The tenement opposite

View of two Glasgow tenements taken from a second floor window

I look outside and see the tenement opposite, full of people just like me, we, you and I.

It’s always there, the tenement opposite. Unchanging horizon. Nobody move, stay where you are, don’t touch your face, stand two metres apart.

Haven’t seen it for years, the tenement opposite. It’s like I stopped looking, took it for granted, didn’t even notice what was right there in front of me.

It’s reassuring, the tenement opposite. Fine blonde sandstone, west of Scotland light, kids’ rainbow posters in the windows. It’s better than having a garden.

I used to wave to the neighbours there as we clapped for each other once a week.

Tonight I see the moon in its little piece of sky above the roof of the tenement opposite. It’s reassuring, seeing the moon. It means the earth is still turning, somewhere.

Cheers, tenement opposite. For showing me the future. The future is wide and tall and clear, the same as the past.

But then I left my tenement and went outside and met Rab fae Torrisdale Street and he asked if I thought he was immune from the virus because he used to drink in the Corona bar in Shawlands and I said could be, you never know, but now that I think about it of course not, ya fanny.

Then he tapped me a fiver because he needed the fare to get tae his maw’s to go to the chemist but he’ll square me up, I know he will, I know he’s good for it.

After that he made no plea or declaration and I didn’t see him again for 30 days.

So I thought I’d go home and look out my window at the tenement opposite.

But my phone went and it was Conde Nast asking about a lock-in at Neeson’s.

Cheers, Govanhill.

Nae luck, travelists

upside down photo of a sunny beach with blue sky, sea and palm tree

It’s travel writers I feel sorry for in these troubled times.

All those pricks, dicks, dweebs, twits and twats with nowhere to go and nothing to say.

They’re the real victims of this lockdown.

Chat heads inactive, content ungenerated, adventure bollocks adrenaline rush untold.

Nae luck, travelists.

Nae Vietnam, Burkina Faso nor Pata-bastard-gonia for you.

Don’t go for it, just leave it, be less than you can be.

Try punching yourselves in the face instead.

So I started thinking maybe I should have a gap year. And naw, I don’t mean being on the broo again.

I mean do some volunteer work in Shawlands or Langside or Pollokshaws or Crosshill.

Build a school, teach English, help clear bulk items dumped in a close because it’s unsightly, attracts vermin and is also a fire risk.

Some of these people haven’t seen an outsider in years. Know the feeling.  

Immerse myself in the indigenous culture, top up those wilderness-based core skills climbing the north face of Mount Florida.

There’s so much to see and do, travelisers.

Have your voyage of self-discovery, coming of age, personal pilgrimage, travelist odyssey right here.

Wait till you plunge into Cathcart, get dragged into Strathbungo or swallowed up by Polmadie. 

Asda Toryglen broadens the mind.

If you want hidden lands, there’s always Inglefield Street.

And if you’re looking for ancient culture unchanged for centuries, try auld Fred in Aikenhead Road.

Cheers, Govanhill.

You’re welcome, Tripadvisor.

The wee mini dinosaurs of Langside Road

Side-on view of various tenements in Govanhill with a very blue sky

I’ve seen a cow before and I know what a sheep is, so wildlife holds few surprises for me.

But I learn things on these early morning walks through Govanhill.

Turns out birds don’t just shit on your head from above.

Turns out they write poetry and play music too.

You hear these wee fly men chirruping and whistling away just for the sake of it, for the joy of it, and it’s such a melodious highlight to the day it makes you wonder if this sunshine will ever end.

And to think these wee birdies used to be dinosaurs back in the day.

These things with wings have their own worries too, their own viruses to contend with.

Bird flu, avian flu, mad crow disease.

No lockdown for them, although I did see one fella social distancing on a telephone wire and another alone at the top of a tree beside the railway line.

Was that a great tit, a blackbird or a song thrush? Who knows, mate. Is this a lime tree, a rowan tree, sycamore, walnut? Could be.

They’ve been there performing for years, decades, centuries, but only now are we paying attention.

We may never hear their likes again.

Goldfinch, swallow, maple, giant redwood, doesn’t matter. I’m only a child, a puny child, so these birds, any birds, in these trees, any trees.

And you stand in the stillness and listen to this tiny wonder on a spring morning with no traffic and the sky bluer than ever and you think how beautiful and how generous your city is.

Thanks, Govanhill.

Because without that, all we can do is sit down and weep.

Go on up the road

photo of a nice row of homes designed by famous architect Alexander Greek Thomson

So I left Govanhill for the first time in years to stroll along the boulevards of old Pollokshields, tree-lined early morning with sunshine and bird song.

I’d been out for a walk, one piece of walk in my exercise yard, these hometown streets I know far too well.  

Tenements and building sites and half-finished bike lanes, road works barriers strewn all over the pavement.

I wanted Govanhill to show me something else.

So I walked to Pollokshields.

