Category: Uncategorized

Why Govanhill is just like New Jersey

Photo from TV show the Sopranos, featuring Tony Soprano, Chris, Paulie and Syl

So I was with my brother in the Queens Park Cafe and we might have been drunk but I can’t really remember.

I told him I saw Tony Soprano in Govanhill and he said stop breaking my balls over here.

It’s true, I said. He was with his goomar. Fur coat, high heels, chewing gum.

Who, Tony?

Naw, his goomar.

Tony from the Sopranos in Govanhill? You being a wiseguy?

I’m telling you. He was talking on the phone. Something about needing a sit-down because that crew is way outta line.

Tony wouldn’t talk on the phone. Feds all over his ass.

Then something about Vinny coming out of a two-stretch in Sing Sing and wanting what’s rightfully his plus a little on top for keeping schtum all that time.

Where was he?

In Greggs, queuing for a pie.

Tony wouldn’t wait in a queue.

Might go for a Scotch pie though.

We each had a drink of our drink and looked around for a bit before he asked if I thought he was a schmuck on wheels and I said not really and then he asked if I spoke to Tony and I said of course.

I asked him if he paints houses and does he clean up afterwards.

What did he say?

Something about me being a cocksucker motherfucker. And a bit about how we won’t be seeing that schnook no more. So I gave him directions to the hardware shop on Vicky Road.

Are you drunk?

I can’t remember.

Stop making shit up.

Cheers Govanhill.

Coconut water will save us

Close-up photo of red apples outside a fruit shop

We knew nothing about food, until recently.

We didn’t grow up on porridge or lentil soup, or barley or butterbeans.

Or uncle Frank’s root vegetables from his allotment down by the old dry docks, you know, next to the motorway flyover.

We didn’t have delis or grocers which sold cereals and pulses and grains, or milk in bottles or bread in paper bags from the local bakery.

We cycled because it was cheaper than the bus, recycled because we couldn’t afford to buy new.

I mean, I wore my sister’s hand-me-down shoes for two years at primary school.

Of course I didn’t. But my brother did.

We didn’t even understand that roll-ups were just organic cigarettes.

We have no memory of the past. Job security, trade unions, collective bargaining, social contract, welfare state.

We didn’t know anything about radicalism either, so thanks for inventing that too.

Now we have vintage emporiums instead of tacky second hand shops. Thank goodness that old army coat is thirty quid instead of forty pence like it used to be.

And now we can pay six pounds for a schooner of piss-poor craft ale instead of three for a pint of foaming Czech lager.

Vinyl, video tapes, board games. Feels like we’ve been here before.

All we need now is a future we can survive.

Fingers crossed, 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.

Footprints in the butter

a collage of mice, all over the flat

Mice. Twice. Wee bastards.

Mice keep happening, in the kitchen, on the surfaces, on the floor, terrorising me.

I feel invaded, violated, also a bit bloated because I’m still carrying a little holiday weight right now.

Did they come through the ceiling? They’re like uninvited guests who drink all your bevvy and empty your fridge and just won’t leave.

Wee sleekit bastards.

What’s next, eating my porridge, sleeping in my bed, wearing my clothes, turning up at work pretending to be me, doing a better job than me, getting a pay rise ahead of me?

Wee cowerin bastards.

So I asked Saint Google what to do. Old-fashioned traps with peanut butter are best. Nae luck, vegans.

Also read about a plug-in device which emits an excruciating noise for mice, a bit like listening to the Proclaimers at top volume. Or the Beatles.

Whoah, steady on. Only joking there. Not slagging off the Beatles. Course not. No way. Macca, John and that. Great bunch of lads. Really good at what they do.

Sorry, what was I talking about again?

Aye, mice. Wee bastards.

At least they’re not cockroaches.

Er…

At least I don’t have a ponytail

Queens Cafe on Victoria Road, Govanhill, where a bbc4 documentary on primal scream was filmed.

Sat in the flat the other night watching a BBC4 documentary about the Byzantine empire. Or was it astronomy? Might have been about trains or something. And there was probably a guy with a ponytail in a recording studio.

But then this place, the Queens Café on Victoria Road, showed up in the next programme, about Primal Scream.

Bobby Gillespie grew up in the south side and here he was having a conversation with pop Svengali Alan McGee in this very café.

Got bored with what they were talking about, started thinking about the café instead, old fashioned décor, delicious coffee, best ice cream in the city, yum.

