Anger is an energy

I don’t want to get angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry, but some people are trying what’s left of my patience. Things have been said. Attacks have been made. Is it any different from any other week? No, except that this hasn’t been just any other week.

I’ve been avoiding the political talk shows, averting my eyes from newspaper stands and tuning in to different radio stations. My mind is made up. My mind was made up a long time ago, with no aid from outside influences but, for health reasons, it’s best that I don’t get too agitated.

On Wednesday 25^th, Burns Day, the First Minister went to Edinburgh Castle and announced the Scottish Government’s consultation on the forthcoming Independence referendum. He also announced his preferred question. Yes, ONE question; what all the Unionist windbags have been bleating on about for weeks. They want one question, and he’s come up with one:

Do you think that Scotland should be an independent country?

It’s ‘biased’, apparently. It’s ‘loaded’, apparently. It’s ‘unfair’, apparently. No, hold on a minute, it’s a simple question, so simple that Labour retards and Tory in-breds can understand, and that’s what they don’t like about it.

In the past, I’ve said to people that the dream of a better nation would be shattered by vested interests. What are they?

1. The landed gentry and big business (Tories); exploit the land and its people for their own benefit.
2. The parasites (Labour); pocket the money at all levels of Government but put nothing back into their communities. I mean, why is that the East End of Glasgow is still the poorest place in this wonderful United Kingdom after almost 80 years of being represented by Labour?
3. The bigots (Protestants, mostly of the Orange and Masonic variety); shit scared of an independent Scotland cozying up to a Catholic EU.
4. The fearties (Catholics); shit scared of being marooned in a Presbyterian Scotland twinned with Northern Ireland.

This week, we’ve had Reg Empey, sorry, SIR Reg Empey telling us that our Independence from Tory England will harm Ulster. Here’s his considered opinion, stolen from the BBC:

“The former Ulster Unionist Party leader said Northern Ireland had “spent decades overcoming nationalist terrorism and we gradually after years and years and years managed to settle down our community”.
“I don’t wish to exaggerate, but if the Scottish nationalists were to succeed it could possibly reignite the difficulties we have just managed to overcome,” he said.
“I do not say that lightly.”
He told peers said that if Scotland broke away from the UK, people in Northern Ireland would have “a foreign country on one side of us and a foreign country on the other side of us”.
“We would end up like West Pakistan,” he said.”

Funny comparison, considering his mob wanted partition. Even funnier the idea that 'our community' is settled down. That'd be why there's a honking great 'peace' wall, then.

This is the same Reg Empey who led his party to the brink of extinction. Naw, Reg, that’s not what’s going to kill off your apartheid state; the Catholics, as per orders from Rome, have been breeding like rabbits for years and the entire balance of the population is going to change in the next couple of decades. Now whether or not they throw their lot in with the bankrupt Republic remains to be seen, but it’s over.

His successor, Tom Elliott, spouts more pish on his blog. I loved the bit about us all benefiting economically, politically and socially from being in the UK. So that would be why Northern Ireland was left virtually undefended at the start of World War II, or why a large number of its citizens were actively discriminated against for decades. I also loved the bit about Salmond being more of a threat than the IRA. I know I’ve written some shite in my time, but that takes the biscuit.

We’ve had the usual guff from Michael ‘yes, it is my real accent’ Forsyth, Johann Lamont (who?), Foghorn Curran and even Christine Lagarde’s best buddy Alistair, too, but surely the best contribution to the debate has come from ‘bra tycoon’ Michelle Mone. According to her, Scotland will go tits up if we get independence and she’s going to pack up all her underwear and run away from home. Oh, dear.

At your age who knows what excitement might do

I had pie and beans for dinner. Nothing reminds me of school more than pie and beans: pie with baked beans on top. There are fewer than six degrees of separation between school and the City Bakeries. Pie, beans and potato: pie with mashed potato on top, baked beans in the middle. It’s funny just what I remember, and sad how much I’ve had to force myself to forget.

I arrived at 2:30am from two different directions this week. In the early hours of Wednesday, I woke up for no apparent reason, and never slept again until that night. This morning, my head hit the pillow at that unsociable hour, but not before I noticed something in my Twitter feed; a tweet from ‘Philosophers Quotes’ (@philo_quotes) attributed to William James, brother of Henry, the novelist:

‘Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.’

I’m not sure I can subscribe to that, at least not every day. I’ve tried, many times, but to no avail. I’m a fatalist, or so I’ve been told. If my life was meant to be different, it would be.

Searching for the William James quote, another caught my eye, from Jean-Paul Sartre:

‘For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.’

I woke up one day and realised that I’d stopped saying ‘Oh God, not another one’. I woke up one day and discovered that I was on one of those adventures. It’s a story I’d love to recount, one day when I figure out what occurred, and when. But how, and who would listen? A friend I've not seen for a while, a philosopher, no less, replied to me today in one of her fleeting appearances on Facebook:

‘At your age who knows what excitement might do’

Well, it might just kill me off this time, but I hope I can accumulate at least a chapter’s worth of memories and occurrences for the storytelling.

A footnote: ‘Revenge of the Folksingers’ arrived in the post today. It’s everything I hoped it would be, and something that probably played in my ear one night as I slept during ‘Late Junction’. Catherine Bott even gets a mention in the ‘Thanks’ section of the liner notes.

Where do the nights of sleep go when they do not come to me?

It’s five past four.

In the morning.

My head.

I had no idea I was an insomniac. Why now?

I’ve slept through most of the last few years, so why now? 

That’ll be my guilty conscience.

Or the lettuce.

We’re a litigation nation.

This is a blame culture.

I blame you. Yes, you.

Don’t look at me like that.

I love it when you look at me like that.

Baroque and roll

A woman with about a dozen recorders, another one with a viol and a cello and a man on a harpsichord; it just screams 'Renaissance' and 'Baroque', and I'll not be able to get Concerto Caledonia under the Trades Descriptions Act. A concerto by Couperin, a sonata by Handel and pieces with unpronounceable names by people no one has ever heard of, including Scottish music that pre-dated the 'fiddle tradition'. All it needed was a voice-over from Catherine Bott and I'd have been lulled into thinking I was at home listening to Radio 3 in my pyjamas (place phrase at wrong point in sentence or omit punctuation for comic effect). But this is a life of surprises.

An unattended harmonium with no apparent owner; the words 'traditional music' and 'collaborations' in their biography - it didn't register. They left the Muzette from the Couperin concerto, promising to play it later - it still didn't register. Then David McGuinness, the man on the harpsichord, explained everything and introduced a special guest; the harmonium owner, Olivia Chaney. I was expecting some baroque-y soprano-y throat-warble-y rubbish, but I got a folk babe, instead. She even name-checked Alasdair Roberts. I think I'm in love.  I wonder what the old duffers of Milngavie made of it.

Rage against the machine

Have I been here before? Are you sure I've never been here before?  It seems like yesterday that I woke up to reports that English Tories (is there any other kind?) want to condemn the Scottish people to winters more miserable than they are already. Well, yes, I have been here before. I e-mailed the MP responsible for the Private Member's Bill to change our clocks, effectively, to CET. Did we get blown to France in that storm a few weeks ago? No. Is France even in Central Europe? No. Should we just lie back and think of England? No. Did the bitch write back? No.

We had Stuart Pearce and Hope Powell up here yesterday banging the drum for the 'TeamGB' football team and, every minute of every day now, some 'Unionist' politician tells us that the only way we'll ever earn the right to self-determination is if we move to the Falkland Islands. 2012? The year that everything changes? The year that the worm finally turns? I hope so.

No more nails

I’ve not done a match report for a while, so here goes.