I’d been there once before, ages ago, years ago, when I landed in some pub which was closed for the winter.

I say winter, it was September. I say pub, I mean village hall with plastic chairs and cans of beer from the shop next door.

Asked the woman if the pub was going to open.

Aye, she said. In April.

But you know how things look from here in Govanhill, our city on a hill at the heart of the metropolis.

We see the Shields, the Shaws, the Gorbals and Cathcart as the rural idyll, all mountains and meadows and midgies all over your face.

But it’s not, I’m telling you.

I know, I’ve been there.

Detached villas and grand tenements, spacious homes on wide avenues with hedges and trees and a Mediterranean blue sky.

Early morning, no one around, always helps, looking fine.

And then, Pollokhill, after we’ve had our walk, Govanshields, we go home to stay in, lie low, steer clear.  

Do you really need that piss poor overpriced takeaway coffee or to stand at that street corner with four other people?

Go on up the road, eat chocolate, drink wine, masturbate, watch telly, remember a virus and stay in the hoose.

Cheers, or not.

Stone age dust

white cherry blossoms on branches of a tree against a blue sky

I didn’t want to go shopping and get arrested by the cops for having too much self-raising flour in my trolley.

So I didn’t go out, I stayed at home and went travelling round the flat instead.

My Govanhill flat, tenement flat, all the usual things. Walls and that. Ceiling, plumbing, wiring. Neighbours, mice, messy backcourt are just a bonus.

Exotic land, hidden gem, rich heritage, something for everyone.

Set off on the overnight train from the bedroom to the kitchen, a quick stopover in the hallway to stretch your legs, smoke a cigarette, browse the newspaper stands.

Hang on, these newspapers are at least five years old.

At the kitchen door you pick up a connection overland to the sink.

Scientists believe that noise is Radio 4 coming from somewhere in the corner, but they don’t know the origins of the local delicacies. Worm quiche. Knuckle kidney spleen.

From the kitchen, catch a ferry to the bathroom, with its ancient ruins, mouldy tiles, dead plants.

Fascinating, but a breeding ground for viruses and bacteria and infectious diseases.

Alien spores, toxic gas, you know what it’s like, we’ve all been there.

Just don’t sit awhile in the bustling centre, soak up the atmosphere, or watch the world go by.

Then it’s the long day’s journey into night, through the badlands of the so-called living room, past the burnt-out fireplace, the uninhabitable sofa, medieval coffee rings, stone age dust, all the way to the bay windows.

It’s all worth it for the views to the tenement opposite. And as a special treat, if you lean out the window and hang by your feet you’ll see a bus stop on Victoria Road just out the corner of your eye.

Diverse continent, land of contrasts, vibrant culture.

Next stop, Westmorland Street.

Cheers, lonely planet.

Ballistics will go ballistic

A 'stand here' sign on a pavement to help social distancing

So I was with my brother in Paddy Neeson’s and I might have been dreaming but I can’t really remember.

Maybe it was the Victoria, or the Café or the Hampden, there’s so many around here.

Penny Farthing, Star Bar, Bell Jar, they’re everywhere.

Heraghty’s, Rum Shack, Allison Arms, know what I mean?

Titwood, Prince Regent, the Bungo, there’s only so much you can take.

Or maybe it was somewhere that’s no longer there, like Kelly’s, Sammy Dow’s or McNee’s.

The Albert, Maxwell Arms, Pandora, remember?

Or even the Govanhill Bar, which was really in the Gorbals.

Wherever it was, we might have been there and we might have been talking that way brothers do.

Got any painkillers?

Nah.

Bastard.

I know.

I think it was my brother, but I wasn’t really sure. He was keeping his distance so I could hardly make him out, you know how it is when you’re asleep or you’re drunk.

You look like a chalk outline.

Like a dead body at a crime scene?

Aye. You’d better get the results to the lab.

The DA will be on my back.

Ballistics will go ballistic.

We both laughed and were getting up to leave when I saw a fat bluebottle throwing itself at the window again and again.

I thought these dafties had six pairs of eyes, but I went over and opened the window anyway.

Here’s your chance, big world out there, go wherever you want.

But it stayed on the inside, banging its head on the glass.

Remember, Govanhill. It might have been a dream.

Cheers.

Daddy, Haystacks, Nagasaki

A person dressed in black sitting on a couch with a hat pulled down over their face

So I was sitting at home keeping my distance, staying indoors, not going outside.

Thought I’d put on a mask, help keep me isolated from my own face and head.

Kendo Nagasaki himself would be proud.

You’d wear a mask too, if you were me. You know you would.

At least there’s no chance of me looking in the mirror now. Wouldn’t see much if I did.

I don’t trust mirrors, with their double meanings, twisted reality and sleight of hand.

There’s one in the bathroom. I don’t like the infinity of it, that something so small contains the whole world, the universe reflected in just one piece of glass.

Plus it makes me look like I have a fat belly and a tiny cock.

