West End Wanderings

Chairs at Botanic Gardens

All Rights Reserved


Ruthven Lane, behind Byres Road

All Rights Reserved

Monday Peekture Slot

Bit of a wood theme today....






Took these today whilst strolling along Loch Lomond side


This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Faster than the speed of.........Dust ?!?

In this hurly burly world that we live in it seems that even the most mundane of things cant even escape the fast pace that we demand in our lives.

I was in town today and while walking through a department store I spotted the very latest in home appliances guaranteed to get the most out of our hectic work-life balance.......the "Rapid start" vacuum cleaner.

Now I pondered this for a while and tried to figure out exactly how fast does dust actually move that would require somebody to need a rapid starting vacuum cleaner in the first place. In fact what sad git would actually buy one under the delusion that if they don't get to the dust quickly enough it might run off.

Sorry, but since when did dust lead a nomadic existence? I thought the sole purpose of dust was in fact to GATHER in one place and remain there.

Gordo's Grab A Grand...or...2...or...3...or...4.......

Oops Gordo....... while driving down public sector spending you appear to have increased spending on your own "expenses" to the tune of nearly £4500 compared to 2003/04, in fact you've increased your spending by over 30%.

Maybe the increase is to cover the cost of your new flat screen plasma TV you've had installed in No.10?

While you're watching it why don't you speak to your old pal Tony to see if he can wangle you a T.V. licence on the fly.

I'm sure that if you introduce a tax on the use furry slippers for anyone aged over 75 you might even be able to offset the cost of that holiday, sorry, official overseas visit.

Wheely bad for your health

Plodding my way through Paddington station today and I think I've discovered a cunning conspiracy between the makers of sticky plasters, shoe scuff polish and the people that make rollerskate wheels.

Because no matter where I end up having to avoid hundreds of bloody mobile trip wires in the shape of the deadly and wayward wheeled suitcase.

Does anyone ever actually CARRY a suitcase or bag anymore because whenever I'm travelling anywhere these days all I ever do is end up having my shoes run over or being tripped up by the damn things.

They're the modern day, peace-time equivalent of a Vietcong booby trap, just waiting for some poor unsuspecting soul to walk across their deadly multi-coloured, multi-sized path and ensnare them in their weaving, wibbly-wobbly trail of disaster and destruction.






A Vietcong soldier laying the deadly Samsonite suitcase

Ding.......Dong.......

How many Swedish tourists do you think come to London to see Big Ben and leave disappointed after finding out it's a clock bell and not a Cockney porn star?

A London phallus.


Palace Of Westminster

And another piccy slot

Granite Steps - Woodlands Crescent (and kitty)



Scientology protest - Buchanan Street

Time for another picture slot

Traditional fronted chemist shop, Glasgow

All Rights Reserved

The only way is up - or possibly down

People often ask "Hey Alan, why are you so fab and groovy?", obviously not to me personally but I'm sure to various people named Alan who don't look anything like me and frequent trendy, fab and groovy places.

What they do ask however is "Hey Alan, why are you always going up mountains, munros, corbetts, hills and anything else of an upwardly inclined persuasion?" (Or downwardly inclined if you happen to be a mountain goat, although having never been asked the question by a mountain goat I am unable to confirm if they would be in the least bit interested in by direction of vertical travel.

Having spent a considerable amount of time pondering this question, or at least the length of time it takes to realise that Alistair Darling is a bit of a tosser who probably thought that Northern Rock was a confectionery factory in Blackpool (although rather ironically in the same sticky situation), I have came up with the answer......

To cut out the middle men.

You see I occasionally attempt to play golf and just spend all day climbing hills searching for the golf ball. I sometimes go ten-pin bowling and invariably spend most of my time walking back to my seat pissed off having managed to be shown up by the annoying teenagers in the other lane. I sometimes play badminton and spend all my time running around, falling and missing the shuttlecock. I sometimes go swimming and spend all day climbing the stairs to the top of the flumes so I can wreck my trunks on the way down.

So I figure why not just cut out the searching, getting pissed off, falling or wrecking trunks parts and just go straight to the climbing and walking bit. Plus you can't have a flask of soup and a sandwich in a swimming pool, you cant go for a pee behind the badminton net when you're caught short, you cant take muddy boots into the golf club bar and you can always trip up any annoying teenagers and blame their fall on the rough terrain.

The four "F's" of the apocalypse

After a particularly crappy day in the office I have deduced in true Dan Brown style, far fetched tenuous and implausible, that the four horsemen of the apocalypse already ride among us...but not on horses.

What academics and theologians have overlooked is that the horses are actually a metaphor for things that do great dollops of shit or to be more precise cause shit to happen.

