Andy's Glasses

Gareth Bale is home. In England. Even though he’s Welsh and lives in Spain. But ‘home’ is where the heart is. Not necessarily his heart, that’s probably in Cardiff or Swansea or Anglesey. But my heart. And those of all other Spurs fans. So much so that he chose that very symbol as his personal goal celebration. Ok, he used it in Madrid too, not as often, but he didn’t really mean it over there. You could tell. I could tell. But in anticipation of his possibly playing tomorrow, I thought I’d better decide if he’s any good. Or rather, how good he was, back in the day. The Spurs day. And YouTube found me his 10 best goals. And so, for all Spurs fans (even those who purportedly support other teams but deep down wish they could outwardly support Spurs, like most Arsenal fans, half the Man United fans, that’s the ones who live in north London, hopefully no Chelsea fans, otherwise we’re very welcoming) I can tell you that Bale was every bit as wonderful as we remember. Better even.

The 25 yard, 30 yard wonderstrikes I’m sure his left foot can still achieve. And there were many. But a lot of his goals were about the speed, the power, the sheer Bale-ness of not just driving at the opposition but totally steamrollering past them (to mix my metaphors) like a Ferrari. And I can’t help but wonder if he can still do that. Because he’s 7 years older. And footballing years, due to injuries and the strains, are like dog years. They’re worth 7 of ours. So although he’s only 31, in footballing years he’s 73.

The number one of his top 10 goals, according to YouTube, was scored against West Ham. Coincidentally the team we play tomorrow. Gareth hit the winner in the 90th minute. That was 8 years ago and West Ham still haven’t got over it.

And even though the ground will be virtually empty, there will be a united cry heard from all over London (and beyond) of ‘Bay-all, Bay-all, Bay-all…’ for the entirety of the match. As soon as he comes on. If he comes on. Or even if he doesn’t. We chant it every night in our house just because.

Liverpool play Everton today in the ‘Covid Bowl’ to decide who can infect more people in a 90-minute spell. Up there in Tier 3.

Down here in Tier 2, I can still play tennis but only on my own. Spurs Paul came on and played for an hour after I’d left the court. By himself. In accordance with the new regulations from midnight. Having cleaned the court with a wet wipe first.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

There is UPROAR!!! Ok, its not a very big one, compared to so many
others currently being uproarious, but it warrants a few exclamation
marks just for sheer stupidity. Because they’ve cast Gal Gadot
(Wonderwoman, and oh, such wonder) to play Cleopatra, The Queen of
Egypt, in a remake of… well, all the other Cleopatra movies made
over the years, except ‘Carry On Cleo’, which was different. Possibly
better. More sophisticated.

Gadot has been accused of ‘stealing’ an ‘Arab’ or ‘black’ role. Well
who from? I want to ask. Elizabeth Taylor??

As when anyone mentions ‘Cleopatra’ to me, the image that springs to
mind is that of Elizabeth Taylor, hair black, deep fringe, kohl eyes,
headdress. I realise that this is imagination appropriation on my part
but I’m just being honest. I have no idea what the real Cleo looked
like and I don’t really care. She was in all likelihood nothing like
as beautiful as Taylor, certainly not the awesome ‘babe’ that is Gal
Gadot. And I say that in the most non-objectifying way possible. Even
if it don’t sound like that.

But on another level its even more stupid. Cleopatra was Greek. From
Macedonia. If she was around today she’d live in Palmers Green, in the
house next to where George Michael grew up. She certainly wasn’t an
‘Arab’ and definitely not ‘black’. She was Southern European/middle
eastern. Which is totally different from being an Israeli. A middle
eastern country in Southern Europe. So I can see their point. Egypt is
in Africa. Just about. Hangs on by the thread of the Suez Canal. So if
they wanted to cast Whoopy Goldberg as Cleo, that’s fine by me. Or
Halle Berry. Even Angelina Jolie, who has played ‘colour’ before (and
that ended really well). But the powers that be chose Gal Gadot. Not
because of cultural similarities, not because of middle-eastern
heritage, not because her ‘colour’ was about right, but because she’s
a fucking actress and its her job to play whoever they ask her to
play. Be that Cleopatra, Michelle Obama or Kim Jong Un.

Basically, LEAVE HER ALONE!!! SHE’S TOO GORGEOUS FOR ALL THIS SHIT.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Don’t get me wrong: I love the Beatles. John Cooper Clarke is a very clever man. I adore Jodie Comer from Killing Eve. But there’s something about Liverpudlians…

They can be very demanding. They have a sense of entitlement which creates the necessity to whinge a lot, which accounts for the accent, which is essentially, one big whinge. Even now, as Covid rips through their City, rather than appreciate the need based on the fact that half of Liverpool will die at the current rate, the Scouse reply is always “da’s typichal, da’ is; we get da pubs closed. Iss persechution!” Not accepting that their need may be greater, but that they are being singled out for punishment.

And now we have Premiership-gate. The latest shit-storm to engulf our beautiful game. Which started as a plea from the English Football League. Save our clubs. The ‘lower divisions’, starved of match attendance by the crisis, is on the brink of total financial collapse. Can’t the Premiership, with its obscene levels of wealth and expenditure, help out? The annual salary of one single Manchester City player could keep afloat the entire Division 2 clubs for 10 years. Well, something along those lines. So they asked for money, for help.

Because although the Premiership is a stand alone thing of joy and wonderment, it is still part of the league system. And really, an aspiration for the whole thing. So Bournemouth can come up and play for a few years. Watford can come and go, come and go, come and go. West Ham can hang on and hang on and, unfortunately, hang on. Leicester can come up and win the bloody title.

But that’s all romance. And this is business. John Henry is the owner of Liverpool and a man whose whole life is entrenched in football. Unfortunately, in American Football, which is less about romance, nothing about history, everything about money. And for years he has had a plan, ‘Project Big Picture’, which would see the biggest of the Premier clubs basically take control of the whole thing, doing their own deals, particularly with tv rights, where the big money comes from.

So John Henry, along with those other… other… what’s it called when you make shit loads of money and everyone else loses the shirts off their backs but its vaguely legal? Oh yeah, along with those other clever Americans at Manchester United, put up a plan to ‘save English football!!!’ in a magnanimous way. Giving 250 million quid to the lower league teams. Awww, that’s kind.

Is it? In return these two, along with the other 4 ‘big’ clubs, take control of all the money in the Premier League and ‘redistribute’ it along lines of… of… of… of ‘we get the lion’s share and the other teams can scavenge for the rest’, sort of thing. Less vague. More totally fucking air-tight and sealed in law forevermore, amen.

Reduce the size of the Premiership. Less matches. Get rid of the League Cup. Then with all that extra time and energy, the big six can devote the time to playing big sixes from other European countries. Not like ‘Serbia’ and ‘Russia’, but proper Europe. Like Spain. Where they only really have a big 3, possibly just a big 2, because their league already runs on the lines proposed by Henry & Glazer. Neither of whom is even Liverpudlian. Yet still feel the need to bemoan the system and demand their entitlement, as if they were.

I don’t like this one bit. Damned Yanks…

Happy Tuesday night. Even City boys get busy sometimes.

A xxxx

So this is what’s happening: the North of England is to be closed due to Covid. Of, course, this will be in ‘localised areas’ but basically, from Northampton upwards, its shut. The people of Bolton and Blackburn and Wigan, all of whom support third rate football teams, are already in a kind of ‘mini lockdown’ where meetings between 2 families are banned, pubs closed indoors, blah, blah. And they’re restricting their movements as much as possible. So they don’t bring their horrible diseases down here. Similarly in the north east, from Newcastle down to Norfolk its all bad news. So might as well shut down at least half of East Anglia as well.

Yet I’m not sure this goes far enough to safeguard us. I think we need to start sending northerners who live down here back where they belong. There’s obviously something in the northerner which is more ‘Covid-friendly’ or receptive or spready, and either way, we don’t want it, ergo, we don’t want them.

Virgin are going to run a series of trains from Kings Cross and Euston, one way only, taking these people ‘home’. Even if, like my own dear wife, they’ve lived down here for more than 40 years, anyone who still says the word ‘bath’ with a short ‘a’, rather than a ‘barth’, frog-march them to the station and shove them on board. ITS THE ONLY WAY TO STAY SAFE AND PROTECT THE SOUTH OF THE COUNTRY, THE GOOD BIT.

Football matches between northern and southern teams will now be streamed live on tv, 25 quid a time on pay-per-view, but using FIFA 2020 instead of real players, using professional gamers. You’ll hardly see the difference. Except it will be more skilful. And some of the tattoos will be not as complete until the upgrades come in.

Of course these new rules, regulations and suggestions are subject to change. Approximately every hour. Possibly less. But we, your government, can only try to react to the ever-changing landscape that this pandemic produces. Therefore at times we do tend to appear as a bunch of laughable headless chickens running round contradicting each other. We can only crave your indulgence and protect the NHS. Oh, and lives.

Stay safe. Stay south. Unless you’re a northerner. Then GO HOME!

A xxxx

Isn’t Amazon just the best company in the world? Like, you, just, kind’a, order shit, and, like, it just fucking arrives! Like, geezer in a white van brings it round, like, 20 minutes before you ordered it! Amazing. That’s why they call it ‘amazon’, cos its like ‘amazin’, innit? And, my Kindle, right? It’s got, like, loads and loads’a books on it. But, its, like, thinner than even one book, right? So how they do that? More amazin. I just love Amazon. I (and I speak for the entire global customer base here) like it a Trillion dollars worth. And we love Jeff Bezos 175 billion dollars worth too.

Yet surely the mark of a company is when it goes wrong. As everything has a natural tendency to do on occasion. Ahhhh, returns and refunds, Amazon is just brilliant. As you press ‘return’ on your computer the money is instantly back in your bank and the doorbell rings with the driver to pick up the dress that doesn’t fit, the toy you don’t like, the Thai bride who smells a bit.

All brilliant. Love Amazon.

Then I got an email. ‘Your tv is soon to be delivered to Doral, Florida. Go to ‘manage my account’ if any problem’. Yeah, that’s phishing. You go to manage my account and it is a hotline straight to Moscow data hackers who’ve stripped your bank account and maxed out all your credit cards before you can say ‘oh, this isn’t Amazon’. So I ignored. Then I had a couple more emails. Ignored. In fact, deleted! Dangerous stuff. Alexa’s mates spying and stealing.

A few days later I actually ordered something and went to set the delivery address. And, among my numerous addresses on file was one in Doral, FLA. Have you heard of Doral? I hadn’t. Even though I apparently watch tv there. Or will do once its delivered.

So I phoned amazon.co.uk and spoke to amazon.delhi and told them about this, linking the emails to the address, which was not one I’d ever entered. Oh, you need to speak to amazon.COM about this as its a US problem. But I don’t have an account with them, I have one with you; UK, India, whatever. You have to log on to amazon.com. I tried. It keeps coming up with a(n) OTP request. One Time Passcode. Which it doesn’t send. No email, no text, no telegram, no OTP. So I can’t log on, so I can’t speak to amazon.com.

Well, you need to speak to amazon.com… and basically this went round and round and round. Because they don’t listen, they’re not paid to listen, only to do precisely and no more than their computer tells them. Thinking is simply out of the question for these poor soulless creatures.

And my Amex account was charged £146.46 for a delivery from amazon.com. Presumably for my new tv to my new home in Doral, Florida, once I work out where it is. Though don’t know how much of a tv you get for 146 quid.

After 2 hours of banging my head against various (virtual, obvs) brick walls with amazon, I phoned American Express. Hung up the phone just 2, short, reassuring minutes later, simply knowing that this would be sorted out. By people. With minds of their own. And the care for their customers’ concerns that Amazon don’t have time for because they’re too busy counting their money and working out ways to avoid paying taxes.

On one of the many, worthless emails I received from Amazon, was “the Earth’s most customer-centric company”, written without irony (American, innit). I turned and vomited as I read it. And wrote to Jeff Bezos to see if he knows where Doral, FLA might be.

Happy online purchasing

A xxxx

This is a wonderful photo. A metaphor for declining standards in the world, a potent symbol. And nothing is more potent than 2 Barbie dolls. Ok, one Barbie and one Sindy, if you’re that pedantic and anal about such things.

The Sindy on the right is Mel’s poor, wretched, doll, whose hair was cut off in a Les Mis moment about 50 years ago. The Barbie on the left is only about 25 years old, from Lila’s mummy’s days when such things were important. But Barbies don’t age; you get that, right? They’re like, ‘born’ at some undefined point of girl/woman-hood, somewhere between teen (the skateboard years) and the young woman (meets Ken, the rest, history). And they ‘die’ at precisely the same age, not a day older, nor younger, not a wrinkle, no grey hair (unless Joey’s been at the paints), no cellulite. Just a bit of faded plastic or, more normally, decapitated. Because the necks are always the weak point. Though little Joey has in fact totally redefined the meaning of anything’s ‘weak point’.

But Sindy (could have been a vintage Barbie, they were always the same) was a little girl. Dressed (yes, its original) as a nurse. No make up. No bust. Just a little girl doll full of sweetness and innocence and little girliness. Goes to church on Sundays. Eats ice cream. Without checking the calories.

 The Barbie is, basically, a slut.

In the 25 intervening years someone at Mattel had decided that little girls no longer wanted to play with facsimiles of themselves. They wanted to play with something more aspirational. Possibly with the teen/adult that they might become. And the presumption was that every pre-teeny gel wants to live in Geordie Shore. Or Jersey Shore. Made in Chelsea. Or (fucking) Esss-ixx. So they gave them curves. Not the full J-Lo, but curves. And replaced the nurses costume and the cheerleader and the ballet gear with pencil skirts, tight bodices, tight pants and thongs. Ok, not thongs, Barbies don’t have underwear, they are in permanent ‘commando’. And they come with a face full of make-up, fake tan and best of all, feet that can’t stand on the ground. Why? Because they’re angled at 45 degrees, permanently. So they can wear ‘6-inch’ heels. All the time.

But the Barbie, as mentioned, was from the 90s. If you extrapolate (that’s a statistical term, not a deviant one, unless that’s a standard deviation, one from the norm) to a Barbie one might buy today, she would come with a 36-inch (scale) chest, with boob-job scars, child-bearing hips and an assortment of dildos. Because she’s probably ’empowered’ and ‘doesn’t need Ken’, or any man. She should have gender issues. Possibly bisexual. Possibly pre-trans. So she comes with a suit and tie as well. And a football. Which she can’t kick unless they do something about the angle of her feet.

This is an extract from my new book, The Sexualisation of Toys and why didn’t it fucking happen 60 years ago!!!!!, published by Sheister, Shuster and Shweinhundt, 2021.

Happy Friday
A xxxx

I keep reading articles about hugging. Not shagging, they’re different ‘articles’. But hugging. Cuddling. In fact about touching. And how this is not just part of the human condition, this need for touch, but an essentially defining feature. If we were dogs we’d sniff arses, but we’re not, well, I’m not, we’re humans. Well, we used to be. Before… the thing that won’t be named because we’re all so fucking bored of it.

I WAS a hugger. And that was before reading research telling me how beneficial an activity it is. I was a pioneer. Men, women, children, animals. Hug and hug em hard. Stop just short of outright sexual assault. I grew up in a tactile family and consequently my own family then continued the tradition. Lots of people didn’t perhaps have this benefit growing up and thus are left feeling awkward when some virtual stranger embraces them bodily, squeezing the breath from their lungs. Those are my favourite victims. The ones you can feel squirming with the unfamiliarity of the whole exercise. Because the British are not essentially a huggy nation. Too reserved, too stiff, too much legislation about inappropriate behaviour, to really enjoy hugging. In America you can circumvent the legalities. But only for a while. As Harvey Weinstein learned. Yet I’m not talking about sexual abuse. Specifically. More just that as humans, we NEED to touch.

It’s physical, its psychological and thus, inevitably, its measurable. Which is why I keep reading about it. Research. And even though I’m normally the world’s biggest research-skeptic, on the grounds that it is always biased (well someone’s paying for it, ain’t they?), prejudicial and open to ambiguities on interpretation, even though all that, I’m prepared to forgo my natural cynicism for a good hug.

Because all the research says the same thing. That humans have a physical need to touch. Ok, this varies between individuals, and between volumes of alcohol consumed, but our wellbeing is in a big part dependant on contact.

And now we’re not just no longer touching, but actually developing strong touch-averse reflexes. In which we recoil if touched. “Holy SHIT!!!!! Did you just brush against my arm?????” And even react with discomfort seeing people in movies shaking hands or making ‘unnecessary’ contact.

So just a little question then: could this be the very end of humanity, as it was once known????

Wow. That’s deep.

Happy socio-philosophical musings

A xxxx

There’s now 3 questions to ask people to reduce viral risk. “Do you have a cough?” “Is your temperature high?” And, “have you been involved in any goalless draws this week?”

Because if there’s one positive (other than Trump’s test) to be taken from this horrible pandemic, its the amazing effect its had on football. Not usually any yardstick of medical anything, but football has changed. And for the better. It’s more… more… more… odd.

When Manchester City (EVERYBODY’S choice to win the league this year) lost 5-2 at home to Leicester the other week, it was just ‘a blip’, an oddity. A freak result which found City off colour and Leicester having one of those freak days when the ‘ball just kept going in’. But 5 is a big score in football. Really big. Spurs put the same number past Southampton that same weekend. Less of a surprise result but more statistical blips. Which, you’d imagine would favour the ‘big’ teams, who’d be notching up 4s and 5s and more, just because, generally, they create more chances.

City played Leeds on Saturday and could only manage to draw 1-1. They were lucky not to lose. Leeds were brilliant and refused to be intimidated by City’s billion pound team which actually looked a bit ‘bargain basement’ in comparison to the quality produced by Leeds. FUCKING LEEDS!!!! Playing football that doesn’t draw blood and break legs??? Billie Bremner’s statue outside Elland Road actually produced tears.

Then came yesterday. The most absolute and total ‘FUCK ME!!!’ day football has ever produced.

Spurs went to play Manchester United at Old Trafford. Went 1-0 down with a penalty after just 30 seconds. Pulled level 4 minutes later, went 2-1 up seven minutes after that and were 4-1 to the good by half time. The final score of 6-1 was so… magnificent, so… amazing, so… JUST BIIIIIIGG!!! that I still can’t quite get the smile off my face. Spurs were simply breathtaking, United plain abysmal. Defending the ‘high line’ is a little risky and depends on the speed of your defenders. Toby Maguire and (dirty bastard) Luke Shaw looked as if they could only catch Son if they were racing for the last pizza. Harry Kane was magnificent, again, Sonny simply pure class. And Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (yes, that is his real name), world class. Add in Aurier’s best game for Spurs, the strength of Sissoko and Ndombele and even the embarrassing performance for his Oscar by Eric Lamela and it all just worked out fine. More than fine. The stuff of dreams in the Theatre of Dreams.

Football can’t get better than that.

Yet just a few short hours later it did. As Aston Villa did a number on Liverpool. That ‘number’ being 7. Seven. SEVEN. Beat the Champions 7-2 in the best game they will ever know.

So, I’m lovin Covid right now. Of course, next weekend that may change but when ‘viral load’ is translating into goals, how can it be a bad thing?

Ecstatic Monday

A xxxx

As the world prays for Donald Trump and his deliverance from the dreaded disease that he actually didn’t even believe in until last Tuesday, we need, as always with the world’s slipperiest dickhead, to question a few ‘facts’. Well, ‘facts’ can only get you so far, and they’re always questionable anyway when coming out of ‘his’ White House, so we’ll stick with what is better still. Speculation. Gossip. Rumour. Anything really which will paint the dimwit Prez in a worse light.

