I recently listened to a fascinating discussion between two movie fans who had never seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy and were about to start working their way through the movies. They had picked the Special Edition versions to watch which, if you’ve seen them, you’ll know is significant with the shortest of them clocking in at three and a half hours.
Before starting a near twelve hour marathon on those films one of them said a curious thing to the other; “Are the first two films really worth it? Even looking at the poster for the third, you know which of the main characters are still going to be standing in Part 3. So do we have to slog through one and two, or can we jump right in there?”
And I loved that. I found that fascinating. That movie fan didn’t feel they needed backstory or context or anything else. It could have been viewed as an absurd suggestion, but I actually know from experience that there’s some logic to it.
When it came to watching Game Of Thrones for the first time, I hadn’t yet read the books. I read a reviewer say that the first two seasons so closely follow the path of the novels you could literally go from watching them to starting Book 3 and have a fair idea of everything that was going on.
Only two seasons had aired at that point and I wanted to know what came next, and so without further ado I bought the collection and started from book three, and it was just like the guy said. There was a little variation shock but I followed it well enough.
I only caught up with Books 1 and 2 further on down the line. I was glad I did because they added colour and depth and stuff to what I was watching. By the time of the fourth season, I’d gone back to the start and read through them all, which is why I enjoyed that season even more than the ones before it. And that was in spite of having, by then, read past the story as it was unfolding on the show. I was ahead of the show for the next two years.
Celtic fans who actually follow what the manager and the club say must feel a little sense of that, and a little like the two film lovers about to embark on that epic saga, when they pondered skipping right to the last part.
Reading the media’s breathless reporting of the latest chapter in the dull, boring and utterly pointless Matt O’Riley “saga” my general feeling on this is very much like that; “Which parts of this can we skip? Because we already know where the story is going.”
Matt O’Riley will be a Celtic player at the end of this window. Matt O’Riley will be a Celtic player until the end of this campaign, at the very least.
That’s not even in the slightest doubt. It’s as if someone was able to hand us the end-of-season poster or the Official Club History of Campaign 2023-24 where we can read past current events to arrive on the other side.
We may as well have that poster in front of us, because we can speak with total assurance to Matt O’Riley being there, in the centre of the picture. We know this for a fact. Because he has said it. The club has said it. The manager has said it. What else is there to say? We have no interest in doing this business at this particular time. None whatsoever.
Yet we’re almost certainly facing another twelve days of this numbing coverage, so without suspense that it might as well be Basic Instinct 2.
I’m already at the “Oh for God’s sake who cares?” stage whenever a new club is credited with “interest” in him.
See, there is nothing interesting about any of this for me now that we know that this chapter will end with our central character alive and well. Matt O’Riley might as well be wearing what movie scholars call “plot armour”; these are the people in a movie so essential to the story or the franchise that you know nothing whatsoever can kill them.
And to me, that takes a lot of the fun out of following a story. That feeling of not knowing what will happen to the characters grips you like a vice; it’s why I love surprise endings and shock twists. There will be no surprise ending or shock twist here.
For the record, the two film fans finally decided to watch the Rings Trilogy, which I have always considered outstanding in every way and they loved every single second, as I always have when watching them, even knowing how the story goes. Those movies have scope, spectacle, daring and the limitless imagination of JRR Tolkien to work from.
But in this case, there is literally nothing to see.
Think of it as one of those shows where they tease the main character’s fate relentlessly but just can’t bring themselves to do him or her any real harm. It’s like a badly written B movie disaster, and that gets old very quickly. That starts to grate on the viewer and I am already bored stiff with this and just about ready to change the channel.
Scottish media doing what they do, too undermine Celtic & try upsetting our fans
They will cream dream themselves sorely in their little wankland until the end of the window regarding O’Riley…
And the Sevco readership will swallow swallow it all on a daily basis also cream dream themselves with the lies they are being fed and of course the very odd and foolish Celtic fans that still financially support them will of course panic as they seem to trust and believe them otherwise they wouldn’t otherwise be buying them –
And on and on and on and on and on this saga will go and on the 1st of February they will no doubt drone on and on and on and on and on about how he will be off in the summer and the Sevco readership will cream dream on and the odd Celtic fan will believe them and panic on merrily on their way…
And on and on it’ll go – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz !!!!
PS – While I sincerely hope that it doesn’t happen – I think we will need to call their ‘news’ (really lies) rooms ‘The Shankland Wankland’ as Dearie Me it will be some cream (bun) fest if Sevco ever sign him…
Just glad that I don’t pay them a single red cent – but as always Thank You James for updating their daily evil lies about Celtic !
It’s all part of perennial strategy from those tabloid scoops who deem it more than appropriate to disrupt Celtic FC and the squad leading up to the end of the Winter break . Operation Big Boisterous! You could set your watch to their intentional tactics but just like the last few hundred , we are way ahead of them . Humps ….
James,l find myself wholeheartedly agreeing with you on this non story.
This is mischief making by the hun leaning media,and not even a viable subject for discussion because of the reasons you have already outlined.
However, there remains as always,that ever present caveat when it comes to discussing anything to do with our club.
Yes,our board of misdirectors !
Surely, even they cannot be so fuckin stupid to snatch at the first lowball offer that appears for a player whose value is only going to increase and whose length of contract and the player’s own contentment at Parkhead puts them in the driving seat and able to call whatever shots are required.
I suppose only time will tell but if the unthinkable happens and they sell him when the manager is crying out for adding quality to the side (NOT the squad) they had better be prepared to weather the absolute shitstorm headed their way in the aftermath.
The “Fuck off Lawwell” chants at the Hearts game will be like a lover’s whisper in comparison.
It’s all just media hype not much else to write about they make up stories all the time.But if they received a offer over £20 million for any Celtic player our board will sell make no mistake up to date where is the quality top players rodgers has spouted we need £3 million for this new player we have signed does not look like top quality player could be wrong but let’s be honest £3 million and then this bull about Liverpool goal keeper more rubbish they will want £10 million plus not a chance pretty depressing up till now on quality player we thought we would be getting.
We don’t have cover for Kyogo or Greg Taylor if either get injured and we didn’t look like a proper team till Maeda came back, the same Maeda who could be at the Asian Cup until the middle of February.
So where all this optimism that we’re better placed than the other mob who are only realistically two points behind us is as mythical as Lord Of The Rings and Game Of Thrones combined.
Not to mention the possibility that the outcome of the SFA might ensure that the refs might double down on making sure their favourites get every decision going from here on in, as everybody knows WC is a Catholic Celtic supporter, same as everybody knows John Beaton is a Protestant Sevco supporter.
So reading all this as though Celtic are in the clear disturbs me greatly.
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For me it’s ‘Citizen Kane’ (Orson Welles) & ‘Being There’ (starring Peter Sellers, the best actor ever, on a par with Alec Guinness). For fun, it’s ‘The Ladykillers’ original and ‘My Name Is Nobody’ (comedy Western). Maybe, do a film article, James ? Just for fun. Entertainment, as it were.