New Wine in Old Bottles

 

I'd popped into Hampden this morning to await the announcement of the new Chief Executive of the SFA when who do I bump into but George Peat, covered in wallpaper paste and paint with smoke rising from the top of his bowler hat. He was tip toeing around the hallowed corridors with an enormous ear trumpet, occasionally crying out, 'There, can you hear it? Singing, b'gawd - I can hear it as clear as you're standing here before me!' He started singing, 'Laaaa daaa, da da da da da da, is heeeeere.... tum te tum tee tum.... Hear it now Spiers, eh? What's that? Speak up man!'
'I didn't say anything George, still after your phantom I see - still think it's Gordon Smith?'
'I don't think, I know it's Gordon Smith,' he barked, 'bloody idiot didn't hand in his keys when we fired him and now he's using them to haunt the bloody place; skulking around singing at all hours of the night. Wait..., hear him now? La la laaaaa, the yada da of the niiiiiight.... The confounded swine, if I catch him, I'll fire him again!'
'Well I'm not sure you can do that,' I offered. 'But tell me George, this new Chief Executive of yours, who is it? Come on, you can tell me, it's Spiers - the only journalist in Scotland with an ounce of integrity.'
I thought he was choking on a grape the way his face went purple but he was only laughing at what I'd just said. I didn't like this one bit, the biggest laughing stock in Scottish football was laughing at me! I turned on my heels and flounced off to try and find Darryl Broadfoot, leaving Peat's guffaws to echo down the corridor and drown out the sound of someone singing in the rafters.

As I was searching for Broadfoot, I passed a strange little man dressed all in black with a top hat and carrying a net. At least I think it was a man as he moved with the strange gait of a ballet dancer with piles and he too was listening intently, seemingly to the walls. All very odd. I later found out his name was Stewart Regan and he was at the SFA to run their new members bar or something. I left wondering who the next Chief Executive was going to be and prepared myself for the Celtic Braga game on the internet since after all, the Scottish Times had no money to actually send me to games anymore. So I sat down in front of my laptop and at first I thought I'd stuck on a DVD of the Keystone Cops but it turned out it was only Celtic attempting to play football. This presented a problem though, how to report this disaster without drawing down the wrath of Lawwell? I considered this for a moment then remembered that absolutely nobody reads the Scottish Times anymore so I just wrote what I wanted and hoped for the best.

The Lawwell Letters

 

'So if Neil Lennon's in hiding and the robot is still taking his place, then who is buying all these players? You know, Gary Cooper, Neil Hooper, whatever his name is, and Ephraim Juarez or Zac Efron or whoever and erm, all those other guys whose names I can't quite remember right now (and no-one will remember again in a years time) - who's choosing and purchasing that lot?' asked Harrison Ford as he sat on the edge of my bed discussing the current football climate in Scotland. The wife had got up early and gone to work but my old friends who appear to me every now and then, Harrison and Sylvester Stallone were waiting for me to wake up to chat about Celtic.
'I'm not really sure but since you mention it, perhaps it's something worth investigating?' I responded, getting out of my corduroy nightdress and into my corduroy action suit. I looked around for a response but they were gone so off I skipped on my own to begin sniffing around Celtic in search of answers.

My first port of call was the Chip. As ever, if you want to get a handle on anything going on at Parkhead you only have to hang around there and listen into the banter of the Reporting Scotland and Scotland Today bhoys. The faces have changed since their ill advised charge during Walter's Last Stand at the end of last season when they were all but wiped out by the 80s Rangers Squad Commandos during their valiant defence of Smith's Compound but BBC Scotland and STV made sure their replacements met the usual criteria: liberal/left leaning, Celtic supporting, west end trendies with a penchant for shovelling huge amounts of cocaine up their noses and bragging about their Celtic Minded mischief too loudly in Ashton Lane pubs. The place was empty however, which was odd so I toodled off to Parkhead itself to have a mooch around.

