I was waiting around in the Glasgow city centre today for my friends to arrive for a meal (I was early – had finished all my errands sooner than I’d expected) and noticed a building I’d previously ignored.
This happened to be the new Glasgow Apple shop. Apple sure has made it stand out more – so much so, that despite passing it nearly every day for the past couple of years; I have absolutely no idea what (if anything) actually used to be there.
Anyway, today they were installing the requisite Apple logo. I tried to get a couple of shots inside it, but, they were quite protective ;) The only thing I do know is that right above the entrance there were a bunch of stools, and, slightly above and to the right was an Apple Genius bar logo / light thing. Very white, bright and Apple.
Unfortunately I was only equipped with the VGA camera on my Motorola v3, but hey, anything is better than nothing…
Half way through my happy snapping, I noticed a few guys talking – I asked if he was an Apple guy, and indeed he was – all the way from Cupertino USA! He was sort-of trying to oversee the polish builders (lots of polish people have moved to Scotland do the jobs we won’t – I’ve worked along side them at various points, all excellent workers! Immigration CAN work!) – Unfortunately, lacking Polish, he did find this somewhat hard – and so ‘close the door’ was more him screaming and pointing!
Anyway, find below the pictures I managed to get which are of semi-reasonable quality. I had some others, but, they came out REALLY bad :( There were some other Apple-fans with nice Sony Ericson phones taking a couple of photos as well, maybe they have better cameras and photos – if anyone knows of any posted online, let me know, I’ll link to them.
The first photo has a picture of the upstairs - stools were lined up against a glass barier, and that glowing thing on the wall was the genius bar logo. To the far right in the store was also a lift and stairs - no photo, and I'm not sure if this is for staff only or the public. On my way home though, I did notice them working (10:30pm!) and scrubbing the handrails. I guess it might be for the publics use :) The "plaque" above the door says 147.
Unfortunately, they soon caught on to my photo taking and firstly started to hold up polystrene while they got their stuff outside and then closed the doors to stop me taking photos...
They had the logo out on it's side all wrapped up. That quickly changed however...
This was them getting ready to start hoisting up the Apple logo...
And away we go...!
One interesting question posed by an onlooker was "is the Apple sign the right way round?". The cupertino folk did a double-take just to make sure the sign was indeed going up the right way. What an embarassment that could have been....!
The two people on the right (white shirt + ponytail guy) were the Apple folk. Sorry for the poor quality photos...
Red/purple shirt guy seemed to be in charge. He's the one I spoke to - seemed nice enough, but, I think was a bit pissed at my photo taking. Guess he didn't realise how poor the quality is! ;) He did say when I asked that he didn't think Steve Jobs was going to make an appearance when the store opened. Maybe he doesn't know, maybe he's lying. Who knows. But we can hope? It is after all the first store in SCOTLAND!
This is him (boss guy) trying to direct them to get the sign up. He mostly stood around though. Being the boss is great eh?
Ah-ha! Here's the guy in the white shirt really getting stuck in. Nothing like lending a hand!
And again... Another sneak peak inside when the guy came out. Quick to close the door, slow for camera to focus...
Eventually, they gave up trying to control the Poles (not knowing Polish made it hard and more a case of shouting and waiving!) and moved across to the starbucks directly across the road where they sat in the window watching what was going on drinking coffee. Apparently the weather was a tad cold for their liking... (At least that's what he indicated when I asked!)
Corner of St Vincent Street and Buchanan street. Notice those blacked out windows! It's a block up from TGI Fridays (where I was going for a meal - great as always!) is if you're coming from the St Enoch center / Central station end.
A view up Buchana street. Just a random photo I took to make it look like I was getting bored and see if they'd slip up ;)
Sort of semi-finished... gives you an idea anyway.
Any comments? Email alasdair@clipped.co.uk
If you have any of your own photos, you can email me and I'll upload them or link to where you're hosting them.