Andy's Glasses

I wouldn’t normally watch the Aussie Open final. Why would I? When I could be playing tennis. But I’m not allowed and due to the ridiculous time difference the Aussies insist on maintaining, I’m watching Djokovic play Dominic Thiem. So famous that I just had to google his first name. But he’s brilliant. Outstanding. Incredible. Currently 2 sets to 1 up. Anything can happen. And maybe Thiem won’t win. But the ‘old guard’ is changing. We’ve had a decade of watching possibly the 3 greatest ever players of all time win virtually everything. Ok, Andy Murray won a couple but Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have defined an era. Murray could only define a Scotsman. Even if Novak wins today, I kind’a feel I’m looking at the future in his opponent. An Austrian! A fucking Austrian!!! Who’d’a guessed that?

I don’t think Prince Andrew plays tennis. I hope not. It would effect my love of the game. But he is currently embroiled in ‘the gift that keeps giving’. Which is his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Who bestowed gifts and holidays and, allegedly, ‘young women’ upon Andrew whilst alive, and his legacy continues well past his untimely death.

And there’s such a massive demand from ‘the victims’ for our least favourite Prince to go to America and testify that he may have to do so. He’ll deny. Whether true or not, he’ll deny. He was in Pizza Hut at the time. Even though there isn’t one there. His memory only remembers pepperoni and mushroom, possibly ham and pineapple, which most people find nauseating, but he probably wouldn’t, yet it simply doesn’t stretch to sex with underage girls. Or being with women anywhere, anytime? Was I? With her? Really?? Oh, you have photos, well they’re probably wrong. I have no recollection. Possibly living with Fergie would give you a disposition of trying to forget women, I get that. But you don’t forget them all.

I recently had a conversation in which a very old person was appalled that they’re bothering with this, ‘that woman is married now! Has children!!’ ‘It was so long ago, who cares?!!’ And I thought: I fucking care. Because child abuse is the worst of crimes. For the sick and perverted pleasures of vile individuals, kids are scarred for their entire lives. Forever. And even if it was 100 years ago, they should pursue it.

Anyway, I’m going to Spurs. After the tennis, obvs.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

So this is what happens when you go for a ‘bone graft’ at the dentists. You end up looking like a cross between a chipmunk and The Elephant Man. And its weird. To look in a mirror and see a completely different face from the stunning beauty you’re so familiar with (deluding yourself into). My pillow yesterday morning did indeed look like it been taken straight from the set of Reservoir Dogs and this morning my left eye has developed a nice little bruise on it too. The worst thing of all? I’m grounded. No tennis, even though its a beautiful morning, no tai chi, no punching anyone at all, unless they won’t punch back.

However, a little bit of dentistry can’t keep a fit, able, youthful (in yer fuckin’ dreams) 63 year old from his new, major hobby: visiting doctors.

A month or so back I went to see a ‘hip dude’ (that’s his profession, not his demeanour) because an old tennis injury had returned. He took an x-ray. And told me the hip was ok but FUCK ME! LOOK AT YOUR SPINE!!!! I may have changed the exact wordage for artistic purposes. You need to see a back specialist, neurosurgeon, spinal… tapper, type geezer, ASAPeeeee!!!!

And that was this morning’s excursion up to Bushey. Even my SatNav said ‘what, AGAIN???’ when I plugged in the hospital.

My lower spine is curved. Should be straight. Why they call it ‘spine’ not ‘spiral’, do keep up. And compressed. Everyone’s spines compress but mine more so, because I’m special.

Curved spine, deformed face, I’m turning into John Merrick.

And yet, and yet, and yet. The doc was great. Said he wanted to do… absolutely nothing. Its fine. The way you are. Hereditary (bloody father!!!, sorry, daughters) but requires no attention. I can play tennis, I can live like a normal, non-elepahantine person with a swollen face. He didn’t even recommend a cortisone injection. They always recommend that, especially if they need to fill up the McLaren or get a school fees bill. But no. Nothing.

We have Brexited. Its official. 11 o’clock last night, the bells rang, the other things did other things and the world changed totally. In that its much more stupid today than it was yesterday. Along with most (well, 52%) of the people in it. And yet… I feel free! I feel… less European! I feel… more about tomorrow’s game against Manchester City than I do about our newly sanctioned status.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

So what do you do on Liladay when there’s no Lila? She’s tanning herself in the Indian Ocean and I’m here in the grey and damp. Although maybe not ‘tanning’ as such, due to the gallons of factor 50 her mum took with. More at risk of drowning in sun protection than getting burnt. Anyway, its not about ‘her’, its about MEEEEE. I’m the one left in limbo. So to compensate we’ve brought my father-in-law down from Manchester for a few days, so we can babysit him instead. He’s been here 24 hours and hasn’t even got the Barbies out yet. Lila would be appalled.

But never mind. When plans get altered there’s always new plans to make, new wonderful things to do, new fun to be had. There’s always…

Dentistry.

I love a dentist visit. Not check-ups, they’re no fun. I mean proper, scalpels out, drugs in, cutting, digging, sewing, blood, gore, red pillows tomorrow morning- dentistry. And I’m going this afternoon. Booked it in November, some serious shit going on. In my mouth today. And as its scheduled at two and a half hours, they offered me some form of ‘mild sedation’. Mild? MILD??? FUCKING MILD???? I take mild sedation to get on the tube. For this ‘pro-ceeee-dure’ I want POW-ER-FUL!!! I want knock-out. I want the finest, pharmaceutical quality shit I can get in me. You can hack away, I’m gonna be on Venus. So they offer ‘intra-venous’ which I’ve had and to be honest I didn’t like. Left me feeling awful. So I went for ‘oral’. No comments please, that’s beneath even YOU. A tab of Valium makes the world a better place. Even ‘that’ world. And that was the plan.

They phoned me last week. You can’t have oral sedation. We’re not allowed to give it any longer. WHHHHAAAAAATTTTTTT!!!!!! Law’s changed. Dentists and drugs, blah, blah, blah, can’t do it. Bastards. I called them back three upset, panicky days later. Can I bring my own? Like taking wine to an unlicensed restaurant. Do you charge corkage? Of course you can bring your own. Bring all the drugs you need, but we can’t give them to you. I think, even at my age, I can manage to get a pill into my mouth without falling over. I won’t bore you with the sorry tale of my GP’s refusal to prescribe such things which are ‘out of their control’. Because they’re a bunch of obstructive tossers and the plan is that I want to be completely out of control. But I ‘scored’ some, anyway.

Four o’clock today.

This photo is possibly my fave Lila-pic EVER. Independent ‘woman’. As if. But just so self-possessed. The essence of Lila in one little photo.

Happy (????) Thursday

A xxxx

But more, much more than this, I did it Hu-aaaaa-wei.

Well I’m glad I’ve got that out my system. Which is more than we can say for the company concerned, who are well and truly in, over, above and underneath our new system for 5G. Which has been approved by our government.

If Boris is to be believed, we get a fantastic 5G network, we get it much quicker than by using any possible alternative and WE KEEP CONTROL of all data, minimised risk to security, kept away from ‘sensitive areas’, blah, blah, blah. Almost like Huawei is just the paint job on the outside of the shiny new network.

If the Americans are to be believed we have just sold our soul to China. And all our secrets. And will be under their surveillance even more than we currently are with Alexa. Every 5G terminal houses 3 really little Chinamen (or women; they have plenty of both available) and they’ll know everything anyone does any time they do it.

Though America has for many decades been sensitive to the point of paranoia. From ‘reds under the bed’ to Huawei. And many in between. But just because they’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to scupper any possible trade deal between our two fine nations. As has now been threatened. We’ll have to buy our chlorinated chickens from another supplier.

Yet them Yanks are quick to attack Prince Andrew (all bow; but ladies, make sure your skirts are pulled down sufficiently before doing so). He’s ‘unco-operative’ about his part (no pun) in the Epstein affair. He won’t say anything to them. He’s said all he needed to say on the matter to Emily Maitliss. And how did that go, Andy?

But its the horrible high-horsiness of the Americans which pisses me off. They want Andy to go and testify over there, even though he’s 19th (possibly 26th, maybe 173rd) in line to the throne of England! But he holds the truth, regardless of any status or immunity he may lay claim to. So that American law can be seen to be done. Halleluyah.

Funny that the diplomatic immunity claimed by Anne Sacolas is apparently more sacred. The woman who killed a young man with her car, outside an American air base and fled back to the States, is protected from extradition to face trial.

Let’s swap. Throw Andrew under the bus. Send him over there to testify in exchange for Anne Sacolas returning to Britain to face trial.

But America just kind’a lacks the empathy required to equate such things.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

If you watch Lila for any length of time, and I have been known to do that, you realise one (of many) things. That little children are unbelievably flexible. They can just move their little bodies in any direction to the maximum extent that skeletons allow. Whereas adults are generally different. We move anywhere, bend by just 10 or 15 degrees or pick up a tea cup, and it hurts. Somewhere. We’re not ‘bendy’.

Thus, in between 2 (nearly 3) and 60, rigor mortis starts to set in. Which is why God invented Pilates. Yoga. Even tai chi. To cope. To fight off the inevitable. To prevent the stiffness. To… stretch!!! Oddly, working out muscles, which many are prepared to do very regularly, generally acts in opposition to flexibility. Tight muscles may look good in your Speedos but they inhibit normal joint flexure. Which is (one of a thousand reasons) why I never ‘work out’.

In the Times today is a big article about the merits of stretching. Like we didn’t know. Like we don’t watch our football teams spend an hour stretching out before every match and half an hour AFTERWARDS stretching down. Which is even more important. Which is why no-one, unless they’re getting paid 200k a week, ever does it.

Because along with bodies that stiffen, we are also blessed with minds that think. And get bored. Particularly doing laborious, sometimes uncomfortable and repetitive tasks. So we’d rather watch the coffin scene from Kill Bill 2 than spend that time more productively with our heels up on the window ledge, groaning.

Yet stretching definitely works. Even though Guru Larry won’t call it ‘stretching’ (a bad-sounding thing), but instead ‘loosening’. Which is both more accurate and sounds more beneficial than destructive. And we always loosen. We do it before we do the tai chi, which itself is a wonderfully thorough stretching exercise. But you can’t do it properly if you’re stiff as a board. And you certainly can’t spend an hour kicking and punching and swinging a sword around if you haven’t ‘loosened’ hips, shoulders, backs, hamstrings. Well, you can, then you go to hospital.

Mel now stretches every night. She takes these things on board in a way no man ever could. I hear her doing it. Whilst Uma is 2-inch punching her way out of the ground, just before Michael Madsen gets bitten by the snake.

So we know we should stretch. We even know pretty much how to do it. It requires no special equipment. No tools. Just the hardest things of all: time and motivation.

Happy bendy Tuesday

A xxxx

On Saturday we went to the see the art fair at the London Design Centre in Islington. Its a sale kind of thing. Not the ‘affordable art fair’ which no-one can afford to go to, but another one. The same galleries showing the same stuff but no longer claiming affordability. Went there by tube because parking in Islington hasn’t been achieved since 1973. And we had free tickets, which is nice. Gives you more to spend on art. Though possibly not quite enough more to make it viable. Everything there seemed to start at 4 grand. Little photo of a dog; 4 grand. Watercolour 12” by 8”, looks like something Lila did at nursery (but NOTHING like as good), 4 grand. Piece of rock with a stripe of red paint on the side, 4 grand. And its not like I wanted any of them, but HOW MUCH???? We came away empty handed. But had a bag check going out. Like you’ve nicked a 6 foot square framed canvas squidged with beige paint. Oops; how’d that get in my wallet?

Last night we had the barmitzvah party. But a real party. Loud. Happy. Informal. Wonderful. Fab food. Sit where ya want. Eat standing up. Sit on the fucking floor. Issa party!!! And it was. But they had something unusual. Well, for me it was unusual. You might have a ‘silent disco’ in your house every night after dinner, but I don’t. So everyone was given headphones. Good ones. I nicked mine. Ok, I didn’t but in retrospect I should have. And there were 3 channels. Red, blue and green. On the blue channel was hip-hop, techno, garage and other total shit noise that has no place in my ears. On the green and red however, there were wonderful songs that you could ‘um’ along to. Proper songs. Old songs. Dancing songs. So in a completely silent room (other than the talking from the non-dancers) you had all the blues in one side, the greens on the other and the reds in the middle. Where you could kick them. And a few odd couples with a red dancing with a blue. At different tempos. Different songs. Its like they took the metaphor ‘dances to his own tune’ and industrialised it. At one point Mel was doing a waltz and I had ‘smells like teen spirit’ on me ‘phones. We looked like a calming nurse trying to attend a man having a seizure. But in a really cool, silent disco-y way.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

… the need for speeeeeed…

How fast is ‘fast enough’? Hmmmm. Is my car fast enough or do I need a new 400 horse power monster so I can break the law with much greater ease or have 335 wasted and redundant horses sitting there ‘just in case’? Is my bicycle fast enough or do I need a hokey-kokey 2000 model with inbuilt leg-shaving facility? Then one of the 2 ‘BIG QUESTIONS’ of our time. How quickly do I need to get to Birmingham by train? Because the quicker you get there the more time you have to spend there. Never a good thing.

Yet these questions relate to ‘speed’ in the material world. Where, sadly, humans spend less and less time. So the other of those ‘BIG QUESTIONS’ is by far the most important. How fast do I need my WiFi to be?

To 5G or not to 5G, that is the real question. And we have to decide by Tuesday whether to sign the deal with Huawei to instal it for us. If we go with the Chinese giants, we’ll all be enjoying 5G by Thursday morning. Well, maybe a bit longer. Its ‘ready to run’, almost. Whereas if we yield to the quite massive pressure by the Americans and sever our ties with that company, merely on the grounds that to sign contracts with them would be basically selling all of our national security secrets to China for nothing, then by the time us and Yanks devise our own system, the rest of the world will probably be enjoying 8G. Even 9!

I want to get from where I am to where I wish to walk, I press ‘google maps’ on my phone and it takes about 3 seconds before its there, all pictorial and dotted lined. Of course, no amount of Gs will have me walking in the right direction but that’s not the issue. I can stand at the tube in the morning and read my emails, quickly and easily. Attachments open easily. Virtually instantly. So what, exactly, will 5G do for me? I don’t want to download Kill Bill 1 and 2 at the bus stop, nor watch a match of the day stream.

They intend not to let Huawei near Westminster nor any military installations. Oh well, that’ll stop ‘em. Like, its not really all linked up, is it? We’ll be safe from President Xi. Yeah, right.

The HS2 high speed rail link is another kettle of very speedy fish altogether. We need something because the existing train lines are old, shitty and unreliable. And if you’re replacing it seems stupid not to upgrade and improve. But the cost. Sorry, the COST!!!!! Over a hundred billion quid and rising daily. They should use those Irish ‘travellers’ who fitted my driveway. They’d do it for 2 million. In cash, obvs. And not much in the way of ‘guarantees’, other than the certainty that it’ll fall apart in 2 years, but its great value.

These are indeed big questions. Big test for Boris.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Rather than play tennis today, I decided instead to go to the synagogue. Well, its time to up my spiritual game in line with the physical, surely? No, you’re right, the only spirit I need comes in bottles from various Scottish isles. But I had a call. Like, a Moses moment. A burning bush. A parting of the Thames by Wapping. Ok, I had an invitation to a barmitzvah, which is almost the same thing. And it said ‘God needs YOU!!!’ And so I went. You don’t fuck with God. But it was… errrr… enlightening? It was… moving? No, but my mate’s son was that rarest of beasts. A barmitzvah boy who is pitch perfect. Didn’t just know his stuff but delivered it like Justin Bieber on helium. Beautifully. Tunefully. Like an angel. Then he finished and I got bored again. Until the fish-balls came out.

And during one of the quieter moments, in conversation with the almost-as-devout person sitting next to me, he said “yeah, but Spurs are ok, they’re joint 5th”. And the whole horrible season thus far just kind of revealed itself to me! As it is written!! (In the Sun). And I thought ‘yeah’. First and foremost, by several country miles, there is Liverpool. And the entire rest of the premiership is ‘joint 5th’. All of them. 19 teams all inconsistent and shitty and all nominally ‘joint 5th’. Because 5th sounds flattering, it sounds successful, but its not. It means you should be forth or third but just dropped those 2 points against Watford when they were bottom of the league. And just lost at home to Crystal Palace when you’re Manchester City. And just lost to Burnley when you’re Manchester United. Yet that same bottom Watford went on a winning streak. As did early relegationists Southampton. Bournemouth started well but have plummeted. Arsenal try a different manager every week but still remain shit. United ‘stand by Ole’ which means he’ll be gone by next week, possibly replaced by Pochettino who has one almighty job on his hands. Though he is rather adept at such situations. Chelsea fluctuate between ‘the brilliance of Lampard’ and ‘total rubbish’ on a weekly basis.

So football, basically, is, unless you’re a Liverpool fan (and thus destined for hell anyway) unpredictable, inconsistent rubbish.

So we turn to cricket. To see Ben Stokes walk of the pitch shouting abuse at a South African. An exercise I personally never have an issue with. Its what South Africans are for. But people are making a big deal of it. Because cricket has a reputation of gentlemanliness and politeness, even after 73 incidences of ball tampering and far eastern gambling syndicates. And Stokes’ action was just ‘not cricket’. But it was funny. Why should a man have to endure an abusive tirade from some red-neck Afrikaner without retaliation?

Coco Gauff beat Naomi Osaka (the current champ, as she was) yesterday in Melbourne and remains my absolute favourite of the moment. She’s 15 years old and can have that much mental strength. Amazing. Hope she wins.

Ok, as its only the FA Cup this weekend, I’m going to go and pray a bit more. Anything but the FA Cup.

Today’s pic is Lila and Joey in flight mode.

Happy Sabbath Day

A xxxx

…we’re in a civil partnership.

Now that civil partnerships are fully legal for ‘non-gays’ as they are to be known, that small minority of people who fail miserably to fit into any of the 2,374 categories of ‘otherness’ and minority status enjoyed by the… errr… by the majority, the Church of England (fanfare, pls) has decreed that sex within such ‘agreements’ cannot be blessed by them. Holy fuck! Or not. As the case may be. And that is… is… that is…

What the fuck is that, exactly? Lots of people have decided, basically, that to show their commitment, their love for each other, their solidarity and their future together, they want a proven and legal affirmation which SPECIFICALLY EXCLUDES THE CHURCH or any other known, or unknown, religion. Otherwise they’d have had a white wedding in St Ethelbert’s 10 years ago. These are people who are essentially anti-religion and have chosen that particular path to show their contempt for the church or to piss off their parents. Or both.

So why are the church wasting their time making declarations about a group of people who don’t believe in the church? Because that’s what the church does.

It’s like a service station banning all petrol cars from its electric charging points.

It’s like a Texas barbecue smokehouse banning vegans.

It’s like the Conservative Party refusing membership to Jeremy Corbyn.

It’s just silly. And pointless. Which is why we love the Church of England.

We love Lila in a different way. A more… literal way. Because she’s funny and relentlessly energetic. And relentlessly talkative. And although her vocabulary is awesome and her grammatical structure near perfect, she still can’t say the ‘k’ sound. Or the ‘g’ (neither soft nor hard). Which is not just fine, but in fact wonderful. Because you talk about the ‘Tider who tame to tea’. And although her mum insists we correct these minor errors, I don’t want to. I love them. They create wonderful ambiguities. Where Lila asks for her ‘Mr Man tea’. Which in fact, after 10 minutes of frustration, shouting, mime and hilarity, turned out to be her ‘Mr Man Key’. Oh, that tea. Goddit.

Her and brother Doey are going on holiday today. Gonna miss them.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I’m in Davos. For the World Economic freebie junket thingy to which all important freeloaders go to so they can show everyone how important they are. In a Worldly, Economical way. I’m not actually ‘there’ like physically, just spiritually. I’m staying in a fuck-off Swiss hotel with hot and cold running chambermaids, flying around in helicopters, eating Michelin starred cornflakes for breakfast. And skiing. Because otherwise you’d have to listen to the speakers.

And yesterday there was a duel. Between the two most irritating people on the planet. Both are fair of hair and greatly outspoken. Both belie their ages with tragic mismatches of chronology and intellect. And both you really want to punch.

Greta Thunberg probably walked to Davos. But without treading on anything in case she harmed it. She’s 17 now and getting more annoying with every minute. And again she launched into her tirade about how governments have the power, make the noises, but consistently do nothing about climate change as far as any positive action is concerned. And by ‘governments’ she means ‘America’. Ok, others are pretty guilty too, paying endless lip-service to vague concepts like ‘reducing carbon emissions’ and shit but implementing very little. America doesn’t even bother with lip service.

Trump flew in Air Force 1 over to Switzerland. On his own. With four engines. Not just because he’s so fat but because its safety in numbers. He then flew in Marine 1 helicopter to Davos, flanked by two others as security. But there he spoke of the environment. Well, what he actually said was ‘I’m a very big believer in the environment’. Which, as worthless sayings go, (and his entire presidential tenure has been filled with them), is superlative in its meaninglessness. Of course he ‘believes’ in the environment, he’s fucking standing in it. Its all around him. Its not like Santa Claus or Jesus or Mikel Arteta, FFS.

But that was it. He ‘believes’ in the environment in the same way he believes in guns. Things which are just ‘there’ and should be totally ignored, whatever the manifestations of their presence may be. America is ‘doing great’. And that end justifies any means whatsoever. Being the biggest Carbon producing country doesn’t bother Trump. Not in election year. If Americans have a few bucks in their pocket, just enough to buy beer, burgers and bullets, then they’re happy (no facile stereotyping here then). And they’ll vote to stay happy.

I’m no massive climate change proponent. But anyone has to be at least peripherally aware of what is going on in the world. To deny it and remove yourself from it is an arrogance verging on total stupidity. And that is almost a working definition of Donald J Trump.

Happy Wednesday

A xxx