Still there?

 ANTING AND RAVING, that's all I feel fit for today. Haven't had a break or a decent night's sleep for weeks and it's beginning to tell. I'm sure if I kicked one of the children - maybe the eldest, the one that I raised eighteen years, it seems, just so he could now work Fast Food - maybe that would help me feel better? Or maybe one of the younger cleverer ones, too lazy to do any school work or even, sometimes, to attend at all? Maybe slapping one of them about the head with a stick would make me feel just a little bit Dandier?

But Noooo... your stinking "Society", she would object! She would throw poor me in the pokey, instead of Them!!? Why did you have to die, John Belushi? I would have sold you my childrens, if only you'd asked?

It isn't just them - that's unfair - they're just icing on the poopy cake. It's everything: kids, work, people, the world. 'Sick of the lot of you.

Where have I been? Did you hear that the pope had died? Jeebus!, but where have I been? They elected another one, too: I posted a prediction to my belovèd that read: Papa Ratzi, the Former Nazi! and it came so very very close to what they wrote next day? You can always rely on The Sun, but I thought the Daily Express' "Der Panzerkardinal" was funnier. Tittering still. Or I would be, if I weren't so feching crabbit!

Bless me Father, for I have sinned...
It has been two weeks since my last posting, Father...

And then, week or so earlier - decades ago of blogtime I know, but, whatevs - shock of my bloody life, there was!

Sat stuporific in the early morning after a long long night of hard coding. Crumpled in the comfy chair, smoking, soaking coffee, listening half-arsed off and on to local news on the local Fox affiliate. Not paying any particular attention. The Obnoxious Gillian Show for goodness' sake - the very, very last place on earthly television I'd expect to hear of scandal at a scottish soccer match? Whatwhat? - whitwizat? Alarum. Surprise. Being the local Fox affiliate, of course, meant they only teased the story, never quite managed to tell it. Dig around the web; look to my trusty Scotsman:

Hearts say sorry for fans who booed Pope tribute

MARTIN PATIENCE

HEARTS football club have apologised for the behaviour of some of their fans who booed and jeered a silent tribute to Pope John Paul II.

The incident occurred before the start of yesterday’s Tennent’s Scottish Cup semi-final between Celtic and Hearts at Hampden Park in Glasgow.

Both teams had agreed to a minute’s silence before kick-off but the tribute was marred by booing from a section of the Edinburgh support. As a result, the referee cut the minute’s silence to 24 seconds.

Phil Anderton, Hearts’ chief executive, condemned the behaviour...

That's it? That's all? That's News here in sunny California?

So they booed a dead pope? Meh. They boo the live ones too.

Remember smiling to myself late last year when Tony Pierce claimed Yankees v. RedSox was "simply the greatest rivalry in all of sport."

P'tah! - says I - 'guy knows zip from rivalry! Far as I can tell, Yankees-RedSox began for real in 1920 or thereabouts and seems to be all about Baseball? Seriously - it's about the feching Baseball, nothing more?

Pleh. 1920 is, like, yesterday in british terms. And nobody honestly cares about the game? The game was always never more than a front. British sporting rivalries - Scotland v. England, or Celtic v. Rangers - they've been running for centuries, since long before there were sports; they keep alive in present times the ancient wars, immortal rifts, that can not be allowed to heal? The hatred between Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers soccer teams - the "Old Firm" - or their pale-shadowed wannabee Edinburgh counterparts Hearts and Hibs, who can no more break free of the "local derby" taint than Britney can of the trailer park - these have nothing to do with football! It's the Wars of Religion - it's the Reformation: Catholic vs. Protestant; catholic Celtic versus protestant Rangers; Fenian bastards vs. Proddy dogs; Republican irish vs. Loyalist ulstermen; Old Pretender vs. William of Orange; Papists vs. freeborn Presbyterians. Nothing to do with football. Betchya five bucks, look on any scottish schoolboy's jotter you'll find hidden there somewhere FTP or FTQ? Depends which foot he kicks with? That's "F**k The Pope", and "F**k the Queen", case you hadn't figured?

Used to be, my primary school, you couldn't borrow an eraser from a classmate unless you supported Celtic?

But hey - Hearts fans made it to Good Day LA. That's the Big Time, right enough. Here in America, on the other hand, nothing could be farther from reality than catholic versus protestant anything. Quite the reverse: the caffies and the proddies love each other to death here, are all, Let's hold hands! and Kissee kissee and, like, We are all one happy fambly: baptists and papists join hands and poke fingers together, at likes of me. They'll be overjoyed, out there in Bob Jones county - where Ian Paisley, can-you-believe-it, went to school - they'll be so happy in their ministries to have heard the new pope promise to Unify all the christian faiths? Won't they? It hardly falls to me to point out - lapsed-catholic, turned-prod, jew-married secular libruhl that I am - that that's what a pope would say, isn't it? He is, after all, the head of the One True Holy Catholic And Apostolic Church, isn't he?

He wants you back, he does.

Heh heh - even when I break a smile, these days, it's nasty? Told you I was in a foul mood. It's better that I just shut up again, go back to my work. Dream about Baseball, and Dodgers triumphant. That'll work, won't it?