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Episode: 1868
Title: HPR1868: Glasgow Podcrawl review
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1868/hpr1868.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 10:31:50
---
This is HPR episode 1868 entitled Blasco Pond Call Review.
It is hosted by Dave Morris and is about 48 minutes long.
The summary is the intrepid Blasco Pond Call and Meet to discuss their experiences back in July.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by an honesthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
That's HPR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at An Honesthost.com.
Hello everybody, this is Dave Morris, recording for HPR and I have three accomplices with me.
Starting from the top we have, that's you Andrew.
I just closed the window.
Andrew Gregory also of Linux Voice.
Kevin from Tuxjam and Kriven's and CC Jam.
And McNalloo from Tuxjam and also a little bit from Linux Voice now.
Very cool. So why are we all gathered here today then? Guys,
as we're trying to fill in the blanks with what happened back in July, we should try to remember.
Something about a pod crawl I think was it?
I think it might have happened in McNalloo's home city there of Glasgow.
Yes, the one thing that I have forgotten already is what date was it.
I do remember it was a Friday, 10th of July, 10th rings are built with me, yeah.
That's exactly right. No, all I remember is it was there was pork pies.
That's it. That's all I can remember.
I'd forgotten the pork pies. How could I forget the pork pies?
Silly. I'd remember the pork pies more or less because they killed us off.
We couldn't do anything after eating those pork pies.
But maybe instead of starting at the end of the night we should probably start at the right
back of the start. And as a tumble we'd close by, okay then I guess I'll start.
Yes, so we started. It was actually very successful. I thought it was a thoroughly enjoyable night.
Not exactly an awful lot showed up. I mean the ones who are present in this podcast
were actually the ones that showed up. So numbers were few. But I'd say it's definitely quality
not quantity because all open source geeks, all podcasters and generally the the coolness levels
were just through the roof. I didn't include if I'd had a proposition.
I remember organized out for next year. I remember another detail other than pork pies.
Although that is the main detail. Andy Murray was playing some tennis match beforehand,
wasn't he? That's right. And he lost. So he's officially Scottish.
Well, I don't remember that. Well, we did start. That must have been when we were standing
waiting for everybody in the state bar. Myself and McNally who got their early waiting for everyone
else. And I don't remember there being tennis. Was that when it was playing?
That's that's right. Yeah, that's that's what I was doing just just before because I got to Glasgow
a couple of hours earlier. And it's surreal. The surreal sight of men standing around it in a pub,
not watching football or boxing, but watching tennis and getting really into it and being parties
and it was odd. It was on par with love. Now that's it. You've got all the Scottish guys and
baddest there to speak now because they're admitting they were watching tennis.
Well, it was in the West End. So there might have been some foreigners there.
There's probably a good chance there was. Yes. And myself included.
Yeah, I like how you clash with a foreigner in your own country.
Well, everybody else classes me as a foreigner in their own country. So why should I be any
different? Now, it's not as that are different up here. It's all you lot who aren't on this small
island. It's all you mainlanders that are old, not us. Yeah. So after the after the state bar,
we we headed west didn't we? So we went back into the West End. It was the Bon Accord, I think,
next, wasn't it? That's right. The Bon Accord. And it has an entire wall behind the bar of
whiskeys. And if you listen carefully, you might hear the clanky whisky glass because one of us
clanky whisky. And for the benefit of the podcast, that's
and the Gregory's microphone that's making that noise and it's making me very jealous. I might
have to join you. Hang on a sec. Let's see if the cork coming out of the bottle comes over on the
recording. Did that work? It did. It did work. Although the final pop was nice, but it's a strange
almost blackboard screechy quality to the first, but it's the pop. It's always the pop that
that gets me. Yeah. And then there's the plug. Here's me sitting in with a cup of tea.
It's over. Sorry. I'm not doing I'm not doing the right thing at all. Sorry. Well, the Bon Accord
was absolutely fantastic. I thought I mean, it wasn't just that it was for the whisky, it was for
the dark stained wood, which is always great. Yeah, well, to be fair, I think the first three
out of the four bars we had were kind of dark stained wood variety, kind of more traditional style.
The one we went on to in between the Bon Accord and we finished in the three judges was the deep
in, not in deep, McNally? Yes, it was deep in, it used to be called the Big Blue, I think.
And it's got a great location right at what's called Kelvin Bridge, where one of the main roads,
crevice and road in Glasgow goes over the river Kelvin. At this point, this is a sort of geeky
environment. We should mention that the river Kelvin gives us this name to the temperature unit
Kelvin, which is named after Lord Kelvin, who's a famous physicist from Glasgow. I'm pretty sure
you mentioned that at the time, but I've already forgotten it. Yeah, there's a fantastic
museum isn't there in one of the university buildings in Glasgow. I thought that, honestly,
I thought that Lord Kelvin was just some chance who was piggybacking on the work of Mr.
Celsius and just took his work and added a minus 273 to it. But actually, he discovered and
invented all sorts of stuff. Typically, I can't remember what, but I'm sure, Andrew, you know,
quite a lot of it. Well, yeah, you established the first, you established some of the basics of
thermodynamics, you know, how temperature works, which is why you got a temperature skill named after
them. But actually, his greatest achievements were very practical. I think it was the first
scientist, certainly the first physicist to become rich as a result of his knowledge. And he
actually supervised the first laying of a cable across the Atlantic, which is, you know, in the late
19th century, there's no mean feat. Is that the one that comes as sure in Cornwall? Well, I don't
know if the same cable is now used. I do think it broke quite a few times and it wasn't terribly
successful in the first attempt, but I'm pretty sure that that cable must be out of use for now.
I don't know what it took. At the time, I would have, yeah, you wouldn't lay it from Glasgow,
would you? Because you'd have to go all the way down the friday, that would be daft. So, yeah,
we made more sense to start from somewhere like Cornwall. Was that the same cable that was laid by
Brunel, isn't Barkingdon Brunel's ship, the one he died on? Was it the Great Eastern or Great
Western? It's called the Great Eastern. It was meant to have been a luxury cruise line and never
actually could use this as that to get me to use more practical ship.
Well, it could be, it could be, I don't know, I don't actually know anything about the ship
itself, but this is my claim to fame that Lord Kelvin and I have both used the same toilet.
Wow.
When I met Lord Kelvin, okay, so which old did you pee in then?
Well, we weren't actually on the toilet at the same time as that. He had died about 70 years before
I got to his toilet, but it was a great toilet, you know, big porcelain thing with a high-up
sister and a lovely old chain with a, you know, a wooden indie bit, I don't know what you
was supposed to call it, I got a name with a bit of hang at the bottom of the chain like that
that you pull on. Anyway, it was, it was a beautiful, it was a work of art at this toilet.
Ah, fair enough, very good. Now, here's me thinking that you know, can I just,
yet he had used the whole he dug a hundred odd year ago.
No, no, and well, the story was that they built a new physics building right at the end of his
life and all the professors were on the top floor, but that's where they were supposed to be,
but not him because he was so old and they hadn't got a lift or they hadn't vented lifts or
got them working in that building, so they gave him a big office in the downstairs with his own
on-suite facilities because he was getting on a bit. I don't think he ever used the room very
much, although I hope he used a toilet at least once. Otherwise, that story's not true.
Yes, so your claim to fame is literally down the toilet.
Yeah, we should maybe point out that there was, it was actually the deep in, had so much potential,
but when we actually got there, it was Canada's appointing, especially for people that
look like I'm quite a quieter night. It was a rather loud place. It was mobbed busy and this was
the Kineke criminals and they did for me. This was just terrible. They had all their balls. Didn't
matter with light or dark. They had them in the chiller, so I had a bottle of 80-chilling
chilled and that's just criminal. You do not super chill 80-chilling, but apart from that, actually,
I think it could have been a bit, I don't think it would have been so bad had it not just been
quite so busy, so they're obviously doing something like that.
They were committing another one of my pet hates and advertising them or touting their words as
being craft beer, which I just find that a sign of the place to avoid, because it means that
they're jumping on a bandwagon. It's just a marketing word. It's craft beer. It means nothing
and true to form. Lots of young people in there.
Yeah, young people.
No, it wasn't quick makeup with tea. In fact, I recall I got extremely hungry for some reason
at that precise moment, because I didn't eat much and I went upstairs to the chip shop. You
got the stairs, because it's kind of like by done by the river and you can go up to street level
up these stairs and then I got some chips. It was quite nice. It started raining. It's very
light rain and I've just stood there watching the world go by and I saw one of the most remarkable
things I've ever seen and that was a man with no hands operating a smartphone. You had no hands,
both his hands were lost. I didn't stop and ask him, so I don't know why, but he had no hands,
just stumps and he was using a smartphone while walking along the street, which I just don't,
I mean, I can't even do that and I've got all ten of my fingers. I can't do that either and likewise,
all ten of fingers, prison and correct. Yeah, by the way, actually, I can't do anything when I
actually start using the phone. I really just have to stop. Otherwise, I'm walking into people
or bumping into something or dropping the phone, so it's just too costly.
Yes, so from from the deep end, that was the third one. We went to the three judges, which is
in part. I can hardly believe we caught the underground to that. Yes, we did, didn't we?
Yes, although it's called the subway now. They rebranded it. It used to be called the subway,
then it got called underground and then they called it the subway again. This is over a space
of a hundred years and they generally called the clockwork order and just will. That's right. Yes,
so you can do this, yes, this pub crawl, which we didn't do. We did a tiny little bit of it, of
course, where you get off every underground station. It's a circle and it's not very big, so you can
do that in the light and then stop at a pub next to each underground station. In the fact, I think
the three judges is one of the popular ones at Thunder Girls Station that we got off ad.
But it's very close to the station, isn't it? And it is, again, dark wood, polished brass, mirrors
behind the bar, you know, ticks all the boxes, except the local box. I remember I asked for a
pint of something Scottish and all they had was tenants. Oh, no, that's actually the bar made
not knowing because I could crush IPA. I do remember that. And that's Scottish. But of course,
the problem was when you said pine she made you'd probably thought of a pint of lagers. I've
probably either a pint of lager or a pint of heavy, you know, being Glasgow. So, you know, maybe
that was the problem. You didn't actually say pint of relay. Well, maybe it was the imperial
measurements. Maybe I should have used some symmetric 500 milliliters please. You're not sure
changing my pint. 500 and 68.2 or whatever it is.
The three judges is one of my favourite pubs. They do seem to have a lot of good
ails, but mainly in not Scottish. I don't know why that is, but I'm not complaining because
whatever ails they have are all delicious. And I don't know if this might be apocryphal,
but I remember being told not too long ago in the past that the three judges only had a male
toilet. I didn't have a female toilet. Now, given that I've been going to three judges for
best part of 20, no more than 20 years, the story could go back into the 1980s or 70s. I'm not
entirely sure where it only had a male toilet from. Well, I do know that there's still quite a few
places in Scotland that are still like that. They, although they do technically have a female toilet,
it is literally a broom cupboard with a bowl in it. That's pretty much it. So, they could
well be. Is this Lewis or the mainland? No, no, they don't get enough pointers on Lewis.
We're generally too tight to go into the bar here, so they'll take whatever they get. No, but this
was the place I used to go to in Downedham, Freese, was called the new bizarre talk about misleading.
This place was not new, but it was a great bar that had four or five brass taps and a humongous
canteria with skimming. This would rival the three judges, huge, huge canteria. It was never any
bother in it, but it was a man's bar. I remember one time having been in my mate and his daughter was in
and she says, wish a woman's toilets and we all looked and went, I don't renew if they had any.
So, the bar man had to go and pull out the mop, the bucket, the brush and things like that and
says, yeah, we have to have one of these in by law and switched on the light and this cupboard
actually had a toilet bowl and the one smaller sink at the top. Oh dear, they were talking,
this was three years ago, not a lot a long time ago. No, three judges definitely had a female
toilet three years ago, definitely did and I'm sure it's been law for some time.
Well, they probably had there, they just hasn't been used in a long time.
Well, I feel I missed out on quite a lot of this because I, I chickened out and left you guys
after the bon accord, was it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you survived 50% of the pod accord, which isn't bad to
be honest. Yeah, I didn't fancy the long trek back to Edinburgh to be honest with you, so I
and I was getting tired, so but yeah, yeah, yeah, 50%. Next time, the other 50% perhaps.
Oh yeah, long trek back to Edinburgh. Well, you know, well, he was walking, that is quite
it's it's the bus and then it's the other bus and and all that sort of stuff, so I didn't get
back to about midnight, so that's late for me. Oh, that's that's late enough, that's late for me,
I can't be bothered with that. Because I don't live in central Edinburgh, I live live about eight,
eight nine miles out, well, maybe eight miles outside and the bus is a crap at that time of night.
But you've you've got a brand new train now, haven't you? So you can go to, is it Gala Sheels,
whenever you want? That's that's true, yes, yes, there were no trains, you know, that we can do,
the trains are very, very erratic, that particular weekend, because there was work on the line,
did you didn't come on the train, did you? I did, yeah, and I remember that, I'm sure when
they're working properly, it takes 45 minutes between Edinburgh and Glasgow, but it was more like an
hour and a half, so, you know, I was, I was doubting myself, I just thought maybe, maybe Scotland's
doubled in size since I was last there, but now it was, it was a real way to run against.
Well, because because I'm of a certain age, I can travel for three on the bus, you see, so,
so it was very, it was very tempting to go all the way to exciting Glasgow on the bus for nothing.
Yeah, quite right, no, do you get, I know that my own folks, they go in
Vanessa Glasgow and they get the gold bus, but they have to pay a £50 supplement,
I'm not doing that, I don't know. £50, £50, it's, I mean, it's shocking, and all they get for
that £50, they're lunch provided, sweets all the way down, a powered outlet for laptop,
plug in your phone, and they get free Wi-Fi, but it's a disgrace, they don't really like their
MPs, but there's 50 whole P. It's sad shocking. And if they travel together, it's a whole pound,
can you believe it? George, what is the platinum bus cost?
Well, they're saving up for that, probably £150 or something.
So, Andrew, tell me about the Galley Shields train, because I'm out of touch with this.
Well, it was, it coincided, or rather the, the opener, a bit coincided with the day that the queen
overtook Queen Victoria as the longest servant monarch. All right. So, she, she was in,
she was in Balmoral, or somewhere, and then came down to Edinburgh for the launches,
or for the official opening of this line. And the, the obsequious royal coverage said, oh,
there's, you know, the Queen's in Edinburgh for this railway line, but you don't want to hear
about the railway line, look, it's the Queen. So, I don't, I didn't manage to get that much out of
the telly, but it runs from Edinburgh to somewhere I'd never heard of, a tweed, tweed side or tweed
bank. But the last but one stop, I think is Galley Shields, and it stops at Del-Keeith,
and quite a few places actually between Edinburgh and, and it's terminus. But it doesn't link up
and you're on the other side, it's just a branch line from Edinburgh into the borders.
Yeah, yeah. So, that's, that's a replacement. I think there was a line there years ago, and it's
just, it's been relayed on the original train track or something. Yes, that's, that's right. So,
they, I mean, it's, if you look at the, um, the way that the borders, I mean, you tend to think of,
you know, the Highlands has been out there and isolated, but obviously not UKV, but the, you
can sort of draw a triangle between, I don't know, Newcastle, Carl I am in Edinburgh, and,
and the railway stations there, and then in, in the middle of that, you've got a huge area,
where there's just very little links connected public transport. So, there's, you know,
hopefully this will be the start of, I don't know, start something getting the area more connected,
because it's a huge area that's got its borders. Yeah, yeah. It's, and at heart,
encouragingly that the train has been absolutely jump-packed. In fact, so bad that people have
been unable to get on it, because they, they've only been putting two carriages, which is about
small as the train gets. Yeah, and I've never seen actually a train that has just one carriage.
In fact, so two as the small as you get, but apparently, I mean, people have used,
on the platform, wanting to get on, and they can't, because there's no room left in the train.
So, it sounds like it's a, a stonking success already. That's fantastic. I mean, I, to be honest,
they need something like this, because it's the same, and you mentioned Andrew about
the drawing of that triangle. I mean, I lived for six years in Dumfries and Galloway,
which is the opposite side of Scotland to the border, and it was the same. Transport links are
terrible. You know, they're really are shocking. There's like two to three trains, a day to Dumfries,
and if you want them, you've got to basically take the Kilmarnec train, a thing goes down through
air, shyland, does every single village, nook and cranny. You know, at, basically, what,
what can you can drive? Glass, go to Dumfries in about 55 minutes, roughly.
And this train takes two hours, 20 minutes. You know, this is crazy, you know.
That's, that's just pathetic, but, you know, glad, hopefully, we'll soon all be feeling the
benefits of HS2. Yes, see, people mentioned HS2, that's just the postcode up here for the,
for people in Lewis and Harris. You know, people have been talking about their arrival of HS2,
we're going, what are you talking about? It's been here for years. 50 billion pounds on HS2,
but you're looking forward to that, aren't you? It'll be great. We would know we're getting a high
speed train on all areas outside of store, no way. Yeah, I think, I'm, I'm, I'm a big fan of
the trains. We have a separate like trains. But, yeah, I think when they, when HS2 gets as far as,
as a Glasgow, then it might seem interesting. Until then, it's going to be too far away.
Well, that's something else that they need is a line from, they need a lot of better connections
with the North, because you've got to be okay. I'm not going to suggest that they go all the way
to all the Pultus, you can get the ferry across Stornery, but going from Glasgow to either Aberdeen
or in Verneis is shockingly bad by train. I mean, it takes us even more times to Cal because
it's a fortune. So they really do need to welcome something with that line as well.
Well, Glasgow to Inverness is a relatively long way and it crosses the Great Glen and you've got,
you know, you've, you've got physical distance and, and mountains and stuff. The more shocking
thing for me is that it leads to Manchester. There, there's something, there's something ludicrous
like, you know, 45 miles and it takes an hour. And that's just, that's pathetic. That's
mostly pathetic. That's two big cities connected. And I don't know, I don't know. I get, I get
angry about HS2. It just seems like a ridiculous waste of money. But why don't you please
think of the children? Are they going to employ children to build it?
Think of a children work force. I'm not going to see that actually. No, that might come back to
bite me. I'm on a rail. Yeah, that's it. We'll go with the monorail one. I'll just think
of something else. No, there's no way I'm going to see that out. Juneau, like, it's a joke,
but there was a crazy businessman who was, I mean, a, I mean, an absolute crack pod who proposed
and built a monorail. It's at the Benny Monorail, his name was Benny, just up the road from where I
live in the 1930s. He actually built one. And like this strange torpedo thing that hung from
an overhead monorail. And it was propelled by a propeller. That sounds fantastic. It is. I mean,
it looks absolutely mad. And there's actually some remnants of the structure still there. Because
it was a complete failure. And but it stood there for 20 years, rusting away. So my wife's granny
remembers going past it. And everyone thought it was all a bit bizarre. But you know, did
it ever actually run at all? Or did it just stay there? I think it was only a mile test track.
