Andy's Glasses

Interesting article in today’s paper. On the sports pages. Where all interesting articles are found. Because apparently some pundit was watching the golfer, Michelle Wie, as she scored a 64 and beat everybody else, both men and women. And he commented, basically, that when she putts, she bends over so far you can see her panties. And I get that its inappropriate at best, appalling and disgusting and objectifying at worst, but even if it is ‘just’ inappropriate, the pundit has made no mention of the value of her golfing achievement, merely the length of (or lack of) her skirt. I’d like to add that no-one makes ‘phwoarrrr’ comments when great, fat, tattooed, hairy, slobbering darts players bend over to pick up an errant dart to reveal a few yards of grubby y-fronts. And I’m not suggesting they should. And yet the reasons are self-explanatory. Two reasons:

Firstly, that Michelle Wie is a babe and gorgeous whilst Billy ‘Two Bellies’ Runcorn (made that up, couldn’t name a darter if your life depended on it, nor can I be bothered to look one up; rather than look up one)

And secondly, in case it’s not glaringly obvious, Michelle Wie is a woman. And a golfer. Billy is a slob. And… well, who cares what the fat fuck does in his spare time. But, and here’s the problem/issue/rub: men and women are different. Shocker, eh? So I’m not saying ‘all’, but there’s of lot of THEM out there, men who view women, in certain conditions, on a purely physical level of desirability. Whether those women are dangling from a pole wearing spinners on their tits or performing open-heart surgery on a Siamese twin is totally, initially, irrelevant. It’s just what having a Y-chromosome does. It is not a conscious thing. It is not something for which training is required. Nor, more pertinently, something for which training will cure.

I’m not saying this is the ‘best’ of being a ‘man’. But it is unquestionably a part of it. And I’m not saying this makes looking at a pretty girl akin to rape. It is not. Of course, in some idealised (impossible) world of perfection (right…) and total acceptance and equality (gimme a call soon as it happens) this wouldn’t happen. But that world is not the one any of us inhabit, however idealistic our aspirations.

So is the golfing pundit a total dickhead for being puerile, childish and typical-man-ly? Or was he in fact being honest and ‘transparent’ by sharing his inner thoughts with the public?

Is voicing an offensive sentiment any less offensive if it expresses a fairly universal truism?

Life is hard.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Ryan Giggs is on trial. The ‘Welsh Wizard’ is accused of ‘allegedly’, basically persecuting, controlling, beating, kicking, head butting and abusing two sisters on or around the same kind of time. Repeatedly and often. Which fits with the general Giggs off-pitch M.O. He likes sisters. Ask his ex-wife. Or her sister. It’s awful. Though in his defence, they’re going to play the winning goal in the 1999 FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal. There is no other defence for these actions other than to show possibly the finest individual goal of all time. And pray that of the 10 jurors, at least 7 will be football fans. ‘Football fan’ is officially defined as “someone who loves the game of football AND dislikes Arsenal intensely”.

Incidentally, I googled ‘welsh wizard’ and learned that to receive such an honorary title, you basically have to be Welsh and possess the ability to kick, throw or swing at any kind of ball without falling over. Other nations may bestow ‘wizardry’ under harsher criteria but it would appear that anyone who can stay sober for 20 minutes in the Principality whilst engaged in sport becomes a ‘Welsh wizard’. Except Merlin. He was Welsh (who knew?) and a real wizard. Though may have been a rugby player when not wizarding, otherwise the hat gets in the way.

Whilst I was engaged in my tai chi this morning, kicking a very tall man holding a large punch-bag, I noticed the rain outside. You couldn’t fucking miss it. But by the time our class was over, the downpour had desisted. And a mere half an hour later the tennis courts were sufficiently dry to enable me and Spurs Paul to play our game. Although there was a degree of ‘moisture’ around, we heroically kept our footing. We dodged a bullet. There are storm warnings all weekend here and as you still haven’t replaced your gas boiler since the last storm 10 days ago, I expect these ones to be even worse. I’ve been recycling like mad, at every opportunity and hope that the corresponding drop in global warming will result in saving my tennis club from further flooding.

Happy holier-than-thou-Eco-warrior Saturday

A xxxx

The Tokyo Olympics start this week. Did you know? You can’t actually go and watch because its just too far. And too hot. But a tv in an air-conditioned room will suffice. So you can soak up the atmosphere of the totally empty stadia as the crowd (four stewards, the tea lady and a geisha who got lost) roar with excitement. It promises to be… well, a bit dull really. But as they’ve already delayed it one year they’re going ahead. Despite the pandemic, despite the heat (currently 38 in Tokyo), despite half the athletes pulling out for testing positive. Because otherwise all those lovely uniforms and costumes would get wasted. They still say ‘Tokyo 2020’ on them, which is bad enough, but to have to dump them in a landfill in Indonesia would be tragic. Especially the women’s beach volleyball costumes. I like those. And they don’t take up much space.

I’m not really a great fan of the Olympics. I should be. Because its sport and its on tv a lot, but other than when it was over here, in ‘the proper Olympics, where they should be’, there’s only so many cycling helmets I can watch going round and round on split screens.

Holy shit! Just after writing that I jumped in the car and as the radio came on, there was a football match being played, ‘live’. With… women!!!! Not Arsenal, real women! And it was ‘Britain’ against Chile. And I thought ‘Britain?’ Britain?? Britain??? It must be the Olympics!!! And it was, they’ve already started!!! Who knew? They never told us.

So as there’s no sport on, they’ve given us Dominic Cummings instead. The man who controlled Brexit, the man who won the last general election single-handed and the man who managed to alienate the six people in the world who didn’t already hate him by taking his Covid infested family to Durham. And now he’s gainfully employed in slagging off Boris Johnson. Something the rest of us do for free. His latest revelation is that ‘he was on the verge of getting rid of Boris as PM within days of him winning the election’ because of Carrie issues and the fact that Dom and his team’s jobs were suddenly in jeopardy. He put Boris in, he could take him out. That seems fair. Democratic. The entire nation voted to put Boris in number 10 but Le Cummings decided he knew better. We already knew Boris to be incapable of being PM and a bumbling incompetent, that’s why we voted for him.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx


I’m gonna teach you some Yiddish. Even though I don’t know much myself. But what I do know is profound. Yiddish only exists in the domain of the profound. Nothing is trivial for Jews. But I’m prepared to share some of this wonderful old language because there are times when ‘mere’ English words can’t suitably express the depth of feeling, it just lacks the… the… the gansa geshechtiness of Yiddish. (Because Yiddish is very much like German, the ‘ch’ in not as in ‘chair’, but the hard, guttural sound of trying to cough a fish-bone out of your throat).

Like a ‘shmuck’, f’rinstance. A word, as with so many, which has entered mainstream American, where they’ve ruined it, just like they did with English. You can’t trust Americans with your language. A schmuck is an idiot. But more so. Much worse. An idiot can be forgiven for his stupidity, a shmuck will never be. Idiocy carries with it a naive ignorance, shmuckism carries intent!. Without the intent, he’s just a shlemeil.

Similarly the word ‘nachas’ means pride. And yet so much more. But never pride in yourself, only in others. It is pride by proxy. Pride is one of the deadly sins, nachas is something heavenly. Something to kvell about. (Kvelling is to show pride to the point where others want to punch you repeatedly in the head. Otherwise you’re not kvelling enough).

So Lila received her end of year ‘school’ (nursery) report. The word ‘glowing’ inadequately represents how much of a genius MY granddaughter is, how much pleasure she gives to all around her, how… how… how she is probably the most perfect and brilliant child ever created! At least until her brother came along. Though the jury’s still out on Joey. But, literally so. He’s in court this week on charges of vandalism, hooliganism, terrorism, wilful destruction and, worst of all, being a boy.

So I read Lila’s report. To Lila. Who had in fact already heard it. And as I read it, the level of nachas bestowed upon me was monumental. It was as if I’d written it. But perhaps my dyslexia was playing up because when I translated those wonderful written words into speech, something was lost in translation. And I read: “Lila is delightful and cheerful, always caring of her friends, blah, blah, blah…” it came out verbally as “Lila is the naughtiest girl in class. She’s horrible and she’s always hitting the other children, spitting and weeing in the corner of the room…” and Lila thought that hilarious. She knew what the words really said; kids only need to hear something once to remember everything. She didn’t say I was wrong, she didn’t protest the unfairness, she just sat there laughing, totally and excitedly engaged in this ‘new game’.

And I thought: ‘she gets me’. 90% of the world’s adult population don’t, but Lila, at 4, totally gets it. The abuse, the insults, the stupidity. And that gave me more nachas than a million words of praise from her nursery.

Happy still kvelling Tuesday

A xxxx

Ok so let me get this straight. England is doing so well in the Covid Games (like we were in the Euros) that tomorrow is UN-lockdown day! When everything ‘returns to normal’. Because we’ve totally beaten that horrible virus with our outstanding vaccination programme and our banging frying pans for the NHS. Coronavirus stood no fucking chance. THIS IS ENGLAND!!!!

And then yesterday we learn that, irony of ironies, none less that the Secretary of State for Health himself, Sajid Javid, MP, has contracted Covid. Tested positive. Even though he’s ‘double vaccinated’ like the rest of us. You’d think the virus had a little more respect than that. Oh, its a virus, I forgot. Doesn’t do ‘respect’. Just ‘opportunity’.

The interesting bit, of course, is that he’s a Cabinet Minister. Spends a lot of time at 10 Downing Street. With… with… with the Prime Minister himself!! Probably Mrs Prime Minister too; she’s never far away. Possibly baby PM too. And the Dog.

Who should ALL be consequently isolating. Their NHS track-n-trace app should be advising them precisely how much longer they need to stay in, alone and unloved. Like it does to all others (foolish enough to have installed that nightmarish atrocity on their phones) in similar circumstances.

And those circumstances are that our Covid rates are rising. Very very quickly. And as every new victim tests positive, so 94 people get ‘pinged’ to isolate. Unless you’re Billy no mates, in which case no-one does. And this is such a problem now that the nation’s food supply is in jeopardy because of so many having to isolate. Fit, healthy, non-virussy people forced to sit at home bored shitless because they sat on a bus for 10 minutes last Tuesday 32 feet away from a person who later tested positive.

And this is where the ‘bollocks’ comes into it.

Boris is not going to isolate. Instead, he’s going to ‘pilot a new scheme’ of testing himself regularly at home and continuing quite normally in the meantime.

As an elected spokesman for this government, I’d like to state categorically, here and now, that this is emphatically NOT a case of ‘one rule for them and one for us’. Not at all. This is a pilot scheme. And we always use the Prime Minister as our number one guinea pig. If the Queen’s busy on that day.

Please feel free to vomit accordingly. Vomiting is NOT a symptom of Coronavirus. But everyone you know will probably be forced to isolate anyway.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Scientists are on a mission. Again. Another mission. Different one. This one, not so much: to boldly go where no-one has gone before, but more: to boldly go when no-one has gone before/during/after/whatever.

Because this is about time. That most illusive of constructs. Time is essentially nothing. And yet everyone gets pissed off when I’m late. So science is going to reconcile this and hopefully people will become more forgiving to my tardiness as a consequence. I even had my watch serviced in anticipation. Because either it was going wrong, losing time and stopping every night at about 3.25am, or… time had actually SLOWED DOWN!!!!! and was stopping every night from 3.25 until I woke up. Well, until I take my first piss of the day and look at my watch. You simply don’t know.

Time can’t actually ‘stop’ because, as I mentioned, it is nothing. What we call ‘time’, implying some kind of absolute and inviolable constant, is in fact an arbitrary way chosen to measure the distance between events. “From the Olympic Games to the World Cup will be one year, 2 months and 14 days… a few hours, couple of minutes and 32.649 seconds”. Events don’t have to be that big. A leaf falling (very small event) takes 4.3 seconds. Big fucking deal. Who cares?

Well science cares, that’s who! But more specifically they worry that in the sub-atomic world of electrons and quarks and shit, there is no time. Or rather, time has no ‘direction’. But when you get bigger, time is highly significant. People age. Plants die. Meat rots. If it wasn’t directional we’d be born at 99 and rejuvenate over the next century, like Brad Pitt did in that silly movie. We’d buy maggot-infested stinky beef (they probably eat that anyway in northern Scandinavia, they eat all kinds of shit up there because there’s nothing else to do) and wait a few weeks until it became “28-day-aged beef” or another three weeks to eat it fairly fresh. Sell-by dates would be fucked forever.

The ‘events’ we choose to ‘set’ time are things like the world revolving on its axis or travelling around the sun. And everything stems from those. An ‘hour’ is just a tool of convenience. Which is my excuse for missing an appointment.

So it is now an interesting question: if the sub-atomic world has no ‘time’, but the bigger world, the macro-world, which is entirely made up of sub-atomic stuff, does, then at what point, or level, or time perhaps, does this happen. That’s worth 2 million quid of anyone’s grant money.

As David Bowie said: ‘Time; inflexes like a whore, falls wanking to the floor…’ I think he hit the nail on the head. But when?

Happy seventeenth rotation of the Earth’s axis, of the seventh subdivision of the 12 parts of one revolution around the sun.

A xxxx

Have you in any way pondered possibly the most odd but ne’er spoken about statistic in all those covid numbers which we find ourselves pretty much drowning in? I’m talking about the number of deaths per number of cases, or number of deaths per million of population, or number of deaths… relative to virtually anything. Britain tops the lot. We may not be able to win a penalty shoot out but we can lose more people to a virus than any fucking country out there! We are the world champions of dying. And so you have to ask ‘why???’ Why did so few Germans and Italians and Scandinaves die compared to the Brits? And because we love to speculate and hypothesise and because no-one else is prepared to offer it as a possible cause: is it because we’re a nation of fat bastards?

We know that covid preyed particularly on the obese, as well as virtually anyone else with health issues. Given a choice between Mahatma Gandhi and Hattie Jacques, that pesky little virus would leap straight for the latter, possibly for warmth, succour, fluffiness and everything a’plenty. Even though all that would be more short-lived. Literally.

So the head of the National Food Strategy has finally published his plan. And its a good one. In the main. I won’t question how he intends to affect methane levels produced by sheep and cows, nor am I prepared to even think about it for too long. That’s his problem. But ‘cutting down on meat’ would inevitably go some way to producing the desired effect. Less ruminants; less farting. Simple maffs. By producing less meat we’d also be able to reduce de-forestation (an acceptable double negative in the circumstances, I feel), because cows and sheep need a lot of grazing land, which can only come from currently forested areas.

Amazingly, half of the ‘meat’ Britain produces goes into processed meals and sandwiches as ‘fillers’. Half. 50%. Though I’m guessing it’s not the best 50%, but anyway, its a lot of tail, foot and lung. Mr National Food Strategist is suggesting that instead we use alternative proteins like lentils, like yeast and… like algae. Do I look like a sperm whale? Or even like a vegetarian? But I’d go along with it, whilst quietly wondering where all the tails, feet and lungs are going. To a landfill?

Despite the obvious problem, which is I LOVE MEAT, this initiative has merits. And whilst remaining the least likely tree-hugger and even lesser-likely vegan on the planet, this seems like a good start. Other than the ‘algae’ bit. What does one even taste like? Yet it will benefit a society who, when its not racially abusing footballers, is pigging out on terrible food. Whilst simultaneously doing its bit for emissions. Which will keep me in petrol for longer as my personal guilt will be offset by my collective smugness.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

The first rule of argument is: pick your battles.
The second is: never argue publicly with a footballer.

Because however dim footballers may be, however uneducated, unworldly, unaware of politics, ignorant of the meaning of the word ‘subtle’, however semi-literate they may be, always remember: they are loved (ok, and also hated) and they have 10,000 times more followers on social media than you do.

I’d just like to say that there are exceptions to the ‘footballers are stupid’ rule, and Tyrone Mings is certainly one. And he laid into the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, and rightly so. She’s horrible. Which, in fact, is her right to be. A bullying harridan, she jumped totally onto the Brexit bandwagon, which then had to be re-built because it broke under the weight. But then she referred to football players ‘taking the knee’ before games as “gesture politics”. Which, especially for a ‘person of colour of the non-white variety’ is a fairly silly thing to say. She said that fans who boo and jeer the kneeling players are perfectly within their rights if they object. Which again is true. Some might say, booing and jeering is more ‘gesture politics’. As is everything legal you’re allowed to do in a democracy. You can’t blow up parliament, you can’t assassinate the PM, even if you really want to, but you can use free speech in a non-offensive way to get a point across.

Taking the knee will not change much, that is as sure as it is fairly sad. And was proven on Sunday night within 5 seconds of the last missed penalty when our former ‘heroes’ were immediately divided by colour as the abusers took to Twitter. But it makes precisely that point. That black players are treated worse than whites. More harshly. More quickly and hurtfully criticised. Attacked for nothing. And you can attack someone for missing a penalty, if you’re a cruel, heartless absolute moron with no concept of contextual pressure, but you can’t attack a penalty taker on the grounds of his colour.

As even Priti Patel said in her horror at the abuse. But alas, she’d dug her hole. Tyrone Mings just started shovelling on the earth.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

The sun’s shining this morning. Yesterday it rested. And it rained instead. I mean, it didn’t start until about 4 and it was over by 9. And although ‘heavy’ish, it wasn’t like the stuff of Thailand or India. This was ‘heavy’ British rainfall. Nothing to do with Europe as rain has been for last 40 years, this is our fucking rain. Which caused the London borough of Barnet to flood. All of it. And I just don’t get it. Not like we’ve had so much precipitation of late that water levels were perilously high. Not like it was a flash flood kind’a thing (though that’s what they’re calling it). It just rained a bit and everything turned to shit. Or to water, which is actually way more damaging and catastrophic than shit could ever dream of being.

When Mel picked me up from the station, (I may be stupid but I don’t ride my bike in heavy-ish rain), there was too much traffic. Which only happens when the big roads nearby, and in particular Henley’s Corner, have a problem and Waze leads everyone down my side streets. Then we got word from Mel’s aunt that her home was flooding. She lives 300 yards from us. And her road ‘unpassable’ due to water.

But then the worst thing ever. I received a video showing my little tennis club. Which lives in the park, next to the tamest, meekest, lowliest brook in the world. Dogs paddle in this brook. Children go in, much to their parents’ displeasure. There’s normally about 2 feet of water in it. It’s only there to ensure that any tennis ball lofted over the fence will be ruined FOREVER. And on the video was my club. Under water. Next to a raging torrent, which was previously the mild-mannered brook. The water was over a metre higher than it ever is, even during rainfall. And I’m guessing but it didn’t rain 1 metre’s worth last night. If it rained 2 centimetres that’s a lot.

So I’m struggling to work out what happened. I mean, Auntie Gillian can get a new carpet on her insurance (as long as the flood didn’t relate to Covid in any way, obviously; that’s a red line for insurers), but my tennis club??? Which, ironically, is closed this week to resurface the courts.

This has happened before. And it transpired then, as water levels had risen even higher, as you could see by the ‘tide mark’ on the club house, the council, in their infinite wisdom, had ‘diverted’ water from somewhere or other, down our brook, to protect or save somewhere else. They had to build us a new clubhouse and replace the astroturf court which had just ‘buckled’ under the water.

I think I need to speak to the person at Barnet Council who is in charge of the ‘water diversion department’ to find out the criteria for his actions, and what, exactly, he was thinking when he FLOODED MY FUCKING TENNIS CLUB!!!

Happy Soggy Tuesday

A xxxx

It was riveting, it was exiting, it was breath-taking at times, it was a battle royal of two supreme forces engaged in the individual mastery of their sport, almost in mortal combat. It was that good.

Not the football, that was shit.

But Wimbledon tennis finals often are wonderful. That was the first 4 hours of my viewing schedule yesterday. And it was totally brilliant. As was Djokovic. Love him (no-one does, no-one could) or hate him, you cannot deny his brilliance. The Italian, Billy Handsome, tried valiantly, but alas it was not his day. Grand Slam finals are only ever Novak Djokovic’s day.

Then I had a ‘rest’. Went for a walk, took a bath, ate dinner and then, one whisky to the good and a bottle of, ironically, Peroni in my hand, I took my seat for the main event. In fact, due to my struggle with the bottle opener, I actually managed to miss the first goal. Holy shit. I have seen it subsequently, about 47 times. And its still an incredible goal. The cross by Trippier, always perfection, and that finish by Luke Shaw, sufficient to make Jose Morinho simply squirm to death due to the realisation of his own un-specialness.

And that was great! And we were winnin’!!! And it was all rosy and bright and the champagne was ready and the parties started… but alas the final whistle failed to blow after 5 minutes. Due to Brexit. And they made us play another 95, then a further 30 after that, just for fun. It almost appeared like ‘we’d done enough’. ‘Relax now’. Ok, Italy’s traditional stance of ‘sitting there impenetrably’ for as long as it takes to score on the break, had to be re-worked into something more aggressively attack-minded. And that’s what they did. After 4 minutes England appeared to be ‘waiting for penalties’. Even though they were winning. The rest, alas and alack, was almost inevitable.

But worst of all is the ‘fans’. Not all of them, obviously. Some are lovely. Others tried to smash their way into Wembley. Not so lovely. And still others are simply the scum of the earth.

The nation bonded over the Euros, no question about it. We joined. We linked. We were a brother-(and sister!)-hood. Or just ‘a hood’ as we have to call it now. In the second match played there was the Christian Eriksen event, which turned one and all into caring, considerate, loving souls, everyone involved at any level, in every country. The feel-good sustained my nation for the following 3 weeks. And then, after 3 missed penalties the divisive rabble took to Twitter to abuse those who missed: terribly, instantly and racially. And I really really just don’t get the connection. These people are vile.

#whitepenaltymissesmatter

Not the happiest of Mondays

A xxxx