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.