Secret Diary, Thursday 26th November

I still don't think I've recovered. Peter Lawwell threw a huge party in Bairds on Tuesday night to celebrate Rangers being stuffed by Stuttgart. Everyone was there: every sports journalist you can think of, the entire editorial teams of Reporting Scotland and Scotland Today, Labour MPs and MSPs, the Lord Provost, the Celtic squad, the Lisbon Lions (Tommy Gemmell was serving drinks and Bertie Auld collecting glasses), the republican bhoys were running the door and yours truly popped in to join in the fun.

It all kicked off right on full time when Lawwell, dressed in a fine Schutzstaffel grey Hugo Boss suit with jackboots and spurs, got up on a table and toasted 'the huns for taking the heat off us' at which everyone cheered and Tony Mowbrey blushed and shuffled into a corner. Everyone then popped champagne corks and celebrated their diversity by singing misty eyed songs about bombing London.

The party was in full swing and I was standing at the bar grinning, watching Lawwell force Peter Maguire to do sit ups for some perceived slight when I was approached by that sneaky little rat, Charlie Gordon. He looked at me funny and asked if I'd seen Tom Devine lately. I told him not for a while and he raised an eyebrow which made him even more repulsive looking. 'He's gone missing you know?' He said, 'Not the first of our people to disappear recently - first we lost Hugh Keevins although we know what happened to him and the impersonator we have working at Radio Clyde has been filling in quite well while we wait for him to recover. Then Dr Reid and the McConnells vanished and now we have Devine and the Strathclyde University lapdogs posted missing. you wouldn't have any idea where any of them are, would you Spiers?' I took a pull at my whisky and stared him out.
'Haven't the faintest idea Charlie - why, you're not hinting that there's a story here I should be looking at, are you?'
'Not at all Spiers, in fact, we want you to stay well clear of this one. We'll find our men and bring them back home again, don't you worry.'
Then we were interrupted by a loud crash at the door - the SFA were arriving and George Peat had put his foot in a bucket of wallpaper paste and Gordon Smith, in trying to free him from it had sent them both crashing over a table, spilling the paste over them and kicking a bucket of confetti in the air which overturned and covered them, sticking to the paste. I could hear Peat saying something about another fine mess when I turned to say something to Charlie Gordon but he was gone.

So did Charlie Gordon suspect I had a play in the disappearance of several of the main players in whatever the big plan was Graeme Souness had hinted at in Strathclyde University and Martin Bain had acknowledged that night on Eaglesham moor? Or was he just being a little sneak like he usually is? After all, I knew all about his previous record from Wendy Alexander at Satis House. I'd never report what I knew so far though, the Lawwell war machine made sure of that.

So we all continued drinking into the night, knowing that Rangers recent disaster would allow Celtic to relax a little in spite of them threatening to drop below Dundee Utd and Hibs in the league and I finally left Bairds around four o'clock the next afternoon with a sore bum from Bill Butler MSP rogering me in the toilets, sneering then spitting etc and I woke up this morning with a terrible hangover, lying on the step of the wife's new flat. A post it note was stuck to my forehead. It was from Aamer Anwar and it said, 'any more of this stalking and I'll accuse you of racism'. I'd better be careful then, I know Strathclyde Police arrest anyone who even looks at Anwar funny. I'm off to my own bed now to try and recover.