Andy's Glasses

So what’s Tenerife like? Well… it was formed in 2600 BC when a volcano erupted under the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco. The volcano’s name was ‘Nigel’ and it was quite big. Because the eruption also caused a few other Canary Islands to form, possibly a bit of the west coast of Morocco and I’m guessing, a small part of Marbella. Where the Marriott now stands. The natural vegetation here is… predominantly quite green, and there are little mountains all around. Brown ones. They’re quite pretty. The indigenous people are… not really indigenous at all but came from Spain when the then King… Philippe, or Carlos IX, or Rodney III, came over on a boat (probably) and declared it their very own and built the shopping centre.

Basically, I have no fucking idea what it’s like. I got off a plane. They told me I was in Tenerife and I believed them. A very nice man in a white Toyota taxi then brought me to our resort, where they lock us in for 12 hours a day and then allow us out ONLY to go find dinner. Then we have to return in time for curfew otherwise our ankle bracelet trackers send 10,000 volts up our legs. That gets you back in a hurry.

Ok, we should go ‘exploring’. We should hike up the other volcanoes here and get bitten by the doubtlessly exotic insects they have, possibly even snakes!!! We should take a boat ride round the southern tip of the island, diving off the side to catch wild oysters. In our teeth. Or we could take a motor-bike out, fall off it, as all tourists do, and spend three days checking out both the hospitals round here and also our health insurance limits.

But we’re not really here for that. We’re here to rest. And play with Lila and Joey. And, trust me, you don’t want to sit in a car/coach for 2 hours with Joey to go to a volcano that he doesn’t really want to see. Yet, oddly, he’ll happily sit for 2 hours this afternoon to watch his beloved Spurs lose at Crystal Palace. But that’s a different kind of ‘concentration’, it’s a ‘commitment’.

So, due to being actual inmates in a Tenerifian prison, albeit a very upmarket prison, we lie in the sun, we read our books, we swim, we take walks along the fabulous promenade, we play, we rest and we lie down some more, once the resting gets a bit tiring.

And it’s actually quite liberating, all this ‘doing nothing’. Feeling no pressure to do anything at all. How wonderful.

Happy hols,

A xxxx

Why do we take holidays? Well, it’s a complex question. We take holidays to rest. To relax. To adhere to the ‘change is good as a rest’ maxim, maybe to get some sunshine at a time when we don’t got none at home, and maybe because we’re just fucking exhausted, overworked, and knackered out. So we take that break. Come to the sun. And rest. And that lasts until Joey launches himself at me as I walk through the hotel entrance, a self-propelled projectile aimed for my solar plexus.

If I actually viewed such an event, however physically painful, however bone-breakingly intense, as anything other than ‘the best thing in the world’, I’d have grounds for complaint. When his older and oh-so-much-cooler sister approaches in her much more measured, pre-teenly-nonchalant way because she too wants to share the lurve, then the world is back on its axis again.

So here we are. Oh, my daughter’s here too. Whassername. In case we need an adult in the group. With my son-in-law. With whom I’ll watch any Spurs games on view here, so Joey can comfort us during and after. His 6 year-old view on such things is much healthier than mine and his dad’s, not having suffered quite so long. I had Joey practising the phrase ‘cooom-on Cit-eh’ the other day, for when we have to convert. Well, Mel grew up in Leeds and that’s up north. So how far can it be from Manchester? Giving us ‘legacy rights’ to jump on that bandwagon so lavishly fuelled by Arab oil money.

Tonight the daughter and Tory Boy are going out for a ‘date night’. Whilst we’re ‘lumbered’ with the kids. Oh noooooooo… A ‘sleepover’, even though the room is precisely the same as theirs, to the millimetre.

We have strict rules to follow. Reading, bedtime, cuddles, sleep. No admission til 7am and no iPads til then.

I’ve never been great at rules. Always a bit of an issue for me. Though I’m generally ok with Lila & Joey’s rules. They align more with my world view. Which is, roughly, anything for a decent night’s sleep and there’s no such thing as ‘too much sugar’.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Like the King, I’m sending a Christmas message this year to all my loyal subjects. Otherwise known as ‘the plebs’. Because those of us in high office should always realise and appreciate that there are commoners, ‘working people’ and other versions of ‘scum’, all over the country, at this very moment fighting each other over who gets the Turkey wing this year, or who gets to drink the last can of Tenants Extra because mother-in-law has drunk the other 5 in the 45 minutes since she arrived.

