I didn’t comment on reports earlier this week that the SFA would allow Rangers International to complete an internal investigation into alleged links between Craig Whyte and Charles Green as I thought this was the appropriate course of action.
The SFA acted correctly: they wrote to Rangers International expressing concern over the matters in hand, and received assurances that their questions would be answered by an independent panel. Last year the football authorities were slow to enforce compliance with predecessor club, Rangers, but we can hope they apply a little more pressure this time.
News, released last night, suggesting after it was established Craig Whyte had been struck off as a director and would therefore face disciplinary proceedings, he had dinner with SFA chief executive, Stewart Regan, and president, Campbell Ogilvie, is far more concerning.
Mr Regan assured us that Mr Ogilvie, who he admitted was “heavily conflicted” by matters concerning Rangers, would remove himself from matters concerning the club he was previously a director of. This is meaningless if both parties met to discuss disciplinary matters with Mr Whyte before formal proceedings were underway.
What is increasingly clear is the co-dependency between so many characters in this play, including Regan and Ogilvie. They exist to keep each other in a job. This co-dependency will be jeopardised by the one man so many are attempting to paint as the only villain of the piece. Craig Whyte has them all taped and will not go down quietly.
It will be a frustration to many that the bottom half of the Scottish Football League clubs have held out for a bigger share of the trickle-down pie. Odds on a schism opening up between community and full time clubs have to be high.
Many thanks to everyone who has ordered (below) Willie Wallace’ autobiography, Heart of a Lions. It goes to print this week and will be with us soon thereafter.
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Interesting wee item on William Hill’s Fair and open gambling policy
http://www.williamhillplc.com/~/media/Files/W/William-Hill/documents/fair-open-gambling-policy.pdf
The integrity of sports betting is vital both to William Hill and our customers. We will continue to work with our trade associations and regulators to identify potential sporting integrity issues. We provide the Gambling Commission with information we suspect may lead to the making by the Commission of an order to void a bet. In addition, we take reasonable steps to be familiar with the rules applied by certain sporting bodies and
provide the relevant sport governing bodies with any information we suspect may relate to a breach of a rule applied by that sport governing body.
Has what the SFA done (as opposed to what it says it values) align with W Hill policy? Surely Hill need to reassure supporters betting on outcome of certain Scottish football matches if commercial concerns push integrity into the background?
here we go again,as soon as positive information is released by Yes campaign the resident unionists start spraying their usual repetitive propaganda guff…
Should Scotland vote for independence what is to say snp would win an election?
leftclicktic, good, please flee asap.Scotland is better off without you
BT, exactly.. we will have proper democracy for the first time in 300 years
Jude
Peter Nardini was my art teacher at High school.
Only for the first two years till I could drop it.
I was crap at drawing.
I was in first year when part of the school was burnt down.
The fire brigade was on strike at the time and it was the army who responded in their fire engines called ”Green Goddesses”.
”Recalling his teaching days after he graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 1975, Peter said: “I was at St Aidan’s when there was the fire around 1978. The school was burnt down and my department actually had to move into the Technical department for a while.
“We had a couple of years of that before they built a whole new school and we were put into a great open plan area.
“I taught from there for the next 20-odd years.
“I enjoyed teaching, there were some great kids coming from all over the town, from Shotts, Lanark and Carluke too. I used to love just chatting to them, finding out about their days.
“There were a few with a real passion for art, with natural talent to go on to art school.
“You treated most of the kids the same but there were those ones that stood out and the ones I felt I could bring on.
“It was always a great satisfaction at parent’s night to see their parents come in and see their work hanging on the wall. But there was a process behind that, it wasn’t like one lesson and that was it.
“You built them up, showed them the techniques, introduced them to aspects like perspective and eventually produced a good piece of work. That was a good lesson to them that you have to work hard to achieve something worthwhile.
“I wouldn’t call myself a good teacher, I enjoyed teaching but I always wanted to get out of teaching and I eventually did. I didn’t believe I would be in teaching for as long as I was to be honest.”
Bubbling away in the background throughout the St Aidan’s days, Peter was developing his own painting and embracing the love of singing and songwriting he had discovered as a teenager listening to Bob Dylan and Donovan in his bedroom.
Shortly after taking up teaching, Peter was granted the chance to paint in Amsterdam for three months by the Scottish Arts Council. Given the chance to take up the place by the head teacher of St Aidan’s, he simultaneously improved his art while writing songs on an old guitar he borrowed from a fellow artist in the Dutch city.
Peter said: “When I was in Amsterdam in 1980 a guy in one of the studios next to me had a guitar which he didn’t really use so I just borrowed it and wrote some songs while I was there.
“They were political, sort of satire songs. It was the time of Margaret Thatcher and the miners strike so I wrote those types of songs.
“I was of the generation of Bob Dylan, Donovan and The Beatles, I was at the right age to be influenced by that.
“They are folky songs, story-telling songs. A lot of them are little snippets of my life.
“With painting you get a lot of artistic licence to do things to fit a theme and it’s the same with my songs – you can embellish it.
“I came back in June and that summer I went to meet a guy called Archie Fisher who did folk shows on Radio Scotland for years, and I left him a cassette of some songs and he gave them to Arty Forsyth who had Kettle Records.
“Somehow someone from Radio Scotland got hold of these songs and they contacted me about a programme they were starting called Naked Radio. They wanted somebody to write a topical song every week and the songs I had written – there was one about Ronald Reagan and one about Margaret Thatcher, as well as one I wrote called ‘My Maw’s a Mod’ – and they suited what they wanted.
“I had to write a song about Jimmy Boyle, and several other songs like that. Every week I would perform for the show in Edinburgh and maybe I got my name known a bit through that.”
Dylan’s influence also hangs over Peter’s style, both in content and vocalisation. Unafraid to embrace the vernacular and the language of the world he occupies, he set out to create a canon of songs which proved that the dialect and accent of west central Scotland need not conform to traditional expectation.
Peter said: “Bob Dylan sang with his American, distinctive accent so I thought: ‘Why do all songs in a Scottish accent have to be funny songs? Why do they have to be categorised?’.
“I set myself a little task to write normal songs – love songs, political songs – write it in your dialect, sing it in your dialect and to prove that the local accent didn’t have to be pigeon-holed in music.
“The first song I wrote like that was in 1974 called ‘I Want to be a Hippy but my Mammy Willnae Let Me’ about guys with long hair who were dead cool and didn’t smile at you but they probably went home and got told by their mum to tidy their room.
“A guy called Clem Dane, an Irish-Scottish comedian, was recording in the same studio as me in Strathaven. He wanted to do a record in 1978 about Ally’s Tartan Army and he was looking for a B-side for it.
“I told him about the song and he said ‘can you not do it about a punk rocker because that’s what’s in now’ so I changed it and Andy Cameron recorded that. A lot of people of a certain age know about it so I suppose that was the first song I ever did like that.
“It’s not a forced Scottish accent, a few singers said they can’t do them because they try too hard to make it sound like a Glasgow accent. Sometimes I’ll use proper English then the next sentence I’ll use the vernacular – that’s the truth of speech.
“I think I managed to write in a dialogue that is true to my speech but I don’t always write in the vernacular – if you’re going to restrict yourself you’ll find pretty quickly that certain things just don’t work.”
First album ‘A Think You’re Great’ came out in 1982, gaining a lot of airplay across the region, and ‘Is There Anybody Out There’ and ‘Screams and Kisses’ followed, but Peter was soon struck down with a debilitating arm problem, which prevented him from playing live.
He stopped gigging but continued to write and record and in 1997 snapped up the chance to take early retirement from school to focus purely on painting.
Drawing on influences from America as well as Italy, where he spends three months a year living, Peter works from a studio with pictures he takes of scenes around his environment – be that California or rural Umbria.
Painting was a form of art Peter settled on after his student days, having studied printing in Glasgow and he is now satisfied he has arrived at a style which is right for him and which developed through the increasing awareness of art among the public.
He said: “There was only the Compass Gallery, Cyril Gerber and the Billcliffe Gallery in Glasgow and it wasn’t until the mid-90s that a lot of galleries opened up. That was a boom period because a lot of people wanted to buy art all of a sudden.
“Most people didn’t go into galleries, there was an elitist thing about them that made people feel uncomfortable and I think a lot of people still feel like that. But a lot of galleries are more like shops now and it has made them more accessible.
“The public have become more knowledgeable about painting because they are more interested. So I started doing smaller paintings and I started using acrylic paint and I developed a style where I wasn’t using water, it was just dry.
“It creates a pastel effect and that how I’ve developed – the dry brush has made my style noticeable.
“I love painting. To get up every morning and work with my paints from 11am from the studio in my house is wonderful.”
Now Peter plans to keep painting from the studio in his Hamilton home and he has plans to go into the recording studio to work with some long-term collaborators on a new album in the summer.
The variety of Peter Nardini’s work will continue to roll on, not heralded with the loudest shouting of its arrival, but with a distinct and confident introduction, left by a man who is happy to be doing what he loves.”
~SPF~
Mountain_Bhoy
I agree the Labour/Unionist stuff is a pain in the neck but what I really can’t understand is the hatred/fear of their own country that they display.
Night all.
I renain toi be convinced either way. I don’t like the no campaign s behaviour and lack of reasons. Personal attacks are not going to convince me how ti vote as I dont respect any of our mps or msps..
Give me the facts and let me decide which way to vote
I do not comment on Scottish Independence debate as I don’t live there, however I am very interested in following it. From an Irish prospective I have always wanted an Independent Scotland as I felt it would be the death blow of the United Kingdom and would undermine the position of Northern Unionists and hasten the re-unification of Ireland. However from my observations when it comes to the crunch I expect the majority in Scotland to back away from Independence and I expect any referendum to show a fairly comprehensive majority to remain in the UK.
BT
Nobody is going to give you the facts, them you will have to find out for yourself.
Thank’s be to god I don’t have to choose >}
SPF
Ta for that. Came across Peter via Iain Anderson last night. Iain plays great music btw. Sippin whisky music I call it as i am doing just now and listening to Iain on Radio Scotland. Cheers!!
20 year old Balblair btw!!
Got this response from Chief Inspector Stephen House via my msp excuse the link
https://dub124.mail.live.com/default.aspx?id=64855&owa=1&owasuffix=owa%2f#!/mail/ViewOfficePreview.aspx?messageid=a9c65fcb-c2b9-11e2-be88-002264c247be&folderid=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&attindex=0&cp=-1&attdepth=0&n=1778940104
Jude.
Sorry to hear about the youngster. At least season is nearly over..hope he is back in training soon..
Whats yer tipple at the moment?
Off it till steady on my feet…
Jude
Read my mind…o))
Celtic mac-not a grass,getting silly.If you get proved wrong a wee acknowledgement costs nothing.
Celtic Mac
Salmond’s words ‘Blood of our blood’ are chillingly similar to Hitler’s in praise of the Hitler Youth in 1936.
Jude
It’s been a while since I’ve give him any thought at all.
He was quite the hero when he made a record and it was in the charts when we were still at school. ” I wanna be a punk rocker” was the name of it.
I could be wrong, but I think his brother was also an art teacher at St.Aidan’s as well.
~SPF~
You know what?
Celtic TV.
Fantastic, I love it.
Just brilliant, straight forward, coverage of the team / club I love.
£40 a year, bargain.
EC67
Re Peter Nardini and Iain Anderson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHbnZDxt3JY
played on Ian’s show last night
!!Bada Bing!!
If you recall correctly it was St.John Doyle that made the claim that said description was in reference to Rangers FC. He was wrong on that count and apologised, mistakenly, to me for that error. But as you say that wee acknowledgement cost (him) nothing.
Better sound
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpKqICiEDSM
Blantyre nothing in the debate can really be considered fact. It is up to the people living in scotland to vote yes. Once this is done it will be up to the negotiators at that time to agree the formal seperation. I would not expect these to be concluded quickly for some things , but others such as where trident would / could be based and oil revenue would need answered almost instantly. I am voting yes as in my opinion we should sink or swim on our own merits. I believe scotland is more socially fairminded than the politics of little englanders whom the main parties all pander to. Finally i ask myself this . If we are really such a drain on the westminster coffers, then why are they so eager we vote no.
Night bhoys…
KTF
Personally I have little time for Christine Grahame, however her views on the monarchy may actually chime with many of us on here. I have never quite understood where she is coming from in her views on the football act.
As for Eck’s comments on N Ireland I wouldn’t argue that on a human level he was anything but right, and in addition the principle of ‘neighbour,I have plenty you have nothing – please share what I have’ would be appreciated by Brother Walfrid.
‘
mhark67
23:14 on 22 May, 2013
For BGFC And Blindlemonchillin
Cheers mate. Saw them in the SECC last year – did Exit Stage Left full album. Neal on drums – incredible! Was on ticketline tonight – 66 quid a pop for next week. Going to try to get my brother to come along, but he wants to go to T in the park instead (philistine). Might have to take Mrs BGFC instead.
Anyway – as soon as I saw your post earlier, I thought “I have to go!!!!!!” Will work on the brother tomorrow.
Hail Hail, and enjoy the journey home.
BGFC
trophybhoy
23:55 on 22 May, 2013
If we became independent, the party in power would structure their policies etc to suit the majority, for the sole purpose of remaining in power……
67Heaven , can you drop me a line ? sannabhoy@thekanofoundation.com
Thanks
Sickening attack on that young soldier in London today ……and right next to a primary school …then you have some group called the EDL aggressively protesting ….. when will it all end …… we live in a sad world….
Oh Dear, Mc Turdo disny know what the eff is happening
The Campaign Against Brian Stockbridge
Posted on May 22, 2013 by billmcmurdo
The vile campaign against Rangers Financial Director Brian Stockbridge took a sick and vicious turn last night with simultaneous postings on Follow Follow and Rangers Media of blatantly untrue rumours about Stockbridge designed to force him to quit his role as a Rangers director.
Although the scurrilous posts were untruths my understanding is they deeply upset members of his family.
This shows how low and unscrupulous those who want Stockbridge out are prepared to go to achieve their objective.
It comes on the back of other intimidatory measures applied to the Rangers Financial Director which I cannot divulge at this time. However, when the truth comes out it will shock more than a few of the Ibrox faithful.
Those who see Brian Stockbridge as a soft touch should be aware that he is the veteran of many an amateur boxing fight and has a core of steel.
It is no surprise to me that he is being targeted because he has been unflinching in his job at Ibrox in the area of cutting costs, something which has put many a bluenose out of joint.
Or should I say many a blue snout because more than one “Rangers man” has had their snout in the Ibrox trough, something which Stockbridge has commendably put an end to.
In today’s Daily Record the paper does its best to associate Stockbridge with responsibility for leaking the videos of Malcolm Murray that the Record ran recently, even though they know fine well that the videos were not leaked by Stockbridge.
The Record’s reporting today that Rangers fans want Stockbridge out is a further salvo in the campaign against him. It is no secret that the Record is the media vehicle used by the pro-Murray faction in the Ibrox Civil War.
The paper’s close relations with arch-rivals Celtic may sharpen Gers supporter’s minds in deciding who to back and these supporters may want to ask this simple question:
If the Daily Record is behind something, can it be for the good of Rangers?
To their credit, I understand that moderators in both Follow Follow and Rangers Media quickly pulled the libellous posts mentioned.
As far as the reason for Brian Stockbridge filming the video in question, this is very easily explained in a way that anyone could understand. There was no malice in it, although the video’s purpose has been greatly abused.
When I blogged yesterday on Rangers’ directors being plugged into lie detector machines I had my tongue very firmly in my cheek.
However, I have since discovered that polygraph tests actually were considered by the Rangers board as a means of getting to the truth concerning Craig Whyte’s claimed involvement with certain directors.
It may surprise Rangers fans who among the directors was enthusiastic about the idea and was happy to take a polygraph test.
I think there is at least one director in the Ibrox boardroom who would be very nervous about questions concerning his own relationship with Craig Whyte if he was connected to a polygraph.
I am deluged these days with communications from bluenoses who are heart sick of all the ongoing shenanigans at Ibrox – and heartbroken at the rents and splits in the board which are widening to Grand Canyon-like proportions.
Rangers Football Club is imploding before our very eyes. And the tragedy is it is of the club’s own undoing.
I would love to get back to blogging about the Rangers-hating activities of Blofeld, Doncaster and Regan but they are not responsible for Rangers’ present woes.
More desperately than ever before in the club’s history, Rangers need a leader to unite those in the club and all the fans.
That person need not be in the boardroom, particularly as the board is so paralysed at present.
But sooner or later the board must find unity and harmony.
The consequences of failing to do so are too horrific to contemplate.
Still no news from the The Advertising Standards Authority re their investigation into newco. We are keeping an eye on this one.
Here is my tuppence worth on Alex Salmond and other things.
A lot of people are getting very worked up about this “Blood of our blood thing” with reference to Northern Ireland. May I offer an alternative view?
Fine.
Correct me if I am wrong but haven’t people been coming back and forth from that region of Ireland (as well as others) for hundreds of years and don’t a number of people in Scotland have family ties with that particular region regardless of religion or political affiliation?
Here is the entire quote and not the cherry – picked bit:
“There is no country on earth that we have more family connections with than Northern Ireland,” said Salmond. “They are the blood of our blood, bone of our bone. I would have done it for anybody in that position. The feasibility of delivering water in that quantity across longer distances is much more difficult, but there is no problem getting it to NI.”
He’s talking about families and connections of that ilk and he made that rather clear.
I think that’s the first time anyone while quoting the blood of our blood bit on this forum has bothered to publish the whole thing. Maybe this makes a difference or maybe not – you decide.
Of course we’ve also had the equally predictable quote about Thatcher and her economics not being that big a deal but of course without full context it furthers one point of view and little else.
Here’s the full quotation –
“The SNP has a strong social conscience, which is very Scottish in itself.
“One of the reasons Scotland didn’t take to Lady Thatcher was because of that. We didn’t mind the economic side so much. But we didn’t like the social side at all.”
20/08/2008
He is saying Scotland has a strong sense of society and social conscience which was the antithesis of Thatcher and that’s why people in Scotland didn’t like her. Is he wrong? I don’t think so. The “we” he refers to is Scotland, not the SNP which is the inference often put about with the selective quotation by certain posters.
I would ask people to read Ane satyr of the thrie Estatis, a Medieval Scottish Play where a character John the Commonweal jumps out of the audience and proclaims “The Commonweal hes been overlookit” in a text where up to that point everything had been about the aristocracy and ordinary people were not getting a look in (hence the use of the character) – a text which Donald Dewar himself quoted after the Devolution referendum because he felt it fitted Scotland well – the Salmond comment comes from the same place even if it is something of a stereotypical point of view. Alex Salmond and others clearly were tapping into the notion of Scotland being a place where we DO care about social values and ordinary people.
Now whether you buy into the notion that Scotland is a place with a stronger sense of community or not is up to you but clearly politicians do and they use it for that effect whether it’s “The Commonweal” or “We’re all in this together” or “things can only get better”. You have to decide whether you think it’s for real or just some soundbite politicians can use.
Continuing on the subject of Alex Salmond and Thatcher, recently he said –
“I disagreed with Thatcher’s economic policies but in some ways it was her social policies in particular that set the ball rolling for a renewed vigour to have a Scottish Parliament.”
I don’t think many would disagree with that. Thatcher in my view gave Scottish Independence it’s greatest case and her children are doing a good job of making that more clear today. In this quotation from this year he clearly said “I disagreed with Thatcher’s economic policies”. Here he put himself in the picture not the collective Scottish “We” from the 2008 quotation. I don’t think that could be clearer when you get both quotes side by side.
Anyway keep the attacks coming guys, scare enough people into voting for the status quo
and when you get your next Westminster parliament where it’s a Cameron/Farage double bill of mayhem don’t complain, after all you’re better together.
As I say it is your choice but if you vote NO then don’t complain when it comes back to bite you when you could have done something about it. I don’t say everything is a Utopia in an independent Scotland (because it won’t be, life isn’t like that in any country) but at least you’ll live in a country where your vote actually counts for something and you don’t get a reprieve when the South East of England has a mood swing and votes Labour. That’s only happened 3 times since 1979 (the year I was born and Ten men won the league coincidentally) but I’m sure the same voters who decide every election will really warm to Ed Miliband in two years when he learns the art of public speaking.
Night all
HH
just watched a Henke inspired Barca win the Champions League v Arsenal…
Roll on Sunday.. Another Celtic Cup Final..
Life is good…
HH
mountain_bhoy is neil lennon
23:21 on 22 May, 2013
leftclicktic, good, please flee asap.Scotland is better off without you
~~~~~< ~~~~~~
Very poor comment.
I hope the standard of debate on this issue improves over time.
Or just stops completely,in fact.
I predict come Sunday night this will be our song of choice.
Oh Sammy, Sammy, he floats like a gazelle
Like the lovely Cheryl, he uses Loreal
He’s definitely worth it, with hair so long and fine
He’s Georgios Samaras, Celtic’s Number Nine!
Night Bhoys.
.
Followed By..
He’s Greek.. He’s Great..
He’ll break Your Dinner Plates..
He’s Georgious Samaras..
He’s a No9 Enigma..
Not a Stigma..
He’s Celtic’s No 9..
Summa of Sammi