Waiting For The (Big) Man

WEEK 4

Inverness Caley Thistle 1-1 Celtic

A glitch in the internet connection in our apartment block means that this week's update is even later than usual, so I will keep it shorter than usual. That's a blessing in disguise as the performance of Celtic against Caley Thistle was well below par, and it says something when the pundits on Scotsport agree that Celtic's goalscorer, Stephen Pearson - the bloke who at one point was getting shunted to either Derby or Preston - was their only outstanding player during the match.

It's not even the end of August but it appears that I have already put the hex on Jarosik who, after playing well in the opening game of the season against Kilmarnock, has gone totally off the boil. One wonders if and when Maloney is fit, Jarosik will face competition from him with Strachan considering the option of playing Maloney in the role of an attacking midfielder. I'm probably talking out my hole, but I wonder how else he is going to get a game with Celtic now that they have signed Vennegoor of Hesselink from PSV. Great to read that the latter is a robust sort of player who likes to put himself about, 'cos after singing the praises of Celtic against St Mirren for not being rolled over it do look like there was a lack of heart and passion at the centre of their display against Inverness. Munro's equalising goal in the last ten minutes was classic penalty box pinball defending, and made me even wish for a nano-second that Balde was somewhere amongst the flailing legs to throw his hulking frame in front of a Caley Thistle player. Oh, and Miller missed some sitters . . . again.

With reference to the other matches in the Scottish Premier League that weekend, the Scotsport highlight confirmed that the Scottish Patient was perfectly within his rights to rant and rave about Zemmama performance against Motherwell, but he should have also namechecked Benjelloun peformance and Scott Brown's absolutely sublime goal. Pure class, and Hibs are playing Celtic at Parkhead this coming Saturday. Fuck.

It loathes me to say it but Rangers were outstanding against Hearts, with Chris Burke and that bloke with the weirdest haircut in football particularly impressive in their wing play. Perhaps I'm being so gracious about Rangers currently being top of the league 'cos I just read about Burke getting banjoed by ex-teamate, Fernando Ricksen, in Rangers 4-1 defeat against Zenit St Petersburg. It's heartening to know that it isn't only Celtic that come a cropper via the meaningless friendlies circuit.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You . . .

If I was a Supermarket I would, at this point, be dishing out the fancy food hamper and the ten days in Mykonos but as my current finances only allows me to stretch to this, I'll just say a nice big thank you to the unknown New Yorker who, a few minutes ago, became the fifty thousandth visitor after stumbling across the blog via this search.

The blog has been going for just over two years, and in that time there has been 468 posts - with another 327 posts languishing in draft - involving such wide ranging subjects as Glasgow Celtic, eighties pop music, the vagaries of being a member of the SPGB in the 21st century and . . . er, that's about it. Oh,and there's also been a tendency for me to pepper my posts with bad jokes, piss-poor puns and the annoying habit of alliteration in every other paragraph.

Apart from friends and family, most visitors to the blog arrive via image searches for Bono, Banksy and a bare-arsed Kika Markham, and a few of those have even stuck around longer than the usual dreaded sitemeter eyesore of '0.00 seconds'. I give you a slobbery big thanks as well.

Here's to the next fifty thousand visitors, and the next 300 potential posts left in draft.

PS Even if you haven't asked, I'm telling you anyway. This is my all-time favourite post on the blog as it combines irreverance with the minutiae of ultra-left sectarianism: A killer combination in anyone's book.

Thatcher Faces Police Probe

Sadly, it's the wrong Thatcher, but some good may come from the investigation and the resultant story. Someone might actually get round to posting some decent sized jpegs of this famous incident involving Ben Thatcher and Nicky Summerbee from a few years back:

For those readers who feel I am condemning Thatcher prematurely before seeing the actual footage of the incident on tv, all I can say is that I couldn't help but notice that when I did an image search for Thatcher's 'tackle' on Summerbee on google, yahoo and jeeves about three quarters of the images that cropped up involved Thatcher raising his elbow whilst forlornly chasing after a pacy and skilful forward player. (It didn't matter if he was appearing in Wales, Wimbledon, Spurs or Man City colours, it appears to be a consistent footballing trait throughout his career).

