The Grasshopper Lies Heavy

Of course I’d witnessed Gough’s prowess with a cutlass before during our odyssey around the coasts of Scotland in search of the old Satyr Tom Devine who had made off in his boat with my wife while I was basking in the glory of beating him at penalty kicks, but to see Gough now, his movement and thrusting, footwork and parrying, you’d never guess his age. He dismissed anyone blocking our way with a flash of cold steel until at last we’d reached Lawwell’s bunker which was shut off from the rest of Parkhead by an electronic security door, feet thick. Albertz put his hand on the keypad and closed his eyes.

‘Fucking morons make this kind of thing so easy – I shouldn’t have wasted any magic, the password is 1967, same as the alarm at John Reid’s mansion – and he wonders how I get in and out all the time,’ and as he said it, the door opened and we were through.

We passed various doors I recognised from when I’d been here many times before with the Scottish media, being told what to report and how specifically to lay into the Rangers but I’d not seen many of them open but since Lawwell wasn’t expecting us, the rooms were there for all to see and it wasn’t a pretty sight: one was full of Hugh Keevins clones in suspended animation; one had Steven House and Steward Regan chained to the walls; one was empty save for a huge steam powered contraption at the end of which was the biggest dildo you’ve ever seen with a spike on the end of it – that’ll be Kearney’s office then?

Finally we came to Lawwell’s office and without hesitation, Gough kicked down the door and swashbuckled into the room, pistols at the ready. We caught Lawwell off guard, he was standing in front of a large mirror dressed only in his undershorts which had a swastika sewn into one leg and a dazzlingly cut Wehrmacht jacket which he wsa obviously trying on for size – it fitted him perfectly. He jumped a little as we crashed in but then composed himself and made for the horsewhip on his desk but Gough cut him off and pinked him with his cutlass.
‘We’re here for Lennon,’ said Albertz. ‘But since you’re here, perhaps you’ll tell us why you’re sending bombs to anyone connected to Celtic?’
‘Oh cut out the melodrama Albertz,’ sneered Lawwell. ‘It’s hardly me sending these packages to any comedy Catholic I can think of – no, I have the Green Brigade for that and you can mop them up if you like, they’ve done their job for me, I don’t need them anymore.’
‘Oh we will,’ snarled Gough. ‘But first, where’s Lennon?’
And Lawwell started laughing, an insane laugh I hope never to hear again because as he did, he looked upwards and as we followed his gaze, there clinging to the ceiling like an obscene spider, was Lennon. He dropped on Gough and catching him by surprise, held his head in his hands and was about to rip out the Captain’s throat when Albertz spun round and threw something in Lennon’s face, Lennon screamed like a monkey with his balls in a trap and collapsed in a steaming pile. Of course such is Neil Lennon’s behaviour these days, who was to know that Albertz had opened a vial of God’s breath and sprayed him with it?
‘God’s breath?’ I asked incredulously.
‘Cost me a fortune, lucky I can afford it, eh?’ smiled Albertz. ‘Now come on, the demons inside Lennon won’t be out for long, there wasn’t much in the phial, I’m not that rich – we need to get Lennon to my apartment and the safety of a magic circle before we can exorcise him. And Lawwell?’
Lawwell looked at Albertz who said,
‘We’re taking you too.’

The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle


The Nautilus had taken us as far as it could up the Clyde and dropped us off, then we were picked up by a dark windowed black Land Rover and taken to Parkhead where we got out and stood looking across the car park with the slow moving almost zombie-like figures of Celtic fans keeping watch over their own dark tower. I’d never felt fear like it, we were entering the heart of darkness which although it was a favourite haunt of mine, I’d never walked in with Richard Gough and Jorg Albertz before.
‘You’re lunatics,’ I’d whimpered when I heard what they planned to do and Gough just replied, ‘Who’s going to mess with us?’
Fair enough then.

The Celtic fans stepped aside unquestioningly as we strode towards the entrance, they formed a corridor of smelly green and grey hooped football shirts and only seemed to come to life once we’d passed them so that in front of us was easy passage yet behind a rabble of sudden hard men who knew that their immediate danger had passed. They hurled all sorts of foul and bigoted threats at us while a couple of policemen stood and let them – they were probably looking at Gough and Albertz and wondering how they could stitch them up for being dirty Orange bastards.

