AN example of how fings ain't what they used to be can be gleaned from next Monday's BBC documentary on the Arlington Baths in Glasgow. The Ex-S film is called The Pleasure Palace and takes a peek behind the shower curtains of this last redoubt of Victorian steamy decadence.
We should point out that the Arlington is really only decadent in that members can use as much hot water as they like and discard their wet towels and swimming trunks for other people to deal with.
It is in the matter of the wet trunks that one of the older members can be heard bemoaning the passing of old traditions: ''Men would drop their pants where they stood and left them because they knew Robert the pant boy would pick them up and take them to the laundry...... It's a sign of the times that we don't have a pant boy anymore.''
A refurbishment programme is currently transforming the Arlington Baths from decay into faded grandeur. There are a few vacancies, for membership is not cheap at #350 a year but is great value. (OK we will come clean here and admit to membership.)
The Arlington facilities have been endorsed by no less a band of people than Glasgow's black-taxi drivers. The baths staff turned up early one Sunday morning some years back and, although the baths were closed, there were eight taxis parked outside.
The staff then discovered a dozen or so chaps splashing happily in the pool. One of the drivers had found a key to the premises in the back of his cab and, hey presto, the Arlington Baths Taxi Drivers (Free) Swimming Club had been formed.
The name game
MIKE Blair of Calmac, recently returned from promoting Scottish tourism in the US, passes on the New Jersey car repair firm called Caputo Bros.
Lines of inquiry
IT is sometimes, but not often, instructive to read how artists go about creating their work. An Lanntair gallery in Stornoway has a show opening this week called Drawing the Line.
The catalogue explains: ''David Connearn's drawings are made in the most simple and straightforward manner imaginable. A line is drawn on paper, another line is drawn closely beneath it, and so on until the end of the drawing.
''They can be loosely or densely woven. Drawings with fine lines and much space have a light and graceful air, a refinement, while thick, close-textured drawings take on an impressive tactile solidity.
''In the course of a drawing, where some unconscious mood has increased the pressure of the artist's pen or constricted the space between the lines, there may occur bands of greater density, of darker weather, which lighten like passing clouds.
''Concentration is the wrong word for Connearn's attitude during the course of a drawing. It is one of meditation, alert yet easy. There is just attention, commitment to what is there, with no thought of consequence.'' All of which would appear to come under the general heading of Nice Work If You Can get It.
And what's in it for the exhibition-goer? ''The long succession of unfolding lines calm the pulse and allow the viewer to breath in time with the artist,'' it says here.
Now we know
A SAFEWAY price label arrives on the Diary desk from a reader in Kilmacolm. The comestible thereon is a cold meat described as Barking Billy. Naturally we make inquiries as to whether this is a reference to madness or supporting Rangers.
Cheryl at the deli in the Paisley Safeway explains that Barking Billy is a pork sliced meat which is so constructed that it features a likeness of a wee dug, complete with droopy ears. It is two-tone, brown and cream, and is immensely popular with children.
Barking is right.
Talent spotting
DEBATING teams from BBC Scotland and Scottish Television locked horns at Glasgow Yoonie, the point being to argue which channel was the ''face of TV in Scotland''. A chap from BBC phones to tell us this so you can guess the result. Scottish TV did not win.
More interesting to us, however, is the title of one member of the BBC team. Maggie Cunningham's job is head of talent. This caused some excitement among the students. Some of them wondered if Maggie had Heather the Weather's home phone number but most inquiries were of the Gies a Job variety.
So what does a head of talent do? Just what you would expect. Ms Cunningham's task is to identify BBC employees whose skills are under-used and bring their light out from under the bushel.
How long before a canteen lady is put in as BBC Scotland controller - and John McCormick gets his chance to make the tea?
In the bag
FROM a court somewhere in darkest Lanarkshire we hear of three accused who had allegedly turned up at a house, allegedly smashed down the door, and allegedly set about the inhabitants using various implements of their trade. It was not being made clear exactly who had which implement and the sheriff decided to intervene. ''Let me get this clear,'' the sherif said to the accused in the witness box, ''when you went to the house you had hammers and knives in a bag. Did you each have a bag or was it a communal bag?''
''No, it was an Adidas bag,'' was the reply.
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