SEVCO'S CHAMPION

A few years back, in the days when I still had money, my wife and I booked a two-week coach tour of the Eastern USA and Canada, with five days in New York tacked on at the end. There was no way in hell that we were going to take our teenage daughter with us as we knew she'd greet and moan the whole time and spoil it for us. There was also no way in hell we were leaving her in charge of the house; there would have been no house to come back to. All bargains and threats were to no avail, until I hit on the bright idea of her going on holiday herself. I offered to pay for a fortnight in Spain, Greece or wherever. Many of her friends were already in work and planning holidays so I suggested going along with one or more of them. She jumped at the idea and promised to ask around.

The person she decided to go with was her boyfriend, who was in a good job with a good salary. We didn't have much to do with this character; he was as thick as two short planks and was obviously uncomfortable in our company, since our conversation rarely encompassed bragging about beating people up or how we'd paid £200 for a pair of jeans. My daughter asked him and he was more than keen on the idea until she dropped the bombshell - I wouldn't be paying for him. (We didn't have that much money!) That was that idea up in the air!

I was reminded of this boyfriend (long since dumped, thank Christ) when reading about Rangers (sic) First and its putative offer of half-a-grand to Sevco. Now, why would this group even come up with the idea unless somebody at Ibrox had approached it? It seems a strange thing to publicise out of the blue, if you'll pardon the pun, like that. No doubt somebody at Sevco, who, despite the shite published in our media, is toiling for cash, thought it would be a good idea to fleece The Peeppul...I mean, get the supporters on board like that. Unfortunately, it seems that The Peeppul at Rangers (sic) First were under the impression that Honest Dave was going to match whatever they offered. They were soon disabused of this notion on the Fish-ell Sevco website, with the added statement that Sevco had neither asked for nor wanted this money in the first place. Oh dear. They have, however, rather magnanimously promised to bear the offer in mind. I bet they will. Honest Dave's first-class seats back and forward from Jo'burg don't come cheap!

That should have been it but the ante has been upped with Level 5, through the DR, deciding to attack Rangers (sic) First. Rumours abound on the internet about what's going on, fuelled by the fact that James Blair, Sevco's Company Secretary, is also on the board of Rangers (sic) First. There are stories circulating about a letter with the signature of Paul Murray, aka Beau Brummell, on it, splits in the Sevco boardroom, attempts to call King's bluff on his available funds and even the involvement of the police. As if they don't have enough bother at Ibrox without all this! Anyway, it looks as if, as usual, we're going to have to rely on the Bampots to let us know what's going on; our media is firmly in Jabba's pocket.

Speaking of the Daily Record, which I was, I was just thinking yesterday how much the Record has changed over the years. Like many Scottish families, ours was a Scottish Daily Express household, until they moved to Manchester and we, like everybody else, switched to the Record. I was quite taken with the new paper, especially Angus Og, even though I didn't get a lot of the political jokes at the time. Even better, the Record was easier to read without having to fight with a huge, double sheet of paper. The only problem with the switch was that the Record wasn't as good as the Express for putting across the coal fire to make it draw when trying to get it lit in the morning.

As I grew up I still read the Record, enjoying Angus Og even more now that I understood what Ewan Bain was on about. Into the Eighties I liked Joan Burnie's common-sense agony-aunt page and columns as well as Showbiz Sam and a female writer whose name escapes me. Other writers were so up their own arses that I couldn't stand them; Tom Brown was one, Sally Sullivan was another, a woman that took feminism to extremes, only later to end up the editor of a lads' mag. I rarely looked at the sports pages; I wasn't really that interested in football back then. All-in-all, the DR was my kind of paper; it told me the news and had the same political viewpoint as my own. Even when Robert Maxwell took over I stuck with it.

One of the things I loved about the Daily Record was the laugh I used to get about how they tried to find some Scottish connection in everything. David Byrne's granny or something was Scottish, which the DR seemed to see as a good enough reason for liking Talking Heads. I always wondered if there were idiots that ran out to buy Burning Down the House because of Byrne's Scottish granny. But, then, the DR seemed to live in a wee world where folk did actually view things that way, like somebody having albums by the Skids, Exploited and the Jesus and Mary Chain alongside ones by Lulu, Deacon Blue or even the Alexander Brothers, just because they were all Scottish! The paper also viewed TV programmes in the same way, telling us all how great Tutti-Frutti was, even though it was utter shite (even Garnock Way was more memorable). I remember reading how viewers had been 'wowed' by the programme, when the viewing figures suggested otherwise. BBC Scotland repeated the programme twice within a year of its first airing and it fared no better on those showings; the Record, however, maintained otherwise. It was Scottish, you see!

It wasn't until we got into the 21st Century that I began to notice things about the Record that I didn't like. By that time I had been following football for nearly a decade, supporting Celtic like my father and grandfather before me. I used to laugh at the paranoia of Celtic supporters but now I could see for myself that what they had been saying was true. Somebody from Bristol once told me that it was obvious that Rangers was Scotland's Establishment team; the Daily Record seemed to go out of its way to justify this assessment. Rangers, it appeared, could do no wrong, while Celtic could do no right. The Peeppul's songbook, for example, was practically ignored and, on the rare occasions that it was mentioned Celtic was always dragged into it as well. It was an 'Old Firm' problem, apparently, not a Rangers one.

The more I looked at the Record, the more I could see an agenda running through a lot of it; even little things. There was a guy with a face like a melted welly, who used to have a column in the paper every Saturday. His name escapes me but you'll know who I mean; he was always on about attending highland games and meeting up with friends like Colin Montgomerie and Gordon Ramsey. He had a competition one week where you could win a bottle of single malt by writing new words to Scotland the Brave. I couldn't believe it when he published the winners lyrics, which had been stolen verbatim from Glen Daly's comedy version. I e-mailed to complain but nobody bothered to reply. It occurred to me then what the probably reason was for nobody checking or recognising the lyrics; none of them had ever listened to Mr. Glasgow. It's not hard to figure out why. Or am I just being paranoid?

And then there was Jabba, with his own particular brand of filthy sectarian and racial bigotry. This was the man that called for Scottish football to help Walter Smith's team in 2008, by extending the season, when they had reached the UEFA Cup final and was disappointed when things didn't work out. The same man derided Martin O'Neill for wanting ONE game brought forward. He also lambasted Gordon Strachan for wanting a match rescheduled, saying, 'Who the hell do you think you are?' He claimed that the Famine Song was 'just banter', cast aspersions on the mental faculties of those offended by the song and told anyone that was offended to leave Scotland if they didn't like it. That's when I stopped buying the Daily Record.

Of course, I still look at the DR online, mainly for the purposes of writing this blog, which I started up to moan about Traynor in the first place. It's a changed organ if the online edition is anything to go by. The melted-welly-faced guy has gone but so have Joan Burnie, Annie Brown, whose return was short-lived and even Tam Cowan. Jabba has gone as well, of course, after laughably claiming that 'everybody wiz bad tae Raynjurz' but he appears to have more influence now than he ever did when he picked his pay packet up there. The whole paper is under the Svengalian influence of Jabba's Level 5 and has merely become a mouthpiece for The Peeppul.

Gone too is the ridiculous Scottishness expounded by the Daily Record. The paper's thraldom to The Peeppul even extended to campaigning against Scottish independence and you'd be hard-pushed to find any stuff about 'Scottish connections' these days. Since the intended demographic of the paper is now The Peeppul then all pretence at being a proper newspaper is gradually disappearing. I don't know what the paper copy is like but the online edition wouldn't pass a primary-school national test in English. The spelling is shameful, apostrophes are put in the wrong place, words like 'flaunt' and 'flout' are constantly confused and grammar, syntax and punctuation are a disgrace. They're nowhere near as disgraceful, however, as the blatant pandering to The Peeppul.

Not only is practically every story all about how great Sevco and 'Warbs' are, they're never done telling us about crises at Celtic Park. If some team so much as scores one goal against Celtic, then it's a crisis. Meanwhile, Sevco is on the way to European glory by beating teams full of part-timers. This vomit-inducing sycophancy is supplemented by allowing all manner of vile comments to be allowed on the online edition. You're not permitted to upset The Peeppul so you can't even post the word 'title' in case you're talking about the Cheating Years. Meanwhile, The Peeppul themselves post filth about child abuse with absolute impunity. When I used to read the Record it had a sort of banner on its front page saying, 'Scotland's Champion'. It's high time that was changed!

I read a strange conversation on Twitter yesterday, where some benighted Hun was trying to argue that the situation at Ibrox is exactly the same as what happened with Celtic in 1994. He actually said that Celtic was liquidated and the assets bought by Fergus McCann! The lunatic honestly seemed to believe this shite. I wonder if this will catch on and we'll start hearing Uncle Shug etc. on Clyde Superscoreboard use this story to justify their claim that Sevco is 'stull Raynjurz'!

Also on Twitter and also on the subject of Clyde SSB, there was a bit of a kerfuffle the other night when a planned appearance by 'Warbs' failed to materialise. Those seeking answers to this unprecedented lack of respect were informed that Sevco had been in touch merely to tell the station that 'Warbs' wasn't available. Don't these people realise that 'Warbs', as well as getting Sevco ready to conquer Europe with a team full of Action Man's Heids, has other miracles to perform? The situation in the Middle East won't solve itself, you know and there are the massive bush fires in Australia to deal with. He might be superhuman but he can't be everywhere at once!

I've mentioned before the strange phenomenon of baldness among The Peeppul. I blame the ceremonies doon the ludge; there's nothing more likely to cause alopecia than the shock of a goat's horn rammed up where the monkey kept his nuts! Anyway, it works to the benefit of the Ibrox team with the floodlights reflecting off all those baldy nappers into the opposition's eyes of a wet, winter's night. It appears, though, that once you give up Hundom you no longer have the right to sport a Kojak cut. Kris Boyd obviously has no plans ever to return to Ibrox.

Superwarbs to the rescue once again!