Snow business like show business

[Image from Hole in my Pocket Christmas Card on sale online and at Paper Plane]

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, robins dancing about the gardens, snow falling prettily from the sky and the Nation’s discussions turning into an obsession over where they can get salt to grit their path, ah yes, winter is back.

I’m sure everyone will be run off their feet hand making gifts for their friends and loved ones and buying windup pooping reindeer's for their office’s secret Santa but apart from all the giving and receiving what else is there to do this Yule.

Well, it’s the big theatre season with the usual array of pantos popping up tight clad all over the City. Here in the Southside however we’ve got a far more interesting range of events with ner an ugly sister in sight.

Theatre École presents “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (7 December - 10 December at 7pm) in Queen’s Church, on Queen’s Drive. Tickets Conc/child £6, adult £7 and family (2 adults and 2 children) £23. Available from 0141 423 6037

The Citizens have their usual original twist on things with a version of the Brothers Grim Classic Hansel and Gretel, 3rd December to 7th January. The Citizens winter shows are usually very enjoyed by the kids.

The Shed continues its move to identify itself with other things other that dancing in the dark and has lots of events over the month with Sunday 11 December seeing the return of Afternoon Twee from 12.30pm - 5pm and a Cosy Christmas Cabaret by Tram Direct on 15 December. (Doors open at 8pm and tickets are £10.) Tram Direct also present a Victorian Christmas event on 17 and 18 December, Tickets are £8 and doors open at 1.30pm.

The wondrous Southside Film Festival is also back and this time present the Muppets Christmas Carol on Sun 18 December 3pm at The Shed. (After having a zombie walk to coincide with their showing of “Night of the Living Dead” its a shame there is no muppet walk. Seeing Shawlands full of people dressed as muppet characters would cheer even the coldest scrooge.)

Earlier this month Govanhill Pool had Lanarkshire Paranormal in attendance (Sat 3 Dec 9pm-3am) and asked people to help them search safe sites in the baths to try and find some spooks. Hopefully less spooky will be their Aladdin performance (9 Dec) though the ghostbusters might need to watch out if the genie sticks around. More information on both events here - 0141 433 2999.

Also talking about things of times gone past will be John Pelan (7 Dec 7:30pm £5) and David Martin (25 Jan 7:30pm £5) who will be giving talks as part of the Pollokshields Heritage Lecture Series at the Fotheringay Centre. Their topics will be “Scotland’s Civic Monument” and “Glasgow’s Windows and Doors” respectively”.

Yet more ghosts (seems to be a theme running through the events this month) with The National Theatre of Scotland putting on a performance of a Christmas Carol in Film City Glasgow in Govan. It looks like it will be excellent, with a talented cast, haunting puppets live music and apparently ingenious set bringing this dark Victorian tale to life. We got a tour of the set by accident the other week and it really looks great. Sadly it sold out within hours and only returns tickets are the only chance of going. We'd love to though, so if anyone decides they don't need two tickets drop us an email.

The most interesting and unusual event of the month though is probably the Albert Drive Project with students from the Contemporary Performance course at the RSAMD. The event will take place on Sunday 11th December, meeting at 1pm at Tramway. The audience will then be invited to walk up Albert Drive and visit a number of stages where small performances will be hosted on the street. Passers by will be able to join in too. The event is free and will last approximately 2 hours.
To contrast with a month of high spending there is a really intersting sounding talk by Centre for human Ecology and Govan Together entitled "A revolution of Values: Materialism and its alternatives" guest speaker, Tim Kasser, will present evidence for the high price of materialism and explore alternatives of what really makes a merry Christmas at The Pearce Institue 840-860 Govan Road. (Monday 12 Dec 7pm)

And finally to make sure you look good for your office party get along to Church on the Hill where the "Whims-icle Xmas Fashion Fair" will host 50 stalls of clothing from vintage to designer. (11-5pm 11 Dec).

As always suggestions of things we've missed in the comments below please.

