Children of Albion Rovers edited by Kevin Williamson (Rebel Inc. 1996)

Gillian stepped back, put her feet together and described an area of the pavement with her hands. It was here, she said, that Carlyle saved himself from despair. He'd become a man with an emptiness where his spirit used to be. He'd lost faith in God, and belief in the Devil. He'd lost faith in love. He saw no rewards in heaven or punishments in hell. His sense of right and wrong seemed like rubbish left behind by illusions of God. It seemed that people just lived afraid of pain, and wanting pleasure. He could imagine people finding a reason for living in their work, but he had no work to show for his time on earth, He was 28 years old. Something inside him was angry but it didn't seem to have anything to do with the boredom of the universe he was stuck in. He hardly noticed other people, they were like parts in a machine to him. The world was the machine, and it didn't do him the favour of wanting him to suffer. No, because it ground him down automatically. He would have killed himself, but there was a small bit of religious teaching stuck in his brain, and anyway, he couldn't be bothered. And all the while he felt frightened. He didn't know what he was afraid of. Until he came here, to Leith Walk, and one moment he didn't know and the next moment he knew. He was frightened of death, nothing more or less, because in the end that was all there was to be afraid of. And when he knew it, he looked at death, and said: Come on, then. I'll meet you and I'll take you on. He stood there, a man still young, miserable with the grey world and his being lost in it, and he reached out over forty years ahead and shouted at death that he could see it hiding there and it might as well come out because he could look at it and still live on as a free man until the final reckoning came. And he felt so strongly and angry after that, burning up with hatred for death, and so he was alive.

John was quiet for a bit. Then he said: Let's call our first child Leith.

My surname's Walker.

Well. mine's Keith.

Come on, finish your bridie and go back to work.

John got up and stood closer to Gillian. Your hair's just like the adverts, he said. It smells like turkish delight.

(From 'The Brown Pint of Courage' by James Meek)

The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi (Scribner 1995)

Brownlow went on with his packing but kept stopping to look at Shahid - who was turning the aubergine in his hand - like he wanted to say something. "The thing is, this religion - the superstitions, cults, forms of worship, prayers - some are beautiful, some interesting, all have their purposes. But who'd have imagined they'd survive rationalism? Yet just when you thought God was dead and buried, you realize he was merely awaiting resurrection! Every fucker's discovering some God inside them now. And who am I to challenge this?"

"Exactly. I'd say you're just a weak bastard, Dr. Brownlow."

"Thank you. Are they the fools or am I the fool? Where does that leave me?"

Where could it leave you?"

"Because, because, you i-idiot, everything I believed has turned into shit. There we were, right up to the end of the seventies, arguing about society after the r-revolution, the nature of the dialectic, the meaning of history. And all the while, as we debated in our journals, it was being taken from us. The British people didn't want e-education, housing, the a-arts, justice, equality . . . "

"Why's that?"

Because they're a bunch of fucking greedy, myopic c-cunts."

"The working class?"

"Yes!"

"A bunch of cunts?"

"Yes!" Brownlow struggled to contain himself. "No, no, it's more complicated. Very complicated." He was sobbing. "I can't say they've betrayed us - though I think it, I do! It's not true, not true! They've b-b-betrayed themselves!"

He untucked his shirt and wiped it across his drenched face. He threw down his hands, put his head back and, with his lips quivering, angled his thinker's forehead at the ceiling.

"C-c-cut my throat. Please. Lost in more than my fortieth year - no direction home! End me before things get w-w-w-worse!"

Shahid leapt up and rushed to the window. Thinking he'd heard Chad coughing, he concealed himself behind the dusty curtain and peered outside.

"You don't have to plead, Brownlow, the throat-cutters are checking the address right now. They'll be coming up the front path. If you stay in that position, redemption will be on the way!"

Shahid could see no one. But it was dark, and if his enemies did reach him, he'd be trapped here; and Brownlow gibbering like Gogol's madman awaiting the straitjacket, would hardly provide cover.

In Between Talking About The Football by Gordon Legge (Polygon 1991)

The old guy and the Rangers supporters are quizzing each other now. They start by exchanging old football jokes. Who was the only man to score past Pat Jennings with bare feet? Tony the Tiger in the Frosties ad. Name all the teams with x's in them? Choo! Choo! They rhyme off the classic sides: Real Madrid at Hampden, Brazil in '70, Leeds United at Hampden, Aberdeen in the Cup Winners' Cup final; Manchester United in '68. The pub supplies questions and debates the answers. Who was the 'keeper when Willie Donachie scored his own goal? Jim Blyth. What was the highest attendance at Cliftonhill? 27,000. How old was Arthur Graham in the 1970 Cup Final? Seventeen. Who was the only English team ever to field a side made up entirely of Scots? Accrington Stanley. Who was the only second division team ever to win the Cup? East Fife. They go on and on. Everybody's got their own special question to ask. Jim asks how many goals Falkirk scored in season 35/36. The old guy says '132'. The Rangers supporter says it was the third highest total ever. The old guy says Raith Rovers had the highest and the Rangers supporter agrees. The guy who used to hang about with the nutters asks what season Bo'ness United were in the first division. 'Season 27/28,' says the Rangers supporter. With a glint in his eye the old guy agrees and says they were relegated. This is serious. It's like High Noon without the shitty bits. The bell signals last orders but it's more like the command to come out fighting. The old guy and the Rangers supporter quiz each other about the other's team. Names fly like bullets in Beirut: Bertie Peacock, Willie Woodburn, Pat McCluskey, Iain MacDonald, Ally Dawson, Willie McStay. From where did they come and where did they go? They move from the past to the present and back again. They're naming the Cup Final sides easier than they could list their grandchildren. Games they, and tens of thousands of others, were at. They talk about matches that are twenty years old as if they took place last week. The old guy says, 'Name the side, the classic side, that lifted the Cup in '63?' Without thinking, the Rangers supporter rhymes off the classic side: 'Ritchie, Shearer, Provan, Greig, McKinnon,Baxter, Henderson, McLean, Millar, Wilson.' The old guy hollers with delight and does a jig of joy. He says, 'Fucking diddy you are, there was a replay and . . .' The Rangers supporter screams 'BASTARD!' at the top of his voice while the old guy goes on to remind him of how Ian McMillan replaced George McLean in the replay. The Rangers supporter says, At least we won. 3-0. Destroyed you. You lot left at half-time, you were that disgusted.' The old guy concedes that that was a good Rangers side but says the reason Celtic lost was cause they bottled out of playing Jimmy Johnstone in the replay. He goes on to say Rangers were always jammy in replays and blames the referees. The old guy won't shut up. He starts listing the Rangers sides involved in replays. He looks a bit demented and were it any other subject he would be more than whisked away in a white jacket. There's nothing nobody can tell him about football. The Rangers supporter threatens to empty the ice-bucket over the old guy's head if he doesn't shut up. This has the desired effect and they shake hands and agree they're both pretty smart. The Rangers supporter vows he'll one day get his revenge.

From the short story 'Baby on a String'.

Milk, Sulphate & Alby Starvation by Martin Millar (4th Estate 1987)

I make it out of hiding across the road to the park one Saturday because there is a festival being held there, it is organised by CND and I feel I should support it on principle besides I wanted to see the bands and I suppose that in amongst all these thousands of people I'll be safe-enough.

So I wander over and the park is absolutely full of millions of young people all not minding too much that the weather is threatening to wash us away and taking advantage of the occasion to show off their new hair colours to everyone including the police with binoculars high above on the surrounding rooftops.

The festival is fun with foodstalls and badges and kiddie entertainments and old clothes and books and small political parties and everything would seem not too bad were it not for the fact that all those young people make me feel old, I'm sure some of them are laughing quietly as I go by.

I keep my head rotating as if constantly looking for someone so no one can focus on my wrinkles and when the DJ plays old records from my childhood I pretend convincingly to myself that I've never heard them before, in fact I deliberately look puzzled as each record comes on so people will see I don't know what it is.

The Borough by Michael Cannon (Serpent's Tail 1995)

I came here by accident. It took me a while to realise that the Borough was unique, even for Glasgow. It is poor, and yet it lives cheek-by-jowl with the wealthiest districts which ring the University precincts. This is a strange symbiosis. The University surmounts the hill, its Gothic pile silhouetted by day and floodlight by night. The spire is a landmark for miles. Many of the academics live within walking distance. Small mews flats off cobbled lanes now fetch exorbitant prices. People with more money than sense pay for the prestige of living where a horse was once stalled. This is the city's Bohemia. Across the Kelvin immense town houses, built for the tobacco barons when Glasgow was still the second city of the empire, have been converted into student residences.

Strange Loyalties by William McIlvanney (Harcourt Brace 1991)

'Four experts had an appointment with an ordinary man. They needed him to ratify their findings or anything they achieved would be meaningless. As they drove to meet him, they knocked down a man on the road. He was dying. If they tried to save him, they might miss their appointment. They decided that their appointment, which concerned all of us, was more important than the life of one man. They drove on to keep their appointment. They did not know that the man they were to meet was the man they had left to die.'

I wish I had more whisky.

Loose Connections by Maggie Brooks (Abacus 1984)

Sally nodded vigorously. There was nothing more exhilarating than arguing a thesis among intelligent people who were all in total agreement. There was a heady self-righteousness about it that went to the head like champagne.

'Quality of life, economic survival, these are the issues. They can't be tackled from the old narrow base. The parties have to face this . . .'

Sally was just about to launch on a favourite theory of wealth redistribution when the chandelier tinkled out a warning note, stirred by the rising heat of the silver candelabra. She had a strange, disorientating sensation, sitting in this Homes and Gardens interior discussing socialism. She examined it. What was it she wanted them to do? Give all their money away and then discuss it?

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi (Penguin Books 1990)

I soon realized that Eleanor's main guardian and my main rival for her affection was man called Heater. He was the local roadsweeper, a grossly fat and ugly sixteen-stone Scot in a donkey jacket whom Eleanor had taken up three years ago as a cause. He came round every night he wasn't at the theatre, and sat in the flat reading Balzac in translation and giving his bitter and big-mouthed opinion on the latest production of Lear or the Ring. He knew dozens of actors, especially the left-wing ones, of whom there plenty at this political time. Heater was the only working-class person most of them had met, So he became a symbol of the masses, and consequently received tickets to first nights and to the parties afterwards, having a busier social life than Cecil Beaton. He even popped in to dress rehearsals to give his opinion as 'a man in the street'. If you didn't adore Heater - and I hated every repulsive inch of him - and listen to him as the authentic voice of the proletariat, it was easy, if you were middle class (which meant you were born a criminal, having fallen at birth), to be seen by the comrades and their sympathizers as a snob, an elitist, a hypocrite, a proto-Goebbels.

I found myself competing with Heater for Eleanor's love. If I sat too close to her he glared at me; if I touched her casually his eyes would dilate and flare like gas rings. His purpose in life was to ensure Eleanor's happiness, which was harder work than roadsweeping, since she disliked herself so intensely. Yes, Eleanor loathed herself and yet required praise, which she then never believed. But she reported it to me, saying, 'D'you know what so-and-so said this morning? He said, when he held me, that he loved the smell of me, he loved my skin and the way I made him laugh.'

When I discussed this aspect of Eleanor with my adviser, Jamilla, she didn't let me down. 'Christ, Creamy Fire Eater, you one hundred per cent total prat, that's exactly what they're like, these people, actresses and such-like vain fools. The world burns and they comb their eyebrows. Or they try and put the burning world on the stage. It never occurs to them to dowse the flames. What are you getting into?'

The Great Profundo and other stories by Bernard MacLaverty (Penguin Books 1987)

After I had finished my first painting under his direction he went up to it and looked all over its surface from six inches. He nodded with approval.
'I'll call you my drapery man.'

'What?'

'An eighteenth-century caper. Portrait painters got a man in to do the time-consuming bits - the lace and the satin stuff. The best of them was Vanaken. Hogarth drew this man's funeral with all the best painters in London behind the coffin weeping and gnashing their teeth.' [From 'The Drapery Man']

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (Riverhead Books 1995)

Now, she works for a City law firm (hence, I guess, the restaurants and the expensive suits and the disappearance of the spiky haircut and a previously unrevealed taste for weary sarcasm) not because she underwent any kind of political conversion, but because she was made redundant and couldn't find any legal aid work. She had to take a job that paid about forty-five grand a year because she couldn't find one that paid under twenty; she said that this was all you need to know about Thatcherism, and I suppose she had a point.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe (Plume/Penguin 1959)

Sitting in what has come to be called my study, a room in the first-floor flat of a ramshackle Majorcan house, my eyes move over racks of books around me. Row after row of coloured backs and dusty tops, they give an air of distinction not only to the room but to the whole flat, and one can sense the thoughts of occasional visitors who stoop down discreetly during drinks to read their titles:

"A Greek Lexicon, Homer in the original. He knows Greek! (Wrong, those books belong to my brother-in-law.) Shakespeare, The Golden Bough, a Holy Bible bookmarked with tapes and paper. He even reads it! Euripides and the rest, and a dozen mouldering Baedekers. What a funny idea to collect them! Proust, all twelve volumes! I never could wade through that lot. (Neither did I.) Doestoevsky. My god, is he still going strong?"

And so on and so on, items that have become part of me, foliage that is grown to conceal the bare stem of my real personality, what I was like before I ever saw these books, or any book at all, come to that. [From The Decline And Fall Of Frankie Buller]

Garnethill by Denise Mina (Carroll & Graf Mystery 1998)

"Marie was the eldest. She moved to London in the early eighties to get away from her mum's drinking, settled there and became one of Mrs Thatcher's starry-eyed children. She got a job in a bank and worked her way up. At first the change in her seemed superficial: she began to define all her friends by how big their mortgage was and what kind of car they drove. It took a while for them to realize that Marie was deep down different. They could talk about Winnie's alcoholism, about Maureen's mental-health problems, and to a lesser extent about Liam dealing drugs, but they couldn't talk about Marie being a Thatcherite. There was nothing kind to be said about that. Maureen had always assumed that Marie was a socialist because she was kind. The final breal between them came the last time Marie was home for a visit. They were talking about homelessness and Maureen ruined the dinner for everybody by losing the place and shouting, 'Get a fucking value system,' at her sister."

The Van by Roddy Doyle (Penguin Books 1991)

"Jimmy Sr looked carefully to make sure that he'd seen it right. The net was shaking, and O'Leary was covered in Irishmen. He wanted to see it again though. Maybe they were all beating the shite out of O'Leary for missing. No, though; he'd scored. Ireland were through to the quarter-finals and Jimmy Sr started crying."

Black And Blue by Ian Rankin (St Martins Paperbacks 1997)

"Somehow, fuelled by sheer terror, Allan Mitchison got to his feet, still tied to the chair. The kitchen window was in front of him. It had been boarded up, but the boards had been torn away. The frame was still there, but only fragments of the actual window panes remained. The two men were busy with their tools. He stumbled between them and out of the window.

"They didn't wait to watch him fall. They just gathered up the tools, folded the plastic sheet into an untidy bundle, put everything back in the Adidas bag, and zipped it shut."