Scotch Tat

IF THERE WAS ONE THING THAT DIVIDED GLASGOW FROM EDINBURGH IT WAS TOURIST TAT.

But now it seems to be changing; I have seen tourist tat increasingly in Glasgow shops.  Please click on the picture to enlarge.

The doll girls in tartan skirts, the mugs and teatowels with Edinburgh castle or The Forth Rail Bridge is all very well in auld Reekie — but surly not in Glasgow!

Things are getting worse when  such tat can be in  open display in Glasgow.  How awful!

Danger Pond!

A PLEASANT STROLL AROUND THE PONDS OF QUEEN’S PARK SEEMED LIKE A DELIGHTFUL IDEA UNTIL THIS SCARY SIGN WAS NOTICED.

[Double left click on the image to enlarge, as always]

The picture I took shows a pond with a sign sticking out of it.  The sign simply says:

“DANGER
BLUE
GREEN
ALGAE”

What on earth does that mean?  Will this Blue Green Algae rise up from the depths and grab us by the ankles to drag us off to the deep?

Perhaps it just means we have a slip hazard — that blue green algae is slippery. Thing is, I could not see anything slippery on the paths.

What the devil is Blue Green Algae? Is it a dust? a liquid?  A winged serpent? What ought I be looking out for?  Will it fall from the trees? will it run after us? Is it blue or green — or blue-green — or do they mean it is both blue and green (that both the blue and the green varieties are dangerous)?

Yes, things are getting worse when signs strike fear into English-speaking passers-by.

No Parking Reason

THE SIGN IS PLAIN; IT STATES “NO PARKING” AND “24 HOUR ACCESS”.

The sign uses a nice clear font, black lettering on white, and a good size too — able to be read from the car — no need to park and get out to read this sign!

It contains all the relevant information — no threats of clamping, towing away or a fine.  It is quite to the point and succinct — until you spot the tiny yellow warning triangle at the top right corner.

Know, you do have to park, get out and go up to see what this is about.

How bizarre is that?  The warning triangle has a drawing of a running child, a trike and a ball along with a garage door that seems to be opening and closing at the same time.

As far as I am aware, this is not in the “Highway Code”, so someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to think up this sign and use it in this strange manner.

It may be that the sign maker had a sudden panic; what if non-English speakers wanted to park their car, the sign would not be understood!  This warning triangle seems like an after-thought. It is not a proper size to be seen from a short distance!

Oddly, there is a no-parking sign in the “Highway Code”, which begs the question — why didn’t they just use that instead?

Clearly, they wanted to provide reasons, using illustration.  However, this child and his toys do not really explain the requirement for 24 hour access!

Things are getting worse when we invent road signs that cannot be easily seen nor understood.

Council Cleaning Con

THE CITY COUNCIL ALWAYS AMAZES ME BY THEIR SHIRKING OF RESPONSIBILITY.

Take this poster for example.  Double left click on the image to enlarge.

This is a poster in a charity chop window on Kilmarnock Rd (which is the main street in Shawlands). It is about so-called “Community cleaning of a lane”.

Yes, it is advertising the fact that the council wants local residents to clean their own streets and lane.  Hey, isn’t that what we pay council tax for?

Things are getting worse when the council can take council tax from us, and then get us to do the work ourselves! How Bizarre!

UFO Parking Bay

I SAW A VERY STRANGE THING IN THE CAR PARK OF THE ASDA SUPERMARKET IN GOVAN LAST NIGHT.

Normally (in my personal experience), supermarket car parks contain car parking bays and places for stacking up shopping carts.

Determining the one from the other is fairly straightforward; the bays for the carts have a trolley or two and rails at the sides to demarcate the region and to prevent damage to cars parked in the bays each side.

However, if you double left click on the image, you will see that this is a zone that is completely enclosed!  A trolley could not be wheeled in, and a car, pram or bike cannot be parked there — so this begs the question: what is this all about?

Things are getting worse when valuable parking space is wasted for no apparent reason. How bizarre! The only answer we can come up with is for UFOs.

Guttered

THE COUNCIL ARE SPENDING MILLIONS INSULATING COUNCIL HOUSES.

The trouble is that they are not doing a very good job where the council property meets a privately owned property as shown in the picture to the right.

As ever, double left click on pictures to enlarge.

The above picture shows that it is not confined to new meeting old — even when dealing with a new-new interface, they have screwed this up! What you are looking at are two examples of stupidity.  The rainwater gutter could have been trimmed shorter to allow a full and proper rendering, but instead, the full original length was allowed to remain unchanged, and the insulation and new rendering cut around it!

This is completely unbelievable, it creates a heat bridge and one of the most likely sources of damp in a building I have ever seen. Things are certainly getting worse!

Brand & Ross

I WAS SURPRISED TO SEE A SIGN ON THE PAISLEY ROAD WEST IN GLASGOW.

It was about a property for let.  I couldn’t help but be struck by the name of the letting agency — Brand & Ross!

Could it be that the dynamic duo have abandoned cutting edge broadcasting in favour of a career in property management?  Things must be getting worse!

GP Scared of Swine Flu

I WAS SURPRISED TO COME ACROSS THIS NOTICE IN THE WINDOW OF THE MAIN GP SURGERY IN SHAWLANDS.

Double click on the picture to enlarge.

However, in case you cannot see the image properly, it states:

“SWINE FLU

IF YOU THINK YOU
MAY HAVE THE SWINE
FLU PLEASE DO NOT
COME INTO THE
SURGERY. GO HOME
AND CALL US AND WE
WILL ASK A GP OR
NURSE TO CALL YOU BACK.”

Boy is this GP scared of swine flu — he or she is not taking any chances — in case “the swine flu” (sic) can be transmitted by telephone, a nurse may call you.

Things are getting worse when a medical diagnosis is done over the telephone, and even worse when it may be done by a nurse!

• If you’re getting worse, you’re getting nurse. (apologies; I couldn’t resist that bad joke).

Now, the television and wireless have been keeping me bang up to date on the swine flu topic, and I have to say that I have been confident and reassured as a result.  That is until now.

When I saw this notice on the main road in Shawlands, I began to get scared for the first time. Things must be getting worse when the doctors are so frightened by it!

Alco-pups

ONE HAS TO WONDER WHY ANYONE WOULD WANT TO GIVE BEER TO A DOG.

It is bad enough that dog-owners can take a drink, without their dogs getting legless.

While browsing a local shop, I did a “double-take” on the dog beer section, and just had to snap a picture with my trusty camera phone. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Things are certainly getting worse when shops can sell dog beer.  I just hope that they don’t sell them to puppies — and I sincerely hope that the older dogs can be trusted not to buy beer for the young dogs tied up outside.

Bet it tastes rough!

Report Anything Suspicious

SUSPICIOUS IS A FUNNY WORD, ISN’T IT?
I saw this sign in the Glasgow underground today — it states:

Outer Circle 1 min
Report Anything Suspicious

Now, the first thing I noticed was that something had been stuck — deliberately — to this sign.  Perhaps this was an attempt to obscure some important information?  Look closely at the picture — double click to enlarge for a better view — doesn’t that look suspicious?

It doesn’t say who to report to.  It doesn’t say how to make a report. It doesn’t say what might be described as “suspicious”.

I had a suspicion a train was coming – - ought I to report this fact to someone? I started to get worried, what was suspicious? Should I suspect people of being illegal immigrants?  of being closet homosexuals? Perhaps I ought to report that chap for looking “shifty” — that’s suspicious, isn’t it?

Things are definitely getting worse on the tube these days! In the end I reported the sign. “Outer Circles” are pretty suspicious, don’t you think?  A bit like crop circles maybe? Who knows!