Andy's Glasses

Well if the words to that football chant are correct, I’ve completely stopped singing. Not in the car. Shower. Kitchen whilst ‘creating!’. No-where. If you sing when yer winnin’, my voice has been silenced. My team have stopped winnin’. Even the other North London team has stopped winnin’. EVERYONE’S stopped winnin’ round our way. And I don’t like it. Ok, I can ‘cope’ with Arsenal’s almost-invincible run suddenly looking slightly less ‘invincible’ and a bit more ‘pleasant on the eye’, but that’s only because I have a thing for handsome Spaniards in total fucking meltdown. But this is about US, ffs. And our reversion to the old ways. The old paradigm. Flattering to deceive one week, all gone to shit the next. Beat Man City, lose to fucking Leicester. Losing half our team for the rest of the season in the process. Then off to Italy! Not for a holiday, but to work. The San Siro. We only lost 1 nil in Milan, and in many ways that’s encouraging as the second leg is at home and, depending on where we’re lying on our rapidly oscillating ‘sublime to shit’ scale, we have a chance.

Thank the Lord that the rugby has improved or, quite frankly, I don’t know what I’d do. Though appreciate, options are limited and you can’t run your life around random and meaningless games. Even though I do, I do, I do. We ‘thrashed’ Italy on Sunday. That should have served as a metaphor for Spurs but our total team commitment to self-destruction is far stronger than any mere symbolism. And as far as rugby is concerned ‘it’s only Italy’. Even though they’re officially ‘good’ and getting better. However, England looked simply awesome.

I keep getting emails from Spurs trying to encourage me get in touch with my feminine side… of football. Go watch a ‘gel’s match’. And its tempting. Due to the World Cup victory last year by them lionesses, we’re all a bit more girly in our soccer tastes. But a whole match? I catch snippets on the reports programs who now feel they have to include women’s stuff alongside the men’s, and it looks… different. And I should embrace that difference. But sadly keep failing. Can’t help thinking that if the women were a bit fitter (tragically, I mean that in the horrible, common, meaning of objectification, rather than the medico-muscular-stamina way), or a bit better at kickin’ and headin’, I’d be there in the flash of my fiver entry fee. I want to watch 22 women who look like Jennifer Lawrence and play like Lionel Messi. Can’t understand why that’s so difficult to achieve. And yes, I remain, an unreconstructed horrible person.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

So my head’s been itchy and scaly for decades. The twin looked at it to examine. Though it looked like a monkey looking for tasty nits as she parted my hair, she is a doctor, so she’s allowed to eat anything she finds on my scalp. But what she found was that it was ‘Seborrheic’. Holy shiiiiittttt! And suggested that I use coal tar shampoo. I mean, is that even legal in the globally-warming world??? Fucking coal!!! The devil’s substance? Anyway, I’m using it. And what happens is, you apply the shampoo, get a lovely lather, and then smell like a racing car. With a fuel leak. Its so strong and pungent that my eyes water. Though, obviously, that gets mixed up with the shower so its not a big deal. And then I emerge from the shower, but unlike the usual redolence of peaches, coconut, vanilla, cocoa-butter or chilli & garlic (I have some strange beauty products), I stink like the ESSO at Henleys Corner. But what happens if I was meeting Greta Thunberg? Can you imagine????

My education continues, hopefully forever. I finished Dave Grohl’s book, which is sweet. Lovely guy but by the end, all that amazingly gushing exuberance and humility actually starts to very very slightly grate a little. I still love him, but he’s away better drummer than writer.

So I found a new, BBC 4 music series called ‘discover’. Just half hour each. Potted histories, narrated by the same bunch of ‘talking heads’ as always narrate such things. Did Elvis Costello, Mamas and the Pappas, Crosby Stills Nash (and Young), (because Neil Young was always ‘in and out’ due to possibly being the most argumentative Canadian ever to sing Southern Man), and there’s loads more. And the BBC planned them, as I requested, to be ‘precisely the length of Mel’s bath-time’, which they are. And I managed to download a much longer documentary about John Belushi too. Because he was the best ever. Best ever drug taker, comedian, lunatic and wild man.

Education can be quite a time consuming exercise. But it does distract from the football, which is a waste of everybody’s time.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

We all love(d) Pink Floyd. They single-handedly brought down the Berlin Wall and instigated the end of Soviet rule. They crashed real airplanes and space rockets into the stage at concerts, with no-one getting hurt. And although they were bastions of ‘prog-rock’, Ummagumma perhaps took it a touch too far. A double album which had three tracks on it. Just about. As they invented ‘long music’ when everyone else was probing the four minute mark, they were already up to 15. Though I’ll always have a place in my heart for any track titled: ‘careful with that axe, Eugene’, even if the music itself was so much premature insturmental-action. And other than a few isolated tracks, (Money, Another brick in the Wall) my love affair with that band was over pretty much at See Emily Play. Which was ‘early’. Yet, amazingly, they scraped a living together even without my patronage. Probably because, love ‘em or hate ‘em, they were talented.

None more so that the band’s bassist, main writer and undisputed driving force, Roger (fuckin’) Waters.

And then the band split. Awwwww, shame. Waters was a control freak, egomaniac and serial tosser. The others couldn’t live with him. They re-formed later, due to a ‘license to print money clause’ which exists in all massive bands. The ‘pension pot tour’. And then they split again and finally and fairly acrimoniously.

That was when Waters became political. He became the spokesman for the Palestinian cause. Which is a good and worthy cause. Yet like so many warlike struggles, it is simply never a ‘black and white’ thing. But it was for our Roger. The Israelis were ‘Nazis’. And if ever there was a metaphor tragically misplaced, it was there. And ‘the Palestinians’ were the good and repressed. Even Hamas became his friends. The ones who send 120 rockets a day into Israeli schools and civilian areas. Fully justified, according to Roger. Who never took issue with President Assad using chemical bombs on his civilian population, but instigated the ‘BDS’ movement to boycott everything ‘Israel’. Then followed it up by personally calling any musicians scheduled to play in Israel to urge them to abandon their concerts. All together: “Rich Jeremy Corbyn, you’re just a rich Jeremy Corbyn; rich Jeremy Coooor-byn…”

This week he stated that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was ‘not entirely unprovoked’. He was justifying it. Even though, for all us ignorant, blinkered liberals, Putin’s attack was totally unprovoked. But only if you don’t view NATO as ‘an aggressive force for evil’. Like Putin does, and Roger does too.

Waters is now planning to re-record the brilliant ‘Dark side of the Moon’ album. And will not be sharing any of the royalties with any of his former band-members. Because “it was MY project!”, even though they all have shared writing rights from the original. May not end in tears, but definitely in court.

Johnny-the-would-be-tennis-star came up with ‘another prick in the wall’.

This is what Dave Gilmour (guitarist and vocalist with Pink Floyd)’s wife Polly wrote to Rog:

“Sadly [Waters] you are antisemitic to your rotten core,” she wrote. “Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac. Enough of your nonsense.”

I think she sums him up perfectly. And only missed the only word which really does sum him up perfectly. And is so totally appropriate and applicable that I don’t even have to write it. Because you know.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Oh! My! Go-o-o-d!!! You just won’t believe this! Its just unreal. Its, like, totally incredible and, quite honestly, hard to believe. In a really unbelievable way? Ya know what I mean?

But there’s this guy, right, and he’s like ‘really old’ and little and balding, wears glasses, and, like, he can make as much money as Kevin de Bruyne!!!! Who is young and fit and plays for Manchester City and is on the telly every week and was even in the World Cup, though not for very long. And he’s really really famous!!!

This old guy is some lawyer or other, and he’s going to play for Manchester City too! But only, like, ‘on loan’, even though he missed the official transfer window. And he’s an Arsenal fan so I don’t think he’ll be doing much kissing the Man City shirt.

The news that Lord David Pannick, KC, is to represent City in their ‘appeal’ against the charges by the Premier League, all 115 of them, for, essentially, being lying, cheating, bribing, money-laundering scumbags, has been met with amazement. Not that he’s representing them, he’s acting for them before. Not that he’s not good enough, he’s probably the best in the land. But because he might earn as much as a famous footballer.

And I expect such amazement and comment from Lilly Love-Island Lover, or Ines the Instagram Influencer Ignoramus and all others who’ve embraced ‘celebrity culcha’ with every fibre of their tragically obsessed aspirations. Those who equate ‘bein’ on tv’ as the absolute pinnacle of success and all its consequent benefits.

But these very same sentiments were expressed by the Times. By the BBC. “THIS MAN WILL EARN AS MUCH AS KEVIN DE BRUYNE!!!!”, they both proclaimed.

Firstly, all accounts of his fees, both past (as they quoted) and present, are hypothetical. Fabricated. Fictional and always exaggerated by the press.
Secondly the man is arguably the finest legal brain in the country who can possibly save or salvage part of the hundreds of millions which Man City might otherwise lose. He can’t do much for their reputation but even God can’t do that.
And thirdly, there are many ‘old, balding, spectacle wearing men’ who are fucking gorgeous and worth every fucking penny!!!! (Possibly the man who operated on granny and saved her life, the one who invested his pension so it makes money and I’ll include ‘the one who gives the power of sight!!)

There are a few things EVEN more important than the ability to kick a football. Even when you kick it as beautifully as Kevin de Bruyne.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I’d like to make a statement on behalf of Manchester City Football Club, Sheikh Mansoor, Lloyds Bank plc but NOT ADUG (Abu Dhabi United Group) which is owned by the sheikh but is nothing whatsoever to do with the football club or anyone involved with the operation at the Etihad ground.

Manchester City remain innocent of all and every one of the charges made against us. Of which there are just 115. No club is 100% ‘squeaky clean’, we’ve just lowered the percentage a little. To about 4%. Maybe less. And yet have constantly complied with all financial regulatory statutes of the Premier League. Well, certainly most of them. Possibly some of them. Ok, one. The one about car park charges.

But that shows our intention to total compliance. And the fact that these allegations of impropriety date back to 2008 is out and out racism due to that being the time that Sheikh Mansoor bought the club. Because he is very… racey.

And we are fully aware of fair play regulations in which all payments to players, staff, management must be declared and be within certain limits compared to the profits made and excess spending beyond that by the club is a contravention of that rule.

Allegations that the wonderful, legal and somewhat ‘flexible’ sponsorship arrangement we have with Etihad Airlines (which may or may not be controlled by Sheikh Mansoor) are illegal are slanderous. The fact that for 12 successive seasons this ‘sponsorship’ has varied by tens of millions and moves the club from ‘debt beyond what be acceptable’ by fair play rules, to ‘sitting pretty’ is purely coincidental.

Further payments allegedly made by ADUG to players, managers, cleaners and any other members of staff… in fact to all members of staff, are in ALL cases, for work done OUTSIDE the club’s responsibilities, nothing to do with Manchester City at all, even though all work for Manchester City. And are allowed to contract to ADUG, OUTSIDE of their Manchester City stuff.

Furthermore we have complied in full with this inquiry for the last four years with complete openness, helpfulness, transparency and integrity. Though not necessarily with honesty where it may compromise our excellence at blurring boundaries and creating offshore pretend companies created for purposes of money laundering.

We don’t understand why Harry Redknapp is not chairing the investigation, as we suggested early on. He’d understand. And if not, we’d put him on an ADUG contract until he does understand.

Happy Tuesday

Spokesperson for the Board (He, his, penis, gents, whatever)

xxxx

You are not your brother’s keeper. Its official. He does shit; you’re not to blame. Why would you be? Ain’t fair to state otherwise. So why are you responsible for a great great great great great great grandfather? Who lived hundreds of years ago, you never met and, other than some much-diluted DNA, you have nothing in common with. Nah, nuffink to do with me.

Unless the ‘me’ in question is rich. Or ennobled. In which case this bizarre statute of limitations is extended infinitely and all descendants can be held responsible and punished for all eternity.

Like poor (ish) Laura Trevelyan. She’s a BBC journalist who happens to have had a very rich descendent back in the 1700s. Turns out, old gran-pappy Trevelyan was a slaver, so Laura duly gave 100 grand to some cause or other, to send some slaves back, return them home, or whatever this money is supposed to do. But now they’ve found he was also a big player in the Irish famine of seventeen hundred and whenever, in which tens of thousands of Irish people died. Not even slaves! But dead, just the same. And this man, the governor of Irish things, or minister for food or whatever, at the time, said that the famine was God’s punishment to the Irish. For… being Irish, or… well, in need of punishment either way. A perfectly reasonable thing to say, IN ITS DAY, I’m sure. Well, fairly sure. So now the Irish want reparations for the famine from the Trevelyans. And whilst we’re there, and they’ve got the cheque book out, I think I was wronged by a Trevelyan once, back in the day. 1856 it was, I remember it clearly. Uncle Hershel was walking along Warsaw High Road and he got attacked by a pogrom led by a Trevelyan and they made his tsitsit dirty.

I sort’a get the pulling down statues bit. Long as its done with agreement by all parties. Although we all have skeletons in our closets. Its a bit ‘judging what was done then by our standards now’, but I get the upset such things can cause.

But can you start moaning to people in 2023 about stuff their ancestors did in 1755? Its like a little girl going up to Joey and demanding his lollypop because of what his grandfather did to her grandmother at a party in Gants Hill in 1974.

It was never proven.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

The Mail is the most read paper in the country, normally because its online editions are free. And quite frankly, who would pay for shit like this? The country’s in an economic crisis, the prime minister fragile, leader of the opposition worthless, we’re on the verge of nuclear war, Chelsea just spent 300 mil in the transfer window, we lost the rugby to Scotland in the last minutes and yet the front page is given over to this person. The ‘older woman who took Harry’s virginity’. Message to the editor of the Mail:

NO-ONE FUCKING CARES!!!!

Whereas we do indeed care that Spurs are 1 nil up against Manchester City with just one minute, plus stoppage time, left to play.

I should have been there. It was written in the stars. But alas, not in my diary. Which instead reminded me that I had a ‘day of professional bollocks and lectures’ at County Hall, booked last September. So when some tickets came my way and I excitedly grabbed them, I then had to subsequently release them when the brutal realisation occurred. That I was to be at the South Bank for 10 and not return til 5. Just in time to see the final half hour. Which has been brutal, which has been frantic, panic-stricken, horrible, down-to-10-men-ish and quite frankly, horrible. But WE WON!!!!!! And I realise that we only beat ‘this year’s Manchester City’, who are nothing as good as ‘last year’s version’ but we can only play who they bring in the coach. And if they choose to bring this year’s Haaland and De Bruyne and Grealish, so much the better. Even though we beat them last year too, when they were good.

The rugby yesterday, which the mail decided was not as important as Harry and a slag in a field, was simply brilliant. Ok, would have been brilliant-er-er if England had won but it was such an outstanding match I almost didn’t mind. Ok, I did a bit.

And in The Mail tomorrow, right across the back pages, will be no mention of Spurs or Manchester City, but a feature on the first sexual experience of all the players from Accrington Stanley.

Incredibly happy Sunday

A xxxx

Because my bedtime book, The Ink Black Heart, weighs 14.7 Kg, I won’t take it on the tube. So I need a tube ‘read’. And if I read another novel I’ll get the two confused in my head. It happens. What’s Jack Reacher doing at Hogwarts FFS?? Why, when Harry met Sally in a deli in New York, did he disembowel her with a tyre iron in an alleyway in Peckham? And I had no non-fiction on my kindle. But I did have another book. A real one. Which someone gave me… a year ago? 2 years, maybe? Been on my bedside table for a long time, holding up my box of tissues. A valuable job, but not its real purpose in life. Its The Storyteller, the autobiography of Dave Grohl. So if its yours, do send me a message, so I’ll know exactly who is never going to get it back.

Because its wonderful. We all know Dave Grohl, except people who don’t. Who were never into Nirvana, who don’t head-bang to Foo Fighters. Oh, that Dave Grohl. And if you’ve ever seen him on tv programs, you’ll know he’s absolutely the nicest man in the world. Just lovely, funny, super. And thus his book. Which is wonderful. I wholly recommend it, but not necessarily to the person who lent it to me, cos he/she has already read it. Its a very easy read. And interesting because it dispels a lot of those silly ‘rock-n-roll lifestyle’ preconceptions. It takes up to about page 150 before our Dave is even eating proper meals every day. Because you make fuck-all with a small-time band, on the road, sleeping in the group’s van and struggling to make enough to pay for the petrol to the next venue.

Now, I don’t want any spoilers but I’m up to page 185 and he’s been sharing a flat with Kurt Kobain for 5 months in Seattle, Nirvana have just gone MASSSSSIVE and our Dave’s just noticed that Kurt has a bit of heroin problem. I give him about 5 pages but DON’T TELL ME!!!

The book’s great (so far), the man’s wonderful, charming, delightful. But will be forever immortalised in my mind for the incredible drumming on Smells Like Teen Spirit, which is possibly The Definitive rock song of all time.

Arsenal lost at Everton, you could hear Frank Lampard cheering for Sean Dyche all the way up there. I’m sure.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Ok, so January’s over, the transfer window has closed for football, and here are the results:
Spurs bought three new players, though unloading Matt Doherty may feel like we got 4. Arsenal bought a few new ones, and one very old one, but I’d have Jorginho in my team any day. Except Thursday. Manchester City hardly bought anyone. Mainly because they pretty much own virtually all the best players anyway. Manchester United made a couple of acquisitions… and Chelsea bought the rest. All of them. Every available, and quite a few thought unavailable, player made their way to Stamford Bridge. Hundreds of them. Costing billions. And billions, and billions. Because them Yanks know how to do shit. And buying players in such an excess that you’d have the dogs from Financial Fair Play sniffing all along the Kings Road, but no. Firstly, the FFP don’t use dogs, they use doves and cuddly wittle wabbits, because they’re spineless tossers. And secondly because what Chelsea have done, in their massive spending spree is something new. Something to avoid falling foul of the authorities. They’ve paid ridiculous transfer fees, but spread them over the terms of the players rather long contracts. Much longer than usual. So you buy some Spanish diva for 100 million, but give him a 10 year contract and pay his old club 10 mil a year for its duration. That way, rather than having a spend way in excess of what’s allowable this year, they only have to pay a fraction of that cost during any one year. A rather cynical ploy that is being shored up by UEFA, or FIFA, as soon as suitcases full of cash reach sufficient levels for them to act. But meanwhile, dozens of new boys are arriving in SW10 for their medicals and to have the mandatory ‘666’ tattooed on their heads.

And thus starts the second half of the season. One in which everyone is waiting for Arsenal to slip up, for Manchester City to up their game, for Brighton and Brentford to carry on entertaining, and for Liverpool to get relegated.

And fantastic news for Spurs fans today. Antonio Conte, our manager, has been admitted to hospital with cholecystitis. And I’m sure all of us are sending our wishes to the staff to keep him there for as long as possible, preferably at least until May.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I had a busy day yesterday. I had lots to do because I had to rush off early. For an appointment. With Joey. And 15 other 3-year olds. Because I was the designated ‘reader’ for the day. At ‘book time’ or ‘reading time’ or ‘celebrity read-over’ or whatever they call such things in nursery school. Well, I can read, can’t I? So why not. Didn’t say you need to be a good reader or nuffink, just “read!”, and I can do that.

They sat me on a special chair. Well, a chair, as they were all on the floor, all bright eyes and almost heart-breaking eager anticipation. And Joey was honoured to have a little chair next to mine. Being a ‘celebrity by proxy’, as he was. Whilst I was Kim Kardashian.

I started reading and immediately met a hail of shrieks. I needed to hold the book up and facing away whilst reading, so they could see the pictures. Which meant holding it over my right shoulder at head level. And then I gotta read the words, sideways on, through the wrong part of my glasses. But heh, I didn’t make too many mistakes and 3 year-olds, for all their wondrous enthusiasm, can’t fucking read and are unaware of mistakes!!!

Then I came home and was dropped back to Earth with a bang. I did a ‘focus group’, online, for a new test. For the BRCA (“bracca”) gene. Which is the most terrible thing. Its the one that makes you massively likely to have breast cancer, or ovarian cancer, and, generally, as genes go, its the veritable ‘Chelsea’ of the gene pool. Possibly even worse.

But I also learned that as well as those cancers we know about, BRCA also massively increases the risk of getting pancreatic AND prostate cancer too. Because men can have it and its bad, not statistically massive as the breast and ovarian risk but its up there.

And here’s the really bad bit. ‘Normal’ people have a 1 in 250 chance of inheriting the BRCA gene. Ashkenazi Jews have a 1 in 40 chance. All that fucking praying and that’s the thanks you get! Ashkenazi Jews are the ones who hail from Poland, Russia, Germany; the civilised nations. Where they were persecuted to shit and onto boats to safer havens at one time or another.

Anyway, the NHS have come up with a brilliant new test. Its done with just saliva (no needles!!!!), and you do it at home and post it. Lucky postman. And its going to be FREE!!!!! Everyone should take it. But me first, because my risk is greater and even if I didn’t before, I realise that medicine is more reliable than prayer.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx