celticman's blog

Fiona Macdonald (2011) Robert Burns. A Very Peculiar History . This is a children’s book or a primer. ‘With the Bards own rhymes’. That suits me. I was once a child, and I’m always ready to be primed. Ignorance is a great motivation. I once shared a desk with the august figure of Professor Gerry Carruthers, Director of the Robert Burns Centre, University of Glasgow. I don’t remember him as being particularly smart, or brainy, as we used to call...

There is a moment at the end of the 1960s when race war is engulfing and burning America and the ‘chickens have come to roost’ in prisons, when Bunker is taking from his cell block in San Quentin to visit a parole officer. The parole officer laughs. Bunker’s file is the biggest he’s ever seen, the size of a phone book. He stops laughing when he reads the note attached, see File 2. This is File 1 and 2, not written by the state, not written by...

Episode 1, Series 1, BBC 2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08f00s0/sas-rogue-warriors-series-1-episode-1 epistemology noun PHILOSOPHY the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion. I recently reviewed a Channel 5 series, Secrets of the SAS: In Their Own Words . Other programmes have SAS tags in their title, or synonyms such as Special Forces...

This was a terrific game with Celtic players scoring all seven goals. Dedryck Boyata scoring a terrific headed own-goal for St Johnstone after Celtic had opened them up several times, with a goal from Liam Henderson in the first five minutes. This continues a recent trend in which Celitc’s so called fringe players come in and not only do they do a job, they frequently end up man on the match. Stuart Armstrong was first to pick up the baton and...

I was at a Requiem Mass for Rose Anne Winn today. It was great. I don’t mean the religious service. I can take them or leave them. Apart from funerals, usually it’s the latter. Auntie Rose was my godmother. The last remaining matriarch of the Connelly family, which included my mum Jean, and her sisters Auntie Phyllis and Auntie Cathy. Only Uncle Ben, in Canada, of the patriarchal line remains. Uncle Tom and Uncle Terry are dead. What I mean by...

Money is worthless. Join every mob at banks and shops, cash in. Arm yourself Bring the family home, with a chimney, you can cook by firelight. Bring the bike in from the garden shed. Plan your meals. Starve slowly. With much love You won’t hear from me again.

I love books. I’ve got a stash of books in the toilet, by the side of every chair I’m likely to sit on and that includes the lavvy pan. Under my bed and by the side of my bed. But I don’t read enough and a book has never saved my life in the way it did Ashoke Ganguli after a train crash 209 kilometers from Calcutta he is involved in when going to visit and read to his grandfather, who also loves books and in particular the giants of Russian...

Donald J Trump’s mother, Mary came from the Isle of Lewis. There’s more than one Scottish word for her son. Bawbag is a good Scottish word to start with. Perhaps Robert Burns, our national bard, put it better in The Cotter’s Saturday Night , the kind of dwelling his mother Mary came from: An honest man’s the noblest work of God; And certes in fair virtue’s heavenly road; What is a lording’s pomp? a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of...

How To Be a Woman has Caitlin Moran on the front cover surrounded by a proscenium arch of accolades. ‘Galaxy Book Awards Book of the Year.’ ‘Funniest Book of the Year,’ Evening Standard. ‘The book EVERY woman should read,’ Grazia. Well, I’m at a disadvantage here because I’ve read it and I’m a guy, or at least like to think so. I’m normal that way, obviously when you’re lying in bed, you’ve had sex with someone you don’t know very well, and she...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08bfww6 I spent three and a half hours with Marlon Brando, which is quite a long time for an old buddie like me without falling asleep, especially on a Saturday night, when there’s football on, and I’ve not got a beer in my hand, but I don’t feel that it was time wasted. I’ve watched On the Waterfront before. Don’t ask me when, or what it’s about, that’s a bit like asking me if I’ve read a book, and I say yeh,...