Andy's Glasses

Well I’m sorry if I’m late today, Jesus! So you had to read the newspaper on the tube instead, big fucking deal! I’m not solely in charge of your morning reading matter, I have RESPONSIBILITIES. Even if I’m consistently the most irresponsible person I know. Not the point. You’re important, but when I get a call to see if I can take Lila to school due to ‘logistical difficulties’ then I’m out the bleedin’ door in a second! Then I return, put my shoes on, possibly a jacket, and I’m off again. LILA NEEDS MEEEEEEEE!!!!!

I call it ‘school’. She’s two and a half and its probably just ‘nursery’. But she’s clever. Recognises all her letters and numbers and can perform simple calculus on the binomial expansion. While she’s watching Pepper Pig. And she can speak french. Well, she can say ‘croissant’. Fluently.

So this morning I became a ‘school-run-mum’. It’s easy. I swapped Mel’s Mini for a 19 seater Hummer, took it down all the roads it doesn’t fit into, ran over 4 cyclists, 9 pedestrians and three policemen, parked RIGHT OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE (I’ve upgraded her again), on a triple yellow line, across a zebra crossing, with people on it.

I could have taken an Uber. But this morning they lost their license to operate in London. Ok, it wasn’t ‘with immediate effect’ but I like to obey the letter of any law COMPLETELY.

Because I believe in Transport for London. TFL. I believe that even though they are the same company which licenses, controls and sets fares for black cabs, Uber represent ‘no conflict of interest’ to them. They’re bigger than that. They’re above that. And are only concerned about our ‘safety’.

Because Uber employ men to drive. Well, not ‘employ’ in the usual sense… and you can’t trust men. Even though a vast majority of Black cab drivers are men too. They’re different men. More… womanly? more… gentle? (ever met a taxi driver??) And although Uber do stringent checks on all their drivers, as do Hackney Carriages, Uber’s don’t count because…

And furthermore, the argument that ‘my daughter can’t afford taxis coming home from a club at 4am but gets Ubers all the time’ is just not something TFL consider anything to do with ‘safety’. These daughters can get the night tube. Which, when it runs, would leave them just a 3 hour walk from home. And its perfectly safe. Drunk men, when not vomiting, are notoriously safe travel companions for any young woman. Or they could save up for a few months and get a ‘proper taxi’ home.

So ‘we’ (and I speak for all of London here; well, at least the 3 million Uber users among us) are happy that TFL are looking after us so carefully and concerned with our safety. And understand that such decisions are not in any way made because neo-Corbynite Sadiq Khan just hates high-value, American start-ups. Nothing about that at all.

Well done TFL.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

You only sing when you’re winnin’;
Sing when you’re wiii-nnin…
(Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat.)

I LOVE JOSE MORINHO!!! He’s our saviour, our Lord, our GOD and the best manager that football has ever known! He’s pretty, he’s clever, he’s wonderful, he’s ‘modest’ and HE WINS.

As he did yesterday. For Spurs. At an away match. The first away win since January in the league for Spurs. Which part of me hated (a really, really small part) because it seemed to vindicate the horrible decision to sack Poch. And I really haven’t come to terms with Jose at all. Can’t understand that when this man that I’ve hated for decades says ‘we’, he’s talking about MY Spurs.

There is a Morinho ‘pattern’, which always starts with a win. Always. And with wins comes the charm. And indeed the ‘modesty’. And the nonchalance, the gushing praise for ‘his’ players, the happiness and light. And as long as we keep winning this will endure. But if we start to lose…

I don’t even want to think about it. I just want to enjoy the moment. That first 60 minutes of yesterday’s game. When, for the first time certainly this season, and at least the second half of the last one, we looked like Spurs. Proper Spurs. Full of skill and speed and pressing and passing and flicking and overlapping and… and… and…

It was just wonderful to watch. Didn’t matter that it was only West Ham. A team for which I sincerely have nothing but the utmost… contempt, because it could have been any team. We just flew out of the blocks and started the assault. Gave them not a second, not a breath. Barely a chance for any of their thugs to even draw back his fist before 6 flowing passes had taken the play 70 yards away. The beautiful game had never looked more beautiful than in that first half. Absence indeed made the heart grow fonder.

And Jose can be ‘modest’, can say ‘it was just the players, nothing to do with me’, because the headlines in all media have already stated that ‘Jose did it!!!’ He has no need to embellish.

So although I’m not yet sure of the whole Jose thing, I’m thrilled with yesterday and so pleased that at least we’ve prevented Arsenal from getting a possibly brilliant manager at a time when their world, albeit from one place, one point above us, looks on the verge of total collapse.

The (immediate) future looks (fairly) bright. I’m a Spurs fan. Not ready to ‘commit’ yet.

Very Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Jeremy Corbyn is officially ‘Brexit-neutral’. He said so yesterday. Which, like ‘gender-neutral’ is a pretty worthless and annoying thing to be. Everyone has a gender, whether they choose to deploy it or not, and thus everyone has a view on Brexit, however woolly and sitting-on-fences they appear to be. But I like the idea of Brexit-neutral. Similarly I heard another wonderful expression the other day, from a rather large woman with whom I was eating chocolate (I never claimed to be a good example to anyone). She described herself as ‘trans-slender’. And as euphemisms go; its a goody.

The anti-semitism within the Labour Party is vast, catalogued, video-taped and covers acres of paper. Yet the esteemed leader is still not so much in denial and stuck in a broken record of ‘we’re opposed to all forms of racism’ hell on a tape loop. He says it all the time. In the same way a KKK member could be saying ‘I’m opposed to all forms of discrimination’ as he’s stringing up a black man to a tree. Meaningless words.

So now the ‘Jewish Voice for Labour’ have appealed to all Jews to vote for Labour and are telling them that ‘there is no anti-semitism!!!’ How is it anti-Semitic to stereotype and persecute Jewish people, issuing violent threats against them and forcing them out of the party? How on Earth could that be misunderstood as some form of ‘anti-semitism’?? Some people are just sooooo sensitive…

They also said ‘if an anti-Jewish march took place down Cable Street today (famous march of Moseley’s brown-shirts in the 30s when the dockers came along to support the Jews and beat the shit out of the fascists) do you think Corbyn would be anywhere but on the side opposing the fascists???’ An interesting question. But if you want to properly contemporise the issue, which side would JC march on if it was an anti-Jewish march in Cable Street by the present inhabitants who are predominantly Muslim?

So deny all you will, Corbyn, the anti-semitism was/is real, whether you choose to accept that or not. By just stating your opposition is to deny the problem exists. And if it doesn’t exist then it doesn’t need any attention. Not after Shami Chakrabarti’s extensive whitewash.

Today is possibly the biggest game for Spurs in 5 years. New manager. New broom. New team. New everything. Well, except the fans. We’re the same. You can’t buy us for a few million quid!!! (If only). And I have spent the week studiously ignoring all articles about Jose, turning away from ‘why Pochettino had to go’ bullshit and generally adopting the ostrich principle about the whole thing. Because I still love Poch deeply and simply cannot actually accept that Morinho is now our manager.

Of course, if we win, I reserve the right to reconsider my options. Which aren’t many anyway, as I don’t get to vote in this one. Just the other one.

Happy, rainy Saturday

A xxxx

According to sources, (cos I wouldn’t read it under torture), yesterday’s Daily Male contained 11 pages of ‘news’ about Prince Andrew, 7 pages about Spurs and 6 about the general election. Ok, its a shitty newspaper but I think really that’s the state of the gossip in the nation. Particularly this part of the nation. In North London. Not sure what the general population (ie non-football fans) in Huddersfield think about Jose Morinho’s appointment but its probably ‘not much’. We down here also think ‘not much’ but in a completely different way. And the people of Huddersfield have bigger concerns, like getting a new chancellor for their university. As the old one (Prince Andrew) has… errrr… he’s been… well, let’s just say is ‘no longer fit for purpose’. At such an esteemed seat of learning. He’s only good at turning a fender-bender into a total international, catastrophic train-wreck with no survivors. How’d that interview go, Andy?

Jeremy Corbyn’s manfesto is… is BRILLIANT!! It promises the world and offers EVERYTHING we, the public need. He’ll take a few bob here from the billionaires (everyone hates them) and a couple quid a week from there (massive corporations… hmmmm… even though they seem to employ more than just a few ‘workers’) and borrow a bit from… some other people (foreigners really, don’t count as real money) and in return WE (the entire nation of good Britishers) get free fucking broadband!! AND better broadband than they get in… Starbucks!!! Though Starbucks will have left the country by then because of increased corporation tax capital gains tax. The NHS will get all their ambulances polished every week (£6billion a year) and nurses will get shorter skirts on their uniforms to make it more like ‘Carry On Doctor’. (£9 bil). He’s also taking back the post office, the gas and electric, the trains and possibly McDonalds in the ‘FREE BIG MACS FOR EVERYBODY!!!’ giveaway. (£22 bil).

So you can google to your heart’s content whilst getting fat. And all FREE!!!

Students will pay NOTHING for ANYTHING; tuition, books, pencils, computers, drugs, booze and lawyers to defend the rape charges. All free. (£77 bil).

The old will get all the care they need, starting at age 49 when full, final-salary pensions kick in, plus carers and all bills paid (£486 bil).

Those in between the students and the ‘old’ will get more things, great things, big things, wonderful things.

And all at a total cost of…

The complete removal of incentive, inspiration, career aspiration and most job creation.

Surely that’s not too high a price?

VOTE LABOUR.

A xxxx

So what happened yesterday was that two men left their offices for good. Stepped down from public life. One was Prince Andrew, the disgraced royal befriender of paedophiles, the other was Mauricio Pochettino, the former manager and Demi-god of Tottenham Hotspur football club. And I think the replacement went to the wrong place.

Rather than coming to Spurs, I feel Jose Morinho would be a much better fit at Buckingham Palace. He’s pompous, arrogant and never admits his mistakes. He thinks himself ‘special’ and acts as if he owns the place. The royals actually do ‘own the place’, so I think that Jose should be transferred immediately to the Royal Family as Prince Andrew’s replacement and Spurs can look elsewhere for a manager.

Who might be less… ‘pragmatic’ in style. Ok, pragmatism apparently wins trophies but there’s more to life than trophies. I fear that Jose may take my team of highly skilled and artful individuals and turn them in a collective bus-parking operation.

Whereas Prince Andrew’s interview with Emily Maitlis went so well he’s actually considering another. If you can believe. To ‘clear the air’ that was so heavily polluted by his last interview. The absolute low point of which, in my eyes, was when he described Jeffrey Epstein’s behaviour as ‘unbecoming’. As Emily was quick to point out; ‘he’s a sex offender!!’. A paedophile. A child abuser. ‘Unbecoming’ is when you wear the wrong colour tie. Unbecoming is when you fall over at a ball after too much champers. Not when you abuse children then pass them round to your sick and evil mates to do likewise. That’s so far south of ‘unbecoming’ as to be positively Antarctic.

Fortunately for both Jose and Andrew, there’ll be lots of money around for whatever they choose to do. The political parties are falling over themselves to offer ‘bribes’ to the electorate in terms of tax breaks, hand-outs, benefits, housing, health service improvements, better trains, roads, sewers, more police, shit-loads of teachers, old-age care, free nursery places, everything… which can never be implemented if they stay in government for 90 years.

I know its what electioneering is all about, promises made to be broken. But its kind of wrong. It could almost be read as ‘lying’. But I’d never use such a term. Instead they use an euphemism for telling outrageous untruths. It’s the word ‘manifesto’. Which translates from the original Aromaic as: talking such bullshit as flying pigs.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Well there’s certainly one way to forget about the election, forget about Brexit, about Labour, Corbyn, McDonnell, forget about Hong Kong, even forget about Prince Andrew. Just sack your team’s manager and everything else becomes unimportant, trivial, almost meaningless. But even that truly massive, globally humongous, tragically earth-shattering event almost pales into insignificance when the new manger is introduced to the world.

Jose Fucking Morinho. To give him his full title. ‘The Special One’.

The king is dead, long live the unbalanced, psychiatrically-challenged, terminally-whingeing Portugeezer.

But I come to praise Pochettino, not to bury him. (Sorry, Julius). Because all Spurs fans simply love the man, with all our hearts and souls. He took a team with promise but no spine, with money but no sense of value, with physicality but no endurance and turned all that potential into something remarkable, something impressive, something wonderful. And all the while speaking (mainly Spanish) with intelligence, with humour, with class and most importantly and unusually, with humility. He is what is known as ‘a mensch’. He improved the team’s fitness to the point where we were fitter, faster, more active than any other team. We became the Duracell Bunnies of the Premier League. We had to in order to play the ‘high press’ game that signified those wonderful 3 years. Which all ended in January this year. No-one knows why, but turn to shit it did.

But alas January happened. And whether due to dressing room issues (sleeping with another player’s wife can do that, if it happened) or due to transfer rumours and intentions, the ‘love’, which had been so strongly and constantly evident during the Poch years, simply ended. And after the break this season just carried on in the same abysmal way, which has been awful to see. Mainly for Daniel Levy. So Poch had to go. Causing tears to flow in every single Spurs fan.

And then he appointed Morinho last night, and the crying increased. As Tory-boy succinctly stated: ‘we’ve enjoyed trophyless glory, maybe time for gloryless trophies’.

Because Morinho is famous for two things: winning trophies, which he has done at every club he’s managed in the last 16 years; and cracking up under any strain and blaming his players, individually and collectively, for anything bad that happens. Or the team doctor. Anyone. The former we can forgive, the second we may have to adjust to.

His contract is for 4 years. That’s the pay he’ll get. The duration of his stay may be much less. It’s the Morinho way.

This headline in today’s paper lifted my spirits no end. I’M STILL MIDDLE-AGED!!!! And so is Jose.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

The debate is tonight. And I can see it degenerating into a shouting match. Because really, Boris and Jezza hate each other. As they should. I hate both of them. And its pretty easy to do.

Boris was a child of privilege. Eton, Oxford, learned his manners and feminism at the Bullingdon Club, went on to be a professional pompous person, hack and funny man. Which remains his only endearing trait. He’s dishonest, will shag anyone (and really its quite amazing that anyone would ever want to), and changes political stance like most of us change underwear.

Corbyn was born with a placard in his hands and is the only recorded neo-Nate to come into the world already wearing a duffel coat. He went to school but wasn’t very clever, and didn’t bother with college or university. Though if he had it would have been to the Polytechnic of Somewhere Really Unglamorous in some bleak northern town which never recovered from pit closures. Instead he joined the Labour Party. And the Socialist Party. And the CND. And started a life of protest against establishment and oppression. For some reason this allied him to anyone with a cause. The IRA, communist regimes in any country, radical Islamic jihadi movements, anyone. The only form of ‘oppression’ he didn’t oppose was that perpetrated in the name of communism.

And that’s it. They could have included Farage, but he’s a bad and horrible man, they could have invited Nicola Sturgeon but everyone hates her, and really they should have had Jo Swinson. In case they need some tea or cleaning up. I can’t see why else you’d want the esteemed leader of the LibDems present at a ‘presidential’ debate. She took someone to the high court over this omission (though who exactly do you sue? And on what grounds??) and was over-ruled. So she’s not allowed. She’s also very unpopular and according to polls, becomes more unpopular every time she speaks. Not just because she’s Scottish, but probably because she’s very annoying and won’t stop banging on about ‘remaining’ even though the nation voted the opposite.

Maybe when Sturgeon takes Scotland out of the Union, Swinson can take ‘Lib-dem-land’ out of the UK too. Re-align with the EU and create their own state. All 243 of them. They can have the far corner of Norfolk and we’ll chip it off to float into the North Sea.

So the stage is set! Boris versus Jezza. The big one! Massive. It’s Ali vs Frazier. It’s Spurs vs Arsenal. It’s Trump vs… anyone really. It’s THE BIG DEBATE! Tonight.

I’m going out for dinner. Can’t be arsed with it. Well, me bestest, oldest mate is over from France. And that happens less than general elections and new Prime Ministers round here.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Maybe its the bit that Corbyn/McDonnell haven’t said. The final piece of the Marxist-Labour puzzle which brings the whole, seemingly stupid, ridiculous, moronic and ill-conceived plan together. Because they’ve outlined spending on a scale which would cause tremors for the Sultan of Brunei. Billions to the NHS, trillions in nationalisation projects which will then, as an inevitable consequence of that nationalisation, run at massive losses requiring constant input of millions more billions. Then reduce everyone’s working week to 4 days AT NO LOSS OF INCOME and the NHS alone would need to find an extra… divide by 5… add 3,625.88… multiply by Diane Abbot’s IQ… raise to the power of the number of stars on the cover of Mao’s little red book… and the answer is: SHITLOADS. Increase benefits, reduce taxes for ‘working people’, no more tuition fees, 40,000 more police…

It seems impossible. And that’s before you take into account the massive number of businesses and entrepreneurs who simply up sticks and go to a more tax friendly environment. Thus massively reducing the government’s coffers from the levels they naively estimate.

Yet the solution is not only easy and fairly obvious but as it is used by Corbyn’s best mate and ‘model for the ideal government’, Nicolas Maduro, over in Venezuela.

Drug money. The drug industry has an annual turnover of 194,882,759,116.32 dollars a year. That’s an estimate. My estimate. You don’t need much of that to shore up the exchequer. It’s what Maduro is now doing in his country, where the drug business has increased by 50% in the last year. Due to the lawless, government-less shitstorm of chaos, starvation and instability that the world’s most oil-rich nation has ‘enjoyed’ since their own little path to a more Marxist outlook took hold on the country and smashed the economy to a pulp. Venezuela is now bankrupt, even with all that oil, and what little food there is can’t be bought by the people because of the inflation. Maduro is apparently reaping this as a national benefit. Probably files it as ‘increased productivity’ or some such.

So that’s the answer for Labour. Harvest the drug money. Forget about taxing slippery foreign investors like Amazon, Google, Facebook, they’ll just go elsewhere. But everyone needs drugs. It’s a win win.

God fucking help us all.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Went to see an amazingly brilliant movie last night. Le Mans 66. That’s what its called and, pretty much what its about. Yet its not really a ‘car race’ film. Though that is somewhat represented, obviously. But its a film about friendship. About the ‘corporations’ against the little guys. About the ‘maverick’ dudes. And its about a guy from Birmingham who wins that Le Mans race (but you need to see the film for total clarification of that) even though he’s a ‘difficult character’ and anathema to all the ‘suits’ at the Ford Motor Company, who are not portrayed in any kind of good way. It’s also about the massive rivalry between Ford and Ferrari. Which is a rather odd rivalry when you consider those two marques and what they represent. And its a ‘true story’ but as its American, you really don’t know how flexible they were with the ‘truth’.

Christian Bale plays the driver, Ken Miles, and Matt Damon plays Carroll Shelby, the racing driver who had to quit due to health reasons and went on to invent the AC Cobra and whose name appeared on all kinds of amazing muscle cars in the 60s and 70s. So you’d have a Ford Mustang. Or a Mustang GT. Or a Mustang GT350 Sport. Or, if you were a totally insane speed-freak obsessed with ridiculously over-powered monster engines, you’d get the Mustang Shelby. His name represented excess and madness. Which is why I love him. And why Ford employed him to run their race team. Though Carroll won Le Mans in 1959 in an Aston Martin, which didn’t hurt his credentials.

Christian Bale is a screen wonder. He just exudes… stuff. Good stuff, bad stuff, all kinds and here, in a Brummy accent. Damon is wonderful, funny, superb. The racing cars are great, if ya like that kind’a thing. And I do. I really do. But not quite as much as I love all the other sundry vehicles just driving round the streets, parked outside houses, just… there.

I’d also like to state for the record, and in the interests of impartiality and the salvation of our planet, that Mel really loved this film. She’s not a petrol head. She doesn’t get an erection when she hears a supercharged V8 start up and she barely knows the difference between a GT40 and C3PO. She also struggles with long films yet this one is two-and-a-half hours long and she neither complained nor slept.

My fantastic dad celebrates his 95th birthday today. Amazing man. Surrounded by generations of love.

Happy Birthday Moishe

A xxxx

Prince Andrew is not the most interesting of royals. Nor the most popular. Nor the most beautiful (need more time for that list, currently stuck on 0). Not even the most obnoxious, though he’s close. And the fact is that despite the fairly recent ‘scandal’ associating him with the late and not-at-all lamented Jeffrey Epstein and the underage sex issues, its pretty much all been forgotten in the latest wave of electioneering, Brexiteering and abysmal football results for Tottenham. Joey starting to eat solids is way bigger news than some lowly naughty royal, because it’s NOW, not ‘back then’.

But rather than letting sleeping dogs shit in the woods, or adopting an attitude more water under the bridge, over the bridge and in fact the bridge just floated away down Birmingham High Street, Prince Andrew decided to come clean, and clear the (heavily polluted) air unfit for for a Norwegian schoolgirl, let alone a Prince of royal standing. So he invited Emily Maitlis round to the Palace for tea and a chat. With a BBC film crew to hand. Not just to protect Emily from being alone in a room with a man one royal title away from the sex offenders’ register, but also to record his thoughts, recollections and excuses about ‘his time with Epstein’.

And guess what? He didn’t do nuffink. Not a fing. Touched no woman, had no sex, and ‘quite frankly’ he ‘doesn’t remember anything about Virginia Roberts’. Which is a completely and perfectly credible statement, in view of the above picture.

This is not a picture of an opportunist moment to ‘snap a royal’. This is a picture of comfortable intimacy. If I took a selfie with a royal (fucking shoot me if I ever do) I would not wrap an arm around him, lean into him and expect him to look relaxed, at ease and content. I would expect it to look like the intrusion it would be.

Photos are evocative. That’s why we take them. To remember times, people, places. It’s virtually impossible not to. So for Andrew to claim innocence is fine and what you’d expect. But to claim ‘no recollection’ is a fucking joke. And makes him look way more guilty than he did before he decided to ‘clear the air’.

Which would make him my ‘tosser of the week’ except John McDonnell wins that particular prize hands down. With his sudden decision to nationalise BT’s Openreach. Yes, it was news to BT, it was news to everyone when he said that BT, a private and listed company, was to be part-bought by his ‘incoming Labour government’ for 20 billion quid, so we could all enjoy ‘free broadband’. Even though wireless WiFi ain’t that far away. And even though BT is valued at way more than 20 bil. And has a massive pension ‘Black hole’ which is currently part-funded by profits from Openreach. And all the shareholders and particularly other pension schemes heavily invested in BT, would all take a massive hit. And the final bill would end up nearer 100 billion quid. How many doctors, nurses and beds would that buy for the NHS????

Happy Saturday

A xxxx