Andy's Glasses

We returned to life yesterday. Just for the afternoon. We went to the cinema. That place people used to go to to see films before Covid invented Netflix. We had to. Some things are just an imperative. Like, f’rinstance, if one of the most fab films ever, like West Side Story, was re-made, perhaps, by someone spectacular like, say, Steven Spielberg. Then I’d go.

And we did. We went in the afternoon because we thought it would be quieter. And it was. Just about 15 of us. So we sat at the back and un-masked. Because you’re allowed to if you’re eating popcorn. Or if you have been eating popcorn recently. Or if you think you might at some point like to eat popcorn. So no rules broken there then.

And the movie. Ahhhhh, the movie. Pretty much what you’d expect except rather disappointing. Not as much as ‘The Lost Daughter’, that would be tragic. That suffered from a fab cast given the wrong things to do. West Side Story gives the wrong cast the right things to do.

The sets, as you’d expect from the absolute master director, were magnificent. The music possibly the best musical score ever. The colour, the choreography, both dancing and fighting, simply wonderful. Yet the cast just lacked… star quality. Its a film about gangs. Tough guys. Gang leaders. Charismatic. People falling in love at first glance. For that to happen you need… something more than you get. The star role is Tony. The de facto leader of the Jets, just out of prison, so Riff runs the show. Because he’s ‘real tough’. A real ‘troublemaker’. Whereas he looks and sounds like a ballerina. I really have no issues at all about camp men. I just don’t think they make the most convincing thugs. Tony is different. He’s supposed to ‘smoulder’ but instead just turns up an Elvis-esque lip-curl and dissolves into a puddle of wetness. Neither could sing worth a shit. “When you’re a Jet you’re effete…”

Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks, at least looked capable of throwing a punch without bursting into tears. His sister, Maria (Maria, Maria, MARIIIII-AAAHHH, I just met a girl called…) was cute and lovely and had a good voice. But in an operatic way, which is NOT West Side Story. The pick of the bunch was the Anita character. She was fabulous in every way as Bernardo’s babe.

And there was a little old lady, Tony’s mum, who never appeared in the 1961 original (and totally definitive version, I’m afraid). And she was good. And played, I found out later, by Rita Moreno, who had played Anita in the original movie. And I loved that. Very Spielberg thing to do. Continuity. Magical. Shame about the rest of the cast.

Happy movie-going Monday

A xxxx

Remember when Covid first started? All those years ago? And the first thing people did, quite sensibly, before they’d sorted out their home workstations, picked up the kids from school, worked out what ‘2 metres’ looked like, was to go and buy toilet rolls. I did. I rented a van, took Mel and two wheelbarrows to Tescos and loaded up. Then, because the minimum rental was 4 hours on the van, we went back for a second load. It was the only sensible thing to do in the face of the crisis.

Well now I’m facing another panic.

Lateral flow tests.

They’re going to stop giving them away. MY government, for which I voted, are intending to take away the last pleasure we’re allowed in current times. That of repeatedly sticking sticks up our nostrils and watching for pink lines to form.

THAT IS MY LIFE!!!!! AND YOU’RE TAKING IT AWAY!!!!

Take away testing and my life has no meaning. So I’m going to stock up. Big time. So I can keep testing for months to come. Just for the fun of it. No more ‘showing it to people’, like in my dad’s care home, like before tai chi class, for work, no more ‘registering it’ with the NHS. Just me, cotton buds, pink lines.

Today’s picture shows you what can happen when your dreams turn to shit. Though perhaps ‘dreams’ is not the best analogy, because dreams are free and Newcastle United cost lots of millions of pounds, plus the benefit of massively increased debt should relegation occur.

Because Armanda Staveley, on the right, was the one who put this deal together, funded by Yasir al-Rumayyan (that’ll be him on the left), the Saudi dude who put the funds up on behalf of his State, looking none too pleased as their team were ‘giant-killed’ by Cambridge United. Unfortunately, the punishment for gaint-killing in the UK is not death by stoning, nor castration, not even removal of hands and/or feet. Like it is in Saudi Arabia. The punishment here is to go through to the next round of the FA Cup.

For Newcastle the immediate future doesn’t look quite so bright as their only hope of avoiding relegation might come down to a new really horrendous variant in the Covid world stopping the season.

I love a giant-killing. So to celebrate, I’m going to do a lateral flow test. Whilst I still can.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Have you had Covid? That’s the big question. Well, fairly big. Because I haven’t. And, by all rights, I should have had it by now. 170,000 people a day can’t all be wrong. Yet for me and for Mel, we remain excluded from this ever-growing club of victims. I’ve been traveling on the tube every day since the first lockdown stopped. I’m face-to-face with umpteen people every day. I used to use hand sanitiser but now feel about that what Djokovic feels about vaccinations. I wear a mask, but that, allegedly, is to protect others from my germs. Of which, in my case, there are many. I’ve had colds, I’ve had a cough, Mel’s had a cough for 3 months, yet every day (whilst waiting for our ‘day 2’ test result, here on ‘day 7’) we test ourselves and we’re negative. It’s almost a disappointment. So we attribute this to ‘some vague kind’a genetic factor’. Possibly genetic immunity? And praised our fathers for their endowment to us. Yet both fathers, 95 and 97, have had it. And survived it with very few issues. So we rescind those thanks and look for somewhere else to place them.

We had this conversation the other day with Mel’s brother. He’s a surgeon, but like most doctors, spent half of 2020 treating Covid patients. Yet never had it himself. And thus we were patting ourselves on our metaphorical backs in praise of good fortune and stern constitutions.

The brother-in-law tested positive this morning. But I think he got it because he’s not a Spurs fan. Because God only has time to look after a certain number of people every day so obviously concentrates on us first. There are spiritual reasons to account for my team’s lack of winning anything ever, but they’re too complicated in a theological sense to try and explain to you now.

There’s a whole hoo-haa about Covid hotels, particularly in Australia, to coincide with the Djokovic fiasco currently ruling our every moment. How shitty the food, how the windows don’t open, no access to a gym, no access to fresh air, FFS, no porn channels, simply terrible. And a terrible leap by association of the press (quel surprise?) because Novak isn’t in a Covid hotel. He doesn’t have Covid. Like me, and several other world class tennis players. Novak is in an internment hotel for unwanted immigrants. For visa failures before inevitable deportation. And although I’m sure the food is not up to Roux Brothers standard, it might be better than at the Covid places. No-one knows. Only Novak. And his mum.

One day, probably quite soon, they’ll have special hotels for conspiracy theorist tossers and antivaxxers who want to enter tennis tournaments but can’t. Until then, Novak will just have to slum it with the boat people from Vietnam, the Fijian stow-aways and the crowd from the odd dinghy which left Calais in search of Folkestone in 2014 and got lost. Really lost.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

This morning, after a tragic failure at diplomatic peace attempts (3 Serbian women dancing in Melbourne wearing flags), Serbia has officially declared war on Australia. And this state of war will remain the status quo until the Australian atrocities, known henceforth as ‘The Djokovich 1’, are resolved to satisfaction.

And I’m fully supportive of the Serbs in this. I agree with their president, though couldn’t pick his name out of a choice of 2. And I especially agree with Novak’s dad, who, for purposes of data protection, I shall refer to as ‘Mr Djokovic’. He said: “they’ve crucified my son like Jesus”. And I have to agree with him. Its just awful, tragic. Mum, Mrs Djokovic, piped up with “he is being treated like a prisoner!!!” The Serbian nation is up in arms, with me tagging along for the fight. I agree with them entirely. Here’s what I agree with.

I think that anyone should be allowed to break any nation’s rules of entry any time they want to, but especially if they’re either rich, famous or Serbian.

I know for sure that Jesus would have been vaccinated because he was Jewish and Jews couldn’t get the needles in quick enough. Chicken soup for the arms.

And yes, Novak IS a prisoner. But only one door remains locked. The ‘in’ one. He can use the other one any time he likes to fly anywhere in the world that will let him in. Which, as an unvaccinated health-risk, includes… errr… well, Serbia… and… hmmm…
A prisoner is someone who is locked IN. Novak is locked OUT. Big difference. Possibly lost in translation.

But most of all, I agree that this is NOT an issue about vaccinated people, refuseniks and other tossers or freedom of choice. This is about nationalism generally and Serbianism specifically. Just ask any Croat how the Serbs feel about nationalism.

And I especially agree with the other Mrs Djokovic, Novak’s wife, who posted an article blaming the pandemic on 5-G transmitters. You can’t argue with that. But if that is the case, why not have the vaccine straight into your phone? Surely that would work? I bet it would in Serbia.

So to recap, nation states are emphatically NOT allowed to impose rules to protect their populations, should those rules affect one single tennis player, however stupid and misguided he may be.
Any action against any person, on purely health and safety reasons, must be seen as a direct attack on that person’s home nation.
Rules and regulations regarding vaccination status must be governed, internationally, by the 5G networks.
Piers Corbyn is still a tosser. But now has another ally.

I’m off to war!

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I wish to enter this argument now. The ‘jewface’ row. I have one. So I’m allowed. And I haven’t said anything previously because its just so much bollocks, but as that’s all that’s currently happening, what with covid and especially last night’s football, we have to sift through the bollocks to find a single, golden testicle of merit! (I think we’ve stretched that metaphor 14 kms beyond any value, so we’ll leave it there).

‘Jewface’ entered our vocabulary when a play came onto the West End stage about a Jewish family. All of whom were cast to… non-Jews!!!! There were shouts of ‘cultural appropriation!’ and ‘insensitivity’ and all sorts of nonsense. Mainly by Maureen Lipman. The self-elected Queen of the Jews. Who is, in common with many Jewish mothers and grandmothers, a fight looking for a place to happen. So she’s sparked back with her arguments afresh (as nobody cared last time) because Helen Mirren (best actress in the world, a Dame, no less, wonderful person, national treasure but… not Jewish!!!) to play Golda Meir, the late Israeli Prime Minister.

No-one complained when Roddy McDowell played a fucking gorilla in Planet of the Apes. Not one primate moaned about it. Homo Sapiens can eat bananas too, ya know!! When Charles Bronson was in The Mechanic, no-one complained that he wasn’t a real killer, just a fake, culturally appropriating hit-man values!! What about Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie? Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfire?? Kevin Costner played Robin Hood but wasn’t born until 500 years after Robin Hood died!!!! That’s wrong.

The whole point of ‘acting’ is to represent someone who your aren’t. There’s nothing in the acting handbook which precludes you playing someone, some culture, some religion, race, culture or animal which you were not born as.

And while we’re at it, the very term ‘Jewface’ is a cultural appropriation of ‘blackface’, which actors used to use in the days before that was banned.

I feel Ms Lipman is suffering from overreaction rather than consideration.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I was appalled last night, watching the news. I knew so because I was laughing hysterically, which is generally how ‘appalled’ manifests. Though its difficult to differentiate it from ‘disgusted’, ‘amazed’ or ‘horrified!’, all of which have pretty much the same effect. I never said I was ‘normal’ or even ‘nice’, just appalled.

They were in a hospital. Like they are every fucking night, talking covid. How are they coping? A guy came on, a nurse, speaking of their level of overloadedness and up came the name tag: Sister Adam Whatever. And I thought… ‘sister’? SISTER??? WTF?

You’re not allowed to call a woman a ‘chairman’, can no longer use ‘actress’ because its discriminatory, you can’t even call a hooker a whore (possibly the other way round), but you can call a geezer ‘Sister’ because he’s a good nurse?? I mean… I mean… really?

So then we learned that over 200 thousand people tested positive in the UK yesterday. Big number. But none actually got ill. Ok, one or two. Of people in hospitals, 91% haven’t had their booster. That’s really an even bigger number. So big that if you convert it to letters is says: ‘Piers Corbyn is an absolute tosser’. And so, it must be admitted, is Novak Djokovic.

The miserable Serb tennis superstar is an anti-vaxxer. As many miserable Serbs can be. And he wants to play in the Australian Open to defend his title. But Australia has the strictest Covid rules of any nation, even though they can’t control it at all, have had 19 lockdowns and make you live in a Covid hotel for 3 months if you travel abroad or swim in the sea. They will not allow ANY unvaccinated person into their country, at all, NO EXCEPTIONS!!! Except Djokovic. He, and he alone, managed to get an ‘exemption’. Its easier to get full citizenship there than an exemption. Its easier to find someone who doesn’t gloat about cricket, than it is to get an exemption. But Novak did just that. Which, if I may be so bold as to offer criticism of the policies of any place, just sucks. One rule for miserable Serbian dickheads, another for us. Typical!

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Watched a movie last night. And the night before really. Couldn’t do it in one go. Because…

Before Xmas the movie ‘The Lost Daughter’ came out to universal, hyperbolic, ecstatic reviews. Olivia Coleman, Oscar tipped. Dakota Johnson… well, gorgeous, what else? Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who wrote the screenplay. Monumental. Outstanding. Earth-shattering. Life-changing. Meteor-avoiding. Pandemic-resistant! Ed Harris was in it. Holy moly, I didn’t know he was still alive either. But he is. And he’s good.

I totally adore Maggie Gyllenhaal. Always have. Ever since The Secretary. I love her brother Jake. And I love the fact that women directors are allowed to find meaningful work in the last industry that avoids any kind of significant diversity. And I seriously ‘do chick flick’. I like Terminator and Saving Private Ryan and anything Tarantino but I also have a more genteel appreciation side. I like rom-coms, I like kid films, I like Bridesmaids, FFS.

La Coleman is brilliant, obviously. She is as stellar as usual and performing like… like Christiano Ronaldo in the snooker team. Like Anthony Joshua in ballet.

Because the movie is dark. Literally dark, with only a few scenes in daylight, the rest, for some reason, dark. Which, for a Greek island setting in summertime, takes effort. Yet I could almost forgive the darkness if it wasn’t so opaque.

But excited we were as we got our popcorn and sat back for a Netflix ‘spectacular’. Because unlike the cinema, we have a much more lax ‘mask rule’ at home. And you can’t shove popcorn through a mask. And we watched…

For half an hour. On the first night. Nothing happened. Nothing that anyone would understand as ‘happening’. So we gave up. Must be our mood, the lighting, too much popcorn. But we didn’t give up. Oh no, not on this baby, not with all those 5-star reviews. So last night we (braced ourselves and) went for the remaining hour-and-a-half. When, it must be said, many things did indeed happen. But you (the viewer) were not privy to their meaning or context. That would be cheating. I initially presumed that this flick was so chick that I simply lacked the oestrogen to appreciate it. No ovaries; no movie, kind’a thing. But Mel was in the dark too. Even with all that femininity bouncing around… femininely.

In short, it was 2 hours of my life I’ll never get back again. Though the popcorn was really good. Whether all those reviewers understood what a sad man missed, or whether it was ‘emporer’s new clothes’ syndrome, I’m not prepared to say. But even Mel was prepared to watch Match of the Day 2 after that.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Ok, so I got the date wrong. I yesterday wrote of my love for the day’s (supposed) date and got it wrong. Just one number but some of you felt the need to correct this flagrant error. Can you just hold that posting and get it out on the 2nd of Feb, the date which I inadvertently decided should be yesterday.

And I’m not saying its not due to stupidity, nor senility, I’m sure both play a part. But much as I love number, and I really do, and I’m not too shabby at maths of geometry or calculus or algebraic nature, my kind of ‘low grade dyslexia’ has always had its greatest effect with numbers. Words are ok, I just can’t spell certain classes of them (ones with letters in being the biggest problem). But numbers I transpose. I do it with phone numbers as I’m writing them down, I do it with credit card numbers as I’m reading them out. It says ‘3791’ but I’ll read it as ‘3971’. Possibly the other way round. I’m not sure which way round I wrote that, they both look the same? Joking.

I was never diagnosed with dyslexia, it wasn’t invented until 1994. Well it was, but nobody claimed it, used it or got extra time in exams for having it. Pre ‘94 your were just labelled as ‘thick’, ‘dense’ or ‘daft’ and got to sit with the other ‘special’ children in the class. And the only ‘spellchecker’ we had was Mr Kennedy, our English teacher, who also used a red underline, like Word does, but his grew progressively more violent as the essay went on. Unfortunately his alcohol intake also increased progressively so you always wanted your essays marked in the morning.

So was that the cause of yesterday’s ‘slip’? I have no idea. Somewhere along the line I’d decided it was ‘02-02-2022’ because it looks so lovely and wish fulfilment did the rest. Dates are such arbitrary things anyway, does it really matter? There used to be 10 months and then they invented 2 more? Yet still they’re arbitrary. A day represents a rotation of our planet. A year represents one revolution of the Earth around the sun. The rest is just made up shit to make you feel bad if you’re late for a meeting. Or post the wrong date.

And furthermore I sincerely hope that absolutely nothing I ever write matters to absolutely anyone. Other than the football, which is important. Essential, even. The rest: total bollocks. That’s the whole point(lessness).

Happy Bank Holiday Monday

A xxxx

I love a number. And I think today’s date is possibly my favourite. Certainly the best so far this year. So I think we need to read something into it. Because Numerologists have done this sort of thing for years. Rabbis often read a sentence, add up the numbers that the letters represent (a=1, b=2, kind’a thing) and then make all sorts of observations and predictions based upon it. So the sentence ‘My little Jojo is possibly the most destructive terrorist under 3 in the whole world’, might add up to 672, which, divided by the number of words, might make 23.7, which, amazingly, is the number of commandments (errrr… that’ll be 10 then) plus 13.7, which was the precise number of years it took to construct the Western Wall of the great temple in Jerusalem!!!! Thus Joey is NOT the killer and wrecking ball he might appear but is blessed by the Lord and will be a scholar and a prophet! I’m still going to enrol him in hit-man school, just in case they got the numbers wrong. Hedging.

But 02-02-2022 has a wonderful look and an even better sound. Never better than when you say: ‘Desmond 2-2 died just before 02-02-2022’. And if you translate the numeric value of that sentence and transpose it back to letters, it becomes: ‘Tottenham are going to finish in the top four this year’!!! Which is amazing! There is one other alternative transposition which reads: ‘My pet hedgehog Nigel was sexually abused by Prince Andrew’. Not sure whether that in itself is sufficient ‘evidence’ to join the law-suit. Especially as I don’t have a pet hedgehog. And if I did, he wouldn’t be called Nigel.

But I came home yesterday to a positive shit-storm in the football. Spurs and Arsenal both played and both games were won, or lost, in the dying seconds of injury time. Spurs, fortunately, won their match at Watford in the 96th minute. But as they deserved to win, on the grounds that they’re my favourite team, no one complained. Whereas at Arsenal, Manchester City beat them in the 93rd minute after masses of contentious incidents and events, the likes of which haven’t been seen since VAR last fucked everything up, which was… Wednesday. But that was Spurs so the ‘big fuss’ didn’t materialise. We have no sense of entitlement like our north London neighbours. So when a few ambiguous decisions went against them it all went through the roof. Even though there isn’t a roof at the Emirates. Apparently the indignation and upset from the Arsenal fans exploded into the rarest thing to be found at that stadium: atmosphere.

“Sing when you’re cheated, you only sing when you’re cheated, by VA ARRRRR-ARRRR, by VA ARRRRR-ARRRRRR…”

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Another airport. We’re coming home. And I’m going to miss Tenerife. Madly. Deeply. Truly. Miss the sunshine. Miss the free booze from breakfast (or earlier) and availability of all food and facilities all day and night. Cappuccino heaven. And most of all, miss all the morbidly obese people with tattoos. They’ve become part of my life. An important part. Not just so I can feel infinitely superior (which I do, arrogant, smug piece’a shit that I am) but because I like thinking, 427 times a day: “what the fuck were you thinking???” Either for carrying 22 stone surplus around their waists or for having The full Genesis line up (the Mike Rutherford years) inked on her back. Including the roadies. And a few groupies, loitering by the limo. Though even that could be forgiven to a degree, presuming that Genesis played a big part in his/her life. As opposed to the Sanskrit/Arabic/Hebrew/Hindi words scrawled meaninglessly down a ribcage or having a piece of Māori cave-art drawn down an arm and half a torso. I make no judgements.

Because I’m sitting in a airport lounge. Using their WiFi, drinking their cappuccinos, eating their food. It’s not a ‘proper’ lounge to which you have access for just the 3 grand extra your ticket cost, but the ‘other’ type of lounge. The one you normally have to pay for to get in. But due to a historic quirk in a Barclays Bank account, we get ‘endless benefits’ (overselling suit to follow) which includes access for a limited number of times per year, to ‘other lounges’ in virtually every airport in the world. The only exception to this, generally, is the airport you’re actually in when you try to use it. But not today. Today it worked fine. As long as you choose to ignore the ‘lounge full’ sign outside, which I did, and so did the lady on the desk. And at aeropuerto Tenerife South they actually have… outside space!!! I mean, airports don’t offer windows or daylight anywhere, other than a very quick, hermetically sealed, aircraft view in some of the departure gates. But to sit in a lounge with actual air in it?? When the fuck did that last happen? And it didn’t happen totally here either because if you have ‘air’ that apparently is an invitation to pollute it in a non-Thunberg, more-Marlboro kind of way.

And you can spend your last moments in Tenerife watching just a few more morbidly obese people (tattoos optional), drinking beer and sucking on fags as if, ironically, they’re lives depended on it. And one last “what are you thinking???” before take-off.

Happy Landings

A xxxx