Andy's Glasses

Well that was quick. Yup, it was. Just a short, sharp burst of skiing to see… the mountains?, because I missed them?, if I could still ski?, if I still liked it?, whatever. Three days, wham, bam (though, thank the Lord, not literally), ski a few hundred k and come back IN ONE PIECE. Job done.

I am to skiing what John Lennon was to Pickleball. What the great Jean-Claude Killy was to the war in Ukraine. I’m just one of thousands of clueless people flying around, out of control, down snow-covered pistes. Because I’m a danger to myself and everyone else, I travel with 2 lawyers. Travel insurance can’t keep you out of prison. And we ski hard and fast. Then have a coffee stop. Then we ski even harder (caffeine does that) and stop for lunch.

Which is a very big deal on a mountain. The restaurants simply don’t need to bother with anything, because the views are without doubt superior to looking at Marylebone High Street from Fischers. Or watching the buses go down Park Lane as you eat chateaubriand. So the mountain restaurants ‘have you’. Once you’ve de-skied, you’re there. People walking around on ski boots always reminds me of the elegance of seals when they’re waddling across a beach. It’s something out of its natural environment. And a restaurant which seats 200 people will have, like one toilet. Unisex.

I appreciate that taking food up mountains to fuel these eateries is neither easy nor cheap, which must reflect in the prices. But there’s been a change since my last ski, best part of 10 years ago. These lovely eateries have up-status-ed themselves. From cafes serving hearty, wholesome food, to restaurants worthy of kings. Or, at least, princesses.

All I ever want for ski lunch is a cheese omelette and chips. They do it wonderfully up there. And if you have to pay 15 quid, that’s the price, and fine. Ok, just a sliver of tarte tatin to follow; don’t want to run out of energy on a mogul field. But now that is not, in most places, on offer. If it is, they sprinkle truffle oil on it and charge you 35 Euros for your omelette. Chips extra. They have changed from lovely French ‘cafes’ to ski-in ‘fine dining’ restaurants, with all the pretensions that brings. You can still get a burger (as I did, obviously), but the only one they offered was Wagyu beef. The chips were pommes frite avec truffle oil (obvs) and a few other added price hikers.

Its a French thing. You wanna eat spag bol., go to Austria. And avoid penury.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Of course, I forgot to mention yesterday the other BIG thing about skiing, once the horrors of ‘pre-par-ay-shun’ are done and you’re ready to head downhill. It pays just to spend a few seconds looking around. Because although you go ‘downhill’, it’s actually a mountain. One of many, cos they hunt in packs, these Alps. And the entire, 360 degree panorama is just spectacular. Beautiful. Clean. Fresh. And more beautiful. And so clear and bright and sunny that you can’t understand how there’s still snow on the ground. But you realise the answer is that there are teams of French people working all night long preserving what is left and adding to it with artificial snow cannons. Because it’s hot out here. Like really hot. So by after (long) lunch, there’s not a lot of life in the lower slopes. But that’s the price you pay for skiing in sunshine.

And as I skied I wondered about the actual process. As I’m flying down a mountainside at, what, 40kph? 50??, I’m reacting to every curve, every turn, twist, bump and change in surface quality and incline. But here’s the best bit: I don’t have to think it and ‘operate the system’, it is fully autonomic. An autonomous car needs about 150 CPUs to keep it straight and true and avoid killing too many people. And we do the same thing. With just one CPU. I’m not saying it’s perfect, otherwise I wouldn’t have had just a minor spill this morning. I say minor because I didn’t even suffer a bruise as my ski caught some rut or other and over I went. Ok, a little bruise to the ego but I can cope with that. Maybe my legs were tired? Maybe old people shouldn’t ski? Or maybe my CPU just went awol for a fraction of a second. I landed on my bum and, even more important than avoiding concussion, the ski that came off stopped right next to me and didn’t go accelerating down the run, so I could continue.

So is the ability to ski so amazing (which it is) that it must be attributed to an Absolute Creator, who made us complete and able to ski whilst sending a text message simultaneously, or is that just proof of evolution and ‘how far we’ve come’? If God had wanted us to ski would we not have 4 foot long feet? Made of wood? Or carbon fibre, better?

So many questions. But it’s not about philosophy, nor theology. It’s about adrenaline. The best drug in the world. Other than statins. Ozempic…

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

So here’s what you do.

You wake up at 4 in the morning so you can get to the airport by 5 to sit in the regular EasyJet luxurious discomfort for 2 hours, get into a car for another hour or so, get stuffed into as many layers of clothing as you can find in your case, put on a pair of boots specially designed to press on every sensitive part of every foot, and then work on the not normally sensitive parts, grab a pair of skis, some poles, put on a helmet, even though its 25 degrees outside… ok, it feels like that by the time you’ve dragged your skis up the stairs to the first of two cable cars.

By which time, you’re wondering why you do it. What could possibly be worth that much aggro, inconvenience and discomfort? And being France, obviously, they charge separately and cripplingly for aggro, inconvenience AND discomfort.

Then you’re up high, you click into your skis and…

You’re in heaven. Not literally, unless you turned the wrong way, but metaphorically, wonderfully and a bit rapidly really. The ultimate feeling of freedom as you glide effortlessly and sinuously down the piste. The skis, which weigh 56 kilos when you carry them, weigh nothing when you’re standing on them. Your fucking great, rock solid, clumps of clamping, squeezing ski-boots are transformed into red slippers that Dorothy would be proud of. You even forget the horrible helmet which they make me wear.

Lila’s mummy asked if, after an 8 year hiatus, ‘it had all come back’; ie the ability to ski. To which I replied, ‘I never had it in the first place’. Because to have that you have to be French. Or otherwise really annoying. Or learned from childhood. The rest of us just ‘wing it’. Yeah, I’ve had lessons in the past. Old dogs, new tricks kind’a thing. But it doesn’t matter. It’s like re-writing Marx’s mantra. From each according to his inability, to all, according to their ability to GET OUT MY FUCKING WAYYYYY!!!!!

And best of all, skiing leaves no room for ‘casual thoughts’ creeping in. You don’t ponder Ukraine, Trump is as far away as Courchevel (miles away from here), even tax is forgotten. Skiing, as the Bee Gees said, is about Stayin’ Alive. But having so much fun while you do it.

Have a lovely Monday

The Ski Bunny
Xxxx

There was a time when there were but three, measly tv channels. BBC2 finished at about 11pm, the other 2 went on a little longer. We never thought: “oh, this is shit! We need 56 channels showing repeats of Top Gear, all night long and re-runs of old football matches, plus, we need channels where you watch what you want, when you want, any time of day or night. We need a world fit for proper stoners, with boxes of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes all around us!” We never thought that. We just thought: it is what it is. As you do. Put another record on.

So when a new film came out, there was excitement. And you went to see it… in a cinema. And the way it worked was, the film was released in America in January. By about June it was ready for British consumption, once we knew for sure than not too many Americans had died watching it and it was safe. But the ‘big’ films didn’t immediately go to all cinemas. No. They spent the first week or two only available to view in ‘Leicester Square’. Possibly in a few other poncey, grandiose movie theatres in other parts of the West End. And only then were plebs allowed to see the wonders, in the comfort of their own, local Odeons. Not sure if northerners got them even later, but they should have done. If at all.

We’d only go to Leicester Square if the movie was an absolute must-see which you simply couldn’t wait another 2 weeks to watch it round the corner. It cost more in the West End. So when a new Bruce Lee movie came out, we’d go. Lots of us. Kung fu-ing our way down Old Compton Street afterwards looking for food, Japanese baddies to fight, or both. (The Japanese were ALWAYS the baddies). Even though the storylines were appalling, predictable and rubbish, we’d pay our money to watch the worst dubbed films ever made.

And with my (very dear, now departed) mate, Stan, we had another rule. We’d go to Leicester Square for any movie with Gene Hackman. He was that good. Never typecast, always different and always with a wry humour. Except when he was Lex Luther in Superman when it was pantomime humour, obviously brilliantly executed.

He won one his Oscars for playing a tough guy cop. And yet he was truly amazing as a nerd in ‘The Conversation’, hilarious in ‘Heartbreakers’ and incredible in ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’.

In a way its quite fitting that the best actor of his generation, along with his mate Dustin Hoffman, died in a weird and suspicious way.

Keep ’em guessing til the very end, Gene. Or even beyond.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

So now will you listen? Now do you get that I’m so brilliantly… brilliant!, that my instincts and what have previously been known as ‘mishigarsim’ (insane ideas), are in fact true, correct, wonderful and SCIENTIFICALLY VALIDATED!!! All those people who’ve been campaigning for years to have me sectioned under the mental health act can eat humble pie. Though I’ve maintained for decades that eating pie of any kind is healthy. Pie is made from flour, which comes from some plant or other, thus is at least one of your five a day.

But this headline in today’s paper is my defining glory as an arbiter of ‘wot you should and shouldn’t eat and drink for yer good elf’.

Mel and I will come home from a long walk across the Heath on a sunny Saturday afternoon, hot and sweaty. She’ll head to the fridge and fill a glass with ice cold water. I put the kettle on. “Don’t you want some water???”, she asks, incredulously. “No. I want tea!!” But it’s a hot day!!! Yep, but I want tea. 1.6 billion Indians can’t all be wrong.

In fact I drink tea all day. Water is just the most boring drink. It brings, literally, nothing to the table. It’s fine for swimming in. Holding the goldfish. Cleaning the car with. Probably a few other things. But drinking? Heaven forfend. Because tea is a wonderful drink. And now, we learn, it filters ‘all the metals’ out of our water. You know, those pesky lumps of steel that get stuck in your teeth, all that zinc floating around, they adhere to tea leaves and thus leave the water in your tea pure and clean and, well, non-metallic.

So there you have it. In the Times, no less. So it must be true. The only questions which can’t be answered with a cup of tea can be answered with whisky.

There’s also the latest move by our latest government. You know, the one filled with dickheads, and dickhead-esses, apologies for the initial exclusion, and led by a dullard. That government.

We’re taking all the money we currently send overseas for ‘good causes’ and spending it on tanks and bombs instead. So all those poor people around the world will have to eat bullets. And our military will come back to its former glory. So we can attack Russia. Or America. Same difference, currently. But what will happen to all that overseas aid? How will the Gazan children get properly radicalised if UNWRA don’t have the cash to make suicide vests? How will all those charity sector CEOs maintain their mid-to-high six-figure salaries if the money’s cut for starving people in Africa? I actually find myself in the rather unusual and somewhat uncomfortable position of agreeing with Kier Starmer.

Time to put the kettle on and drink some tea rather than iron and lead!

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

When I went to summer camp, aged about 14, I spent some time snogging. Its what you do when you’re 14. Hours of it. Sometimes with other people. And one gel who was rather cute had what could be called ‘a slight overbite’. Not the full Bugs Bunny, just a bit toothy, in a good way. And at some point we snogged. And you could feel those teeth and…

Anyway, that experience has made me overly sensitive to the slightly Claudia Schiffery, mildly toothy look in women. Of course, once I married, I became monsnogamous, so my days of going weak at the knees at the sight of someone’s incisors are long gone.

And all because, none do that toothy thing finer than Felicity Jones. Who stars in the Brutalist, alongside Adrian Brody. Who is overendowed in other facial regions. In a good way. And who is, quite frankly, brilliant in the incredible and wonderfully drawn out, 3-and-a-half hour epic, which is that movie.

The filming is beautiful. And although the action is fast-paced, the film goes in a sort of ‘reverse bullet time’ in which what should take 3 minutes takes 9, but you never feel its dragging. Brody, as the fictional Laszlo Toth, ponders every question before answering. A visual, silent, deliberation prior to reply. So you just relax to the pace of it all and as a consequence, its doesn’t really feel like a long film at all. More like ‘a short day’.

And although its not a ‘holocaust film’ in the usual sense, it is very much so in the way it portrays how lives were massively affected by it. The agony of refugees, the searching for cultural identity and acceptance, the physical after-effects, most notably on Mrs Toth, (Felicity with the teeth), and subtly, on Laszlo’s fragile mental state.

Its also about an architect fighting for ‘the integrity of his design’. Which is what all films about architects are about. Mainly because if you made a movie about an architect sitting in front of his drawing board for 19 hours, that would seem overly long.

And its quite dark. And at times… brutal.

Quite simply, if you like movies, you just HAVE to see the Brutalist. And you won’t be disappointed. I’m always wary of movies which seem to be ‘running away with the awards’ because I’m very cynical about Hollywood motives and the manipulation of critics, who, after all, are only one opinion. Bit like me, really. One opinion.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I was going to tell you today of my day with The Brutalist yesterday (and ‘day’ it is, no ‘shortie’ that movie) but then… events!!! occurred which are simply too overwhelming to ignore or delay. Its all a matter of priorities, as ‘the legend’ told me, and as, (according to him), he’s never wrong, we shall instead discuss ‘the day the world was put right again’. Other than the cricket. Can’t have it all. Some may even comment ‘how has the world been corrected whilst Donald Trump has not yet been sectioned under the mental health act?’ When Ukraine is still being bombed? Whilst there are still hostages in Gaza? Terror attacks in France and Germany? Rachel Reeves in Number 11??

But life is about compartmentalising. And I choose a different compartment for items of such sporting wonderment that their uplifting effect transcends the horrors of ‘the real world’, even if just momentarily. So let’s hold that moment. Shall we? (I’m aiming for ‘really patronising’ with that question. All rhetorical questions are patronising. Aren’t they?)

I can hold it no longer: Spurs were just BRILLIANT yesterday. And with that win made it 3 in a row in the league for the first time since about 1832, if you listen to all the fuss everyone’s making. As if we’re NOT a team who wins 3 in a row all the time. Ok, perspective alert!!!, we played Ipswich. Who are fucking hopeless. They weren’t so hopeless when they beat us a few months ago as we managed to out-useless them on that day. But not yesterday. We let them hold the title. Although there were a few shocks early on. We survived that opening salvo and showed the pure class which comes with being a ‘big team’. Sometimes. Even Ed Sheeran couldn’t hold the tide of attacking quality. Brennan Johnson grabbed a pair, beautifully assisted by the amazingly resurgent Son. Kulusevski, our best player of the season, grabbed a super solo effort and my fave new player of all, Djed Spence, scored his first. Ipswich scored one, but we can handle that.

I’m not the sort of person who would then take pleasure in the fact that Arsenal and Chelsea both lost yesterday. It would almost be inhumane to mention the devastating blow that West Ham caused at the Emirates. Similarly, mentioning that Chelsea losing anywhere, any time, to anyone, can only benefit humanity in general and re-set the feng shui in the entire universe, might be seen as malicious or spiteful. Even though we all fucking hate them anyway.

We’ll all remember this weekend as the one in which Spurs beat Ipswich and Liverpool won the title.

And don’t forget the rugby. England 1 point ahead in the 79th minute after Scotland scored a try. So the 2-point conversion was literally ‘win or lose’ for the Scots. Ok, not saying any kick is ever easy, was pretty wide, but on the kicker’s ’right side’ for a right footer. No pressure then. But, much to the upset of 84,000 English-persons at Twickenham, he missed. England won. The Calcutta Cup returned to its rightful home and thus did the stars align yet further.

So many good things happening I’m seriously waiting for Jesus to return this week. Again.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

So Zelensky said that Trump lives in a world of disinformation, so Trump called him a ‘dictator’ and accused him of ‘starting the war’ and so Starmer (as if anyone even listened to him outside of our sceptered Isle) sided with Zelensky, and Trump is left sucking up to Putin and I think we’re on the verge of World War 3. And you know how I hate sequels. World War 3: Eve of destruction! (Tax deduction…)

But worst of all, no-one’s fixing the pot-holes on the East End Road.

It’s in a terrible state. Driving down there in what Joey calls ‘the racing car’, which has super ‘low profile’ tyres, I feel every bump up every single vertebra in my spine. Then up to my head and out the top, rattling my poor, aging brain on the way. None of which bothers me as much as the dread of blowing a tyre. Ok, the dread of paying for another tyre.

So I’m going to write to Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, Kier Starmer, Angela Rayner, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Elon fucking Musk and Sheik Mohammed bin Salman. As they’re deciding the future of every man, woman and child on the planet, let us at least contemplate our few remaining days of peace on roads which don’t shake the shit out of cars and drivers. Otherwise, what kind of world will we be left with after the war?

Musk has now in fact steamed in with his own little diatribe on Zelensky, the seeming, “America’s Enemy Number 1!!!”, reinforcing Trump’s accusation of being a ‘dictator’ because he’s cancelled elections. Funny they have no problem dealing with Putin, whereas Zelensky gets the full wrath of the nation. For cancelling elections due to a shit-load of bombs and a nation at war and under martial law.

For Musk’s boss, The Trumpster, you need look no further than ‘what’s in it for us?’, to understand that America wants Ukraine’s vast wealth of natural resources; minerals and ore of massive value in computer chips, armaments, everything. You can dig a hole anywhere in the country and come up with a shovel full of lithium or titanium. And Trump wants it as ‘payback’ for all the money and arms the USA ‘gave’ Ukraine to fight what was then ‘the common enemy’ but is now ‘my best mate’.

I fully expect to see Elon Musk on East End Road within the next 7 days with his own shovel. Not the ‘diggin minerals’ one, but the ‘repairing pot-holes’ one. Otherwise I’ll never vote for him again!!!

Let’s not forget the plight of the common man in all this global insanity.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Donald Trump was right on the money. As always. This whole Ukraine thing is their own fault. Why didn’t we see that? How could we be so sympathetic to their horrendous plight, their massive death toll, forced mass migration and the bombing of all those cities? When it was all Ukraine’s fault!! It was obvious, all along. In the great man’s words: “they should’a dunna deal 3 years ago, would’a saved all that ruination, all those lives…” And he’s right. All Zilenski had to do was stroll up to the 200,000 Russian soldiers massed on his border, fully armed, tanked up, droned to the max, loaded and cocked, and just say “hey, Comrades! Maybe we can do a deal!”

And then there’s the little question of ‘negotiation’ and ‘capitulation’. By just telling Putin that he can have everything he wants is not ‘negotiation’. It’s not ‘doing a deal’. It’s called getting screwed. Royally. And giving in. To the demands of a sociopathic, paranoid, land-grabbing dictator.

Trump said that ‘Europe’ will have to put some boots on the ground in Ukraine ‘after the peace’ (no presumptions in his world, then), but ‘Europe’ is not involved in the ‘peace talks’ (otherwise known as ‘Russia’s shopping list’). Nor, oddly, is Ukraine. Who will presumably be presented with the final shopping list for signing. Yup, there’s the land you’ve stolen, take a bit more, we’ll NEVER mention NATO…

Whereas Sergei Labrov, Russia’s foreign minister, and unquestionably ‘bastard number 2’, though I sort of like and admire his quirky, no nonsense style, but wouldn’t invite him for dinner, he said: ‘there must be NO troops in Ukraine from Europe or the US. That’s a red line” Oh.

Starmer’s already polishing the boots of our Marines in preparation, and has elected himself (no-one else would elect him; last time was enough for anyone) as the de facto ‘leader of all Europe’ in dealings with Trump. Which means however Trump capitulates to Putin, thus will Starmer capitulate to Trump. But there’s no-one else in Europe capable of being Trump’s lap-dog over here. Germany’s in election time, Spain doesn’t count and everyone hates Macron.

The problem is that Trump has validated Russia. Having been outcasts from the international community since they invaded, the US have now given them total acceptance and credibility. All those sanctions, all those Russian bank accounts frozen, all those football clubs sold off (well; Chelsea), all gone in a single misguided, incorrect and stupid sentence uttered from the Great Orange One, blessed be he.

Well my boots will be on the ground in Ukraine! Metaphorically speaking, obviously…

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I just love football. All that rubbish and complaining and misery I’ve been talking about lately has suddenly been put into the perspective of ‘historical blip’ as we sauntered to a stunning win yesterday at White Hart Lane, showing we now have a pretty good chance of winning the league. As long as certain events take place. Like the mass murder of the entire Liverpool team, including the reserves. The whole Arsenal team to be put immediately onto the sex offenders register and thus banned from the team. And in a terrible act of terrorism, a bomb lands on the Etihad one day when everyone’s there, except Pep Guardiola, who immediately signs a 5 year deal with Spurs.

Not sayin’ all that’s going to happen (God forbid!!!!?) but it could. And then we’d brush aside these ‘arrivistes’ like Brighton and Bonemouth and Northampton Forrest or whatever they’re called and CLAIM OUR RIGHTFUL PLACE!!!!

Well, we didn’t just ‘win a match’ yesterday, we beat… (drum roll)…Manchester United!!
WHAAAAATTT???? MANCHESTER UNITED??? THEY’RE THE BIGGEST TEAM IN THE ENTIRE WOOOORRRRLLLLDDD!!!!!

Well, they were. Once. Long time ago. Now they too have succumbed to Relegation-Fodderitis. Its a disease which affects teams, particularly those with any kind of glorious past, however (fucking) distant that past may be, and turn them into a team of no-hope, headless-chickenesque losers. There’s sadly no cure for this disease, just a temporary fix. A ‘sticking plaster’. Which is the immediate application of Sam Allardyce for at least 3 months. Though this comes with a serious side-effect, as all medications do, of ruining any kind of stylish football, and turning the ‘beautiful game’ temporarily very ugly and pragmatic. It appears, to all intents and purposes, that your entire team has been re-born into the Italian league. Its that bad. Yet, to stay in the top flight is so essential that no sacrifice is too great.

In the battle of the clueless, we ‘thrashed’ them, 1-nil. We created soooooooo many chances which… we chose not to take. For various reasons. None of them relating to abject incompetence or horrendous profligacy. How dare you!?!

But it feel sweet. A home win. A clean sheet. Ahhhhhh, I’m living the (slightly deluded) dream. And lovin’ it.

Happy Monday

A xxxx