Whores will have their trinkets

And mine arrived in the mail today! I may have no money and thus mad hair (honest to god it has stopped listening to me) BUT I have a hamster inside Amy Acker's belly and a panda chasing a pint of Guinness. Money well spent. Plus free ridiculously cute sticker. I always enjoy the free stickers. Modest Mouse sent me a sticker of a whale with a squid inside its belly. I'm not sure what's going on with that but you know FREE.

I know none of you care about football because you all suck and aren't real men so I'll keep it short. Last night was pretty tense. We managed to let in a goal 2 minutes in. It's this Scottish mentality. We have the home advantage but we're playing a tough team who've beaten us away and we absolutely have to win. What do we do? Make it that much more difficult for ourselves. It's the reason Scotland failed to qualify (Mcleish's incompetence aside) and it's why Celtic almost threw it all away. Hurrah for Massimo Donati. They were talking to him after the game and he just kept talking about Milan. He's obsessed with them since they never picked him for the first team. So he's all "I'm happy because we beat Milan when they come here and tonight I score. And we go to Milan to win. And if we not win ehh draw is good." Italians are so cute when they speak English. My Italian teacher could be telling us we had an essay and two tests for the next day and we'd all go "Oh, ok, hug?"

I've been clunking up and down the stairs in my boots. They have heels. Me and heels don't mix well, walking takes a lot of concentration. But they go absolutely perfectly with the dress I wanna wear for Emma's birthday and I bought them months ago and haven't wore them out yet. And there's the added height so I can reach high shelves. Well highish shelves. It's going well. So far I haven't fallen once although there were a couple wobbly moments when I realised you can't lean quite as easily on heels as you can in normal shoes. There must be some sort of heel gene I'm missing. Girls half my age teeter around on heels twice the size of mine and they don't have wobbling problems.

Got my eyes tested. The boy was all "You can have the free NHS test or for just a tenner we can take a picture of your retina and you can keep it. oooo." Fool, like I have a tenner to spend on a picture of something I already own. I spent that tenner on a sandwich and phone credit. Eyes are fine. I'm still half blind but I'm not getting more blind as time goes on so woo.

Grand ol' team to play for

I was tired and my throat was still gunky. Classics had just been more information on Greeks and their little slave boys and rules on who was allowed to get aroused and who wasn't. My archaeology teacher had made the mistake of proposing a debate and putting me on defence of crazy theories. I don't think I've ever spoken so much in a tutorial before. I had a lift at the writer's group since they liked my story about blind lesbians but the long cold night ahead was daunting. Why did Uefa decide hey now everyone's used to football on wednesdays, a day that everybody is happy with, let's move it to tuesday when everyone has busy days? Grr.

After a few shots leading nowhere half-time was drawing near. Aiden McGeady, teeny little scottish guy who got bullied last season by a big fat ginger Irish player had a shot but I didn't stand up, I thought it had missed. It wasn't until the man next to me grabbed hold of my elbow and lifted me up that I saw the net swoosh and I realised we were winning. So thank you very much man next to me, next time could you not keep trying to hold my arm even when I pull away several times? Yeah? Good. Just glad it wasn't my dead arm, oh how I would have raged.

And so we won and actually have a chance again to progress further, which means more games and more mini-holidays :D

It was freezing though. I knew I should have worn a jumper but my classes are always far too warm. Total mistake, I was shivering for ages when I got home. This is how colds happen, Catherine, you should know this by now!

I was in fopp the other day where I parted with money for cds! Not done that in a while. I was browsing through the so-called 'alternative' section which is just rock music made in the last 2 decades really. I bought a Regina Spektor and a Modest Mouse album but this is how I made my choices:

Dum dee dum ooo stuff's a fiver. Fiver's cheap. I have a fiver! It's a sign! Holy crap she's hot:

Purchased.

I'll have a quick look round first, ooh they've got The Shins, aw too expensive, put it back. Ooh, The Decemberists oh no there's none here just the sign, grumble grumble. I own this cd! And this one! That one's crap, why do people like them? Aw well, I'll just go pay...ooo Modest Mouse and it's pretty and blue and a fiver too. Let's see what songs are on it: Jesus Christ was an only childThat's a great title!...Purchased.

I am a master of killing time. I'm a time assassin.

Singing hallelujah with the fear in your heart.

Okay guys, lets review my past week!


First off I saw Stardust at the weekend (not the weekend that just happened but the weekend before) with lil sis. In general I liked it. I love Claire Danes, she's got an honesty about her that's endearing and Charlie Cox was cute. It was a bit Princess Bride-ish and I could have done without the overly epic trumpet score that kept cropping up at IMPORTANT moments. It was jarring. There was nothing epic about the story, we all know Tristan loves Yvaine, we know they're gonna get together and she's not going to die. It didn't need EPIC fantasy music. I was also a little disappointed in the ending. I'm not one of those people who get all pedantic about these things but the book ending was so sad but lovely and the film was a bit meh. I actually have the film tie-in book so I knew the ending was different but I musta forgot while I was in the cinema. I was just like 'wait, what? everyone lives happily ever after forever?' and sis got annoyed at me for ruining the moment or something.

Nothing much happened until Tuesday when I went to the other uni and paid £2 to watch Rangers and Barcelona do not a lot and pretend to ignore Emma singing in my face. She was adorably mad.

Then it was Lisbon time with Dad and Padington Bear! Lisbon is pretty. Lots of big fountains and statues of people like Vasco da Gama and King Jose. We didn't do much apart from eat and listen to Padington tell us Joe Strummer's life story and how the Clash formed all of his political views or something. I just kept thinking of Mark Ruffalo in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind when he gets high and rambles about how amazing The Clash were. I didn't tell him this. The stadium looks like a rollercoaster was stuck on top but Benfica have an eagle! At the start of each game this guy comes out and summons an eagle to swoop down over the crowd. Fricken awesome. We lost the game of course but you guys don't care about that. One last thing about the game I will say is that I had a surreal experience in the toilets. I could hear guys singing Celtic songs all around me while I peed because of the acoustics. Very weird. I got to see the national stadium where Celtic won the European Cup in '67. Dad was all in awe and the other guys with us crossed themselves with grass water.

Came back from Lisbon and saw Arcade Fire.

Emma and me were dying of the cold and she's never really listened to them but she boogied with me anyway. The crowd were all old and boring though. I mean the music isn't exactly rocking out loud but there could have been a bit more than serious arm pointing and swaying. We bounced and head banged as much as we could with coughing fits in between times because that's how hardcore we are. It was a good gig what with the organ and the guitarist running like a cartoon man on fire up and down the stage. No freebies though. Paid for a tee though, pretty nice.

Lil sis won £1000 by entering an article to the Scotland on Sunday. That's more money than she's knows what to do with! Ridiculously proud of her and have I mentioned how wonderful my sis is lately? Cause she is. Wii plz.

And lastly I got my pumpkins today. One little one and two tiny ones. Pics will follow once they're all cut and candled. Wish I could do more on Halloween but football. Yes, yes, I'm a man.

Hail, hail and all that.

There are reasons why they call it the beautiful game. Running on to a pitch to playfully slap the opposition and potentially ruining everything is not one of them.

Dickass.

I've been going to Celtic games for 8 years now. Conveniently I started going just as we got good again. I really went because it was time spent with my dad and I never do see him enough despite the fact he was working at home at the time. I also went to make a statement. I was gonna pay attention, learn the rules (including the elusive offside rule which traditionally my sex fail to comprehend) and understand the history. I sat there in my green and white hooped shirt which was a little too big for me since back then girls strips didn't exist (neither did xxl strips, fat people just has to tuck it in) next to my dad, pie in hand and appropriate football saying ready to shout at intervals (I stopped at 'go on my son' though). Boys at school were surprised when I could hold my own in petty football fights. I knew my rival teams almost as well as my own and I had the advantage of being a girl so none of my arguments could end in getting beat up (mostly). This empowered me.

A couple of years ago I lost interest. Things between my dad and I were going rather craply thanks to my no-good-dirty-rotten-cheating-son-of-a-whore boyfriend. I missed an old firm game for him and took crap from his sister's boyfriend (who was a drunken Aberdeen fan). I had to deal with angry texts from him during games he thought I was gonna miss to see him and lastly I was accused of caring more about football than him and that I was a terrible girlfriend. I admit fully I was pathetic at the time I dated him and my biggest ever regret was not leaving him when I should have. The point is I barely knew who was in my team and going to games became a nuisance rather than entertainment.

Once he was out of my life I was still in two minds about football. Did I really care that much about a bunch of over-paid, stupid boys kicking a ball?

The answer is Fuck Yes I did. I have sat through games in the freezing rain, full of the flu, unable to even stand as we took hopeless penalties against Valencia. I've sang til my throat cracked to cheer my boys on and swore more than usual in front of my father. Strange men have hugged, punched and groped me all at football matches and I once yelled at an old man. The best experiences I have ever had at games have been the European games.

It's the crowd mentality. The referee gives AC Milan a penalty for no good reason just after you did the unthinkable and put a goal past Brazil's goalkeeper and the sheer rage flows through you. You want him to suffer. The string of expletives is only topped by the booing everytime he interrupts the game afterwards. There the panic that grips you everytime Kaka goes near the ball. The memory of the last time you saw him and he ran from nowhere, faster than you've ever seen a player run at Parkhead. He terrifies you and he humbles you and you hate him a little for scoring the penalty so well.


And then there's the joy when that ball finally hits the back of the net at the end of the game. The guy next to me is a lot more shy than the usual drunken lot I end up sitting beside. He moves to embrace me in the 'feckin hells yeah we are good lets all hug and love each other' way that men do and then casually changes his mind half-way through. I get dragged by the neck by my dad instead.

But don't despair, readers. I spend the more boring games coming up with amusing stories for the players and crazier fans. For instance, I believe Gary Caldwell, Celtic defender and class A pointer, is simply in the wrong profession. He probably became a football player because that's what all the boys were doing. And he got put in defense since someone bigger and more arrogant wanted to be the striker. He got where he is today through his outstanding ability to point out just who is going to take the ball away from him and score. If there had been a market for it he could have lived up a mountain, with a crazy beard. People would come from all over the world to ask him to fortell their futures and he would point at potential people would crap up their lives. Sadly he was born in the wrong age and can but point at the opposition instead.

And that is why my dad curses his name every weekend.