Hatted in Hoxton

Spotted this fellow in Hoxton yesterday and loved his sombre silhouette, the hat is McQueen.

As the images uploaded, I was instantly reminded of some pics I took last year of my friend, the superb artist Omar Zingaro Bhatia....

Woodenbox with A Fistful of Fivers

Just bumped into Woodenbox with A Fistful of Fivers grabbing some sustenance ahead of their Marc Riley session on BBC 6 Music tonight. Tune in this evening, 7-9pm. First met Woodenbox (above left) at a tiny acoustic night a couple of years ago when he kindly gifted a demo CD.

Persuaded "The Management" to come in for a pic too!

In action...

Blythswood Square - A Rather Racy Hotel

Welcome to Glasgow's newly opened Blythswood Square Hotel.

The former home of the Royal Scottish Automobile Club has been transformed by The Townhouse Collection Company into the city's newest hotel with 5 star aspirations. I felt we ought to go for cocktails.

When I started snapping, Michael at reception offered to let us see more.

Above is the salon. Harris Tweed hasn't featured in an interior on this sort of scale since the QE2 in the 1960's.

A red lantern in each window has got to be a tongue in cheek reference to Blythswood Square's nocturnal past.

An entire wall of this room is covered in a blown up image of the Monte Carlo Rally which departed from the Square outside, in 1955.

Cocktails were lent an authentic prohibition air - we nursed a bottle of sparkling water for 20 minutes while a single cocktail menu eventualy found its way to us. Of course seconds later a waiter returns, poised to take our order. A brief glance and this one spoke to me. Another 20 minute wait and our drinks arrive. Not the place for a quick pit stop then. I should flag up that they'd only been open 5 days and this was their first Saturday night, so I shall of course be back, but will be applying my 3 strikes rule!

I liked the sound of that one, but everything "floral and light" was slightly drowned out by the lemon juice.

Although by that time, this lady wasn't complaining.

Blythswood Square Hotel

Paisley Girl

I get instantly mesmerized by anything psychedelic or paisley pattern-ish, particularly in rich gemstone colours, so I had to get a shot of this girl, who was in front of me in the queue, at the local Co-op. The store's being remodeled, which provided the perfect backdrop for our impromptu fashion shoot - and no small amount of entertainment for the queue behind us.