In spite of the inclement weather on Monday, Glasgow has been piping hot this week as venues, throughout the city, have served up a feast of attractions in Glasgow's first international piping festival. Entitled 'Piping Hot' the festival has acted as a curtain raiser for this Saturday's (14 August 2004) World Pipe Band Championships. Some 230 pipe bands, from all over the world, will battle it out for the top honours, once again, at Glasgow Green. Interest in piping is at an all time high in Scotland with thousands of young and not so young playing our national musical instrument, at an unprecedented high standard. Pipers include the new joint editor of the Scots Independent Professor James Taggart. Over 40,000 are expected to pack Glasgow Green on Saturday and with pipe band standards on the up and up, reigning World Champions Shotts and Dykehead Caledonia Pipe Band will have to be in top form to retain the title they gained last year.

 

Glasgow Green holds a special place in the hearts of all those who hail from 'The Dear Green Place'. The Green has been used by generations of Glaswegians for washing and drying clothes and for bleaching; it also provided grazing for the burgh's cattle and sheep. With the rapid industrialisation of the city it came into its own as an amenity area. The Glasgow Golf Club played there from the 1780s until c1832, as did Glasgow Rangers from 1873-75 and many other sporting events were held on the Green. There too, in 1765, James Watt hit upon the idea of the separate condenser which was to revolutionise the performance of the steam engine. The great open spaces also attracted generations of orators, and provided the location for some of the city's largest meetings, from the protest demonstrations of the Calton Weavers in 1787 to the UCS rallies last century.

 

On Saturday hundreds of pipers will follow in the footsteps of the Jacobite Pipers who played as the Jacobite army paraded before Prince Charles Edward Stewart in January 1746. The competing pipers and drummers will all deserve a dram after doing their stint at the Green, and whisky forms the basis of this week's recipe. The Flag hopes that Saturday will live up to the recipe's name - Long Hot Summer - and that Mother Nature provides a super summer's day for a super attraction.

 

Long Hot Summer

 

Ingredients : 2 oz of Scotch; 1/2 oz of Campari; dash of Angostura bitters

 

Fill a long glass with ice, a chunk of cucumber, pieces of orange and lemon and a sprig of mint. Pour the ingredients into the glass and top with lemonade.