I’ve been busy painting and decorating this week. Lesson learned? Well, that painting a ceiling isn’t a particularly easy task. Bloody arduous if you ask me. There are still two yellow water stains showing through which refuse to be covered up, despite laying on a coat of paint of epic proportions. Bastards.

This week, I am mostly failing to get the Easter vibe. I’m only off on Monday so that doesn’t help build the holiday spirit. What’s more, I can see Sunday being spent in Ikea, the shop I’d most like to consign to Room 101. Except the meatballs and the Daim cake that is. How good is the Daim cake? Off the scale. That’s how good. I think Ikea lay on meatballs, Daim cake and Copparberg cider just to lure reluctant blokes such as myself in.

I think Easter would work better if I actually believed in it all. Or if indeed I believed in anything. That’s the problem with athiesm. No religious festivals of note. I’m the cuckoo in the nest at Christmas and Easter. Not really belonging there but willing to eat the turkey and the Easter eggs.

Long may it stay that way. Believing in things only brings disappointment. I recall believing that Scotland would win the 1978 World Cup. Ally McLeod told us so. “Nae bother lads”. Andy Cameron just hammered home that belief with his daft song. Look what happened there.

Not believing is the way forward.

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That got me to thinking. That type of pissed, warped creativity seemed exclusively Scottish to me. On the back of that, I’ve decided to put together a list of some of my favourite things about being Scottish. The list is in no particular order and is not exhaustive.

1. Deep fried food. Take cheap ingredients, coat them in batter and then fry them. Smother in chippy sauce (optional), salt and vinegar. Shite would taste nice when prepared thus. I have still to actually find a chippy which sells the now mythical deep fried Mars Bar. Despite this lack of deep fried confectionery country wide, it seems that some people think that this is one of Scotland’s main culinary achievements.
2. Pish. The word ‘Pish’ is so much better than any other word in the English language. It can be used to indicated disbelief (“Pish!” as in “You are talking”)  or to indicate that something is of poor quality (“That was pish”). A very flexible, and completely Scottish word.
3. Ally McLeod. The famous photo of the former Scotland manager sitting on the bench in Argentina with his head in his hands is synonymous with the disaster which was the 1978 World Cup campaign. The great joke of the late 1970′s was that Mickey Mouse had an Ally McLeod wristwatch. He was a national clown at the time but when he died there was a outpouring of warmth towards the man. Scotland in the late 70′s was pish (see 2 above). Declining industry, strikes all the time and the Bay City Rollers. When Ally and the Scotland Squad were piped out of Hampden, there was a resurgence in national belief. Unfortunately, an absolutely disastrous campaign resulted in such a dip in national confidence that when a referendum was held for Scottish devolution in 1979, the country voted against it. Never mind though, we had Archie Gemmell’s goal to take us through the hard times (see 4 below).
4. Archie Gemmell’s goal against Holland. A Scottish icon. As defining a moment in our history as Bannockburn? Not far off it in modern terms. I’d never tire of watching it. All those silky Dutch ‘total’ footballers and a wee bald guy, 4 foot tall with his hands in the air, taking it past three of them and then slotting it past the goalkeeper. One of the finest World Cup goals of all time AND converted into a dance routine. Magic.
5. Drinking. A national pastime. “Take a drink”. Get “pished”. Possibly only the Irish are in the same league as us. I’m not talking about binge drinking. I’m talking about lose your house, wife and kids, piss your pants and forget your own name kind of drinking. Not necessarily something to be proud of but part of the heritage. It remember leaving the house on a Monday morning once and passing a wee skinny old boy walking home, dark stain around the crotch and the Sunday Mail and half a dozen rolls under his arm. Like a wee Scottish Andy Capp. I could imagine the wife polishing the rolling pin.
6. Fighting. The natural partner of 5 above. Usually starts with a “Who ur you looking at ya cant” and finishes with a liberal sprinkling of “Moan then”. Somebody might get “tumblered”. Thrilling stuff. Makes jakey drinking more than just a downward spiral. Allows for significant adrenalin highs.
7. Neds. Love them or loathe them, they are Scottish comedy gold. The making of many a good episode of “Chewing the fat” and “Still Game”. Brainless, unskilled, manual labourers who are highly proficient in 5 and 6 above.
8. The English Civil War. That one threw you. I’m currently reading a book on the English Civil War. Apparently the sparks of the wars were started by the Scots. 400 years ago we were exactly the same seditious, awkward fuckers that we are now. Got to love consistency. Apparently Charles I tried to impose a new prayer book on us. We said “naw”, possibly with an added “ya bass” on the end or a “ya bass yer majesty” if he was lucky. Scotland. Being a pain in England’s arse since the middle ages.
9. The theory that we invented everything. Everyone knows that Scots invented the television and the telephone. We also discovered anaesthesia and penicillin. Those are undisputable facts. Not bad for a rocky little outcrop in the North Atlantic. Even better, we refuse to let anyone forget it. We are never done going on about it. And rightly so. The majority of Scottish history has been full of strife, struggle and presbyterian dourness. Let’s focus on the positives.
10. Tattie Scones. Need I elaborate?

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Saturday saw me on a five hour round trip to see a Scottish Cup match which was cancelled within 10 minutes of us arriving. Bummer. To be fair, the guys at Annan had done as much as they could to make sure the game went ahead but the ref said no and that was that. To be honest, I think they should call these games off the night before to save everyone the bother of travelling such long distances only to be turned back. Never mind though, we had a couple of beers and were supplied with a nice selection of pies and sausage rolls so it all turned out alright in the end.

Sunday brought the change of the clocks. To be honest, I was dreading it because I really thought it would scramble Sam’s internal clock and have him waking up at some God awful hour, expecting to get up and play. He woke at 4.30am (5.30 in old money) but went back to sleep and lasted through to 7.45am new time. Scoosh.

It’s freezing today. A true feeling that winter has descended. I might need to bring the woolly hat out of storage. To be fair though, sometime I’d rather freeze than deal with the hair related carnage that the hat brings for the rest of the day.

In tram news, they are digging up our street AGAIN, having only resurfaced it last week. If I didn’t know better I’d swear they were searching for the plan.

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You can imagine my amazement then, whilst standing at a bus stop on Junction Street on Saturday, I turned to stare right into the spotty face of one of my tormentors from the game at Newlandsfield. Resplendent in Pollok replica jersey, this ‘gentleman’ and his three mates came to my attention when I overheard them interrogate an 8 year old as to “whit team he supported”.

I decided to ask them if they required directions to City Park. Not because I particularly wanted to speak to them, but because I can never resist good blogging material. Also, the bus journey to the game was only ten minutes so I figured I could endure any abuse, verbal or physical.

Quite what these guys were doing in Leith when they arrived at Waverley Station, I’ll never know. Presumably their GPS (Glesga Positioning System) was low on batteries and redirected them the long way round. Perhaps there is some kind of Ned homing device which inexorably draws Neds the world over to each other. God knows, Leith is full of the tracksuited wee toe-rags.

Anyway, within seconds of speaking, I had gone from being “man at the bus stop” to being “Big Man”, “Pal” and “Big Yin”, terms of endearment delivered with that certain friendly menace that only seems prevalent in the west.

To be fair, these lads (and the wee Senga who was with them) were nice enough. Their only fault was to be optimistic enough to believe that they would actually get into City Park on Scottish Cup day with what looked like about 48 cans of lager and 4 bottles of Buckfast. Not a chance (I later discovered they were turned away at the gate).

I say 48 cans of lager. I should really be more precise and say 47, as I should discount the one which was accidentally poured all down my trouser leg by the guy in the seat in front as the bus came to a sudden stop.

All the way to City Park, I was questioned relentlessly about “Wull thur be Polis there and that?” or informed that “They wur usually banned fae Newlandsfield but”. What is it about anywhere west of the airport that the word “but” seems to be tagged onto the end of sentences?

Anyway, we won 1-0, so what do I care. There may be “only one Nicky Walker” but there are two clowns in the Pollok defence who have the ability to collide with each other and leave him through on goal.

Miller and Hansen anyone?

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It’s as brilliant as I remember it. Bradbury is a great writer. I mean, just the names of his characters are amazing. “Jim Nightshade” and “Mr G.M. Dark”. I recently read “It” by Stephen King and whilst “Pennywise the Clown” is a great name, it’s nor as simple or as sinister as “Mr G.M. Dark”.

I’ve loved Bradbury’s work for years, ever since being captivated by “Fahrenheit 451“, the tale of Guy Montag the fireman who saves books from burning. All great stuff. Bradbury is definitely one of my favourite authors. The words just tumble from the page.

On a sporting note, tomorrow sees the end of an era with what is likely to be the last Scottish Cup game at City Park. A big crowd is expected – Pollok are expected to bring 500 travelling fans and I can see Spartans drawing a similar number, be they hardcore fans or interested observers.

To be fair, the old girl is on her last legs. It’s a shame that football grounds like City Park just disappear into the history books. Spartans will move to a shiny new ground with modern facilities next month which is great for the club, but I can’t help but feel nostalgic for little grounds like City Park which make up in atmosphere and history what they lack in facilities. There have been some classic cup games there in recent years, most noticably the game against St Mirren, watches by around 3,300 fans in 2006.

These kind of grounds are the grounds of my youth. I remember going to numerous junior games as a teenager and enjoying the atmosphere as sometimes 800 or more fans packed into delapidated grounds for big Scottish Junior Cup games against the big clubs from Ayrshire. All fag smoke, bunnets and swearing.

Whilst I agree that we have to move with the times, I’ll miss that type of ground. Only when the last one is gone and replaced with featureless modern apartments will we realise what we had. It’s part of the heritage.

Speaking of nostalgia, there was a kid on the bus this morning who called his mum a “Nincompoop”. I’ve not heard that one in the longest time.

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I travelled through on the team bus, which was most convenient. Arriving at the Pollok FC social club, it was immediately apparent that they are a big club. About an hour and a half until kickoff and I reckon there must have been well over a hundred fans in the bar alone, all with the full range of replica shirts and scarves. Bizarrely, we were filmed getting off the bus on arrival.

The match was a cracker. Small Junior grounds like Newlandsfield are intimidating when filled with 1,200 partisan fans. End to end stuff and a draw was probably a fair result.

In the second half, because of the rain, myself and a couple of fellow Spartans fans ended up in the Pollok end, sheltering under the large covered enclosure. And that’s where the title of this post comes in. It seems that Glaswegian fans (those of a certain mentality anyway) seem to think that Edinburgh is populated exclusively by homosexual men, prostitutes and heroin addicts.

Myself and a mate stood there, whilst an almost entire end of the ground sang “Your all poofs, hoors and junkies” to us personally, to the theme of “you only sing when you are winning”. I can’t imagine how confusing it must be to be all of those things at once as the song suggests.

Comedy moment of the day though must be being called a “druggie bastard” by a guy smoking a joint. Not a hint of irony in his voice either. Meanwhile his mate urinated against the back wall of the enclosure, balancing himself against the cold stone wall with his forehead, presumably because he needed his other hand for his bottle of blue WKD.

Non-league football – ye cannae beat it.

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Now, whilst watching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game, I couldn’t help but notice that there is actually a section of the stadium built to resemble a pirate ship, complete with cannons which fire when the Bucs score. All nice and fluffy and not in the slightest bit menacing. Good clean fun.

Being a Scottish football fan (of the soccer variety obviously) however, I find that I struggle to comprehend that there is a sport on this earth where bile, hatred, bigotry and spitting are not an essential part. I don’t mean on the field. I mean in the crowd. It doesn’t even have to be violence per se. Something as innocent as pissing down a rolled up newspaper on to the shoes of a fan in front is surely synonymous with sport worldwide. No?

Well, apparently not. It seems that there are some sports fans who don’t feel the need to stab each other to death after big derby games, or sing songs about Irish famine victims.

I think the Scottish way would take the NFL by storm. I can imagine thousands of bamboozled Americans in Giants Stadium staring wide-eyed at a bunch of knuckle dragging, stripped to the waist neanderthals with T-shirt suntans wearing Union Jacks knotted around their waists. I can even imagine the perplexed conversation in the American end of the ground.

“What’s a chicken supper?”

“Who’s Bobby Sands?”

“Up to their knees in what?”

I think I’ll off and write to Rangers, Celtic and the NFL commissioner and suggest a cultural exchange programme.

Just to make sure you know, this post was brought to you with my tongue firmly in my cheek…….

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I used to think that ‘Derby Day’ on the ZX Spectrum was magnificent. It wasn’t. It was shite. Just a collection of random number generators and graphics of horses with unrealistic joint action in their knees.

I was Sport Billy this weekend. Three different sports watched in one weekend. Not bad for me. Saturday was Scotland’s disastrous start against Macedonia. I mean, Macedonia…. what happened there?

I’m afraid Georgie Burley may have been on the paint stripper again, particularly after the selection of Kirk Broadfoot to the squad. Don’t book your tickets to South Africa just yet. In fact, judging by press reports, don’t book your tickets to South Africa at all. It seems that by all accounts, Eyemouth will be in better shape to host the 2010 World Cup than South Africa if what we’ve heard from FIFA observers is true.

Sunday saw the All-Ireland Hurling Final with Kilkenny beating Waterford in the biggest hammering since David Baillie kicked seven bells out of ‘Mad’ Mackie in a playground fight in my 3rd year at high school. Wasn’t so mad after that. Just daft looking. As were Waterford yesterday. Humped. Well and truly. Nowhere to hide.

Sunday night saw me watch a double header of NFL action. Very enjoyable, although I am now massively sported out. Anyway, must fly. Here is a screenshot from the aforementioned ‘Derby Day’ to remind you how bad video games in the 1980′s could be.

If you need further reminding of how bad it was, you can actually play it here:- http://www.zxspectrum.net/

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