If You're Feeling Sinister

Tom Devine was choking on his port and spluttering as he tried to breath and laugh and drown in his favourite drink and all I had done was tell him I was worried that by writing Lawwell’s memoirs I might be in danger of losing my impartiality.  “Oh!  No more, Spiers, no more!  Oh my giddy aunt” he cried as he recovered and called for a barman to replenish his barrel.

We were in Stravaigin on Gibson Street which is one of the few places that hasn’t barred us thanks to Pat Nevin pestering the regulars with his two stories about Rangers; two stories that to be frank are almost driving me to throttle him with his headphones lead if he comes out with them one more time on Radio Scotland while I’m there, grinning and pretending for the producers that it’s the first time I’ve heard them and that it’s all true because, well because it paints Rangers in a bad light.

“By the gods,” exclaimed Devine now that his barrel was full again and he had composed himself.  “Ye don’t mean to tell me you think you’ve been anything but impartial all these years, eh?  Are you telling me you’ve been hammering Rangers for so long now that you believe it’s normal behaviour?  Let me tell you, me lad, it’s not.  Oh just because it’s the norm’ within the offices and studios of BBC Scotland which any dolt knows is culturally disinclined towards the Ibrox club doesn’t mean that it’s right...”
“But you do it!” I squealed at the unfairness of what he was saying.
“Of course I do, you purblind idiot, but I do it from a position of understanding – I know exactly what I’m doing and why.  You?  You just blunder along believing everything you say, or write, even if you’ve just made it up right there and then; I mean, what about that tommyrot you came out with a while back about Klinsmann’s a klansman?  You made it up then repeated it so much that you came to believe it yourself.  I mean, bloody hell, it takes a whole new level of stupidity to allow that to happen.  Oh Christ...” he paused and looked over my shoulder.  “It’s the pip-squeak.”
“Hello everybody,” cried out Pat Nevin, entering the pub.  “Have I ever told you the one about the Rangers scout who asked me my name?”

Later, having got no further with my quandary thanks to Pat turning up, Devine had quaffed three barrels to see him through the experience and was drunk as a boiled owl and by the time I decided to leave, was grabbing at the waitress’s tits and throwing peanuts at the tables next to us.  I crossed the road and made my way through Kelvingrove park meaning to go to Finnieston to admire the beards when from the bushes I heard a lowing sound, a sad mournful noise that suggested some poor creature needs help; thinking the experience could be a potentially good tweet, I crept over and parted the leaves and peered in.  There in the clearing were a group of oddly dressed children and they were gathered around a friend who had his leg caught in a bear trap.  “Can I help?” I called out and as one they turned to me with fear in their faces until their leader shouted, “Belle & Sebastian, unite!” and they pulled from their satchels various musical instruments and struck up a sad but pretty song which kept me at bay.  “I mean you no harm,” I said and the leader approached me, sniffing my jacket (which he immediately regretted) before retreating back to the safety of his group.  “Friend,” he said and they all whimpered and gazed at their shoes.

They were Belle & Sebastian: Guardians of the Park and one of them had been caught in a bear trap laid by their enemies and they were all here to save him before the Housetroopers arrived with their guns to teach them a lesson about drinking in public.  I learned this from Murdoch, the leader who impressed upon me the importance of them saving their pal and getting out of the park before the sun goes down.  Of course I sympathised and told them I’d help.  “Whizzer and Chips!” shouted Murdoch happily and the rest of them joined in: “Beano!” shouted Geddes; “Shiver and Shake!” squeaked Sarah Martin; and “Billy Bunter!” roared Stevie Jackson.  They were a rum bunch but I liked them and helped them pull the metal teeth from Bobby Kildea’s leg and we were just about to leave the shelter of the bushes when Murdoch lifted his nose to the sky and motioned for us to be quiet.  “Housetroopers!” he whispered loudly and he was right, I looked out and there were the police creeping about the trees, machine guns raised, the thin red light of their laser-sights moving from one group of people to another as they sat in the sunshine.  Suddenly there was a burst of gunfire and one gathering of students erupted in a mist of blood and flesh and when the firing had stopped, all that was left of them was bits of gore and the bottles of wine they’d been drinking from.  “Bloody hell!”  I cried.  “What was that for?”

“That was for drinking in the park, my new friend.  House doesn’t like it so he sends these men here to bully us and remind us of our place and aye, sometimes kill us if we’re caught with any bevvy.”  Lawwell was right, it is a new world now and not one that I like.  Shoving people around is alright in my book but only if it’s football fans and when I say football fans, I mean Rangers fans; this is why I supported the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act although that one came back to bite us all in the arse after it turned out Celtic fans were targeted as well as Rangers.

“Look, an escape route,” rasped Murdoch, pointing to a clear path to the bridge and before I knew what was happening, we were all scampering towards Kelvin Way until a couple of police jumped out of the pond and levelled their guns at us.  “Belle & Sebastian, unite!” shouted Murdoch and they all whipped out their instruments and they only bloody set up a free gig right there at the edge of the park!  Fans appeared from nowhere and surrounded them and such a crowd gathered that it stopped the police from getting anywhere near us.  “Clear a path, citizens or we’ll fire” came the shout from one hi-viz monster but the fans wouldn’t shift, hypnotised by the cute refrain of I Fought in a War; then still surrounded by fans, they shuffled towards the bridge and out of the park and into a waiting transit van which drove them off into the art gallery and as they disappeared into the sunset I could hear Murdoch shout, “Whizzer and Chips, we did it!” then a loud cheer from the rest of them.

The crowd soon cleared and the police vented their frustration by arresting a few kids for looking different and then they sprayed the tree lines with bullets.  “Boxes to tick, targets to be met,” they chanted as they marched off towards Charing Cross.

Lawwell’s new world is a frightening place but if there’s one thing you can be sure of when things are turning horrible and nasty, Celtic will be well shielded from it all so I considered this and decided that I would take him up on his offer of writing his memoirs for the year.  After all, it would mean unprecedented access to not only Lawwell and Celtic but to the SFA which he runs now and every newspaper in Scotland over which he rules with an iron horse whip and it would mean I won’t have to slink around hiding in closets or under tables anymore to get my exclusives.  Buoyed by the relief of having made a decision I decided to loaf back to Stravaigin and see if Devine was still there but when I got there I found him rolling around the ground outside, crying murder.  He’d been grabbed by some frightful spectre from your worst nightmare and she was clawing at his neck and biting his face.  “For gawd’s sake Spiers,” roared Devine.  “Get Haggerty off me!  Damned slattern doesn’t know when she’s been chucked!”