Marie Brown at Home

We tried (and pretty much succeeded) in doing all our Christmas shopping in the Southside last year. One of the places we were able to find lots of presents was Marie Brown at Home on Kildrostan Street in Pollokshields. This row of shops along the triangle is one of our favourite wee spots, its got pretty much everything you could need. Just wish the Gregs was a proper wee baker.

Marie Brown at Home sells a range of different house hold items from smelly candles (for my Aunts) and lots really nice serving dishes and bowls (sis and Ann). With spring around the corner and people getting into the nesting spirit, cleaning and decorating their homes Marie Brown at Home is a great place to but lots or beautiful things to restock your house.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Marie Brown at Home
10 Kildrostan Street
Glasgow
G41 4LU
0141 423 4307

Pollokshields Heritage

Pollokshields Heritage was formed in 1992 as a local conservation and amenity society. It supports the policy embodied in the Glasgow Local Plan for Pollokshields / Dumbreck. It aims to encourage development which enhances the fabric of the neighbourhood and to promote the maintenance of the character and quality of this unique garden suburb and tenement conservation areas.

Pollokshields Heritage aims, by charitable means only, to promote and encourage the following :

1.to stimulate public interest in all aspects of local environment.

2.to encourage development that enhances the area, having regard to amenity, open space and the character and vernacular of the area.

3.to support the conservation and/or restoration of buildings of importance, private or public.

4.to pursue these ends by meetings, lectures, publications and the promotion of schemes of a charitable nature.

To find out more about the group and find out ways to be invovled in helping them achieve their aims then visit their website - http://www.pollokshieldsheritage.org/

LECTURES SPRING 2011It’s a core part of Pollokshields Heritage’s mission to stimulate public interest in all aspects of the local environment which is why they have set up the below lecture series which all sound really interesting.

Thurs 27th January
Doug Pritchard – The Documentation of Scottish and World Heritage on

Doug Pritchard is the Director of the Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation (CDDV) and Head of Visualisation at the Glasgow School of Art. He is currently directing the Scottish 10 project, an ambitious five-year project to use cutting edge technology to create exceptionally accurate digital models of Scotland’s five UNESCO designated World Heritage Sites and five international ones, including Mount Rushmore, in order to better conserve and manage them

Wed 23rd February
Dr James Macauley – Charles Rennie Macintosh: Arts and Crafts? Modernist? Dr James Macaulay is a former senior lecturer at the Mackintosh School of Architecture and former chairman of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain and the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland.

Wednesday 23rd March
Dr Evelyn Silber – The Queen’s Park Arena Project on Dr Evelyn Silber is currently the Chair of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society and former Director of the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery.

Wednesday 27th April
Professor Alan Dunlop – Thought lines after our AGM

Professor Alan Dunlop is an award winning architect and frequent commentator on architecture issues in the media. Southside Residents of Pollokshields will be very familiar with his Hazelwood School for the sensory impaired in Bellahouston Park.

Strawberry & Spice Garden - Pollokshields

In the Southside we are spoilt by the number of ethnic food shops we have available. One of my favourites is the 'Strawberry and Spice Garden' on Maxwell Road in Pollokshields.  It's a supermarket selling all sorts of Asian foods and kitchen goods, it offers standard Indian cooking needs such as dals, rice and spices as well as a large range of Asian fruit and vegetables.

Strawberry and Spice also have a vast selection of  tinned goods, pastes, dry goods and frozen food .Towards the rear of the store is a halal butchers and an area selling cookware. It's open 7 days a week.

Strawberry&Spice Garden.

198, Maxwell Rd,

Glasgow,  

G41 1SS

Albert Drive Studios

At the start of 2010 a new and exciting venue opened on Albert Drive. The Albert Drive Studios is the brain child of Hilary, an environmental artist who is in the process of converting the beautiful original detached Victorian villa into a three story home for creative extravaganzas.

Eventually the building will house artist studios on the ground floor, exhibition spaces on the first floor and a workshop and meeting space in the attic. There's a lot of building work going on in the ground floor at the moment as the studios are readied for a series of interesting tenants but the upstairs and the attic have been renovated and are bright, airy and ready for creativity. Tenants will include Bean and Mouse (textile artists), Sans Facon (an art and architecture duo), a hat maker and a clarinetist. The idea of them all working in the one house sounds like the setup for an arty based sitcom. There is also a huge list of different workshops and classes taking place at the studios which are open to the public, including hat making, screen printing, interior design and silk painting. Advanced screenwriting begins on Mondays and Life drawing will be starting soon on Tuesdays. As these are confirmed we'll try to update our calender to include them but if these sound interesting then email info@albertdrivestudios.com for more info.

There will also be events happening soon too, with various art exhibitions planned for the gallery spaces, a music event taking place in the attic, gourmet dinner parties and an open studio and music concert in the extensive gardens. When we find out more we'll add some more posts.
It was really interesting to get a tour of the old building and very exciting to hear all the plans that Hillary has for the studios. I loved all the little nooks and crannies of the building and the little snippets of history that await discovery - for example while being given a tour of the gardens we found what looked like a medium sized stone lion on its back half hidden by leaves. Its definitely a house where you can imagine stories taking place and a new life as the home to creativity seems entirely fitting.

www.albertdrivestudios.com
info@albertdrivestudios.com
07805 346 314

A La Carte

As part of the ongoing improvement works at Central Station the Arches has temporarily closed throughout January and February. Not wanting to be completely absent through this time, the Arches is supporting temporary events in other spaces around the city.

One of these events, happening in Pollokshields sounds fun but very odd.

"A La Carte is a dinner party with a difference. An interactive performance about the art of dining, it is inspired by evenings around the table with friends, family and strangers. Molly Taylor invites you to come dine with her, and explore what we talk about around the dinner table.

Ticket price includes a three-course vegetarian meal, and guests are free to bring their own bottle. Audience members will be told the full address on buying a ticket."

She's a brave lady inviting a bunch of strangers to her home, not that anyone will be a secret serial killer, but thy might be a serial bore.

It seems to be an extension of a mini-fad that started in London last year for pop up restaurants. People advertising and opening up their homes to strangers each week as small restaurants. As the author finds out in this article in the Independent, the lure of the pop up restaurant is that "It's a little bit Come Dine With Me, a little bit MasterChef and a little bit Through The Keyhole. "

Anyone going along to Molly's next week? Anyone think the pop-up restaurant could catch on in Glasgow?

A La Carte
7.30pm (25th + 26th) // 5pm and 8pm (27th)
£10/£8

Link to book tickets

Scottish Ballet Headquarters - Pollokshaws Road

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

It was such a nice day today, I went for a walk down to the Tramway and took some photographs of the Scottish Ballet HQ building on Pollokshaws Road. The building was officially opened in September 2009 and was designed by Edinburgh based Malcolm Fraser Architects. Unfortunately the building is not open to the public, so if you want to have a look inside you'll have to wait until doors open day or click here for some internal photographs.

I have been passing the building regularly over the last few months, and I've become aware of how visible the building is from the surrounding area. Over night it's turned into a reference point or landmark for this part of the Southside. I wonder if it will be come an iconic image of the Southside. [Post on this topic to follow shortly]

Mimmo's @ 235 St. Andrews Drive

Mimmo's is a new Italian restaurant in Pollokshields which opened earlier this year on the site of the old Honours Three pub.

The night we decided to try Mimmo's we were torn between it and the more well established L'Aragosta which is a few doors down the street. We've been meaning to try L'Aragosta, (which from the outside looks like a place Tony Soprano would enjoy) for years but the friend we were meeting fancied trying the newer place so we agreed. There seems to be a bit of a connection between the two places. Mimmo Rossi the new owner of Mimmo's appears to have once been the head chef of L'Aragosta. I wonder what L'Aragosta makes of their chef moving four doors down?
Anyways, this review is about Mimmo's. From the outside Mimmo's looks nice but not anything amazing, inside however it is very different, decorated in a modern Italian style, with warm welcoming materials, smart simple furniture and splashes of Italian culture in old signs, posters and prints. The food too was great, there was five of us and the total was about £60 without wine. I had the Tagliatelle Della Nonna which was light creamy and cooked to give the pasta a nice bite. Others went for the Italian sausage pasta, the chicken in bread crumbs, the ravioli and the escalopes of veal which were all good too but I preferred my own choice.

We would def go back, we were on our way that night to the Imax to see Avatar in 3D and Mimmo's is quite a good place to stop off at on the way as there is easy parking. I think next time we go we should try some of the tapas or try and go along on one of the Italian nights which boasts a six course meal and live entertainment from a guy called Leonardo!

In the past I've always found this stretch of road quite strange, it felt slightly like an in between place, on the edge of several different Southside areas, the motorway and the rail works. This unease was probably further exaggerated by the various events that have happened near the Honours Three pub in the past. The pub closing seems to be part of a tentative rebirth in the area, with a lot of new housing being constructed and a few new shops. In Mimmo's they now have a large venue worth travelling to and maybe the area can start to create a proper identity.

Mimmo's Ristorante Italiano
235 St Andrews Drive, Glasgow, G41 1PD
0141 429 4657

Opening House
Mon - Sat 9.30am - 11pm
Sun - 9.30 - 10pm

MFA Degree Show @ The Tramway 18 - 28th June

This years Master of Fine Art degree show will again be held at the Tramway. The exhibition opens on Thursday 18th June and will be on until Sunday 28th June. We have been several times in the last few years and have really enjoyed it. There is always a wide range of work and it's definetly worth a look around.

For more info click here

After Mary Rose

In Conjunction with the Southside Festival - Magnetic North presents After Mary Rose. Written by J.M Barrie who created Peter pan. The play wright D jones is from the Southside... The play is on from Wednesday 20th until Saturday 23rd of May. It starts at 8 o clock, tickets are £8 and can be purchased from the Tramway.

It started with Hitchcock,’ says Nick Bone, artistic director of Magnetic North. ‘I had read an interview with Hitchcock and was intrigued by this play that had fascinated him. And I had a very strange reaction to it when I read it.’

The play is Mary Rose, written by famous Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan. Written late in the playwright’s life, it tells the tale of a young woman who mysteriously vanishes from a secluded island twice in her life with no explanation. She returns both times without signs of aging and with no memory of having ever been gone. It’s a challenging work that is hardly ever performed.

Director Alfred Hitchcock, a major fan of the play, had wanted to turn it into a film but never managed to do so. Bone thinks he knows why it’s seldom seen on stage. ‘I felt that if I’d gone to see it [in modern times], I wouldn’t buy into the mystery. It’s set up like a ghost story but it doesn’t work like a ghost story.’ He also finds fault with Barrie’s female protagonist, calling her a middle-aged man’s fantasy, and odd. ‘There’s an innocence in what he’s trying to capture, but I found that he didn’t quite find a way of getting that across.’

As a solution, Bone proposed to create a brand new play, one that would honour Barrie’s characters and plot but would resonate with a modern audience. He met playwright D. Jones and gave her a copy of the play to read. ‘We both felt there was something disturbing in it and darkly imaginative that we wanted to develop, staying true to Barrie’s themes of grief, loss and disappearance,’ says Jones.

Speaking about the writing process, Jones says ‘I struggled early on with wanting to stay true to Barrie but at the same time wanting to make the script our own.’ In speaking about her script, Jones says that there is a resemblance in setting and structure but that the characters are emotionally richer, an aspect she found lacking in Barrie’s script. ‘I think the end result is that we have hopefully done something original.’

This end result is the new play, After Mary Rose. The play still follows the rules set forth in Barrie’s original and follows two stories, that of Rose’s disappearances and the parallel story of her son Harry’s quest for understanding. Of duality, Bone says, ‘Mary represents mystery and things that cannot be explained, while Harry’s journey is one of explanation.’ There are also parallels to the regrettable losses of war; Mary’s disappearance occurs at the end of the First World War whereas Harry’s story takes place after the Second.

In speaking about the upcoming production, playwright Jones said she now realises that, ‘We had really set ourselves a big challenge’ but remains convinced that ‘there is still something darkly emotional and moving in this play that has a timeless quality and will translate to a contemporary world.’

Click here for review

Scottish Ballet

Nice little propagnda video about the currently being built Scottish Ballet. It gives you a better idea of what the building will actually be like. The inside looks nice - not sure about the outside but I'm pretty sure it will be a million times better than all the new flats being built in the area - every time I see the "Utopia" sign it makes me smile.

I've only ever seen one ballet, when we went to the National Opera house in Stolkholm. It was very posh, the Swedish Princess was there in her Royal box and I think we were about the only people not wearing suits or black ties. Twas far more enjoyable than I thought it would be and I am interested in going along to the new building once its finshed and checking out a show or two. Maybe try a few moves of my own.

Hatha Yoga Classes

If your interested in taking up a Hatha Yoga or a Yoga for Pregnancy class, there are classes being held in both Shawlands united Reformed Church Hall and in Wood farm Pavillion in Giffnock. For more details look on Sian Pringle's website [below]

For more details http://www.sianpringleyoga.com/index.html

Also Explore Yoga are running two Yoga for pregnancy class's on Tuesday evenings in Newton Mearns.

for more details http://www.exploreyoga.co.uk/glasgow-yfp.htm

And finally a new block postnatal yoga classes starting at the tramway (The Boilerhouse)on thursday 15th JAN'09 @ 10.15am - 11.15am with qualified Iyengar instructor (bring baby and a mat)

Call or e-mail the Tramway

Dolls at the tramway

I am finding myself drawn to anything Japanese, after our recent adventures... So this caught my eye...the Tramway are showing a play based on the Japanese film Dolls. It's being performed from Wednesday 28 January until Saturday the 31st @ 8.00pm. Opening night is only £5

More info
Adapted from the film by Takeshi Kitano with permission of Office Kitano Inc.Directed by Carrie Cracknell

Dolls is a film of extraordinary beauty from Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano. Now, for the first time, this deeply touching visual feast has been adapted for the stage.

Inspired by Japanese culture, Dolls draws upon stories old and new, to create a disquieting odyssey that weaves together three tales of undying love. Haunted by a tragic event before his wedding, a young man is tormented by his guilt. Bound by a blood-red cord to his damaged lover, they are destined to walk the earth together for all eternity.

Along the way a tale of true devotion unfolds as a women waits every day on the same park bench for the lover who deserted her three decades earlier. Intertwined is the story of a vain pop star who, following a disfiguring accident, forms a relationship with a disturbingly avid fan, determined to prove the extent of his obsession.

Hush Productions and National Theatre of Scotland Workshop have re-imagined the film, bringing to life this tender and fragile tale of love in all its many forms. Signed & Audio described performance: Saturday 31st January, 8pm Dolls

Eid on the Drives - 19th September 2009

Eid on the Drive is a unique event that brings the multi cultural community of Pollokshields together to celebrate the end of Ramadhan. The event normally runs from around 11am until late and in previous years part of Alburt drive has been closed for the celebrations to take place. There is a whole range of activities for children and music and performance for adults.

For more info click Eid on the Drive

Womens 10km Run

The womens 10km run is on this Sunday. The race starts on Maxwell road. The ten km route takes the runners through Polloksheilds, Pollok park and then finally finishes at Bellahouston Park.

If you've not signed up to participate in the run, go along and cheer them on.

*Those who are not intending on going along - just remember all the roads around that part of town will be closed to traffic.

25 Free Tickets to Performing Rights Glasgow

We received this e-mail from the Vacuum cleaner

25 Free Tickets to Performing Rights Glasgow – a project from the vacuum cleaner
What is Performing Rights Glasgow?

Performing Rights Glasgow (10/02/08, 11 am till late) is a day of performances, presentations, discussions, screenings and interventions around ideas of performance and human rights.
Read more here http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/projects/NRLA

Why are you giving away 25 free tickets?

Last time we made an art piece at Tramway it was for an inclusive art event called Common Work; it cost £100 to get in, which we couldn’t afford. So we decided to raise the ticket cost by begging outside the entrance. See - http://www.vacuum.org.uk/beggingforsocialengagement

This time round we’re performing inside but we thought it important that people on low and no incomes weren’t excluded, thus we’re getting paid in tickets, which you can have.
How do I get a ticket?
You are entitled to a ticket if:
You live locally to the Tramway or live in Glasgow.
You don’t really go to see much art, or have heard modern art is a load of rubbish but want to give it a go.
You wanted to go, but had been put off by the cost.
You think that art has nothing to do with social and ecological change.
You are on a low or no income.
All you have to do is email suck@vacuum.org.uk with ‘A free ticket’ in the subject line and a name, and we’ll put you down on the list. Tickets are on a first come first served basis. Only take a ticket if you are sure you want to come, as the 25 tickets are instead of our fee.
(See further details on your free ticket below)

Help spread the word.

Help us get the message out and forward this to anyone who it maybe of interest to.
Further ticket details.
No one will be made aware that you’ve got a free ticket.
You won’t be expected to see everything or stay all day if it isn’t for you, but you must be prepared to give it a go.
If you would like to have a buddy for the day, so you can have someone to talk to about the art work, we can try and arrange one, so please state in your email if this is the case.
If you have a visual, auditory or mental impairment or difficulty, please also let us know in your email.
The Tramway is wheelchair accessible.

the vacuum cleaner is not responsible if you have a bad experience.

Scottish Ballet at the Tramway

If you've been travelling down Pollokshaws Road lately, you'll have noticed the building works going on at the Tramway. It's the new Scottish Ballet HQ, due to open in January 2008. The 11 million pound building has been designed by Edinburgh based Malcolm Fraser Architects.

Scottish ballet is Scotlands award winning national dance company, the company presents world class dance pieces within Scotland, UK and all over the world. This new building is seemingly going to make a huge difference to the Scottish Ballet, as the building they are in is dilapidated and not fit for purpose. The new building's facilities will allow young talented dancers to stay and train in Scotland. The Scottish Ballets website has a walkthrough of the new building and other information on the project.

The Tramway is one of my favourite places in the city, so I am reserving judgement on the design [see pictures above] and location of the Scottish Ballet HQ. Hopefully the opening of the HQ will increase the number of visitors to the Tramway creating more of a creative buzz in the area. It is a great thing to have in the Southside.

The Tramway itself is having a bit of a makeover and at the moment it's only partially open.

The cafe bar is set to have a larger kitchen enabling the tramway to have a larger menu, which is great because it would nice to have dinner there, before a show.

There is a new gallery space opening - Tramway 5 and it'll be located opposite the box office between Tramway 2 and the main street. The space will be visible from the street with large floor to ceiling windows. Another gallery space regularly showing exhibitions is what the Tramway needs, if there was always an exhibition on, I would be more likely to just drop in. The first exhibition planned for the space is Rachel Mimiec and it's part of the Glasgow International festival in April 2008.

For more information on the changes at the Tramway click here

Eilidh's Daily Ukulele Ceilidh

Todays suggestion of a fun thing to do in the Southside is a slightly strange one but comes highly recommended.

Eilidh MacAskill is one half of performance artist magicians Fish and Game (Formerly Reader) who's unique style, layering multiple ideas in a humourous, playful, dream like fashion have wowed audiences around Scotland for the last few years. Their past performances have included a show involving a man that wants to become a whale, a campfire storytelling session (with the audience tucked up together in sleeping bags) an exploration of what it means to be Scottish and a beautiful reimagining of the nativity play.

Now Eilidh brings us "Eilidh's Daily Ukuele Ceilidh" where each day of 2007 she has been performing with her little ukuele around Britain, the US and Canada. In the run up to the completion of the project on 31 December Eilidh is having a pretty busy time, performing all over the place, the Traverse at the weekend before coming over to Glasgow for a show at the Tron. The highlight of her month, and probably of the entire year however is a show at Sammy Dows on 67 -71 Nithsdale road, Pollokshields on the 5 November. What better way to get into the spirit of celebration commemorating someone trying to blow up parliment than to go along and listen to a bit of first rate Ukueleing (sp?). The show starts at 7pm.

If it wasn't for my astronomy class (which continues to be excellant) then I'd be in the front row.

Eilidh's Daily Ukuele Ceilidh

fish and game site

Scotsman preview of Eilidh's Show

Victoria Gardens

What green fingers we Southsiders doth have. We just remembered that someone from the New Victoria Gardens in Pollokshields had given us the above flyer when we were at the Bungo in the Back lanes the other month. Their display that day was very impressive and the plants were pretty cheap. I think I'll go along and buy a couple new ones as I dug up all my potatoes on Sunday and have some empty pots to fill. (The potatoes were delicious by the way - made into a mash with some sweet potatoes and served with some haggis and crunchy broccoli - yum.)

Last weekend's allotment open day in Queens Park suffered from some pretty abysmal weather but this weekends forecast is slightly better so come along and enjoy the fun.

Also remember the mini festival at Kings Park on Saturday and the boat party/ mini Southside festival on the Sunday. The more people that we get along the better - as it will mean more investment for the real thing next year.

Helter Skelter

We're off to the Tramway, this evening, for the Helter Skelter performance. It's a tramway commissioned performance which leads you through the hidden gardens and the tramway building.

A performance that leads you through the enchanting Hidden Gardens and the dark corridors of Tramway. Composer Stephen Deazley joins forces writer Dilys Rose (Lord of Illusions/Our Lady of the Pickpockets) to create a spectacular musical entertainment with its roots in burlesque and music hall, and conjur up a dream world reeking of the freak shows, fairgrounds and circuses of long ago. As night falls and the curtain rises, lost souls washed up in this place come out to entertain!

I'll report back tomorrow

EDIT: It was rained off, we're going on Saturday night instead.

Here's what the herald has to say about the piece

http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.1524478.0.0.php

EDIT: Our review (by Alburt)



Hmmm, that was quite an odd affair. While to some extents I agree with the Herald's review that the costumes, the music and the basic premise of the show were all great - I just wasn't blown away by it all. Often, the sound would become unballanced and it was difficult to hear or understand exactly what the enthusaistic cast were saying.
There were some great individual images and moments during the show, the trapease artist hanging alone with a red balloon, or the fish boy swimming laps around the fire lit moat. But I didn't really feel the whole show was coherant enough to hold up. It was by far most powerful, when telling individual tales of solitary characters - the pigman and the ratcatchers daughter or the wolf and the bearded lady, but these were just fleeting glimpses in an otherwise swirling mass of colour/ shouting and people running around. During these swirls - you couldn't help getting the feeling that the cast were having much more fun than we were.

We did enjoy it but none of us thought it amazing - it felt to much like the results of a month workshop and not enough like a tightly crafted show - with any consistancy. We went to see something similar in an abandoned slaughterhouse in London (ann makes me go to these things) and there we were led a round a series of clearly defined extracts from tales. And while it to did not give a coherent story, there was enough going on to get your imagination to decipher the images. Here it felt a bit to much erratic.

Happy Birthday Hidden Gardens

On Saturday after our tasty breakfast (see previous post), we wandered along to the Tramway in Pollokshields to check out the MFA exhibition. I had been to the Art School the previous night to see the degree show and I was interested to see how the Masters students compared. I hadn't been overly impressed by the degree show - most likely because there are no explanations of the work or even titles and so you are often left wandering around the place going "What is that all about?"

We only got round part of the main hall before it had to close for some repairs but again I found myself slightly confused by a lot of the work. This time there were titles but they seemed to me to be vague - non committal type things which didn't reveal any of the thought behind the works. It would have been good to have explanation text which gave some insight into the artists ideas and processes. Without that kind of information I found myself having to review the work purely on its aesthetic value and couldn't help thinking that they'd just made it all up. In saying that there was a lot of interesting looking work there I just have no idea what it was about.

After looking at the art we wandered out into the back gardens to discover that it was the Hidden Gardens 4th Birthday. In celebration there were amazing fairy cakes, badge making, singers, punch and kite flying.