"Did you hear the Scottish Cup result?" he asked. "Celtic 1, Inverness Caledonian Thistle 3." Ho, ho, ho, chuckle, chuckle - good one! Okay, here's another one: what did the fish say when he swam in to the wall? Dam! Chuckle.

"It's NOT a joke . . . Celtic 1, Inverness Caledonian Thistle . . . THREE." Only an unmarked Daveed Ginola in the penalty box hits the ground harder than the jaws present did that night.

A grand old club to play for, maybe (when you take into account the wages they pay), but to support? What a football church to be born in to. Whoever said religious fervour of that nature eases your path through life?

He'd never admit it but you can be sure Tom often wishes he was born on the other side of Glasgow, a fully paid up member of the non-Catholic footballing congregation. But he wasn't, instead when he first saw the light of day he had a green and white scarf wrapped around his neck, one he hasn't taken off since. (First station of the cross? Jock Stein, of course).

But he's not old enough to remember the good old days (the Lisbon Lions, the nine-in-row - the ninth of which came when he was still munching Liga - and all that) and by the time he was mature enough to realise that Kenny Dalglish was the son of God He - Dalglish, not Tom - had left for Liverpool. So, Tom picked a fine time to be born a Celtic supporter.

He was probably at Parkhead on Tuesday night, drying his eyes with that scarf, the one that is a source of hilarity for the other half of Glasgow. "There was a time I couldn't walk through parts of Glasgow wearing my Celtic scarf for fear of being stabbed, but these days they just laugh," he said a few years' back, pining for the day when Celtic would, once again, be regarded as a menacing threat by the boys in blue.

But those boys, as opposed to the Bhoys, were laughing last week. Again. Word has it that thousands of them flooded a Glasgow radio phone poll on Wednesday to register their support for Celtic coach John Barnes. Celtic under Barnes, they reckoned, would always be good for a laugh. His sacking on Thursday was the only blip in their otherwise perfect week.

Another Rangers fan rang the Daily Record's football hotline and suggested that Celtic swap Alan Stubbs for Everton's David Weir, "cos then their defence would be Weir Tebily Scheidt". Ow.

Meanwhile, the official Celtic website was still offering tickets for sale for the fourth round of the cup on Wednesday, the same day that the club's season-ticket holders noticed their bank accounts had been debited by the club for the very same tickets for the very same fourth round of the cup, the very same round Inverness Caledonian Thistle - and not Celtic - will be playing Aberdeen.

Yep, losing at home to Inverness Caledonian Thistle (whose 40-year-old goalkeeper, Jim Calder, is a part-time builder who the club tried - but failed - to flog to non-league Strathspey Athletic six weeks ago) wasn't part of Celtic's grand old plan.

It was a bit unexpected, too, by one of Thistle's goalscorers that night, Barry Wilson, who (while, by his own admission, battling the hangover of all hangovers) rang his wife on Wednesday morning to check for confirmation that Thistle HAD actually beaten the mighty Celtic at Parkhead.

That's the same Inverness Caledonian Thistle who only spent £217,000 on players in the last five years, a bit less than Mark Viduka spent on his silver Porsche Carrera.

And on Wednesday I read that a Celtic fan had lain a bouquet of flowers on the steps of Parkhead the morning after the Inverness Caley night before, accompanied by a card that said "Why?". Tom, I guessed, until I read on and learnt that they were placed there by a weeping 30-year-old lorry driver from Falkirk. "It's a mark of respect to put flowers at someone's grave, that's how I feel about my football team - I feel they've died," he said. ("Scary", said those of us who have no clue what it means to be a true Celtic supporter).

Maybe that's the difference between Celtic fans and the rest of us. When they stopped Rangers winning 10-in-a-row in 1998 Tom proudly wore his one-in-a-row T-shirt and vowed he'd call his first child Wim Kenny Jansen O'Donnell. Tom's still waiting for his first child and, frankly, he's still waiting for a Celtic player worth naming his first child after. They don't deserve supporters like him. Inverness Caledonian Thistle? As un-funny a joke as you're ever likely to hear.