Like the Borealis Race

Pat Nevin was in the middle of his second anecdote about Rangers for the fifth time that night when I noticed Tom Devine was tiring of pretending to be interested and was reaching for the port.  You see, Pat only has two stories he likes to tell ad nauseum: the one about the Rangers scout being scared off by Pat’s ridiculously Celtic Minded amount of middle names and the one about Chelsea which even I can’t recall now because I’ve been shutting my mind off to it for years.  Still, they are both detrimental to Rangers so the Scottish media allow him to repeat them anytime he’s near a camera or microphone because, well because the Scottish media fucking hate Rangers.  That’s exactly how Professor Devine put it as he grabbed Pat’s hair and forced his face into his haggis at our table in Stravaigin where we were having our Boys’ Christmas Night Out.  “I’m tired of these stories, Nevin,” growled Devine.  “The Scottish media fucking hate Rangers, we don’t need you prattling on endlessly about the amount of fucking names you have just to make them hate Rangers some more.  Now where’s that port, Spiers?  I’ve changed my mind, I’m not remaining abstinent over Christmas so fetch me a bloody drink and see if you can rustle up a tart or two from somewhere.”  So I excused myself and ordered Tom’s usual at the bar which was of course, every bottle of port in the premises poured into the biggest container they could find in the kitchen.  Then I made my way to the loo – something very interesting must have been happening in there because I’d spotted Mark Daly popping in every ten minutes and coming out smiling and animated so who knows, perhaps there was a story there somewhere?

When I returned Pat had cleaned his face and was telling his two stories to a random stranger at the next table and Tom had finished the port and had moved onto sherry.  “This is dull, Spiers.  I’ve had better times at Peter Kearney’s house on a Sunday, what are you going to do about it?”

“There’s not much I can do about it Tom,” I said.  “I invited everyone we know and this is all that turned up, anyone would think we were a bunch of losers ostracised by the rest of the Scottish media but I know that’s not true, Harrison Ford and Sylvester Stallone told me last night when we had the Osmonds over to my flat for a wee party – oh we danced all night!  But then something funny happened: I left them for five minutes to take my medication and when I got back they had gone!  Out the window probably as I didn’t pass them in the hall...”

Devine sighed, “You are quite the dolt, aren’t you Spiers, you French twat!”

“French?” I squealed but he stood up, downed the pint of sherry, wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his coat and announced, “That’s it, I’m off down Byres Road, surely there’ll be a trollop or two down there to keep me interested.”

“Hold on Tom, surely you’re not going to drive with so much booze on board?” I protested.

“Of course not, my little French fancy.  I’m taking a cab” and with that he swooped out of the pub.

“But what about Elaine C Smith?”  I shouted after him.  “You can’t just leave her here tied to our table!”

I chased Tom out onto Gibson Street and there he was, true to his word, taking a cab, at the steering wheel with the driver lying in the gutter wondering what’d just happened to him.  “Cheerio loser!”  Shouted Devine as he drove off.

Stuck with Elaine C Smith, I took the opportunity to extricate myself from Nevin and while he was telling one of his stories at the bar to someone he’d never met before, I sneaked out, pulling Elaine C Smith’s lead and hoping she’d not make a fuss that might alert Nevin to our leaving.

I cast a lonely and pathetic figure as I walked forlornly along Kelvin Way and I was just beginning to wonder if I should let Elaine C Smith off her lead to save me the bother of putting her up for the night in my kitchen when I heard a dreadful din coming from the abandoned church to my left.  I stopped and listened and I was certain that I could hear bagpipes and in the distance there was a definite glow coming from the old kirk.  I crept up to investigate and the sight that greeted me as I peered over the wall almost took my breath away: Angela Haggerty was dancing around a fire in the middle of the ruins and she wasn’t alone, Paul Holleran and Bob Walker were with her, dancing, screeching, tearing at imaginary chips on their shoulders and gnashing their teeth.  To their rear was a makeshift altar and sitting atop it was no other than Phil McGillivan, drooling and maybe masturbating but I couldn’t be sure in the dark.  A grisly, almost spectral figure sat in the corner and played on a pandemonium and it was this ghastly and hypnotic music which drove Haggerty and her chums into ever more awful shapes as they gyrated, grovelled and bowed before McGillivan and then suddenly a gust of air blew Haggerty’s mini-kilt up and it caught in her hair revealing an explosion of straw from between her legs that caught me by surprise so that without realising it I’d called out “Weel done cutty sark!”

The music stopped and everyone stared at me, Haggerty shouted “MSG!”

“Erm, don’t you mean MSM?” muttered Walker.

“Or SMSM?” offered Holleran.

“More like S&M from what I can see from here, fellows” I called out but I should’ve kept my mouth shut because Haggerty pointed at me and screamed, “Main Stream Media, he should be dragged in here and sacrificed to Phil!”  Now I didn’t like the sound of this one little bit but there was one other thing that was bothering me more:  “Er, Angela, I can still see your fanny.”

And that’s when bedlam broke out and they ran at me, screeching like banshees and pulling knives with which they were promising to disembowel me but I know when I’m not wanted and was off like a linty, jumping onto the back of Elaine C Smith and shouting giddy up.  They chased us the length of Kelvin Way but Elaine C Smith was a game old thing and kept us ahead of them for the most part but she stumbled briefly and although she recovered well, it was enough for Haggerty and her coven to catch up with us.  Just as I could smell her behind me and was beginning to imagine the scraping of her hideous nails down my back I wheeled us into Kelvingrove Park and we were bounding across the bridge over the river Kelvin just as Haggerty snatched at Elaine C Smith’s tail, pulling it straight off!  Then they stopped pursuing us and howled and jumped at the far end of the bridge while I calmed poor Elaine C Smith by opening a bottle of stout and pouring it into her mouth which she lapped up eagerly with her great tongue.  I patted her on the head, said "You are a strange old creature, aren't you" and we both walked off into the park only to bump into Pat Nevin.  "Hi Spiers," he hiccupped.  "Have I ever told my story about the Rangers scout who asked me my name?"

Thunderbollocks

Donald Findlay sat impassively behind his desk, drumming his fingers and sighing as the seconds ticked past four o’clock which was when Souness was supposed to arrive.  I shuffled awkwardly in my seat and worried about having to clear my throat again because the first dozen times had obviously irked Findlay and he was now beginning to draw me looks whenever I coughed, spluttered or choked – anyone would think I was on Radio Scotland and someone had asked me an awkward question about Celtic fans the way I was behaving.  Suddenly the door opened and a trilby hat flew in and landed perfectly on Findlay’s coat stand.  “Yes, yes, Souness, do cut out the games and sit down, you’re eighteen seconds late” snapped Findlay and Souness walked past me, knocking his elbow off my head as he passed, and took a seat.

“As both of you know, I have had my concerns about the Lord Advocate for quite some time” said Findlay, leaning forward and pointing his pipe at the picture of a furrow browed ape that lay inside an open file on his desk.  “This is him here, taken at a function at Celtic Park not all that long ago.”

“You mean that’s not a furrow browed ape?” I asked.

“No, that’s Frank Mulholland...  Hold on, dammit Spiers, you’re right, it’s a furrow browed ape.  Now where the deuce is the Mulholland file?”

“Not so fast, Donald” said Souness.  “That is Frank Mulholland.”

“Oh, so it is – ha!” roared Findlay, amused.  “Imagine that, Spiers, eh?  Imagine mistaking Frank Mulholland for a furrow browed ape!  The Lord Advocate too...  Now, where were we?”

“You were about to tell me that Mulholland is using the recent tragedy in Glasgow to make another assault on civil liberties and you’re about to send me to Jamaica to do something about it” said Souness.

“Jamaica, ye say?  Ho ho, Souness, always Jamaica, isn’t it?  Okay then, off you pop and take Spiers here with you, I’m sure he’ll come in useful at some point – won’t you Spiers, come in useful at some point, eh?”

And that’s how I fetched up in a power boat off the coast of Jamaica, suiting up while Souness held her steady and gazed at the horizon.  “In you get Spiers, you’re first,” he said as he slipped a knife into a sheath on his thigh.

“Wait.  Wait, wait!  Are there any sharks down there?” I asked, gaping in horror at the shapes that flitted in and out of the shadows in the deep beneath our boat.

“Of course there are no sharks down there,” sneered Souness, kicking me overboard.  “It’s the barracuda you need to worry about!”

 

The sea was a maelstrom of bubbles and roaring as I kicked and flailed, not knowing which way was up and worried that some demon of the deep would bite a leg off before I’d even got the hang of this diving lark but just as I feared I was going to have a full blown panic attack I felt a chapping on my head and it was Souness, hand-signalling for me to follow him towards a light which was blinking below us and in a twinkling we were holding onto a mini-submarine as it propelled us three miles along the coast to Port Morant.

 

We left the mini-subs on a signal from Souness and swam the final mile and I must say that I was bloody glad to see the shadow of a great ship straight ahead of us as this was our mission and it meant I could take a breather holding onto the anchor chain where we hid up and watched the hull for any sign of movement.  It wasn’t long before a squadron of frogmen came swimming up to the hull and started working on it – what they were up to, I didn’t know – and Souness’s nodding head let me know that this is what we were here for.  I didn’t like the look of these odds one little bit: two of us against around two dozen enemy but from the glint in Souness’s eyes, he was rather excited about the whole thing.

 

We peered through the dark of the sea, waiting for the occasional shafts of sunlight which briefly illuminated what the frogmen were up to and just as I was wondering if they were planting limpet mines I caught a glimpse of the reality of the situation: it was the Green Brigade!  They were indeed priming mines to sink the ship and it was definitely the Green Brigade because for every one man laying mines there were another five covering the hull in stickers.  Then it all made sense: Frank Mulholland, a self-confessed big fan of the Green Brigade had sent them here to sink this ship but why?  And then I remembered the ship's name; I’d seen it sitting here as Souness flew us past on a recce mission in his bi-plane – it was the HMS Freedom of Speech and Frank Mulholland wanted it sunk.  The Green Brigade as usual, were unwitting accomplices in his dastardly plan.  I was just letting this all sink in when my attention returned to the hull of the HMS Freedom of Speech and the Green Brigade were all sinking like stones, leaving behind great clouds of blood and swimming towards me with a satisfied grin and bloody knife was Souness; he winked, motioned for me to follow him and just to annoy me, made a wanker gesture and I could just tell from the bubbles rising from his breathing apparatus that he was laughing at me.

 

Later as we had sundowners in the piano bar of the Sandals Whitehouse, Souness’s mobile phone rang, he excused himself and took the call without getting up from his chair.  “Are you sure?” he asked, incredulously at something he’d just been told.  “I don’t believe it, has it been confirmed?  Okay, I’m getting on the first flight.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You’ll never fucking believe this in a million years, Spiers but Celtic have just banned supporters for their antics at Fir Park on Friday.”

“Hold on,” I stammered.  “Celtic?  Are you sure he said Celtic?  Celtic don’t ban fans for misbehaviour, they practically encourage it.”

“Definitely Celtic,” he confirmed, his moustache bristling.  “Come on, we’re going home, this is something we can’t miss, especially you – you’ll be reporting on this of course, yes?”

“Oh Graeme,” I laughed.  “You do have an odd sense of humour.”