Month: August 2023

I have put this note on Instagram itself, and I will also share it here in case you get here first and go there afterwards.

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Normally I don’t want to bother with these sorts of things because it’s getting too mixed up in various and sundry and I have gotten, like, fatally allergic to social-media drama. But I am given to understand people are being scammed and I’m not fucking having that. Big man doesn’t deserve his identity being dragged along for the ride either.

SO IT’S LIKE THIS:

1. If it isn’t @bigmanrorymccann, it ain’t Rory.

2. Rory is 99% UNlikely to ever message 99.9% of people on Instagram. And that includes me. I never hear from him either. I am completely fine with this. Man’s busy and don’t know me from Eve.

3. Rory is certainly never going to ask you for info or send you links to click, or whatever these scamming fucking bastards are doing, to steal your account or rip you off. Again… Man’s busy. And that’s just not how he rolls.

So. Follow the blue check that I’ve already tagged twice [in the original Instagram post]. Ignore all those scamming fucks. Report them to @instagram. I understand someone’s notified Rory’s agent too.

Thank you. And for those of you who got snagged, I am sorry to hear it. I hope you nail their asses to the wall.

—–

Someone emailed me about this today and first off, that was a fucking surprise: her email went straight to my normal inbox. I have no control over where they end up unless I use a filter, but I don’t think I have any (or very many) filters enacted there; nevertheless, in the past when people have emailed me about the fan site or Rory, it’s been a crap shoot and they’re highly likely to wind up in my spam folder. But secondly, she was the one who alerted me about the scamming specifically. Me, I’ll see something in my inbox on Instagram from a “Rory McCann”, take one look and know it’s not him, and delete the whole thing mostly-unread. Occasionally I’ll report them. Usually I just see them as a two-second nuisance. But it sounds like some of you weren’t seeing it that way. So be on the lookout.

And… I’m going to scold you a little bit. How many different fucking ways do I need to explain why this is Rory so stop saying it isn’t? That’s half the damn problem right there. Fans have been doubting his official IG account for months. When he didn’t have the blue check, I sort of understood though honestly, a little investigation would have told you that your concerns were likely unfounded. He has had people following him nearly all along who have his personal contact information: Chloe who was his Hound makeup artist from season four onward, and his agent, and a band who’ve actually met him, and his VOICE agent, and need I go on? They had other channels to check whether it was him, yet there they were. That should have been good enough for the rest of us until the blue check popped up. And now it’s there, so you’ve got no excuses left. It isn’t Twitter (X?). IG’s got slightly higher standards for verification. They just do.

So. Stop being fucking wet blankets and pay attention to what’s going on. Thanks. Not all of you were guilty of otherwise, but a lot of you were. Hopefully you were not taken in due to your inordinate degree of suspicion, but I never know what people are going to do anymore, so I’m covering all the bases. Moving along now.

[edit] He’s following Texas now too! Remember this?

HOLY SHIT I GOT QUOTED BY THE DAILY RECORD AH HA HA HA HA HA HA

cliquez ici!

But, hey. How many times have I gone on about how LAZY entertainment reporters are? Making news pieces out of other people’s social media stuff. I mean, damn. They’re getting paid for what I’m doing here for free!

…

Meanwhile. Do people out there have an alert set for when I start whinging about Scotland not visiting here?

Because suddenly it was everyone in Glasgow and their frickin’ mother. NOT COMPLAINING. Always a delight to see.

(Also, I may be exaggerating slightly. But there were several hits. Didn’t look closer to see if it was all the same IP address. Not bothering now.)

P.S. I’m pretty sure The Daily Record is the namesake of The Daily Prophet in JK Rowling’s Wizarding world. I just started a blog about my love of Scotland, and at some point I am probably going to write about the intersection of Scottish landmarks and cultural references vs. works of popular culture. Not just Harry Potter either. The world of A Song of Ice and Fire might as well be set there — it’s crazy. That’ll be fun.

So! I just came up with a new post format for this site. Big Man sightings! Because there’s been one!

Someone in the comments at Facebook said they saw him at the Harbour Bar in Troon — I’m guessing recently, based on the context — but didn’t know who he was til it was too late. And actually, that sounds familiar and I want to say he’s been spotted there before.

Fair bet he loves Italian food. This makes at least two such restaurants he’s been seen at since I started half-assedly tracking him. Solidarity, big man. Though I daresay the Italian you can get is likely a hell of a lot better than what I can get.

No mention of a wife this time. If she’s there, she’s still staying out of the pics. Rory hasn’t posted about this on his Instagram either. Though, well, he’s never struck me as the type to photograph his food. But not even a sort of mention. Probably feels too much to him like being stalked.

Well, so, we can guess a couple things based on the new data and the photo.

First off, either he’s in Glasgow or he was just in Glasgow.

Secondly, he’s been in Troon recently. The Harbour Bar, in fact, is extremely close to where he was docking his boat. Not sure about walking distance but you could definitely ride a bicycle over there. I wouldn’t even say this, but any enterprising nosyparker could find that out in like point-two seconds just from a Google search. (So anyone about to send me scold mail… save your fingers.) Rory knows people in Troon — would have to, he docked there a long time whether he currently is or not — and that alone could explain the visit, but this also points to the possibility he’s still got his boat, whether or not he is living on it at this point.

Thirdly, unless DCI Daley grows a big bushy beard in the books OR the writers on the TV series project have decided they don’t care one way or the other, Rory’s not working on the Daley thing right now. However! Denzil Meyrick posted a thing on his Facebook page back in February stating that he couldn’t tell anyone what was going on with production, as he’s contractually obligated to keep his yap shut (my words, not his, though he’s welcome to borrow them if he likes them), but he could say that things were going very well. Shooting, as some of us are aware, is only part of making a TV show or a film. Post-production takes a while too. At this point I’m not even sure I’ve heard whether anyone has picked up the show, which will add some more lead time if they haven’t yet.

(HEY. SCOTTISH TV PEOPLE. WHAT THE FUCK.)

Not that it matters. I will be dead fucking shocked if I get to watch it “on time.” Do you suppose Acorn TV might distribute it in real time? Probably not, but it’s nice to think about.

Anyway. Expect more use of the “big man sightings” category. I’ll try to add in old stuff too.

NO RORY, WE ARE NOT STALKING YOU.

Well. Uh. Not criminally stalking you. Not with bad intent. That’s, uh, probably the best I can do. Sorry.

Ah! I’m here working!

I’ve been in this serious mood-logjam of late. Has to do with my life going dubious again, but I don’t think that was the only thing. I had a nasty headache last night and this morning (my migraines are not as severe as they used to be, but it is never just a headache, anyway) and had been in a horrid mood before that. One day I will remember that at this stage in my life, half wanting to off myself is a prodrome for me. I hope so, anyway, because I never remember that’s what it is when it is happening, which just makes me more miserable.

But for some reason I’m better now. I’m sure some of it was just needing some fucking protein. And now I want to do stuff. Go figure.

Just got done moving over Rory’s little opinion-piece from 2009 about women from the articles page to the mainline of the blog. That piece is a hoot. It was a bit of a headfuck reading that and some other things he’s said in the past about dating.

“You like quiet women? I’m quiet! Men have given me shit about being too quiet before!”

“You like cuddly? I could spend an entire weekend with you in bed! On the sofa! Wherever!”

“Nothing sexier than a brown-eyed girl? Oh COME ON.”

(Yes. Got ’em. My dad used to say “You’re so full of shit your eyes are brown,” but I got the color from him, so.)

About the only things I didn’t have going for me were being “small enough to fit in the boat” (the “What I know about women” opinion-piece was written back when he owned Blue Boat) — probably a diplomatic general dig about weight, which mine’s too high — and possibly not being a good cook. I can do a pretty damned good chicken tikka masala, but other than that I don’t know. One of the things that made me sad when I still lived with my daughter’s father was people would give me attitude for not cooking dinner, and then when I did cook dinner they didn’t like it. Except the tikka masala. I don’t know why. So I don’t know what was going on there. Too late to worry about it now.

Anyway, I have my suspicions about the “brown-eyed girl” remark. The reason I say that is I’ve got his friend Graham from Thundersoup’s two books that mention him, and one of them was about Graham’s time in bands, and one song Graham wound up hating was “Brown-Eyed Girl,” which apparently EVERYBODY wanted his fucking bands to play. I would not be at all surprised if that were also true of Thundersoup. So does Rory actually like brown-eyed women, or was he taking the piss because he didn’t really want to write that stupid article but someone told him it’d be a hit with the fans, so he was dog-whistling to his pals about how silly it all was? Because really, either is equally likely. Rory is an intelligent man. Rory is known for taking the piss. You just never know. And he’ll probably never ‘fess up. You’re no fun*, big man.

But hey. One of MY standards about dating guys is Must Be Single. So Rory fails at that. So there.

I see Scotland is fucking off again instead of visiting here. I see how it is. That’s all right. Norway’s been here quite a bit though, which is odd. Also, every now and again my visitor counter mixes up countries, so I’ll get a visit from Salt Lake City, United Kingdom or something along those lines. As in Salt Lake City IN the United Kingdom. It is really weird.

No word from my boat-lady penpal in months. I’m starting to wonder if that wasn’t Mrs. McCann also taking the piss. I used to be followed on Instagram by Rory’s marina buddy so hey, anything’s possible. But I’m probably wrong. I have nothing better to do these days than wonder idly about weird things, if you’ll excuse me.

(However, if that was Mrs. McCann, I’d be the last person to tell you her name. I’m not entirely classless.)

Okay. Back to it. I’d like to get at least a couple more years done tonight. Onward!

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*OH, what a lie. I’m goin’ to hell for that one.

Have been getting in some more work on the site. I don’t know why I feel the need to announce small changes like that. Attention-seeker, maybe. But at the same time I avoid nearly everybody in my meatspace life. Go figure.

(See Rory, you’re not the only one who’s self-contradictory. Haha.)

I am thinking I will probably keep the “administrivia” feature after all but just have it be about the site. Expect that to be more of a regular feature starting in September. I like timing things to coincide with beginnings of months. Something else I can’t explain about me; I just roll with it.

I am also thinking about a different thing to do with the picture header but that’s going to take longer to materialize. I like to draw the big man. Some of you have seen that. I might actually do that to have my own art for the site. If I do, it’ll be headers primarily unless I think of a way to use the pieces elsewhere.

This may be the closest I get to breaking my “no making money from the fan site” rule, too, because I might decide to list finished pieces after photographing them or whatever. I haven’t decided yet but it is not outside the realm of possibility. People do fan art of the Hound now and again but there’s no reason I can’t dodraw his other characters too. There’s even a really cool shot of Kenny McLeod I might attempt. I’m getting way ahead of myself because I don’t do nine-tenths of the shit I say I’m going to do but if I follow through with this, they’ll likely wind up on Etsy. The fees are not insane.

(No really, they’re not. There are still people selling their own art on eBay and that appalls me. No listing fee but the final value fees’ll kill ya. I mean they are painful.)

Don’t be surprised if I end up adding other people’s fan art here. The most likely way I’ll do that is by embedding from deviantART. I have seen some fucking excellent work there, at least one piece of which Rory actually owns. Shit you not. GOD, I envy that artist.

Do you suppose Rory has some kind of souvenir room at this point? We know he’s kept swords and armor from several things he’s been in. We know he’s kept at least one piece of fan art. That stuff’s got to go somewhere. It’d be fun to see.

HEY BIG MAN, LET’S SEE YOUR SOUVENIR ROOM ON INSTAGRAM

Seriously! We’d love to hear from ya any old way.

Okay. Stuff to do. Onward!

I haven’t updated in pretty much two weeks. Obviously, right? Not all of you follow me around (going by the visitor stats — yep, I’ve got ’em on my homepage too), so I thought I’d catch up a bit here.

Things have gone from Probably Good to Probably Dubious. I won’t elaborate much, I made this too much my alt personal blog already, but I can say things are better than the last time they went dubious so I’m cautiously optimistic. It was yet another situation where my mental health was going into the tank and now it’s not so much, plus I think I’m about to make a bunch of new friends and hey, you can’t beat that with a stick. I’m not Ms. Gregarious at the best of times but God, there have been days I wondered if I actually exist. That can get a little bit tiresome.

I’m hearing bupkis about Rory, which is to be expected. Thus far he’s still only posted on his Instagram those four times, which is also to be expected. (I probably warned you all to not expect him to post often, right? Well, there you go. I couldn’t be fucking wrong about everything forever.) I did finally figure out that my Google Alert set for him updates me every day at 8pm. I had been vague about that whole process. It’s the same old recycled crap, but I suppose at least I hear anything, ever.

My stuff never appears there, of course. I was tempted to think that was because I use a lot of mirrored material instead of it all being original but I don’t think it’s even that. I don’t update enough. The end. There are so many garbage clickbait “entertainment” blogs out there publishing speculation and recycled things about Rory McCann and getting time on Google Alerts. They must update pretty much every day. I want quality here though, not just quantity and I was never going to get the quantity with Rory being reclusive in the first place. I accepted that occupational hazard going into this. It is what it is.

(Good thing I never wanted to make money with this or I’d be fucked, huh? Go figure.)

I did learn a new tidbit, and was absurdly charmed. We knew he has nephews, because he mentioned them being wrestling fans when he was interviewed for the Jumanji film he was in. Well, according to the info I found and followed this past week, some of it (not all) via Rory in an old interview, the total count actually adds up to at least two nephews (thus his referring to them in the plural) and one niece. I will elaborate in no more detail than that, because it isn’t really important to us random strangers and also it would freak Sally-Gay (Rory’s sister, if you didn’t know) out. But I thought at least some of you would be charmed too. I hope he spoils them absolutely putrid. I hear he is great with kids. Sniff.

I never did see Sally again on Instagram after the last time. I make it about three different handles she had in the time I was aware of her presence there, each account with a distinctive clue in it that to me was a dead giveaway. Apparently she’s stopped doing that. Good woman. What DID you people say to her, anyway, in DMs? I don’t want to know, do I? Damn.

Rory is now following Cary Elwes from his IG. Forgot to mention. Hey Dread Pirate Roberts! Follow Rory back! He’s basically your one-man Brute Squad!

“You obsess too much over Rory!” you’re saying. Eh… not really? I go at it in fits and starts. If I update myself about anything daily it’s Scotland, not the big man. It’s all Rory’s fault though. I started searching up some Scottish things and places he mentioned in his interviews and next thing I know I’m following like three dozen different Scotland accounts on IG and a whole lot more on Facebook. It’s been mental. But also fun. And you would not believe how many Scottish references there are in American culture and I never knew; they were right there in the open the whole time! I had originally hoped to see mention of the big man here and there, which of course didn’t happen, but then got caught up in the country itself. It’s kind of cruel because no way in hell can I go visit anytime soon unless something really cool happens. But from this distance it makes me think of the Pacific Northwest except with friendly people and more snow. I lived in the Puget Sound area from ’87 to ’89 and that’s my favorite area of the USA, though I will probably never live there again because the locals have gone fruit loops. I mean people in general are crazier than they used to be, but it’s particularly bad there. Sad too, because one of my brothers lives in Oregon. But I can’t. I’m so done. I might visit, that’s it. Scotland looks like a real gas, though, and really the only question is which two weeks out of the year should I go dip my toe in. I used to fantasize about doing the entire six months that we’re allowed to do in a year, but let’s face it, I’m lucky I can make my rent at the moment. If I could work remotely and do it I would, but the UK hasn’t caught up to reality about that yet. Probably won’t happen in my lifetime, either.

That said! I wish I knew the first fucking thing about running a gift shop or importing anything. I’m seriously considering doing some SCORE courses and seeking out a mentor. I already have this other thing I want to kick off that will do as a half-assed substitute for a while. Scotland has contributed so much to American history and culture, and it appalls me how ignorant I was about the place until I started crushing on a Weegie. Even most of what passes for pArTiCiPaTiOn iN ScOtTiSh CuLtUrE in the USA is stereotyped as hell. I thought I might take some of this fangirlishness and channel it into, well, educational pursuits. That might be fun. You never know.

Won’t link to it here yet but will when I’m happier with it. May be a while yet. Dunno.

Speaking of getting happier with projects. Be back later. Need to do more shifting things around here. Mwah.