celticman's blog

I was a bit miffed reading The Observer , ‘IN FOCUS’, that no one had asked me to write about David Cameron’s legacy. I can only guess that’s because a blank page wouldn’t appeal to the reader. They would think it was some kind of trick – like global warming on a miserable and wet Scottish Sunday. I listened to Jeremy Corbyn stand up (OK you can’t hear someone standing up on the radio)in the House of Commons (with very few commoners in the House...

Swing Hammer Swing! won the Whitbread Book of the Year. I like whitebread, but scientists with Twitter feeds say it’s not good for ducks or swans. The latter can’t moult and the young are unable to fly. This book does fly, but doesnae go very far. It’s the Gorbals, Scobie Street, when all the houses were falling down and the less-well heeled populist sent on their way. The ne’-er-do-well narrator Tam Clay, 28, wordsmith and would-be-author is...

Aye, I can hear you thinking. What’s he reading that shite for? Well, as you probably know I’ve been trying to sell my book Lily Poole to the unsuspecting public. For two years I’ve been making promises and telling enough lies to become the next Tory Prime Minister. Well, that wasn’t to be, but I did get a lot of support from a couple of homeless folk that I bribed with a bottle of Eldorado and the promise of enough cheap wine to float off to...

Theresa May, or may not be, the next Conservative leader and Prime Minister. But I’m with Clement Attlee on this one. : for the Tory party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin. They condemned millions of first-class people to semi-starvation. Attlee was, of course, fighting his and Labour’s corner. Trying to kick-start the NHS and Welfare State and wrestle the money to pay for it away...

After the success of Jeff Torrington’s Swing Hammer Swing !, The Devil’s Carousel is his follow-up novel. Only it isn’t. It’s not a success and it’s not a novel. The Devil’s Carousel is a collection of short stories, versions of which are listed and have appeared elsewhere, such as ‘The Poacher’ in the Glasgow Herald , ‘The Sink’ in BBC publications, ‘The Fade’ in the Scottia Bar Writers prize. The setting in each story comes from the same place...

Ha-Joon Chang, The Little Blue Book: ‘Economics is politics.’ Charles Darwin urged the ‘weak in mind and body’ to refrain from marriage. That’s why I never married. Contemporary disciples of Francis Galton’s scientific racism now favour that dismal science of pseudo-economics. Economic racism doesn’t discriminate against the rich. It is premised on it. The poor are feedstock for those that have accumulated land and wealth. A propaganda war,...

I’m as repetitive as person with Alzheimer’s, but I think I may have picked this book up before and read the start of it. I really wanted to like this book, but didn’t get beyond page 40. We have the Triads: Tia Lo (the boss) his beautiful daughter Ming Fu. I could tell you who the other Triads are but really who cares. There’ll be another along shortly. And why do all daughters have to be beautiful? Why can’t she look like a banana? Well one...

I went to Dalmuir library yesterday and got three books. Two by Des Dillon and one by Jeff Torrington. Ewan had mentioned Torrington in one of his posts. Although I know I’ve read his book, Swing Hammer Swing , like most books I read I can’t remember anything about it. Nothing. Well, the bit about it being set in Glasgow. Since hearing Des Dillon speak at Dalmuir library I thought he’s one of us and I better read something he wrote. When I got...

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/born-on-the-same-day 7 th March 1944, three babies are born in different parts of the world, the Second World War is just finishing and there’s a population boom as the soldiers come back from the front. The format is familiar. Granada broadcast the original 7UP documentary series in what was meant to be a one off, World in Action programme, in 1964, directed by Michael Apsted. 7UP was meant to tell us...

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/thriller-in-manila/episode-guide Director and script editor John Dower takes us back to 1975, The Thriller in Manila, the fight of the century and the last of the three bruising encounters between Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier. Score card, one win each. Note the running order of syntax in most guides. Muhammed Ali comes first. Then Smoking Joe Frazier. One an iconic image, perhaps second to Nelson Mandela in the...