I remember cutting my own hair the night this photo was taken.

Didn’t even have to take off the mask, just worked round it, bowl-cut style.

Lost the end of my beard at the front and the tip of my pigtail at the back.

It was a good night, a Saturday night, and I might have been drunk but I can’t really remember.

I was taking a break from learning a language and baking a cake and practising yoga on the mantlepiece.

Alone in the kitchen, cans from the fridge, the sun was shining, even indoors.

New hip hair, haystack affair, high heels on. Wrestler’s trunks, light strappy dress, don’t need a mirror to make you do your best.

No time like the present, no place like home, it’s all we can do.

Here we fucking go, Govanhill. Cheers!

Butterfingers Biggins got fingered in Butterbiggins Road

close up of stained glass with blue abstract shapes

So Tom Cruise rang me up to say he read about the guy with the nuclear bawbag and saw great potential in the role in these uncertain times.

I was like cheers Tam, appreciate the call and that but I see him as a younger dude whose preferred methodology is not Scientology, and Tom called me an asshole and hung up the phone.

Then I was like sorry, Idris, I was on the other line but aye mate. Radioactive spunk, honestly.

It’s not the first time a Hollywood bigshot has been on the phone to Govanhill. Spielberg, Scorsese, Lulu, Krankie.

Like Noo Yoik, Hollywood stole a lot of ideas from here (including Holyrood secondary’s name).

Charlie’s Angels was based on sisters Daisy, Annette and Allison and their adventures trying to escape the polis in Govanhill in the 1970s.

All helicopters, jumpsuits, teeth and tits.

Their other sisters, Garturk and Niddrie, were in the original production of Rabbie Burns’ Broadway show, When Cinderella met Tam O’Shanter.

Even artist Jackson Pollok used to live round here, which is how the Shields, the Shaws and Pollok estate got their names.

He was a bit of a drip, apparently. Pure tramp too, always wearing paint-spattered clothes.

It’s also a probable fact that Christopher ‘Butterfingers’ Biggins got fingered in Butterbiggins Road, and that radio eejit Edith Bowman used to live in Bowman Street.

Eminent psychiatrist RD Laing really was born in Govanhill, even though Laingside stole his name.

He wrote The Divided Self.

Know the feeling, RD.

Sorry, what were we talking about again?

Aye.

Tom Cruise.

Or the Krankies.

Cheers.

Turns out I pure love you all

very blurred and put of focus picture of people in a row

Brothers are great, aren’t they? Sisters too. Parents and that.

I know I said some things before about my brothers. How it’s like listening to my own stupid self all the time, how I can’t live with them, can’t live with them.

Turns out I was only joking, lads.

Turns out I pure love you all. I love you to bits, so I do.

O brothers, where art thou? Stuck in the hoose, like everybody else.

Take care, you complete set of bastards. Stay indoors, wash your hands, stand two metres apart, and will you stop talking shite for one second and get a round in please?

Oops. Thinking about the past there, back when we were together, having a drink, down the pub.

It’s hard not to think about the past, isn’t it? It’s all we have. We know there’ll be a future – there must be – but the past is much clearer, much easier to see.

Naw, Willie O’Neill was the thirteenth Lisbon Lion no big Yogi, okay, get a grip.

Sorry, there I go again, looking back to the old days, the good old days, a happier time, a simpler time.

You can’t help it. You think back to things that are gone and wonder if you’ll ever see them again and then you think of course you will, you know you will.

Anyway, never mind all this bollocks, where’s that twenty quid you owe me? 

See? Business arse usual.

Told ye, Govanhill.

Cheerio.

This pish used to write itself

close up of a lilac flower

So I’ve been writing this blog for about a hundred years and I’ve seen a lot of changes over that time.

World wars, moon landings, vegan sausage rolls.

But not this. No one’s ever seen anything like this.

Think I might need to shake up the blog in these difficult times.

This pish used to write itself. Not any more.

I need to raise my game, improve the standard, step up to the mark.

More dramatic openings, for a start.

Once upon a time.

Woke up this morning.

It was a dark and stormy night.

Maybe some kind of cliff hanger or weighty dilemma faced by the main protagonist, ie me.

Lentils or barley, White Lightning or Eldorado, Lionel Messi or Henrik Larsson.

Larsson, obviously, but the point is I could still do with well-rounded characters, sharp dialogue and a consistent sequence of events.

Maybe I should bring in a grizzled detective, a maverick cop who doesn’t play by the rules but who gets results.

Recovering alcoholic, probably. Still in love with his ex-wife.

Make it all like a rollercoaster where you fasten your seatbelt and enjoy the ride.

So, aye. Good luck with that, me.

Anyway. Your rubbish football team, those bloody roadworks, strolling hipsters who get on your tits, none of them matter any more.

Now it’s your future, my future, the nature of love and the foundations of the universe.

So, aye. Cheers, Govanhill.