Andy's Glasses

Iss a funny ole thing, this coronavirus. It’s made me ‘preciate much more luvverly shit than wot I used ta. Cos naah the pubs ‘ave shut, I have to walk abart a bit. Somefink I’d previously avoided like the fucking plague. Ironic that, innit? Now we ‘ave a fucking plague and I’m getting all naycherred up every day. Cos its Spring, innit. And I’ve acherley started noticing stuff. Like flowers. There’s all kinds, just out there. Daffodils, tulips… errrrr… more tulips, little blue things, a bunch a white ones, and… like… flowers. I don’t know their proper Latin names cos I’m less a Roman, more Roman Road (Bow, E3). And there’s birds. What I’d previously fought of as ‘noisy fucking pests’; rats in the sky makin’ a racket when I’m hung over. And now my revulsion has turn to relevation and I’m loving ‘em all. Sparrers. Robins. Big Black Fuckers. Tits. Ha, ha. And trees. There’s loads of ‘em. Amazing wot you notice now the football’s finished forever. Or not.

And that is the question of the day: what do we do about football? It’s all a question of who is going to be most pissed off.

If the season is played beyond July 1st, all the players under contract til June 31st (and there are many and they are good ones too) will be eligible to leave. Just walk off the pitch, throw their shirt and look for the next badge to kiss. Depending on how much someone is prepared to pay them to kiss it. Apparently there is no (current) law in England/Europe that can force a contract extension if the players don’t agree. So the clubs’ll be royally pissed off.

Supposing games could be played from June, which is doubtful and would be behind closed doors (the worst bit of all), they wouldn’t have enough time to finish the season before the contract scenario goes pear-shaped. Which pisses off everybody.

And if you can’t finish the season then, it begs the question of why not finish it now? As the leagues stand. And that would be great for Liverpool. And… errrr… and…

No-one else. Not one other team would benefit. All teams being relegated would start legal proceedings. Any team not promoted would start legal proceedings. Any team will delusions of grandeur (the rest) would start legal proceedings. If Spurs aren’t given a European place I’m starting legal proceedings.

Or they could ‘cancel’ the whole season. It was all a dream!!! Like the Wizard of Oz. Rub it out and start again next year with a clean slate. And I don’t think those kind, understanding, compassionate Liverpool players and fans would have any complaints about that. No. Not at all.

Happy curve-is-flattening Day

A xxxx

Here’s my day.

Wake up at 11.45. Doze for another hour whilst everyone makes me tea.
Read the papers. Which is basically reading about coronavirus. How many died here, there, everywhere. Looking at graphs. Lots of graphs. London rise vs Manchester. England vs Italy. Spain vs France. Deaths in Zimbabwe against cases in New York. It’s amazing just how many comparisons can be made when NOTHING ELSE IS HAPPENING IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD! Read about dead celebrities. They die differently. More celebrity-ish.
Stagger downstairs-turn on tv. There is no pause between those 2 events.
Watch the longest available series(es) on Netflix until I either fall asleep or someone calls me to eat something.
Return to the tv and fall asleep. Wake up and watch Pretty Woman for the 53rd time this week.
Speak to someone on zoom/FaceTime/WhatsApp. Doesn’t matter who.
Look at all the memes/videos about coronavirus that have arrived in the last 2 hours.
Get ready to take the dog for a walk. Realise I don’t have a dog. Go back to tv.
Eat dinner. Drink booze.
Drink more booze.
Just one more for the road… to the tv.
Go to bed.
Get thrown out of bed. Take shower. Return to bed. Stay.

It’s brilliant. It’s like being an obnoxious teenager again, but without the acne.

If only. The reality is that there is simply not enough time to get all the shit done wot needs doin’. Today’s big event was shopping. Remember when you just breezed into Waitrose, barged your way round, without even a mask on! Remember? Well now its rubber gloves, mask, disinfectant spray, which only a few people get upset about if you get it in their eyes, rubber boots, visor, virus-repellant hat (looks like a beanie but the guy who sold it to me assured me of its magical properties, which is why it cost £234.50). And yelling. DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT 2 METRES LOOKS LIKE?!?!?!?!!!! KEEP AWAY!!!!! YOU’RE TOO CLOSE!!!! FUCK OFFFFFFFFF!!!!

Then you come home, open the door and get straight into the shower, with all your clothes and all your shopping. It’s the only way.

But then, like prisoners, you get 1 hour of each 24 to spend in the exercise yard. And we pound the streets. Well, the heath really, as its softer underfoot. And marvel at the myriad of newfound ways people have of avoiding each other.

And if I get to watch one measly hour of tv each night I’m doing well. Other than the news, that don’t count. And last night we had the veritable treat of the first part of the new Killing Eve series. At least the deaths are more interesting than those on the news. More creative. Artistic.

Remember; bizarre is the new normal.

Happy (some) Day (or other)

A xxxx

So you’re walking along, all cazule like, say, Fleet Street, at about midnight. You’re in a ‘lockdown’ so shouldn’t really be out, but you’re so pissed/stoned/insane/unbalanced that you’re barely aware of any of that shit. And suddenly, you get the urge to acquire a new pair of RayBans. Even though its the dark of night. And there, in front of your very, photophobic eyes, is a whole bunch of them! As if delivered by the angels! Wow. Only problem is, those pesky angels seem to have left them behind a quarter of an inch of reinforced, laminated plate glass. But you can’t be deterred. A ‘message’ is a ‘message’, innit?

But just before acquisition, there’s a few considerations that might be worthy of consideration. Firstly, that there is a lockdown and the City is a ghost-town. Secondly, even though ghostly, it still has its own police force. The one with the highest ratio of coppers/square inch than anywhere else in the country. And thirdly, that said RayBans are in a locked cabinet standing approximately 2 metres high. Made of steel and ‘glass’. Heavy.

How the hole was made I have no idea. Guessing something pretty heavy. Perhaps like his mate, maybe. Hold him sideways and use his head as a battering ram. I don’t know. But I can testify in a court of law that a hole was somehow made. And then, this very heavy and high display cabinet was somehow manhandled through it. Leaving a wake of fucking destruction and chaos behind as Johnny Dipstick and his mate wrestled a 2 metre cabinet through a four foot hole.

But they did it. Successfully. And dragged/carted/shlepped/wrestled this unwieldy thing down a side street to a quiet ally. Where they smashed and kicked and bashed and whatevered until they could open it and reach the treasures within. But sadly they were disturbed in their quest. Probably as they were trying on the styles to see whether the Clubmaster looked better than the Aviator, and discussing the advantages of polarised lenses over normal ones.

Our hapless criminals were ‘nabbed’. By loads of police who spend their evening driving round my City looking for… for tosser imbeciles nicking RayBans. Of which there aren’t currently very many as anyone out on any street currently invites suspicion.

Mel insisted on coming with me. We arrived about 1.15 after the police phoned, and left about 4 once the window was boarded and all statements made and signed and done. The police were, it must be said, brilliant. Which they should be, as befitted my newfound ‘victim’ status. And I do ‘traumatised’ better than anyone. I spend most of life like that. Almost nice to do so in earnest.

But spare a thought for those poor, inept, stupid robbers, for a moment. Society is to blame. Coronavirus lockdown temporary insanity. Socio-economic considerations. They never had a chance in life.

I hope they bring back hanging. Motherfuckers.

Happy, tired… Day

A xxxx

There’s a view of coronavirus that ain’t nice, ain’t pleasant but is definitely valid. That it is culling the weak, the infirm, the aged, the sick, from the world. Because although others are affected, by a massive margin, the ‘high risks’ count for a humongous proportion of the actual deaths. Which is why there are so many wonderful conspiracy theories around about the Chinese. Who, let’s face it, would not think twice about annihilating the most financially demanding sector of their own nor anyone else’s societies for the sake of reducing a housing problem of saving a bit of cash. Other than that I maintain a very high regard for the morality of the Chinese people and their government. Well, that and the bats.

But as we grow accustomed to ‘the new world order’, we’re adapting to new ways. Which are pretty much all online. So I do my tai chi online twice a day with my instructor and my mates, on zoom. And its great. In fact it is totally fucking life-saving. Obviously we can’t hit each other in any meaningful way, but we can make up for that ‘on the other side’.

I can’t play tennis. And therefore I’m missing out on any ‘cardio’ stuff that you’re supposed to do. Heart-pounding, panting, sweating, kind’a deal. We do about a 5k walk every day but that don’t do it. Mel & Rachie can’t do their spin for their fix either.

So the daughter has found a solution. Hardcore H.I.I.T. sessions. High Intensity IntervalTraining. Which I decided to join this morning. I mean: how hard can it be? And it was totally brilliant!

Ok, it was totally hateful, painful, agonising and sadistic. Which, in the ‘HIIT’ world, are all big selling points. You’re led by a gay South African lump of smiling muscle. Ok, he’s probably not really gay, in any serious manner, but I prefer to think of him that way to compensate for any misplaced sense of physical perfection any women may presume about him. And, smilingly, he makes you do squats, and planks, and squats jumping into planks, and planks lifting arms and legs off the ground, then lifting all limbs and torso off the ground, then jumping; star jumps, skip jumps, twist your right leg into your left ear 17 times whilst jumping and twisting. Sit ups of all types, keep going, half way there!! keep going, 6… and 5… keep the rhythm, 4… and 3… … and 1 and NOW you can lean over and vomit. Well done. Quick wipe and into plank, just one finger on one hand, both feet off the floor, bounce up and down for 50… 49…

Oh just fuck off and let me die of the virus, you vain and narcissistic foreign person.

Really enjoyed it.

Happy… Day

A xxxx

Do you remember when we had ‘days’? Those things that, sort of held a significance of their own. Bridge on Wednesdays, tennis on Saturdays, chopped liver on Fridays, Lila on Thursdays…

Now we just have… days. All the same. As different as you want to make them. Within constraints. Mainly, you can’t go anywhere, do anything or see anyone. Other than that: WE’RE FREE!!!

I went in to work this morning. Ok, its Good Friday and a bank holiday but that means I get to park for free. I ‘took yesterday off’ instead. When it would have cost me 25 quid for 4 hours to park in the City. And although I have a free tube pass, I would no more get on a train than I would lick the handles of 16 supermarket trolleys. I’d instantly turn into Boris Johnson. Without the fat gut, the blond hair, the keys to number ten and 13 assorted tubby little blonde posh children running round not knowing who their father is.

And its glorious and sunny and lovely. Which makes everything better. Even Coronavirus. But as I sat here listening to Alexa play Islands in the Stream, conversation went to songs. To Black Velvet. From there to Blue Velvet. And from there, only one direction is possible: to David Lynch. The director of Blue Velvet and every film buff’s favourite insane person. Who specialised in the surreal, the bizarre, the improbably and the weird. Even seen Blue Velvet? It’s as magnificent as it is dark and sinister and perverse. Mulholland Drive was fabulous. And possibly the most confusing film we collectively had until Usual Suspects came out. But for once, its David Lynch’s tv work that outshines all else. Twin Peaks. How you can run two 12-part series (guessing that, no idea, just lots of them) which get ever more complicated, ridiculous and outrageous, and have people (like me) who wouldn’t miss a second. Ok, in all his works he has gorgeous women, which doesn’t harm things, but the stories captivate. Even when, after 17 hours, you’re no better off, understanding-wise, than when it began. In fact you know less. Even if you think you’ve learned something.

Maybe this is the time for a re-run of Twin Peaks? If you have the time, its the best ride you can get on a tv screen, even if you do end up somewhere near back where you started, but possibly in a different dimension, so the remote won’t work.

