Tarts of jam pick the oldest silver...

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Track of the Day
"The Eternal Optimist" from "Splinterheart" (2010)

Playlist
Various - 75 Tracks from my Current Top 20 Albums
Carla Bruni - No Promises
Nancarrow - Piano Studies Vol 1
Sibelius - The Sibelius Experience
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Acme
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Now I Got Worry
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Orange
Will Oldham - Joya
Deus - The Ideal Crash
Girls Aloud - Sound of the Underground (Reissue)
The Tubes - Wild in London

Up at 5:30 and to the PC - listening to my latest top 20 albums and selecting tracks that might pass muster with the Exec Producer in the car today...

I chose a total of 75 tracks, the first at 5:43 the last at 8:21 - this is how I waste my time - and burned them to an MP3 CD for the journey to Glasgow today, to see Hibernian v Heart of Midlothian in the Scottish Cup Final...

Anne is, of course, a very committed Hearts fan - she was dreading today, convinced as she was that Hibs would win - this despite the fact that they only just avoided relegation while Hearts will play in Europe next year and are unbeaten in the last three years in Edinburgh derbies...

Anyhow, we set off right on schedule at 9am and parked around a mile from Hampden, 59 minutes later, making our way to Crosshill station and heading into the town centre for some pre match shopping...





For your correspondent, "shopping" means only one thing - and a trio of Jon Spencer Explosion CDs, a Will Oldham disc and one too by Belgian maestros dEUS were snapped up for just £2 each in Fopp...

Round the corner in That's Entertainment, 99p was shelled out for the alternative version of Girls Aloud's debut album while, next door in Missing, a live set by San Francisco favourites, The Tubes rounded off the splurge for a very expensive vier pfund...

We rendezvous'd at the foot of Buchanan Street, where this puppet entertained...



...before walking to nearby Bar Ten to enjoy lunch...

Back to the station and no packed train as it was only around 1pm...

Over the bridge and out towards Hampden...



We were super early...



Eventually though, the sell out crowd arrived...



The cup was paraded around the track by Edinburgh legends Pat Stanton and John Robertson, while the Hearts fans unfurled a rather large banner...



Hearts owner Vlad Romanov was kilted and in attendance, you can just see him on the big screen here...



Much razzamataz ensued before kick off...



At 3 we were underway...



By half past, Hearts were 2-0 up and it looked like it might be a rout - the guys behind us reckoned 8-0 was do-able...

But, just before half time, Hibs pulled one back and it had all the makings of a competitive match for the first time since the kick off - it might be a good second half after all...

A minute into the second period though, Hearts were awarded a penalty for a dive outside the box and the offending Hibs player was shown a second yellow card and dismissed...

A cruel blow indeed...

While Hearts never really looked anything less than comfortable and in control, their midfield playmaker could easily have been sent off early in the first half for the use of an elbow but was merely given a talking to - such decisions can turn a game...

Not withstanding the fact that, man for man, Hearts were by far the better team, had those two decisions gone the other way, well, who knows...

So the penalty went in, followed a few minutes later by a fourth and the Hibs end emptied...

A fifth with fifteen or so minutes to go, rounded things off...



The jubilant Hearts players collected the cup for the second time in six years, third in fourteen and eighth in all...



With only a couple of Hibs fans left in the ground, the Jam Tarts partied...















As the team and training staff left the pitch, we made our way out of the ground...



...back to the car...



..and along a jam packed M8 back to Edinburgh...

While I stayed at home working to the soundtrack of my new purchases, Anne popped to Jane and Bobby's to watch Bayern Munich present the Champions' League trophy to Chelsea on a platter - a travesty...

When will teams on the continent stop trying to walk the ball into the net?

Went to pick Anne up and we watched the post match analysis and interviews of today's big match - the Scottish one that is...

So, mostly a day of football - enjoyable - and a big smile on Annie's face as her beloved Hearts once again pick up some silverware...

The oldest football trophy in the world no less...

Highlight of the Day : Completing a hat trick of seeing Hearts win the Scottish Cup...