Lights in the West

There was a safari through to the'That Dear Green Place' in the west today to meet a friend from my pram pushing days in Glasgow and sandcastle building holidays on the chilly wind blown beaches of St Andrews.

We haven't met for about fifteen years, so there was much catching up to be done in the comfortable surroundings of the Glasgow Concert halls with the Celtic Connections children's concert taking place almost within earshot.

His Lordship kindly accompanied me through in the train as 'my right arm man' so to speak, but evaded womanly chat by taking himself off to the library in the Modern Art gallery.

Glasgow is a metropolis of many faces, but today she put on a magnificent display in the sunshine, when the architecture of the buildings in the city centre showed to best advantage.
The sun sparkled on the long reach of Buchanan Street, with clear views to the Cathkin Braes on the southern horizon and the stately City Chambers in George Square was silhouetted behind the Christmas ferris wheel. The Christmas decorations will no doubt come down soon!

As we passed the elevated statue of Donald Dewar, glasses intact, the instigator of today's Scottish Parliament, we both wondered simultaneously whether with his ill chosen networking and design of the Parliament building at Holyrood, we had quite the same respect for him as before.
As his Lordship rather unkindly remarked- ' Does he look as though he has an aesthetic sense'? Clever yes, academic yes, bookish yes, but artistic? Perhaps not.

My blip is of the installation artwork, comprising a column of light shades, in the entrance hall of the Modern Art Gallery