Its a rejuvenated version of what seems like an old, old piece. It’s crisper now, fresher and, against the backdrop of a cracking website, I’d even go as far as to say, vibrant.

The site itself is attractive, not because three almost-handsome blokes are manouvering their media skills around it, because, despite the caricatures around its edges, it offers something a wee bit new and a lot different.

Unless you’re Brian Glanville’s harddrive (that’s one for the football writing fans), or have every rare copy of Perfect Pitch Simon Kuper’s literary football journal (which was brilliant by the way, Simon!), it’s unlikely you’ve seen such diverse content regarding football in one place. strange bOUnce makes for a wonderful mix. Textured with the obligatory razorsharp commentary and sometimes hammy humour, there’s a wistfulness in the way creative non-fiction and fiction pieces sit alongside each other. Like I said, it’s different. I really like it, which is why I’m happy to have my wares on there – more to come in the future too. They asked me to look at something involving AFL? The planted seed has sprouted.

Sophoclean Soccer, my first piece for them, starts below, but you should hit the links and have a look at the rest of the site too.

Thank you.

“Car mon, United, pull yer finger out!” Scanner shouts. He sniffs beside the stoic Joe and paces the sideline like a dog behind a fence. The boys on the pitch could do with the bite. They’d be under siege if they knew what resistance was. No wooden horses needed here. If Paris and Hector and the rest of them over the shoulder toga holders were relying on this lot, they wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes… read more here“

It’s a fairly blunt evaluation of some of the good and bad in Scottish football, a game which allows itself to be dominated by old school ties and protestantism. I know, it makes me think of 1920s Blighty and Tom Brown stories too. The post also, belatedly, celebrates the Scots winning the Homeless World Cup again, but its mostly about the differences between the perceived picture and the real picture of the game.

The link between here and there is in where we see the future of writing. Bibliophiles, libraries and many small publishing houses fear for the book. I’ve met at least one bookshop owner (who didn’t work for the Redgroup) terrified for their enterprise’s longevity. Yet the rest of the industry is picking up its game and moving on. I realised the arguments in each case underline and reinforce each other. Things are not as bad as we fear; they are actually exciting. The writing community are extremely comfortable with new technology. I hope the chiefs of Scottish football organisations and clubs (with a few exceptions) are able to do the same.

The brain in The Lair of the Evil Drs is the spectacularly shiny thing I found, these girls are smart and funny and well-read and it leads to a colourful and very entertaining discussion about writing and an assortment of odd things, including at one stage The Eurythmics, with the maestro of cleverly-written mayhem, China Miéville.

Here, it’s worth a wee read.

I think it’s categorically wrong to turn on them, no grey areas, no room for discussion. They’re having a spell of, let’s call it, shiteness. They know it. They don’t need fans shouting, “Nichols, you’re a lemon,” with every poor pass. I’ve had a bit of a spit about it on the slowly reblooming football blog…here .

It got me thinking about book-bashing and reader tolerance of shiteness. Do we hound our favourite writers for a foray into shiteness? We forgive them, don’t we? I’d like to think so. Any body have any ground rules? Do you have a limit? Can you identify the Natalie Portman moment when your crush begins to fade?

Getting my doctorate was something different. It has felt over-but-not-really for such a long time. The final seminar (Feb), the changes (Jun), the external examiners (Aug), more changes (not for me right enough), the paperwork (Nov), the printing and binding, the citation and then the graduation ceremony (Dec). Getting the magnificent document distributed to supervisors was a clear sign of being close to the finish. I’d even kidded myself on it was already done and didn’t need to attend the ceremony. The wife persuaded me before knowing colleagues laughed at the suggestion. The ceremony took place yesterday and the significance of a most simplistic ritual brought home the enormity of three and a half years of arduous labour and thought, the dissipation of the continuous and heavy cloud that had darkened the back of my mind and foisted its weighty intrusion on my girls’ lives. It brought home to me the things I missed and the things I won’t and the hours at a computer screen, which recently cost me $600 when a well-meaning optometrist turned me forever into a specky geek.

I doffed my Tudor hat, the chancellor doffed his, he handed me a piece of paper, a parchment. I stood between the chancellor and the vice-chancellor, basked for less than a minute in their warm congratulations and waved to my family in the audience. I realised that 400 people sat behind me on stage and more than that in the audience in front. They all witnessed those few seconds, smiling seconds filled with so much pain and sweat and heartbreak and travel and reading and the writing of a million words. A few seconds which mean the fuckin world to me. For they close this enomous piece of work. They bring its momentum to a halt, they tear away the single-minded blinkeredness which it takes just to stand between those two men. All those people witnessed me getting a piece of paper, the single most important piece of paper anyone has ever given me. In the aftermath a colleague asked me if I felt any different.

I didn’t even think about it. It took less time than I’d spent centrestage to answer. As rituals go, it was the longest to get to and the briefest to get through. It is however overshadowed by the ritual which made it possible. Were it not for my wife, my incredible, amazing, astonishing wife, none of it would’ve been possible. My answer to my colleague was uncharacteristically short. Yes, I said. To the good, I wanted to tell him, almost as much as being married has.

Feels brilliant to be writing proper. It’s having the pee haitch dee behind me. No shadow, see. Graduate next week, some people will be calling me Doctor. A Doctor in writing about football. GIRUY.

I hadn’t given it space as much as let it fall, let it bounce and break on cracked concrete. Bits of bark and dirt and leaf dug into exposed flesh that turned brown and dry and spongy. I remember juicy bites, the first few, as I gently brush and I see it needs a knife taken to it. What I thought was dark and sharp were really skin-deep bruises on beer-coloured flesh. I cut close to the core before the surface shines wet again.

I don’t know that it’s better but its different. I’m leaving it somewhere more comfortable this time.

I’ve just posted a new football post on the football fiction edition of this blog.

There will be football. There will always be football.

Congratulations to the Roar.

The tension between wanting to be there and the feeling that sometimes it might be better that I’m not. That to have left the place has allowed me a better understanding of it, a deeper sense of respect and admiration and crucially a pragmatic and objective sense of clarity. I love Scotland the way Joyce loved and Kári loves their respective nations of birth. I want to go back to Scotland, and I know that at some point I will, I’m just not sure how much and when. I also know I’ve talked about this on here before, but I wanted to consider this book because it helped me understand it, the need for home, better, to articulate the simultaneous occurrence of opposing emotions.

The Promise… is a wonder filled read. As gentle and honest as it is forthright, as humorous as it is emotive and as smart as it is beautifully crafted. It’s little wonder it was the shining star at this year’s Brisbane Writer’s Festival and has since garnered the deserving and placid viking a multitude of accolades and fans and commissions all over the place.

Its well worth a read, wherever you come from.

In the meantime you can indulge in the Icelanders travels on his blog aremyfeetintheway

It was the last time we managed a wee night out to the movies. I got caught, tongue trapped between my teeth, in front of the Final Destination 5 poster. I was desperately trying to stem the rising glee (real glee not high school musical psychosis), to herd the happiness back into the recesses, the places it’s best hidden – an easy task you’d think for a Scotsman prone to pessimism. The poster, the number 5 on a black background, hummed to me. The ever-patient, understanding, pragmatic wife, not so moved, went straight to shaking her head.

If I’m honest, there is a bit of me doing the same now. It’s the part that knows the Final Destination movies are pointless, inane, but it doesn’t stop me. The stupider bits of my brain have bullied it into submission. I can’t get enough. They are the big screen equivalent of the juicy clue, horribly exposed in a brutally coincidental socio-scientific discovery in the best worst dialogue on television (see the new Hawaii-5-0). I want to rub my face in it, gorge on it and lick my fingers after; because I know if it was a foodstuff, it would be so bad for me it would have to taste Amay-zinG (chips and curry sauce, B n R choc mint chip, doughnuts…).

It’s having an impact though – I was tweeting the deaths one by one – a whole film in ten tweets – and forgot about the connection between the Facebook thing and Twitter and annoyed the shit out of everyone connected to my Fb thing.

We’re up to the fifth instalment of Final Destination, I know, brilliant, in’t it? How can there be five final destinations? The fourth one was even called THE Final Destination. The only response possible, is the Chewbacca defense. And then there’s the nonsense with death being responsible for the killing, when really it’s a combination of bad luck and ridiculous accidental circumstance.

The story goes like this… a beautiful, handsome, go-orgee-ous, intelligent(?) young adult (boy 3 times, girl twice) has a freaky and incredibly detailed premonition of a large number of people spectacularly and violently meeting their end. The rest of the film is taken up with the people initially saved by the go-orgee-ous protagonist, dying in succession in the bloodiest ways, until the protagonist saves themselves and maybe the person they want to sleep with. The premise is as straight-forward… when your numbers up, its time to return the duck-shaped paddle boat to the jetty. Just be careful you don’t get yer laces caught in the spinning metal plates and flip the duck and drown in two feet of murky, bird-shit, pond water. And the result as always… spectacular inanity and lots of pointless violence. Brilliant!

I’m not kidding.