Home & Abroad

My bedroom was as I left it before being taken into outer space for the Celtic AGM, sparsely but tastefully furnished.  I fell into bed and switched off the bedside lamp and all was black and I lay there feeling the comfort of the bed and the relief of being off that hellish island sweep over me like the waves had swept over me only a day ago.  I considered trying to piece together everything that had happened now that I was safe and could allow myself the leisure of devoting part of my mind to anything except survival.  On the island there was no slacking for one moment; once Lawwell upped that ante if you didn't pay attention for a second then you were next on the funeral pyre.  Or over the cliffs.  Or washed up in the morning with the tide before anyone had noticed you were missing.  I couldn't think of all that then though, it was dark and warm and I was in bed with the lights out and I couldn't keep my eye lids from closing and feeling the sweet release of sleep at last.  Then I noticed all was not dark after all; a light was on in my walk-in cupboard.  A perfect rectangle of white framed the door in the corner and two faded triangles of light stretched across the ceiling.  I hadn't noticed this before when all was dark and I was settling down to relax for the first time in two weeks.  I tried to take no notice of it, to consider it an oversight and conclude that I'd left the light on before and in my weariness, hadn't noticed it.  But I couldn't.  My eye lids no longer drooped and my dreams drew back from my consciousness once more until I was wide awake, staring at the light from the cupboard door.  Then I saw the shadow of a shape scurry past the door from inside the cupboard and briefly, the light peeping out disappeared and that was it, I was sitting up in bed feeling the old sensation of fear crawling up my back as my scalp froze and the only sound in the room was my heart beating like the jungle drums on the island when Lawwell had his blood lust up.

But this was ridiculous, I was imagining things, surely?  But then stranger things had happened recently.  If someone had asked me if it was possible that Lawwell would terrorise the Scottish footballing press by holding them on a deserted island for two weeks, horribly murdering any who didn't immediately support his increasingly insane and wild plans for the remainder of the season, then I'd have scoffed at them.  If anyone had posited that BBC Scotland was institutionally biased against Rangers, I'd have tweeted that they were stupid to think so.  If anyone had suggested that I suspected Spring Heeled Jack was hiding in my walk-in cupboard right now then I'd have guffawed and asked for a line of what they're having but here I was, getting ready to bolt for the door and not come back to my flat until the sun was up.  And that's precisely what I did.

I visited Matt McGlone on the southside and asked to sleep on his sofa and he even went so far as to give me his bed as he was staying up all night putting together a fake Rangers cash flow spreadsheet which he planned to distribute to create more interest in the Rangers tax case.  I can't believe how obsessed the Celtic fans are just now with this whole HMRC thing but I suppose it keeps their minds off their team's dire performances at home and in Europe and if they're speculating about Rangers then at least they're not moping about the current rumours doing the rounds about Neil Lennon and his night time activities.  So let them get on with it is what I say, as long as it's laying into the Rangers then who's going to complain - the BBC?

Talking of which, the Craig Whyte documentary aired while we were away and Rangers responded by baring their teeth and withdrawing all co-operation from that venerable old institution.  I watched it in McGlone's flat the next morning as he had it on Sky+, something I'll need to invest in myself as those old Betamax tapes of mine are beginning to really play up, and I couldn't believe how poor it was.  I'll never say this in public of course but I'm really regretting appearing on it now.  Mark Daly seems to be an award winning journalist but there was no sign of why in this piece of nonsense.  Full of conjecture, supposition, innuendo, ifs, buts and maybes, I almost couldn't sit through it without feeling nauseous at the constant stream of close ups of Daly nodding in agreement or arching an eyebrow at some latest suggestion that Whyte isn't all he seems.  I almost felt sorry for Whyte, if he hadn't bought Rangers then he'd be left alone to the solitary and private life he so obviously desires yet those hypocrites in the BBC won't allow that as he chose Rangers, anathema to all of them and one day, if I ever have the balls I'll ask them why Whyte and why not Desmond who has more skeletons rattling around his closet than even Lawwell.  Well, I won't, the answer's obvious and I'll get to it in a moment.  As the programme went on I marvelled at Daly as he stood in front of buildings in Monaco and Cleveland, Ohio talking to camera in that slow, dramatically effete voice (which proves that Daly is more suited behind a typewriter than in front of a microphone) when stock footage or photos could have saved cash strapped, redundancy worried BBC Scotland a few quid.  Two hundred thousand it cost to make this rubbish which irks me especially as I'd work for the BBC for a fraction of that if only they'd let me but no, I had to go and claim I was a Rangers supporter so there's no way in now for me.

Which leads me to this whole institutionalised bias of which Whyte speaks.  Well, everyone knows it's true but the BBC in its usual way, denies it.  I suppose if the denials are coming from someone senior in the BBC then he might consider he's telling the truth, after all it's not as if there is a charter within Pacific Quay which states that Rangers fans are verbotten and Protestants frowned upon but what they fail to see is that the bias stems from the personalities of their employees, Rangers haters to a man (and woman) who due to the Celtic Syndrome, feel it is their duty to denigrate Rangers and protect Celtic at all costs even if that cost is the truth.  They also think it's a hoot and haven't I been witness to a few of their parties as they boast  of their subliminal messages in news reports and online articles.  So no, the BBC isn't officially biased against Rangers but their staff certainly are and as long as the current crop remain in situ then nothing will change as those bigots are never going to allow a Rangers sympathising individual anywhere near the place, even a Rangers hating Baptist is only allowed in as a guest, never a paid employee (thanks to Section 18).

I told McGlone all of this and he snorted, asking me if this was the case then how come he's never had a job with them?  I thanked him for the bed for the night and told him that they might be Celtic Minded to a man but they weren't morons and there's your answer.  He threw a slipper at me as I ducked out the door and left him to publishing his crazy spreadsheet on some Celtic internet forum.

Back at my flat I approached the bedroom with caution, peeking around the door and seeing with a sigh of relief that the cupboard light was off.  I must have been imagining things last night after all.  That's what comes of jumping at shadows on a deserted island as a naked Lawwell stalks the night with a blowpipe and machete; I was becoming paranoid.  I eyed up my bed and the Martin O'Neil scrapbook sitting on the bedside table and considered a quick wank before taking off for work but first I decided on one glance inside the cupboard, just to make sure you understand.

The swarm of crickets engulfed me the moment I opened the door.  They were in my mouth, crawling in my ears, tangled in my hair, clinging to my corduroy and I ran screaming from the room, tumbling down the stoop and onto the west end pavement where I sobbed as the last of them flew off towards Byres Road.  I vowed there and then that I was going to take no more of this, that Spring Heeled Jack was not going to victimise me anymore.  It was time to get to the bottom of this mystery, to find out who was worse, according to Donald Findlay, than Jack Irvine.