He’s in hospital. Which is where you always put people who are fighting fit and not in any difficulties whatsoever. He is receiving shit-loads of experimental medication. But not mainlining bleach. Not yet, anyway. And maybe these quite radical measures are intended preventatively, or maybe The Don is actually suffering, we don’t know and really, we never will. He’ll either emerge onto the steps of the West Wing in 5 months time, 4 stone lighter and a hundred years older, claiming ‘it was nothing, just a cold’, or he’ll die. Which, from an intellectual standpoint, would put America in a stronger position than it is now.

The infection, we were led to believe, started with Hope. His communications babe, Hope Hicks. To whom, the prez is apparently ‘very close’. ‘Like a daughter’. And I’m concerned that this refers to ‘like a daughter in Tennessee’, or even Norfolk. But its nice for Trump to give so much power and control to the former swimwear model.

Hope had symptoms on Wednesday, just after the Biden debate. The Prez went ‘positive’ the next day. Though then stories emerged about him having it for 72 hours. Which meant he went to the debate knowing he had Covid.

But the actual ‘source’, it is reckoned, was last Sunday at the ceremony for the new Supreme Court puppet, sorry, judge, on the lawn at the White House. Where, in Trump style, 200 unmasked important people sat in ridiculously close proximity, shared a buffet, hugged and kissed and spat over each other repeatedly. As Republicans often do. 11 of those present have now tested positive.

And this is all so terribly worrying that I’ll have to distract myself by watching Spurs play Manchester United this afternoon. And if I’m honest, I’m far more concerned with getting 3 points at Old Trafford than with the health of an Old Tosser.

Happy, healthy Sunday

A xxxx

Lila laughed at the idea that she was ‘a white girl’. She’s not white. She’s pink. If only the whole world saw such issues through the prism of 3 (and a half) year old literalism and without the baggage of nuance and context and (mainly bad) experience. But then Prince Harry would have nothing to write about. And Donald Trump would have to not condemn the ‘orange supremacists’.

Having read about, and seen part of, the Presidential debate on Wednesday, I can see why leaders here are always reluctant to enter into such media circuses. They achieve very little, other than the humiliation and shaming of all involved. Deeply personal slagging-off-fests which reduce the entire political world to basically ‘my dad could beat up your dad!!!’ Particularly, but by no means exclusively, in America.

Trump was typically aggressive and repetitive, its what he is. Biden managed to keep hold of the plot for good whiles and then… errr… sorry, where was I again? And then it came, inevitably, to ‘law and order’. Which is what Donald Trump thinks is his specialist subject, which is why half the cities in his country burn every night. And he thinks Biden would be ‘weak’ in this regard, which could mean that half the cities in America would burn every night.

But Biden asked the Prez what he felt about the ‘Proud Boys’ storming into Portland Oregon. That is a white supremacist group who’ve gone, armed to the teeth, to America’s most riotous, most protesty, most BLM of cities, to ‘help’ the ‘poor residents’. Meaning, roughly, that they’ve gone to shoot black people. Loosely translating from KKK speak into English. And Trump refused to condemn them, he later stated that he, like me, had never heard of them before. That was the next day, when he was on a tv interview and was reading from a script written by people much more clever than he is. Maybe written by road-sweepers, tattoo artists, five year-old dyslexics. They all qualify.

But the fact is that Trump NEVER condemns white supremacists. Not properly. Not in any meaningful way. He prefers to consider just their immediate actions, ie violence, or its intention, protesting, causing riots, and equates it to same behaviour in others. He creates an equality of action between people protesting for a fairer, better world and those wanting a return to slavery and the Wild West values. And because BLM has been hijacked by hard lefties and rioters, it gives a slight credibility to this most unequal of equalities. One tyre-burning looter is the same as another. So Donald won’t condemn white supremacists. Feels he doesn’t need to differentiate them from a few duffle-coated equality campaigners.

Because he’s a tosser. An idiot. And now he’s all that, but with Covid 19.

Americans may not get irony, but God does.

Happy rainy, wet Saturday

A xxxx