Barad-dûr

"Where the fuck are they?" roared Lawwell as he smashed up his own office, pulling drawers out and emptying their contents on the floor and pushing over filing cabinets.  I had turned up to his office at Hampden where he'd been living since annexing the SFA a few years back, he had summoned me by telephone with a call full of imaginative expletives that would have meant nothing to anyone outside of the Scottish press and in spite of being pretty much outside of the Scottish press myself these days, I knew exactly what it meant and so my corduroys were a blur as I rushed over there. 

When I arrived, I wished I hadn't.  The office was a mess of papers, books, curious instruments of torture and jars full of gore.  On the ceiling was Stewart Regan, nailed there by the arms and legs, his stomach cut open with his intestines hanging down like some obscene tree swing.  "Regan, what are you doing up there?" I asked.

"Bleeding to death!  Spiers, you've got to help me, I've lost too much blood, if you can't help him find what he's looking for then I'm going to die up here."
"But what's he looking for?  This place is a mess, I've never seen him like this" I squawked, feeling that familiar feeling in my bowels as Lawwell emerged from a cupboard.  "Tom English's balls," he screamed at me.  "Where are they?"
"Surely hanging from Tom English?" I suggested, thinking I was being helpful.  Five minutes later as I was hanging from the ceiling beside Stewart Regan while Lawwell looked for a knife, I contemplated how one should never try to be smart with Lawwell.

"What's got him in this state anyway?" I asked Regan.
"First of all there was the Tonev thing, he didn't take to kindly to having signed up to the balance of probability approach to disciplinary procedure without having considered for one moment that we'd dare use it against Celtic."
"Well I'm surprised you did, I mean you go after the boss of the SFA of course you're going to fetch up hanging from the ceiling with your guts spilling out."
"It wasn't me, Spiers; the thing is, I can't remember doing it, telling anyone else to do it or even approving the bloody thing - God knows how it got this far, I mean there are procedures to stop this kind of thing happening."
"And by this kind of thing, you mean Lawwell's rules to pursue Rangers for any old thing being used against Celtic?"
"Exactly, listen Spiers, you've got to get us down from here, I don't think I can last much longer - I think he's looking for revenge on Tom English for his BBC article this morning, you've got to think of something and fast."
I thought for a moment and came up with a plan, a plan so simple that I'm surprised Regan himself hadn't thought about it.

"Excuse me, boss?" I called out to Lawwell as he tossed papers around the floor ranting about his blade being here somewhere.  "I have an idea."  Lawwell stood up and looked at me, those baleful eyes staring right into my soul as he pulled out his cock and pissed on the floor.  "I'm listening," he said.

"Let us down and I'll find Tom English for you, you seem to think you had his balls..."
"In a jar," he interrupted.
"You seem to think you had his balls in a jar but I saw them only last night - how is not important - and I can find them again for you but not if I'm nailed to your ceiling."
"That's not much, what else you got?" he growled, finishing off his urination and tucking his penis inside his trousers.
"To take the heat off Celtic, Stewart here will fine Rangers a hefty wedge and that'll give the press something with which to run and a good excuse to ignore the Tonev result."
"And what excuse does he have to fine Rangers?"
"Who gives a flying fuck?" screamed Regan, running out of time.  "I can say any old thing, who are Rangers to argue?  I'll fine them half a million just because I can, are you trying to say anyone out there will object?  Any newspaper or television journalists will raise one question about what the fuck we're doing?  Just get me down from here and to a hospital before I die!"
"Fine," said Lawwell.  "But make it two hundred and fifty grand, we want to stretch this out a bit."