A sheriff's ruling that it is not a crime to sing about the IRA leaves the Offensive Behaviour at Football law in a state of confusion.

In the absence of new legislation to ban both football and religion, Police Scotland (as we must now call the polis) are faced with many a dilemma. Which is what they get for asking for this mad and misplaced act of Parliament in the first place.

Professors of history and semantics may have to be hired to advise whether the song at the Celtic end is about terrorists or freedom fighters. Clever defence lawyers may argue that it was a spoonerism at Ibrox and the Teddy Bears meant to sing about an accident in the kitchen when they were up to their knees in beans and flood?

There will be no end of bureaucracy as fans have to submit lyrics in advance to a Sectarian Song Peace and Reconciliation Commission. The obvious answer is to let the bigots sing away to their hearts content while the rest of us ignore it and hope it will go away, possibly before the millennium celebrations for the Battle of the Boyne.

Police Scotland resources could then be used to set up a Serious Singing Squad to target the unacceptable levels of musical pollution prevalent in society today. The squad will have stop and search powers for suspected possession of techno, heavy metal, or thrash content. There will be spot fines and confiscation of music devices for those who test positive. Transport police will patrol trains and buses to eject passengers with noisy headphones. Any premises may be raided without the need for warrants on suspicion of the existence of secret caches of Des O'Connor LPs.

The Karaoke Intervention Unit of the licensing police will visit pubs and arrest Big Rab on the grounds that his rendition of I Did It My Way is not only offensive but likely to incite public disorder.

Plans for an elite squad of plain-clothes singing detectives may have to be abandoned when officers refuse to dress up as Michael Gambon and be smothered in Vaseline.

Complaints about people whistling too much will be dealt with on a community policing basis. As will reports of unacceptable muzak and telephone call-waiting systems.

Under separate legislation from the Scottish Parliament it will be illegal for songwriters from Bearsden to write blues lyrics about the troubles they have seen and the hard times they've come through.

tom shields Singing detectives

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