Motherwell 1—2 Celtic

Celtic won the game, it felt like we lost it, then won it again, all in a few crazy minutes.  Substitute Luis Palma’s curler finding its way into the net, with three minutes remaining of the ninety. A sickner followed from a long throw in added time. The ball fell to Blair Spittal and he tucked it through a sea of bodies into the bottom corner after seven minutes of added time. Two points dropped. But the game wasn’t finished. There was still time for Matt O’Riley to side foot a cross into the net on the 98^th minute. Celtic win in added time of added time. Another pitch invasion from delirious fans at the back of the goal  

Nothing between the teams at half-time, which compared to the finish can now be classified as ultra-boring. Motherwell fans shouting for a penalty on the half-time whistle after the ball was booted off Kyogo. Motherwell had the slightly better chances. Celtic switching off after a free-kick was called by referee Wullie Collum. Bain had to make a save. He watched another shot going over the bar from a long throw and Statterly overhead kick. Both keepers had little to do and made few genuine saves. A few half-chances for Kyogo.

Reo Hatate signs a new long-term deal. I’m a big fan. Last season, perhaps with a bit of hyperbole, I suggested he was one of the best midfielders in Europe. This season he’s been rotten. Hopefully, he’s getting back to where he was. Slatterly got booked for a high boot after 12 minutes. Hatate lying spread-eagled on the park for another two minutes as subs warmed up hoping to replace him. Hatate later went down on the edge of the box, looking for a foul (not given) when his better option looked to be to go in on goal and shoot. He wasn’t great today again. Substituted for Turnbull after around 70 minutes. The ex-Motherwell midfielder was on the pitch for the drama at the end.  

Our midfield trio and attack are all on long-term deals. Goal-scorer O’Riley the latest to sign up. It will now take an audacious bid (over £20 million) to shift them. O’Riley had a free kick easily blocked at the edge of the box. His one-two inside the box with Johnston was perhaps our only clear shot on goal in the first-half, but it was a trundler, easily saved. The Dane/English midfielder kept the best until last.

Yang gets his chance to shine.  He didn’t. But at least he was trying to take on the full back. James Forrest can feel himself unlucky to be taken off against Livingston. But he was the obvious candidate. It’s up to Yang to make himself the obvious first pick. He was subbed at half-time. No surprise. Forrest coming on, he didn’t do much, but kept it simple and kept the ball, which improved the team.

Bain in goal. He got away with one at the start of the second-half. Stephen O’Donnell (no relation) had it in the net after Bevis Mugabi caused Scott Bain to drop the ball. It had been cleared and played back into the six-yard box. VAR adjudged it offside. But Bain flapped at it, unconvincingly. Motherwell had started the better.

Our goalkeeper and defence are woeful and our weak spot. Lagerbielke retains his place in the team. He’s the weakest of the weak spots. He wasn’t called to do much in the first-half, but saw lots of the ball and misplaced a few passes. In the second half, he had a fantastic chance to score, with a free header from a corner. He didn’t expect himself to score. Neither did we. He didn’t.

Nat Philips came on for him after around 70 minutes. The Liverpool loanee at least wins his aerial duals. It gives us something to build on. I wish we could send Lagerbielke back.

We found it hard breaking the Steelmen down. They too lacked punch in the final third, and tried to play football as Celtic turned the screw. Days like today can seem monumental. But we’ll just have to wait and see. Palma thought he’d won it. O’Riley really did. Wow.

Don Paterson (2023) Toy Fights: A Boyhood.

Don Paterson is around the same age as me. But he’s won a stack of poetry and literary awards and is Professor of Poetry at St Andrew’s University. That’s the university that usually comes out near the top for all the English nobs that can’t get into Oxbridge and even a few that can. Don Paterson, like me, grew up in a council estate in Dundee.

Dundee is on par with drug deaths with Glasgow, which every year wins the award for dying. That’s how I measure how shite a place is. Don had a solid enough start to life. His dad worked as a colour-iner during the day for D.C. Thomson. That Scottish institution that sold the Sunday Post, Oor Wullie, The Broons, The Beano, The Dandy to us. A twee-wee vision of Scotland.  No Catholics, or blacks, or girls that considered getting pregnant without first being duly wed. It was part of the contract for working for D.C. Thomson. Knowing your place. No sex, no homosexuals, nor unions, obviously. That would be spelling trouble.  

Don got a job there as well, working in the ‘Banzai’ department of Commando comics before his brain melted and he had a breakdown. His dad was a solid enough musician and played every night to make ends meet, while his mum went catalogue mad and had a new couch every week and black debt was there middle name.

Don too got into the band scene after experimenting with other instruments. He found the guitar or the guitar found him. But he didn’t want to be like his da. Being like Billy MacKenzie was their goal. He tells us how a woman interviewing him couldn’t help to stop and kiss him half-way through.

The pudding haircut and Jimmy Osmond, ‘I’ll be your long-haired lover from Liverpool’, was to him the polar opposite of no talent and a voice that shouldn’t be heard. He doesn’t blame him. Family business. Crazy Horses.

I agree with much what he says about how the buroo harasses the sick and poor, but it could provide a creative space for working-class artists if it was renamed something catchy, like Universal Income and not Credit. (Buroo money generally is worth 10% less than it was 10 years ago, which coincides with toxic Tory policies, but that’s me going off on a tangent).  

Paterson is a jazz aficionado and music lover. I don’t even have a radio in my van. I’m tone deaf and not interested. His references fall flat. But we can agree that a woman singing lifts her and makes her more beautiful. It worked for Celine Dion and before that Barbara Streisand. Anyone that can hit the high notes and fling in enough sugary lyrics to ring school bells in a primary school is fine with me.

I’m not a fan of institutions. But most of my stories seem set in them. So I’m an aficionado. When Paterson had a psychotic break from his body and was admitted to Madness, not the band but ward 89, the Largactil shuffle and Ninewells Hospital, my ears didn’t prick up but this seemed familiar territory. Paterson, we know escapes (he wrote this book, won awards). But he was both sane and insane enough to spot a trend. He adapt the ‘law of stupidity’, which states that x proportion of any group will work against both their interests and those in the group. He adds that the group leader—like the recently promoted charge nurse in his ward, Graham, with a propensity for humiliating patients and intimidating and having sex with women on Ward 90—will be a narcissist.

We’ve moved on from the eighties. We know this from watching the moron’s moron Trump, Boris Johnston and Nigel Farage, to name just three. He does not name Jimmy Saville directly, perhaps for fear of being sued, or just doesn’t need the hassle.

It’s no secret that the Jute Mills of Dundee created, for a time, a matriarchically inclined culture (*with higher than average infant mortality, even for working class slums, as babies were weaned by house husbands on sugary water). Don Paterson looks back to the seventies and eighties  in short punchy chapters. He finds lots worth remembering, including himself, and his morbid guilt. That’s the beauty of this book, unbanal wonder. Read on.  

Rhino, Film 4, written and directed by Oleh Sentsov

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/rhino/on-demand/74813-001

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhino_(film)

Right-wing followers of the moron’s moron and former President Trump are trying to indict President Joe Biden (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/28/biden-impeachment-inquiry-what-to-know) because of his son, Hunter’s, links with Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Corruption was and remains at a high levels in Ukraine. Standard business practice of the Putin-model era in the 1990s in the gangster’s paradise in which in which everyone has a price.

Little Rhino (Dmytro Dima) gets into a scrap with other kids. He gets beaten but won’t give up. His brother (Dmytro Lozovskyi) is called up and leaves to fight for the USSR in Afghanistan.

Middle Rhino (Ivan Tamashev) is the leader of a gang of delinquents. Marina (Alina Zevakova) wraps herself around him and tries to keep him out of trouble. But she’s not enough to save him, although they do later marry. He gets arrested by the police after starting a fight outsight the school disco. The cop that arrests him jokes he doesn’t need to know his name, he’ll be seeing a lot more of him.

Adult Rhino (Serhii Filimonov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serhii_Filimonov) doesn’t take no for an answer. He tries to blag his way into a gym that he is told is shut for the likes of him. He’s beaten up by other connected gangsters. Skull (Vladyslav Derduha) puts a price on his head. Tells him to turn up the next day with a few thousand dollars or he’ll kill him and burn down his mother’s house with them inside.

Rhino gets protection from another gangster in the district. He and his cronies begin working with them in protection and extortion. He’s good at it. They’re good at it. They go independent and take out the middle man. Rhino is a married, but has a mistress and other women he uses for sex. They use for sex while drinking and snorting cocaine. He’s on the up and up.

Rhino and his gang have come to the attention of the authorities. He’s called into the police station and told that for two years they have been preparing a file on him.  A scribbled figure on the back of the file, and bit of paper to remind him what he needs to pay to make it go away. Standard business practices.

But the gang has also created trouble with the gangster boss of bosses in the district, Dad (Volodymyr “Adolfych’ Shamray). He tells Skull and his cronies to take them out.

Rhino’s wife and daughter are killed in a ‘car accident’, just after she has decided to leave him. He plots revenge, but is picked up by Skull and tortured in a way familiar to Glasgow gangster Jimmy Boyle.

Redemption? Is it possible? What is the price of a life in a corrupt system? Not just another run of the mill, gangster, movie. Has Ukraine changed that much after the Russian invasion? Certainly like the moron’s moron former President Trump’s alleged foot problems that kept him from being called up in the Vietnam War; those with money and influence in Ukraine seem to avoid front-line duties. Rhino is a snapshot in time and place. Worth watching.

Angeball.

Arsenal 2—2 Tottenham

Of course I know who Ange Postecoglou is. I’m a Celtic supporter. He was our manager and in the last two seasons won five out of six trophies. Rangers beat us in the Scottish Cup to win in extra time. I hate Rangers almost as much as I love Celtic. So I won’t say it didn’t matter. Ange did less well in Europe. We had a glorious defeat at home against Real Madrid and got hammered away. Even when we were outclassed and five goals down we were still piling forward. Honestly, that didn’t matter. Jota got a consolation goal in the Bernabeu.

Ange’s Plan B was more of Plan A. Play out from the back, pile on the pressure and get more goals. In Scotland we had (and still have) the best squad and the best players. Before the Scottish Cup final against Kilmarnock it was pretty much taken as a given that Postecoglou was going to Spurs. Some fans refused to believe it. We didn’t feel betrayed the way we did when Brendan Rodgers first jumped when Leicester came calling. That was mid-season. Postercoglou gave us due notice. No, we didn’t wish him well. But neither did we call him a rat, like we did Rodgers.

There was a time when I watched every bit of football that was on the telly. I was brought up to watch Scotsport on a Sunday and even Match of the Day. I watched every single game in the 1974 and 1978 World Cup and pretty much every match after that, even if Scotland weren’t playing. Now I don’t watch much fitba. Although I’ve a tendency to come in and fall asleep drunk while Match of the Day is on, I’m not sure that counts. I don’t care who wins. I’ve not got an English team.

I watched Arsenal v Spurs today. We know it ended up a 2—2 draw. Paul Merson (ex-Arsenal) when he was a gambler would have put his house on a home win. He said as much. I thought Arsenal would win too. Postecoglou was lucky. A manager always needs to be lucky to succeed.

Gabriel Jesus robbed James Maddison in the box. Arsenal were already one up. A Sako effort hit Romero and went in to give the home team the lead. Thirty minutes gone, Jesus has an easy chance to score. He blazes the ball over the bar. Two-nil up and it would have been game over.

I saw Maddison when he was on loan at Aberdeen. He didn’t stand out. At Leicester he was better. Here he was the best man on the park. He set up both equalisers. Son scored twice. But if Jesus had scored it would have been a different Maddison. Lucky man. Lucky Postecoglou.

The penalty at the beginning of the second half was unlucky. Ben White’s shot. Romero’s outstretched hand. I thought it was a penalty. But I didn’t really care. Saka’s finish was expected.

I didn’t expect Spurs to equalise within two minutes. Maddison robbed Jorginho, a perfectly weighted pass played in Son, who finished. Lucky, not because the pass, or finish, were exquisite, but because Declan Rice (the £100 million midfielder) was taken off injured. He would never have been caught napping on the ball the way Jorginho was.

Spurs finished stronger. After sixty minutes Postecoglou always brought on three or four replacements as substitutes. Here he took off Spurs’ best players. Maddison, who was injured, and Son. Hojbjerg and Richarlison came on, with twenty minutes of normal time and ten minutes of time added on. Richarlison gave a bit of bulk up front. Guglielmo Vicario, the Spurs keeper began shelling long balls. That’s not Angeball.

Angeball is the way Marcelo Bielsa had Leeds playing, which took them up and down again. Angeball is the way that Pepe Guardiola has his teams playing. Barcelona, with Messi in the team, is the best footballing team I’ve ever seen. A footballing dream. Bayern Munich under Pepe, weren’t bad either. Manchester City are just better than everyone else. These are football purists. They refuse to bend their teams to pragmatism. Walter Smith in Scotland and George Graham’s Arsenal were built on defensive solidity. Brian Clough with Derby and Nottingham Forest won the English league playing pragmatically. He also added two European Cups, while signing the world’s first million-pound player, Trevor Francis, who scored the winner in the European Cup final.

Angeball isn’t new. Brazil that won the World Cup in 1970 were a version of Angeball. The beautiful game is plural not singular. Ange Postecoglou averages two seasons with most teams he’s managed, including my team, Celtic. His Spurs team are higher than would normally be expected after losing their top goal scorer.  Postecoglou is lucky, but over two seasons I expect that to even out. Like Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds they have started well. Punched above their weight. I’ll wait and see. For now, football purity is the winner. God help us when they start bringing in ex-England manager, Sam Allardyce. Would I want Postecoglou back at Celtic? Nah, but I said that about Rodgers. That’s where we are now.  

Livingston 0—3 Celtic

Check the score and you’d imagine an easy enough victory for Celtic. For half an hour that looked about right. We’ve struggled in the past at the Tony Macaroni Arena. We know about the pitch. Livingston pack their defence and are big and bullish at free-kicks and corners. It doesn’t seem that long ago Lyndon Dykes was bullying our defence. Gustaf Lagerbielke is an accident that has already happened. Joel Nouble beat him comfortably in the air with the first ball shelled forward. I wouldn’t call it a duel, because that would imply some kind of contest. 

For the first thirty minutes that didn’t really matter too much. Celtic kept the ball. Greg Taylor was picking passes and back to his best.  His forward pass in behind the Livingston defence to Reo Hatate was perfectly weighted. Hatate had already tried his luck from the edge of the box earlier in the box, which went about thirty-yards wide. Luiyi de Lucas put a foot in and he was the wrong side of Hatate. They didn’t even need to check VAR. Hatate took the penalty. Celtic had missed the last three penalties against Livingston. David Turnbull took the last penalty for Celtic, but he wasn’t on the pitch. The former Motherwell man’s effort wasn’t great, but it went in. Hatate’s penalty falls into that category too. Poor, but the ball squirmed under the Livingston keeper, Shamal George’s body. Fifteen minutes gone. Celtic in command.

Livingston’s long balls were doing some damage. A Nouble flick on had Scales in a fanckle.  Bruce Anderson in behind the defence. Hart had to save. But there were enough Celtic defenders to get the ball away. That was the early warning. But this was the exception to the rule. Celtic looked far more likely to score.

Johnston was booked for a foul on Penrice after Nouble had ragdolled the Canadian. Diazen Maeda had a chance after being played in by Taylor. The Japanese forward got his goal after the 90^th minute. He took on a headed clearance and zipped away from the defender.  A superb strike from the edge of the box.

He also inexplicably missed the ball after Kyogo had played him in. But O’Riley was on hand to tuck the ball away. With most of the second-half remaining that gave us a lead that was unlikely to be challenged. And that proved to be the case.

All of our best players were in the midfield and forward areas. With the exception of Taylor, our defence and goalkeeper were substandard.

Hart after his howler in Rotterdam, was red carded here. Our third red card in a week. Neither of which were dirty games. He wasn’t helped by his central defenders. Another simple ball over the top. Sangare got there first, before being wiped out by Hart. It wasn’t a penalty, but it was a red car and just outside the box. VAR checked Sangre was onside. He was, and Hart walked. The free kick was fired by Scott Bain’s post.

James Forrest had started the game, but was sacrificed for Bain. With Abada injured none of the other wingers have taken their chance to shine. It’s back to the old guard. Forrest at least offers pace. With fifteen minutes of the first-half remaining, and all of the second-half, the worry was Livingston would get more of the ball and create chances.

They didn’t because of the class in our midfield and forward line. Maeda, in particular, worked and ran like two men. Goalscorer Hatate was substituted; he’s not been great lately. Iwata had thirty minutes and showed enough to be paid the compliment he might merit a start. O’Riley was my man of the match. Iwata will not be replacing him, anytime soon. McGregor is an automatic first pick, who did OK today (apart from one terrible pass). Hatate is under pressure to get up to speed. He was rotten in Rotterdam

Our defence has been our weakest point since Brendan Rodger’s first time in charge. Hart’s loss, wasn’t Bain’s, or Celtic’s gain. Bain’s dithering on the ball, shortly after we made it 2—0, nearly brought Livingston back into the game. Bain’s last game against Hibs he made two howlers which cost two goals. It looks like Bain will be in goals against Motherwell next week. We need a keeper, two full backs and two centre halfs. Johnston has been lauded for not being as bad as the others. That doesn’t mean he’s been good, just average. Taylor, before today, has been awful. A better team than Livingston would have punished us. I’m delighted with the win, any win, and we did play well for large chunks of the game. But there’s no defence for that defence. We, of course, wish Livi luck in their midweek away fixture, and hope they can put more balls into the box and get back to winning ways.  

Minari, Film4, written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/minari/on-demand/73507-001

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minari_(film)

Minari is a type of planet used in cooking South Korean dishes that grows like a weed. Monica’s mother Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung) travels from South Korea to help look after her grandchildren.  She plants minari seeds in the creek bed where it grows abundantly. There’s a metaphor there. As Jacob Yi (Steven Yeun/ Yeun Sang-yeop) explains his decision to Monica (Han Ye-ri) to move his family from California to rural Arkansas to live in a trailer, he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life sexing chicks (their job is separating male from female chicks, the former are killed and the latter feeds the market) he wants more than a garden, he doesn’t want five acres, he needs fifty, because he has a dream of making a living from the land and selling Korean vegetables to the growing immigrant market. Jacob tells her that people like them have come to America to make a new life. It’s 1981, we’re at the beginning of Reaganomcs. Every year 30 000 Koreans immigrate to America. Almost all South Koreans, like them wanting to taste food from home. In other words, Jacob reiterates the American dream of wanting better for himself and his children.

There’s trouble ahead. A heart-warming film that hits home. Worth watching.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Americans

Night of the Kings, Film4, Directed and written by Philippe Lacôte.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/night-of-the-kings?.none.none.popular||

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Kings

Most prison movies tend to be about escape, or redemption, or both and act as morality plays. Stephen King’s short story turned into a longer film, The Shawshank Redemption, is familiar to most of us. Night of the Kings has a fairy tale feel to it which lifts it out of the ordinary.

The plot is simple. Roman (Koné Bakary) needs to make it through the night of the red moon by keeping the prisoners entertained by his storytelling. He’s been discreetly warned by another inmate that should he fail, his forfeit will be his life. He’ll be hanged on a hook as others before him.

MACA Prison is controlled by the criminal fraternity of the Ivory Coast. An inmate is elected Dangôro. Blackbeard is King of MACA Prison. His word is law inside the prison walls. But if a King becomes ill, he must kill himself. We see Blackbeard wheeling about an oxygen tank and gasping in air. He’s reminded by his subordinates about the Rule of the King.

Blackbeard offers Roman up as an offering to buy more time.  Roman begins the story of the death of Zama King, the leader of the Microbes. A group of young thieves of which he was a member in the Lawless Quarter slum of Abidjan. When God has said yes, no man can say no.

His storytelling is harmonized and actions mimicked by other prisoners. Blackbeard pays for a meal for inmates, which is served.

Roman begins a tale of Zama King’s early life. Prisoners listen. We, the viewers, get to see the action onscreen.  After the murder of his mother, Zama, for example, is raised by his father Soni, a blind beggar. Soni becomes the advisor of a local queen after convincing her that he can talk to the stars. But we see she too has mystical powers.

Roman’s story is interrupted by the murder of Koby, one of Blackbeard’s confidants. His throat cut while getting a blowjob from Pretty, who dresses and looks like a woman.

The state institution and grim setting set against a magical backdrop. Ticking clock. A power struggle. Will Roman see the light? Does he deserve to? Wonderful to watch and see and hear.

The Mustang, Film4, director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre. Screenplay by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, Mona Fastvold, Brock Norman Brock

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-mustang?.none.none.popular||

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mustang

I was brought up watching Champion the Wonder Horse. It could do pretty much anything apart from shoot a gun and dance backwards like Ginger Rodgers. The Mustang is from the same breed. The spiel before the film tells the viewer there are thousands of horses running wild. But they’re overbreeding. Ironically, they are also dying off because there’s no enough land for them to forage and roam. Some might need to be ‘euthanized’, which is dying off quicker than I guess a horse, Champion, or otherwise, would like. Some are rehabilitated. Hooray! Rounded up and put to work. Boo.  An actual rehabilitation program in Carson City, Nevada is the template for other prisons in places like California, which open up a slick new super prison every week. America locks up more of its citizens than any other nation and more than any other nations combined. Perhaps the system and not the Champion the Wonder Horse needs looked at? Discuss?

Man versus Horse. Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts) is shovelling horse shit after he gets moved from isolation into the general prison population. Myles (Bruce Dern) has been watching Roman. Myles plays the croaky and old, crazy-as-horse-shit trainer who runs the programme. He’s the kind of guy Rocky would have in his corner called Buster, wielding a sponge and a side-mouth squall of how to beat the reining champ into a chump. Myles puts Roman (not Rocky) onto the programme. He’s got twelve weeks to train a wild mustang before horses are sold at an auction (or euthanized/murdered). You need to be on the programme.

Horse versus Man. Roman gets the loopy horse. The one (like him) banged up and kicking the walls down.  Will Rocky Roman win the horse’s affection or find himself? He throws a few jabs. There’ll be setbacks. We’ll here the story of his life broken into bits and pieces. Fed to us like oats. Horses are good listeners. They rarely interrupt. Those on the programme are less likely to reoffend, but they might be a self-selecting group. But we all like to give a horse a break.

Horse and Man versus Society. Fling in a thunder storm. The return of a pregnant daughter that needs her dad to come to terms with what he was and is.  A rodeo this is hit or miss in the last chance saloon. Will the horse come good? Will the man come good? Will Society give a sucker a break? We know the answer to the last question and it’s always ‘no’. We used to talk about Soviet gulags. American redemption…?  

Feyenoord 2—0 Celtic.

Three minutes of additional time in the first-half. You’d hope Celtic would see it out. Go in at half-time goal-less, perhaps Celtic fans feeling we were slightly unlucky not to score.  A free kick thirty yards out. You’d hope Kyogo—the smallest man on the pitch as Martin O’Neil pointed out—wouldn’t be in a key position in the wall. He didn’t stay strong. You’d hope Joe Hart would save a ball that bounced on the way into net. Calvin Stengs’s free kick was nothing special. It wasn’t even in the good variety. Feyenoord are given a half-time lead. The win in their hands without doing anything of note.  

You’d get odds of around 5/1 for a Celtic win against Feyenoord at De Kuip before the game started. The win at Ibrox took much of the pressure of Brendan Rodgers. Not many of us expected a win. Most of us would settle for a draw. Especially when we are a goal down and playing away in Europe. Our defensive frailties have been highlighted and for good reason. Carl Starfelt wasn’t good enough for Celtic. Gustaf Lagerbielke looks a dud.

Midway in the second-half. I’m not sure if it was a foul or a penalty. He’d already picked up a yellow in the first half for a stupid challenge he didn’t need to make. Celtic down to ten men. Even with Hart’s save from Paixo on penalty duties the game looks beyond us. No talk of redemption for Hart. A howler is a howler. But I’m a big fan of the dog’s chance. We were still kinda in it.

Brendan Rodgers had rolled the dice before the penalty. He’d brought on Yang for Luis Palma and Odin Holm for an out of touch Hatate. Holm had showed up well as a substitute at Ibrox. Here he put the wrong kind of mark on the game. A straight red for a studs-up challenge on Wieffer. Checked by VAR. Game over. Celtic down to nine men. The best we could hope for was keeping the score down.

From the resultant free kick the right back Geertruida scores. But it is chopped off by VAR. A later Feynoord goal was also chopped off for offside. 15 minutes left to go and seven minutes stoppage time. It was too much.

Lingr gets to the byline. Johnston knocks the ball to the edge of the box. Alireza Jahanbakhsh fizzes it past Hart. Game over. But still plenty of time for Feyenoord to score more.

Terrible goal to lose at half time. Two red cars. Two goals disallowed by VAR. Palma’s penalty claim was also looked at by VAR but not given. Celtic were in this game, but flung it away. We’ve been at Champions’ League nights were we were torn to shreds. This wasn’t one of them. In some ways, this was worse. We could have taken a point or three. Not just bad luck, but ill-discipline and quite simply poor defending. We’ve been talking about it for five years.

We brought in Nat Philips and he gets injured. That’s just central defence. We’re reliant on Liam Scales. A player we were quite happy to send back to Aberdeen, who played mainly left back for the Dons. We should have better. We can afford better. This was one Celtic could have won. Down to reserve-reserve players.  Gutted.  

Them That Follow. Film4. Written and directed by Britt Poulton and Dan Madison

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/them-that-follow/on-demand/73188-001

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Them_That_Follow

Olivia Coleman is in this film. She doesn’t usually make duff movies. So I decided to watch the start and see if I liked it. I thought it would be a naff horror about some kind of poltergeist. A curse of some kind. In a way it was. Set in rural Appalachia on ‘the mountain,’ the curse was religion. The kind of Pentecostal Christianity that gives even Wacos a bad name. Follower of Trump. In other words, it was realistic.  

The Bible says that the chosen should be able to drive out demons, cure those in distress and handle snakes without coming to any harm.

Lemuel Childs (Walton Googins) takes biblical text literally, of course he does. God will protect them from the viper’s bite. To prove his point, every service has the chosen handling poisonous snakes, rattlers gathered from the hill.

The anointed will come to no harm. Mara (Alice Englert), Lemeul’s daughter, is the bad seed. We see her stealing out of the store run by Hope Slaughter (Olivia Coleman). Hope confides in Mara that she was saved by her faith and her marriage to Zeke (Jim Gaffigan) before that she was drifting. August ‘Augie’ Slaughter (Thomas Mann), their son, is drifting too. He no longer attends service and no longer believes.

Mara gets engaged to Garret (Lewis Pullman) who is a true believer. Pastor Childs mentors him and blesses their engagement. But Mara has a secret. She’s in love with Augie. Augie is in love with her. She might even be pregnant. But Augie is outside the family and the church’s protection.

You have your jumping off point. Triangulation between characters and beliefs. In other words, conflict. Drama’s poisonous lifeblood. Well worth watching how it plays out.