Kailyard Kommentary

Pay no heed to the title of this post. I'm just trying to be clever, and failing miserably. Some links with a Scottish angle for your delectation:

In the aftermath of Scotland performing a smash and grab raid in Paris last Wednesday - cheers lads for buggering up my intended 'Domenech Bliss' post - came the debate at the Guardian's football blog about whether or not this was Scotland's greatest ever result.
Granted, there isn't much competition but the obvious counter-candidate is Scotland beating England 3-2 at Wembley in '67. Kev at the The Scottish Patient is nicely on cue by posting the nine and half minute YouTube clip of the game.

Sadly, being YouTube, the footage is grainier than a cheap snow globe and there's no sign of Jim Baxter playing keepie-uppie or sitting on the ball, but you have to check out six minutes into the clip. Denis Law tries the most audacious of chips and Gordon Banks has to pull off a brilliant save to deny him. Trust me, if Law had scored that goal nobody but Danny Baker and Chris Evans would have given a flying fuck about Gazza's lucky punt against Scotland in '96.

F.I.S sticks a well-deserved boot into the Andrew Carnegie myth over at the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Republic blog.

Found via google alert is a not so recent - but don't let that stop you from reading it - interview with Denise Mina over at Powells.Com.
Kara will especially like this quote from the interview:

Really what I'm doing is writing feminist stories in a really accessible medium. That is what I'm really interested in, just getting those sort of feminist stories out there, because I don't see representations of women in a lot of literature that I recognize as the real experience of women.

On matters relating to Denise Mina and Kara; did I ever mention that Kara and I attended an excellent event back in April, where Denise Mina, Ian Rankin and Allan Guthrie spoke on the subject of 'Tartan Noir'? It was part of the Tartan Week events that takes place in New York every Spring. The only real crime in evidence that night was when Kara grabbed my copy of the 'Dead Hour', and got Denise Mina to inscribe 'To Kara - from Denise Mina' in the inside front cover.

And, finally, back to Kev at the Scottish Patient. I've never been one for the Welsh; I'm more of a Legge man, but I did like Kev's latest post, where he reviews Irvine Welsh's latest novel - and Welsh's entire back catalogue - via a trip down Easter Road.
But what's with the front cover of Welsh's latest book? If I'm not mistaken that wee subbeto guy's wearing Motherwell colours. And what's with the cigarette in hand, empty beer cans, handcuffs and novelty boxer shorts? Did they get Andy Goram's permission before they were allowed to use his image as a subbuteo figure for their front cover? That's the only guy I can think of off-hand who played for both Hibs and Motherwell. It can't be Chic Charnley; he never played for Motherwell, and they'd have needed a bigger base to support the weight of his subbeteo figure.