Where are we now?

[andy steel 0]

It's traditional at this point to take a look at the year about to end, and perhaps make some predictions for the year to come. But, in truth, the time period of a year is too short to come to any conclusions, about either the past or indeed the future. Anyone interested in history will know that while humans are fated to live like Lena Martell - one day at a time, sweet Jesus - events only make sense over the broad sweep of time - a decade, say, or more usually longer.

 

And even then, what is clear in hindsight rarely feels like a logical, linear progression toward an outcome at the time – for example, Britain's Empire is often described as being accidental, rather than part of some great design, gradually increasing in size and power through discrete and random actions by people who knew nothing of any bigger picture and sought a purely local or temporary advantage.

 

Nothing stands still in human affairs, though, and if we can't provide an accurate summary of why things happened over the last year we can at least look on, sometimes in wonder, sometimes in horror, at how things evolve.

 

Take the unexpected results of the Green movement of the 1980’s. When REM’s Michael Stipe protested against Exxon, I doubt he could have predicted that in 20 years’ time it would be socially acceptable for people to wander the streets clutching little plastic bags of excrement. Yet this offshoot of the environmental movement is evident everywhere, as all types of dog owner, from those who have a mongrel on a string to the proudest pedigree purchaser, think nothing of sauntering along, gaily swinging an evil smelling poke of shite with all the elegance of a model displaying the latest Louis Vuitton handbag on the catwalk.

 

In a subversive sub-plot to this societal change, these little collections of keech can also be found festooning trees and bushes, whence they have been slung by owners responsible enough to pick up their dog's mess, but who can't be bothered lugging it to the nearest red bin. Like an offering to an especially unsavoury pagan God, these manky tributes thankfully degrade pretty quickly in our climate, and are anyway a small price to pay for the removal of the all-pervasive poop on the pavement I remember from my youth. I'd rather (quite quickly) pass a tree bedecked with dog doo, like some malodourous negation of the Christmas tree, than tip toe through the turds on the streets, so ‘well done’ to the dog owners.

 

For they don't really have to do it, this clearing up after Fido. I know there are fines but if you're out at half eleven on a rainy night, the chances are no-one will ever know if you leave Rover's rectal emissions lying around or not. We may live IRONY in a Stasi-like SNP one party state IRONY, but we're not so far down the road that van loads of Dog Wardens appear, all screeching tyres, tartan uniforms and accusing fingers, should you furtively slope off without getting your hands all smelly last thing at night.

 

And in general, if people think they can get away with something, they'll probably try to. Not at the deep end of the offence pool - murder, robbery, hatching conspiracies with Manus Fullerton etc - but the everyday, simple offence, which doesn't break a law but which you know in your heart is slightly wrong, the kind of thing that would make your Mum purse her lips, cross her arms and look at you like she did when you 'had an accident' long after you were supposed to be past that sort of thing.

 

The more boring the situation, the more the temptation must be to pep things up with what seems like a little harmless rebellion. The guy or gal who writes the info for Sky’s TV listings is a case in point - at some point, that company must have advertised for a creative writer to knock out 20 or 30 word precis of every programme which appears on the multitude of channels we are now treated to. What I imagine was fun, then diverting, for about a week would quickly assume the dimensions of a curse, with our hero doomed to repeat the same task over and over as the same programmes re-appear on channel after channel, dragged from their all too justified graves and resurrected, like so many proposals for the restructuring of Scottish football.

 

Plainly, at some point it all got too much for Sky’s demented typist, and the urge to have a little mischief got too much. There is, high in the stratosphere of TV channels, a US import station called Information TV. Primarily existing to stream live greyhound racing of an evening, for reasons which are beyond me they fill up the rest of their allotted schedule with some religious programming, a slot for new comedy, but in the main with US 'B' movies of the 50's onwards.

 

These are usually of such low technical quality that you can't actually hear the soundtrack, which may in most cases be a blessing. It brings back memories of guidance class as school, where 44th generation recordings of Age Concern videos would be stuck on for an hour to keep the kids diverted while the teachers got the quarter bottles out. An alarming hiss of static would build up between dialogue, and God help your eardrums if one of the struggling 'actors' involved opted for a dramatic pause. But the point is that the info guy (or gal) at Sky has found, at last, an outlet for their talent: some of them are quite excellent.

 

 

Or how about this one. Apologies for the tiny size.

 

 

And so on. Perhaps this societal change is already underway, up there in the silent regions of cable TV, and in 20 years we will find that slagging the TV shows normally seen as untouchable is as acceptable as waving a biodegradable bag of festering canine effluent around the place.

 

Other, more serious, areas of life are increasingly being questioned: the recent vote to authorise airstrikes in Syria remains a matter of huge division in the country, for while most agree that ISIS are a bunch of nutters without whose prescence the world would be a better place, quite how chucking another level of armament into a mixer which already has Russian, Syrian, Turkish and American missiles whizzing around - to say nothing of, on the ground, Syrian rebels, the other Syrian rebels, the Syrian rebels from a few years ago, the Kurds, and for all I know 101 other groups - quite how this constitutes helping the situation is beyond my ken.

 

But then, making a big song and dance isn’t always as effective as quietly going about your business. It's a little known fact that, proportionately, the country which suffered most as a voluntary participant in World Wars 1 & 2, Korea and Vietnam, was New Zealand. It's also not generally known that the country which provided most soldiers for UN peacekeeping operations (up to the end of the 20th century, at least) was Canada. Both countries proving that states can help as best they can without acting like idiots. While nothing can ever protect a country from attack by loonies, it scarcely helps to paint a giant target over your homeland while creating new generations of enemies every year, as we do all too often. Maybe a change in that attitude would be the biggest societal shift of all.

 

Around our beloved team, questions are also being asked, . Who knows, in 20 years maybe singing certain songs which include certain words will have ceased to be an item of interest for SPFL match delegates. After over a decade moaning about the subject I've little interest left in fighting people who hold their own importance above that of our club. Last Monday’s assault on the Monkees' 'Daydream Believer' probably had more to do with festive bevvying than any great urge to bring back the old days, but even so, anyone who sang along and didn't think Rangers - not them, of course, but Rangers - would have to pay some sort of price for it is beyond stupid and into a whole new level of idiocy, drunk or not.

 

As well as which, it's a gross insult to Neil Diamond.

 

Graham Spiers article on the subject seems to fairly sum things up, which is a shame as it's hard to get on board with someone who has been quite so oleaginous in his relations with celtc. What's sauce for the goose and so on, so it's a bit much to accept the deserved spanking for our mistakes while more favoured groups are treated with sympathy and understanding. Stupidity at the football is stupidity at the football, end of. But essentially, he's right - the decent fans have done all they can, and to remove the people who think they are defending Rangers by harming it is going to require actual, meaningful moves by the club. Not easy, especially at this moment. But if not now, when?

 

Farewell, then, 2015. It may be OK to enthusiastically greet friends while holding dog poo; it may be OK to go quietly mad on TV stations no-one watches; it may even one day become OK not to run round the world smashing up countries when they get a bit uppity. And Scottish football? We might have got the poo off the streets, but not yet out of football. Who knows what the future will bring. While we wait to see, Happy New Year.

Edited February 23, 2017 by andy steel

[der Berliner 3,290]

Without derailing the debate at hand early on ...

 

We may live in a Stasi-like SNP one party state ...

 

... is stretching it a bit, on more sides than one. What the Stasi is said to have done - more "quantity- than quality"-wise - has been blown out of all proportions and pales in contrast to what e.g. dozens of US secret services et al do right to this day, within and outside the US of A. Snowden, anyone? (And if you think that the Mossad, MI6, BND and the like are any different, think again!) But since it was done by the naughty communists behind the Iron Curtain, it seemingly can be used as an easy tool to whip up near Nazi-Germany-like imagery. And neither the quote above or the one in my last sentence comes close to modern day Scotland.

Edited December 31, 2015 by der Berliner

[forlanssister 3,060]

Without derailing the debate at hand early on ...

 

 

 

... is stretching it a bit, on more sides than one. What the Stasi is said to have done - more "quantity- than quality"-wise - has been blown out of all proportions and pales in contrast to what e.g. dozens of US secret services et al do right to this day, within and outside the US of A. Snowden, anyone? (And if you think that the Mossad, MI6, BND and the like are any different, think again!) But since it was done by the naughty communists behind the Iron Curtain, it seemingly can be used as an easy tool to whip up near Nazi-Germany-like imagery. And neither the quote above or the one in my last sentence comes close to modern day Scotland.

 

When was you last in Scotland?

[limeburner 0]

Db,i dont think the piece was meant to provoke debate----it was a light hearted article(which i enjoyed).

[andy steel 0]

Without derailing the debate at hand early on ...

 

 

 

... is stretching it a bit, on more sides than one. What the Stasi is said to have done - more "quantity- than quality"-wise - has been blown out of all proportions and pales in contrast to what e.g. dozens of US secret services et al do right to this day, within and outside the US of A. Snowden, anyone? (And if you think that the Mossad, MI6, BND and the like are any different, think again!) But since it was done by the naughty communists behind the Iron Curtain, it seemingly can be used as an easy tool to whip up near Nazi-Germany-like imagery. And neither the quote above or the one in my last sentence comes close to modern day Scotland.

 

A few things in reply, dB. First, it being Hogmanay I won't be able to lay my hands on the books I'm after for a day or so but claiming the Stasi's behaviour has been blown out of proportion is, from my reading, not correct & I'll be happy to bring examples of why I believe that in days ahead. I do think, though, that you are defending the indefensible when you portray the DDR as anything less than a totalitarian state which didn't hesitate to use all methods, up to an including execution, to control its citizens. I have severe reservations about the UK as a political entity but they don't go that far, not even MI6, so your comparison is inaccurate.

 

Second, clearly Scotland is not like East Germany under Honecker, or even the lamentable Egon Krentz - what happened to him, I wonder? However, a popular complaint amongst those who oppose the SNP is that Scotland is a one party state, and although it is plainly moronic the term 'stasi-like' is in frequent use here to describe some of their policies. Hence the mild piss take.

[BEARGER 1,829]

Without derailing the debate at hand early on ...

 

 

 

... is stretching it a bit, on more sides than one. What the Stasi is said to have done - more "quantity- than quality"-wise - has been blown out of all proportions and pales in contrast to what e.g. dozens of US secret services et al do right to this day, within and outside the US of A. Snowden, anyone? (And if you think that the Mossad, MI6, BND and the like are any different, think again!) But since it was done by the naughty communists behind the Iron Curtain, it seemingly can be used as an easy tool to whip up near Nazi-Germany-like imagery. And neither the quote above or the one in my last sentence comes close to modern day Scotland.

 

Got to agree, stopped reading at that comment. Why some of our fans talk in this way is beyond me.

Edited December 31, 2015 by BEARGER

[limeburner 0]

Db,i dont think the piece was meant to provoke debate----it was a light hearted article(which i enjoyed).

Totally ignore this from me.

[ranger_syntax 3,795]

Without derailing the debate at hand early on ...

 

This is a clever joke indeed.

[andy steel 0]

Got to agree, stopped reading at that comment. Why some of our fans talk in this way is beyond me.

 

Oh for Heaven's sake, it wasn't meant to be taken as my personal opinion. Hopefully this may ease your mind a bit:

 

[Maxdazzy 0]

oh for heaven's sake, it wasn't meant to be taken as my personal opinion. Hopefully this may ease your mind a bit:

 

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boooooooo! Boooooooooooo!