So Far Away

Not so long ago a storm hit the coast here and knocked over the local zoo's bird enclosure, freeing the parrots who took to the locality very nicely thank you very much and now every morning around six they shriek and bark and if anyone cared for a long lie then the squabbling of the parrots over the bird food left out for them would soon put paid to that.

By ten thirty they'd tired of their fighting and taken off to fly in great arcs of green and yellow across the bright blue sky, swooping down into the palm trees every now and then to remind us they were there and that no matter the noise they made, we used to coop them up so owe them one and had better not forget the bird feed for the next morning.

I was pondering this while loafing on an old hammock stretched between two trees in the garden of my winter hide away. The old ropes were thin but taut and toasted black in parts, bleached in others by the relentless sun which burned even at this early hour. Bay windows lay open with the white cotton curtains stirring into the house from the breeze which wafted in from the plains carrying the slight scent of perfume from some unknown and exotic plant. From inside echoed the plaintive strains of a trumpet which faded as the languid voice of Astrud Gilberto sang of distant stars and oceans meeting the sky. I listened, a smile on my face as I dozed on my little rope bed and for a brief moment I dreamt that I was in a cold barn in Scotland struggling to build a trampoline but a parrot flew past squawking and woke me from my reverie and I thanked my luck that it was just a strange dream and that this was my life, not that freezing vision and then the music stopped as someone kicked over the old gramophone player and I heard boots marching across the tiles and from the curtains appeared Lawwell in his desert fatigues and jackboots.

"Think you're on holiday, cunt squeak?" he sneered and booted me off the hammock and before I knew it I was driving through the sands and brush to hunt a pack of wild Keevins.

A great cloud of dust kicked up behind us as our jeep roared across the arid plains and the heat, bearable in the green of our garden was stifling here in the open with no shade for miles. And nowhere to hide for the Keevins as we saw them grazing on a small patch of dry grass in the distance as Lawwell let out a whoop of delight and triumph and turned the jeep towards them with one hand while pulling up his rifle with the other.

Keevins are slow and stupid creatures and they stood watching us as we thundered towards them and only scattered at the crack of Lawwell's first shot which missed, kicking up a little puff of yellow dirt which startled the Keevins who then bolted, jostling and shoving and forming almost a perfect protective circle, the ones on the outside bleating and cursing their luck.

"Here, take the wheel Stinky, I see a beauty right there," shouted Lawwell and I took over to let him get a better shot with both hands and time to aim. Another shot rang out and a Keevins jerked and fell and was trampled by the herd as they changed direction creating a dust cloud of their own which made Lawwell's next shot more difficult. He took the kick of the shot through the butt and into his shoulder and grinned as another Keevins shrieked and disappeared in the melee of trampling feet and choking dust and he kept on grinning: grinning and firing until there were no more Keevins left except one, standing defiant on its own amongst the bodies of its kin as their blood baked in the midday sun.

"That's the one for me," said Lawwell and jumped off the back of the jeep and approached the last Keevins as it stood broken and helpless in the face of a determined onslaught from Lawwell who kicked it to the ground and tied its legs before dragging it to our jeep and taking it home to work for him on the Daily Record.

It had been a strange and curious Christmas day and I wondered about it as I lay again on my hammock, dozing, too tired to reach for the gin and tonic lying in the grass; I wasn't sure what had disturbed me more, Lawwell's bloodlust or the dream about the trampoline which had left me with a longing for something just out of reach, just beyond my comprehension. I did know something else though, I could now comprehend how Lawwell controlled his Keevins.

Muckraker

I've been in some perilous situations in my time, usually with Souness by my side: I've fallen out of Peter Kearney's plane without a parachute only for Souness to jump out after me; I've been chased by a squadron of priests and fallen off my horse with Souness riding to my rescue; and I've been launched from a space station without oxygen to find Souness plugging the hole in my suit and getting me back to earth safely - all these things where I thought I was a goner and yet they pale into insignificance when I remember the look on Suzie McGuire's face as she thundered towards us waving a great big black dildo, the Derry and North West Branch of the NUJ screaming in triumph behind her.

