Andy's Glasses

Although I ‘dabbled’ in horror movies when I was in my mid-teens, it was never my favourite genre. I didn’t mind the grisly deaths, it was just that they seemed to occur instead of a plot, rather than because of it. Or they all shared the same plot. Which all had that fatal flaw. The gorgeous young blonde just taking a shortcut through the woods. In pitch black on her own. Yeah, that’s gonna happen.

But then I was in California and Friday 13th part 3 (what! They didn’t kill enough people in the first two???) came out, I couldn’t resist the hype. It opened on Hollywood Boulevard at midnight on Friday 13th. I mean… I mean… Oh, and it was in 3-d, rather a rarity back then. Giving loads of special effects a higher billing than the already diminished and diluted plot-line, but sometimes… its written in the stars.

So out we ventured. I lived about 3 blocks from the Chinese ‘Theatre’ (what they call a cinema in America because they don’t use the full richness of the language they fucking stole). So with my flat-mate, Craig, and our two gels-of-the-moment, we actually walked to see the film. No-one walks in Southern California. Possibly being (I really don’t remember, but-) worse for a little alcohol? Definitely some unprescribed medication, various herbs and… errr… remedies. A pretty normal night out in 1982. Amazing we found the place. Even though we lived on Hollywood Boulevard itself.

Craig was an English guy, friend of a friend, and we shared living space. He was very good looking (we all were in our flat), dark and butch and… he wore an eye patch. I know, it was 1982, it was New Romantics, everyone wore a fucking eye patch. But his was real because a boating accident left him with terrible double vision which was, in time, to be operated upon. Meanwhile, eye patch. Like the entire queue lines of most of the clubs we went to.

The credits rolled, “FRIDAY THE 13th”, they proclaimed, then underneath appeared a tiny “3-d”. And as we all sat there with our silly red and green lensed specs on, that little ‘3-d’ started coming towards us. And growing. And speeding up. Until it was flying straight into the faces of about 18,000 people. Who all, as one, ducked under the seats. Instinctive reaction. Well, all except one person. Craig. Who just sat there with his eye patch and silly specs smiling at the screen, oblivious to the event and wondering what everyone was doing. Because if you take away one eye, even with silly specs on, you only get 1-d. He was 2 short of a full reaction. 2 short of a full appreciation.

I learned more about binocular vision and stereopsis that night than all those years wasted in lectures.

Happy 2021!!!

A xxxx

I used to be a ‘believer’. I had ‘faith’. But then we lost at Chelsea…

I also used to be a believer in that other thing, the God thing. Possibly til I was almost 9, maybe only 8 and then it all just got a bit illogical, a bit of a cop-out, a bit ‘out there’ for a young mind trying to make sense of a universe which was becoming ever more complex in a really wonderful way. And, with space travel, with massive scientific advancements, a world becoming more and more understood as an autonomous, living organism.

It seemed just too easy to attribute anything you didn’t know or couldn’t control to an unknown, unseen imaginary character. And then spend time actually praying into the unknown, when you could be kicking a football. Me and God parted ways at that point. Because there seemed no quid pro quo. You have to invest time and energy and effort into prayer and in return… your grandad died when he was 54. You learned of atrocities in war. Of the holocaust. Basically, shit happened. Loads of shit. And thus my proto-definition of ‘ominipotent and omniscient’ was the same as that of ‘total indifference’. I couldn’t see the point of having a God who could do ANYTHING!!! but chose to do nothing. Well, not so much ‘having’ a God like that, we don’t get to choose nor vote, but more, bothering with Him. Or Her.

And then Covid happened. In case you missed that. Epidemic? This year?? Like, all of it? Shitstorm?? Anyway, it happened. And once again, all the praying in the world produced less of a positive result than a £2.99 bottle of hand sanitiser. In fact, praying proved to be a massive problem. As the ‘true believers’, confident that they would be protected, by the same God who ‘protected’ them during the Holocaust, the Spanish Inquisition, the partition of India, Vietnam… that God, would protect them now. So they gathered, in the face of instruction, advice and finally directives, not to. And guess what? They got ill in disproportionate numbers, they died in droves, they suffered almost worst than the rest of us.