We reached the main door and a fat security guard blocked our way, for a few seconds at least before realising who he faced and disappearing into a cupboard. Albertz sniffed, ‘Unmistakeable. I can smell sulphur, we’re not far now – he’s here.’
He meant of course Neil Lennon whose head had been tacked onto a Frankenstein’s monster of a body after a training ground accident and to make sure it survived the process, John Reid had the demons Wormwood and Screwtape add their own demon blood. Albertz had reported earlier that it was his opinion that the demon blood was taking over and that Lennon posed a clear and present danger not only to himself but to others around him and since Rangers were playing Celtic on Saturday it was the duty of he and Gough to kidnap Lennnon and exorcise him. First though we had to get into Parkhead, past the slow zombies, past security, past Lawwell’s Stasi and grab a man who would have demonic strength and powers. It wouldn’t be that difficult said Richard Gough, ‘After all, who’s going to mess with us?’

The Dark is Rising

‘But I thought you were Paul McBride, how.., how? How did you do that? You looked like him, you minced like him, you exhude an air of entitlement and superiority like him, you seemed super sensitive to your parents ever finding out you’re gay… What, what…?’

McGillivan was confused. He had obviously never encountered Jorg Albertz before and wouldn’t know that the merest suggestion from him would have you believing he was the Archbishop of Canterbury. I knew straight away of course. Well, as soon as his spell started to wear off. It had taken McGillivan by surprise though and he wasn’t taking it well and was now leaping around the beach naked and tearing his hair out at the thought of giving away his plans to someone so closely associated with the subject of his hatred while Mad Joe O’Rourke had retreated back to the cave and was covering himself with half gnawed body parts.
Albertz, exhaled and turned from the sea to face us.
‘I just had to be sure. We suspected but you were such a nonentity we just had to be sure it was you who was getting up to all sorts of mischief, wasting peoples time by getting the Celtic Internet Mafia all riled up, sullying the good name of Rangers every opportunity you could get, stalking Leggo…’
‘So what are you going to do now, set the might of Rangers on me?’ sneered McGillivan, becoming slightly erect.
‘Oh no need to involve Rangers…’ said Albertz, ‘When one can get Celtic to do our dirty work for us.’
And on the horizon there was a flash.

‘You see McGillivan,’ smiled Albertz. ‘I have access to Lawwell’s emergency phone number for reporting anti-Irish racism and I called in the co-ordinates of the man who wrote the Famine Song. My guess is that’s the Port Glasgow Fenian Navy on the horizon and that flash was some heavy ordinance coming your way.’
It was true, after the flash came the report of a canon which rumbled over the sea towards us, a shell obviously following.
‘But it’ll kill you too,’ stuttered Phil.
‘I doubt it,’ laughed Albertz and from out of the waves reached two huge iron tentacles which wrapped themselves around me and Albertz and we were lifted off the ground and pulled away from the beach with a jolt just as an explosion rocked the shore.  It was the Nautilus – the same underwater vessel which had spirited me and the Traynor from Silence, the same vessel captained by a mysterious figure who stood atop the grand iron beast watching as we were pulled in towards him away from the destruction by the mouth of the cave. As the smoke cleared I could just make out the body of McGillivan, pierced by shrapnel and pinned to a rock in an obscene shape which made him look as if he was having a wank. Joe O’Rourke had ventured out of his hiding hole in the cave and was rocking back and forward in front of Phil’s body and seemed to be trying to feed it a leg.
‘Should we put him out of his misery, Cap’n?’ shouted a sailor on the turret, aiming his long range rifle at O’Rourke.
The dark figure of the Captain gazed upon the harrowing scene and shook his head.
‘No, he’s more to be pitied than hated. He’s harmless now, leave him be,’ and as the tentacles lowered me and Albertz onto the deck of the Nautilus we looked up as the clouds parted and an almost full moon illuminated the proud figure of the Captain and Richard Gough looked down, smiled and winked at me.

Call me Ishmael

McGillivan was dribbling now, so worked up telling us about his great campaign to put Rangers to the sword that he had quite forgotten the rules of super villain exposition and was spending too much time explaining how much of a genius he is.
‘So dismayed that the Rangers fans had come up with a satirical song which in eight words ridiculed our obsession with Ireland so succinctly I vowed to not rest until I had added verses which would take the song from the realms of clever mocking to rancid racism – it took me five minutes. I know, it’s hardly a classic but there’s enough in there to get the liberal elite shaking in their Boden slippers and foaming over their Byres Road lattes. All I had to do then was mobilise the Celtic Internet Mafia who got to work emailing absolutely everyone to tell them how offended they were and before you could say begorrah, I had single handedly created a new offence: anti-Irish racism!  Rangers fans were bewildered, how had their jolly little chant become an international incident? Me! It was all me, Spiers! Move over Ozymandias, Phil McGillivan is the new King of Kings! I was Muiredhach Tireach. The spirits of Fidach, Foltchain and Eochaidh Muighmheadoin filled my body and I vowed that no longer would I be plain old Phil McGillivan and from that moment on, bathed in the glow of a divine destiny, I re-christened myself Phil MacGiollaBhain and adopted the mantle of journalist – gone was the disgraced social worker, gone was the pathetic lone ranter on Celtic websites; born was MacGiollaBhain, the man who would bring down Rangers!’
‘And what then?’ interrupted McBride, causing McGillivan to splutter and turn angrily, eyes blazing, hand reaching for his carving knife.
‘Eh? What do you mean?’ he almost shrieked at McBride, spittle spraying from his overwrought mouth.
‘You bring down Rangers, what then?’ asked McBride again.
‘Well it’s not just the accusations of bigotry and racism – smearing the Rangers name won’t do it alone. No, we needed a war on more than one front – we had to keep them busy putting out the flames of sectarianism while our men in Lloyds squeezed them for cash, leaving Walter Smith with a threadbare squad to give Neil Lennon room to win the league which in turn would send Rangers spiralling into more debt from where our Lloyds men would allow them no wriggle room. Soon the Rangers would be out of business – denigrated as the greatest evil in Scottish society, pursued by a compliant media scared of Lawwell and Reid, attacked by politicians in thrall of Kearney’s Media Office and eventually, the public who after such an onslaught would believe every bad word said about Rangers, would turn against them. If all our plans come to fruition in this, the most important and bitter battle ever fought over a game of football then Rangers, that white whale of legend, that great obsession of the Celtic Minded, would belong to the pages of history. And even then it wouldn’t be long before our people in Education had those pages removed from the books. And burned.’
‘And what then?’ asked McBride.
‘Well then we don’t have to worry about being downtrodden ever again.’
‘And what then?’
‘Then Celtic win every trophy going for the rest of time.’
‘And what then?’
‘Then we can take this country back!’
‘And what then?’ asked McBride.
‘Eh?’ said I.
‘Ninky nonk,’ squeaked Mad Joe O’Rourke.
‘Now we’re getting to the bottom of things,’ said McBride, putting a cigarette to his mouth and lighting it and as he did so, McGillivan’s face changed from ego-maniacal glee to suspicion.
‘Hold on, since when did Paul McBride QC smoke?’ and as he said it, McBride looked at me, blew smoke in my face and walked towards the entrance of the cave and gazed out towards the sea. McGillivan and O’Rourke followed him, watching his every move, carving knives at the ready and with a sigh, I followed them.
‘Yes McBride, when did Pansy Paul start smoking?’ I asked, trying to get a better look at his face which strangely, seemed a little blurred which at the time I put down to the gloom.
‘So Rangers cease to exist, what then McGillivan?’ asked McBride as he stood at the mouth of the cave, rain lashing against his face, cigarette glowing as he paused to take a pull at his cigarette.
‘Who would you hate then? Your hatred of Rangers as you freely admit, is your obsession. Kill Rangers and what do you have left, who would you hate?’
‘Erm…’ croaked McGillivan.
‘Makka pakka,’ growled O’Rourke.
And then as if a fog had lifted from around McBride, I saw that it wasn’t McBride after all and McGillivan noticed too.
‘You’re not McBride!’ he screamed, ‘who are you?’
So I introduced them.
‘Phil, meet a man who is the master of auto-suggestion and hypnosis, meet Jorg Albertz Demon Hunter.’

Paul McBride's Back Passage

'There have been rumours Spiers, that you are not now the man you once were,' said Phil McGillivan in a gutteral Glaswegian accent - not quite the lilting Irish brogue I was expecting.
'So I have set myself the task of checking you out before we continue.'
'Continue what?' I shrieked as he pulled out a carving knife and drew it across my right arm.
'So you bleed, ' he said, sounding almost disappointed. 'For a while there I thought I'd cut you and find stainless steel and oil under there and at last have access to one of Walter Smith's androids to dissect and investigate. We really could be doing with one of those you know - oh it's all very well having a plentiful supply of Hugh Keevins to die for the cause on a regular basis but an army of Irish Republican robots made in Scotland, now that would really be something.
'What on earth are you prattling on about man?' I whimpered, watching the blood run dripping from my elbow and onto the pebbles at my feet which I noticed with a start were already caked in gore.
'Surely you're not going to try and tell me you've never encountered Walter Smith's Android Army? Please Spiers, give me some credit, what do you take me for, some tattie howkin' bog trotter from Donegal?'
'You wish...'
'Silence!' he screamed and slapped me across the cheek, turning to a pile of limbs in a corner of that cave of horrors and calling out, 'Joe, you can come out now, it's definitely Spiers. See, he bleeds.'
And the mound moved, dismembered arms and legs tumbling to the side to reveal a man who had been buried, hiding beneath the bloody stumps. It was Mad Joe O'Rourke.
'Iggle piggle,' said O'Rourke.
'I agree Joe, I was just about to let our friend into our secret but first I had to check that he was indeed who he claimed to be.'
'Upsy daisy.' replied Mad Joe.
'So you see Spiers, the secret you have to know if you are to be of any help to the Organisation is this, I wrote the Famine Song.'
I was just goggling at the whole idiocy of this claim when a stone skipped towards us from the shadows at the back of the cave. Someone else was in there and from the shock in McGillivan's face and the speed with which Mad Joe buried himself in body parts, they obviously weren't expecting anyone to be lurking in there.
'Who's there? Come out, whoever you are and I warn you, we are armed,' shouted McGillivan and a dark shape stepped out of the blackness and there stood Paul McBride QC, taking a pull at a cigarette and blowing the smoke towards me.
'Hello, I'm Paul McBride QC,' said McBride.
'We know who you are, McBride but how came you here?' asked McGillivan, still holding , I noted, the carving knife.
'Oh it was simple really, I came down the back passage,' replied McBride with a smirk which got me wondering if it had been the first time.
'You can come out now O'Rourke, I know you're under there,' said McBride, regarding the trembling pile of amputations. 'Quite a little butchers' yard you have in here McGillivan, been setting upon lonely travellers as they pass your cave again? I thought we told you when we spirited you out of Glasgow after your last misdemeanour that we'd have no more deaths, it brings unwelcome attention upon the Organisation.'
As I wondered about this Organisation which had just been mentioned twice in as many minutes, O'Rourke reappeared from his hiding place and mumbled, 'Tumbly boo,' and cowered against the wall opposite me while McBride and McGillivan continued to regard each other with suspicion - it's true, they really are a paranoid lot.
'Ahem, ' said I, to get everyone's attention. 'Am I to stay chained to this cave all night or can you at least do me the courtesy of allowing me some comfort before you begin your lengthy exposition?'

And that's when McGillivan unlocked my chains and told me the reasoning behind a Rangers hating, Irish wannabe, Celtic supporting, IRA sympathising thug writing a song such as the Famine Song.

The Ballad of Sawney Beanian

The rain stung my face as I left the final inn on the Ayr coast before the wildlands where few men dare venture. Being a crusading anti-sectarian journalist though, the wildlands held no fear for me – if you can lay into Rangers with impunity then dark and mysterious coastlines pose you no concern. I covered my face with my cape and held up a lantern to light the way and set off to look for the legendary Sawney Beanian who had been tweeting me suggesting we meet to discuss a forthcoming campaign to get Rangers into bother with UEFA again. I couldn’t resist.

I hadn’t left Dunure less than an hour when I could hear strange shrieks coming from the shore. I dismissed them as being gulls calling in the night by the cliffs but the closer I got to a particular point, the louder the shrieks became until eventually I recognised them as cries of pain, human pain. I’d heard enough similar cries in Lawwell’s dungeons at Parkhead to recognise a man in distress when I hear it so I dimmed my lamp and approached the path leading to the shore with caution. I thought I heard a match strike to my left and turned, gazing into the wind and swore I could see the faint glow of a cigarette but couldn’t be sure and who else would be abroad on such a God forsaken moor as this in a storm at midnight? I had only just dismissed my brief panic as the paranoid jumping at shadows of a man who had been in company with Chris McLaughlin for too long when a hand grabbed at my ankle and I felt myself sliding down a mud embankment and tumbling over rocks until I fetched up winded on the grassy sands with the spray of the sea whispering against my face. Then Phil McGillivan appeared before me and knocked me unconscious with a piece of driftwood.
When I awoke I was trussed against a dank wall in a cave filled with the curious smell of roast beef; a fire flickered in the corner casting ghastly shadows against the rocks until I at once was hit with a clarity so shocking that I almost soiled my corduroys – there were dismembered bodies chained to the walls all around me and over the fire roasted a human leg. I stifled a shriek and looked down in panic, breathing a sigh of relief as I realised I still had both of mine and as my mind raced to take in my parlous position, McGillivan appeared out of the gloom and cocked his head at me, looking puzzled as if he didn’t know me – how could anyone not know who I was, Graham Spiers, scourge of Rangers and serial ratter?  Or was McGillivan perturbed that he had at last encountered a man with a more searing hatred of Rangers than himself?  I didn't know at that moment but thought my supposition true so the story he told me that night chilled me to the marrow and now I don't know if I'll ever believe anything again that happens in Scottish football.