A couple of jokes

Fiftyseven people from around the world have viewed, and  hopefully read my blog in the last seven days, so the cailleach is now known world wide so to speak. I'm sure she would be very impressed. A cailleach is an affectionate word for an older woman up the on the Isle of Lewis.  I'll maybe write more about her another time. She deserves her place on the interweb thingee.She would certainly be impressed to know that her church, The Free Church of Scotland, now has a Facebook page and a Twitter account. We all have to move on I can just hear her saying and I reckon my father would have been tweeting away all night, putting the world to right.

Madonna, another older woman, was performing in Edinburgh last night. In order to impress her audience she had to play with an AK47 assault rifle and a six shooter on stage, which says it all about the quality of her shows nowadays, nevermind the lack of respect and bad taste involved. Best give it up now, if you need an AK47 to hide the crap. Or else try a guitar next time; an ability to play one often impresses in these parts.

Those of you who love football, and there are a few, will be pleased to know that a statue of Denis Law was unveiled in Aberdeen City this week. He was born there but of course made his name as a player with Manchester United back in the sixties when I was a boy. Who can ever forget the names Charlton, Law and Best? Indubitably the greatest attacking strike force that the world has ever known, I'm sure you will all agree.

I see that Best was selected by the BBC as one of their "New Elizabethans", and was profiled by James Naughtie this past week on Radio 4. Naughtie recalled the description of Best by Hugh McIlvanney as "having feet like a pickpocket's fingers". Paddy Crerand said that he could turn an opponents blood inside out with his twinkle feet. ( the twinkle feet is from me and not Paddy). Incidentally Hugh McIlvanney was one of the greatest ever sports journailists. You can find lots of his stuff online. His brother was the Scottish novelist William McIlvanney, whom I once heard speaking here in Edinburgh, and whose best novel is probably "Docherty", but the Laidlaw books are pretty damn good too. Try "Strange Loyalties" if you like a good detective story.

I was even more pleased to see one of my all time heroes, the late Paul Foot, nominated by BBC as one of their new Elizabethans. The BBC even remembered to say that he was a life long member of SWP, but you can hear the sneer in Naughtie's voice when he says it. He was a finer man than most you will ever meet James my man. Paul was a brilliant journalist, a revolutionary socialist, and what I will remember him for most, one of the greatest public speakers I have ever had the privilege of hearing. If he were alive now I'm sure he would be busy exposing all the criminals who run our banks and big cosporations. What a parcel of rogues they are.
On a lighter note a couple of jokes courtesy of Chick Murray, a famous Scottish comedian:
He was walking down the road one night, man comes up to him and says "is that the moon up there?" Chick says "I don't know I'm a stranger here myself."

I was walking along the street in Glasgow and I walked into a lamp post. It was so dark inside the lamp post I decided to walk out again.