Shit, Shinola and VAR.

Another day, another Celtic game and another avalanche of conspiracy theories from the fans at Ibrox.

This is not an article. It is not going to become a full piece, because it does not need to. I am going to let somebody else make the point at the bottom better than I ever could.

Because tonight, if you venture onto their forums, you will find people displaying a breathtaking inability to understand why Dundee United should not have had a penalty and why Celtic’s second goal should not have been chopped off.

People are explaining it to them.

Clearly. Simply. Using the laws of the game.

And they are still not getting it.

Some of them do not want to get it. Some of them, unfortunately, simply can’t.

We are not dealing with hyper-intelligent people here. That is fairly obvious. These are not minds wrestling heroically with the complexities of quantum mechanics.

They are being asked to understand football rules.

Yet increasingly you see their own supporters pleading with one another to explain the laws of the game, explain how VAR works and explain why particular decisions were correct.

That would be fine if the people asking were capable of absorbing the answer.

More and more, though, it becomes obvious that some of them are not interested in learning anything which interferes with the conclusion they reached before the incident was even replayed. And that brings me back to one of the words which has become a watchword of my summer. Choice.

Ignorance can be a choice.

You can choose not to educate yourself. You can choose not to seek out facts. You can choose not to absorb an explanation because it conflicts with something you desperately want to believe. And if you prefer conspiracy theories, fine.

If you prefer an ecosystem where everyone repeats the same nonsense until the nonsense becomes self-sustaining, that is entirely up to you.

As I have always said, if you believe there are fairies at the bottom of the garden, that’s your business. But do not tell me to turn my music down after eight o’clock because it might disturb them.

I will not participate in your fantasy. I will not live in your alternate reality.

If they want to believe the world is against them, the referees are corrupt, VAR is bent and Scottish football is engaged in some enormous conspiracy designed exclusively to stop them, fine. Let them.

But please, my fellow Glaswegians, fellow Scots and fellow football supporters, stop exhausting yourselves trying to explain reality to people who either cannot understand it or have consciously decided that they don’t want to.

And if you absolutely must continue educating them, don’t start with the complicated stuff. Don’t begin with handball interpretations. Don’t begin with phases of possession. Don’t begin with VAR protocol. That is far too steep a learning curve when you’re already carrying the weight of all that paranoia on your back.

Start small. Start simple. Start with the basics.

And fortunately, somebody has already produced the perfect instructional video.

It is below. Show them that, and tell them …

“Shit. Shinola. Learn the difference. Then we’ll try VAR.”