Susan Boyle

By Alan Fisher in Europe on September 16th, 2010
Benedict celebrated Mass on Thursday in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park [AFP photo]

 
They came in their tens of thousands - for a while the scandals, the controversies the arguments forgotten.
 
In the warm early autumn sunshine – unseasonably nice for Glasgow - they waited patiently for the man they all want to see.
 
It's a curious mix. One of our team said it felt like a music festival, with the strains of the organ rising above the general chatter of an excited crowd.
 
With the flags and the smell of burgers hanging in the air, the vendors pushing their programmes, to me it felt more like a football match.
 
Looking across the crowd – and there are easily 60,000 here, there are flags from Spain and France, from Ireland and Sweden, from Denmark and even India.
 
And there are the flags of the Vatican City, the world's smallest nation and of course, the white cross on the blue background, the Scottish Saltire.
 

By Al Jazeera Staff in Europe on September 16th, 2010

18:30 GMT: Right, that's it from me for the day. Hope you enjoyed the coverage. Don't forget to check back for more updates tomorrow, and remember, you can follow this and other world news 24 hours a day by tuning into Al Jazeera English, or online at www.aljazeera.net/english. But I'm guessing you knew that...

18:23 GMT: Susan Boyle is back on stage, and the first day of the Pope's visit to Britain is over. He will now head to London to spend the night there, ahead of a visit to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canturbury, scheduled for Friday.    

18:11 GMT:  Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher reports from the mass: "What the pope got here in Glasgow was what we would have expected from the fathful. It's not just Scots that are here; we've seen flags from all over Europe.