Andy's Glasses

About 6 months ago we went with friends to a Turkish restaurant. Not any Turkish restaurant because we travelled all the way so we could eat Turkish food in its natural environment. Palmers Green. And there, on Green Lanes, are 15 Turkish restaurants. All big, bright and bustling with people. Mainly Turks, but a few others too. But the one we went to was ‘special’. Which is why the friends had dragged us ‘all the way’ over at least 3 postal zones to eat there. Because they serve up a ‘meat platter’ which is to die for. And probably to die from, if you eat it often enough. But we don’t. Body’s a temple, blah, blah, blah, balanced diets, blah, blah, no man is an island, therefore he shouldn’t fucking look like one. Et cetera. But now and again…

So this restaurant, which already has a ‘sister’ further round the North Circular in Chingford, very recently opened a third. Right by my tai chi gym in Finchley. From the outside it looks magnificent; palatial and massive, on two floors, all glass fronted and brand new. From the inside they’ve actually gone for an ‘airport cafeteria’ look. Upstairs was better, more ‘dining room of very busy, 4-star hotel’. Because there’s something a bit cold and impersonal about the place.

But quite frankly, who gives a shit? (Though I may return to that theme later). I didn’t go for the aesthetic. I went for the meat. And I’d been thinking about it all day. And several days before… in fact ever since we booked it 3 weeks ago. And it didn’t disappoint. We went with other friends; well the thing is for 4 people so we had to. And in fact, and as I remembered, it is too much for 4 people. Just loads and loads of meat. All perfectly grilled on the barbecue. All marinated wonderfully. Served on a bed of half rice and half bulgar with a wonderful salad. As if I cared. Meat, chilli sauce, great bread, happy.

Then more happy. Then still happy, even though a bit full. Then finished but picking happy. Then ‘ya can’t leave just one chicken wing… three bits of shish… that gorgeous kofta… happy.

And I was, quite literally, up all night. Not sick. Not rushing to the toilet. Just lying there trying to digest. And lying there. And lying there.

So if you are, like me, a total pig with no stop button, don’t eat at such places too late.

But OMG it was so worth it.

Happy, slightly bloated Tuesday

A xxxx

Issa funny ole game is football. We love it and yet… and yet… it has a unique and stupid model based on greed, self-serving narcissists and horrendous parasites known as ‘super-agents’. Which sounds a bit James Bond, something of a Jack Reacher, but in fact its generally some fat greasy dago type whose just pocketed a quick 20 million for sending a player who never wanted to leave his old club, to a new club who can’t afford him and he’ll probably do the same thing for the same player next year. Why wouldn’t he? Another 20 mil for nought. Good bizniss innit. But how can that happen? When the players have signed a 5 year contract? Well, contracts can be broken, can be ‘bought out’, can’t they.

So as a f’rinstance, f’rexample, take… well, let’s take Paul Pogba. English football’s most expensive player. Cost 92 million quid, probably PLUS the 20 odd million for his super-agent. I say ‘plus’ because for some unaccountable (but very countable) reason, the agent’s cut no longer seems to come from the player he represents (as in the old ‘Mr 10 Percent’ model) but is an additional cost to the club. For the agent ‘facilitating’ the deal. Yet as the agent represents the player, to be paid independently by the club as well is surely some massive conflict of interest. The agent wants the player to move where he (the agent) gets the best remuneration, regardless of the player (who he represents) best interest.

But this is a ‘grey area’ which has no legislation, no Premiership rules, no FIFA guidelines, no nuffink. It just happens.

And then Paul P earns about 300,000 pounds a week. Whether he plays or not, whether he’s injured or not, 300k in the bank. Because that’s in the contract and the law protects contracts. But not necessarily for both parties. Because should that player decide he wants to leave and play for Barcelona, as Pogba apparently did in the summer, his agent makes his approaches, seeing the $$$$$ signs ringing loud and clear, even though Pogba still has 4 years left on his contract at Man United.

But Man United refused to sell. Morinho wanted him to go but the club said ‘no’. So he stayed. And that is not working out too well for the club. In fact its awful and they’re in a total fucking mess. Because one unhappy player destabilises an entire club, we all know that. And even decent managers have massive difficulties overcoming such times. Stupidly egocentric managers like Morinho have no chance. And not much choice other than to drop his 92 million pound, 300 grand a week lowlife.

The clubs need to be protected from this in the player’s contracts. Like; if you decide to leave, HAVING SIGNED A CONTRACT FOR 5 YEARS, within that period, your wages drop to 10% of the normal until the club decides otherwise. And if you choose to play like an unmotivated, disruptive, one-legged tosser on Hackney Marshes every week, you’ll suffer in your bank account. The only kind of suffering with any meaning, sadly.

The ‘agents’ need to be sorted out, the players wages need somehow to be capped and the Financial Fair Play rules need to be implemented as the deterrent they were invented for. But unfortunately no-one is prepared to upset the ridiculous gravy-train that enriches everyone except the fans and ruins the spirit of our national game

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

So Brett Kavanaugh; serial sex offender or much-maligned judicial giant-to-be? Personally, I don’t really care. But others do. Many many others. Who seem to be divided thus: if you’re a democrat anti-Trumpster, then Brett is the devil incarnate, guilty of much molestation and more machismo manhandling as a young man. Whereas if you’re a Republican, then Brett is the best thing since the last great sex offender fiasco and is being mercilessly manipulated by media malignishness. Whatever the charges, the presumption of guilt or innocence appears to run along strictly partisan lines.

Did he do it? Who the fuck will ever know? It happened over 30 years ago. Not sure exactly what the ‘FBI inquiry’ can achieve on that front. But a more important question was what, exactly, did he do? And this really is the crux of the matter. He didn’t rape anyone, that much we do know. But if he sexually assaulted someone/some people in a way that was beyond mere drunken gropage, that involved physical overpowering, humiliation of and fear in the victim, then its altogether very different from just kids hi-jinks.

We’re never going to know. His wife was by his side (as they always are, at least at the beginning of the scandals) meaning presumably that he hasn’t been a bad husband, or at least, he’s had the decency never to be caught being a bad husband.

And thus, as in virtually all sexual offence allegations, it comes down to his word against her word. Or in this case, his word against their word. As there are a few women who’ve all come out of the woodwork to make what must only be seen as fairly weak and limp allegations of not a whole helluva lot which took place in the pre-iPhone era and thus can’t be viewed on YouTube.

He was certainly no Harvey Weinstein. In fact, in reality, he wasn’t even as proven and admitted a sex offender as Donald J. Trump. Who was clever enough to make sure his juvenile boasting made it onto film.

As I’m not a member of either the Republican nor Democrat party I feel I can be more impartial. And therefore make my decisions on more scientific grounds. Which are basically that as soon as Brett Kavanaugh opened his mouth at the inquiry I hated the man and immediately wanted to find him guilty. He was too loud, too aggressive and too Godly for my taste. Therefore he did it. Anyone who invokes God’s name in an angry and arrogant rant must be presumed guilty. It’s a peculiarly American thing to do.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Road deaths have risen as almost all drivers ignore the new 20mph speed limits imposed on some busy areas. So said the headline. Implying that the deaths were possibly caused by speeding motorists. I see it differently. I think that those deaths are of the drivers who actually DO slow down to 20mph where instructed. Murdered by other motorists. It’s kill or be killed. You either slit your own wrists or murder the cause of your anger, frustration and depression. Thus the government or local councils who impose such ridiculous limits are accessories to murder. And should be charged.

Though I do strongly feel that we need to think long and hard about cars, roads, speed limits and other… stuff. Because its basically broken. In London it is definitely broken. Yet its all a matter of perspective. I see the problem as traffic moving too slowly. If it just got itself out of second gear, got off its collective fucking smart phones when the traffic lights turn green, got out of the ‘fast’ lane when pootling along at 17mph on a clear road to let impatient fuckers (that’ll be me then) pass, then all would be much better. If we got rid of buses things would improve 10-fold. But I appreciate that’s rather difficult to implement. In a caring society.

And I do want a caring society. I yearn for it. Though appear to step out of that persona when I sit myself in a vehicle. Then I don’t care. About anything other than getting where I need to go in the shortest possible time. And I don’t even drive that much. Yet resent the fuck out of virtually every other road user.

Last night I followed a big Tesla S all the way to the gym where I do my tai chi. He was what I think of as ‘width uncertain’, or ‘tosser’. In that driving down a relatively (for back-street London) wide road with parked cars on both sides but plenty of room for two way traffic to pass, he wouldn’t pass. He rather park every time a car came towards him and then pull out ridiculously widely afterwards to continue. His brake lights flashed so often I though he must be CID on a mission with a broken siren. A slow mission.

When we eventually arrived at the gym he found a parking space. And the spaces there are quite narrow. But not so narrow that you can’t park in them, obviously, otherwise they’d call them something else. He performed an agonised 173-point manoeuvre to reverse into his space. By which time the car next to him had left his space and gone home, around the stupid Tesla, and I found a space and parked, as did the guy behind me. We chatted about incompetence in general on the way to the gym. As we entered, 100 yards later, I turned and the Tesla was still manoeuvring. Bless him. Or kill him. Either way get fucking rid of him.

Happy Friday; keep cool out there. Like me…

A xxxx

Well I’ll be blown! (Whatever that means). Ruslin Boshirov is NOT an innocent civilian Russian person of innocence and civility, who was over here for a 2-day, whirlwind tour of some of the finest parts of Salisbury Cathedral and its legendary spire. Who’d’a thought?? He said he was. On Russian tv. Mr Poot’n said he was. On every tv. And it turns out he wasn’t at all. Though definitely still a Russian. Just a different kind’a Russian. He’d said he was a ‘sports nutritionist’. So I phoned him about my diet before tennis matches. And all I got was a recorded message saying: ‘this person does not exist in the real world, you have dialled incorrectly and if you do so again your children will be dead before the night falls’. Oh. No mention of kale then. Pasta. Slow-burn carbs in general. Avoiding fats. No, just death threats. Dangerous people those sports nutritionists.

Because who we all thought was Ruslin Boshirov was actually Anatoliy Chepiga. And not only that, he wasn’t a nutritionist at all! No, he is an intelligence officer in the Russian army. I’d never have guessed that. I mean, its still just a coincidence that he happened to be here at the time of the attempted murder of the Skripals, using exclusively Russian made nerve agents against people known to be hated in the fatherland. But him and the other nutritionist only came to measure the spire. Which is actually the 973rd most popular tourist site in all of Salisbury. And environs. They’d never even heard of the Skripals, so it couldn’t have been them.

Meanwhile, Princess Meg, Dutchess Meghan, Harry’s bird, whatever, has caused a stir. According to the press that is. According to anyone else she proved once again that she is just a human being. But to sticklers about Royal protocols who obsess about ‘rules’ that go back to King Harold, she ‘caused a stir’. Because she got out of her limo at some function or other and…

If she’d fallen arse over tit to reveal any or both of those features, I could understand the attention. If she’d stopped to light a cigarette butt that she’d pulled from her pocket, or better still a joint, I could get the consternation. If she’d kicked a cat or even an old person away to get to the red carpet, that too might be grounds for concern. But they didn’t happen. What happened in actuality, that upset so many royal watchers was…

She closed her own car door after leaving it. I mean WTF? I always close my own car door and people always tell me I’m a total fucking princess. So what’s the problem??

Happy Lila-day

A xxxx

I would never buy a bright pink bike. Even though there’s probably feminists and certainly ‘trans-activists’ lining up right now to accuse me of some kind of ‘rape!’ just for saying that. But I would ride on one. At least the lorries might see the fucking thing. But I didn’t buy it. It’s currently one of a kind. The (soon to be) first electric bike rental in London. And the rental company was bought by Uber so I was brung one to play with. All I had to do was tell the bike’s security system that my name was ‘Moh’ and it let me ride. Uber rule.

And I’ve never previously ridden an electric bike, but it is fun. And more importantly… or possibly more problematical from an obesity/exercise perspective, it is totally effortless. In a wonderful, surprisingly powerful kind’a way. You just touch the pedals, pretending that you want to, errr, pedal, and it just zooms off from under you. You keep up some nominal pretence at pedalling and it just does all the hard work for you. You appear to have legs of steel whereas in fact the bike’s battery (good for 20 hours apparently, and topped up by a weeny solar panel on the back, just to appease the Greens and other non-binaries) just does all the work. And more. Because its fast. Basically its a motor-bike without an exhaust pipe. And consequently without the need for all that regulation shit and helmet rubbish and licensing nonsense.

Available early next year apparently for just a few quid a trip, probably. Wonderful.

Football is all about schadenfreude. It’s about really enjoying the fate, misfortune and tragedy of all the teams that you don’t exactly ‘not like’ but just wish bad things upon. Which is essentially all of them other than your own.

So when the front page of the Times runs a piece about Abramovich’s ‘money laundering and crime links’, its not only funny but also possibly explains why he’s never sued me (he is a very litigious person generally) for making precisely those accusations numerous times over the years of his reign. Also because he doesn’t know I exist, perhaps. Nice to be validated.

And best of all, we all love to see Manchester United lose and Morinho squirm. Both of which occurred simultaneously last night as the reds crashed out of the Meaningless Cup to Derby County. But only after yet another public spat between Jose and Paul Pogba. The French ‘superstar’ (when it suits him) blamed the manager for inhibiting the team when they failed to beat Wolves on Saturday. Everyone else pretty much blamed Pogba for losing the ball and not making any efforts to win it back. Plus ca change. So Jose said that he would never make Pogba the captain; he’s unworthy, not for playing in his lacklustre manner but for speaking to the press about such things. Just like, errrr, his, errrr, manager does all the time. But such nonsense destabilises a team, upsets the players, causes aggro in the dressing room. Pogba’s a stupid player, knows no better. Morinho is not stupid, possibly why he was never really ‘a player’, and should know better. If nothing else but from his vast experience of fucking things up by attacking his own players publicly.

Frank Lampard is 57.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I would never willingly, knowingly, consciously, ‘watch’ an awards show. Not the Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, Dog-of-the-year show or even Footballer of the Year. Of which there seem to be about 9. The BBC one, the viewers one, the FA one…

It’s not that I’m opposed to ranking a group of peers on the merits of dubious criteria, or by some critically accepted body of work. Frankly, I couldn’t give a shit. But I just don’t like the format. Some smug Harry, or indeed Harriet, stands up and ‘compares’ a heap of nothing, often actually becoming the show itself, as Billy Crystal did at the Oscars for so many years. As Ricky Gervais did in such controversial style that no-one wanted to see who won ‘best actor in a semi-comedic, quasi-thriller part played by a person or persons of the contradictory gender’ because it interrupted the flow of the stand-up routine.

But last night after the news, as I was putting the sword to the last 2 clues on the Evening Standard crossword (the ‘easy’ one, obvs.), the FIFA World Football Magnificent Award Ceremony! For Magnificent Footballers came on. One minute it wasn’t, the next, it started. And Idris Elba took centre stage.

I love Idris Elba. Even though he’s not going to become the first slightly ethnic James Bond. He’s a great actor and a wonderful director. But a ‘stand-up’ he ain’t. Not that he didn’t really try to be funny. But that just made it worse. And for an actor who, presumably, learns lines for a living, whole speeches, soliloquies even, he really had trouble stringing his relatively straightforward sentences together.

But I forgave him because they kept showing goals being scored, saves being made, celebrations by French people and other ‘items of interest’. Everyone was there. Mbappe, Luka Modric, Zidane, fat Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Gareth Southgate, the Didiers, Drogba and Deschamps, everybody in football. And Dani Alves wife. OMG, Dani Alves wife.

When actors win awards they gush. They cry, they scream, they talk for 45 minutes about losing their virginity in high school, how their children’s love of cream cheese inspired their performance, all sorts of total bollocks.

When footballers win prizes they do so as Robots-in-a-second-language. “I’d like to tank my tim, my man-ger, my vife and my kids for dis ting wot you give me. Good bye night.”

It was embarrassing. It was cringe-worthy. All these fantastic, esteemed superstars, revered and worshipped, and none of them have anything to say. All held together by Idris, who had loads to say but stumbled over the words whilst saying it.

Even Gareth Bale’s overhead kick couldn’t keep me watching.

Tank you and good day-night-time.

A xxxx

No-one knows the Labour party’s position on Brexit. Labour don’t know the Labour party’s position on Brexit. Kier Starmer, the shadow Brexit minister, or ‘old dead eyes’ as I like to think of him, continuously maintains that they’d just ‘negotiate a much better deal’ without actually mentioning what that might entail. And certainly never ever broaches the somewhat more tricky subject of whether ‘Europe’, as we call ‘it’, would accept this offer, which they doubtless wouldn’t.

So Labour may now, having consistently said they wouldn’t, consider a ‘second referendum’ on the terms of Brexit. But here’s the problem, particularly for Jeremy Corbyn.

Many issues are party political issues. Fox hunting. Very tory, wouldn’t get much support from Labour. Workers rights. Very Labour, the Tories would oppose a lot of it. Shooting peasants in the countryside. Reducing the tax on vintage champagne. Nationalising the entire country including the rail networks and Goldman Sacks. These are all very party political things.

Brexit isn’t. There are both sides in both the main parties. We don’t need to count the Lib Dems because they are numerically insignificant. And UKIP is a synonym of ‘Brexit’ and they’ve shot their load and gone into hibernation.

And this division inside the parties is Theresa May’s problem, obviously, in that she can’t get any proposals that please both sides. For Jeremy Corbyn its harder still. Because the Labour Party Members are very pro-remain whereas a vast majority of Labour voters are pro-Brexit. Brexiteers don’t want a second referendum, whatever it may say. If I’ve heard ‘leave means leave!’ once I’ve heard it a million times. They won the referendum, let democracy work.

So at their conference in Liverpool this week, the members will decide whether a second referendum will be supported by Labour. And they’ll probably decide to back the idea. Whereas outside the conference the Labour supporters will resent the fuck out of their party for doing that. And Jeremy Corbyn can’t win an election with just the party members.

Len McLusky, the third arm of the devil’s horns (yep, I just awarded the devil a third horn in the interest of political metaphor) after Corbyn and McDonnell, is pragmatic enough to realise that by promising a second referendum it could actually cost Labour a general election should it happen. And McLusky is in lust with the idea of having a government in trade union hands. And as far as he’s concerned Europe can go or stay, whatever, as long as it doesn’t stop him getting POWER.

Interesting week to come. If you like chaos.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Let’s talk football. I wanna talk about football. I love football. It’s the best game ever, its the finest… thing, the most wonderful… other thing… I just love it!

So no prizes for guessing that Spurs won yesterday. In one of the most delightful performances (never saw a moment) and totally dominant play (not even a hilight), the magnificent Tottenham Hotspurs bested the Albion and Hoves from Brighton.

But what I actually realised was that this is actually still quite a new season. So every result can have quite a big impact on the league table. Burnley won yesterday and lifted from bottom place up to 16th. Spurs went from where they were to a little better. Ok, we overtook Bournemouth but that’s something. If we can overtake Watford too we’ll be sitting pretty.

Arsenal don’t count.

Chelsea may go back to top place today if they can beat West Ham. If. Not a big ‘if’, just a regular one. As Chelsea look positively fearsome and West Ham… don’t. In fact they look shitty, last week’s victory notwithstanding. I accept my view may be somewhat prejudicial because when I start ranking teams more horrible than Chelsea on any level, that team has a problem.

But the odd thing is; teams I really don’t like still do well sometimes. I just don’t understand it. Though I don’t mind Liverpool, ‘we’ have a history going back to Bill Shankley and the glory days, that doesn’t mean I want them to suddenly look invincible. We beat them soundly at Wembley last year. Doubtful we will this year. When you start banking on ‘its a funny old game’ and ‘anything can happen in football’, you know you’re in trouble. Liverpool saw off Southampton yesterday without really trying. Just as Manchester City annihilated Cardiff exactly as the script was written.

Because ‘big teams’ should beat ‘little teams’. How could it ever not be the case? That’s why they call them ‘big teams’. Because calling them ‘stinking rich, over funded, tax laundered, Billionaire play thing vanity projects’ is rude.

So where does that leave Manchester United? In the grand scheme of bigs and littles? They are the stinkingest of stinking rich (in terms of turnover and world following, rather than backing which has always been a bit strange under Glazer rule) and yet couldn’t beat lowliest Wolves at Old Trafford yesterday. Personally I blame Morinho. Mainly because I love to see him squirm and live for his melt-downs.

In the paper they asked whether at Spurs it was possible, having acquired no new blood in the transfer market, to expect the same 25 players to play basically at the absolute limits of their capabilities, for yet another year. With no drops in form (Harry Kane) or disputes (Toby Aldereiwield) or injuries (Hugo Lloris). And I think the answer is an emphatic ‘YES!’ Based on hope, unrestrained optimism and blind faith. Ok, and a modicum of stupidity. Because we won.

Happy shitty, rainy, dark, wet, lousy, no-tennis Sunday

A xxxx

When do you not mind the rain? Ok, when its nighttime and you’re in, that’s fine. ‘Good for the garden’. And the (only) other time is when you’re supposed to be playing tennis but can’t find anyone to play with. Then the rain’s good. Because you (errrr, or ‘me’, probably) don’t feel you’ve missed out. As is happening as I write this. Because Spurs Paul, my longest standing tennis accomplice of modern times is, broken. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to. And he’s out of warranty. Long out of warranty. So I’ve broke that player, can I get a new one? Not today, apparently. They’re all taking kids to uni (it must be ‘that’ weekend) or mowing a lawn, fitting a kitchen, out for brunch or some other lame and pathetic excuses. I’d rather they were honest and just said: ‘we just don’t like you any more and would rather get fat in front of the tv than spend an exhausting hour with you, you total nob-end’. I think Spurs Paul should just man-up and hobble round the court, whatever his team of surgeons advise to the contrary.

Because doctors don’t know much really. Take macular degeneration, f’rinstance. Horrible condition in the eyes that affects a lot of old people. Leaves them eventually blind or near so, like my own dad, who has some vision left but not a lot. They give a course of injections (don’t ask, but the answer is a gruesome ‘yessss!!!’) of which there are 3 choices. One costs over 500 quid a jab, the second costs 800 quid a jab and the third, which they don’t use, costs 25 quid a jab and is allegedly better. I say ‘allegedly’ because although the drug is licensed here, that license is for a cancer treatment, not an eye treatment so they’re not allowed to use it in eyeballs. In case… errrr… in case… well, in case it seriously affects the obscene profit margins of the companies making the first 2 drugs. Obviously. The savings to the NHS would be about 500 million a year. So not much really. ??????

The makers of the expensive drugs, Novartis and Bayer, took an NHS trust to court for using the cheaper alternative but the judge told them to fuck off. Ok, I’d have told them to fuck off, the judge actually said ‘piss off’.

And I mention this because its really not unusual for the NHS to be acting in a silly and careless way with our money. Every politician talks about how much more money they intend to ‘give’ (read: ‘piss away’) to the NHS because its so underfunded. But the problem is NEVER to just throw more cash. The problem is that there are probably 100 examples of using common drugs at massive expense where cheaper ones might even be more effective. And a hundred times 500 million is… such a lot of money that Boris’s stupid allegation of ‘350 million a week extra just for leaving Europe’ becomes even more ridiculous than it always sounded.

The NHS needs to be made more efficient in this and many other ways. Then we wouldn’t need to put in any more money, taxes would drop, we’d all be healthier and richer and would take more holidays, maybe paid for by the new, super-rich health service. Santa would bring the tickets and I think its time for my medication. The cheap stuff though, that’ll do nicely.

Happy (pill) Saturday

A xxxx