It feels very comfortable and friendly. We both ordered desert of their inhouse made honey comb vanilla ice-cream. As readers of the blog will know I'm a big ice-cream fan and this one passed my taste test. Its light, creamy and very, very sweet. Maybe a little too sweet for some as the lumps of honeycomb get stuck in your teeth but I was a fan.

All in all, including drinks it was just £15 each which for the quality of the food was fantastic. I really, really liked my goats cheese starter - so much in fact I'm thinking of trying to make it myself tonight.

Moyra Jane's

20 Kildrostan Street
Glasgow, G41 4LU
Phone: 0141 423 5628

Glad Cafe's new website

The Glad Cafe have just set up a new website for what looks like it will be a really fun new venue in the Southside. Have a watch of the film above for an idea of what they are all about . Looks like it will be a pretty relaxing place to hang out in. Not quite sure exactly where the venue is going to be, anyone spot any clues in the photos on the site?

"It is intended that the Glad Café will be a café/venue based in the Pollokshields/ Govanhill area of Glasgow – the heart of Scotland’s most ethnically diverse community. We’ll provide freshly prepared seasonal food as well as a warm hub that will encourage people from different backgrounds to meet and mix informally. In addition, we’ll also have a well equipped, 200 capacity venue that will be open in the evening to provide a home for creative new and world music and other artforms that exist outside of the mainstream."

Glad Cafe are also currently looking for looking for new writers and poets to submit short stories or poems for a zine they plan on publishing in the coming months. Send your submissions to thegladcafe@gmail.com.

Shawlands Market

We were sent the below call for people to sell work at the Shawlands Market. I didn't realise this was run by the same folk who organise the Sloans Market on Saturdays and Sundays in the city centre. In my experience they had quite a different range of products. Last time I wondered down the Shawlands Market it had some odd stalls, one selling art made from clothes pegs, one selling boxer shorts and one which appeared to be selling two umbrellas. I like the idea of it becoming more about bespoke goods and unique items, always seemed a shame that Glasgow doesn't have more markets ie food, clothes etc - they work well in other City's. Even the Barras doesn't really seem to get much promotion or investment.

What have been your experiences at Glasgow markets and what would you like to see at the Shawlands one?

"Shawland’s Markets aim is to encompass a wide range of goods from bespoke jewellery, delicious food, unique clothing and legacy gifts, our markets offers a variety of unique items that cannot be found in high street stores.

If you have any questions about hosting a stall at our Markets, please ask.

Shawlands Market Glasgow - Every Thu and Fri £20 per day

sloansmarket@yahoo.co.uk"

Paper Plane - Skirving Street

Paper Plane is a great wee gift shop which recently opened on Skirving Street as a replacement for Note which had sadly closed ist doors a couple of months earlier. Run by Pam and Gillian, who also own Butterfly Kisses next door, its a very fun and friendly place to buy an interesting selection of cards and wrapping paper. The two shops are connected by a link door at the rear and you can happily browse from one to the other.

With a lot of the gift items, cards etc moving to Paper Plane, Butterfly Kisses has had a bit of a restock and layout change and now has a wider range of ladies clothing and a selection household style gift items at the back. Paper Plane has more of the gift items, toys, books, cards and wrapping paper. It also has a good selection of smellies and a really nice ever changing selection of artists prints (like above).

Recently my cousins have been having lots of babies and so we've been in to buy cards and baby toys a lot and have always been able to find everything we've needed. Some of the alphabet prints, and charts are really cool and its been very hard not to to buy things for ourselves too.

Paper Plane

12 Skirving Street

Glasgow G41 3AA

0141 649 5450 

New Victoria Gardens Open day

Glasgow’s historic allotment scheme (established 1871) invites the public inside its walled gardens just one day a year and this is it! Your chance to tour round 64 individual plots tucked away in a cul de sac in East Pollokshields.

Prize-winning fruit, veg and flowers on exhibit in the hall (most sold at bargain prices at the end of the day) and a separate tent selling houseplants, perennials, cut flowers and produce – with friendly advice from the people who grew them.

Also a legendary tea room with delicious homebaking, barbecue with veggie options, a range of stalls including crafts, bric-a-brac, honey & jam, tombola - plus lots of fun activities for kids.

Glenapp Street at Albert Drive

Saturday, 21 August (2-5pm)

Pollokshields, Glasgow G41 2NQ

Admission £1 (accompanied under-12s free).

A Sonic Soak

Really like the sound (no terrible pun intended) of this event in aid of a good local cause.

A two day celebration of sound and music, exploring the sonic properties and resonance of Govanhill Baths. The currently empty main swimming pool of the Govanhill Baths will be transformed into a performance arena for the weekend of the 21st (11am-8pm) and 22nd of August (1-8pm).

The Baths will be host to an eclectic range of musicians and sound artists who are both local and from further afield.

It is free event open to everyone. The line up will be announced shortly. Numbers will be limited so to guarantee entry pick up a ticket from the Govanhill Baths Community Trust/ Centre for Community Practice, 126 Calder Street, Govanhill, G42 7QR.

For more information contact info@govanhillbaths.com

Bring Your Own Towel

The Speedos of Sound...

Tut Vu Vu, Rm Hubbert, Moshey Wader, Mark Hesling, Skizzwang, Jamie Grier, Konx om Pax, A Rhythmtic, Peter Nicholson, Jack Wrigley, The International, Jim Singing Cat, Perfumed Head, Williwaw,

2nd Conservatory Extension, Craig Bayne, Billy Boyd, Sarah Kenchington, Dave Peron and The Bistro Band, Prosthetics, 1.21 Gigawatts, George Murray, Jim Colquhoun, The Parsonage, Graeme Ronald,(Remember Remember), Pajamourai, Sean Wars, Spirit Animullz.

Funded by Glasgow City Council.

Curated and created by 85A

Sound by Radar Soundsystem.

Lighting by Pointless Creations.
After swim shower party in the Pandora Bar (Victoria Road). Saturday 21st August.

Sparkling Shadazz

Hektor Ruiez

85A DJs

DJ Mick