Andy's Glasses

Our two esteemed (phah) political leaders have been accusing each other of politicising major events. Like the London Bridge attack. Jeremy Corbyn in particular feels this to be inappropriate. And yet yesterday had no qualms about holding up a photo of a 4 year-old boy, suffering with pneumonia, being treated on the floor of the waiting room at Leeds Royal Infirmary. And blaming Boris. Obviously.

But that’s not politicising anything. No. Boris is the head of Emergency Medicine at Leeds, and the admissions director. He’s also a nurse in the A&E, the porter responsible for finding beds and the administrator of antibiotics to small children.

Oh, apparently he’s not! He’s the Prime Minister. Who’d’a known that???

The picture emerged in the Daily Mirror yesterday morning and was thrust in Boris’s face by a tv journalist, DEMANDING an explanation and to know ‘how Boris feels about THIS!!!’ Boris hadn’t previously seen it. And sensibly obfuscated. Because if you don’t know the facts, you shouldn’t comment. And furthermore, there are events like this happening in every hospital every week. Some would call it ‘thinking outside the box by over-stressed NHS staff’ in that there was no bed, no treatment room, just get the job done. Better than leaving him unattended to wait for some space. It’s not Boris’s fault that A&E rooms are incredibly busy. Nor was it the last PM’s fault when such things happened on their watch. Or any of the 19 previous incumbents when they happened in their terms.

So poor little 4 year-old pneumonia sufferer is now the poster boy for Jeremy Corbyn with which to attack Boris.

I don’t mind attacks on Boris. But this is low. Even by Corbyn’s already exceptionally low standards of everything. As exemplified by his and McDonnell’s new answer to anyone questioning higher taxation or expenditure on nationalisation in which the sums don’t work. Which is ‘because they hate the people of this country’. When the shadow chancellor stated that ‘there’s no place for billionaires in Britain’, the inevitable backlash was greeted with just that. ‘They hate the people of this country’.

I’m no billionaire so I can’t hate all the people. So I just limit it to two, to keep it within my budget. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

You know you’re getting old when they keep sending you ‘invitations’. Not for parties, no longer for raves, orgies, toga nights, to play for Spurs at right back cos Aurier’s injured, nuffink like that. You get invitations to have health checks. In addition to all the ones you have because bits have broken.

So, having successfully completed my last ‘shit on a stick’ performance and was ‘relieved’ (ha, ha, haaaaahhhh) that I don’t have bowel cancer, I received another invitation to have my lungs checked. So as I haven’t had a major medical procedure for almost 2 days (scan on hip), I thought, yeah, I’ll ave some’a dat. You can never check too much. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re NOT queuing up with various diseases to give you.

So I went to Finchley Memorial Hospital. Which must be unique in that its small, clean, uncluttered with people, relaxed, charming and nice. And you can park outside. For nuffink!!!! Or inside if you have 3 spare hours for the terms and conditions and instructions. Fine if you’re on crutches, not if you’re always and only in a hurry. So the most gorgeous person (other than MY FAMILY, obvs) checked my blood pressure, lung blowability, other stuff and declared me ‘the most perfect specimen of manhood that ever walked (or limped) the planet’. And asked if I’d like to be part of a lung study. Trying to isolate some marker for cancer (which I hopefully don’t have) in the blood. To be honest Celia had me at ‘would you like to…’ and I’d have willingly given her my kidneys; she only had to ask.

She took blood. Loads of blood. I was really brave as I thought crying was probably a bit of a killer in terms of maintaining the super-hero stance. And then I had a scan. Of my lungs. Not an MRI this time (thank fucking Christ) but a nice, friendly, quiet, CT thingy that takes 3 minutes. The disclaimer took way longer. So now I’m a guinea pig on a treadmill. Where I belong. And I’m going to get an invite every year.

But the things you think of whilst you’re in medical procedures. Like: how can Manchester City be so shit when they’re the most expensive assemblage of talent the world has ever known? And, how can Leicester City be so good when they’re the cheapest bunch of cut-price, discounted, 2-for-1 players ever thrown together in a bargain basement and then they sold the 2 best ones anyway? The answers to which I’ll ponder at my next procedure.

Joey’s not ill. Just likes to ingest his food through his skin by osmosis. Clever.

Happy Monday
A xxxx

Went out for dinner last night. With some friends. So when Harry Kane scored the first goal for Spurs, a beautiful, stunning wonderstrike, I immediately called our local fish’n’chip shop to book a table. Then Lucas Moura hit a second. So I cancelled the chippie and booked El Vaquero instead. Seemed only fair. But then Son scored. No, that doesn’t do it justice. Son scored the goal of the season, possibly the decade, maybe even ‘the best goal of forever!!!!!’, not wishing to overstate things. So I cancelled the Brazilian place and immediately booked Asian Fusion. Just glad that it hadn’t been scored by Jan Vertongen or we’d be eating fucking waffles again. If we don’t score, we don’t eat.

And just casually, in conversation with Scary Mark, the talk moved over to that of Tottenham. The victorious, the glorious, the supercalafragilisticexpialidotious, at least for the last few weeks, except on Wednesday. And, inevitably, to our new manager. The ‘special’, the modest, the grinning, smiling, ever-charming Jose Morinho. In reply to my notifying Scary Mark of Jose’s appointment, he replied with but one word: ‘toxic!’ And that sentiment was felt by all Spurs fans. We’d LOVED Pochettino, almost as much for being the nicest person in the universe as for the amazing way he’d transformed our club. And everyone hates Jose because he’s… Jose. If not for the arrogance, the conceit, the tantrums, the mood-swings, the petulance, the… downright Portugueseness of the man, then for the Jose ‘style’. The parking of buses.

But he came. And we won. And not just won, but won in a Spurs way. With style, with panache, with the kind of beautiful football which had been absent in our lives since January. Other than when watching fucking Liverpool on tv. But we leaked goals. Then we won again. Same thing, beautiful but flawed. Then we lost. And then came Burnley yesterday. The synthesis of all our dreams. And Jose has Alli playing back at his best. Kane more lethal. Sissoko scoring two goals in two weeks when previously he’d scored none in 2 years. A clean sheet. The defence strong. And Son. The only player who gave his all even through the ‘dark days’. Who only gives 100% at all times. And does it with a constant smile.

So is Jose winning us over? Is that disloyalty to Pochettino? Can we be that fickle? To abandon the man we loved deeply for this… interloper. This mercenary pretender to the throne of king Mauricio?

And yet Spurs were ‘broken’. Not working. Since January we’d struggled terribly. Made to look acceptable by the shabby form of other teams.

That’s why God invented Daniel Levy. The heartless one. A pure businessman who looks at things with objectivity and dispassionate calculation. And it didn’t take an Einstein to know things were wrong. But it took a Levy to do something he knew would be unpopular with every single Spurs fan, even though none of us were happy. So, coldly and clinically, he excised the problem and implanted a new, working, fully-functioning organ into the patient. And we thought him to be evil and morally wrong to do so.

But it was, as can be seen by all, the right thing to do. For the club. Levy’s only concern. We didn’t get a vote. As usual.

So do we ‘love’ Jose? No. But we do love what he’s doing at our club. That must be half way there, surely??

Happy Days

A xxxx

Normally, following my morning martial arts (fighting with wooden poles, in a friendly way), I’d spend the following hour or so playing tennis. But not today. As a ‘one off’ hopefully, and not ‘the shape of things to come’, I instead spent 75 minutes inside an MRI scanner. Nice there. Listened to LBC. Almost drowned out by the whizz and whir and thumping of the machine in which I had taken temporary residence.

I have a bit of a history with MRI. The first time I went inside one I lasted 24 seconds before demanding release. The next time I opted for an ‘open’ version. Which is only as ‘open’ as it needs to be to satisfy the trades description act. In practical terms for any claustrophobic, its the same shit writ different. But I survived it. With only minor panic attacks, not much worse than I endure in every Spurs match.

But today’s was a fucking marathon. Anyone can sprint. And I survived the longest time anyone’s ever spent inside a metal box because the scan was for my hip, and my spine, the parts of which live way below my eyes so I was just kind’a peeking out the end. Which satisfies the enzyme which suppresses my fear of enclosed spaces.

Then I got numbness in my arm. Fingers went numb. Numb and number. I’ve never been very good at keeping still and now I know why. It’s horrible. Blood stops flowing. Everything starts itching. But you’re not supposed to move. So I worked out that minor movements of hand and arm would NOT interfere with photos of my spine and hip, if I did them very carefully and in isolation. Everything we do in Tai Chi is done with the whole body. You pick your nose using your hips. Scratch your arse by rotating your shoulders and shifting your weight from one leg to the other. But not in an MRI. You dissociate your limbs. You unplug your whole-bodiness completely and move NOTHING above the elbow. That way the nurse/doctor/radiographer/Philippino geezer, doesn’t keep shouting at you in the headphones.

He did ask at one point “you go’ pins’n’needle?” FUCK YES!!! “Dat normal, iss ok”.

NO, ITS NOT OK, I’m about to get gangrene in my right arm due to lack of blood supply, there’s nothing ‘ok’ about it. Fucker! Which came out as ‘oh, thank you’.

And the result is…

No idea. Someone has to analyse the photos and then I need to go and get a verdict. Which I kind’a know. Tennis fucks up the soft tissue in my right hip. So I’ll continue to ignore all advice of a ‘rest it’ kind of nature and play on til I die. And enjoy the ride.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

One week. Six more days. Ok, almost 1 week. And then we’ll know EVERYTHING. The fighting will be over, the battles ended, the… the other things… done!

We’ll know who is to be our next Prime Minister. And with what kind of majority. We’ll know whether Brexit will ‘get done’ (a phrase which has become so hateful I’d like to have it tattooed on Jeremy Corbyn’s arse). And we’ll know whether Arsenal will be relegated this season. Even though they’re only one point behind us and we’re still ‘going for 4th place’. But that’s not the point (sic). The point is that they are currently awful and haven’t won in their last 9 games. Their most barren spell for the last 40 years. Freddie Ljungberg has failed to produce the ‘Solskjaer effect’ and the team have actually become worse under his ‘guidance’.

But we mustn’t let this detract us from the election. Even though its much more fun and delightful. That would make me guilty of schadenfreude and nastiness and not being a nice person. Hmmm…

Yesterday the Brexit party defected. Nigel Farage’s latest attempt to introduce the ultimate ‘1-trick pony’ into the political world backfired as four of its MEPs told voters to back Boris. Presumably to ‘get Brexit done’. Possibly because they no longer see any virtue in being associated with the vanity project of a mouthy, right wing narcissist, and possibly because they were all conservatives to begin with and only joined Nige because we weren’t Brexiting quickly enough to suit their own small islander mentality and racist predispositions. One of them is Jacob Rees-Mogg’s sister and another was a former speech-writer for the Conservatives. Traitors!!!

Yet this has become the most angry and personal election campaign I can remember. Nasty. Aggressive. Parties and personalities who genuinely hate each other. Rather than gentlemen united by their common love of the country yet divided by their ideals of how it should function. Never mind Andrew Neill with whom Boris will not debate, I wouldn’t talk to the fat Scottish fucker either. Horrible, arrogant man. I think Boris and Jezza should just get in the ring, take off the gloves, pick up a baseball bat each and slug it out. And if Corbyn should win, shoot him.

