The Hidden Glasgow Forums

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Tarkyhitch/Sicily/Forza3_zps96fba6e6.jpg “Any family who hides the boy Vito,” yells a man with a shotgun standing on the church steps “will regret it!” Dawn is breaking in the frightened village. Meanwhile, the hunted child makes his getaway under the noses of...

The puffin picture is superb, what's the story of its creation?

Spent a Saturday night in Kirkwall a few years ago. The entire population seemed to be falling down drunk in the street from about half six on, scary stuff.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Tarkyhitch/Sicily/15TempleofApollo_zps4db7a02f.jpg Temple of Apollo, Siracusa Siracusa is a small city of two halves. You arrive by travelling through the “modern” section, ironically where the powerful democratic city of Syracuse once stood, victor over the C...

The elephant fountain Toby- pastiche of the Bernini? I'd have said so, but apparently the basalt elephant was a "found" object of uncertain age transformed into the fountain by Giovanni Battista Vaccarini in the 18th century (he also added the eyes and tusks). The pylon on top of it while...

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Tarkyhitch/Sicily/PilboxCataniaCentrale_zpsfb61f288.jpg Pilbox, Catania Centrale I’d been in the footsteps of arch political chancer Alcibiades before, last year in Istanbul, known to him as the city of Byzantium. Now here I was stuck in Catania for four hours...

Here's a few scans of the Tait Building from my copy of the book Lost Buildings, by Jonathan Glancey. "Here was a glimpse into the future" he writes. http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Tarkyhitch/tait3_zps972eaf44.jpg http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Tarkyhitch/tait2_zps663aae54....

A tiny child towers above the visitors high on a shelf. She stands bolt upright in a position impossible to attain in life as her body never had time to grow. A little bonnet crowns her blackened, doll like face and she points a (missing) finger at us in an almost accusatory fashion. Another brown f...

is that a half-demolished Nazi eagle hanging around there? It is a puzzle. Artist Uwe Jaentsch used the piazza for a number of years for installation projects (hence the large "Uwe love's you" message which still dominates the old bank building). He is Austrian so it may be something he d...

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Tarkyhitch/PiazzaGarraffello_zps11a5a1d4.jpg Piazza Garraffello is a small square in Palermo surrounded by what can only be described as magnificent ruins and crumbling tenements. http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Tarkyhitch/PiazzaGarraffello1_zps5e69efe0...

Great to see the beast, but why was it made in the first place?

Some of my own London attractions are here in my first Blurb book:

http://www.blurb.co.uk/my/book/detail/4071499-366

The ideal Christmas gift, and so on.

The plot thickens, I had plenty of time to return to the Castlemilk History Facebook page again today and spotted there was another sculpture originally right next to Falstaff, and it was of a sheep! http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Tarkyhitch/CastlemilkHousewiththeStoneCastlemilkBreedofSheepa...

I was so intrigued by the notion of a turtle statue (and why on earth one would have been made) that I did a quick bit of research into it. It seems a statue of the rotund Shakespeare hero Sir John Falstaff "was originally situated in the grounds of Castlemilk House near Cathkin". http://i...

banjo wrote:ah,ll no bother ye about rothesay then.

I always preferred Millport m'self.

It’s the city where strangely the stray cats beg like dogs at the outdoors restaurant tables, and Topkapi Palace, all the guidebooks agree, is a must see part of Istanbul. I found it vastly overcrowded, full of third rate architecture, the busiest parts of which house some of the most ghastly geegaw...