celticman's blog

Mean Streets (1973) BBC 4 10pm directed by Martin Scorese and screenplay by Scorese and Mardik Martin.

The film opens with a clunky voice over with Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in a Roman Catholic Church having an extempore debate about the nature of hell and eternal suffering. He holds his fingers over a candle and tries not to flinch. Charlie’s idea of redemption is to try and save his younger cousin Johnny Boy (a young Robert de Niro) from the loan sharks he borrows money from. Charlie’s also having an affair with Johnny Boy’s cousin Teresa (Amy...

AC Milan 2 – Celtic 0

Last week Celtic were 10/1 with Paddy Power to win in the San Siro stadium. On paper this seems one of those stick-on, home-win, results. But it brought to mind the old days when we used to outplay Rangers, have most of the ball, miss most of the chances and then Laudrup would gallop up the park and score a goal for them. Job done. Celtic had more of the ball against Milan. They had the better of the chances, but they did not overly trouble...

Teenage Exorcists BBC 3 9pm

I quite fancied Peaky Blinder on BBC 2 or even Sound of the Cinema on BBC 4 but I wanted real drama and who could resist Teenage Exorcists -- Brynne Larson and her two best friends Savannah and Tess Scherkenback? As Brynne’s good old dad Bob tells every new audience he meets, he is the world’s best exorcist. To prove his point he can sell his audience DVDs of his top ten exorcisms, his no nonsense books of how to hook the devil out of your life...

The Wipers Time BBC 2 9pm

This is a play on words and the way the working-class soldier pronounced Ypres during the First World War. BBC 2 seems our best bet for this kind of costume drama, with Channel 4 hitting the futuristic buttons with drama such as Blackout-pronounced black---out. I didn’t black – out I stuck with the new dystopian drama, Blackout, to the first ad break. Good man I can hear you say in that Standard English accent used for voice overs and British...

Ukraine 0-0 England; Macedonia 1-Scotland 2.

I had to drink a Christmas bottle of Baileys because I’ve had a bad stomach for about five days to keep me interested. It’s not a real drink, but I usually don’t bother with Internationals. Next Wednesday. A.C. Milan v Celtic. Home win. The real deal. Wish we had Anya and not James Forrest. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m blind. Maybe I’m drunk (but hey, it is Bailley’s, so think again.). The games were fifteen minutes apart so I could watch both. I...

Hugo Hamilton (2003) The Speckled People.

Some books you don’t want to finish and this is one of them. Hugo Hamilton’s memoir is a prize worth keeping. It's a shame it's a library book. Pre-adolescent Hugo tells the story of his father and mother and his growing family in words that bite. His father is a nationalist that refuses to let the children speak English or play with children that speak English or have anything to do with the English even though there are few people in Dublin in...

The Tempest (2010) BBC 2 written and directed by Julie Taymor

I’m not going to tell you who the original writer was, but I can tell you some of his themes involve the fading power of old men, gender swapping, love at first sight and a plot that he’s picked up from crumpled bits of folio that have been lying around his garret. This is no different in that Prospero started off in the original folio and was definitely a man. Helen Mirren is definitely a woman. Her Morgana all those years ago in Excalibur...

Huckelberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn finishes where it started with poor old Huck getting Mothered to death: ‘I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.’ It’s been that long since I read this book I can’t remember reading it. Long passages are dialogue thick with the argot of Nigger Jim, Tom Sawyer or the sly old Judge...

Celtic 3—Shak Karagandy 0

This was the big one. This was massive. This was when life and the death of our season hung by the ligaments of a severed sheep’s head (much has been made of our Asian friend’s propensity to sacrifice sheep for a good luck omen and as a kind of voodoo-we just eat sheep and of course we woo them to death with love songs of pastures green). Anyway, Shak are shak. They are the worst team I’ve seen in the Champions League and how they got to the...

Death of Robert Jack

Robert Jack was a few years older and like the rest of us he liked a drink, but unlike the rest of us he even had a girlfriend. He lived in Trafalgar Street long before it was renovated. A few years down the line I heard he’d got slashed. His cheek was marked, but he still had that Mediterranean oily tanned skin and straight black hair and, when I saw him in the Peppermint Park later that week he still had a girlfriend, although it might have...

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