So I was otherwise engaged for a period of time and while I was away people kept asking me what my favourite Govanhill song was and I was like there’s just so many to choose from, pal.
Auld Lang Side, for a start. That always goes down well at Burnside nights, after the haggis suppers but before the roast of the tatties.
Then there’s the Proclaimers classic, I Would Walk 500 Miles (to get away from Polmadie). Because you would, wouldn’t you?
The Bonnie Bonnie Banks of the pond in Queens Park, that’s another personal favourite of mine.
I wanted Runrig to play it live at a gig at the bandstand with stalls selling merch and craft beer and spicy buffalo cauliflower wings and I pitched the idea to Govanhill international festival and they were like shut it wee man.
Turns out Runrig are all in the jail anyway. Persistent anti-social behaviour, including ironing their jeans and rolling up their jaiket sleeves. They’re now called the Longriggend male voice choir instead.
But the favourite ditty in this Scotch living room has to be Gorbals, where’s yer troosers?
Speaks to the heart, that song. Powerful lyrics of loss and displacement, the pain of loneliness, alienation, the other.
I’ve just come down from a scheme in Milngavie
Something something something something
And the rockets shout when I go by
Gorbals, where’s yer troosers?
As I say, heart-wrenching stuff. It’s like the Hyndland clearances all over again.
Lockdown was great, didn’t want it to end, wish it had lasted for ever.
I miss the panic buying, the empty shops, the deserted streets.
Birdsong, sunshine, walking down the middle of Victoria Road because there’s no traffic.
I miss the fear of other people, the prospect of other people with their bodies and surfaces and those killer droplets from their mouths.
I’m often asked how I managed to cope so brilliantly with lockdown.
I say that after I woke up on the floor in the first week, naked and cold and soaked right through, I realised I had to start fulfilling my potential.
I knew I had to learn to play the cello, do eight thousand press-ups every morning, finish my PhD on string theory or learn ancient Greek, whichever came first.
That’s why the flat is spotless, a spiritual place full of hope and pure joy.
Staring at the wall, drinking too much, tired all day, not sleeping at night?
Not round here, pal. No way. Not at all.
Didn’t grow a beard, either. No gingered grey rusting collage of tufts knots and waves.
No unsightly magnet for viruses, moths, other people’s fists.
Instead, I gave an inspirational TED talk to help my fellow strugglers survive lockdown, called Microeconomics is Pish Easy.
Advice on speaking Mandarin, taking ice baths at dawn, studying one-handed knitting.
How I’ve been learning sign language because there’s no one to talk to.
How my flowers are blooming because I don’t have a garden.
How I’ve been swimming laps of the pool in my basement.
Practising the pole vault in the living room, the javelin in the kitchen.
Tried the hammer too but the nails fell out because the walls of my building are five thousand years old.
See ye, Govanhill. Maybe, some time, one of these days.
So the Strathbungo young team turned up outside my flat, started throwing toilet rolls at the window and shouting at me.
Here Cheers, you rotter. Stop pushing Strathbungo around. It’s so unfair.
Tongues, you bass.
(Wee Glaswegian in-joke there, tongs ya bass being a popular pre-ned rallying cry. Nae offence, neds.)
Anyway. Crikey. These bungo bawbags mean business.
I know Strathbungo sounds like some Highland spa town, and it’s really just five streets with large terraced homes the other side of Pollokshaws Road, but don’t be misled.
The very name strikes terror into our God-fearing Govanhill hearts.
These bungo blawhards flooded the streets with sourdough, ran the sweet potato protection rackets and other avocado-related activity.
The shit they used to pull. Baggy trouser displays, ankle of the year awards, most insufferable vegan championships. Nae offence, vegans.
All those organic carrot incidents, the pumpkin seed riots, so many innocent people going to bed at a reasonable hour. Tragic.
Their last spoon carving workshop got out of hand when the Battlefield binliners stormed in on tricycles and shot up the place with water pistols. Three fringes ruined and a beard needing towel dried. Madness.
And remember the notorious southside turf wars with the Crosshill Puzzlers, Polmadie Dobbers, Pollok Park Peculiars?
It got so bad even the Partick Monkeys had to play a benefit gig to try to calm things doon.
Anyway, we should feel sorry for these bungo bawheids. They just don’t enjoy the advantages we take for granted.
Decent boozers, love of football, an eclectic mix of streetwise bampots and clatty bastards.
So I thought I’d better get the old crew back together, the ones who were outta the joint anyways.
Rab fae Torrisdale Street, mad Tracey who torched her flat that time, the bloke with the big knuckles from the Queens Park Café.
But then I thought nah, canny be arsed, and I drank ten cans and fell asleep on the couch instead.
You learn so much from bins and lamp posts and bus shelters on the streets of Govanhill.
Politics, religion, gender, fitba. Magic.
It’s like the university of Cathcart Road.
I mean, we all know that wherever living things draw breath the Buddha shall appear in compassion.
But I didnae realise the big yin with the big belly liked to stroll through Govanhill scrawling graffiti.
Maybe he had a pint in Neeson’s with the Dalai Lama, bought some weed aff Rab fae Torrisdale Street at closing time and then went wandering through the streets of Govanhill, singing songs, staggering along, got the munchies, grabbed a kebab, before catching the late bus back to Nepal-slash-Tibet.
Nae offence like, Buddha. Please don’t set yourself on fire or anything.
I’m only practising thinking non-thinking.
Ways of seeing, ways of living, how all are welcome in this most diverse set of tenements.
Everybody’s second favourite football team, anti-racist anarchist punk squatter collectivist anti-fascist St Pauli.
Then I went to Glastonbury to catch up on English history, stopped for the architecture at Stonehenge and saw this.
And soon I came back here to learn about the dialectics of historical materialism and the corporate takeover of time and space.
The gig economy, low wages, zero-hours on demand. No job security or sick pay or holiday pay or pensions or trade unions working in retail or waitressing, warehouse or call centre, delivering, labouring, crop picking.
Because this is Govanhill, power to the people, who took on the cooncil when they tried to close our baths and the people said naw and occupied the building for 147 days.
It’s such an exhilarating, orgasmatronic, vibrifying place. We’re so overstimulated we just can’t stop exuberising.
Living here is a jamboree, I’m telling you.
Crowded houses, languages spoken, pomegranate coconut, one of the Brighton bombers.
What else do you need? You just cannae get bored.
We have the traditional tenemental dwellings, many in need of substantial upgrade.
Lines and grids of tenement streets, three and four storey sandstone with high ceiling and bay window and always unexpected people living there.
The inner-city thrill, dense and populated, with shops and pubs and bookies and restaurants and churches and schools and tenements again, the noise, the darkness, the anxiety.
Govanhill mostly avoided the cooncil’s historic fetish for demolition, unlike Maryhill or Dalmarnock or Anderston, so nowhere else has so many traditional tenements still standing.
Exotic wildlife loves it round here too.
All this expanse of roof makes a perfect place for seagulls to perch their ass and scream all day. Or strut along the pavements below tearing open bin bags and pecking at my shoes with their ugly yellow beaks.
Mice and roaches can roam from home to home through walls and attics and floors, fattening their bellies, trailing their shit and frightening the weans like me.
Noisy kids love tenements too because sound reverberates around narrow streets, and with no gardens or space at home there’s nowhere else to play.
And tenements above all are full of us, people like us.
The lives that go on here, weirder and more fascinating than you ever can imagine looking in from outside.
Thou shalt be such a character, with a bit of a swagger and the easy patter, swear like a bastard and be fond of the bevvy. Rougher, cheekier and funnier than you too.
Glass of booze, mug of tea, buttered toast. That’s the dream, isn’t it?
Not sliced porridge, fried tobacco and lager soup for tea.
I’ve been cooking for myself again. Nightmare.
Strung-out dinner time. Wooden ham, paper bread, crumbled milk.
That tonic wine tastes so binary.
I mean, you know me. You know I use food to satisfy my creative desires and engage with my interests. The energy, care and compassion I put into what I make.
How it’s also a great way to connect with my fellow makers and brave doers across the south side.
(Remember when the sou’ side used to mean the Gorbals and when the Merchant City was called Candleriggs? Ah, heady days.)
Anyway. Food hates me now, I know it does. Come ahead, food.
It always goes bad on me too. Those blood oranges I had turned blue and that beetroot grew mould when I left it in the fridge for too long.
I look around the kitchen to see what there is. Half a depressed apple, a thing in the cupboard that might be couscous, the last three grapes in Govanhill.
They might be the last grapes I ever see.
Try the freezer. Jeez, why all this grey cabbage. Have I been panic buying in my sleep again?
Man, that would make some glum chowder. There’s no way social generosity can thrive in this dust. No point chasing the well-fired crust and creamy crumb round here.
All I’m left with is a cold sandwich in the dark.
Take a roll from the bin, the bread bin, slice up some cheese real nice. Put them together and stand and eat, staring straight ahead, chewing, swallowing, staring straight ahead, staring, staring, staring straight ahead.
Tomorrow, mushrooms and diazepam and brushing your teeth with absinthe.
Paint pictures, tell stories, sing songs, of someone, somewhere, at some point in time.
But which memories are important, what past do we remember, whose lives matter?
Our heads used to be full of future possibilities. Mine was, anyway.
What’s for tea, how long till pay day, three points on Saturday. How history repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce.
Now we sit at home and think of things we used to do and look forward to doing them again.
The future will take care of itself as long as we take care of the past. It’s all we have, the past.
Imagine an industrial heyday, a city once the fourth largest in Europe after London, Paris and Berlin. A quarter of the world’s ships launched on this very river.
City of industry, heavy industry, with factories and docks and foundries, steel mills, gasworks and chemical plants. River of two hundred ship yards, of tug boats, warships, cruise liners and titan cranes. City of soot and smoke and heat, city of noise.
Screaming weans and women at windows shouting at men in crowded streets or voices raised in rowdy pubs or football grounds or music halls, on railway platforms and subway carriages or at the top the bus, all the way home.
That was a place, once upon a time, in the long ago.
But sometimes history speeds up, sometimes you wake one morning to find a city destroyed overnight.
Closed factories, abandoned buildings, vast acres of empty land.
There used to be places where there aren’t any now.
A hollow city, city of ghosts, people and communities demolished.
No more units of work and place and of who we are.
The visible carnage of rotting wood and dead masonry, burned-out holes in the ground. Invisible carnage of contaminated land, chromium, cyanide wasteland.
Weeds as high as trees, rats the size of dogs, black water lapping against stained walls.
That was a place, that derelict place. City of fog and thunder. Gale force winds again. Good later, not now.
The empty self is at home in this dead place.
But new places can be built, new cities can appear, less than before and less than real.
Places of industry become places of consumption. Retail park shopping centre drive-thru strip malls.
Or affordable housing, maybe a bus garage, a new campus for a rebranded further education college.
A city of digital and finance and creatives and tourism. A low carbon, high-quality, cost effective location. A great place to live, work and invest.
Maybe that’s what Govanhill is now. An innovative place, whose people make it. Maybe that’s how we were invented.
Because we know better than anyone how things can change.
Remember the demonisation of Govanhill, the fear and loathing, when no one loved us and we hated ourselves?
Look at us now. Creative hub, development trusts, social enterprises, gentrification, the coolest place in the UK.
A city of darkness moving into the light, is that it?
We were never sustainable before. Not white enough, or vegan enough, and far too working class.
Thank goodness being so poor made everything so cheap so the right type of person could move here.
Why not Bidgeton or Yoker, even Clydebank or Greenock? They might be innovative places too. Springburn, Rutherglen, Parkhead. Post-industrial, cosmopolitan, inexpensive.
Our story is the story of a city, a city longer and wider and deeper than anyone understands.
City of the past, a famous past, an illustrious past.
Places no one goes, paintings no one paints, sounds you never listen to, stories we won’t tell.
A city no one imagines. City of dust, of vacant land under motorway bridges, disused railway lines near the waterfront, empty spaces which used to be more.
Sometimes land for future use, perhaps a retail opportunity yet to be fulfilled.
Non places which are always around. Forgotten parts of an invisible city.
You can still walk in these places, though you’re really not supposed to, past light industrial units or garage forecourts, muffled engine exhaust fumes from somewhere overhead.
Wholesale cash and carry warehouse, car tool hardware stock room.
But no one belongs here and nothing much happens.
Can I help you?
Leave me alone.
You can’t go in there.
Wasn’t going to.
You shouldn’t be here.
I know.
Everyone is a non person in this non place.
So you keep walking. A scratchy path and gravel underfoot, a fence with a razor wire crown.
The tracks of other wildlife, fag ends and crisp pokes, even droppings. Invading undergrowth reclaiming concrete, weeds growing from walls.
And then you sit down, open a can and start to meditate, contemplate, listen to the music of the non place.
It might be repetitive, monotonous, like a passing train or an industrial drill.
Bury yourself in that distant ever-present rumble.
It might be the sound of the past, ghosts of the past, a forgotten place in an invented imagination.
A hollow city, phantom city, zero miles, becoming gone.
The silence of the past.
The sound of empty rooms and deserted streets.
A past and a future running away from us.
But now. Now. Everywhere is a non place now and everyone a non person, an almost person hiding at home from what can’t be seen.