So what you should all be doing in fact is finding the most freezing, arctic, frigid body of water you can and immersing yourself in it. Preferably whilst wearing a red bikini fringed with white fur, stick-on antlers, or a long white beard. And essentially, drunk. Or how and why would you ever enter such a place.

But it seems almost to be de rigeur to jump into the North Sea, or the English Channel or some version of ice-laden coastal waters on Christmas Day. It started (as with soooo many bad ideas) in Scotland. Where the Firth of Forth would be awash with plungers into the ice-water. Now it’s everywhere. Devon, Belfast, even Worcestershire. Which, I’ll admit, is a bit landlocked, but they’ve got cars, haven’t they? Or lakes, reservoirs and some really horrible, polluted canals. So no excuses.

Let me tell you, as your ‘other king’, what Jesus wasn’t doing on Christmas Day. He wasn’t jumping into cold water in a bikini. He may have has some issues, but he wasn’t a total fucking idiot. In fact, he had many problems. I mean, where did all that ‘poverty’ shit come from? Turning other cheeks? Rather than the more customary ‘aw’right, come on den, ya want some????’ reaction. And wearing sandals? Not sure if he did so whilst in a suit, but ya kind’a think he would. I don’t mind the feeding of the 5,000, but why didn’t he monetise it? 5,000 covers in one night; any restaurant would kill for that.

Though I must admit, I’m wearing sandals too!! Well, why not? It’s Christmas Day, FFS! It’s in honour of Jesus, just another nice Jewish boy. Or possibly the first ‘nice Jewish goy’, but I need to check. So I’m wearing sandals in HIS honour.

And because I’m in Tenerife and it’s fucking hot. And yes, I have immersed myself in water today. Not, possibly, of the frozen variety, but… slightly cool(ing).

Happy Christmas

A xxxx

There’s 3 things I would never do.

Vote for Nigel Farage. Ok, or Kier Starmer.
Sing any song with ‘Ar-sen-allll’ in the lyrics.
Go on hunger strike. Unless they held it in Dishoom and let me cheat.

Some of the Hunger Strikers are up to their 50th days. Its getting horrible. They’re in wheelchairs. Their bodies are starting to eat themselves for the nourishment they’re otherwise starved of. And they’re at risk of incurring brain damage.

How would you know? If there was brain damage. When you’re dealing with people obviously a touch deranged in the first place, or they wouldn’t feel the need to align themselves with a terrorist organisation. And then when, surprise surprise, you get put in jail, you decide to go on hunger strike. Oh no.

If anything in this world is an act of (literally) self-destructive, nihilistic futility and stupidity, it is a hunger strike. I actually tried it this morning, before breakfast, to see what it felt like, develop a little ’empathy’ for the moronic self-murderers. But I couldn’t make it. Had to have just a little snack, because…

Because to impose starvation on yourself is stupid. No-one cares. They’re not going to change the law. Lots of people are demanding ‘medical action’ but really, that’s an assault on these people. They don’t need ‘medical help’, they need food. Which they’ve chosen not to take. In order to make a really important political point, which is… errrr…

Let ’em starve. It’s what they want. Freedom of expression. To ‘force feed’ them or medicate them to hell and back is an abuse. Unless the people demanding that ‘action is taken’, that ‘they must meet with the Home Secretary’, those other fuckwits, which now include Greta Thunberg, the fuckwit’s fuckwit, unless they go on hunger strike in support of the hunger strikers.

It could be brilliant. A self-inflicted cull of the imbeciles.

Anyway, I’m off to Tenerife. This message comes to you ‘live’ from Gatwick. I’m on my way to meet… the monsters. Who are already there. One thing’s for sure. There’ll be no hunger striking where I’m going. It’ll have to wait til I get back.

Happy Christmas Eve

A xxxx

Ever been to Shinjuku station in Tokyo? Its a city. Allegedly ‘the busiest railway station in the world’, it is without question the most confusing. Its on 3 floors, all with shops and restaurants, covers about 197 square miles and you can’t get out. Its impossible to find ‘the street’. Let alone the actual street you want. And most of the streets in that area are ‘red lighted’ ones, it doesn’t really matter where you emerge.

I think King Cross is heading that way. But without the red lights. We had those around there for years. The ‘sleaze years’ when every politician looking for instant, cheap, nasty satisfaction would drive round old Kings Cross and pick the crack-head of his (or her, must be fair now) choice. But not now. Now its the most fab area in London. And getting fabber every day. But the station is ‘growing’.

