Morning Roundup: Masonic conspiracies, Glasgow vs New York, and new defenders

Morning brothers. Been a while, eh? We apologise, we've been away expressing our empty masculinity through the prism of stale Tennents and revolting, caffeinated tonic wine for a wee while. But have no fear, the Morning Roundup is back again. New season, new us. This is going to come out in newsletter form soon too, so stay tuned for the sign-up option later in the month. No more procrastinating, no more just sacking it off when we can't be bothered and the only news is "John Greig says Rangers are good he likes them blue is his favourite colour he likes Mark Warburton he is good", no more of this. News, every day. Whether anything interesting's happened or not. Whether you even want it or not. Whatever the weather, every morning, 8am sharp.

Well, still not at weekends, actually. And we do take holidays once in a while, you know. And this has to be written at night, before the next day, unless we get up before 8am, which isn't happening, so if we're out the night before and it gets too heavy/dark/lucky/we're expressing our empty masculinity through the prism of stale Tennents and revolting, caffeinated tonic wine, then we might struggle to get it out too.

So, we reckon we'll be looking at one or two a month. Give or take. Anyway, here's the news:

Masons strike again as Rangers handed League Cup bye

As you may have read elsewhere in this establishment, Rangers have been given a diddy team at Ibrox at home in the League Cup. The complexities of a few baws in a bag have confounded the SFA in the past, but it appears now that we've returned to the big time and the biz is back, Dave King has really held them to the fire to make sure that things get done properly.

Accordingly, this one was textbook. First name out - Rangers. Second name out - diddiest team in the draw. No pishing about, and let the Celtic draw be buried in a cacophony of howls at the moon. They even managed to get Chris Sutton to join the brotherhood. Truly a new age of competence is upon us. Someone buy Brother Tanner a goat's blood at the next lodge meeting for us.

Kranjcar says he prefers Glasgow to New York

You can file this under the usual bombastic praise doled out by new signings at any club, of course. But if Kranjcar had said, when asked how he was getting on in Glasgow, "aye, it's no bad, I do actually prefer New York, but" then we'd not exactly have been rushing to assemble the wicker man. So, fair play, and why not? After all, is Glasgow not a great city? There's plenty to do, with the Gallery of Modern Art, the Kelvingrove, Ibrox (of course!), the finest countryside in the world on Scotland's West Coast is just a short drive away, and on the weekends you can express your empty masculinity through the prism of stale Tennents and revolting, caffeinated tonic wine.

And are Glasgow and New York really so different, in any case? We've got a skyline with cranes and art deco buildings, an accent folk enjoy imitating badly, a high murder rate, and a raft of people who aren't even from there who like to exaggerate all of the above to appear edgy.

Burnley debacle convinced Mark Warburton of need for new defender

According to the Sunday Post, behind a paywall, anyway (The Sunday Post has a paywall? Do any folk actually buy that for anything other than Oor Wullie and The Broons?)

Anyway, on the one hand, you may think "good", on the other hand you may think "why has it taken a Premier League side with a £15m striker putting three past us to make you think that, rather than last season when the same feat was achieved by Raith Rovers, Queen of the South and Falkirk three games in a row last season?"

If you hadn't noticed that by now, Mr Warburton, we suggested you lay off expressing your empty masculinity through the prism of stale Tennents and revolting, caffeinated tonic wine a wee bit.

Barry Ferguson picks his combined Rangers and Celtic XI

Which doesn't feature Barrie McKay or Martyn Waghorn, in order to fit in Kenny Miller and (lol) Scott Brown. Sounds like he's been expressing his empty masculinity through the prism of stale Tennents and revolting, caffeinated tonic wine too much. See you back at Ibrox soon, Clyde fans.

And elsewhere...

Anti-terror police: Scotland is the safest part of the UK

Don't seem to hear much from John Smeaton these days, do ye? Anybody seen him at Ibrox? What's he up to? Has he been expressing his emp(alright, that's enough. See youse soon.)