Andy's Glasses

Ya know; anyone can be a Liverpool fan. Its so fucking easy. You just relax, get a bit exited if you’re not 3-nil up by half time, possibly a bit anxious if ‘they’ score a goal when you’ve only netted 6, and just stroll away at the end, giving Arne Slot a wave with another 3 points in your pocket. Every week. Its so predictable it doesn’t exactly get boring but the wins must to some extent get taken for granted. Then you walk back to the station, stealing whatever you can find on the way.

The rewards for Tottenham fans are generally in heaven. You certainly get sod all down here. You thrash lowly Southampton, back in the middle of December, then have to wait until February for your next league win. Ok, there were a few Euro matches, some great cup games, but its the league which is of utmost importance. To win a cup whilst getting relegated is not fun. Its doomsday. Taking our billion pound stadium into the Championship. Playing an entire season (at least) where the only ‘superstars’ to visit White Hart Lane would be Beyoncee and Lamar Jackson (the quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens, FFS, keep up!!!), would be as depressing as it would be financially crippling.

But when we win… when the gods conspire to allow us a victory… OMG that feels wonderful. And it did yesterday. With an effect on the spirit that no Liverpool fan could even imagine whilst they’re busy adding up in threes. The few who possess the mathematical ability to do so, anyway.

We were sublime, magnificent and masterly. Superlative in every way. Other than the football, but that is no longer the issue. WE JUST WANNA FUCKING WINNNNNN!!!! And we did, and it felt wonderful. So wonderful that I was still smiling when Arsenal’s 5th went in against Man City about 2 hours later. Something that would in normal circumstances make me miserable and depressed.

We slipped from ‘Ange-ball’ into something more… pragmatic. Slightly less stylish, less ‘push’, more ‘pull’, more ‘Dyche-ball’ in nature, but none the less effective for it. We didn’t concede a goal. Against a pretty free-scoring side. We… what’s the word… oh, yeah, we def-en-ded. Got it.

So here we go. Are we prepared to sacrifice style for results? Flair for points? The Spurs ideal to avoid being ‘Spursy’?

I think we should have a few more dull, drab, boring victories before we decide.

Exceptionally happy Monday

A xxxx

Ok, so I cook a bit. It’s no big deal. Here’s what you do. You get some ingredients, stir ‘em up, marinade something wot needs marinading, fry those which require it, put a lid on and cook for 15 minutes/1 hour 25/3 hours 42 on gas mark 7/220 degrees/on a low light on the hob, then eat. What’s hard about that? What’s all the fuss about? Generally though, I just ‘wing it’. Its easy. Fry onions and mushrooms together and you’re 90% there. Anything else you add is a bonus. But here’s the secret. (Shhhhhh)

Always add soy sauce. To everything. And… maple syrup. OMG, maple syrup??? In something savoury???? Surely not!!!! But trust me. I didn’t invent this shit. Furthermore the geezer who invented ‘salted caramel’ wasn’t the first person to realise that sweet and savoury don’t just sometimes go together, but really really enhance each other. In fact I think my dad invented it in 1962 when he started having his breakfast toast with cheddar cheese and apricot jam. A man ahead of his time. Before some pretentious nob (probably French with those qualities) made marmite ice cream, or ox-tail blancmange.

If I’m cooking brussel sprouts, I slice them and marinade them in garlic, olive oil, soy sauce and maple syrup. Try it, it’s magical. Unless you hate Brussel sprouts. Then it’s revolting.

And I use maple syrup because honey is a thing of the past. Unless you’re a bee. I went to New Zealand. Had Manuka honey. If not the best in the world, certainly the most outrageously fucking expensive in the world. What do you have to pay a bee to end up with a 25-pound jar of honey? Anyway, despite Manuka making your heart stronger, your legs shapelier, your blood… better and your penis several sizes larger!!!!, (honest, its says so on the bottle!), it tases like honey.

A Canadian mate brought us a bottle of Maple Syrup. From Canadia, so it was proper, American-style, fat-bastard-appropriate, half-a-gallon type bottle. You’d think it grows on trees over there, or somefink. And because Mel is in fact Canadian by birth and they take away your passport if you don’t consume the required amount of their syrup each year, I started using it in cooking. I’m actually worried since yesterday that every time Mel comes home I’ll have to pay 25% of something to Donald Trump. But I’ll speak to the Home Office about that.

All this because yesterday we went out for tea and I made a cheesecake. My (dear, sweet, deceased) mother’s recipe. A proper, cooked, Jewish cheesecake, not that hyper sweetened, ultra-refrigerated American type shit which sets your teeth on edge, even sweet teeth like mine. I have no idea what cheesecake Jewish Americans eat, must be really difficult. But everyone at the tea (all Mel’s family, so a pretty useless bunch generally) said: What??? ANDY made the cake!!!!???? As if merely owning testicles precludes following a recipe. Well, a recipe is just like a car owner’s manual, but with less spanners.

Anyway, Spurs won, which makes a gorgeous, glorious, sunny winter day that much more wonderful, wonderous and, quite frankly, amazing. But more on that tomorrow, once the rest of the results are in.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

That’s the new promotion by the police. Speed Kills! Nothing subtle. Nothing cryptic. Nothing too verbose. Just the facts: speed kills!

What they don’t tell you is that driving too slowly makes you want to kill. Its different, I know, but its real. I get behind the wheel and I’m just fine until things happen. Then I want to kill, (in no particular order):

-Someone who sticks to the “20 mph” limit.
-Someone who is blocking the ‘fast lane’ traveling below the speed limit.
-The person at the front when the traffic light goes green and no-one moves. I count to… well, to ‘one’ and start hooting. But would rather be shooting.
-Someone who is in front of me and going slower than I want to travel. Which is, pretty much, everybody.
-The man who invented speed bumps.
-His wife, children and extended family.
-The man who invented speed cameras.
-Sadiq Kahn. Just because.

So there you have it. My ‘murder list’. And that’s just the one whilst driving. Which, other than abject tossers walking down crowded streets staring at their phones, is the only time I actually get angry. In any meaningful… murderous way. Oh, watching the news on tv raises the hackles, but only on BBC, ITV, CNN, Sky, Al Jazeira and all the others. And, of course, reading the Mail on Sunday makes me very angry. Which is why I get it delivered every Sunday. It’s good anger. Raises the blood pressure. Like doing some cardio work in the gym. So it’s healthy, right??

Anyway, looks like Heathrow’s 3rd runway is indeed going ahead. This, according to our chancellor, is a bit like everyone in the country waiting at a Las Vegas slot machine, holding a bucket under it waiting for the jackpots to come a’flooding out. However, I think we may need to be rather patient whilst we’re waiting for the ‘inevitable’ growth windfalls, because to build the runway, assuming permissions are granted and Ed Milliband and Sadiq Kahn are executed so they can’t prevent it, they ‘just’ have to put part of the M25 into a tunnel and knock down a few hundred homes. That shouldn’t take too long. When do infrastructure projects ever run over predicted times?

Happy Thursday.

A xxxx

Trump’s gonna go mad. He hates China with a passion already. And that was before… DeepSeek-gate!!!! Those pesky little dudes from the East have made an AI… thing, that’s better than Chat GPT, it ourperforms OpenAI, it does everything everyone else’s does (I have not one fucking clue what that might be, I’m still living in fear of AI because of the Terminator movies and won’t touch it), BUT, and here’s the big thing: it cost just $6million to set up, and its very cheap to run. And it uses ‘old technology’ because America won’t sell the newest ‘chips’ to China. What’s more; its free. The Western rival AI platforms cost over $100 million to get running. And run at a much higher ongoing cost than DeepSeek.

America has invested $100 BILLION in new AI, as well as another 65bil from Meta and 80 from Microsoft. And up steps the Chinese and make it all look stupid. And as a consequence, Nvidia, the massive, ‘big-six’ company which makes all the chips which the US won’t sell to China, took a $600billion drop in its share valuation yesterday. Which is a totally ‘WTF????’ amount to lose. Ok, its only ‘paper money’ but still. What would ‘600 billion’ even look like? Probably look like a few men with very sad faces. Crying. The others in ‘Big Tech, USA’ aren’t doing so well today either.

So basically, the Chinese have shafted the American stock market. Every fund worldwide invests in those ‘big six’ companies, Meta and Microsoft and Apple and… Nvidia. Because they’re ‘sure things’. And now they’re suddenly not. You can buy it all cheaper by exploiting Chinese children in hot-house work houses, probably get a few Uighurs slaughtered in the process and get cut-price, low-cost AI which reports back to Alexa and President Xi and probably sucks all the data from your computers and then uses it for the purposes of human rights abuses in Shanghai. A win-win.

I can’t see Don letting this go without a fight? Retaliation? With his new BFF, Elon, the massive AI-advocate, as long as its American AI, retribution will follow. And very soon. Watch this space…

Happy Tuesday,

A xxxx

Today I’m going to introduce a new word. A Yiddish word. Rather appropriate as today is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Which also represents possibly the last time anyone was ever happy and relieved to see the Russian army coming. And Yiddish is such a rarity now, after 6 million predominantly Yiddish speakers were murdered. Very few now speak it as a language, but a lot of the words are used because they can say so much more than English words can.

And today’s word is: tsurus. It means ‘trouble’, or ‘aggro’ or ‘problems’, but in a way that would always be accompanied by a sigh of such magnitude that the listener would never underestimate the extent of the troubles. Which, as with all Yiddish words, is very contextually dependant. So you might have a big tsurus (they’re always ‘big’, there’s no other sizes on offer) because a bunch of Cossacks just rode into your shtetl on horseback to rape and pillage, or you might have big tsurus because you’re ingroing toenail is a bit inflamed. Either way, no ‘tsurus’ can ever be overstated.

My tsurus is with my football team. Tottenham Hotspur. Who have now gone the entire slippery slope from unlucky, inconsistent, unpredictable, through awful, dire and abysmal, to tragic, WTF and today: big tsurus.

We gave up on winning the league when the season was 90 minutes old and we hadn’t beaten Leicester. (Who then went on an even more abysmal run than Spurs, only to find some minor degree of security and hope by beating us yesterday).

So it was ‘top 4’ for us then. That’ll do. Champions League next year!!, as Arsenal and Liverpool were already working out who would win and who’d be runner up.

Then top 6 as we kept losing to bottom 3 teams and our aspirations had to downgrade somewhat. Then as the losses kept coming to ‘bottom 3’ teams, two things happened. Firstly, those teams were lifted out of the bottom 3, and secondly, we plummeted to mid-table.

And now, we are where we are. There are no more bottom 3 teams to beat. We’ve ‘undertaken’ them all and appear to be fighting for a place in the relegation zone. And doing it very convincingly.

Arsenal had their own tsurus too, on Saturday. Had a man sent off. As they often do. And, as they always do, they complained like fuck about the unfairness of it. It was never a foul/free-kick/penalty/offside/whatever we’re supposed to have done. But this time, they actually had a point. Of course no refs listen to Arteta because he complains about every single decision every week. So he’s the boy who cried ‘lobo’. (That’s ‘wolf’ in Spanish, in case you only speak Yiddish). But, much as I was happy for them to go down to 10 men, I can’t see how the ref chose that colour card. There ya go. Not my tsurus. I got enough of my own.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Who wants another runway at Heathrow? I do. I want my own one so I don’t get delayed because some slack pilot has ‘missed his slot’, because he’s got a hangover and turned off his alarm. But in reality, we ALL need a new runway. 2 is just not enough. And it isn’t for a true international ‘hub’, which Heathrow is. The airport currently handles up to 200,000 flights a year and that is just not enough. Because if Heathrow is more successful, England is more successful. Although, obviously, Spain does better because they own our major airport now. Well, with the Qataris, who chose to invest when they weren’t harbouring Hamas leaders. Probably used the money which we gave Gaza through UNWRA but which never made it to the Gazan people. Anyway, more people coming in means more people spending money here. Unless those people arrive by boat, because they don’t have any cash left. And accessibility makes it that overseas businesses will choose to invest here. Making Heathrow even more important. More runways, more flights, more money. Simple.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, appreciates this in her quest for ‘growth’. Even though she lacks the sense to know that taxing businesses punitively will only create ‘growth’ in unemployment. But she met up with a lot of ‘big boys’ in Davos last week and she was impressing them with her ‘big plans’. Part of which, she decided, is a third runway at Heathrow.

The first problem is this.

Ed Miliband.

The man incapable of eating a sandwich without humiliating himself has become ‘Mr Carbon Neutral’ for the entire country, if not the entire planet. And increasing the number of aircraft taking off in Hounslow will produce such an excess of carbon that all the electric cars we can have in our driveway won’t be able to make up for it. And the fact that Miliband is an abject tosser does not necessarily mean that there will not be conflict of interest in our government and between departments.

The second problem is: where ya gonna put the third runway? You can see on the map the present 2. Long things running across the site, one ‘north’ one ‘south’. So where you going to put number 3? They’re 2 miles long. And in between is the terminals, so you can’t put one there. Which means you can either build vertical take-off planes or you need another two mile stretch, which will involve destroying part of the neighbourhood adjacent to the airport. That’s fine by me, I don’t live there. But there will be NIMBYism going on. And who can blame them.

Or you could build ‘Heathrow’s 3rd runway’ in Yorkshire. Plenty of room up there. And you’d get on a ‘train’ at Terminal 5, much like you do now, and it would take you straight to the gate.

Please arrive at the airport 7 hours before your departure time.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Winning isn’t everything, but losing isn’t anything. Isn’t that what they say? Oh, well, its what I say. Pretty much every week at the moment, just after they announce the football scores. But not on Thursday night!! No! It was all about the sweet smell of victory, the joy of the result, the total exhilaration of… of hanging on til the final whistle even though its all going to shit and you’re just a shadow of the team who came on 90 minutes ago. And about praying. Lots of praying. Which worked.

Because this was a lacklustre, underperforming, lower-table shit team of second-bests, has-beens, yet-to-be’s and third-rankers. And so was Hoffenheim. Who lost to Bayern 5-nil last weekend, just to prove their credentials before this vital Europa League match. Yet still, Spurs managed to make ‘a walk in the park’ look like ‘climbing Everest on a wheelchair laden with weights wearing a blindfold’. It’s a skill. We flew to an early 2-nil lead and then… and then…

But heh, we won. 3-2 is a win. As long as our number is bigger than their number, we win. If only someone would explain that to Manuel Arteta.

Equally as amazing, Manchester United won a game too! Who’d’a thought they could do that. Because, like Spurs, they’ve… struggled this season terribly. Changing the manager hasn’t done much to improve that either. But they won. In Europe. Where, as for Spurs, it looks nice in the next day’s newspaper but it doesn’t help us win the league over here, where it counts.

Arsenal had a convincing win in this week’s Euro fixtures, Liverpool won, just not quite so convincingly, and Manchester City were winning but then didn’t. Which was definitely the most pleasing result of the week as City squandered a 2-nil lead at Paris St Germain and lost 4-2. It was worth the price of admission just to see Phil Foden look that crestfallen at the whistle.

But football’s not all about schadenfreude, it’s also about… errrr… well, it’s about wallowing in the misfortunes of others, as well. But only if you don’t have anything left hope for in your own team.

And yet we have riches. We are 1-nil up against Liverpool in the Carabao cup semi-final. We look like we’re qualifying for the knockout stages of the Europa League of not quite so greats as the other thing. And we’re playing Leicester tomorrow. Lower league rubbish. Even lower than us. Not by much, but should be enough. And as we’ve lost to most of the bottom, relegation-battling teams already, it’s about time we beat one.

Tomorrow’s game is immense. Even more massive than the ones we play every other week. I’ve decided to deploy Joey. Just in case we’re struggling. He’s there. And ready. And dangerous.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Axel Rudakubana has been in the papers a lot lately. Because at age 17 he murdered three gorgeous little girls. For the simple reason that… He could? That he wanted to? That he’s a murderous psychopath with no idea about the value of life? Anyway, who knows? Why he murdered them, and injured 8 others in a Taylor Swift dance class in Southport will never be known. Other than to assume, with a degree of confidence, that ‘this geezer is not normal’. Today he gets sentenced. And there are times when even a devout pacifist like me, a preservation-of-life-ist like me, would like to see him hang. After some really nasty torture.

Ok, that probably won’t happen. Murdering 3 people is always a crime. But murdering 3 kids is so much worse. And it shouldn’t be. Yet it is.

So what if he’d murdered 3 other people? How about really useless people? Like if he’d murdered 3 people working for ‘Prevent’? The organisation which was aware of his fascination with murder, his acquisition of knives and his often voiced threats to use them? And yet, because prevent are ‘anti-terrorist’ and Axel showed no ‘ideology’ whatsoever, they just didn’t bother taking any further action. The absolute definitive example of ‘someone else’s problem, innit’. They were presented with the literal ‘accident waiting to happen’ but because that accident didn’t tick the ‘hard right wing’ or ‘jihadist’ terror model, they just left him alone. Or left him to someone else. Without telling them. And this was the other crime. That enabled Axel to commit the actual crime.

I just don’t get how Prevent knew this guy was the absolute epitome of a lunatic, violent attacker, a total danger to society and yet, for lacking in ideology of any of their tickable boxes, they did absolutely nothing. Didn’t refer him, though there’s big questions over who, if anyone, deals with such people, and they didn’t monitor him because he hadn’t yelled ‘alahu Akbar’ when he’d pulled a knife on previous people.

We can be so ‘third world’ here.

I’d despair if Spurs weren’t actually winning a football game at the present time!!!

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I lived in California for a year. 1982. Ronnie Regan was president. Donald Trump was just a spoiled rotten rich kid grabbing pussies and being obnoxious in a not yet famous way. I was staying with a friend’s cousin for the first few days of my arrival. And I walked into the room to see him watching a comedy show. Which turned out to be incredibly funny. So I asked him what it was. “Saturday Night Live”, he replied. But it’s Tuesday, I commented, obviously missing something. Ahhhh, these are re-runs of ‘the old ones’. From the ‘70s. Saturday Night Live was, unsurprisingly, live on every Saturday night, at the time led by ‘new kid’ Eddie Murphy. But the old shows, the ‘originals’ were revered.

SNL has always been a massive springboard for comedy talent. The original line-up featured John Belushi (the funniest man who ever lived), Dan Aykroyd (the funniest-man’s best mate), Bill Murray (STILL funny, but now in an even more grumpy way), Chevie Chase (incredibly funny), Gilda Radner (so funny she married Gene Wilder; the second funniest man who ever lived) and a bunch of others who never made that leap to superstardom. Later there was Eddie Murphy, Tina Fey, the list goes on.

And because the program was live, it had a wild, raw, ‘anything can happen’ vibe. And quite often, anything did happen. When you have people like Belushi, not famous for their restraint, shit happened. Improvisation happened. By people who’d cut their comedy teeth doing improv. Which gave the ‘scripts’ an added dimension.

NBC basically gave a bunch of lunatic drunk stoners a prime time platform to go fucking wild. And they still are.

So one of the smaller, local, TV networks had the rights to the old shows and showed them every night of the week at 10pm. And at 10pm, every night of the week, if I was in, that’s where I’d be.

There’s always a ‘guest presenter’ for any particular show. And A-listers have queued up to do it. To go on and essentially get ripped apart by the regulars. Even Donald J Trump has been on it. Not someone who springs to mind when ‘self deprecation’ is mentioned.

And now they’ve made a movie of the early, early days. Called, inventively, ‘Saturday Night’, its directed by Jason Reitman, the son of Ivan Reitman, the man who produced Animal House and directed Stripes and Ghostbusters. All filled with SNL alumni. So surely his son is brilliant too, right? Like Hunter Biden? Like Brooklyn Beckham? We shall see. I’m going.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx