retiredmartin

July 2025. Clydebank.

Lucy Dacus walked off stage at Glasgow Barrowlands at half ten and I sprinted back to the station,

again resisting the lure of the Gallowgate Shawarma scene.

Why (oh why) can you never find the entrance to Glasgow Central when you’re in a rush ?

Just catching the 22:52 in the direction of Dalmuir, I was regally entertained by two young ladies singing the hits of the moment (Press PLAY).

If you can identify that tune, you win half a lukewarm Tennent’s lager from Chandlers, Clydebank’s smartest looking boozer.

It could have been Chris Brown (who ?), whose show at Hampden Park that night was apparently the reason for some insane hotel prices that night (£200 average) which had pushed me the 20 minutes out to “Charming Clydebank“, and the functional Douglas Hotel.

Nowadays a friendly, spotless, efficient motel, but a bit of research on MyClydebankPhotos finds a lively bar back in 1977.

They’re still celebrating their promotion to the Scottish Premier Division in 1976-77 alongside St Mirren, with whom they shared six goals on the last ever Christmas Day fixture.

St Mirren’s top celebrity fan Duncan “Pubmeister” McKay would like football back on Christmas Day, on every day in fact. He’d kindly offered to put me up in Moth Towers near Paisley that night, but I prefer my own space and there’s a danger of becoming “Prisoner of the Host“, reluctant to return at midnight swinging an £11 bag of curry and pakoras and dips with which to decorate the guest quarters.

Along with pubs and lesbian anthems and culture, a key objective of this Glasgow trip was a tick or two on the Curryheute blog, the 3rd most important Guide after the GBG and Suffolk Churches.

No chance of a tick at Clydebank’s latest opening Kebab and Kurry joint, I thought. I thought wrong.

Blimey, not only has Curryheute popped in for a curry, he also appears to live just up the hill.

Hector says it’s OK, I thought the meal for one was superb (NCSS4).