Andy's Glasses

Covid? We’re over it. As a nation. Vaccinated, drinking ‘again’, restaurants open, a bit too ‘open’ for some who don’t wish to freeze, along with their dinner, at a table by the side of the M1 as the juggernauts go screaming by, and life is resuming. We’re still wearing masks. Some of the time. I have a partial exemption on the strictly medical grounds that ‘I fucking hate them’, but life is returning to something approaching ‘normal’. Other than in the City which is still pretty desolate but is slowly, slowly coming back to a low level of ‘life’. Like a few billion years ago when the first fish grew legs and took their first few steps on land. Definitely encouraging.

So we’ll take our trip now, thank you very much, which we cancelled from last Christmas. To Kerala. In India. Oh. India. Where they’re not doing very well at the moment. In fact they are doing tragically badly, I’m sorry to report. No hospital beds, no oxygen to treat patients, massive death tolls every day, its truly awful. But I’ve been vaccinated, so I’m fine and if we have to move a few bodies out of the way to see some of the wonderful sights and take a few selfies, that’s a small price to pay.

The most ridiculous Boris thing of the whole pandemic has been the ‘we’re banning flights from this or that disease-ridden, hyper-infected, death-certain hell-hole!! From, not next Friday but the one after that!!’ Thus they announced last week that flights were to be banned from India. From 4 days time. I mean… I mean… that’s almost worse than re-decorating your flat. WE’RE A FUCKING ISLAND; ISOLATING IS EASY!!!

Ok, India’s out then. Like, totally. Brazil. South Africa. Germany. France. Italy. No way I’m going to any of those countries. Or any others really, because if the rules change, you’re stuffed when you get home. If they allow you home. Spain is re-opening in June for Brits, using a new ‘digital health certificate’ which bears absolutely no relation whatsoever to a ‘covid passport’, at all. Because for some reason, the term ‘passport’ causes masses of upset among the woke, the hypersensitive, those who cry ‘discrimination’ at every opportunity and other assorted stupid people, whereas ‘certificates’ are fine and ‘health’ is a word linked to the national HEALTH service and is thus filled with love and clapping and banging frying pans.

We’ve booked to go to Israel in October. Cancellable flights. Vaccinated country. It’s still a punt but we live in hope.

Happy normal Wednesday

A xxxx

Boris Johnson stood by Dominic Cummings for a long time. Defended him. Supported him. Even after Dom had taken a road trip with his family whilst having Covid and having overseen the ban on travel for the entire nation, did Boris, like Tammy Wynette before him, stand by his man. On the grounds that Dominic Cummings was the cleverest person Boris had ever met. Ok, not great on social skills, people management or sartorial standards but that wasn’t his job. His job was to be more clever than everyone else and more devious.

He was certainly more clever than Boris. I often feel that Joey is more clever than Boris. As for devious, the man has 34Gb of messages, recordings and videos of his time with Boris. So when the pm accused Dom of leaking some really minor league stuff, the bald misery replied with, basically: I didn’t leak that. You want leaks? Have some of this then! And blogged a whole raft of indiscretions and dodgy moves by our nation’s political leader. Terrible things. Bad things. Ending with describing Boris as: ‘lacking competence and integrity’. Which we know anyway. The ‘competence’ speaks for itself and for integrity just look at the various little blond children running round the capital with fat bellies and Received Pronunciation.

Dom specified two items in particular. Having the PM’s flat at Number 10 ‘decorated’, for £58,000. No crime in itself. But get Tory party funders to pay for it and it suddenly becomes a major crime. Personally I’m just dead curious to see what 58 grand’s worth of ‘decoration’ looks like when a big tin of white emulsion costs 20 quid.

Number two is even better. The second lockdown was due to be announced on a sunday. (All covid shit was announced on Sundays; coronavirus law, 88451.BJ.275) But because of a leak to the press, it had to be brought forward a day. To Saturday!! Holy shit!! Bad news announced on a Saturday!!! The world is in free fall.

So an inquiry was launched. As they do over every fucking thing so they can to keep civil servants in jobs. And it was looking like Carrie’s best mate Henry Newman was the culprit. And that would result in Carrie being seriously pissed off, which would impact negatively on Boris’s sex life. So Boris actually tried to have the whole inquiry called off, which is illegal, just so as not to upset (the next, future) Mrs Johnson. This story will run and run.

Which is a bit like this year’s football season. Seems to have been an increasing disaster for about 37 months. And now the only thing we have left is that we’re ahead of Arsenal. But you know what? That’s enough. Spurs fans are all trained to have limited aspirations and a high tolerance to disappointment, honed through years of practice.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Honestly, don’t I have enough to worry about? Jesus, my shoulder’s for shit, we’re in month 14 of the worst thing ever to become a proper ‘thing’, we’ve just averted the worst crisis that football has ever faced, Joey broke our lovingly constructed kit car and the lawn needs mowing. I mean, really! So I barely have time to consider the actions of Boris and his predecessor-but-one and the whole ‘lobby-gate’ issue, currently surrounding the Tory party with allegations of ‘sleaze’. Particularly when the Labour Party, currently adopting squatter status in ‘the moral high ground’ and entering ‘holier than thou’ mode, have their own history of corruption which go back to doping inquiries in coal mine canaries (Scargill et al, 1983) right up to the esteemed (ex) mayor of Liverpool.

I met David Cameron once. We were at a Chanukah party at 10 Downing Street. And in the 14 seconds we spoke I can attest that he didn’t offer me any bribes, back-handers, didn’t try to rob me or propose acting for my company in governmental matters or contracts. However… he is no longer the PM and has thrown his lot in with Greensill, a financial institution who aren’t doing very well at the moment. In the same way that ‘Prince Philip is not doing very well at the moment’. So he did what he could to help them. For which they probably pay him £350k a year for 2.3 hours a month. Not because he’s a whizz at finance; not because he brings something special to the board, not because he has any idea of what the company even does. But because he has Rishi Sunak on speed dial. Because he can get a call through to the governor of the Bank of England and you couldn’t.

So that’s exactly what he did. ‘Phone a friend’. He’s allowed to do that. On anyone’s behalf he likes, even financial institutions mired with billions of unpayable debt to try and get a government grant. But he needs to do it openly. I’m gonna say it…

“TRANS-PAR-ENT-LEEEEE”!!!!

Otherwise he’s just another Eton old boy selling his ability to get in the back door to the highest bidder.

A bit like Boris. Except he IS the prime minister so ‘transparency’ is not just required but FUCKING ESSENTIAL. And with friends like Dominic Cummings, Boris needs to ‘keep his enemies closer’. Dominic sent a bunch of Boris’s texts to newspapers in which the PM promised to ‘get sorted’ some special tax considerations for Dyson employees. In return for ventilators. At the height of the pandemic when ventilators were running short. And as James Dyson spent 20 million pounds of his own money on the ventilators, never presenting the government with a bill and never actually getting the contract, as the moment (thankfully) passed, some could say that was actually good business by the PM who’d suffered months of being accused of ‘acting too late’. He acted early, independently, and is now suffering for it.

And I know Boris was busy back in last April/May, trying desperately to, firstly, stay alive, and secondly, having a rather full inbox most of the time, but he should have just alerted someone to what he was doing.

Ok, that’s lobbying done. But now the shit has really hit the fan. Though I don’t think Dominic Cummings is a Boris ‘fan’ at all. Quite the opposite. He is the ‘woman scorned’ (equality means all terms are no ‘un-gendered’) and hell really has no fury like a former aide with a phone full of incriminating shit sufficient to send Boris to jail.

The plot thickens…

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Ok, that’s the European Super League done with then. Let’s get back to work. But, like WTF? I was just getting exited about going to Barcelona and Madrid every other week for 6 months (I have sooooo many air miles) and now NOTHING!!! The Spaniards would probably field 3rd teams in what would quickly become meaningless, exhibition matches anyway, so why risk the big guys?. How could they lift me up so high and then… and then… nothing. Zip. De nada. I’m devastated. What will I do with my “ESL Frever!!!”, and “BIG SIX TEAM SO FUCK YOU!!!”, t-shirts? Will I get a refund?

Also, if I’m being totally honest, although the ‘Y-word’ associated with my beloved team causes me no offence whatsoever, as I understand its full meaning and origins, I do not feel completely comfortable with the ‘Big 6’ thing at all. Spurs are a ‘big club’. No doubt. Financially we’re massive: fan-base spectacular, stadium (until someone else builds one) the best in the world. But when they listed the ESL teams the other day along with ‘last league title won’, that was a column too far. 1961. Half of the grandparents of current fans weren’t alive then. (I’m alive at the moment of writing this and include Lila and Joey as ‘fans’). And although cups and trophies are not my motivation for anything (otherwise there’d be no Spurs fans) it does kind of set us aside a little.

Anyway; its over. Like Brexit again, but quicker. This time the vote went 62,453,079 vs 6.

Over in America (where this trouble began, if you think about it) they just finished the trial of Derek Chauvin, the policeman who murdered (yes, we can say that now) George Floyd in Minnesota. And it is safe to say that there has never been a more unfair trial in the entire history of unfair trials. Lynch mobs were fairer than this. Charles Bronson in Death Wish was fairer than this.

And I’m not saying he didn’t do it (doh: the film footage is simply horrendous) nor that he doesn’t deserve to be punished. It’s just the trial. Because upon his guilty shoulders sat the immediate future of civil uprising in America. Politically he simply had to be found guilty, regardless of any evidence or videos. As a ‘line drawn in the sand’ by the American police, he needed to be guilty. Basically, he was guilty or there’s war. Even the president yesterday, before the jury went out, went on tv to say how he hoped Del-boy was found guilty. Fucking right he hoped that, otherwise there wouldn’t be enough soldiers in all 50 states to stem what would have ensued.

The guilty verdict is not ‘the end’ of institutional racism in America. It is barely a start to look properly at a massive problem. Chauvin will go to prison, deservedly, where he’ll be the most popular man in the place. But everyone has the right to a fair trial. And that wasn’t anything like one and he didn’t get one. Just sayin’…

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

So today I’m going to explain the horrendous storm currently playing out in European football. A storm so profound that the entire world is up in arms about it. Boris Johnson has pitched in, Prince William!!! (the ‘good prince’ in the modern, digital-media version of the Cane & Abel story currently being played out on the news pages not about football), ministers, footballers, fans, absolutely everyone. Except the owners of the 6 ‘rogue’ clubs in question. They’re keeping mum. And, succinctly, so you don’t get bored, and in simple terms, because you’re not that bright, I shall explain the major points of this issue. Ah-hem (clearing throat before I hold forth).

Six greedy fat motherfucker billionaires want to get even richer and couldn’t give two shits for anyone else at all and are prepared to act in ruination of the structure of our national game so they can add a few digits on their pre-tax profits.

Yet in a way, its all about ‘sustainability’. Yes, that word again. The one which makes us all want to vomit. Not ‘sustainable’ in any kind of ecological or environmental way, I think it safe to say that Messrs Henry, Glazer, Mansoor et al couldn’t give a damn about that kind of problem. No, this is sustainability of business models. Which doesn’t exist with any kind of guarantee in the current system, but carries a 100% certainty and security in the American sports model.

Take the wonderful (and horrendous) example of Leeds United. They reached the late stages of the Champions League one season and ‘put their house’ (and lots of other people’s houses which they didn’t even own) on more success which would then (retrospectively and hopefully) pay for those houses. But it didn’t happen and Leeds spent the next 20 years in the financial and footballing wilderness as a consequence. All because of inconsistency of income.

The American model is a ‘sealed system’, or a ‘closed shop’. The same teams compete every year against each other and no-one else. They all share the tv rights and all know exactly how much they’re going to earn. There are no surprises.

So although fans love ‘giant killing’ and all feel great when Leicester win the league against every type of odds imaginable, the money men hate that unpredictability because it affects their own income stream. And the system is designed to ‘filter down’ though the lower leagues which, to a degree, it does. Because we’ve all played on pitch 137 on Hackney Marshes and need that to continue. Even after they flattened most of the Marshes.

Stan Kroenke never played on Hackney Marshes. Has no ‘feel’ for the game. No understanding of ‘the fans’ perspective’. In fact, he, and the others, simply don’t consider the fans at all. Nor really the players. His type of ‘football’ is played on spreadsheets.

Unfortunately, we fans feel we have rights. Feel we ‘own’ our clubs. Always speak of them in the first person. And yet we have no say, no vote, no nuffink. And I fear that this move towards an ‘elite’ superstructure in the game will gain traction. Because you don’t put together a deal worth billions without doing your due diligence and your legal investigations first.

I hate them. To satisfy their abject greed they shit on all of us. Including Prince William.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Football died yesterday. All of it. The whole game. Worldwide. A greater tragedy than the pandemic, a bigger disaster than the Titanic, a more devastating tragedy than Krakatoa and Pompeii combined. Because yesterday they started… The European Super League!!! It even has its own acronym. You ready? It’s the ESL. And that’s impressive that they worked that out so quickly. Though in time that title will change to the American Super League, (ASL), then just the World Super League (WSL) in line with American sports in general where the rest of the world doesn’t count.

They’ve been talking about a(n) ESL for many years. And by ‘they’, I mean ‘Americans’. Not all of them. About 359,999,997 are fine. It’s the other 3 who are the problem. Stan Kroenke, John W (for ‘WANKER!!!’) Henry and Any old Glazer as they’re pretty much interchangeable, except the dead one. All of whom are ‘owners’ of football clubs over here, and I would say ‘by hook or by crook’ but as they’re all crooks I won’t bother. They’ve all made their acquisitions by boardroom crockery. If Dick Turpin was alive today he wouldn’t hold up stage coaches. He’d perform a hostile takeover and use a leveraged buyout to steal everything instead. It’s the modern way. And by such means did such outlaws (if the law wasn’t as ass) acquired ownership of two of our most revered and esteemed football clubs. And Arsenal.

And because all three own sport franchises ‘over there’, they probably spend their whole time wondering why the Tampa Bay Buccaneers produces $5.7 billion in profit every year, whilst Manchester United loses £972 million over the same period. Even though that loss is leveraged against the loan that the directors took when they borrowed it against a different loan than they never took out in the first place, thus giving them $1.2 billion income. If you don’t understand the figures it’s because you don’t have a true love of sports.

The ESL is the singularly most horrible thing ever invented. And stupid. And will take everything we know and love about our game and ruin it. Americanise it. Draws will be banned. Small clubs no longer needed. Because tonight, LIVE ON ESPN, The mighty Toledo Hotspurs are playing Real Minnesota!!!! If it should be level after 90 minutes, all players will be armed and it will be sudden death to decide!!! But literally!!!!
God help us all. 

And yet, oddly, coincidentally, God did help us. By personally sacking Jose Morinho about 10 minutes ago from the team both He and I love. So suddenly: THERE IS HOPE!!!!

Shame on Daniel Levy. The only Brit among those mercenary Oligarchs, oil billionaires and Yankee robbers. 

Very unhappy, then suddenly very HAPPY Monday

A xxxx

Wot I’ve seen this week. By Andy. A brief review of wot I done in the realm of watchin’ stuff on the tv. So you’ll know what’s good and what’s shit. And that may help you grately. In your life.

Last night we ‘partied’ hard and long. But because of our year(s) of enforced confinement, our resultant agoraphobia means we party hard and long, but not very many of us, and only at home. Possibly in the garden, but only if its warm. So the party started with a jigsaw session. Because yesterday they released Rachie from quarantine! She came over last Sunday from Berlin, and the rules are so strict that you now have to piss away at least 500 quid on tests to be allowed release from the shed. So we got a take-away, shared a bottle of Prosecco and watched ‘Palm Springs’. One of the many movies to have been released in covid times. Palm Springs is Groundhog Day Redu. So the entire concept is surreal. If you don’t get or like surreal, don’t bother with it. But if you do, if your entire life has been leaning in that very direction (and steered ever more Dali-wise by the ‘pandemic’) then you’ll love it. I did. Mel hated it. And protested in the normal way, by falling asleep.

The previous evening I watched Tottenham Hotspur, a north London football team, play the Everton’s of Liverpool. In a match so horribly vile and rotten and shitty that I wish to pass no further comment at this time and will save my testimony for the trial. Which there really should be.

I also managed to squeeze in Midge Ure and Kim Appleby looking at ‘music of the 80s’ but in Scotland and Ireland. And that was fantastic. Because as the punk movement in Britain gave way to the horribly electro ‘new romantic’ Duran Diarrhoea and other voiceless wonders, the Scots were getting political. And there were loads of great bands making great music about joblessness and deprivation and the working class struggle. Mainly playing it to a bunch of over-entitled English kids whose only concern was whether they could dance to the beat without their face paint running. Then came the Proclaimers who re-wrote the entire ‘pop-star’ and ‘nerd’ handbooks.

In Ireland it was different. Lots of great bands, particularly from Dublin, all playing music based on traditional Irish sounds. Including U2, Thin Lizzy, Boomtown Rats. Great program. Shame they didn’t just slip into the early 90s for ‘my favourite ever song’ (one of 344) and the most politicised, Zombie by the Cranberries. Sung in almost unintelligible Northern Irish accents, the protest against ‘the troubles’ in the Province is as potent as it is powerful. But man, does it ‘rock’.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Some people ‘possess the screen’ when they act. Some simply ‘own it’. Not because of any perception of beauty. Otherwise they’d never have given the Oscar to Frances McDormand, and will probably give her another this year too. But go see Fargo, or Four Billboards, and you’ll know what ‘star presence’ really is. In such a beautifully understated way. Robert de Niro has it. Dustin Hoffman. Brando, obvs, Saoirse Ronan had it as a kid in ‘Hannah’ and it grew and grew. It’s a type of ‘magic’ that can’t be taught.

In the 70s I went to see a lot of movies. And the 80’s, 90’s… But I was ‘young’ and you’d think had different criteria. Yet certain actors would have us rushing to Leicester Square, where movies always ‘started’ in the UK back then. Because you simply couldn’t wait for the next Bruce Lee movie and the thought of it being out and waiting even longer, as it took about 4 weeks to get from Leicester Square to the Gants Hill Odeon, presumably by a blind man with one leg walking unaided, was unacceptable. And even though there is a very strong case that the early ‘Kung fu’ movies of his, like Fist of Fury and The Big Boss were just complete shite, over-dubbed tragically into English with contemptible storylines, only there only to create a framework in which Bruce could kick the shit out of hundreds of Oriental people, we simply loved them.

But back to proper acting, we would also rush to the West End for anything starring Gene Hackman or Charles Bronson. Gene because he is magical on the screen, and Bronson because he was made of wood. Hardened somewhere in the Slavic region. Just before they permanently removed his smiling gland. But Bronson starred in many films. He was a scriptwriter’s dream. Because they only needed to script him one word at a time. The fewer syllables the better. And the epitome of a Bronson movie was Death Wish. The ultimate revenge flick. And it was brilliant. I never bothered with versions 2, 3, 4, ‘with a vengeance’, ‘in Tokyo’, 7, 8 or ‘the ballet’.

And now they’ve remade it. Reversed it, gender-wise, and made the avenger a gel. Carey Mulligan, to be precise. It’s called Promising Young Woman and the protagonist sets up ‘rapist’ type students/men/boys and does bad things to them. Effectively making it Death Wish goes #metoo with PC values, women-in-charge, gender-irrelevant, choose your own pronouns. Part 1.

I’m gonna watch it. And so should YOU!

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I’m down to my last 9 Cadburys Easter eggs. I did a stock-take yesterday. And at average rate of consumption that supply will last… errrr… probably until Monday. Possibly Tuesday if I ‘ration’. And why is this relevant? Well, I actually try and keep absolutely everything I write totally irrelevant, as well as inane, trite, pathetic and worthless. Where’s the fun otherwise?

Anyway, chocolate. Most important thing in my life. And I’m glad to note that others are finally taking it as seriously as I do. Although my limits on ‘chocolate’ generally begin and end with Cadburys, we have a family tradition at birthday time. 97% of British families share this too. We celebrate with a ‘Colin the Caterpillar Cake’ from Marks & Spencer’s. Ok, so 97% of staunchly middle-class suburb-dwellers, champagne Socialists and Tory party members. We may have other cakes as well, we may have parties on occasion, we may do all sorts of things. But when we get together and there’s a birthday nearby, the lights go out, the tension mounts and into the room is carried a Colin, lit up by a million candles! Ok, normally 3, whatever the value of the birthday, just because you almost have to use a drill on the chocolate to get the candles in there and who can be bothered?

And a secret that is no secret, (I don’t even ‘love’ Colin’ that much!!!). The chocolate is ‘inferior’ (read: ‘Not Cadburys’) and even speaking as the man with the sweetest teeth ever implanted to replace those rotted by a lifetime’s sugar, its too sweet!!!

However, tradition is everything, so I love Colin from a ‘cultural perspective’.

And then Aldi, those upstart, downmarket, German(!!!!) supermarketeers from… Germany!!!, introduced ‘Cuthbert the Caterpillar Cake’. A cheap, poor-person’s, working class, Aldi-shopper type product of decidedly inferior nature. So M&S are taking Aldi to court of the fact that Cuthbert is not merely a Colin-imposter, but an instance of cultural appropriation!, if not outright Class War!!! And I whole-heartedly support their actions in this. You can’t just make a chocolate cake shaped like a larval insect and hope to  get away with that. 

Happy Friday

A xxxxx

Have you seen my new shoulder? This is a picture of it. Haven’t got it yet, just going round the showrooms doing a bit of shoulder-shopping. I think the silver’s nice really. Though black might be closer to the colour of my soul and definitely my heart, I like the more bling look of shiny things. I’m going for the Hokey Kokey 2000 model, with four-barrel carburettors and a turbo-charger, wide wheels, leather trim and 4Gb of WiFi.

The time has come, the day has dawned, the end is nigh. The old shoulder has served its purpose (ie; moving my right arm around) for 64 years and shall be retired with full… dishonour. Because basically, having consulted the finest of consultants in consultation, we have collectively concluded a catastrophic degree of fuckage in the region. The multiple dislocations suffered many moons ago have produced a horrible degree of Osteo-arthritis. In the joint. Which really is no longer much of a ‘joint’, more a big, horrible tangle of bone-on-bone and shit. Though apparently, the insistent playing of tennis in recent and present times, has actually helped. I thought he’d say ‘tennis!!! Are you fucking insane?!?!’, but he didn’t. He said it has kept every thing around the shit-shoulder working better than it would have. Ooooooohhhh, that’s good. How often does stubborn insistence and total ignorance in the face of all common sense result in medical benefit?

And its easy. You don’t even need an anaesthetic. Just an aspirin, a whisky and you bite on a bit of wood, saying ‘cut me!’ Like they used to perform orthopaedic surgery in Mutiny on the Bounty. I want a ‘retro-op’. Ok, I want all the drugs that exist, all free, whilst the insurance is paying. And then just a few… months? Weeks? Years???, of slings, immobilisation, restricted use, resting and other horrendously disabling restraint and I’ll be back…

Well, not just ‘on court’ but back. Not having to be careful picking up a cup, not having agony whilst brushing my teeth, taking off shirts, lifting a child, reaching for… anything.

I’ve had another scan and await more input. And then… and then…

WE CAN RE-BUILD HIM!!! Better than before. Bionic Man lives!!!, in NW11.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx