Glasgow - brimming with beauty and pride

Glaswegians don't do laid-back. They're stroppy, and proud of it, writes JEAN RAFFERTY.

During the orgiastic spendfest that passed for culture in the 80s, I met a woman who had designer clothing boutiques in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The Edinburgh woman, she reported, wore dark colours all the time. She was sombre, elegant, sophisticated - and dull. Glaswegians, on the other hand, welcomed any opportunity to dress up. You could offer them hot pinks, ostrich-feather trim, even, oh yes, sequins.

Not that every female in the western world wears black; this is obviously no longer the case. But Glaswegian style continues to be inextricably linked with bravura. We try to be cool, but few of us manage it. We say we are cynical, but we are furious that we have to be. We just don't do laid-back. There is far too much energy and passion in the city for that.

This is a city where you can get into a taxi and be drawn into a discussion about bicycle design and the decorative elements of Gaudi. And it is a city where you can be drawn into fierce argument about religion and its adjunct here, football. It's a city with vision and drive and wit, and a city that has still not broken away from the sadness and poverty of its past.

For the visitor, this makes it a fascinating mix. Proof of the extravagant energy of its entrepreneurial history is all around you: in the City Chambers in George Square; in the elegant neo-classical pediments and pillars of the Merchant City; in the imposing tenements of the west end. The people who made money here liked to flaunt it - none of the uniformity of Edinburgh New Town, which may be elegant but is basically an upmarket housing scheme. Here people were prepared to pay for fancy wrought-iron work, stained-glassed windows and every imaginable kind of ornamentation.

On Glasgow Green, you will see the Templeton Business Centre, formally a carpet factory of the same name. It's a commercial palace, a fantasy of red brick and gold, of mosaics and twirly pillars and fancy windows, some arched and some round. Its architect, William Leiper, was asked to make the factory like his favourite building - which just happened to be the Doge's Palace in Venice.

Entertainment in modern Glasgow is far more sophisticated than the competitive drinking that once held sway. The city has a beautifully restored Victorian theatre in the Theatre Royal, home to both Scottish opera and Scottish ballet. It also has the most exciting theatre company in the country in the Citizens' Theatre, which has built up an international reputation not just for its style and drama but for the high standards of male beauty it insists on adhering to. Rupert Everett and Pierce Brosnan both appeared here at the beginning of their careers.

The licensing laws may not be Continental, but they're more liberal than they are in London, and there are countless stylish bars and restaurants. Try the October Cafe in Princes Square, looking down on one of the most imaginative shopping centres in Britain. Or the Art Deco restaurant and bar, Rogano, just before Buchanan St. A Glasgow institution, it is frequented mostly by solid middle-class businessmen of a type that Glaswegians, bristly with inverted snobbery, like to pretend don't exist here. We may all have voted Labour during the Thatcher years, but that didn't prevent some citizens from making a lot of money, just as they always have done.

That commercial wealth, after all, is what made the city a centre for the arts. It was the great shipowners whose collections made both Kelvingrove Art Gallery and the Burrell; the great shipowners who built beautiful mansions of honey-coloured local stone on the south side of the city.

Those with an eye for design will recognise the name Charles Rennie Mackintosh and a fine example of his work can be seen at the Willow Tearoom in Buchanan St.

Glasgow may have ignored its great artists in the past but its present inhabitants are devoted to style. A short ride on the underground system, known as the Clockwork Orange, will bring you to Hillhead and the most fervent poseurs. Ashton Lane, with its eclectic collection of bars and restaurants - Indian, Irish, even Belgian - provide a parade of pulchritude, both male and female, that is Continental in its physical brio.

Regrettably, the Lane does not follow Continental traditions of late opening. For service after midnight you have to go to the clubs or casinos. Or you could try Cafe Insomnia in Woodlands Rd, where you can get food through the night.

For a long time, the world looked at Glasgow as an anachronism full of stroppy workers, crumbling slums and dying industry. Now that we have cleaned up our act and our buildings, it knows we have become a city brimming over with beauty, simmering with artists and writers.

We are still all stroppy, workers or not, but the swaggering energy and humour of the people here will lift your spirits.