Andy's Glasses

I love a happy ending. Especially when its a totally undeserved, unwarranted, ridiculously happy ending that is as surprising as it is a testament to corporate stupidity.

We applied for a new life assurance. In case we want to murder each other. Double Indemnity kind’a deal. With Zurich Life. They wanted to send round medical people for check-ups to make sure we were both alive. So they sent us appointments. Or rather, the outsource company they used for medical people sent appointments. And mine was an email with “2.30pm Tuesday 17th March”. No wriggle room, no negotiation, not asking ‘when’s good?’, just middle of a working day. So I rejected. And they sent me another. 1.56am on Sunday 9th. Tossers. So I called them and said ‘what have you got?’ and I’ll find one that suits. THIS IS CURRENTLY VERY SILLY. But they don’t do that. They find some random doctor, ask him when he has 45 minutes to come to my house for a cup of tea and send me that, and only that, time as an offer.

Meanwhile, Zurich are emailing me regularly, nagging me to have my medical. This was in March.

I emailed back saying not to nag me, instead use an efficient company capable of making an appointment.

I heard back from Zurich telling me how they were ‘starting a complaint procedure’. Yeah, whatever.

March turned to April, April to May, and eventually a doctor came round on a Sunday morning, just after tennis, nice lady who stuck me with needles, hooked me up to machines and stole some of my urine! when I wasn’t looking.

I then had a letter from Zurich telling me how sorry they are to hear about my ‘problem’ and I’d be hearing from them within 6 weeks, 10 weeks, whatever. BUT, if I was really pissed off I was given details for the financial ombudsman. Yeah, for a problem with an appointment-making company who can’t make appointments. I wrote them back and said medical’s done, forget the complaint, it was nothing.

Joey was born, then it was June. And we eventually decided against the new policy, sticking with our old one instead. Case closed.

Until yesterday. When I heard from Zurich. Who are nothing if not thorough. Oh, yeah, there’s slow, don’t forget slow. And they said how sorry they are that months ago I had a bad moment. And as I was just about to shred the letter, the last paragraph caught my eye. “… so in copensation we’ll pay you £75 for your bother. Please send details for payment…”

Seventy five quid will never feel so sweet. I might spend it on a doctor’s appointment. Just because.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Trump’s latest series of tweets telling four Americans to ‘go back where they came from’ is a wonderful thing. It’s a thing of the past. A thing of ignorance and intolerance. And of course, as is everything ‘he’ does, it is very divisive.

What it isn’t is a simple thing. No mere stupid, off the cuff racist comment. But something more calculated, more intentional, more… more Trump.

The very phrase ‘go back where you came from’ would never be shouted at a white person. (In America, obvs, in Nigeria it would be different). Even if that white person is from Poland, Argentina, Glasgow. It can only be said to those who are outwardly ‘different’ in appearance. And the fact that 3 of the four told to ‘return!’ are American born, it actually makes it worse. It makes it ‘go back to the land of your ancestors’ implying that none of them/you belong ‘here’.

The native Americans could tell people to ‘go back where they came from’ and that would be more acceptable. But Trump said it, and said it to ‘The Squad’. The four Democrat congresswomen ‘of colour’. But the problem is that the Squad, essentially, started the whole thing. They are overly defensive and sensitive to all matters regarding race and use it at the forefront of all they do. Quite aggressively. They introduced the race card, and Trump now trumped it. The four women question the Declaration of Independence on grounds of it being racist and sexist, they attack ‘white America’ at every opportunity and, obviously, because they’re ‘radical left wingers’ (by American standards, Corbyn they ain’t), they’re very anti-Israel too.

And Trump’s tweet is very calculated indeed. For the same reason that very few Republicans have come out to censure the pres. over his tweet, it must be assumed that a vast majority of Americans are receptive to the whole ‘go back where you came from’ thing. Its not quite Mississippi Burnin’ but its a phrase that resonates with those whose idea of multi-culturalism is people from Alabama AND Tennessee. And they vote Donald. Yet another shit-storm that will not damage Donald’s re-election chances one little bit. He’s so stupid he’s almost clever again.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

When you ride a bike you feel free. With the wind. Ecologically ‘on-message’. Pollution free. You are holier than all those thous in their toxic, polluting, climate-changing cars, vans, buses and aeroplanes. But when you’re in a car, those same bikes are a pest. They are insects to be trodden on. They are IN THE FUCKING WAY.

Well in Berlin they escalate the ‘bike issue’ to a new level. Like most European cities it is very bikey. It’s pretty flat and cycle lanes abound making it as safe as it can ever be. The emigrant daughter uses a bike as her chosen mode of transportation. But when its raining, or freezing (Berlin knows how to do both) or when you don’t have your bike with you, there is a plan B. In fact there is B, C, D, E and F. Possibly G and H. Because Berlin is so cool that it caters to people’s needs.

So you see everywhere, rental bikes. Like Boris bikes. Wolfgang Bikes. Whatever. And they come in ‘normal’ or ‘lectric versions. With Uber bikes and many others providing short-term bikes with battery power. Electric scooters. Shit-loads of them. Actual motor scooters with engines, which rent with a helmet. (Or a Helmut). And all available for the duration of your journey. Pick it up in one German sounding place name, drop it off in another, click ‘lock’ on your phone and you’re off. Unburdened. Credit card charged a paltry amount and when you want to return to Aufweiderseinplatzstrasse later on, you just jump on something else. They’re on every street corner.

And it works with cars too. We ‘took’ a car for our parliament tour. The daughter clicked her ‘drive now’ app, which showed 3 cars within a 5 minute walk from her flat. Do we want a convertible mini (its raining), a BMW i3 or a Mercedes B class? Who cares? We too the mini, drove to the Reichstag, parked it outside (pretty much) and pressed ‘lock’. That cost 4.5 Euros (they don’t use pounds in Berlin, strangely). Tube fairs for the three of us would have cost about 8. Not sure how much it would have cost to get Mel on a bike. At least 3 new handbags and some shoes. Probably.

And we used others. Because its so easy and so cheap. But why it works is because of the fantastically almost non-existent parking regulations there. Because obviously you have to leave the car somewhere legal. And over there its virtually anywhere. Can you imagine renting a car and going to Leicester Square? Mansion House? Westminster?? Journey time 22 minutes, parking time 3 hours 24, ending up in a safe space outside your house. The only available one in London.

And that feels like a freedom. A big freedom. Which is part of the Berlin story. A big part. They let you do what you want to do. I like that. A lot.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

What do you keep in your shoes? Ok, your feet. That’s generally the case. But what about when you pack for a trip? Do you ‘fill’ your shoes, as I do? Or do you leave them empty just in case a group of uniformed security border controllers mistake a bottle of baby powder (yeah! Why not?? You got a problem with that???), a 3 socket USB plug, two charge leads and a pair of electric toothbrushes as a BOMB!!!! Well it may be time to reconsider the latter option, as I sit here at Berlin Tegel airport relieved to be a free man. Because they stopped my bag in the scanner and it stayed stopped. And they called a few other bods. Then a big bod (every sense of the word) and everything else in the airport stopped. They all stood back from my case. Called over another dude wearing rubber gloves, at which point I thought ‘NOOOOOOOO’ but he just swabbed the outside of the case. I’m not a generally anxious or nervous person, but a group of armed, uniformed men shouting in German just… just… just.

They opened the case, very carefully, very gingerly, and found that the heap of electronic shit in my shoes was less about explosives, more about ergonomics. More stuff into less space. Well, said ‘the nice one’, perhaps its best not to load things into shoes when you pack your carry-on. But… but… but…

Berlin. It is just the coolest city in the world. My home is always London but my heart is in Kreuzberg. And my daughter too, so that’s nice. It is just a city of such startling contrasts, as exemplified by this photo taken in the affluent, almost opulent area of Rosenthalerplatz. The ultra-modern, super high-tech and the derelict remnant of an old house which survived the war and the Russians, but only just. And that photo is pretty much the perfect metaphor for the city. Yet everywhere you go there are little surprises. Areas along the river with a bar, coffee shop and just generally ‘heaps of cool’, in what was ready for demolition last year. The parks are fab, the restaurants, cafes and bars abundant and pretty uniformly great value if not exactly cheap.

Yesterday, according to records, we walked a total of 16.2kms. We started at the Reichstag for a 9am tour and went on from there. The tour was incredible, comprehensive and educational. In that when Germans of today talk of Hitler and the Hitler years, they are talking about ‘them’ and never ‘us’. They treat him, and that whole era, as the most important, catastrophic and horrendous lessen ever to be learned.

Then we walked, we ate, we had ice creams, we ate more and we just managed to squeeze in the two longest sporting events in sporting event history. The tennis? Holy shit! And the cricket??? OMGeeeeee…

We (that’s the English, not British, not pre-Hitlerite, not post-Hitlerite, not Berliners, not anyone else but our ‘royal’ we) are the World Champions. Amazing all round.

On the way home now. Shame. Love it here.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Ok, these things are the ones that will kill you: smoking, obesity and…

Yes, there’s a new ‘social killer’ on the block and its not, like, ‘buses stepped in front of’ or ‘people with knives’ or even ‘slow death by Brexit’. No, its lack of sleep. Because apparently we Brits don’t sleep enough. Only whilst we’re at the wheel of a car, and that don’t count. It’s proper sleep. In bed. Sleeping. So the government, having bored us to the point of mass, collective suicide over the ways to keep us alive (irony? what fucking irony) by excessive regulation and information, are now going to send in the sleep police. Different from a ‘sleeping policeman’. They ruin your car suspension. Sleep police will just render you numb from the boredom induced by excessive nanny-statism and repeated messaging. Repeated messaging. Repeated messaging…

“Failure to sleep between 7 and 9 hours a night is associated with: strokes, obesity, heart attacks, depression, anxiety…” But supporting Spurs gives most of us that same level of risk EVERY SODDING WEEK, but they don’t legislate for that. And really, 7 hours sleep? Lila barely sleeps for that in one go. And her poor mum, like any other mother-of-newborn, counts 2 hours as a miracle sent down by the Lord God him(/her) self. I know loads of people who get by on 5/6 hours a night max. Ok, they’re all in hospital suffering with the above… but really they’re not. They just ‘need less sleep’. Although in future those people and other insomniacs may be subject to arrest because the government will decide what we ‘need’, thank you very much.

But Labour deputy leader, Brother/Comrade Tom Watson is a bit of a case in point. Not about sleep but health and stuff generally. Having gone from an immense lard-bucket obese fat fuck with type 2 diabetes to a svelte and pert little size zero with, credit to him, no more diabetes, all in a year or so. Yet for some, namely Corbyn, McDonnell, Dippy Diane, (the team number-cruncher), Tom is a bad person. Because Tom said that perhaps Jenny Formby, head of Labour’s National Executive, should reveal all to both him and to the EHRA inquiry into anti-semitism and she’s been a bit slow/stupid/non-existent in the anti-anti-semitism department. To which Abbott & Co said how shameful and uncaring and rotten of Watson to speak such things whilst Formby is undergoing chemotherapy.

And I have all sympathy for anyone undergoing the horrendous brutalities of chemo, even hateful, duplicitous and morally questionable chairpeople of parties so mired in their own amazing levels of bureaucratic spiralism and party denialism that they can’t notice how the ridiculous repetition of ‘we are opposed to all forms of racism’ has as much validity as if it was chanted by white-robed and be-hooded members of the KKK as they burnt another cross in Mississippi. Actions generally speak much louder than words. And Jenny Formby, like all the others, has taken no action worth speaking about. Though I wish her well on a personal level. Which is totally irrelevant to questioning any actions in her job.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Its a funny thing. Summertime in the City gets very quiet, particularly on Fridays. People ‘working from home’ (phah), taking a day off to have a long weekend, its always the same. Come Friday the City quietens down. Which is fine for the commute but another indication of how work patterns have changed and are changing. Because so many people can work from anywhere. Ok, not the dustman, nor the hamburger flipper necessarily, but for many officey tasks you are no longer required in the office. You can do them at home. Or, as half the tossers round here seem to do, perform them on their phones whilst blocking public walkways and stepping obliviously out into busy main roads. I’ve renamed them. Didn’t like ‘zombies’. Its an insult to zombies. I like ‘tit-in-a-trance’. Because that’s exactly what it looks like.

But in between the work bits (or possibly during them, for those ‘working from home’) there’s always the tennis and the cricket. Those bastions of the British Summer. And in the cricket ‘we’ the English team, have made it to the world cup final. Which would be sweeter than sweet at the best of times. But its being played here, making it even lovelier, and best of all, we didn’t merely beat the Australians in the semi-final but summarily thrashed them. And so brilliantly. By bowling them all out and then scoring a shit-load of runs in a very short time. That’s the ‘abridged’ match report.

And at Wimbledon today there is THE MATCH of all matches. Roger Federer playing Rafa Nadal in the semi-final. First time they’ve played since the final here in 2008. Widely regarded as ‘the best tennis match ever’. Consequently the tickets today are changing hands at up to £17,000 a seat. Which makes my 175 quid BBC license fee seem like the bargain of a fucking lifetime.

I can’t wait for the finals of the mens and womens tennis (equal opportunity sports watcher… for some sports) and the cricket. So excited that I’ll be in Berlin. Where I’d imagine there won’t be too much excitement about the tennis and they don’t know what cricket means. Note to self: in future check the full diary of ALL sports before booking anything. Though a weekend with the ‘daughter less seen’ will be wonderful.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

‘This Wimbledon is the best ever! But isn’t it? Really??’

We have this conversation every year. Its always brilliant but the one that’s before your very eyes is, by its sheer immediacy and total… there-ness, the absolute best. Best shots, best rallies, best dresses, best thing to watch, RIGHT NOW, with no reverting to memory or knowledge or even thinkin’. Coco Gauff. We’ve never had her before. Serena… yeah, been round the block a few times but still the most awesome Ladies’ player ever. With no competition whatsoever. And a character. So unlike the 486 blonde, pony-tailed (though different pony tails from the footballers), hard-faced, semi-robotic East Europeans who are generic, ubiquitous and therefore completely interchangeable. Just doesn’t matter. Federer? Playing, at 37 years of age(!!!) like a man of… 36. And Nadal, still playing like a Spaniard and Djokovich, still… Djokovich.

And its brilliant and we love it. And it takes us away. To a brighter, shinier, cleaner, nicer place. Where there’s no Brexit, there’s no Farage. No Trump. No Conservative leadership bollocks and NO BREXIT.

And no Tommy Robinson. Mainly because he was in court today, rather than on court today (tennis joke: ha, ha, haaaa…)

He’s the leader of the English Defense League, which is a political…something, standing in a non-racist, non-segregationist, non-neo-nazi way for good, honest, lower class, working (or claiming benefits) white people who farkin’ hate immigrants, forinners, darkies, chinks, spics, wops and injuns. And Tommy, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, but doesn’t use that because hyphens don’t go down too well in the company he chooses to keep, was in the High Court today after his appeal to the contempt of court sentence he received a while ago. So his ‘supporters’ marched down Fleet Street today to drink beer. And show their support. And their tattoos. Lots of both. So I went and mingled with my fellow countrymen. Then came in and took a long, hot shower. Must have been a thousand people. Which, as well as showing what great support there is for extreme right-wing thought (if they ‘think’ at all), I find terribly depressing.

One Tommy Robinson, there’s only one Tommy Robinson… repeat until you fall over drunk.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Boris Johnson doesn’t play tennis. He thinks he does, in those ridiculous pink floral shorts, but he doesn’t. He’s as ‘sporty’ as a kilo of extra-mature cheddar. To play tennis you have to look like Roger Federer. Or like me. You have to have grace, elegance, a tennis racquet, style, a winning serve and a winning smile. Boris fails on all but the racquet. Slouching around like Igor in a Frankenstein movie. Though at least Igor could manage to keep his shirt tucked in.

To be Prime Minister you need none of the above.Which is good news for Boris, shurely our next PM, shuuuurely? The mere fact that he hasn’t shot himself in the foot during the leadership hustings with some almost-Islamophobic rant or diplomatic faux pas means he’ll probably breeze right in, in 2 weeks time when the results come in. And Boris will win not because he’s in any way ‘better’ than Jeremy Hunt, but purely on the grounds that he’ll (hopefully, probably, possibly) be able to beat Corbyn or whoever in the next general election.

Oddly, Boris has come out against Sir Kim Darroch for calling Trump ‘inept’. Which is itself a bit odd as Boris himself said similar things about the POTUS implying, if not actually stating, the ‘tosser’ status of the great man. Hunt is supportive of the Ambassador in Washington and has offered ‘strong words’ against Trump’s tirade against Theresa May. Who, other than putting the Ambassador there, has very little to do with that or anything else any longer.

But that’s Trump. Like a scolded child he has to retaliate. And against anyone. In Trumpworld one Brit’s the same as the next, right? So pick on Theresa and use Brexit as the medium of your displeasure because Brexit is the universal shit-storm of which every single member of parliament is in some way guilty.

Boris ‘will take us out of Europe on 31st October’, deal or no deal!!! How he’ll do that I have no idea because leaving is subject to parliamentary approval and getting that for the ‘no deal’ scenario, with Labour now actually unified against it and with a parliamentary majority of about 3, and that’s with the Irish, less at least half a dozen Tories pledged to vote against such a thing… well, you do the maths. But Boris is high on ‘optimism’ (his word), possibly low on realism. Probably ‘cloud-fucking-cuckoo-landism’ (my word) and feels ‘confident’. Just like Theresa May felt every time she went to Europe or put her ‘deal’ before parliament.

I don’t care who runs the country, long as its not Corbyn. But my personal preference would in fact be Roger Federer.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

So you leave home Monday morning, earlier than usual due to staff shortages, but you’re buoyed by the lovely weekend, spirits lifted like the American women lifting the World Cup (female variety) on Sunday afternoon, its bright and sunny, Wimbledon’s around and it feels like ‘there’s everything to play for’. Then you arrive at the tube station. Where there, waiting for you, on the platform, all 6 million of the viewers of Sunday’s football final. Not cheering but now wearing civvies and looking a bit more miserable than they were in Lyon, but all of them. Because there were no trains. Well, none forthcoming. But fortunately, this was Transport for London. And they, above all others, know the value of information, of keeping people aware of circumstances, making their travelers know every option and alternative possible in the light of the very obvious problem, and helping them navigate around it.

They said nothing. Not a fucking word. Not even that there was a problem. Though it didn’t take an Einstein to work out the massively large numbers of people milling round were relatively unusual. So we had to guess. The describer boards showed all trains going ‘via Bank’, even though we later learned that there was no southbound service at all, whatsoever, on the Bank branch. Lucky its a ‘live system’ otherwise there could be ambiguity.

I limped into work. Having learned from the driver that there’d been a ‘points failure’ at Kennington. Phah! Bloody points! Kennington! Phah!

Coming home I checked to make sure they’d fixed ’em. Sent a geezer with a hi-viz jacket, hard hat and soldering iron to do the biz, only to learn that the Northern Line now, is suspended in another part, due to signal failure at Archway. On ‘my bit’. Where I need to be. But by circuitous re-routing and clever planning (called ‘a bus’) I made it home.

This morning it was worse. Much worse. Not sure if this was the points or the signals but they suspended the entire Northern Line south of Camden. Which is basically, the bit everyone needs to get to. But its ok. They apologised for ‘any inconvenience’ so that’s fine. As was the clear and concise messages, notices and instructions. Which said, essentially, ‘huh??’

Meanwhile, the tennis brilliant this year, which I say every year, but it really is. The cricket is reaching its climax. And the women’s world cup finished with… with… with the end. And it was ok, and it was physical and brutal and… almost exciting at times. But as good (as the real thing? shhhhhh)? In a ‘pay equality’ kind’a way? Hmmmm…

Happy Northern Line

A xxxx

When you read about Italian food, they seldom mention whose side that nation fought on in the war. Similarly, you rarely find a Siamese restaurant, not cos the food’s shit but just because they call it ‘Thai’. In reviews of American diners or purveyors of vast quantities of smoked meats (America doesn’t really do ‘cuisine’ as such, more ‘obscene’), its unlikely to mention the slaughter and dispossession of any native Americans. Same with Australia. Not the quantities, just the attitude, talk about their food (prawns… barby….) but don’t mention the Aborigines.

And yet if you write about Palestinian food (Times Magazine, today), you are perfectly at liberty to throw in as many political statements as a bowl of hummus, 100 grams of za’atar and some delicious flat bread, soaked in olive oil, can stand. And most of the comments, discreetly but potently used in throw-away manner whilst extolling the virtues of the perfect falafel, are wrong. Just over-used tropes. Just a load of bollocks, purporting to be a ‘right on’ understanding of the world, by some quasi-leftish (leftish? In The Times???) tart(e) jumping on some perceived PC bandwagon.

Who visited ‘Palestine’, (which doesn’t exist), ate like a pig and missed no opportunity to mention walls, deprivation, refugees, impossible border crossings and the unfairness of life. Which is fine. If you’re writing an informed political piece on the middle-east and balance it with mention perhaps of Hamas? Without whom there’d be no need for a fucking wall and before whom there in fact wasn’t one. No mention that all these ‘refugees’ are so at their own choice, all having been offered life as Israeli citizens in 1948 in the same houses they’d lived in for all their lives. And finally lost what remained of Palestine in 1967 after a war that they initiated.

But its not the accuracy or stupidity that galls me. It’s the assumption that you can’t write about Palestinian (works as an adjective, just not as a noun) food without criticising Israel but in no other area of the world would such comment be in any way acceptable. Slagging off Israel, good or bad, is in fact acceptable. It’s when you ONLY slag off Israel that people like me start setting fire to newspaper magazine articles.

Happy fucking Sunday; grrrrrrrrr…

A xxxx