IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND A BROKEN RELATIONSHIP

Will a new year find a new appetite for peace in Paradise?

- HUGH KEEVINS

I RECEIVED an unexpected phone call last Saturday night.

It was from Peter Lawwell on the eve of Celtic v Aberdeen - his last home game as Hoops chairman.

He probably had far better things to do but Peter still took the time to thank me for having supported him over the questionable manner in which he had been driven from his seat in the directors' box due to intolerable threats and intimidation from persons unknown.

The only time, Peter said, that he could recall me ever writing something nice about him in this column.

I took that as a jocular observation and asked him not to spread it about that I'd written something nice about anybody in case it destroyed my professional reputation.

And then we talked, like old guys do, about how the world's a different place from the one we used to know, and not necessarily for the better.