The Garden of Heavenly Delights

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes. If you know your Juvenal, as my old Classics master used to remind us - who referees the referees you could almost ask? Well in Scotland obviously it's Celtic but this time Lawwell and Reid have gone too far and the buggers have gone on strike. This puts us all in a very difficult position in that the whole world and its dog knows there is one club and one club only to blame and that is Celtic but how to report the strike without naming them? BBC Scotland got off to a good start, reporting on the strike while showing Dundee Utd players surrounding the ref from their game on Saturday. We in the ink business however, haven't got the convenience of misdirecting footage to fall back on and so have to rely on our wits. Hugh MacDonald didn't even bother with this since the man doesn't have any and he opted for the simple hoot inducing 'nothing to see here, Celtic are right' approach. He had no choice though, I hear he wrote it in the basement of Lawwell's chambers in Celtic Park with a pistol at this head while sitting on a specially constructed chair with a stopper on it to prevent his waste from soiling the room (I quite fancy such a contraption - imagine the hours of fun I could have with what is basically just a dildo strapped to a seat). Old pissy Hugh wasn't alone though, beside him was Ronnie Cully who curiously held the gun to his own head while he typed with his nose and for all the nonsense he came out with, it showed. So there you have it, as usual, Lawwell was telling the Scottish press how to do their job and all in the darkness of the pits of Parkhead because if you know your New Testament, qui male agit odit lucem.


I said last week that there was just no room for catching up with my other adventures these days because merely reporting on Celtic's astonishing behaviour of late has become a full time job and after John Reid decided to put his Livy into practice - plus animi est inferenti periculum quam propulsanti - and went on the offensive against almost the whole of Scotland (because how else could you describe his antics?) it's become a real chore. Go down the Chip these days and you can actually get into the gents loo for a pee without having to climb over the Pacific Quay CFC snorting and snarling over shared lines of coke as they're all too busy covering for Celtic back at BBC Scotland. Pop into the Brazen Head and there's no sign of the Green Brigade as they're all hard at work attacking the houses of referees and intimidating their families. The only place to have some fun just now is Heraghtys because the Celtic Minded who drink in there have no tasks save for stinking up the place with their wild republican rants and as anyone knows, I wouldn't be seen dead in there these days since odi profanum vulgus.

Enough of the Latin lessons however, I could be here all day proving to the ignorant amongst my fellow journalists just how superior to them I am - I'm sure this is why they avoid me these days, it's my incredible intellect and moral superiority, nothing to do with the smell as alluded to by some.
So like I said, what a busy week it's been, what with Lawwell squeezing journalists until their pips squeak and John Reid sitting at home sacrificing hens and chanting, in between skinning up some major doobies while Scottish Football collapses around our ears, I thought I'd seen it all until last night.

I'd been relaxing at home, corduroys around my ankles, Martin O'Neil scrapbook on my lap when my door was kicked open and in rushed two of Lawwell's stormtroopers who tied and gagged me and were dragging me by the feet out of the room when there was a crash and in through the window came Stuart Cosgrove dressed as a bat. He dropped both of them in an instant and took me still gagged to the window where he shot a grappling hook onto the roof opposite. We heard a cry but by the time we'd been hauled onto the roof we noticed that he'd just impaled Alex Mosson who by chance was burgling the wrong flats at the wrong time. As Cosgrove tried to untangle his hook from Mosson's thigh he was taken by surprise by the Joker, Tam Cowan who came at him with an axe while the Piddler, Hugh MacDonald stood in the background soiling himself and pointing a gun. Next thing you know I'm being carried down a set of ladders by the Joker and the Piddler and being bundled into a waiting black van only for the Traynor to appear and with a roar, shake Cowan and MacDonald by the necks and fling them bleeding into some hedges. I was just about to ask the Traynor whose side he was on when Stephen Purcell jumped on his back shouting 'run Graham, run!' And I did only to run straight into a torch carrying mob of the Green Brigade who looked like they thought a Scottish referee lived around these parts. Seeing it was me they let out a cheer, hoisted me on their shoulders and were heading down Byres Road towards Jintys for a knees up when out of the sky swooped Master Mason who grabbed me by the collar and lifted me high into the sky only to be punched unconscious by Torquemada who caught me as I fell with Master Mason towards Kelvingrove Park. He put me down and was eyeing me suspiciously when suddenly he went limp and collapsed to the ground and I heard a jovial chuckle as Donald Findlay appeared beside us, in cape and deerstalker holding a cane tipped with blue kryptonite. 'Come on Spiers, we haven't got much time,' he said. 'We can't have you hanging around Kelvingrove Park at this time of the night, people might think you're cruising again...' but before he could finish his sentence he was lifted off the ground and into a tree by a net and out jumped Mad Joe O'Rouke, naked except for a Celtic hat.

'Woo hoo hoo! I got the great Donald Findlay! He thought he was brilliant and I got him! Woo hoo hoo!' was all he got to say before a black hood went over his head and he was wrestled to the ground by Graeme Souness who barked orders to his Rangers 80s Squad Commandos who carried away O'Rourke, bundled Torquemada into a blue kryptonite lined box and then let down Donald Findlay who looked a tad ruffled and annoyed that his pipe had spilled onto his whiskers.

'We'll be seeing you loser,' said Souness and winked as they loaded up their Range Rover and drove off into the night, Souness shouting at me as they left, 'And don't think we don't know what you're up to with your bum chums at UEFA!'

Then Darryl Broadfoot jumped out the bushes and rogered me senseless, sneered and spat on me, leaving me panting on the grass and wondering what had happened to release all of this madness.

 

Welcome to Dystopia

Sting was right when he said the bed's too big without you but he didn't reckon on having to share it with Tom Devine for four weeks so when the blaggard made off with my wife it was more or less a relief. A month at sea with the Rangers 90s Squad Marines was more than enough for decent society to believe that I'd tried my best to retrieve her but to be fair, after being ravished by that horny old goat, who'd want her back? It was bad enough last year when she ran off with Aamer Anwar and then after I'd chucked him off a window ledge at the City Chambers, when she found a bed with Bishop Joe Devine's cock puppet Jason Allardyce, anyone would think she considered being married to the greatest crusading journalist in Scotland to be an embarrassment.

I was discussing this with Harrison Ford and Sylvester Stallone in my bedroom this morning and they seemed to think I was doing the right thing in forgetting all about her. 'Hey, you've still got your Martin O'Neil scrapbook,' said Ford and 'forgeddaboudit, you've always got Elton John,' added Stallone. I'm not stupid, I know that loneliness can do strange things to a man and waking up mornings to find two Hollywood stars sitting by my bed giving me marital advice is surely a sign that I should be getting out more and making new friends. My problem though is that yet again, there are too many shady characters out to get me so I daren't step out the door and if I did, I'd probably only trip over Brian McNally who has been camping out on my doorstep in more ways than one recently if you get my drift?

In spite of not turning up at matches I was paid to report on, I still managed to attend the Celtic AGM yesterday and sitting there with my fellow football journalists, all of us dressed in our matching green white and gold cheerleader uniforms, we were honoured to be witness to another tour de force from Dr John Reid where he completely glossed over his team's catastrophic failure on the park and lobbed a few insults Rangers' way before progressing to what we'd all been waiting for. He didn't disappoint and laid into referees and the SFA like Lawwell lays into any journalist who strays too close to the truth. A strange thing happened though, there was a journalist sitting beside me who I didn't recognise and I'm sure he had an English accent so I just figured he was from one of the proper newspapers down south. Curiously he kept mumbling under his breath but still audible all the time that Reid was speaking and it went like this,
Reid: 'we need bold, radical action to combat stories of lies, conspiracies and cover-ups.'
Mystery Man: 'all of 'em emanating from you, you old pervert.'
Reid: 'maybe Peter Wishart's proposals about referees declaring their allegiances should be considered as part of the process?'
Mystery Man: 'half of them are tims as well you know so where are you going with this and what are you holding on Wishart to make him come out with this rot?'
Reid: 'maybe we should ask about video technology to help referees?'
Mystery Man: 'what, and risk realising that referees are only human and occasionally make mistakes - where would that fit with your agenda?'
Reid: 'we lost the league last year because we weren't good enough,'
Mystery Man: 'at last, the truth!'
Reid: 'but we reserve the right to query decisions.'
Mystery Man: 'constantly as it deflects your idiot fans from the real issues.'
Reid: 'it's not sour grapes or paranoia,'
Mystery Man: 'yes it is.'
Reid: 'we have a new young vibrant managerial team led by Neil Lennon that will be here for a very long time,'
Mystery Man: 'so why are you sniffing around Martin O'Neil for a Walter Smith style return? Lennon will be out before the end of the season and you know it.'
Reid: 'we're not asking for special treatment, but neither will we be treated as less than anyone else. Those days are gone.'
Mystery Man: 'yes you are, you never have been and they were never here in the first place you dolt.'
And at this our mystery man stood up and said aloud, 'So Dr Reid, by saying that Celtic were treated differently from every other team you are obviously insinuating that there is a reason for this, a reason which you skip around and never mention directly. Can I clarify why you think Celtic are treated differently? Is it because,'
And at this the whole room goggled at him and as one took a sharp intake of breath.
'Is it because Celtic are a Roman Catholic club? Are you suggesting that there is a sectarian agenda at work within the SFA, amongst referees and indeed society as a whole, its sole purpose to keep down Celtic because they're Catholics? Because that's a very serious accusation and considering you've just claimed you're not paranoid, you obviously think it's true. Or is it just spin to distract the loony elements in your support from your failings on the pitch and in the board room because I'm not sure what's worse, actually believing in a bigoted agenda or taking advantage of your moronic fans' belief in it which leads to violence and misery - are you proud of yourself Dr Reid? Are you proud of the fact that your fans attack referees and their families as a consequence of your pronouncements? Are you proud of the fact that your fans get so paranoid after any setback that they take to the streets and commit all sorts of breaches of the peace? Oh this lot in here will never report it that way and Celtic's name will always be missing from any reports but we all know what's going on...'
And just as he took a breath to continue, at the nod from Lawwell, two uniformed goons grabbed him from behind, hooded and handcuffed him and dragged him screaming from the room and that was the last we ever saw of our mystery man. Five minutes later we heard two gunshots from behind the sheds so I can imagine what became of him.

Nothing more had to be said by Celtic since the fate of our brave Englishman was enough to remind everyone what happens when you get on the wrong side of Reid and Lawwell. Didn't I just know after finding myself teetering on the edge of a pit, Elaine C Smith snarling and grunting at the bottom and didn't she take the leg off Tom English after he dared question Celtic's motivations last week? I really should get around to recording how I bested English and escaped from the pit but that's for another day, right now there's just too much going on. That's the thing about waving the pom poms for Celtic, it's never ending.

One Flew Over the Lawwell's Nest

I've noticed recently that I haven't been getting up the noses of the Rangers support as much as I used to which is obviously down to the fact that nobody buys the Scottish Times anymore and the paywall prevents anyone from reading my deliberately provocative writing. What's the use of being a football reporter if you can't lay into the Rangers and have everyone know what you're up to? Without a readership I'd be as well head butting the John Greig statue outside Ibrox at three o'clock in the morning (something I'm sure Neil Lennon told me he used to do before he was possessed by a demon and his behaviour improved considerably). So to rectify this I created an account on Twitter. Actually, I was forced to create an account on Twitter by the editor who reckoned that since every other Celtic Minded bigot in the Scottish media was using it to lay into the huns then I might as well jump on the bandwagon. The only problem now though is, I have a stalker. Some loony called Brian McNally seems to think I'm his soul brother and is not only tweeting me but has taken to hanging around outside my flat and following me to all my regular haunts, the Chip, the Brazen Head and Heraghtys. Sometimes in the dead of the night, if I peek out my curtains I can see him in the sodium glare of the street lights, naked save for the obligatory Mirror Group Celtic scarf and committing as they say in the business, a sex act. Strange behaviour indeed. If only he had the nerve to ring my doorbell he'd find a warm welcome, somewhere round about my arse.

Talking about my arse, it got a good pummelling last night off Herr Lawwell who had his minions remove the sandbags and barbed wire from around his bunker deep beneath Parkhead and let me in for a last minute thrashing as I was tied to a table and lashed with a horse whip as Lawwell dictated what my next column was going to be about. Obviously with the way he, Reid and all of Celtic have been appalling the nation with their insidious antics over this poppy business, it was my job and my job alone, to put the message out there that Celtic are the innocent party in all this and that it is, wait for it, yes, Rangers who are at fault. I was told to throw in a mention of the singing of the Billy Boys and when I squeaked that it's only reappeared thanks to the disgraceful sectarian chanting of his own support, he increased the speed of the strokes so that the pain was almost too much to bear.
'You think I haven't noticed our fans' chants?' he raved at me. 'You think I don't know that if we hadn't almost bankrupted ourselves with the whole Mowbray affair that we wouldn't have had to take the cheap option and employ Neil Lennon and if we hadn't employed him then we wouldn't have had to take to the schemes with the Celtic Republican Roadshow? How I regret that, those morons figured it gave them carte blanche to indulge in all sorts of singing, chanting and banners I thought we'd eradicated years ago. All that work to have the public believe we didn't have the same problems as Rangers is evaporating as we lose control of our own people so I need you Spiers, to get out there and blame Rangers for all the ills of the world, starting with the Billy Boys and since you have no shame, I want you to heap opprobrium upon them for their charity work surrounding Remembrance Sunday and don't worry about your editor thinking you've gone too far - I've already had him over and dangled him above Elaine C Smith's pit - seen Tom English since you managed to best him in our little game on Friday? No? I didn't think so, that bastard'll think twice before thinking he can talk about me like that again.'
He went on like this for an hour until I had no choice but to agree. To tell you the truth, I was ready to agree before the thrashing but there's nothing I like better than being whipped by a man wearing jackboots.

The Pit and the Smelly One

I had come to, lying on the edge of a great pit with a wall behind me impossible to scale to escape the horror below. I could feel pain shooting up my left arm and with a gasp realised that I was tethered to a rope which spanned the mouth of the pit and ended at the other side from me, tied to Tom English who was also stirring. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I had hung up my cute little Celtic cheerleader's uniform and put away the green and white pom poms and was sitting in my usual seat at Ibrox - the cleanest seat in the stadium considering they have it disinfected and washed after all of my visits, something that pleases me no end as it's good to know that no matter how much I lay into the Rangers, they will always make sure my seat is nice and clean. So a jaded looking Rangers took a hiding from Hibs and I headed off to the Brazen Head for a knees up with the Green Brigade as I fully expected everyone to be there celebrating a win over Hearts but if only I knew enough about football to check the results before jumping to conclusions and heading into the night full of hope.

When I got there everyone was debating whether or not Neil Lennon had been exorcised at Lawwell's Satanic shindig on Saturday night after all since after losing to Hearts he'd vomited bile and his head had spun while mouthing obscenities but having been there in person at Schoenhausen, I reassured them that he had indeed had the evil Screwtape cast from him by no less than Jorg Albertz, Demon Hunter himself. The Green Brigade visibly flinched at the mention of his name and I had to ask why. One wizened old wreck of a man, he could have been no more than twenty one, leaned over a candle and in hushed tones told me, 'Jorg Albertz has gazed upon the walls of heaven and blazed at the gates of hell; he bottled the devil in a bar in Bangkok and has the head of the angel Gabriel in a box in his flat. You'll do well to avoid him Spiers, the man is a menace, especially to us - we took him on in 1997 and he hypnotised us into eating our own shite, it took us two days to notice where the smell was coming from.'
I sat back and considered all of this for I'd met Albertz and he'd been perfectly nice to me, just like most of those at Rangers which has always surprised me considering how much trouble I've caused them over the years. Of course we used to be lovers until I touched up Michelle Mone at Murray's orgy in Paris that time but after he threw me out the clique, I've been hunting him and his club ever since. The fact that my crusade against Rangers has brought me into contact with such fine champions of liberty and freedom of speech as the Green Brigade and Jeanette Findlay is just a bonus.

