Andy's Glasses

I’ve changed. Don’t worry, I’m still gorgeous and fabulous and magnificent in every way, but I’ve changed. From being a professional optician, a football fan, political critic and devotee of all the arts (as long as its not ballet, opera or… or art), who happened to be Jewish; I’m now a professional Jew who works, likes football and tolerates politics. Got no fucking time left for arts; being Jewish takes up too many hours. Its a big commitment. And that’s without ever opening a prayer book. God forbid. What a fabulously ironic phrase.

So, hot on the trail of venting my dismay, disgust and disappointment about ambulance-gate, (for which, I’m glad to say, 2 arrests have now been made. I’m not so glad that the police have refused my request for just 10 minutes in the cell with them, just me and my baseball bat), last night I attended a lecture. Which wasn’t really a lecture, more a ‘conversation’. With Natasha Hausdorff. She’s the head of UK Lawyers for Israel and wonderfully outspoken protector of the Jews from people talking rubbish. Because she’s an international law barrister and just tells all the stupid, BBC-inspired sheep, what the words they band about really mean and how the ‘occupied territories’ are actually Israel, according to not just laws, but British laws. And how the police have the power to stop genocidal chants like ‘from the River to the Sea’ but are restrained by a government in fear of losing its not insubstantial left wing from doing so.

Did I say she’s clever? Might have missed that. But most importantly, she is, like me, exceptionally beautiful. And ‘we’ (there were 200 people there) spoke about antisemitism. Because it affects everything. Particularly now.

And, as if to illustrate that very point, the event was held at JW3. The Jewish community centre on the Finchley Road in Hampstead. A fabulous, purpose-built facility and a great ‘space’. They have lectures, concerts, comedians, movies; they have lessons in everything from Spanish to Spanish Omelettes, French to French cuisine, all sorts of things, especially relating to food.

And outside were guards. Several of them. Metal detectors in hand, handbag searches mandatory, 24 hours a day. The centre spends £600,000 a year on security. How much more entertainment could be had for that money? How many more courses, or mobility sessions for people a bit older than me, or cookery classes, FFS, if they could save that vast sum?

But its simply not an option. As proven on Sunday night just up the road in Golders Green. You simply can’t be too vigilant. There is so much ‘hate’, and just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

As political statements go, this was a doozy. As a protest, it kind’a lacked direction. Even as an act of terrorism, it had all the logic of blowing up your own car. It was ‘shitting on your own doorstep’.

Because these 3 total fuckwits decided to blow up 4 ambulances. The very vehicles which may save their (totally worthless) lives, or those of their mothers, grandmothers, cousins. These were not ‘IDF’ vehicles. They weren’t tanks. They were just ambulances, whose only crime was to have hebrew lettering on the side and… horror of horrors… a Star of David!!! Though in fact even that’s now been ‘stylised’ or even ‘disguised’ because of the inflammatory nature of such a sign in antisemite circles.

Hatzalah are a truly brilliant organisation. They are like the NHS ambulance service, but they arrive within about 10 minutes. You call them; they come. They don’t ask your religion, nor race, nor football team, nor anything. They help everybody. Even Chartered Accountants. They come quickly, have highly trained paramedics and liaise with the NHS directly as they take the ailing to hospital. When my poor, dying brother was in his nursing home, they called Hatzolah to take him to the Royal Free for emergency treatment. 5 times they did that. They don’t charge. The don’t ask anything. They just come. Day or night. All the staff are volunteers. Their only funding is by donation. So, generally, we, ‘the community’ fund Hatzolah so it can help everyone, both in and out of ‘the community’. That’s what Jews do when we’re not harvesting the organs of babies for Passover ceremonies and drinking the blood of blond people because it pairs nicely with beef. We’re charitable.

Mel’s dad had a fall when he was living alone. Mel found him on the floor in a pool of blood. 999 offered ‘about 4 hours’ for an ambulance, Hatzolah were there in 5 minutes. It was a Saturday morning. The 2 guys who came in were ‘religious’. Skull caps, tsitsit (a tasseled vest which God apparently likes in his fashionista mode), the lot. Yet it was Saturday morning. The Sabbath. When the religious won’t drive, won’t work, won’t use electric devices. But helping others and saving lives trumps even the Sabbath rules as they patched him up and whizzed him to the Hospital.

That’s what Hatzalah does.

And so three total imbeciles decide to blow them up. Why? Because Hatzalah is Jewish. These dickheads may have been ‘pro-Palestine’ lobby, taken to the ‘we hate Israel AND ALL JEWS’ level. They may have been an Iranian ‘cell’, as Iran has been organising many terrorist ‘events’ around Europe. There were even calls that Israel did it so others would get blamed. Yeah, right.

The government immediately pledged 500k for new vehicles. A move which would be like a lead weight on the massed anti-semites of the Labour back benches, the Corbynites and the hard lefties. But Starmer had to do something for enabling ‘the hate’. By allowing the ‘Gaza’ marches degenerate into ‘gas the Jews’ marches, week in, week out. Too afraid of his own awful MPs to actually halt the rising tide of virulent antisemitism in the country. Which has now reached the point where its apparently open fucking season.

Just out of interest, I made a donation to Hatzalah yesterday. Gerald Ronson gave £200,000 to them. (Mine was a bit less, just a bit.) The Community came up with half a million. In one morning. Not because (other than Ronson), they’re rich, or there’s millions of people, but because we care. Deeply. And have to stand up to the fuckwits. Who, ironically and tragically, also stand to benefit from such a brilliant organisation.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

So life is good. Unless you’re a Spurs fan. Or an Arsenal fan. Or a West Ham fan. (Wolves and Burnley fans don’t count; they don’t live round here). And if you just ‘put yesterday’s match’ into the deepest, furthest reaches of your mind; where you never look. When you force those thoughts away into those hiding places in your head where you keep the lists of things to do that your wife gives you every week; never to be considered again, then the world can seem bright, like the sunshine all around us.

Except the Middle East. That’s never happy. And I don’t get it. Not that they’re not happy, I really get that. Bombs and missiles and running in and out of shelters all day would make clown rip his hair out in anguish. Ok, rip his silly curly wig off, same difference. But what I don’t get is how they started a war with undefined goals. Or defined goals which changed daily. Or goals with shifting goal-posts. And without doing their due diligence..

Essentially, war is scientific. Not the fightin’, that’s just the mechanics. You plan a war. You know what your enemy has in his ‘arsenal’ (not ‘that’ Arsenal, bunch’a losers, the proper one) and you know what it is prepared to do to stop you and how you can overcome such events. And you work out the probabilities and so are prepared.

So the plan seemed to be: we’ll attack Iran to depose the regime/prevent nuclear threat/because they’re smelly Iranians. And once we’ve sent a few missiles over, the ‘masses’ (non-regimists) will just rise up, overthrow the IRCG and raise the flag of old Persia. What could go wrong?

No-one seemed to plan for the ‘regime’ to not just roll over and give up at the first whiff of missile fuel. The projected possibilities never seemed to include closing the Straits of Hormuz, which Lila and Joey could have told them was way more inevitability than possibility. But Lila and Joey don’t have the teams of war strategists that America has and Israel certainly has. Nor the ‘war games’ computer models. Even though Joey wants one for his birthday.

So Trump has now said that if they don’t open the Straight, he’s gonna bomb the entire energy supply network for all of Iran. To which Iran replied that the Strait is not actually closed, for traffic from its friendly, nasty horrible, allied nations, but only to ‘the enemy’ nations, like us. But if Trump bombs, the Straight will be totally closed.

Meaning shipments of oil, mainly, but also food, fertiliser and a million essentials, will become scarce and unavailable. Like petrol. Farmers can’t farm. Heating can’t work. Lights go out.

This is Trump’s ‘are you feeling lucky, punk?’ moment. Who blinks first.

Happy Monday (long as you hide all the shit)

A xxxx

The miracle of the mangled foot continues to the point where people are going to be coming round with their sick, their ailing, their dying and get me to ‘lay hands’ upon them to ‘heal’ them. Or maybe lay my foot on them. It’ll be like Lourdes, but in north-west London. Because I played tennis this morning and it hardly bothered me at all. I just got out of the wheelchair and hit the ball. Ok, exaggerating, obviously, but it was fine. I don’t get it, but I’m happy. Therefore the world is happy.

Well, it was until the football started.

This was the ultimate ‘6-pointer’. Spurs, 5th from bottom, against Nottingham Forest, 4th from bottom. We WERE one point ahead. West Ham are 1 point below. And they lost today, so stay there; one point below us. So this was THE game to win. It’s not going to be ‘easier’, because they’re not 4th from bottom because they’re playing consistently wonderful and winning football. They’re there because, like us, they’re shit and can’t even find the ‘barn door’ to miss from three yards. So it was an opportunity to play just that little bit better than a pretty crappy team.

And yet there’s always the matter of momentum, driven by confidence. And both Spurs and Forest won European matches this week, which creates a massive ‘feel good’. Or so you’d like to think.

It was all square for the first half. Well, til right at the end of the first half. When Forest scored. According to footballing psychology ‘that’s a terrible time to concede a goal’. What these boffins don’t tell you is when is a ‘good time’ to concede might be. Because the answer is ‘never’, obviously. But heh, there’s 45 minutes to play, let’s get out there, let’s justify the truly ridiculous salaries we get paid every week, let’s play like the ‘superstars’ we strut around all week pretending to be as we decide whether to go to training in the Range Rover or the Ferrari. Let’s, for the first time in 2026, WIN A FUCKING LEAGUE MATCH IN OUR MAGNIFICENT, BILLION POUND HOME!!! And can I add: FFS!!!

For my own part; I called upon the gods. All of them. One’s not enough so I tried all the 3,000 Hindu ones, all the Ancient Greek and Roman ones, especially the more obscure gods for shiny hair and fishing and healthy sheep. Then I started on the demi-gods, the Bhuddas and Donald Trumps and my left foot and everyone I could think of. (Spurs fans have lists of Gods with them for every match). And it must be said that, collectively, they were fuck all use. Because we only managed to concede another 2 goals. Maybe if I hadn’t prayed it would have been more?

This was ‘doomsday’. The day’s over, so it’s only the doom left. With an abundance of gloom.

Worst Sunday ever

A xxxx

I had an ‘incident’ on my bike yesterday, coming home from work. I turned a corner, ‘banking’ as you do on a bike, and my left foot hit the road and my motion yanked the foot under the pedal, pulling it under like they do to bind feet, in Old China. But I wasn’t in China. I was in Kings Cross. And it fucking hurt. I managed to stay upright on the bike and although my foot and ankle hurt a bit, pedalling wasn’t painful. So I pedalled home.

By bedtime there was swelling, there was some icing (not ‘on the cake’, more ‘on the foot’) and it was fucking agony. After going upstairs to bed on all fours, I messaged Spurs Paul to cancel tennis for this morning. In fact as I lay in bed with my really painful foot/heel/ankle, my only thoughts were ‘X-ray’; I need an x-ray. So I kept Mel awake pondering the merits of Finchley Memorial Hospital against the Royal Free and the St John & Elizabeth.

This morning it was ‘fine. Ok, still swollen, feels bruised and tender, but there’s no hobbling, no apparent ‘disability’ that I could claim benefits for. Shame. I’d sacrifice my left foot for a blue badge so I could park in Golders Green. I’m right footed. But anyway, it seems to be healing by the sheer force and power of my immaculate body and exceptional masculinity. Not the toxic type, more the self-healing, superpower, superHERO type masculinity. So no need to come rushing round with chicken soup, ibuprofen or to just have, like a vigil of love on the front garden. You’ll spoil my lawn.

We’re up to 37 cases of meningitis in Kent. I blame the students. They’ve come up with 29 ways that students, basically, exchange bodily fluids by merely attending a night club. And that’s not counting having sex or kissing. So I think this little epidemic is punishment by the gods for basically acting in a grossly unhygienic way. They should take all those students, University of Kent, Canterbury, Folkestone Polytechnic, and move them into the army to fight Iran, who are going to attack us now for allowing US bombers to take off from our little island, on their way to the Straits of Hormuz to protect the oil tankers. Which won’t go anywhere, no matter how many planes and boats they send. Because the owners of oil tankers are not stupid. They wouldn’t exchange bodily fluids in a nightclub.

Spurs are playing tomorrow in what is possibly the biggest and mostest importantest game ever played in the entire history of the game since some poncey, upper class twat at Rugby put a ball on the floor and kicked it. In 1726. That’s how important it is.

Happy, healing Saturday,

A xxxx

I feel sorry for Muslims. Because Islamophobia is real and it’s common. And like all phobias, it’s not particularly rational. Britain, along with all ‘patriotic’ nations, especially ones filled with white people, houses more than its fair share of xenophobes. And you can’t do anything about it. Its inbred, its ‘hereditary’, its learned and its so deeply entrenched that you really can do very little to change it. Which is why the Farages and the Tommy Robinsons play on this in ‘middle Britain’ because we always need scapegoats and forriners present the easiest target. Can’t get yer kid into a school? Blame the immigrants. NHS waiting lists? Boat people, innit, all with sprained ankles from jumpin’ off the boats, cloggin’ up the A&E. But that’s all ‘people of colour’, whereas Muslims present a special case.

In my mind there are two types of Muslims. There’s the rotten, evil Islamist terrorists, intent on death, destruction, intent on taking over the entire world into a Muslim state, something like Iran. And then there’s the vast majority who are just Muslims because they were born Muslim and adhere to some or all of their cultural or religious customs. A bit like me being a Jew. I do the bits I like. Ok, which doesn’t involve praying very much, but does involve chopped liver and haimishe cucumbers (they’re pickled, but the Polish way; buy them, they’re life-changing, made by Mrs Elswood and available on this site!!!, just send cash).

So these Muslims are the people you work with, the ones who’s kids go to your kids’ school, the ones who give up their seat for you on the tube because they think YOU’RE OLD!! They’re just normal people who happen to be Muslims. And their lives have been tainted by the actions of the ‘other lot’, the jihadi lunatics. What the Farages and Robinsons of this world do is blur the boundaries. A Muslim’s a Muslim, make the presumption of terrorism unless they prove otherwise. Whereas I, naively, possibly stupidly, just like Jesus Christ himself(!!), believe in the good in all men. Except the total motherfuckers, obviously.

And the other night, they had a ‘pray-in’ at Trafalgar Square. Mainly for the decent Muslims but they let Sadiq Kahn in so obviously tossers were allowed too. And they prayed. What else would you do at a Pray-in? Well, actually, it was Iftar, the prayers at the end on Ramadan days, so there’s food given out; that’s ’what else’. So all in good spirit. And the ‘believers’ all threw themselves on the floor as they do, facing Mecca, which happens to be the same direction as the London Stadium, so maybe they’re West Ham fans too. Then they got up, brushed off, and gave out food, even to the non-believers who were standing around the Square, probably thinking: free food!! WTF?

Nick Timothy, the shadow justice minister, then said, on Twitter (the go-to vehicle for out of line political comment) that such a thing is ‘an act of domination… and division’. Then he said its not appropriate to have a ‘male only thing’ going on publicly. Has he never been on a stag night? Or worse, a hen night. And really, I think Nick was seriously over-reacting there on the Square. People lying on the floor in vast numbers just doesn’t bother me. Its when they get up that I start to worry.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Don’t panic. And don’t go to Kent. Then you should be fine. Ok, don’t talk to anyone who has been to Kent in the last 5 days. Or anyone who’s been to Club Chemistry, in Kent, ever. In fact, be careful of people who know people from Kent. Or those who knows someone who knows someone who once went there.

Meningitis B is a real fucker. I realise that anything that starts with the word ‘meningitis’ is something to be avoided, but that B is for ‘bummer’. Because it can kill you. And it did kill two kids last weekend. Its a very invasive infection around the brain, leading to septicaemia and other fun things.

Of course, you can vaccinate, as they do to babies now. But anyone who was a baby before 2015 is… basically… fucked. Especially if you’re a teenager, and even more so if you’re at the University of Kent. Or thereabouts. Going to clubs, exchanging bodily fluids, snogging, clubbing, passing joints around, any kind of close proximity fondling. Though its hard to fondle from afar. So if a student down there tells you ‘he got fucked last night’, you’ll need a clarification. Whether to call Andrew Tate or an undertaker.

The government could then have rolled out a vaccination plan for those pre-2015-ers, but… didn’t. Nah. Not a big problem. Not now. Expensive. Don’t need it.

Because you never need something until you do. The you REALLY need it. And it would have been nice, because if this thing spreads we’re all doomed. This is like Covid with a vengeance. This is ‘bring out yer dead’ all over again. The second time since 1665.

John the Postman (lovely geezer… red jacket… green van… all round the City) watches ‘GB News’. Well someone has to. Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson and Steve Banon can’t keep it going by themselves, ya know! And he learned that the meningitis was probably brought over by immigrant boat-people. Possibly. Which is why its in Kent. Where they land.

Oh, that’s ok then. Cos Covid was local. Well, China. Pretty local. And look how that turned out.

GOD HELP USSSSSSSS…

A xxxx

I haven’t really mentioned anything about football since last Tuesday, the day of the apocalypse. The day when the farcically catastrophic degenerated into complete hopelessness. And its all about hope. I don’t know who actually invented hope but I reckon it was a nasty, vindictive Arsenal fan. Called Billy Hope. In 1426.

So when we went to Liverpool yesterday it was a foregone conclusion. It wasn’t a matter of losing, that was a given. It was a matter of ‘by how much’. We have but one tiny advantage over the other teams fighting us for the right to get relegated, and that is goal difference. Ours is much better than theirs. Yet, if Liverpool had beaten us 12-nil (on current form it would have surprised no-one), then we would no longer have ‘the last remaining comfort’ in place.

But Liverpool have had their issues this season. Which all stem from the inevitable sense of Scouse-entitlement which asserts that the league is theirs and theirs alone unless its stolen from them. So they blame Mo Salah, then they blame their manager, as not being good enough, or Alexander Isak for breaking his leg.

And onto the revered Anfield pitch limped my (once) beloved Tottenham Hotspurs. Buoyed by the confidence of gaining their last league point (singular) on the first of Feb, having been trounced by everyone since, having lost half their players to injury, suspension, both or failed suicide attempts when Romero and Palhinha dived headlong into each other in Madrid, expectation was fairly low. The new manager’s on the way out before the paint has dried on his name plate, losing four out of four.

Talk to fellow Spurs fans (you can always tell them; they’re the ones in the corner either crying or with a noose), and we were all in agreement that there is no way out; we’re doomed. Can’t see where any points might come from, unlike West Ham and Forest who seem to be mass-producing them in China and importing them.

And then we drew the match. An event as unexpected as Donald Trump apologising. As seeing the King in Starbucks with Meghan. As shaking hands with Jeremy Corbyn in synagogue.

Unexpected. Actually, we deserved to win, but heh, I’ll take that point. Not only take it, I will love it like my own child, embrace it like… well, I can only say ‘my wife’ if I want to stay alive, and nurture it like a tiny puppy.

Because a point’s a point, right? Doesn’t ‘propel you up the table’, or even ‘make you safe’. But its a start. It shows we don’t have to lose every fucking match, every fucking week. It shows we are, to some extent, masters of our own destiny. It gives confidence, it gives encouragement. It gives… HOPE!

The last thing Spurs fans need. But we fall for it every time. So yes, I’m now hopeful. I can’t help it. One point out of the last 18. But we’ll take it. We’ll bite your fucking hand off for it. Because it is symbolic of what can sometimes happen.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

The world’s at war. We’re joining in; slowly, reluctantly, obediently, and a bit pathetically. But war it is. Because the cause is so noble. Even though the people who started it can’t really put their fingers on the precise reasons for the war, the Orange One changes that particular goalpost every couple of days. Along with His view of the success. On Monday America ‘don’t need your fucking help! The war’s won already!!’, yet by Saturday he was demanding (he never merely ‘asks’) that Britain and France and China join him in the Straits of Hormuz to fight the enemy.

Even ‘the enemy’ has shape-shifted a bit. It was originally ‘Iran’, whereas now it is the price of gas at the pumps. Because that can seriously affect the results in mid-term elections in a way the nuclear potential of the Ayatollahs never could. And it’s this new enemy which has Trump calling for help in the water to try and get oil tankers moving safely through the Strait. An easy sentence to say. ‘Safely’. Because if you own an oil tanker, worth 100 million quid, and it has a cargo on board worth 20 million. And the insurance are not gonna pay you in the event of a war. Even without considering the crew, which, generally speaking, owners of oil tankers don’t, are you going to roll the dice on the US/British/Chinese defences stopping every single drone and missile attack from Iran?

Its war. So therefore I’m approaching ‘bunker mode’. Under my shed at the back of my garden is a bunker. I dug it myself. During the Cold War when we were just one John le Carre away from nuclear attack. I think the 270 tins of tuna may have now passed their sell-by and so probably have the potential to kill you quicker than a nuke, but I can re-stock. I’m buying bottles of water, all I can get in the car, before the panic-buyers take all the supermarket stocks. Because there’s nothing a panic-buyer hates more than panic-buyers. The problem is, the bunker’s not big. I only had my seaside spade to dig it with. So really, it’s more ‘large burial plot’ than a true ‘bunker’. There is room for 2 but only if we lie on top of each other, and move the tuna outside.

Actually, what I really did was fill up my car. When it was… half full!!! I never do that. I drive about 10 miles a week. And that’s a busy, rushing around week. So to fill up probably 3/4 weeks earlier than normal, I decided was ‘panic buying’. I’m not concerned that there won’t be petrol available, but the cost. Petrol has risen by… how can you even tell? They change the prices at the pumps every fucking day when there’s no oil-starvation war going on. Now it’s stupid. Soon they’ll hook up the pumps to computers with live feeds from the commodities exchange and the price will change constantly, as you’re filling up. But I don’t want to spend 1.57 a litre, which was what they wanted in Belsize Park, so I went to ‘downmarket’ Highgate and paid 1.43. A saving of such magnitude that I’m effectively getting free coffees for half the week!!!

Ed Milliband was on Laura Kuensberg this morning, and those profiteering, greedy, rip-off oil company executives better watch out. Because the man who showed just how difficult it is to eat a bacon sandwich, stated this morning, quite clearly and strongly, that errrr… well… errrr… this… errrrr… g-g-government will not st-st-stand for… errrrr… that… errrrr… sort of thing and we’ll… errrrr… probably… errrrr… do something about it… possibly. And you can’t get tougher than that!!! What a total tosser.

4.30. This afternoon. Anfield. Be there. Not so much a ‘must win’ as a ‘can’t possibly win under any circumstances imaginable or otherwise’. I might go to my bunker.

Happy Sunday (if fucking ONLY!!!!)

A xxxx

Sent from my iPad

So I only travel into town on my e-bike on ‘zero days’. Every hour on the BBC weather app marked zero chance of rain. If numbers appear. I take the tube.

Until today. There’s lots of rain forecast for this afternoon, but… the tube is suffering major fuckage. On the Northern Line. And, just to rub sulphuric acid in the wounds, at East Finchley. My station.

So I was left with a choice. Try and squeeze onto the trains which are running, once every 98 minutes, along with 42,000 other unwashed, garlic-eating sweaty bastards, or take the bike. And risk… getting wet!!!

I don’t have ‘weather gear’, its too pervy. I’d rather be soaked to the skin than look like a child molester. But I DO have a ‘kagool’, which no-one ever talks about these days. They are the clothing equivalent of Prince Andrew. And as I NEVER throw out old clothes, I went to the ‘pre-1997’ section of my wardrobe… ok, my whole wardrobe is ‘pre-1997’, except for the old stuff, and there it was. All shiny and waterproofy and only a fraction of the ‘deviance-appearance’ of other practical clothing.

And I’m praying for no rain.

There again, I prayed for a Spurs win on Tuesday night and where did that get me.

I’ll tell you where it got me. It got me thinking of the difference between being ‘humble’, being ‘humbled’ and being ‘humiliated’. I don’t know why, other than I love words. And they all come from the same root. Yet being humble is a good thing, being humbled, not quite so good, and being humiliated is what happens when you go to Madrid. It happened to us, then it happened again last night when Man City went there.

Its also what happens when you have a manager who is a wrong-un. We got Igor Tudor as a ‘short-term’ fixer. And we got a short-term fuck-up. Played 4, lost 4. And what he did to both our goalkeepers on Tuesday night was positively disgusting. Ok, neither of them did precisely what their job description states, but it was awful. And blaming the keeper when your defensive plan is inappropriate and ill-considered, is not a great way to ‘manage’.

Happy, hopefully dry Thursday

A xxxx