This Is Why I Should Be Kingsley The Terrifying Partick Thistle Mascot

It is day nine of your epic trek through the Andes, and you are parched by a desperate thirst. The Peruvian sun beats down upon your naked brow, sweat glistens on your taut, pink skin, and a thousand cicadas chirp amongst the arid brush, filling your delirious brain with the sound of click-click-clicking. As you crunch your way along the dusty stone path, you stumble and fall. Suddenly, a strong, weather-beaten hand reaches out to you and helps you to your feet. This is the man you have been looking for. This is the shaman of Huascarán, and everyone else in your university backpacking group says he brews ayahuasca so strong that it will blow your fuckin' mind.

Having consumed the potent hallucinogen, having quenched your thirst on its bitter juices, you lie back, peacefully, and gaze at the heavens. Suddenly, you start to feel anxious. Suddenly, you feel you are not alone. Staring directly at the sun, black spots start to form on your field of vision, burning onto your retina like hot tar. These gradually merge together to form a thick monobrow, a pair of reptilian nostrils, a crooked mouth and two wide, dead eyes. You are screaming now, and the face is screaming back at you. "AH AM WEE KINGSLEY," it roars, in a furious Glaswegian accent. "KINGSLEY FAE PARTICK THISTLE, AN' YOU AH OFF YA CHEBS!"

This is one way to come into contact with Kingsley, though by no means the only method of reaching him. The simplest way to experience his otherworldly aura is to turn up at Firhill Stadium on a Saturday afternoon and watch a Partick Thistle match, at which he will inevitably be present. In case you are unacquainted with Kingsley, he is Partick Thistle's mascot, and has previously been described as "a demented sun god."

Created by David Shrigley, a Turner Prize nominee in 2013, Kingsley has variously been labelled "terrifying", "blood-curdling" and – in the words of Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones – "the rage of Caliban at seeing his own face in the glass." He looks like a child's nightmare, a mescaline dreamscape, a fragmented memory from the inner consciousness of a deep and inscrutable mind. Kingsley wants to cuddle you, and yet he gives off a distinct impression that, should his thin, yellow arms ever envelop your body, you would almost certainly crumble to dust. He is the petrifying unknown, the unspeakable other, the monster who is born of the most gruesome regions of the self.

More importantly, he urgently needs someone to get inside him, and horrify the people of North Glasgow in his name. The BBC reports that the gentleman who previously inhabited Kingsley is giving it up to become a father, presumably because he doesn't want his children to grow up associating him with a profound sense of dread. Now, Partick Thistle need another person to embody Kingsley, and scare people away from the unedifying spectacle of Scottish football. Here is why I am the ideal candidate, and why I am uniquely equipped to bring Kingsley to life.

First of all, I am remarkably keen on the idea of being a demented sun god. I reckon I'm the sort of bloke who would excel at being a galactic life source one minute, and causing terrible droughts and famines the next. I'm capricious like that, see. I enjoy the music of both Steps and S Club, in the same way that would I enjoy nurturing the world's fauna while simultaneously parching great swathes of the earth. I like Star Wars and Star Trek, in the same way that I would like to nourish a vast and beautiful woodland society before levelling it with a devastating forest fire.

If the idea of being Kingsley pleases me, the realities of the job seem equally amenable. I meet all the criteria as stated on Partick Thistle's official website, and am especially adept when it comes to taking part in multiple selfies and being dragged in different directions by excited adults.

I am good at darning costumes, I am good at inspiring mass hysteria, I reckon I could beat almost any other mascot in a race; they're all overweight 40-year-old men, after all. I have a burning desire to meet the nation's C-list celebrities, Jonathan Sutherland amongst them, while I am au fait with a wide variety of complex hand signals, and practise them almost every day.

More than anything, though, I think I share an ethos with Kingsley, and buy into what he represents. He is a deranged, disfigured creature who dwells on the fringes of human existence, and I empathise with his alienation. He's a horrifying sun deity from post-industrial Glasgow, sure. But on some level, aren't we all?

@W_F_Magee