Andy's Glasses

My love affair with Berlin continues apace. But my horizons have expanded massively. Because in all the trips we’ve made here since the younger daughter adopted it as her home, we’ve generally come for weekends and confined our love of ‘Berlin’ to about 3 or 4 of the central areas of the former Eastern part of the city. Or, ‘the good bit’ as I’d always thought. But today we went totally insane (by relative standards), got on a train and went to Potsdam!!! It’s miles from Mitte, kilometres from Kreuzberg, furlongs from Friedrichshain. And its lovely.

Potsdam is the capital of the state of Brandenburg. The state which has the famous ‘gate’ in (proper) Berlin, built in 1780 to mark the spot where just along the road in the Adlon hotel, Michael Jackson would later dangle his baby son over the balcony.

The Brandenburg gate is a lovely structure on top of which is a statue of some horses and other German stuff. And I think that’s a Brandenburg thing. Because on virtually every roof in Potsdam are statues. I haven’t seen so many cherubs since… well, its been a long time. Hundreds. Thousands of ugly fucking cherubs.

But when you arrive at the Palace of Frederick the Great, you have definitely reached Cherub Central. Plus thousands of other statues too. Most of which are on the roofs of every one of the almost obscenely magnificent buildings in the Palace area. Which is a massive park, filled with wonderful buildings which only an Emperor could have built. The word ‘obscene’ springs to mind. His actual palace is said to rival Versailles, which it does. And I’m not just saying that to upset the French. Even though I would if I had to.

Then you leave the park and the town itself is really cute. Not, like cloyingly, sickeningly cute, like many tourist towns, but genuinely sweet and nice and full of people eating ice cream and drinking beer. Some of whom, unlike in ‘real Berlin’, are actually speaking in German! To each other!!

Tomorrow Mel & I leave for Dresden. That’s a whole other City. I’ll let you know what I find.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

So what do you do when you’re 2 years old and someone leaves a real-life, non-plastic, metal and wood, full-size tile-cutter lying around? Answers on a postcard to:

Joey
Department of Breaking Things and General Destruction
My House
What’s Left of It
London

And so we’re off again. Buoyed by the relative ease and simplicity of our recent travels to Greece, we’re going to Berlin on Saturday. Because I haven’t seen Checkpoint Charlie for 2 years. Because I miss Hitler’s bunker. Because I need to be part of a Trabant vibe. Because Rachie lives there and we need to see her. Even though she’s coming over here next month. And we saw her when she was last here, not very long ago. But we’re allowed. She’s our daughter. And thus (according to her) we miss her. And if we don’t go now we can’t go til about April. Because Berlin gets cold. I’ve been in November and it was cold. Been in January and its very cold. And it gets wet. Which is worse than the cold because you can’t see Checkpoint Charlie so well. Though that’s mainly due to all the Far Easterners taking selfies there and buying Stalin hats. Which is a bit like a Hitler hat but with a star on the front.

Last night I finally joined the latest new game storming the capital. It’s called ‘Petrol Hunt’ and it is the best fun ever. Because even people who hardly ever use their cars still, eventually, get low on fuel. And as president of the ‘I’d rather walk than drive electric’ society of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Slovakia, this is the situation we found ourselves in. So, with Mel’s car showing ‘57 miles’ left, I started out at about 9.45 last night (always a game best played in the dark) and drove to four petrol stations over 25 minutes covering… well, the fuel thing said ‘42 miles’ by the time I arrived home, but I don’t think that 15 miles is totally dependable. But three stations had no petrol. Shit-loads of diesel, because you have to be brave to fill up with that dark and polluting shit these days in case Greta or Extinction Rebellion or Insulate Britain happen to be around. The fourth did have gas!!!! Yippee. But had a queue of about 45 cars, only four pumps open and (we knew cos we’d asked them) was closing ‘any minute’.

There’s loads of petrol in Berlin. And we’re allowed up to 100mls EACH in our carry-on. Hmmm…

Happy Friday

A xxxx

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a thing about Barbie dolls. Not necessarily ‘that kind of thing’, I’ve never put more than one in my underwear, but I’ve played with them since my girls were little, 30 years ago, then had a major Barbie-renaissance with Lila, when we brought the collection of Barbies down from the loft. Some even had all their limbs still attached. One or two even had heads which weren’t rolling around the bottom of the box.

And its nice to see that Barbie stays at the forefront of… well, of selling things. It’s what big companies do. So they’ve brought out European Female Astronaut Barbie. In honour of Samantha Christoforetti, the first European woman astronaut. To stand as a role model. An aspiration. To try and engage young girls in science.

