Andy's Glasses

Last night, an inauspicious Tuesday in January, was elevated, hopefully temporarily, to its new status of ‘the best day of my life!!!!’

Because this is what it has come to. For me. And possibly many other Spurs fans. Arsenal didn’t even have to lose to have me leaping around the lounge in joy and excitement (didn’t actually leave the couch; it was metaphorical ‘leaping’), the nil-nil draw with Newcastle was sufficient to once more believe in god. Ok, maybe not a ‘proper god’, he’d have Spurs at the top of the league, but some lesser type god, like the Greeks had. Possibly why the Greeks are no longer have a serious football league. I make no judgments and refuse to make religious observations. Other than about Catholics, obviously.

The match was simply… dull. But dull has a place. And that place was apparently the Emirates as Newcastle simply blunted the Gunners for 95 minutes (though Arteta wanted MORE!!!!, much much more for all that time-wasting). Newcastle had a plan, and it worked. The plan, brilliantly devised by Eddie Howe, was ‘STOP THEM!’ And they did. They pressed the Arsenal players, they ganged up on them, they blocked them and, if none of that worked, they just hacked them down. Always good to see. The Arsenal players, to their immense credit, fell about writhing on the floor at the merest touch and deserve the collective Oscar for ‘tossers in torment’, after the type of acting one is rarely privileged to see outside a year 3 pantomime. Yet they chose to mock any Newcastle player who went down either genuinely or to waste time. Which Newcastle started at minute 1.

As the match progressed, Mikel Arteta got proportionately frustrated, angry and obnoxious. But heh, that’s his job. One of them. The other is winning matches but that didn’t go quite as well as the ranting and shit.

So that it. Arsenal ‘dropped 2 points’. The first two they’ve dropped at home this season, and all the better for it. Unfortunately, they’re still 8 points clear at the top of the table. For now!!! Until Spurs start our ‘run’. Any minute now. Just you wait and see!

(Not very) Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Well, Pele died over a week ago, and even with Spurs playing on Sunday, there’s still no contestants emerging to challenge for his ‘best player ever’ title. But scanning the papers I’d missed whilst away, I came across the Times’ obit supplement. Which is brilliant. Ok, they’ve had a long time to prepare it, he took a long time for the inevitable to seal the deal, but even so. And of all the brilliant quotes, this one from Eric Cantona is the one I like best. Better even that “Hello, I’m Ronald Regan, the president of the United States of America. You need no introduction, everyone knows who Pele is”. But the nutty Frenchman summed up my own feelings totally. Even reducing his normally very opaque style of saying anything to honour Pele. Not just the man. But ‘that pass’, for ‘that goal’, in that game in the that World Cup. A simple ‘lay off’, no pressure, nothing fancy, at the end of a move starting with the Brazil goalie and ending up with the ball slammed into Italy’s net by Brazil’s right back. For me it is the best goal ever, in the best world cup ever and despite what happened immediately beforehand and immediately after, ‘that pass’ defines the brilliance of Pele. And I think I speak for Eric Cantona here too. Because his English ain’t dat good.

During two exceptionally long flights I watched some films. Not about Pele. Oddly there was one about Maradona on offer but I declined it, being so close to Pele’s death. And because there’s a limit to how long I can spend with ear buds in. So I watched ‘Where the Crawdads sing’ because I loved the book. The film was ok. Not brilliant, but resoundingly ok. Such a great story they couldn’t go that far wrong. But then decided for the ‘mega-schmaltzy’ option at the end. So many people watching it they had to bale out the tears with buckets so the plane didn’t sink.

But then I watched ‘Bullet Train’. And that is brilliant, with no qualifying statements. Ok, its weird, its wacky, its bizarre and its very funny, but that’s all good. Its a bit Tarantino, but the violence is more heavily stylised; its a bit Guy Richie and its basically Brad Pitt being very very dry and silly. There’s others in it too, but no-one you know and they virtually all die by the end anyway. Everyone dies in this film. Not Pele, he did it on his own. I’d never heard of this film but if you can find it, watch it. You’ll thank me. Or hate me for wasting 2 hours of your life.

I watched the latest version of ‘Firestarter’ because that was the first Stephen King book I ever read and thus holds a place in my heart. Which Zac Efron couldn’t fill in this film. Could barely fill a hole in my shoe. The original movie (Drew Barrymore, no less) was fairly awful, this was only dire. I just like the idea of a 6 year old female human flame-thrower. Don’t we all?

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

For anyone living on the correct side of the river, here in the leafy, lovely, little-bit-smug but ever-so-pleasant Norf, Gatwick Airport is where Bealzibub hangs out. It is a curse on modern transportation. Inaccessible, far distant, only approachable on roads you NEVER want to use or by trains which they don’t run at Christmas time. Perfect, let’s fly from there!! Not out of choice, obviously, but it was a charter and Gatwick was part of the deal. Noooooooooo…

I hate driving there but was prepared to. Except: to park is so stupidly expensive that it was cheaper to get a taxi. Which was itself, having unilaterally decided to include our departure date of Christmas Eve as part of the ‘holiday pricing’, also ridiculously expensive. But the trains were striking and the parking not happening so I said to the guy from the mini cab firm we always use; I said: “look Mo, that’s not very Christian of you, is it?”, but no, its holiday, 20 quid extra.

Today we returned. And walked 2 minutes from arrivals to the train station. Where the Gatwick express was ‘un-running due to (pick an excuse and write it here)’. But we didn’t want that anyway. We wanted the Thameslink. Train leaving in 6 minutes, going to West Hampstead. ‘The Dream’. Went to the ticket machine and, due to something like ‘old age’, but for much younger people like me and Mel, the tickets cost £11.90 for both of us. I thought that was a bit steep really, at my age, but let it pass. Arriving in West Hampstead 50 minutes later. The taxi would have taken twice that.

The moral being: there is now hope when forced to go to Gatwick.

As opposed to Spurs for which it is appearing that there is simply no hope whatsoever. I know, we’re 5th in the league but yesterday almost ruined my entire holiday as we reached a low point, even when the bar has been quite low for some time now.

I wonder if Gatwick have a football team…

Happy 2023

A xxxx

… do as the Canucks.

I don’t know when, but long after the Aztecs left, just before Montezuma was revenged, yet way after the ‘Mexico 1970’ World Cup in which Pele was the star, there came a new invasion of Caribbean Mexcio resulting in a new dominant power in the area There was no war, no coup, no meteor strike like the one wot killed the dinosaurs (hit the Yucatan… a long time ago), just, kind’a… death by tourism.

This shouldn’t be a problem. Canadians are the nicest, gentlest, liberal-est, most Trudeau-ist bunch of calm, cold, north-pole-dancers you could ever wish to find. They’re just nice. You go to Vancouver, hop over to Toronto, breeze into Banff, you’ll meet nothing but pleasant, polite, honest, decent Canadians.

Yet should you venture to Quebec… should you enter the land of the ‘Francophone’, you meet a totally different type of Canadian altogether. The look similar to the ‘Anglophones’, they even sound the same if they deign to speak to you in English. But when left to themselves they change… they morph… they degenerate… into something different. More sinister, more evil, more rude, more sunbed-stealing, and, worst of all… they speak FRENCH to each other.

And I’m aware that when anyone anywhere is speaking French, its always going to end in a war, a fight, an argument or a World Cup final loss. That’s just the way it is. But you’re thinking of ‘French French’. The French of Brigit Bardot, of Catherine Deneuve, of little-shit Macron, Sacha Distel; that wonderfully rich and sensual sound which leaves your knees weak and your goalkeeper floundering (Spurs joke, which really isn’t fucking funny any more).

Whereas I’m talking about Canuck French. Which sounds at times like Russian, at times like Portuguese and all the time like its being spoken by someone who learned French on an online written course with no conversation included. It bears as little resemblance to real French as Dick van Dyck’s ‘cockney’ in Mary Poppins did to real English. The words might be similar but the sound is offensive, lacks feeling, emotion, nuance and anything which might be considered beneficial or ‘nice’.

And our resort, spectacularly wonderful in every other respect, was about 70% occupied by Québécoises. Because for a 4 hour flight they can gain about 40 degrees of Celsius. So I understand their motivation. Doesn’t mean I have to like them.

Happy 2023. I’m at the airport waiting to fly.

A xxxx

I took this picture this morning at breakfast while Mel went to get her muesli, oatmeal, yoghurt, fruit and as many other healthy options as she can fill her bucket with. I waited for less healthy stuff to arrive. Figuring: I’ve got all year to diet and sort out any heart issues, vein blockages, arterial difficulties. Oh! All year is the next 15 hours. So I just clicked my camera to upset a friend in England with whom messaging was occurring. Just to cause him some grief. Because I’m a bad and horrible person, through and through. And then I looked at the picture and, even though I know none of the people in it and, have no desire to meet them, it is a lovely photo, evocative of the total vibe here. Although being ‘new years’ here, (and possibly there) that vibe is shattered by the constant Hispano-Techno music blaring out of the PA. I invented that type of music. It’s loud, fast techno with words in Spanish. Or possibly ‘Techs-Mex’. Shame you can’t share it. Goes like this: “BOOM!!BOOM!!BOOM!!BESSA-ME-MUCHO-BOOM!!BOOM!!BOOM!!DES-PACITO…” rinse and repeat.

The party started at breakfast. As I was finishing my 3rd latte of the morning, those around me were in margeritaville, sipping mimosas or having vodka shots with their pancakes. And why not? You’re only 24 stone overweight, why not load up on beer at 9am?

By the time ‘water aerobics’ started at 12, there were 50 drunk North Americans in the pool splashing round. It was fun. But everything is fun here. Maybe I should rethink the timeshare plan. The I could come next year and probably save at least $5 on the total cost! And just for an investment of 20k. Looking better value all the time. 4000 more trips and I’d break even!!!

The worst part is, even with all the gloating and sending photos like this around to upset those in damp, dark, dismal London, we’re going home tomorrow. Noooooo…
Mel better get up to speed on spicy margaritas or there’ll be trouble.

Happy New Year all, may it bring happiness joy and (you have to say, even though no-one’s assassinated Putin yet), peace.

A xxxx

I have hundreds of tv channels in my hotel room. In fact, 237. And 236 are Spanish, French, German, Russian (?) or Japanese. One is in English. CNN. Which could be worse; it could be Fox News. But that’s in Spanish. Probably showing a Democrat bias here in Mexico. I don’t know.

What I do know is, if that’s the only channel available which we can understand, my knowledge of American current affairs has skyrocketed in the last 7 days. From ‘nothing, couldn’t give a shit’ to a position of deep understanding of all political and social affairs concerning our once-colony to the west. And along with that understanding comes a great relief that we’re no longer responsible for what they do. The Boston Tea Party was a blessing.

Congressman George Santos is big news. A little man in big trouble. He was the first Brazilian gay man to be elected in New York. Or anywhere. As a Republican, even, a party so mired in conservative shit they quake at abortion, shudder at same-sex marriage and take up arms if anyone tries to stop people shooting schoolchildren. They’re also a party not renowned for tolerance to ‘forriners’ either. But Georgey Boy pushed their buttons and won his seat. Fair and square.

Other than the ‘embellishments’ he may have, sort of, accidentally, put on his cv. Just a few ‘pen strokes’, no harm intended, no foul committed. Right. That’s sorted then.

George is the dark-haired, gay version of Boris Johnson. Men who just lie and lie until they get caught. Then they lie some more to get out of it. And then get caught more.

George claimed to have graduated from a prestigious New York college. He didn’t actually graduate anywhere. He then went to work for Goldman Sacks. Except he didn’t. He claimed to be Jewish. “My grandparents escaped the holocaust!!!”, he stated. Then said he was just “Jew-ish” because he has so many Jewish friends. Not much difference there then. And he was virtually bankrupt in January but somehow amassed $700,000 since whilst not employed.

He gets sworn in on Jan 3rd. Unless he lies under oath whilst that’s happening. Which is a possibility. He can only be removed by various complex processes. The easiest one being grassed out by a guy called Kevin McCarthy who wants to be the speaker of the House. But Kevin doesn’t have enough votes to win and feels ‘outing’ Santos would lose him… well, one vote, which he can’t afford. So he’s thus far said nothing.

So this serial ‘embellisher’ will be in government next week. Because no-one needs to trust their government, do they? We Brits know that only too well.

God Bless America!

Happy Friday

A xxxx

The rains returned to this part of Mexico this morning. No problem, so we swam in the rain. It’s warm here anyway and what’s the worst that can happen? You get wet. But then yoga was abandoned half way through because it didn’t merely rain, it cascaded down in biblical fashion. And the instructor was understandably concerned… about his speaker getting wet. Never mind a dozen flabby old Canadians and Brits fucking drowning doing ‘Cobra’, he was concerned for his ‘devices’.

So we did the only viable thing you can do in such circumstances: go to a timeshare presentation and face the hard sell for an hour and a half so Mel could get a free massage in the Spa later. Though it was amusing. It went like this:

This holiday cost you so many dollars (they don’t have pounds here), which works out at so much per day. All your other holidays cost you so much more per night, per person, per flight, per anything else we can add in to confuse you. That works out at 620 dollars per calendar night of full moons taken over the next 7.3 years. If you add on food (otherwise you’ll starve) and drink (otherwise you’ll be sober) and free umbrellas in the rooms, that works out at $36,497.22! If you join our ‘club’ (they’re all fucking ‘clubs’) we’ll discount your future rates at our hotels, plus every other big-name hotel in the world!!!!, (except the ones not included), all at minimum of 20% discount, maximum of 55%!!!!, which is like for free!!! (Most will be fully booked at the time of the first 7 attempts, the rest will laugh when you mention ‘The Club’). PLUS!!!!, we’ll add in a free week of something for every 10 weeks during which someone in the family sustains an injury, AND we’ll give you lots of other things which, if added up together… SAVE YOU ALMOST NOTHING OF ANY VALUE!!!! So just give us $20,000 and sign here.

As Dale Carnegie said: there’s one born every minute.

Alas though, one dies every minute too. And in today’s minute, it was Pele. Who was, for purposes of the next few weeks, until the obits and the dedications and the endless (I hope) documentaries run out, ‘the greatest footballer ever’. For me that works any time but others may choose another ‘god of the game’ in due course. Possibly an Argentinian. Or two.

Raise a glass for Pele. I loved watching him play like no other before or since.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

There’s so many things to do here. I’m more than satisfied with the core activites: eating. Drinking. Sleeping. Lying in the sun which finally, yesterday, made its statement of intent. Ok, and the ‘stretch’ or ‘yoga’ class at 10 to keep Mel happy. She’s never happier than when balancing on one foot and her nose with both arms in the air and the other foot… I’ve forgotten where that went. Mine went sideways onto the floor with the rest of me at that point. Of course there’s swimming but we always swim before breakfast on holidays. Mel does that at home. I refuse to do it anywhere that requires shoes. Or a coat. But on holidays, in we go. She swims her 1.5k and I do 47 metres. Doggy paddle is not fast.

But then there was Zumba. Zumba? You know, dancing round really energetically until you sweat a lot and fall over. Well, that sounds like me. I love dancing and I’m great at falling over (see above). The class was 10 women and me. Would I have been there if the instructor hadn’t been so gorgeous? YES!! I refused to look at her at all in case someone might misconstrue it as ‘objectification’. So, obviously, I did it all wrong. But it was fun.

Today we tried ‘water aerobics’. This is really brilliant. You stand in a swimming pool, making sure you’re not shaded by any trees which might upset your tan and do yet more dancing whilst watching two really loud Mexican guys having the time of their lives whilst managing to avoid giving any instructions. On the basis that no-one applauded them for giving the few instructions they did give, but everyone whooped and yaaayed and clapped when they twerked. What would you have done? Then you all high five as if you’ve scored a winning goal at the Etihad and go back to the pool thinking ‘WTF?’

This afternoon we went to a cocktail making… lesson? Show? Instruction? Whatever, it was just an excuse to drink a few cocktails during the sunlight hours. Not that Americans and Canadians appear to have any such qualms even when not attending a lesson. Us Brits just eat blueberries and drink water. I just can’t do beer with my cornflakes. (As if I’d eat cornflakes when there’s so much good stuff to ruin the diet with).

Some people have complained that my last blog was a bit insulting to Americans. Particularly those… of a certain dimension. I’ve now realised this error. Because there’s loads of immensely fat Canadians here too!! I never knew. I’ll re-work the statistics overnight, as soon as I’ve finished my 9th margarita.

Happy who-knows-or-cares-what-day-it-is

A xxxx

Here’s a question for you, after my extensive (all the people here), longitudial (3 days) and very statistically valid (because I think so) study of cultural norms and habits in the populations of the entire continent of North America. This is the question: what do you call a fat Canadian? Answer: an American.

This is a three part study, Americans, Canadians and Mexicans. Based mainly on the dimensions of the box you’d need to store one person. Only the first two of those groups feel the need to enter a swimming pool with a drink in one hand and a phone in the other, like our model above.

Mexicans are easy because they’re already box-shaped. In fact they’re lovely. All of them. Ok, the murderous ones in Acapulco and Mexico City not so lovely, probably, but the ones here are fabulously smiley, friendly and delightful. And they’re all of a type. Short, squat, solid and square. Every single one of them, male and female. Except for the babe who took our Zumba class this morning who was beyond gorgeousness with levels of slimness and athleticism not otherwise seen in the general population. Every food that is nominally ‘Mexican’ is fried. They fry fucking everything. And do it very well. But is that healthy? I must question, however tasty it makes food. And Zumba? Yeah, well, desperate times, man.

Canadians are nice people. Not all, but most. They’re big, friendly and quite tall. And they drink a lot. There again, no-one comes to an ‘all inclusive resort’ not to drink a lot. They’re almost normal size, but taller. But if you find someone speaking with that kind of accent who weighs in at 350lbs, that’ll be an American. Not even a fat American. You really have to scale the heights to become one of those. This is a normal person of the USA. A colossus. Requiring a box six foot long, 5 foot wide and 5 foot deep to accommodate him/her. Some are quite friendly but best avoided at meal times.

Tomorrow we’ll concentrate on the other dominant grouping here in Mexico (and everywhere else in the world), Orientals.

There is one other British couple here. I met the man-half at breakfast piling, I kid you not, about a kilo of blueberries onto his plate. I told him that indeed, if you eat 10 blueberries a day, the oxidising effect can prolong your life by a year. However, if you eat 1000 a day, you will not prolong it by 100 years. You’ll be in hospital being sick. Your body can only metabolise so much good stuff, just like bad stuff. The rest is wasted. He’s from Birmingham so I’m not sure how much he understands.

But I’ve resisted the urge to ask anyone ‘where are you from’, you know, just in case they get upset and I get sacked for racism.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

And things to do in Mexico when it rains.

You do…

Yoga!!!

Because you can. And because there’s not really a lot else to do when you’re on a beach, by a pool, geared up for sunshine activities and the sunshine won’t play.

And I’ve always been a bit ‘judgmental’ (vast understatement) of yogis, always sneered at their everything, found no comfort in what purports to be some kind of physical activity but in reality is 17 paths to sleep. How wrong I was! Almost.

We started rather strangely. It’s about breathing. (Like I haven’t worked out how to fucking breathe yet). Cover your left nostril, breathe in deeply through your right one.

My first thought: but there’s no cocaine here.
My second thought: really? Breathing through individual nostrils? That’s gonna make me live longer? Ok, go with the flow… I looked at Mel on her mat with her finger up her nose and was so close to just ‘losing it’.

It did improve. There again, it couldn’t get worse, from that start point. We yogi-ed it up a bit, got a bit ‘warrior’, we downward dogged, did some other horrible things which produced more pain than good, one felt, but you have to do something indoors, why not this.

We stretched, we kvetched, we limbered, we did some balance stuff. We fell over. Ok, I fell over. But you have to. Otherwise you’ll never reach… levels of yoga-ness… to which… errrr… you really need to be.

Then we had a swim. Well, rain’s wet, swimming pools are wet; its a good fit. And it is warm here. Pleasantly so. But the pool’s long. Like 60 metres long. I can do 10 lengths of a 25 metre pool easy. Then I might do another 10 if I’m not bored. But 60 metres in one go? Holy shit, that’s hard. No idea why. We walked along the fabulous beach here. Whilst holding an umbrella.

And the rest of the time we ate. Ok, and drank.

I’m not saying life’s bad here. Just wet.

Happy Monday

A xxxx