Andy's Glasses

I haven’t spoken about football for a little while, because I temporarily lost interest. You know when your WiFi cuts out for an hour with no apparent reason? Same thing, the football fuse just went, no reason, nothing sinister, nothing untoward. Though I remember precisely when it happened; 16.00hours on Sunday. Such is life.

But now I’m cured! Hard-wired back to the beautiful game. Now that I have something to gloat about once more.

Because Wednesday night’s victory over unfortunate Southampton at Wembley enabled us to leap over both Arsenal (who had TEMPORARILY pushed us down the table) and Chelsea (who would have done if they could have beaten the mighty Wolves) into 3rd position where, for the time being, we’re happy to be.

Yet it remains ‘the funny ole game’. Arsenal went to Man United last night pretty much expecting a win. Even though they never win at Old Trafford, this should have been their year. United are not just shit, in any normal meaning of ‘shit’, they are unmotivated, destabilised, lacklustre, shambolic shit with a manager intent on increasing all those horrible adjectives further. Furthermore (I love looking at ‘form books’ because they’re always wrong) Spurs beat United this season, early on when United where still at least performing as a team, and Arsenal, in case you missed it, beat us last week. Ergo, if 1+1=2 then the Arse should have won.

Football’s not like maths. It’s more like… football.

At the other end of the table its hell. Its always hell. No-one wants to incur the ‘curse of Christmas last’, because if you’re bottom of the table at Yule time, yer fucked. Except for the teams who weren’t, but we don’t count them. A curse is a curse.

Newcastle live just above the drop zone but aren’t doing well. When they lost at home to West Ham (also a bit erratic, even by their won standards) last weekend, I thought: how bad must Newcastle be? To lose to that rabble? And I like Geordies, so its sad. I like Palace too (I have to say that), whereas Huddersfield, Burnley, Southampton, Cardiff… does anyone really care which 3 we lose? On a scale of tragedy from chipped paint on a fingernail) to ‘The Titanic!’, just pick any 3 of them and it would barely rank at all.

Well, in football as in ‘gone with the wind’, ‘tomorrow’s just another day’.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

The Leicester Square Odeon, home for decades to premieres and Royal views and the place with more red carpet than Ikea, is to reopen its doors next month after a ‘refurb’. Another one. Usual thing; needed a ‘lick’a paint’ and 47 billion quid later it looks fab. But all that paint and red carpet doesn’t grow on trees. So when it opens it charge £40.25 for the ‘best seats’. These are the Emirates First Class of cinema seating. Reclining, obvs, massive, in case you’re fat, and with ‘three times the leg room of normal seats!!!’ Which is about twice what you probably need really. Normal cinema seats aren’t cramped, another 2 feet would be nice. You don’t need a basketball court in front of you. I don’t think the 40 quid includes either a butler or masseuse but that can probably be arranged.

As an avid and regular movie-goer (and movie buff sometimes, though movies in the buff rarely) I have my cinemas of choice. I like sitting on a 2-seater sofa. With Mel. And I like sufficient leg-room to stretch my very long (32” inside leg) legs. I rarely get the urge to ‘walk around’ during a movie. If I do, then the director’s got something wrong.

And more leg room means less seats.

Yet just this Sunday I was prematurely mourning the demise of the cinema. When a mate told me that Saturday night he saw ‘Disobedience’, which I saw that very night. I saw it at the Phoenix, he saw it in his lounge. On some Curzon Movies stick that hooks up to the intraweb via Amazon and, blah, blah, blah, you get brand new releases, on your own tv. All the sofa you want. Snacks in the kitchen. Pause button! Movies in the buff if you wish, and if you’re wife can stand it. But brand new, first weekend releases, at home and legal, not pirated.

So not only do movies have to compete with tv, with Netflix, with Sky Movies, with Amazon, with all manner of competitive shit, they now would appear to have lost their only ‘edge’, the ‘first view’.

You can watch it at home for a tenner or fork out 80 quid to see it at Leicester Square. Plus travel. Plus 30 quid for popcorn. I like popcorn and its not going to be cheap there, is it?

So if you go to town to watch the movies, the back rows (where we have to sit, one of Mel’s many ‘rules’) its only a tenner each. Bargain. And if you get sneered at by the wide boys in their fold-down, duck-down, hyperseats, just tell them you feel sorry for them because they obviously don’t have a cinema at home. Like wot we don’t.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

We’re all into ‘sustainable’ models. Food, business, natural resources, everything needs to be ‘sustainable’. They make sense. And even though coal is not in any way sustainable, nor a particularly good thing to burn from an atmospheric point of view, try telling the Poles that. Or the Indians. Or the Chinese.

But are Manchester City ‘sustainable’? A more interesting question. Except for the 97 people who just read that and thought ‘oh football!!’ and went back to sleep.

Because the Financial Fair Play rules (which no-one can understand and have never been put to any good use) are finally being dusted off and brought to bear on that most… Northern, of oil-funded, grass roots football teams. They actually represent everything that is pretty abhorrent about our national game. And yet to watch, they are the dream. Every football club would want to play with such style, such skill, such grace. But they can’t afford the players. Because to buy and pay the ludicrous salaries of world superstars means that your business model is no longer ‘sustainable’. You spend more than you reap. Which in any other business, or for most other teams, would mean bankruptcy, receivership, death.

Not at Manchester City. Nor even at Chelsea who currently have 100 players out on loan all over the world. I’ve got one to wash my car. Mow the lawn.

But now some emails have come to light over the Man City ‘sponsorship’ by Etihad Airlines. The financial details of which have always been a little… sketchy. Particularly as the club are owned by Sheikh Mansoor, who also ‘owns’ Abu Dhabi, and Etihad is ‘state-owned’ and hence is, in practical terms, owned by the good Sheikh. Is there a good Sheikh? I’ve never met one.

The emails show that in 2015 ‘Etihad’ paid its ‘sponsorship’ of 67.5 million quid. But the Sheikh said that the airline would actually only pay 8 mil and his own company would sort out the rest.

Which is precisely what the FFP rules were there to eliminate. The fact that clubs can ridiculously overspend and some overseas billionaire can ‘sustain’ his vanity project by just coughing up the shortfall. Books balance, we have the best club in the world. It’s that hated model used at PSG too.

But now Man City may get banned from the Champions League. Which will be totally fantastic should Spurs only manage to finish 5th this season. And more importantly (WHAT’S MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT???) it would send a loud and clear message.

Southampton, Watford, Burnley, possibly even Spurs, and lots of other top flight teams, can’t compete with unlimited funding. Therefore the league is unbalanced and unfair. Unless Mansour bribes UEFA. Not a totally unprecedented scenario.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

There’s a move afoot. Not sure if I can say ‘afoot’ in case it offends footless people. Or because foot is a meat product in the wrong hands. Or mouths. But they want to change our idioms. Lest they cause offence. Or ‘distress’. Things like ‘taking home the bacon’ and ‘flogging a dead horse’ may do just that among vegans.

So, no longer content with taking away our meat (which they’d like to do), they’re now after our language. Because if you say ‘all your eggs in one basket’ to a vegan they start to cry. Fold up on the floor. Need therapy. Need yoga and quickly, to avoid a crisis.

The vegan’s union (or whatever the fuck they are) want to stop people saying ‘take the bull by the horns’. Because it might hurt the bull? Have they ever seen a fucking bull? That’s why its a metaphorical expression and in no way a literal instruction. Otherwise the health & safety morons would have banned it decades ago. They want to replace the idiom with ‘take the flower by the thorns’. Ahhhh. Nice. UNLESS YOU’RE A ROSE! Not so good for them, is it? Heartless bloody vegans.

I suppose the old tongue-twister ‘red leather, yellow leather’ better get replaced by ‘red totally vegetarian organic leather-appearing substitute, yellow…’ Becomes more of a memory test than one of speech.

It’s the same old problem. Literalism. Saying ‘Jesus Christ!’ when, say Arsenal score their third effin goal, was at one time seen as blasphemy. Now its used all the time, with total impunity, because no one can pronounce ‘Aubameryang’. Or wants to.

There are many of us who get distressed by chick peas. Not because they’re made from pretty ickle chicks (if only) but because of what they have come to represent. Quorn makes me tremble. But I don’t intend to have them removed from our language.

Eat what you fucking want. Just leave my lovely language alone.

This was Lila’s first ever doughnut. Because its Chanukah so there’s no calories and God protects your arteries.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I almost made a fatal mistake this morning. I was just about to roll over out of the bed as I do every morning, like a commando in battle, an old one, with a bad back, onto the floor, when I thought: “NOOOOOO!!!!” Because today I have to get out of the other side of the bed. Phew, just in time.

Why is this day different from all others? Because its the North London Derby this afternoon. That’s why.

So I need to get out of the right side of the bed. Mel’s side. She was reading the papers. As I gently rolled over, kneeing her in the groin, elbowing her in the sternum, a minor head-butt ‘en passant’, and I was out.

Protocols MUST be adhered to (get in the bath with your back to the taps then turn round), superstitions followed, (put your LEFT sock on first), absolutely NOTHING must affect the yin and yang of the vibes, the Fung Shui of the cosmos, the total chi must be perfect.

The result of the match today has absolutely nothing to do with footballs being kicked. It’s all about a combined 50,000 people all wearing the ‘special’ t-shirt, the ‘lucky’ watch, the old hat, the 1973 scarf, its about walking three times round the tree before getting in the car, leaving precisely half your cup of tea, its about all manner of superstitious clap-trap.

That’s how games are won. Not by a bunch of overpaid, self-proclaimed ‘superstars’. They barely contribute.

The fact of the matter is that when Spurs play Arsenal, all bets are off. All form goes out of the window. Stars degenerate into tossers, non-starting never-plays become outstanding, previous wins, draws, losses, all irrelevant. The slate is blank.

Ok, the 22 players (often reducing as the match progresses due to the sheer emotion of the day), do their bit. But this game is about and for the fans. Because its us who will suffer tonight and tomorrow and will probably end up switching our phones off and not checking emails. It’s us who’ll cry, weep, pull out hair and punch walls.

The ‘Manchester Derby’ is big-ish, Liverpool vs Everton (later today too) is absolutely nothing, local derby though it may be. West Ham vs Orient… never happens and no-one would care if it did. But Spurs Arsenal is massssssssive. It is the black hole of derby matches.

And I love this game and hate it in equal measures.

So I’ve done my bit and will continue to do all manner of normal things in rather strange ways; now its up to my boys.

In Poch we trust.

COME ON YOU SPURS!!!

A xxxx

Now here’s a funny thing. I was sitting in the kitchen on Sunday, just before tennis, having me porridge (tennis food) when my left arm suddenly went ‘funny’. As in really weak and shaky. As if my shoulder had dislocated (something I know lots about unfortunately) and left the muscles semi-inert. But I’m sure I’d have noticed if that had happened. Even one as allegedly insensitive as I. Then it stopped. A minute, maybe 2 later, all back to normal. Fine, super, done deal. Trapped nerve? Muscle spasm?? Who knows? Who fucking cares?

Didn’t give it a second thought.

Until Tuesday. When I read an article in the Times, just flicking through, about how ‘funny little things’ are generally not funny in the least. In fact this article renamed ‘funny little things’ as FUCKING SERIOUS NOT-AT-ALL FUNNY FUCKING HORRIBLE LITTLE THINGS!!!!

Apparently odd ‘events’ exactly like mine CAN be a kind of ‘mini-stroke’. A ‘TIA’, as they are called. Something obstructing blood flow in the brain and CAN be the precursor of a proper ‘stroke’. AND MUST BE MEDICALLY EXAMINED WITHIN 24 HOURS!!!!

Holy shit. I was already a day late. So I did what any perfectly (seemingly) healthy, fit as a (possibly broken) fiddle, full of the joys of late autumn, man would do. And ignore it for a further few days.

The problem was that Mel read the article too. Which recommended the immediate taking of aspirin, which she then bought and ‘administered’ (handing me the pill with a glass of water and watching the process to completion), as she does every morning.

So I spoke to a GP, thinking (hoping) that she’d just laugh it off as chronic, media-induced paranoia resulting from journo-exaggeration syndrome. But she didn’t. She basically wanted me to go straight to hospital. Call an ambulance. Lie down and don’t move until paramedics have put a few thousand votes through me, or checked my testicles whilst coughing or whatever they do.

I’m going to see a neurologist on Monday. Even though I feel like a total fraud.

And I’m never eating porridge again!

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

This is from today’s paper. Above the police, below the homeless. A school (which both of my daughters attended) is asking parents to sign a pledge requesting the entire family reduce ‘phone time’. Which is brilliant. The school was always at the cutting edge of cool, leading the way in eating disorders, producing alcoholics and being a place for really good quality drugs. Oddly it was pretty good academically too. But smartphones are killing society, I have no doubt personally, and any action is good action. They’re trying to kill our zombies!

As younger daughter commented, what a tragedy that instead of getting fucked up in the park with 4 bottles of cider and an eighth of Skunk, these kids are at home on Instagram looking at pictures of each others’ shoes. And what they had for dinner (before they threw it up). The wastage of youth. As opposed to the wastage of youths.

This pledge is for the whole family. Mum & dad too. No phones at the mealtable. No phones an hour before bed. Chargers OUTSIDE the bedroom. And not only is this a great idea but it was actually proposed by some of the girls in the 6th form as part of a psychology project. I hate clever bastards normally but this is inspired and could change the entire fabric of our future as human beings.

It will never work. The force is too strong, alas and alack.

And I think I’ve changed my mind about Brexit again. Don’t want another vote, want ‘the deal’. The only deal. The shit one. With holes in it. And a massively humongous national bill attached. But it is what it is and its better than nothing. So be it.

However, one of the main reasons for the ‘second vote’ or ‘people’s vote’ is that ‘we were chronically misinformed by both sides before the referendum’. And we were. Abysmal. David Cameron’s scare tactics, Boris’s stupid fucking ‘365 million pounds a week to the health service’ if we left, all total bollocks. All exaggerations of worst case scenarios. All with ulterior motives or halves of stories. Yet now, as I listened to Mark Carney, the gov’nor of the Bank of England the other night, I had cause to think; its happening again. The Brexit-bollocks. The exaggerations. The possible-but-unlikely effects. And I like Mark Carney and like him I didn’t want to leave Europe and still don’t. But he went too far with his doomsdaying.

Which just goes to show; you can’t believe ANYTHING about Brexit, from absolutely ANYONE. Except me.

Happy Friday.
Don’t read this on your phone.

A xxxx

Moussa Sissoko is the name on everyone’s lips today. And on Saturday too, after his fantastic performance against Chelsea, and his name deserves to be sung loud and clear. Here we go: “MOUSSA SISSOKO, MOUSSA SISSOKO, MOUSSA SISSOKO…”

A lot of Spurs fans should hang their heads in shame for the rough ride the Frenchman has generally received since becoming our then most expensive player when we paid Newcastle 30 million quid for him.

Unlike them, I was typically full of patience, understanding and compassion for the man, always giving him the benefit of the doubt and… never shouting, pulling hair out or getting frustrated with him. No, never.

He replaced Victor Wanyama in the holding role when the Kenyan was injured. And whereas Wanyama is an elegant, silky-skilled individual with a core of steel and a neat easy style with which he’s seldom dispossessed, Sissoko was somewhat… different. More… flamboyant… errrr… expressive… not quite as seemingly sort of ‘in control’, neither of the ball nor often of himself. Flaying arms and legs around and being a touch too ‘headless chicken’ for… for many fans to tolerate.

But the few of us who can hold our heads up, rather than leaving them up our collective arses (we, sorry, YOU know who you are), have been richly rewarded as our Moussa has suddenly ‘come of age’. Stepped up to the plate. And from midfield is positively driving all the good that Spurs are currently producing, including last night’s essential winning goal against Inter Milan. He didn’t score it but he just kind of turned into our other Mousa and drove right through the Italian defence before laying the ball off to Dele to flick it to Eriksen to finish.

Yet once again it comes down to just one thing. In Mauricio we trust. My tattoo (if I was allowed to have one). Says it all. If Poch reckons Sissoko is worth the starting shirt, we simply have no right to question. And Poch was right yet again. Unfailingly.

And on the amazing high of the last 2 fantastic wins, that’s how we enter the Emirates on Sunday to face… The Arse!!!! A fixture I love and hate in almost equal measures.

Come on Spurs!

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

My lovely old dad, bless him, just turned 94. So he reads the Daily Mail, loves Brexit, adores Trump and hates Theresa May, like he hated David Cameron, for ‘not being Tory enough’. Those are your political views if you’re lucky enough to still have any at 94. And he hates Social Workers. Even though a lot of what they do is very difficult, very important and often life-saving.

The problem is that Social Services act within a very constrained set of laws and regulations. So they are sometimes simply not allowed to take ‘Baby F’ (or the letter of choice) from abusive parents/step-parents/drug-dealers because certain criteria are not reached. And when Baby F is murdered by aforementioned scumbags, Social Services take the flak. Similarly, when they do take a child into care, away from its parents, for protection, they take flak for that too, for breaking up families.

So pretty much everyone hates social workers, to some degree, not just nonagenarians. You’re not human if you don’t. Even if you do appreciate what they do, up to a point.

But that point is often missed, or simply lost in the rules they have to follow.

Like contacting a convicted, jailed rapist, currently serving a 35 year sentence, to ask whether he’d like to meet his child and take any parental responsibilities. The child was the product of one of his rapes. The man was part of one of the notorious ‘grooming gangs’ who raped and abused 1500 girls in Rotherham, many of whom were in ‘Social Services care’ at the time.

The mother wasn’t asked whether she thought this might be a good idea. A nice thing. The child (now a teen) has no interest in meeting his ‘father’. But Social Services were just following rules, laws and protocols. Which I’m going to assume come from Brussels and the fabulous Human Rights department of near-insanity. Because I hate to think that good, wholesome, roast-beef-and-Yorkshire-pudding British law could ever be so fucking stupid.

“Darling, would you like to meet your father? That nice man who drugged and raped me when I was a vulnerable and unstable 15 year-old? And 864 others too?”

The (now) woman in question has rather bravely come out publicly about this because otherwise the Council in question can’t be named.

So even those sympathetic to the importance of Social Services have a lot of questions to ask Rotherham Council about the most terribly mishandled abuse scandal and the cock-ups they’re still making relating to it. They are the ‘gift that keeps giving’.

Does this mean I’m getting old?

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

They’ve landed on Mars. This is what it looks like. Spotty. Should be red, but its spotty. The Spotty Planet. It took the spacecraft 7 months to get there. Though it is 91 million miles away. If you went by London Underground (3 miles every 24 minutes) it would take 19 years to arrive. Though with my free pass at least I’d get there for nothing. Rather than spending a few billion quid like the Americans at NASA have. Is Mars past Ongar? Is anything beyond Ongar?

The tricky bit was the landing. Everything else is calculated, tested, computerised to the nth degree, sorted. But then the ‘Insight’ lander has a six-and-a-half minute journey through the atmosphere of the planet, with temperatures of about 1500 degrees (doesn’t matter if they’re Celsiuses or Fahrenheits at that point, ‘fucking hot’ is all that counts; though may need to be quantified for practical purposes). But it survived and it landed, where it should have, on its little feet things, nice and gently, and bang on time. Which is why EasyJet don’t do space travel. Delays due to storms on Alpha Centuri. Act of God so you don’t get your compensation, just a cheese sandwich for 14 quid.

We now just need to wait and see if the solar panels unfurl. Cos if they don’t they need to send a shit-load of double-A batteries as soon as possible. Otherwise they’ve spent untold billions to put an ornament on a planet that no-one will ever see.

But hopefully all will be good and we’ll learn lots about the origins of the planets, ours included.

Elon Musk is desperate to go to Mars and is working on his spaceships to offer trips. Don’t know what you’d do there, other than take a few selfies til your phone died.

But I’m a little disappointed that there were no Martians to greet the landing craft. Martians have always captured our imaginations as the ultimate, go-to bad guys. Before communists came along and replaced them. And I want Martians. I want aliens. Who look like giant squid carrying ray-guns and act like Chelsea fans after a ‘good night out’.

Shame. David Bowie was right.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx