Andy's Glasses

You can get married anywhere. All you need is a bride and a groom and a geezer with a hat. Could be a priest’s hat, a rabbi’s hat, a mere ‘kippa’, a ship’s captain’s hat, or a registrar’s special head-thing. Ok, they don’t have really have special head-things, but normally you’d need a hat or the wedding might fail. So its all a matter of where you choose. You can get married in your own garden. You can get married in a church, synagogue, temple, hotel foyer, garden, on top of a mountain, the bottom of the ocean (aqualung required; hats may float away), on parachutes (helmets required), there’s virtually nowhere that hasn’t been chosen for that special day.

And thus yesterday we entered what is officially termed ‘the middle of fucking nowhere; and then some’ for the nuptials of Flo and Dan. Two Londoners who elected to forgo the chance of a wedding at The Landmark, to shun the banqueting suite at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, to ignore the thousands of options that London has to offer to any happy couple. And instead have a wedding in the middle of the Judean desert.

There’s destination weddings and there’s destination weddings. And everyone feels happier if there’s some kind of ‘connection’ rather than just some random location selected from the ‘weddings of the Stars’ handbook, or I want to get married in Benidorm cos it was the best’olidee I ever’ad.

We went to a wedding Sydney last Christmas. Almost the ‘ultimate’ destination for Londoners, but as both bride and groom and all their families live there, quite selfishly, there’s only so much complaining you can do. Even though I’m a great complainer and can always find something.

The groom’s parents are Israeli. They live in London but they’re Israeli. And if any destination is acceptable for Jewish people of any origins, it is Israel. Because its a has a special place in all our lives and all our hearts.

And the weather’s great so that improves the whole ‘destination wedding’ scenario. No-one wants to be dragged half way across Scandinavia for a wedding in the dark whilst its pissing down. And just because the groom loves herring.

This wedding was in possibly the most beautiful setting ever. Spectacular. In a place just kind of put there in the middle of the desert for such purposes. And it was quite brilliant and quite wonderful. Magical even. And a lot of fun.

Mazzletov to Flo and Dan

A xxxx

So we come to Israel. And on our first night we always eat at the same place. But I mean ALWAYS. There’s no discussion, no debate, no arguments (who would argue with that? Other than a vegan, maybe, so we just don’t bring them here) just; its our first night, we’re travel-weary, tired, lazy, we’ll just walk ten minutes along the road to…

I don’t even know what its called. I’m sure it has a name but its not about that. A hotel concierge sent me there about 15 years ago when I asked ‘where’s good shawarma?’ and I’ve never looked back. It ‘changed my life’. Especially my waist measurement. Ha, ha. But not even true. Because this is the famed, fabled, legendary ‘Mediterranean diet’ which makes you live to 110. Ok, there’s chips so maybe only 108. Nothing vaguely ‘mediterranean’ about chips other than salt. But we include them because… because we like them.

Hummus with sautéed mushrooms and onion, with a little tahini and some shawarma meat because I wanted some. They do hummus with mushrooms or hummus with the meat. I wanted both. They can’t fit both onto the plate. So we compromised. Chicken livers from the barbecue. Israeli chopped salad (at least 3 of your 5 a day) with chips (take away 2) and some wonderful pickled vegetables and chillis (must be worth 2 or 3 more). Couple of warm, fluffy pittas and cold beers. Heaven might look a bit different but could never taste better.

Then we come back and another miracle was occurring. Spurs were winning a game. Of football. In Belgrade. And continued to win. And won more. 4-0 to my boys. Are they back? Well, let’s not get carried away. Champions League is one thing, we have Sheffield United at home on the weekend and then we can say if we’re on the up or not.

And Saracens rugby club have had a 35-point deduction added to their league campaign. Let’s say, winning the league will be difficult. A hefty fine too. And there’s a move to strip them of their last 2 victorious campaigns. On the grounds that they cheated, financially. Broke the very strict ‘salary cap’ that top flight rugby has.

How reassuring that rules against financial cheating can be imposed in major league sport. I hope the Premier League, UEFA and FIFA are paying attention. When all they collectively offer is their token gesture ‘Financial Fair Play’ which… certain teams, shall we say, flout regularly.

Ok, I have some sun-rays to catch

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

You get two types of people on a flight from Heathrow to Tel Aviv. Jews. And Christians. The Jews, in the main part, from England/Europe and the Christians always from America. Ok, there are others in the flight demographic, a few Muslims, possibly some Hindus, Catholics, Zoroastrians, Buddhists Jains, who knows or cares. Pilgrims. You go to Madrid, Rome, Prague, you’re a holiday-maker, go to Israel you’re a pilgrim. The Jews returning to the mothership, like salmon do when they spawn. Except Israel is not where most Jews originated. It is possibly more our future than our past. My ancestral homeland is somewhere between Poland, Belarus and Whitechapel. So we go for a wedding. Not to spawn. Nor as pilgrims. Because we’ve been there 327 times before.

But the Christians are pilgrims indeed. They are in search of Jesus. And you know they’re Americans by the completely bewildered looks on their faces as they realise that row 27 is actually right in front of row 28 and just behind row 26. Or perhaps that is part of the search itself. Looking for Jesus on BA 0164. Then, as the Bible says (New Testament), sit down and speak really loudly. But that’s fine. These are good people. Even though they probably live in Arkansas, vote Republican, own a garage full of guns, love Trump and burn crosses on a Saturday night. But we love them too. Because friends of Israel are sadly only too rare in this world, and totally non-existent and not-allowed in the Labour Party. And these Americans love and revere the Holy Land with all their heart and soul. Hallelujah and Amen.

There were so many groups at the airport, all with their signs ‘HolyLand Southern Baptists’ and ‘Mormons for Jesus’, ‘Adventists World Tour’, we really didn’t know which to join. So we went to the car rentals instead to start our own tour. Less Jesus, more Hummus.

Israel is experiencing a late summer (November?) heatwave. It’s currently about 30 degrees and fabulously fabulous. And for the Americans: that’s degrees of ‘shit that’s hot’, rather than ‘fetch me my bearskin’.

Happy holidays

A xxxx

I put this picture up because I don’t want you to think that Joey spends all his time bent double on the floor with his neck at a funny angle. Even though he does. Well, what d’ya want; he’s 5 months old; what else is he gonna do? He rolls around as he’s too young for crawling, and rolls around, until he hits a wall (literally, not like in the Man vs Food way), then he calls out for help so he can start rolling the other way. But then he sat up! Holy shit. Yeah, I know you can sit up, you’re 30/51/64 FFS, of course you can do it. For Joey its a big achievement. For you its just another function that you should enjoy for the short time til you cross that off your list of the ‘physically able to still do’.

But what’s that got to do with the election? Joey’s not standing this time. Though will definitely be Prime Minister one day, you can see it. Just after his sister runs for 2 terms, Joey will take the mantle. And it will be a wonderful Britain (well, England, not sure Britain will exist still by then after the Scots and now the Welsh want to leave the Union) that will be. It will be a pink and purple Britain under PM Lila, filled with Pepper Pigs and Unitorns (I hope she can pronounce ‘c’ by then) and dinosaurs and everyone will get free ice cream and babychinos, and croissants will be available on the national health service. And everyone will be happy and skip a lot. Ahhhhhh…

It will be different under Jeremy Corbyn. Ok, it will probably be different under Boris too. Or even possibly (though remote) under Jo Swinson. Nigel Farage??? Well the horrible obnoxiously smug little chain-smoking shit is fielding 600 candidates even though none will win a seat. Yet not standing himself. Making him the prime tosser in a rich field with plenty of stiff competition.

It’s day 3 and Labour are already spending 60 billion quid a year on the promised ‘give-aways’ that all prospective political parties feel they have to use to bribe the electorate. The Tories aren’t doing bad on the giveaway front either.

The problem is that the Cons have moved noticeably to the right whereas the Labs have gone so far left as to be re-approaching the right from the other side. The kind of Marxism that becomes Stalinism which is so close to Naziism that you can’t see the difference. Control the services, control the workers, control the papers (with ‘elected editors’) and take control of part of all private companies too. But instead of fierce, imposing, powerful Stalin you get limp, lefty, protest-marching, Arsenal-supporting Corbyn wearing the moustache.

Once you start re-nationalising things the bill will go up. But like stratospherically ‘up’.

So much as I like Boris but don’t like these neo-Cons, there is no choice. Other than the Lib Dems. But really… I mean, really! Though having a televised leader debate without Jo Swinson does seem a bit… harsh? a bit exclusive? a bit sexist??

Everything to play for. Off to Israel tomorrow. Not for good. Not yet anyway. Just for a wedding.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Greta Thunberg, annoying Norwegian enviro-warrior, has something of a dilemma. In fact its a typical dilemma faced by all of us tree huggers who live a saintly life of carbon-free-ness and yet at times need to get somewhere. Because living the zero carbon life is fairly simple if you stay in one place. It’s only when you move that the problems start. Particularly if you need to move quickly. And worst of all if you need to cross continents.

Greta is in California for some very very worthy save-the-planet issues and was set to give a speech to a Climate Change Conference in Chile. But due to ‘political issues’ (rioting on the streets), they’ve moved the gig to Madrid. In 28 days. Which is a problem, out of all the delegates attending a CLIMATE CHANGE meeting, only for Greta. The rest of them will gladly hop on a plane to Spain, as long as someone else is coughing up for their First Class tickets, obvs, but not Greta. She don’t do ‘plane’. She won’t emit carbons. I’m amazed she’s not hooked up to some wonderful aqualung type thingy which takes every exhalation she breathes and removes the carbon to leave just the ‘dioxide’ to return safely to the world. So she needs to get a long way. She went to New York, famously, aboard an Americas Cup carbon-free sail-boat. But they’re not exactly things you can just ‘rent’, or call on a app. And she’s got to get to New York (or thereabouts) first. Then she’ll have to swim. Or possibly walk-on-water, as befits her new status.

Euro-wings have offered her a flight for which they’ll offset the carbon, leaving the journey ‘carbon neutral’ but apparently that flight would probably be cancelled, delayed or break down, according to that airlines record.

It’s a problem. And one once faced by Leonardo Di Caprio, with whom little Greta has been spending a lot of time lately…

Leo was awarded an environmentalism award in New York. But was in Paris. So he made the 8000 mile round trip in a private jet. Who said that Americans have no sense of irony?

For the rest of this missive I’d like to talk about the wonderful game at Goodison Park yesterday, giving particular attention to all the wondrous football they played. And here it is:

Son broke some geezer’s leg. Got sent off. Wrongly. Ended 1-all. Everyone cried. Especially the fans of both clubs. A true advert for the beautiful game. Now I’m going to vomit.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

My newspaper didn’t arrive this morning. Sunday morning. The ultimate ‘tea and newspapers in bed’ morning of the whole week, the defining morning for the entire concept of such a simple but fabulously decadent pleasure when both Mel & I are there to share in its enjoyment (she takes the Magazines, I take the Sports sections and politics; there is no deviation from gender stereotyping allowed in my house). And the fucking papers didn’t arrive. ‘Delay at the depot’, said Yogi, our newspaper delivery executive. And I am aware that even mention of such a decidedly ‘first world problem’ makes me some petty dilettante nancy-boy tart, so I went digital and downloaded the Times onto my iPad. Which produces the exact same wordage but via a medium that I don’t wish to read them upon.

But what I did read scared the shit out of me. Again quite literally so but I’ll save the whole ‘bowel movements’ issue for a dedicated article at a more (in)appropriate time.

Because as soon as they announce the election, Corbyn shortens the lead that Boris has enjoyed for all those lovely months when it didn’t matter a toss. Now it does and the polls start in earnest. Although three polls gave significantly different results. Though we must always remember, and apply the required syllogism, that:
Opinion Polls are statistics
All statistics is total bollocks
Therefore…

You really don’t need to be Aristotle to complete the missing deduction. Especially as opinion polls are all fatally flawed. Because they tell you that ‘40% back Boris and only 22% Corbyn’. Which, if we were a nation using proportional representation would be fabulous and accurate. But we’re not. We are, as we always have been, first-past-the-posters, which makes prediction difficult verging on impossible. Classically, the Lib-dems poll up to 40% of the vote, yet end up with 9 seats out of 625. Because they ‘just’ come second in virtually every constituency. The winning party can often end up with less of the nation’s percentage vote. Which is why the Lib Dem’s and other small parties all bang on about PR all the time. They would do brilliantly. As did Hitler’s National Socialists when they managed to first muscle into power in 1923 (or thereabouts).

But in the absence of PR, the mere percentage of voting intention is almost irrelevant. You need to know how those percentages are distributed in each constituency. So really they should poll within constituencies and then collate all that together for a national picture. But they don’t.

I just this second had a visit from the Lib Dem’s. Not all of them, though as there aren’t that many it actually could have been. ‘Will you be voting for Luciana Berger?’ they asked. ‘No’, I said. Not because I don’t have admiration for her and her principles (basically the principle that Jews should be allowed to live peacefully and unpersecuted in this fine nation) but because I worry that voting Lib Dem would take votes from the small Conservative majority held here and allow Labour to sneak in the back door. In other circumstances, with a ‘different’ Labour I’d think differently. But then again, Luciana would still be in their party and the MP for somewhere in Liverpool, like she was.

It’s all about the basics. Going back to ABC. ANYONE BUT CORBYN!!!!!

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I just shouted at Alexa. I didn’t abuse her, because she’s not a female MP, I didn’t slap her, because she’s a fucking radio and I’d have hurt my hand, and I didn’t even swear. I just shouted at her in a rather unfriendly, slightly unpleasant tone. Because listening to the post-rugby discussion is all well and good, if ‘depressing’ can ever be ‘well and good’, when they’re speaking to Matt Dawson or Will Greenwood or Stuart Barnes or Jonny Wilkinson. But when they ask Alan Shearer what he thought of the match, that was way past my personal limit. I like Alan Shearer. As a person, he seems like a lovely bloke. He was an outstanding football player, scoring the most premiership goals ever. And he seems to have had that incredible career without ever learning anything about the game. Or so it would seem when he commentates as a pundit. So when he starts talking about rugby? RUGBY????

The game was disappointing. Now there’s an understatement. Don’t they know the sacrifices I made to watch that match? Have they no idea the commitment levels required by fans over here? We were up early, we stuck to OUR game plan, we ate three croissants when normally we’d feel guilty about just one, we were queuing up at Coffee Temptation at 8.30 for skinny lattes and a babychino (Lila’s, obvs) to go, and we gave up Tai Chi! I even missed tennis!!! Though due more to weather than incidents in Japan.

But it didn’t happen. England just didn’t even start. Whereas last weekend, and the weekend before, they’d come out with all guns a’blazing, today it was nothing. They started off in trouble and stayed that way for the next 79 minutes. Fortunately I had Lila to distract me, or vice versa, so all wasn’t the total FUCKING NATIONAL DISASTER! it might otherwise had been.

There’s always football. Oh. My. God. Football. Which has got to the point where its almost as bad as Brexit. It takes over our lives, is incredibly divisive and causes one disappointment after another on a weekly basis. If Boris Johnson played football they would just merge into one massive disaster.

But we must be positive. Tomorrow we go to Everton. Because our last trip to the Liverpool area was so successful? Because we like going up north? No. Because we have to. It’s in the rules. And if there is one team in the league who are seemingly less in control of anything they do than Spurs, it is Everton. So in the battle of the incompetent versus the unpredictable (works either way round), anything can happen.

Don’t make me watch more disappointment. PLEASE!!!!

Happy disappointing Saturday

A xxxx

I’m on my way to Japan. Not literally, but mentally. Which is much cheaper and the jet-lag is better. Dependent on what gets drunk in the meantime. But by tomorrow morning I’ll be there. In Yokohama. A short bullet train ride from Tokyo. Near Kanagawa. Which I know because on our (real life) trip to Japan in May we accidentally disembarked our train in Yokohama, thinking we were in Kanagawa. Only to be told by a lovely local taxi driver that he could take us to our hotel in Kanagawa but it is 65kms away and would cost a few yen. So yes, I know where all these places are. I’ve eaten raw fish in the best of ‘em.

So its impractical to physically attend the final of the rugby World Cup tomorrow morning and finding Yokohama is way more challenging than finding ‘channel 3’. And I’m gonna guess that there won’t be too many tickets knocking around even if I did go there.

Whereas Lila’s house is just round the corner, they have channel 3 and I don’t have to eat any more fish. Just croissants. Possibly some Danish. Coffee. Tea. But I do have to miss my Saturday morning Tai Chi class, which I hate to miss. It’s a big decision. Firstly because its such a great and energising way to start the weekend (punching people in the face, breaking arms, kicking knees out) and mainly because notification of failure to attend receives a one word message from our esteemed Grand Master. The text reads: ‘TOSSER’ and you immediately think ‘yes, I am, its true’ and never want to do it again.

Yet this is a world cup final. And England rugby has a history of such events. 2003. Everyone remembers exactly where they (on the couch, with the daughters, screaming our heads off) when Jonny Wilkinson split the uprights with a gorgeous drop kick to beat Australia (could it get any better??).

So now its South Africa. Who have the reputation for being big. Rough. Powerful. Rough. Aggressive. Rough. And big. Not the most totally desirable list of adjectives for an international rugby squad but its gotten them this far. So now its in the lap of the Gods. Who are: Eddie Jones, Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje. God lives inside all of us apparently and never more so than on the rugby pitch.

COME ON ENGLAND!!!!
A xxxx

“For the many, not the few!!”
For proper people, just not the Jew
It’s a time for change that is REAL
Not some empty, same-old spiel

Whose side are you on???
I’ll repeat that til long after you’ve gone
Because in the absence anything worthwhile
That really wouldn’t be my style

So I’ll bombard you with slogans forever
It’s the Marxist way of coming together
Words are wasted, ideas all hidden
The idea of corporations is truly forbidden

Do you want a government that panders to the rich?
An entitled conservative who died in a ditch??
Or do you want ‘change!!!’ with 3 exclamations?
In case you miss the point, not being the brightest of nations

Should a government give all support to the wealthy
Whilst all around working people remain unhealthy?
Food banks for the poor is such a terrible taboo
Whilst the billionaires all dine at Nobu.

Privatisation was the curse of Thatcher
All those thriving industries left in tatters
WE’LL BUY THEM BACK, nationalise once again
Employ millions more women and men

The fact that those services were horrendously uneconomic
Is a lie, a myth, just empty rhetoric from some Tory comic
The post, the trains, the gas supply we used
All coming back to the nation to be abused

We’ll tax the rich til they bleed, drain the middle classes
So we can pay unemployed people to sit on their arses
But in style and comfort, they’re entitled to that
With 96 inch tv, eating cakes, getting fat.

We’ll make Britain fairer, just wait and see
We’ll throw out the bankers and lawyers with glee
Corporations will pay proper taxation
At 92% of their super-annuation

Benefits will rise, in line with the pay of any major CEO
All paid for by the tax dodgers whose profits will go
Google, Facebook, Amazon and Starbucks alike
PAY THE TAX OR TAKE A HIKE!!!!

Oh, they’ve gone, they’re now based in Rome
Closed their office here, terminally gone
Now they’ll pay no taxes, no wages, no nothing
Which leaves a bit of a hole in public service funding

The billionaires similarly all gone to dust
Taking their taxes to places they can trust
Well fuck ‘em!!! I say. Fuck ‘em all and good riddance to all
More room for the workers, its just the jobs that’s taken a fall

Anyway, we can’t be worried about all that
What do you take me for? Some clueless pratt??
We’ll win this election, FOR THE MANY NOT THE FEW!!
And if the sums don’t add up, Diane Abbot will do them anew.

VOTE LABOUR!!!

The Commie Corbster xxxx

Who knows where Scunthorpe is? I didn’t. No idea. Just looked it up and its up by the Humber Estuary, just south west of Hull, in North Lincolnshire. Now ya know. Though it all gets a bit vague when you travel up past Luton, I know, just a vast northern wilderness of strange accents, stranger people, disused factories, rugby league, flat caps and a few cows farting into my ozone layer.

Scunthorpe is an industrial town. Ain’t they all. The difference is that there is actually still some industry there. Like, working, producing, employing. Hard to believe but this place could be Corbyn Central. Working people. With dirt on their hands. As opposed to lawyers or bankers slaving away for 18 hours a day, 6 days a week. They are not ‘working men’ (and women; don’t get shirty, its just an expression). They don’t even get ink on their hands any more. And in Scunthorpe they still have steel production. Which is great. Good, BRITISH steel, not like that (exceptionally cheap) Chinese rubbish. And they make the steel for the city’s other big industry, which is manufacturing wind turbines. So they can ship them on the Humber out to the North Sea to save the planet.

And now they’ve found oil. Not in ‘them thar hills’ but in Scunthorpe. Honest to goodness, there’s oil there. Lots. Gonna take them 15 years to pump it all out. It’ll create jobs, wealth, prosperity, local benefits, but… but its oil. The most unfashionable substance in the entire known universe. So the obviously more fashionable good folks of Scunthorpe are up in arms against the oil well being dug. It is, apparently, a tiny little thing in the middle of a particularly scrubby and ugly, privately-owned farm, in a place no-one goes. Even the council eventually dropped their objections to the oil dig because there is absolutely no good reason to prevent it. It’s not fracking. It doesn’t cause landslides or earth tremors, it don’t do nuffink. Except pour out liquid prosperity to the whole area. But ‘OIL=BAD’ and therefore everyone, not just Greta Thundberg, has a right, no, a DUTY, to resist anything fossil fuel as strongly as they can.

And here’s the absolute killer irony. The production of wind turbines is the most carbon emitting industry there is. So in order to save the planet we must indeed kill it first. Yet that counts for nothing in Scunthorpe. Oil is the devil’s work and thus NOT ON OUR WATCH!!!!

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx