Andy's Glasses

Practical.

Ok, so its ‘kosher’ or its not. That’s a big, thick, black line which you cross AT YOUR PERIL!!!! One side is a life barely worth living as its so tied up in archaic bullshit and rules, and on the other side is an eternity of damnation in the fires of hell, but at least you can get a coffee from Starbucks, should you please, or an ice cream for the kids on a beach.

Therefore, the thick black line gets ignored other than by those in thick, black overcoats and hats when its 32 degrees outside, and instead we have slightly ‘greyer’, a little more ‘blurred’, somewhat ‘moveable’ lines. And that’s where the trouble starts.

Not with the lines themselves but with what they represent in the unstated hierarchy of ‘observancy’.

Not to put too fine a point on it, if its not a kosher restaurant, you’re not kosher. Whatever you’re eating or not eating. But… (latitude, compromise, tolerance, common sense…) how can a piece of bread NOT be kosher? It’s flour, water and salt. No Crustacea, no pig’s trotters, no leg of lamb. Ergo, I’ll eat that anywhere. And risk the fires of hell later, when I’m not so hungry. Similarly white fish. Just don’t put shrimp with it. And/or make sure its cooked in a different pot from the shrimp. And don’t serve it on the same plates you might have used for the mussels.

So the (Jewish) world divides into camps for eating out. Tribes. All of whom ‘keep kosher at home’, as we do, because its a tradition thing and hurts no-one. Except lovers of shellfish.

First are the black hats. They eat no-where that isn’t already filled with others in black hats to attest to its safety from the non-kosher. There’ll be certificates all over proclaiming its level of kosherness. Which, sadly, are not always the same certificates you get for public health issues.

Next comes the meat avoiders. You have many Jews who will eat in any restaurant, but not meat. Only fish. Meat needs to be killed ‘properly’ (not a conversation for vegans) to be kosher so even a piece of perfectly acceptable meat is avoided if not sourced from a kosher butcher. And by avoiding it there’s also the other biggy of any suggestion that the meat might have come into contact with something dairy. Fish is fish and, as long as it was born with scales, represents no problem. Until you cover it with prosciutto, then its a big problem.

Then come the ‘I’ll eat meat in a restaurant, even though its not ‘strictly’ kosher, but obviously NEVER with anything of a milky or cheesy nature. And never pork!’ Chicken’s fine. By nature it is a Jewish bird.

I’ll only eat food. Any/all of it. Long as there’s a lot.

And its all good. You do what you want, eat what you’re comfortable with, dine as you please. As long as there’s no holier-than-thou-ism involved, nothing judgmental of others from a different tribe, I’m happy. Because unless you live the life of a black hat you’re blurring lines and become an instant hypocrite if you criticise someone else’s line.

We went to eat with a fairly non-food-observant couple one day in Fitzrovia. And ordered squid. Which is deeply, profoundly banned. Mel, (tribe 3), won’t touch it. So here I could share it with people ‘like me’. But then it was noticed that there was some kind of ham which came with it. And that was a red line to this couple. It’s all about how you learned the rules. The choices remain yours and yours alone. If you don’t count God.

Sleeping with toy pigs is not in breach of any dietary laws.

Enjoy your lunch.

A xxxx

PART 1: Theory.

Rules are always made to be broken. That’s what my tattoo says. The imaginary one. On my forehead. Maybe between my shoulder blades. And the first rule I like to break is the one about kosher food. They make food to taste a certain way, its nothing to do with the religion of the food. Steak is strictly non-observant. Broccoli is atheist. Whereas lettuce is agnostic, which is why its limp, soggy and has no redeeming qualities or value.

Hindus won’t eat beef. The poor peasant farmers starve in the lean years whilst a herd of great, fat cattle graze, worshipped, in their fields. Buddhists are vegetarians. As they deserve to be. Muslims won’t drink alcohol, otherwise their food laws are pretty much the same as the Jewish ones. Unsurprising as they both stem from Abraham. The old bible geezer, Abraham, not the short order chef at Nobu, Abraham.

Jews have made a total fucking industry on NOT eating things. The rules have their own rules. It started as, basically, ‘don’t eat pig or shellfish and don’t mix milk with meat’ (I’m guessing these started for health reasons when cleaning dead animals wasn’t very skilful. And lots of cultures have issues with not cooking an animal in its mother’s milk). And as loose guidelines, these are good, if you like that kind of thing, and they’re workable.

But then the rabbis get involved. And it ends up an exercise in pedantry. Where everything you eat (and I mean EVERY-THING!!!!) including tooth paste, mouthwash… you got it?, everything has be made, produced, grown, manufactured in ways that not only adhere to the rules, but that are monitored at every single step of the way to ensure that the wheat in your daily bread didn’t at some point eat a pig. That a slaughtered lamb (and only slaughtered in a very special, monitored, controlled, observed way, obviously) hasn’t come in contact with some spilt milk, a lost prawn or anything which would render it ‘unkosher’. Once ‘approved’ it can be packaged and sold in a shop which again is monitored all day every day. Now that’s KOSHER!

Which is why it cost four times the price of any normal product. An expensive label. And the same with restaurants. To be ‘kosher’, everything served, every plate, glass, knife and fork and coffee bean has to be ‘watched’ to ensure it hasn’t slipped into a lobster when no-one was looking, or been accidentally abducted by a bacon seller.

So now you know the ‘rules’. In part 2, the next riveting episode, you’ll learn how to break them.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

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