I spend the day with friends in Glasgow soaking up the atmosphere. We ended up at the BBC on the Quay and found a crowed gathered around some moutain bike activity.
It turned out to be Danny McCaskil and a few other fellas doing their bike tricks on some boxes that look like the sort of thing the BBC uses for lugging kit to their gigs.
"Danny MacAskill is a Scottish trials cyclist, from Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye. [A few years ago] he gave up his job as a mechanic so he could ride full-time and now lives in Glasgow.... In 2010 [he] released a new video Way Back Home ... which showcases locations around Scotland." [photo and text from Wikipedia]
His website here. His film, Way Back Home, has, as of today, 32,466,155 views! I must check out his other more recent ones.
We had tickets for the Hydro which is the space-ship type building behind the Finneston crane. It is a recently built events hall and before the Games' events was being used (and will continue to be used) for large rock concerts etc.
The above photo shows the security setup, somewhat similar to any airport.
The security was tight to get into this and other events being held at the same time in adjacent buildings on the site of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre. All the approach roads were blocked or were single lanes to make way for pedestrians coming and going. It has been a bit of a pest for locals who are going about their everyday life but when you become aware of the huge numbers of people moving about (e.g. the Hydro's capacity is 8,000 people) one feels they are in control of the huge logisical exercise involved!
There have been complaints about people not managing to get to events because of the numbers trying to get on the above-ground and below-ground (Glasgow's subway which is a double circular track of 15 stops). More buses have been laid to help ease the situation.
I also now realise that trains have been cancelled not because the rolling stock is not working but because they have to stop the numbers of people entering the system where the risk areas are not just squashing on trains but probably more related to possible crushes in, for example, stairwells and escalators. (Glasgow has bad history of crowd crushes at sports events.....)
We watched the men and women's gymnastics all afternoon. For a break they had us doing a Weegie Wave around the hall. This involves each section standing up and waving sequentially around the hall.... a great laugh and a good way to stretch the legs. In order to get up all shouting they put up the text on the balcony flashing notice: Gee it Laldy! (1/3 way up, horizontal blue banner in photo.)
The big screen in the centre is a standard feature in all halls. Also every pub and bar in the city is putting up their big TV screens so everyone gets to follow events over their pint!
I took thes following photos in order to show our neighbour, Helen. Her grandson is a piper in the Scots Guards regiment. She was telling us that he is playing at the beginning of the medal ceremony.
Is this him under that busby (the bearskin hat) coming into the hall?
A close-up of him on the big screen makes me think this is not a 19 year old. Never mind, if you don't look too closely you would never know.
Here are the women's medals for artisitc gymnastics being presented. The gold went to England, silver to Australia and bronze to Wales.
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