It's probably a conspiracy. Again.

The level of bile and vitriol on the various radio phone-ins and internet message boards regarding the outcome of the SPL’s investigation into financial affairs at Rangers has been ridiculous, but sadly predictable. You get the feeling that, for some folk, the appropriate punishment for Rangers would be permanent exile to a penal colony on Mars. Others take the view that the Ibrox men should be forced to play in sackcloth and ashes, change their name to Newco Cheating Bastards FC and start all over again in the Paisley and District Amateur League Division 4 (North-West section).

What some Celtic fans require from Rangers is similar to what the aliens required of the earthlings in ‘Independence Day’. For those who haven’t seen that film, there is a scene which takes place in an underground bunker, right in the middle of an extremely hostile alien invasion of earth. One of the aliens has been captured and is under questioning. President Whitmore (played by Bill Pulman) asks the alien: “Can there be a peace between us?”
“No peace”, replies the nasty extra-terrestrial. “What is it you want us to do?” asks the president. The alien, not entirely keen to explore the notion of finding some common ground, responds with one word: “Die!”

Some Celtic folk hate Rangers more than they love their own club (and this hostility will often be mirrored on the other side). The hatred is visceral and completely beyond the power of reasoning. Some believe that Rangers are the ‘establishment’ team who routinely bribe referees, control the media, bend the rules, influence officialdom and, in all probability, run secret sweat shops and brothels populated by orphans, waifs and strays.
Since the ‘liquidation event’, some Celtic supporters have taken to arguing that there is no such thing as the Old Firm anymore, that there is no such club as Glasgow Rangers. The fact is, of course, that if there is a team playing at Ibrox, wearing blue jerseys and being watched by 45,000 people every other week it is -whether they like or not- Glasgow Rangers. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck – it’s probably a duck.

There are lots of reasons (some silly, some rather more sinister) for this weapons-grade level of hostility. From a neutral point of view, there are plenty of things to dislike about both clubs, but Celtic perhaps provide the more interesting case study. The club's officials and fans often exhibit a curious mentality which somehow manages to combine a sense of superiority and self-righteousness with a large dose of victimhood.

I first became aware of this peculiar phenomenon many years ago. When I was a lad, Celtic signed an English goalkeeper by the name of Peter Latchford. It was quite unusual in the seventies for a player to cross the border from the English League to play in Scotland and his transfer was quite big news. At one point, Peter came to our school to do a ‘question and answer’ session with the pupils. He was a perfectly charming fellow and handled the questions really well. Being a Catholic school, full of pupils and staff who were ‘Celtic-minded’, he got asked the inevitable question:

"Do you think that referees in Scotland are biased against Celtic?"

His answer, more or less in these words, was: “Yes, definitely. The players and officials at the club told me all about it when I arrived and now I’ve seen it for myself”.

So … here was a club that, within the previous decade, had won nine consecutive league championships, god knows how many Scottish Cups and League Cups, had been to two European Cup Finals (and a few semi-finals), and yet its players, officials and a big percentage of its fans thought that there was a conspiracy against it. Even as a wee lad, I remember thinking: ‘But if everyone is out to get you, how come you keep winning all of these trophies?’

The truth, of course, is that there was (and is) no conspiracy against the club, although there may be sound historical reasons to explain the sense of injustice hardwired into the Celtic psyche. The club has noble origins and strong links –of which it is rightly proud- with the poor immigrant communities of the nineteenth century. It’s fair to say that the treatment sometimes handed out to Irish Catholic immigrants is something that Scotland should be embarrassed about. But that is ancient history; or at least it should be.

Alas, a lot of folk associated with Celtic can’t shake off that historical baggage; indeed, successive custodians of the club have cynically tapped into ancient wells of resentment among a certain element of the faithful, allowing that sense of injustice to mutate into something uglier and sillier, something more like paranoia and a perpetual sense of persecution. Consequently, this huge club -a global brand that enjoys every conceivable advantage in domestic competition- has often displayed an utterly cynical mentality: it wants to win everything, it wants to be in charge of everything (witness their various campaigns against the SFA) and yet it wants the option of playing the victim card whenever it suits.

Celtic’s interpretation is that the SPL’s verdict on Rangers was lenient, so this gives them yet another chance to play that victim card and to send out dog-whistle messages about conspiracy theories to their supporters. They say that the Rangers case is nothing to do with them, but still issued a club statement stating that: "We are surprised by the parallel conclusion that no competitive advantage was gained from these arrangements"

Just to be clear, I’ll translate that for you: “Those dirty cheating bastards have exploited their establishment contacts to get away with murder once again. We should have been awarded five or six league titles by way of compensation”.

Lest there be any confusion, I should point out that I hold no brief for either half of the Old Firm. I long ago tired of the tribalism and the incessant bleating about how the rest of Scottish football is holding them back and how they would be much better off playing in the English League or the North Atlantic Alliance, or whatever the latest daft scheme happens to be. My preference would be for the Old Firm to join a two-team league (available only by subscription to a satellite TV channel) in which they could play each other thirty times a season and leave the rest of us to get on with 21st century life.

So, like that alien in ‘Independence Day’, my message to the conspiracy theorists among the Celtic hierarchy and support is quite simple.

What do I want them to do? Just grow up.

Zodiac Mindwarp

I had a great day out at the weekend at a car boot sale in Clydebank, picking up a telescope, a book about astrology and a slightly-soiled packet of tarot cards for £1.50. I’ve been thinking for a while about making a career change, so it has occurred to me that I might be able to give the old ‘horoscopes’ game a bit of a go. If any of my predictions come true, please let me know. Once I’ve done a bit more studying, I will be available for personalised forecasts, tarot charts, exorcisms, bespoken curses etc.

Aries
Strong planetary undercurrents are at work and you could be pulled toward someone without even realizing it. The person you snogged at the Christmas party will win cinema vouchers in a raffle. With Pluto moving through the seventh house, it’s likely that you’ll need to think carefully about how to respond to this surprising development. Also, there is a carton of yogurt at the back of the fridge that has reached its sell-by date.

Gemini
The celestial balance of polarities between the macrocosmic and the microcosmic universe has shifted in a way that could make things tricky for you on Wednesday afternoon, so try not to wear anything yellow. If you are allergic to cats, stay at home. If cats are allergic to you, go out. If you are allergic to your house, buy a cat. Something quite small and made of wood will be the cause of an argument with a close friend.

Cancer
Your Day Sign in Mayan astrology is ‘Crocodile’, which symbolizes new beginnings. As a crocodile, your personality is clever, creative and assertive, but you would be well advised to avoid spicy foods towards the end of the week. Warning: On no account accept an invitation from a woman called Denise.

Taurus
Mercury’s retrograde movement means that romance might be in the air for you. You need to appreciate someone close and to make it clear just how much they mean to you. But whatever you do, don’t push it; sending explicit photos would be a serious error of judgement. Your lucky number today is 23,952. Be careful if you come across a big puddle: it may be even bigger than you think.

Sagittarius
You Day Sign in Mayan astrology is ‘Leopard’, which means you are playful and intelligent and comfortable around animals, mainly because they can’t answer back. Something that looks and smells like a squirrel will cause an argument between two close friends and you may have to step in to sort things out. An unusual planetary alignment has implications for your finances and cash flow issues will become prominent. There is a fiver down the back of the couch.

Aquarius
Finances or friendships or health or romance have been on your mind lately, but good news is just around the corner and you can finally give some thought to your own long-term interests. This might involve looking at holiday brochures, purchasing some cake-mix or maybe buying shares in a racehorse. A friend will make a chance discovery after a visit to an acupuncturist and will seek your advice. Next Thursday, go through your wardrobe and throw out everything purple.

Virgo
The odd celestial atmosphere means that some curious undercurrents are at work. Someone who is normally very careful with their words will want to tell you more about what they're thinking and feeling, while a Piscean subject may make an attempt to hack into your Facebook account. On Friday, a cousin you haven’t seen for ages will turn up out of the blue and ask to borrow some money. Virgo subjects would be well advised to avoid going to the cinema until Mercury’s retrograde movement through the second house is complete.

Pisces
The current astral configuration means you will spend a lot of time wondering about the pros and cons of becoming involved in a certain relationship. You will meditate on it from various angles, but with Neptune in the ascendancy for the first time since 1998, it may finally be time for you to be bold for a change: Start by sending the person of your dreams a series of slightly ‘saucy’ texts. Who knows where that might lead? Later in the week, a friend whose name begins with D, E, F, G or T will sprain his (or her) ankle and /or have a bad experience at the dentist.

Scorpio
Not much happening at the moment.

Libra
According to Mayan astrology, you are Storm (or Rain), the nineteenth Day Sign. You have a soothing, nurturing nature and –in a previous life- you may even have had healing powers. Some folk find you annoying, but they are probably just jealous of your chakra, or whatever. Strange smells will be prominent over the next few days, while a Cancerian subject with the initial G, R, S, T or W will tell you about a money-making scheme and /or a painful ingrown toe-nail and /or a lost train ticket.

Leo
The curious planetary alignment today encourages you to view recent incidents in a new light. Everyone at work is talking about you and that unfortunate error of judgement over those ‘joke’ emails. Best to put it all behind you, but you should now give some serious thought to your personal hygiene. A friend or neighbour will be thinking about buying a new hat, but steer clear of giving him or her any advice. ‘Steve’ or ‘Stephanie’ will call.

Capricorn
Today’s planetary aspect means it is time for you to come out of your shell. Stop hiding behind excuses, routines, and timetables. Exciting moves are afoot; you will be invited to attend a meeting in Paisley sometime early next week. There, you will meet a man called ‘Yuri’, who will hand you a suitcase and the key to a safety deposit box at Glasgow Central station. You must take the 7.38 to Glasgow Central and deposit the suitcase in the correct box, then go home to await further instructions. Your lucky colour is mauve, or maybe yellow.

Kemal Pervanic interview

I’m privileged to have conducted a fascinating interview with Kemal Pervanic, a survivor of the Bosnian conflict of the early 90s. He was put in a concentration camp and was interrogated and punished by folk who were formerly his friends, neighbours and work colleagues. Kemal is a powerful and insightful speaker and I'm sure anyone listening to this interview will be moved by what he has to say.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to have lived our lives without having to endure significant conflict can only imagine what it must be like to have your world turned upside down. In Kemal’s view, it did not take much to tip his country over the edge from civilisation into chaos and he has some interesting things to say about the current state of play in Europe.      

Kemal Pervanic interview edited

Cannibalism in pop: the next witch-hunt

In the last few months, we’ve been made aware of a series of sordid revelations about Jimmy Saville and some of his sleazy chums from the worlds of broadcasting and pop music. So damning are these revelations that it seems that the history books will have to be re-written in order to airbrush certain unsavoury characters out of the picture. That process is already well underway; when was the last time that you heard, for instance, a song by Gary Glitter or Jonathon King on the radio? 

Some folk are glad to see pop music trying to clean up its act. Any civilised society, they would argue, should make a point of hunting down and condemning all sex offenders. Thank goodness we have a legal system that allows offenders to be retrospectively identified, vilified, condemned and crucified by properly-qualified folk, i.e. those who phone-in to talk radio shows and /or tweet regularly and /or have heard a rumour about so-and-so who "always looked kind of dodgy, didn’t he"?
Yet in spite of all this righteous vigilance, some offenders remain under the radar and unpunished. One act in particular seems to have escaped the notice of our PC police. 

As recently as 1982, the pop group Toto Coelo got into the top ten with their disgusting anthem "I Eat Cannibals". As far as one can make out from the lyric, it was little more than a sordid glorification of a vile practice that should have died out years ago. So why on earth did the authorities allow this sinister cult to peddle their foul omnivorous propaganda? Isn’t it time that this hideous act was brought to the attention of those wishing to clean up pop’s sordid history? Isn’t it time that the media spotlight focused on Toto Coelo and all that they stood for? Or is there one taboo that even the PC police dare not touch? 

Cannibalism was once all the rage among the ruling classes, but it fell out of fashion during the Edwardian era and became more or less illegal in the UK in 1909, when parliament passed the ‘Foodstuffs, Comestibles and Victuals’ act. The practice gradually died out and the last recorded incidence of cannibalism in the UK is said to have taken place at the Scarborough Cricket Festival in 1973, when, during a rain-delayed match against Fraisthorpe Colliery Colts, a visiting team from Sutton-under-Whitestonecliff is believed to have kidnapped and eaten the substitute fielder E.P. Dunstable.   

And yet, incredibly, less than a decade after that notorious incident, Toto Coelo managed to storm the charts with the clear intention of restoring cannibalism to respectability. It is surely only a matter of time before our ever-vigilant press delivers a retrospective judgement on this sinister cult.      

Nail, meet head.

Following the recent election, Vaclav Klaus will be succeeded as Czech president by Milos Zeman, a former prime minister and head of the Citizens' Rights Party. I had a bit of soft spot for old Vaclav, as he seemed to be one of those rare politicians who understood -and could readily articulate- concerns about the yawning chasm that has opened up between those who are elected to govern and those who do the electing.

Klaus, who had direct and bitter experience of an earlier European form of totalitarianism, had very firm views on recent developments within the EU. He summed it up thus:

"The manifestations of transnational progressivism—global governance and the European Union—are supplanting liberal democracy and nation-states and driving us into the stage of post-democracy. The EU wants to replace the project that is malfunctioning today by even bigger doses of the same. That is entirely absurd. In contrast to Marx, supporters of global governance do not believe that salvation will arise via the proletariat: they humbly suggest that it will come from themselves."

Nanny knows best

It has been reported that Labour would like the government to introduce legal limits on the sugar, salt and fat content in food. Judging by their reaction, it would appear that the government is not exactly hostile to this idea.
Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham claimed that current voluntary agreements with the food industry were “not working” and that the obesity problem was “worsening”, while Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that: "This is not a problem we can just wish away. If we don't meet our targets and continue to make the progress that we have to make, then we would consider legislation.”
The comments made by these two politicians contain several telling phrases. Mr Burnham said that the "time has come for new thinking" particularly when it comes to foods aimed at children. He said: "I think parents need more help to make healthier choices for their children.” I’m not sure how Mr Burnham defines ‘help’, but I know now that he spells it l-e-g-i-s-l-a-t-i-o-n. Imposing further limits on food manufacturers does not ‘help’ parents; it merely imposes more conditions on food manufacturers. Legislation, in this case, can only be defined as helpful if you think that it is your responsibility is to remove choices from people who are unable to act rationally and who might otherwise damage themselves. Legislation only counts as help if you believe that people are not capable of helping themselves, not capable of making informed decisions in their own interests.

Most of us would concede that it would be appropriate for a parent to remove the ‘choice’ of a 10-year old child to have unlimited internet access, unlimited fast food or unlimited late-night leisure time during school term, because the parent is best-placed to decide what is and what isn’t good for the child. But that is not the kind of relationship that should prevail between the state and the citizen. The very notion of legislating to 'help’ people make more ‘responsible’ choices –that is, the choices you want them to make- is a perfect illustration of how the political class view those they are elected to represent.

It simply does not occur to our politicians that most parents are capable of saying: “No Johnny, you can't have another triple-decker bacon cheeseburger with extra chunky fries." They’d much rather introduce a law that ‘helps’ those hapless parents avoid the awkwardness of having to make an actual decision, like perhaps having to say ‘no’ to their child.

Health secretary Hunt said that the government was "making very good progress" in tackling childhood obesity, but added that “the reality is that supermarkets and the food manufacturers need to understand that we do reserve the right to legislate. This is not a problem we can just wish away ... if we don't get agreement, let's be absolutely clear, we will look at legislation.”

In case you didn’t pick up the subtlety of that message, I’ll translate. "If we don’t get agreement" means: "If you do not do as you’re told".

It is quite clear that for the professional political class, the answer to every perceived issue, problem or situation is always: more government action. Left unchecked and unchallenged, there is simply no area of private life into which they will not attempt to intrude. The more we acquiesce in this process, the greater our loss of personal freedoms.

Sadly, it seems that a lot of folk have come to accept that government legislation can somehow take the place of common sense. They argue that legislation is required because the food industry can’t be trusted to act responsibly. The darker and less palatable truth is that this legislation is being proposed because the politicians don’t trust us, the people, to act responsibly.

Shehan Karunatilaka - 'Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew'

W. G. Karunasena is a drunken old sports journalist who has been informed by his doctor that, if he doesn’t change his drinking habits, he won’t have much time left on the planet. Mindful of this deadline, he has an idea for a documentary and a book that will tell the story of the man he considers to have been the greatest-ever Sri Lankan cricketer: the brilliantly wayward and eccentric (but now largely forgotten) left-arm spinner Pradeep Mathew. One of W.G.’s problems is that he can’t quite give up the sauce, so it becomes a race against time to complete the work before his liver finally gives out. Another problem is that Pradeep Mathew’s details have been erased from the records and virtually no one in Sri Lanka will publicly acknowledge that he ever played for the national team. Having witnessed the spinner’s finest hour in a mysteriously-abandoned test match in which he took 10 for 51 against New Zealand, W.G. is determined to see this project through.

As he tries to complete the research before his own physical collapse, W.G. starts to unravel an unlikely tale of sporting genius, political corruption, match-fixing and organised crime. Strange as it may seem, but the ramblings of some drunk old men really do provide an insight into the four C’s at the heart of this book: cricket, corruption, conflict and colonialism.
The story features actual characters from Sri Lankan cricket and politics, along with composite characters like ‘Graham Snow’, the tough old English pro turned media pundit. Most of the cricket matches mentioned in the book are real, as are their protagonists, but the lines are skilfully blurred between fact, fiction and something that lurks somewhere between the two. If you google ‘Pradeep Mathew’, you’ll find that Karunatilaka has cleverly created an online presence for the character, including a cricinfo profile and crikipedia entry.

You don’t have to be a lover of cricket to be enchanted by this novel. Along with its many observations on Sri Lankan life, ‘Chinaman’ somehow manages to be a history book, a detective novel, a sports biography and, latterly, a moving treatise on the relationship between fathers and sons.

W.G. believes that most of our lives won’t amount to a hill of beans, but, as he puts it: "in a hundred years, Bulgarians will still talk of Letchkov and how he expelled the mighty Germans from the 1994 World Cup with a simple header”. Like most folk who read newspapers from the back page to the front, he thinks that “Sport can unite worlds, tear down walls and transcend race, the past, and all probability. Unlike life, sport matters.”