Yes, six days (of AG-O-NEEEEE) left and then all will be revealed.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Amazon started off selling books. Jeff Bezos’ brainchild was to discount book prices and deliver them to people’s homes. A noble idea and it was fairly successful. But not enough for the Bezos-es-iz of this world. So he ‘diversified’. And now is the richest man the world has ever known, without ever getting oil on his robes, and has ‘diversified’ into every possible sphere of home delivery. Which, we must all agree, he’s not too shabby at doing. But then you need to define ‘delivery’. Which in days of yaw meant a geezer in a brown jacket bringing you a parcel. But that was ‘that world’. This one is different. ‘Delivery’ now is how I get my books on my Kindle. And ‘delivery’ is how I tell Alexa all the secrets there are in my world. And in return she tells me how much rainfall there is in Patagonia in June.

And last night there was a new delivery. Football. Amazon delivered it to its streaming tv service. Only a few minutes behind because all those digitals had to be uploaded and downloaded again and although data actually transmits at the speed of light, the football played last night at Old Trafford must have actually been faster still to get such a delay.

So now we ‘go see movies’ that Netflix produce and show, in the lounge, and we ‘go to football’ in the same lounge. Or worse still, substitute ‘in the lounge’ for ‘on my phone’ and we’ve entered the world of the zombies. Just what society needs; more people looking for longer periods at their fucking phones.

It’s not that I resent this intrusion into my world by Jeff Bezos (who is American and thus BY LAW knows nothing about football) but it just further divides the pie. I get Sky Sports because 10 years ago it showed every football match played anywhere in the world at any time of day or night. Then they lost a few matches a year to a revolving cast of bankrupts and ne’er-do-wells starting with Setanta and ending up with BT. But because Sky were showing correspondingly fewer matches, they charged me more. Sounds fair.

And now, we have Amazon in on the game. They just want you to subscribe to Prime. Something I’ve managed to avoid whilst keep getting ‘free trials’ on quite a regular basis. But not last night. And as I’d missed 3/4s of the game anyway, I said I’d only give them £7.99 if they guarantee at least a draw for Spurs. And they couldn’t, even though they can guarantee virtually everything else in life, apparently.

The world is changing. Which is fine. But football???

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I’m a terrible cynic when it comes to ‘statistics’. Not that maths doesn’t work, or is somehow ‘broken’, or I doubt the ability of statisticians to get the right answer, its just that I can’t help but ask certain questions. Like ‘who is paying for the statistical analysis?’, like ‘are they including all data, including that which is prejudicial to the sponsor’s desired result?’, like ‘in what world is a “probability of 5%” any kind of “proof” that the events are NOT just down to random chance?’ Loads of questions. All unanswered, ergo: my mantra: all statistics is bollocks.

And then they publish statistics which is so profoundly simple and right and intuitive that it rekindles my trust in… in… well, in this particular study and no others.

The link between ski accidents and alcohol. Because during the ski season, (ie when there’s snow somewhere), 1000 Britons alone get injured in accidents every fucking day. That’s not statistics, just a fact. A quite amazing and very scary fact. Does this mean that we, the Brits, are just shit skiers? And that the French only suffer 22 accidents per day, the Germans 37 (poorer style than the French) and the Italians only 17 because they seldom leave the bar/restaurant and actually go anywhere? They didn’t actually issue national comparisons, those numbers are mine and hence pure, intentional bollocks.

They had experienced skiers do a ‘run’ on a simulator. Then they plied them with alcohol and had them repeat it. And guess what? Bet you can’t. Big surprise: after boozing the same skiers were 43% more likely to have an accident. Holy shit! Who could have imagined that? A big enough number to be well beyond dispute.

And yet loads of skiers have a drink at lunchtime. Beers with their chips. Wine with their pasta. Shots of limoncello with more shots of other, less medicinal booze.

A third of people questioned stated that ‘alcohol makes them a better skier’. Just like it makes you a better driver. Better dancer. A person more in control. Yet statistics might claim otherwise. No-one uses the expression ‘one for the road’ any longer.

