Andy's Glasses

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

If I start a debate about cancel culture, will I be ‘cancelled’? Probably, ‘yes’. Because extremists (and the cancel thing is nothing if not the extreme end of the already horrible obsession for a totally PC world) have no sense of irony. In fact, if you have a sense of humour of any description (but for heaven’s sake, be very careful how you do choose your descriptors) you will probably be ‘called out’ and ‘cancelled’ already and thus not invited to join the most obsessive, intolerant, dictatorial, inflexible bunch of fascists who ever proclaimed left-wing leaning. Because the holy grails of that movement are inviolate. To such an extent that they become unmentionable with any kind of question mark attached. They are, quite simply, not open to debate.

JK Rowling tried to question a gender issue and was attacked, insulted and cancelled. Not that she gives a shit, quite rightly, and she continues to argue her side. Which no-one else will take up because of the ‘dangers’ which await on fucking Twitter. That could have a big effect if, unlike Ms Harry Potter, you don’t have a couple of bil in the bank.

Then there was the Eton school debacle where in a debate about feminism, a teacher role-played ‘the bad guy’, the one with opposing views. Banned from school, ostracised, probably hunted online by the morons who do such things. Feminism, a wonderful and noble thing, has been reduced to a set of rules-by-consensus, (which is fine), that are not open to any discussion (which is the opposite of fine).

And now, once more, we have Prophet-gate, up in Batley. Where we return to the deliciously circular, ridiculous question dilemma like the one at the very beginning this message. This time it reads: is it blasphemous to show examples of blasphemy in a blasphemy lesson? And because absolutely any issue anywhere can be ‘called out’ as ‘Islamphobia!’, there has been uproar. The school immediately suspended the teacher concerned. There have been protests every day by ‘concerned parents’ about this ‘blasphemy’ and ‘insult’.

And then someone showed some sense. The school board actually defended, subject to a little enquiry to check the context, the teacher. The government spoke up about free speech and the importance of debating uncomfortable subjects as educationally beneficial. And so the people who almost invented the extreme version of ‘cancel culture’ (just ask Salman Rushdie), are being frustrated in their attempts to see someone stoned to death over the matter.

Sometimes you need to step back, stay calm and consider the implications.

It’s enough to make you vote for Laurence Fox as Mayor.

Happy Saturday. May your clocks go forward and your matzos not constipate your movements.

A xxxx

I’m always concerned greatly about matters gender related. Specifically two (of the countless) genders now available. Male, because that’s how I was born and on occasion choose to ‘self-identify’ (how am I doing so far? This is so difficult) and female because that has been my major source of obsession since I was 11. And I haven’t always treated (self-identifying, chromosomally orientated) women in ways I was always proud of, but I’ve definitely avoided prison. So far.

However, in the light of the recent ‘#me-too-extension’ we all have to reconsider what is or isn’t acceptable, both currently and historically. Even though really, its about moving forward. Into a world where perhaps women might feel less vulnerable, less pestered, less objectified. By shifting the responsibility onto the males. Particularly, but not limited to, builders and politicians. Taxi drivers. Accountants. Social workers, statisticians, footballers, cleaners, doctors, lawyers, car-washers…

Thus the obvious solution. Men, when still boys, must be educated. Less geography and woodwork, more ‘respect for women 101’. A ‘fuller’ education. Where social norms and protocols can be included. Manners. Politeness. Good behaviour. A bit like they currently do at the ‘finer’ of our schools. Because if you send your son to the Scumbag Academy, Dagenham, your expectations are very different to those if he’d gone to Eton. Westminster. St Pauls. Dulwich College. Where they train you first and foremost to be a ‘gentleman’. Then a Tory MP. Unless you’re not quite bright enough, then you get fast-tracked to Prime Minister.

And yet what do we find? That these ‘elite’ schools, the ‘finest in the land’, are in fact centres of excellence for rape, misogyny, groping, abuse and sexual assault. These ‘top’ schools are rife with porn culture among their ‘boys’ and reports of horrors to the girls they encounter or socialise with.

It was different in my day. Sexting was unavailable. Or was called ‘flashing’ and would land you in serious trouble. Revenge porn didn’t exist unless you had a film studio and ‘online romance’ normally meant being parked on a dark stretch of railway track out near Ongar.

Smart phones are not the whole problem but are definitely the facilitators and enablers of an entire culture of Neanderthalism. And when that meets the horrendous levels of ‘entitlement’ found in those ‘better schools’, it ain’t going to end well. And it doesn’t.

It’s not like these kids don’t know what they’re doing is wrong. That’s part of the game, the creator of even more frisson. The ‘education’ required is to realign their moral standards and remove the ‘boys will be boys’ bullshit. Or at least try to modify it to add; as long as you’re not causing hurt and suffering to girls.

Or train all girls in martial arts.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I’m not particularly a wine snob. I should be really, as I generally like to act as smug and princessy as possible at all times over any snob-worthy thing. “Oh, you wear ‘synthetic’, do you? How nice…” or “we only eat organic, high fibre-fed, free-range, naturally grazing Cod. Don’t YOU???” Or even, “well we had to close the house in the Cotswolds because of Squatters, so we had them killed, its a terrible mess”.

Yet wine snobs are definitely the worst. It’s not that I can’t taste the ‘underlying blackberry and lard with tones of lemming and elderbury and hints of mud’, its just that I’m not that bothered to try and discern them. I either like the taste or I don’t. I’m too binary to be a wine snob. I like hamburgers. With a heavy aroma of meat, base notes of ketchup, mustard and onion, and just a soupçon of bun. And more meat.

We like Torontes. It’s an Argentinian white wine. Which is very light and fresh and fruity and fab. But not the easiest wine to get hold of because it has to come a long way and its not an expensive wine. Evita probably liked it. And Maradona. Who, like me, was probably a ‘quantity over quality’ wine aficionado.

Our first stop on the great world tour of Argentina was in the north, a town called Salta. Most spectacular place in the world. And there, in the northern Andes, grows the Torontes grape. Which they send down to Mendoza to process, but ‘up there’ at altitude and northerliness, they only grow that white grape. The Malbec reds come from farther south. And in a nice restaurant on our first night, we sampled this local white and fell in love. It cost less than 3 quid for the bottle. In a decent restaurant. (Reasons why I LOVE Argentina, number 3. Would be number 1 if there were no sheep or cows to eat down there).

Waitrose announced in the newspaper that they had Torontes ‘on special offer’. Holy shit! A sign from heaven. I rushed up to North Finchley with a flat-bed truck. Only to find that they didn’t have any. I was devastated. But while the very helpful lady was searching the stock-room, I found my favourite whisky on offer so grabbed a bottle of that instead. God moves in mysterious ways. And I am a terrible whisky snob. The worst.

The moral is: as long as it gets you pissed; who gives a shit?

Happy (hic) Tuesday

A xxxx

I’m over it. We’re over it. Everyone’s over Spurs ‘temporary’ run of bad form, resulting in THE WEEK OF HELLLLL!!!!!, for all concerned, but was washed away like a nasty stain with yesterday’s victory at Villa  Park. Well, perhaps a bit more than a mere stain, more… more… a FULL FACE TATOO, so deep runneth the scars from the humiliation by Arsenal and then in Zagreb. But to be a football fan you need a thick skin and a terrible memory. A kind of elephant/goldfish hybrid. Whereas to be a football manager you only need to have others to blame for any collective failings which may occur. And Jose Morinho is a very good manager, by virtue of his unerring ability to deflect. But only the blame. Never the credit. 

Ursula Von der Leyen has declared war on Britain. The nation which, in the 1970s, adopted this virtual ‘refugee’ in danger for her life. She was ‘wanted’ by the Baader Meinhoffs, a German terrorist organisation, because of her liberal views and very rich daddy. Both of which made her a target for the hard-left militants who were, for their time, outrageously nasty and violent. By standards of today’s industrialised, multi-national, Footsie-100 terrorists, they would be seen as amateur lightweights. But they were bad enough that young Ursula came over here to study at LSE. Under an assumed name. Where she thrived in the ‘wild and crazy times’ in our capital in the heady, pre-punk days.

And she repays her wonderful hospitality here by threatening to ban vaccines made in Europe from coming here. Strictly against the rules of the Union of Europeans that she is in sole charge of. All 365 million of ’em. 

There was a protest yesterday. Over the right to protest. Bit ironic really. If you can’t protest, how can you protest about it? What do you with all your duffel coats? But they went to Bristol and protest they did. Duffel coats, banners, songs, chanting, usual protest shit, unchanged since Vietnam. Even though we have new Covid laws about gatherings and proximity. But the police are not totally insensitive to recent current affairs, so they just let them sing and wave their banners. Then night fell. And either these protesters are affected by the moon, like werewolves, or the protest was  taken over at nightfall by the somewhat more militant. Because it  all kicked off. Police vans set on fire, attacks on the police station, police injured in wave of ‘missiles’. And much as protesting is an essential right in any true democracy, there is a difference between ‘protest’ and ‘riot’, whatever the underlying point being made. Once the first 57-inch flat screen runs off down the road that marks the end of the official ‘protest’. 

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Anyone reading this who is over 35 years old may remember a weird, archaic and historical problem. Cars breaking down. Remember? Like, just ‘die’ on the motorway? Fan-belt snapped on the A23 just outside Brighton at 2am. Fan belts only ever broke on the A23 (because no-one lives within 50 miles of its entire length) and never before 2am. Then you first had to find a phone box (like an iPhone but 8 feet tall and concreted into the roadside. You couldn’t take selfies from a phone box. There again, you can’t take a piss in an iPhone.) Which could be 5 miles up an unlit, forested, country road, filled with vampires, crazed chain-saw murderers and princesses who would rescue you in their pink Porsches. The mind did funny things on the A23. Eventually you phone the AA, who wake up Kenny. He’s the on-call dude for ‘that area’. Lives 72 miles from you. But is on his way as fast as his Morris 1000 van can speed him there. 4 hours later he comes and changes the fan-belt. Hooray! I’ll be back in London just in time for the fucking rush hour.

Cars no longer break down. The cheapest model of Japanese owned, communist built eco-budget vehicle comes with the same internal computerisation which runs the space program at NASA. It tells you when things aren’t working properly and when to have a service and when to inflate your tyres. They’re just soooo clever.

I took Mel’s Mini for an MOT and asked them if it needs a service. So they plug it into a laptop which told them, and me, that it needs an ‘oil service’ and something minor changing over too. You can’t argue. So I had it done. And I know they did it properly.

Because this morning, in the space vacated by Mel’s car, was a fucking great oil spill. On the driveway. The new, lockdown project, driveway. All over our brand new, super, high grade marble, mined by 12 year old virgins from the SOUTH side of a hill in Timbuktu and floated across the Indian Ocean on the backs of hawksbill turtles, so as not to upset its essential marbleness. Even though its granite. Then each slab is wrapped in cotton wool and enclosed in silk. Then delivered by a gorilla with a crane all over the fucking flower-beds. This driveway was the holiday in India that we didn’t take due to… ya know.

Mel’s car is 6 years old, done about 20k miles and has never leaked or done anything bad in its entire life. The computers won’t allow such things. It’s either that the computers have been hacked by Russian money-launderers, Chinese cyber-bullies, or… some tosser didn’t tighten the oil filter properly. Technology can only get you so far.

Happy, oily Saturday

A xxxx

The narrative of this ‘orrible pandemic has been one of numbers. As every day we learn of the number of ‘new cases’, of ‘deaths’, ‘hospitalisations’ and now vaccinations (not applicable in Europe). With cumulative totals added in most cases too, to compliment the rolling averages and daily snapshots. Numbers. And of course, their partner in crime: graphs!!!

So here’s today’s numbers.

New cases of depression: 76,920
Wrists slit at the final whistle: 49
Hospitalisation due to despair: 3,991
The chance of Harry Kane leaving: up 27.86%
Those who think Jose Morinho must go: THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE WORLD!!!!!

This has without doubt been the absolute worst week of the pandemic (so far!!!). In purely quantitative terms, Spurs have played 2, lost 2, scored 1, conceded 5. But the actual numbers ignore the context, the nuance, the emotion, the importance of those games lost. The qualitative considerations. 

Losing to Arsenal is never a good thing. For most of us it is the worst thing imaginable (second is nuclear attack on London, third is Chelsea being given a humanitarian award). It goes beyond tragedy. And yet, there are losses and there are losses. And Sunday’s was the ‘total capitulation’ variety, with the second half of the match simply awful and disgraceful, until the 87th minute when our ‘stars’ suddenly woke up to the grim and inevitable realisation and tried, in vain and too late, to make the effort which had been so sorely lacking beforehand. To no avail and thus plunging their entire fan base into the very depths of glumness. At which time the ‘numbers started to rise’. The ‘second wave’ heralded by our probable loss of a ‘4th place finish’. 

But heh, we’re all pandemic hardened, so we had four whole days to ‘just get over it!!’, just 4 days of endless memes and ‘really funny jokes’ (apparently) from every Tom, Dick and Dickless who ever wore a red shirt in anger, before we could proudly go  marching again. This time to face the Dinamos of Zagreb in the UEFA. Where we proudly took our 2 goal  lead from the first leg and said: ‘go on then, see if you can score THREEEE then, if yer ‘ard enough!!!’ Which, of course, they did. Sending those numbers into the realms of the truly astronomical. 

I’m not a silverware whore. I really don’t count trophies (don’t take much counting if I did) as the justification for my team’s existence. I want them to please the eye, first and foremost. I want to enjoy watching them. If trophies follow that, so much the better. But this week… oh my gawd, this week…

Happy (???????) Friday

A xxxx