Unfortunately, sales of Astronaut Barbie have been outstripped by those of Digital Media Influencer Barbie. The first Barbie ever to have her mobile phone moulded permanently into her left hand. Influencer Barbie costs the usual 19.99, BUT, you can’t get her out of her box until you pay her to do so, with the credit card slot. And every time you put her back you need to pay more to get her out once more. Though you can bypass this by giving her very expensive clothes, cars or holidays instead.

The other massive, post-woke innovation is Karbie. Its a Barbie who answers to ‘Ken’. A Barbie with indiscriminate pronouns. Who wears one Barbie stiletto and one GI Joe workboot. It comes without the long locks of normal Barbie, but not the yellow carpet of Old Ken. Short hair, bit like Ronaldo’s. Breasts scaled down from the normal Barbie 38DD to a modest 36A. Comes with special ‘bulging underwear’ option.

They were going to make a Boris Barbie but the plastic requirement took it way over budget. So instead they’ve created Covid Barbie. Comes in a bed with her very own ventilator. (Coffin not included).

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

We’re back. We won. Spurs are… there! Where? Not totally sure, exactly, but we won. A football match. Almost like we did a few times right at the beginning of the season, but without the clean sheet and with more purpose. More commitment. More… more… more Son Heung Min. Who really is the heart, the soul and the pace of our team. Our absolute favourite, smiling Korean in the whole wide world.

But there was magic in that victory. It was a monumental day, even though the players were possibly quite unaware of the magnitude of the moment.

Lila’s mum went to White Hart Lane. For the first time since she was pregnant with Lila, 5 years ago. She’s been… busy. And although I’ve been encouraging her to go, “just go with hubby to the footy, the kids’ll be fine for a few hours. Joey knows how to use the microwave… well, he knows how to break it, Lila can make tea, they’ll only open the door to Amazon deliveries, like usual, it’ll be FIIIIIINE”. But some misplaced sense of parentalism kept her away from our brand new stadium. Until yesterday when hubby acquired some super tickets which were too good to refuse. Unfortunately, because we won the match, my daughter has become our instant ‘lucky charm’ and MUST go to every other match, home and away, this season. The kids can sit outside in the car.

We went out for dinner with friends on Saturday night. And our friend’s brother was over from New Jersey, where he lives, with his son of 15. Who, as an official ‘forriner’, had only been to Spurs 6 times, and had NEVER seen them win. But he went to the game yesterday and ‘lived the dream’. Thus won’t slip into Goonerism or, almost as bad, follow the New York Giants. A great relief all round.

I do know some people who aren’t Spurs fans. I don’t talk to them much and try not to mix with them socially, but there are a few in my life. They’re, obviously, just not worth a mention.

So now, I can state without the merest hint of doubt, that Spurs can go on from this massive victory and win the league. We have the best stadium, the best player (not counting Phil Foden or Mo Salah just because they played ONE decent game in their lives) and the most joy of winning yesterday.

WHAT A FUCKING RELIEF!!!!

Happy Monday

A xxxx

We’ve know each other long enough. We talk of many things. We don’t shy away from the uncomfortable. Unless its underwear. And we don’t mind swearing. In fact some of us love swearing. Yet even I moderate my keyboard’s ‘tongue’ when it comes to the sweariest, nastiest, most contentious-est word in the English language. The c-word. It’s also the most divisive-est word around, by some way. And it appears to divide quite strongly along gender lines. Though I’ve only conducted my extensive study in cisgender types. And this is what I find.

Men love the c-word. Some men are almost obsessed with it. They use it constantly. But only in the presence of a male audience. Unless its a special occasion. In which a female has been deeply upset, offend or abused by a person. Who can then be described in such a term, but only for a short duration of the window of opportunity. Use of the word after that window has closed with result in the usual disgust and possible punishment.

Because women hate the c-word. Perhaps because they can relate to it more in its original, anatomical meaning. They’ll never use it.

97% of men (boring, regular, heterosexual, or in the closet, cisgender) love the c-word.
98% of women dispise the c-word.

Bisexuals can take it or leave it.

Transgender people learn how to view and use the c-word as part of their sex-change therapy. If you transition to female the best bet is to stop using the word altogether. Or else it may become a bigger giveaway than your beard.

You only need to pronounce the ‘t’ at the end if the word is spoken with true malice and venom. If you’re just addressing your mates, leave the ‘t’ out altogether.

And all this because of a sentence which the government are thinking of implementing as part of their new awareness programme. Something intended to sway the impartial, to motivate the unsure, to innovate and stimulate the ignorant. It reads thus:

If you don’t have vaccinations, you’re a cunt.

There are no exceptions.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I had my flu jab yesterday. Not covid related. And I have a cold. Also non-covid-related. What we used to call ‘a cold’. Just that now when you sneeze you clear the tube carriage. Win-win. And today I was invited for my covid booster. My stars are aligned. And my upper arms.

And just in time for the party conferences. Labour’s has just finished in Brighton and the conservatives will be having theirs. In Manchester? This weekend.

Kier Starmer gave his best impression of ‘a slightly more interesting person than he normally is’ during his rabble-raising, hour-and-a-half shout-a-thon yesterday. But he had to shout. Because of all the hecklers. The pro-Corbynites who constantly bemoan the direction the Labour Party is currently taking. Which, some might argue, is a few steps towards future electability. And a million miles from the last election result where the nation finally told Corbyn and his demonic acolytes precisely where he could shove his particularly nasty brand of neo-socialistic bollocks.

But Corbyn was ‘there’. In some kind of blackened ‘spirit’ presence. He occupied a few dirty pub back rooms to meet with his faithful and hear them sing his name. Amen. Tosser. The group looked like they’d never had a bath, let alone a vaccination. And in those meetings they denounced the Tories as ‘scum’ and they praised Lenin and Marx and the ghost of Len McLusky. And they carried on their particularly poisonous brand of persecution, separating themselves from anything currently considered ‘Labour party’ by half a dozen steps to the left.

Interestingly, party leaders consistently look less than totally comfortable making their ‘leadership speech’. Because its not what you say (or in Ed Milliband’s case, what he never chose to mention), but the way that you say it that requires you to leave your ‘leader-of-the-pack’ normal persona and become part stand-up, part cheerleader, part (in Milliband’s case) dickhead and main motivator. And it didn’t sit well on Sir Kier’s shoulders. But credit to him, he gave his all. More than he has in the last year of his tenure.

Happy Thursday

A xxx

Ok, so you’re a sculptor, here’s the brief: we need a statue to represent a fictional heroine from an 1858 poem who meets the Italian patriots before they go and die fighting against the kingdom of Naples. Fair enough. I’ll get to work.

If the sculptor was English he’d be thinking of a Florence Nightingale type and start with a lamp. If Scottish he’d make the woman ugly, Sturgeonesque and fiercely aggressive. A French sculptor engaged in any depiction of war would probably start with the white flag.

But Emanuele Stifano is an Italian sculptor. So he started with a fabulous arse. And cobbled the rest of the woman together around that. And why not? How could he not? He’s Italian and that’s just how he’s wired. He wanted the make the statue a nude but was dissuaded so made the token gesture of clothing it in the flimsiest, wind-blowniest fabric he could conjure out of bronze. It’s almost a tribute to the wet t-shirt.

The statue has been accused of being ‘deeply sexist’, of being ‘a sexualised body devoid of soul’. Whereas I see this image as being deeply empowering of women. Especially empowering of women with fabulous arses. Who should be empowered and revered.

Emanuele could have made the woman less beautiful, less ‘sexualised’, he could have made a sort of ‘Les Dawson in drag’ image. But would that have inspired or comforted soldiers about to die? They’d have run to their death in terror. Whereas this image would be what those poor, fictional boys would undoubtedly want as their last view of life. It’s what all Italian boys want. A strong and appealing woman, confident and independent, in a pseudo-pornographic pose with a wonderful bum.

If they wanted different they should have gone to a priest for their sculpture. Or not an Italian male.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

This is big news, a revelation: do a bit of sport and you’ll live longer. Wow! Who’d’a thought? Who’d’a known? It’s almost like there’s link between exercise and health! But newspapers have to fill columns and cynics need to take the piss. It’s the way of the world. But here’s an irony.

I work with a guy who is ‘a little overweight’. He loves his food, no surprise, and for exercise he stands at the bus stop. Rather than sitting there. Even though he’s only going one stop and could have walked there three times while waiting for the bus. But heh, that’s the way he is.

Me, on the other hand, walk everywhere. I play sport. I exercise, I stretch, I tai chi, I tennis, and as a consequence have become the aspirational god-figure for all of mankind. I’ve played sport my whole life (so FAR!!!!) and will be carried off the tennis court by paramedics or undertakers when the time comes. Maybe even a football pitch!

And here’s the funny thing. My co-worker has no joint issues, no strains, no muscular tears, no aches. Just a big belly. Whereas I have evolved into the largest single repetitive strain injury on the planet. Along with most other ‘sporty types’. Because all sports involve repetitive movements. Tennis players get elbows, housemaids (not a normally quoted sport, I grant you), get knees, footballers get concussion, rugby players… don’t ask. But generally speaking, though there may be exceptions, those who don’t do ‘sport’ don’t get sports injuries. More amazement. And other than the repetitive strains, the actual injuries come back to haunt you. Well, not so much haunt you and necessitate replacement shoulders. Possibly hips. Knees…

So today they’re telling us not to overdo it. You must ‘do it’ but not ‘overdo it’. Yet it might seem that under-doing it may be the way forward. Not so good for the waistline, possibly heart, blood pressure, sugar levels, arteries, cholesterol… but joints and bones? Good as new.

Reconsidering my whole life Tuesday

A xxxx

I know you to be clever, cultured, superior and smug. So name the first 10 artists that spring to mind, GO!

Lose a point each for: Rembrandt, Renoir, Hockney, Picasso and Van Gough. Lose three points for every other one named that isn’t a female.

Ok, that’s actually impossible without getting really obscure. I don’t count Tracey Emmin. Cos I don’t like her. A messy bedroom covered in fag-ash is not ‘art’. Its my life from 18 to 30 (when I married my first wife). And you’ll be struggling with females because…

They’re no good at art. Useless at paintin’. Obviously. Otherwise the world’s galleries would be filled with their prodigious output. And they’re not. Because either women didn’t do art, can’t do art due to hormonal/ovarian issues, or they weren’t allowed to ‘play’ in the totally male-dominated patriarchy that was the entire civilised world up to 1972. If women did paint they had to adopt a man’s name to sell their art. And few did. Few were taken seriously enough to warrant it.

Thus the entire ‘world history’ as viewed through our massive collection of artistic works, is a one hundred percent male-orientated view.

And that’s where Paula Rego comes in. That’s why I went to the Tate yesterday (missing all the fun of Spurs at Arsenal! What a loss that was…) To see the works of real-life, still alive in fact, woman artist who not only represents the women’s viewpoint, but does everything but actually castrating the works of establishment male artists.

I’m good at seeing the meanings hidden in paintings. Getting straight through to the subconscious mindset of the artist. Thus Lila’s first ‘work’, some purple scribbles on white paper, went straight onto our fridge door bearing the title: free expression by the artist in pre-self-conscious mode. I could feel her angst.

Similarly with Paula Rego’s quite brilliant paintings, I totally got that when she painted a cartoon dog on a little girl’s lap with a pitchfork in the foreground, that she was really bemoaning the horrendous abuse of women under the awful fascist dictatorship ruling Portugal for about 40 years, causing total female repression. I got that instantly. Honest. The little board saying those very words just made me realise how fantastically perceptive I am. “Yeah, I knew that”, I spoke to those around me, just in case they thought I didn’t have a fucking clue what anything was without reading the explanations. As if.

It really is a fantastic exhibition and worth a visit (ya have to book). And not just a great way to avoid the horrible unpleasantness of certain football fixtures.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I find watching my football team very stressful. I take it too personally. Everything that happens takes on a supernatural importance. It’s hard. Especially when we’re not playing very well. Which is often.

However, watching other people’s teams play can be a total pleasure. Because, f’rinstance, if Liverpool win or lose at Brentford, do I really give a shit? In the grand scheme of my world, the result is as important as who the current leader of the Liberal Democrats might be. It’s less important than queues outside petrol stations of panic-buying morons with a boot full of Jerry cans. So I can just watch. And in the case of that very match last night, I can just enjoy a wonderful, exciting, incredible game which quite literally ‘had it all’. Except any VAR bollocks or in fact anything contentious at all.

And much as I have to admit a (grudging) admiration for Liverpool, because they are so good to watch, Brentford were the underdog of everyone’s dreams. Because they don’t really do ‘underdog’ so much as ‘dogged’. And not ‘dogged’ in the bus-parking manner of so many, but dogged in their never say die attitude. Their entire demenour shouts: bring it on, and we’ll give it back. Because they don’t seem to realise how intimidating ‘big clubs’ should be. They didn’t get that when they beat Arsenal on the first top flight match they’d ever played, and they don’t get it now, playing the top of the league team of amazing superstars.

They spent the first 15 minutes just absorbing wave after wave of wonderful Scouse attacking football. And by ‘Scouse’ I mean Egyptian, Brazilian, Senegalese, Geordie…
And then Brentford scored. Having possibly 9% possession for 20 minutes and they score the goal. And then started playing less doggedly. And the match, from that point on, just went end-to-end at breathtaking speed for the remaining 70 minutes. It didn’t stop, it didn’t let up. And when, with the score at 3-3 and Brentford appeared to hit what would have been, should have been, could have been, the winner, even though they had 3 players all offside by 5 yards, you couldn’t help but share that momentary dream.

This afternoon Spurs play Arsenal. Fortunately for me, I’ll be at the Tate Britain looking at Paula Rego’s artwork. And hardly glancing at my phone. Hardly at all. Not interested. Not one bit. Will be the furthest thing from my mind.

God-help-me Sunday

A xxxx