Being Emily by Anne Donovan (Canongate Books 2008)

Declan had got a book of baby names out the library and he and the twins were falling about laughing over it.

How about Boniface?

If it takes after its ma it'll be moanyface.

Very funny.

Hey Fiona, guess what your name means? Comely, fair.

Aye, right. What are you thinking about calling the baby anyway?

If it's a boy, Connor, and if it's a wee lassie either Siobhan or Grace.

I hope it's a girl, then. Connor O'Connell?

The baby's name won't be O'Connell - it'll be Connor Anderson.

You don't have to give the baby Declan's name.

He's the father. You're no gonnae gie us wanny they feminist rants, are you Fiona? I've heard it all fae Janice.

Well, it's true. It's dead sexist that folk assume a baby has to have the father's name.

Yeah and look at Janice's poor wean wi a double-barrelled surname naebody can spell.

You could give the baby your name.

My name'll be the same as Declan's soon enough.

You're changing your name tae Declan's?

We'll be gettin married.

You still don't have tae change your name. Anyway, you're no even sixteen.

I will be in December.

You're no serious, Mona.

Course. Once the baby's born and I'm sixteen, we'll get hitched. A lovely white wedding and I'll be Mrs Declan Anderson. It's nice tae be traditional.

I don't want to shatter your illusions, but it's traditional tae wait till after the white wedding afore you have the baby.

After they went out I sat down on the settee. They'd left the book of baby names lying, spine bent backwards. I started tae flick through, no really expecting to find it, but there was a section on Asian names. Amrik: God's nectar. That figured. Sweet as honey. But don't try tae live on it.

Hillbilly Women by Kathy Kahn (Avon Books 1972)

When all this murdering and killing happened over at Evarts, that was when the coal company hired gun thugs and they met up with the miners that was out on strike. Well, Dad took the blame for those killings. Course, he'd been a coal miner all his life and they'd worked him day and night in those mines. And he worked with the union to make things better for the people.

But Dad wasn't at Evarts when the killings happened. He was out robbing the commissary. But Dad's brother, Sam Hicks, was there at Evarts. I think he was the one that had the machine gun. But all this time, Dad was robbing the company store.

I think it was in the spring of the year, long about '31. Dad and the other miners had come out on strike and the gun thugs were after them.

I remember Dad coming to the house and getting the shotgun and a lot of shells. He made us all get under the floor and told Mommy to keep us barricaded under there and not let us out. And I remember Mom a-beggin' him not to go out. But they had been working him hard in those mines, night and day. So he went out and joined the other miners on strike.

so anyway, this night he come in after the shotgun, that was the night before the killings at Evarts started. But Dad, the reason he wanted the gun was some of the miners and their families was starving and they needed some food. He aimed to get it for them.

Dad went up to the commissary and took about five other men with him. He went into the commissary and held his shotgun on the company men. Then he told the miners to fill all these bags full of food. They filled hundred pound bags of beans, sugar, lard, coffee, and taters. While he was holding the gun on the company men, Dad said what time he was around organizing with the union there wasn't going to be no people going hungry . . . The men took the food out and distributed it according to the size of the families that was out on strike.

Wyoming Wilson speaking to Kathy Kahn.

If I Was . . .

. . . ever to go down the tankie lane, I'd like to think that I'd adopt 'ErnestoW_Honaker101婉菁8' as my Party name.

Two Way Split by Allan Guthrie (Polygon Press 2004)

Banging. Robin glanced at Eddie. More banging. Regular. Insistent. Someone pounding on the front door. Their visitor, the concerned citizen. Robin couldn't tell how Eddie was reacting behind the balaclava. More banging. It stopped and a muffled voice said, 'I'm coming in.' Silence. A shout accompanied by a screech as the wedge under the door was driven back a couple of inches. Robin set down the bag as a hand reached round the gap at the side of the door and sent the wedge tumbling across the floor. As the door swung open, Hilda dashed forward. He caught her by the wrist and dragged her in an arc straight into his arms. She wriggled until he rested the blade of the knife against her lips. She was panting heavily and her hairspray ticked the back of his throat.

'Let her go.' The man who spoke was inappropriately dressed for the cold weather in a white t-shirt and black jeans. He stood in the doorway, chill air gusting in from behind him.

'Who the fuck are you?' Eddie said.

The Football Man: People and Passions in Soccer by Arthur Hopcraft (Penguin 1971)

In the final at Wembley on 30 July 1966, England and West Germany met in circumstances of barely tolerable emotional tension. I have earlier described the closing minutes of this match. But I want to refer to something in its atmosphere which disconcerted me because of its inappropriateness to the game as a whole: the measure of chauvinism which was divorced entirely from what took place in terms of football, on the field.

I watched this game not from the Press box but from a seat in the stands, and I was struck well before the game began by the unusual nature of some of the crowd around me. They were not football followers. They kept asking each other about the identity of the English players. Wasn't one of the Manchester boys supposed to be pretty good? That very tall chap had a brother in the side, hadn't he? They were in their rugby club blazers, and with their Home Counties accents and obsolete prejudices, to see the successors of the Battle of Britain pilots whack the Hun again. Some of them wept a bit at the end, and they sang Land of Hope and Glory with a solemn fervour I have known elsewhere only at Conservative party rallies. I suspect that if they had found themselves sitting among a crowd of real, live football fans from Liverpool they might have been amazed by the degree of treacherous support available to Jerry. Some football fans prefer even German footballers to plump-living countrymen exercising the privilege of money to bag a place at an event thousands more would have given their right arms to see - and understand. I much prefer Abide With Me at Wembley. Its connection with chapel and pub identifies it with the England which nurtures its football.

Choked Up

You could expect nothing less from a Rangers player.

If I Was . . .

. . . the Daily Record's sub-editor, 'Murray's Prayer' would have my back page headline for this wee bit of transfer news.

I'm away to put the kettle on whilst you, dear reader, tries to work out what I'm wittering on about.