Andy's Glasses

When the Ukrainian jet went down four hours after the Iranian air strike I thought: ‘hmmmm’. That was all. That was it. Just: ‘hmmmm’. Everyone did, at some conscious or unconscious level. Because we’re humans (speaking for myself here) and we have a natural knee-jerk against any form of ‘coincidence’. And when there’s missiles flying around skywards, that ain’t a good time to be in a nearby airplane. But we were told ‘engine malfunction’, we were told, ‘unrelated’, we were told all sorts of things that really didn’t ring true. Either on an uninformed but intuitive level, or on a more professional ‘flight expert’ kind’a level. There was no message of distress. These planes can easily land with just one engine. How unusual for a plane to just… blow itself up.

All of which may be the perfectly reasonable explanations for the terrible disaster which killed 176 people.

But this is Iran. And, although they have, I’m sure, a fantastically organised defence system, a rigidly disciplined and highly active armed force, I just can’t get out of my mind the image of a bunch of men (only men) all screaming (they’re always screaming in Iran) at each other, rushing round a mobile missile launcher, in a chaotic, Keystone Kopsy kind of way, and then someone, we’ll call him ‘Omar’, accidentally pushes the button. Don’t know which button. Nor does Omar. But it gets pushed in an exceptionally ‘oh shit’ moment and up goes the missile. Not saying it happened like that, I’m just sayin’…

Then Donald Trump had the same thought. Probably thought it twice. He does everything twice. Does. Everything. Twice! And then they examined footage filmed by people who… who film every plane that flies by in the dead of night? Who film the sky at all times to reduce the charge on their phones? Anyway, people filmed it and they found ‘missile patterns’. More hmmmm. Then the plane explodes.

Now even Boris is having those thoughts. But only once. And the Iranians have taken the plane’s black box and won’t give it back. Strictly it should be examined by the Ukrainians first, but Iran are playing tough. Almost as if they have something to hide. Something shameful and stupid and ridiculous and really embarrassing.

Even Justin Trudeau is unhappy and has grown a beard in protest.

The case continues.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

OMG!!! Meg and Haz are ‘leaving’!!! They’re going!!! It’s like they’re contestants on ‘Love Palace’ and they’ve both been voted off!!! And I’m distraught. Devastated. Don’t know if or how I’ll ever get over this. It is THAT catastrophic for ME, personally. And there’s even talk of ‘un-royaling’ them if they move to Canada to live with the Lehbergs and the Polar Bears. Royal Rule number 2258353/ahe73:23vvde/72a states that, eh-hum, “… forsooth and forthwith and pursuant to royal leavage by parties of a previously royalish disposition but whoth shalt instead turn to common trading to earn their crustage, shall be removed from the honourable honours of honourdom and thereafter be treated similarly to that ginger tart, Fergie, and become thereafter HRH-less in perpetuity…” (King Harold, 1066, just prior to the arrow).

Prince Harry will still be a Prince, I’m guessing, but won’t be… something else in his title-ability, which currently stretches to 19 pages of A4. He can afford to lose a couple. (Protector of the Grand Dutchy of Rutland, Chief Patron of the Knights of the not quite so round table, Slayer of Valendor the Magnificent!, etc., etc…) It’ll save a fortune on printing costs. Whereas Meg will lose her HRH and be known as ‘that Yank bitch wot stole our Prince’ in all correspondence. Certainly all correspondence initiated by the Daily Mail or Mirror or Sun.

But what’s really pissed me off is that they never asked me first. Before deciding on this lifestyle change of an in-vegan nature. In fact they never asked the Queen either, so she’s none too pleased either and wrote a rather nasty little press release stating one’s displeasure.

But how will they cope? Harry n Meg??? How will they go from butlers and footmen and private secretaries and personal secretaries and carriages and horses and security and all that paraphernalia, to just being ‘the Windsors wot lives darn the road’? They’ll probably have to get on a council housing list, assuming they have such things in Toronto. Queue up at food banks. She’ll have to go back to work. Actressing again. And he’ll have to look for a job as… as… well, as a Prince. How hard can that be down the job centre? “I’m good at cutting ribbons” it will say on his application.

Ok, so she’s actually rich and he’s worth at least 30 million quid by all accounting, so maybe they can eat for a bit. And they have several houses lying around in various countries. But still. BUT STILL!!!!

