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Baillieston student hopes to follow in the footsteps of Hollywood stars A TALENTED Acting and Performance student from Baillieston hopes his starring role in a production of The Plaza Suite will set him on the path to following in the footsteps of fellow Glasgow Clyde College graduates who have enjoyed successful careers in Hollywood. Andrew O’Malley, a former pupil of St Andrew’s Roman Catholic Secondary School, impressed audiences with his portrayal of Jesse Kiplinger in the show and now hopes to emulate the success of Breaking Bad’s Laura Fraser and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. star Iain De Caestecker. The 21-year-old said: “I had so much fun performing in The Plaza Suite as Jesse is such a complex character. My performance was very emotionally-driven and I think the most challenging thing about the rehearsal process was learning how to subtly introduce some comedy to the role. I spent a lot of time researching old Hollywood stars in preparation for the show.” Andrew, who hopes to pursue a career in the film, television and theatre industry now that he has completed
his HND Acting and Performance qualification at Glasgow Clyde College, said: “The Plaza Suite was our last col-
lege production and was quite nerve-wracking, but it was also really exciting and I loved seeing all our hard work come
DON’T BE LEFT BEHIND IF you have a left-handed child, it’s nice to know that left-handers worldwide will unite on 13th August 2015 to mark International Left-Handers Day with a tongue-incheek celebration of the many talents attributed to their hand dominance. It is a day to enjoy the advantages of creativity, intelligence, artistic and sporting prowess. But for left-handed children, learning new skills with right-hand bias in tools and layouts can present practical difficulties that often lead to awkward clumsiness and bad writing style throughout their life. Your child may well show signs of being left-handed long before he/she is old enough to pick up a pen, often at 3 months+ when they first start putting finger food to their mouth with their dominant hand, or sucking their favourite thumb 1. Eating – Left-handers tend to feed themselves with their left hand all the time (finger food, dinner fork and pudding spoon) – they don’t often reverse the cutlery, unless they are trying to cut with a knife on its own, when they will be better using this in their left hand. 2. Dressing – For left-handed boys, buttons and zips are
‘back to front’ so need a bit more practice. When helping left-handers with trousers/ shoes, remember they usually balance on their left foot first, so have the right leg or shoe ready for them to step into. Shoelaces/ties – A good tip is to stand opposite the child when demonstrating tying a tie or laces. This provides them with a mirror image to copy. 3. Wind-up toys – Left-handers naturally turn in an anti-clockwise direction. If a left-hander is frustrated with a toy, it may be because it works back-to-front for him/her. Try alternative toys with cogs and wheels that work equally well with the handle turned anti-clockwise, or press button activation. 4. Cutting – Do ensure your child has access to fully left-handed scissors for all craft work. These have the blades reversed so they work properly left-handed. Find out how left-handed scissors are distinguished (for instance with different coloured handles or ribbons) and ensure your child understands the difference and knows to ask for her type of scissors at home and nursery. Check that there are enough pairs for all the left-handers in the group to use and they are not given out to right-handers
by mistake! 5. Pencils and Crayons – Encourage a good pencil grip as soon as your child starts playing with paint and colouring, to make the progression into writing style simple and painless. Oversized triangular crayons and pencils help develop the ideal tripod grip that left-handers need to avoid smudging and cramped grip as they learn to write. Always ensure pencils/crayons/toys and so on are placed directly in front within easy reach of either hand. 6. Reading & writing direction – Left-handers naturally work from right to left across a page. Be aware of this when your child starts drawing and reading simple words and letters. Remind them to start at the top left of a page when reading and starting to form letters, and don’t be surprised if they form some letters backwards or read a word back to front until they have mastered the direction they need to go in. Lefties have a talent for transposing images in their heads so can often read and write backwards with ease! A star in the top left of reading flash cards, computer screens and blank writing pages can be a helpful reminder of the correct side to start.
together.” The play, which was written by Neil Simon in 1968, is a comedy set a hotel room
and explores the lives of three different couples who successively occupy it. Directed by course director David Lee-Mi-
chael, the college’s production of The Plaza Suite aimed to introduce tomorrow’s Scottish stage stars to Glasgow audiences. Mr Lee-Michael, who trained at London’s Royal Academy of Arts and the Jacques Lecoq mime school in Paris before working as an actor in London and directing a host of productions throughout the UK, said: “The Plaza Suite is made up of several snippets of what different people’s lives are like, meaning the show is everything from funny and happy to dark and sad, giving the students a chance to gain a wide range of experience in terms of acting out different emotions. “They were only given four weeks to rehearse because this is around the same amount of time professional actors are given to work on shows and we wanted to give the students as realistic an experience of working in the industry as possible. The tight turnaround has been challenging for them but also a lot of fun – they’ve learnt some fantastic skills which they will be able to apply if they are cast in productions after finishing their studies.”
GLASGOW IN NEW CYCLING APP THE APP for urban cycling‚ Bike Citizens, now covers more than 100,000 miles of cycle routes in over 50 cities in the UK. Using this App invites citizens to discover their city in a totally different way. The Bike Citizens cycling app now covers all major cities in the UK with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle and 50 other cities are just waiting to be discovered by bike. The Bike Citizens app, which is available in more than 200 cities in Europe and Australia, uses the knowledge of bike couriers and is specifically designed for the needs of cyclists in cities. It offers offline navigation, route planning and tracking of pedaled routes and has been developed through the know-how of bike messengers using OpenStreetMap, a collaborative (Open Data) project to create a free editable map of the world. The app is designed to favour cycle paths and side streets and avoid busy main streets, providing the best routing across the city to make cycling more comfortable and safer. The app not only helps with getting around but also encourages the exploration of new places. Citizens get a new
perspective on the city and the data is provided back to the planning authorities helping to make the city a better place for cyclists. Daily trips are tracked to generate data on cycling behaviour to create a heat map of the most common cycle routes, this data helps show transport planners where to develop new infrastructure to create more cycle friendly places. Bike Citizens has also developed the best-selling smartphone mount Finn that reliably fastens any smartphone to any handle bar, allowing hands free access of the App while riding. This award winning simple tool free mount is now also available for sale in the UK, every Finn comes with a unique code to allow free access to the App. The city maps are also available as a Bike Citizens map,
this online cycle route planner is completely free of charge and offers point-to-point navigation as well as the 5-minutesby-bike tool. You may be amazed to see how far you can get by bike from your office or home in just five minutes! The average modal share for cycling in UK cities is under 2%, compared to 16% in Graz, the home town of Bike Citizens. When most medium sized cities can be traversed by bike in under 15 minutes, this low take up of cycling in the UK seems like a tremendous wasted opportunity, so the Bike Citizens’ mission is to make our contribution to getting more people cycling in Britain. Come on Brits, give cycling a try, it’s fun, healthy and convenient!