celticman's blog

Lionel Messi was meant to be a sick note, not a seen it, done it message– he only scored two goals in just over ninety minutes here, one a penalty, which doesn’t really count. His first came from another tax dodger currently under investigation by the Spanish authorities (why can’t we do that here?) Up until that point Andy Rat and me had been celebrating each ten minute spell that passed without Barca scoring, me with a pint. Andy with a coke...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/b083bjdv I’m a big fan of BBC 4 and Nordic noir. This feels like cheating, get into dialect and ask yourself how the fuck can we have Aussie noir, when everything is bright and breezy and the action takes place within spitting distance of Bondi beach? But here we have the usual motifs, an outsider in the police department, looking to prove herself Tori Lustigman (Yael Stone) a pint-sized cop, an Aussie Sarah...

If we exclude the launch party for my debut novel Lily Poole , where I didn’t have to do anything much, but go to the bar and buy drinks and get a couple of selfie-styled photos, then yesterday’s outing in Dalmuir Library was my first outing as an author. There were only two things made me more nervous than losing something on a flip of the coin. A heads up (i) There would be an audience. (ii) No audience. The tale of the latter was far more...

Hyperbole: hyperbole hʌɪˈpəːbəli/Submit noun exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally. synonyms: exaggeration, overstatement, magnification, amplification, embroidery, embellishment, overplaying, excess, overkill. Pre-Trump becoming the 45 th American President and post-Trump, taking up tenure of office and becoming United States President, is not will Donald J Trump, last the four-year term, but will the world? That may...

I’m not sure how to write reviews. Usually, I start by saying something about the writer, such as I knew nothing about Gay Talese until I read an interview with him in The Observer Review, which focused on his latest book, the name of which I can’t remember, but the story centered around a man who ran a hotel and peeked through the ceiling at the room below and the couples that had sex in them. That piqued my interest. Next up, an online...

Those with long memories can remember a certain Ranger’s goalie being virtually unbeatable, Celtic doing everything but score and Brian Laudrup galloping up the park and winning it for Rangers. Matt Gilks played a great impression of Andy Goram, but there was no great Dane to run away with it for the underdogs. Leigh Griffiths, in 87 minutes, set up the other best striker in Scottish football, Moussa Dembele whose sublime touch won the game for...

Underneath the title on the cover, in brackets, is a dictionary definition of what The Revenant means ( n . one who has returned from the dead). Every actor after every new release must also return from the dead. Leonardo Di Caprio banked another $20 million, and got the added bonus of an Oscar as Best Actor playing the part of frontiersman Hugh Glass, a man that just wouldn’t lie down and die. This is a novel of derring-do, with a lot of daring...

I’ll be sorry to see the end of ABCtales.com. Most folk will not of heard of it, or be that interested. In theory there’s almost 120 000 stories (poetry counts as a story) online, written by almost 20 000 writers. That works out at six stories per writer. But if you believe that you’ll probably believe some of the unbelievable shit I’ve written over the last eight years. It helps if you have no idea what moderation is. My normal day consisted of...

The better team won and deserved to win, but the Borussia goals were second-half gifts from Kolo Toure. The second goal in 77 minutes, which effectively killed off the tie, was attributed to Andre Hahn and flew into the top corner, leaving Craig Gordon, the Celtic keeper with no chance, but a more careful viewing might show that Toure’s attempted tackle simply added power and dip to the shot. Twenty minutes earlier he’d been caught dawdling with...

The Prologue starts with a mystery, who is this man and what’s he doing? At first light on a late summer morning, a man in a hooded sweatshirt moved softly and slowly along an ordinary looking street in South London…Pepys Road.’ He posts cards through people’s door: I WANT WHAT YOU HAVE. Here’s the message Lanchester is trying to get across (without being didactic) houses by late 2007 were no longer just a place where people lived, but an...