Andy's Glasses

I don’t generally rush to see Oscar winning movies. If they were ‘worthy’ I’d have seen them on first release. Unless we were too busy in which case I wouldn’t. Got that? So for various reasons, I missed The Favourite. Which was nominated for every Oscar imaginable, except for Best Short Animation, and won just ‘best actress’ for Olivia Coleman. Who played Queen Anne. The last of the Stuart Monarchs. Don’t ask me to name the rest, but I’d guess at a James or 2, probably a Charles, the odd Mary.

And The Favourite is a great film. Really great. It looks fantastic, the sets and costumes are exactly what you’d expect, if not hope for, and the cast brilliant. Oh, and its very funny. Probably much much funnier than real life was in the early 1700s.

Watching such a movie as ‘entertainment’ is fine. Watching as some form of ‘education’, a type of enlightenment about a period/person we know little about, is a bit different. But that’s ok. Firstly there’s ‘artistic license’ which enables the writers to fabricate whatever they want as long as no helicopters appear in the War of the Roses. Satnav systems are completely out of the question. Because in the early 18th century, instead of all this modern wizardry and technology, they had mud. Shit-loads of mud. It was everywhere.

And then there’s the fact that information is scarce from ‘way back in ‘istory’. So although we have fully documented laws and records, its much harder to ‘know’ the people underneath the titles.

So they made Queen Anne a raving loony. Which she could well have been. Inbreeding in Europe’s monarchies reached catastrophic point by Victorian times with every monarch being no more than a second cousin from every other as pacts and treaties were tied up by marrying off kids. Princess Szyekvska of Moldova (8 years old) would be married to Prince Jean-Marie, as soon as he was born. They were siblings. But from different parents.

When Anne was on the throne, the real power lay with her best friend and (if the movie be believed) uber-bully, Lady Sarah, the Dutchess of Marlboro. Whose husband, the Duke, was the nations leading general and invented cigarettes. Rachel Weisz was fabulous as Lady Sarah. And Emma Stone (who I just love) was brilliant as yet another conniving, controlling bitch-from-hell, manipulating everyone and everything to her needs and desires.

We learned that although Queen Anne was pregnant 17 times and lost them all, she was in fact a lesbian. How they learned this, I know not. But it added to the film. In which each and every man was portrayed as a be-wigged, rouged-up imbecile. But the women were strong. Holy shit were they strong.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I wasn’t engaged in the football this weekend. I took 2 days off. Well, not completely ‘off’ in any normal definition of ‘not being on’, but just relatively. Firstly because I had work to do regarding the rugby, and secondly because Spurs weren’t playing so the whole program becomes devalued, reduced, turns to black’n’white.

As a Welshman I was really proud of my fine nation’s amazing feat of winning the Grand Slam in the Six Nation’s. Well, I’m as Welsh as Warren Gatland, if not more so. But I’m not as Welsh as Alan Wyn Jones. No-one is. Firstly its against the law to be more Welsh than the captain of their rugby team, secondly he has a name that would make no sense anywhere else in the world, and thirdly, the man is a God. With a capital G. Not only is he consistently the best player in every match he plays, against Ireland on Saturday he was officially canonised. He twisted a knee in one of 300 (so it appeared) crunching tackles and rucks he was involved in. Stayed on the floor. And this is not a footballer who will play dead if his hair gel gets messed up. This is the hard man’s hard man. And down he stayed. The Principality Stadium was actually silent as the despair of the entire Welsh nation was on hold. Eventually he hobbled up, limped along and then with 2.5 kilometres of bandage on his leg, played on. And not just, like, stayed to make up the numbers, he fucking PLAYED. As he always and only can.

Then England played. And it was… quite frankly ridiculous. Great to watch, though I missed the all-important, match-defining second half. In which the Scots came back from being 31-7 down at half time, to being 38-31 up with 2 minutes left. Incredibly, England managed to score again, with the clock very ‘red’ to tie it up. But really? Really???

And there were only 2 results in football this weekend. Even though 29 matches were played. The results were: Manchester City have won the FA Cup (well are Watford, Wolves or Brighton going to stop them???) and Liverpool went to of the league again.

Though I did note, with just a little glee (ok, ever such a lot of glee) that Chelsea managed to lose at Everton. Which does Spurs’ top 4 aspirations no harm at all and gives everyone something to snigger about.

Ok, back to work.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

We all have a cultural frame of reference. Mine is The Blues Brothers. I love that film. Always have. And one line always springs to mind (strange mind; what can I say?) at certain times. “I hate Illinois Nazis!” said John Belushi’s ‘Jake’ just before they drove their car straight into a whole procession of swastika-wearing, jack-booted white supremacists. Because in the 1970s movies you could actually use a swastika. Especially if you wanted to mock, ridicule and humiliate it.

I’m gonna reckon Donald Trump didn’t see that movie. Because he has absolutely no discernible sense of humour and very little concept of ‘enjoyment’ that doesn’t involve golf balls or sexual assault. But if he had, he wouldn’t have liked that scene. Because I reckon Donald doesn’t share Jake’s hatred of Illinois Nazis. I reckon he’d have justified their viewpoint, mitigated their swastikas, defended their right to free speech and told of how they’re misunderstood and entitled to their side of the argument.

On Saturday, in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre, Donald stated that there is no rise in right-wing extremism. Even though the general consensus would indicate otherwise. Strongly. But maybe its just a matter of perspective, of starting point, of definition. Because Donald was heavily involved with the alt-right, with Steve Bannon, with Breitbart News, so it could be that he’s more ‘normalised’ to right wing thought. If he thinks at all.

Donald Trump was endorsed by David Duke, the former grand-imperial-tosser of the KKK. Then he chose to re-tweet an horrendously Islamophobic comment by the dozy bitch from England First (or whatever they call themselves) who named her baby Adolph and is currently in prison for inciting racial hatred.

Then there was the terrible attack by the white supremacist on a black protest, where the Nazi murdered people with his car. To which Donald thought ‘both sides were to blame’. One side for protesting and being black, the other by committing mass murder with a car. That’s even.

So for Donald, there is no ‘sudden upsurge’ in neo-naziism. For him its always been there, its always been acceptable, its always just a slight extension of his own personal views. Banning all Muslims was his idea. Building a wall to keep out Mexicans is certainly his idea. So a slight slippage to all-out white supremacist ideology is not very far. Though I think he calls it ‘orange supremacy’.

No accusations. I’m just sayin’…

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Extremists! Phah!!!

It’s easy to become an extremist. Here’s all you have to do:

1. Go online
2. Pick your extremism of choice from the wonderful array on offer. For those unable to decide from all the mouth-watering options, there’s web-sites that can help. Radicalised-R-Us is a good one. Compare the Murderers.com. And U-switch-blade, will turn you from a hunt sabateur to a neo Nazi in the flash of a letter-bomb.
3. Ensure that you’re a brain-dead supermoron with no sense of morality or decency
4. Become brainwashed by your chosen bunch of sociopaths
5. Buy a gun. Or two. Or rent a van.
6. Let rip.

I was in Christchurch just a couple of months ago. Beautiful little city. 300,000 people. Not one of whom was out and about on Christmas Day. The quietest place in the entire world. But terrorism? In New Zealand?? It’s almost unthinkable. And that’s what terrorism does, it strikes where least expected.

This time a ‘white supremacist’. The rhetoric is marginally different but the result is the same. Death to innocent people. Because terrorists don’t fight an enemy. Enemies fight back. Innocent civilians are much easier, safer, more abundant. Which is why, even though Brenton Tarrant felt himself in some kind of ‘first person shooter’ video game, and in fact did video the who sorry event, no-one was firing back. Not one shot at him. It’s an act of ultimate cowardice.

And they’re raging at Facebook for allowing the live video on its pages. As if Facebook is a little office in Croydon where Mr Facebook sits and checks everything before allowing it on. The very nature of the internet is that everyone is connected to everyone else WITHOUT INTERVENTION OR INTERMEDIARIES. Of course, there are facilities in place to try and filter out unwanted shit, like a mass murder, but essentially, until a person has drawn attention about such things, the nature of the beast is that 12 million people have seen it, uploaded it, forwarded it before it can be stopped or removed. Unless we want some kind of blanket censorship, and we certainly don’t, stuff will slip through.

So be they white supremacists, jihadis, IRA, its basically the same people, stupid, suggestible losers, looking for an excuse to kill. The ‘narrative’ changes, the ‘ideologies’ differ, but really the bottom line remains awfully, tragically the same.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

To every problem there is a solution. Except the ones that can’t be solved. Then you need something of an ‘accommodation’, a compromise. An agreement. Nice.

Then came Brexit. And re-wrote the entire definition of a ‘problem’. And there are two in particular that are big.

The first is (fucking) Ireland. The border between north and south MUST remain open. Otherwise violence will erupt. Again. Which will please Corbyn but anyone decent will be appalled and horrified. So the border MUST stay open, in accordance with the Good Friday agreement.

There MUST be a border between an independent UK and the EU, of which Ireland (the south, independent, Republic of, bit) is a member and Northern Ireland won’t be when/if we leave.

So how can a border also not be a border at the same time? Answers on a postcard to: T.May, 10 Downing Street, SW1…

The other problem is a bit more complex but was fantastically illuminated by 2 of the audience on last night’s Question Time, who Fiona Bruce, bless her saintly soul, told to argue it out. Fuck the panel; they’re just politicians and thus all have various agendas and have thus far proved totally not up to the task. And argue these guys did. One stating that we were all so misled by the initial bout of Brexit bollox, so lied to by Boris and Farage (collectively known as ‘the horns of the devil’) that we should have a re-vote. A more informed, enlightened population voting once more. None of the 350 million pounds a week for the NHS!!!! type crap, no ‘project fear’.

The respondent shouted loudly (all Brexiteers shout) that the vote was enacted, the decision made and government must sort it out. Why would they listen to a second vote if they’re prepared to ignore the first?

Both are right. I’d love a ‘second vote’ but feel really uncomfortable about how horrendously undemocratic it would be.

Cameron’s Curse lives on. Probably now for much longer. Oh joy. Another fucking year of Brexit. SHOOT ME NOW; MAKE IT GO AWAY!!!!

Happy Friday

A xxxx

OMG! American celebs have been caught paying people to get their marginally average children into top-flight colleges so the celebs can enjoy the vicarious vanity of ‘my daughter’s at Stanford, akk-cherlaay’, or ‘my son’s at Harvard, innit’. And I only care because one of the ‘guilty’ is Felicity Huffman. Who is not just really funny and clever and great, but she’s married to William H Macy who I just love, just like she does. He had me at Fargo and has never let me down. And now, of course, it has descended into the typical American drama. Because if you add A-listers to dodgy deals, sprinkle in some White House (because ALL of Hollywood is Democrat) for some barbs and venom, that equals HEADLINES!!!!

Apparently they have recorded phone conversations of Felicity agreeing to pay some college coach or other lots of cash to improve her daughter’s test scores. As if that’s a crime. That’s called ‘BEING A PARENT’. Ok, well maybe that’s called ‘BEING A STINKING RICH PARENT OF NOT TOO BRIGHT PROGENY AND PANICKING ABOUT THEIR FUTURE’. Morally I can see a few issues with the whole process. Just a few.

But the British press are having a field day with it. Because over here in egalitarian Britain, you simply can’t just ‘buy’ places for anyone anywhere. It’s not cricket. In our country one has to simply earn one’s place in life on pure and simple merit.

Unless you are a Lord, a Duke, a Prince or some other Arthurian type anachronism from the dark ages, whose daddy happened to go to Eton by virtue of a strip of land given to his great, great, great… great grandfather by Ethelred the Unready in 1237, along with a title which enabled him to rob all the poor people in his vicinity of all their food crops and valuables for all eternity. Then, young (let’s call him) Rupert, thick as two short planks, a minor speech impediment, hare lip, who spends his leisure time pulling the legs off dragonflies one-by-one, breezes into Eton on a full scholarship, even though daddy is worth 8.7 trillion by virtue of that strip of land which happened to sit on a goldmine. But that’s fair.

I’m not saying its right, but lack of the ‘high horse’ reporting would be appropriate for Mr & Mrs H Macy, I feel. Even though they’re goin’ darn.

Amazingly, four English teams have made it to the last 8 of the European Champions League. Or the English Champions League as it should be called after March 29th. The other four are one (almost) Spanish (depending on the current status of Catalonia), one Italian (Christiano Ronaldo), one Dutch and one from Portugal.

It’s ours for the taking.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

It was exciting. For something involving Brexit it was very exciting. I watched it ‘live’. On the news channel. It showed an empty room. Called ‘the House of Commons’. Its always empty, you get a few bods lolling around in the back, half asleep, often someone talking at the front, but no-ones listening. Its just a sea of green seats. Then suddenly, every seat is filled, standing room only, bods in suits (and skirts; that’s the Lib-dems and other women) piled 3 high in the gangways. All for one little vote. Do we accept Theresa May’s revised-but-not-very deal plan with which we shall LEAVE EUROPE (well some of it, and not the Irish really, they’ll hardly be leaving at all) ON MARCH 29TH!!!! BREXIT MEANS BREXIT!!!

It lost. By a margin that before this whole saga began would have been called a ‘catastrophic’ defeat, a ‘truly massive’ thumping. Lost by 149 votes. Which for a government, albeit one with no overall minority, is horrendous. But last night it felt like a victory. Because the defeat was so much better than the last one. Then Theresa rose in her chair, bravely, sadly, and opened her mouth to speak. And her voice had been hijacked by the monster from The Exorcist. She’s spent so much of the last week shouting at Messrs Barnier and Junkers that what was left of her voice was was donated by a serial murderer when he’d finished using it for making threats from old phone boxes. Very scary. Our PM is possessed!!

Today they’ll vote on whether we can leave with no deal. Which will be a resounding ‘non!’ as no-one wants that, not even Corbyn because there’s no political mileage in it for him. Otherwise he would. And so we’re left with… errrr… well… there’s always… how ’bout… errrr…

We’ll delay. The next vote. To delay or re-vote.

Main problem: just over half the people in the country (who I’ll call for purposes of differentiation: THE STUPID HALF) want Brexit, whereas 3/4s of MPs are remainers. And they have to represent all of us. You do da maffs.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

The ‘backstop’. The fucking Irish backstop. It’ll be the death of us all. Death by boredom. Death by endless repetition. Death by… death. And certainly the death of Theresa May’s political career (doomed from day 1 anyway, even she could have been under no illusions otherwise). And tonight its ‘The Vote’ redo. The first one was lost by over 200 votes, so ‘success’ could be seen as losing this one by just 199, or 187 votes. Either way, it ain’t gonna win. Half her party are opposed, Labour is opposed, the Irish probably won’t accept the revised, re-worked, re-done, latest, beta-test version of the backstop, so its all doomed. And Brexit day is just over 2 weeks away. Or ‘not-Brexit Day’ as it may come to be known if the inevitable happens.

May can’t possibly get her ‘deal’ through, however much tweakage she’s managed with the immovable Euro-trash (Barnier, Junkers et al) but it won’t be enough. It’s never enough. Though apparently they have time-limited the backstop. Which is a start. If that had happened a year ago it would be grounds for possible optimism. But now, as a last-gasp, desperate measure, it will be pitifully insufficient.

And then we enter, as from tomorrow, new, uncharted levels of uncertainty. Because we’d have to leave without a deal. Which, depending on who you speak to, is either “ECONOMIC SUICIDE FOR THE ENTIRE NATION”, or, ‘the best possible outcome’ for Nigel Farage, Rees Mogg and the merry band of outers. Or we could opt for a ‘delay’, a postponement, an extension to article 50, and spend the next 6 months going round and round in the same old circles and ending up in the same place, which is basically in a river of shit with the Eiffel Tower up our collective arse.

Theresa May’s selling point is that voting for her ‘deal’ is the only way to actually leave Europe NOW. Unless we leave without the deal which nobody wants. Or we have another vote which has merits but is essentially morally and democratically wrong. Insultingly so. Because it says: ‘you had no idea what you were thinking the last time so we’ll give you one last chance to do it properly’. It leads to a kind of “Ok; how about best of 5?” ethos of cheating.

May’s hoping that if the deal is rejected Europe will be forced into more dramatic changes than just kind of putting an extra P on the word ‘backstopp’. Or that in the panic to avoid ‘no deal’ all the MPs will rally round.

It’s all shit.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Yesterday, in two separate incidents, so-called ‘football fans’ ran onto the pitch, mid-game, and attacked players. Obviously players of the teams those fans didn’t support. In the first one, some Brummy scumbag ran onto the pitch at St Andrews, where his ‘beloved’ Birmingham City were playing local rivals Aston Villa, and punched the Villa captain, Jack Grealish, on the head from behind. In the other incident, an Arsenal fan ran onto the Emirates pitch and pushed Manchester United’s Chris Smalling. Only pushed, not punched, because it was Arsenal and the fan was being true to the general ‘softness’ ethos prevalent on the Holloway Road. The fan probably wanted to spend 20 minutes espousing the full Wenger/Emrai philosophy of superiority and smugness but realised he wouldn’t have time, so encapsulated the complete theoretical framework into a single push. Either way he’s a tosser.

Both fans will be charged with pitch invasion and assault and banned from their grounds, probably for ‘life’. But that’s not enough. This season is turning into something of a disaster for the game. We had 1970s style ‘aggro’ at Millwall, with hundreds of the locals attacking away fans before a cup match. Now this. It must be stopped.

The only way to send the correct message is to abandon the rest of the season. Stop it now! (My new campaign slogan). Just call time on the rest of the term. Play out a few cup finals, if ya like, maybe the Champions League, but as for the domestic games, cancel the lot.

And so the league tables published today will be the last. I’m sorry but that’s the way it must be. We can’t let ‘the beautiful game’ become destabilised and wrecked by thugs, morons and those with violent intent. We need to impose a social morality on the game to prevent further descent into horror.

What? Oh, yeah, I suppose you’re right. That would mean Spurs would finish third in the league, qualify for Europe and be ready and rested for next season. Yeah, that’s true. Hadn’t realised…

STOP IT NOW! (Please!!!!!)

Happy Monday

A xxxx

…and God laughs. Ain’t that what they say? So this morning I planned tennis. As I do every Sunday. And woke up to pouring rain and gale force winds. But did I panic? No. I remained calm and had my pre-tennis bath. To soothe the aches and pains before the next physical onslaught my ageing body is subjected to. And I lay there listening to the 50mph winds (guessing) howling through the window frames, hearing the rain slamming against the house, ever confidant that everything would be fine. Why? Because the BBC weather app had told me it would be. And I’m such a schmuck that I believe it. They forecast rain, but ONLY til 9, maybe 9.30. And I play at 10. So just chill, dude, it’ll be fine.

At 9.30 it stopped raining. 10 minutes later the sun came out and 10 minutes after that I walked to tennis. Ok, maybe ‘walked’ doesn’t go far enough to represent the amazing Marcel Marceau type struggle against the wind which was intent on blowing me to Highgate. We played. It was… ‘interesting’. But I didn’t lose any balls. Amazingly. Just spent a lot of time retrieving them from other courts. After an hour we packed up. And as we left the park it started raining. Really raining.

I feel blessed. People were giving me odd looks on the way home. Then I saw my reflection in a shop window and saw the above. I look like Darth Vader, when they took his mask off just before he died. But the force is strong.

We had friends over for dinner last night. Which is why me and all the other international women of mystery (Mel) spent half the day in the kitchen preparing. And because we have a zero tolerance to discrimination at home, the guests included a staunch Liverpool fan (she’s from that sad City so we forgive her, and she’s a ‘she’!!!) and a season ticket holding Manchester United fan. Who is that rarest of examples in that he is actually from Manchester. Even though he now lives just round the corner. And after 40 years down here, he still sounds way more Coronation Street than Received Pronunciation.

Did I want to be talking football with these 2? On ‘black Saturday’? If I was a nicer person I wouldn’t mind. But I’m not. I’m that horrible git who is only too happy to gloat at their teams’ misfortunes and mayhaps. So I just banned football talk completely. ITS MY FUCKING HOUSE I MAKE THE FUCKING RULES!!!! We just spent a rather productive 10 minutes annihilating Manchester City, who we can all hate equally, on grounds of morality, money-laundering and fraud.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx