Andy's Glasses

On your phone, your computer, your ‘devices’ there’s always a facility for ‘sharing’. Like I’m doing with this photo. And that’s a good thing. Sharing photos is good. Sharing food is incitement to riot. Declaration of war. An act of aggression which WILL BE MET WITH FORCE!!!!

Everyone knows that ‘sharing plates’ at a restaurant is just a euphemism which actually means ‘buy 3 of them because there’s barely enough food on one plate to cover one tongue’. Sharing implies ‘big’ but in the world of modern food joints it means ‘a taster’. Unless its a Turkish food joint in which case it means ‘bring more people; the six of you will never finish this alone’. The Turks are right about that. If about not much else.

And so the pudding. The bread-and-butter pudding. Which I made. And I alone. In ‘my’ kitchen. Mel passed me the raisins. That was her ‘contribution’. Because I love bread-and-butter pudding and given any excuse I make one. And we had people coming to dinner, so I did. And also to show off my skills, demonstrate that beneath this total Tyson Fury-esque tough northern scumbag Gypsy racist exterior, there is a more thoughtful, more capable, more… wonderful! metrosexual polymath just lurking under the surface with his rolling pin and pinny, waiting to ‘create’!

But then people expect to share it. And its my fucking pudding. I fucking made it; iss mine!!!

And I needed the comfort that only food can bring. After the football. The terrible football. The awful, depressing, wrist-slitting, tear-inducing, head banging bloody football. Just as it started to resemble some kind of upturn in Tottenham’s season, just when, although both totally undeserved, we won 2 consecutive matches, just when the tragic curse of the sports fan, which is HOPE, returned, we lost 2 games. But it wasn’t the losses that irked (ok, it was just that in the Chelsea match) but the terrible way we played in both games. Very un-Spursy. Very defensive. Very tentative. Very bus-parky. We can always console ourselves during any tragic game that although we lost 17 nil, we played some really great football. No more. We play shit. We look lost. Oh God, I can feel another pudding coming on.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Today is the battle for 4th place in the Premier league. Chelsea currently occupy that space, Spurs, just one point below them, need a win to overtake them. It’s a battle. It’s a war. It’s… its fucking horrible. I hate such games. Whenever spurs ‘just’ need to win/draw/score more than one/concede less than 2/survive for 42 minutes/whatever, it all goes to shit. And Stamford Bridge can hardly be described as a ‘happy hunting ground’ for my boys, having won once there in the last 436 meetings there. Ok, may need to check those numbers, but that’s what it feels like. In fact we’ve just gone 1-0 down and I can’t even bring myself to watch it.

But I did get to play tennis. Which is the third miracle in the last three weeks of storms, floodings, gales, hurricanes, whirlwinds, nuclear bombings and… earthquakes! At match time minus 30 minutes it was pissing down in a gale. Then it stopped raining. Then… we played. In the gale. But at least it was dry. You take what you can get. It’s February.

Before that I was at Tai Chi. Doing my self-defence. I was talking to a mate yesterday and he asked me, if I was attacked or something similar, ‘would I use it?’ As if it was something kept in a special department and switched on using two separate keys for safety. In case of emergency, break glass. Or for me, in case of broken glasses, that is an emergency. Because its not like that. What we do is drill. We practice various attacks and learn to defend. And then we repeat. And then repeat. And then (quite literally) do it with our eyes closed. And then we work on different types of attacks (knives, fists, sticks, bricks, bottles, soft fruit, whatever) coming from different places (front, side, head, behind) and when we’ve done those we do them all again. The idea being not that your self-defence mechanism needs turning on, but that it becomes how you react. It becomes you. I live my entire life as a ninja warrior!!! My hands and feet are dangerous weapons! Something Mel’s always known because if she stands too near me I’ll generally kick her, tread on her, drop something on her or fall over her. It’s what I’ve always done. Now I just do it in a more… Chinesey way.

This is a photo of Joey and the football, which we lost. Joey, the only happy Spurs fan in England, Ireland, Wales or California. And only because he’s too young to realise he’s a Spurs fan. Shame to tell him, really.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Norovirus is a common affliction. 380,000 cases are found each year. Coincidentally the exact same number as doner kebabs sold each year. That’s a joke actually. I would say ‘in poor taste’, but I love doner kebabs, so I won’t. Novovirus is also known as ‘winter vomiting bug’. One of many classes of Food poisoning. And its found to be worse in take-away food. So although I still maintain that my theory that ‘calories are reduced by at least half if food comes from a man in a crash helmet’ (Conway, Dominos, et al, 2017) is correct, it would appear that the main reason for this is that half of it later gets flushed down the toilet. Long before the other half.

Food handling is the problem. Sandwiches, kebabs indeed, food that is handled is far more likely to be a source of this thing. And the main culprit, foodwise, is lettuce. That most controversial of edibles. Not so controversial for rabbits, just humans. A controversy that will be neatly summarised and evaluated in my upcoming book (Shuster & Shyster, 2021), “Lettuce: what’s the fucking point?”

Oysters and raspberries don’t do too well in the norovirus scene either. But I don’t eat oysters and can take or leave raspberries. Lettuce I only leave. Don’t eat I!!! Cos it’ll kill you!!!!! (That’s a pun. The ‘cos’ bit, not so much the ‘leaves’).

Can you imagine just how horrible it must be for your home to flood? I mean, have you seen the news this week? In the wake of (fucking) Dennis? It’s not just that these poor, low-lying homes are flooded with mere water, that would be bad enough. But its mud. Loads and loads of mud. Washing down roads as rivers overflow or burst their banks.

So you wake up, or are woken up, or have spent all night bailing out your kitchen with a tea-cup, and eventually you realise that, like King Canute, you just can’t win. And everything gets drowned in mud, slime, water, all ruined, everything downstairs just useless. How could it get any worse than that?

Then Jeremy Corbyn turns up. As he did to those poor souls in South Wales. At which point you realise that there is simply no hope. No future. That you have reached the very bottom of the very bottom from which it appears there is no return.

I’m starting a partition to protect other flood victims from this most malicious of intrusion. Jeremy Corbyn is never the solution, therefore he is THE PROBLEM! We must ban him, lest he preys further on those most vulnerable people at the lowest point in their lives.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

For breakfast, I eat a banana. And an apple. Because my body’s a temple, apparently a fruitarian one, and I don’t want it looking like the Taj Mahal. Yet really, its not about that at all. I eat a banana because its good and, even more oddly in any ‘nutrition conversation’, I like them. And I generally won’t do the whole kale, seaweed, stewed spinach, rape seeds, kind’a thing because I won’t eat shit I don’t like, however much longer I might eventually live as a consequence. Better a great shorter life than one which goes on forever by force-feeding yourself stuff you hate.

And I don’t really like cereals and only have porridge on a Sunday. Because… who knows, but I do. Basically, I can’t be bothered with breakfast. It’s time consuming to prepare and I’d rather not bother. However, should YOU prepare one for me (as if) then that would be a different kettle of kedgeree altogether. I’ll eat anything in a hotel breakfast buffet, normally, I eat everything. Then go back for more. It really is not a matter of being unable to eat so early or anything like that. I can always eat, and generally as much as is sitting there. And I love it.

I could stop off on the way to work and eat half my bodyweight in fried stuff. But would feel guilty doing so. Not guilty from a Jewish perspective, eating all that banned produce, but guilty from a saturated fat/processed meat/salt perspective. So I never do that. Even though I could so easily fall down that slipperiest of slopes.

On Sunday I was going to meet a mate for coffee at 11. And thought, as I was walking there, that I had to get back in time for a quick lunch before picking up Lila as we had a date with the Mr Men show which I was very excited about. And then I thought: “hmmmmm”, just like that. “Hmmmmm”. Why don’t I invent a new meal? Earlier than lunch, later than breakfast? I could call it… brunch!!! Nah, never catch on. And so, I found myself sitting in my fave cafe with an immense plated heaped with food. It was a Noah’s Ark kind of plate with two of everything. Most animals were represented there and a few non-meat things too, as baked beans are at least 3 of my 5-a-day. Mushrooms aren’t strictly ‘veg’, being fungi, but at that point I really didn’t give a shit. It was yer classic ‘fry up’ but being in North London, the eggs were organic, the meat grilled, the toast… brown and the chef said ‘ohmmmmm’ all through the cooking.

I was still feeling guilty about it this morning, until I read a little piece in the Times. Which told me that eating a big breakfast is the healthiest thing you can ever do. Bigger the better, more calories, more everything, actually makes you metabolise better, reduces heart problems, cholesterol issues, everything. Full English is the new statin! Almost. Because it also said ‘only if you then eat very little at dinnertime’. So I ignored that bit.

But this is the best news ever. Eat a humongous, pig-out breakfast and live forever. I’m in.

Happy guilt free Thursday

A xxxx

“My life is ruined!!!”
“This is worst day everrrrrrr!!!”
“If ever you needed proof that there is no God, this is it!!!”

Heung Min Son has broken his arm. A tragedy of such magnitude that you have to go back to the start of various wars, natural disasters and horrendous fires to come up with a parallel. This is a catastrophe on a par with Krakatoa. Where? Exactly.

The official word is a ‘fracture’. But one that requires surgery. Which will keep everyone’s favourite South Korean off the pitch probably til the end of the season. A situation which would always be bad, but in the continued absence of the Lord, Harry Kane, this leaves my team a little short in the goal-scoring department. Ok, a lot short in the goal-scoring department.

But there’s goals all over the pitch!! is the mating cry of the overly optimistic Spurs fan (of which there are only 3 in existence, the rest of us are doom-mongers), and that may be so. But not enough goals. Harry scores shed-loads, but he’s gone. And when injury plagues our esteemed leader, we depend on one man to step up and fill those rather large boots. Sonny. And he does. Every time.

But its more than just scoring goals, which he does so well, netting 6 in our last 5 games. It’s about the man himself. The attitude, the joy, the pleasure, that smile. It’s about someone who encapsulates the entire spirit of how the team want to be. And now he’s out for the year. Leaving a positively humongous void in the team. As well as in MY LIFE!

Fortunately Lila’s around, not on the injury list, so there’s pleasures to be had still. Yet I’m concerned. She is fairly obsessed with the colour pink. Or ‘pint’ as she calls it. And I worry that we may be, collectively, unconsciously manipulating her into being a girl. Ok, she is a girl, but I know from my extensive reading that gender cannot be presumed just by a mere random arrangement of biology. It’s much more complex than that, even for a (nearly-)three year-old. She needs to be given choices. She needs to be given a gun. A knife. A tank. Dressed in camo. Goth black. Shown the numerous ‘options’ before deciding on a… sort of… career-gender. We owe it to her. Ok, she does wear black, but only if its got a ‘unitorn’ printed on it. Not sure where that counts in the gender neutral fluidity scale. I better check.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

So the government hired a ‘consultant’ as a researcher, forecaster and, weirdo and misfit, so as to meet the stringent criteria laid out by the weirdo and misfit in chief, Dominic Cummings. Who wanted to get the government into a new place, new ideas, no more bunch of apathetic old middle class white men, bring on the ‘outside-the-box’ thinkers. However off the fucking wall they may be.

And you really can’t get much further off that wall than Andrew Sabisky. But you’d kind’a think, that for a position in the government, someone might have done a background check. Someone might have looked for ‘flags’ that could be used against him. And about 3 minutes on that thing called ‘the internet’ would have revealed much about young Andrew. Most of it from when he was even younger Andrew. But there’s no statute of limitations on stupid comments, particularly in the hands of the press, and even when taken doubtlessly out of context.

If someone were to ‘research’ me, they’d find an intolerant, racist, sexist, misogynistic, perverted, deviant fascist. And obsessive grandfather. I’ve called for the death of numerous football managers. I’ve recommended VAR cameras be inserted into parts of bodies where things shouldn’t go. I’ve supported terrorism, witch hunts, nepotism and murderers. And you read it all, and laughed out loud. Vegans? Climate change?? Electric cars???? Who fucking needs any of ‘em?

Andrew Sibersky was a bit different. But when they find quotes like ‘you wife should submit to you as to the Lord and she must obey you’, I simply cannot believe that anyone who isn’t a Mormon would say such a thing without tongue firmly in cheek. Other of his gems include ‘women’s sport is closer to Paralympic than to men’s’. Again, you have to laugh. Well, some of us do. Because its so stupid and controversial that it is intended to be funny, not literal. Yet take away the context and that text message you sent your wife about the dog being neutered becomes inflammatory.

But I’m not saying Andrew Sibersky was good or correct or even the right man for the job. He bangs on about eugenics to an extent where it starts to become seriously unfunny. Controlling populations by mass contraception (sterilisation of the poor, basically) and making assumptions about race and IQ (the Eugencist’s favourite tool) which don’t take into account things like education, opportunity and home-life, are fascistic to the point of being positively Hitlerian.

What does hiring such an unsuitable person say about the government? And until someone actually votes for Dominic Cummings then Boris is still the nominal head of our government. And they contracted a man who they either knew transcended the line between ‘funny’ and ‘deeply offensive’, or they didn’t bother to look. Either way, it don’t look very good for our government.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I’m not saying that you need be either a Spurs fan or a Jew to understand the entire ‘Y-word’ debate, but suffice to say, you just need not be Oliver Holt. Who misses, pretty much, all the salient points by several country miles. Reducing a very delicate and complex situation to mere ‘racism!!’ (All such terms come with implicit exclamation marks in any Mail newspaper, even if they’re not printed.) And by using David Baddeil as his token Jew of choice and reference. As if by being famous and Jewish, Baddeil’s comments carry more weight than anyone else’s. Have a ‘greater understanding’ which must, ergo, be the universal conclusion of the entire Jewish race. Like the chief rabbi of the terraces.

Because Oliver Holt, in choosing his martyr, misses the point that Baddeil (who I have masses of love and respect for as a comedian and writer, slightly less so as a Chelsea fan) has to watch his ‘brethren’ at Stamford Bridge pour venom and hatred on the Spurs fans, using that very ‘y-word’ with most vile intention. And it makes the comedian very uncomfortable. As it would any Jew in such a situation. Except the Spurs fans.

Before reading Mr Holt’s ridiculously one-sided and ill-informed article I’d never previously heard anyone refer to ‘reclaiming the word from the racists’. I can assure you, as a Spurs fan, we have no desire to reclaim anything. The fact that these people doing the reclaiming are ‘not even Jewish!!!’ further strengthens the position. That word, horrible though it unquestionably is, is and always has been vile and evil. Which again, is pretty much the point.

That point being Spartacus. Spartacus? When the Roman soldiers come to arrest the gladiator in the movie, they ask where he is. And one by one, all the assembled gladiators stand up and say ‘I am Spartacus’. Dozens of them. Hundreds. And it is very poignant and moving scene. A group of men showing the ultimate solidarity with an intended victim. Identifying with him and as him, in order to protect him. ‘Je suis Charlie Hebdo’ similarly became a massive hashtag (the post-modern version of standing up and being counted) as a show of solidarity with the satirical magazine whose offices were blown up by terrorists.

So when Spurs fans ‘self-identify’ as ‘Yids’, it is with that same sentiment. That if you think you (the horrible, aggressive and indeed racist fans of other clubs) can insult ‘our Jews’, then for this purpose, we are all Jews. We all stand together. As one. And that’s how it started. As a response. As a reaction. We never stood up and claimed to be ‘The Yids’, it was thrust upon us by others.

Thus for Spurs fans, particularly Jewish ones, who in any other circumstance loathe and despise that horrible word, it actually becomes a source of pride and inclusion and a protectiveness that is heart-warming.

I may be a fool, a moron and an idiot but I’m none of those things sufficiently that I would write an opinion piece for a national newspaper without consulting ‘the other side’. Because even for Mail newspapers, there is always another side.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

A statement on behalf of the owner and directors of Manchester City football club, via 17 partners of 19 different companies of the world’s most aggressive legal Rottweilers.

May it please God as the crescent moon lights the hearts in the Persian Gulf, without prejudice.

It has been stated by those motherless sons-of-whores (no contradiction there, then) at UEFA, may they burn in the eternal fires of hell after being castrated and seeing their gonads fed to camels!) that Manchester City have broken an arbitrary, meaningless and apparently randomly applied set of rules called Financial Fair Play. That the saintly Sheikh Mansoor has funded the club’s overspending by using his own purse to wipe out a few little debts. None of which add up to more than even half a billion pounds. Whereas the evil and hateful Paris St German spent more than this on one solitary player and the hateful Qatari!!! owners there did not face similar charges. Though in Abu Dhabi they would have had their intestines removed and spread across the floor to be eaten by the dogs!

The allegations made by UEFA are scandalous. And we shall address some of the points here, openly and transparently, so the world can see that everything was above board and within regulations.

The question of ‘ball sponsorship’ was raised. But every team has a ball sponsor. Ours is, let me just check… yes, our Sponsor is a company called ‘Etihad’. An airline, I believe. Manchester United have a ball sponsor who pay them £10,000 a year. Etihad pay us £57million. Because we use better balls.

Strangely enough, we have the same sponsor for the naming rights of our illustrious stadium. The Etihad! May it be standing for the return of the Prophet. And all clubs sell their naming rights. Ok, most clubs arrange a, sort of, ‘fixed fee’. Like, 5 million a year. Whereas we have a more… flexible arrangement. So the sponsorship money paid by Etihad might appear, to some misguided people, to be the precise equal to the massive debt incurred by the club’s horrendous over-spending in that financial year. And that just because Sheikh Mansoor, our club’s illustrious owner, is also the owner of Etihad Airlines, people feel this to be a little ‘convenient’. As if he was personally writing off the club’s debt!!! Heaven forbid!!! Even though quite a lot of the money appeared to come directly from his personal bank account. Note: APPEARED. Nothing proven. Yet. And those emails were taken ‘out of context’, even though we’re not prepared to show them in context because… because UEFA are unworthy!!!

And finally, how is it ‘fair’, how is it ‘decent’, how is it ‘democratic’ if a football club is prevented from buying all the trophies in the game just because they’re owner is the richest man around? How is such a thing fair? I feel those so-called ‘Europeans’ have a lot to learn about proper ‘fairness’, and how to buy it.

May the sun continue to shine from Kevin de Bruyne’s bottom.

Amen.

Mansoor
Xxxx

Ever heard of a ‘non-crime hate incident’? The police record them against you if you’ve… well if… when you…

‘Non-crime hate incident’ is bollocks. Total and utter bollocks. It means you’ve said something not even nasty, just perhaps funny, silly or mildly insulting, yet in no way inciting to violence or even a mere threat. Like we all do about 97 times every hour. But its not recorded. So if you extend this form of what might previously have been known as ‘teasing’ onto an online platform, then its not teasing or ‘taking the piss’ but becomes elevated to ‘non-crime hate incident’. Because it sounds much more grand.

These ‘incidents’ of which 120,000 have been logged by the police in the last 5 years, are reported to them. Basically by someone who disagrees. Who objects. Who shows way more sensitivity than they do the essential ability to laugh at themselves (without which we all descend into total dickhead-dom from which there is no return or release).

In Britain we have a knife-crime epidemic where 100 teenagers get stabbed every day (these figures may not be official, nor a ‘non-crime hate incident’ even though I hate stabbing) so the police really have lots of time on their hands to fuck about with minor insults and slurs, issued without malice at various groups of ‘minorities’, particularly those declared ‘vulnerable’.

And so yesterday a man who I don’t know took the Humberside police to court. To have lifted his ‘non-crime hate incident’. And he won. The judge, in an uncharacteristic attack of common sense and decency, decided that to have the police basically monitor this man’s thoughts, ideas and words and take action against them because one single person was in some way offended, is a slippery slope to a nasty, Orwellian, KGB/Stasi type society punishing ‘thought crimes’.

All well and good except… the offended person was of a ‘trans’… disposition?… inclination?… process? Whatever. He/she/it (oops) was ‘trans’ and that’s all you need to know. And trans people are covered by the same level of insanity as are currently vegans and Muslims. Best to say NOTHING about any of them. Safer that way.

The Labour Party has now changed its guidance for members to include just such a madness. That adherence to an ultra tolerance to children as young as 4 months who display any kind of ‘trans’ tendency to immediately have their reproductive gear removed and put into cold storage until… whatever. And furthermore, anyone who disagrees with this level of madness will be forced out of the Labour Party immediately. No room for talk, for argument, even discussion. Well, there’s nothing like ‘free speech’ in a civilised society. And that is ‘nothing like free speech’.

I despair. But as a heterosexual male love god, I apparently know NOTHING!

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Sometimes its just nice to have validation. Sometimes you do things and you ‘just don’t care’, and others may be offended, but that’s life. Most of what I do or say will offend someone, I just hope that someone is the person I’m talking to or I’m not doing my job. Because offence is just an extension of disagreement and if everyone agreed all the time the world would be duller than… duller than… another nil-nil draw at Arsenal… duller than Brexit talks… duller than… Harry and Meg’s career move.

And to have something controversial validated by authority is a wonderful thing indeed.

The Oxford English Dictionary, no less, have changed the definition of the word ‘Yid’. It still means an offensive term aimed at Jews, a horrible word, a nasty expression. But now they’ve added ‘a player or fan of Tottenham Hotspur football club’. They’ve also added ‘Yiddo’ into the category as a sort of ‘pet version’ of an abusive phrase. As if you’re fond of the person you’re verbally abusing in a nasty but loving way, perhaps.

So thank you, OED, for the clarification we’ve been seeking for decades, for the validation of our name. And most of all, for the upset this has caused, is causing, and will continue to cause, to David Baddeil and a whole host of other supersensitive supporters of other London clubs, the fans of which stick to the strictly former OED definition and use it abusively, nastily and filled with hate.

Tottenham Hotspur football club have demanded ‘clarification’ from the OED because, basically, they suffer the fallout from their naughty fans and have never and obviously can never endorse the ‘y-word’ in any way shape or form. Even though that costs them probably 27.8 million quid a year in lost sales in the Spurs shop from the very potential of ‘yiddo’ merchandise.

So the OED say that’s not their job. They’re there to reflect language usage, not make judgments or political statements. If words are used other than in their intended origin that’s not their problem, they just tell you about it.

When used by Spurs fans there is absolutely no anti-semitism attached to the term. It is the opposite. Used with pride and is just a ‘je suis Charlie Hebdo’ thing. “I am Spartacus!” It is standing together with the Jews and becoming one, united, indistinguishable group. It is anti-anti-semitism, which is precisely how it began.

It is also one, single, solitary instance of fans getting one over on their club, the League, the lawyers and, of course, over David Baddeil. God bless the OED. Our God, their God, any god will do.

Happy Friday

A proud Yiddo
xxxx