Edinburgh to Glasgow

Julie and I went through to Edinburgh on Thursday to hear Simon Armitage giving a talk. It was very interesting, but the Poetry Library, where it was held, reminded me rather too forcibly of the bits I liked least about Cambridge and by the end I had to be led away gibbering to drink some coffee. Fortunately I was so overwhelmed with Edinburghness I couldn't think of anything at all to say to Simon Armitage and so was saved from saying something completely lunatic...


Julie drinking coffee in Starbucks (we have no shame). Hopped up on caffeine we tried to recite The Lady of Shallot and wondered if we went and did this out on the Royal Mile we could become a Fringe show of "Badly Remembered Poetry".

Ferocious beastie and warning notice in a school playground.



A couple of inscriptions on the walls of the Parliament building.



Look carefully: it's a highland cow.

Bear.

Notice on the Underground on the way home. I suspect this is the city's new motto to encourage folk to take more exercise...

Bike park at Govan.

Reflections

Clyde View

Sculpture in Clyde View Park looking over towards the BAE Systems yard in Yoker.


Seagull taking off.


Patriotic balcony.


Car reflections.


Shopping trolley grazing peacefully in a field of buttercups.

Faces

More slightly deranged self-portraits (I'm always there, ready to co-operate with odd experiments at odd times of the day...) Anyway, I've been fiddling around with Lightroom:


Adventures in split-toning.


The "high contrast black and white" setting gives a kind of weird effect.

And one of Jamie, who'd very kindly dashed in en route to Ayr to save the computer from the results of two weeks without a firewall (don't ask). I was very pleased to have a new victim model for the photos (click to get a version you can actually see - Blogger's sizing policy for portrait-aligned photos is odd).

Digging it

Michael planting the new smoke tree...

Claire in a G-string

It snapped. Damn.

Chooky Wellington

My photo from last summer of the Duke of Wellington (unfortunately without his cone) has been included in this year's Schmap guide to Glasgow! It's number 4 of the 16 sights they've got for the Merchant City, or click on the wee marker just to the right of Princes Square...