Category: memory

Too right, fanny baws

Photo of two Glasgow double decker buses on the road

The Glasgow punters and the legendary native wit.

Too right, fanny baws.

Raucous but intelligent, spontaneous and earthy, drawing on a bipolar linguistic continuum including west central Scots and Hiberno-English, isn’t it?

Pure pish, ya fud.

Our distinctive vernacular is so vibrant, by the way. You hear it in pubs, on the street, in football stadiums, in former industrial heartlands and demolished tenements, but not in joyless cafe bars selling cocktails for twelve quid.

You find it on buses most of all. The banter with the passengers, the chit-chat and the patter, pound for pound it’s the funniest on four wheels.  

Better than drinking beer on the disco bus in Germany, or those five days spent sitting beside a cow on the seat in India. Pure gallus, so it is.

The woman with the shopping bags asking if she can sit on the driver’s knee.

The drunks who climb on and ask for two pints of heavy.

The three New Zealand girls and the driver trying to guess where they’re from.

America?

No.

Australia?

Nah.

South Africa?

Nope. Here’s a clue. It’s as far away from here as you can get.

What, Eastwood Toll?

Mad Tracey and the strategic dialectics of anti-imperialist struggle

Photo of the back of a tenement in Govanhill

Sometimes I like Govanhill, sometimes I don’t. Two contradictory ideas at the same time. Crazy, I know.

I smoke, but I know it’s going to kill me. Look, there it is again. Cognitive dissonance. Oh no. C-c-call the c-c-cops.

Imagine the conflict, anxiety, neurosis, the constant fretting about economic context and class and ethnicity as social determinants of power.

No wonder I smoke.

In Govanhill we have lower incomes, poorer health, fewer opportunities.

I mean, how many members of Boris Johnson’s Cabinet went to school round here? How many chief executives of FTSE 100 companies live in tenements with graffiti down the walls? Not that many.

Maybe quotas are the answer. Rab fae Torrisdale Street doing a stint as head of the BBC. Or mad Tracey, who torched her flat that time, as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Let the sunshine of socialism break free upon our land.    

Cheers, Trace.

It is not consciousness that determines being, but social being that determines consciousness.

Fair point.

Centralisation of the means of production and socialisation of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument.

Keep it real, hen.

Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.

Better.

From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

Excellent. Here, take puff of this hen.

Cheers, Govanhill.

Punk rock, acid house, dub reggae

Photo of cobbler's that used to be on Calder Street in Govanhill

There used to be a cobbler’s on Calder Street. Solvents, black leather, new shoes.

But people don’t get their shoes fixed these days and a place you don’t go to closes down.

There used to be butcher shops too, with carcasses hanging in the back. But you don’t hear much about oxen these days either.

Or coal men, rag and bone, victuallers or haberdashers.  

I remember a shirt I used to have, a pair of boots, a hat I sometimes wore which had stripes along the side. Hair, teeth, skin, enthusiasm, going to openings and happenings and other interesting events.

I might have been a sophisticated man of culture with wide-ranging interests and a decent first touch on the football field.

Good taste in music too. Punk rock, acid house, dub reggae.

That might have been a place, at the heart of things, in someone’s memory.

There might have been industry round here too, with factories and jobs and relative prosperity, when people worked reasonable hours and could have hopes and dreams and nice homes and a pension.

Cheers, neo-liberal disruptors and global changemakers.

Empty self in half a place

A broken window in an abandoned factory taken through a fence

I walk, pointlessly, in places you’re not supposed to walk.

Along embankments and hard shoulders, beside torn-up concrete and boarded-up windows, among debris and shrapnel and weeds in the wind.

I’m drawn to these non places because it’s quiet.

There’s never anyone else around to gaze upon the banal majesty of some garage forecourt.

Discount vehicle and motorbike spare part, import export wholesale retail, low-rise one-storey sheet metal steel shutter iron railings van hire car wash.

Half places in any city, always there but always unseen.

I’ll still find a way to get shouted at in these non places.

Bus drivers, because I’m walking across the bus operational area. Receptionists, can I help you? Security guards, where do you think you’re going? You’re a non person to them and they to you.

Danger, no entry, keep clear, stay away.

A black dog barking at a barbed wire fence.

Jeez, what am I doing here? No one belongs in these half places, not even the empty self.

I should be in the warm pub, or at home by the hearth. Bowl of hot soup. Scotch broth, probably. Crusty bread. Comfy chair. Twelve cans.

Cheers, Govanhill.

I’m not going to Polmadie at this time of night

A statue of Oor Wullie dressed as Jimi Hendrix, one of many across Glasgow

Was going to try mindfulness, but I forgot.

Thought about going on a retreat, realised it would be a step backwards.

Sorry. Can’t help the stupid jokes, trying to be popular, make the other kids laugh so they won’t beat me up.

I shower once a week, whether I need to or not.

There I go again, boom boom. I’m out of control.

My wife asked me to cut the grass, said it’s almost at the windowsill. I said can’t the guy downstairs do it?

Enough now, please. In God’s name, stop.

That long grass is a worry, though. Sure there are foxes in there, urban foxes, gentlemen thieves, trendy wee buggers wearing spats, cravats and a cheeky grin, robbing my bins of fag ends, empty cans and dead rodents.

Anyway. Think I need more jokes, better jokes, one-liners, funny tales. Witty observations on the absurdity of modern life.

How all men seem to have beards these days. I mean, what’s that all about, yeah?

And coffee, it’s everywhere, isn’t it, and with all these weird names. Skinny flat white, long black. They sound like porn movies, ha ha ha ha ha.

And airport security, that’s weird, and why is everyone always staring at their phone these days too? It’s so funny, isn’t it.

Like staring into the ever-expanding abyss of pain and desolation inside. And how it’s like that on Twitter too.

That’s all I’ve got time for ladies and gentlemen. I’ve been dreary Dave, you’ve been a great audience, thank you and good night.

Crosstown traffic and a hole in my shoe

A photo of limes outside a fruit shop

Outside the sun is shining and the fruit is glistening on the crates on the pavement.

If that way is midtown, up here must be downtown. Down there is uptown, top ranking Kurdish and Ghanaian and authentic Punjabi cuisine.

Past the hairdresser that went on fire, the artisan bakery, big men cracking their knuckles outside the bookies.

The library. The people’s swimming pool. The only queer bookshop in the country.

There’s a buzz about the place. Vibrant, you might say.

The fruit shops with the mangoes and the dates and the pomegranates, Jeez, the size of them.

And Rab, fae Torrisdale Street, and Billy, his mate, whose bones you can see under the skin of his face, walking quickly, wondering if Stan has any gear, or Tracey, aye, sure she moved round here somewhere after torching her flat that time, daft bastard.

Walk on, past the nail bar and the jewellery shop, second hand and earnest vintage and the charity shops, always with the charity shops.

Crowded bus stops, girlfriends arguing, organic food and busy pubs and people who know that things get better and things get worse and all you can do is make a go of it.

So you keep walking, towards the horizon, the edge of the world, where all roads lead and where everything makes sense.

It never gets any closer.

Cheers, Govanhill.

I pure love you, so I do

Two Govanhill signs with a cross through 'hill' to change them to 'Govan'

People sometimes ask me why I don’t move out of Govanhill and I’m like, Whoa steady on there pal, what’s your problem?

But what if Govanhill dumped me? Decided to end the love affair, chuck my sorry ass because I’d been getting on its tits.

Please Govanhill, I so love you. I love you to bits. What will I do without you and where will I live?

And Govanhill’s like, Aye, very good wee man. Bye!

I’d be rejected, banished, forced to flee the hood, pack up and move back down the hill.

To Govan.

West Drumoyne. Teucharhill. Harmony Row. Pirrie Park.

Govan, teeming tenement city. Linthouse, Shieldhall, the ship yards and the dry docks. Fifty Pitches, the Vogue and the Lyceum.

The swimming baths and the steamie at Summertown Road and Harhill.

Elder Park library, loved by James Kelman, probably Alex Ferguson and Billy Connolly too, and the trees in the park at a forty five degree angle.

The rubber scheme, where nothing ever happens.

The ice cream tunnel under the motorway. Rebel, founder of the Govan Team, buried under Govan Cross.

Rab C, Steg O and Paulie McGhee. Drummy Tongs and young young Winey.

The pubs and the bookies and the street corners. Dark, man.

Cheers Govan.

Back soon, Govanhill.

Why Govanhill is just like the south of France

a deckchair pictured below the M74 motorway extension in Govanhill

Open space in Govanhill, like a midwestern prairie or the vast Russian steppes.

A wee acre of green grass below the motorway flyover. The most expensive stretch of road in Europe at the time. Half a billion for five miles, ten thousand per inch. I know, because I counted it.

With a deckchair and sun cream and a book I’m not reading it’s a good place to sit in peace.

Faint clatter, muffled rumble, a hundred and fifty thousand vehicles a day overhead.

It could be a tomato field in the south of France. All that’s missing is a genial farmer with overalls and mutton chops and a stalk of grass in his mouth. A few cows in the pastures, free range geese in the meadow.

The flyover slices through the south side on forty-foot stilts but is somehow discreet, almost unobtrusive.

Reminds me of the city growing up, motorway roundabouts and slip roads, pedestrian tunnels and off ramps, non place dead spaces under concrete bridges.

Dry miles of road with signs and directions and people in control of their own destiny.

Don’t know if I am. In control of my own destiny, that is.

Doesn’t look like it from down here.

Cheers, Govanhill.

Okay then Ruby, cheerio, bye

Old Bungalow Cafe sign on Victoria Road, now a pizza place

The old Bungalow Café on Victoria Road, now a pizza place. Delicious fare, friendly staff, Napoli team photo on the wall.

Almost start telling them about another football club, a better one, the greatest in the world in fact, but I don’t. Maybe later. 

So I ask if they do takeaway and they say yeah no problem but I phone later and it’s like no, we’re not doing takeaway and I’m like, bummer man.

My own fault, really. I mean, who orders sausage and fennel at three in the morning? Sorry, guys.

Back in the day there used to be another Bungalow Cafe at the end of Mosspark Boulevard.

Man, the ice cream from that place was famous in our house, big jugs of it. A stop-off there on the way home the delicious highlight of a visit to Auntie Ruby’s in East Kilbride.

Nae luck, Ruby.

The dear green places of the south side when we were kids. Dumbreck, Bellahouston, Pollok estate, all mountains and rainforest and wide desert plains with Highland cattle, brown bears, antelopes, even a sabre-toothed tiger, according to wee Ned McGeown, though he was always a pure spoff.

We came from dark streets with buildings that went on for ever, but here it was vast open space and leafy avenues, the possibilities of it all, how it showed us another world was out there.

Just like Pollok Free State, until they bulldozed a motorway through it.

We’re going nowhere, Sammy boy

Small head shot of Samuel Beckett, with a black background

You know what it’s like, lying on the couch watching television and you forget who you are.

We’ve all been there.

Is this the first time I’ve seen this topical panel show with pithy jokes about recent events?

Or is it five years later and here we still are, in the same flat, same sofa, same clothes, watching a repeat of the same programme?

Don’t know. Can’t remember. We’ve forgotten.

Change channel. Christ, a BBC4 documentary, this time on Samuel Beckett.

Waiting for Godot, is it? Aw naw. What have we done to deserve this?

Lie back instead and think about that time last week, when you were left standing at the bus stop in the rain for ages. And on Saturday, on Vicky Road, trying to get served in the pub and feeling like you’d been there for ever.

Tantalised by the prospect of the number 38 or of someone to pour you a pint but really, inside, knowing it’s just a foolish dream. No one is coming and you’re waiting around for nothing to happen, twice. You know, like watching Motherwell.

Can’t go on. Must go on. Can’t go on.

I know. It’s away to Dundee next week.