Today our hacks have been busy scraping goo from the bottom of the barrel again, with their “revelation” that a Chinese restaurant in Glasgow once snubbed Prince Charles – yes, the same one, the Prince of Wales, heir to the throne and all that – because they were feeding the Rangers team.
And where did this story – this completely rank, obvious bullshit – come from?
It came from the autobiography of Andre Kanchelskis.
Well, that’s one riveting read I will not be adding to my 1000 Books To Read Before I Die list.
In fact, if that list was ten times as long it would remain a long way from making the grade.
I recall once reading George Orwell’s review of The Secret Life of Salvador Dali and being hugely impressed with George’s assertion that he knew almost immediately that Dali had conjured 90% of what was in that book out of thin air, but he kept on reading regardless because the book was well written, imaginative and insightful in that “it described what Dali would have liked to have happened …” and that’s how what I read here comes across to me.
Except for being well written, imaginative or insightful, of course.
Did no-one tell Kanchelskis that autobiography is not supposed to be filed under Fiction?
He is not the first ex-Rangers player to do this.
The Secret Diary of Nacho The Rat, Aged 57 (otherwise known under the utterly honking name “I Said No Thanks”) is equally fantastical and filled to the brim with utter cobblers.
Two things stand out about this Kanchelskis story; first only truly stupid people would believe in it for one minute and secondly that demographic appears to include the editors and journalists at numerous Glasgow based newspapers.
I mean, honestly … just because a company doing PR for a “celebrity” book sends you a press release, that doesn’t mean you have to print it. A story like that, one of no news value whatsoever and which is clearly an outright piece of fantastical nonsense, does not belong splattered all over the media, or what is the media for?
This reduces them to a repository for self-promoting garbage.
I mean, surely I don’t have to point out the utter absurdity of this story?
There are more holes in it than a Tetley t-bag and that a guy who played for Manchester United has to concoct such a scenario to highlight either his importance or that of the club that slithered out of Ibrox at the time shows you just how weak the rest of the book is going to be.
I mean, honestly; he played in a high profile league at a high profile club in a city that rivals London for its party circuit and this is the best “this will blow your mind” story he could muster?
Either he’s leaving a lot out … or you wonder why he thought an autobiography was a good idea in the first place.
Either he’s a boring git, or it’s going to be one very boring book.
I suspect the media’s interest in this has less to do with Kanchelskis than it has to do with the idea that Rangers was once so massive and influential that the heir to the throne himself did not have a look-in when it came to their importance in this city, and I understand that to an extent, and it makes me feel the same reflexive, momentary, pity for these Peepul that you would feel for an animal trapped behind the bars in a zoo.
And I wonder why they continue to do this to themselves, to feed themselves these constant reminders of “how it used to be”.
Isn’t it a little like stalking your ex on Facebook and torturing yourself with how good she looks now, and how handsome the swine she’s with is?
They need to stop this. It’s doing them no good.
They have to move on and accept that it’s over, that those days are never coming back.
They will be better off for it, and our media might actually have to focus on real stuff for once …