Thatcher's best defence is that it was Summerbee's and Mendes's fault for letting him draw level with them..

About A Boy

>> So macho <<

Christian hardliner goes for broke

Scottish nutjob Rev George Hargreaves has unsuccessfully run for election for parliament, Scottish parliament and European parliament and his party, the Scottish Christian Party, Proclaiming Christ's Lordship, is fielding candidates in every seat in next year's Scottish elections. How can he afford this? Well, the Rev used to be called George Jackman, and he wrote the gay anthem So Macho for Sinitta, which sold more than a million copies in 1985 and still generates more than ten grand in royalties every month.

His political party opposes abortion, euthanasia and embryo research as well as backing anti-abortion pressure group UK Life League, which stages frightening protests outside family planning clinics across Britain. There's only one thing to do: get every TV station and radio station to stop playing the record and 80s compilation albums to stop including it.

Turns out this is an old story, but I loved the above snippet that I spotted in this week's Pop Bitch nonetheless, and the Reverend is right: it is about loving the sinner, whilst not necessarily loving the sin. I'm sure George is a well-meaning, if misguided, bloke despite the fact that So Macho is one of the shittiest pieces of pop this side of a Paris Hilton demo. George, I forgive you for your musical sins.

Internet Connection Was Down - Catching Up

August 21, 2005 | Bill Moyer, 73, wears a "Bullshit Protector" flap over his ear while President George W. Bush addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

(Photo: Douglas C. Pizac / AP Photo)

(Hat tip to Becky).

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Good

Knowing the biscuit tin mentality of the Celtic board, I reckon they are expecting to claw the transfer money back from sales of replica shirts with his name on the back.

The Bad

The board will be loving it and no doubt, as I write, they are applying for planning permission to add an extension onto the biscuit tin, but Celtic drawing Man Utd, Benfica and FC Copenhagen in the Champions League leaves me with nothing but trepidation. United are absolutely flying at the moment and I know it seems like Celtic play them every year anyway, but friendlies, exhibition games and testimonials are hardly the real thing. Even before I saw the draw, I was surprised to read that FC Copenhagen had put out Ajax in the qualifying round. Does that mean Celtic will start out as the perceived weakest team in the group? Perhaps, with the draw being so seemingly difficult, fans expectations will be realistic to the point of pessimism, and Celtic can prove me - and everyone - wrong. I'm looking forward to them doing that.

The Ugly

Strachan signs another English Championship player in the form of Lee Naylor from Wolverhampton Wanderers. Sorry, as I've been none too impressed with Strachan's last visit to the bargain basement at Molineux, when I read about a player who has played over 300 games for his club, the first thing that sprang to my mind was not 'What a wonderful throwback to that era of loyal servants and the one club man' but more a case of 'How come no one else signed him before now?' Another case of me loving it if and when I'm proved wrong, and I'm forced to eat my words on the blog.

Speechless

Money Grubbing Bastards

From Sedgefield With Love . . .

Received this canny bit of photoshop from this bloke. Not sure where he got it from, but he sends me stuff like this from time to time to prove that he is still breathing. (I worry about his health 'cos he hasn't updated his blog in absolutely ages but he is still a regular writer for the Socialist Standard).

For the uninitiated, it's a spoof of the film poster for Billy Elliot, which happens to be one of Kara's favourite films. I, on the other hand, think that it's so bad that the Comic Strip's 'The Strike' is a truer depiction of that period in British history.

We've agreed to disagree.

"He's got a head like a fucking orange!"*

WEEK 3

Celtic 2-0 St Mirren

Much too late with my weekly update of the SPL season but, in mitigation, I thought I would wait until I watched this week's Scotsport that I got courtesy of the good people at UK Nova. Due to its lateness and my alcohol intake, I'll keep my aide memoire brief this week.

Featured match on this week's Scotsport was the Celtic versus St Mirren game, which is fair enough as the latter had won their first two games of the season, and none of the other matches in the SPL this past weekend looked particularly appealing in comparison (no derbies, no early season relegation dog fight). That was fine with me as it allowed me a chance to watch some decent length highlights of Celtic, rather than falling back on a few minutes of grainy super 8 like footage from YouTube.

As it's me, first impressions are a mixture of footballing cliche and flights of fancy: McGeady looked absolutely immense in midfield; Miller's shaved head had a strange colouring which meant his head resembled a small round orange (except when he was missing sitters, then his head took on the colour of a crab apple); Jarosik was absent without leave despite being on the field of play; 'Magic' Zurawski lived up to his nickname with a series of deft touches; and I liked Ross Wallace attacking down the left in the first half, but bit into my cushion too many times in the second half when he was called on to defend. On the subject of Wallace, the guy is the spitting image of Ben Affleck. If Ben Affleck had real hair, that is.

The first goal - a header from Stephen McManus - was one of those goals which immediately has the goalie and the defenders looking at each other accusingly, playing the blame game, and the clinching goal from Petrov in the second half had Stan doing one of those 'I actually don't want to be here' type goal celebrations, so beloved of want-away players. Apparently, Celtic turned the lights out and closed the curtains when they saw Aston Villa approaching the front door this week, but the sensible thing would be to send him on his way with thanks for loyal and excellent service, and move on.

With regards to St Mirren, they looked tidy and threatened a few times, with Lappin being especially unlucky when his free kick hit the woodwork in the second half. Celtic looked fluent going forward but it was hands behind fingers time when they were called on to defend. However, I do like the fact that despite initial appearances, they didn't get muscled off the ball by St Mirren, and look a lot more robust than Nakamura floppy hair suggests.

With regards to the other games, nothing much to report. Rangers looked fancy against Dunfermline without really threatening and Lee Martin, the player they got on loan from Man Utd, has arguably the worst hair cut I've seen in football in recent years. And THAT'S after I've just watched the recent World Cup, so you know that it isn't an idle statement. Hibs looked really out of sorts against Inverness Caley Thistle, which is sad when you consider they have literally become a feeder club for the ugly sisters in Glasgow. Hearts looked good against Falkirk - despite being unable to score - which suggests that last season wasn't a one season wonder.

With regards to the Scotsport talking heads, I loved listening to Andy Walker's analysis, and he even made a case for Miller playing well despite him not being able to hit a cow's arse with a banjo early season. John Colquhoun took time off from his sunbed to play his counterfoil. The football journalist at the end of the couch, Graham Spiers, despite looking a bit too much like Colin Montgomerie after a stapled stomach op, played a blinder as the football journalist prepared to speak off message about this or that player.

That's me done - there's more bottles in the fridge to be emptied. Fingers crossed that come Sunday the headline writers won't be recycling 'Super Caley' headlines after the Celtic versus Inverness game, and hopefully come Wednesday a kind person will once again post the latest episode of Scotsport on UKNova.

*Not me commenting on Kenny Miller, but Ricky Gervais referring to Karl Pilkington.

Just 'Cos I Want To

I love it when an old post on the blog gets a comment a year after it was originally posted - it holds out hope for the more recent posts on the blog which have seen less comment than the average World Revolution reading group - so I have no shame in posting a link to this old post that recently received a comment:

'Anarchy in the UK' by Ian Walker

Fast forward past my sawdust prose at the start of the post and tuck into the wonderful article by Ian Walker. I wish I'd brought my copy of 'The Other Side of Britain' to the States with me, as I would have definitely transcribed the other Walker pieces from the book for the blog. It reminds me why I should keep up with the blog, if only to be in a position to point people in the direction of brilliant gobbets of writing such as Walker's piece on the Anarchist movement in Britain, circa 1979.