It was just ‘Kings X’. Next door was St Pancras. So they joined ’em up. ‘Next door’ being a block or two away. Then they moved Eurostar from Waterloo to there too. Next came the shops, cafes and market stalls, just so you know it had ‘arrived’. Not your train, that’s still outside Lancaster after a signal failure and won’t arrive til 3 hours after its due time.

I spent about half an hour walking round it this morning. I went to the Northern Line platform, my default, only to realise that I wanted the circle line. Shit. That little error cost me 20 minutes, 24,000 steps and abject humiliation.

And why was I in Kings Cross early in the morning? There is only one possible reason to be there, ever. The Egg-and-bacon naan breakfast roll at Dishoom. Or just the egg one if you’re not a meat-eater. Or an eater of that meat. It is possibly the best thing ever invented. Or so you think until you taste the beans.

The younger daughter’s office is just around the corner in the most achingly trendy building I’ve ever seen. So we thought… we thought…

We didn’t ‘think’ anything. We were just compelled to go for breakfast. We succumbed. And oh my, it was so worth it.

Happy, still full, Monday

A xxxx

I’m going to fight Anthony Joshua.

How hard can it be? He’s only ‘human’. Ok, he’s 6 foot 5inches of 110kgs of solid rock, but he’s human. Therefore I can beat him at boxing. Usyk beat him and he’s just a Ukranian thug. So I reckon I could do that too. And here’s why I’m qualified.

I was Disney child star, FFS. You can’t get any ‘arder than that. Then I became a TikTok in-flu-ence-errr, with a hundred million followers. They’ve watched me get a hundred and nine meaningless tattoos, numerous dodgy haircuts and they’ve seen my beard grow from ginger stubble to my magnificent full-hipster. All of which firstly makes me really tough, and secondly gives me the necessary experience to punch people really hard.

So I warmed up, fighting Mike Fucking Tyson!!! And beat him!! Ok, he’s 60 but Mike Fucking Tyson!!! Then I had a few bouts with basketball players and MMA guys, so I was ready. To take on a 2-time world champion boxer of incredible might and power and experience. That’s in no way ‘over-reaching’ or ‘Midas complex’ or even ‘being a total waste of space tosser in search of the sensational’. No, I can beat him. Easy.

Which is why I’m today in a hospital nursing a broken jaw. Yeah, but it was only my jaw, my pre-match analysis team reckoned on at least 63% of my bones being broken within one round, so I’m gonna count that as a ‘moral victory’. Can you put the straw back in my soup, please?

But on this day, just shy of Christmas in the ‘season of goodwill’, we need to share a thought for those brave and heroic, and not at all ‘just plain stupid’, brothers and sisters currently on hunger strike in our prisons. Well, 5 of them are ‘brothers and sisters’, the other is possibly both, maybe neither, as… it! identifies as one of those new fangled genders which are all the rage now.

Some are on the 48th day of starvation. The point which is generally recognised as ‘shit central’ for your body’s systems. Basically you start to die.

And all they want is…

Well, it doesn’t really matter what manner of moronic and ‘alternative’ demands they’ve chosen to make because one thing will never ever happen, and that’s the government giving in. Firstly, it’s a judicial issue and the government have no power to interfere in the judiciary, or we’d all be fucked and might as well live in Moscow. Secondly, if they gave in to a hunger protest, how many prisoners would be on hunger strike tomorrow?

The fact that these 6… let’s just say ‘imbeciles’ are demanding that the bunch of terrorists known as Palestine Action be un-proscribed immediately, just about says it all.

What would be cheaper; starving them to death or just shooting them?

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Look, it’s not just Jesus who celebrates his birthday in December, 2 days ago I had my 69-and-a-half-th birthday. Thanks for your fucking cards!!! And good tidings!! Anyway, as old age rushes upon me so quickly that even I realise I might have to stop acting like an adolescent any time soon, one must concern oneself with the possibility of horrible things happening. The most horrible of which (though it’s a close call) being dementia. All the other potential horrors will kill you; dementia doesn’t. It just ‘removes you’, whilst you’re still there. So we’re all very careful and follow the guidelines, to hopefully avoid this true curse on the aged. I did know people who were quite demented when they were 16 but I think that’s different.

And reading the newspaper advice columns, as I do a bit and Mel does religiously and takes notes, this is my plan to hopefully avoid that disease.

Stay thin. Mainly because fat people can look demented even when they’re not. Exercise a lot. Do lots of puzzle games. And sleep a lot. The most consistent message you get from the quacks and charlatans writing in papers is sleep. The more the better. So when are you supposed to find the time to do all the sudoku puzzles and crosswords if you’re in bed for 16 hours a night, then going to the gym for 4 hours upon waking? There’s barely time to eat! Which you must do. And in today’s paper, yet another ‘dementia prevention advice’ piece telling us to eat cheese. High fat cheese, to be precise. And lots of it. Because a study (probably financed by the cheese marketing board) showed that eating fatty cheese makes you so many percent less likely to succumb to dementia.

Whereas in the cardiac/cholesterol department next door, they probably have a slightly different view. And we love a different view, regardless of how stupid it may be.

Like yesterday, f’rinstance. The government finally decided (it only took 65 people being shot to get them to ‘get it’) that saying ‘globalise the intifada’ is a declaration of world-wide war on Jews. So they’ve sort of ‘banned it’. And arrested someone, a Mr Dickhead from Bromsgrove, for shouting it at a rally yesterday. I’ll guess it was ironically called ‘a peace rally’, at which you shout for war and death. But one organisation (not ‘Palestine Action’, they’re banned, so probably ‘Action for Palestine’) invoked their right to ‘free speech’, and furthermore pleaded that you SHOULD be able to shout ‘globalise the intifada’ as part of a peaceful protest. Starting a war for peace. Interesting concept. But more to the point, that phrase is not so much a declaration of war as an intention to commit genocide. Yes, the ‘g’ word. This time used in the correct context and literally. Murder all Jews, is what it says.

But get ‘em quickly, before they get dementia.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Anthony Albanese, the Australian tosser and Prime Minister, spoke movingly on Sunday about the Bondi Beach murders. How ‘this is not just an attack on the Jewish community, but on Australian values and way of life’, kind’a thing. He didn’t really have a lot of choice, did he? 15 people get murdered out on a beach in the middle of your main, and most multi-cultured, city, you have to speak up against it. Even if they are only Jews.

So why is he a tosser? What is his crime? In the 2 years since the October 7th massacre and the ensuing war, Albanese essentially ‘joined the wrong side’. Like Kier Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and so many other ‘leaders’ (‘plonkers’, more like), he embraced the Hamas-led narrative without questioning its validity or its motives. He adopted every spurious claim from Gaza at face value and went on a spree of virtue-signalling with accusations of ‘genocide’ and ‘child-murdering’ and ‘hospital destroying’, inflaming the passions of the vast majority of the uninformed masses who generally read no further than the banner headlines. He ‘recognised a Palestinian State’, even though there is nothing to actually recognise, and ‘demanded’ a 2-state solution, accusingly at Israel, even though no Palestinian has ever agreed to or will agree to, such a prospect. And in his frenzy of appearing on the moral high-ground, he, like all the other dickheads, allowed the ‘protests’ to degenerate into Israel-hate (don’t mind that) and then to Jew-hate (mind that very much).

You’re not going to ‘globalise the intifada’ from your mansion in Double Bay, or from your knitting circle in Shropshire. And more news, ‘from the river to sea does not mean from the Yarra to the Pacific Ocean. It refers to clearing all the current occupants from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea out, plus all their ‘co-religionists’ all over the world, if you follow the Hamas charter. And by doing precisely nothing as campuses all over America and Europe devolved into ‘no-go’ areas for Jewish students, as the Liberal lines easily and comfortably crossed from ‘anti-zionism’ to blatant antisemitism, this merry band of leaders dithered. They didn’t want to upset ‘free speech’, when it’s only really offensive and threatening to Jews. But they felt the growing wind of anti-Jewish sentiment growing. Enabling the Manchester synagogue attack on Yom Kippur. And then, a seemingly logical extension, to mass murder on Bondi.

So it’s all very well for Starmer, Albanese et al to stand up NOW and support their Jewish communities. Because at this precise moment, the world is unusually on the side of the Jews. But it’s simply too fucking late. They all had the power to prevent ‘the hate’ reaching critical mass. But chose to appease their left wings, to sit back and let the protests become more hateful, more inflammatory, more anti-Semitic because it was the easy option. They enabled the hate.

And here we are now. In a world where Jewish people in the main just don’t feel safe.

So fuck you Albanese, and fuck you Starmer and the rest.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

There are so many things that bother me about yesterday’s fucking horrific murders in Sydney that, quite frankly, I don’t know where to start. But inspired by The Sound of Music (as all my life is ruled by awful Julie Andrews movies either featuring really bad Cockney accents or ones with children running from nazis), let’s start at the very begin-ning.

Chanukah is the ‘festival of light’. In every respect it brings light and it brings joy. Best thing about it from my perspective; there’s no prayin’. Its not a ‘religious’ event, just a festival. Involving light (candles), doughnuts (doughnuts) and presents. Not sure about the relevance of presents but possibly because it falls around Christmas so whilst everyone else gets presents, that becomes a worthwhile bandwagon to jump on. And because its a non-serious, non-synagogue, non-prayin’ deal, everyone loves it.

There’s an organisation called ‘Chabad’. That’s ‘ch-‘ from the back of your throat. As in ‘challah’ bread. As in… Chanukah. They’re a really religious lot. And they are a massive, worldwide brand. They provide everything any (normally religious) Jew could want, anywhere in the world. If you’re in Burma and you need a kosher meal, there WILL be a Chabad house somewhere near. There always is. And they’ll feed you. Or let you pray. Or anything else you need. (We needed to send a replacement credit card out to the younger daughter who was travelling round south America and we didn’t have an address, obviously, but sent it to a Chabad house that she’d be near in however many days time). They are into ‘mitzvahs’. That’s, basically, good deeds. Because the Messiah won’t return until we (all of us, the entire world’s population) get our shit together and act ‘proper’!!! So they do loads of good deeds, many of which are religious in nature. So if they get some fallen atheist like me and get him to say a prayer after his dinner, that’s a ‘ker-ching’ moment for them. Another mitzvah; the Messiah’s getting nearer. Basically; they’re good people. Who set up, in every city on every continent, great big menorahs (candleholders for the 8 days) on beaches, in parks, Trafalgar Square, Bondi Beach, everywhere, to share the light with Jews, non-Jews, Zoroastrians, anyone. Every person brings them a little closer to the Messiah (don’t ‘old yer breath), and me nearer to another doughnut.

And it was into this place of goodness and light, of families and happiness, of Godly deeds and good will, that two deranged fuckwits decided to open fire with rifles. Men, women, children, anyone they could murder. Indiscriminately. Were the 16 victims Jewish? Probably, but they didn’t ask. Were they Zionists? Supporters of Netanyahu? IDF veterans? Or just a bunch of Aussies enjoying a great atmosphere by an iconic beach?

I’m devastated both for those killed and injured, but also for what this says about the state of the world at this moment. And can’t help wondering when they declared ‘open season’ on Jews.

(Not very) Happy monday

A xxxx

I love brunch. I hardly ever partook of such a meal as I’d worked out that if you combine breakfast with lunch, you’re effectively losing out on a meal. Why not have brunchinner and just eat once a day? I mean? Really?

Yet as a concept it’s a good one. Because you can eat breakfast much later and thus eat much more. Justifying it on the grounds that you ‘probably’ won’t have lunch. Probably. Possibly. Because is it early lunch? Or late breakfast? One could argue; it’s both. That’s the point. But other than my 6-weekly brunch meetings with The Legend, it’s a meal I rarely have. Work sort of precludes brunch as an option.

But on Thursday I went for brunch. It was a reunion of the Les Buffets team. It had taken us a month to get over that dinner, so we were ready. Colonic irrigation can only get you so far. Then you need food. So we went to the Angel in Highgate. Used to be a pub, now it’s… a brunchy… place/destination/venue. That also does roasts on the weekend. But nothing else, not a normal ‘restaurant’, they’re so 2024. This is a bruncharaunte.

Giles Coren reviewed it months ago and raved. Then I spoke to a few people who’d been, and they raved. And there’s only so much raving I can take. So along we went. All fully intent on getting the fullest of full-English breakfast I could get. Even though some of that is apparently unkosher. Who knew? Yet when I looked at the menu, I found that they offer kippers. And I love kippers. But only if they’re ‘real’. What my mum would call ‘a pair of kippers’. Like a pair of slippers. But fishier. None of those horrible, rock-hard, dark-red, boil-in-the-bag, filleted rubbish from Aldi, no. Real ones. Bones’n’all. Cooked to perfection. Scrambled eggs, mushrooms (which were outstanding), sourdough toast, because its trendy so they can charge you more, a pot of tea and…

It was brilliant. A real ‘brunch’. Oily fish, ffs, that’ll keep you alive f’rever. And not a smashed avocado in sight. Or I’d have walked out.

So there you are. Another week, another meal. This was never meant to be a restaurant review site but Spurs aren’t playing til tomorrow and I don’t care if Liverpool and Chelsea win or lose. And I keep thinking about kippers.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx