2005 was a Long (but still good) year

Dunfermline game sucked over the weekend. Was not impressed but the other results over the weekend meant it didn't hurt us quite as bad as it could have. Roll on the Christmas Holidays.

2005 has been a very long year. I've moved countries, brought all our furniture across too, put said furniture in storage, got a new job, rented a flat, put some of furniture in rented flat, applied for a mortgage, got a mortgage, looked for flats, found a flat, bought a flat, threw out all our furniture, boiler was broken on new flat, had some cold showers, replaced boiler and furnished flat with new furniture and as of today I am on my Christmas holidays.

In short.....its been a great, if somewhat busy, year. I will now be gorging myself on food and drink for the forseeable future and will probably wake up sometime in 2006 thoroughly refreshed.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Very Keane

Feeling very Irish today. And by that I mean hungover. Went to see the Pogues play in Glasgow last night!! Hangover cure has arrived in the shape of the news that Roy Keane has signed for Celtic! Now I know I lambasted the idea of Roy Keane signing when it first became a possiblity but now that its happened I have to admit to being somewhat excited. Its not often a player destined for Real Madrid ends up at Celtic. Perez must've thought he wasn't Brazilian looking enough!!

I'll save talk of team formations for the pub but it will be interesting to see how Strachan plans on fitting Roy and his ego into the squad. Fingers-crossed Roy's professed love for all things Celtic will prevent him from 'doing a Saipan' before the end of the season.

Confident of a Win?

There's no sure thing in football which I suppose is part of the appeal. The possibility of defeat makes victory taste that much sweeter and for those unfortunate times when your team does lose it, well, you just gotta hope that next week is gonna be different. The anticipation during the game, the oohs and aaahs at near misses, the crunching tackles or moments of pure skill that can rally the team (and the crowd), it's a 90 minute thrill-ride on a rollercoaster with 60,000 seats and well worth the ticket price.

Well now that my ode to football is over let me tell you a story about last Saturdays game. A cracking game by all accounts and real end-to-end stuff. Celtic went 1-0 up (Hartson) before half time but fell asleep at the start of the second when Hibs answered back with two great goals. So Celtic are down by one and after the Dunfermline disaster 2 weeks ago I can't believe its all gone pete tong again. Still, you have to take the rough with the smooth and if we're going to win the league then the bhoys have to win the tough ones too. I turn to the fellow fan sitting to my left to share this reflection only to find him beaming from ear to ear.

"What are you so I happy about?" I ask, somewhat surprised at his cheshire grin.

To answer my question he produces a betting slip showing he's got a £1 bet at 66/1 for Celtic to be winning at half-time but to lose over the full 90. At this point let me remind you that my seat is deep in Celtic Season ticket holder territory and fellow fan is a season ticket holder himself. Now I understand his reasoning: If Celtic win then hooray, he loses a pound but is comforted by the fact that Celtic were victorous, if Celtic lose then he can numb the pain with the £66 he collects from his bet. Cheap wins in my opinion and not really getting into the spirit of things!!!

Celtic bravely fought back and a great free kick from Maloney and Hartson tap-in put Celtic ahead 3-2 and win them the game. The crowd stood and cheered their warriors, delighted at victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.

My fellow fan stood and cheered with the rest of us but as his now useless betting slip fell to the ground he glanced at it with what I firmly believe was disappointment.

Accident & Emergency By the Way....Pal

Having found myself in Glasgow's Royal Inifrmary Accident & Emergency because of *Insert your own vulgar kitchen-utensil-in-an-unexpected-orifice story here*, it was the expected gloomy atmosphere of a busy A&E department that greeted me. Like any responsible citizen I whiled away the waiting time looking at the other waitees trying to figure out what was wrong with them. Ok, the guy with a hacksaw through his face was an easy guess but most people didn't seem to have anything obviously wrong with them. It was therefore up to my finely-honed detective skills to try and deduce what their unfortunate conditions were:

Old lady (on her own) looking uncomfortable and walking funny (but often) to the bathroom.
My Diagnosis: Urinary Tracht Infection

Middle-aged couple (wife sitting, husband standing) he's sweating and looks mad.
My Diagnosis: S&M Experiment possibly involving a cheese grater and testicles gone horribly wrong.

Young early 20s Faked-Tanned Female Glasgow Socialite still wearing yesterday clothes.
My Diagnosis: Looking for Morning after pill after bedding the starting 11 of an amatuer league football team during 'a good christmas night out'

There's only so long you can play that game though (and to be honest I just keep picking sexually related stuff) which is why I was thankful when a hapless junkie, who we'll call Bub rolled up on into A&E. This guy was oozing the comic genius that only dedicated years of chasing the dragon can provide (Don't do drugs kids - beating people up and recording it on your phone is enough for now). As the A&E gang sat around in collective despair Bub was hemoragging humourous rhetoric that Billy Connolly would sell his beard for. Wearing about 5 layers of clothes and a Alan Shearer-esque head bandage he proceeded to bawl his head off desperatly trying to find someone who would help him "GET A FUCKING BOTTLE OF RIBENA!!"

I was stifling laughs already when he decided to take offence, on behalf of all the females in the waiting room, at someone on the communal television saying the word Bitch.

"NO OF YA's ARE BITCHES BY THE WAY. NONE OF YA's, DON'T EVER LET ANYONE TELL YA DIFFERENT.....WELL MAYBE YOU YA BITCH HAHA!!" pointing accusingly at Urinary Tracht Infection Lady

At this stage one of the nurses came out looking for "John Wayne?". Cheese Grater testicles duly stood up but this was too much for Bub.

"JOHN WAYNE??? JOHN WAYNE!!! THAT'S SOME NAME BY THE WAY PAL." ending with a final flourish he proceeded to shot make believe pistols in the air before wandering out into the night presumbly to help some other A&E Department in distress.

Manson's a Tim

Marilyn Manson got married to Ditta Von Teese in Ireland over the weekend. Allegedly* they ensured the ceremony was finished before 2.00pm so they could catch the Aberdeen vs. Celtic match on Setanta.

*Allegedly meaning I made that bit up.

Top of the Morning (and League)

Back where we belong and Rangers continue to flounder. McGeady, Petrov and Telfer (or Son of Strachan as my mate calls him) netting for the bhoys. McGeady has definitely come to life this season under strachan.

I don't think a draw against Falkirk is enough to save McLeish from the inevitable. There's a vacancy at Real Madrid now though. I wonder if they'll be interested!! Champions league is back this week. Time to put the new LCD tv through its paces.

Good to hear

Reported on the BBC website. Celtic are prioritising sorting out Stan's contract. Hopefully he'll get enough of a pay rise to make him more than happy to for the forseeable future and he'll no longer have to supplement his income by working in a burger van.

How many inches is too big?

Nothing gets me over a bout of illness than a bit of retails therapy. Not retail therapy in the girly handbag and matching shoes kind of way, oh no!!, but instead the manly (if somewhat geeky) and noble art of filling your house up with bits of shiny metallicness that do awesome things.

On this weeks shopping list was rather spiffy 26inch Hitachi LCD tv from Richer Sounds which means this weekend I will mostly be attempting to plug all my other shiny metallic toys into in it. Before you think I'm drifting away from my footballing interests, I will of course be using these 26inches of liquid crystal loveliness to watch all available football games and highlights and play FIFA2006 on the XBOX and if there's time a bit of online poker too.