Sitemeter Sightings - an ongoing series and other stuff

According to my sitemeter, the blog from time to time gets visits from an ISP address at the Houses of Parliament. So, following on from this story, if in the coming months a candidate in the forthcoming Labour Party leadership election starts namechecking The Sound Team, The Saturday Night Things or Julius Martov and the Sexy Mistakes, then there is a pretty good chance that they have outed themselves as the reader of the blog. And, if in their attempt to appeal to the left-wing constituency in the Party - Reginald and Doris Simpkins of the Mole Valley CLP - they make a major speech where they decry the fact that "The cunts are still running the world", then that will be cast iron proof that they are the mystery reader. My hunch is that the secret admirer is John Reid. He looks like a bloke who would secretly hanker after "crunchy guitar music"©.

On other stuff:

I've been totally slacking when it comes to my week by week reports of Celtic's results and form. After a steady start, I've been totally daft with the inactivity on my part as I have seen the highlights of all their league games thus far this season, courtesy of the good people at UK Nova. I'll definitely need to get back on track with this as it's my best means of remembering the season as it progresses. What I will say in the meantime is that number 46, Mr Aiden McGeady, was absolutely immense against the forces of darkness last week, and if I was a R*ngers fan I would be mightily pissed off by Kenny Miller's exuberant goal celebration against them during the same game. At least he didn't kiss the jersey.
And, I feel I mention it every time I do actually get round to writing up my musings on Scottish footie, but it has to be reiterated nonetheless: When Hibs are firing on all cylinders, there is no better team to watch in the SPL. There is a Sports Science PhD out there for the grad student who can come up with the explanaton as to why it is that blokes who were absolute cloggers during their own playing careers, can carve out teams with skill and finesses once they don the manager's blazer. Special mention to Tony Mowbray, Jock Stein, Alex Ferguson and Kenny Dalglish Kevin Keegan when writing up their thesis.

In a nice piece of symmetry, Thursday not only saw the blog hit the 60,000 visits mark but it was also the same day that the combined visits to the profile and blog pages of the unofficial Socialist Standard page on MySpace also burst through the 60,000 visitor mark. The only difference being that my blog has been up and punning since April 2004, whilst the Socialist Standard page on MySpace only saw the light of day in February of this year. I'm not bitter: I've just been chewing on lemons for breakfast.

Though I always hate myself in the morning, I got into yet another nasty blogging spat at Harry Pollute's blog the other day when I got seriously pissed off when HP regular, Gene, linked to a particularly offensive website in a post about the recent anti-Blair demonstration in Manchester. As is the nature of these rows, I was denounced as a stupid moron by the assortment of anonymouse 9 to 5 keyboard warriors that hang round the HP comments box, but it was a relief to note that I wasn't the only one who took exception to the link.
I mean it when I write that it was a relief to see that post from Will. It seemed such an obvious point that I was making in my original - admittedly intemperate - comment at HP that when I was met with a barrage of abuse and scorn by Peter, Paul and Mary, I did wonder if I had totally blown things out of proportion and invited the response upon myself. But I still think I was in the right. Even now, thinking about that nasty link masquerading behind the bullshit label of 'citizen journalism' makes my blood boil. There are some bastards out there.

On a happier/sadder note, I finished Resolution late Thursday night, the final novel in Denise Mina's Garnethill Trilogy. What can I say except that all three novels were wonderful, and it was so nice to get back into the habit of voraciously reading a series of books one after the other, greedy to read more whilst simulatneously anticipating the regret that I would have once I reached the end of the series. I really recommend these books to anyone who loves character driven fiction. In Maureen O'Donnell, Denise Mina created such a vivid and memorable character that you end ruing the genre of crime fiction with its rules of closure and finality, 'cos you so desperately want the characters of the novels, Maureen, her brother Liam, their dipso mum Winnie and Maureen's best friend, Leslie, to appear again and again in future novels. I know I'm being greedy, but if you read the novels you'll come to understand why. I guess I'll have to settle for Denise Mina's Paddy Meehan's series of novels, if and when I can locate them in New York.
One special plea, though. Please don't let the novels get the 'Rankinised'. I absolutely love the Rebus novels, but it has to be said that the TV adaptions of the novels have been absolute mince and tatties. I kidded myself on that it was first time failings with the original casting of John Hannah as Rebus, but second time round, with Ken Stott cast in the title role, the adaptations have been equally dire. They best resemble also-ran episodes of Taggart, but without the Maggie Bell theme music and Jake D'Arcy playing the murderer for the fourth time.