Not long after Victor Wanyama’s powerful header yielded his third goal for the club, and Celtic’s second for the day, the game died. Samaras made a run up the left-wing, came inside and stopped as if he’d been frozen in time by an invisible beam emanating from a fiendish, one-eyed villain’s ray gun housed in a cloaked ship above the stadium. He barely moved for the remaining seventy minutes of the match. The most schizophrenic footballer ever to wear the Hoops continues to fail to confound expectations. What’s the betting that he’ll still be there when the Transfer Window closes in 16 days time? What have we done to deserve this?

Adam Matthews, who turned 20 on Friday, looked exhausted, and rarely made it to the byline, presumably paralysed with the fear that he’d not be able to return to his post in time to avert any danger posed by the opposition. I have poor eyesight, and don’t know the boy. Neil Lennon sees him at close quarters every day, yet not only decided to include him in the starting line-up, but also continued playing him when it was obvious to all and sundry that he was well below par. There was no point in alluding to his suffering from a virus in the post-match interview. His inclusion could have been a fatal mistake for Celtic who, yet again, tortured the home supporters within an inch of their lives with a nervy and mildly incompetent second-half performance, made worse by contrasting it with the scintillating display of Barca-style passing that characterised the first quarter of the game. It’s just as well we were up against Dundee United and not the Catalan masters.

Celtic is a club blessed with many right-backs, but only two are available, and Cha, for all his strength and stamina, can’t cross a ball to save himself. With Matthews’ lack of fitness, and the absence of James Forrest, there were limited chances of getting balls from the right into the box above or behind the effective but, ultimately, inflexible Gary Kenneth. Scott Brown possesses tenacity, and motivational skills, but is a poor substitute for a creative footballer. He also struggles when having to play the role of midfield enforcer that Beram Kayal has carved out for himself. Stokes and Hooper frequently were deprived of the necessary service from midfield and this led to seemingly constant frustration with each other and their colleagues.

Stokes’ head went down so much in the second half that he was substituted, not by the fit-again and much in need of a debut James Keatings, but by Ki, who is never going to be sufficiently consistent and convincing in the centre of midfield to command a regular place in the rough and tumble of the SPL. He slows the game down too much, the very thing Marc Crosas was criticised for, yet Neil insists on throwing him into games against teams with opportunist, whippet-like midfielders and wingers ready to pounce on one of his many stray passes. He even had a chance to get on the score sheet but squandered it by pausing long enough to allow the baby elephant Kenneth to take it off his toes.

On the left, Izzaguirre displayed his trademark coolness under pressure from the likes of Johnny Russell, but it’s clear that he needs more game time to get back to his best. He went off midway through the second half, making way for the returning Kris Commons, and both men received warm, enthusiastic ovations. This meant that Joe Ledley moved to left-back. Alarm bells were ringing, as he was also having an off day. Luckily enough, so were most of United’s players. With Forrest out, and Samaras asleep, we were also impotent on the left going forward, so it’s a miracle that we came away with a victory.

Both keepers made excellent and important saves, with Pernis’ efforts in thwarting Stokes and Samaras worthy of note, but it was another stupid goal that dented Forster’s hopes of emulating last season’s record clean-sheet count. John Rankin, he of ‘squiggler’ fame, hit one from about 30 yards that went in off the side of the post. The big goalie was visibly disappointed, and not least by the fact that no one closed down the one-trick pony former Hibee.

Hooper was given the Man of the Match award, presumably for his well-worked opening goal. Yet again, I find myself in disagreement with the nameless, faceless individual(s) responsible for making this decision. Clever readers and anyone knowing my views on the subject will know where this is going. In spite of a goal lost at home (which may have been avoided had the midfielders done their job), my favoured central-defensive partnership of last season, Rogne and Mulgrew, were immense throughout the game, and it is perhaps best for the team that their talents continue to be underestimated by outsiders. However, they are always appreciated by me, and for that reason, I award them both the accolade.

Finally, according to Neil, the pitch was a bit bobbly. Wasn’t it re-laid in July? Don’t we pay a load of money for a large ground staff and some grass-nurturing contraption? If this is the best pitch in Scottish football, God help the rest of the clubs.

I just blew in from the windy city

The weather hit the headlines again this week. It also hit families and businesses hard as a storm now universally acknowledged to have been worse than the infamous Boxing Day 1998 event left a trail of devastation in its wake on what was expected to be a quiet, boring Tuesday morning. Falling masonry, flying cladding and uprooted trees damaged homes, cars and power lines; transport was disrupted and the public was advised not to travel. Some idiot with nothing better to do phoned Radio Scotland and blamed the Scottish Government. The rest of the population counted the cost or gave thanks that they had escaped, this time. It could have been so much worse.

It was the last day of what passed for a holiday. I had planned to go out early to pick up some essential provisions then return home and wallow in self-pity for the rest of the day. I awoke around seven-thirty and came to the conclusion that the ferocity of the wind would prevent my escape for some time, so I stayed in bed. It was immediately obvious that, once awake, I’d never be able to sleep through it. I decided that it would be a good idea to take a look at the Met Office web site and plan my day around the forecast. Then I got out of bed.

I couldn’t understand why all the (internal) doors were open. The door to the living room (or whatever it’s called these days) was more ajar than the rest, so I wandered in there and turned the lights on. I stared at the centre window for what seemed like an age and couldn’t figure out where it had gone. As I made my tentative approach, I had visions of the frame recumbent in downstairs’ garden, but I soon realised that it had travelled through 180 degrees and was resting against its neighbour to the right. I haven’t got a clue how the window had come loose, but fortunately, when it opened, it must have taken the curtain with it and the fabric had wound itself round one of the hinges, immobilising the frame by tethering it to the (lightweight) curtain track. There was no damage to the frames or the glass, so I sacrificed the curtain and secured the window. I’ve no idea how much time had passed since I arrived on the scene, but once I’d closed the window, I realised that I was in a state of semi-embarrassment. Thankfully, for all concerned, it was a holiday and it was still dark. I loosened my grip on the window catch and made a swift exit in the general direction of my pyjamas.

It’s been blustery ever since, though nowhere near as wild. As a result of the swirling winds and driving rain of Wednesday evening, I was left with a small puddle on my kitchen floor. I couldn’t find any obvious signs of fluid ingress in the loft, and an inspection of the roof (through binoculars) the next morning didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary, so I’m hoping that it was the result of a freak gust blowing some (i.e. a lot of) rain under a roof tile. I’m scared to look at weather forecasts, now.

On a brighter note, I braved the elements last night for a recital by Thistle Brass at Kilmardinny House. There were no programmes (the programme person had returned from holiday to a storm-damaged house), so I’m making this up as I go along. The ensemble comprised two trumpets (and variations thereof, including two flugel horns at the same time; very nice), a trombone, a French horn and a tuba. This combination was easy on the ear however, like a typical clarinettist, I sat as far away as possible. I think they opened with the ‘Earl of Oxford March’ by William Byrd, and may or may not have followed this with ‘Dances of the Scottish Court’ by John Maxwell Geddes (who is still alive; he found the manuscripts somewhere). They played something by a Russian composer called Victor Ewald, who used to hang around with the likes of Borodin and Rimsky Korsakov. He was a cellist, but wrote a lot of music for brass ensembles and, like his chums, he had a day job. It’s always nice when the musicians include some background information, though it would have been better if I’d written down a list of the music performed. I think they also played ‘Fire Dance’ by someone called Di Lorenzo and the piece John Williams composed for the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, ‘Olympic Fanfare and Theme’. There was a lovely rendition of ‘Farewell to Stromness’ by Peter Maxwell Davies, some tunes from West Side Story and something by Michael Kamen. The evening closed with two slightly jazzier numbers; the Fats Waller favourite ‘I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate’ in the style of a wind-up gramophone (think about it) and Irving Berlin’s ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’. I’ve not heard such appreciative noises from the Kilmardinny audience since I started attending.

