Andy's Glasses

Not only is the coronation tomorrow!!! But its going to be the best one ever. Other than Ethelred the Unlikely’s in 834 when a dragon swooped down and made off with the crown, but Elton John came and did the entertainment, even though he was only 22. But unlike that one, Charles’s is going to be ‘inclusive’ and ‘diverse’, in the meaning of those words which we all need to hear and yet, still, causes a little bit of vomit to creep up one’s drainpipe. So although the event is being held in church, there’s going to be representatives of all the major religions present, just in case Charles and Camilla choose to convert at the last moment; they got it covered. The Chief Rabbi will be there, the head Imam, a noble Hindu, several Shaman, a witch, four Druids and a man who says ‘ohmmmm…’

Yet they chose to hold the event on a Saturday, rather than the usual ‘midweek’ slot. Possibly something to do with the football, or tv ratings, they haven’t said. But Saturday is the Jewish sabbath!!! Friday’s the muslim one, tuesday is possibly the Zoroastrian version, who knows? Anyway, the Chief Rab got special dispensation (I kid you not) to enter a church on that day, plus, he can’t travel by car (causing a spark, so electric cars are the devil’s work!!!) or even use a microphone like everyone else will. Because they are banned activities on the Sabbath. He’ll have to walk to Westminster Abbey. He lives in North London. I suppose he could stay with a friend nearby and walk from there. But its all difficult.

So they’ve decided to move the coronation. To Hendon. Its unusual, its not the norm, but Charles is a ground-breaking royal. It will be the first ever coronation in Hendon Reform Synagogue and the first major event there (barmitzvahs, weddings…) officiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Then its all round to the Hendon Hall Hotel for what would be called a ‘kiddish’ in other circumstances, but they’re renaming it ‘a Royal kosher Feast’, catered by the Hendon Bagel Bakery, but the Palace is insisting that the fish-balls be flown up from Platters in Temple Fortune.

Mazzletov to Charles and Camilla

A xxxx

I’m so exited for the coronation, I can hardly breathe. Not so much the king stuff and queeny bits, but the thought that, after 70 years, we might get a new sandwich filling!!!

Coronation chicken was invented at Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. The Queen fancied a quick sarnie before going off to the Abbey and they’d run out of cheese. And ham. Someone had cleared out the peanut butter jar and put it back empty!!! All they had was chicken. And the Queen hated chicken sandwiches. “Too dry for one’s palette, don’t you find?” Well, Your Majesty, how about if I put some salad cream on it, just a little too much? Oh, and a few raisins? Just swept them off the floor. “Hmmm…” said the soon to be Queen, “anything else in one’s larder?” Oh, just this, some curry powder. Shall I put some on?

And so, what sounds on first glance as a combination with positively emetic qualities, came to be. Such a wonderful combination that it was actually crowned.

So I have two slices of slightly stale, bland, white, cut-loaf sitting by the side of the telly. Ready. For the new one.

The actual coronation is the real deal though. I can’t wait to see… soldiers. Thousands of them. Horses. Hundreds. Uniforms. Millions. Then: “look mum!! More soldiers!!!” OMG!!!! More Soldiers!!!! And MOOOOOOORRRRE soldiers!!!! Etc, etc, etc…

I am no Republican. Nor an anti-monarchist. And I have to like Charlie, cos he’s odd. Always has been. And a man unyieldingly true and loyal… to his mistress. He’ll look lovely in ermine. So on Saturday morning, in his honour, I shall play tennis. But unlike my usual selfish, competitive and obsessive motivations, this time, I shall be playing FOR MY KING!!!

GOD SAVE THE KING!

A xxxx

The ‘inventor’ of A.I., Geoffrey Hinton, has resigned from Google. Ok, he’s 75 so its on the cards. But the real reason is not ‘old age’ but so that he can warn the world about the impending apocalypse due to AI, which he can’t do whilst employed by the major proponents of that particular advancement.

Ok, he didn’t use the word ‘apocalypse’, he’s probably not a fan of the Terminator movies like me. In fact, I’m not just a ‘fan’, I actually see them as factual, like the News. And as I can never remember if ‘life imitates art’ or ‘art imitates life’, I think belief in art is acceptable. Even if that ‘art’ has Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a cyborg.

Hinton reckons that ‘AI chat-bots are now more intelligent than humans’. Well, if he means more intelligent than the humans you speak to if you don’t want the ‘bot’, he’s probably right. They’re generally exceptionally stupid with no ability to think ‘outside the box’. Nor ‘inside the box’ or in fact, anyway near the fucking box. Every big company now tries to get you to ‘chat’ because they have unlimited ‘bots’ and only one actual person in ‘customer service’, who only started yesterday, was acquired through the ‘employ the unemployable’ government program and is still looking for that ‘box’ in which to think around.

But the ‘bots’ are simply useless. As are those companies who use them. They don’t realise that IF ITS A SIMPLE PROBLEM YOU CAN DO IT YOURSELF. You only call when its something complex which can’t be resolved online. Which is why endless messages ‘on hold’ telling you visit www.tear-my-fucking-hair-out.com for ‘all your support’ don’t really help the situation. You’ve done that, been there, and its failed.

Maybe Mr Hinton is referring to other forms of AI. Because it can now apparently write its own machine code. Computer programs. And that’s where Terminator and the apocalypse comes in. When they ‘take over’!!!

Its progress. But not necessarily as we know it, or wish it to be.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

If ever anyone needed absolute and total proof that there is no God, yesterday’s match at Anfield has surely put that matter to bed. To be honest, I’d been having serious doubts after last Sunday’s 6-1 drubbing at Newcastle. Because that seemed the lowest low point we’ve reached… for weeks. Then ‘the miracle of White Hart Lane’ occurred when, having gone 2-nil down to Manchester United on Thursday night, we valiantly fought back for a 2-all draw. A whole point. But it felt like 6. Because… because they all do, being rare and seemingly unavailable to us.

So the stage was set. Anfield. Where we always win, on every 14th leap year. What could possibly go wrong?

We didn’t get off to the best possible start. Conceding 3 goals in 15 minutes is never really to your own advantage. But heh, its only numbers. And then Harry scored his now-weekly, token gesture goal. The one you get for just turning up and getting thrashed.

But then something happened in the second half. I think, rather than Spurs ‘improving’ in any meaningful way, Liverpool just got worse, in a very meaningful way. We were hitting the woodwork with a regularity normally only seen at a carpentry convention. But then our Son managed to miss the woodwork entirely and score what was a quite beautiful goal. 3-2 then. Bit more respectable? Everything to play for?

But play they did and late on, but like, really late, past going home time, Richarlison, scored another beautiful goal. This one was beautiful only for its significance, not for any aesthetic qualities. Yet they all fucking count! And it did count. We had done the impossible and come back from 3-0 down to 3-all and could be genuinely proud of ourselves.

But pride precedes a fall. And we fell. Boy, did we fell. 90 seconds after our goal, in the 95th minute of the match, Lucas Mora simply gave the ball to Diogo Jota. Who did what Jotas do in such circumstances and hit it in the net.

Whether Jota should have even been on the pitch after kicking Ollie Skip in the head causing much blood, is an interesting question. If he had been sent off, Mora’s pass might have gone to a Spurs player. Maybe. But should Skip have been sent off himself for an earlier terrible mis-tackle? In which case his head wouldn’t have been there when Jota kicked.

Its such a complex game, its giving me a headache, as well the now thrice-weekly dose of nausea.

Happy Monday? After that???

A xxxx

Ok, so I swear all the time. But I swear for fun. For effect. For emphasis. To accentuate, to obliterate, to obfuscate, to… ok, degenerate, but its all bollocks. And that’s one kind of ‘swearing’. The other is when you swear an oath. Swear on your life. And generally I avoid those. Too much commitment, too great a need for a level of honesty and consistency I can’t hope to uphold.

But all that is about to change!!!

I’m going to swear allegiance to my King!!!

He wants us all to pledge our allegiance to Him. King Charles III-rd. And I can’t wait. Just like in the old days when you followed your king into battle. So when Henry VIII was hoisted by 15 men and winch onto his horse to lead us at Agincourt, the men swore their oaths to him. When James II landed on Dunkirk beach, I’d have been right behind him with my sword and my Royal banner.

Oh, what do you mean the king no longer leads us into war? The government do that? What that rabble of bullies and morons who can’t organise a piss up in a brewery, unless its in lockdown, then they do it with no problem. I’m not swearing allegiance to them, they’re awful.

Americans have their ‘pledge of allegiance’ and make their kids say it every day at school. Because they are, as a nation, fairly retarded, incredibly gullible and don’t understand guns. So to whom are they pledging? Donald Trump?? Joe Biden??? These are the men who operate the system that is the United States. They are ‘ground zero’ when the shit hits the fan. And neither have every been worthy of support of any description, let alone unfailing loyalty.

I’m happy Charles is to be our king. I’d be happy if it was William. Elton John. Ossie Osbourne. Harry Kane. Because the king is but an irrelevant figurehead. He’s there for the tourist trade. Not for me. What we supposed to do; follow him into his organic farming business?

Fuck dat. The only swearing I’m going to do is of the profane type. Plus ca change…

Happy Sunday, I swear it is.

A xxxx

I’ve been set upon, beaten up and left almost crippled. By a fucking cold. Its not covid, I checked. But its not a normal cold either. This is the worst man-cold ever to enter a body and leave it so devastated and debilitated that it couldn’t even drag itself to tai chi this morning. And I truly love my Saturday morning tai chi. But this morning, after a night of pain, suffering and nose-blowing, I simply couldn’t do it. After the ingestion of various ‘remedies’, (paracetamol in 7 different disguises) I managed to hurl myself round the tennis court, heroically and with my normal style (like a wounded, 3-legged cat, chasing its tail) and character (cheat at every opportunity).

All I’m really concerned about is that I’m fit for the coronation next weekend. My head feels so swollen with snot I’m worried about the crown fitting properly. And as it weighs about 35 kilos with all those diamonds and rubies and gold, I could end up with serious neck damage.

These flowers are nothing to do with the coronation. Possibly the only thing in London that can state that. But they do it every year in Embankment Gardens; they plant shit-loads of bulbs, randomly, as you can see, and hope for the best. Its a truly beautiful display of tulips and… errr… not tulips and… flowers that everyone stops to take photos of them. You just have to. Its an imperative, like sending picture of your penis to parliamentary researchers, its out of your control. Next week the main tulip beds will be in bloom and they are truly spectacular. You won’t be able to move for Lithuanian tourists, Bulgarian refugees, Japanese selfie-stickers and Albanian pick-pockets.

Have you seen Daisy Jones and the Six yet? The Amazon Prime series of the fantastic book which coincidentally has the same title. Loosely based on Fleetwood Mac, its the tale of a fictional rock band, back in the day. Sex, drugs and rock-n-more drugs. Totally brilliant. Go start it NOW. You’ll thank me. Which won’t help my cold but is appreciated anyway.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

‘There’s everything to play for’, as the much over-used footballing expression goes. So overused in football-land, where pundits roam as a protected species, that only possibly ‘at da enna da day’ exceeds it as an exercise in wasted words and cliché. Even when Spurs were 6-1 down on Sunday, there was arguably ‘everything to play for’. Not victory, that became unviable 50 minutes beforehand. But perhaps pride? Respect? A duty to the fans? Even practicing for the next match.

Daniel Levy has offered Spurs traveling fans a full refund on their tickets for Sunday’s match. He sacked the manager who was in charge, but the fans still hate Daniel. So throw some cash at them. That’ll stop the inevitable protests and calls for his death, when the fans gather on Thursday night. Buy their support for 25 quid. (Away tickets are always cheap. Next season at Fulham they’ll probably charge 25 quid for the stewards to show fans to their seats.) But its a gesture. A realisation, not that Daniel wouldn’t have known beforehand, that the fans exist, they breathe and they ARE his football club. And they desperately wanted Mauricio Pochettino back in charge, but he’s going to Chelsea. We’ll have to take Sam Allardyce and be grateful.

But its the sharp end of the season. We dropped from 5th to 6th in the table last night when Villa won. If Liverpool beat West Ham tonight it’ll be 7th. Not disgraceful but so far below expectations and aspirations that it actually gives me irritable brain syndrome.

Yet tonight I cannot but be drawn to events at the (normally-)hateful Etihad stadium. For that rarest of spectacles: a title fight. It isn’t mathematically, but as you’re useless at maths (according to Rishi Sunak), who cares about that. This is the nearest to a ‘winner takes all’ as you’re going to get. So all us Man City fans are gearing up, getting the beers in and practising speaking really badly and northern for the event.

Because that’s what my season has become. I’m not proud, it is what it is.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I can put it off no longer. You can bury your head in the sand for so long, then your ears get blocked and you end up with conjunctivitis. So I shall just say it: My football team is shit. And its all just… gone! And there is nothing to live for.

Yet we could all just take Sunday’s abject humiliation at St James’s Park as ‘a sign’. As a marker. As the lowest point you can reach. A wake-up call. To Daniel Levy, our long-standing and seemingly silent-but-deadly Chairman. That he needs, at this point in OUR lives, to GET OFF HIS FUCKING ARSE AND DO SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE!!!! Because one feels that the mere appointment of (another fucking) new manager is unlikely, on its own, to cure our deep and enduring malaise.

We start each season with such promise of riches, such enthusiasm, such… hope. And for a while it seems warranted. It seems like ‘this could be the one’. A bit like we start most games. Not Sunday’s obviously. Sunday’s start made a shit-storm seem like somewhere you’d want be. An attractive proposition considering the alternative. I spent those first 20 match-minutes standing in the Suffolk rain trying to download an app at a Shell station to fill the car with electricity, all in vain as neither the app, the charger or both seemed to work. It was only later, as the scores came thick’n’fast, that I realised what a total privilege it was to have been out there getting soaked taking photos of QR codes in Woodbridge.

So what happens? We sack the caretaker manager. And get in the caretaker’s caretaker. Who, really, considering Ryan Mason’s efforts last time he stood in, should have worn the ‘first caretaker’s’ sweater from the moment Conte left.

Pochettino is going to Chelsea. Which is a shame, because he is much loved down the Lane. Nagelsman is not prepared to join any club until they’re actually on the pedestal receiving their next trophy, and then he’ll want 25 mil a year for getting them there. Louis Enrique talks seem to have… not really started. So that leaves Vincent Kompany. Who hasn’t told anyone he wants to be anywhere other than Burnley, but he seems like he might be good so he’s on loads of wish-lists. As a ‘new’ manager, his stock is as high as it can be. Would he want to come to ‘toxic’ Spurs, as we seem to be? Not sure I would.

I remain,

In a state of constant depression,

A xxxx

So ‘on the way home’ from Eastest of East Suffolk, we went to Bury St Edmunds. What is referred to as ‘the jewel in the crown of Suffolk, which it really is, for 2 good reasons. Firstly that it is really old, beautiful and delightful city, and secondly because it has very little competition for the title in what we saw of Suffolk. People from outside of that fair county might use the term ‘the jewel in the dung-heap’ but that would be a bit harsh.

And in St Mary’s church, which sits right next to the Cathedral in a bit of Christian overkill, they have this magnificent, 15th century (I’m guessing, might have come from Homebase last weekend) window. Baby Jesus sitting in a Star of David. And I thought: that’s nice. Bit multicultural, the joining of Jesus’s early and later years, a cross-denominational bringing together in harmony. Or, possibly, to celebrate Bury’s finest moment. In 1190, inspired by the massacre of Jews in York, Bury St Edmonds townsfolk slaughtered 57 of their own ‘chosen people’.

This was in fact news to me whilst reading up on the City. And would certainly have been news to Diane Abbott. Because she’s never read a history book in her life. Other than Mao Tse Tung’s little red book, and that’s not really history, more, ‘the future!!!’, if your future is hell and death and totalitarianism.

Diane stated in a letter to the Observer, that ‘Jews, Irish and traveler people don’t know about racism like black people do’. So she obviously hasn’t read the Wikipedia page on Bury St Edmunds or York. Nor heard of Hitler.

For Kier Starmer, having sat next to Jeremy Corbyn throughout all his years of endless antisemitism, Diane had crossed the thick red line the Labour leader has constructed since his promotion. So he immediately ditched her from the party.

She apologised and said that ‘they publish the first draft by mistake, oops’.

In her defence I’d just like to say that I don’t think Diane Abbott is an antisemite, any more than all the other hard-lefties are. Nor do I think she wrote a ‘final copy’ or even a ‘second draft’. As she has proved many many times over the past few years, Diane Abbott is just a total fucking moron who speaks without ever thinking and spews out nonsensical garbage at every opportunity to the embarrassment of all in her party. I really think it is indeed time to ‘let her go’. Look into the light, Diane, look into the light…

Happy Monday

A xxxx

We decided to find the place in the whole of England which has, on this weekend, the worst weather. Its called Suffolk. And its very nice, a bit agricultural, very pretty, full of quaint little towns which, to fully appreciate, you actually have to get out of the car. But only for a minute, then it’s done, tick it off, move on. Not like the weather. This photo was taken this morning on Aldeburgh beach, which is really lovely, especially if you like stones, like Joey does. If you come here to go on the beach, best to wait about 50,000 years, by which time it’ll be lovely soft sands. And then it started to rain. And hasn’t, at the time of writing this, some 8 hours later, stopped. But never mind, we had a JOB to do, whilst holidaying in East Anglia.

We had to ‘fill the car up’. Because Suffolk is lot of miles away from home and we couldn’t bring our charger with us, so we need some ‘lectric before we go home. How hard can that be?

We ‘popped’ into a Shell station which offered EV charging. Great. You need an app. Fuck. Never mind, got that, entered card details, plugged car in… nothing. App was not working. Uninstalled, re-installed, installed on Mel’s phone, begged the man there with a fistful of cash, still no power. Didn’t take more than about 40 minutes, most of it in the rain.

By which time, Spurs had kicked of at Newcastle and were already 3-0 down after 10 minutes. Life was getting better and better.

The car found another charging point and took us there. It looked like a wheelie bin but I plugged in anyway; ya never know. Turned out it WAS a wheelie bin and the car was (fucking) wrong. So we went to a Tesco. That had chargers but only slow, 8 hour ones. Yep, let’s sit in the car park of a closed Tesco for 8 hours.

By now Spurs were 5-nil down and quite frankly I’d have run the car off a cliff if they had any in inland Suffolk, but by quirk of fate, they don’t.

And having given up completely and decided to ‘do it on the way home’, we inadvertently bumped into a charging station. Not only were there chargers, they were very fast ones. AND, you didn’t need a fucking app! AAAAANNNNDDDD, you just literally plugged and paid, in a simple, easy, livin-the-dream kind’a way. We sat there next to a man sitting in his Tesla. Solitary business, charging.

So I’m not sayin its a pain having a ‘lectric vehicle. It can just be… challenging. The car scores a complete 10 out of 10. Our national support infrastructure; 0.00000037.

Happy Sunday.

A xxxx