Thomas Clark

FOR five lang years, we’ve been lívin the lives o transients – ma wife an me, ah mean, but mebbe ye’re the same yersel. Oor flat, oor furniture, oor freendships; place-hauders aw, for the better things we promised oorsels but lairnt tae live withoot. We’re no unhappy, like – we hivnae ony richt tae be. We’re jist ploddin alang, like a jakey weighed doon on wan side bi a cairry-oot; listin, listin, ayeweys tae the left, turnin oor vast, slow circles an tellin oorsels we’re heidit somewhaur.

THEY say that tae belang tae a place is tae remember it the wey it uised tae be. Ye’re finally at hame somewhaur when ye can lead a visitin freend bi the haun an tell them: this claes shop uised tae be a swimmin baths; thon industrial estate wis nocht but empty fields; that bus wis green an ran aw the wey tae Crindledyke. Forget yer tests o citizenship, yer perpetually unsettled status; wance the history o wha ye are becomes the history o whaur ye bide, ye’re in wi the bricks.

EVERY noo an then, when ah’ve been starin at the same plug socket in the same waw for the third consecutive oor, it occurs tae me that ma life could dae wi a wee bit o a jump-stairt. It cannae gang on like this, the warld, thon dreary wash o soothin greys an limpid beiges picked oot tae keep ma dreams in monochrome. Ah’m at the end o ma tether here; ah’m desperate, Dan. Somethin’s got tae chynge.

PLODDIN alang in the sploongin rain. The sky’s black as pitch, but it’s no quite nicht – the toon haw clock’s twa meenits short o five, yet naethin’s open on the empty street but Wetherspoons an Ladbrokes. It’s lashin doon; rain that maks ye think o Taxi Driver, Robert De Niro shoutin the odds aboot washin clean the scummy streets… But the dug keech’s stramped that hard intae the pavement’s cracks, an the bins that lippin-fou wi polystyrene cairtons that ye cannae help but think tae yersel, the hell wi this – let’s jist lea it for the cockroaches tae deal wi when they’re the anely wans that are left.

RICHARD Nixon had his list, an so dae ah, tacked up at the heid o ma bed. A full-blawn rogue’s gallery o moothy bosses, crabbit cooncillors an clapped-oot train conductors; the first thing ah luik at o a mornin, the last thing ah think o at nicht, an the anely thing ah dream o inatween. Ma Enemies List.

AH’VE got twa neeburs doon here in the Tory-Blue Borders – Jimmy, an the Duke o Buccleuch. Jimmy’s got the wee hoose jist throu the waw fae mine. The Duke o Buccleuch … weel, he’s got everythin else.

AH try ma best no tae, but ah cannae help masel. Every Thursday efternuin, aboot wan o’clock, The National sticks up ma column on their Twitter page; an it’s a guid day if it’s five past afore ah’m on there masel, checkin tae see whit fowk are sayin aboot me an oor kiddy-on language, this nationalist ploy o a leid that ma Maw lairnt me as a bairn for nae ither reason than tae mak shuir that ah never got ower big for ma wee size sixes. Och, the braw penny o a guid Scots tongue! A wicked s

TAK it fae me – ah’m as woke as the next fella, which is tae say ah think ah ken awthin aboot awthin at aw times. Sae when ah say that ah’ve enjoyed this Wimmen’s Warld Cup mair than ony fitba tournament in lívin memory, ah dinnae want ye tae think it’s jist a bit o hipster bravado. In every wey that maitters – drama, quality, human interest, joy – the 2019 Warld Cup has left its 2018 equivalent staunin.

AH’M mebbe pittin a date on masel here, but dae ye mind when Cristiano Ronaldo wisnae the best fitba player on the planet, but a nae-guid, sleekit, ill-faured wee diver?

AH votit Remain three years syne in much the same spirit as ah bocht ma season ticket for the Accies – howplessly, wi nae great enthusiasm, jist a bleak unnerstaunin that it’s this or it’s supportin Motherwell.