Fitter, happier, more productive

I gave up New Year resolutions a long time ago. Come to think of it, every year I’d given up most of them a few seconds after the bells. A self-confessed chocolate addict and couch potato like me will never be able to summon the willpower to defeat the evils and excesses of modern living. Depression has a lot to do with it, and I should be grateful that the effects are mild in comparison with other sufferers, but what’s so difficult about seeing that something needs fixing and actually fixing it? Let’s examine some common resolutions, the problems with them and their chances of success (Y/N).

1. Lose weight: This depends on the next resolution. (20/80)
2. Eat less: I don’t eat much, but what I do eat is wrong. Constant comfort eating of industrial quantities of biscuits and cakes is not a good idea. (50/50)
3. Go to the gym: There are other ways to get exercise, but paying gym membership and not going is, in these austere times, downright stupid. Would I have gone over the holidays had the place been open? Now, there’s another question. (50/50).
4. Drink less: Less than the quantity I drink already? I probably drink less in an entire year than the average Glaswegian drinks in an hour on a Friday night. Anyway, I might need to develop an alcohol addiction if I’m off the biscuits. (No chance)
5. Work harder: In work? I think not. (No chance)
6. Write more: Of this? Probably. What do you mean ‘this doesn’t count’? (50/50)
7. Read more: This might help with a number of the above (particularly the number 6). (20/80)
8. Travel more: Money, time and the ability to slip off the chains; three things I rarely have at the same time. I had a mad idea earlier about visiting places beginning with the letter ‘B’. Does that mean I can’t go back to Llandudno? (40/60)
9. Be nice to people: In the last five years, I seem to have mastered the art of being nice to people I don’t even like. Even though I don’t mean it, I hope they appreciate the effort. (50/50)
10. Use Twitter less: Well, that’s a new one. I signed up for it a couple of years ago, but it took me until September 2011 to figure out how to use it. It’s great for sending rude messages to politicians or compliments to artistic types. The 140-character limit is a bummer, though. No, I’ll give it while longer before I pass judgement on it. (10/90)
11. Go out more: This means gigs, doesn’t it? It’s not as if I go anywhere else. Well, this is a difficult one. I’ve got a bit of a hearing problem (pardon?), due to going to gigs in the past; I want to punch anyone who talks at a gig; I’ve not been up late for years; I don’t want to meet anyone I know; I can’t handle the amount of laundry; too expensive, and so on. Enough excuses? I could be here all night at this rate. (20/80)
12. Count to ten.

Nostalgia is a thing of the past

It started with …no, it was bad enough my using it twice. A third time would be very lame, indeed.

No doubt, there’ll be plenty of News Reviews of 2011 to remind everyone about the momentous events of the year just passed. Hours of airtime that could be employed to entertain people in these troubled times will, instead, be devoted to a seemingly never-ending collective post-mortem of the last twelve months, as if we needed reminding.

Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Japan, bin Laden, Gaddafi, Berlusconi, Putin, rigged elections, Murdochs, custard pie, Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, phone hacking, Millie Dowler, Tom Watson, Euro crisis, Merkozy, Jimmy Savile, Royal weddings, Prince Philip, the Space Shuttle, Christchurch, Edmundo Ros, Vaclav Havel, Amy Winehouse, Sepp Blatter, Manchester City, Gary Speed; I'm just scratching the surface. 2011 was far from boring.

Closer to home, the pandas arrived, and the Scottish National Party achieved a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament under a system that was designed to stop that very thing from happening. Opposition party leaders tumbled like skittles and a tide of imperialist rhetoric began to roar in from London. The future is unclear, but if the Scottish people can be made to understand that Independence would mean an end to Tory rule forever, the wind of change would blow faster and stronger than the 8^th of December storm. At least we’d still have an NHS, and a Public Sector workforce that is valued, trusted and rewarded for its devotion and endeavour.

On the football field, there were some wonderful team and individual performances, and the bargain signing of recent times, but the season was characterised by disappointment and underachievement, and the least said about that Wednesday night in May, the better. After battle recommenced in July (yes, July), nerves, injuries and even ego conspired to leave the team 15 points behind the unconvincing leaders by the beginning of November. As the year drew to a close, a slow, patient miracle had crept up behind the complacent and the unsuspecting, resulting in a swing of 17 points. I can’t quite believe it myself.

On TV, the best series yet of the modern era of Doctor Who aired either side of the summer and the much-heralded (and much-feared) digital switchover came and went without incident or tears. Coronation Street rediscovered comedy and Moldovans in pointy hats stole the show, but not the winner’s trophy, at the Eurovision Song Contest.

What about me? Exactly, what about me? I played (after a fashion) in two concerts; I finally figured out how to work Twitter; I resumed blogging (obviously) after a long absence; I bought a BluRay player; I went on strike for the first time in my life. Exciting, huh? I hear Nostradamus will be trending in 2012.

So, this is Christmas, and what have you done?

In all honesty, very little. It started a few weeks ago with an on-line splurge and ended last night with the removal of food from the freezer. Somewhere in between, items were squashed into already over-filled bags, delivery drivers came and went and lists that had been made were checked at least twice before being discarded. The presents were wrapped and placed under the wonky £5 Tesco Christmas tree adorned with decorations that had seen better days 40 years ago. The 19-year-old Christmas lights twinkled long into the night, then it was time for bed. What’s it all for, though?

I use it as an excuse to take an extended break from work, even though there’s only about seven hours of daylight at this time of year. I’m relieved to report that there’s no snow this year. Instead, there are gale-force winds and occasional rain. This is more like it. The last two winters have been extreme, even for Scotland, and although I don’t mind being confined to quarters occasionally, being forced to remain indoors for days on end makes me more miserable than the ‘holiday season’ does in a normal year. I have no idea what the next week will bring in terms of activities and entertainment, but it’ll be better than working.

Later today, I will eat more than I should then regret it; I will relax my ban on alcohol to raise a glass to absent friends, even though certain individuals who are still alive won’t be doing the same for me; I will wish that almost everything about this day could be different. At 7pm, I will take the proverbial phone off the proverbial hook and watch this year’s Christmas Doctor Who episode, the only thing that has made this day bearable for the last six years. I’ll probably watch Coronation Street then choose a funny DVD to finish off. La dolce vita it isn’t, but it helps to dull the pain. There’s nothing else to say.

The evening after the evening before

It started with disappointment and ended with a standing ovation. Life may not be perfect or wonderful or even interesting, and never will be, but if you look carefully, you might just find something to smile about.

I’m not clued up on Glasgow’s entertainment listings, so imagine my dismay when I discovered that there was a Sunday matinee at the King’s Theatre. I’m so used to there never being any theatre on a Sunday, much less two shows, so the pantomime caught me unawares. Had I been a few minutes later getting into town, I may have had a severe problem parking my car. As it was, my now traditional pre-concert trip to Pizza Express in Sauchiehall Street was spoiled by screaming weans and worse; a lack of chocolate fudge cake and vanilla ice-cream. Someone in a shirt and tie tried to fob me off with a number of cupcakes (apparently made at the same time as the big cake), but I was not for budging, so I left a smaller tip than planned and headed back to the car.

Mercifully, there was no problem parking in the Merchant City, so I arrived in plenty of time for the seating rehearsal, which yielded the first warm and fuzzy moment of the evening; a rendition of ‘Fairytale of New York’, somewhat incongruous with respect to the rest of the programme, but a heart-warming and pleasant surprise. The rest of the rehearsal went according to past form, but it was over all too soon, then it was time for a short intermezzo in a local hostelry before returning to face the music.