Gift Ideas - Books

The other day we took a little walk to Shawlands to pick up a few things and to start getting ideas for Christmas Presents to buy. Last year we managed to get all but one of our gifts from Southside Shops and the aim is to do so again. So we are looking for suggestions from you guys. What great things have you spied in the Southside shops or shopfolks what is your number one top gift tip for Christmas? We'd also be interested to here any creative southsiders suggestions for homemade presents or decorations.

Lets get a catalogue of good southside suggestions pulled together. Here's our first suggestion.

On our walk we popped along Skirving Street and peeked in the window of Young's Interesting Books and loved the current display which is full of classic Christmas stories including a few old School Charles Dickens and we asked the owner for a bit more info on the things in the window and this is what he said.

"The best Christmas books, starting with the obvious and Charles Dickens' Christmas Stories, the books from which so many of our ideas of what Christmas should be have originated.

Everyone knows A Christmas Carol, with Scrooge and Tiny Tim and Bah! Humbug, but there were four other Chrismas stories by Dickens: The Haunted Man, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth and The Battle of Life, all of which are wonderful reads. We have a beautiful miniature version of The Battle of Life from around 1910, with gilt edges and lovely coloured plates, and a few different versions of the others, including the Arthur Rackham-illustrated Christmas Carol, and another version by the people behind Spitting Image!.

Then there's The Night Before Christmas, Clement C. Moore's famous poem that begins "'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." Just as Dickens gave us the idea of a Victorian Christmas, so Moore gave us most of our ideas of Santa Claus, including the reindeer names. Again, the great Arthur Rackham has lent his genius to depicting the wonderful scenes in the poem.

Another traditional Christmas book is Longfellow's "Christmas Bells". Many of these poems were beautifully produced around a hundred years ago in small volumes intended to be given as gifts. We have a few in the shop, including a gorgeous version with coloured lithographs on every page."

I've never read the other Dickens' Christmas stories, so might need to give them a go. We also liked the little book parcels that Young's have put together. Two or three books in different genres, from science fiction and biographies, to westerns, pulp war paperbacks and poetry, children's and hard-boiled crime, all bound in ribbon for £5.

Young’s Interesting Books
18 Skirving Street
Glasgow, G41 3AA
Phone: 0141 649 9599

Shawlands Town Centre Plan

Last year Glasgow City Council carried out a public consultation asking people who use Shawlands Town Centre for their thoughts on how the area could be improved. Out of the huge number of peopel who live and work in the area only 1240 responses were recieved and these are published in a report below. The Council have now generated a plan for the future of the area and they are after your thoughts. Lets try and get more than 1240 people giving comment on the proposals good or bad. Its a good chance to try and set the right focus for the future development of the area.

Here is some information that the Development and Regeneration Services have sent us.  

Link:

Results of Shawlands Town Centre Survey Published

Following on from the consultation a Draft Shawlands Town Centre Action Plan was developed.

The Plan is intended to:

• Ensure Shawlands becomes a more desirable place to live and invest.
• Addresses economic, place-making and urban management issues
• Proposes specific ways in which the Town Centre can be repositioned to become a successful, thriving city destination.
• Recommend a number of improvements to place management, public spaces, streets, buildings and the role played by business and customers in helping it to become more successful.

The Council invites you to support the Town Centre Action Plan and become involved. Please follow the link to the Draft Action Plan and its supporting documents and tell us what you think!!

http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/YourCouncil/Consultations/

You can comment by:-
Phone 0141 287 6094 / 6097
email shawlands@drs.glasgow.gov.uk
Post to Shawlands Town Centre Action Plan , DRS, Glasgow City Council, FREEPOST SC05293 Glasgow G2 1BR. If you would like to chat about the issues of the Town Centre with other Shawlands customers, businesses and residents you can also do this via our partners at Shawlands Business Association Facebook. A drop in event at Langside Hall has been organised from 10.00am to 9.00pm on January 23rd to discuss the plan. Feel free to drop in and have a chat.