WALK THIS WAY

So am I right or am I right? This whole Kellsiegate business is smelling more and more like a set-up. The Daily Record yesterday continued its supposed calls to ban Orange Walks, with Kellsie's family demanding that the annual parades be stopped. As I remember Ian Paisley saying years ago, "Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly."

It turns out that the girl's family members are no strangers to violence and gang fights and, if Peeppul that claim to have seen the incident are to believed, the girl was right in the middle of the fighting at Glasgow Green. Her mother was straight onto Facebook to threaten vengeance. Her post disappeared almost immediately; probably when somebody pointed out that it wouldn't look too great when they were selling their story to the DR. So a girl from a family of neds got injured while involved in a fight with other neds. And now the family are looking to blame the Orange Order for the whole thing.

The 'free-thinking' Peeppul responded with a variety of reasons not to ban their precious Walk:

"Will we close down T In The Park because people get drunk and fight there?"

"how come there always trouble and deaths in t in the park every year and they dont ban that just because some one gets hit with a bottle they want to ban it w.a.t.p"

"lot a trouble and deaths in t in the park nothing said about that but they want to ban the walk"

Christ, they're like the Borg out of Star Trek! The problem is, though, they have a point. Some of them point out that over the years there have been very few arrests at Orange Walks; that, however, is more of a reflection on the Masonic proclivities of our boys in blue than on the good behaviour of your average Orangemen. As I said yesterday, though, calling for a ban on Orange Walks because of what happened to this girl is stupid to say the least. As more details emerge, and they will, about this girl and her family then the whole thing is going to blow up in the face of Jim Murphy.

I always laugh when Orangemen make out that attacks on their organisation are attacks on Protestantism. They're so thick that they honestly believe this. If they were actually marching down the streets to proclaim their Protestant faith and hand out pamphlets to get everyone to turn up at church then nobody would have any problem. Unfortunately, they're no Salvation Army and this is not what they're about at all.

Years ago I knew a lad, just a couple of years younger than me, who was in the Orange Lodge. When I asked him why, he replied it was "Coz Ah'm a Proddissint!" When I enquired as to which church he had been baptised in, he had no idea. I had to inform him that he wasn't a Protestant at all, he was a Heathen! "But Ah'm no' a Cafflick, so Ah must be a Proddissint!" was the best he could come up with. He swore blind that he had been christened, even though he had no idea into which church. He nearly burst into tears when I told him that, for all he knew, he could have been baptised a Catholic!

McMurdo, and others, try to convince us all, and themselves presumably, that the Orange Order is a Christian organisation and you can't join unless you're a Trinitarian Protestant. Considering that they copy Freemasonry in all their rituals, you can just imagine a new recruit:

OFFICIAL: "Do you uphold the principles of the Reformed faith and its Trinitarian beliefs, in accordance with the Nicene Creed and the Westminster Confession?"

WULLIE: "Eh? What diz that mean?"

OFFICIAL: "Are you a Protestant?"

WULLIE: "Aye!"

OFFICIAL: "And do you believe in the Holy Trinity?"

WULLIE: "What's that?"

OFFICIAL: "The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!"

WULLIE: "Izzat no' a Cafflick fing?"

OFFICIAL: "What church do you belong to?"

WULLIE: "The Proddissint Church!"

OFFICIAL: "I need to know whether you're a Unitarian or a Trinitarian. Do you belong to the Church of  Scotland, the Free Church or the Episcopalian Church?"

WULLIE: "Ah don't know!"

OFFICIAL: "Fur fuck's sake! D'ye hate Catholics, son?"

WULLIE: "Aye!"

OFFICIAL: "Then yer in. Here's yer sash!"

Any Orangemen I've ever known have never seen the inside of a church, even though they call themselves Protestants. In their minds being a Protestant merely means that you're not a Catholic! The Orange Order for these folk, and they're the majority, has got nothing at all to do with any religiousness on their part; all it's about is hatred.

As well as the hive-mind T-in-the-Park argument, one of The Peeppul came up with my favourite excuse for maintaining the Orange Walk. I swear, this wasn't a piss-take, as the rest of the guy's post on the Daily Record forum made clear. His argument was that banning Orange Walks would cause unemployment as the companies that supplied the flutes would lose business and have to lay people off! Well that's that settled, then!

I came across quite an interesting essay about the Orange Order in Scotland quite by accident. It's not too long and definitely worth a read: http://www.orangeorderscotland.com/History%20of%20the%20Orange%20Order.pdf What interested me was that not only was it King William IV that wanted the Orange Order banned but that the name of the order changed a few times since its inception, as did the 'headquarters' running the organisation. It has only existed in its current incarnation, as the Loyal Orange Institution of Scotland, since 1876. Tell that to one of The Peeppul the next time they mention 'Pacific Shelf'! Oh, and remember to inform them that a 'King Billy' got them banned in 1836! {P.S. I've just discovered that this essay is actually on the official website of the Orange Order in Scotland!}

Meanwhile, the Bisto FC board has had to admit that they made an 'honest mistake' and lied to the Stock Exchange about Brian Stockbridge's bumper bonus bundle of penny shares. It was Stockbridge himself that did the accounts, which makes it all sound more than a bit dodgy. Of course, the Union of Fuckwits is up in arms and the Sons of Struth are planning another march on Ibrox. Our friendly master of the cut-and-paste, WullieWontHe, has this to say: "FFS WILL THESE POINTLESS MARCHES EVER CEASE ?" Maybe he should get in touch with the Daily Record and ask for them to be banned!

Remember, the Kindle book promotion starts tomorrow and 'Clash of the Agnivores' will be 60p or under for three days. Make sure you take advantage if you haven't already got a copy!

Finally, I was watching a film last night, a comedy-horror that I haven't seen for a few years. It's called 'Wasting Away' and I can definitely recommend it. I was laughing at the opening title sequence and thought everybody else would probably appreciate it
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