Here’s the programme:

Choir and orchestra:

Zadok the Priest

Handel (1685 – 1759)

Orchestra:

Symphony No.4; 4th movement

Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893)

Choir:

Creation’s Hymn

Beethoven (1770 – 1827)

All in the April Evening

Hugh Roberton (1874 – 1952)

Some Enchanted Evening

Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979)

Choir and strings:

Fairytale of New York

Finer (1955 – ) & MacGowan (1957 – )

Choir and orchestra:

Grand March from Aida

Verdi (1813 – 1901)

I N T E RVAL

Choir:

In dulci jubilo

Pearsall (1797 – 1856)

Orchestra:

Christmas Festival

Anderson (1908 – 1975)

Choir and orchestra:

In the bleak midwinter

Holst (1874 – 1934)

Choir:

Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring

Bach (1685 – 1750)

Choir and orchestra:

Finlandia

Sibelius (1865 – 1957)

ENCORE

Choir and orchestra:

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous before, and during, a concert. It’s not just the fear of making mistakes that can be heard by all and sundry. It’s hot under those lights, and I’d prefer to stay upright. Think of the shame if I keeled over in one of the quiet bits! I’m relieved to report that the concert passed without any such incident and a good time appears to have been had by all. What about that standing ovation? I couldn’t believe it. I was as moved as it’s possible for me to get in company, and I couldn’t help but smile at this spontaneous display of approval by what is, after all, a friendly crowd, but we’ve not had one before. I blame the teddy in the front row.

The weather's variable, so are you

It’s Thursday night. Question Time will be on soon. What have I done today to make me feel proud? Nothing, and not just today. I’ve done bugger all for the last week.

I enjoyed my day off on strike, but I’ll not enjoy the effect it will have on my next wage. The ConDems are still refusing to budge on the important issues (to the Unions): pay more, work longer, get less; and today’s debate in Westminster showed that Labour are all in this together with the Government. As for my (hardly unique) personal situation, can I get an answer from any politician on the subject? No. Why do they give them e-mail addresses when they never use them?

The strike, or the thought of losing money (typical Scot), had another effect; I was struck down by a mystery virus, which resulted in my missing the BBC SSO on the Thursday night and Friday’s recital at Kilmardinny Music Circle. It’s just as well I get paid so much that I can afford to throw money down the toilet. Recovery was a slow process, so Saturday and Sunday were written off, too, though I did manage to start Christmas shopping. Isn’t the Internet wonderful? Then winter arrived.

After two days of snow, ice and public transport, I was ready for the knacker’s yard. I had to go to rehearsal on Tuesday togged up for a trip to the Arctic (in 1911) and, although I enjoyed it, I arrived home smarting from the loss of nearly £20 for dinner and a taxi. Wednesday brought brief respite from the haemorrhaging of money and the inclement weather before the mother of all storms hit Glasgow like a bunch of bigoted morons on a day trip to Manchester.

Although I was very much alive in 1968, I don’t remember the great storm. There have been many nights subsequently when I thought my window frames were going to be sucked out of the wall and sent into orbit around the nearest earth-like planet, but few stick in the mind the way Bonfire Night 1996 and Boxing Day 1998 do. I can’t say if it was worse today (I’ve not heard of any church spires being blown down in the centre of Glasgow, for example) but being sandblasted by salty rain is not something I’ve ever experienced. It’s the little things that let us know we’re alive.

So, we’ve had almost everything this week: rain, wind, hail, sleet, snow, ice and sunshine (not necessarily in that order, but sometimes simultaneously) and thunder and/or lightning have been forecast. I don’t recall seeing any fog. There’s still time.

Up the workers!

I’ve never been on strike in my life, not even when that cow Thatcher was in power. I’ve worked for over 32 years and still have a few years to go before I’m meant to retire and take the pension I’ve been paying for since I turned 18, though too many years (months, actually) to be allowed to retire at 60 under the current Government’s proposals. Meanwhile, 30-odd years of pension contributions will be handed to a Private Equity firm to piss away in the direction of its shareholders, all connected to the Tory party.

In the last 18 months, there has been talk of such things as rolling back the EU Working Time Directive, making it easier for employers to sack people, denying workers the right of recourse to an Industrial Tribunal, repealing Health & Safety and Trades Union laws, privatising the NHS and God knows what else. Britain is being frogmarched back in time: not to the 1940s, 30s or 20s, but to the 1800s. That rumbling sound you hear is Victorian social reformers rolling in their graves. This is where we are going, so fasten your seatbelts; we’re in for a bumpy ride.

Perhaps it’s time to have a North African- or Middle-Eastern-style revolution in this country? Who wouldn’t go out onto the streets and honk their car horns or toot on their vuvuzelas when the revolutionaries arrest Thatcher and hang her on live TV, or someone breaks Cameron’s legs when he’s running away then finishes the job before the ambulance turns up? Let’s not spare the LibDems in this political cleansing. It’s a shame there’s no statue of Nick Clegg to be toppled in Sheffield (though Sheffield Forgemasters may be making one for that purpose) and that Danny Alexander is the tosser, not the caber at his local Highland games.

No, sadly, we have to do it all at the ballot box, and with the LibDems having sold their soul (and principles) for the sake of a ride in a Ministerial car, we’ll never see PR at Westminster, leaving the election odds stacked against democracy for another 90-odd years. The Murdoch media and The Mail, The Express and The Telegraph have such an influence on public AND political opinion that Thatcher’s generation of cruel, selfish bastards is continuing to do her work for her, exactly 20 years after she was removed from power. Some of them are on the Labour benches.

Oh, those Russians

I’ve only seen the BBC SSO twice this season. Both concerts have featured Prokofiev piano concertos played by Denis Kozhukhin, and were conducted by tiny Chinese people. I’m going again next week, even though the soloist plays the cello and Andrew Manze is neither tiny nor Chinese. I embrace diversity.

The first half of last Thursday’s concert was enjoyable and intriguing in equal measure. Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 (the ‘Classical’) started the ball rolling. It has been a favourite of mine for many years, even before I knew what it was. As I child, I watched a short-lived children’s drama serial called ‘The Flaxton Boys’. I couldn’t tell you anything about it other than that part of the Classical Symphony was used as the theme music. Stravinsky’s ‘Petrushka’ concluded the first half, but the rarely played 1911 version was aired this time to tie in with one of the orchestra’s themes for this season; erm, 1911. Lots of brass, and very loud. Just how I like it. What, though, did Stravinsky think was wrong with it?

It was Prokofiev’s turn again at the start of the second half, his Piano Concerto No. 1, and the concert was wrapped up by another excuse for the orchestra to pump up the volume, Tchaikovsky’s ‘Francesca da Rimini’. Denis Kozhukhin returned afterwards for the Coda: Schoenberg’s ‘Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke’ and György Ligeti’s ‘L’escalier du diable’ from ‘Études pour piano’ (finding all these funny letters is giving me eye strain). OK, one’s an Austrian and one’s Hungarian, but it’s not every day I get to quote Boney M.

The concert was marred by my sitting adjacent to (but over the terrace fence from) an ugly, fat, smelly, bearded bloke who insisted on trying to strike up a conversation with me about the orchestra, other orchestras, various concerts and a nearby guide dog. He also had the irritating habit of breathing in and out through his nose. It took him until the second half to get the hint, following which he proceeded to bore the poor, unsuspecting individual to his left.

As for the other, less illustrious orchestra, the Christmas concert is fast approaching, and practice has ground to a halt. Rehearsals have been, for me, uninspiring, as I have too much other work to do to stop and try to figure out how much of the Tchaikovsky I can attempt, and although Schubert has been unceremoniously given his marching orders, we have two new, allegedly easy pieces to contend with; ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’. Well, someone does. I can’t stand it.

As I type, Celtic are at home to St. Mirren. This is the second successive home game I have missed due to the inclement weather. It is also the second successive home game in which they have scored two goals early on in the blink of an eye. They nearly made a pig’s ear of it on Wednesday. Who knows what will happen today? After the soaking at the Hibs game a few weeks back, and lacking in any suitable protective clothing, I have had to boycott the fitba’ for the good of my health, physical as well as mental. Normal service will probably be resumed in two weeks time for the visit of Heart of Midlothian (weather permitting), and I’d love to meet whoever it was who had the bright idea to schedule the game with St. Johnstone for Christmas Eve. It was originally meant to kick off at 3pm, but someone must have alerted the authorities to the complete lack of public transport after 4pm that day. It will now (weather permitting) start at 1pm, which is bad enough. Of course, the late December Saturday home game has not featured in my plans in recent years due to illness and poor weather. I may yet find myself indoors again enjoying ‘Nine Lessons and Carols’.

In just over an hour, I have to get ready to brave the elements and drive to Paisley Town Hall again for another concert. It had better be good.

Modern Art* Is Rubbish

(*music)

Is it? When I stagger out of the cold into a modern art gallery (a gallery displaying ‘modern art’ or ‘art installations’) I walk round at high speed, tutting and shaking my head in disbelief. Who could forget the talking mushrooms or talking garden shed in the 'Playing John Cage' exhibition at the Arnolfini in 2005, or the film of a guy dressed as a bear wandering at night round the entrance hall of a deserted airport at Tate Liverpool in 2007 (Mark Wallinger's Turner Prize winner), or the piece of graph paper with dots on it (possibly also in Liverpool)? I have to admit that I liked those metal statues on Crosby beach by Antony Gormley, and there’s been the odd painting or sculpture along the way that I’ve not guffawed at, but most things leave me cold or muttering ‘I just don’t get it’.

The same goes for music. Last week, it was James MacMillan. This week, it was Sally Beamish. Cue the plinky-plonky, the screechy or the downright tuneless (or any combination thereof). I don’t doubt that they’re gifted individuals, and both they and others of that ilk (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies springs to mind) enhance the reputation of Scotland throughout the world (well, anyone who’s not a violent drunk or a sectarian bigot could do that), and they are probably kind to children and animals, but until they can write a decent tune that the Old Greys (of Whistle Test fame) could walk down Buchanan Street (Glasgow or Milngavie) whistling, they are not what I want to listen to. I like Max’s ‘Farewell to Stromness’, though, and that’s a big compliment coming from me.

In June, the BBC SSO gave us ‘Made in Sweden’, a free concert which was recorded for BBC Radio 3’s modern music series ‘Hear and Now’. The second piece featured the young Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth (cue comical attempt at pronounciation of her name by presenter Jamie MacDougall) and this was the programme:

Victoria Borisova-Ollas Angelus (c.20') (UK Premiere)
Britta Byström Förvillelser (Delusions)* (c.16') (UK Premiere)
Tobias Broström Transit Underground (c.10') (UK Premiere)
Anders Eliasson Symphony No.4 (UK Premiere) (c.25')

No, I can’t whistle any of the tunes, but I recall liking a couple of them, and promised myself that I’d investigate further. I’ve not done so, as yet, but I’m hoping that this particular blog jogs my memory. Not all music composed in the last few years is inaccessible or impossible to listen to, but some composers seem to love driving people nuts.

Milngavie Music Club’s November recital was given by the Elias Quartet, comprising two French sisters on 1^st Violin and Cello, a Swede on Viola and a Scotsman on 2^nd Violin. They opened with Haydn’s String Quartet in C, Op. 20, No. 2. I’d not heard this piece before, and though it was quite old-fashioned in its style (dating from 1772), it was enjoyable. The other work in the first half was ‘Reed Stanzas’ by the aforementioned Sally Beamish. She wrote about it in the concert programme, but it didn’t help. Even as someone who has attempted to play Scottish fiddle music in the past, this did not leap out at me as something inspired by that tradition (probably more a lament on the pipes, actually, when Donald Grant was playing on his own) and it did suffer from two of the symptoms mentioned above. Beethoven’s String Quartet in B Flat, Op. 130 (from 1826), with the Grosse Fuge, Op 133 as its finale, took up the entire second half. This extravaganza lasted over 50 minutes, and if I’d known I was going to suffer from a dodgy tummy, I’d probably have left at the interval. I felt, as I do with Bach, that I can tolerate most things in small doses, but there is a finite time during which I can sit without distress or an excess of fidgeting. After it was over, it was time for a nocturnal visit to Tesco in a monsoon. What an exciting life!

Lest We Forget

I’ve been watching the Remembrance Sunday service from the Cenotaph for decades, and rarely miss the broadcast. It seems to come round quicker every year, and it’s hard to shake off the spectre of one’s own mortality when two of the Queen’s grandsons, both serving in the military, now regularly take part in the ceremony. It’s not that long ago that the Queen Mother was an ever-present, or Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, or even King Olaf of Norway. 2011 is the first year in which there are no (known) surviving veterans of the Great War, and the majority of combatants of World War II are in their late 80s and 90s. I have not watched the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance for such a long time, but I remember, year after year, being moved by the sight of the Chelsea Pensioners marching down the steps into the Royal Albert Hall, and knowing that they had served in the 1914-18 conflict (and possibly even the Boer War, if you consider that I started watching it as a child). My father, grandfathers and great-grandfathers missed both World Wars by accident; too old or too young, and I have yet to find evidence of any significant losses in the their immediate families, avoided more by luck than design.

The relatively recent innovation of the veterans’ march-past shows the decrease in ex-serviceman from the 40s and 50s able to attend such an event and an increase in those from conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Falklands, as well as both Gulf Wars and Afghanistan. A number of organisations associated with those who served in WWII have disbanded due to lack of members and funds, and it is only a matter of a few years before the 1939-45 conflict ceases to be living history in these islands. The wars of conquest and colonialism are rarely, if ever, celebrated or commemorated (what was all that nonsense about Trafalgar Day?), so when will Britain stop marking the Armistice or VE Day, and when will this ceremony be rendered as redundant as the troops this Government is soon going to throw on the scrapheap? Sadly, Britain has been involved in a number of military incursions and adventures since 1945 (most of them under Tony Blair’s term, or am I just being bitter?), and a new tradition has developed in the House of Commons; prior to Prime Minister’s Question Time, the names of the military dead of the previous seven days are read out to Parliament. Why? To remember them? To honour them? To assuage the guilt of people who should never have sent them there in the first place?

Even before I started school, I was aware of a very interesting point. When I used to walk with my gran to shops around a mile away, I would do what every child did; try to avoid walking on the cracks in the pavement, balance on the edge of the pavement like a tightrope walker, step off and on raised sections of the footpath, pretend I was playing hopscotch, etc. There was one area I could not comfortably walk on; some nearby tenements has flagstones arranged in a border below their ground floor window (some dwellings had a little patch of grass, some had concrete slabs), and these were dimpled at intervals along their length. Every time I saw them, I asked my gran why they were like that, and she would tell me that there used to be fencing there, and it was cut down during the war. I didn’t understand until many years later that the metal had been taken away for melting down to make weapons. Britain was unready for war in 1939, and I believe that it may also have been unprepared in 1914, yet we are scaling down our armed forces at a dangerous time.

Greece and Italy are in financial meltdown. Spain and Portugal may be the next to go. All of these countries have a bloody past, and the people have not been shy to take up arms. Imagine a Civil War in Greece, with the danger of it spreading to Turkey or Cyprus. Add to the mix Albania, and the possibility of renewed ethnic tensions in Kosovo, leading to conflict with Serbia or even FYR Macedonia, and the whole tinderbox of the Balkans coming into play. The poorest EU nations, Bulgaria and Romania, lie to the east, and Turkey’s neighbours? Syria, Lebanon, Armenia, Georgia and Iraq with its Kurds in the north? Bloody hell. You know where I’m going with this, don’t you? Apart from in Turkey, can you see the (equally financially-strapped) Yanks getting involved in this (for the right reasons, not for oil or to attack Iran), especially with the Russian bear on permanent standby, and China (and North Korea) unlikely to be on our side? Everyone has a grudge against us, and what have we got to defend ourselves? A threadbare, demoralised military, no aircraft carriers and the Eurofighter! All that money for a Public School education and not one of them appears to have studied the history of Europe.

Back to the Cenotaph: the part played by the military bands, and their influence on me, cannot be ignored or even underestimated. I was inspired to take up the clarinet as a result of my annual exposure to this traditional event (sadly, I have let not only myself down, but all those musicians of the RAF and Royal Marines by being too lazy to learn to play it properly, and was never able to fulfil my ambition of joining the RAF to play in its bands). I may have made the wrong choice, as usual; I still can’t understand why I never took up a brass instrument, as they play the most prominent roles in military music. One of the pieces most associated with the ceremony is ‘Nimrod’ from the Enigma Variations by Sir Edward Elgar, and I was privileged to be in the orchestra for the summer concert in June when this was part of our programme. We will not be playing anything so heartrending in our next concert in four weeks time, which is just as well. I don’t like to have tears welling up in my eyes when I’m trying to read the music.

I'll sleep when I'm dead

It’s been a busy week. Contrary to all the available evidence, I don’t lead a very exciting life. I just go out occasionally, sometimes all in the one week.

It appears that I did the right thing by taking the day off after the BSP gig. My eyes hadn’t un-crossed themselves from all that driving and my head hurt like I’d been drinking all night. One of these days (or nights) I WILL drink all night and I’ll have an excuse for feeling that way. After some grocery shopping around lunchtime, I returned home with the intention of doing something useful, but I fell asleep around three and didn’t wake up until six. What a waste of a day!

I was still grumpy when I went to Tuesday’s rehearsal. The previous week, we looked at the second page (for us clarinettists) of ‘Finlandia’ and the first two sections of ‘Zadok The Priest’, and we were introduced to our special Christmas treat for this year; Leroy Anderson’s ‘A Christmas Festival’, a wacky mishmash of various carols, some played at the same time by different sections of the orchestra. I was so inspired that I actually practised on each of the three following evenings. This time, we looked at the Handel and the Anderson again, but also spent some time on the Triumphal March from Aida, endeavouring to negotiate the announced cuts in the piece. Who knows what will be in or out by the time we get to rehearse with the choir?

I had forgotten that I had a ticket for the theatre on Wednesday, and it was a bitter blow when I realised that I was faced with an additional evening out. I think I’ve seen four plays since the summer, yet another example of feast or famine. This time, it was back to the Citizens Theatre for their production of ‘A Day in the Death of Joe Egg’ by Peter Nichols, which actually premiered in that very theatre in 1967. It must have been quite shocking for its time, and even today, when people are more open about disability, there were cringeworthy moments galore in this black comedy about a married couple trying to cope with caring for their ‘spastic’ daughter (she had a severe form of cerebral palsy). There was a lot of talking to the audience (as if we were a sounding board for everyone’s troubles), which I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much of in a play (plenty of times on TV, though) and the house lights were on when these sequences were happening, which only added to my discomfort. I suppose one is meant to think how one would react and survive in the same circumstances, and I was on the side of the child being institutionalised, or even of euthanasia, rather than being in denial about the gravity of her condition, its effect on everyone’s life and the eventual outcome. I’m a hard, un-sentimental bastard, though. The play was, ultimately, a very thought-provoking piece, and well-acted by Miles Jupp and Sarah Tansey as Josephine’s parents; Joseph Chance and Olivia Darnley as their ‘friends’ Freddie and Pam, and there was a nice cameo in the second half by Miriam Margolyes, whose grandfather was from the Gorbals! The young girl who played Josephine (sadly, it was not announced which of the two in the programme was playing the part that night) gave an outstanding performance.

Thursday came and went without major incident, unless you count my forgetting to record the Celtic v Rennes game (no, I didn’t go, as it’s not on the Season Ticket). A makeshift Celtic side came back from a goal down (yes, another early goal resulting from poor defending) to win 3-1. Both Stokes and Hooper scored, and Samaras was praised by (almost) all and sundry. Miracles will never cease. It was nice to stay in and catch up with some jobs then indulge in my latest diversion; tweeting a load of old rubbish during Question Time.

Last night was the first Friday of the month, and that meant Kilmardinny Music Circle. November’s featured artists were the Sutherland Duo, two posh blonde birds in long black dresses, one on violin and one on piano. The violinist looked like she was on her way to the Ambassador’s reception and the pianist, in velvet, looked like she was the very tall one at a children’s birthday party in Kensington. They arrived at their name, after much deliberation, having discovered that they both had ancestors from Sutherland. Aww, that’s nice. Anyway, what did they play and were they any good at it?

They opened with the Sonata No. 3 in D Major by Jean-Marie Leclair (no, it is not him, Leclerq), the French Barqoue composer, and Harriet Mackenzie explained that her violin dated from the same time as the piece they were playing. They contrasted this with Brahms’ Sonata No. 1 in G Major op 78, written in memory of the deceased son of fellow composer Robert Schumann and his wife Clara (with whom Johannes Brahms was in love).

After the interval, the Spotlight performer was 20-year old Glynn Forest, a 4^th-year student at the RCS (that’s RSAMD for oldies like me), and he gave us a couple of tunes on the marimba; Bach’s Fugue from the Sonata No. 1 for Violin and ‘Rotation’ by someone called E. Sammut. I know I should go and look him/her up on t’Internet, but I’m too lazy. Anyway, it was an unusual and pleasant interlude, and something to think about while the main act bored the arse off people with some horrendous thing by James Macmillan. They followed this with a trio of well-known and much-loved Elgar miniatures; (a rather hurried) ‘Salut d’amour’, ‘Chanson du matin’ and ‘Chanson de nuit’. Finally, they gave a stirring rendition of ‘Zigeunerweisen’ by Sarasate. Harriet told some story about studying in America with someone who liked gypsy music. I couldn’t pay attention because I was trying not to laugh every time she uttered the word (which was quite a lot in just a couple of minutes). It sounded so incongruous coming out of her mouth in those plummy tones that she might as well have been talking about ‘darkies’. I’m easily amused, obviously, and I know I shouldn’t mock, but what else is there to do? All joking aside, I enjoyed the recital.

I’ve been out on other business today, and hopefully I’ll have avoided the plague that appears to have infected a large number of my fellow Glaswegians. I get rather worried when I hear children and young women coughing like old men with consumption. I think it’s going to be a long winter. Whilst waiting for another insipid M&S steak pie to emerge from the oven, I caught the last few minutes of the Middlesbrough v Watford game. Boro won 1-0 (with a disputed Scott McDonald goal) and extended their unbeaten run at the Riverside to 15 games. Yes, under Tony Mowbray! I’m pleased that they’re doing well, but concerned at the attendance. I know it’s Bonfire Night, and it’s a bit cold, and the game is on TV, but surely they can muster up a bigger crowd than that, especially when they’re going great guns in the Championship (third behind leaders Southampton and Big Sam’s West Ham)? Times are tough, and Teeside is suffering probably more than most areas, but are Boro so desperate that they felt the need to e-mail me and ask me to go and see them today?!

If I don’t fall asleep, or have a heart attack when a firework goes off outside my window, I’ll be off to Paisley tomorrow evening for a performance of ‘Carmina Burana’. I have no idea why.

Always, always, always the sea

Guide Me O Though Great Jehovah; Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise; Finlandia and the 3rd movement of the Karelia Suite by Jean Sibelius; The Intermezzo from the English Folk Song Suite and Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus by Ralph Vaughan Williams; The Queen Bee by the Count Basie Orchestra; Carrion by British Sea Power: If I were to have a funeral to which people would come and pay their respects, they’d have to listen to a CD featuring, in an as-yet undecided order, this selection of tunes. How the Brighton-based purveyors of high-church amplified rock music came to be in such exalted company is something for another place and time, but it speaks volumes for them that they are.

As the clock struck midnight at the end of the first day of GMT, and Sunday became Monday, I arrived home after a tiring and stressful 100-mile round trip to Edinburgh where I had gone to see BSP at the Liquid Rooms in Victoria Street. I was compelled to make this pilgrimage, not by warnings that this would be the last tour for some time, but because of the significance of the venue. On Saturday the 9^th of April 2005, the day Prince Charles eventually married Camilla Parker-Bowles, I hopped on a train to our nation’s capital on a damp, spring evening for my first live encounter with a band that the fates and me had conspired to miss on a number of occasions in the previous couple of years. Was last night’s sojourn the final chapter in a five and a half year saga of ups and downs and to and fro and trains and boats and planes (and cars and buses)? I am less sure of the answer, and less secure in my opinions, than I was when I left home just before six o’clock.

I witnessed a mature, sensible, polished, yet jolly performance from a band renowned for its on-stage antics, as much as its music and its passionate, enthusiastic fans. The Liquid Rooms does not lend itself to climbing, jumping, stage diving and other frivolities (I have a vague memory from 2005 of Eamon being trapped at the back of the stage unable to perform his trademark march around the audience with the big drum) and this has an effect on the crowd, which was so subdued that I wondered if they'd all been tranquillised. I didn’t go to the front, to avoid any hearing difficulties but also to avoid the legendary Bill, but it transpired that he had been ejected for urinating against a wall. I presume he couldn’t navigate his way to the toilet. Even one of the staff had no idea where it was!

I arrived too late to see the first support act, Ducks Fly To Moscow, otherwise known as the band’s guitar tech, Malcolm. I also missed most of Electric Soft Parade’s set, but they were sounding better than I have ever heard them. Then it was time.

They opened with Remember Me, not a particularly inspiring rendition, but sometimes it’s a good idea for a band to get its best-known song out of the way before a set of more recent material. Next came We Are Sound, which Scott dedicated to the recently departed Bill. In my belated, initial appraisal of Valhalla Dancehall, this was one of the tracks I resolved to ignore in future and it appears I was more than a tad hasty in arriving at my assessment: having not seen them for over two years, I had not heard any of the album’s songs live and the stage is where this band and its songs can come to life and assume totally new personalities. The immediately recognisable bass introduction to Oh Larsen B was sufficient to warm the cockles of my cold, dead heart, as it brings back wonderful memories of the late-2005 tour.  They followed this with Who's In Control?, which, no matter how many times I hear it, is unlikely to become one of my favourites. Bear from the Zeus EP followed and, again, I had never heard this track live, and it shone in that setting. Neil took centre stage for a trio of songs and opened his mini-set with a complete surprise; Open The Door. I was disappointed not to be treated to Moley and Me or A Lovely Day Tomorrow, as Open The Door is not one of my favourite tracks, but it reminds me so much of one particular gig (New Brighton) and two wonderful people (Deborah and Morgan) that I can’t complain too much about its inclusion. One of the best tracks on Valhalla Dancehall came next, Mongk II, a track ideally suited to a live setting. It was one of my highlights of the evening.

I’ve said it before, in other places, that the ‘easy, easy’ chant annoys me, but last night I came to the conclusion that it distracts (and detracts) from what is one of the best tunes (and lyrics) ever written by Neil and one of the finest tracks ever recorded by BSP, No Lucifer. In another, more enlightened world, this song would have been top of the charts for a long, long time. Next came a song from Open Season, and one that I will always associate with that night in 2005, North Hanging Rock, and this was followed by another one of my non-favourites, Living Is So Easy. It would be ironic if the lyrics weren’t ironic.

Another one I underestimated at the time was Observe The Skies and again my opinion has been changed by hearing it live. This is no bad thing, as it means that I am finally warming to more of what I still believe is a rather incoherent jumble of an album. Their last dip in form occurred, strangely enough, with their second album, the lead single from which was the very Echo and The Bunnymen-like It Ended On An Oily Stage; again, no bad thing, as the Bunnymen were the only band I ever felt similarly about. The (uncharacteristic, and hopefully, temporary) mature, sensible side of the band was obvious during The Spirit Of St. Louis, which was always one of those numbers that provided an excuse for mayhem, both on and off the stage, but not last night. Next came Waving Flags from Do You Like Rock Music and, finally, from the same album, The Great Skua; a flawless performance and a powerful, emotional ending to the set.

After a few minutes, an encore: Apologies To Insect Life, another one of those tunes designed to get the band and audience going; again, not tonight, and finally, Carrion, topped off with All In It.

They think it’s all over. It had better not be.

Nightmare on Kerrydale Street

It was a dark and stormy night afternoon. It was Halloween weekend (no day is ever alone with rampant consumerism). I saw the Pope, some nuns, a couple of Scooby Doos, a (solitary) 118 and what may or may not have been a panda. Hibernian came as Parma Violets. Celtic masqueraded as a football team. I discovered that time travel is not a thing of Science Fiction or Fantasy; it’s reality, and I’ve just gone back two years.

Last Sunday, Aberdeen came to town. In the equivalent fixture last season, in the presence of Henrik Larsson (King of Kings), Chris Sutton and Lubomir Moravcik, Celtic trounced the Dons 9-0. The crowd chanted ‘we want ten’ and it wouldn’t have taken a gargantuan effort to give the people what they wanted, but the job was done. We all went home elated but under no illusion that we would see anything like that again in our lifetimes. The dismal Mark McGhee limped on for another couple of games before being sacked, and so began the Craig Brown era. Under old Werther’s Originals, Aberdeen FC has hardly set the heather on fire. They’ve learned, as all his teams do, to defend to the point of boredom (and put in the occasional nasty tackle), but they haven’t exactly improved since McGhee’s time. They did, however, win the second half of last season’s League Cup semi-final (well, he is 70, isn’t he?). Celtic put something like 21 goals past the Dons’ keeper last season but we have only managed three in two games this term. After going ahead through a goal from Ki, some amateurish defending allowed Aberdeen back into the game. It took a strike from captain for the day, Charlie Mulgrew, scoring his first Celtic goal at Parkhead, to restore our advantage, but at no time did we look like we were safe. There was even a Halloween prequel, and Steven Moffat couldn’t have come up with a scarier scenario; Glenn Loovens being substituted early on by Daniel Majstorovic. We held on, though and at least there was no post-Europa League slip-up. The league leaders drew at home, so the status quo was maintained.

On Wednesday night, in the League Cup Quarter-Final tie at Easter Road, Celtic went behind and (to all accounts) were lucky not to be down by three or four at half-time. A spirited fight-back resulted in a 4-1 win, but it appears to have come at a cost. If Neil Lennon were to take a seat in the Directors’ box, would he be able to see what I, and many others, can see? It’s not just the ever-growing injury list, and a host of off-form or inept players, it’s the jaded look and the tired legs of men who are being expected to do everything twice a week with no help whatsoever. Joe Ledley, 19-year-old Adam Matthews and James Forrest, who only turned 20 in the summer, are being relied upon too much because of a paucity of talent, heart and endeavour in our current match-day squad. Another 19-year old, new signing Victor Wanyama, has put in a couple of good performances, particularly in the Europa League games in which he has featured, and looks like he could be of use, but apart from them and Charlie Mulgrew, few other players have been what I could call ‘first on the team sheet’.

Gary Hooper is starting to resemble Scott McDonald (who is not a first choice for Tony Mowbray’s revitalised Middlesbrough) and Anthony Stokes is half the player he was last season (which means he’s quarter of the player he should be). As I have said before, Ki should never be a regular starter; Kayal, in particular, is missing Scott Brown and I have finally realised what is ailing Mark Wilson: Dennis Hopper has strapped a bomb to him - if he exceeds two miles an hour, one of his knees will explode! Then there’s Kris Commons: mystery injuries, strange Twitter messages - what’s going on? The team is comprised of (mostly) the same players from last season, so why, apart from there never being the same line-up twice, is there no consistency in performance (apart from their inconsistency which, you have to admit, is consistent)? With seven minutes of regulation time left, there came the last act of a desperate man; Samaras on for Hooper, the same Samaras that Neil said could get him the sack. This time, the Greek was far from top of a very long list.

The sickening thing about today is that a team that has lost stupid goals all season keeps a clean sheet (Big Dan take note) but can’t win the game against a poor Hibs side. I could take it if we were losing to, or drawing with, the likes of Manchester City, or the entertaining and cavalier Norwich City, or even Mowbray’s Boro, but we are doing nothing less than making some of the worst excuses for football teams look so much better than they really are. This coming Thursday, Celtic play Rennes in the Europa League, but next Sunday (eek), they’ll go to Fir Park at lunchtime (double eek) to face in-form Motherwell (triple eek?). The omens are not good. If, God forbid, those Swiss clowns get back into what has been, for Celtic, a curse of a tournament, there will be at least two more games for a team that can barely cope with the ones they have to play domestically.

Last season, Celtic came within a whisker (one goal, for or against, actually) of winning the SPL. They had the best defensive record of any senior, professional team in the entire United Kingdom (and Celtic fan Steve Evans’ Crawley Town). This season, they have lost NINE away goals in the league, alone, and have won only 7 out of 12 SPL matches. The buck stops with the manager. Neil Lennon, the Celtic board and the fans must realise that he is one league defeat away from parting company with the club he loves. Celtic have to win EVERY remaining league game, some very handsomely, in order to win the title. Current, and recent, form suggests that this is beyond both the manager and the players. Stranger things have happened, however, and Celtic’s history is full of tales of derring-do in the face of adversity, but it’s hard to ‘keep the faith’ when sitting in the pouring rain watching THAT, like I did today. Prior to the match there was some protest or other against the Scottish Government’s ‘Offensive Behaviour at Football Matches’ legislation, or whatever it’s called. Talk elsewhere is of our city rivals possibly going into administration and the consequent docking of points (trust me, no harsh, meaningful sanction would ever be taken against them). I think that some people are too easily distracted from the problems that are right in front of their faces, week-in and week-out.

Land of my high endeavour

For my fortieth birthday, I climbed aboard a Ryanair jet and headed for Dublin’s fair city. It took about five minutes to get there and half a day to get back. When I come to write my autobiography (what do you mean ‘you mean this isn’t it?’) the return leg of the journey may well take pride of place, as it is still one of the most exciting things that ever happened to me, for all the wrong reasons, but I digress (as usual).

I never used to support the idea of Scottish independence. I’m British, my ancestors were British (even the Irish ones, whether or not they approved) and I’ve been steeped in British (English) history and culture since I was knee-high to the proverbial grasshopper. Scaremongering wasn't going to work on me. I was never frightened of the prospect of living in a poverty-stricken, Third World country at the back of beyond because I was already living in one. By the time the Scottish National Party was making waves in all those General Elections we had in 1974, I’d already lived through one Wilson administration’s devaluing the Pound and most of the last of our colonies telling the Man from the Ministry to shove it.

Over the years, the SNP’s fortunes at the ballot box waxed and waned (relatively speaking), it had leadership troubles and it made up enough slogans to keep Saatchi & Saatchi in business for a generation. It even expelled the very man who one day would lead it to the brink of achieving its ultimate aim. No, I was against Independence because, as a Glaswegian, the idea of an independent Scotland run by Labour was not only anathema, it was the stuff of nightmares.

At that early age, and for many years after, I resolved that I’d move to England should the split occur, but I was too naïve to realise that the political establishment would never allow it to happen (Independence, not my moving to England). The Tories, friends of the landed gentry (and, in some cases, the actual landed gentry) would never sanction it in case the old duffers found themselves relieved of their grouse moors. To this day, post-Thatcher, the lesser-spotted Tories are only elected to national office in Scotland from rural constituencies and posh Edinburgh postcodes. Labour, on the other hand, has almost always required Scottish MPs to give it a majority (or what passes for one in these days of low turnout) to form a Government and get its legislation on to the Statute Book. In return, Scottish Labour MPs are given power and patronage disproportionate to their ability, their grace and favour benefits bestowed in perpetuity. It’s no wonder that the People’s Party, the party of the workers, the downtrodden and the dispossessed, doesn’t want any man to put asunder, especially when that man is Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond.

The coach trip from the airport and subsequent perambulations revealed what was to me a hitherto unknown wealth of Georgian and Victorian architecture that made Dublin look like any other British city. For the five days I was there, I found it hard to believe I was in a foreign country, even if that country was, is and always will be inextricably linked to its neighbour across the Irish Sea. The currency was different, the accent was different, the attitude of the people was different, but I could almost feel at home. Of course, a trip to the Post Office in O’Connell Street was sufficient to shake me out of that particular dream, but it also made me think ‘what if?’ What if we had faith enough to step out on our own? What if, for once, we took a risk and decided that we wanted more control over our affairs? What if we grew up and became, in the words of an Irish song, a nation once again?

That time is almost upon us. The SNP won an unexpected landslide victory in May’s Scottish elections, defying the very system that was meant to prevent such an occurrence. Their vote in Aberdeenshire, for example, where they won all of the first-past-the-post seats, was so great that they were even awarded a List seat, an unprecedented event that surprised the victor: he can be seen in video footage as one of a huddle of party workers celebrating in a luminous yellow jacket before he realises that he’s the one who has been elected! 

The party has a clear mandate to govern as it promised in its manifesto. With great power comes great responsibility but none of those returned would claim to be superheroes. What they can claim, however, is that they will be honest with the electorate, and I hope they will be. They have said that there will be a referendum in the second half of the parliamentary term (extended, very considerately by Mr. Salmond, to five years to avoid a clash with the UK General Election in 2015). Even for the hard of thinking, that means that we will not encounter this plebiscite, or have to worry about it, much before 2014.

What’s so wrong with keeping promises made in an election manifesto or during a campaign? I know Labour has trouble with that concept: Tuition fees? Top-up tuition fees? Re-nationalising the railways? If I could be bothered to read their election literature, I could probably have filled this entire blog with their broken promises and their surprise packages. The Tory Health bill alone shows that one half of the Coalition is happy to deceive, and as for the LibDems, playing fast and loose with the truth for the sake of a ride in a Ministerial car is becoming the norm. Not one of them can be trusted to do the right thing, so if the SNP adheres to even a fraction of its manifesto commitments, it will be able to command the moral high ground, with only itself for company.

I do not need such a vantage point to see what is afoot at Westminster. A whispering campaign by vested interests to have London call a referendum on ‘its’ terms is well and truly gathering steam. Salmond and others are playing it cool, up to a point, but this patronising, imperialist attitude cannot go unchallenged indefinitely. If I hadn’t felt that patriotic tingling in Ireland’s capital all those years ago, I would now. If there’s one thing sure to get my dander up, it’s people who poke their nose into my business and tell me what I can and can’t do. Bring it on, Alex.

Finally, for now, the death was announced yesterday of bandleader Edmundo Ros, at the age of 100. As a very small child, I remember hearing him presenting a show on the Light Programme (which became Radio 2). I used to stand in front of the wireless with a pen or pencil and conduct the music he played. There’s one 78rpm record by Edmundo in my mother’s collection, and it was a source of great amusement and delight to me in my early teenage years when I finally got a record player but had nothing of my own to play. It was his rendition of ‘Scotland The Brave’.