The Monkey's Paw

I woke up this morning, dozing in the half light when I became aware of a roughly masculine arm flopped across my chest. I'd had a few too many the night before and tried hard to recall who it was lying beside me. I could remember being in the Chip, another pleasant meal with Walter Smith before he left and I joined the Reporting Scotland bhoys upstairs who asked me what I was doing with 'that orange bastard' and cheered when I told them I was keeping my enemies close, then it was doubles all round and a quick line in the toilet - ah, BBC Scotland, you can't beat 'em, always Celtic men, always got the best drugs. We were having a laugh about the reaction of the huns over our approach to the Alan McGregor affair especially in comparison to how we screamed blue murder when Neil Lennon got what was widely accepted as a deserved kicking in Ashton Lane (Neil is quite possibly the most vile little man I've had the misfortune to have bugger me but I sugar coat him at every opportunity just to wind up what few Rangers fans still read the Times). Oh yes, poor wee Neil mouths off and is knocked to the ground and it's a sectarian crime with Lawwell jumping all over the press and the police, threatening to withhold season tickets and dish out thrashings of his own if we don't portray his attackers as foul bigots and now we have Alan McGregor innocently making his way home after having too much to drink and leaving Karbon early because he was too drunk to pull, being pushed around by some Celtic supporting scallywags and what do we hear from Ibrox? Nothing. There was more noise coming from Lawwell and it wasn't even his player! Yes, Lawwell was all over this as much as he was the Lennon incident, demanding no mention of sectarianism or bigotry (as if anyone in the Scottish press would dare anyway, they're already too far on message) and instructing everyone to get stuck right into McGregor as every little psychological advantage counts before the big match on Sunday. At the same time, Lawwell wheeled out a few more hired mouths to talk up the Celtic agenda and every day this week it's been a new face on the back pages calling McGregor an idiot and saying Celtic are going to beat Rangers. If only.

So I recalled all of this but who was in bed with me? I thought back to last night, still in the Chip and the drinks were flowing when the door opened and in came the Scotland Today bhoys, red cheeked from chasing Raman Bhardwaj through the Botanic Gardens, the smiles on their faces betraying the fact that they'd got him yet again - that'll teach him for getting a job by pretending to support Partick Thistle. If they'd asked me at the time I could've told them I'd spotted him in west end bars cheering as Ronald DeBoer scored against our heroes but no one thought to at the time so he infiltrated STV and made a decent fist of passing as a neutral while helping them meet their diversity targets (STV are so diverse that they have no Rangers fans working for them full stop, beat that Labour Party!) until recently when someone snitched on him (wonder who that could've been). So there we were, the great and the good of the Scottish television news media, guzzling gin, snorting gear and celebrating our diversity by hating protestants when the door flies open and in hurtles a figure in a black suit, he cartwheeled through the door, his arse sticking out and legs bent so it was hardly a cartwheel to be proud of, then he stopped and motioned with his fingers as if he was shooting us like some romantic Irish republican terrorist or as the BBC would have us call them now, 'dissident republicans' - it was Robbie Keane! The whole pub cheered at the sight of a proper Irishman for a change and everyone broke into a few verses of the Fields of Athenry as people flocked to him for autographs and to marvel at his cheeky chappy smile. So could it be Keane whose arm lies across my chest?

The impromptu party was in full swing as someone was sent over to Jintys to summon the republican girls as the television bhoys were becoming horny what with all the stuff they were snorting, their lascivious grins betraying their sudden lack of inhibitions (could it be one of them who now lies beside me?) and it wasn't long before the girls arrived with green and white scarves borrowed from Jintys and a fiddle band who'd been playing in the corner over there for nothing but who scented the chance to earn a few bob as it got really wild in the Chip. Then just by coincidence, Professor Tom Devine fetched up, arm in arm with his latest slut who looked suspiciously like Elaine C Smith but that was impossible, she was kept in a cage in Devine's basement and anyone who went near her tended to be savaged - didn't she take the hands off John Reid when he got too close and didn't she half kill one of the previous Keevins when he fell down the stairs and knocked open her cage by accident? 'Ah Spiers,' said Tom Devine, 'This is Elaine C Smith, my latest project, my fair lady if you will. I'm teaching her how to behave in civilised society. I've only recently got her to stop eating slops and biting the ankles of anything that moves but we're getting there.' I gazed in disgust at her hairy arms and god help me, please don't let it be her who is lying beside me in bed right now!

The arm stirred, outside I could hear the eerie silence of the snowfall, light peeped in through the curtains illuminating the mystery arm.

The party continued and word soon got around until the car park behind Ashton Lane was full of chauffeurs sitting waiting in tax payer funded cars while their MP and councillor masters scurried to get into the Chip to join the celebrations. It was pandemonium: the fiddles blazed furiously as the STV bhoys danced with the republican girls, twirling them around and around until they were dizzy and sick in a corner; Elaine C Smith was under a table gnawing on a bone while Tom Devine having forgotten about her was having pint of port drinking competitions at the bar with anyone who'd come near him; the BBC bhoys were all in the loos, unable to leave such was their addiction; MPs and councillors stood on tables shouting the drinks were on them while pocketing the receipts to claim on expenses; and Robbie Keane turned poorly executed cartwheel after cartwheel, knocking over chairs and revellers as he did. It was magnificent and made me proud to be part of the Celtic family as everyone sang along to the latest reel by the band and just as we were about to howl 'soon there'll be no protestants at all' the door burst off its hinges and flew across the room. The band stopped and there was an eerie hush as one jackbooted foot stepped into the room followed by another. It was Lawwell. 'What is this?' he growled. 'Haven't you all got work to do?' And at that, everyone grabbed their coats and made for the exit, ducking as they passed him lest they take a stroke across the cheek. As the crowd made its way downstairs I was grabbed by the elbow by Robbie Keane; he smiled and winked at me and we skipped down Ashton Lane towards Byres Road and ultimately my flat and a night of naked cartwheels - oh joy! It was Robbie Keane beside me! My memory was returning.

'Robbie!' I cried, turning over in bed and pulling back the sheets only for, oh horror, Tom Devine to roll over and frown at me. From under the bed I could hear the grunting of Elaine C Smith and it all came back to me. There was only one thing to do to recover from such a shock as this, I must cheer myself up and write an article laying the boot into the Rangers supporters.