fourth edition

Wall behind the Hunterian Art Gallery and most likely part of the Glasgow University Campus
I have a real weakness for old bricks. They come in all sorts of colours depending upon where they were made; they can be handmade or marked with the manufacturer’s insignia; and they tell stories. We have too many brick photos [...]

Yesterday I found a new favourite place in Glasgow. Walking into Tam Shepard’s Trick Shop is like walking into another world, another era. The shop could have been straight out of the 1930s – except for the Obama masks and the nu-rave-esque wigs. It is a place where the owner will start a Victor Borge [...]

Ooooh, nice location and a suitable size! I also like that it hasn’t been refurbished beyond recognition (I have a particular bone to pick with developers putting Poggenpohl-knock-off kitchens into Victorian properties).  Shame about the price, of course.
A few months ago David and I went to see the Swedish vampire film, Let the Right One [...]

The Jewish Quarter, Kraków, Poland, March 2009

Dear everybody,
I am typing this entry in the lobby of our Art Deco hotel in my bare feet. It has been raining all day and, just as I moved to Scotland without an umbrella and still do not own a pair of wellies, I cheerfully wore my comfy (not rainproof) sneakers to rainy Krakow. I [...]

It is times like these that I wished I smoked. Tough decisions to make and it is (unsurprisingly) tough to make them. I knit to relax and (again, unsurprisingly) I have finished a hat within two days.
So, let’s distract myself with interesting links. It usually works..
+ Unusual Architecture does what it says on the tin. [...]

Oh, my Glasgow. She is pretty even if we do not see the sun all that often and it rains a great deal. She is pretty.
We went into town today, to the Lighthouse (not as in Virginia Woolf, but as in The Lighthouse, the Scottish centre for architecture, design and urbanity).
Other Half wanted to [...]

Being of a fairly decadent, yet thrifty, disposition, we are going on a short holiday in March. Thrifty? We are going to Krakow in southern Poland – a city which is supposedly gorgeous, very Old Europe and still affordable. Decadent? We are going to stay in an art deco hotel for the duration of our [...]

Two links:
Abandoned Russian Lighthouses – a series of crumbling structures in beautiful natural surroundings. Add a healthy dollop of poverty and tragedy:
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the unattended automatic lighthouses did [the] job for some time, but after some time they collapsed too. Mostly as a result of the hunt for the [...]

I may be in the throes of female hormones, so here are some calming links.
+ Smugopedia: “Smugopedia is a collection of slightly controversial opinions about a variety of subjects. We offer you the chance to buy a fleeting sense of self-satisfaction at the small cost of alienating your friends and loved ones.”
+ It’s Not You, [...]