Andy's Glasses

Ok, this blog thing, this is how it works. How its always worked. My burning need to ‘share’. My internal imperative to inform you of the ways of the world because otherwise, quite frankly, you’d have no idea. Not a clue. Or you’d get it wrong. Like usual. So as an act of altruism, of education, and of pity, I try to keep you informed of very important things. And it works like this.

I wake up, drink tea and read the paper. The Times and only the Times. And during the course of that enlightenment, some things will interest me, some will appal me, a few might even astound me. But one thing will make me smile. Not because its inherently amusing, but because its inherently stupid. Contradictory. Nonsensical. This often appears in the ‘self help’ type pages. Anything to do with ‘new, improved gender options for your children’ is always going to start the day well. As will food ‘revelations’, particularly about green food. How much broccoli do we ‘really’ need in our lives? Equality matters are very important to me and, like ‘diversity’, produce a riches of amusement. Football, politics, anything. I just need something that ‘flicks a switch’, makes me smile, smirk or angry. Ok, most things make me angry. And that when you need to know about it. And it is pretty unfailing.

Until covid. Which produced very odd symptoms in me. No snotty nose, no cough, no temperature, loss of appetite (NEVER) or taste and smell. No wheezing and the only heavy breathing I did was on the phone to those who paid me £1.30 a minute. I was ‘symptom free’. Except I wasn’t. There were two rather profound symptoms.

The first was exhaustion. Just total, absolute and devastating. Most of the day I was tired. If I sat down, I slept. Like the dead.

The second was even more profound. Nothing I read, saw or did amused me. Nor stimulated me. To ‘share’. My mind had ‘gone into neutral’ and wasn’t coming out. It was like being you. A horrible thought. Nothing amused, stimulated or excited. And that was truly horrible. Fortunately, just before Kiev/Kyiv gets invaded, I appear, so far (I appreciate its still quite early) to have recovered some sense of the ridiculous.

And realised as someone sent me yesterday, that having spent 2 years studying for my PhD in infectious diseases, I now have to abandon that to become the world’s expert on military strategy geo-political warfare. And after 2 weeks I’ve reached my decision. We need to stop Putin. Now. Don’t care what it costs. Idle threats and sanctions (which will really ‘bite’ by Christmas!!) are doing nothing. It’s getting worse in a very predictable, Russian offensive way. And the bullly-boy is winning because everyone believes his threats. If ‘we’ do nothing, it’ll be Poland next. Or Finland. Estonia. And we’ll still be standing aside working out where to buy our gas and wondering when the absence of Big Macs will cause a revolution in Russia. It’s time for big talking tossers like Biden and Boris to actually ‘man up’ and offer real help to Ukraine and end the ever-increasing atrocities happening there. How many fucking hospitals have to get blown up before they realise that nothing else will stop that horrible man.

Otherwise, have a very happy Saturday

A xxxx

Who knew how much they disliked Frank Lampard until last night? As his sad and sorry excuse for a football team crumbled and cracked self-destructively under the might and power of Super-Spurs, I wanted to feel pity for him. I thought I would. Sat in the dug out with no mates. I wanted to think ‘awwww, Frankie, it’ll get better’. But I didn’t. And it won’t. All I could think of was his smirking visage running round arm-in-arm with John Terry, together holding up some silver chalice or other in some European city or other, smirking smugly in his Chelsea blue, often with Abramovich (!!!! Boooo, hissss) in the background.

Everton are dire. And pretty much gave up after the first (of many) goal(s). And the goals were lovely. Fast, flowing, things of extreme beauty and creativity. Each one a little Picasso. Without having tits where your left ear should be. Each one constructed instinctively by players all singing from the same sheet and, most importantly, allowed to punish by horrendous defending and goalkeeping. They couldn’t keep up with the Spurs attackers, they certainly couldn’t cope with Harry Kane, now the single most important football player in the world. Possibly, ‘that the world has ever known’. He is the country’s best number 9 and also the best number 10. Which makes him a quarterback who can make a 60-yard pass then catch it himself and run it in. He IS that good. Something we can only really enjoy whilst the transfer windows are closed.

I missed the fourth goal last night, I was getting out of the bath. So re-winding the program to see the fabulous Reguilon effort, I got a text telling me I’d now missed the 5th one, too busy watching the 4th. This is Spurs. Try to keep up. But I missed it because I am a man who now needs help. Bathing. Form an orderly line.

In fact its not bathing so much as one specific thing whilst bathing. Or showering. I’ll show you. Fold your right arm in a right angle, holding it against your belly and don’t move it. Sit in a bath and see which parts of your body you can’t reach with your left hand. I’ll give you a moment…

Ok. You can’t wash your left armpit. That’s it. Everything else is within reach and accessible. I can’t go 6 weeks with a dirty armpit. So I have friends. Helpers. Nurses. Just to wash it for me.

Spurs next game is Manchester United. The one team possibly more inconsistent than we are. Though when we’re good we’re fantastic. When they’re good it just means they’re not conceding at that precise moment. So I can be hopeful.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

The world is united in its condemnation against Russia and its near-universal support for poor Ukraine. ‘Near’ universal? Nearrrrr???? Yes, only near. Because there’s a little corner at Stamford Bridge football ground where the otherwise universality falters. A little zone in which there are other considerations in the matter, other than the ‘mere’ slaughter of innocents, invasion of sovereign territory, ignoring ‘humanitarian corridors’, murdering children, other than any considerations under the umbrella ‘morality’. There’s football. And the cost of disloyalty to Roman Abramovich in the eyes of a ‘certain type of Chelsea fan’ (that ‘type’ being the ones who wear blue scarves) is worth more than their seen to be jumping onto the bandwagon of global indignation and blanket support for Ukraine. There is a corner of every foreign field, that is forever… Russia.

And I totally get it. You just have to put yourself in the shoes of the average Chelsea fan. The shoes aren’t that comfortable but the empathy gained is worth a blister. And its back in 2003 and Ken Bates has your football club on the verge of insolvency. Massive debt, poor deals, its the culmination of a decade of mismanagement and a total descent into abject mediocrity, where ‘our’ (empathy, remember?) football team has languished pretty much forever. The odd FA cup win, but realistically, its all shit. Go to the pub, shag the wife’s sister in the car park, beat up a tosser cos he looked at me ‘funny’, go home, take it out on the kids and throw up in the bed. And then, when all seemed doomed, bankruptcy, relegation, humiliation, there comes a reprieve of positively Biblical proportions. In the guise of a man we’ve never heard of. A 36 year old Russian ‘Oligarch’. He’s going to buy Chelsea, pay off all the debts and create a billionaire’s wonderland in the Premier League. I looked up ‘oligarch’ and it means ‘shedloads of cash’. I didn’t read the rest of it, I’m a Chelsea fan, we don’t do ‘readin’. So I missed the ‘tainted’ bit and never questioned how one so young could possibly have accumulated such vast wealth so quickly. What I didn’t miss was the 15 trophies in the following 18 years. Everything. Champions Leagues, Premier Titles, UEFA Cups, the lot. All down to one man and his money. I looked up the word ‘oligarch’ and it said, basically, in league with Putin. Not the premier league, different one.

So whilst the rest of the world, including now vast numbers in Russia itself, is totally opposed to Putin’s actions in Ukraine, he has but one area of support, one place where he, and his team of hyper rich scum, are welcomed, loved, revered. Where the murders are secondary to a nice shiny cup.

Love you Roman, love you Vlad.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

So its been a week. A whole week, since they gave me my new shoulder. To be honest, its a bit disappointing because I still can’t take a serve properly, but I’ll try to be patient. A patient patient. And furthermore, I have no grounds for complaint as it really hasn’t been very painful. Hardly at all. Bit of ache, bit stiff, the bruising has ‘come out’ but in a big way, in a ‘Graham Norton’ kind of way of coming out. My shoulder, arm, chest, all one big bruise. And I get it, because the surgery was brutal. Joint replacement surgery is a bit like Russian ‘peace-keeping’ in that respect; the intention is honourable but the journey fraught. So my arm’s in a sling, I can use my hand normally but the arm must remain pretty immobile. And I’m coping with that. I’m not going to work, not playing a violin, its all good.