The odd thing is that in ‘Europe’ (real, mainland, foreign, ‘over there’, Europe) where they have a different relationship with alcohol to the Brits (everyone on the planet has a different relationship than the Brits), you see your ski instructor take his morning espresso with a brandy. His lunch with three bottles of red. If he stops for another coffee it will always be accompanied by hard liquor. And he skies like Jean Claude Killy all day. Though he was probably pissed all day too. By comparison, Eddie the Eagle, didn’t drink at all. Hmmmm…

So I hate statistics when they get it right. Because it just takes away our fun.

Happy dry Wednesday

A xxxx

I’m an old fashioned kind’a dude. I make tea with leaves. I drive cars with petrol. And I watch films on a cinema screen. In fact, I’m a fucking dinosaur. So I was shocked on Sunday when I heard from two people in the space of a few hours that they’d both watched ‘The Irishman’, the new Scorsese Movie with the biggest cast of superstars since… since FOREVER!!!

Both of these guys are age contemporaries of mine and yet chose to watch a film… at home!!! A new, multi-zillion pound/dollar/lira/zloty film, made for the BIG screen, and they streamed it on Netflix, who produced the movie, and watched it at home. Probably on their TVs but possibly on a computer, an iPad, or worst of all, on a fucking phone. You can’t even fit Robert De Nero’s shoulder pads on the new iPhone 11 (with a big screen). You can’t get the mania of Joe Pesci concentrated into a device designed for taking pictures of Joey. You might catch some of Al Pacino’s acting but you’d miss all that trademark over-acting, which we love and revere.

“Do you get Spurs playing Liverpool in your back garden??” I should have asked but lacked the speed of thought. Or in Jonathan’s case: “do you get Arsenal playing Ujpest Dosza in your back garden??” Do you go on holidays to the travel agent’s office?? Go to work on a cycling machine which is fixed to the floor of your man-cave???

It’s all a matter of ‘the experience’. I love going to see movies because you have to make an effort. And the popcorn’s better. But a bit more expensive. The only films I watch on tv are Terminator (1 and 2) and Kill Bill (1 and 2). Because they’re so fab that compromising the medium is acceptable and enables me to re-live the cinematic version I experienced the first time I saw them.

But the reality is that everything changes. People on the tube sit there watching recorded tv shows, films, sport, on their phones, I see them every day. Whilst Dinosaur Man sits there doing a crossword puzzle on his broadsheet. I should wear a bowler hat.

And thus movies ‘evolve’ into a more multi-media framework. And as a lot of people already stream movies and watch them on dvds this is just the logical extension. Which is why this is the first movie, despite the director’s pleas to the contrary, NOT made for the cinema screen. In fact Netflix chose to ignore the long-standing ‘window’ of exclusivity for movies to be shown on screens before releasing them on other media. This one went ‘straight to stream’ other than a measly 2 weeks. Because if a film isn’t shown in the movie theatres it can’t be nominated for Oscars. This was a film whose massive investment was never intended to be recouped by the normal ‘bums on seats’ model. This one was made to increase subscriptions.

Where will I go to see films when all my lovely cinemas have closed due to inactivity? I’ll have to find a phone box that sells popcorn.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I’ve just watched the Jeremy Corbyn interview with Andrew Neil. I’ve seen bits and pieces of it before but never watched it all. And its wonderful. And terrible. And awful. And brilliant. And hilarious. And depressing. Not forgetting predictable.

AN: “you’re an anti-Semite, Mr Corbyn, with thousands of cases in your party of reported anti-semitism which began with the start of your leadership”

JC: “I’m opposed to all forms of racism”

AN: “there’s film of you beating up a rabbi, repeatedly hitting him in the head with your copy of ‘Das Kapital’”

JC: “I’m opposed to all forms of racism”

AN: “You’ve constantly made friends with Islamist leaders who are sworn to the destruction of Israel and death to all Jews, and been seen singing ‘throw the Jew down the well’ at a party while dressed as Osama bin Laden, another Arsenal fan”

JC: “I’m opposed to all forms of racism”

AN: “so will you apologise to the Jewish community for seemingly enabling a culture of anti-semitism in your party?” ***

JC: “I’m opposed to all forms of racism” ***

(*** = repeat 4 times).

Then yesterday his party launched its race and faith manifesto. About how a divided nation is a bad nation, how all races, creeds, religions, orientations, colours, however diverse or minor, will be treated equally under a Labour government (heaven forbid). And they named each and every single minority that could ever possibly exist, and many which couldn’t (single-parent, cross-dressing, Lithuanian hermaphrodite Seventh Day Adventists). But no mention of ‘Jewish’. Not at all. Which might be a bit odd in normal circumstances, but in the current climate of fending off anti-semitism claims from every direction, you’d’a kind’a thought… someone might have just… the really long-trucked elephant in the room…

And I really hate both parties (there are only 2, despite what Jo Swinson bangs on about) blaming the other for the prison issues which resulted in Friday’s terrorist attack. “It was the bit YOUR government did in 1986…”, “yeah but YOUR government failed to amend it in 2003…” It’s a systemic failure and petty squabbling like they’re in the fucking playground is demeaning. And pathetic. And nauseating. And inconsiderate. And horrible.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Spurs kicked off at 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon. What an odd time for a game of football. But it happens. And in fact remains the only part of our national game that remains outside the control of various tv companies. So in protest I went to the V&A. Because I’m cultured. Sophisticated. Metrosexual. And because I like fast cars.

The V&A have a new exhibition about cars. ‘Accelerating into the modern world’. How car design helped shape our society. That’s what it says on the posters. So I accelerated in there, eager to see how our finest museum (their recent exhibitions, from Bowie to Dior, have ranged from ‘outstanding’ to ‘fucking mind-blowing’) handled one of my favourite… things. Cars. Old cars. I was excited. (Spurs were 1-0 up before we even entered the building, so it was looking better every second).

But what a disappointment. There’s a beautiful E-type jag outside the entrance to the Cars bit and you think ‘wow!’ Cos its beautiful. And obviously a perfect one. Even though it was left-hand-drive, which for some reason bothered me. My brother-in-law has one just as beautiful and his drives on the proper side. He would have lent it to them, I’m sure. It’s not like he’d drive it in December.

And you enter to a jet-powered, 1950 ‘Firebird’ which is gorgeous. Next to Carl Benz’s first ever car and behind that a wonderful Mustang GT. Old one. And… and…

And that was pretty much it really. (Spurs were now properly 2-0 up, after the first 2-0 was downgraded back to 1-0 by VAR). Ok, they had this Messerschmidt three-wheeler which I’ve loved forever. And they had a 1945 Beetle (Hitler’s favourite car and about 300 million other people’s favourite too). But it was a small exhibition. Like, 20 minutes in total, reading all the info shit. Which wasn’t enough. Insufficient detail. I wanna know the engine size, the gear ratio (whatever that is), the number of cylinders, the fuel consumption and how many miles a 1932 Model T can do before you have to plug it in. But they didn’t tell you. (3-nil up, Sissoko scored. SISSOKO scored!!!!!! He NEVER scores, Jose was then more impressive than a 1947 Hispano-Suiza).

There was no Mini. Like a proper, old, original Mini. No Morris Minor. No 1955 Cadillac with fins the size of garden sheds and 16 acres of chrome. Not one Ferrari. No Bugatti Veyron. Not even a Prius which, for a lousy piece of Japanese shit, is both the reflection of society’s current needs and also the forerunner of popular electric cars.

And my disappointment was matched by Bournemouth then scoring a goal. And then another. So, just like last week, we were clinging on desperately to a match that in theory was done and dusted within an hour. However, once I saw our goals… oh my but we looked pretty.

If the V&A did an exhibition of Jose Morinho’s finest things, those goals would have been there. That and whole bunch of parked buses.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx