Love the notion of bumping into Kelman at the dugs. "Greyhound for Breakfast" was one of his first books I read. I got to know him a wee bit when he was briefly teaching at Glasgow Uni.

The comments on Steve Earle are revealing. With a few obvious exceptions (Pryor, Hicks, anybody in a David Mamet play), I don't think Americans are any good at swearing. They even effect others. The first time I heard swearing on an LP was Lennon's Plastic Ono Band LP ("Working Class Hero", "I Found Out") and thought it was really powerfully done. A couple of years later he's over in New York, hanging around Greenwich Village with a gang of yippies and swearing lamely in "The Luck of The Irish."