Quintin Jardine's blog

A guy goes to the post office to apply for a job. The interviewer asks him, “Are you allergic to anything?” He replies, “Yes, caffeine.I can’t drink coffee.”   “Ok, Have you ever been in the military service?” “Yes,” he says, “I was in Iraq for one tour.” The interviewer says, “That will give you 5 extra points toward employment.” Then he asks, “Are you disabled in any way?” The guy says, “Yes. A bomb exploded near me and I lost both my testicles.” The interviewer grimaces and then says, “Okay. You’ve got enough points for me to hire you right now. Our normal hours are from 8:00 am to 4:00 PM. You can start tomorrow at 10:00 am, and plan on starting at 10:00 am every day.” The guy is puzzled and asks, “If the work hours are from 8:00 am to 4:00 PM, why don’t you want me here until 10:00 am?” “This is a government job”, the interviewer says. “For the first two hours, we just stand around drinking coffee and scratching our balls. No point in you coming in for that.”

Top of the Scottish news this morning was a think tank proposal that the notion of a single Scottish police force should be binned and the present eight force structure should be replaced by thirty-two local forces. I’m not sure who was in that tank, but whoever, they couldn’t have been thinking too hard. While I am dead against a unitary force, and would like to see Strathclyde broken into at least three units, going to thirty-two seems crazy, particularly so if these are to be overseen at local level adding to the burdens on Scotland’s councils at a time when they are being pressed to lower costs and increase efficiency.

You’re missed Inhuman Remains. Oz is dead; get over it. (But so was Bobby Ewing, wasn’t he?)

Just about to do an email interview for the Courier newspaper, in advance of my Dundee visit next week. One of the questions is about Sepp Blatter; that should be fun.

Checked in already for the flight home next Monday; my Ryanair boarding pass is on my desk. They are so keen on cost-cutting and speedy turnarounds that travellers are expected to partly tear off the slip that’s retained at the boarding gate. I guess that gives them more time to tell you that your cabin bag is a centimetre too wide and that they’re going to charge you thirty quid to put it in the hold. Either that or they tell you that it’s a little overweight, then stand by as you take clothes from it and put them on over those you’re already wearing and stuff smaller items in your pockets. Yes, I know, the same total weight goes into the cabin, but don’t laugh, because I’ve seen them do that. And have you ever noticed that however carefully you weigh your bag before you leave home it always manages to put on a kilo or so during the journey to the airport?

As regular blog visitors must know by now, I’m a fervent supporter of a fully independent Scottish government, within a United Kingdom and the European Union. But that doesn’t mean I believe that everything my party’s leadership does is correct by definition. For example, the threat by the Scottish Justice Secretary to withhold funding for the UK Supreme Court is a piece of bombastic, blustering nonsense. Kenny McAskill has a reputation for shooting from the lip that extends beyond Scotland, but normally he thinks issues through more clearly before  pushing the ‘intemperate’ button. From what I’ve read of the judgement of the Nat Fraser case he’s chasing the wrong hare. Jurisdiction is a side issue, and not the first that should concern him. The unanimous finding of five Supreme Court judges, who included two last holders of Scotland’s highest judicial office, was so obviously correct that not a single voice has been raised against it since it was handed down. The question that the Scottish public are entitled to ask is; why did Mr Fraser’s lawyers have to go to London in the first place? Why didn’t our senior judges reach the same conclusion?

Alex Salmond, our First Minister, has a point when he expresses concern that the UK Supreme Court appears to have backed into criminal appeal matters that were meant to have been reserved for the Scottish Bench, and he has done the right thing by asking people who know what they’re talking about to consider the issues and report back to him, prior to a Scottish parliamentary debate. But he would be helped by two things, the first being, a clearer recognition by Scottish judges of the implications of European human rights provisions, the second being that Kenny McAskill should stop chasing headlines.

We’ve been in Spain for two weeks now, doing the things that grandparents do. For all of that time it has been unseasonably hot, but not any more. The Tramuntana, the north wind that drives men crazy, is blowing hard from the Pyrenees, touching 80kph, and that’s interesting. Forecast is that it will remain with us until Wednesday, but they can never be quite certain. The local sages reckon it either lasts for three days, seven days, or eleven days, but I’ve known it go on for a hell of a lot longer than that.

They tell me that The Loner is due for release in Canadian bookstores this week, with the mass market version following in August. I’m pleased, for I’m a regular visitor to that friendly and civilised nation, and hope to be heading there again in the not too distant. Globe and Mail readers should keep their eyes open for a QJ presence in the next couple of weeks, under  the  auspices of my good friends Martin Levin and Jack Kirchhoff.

Thirty-three years ago, James Callaghan, then our Prime Minister, returned from somewhere hot to a Britain in the grip of industrial chaos. Alighting from his aircraft he beamed at the waiting media and said ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ It remains one of the stupidest things that any politician has ever done, and it sealed his fate at the ensuing general election.

Whatever else he may or may not be, Josep S Blatter is a politician, so it was eerie to hear him say much the same thing at his confrontational press conference last night. He isn’t going to suffer the same immediate fate as Sunny Jim, for the simple reason that he doesn’t have an opponent in tomorrow’s election for the presidency of FIFA, but such blindness to reality must surely mean that his days are numbered. The people who are now lined up against him are not going to go away, and they now include national governments. Ominously two of football’s biggest backers, CocaCola and Adidas, have begun to growl their disapproval in the background, and if they move to demand that Blatter stands down he really will be cooked. The sooner the better.

The thing I hate most about the self-aggrandising little bastard is that he has no right to present himself as the face of football. Alongside the likes of Lionel Messi, Paul Scholes, Luka Modric, and Xavi Hernandez, he’s the AntiChrist. There is a role for FIFA, but not in its current form, and not with him or any of his lackeys involved in any way.

Thank you for your perseverance and for your praise for The Loner. By this time next week, Grievous Angel will have joined it on the shelves, and signed copies will be available from http://www.campbellreadbooks.com.

Back in Scotland next week, briefly, for four gigs to mark the release of Grievous Angel. You’ll find them listed on the ‘Events’ page.

Certainly. The next Primavera novel, As Easy as Murder, will be published in January.

My wife was born in South Shields, a few years before Cheryl Ann Tweedy emerged into the watery sunlight, just across the river in Newcastle. That gives them a sort of kinship, even if Eileen is a  better singer. And so, when Cheryl was booted off the American X Factor because not everyone might have understood her accent, I took it personally. Having been fed over the last few years on British TV a steady diet of Sopranos, CSI, The Shield, The Wire, and various other US urban soaps, all of which could have been sub-titled, I find myself more than a little pissed off  that the show’s producers regard a Geordie accent as off limits for a US audience.

Latest news from FIFA’s ‘You couldn’t make it up’ department, is that the organisation has opened ethics proceedings against its own president.

This was posted today on its website.

‘On 26 May 2011, FIFA Executive Committee member Mohamed bin Hammam has requested the FIFA Ethics Committee to open ethics proceedings against FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter on the basis that, in the report submitted by FIFA Executive Committee member Chuck Blazer earlier this week, FIFA Vice-President Jack A. Warner would have informed the FIFA President in advance about alleged cash payments to delegations attending a special meeting of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) apparently organised jointly by Jack A. Warner and Mohamed bin Hammam on 10 and 11 May 2011 and that the FIFA President would have had no issue with these.’

That means that both candidates in the forthcoming presidential election are under investigation, and will be effectively on trial at a meeting in Zurich on Sunday. It will be chaired by Petrus Damaseb, deputy head of the Ethics Committee, a London trained barrister who is, in the real world, Judge President of the Namibian High Court. What’s going to happen? I can hardly wait to find out, but I will bet on one thing in advance. If Blatter has to go, he will look for a way to instal one of his place-men as an interim successor. What will follow that? Possibly, the biggest bonfire of files that Switzerland has ever seen?

Yesterday’s news from FIFA made me smile, if only for a second or two before I gave way to anger. Just when you think there are no other strokes that organisation could possibly pull, it surprises you yet again. A few weeks before the election at which the incumbent president is facing a genuine challenger, that opponent, Mohamed bin Hammam, has been accused of bribery. Charges have been laid which associate him with the notorious Jack Warner, whose greatest achievement in life seems to have been staying out of jail, if you read some of the stories that are told of his goings-on in his Caribbean fiefdom.  Who is their accuser? That’s where it gets even stranger; the whistle-blower is a character named Chuck Blazer, executive vice-president of the US Soccer Federation and a member of the FIFA executive for the last fifteen years, even though there is no evidence of hm ever having kicked a ball in his life, which has been running for a couple of months longer than my own. For my money, Mr Blazer is a poster boy for everything that is wrong about football’s global governing body. If you wonder why I feel that way, take a look at  <<http://chuckblazer.blogspot.com/>&gt;  and you’ll begin to get a flavour. Then read Andrew Jennings’ FIFA expose ‘Foul!’. You’ll find that for years, Chuck has been a loyal acolyte of the afore-mentioned Mr Warner. So why has he turned on him now, and why has he tied bin Hammam to him in his accusations?

You’ll forgive me if I doubt that moral outrage or altruism came into it. You’ll forgive me if I ask who stands to benefit most from these accusations, true or false, given their timing. Step  forward Josep S Blatter, president of FIFA for far too long already, and intent on another four year term. Read what you will into the farce; I know I have.

There’s only one proper course of action that I can see. The English FA has indicated already that it finds neither candidate acceptable. Its solution? It’s the one you’d expect from that bumbling, weaselly body; it proposes to stick its head in the sand, by abstaining in the vote. Enough of that nonsense. It’s time for the nations who should control football, those whose domestic leagues and international teams generate its finances, the Europeans and to a lesser extent the South Americans, to stand up and save the game from these scoundrels. They should demand the cancellation of the election, and insist on a root and branch reform of the entire FIFA structure, beginning with the appointment of a new interim president, someone of the stature of Franz Beckenbauer or Bobby Charlton, to oversee the cleansing of the stables.  They should back these demands with the threat of breaking away and setting up an alternative body, let’s call it the International Football Conference, to administer the game among its members and to run its own global and regional club and international competitions.

Can they do so? Yes they can! Will they do so? No they won’t! Why not? Because integrity and courage vanished from world football long ago.

There is no certainty of life, there are no guarantees on our birth certificates. God bless you, Vincent: may those flights of angels sing you to your rest, and may their voices give comfort to Yvonne, to your parents, to your brothers and to all the rest of us who knew and loved you.

Hi Norah. You won’t have to wait too long, for Grievous Angel. It should be heading your way week after next. As for audio editions, yes, these are available in  the UK and Commonwealth, but they cost an arm and a leg in CD form, and mainly go to public libraries. However if you look at Audible.com, which is now owned by Amazon, (as soon will be everything else in the world that isn’t owned by WalMart or Tesco) you should  find many of them in downloadable form, at a realistic cost. Load them onto an iPod or MP3 player and you’ll be able to play them in your car, if the audio system has an input socket. Are they read in a Scottish accent? But of course, mostly by my actor friend Jim Bryce.

Many years ago , my friend Fred was one of the founders of the Australia branch of the Hibernian Football Club Supporters’ Association. Over the years, pre-internet, they’ve spread the word through snail-mailed press cuttings, and monthly newsletters; members have even bought season tickets that were rarely if ever used. They are true addicts, football fans of the finest kind. Their club should be proud of them and should encourage them in any way it can. At least that’s what you’d think.

A few days ago, the man who looks after their website <<http://www.ozhibs.com/>&gt; contacted Easter Road and asked if he could use the Hibs badge in a new logo he’s doing for them. He offered to acknowledge Hibs’ copyright and to give HibernianTV a free ad on every page of the site. It took a club official all of 45 minutes, and just ten words to say, ‘No’. The man involved didn’t even have the courtesy to offer an explanation for his intransigence. I know this because I’ve seen his email. There may be legal inhibitions on use of the badge, but it would have cost nothing to set these out.

No wonder Fred and his pals feel let down, and angry. If someone who reads this post knows Hibs’ majority owner Sir Tom Farmer, (or any senior executive of the club) I’d be grateful if they’d bring it to his attention. I’m sure he’ll appreciate that no club has so many fans, nor any business so many customers, that it can afford to snub a single one of them, least of all those who carry the torch on the other side of the world.

Yes, it is ages since the last Skinner. Grievous Angel will be out there in two weeks.

As expected, the Scottish Night in Trattoria La Clota was a major success, even if we were in the minority.  I didn’t do a full kilt count, but I reckon I can recall four, and at least one and a half of those were worn by Scotsmen. Major credits to Kathleen, John, the chef, and to the great Fergus Muirhead who ran the entire show. If you’d like to know more about Fergus the entertainer, you’ll find it on http://www.fergusmuirhead.com. If you’d like to meet Fergus the financial expert, you’ll find him on http://www.moneysucks.net. If you want to see him, and you can tune into BBC1 Scotland, check out Reporting Scotland 1:30pm on Wednesday, May 25 and monthly thereafter.