Tuesday 28 September 2021

WEEK 79 CORONAVIRUS: A TRIP TO THE GLASGOW SMWS

Another week of pandemic statistics remaining much the same, i.e. infection rate continues to be moderate.... not high but not low either.   

While the news this past week has mainly been about petrol shortage, not due to lack of fuel but because of lack of hauliers.  Yes, supermarkets and shops have been empty in patches but the fuel delivery problem has been driven by the Brexit consequence of European drives heading back to their own country.

Or at least that is what the media are saying.  (I wrote about this a few months ago when I chatted to a haulier who said that drivers were simply skiving off.)  Like so much of what I notice these days, things are not what they seem, i.e. the reasons are to do with pandemic and/or Brexit or none of these. 

That being said, I attended a concert at Douglas Academy last Friday night. Youngsters were playing in their orchestra... a real tonic as we head out of lockdown and into winter!

On Saturday I headed into the city centre to attend to something I had planned to do just before lockdown in 2019. The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (of which I am a member) has now opened a club room in Glasgow.  I made a noble effort to find it.


It has to be one of the best kept secrets in Glasgow.  Why?

It is exactly one and one quarter blocks due west of Donald Dewar's statue which stands at the top of Buchanan Street.  It couldn't be more central! 

I had a great visit, ate  lunch of a venison burger and bought Pips Hills' book about the setting up of the SMWS some 40 years ago.  Iain and I know about this as we were friends with one of the founders... more on that anon.

Their selection of whiskies is absolutely huge!  I came away with one bottle picked more or less at random.

However... a funny thing happened on my way to the SMWS....


While walking along the street looking for the SMWS (I was walking from West to East) I was peering at the numbers on the doorways looking for No. 38.  In the block before No 38 I came upon this doorway: No 106.  It wasn't the number that took my notice so much as the chap standing on the doorstep in his white hairdresser's at-work coat wearing his pandemic mask.  He was obviously having a break enjoying the sunlight at mid-day. 

I thought to myself  "I recognise that handsome head of blond (going white) hair!" and double-checked by looking up at the sign above his head. I pointed to the sign and then to him; he laughed!  Never being one to be backward about coming forward I spoke up, "You cut my hair some 40 years ago!"  He's still going strong - a legend in his own lunchtime!  And like my current hairdresser at Bearsden Cross, he just loves his job!  "It's all about the people."  


 

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