Andy's Glasses

There have been six Premiership matches played this weekend. And from those, 3 of the bottom 5 teams won their matches. Which itself is a bit odd. It’s not for winning games that these clubs get to be in trouble. Bournemouth, also in the bottom 5, drew with Chelsea, who really should be in the bottom five, on moral grounds. The 5th club ‘down there’, Aston Villa, play in the Caribao Cup Final today against Manchester City. Which should be a foregone conclusion. The great, the magnificent, the majestic, the oil-funded, the corrupt flash-boys with a chip on their collective shoulder as big as the words ‘MANCHESTER UNITED’, went to Madrid in the week and left the Bernabau stadium victorious. So how hard should it be to beat shitty Villa at Wembley? But… but… but…

But its football. And there’s no guarantees and form, current or otherwise, is simply no guide. Because 3rd place Leicester went to bottom placed Norwich on Friday night and lost. That shouldn’t happen, surely. Then West Ham won a game. Doesn’t matter who they’re playing, that should NEVER happen. But best of all was to be found at Vicarage Road in Watford.

Where any kind of form book was not merely thrown out of the window but then picked up by savages, hacked to pieces with machetes, doused in oil (but rape seed oil because Greta Thunberg’s in town) and burned to ashes. Because the mighty unbeatables of Liverpool arrived. Well, unbeatable in the league, few minor problems in European competitions, and on a run of 18 consecutive wins. And they came to play Watford, who started this season with 11 straight losses but are currently actually enjoying a bit of a resurgence under their third manager of this season (so far). Still, they were in the bottom 3 and looking hopeless whilst the Liverpool machine just wins and wins and wins.

Until yesterday. Then they lost. And they lost a lot. Rather than just losing the game, they lost about 17 records for winning streaks and length of unbeaten-ness and having the most dashing manager, and all sorts. They also failed to score for the first time since the war, and didn’t just lose but lost 3-nil, which some (ok, me) consider a minor thrashing. The first half was unremarkable. The best player of that period was Watford’s Barcelona reject Gerard Delofeu. So when he was carried off on a stretcher it looked like the tide might turn into a red one. As so often happens. But it didn’t. Watford were just brilliant. Bold, forceful and not for one second intimidated by Liverpool’s reputation, results or previous invincibility. Quite amazing.

So its a weekend for the shit teams. Let’s hope this persists this afternoon as Spurs, definitely currently a ‘shit team’, take on Wolves, currently a very impressive team.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Whilst the whole world is talking about Coronavirus some people take action. Like Big Richard at Tai Chi this morning. Affirmative action. He brought a hand sanitiser with him. So as we were throwing each other around, getting in each other’s faces, grunting, panting and grappling, his hands remained… sanitised! The rest of him (and not for nothing is he called ‘big Richard’) was under intense threat, but hands were safe. I went further and immersed myself, head to toe, in it, and inhaled a good blob up each nostril just to be safe.

The Israelis are on the verge of a vaccine. Always at the fore of medical innovation, they will have a ‘cure’ within months. Which will obviously be available worldwide. Except for students at SOAS, workers at the Co-op, Roger Walters and everyone else part of the ‘BDS’ campaign of boycotting Israeli everything. They’ll just have to either die of the virus or of a level of hypocrisy even more outstanding than the stupidity required to institute the BDS anyway, which generally causes adverse effects on way more Palestinian workers than it does to Israelis.

Lila has gone to Tenerife. With Joey. Flew this morning. Because where problems arise, where people are suffering, where disasters occur, normal people run away. Lila appreciated what the world needs and thus flew into the (one of many) eyes of the storm. She is Super-Lila! and will NOT be stopped from… well, from eating ice cream really, which she sees as the whole point of holidays. She too is making her stand. Joey can’t really stand yet, but supports her in spirit. She is like the Greta Thunberg of health. But nice. And sweet. And not at all annoying. Or punchable. Or Swedish.

And that left me here. With the virus everywhere and an appointment with the tennis court at 11. When it was positively pissing down. By 11.10 the rains had ceased (temporarily as it turned out), the sun had come out and the wind had risen to stupid levels of windiness. So we had a great game and ten minutes after we stopped the rains started once more. Storm Jorge. Because Spaniards can’t spell ‘George’. Or maybe George was used 4 storms ago. And apparently the main Met office is in Spain, so they get to name the storms. After Brexit we get to have storm Janet, John, Jane or Jennifer.

Happy stormy Saturday

A xxxx

I’m going to Africa. Sub-Saharan. Because it seems to be the only place in the world safe from Coronavirus. I appreciate I might get kidnapped by pirates, slaughtered in a military coup or eaten by a tiger, possibly even a tider if Lila comes with me, and even though there aren’t any in Africa, but at least its ‘safe’. From Corona! The map of the world is being painted red as it spreads. Italy has become plague-central, from where most of Europe has now become endangered. There’s doubts about the rugby tomorrow in Ireland because it involves Italians. And they’re bad news. I cancelled a pizza last night for fear of the virus. Schools are closing, particularly when they’ve had ski trips to Italy and the skiers have returned. Shares are plummeting in the wake of the effects of the virus on travel, productivity in China (the world’s factory) and a grim looking short-term future. So my pension pot will doubtless have halved once more, as it always does at such times. Meaning I’ll be working until I’m 173 to be worth a loaf of bread every fortnight.

But more importantly, what’ll happen about football? Do you want to be in the midst (and, although its gross to consider), in the ‘mist’ and ‘spray’ of 50,000 potential carriers as their spittle-filled shouting gets under way? What about the tube? Concerts? All ‘gatherings’. I think we need to ban them now, particularly if Arsenal are involved. On health grounds.

Everyone with a holiday coming up is ‘concerned’. Because we all need to spend 2 weeks locked in a hotel room in Benidorm to then be sent home and spend another two weeks in the Wirral. Anywhere but the Wirral!

I’m pretty sure Joey hasn’t got it, which is why I was eating him yesterday. I only hope, for his sake, and Lila’s, that I haven’t. Because I have realised that I am just an ‘in-yer-face’ kind of guy. Certainly and in-yer-face grandad. If the kids are on the floor, then that’s where you’ll find me. Never separated by more than 3 inches. I like proximity. Always have. It’s just that now I’ve found some people too small to run away like everyone else does. Mel’s only around because I have a taser.

Like most people, its not fear of getting Coronavirus that is the perceived problem. It’s the quarantine.

God Help Us Friday

A xxxx

OMGeeeeeee!!!!! Book flights now (Coronavirus notwithstanding) and let’s GO! It’s amazing. It’s the most… amazing (did I say that?), incredible, sensational, amazing (?), fantabulously incredulously stupendifying thing EVERRRRRR!!! And it opens in May. We just MUUUUUST go. Cancel plans, tell work, put the breast implants on hold for a month, leave the liposuction for this year, go heavy on the Botox and we’re going to Tyra Banks’s ModelLand!!!!! In LA!!!! Where we can be… MODELS!!!!! for a day. Or maybe even get ‘scouted’ while we’re there and stay forever!!!!! Once they see my potential, see that under 30 or 35 (ok, 42) unnecessary kilos, which I can lose in a minute, I have a beauty which only a catwalk could really do justice to. Ok, it’ll have to be a stronger catwalk than they need for the Bella Hadids of this world, but its America!!!! And they teach you how to model!!! Like, probably, both standing and, wait for it… WALKING!!!! OMG this is outrageous. I just can’t wait. We’ll need some ‘cover-up’ due to that annoying acne which, my doctor tells me, is ‘Pizza induced’. What rubbish. So I’ve bought the 5 litre economy bottle. And they do your MAKE UP!!! And hair!!! Like, professionally!!! And only costs $549 for the whole day!!! Or, for just $1495 they give you photos, orange juice (sorry: ‘signature blood orange beverage’!!) and a robe. I can be Claudia Schiffer for the day! Even though I look like Tyson Fury. But with a really great pout. Especially since my lip-filler has subsided from the ‘two Cumberland sausages on a plate’ look it first had. The girl in Tescos who did it told me it’d take a while to settle.
LA here we come!!!!

But I think its really healthy to take advantage of young women’s desperation for the celebrity lifestyle and aspirations of unattainable narcissistic goals. I’d be Zoolander for a day. Why not?

How long before no-one in the world is allowed to leave their homes because of Coronavirus? Hit squads dressed in surgical protective suits roaming the streets shooting anyone who moves. It’s getting scary.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

This is the idea, right? You have two (main, but really, only two) political parties. And they disagree with each other, that’s their job, but agree among themselves. That’s their duty. And only to the degree that their party are acting in the best interests of their constituents. And are morally on message.

And aren’t horrible, bullying tossers. Which in fact seems to be the new norm.

The conservatives have the luxury of a massive majority. Yet seem to be on a course to reshape Westminster into some bizarre, Dominic Cummings dreamworld in which no-one disagrees with anything he, not the Prime Minister, says or does. Thus the ongoing sackings of senior civil servants. Because they’re not ‘political’, because they’re not members of his party, because they are independent. Which is why they’re there. To put checks on the government. To reign in wayward ministers. But Cummings doesn’t want independents. He just wants people he can control.

Labour meanwhile are voting for a new leader after the worst defeat in political history. Iran has had less one-sided elections than our last one, and they only ever have one person standing, regardless of any other names that may appear.

To stay left or not to stay left, that is the question. Or, perhaps, how far left can the party remain without alienating three quarters of the country who instinctively reject living in a communist state. In the Corbyn inspired arrogance, their most-hated critic was Tony Blair. Yet Blair was the last labour leader to win electionS. Yes, more than one. Three times in fact. And could have won more if he hadn’t decided to pass the baton over to the charisma-free zone that was Gordon Brown. Yet Blair remains ‘the enemy’ of the present day, Momentum-backed Labour Party. So even should Kier Starmer, a (relative) moderate, should win, he is bound by the Labour Party Executive. Again these are not ‘politicians’ but horrors like Jenny Formby, unelected by real people, put there at the behest of the Unions.

And thus we will have no viable opposition party. And a government run by a right-wing nut-job. And Dominic Cummings.

I could hardly worry more if I was a West Ham supporter.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

‘Do you fancy going to see the Van Gogh exhibition at the South Bank? We’re free next Sunday afternoon?’ Which loosely translates as: YOU are taking ME to see the Van Gogh next Sunday regardless of whatever match Sky are showing at 4 and there’s no fucking debate!!!

I’m an art lover. Ok, I’m quite keen on football too. But to see ART, like real ART, is a passion in me on a parallel with my love for origami. Leaf pressing. Bark rubbing. Train spotting. Ok, so I’m not this pan-art devotee as such, but I’m… interested. Within certain parameters. Which are, roughly, non-exhaustively and subject to change on a whim: no bearded geezers in silly hats holding swords, no fat naked birds with cherubs, no Jesus & Marys (so that takes out the entire Renaissance period then, job done). I don’t like landscapes, portraits bore me and I hate ‘still life’. So that saves me from all the great masters in one sentence. If I wanna see trees I’ll go to the park. If I want ‘dark, smouldering skies’ I’ll look out the window, or raise my eyes above the East Stand at White Hart Lane. Don’t like pitchers’a boats, neither.

However, I do like an opportunity to see Oriental people in their natural environment. Which is at any tourist attraction in the world, taking endless photos of each other/themselves.

So we trundled down to Embankment and walked across the lovely Hungerford Bridge, trying to avoid getting blown into the River by the wind, because that way I can really appreciate that I am emphatically in Sarf Lundun. And reached the South Bank Centre. London’s premiere shrine to… to concrete. And because its South London there are no signs as to where you might need to go. So you walk round endless humongous buildings, all white concrete and you can’t really see where the Royal Festival Hall ends and the Hayward Gallery begins, but you just walk and then, Halleluyah. On a tent in a car park, next to the Ballet Rambert, you see a picture of Vincent himself.

Its called an ‘immersive exhibition’. And if I’m honest, it is fucking brilliant. Rather than just hang a few pictures on the walls, this is a walk through of Van Gogh’s short, brilliant and, obviously, rather strange life. Illustrated by massive screens showing his work, but also showing where he lived, what he was doing, and narrated in headphones by his own words, taken from the 800 letters he wrote to his brother. It’s such a wonderfully creative way to honour the man. Those clever Dutch people brought the exhibition over with them. And its fab. I fully expected the last ‘room’ to have a load of straight razors where, to a soundtrack of maybe ‘Stuck in the middle with you’, visitors could have the ‘full experience’ by cutting off their own ears. Which is why they don’t let me design exhibitions.

An added bonus was that in the match I would have watched, Arsenal beat Everton. And no-one wants to see that.

Despite my iron-clad rules and regulation for art, I love Van Gogh’s work, even though they’re all portraits, landscapes and fruit. It’s all about the texture. You really should go.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

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