Some Velvet Morning

I had just left a meeting with the SPL split committee where I'd gone to interview them about Walter Smith's claims of a Celtic bias but unfortunately I didn't get the chance of a one on one interview with anyone as Peter Lawwell had beaten me to it and had them all lined up on phones, denying to the press any impropriety while he stalked up and down behind them, slicing them occasionally with his horse whip, a Luger pistol hanging menacingly from the holster of his Wehrmacht paratrooper uniform. So I loafed along to Hampden to find out what Gordon Smith and George Peat had to say about things when I was met with the most astonishing site - Peat was hanging from a broken clock on the face of Hampden while below, Gordon Smith stood covered in whitewash and shaking his fist.
'What's up Gordon?' I asked and he turned, surprised and scowled at me.
'I've quit Spiers, that's what's up,' and he took off his bowler hat and threw it onto the Hampden steps and stormed off. I chased after him, asking him why but he got in his car without answering and switched on the ignition only for the engine to blow up in a puff of steam, sending the bonnet into the air as the wheels collapsed and the body hit the ground. Smith got out and hailed a taxi and disappeared round the corner as I turned and wandered back to speak to Peat. I found him in the canteen having extricated himself from the clock. He was eating a shoe.
'Well, we're never doing that again,' he said, taking a bite of the sole. 'Too much bother.'
'Never doing what again?' I asked.
He cut a lace from the shoe and shovelled it into his mouth like spaghetti, 'Never employing a Chief Executive from a Rangers background, that's what. You wouldn't believe the amount of documents I've had to hide from Smith over the past three years and the amount of meetings with John Reid I've had to carry out in car parks behind his back, I'm just glad it's all over. No, the next CEO will be a Celtic man again, it'll save us all a lot of hassle.'
And with that I left trying to figure out the best way to ignore what Peat had just exclusively told me and how to spin it so that Rangers get the blame.

On the way home I popped into the Times Glasgow office to be met by a receptionist spraying air freshener everywhere. They must have a problem with the plumbing or something in that office as every time I visit, they're always running around with the glade and opening windows. The editor wasn't around so I chatted to one of the secretaries for a bit until she took a sudden coughing fit and fled the room after which there was nothing for me to hang around for so I headed back to the west end and nipped into the Chip for a quick drink but I spotted the wife hanging around the bar, obviously looking for me so I didn't go right in, opting to go over to Jintys instead. The republican girls were there and upon seeing me, ushered me into a corner where they gathered around conspiratorially and asked me if I'd noticed anything strange about Neil Lennon. Knowing that there was an ongoing mission regarding this with Donald Findlay, Cosgrove the bat man and the Graeme Souness Rangers 80s Squad Commandos all keeping an eye on proceedings, I didn't dare venture an opinion but heard from the girls that although they've all been serviced by Lennon for a few years now, recently he's started performing like a machine, never stopping and quite exhausting them all. It got me thinking that maybe I should get in on the action while the android Lennon is around as the real Lennon (wherever he is right now) only lasts a few minutes whenever he's galloped me. You see, after Lennon was taken to bits at Murray Park, they put him back together again and let him loose for observation only for him to malfunction a few times at Celtic Park on Saturday, rolling around the ground with steam coming out of his nostrils. Yet again, such is Lennon's behaviour at times, no one from the fourth estate noticed anything unusual.

Feeling that Jintys was too close to the Chip where the wife was stalking me for some reason, I took off to Oran Mhor where I noticed Professor Tom Devine sitting in a corner with Gillian Bowditch. That's a strange pairing, I thought as I approached them.
'Hello young Spiers,' burped Devine, holding up a pint of red wine with one hand while fondling Bowditch under the table with the other.
'Have you met Gillian Bowditch, religion obsessed columnist with the Scottish Sunday Times? Gillian's a genius, why only yesterday she published an interview with some playwright and got the fact that he was Irish Catholic into the second sentence - the second sentence Spiers!' and he guffawed and grabbed at Bowditch's stockings as she snorted and waggled her tongue at me, the wine dribbling down her chin and onto her petticoats. How far she's fallen, I thought as Devine got up and put his arm around my shoulder and walked me away from his table.
'This isn't for any old trollop's ears, Spiers. What's this I hear about you consorting with various huns around town, don't you know that those Orange bastards have a way of getting into your head? They're not getting into your head, are they Spiers?' and he stared at me.
'Not at all Tom, surely you can see from my latest work that I'm still completely on message although I'll admit I have been consorting with some people from Rangers but only to fight them from the inside. How about my piece yesterday totally denying Smith's figures on the SPL split? I mean only a Celtic mad lunatic would deny easily accessible data, don't you agree?'
'That's my boy,' rumbled Devine and patted me on the back before returning to Bowditch and slapping her arse to her squeals of delight.

Enough done for the day I was on my back to the flat when I bumped into Stuart Cosgrove on Byres Road, he was dressed in denim with no mask on.
'Hi Stuart, no bat costume?' I asked.
'Never in the daylight Spiers, never in the daylight,' he replied in a whisper. 'Just thought I'd remind you that the eyes and ears of the Movement are everywhere, that's all.'
I stood still and watched as he sauntered off down the road, leaving me gobsmacked. What did he mean by that? Had he been listening to my conversation with Devine? Worried in case I'd been rumbled, I ran back to the flat and stuck on some Elton John to calm me down.