WELCOME TO HELLO-HELLO HELL, you indefatigable lickspittle

You’ll never guess who I bumped into in Glasgow Airport on Sunday night??!!

The very gorgeous and publicity-shy, George Galloway MP.

“Much Reeespect to ye, George”, I said, as we waited for our bags,”you’re a man I admire.”

That’s what I said as our luggage carouselled it’s way from aeroplane to hand.

I went further. Coz the baggage handlers were a bit slow. I said, “You’re a man, George, who shoots from the hip. You’re a man who, like myself, doesn’t conform to prescribed parameters of behaviour, professional or personal. You like to march in Dublin, side-by-side with Gerry Adams and, WHY NOT, I say - WHY NOT??!! - the man’s never been a terrorist after all and, well, just look at our Gerry now.”

I continued.

“You’re a man, George, who likes to go over to Baghdad and overtly lick right up the arse of a genocidal maniac just so it’ll get ye a bit of publicity for yer next book … oh and allow ye to set up a charity for the people of Iraq - who cares where the money comes from or goes to? Quite right too! Yer boldly sticking up for minorities in Britain so who gives a rat’s arse about the tens of thousands of Kurds Saddam gassed and shot, around the time Celtic were winning their centenary year double or Dundee United - your other team, coz you can play both sides - were reaching the UEFA Cup final? You’re a man who knows how to pick a side and stick to it, George - YOUR side. Appear on Big Brother - that’s the way to do it - that’s the way to spread political emancipation throughout the disenfranchised masses. Everyone will see the irony in your apparent bowing to the lowest common denominator of TV entertainment which would otherwise be known as bullying and personality-raping. Either that or appear in some Lads Mag which masquerades as a football journal and be sure to wear that Celtic strip in yer photo shoot. You’ve still got it, George - you’ve still got it …”

And then, in my excitement, I forgot how big my stomach was and, as I went in for an embrace, I tummy-bumped George onto the carousel, along with all the other baggage he carries around with him. Talk about killing your heroes! I was about to help him up when a couple of other blokes appeared on the scene, looking none too pleased with me and talking about their “religious duty” to help George. I scarpered as fast as my chubby calves would carry me away from these fundamentalist Galloway fans.

Thanks Gord onBrown, George hasn’t reported this incident to the police because, well, there’s so much security at Airports these days - especially cameras - there’s no way they’d not have arrested me by now. And, if they found out I was a Rangers fan there’s the unfortunate chance that, because of media stereotyping, I could be charged with a sectarian(uly)-motivated assault. And I’ve heard George does a very brave radio talk show in which he addresses the evils of sectarianism head on - so how HANDY would that be, ye know, If I’d inadvertantly gone and proved his point about how prevalent a danger the Billy Boys are to all Catholics - even ones as lapsed as GG MP.

Ala Istanbul and Galatasaray, there really should be a huge banner strung across both the international and domestic arrivals gates at Glasgow airport proclaiming “WELCOME TO HELLO-HELLO HELL!”

Honestly, I don’t know how anyone in this city - nay - in this COUNTRY can survive the number of marauding sectarian thugs who, by their singing of such songs and proclamations of such antipathy for both the vatican and the Pope himself (honestly - ye’d think Cardinal Ratzinger was some sort of Nazi in his youth or something the way they go on about him!!), make it very clear they wish to kill and/or maim anyone who ever genuflected in good faith.

For example, there’s no way there’ll be a European final in Glasgow again, after the blood-letting which accompanied the huge numbers of Real Madrid, Seville and Espanyol fans who arrived from strictly Catholic Spain in the May of both 2002 and 2007. I know the Italy fans who visited Hampden for the World Cup qualifier in 2005 were massacred to a man, woman and child in what was widely seen as a revenge attack for the earlier “Piedmont incident”, famously reported by the BBC’s John Milton. The sectarian hordes in Scotland are so stupid they don’t even know Italy is a different country from the Vatican, erm, city … !!!

So, in order to stop this cull, and as a way of somehow making it up to George for my unintentional belly-butt, I’d like to propose that we Rangers fans make the first step in extricating Caledonia from the sectarian mire in which it’s perpetually submerged:

My radical plan is: (now just hear me out here…)

My ridiculously ambitious plan is - WE SHOULD STOP SINGING THE “HULLO HULLO” SONG!!

You heard me - Fat Eck says ‘NO MORE “WE ARE THE BILLY BOYS”‘!

Yes - I know it sounds insane. I know you’re all thinking “He’s got no chance!” and ” What’s all this??! - the man’s Mad!” and “Pah! He’ll be wanting Rangers to sign Catholic players next!” but, I tell you, I really do believe we can do it if we all just pull together and …

Oh …

Erm …

Yes … you’re right… now that I think about it …

We’ve stopped singing it already, haven’t we.

Right, well - it can’t be US who’re sectarian then - so what the fuck does George Galloway being assaulted and harangued have to do with Rangers?

Well - nothing until some GIT mentioned it on a RANGERS WEBSITE!!

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It’s the CLOSE season. All this worrying about transfer targets and who we’re NOT signing - forget it for now! We’ll play the Champions League qualifiers and, if we get through them, Walter and Dave will use up the remainder of the transfer window and the guaranteed dough to get in the personnell we need. And, if we don’t make the Group Stages and even if we do and spend small - it’s all about Dave The Mint selling up anyway. Every Rangers fan with a calculator in one hand and a mouse clicking on Follow Follow in the other wanted him to pull the purse-strings tighter than a Keira Knightley ball gown last time I looked so why teh fuck are we suddenly screaming Blue Murder when teh guy’s clearly on his exit strategy.

Look - I know the answer to that one - please don’t bother … Main Point is, GIVE YERSELF A BREAK! Have a warm-down then a chill-out from what has been a tortuously long, hard season. It’s difficult - especially as I want ARGENTINA TO WIN THE COPA AMERICA SO BADLY THAT I COULD SCREAM ABOUT IT ALL ACROSS CYBER SPACE and, especially as I work out that, had we not been playing Chelsea on the 26th of July and I’d gone off to see Barcelona at Murrayfield, I could have seen three winners of the European Cup playing in Scotland in the space of five days - Ajax at Ibrox on the Tuesday, Notts Forest at East End Park on the Thursday and Barce in Embra on the Saturday! Celtic playing Parma means it’s a European cup-winners fest in Caledonia in that July week anyway but, like The Special One himself, I’ll gladly swap the Catalans for the Stamford Bridgers!…

Shit - see how hard it is to STOP talking fitbaw - but we’ve got to TRY to let it go for at least a minute or two, to recuperate ‘n that. I’m down to one rant a week now - maybe two at most - and then I’m off to the Basque Country in early July to bottom-out for a full TEN DAYS of web-free life. And then I’ll build it back up, slowly. As The Gers per-season train, as the friendlies float in, as the SPL fixtures loom and as the UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE seeps back into my pores …

But, til then …

Watched Oceans 13 at the flicks on Saturday. Like a can of Coke and a King-size Mars bar - overly sweet, bad for you and GREAT FUN. Steven Sodebergh could make even Parkhead look smooth and glamorous, Plus they made at least TWO cheeky references to the Godfather script in honour of Al Pacino’s masterful appearance.

Then, on Saturday night, I watched the latest instalment of The Seven Ages of Rock - a blatant re-hash of about five previous documentaries on music mythos - and maybe it was the football detoxing taking its toll but I was struck by how lame all these once-fascinating stories have become on their latest retelling: Ozzie OZbourne pissing on the Alamo in his wife’s dress, Jimi Hendrix’s genius making Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton think about retiring, Dylan getting abuse from folk traditionalists for going electric - yawn - yawn - yawn… heard it once, heard it more times than Steve Tyler snorted charlie.

And, then, they did the usual story about Deep Purple. And, other than the hilarious huffiness of Ian Gillan and Ritchie Blackmore, the anthemic Smoke on the Water is the heart of any Deep Purple tale. The lyrics are supposed to be monumental but, of course, they’re nothing more than an INCREDIBLY BORING travel diary entry, as written by what seems like a seriously unimaginative and rather pedantic 12-year-old. “We all went on a seaside holiday to make a record, we did, and then this place went on fire and it was scary - and mum and dad were very, very cross…”

What makes Smoke On The Water so memorable is, of course, the guitar riff. That IS monumetal and no-one can argue about the simple genius of that part of the song. It’s clear to me that the lyrics steal their assumed lustre from that riff.

And, of course, this is what happens with “Hullo! Hullo!”.

For 99% of the singers of “the Billy Boys”, the lyrics aren’t what count - it’s the TUNE - it’s the effect of that large, resounding, simple-but-bashing two-syllable repetition: “HUUUUUUUUU-LOH! HUUUUUUUUU-LOH!” - what comes thereafter is just so much mumbo-jumbo to be got through in order to properly frame the hollar of loyalty and excitement we feel for Rangers.

So, when the letters pages of middle-brow newspapers are full of pollysylabic hysteria about the appointment of “Sectarianism-ratifier” Gordon Smith and when Celtic fans wave flags proclaiming “blessing yourself is not a crime” when NO-ONE EVER SAID IT WAS, it’s very important we only bow as far as we SHOULD in such matters. Rangers are NOT about sectarianism and being up to our knees in anything other than SILVERWARE! So let’s keep our rousing tune but appropriately change the lyrics which so offend - thereafter we retain our identity and anyone who objects is shown to be the kind of squawking hate-filled professional victim and inverted bigot they really are:

I tried we’re up to our knees in “Toast ‘n cheese” but that never really caught on so, how about…

HUUUUUUUUU-LOH! HUUUUUUUUU-LOH!
We are the Rangers boys,
HUUUUUUUUU-LOH! HUUUUUUUUU-LOH!
You’ll know us by our noise!
We’re up to our knees in LEAGUE TROPHIES
And you know fucking why:
Coz we are the Glasgow Rangers boys!

Nah - sod it - I hate the use of that word … the word “boys” … and we’re “The Rangers FC” - we’ve never been “Glasgow Rangers”…

I’ll keep working on it .

Dah-da-da-dee …Oh, we all went down to Montreaux, on the lake Geneva shoreline …

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Published:
06.13.07 / 10pm
Category:
News