The word "four" is both a numeric symbol and a mispronunciation of the Latin fūtuere which over the years became foutre and eventually the double meaning "Four".

"Four" also has hidden symbology and signifies the four F's of modern man.....

And behold the four things that are the deliverer of all evil f...ing shit:

1. Fones
2. Faxes
3. Fotocopiers
4. F...ing Computers

My next novel, entitled the Xerox Code, will follow a deranged communications manager in his quest to uncover the secrets within an ancient photocopier manual and the location of the long lost paper jam that it protects.

Waiting for a bus?

There's a guy in Glasgow who can often be spotted sitting on a camping stool in the middle of a traffic island on Jamaica Street with a shopping trolley staring straight up the middle of the road.

Now, the first time I saw this guy I thought that he was so unfit that he literally had to carry a seat in order to punctuate his shopping journeys with little pit-stops wherever it took his fancy. I watched him for a bit to see if he was okay then noticed that he was sipping out of a thermos flask and waving at the buses in quite a jolly manner and so, with a brief inner monologue something along the lines of ....."hmmmm", I buggered off back to work.

But a few days later there he was again his arse planted down on a camping stool, shopping trolley beside him and giving the thumbs up to every bus that passed him.

"Could this be the ultimate in door to door bus services" I thought to myself, "do your shopping, pop yourself down wherever you fancy and flag a passing bus to take you home" but decided after careful consideration and half a packet of Monster Munch .........nah.

So I stood and watched him for a while longer and realised he wasn't just parking his bum down in any old place just for the sake of it, he was actually taking photos of the damn buses that went past!!!

Now there are quite a few things that are universally considered to be sad including train spotting and collecting air sickness bags but .........BUS SPOTTING !....... C'moan, that's just wrong.

How many variations of the Auchenshugle bus can there be for crying out loud ?

I can only image the thoughts going through his head "Oh look, there's one with four wheels".........."Oh.... oh, there's another, wow two in the same day, I can't believe my luck".

Surely rather than spot buses a more worthwhile pastime would be shopping trolley spotting, that way you could combine your hobby and your weekly messages into one and think of the variations you could come across:

• Choice of supermarket brand
• With or without child seat
• Wee/medium/big trolley
• With or without shoogley wheels
• In the canal/skip/back-garden

Just as many options as your average bus and with all of the associated saddo stigma.

Why you should never buy anything from Curry's.

Ask any computer or hi-fi geek (I include myself here) and they will tell you to never ever buy anything from DSG which owns amongst others Curry's and PCWorld.

Why, I hear your ask...because they really haven't a clue about anything they sell other than what's on that wee card sitting in front of the product.

Case in point, today I was shopping around for a new flat screen TV and being the expert haggler decided to nip into the above mention den of ignorance to negotiate a deal.

The ensuing conversation twixt the salesperson and I went something along the lines of......

Me, "Hi, I'm looking for a 26 inch flat screen TV for my bedroom, what deals can you give me"
Salesperson "Well, we have this 32 inch model for £599"

Me, "Ah..., that would be excellent if it were 6 inches smaller"
Salesperson "So you're looking for a 20 inch model?"

At that point I decided, before he pointed me in the direction of a Dyson, to take my leave.

[Note from author - The above scene happened in Curry's, Argyle Street, Glasgow.....don't say you weren't warned now]

Arguing with the sat-nav

You know you're having a bad day when you start arguing with the sat-nav. I even went an alternative way just to prove the smug git wrong.

Next week I intend to argue with a toaster, why should it be allowed to decide 3 is medium and 5 is burned.

Churches and The Omen

Ever noticed that even though churches are a place of refuge and safety from all manner of evil the churches themselves quite often take on an eerie and foreboding manifestation when pictured in black and white. Even the most innocent of trees that grow in the church grounds seem to transform into tentacled and twisted specters.

Or has that scene in the Omen where Father Brennan gets speared got a lot to do with my train of thought ?


St Margarets Church, Knightswood

How to build a bridge

To the makers of the infamous Squinty Bridge in Glasgow which is currently having to undergo major structural repairs after only being open for about 18 months.

Just have a look at the other bridges in Glasgow such as the South Portland Street Suspension Bridge, which I took a stroll over today and grabbed a few snaps of, which has been open since 1853 and at least lasted until 1870 before needing repairs after which it has been pretty much tickety boo ever since.

Neds - A positive note

A surprisingly positive side effect of your nedicus commonus or greater chequered chav is their rather curious need, no matter what the weather is, to completely cover their faces with their mating plumage a.k.a. the Burberry scarf.

Now whilst many might see the covering of the face as being rather sinister it does have the rather splendid spin-off that nobody has to contaminate their eyes by catching sight of the glakit heid the baw underneath said scarf.

Aw right ya bawbag