A wee bit of common sense about Scotland's shame game
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/reasons-to-be-fearful/Last Saturday evening I got an idea of just how much the hacks in Glasgow had been grieving the loss of the ‘Old Firm’.
I did not really have a handle on how much they felt the loss of the fixture that defined their … ahem …journalism.
Well, now I know.
On Radio Clyde, anything mentioned about carnage on the streets or domestic abuse by callers was swatted away.
Apparently the national game in Scotland “needs this match” and anything else is detail.
Presumably within this narrative we can file the name of Mark Scott as a detail, although I am sure the lad’s family would see it differently.
My preferred scenario would have been Celtic being drawn against one of the other clubs and being beaten in that semi-final.
I would much rather that the Sevco customer base had two victorious outings at Hampden than my club meet with the creature that was created by Charles of Normandy in 2012.
However, it will happen now and the hacks cannot contain their glee.
A long time ago I once heard an experienced journalist dissing another member of my trade.
“Ah him, he’s just a bungalow writer”.
I didn’t get the significance of the term and the look on my face must have conveyed that because an explanation was proffered immediately.
“One story. He’s only got one story”.
As with all homophone humour it only really works with the spoken word.
The hacks have been huddled in their Old Firm bungalow since 2012.
This is the story that they understand and what they’re comfortable with.
Over the last two years or so The People have developed a sense of victimhood that would make members of an end of the world cult appear rational and open to debate.
They believe that their club was the victim of a vast conspiracy.
This scenario would not be out of place within the script of “A Beautiful Mind”.
I’m fairly certainly that some of The People have a wall of their abode plastered with cuttings and post it notes that connects half of humanity into this conspiracy.
The simple truth is more prosaic.
Rangers went out of business owing millions of pounds to 276 creditors.
The club formed in 1872 self-destructed in 2012.
No one made them borrow money that they could not afford and they were not forced to adopt creative taxation polices that Hector considered a form tax evasion.
Quite simply Rangers did it to themselves.
Since Charlie Green turned up and bought the body parts of the dead club the grotesque entity he created has managed to somehow lose £67m in 18 months.
Coincidentally during that time Charles of Normandy got himself a château.
All of this means that The People, imbued with a Herrenvolk sense of entitlement, have been publicly humiliated and openly derided on Planet Fitba for over two years.
Rather than face up to the facts they sought refuge in a conspiracy theory where Rangers was a helpless victim rather than that author of their own downfall.
Regardless of what happens on the field of play that fixture early next year could provide a releaser cue to the next Jason Campbell.
When the mainstream media is asked to discuss ‘Old Firm violence’ they are already operating within a narrative that is based upon a false equivalence.
The ‘one side is as bad as the other’ mantra is an official fiction that official Scotland must abide by.
Anyone who is not on message is told rather quickly to parrot the officially sanctioned truth of Rorschachian symmetry.
However, the truth can be revealed by examining blood stains rather than inkblots.
I will not be in Glasgow during that fixture. Instead, I will seek the tranquillity of an Irish hillside.
My fear is that the emergency services will be anything but tranquil before and after that match at Hampden.
The hacks, by peddling the same club myth, have only fed the sense of injustice that The People now want to make someone pay for.
Those who cling to the North Korean viewpoint that this is the same club at Ibrox may wish to pay back the thousands of pounds owed to the Ambulance Service by Rangers (1872 -2012).
The same fascist underclass that celebrated in George Square when fear defeated hope in the independence referendum will be hoping to strike terror into some unfortunate, outnumbered victim.
Some of the chaps who sing of wading up to their knees in blood are not averse to spilling some of it providing, of course, that the haemoglobin has sufficient traces of perceived Irishness.
However, the hacks are happy.
The city that voted to leave Britain in September will again see the face of Bulldog Britain in all of its tacky fascism at the national stadium.
In the next three months the stenographers will mercilessly wear out the lexicon of armed conflict in describing this game of association football.
I have on occasion mixed with the denizens of the Fitba fourth estate and they did not immediately strike me as war correspondent material.
The last time these two sets of supporters were in Hampden at the same time, The People indulged in constant Fenian blood wading and belted out the Famine Song.
The Scottish Government’s Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill stated that:
“This was the showpiece final everyone wanted to see, and it was a great advert for Scottish football.
“Both teams were passionate, committed and it was end to end stuff from kick off to the final whistle.
“The players, management and fans contributed to a memorable occasion, and I urge that their positive example inside the ground is replicated outside it over the course of the evening and beyond.”
This “showpiece” included a cacophony of anti-Irish racism from a section of the Rangers support throughout the match.
Even the hacks could not invent any false symmetry apropos the discriminatory chanting at the final, so they hardly mentioned it.
Of course Celtic and Sevco were likely to meet at some point.
However, it is the glee of the hacks that I find nauseating.
Thankfully today I am off down the Rocky Road for the entire week.
I am attending the Web Summit which has been called Davos for geeks.
Twenty thousand assorted digital types from all over the planet will be in Dublin for a week of deals, debate and the craic.
I’m wearing the NUJ jersey and I’m really looking forward to it.
Apparently I also have to do a thing called ‘networking’.
I should be ok at that as some of my kin in Mayo were fishermen a long time ago.
Subsequently, my sojourn in the capital will mean that this site will have little if any new output this week.
Which is probably for the best for at the moment my mind is darkened and my outlook made bleak by an appalling vista which fills the Glasgow hacks with such giddy glee.
They should be sick with shame.
Share this:
Email
