You Terrible Cant

"Thank God you're here, Spiers" said Alex Thomson as I crawled along the floor of his occasional Glasgow digs.  "Here, take this helmet."  I accepted it gratefully and put it on just in time as another brick came through his window and bounced off my noggin.  "Blimey!  That was close, another few seconds and that would've been my bonce!  So tell me Alex, what the blue blazes is going on?"

"I wrote a blog recently criticising the Celtic support and..."
"Enough said," I interrupted.  "How long have they been besieging you?"
"Well I only got back from the George V Hotel in Paris, erm, I mean the Syrian frontline yesterday but it's been like this since I stepped through the door: brick after brick through the windows, shite poured through the letterbox, obscene phone calls although to be fair on the Celtic fans I think the phone calls might be from Lawwell."
"So what are you going to do about it?  We can't have the Celtic support attacking you like this and you not saying anything about it, not after you accused the Rangers support of being an underclass for far less."
"I know but I don't want to come over as a hypocrite..."  And at this we both burst out laughing.

I was still chuckling to myself when I reached Hampden later that day and popped in to say hello to my old chum, Darryl Broadfoot.  "Hello Broadfoot," said I.

"Hello Spiers," said he, and we stood staring at one another in silence for five minutes.
"Well it's been a pleasure speaking to you," said I.
"The pleasure was all mine, please drop in for a chat any time you like," said he.  I walked off down the corridor towards Regan's office but Broadfoot came running after me.  "What do you want to see him about?" he asked, grabbing my arm.
"Oh I just want to ask him about the offensive banner charge he promised to pursue against Celtic."
"You're joking, right?" said Broadfoot, horrified.
"No, why should I joke about something as serious as this?"
"Don't play cute with me, Spiers.  I know you know that we know never to go after Celtic, you know?"
"I know."  I said but I didn't know.  Even after all these years as a crusading reporter it still surprises me that Celtic fans can act with impunity, causing all sorts of outrages and not only will the SFA turn a blind eye but Celtic will pay the legal bills for all kind of riots, assaults, sectarian chanting and various other scandals.  What doesn't surprise me, because I see them in the press box wearing their club scarves, is that the media ignores it.  It never used to but then a new wave of young Celtic supporting journalists, sub-editors and programme producers appeared and even if they wanted to report any negative stories about Celtic, there was always Lawwell's underground torture chamber, the skin-flats, the scream-pits and of course Peter Kearney's office.

So I turned around and left Regan undisturbed and the question of what action the SFA would take against Celtic was left alone to hopefully be forgotten about and then ultimately disappear altogether.  Broadfoot watched me leave, a smile on his face in the knowledge that he had done his job and done it well.

 

I was still thinking about Broadfoot when I fetched up on Byres Road to meet Tom Devine and Pat Nevin for a few glasses of lunch and curiously enough, Devine greeted me with a frown.  "Have you been dealing with Broadfoot today, Spiers?"

"Er, yes.  How did you know?"
"I can smell the disillusionment on you from here.  Thought you were getting into journalism to make a difference, didn't ye?  And now what are you but just another part of the problem.  Heh, well never mind, I don't mind a hypocrite as long as he's one of our own.  Now get me a flagon of port and be quick about it, ye hear?  If I don't get drunk quickly I might have to listen to one of Pat's stories again."  I looked over at Pat and he was walking behind some stranger who, obviously tired of Pat's two stories had excused himself and was trying to flee to the toilets but Pat wasn't finished his second story yet and followed him in, talking all the way.

"Here you are, Tom" I said, handing him his drink with both hands.  "So have you heard about this state aid rumour doing the rounds about Celtic and Glasgow City Council?"

"Aye.  I have.  And what are you going to do about it?" he burped.
"Well I was thinking...  Ignore it and hope it goes away?"
"That's a good lad, Spiers.  Remember, you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem; bear that in mind and you'll be fine me lad." 

I thought about this and was just relaxing into my chair with a gin and tonic and realising how comfortable I was with the whole situation when the pub door flew open and in came Alex Thomson looking rather pleased with himself.  "Ho ho!  What have we here?" said Devine, lifting his face out of his drink.  "Well, Alex, what did you do to get the Celtic fans off your back?"  I asked.

"A stroke of bloody genius, Spiers.  I came up with an approach that is so brilliant, so inspired that no one but me could possibly have come up with it..."
"Well, what did you do?" I asked and Thomson puffed out his chest and said, "I took it all back and said sorry."

The Adventure of the Prokofiev Pormanteau

We had three very game horses pulling our troika, kicking up snow in our faces and looking like they could run all night which was fine by me considering Pencherjevsky and Ignatieff were right behind us with their Cossacks, waving their swords and howling blue murder.  As well they might considering Tom Devine had just kidnapped Pencherjevsky's wife.  Tom was snuggled up under some furs to the left of the troika and had Pat Nevin up front whaling the tar out of the horses with a whip and looking back every now and then to check the distance between us and the Cossacks.  Yours truly sat uncomfortably beside Devine and Pencherjevsky's wife who looked suspiciously like one of Devine's trollops from back home but what would the roving reporter for the Drum be doing this far north of Moscow?  Indeed, I was beginning to wonder what on earth I was doing here and then I remembered, I was here to fork out for all those Twitter followers.  If only I hadn't agreed to let Devine and Nevin accompany me.  "It'll be fun, Spiers, there's a good fellow," said Devine last week.  "You can pay for your followers and I can pay to thrash some young filly across the mattress.  And surely Nevin can find someone in Russia who hasn't already heard his two stories."

 

So we ploughed on through the snow, me peering over the back of the troika, eyes straining to see the little dots in the dark behind us that were our pursuers, while next to me the grunts and groans from under the furs indicated that blood-thirsty savages gaining ground on us were the least of Devine's worries.  "They're catching up!" shouted Nevin from up front. 

"I know," I shouted back.  "I can see them clearer now, another half hour and they'll be on us, can't you make this thing go any faster?"

"Sorry Spiers, no can do - we're carrying too much weight.  We need to lose some excess baggage if we're to speed up enough to lose them..." and as Pat was still talking I had an idea and started to remove the straps from Devine's picnic.  The keg of port was first to go over the side and as it did, our sled took a skip across the snow and suddenly we were flying.  Tom noticed this increase in our speed and his head appeared from under the furs, "What the devil?  Spiers, did you just loose my booze?" and before I could answer he was on top of me, great bear paw hands around my neck, throttling the life out of me while the remains of his erection poked me alarmingly on the tummy.  "What the fuck?  Devine, get back here, I'm not finished" screamed a voice from the furs.

"Angie, baby!  What are you doing here?  You were Pencherjevsky's wife all along?" I cried upon seeing her face properly for the first time since Devine had come running towards me and Pat on our Troika only to dump a naked woman wrapped in furs into the back and demand that we get going.

"Of course it's fucking me, you cunt-trumpet.  You think you're the only one who buys Russian Twitter followers?"

 

It was at this point that I noticed Tom had stopped strangling me and was himself taking an interest in our pursuers.  "This looks bad, Spiers" he said.  "We need to lose some more weight or these bastards will catch up with us before we make the border," and so we got to work throwing overboard the remains of Tom's picnic and all the silver dishes and cutlery that he also seemed to have pinched off Pencherjevsky until finally there was nothing left to lose and so we snuggled under the furs and hoped that Pat could get enough from our horses to put some safe distance between us and the Cossacks.

 

"It's no good," shouted Nevin.  "They're still gaining and we have miles to go before we reach Finland, we need to do something."

"But there's nothing left to do, we've tossed everything that could weigh us down, we have nothing more to lose" and just then I fell back into the troika as we took another unexpected burst of speed and next thing you know we were haring along; Pencherjevsky, Ignatieff, hungry Cossacks all disappearing into the darkness behind us, too far away to see.  "Jolly good show!" I shouted.  "But how did we lose so much weight?" and then my jaw dropped and I felt the most appalling pain in my chest as I realised what had just happened.  "Haggerty, where is she?" I screamed in Devine's face but he just smiled and nodded behind us.  "Back there somewhere, I suspect.  Well we needed to get the weight down and she is a dispensable useful idiot after all, isn't she?  Anyway, I was done with her, weren't you?"

"Oh Angie, baby!" I wailed as I looked behind us and saw her bare arse sticking out of the snow.

We soon got away from Pencherjevsky and reached the Finnish border just as our horses were beginning to tire and as we were waved through the border post by the guards, I sat back in the troika and relaxed for the first time in eight hours since we fled our Russian hosts.  I was just thinking about the portmanteau full of American dollars that I'd left behind and accepting that after we stole Haggerty from her new boyfriend, he wouldn't be going to any trouble to pay for my new followers on Twitter.  It didn't matter though, in the grand scheme of things, we'd survived and were safe now and no one would know anything about this shameful episode.  Then I looked up at the border officials who were waiting to inspect our passports and there was someone beside them, someone else from home, someone with a great big smile like a Cheshire cat.  "Oh for fuck's sake, it's only Chris Graham of the Rangers Standard!  What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Hello Spiers," said Graham.  "Anything to declare?"

The Shadow of Corruption

"Right, you wanks," growled Peter Lawwell, twisting his horse whip between two clenched fists as he addressed the ranks of the Scottish media who were lying before him, pegged to the ground.  "Not one word, one fucking word or else.  No allusions, no hints and no coded references.  If I hear one of you even mention Celtic and Glasgow City Council in the same breath then it's the rack - you understand?  And not only will it be the rack but Peter Kearney will be operating it!  Wearing a gimp mask!"

"Peter?" spoke up some young scud from STV.
"Peter?  Peter?" roared Lawwell.
"Sorry.  Mr Lawwell, usually in situations like this, you'll throw us a bone; give us something else to report to distract everyone's attention."
"First of all, cunto, I don't have to throw anyone a bone unless I feel like it, got that?  Second, here's a bone, knock yourselves out" and he had Neil Doncaster pass out a press release which most of us struggled to read, being pegged to the ground and all.  Tom English was the first to speak up: "But this Twitter troll who's been jailed, he's a Celtic supporter."
"And where the fuck exactly does it say that?" asked Lawwell.
"Well, he racially abused a couple of black Rangers players, his name's Convery..."
"Ronnie Convery?" asked Gerry McCulloch.
"No," said Tom.
"Oh, but you must admit, it sounds like the kind of thing he'd do..." chuckled McCulloch, his voice trailing off as he realised Lawwell was staring at him.
"Look, I didn't say it was a good bone so I want you all to think outside the box and report this to have people believe he's a Rangers supporter, got that?"
"Couldn't we just find a Rangers supporter who has been found guilty of online abuse?  Surely they're not too difficult to find in this day and age?" I piped up, finding my voice at last but only because there were at least a dozen journalists between me and Lawwell's whip.
"You would think so!" shouted Lawwell, kicking out at a few of the BBC Scotland bhoys closest to him.  "But not this week and I need something fast to take away the attention from the European Commission investigating our land deals."
"What land deals?  What European Commission investigation?  We haven't heard anything, we don't know what you're talking about" muttered every journalist in Scotland almost as if rehearsed.