Andy's Glasses

OMG I just LOOOOVVVVVE Australia. I’ve been here less than 24 hours and Spurs beat Arsenal. At the Emirates!!! I love this place. It has a magic that… which… I feel…

We beat Arsenal. And we beat them in their house. And we kept a clean sheet which we haven’t done in an away match against them since 1988. Australia wasn’t even born in 1988. I don’t think. History lessons start here today.

Well, in fact history of wine lessons start today because we’re in the Hunter Valley. Unfortunately so far (drove up from Sydney yesterday afternoon, its now early morn) its been, in turns, cloudy, tiny bit sunny, more cloudy, pissing down thunderstormy, and now just warm and cloudy again. But this may change.

What won’t change is the football result from last night. Or from ‘this morning’ as we call ‘last night’ round here. That’s still 2 nil, Spurs still won, Arsenal still… are unfortunately Arsenal.

Hunter Valley is where they make the wine. Well, they make it all over Australia but the decent stuff comes from round here. The stuff they make in Darwin probably doesn’t make it to Tescos in Highgate Village, but Hunter Valley is ‘proper’. So we’re going to a winery or two and also cheese, they make that round here too. Who’d’a known? It’s like Australia’s own Alp. But without much of a visible mountain. Though its very pretty, green and winey and… green.

Today’s photo is our arrival in Sydney proper. Arrival at our mates’ house. Even though they weren’t there. Cloudy and grey but if you enlarge it a bit, you can see The Bridge. And as any view of that round here has ‘a price above rubies’, you should enjoy. Even in the cloud.

I don’t care if its only the Caribou Cup. It’s fucking Arsenal! And we won.

Very happy Thursday

A xxxx

Quantas planes no longer appear to bear the name Quantas. Instead they bear the legend ‘the spirit of Australia’. Almost as if that would be something to be proud of, even boastful about. I mean to me that’s like putting ‘Loud, brash and arrogant’ as your mission statement. Would that encourage business? Whereas in fact when you’re on board they’re really very nice.

I’ve been on a plane for about 2 days now. Well, its actually a day and half because you get the other half back when you go home. It’s like you have to lend 12 hours to the great universal limboland as a deposit payment against your holiday, then they give it back to you at the end. And just when stir craziness is becoming a viable lifestyle option, you arrive. And you’re about to land but… they decide that you need to circle round for an extra 15 minutes before you land. Just so they know you ‘really want it’. And because 25 hours is NOT QUITE LONG ENOUGH FOR ANYONE TO SPEND ON PLANES IS IT??????

But now I’m here. In Australia. And its big and its vast and its cloudy and grey and looks exactly like London when you can’t see the sea. Which you can from my mates’ house but we’re not staying here this time. Because they have hundreds of people coming over for their daughter’s wedding next Sunday and so WE have to go to a fucking hotel, as if we’re…. tourists or… foreigners. Though we’re at their house now, which is lovely. And as they’re not here it gives us a few days to steal whatever we can. In fact I’ve lifted most of the kitchen flooring already as its really nice and will look super in my garage at home.

This afternoon we’re going to the Hunter Valley. Where the wine comes from. We’ve never been there before and I love a winery. Been to them all over the place and they’re always beautiful and lovely. But I shall confirm this for you, fear not. Once I’ve sobered up. Hic.

Happy whatever-the-fuck-day-it-might be

A xxxx

The purpose of the trade unions was to stop exploitation of the workers. To give them rights, protect them from ‘fat cat capitalists’ who would otherwise have children up chimneys for tuppence a day. So what happens when the workers become the fat cats?

Some tube train drivers earn over £100,000 a year. Many earn between 80 to 100k. The minority, according to the official figures published yesterday under a Freedom of Information request, earn under 60k. Those figures don’t include overtime. Unbelievably.

I’m not saying tube drivers don’t do an important job. One that millions just like me use every working day. It’s not easy to sit there for a few hours pressing a handle. Staying awake. Resisting the urge to take drugs. Opening the doors. Shutting them again. It’s a very complicated job and I would never try to demean it. Never. Ok, its not exactly rocket science but the minimum requirement is to be awake. Though if this fails the ‘dead man’s handle’ operates and the train stops anyway. So the minimum job requirement is the ability to stay conscious for most of a 5 hour shift. And that’s nothing to be demeaned.

Junior doctors earn about £24k a year. And work the kind of hours that would have the trade unions in constant strike mode. Ok, doctors can later on aspire to greatness and riches and there’s less call for ‘private work’ as a train operator. For obvious reasons. But still, 100k a week and still they strike. Currently about the driver sacked for failing 3 successive drugs tests.

Bus drivers earn a fraction of their underground colleagues yet arguably have a much more difficult, much more stressful job.

Everyone hates bankers because they earn a fortune and cost the nation billions of pounds of taxpayers money. The most outspoken in this regard: Union bosses. Yet train drivers earn four times the national average and the transport system costs the taxpayer billions each year.

These are Corbyn’s people. The Unions. Representing the workers to ensure they always get a fair deal. And if that deal becomes a bit unfair, so much the better.

Airline pilots earn less as well. Like the one taking me to Sydney, via Singapore, later today. And most of tomorrow. And a bit of Wednesday. Don’t have ‘dead man’s handles’ on planes. Hmmmm…

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I just walked off the tennis court without playing a stroke. Not in protest, I wasn’t wearing my yellow jacket. But because although it is a really beautiful morning and sunny and gorgeous and even much less frigid than yesterday, when I did play, its fucking icy. Not like sheets of ice, not hard ice, not even all white. But very very slippery. And if I’m honest I actually lack the levels of common sense to be worried about breaking a leg, twisting an ankle, dislocating a shoulder (agaiaiaiain), because I never ever think it could happen to me. If you’ve ever seen me on skis you’d appreciate this. I don’t really have normal, protective fears. Not for myself. The only thing I actually fear is Mel. Because if I did fall on an icy court, the day before we go on a 3-week holiday, my life (as I know it) would effectively be ‘over’. Recriminations would be loud, would be bloody and would go on forever. So me and the Wolf-man opted for the far less dangerous option of coffee.

I love Bruce Springsteen. I’ve always loved ‘The Boss’. Who doesn’t? He’s brilliant, talented, enduring and has that endless blue-collar, ‘working class’ charm, even though he’s a billionaire nine times over. And I’ve loved him for all of that. But this picture depressed me.

Because old dudes who hang out in Levis and scruffy t-shirts are effectively role models for… old dudes like me who hang out in Levis and scruffy t-shirts. We’re old but we don’t feel the need to suddenly wear 3-piece suits to wash the car or pop into Sainsbury’s. We’re from the ‘take us as you find us’ generation, weaned on the hippy ethos of laid-back and unfussy.

Then he dyes his fucking hair black. Which, for me, is a red line. Why would any man do that? Hate to get all sexist and kind’a binary about this but there are some things in which the genders do indeed differ. Throwing, pissing, speaking about feelings, speaking about cars and dying hair. They are the only differences that are allowed to be mentioned without incurring the wrath of someone or other. And twerking. But that depends whether said twerking is for purposes of empowerment (men aren’t allowed to empower) or sluttishness (men have no problem with that), and hair dye. Unless you’re an essentially dishonest person, like Trump, Andrew Neill, every other American in Congress or the Senate. Don’t do it, Bruce.

As Tom Robinson (no relation) sang many years ago: ‘sing if you’re glad to be grey’.

Happy Sunday

After a truly amazing week for Spurs. And a really diabolical one for Chelsea.

A xxxx

Advance warning; the following may contain words that might offend some people. Tossers, granted, but sensitive tossers nonetheless. A minority, like all others, we have to fucking respect.

Because I want to talk about C******. The football club, that is, rather than the people who go there. They get less **s. Because this week a virtual epidemic is spreading through the Chelsea faithful (an ‘f’-word we can use). These are the symptoms: following really abusive behaviour at a football match, their faces become increasingly blurry and indistinct and then all their spoken words contain *******. The health workers are perplexed, the medics bemused, but its nasty and its certainly spreading. Which is not such a problem if this seemingly nasty condition is confined to Stamford Bridge, where, quite frankly, the return of the Plague might be seen as a blessing, but its now gone all the way to Budapest as well.

On Sunday, as their beloved team were actually beating the previously unbeatable Manchester City, England striker Raheem Sterling walked towards the stands to retrieve the ball. And was greeted, by some Chelsea fans, with a torrent of vile, evil abuse. And that was where the ***s came in. Raheem heard the fan call him ‘a black c***!’ The fan in question (yes, we know who he is, we know who they all are because we have them on tv and we know who sits in those seats) has said that he atcherley said: ‘you Manc c***!’ Oh, that’s fine then.

It’s not what was said. It’s not about whether it was racist or not. It’s about the level of almost violent hatred with which these words were spoken. No amount of asterisks can sanitise the video of those four scumbags. No amount of blurring can hide the incredible level of aggression in their body language as they spoke. Or rather, screamed, red-faced and blood-vessels a’bursting with the sheer force of their vileness.

Then, on Thursday night, in an unrelated incident… other than the involvement of Chelsea fans, but that might just be a coincidence, a group of football fans in Hungary were singing anti-Semitic songs. But this is the really odd bit. The songs were aimed at Spurs fans, as are most anti-Semitic songs in football. And Spurs weren’t playing. So probably none of their fans were there. Nor, it can be presumed, were many bothering to watch Chelsea on tv. Not on a ‘Thursday night’, surely, who watches that?

Nothing will happen about the racism incident against Sterling. The Premier League don’t give a shit about anything other than putting more games on tv to get more money. But UEFA, toothless as they are about most things, are shit hot on racism. And thus may make Chelsea play in empty stadia.

My main worry would then be; where are all those evil, vile, hate-filled, non-racist, anti-Manc bottom-feeders on the nights when at least they’re normally off the streets dispensing hatred at Chelsea? Where will they go? They’re still evil, still violent, still horrible beyond horrible, they might end up round here!!!

As even David Baddeil should now realise, the ‘problem’ with Chelsea is not down to ‘the Yids’, the name, the songs, the team, nor down to Raheem Sterling or Budapest. The problem is Chelsea fans.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

So you remember my ‘TIA’, right? Surely you do; you uncaring, forgetful know-nothing. My ‘transient ischemic attack’. I thought my left arm went funny for 2 minutes one Sunday morning before tennis and the next thing they’re blue-lighting me to intensive care and reading the last rites. Ok, a slight exaggeration, when I got round to mentioning it to a doc-type-person they insisted I get checked out, so I went to see a neurologist.

He was a very nice man. He did lots of physical tests that involved pushing his hands, pulling his hands, touching my nose, touching his nose (I wanted to touch the nurse’s nose; she had a lovely nose), lifting feet, raising head, kicking… hundreds of ‘things’ all very quickly. I passed. I can push against a doctor’s hand like a man of 25. Blood pressure fine, heart sounds fine, all good and dandy, great.

So it was probably just a ‘nerve thing’ then? Like, just a ‘nothing’?

Oh no, saeth he, it was definitely a TIA, a little clot of blood or cholesterol entering the brain. Holy shittttt!!!!! So we need to run some tests.

If only I’d have known.

First they took blood. Loads of blood. My fucking blood. I’ll never get that back. Bottles and bottles of the stuff. Then I went and had an ultrasound scan of my carotid arteries. Which is quite brilliant because you can watch them on the screen and see the blood (what I had left) flowing through. And that doctor told me my carotids were ‘beautiful’. His words. No thickening, no deposits, however excited a man can get about arteries, this man did.

Then I had a head scan. An… MRI!!! I’ve been in one of those before. And, when going in head-first, I lasted precisely 21 seconds before the panic attacks felt likely. But this time it was an ‘open scanner’. Ahhh, fresh air and lovely. No, exactly the same as the closed one but with a little gap either side where you can’t see daylight (with yer fucking head nailed to a board) but you can feel it with your fingertips. I survived. I lasted the course, which amazed me, if not the radiologist.

And I returned to my neurologist who told me that everything was fine. But like everything. Fine and dandy and happy and wonderful. Which would almost be sufficient to forget the whole thing but he wants me to see a cardiologist too. To absolutely prove beyond any doubt that I AM a fraud of the first order.

Because if blood is good and arteries are good and cholesterol is fine, the for a TIA the only other cause is a dodgy heart rhythm, causing little clots. Possibly. And we just need to tick that box too. Which I’ll do when I get back from Australia. For where we leave on Monday.

In my condition!

Happy, healthy Friday

A xxxx

OMG! What a day in Westminster. The biggest, most exciting, most productive, most decisive day since…

Because Theresa May won over the entire parliament and is allowed to continue in ‘the worst job there ever was’ at ‘the worst time you could ever do it’. And when I say ‘the entire parliament’, I obviously don’t mean it. Because we’re talking about politicians and politics and therefore every word must be ‘spun’ to distort, embellish or just plain lie about the actual reality.

So in fact only the Conservatives were allowed to vote. Obviously, it was a vote over their confidence in their leader. And of the 317 Tories who did bother to vote, 200 of them voted their confidence in Theresa. Or at least demonstrated their opinion that ‘she’s the best of a bad bunch’, possibly ‘rather her than me’ and some considering how awful it would be viewed from ‘greater Europe’ should the head ‘man’ and negotiator leave at this incredibly late and pivotal time.

Labour weren’t allowed to vote, but they were allowed to shout a lot beforehand. Jeremy Corbyn has been ‘groomed’ into a new persona for his ‘leader of the opposition’ role as its the first time in his entire 45 year career when he’s not allowed to speak whilst wearing a duffle coat and holding a placard. And his new persona, chosen by highly paid image consultants (50 quid for 8 sessions in the Red Lion pub in Esher) is that of ‘angry geography teacher’. So rather than just raising his voice at important parts of his speech, he just shouts the whole thing. “YOU DIDN’T HAND YOUR HOMEWORK IN ON TIME AND SO YOU MUST DO IT AGAIN AND I WANT IT BY FIRST THING TOMORROW MORNING!!!”

The Irish ‘allies’ of Theresa May now hate her, won’t vote for her, have taken our ‘bribe’ of a billion quid and instead of fulfilling their side of the contract, voting for the government, they’re going to spend it closing hospitals where abortions are carried out. It’s what they do. Fuckwits.

The Scots despise May and now want to team up with Labour to force a new vote of no-confidence, this time in the government, which is much more serious. The problem is that Jeremy Corbyn ONLY wants this path to end in a general election so that he might grasp his chance to turn the UK into Moscow in 1925 (ie starvation and bankrupt), whereas Nicola Sturgeon wants it to lead to another Europe referendum. At least she’s ‘on message’ with the fact that this is ALL ABOUT EUROPE. Whereas Corbyn, as we know, couldn’t give a shit about Brexit or Remain as long as he can avoid singing any national anthems.

The Liberals don’t count. In any way. Similarly Sinn Fein, the Green(s) (there’s only one and if trees aren’t being cut down she stays quiet anyway) and Plaid Cymru who only debate in Welsh.

So there you are. Theresa May stays. In part because she had to promise that she’ll be gone by the next election. Ok, she stays ONLY because she’s promised to leave by the next election. But you know what? I have a growing respect and admiration for her. She’s doing a job. And she’ll stick with it. Even at the eventual cost of her career. That’s noble.

In retrospect we should have had a rampant Brexiteer doing the negotiation for us because they could have threatened Europe more effectively. It’s hard to make threats when in your heart you don’t want to carry them out. But if Rees-Mogg, tosser that he is, said he’d leave with no deal, Europe would have softened. Something they never needed with Theresa. But there ya go.

Glad its sorted. (???????)

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

It was decided yesterday that we will emphatically NOT be leaving Europe. To leave would be a total national disaster whereas to remain ensures that we at least get to play in the knockout stages. You know: EUROPE! The Champions League. No-one has the remotest interest in that other ‘Europe’ the unmoving, intransigent, inflexible, dictatorial hate-land of greed and incessant demands, we’re done with that, I mean Eeeuuuuuuurrrrup: the football!

Spurs went to Barcelona needing a miracle. But heh, this is Christmas time and that’s the only reasonable time of year to expect, need or demand nothing short of ‘the miracle of Barcelona’. When God (big Spurs fan, arguably, in many ways ‘the biggest’) did the modern day equivalent of parting the Red Sea whilst 37 bushes burned and the one day of oil in the Temple burned sufficiently to light the floodlights at the Nou Camp for a month. And remember, when God shouts ‘come on my Son!!!’ it has a more profound meaning than when anyone else says it, bearing in mind who his ‘Son’ is. If you buy into that particular testament.

So Spurs, having endured the worst start possible in the early group matches, were left in the most precarious of position from which to proceed. In their group of 4 teams they needed to get from their last match the same number of points as Inter Milan did in theirs. Milan’s was at home to the ever-losing bottom team, PSV. Spurs’ match was away at the best team in the entire fucking world in the fortress of Barcelona’s Camp Nou. We needed to win to be sure, pretty certain that Milan would trounce PSV.

And we got off to the best possible start, conceding a goal after 7 minutes. Good. Gives the Catalans a false sense of security. Right. But did heads drop? Did shoulders slump?? Did… it all go to shit??? No. This is Spurs. This is Pochettino. We came back, we attacked, we stole the game away from them. We out-possessed the most possessive team ever. And attacked them. But couldn’t score.

Meanwhile over in Milan, the unimaginable happened and the Dutch eternal losers took the lead. Ahhh, that’s not quite so bad then.

Until late in the game Milan equalised with PSV. Leaving Spurs in a Brexit situation. But then the miracle. Two miracles in fact. Lucas Moura scored an equaliser for Spurs in the 85th minute and PSV prevented the all-out, throw-everything-at-them Italians from scoring a winner at the San Siro.

Spurs Barca; 1-all. Inter PSV; 1-all. That was it. All that was needed. Job done. Miracle performed. God is great. And Spurs move forward. Amen.

Oh, Liverpool won as well, apparently.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I had a bizarre event a few months ago. Well, it seemed it at the time.

I needed to get a pair of glasses for a girl who’d lost hers and had to replace them with exactly the same, even though it was ‘discontinued’ and not available. I googled the model to see a photo to see if there was anything similar as the manufacturers had taken it off their website. But no, sorry, ain’t got one, come and choose another.

The next day I had a message on my personal email, from eBay offering me a brand new frame in the right colour, size, everything. So I bought it and sold it to the girl. What? I’m a charity?? The girl was so happy. And the world was a better place.

And I thought ‘wow!!!’ the power of the internet. It helped me. It led me to the path of profit. It facilitated my life. But its fucking scary. That a business computer can result in personal emails. Whether beneficial or spammish or a pain in the ass is not the point. The point is that the connections are all ‘in there’.

Then I had a conversation last night which was even more scary. My friends were just talking over breakfast about something they needed to buy, just casual and chatty, as ya do. His phone was on the table, ‘asleep’ and resting and seemingly inert and benign. But then he started getting messages offering him the items they’d been discussing. Same make, model, colour…

Apparently ‘whatsapp’ listens whilst its asleep. You have to turn off the ‘microphone’ facility in the settings. Or it spies on you. From a marketing perspective but really; do we need that??

And this is mind blowing too. The Voyager 2 space probe, launched in 1977, has finally left the Solar System, its gone out of the area influenced by our Sun. Not like Manchester, which also gets no sun, but like, a long way away. Where da sun quite literally don’t shine. And its now on its way to the next star. And travelling at 35,000 miles an hour (no speed cameras up there) it is going to take 40,000 years to reach the next star. Which, if you do the sums, is… carry 3… times 7… a million for luck… is a fuck of a long way.

And should it encounter alien beings, they’ll open up the package of photos and tapes and stuff and immediately start looking for a Betamax to play them on (good luck doing that here, let alone half a light year away). And if Shawaddywaddy doesn’t have them rushing to planet Earth then the prospect of getting a mullet haircut surely will. If they have hair. On their 3 scaly heads.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I wear a yellow, hi-viz jacket. Not a ‘gilet jaune’, because I’m English. Not a political statement, not because I’m on a building site, but because I cycle. And although women in Range Rovers are ‘yellow-blind’, generally it makes you visible to most drivers who might, on occasion, choose to avoid you.

But my gilet jaune has been hi-jacked. First in France, previously a nation famous for stylish attire and classy dressing, when the hi-viz became a political movement, which itself has then been hi-jacked further by extremists both right and left who use it as an excuse for riots and violent anti-government protest. And now here. In our own ‘back yard’ as some of the protesters yesterday in Westminster chose to adopt the garment for their own political purposes. Bit subtle, perhaps, as a yellow jacket has no meaning whatsoever on this side of the channel, but its probably just a comment by association, solidarity with the rioters in Paris, thugs of the world unite, kind’a deal.

Yesterday’s protest was about… yeah, fucking Brexit. With the ‘pros’ on one side and the ‘antis’ on the other. Spokesperson for the ‘get out quick!’ brigade was Tommy Robinson, leader of most banned far right organisations since Hitler died. His message clear: Europe=immigration; immigration=Muslims; leave Europe=no more Muslims. You do the maths!!! It’s simple, elegant and stupidly facile and misleading. As you’d expect from Tommy Robinson.

Also speaking was the new head man of UKIP. Don’t know his name, no reason to learn it; the party’s dead and what remains is more of a joke than it was under Farage’s smilingly toxic leadership.

So the anti-Brexiters marched too. Not sure which side was wearing hi-viz because the gilets jaune movement is anti-government and as both sides of the Brexit debate are anti-government, including most of the government itself, there’s confusion. But the anti-racists marched, because wherever Tommy R goes, they follow. And a bunch of feminists marched too. Why not? March is a march, right?

It was peaceful. Because we’re British. ‘We’ll always have Paris’, the skinheads probably whispered in each other’s ears as the protesters peacefully departed. Probably just as confused as everyone else as to what, precisely, the demonstrations were actually about.

Vote tomorrow. God help us.

Happy Monday

A xxxx