Shine on you Crazy Diamond

There are rumblings coming from number 10 and 11 Downing street. The new threat comes not from the Middle East but from the north. The insurgents this time are threatening to go to the ballot box and bring down another oppressive and corrupt regime. Yes, in the spring of 2007 Scotland will have national elections to form its next devolved parliament. To the great chagrin of New Labour, Scots look like voting in the Scottish National Party - separatists bent on independence.

This is not new movement by any means (it was formed over 70 years ago), so you may well wonder what’s brought this change of public opinion in Scotland? The reason, I wager, is the failure, fatal to every politician: the failure to listen. Just ask President Bush about his recent thumpin’ in the mid-term elections. Could Scotland be reacting to Blair’s failure to listen too? I bloody hope so!

The threat is so real that both Blair and Brown have brought out their big guns to fight back. These being fear, doubt and uncertainty (FUD) and yet more failed Blair policies and lack of backbone on foreign policy. If I were a Labour MP I’d want Blair out before the election next Spring, just ask the Republicans if it was a good idea to wait to let Rumsfeld go until after the election. I dare you!

I’ve not felt the urge to write for a while now, but I’m starting to feel inspired again. What I want to share is how much I enjoyed watching recently “The Long Way Round”. By now most people will know of Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman’s motorbike trip around the world. When LWR was first broadcast I managed to catch a couple of episodes, however, I’m not a Sky subscriber so I could only watch if I was visiting a friend’s house and it was on. As they say, “What you don’t see, you don’t miss.” I forgot all about it. Then, some time later, I bought myself a new motorbike.

Yes, like a lot of men hitting their middle years I revisited an old passion of mine, convincing myself that my life would be so much better if I bought a motorbike. In fact, since my early twenties I’ve lusted over having a big bike with lots of torque - something mean looking hopefully. Ten years later, I scanned through a bike few magazines, read the reviews and decided on Honda’s CBF1000. The bikes an all rounder, the engine is as big as I hoped for, there loads of low-end torque, and it’s very easy to ride. This was a major selling point for me because it had been such a long time since I’d last ridden a bike.

Now, after a couple of months, which included a two-week holiday riding around France and Spain, I’ve managed to scrape most of the rust off my riding skills - To begin with it was nerve racking having to lean over as I went round bends. I’m getting better, but I’ve still got some way to go as I’m nowhere near getting my knee down on the corners! I suppose I’m more of a tourer than a racer.

Which brings me neatly back to my point. As I’m now back into biking, I thought it would be nice to travel up to Birmingham to see the NEC Motorbike Show; I’d never been before so it was a mini-adventure / nice day out. And lo, who was there - Charlie Boorman doing a book signing for his latest adventure. Having seen Charlie up close I decided it was about time to buy the DVD and watch their adventure; I was sure that now I had a bike of my own I’d really enjoy watching Ewan and Charlie travelling round the world (especially the falling off bits).

When the DVD turned up I sat all evening watching it. For me it was heaven! What could be better than i) a travel journal ii) by a couple of bikers, and iii) one of whom was a fellow Scot! As I live in England, it was especially enjoyable to see Ewan describing his adventure mixed in with some genuine Scottish patter: telling anyone who would listen how Scots invented the modern world and how this or that mountain range was almost as good as the ones in Scotland. Having toured Scotland several times myself I couldn’t help but agree.

Modern Scotland is constantly redefining itself. This weekend was no different as 134 belly dancers in Nairn wiggled their way into the Guinness book of records. Not exactly the usual image you conjure up when thinking about dancers in the Scottish Highlands. If I’m honest I’d prefer to go see some wiggling rather than some prancing any day.

Incidentally, I’m quite excited by this news as one of my friends is a belly dancer and teacher. I wonder if she was there.

Hey ho! I saw this coming:

Celtic replaced Hearts at the top of the Scottish Premier League

By the way, Gordon Strachan, their manager is quite a funny guy. After the win he told us radio listeners part of his half-time team talk: Celtic’s first-half performance was a bit of a school boys match - they attacked us, we attacked them. No-one paid much attention to the defence. Adding, “But who cares, we won”.

Well said, that man.

[Update 1]

If you were thinking of applying for the Hearts manager’s job, I wouldnae bather. See the last line.

[Update 2]

Leakier than a leaky bucket that’s had the bottom kicked out. Link

Congratulations must go to Andy Murray, a young Scot from Dunblane, who today won his first match against the British number one tennis player Tim Henman at the Swiss Indoor Open, in Basel.

Murray was described as urbane, Henman very middle English by the slightly envious BBC2 commentator. Lots of cliches were lobbed back and forth before the match even started, “Murray being the young pretender to the Henman throne”, and a volley more afterwards - “Henman still holds the crown, but Murray has his hands on it now”. I, like lots of other spectators, got so excited that it was easy to forget that this is only the first round of the competition - not the final.

