Andy's Glasses

Another day another country. We’re in Christchurch, New Zealand. Which is, geographically speaking, 11,800 miles away from Lila. But sometimes you have to make sacrifices. It’s just 3 hours from Sydney and you’d have to say that it is ‘quaint’. A double edged adjective implying sweet and small and charming, which it most certainly is, but also reminiscent of how towns (probably a city; it does have what the 2011 earthquake left of its cathedral) used to be. ‘Back in the day’. Before… before all the modern stuff took over. Though being Christmas Day you have to give it some slack in that there was probably not one native on the streets today.

They’re all eating too much and drinking even more to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus. Even though Jesus wasn’t a Kiwi at all. Wasn’t even English, which will come as a shock to some. He was from Palestine. Bethlehem, to be precise. And they founded a religion based on a baby born in a barn to a woman who was a virgin. I make no comments. Not my place. The first and last ‘virgin birth’. But its true. John Wayne said it at the end of ‘the Greatest Story ever told’. He said: “Shurely this is the son of Gaad”. In that very John Wayney “the hell I will” drawl. Took him 10 minutes to say it.

Tomorrow morning we head off to Mount Cook. I’m guessing it a mountain. On the other side of the South Island. I’ve seen mountains before, but never that one. So I’m rather excited at the prospect. And I have to drive slowly. Like in Australia, they have an almost ‘zero tolerance’ on speeding. So even though speeding is one of my favourite hobbies, I’ll reign it in. Particularly as the roads where we’re going are not exactly ‘big’. The mountains will be but not the roads.

But heh, I’m in the home of the All Blacks so I kind of ‘need’ to do the Haka. Do I do one when I fill up the car with petrol? In a cafe?? Not sure what the protocols are but I’m keen to remain culturally sensitive. Whilst effectively performing a war-dance to a waiter bringing me m lunch.

Happy Christmas Everybody

A xxxx

So the deal was, we play tennis at 9 this morning. That’s me, the Woolf Man, Me Mate Dave and Bulawayo Boy (aka: the father of the bride). We got back from the wedding at about 1 o’clock last night, Bulawayo Boy, much later, but them’s the breaks.

So from Bondi to the Woolara Tennis Club; how far can it be? Phah, 3k, I’ll take a hotel bike. They’re a bit ‘Mary Poppins’ but I can take the flak from Aussie van drivers who still live in fucking caves, never mind any kind of ‘non-binary’, anti-presumption social environment. And thus I pedalled up the road, gorgeous morning, even wearing a helmet (its a law here so they give you one), whistling with the joys of loveliness. Then I hit Old South Head Road and turned left. Up a fucking mountain.

Google maps doesn’t do topography. Doesn’t do ‘relief’ maps. And up this hill there was no relief. Just a sheer rockface paved for cars. And bikes. Yes, I had to get off and push at one (several really) point but after getting just a bit lost, I arrived.

Unfortunately, after the tennis which was fun (I never usually play doubles; more people to abuse) and coffee, I got back on the bike only to realise that someone must have turned the mountains around whilst we were playing. Because it seemed to be uphill all the way home as well.

Note to self: NEVER bike in Bondi. It is quite literally uphill all the way.

But who cares. As I stirred to awkedness first thing, my phone kept pinging. I checked. 63 messages. Holy shit. Because Spurs had played Everton whilst I slept. And from. 1-0 down (all doom and gloom on the chat) it went to 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4… all the way to 2-6. A truly massive win for my absolute heroes. Totally emphatic. Putting us within 2 points of flagging Man City and just a bit further from Liverpool. Filling me with that belief which, I’ll admit, normally brings immense disappointment and shattered dreams, but this year; I BELIEVE!

Eriksen’s goal; a modern day wonder. Son’s second; his first touch so breathtakingly exquisite that apparently when Lionel Messi saw it he said “I wish I could do that”, but in Spanish.

Happy days

A xxx

Now look, there’s only so much credit I can take for this, but having come ‘down under’ I seem to have, personally and uniquely and all by myself-ly, turned the entire footballing world upside down. I awoke this morning (local time; everywhere else; who fucking knows) and before even checking Mel’s pulse, reached for the football scores from yesterday (all terms of a temporal nature strictly relative). And I couldn’t have been more shocked if I’d found a MP had been telling the truth about Brexit. The scores were simply weird. Unaccountable. Upside Down. At which point I decided to take all the responsibility myself. Being the upside down factor in all this.

Manchester United won a game!!! They played for 90 minutes and came off with smiles on their faces??? That must be the first time since Bobby Charlton was sweeping his comb-over across his head in goal celebration. Get this: PAUL POGBA WAS MAN OF THE MATCH!!!! Jesus, I’d forgotten the he played for Man United and then Morinho goes (just coincidence) and they win 5-1 at Cardiff. Ok, its Cardiff. What d’ya expect? But Man United under Jose would not have done that.

Arsenal won a game!!!! What a day it was turning out to be with all these habitual losers and groups of overpaid tossers actually winning games. Remember Ozil? Who demanded, in his last contract negotiations, ‘parity with Pogba’ for 300k a week. Well the ‘parity’ thing, probably in the small print, must also have said ‘minor role in a walk-on part every third game, (non-physical teams only)’. Apparently played like a fucking demon. Albeit a wimpy kind of demon.

But then the big ones. The ‘major upsets!!!’ Chelsea lost at home (always a fantastic sentence to be able to write, better still if the ‘Spurs’ word is included) to Leicester. The ‘high flying’ Blues lost to the other, more kind’a ‘drone-like’ blues and that is good for mankind as well as football.

And the best til last: Manchester City lost a game. At home! To… Crystal Palace!!! I mean, in what world? How could it? Is the planet off its axis?? Andros Townsend scores the goal of the century (and will now do absolutely NOTHING for the next 7 games, its in his contract) and Fortress Etihad crumbles to the South London invaders. Which is as poetic as it is lovely.

And resurgent West Ham, sort of stopped resurging to allow Watford (everyone loves Watford, right?) to beat them at the London/Olympic/Disaster/Rip-off Stadium.

Tragically Liverpool had won on Friday night (I think) to top the league with a bit of a buffer. But Spurs play today (or tomorrow, possibly yesterday) in what has become a 17-pointer. For Spurs fans at least. And who else counts?

Happy Sunday (possibly)

A xxx

I must admit that I find it rather hard to believe that a few tossers with ‘drones’ have brought Gatwick Airport to a complete standstill. Though I find it quite reassuring to read that ‘police are looking for flying object in the sky’. At least they’re in the right ball park. Though they’re not sure if its one drone or many, whether its some random dickhead with a new toy, totally oblivious that his activities have so far ruined the Christmases of 115,000 people, or if its some bizarre statement by ‘eco-warriors’ intent on causing havoc in a place so blatantly guilty of ‘eco-crimes’. Like ‘flying in aeroplanes’. A terrible thing to do (he says from Bondi Beach) to our planet!

This is what you do. You shoot the things out of the sky. We have systems that can detect a single mosquito anywhere in the greater Harlow area, we have anti-missile mechanisms that can ‘take out’ a suspect ‘thing’ anywhere in the skies. A kid with an iPad could probably find seventeen ways to disrupt a drone’s signal and see it plummet to the ground. But instead, we send out two dozen policemen to ‘find one in the sky’. Presumably, once seen they would immediately… errrr… fly up to arrest it? Superman would. Or throw their truncheons at it? If you’re not the solution, then you’re part of the problem. Sometimes you just need fucking violence.

The oddest thing of all: last night I went to the synagogue. To put that in perspective: I never go to the synagogue. I never said I was a good Jew, I said I was a good Spurs fan. Slightly different. But last night, due to the upcoming nuptial event, synagogue was on the events list so I had no choice. But it was Australian synagogue, so not like a real one. It was nice, it was really friendly, it only lasted half an hour (JUST within my tolerance threshold), no-one cared if you spent your time talking with old friends rather than pretending to pray, and the rabbi insisted I drink a whisky with him before we started. And he’d already had a good head start on me. My kind’a rabbi. Numb the pain.

So its nine in the morning, I’ve been up forever, I’ve swum as many lengths as the shoulder would allow and its not too hot. Are you jealous? That I’m worried about being too hot dressed in shorts and flip-flops?? Good. Job done then.

Happy Saturday, as we call Friday night over here

A xxxx

I might be in Australia but I’m a Brit. Therefore am at liberty to discuss the weather at any opportunity. And its an odd thing here. ‘Here’ being wherever I am at the time. Which was the Hunter Valley for the last 2 days and now its Sydney, to where I’ve returned.

We’ve had a lot of rain, good for the grapes I’m sure, not so good for the tourists. But it was mainly at night. And its been cloudy, which is dull but ok. But yesterday we had some sun. Like, real, blue sky, cloudless, Southern Hemisphere summer sun. It was 37 degrees of Celsiusness and felt like 50. So we did what any sensible cold-climateers would and took some bikes out to explore the wineries. There’s no shade. No escape, just this sheer, intense heat. Quite like nothing I’ve experienced before, and I’ve done my share of ‘hot’. Maybe its the lack of Ozone layer, maybe its… just Aussie contrariness, I don’t know. But fuck me it was hot. But we survived it with various rests, just to get out of the heat on what was not a particularly taxing ride.

And we drank wine. Lovely wine. Shitty wine. Who cares? Whatever they put in front of you, you drink. Be rude not to.

Now we’re at Bondi. I like Bondi, its a cool place. Feels warm and muggy, because its in Australia, but its ‘cool’.

Unlike Jeremy Corbyn. Backing another lost fucking cause. Seen here with his ‘mates’ at the Emirates the other night. Enjoying watching the footballing wonders that are the Tottenham Hotspurs as they eliminated his own sad team from the Caribou Cup. Yes I do know what a Caribou is but not in that context.

So Jose’s gone from Old Trafford, no big surprise there. And the talk is not merely that United want Pochettino, but in today’s Times (yes, I get it way before you’re even awake) there talking about what Pochettino ‘will’ do once he ‘is’ at United. Nothing presumptuous there then. So to all Manchester United fans, to all greedy, cash-stripping Glazers, to anyone called Woodward, I have a message for you.

KEEP YOUR FUCKING HANDS AND YOUR HORRIBLY LAUNDERED CASH AWAY FROM OUR MANAGER. HE’S MUCH TOO GOOD FOR YOUR SAD AND SORRY ORGANISATION AND IF YOU MAKE ANY OFFERS I WILL KILL YOU ALL.

I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

Happy hot, sunny, cold, rainy, grey, blue, searingly intense Friday.

A xxxx

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