Whatever happened to that famous Scottish sense of humour? That ability to laugh at oneself or others no matter the situation.
Here's a few recent examples that have caused much concern to many.
Andy Goram being verbally abused in a Peterhead bookies.
Of course, there's nothing particularly funny about anyone being abused physically or verbally. And considering the sectarian nature of this latest incident I can understand the moral outrage shown by many.
Some Celtic supporters said it was disgusting and definitely not funny.
At least one Rangers supporter claimed it was worse than the alleged death threats directed towards Raith Rovers director Eric Drysdale and the arson threats about Starks Park.
Really?
I beg to differ.
Let me be clear. I'm not in support of anyone harassing others in any way. I don't find that funny in the slightest.
But the episode involving Andy Goram wouldn't look out of place in one of those America or Britain's Dumbest Criminals TV shows.
On the rare occasions I have seen such shows I couldn't help but laugh.
Watching these shows the humour isn't the acts themselves. One does not usually find armed robbery or drink driving particularly humourous.
The humour lies in the ineptitude of the protagonists.
Who doesn't find it rather funny when a burglar is captured on CCTV locking themself into the building they're supposed to be robbing?
This is how I viewed the Andy Goram incident.
The humour lay in the idiocy of the perpetrator who, in addition to committing his act of lunacy in full view of the bookies CCTV, decided it would also be a great idea to get himself into the video which was then shared via YouTube, thus increasing his chances of being apprehended in a timely fashion.
And judging by the media reports of his arrest it was a strategy that paid off.
So, no one was hurt in the making of that short film and the guilty party got his comeuppance.
What's not to laugh about that?
Fast forward to Swansea where a professional footballer paid many thousands of pounds every week kicks a ball boy in the guts.
How can that be funny I hear the morally-outraged scream?
An adult assaulting a child in full view of the world? What does that say about us as a nation if we find such behaviour even the slightest bit funny?
Yawn.
Get over yourselves is what I say.
The seventeen year old ball boy knew exactly what he was doing and had boasted about making a comeback for one final game as he was the time-wasting king.
Watching him trying to keep the ball off Hazard was both surreal and comical.
Of course, to some, his behaviour was nothing short of scandalous.
To others, wasting time is part and parcel of the game, although most admit he did take it more than a tad too far.
But as we watched the lad rolling around the ground and holding on to the ball as if it was his and bullies were trying to steal it what happened next took us all by surprise.
Hazard toe poked him while trying to kick the ball and the lad then rolled around like Jurgen Klinsman in his heyday.
And what was the first thing the lad done when he sat up?
Did he wipe away bucketfuls of tears and cry for his mammy?
No. He shouted and signalled to the ref as if he was actually one of the players.
Of course, the referee had no option other than to send Hazard off for violent conduct. It looked much worse than it actually was.
But the more I see it the funnier it gets.
Is it just me that sees it like that?
No, definitely not.
I discussed it last night with various friends, all at various stages of drunkenness, and discovered we all saw the funny side of what is obviously an embarrassing incident for those involved.
Mind you, we also find this footage of Pepe going nuts quite hilarious, so maybe we are not representative of the majority.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jKt4IBxD5oo
This week's third example of lost humour is perhaps the saddest of all.
Apparently, Dundee United fans are planning to wear Craig Whyte masks at the upcoming Scottish Cup game against Rangers.
This outrageous behaviour, according to Rangers fans, and I quote, 'shows their (Utd fans) hatred for Rangers is stronger than their love for the club they claim to support.'
Eh?
When it was pointed out that wearing Craig Whyte masks wasn't a sign of hatred but merely a form of banter the reply was 'it wasn't banter it was designed to belittle, provoke and antagonise.'
Wow!
Who it is designed to belittle, provoke and antagonise is beyond me. For there will be no, or very few, Rangers fans at that upcoming game due to a decision by fan groups and the club to boycott the game.
Now if this was an isolated incident it could perhaps be laughed off. But over the last year we have seen Rangers fans harass many, including The Guardian, to remove a cartoon depicting a demolished Ibrox (apart from the front of the Main Stand which is a listed building) and a queue of people lined up as if signing on the dole. The caption read, 'Rangers Isn't Working' in tribute to a famous Saatchi and Saatchi advertising campaign that helped get Thatcher into power in 1979.
As well as being extremely well drawn the message was clever and funny. Yes, funny. I said it. May God smite me for having a sense of humour.
However, the masses down Edmiston Drive circled their wagons before launching a concerted attack on the newspaper to have it removed, claiming making fun of the fact people may lose their jobs wasn't funny.
I despair for these people and others like them who appear to go through each day looking for something to complain about while seeking the mythical moral high ground.
Life could prove to be unbearable for them once something really serious happens.
Me? I'm glad to be able to laugh at almost anything, including myself. Especially myself.
Looking for the humour in the darkest of places helps me through each day.
As for those who get offended by everything and anything in these days of over the top political correctness.
Well, I'm glad neither me, my friends or family are like you.
You would do well to let your hair down,
Now, if you'll excuse me I have to go share a few laughs with my brother before the cemetery shuts for the night. He might be dead but he still as a better sense of humour than those whose favourite pastime appears to be being outraged.
Glencoe
Honestly, the sun always shines on the Glencoe Car Park Run.
Saturday, 26 January 2013
Thursday, 24 January 2013
A Man's A Man N Aw That Shite
Burns Night is celebrated around the world, but I've never been one for doing so myself. I have attended a couple of Burns Lunches over the years but don't know anyone attending any Suppers this year. Maybe I just move in the wrong social circles.
Even back in the day there was no gathering around the old electric fire reciting poetry with my parents. Poetry was rarely on the agenda at home.
But that's not to say I didn't appreciate the fact a Scotsman enthralled and lit the world with words. Scottish words.
Unfortunately, many of the Scottish words employed by Burns weren't ones I knew or used in everyday life. And where as the language used by Burns is viewed as authentic, poetic or quaint, my everyday language is viewed by many as harsh, aggressive or scummy.
Yet it's a beautiful language and one in which I'm fiercely proud to be fluent. So to coincide with Burns Night I set out to compose a poem in my language.
Picking the subject matter for this poem was simple enough.
This time of year is the anniversary of my brother's death, and so it is to both him and Burns I dedicate this piece of work.
A Man's A Man N Aw That Shite
It’s that time ay year fur Rabbie Burns
impressin the world wae lyrical turns.
This Ploughman Poet fae doon near Ayr
enjoys eez spoils fur darin tae play
wae witches chasin Tam O’Shanter,
mice n men n full decanters.
Eez love ay wummin upset the kirk,
but fae conflict Rab refused tae shirk.
Coz a man’s a man n aw that shite.
Haggis n tatties?
Naw, no th-night.
Th-night’s the night some’ll share a line
tae mourn ma brother’s ain decline.
Wae kilts n chookters naewhere seen
as guests fae Scotland’s jails n schemes
aw gather roon n talk ay times
ay dealin drugs n violent crimes,
converted guns n lockback knives,
unruly weans n battered wives.
But a life like that is a life ay shite.
Champagne n Charlie?
Naw, no th-night.
Ah’ll sit masel n reminisce
ay distant times when we wur kids,
like wreakin havoc doon the Clyde
wae clabby doos marooned by tide,
th-gither we wur oor mother’s pride
n when Da wiz drunk he’d help us hide,
then pick me up n run tae Gran’s
where eyes wur rubbed wae shakin hauns.
But naebody wants tae hear that shite.
Wull Ah shed a tear?
Naw, no th-night.
Coz a man's a man n aw that shite,
taught no tae greet n how tae fight,
lessons passed like family heirlooms
churnin oot emotional vacuums.
Yet when that duckin divin chancer
succumbed tae pancreatic cancer,
no wance did he try tae run or hide
as hopes ay life wur cast aside.
Coz a man's a man n aw that shite.
Wull Ah forget it?
Naw, especially th-night.
Even back in the day there was no gathering around the old electric fire reciting poetry with my parents. Poetry was rarely on the agenda at home.
But that's not to say I didn't appreciate the fact a Scotsman enthralled and lit the world with words. Scottish words.
Unfortunately, many of the Scottish words employed by Burns weren't ones I knew or used in everyday life. And where as the language used by Burns is viewed as authentic, poetic or quaint, my everyday language is viewed by many as harsh, aggressive or scummy.
Yet it's a beautiful language and one in which I'm fiercely proud to be fluent. So to coincide with Burns Night I set out to compose a poem in my language.
Picking the subject matter for this poem was simple enough.
This time of year is the anniversary of my brother's death, and so it is to both him and Burns I dedicate this piece of work.
A Man's A Man N Aw That Shite
It’s that time ay year fur Rabbie Burns
impressin the world wae lyrical turns.
This Ploughman Poet fae doon near Ayr
enjoys eez spoils fur darin tae play
wae witches chasin Tam O’Shanter,
mice n men n full decanters.
Eez love ay wummin upset the kirk,
but fae conflict Rab refused tae shirk.
Coz a man’s a man n aw that shite.
Haggis n tatties?
Naw, no th-night.
Th-night’s the night some’ll share a line
tae mourn ma brother’s ain decline.
Wae kilts n chookters naewhere seen
as guests fae Scotland’s jails n schemes
aw gather roon n talk ay times
ay dealin drugs n violent crimes,
converted guns n lockback knives,
unruly weans n battered wives.
But a life like that is a life ay shite.
Champagne n Charlie?
Naw, no th-night.
Ah’ll sit masel n reminisce
ay distant times when we wur kids,
like wreakin havoc doon the Clyde
wae clabby doos marooned by tide,
th-gither we wur oor mother’s pride
n when Da wiz drunk he’d help us hide,
then pick me up n run tae Gran’s
where eyes wur rubbed wae shakin hauns.
But naebody wants tae hear that shite.
Wull Ah shed a tear?
Naw, no th-night.
Coz a man's a man n aw that shite,
taught no tae greet n how tae fight,
lessons passed like family heirlooms
churnin oot emotional vacuums.
Yet when that duckin divin chancer
succumbed tae pancreatic cancer,
no wance did he try tae run or hide
as hopes ay life wur cast aside.
Coz a man's a man n aw that shite.
Wull Ah forget it?
Naw, especially th-night.
Tuesday, 15 January 2013
Put The Face On
No gentle smile or comforting words telling me everything was going to be alright. Mum’s final breath rose and fell, leaving me holding a few scribbled verses of Ave Maria and wondering if she’d heard me mumbling through the sobs.
A quiet tap on the bedroom door stirred me out of character as the grieving son. I wiped away the snot and opened the door to find Auntie Susie wearing her ‘I’ll be there for you, son’ face. I recognised it from a photograph mum showed me years ago.
I knew fine well she’d be delighted at being the first to know and dying to tell everyone she was by mum’s side right to the end. “That’s her gone, Susie.”
Before I could protest her arms and bosom were engulfing and squeezing the life out me. “Oh son, she’s in a better place now. You let it all out.”
Her sixty a day Kensitas Club habit mixed with the Chanel No.5 from The Barras in a valiant but failed attempt to overpower the smell of pish from her pants. And with her Harmony-hardened hair and false eyelashes scraping my face like a Brillo I pulled away before her insincerity scarred me for life. “It’s awful warm in here, Susie. I’ll open another window.”
She pressed her cherry lips together and stretched her mouth wide, trying to mimic Mother Teresa’s saintly smile, but looking more like The Joker. Then, caressing my right hand with both of hers, she started counting my fingers as if she had a claim to them. “Do you need any help with the arrangements?”
This put me in a tight spot. During her last few lucid periods mum had a constant message. “I’m telling you, son. Don’t let Susie touch anything when I’m gone. She’ll have the shirt off your back.”
I always nodded, but spent most of the time wondering if mum knew more of her fate than she let on. The official family line was she’d pull through; because I thought she might have…not so much thrown in the towel if she knew the truth…but washed, dried and folded it neatly before storing it away and closing her eyes for a final Hail Mary.
When the consultant broke the grim news she sat fixing her hair and squinting at posters on the wall. Leaving the hospital she lit a fag and looked up from her wheelchair. “What was he on about in there? I couldn’t understand all those fancy words.”
Most of his fancy words went over my head too, but others like metastatic tumours, lymphatic system and palliative treatment were ones I’d heard before and ones you don’t forget. I half-bottled it. “He says the cancer’s back…but you’re going to beat it…just like last time.”
Her face dropped. “Does that mean they’re going to cut off my other breast?”
“Not at all. They’re going to try radiotherapy.”
She turned around in her chair and blew a perfect smoke ring in the midday sun. “Well, I’m not going back in that bloody doughnut thing; scares the life out me. I’d rather take my chances with St. Peter.”
“Don’t worry about that. Anyway, the doctor says you’ll outlive the rest of us…and he knows a tough wee cookie when he sees one. He deals with this sort of thing every day.”
“Aye, well, we’ll see; as long as I outlive that Susie. I don’t want that black widow putting the grief-stricken face on and trying to trap another man at my funeral. Remember Davie’s?”
Davie was mum’s brother and Susie’s man. During a lads’ night out he fell after taking a blow to the head, cracked his skull on the kerb and never got back up. Knowing Susie’s Presbyterian background, mum phoned the local priest right away to arrange the Requiem Mass. Susie tried to complain about her nose being put out of joint but mum was having none of it. As far as she was concerned Davie would be mourned in the same chapel as the rest of his family. His body and mind might have been seduced by Susie’s sultry charms in the shape of her peroxide Purdey, 38DD’s and orange tan, but when it came to his soul mum was leaving nothing to chance.
Whether out of spite or, as she claimed, the best available price at short notice, Susie organised Davie’s wake for the local Masonic. A place he'd always refused to set foot in even for a charity event.
Davie might have married a Protestant but his biggest claim to notoriety saw him standing in the centre circle of Hampden Park after the 1980 Scottish Cup Final. The BBC cameras panned from the Celtic end to the Rangers end as both sets of supporters took the field to settle old scores and start new ones. One camera zoomed-in on a long-haired thirty-something wearing flares and an Irish tricolour over his back like a Superman cape. With a green and white scarf tied to one hand, and an Eldorado bottle in the other, he stood triumphant, goading the opposition like he owned them, as Rangers fans retreated to the safety of their own end to prepare a counter attack.
But Davie’s fifteen seconds of fame weren’t all glorious. Strathclyde’s finest boys in blue – the police, not the Rangers fans – regrouped with mounted reinforcements. With truncheons held aloft like swords they charged across Hampden’s hallowed turf as if re-enacting the Battle of Balaclava or rehearsing for the Battle of Janefield Street. Scattering bodies in all directions, they swung with joyful abandon at both sets of fans, although many would tell you they only started really swinging once they reached the Celtic half.
As the cavalry roared towards him Davie threw his empty bottle skywards more in fear than aggression. Relieved of his weaponry he turned to run but tripped over the scarf hanging from his wrist just in time to escape a wallop from a well-aimed truncheon. Once the horses had raced past the cameras panned away and his time in the limelight was over.
Over the years his version of events would have listeners in the pub believe he defeated the forces of darkness single-handedly, but according to more reliable sources he sprint-staggered to the nearest break in the fencing around the terracing and climbed to relative safety.
When mum told Davie’s version during the eulogy at his Requiem Mass loud grumbles came from Susie’s side of the chapel. But Father O’Reilly’s measured chuckling provided mum the spiritual support needed for the occasion, as did the quarter bottle of Gordon’s Gin.
Relations never improved at Davie’s wake. Mum’s introduction to the prawn sandwich brigade came at a time when prawn cocktails hadn’t yet crept onto the Christmas Dinner menus of Glasgow’s East End.
“Prawns…on a piece?” She screwed her nose up at the lunacy of it. “Who puts effin’ prawns on a piece? Who does she think…? I remember watching her eat chewing gum off the pavement. Bloody prawns. Smell them. Davie worked all the hours under the sun so her weans could have shoes on their feet for school. And here she is blowing his Life Insurance money on trying to pick herself up a new man, a protestant man no doubt, at her own man’s wake. Bloody Jezebel.”
Mum wet her pants the next day when she heard of mourners having the runs all night, and how the prawns, being way past their sell-by date, had been acquired on the cheap from the local Chinese Take-Away. From that day she called her Salmonella Susie Wong, but never to her face. Open conflict was best avoided in a world where everyone had at least two faces.
I realised Susie was still caressing my hand, waiting for an answer to how she could help. Not having the heart to tell her mum didn’t want her anywhere near, and with no experience of organising these things, I thought it best to keep her onside, even if just as a sort of consultant.
“I’m sure there’s a lot you can do, Susie. Many people will want to know that’s her finally away. You could give them a phone. I’ll deal with the funeral arrangements.”
Her face tried to hide the disappointment of being offered a minor role but her shoulders drooped like her tits and her mouth couldn’t stay shut. “Well, I hope you’re not getting that priest from St. Andrew’s. Have you not heard?”
“Come on now, Susie. There’s no need for that. You know that’s where mum got married and dad got buried.”
“I’m sorry, son. I don’t mean to upset you. I was just saying. Everybody knows he’s been at it for years.”
She was always just saying, never just keeping her opinions to herself, just for a change. “Look, this isn’t the time. Mum wouldn’t have wanted us falling out, and neither would Davie.”
“Aye, you’re right, son. Come here and give us another hug.”
With Chanel and Tena Lady losing the battle against Susie’s pressured bladder I ensured it was a quick pretzel hug with a fair bit of space between us.
“We’ll be alright, Susie. Stick the kettle on…and get a hold of your Stevie…I’m going to need my shoes back.”
“What shoes?”
“My dad’s black shoes.”
“My Stevie hasn’t got them anymore.”
“He better have them. I’m going to need them for the funeral.”
She huffed and started searching her pockets for a change of topic. “Have you seen my fags, son?”
“It’s my shoes I’m looking for.”
“Oh, son. I loaned them to Jimmy McNaughton for his brother’s funeral. I felt sorry for him. I’ve known his mum Angie for years. He didn’t have any decent shoes of his own. He was on the drugs. Smack, I think.
“I don’t give a monkey’s what he was on. You better get them back, pronto.”
She reached out to caress my arm while tilting her head like a bemused puppy. “Poor Jimmy hung himself last month.”
I stepped back. “So what? Unless he used my fucking laces I don't want to hear it."
“Did your mum not tell you?”
Trying to shift the blame was typical Susie.
“Don’t start that shite.”
Unimpressed with my growing rage she settled into character and continued to lay it on thick as her foundation. “Angie was distraught. Two sons gone in a matter of months. And that man of hers was never much use either.”
“I couldn't give a fuck. What’s that got to do with anything anyway?”
“Well, Angie came to see me...” She ran a finger through the dust on top of the sideboard, high riled me further. She knew mum kept her house spotless until she couldn't physically do so anymore. “and...well...I couldn’t say no.”
“To what?”
“Jimmy got buried wearing your shoes.”
“He fucking what?”
She found her fags in the same pocket she always kept them. “The Reverend Smythe gave a lovely service; done the wee soul and his mum proud so he did. As did a few of the boys from the Shettleston Loyal with their penny whistles at the cemetery. Right smart they were too.”
Dad’s eyes burned me from the photo of us taken at Bellahouston Park, as it hung on the wall next to the one of Pope John Paul II waving from the helicopter. “What the fuck were you thinking? We’d kept those shoes in the family for over twenty years; never needed re-soled once.”
“I know, son. I remember your mum getting a Provvy to buy your dad those shoes for his own mum’s funeral.”
“They were only for funerals. None of us even wore them to court.”
“I know, son. I know.” Clocking the lighter mum kept by her bedside she made a move towards it.
I thought of punching her but saw mum’s cloudy eyes still staring piously at the two-foot wooden crucifix nailed to the ceiling, so I just grabbed her by the collar. “Mum said you’d have the shirt off my back, but you’ve stole the shoes off my feet instead, and now you’re trying to steal a lighter off the dead.”
“It’s not what you think, son. Honest.”
“You’re a lying…”
“I'm not lying, son. Look, is there nothing I can do…?”
Her scent ultimately proved too powerful for my eyes that were already red and stinging from grieving. I pushed her away pointed at the dark patch on her pink jogging bottoms and grimaced.
“Aye, you can..."
I wanted to tell her to take her fusty fanny and piss off but when it came to it I couldn't do it.
Instead I looked back at the photo of me and dad waiting on the Holy Father arriving and remembered something he said that day.
We fuck you up, me and your mum
We may not mean to, but we do
We give you all the faults we have
And add some extra just for you
Many years after my dad's death I discovered the words were paraphrased from Philip Larkin's This Be The Verse. But it was only as I watched my own son grow I realised the truth in the poem.
I turned my attention back to Susie whose crumpled face and childlike eyes looked like they saw me as a man for the first time.
I reached out and took her in my arms.
"It's alright, Susie. You know I don't mean any of it. It's just the grief talking. You and I? We're family. We've always been family and, as far as I'm concerned, we'll always be family."
She hugged me tight and let herself go. I could feel it warm against my legs but I held on. What's a bit of pish between family when we've endured generations of sectarian shite handed down like a pair of shoes?
Besides, somebody would need to help me out with the funeral expenses.
A quiet tap on the bedroom door stirred me out of character as the grieving son. I wiped away the snot and opened the door to find Auntie Susie wearing her ‘I’ll be there for you, son’ face. I recognised it from a photograph mum showed me years ago.
I knew fine well she’d be delighted at being the first to know and dying to tell everyone she was by mum’s side right to the end. “That’s her gone, Susie.”
Before I could protest her arms and bosom were engulfing and squeezing the life out me. “Oh son, she’s in a better place now. You let it all out.”
Her sixty a day Kensitas Club habit mixed with the Chanel No.5 from The Barras in a valiant but failed attempt to overpower the smell of pish from her pants. And with her Harmony-hardened hair and false eyelashes scraping my face like a Brillo I pulled away before her insincerity scarred me for life. “It’s awful warm in here, Susie. I’ll open another window.”
She pressed her cherry lips together and stretched her mouth wide, trying to mimic Mother Teresa’s saintly smile, but looking more like The Joker. Then, caressing my right hand with both of hers, she started counting my fingers as if she had a claim to them. “Do you need any help with the arrangements?”
This put me in a tight spot. During her last few lucid periods mum had a constant message. “I’m telling you, son. Don’t let Susie touch anything when I’m gone. She’ll have the shirt off your back.”
I always nodded, but spent most of the time wondering if mum knew more of her fate than she let on. The official family line was she’d pull through; because I thought she might have…not so much thrown in the towel if she knew the truth…but washed, dried and folded it neatly before storing it away and closing her eyes for a final Hail Mary.
When the consultant broke the grim news she sat fixing her hair and squinting at posters on the wall. Leaving the hospital she lit a fag and looked up from her wheelchair. “What was he on about in there? I couldn’t understand all those fancy words.”
Most of his fancy words went over my head too, but others like metastatic tumours, lymphatic system and palliative treatment were ones I’d heard before and ones you don’t forget. I half-bottled it. “He says the cancer’s back…but you’re going to beat it…just like last time.”
Her face dropped. “Does that mean they’re going to cut off my other breast?”
“Not at all. They’re going to try radiotherapy.”
She turned around in her chair and blew a perfect smoke ring in the midday sun. “Well, I’m not going back in that bloody doughnut thing; scares the life out me. I’d rather take my chances with St. Peter.”
“Don’t worry about that. Anyway, the doctor says you’ll outlive the rest of us…and he knows a tough wee cookie when he sees one. He deals with this sort of thing every day.”
“Aye, well, we’ll see; as long as I outlive that Susie. I don’t want that black widow putting the grief-stricken face on and trying to trap another man at my funeral. Remember Davie’s?”
Davie was mum’s brother and Susie’s man. During a lads’ night out he fell after taking a blow to the head, cracked his skull on the kerb and never got back up. Knowing Susie’s Presbyterian background, mum phoned the local priest right away to arrange the Requiem Mass. Susie tried to complain about her nose being put out of joint but mum was having none of it. As far as she was concerned Davie would be mourned in the same chapel as the rest of his family. His body and mind might have been seduced by Susie’s sultry charms in the shape of her peroxide Purdey, 38DD’s and orange tan, but when it came to his soul mum was leaving nothing to chance.
Whether out of spite or, as she claimed, the best available price at short notice, Susie organised Davie’s wake for the local Masonic. A place he'd always refused to set foot in even for a charity event.
Davie might have married a Protestant but his biggest claim to notoriety saw him standing in the centre circle of Hampden Park after the 1980 Scottish Cup Final. The BBC cameras panned from the Celtic end to the Rangers end as both sets of supporters took the field to settle old scores and start new ones. One camera zoomed-in on a long-haired thirty-something wearing flares and an Irish tricolour over his back like a Superman cape. With a green and white scarf tied to one hand, and an Eldorado bottle in the other, he stood triumphant, goading the opposition like he owned them, as Rangers fans retreated to the safety of their own end to prepare a counter attack.
But Davie’s fifteen seconds of fame weren’t all glorious. Strathclyde’s finest boys in blue – the police, not the Rangers fans – regrouped with mounted reinforcements. With truncheons held aloft like swords they charged across Hampden’s hallowed turf as if re-enacting the Battle of Balaclava or rehearsing for the Battle of Janefield Street. Scattering bodies in all directions, they swung with joyful abandon at both sets of fans, although many would tell you they only started really swinging once they reached the Celtic half.
As the cavalry roared towards him Davie threw his empty bottle skywards more in fear than aggression. Relieved of his weaponry he turned to run but tripped over the scarf hanging from his wrist just in time to escape a wallop from a well-aimed truncheon. Once the horses had raced past the cameras panned away and his time in the limelight was over.
Over the years his version of events would have listeners in the pub believe he defeated the forces of darkness single-handedly, but according to more reliable sources he sprint-staggered to the nearest break in the fencing around the terracing and climbed to relative safety.
When mum told Davie’s version during the eulogy at his Requiem Mass loud grumbles came from Susie’s side of the chapel. But Father O’Reilly’s measured chuckling provided mum the spiritual support needed for the occasion, as did the quarter bottle of Gordon’s Gin.
Relations never improved at Davie’s wake. Mum’s introduction to the prawn sandwich brigade came at a time when prawn cocktails hadn’t yet crept onto the Christmas Dinner menus of Glasgow’s East End.
“Prawns…on a piece?” She screwed her nose up at the lunacy of it. “Who puts effin’ prawns on a piece? Who does she think…? I remember watching her eat chewing gum off the pavement. Bloody prawns. Smell them. Davie worked all the hours under the sun so her weans could have shoes on their feet for school. And here she is blowing his Life Insurance money on trying to pick herself up a new man, a protestant man no doubt, at her own man’s wake. Bloody Jezebel.”
Mum wet her pants the next day when she heard of mourners having the runs all night, and how the prawns, being way past their sell-by date, had been acquired on the cheap from the local Chinese Take-Away. From that day she called her Salmonella Susie Wong, but never to her face. Open conflict was best avoided in a world where everyone had at least two faces.
I realised Susie was still caressing my hand, waiting for an answer to how she could help. Not having the heart to tell her mum didn’t want her anywhere near, and with no experience of organising these things, I thought it best to keep her onside, even if just as a sort of consultant.
“I’m sure there’s a lot you can do, Susie. Many people will want to know that’s her finally away. You could give them a phone. I’ll deal with the funeral arrangements.”
Her face tried to hide the disappointment of being offered a minor role but her shoulders drooped like her tits and her mouth couldn’t stay shut. “Well, I hope you’re not getting that priest from St. Andrew’s. Have you not heard?”
“Come on now, Susie. There’s no need for that. You know that’s where mum got married and dad got buried.”
“I’m sorry, son. I don’t mean to upset you. I was just saying. Everybody knows he’s been at it for years.”
She was always just saying, never just keeping her opinions to herself, just for a change. “Look, this isn’t the time. Mum wouldn’t have wanted us falling out, and neither would Davie.”
“Aye, you’re right, son. Come here and give us another hug.”
With Chanel and Tena Lady losing the battle against Susie’s pressured bladder I ensured it was a quick pretzel hug with a fair bit of space between us.
“We’ll be alright, Susie. Stick the kettle on…and get a hold of your Stevie…I’m going to need my shoes back.”
“What shoes?”
“My dad’s black shoes.”
“My Stevie hasn’t got them anymore.”
“He better have them. I’m going to need them for the funeral.”
She huffed and started searching her pockets for a change of topic. “Have you seen my fags, son?”
“It’s my shoes I’m looking for.”
“Oh, son. I loaned them to Jimmy McNaughton for his brother’s funeral. I felt sorry for him. I’ve known his mum Angie for years. He didn’t have any decent shoes of his own. He was on the drugs. Smack, I think.
“I don’t give a monkey’s what he was on. You better get them back, pronto.”
She reached out to caress my arm while tilting her head like a bemused puppy. “Poor Jimmy hung himself last month.”
I stepped back. “So what? Unless he used my fucking laces I don't want to hear it."
“Did your mum not tell you?”
Trying to shift the blame was typical Susie.
“Don’t start that shite.”
Unimpressed with my growing rage she settled into character and continued to lay it on thick as her foundation. “Angie was distraught. Two sons gone in a matter of months. And that man of hers was never much use either.”
“I couldn't give a fuck. What’s that got to do with anything anyway?”
“Well, Angie came to see me...” She ran a finger through the dust on top of the sideboard, high riled me further. She knew mum kept her house spotless until she couldn't physically do so anymore. “and...well...I couldn’t say no.”
“To what?”
“Jimmy got buried wearing your shoes.”
“He fucking what?”
She found her fags in the same pocket she always kept them. “The Reverend Smythe gave a lovely service; done the wee soul and his mum proud so he did. As did a few of the boys from the Shettleston Loyal with their penny whistles at the cemetery. Right smart they were too.”
Dad’s eyes burned me from the photo of us taken at Bellahouston Park, as it hung on the wall next to the one of Pope John Paul II waving from the helicopter. “What the fuck were you thinking? We’d kept those shoes in the family for over twenty years; never needed re-soled once.”
“I know, son. I remember your mum getting a Provvy to buy your dad those shoes for his own mum’s funeral.”
“They were only for funerals. None of us even wore them to court.”
“I know, son. I know.” Clocking the lighter mum kept by her bedside she made a move towards it.
I thought of punching her but saw mum’s cloudy eyes still staring piously at the two-foot wooden crucifix nailed to the ceiling, so I just grabbed her by the collar. “Mum said you’d have the shirt off my back, but you’ve stole the shoes off my feet instead, and now you’re trying to steal a lighter off the dead.”
“It’s not what you think, son. Honest.”
“You’re a lying…”
“I'm not lying, son. Look, is there nothing I can do…?”
Her scent ultimately proved too powerful for my eyes that were already red and stinging from grieving. I pushed her away pointed at the dark patch on her pink jogging bottoms and grimaced.
“Aye, you can..."
I wanted to tell her to take her fusty fanny and piss off but when it came to it I couldn't do it.
Instead I looked back at the photo of me and dad waiting on the Holy Father arriving and remembered something he said that day.
We fuck you up, me and your mum
We may not mean to, but we do
We give you all the faults we have
And add some extra just for you
Many years after my dad's death I discovered the words were paraphrased from Philip Larkin's This Be The Verse. But it was only as I watched my own son grow I realised the truth in the poem.
I turned my attention back to Susie whose crumpled face and childlike eyes looked like they saw me as a man for the first time.
I reached out and took her in my arms.
"It's alright, Susie. You know I don't mean any of it. It's just the grief talking. You and I? We're family. We've always been family and, as far as I'm concerned, we'll always be family."
She hugged me tight and let herself go. I could feel it warm against my legs but I held on. What's a bit of pish between family when we've endured generations of sectarian shite handed down like a pair of shoes?
Besides, somebody would need to help me out with the funeral expenses.
Saturday, 5 January 2013
Say Hullo Hullo to the Provos
While the battle-strewn streets of Belfast rage over the flying, or non-flying, of a particular flag, we in Scotland are embroiled in heated debates over the singing of particular songs.
What a sensitive bunch we are.
After another night of unrest in Belfast nine police officers were injured as thirty petrol bombs, as well as fireworks and other missiles were thrown at those in the front line attempting to keep public order. At least three hundred loyalist protestors had a stand-off with police but the Northern Irish BBC News reporter today claimed it wasn’t what she’d call full scale rioting. It was just sporadic pockets of trouble.
I wonder what she would’ve made of the scenes at Dundee on Boxing Day.
Meanwhile here in Scotland, society, or to be more precise, a Scottish government craving popularity and votes, rushed into pushing through a Bill that would criminalise football fans singing certain songs.
It was an imperfect solution that pleased no-one but leading prosecutors claim it to be a success.
Note the date on the above article and then check the date on this somewhat contradictory one –
Whatever the success or not of the new law some football fans now feel they’re being targeted unfairly, especially some fans of the two best-supported clubs in the country.
Celtic’s Green Brigade and Rangers’ Union Bears both feel they’re being singled out and persecuted.
Constant filming of both groups at games, fans being dragged from seats for doing nothing more than singing songs they’ve always sung and police visiting members at home are just some of the complaints made by fans from both sides.
No-one in their right mind will argue that it’s acceptable to promote religious hate be it in song, blogs or shouting in the street. Everyone should be able to live without the fear of being targeted because of their race, religion, gender or any other facet of their life.
This is not only common sense but also common decency, and is backed up by official figures.
According to the Scottish Government’s research an overwhelming majority of Scots support stronger action being taken to tackle sectarianism and offensive behaviour.
The full results show:
·89% of Scots agree that sectarianism is offensive
·89% of Scots agree that sectarianism is unacceptable in Scottish football
·85% of Scots agree that sectarianism should be a criminal offence
·91% agree that stronger action needs to be taken to tackle sectarianism and offensive behaviour associated with football in Scotland
Those are fairly convincing figures and suggest nine out of ten Scots find sectarianism abhorrent in today’s society.
But, as we all know, statistics can be manipulated to suit any agenda.·89% of Scots agree that sectarianism is offensive
·89% of Scots agree that sectarianism is unacceptable in Scottish football
Those are fairly convincing figures and suggest nine out of ten Scots find sectarianism abhorrent in today’s society.
A few of the questions I’d like answered are –
What method of primary research was employed to collate the data?What sampling method was employed?
Who decided the demographics of the sample to be researched?
How many of those questioned have really been offended by someone singing a particular song at a football match?
According to the government the Act will only criminalise behaviour likely to lead to public disorder which expresses or incites hatred, is threatening or is otherwise offensive to a reasonable person.
This offence will cover sectarian and other offensive chanting and threatening behaviour related to football which is likely to cause public disorder.
An online dictionary defines offensive as follows -
· of·fen·sive
· adj.
· 1. Disagreeable to the senses: an offensive odor.
· 2. Causing anger, displeasure, resentment, or affront: an offensive gesture.
· 3.
· a. Making an attack: The offensive troops gained ground quickly.
· b. Of, relating to, or designed for attack: offensive weapons.
· 4. (
· n.
· 1. An attitude or position of attack: go on the offensive in chess.
· 2. An attack or assault: led a massive military offensive.
I think the government must be relating to definition number two with their Offensive Behaviour Act.
Certainly not me.
How does that song go again...Let The People Sing.
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