Andy's Glasses

Today I want to talk about global warming. I want to talk about Prince Harry suing the Daily Mail. I want to talk about Tesla cars, the Conservative Conference, about the ‘new deal’ Boris is taking to be ridiculed by the EU today, about Paris fucking fashions. I want to discuss menstrual cycles, circadian rhythms, Boris Bikes. Let’s talk about Lila. Joey. Charlotte Edwards’ thigh, allegedly fondled by Boris. Anything fondled by Boris (long list).

Anything but football. Not football. Can’t do football. Just not on the agenda. Too busy. Too hectic. Too engaged elsewhere to even notice. So apologies to football fans. And also to Spurs fans (notice the ‘subtle’ disconnect). Because what Spurs play is no longer football. As we(‘d like to) know it. Therefore it cannot and will not be discussed here. Oh no. Its beneath me to even make comment. Other than: GGRRRRRAAAAGGGGHHHH****%%%***!!!!!
The Conference in Manchester was surprisingly quiet compared to the Labour one. Maybe Brighton is just a noisier place? Or maybe the BorisCons really only have one message and I think we’re kind’a familiar with it by now. That message will change, in approximately 29 days, but for now…
Tesla cars are much more interesting/funny. Having ‘mastered’ driverless technology, they’re allowing Americans to ‘call their cars’. For a nation so car-bound and generally immobile that walking from Burger King to the car represents a ‘work out I’m not prepared to do’, they can press a button on their phones and the car will come to them!!! Long as its not more than 200 yards. So for a car with ‘full on driverless capability’, that’s a walk in the (car) park. Or it should be. But apparently those 200 yards, for those who’ve tried and filmed it, is more Apocalypse Now than walking in the rain with the one I love. They’ve crashed, they scratched themselves, they’ve attacked passers by, driven over kerbs, onto pavements; pretty much anything and everything but just ‘come to heel’. Which most dogs can do without the benefit of GPS, sensors, radar, sonar and nuclear capability enjoyed by most Teslas.

So how does that look for the whole ‘driverless’ thing??

Meg versus Mail? Watch this space. Harry’s already dropped the ‘D-bomb’ with comparisons to his saintly mother who was literally hounded by the press to her death. You just need to find jurors who haven’t heard of Diana then it can be fair and impartial at trial.

Joey is so bright; this was his mime for ‘the Great Escape’. Genius.

Happy Wednesday
A xxxx

If Spurs had lost yesterday I was going to take a sabbatical from football. Just, kind’a, ignore it for the rest of the season and come back refreshed, recharged and ready to take on the world again. As if. Because after the dire start to the season, after which, incredibly, we sit 4th in the table (our ‘rightful spot’), we just endured the week from hell. Losing stupidly at Leicester, which under normal circumstances might be forgivable, but they were not normal circumstances, and then losing at Colchester. Which is such a ridiculously abnormal circumstance as to be rather beyond ‘funny’. And losing at Leicester, like losing to Newcastle, was not normal because both were the result of the horrendous malaise that’s been poisoning my club since the term began. And whether this is down to the ‘want-aways’ not getting what they want or down to Pochettino losing the dressing room, or possibly some combination of both, the result is no cohesion in the club, no spirit, no togetherness. No love.

Until yesterday. The love returned. The winning ways. Well, let’s leave it as ‘winning way’ in the singular for the moment. And I’ll delay the sabbatical under advisement. As we only managed to win following an apparent revolt from France. As one Frenchman, Serge (QU’EST CE QUE TU PENSE????) Aurier managed to acquire 2 yellow cards in about 5 minutes of each other and departed the match after 30 minutes. Another Frenchman, the captain of his national team and our esteemed goalkeeper, Hugo (Cruyff) Lloris decided to deploy a trick turn on the ball, on his fucking goal line. The trick failed, the ball lost, the nearby attacker pushing it 3 inches into the net unbelieving of his luck.

But we’ll always have Japan.

Holy shit they are an exciting team. Not blessed with the sheer size required to be your normal rugby types, the Japs do it their own way. As they showed in the last World Cup when they beat the South Africans in probably the most memorable match ever. And again yesterday, they played the Irish. The number 1 team in the world rankings. Above EVEN New Zealand. Ok, Japan fields a few ‘Japanese’ of spurious origin, like their captain, who happens to be the brother of an Aussie cricket star. Both born in South Africa. But we don’t ask questions, lest they be asked about the provenance of our sporting heroes.

But what the Japs do is what they’re famous for. Incredibly hard work and fantastic efficiency. Like the bullet trains, the rugby team just works faultlessly. And the players are nimble and fast and very tricky. So they offload very quickly. Which doesn’t save you from the 17 stone of Dublin potato-head that’s bearing down on you, but it means the play is safely in your mate’s hands when you get hammered. And again, its not so much the result, which was incredible, but the spirit and the determination in which it was achieved.

I hope they reach the final. And Spurs beat Bayern Munich in the week.

Happy Jewish New Year to all. Shona tova, may it be sweet for everyone. Especially Spurs.

A xxxx

Different day, different shit storm. That’s our world. This time it involves Naga Munchetty, the breakfast tv presenter of such gorgeousness that only a fellow gorge, like me, can really appreciate her. And she’s great. Clever, funny, gorgeous. And if you don’t like what she says, just turn the volume down and watch her. Like I do.

And way back in… whenever, they were discussing the famous Trump tweet to the Fab Four democrat women in which he told them to ‘go back home to their own crime-torn, shitty, grotty countries where they came from…’ Which was particularly bright, even by Trump’s really low bar standard, because 3 of the 4 were born and raised in the very same US of A that he was. That Bruce Springsteen was. That Apple Pie was.

And Naga said that whenever people told her ‘to go back where she came from’ it was ALWAYS part of a racist stereotype. Which was correct. She spoke of such experiences she’d endured, which was also correct. She said Trump’s comments were racist which was also… Well, it was also her opinion about his motivation. And THAT is what she has now been reprimanded for. Not for being anti-racist but for alluding to racist motivation in the almost brain-dead President of America. Because the BBC must always be ‘impartial’ and ascribing motivation does not apparently fit that model. You see a man inhaling three Big Macs, if you work for the beeb you do NOT assume him to have been hungry. That’s ascribing motivation and WILL NOT BE TOLERATED in the overstated tolerance of the BBC. You get it? Yeah, me too (#).

The head of the independent overseeing complaints whatever of the BBC stated that he admired Naga for her honesty and her comments but had to reprimand her. No punishment, but the reprimand for, presumably, compromising the impartiality of the BBC who, he told us, were the most inclusive, tolerant, multi-cultured, many-that-ed, super un-racist people ever.

This was all in response to just one solitary complaint. I wanna know who the complainant was. I really do. Because if that person is not him/her self a racist then he/she is simply the most pedantic, stupid, moronic person ever to watch tv. And that’s a serious competition.

I also think that the BBC complaints people should have just told this person to go fuck themselves. Impartially.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I think its appalling, the use of bad language that was used in Parliament this week. I’m disgusted. Fucking disgusted. Because our elected members of parliament are supposed to deport themselves with dignity and honour. Act as ‘gentlemen’, not common yobbos pushing each other around before the fight starts outside a pub in Norwich.

The attacks, particularly by the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition, created a toxic, near-violent atmosphere, not conducive to House of Parliamenty type things. These were personal attacks which is no more how we expect politicians to act than it is cricket. Before all the cheating and ball-sanding happened and we started to need a new metaphor. So perhaps now we don’t need a new metaphor. ‘Cricket’ ain’t what it used to be and neither is parliament.

Some of us feel that in calling Jeremy Corbyn a ‘coward’, a ‘loser’, a ‘pratt’, ‘tosser’, ‘goofball’ and ‘Beardy McBeardface’, Mr Johnson didn’t in fact go far enough. Not even close to ‘far enough’ for that dirtbag.

But then came ‘Cox-gate’. Someone (actually someone from Labour, but I really don’t know why) actually used the ‘C-bomb’. Jo Cox. The lovely MP who was murdered by some far right imbecile a few years back. And has since entered the realms of sainthood, of total untouchability that certain people or events acquire. And then invoking the name must only be used in revered tones. Like Grenfell Tower.

So immediately, some great big lump gets up and tearily speaks about Jo Cox, sobbing her way through the debate. To which Boris replied that ‘he’d never heard so much humbug’. He’s not allowed to say ‘claptrap’, ‘bullshit’ or ‘bollocks’. He was referring, quite obviously, to the line of her words, the discussion about Brexit (what else?). But no, the C-word had been used and that opens floodgates of horror and chest-thumping. We don’t generally ‘ululate’ over here, its not very British, so we open floodgates of horror and thump chests instead.

HOW DARE YOU CALL THE DEATH OF MY BEST FRIEND AND ALL ROUND SAINT JO COX ‘HUMBUG’??? HOW DARE YOU???

Errrr, he actually didn’t. Wasn’t referring to the death at all, just made a point about Brexit, using the person YOU brought up for some stupid unaccountable reason in the first place. But the damage was done.

THIS IS ALL SO TOTALLY FUCKING STUPID. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO EXPLAIN IT TO LILA??? ANSWER ME THAT!

That government has become a toxic stalemate of lies, cheating and near violent hysteria where nothing of any substance actually happens. And then it goes round again. And again.

Happy Friday

A xxx

Everyone will always remember exactly where they were on Tuesday 24th of September 2019. The ‘day of shame’ as it will be forever remembered in our minds and in our hearts. The day the world turned.

The Supreme Court of London and… some other places nearby, judged by an 11 to nil unanimity (a virtual Manchester City score) that Boris acted illegally when he prorogued parliament and therefore and henceforth, that closure never happened and parliament is in fact still open now. Or will be later. The suspension ‘never happened’ because it was illegally founded. Which makes Boris a kind of ‘Watford’ (football joke, unless you’re a Watford fan). And also makes Boris’s position a bit… delicate. He’s a Prime Minister without a majority and he acted illegally to shut parliament down. Now he has to come back and face everyone. Who yet again will make their decisions as to his appropriateness to govern, his continuation of party leadership, on how big a ‘crime’ this was, based purely on their own view of Brexit and how best that may be enacted. Boris could commit a fucking murder and it would be judged, in the current climate, solely on whether that murder facilitated or hindered Brexit.

The issue of whether the Supreme Court overstepped its mark and entered the world of politics, in which it is not Supreme anything, in fact its not even invited, is for another day. A long day.

Boris wasn’t here when it happened. He was ‘over there’ with Donald Trump. The second great ‘shame’ of the day. As Mr President, looking gorgeous with his super-whitened teeth gleaming whitely against his mahogany-sprayed face and his coiffed hair sitting… stiffly… Why is it that Trudeau can’t do ‘brown face’ without an uproar but Trump can?

Anyway, the American House yesterday started impeachment proceedings against the president for more election scandals, this time the up-coming elections and inviting the Ukrainians to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, the leading Democrat. Or possibly, threatening to withdraw US aid from Ukraine if it doesn’t comply, which elevates ‘shame’ all the way to ‘what the fuck???!!!!’

And lastly there was Spurs. At the end of shameful Tuesday. Losing a match, ok only a League Cup match, but Jesus Christ how hard can it be to beat Colchester United, FFS???? If I wasn’t an Essex boy and cricket fan I wouldn’t even know where Colchester was. Let alone that it owned a football team. But Spurs managed to saunter in there, all Premiership grandeur, and fucking lose. On penalties. I mean… I mean… I mean… Oh fuck.

(Let’s hope its a) Happy(er) Wednesday

A xxxx

I always thought that ‘award season’ was like March or thereabouts. The Oscars, the Brits, the… I dunno, loads of them. Maybe its a long season. Like Marching Season in Northern Ireland, which lasts most of the year, to give the Orangemen time to upset every single Republican and Catholic by marching round in bowler hats waving Union Jack flags. Lucky the Province is so accepting and tolerant and understanding. Debutantes have The Season for their outcoming? outpouring? whatever, but that’s a bit Downton for most people to give a shit about.

But we seem to have a glut of awards right now. Mid-season? And last night the award went to Lionel Messi. Who beat Fleabag and Game of Thrones as well as Gone with the Wind and Christiano Ronaldo. Phoebe Waller-Bridge came third after Virgil Van Dijk.

The award for Most Clueless Fence-Sitting Brexit Neutral with a Beard went to Jeremy Corbyn.

And now its raining. Like, really raining. Whether this is a ‘late summer’ storm thingy or just the start of our drizzly season (6 months’ continuous) as the darkness descends for the year I don’t know. They didn’t tell me. But after the glorious sunny weeks its a bit dull and depressing. I don’t cycle to the station in the rain. You get wet. But like really, really wet. Bikes attract the water. Not a lot of people know that. And then the rest of the day I’m wet and its not nice. So many seasons. Not all of them good.

And the award for the most unbelievable and unbelievably stroppy teenager definitely goes to Greta Thunberg (which auto-corrects to ‘Thunderbird’ if you’re interested). Unfortunately she also wins the award for the most annoying person currently in America, including Donald Trump. But she is frighteningly possessed. Brilliantly clever. Pulls no punches and speaks English with a power and eloquence that most native speakers could never match. She’s very impressive, carries an incredible power, has started a movement that now involves about 20 million people in 30 countries and she doesn’t even go to school. She sits outside and just, kind’a ‘sucks up’ all the information by osmosis. You simply have to admire her. Even if you don’t exactly like her.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

At the Labour Party conference they’re not just intent on radicalising British politics, they’re re-writing the language. Inventing a new one almost. Because using ‘old English’, describing their intentions, should hell freeze- sorry, should they win a general election, would make them sound a bit criminal. So, like Russia before them over a century ago, they’ve entered the realm of linguistic restructuring and excessive euphemism-ing.

Among their intentions are plans to, basically, abolish all private schools. Not that they’re into limiting choices that people should be entitled to, but they’re just ‘making it  a fairer society’ (the blanket justification for any evil they wish to perpetrate; because who can argue with ‘fair’?) This would start with a removal of all subsidies to the Independent education sector, probably whopping on vat to school fees and removing charitable status. So far so Corbyn.

But then it goes further. That the ‘endowments, investments and properties’ owned by private schools should be ‘redistributed democratically and fairly across the the country’s educational institutions’.

So that’s euphemism 1. ‘Democratic redistribution’ = theft (in old wordage). Shut down an entire arm of the education system, albeit a bit elitist, albeit where all the conservatives were educated, and a very successful part of education, and just… just… just steal the riches and sling all the kids in state schools which don’t have any room for the kids they already have. Probably make the kids fight for their places. With knives. That’s democratic.

Then there’s property. Private landlords will have to sell their properties to the tenants. At a ‘fair price’ that the government would recommend. Not necessarily market price. Just a fair one.

So euphemism 2: fair price = land grab.

‘Business restructuring’ is how they plan to steal 600 billion quids worth of shares in big companies by redistributing them among the workers.

‘Reviewing governmental roles’ is what they call getting rid of Tom Watson, which failed anyway. If you can’t sack the man, sack the job.

Yet with all  this ‘fairness’ going on, its Brexit that’s going to bring Corbyn down. Or me with a chain saw.

Keep the red flag flying.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Saw a message from a mate yesterday who’d watched 3 rugby matches before lunch, then (tragically) watched Spurs at lunchtime in the battle of VAR, then there was still the thrilling (zzzzzzz…) Newcastle vs Brighton match in the early evening. What a day he had. All he needed was a potty and he needn’t move for 19 hours. Uber deliver straight to the couch if you leave the door open.

I missed most of all of it. Thank God. That Spurs match was awful. Son Heung Min judged by VAR to be ‘offside’ by 1.6cm when they still can’t be in any way precise about the moment the ball is kicked. So the question we need to ask is WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! Why are they ruining my game for a half-arsed science experiment? An equation with only one half known? Ok, it took away a Leicester goal as well, but that was deserved. All decisions that go Spurs way are correct beyond question. But essentially, VAR is ruining our game. Is ruining MY LIFE!

I’d usually rather be playing sport than watching it, if I’m honest, but today just wasn’t meant to be. No-one who lives within a 23 mile radius was free at 10 o’clock for tennis. Which would have been alright if the predicted rain had arrived, but it didn’t, which further adds to the frustration.

Which is somewhat lessened by the first England match of the rugby World Cup being played, as I type these very words. And Manu Tuilagi just scored his second try of the match against Tonga. Who performed magnificently during their haka but haven’t translated all that posture and aggression into play on the pitch. Though they do have a 24-stone prop who they call ‘the wardrobe’. Though he’s bigger than any wardrobe I’ve ever seen. Certainly heavier.

New Zealand beat South Africa, which is great because I love the All Blacks and I’ve never forgiven South Africa. For anything. France just about beat Argentina and Australia beat Fiji.

Meanwhile, back home, the question ‘would Manchester City recover from actually losing a football match, as they did last weekend?’ was sort of answered as they chose to only put 8 past Watford. Took their foot off the pedal. And in case you had any doubts/hopes, Kevin de Bruyne seems to be fit again. Holy shit, he’s fit.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

If I was at a fancy dress party and someone there was dressed as a chasidic Jew, with the stick on beard and side curls and the fur hat and shiny coat (I’m gonna presume for these purposes that this is NOT a Purim party at the synagogue but something more secular and the wearer is not perhaps a Jew) and funny trousers and perhaps a prayer book? some chopped liver or gefilte fish in his hand, would I be offended?

No. I wouldn’t. I’d think: ‘great costume’, wish I’d have thought of that. And yet black face is out of the question. Probably red face too. Definitely brown face. Green is fine. Until we land on Mars then that too will become verboten on grounds of political correctness. The two words which translate literally as ‘totally fucking unable to laugh at yourself’. Which, in the ‘world’ bordered by my hair and my glasses, is nowhere I want to live. It’s a sorry and serious place of offence and pettiness and humourless imbeciles like Jeremy Corbyn and Kier Starmer telling us precisely how to speak, act and ‘be nice’. (Jews excepted in that particular example, obviously).

I don’t wanna be ‘nice’. I want to speak without fear of prosecution and make fun of anybody and everybody, myself included.

As, apparently, did Justin Trudeau, all those years ago when he dressed as a kind of ‘dark Aladin’ with the robes and shit and painted brown. OMG!!!!! yell the delicate of nature and frail of mind, ‘he’s supposed to be a master of tolerance and inclusivity and love for all humanity, but dressing up like that!!! He might as well rape a baby and bite the throat out of its mother!!!!’ That kind of sentiment. ‘Appalled of Winnipeg’.

He was a kid at a party, FFS. Who cares who he dressed up as? It was something called ‘fun’ and if it was mildly offensive then it was so much more fun. Get over it. Move on.

To the Labour Party Conference. That’s a good place to be. Where they can’t sack Tom Watson, the Party’s deputy leader, but instead can decide, collectively, obviously, that there is to be no more role of ‘deputy leader’. Unfortunately (only because had it succeeded it would have made Corbyn’s mob more laughable and horrible and manipulative than they already are) the move was voted down so Watson keeps his job. For now.

John McDonnell, Labour’s ‘real’ deputy leader, the one on message with the main dude, refuses to allow talk of leadership challenge, even though Jeremy is now, according to polls, the most unpopular leader of any opposition party of all time. Well done Jezza. McDonnell said ‘if Jeremy was run over by a bus, maybe we’d have a woman leader’. Well, in fact Jeremy has. The ‘bus’ of popular opinion has slammed the miserable fucker into a wall. Then backed up and rammed him some more.

Wish I’d been driving it.

There is no football to speak about today because the rugby World Cup has started over in Japan and that’s taking all my attention.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

So I went out for dinner Wednesday night with Greg…

Yeah, Greg. Geezer from ‘Masterchef’. Oh, weren’t you invited? Yeah, lots of (very B-list) celebs take me out… Angelina (keep your hands to YOURSELF, Jolie, I’m a married man), Prince Andrew (I’m not going to the school gates with you again, Andy, I’m hungry), Taylor Swift (ok I WILL let you pay but only if you don’t write another song about me, it gets embarrassing).

Ok, it was sort of a work thing and he, Greggy, was the ‘host’. But I didn’t go for Greg. I went because it was at a new Indian restaurant run by a Michelin starred chef in a hotel in Canary Wharf. Well, not IN, in, that would be something floating, but in the area.

Which was the problem. Ok, the (fucking) Jubilee Line in the (fucking) rush hour was a bit of a (fucking) problem. Then you emerge! Into the daylight, just. And its… its… its just beautiful. Who’d’a thought. The Isle of Dogs now looks like that. Millwall Man now wears a suit. And appears to have been born in Shanghai. Because even though Canada Tower went up about 25 years ago, I’ve managed to avoid going to that area ever since. Mainly because no-one’s invited me to a free Indian meal, or I’d have gone sooner. There is precisely nowhere on Earth I wouldn’t go for a Lamb pasander and a chapati that someone else is paying for.

So we emerged onto this rather wonderful, skyscrapery wonderland surrounded by various bits of waterway, and other than the fact its a bit soulless, its great. So, being the super-hi-tech-kid-of-the-millennium type dude, I hit google maps and it told me I was just about 11 minutes walk from my destination. Easy-bloody-peasy. Obviously, being google maps, it doesn’t exactly tell you in which direction may lie that destination, but it does show you… something. A little man. A lot of dots. Some roads, possibly, could be streams, could be walkways.

30 minutes later we arrived. Flustered, stressed and embarrassed, having totally given up, jumped in a taxi, only to be told “nah mate, iss juss’a round dat corner. Take me longer in da cab dan you cud walk it, innit” and he threw us out.

The food didn’t taste of Michelins. It tasted pretty good though. And Greg was… well, you know Greg!!! Oh, I forgot, you don’t know him. I do. Oh well. And I must admit I have never watched Masterchef even en passant. If I’m flicking and it’s on, I keep flicking. No interest.

But no longer. Now I’m getting the box sets, the dvd collections of the old series, I’ve ordered a t-shirt and I’ll never again miss a single second. That’s what being a best mate is all about.

Happy Friday

A xxxx