Andy's Glasses

Theresa May is ‘dead’. Career-wise, political-wise, credibility-wise and basically, not very wise. Because if she was she wouldn’t have taken the job in the first place. Her brief, bequeathed to her by the squirming coward David Cameron, was to ‘take the nation out of Europe in accordance with their referendum wishes’. He was a tosser (possibly still is; he’s been pretty quiet for fear of milkshakes which he deserves even more than Farage) and she was seduced by the ‘power’ that in reality she was never likely to enjoy. And with half the public (let’s not bicker over 2%) wanting in and half out, with a majority of politicians wanting ‘in’ rather than the promised ‘out’, let’s just say: the simplicity of the job had certain constraints.

And now, having lost 35 ministers who’ve retired during her brief tenure, she yesterday lost the 36th. Generals have lost wars with a greater casualty toll than that, but prime ministers generally can’t. The few remaining cabinet members she can call upon have now virtually all refused to back her ‘plan’. The same plan that’s been rejected on 3 previous occasions. Because its a shit plan and always was. Tweaking it just shifts it temporarily along the in/out line of acceptability but in doing so just upsets a different group of parliamentarians.

I now feel that I want to go to the polling station. Take Lila. She’s never been before. She can have a go. She can have my ballot. I don’t really need it. And I can’t think how amusing it would be to take a photo of the daughter of Mr & Mrs Tory randomly scribbling a cross in the ‘Labour’ box. Though in this instance it matters not a jot. Farage will probably win. Creating an ironic stupidity of electing people to the European parliament, however temporarily, whose aim is to lose their jobs. But half (or thereabouts) of the ‘general public’ will vote for anything with the word ‘Brexit’ in it. Even staunch remainers like me are now prepared to do ‘anything to make it go away’.

Doomsday scenario: Boris wins the leadership contest after Theresa bows out (and he will, there’s virtually no doubt once you’ve looked at the charisma-free zone that are his opponents) and will have to scrap ‘the deal’ as it stands. The ‘only one’ the Europeans can ever consider. And then start again. Or just take us out ‘deal-less’. And THEN start again.

The Brexit deal is dead; long live the Brexit deal. God help us all.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

The new Tarantino movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, now previewing at Cannes, excites me. Apparently it is ‘brilliant’ and 5 ****** and all the usual stuff from the critics which generally means f-all once you’re sitting there with your popcorn. But in Tarantino, we believe.

The Champions League final excites me greatly. An incredible achievement to get to such a place, considering the ride to get there. ‘Bumpy’ barely covers the group stages. I won’t be there in Madrid, alas, I’ll either be with Lila, Lila and her new brother or Lila and her by then exceptionally pregnant mother, phone in hand, ambulance on speed-dial. And best of all; we’re underdogs. Like we were against Manchester City, Ajax and as we certainly were last Xmas with just 1 point from 3 games. Who knows? But we can dream, and we have to believe. I’ve spoken to Spurs fans from London who are flying to Valencia, Barcelona, Porto, Amsterdam and then getting trains/flights/buses to Madrid due to the m*th*f*ckers at EasyJet hiking the fare to the Spanish capital to 1500 quid as soon as Moura scored his last goal at Ajax. Stelios must be a Gooner, I reckon. Never flying with them again.

But tomorrow’s European elections don’t excite me at all. The best of all indicators of all that is bad with Europe. The rules say we have to have elections and that’s that. No give, no considerations, no possibility of a postponement, no slack for the fact that we may? we will?? we probably will not even be in Europe this time next week/month/year. No, we’re still in so we HAVE to elect representatives. And who wants to be elected to that? A job that may end in days/weeks… but certainly end in tears. All for just 148k a year plus about 3 million quid in ‘expenses’ and ‘benefits’, 2 ‘secretaries’, both former lingerie models from Lichtenstein, a house, car, driver, cook, personal trainer and masseuse. Who wants that for 3 months? Phah. So we have to waste all the time and effort and money in having an election.

And for the first time in my adult (loosely speaking) life, I don’t think I can be bothered to vote. I know, its some kind of ‘protest’, some type of ‘statement’, some show of disaffection for the government or hatred for Brexit or support for money-laundering, milkshake-absorbing Farage, or some such nonsense but its all bollocks and I’m not playing. If Corbyn’s not directly involved then I just don’t need to worry nor care.

Happy voting day

A xxxx

Just reading an article about poetry and verse
And how the words in order to rhyme you must nurse
Into shapes and patterns sometimes less than the norm
In order that your poetry indeed should take form.

It’s not all about rhyming, that’s for sure
Rhymes like wot I write are just a little cure
For the injustices of life, the injustices in football
And I make them rhyme because that is my call.

But poetry is not all about the phonics
It should transcend such things and reach histrionics
It’s about flow and rhythm and unbridled outpour
Giving your inner feelings and oh, so much more.

The passion, the emotions, the agony, the pain
Should sit there bold upon the paper’s plane!!!

And then I thought again and… and… naaaaah
It’s all a load of bollocks I thought of in the car.

I get emotions and agony and pain going to Spurs
Don’t need to read someone else’s second-hand verse
Inspired, doubtless, by the veins on the leaf of a cedar tree
Or the petals of a rose; that really ain’t me

I’ve never bought a poetry book, not in my life
Not even on Valentines as a gift for the wife
I like to read stories with beginning, middle and end
Not the random thoughts of some trans-gender architect going round the bend.

So even as I stare out at my rhododendron bush
In bloom as every year, in something of a rush
I don’t feel inner inspiration flowing up my sleeves,
Just minor despair at later clearing up the fucking leaves.

Poetry indeed does have its rightful place
On the shelves of a library, in its proper allocated space
So I can walk round it on the way to the section for ‘literary trash’
Someone else’s emotional masturbation might leave me with a rash.

As far as I’m concerned a poem should always rhyme
Otherwise you wouldn’t know it was a poem, half the bloody time
Heart-felt this and depths of the soul that
Anyone writing poetry must be a bit of a twat.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I think its time for Gareth Bale to come ‘home’. Back to the club that created him. Ok, he was born in Wales, started as a kid at Southampton but it was at Tottenham that he changed from being a rather unfortunate left-back with a record for never having played in a winning match, to being the world’s most expensive, if not actually its best, player. Harry Redknapp did it. Waved his magic wand, shifted him a bit further upfield and the next thing he’s shaming the most elite defenders the European super clubs could find to try and tame him. But they all failed. He was, for long periods, ‘unplayable’. Which is a footballing euphemism for ‘just hack him down and take the yellow card’, because you won’t be able to stop him otherwise. He moved into a more central role, but often over to the right. So he could cut inside onto his amazing left foot. The mirror of the role Ronaldo played at Real Madrid. Hmmmmm…

Bale was fast, strong and incredibly gifted. When he picked up the ball, anywhere on the pitch, Spurs hearts beat faster. He created a frisson, a danger, that was simply wonderful to experience. Lots of players are great, but it takes a Ginola, a Hoddle, a Klinsman or a Bale to inject adrenaline straight into your eyeballs.

And after becoming pretty much the best player in Europe for a season, the rules of the game are such that Real Madrid HAVE to buy him. They’ve always got a new president, and/or a new manager, often both and although claiming poverty, can always manage to find just another 100 million Euros for the hottest prospect in the game. And thus did ‘umble young Gareth find himself in the world’s richest club environment (not counting Manchester City or PSG because they really have nothing to do with football in the proper sense… just that they win a lot…)

But rather than thrive there, our prince started developing frog-like tendencies. Ronaldo resented his presence and the fans never really took to him, even when he won them, single-handedly, four Champions League trophies.

So now, on the verge of his 30th birthday, with a manager who hates him, he sits on the bench, or in the stands, rarely gets a call and has to console himself with another 600,000 Euros going into his bank account for that, and every week. Which is a lot of consolation, I grant you.

Unless Real are prepared to sell him cheaply, which they might do, to save the salary, he will languish there as the highest paid ex-player in the game. To move, should a club be found to pay the transfer fee, he will not, and his agent certainly will not, want to take a cut in pay. And there’s maybe 4 clubs in the world that could match his 30 million a year pay packet, and none are short of world class players. And won’t pay that sort of money for basically a partial failure.

There are few people who could face the humility of sitting out the remaining three years on a contract, doing nothing, for 600 grand a week. Ok, I’d certainly be one of them, but its not on offer. OR, Gareth could decide that for his final years in the game, he could afford to take a significant pay cut (he can’t have spent it all) and actually start playing the game he loves once more. Somewhere he knows he’ll be loved and adored. Like he was last time. It’s not like he’s ‘down to his last 9 Bentleys’ or anything.

So he’s going to come back to Spurs. 50 grand a week. Free transfer. Lamella will donate his number 11 shirt for the cause.

Makes so much sense.

To me.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I’ll confess right now: I have never watched a Eurovision anything. I fucking hate Eurovision and always have. When I were a lad it just represented the absolute worst of overly-commercialised plink-plonk Euro-bollox sounds. Whilst England was the absolute pinnacle of good music in the 60s and 70s, way above America even, the rest of Europe produced music only fit for lifts in the offices of the Society fo the Deaf. It produced chocolate box advert music, stupid music, silly music and generally music so poor that the guilty party (what we termed the producers of such sounds) had to use gimmicks in failed attempts to make it somehow more palatable. Like; if you dress up as a hedge-hog, the shit you’re singing will sound better. Obviously music has moved along considerably since then but Eurovision has always been about ‘the show’, verging on and merging with ‘the pantomime’. And unfortunately, as European ‘humour’ always lacked any subtlety or class, adding such a thing to ‘enhance’ music just made it even more pathetic.

And that is what Eurovision ‘celebrates’. But heh, if it makes people happy, let ‘em enjoy.

And enjoy they do. The whole thing, the whole razzmatazz, the whole spectacle, the whole competitive thing.

Until it arrived in Israel. Then everything changed. Not the abysmal music, nor the over-the-top show and the massive celebration of awful sounds, that went on as usual. But it was in Israel. The only country on the planet which cannot be named without some kind of qualifying adjective or accompanying political statement.

Thus the mighty BBC have been referring all week to ‘the controversial Eurovision song contest’ just because its in Tel Aviv. If it was in Damascus, where they’re still in the process of committing mass murder every day, no-one would care. If it was in Sanaa, there’d be no comment, despite the civil war causing death and immense suffering daily. Unlikely it would be in Caracas (though if Australia is part of ‘Euro’ anything, then why not Venezuela?) but if it was no-one would mention the country was in total economic collapse. But Israel cannot be mentioned, in any context whatsoever, however trivial, banal or superficial, and you can’t get beyond Eurovision to find more of those, there has to be a presumption of conflict, of outrage, of at least protest. Which no other country has to endure, regardless of the evils they perpetrate.

If people, institutions, even rock stars from Primal fucking Scream, adhere to the left-wing rhetoric against Israel and ISRAEL ONLY, it is not anti-Zionism. It is anti-semitism. If you deem Israel as ‘evil’, which they do and they’re allowed to do, the line is crossed when its the only country perceived as such.

Tossers from rock bands and Labour supporters don’t know any better. But the BBC should. It has a duty of impartiality yet flaunts it daily where Israel is concerned.

Otherwise, Happy post-Eurovision Sunday

A xxxx

My body is confused. I am confused. Because I’m in my third time zone in one week and it is indeed very confusing. On Monday we were in Japan time (GMT + 8), then we came back to British Summer time (Japan time… probably -8) and on Thursday morning we entered Lila Standard Time (GMT + 3/4). Because Lila is up at about 5. But really UP. And raring. And busy. And you just get swept along with the energy being expended in the house. But Thursday was fine because our Japan jet-lag meant we’d been awake since 3.30am and by the time Lila raised her head (well, raised her voice really) it felt like lunchtime. And it was easy and nice. So nice that we offered to have her again last night, so her very very pregnant mummy and (I feel your pain) daddy, might get a bit of much needed rest and we might get some more quality Lila-time. Because we’re stupid, obsessed and gluttons for punishment.

But this morning, when Lila called out at 5.03, my back was bothering me. Never mind, time and Lila wait for no man. And I felt like shit. Really tired, groggy, heavy-eyed. But heh, Lila’s here, let’s play. And then, at 8, off I went to my martial arts class, as usual. Still feeling rough.

When I returned, couple hours later, I’d had a large coffee and eaten and… still felt shitty and a bit achey and not great. Never mind; its tennis time!! So off I went, and on the way I reached a realisation. That possibly the great feelings of fatigue, coupled with the aches and pains and general lethargy (many adjectives can be levelled at me, most of then profane, half of them very insulting, the rest quite abusive; but ‘lethargic’ is not one of them), possibly I am ill? Like flu? Worse still, man flu??? In which case, tennis is always the best cure.

But it didn’t cure me. I feel like shit. Had lunch, going to bed.

To be continued.

Only send flowers if they’re certified free of bacteria. Whereas any chocolate is fine.

Happy poorly Saturday

A xxxx

I’ve been out of politics for some time now. Nearly 3 weeks. And if 24 hours is lifetime, this period is approaching ‘forever’. Although, alas, in many ways, nothing like long enough. I left the country specifically to give them all time to sort out Brexit, find a reason to get Farage on the plane with Julian Assange when he’s extradited and re-write a new constitution that allows the death penalty in certain very specific cases involving leaders of Opposition parties with beards. And what’s happened? Nothing! It’s the same shit. I was in Japan for 2 weeks and we had the first abdication of an Emperor for 300 years and the inauguration of a new one in just 2 days. But here, as they say in Tokyo: plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

Which translates as ‘same shit, different day’. Because Theresa May is still trying to get the same deal, with the same terms, which everybody hated the first 3 times, through parliament again. She’s been in ‘discussions with Labour’ since before I left and both sides are still ‘deadlocked’. Mainly because as well as being diametrically opposed politically, they both moronic.

So now The Conservatives are insisting that the PM resigns. Which, although possibly offering no immediate solution to the problems, might freshen things up a bit. And as this is an assassination, rather than a ‘falling on her sword’, the first to jump in, like Brutus, with a dagger in his hand specifically designed for back-stabbing, is Boris Johnson. Obviously. The country’s greatest ‘bandwagon jumper’, who sees benefit in having fat blondes in charge of both sides of the Atlantic, can’t resist any chance of self-advancement. So was the first ‘name in the hat’.

And I really don’t like Boris. And trust him even less. But when I look at the others gathering round to join the battle to become leader of the Conservatives and thus, by default, the temporary at least Prime Minister, my first and really only consideration is who is most likely to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of number 10? And that trumps all else.

Furthermore, with the massively populist ‘Brexit Party’ of Farage steaming instantly ahead of all other parties in the polls, the Conservative vote will be more diluted still.

I’m not even a natural, comfortable Tory but quite literally THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE.

And I cannot see voters falling over themselves to vote for Jeremy (fucking) Hunt, nor Sajid Javid, and as for Dominic Raab, I could barely pick him out of a line up of 3 people if the other two were women. Matthew Hancock? Who he??

So I’m left with the horrendous acceptance that for the good of the nation (ie: no fucking Corbyn), for the good of the only party fit to lead it, and for my own sanity (always questionable anyway), B…B…B… (I’m struggling to put it down) B… Boris must lead the Conservatives.

Holy shit.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

She wore a brand New Jersey, if you’re interested. It was a song. Decades ago, that ‘cleverly’ used the name of all of America’s 50 states. It was pathetic. But, as a kid, I learned the names of lots of states that I’d never have otherwise known. Which was pretty much all of them except New York, California and Chicago. Yeah, I know, just emphasising a point.

But of all the states, its always the same ones that cause all the problems. Down in the South East quadrant. Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. And by ‘all the trouble’, I’m going back to pre-civil war times as these were, along with the Carolinas, the tobacco states and consequently the slave states. The Souyath. Deep Souyath. The states where that slavery was so entrenched, so culturally normalised, that 10 generations later, they are still inherently racist, separationist and pretty vile. And they’re the mainstay of the gun lobby.

Mississippi Burning was a true story. The KKK are alive and well ‘down there’. The Scopes trial was in Tennessee in 1925 where a teacher was prosecuted for teaching evolutionary theory. Because nothing must ever contradict the Bible. The book no-one down there ever questions nor asks for any proof.

And now, yesterday in Alabama, they changed the abortion laws. Basically removed them really, in their entirety. A woman won’t be prosecuted for seeking or having an abortion but the person doing it will get up to 99 years in jail. Even in cases of rape or incest.

And that, I feel, (in my wonderfully caricatured, stereotyping imagination) is the problem. That if you terminated all the babies resulting from incest, there’d be a catastrophic decline in population ‘down there’. Because its only some of the Bible that God really meant, not all of it.

The fact is that this vote by the State Senate is a massive challenge to the Supreme Court, which is Federal. And its always a big problem in American legislation, the battle between a state and The States. Local vs Government. And when the ‘local’ in question has no interest in either women’s rights nor the right of any single woman, a bunch of bible-bashing, right-wing Christian, Republican men decided that they, and not the women, should be in total control of any choices those women may have to make about their bodies, their lives and those of any child they may be carrying.

Ironically, their arguments always centre on ‘the number of children lost to abortion’ since the famous ‘Roe vs Wade’ case when abortion was pretty much legalised across America, in 1973. Yet I can’t help but wonder how many people, including the kids, have been killed in gun crimes over the same period. Which they’re not in any way concerned about.

Sickening bunch of inbred tossers. I make no generalisations.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

When I’m away I read the Times online. And it takes me about 3.6 minutes. I glance at the sort of things that pass for headlines in the online world, then read the sport. It’s just not how I want/need/like to read a paper. I know, I could go to a news site and see much more current stuff, but that ain’t me neither. So the third incredible pleasure of ‘the return’, as the paper dropped through the letterbox, had arrived. The first two were picking up a screaming (with joy), shrieking, jumping Lila up from school yesterday (ok, its nursery, but she’s so clever I’m tempted just to call it ‘university’ and be done), and sleeping in our own bed.

And its the little articles that I generally miss when I read online. Like yesterday, I had ‘read’ ‘the paper’, but then picked up a free proper copy at Heathrow and learned that due to Manchester City’s financial dodgy dealings they may miss out on Champions League football next year. As long as that doesn’t get Arsenal involved then JUSTICE MUST BE DONE. As that would, as well as being fair and just and the undoubtedly the right thing to happen, would be a wonderful for everyone else as it would be terrible for Manchester City.

It’s about time the ‘financial fair play’ farce actually showed some teeth to a club who abuse all the regulations and think by throwing even more money around they can get away with it. The case continues, the plot thickens…

And I learned today a sadder thing. That the movie company EuropaCorp is in receivership. Who?? What?? I was not that familiar with them either. But I learned that it was set up in 1999 by Luc Besson (all bow). Who, after making possibly the three best films of all time: La Femme Nikita, Leon and The Fifth Element, set up the company to make European-made Hollywood-style blockbusters, like Fifth Element, to challenge the American dominance. Alas, like all blessed with the Midas Touch, as he appeared to be after those 3 amazing films, he and the studio then produced a whole load of duds. And the difference between making art-house Euro-flicks like Nikita (which was then made again in English by the Yanks which told the exact same story but without any style or class), and ‘blockbusters’, is usually about $200million. So you can’t afford too many failures. Yet that’s what they’ve had. Which is such a shame.

Leon was not only ground-breaking, almost proto-Tarantino in its approach, but also introduced the exquisite then-child Natalie Portman to the world. And the Fifth Element was so odd, bizarre and stupid that it went full circle and became brilliant. In my mind anyway.

What a shame.

Back to work

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

The over-riding message you take from all of Japan is one of food. There are restaurants, cafes, diners, quite literally everywhere. In rows. You never ever find just one, always 17. Most selling the same thing, sometimes they offer variety. In the spaces between the eateries you find food shops. Not just ‘yer basics’ kind’a shops, you have those too. But sweets, biscuits, cakes, desserts. And all these places are busy and everyone walks down the streets with either bags of food or eating on the move. They are also a nation who love to drink. As in ‘drink’. Beer, wine, sake, whisky, anything, the more the better, whatever helps with the high notes on Unchained Merody.

Yet you don’t see fat people here. (Currently pigging out in the lounge at Haneda airport and by the time you read this ‘here’ will be ‘there’, so there may be ambiguity), Well, you do but they speak with American or Australian accents. Ok, a few British. And not just ‘not fat’ but the default position here is ‘painfully skinny’.

And thus we should be investigating the genetic make up of oriental people to discover, isolate and clone ‘the gene’ for thinness and offer implant services outside every branch of KFC, McDonalds, Dennys, every fish’n’chip shop, pie-n-masheree and pub in every… everywhere Westerners eat, except the Japanese restaurants, obvs.

Because the answer must be diet. Yes, they are ‘pre-disposed’ to thinness but obesity levels are generally a reflection of fat/sugar/carb consumption within a society which is cultural and to a degree socio-economic in that ‘the poor’ can eat hi-fat shit much more cheaply than they can eat ‘well’. They don’t sell pizzas at Nobu.

It’s what they eat though that is rather spectacularly healthy. 796 ways to eat fish. Some of them even cooked. A few you wouldn’t even want to ask. But loads that are just wonderful. If ya like fish, obvs. And Japan is a series of fairly narrow islands, so everywhere is coastal. (Fish generally live on the coast, FYI). Plain boiled rice. Yeuch. But you get used to it and can drown it in anything to give it taste. They grow it here. Many in their own gardens. They DON’T use heavy sauces here, like your British chicken-tikka-massala or ‘chinese’ take-out. And they’re big on tofu (no, me neither, horrible stuff) vegetables, lots and lots of good stuff. And they’re big on breakfast. Which pretty much looks like every other meal; fish, rice, tofu, miso soup, but is more… breakfasty than the same thing served later on. Because…

So I suppose what I’m really saying is: YOU EAT TOO MUCH YOU GREAT FAT WESTERN FUCK!! LIGHTEN UP, IN EVERY SENSE. And then, like me, your inner yin will outweigh your outer yang and you’ll either become slim and waif-like or you’ll vanish up your own kimono. But something in the diet here is seriously, profoundly, outrageously, non-obesely, type-2-diabetes-preventively wonderful and good for you. Turning Japanese, I want to turn you Japanese, I really think so.

Happy landings

A xxxx