Here are some of the photographs I have taken while out and about in the West End of Glasgow - I hope you find them interesting. Click on the images to view larger versions. You are free to download and use for non-commercial purposes any of my photographs as long as you put a link to this site and give me credit for the photograph (Jim Byrne)

Some months the images are a mixture of photographs of the West End, photographs of Glasgow and photographs of Scotland.

29th December 2006

The Kibble Palace was always one of my favourite West End buildings - so I was keen to have a look around when it recently reopened to the public. The huge amount of work that was involved in taking it apart and putting it back together again - has to be admired. It must have been a pains-taking task - requiring the skills and patience familiar to jigsaw puzzle experts. Well done to the workers - they have certainly done a good job of restoring the Kibble.

On the down-side, it's lost a lot of it's former character - character which came from being over 130 years old. New glass - can't look anything other than new - new bricks, can't look anything other than like new bricks. The building is so immaculately restored that it too looks new. Maybe that was the price to pay - it either rotted away and was lost forever - or it got re-built from scratch.

Perhaps once they have added some more plants and the public have ground some industrial strength city grime into the new paving stones, I'll warm to it once more.

We decided not to get a real Christmas tree this year - for some reason the thought of dragging it through the house to throw it out after Christmas - was still fresh in our minds. We settled for this small glass tree displayed on the mantlepiece - but Pat then spotted a lovely little artificial tree in Dobbie's so we acquired that plus lots of spice scented pine cones.

This is the view from our kitchen window - on a dull wintry day.

Graffiti on Byres road - is rarely amusing - though this is.

My old guitar overdrive pedal - just before I threw it in the bin. I got good use out of it - as you can see.