It’s harder to leave the royal family than it is to leave the Mafia. So it would appear. But Harry and Meg are right in what they’re doing. They’ve been the most loved of all royals since Arthur the Third (1427-1457) and what did it get them? Slated by the gutter press, racially abused by the legions, derided just for taking a few private jets to Climate Change meetings and all manner of other petty shit which, as Royals, they have to just ‘take’ or ‘turn the other cheek’. But as non-Royals they can just say a big FUCK YOU to all those slimebags and shitheads and go away. They tried being Royals but it was just made too hard for them, even with all that apparent love.

Good luck to them.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I like food. As one somewhat predictable mate has said for the last 40 years “I seldom eat anything else”. Ha, ha. And the expression ‘you are what you eat’ has never been more appropriate. People now define themselves by their diets. Ok, normally its fairly silly people, but it happens to such an extent that after last week’s ruling in the courts, ‘vegans’ are a ‘protected minority’. Like LGBT people. Like Zoroastrians. Like Lib Dems. Legally protected from persecution and discrimination. Fortunately the freedom of speech act means we can still make fun of them all, as long as its not nasty and there’s no death threats.

Last week’s vegan in fact found buses to be just such a death threat to insect life that he refuses to use public transport. That a bus might hit a flea. Which I’m guessing, though I haven’t spoken to many fleas about it, happens quite a lot. Please enter into evidence the windscreen from the 102 to Brent Cross. Covered in the bastards. (Fleas, not vegans.)

But veganism has transcended from just a peculiar food mania, into a complete lifestyle. Once you become a vegan you can no longer wear shoes. Unless they’re made of wood (replenishable) or paper (good in the rain). Your trousers will fall down through lack of a belt. Everything has to be ‘natural’ and non-animal, or synthetic. And you take a pledge to try to convert 15 people every week to your choice of personal deprivation. Vegans are the modern day monks. Unfortunately without any vows of silence.

But there are issues. Why is everyone always trying to make plants taste like meat? If meat is bad, start again. Eat something else. Why try to cook the bark from a tree in such a way that it tastes ‘just like a hamburger!!!’ Because to create such offerings the lovely, plant-based, organic, natural, animal-free ‘stuff’ has to be bastardised to create a completely different texture and taste. Which means adding shit. Lots of shit. Apparently processed vegan food, ‘burgers, sausages, etc’ is just loaded with unhealthy amounts of salt, saturated fats and shit-loads of (plant-based) chemicals. So its ‘vegan’ but it’ll kill you. Vegans are prepared to sacrifice themselves to protect the animals! Nothing is more noble. Or more stupid, perhaps.

What do you fancy for lunch? A cheese sandwich or a chemistry set?

The other problem with wearing non-leather, non-wool, is that cottons and synthetic clothes all come from the Far East. The sweat shops. Underage labour. Horrendous working conditions in Bangladesh and China. For $3 a day.

So, for the foreseeable future (assuming I have one after all the meat I eat and all the wars kicking off), I shall be sticking to my ‘faux-vegan’ diet. I’ll only be eating artificial non-meat-based food. So it looks just like a non-meat burger, but it contains meat. And they may look like tofu sausages but they are in fact beef. On health grounds.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I’ve been in Fleet Street for 35 years. It’s changed. Used to have newspapers and lawyers, back in the day, now it has lawyers and lawyers. And bankers. Accountants have always been there too but you generally don’t notice them as they skulk around bookishly. The only remaining newspaper thing there is the Dundee Courier, as just a kind of museum to the old days. Every regional newspaper used to have an office in Fleet Street when it was ‘News Central’ but then someone invented the telephone and they realised it wasn’t necessary any longer to have an actual presence in the place where all the newspapers were printed. So Maggie and Rupert Murdoch moved the papers out. Breaking the incredibly powerful unions whilst doing so.

There are few of us left from those days. An endangered species. Because the retail equivalent of ‘global warming’ arrived in the form of the internet, the phone shops and the coffee shop chains.

Once upon a time there were 10 little sandwich bars in the area. Run by Italians, not just because they were the only people capable of putting some cheese between two slices of bread, but also because they, and they alone, were trusted to make something as exotic and revered as ‘a cappuccino’! Which came in little styrofoam cups, which can still be found inside every fish in the oceans.

But the Starbucks and the Prets (the Pret office was in Fleet Street when they started, Julian Metcalfe was a regular visitor) soon presented a more sanitised, sterilised, corporate way of dispensing food and one by one the little sandwich bars folded. And now we have just one. The last survivor. MY sandwich bar. But not just a mere survivor, the veritable Tyrannosaurus rex of sandwich bars. (I know, they became extinct too, but there’s no guarantees in life… or death). It’s called De Lieto. After the first owner, funny enough.

Starbucks and Pret are always busy, generally with people nursing a glass of water whilst spending 4 hours on the free WiFi. Others drift in and out buying their near-frozen, pre-prepared, steri-packs of fairly tasteless food with the nutritional values stamped on the pack.

The queue for De Lieto starts at about 11.30 and lasts, pretty much 30 to 40 strong, until about 2. Before that they are preparing for the vast number of deliveries they do every day, all custom orders (hold the butter; two with beef and horseradish, three with mango and aardvark), to all the law offices, courtrooms and barristers’ chambers.

They offer 20 different types of bread and rolls and a million ways to fill ‘em. And most importantly, they’re lovely lovely people who know your name and charge you less for a feast than Pret do for egg’n’cress-on-white.

I intended to write about the benefits of certain types of carbs, but got carried away. So for today you can still eat what you like. Only today.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I had a horrible thought whilst watching the news on tv last night. That we are probably closer to a ‘big war’ than we have been in my lifetime, other than the Cuban Missile Crisis when I was 7 and didn’t know the effects of a 1000 megaton bomb from a hole in the ground. A fucking big hole. Even then I must have been pretty bright.

We survived the entire ‘cold war’ without anyone ‘pushing the button’, itself an absolute miracle of restraint and commons sense by people who weren’t expected to demonstrate either.

And now we have ‘the Iran Crisis’ to herald in the New Year. Because whether or not you agree with Trump’s action of ‘taking out’ unquestionable bad buy Qasem Suleimani, there will be repercussions. Last time the Donald took ‘action’ like this was in Syria when he bombed the launch site from which Assad had sent chemical attacks against his own civilians. Syria didn’t respond and their main ally, Russia (holy shittttt!!!) chose to let the ‘statement’ pass.

But this is not Syria. This is Iran. A dark place. Filled with concepts like ‘honour’ and ‘pride’ and ‘vengeance’ in truly biblical measures. Where revenge is not necessarily the dish best served cold. But flaming hot and unarguably horrible. And as America is so far away and itself, due to the current incumbent of the White House, run along similar lines, the ‘repercussions’ become kind of infinite in scope. And the repercussions from the repercussions. And the rep… you get it.

Iran has to retaliate or will be seen as weak. As opposed to just ‘mad!’ as most of us see it.

Unfortunately though, the death of Suleimani has not killed his methods nor his ideology. His ‘militia’ occupy Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, under a host of different names. Call ’em ‘Houti’, call ’em ‘Hezbollah’, call ’em fucking ‘Nigel’ for all I care. They’re radical Shias intent on wreaking as much havoc on Sunni muslims as they are on anyone else. But now can all be focused on Americans anywhere in the region. Or Brits. Or on Israel, always a target for Iran, over and beyond all others.

So yes, Donald did away with a man who definitely wanted doing away with. But at what price? Because now, like a Miss World contestant, all I really want is ‘peace in the world’. And I fear we’re not really gonna get that.

Happy Monday
A xxxx

When Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang declared this week that he wants to leave Arsenal to play for ‘a team wot wins things’, I don’t think he was referring to the FA Cup. His fellow (mercenary, badge-kissing hypocrite, journeyman) striker, Alexandre Lacazette said the same. Unfortunately, unless Manchester City, Liverpool or Barcelona are interested in a couple of just over the hill moody Frenchman for ‘just’ about a million quid a month, each, that ain’t gonna happen. Personally I wouldn’t employ them to wash my car, because some weeks you just know it would end up smeary, grubby, mud-splashes still visible, whereas my Albanians in Mint Green leave it pristine and sparkly for just 8 quid. Albanian car-washers are much more consistent than Arsenal football players. In fact tests have shown that in terms of moodiness and sulking, Arsenal players are worse than even teenage girls. With whom they share many other traits.

But the mystery is this. Why is the FA Cup, the oldest club… whatever, competition, in the entire known universe, other than maybe The Ashes, treated with such contempt by everybody in the Premiership, when not so long ago it carried massive prestige and honour? Manchester United won ‘The Treble’, not ‘the double and the FA Cup’. Mainly because winning ‘the double’ has always meant the League and the Cup. The Champions League was always the ‘out of reach’ and ‘totally exotic’ thing seldom won Brits. Forriners won it. Not our forriners, but other ones. Yet now it is the only cup that counts for anything.

The new FA Cup rule is this: if your team wins then you proclaim ‘the magic of the Cup’. If they lose, then ‘the FA Cup has lost its sparkle’. It’s simple and useful. Because you can blame the Cup rather than your useless team.

In truth though, the cup has ‘lost its sparkle’. Because just a few days after playing the totally manic ‘Christmas schedule’ of 19 matches in 4 days, or thereabouts, the clubs, all battered, bruised and with growing injury lists, have to play the 3rd round of the cup. At a time when the league season is turning into something more meaningful and significant and battles intensify at both ends of the Premiership.

And the Premiership is a money thing. It’s not about ‘local’ and its not about ‘football’. They are just vehicles for corporations to reap massive financial rewards. And as most club owners are, firstly, not interested in football so much as they are money, and secondly, aren’t British so didn’t grow up with the ‘magic of the Cup’, they don’t give a shit about it. It doesn’t earn them money and only stands to injure players who then won’t be fit for the league games which pay their salaries. The only Cup any player, and certainly owner, wants to win is the Champions League. THAT has prestige. That has gravitas. That makes you ‘a player’.

The league has always been about consistency over a long season. The Cup is more about occasional brilliance and rising to special occasions. So was generally more of an ‘anyone can win it’ kind of deal. But now only Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool win all the cups, other teams don’t really bother. Why should they when it might compromise their league status?

Which is why we must all hold up Leicester City as a fucking beacon of potential. As proof that it is possible to win big things with little money. Playing within the financial rules rather than writing your own new ones. They alone broke the monopoly of the ‘rich clubs’ winning everything. And it should fill us all with hope.

Unfortunately that’s not an abundant commodity in most football fans. We’ve all been bitten by it too many times.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Good God, your…
What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing!

Which is not strictly true. War is in fact very good for killing people. Lots of people. Mainly the ones who haven’t started the war, nor those who caused the problems in the first place. But without wishing to sound too Jeremy Corbyn about this, I’m not a big fan of war.

So yesterday we had the new ‘weapons of mass destruction’, which is ‘Qasem Soleimani was plotting to kill Americans’. A rather spurious sounding justification for an international act of serious aggression. However, Trump soundly put this into perspective by claiming that he ‘took this action to stop a war, not start a war’. So that’s ok then. The good people of Iran (are there any? Other than my barber, and he lives here) would have heard that and, led by the Ayatollah, will accept this without question and join together in collective relief that the Chief Exec has averted another disaster. Yeah. Right. That’s why they were burning the flags of America (understandable), Britain (???) and Israel (why not?) in Tehran yesterday. To show the nations they really like and respect.

It does seem rather odd, even in Trump-world, to take an action which will inflame a situation in the Middle East, when he’s spent the last 2 years moaning about US involvement in the region and withdrawing his troops. So one must assume (always dangerous) that Trump’s intel and advisors recommended and approved this action. Or at least hope that is so. And there’s no doubt that the death of Suleimani makes the world a safer place to live. Other than for him, obvs. Because he was Iran’s military brain and leader. He decided on all the horrendous actions taken by Iran’s militia in so many other countries. Unfortunately, in places like Iran, men like him are heroes and leave a legacy of hatred and violence which others will only be too happy to continue.

So whilst the killing of the man is good, even for vegans, you kind’a know that the fun is only just beginning.

Happy Saturday (I hope)

A xxxx

Ok, I’m not going to ‘review’ the Peppa Pig show. I just can’t. Not that it wasn’t a pleasant and totally fucking inane hour, not that it wasn’t cleverly done, not that it didn’t entertain the kids a bit, but…

The odd thing was, Lila was fairly indifferent to it too. She liked it but wasn’t jumping up and down, wasn’t singing along (even at that age some people bristle at the very concept of ‘audience participation’) but was engaged and entertained. Ok, as much with what the other kids were eating as events on stage, but I’m glad we went.

Whereas the tube journey, she loved. Waving at the driver, finding seats, talking loudly about the people sitting nearby, that held her total fascination. And at every station; “is this Peppa Pig??” No, this is Warren Street. “Who Warren?” Ahhhh, Sir Neville Warren was the inventor of the tie-pin in 1724, he lived the life of…

You can always impress kids.

And the day was wonderful. And so different from traveling with Mel. Even though both are about the same size. And both talk a lot. But with Mel you never have to ask if ‘you need a wee?’ Never. She tells me. Frequently and regularly. Whereas Lila you have to ask. A hundred times an hour. And the answer is always ‘no’. Until that moment when she says ‘No…’ followed by ‘I need a wee!’ three seconds later.

But children aren’t impatient. They’re just honest. As adults you learn to put up with slow service in the world as just ‘the way it works’. Kids don’t have that experience. So we ordered lunch in Prezzo, (£3.95 for a three course kids’ menu plus a drink, I mean???). 5 minutes later, after she’d coloured in the kids’ menu nicely. Well, Lila-ly, ‘where my food?’ It’s coming; they’re very busy. ‘Where my lunch?’ Coming darling. ‘Where’s dinner?’ On its way. ‘Where food?’ At which point I collared a server and asked politely ‘WHERE’S MY FUCKING LUNCH????’

‘Where da train?’ Coming. ‘Where da train?’

Mel went to Manchester for the day to see her old dad. So Lila and I had to come home and trash the place all by ourselves. A task we managed with our usual aplomb.

Never mind Peppa Pig’s best day ever, as it was entitled, it was our best day ever. With or without Peppa.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

It’s the 2nd of January. 2020, in case you missed that bit. So its officially ‘back to work’ day, even though I reckon about half the City won’t return til Monday. But for the first time in recorded history, back-to-work day coincides with Lila-day. Ok, Lila’s only 2 so there its not like a burning historical issue or a total eclipse, but its very relevant in my life. But as Lila trumps work (Lila actually trumps EVERYTHING!!!!) we are going to see Peppa Pig. Even Peppa Pid (we still struggle with ‘g’ sounds a bit). Either way, Lila and I are headed uptown to see the hottest stage event since Hamilton. Bigger than West Side Story. And I’m excited. Really excited. Not the show so much, more with the logistics of getting a 2 (and 3/4) year old across London when we don’t so much get a ‘2 minute warning’ for impending bladder activity, but a burning imperative with total immediacy. “I need a wee!” means I’ve started. Lila’s going to watch Peppa, I’m going to watch her. The enjoyment, the excitement, the unbounded enthusiasm and total immersion that only a child can bring to any event.

And I’m going now!

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

The best festival in the Jewish calendar is Chanukah. No arguments, no challenges, no nuffink, its the best. It’s the ‘festival of light’ and celebrates a miracle. When Judah Maccabee fought off the Romans/Greeks/Babylonians/Real Madrid and saved Jerusalem and the Temple. But there was only enough oil to keep the ‘eternal flame’ alight for one day. Blah, blah, blah, it only fucking lasted EIGHT DAYS until they could get to Waitrose and buy more. A miracle! God dunnit!!! To appreciate the magnitude of this miracle some clever shit created an analogy. It’s like you have just 8% charge in your iPhone but it lasted a week!!!! Chanukah. And to celebrate the miracle we light a candle every night for eight days. And to symbolise the oil we are encouraged to eat fried things. Rabbis are either all on statins or they don’t know shit about health. So doughnuts and latkes (potato pancakes) are the order of the day(s). And somewhere along the line, as happens, Chanukah got a bit Christmassy and presents got involved. Kids get a present every night for eight days. So every kid just loves Chanukah. Adults do too. Mainly because there’s no ‘go to Synagogue NOW!’ requirement.

We took our rental car to the Europecar in Jerusalem because in that city you need a car like you need a camel. And the guy ran out to tell us where their car park was, but don’t go now, because the guys from there are all here to light the candles. How many Car Rental Operatives does it take to light a candle? All of them. So come in, said the guy, we’ll light the candles, you can have a drink, a doughnut and then take the car. Which is exactly what we did. They did the blessings (always a blessing), we ate doughnuts, we drank juice and sang. Israelis, us, Germans, French, Jews, non-Jews, everyone. And I thought: THIS IS THE MOST WONDERFUL, LOVELY, TIMELESS, COOLEST BRILLIANT THING EVER. Not just the doughnut, the whole thing.

The hotels all have ‘candle lighting’ at 5 or whenever, and obviously doughnuts. But its a Jewish country and they’re in the hospitality business. But Europecar?

Then on our last night we went to eat at one of our real faves. A place called ‘Miznon’, which means ‘counter’ as in shop counter. And Miznon, other than the food, which is made by the angels, is a vision of Hell. The ‘counter’ is crowded with people eating, people waiting for food, with cooks and staff. The music only plays at volume ‘11’ and most of the staff scream along with whatever’s playing. When your food arrives they just shout your name out, but like REALLY SHOUT IT OUTTTTT!!!!! The only seating is outside on the pavement, plastic tables and chairs. Cutlery is provided but not encouraged. Because most of what they serve comes in a little pitta pouch. And it is fucking chaos. It’s not a kosher place, it opens on Fridays and Saturdays (a sin in some places in Israel) and everyone there is pierced or tattooed within an inch of their lives.

Yet at about 8 o’clock the music stopped, the lights dimmed and they lit the candles. On with a kippa, blessings duly made, shots for everyone!!! In a wonderfully Godless place (other than the food) like Miznon.

I’ve always loved Chanukah, but in the promised land its just so special.

And I only mention this because Spurs Paul made me.

Happy New Year, its 20-fucking-20

A xxxx