Andy's Glasses

Football used to be about kicking balls around, maybe scoring goals, committing a few fouls, swearing at the ref, you know, football. Then along came the ‘Premiership’ in 1992, bringing with it loads and loads of cash. Because there were more televised matches. And with money comes accountants. And statisticians. All looking at where their money is going, where it should go, what produces the most value and who is a total waste of the stuff. Football fans became bombarded with analytical statistics. To the point where now, before they’ll issue you with a season ticket, you need to prove actuarial competence. So you understand what the fuck they’re all talking about. Because the answer to the comment: ‘did you see that amazing pass by Kevin De Bruyne to make that goal????’ used to be ‘yeaeaeaeah; brilliant!!!’ or possibly, ‘he’s a Belgian bastard!’. Now the answer is ‘and he’s got an 82% pass completion rate, the third highest in the league, 5th in Europe, BUT his overall score, taking into account goals scored and tackles made puts him top in all European countries, except Scotland, where only Celtic get to score the goals’.

And every day someone comes out with a new statistic. A new number, having thought of something else to count. Mainly for the sole purpose of upsetting Spurs fans. The one I read on Saturday was ‘most points lost by conceding goals in the 90th minute or later’. And my lovely Lillywhites head that table. With pride. So being ‘Spursy’ is actually statistically valid. How chronically depressing.

But with statistics like that, really, we should have been relegated. Numerous times. Yet we haven’t, rather staying ‘ever-present’ since the league began. Which means that although we drop all these ridiculous late points and, it must be said, quite a few much earlier points, we also have times when we win lots and do great things. Because we’re not only ‘present’ in the league but also always ‘up there’. Near the top. Ish. Other than now. Therefore we are probably one of the most inconsistent teams around. Sheffield United are totally consistent. They lose to everybody. Except Manchester United, but we’ll put that down to Covid. So their fans have no expectations, no aspirations, no fucking hope. Which you can accept and enjoy the ride for what its worth.

Whereas Spurs fans are filled with eternal hope. But the inconsistency means that it is never fulfilled. That inconsistency is the only consistent thing. Which actually makes things worse for us than for Sheffield United.

Its not disappointment that kills you, but hope. (The unofficial Spurs motto). And thus, as another season dies the death of a thousand cuts, I think we need a new analysis. The most depressing club to support. As proven by psychologists, statisticians and crying Spurs fans.

Otherwise! Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

So I wrote about Prince Philip, as was my divine duty, my right, my moral obligation, my… whatever. He died, I said ‘goodbye’, not that I’d ever said ‘hello’ but that’s the nature of obituaries. You don’t have to know everyone who dies, just to know OF them is sufficient. To make you a ‘mourner’. Which is why they have books and online portals for such ‘mourners’ to offer condolences and tell everyone how much they’re going to miss… whoever. Then you lay some flowers, with 22,846 other bunches, against a wall in Westminster and go back to wait for the pubs to open. Tomorrow! Unless someone else dies in the meantime.

I was not alone in writing kind words about our most Edinburgh of Dukes. No. A few newspapers printed the odd word and even a picture or two. Or three. Thousand. Or more. Endless photos, stories, tales of his youth, his navy days, his marriage, his (alleged!!!) affairs, his children, his grandchildren… fucking everyone and everything he ever did. And in 99+ years, that was quite a lot. The BBC also went into ‘famous death’ mode and extended their news bulletins, whipped their ‘specials’ out of the pending file and went into full Philip meltdown for the next 53 hours, suspending all other broadcasting.

This may be because the Philip archive, both in print and film, has been growing for about 73 years since anyone first heard of him, and had reached the point where storage had become a problem, so it just came bursting out in an explosion. Especially as, since he came out of hospital a few weeks ago, editors have been sitting with their fingers poised of the red ‘PRINT!/AIR!’ buttons.

So now the inevitable. ‘There’s too much stuff about Philip’. ‘He weren’t that great’. ‘Only a bloody consort’. ‘I’m bored with Princely rubbish’.

So for all those moaners, tomorrow the newspapers and tv stations are having a special day. A no-Philip, coronavirus and Brexit special! To let them know exactly what they’ve been missing whilst we’ve been crying over big Phil. Maybe just a few pages about the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Something we’ve all really missed in the last 20 years. I’d quite forgotten how much I love a burning bus.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Parenting is a skill. An art. For which there are no rules. Which is why I was so good at it, I fucking hate rules. (Hence my deep and profound love of all things ‘pandemic’, for which there have been more rules in 13 months than in the previous 472 years combined). And when I say ‘good at parenting’, I suppose it all depends on your standpoint. Like, when does ‘just let them do what they want’ slip over to ‘gross criminal negligence’? When does ‘enough rope to hang themselves’ result in hanging? Is a high-powered drill a suitable toy for an almost-2 year old? He’s only holding that because my gun’s at the workshop and he got bored with the samurai sword. Children need to learn limits, rather than have them arbitrarily imposed by parents, or in fact, even grandparents. Especially grandparents. Joey likes to ‘drive’. So rather than just sit there like a… like a… like a child!, I give him the keys and get him to start the engine first. He’s gotta learn to do things properly. Or he’ll ‘never learn at all!’.

One things for sure. He’ll never know Prince Philip. Who died, tragically, at the age of 99. Shame. He didn’t survive to get a telegram from the Queen. But I’ll miss him terribly. For Joey and Lila he’ll just be yet another ‘dead royal’ who’ll appear in history books along with 42,000 others. For me, his passing (hate that word in that context, but it just seems appropriate at this mournful time) represents the end of… errrr… the end of the Queen’s husband. A straight talker who called a spade a spade. And, unfortunately, also called a Chinaman ‘slant-eyes’, Indians ‘darkies’ and every other ethnic minority some other form of insulting, discriminatory and abusive term. And I really hope, though never heard such a thing, that he had abusive terms for Jews too. Because anything that is a red line in the world of ‘woke’ gets a green light from me.

Philip was born in Greece and in his early adult life, ran the family kebab shop… oh, alright, he was born ‘royal’, just not our ‘royal’. His father was the prince of Greece and Denmark (puzzling but true) and his mother was a Battenberg. She was yellow with pink stripes. Honest to goodness. With a buttercream centre. Royalty meets Bake Off. He joined the navy, married the Queen, who wasn’t the Queen yet, just Liz-babe at that time, and spent the rest of his life walking four paces behind her. He was the first man to win a gold medal Duke of Edinburgh award, so they named him after it.

But he did it with style. And, more amazingly, when you consider the nature of his actual ‘role’, he did it with an individuality and with charm and incredible wit. He could have spent 73 years as a Dennis Thatcher. Mr Background. Seen but never heard. But Philip didn’t. He spoke his mind. Often with disastrous consequences, but heh, he sleeps with the Queen; who’s gonna tell him off?

He was that most unusual thing; an interesting royal. Now that mantle passes to his son, Andrew, who is ‘interesting’ for different reasons. Like, ‘of interest to the police’.

RIP Duke of Edinburgh.

A xxxx

Ok, so I have a bit of a problem. With Easter Eggs. An obsession. Addiction. Thus when Easter finally arrives it creates a panic. Because that signifies the ‘end of life, as we know it’ and there’ll be no more Easter eggs til next year! What we (me, myself and I) call ‘the doomsday scenario!’ When I’m forced onto the wagon of abstinence by thoughtless and cruel retailers. But the other side of that Easter coin is that the remaining stock has to go. You can’t sell Easter eggs outside Easter. It’s agains the law.

I walked past the little Tesco on Fleet Street yesterday on my way to work, not needing anything. Then I stopped, walked back and went in. And I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. As I was faced with an Easter egg wall. A truly massive display, in prime position, of Cadbury’s Easter eggs. Piled up, the width of the aisle, must have been over a hundred. And marked with a sign that said: “50p”. Holy shit. Or perhaps, ‘holy grail’. Fifty pence for the ultimate ‘superfood’. But lacking my wheelbarrow, forklift, Transit van or even a bag, I decided to return later. Which I did. And by then there were about 15 left. So I bought 6. Had to. Couldn’t get more in the bag.

Yet this is the weird bit. There aren’t any people around in the City. But like, none. The odd soul. Tumbleweed. And me. So where did all MY fucking Easter eggs go? Who else bought them? When you don’t see more than 6 people on the street all day. When the little Sainsbury’s along the road hasn’t even bothered to reopen since the first lockdown. And yet 85 eggs had disappeared. Did the staff eat them? A few are pretty hefty. But even I’d struggle to eat, say, 20 in a day. I called the police. Then I called X-Files. Disappearing Easter eggs is a paranormal phenomenon. And is very worrying in case some alien motherfucker from Mars pulls up in his flying saucer over my kitchen and uses his tractor beam to relieve me of some of my hard-earned and well-protected stock!!! War of the World’s? More: War of the Eggs. And I would win. 

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that there aren’t seven-legged, three-headed, green-and-yellow monsters from Mars who love chocolate. 

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Ok so its the back end of the football season. The final run in. The exiting bit. When the decisions get made. Who goes up, who goes down, who suffer the indignity of mid-tableness, who wins the cups and, the biggest of all: who goes into Europe next year. So this is what you do, if you’re still fortunate (mainly due to the misfortune of others) enough to be ‘in contention’ for something. You win your fucking games. That’s it really. There’s hours of debate, endless billions of wasted words analysing all sorts of statistics and records and averages; all of which means precisely fuck all. All you need to do is win.

West Bromwich Albion showed exactly that with Saturday’s visit to that portal to Hell known as Stamford Bridge. Chelsea with their new, super-boring manager, have not been beaten in 14 matches. 12 of them they haven’t even conceded a goal. Numbers which have the statisticians drooling. West Brom are floundering. As they have been all season but worse. Because they brought in Sam Allardyce to ‘keep them up’. It’s what he does. Normally. He is the absolute ‘break glass in case of emergency’ manager. He won’t excite the fans. He won’t play like Barcelona. But if its sheer, bloody-minded pragmatism mixed with just a necessary soupçon of extreme violence to consolidate it, which you want or desperately need; Sam’s your man. Yet he had thus far failed to ‘secure’ anything. Leaving West Brom second from bottom and total shit.

A match made for the bookies. So obvious.

And yet it wasn’t. It was wonderful, marvellous, delightful and the kind of game that makes you realise why you can still love the beautiful game, just for matches like that. Because West Brom didn’t just defy the odds. They took those odds and incinerated them. They were simply brilliant to watch and deadly in effect. Ok, Chelsea were down to 10 men but that wasn’t West Brom’s fault. So they won 5-2. And it was simply fantastic.

Then Arsenal lost to Liverpool. Which didn’t do Spurs many favours, league-wise, but is always nice to see. Just because…

So the scene was set. Regal Spurs went to lowly, shitty, awful, hopeless Newcastle. And a win would have put us 4th in the league. Where we want to be, need to be and DESERVE to be, just because…

And we couldn’t hold on to our 2-1 lead and ended up with a draw. And what fucking use is that??? I didn’t even stay home for the end, instead going round to torture Joey (above). I needed to ‘vent’ on someone.

I’m going to start another #metoo movement. Perhaps a #methree or a #mefourfourtwo for football fans who are victims of historical and current abuse from their clubs.

Happy Monday (grrrrrrrrrr…)

A xxxx

That BITCH!!!!!! Meghan Markle/Windsor/Duchess is in yet MORE trouble! As she should be for upsetting Piers Morgan. Oh, and the Queen. Prince Philip. Well, all the royals, except Harry. She invested money into a company promoted by ‘bestie’, Oprah, which makes Oatmeal lattes. For the pretentiousness of that alone she should be shot, but in fact, it gets WORSE! Much worse. The oatmeal in question (what’s wrong with fucking milk? But what do I know?) comes from Xinjiang in China. Where the Uighur Muslims are persecuted, enslaved, murdered and brainwashed (not necessarily in that order) by the Chinese in possibly the greatest human rights/ethnic cleansing tragedy since Bosnia. And thus Meghan, the queen of ‘ethically sourced’ and ‘woke’ and all things nice, is getting cheap oatmeal made by Uighur slaves.

And there’s only one thing worse than buying slave produce. Which is probably not buying slave produce.

Boycotting is the ‘big company’ version of ‘cancelling’. It happens when nations or corporations decide that we, as a nation, as a collective conscience, as a group of companies, must make a moral stance against something appalling. And just like cancelling, it is self-protected by the wonderfully unarguable: if you question this then YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM, FULL STOP.

If the Uighur slaves are no longer needed to produce stuff because no-one’s buying it, they will probably just be murdered or sent to ‘camps’ from which, in China, no-one ever emerges. As happens to thousands of them anyway. At least the slaves are still alive. But you’re not allowed to use any type of sense or logic or argument of any kind against such issues. I fully expect all my statues to be pulled down or defaced for just writing this.

There has been a ‘boycott’ on Israel products for years. Other than the really good stuff, like iPhone components and medicines that people, even the ultra-woke, can’t live without. So all stuff from ‘the occupied West Bank’ is boycotted. As a consequence, Ahava, the company who basically shovel mud out of the Dead Sea and sell it in Selfridges and Harrods for £75 a sachet as the ultimate skin/beauty aid, were ‘boycotted’ for producing ‘on the West Bank’ and were thus forced to relocate onto the Israeli side of the Dead Sea. Which resulted in the loss of gainful employment for hundreds of Palestinians.

It’s sometimes good to look at ‘the big picture’ rather than at some thumbnail sketch hastily drawn in a pub in Hoxton by a really ‘woke’ geezer with a beard down to his naval, just to see if you’re totally right-on behaviour will actually have the desired effect or in reality just the opposite.

I wanted to write about football today. But this just split my yin from my yang in such a way that my chakra was displaced, my karma brutalised and the entire feng shui of my life felt off kilter. So I’ll do it tomorrow. After Spurs have played, possibly a good thing, possibly not, but really, its about Chelsea. It’s all about Chelsea. And the ‘game of the decade’.

Happy sunny Sunday

A xxxx

Lila was 4 yesterday. It was a watershed moment. As 4th birthdays always are. She suddenly picked up the Times and read it, washed up her bowls after lunch and ironed three of my shirts. You know its not true because I haven’t worn 3 ironable shirts in the last year.

For her birthday we took her to choose her very own goldfish. They don’t charge you 5p for the plastic bag filled with water they put it in. Because if you refused to pay it would die. And we took it to her house and introduced ‘Goldie’ to her new home. For the next… for the rest of her life. Or his life. If Goldie is a boy-fish, he’s not very well hung. Anyway, the ‘rest of his life’ could be limited because he/she is living with Joey. Who is as much danger to animate as to inanimate objects. I have the scars to prove that.

Lila is having a party today, just 3 of her friends allowed, in the garden, with a n’entertainer. So yesterday we had a wee tea in our garden. Because ‘outdoor activities’ are allowed since Monday, I decided that ‘eating cake’ is definitely an activity. So we had one of Lila’s great-grandparents present and a great aunt. That way observing the rules totally. The rule of 6. From 3 or 4 households, exercising (their jaws) outside in a group, distanced a bit. Except Joey. Who simply refuses to get the whole ‘2 metre’ thing. On the grounds, as he says, that a ‘metre’ is a random construct invented by a Frenchman and therefore may not work properly on the under-2s. And you can’t argue with that. Well, you could try but he’d have already run off to destroy some daffodils.

But Lila is 4. That is quite amazing. Not because ‘time has flown’ or ‘it’s like she was just born’, but because she acts like she’s 18 and speaks like she’s 25. She is a force of nature.

Happy Good Friday

A xxxx

I played tennis on Monday evening. It was hot. Sunny. Gorgeous. And legal. It was day 1 of the (sodding, fucking) ‘roadmap’ (pause for vomit. Ok, done that) to recovery. And I was recovering. Unfortunately my shoulder wasn’t but that’s another story. It was simply wonderful. Liberating, quite literally. And felt so good. Except the shoulder, but you can’t have everything.

So Tuesday night my martial arts group convened in another, very nearby park. So great to see everybody without their screen-frames, and kick them in their heads. Oh, we weren’t actually allowed to do that. No contact. Social distancing. Groups of 6, possibly up to 15, outdoor only, from 9 different households, children not included, masks optional. Something like that. And as our Grand Master said; how wonderful for us all to be able to take the piss properly once more. Oh, and perform our tai chi in unison (ish) for the squirrels to marvel at.

Light at the end of a very long tunnel. Sunlight, in this case. Which really is the game-changer.

Which you could see by the thousands in Hyde Park yesterday, all rammed together spitting at each other. Well maybe not, but lots of people there. Too many for the new consciousness to cope with. Photos that make you shudder. But sunshine and restrictions really don’t do well together.

Then yesterday evening, the holy grail. The second vaccine. I am Pfizered up to the max. Therefore I must be English. The French are struggling. Mainly with their president being the most obstructive tosser since… pick one. He stated yesterday that ‘he regrets rien’ in that obnoxious French way they have of saying that. Unfortunately, as a consequence of his bipolar stance on vaccines, its left to the rest of the population to regret plenty as they get locked down for a third time today.

But heh, not my problem. I’m ‘done’. I’m jabbed to the max. I am INVINCIBLE!!!!

I hope.

Happy Easter Weekend.

A xxxx

I picked up the sports pages (really? How unusual!!!) in the Times yesterday to see a seven page article about how likely, possible, almost essential and totally desirable it would be for Harry Kane to leave Spurs. So I put it down again. Burned it. Made a mess on the sheets but Mel will get over it. And buy new sheets. In disgust I picked up the Mail, turned to the back pages, and there it was: 19 great reasons for Harry Kane to leave Spurs, THIS SUMMER!!! Same fucking article, basically, just dumbed down for the Mail readers with more exclamation marks, hammy sub-headings (Kane is able; he Kane-not stay at Spurs, etc, puke, etc… ok I made those up but you get the gist). And the argument goes that all players want to win things. Not matches, they don’t count. No, they need lumps of iconic silverware (made of zinc) to feel justification of their life’s work. The assumption being that such a thing will NOT happen at Spurs. Therefore, ergo, to reconcile those two truisms, Harry must go!

No-one’s asked Harry. Though probably his agent does on a daily basis as he calculates his commission on a transfer that would carry an astronomical fee. Because Harry Kane is as incomparable as he is irreplaceable. There is simply no other player in world football with quite so many strings to their bow. An outstanding and devastating scorer of goals who can then ‘drop back’ and become creator. He may have scored his first England goal for over a year yesterday but in his last 13 matches for country he has scored or made 18 goals. Same as he does for Spurs. Making him Jamie Vardy (without the ugliness) AND Kevin de Bruyne (without the Belgiumness) combined.

So let’s assume that he does yield to the pressure from the media, because that’s where its come from, and decides to go. Where to? Daniel Levy would never sell him to ‘opposition clubs’, so he’d have to leave the country. And with an inevitable price tag of, what, 100 mil? 200 mil? attached, you’re basically talking Spain. Possibly PSG. Or to China. And love him though I do, with all my heart, he is no urbane sophisticate like Gary Lineker, able to learn Spanish in 3 days and embrace his inner-euro. He’s our ‘arry and would probably adopt the ‘duck out of water’ approach. And all he has to do is ask (at his time ‘the best player in the world’) Gareth Bale, how that worked out for him? Though if Harry is looking to reduce his golf handicap significantly, Madrid’s the place. 

So just a polite word to all reporters who have nothing better to write about and choose facile disruptive speculation as their preferred line; FUCK OFF, THE LOT OF YOU!! Harry’s going nowhere and this nonsense will then come back and make you look stupid and you’ll end up writing obituaries for the Thames Ditton Express (35p every fortnight; order your copy NOW!!!)

Happy Tennis is allowed Day

A xxxx

I love a World Cup. It’s just the qualifiers that cause me grief. No ‘football’ this week. And by ‘football’ I mean, proper, English, Premiership, top draw stuff. I mean Spurs winning, Arsenal losing, Chelsea all getting sent off, Manchester City making the awesome look mundane. Football.

What I don’t mean by ‘football’ is an otherwise (that World Cup thing) meaningless match against San Marino. But we won 5 nil!!!! I hear you shout. We should have won 15 nil. England has a population of 60 million people. San Marino has 33,000. The same as Bury St Edmonds. Bit less than on Canvey Island. Few more than Coalville. Which I’ve never heard of. None of which are allowed ‘international status’ or World Cup entry. But some poxy town in Italy (its actually lovely; went there about 50 years ago, sweet) was declared by some old geezer in a white frock to be a ‘principality’ and that gives them the right to be the lowest ranked football team in the world.

Next up we play a much stronger side. Albania. A ‘proper country’, albeit one more famous for producing Marble Arch pickpockets than world class wingers. My advice to the team, my tactic talk to Gareth Southgate and the boys would be: make sure your locker is secure.

But never mind. I’m going to have my SECOND vaccination on Wednesday. I received a personal phone call from NHS ENGLAND (not NHS San Marino or NHS Albania) the other day, inviting me, as an ‘essential front line worker’. I was rolling my sleeve up as we spoke to make the appointment. Because the first dose made me feel like I’m invincible, this second, the booster, the ‘last piece of the puzzle’, the ‘way out of this shit’, will simply turn me into A FUCKING GOD!!!!

And tennis starts again tomorrow. We’ve waited so long. Nice of them to arrange it for a Monday, when I generally play on Saturdays and Sundays, but… well, it is what it is. Just gotta try and remember what to do once I get on court.

We’re getting there. I just wish I knew what ‘there’ was and what it looks like.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx