One of Joanne’s colleagues recently asked her why we had moved to the UK. This is a question that both of us have answered quite a few times it the last five months. Jo told her that one of the things we wanted to do was take advantage of the inexpensive travel. “So,” replied the woman “you moved to Britain because of the RyanAir website?”

Blunt, yes, but in an odd way true. In fact, not long ago, I was on the RyanAir website and they were having one of their periodical sales. “Anywhere you’d like to go?” I called into the next room.

“What about Glasgow?” was the reply.

Sure enough, there was Glasgow, on the sale list. Fly from London’s Stanstead airport to Glasgow, Scotland for one pence. That’s like two cents Canadian. Plus the taxes, of course. So in an instant, we were booked to go on our second visit to an ancestral home.

As seems to be necessary with these adventures, we roused ourselves at stupid o’clock to catch our flight. We left on time, had lots of leg room and, most importantly, found the greatest advancement in commercial aviation. The seats don’t recline! No more fat man doing the lean back into my lap.

I was prepared for a different place than the one that I found. I was ready for the rough, industrial, coal-choked city that featured in stories of my Father’s youth. Instead Glasgow is a vibrant, clean, vital city. The older buildings that are of sandstone construction appear to have been cleaned and restored for the most part. There is a noticeable amount of newer construction and much of that hip, modern designs.

Large areas of the downtown have been turned into pedestrian shopping spaces. These were inhabited by throngs of people. Shopping is a major tourist attraction. There were many coaches that had disgorged their tourist contents onto Buchanan Street. It is the full retail experience.

At the south end of the Buchanan Street shopping district is the Gallery of Modern Art. We walked in, not just because it was raining. It was a welcome change from the retail environment. The art in the gallery ranged from modern painting and sculpture from artists of some note to pictures of Elvis done by local children. This is the kind of modern art I can get behind. The King as rendered by eight-year-olds.

Glasgow is a city that grew up along its river. The river is the Clyde. We walked east along the Clyde from the centre of the city. Like all cities built along a river, Glasgow has many bridges. The bridges span not only the river, but in a way, time. During our short walk, we were able to spot some built in the 1800’s through to ones built quite recently. There are notable differences in the method and materials of construction over the years.

Our walk along the river brought us to Glasgow Green. When entering from the west gate, youpass through McLennan’s Gate, moved there in 1922, off of Saltmarket Street. Following the path, there is a monument to celebrate Admiral Nelson’s victories. (It predates the one in London’s Trafalgar Square by 30 years) Past that is the People’s Palace and Winter Garden.

The People’s Palace is a museum of local history. The Winter Garden is a proper Victorian glass house. It is heated by big, fat steam pipes that run around the perimeter. It has palm trees that soar to the roof, three stories above and cactus gardens that thrive in the warm sandy soil. This is the centrepiece of the park. Walking outside, we were greeted by the yeasty smell of the brewery right across the river. If I had to pick one reason to go back, it would be to spend more time there.

If you look back to the post of August 10^th, you will remember that on a trip to Cambridge, I was able to find the house where my mother grew up. On this trip, I went looking for my father’s house. Armed with the address, my memorized map of the area, and a caution that it would probably have been demolished by now, we set out for the North-East corner of the city.

I knew that we were going the right way due to the increasing number of Celtic banners in the shop windows. We found the neighbourhood and got close to the street. The next part was a unique Glasgow experience.

I stopped a man walking his dog and asked if he could point us to the street we needed. “Aye” he responded “right doon thar’. Wait.” He then turned to another passer-by and confirmed the directions. Having taken information from two independent sources, we set out in the prescribed direction.

Sure enough, we found the house. On a wide street, just beyond a neighbourhood of newly constructed houses, there it was. I was a little surprised as I was prepared to find the house gone. There it was, though. This is surprising as the houses were designed to last 20 years when they were put up in the 1930’s. Two for two.

During times of the reformation, most of the medieval churches in Glasgow were demolished. The shining exception is the Glasgow Cathedral. We walked into the church and, except for people setting up for a concert that night, there were few people in the building. I found it much more accessible and interesting if not quite as imposing and intricate as Notre Dame in Paris.

We attended the commemoration of Remembrance Day at George’s Square. The square extends out from the front of the City Council building. There was all branches of the armed services and, as you would hope, a pipe and drum band in full regalia.

In the downtown area, Sauchiehall Street is the bar district. It is the territory of gangs of singing young men, girls dressed inappropriately for the weather and women out on a Hen night dressed inappropriately for their age. We were able to find a very nice dinner at a restaurant called Scarlet. Despite the weather, our trip to Glasgow was over all too soon. I could have stayed much longer and kept exploring. It is a compact city that lends itself to being a tourist on foot. I would like to go back, perhaps with warmer weather, or as they say, when the sun is splitting the rocks.

Back in September, London held its annual Doors Open Event. If you refer to the entry from the 26^th of that month, you can re-cap our trip to the British Library. While we were there, we got tickets to a talk by Robin Hanbury-Tenison. The talk was on a new book just published by Thames & Hudson called the 70 great journeys in history. Given our current adventures, it seemed appropriate to go.

Thames & Hudson publish a series entitled the 70 greatest whatever. Each title explores achievements in human history. The 70 sections in the book have been written by 54 different authors. The section authors are explorers and accomplished travellers in their own right.

Robin Hanbury-Tenison is a member of the Royal Geographical Society and an accomplished traveller. He has travelled and researched all over the world. He is also an outspoken conservationist. The most arduous journey of his was the land crossing of South America at its widest point. He has also lived to lecture and write books about it.

The book does not cover the classic British fly and flop to Ibiza or a coach tour of Paris. It deals with legendary stuff. Ancient world travels like Alexander the Great and Hannibal crossing he Alps with his four elephants. Renaissance explorers like Sir Francis Drake, Cortés and Samuel de Champlain. It also covers some of my favourite modern explorers like Thor Heyerdahl and the astronauts that have been to the moon.

The talk was good. It was not great, just good. The editor, Mr Hanbury-Tenison, was quite dry in the most appropriate British sense. He did suffer from what I perceive to be insufficient preparation. There were times when he looked over his shoulder at the slides on the screen almost in surprise. That said, he came across as being passionate about the subject of exploration.

The author put forth the notion that there may be a genetic link to the desire to travel. It is not proven. It is a theory based on the distribution of this genetic peculiarity along the migratory paths of early humans. I cannot speak to the science of the human genome. In reading the book, it occurs to me that what all of the travellers have in common, from ancient Muslim Pilgrims going to Mecca to Hillary scaling Everest, is the opportunity and desire to travel. It seems like that is all you need to have your own adventures

My Nana has often said, when someone invites you somewhere, you should go. Sage advice. Jo called me the other day from work and asked would we like tickets to Little Britain. I said “When someone invites you somewhere, you go.”

If you are not familiar, Little Britain is one of the more popular shows on the BBC. It features Matt Lucas and David Walliams and is a sketch comedy show featuring a host of recurring characters. The first time I saw the show, I could not believe that they were allowed to even put it on telly.

So popular is this television show that the performers have taken it on the road. The entire run has been sold out for a year in advance. The usual reaction that I got when I said that we were going to see the live show was that the tickets were printed on unobtainium. If you didn’t have them a year ago, you weren’t going to get them. So we were quite lucky.

The show is on at the Hammersmith Apollo in the west end of London. To get there, you just have to grind and rattle to the end of the Hammersmith & City tube line. The Hammersmith Apollo stage has been graced by such luminaries as Iron Maiden, Eddie Izzard and David Bowie. The hall features in the title of Motörhead’s 1981 live album no sleep ‘til Hammersmith. Johnny Cash played there in 1966 and Neil Young played there and lit part of it on fire!

The characters include Daffyd, the only gay in his little village in Wales There is Andy in the wheelchair and his condescending carer Lou and Vickie Pollard, the chav from the council estates. The Prime Minister has a gay assistant, Sebastian, who is obviously jealously in love with his boss. There is the two most obvious cross dressing men and a woman who projectile vomits if she is shown anything the least bit foreign.

I know that if you haven’t seen the show, then my description does no justice. I wondered how they would translate the sketch comedy TV show to the stage, but as the show is so heavily based on its characters, they were able to carry it off handily. The two main performers are adept at both the characters and at ad-libbing. The can carry the script and when the unexpected happens, such as a false moustache coming adrift mid-sketch, they can take off in very good ad-libs.

The strength of the show is the way the characters are written. Some are cringe-worthy, some are sad and some are disgusting. The thing that makes them good is that the writers use them to skewer our prejudices. Under each of the characters is a piece of everyone, as reluctant as you might be to admit it after seeing them.

There seems to be an endless choice of lavish and stage shows in London. Dirty Dancing is playing now (Nobody puts Baby in a corner!) as well as the usual selection of tourist trap musicals. I wish to see none of them. Little Britain was funny and well worth seeing. Jo and I are glad we went. Nana is right.