Like most rock stars, all Bobby Gillespie really has is his hair.

Me, I have the hair of a total bastard.

Flapping tongues and slanging rhyme

Polish/Romanian shop in Govanhill, Glasgow

The rich languages of our streets. Unknown accents and blunt throats, the flapping tongues and the slanging rhyme.

Home counties English, Irish Gaelic, Romanian, Slovakian and Polish. Urdu, Kurdish, Arabic and Somali. Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iraq. Cowcaddens, Bishopbriggs, Thornliebank.

The immigrant’s tale in every city. Unskilled jobs, minimum wage part time temporary labour. Living in crowded, dangerous, noisy neighbourhoods, with the most exotic fruit shops, the best takeaways and dozens of pubs.

Who else is going to work in our hot foam car washes, meat processing factories, warehouses, all-night restaurants and multi-storey car parks? Who will be the delivery drivers, cleaners, packers and crop pickers, except me and my fellow immigrants?

Cheers, global capitalism.

Nae luck, Manhattan skyline

The Glasgow Gurdwara, Sikh temple in Pollokshields, close to Govanhill

There’s a beautiful moment in the life of everyone who walks down Pollokshaws Road, looks left before they reach the Tramway and sees this.

It’s the Gurdwara, beside the hidden gardens. If you can’t find the hidden gardens, email the Dalai Lama. He visited a few years ago. Think he got the 59 bus.

The Gurdwara is one of Govanhill’s many ancient monuments.

They include temples and synagogues and churches, Neeson’s bar on Allison Street and old Mick who shuffles along Cathcart Road, jumper tucked into his trousers, carrying tinned peaches and strong lager in a poly bag.

Some of the pubs round here were built around the same time as Stonehenge. You can still see the odd druid in for a quick hauf.

Neeson’s closed for refurbishment a couple of years back. Opened up six months later looking exactly the same. Cheers, Govanhill.

It’s all true although I might have made a lot of it up

Dear Govanhill, a letter from Queen's Park

So I got an email from Queens Park.

Dear Govanhill

Great little blog, love what you’ve done with the place, don’t even mind you borrowing our architectural wonders and passing them off as your own.

However, we regret to inform you that your use of a capital T in Eglinton Toll is incorrect.

Moreover, we think you’ve been unfair to your cheese plant.

Furthermore, we would prefer you to at least get our name right, yeah?

Cheers

A letter from Queen's Park with a massive apostrophe

Sake, Queen’s Park. Calm doon.

We all make mistakes. I mean, some people just live in the wrong part of town.

Anyway. Everything here is true although I might have made a lot of it up.

Get over yourself, cheese plant

living room ceiling fell in and left a big hole

Living room ceiling fell in. Bastard.

Came home from work one evening and thought, something looks different here. Then I noticed the chunks of plaster and dust all over the couch and the floor.

Only other damage was a leaf off the cheese plant. That bastard won’t stop growing so it needed taking down a peg or two, wee prick.

Jesus, though. I lie right there on that very couch all the time, staring at the ceiling, grinding my teeth like we all do at the infinite nothingness of a fathomless universe which doesn’t know or care if we live or die.

Lucky escape, I suppose. I could have been killed, or covered in plaster dust at least.

Insurance won’t touch it. Bastards. Wear and tear, they said.

Glasgow tenements, eh. Crumbling walls, broken pipes, collapsing ceilings, cracked windows, rickety plumbing, dodgy boiler, carbon monoxide, canny breathe, here we go, ten in a row.

Aye, cheers Govanhill.

Why Govanhill is just like New York 2

Eglinton Toll and the Flatiron building in New York...coincidence?

First there was the building on the left, at Eglinton Toll.

Then, mysteriously, the building on the right appeared in New York City.

Coincidence? Getouttahere.

Also, Queens sounds a lot like Queens Park, doesn’t it? And so does Central Park.

Quit trying to rip us off, Noo Yoik. What’s next, Govanhill Street Blues?
The Wolf of Westmoreland Street? Forgetaboutit.

At least Govanhill has its own cutting-edge financial district, just like Wall Street.

See these shop signs in Allison Street and Pollokshaws Road.

Shop signs in Govanhill, global software consultants and global accountancy practice

Not just city-wide or regional or national or pan-European or international but global, man.

That these shops are being consulted on software and practising accountancy on a global scale blows my mind, literally.

So, yeah. I will have a nice day, buddy.

Don’t you worry your sweet ass about that.