Andy's Glasses

They don’t get cruise ships in Corcheval. They’re banned by the French. So instead, they have Russians. It happened about 25 years ago when a gorgeous little Alpine town, famous for its Croisette, morphed into Rodeo Drive up the Mountains. The gorgeous little boulangeries and boutiques were out-priced by the incoming droves of Tom Ford and Gucci and high-end art dealers and Pateck Philippe who’d discovered where the real money in the world came out of hiding for the winter months.

Cruise ships don’t have the same trouble coming to little coastal towns, but they have the same effect. The promise of thousands of rich people, many with neither taste nor clue, arriving every day looking for ‘local things’ to buy. Like Channel dresses, Rolex watches, Dior handbags. And so the very essence of the town, the very ‘localness’ is stripped away in the name of ‘progress’ and internationalist marketing strategies. Creating the ubiquitous ‘cruise ship town’. Overpriced restaurants, designer shit and endless crowds.

We saw it a few years ago in (once) beautiful Cartagena in Columbia. And here in Taormina the same. The exceptionally pretty, mountainside town, so sweet and gorgeous, totally taken over by corporate excess and greed. This may sound like a communist manifesto but it’s just a ‘casual’ observation.

What the cruise ships can’t fuck up is the natural geographical wonder of places. Unless there’s too many and they just obscure everything (errrr, Venice anyone?)

So what we did here was avoid the town in daytime (when the ship – singular, thank God- is docked) and breeze in during the evening. And if this means we missed the Roman amphitheatre, then that’s our loss. If we missed a museum, we probably wouldn’t have gone in anyway. And if we missed a church, how many churches do you see/enter/pray in (?) during the course of a week? Me and Jesus? We’re cool.

Instead, we stayed in our hotel. Which was perched on the very tip of the peninsula on which Taormina sits. So we had views, like this one from part of the pool area, which itself climbed the mountain (the area, not the pool, for obvious reasons; and if those reasons aren’t obvious to you, check out Archimedes, he lived round here, in Syracuse, out next stop) and every view was to die for. This one is the hotel (brown strip across the top left) from the top tier of the pool area. Even Mount Etna watching menacingly from afar. Hopefully far enough if it all kicks off. Then, when evening comes and the ships sail away, we dare to venture out. Hoping that the ice cream prices have reverted to ‘pre-cruise’ values.

Off to the island of Ortygia, in Syracuse. Let the wedding celebrations begin! I’ve been ready since Heathrow.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

We done Mount Etna. Shouldn’t have bothered, you can see it much more clearly from breakfast here in Taormina. But it’s gotta be done.

You approach from the south and for miles and miles there’s just massive piles of black, volcanic rock. All spewed down in various, past spewages from Etna. Your first thought is: how would you ever get home insurance here? But generally it’s wonderful. And possibly explains why no one builds houses on that side.

The drive though is instructive. My previous journey in Sicily was from Palermo to our first ‘stop’. And what happens is; speed limits are just ignored. Completely and totally. Except in Palermo where, in fear of either the police or the mafia, everyone slows down and drives at precisely the speed limit. No one wants a ticket, and no one wants their mother kidnapped and ransomed without her ears.

On the highways from Cefalu to Etna, there don’t seem to be any police, nor any observable mafiosi. So you can see Italian drivers in more ‘their natural environment’. And I learned about their roads too. When you see a sign which reads ‘110’, you drive as fast as your car will travel. But if the sign says ‘60’, you apparently go even faster. ‘40’ means ‘as fast as you fucking can’, whilst ‘30’ is there merely for humour. And if you’re more than 6 inches from the guy in front’s back bumper you’re a tosser in any language.

And now we’re in Taormina, possibly the most stunningly beautiful town in the entire Mediterranean and, sadly, made famous by ‘the White Lotus’ tv show. Sadly? Because every day, to this amazing place, literally carved into the mountainside in a gorgeous cove, the Devil arrives. Immense, diesel-chugging behemoths floating into the bay, each causing its own shadow as it creeps in. The only sound it makes which can heard over the engines is that of 6,000 Americans shouting ‘Oh my gaahd, Harry, this is sooooo cute!!! Can we buy it?’ I stood on my hotel room balcony demonstrating, shouting “GO BACK TO VENICE!!!” Yet to no avail. Probably because they’re banned from Venice now. Because no one wants cruise ships. Except the local sellers of tut and souvenier rubbish who hike their prices in their honour. Which I don’t care about at all. But I worry they may inflate the price of ice creams. And that I care deeply about.

Cruising is not for me. One day, maybe, when I’m old…

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I was just enjoying Sicily, the ice creams, beaches, pasta, sunshine, pizzas and murders, when I learned that Nigel Farage is standing for MP!!! He’s failed 7 times thus far to enter the Palace of Westminster and is hoping for a straight 8. Though picking Clacton, in Essex, is clever. And I can say this, as one who was brought up in south west Essex himself. The people of Clacton are scum. East Essex is a different world entirely. One made up predominantly of racists, blowhards, tottoed white-van drivers (as pointed out so nicely by Emily Thornbury all those years ago) and skinheads. The perfect demographic for Nigel to try and out-do the Cons and the Labs.

I almost cancelled the holiday and flew home to see if I could… help?

But instead, I heroically decided to stay. Because today we’re headed for Taormina, the place made really famous by a television program I’ve never seen. But on the way, we’re going to Mount Etna. It’s not really a ‘Mount’ anyway; it’s a volcano. So that’s ok. Mountains just, sort of, stand there, whereas volcanos do stuff. Pretty serious stuff too. Etna is described as ‘a very active volcano’. But you’re allowed to climb up it, or take the funicular, because Sicilians don’t care about injury and death.

That’s why they eat ice cream wrapped in Brioche buns. Not that it’s hazardous, only to your health.

Kevin de Bruyne announces that he is considering a departure from Manchester City because of the ‘totally fucking ridiculous’ salary offer. Ok, they’re my words, not his, but same difference. If you’re earning north of about 10million a year and barely getting by after paying all that tax, what do they need to propose to make him go ‘wow!!’?. Even though he’ll be reviled by fans and players because of his new employing nation’s abysmal human rights record, as was Jordan Henderson who left Arabia for Amsterdam after just 6 months.

City themselves are now ‘taking the fight to them’. Being forced to defend 115 charges of financial impropriety, they’re now taking the Premier League to court over the right to impose ‘Associated Party Transactions’ rules which prevent billionaire owners from making personal payments to their club by limply disguising them as ‘sponsorship deals’ by companies run by those same owners. Thus giving a massive advantage over the majority of clubs which aren’t Arab-owned. Other than Chelsea who are owned by an American who is probably lower on the morality ladder than Sheikh This and Sultan That. Yet City’s legal team find the APT rules as ‘anti-competition’. To which I have ask: “WTF???”

Keep these hateful billionaires out of MY national game. Unless you’re happy to see the Manchester City ‘parade’ every year. Possibly Newcastle. Chelsea.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

We’re here. When you arrive at Palermo airport they immediately put a black bag over your head, stick a gun in your back and march you to passport control, in a derelict garage out the back. There you meet a man with ‘connections’, who, for a small but significant sum, will ‘protect’ you for the duration of your stay. Protect us from whom? Or what?? You naively ask. Oh, he says, from me. And my… family!!!!! Because over here, that word, ‘family’ means something completely different from normal. Families elsewhere are things of love, warmth, joined history, blood ties and togetherness. Over here, ‘family’ means your kneecaps could be drilled at any moment. It means machine guns, drug money, whores, gambling, protection, Joe Pesci and Marlon Brando.

Yet what you see is… quite a lot of very fat people. And I just can’t understand that. Just because a meal anywhere else in the world has 3 courses, Italians have four. And the one they so neatly, seamlessly, ‘insert’ is a bowl of pasta. What elsewhere would be called ‘a meal’ in itself. Yet here, it just what you do when you’ve had your soup and you’re waiting for your fish to be grilled.

But yesterday, whilst strolling along the beautiful promenade in beautiful downtown Cefalu (north coast, mountains, sea, old town, gorgeous) we stopped for an ice cream. Gelati. Because we’re in Italy and that’s where it was invented. According to the Italians. And trust me, you don’t argue round here. And we witnessed the local… delicacy? Addiction? Habit?? A brioche bun, slit in half (very good at ‘slitting’, these Sicilians) and filled with ice cream. Add a wafer, a plate and loads of tissues and there’s your path to waddle along. It looked fantastic. Going to get one today.

The other thing famous in Sicily is lemons. Here they call them ‘lemons’, in M&S they call them Sicilian lemons, but trust me, it’s the same thing. Massive. Lemon flavoured. Yellow. Can’t wait to eat one.

We’re here mainly because next weekend we are attending a wedding, in Syracuse, on the other side of the Island. So thought we’d put in a week of ‘hard graft’ beforehand (see pic). I rented a car because I thought it would be a bit unfair if there was a car-chase and I wasn’t involved. And we’re going on in a few days to Taormina and then down to Syracuse for the wedding weekend.

Where the Goldsteins from Hampstead Garden Suburb have strong connections. Historical connections. In that the bride came here for a holiday once and really liked it. But if it’s connection enough for them, it’s more than enough for me and Mel. Who never need asking twice to go and spend a week somewhere sunny. And the flights (you’re gonna hate me for this), so many air miles (who knows, who cares) and 2 quid. Honest to God (and he lives here, I saw him in the cathedral this morning), 2 quid. How could we NOT come?? It ticks such a lot of boxes.

Happy… whatever, they all blend together here.

A xxxx

Hi. My name’s Andy and I haven’t spoken about politics for 3 days now!!!
(All together:) “HI ANDY!!!”

Yes, I’m a recovering political observer. Though I’m not sure I can ever recover from the fact that in America you can not only be president with a criminal past, but can actually do so with a criminal present. The White House can be the White Room in Sing Sing. Which is shared with a drug dealer from Memphis and has a piss-pot in the corner. I mean: President from Jail? WTF????

Donald Trump has now, officially, legally, been convicted of 34 crimes and is a criminal. Obviously he’ll appeal, on the grounds that this is blatant discrimination against orange people, who are now designated as an official minority grouping. But meanwhile, the Republican candidate for the presidency remains unchanged. His official title is now changed from ‘The Fat Fuck’ to ‘The Fat Fucking Crim’. But he’ll still stand, still probably win, even if jailed. Thus rendering the position of arguably ‘most powerful person in the entire planet’ open to any skank around. Which is unbelievable. Yet can Biden stop him? The man who has ‘single-handedly’ (because his hands only work one at a time, bit like his brain cells) created the newest, greatest path to peace for the Middle East, destined to go the way of all previous 762 ‘paths to Middle East peace’. Can he remember where he is, and whose side he’s on, for long enough to repeat an election victory? And if he does, will Trump call for a revolution and a coup? Even from his jail cell?

Trump is not merely ‘the worst loser the world has ever known’. No. The reality is that he is such a total, complete, 100% pure narcissist that his mind simply cannot accept any kind of reality in which what he thinks or wants is not what everyone in the world agrees with. He loses an election? It was rigged. They cheated. (Even though he cheated, bribed, coerced). He loses a court case? It’s a witch-hunt. The press did it. The judge is ‘evil’. Conspiracy of the Democrat press.

Yet before we judge this man too harshly for becoming (possibly) the world’s first criminal president (except in certain east European countries a where criminal record is mandatory for high office), we really really need to take a long hard look at those people who are willing, eager and happy to put him there. That’s the real tragedy of modern America.

Over here we’re more flexitarian in our politics. In that we are divisive in many different ways. The most occurring now within the Labour Party itself. As Crown Prince Kier seems to be pushed around by ‘Fat Slag Ange’ (as her friends call her) who is now calling the shots, making the decisions, choosing the direction. Kier will take a stance, Ange will differ, three hours later Kier is towing her line with total conviction, seemingly oblivious that his increasing list of U-turns is a running joke. And the scary bit about that is that Ange was given the normally fairly useless but honourable-sounding position of ‘Deputy Party Leader!!!’, just to appease the left wing of the party after the assassination of Corbyn (sadly only in the figurative sense). And now she’s taking over. Which is great news for Diane Abbot. For the trade unions. And for the Palestinians who ‘she’ has promised to ‘officially recognise as a state’. Even though they have no leadership who aren’t convicted terrorists (so it’s not just America), no official land or even an accepted definition of what ‘Palestine’ might be.

Ok, back to rehab.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Well this is all big news. About the brother. The crocked one, currently lollygagging in the Royal Free. He’s come out of Intensive Care. Holy shit. The next step. In a forwardly direction.

Ok, so the good news is: you’re out of the ICU!!!! (Where there is a nurse at your side 24 hours of every single day and the care is brilliant and the consultants drop in 5 times a day to talk to you and they have more machines going ‘ping’ than a video game arcade in Leicester Square).

The bad news is: you out of the ICU!!!! (Onto a ‘ward’ – even though he’s in a room on the side- where normal NHS rules apply. Which are: as few nurses as possible, taking longer than is actually possible to respond to a call. No doctors around; who needs ‘em?, and thankfully not a lot of machines because he doesn’t need them any longer. Just the one that has been feeding him for 4.5 months).

And this was a problem because, as he told me ages ago; he had become completely institutionalised. Got fretful when his nurse left him for a few minutes. Then, on a ward, cold turkey. Though he can’t eat cold turkey. Nor anything else. But…

Yesterday, just before I arrived, he managed his first ‘swallow’. That reflex which we all take for granted, had long stopped functioning through disuse, so he’d been doing various exercises to fire it up again. And yesterday morning it fired. And he was actually sipping water. Without coughing!!! How good must that taste after all that time with nothing whatsoever passing through his mouth? We would have been ‘high fiving’ but due to his restricted mobility we settled for a sort of mid-level-five instead. Because this was a massive moment. The path to recovery. The path to getting out (eventually). The path to… chicken biryani, pilau rice and garlic naan!!! Eventually. You have to walk before you can run to an Indian restaurant. And walking is at bit… difficult currently. But improving with a new ‘super-zimmer’ with wheels.

More importantly is that ‘the return of the swallow’, as we’ll call this sequel, has changed his mood, his mindset, his psyche. Lifted the inevitable depression due to the “I’m never gonna get out’a this fucking place” thoughts to some light at the end of a very long tunnel. Which has changed his motivation, almost instantly. Now he’s almost eager to do his physio, rather than just turn into a temporary teenager with a ‘but what’s the poioioioioint???’ attitude.

Plus, the general ward is not really somewhere you’d wanna be hanging out for too long if you didn’t have to. Not being a ward-snob or nuffink but after the ICU, it’s like staying in the Taj Palace in Mumbai for a month then moving to the Premier Inn.

He’s doing so well, I’ve just arrived in Sicily. In the next thrilling episode of Andy’s Travels; the hunt for the Mafia (horse’s head not included. I hope.)

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

So following a week of solid electioneering, I decided to take a break from politics, just for the day. And focus on more important things. Like Lila and Joey. Kicked out of school for the week for half term, abandoned by their parents who rushed off to work, those poor kids were dumped at us for 7.45. And the peaceful morning vibe is thus shattered in a whirl of frantic activity and noise. Loads of noise. And eating. Joey sets up a race-track in the kitchen, with a little help, for his whizz-cars or whatever they are. Lila brings a box of about 25 Barbie dolls and dumps them on the floor. All of them. And Ken. We bought a Ken, because Joey moaned that all the Barbies were gels. Which they generally are. Not one Barbie identifies as Ken. Not one has a penis. Neither does Ken. But he has a football. So must be a ‘boy’. Sporting equipment is now elevated to a ‘secondary sexual characteristic’. For Barbie purposes only. Don’t tell Leah Williamson.

After breakfast we rushed up to the wasteland between Edgware and Radlett. I call it a wasteland but you might see it as just ‘countryside’, depends on your perspective. No building, no tower blocks, no Tesco Local, issa wasteland. But there they’ve made ‘Europe’s largest Crazy Golf’. Never crazier than with Joey lying across the hole or beating the shit out of the footpath with his ‘bat’. But it was brilliant. The grandkids are naturals. Just, not necessarily at golf. Yet as they both love dressing up in funny clothes, golf could be their natural sport. Their grandmother was doing well until she 7-putted on the 11th. But then, (inevitable) tragedy on the 15th; it started pissing down with rain. We gave the kids a choice: play on in the miserable weather getting wet and depressed, or go to McDonalds where the sun is always shining!!! And you get toys. And I get to eat my twice yearly treat of… of rubbish.

After lunch, which was really early, the sun came out so we went to the park with the bikes. Their bikes. So you push them up the hills and pull them on the way down to hold them back. And that was fun. At the end of which we were ready for bed. Unfortunately, Lila and Joey refused to put us to bed, so we had to play on, make dinner and start the massive clear-up programme, room-by-room, corner to corner.

Joey has never been convicted of any crime. God knows how. But even if he had, he could, apparently, still stand to be the President of America. And arguably might be better than both current candidates for that job. At least he can walk without help and speak without sounding stupid.

I love half term.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

There’s a big problem with Diane Abbott. We simply don’t know what to do with her. The iconic Member for Hackney is a veritable institution. The first black woman in parliament without getting followed by security. The first black MP to shag Jeremy Corbyn. The longest lasting… errrrr… person of colour to… errrrrr… to repeatedly cock-up, fuck-up, get her sums wrong, get the plot wrong and finally, to make discriminatory statements. She spent an hour in parliament slamming private schools, whilst sending her own son to one. She worked out that employing 1000 extra police people, at 40 grand a year each would cost the nation… a lot… ok, more than £10,000!!! And then she said that Jews and Irish could never understand discrimination like she experiences. For which she was suspended from the Labour party. Which, to me, is a bit odd because of all the stupid, ridiculous, moronic things she said and did, that statement is pretty much true. But there ya go. Her party was into a massive, mainstream cleansing operation after the Corbyn departure so Diane, immaculate in her timing as ever, said the wrong thing at the wrong time.

So Labour wait until the day after you can no longer declare yourself as a candidate and restore her to their party. Awwww, nice. Why? Because they’re scared that she’ll do a Corbyn and stand as an independent in the constituency she’s held since 1987 and where, for some unaccountable reason, they seem to love her. But she won’t stand as a Labour candidate. Starmer is hoping that she’ll just walk out into the sunset with her head held high. If she can find the sunset. She’s not very good at geography. She’s 70 so she’s more than ready to become a drain on the nation’s pension pot and health service and, looking at it objectively, she should have been in some kind of institution years ago.

So having passed through ‘national box-ticked’, and on to ‘national institution’ followed by ‘national joke’ and finally reached the exalted ‘national treasure’ status, just by virtue of, again like Corbyn, never knowing when to quit, its time to bury her. I know, she’s not dead yet, but let’s not get mired down in details.

Yet in some respects she’s doing what she’s always done. Being very annoying. But as the people she’s annoying now are mainly her own party leader and his team of strategists, I’m actually quite enjoying this. But once her direction is finally decided, I think ‘out of it completely’ is the way to go. Because she was knee-deep in Corbyn’s toxic messages, complicit in his antisemitic everything and thus, no friend of mine. I don’t like her sufficiently to pity her.

Bye Bye Di

A xxxx

On Nigel Farage’s cv, it lists his qualities, as the enfante terrible of British politics. Sorry, of European politics. And under all his other… qualifications (drinking too much, smoking like a chimney, inciting racism, lying to the nation) and achievements (Brexit, UKIP, frightening a Prime Minister into proving how little the population understand), there is written: ‘spanner in the works’. It’s what he does. For the upcoming election, he won’t be standing for UKIP re-do, nor anyone else. Why? Because it would limit him to campaigning in a constituency. And he wants to campaign nationally. Centrally. Generally.

But campaign for what? For whom?? Reform UK, the latest incarnation of ‘Keep Britain White!, innit’ party for those who approve of the BNP but feel themselves too sophisticated. It has about 14 candidates, most of whom are either on remand or on parole, and the rest are horrible. They have but one message: we’ve cut ourselves off from Europe, now we need to get rid of all them forriners wot is still ‘ere.

Yet, although I consider myself not La Farage’s greatest fan, I have to always admire the way he says things. Unlike every other politician in the country, he knows how to speak to people. He is brilliant at pushing buttons. Especially at bringing out xenophobic feelings in people that they never even knew they had. That was his contribution to Brexit and to political life in general.

And now: Islamaphobia-gate!!!

In an interview on tv he said the vast majority of Muslims in this country ‘are opposed to British values’. On one level I totally disagree with that. Because the foremost ‘British value’ is eating chicken tikka masala and I’m sure loads of Muslims, the Indian ones especially, like that too. And yet, what are ‘British values’ anyway? Top hats? Twin sets? Morris Minors?? Though actually he meant the less important issues, like democracy, like various freedoms, which we all enjoy, especially those who’d really like to do away with them. And an acceptance, at very least, of the monarchy and I’d personally add, alignment with our ‘allies’. Which means America. Cos you can’t depend on the French. So Farage quoted the statistic that 46% of British Muslims support Hamas. A terrorist organisation. The rest, he implied, just want to do away with democracy and turn us into a Sharia state. Not unlike Iran, but with prettier headscarves.

From where these statistics emerged I know not. And, like all statistics, I am deeply, sincerely, appallingly cynical about them.

But if you took your sample population from a ‘Pro-Palestine’ rally, you could indeed end up with such a warped view of Muslim Britain. Because in the passion and massive ignorance which seems to define these ‘protests’, such views would be logical extension of the narrative on which they thrive. Otherwise (I really like to think) the vast majority of British Muslims are happy to be here and just trying to survive the week with a few bob in their pockets and sending their kids to the best schools they can find. Like all the non-Muslims. Getting through life peacefully and painlessly.

Yet old Nige can’t resist a dig or two, to stir things up, wind up the inner xenophobe, accuse an entire minority of terrorist-sympathy, ya-know, just ‘puttin’ it out there’.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

They’re bringing back conscription. Not present in this country since nineteen-sixty-something, we’re going to force people into ‘national service’. Or ‘national service light’ as it really comes with no real sanctions for not doing it and it’s sort of voluntary but you have to do it. Or sign up to community service instead. So given the choice between spending a whole Saturday picking up ice cream wrappers in Hyde Park and learning how to strip down an M16 and shoot people, where do I sign (up)??

I’m over 18, therefore I’m prepared to do my duty. Where’s my gun? I want to be in Stripes, with Bill Murray. Having fun on the parade ground. Bivouacking with the babes in the Gel’s division. Driving tanks through Brent Cross. I’m in.

As a life-long pacifist, I’m totally opposed to firearms. Unless they’re my arms. Guns, in principle, are terrible things which murder thousands of American schoolchildren every day. But that’s only because most Americans have mental health issues manifesting as psychopathic, sociopathic behaviour. Guns in the right hands (mine) are not necessarily any safer but more fun. And driving a tank would allow me to sort out people sitting at green lights immobile whilst looking at their phones. Middle-of-the-road tossers would be a thing of the past. Even South African mothers on the school run in their Range Rovers would yield to a Challenger 2, fully armed, with its turret aimed at her face.

The problem is that it’s a Conservative proposal. And therefore, probably totally irrelevant and due to be dead by July. Which gives me two months to fantasise.

I actually think National Service is a great idea. Countries who still have conscription generally have less social problems, thuggery, gangs of glue-sniffing, lager-chugging stoners, mugging and causing trouble.

The problem with the upcoming election is that we now have to see Kier Starmer’s face on the news all the time. And his charmless, creepy soundbytes carefully designed never to reveal any actual plans. And Angela Rayner. Destined to become either the Deputy Prime Minister of all of the United Kingdom, or a prisoner. Depending on the results of the current police inquiry.

Whatever the problem might be, the answer is NEVER ‘Kier Starmer’.

Happy Sunday, which looked depressingly rainy but turned sunny just in time for tennis.

A xxxx