Glasgow City of Culture

I guess we have all gazed in wonder at modern art and wondered if art can be found in a pile of bricks, a heap of elephant dung, a partially dissected human body, an upside down room or paint which seems to have been thrown at a canvas. Recently I even came across an art display that was little different to displays found in estate agents windows. Selling overpriced houses must be an art form?

I can’t quite figure out whether it is the artists who are totally mad, or art galleries that pay large sums for such exhibits or the public that go to see them. Possibly the artists have figured out that the rest of the world is deranged and they can cash in.

Feeling quite mad and for a bit of merriment, I recently visited the Gallery of Modern Art in Queen Street, Glasgow (entrance is free)

The main display was something that has earned the name Bangers and Mash by a David Mach. As I went in a woman was coming out saying, "Call that art!"

I could see immediately that the exhibit had some plus points.

We are constantly told that we should recycle more rubbish and this exhibit had done just that. It had taken several burn out cars (bangers*) and filled them with folded copies of newspapers and placed them on newspapers craftily built so as to resemble mashed potatoes. The result was a saving in the amount of rubbish that had to be disposed of.

This exhibit must have taken a lot of time to build. All the newspapers had to be folded to make use of the colour scheme used in the newspapers and built to the right pattern. After a time I even began to think that I was looking at a work of art. The artist had deliberately left the interpretation open. As the newspaper publishing business that printed the newspapers is now up for sale, the words "abandon hope" comes to mind.

I guess I have answered my own question. It is the people that go to see such exhibitions that are quite mad. The truth is that everything is art and if we just look out of our windows we will see a wonderful array of it. Certainly my DIY bird table, decorative wheelbarrow and wishing-well are works of art. I’m not so sure of the tokens left on my lawn by visiting cats and dogs. Even cracked mud is apparently art for that is exactly what one of the other exhibits at the Gallery consisted of.

For further information visit:Gallery of Modern Art

* An alternative meaning for bangers is sausages.

Out to sea a full-rigged ship heels to starboard as it beats to windward. The paddle-steamer, Waverley, contemptuously steams into the wind with a column of smoke issuing skywards as it churns straight for the holiday resort of Rothsay. A steam train belches steam, smoke, and sparks as it thundered its way up the rails from Ayr to Glasgow. A gipsy caravan slowly meanders its horse-drawn way down a country lane, and trams run on the streets of Glasgow and Ayr. A bygone age and a perfect age for such are the vagrancies of the mind, or the stories handed down. Trains used to run on time - or at least we like to think so. Glasgow Transport Museum helps us to relive those times.

On entering there is a confusion of classic cars, modern cars, sports cars, buses, trams, steam trains, chain driven underground trains, diesel trains, old bicycles, model boats, trucks, gypsy caravans, horse-drawn carriages, steam-driven cars, and steam engines. Fortunately, Friends of Glasgow Museums volunteer guided tours to explain the displays.

The business of getting from A to B has occupied many minds, several of them Glaswegian. James Watt quadrupled the power of steam engines by adding an external condenser. Glasgow on the River Clyde, a major shipbuilder, produced ocean liners such as the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and QE2. Any city producing steamships could produce steam trains, and Glasgow produced both. This museum in Glasgow is apt.

In the Clyde Room resides the biggest collection of Clyde built ship models in the world. Tucked away upstairs on the opposite side from the Café, they are a bit hard to find. Once you pass the history of bicycles and motorbikes you will find the room. Once there you should also examine the old photographs and artifacts related to the art of building big ships on the Clyde displayed along the right-hand wall as you enter. The scale of the industry was vast.

There's a creation of a 'simulated' street and underground station Glasgow scene from 1938 which visitors can explore. Other displays show developing the car wasn’t entirely an advantage, for it produced different forms of crime; faster transportation led to major disasters.

From the babble it seemed that both young and old enjoyed themselves. Seeing a steam train for the first time must be similar to examining a dinosaur - huge and extinct (well, almost). The retired were reminiscing and spinning stories of trains running on time. The dreamers seeing themselves riding the rails behind a belching steam locomotive or whizzing around the track in a red racing car with an enormous bonnet sticking out in front and the twin exhausts crackling behind, or sedately seated on a gipsy caravan as the horse plods its weary way down the country lane. Dreams or fodder for the inquiring mind, there is something for everybody at Glasgow Transport Museum.

The David Livingstone Centre near Glasgow tells the heroic story of his life from his earliest days to his funeral in Westminster Abbey. Besides having papers, photographs and artefacts belonging to the explorer, the Centre has created visual presentations of his life.

David Livingston born in Blantyre in 1813 became famous as a Missionary, explorer and abolitionist. Born into poverty he left school at the age of 10 to work in the cotton mill to earn money for the family. The seven family members lived in a single room in a tenement they shared with 23 other families in Shuttle Row. This tenement now forms the core of the David Livingstone Centre. Outwardly it resembles a grand mansion; inside offers a truer impression.

Despite the early end to his formal education, Livingstone's questioning mind and dedication ensured that he educated himself to a standard, which allowed entry to Glasgow University. There he studied medicine and theology to become a missionary doctor.

At age 25, Livingstone journeyed to Africa with his wife Mary. In the next 10 years he offered instruction and opened a string of stations. He also made some of the most amazing and dangerous explorations of the 19th century by exploring areas never before seen by Europeans. He used the Zambezi river as a way of moving across the continent and when he saw the might falls on that river named by natives "the smoke that thunders" he named them after Queen Victoria.

The river was also a highway for the slave trade. Livingston fought against it hoped to replace the slave economy with a capitalist one: buying and selling goods instead of people. The Livingstone Centre displays the shackles, chains and yokes used to control the slaves.

It was during this expedition that a lion attacked him. It is the subject of a sculpture outside the Centre. He was "shaken as a terrier does a rat." Its jaws broke the explorer's arm in two places. A cast of the arm bones in the Livingstone Centre shows the fractures clearly. In this period he also suffered the tragedy of his wife’s death after given birth to their sixth child.

In 1866 he set out to find the source of the Nile. After three years out of contact with his sponsors, The Royal Geographical Society, a young ambitious American journalist on the New York Herald, Henry Morton Stanley, set out to find him. They met in November 1870 in what is present-day Tanzania. Stanley's first words, when approaching the only other white man in this part of Africa, were the legendary "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

Livingstone continued to explore central Africa but now aged 60 and suffering from tropical illnesses he died on May 1, 1873 in what is now Zambia. His loyal African servants carried his embalmed body back to the coast and eventually to England.

He lies buried in Westminster Abbey though his heart remains in Africa buried at the foot of a mulva tree. The Livingstone Centre has a wonderful carving (made from Scots oak) representing that final journey and a copy of the Westminster Abbey tombstone.

His tombstone summarises his life: "Brought by faithful hands over land and sea, David Livingstone: missionary, traveller, philanthropist. For 30 years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize the native races, to explore the undiscovered secrets, and to abolish the slave trade." Readers at the time avidly followed these exploits through his journals

The museum contains areas devoted to different areas of this complex man's life. These feature a full-size loom, with a model of Livingstone working at it. Also an art gallery, social history exhibition, children's animated display, gift shop and tearoom, Jungle Garden, African playground and riverside walks.

To the East of George Square lies the 'powerhouse’ of Glasgow - the City Chambers, home to the City Council. This is one of the most impressive public buildings in the UK.

Buildings began to appear in George Square in1781. Eventually it became the centre of a bustling city, which prospered in the industrial revolution by trading in fabrics, tobacco and shipbuilding. The Square is still the heart of the city, both geographically and spiritually.

Here the City Chambers decided to build their new civic building. In 1883, William Young from nearby Paisley won the design competition and, received £150,000, a large sum in those days, initially to build the new City Chambers. However the final bill came to nearer £600,000! Just five years later in 1888, Queen Victoria performed the opening ceremony in front of 600,000 people.

Although the frontage of the building looks impressive the interior is sheer opulence. To see it get on a guided tour. These free tours, take place at 1030 and 1430 through the week and last about 45 minutes. They receive little publicity but 25 people were in the group with me.

Architect Young had visited the historical arch of Constantine in Rome and the entrance reflects this. The reception area sets an atmosphere demanding hushed respect through the stunning use of mosaics and marbles. Marble appears not only in the City's Coat of Arms on the entrance floor but throughout the building, reminiscent of grand Venetian palaces. The pillars are, from the base, grey Aberdeen granite, hand polished red Scottish granite topped with dark-green marble in Ionic style.

The marble staircases lead on to beautiful rooms with ornate Wedgewood ceilings and hardwood panelling.

The dignified Council Chamber has panelled walls of Spanish hardwood. Each of 79 councillors has a reserved seat facing a platform where the Lord Provost, Depute Lord Provost and Chief Executive sit behind the mace. The Chamber has a quirky design. Small areas known as 'Bed Recesses' provide Council officials with sitting space though it suggests something else!

Next to the Council Chamber is the Satinwood Salon used as the ‘municipal drawing room’. Finished with Australian satinwood it boasts an alabaster fireplace. The paintings on the walls are from the city’s art collection. Adjoining this room is the Octagonal Room, decorated in amber wood it acts as an overflow room to the Satinwood and Mahogany salons. This latter room owes its dark colour to its Cuban mahogany and walnut panels.


The Upper Gallery on the third floor offers a close view of the beautiful dome visible from the other floors. Also on view here are the portraits of all the previous Lord Provosts of the City of Glasgow.

Without doubt however, the arched Banqueting Hall is the 'Jewel in the Crown', a magnificent cornucopia of colour and grandeur with acoustics that Opera singers would die for. Here Nelson Mandela to name but one, received the Freedom of the City. Much of the decorations on the walls are in the form of huge murals depicting some of the history of the city. The central window of leaded Venetian glass on the north side commemorates Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

Only a visit to the City Chambers can do justice to this building, as words cannot begin to explain the design and colour nuances and the sense of history that awaits the visitor at every turn.

Glasgow’s newest attraction is the Glasgow Science Centre. Designed to fire the imagination and get your creative juices flowing, it was just what my wife and I needed after Christmas, and we promptly drove the 35 miles to Glasgow.

The New Science Centre is on the banks of the Clyde River, across from the Exhibition Centre, which is also rather eye-catching since it's shaped like an armadillo; a footbridge connects the two. The GSC cost about $113 million and is an architectural marvel, being only the second building in the world to be clad in titanium--this alone makes the GSC stand out. Even so, what truly makes the GSC unique is its viewing tower, which is the largest freestanding structure in Scotland, and the rotational device that makes the building turn 360 degrees.

The GSC combines three buildings: the main Science Mall, the Tower, and an IMAX theatre.

Once inside, the reception hall proved inadequate; the queue at the cash desk had to be fought through to get from one building to another. Developers should have used a bit of science--applied queuing theory, perhaps--to deal with the problem.

For the equivalent of $14.25 we gained entry to the IMAX and the Science Mall.

A 3D film was about to start so we headed for the IMAX theatre, housed in a building shaped like a large ball, with the largest cinema screen in Scotland--it measured a whopping 80 by 60 feet and appeared to be curved. IMAX offers a selection of educational and scientific films; the one we saw was about the ascent of Everest by the son of the Sherpa, Norgay Tenzing, that first conquered the mountain with Sir Edmund Hillary. The 3D effect was more dramatic than real life: to have an avalanche hurtling straight at you from the giant screen with realistic sound effects and trembling seats, was certainly scary--the only things missing were extreme cold and wind! The drama was heightened by a group of climbers being caught out by a gale as they tackled the final ascent. Several deaths occurred and one climber, as he lay dying, spoke to his wife by mobile phone and discussed the name of their as-yet unborn child. It was real tear-jerking stuff. The IMAX by itself is worth a visit.

Following the film we had something to eat at the snack bar in the tower, though the tower itself had suffered some technical problems and was closed. You're supposed to be able to ascend to the top and take in a panoramic view of Glasgow and outer surroundings.

We finished by visiting the Science Mall, which has three main floors: Explore, Discover, Experiment, and Enjoy; Science in Action; and Science and You. There is genuinely something there for everyone--whatever your age, you won't be bored. Most of the displays are interactive and good childish fun. We visited two Science Shows where the adults in the audience participated to a greater extent than the kids. The first was about rockets, and demonstrated various devices from a balloon rocket--which proved too successful, as it disappeared above the ceiling--to objects propelled by exploding gas. The other show was about electricity, which certainly taught me a few things I didn’t know. It was all good fun. The demonstrator, who I suspect was from one of the nearby universities, was a good entertainer.

There are over 300 exhibits including ones that did 3D headscans and allowed you to rearrange your features; star in your own digital video; see a glass get smashed by sound; and experience a million volts of indoor lightening. There was enough to keep everybody entertained, but family with children would have gotten the most out of it.

The place is well worth a visit and good value, considering it’s a full day's entertainment. For further information visit: Glasgow Science Centre