It's only a day away

Tomorrow. What is the point of tomorrow? This isn't another question from my (as yet unwritten) tome 'Cod Philosophy for Beginners'. It's something I've always wanted to find out. No, really, tell me? Why the hell do we need an extra day? OK, it's some sort of con to do with the earth not going round the sun in exactly 365 days, and screwing up calendars, but what I want to know is 'do I get paid?', 'does it count towards my pension?' and 'can't I get reimbursed for having to put up with an extra day every four years when I find 365 too many?'  I suspect that no one will ever answer those questions to my satisfaction, so I'll just have to bear this extra burden with my customary good humour. Needless to say, I shall not be proposing to anyone.

You'll never walk alone

Liverpool FC has just won their first trophy since 2006. Their fans are like ours; passionate and emotional, and accustomed to lean times. Cardiff City, the underdogs from a lower division, were worthy opponents, but no one likes to see a game decided on penalties. Football, like life, can only have one winner. There are a number of former Celtic players managing in England: Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool, Paul Lambert at Norwich, David Moyes at Everton, Malky Mackay at Cardiff, Tony Mowbray at Middlesbrough, Paulo DiCanio at Swindon and poor Steve Kean at Blackburn. It’s possible that, one day, Neil Lennon will ply his trade down there, but not until he has achieved all he can in the SPL.

Had our rivals not been docked ten points, we would still be ten points ahead. We have won twenty successive domestic games, eighteen of those in the league, and not lost a goal away from home in the SPL since the beginning of November. Records are there to be broken, and on the day that this run comes to an end, we can all breathe a sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge that everyone is human again and normality has been restored, but how I wish that all of time could be like this.

One wet Wednesday evening and one wet Saturday afternoon; two wins and two more hairpins on the long and winding road to success negotiated with ease. OK, I’m lying. Negotiated with confidence, that’s what I mean to say. How robust is that confidence, though? So used to winning nowadays, how would they cope if they went three-nil down? I hope I don’t get an answer to those questions any time soon.

Finally, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, Charlie Mulgrew proved, yet again, what an asset he is to this team. Unfortunately, due to modern technology being rubbish, I am unable to link to decent video footage of his goal on Wednesday, and that of Victor Wanyama’s effort against Hearts in December, for the purpose of saying whose was the best. I’ll just need to wait for the DVD.

Altruistic abstinence (or self-denial is not a river in Egypt)

It's Lent tomorrow, apparently. I don't follow all this superstitious, religious crap, but people seem to give up all sorts of things, don't they? I'm not sure what is the purpose of it all. It's not as if you get money at the end of it, though someone did mention chocolate. What would I give up, if I were one of them (not one of them, I mean one of them)?:

Alcohol: Is this year's Eurovision Song Contest taking place during Lent?
Social Networking: Does that include blogging, e-mails and text messages?
Chocolate: Wasn't that one of the New Year resolutions?
Masturbation: I can't see what I'm typing.
Sex: Gave that up years ago. How long is Lent?
Chocolate: See the last two.

That'll be that then.

Everything comes to he who waits

Credit where credit is due; isn’t that what they say? It’s been a long time coming, but Craig Levein has finally seen sense and included Kirkintilloch’s answer to Shunsuke Nakamura in the Scotland squad. OK, so it’s a friendly in Slovenia, and he may not even get off the bench, but it’s a start.

Since the derby game at Ibrox in January 2011, he has barely put a foot wrong, whether playing left-back, centre-half or left-midfield. Unfortunately, when he does put a foot wrong, you notice, but, thankfully, his defensive misdemeanours have been few and far between. Almost always my candidate for Man of the Match, he has displayed levels of consistency and commitment no one ever expected from a man they all thought would be a mere squad player, but Neil Lennon’s first signing as Celtic manager, having struggled with injury in the first part of season 2010-11, appears to have made himself indispensable to his boss and to the team.

In these days of (now cheap) foreign imports, it’s pleasing to see a player come through the club’s youth system and make it into the first team. However, this particular player has had to take a rather circuitous route, after being discarded by Gordon Strachan. This may or may not have been a good managerial decision but it has certainly done the player the world of good: mature, professional, hard-working and determined are just some of the many terms that can be used to describe him now, and he has, on a number of occasions this season, been trusted with the captain’s armband and taken to the task admirably. It’s been a dramatic turnaround and this latest accolade is richly deserved. If he makes it on to the field next Wednesday, I’m sure I won’t be the only one applauding the rise and rise of Charlie Mulgrew.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

I suppose you think I’ll have a lot to say about it. On another day, I’d have got on my soapbox and preached to anyone who’d listen, but not now, not at the moment. Out there, in the real world, there are people more knowledgeable, more articulate and more aggrieved than I could ever be, so I’ll leave it to them. I won’t deny the smile, the laugh, the schadenfreude, but does it really matter to me? Is it what I think about first thing in the morning, or last thing at night? Is it my life?

Remember when I wasn’t sleeping? That seems to have stopped, for now. I’ve got no reason to lose sleep. I have a job, I pay my taxes and I have security that many can only dream of, yet I can’t dream, not in the way others do. I exist in a dream. I live in unreality and I commute from one nightmare to another. I have no idea how I got here, or why I chose to come, but I made that choice, didn’t I? Well, I’m not so sure. Do we all find ourselves somewhere we don’t want to be, unable to escape? Are we always in control of our own destiny? With the stroke of a pen or the wave of a hand, one person can ruin so many lives. Some people never seem to stop paying for the sins of others, and some never pay at all. The things we love the most can be taken from us in an instant, leaving the best of us isolated and bereft. What you love and what I love may be the same or different. There’s no logic, no reason; I think we are simply genetically pre-disposed to be ‘here’, or  ‘here’ and ‘there’. We can’t choose what, or who, we love, so why should we justify it or argue about it?

I’ve always been an extremist, an equally passionate advocate or opponent, but now, after the initial supporting or disapproving statement or gesture, that particular fire is extinguished; I haven’t the energy or desire for a fight. When did the firebrand cease to function? I can pinpoint any one of three or four days in any one of three or four months when I was changed. I’m not certain what the catalyst was. All I know is that I am ‘here’, just as you are ‘there’. I’m not saying I feel your pain. I feel MY pain, and that’s ample, but I’m a little more sympathetic than I used to be, because I know what it’s like to feel, to love, to be alive. Perhaps we’re not living if we can’t stand in the road and cry about something that seems trivial to others but means everything to us? Perhaps we’re not living if we can’t point and shout and scream and direct our vitriol at the nameless, the faceless or the all-powerful? Is it sufficient to hope that they’ll get what they deserve one day? Would it really matter? Wouldn't it just be enough if you or I got what we need today or tomorrow?

This is my truth. Tell me yours.

I know why some actors don’t like to watch themselves on television or in films. When I read something I’ve written, something serious, I’m embarrassed. I feel sick; violently, and directly proportional to the time that’s passed since I wrote it. I’m a simple peasant who struggles with self-expression, loathe to bear a tortured soul for fear of ridicule. I’m first in the queue to beat myself up about something and I spend plenty of time on self-flagellation, so I don’t need anyone else to join in.

Earlier this week, I wrote (the first draft of) a poem for someone (that makes me sound like a pretentious prat, doesn’t it?). It reminded me of two poems I’d written years ago for people who had just turned forty. I could find one of them, but not the other. However, it came back to me this morning. My original web site, ‘The Wonderful World of Karen’, had a poetry section: funny ones, serious ones and readers’ submissions. The funny ones are still funny, if I say so myself. The readers’ entries consisted of a number of small ditties from a lone contributor who stumbled upon the page and felt sorry for it. Reading the serious section revealed something about me that I am hardly unaware of: I’ve been a talentless, suicidal, miserable excuse for a human being for most of my life: fifteen to fifty. Nothing changes. Life’s shit, and so is my writing.

The reason I’m on this subject isn’t the poem, but a (short) short story I wrote for a 12-week Open University module entitled ‘Start Writing Fiction’. I got the marked version back today and, being shallow, I was only interested in the score. I did OK. The tutor seemed to like (most of) it. Of course, I made plenty of elementary mistakes, and I’d say that many of them would be down to my inability to read books, and the rest from problems with Creative Writing clichés like ‘show, don’t tell’ and ‘write what you know’. I can’t get my head round the former, but practice may make something approaching perfect one day. The latter, however, will always cause me consternation. What do I know? What have I ever done in my life that I could turn into a story, a story that someone would read and enjoy? Bugger all, obviously, and I’m not clever enough to write Science Fiction. I remember a teacher at primary school saying I had a good imagination. I’d need to. Anyway, that minor triumph and a surprising success in another module, this time on Shakespeare, may just inspire me to sign up for more literature and creative writing courses, or maybe not. I suppose it depends on my mood at the time.