Souness and I were both naked, suffering from exhaustion and the cold and were sprinting as fast as we could all things considered, to get to the little farmhouse on the other side of the field but McGuire and her posse were closing in on us from our left flank and looked likely to meet us before we reached the edge of the field and this is where I thought I was finished because Souness looked at me and said, 'I think I'm done, Spiers.  I'm getting too old for this madness.  If you have a God then best make your peace with him now.'

Now when Graeme Souness says this to you, you know you're in deep trouble and as I looked to our left I understood why because the NUJ were half a furlong away and speeding up but we weren't far from the fence now and beyond it the farmhouse and beside it, I could see a Jeep idling.

Suddenly McGuire was on us, screaming, her face a contorted vision of rage, her black fighting dildo held aloft and about to be brought down on my head then there was a crack from the edge of the field and the dildo was shot out of her hand.  Without stopping she pulled off a stiletto and pounced on Souness who rolled and lifted her over his head with his feet, sending her crashing to the ground in a flurry of oaths.  Then the Derry NUJ were on us but more cracks from the fence in front of us where little puffs of smoke were rising and the demented Irish journalists were falling before they got close to us - and at last we were over the fence into the arms of the Rangers 80s Squad Commandos. 

'Easy there, Spiers,' said Chris Woods as took me in his big safe hands and covered me in a silver foil blanket.  I looked over at Souness who had Cammy Fraser covering him while Stuart Munro updated him on something.  Then Souness barked an order to double the firing and retreat in good order and we made our way to the Jeeps.  Before we got to them though, Graham Roberts shouted, 'Hit the deck!' and everyone threw themselves to the ground.  Everyone except me; I was rooted to the spot, frozen with fear and probable frostbite of the extremities and as I closed my eyes expecting a grenade from the Derry NUJ, a tractor trundled past and sprayed me with silage.

The Rangers 80s Squad Commandos got up and laughed at me and we all got into the Jeeps - well, they did, I was put on the back of one because they said I was stinking more than usual. 

As we drove off to safety, I looked back at the Derry and North West Branch of the NUJ and I thought that Eamonn McCann was right, you don't want to mess with them.  Or Suzie McGuire.

Steeplechase

It was as we were standing by the fence with me regarding the barbed wire with no little caution - well, I was naked after all - that we heard the commotion behind us and realised that Lawwell's men were in pursuit.  Souness looked back through the trees as steam rose from his body, his muscles standing to attention, every ounce of his manliness staunch, capable and ready for a fight but sometimes even Souness can be outnumbered.

'Come on, we have to run,' he said, vaulting the fence.
'Why, who is it?'
'Lawwell must be really desperate to keep his crowning under wraps; he's set the Derry and North West Branch of the NUJ on us.'

Now I've been shot at on more than one occasion; when you write about sectarianism in Glasgow, even if your remit is to write about football, you tend to become the target for all kinds of wild lunatics and that's just the players but on this occasion the bullets sounded different; I think it might have been the conditions: freezing white frost on every blade of grass and every leaf still holding onto every tree - the cold was everywhere and as the bullets buzzed and zipped through the bushes and trees, they made violent slapping sounds and pieces of foliage erupted and scattered above and beside us as we hared through the forest until we got to a clearing and the white expanse of an open field.

'It's too big,' shouted Souness.  'They'll pick us off easily if we try to run across that!'  But then the fence post beside him exploded into pieces from a bullet that struck far too close for comfort - they were gaining on us.

'Fuck this, come on!' he cried and we were over the fence and sprinting towards the farmhouse at the other side of the field.  Then I noticed with mounting horror that we were being approached on our flank by about fifty more people with someone at the head of them, urging them on.

'Who the hell is that, is that a woman?' I squealed.

'I think you're right, bloody Lawwell is bringing out the big guns now Spiers.'

'Eh?  Is it Elaine C Smith?'

'Worse,'  winced Souness.  'It's Suzie McGuire and she's carrying her black fighting dildo!'

The Lawwell Who Would Be King

The cold of the frost on the wire bit into my fingers and sent such a shot of pain up my hand that I thought I'd caught it on the barbs.  I turned to Souness who was waiting to go over the fence next and he just stood there, magnificent in his nudity, shaking his head.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We'd fallen for an old trick when the whole of the Scottish footballing press had gathered at Lennoxtown on the promise of a huge story from Lawwell, something about Rangers and the tax case.  I must admit, having been bitten on the arse once before onthis topic, we should have been more cautious but you know us, the mere whiff of a story of Rangers in trouble and we were all there, slavering at the mouth, Celtic scarves in our satchels beside the laptops, eager for a bone from the plate of Lawwell.

He gathered us in an empty warehouse and insisted we get naked.  A huge smile on my face and wondering if this day could get any better, I promptly stripped and was just beginning to wonder where the Daily Record bhoys were when Lawwell's goons appeared with hoses and soaked us in freezing cold water.  It was at this point that there was a commotion in the corner and it turned out that Souness had been discovered in the rafters, spying on us.  He too was forced to remove his clothes at pistol point and was promptly hosed down along with the rest of us.  Then Lawwell came back and told us we had two options: wait till he returns or leave here naked and wet, risking the minus ten degrees outside.  Then he laughed, lashed Tom English with his horse whip and strode out the door.

The sound of weeping inside that warehouse was awful as Celtic Minded journalists from every newspaper in the land and quite a few from BBC Scotland bawled their eyes out and wondered why their beloved leader was treating them so harshly - hadn't they proven time and again to be on-message?  Hadn't they continually laid into Rangers while ignoring outrages by Celtic and their supporters?

'He's taking no chances,' growled Souness as he stood over me, his dong waving like a squirrel on steroids while I glanced down at mine and felt ashamed at the walnut hidden between my thighs.

'Taking no chances on what?' I asked, shaking with the cold. 'And aren't you freezing?'

'Of course I'm freezing, I'm just not shivering; shivering's for women.  And I'm surprised you didn't know that today is the day Lawwell's being crowned over at Hampden and he sure as hell isn't risking one of you morons mistaking yourselves for real journalists and exposing him.  No, that's down to me - I'm out of here, are you with me?'  And before I could say no, he'd grabbed me by the arm, had kicked in a door and we were off across the fields towards Glasgow.

Spiers's Last Ride

The beauty of the morning was at odds with the mood amongst our little gang as we stood on the southern hills above Glasgow.  The sky was a dazzling blue, the sun lighting up the snows on the mountain tops out towards Loch Lomond and an odd green mist shrouded the city itself, a radiation fog with a peculiar hue that summed up our attitude more than the beautiful azure sky.

We were licking our wounds; Cosgrove, McGillivan, McNally and me - Alex Thomson had got into his Tardis citing trouble in the Middle East as his excuse for leaving to go and tweet from a luxury hotel in Izmir for a few days.  As he left we were shocked to see he had a new female companion, it was wee Pat Nevin and as Thomson shut the doors we could hear him scream, 'Please Spiers, you mustn't let him take me, you don't understand he has two...  He has two...'

'Yes, yes, Pat; we know, he has two hearts.'

'No,' screamed Pat: 'he has two dicks!'

But the noise of the Tardis leaving drowned him out so that only I could hear him but I didn't tell anyone and merely made a mental note to try and check out Thomson's trousers the next time he was passed out drunk.

The night before we had been trying to clean up the mess left behind by the Traynor when he cried j'accuse and bolted from the Daily Record but when we got there with our squad we found that Peter Lawwell had got there before us and had annexed the Record building.  We could tell straight away when we approached as a deep gloom hung over the place and we could hear the screams of the few remaining Rangers men being dragged down to the new dungeons Lawwell was having built underground.  You had to hand it to him, in a few years he now had effective control of Celtic Park, Hampden and now the Daily Record, his dark empire was spreading and although by my silence I seemed to be approving, something about it didn't sit right with me. 

I kept my thoughts to myself though and entered Lawwell's latest acquisition and followed the hollow footsteps of my silent colleagues as we walked down the stairway to the shadows down below.  I followed their footsteps through neon-darkened corridors, full of silent desperation, not talking to a soul.  The poison air we were breathing had the dirty smell of dying from never having seen sunshine and never felt rain and it was all I could do to prevent myself from gagging until suddenly we came across Lawwell himself.

'Oh,' he said: 'Spiers it's been so long since I've seen you.  Here, kiss my whip and make me bloody smile' and he lashed me across the cheek with his horsewhip.

I was on the ground holding my face in agony when a great flash of light lit up the gloom and there standing before us were the Fantastic Four.  This was all I needed, being bent down in front of Lawwell's crotch, groaning and having Mr bloody Fantastic Chris Graham appear with his big cheesy grin and louche ways - God I hate that man.

'It's not what it seems' I shouted but I was drowned out by the sound of fighting as McNally, Cosgrove and McGillivan took up arms against the Four.  I thought I'd better join them so got up and face to face with Graham I frantically scrabbled for some way to defeat him in combat so I immediately took out my iPhone and tweeted something smug and superior but Graham countered with his Blackberry and mocked me with a tweet that I could only dream of.  I tweeted back, this time in a friendly, jocular manner to appeal to his blokeish side but he saw right through this and continued to harangue me until I collapsed into a dark corner of the tunnel where I groaned and watched as my Celtic Minded brothers in arms took on the others of the Four.

McNally slithered over to Alasdair McKillop and tried to slap him but his slimy hand just slopped off McKillop's face leaving McNally open to dialogue that had him weeping and unable to respond as he sunk into a miasmatic pool of noxious fumes and bubbling liquid.

McGillivan should have been more than a match for the Invisible Spacegirlgail since he had been brought back from the dead after being accidentally killed by Lawwell's navy at his cave just outside Dunure a year or so ago - it's all in my diaries if you care to look - but although he could feel no pain, he was no match for the extraordinary swearing of the Invisible Girl who hurled brilliantly inventive expletives at him until he ran off into the darkness trying to think of another name for when he reappears with yet another new identity.

Then John DC Gow booted Cosgrove in the balls and it was all over.

Lawwell was nowhere to be seen but from the sound of the stamping of boots coming down the stairs we figured that he had gathered his goons and was heading our way.  The Fantastic Four stood in a row, regarding me until Chris Graham asked, 'Well, are you coming with us or do you want to stay here and take your chances with a lazy eyed psycho who seems set on ruling over Scottish football with an iron rod?'

'I'll stay here thank you very much,' said I and with that they were gone in a mighty blue flash of light.

By the time Lawwell and his reinforcements got to us he was in a right old fury and when he saw that the Four were gone he turned on his jackboots and stamped upstairs calling out for Tom English to be taken to the torture pits.  Oh well, with a game coming up against Spartak tonight I figured I knew now just how Tom would be reporting the result, I wasn't wrong.

Three Days of the Traynor

'The Traynor's left the reservation,' crackled the mysterious voice at the other end of my mobile phone last night.

'You mean he's gone rogue?' I asked.

'He's always been a rogue but yes, he's set hell a popping with a farewell article eviscerating the Scottish press, my Scottish press and pissed off out of the Daily Record, we're putting together a clean-up squad to take care of the mess he's left behind, I want you to be part of it.'

'Is that you Lawwell?' I asked.  There was a long silence...

'Yes.'

 

Things were indeed messy since we returned from our adventure to the islands in the sea of time.  Lawwell's time machine hadn't just taken us forward in time but sideways across alternative realities and we stopped off at a fair few, cocking up timelines as we went.  I'll talk about it at length later, suffice to say it was time to come home when we fetched up in an alternative reality where Celtic didn't even exist; apparently it had something to do with Martin Luther being wooed back to Rome and becoming Pope although how a 16th century German monk could affect the formation of a Glasgow football club I do not know, perhaps someone can attempt to enlighten me?  Someone other than Donald Findlay who merely chuckled and called me an idiot.

Celtic not existing was bad enough but when Lawwell found out Rangers were the biggest team in Europe and had won the European cup four times, he panicked, herded us all back into the time machine and got us home which proves that he can affect things when he really wants to - pity he doesn't really want to do affect his fans' obsession with violent Irish Republicanism.  Or his teams' obsession...

The time machine sparked and fizzed and we returned to the present and our own universe and we barely had time to reflect on how our absence  might have affected our own reality when we were confronted by the Fantastic Four: Mr Fantastic, Chris Graham whose powerful intellect and shit-kicking grin can stretch into peoples' minds and cause them to stutter and gulp and make fools of themselves on national television; the Human Torch, Alasdair McKillop whose coruscating articles for the Scottish Review frequently set the world of Scottish football alight; the Invisible Spacegirlgail whose talent for swearing can reduce grown men to tears; and the Thing, John DC Gow.

On seeing them I dived for cover as that bastard, Mr Fantastic's smile haunts my dreams and it was only from behind Lawwell's coat tails that I could hear what was said.  Basically they scolded Findlay for taking part in such a foolish venture and that he should know better but Findlay merely chortled and tugged at his whiskers while nodding for Souness to take his hand away from his holster.  But why were the Fantastic Four here and how much did they know of what we were up to?  I soon found out.

'The Four,' explained Findlay.  'Have been doing such a good job policing the internet on behalf of Rangers that they were given access to technology buried deep within Murray Park, technology to travel through alternate universes and police them and time itself.  With their help we've been cleaning up some of the mess caused by Lawwell and his amateur meddlings in the Multiverse; you wouldn't believe what lengths this man would go to in order to destroy Rangers.'

Lawwell, outside his comfort zone of the fawning and fearful Scottish press, said nothing.

And so to the Traynor.  Could the absence of Lawwell for a week or so after the result of the Rangers Tax Case have given him the impetus to accuse his fellow journalists of complicity in the attempted downfall of Rangers or would it have happened anyway?  I discussed this with Findlay and Souness as we travelled to Findlay's residence at 221b Baker Street, Newlands.

'We know for sure that Lawwell was nipping back in time, fiddling with events and trying to destroy Rangers by ensuring they were never founded in the first place but the universe has a way of making sure some things happen anyway,' said Findlay.  'This drove Lawwell to greater extremes, so extreme that we had to form the Fantastic Four to police time and space.  And do you know what they found there?  In the margins between parallel universes?  Alex Thomson.  We always thought he was not of this world and here was our first proof.'

'Thomson is a narcissistic moron, no doubt about it,' growled Souness.  'Like you, Spiers, he'll accuse anyone of asking for an opinion of the other lot as 'whataboutery' but you'll notice he doesn't answer the question.  Ever.  Did you learn from him, I wonder?  Were you his female companion through time and relative dimensions in space?  No matter, his recent assertions that we have the bigger problem is taken from what he's told by people who are Rangers hating, Celtic supporting bigots to a man, and woman - although in the case of Janette Findlay the jury's still out - and his assertions have as much validity as my own assertion that I've got a bigger cock than Angela Haggerty.'

I could see I was going to get no sense out of this pair so I kept my counsel and hopped out their cab in Shawlands and wondered how I was going to get back to the west end from there.  Then I received Lawwell's phone call that we were to clean up the Traynor affair.  My first thought was that I should get on Twitter and pompously mock him along with other journalists who believe they are better than him.  If we act all snooty, look down our noses at the Record and crack in-jokes amongst ourselves then that should help alleviate some of the damage he's done but when I went to Twitter I found Tom English too busy fending off cyber attacks by Celtic fans outraged that anyone should bring up the spectre of their demented support for a terrorist murder gang.  Just as I thought I was on my own in this, Keevins turned up.

'Come on,' he said.  'It's up to us now, Lawwell's depending on us' and he cocked the rifle he was holding, jamming his finger in it and crying like a girl.  It was at times like this that I wished we still had Bat-Cosgrove to help us and then I had a thought: a signal of some kind might bring him to us from his usual patrols across the rooftops of Glasgow.  So Keevins and I rustled up a huge spotlight that shone a gigantic vagina onto the clouds above and right enough, who should turn up but Cosgrove, Alex Thomson, Phil McGillivan and Brian McNally.  Well we didn't expect so many fannies to turn up to help but every little bit counts.