Talking of Findlay, I later came across her in a lane off Byres Road where she'd been pishing in the street, her petticoats hoisted just out the way enough to avoid being soaked and I asked her what she'd been doing since her patron, the vile Tom Devine had disappeared with my wife. I expected a breakdown of her continuing struggle with the west of Scotland Protestant establishment and how poor Catholics could never attain positions of power while such ingrained sectarian attitudes prevailed here, well that's her usual routine in spite of being in with the bricks at the oldest seat of learning in the city and how she's managed to do that and keep up her night time job of disgusting old whore peddling her arse in the gutters of Glasgow I'll never know. Instead she just sang a few verses of some old Irish terrorist song more suited to the dark days of the 70s, told me to stick my poppy up my arse, was sick on her stockings and collapsed in a puddle where I imagine she spent the rest of the night. Had I known the danger I'd be plunged into as a result I'd have tried to help her, give her a room for the night perhaps or just put some traffic cones round her but I wasn't to know and I walked right on, aiming to get home and stuck into my Martin O'Neill scrapbook as soon as possible and so I sealed my fate and that's the beginning of how I fetched up balanced on the edge of a pit, tied to Tom English, both of us trying to dislodge the other to fall into that gaping hole at the bottom of which waited the horror of all horrors, a hungry and demented Elaine C. Smith.

The Lawwell and all his Works

Sitting on the 44 bus I find myself envying Bryan Young who although being a hack, has a captive audience of tens of thousands of commuters in that free daily comic, Metro. From there he can get his pro-Celtic message across to naive commuters who will read his puff pieces and believe that Celtic are the victims in all of these latest crises of their own making. And in doing this, Young will avoid another kicking from the Stasi - didn't I last see him tied and hooded, being dragged from his screaming wife and children the last time Lawwell set up the gulags for the Scottish press? My kickings aren't as easily avoided; since the Times started charging for internet access my readership has plummeted and if it wasn't for Costa Coffee stocking the Times and the bulk order for the Pacific Quay CFC then I'd be the only one reading my Celtic propaganda. Me and Lawwell that is.

So I was sitting on the 44 bus thinking about all of this and trying to piece together the end of Lawwell's little party at Schoenhausen on Saturday night when he baptised the editor of the Herald into his infernal brotherhood. The problem was, he and Reid underestimated their control of the denizens of hell - they're not exactly the Scottish media, there to be bullied and cajoled to do their bidding - it turns out it was quite the other way around.

Something happened, something diabolical. I don't know what started it but I came to dressed in a green and white cheerleader's uniform with a sore arse and covered in a sticky white substance. As the fog cleared from my mind and I looked around the chaos in that room where just minutes before the great and the good of the Celtic Minded were celebrating Mark McGhee's kind gift of a terrific goal difference, I recalled a frenzy of demonic activity as a mass possession took place and suddenly the room was alive with piss and shit and vomit as Scottish football journalists and Celtic FC employees waded in waste like maggots covering themselves in a stench that no amount of bathing would ever remove. I recall Reid handing me the cheerleader's uniform as he ran to Lawwell's chamber to produce some torture instruments and as I climbed into it willingly I was grabbed from behind by Stephen McGowan of the Daily Mail who fucked me into next week before spitting on me, sneering and leaving me rolling around the floor speaking in tongues.