When the match started Henman got off to his usual slow start, losing the first set 6-2. After three quarters of an hour he managed to settle his nerves, giving Murray more of a challenge. The two players broke each others serve back and forth - the commentators complained that both players were playing messy tennis: there was a lot of pride at stake. Towards the end of the second set Murray had the chance to clinch it for a 2 - 0 finish, but Henman wasn’t ready to give up yet, breaking Murray’s serve and going on to win the second set. Making it even at 1 - 1.

The final set was the real test of character for the Scot. Having walked the first, struggled towards the end of the second it was only by defeating an on-form Henman that you could take any pride in the victory. As both players raised their games, the score remained level until the match had to be decided by a tie-break. By this stage, it didn’t matter whether Murray won or lost: he’d just proven that he’s a match for Henman and that he has the mental composure recover from a bad run of play. In the end Murray did manage to pull off the victory.

For me, the best part of the match came from the commentators, “We’ve got another 10 years to watch this impressive young talent develop and grow”.

It’s not often I’m moved to write about football, however there are reports that Heart’s (of Midlothian) manager George Burley is quiting - despite the fact that his club is sitting unbeaten atop of the Scottish Premier League. Undoubtedly, it’s got something to do with major shareholder Vladimir Romanov efforts to take over the club. Until today I thought this was a good thing.

If you’re unfamiliar with Scottish football, let me explain: for what seems like generations two teams have dominated the sport in Scotland: Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers (I was a Celtic supporter in my youth). In recent years the dominance of these two teams has developed into arrogance: there were suggestions that they would stop playing in the Scottish leagues and join the big boys in England, where the big bucks are. That never happened. But the both teams still try to bully their way round negotiations when it’s time to divide up TV revenues. All in all, compared to other countries: England, Spain, Italy, Scottish domestic football has been in a rut for a very long time.

But this year has been different. Watching Hearts emerge from almost nowhere, even giving the ‘Old Firm’ a run for their money has re-energized my interest in domestic football. TV commentators have caught the vibe too, speculating whether Hearts would go on to win the title. Excellent!

Now that the manager’s gone, however, I predict Heart’s top form will deteriorate quickly; Rangers are having a bad season, so that leaves Celtic to pick up the pieces. What a kick in the teeth!

Oh yes, in case you didn’t notice Scotland got beat (at fitba) last night, and we finally crashed out of the World Cup qualifiers. So sad, life goes on. But before we let ourselves inevitably sink into a morass of depression, here are some kind words to make us all feel happy and shiney again.

Incidently, I listened on radio 5Live to some English supporters whining about how poor their team was doing. Sheesh! Talk about seeing the cup half empty!

I reported a few weeks ago a new website I’d found stumbled on that really tears into my hometown. I showed a few of my friends some of the funny bits on it, but little did I imagine that it would soon be up in the list of top Scottish websites - the bastards! Judging by the number of hits their site gets it’ll quite possibly end up being number one in a month or two.

This site is currently 67th.

If you’ve been following this blog you may already know I’ve already mentioned Janey’s blog in a previous post - I stumbled upon her website, originally, because we shared the same web host; she seemed like a genuinely funny woman, albeit slightly closer to nutter than sane. Only later did I learn that she was a professional comedian who had also written a book about her life. And a bestseller at that! “Fair enough”, I thought. That piqued my interest but not enough for me to go out and buy it.¹ Anyway, today, I came across it in my local library²; I sat down and read a few pages…

It is absolutely the most moving, harrowing, and funny thing I’ve read in years!

Reading ‘Handstands’ is a unique experience for me, mainly because I already know how the story ends: I’ve been reading Janey’s blog for a few months where she describes her modern life and bits and pieces about her family. It’s utterly amazing reading how she got to where she is now - the fact that she’s not completely mad, or dead! I also wonder what non-Scots would make of her stories. Sometimes it seems very surreal to me - I began to imagine that she was describing Scotland years ago, but as I read along I was gripped by horror when I realised that she’s only 6 years older than me. Fuck me!

I’m now halfway through the book. In the back of my mind, I remember Janey writing in her blog how she teased her husband everyday during the Edinburgh Festival with the question,”Did you kill that man who …?”.³ I was confused when I read that online (I thought she was joking), but now I’m nervously reading through the book waiting to hear who got bumped off. Her Mammy died a few pages ago.

¹ Being a tight bastard.
² See 1.
³“who killed me Mammy”, I think she wrote.

I need to take a few moments to introduce this next item, as I’m in no way recommending it as something good, helpful, or typical of life in my home town. However, I find it both funny and scary - perhaps because it’s brutely honest to some degree - at the same time.

It’s, I repeat, not the norm - it’s like saying that Limerick (a.k.a stab-city) or Detroit is typical of Ireland or the US of A respectively. There are good things and bad things in every country - in every city. This astonishing website captures some elements of society we Scots normally don’t like to look at.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d say the site is reasonable offensive (7). Check out the hate mail section and Big Aggie.