Upon arrival I witnessed the most curious thing - I'd been led into the waiting room outside Lawwell's office and the place was full of Hugh Keevins lookalikes, apparently being interviewed for the new position of Keevins since the last one came to a sticky end in Verbier after getting on the wrong side (again) of Lawwell during the close season seminary for journalists. I'd missed the whole thing having been too busy watching Graeme Souness outrun a helicopter with only his skis and a brilliant new moustache. I didn't want to miss this though and rather than announce my arrival, I slunk around watching the Keevins look-alikes go in and out and wagering with myself who I thought would get the job. Eventually there was one left and as all the others were put on the waiting list and sent home, I listened in at Lawwell's door as the successful Keevins was given his briefing.
'Now you understand,' began Lawwell, 'that previous Keevins have gone off at a tangent, thinking they were more important than Celtic and we've had to put them in their place?'
'Erm, yes,' replied the nervous new Keevins.
'And that place is usually at the bottom of the Clyde,' said Lawwell.
'And the Alps,' interrupted Father Wormwood.
'And occasionally the Eaglesham moors,' added Father Screwtape.
Fathers Wormwood and Screwtape were Lawwell's new side kicks, recommended by Mario Conti as a vicious pair of bastards who were very reliable when it came to certain inquisitory tasks. He'd taken them to his bosom during the close season and now they were very rarely far from his side although no one had quite seen them yet, only heard them.
'You can count on me,' said Keevins.
'I'd better be able to count on you or else you won't last, you hear me?' threatened Lawwell. 'Now your predecessors had a habit of taking over the Daily Record phoneline and making up the comments to suit a Celtic agenda...'
'Oh I won't be doing that' butted in Keevins, and I took a sharp intake of breath because I knew what was coming.
'Oh yes you fucking will! That is your prime directive, that if things aren't going our way then you print lies in order to get our message across, got it, idiot? There's still time for me to change my mind about you and employ one of the other guys you know'
'And you will disappear,' hissed Father Wormwood.
'And no one will know you were ever here,' slithered Father Screwtape.
'So leave at once,' screamed Lawwell, 'before I have the Fathers take your skin off with a pencil sharpener.' And with that Keevins hurried from the office to begin his new job ready to conjure up some lunatic comments and attribute them to football fans.

As he left, the door didn't quite close behind him and I went to take a peek in the gap to have a look at Fathers Wormwood and Screwtape but just as I was bending towards the door a huge scream exploded from within as if a man were having his very soul ripped from his body - it was excruciating and I couldn't bear it much more so turned to leave and as I did, I heard a voice dripping with evil whisper, 'So Kevin O'Hare, it's too late to stop your report in the Daily Record about Celtic fans rioting in Lincoln, is it? Let's see how late we can keep you here tonight then and how long you can stay alive with all this burning.' That whisper played around my ears and my hair moved as it physically whirled around me, a black, twisted sound that was almost taking shape and dragging me back towards the room. I closed my eyes and covered my ears with my hands and it stopped suddenly and I fled Parkhead wondering what ancient and stinking malevolence Lawwell had invited into the world of Scottish football this time.

The Alphonse Karr Factor

We're not even into the beginning of the season yet but there we were, lined up in Lawwell's office at midnight as he paced up and down in front of us in his Wehrmacht uniform, flailing around with his horse whip and screaming instructions to us about tomorrow's editions. Meanwhile, Neil Lennon sat whirring and clicking behind him as we all pretended not to know that he was a robot and that the real Lennon was lost in the west end somewhere with a pack of wanton hottentots. Apparently Lawwell had the robot Lennon's circuits over-ridden to wrest control of him from Walter Smith and was persevering with it until his agents could track down Lennon who, scared of going head to head with wily old Walter, was hiding behind the petticoats of the republican girls.

So, in the aftermath of the Celtic fans rioting in Lincoln, Lawwell put out a three line whip and we all fetched up in his office as he dictated our reports on the singing of the Rangers fans in Australia - yes, that old chestnut. No mention was to be made of the Celtic fans in Lincoln - the twenty arrests, the banning orders, fights within the stadium or the disgusting pro-terrorist chanting and compliant to the last, we all took notes and recorded his ravings on our dictaphones, some of us even seemed to be aroused by the process and at least one charming young journalist had a commotion going on inside his corduroys. As I was leaving Parkhead, I noticed the Traynor howling into his mobile phone and felt pity for the poor subby at the other end who had to translate that into copy. Lawwell needn't worry though since such is the Daily Record, the subby would probably be at that very moment, wearing a Celtic top anyway and no matter how insane and deranged the Traynor's rantings, it'd still read Rangers bad, Celtic good.

By the time I got home it was very late and the wife was in bed, seemingly having cried herself to sleep beside a picture of Aamer Anwar which was a turn up for the books as I thought she'd got over him judging from her behaviour since I turfed him off the ledge at the City Chambers last year, since when she'd been consorting with Bishop Joe Devine's arse puppet, Jason Allardyce and coincidentally also being seen on Devine's brother's arm, the monstrous Tom Devine. This of course was all very disappointing to me as one expects more of one's beards. I removed the photograph from her sleeping arms, tore it up and put it in the bin in the kitchen where I noticed an unopened letter addressed to me sitting on the worktop. I opened it and out fell a single white feather which was strange. I put it to the back of my mind and toddled off to the toilet with my Martin O'Neil scrapbook under my arm and iPod tuned into Elton, looking forward to knocking one off when I noticed a face peering in through the window. Since it was only Alex Mosson, I opened the window and shooed him away and he scrambled over the fence and went off to burgle someone else. This put me off my stroke somewhat and I ended up going to bed quite frustrated. I also posted copy on my latest piece for the Scottish Times but since no one buys the paper and now that the online version charges for access, no one reads it either, I doubt anyone will ever know.

So, as another season approaches and it looks like nothing much has changed, I look forward to many more adventures although I hope that this time I'm not dragged into quite as many hair brained schemes which see my hide in danger of a roasting and not in a good way.

Gog and Magog

 

After the relative peace and quiet of the close season summer weeks since my last adventures, certain wine bar philosophers around the west end have been querying the role of my diary in the startling turns Scotland took last season, asking would there have been as much bloodshed and would Rangers have won the league if it hadn't been for the creation of the diary? Curiously, while the diary has lain dormant in my corduroy satchel, everything has been fine with nary a grotesque lurking to launch yours truly into any astonishing adventures. That was until I decided to record my trip to Verbier with Herr Lawwell and the Devine Brothers as Celtic yet again laid down how they wanted to see the coming season reported, and the moment I stood on the balcony of the casino and put pen to paper when Souness came racing out of the woods on skis, pursued by a helicopter while behind me James Traynor dropped his drink, howled and made for the trees.

With this existential conundrum spinning around my head I put the diary away, maintaining I'd consider it before writing again but I forgot all about it while putting on Graham Spiers the Musical at the Partick Burgh Halls as I got caught up in a maelstrom of Elton John and Take That classics while ogling lithe young male dancers and I got quite lost amidst the after show parties at the Speakeasy pub in the Merchant City where astoundingly I bumped into my old beaux, Stephen Purcell, wandering around in a daze with his manhood hanging out of his trousers - just the one time indeed! I'm just glad his part in my great story is over.

So I was sitting in the Common Rooms, a common little bar on Byres Road when I decided to write the first paragraph above when the ground shuddered. Everyone in the bar looked around at each other and it happened again, this time dust fell from the ceiling like in some great disaster movie so I got up from my table and looked out of the window. Shudder, the walls moved and a pane of glass in front of me cracked. The barman left his post and joined me by the window, along with Hugh McDonald who had been buying a cafe latte, the three of us straining to see down Byres Road, trying to work out what was causing the very earth to shake when suddenly there was a great explosion of dust and rubble as a blurred figure landed at force on the road outside, tearing up the tarmac and ricocheting into a tenement building, knocking a hole in the wall and sending bricks and cement dust sprawling all over everything in sight. People screamed, car alarms sounded and next to me Hugh McDonald soiled himself. Then another figure dropped from above and stood amongst the debris, looking around. He was wearing a mask over his eyes, had a noose tied round his neck with some strange symbol on his chest. I only got the most fleeting glimpse of him though before the figure who had landed in the building next to us recovered and flew out of the hole in the wall at great speed and landed a mighty punch square on the chin of the man standing outside, sending him flying into the air. This new figure was wearing a dishevelled hood over his head and long flowing white robes, torn and mucky now from being thrown into the road and through a tenement flat. He didn't stand for long before launching himself through the air in the direction of the other fellow he'd just knocked into the sky.

Well here was a turn up for the books, two super powered idiots fighting each other in the streets of Glasgow. I later found out one was going by the name of Master Mason while the other was Torquemada, two super heroes or villains, depending which side you were on. One thing is for certain though, their appearance here, wreaking destruction over Glasgow as they make battle can mean only one thing, the Scottish football season is about to kick in.