Happy… Day

A xxxx

Carlsberg don’t make really annoying things. But if they did they’d make a leaf-blower. Those devil-inspired peace-disturbing muthafuckas that fire up at exactly 1 second past 8 o’clock, the time her majesty’s government allows such an awful fucking din to commence and upset the entire neighbourhood. As 57 gardeners stand there with their hands on the start-cord looking at the countdown. And whilst Carlsberg are at it, why not make a leaf-sucker??!!?? That actually takes the leaves away, rather than blowing them into the neighbours house so he can blow them to the next, like some tree hugger type relay race.

Yet the only type of gardening I really like is the noisy stuff. Hypocrite?? How dare you? One is noise, (the one I’m not doing), the other is petrol engines doing really useful stuff (my lawn mower).

But sometimes I get inspired. A synonym for ‘nagged’. And thus, last September, October time we ‘needed’ to get some bulbs. Our investment for future garden picturesqueness and horticultural beautification. So we went to Crews Hill. If you want to buy, like, two bulbs, a white one and a yellow one (the floral equivalent of: ‘are you feeling lucky, punk? Well are ya??’) you can buy them in your local wherever for about a fiver each. Possibly £1. I really have no idea. But if you yearn industrial quantities, if you hanker after making the neighbours so jealous of your wonderful display that they’ll blow all their sodding leaves at you for a year to come, then you need Crews Hill. Where we bought about 200 assorted bulbs. For… a tenner. Ok, 25 quid. Whatever, it was such a bargain we just kept buyin’ and buyin’.

Then got them home and realised we’d then have to keep diggin’ and diggin. And it took weeks and weeks because after about 20 minutes your back stiffens up and you’re bored as fuck with digging holes in the ground. If I wanted to do that all day I’d have stayed in Egypt with the slaves. Yet, eventually, dug in they got. (The single most horrendous grammatical phrase ever writ). And then promptly forgotten. Which is kind of the point, really.

Until a few weeks ago. When, for the first time this year, the term ‘green shoots’ was apparent in the strictly literal, non-metaphorical manner. Followed by flowers. Lots of flowers. I would tell you their names but… but… but they’re flowers. So I took this photo to share. And make you jealous. But if one of your leaves finds its way within 20 yards of my house, I’ll sneeze on your door-knob.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Tomorrow is Passover. The celebration of the Jews leaving Egypt. In a plague. Ok, ten plagues. I mean, we’ve only got one and we’re not coping very well. But ten? TEN??? So the festival of Passover means that we have to tell ‘the story’. And because its a Jewish story it goes on and on. With everyone speaking at once. Lots of arguing. Shouting. Bit of singing.

As a consequence of which, the ‘seder’ dinner is a lot of fun. The story’s told, the songs are sang, bitter herbs are eaten, to remind of bitter times, horseradish is chewed, to remind us of… roast beef, matzos are eaten, the unleavened bread because the fleeing Israelites had to take their bread out of the fires in that state or wait til it had risen and missed the parting of the Red Sea through which they could escape slavery. For me, I’d have probably waited for the bread. I like bread and however bad slavery is, Egyptian whips don’t get stuck in your teeth. Or give you constipation.

The youngest person present has to ‘ask the four questions’, which start with ‘why is this night different from all others’.

But its a time for family. It’s a shared event. Last year there were about 30 people round the table. All participating. Ok, all forced by advance emails to participate. We hosted one with ‘just’ about 15, including Lila, obvs. Joey wasn’t born yet.

This year we’re all in isolation. It won’t be the same. Can’t be the same. Small groups. Not what God intended when he invented the whole thing, 3000 years ago. But heh, it is what it is. We are where we are. One plague. Family or single units.

Like my dad. 95 years old and doing brilliantly. Isolated but completely unbothered by coronavirus, even unbothered by the end of the football season. He’s that content. And today his synagogue sent him a Passover box. Everything he needs for the Seder, all the herbs and symbolic stuff and the kosher wine, then a meal, everything. Which is wonderful. Not that he’s so bothered about the Seder, having done 94 and quite frankly, they don’t change much with time. But he doesn’t have to cook. Which makes his life easier. But if he chooses to give himself a little service, he’ll have to ask the 4 questions. Being the youngest person present.

Happy pre-Passover Tuesday

A xxxx

So because of Coronavirus, the tv companies are making a bit more effort. They won’t make up for football, can’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t, mustn’t, but they can up their game a bit as their viewing market just multiplied itself by thousands at the government’s behest. And so, just a few days after Witness came on, there appeared, as if by magic, one of the true ‘holy grail’ movies. A genuine all-time top-whatever and must-see.

Rain Man.

Tom Cruise, again, and the impeccable, the irreplaceable, the outstandingly… Hoffmanable, Dustin Hoffman. It’s quite an old film. Because the phones have wires attached. But oh my it is wonderful. Not quite wonderful enough to make me bow before the tv in thanks, for that it would have to be The Graduate, but so good to revisit.

They never show old Woody Allen movies any more. He is no longer acceptable viewing due to… issues. With children. Yet really, any movie made BEFORE the first allegations came to light SHOULD be still watchable. In line with the presumption of innocence and the right of every man to a trial by the newspapers, this is a foundation stone of legal process in a democracy. If we had a written constitution here and if it had amendments, like some other, 3rd world countries, then the 17th amendment would read: “you can show Sleeper, Play it again Sam and Bananas, but NOT Vicky Christina Barcelona or Match Point or anything subsequent to marriage to any of his step-children…”

In their absence they keep showing Coyote Ugly. Nothing like as funny, other than the outstanding John Goodman, pathetically sorry in plot development (mainly: there is virtually no plot whatsoever that a 14 year old couldn’t write in her ‘aspirational’ homework essay, and it doesn’t develop far beyond ‘rubbish’) and the cast otherwise aren’t much into acting. BUT: they look fantastic, dance wonderfully and have lots and lots of fun. So if you just skip to Can’t fight the Moonlight, you’ll be fine.

And that movie is not unique in being pretty much a great big build up to just one number, one event, one… one little bit of brilliance following 90 minutes of absolute dross which, before they invented ‘fast forward’ may have had you leaving the cinema.

Dirty Dancing is the greatest example. I know you’re not supposed to talk ill of the dead but Patrick Swayze never pushed my buttons as an actor. Yet that dance scene at the end of the movie is fantastic. With Jennifer Grey. Name one other film she appeared in (without using IMDB) and you win a mask and four sheets of toilet roll! But she was the daughter of Joel Grey, the star (other than Liza Minnelli) of Cabaret. A movie two million miles from ‘one song wonder’. In fact one of my all time top 5!!!! (There are approximately 174 films in that top 5 but I’m working on it).

Flashdance. Shit. Total rubbish. Bollox. Dross. Oh but what a feeling…

Even Fame. Better. A bit. Enjoyable, to a degree. Yet defined and redeemed by dancing to the eponymous song across the streets of New York. The rest of it you can keep, or if you haven’t seen it, pretty much work out by yourself.

Wonder what’s on tonight?

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

This morning, or this evening, depending on your perspective, I was talking to Bulawayo Johnno, who lives in Sydney, if that’s not too confusing. He got thrown out of ‘Rhodesia’ and came here where, we were lucky enough to get him on the last convict ship bound for Bottany Bay. Anyway, he was in pre-bedtime relaxation (where most of Australia spends most of its days, pre or post coronavirus) and committing a cardinal sin. He was watching Shallow Hal. Not that I personally have any issues about a movie almost defining the ‘all men are rapists’ ethos from the male perspective. Nor that the essential message of the film was; don’t be fat and ugly, no-one will ever want you; get slim and gorgeous and all the shag-masters will be queuing up for a go. I find nothing sexist, misogynistic or un-feminist about that. The film does star Jack Black, always good value, and Gwyneth Paltrow, when she was a babe. Slim babe. Before Goop. Before vaginamania, before even ‘conscious uncoupling’. Just Gwynnie. And its such a shit film that even if it was the only thing on tv… I’d watch it again. Even if it was one of the usual 733 Sky offerings, I’d forgo the other 732 to watch part of it again.

Because shit films belong on tv screens. It’s their natural resting place. And somewhere that I feel I can enjoy/endure them in a completely non-judgmental environment. As opposed to walking out of a cinema that’s only showing Mary Poppins (new version). Where do you hide? How can you deny? How do you hide your shame???

On this side of the world, just a few nights ago they showed a true ‘monster’ movie. The official definition of which is either: a truly fantastic piece of entertainment which leaves you exhilarated and begging for more (brothels don’t count), or: any movie made during the Kelly McGillis era when she was a babe. In the totally non-objectified meaning of ‘babe’. Obviously.

They showed Witness. And its brilliant. Everything about it is brilliant. Harrison Ford is brilliant. The Amish people are brilliant, the story is brilliant, the little kid is brilliant and Kelly McGillis is… just Kelly McGillis. Who was only ever better in…

Top Gun. And only because in that she drove a Porsche 956 convertible, rather than a pony-and-trap. But another sensational film. Ok, its juvenile, puerile, pathetic, predictable and cheesier than Welsh rarebit, but you’re up there, with Tom, and even Val Kilmer is tolerable, and the Russians get shot down and the missiles fly and, and, and, and…

Watched Unorthodox on Netflix. Made in Yiddish. Quite brilliant. No Kelly McGillis but a lot of people who look and act like the Amish. But even stranger.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Of the fundamental cause, accounts may slightly vary
Man bites bat or bat bites man, either way its pretty scary.
In a market selling food to the poor; scorpion, bat and dog,
Millipede, cat, locust, beetle, hamster, slug and frog.

People so poor they can’t afford a tin of spam
Thus is life on the streets in Wuhan.
For there was invented, for our enjoyment, fun and pleasure,
The virus known as Covid 19, the worldwide newfound treasure.

The virus spread, the people sick, some even went and died!
So the Chinese issued a new law, all bat-meat must be fried.
Several weeks later the shit there hit the fan
Sickness and dying everywhere, all across Wuhan.

But the world is global, international, and we’re all into sharing
And the latest gift to cross the globe shocked even the Chinese into caring.
Alexa started coughing, never a good sign
President Xi admitted that a little problem he indeed did find.

By then it had started in earnest, the spread of the disease.
Italy, Spain, America and Britain, all brought to their knees.
Markets crashed, shares dropped out of sight
The world in financial crisis and forced into a fight.

People locked up, public meetings banned
Because coronavirus travels so easily from hand to hand.
Shops closed, workers all sent home to wait.
Mask up, stay indoors, we all await our fate.

We’re getting a taste, in this apocalyptic gloom
Of what life might be like, when we never leave a room
Gym classes done online, speak to the family over Skype
Post modern techno-society forced upon us overnight.

We drink with friends over Zoom, use Streetparty to meet the gang
Work is done from the bedroom, until the WiFi hub goes bang.
No hugs no kisses for friends you may pass
Groping strangers not allowed, not even a pat on the arse.

But we WILL get over it, like Gloria Gaynor we’ll survive,
Because the human condition is such that as long as we’re alive
We simply have to make direct contact, that will indeed return
Staying two metres apart makes that indeed a hard corner to turn.

We will return to ‘real life’ and hopefully pretty soon
Boris is getter better, and not a moment too soon
To lead us back to health, both physical and monetary
Good luck with both of them, especially the monetary.

The NHS are heroes to every last man, woman and thing
Working right in the face of that awful viral ring
They don’t have tests, they don’t have vents not even sufficient masks
But God bless ‘em all, keep ‘em well, help ‘em with their tasks.

Yes, the same ‘omnipotent and omniscient’ God who started this whole thing
Looking down benignly as that bat felled Chi Dong Ying. (Name changed for his protection and my rhyme).
I make no judgments, the religious take comfort where they must
I’ll pray to the NHS in whom we all must trust.

Happy Friday

A xxxx