I HAVE a couple of self-indulgences which I am savouring in these present-day times of semi-retirement. One is family history: I have finally got around to researching my family tree, although, 'Er Indoors reckons my genealogy research is verging on OCD.
The other self-indulgence is collecting sports books; this encompasses the whole spectrum of sport, although the majority of the books are on football. Collecting is mainly done via second-hand book shops and charity shops and, last week I shelled-out a well-spent tenner in the British Heart Foundation shop in Kilmarnock for three crackers.
The one I am currently reading, the first of the three, is Harry Reid's 2005 tome: 'The Final Whistle', sub-headed: "Scottish Football: The Best And Worst ovf Times".
It is a quite wonderful piece of work, hardly surprising given Mr Reid's pedigree within Scottish journalism. I owe Harry a lot, he gave me a hugely-helpful break when he was Sports Editor of the Sunday Standard and, with him having the intellectual gravitas of an Edinburgh Academical - Oxford graduate, and the journalistic pedigree of years on The Scotsman and the Editorship of the Glasgow Herald, his words are to be injested and pondered upon.
As the coverage of the fall and subsequent crawl through the shite of Rangers has shown, Scotland has been ill-served by the "Succulent Lamb" school of journalism, or by the "exclusive revelations" of the red-top school - it is refreshing to read the work of a real professional.
SCOTTISH football is right in the limelight tonight, with the ITV coverage of their Champions League clash with Barcelona, at Celtic Park.
The TV screen will surely crackle with the electric atmosphere inside the ground, and, with the pictures beamed across the UK, this is Celtic's chance to show that Scottish football isn't a joke.
I suspect we Scots will have to make-do with our own STV haun-knitted commentators and pundits, as always on these big European nights, I'd love to tap-into the English-slanted coverage, if only to get my dander up. That said, Roy Keane is always worth listening to, while, I must admit I do like Adrian Chile's man of the people approach - as he and Frank Skinner have shown, no West Bromwich Albion fan can really take football - or themselves, seriously.
It is asking a lot for lightning to strike twice, particularly with Celtic's doughnut defence, but, to quote Barry Newman: "Why not?"
I TEND to avoid commenting on the foibles of other bloggers. As a species we each sit in our 21st century equivalent of the hermit's cave of past times, railing against what we perceive to be the wrongs and injustices of the world.
I, unlike many, believe in free speech, but am becoming increasingly worried by the protocol whereby, in 21st century Britain, free speech is only ok if what is being said measures-up to some sort of standard, laid-down by left-wing liberal opinion formers.
Hence the roasting Tam Cowan got at the weekend for what was clearly, the more you read the Daily Record piece, a tongue-in-cheek piece about women's football.
OK, Tam unfortunately for him, stuck his tongue in his lower rather than upper cheek; he clearly doesn't enjoy women's football, fair enough; he probably went too-far, but, in a land of free speech, he is allowed to hold his antedeluvian views; or isn't he?
But, to get back on-message. I don't know who is worse, David Leggat or Phil Mac Giolla Bhain. But, they do perform a service, as the book ends to the opinions of the more extreme members of Ra Peepul and the Celtic Family.
The Donegal Kid, however, easily won this week's version of who can be sillier in the extremity stakes, with his rant, complete with video, clip of the "Jocks" who were Rangers' guests at Ibrox on Saturday, breaking ranks to join-in a hearty rendition of that well-known peace anthem Derry's Walls.
This set young Phil off down the road of ranting about under-equipped squaddies being butchered in Afghanistan, because the old Rangers regime didn't pay their taxes, and about the iniquities of EBTs.
Aside from the fact, Rangers largely got off with the EBTs plan - that's the case until, if ever, the Big Tax Case appeal by HMRC is won - and, in any case, probably enough cash is squandered on the drinks bills in Officers Messes than was arguably kept out of the civil servants' clutches by the MIH EBT scheme.
But, to see a Scottish-born, raised and educated former civil servant, who was - allegedly - lucky to escape a brush with the law for his incompetence, who subsequently decamped to a foreign country, from where he comments almost daily on sporting events back in the land of his birth, going-on about perceived tax evasion.
This is beyond irony.
No comments:
Post a Comment