Thought Crime

So there I was, dressed as a leprechaun, sweating my arse off, frightened half to death after an assassination attempt by the Scottish Government and to top it all off, on my way in I was cornered by Cardinal Keith O’Brien who handed me a tiny device to stick in my ear so he could relay messages to me during the committee meeting then he winked and told me I was doing a fine job and to toddle off and stick it to the Huns. I put the device in my left ear, my right ear already holding the listening device given to me by Souness as he dropped me off at the gates of Holyrood.

On my way in I was accosted by Jeanette Findlay who stank of stale booze and whose petticoats were looking a little too crusty for my liking. She’d lost her wig in an argument with a hefty fellow sitting close to her who was known only as Kingpin and without it she looked suspiciously like any old common or garden dyke. She shrieked at me as I passed and I winced then she tried to grope me while whispering in my ear, ‘You look ridiculous Spiers, what are you doing dressed like that – is this anti-Irish racism at its most base level?’
‘You’re not looking so great yourself, Jeanette,’ says I, acting all nonchalant but inside I was trying to breath through my elbows such was the stink.
‘Keep walking. Ignore her,’ said a voice in my left ear.
‘Anti-Irish racism? Ha! The harlot’s obsessed. Ignore her and keep walking,’ chortled a voice in my right ear which sounded like Donald Findlay. This was obviously going to become confusing.

The next hour passed in a blur. If I didn’t know who Dr Stuart Waiton was before the meeting, I certainly knew who he was by the end of it as he sat there tearing Pat Nevin to ribbons while I shrunk into my seat and hoped he wouldn’t pick on me but there’s no hiding when you’re dressed like a leprechaun and it wasn’t long before I was a ‘west end dinner party’ campaigner and a ‘Guardian reading’ loser. In my right ear I could hear Donald Findlay laughing with every insult and in my left Cardinal O’Brien was roaring for me to say something back but I was like a deer caught in the headlights: frightened, alone, dressed like a dick; I had nothing in my armoury capable of defending my position against Waiton’s onslaught so I sat and fumed inwardly, vowing to do some research next time and not just rely on prejudice against Rangers which to be fair is usually all that is needed during Sectarian Summits, at least it was in the good old days of Jumping Jack McConnell. Christine Grahame did her best to bail me out, handing the table over to some little squirt who waffled and stuttered but time and again it came back to Waiton and every time he opened his mouth, everything he said was measured and calm and seemed to make sense.
‘Don’t let him confuse you’ screamed O’Brien in my left ear but it was too late, in spite of the man ridiculing me in a live debate, I was warming to him and I felt my eyes wander onto his thighs and I was imagining he and I on a bed of pink clouds, eating Turkish Delight and smearing each other in cream and then before I knew what I was doing I had said that I thought some thoughts should be criminalised.

It just came out. I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t even realise I was speaking, so wrapped up in my sordid little chocolate fantasy with Waiton who sat looking astonished at a liberal blowing it so eloquently and in front of so many witnesses. And live on the internet to boot.

I could hardly hear anything to my right as Donald Findlay laughed so hard he could be heard by Graham Walker who sat nonplussed beside me and to my left soppy little Easterhouse Pat Nevin looked at me strangely as he could hear Keith O’Brien lose it in my left ear.

And that was it for me. I can’t remember what happened during the rest of the meeting as all I could do was go over in my head what I’d just said: ‘I think some thoughts should be criminalised.’ How could I be so stupid? To speak my mind and let everyone know I was an idiot and an illiberal one at that. I’d never again be invited to west end dinner parties which is basically what Waiton whispered to me behind Walker’s back when the cameras weren’t on us and Findlay must have heard it too as my right ear exploded in laughter yet again.

I eventually came out of the fog of my dismay towards the end of the meeting when someone mentioned segregated schooling and Grahame paused the meeting and the fellow who’d brought it up disappeared with his seat into the floor, there was a scream and then the seat came back up empty.
‘What happened to the live feed?’ asked both Findlay and O’Brien almost at the same time.
‘Someone mentioned Catholic schools’ I whispered only to get strange looks from everyone and I noticed Christine Grahame’s finger reaching for a button on her desk but upon seeing it was me and that I hadn’t said it loud enough to be captured by the microphones she stopped, told us the meeting was over and for us to pick up our complimentary Celtic scarves and badges on the way out. As she did I felt my chair wobble but it stayed where it was. That was a close one, there was obviously going to be no room for even the mention of segregated schooling at this sectarianism debate.

‘You did well son, gave us all a good laugh. Didn’t Graeme tell you you’d like Stuart Waiton?’ said Donald Findlay in my right ear as I filed out the chamber and then he guffawed and the link went dead.
‘You fucking dolt!’ came O’Brien in my left ear. ‘If you’re the best we have in this debate then we might as well give up on Operation Gramsci right now. Fucking pompous idiot…’ and with that his link disappeared and as I left the scene of my greatest embarrassment yet, dressed as a leprechaun, scared half to death, publicly humiliated and ignored at the end even by a port sodden and black toothed Jeanette Findlay, I thought, well that’s the last time I get invited over to play poker on Jason Allardyce’s arse at Keith O’Brien’s gaff then.