Then I got Covid. I mean, WTF??? For the first time since the pandemic started I haven’t been anywhere, done anything or met people. No tube trains, no interactions, nuffink. But then Wednesday Mel felt a bit ‘like she had a cold’, I just felt like someone who’d fairly recently had half an arm wrenched off whilst under the influence of very strong drugs. Friday we both tested positive. Mel coughed a bit, I didn’t. I just couldn’t stay awake. Kept falling into a massive, deep sleep. And when I wasn’t sleeping, I really wanted to be.

But heh, that was yesterday, today I feel fine. Mel’s ok and we’re home together. I’ve been home all week so I’m struggling to get my head round whether that’s because of my arm or the Covid. All I know is I have to avoid upset and disappointment, so they’ve moved Spurs match to Monday for me. To give me an extra couple of days without turmoil or stress.

And life goes on…

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

There’s a certain volatility in the Eastern European region which has always created issues. The entire area, from the Baltics to the Black Sea has been politically uneasy for centuries. There have been times and areas of unity but they’re only temporary. And normally centred around collective hatred for someone else. Like the Jews. Ukraine is the site of 2 of the last war (the one before the current one)’s biggest massacres. One at Babyn Yar and the other at Dnipro. The Nazis had taken over that part of Ukraine as they made early inroads into the Soviet Union. So, aided and abetted by locals, as was always their way, they collected and murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews as they ‘cleared the way’. Buried in mass graves. Which were later found but had to be distinguished from the mass graves Stalin had dug for his own mass murders of Germans, Poles and Ukrainians. Very messy in those forests.

Ukraine now has a Jewish president and we all love him. For his bravery as much as anything else. It’s normal for presidents to send messages of support from Zurich at times of war, regardless of which country they’re actually the president of, not to be out on the streets with the bombs and missiles. So all credit and love to Zelensky. And support of course for the Ukrainian civilians who asked for none of this. Civilians never do. That’s the nature of war, the people who start them do so for political reasons and principles and then send in everyone else to do the fighting and dying for them.

And there’s always propaganda around war. In Eastern Europe there’s propaganda all the time, but just more so during a crisis. So Putin’s propaganda machine has gone into overdrive. Not just in stating his own weird, distorted and totally fictional side of events, but also in simply eliminating or banning any form of news which might state something in any way different from his ‘party line’. The only ‘non-state’ tv and radio stations in Moscow have been shut down. The internet is closed. The Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine claim, very credibly, that they had no idea what they were doing. They were told ‘peace-keeping’. And yeah, ‘keeping peace’ using heavy artillery, cluster bombs and missile launchers might seem a stretch to us in the comfort of our post-operative neo-naziism, but Russians are trained to ‘believe’. To choose a more questioning approach to authority will result in death.

What worries me most is that Putin appears to believe his own rubbish. Which is very scary indeed. Though possibly the perception of his fragile grip on sanity is part of the plan. Which is why no-one is talking about any plans which might involve attacking anything Russian other than the economy. You don’t fuck with a loony with nukes. Rule number 1.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

We need to talk about Vlad. I think he’s totally losing the plot. Never one having the greatest grip on reality, as everyone else seems to recognise it, he’s now just gone. The lies, denials, history re-writing is all fine when its ‘just’ about institutional athlete doping, sending hit squads to foreign lands to murder people and locking up any political opponent who he hasn’t already killed. But now? It’s all Ukraine’s fault. They’re all neo-Nazis who represent such an existential threat to the most heavily armed nation in the world that action must be taken. Which involves the murder of innocent civilians. Children are dying FFS, because he feels insecure.

And sport and politics are now inextricably linked; they never used to be, but since the Apartheid years, their domains have crossed. So we must look to sport’s lead before we make our international policy statements. And this is what they do. They BAN Russia. From all sports, all football, all events, everything. Good, strong, decisive. Except they allow the formation of the ‘International Footballing Federation’ which looks like Russia, sounds like Russia, takes drugs like Russia and is associated with President Putin like Russia, but is actually nothing to do with that nation. Which you can tell because they are BANNED from playing the Russian anthem before matches. Hah! That showed ‘em. Just like the International Olympic Committee or whatever it was called allowed Russia to compete following their last ban.

Ok, FIFA have ‘relented’, having been accused of spineless pathetic token gesturism of the most stupid and meaningless extreme. They effectively wanted to ban their national anthem. WTF??

