celticman's blog

Brendan phoned me last night. I’ve known him longer than Laughing Boy had hair. ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘Brendan.’ Neither of us use our mobile phones much. I don’t know where mine is (it’s just beeped somewhere behind me, because it’s out of charge, and that gives me a clue). So we’ve got to explain who we are when we phone. We did the usual how’s it gaun? flung back and forth between us, until he got down to why he was phoning. ‘I’ve got £20 for...

I was out at the pub watching a Champions League match. (I won’t be saying that for a while.) Punters were crowding round the bar and the barmaid was looking through me as if I was made of glass. I bumped into Tam-who-will-remain nameless. ‘You’ll never believe it,’ he said. ‘Somebody’s put a video of somebody that looks like you up selling something?’ ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘But it’s really funny.’ Neither of us laughed. ‘You...

What you see is what you don’t get is a wysiwyg clause I rarely use in normal conversation. I was out last night to meet my adoring public. It was Saturday night and it was the Drop Inn so you can guarantee a crowd of at least four people and Wullie Dalziel. There’s a rule that nobody can kiss at the bar, unless it’s Brian Thompson, and he’s had a bit much and he hears some song on the Jukebox and wants to do his wee Indian dance and wants to...

http://unbound.co.uk/books/lily-poole I used to think that writers were two exotic beasts joined by a furrowed brow -- the person that writes and the person that edits. The taxonomy has changed. Upon closer examination I recognised a third diablo poking out between the bones of the writer, clinging to the person and their reality and claiming to be an independent personality, the writer’s real self and willing to sell their souls for the quick...

James Leslie Mtichell took the pseudonym of Lewis Grassic Gibbon and was author of the classic A Scots Quair, the best known (and best liked) being Sunset Song . I can't say I know a lot about the man. He died young, in his early thirties in the 1930s. He was a Socialist that lived in Aberdeen and like his heroine Chris Guthrie had a strong link with the Cloud of the Howe land and a calling to be educated with a love of books and learning...

Scratch’s ‘Daniel’ series of stories on ABCtales is coming to a conclusion. I’ve been having flashbacks, images of long black frocks and oversized crucifixes, the parish priest Canon Mallon and my teacher Mrs Boyle standing next to him, but with a slightly smaller crucifix. Little did I know that I was involved in a cruel experiment and like many others I’m ready to sue and seek therapeutic help by getting it down on paper. There are others like...

Lots of folk ask me how Unbound Works. (Well, one person, thanks for that Eddie.) The answer is quite simple. I've no idea But then I thought back to my gilded youth when everything was quite simply complicated so that even a kid could understand it. Unbound is like Blue Peter without -down Shep! In those days John, Peter and Val stood in front of a big hollow tower, made out of polystyrene, with banded numbers on it. They'd look quite glum...

The Men Who Made Us Spend . BBC 2, 9.10pm. This is a three-part series directed, written and presented by investigative journalist Jacques Peretti. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01zxmrv/the-men-who-made-us-spend-episode-1 In the first episode he looked at how monopoly capital makes it’s own rules. He gave the example of electric bulb makers in pre-Hitler Germany which sounded like an elder of Zion conspiracy theory only for the paperwork...

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights was published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell in 1847 because women don’t write books, only they do. Heathcliffe is the hero, or should I say anti-hero. He’s got a hint of gypsy in him, a man’s man that marries Isabella Linton to spite his childhood sweetheart Catherine Earnshaw (hints of incest here) hangs Isabella’s dog from a gatepost to show what kind of man she’s marrying and beats his head against the branch...

It’s a catchy title that titillates. You know when you open the pages it won’t be like wading through text book squiggles of grey snails lining up to teach you something meaningful about the author’s life that you don’t want to know. It won’t try and regress you or teach you that God is on your side if you can just [well, fill in your own bit here]. To begin with Hudson’s book disappointed me. It has been described as autobiographical. Here, the...