The stock cube incident

I’m on autopilot in the morning. I don’t like to think at that time of day, and I don’t like being distracted. Sometimes, when I’ve stopped at a set of traffic lights, I look down at the foot well and check that I’m wearing shoes and that they match. I’m lucky that I’ve not been guilty of any faux pas more serious than an open button or a jumper on back-to-front, but it’s only a matter of time.

I was tired on Wednesday. My mind was elsewhere. It was breakfast time. I sat down to have my Cornflakes (other breakfast cereals are available). It was like the milk had gone off. I sniffed it. I didn’t detect anything unpleasant, but then I saw the underside of the spoon. What? What? I grabbed my spectacles. I saw a huge brown blob. It didn’t look like one of those mutant cornflakes you sometimes find in a packet, and it was solid. I tried to focus on it, and it was then that the full horror of the situation struck me.

I’d made beef casserole on Sunday. I’d obviously slipped up when washing the dishes. Quality control had broken down, and I was eating cornflakes laced with half a stale stock cube which had been soaked in Fairy Liquid three days earlier. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. They don’t warn you about things like this, though.

The week that was

You can never accuse me of having a one-track mind.  Regular readers (not that there ARE any readers, regular or otherwise) will know that I have many interests: music, politics, death and fitba’. Well, today, I shall pass comment on all four. Oh, you lucky devils.

Three words guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of tens, nay hundreds, of thousands: Inverness. Caledonian. Thistle. Yes, time for yet another cup-tie against our northern nemesis. Not only have we come off worse against them in the cup on two occasions, but last season’s league challenge also foundered on those rocks; not on that Wednesday night in May, but way back on the 27^th of November 2010, the Saturday that the snow fell, the Saturday we scored two wonderful goals but went home with a 2-2 draw. What would fate have in store this time?

Last Sunday, in the League Cup, an unconvincing Celtic side saw off Steven Pressley’s spirited Falkirk bairns (see what I did there?) on the hallowed (ahem) Hampden turf. Scott Brown’s first-half penalty was the only difference between the sides at the interval. Anthony Stokes scored a superb free kick early in the second-half, before some bloke who got sold to Huddersfield a couple of days later scored for Falkirk. Hooper and Stokes linked up to provide Celtic’s third late on, making it look more comfortable than it really was. Job done, and on to another Cup Final, when fans of Kilmarnock will get a wee day out in the Metropolis.

Scotland is turning out to be a popular tourist destination: no, not for ex-pats from Oz and Canada, or whisky lovers from the Far East, but for Labour politicians who, rather than oppose Tory policies at Westminster, would rather come up here and tell us how to vote. On Monday, we were treated to a lecture from Ed Miliband, the worst Labour leader since, well, the last one. According to him (the man who couldn’t even name the third of three contenders for the Scottish leadership of his party), the ‘…United Kingdom is better for the working people of Scotland, and better for the working people of the United Kingdom as a whole’. I’m sure that the working people of Scotland, and those who used to work, think very highly of the Union, and of Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron and their ilk. As if that wasn’t funny enough, we had a visit from Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor. Now, Big Ed was either one of the architects of Bankrupt Britain or a man so in thrall to Gordon Brown that he couldn’t tell him he was buggering up the country’s finances. Either way, he can’t be trusted. Yes, his hand gestures during PMQs are source of amusement and, yes, he’s a nice guy who likes football, but what the hell was he doing in Scotland last week? Making naan bread. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.

The Transfer Window closed at 23:00h on Tuesday and all was quiet on that front down Parkhead way. James Keatings, Lewis Toshney and Paul Slane went out on loan, Efrain Juarez and Morten Rasmussen came back and Glenn Loovens and Georgios Samaras came out of the closet (not like that). Four new players were acquired but, as none of them have names I can spell or pronounce, they will not be mentioned. Apparently, a ‘big striker’ was being sought. They cost a lot of money. We have some, unlike another Glasgow club, who sold theirs and tried to buy someone they could never afford. Apparently, his manager said that, if Celtic had been in for him, he’d have driven him up here himself.

Tuesday night is still rehearsal night, for the moment, and I continue to do it justice. If I’d known we were going to be out for a sectional with our clarinet guru, I may have practiced, at least once, but I’m as good a seer as I am a clarinettist. The threatened return of ‘Colas Breugnon’ has yet to become reality. Thank God.

Back to the Merchant City on Thursday, this time to see how the big boys do it. It was absolutely baltic outside, and I was feeling a bit sniffly, so I wasn’t expecting the evening to go well. However, trust the BBC SSO to come up with a hot toddy to banish the winter blues. I can’t remember if I’ve seen the back of Donald Runnicles’ head this season, but there he was, and there they were, and, lo, so was Steven Isserlis. It was a game of two halves, with the final score Debussy 2, Ravel 4. In the first half, we were treated to ‘La mer’ followed by the ‘Suite for Cello and Orchestra’, the latter a lost work reconstructed by Sally Beamish (no, don’t switch off). Half time arrived, and I wondered if I’d be fit enough to sit through the second half. The City Halls was like an oven, and I was being slowly roasted.

Isserlis returned with a cut-down orchestra to play two short pieces by Maurice Ravel: 'Deux melodies hebraiques' (arranged by Richard Tognetti) and 'Une barque sur l’ocean'. What do you mean you want me to go and find all those stupid wee things? No, I’m not doing it. Anyway, I digress, as usual. The rest of the band came back on for ‘Valse nobles et sentimentales’, which had a lot of false endings, and ‘La Valse’, which was as loud as I warned the nervous, handsome young gentleman who had the misfortune to sit next to me that it would be. The post-concert coda was a delicious duet performance by Isserlis and Runnicles (on piano) of two short pieces by Glazunov: ‘Melodie and Serenade Espagnole, Op. 20’ and ‘Chant du menestrel, Op. 71’. Honourable mention must go to MC Jamie MacDougall, who managed to behave himself on live radio. That man should have a show of his own. What do you mean he does?

It was even colder outside on Friday night, and Kilmardinny House was just as warm as the City Halls had been. The penultimate recital for this season featured Kate McDermott on clarinet, accompanied by the dishy James Willshire. Apparently, the audience was full of clarinettists, but I spotted a flute player and an oboeist (is that even a word?). Anyway, the new Principal Clarinet of the Gothenburg Opera Orchestra delighted the assembled throng with her well-chosen programme, designed to impress the neutrals and frighten the bejesus out of anyone who has ever had the inclination to take up that particular instrument.

Opening with the tame, by comparison, ‘Sonata for clarinet and piano’ by Leonard Bernstein, she moved on to ‘Introduction, Theme and Variations’ by Rossini. I’m sure she played some notes in there that they don’t have in any of the clarinet books. She followed this with a beautiful piece written for the composer’s brother who died in the Great War, ‘Pastoral’ by Arthur Bliss. They adjourned for the interval after ‘Le Tombeau de Ravel’, influenced by ‘La Valse’ by, erm, Ravel. I don’t just throw these blogs together, you know.

This month’s Spotlight performer was pianist Penny Watson from Douglas Academy Music School, who played ‘Reverie’ by Debussy. I say played. She moved her hands up and down the keyboard a lot, but I’m not convinced she touched any keys. Extraordinary! Kate and James returned and opened the second half with ‘Drei Romanzen, Op. 94’ by Schumann. They followed this with something called ‘Peregi Verbunk’ by a Hungarian composer called Leo Weiner. Next, ‘From Galloway’, an extract from a larger work by James MacMillan. I needn’t have worried. It was OK. The recital ended with Joseph Horovitz’s ‘Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano’. I particularly liked the jazzy third movement. It was over all too soon, and I left for home, having resolved to sell my clarinet and buy some tropical fish.

And so to the Scottish Cup: a much-changed Celtic side went into battle with ICT at the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium for a place in the Quarter-Final of the grand old tournament. Celtic came out on top thanks to a goal in each half; a corker from Georgios Samaras, one he’d miss nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, and another penalty from Scott Brown, whose goalscoring exploits in the last two weeks are making him look as prolific as the Greek. At this rate, Broony may even overtake Sammy. A successful outcome but, unfortunately, we have to play them again next week.

It’ll soon be time for dinner, and then half of the weekend will be gone. Someone appears to have bid my anxious fears subside this week: Sally Beamish, James MacMillan and Inverness Caledonian Thistle have all have all been negotiated with consummate ease, though, to be fair, none were at their most frightening. But it’s not all joy, joy, joy. In the style of News at Ten, here’s an ‘..and finally’.

Earlier this week, the death was announced of Ricky the chimpanzee from Edinburgh Zoo. He was believed to be 50 years old. I wonder if his eyesight and hearing were failing, or if he had wonky knees, arthritic fingers and toes, a weak bladder and the inability to suffer fools gladly. As I type, he’ll be up in heaven with as many bananas and cups of PG Tips as he can cope with, whilst the rest of us have to soldier on, pretending that everything is fine and we love being here. Enjoy your rest, Ricky, you lucky, lucky bastard.