So yes, it did run. And people, there's pictures of people's sort of dignitaries getting on it
and looking, looking very pleased with themselves, but no, it was completely mad idea. I mean,
propeller driven trains in the sky. I mean, come on. Did they have to have a man with a red flag
working in front of it to make sure the passengers didn't have to fix it? I think it was a monkey hanging
on the overhead line here. Anyway, how we can deviate quite a bit here from a problem Glasgow.
But perhaps we can go full circle because the reason I like the three judges so much,
the reason it's my favourite pub is not in fact the beers, but it serves to my mind the most
delicious pork pies ever. And that's why I like three judges. And as Kevin said, that was the thing.
Well, you say finished us off. I think it really finished you off. Let's be precise about that.
It did totally. I mean, I just, I didn't feel that bad up until I ate the pork pie and then
all my word, my head started going down. I was like, I almost want to go to sleep now.
It's just given me a sleeping pill here. Although it could be fair actually, you know, once we got back
to Andrews, this wasn't quite the public part of the, this wasn't quite public part of the
pod crawl, but we did actually enjoy some whisky and cigars. So that was a very pleasant way to end
the night. That sounds absolutely superb. So Dave, you missed the, you missed the annoying young people
and the two cold beer and you missed the pork pie. Yeah, I regret the pork pie though.
At that time and night, I'm not sure what it would have done to me.
Yeah, well, do you want to mean you think of this the pork pies? I mean, to me,
they're nowhere near that size. My word, these things were huge. That's one of the biggest pork pie
I think I've ever seen. Well, it was a large, small pork pie. I was like, we've got it.
Oh, should I say not a sorry? You know, I have seen bigger ones that I've aimed for families and
things, but if that's a one person pork pie, I've never seen something that size. Yeah.
Yeah, it is a substantial thing. It's not like one you'd buy in a supermarket and it's freshly made
by the butcher from the coroner apparently. Oh, nice. Fantastic stuff.
Yes, so this is what you're missing. Dave, so next year, you will have to stay on a wee bit.
The only thing I will have to say is we're going to have to try and organize a date for next year.
I'm not saying said it now, but it would be nice to get maybe a few more and Dave keeps on, Dave
mocks from the bug. I'm sorry, Dave mocks. Dave leaves from the bug cast, keeps on going on about
it being too early. So maybe next year, we could maybe try end of July, then trying to hit the
English hold this as well. Sounds good. That's close because there's different holidays around
around the country. I've not, yeah, I've not thought of that. Yeah, it makes a difference to me,
but yeah, late July. That's fine. It's a reason that summer holiday in Scotland can be almost
any time of years because we don't have a summer. Exactly, to be honest, it only coincides with
the beat cutting season. Let's be honest, that's the only thing it does. You know when the summer
holidays come in, you've got to go out to the beat to start cutting, you know, that's it.
Yeah, I suppose that's the difference between Glasgow and Lewis.
What do you have in the electricity and things in Glasgow? Sorry, Andrew. Do you have a
electricity and can't cold running water and gas and things? No, no, no, no, what are those things?
We have, we have monorials in the sky with propeller driven trains. Eat that.
That sounds good. We've got 10 yards of train track with that train that's never
lost. I got some of it. That was correct to see you have Lord Leverhume who had the great idea
of an Italian island. I think we should make a centralized railway system. Needless to say,
it didn't actually work out. That sounds crazy, but I have to tell my half to the Victorians,
just for giving it a go. I mean, mad colonial not cases they may have been, but when they
did something, it stayed done. Yeah, after Queen Victoria, when she visited Glasgow in 1850,
60, wherever it was, she was so appalled what a dump, what a disgusting place it was.
As a result of that, they built a 30 mile aqueduct to bring clean water to Glasgow.
Yes, and you see that after we've watered in the whiskey.
Wow, that's fantastic. That's really, that's amazing. One of the things that, apparently,
one of the things that allowed Roman to get so big before it's time, it was a city of a million
people way, way, way before Christianity reached Britain and before the Middle Ages.
It's water supply. The Romans being an awesome engineer has built a big
lot of aqueducts down from the hills. They could have to drink the water out of the river,
which was full of malaria. Instead, they could drink clean water out of the
front of the mountains. I don't think that Glasgow is 2,000 years behind that,
is absolutely amazing. What did the Romans ever do for us?
I get the Romans were here, just a short step away from where I live.
There's the Antenine Wall, so the Romans were here and they thought it was pretty horrible,
and they went away quite quickly as Roman timescales.
So it took them a hundred years, that's a thing.
Well, they stuck it on to build a wall from one end of Scotland to the other.
I look across the narrowest bit of Scotland, I have to be said, but they stuck it on for a wee bit,
but then decided that the weather was so bad and the people were so aggressive that they
just had to go. So, you know, in some ways Glasgow has not changed at all.
Well, to be fair, your weather's probably a bit better than our weather up north.
Miss, probably very few people listening who actually consider Glasgow north,
but it's a deep south as far as I'm concerned.
Glasgow is certainly an exotic place. I've mentioned that I'd been to Ben,
my fellow Linux voice person, and he just seemed horrified by this, like, as if I'd been to
the darkest Congo. Well, actually, if you've been to Manchester or Leeds or Liverpool or Bristol
or any other decent-sized Victorian city, it's like that, but just a bit better.
It's, it's, you know, it was clearly built by men with fantastic sideburns who had a plan.
And they, am I wrong, though? They wanted, you know, the big,
the merchant city bit, like the big tobacco halls, and obviously some of it was the
profits of slavery, which were gloss over. But columns and arches, and what's those things?
The little statues that hold up archways, like cariatids, I think they're called,
and loads of public statuary and, you know, great big wide streets. It's lovely. It's so nice.
It's such a treat from an architectural point of view. And so many of the buildings that would have
been knocked down elsewhere were saved in Glasgow. I mean, Newcastle had a fantastic Victorian
core, which thanks to corrupt government has been turned into a concrete shopping centre.
But many of the buildings in around George Square are actually quite modern, but they've kept
the facade of the old building. So they've got some, they've got broadband and they've got air
conditioning and lifts and things, but the outside looks, you know, carved stone and just
Victorian magnificence. It's great. Actually, if you want to treat from that,
if you look up Springburn Village Hall, it's Springburn Village Hall in this class.
There was an absolutely beautiful hall in Springburn that hadn't been used since about the 80s,
but the architecture on it was stunning, all the carved stuff. Get a chance to go and see it,
because it actually there's a website that was more or less dedicated to it and it shows a picture
of it and how it was actually sold. Only this we're really talking, this is maybe about four or five
years ago. Maximum wasn't long ago at all, and it was sold off with the intention of being done
up, but what they did was they still, people from Springburn were still saying they think it was
definitely a bit of rogue dealing because it was just basically sold from Glasgow City to a
subsidiary company of Glasgow City Council, and a piece fell off it and they immediately said,
right, that's it demolishes an unsafe building, and it was an absolute drive when you see those
pictures. It's a stunning hall, and I thought looking at going, you know, okay, it's not going
to be pennies to do up, but it was an absolute stunning thing, and I think that really that could
have been saved. I mean, there are some really amazing pictures from it. Yeah, that's true,
Springburn was absolutely devastated. I had to remember reading about that, and the west, then,
the west, the western side of the city of Glasgow, the inner bed, actually with the bonacord,
because that's where the motorway runs, it's carved right through the centre, the edge of that
city centre and the west side, that was devastated as well, you know, by 1967, 60, 70s, planning
mainly by the motorway, but you're right, Andrew, the centre of Glasgow, I mean, as a young boy,
I grew up here, I never looked up, I never looked, I just wondered about the streets and it all looked
pretty grimy back in the 70s, and that's a lot of remember, and at some point, I don't know when
I was a bit older as an adult, I looked up, oh, this is actually quite nice, why did I never notice
that? Where's your, go and live in Donkastor for 18 years, and you'll find that, your appreciation of
the aesthetic is heightened somewhat. Oh, get out at your work, 18 years to the long end of this,
yeah, it's not really worth it. Now, I've just found a picture of this, of Springburn Hall,
it looks like there were mature trees growing out of the gutter in, and that's, I drove past
building in Saltair in West Yorkshire a couple of days ago, and it just seems like a
common, quite lazy tactic, take something listed that you're not allowed to knock down, leave it
for 20 years, neglect it, wait for it a tile to fall off the roof, and then claim that it's
for public safety to knock it down, it's pathetic. For the benefit of everybody else, that's the
site I was looking at recently, and I'm just, you know, it almost brings a tear to the eye, I used to,
whenever I was in Springburn, because I've got a lot of friends down there, I used to pass that,
no matter whose house I was going to, I'd actually have to either walk past it or drive past it,
and see it missing now, it's like, it's just not right. Dave, Edinburgh's been spared most of this,
hasn't it? I mean, apart from the, the, the horrible Mankey Council building at the top of
Lothian roads, and well, but most of Princess Street, it's, it, it's been pretty much untouched.
Yes, yes, it's not done too badly, I guess, the, the, the Parliament building near there,
is, is not, not greatly thought of, but I think you have comments about that McNale,
perhaps, do you? Yeah, it looks like somebody dropped it from space, and it's splattered onto the
ground, and it also, it's pretty impressive, from above, it's pretty impressive.
Yeah, yeah, most people I've heard saying about it, don't, don't think much of it, but
especially not in that, that area, but yeah, it's true, Edinburgh's, Edinburgh's,
pretty good in, in, in many respects, and it hasn't been sort of gutted and turned into a,
a great big shopping centre or something. No, they've left that for out of the city,
thankfully, but I mean, it was, I was, I lived, I did my training in Edinburgh, so I lived there
for a year, and one place, it didn't matter what time of year it was, the matter how cool,
it was how weight it was, I always loved walking down the Royal Mile, it was just such a lovely,
but you know, everything was just so traditional, and even up just going from the Royal Mile to
the grass market, what's that, kind of curvy street called the Cobbled One?
Is it Coburn Street? Is it Coburn Street? I'm not sure. There are two curvy ones,
there's one's Coburn Street and one is a Victoria, Victoria Street.
I can't remember, I'm not very good at street names, yeah, but I know what you mean, right?
No, the one you mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, you know, all that to eat, it's just so lovely,
and it's, I think there's a very old fashioned kind of brush shop, but there was, you know,
15 or a year ago there. I think it might still be there in Brussels. Yeah, last time I saw it.
That's just, you know, brushes, literally brushes for paint brushes, or
I like every kind of brush, toilet brushes, sweeping brushes, paint brushes, toothbrushes,
toothbrushes, you know, whatever. Why can't I never heard of a brush shop before?
It's a very strange area there, when I was first not long in Edinburgh, I went on one of the
tours, there was one run by a pub called The Witchery, which was a sort of ghost tour thing,
and it was, it was a thing where people jumped out at you and dressed as monks and stuff with white
faces, all this sort of stuff, but the interesting bit about it was that you, you got taken through
strange little back ways of the city, so you could cross from around that area near the castle
through down into the grass market and beyond, by going down little alleyways and then popping out
and then down another alleyway and so on. And all the ancient, ancient sort of places where
in the old days people used to open the windows and throw nasty things out on your head and stuff
like that. All still there. I'm especially invited, imagine. Probably, yes. The guy who used to
leap out at people, I think you got duffed up a few times of doing that, so I don't think they
do that so much now. I remember that happening when I wasn't, when I wasn't in Edinburgh, they had
there was a night out with rugby boys and this guy, the rugby boys were not part of the crew and he
jumped out of there because I remember seeing this guy putting a suit bolting and a bit 12 drunk and
big rugby guys standing to kick his head and was very funny. Oh yes, yes. I'm not sure that that
exists quite the same way I did, but Edinburgh's an interesting city. Yeah, the other place I
assume remembers when you were talking about, I'd forgotten about this place, but when you're talking
about the the narrow back alley some things was just coming out of, I think it was coming out of
Waverly station and you had the steep steps going up to the Royal Mile and that narrow bit
and there was a pub there called the Halfway Hoos, I think it was called. It was a great wee bit,
it was literally halfway up these steps, it was easy to miss. Yeah, there's a lot of restaurants I
think that have exist up those steps, if you go up them and then a little side alley, you end up
at some sort of strange little Mexican place or weird places like that. Yeah, I'm nodding, you can't
hear it on the microphone, but I am nodding. Well, nodding. Yeah, the back of Waverly station,
if you look up, the building is sort of going front if you like a cliff, they go straight up
because you've got the volcanic ridge from Castle Hill all the way down to Holyrood and then sort of
built, so if you almost imagine the lava is maybe at a 45 degree angle, so the houses were built
on top of that but sloping back against the rock, so at street level on the Royal Mile there may be
only three or four stories high but at the back behind Waverly station there may be an eight or ten,
so you've got a huge number of steps leading up and loads of alleyways and it's very tall and
dark and stone and yeah, it looks great. And in the middle of all of those, there's
Mary King's Close, which is a load of empty buildings that were inhabited, that weren't
inhabited in the older days and now they're a tourist attraction and I went in there when it was
a couple years after it's first opened and it was a health and safety nightmare because it was all
exposed beams and wires just kicking about and puddles and things and now I went last year and
they've cleaned it up and it's much less enjoyable unfortunately, but safer. Yeah, can imagine that,
you know, kind of ruins, you want them to be kind of ruined, it's not tidy. Exactly, ruins should
be ruined, not clean. I just occurred to me that I once met Richard Stolman in Edinburgh or at
least I was talking there and I went to it and when I came down the stairs after the talk he was at
the bottom of the stairs and started chatting to me and I didn't really know what to say to him
because I wasn't expecting to see him and he's a bit scary in person, I don't know if you met him
Andrew, but I was like, oh, I think there's something I definitely want to ask you but it's completely
going up my head. Now Mike's met him and he said pretty much the same that he was, yeah,
a bit intimidating. I didn't meet Linus Torvals and I could barely say words in for like two hours.
Really? You didn't say Nvidia to him?
Andrew shaking his hand about five times. You definitely didn't say Nvidia to him then.
Richard Stolman was at the last Frosdem in Brussels, he sort of suddenly appeared in the
sort of concourse area and people were stopped. Is that Richard? Oh wow, you know, there was a
sort of ripple when around the room. Yeah, he wasn't scheduled to be there, but he just happened
to be in Belgium and he thought he'd come along and see what the Frosdem people were up to, I think.
There you go, maybe he'll show up at next year's Glasgow pod crawl. It would be cool, but the
thing is do you think he'd allow, I mean, the tills probably wouldn't actually do open source
software, so I don't know if he'd quite allow he would be able to pay in me. I think he might
make demands that that couldn't easily be met judging by some of the titles. Yeah, well he,
he, the reason I went, I went, that was a Turing Festival, which I think it was just been again
in Edinburgh this year. That's quite interesting, you know, it invites quite an interesting array of
people and it was actually a very good friend of mine who was organising it, so he gave me three
tickets to come along and return for, I think I managed to get some venture capitalists that
they were all the startup people were drooling over to come over from the state. So that's why I was
there, but he told me what Richard's requests were for him to travel, and I guess I would repeat
them as a little bit off, but they were, they were very precise, I have to say. Yes, he's notorious
for that, I think, isn't he? Well, who knows, maybe he'll be at Sir, I'll count in a couple of weeks.
Oh yes, yeah, are you going to Old Camp Andrew? I should do really, it's only, when we, we discuss
them on ourselves and wonder then it's voice crew, what, you know, what and where and when, and we
still haven't come to any firm conclusions, but I'm the closest, so, and I really want to,
I want to go, but isn't to attend things, I don't really want to go to sit behind a desk,
which is what, what I was doing last year, it was down in Oxford and we sort of sat and had a
store of merchandise and things, which, which was great, and it meant that I got to speak to lots
of people who, who came up to tours, but I didn't get to go out and listen to very many talks,
if that's only so one, which is a bit of a shame considering that it's, you know, raised the
number one place in the UK to go and, you know, listen to gigs talk about clever, interesting things.
Yeah, well, I'm, I'm going this year, so if, if you want to leave me and start
in charge of the stalls for, for a short time, or for, for some times, I'd be happy to, to help you out.
Fantastic, that's a bit embarrassing.
Okay, if you want it, right?
I, I, I, I like singing behind stalls, because I actually prefer, when I've done that in the past,
I quite like people coming up to me and that saves me having to wonder about speaking to them.
So, you know, it's, it's, it's overlining to that cloud.
I'd, I'd offer, but I'm, I'm going to be on the HBR table, I hope, if I, if I manage to get one.
So I'll be able to wave across the room, perhaps, not help particularly.
Well, I'll help my HBR one as well, not at the same time, because I'm not on the present.
Wait a minute, you've got to do the tux jam table. Come on, you can't do everything.
Okay, I'm, I'm at least to try present, if I'm not on the present.
Excellent, are you going to get it?
No, sadly, I won't be able to just purely because it doesn't coincide with my holidays.
And, you know, that's what I mean, people often say about being a teacher, or you get great
holidays. Yeah, it is true, but you can't choose your own, you know, so if I was to say I wanted to
take a few days off for a free and open source software conference, I'd get laughed at.
And then be told, no, that wouldn't happen in the evening.
Well, as lovely as this has been, I, I must go now. I have other duties to perform this evening.
Oh, it helps an interesting noise. What's that?
It was me dropping two, twenty pens pieces and one, one pens piece
through a brass bottle like a slide, guitar slide onto my leather top, my Hoganie desk.
I think, boy, we could see in our underbox, sort of, we the penny drop there.
It did, and I've got enough money for a gold ticket to, uh, where is it, was it from
the NES? With one pen left over. Oh, oh, you know, Penny, wow.
I know you can put it on to one of the Penny Arcade machines, you know, so you'll get maybe
the rich chance of earning three pens. Crazy, crazy times. What sounds to be alive?
So, uh, wrapping this up and giving it, it was actually about the pod crawl. Uh, what, what were
our final thoughts? And did we all have a good time? And join myself. It was great to,
great to meet everybody. It's good to be in Glasgow for a while. Good. Yeah, it's great to meet
people in real life. Yeah, no, I, I, I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was great to meet both you,
Andrew and, uh, you Dave for the first time after conversing with you virtually, uh, for some time.
I, Kevin, I've met before, of course. Yeah, I'm kind of old-haired. People are bored with me now.
So yeah, no, it was a good time though. I thought I'd enjoyed it. Uh, and I hope we'll do it again
next year. Now, if the, this is a point we'll probably have to get in touch with each other a bit
closer to the time, but if we're, uh, if you said actually wanting, uh, to be official pod crawl
membership, we can have more t-shirts made up. That's not an issue. Excellent. Never turn down the t-shirt.
It's one of my models. Yeah, I think it's, um, myself and McNally, we're probably going to start
struggling. The drawers should be quite full. We've got new t-shirt every time I spend a pod crawl,
you know, so over the years, it's, it's going to start adding up. Keep holding them on. You need
a bigger house. You need, you need more space. Yes, I, I would agree that would be handy.
Never throw anything away ever. Yeah, sort of a milder mark of sort of t-shirts.
And on that note, Dave, since you started to say, do you wish to end the show?
Okay, then. Well, I'm not quite sure how you end the show, other than say, thanks everybody,
and we'll hopefully meet again, um, sometime next year in the next pod crawl.
Okay. Good night, everybody. Good night. Good night. Good night.
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