Hypocrisy, Cowardice and Economy (of Truth)

Chick Young should take a wee look at himself! In his latest column on the BBC website, he states "Referees on strike, lies and accusations, counter-accusations and nod-and-a-wink allegations of dark forces at work. Plummeting attendances, mountainous debt and a bitterness that has totally forgotten that this is, after all, just a sport."

Note: Don't take it personally, Chick. I am being lazy and accusing you as a "name" to represent that bastion of presbyterian truth and moral indignation that is the loosely described as the Scottish press.

He goes on to pontificate "Scottish football, meanwhile, wraps itself up in its little cocoon of small-mindedness where club chairmen would rather point the finger at referees than discuss the joys or follies of their clubs.

Well spotted, Chick - unusual for you to admit there is any kind of issue with Scottish football other than a lack of a free ride for you and your friends at Ibrox.

Chick - ever impartial and objective, continued to say, "Dougie McDonald and his boss, Hugh Dallas, the referee sacrificial lambs have gone. The hunters killed their prey. Mission accomplished. I assume their assassins are happy."

Well, no, Chick. There are no assassins. What Dougie-Dougie and Shuggie did was commit suicide! They have been found out for not only being biased, lying, cheating and, in Dallas' case, sectarian. They were so arrogant when they were brought to task, that they obviously thought they were untouchable. Irreplaceable - perhaps too comfortable in the protective cradle of the sectarian Scottish press.

In fact, the main reason that Scottish Football has come to this, is because the Scottish Press has failed to brave the kind of abuse and demonisation that you and your Rangers supporting colleagues have hurled at Celtic over the years. You may cry "Foul, ref!, Chick. As you often have against Celtic in the past. We know you too well. You are often economical with the truth, but overflowing with fake moral indignation at the sign of any disagreement with your jaded and tainted opinions. Small-minded ? Yes. Truthful ? Objective ? Investigative ? Revealing ? Only in that it reveals the lack of character, the spineless cowardice of the likes of you and your fake journalist pals.

Had you (The Scottish Press) done the job your position demands anywhere else in the world, the small-minded, sectarian based control of the Scottish establishment, not just that of football, would have been crushed a century ago - and the campaigning that you call "small-mindedness" and the "mission", as you call it, would never have been necessary.

The very fact that you fail to see any kind of fairness in what has happened so far demonstrates that the really petty stuff, the smallest of small-minded attitudes is that of you and your cronies in the Scottish press, the masonic lodges and the terraces of Ibrox. Did I hear you cry "Foul!" again, Chick ?

Get a grip, man! Can you not see that Scottish football and it's controllers did not get where they are without the complicit assistance of the Scottish press. Can you not see that you, personally, have taken no small part in the condoning, and implicit sanctioning of the bias of referees and high ranking SFA officials, past and present, against Celtic FC ? I thought not.

There's Something Wrong Here!

I was just pondering how much more money I'd have under my mattress if it weren't for banks.

I just went overdrawn today becausegot charged for using my eftpos card too many times in the last month. I didn't go overdrawn - until the bank applied their charges at midday.

For the last however long time it is, every wednesday, at 9pm my paltry pittance is deposited into my bank by my employer. And once a month, on seemingly random days around 4 weeks apart, sometimes on a monday, sometimes on a friday or any day in between, the bank apply the charges and I always seem to be left owing them money, even though I don't spend all of my income.

I don't begrudge banks, or any business making a fair profit, but I have a couple of questions for bankers:

1) While my money is sitting in your vaults, you make profit from it by using it for spot transactions that make you profit. Where is my share ?

2) Is it really very difficult for you to apply charges at the same time on the same day of each charging period ?

It would be a lot easier for me if I knew exactly when the charges would be applied, and easier for you, because your customers would be more prepared for them.

Workers used to be paid directly, in cash when I was a younger man. There was nothing like the proportion of personal debt that is prevalent in society now. Nor was there the number of banks failing every year. What has changed since then ?

Why is it necessary for people to be paid for the work they do via a bank ? Why can they not be given the money in their hand, and let them choose what to do with it ?

It's a fair question and it has never really been answered properly by anyone.