celticman's blog

For any of you unfamiliar with Glasgow dialect, The Old Haunts are the place you used to hang about when you were younger. Alan Radcliffe has pretty much nailed it in his debut novel. Part of the Fairlight (his publisher’s) Moderns. I’m not sure what that mean but it sounds like a good marketing gimmick. The Old Haunts speaks for itself. I’m tempted to give Alan Radcliffe the Great Scottish Writers tag I give to authors such as William...

Brian Reilly came to the door on Saturday to tell us his mum, Bel, had died. He likes to call Mary, Auntie Mary. She’s not really his aunt. But Mary’s son Alan and Robert washed through their house in Trafalgar Street, when the world was young, much the same as they washed through this house. Bel wasn’t their Auntie either. Mums knew better than God these things didn’t matter. The more Auntie Mary persisted in asking if he wanted anything, the...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001rjvp/us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Peele If you’ve a spare two hours and don’t mind watching a zombie movie, batter in. I was intrigued. I misread the premise was something to do with doppelgangers. Strictly speaking that’s true. A black and upper-middle-class family of dad, mom and their two children go on holiday to the beach. They meet their demonic doppelgangers who come from a hole in the...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001rcl0/episodes/guide https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001rckl I admit to having previous here. I listened to Danny Robbin and his team’s Podcast such as The Battersea Poltergeist , The Witch Farm and even one of his lesser known fares the Uncanny Podcast series, The Angel in the Bathroom . Danny Robbins has made the big time now he’s on prime time telly, well kinda, BBC2, but it is 9pm and that’s primetime...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-vigil?.none.none.popular || https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vigil_(2019_film) The Vigil doesn’t refer to the siege and coming ground invasion of the Gaza strip but a more simpler world when all an apostate orthodox Jew in New York, Yakov Ronen (Dave Davis), had to worry about was his eternal soul being stolen by a Mazzik . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazzikin The monster or Mazzik is eternal as all...

Referee Serdar Gözübüyük has a shocker as Scotland go down as expected in the heat of Seville. Two late goals from Rodri (73 minutes) and Sanget (87 minutes) give Spain victory. Sanget’s goal looked more like a Ryan Porteous own goal. Aaron Hickey, who had a fine game, inexplicably falling over and losing control of the ball, which just about summed up Scotland’s hopes of qualifying on the night. Ironically, Spain on Sunday, in Oslo can do it...

Hurry up and die. That was my visceral response to Lilly Dunn’s dad. We’ve become over-acquainted with men like him. Narcissistic psychopaths like the American moron’s moron (unfortunately with Scottish blood in his veins) and the little Trumpet clone this side of the Atlantic, Boris Johnson. The author’s job is to make her characters human. I, for example, stayed with my mum and da for most of my young adult life, but I wouldn’t claim to have...

I’m familiar with Annest Gwilym’s poetry because she sometimes posts on ABCtales. I have not the patience or understanding to fully appreciate poetry in general or her thirty-three poems in particular. ‘The Word Collector’ is akin to the green space where Dylan Thomas roamed ‘happy as the grass was green’. Words are her natural home. Seasons in the sun is a way of looking at the world. To capture time and squeeze verse between the bookends of...

I’d not heard of David Sedaris. After reading this book, I know there’s been a film-version of his early life. I’ve not seen it. I understand he’s a humourist (perhaps I should use the American spelling, humorist). He’s meant to be funny. Book sales are heavily influenced by the book cover. The book cover here is nothing to look at. I notice these things more than your average non-humourist because I’ve skin in the great game. This screams non-...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/resistance-2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_(2020_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Marceau Jonathan Jakubowicz’s hagiography of Marcel Marceau (Jesse Eisenberg) begins in pre-war Nazi German of 1938. Elsbeth (Bella Ramsey) watches her dad and mum being arrested, beaten and shot. Their crime was being Jewish. It ends post-war in Nuremberg. General Patton (Ed Harris) asks ‘what is courage...