Then just as things began to get really weird with the place beginning to resemble a Borgian orgy, Jorg Albertz made himself known and exorcised everyone, leaving us dazed and watching as he carried out the final exorcism to Neil Lennon. Lennon's head spun, he vomited green bile over the party guests, he crawled on all fours on the ceiling like some obscene spider and he pissed on a hardback copy of Casualties of the Great War while bellowing like a horse but eventually Jorg Albertz had rid him of the final demon in that room of horror then he lit a cigarette, blew the smoke in my face and left.
'Bloody hell,' said Lawwell.  'That was magnificent! What a party, shame it had to end early.'

I limped home and still wearing the Celtic cheerleader's uniform, penned a piece on why everyone should leave Celtic and their fans alone and let them defile Remembrance Sunday if they like. Shame that no one will read it though, they'll all be reading Bryan Young.

To the Devil, a Lawwell

Dr John Reid held the cock by the head as Lawwell ran a knife across its neck and warm blood gurgled out and over the naked body of Herald editor Jonathan Russell and at last he was consecrated as a member of the inner sanctum of Lawwell's sinister brotherhood. Then the chanting started and Father Wormwood materialised over Russell and rogered him senseless, everyone cheered and then repaired to the lounge to remove their scarlet robes, sip cocktails and celebrate their diversity by singing songs about killing British soldiers. Just another lively party at Schoenhausen then.

It was Saturday night and Lawwell had arranged the infernal baptism of Russell at short notice in order to hold him to the puff piece he required of the Herald to absolve the club of any flack heading its way over the Green Brigade's appalling display during the Aberdeen game. Once he'd been baptised in Lawwell's Satanic ritual, there was no way back and as expected, Monday's piece on yet another Celtic Poppiegate read like an article out of the Celtic View. Hurrah then, we all cried and everyone queued up to shake hands with Mark McGhee who was there accepting plaudits for handing Celtic a morale boosting 9-0 win. As McGhee was raised on the shoulders of the sports staff of the Daily Mail who these days led the field in their refusal to disguise their Celtic leanings, I heard someone say my name to my right and turned to see Jorg Albertz, Demon Hunter standing there, brazen as you like.
'What are you doing here and in the middle of all this?' I goggled.
'Mass hypnosis, Spiers. It's easy. Nobody knows I'm here except you. This is all very interesting, the Scottish press selling their souls en-mass to the devil and here you are, right in amongst it, a very willing participant. A minor cog these days though, eh? After all, who reads the Scottish Times anymore?'
I ignored his attempts to rile me but noticed that I was receiving a few odd looks for as far as anyone else was concerned, I seemed to be talking to myself. Then again, since no one else usually spoke to me anyway, this was nothing new.
'So what are you doing here?' I asked, surveying the room to make sure that sneak Charlie Gordon wasn't lurking anywhere - he's the one you always have to look out for. He did for Wendy Alexander at Reid's bidding and I was sure he wasn't going to get me too thanks to an invisible Jorg Albertz.
'I have a feeling this gathering is going to need me tonight,' said Albertz. 'You and I know that the demon Screwtape has possessed Lennon and I'm sure Lawwell knows too but I've heard mutterings in the underworld that Screwtape's intentions and Lawwell's aren't the same. You can't trust demons, Spiers - they're liars by their very nature and I suppose that's why Lawwell thinks he can control them since there's no bigger liar than him (tour of Japan indeed) but they can't be controlled, they work to a different agenda and the infernal grapevine tells me that something big is going to happen tonight and I'm here to put all the bits back together once Lawwell's witless plan falls to pieces. Nobody wants an Inquisition Demon running amok in Glasgow. Well, nobody sane anyway.'
Then as if on cue, there was a scream and Neil Lennon stood up from the table where he was sitting having his nob stroked by Mark Guidi and all hell broke loose, Lennon's head rotated 180 degrees and he vomited all over Roddy Forsyth who was waiting on line to take over from Guidi. 'Your mothers suck cocks in hell!' he screamed and then fainted and wet himself as he lay on the floor although such is Neil Lennon's behaviour these days, nobody noticed anything odd about this. Except Jorg Albertz, Demon Hunter.