We look through our windows at half places, frozen and empty. Closed places which won’t re-open, more abandoned, emptier still.
Maybe we walk from room to room, flitting round the house in our bare feet, hair sprouting, clothes unwashed.
Time doesn’t pass in this place, might not exist at all round here.
Black clock, dead hours, un time in a non place.
The drinking, insomnia, desperation, mental violence.
Everyone sounds like such a prick on social media too but it’s the only thing there is, the only place we exist, along with the past.
Wherever you are, Govanhill or Madagascar, Mesopotamia or Andromeda, Narnia, Zion, or Never fucking Everland, the past is all you have left.
So you think back to the good times, your best times, when you went places, met people, did things.
Paint that picture, sing that song, listen to the stories you tell yourself.
Young, good looking, unstoppable you. Confident, upbeat, employable you. Maximum you. Telling it like it is-slash-was.
And as you sit and remember and think of that time the past pulls you back to the present, the here and the now at the centre of you, the stillness and silence and the emptiness there.
Half a person, less than real.
Staring at the wall, drinking too much, tired all day, not sleeping at night.
But if history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, then what went around might come back again.
That artisan bakery over there used to be a pub, an old man’s pub, but no one ever called it a community resource.
There was a wee café nearby selling square slice and mugs of tea, but we didn’t know it was a magical safe space where like-minded people could gather, share tables, break bread.
Now Rab fae Torrisdale Street is calling himself an entrepreneur because he sells weed from his close.
Says he provides a vital lifeline for those looking for a sense of place and ownership.
I said okay, two grammes but it’s not for me and he said it never is, is it?
I’m joking, of course. It was ten grammes. Two is never enough.
That was also a joke, obviously. I am a responsible lifestyle blogger after all, and would never advocate taking drugs.
I know the dangers. Got high one night and quickly ended up in a shooting gallery then a crack house with junkies and dopers and dealers injecting crystal meth and ketamine into my eyeballs and my toes, before going to rehab and then recovery.
It made me late for work the next morning so I’ve learned my lesson, I know the pitfalls. It’s a downward spiral.
My mum always told me to just say no to drugs, keep saying no, and she was right. I did get them cheaper.
That too was a joke, someone else’s joke. Sorry about that. I just don’t know what words mean any more nor whose they are.
It’s a confusing time for everyone.
I see a bottle shop and I think of jakeys queuing outside an off sales at seven in the morning.
I see a bar and kitchen and think room and kitchen, alcove where granny sleeps, outside toilet.
It’s a coalmine out there. Sorry, coalfield. No, minefield, that’s it. Yes. It’s like a coalminefield out there.
Then I asked Rab if he sold avocadoes and he said naw, that’s the Mexican drug cartels.
Passed the guy putting up the sign one sunny afternoon and asked what it was and he said a shop and also coffee and I said cheers Govanhill and walked on thinking weird, but not, as usual, can’t wait.
Rising slowly, mainly fair, visibility moderate or good.
So Govanhill’s changing but it was always changing, even when some people didn’t want to come here.
We always had Kurdish barbers, Panjabi street food, Italian ice cream, magazin Romanesc, Irish boozers, African grocers, halal butchers, Polski Sklep, Polish Daisy.
Bin men and bone men and potato peelings and sharp-dressed chancers. And the fruit shops, Govanhill’s most popular characters.
We just needed the white bourgeoisie to become up-and-coming.
But watch out, creatives and innovators. This place is so quirky you might hurt yourself, even if you’re a freelance graphic designer.
Thank goodness you have this spiritual guide to give you a tour.
The shipping bulletin, area forecast, weather reports from coastal stations.
The soothing intimacy, the ritual incantation, travelling the seas without leaving your scratcher.
Kingarth Lane recent hail, Allison Street decreasing north, veering down Victoria Road later.
Complex low pressure, sooner dark at times, occasionally Polmadie.
Visit the uninhabited outlands, the crazy zone, where no one’s ever been. Hillpark, Merrylee, Croftfoot.
Hear the mysterious place names that exist only in our imaginations. Southside central, Strathbungo East, Queen’s Park.
Or stupid names a drunk guy made up, like Nithsbiggins Avenue, Buttermoreland Boulevard, Cathtoria Road. Orgasm Valley, frontal systems, warnings of gales.
So here we go, Transylvania automatic. No unsmiling fringes in sight.
Clear sky, ship ahoy, straight ahead, new high.
Always at last, never at first, variable in between and expected sooner.
Cheers, Govanhill 