Leaving me with only one possible conclusion. God actually hates us.

The God I once believed in had a long white beard. And a yarmulke. Even though humans have to wear such a thing ‘in the presence of God’, so I can see the problem there. But ‘my’ God was old and he was Jewish. Spoke Yiddish. With a Polish accent. Like my grandmother. Was wise. And funny. He was actually Jackie Mason with a stick-on beard. Because that God ‘created us in his own image’. But which one of us? Was this God, like LGBTQIA (yeah, its been extended along with Tier 4 restrictions), or just, like, men and women? Men AND women?

And as atheists are fairly boring, particularly the Richard Hawkins type, evangelical ones, my new year’s resolution is to join a devil-worship cult and see what they have to say. See if they can get me a vaccination more quickly. Might take Joey and Lila with too.

Happy New Year to one and all,

May your test results remain negative and your masks stop fogging up your fucking specs.

A xxxx

We’ve come a long way towards equality. And if you think that talking about ‘glass ceilings’ or women’s rights shouldn’t even be necessary in 2020, almost ‘21!!!, then think again. And think about Loujain al Hathioul. Who I’m sure is never far from your thoughts anyway. She’s the young Saudi woman who protested that women should be allowed to drive in that most unenlightened of countries. And has now been sentenced to 5 years in prison. By a ‘terrorism court’. Because Saudi is a seriously fucked-up place? Or because anything that upsets the status quo could be defined as terrorism? Along with speaking, thinking or (if you’re a woman), breathing improperly.

And its nothing 3rd worldy, Saudi is one of the most disgustedly and horrendously rich countries on the planet. It’s not about poverty causing a lack of understanding. No. It’s about God.

The last bastions of female repression and absolute patriarchal dominance all have one thing in common. God. The more religious the country (or state or community), the more restricted and male dominant they are. And it doesn’t really matter which religion. Yes, Islam is a prime example, in all the ‘religious states’, where restrictions on females is just their ‘way of life’. But the Hindus don’t do too well either, with virtually no one ever prosecuted for rape in India, even though its horribly common.

The Jewish religion is inadequately represented in terms of countries, as we only have one and it is passionately sectarian, with just a bit of lip-service to the extremists to try and garner their votes. Thus Israel has laws about equality and its a free and equal society. Yet the extremists within it remain mired in the old, biblical ways and thus live according to those rules in their isolated communities where women are indeed treated as goods, chattels and possessions of their menfolk. All you have to do is grow a beard and they ‘give’ you a woman.

And I’m gonna guess that the Bible was written by a man. Hence the views held and proposed within it are not exactly ‘woke’.

Christianity seems on the surface to move with the times a little more comfortably (in that it moves at all). Maybe because Jesus was a model of cool and tolerant understanding, or maybe because modernism sells, puts more bums on seats and their marketing dudes have more flexibility. I don’t wish to sound too cynical. Even though I am, and passionately so.

The answer is simple; we have to take God out of the equation. He (or, dare I say, ‘She’) seems to be the single most destructive force for progress for about half the world, which is mired in His/Her way and thus adheres to the views which keep the men who make all the rules, in charge.

Well I’m glad that’s sorted then. What time’s the football start? Mel? MELLLLL???? Where’s my tea and slippers????

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I think its time to lock the country down. The new variants have impacted massively on the country, on the NHS, on the very fabric of our lives. Quite like the old variants, or ‘the original’ (hard to become nostalgic about a virus) as it will be known, but more… variable.

And we need to start with football. Shut it down. Stop it. End the season. BUT, and here’s the key bit for the health and safety of the ENTIRE FUCKING NATION, we need to backdate that season’s end by four weeks. Which was BEFORE the new corona-variant took hold. And, coincidentally, when Spurs were top of the league. So the season ended, officially, on November 29th. That’s it. Where’s the trophy?

Other than that… possible? scenario, Spurs have gone, in two long weeks, from top of the tree, down to 8th and are now resting, rather uncomfortably, in 6th place, amid the melee of wannabe teams vying for some kind of glory. Which, by rights, is OURS.

Our season didn’t degenerate to shit yesterday evening. It’s been a work in progress. And really, the only people to blame are Harry Kane and Son Heung-min.

Because when those two are are on song, no-one can stop them. We can deploy the Morinho-method. Which is the famed 9-1 formation. Nine at the back, one of which is allowed to ‘break’ so the ‘1’ has someone to play with. And if the ‘breaker’ and the ‘1’ are in purple patches, it actually becomes a viable method of winning games. No-one can get past you and you score on the break. Every time. Or, rather, both times.

But if Harry and Sonny are having not such a great time, the entire edifice collapses. And all you’re left with a team who have no fucking clue how to attack when not ‘on the break’. Who amble up the pitch and just kind’a stall and go backwards again.

Years ago I was at Spurs (old WHLane), in the Upper West stand (cynics and miseries allowed only) and we scored in the 2nd minute. An old git (they’re all old gits there) behind me said “oooh, its too early to score, not happy about that…”

I thought at the time IS HE MAD??? It’s never too early to score. And yet, in the Morinho method, that becomes a valid comment. We scored early yesterday in the first minute. And immediately ran out of ideas. And though Wolves weren’t good, given sufficient chances, something’s gotta go in. And it fucking did.

My love affair with Jose is waning. Again. It’s very tempestuous.

Unhappy sodding Monday

A xxxx

So what happens you discover that one of your favourite EVERRRRR songs has been covered by one of your favourite artists EVERRRRR?? Could be tragic. Could be disappointment, or could be… just brilliant.

I spend a lot of time of YouTube. 5 minutes is too much, 72 straight hours not enough. And mainly playing ‘old shit’ because that’s where I’m stuck, musically, with very few exceptions. And the main exception is Taylor Swift. I don’t know why. I really don’t. ‘Schoolgirl pop’ and ‘relationship angst’ were never in my top list of genres. It maybe because I find her captivating to look at? It maybe because I find her immensely talented? Possibly because she is very witty and can laugh at herself? Whatever, I love her. Truly, madly, deeply.

I was cruising through some old favourites and playing American Girl by Tom Petty. Which I’ve loved… forever. And found a Taylor Swift cover. Old (relatively). When she was about 9. Ten years ago. I’m not good with dates. But its just a cover. Nothing silly, it doesn’t even have its own video!!! Just a good old homage to a fantastic song.

Which led me to another American girl, Stevie Nicks. Who, back in the day, I was truly, madly, deeply in lust with. Unfortunately as was every other man who’d ever seen her or heard that throaty, raspy vibrato (music term, not a sex toy, ya frikin perve). And the ‘forever’ image of Stevie really is wearing that top hat. So I had to watch ‘go your own way’ 17 times. Which is no hardship as its such an outstanding piece of music.

Although the version of Edge of Seventeen performed live (1980/81 I’m guessing) is just something else. No top hat, just Stevie letting rip.

I just read a book called ‘Daisy Jones and the Six’. Which is, allegedly, based on/ inspired by/ allegorical to, Stevie Nicks. It’s a ‘rockumentary’ but in book form. And is quite brilliant. If ya like that kind’a thing. Which I really do, hence loved the book, and Mel really doesn’t, hence she didn’t. It’s very Hollywood Hills in the 70s and although fictional, you feel like you know everyone mentioned. And it had me thinking of the Eagles. I have no idea how these things connect. Early Eagles. New Kid in Town. Take it Easy. When they were more country than rock but simple and honest and, quite honestly, brilliant. More fucking YouTube…

And whilst I’m there, I virtually never visit without a trip to Despacito, the original Luis Fonsi version. Which is the most brilliant, most fun, most sensual, most wildly amazing video ever.

But I suggest you don’t visit any of these places. Really I don’t. You may never come out.

Happy Boxing Day

A xxxx

Jesus died to save me. According to some random man who told me just that as he walked past me outside Lords Cricket ground one evening. Just kind’a ‘en passant’. And it was a revelation! It changed my life! Three stars collided in the sky as he said it!! Oh, actually, a bus hit a lamp-post, but that’s almost the same thing! The miracle of St Johns Wood!!! And I was re-born! No more cynical bastard, no more atheistic unbeliever, no more swearing, no more struggling to comprehend Spurs’ place in the universe, no more shoes; its sandals only from now on; I’d found JESUSSSS!!!

But then I lost him again. One minute he was there, the next, nowhere be seen. (I may have exaggerated the ‘found Jesus’ bit, just a touch, artistic license.) And it wasn’t just the thought that at some point I may need to wear socks with my sandals that had me running away from the saviour I’d only just found. It’s the whole 9 yards. All of it. Just total bollocks. From the ‘virgin birth’ to the reincarnation, all the way to Life of Brian, just rubbish. I apologise if you’re a devout Christian, with or without the sandals, but that’s just how I feel about it. And about most of anyone’s and everyone’s religion. It’s like Brexit, you believe in it or you don’t. I’m only Jewish because I was born that way and they make the best chopped liver. If the 7th Day Adventists come up with a better recipe, then I’ll be one of them.

And at Christmas!!! What am I thinking???

Bad thoughts, that’s what I’m thinking. But not all bad. Can’t be all bad as I’m enjoying my second day off and have nine more to follow. And the weather’s lovely and we have a European trade deal, to end all deals! Which it probably will. We’ll have fallen foul of those horrible, dictatorial, inflexible Euros within a year. And then the ‘tariffs’ will arrive! You want a Renault (no idea why ya would, just anex-ample, innit), that’s well overpriced at 12 grand. But after the tariff, call it 51,000 even. Ok? Cos that leaves 39k to split between Merkel, Macron, Ursula Von der Leyen and Greece.

We have a ‘Canada Deal’. Not a Norway. Not even a Fiji or North Korea. Canada. Every polar bear we send them they give us three BMWs and a Camembert. It’s a good deal. If you like Camembert.

But if ‘the devil is in the details’ I think we’re all going to become satanists by the time we’re read the 2000 pages required to see which part of how many souls have been sold down the river. And by which side.

Happy Christmas to absolutely everyone. Even those of you I really don’t like.

A xxxx

We’re almost there. Europe. Not Europe. Leaving. But maintaining. Keeping sweet. Pissing off. Not staying, never staying, fuck ‘em all. Peripherally involved. Semi-European. We have finally reached the status of our own metaphor. We are an Island within the European continent, an isolated, separated and independent… thing in the middle of the North Sea.

Fortunately, that’s where most of the fish live too. Which is why we had bargaining power. Whatever the offer was from Michel (fucking) Barnier, whatever Ursula bitched about, however Macron and Merkel made their demands, the answer was the same: I’ll match that and raise you three haddock. The French love their fish so much they were prepared to swap 6,000 Covid infested lorries for half a dozen herrings.

So now, as I write this, we are actually ‘on the cusp’ of an agreement. Not ‘on the cusp’ like we have been for the past two-and-three-quarter years, but properly there. Just one simple, 2,000 page document to glance at and we’re done.

And we are ‘done’. I still maintain that this whole deal is a ‘fuckage limitation’ exercise for the biggest mistake our nation had ever made, but in the reign of King Boris we’re constantly re-defining what the term ‘fuck up’ really means. But never mind, we were saved by the cod. Although the details remain to be seen…

I wonder if the fish know they’re British, as they swim around? Are they aware that they might be wrapped (eventually) in last Tuesday’s Guardian pages, or those of La Monde? We need more research.

My wife likes Mickel Arteta, the Arsenal manager. Thinks he’s very handsome, in a swarthy way. And I have to agree. He’s beautiful. Has a nice family. Probably treats them really nicely. Wonderful father. Does lots of charitable work for the community. And possibly plays chess like a grandmaster, darts like a fat northern bastard or can dance like Fonteyn. He has a lot going for him.

Unfortunately, managing a football team, particularly ‘that’ football team is not one of his many virtues. They don’t pay him (probably) half a million quid a week to look pretty. Otherwise Sam Dyche would never work again. They pay him to take a bunch of fairly talented, profoundly mercenary, showboatingly individualistic foreigners, turn them into a cohesive ‘team’ and show them how to win.

Yet when I saw them against Manchester City the other night all I saw was hopeless. And still playing the ball wide to cross into… into… into someone really short who’s surrounded by really big defenders.

I will personally pay for Arsenal to extend Arteta’s contract for another 10 years. Keep it up, Mickel.

Happy Christmas Eve!!!

A xxxx

Sent from my iPad

London is currently ‘plague central’. Not surprised, with all those crowds everywhere, like on my tube train yesterday morning. You wouldn’t let cattle travel like that. But only because they’d get lonely. So we’re either adhering rigidly to our recently upgraded Tier 4 status, or ITS CHRISTMAS!!!! and no-one’s bothering to go into the office. Not that the trains have been busy since… well February really, but this was something else.

And all because London is the centre of the new Covid variant. It’s the centre of everything, that’s why we live here. And its always first with every new innovation. So the mutated form of coronavirus would obviously want to live here, like everyone else. Shying away from Manchester, Newcastle and definitely Scotland. Places that obviously don’t want our new, trendy, upmarket, hipster version of their Covid 19, which, incidentally, is known, rather catchily, as VUI-202012/01, like they never wanted the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, and even the Beatles had to come to London to find fame.

If you travel to Birmingham, f’rinstance, you have to quarantine for 10 days. Fortunately, I never want to go to Birmingham. Same applies to most cities outside of our elite, Tier 4, zone. As for going abroad; no-one wants us at all!!! Even the French have closed borders to Britain. Which is not a massive loss, unless you’re a lorry driver, but that’s along with about 44 other countries who’ve banned people from the UK. We have become the Millwall fans of Europe.

Yet once again, this ‘mutation’ of the original virus is a wonderful lesson in evolution. The virus wasn’t ‘changed by an unseen hand’ into something a bit more contagious, it didn’t ‘decide’ to become more efficient at spreading, it just mutated a bit and the mutation spread faster than the original. Hence infected more people and hence became the dominant strain. It’s just like any other evolution but much, much quicker due to the simplicity of virus DNA and the rate at which it can ‘reproduce’ (ie infect).

So I hope all the creationists in the world, the biblical adherents to the ‘world created in 1007 years’, I hope they’re happy that God must have not just created this virus but mutated the fucker too!

Happy 3rd wave

A xxxx

After the dire and disgusting and depressing and devastating football yesterday afternoon I went out. In a huff. Then came back, because going out is simply not allowed and there were 17 policemen outside my door questioning me prior to possible arrest. So I turned off the tv.

When I turned it back on, several hours later, our national game had morphed, courtesy of Sky, into American Football and I was watching armour plated robo-men crash heads (well, helmets). And in fact I love NFL and have done since 1981 when I went to America and couldn’t avoid the game anywhere. I’ve kind of peripherally followed it ever since, but rather sporadically of late.

And thus was amazed to see, in the score cards, the ‘Las Vegas Raiders’. Like, when did that happen? The world’s most nomadic football team has arrived in hell.

When I was in California they were the Oakland Raiders. From, kind’a, Oakland. But they moved in the early 80s to become the Los Angeles Raiders. Just like that. You support a team your whole life and they fucking move 400 miles away. And LA already had a team, the Rams. Though everyone hated the Rams, mainly because they played their matches in Anaheim, rather than LA itself. So the Rams then moved away and became the St Louis Rams. Where everyone loved them and they won loads of super bowls and jewellery and stuff. Then they moved back to LA. Which was no longer a problem as the Raiders had, by then, moved back to their ‘spiritual home’ of Oakland. Ahhh, that’s nice. Except this year they moved on to Vegas to join the hustlers, pimps and gangsters in the desert.

Could you move Manchester United to Cornwall and get away with it?

Well, in that single and specific case you probably could. Because there’s probably more Man U fans around Exeter than in Lancashire. But Liverpool? Can you imagine moving Liverpool football club to Brighton?

And I realise that is the fundamental difference between the national games of our two fine nations. Not the games themselves, obviously, but the fans and attitudes. Because fans in the US support a ‘franchise’. The Raiders. The Rams. The Patriots. And may love them wherever they move. The preceding bit, ‘LA’ or ‘New England’ or ‘Cleveland’ can change. Whereas football here is passionately regional. It’s the City or Town that is supported. Which is why we don’t bother with silly attached names like they adopted in rugby. And why it becomes territorial over here, and consequently nasty and violent.

So what happens to Americans whose franchise of choice was the Washington Redskins? They’re still in Washington but woke culture and PC stupidity has now dictated that ‘redskins’ is a prejudicial, inflammatory and not very nice name. So they have become (as I learned in shock last night), The Washington Football Team. Catchy. Clever. Original. So if their franchise moved from Washington their fans would have nothing. Just ‘football team’.

All this because I can’t talk about proper football. Not after the week I’ve had. If I wanted to love a team who take 1 point from 3 matches I’d be an optimistic Arsenal fan.

Happy miserable, rainy, Tier 4 Monday

A xxxxx

It’s the Christmas holidays, innit. And for us, those two words, Christmas and holidays are kind of separated. By several continents. We haven’t done a Christmas in the UK for about 36 years. Because given a choice between spending the time off at home with Auntie Mabel, getting another monogrammed beige cardigan (do I fucking look like Val Doonican???), or lying on a beach in 85 degrees of sunshine sipping Margeritas/daiquiris/sake/beer/ANYTHING, call me old-fashioned but I’ll take the latter. I’ll even take Mel with me because she ‘needs’ sunshine in the winter. And I’m prepared to make that sacrifice. That’s Love!!

But this year we’re going to spend Christmas in Tier 4. And we’re not even having sufficient around to justify a turkey. We’ve ordered three quarters of a chicken instead as there’s only us and Mel’s elderly dad, with whom we share some kind of bubble arrangement or care or something that I’d know properly if I gave a shit about the ever changing rules and regulations.

We’re not even spending ‘the day’ with Lila and Joey!!! Because they’ve gone on holiday. Today. For some rest and relaxation. So let me tell you how that worked out, exactly.

They booked it 2 weeks ago. Bargain. All holidays are bargains, currently, because taking them is too fraught for most to even consider. To wit, 4 days after they booked Boris added Tenerife, their destination, to the list of banned substances. Ok, he didn’t, but he added it to the list of ‘quarantine for 2 weeks upon return’ places. Which is a problem. Cos if L & J can’t go to nursery, mummy and daddy can’t work. Oh. But we can overcome that, short quarantine, take a covid test and then its only one week. Phew. We’re going!!

Then more doubts, more deliberations, more potential problems, but we’re still going!

Yesterday arrived. Tier… FOUR!!! Stay in, go nowhere, no travel, don’t breathe, lock your doors and, notably, no flights!!! Several hours of web-site searching and calls to airlines and resorts later, full of sweat, tears and anxiety… WE CAN GO!!!

And they’ve arrived. Safe and sound at their resort. Which is all inclusive, so even 14 hours of therapy with a team of covid counsellors is free. And needed to get over the preceding fortnight.

Happy holidays

A xxxx