Quintin Jardine's blog

I note that the unloved El-Hadji Diouf enjoyed a wining debut for his new club, Rangers, against the Jambos last night.  I note also a wonderful quote by his new manager, Walter Smith, who claims that ‘serial killers get better publicity than he does.’ That’s because their PR is better, Walter, and maybe also because there’s no record of any serial killer gobbing on the public at his trial.

I am not a winter person by nature. The day which means most to me, year in year out, is the last Sunday in March, when daylight saving sees the beginning of British Summer Time. I am a firm believer that the UK should switch to Central European Time, on psychological grounds alone. That said, there are some days, even now, that are memorable. Yesterday was one. Why? Because in the afternoon, having logged well over 1000 words on my current project, I was able to take a break sit on the terrace in the sun, and read for a couple of hours. I may even do the same today. But first, the 1000+ words.

I know that Rangers signing options are constrained these days, but I can’t be the only person in Scotland to be astonished that they have been led to ease the problem by taking, on loan from Blackburn, one El-Hadji Diouf. A very good player no doubt, but this is the same El-Hadji Diouf, whose previous includes, a community service sentence in France for being involved in a road accident while driving without a licence,  telling a ball-boy at Everton to ‘**** off, white boy’, a suspension in England for spitting on an opponent, and a club fine, UEFA suspension and £5000 Sheriff Court fine in Glasgow for gobbing on Celtic fans during a UEFA Cup tie. The man is arguably the most hated footballer in England. Blackburn are off-loading him in the wake of his  latest outrage, abusing a fellow professional as he lay on the ground after suffering a double fracture of the leg. By every account, not a nice guy. Let’s face it, when Sam Allardyce, a man who has spent his entire management career going apeshit in the dug-out, considers sending someone to a shrink, that person must be an extreme case.

It may be that his latest move, to his ninth club in a twelve year career, will be the making of him. (On the other hand if he crosses Walter Smith or Ally McCoist it may well be the end of him.) But whether it is or not, and good player or not, I’m still asking myself why Rangers chose to import such a character, particularly one with a criminal conviction for assaulting fans of their great rival. Do they have no faith at all in their own youth development system?

The honour was mine, I assure you. Good luck with your studies, maybe, once you have your degree, we’ll talk about Skinner the movie.

All these things are unarguably true, but they will not deliver a  Forth tunnel crossing rather than a bridge. The problem is cost. Three years ago, John Swinney gave Parliament cost figures on four crossing options. These showed that either tunnel option would cost 50% more than a bridge. In appraising each option six criteria were used; these did not include either ongoing maintenance cost, or the estimated life of each option. In other words, the thinking behind the appraisal was entirely short-term, what will it cost now, rather than over fifty or one hundred years. We will persuade wee Alex, or the Grey Man, whoever is the decision-maker after May, only by bringing about a sea-change in this thinking. Even then, to fund the project unhindered we will have to take control of our own revenue raising, not just some of it, but all of it. With new gas fields and maybe oil, opening up west of Shetland, this would be a good time to do that.

I am overwhelmed, Mary, and I thank you sincerely. Your praise is so fulsome that I am too embarrassed to publish it. Suffice it to say that it’s an honour to be mentioned in the same sentence as Sir Arthur. So, how do we persuade wee Alex that value is more important than cost and that it isn’t too late to go for the tunnel option?

Just over fifty years ago, Motherwell, the football club with which I have been cursed from the day that my dad lifted me over the turnstile, had a side known then and now as the Ancell Babes. It was a top quality team in what was then a top quality league, not the rest home for continental wasters that it has become.  I have a gym mate in Gullane, Murray Ancell, who is the son of the manager who created it and whose name it bears to this day. A few weeks ago Murray asked me ‘Do you remember the night ‘Well beat the world club champions nine — three at Fir Park?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied ‘I was there; pissing wet Wednesday and Ian St John scored six goals.’ Ian St John was the star striker of the Babes side. ‘Sinjie’, as he was known on the terraces, was a prodigious talent who scored 80 goals in 113 games for Motherwell, and missed just as many. Three of his strikes made up what is still, I believe, the fastest hat-trick ever recorded in football, two and a half minutes against Hibs.

When he was transferred to Liverpool fifty years ago come May 2, aged 22, the fee of £37,500 was the highest ever received by Motherwell, and the highest ever paid by Liverpool. Once the deal was locked up, Bill Shankly, the driven man who built the modern Liverpool FC, confessed that he would have paid twice as much if necessary.

Yesterday, Shankly’s lineal descendant in the Liverpool family, Kenny Dalglish, paid one thousand times that amount for a striker. Andy Carroll is also aged 22, and scored 31 goals in 80 games for  Newcastle United, a 39% strike rate. He also comes with an off-field reputation that includes a criminal conviction and an impressive rap-sheet of tabloid headlines. The owners of Liverpool were able to cough up that sort of cash without blinking, and sign another player in a deal that brought their total spend up to £6om, because simultaneously they sold Fernando Torres, a sullen want-away Spaniard with a career strike rate of 47% who has done nothing more energetic this season than scratch his arse,  for a breath-taking £50m; Fifty Million Pounds. Torres is a top player, yes, and he has a World Cup Winner’s medal . . . although he did little to earn it . . . but still; Fifty Million Pounds.

Sinjie is probably playing golf somewhere today, weather permitting. Whatever he’s doing I’m sure that he will have a philosophical smile on his face as he contemplates the fee that Murray Ancell’s dad would have commanded for him, an established international centre-forward with a  71% strike rate, in the modern market.

World’s gone crazy.

At a lunch party yesterday, someone announced at the table that the Chinese government had paid off the Spanish national debt, and this was seconded by my dear wife. My reaction was ‘Eh?’, so I’ve done some research. There are several accounts of what is actually happening, but they all go back to a statement by the Chinese vice-premier in the leading Spanish daily El Pais, that his country has faith in the Spanish economy and will be prepared to invest in government bond issues, as it has done in Greece and Portugal. While it doesn’t mean that cash-rich China now owns Spain, it is an encouraging vote of confidence. However it doesn’t follow that anyone in Europe can relax. There are several accounts of the situation out there, but this one is the most comprehensive.

http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/spain-china-finance.7xe/

The answer is yes. Indeed, he answer is always, yes. My best advice is to check regularly with http://www.campbellreadbooks.com. You’ll learn there what’s due up to a couple of months ahead.

The burden of expectation for any British player in a Grand Slam final is huge. Last time the Open golf championship was played at Muirfield, a Japanese player was briefly in the lead. You couldn’t see him on the course for the television crews surrounding him: similar situation, and the guy folded. That said, I believe that if yesterday’s final is repeated at Wimbledon, it’s a different result. However, just getting to a GS final is a major achievement. No certainty that Andy will ever do it again.

As I post this, Andy is 0 — 2 down in the Australian final and in trouble in the third set. So far, my non-support has done him no good. Can he do what he’s done before and stage a miracle comeback? I can’t watch. I’m going out for lunch. Tell me when it’s over.

To most Scots, Donald Trump was simply a name they had heard, vaguely, some sort of American property billionaire with a dodgy public profile and an even worse haircut. Then he decided that he was going to visit his munificence upon Scotland by giving us the best golf course in the world, as part of a billion dollar (everything with The Donald has to have  billion in it, apparently) resort development: that’s Trump-speak for expensive housing, folks. Problems  being 1) that he plans to locate it on some environmentally sensitive land, 2) much of that land belonged to other people, and 3) there is no demand for another world-class golf course in Scotland, there being three within a mile of my front door alone and another dozen or so scattered around the country. Then there’s the climate. I have visions of wealthy American buyers, who never heard the word ‘dreich’, far less understood it, until they turn up at their new holiday homes to discover what North sea coastal weather can be like, even in high summer.

None of that bothered The Donald; nothing seems to get in the way of his ego. His opponents were scorned and branded as idiots, as he ignored every viewpoint but his own and bulldozed ahead. And to its shame, the Scottish Government, which I support, in most things, let me and the rest of the nation down, by dropping its metaphorical pants for him, and clearing the way for his rape of the Aberdeenshire countryside.

The sensible tendency hasn’t gone away, though. They’re still fighting as hard as they can, as this piece by my old acquaintance Frank Urquhart makes clear.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/Queen-legend-Brian-May-backs.6706202.jp

In it, you will see The Donald’s claim that he is doing  this for his mother, born on the Isle of Lewis. Eh? He’s building her a golf course? I wonder what her handicap was . . . apart from having this arrogant arsehole for a son. What’s he like, this man, this corporate Genghis Khan? What makes him believe he can do what he does? There may be a clue in his lineage. His grandmother’s maiden surname was, believe it or not, Christ. Before he ruins any more lives, maybe he should take another look at the New Testament.

A Burns Supper in Spain? You scoffed, at my last post, I know you did. Well you should try it. An absolutely great night, put together by Alan and Fergus, with the co-operation of the mayor of Rupia who gave them the venue on condition that some tickets were available for locals who fancied it. Quite a few did. I do not know what they made of Holy Willie’s Prayer, or Fergus Muirhead’s word-perfect and energetic Tam O’Shanter, but they were no more bemused than the very sociable English and Dutch couples who shared our table, or indeed than my dear wife. They now know that ‘Cutty Sark’ is more than the name of a clipper ship.

Thanks Alan, and thanks, Fergus. You may know him as BBC Scotland’s money expert, but he’s much more. You can find him on

http://www.fergusmuirhead.com/

Pics from Rupia on my Facebook page.

An absolute first for me tonight. It’s years since I’ve been to a Burns supper of any sort, and that was very local, improvised by a bunch of friends. But I have never, absolutely never, been to one in Spain. The forthcoming gig is in the village hall in Rupia, about half an hour away, and Eileen and I will be chumming the irrepressible Kathy Crawford, lady of this parish. It’s organised by the multi-talented Fergus Muirhead, who manages to combine being BBC Scotland’s resident financial expert with being a noted Burnsian, and if that wasn’t enough, trebling as coach of the Barcelona Pipe Band. (Seriously.)

My pleasure, sir. A small measure of my admiration for your selfless ability to get up at God knows when and drag yourself in to Forth Street to entertain the listening public. You’re half way through your show, and I’m still struggling to awaken, so more power to you. I’m sure you’ll have noted that, unlike Spike Thomson, you were credited under your real name.

This week’s special offer from Campbell Read Books’ catalogue of signed QJ novels, is £3 off the trade paperback of Inhuman Remains. For details, click the link on the right.

There is a big debate in Scottish football about the present shape of the Premier League. The proposition on the table, and we are told, likely to be approved, is a two-league set-up with a ten club top tier, the bottom club being relegated and the second bottom involved in a  play-off with the runner-up in SPL2. It seems that member teams are being manoeuvred into supporting this silly plan on the basis that anything else is not financially viable.

The thinking behind this is that the smaller clubs need to be playing Rangers and Celtic four times each season to maintain a sufficient level of income. However their chairmen seemed to have failed to notice that the clubs with most to gain from this set-up are Rangers and Celtic themselves, as Old Firm matches are these days the only ones where a full house can be guaranteed, even in the smallest of grounds. They are also glossing over the fact that in an expanded twenty club, two tier SPL, half of the member clubs will not be playing Celtic or Rangers at all. There is also the proposition for the likes of  Inverness, Ross County , Kilmarnock, St Mirren, who might slip from the SPL1 with potentially 20% of the clubs being relegated every year, and the hard-core addicts who are their travelling support, having to slog up and down the A9 four times a season in SPL2, cost far outweighing income, becoming poorer and more and more dispirited, while the two top dogs, who have been wagging the tail all along, laugh all the way to the bank and continue to monopolise the lucrative European slots.

It’s not too late to stop this madness, so please, Mr Boyle, Mr Romanov, Mr Thompson, Sir Tom, etc, see sense, listen to the fans and give them what they want, a 16 club league, the kind that worked very well when I was a lad, before greed overcame everyone. You can ensure financial stability by capping expenditure, as well as by increasing income. This could be done in several ways; for example, by requiring that at kick-off the majority of players on the field and on the bench have come through the clubs’ own youth development structure, and also, by banning loan signings from clubs outside the SPL, a cheap way of fattening squads at the expense of young, developing Scots players.

There was a time: ten members of the greatest club side in our history, the Lisbon Lions of 1967, were born in Glasgow, and the eleventh came from just outside the city. Jock Stein wouldn’t have dreamt of borrowing a striker from Blackburn bloody Rovers. We can do that again, as they still do in Croatia, Uruguay, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and other nations of a similar size to Scotland, all of them internationally competitive and with viable domestic leagues. Our national  game started to decline when we stopped believing in ourselves. That happened in 1978. It’s time we forgot that and recovered our pride. We might not beat the whole world, but we are at least as good as most of it.

So Andy’s in the final. I do care, honest, but I’m determined not to say so, or to lumber the lad with the fact that I am the world’s worst pundit. To be tipped by me is the kiss of death; not since Ali beat Liston in 1964 have I got one right.

A propos de the question in my last post, Norah Rothwell, a frequent correspondent from Oz, has sent me an explanation. The best (and easiest) thing for me to do is to quote her in full, so here goes.

‘As I understand it the levy will not apply to anyone who received an initial disaster relief payout from the government of $1000 per adult and/or $400 per child. This wasn’t means tested and was rorted by many in my opinion. Over 250,000 Queenslanders have collected the payment. This could be for a house totally flooded (deserving) or for being cut off from or unable to leave their homes for 24 hours (not so deserving). The same payment for both. Anyway back to your query. The government will be able to access information on people who have received these payments via their tax file numbers and government agencies. I wonder if the cost of administering this levy will not outweigh the income derived. As well there is a lot of anxiety here in Queensland as to how the donations to the relief fund will be distributed. A means test is being considered and many who dug deep to donate are not happy with this. But the fund is only half of what was collected at the time of the horrific fires in Victoria and the numbers affected more than double so it is a problem. I have no objection to a one off levy but who is to stay it may not become a permanent one. I don’t have a lot of faith in the words of a politician.’

Thanks, Norah. I’m as cautious about you are. Democratic politicians the world over are always in the same position; that is, facing an election, some sooner, some later. They know they can’t please all of the people all of the time, and they know that some of those people will vote for them or against them regardless, because they always have, so the trick is to persuade enough of the people in the middle, for enough of the time. To that end they will do what they perceive to be the most popular thing. That usually involves giving people money, not taking it from them. They may not quite believe in their own policies, but they do believe in themselves and that their own election is in their nation’s best interests, so they’re quite happy to fudge around the edges. The only thing I know about Julia Gillard is that she didn’t hesitate to put a knife in the back of her predecessor, in whose government she served. We’ve had recent experience of that in Britain, so on that basis alone, I wouldn’t be trusting her for a minute.

The Australian prime minister has come up with an interesting idea, she’s announced a tax, to be levied over the next twelve months, to help pay for the devastating damage caused by this year’s massive floods. As I read it, Julie Gillard’s already shaky popularity has taken a hit lately.  If that’s so this will either rehabilitate her or bury her. I get the principle, butI’m not so sure about the practice. It seems that people who have suffered from the calamity will not pay. How will they know who’s who? Help please, Aussie visitors. (Yes Fred, that includes you too, although I appreciate that you may be in mourning. I heard a {non-PC} story about a little boy who wants to be adopted by the Hibs football team. You’ll understand why.)