Food and culture

Date: 26 January 2007 14:25:35

I forgot to say Happy Burns' Night yesterday - we didn't go to a gig yesterday, but instead after getting back home from the Kelvingrove, in honour of Scotland's finest we ate a hefty veggie haggis. Each. And then wondered why we couldn't move afterwards. Delicious. I'm sure the purists will insist vegetarian haggis is an abomination, but we listened to Eddi Reader while we ate so hopefully Burns wasn't spinning too fast in his grave.

This morning we did more culture, when we went to the very lovely House for an Art Lover in Bellahouston Park, a short drive away from here. It was designed in 1900 by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for a competition, but was never built during his lifetime. Although he didn't win (he was disqualified as he apparently submitted the wrong number of drawings, but the judges loved his designs so much he won a prize anyway) the designs were later published as a folio and as much as anything else established his reputation as one of the top European designers. The house was eventually conceived and built in the 1980s/90s, following as far as possible Mackintosh's designs, and as well as the house and gardens which accept visitors, it is also used as a postgraduate centre for students of the Glasgow School of Art (another of Mackintosh's buildings which will, at some point, no doubt feature in this blog, as it's yet another place on my list of Glasgow Must-Sees). Even the kids' playground outside was pretty cool and arty - I particularly liked this globe, which is made up of the word "peace" in lots of different languages.

We're out gigging again tonight - more reviews to follow :)