Putin now represents the biggest danger to the world since Hitler. He is a man with no boundaries, no limits, no grip on reality and no-one he’d ever listen to brave enough to explain things to him. He has no support outside his country, other than at Chelsea football club. Everyone else is wearing our ‘je suis Ukrainian’ t-shirts and hoping for the best. Though we currently have no idea, with a 40-mile long military convoy approaching Kiev, what ‘the best’ might even look like.

God help us all

A xxxx

So I came out of recovery on Saturday, was wheeled to my room and Spurs were 3 nil up at Leeds. Unfortunately, I was 5nil down to the general anaesthetic and kept falling asleep so couldn’t really appreciate the wonders of the eventual 4-0 win over the Northerners.

I then slept through the first half of France’s rather brutal defeat of Scotland. No-one wants France to win anything, ever. Even post-ops. But they were impressive.

I woke up for second half of England Wales, which was quite brilliant, even though England weren’t, particularly. Yet won a very exciting second half. Because its true, drugs and sport just don’t mix.

The second half of the final event of the day was more than enough. Watching Manchester City score the solitary winning goal in the 80th-odd minute is always rather depressing. But ended the only time in my life I’ll binge in such a drug-addled, sleepy, restful way. The only option on the tv all day was war. I wasn’t in the mood for that.

And now I’m home!!! Amazing. And, as long as my elbow does not move past its sling-held 90 degree angle, I’m allowed to type. Hold things. Grip. Poke people, but only in the naval, or chest, if they’re very little. And Lila and Joey on the head, as I did when they were home to greet me.

The brilliance of modern medicine. Modern surgery really. Not only they cut off the old shoulder (Joey can’t get over where it might be? what they’ve done with it?) and stick a new shiny one in there, Before the general anaesthetic, they instil a nerve block. Its guided in with ultrasound, my first screen view of the day. And it just deadens the arm totally. Except the hand. So when you wake up you just have this lump of lifeless arm, totally immovable, above a tingly, partially numbed but minimally responsive hand. You think its fully operational until you pick something up with it. And drop it. That lasts 24 hours and guarantees no pain at all. Then it wears off. Yet surprisingly, the pain’s not too bad. Its uncomfortable but that’s it. And in a sling, which is horrible, but far from catastrophic. I can make tea and I can type. What else is there??

Very happy Monday

A xxxx

This is it then. My last day as a ‘normal’ person. Before I become… bionic!!! A cyborg. Part flesh, part titanium, bit’a silicone, few screws and bolts, like the fucking TERMINATOR!

Though, obviously, I appreciate there may be a slight ‘lag’, a ‘period of adjustment’, from surgery, tomorrow morning, to the full ‘we have rebuilt him, AND CREATED A MONSTER!!’

And its that ‘lag’ which concerns me. They will immobilise my right arm for a couple of weeks. Strap it to my chest so I can’t play tennis. Or throw punches. Hold a fork. Or type on a keyboard. Unless I bend over until my upper chest is virtually on the keyboard. At which point my nose will be on the number 6 and my head on the screen. Yes, I can type left handed and always do. I kind of ‘use them together’, strange though that seems. Because I ‘touch type’. And without the right hand a lot will be lost in translation. So we’ll have to see how that pans out.

Tomorrow I’ll be in a drugged out stupor filled with blood and pain, normal Saturday really. Then the meds wear off and I realise that having 2 usable hands is really something I’ve taken for granted my whole life and its lack causes a void.

Op day -1.

I’m also hoping that the massive jolt the general anaesthetic will give to my entire system will dislodge the most annoying, persistent and constant ‘ear worm’ I can ever remember.

Much as I loved the Beatles, when Paul McCartney joined forces with his proto-vegan, tree-huggy wife and formed ‘Wings’, I wasn’t their greatest fan. Middle’a’the’road pop stuff, ok but nothing you’d wanna buy. Or listen to, in your own head, for 17 hours every fucking day for three weeks. But when I saw the movie Licorice Pizza, in among a fab 70s soundtrack was ‘Let me roll it’. By Wings. Though when I heard it in the movie I couldn’t have told you the name. So I went home and the next day, I went and ‘found it’ on Google. Or, THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE!!! as its now known. I found it, played it, played it again. Went back to… whatever, and its been playing ever since.

Until we meet again

A xxxx

For anyone born post-1945, today represents the greatest disaster that has ever darkened our entire, sad-and-sorry lives. Today is doomsday. Armageddon. The beginning of the end. Judgment Day. However, you can only get too upset by it. Because its so utterly typical. Putin? No, nothing to do with him, but Spurs. Losing last night at Burnley. How is that even possible after Saturday’s monstrously amazing win at Man City? How do you beat the top team and lose pathetically to the bottom one? My life will never be the same again. Until Saturday… possibly Sunday.

It’s quite a common thing to hear, ‘my child/grandchild is so bright they’ll be prime minister one day!’, though with the current PM that has now become a term of abuse and insult. But you don’t need to spend too long with ‘my’ Joey to realise that he has the potential to become the President!. Unfortunately, it would be President Putin. Because although Joey hasn’t invaded Ukraine with full-on artillery this morning, there’s no doubt he would, if he could just comprehend what ‘Ukraine’ means. He fully understands the ‘attacking and invading’ bit. Totally. Yet, the similarities run much deeper between Russia’s greatest dictator since Stalin and my little nearly-3 year old wonder boy. Mainly, stubbornness verging on total intransigence. No give. No yield. No compromise. No NOTHING!!!

Putin decided to ‘take Ukraine back’ into the Russian fold, and there is nothing anyone can say or do to stop him. And there isn’t much they can actually do without attacking him. And for all the bluster and bravado uttered by the totally spineless world leaders, they know that Putin don’t bluff. Neither does Joey.

I realise that a total rejection of both shoes and coat when going out, in a buggy, in the freezing cold and pouring rain is not quite the same as what is normally considered ‘a declaration of war’, but its delivered with the same degree of absolute certainty and unarguable and logic-defying finality that you just know that my gorgeous little boy is perhaps just 30 years from becoming the Full Putin.

Assuming the world has 30 years left. David Bowie sang ‘we have 5 years left to die in’ and that may have been prophetic. Or may just have been that nothing else rhymed, I love the song either way. But this is serious shit. And taking away Putin’s pocket money will not resolve anything. We nuke up or we shut up. Because we know with absolute certainty that he would. And so would Joey.

Happy Day 1 of the War

A xxxx

Today (and I’m sure I’m right this time, uncharacteristically) is 22/2/22. Or better still: 22.02.2022. Which not only reads the same backwards (palindromic) but also… (drum roll)… upside down!!! (Ambigramic?) Holy moly! When does that ever happen. You can turn this entire day on its head and it would look the same. Nothing would fall down. Such is the power of numbers.

Making it the perfect day to fabricate reasons to invade Ukraine. As Putin will probably do at some point, possibly at 2.22 this afternoon. And 22 seconds. Or 22 2nds. He’s making ‘noises’. Which were anticipated and expected. He’s complaining about Ukraine attacking his people, in the partisan Russian regions of Ukraine. He’s now declared those regions ‘Russia’. Leaving just the rest of the country to be invaded and overthrown. And no amount of diplomacy will alter his course. He’s ‘defending Russians’. Like always. Even though a lot of them tend to die in their defence.

And its the perfect day to announce that ‘coronavirus is finished’… as a viable killing disease which we must all hide from, shelter from, protect ourselves from, run away from, stop work, close the country, suspend all normality for 2 years and/or die from! Yeah, we’re done with it. Boris said so. Back to work you lazy, pyjama-wearing, lap-top on the duvet-ing, unwashed lightweights. All measures are now null and void. You’re allowed within 2 metres of people once more. In fact you’re encouraged to bump into people to rekindle that proximity, hug them, assault them, all without wearing a mask.

Interestingly, I started this little piece at about 7.30 this morning, then life just kind’a got in the way. But I’m keen it emerges into the world whilst its still 22.02.2022, though I could have posted it Thursday and added ‘+2’ but it wouldn’t be right. Though in fact Putin has at this point sent his tanks into Eastern Ukraine. How life changes in a few hours. Do any world leader really have the bottle to stop him? Boris with his Churchill aspirations? Biden with… not a lot? The new German dude who is about a quarter the ‘man’ that Angela Merkel was? Or Macron. Who’s probably already moved to Switzerland. Just in case.

Happy belated 22.02.2022

A xxxx