A Glasgow Album: Cessnock & Kinning Park

Cessnock is beside Ibrox and Govan, and sort of merges into Kinning Park down Paisley Rd West on the right there. On the left is Alexander 'Greek' Thomson's fabulous Walmer Crescent. See

http://glasgowalbum.blogspot.com/2010/09/bellahouston-park-2-after-pope-is-over.html

Mohammed Sarwar became Britain's first Muslim MP when he won Govan for the Labour Party in 1997, and proved to be a good constituency MP. In 2004, a 15-year-old Glasgow boy called Kriss Donald was kidnapped by five men of Pakistani origin and tortured to death (the victim was chosen at random). The killers fled to Pakistan. Sarwar used his considerable influence in Pakistan to get the men returned to the UK, where they were subsequently convicted of racially motivated murder. Another prominent Scottish Muslim, Bashir Maan, claimed at the time that Strathclyde Police were ignoring the problem of gangs such as the one that killed Kriss Donald out of fear of seeming to be prejudiced. In June 2007, one of Sarwar's sons, Atif Sarwar, was convicted of laundering £845,000 through his father's business; it was claimed at the trial that Sarwar's family had been threatened with reprisals for ensuring that Kriss Donald's killers had been brought to trial. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriss_Donald

Mohammed Sarwar then announbced he was standing down as MP, and in May 2010 his son Anas succeeded him as MP in what is now the Glasgow Central seat. Such successions and constituency links are not uncommon in the west of Scotland: the former Speaker Michael Martin's Springburn fiefdom is represented at Holyrood by his son.

Kinning Park begins round about this part of Paisley Rd West (I think)

Nicola Sturgeon MSP's constituency office on right

This coat of arms rests . . .

. . .above EuroAsia

Osama Saeed was the SNP candidate for Glasgow Central in the 2010 Westminster election, in which he was well beaten by Anas Sarwar (see above). Saeed is a particular favourite of Alex Salmond's, and it seems probable that he will end up in Holyrood as a list MSP. Saeed was one of the founders of the Scottish Islamic Foundation, which obtained more than £400,000 from the SNP government shortly after its founding. Before the Labour Party's Purcell scandal broke (see George Square and Red Road Flats 3), there were several media reports tentatively questioning the management of SIF funds (see, for example, the Glasgow Herald of 31 January 2010) . The questioning stopped around the same time the media stopped discussing the huge questions surrounding the Purcell scandal, just before the May general election.

A pretty setting for this bus shelter

The 'Angel Building' - erected 1890 - at the junction of Paisley Road West (left) and Govan Rd (right)

The statue at the top is popularly known as the 'Govan Angel'

This pillar is all that is left of the old Toll

An angelic bar

Ross Harper - a well-kent name among Glasgow's criminal classes

The Old Toll Bar - one of Glasgow's finest remaining Victorian pubs. . .

. . .just across is The Grand Ole Opry. Great music and line dancing. If you ever wander in here when there is a gunfight going on, please do resist the temptation to laugh. Outsiders to the strange land that lies behind those doors are welcome, but it would be very wise to respect what you find there.

The old Stanley St 'palazzo' style Our Lady and St Margaret's RC school on the right. Has been described as
'palazzo' style - also as a warehouse. It had playgrounds on the upper stories. Have put this section into sepia, it seemed fitting - this part of Glasgow looks rather like old New York

The 'presbytery' section in the middle

Much of Glasgow - laid out as it is in Victorian blocks - resembles old New York and Chicago. Without the cars, this street could serve as a set for Leone's Once Upon a Time in America

A proud municipal boast

A lumber company - no idea where the other one is. Glaswegians walking past will find this sign amusing. Definition of 'lumber' from Mike Munro's The Compete Patter (one of the few truly essential books on Glasgow): lumber To get a lumber is to meet and establish a relationship with a member of the opposite sex: 'How did ye get on at that party . did ye get a lumber?' To lumber a person is to chat her or him up successfully: 'That guy you're hingin aboot wi wis tryin tae lumber us last night.'