Andrew Cranston

Where we sometimes go when we cant be bothered cooking. It’s an old school Italian-Scottish cafe on Byres Road. Chips with everything. Great ice cream. Older Glasgow couples always seem to be there. They dress up (a bit )for dinner. 20 years ago they smoked as they ate, so I took them back into that languorous smoky world, which somehow seems very far away. It was either here (or possibly the equally cheap-and-cheerful Grosvenor cafe) that I saw Donald Dewar on an adjacent table having a fry-up and pot of tea, and a fag afterwards. He was soon to be the first First minister of Scotland.

The painting is based on a drawing I did there one time. A wonderful coat an older woman had on. The rhythmic markings of the fake-fur coat. Set hair, broon tights. The man had a shirt and tie, a fine head of hair, which made me think of the writer Bernard MacLaverty. ( As I was making the painting I met MacLaverty in a dentists waiting room on Dumbarton Road and just as I thought - fine head of hair.)

I was after a cramped feeling, as you might get in a Max Beckmann, every space accounted for.

Pleasing cracking appeared which I then trapped under the varnish. I felt this helped get across something about the lacquered-wood, split-vinyl, cheap-leather surfaces.