Page 253 - WDT MAGAZINE IRELAND ISSUE WINTER 2018

crumbling into a romantic ruin, you can still see the pears to be a rather unremarkable fish and chip shop,
trapeze bar from which an athletic young Archie swung Vald’oro. “But there is a musical connection here,” she
from the rafters and the stage where Laurel bombed smiles. “The owner, Luigi Corvi, is actually an accom-
so badly, he was forcibly removed with a hook. plished tenor who sang at the opening of the Scottish
“You could be seriously maimed if the audience Parliament. If you want a song with your chips, he’ll
didn’t like you,” Stroak says. “They would bring nuts and serenade you from behind the counter.”
bolts and pieces of wood to throw at you to get you off As we head east along Gallowgate, we encounter a
the stage. four-story mural of the already larger-than-life actor,
One can only wonder if such a fate might await Bob comedian, musician and native Glaswegian, Billy Con-
Dylan, who reportedly bought a set of bagpipes in nolly. “Big Yin,” created by artist Rachel Maclean, de-
Glasgow in 2011. “He is also reputed to have bought picts Connelly in an outlandish kilt, sporran and horned
‘Learning Bagpipe’ books one and two, so we’re waiting hat, holding a scepter topped by a pair of bare buns. It’s
for his bagpipe album,” Stroak says. If that happens, one of three Connolly murals installed along the city’s
make peace with your maker, for Bob Dylan blowing mural trail to celebrate his 75thbirthday in 2017, and it
down the pipes is a surely a sign of the apocalypse. provides quite a welcome to what Stroak describes as
On the London Road, Stroak points out what ap- “the spicier end of the city.”

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