Andy's Glasses

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, there was all manner of deprivation inherent in our post-war, baby-boom lives. Ok, we had sugar, all we wanted, so ‘sweets’ were hard currency back in that day. Also, soft currency, chewy currency and sherbet-flavoured currency. But if we liked a particular song, we had to either buy it (expensive), record it from a friend, once ‘cassettes’ had been invented, or wait for it to ‘come on the radio’. Which for a top 10 hit was easy, but for anything more… vintage, or an album track, you were in for the long haul waiting for that.

Being ever the visionary, I remember thinking: one day there should be a way of finding songs, which you don’t have to buy, perhaps pay for them by escaping from really annoying advert clips or something, and even see the video!!! I appreciate, for those historians among you, that the music ‘video’ didn’t arrive til about 15 years later, but I was brilliantly and precociously incisive.

So when YouTube came into my life, Mel’s life was thrown into a really noisy frenzy of 70s rock, 60s soul, 80s punk and anything else you could play really LOUDLY.

Music didn’t stop in 1989, but I did. Other than the odd Nirvana track, Whitney Houston, a bit of Eminem and the first two Oasis albums (and NO MORE!), nothing past then was deemed ‘good enough’. Until Taylor Swift came along, obviously. And Adele.

I’ve known about Alicia Keys for ages. Since she started, age 5 (so it seems) with her amazing voice and incredible song-writing talent. But by the usual circuitous route on Sunday I ended up in the 7 degrees of Alicia Keys. And I played ‘This girl is on Fire’. And I thought… its just brilliant. Then I played more. And more. And now she’s my favourite.

And that led to the next thought/realisation/question? Do I only love music when its played by truly beautiful people? As Alicia emphatically is. As Taylor Swift is. Even Kurt fucking Cobain was fairly gorgeous and pretty. David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Whitney, Stevie (aaaahhhhhh) Nicks.

No! Definitely not. I love those people because of their immense contribution to their genre and their almost immeasurable talent. But then a shock. I adored Olivia Newton John. No fucking talent, couldn’t sing for shit, didn’t know a crotchet from a pair of satin pants, but… Olivia… Newton… John… Who became more a ‘volume right down’ kind of singer in my world.

Do beautiful people sing better than ugly ones? Well, Olivia doesn’t, for sure. And does this make me shallow? Perverse? Superficial and trivialising??? Probably.

But who cares?

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Yesterday’s match between Liverpool and Arsenal really did ‘have it all’. It had football, not a big surprise, it had goals, it had Arsenal disappointment, and we all love that, it had on-field violence, and best of all, quite uniquely, it had off-field violence between a referee and a player. Oh, you think, that happens all the time, some overly-tattooed, steroided thug who earns 70 grand a week pushing around a poor, humble assistant ref. But this was different. The assistant ref elbowed Andy Robertson in the face. After the match. It was brilliant. The ref then realised what he’d done, pulled out a red card and showed it to himself. Ok, that’s what should have happened. But as no-one saw it and there were only 78 cameras on around Anfield, it was only a matter of time until it was ‘found’. Was it ‘intentional’? If someone’s grabbing you from behind, the natural ‘escape’ is to throw your elbows blindly about. But if he looked, took aim at the Scotsman’s chin and ‘fired!’, then its different. Possibly better.

I’m not one to play ‘the blame game’. Arsenal lost, having been a seemingly comfortable 2-nil up, because they lost the plot. But IF I was pointing any fingers… IF I was, then all ten would be in Granit Xhaka’s face. We’d all thought the Swiss person had overcome his famous temper, having been a model of restraint and gentleman-ness for a year or so. But then… then… a horrible tackle on Trent A-A resulted in a fracas and both received yellow cards.

But that event awoke the sleeping beast.

They crowd at Anfield had gone very quiet, as it appeared that their team were simply shit. In the Cop you could hear a zombie knife drop. But then suddenly, 50,000 Scousers all had a focus for their constant state of misery and entitlement-deprivation: Granit Xhaka! And there was no question that it was his action which provoked them into action which spurred on their team because the match simply changed at that precise moment over to Liverpool’s favour. Arsenal were very lucky, both to avoid conceding more and for having a goalkeeper who prevented them from losing twice more.

Players without discipline are a liability to the teams they’re fighting (literally) for. Don’t they get that? Could be a sending off, or, as yesterday, it riled up the opposing crowd. Message to Xhaka: don’t be a tosser.

Happy Bank Holiday Monday. If Jesus was alive today (kind’a literally, rather than… sort of, that other way) He’d drive an electric car.

A xxxx

I love this time in the football season. The sharp end. When things get decided. Who wins what. Which cups go to whom. Where the valuable final placings are set.

Spurs are still in with a good shout for a 4th place finish. We just need Newcastle to get a 10-point penalty deduction for some dubious Saudi irregularities there, which I’m sure could be found in time. Or for Manchester United to just fuck off. Oh, and we need to win a few more games. Possibly the most difficult of those three possibilities. Though we did win yesterday. I’ll say ‘the hard way’, but ‘at da ennadaday’, free points is free points. Innit. The hard way? Yeah, we always do things the hard way. Yesterday’s hard bit involved having 2 Brighton goals overturned by VAR (I fucking love VAR, always have, never had a bad word to say about it) and they also had a clear cut penalty not given. So effectively we lost 4-2 but actually managed to win it 2-1.

And we also ‘lost’ our caretaker manager and our possible next manager (if tales are to be believed) who both got sent off by the ref after fighting on the touch line.

Oh yes, managers. Where push comes to shove. And both apply when they get sacked. At this time of year it all becomes very critical.

Nottingham Forest lost yesterday leaving them in a very precarious position. Leaving the club in a ‘stick or twist’ situation with their manager. ‘Shit or bust’, perhaps. Because although they love(d) Steve Cooper in Nottingham, would a change improve their chances of relegation avoidance?

Chelsea have tried the ‘twist’ option, though being fairly ‘safe’, they can afford to experiment. So they brought in Frank Lampard as a ‘caretaker’ because he’ll (apparently) ‘boost the morale’ at the club. How’d that work yesterday, Frankie?? And his problem will be the same as his predecessor’s, namely, how do you keep multi-million pound superstars happy when they’re sitting on the bench because you have too many to count? Personally, I find the man rather depressing.

David Moyes managed to scrape a win with West Ham yesterday leaving him safe for the next 8 days until they lose to Arsenal.

Here’s my plan for Spurs:

Get Vincent Kompany in as manager, (suggested by Nathan the Gooner, bless him). He’s fucking brilliant, (Kompany, not Nathan, as I said, he’s a Gooner), delightfully charming and has done miracles at Burnley. The man is a ‘winner’ in every sense and I love him. Possibly not as much as I love Ollie Watkins, the Villa striker, with whom I have a man-crush. We should sell Harry Kane (yes, I am the antichrist but hear me out) and with the 295 million quid we get, buy in Ollie and build some creativity into the team. We need Christian Eriksen back. Or Luca Modric, he’s got a few more… months in him, surely?

Ok, Arsenal playing at Liverpool is a rather delicious fixture for later, I shall enjoy. Possibly.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Ok, that was Passover. Which is ‘an ongoing issue’ for the next six days, but the main event, the ‘seder’ is now, officially, over. We did one Wednesday night at extended family and it was fab. We told the story. But Lila and Joey weren’t there as it was felt that 3 hours of intellectual debate (not me), drinking alcohol and being profane (definitely me), might be too much for ones so small. So last night we had our own one, at home, in their honour. Because it is a great story, filled, as most biblical stories are, with horror and death, intrigue and destruction, murder, escape, goodies and baddies and miracles. Even so, the kids’ attention spans were much longer making their chocolate brownies than for ‘the story’. Which lasted about 12 minutes before descending into chaos. If I’m honest, that was 9 minutes longer than I’d thought.

So we’re moving on. Its time for Jesus to rear his head once more, as it is Good Friday. Another good biblical tale including horror and death… etc. I’ve always been confused by precisely why the day was in any way ‘good’, celebrating as it does, the crucifixion of the main character. Its like having Top Gun 3 in which Tom Cruise dies in the opening ‘shot’. But there ya go, maybe those Christians had a great sense of irony when they named the day. Or maybe they weren’t Tom Cruise fans.

But I love Easter, like truly, madly, deeply love Easter. Not only you get the longest weekend of the year off work, but you get to do it (if you have ‘foresight’ and ‘planning’) with a cupboard full of Easter Eggs. Like wot I do. Even though they seem to be an endangered species these days and much harder to find than they’ve always been.

But Jesus. Died on Good Friday, came back Easter Monday. So the legend goes.

What did he do on Saturday and Sunday? That’s what I want to know. Did he go to Spurs, like all the other good, Jewish boys? Or was he already that ‘very naughty boy’ we later learned he was? I think we need to know.

My only Jesus experience was one day walking past Lords Cricket Ground (a TRULY holy place) when a complete stranger stopped, looked at me and said: “Jesus died to save you”. Nothing else, then he walked on. He was not (apparently) nutter, nor tramp, neither priest (no collar) nor rabbi (no beard), but they were his only words. My sole concern being that if this was true, did my salvation end upon resurrection? I’ve been worried about it ever since.

Happy Easter, may it be kosher.

A xxxx

And thus did the Jewish people escape their slavery and bondage, their enforced BDSM, at the hands of the Egyptians, not even having time to wait for their bread to rise, as Moses led them through the Red Sea which God parted, because there were no people traffickers with rubber dinghies. They were met in Palestine by Suella Braverman who sent them to Rwanda… sorry, wrong story. Everyone knows the Passover story, its told every year. And tonight will be no exception. Because the story needs to be told, and it will be. Its actually fun, that rarest of commodities in any religious event. So much fun that it’s now been promoted to a ‘cultural event’ to allow me to enjoy it too.

And its all about symbolism. We eat special foods, like a mix of chopped apple, nuts and wine, to symbolise the cement they used to build the pyramids, we eat horseradish and other bitter herbs to symbolise bitter times, eggs for re-birth and, of course, we eat matzo. Unleavened bread. To symbolise the stupidity and insanity of modern day interpretations by obsessives.

For the next eight days, no Jew worthy of the title would let bread pass his/her/their lips. Ok, I get the symbolism, let’s ride it for a week. But because bread is made with wheat, all wheat products must be banned too. Not just banned, but banished from the home. Bread, cereals, pasta, anything with anything wheaty included or even implied. Like… whisky!! Made from… something akin to wheat, I don’t fucking know, ask a farmer. Cutlery and crockery is changed over, lest a bit of stray wheat be stuck on a spoon after the dishwasher has steam-blasted it for 15 minutes. You must avoid wheat!!!! At all costs.

And it costs a fortune. Because those who, like REALLY care, will only eat foods which have been marked as ‘kosher for Passover’, meaning that the pint of milk in their fridge, with that essential label, has been watched, from cow-shed to supermarket, to ensure no wheat fell in it on the way. But its milk? You may think. BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW ITS NOT CONTAMINATED!!!! With… BREAD!!!! Because health and safety is so stringent that NOTHING enters manufactured foods, ever. But there ya go, no label, not kosher. Jam, cheese, Coca-fucking-cola. And, of course, labelled produce is 20 to 50% higher in price than ‘normal’. Cos some schmuck with a beard has to watch it all the way. To ensure its wheat-free-ness.

But here’s the stupidity and insanity bit. The only thing you can eat is matzo. And its made of wheat.

When the nice and fun and lovely gives way to the obsessive and stupid, that’s where I get left behind. But I do love a good story. And even more, a good meal.

Happy Passover

A xxxx

Abdoulaye Doucoure, the Everton midfielder, was speaking before Ramadan, stating that he always fasts during the holy month, and it never affects his football. Especially as sunset is before evening matches, allowing the worshippers to break their fast before kick-off. But the Premier League have agreed to an extended ‘break’ during play to allow fasting Muslims to eat and drink a bit more.

Or to take the opportunity to punch Harry Kane in the face. As Doucourte opted for last night. Its up to them how they choose to celebrate their faith.

In response to the assault, Harry Kane did what 100% of players would do in the situation: fall on the ground as if dead, clutching his face as if it might have been permanently dislocated from his head. Rivaldo famously did that when kicked in the leg. But he was the tosser’s tosser. The simulator’s simulator. And its all about simulation. Making mountains out of molehills, or just, bearing in mind the time of year, ‘making a matzo pudding’ out of virtually nothing.

Harry received a yellow card for his performance, and rightly so. He was hoping for an Olivier. But I cannot bear the righteous indignation of the pundits, the commentators and all the other players when they attack someone for this, agreed: horrible and ridiculous, over-acting and ‘simulation’. Because every single player will try to get whatever advantage he can from any situation. And winding up opposition players to the point where you ‘take one for the team’ is in every club’s match-book. Its what Jack Grealish has based his entire career on. The pundits, when still playing, all did it. The other players, grouped round Harry telling him to get up and stop acting, all would do the same. It doesn’t make it right. Its not nice to watch. But they ALL do it. Why Harry chose to extend it to Act 2 I don’t know as Doucourte was already off the pitch, but there ya go. Overkilled.

13 Premier League managers have ‘gone’ this year. Out of 20 clubs. I mean… WTF??

So, having beaten the crowd by sacking our manager last weekend, the list of putative ‘candidates’ was lined up by the press as replacements. Then on Sunday after Chelsea and Leicester ‘did the double’, the papers immediately lined up that same list as the possibles for the Chelsea job. Not Leicester, they’re not big enough for the ‘names’ on that list. You have to be a big, rich and fairly stupid club, like Spurs or Chelsea, to ‘qualify’ to include Nagelsmann or Pochettino in your wish-list. And if Nagelsmann’s arrival at Spurs is ‘conditional’ on qualification for the Champions League (I hate him already), how would he feel about leading Chelsea in the Championship? It could happen!!! If only.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

This is the amazing, wonderful and simply breath-taking Valkyrie. Designed by Wagner (Vaaagner, ya plonker) and it actually looks like it could take flight. Which it probably would if the clever bods at Aston Martin hadn’t taken serious measure to keep it grounded whilst the 1100 horse-powers it deploys are trying their best to lift it skywards. But alas this one broke down yesterday. In Acton. The burial ground of supercars. Ok, supercar, don’t think any others have ever had a reason to go to Acton. This one did, and regretted it. Though it is about 3 weeks old, so possibly needed a service. To the great amusement of the great unwashed population of that fine town, quick to point out that their 17-year-old Nissan Micra has never broken down. Which is true. But their 17 year old Micra doesn’t have a massive, 12-cylinder, hyperspace-activated, super-noisy, fucking great engine, AND, an electric motor, for MORE power, in case the other one ain’t sufficient. Yet it wouldn’t go.

At speeds of under 20mph the Valkyrie uses only electric power so you can give Greta Thunberg a lift if you need to. Then, at 21, in kicks something that could take a moon-rocket into orbit and you’re in Ealing before you can say “FUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKK MEEEEEEEEE!!!!” But you’d have to kick Greta out before it happens and she can take the bus the rest of the way. But the electric motor doesn’t recharge and has a range measured in yards rather than miles. AND… when its out of charge, the petrol engine doesn’t take over. Its not allowed below 20mph. So you’re stuck in Acton with sufficient power to get you to Manchester in 14 minutes, though I can understand any respectable car’s reluctance to make that trip, and you can’t move the vehicle.

This is a problem. Ok, its a full-fledged racing car, meant for a track but made road-worthy by ticking a few MOT boxes. But if you get in heavy traffic for a little while… basically, you can only drive it if you have a spare car following you. And an AA man. Cheap rubbish.

You could always take the coach instead and go to Dover to visit France. Shouldn’t take more than 15 FUCKING HOURS to get through border control. As happened on the weekend, becoming an official ‘critical incident’. And yet Home Secretary, Suella Braverman said it was unreasonable to blame this on Brexit. Ok, Suella, nothing to do with Brexit. Whereas before Brexit one coach took one turn at the departure gate. Now, every single person on the coach needs to be individually checked. But she’s right; nothing to do with Brexit. Other than everything about it. We just need to learn to be more patient. Oh, ok.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Look, I’m not saying its, like, the accepted viewpoint, nor really barely an acceptable one, but TO ME, (I’m really not qualified to speak for you, nor would I want to, you have your own views which are allowed to conflict with mine, if you’re totally ignorant!), all vegans are stupid. There, I’ve said it. I can’t help it. I could really have said a lot worse but chose to use ‘nice’ terms to insult this obviously mentally challenged group. Depriving yourself of most of the food groups that it took us 75,000 years to evolve into eating because of their immense benefits to us, is one thing. Not wearing shoes is something else. Nice on the beach, not so good on the tube. But that’s their choice. Its not a ‘lifestyle’, its an ‘identity’. He, him, they, carnivore.

But when they choose to disrupt massive events of national treasure status, then I have to stand up and take note, before falling back to sleep.

The vegans are going to attack the Grand National!!!! Stop it in its tracks. Or on its track. Whatever. Its going to be stopped as hundreds of pale, emaciated and skeletal people with really bad skin chain themselves to stables, glue themselves to horses, tie themselves to… anything involved in that greatest of historic and wondrous horse races.

Ok, whilst I’m putting it out there, just a word on ‘me and horse-racing’. Actually, there is no word. No words, no actions, no nuffink. Me and horse-racing just don’t… anything. I’ve always hated it on tv. In the days of ‘2 tv channels’, both showed horse racing for all of Saturday afternoon whilst me and my grandmother were waiting for the wrestling to come on. It is the dullest of dull activities. Horses get whipped. And they’re the lucky ones. At ‘the National’ they fall over a 26 foot hedge someone’s stuck right in their way. They break a leg then lie in a heap on the ground. As 19 more horses trip over them and break their legs. Horse racing exists for gambling. And for the Queen, but she died. So I agree that if the Grand National was sabotaged it would arguably be a good thing. But by vegans?? Can’t someone else do it, FFS?

Where are all the animal rights protesters when you need ‘em?

Happy Sunday

Superman can’t be shot, can’t be stabbed, bombed, nuked, tickled, crushed or suffer ingrowing toenails. He’s invincible. Because he’s ‘made of steel’, yet is not actually steel, he’s much stronger than that. Kryptonite is another story.

Donald Trump is similarly invincible. He just invokes the ‘fake news’, ‘conspiracy theories’ and ‘political motivation’ force field and any accusations simply bounce off, whether they’re him talking of ‘just grab ‘em by the pussy’, or acting as a catalyst for the Capitol riots, paying porn stars 130 grand to keep quiet about his affair or then claiming that money as a ‘legitimate business expense’.

And there’s a sad reality in this. 100% of Trump supporters, who you can tell by their exceptionally low IQ scores, wearing baseball hats indoors, flying of confederate flags and their total disbelief of anything to do with grobal warning or anything similar, are still 100% behind him following news of his imminent arrest. In fact, in their (pathetic, small) minds, they’re now 125% behind him!!!!

Trump’s stock has grown. Impossible to believe. Anywhere but the USA. His supporters have rallied behind his discomfort and all hailed ‘political motivation’ by them Democrat Yankees in Nooo Yawwk, resulting in this ‘witch hunt!!!’

But if you find a woman (sorry, I think it has to be a women in this context… or someone who identifies as such) with a long, warty nose, a high black hat, riding a broomstick with a black cat on the pillion, casting spells, then you’ve found a fucking witch.

Similarly, if Trump has cheated in his taxes (agaiaiaiaiain) then he is guilty. Whether the DA in New York chose to bring this case to try and get Trump off the next election ticket or not is irrelevant. The charges are there. If the fat blond had committed murder, would his ensuing arrest be fobbed off as ‘merely political’?

I really fear that whatever the outcome, this possibly misplaced use of legal action will catapult the fat git back to the White House. The precise opposite of its intention.

God Help America.

And Happy Birthday to Lila who I couldn’t love any more if she turned into a 3 foot Cadbury’s Easter Egg.

A xxxx

I wish I lived in America. Not for the guns, though I still really NEED one of those machine guns from The Matrix, but for the courtroom dramas. You would think that every American spends at least 20 days a month either being sued, suing someone, being charged with murder or just being the wrong colour. And that’s just the famous ones. Going to court is now the number 1 entertainment in the USA. Followed by NFL in second place and cross-burnings a close third (regional variations may apply).

This week it was Gwyneth. And she bloody won!!! The guy who was suing her for $300k suddenly upped the ante to $3.2 million under the mitigation that ‘due to the permanent mental damage caused by that accident I hadn’t realised she was fucking minted’. Fair enough. But then he lost anyway. Because it was fairly obvious that he was a chancer and that he had skied into her, albeit backwards up the hill. Bastard.

And now its Trump. What ‘many’ (ok, ‘me’) are calling ‘the dream scenario’, Donald Trump is to be charged under the law. Not sued in the smart, clean, dress-down civil courts, but banged up in an orange jump-suit and held in chains in the criminal division. And his crime? Nothing to do with the Capitol riots, but about a payment made to Stormy Daniels just before his last victorious election. To ensure her silence about their ‘love affair’. Paid her $130,000. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that the money was accounted for as ‘legal fees’, instead of what it actually was, which was a slut-fund. Like a slush-fund but more enjoyable.

(I’ve checked and in this context the word ‘slut’ is actually not just acceptable but seen by Ms Daniels as a type of free advertising).

So Donald is being ‘done’ for false accounting. Which is a bit like Al Capone finally being arrested but for tax evasion, but to be honest, we’ll take anything at this point.

The only tragedy in the whole affair is that even if Trump is found guilty, and even if he actually serves prison time, he can STILL stand in the next presidential election. America’s system is like that. All you need to be a president is a pulse. Jo Biden proved that, and his was much weaker than Trump’s. There’s no moral prevention from standing. And knowing the average intellect of the average Trumpster, he’ll probably win. And they’ll have to replace ‘reports from the oval office’ with ‘the 12×12 (only ‘feet’ in America, wouldn’t know what a ‘metre’ looks like) box with bars on the windows… office’.

This gets better and betterer

Happy Friday

A xxxx