A Play dedicated to all the men and woman who took part in the Hunger Strikes, the Blanket and No wash protests.
Starring – Brian Milligan
Directed by – Alison McCrudden
Music by Joe Kelly, Noël Barr and Tomas Taylor.
Technicians – Pat Gregory, Francis McCarton and Peter Hughes.
Producers – Paddy A and Gerard Fleming.

 

 

As I’m sure most Celtic Fans will be aware the OBFCT Bill 2011 has been used and abused by Scotland‘s Police forces up and down the country to attack Celtic supporters. Fans who are left wondering why this is the case should read a fine letter Jeanette Findlay of the Celtic Trust wrote to Christine Grahame MSP. If you read the full document, you will get an idea of our concerns about this bill not only as football supporters but as Democrats, of whatever hue. We are concerned that the act will and has been used to stop fans from airing legitimate political views at or going to and from football matches. The arguments about whether or not there is a place at a socio-politico minded football club for expressions of political opinion by supporters is not up for debate here. Nor should it be. It is not the job of parliamentarians to legislate against expressions of political opinion in any arena, sporting or otherwise. That is a matter for us and we alone as Celtic supporters. I say socio-politico minded football club because of the Club’s roots. It was founded to put food on the tables of the poor of this City, and as such it’s very founding is a political act. I know some believe that the poor of this City are not worthy of such support from anyone and should be left to rot. However, that is only a political opinion, and we wouldn’t want to stop MSPs or anyone else from expressing that view. In fact, we would welcome the refreshing honesty.

You can find all the documents to download here… http://www.celtictrust.net/index.php?func=d_home_documents …at the bottom of the page. Pay particular attention to the OBFCT Data collection form. Use this form if you have become a victim of this bill so fans groups can collect data to bin this bill in 2014.

I’m going to quote the letter in full here anyway…

14 Sept 2012

Dear Ms Grahame,
I am writing to you regarding comments you made during the evidence session at the Justice Committee yesterday (13/9/11) and to seek clarification of those remarks.
During an exchange between you and Professor Tom Devine (which can be found at between 2hrs and 1minute and 2hrs and 6 minutes in the video recording) you question statistics provided by Professor Devine to the effect that Catholics are twice as likely to be the victims of sectarian aggravated assault. I think you are also arguing against his point that the existing legislation is sufficient.
You say that Professor Devine cannot use the statistics to uphold his assertion re the disproportionate number of Catholic victims of religious aggravated offences under the 2003 legislation because the existing legislation is more likely to lead to convictions of ‘Rangers fans’ and that it is not ‘even’ because ‘Celtic fans’ won’t be convicted of any offence because they are singing political songs. Professor Devine is clear that he is talking about Catholics and Protestants but you appear to interpret this as proxies for Celtic and Rangers supporters respectively.
Notwithstanding this point, there is a clear implication in this statement that there is something missing in the 2003 legislation because it does not appear to result in the same
number of convictions of Celtic supporters. Indeed you say at one point with reference to the 2003 legislation that it is ‘not even’. You appear not to consider the possibility that the reason more Rangers fans have been convicted under the 2003 Act (which is not what Professor Devine said but is nonetheless true) is because they, in large number, have sung bigoted and racist songs and Celtic fans (en masse) haven’t and don’t. To be blunt, you appear to suggest that there is something wrong with legislation that does not result in parity of numbers of arrests between Celtic supporter and Rangers supporters, ignoring, for the moment, any discussion of offensive behaviour by supporters of other teams. A number of our members as well as other Celtic supporters have concerns about the motivation for this Bill and the lack of clarity surrounding the definitions of offensive behaviour. Your comments have added to these concerns. I write to you today to ask you to reassure the public that this Bill is not, in whole or in part, motivated by a desire to see Celtic fans convicted in equal number to Rangers fans for offences specified precisely with that aim in mind.
I repeat my evidence to the Committee last week, Celtic fans do not, en masse, sing songs of hate against anyone. The only alleged ‘offensiveness’ that critics of the Celtic support are able to bring up is the singing of Republican songs. These songs, in and of themselves, are not aimed at Protestants or of adherents of any other religion, they are political in nature and, as such, the outlawing of them is potentially a breach of the right to freedom of expression. Such an unwarranted restriction of freedom of speech would, I am sure, be resisted not only by Celtic fans but by all democrats. I would add that the appropriateness of such songs being sung at a football match is an entirely separate question for Celtic supporters alone and one which does not involve any question of legality, nor does it require the scrutiny of the Parliament.
It would be unfortunate indeed if the public were left with the impression that the intention of the drafters of this Bill is to ensure that Scotland can ignore its anti-Catholic and anti-Irish problem by engineering parity of convictions between Celtic supporters and others and thereby rely on the dishonest ‘plague on both your houses’ approach which we have seen all to often.
I look forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely
Jeanette Findlay
Chair

I think that gives a fair enough although brief background to the issue. So far, I’m not aware of any reply from Ms Grahame. I will endeavour to find out and add it on to this post…

There’s nothing wrong with constructive criticism. Nothing at all. And Managers should be able to take it and they should be able to answer it. Lennon’s quoted in BBC Sport like this,

Lennon was barracked by some Celtic supporters near the dug-out during the match.
“I understand supporters’ frustrations,” he said. “If they’re not happy with me and want me to go, I’ll go, simple as that.”
The Celtic manager described his side’s recent home form as “unacceptable” but said he was vexed by some of the criticism.
“The lack of patience shown by some people baffles me at times,” he added.

Obviously, in the heat of the moment, both fans and Lennon can say things that can seem beyond robust, but given a few hours to cool down, I think we can all appreciate the the magnitude of Lennon’s job at the moment. He’s a victim of his and the team’s own success. Ironically, if Celtic were out on our arse, by now, in Europe, there wouldn’t be as much passion and expectation from us fans and we would probably have taken defeat by Inverness CT on the chin. Let’s not forget, we are still top of the League and if anyone thought that results like this would go away with Rangers, they are deluding themselves. Other teams are going to step up to the plate and give everything they have against Celtic. They only have to raise their games 3 or 4 times a year now instead of 6 or 8. Every game Celtic play, we are going to have to just live with that fact and simply overcome it. That’s what we are doing. What we must not do is spit the dummy out and shout abuse at Lennon when he is clearly feeling it too. I should also add that I believe he does understand that fans are frustrated at these times — it’s what sport’s all about after all — but he shouldn’t take it personal when, in the heat of the moment, fans give him verbal. He should leave the ultimatums out. He knows fans don’t want him to go. It’s bad for the team and supporters’ morale if people take things personally and ultimatums like the one quoted are given.

It’s in all our interests to continue to back the whole team, Lennon and all, and drive on for unprecedented success. Some fans might argue that the backing the fans have given him in the past is proof enough that they back him but it was hardly difficult to do, given the circumstances. Let’s just put it behind us and move on. Like adults.

With the match against Hearts now about to kick off in under an hour, I’m feeling confident we will take this opportunity to quickly put our recent SPL form to bed and get back to winning ways…

Yes, Newsnight screwed up, but let’s remember who the real victims are – and listen to them – Comment – Voices – The Independent.

I couldn’t agree more with this article and strongly recommend reading it. It articulates my thoughts  exactly so there’s no point in me writing another one.

 

Tipping is not optional:Family locked in restaurant by staff after refusing to pay gratuity after bad service | Mail Online.

Fucking bollox it’s not optional. You don’t tip the bus driver but we tip a taxi driver. When I done charity work voluntarily, I was rarely tipped when doing house clearances. You don’t tip the gas man or any other workers that do work in your home. The restaurant at Wishaw Golf Club keep the tips and use them to help pay the staff wages. In other words, the staff don’t see the tip anyway. That restaurant is not alone. Restaurants should pay a decent wage and tipping is for when staff have provided service over and beyond the usual. You should also ask if the tips are shared among the staff equally or whether the staff keep their own tips. For example, if the food is crap but the service is good you wouldn’t want to tip the chefs for the waiting staff‘s service. And vice versa.

On top of that, if the food is sub standard, you can refuse it and pay only for the replacement, assuming the replacement isn’t sub standard. You can demand a refund for dishes that were sub standard. Most decent restaurants will not charge for dishes that are sub standard as goodwill gesture even if you ate it.

Never in the history of humanity since before biblical times when it was deemed right and proper to molest children and rape your slaves, as the father of the three main religions, Abraham, did –– lets not forget that Muhammad (Piss Be Upon Him) married a child, and I don’t suppose it wasn’t consummated until she was 16 or 17 –– has such a fuss been made about a white-collar worker molesting kids and/or vulnerable people. It was all the rage only 40 years ago. Kids in care homes would be considered lucky if they avoided being sodomised by their “carers”.

Hundreds, literally, (300 at last count) are coming out now and saying that they were tampered with by the creepy cunt that Savile was. I always thought him to be creepy anyway. There always seemed that there was something just not quite right about him. “Now then, now then…” I hear you say, “…it’s easy to say that now.” Well yes, but it was bloody well easy to say it when he was alive. He got pelters from comedians for being a creep –– one of those cunts that do a lot of charity work but don’t like talking about it, but never shut up about it. –– he done it for the kids. Gary Glitter had a predilection for kids and celebrities have their fair share of child abusers among their number. Anyone that kids either look up to, are in awe of or have in a position of authority over them will have among their number, a few that will abuse that level of trust and authority. I’m talking about priests, vicars and pastors, doctors, police, middle management uncle Fred from round the corner and bosses at work, teachers, janitors, Orange Lodge senior members, scout leaders, boys brigade leaders, children’s sports trainers, MP’s of course and many more. In every walk of life, we have abusers among us and if there’s anything good to come out of this, it is that the message from the police is that they will hunt them down, accomplices and all, no matter how long it takes.

Child abusers up and down the country will now be thinking that Jimmy Savile is one lucky bastard to have gotten away with what amounts to child abuse on an industrial scale. But he has had help to have been able to get away with it for such a long time. There is no way that a guy that looks, talks, walks and acts the way he did could have got away with that amount of abuse for any more than a week without a degree of tolerance of his behaviour that amounted to aiding and abetting. He must have had accomplices and it seems there is still a story involving two doctors in a child abuse ring still yet to be told to the police. If someone had made an allegation against him to me, I would have believed it unless the person telling me fitted the profile of a fantasist. Because if ever there was a guy that fitted the profile of a child abuser, Jimmy Savile is that guy. Same as Glitter. These guys have low self-esteem sometimes because they were victims of abuse themselves as kids or that they had a difficult childhood for whatever reason and then become overly extrovert as adults to compensate for their own lack of self-respect. That lack of self-respect makes it easy for them to have little respect for their fellow human beings. Rather, more accurately, they have little respect for others’ feelings. They have empathy but because they hate themselves so much it’s easy for them to get love and hate mixed up. I’m no psychologist and I’m only theorising, speculating even. But I don’t think I’m far off the mark.

The Catholic church was getting it tight over the last few decades but I always maintained that abusers are everywhere among us in all walks of life and in all employments. Priests were just bound to be the first to be exposed among the white-collar middle class abusers because their victims would become disgusted with religion and after a few years away from the church they would start thinking about other victims after them. They would then pluck up the courage to speak out to stop anyone else from going through the same as they went through. And a great deal of courage it took and they are to be commended. Watch out now for more and more professionals having complaints made against them. It’s nothing new of course. All of the professions I mentioned have had examples of complaints that have been proven against some of their number. I don’t quite know how the catholic church was singled out for special attention when there is equal child abuse cases in every other white-collar profession where professionals  have an authority over vulnerable people. We constantly hear horror stories but like cycling has the name for being a dirty sport full of drug cheats, the catholic church got the name for being full of child molesters. Mark Cavendish made an impassioned defence of the sport he loves by making the point that the only reason cycling looks bad, is because they have in place the correct and proper structure to catch cheats, while other sports fail in that regard. He made the point that there are cheats in every profession. I know what he’s talking about. Bigots in Scotland will have you believe that Catholics are riddled with child molesters. This despite the stories of child molesting that have surfaced in all the organisations I mentioned earlier. Like the Orange Lodge, protestant clergy, Presbyterian elders, Boys Brigade Leaders. Society has among us, very nasty people who prey on the vulnerable for their own sexual gratification. We also have nasty people who use it as an excuse to label people as paedophiles just for their own shite stirring gossiping gratification. I’m thinking of Esther Rantzen   regarding the Savile case. I don’t agree entirely with that post I linked to but it gave us something to think about regarding Esther Rantzen and her incredibility. Here’s my comment in reply to the article…

I agree with everything you say apart from your last 2 paragraphs were you suggest that because Savile’s dead he’s probably innocent of the allegations. With over 300 allegations there is no doubt he was a serial child molester. He doesn’t need to be here to answer the allegations. Also there are potential accomplices that I’m very sure will be charged in connection with these allegations. These include at least 2 doctors. Just because horse teeth is a noted liar and wouldn’t know the truth if it tickled her private parts doesn’t mean Savile’s not guilty of at least some of the 300 plus allegations that have been made against him. There is no smoke without fire.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Esther’s being less than truthful, and let’s be honest, the chances of all 300+ allegations being the truth is very, very unlikely. More unlikely than God presenting himself to us and performing a stand up act for us all and aliens from under the surface of the moon showing up and asking “What’s up”?”

But as I was saying; 1.) There is no way Savile done all this without people knowing and as such they are just as guilty as accomplices either after the fact or during. 2.) There is no way he is alone in the world of celebrities because just like every other profession which commands respect and trust, it is riddled with human beings, 10% of which are potential paedophiles in that they are sexually attracted to kids, and those that are in white-collar jobs that command respect and trust from the community, are more likely to abuse that trust if they think they can get away with it. 3.) The Catholic church seen sexual deviancy as an illness, when it is simply a sexual orientation, that they can somehow cure. That’s as crazy as the notion that straight heterosexual  normal adults could be somehow trained to be gay, sado masochists, or fetishists. It’s just not possible to change someone’s sexual orientation and the catholic church should have known better. 4.) There’s a good chance that some good will come of this and more people will feel empowered to face their abusers and have them brought to justice. Hopefully the flood gates will now open and as the police said last week, abusers can expect a chap at the door anytime because the police have promised that they are coming for them. I know for a fact the sexual abuse of prepubescent kids is rife and when you scratch the surface a whole catalogue of abuse and paedophile rings will be uncovered. Maybe now those kids will get the justice they so richly deserve but it will still not be nearly enough to remove the scars and mental damage it has caused them. But it might stop others from suffering the same fate.

We can but only hope. If there are any abuse victims reading this please be aware that I understand that I will never know what you have gone through. I will never truly grasp the damage it has done you. But society’s attitudes have changed and we are all on your side now. It wasn’t your fault. It was society’s fault and the abuser’s fault along with those that harboured them. They must be made to pay. It will take a great deal of courage to come forward but you will be doing society a great service and it is my opinion that you deserve medals for coming forward. Good luck.

Edit… Well It was funny I mentioned Gary Glitter being similarly creepy. With the seemingly extroverted personality to cover up their own insecurities they seemed like two peas in a pod and an absolute certainty to have tampered with kids as part of a paedophile ring. Mark my words. There will be many more over the next week or so. I should not name any of my suspicions in case it prejudices the investigation and subsequent trials.

 

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