celticman's blog

Paul Mason is an optimist. I’m a pessimist. He outlines the problems mankind faces in the future and suggests as a utopian solution of free money and us all working together in a non-working world. I tend more towards the four horseman of the apocalypse scenario. Mason suggests there are a number of negative feedback loops that will work together to make the world a much poorer place for 99% of humanity, but if we reverse engineer this process...

I heard on the radio this afternoon that by a majority verdict of seven to two the jury at the inquest of the Hillsborough disaster, where 92 people died, many of them teenage boys, found that they were unlawfully killed. I don’t really know what that means, but hearing those at the inquest singing the Liverpool anthem ‘Walk On’ made me feel tearful. A vindication for those families that campaigned and sought justice and truth. Let us not forget...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07952b1/louis-theroux-drinking-to-oblivion Yesterday started much the same as always. I read the papers, Sunday Mail and The Observe r. It was a bit of a surprise that The Observer had plagiarised two of my blogs. One was the Kevin Mc Kenna article about why Celtic are so shite but we love them anyway; the other about inequality, CEO salaries and executive pay. I don’t blame The Observer, after all I...

We all know how this works. BP is on the slide. Share price dropping like a cascade of dominos. It’s not a good time to be in fossil fuels. China no longer buying; America fracking and the Middle Eastern countries pumping out more oil than you can shake a Sheik at. Even Saudi Arabia is feeling the pinch and trying to sell shares in its monopoly. The best thing a company that BP can do is sack worker [tick] and lower existing workers’ pay [tick]...

I knew the secret of this book before I read it. Joss Moody, jazz trumpeter, extraordinaire is really a woman. So what, I thought. I also thought it would be set in some seedy jazz country called New York. But it’s not, it’s set in London, Glasgow and Torr and spans about sixty years from the early fifties. And I’d guess, from reading Red Dust Road , it’s the kind of quiet place and space that Jackie Kay’s parents John and Ellen, who live in...

Ronny Delia will be the loneliest man in Scotland this morning. In case you didn’t notice Rangers are back. They beat Celtic in a Scottish Cup semi-final, in a penalty shoot-out, after drawing 2-2, after extra time. Triumphalism from the Huns, and rightly so. Over the piece they had more possession of the ball and were the better team. That tells you everything you need to know about Celtic. Out fought and out manoeuvred by a team made up of...

Hard to believe but Walter Smith has been talking sense. The real fear for Rangers should be ten-in-a-row. That’s five in the bag. Five to go. Obviously, Walter would play Goram in goal and Laudrup up front and use the other nine players as defenders. That worked for him, time after time. But Mark Warburton favours a more expansive game. Well, at least I hope he does. Because Walter Smith’s game plan is perfect for derailing the current Celtic...

I didn’t watch this film all the way through. I got to the bit where Detective Sergeant, Bruce Robertson, (James McAvoy) of Lothian Police force looks in the mirror and sees the image of a pig. Pig, filth, black comedy. Gettit? I turned the telly over and watched the end of the Liverpool game. That was exciting. The truth is I don’t know what truth is. But I don’t really need to see the end of the film to know what happens. Writers have a...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b077r82t/panorama-im-broken-inside-saras-story How many children die whilst in psychiatric care? You probably don’t know. If you were health secretary, you might say something to the effect, none that I know of, or you might guess the answer to be four this year, one of them Sarah Green. You might suggest that the knock on effects of broken Britain (my words) is the number of children seeking psychiatric care...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p03ply8y/chasing-dad-a-lifelong-addiction Chasing Dad, is of course a play on Chasing the Dragon, or in other words, heroin addiction. This is a film about father and son. ‘This is it Phil. This is my life.’ ‘I don’t know who you are.’ But the filmmaker tells those watching. ‘My father’s been addicted to heroin as long as I can remember.’ Later, his dad confirms this. He tells his son, and the camera, he...