Andy's Glasses

The motto from the holocaust is ‘lest we forget’. Because it mustn’t ever be forgotten. Having said that, it was a long time ago and we like to think that such a thing could never happen again. Even if Corbyn did get into power (heaven forbid) you like to think that persecution of the Jews would remain at its more sneaky, pesky, insidious but manageable levels. Probably like the comfortable, contented and affluent German Jews felt before 1936.

So perhaps it’s because I was born in 1956 to parents who’d lived through the war and its aftermath when the holocaust finally became revealed in all its horrendous destruction, I never do forget.

I read ‘Exodus’, a sanitised and easy story that alludes to the event rather than exposes it. I read other books. Saw movies. Heard the tales. Visited the memorials around the world.

I’ve read lots. From the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, the Hollywoodised ultimate ‘what if’, almost revenge tale, to the recent Tattooist of Auschwitz. German stories. French stories, Czech stories, autobiographies and all manner in between. I’ve seen Life is Beautiful, Roberto Benigni’s autobiographical account of his camp, I’ve seen Schindler’s List. I’ve seen the most brutal movie ever which is filmed in the first person and that person works in the ovens in a death camp. (Not all camps were death camps, even though hundreds of thousands died in the non-death camps too, the ones that probably rated higher on Tripadvisor). I read my dad’s mate’s personal account of his time in Auschwitz, something all survivors were encouraged to do to try and ‘exorcise the demons’, speak the unspeakable.

I know about the holocaust. About the gas chambers, about the ovens, the chimneys, the starvation, the beatings, the random killings, the constant life/death choices every day, I know about the dehumanisation of an entire people. Doesn’t mean I’m inured to it, just that the actual physical side of it has become very familiar and though always sickening and saddening, I get that bit.

But what I obviously never really ‘got’ was how hard it was for survivors to actually survive the liberation. To cope with survival when so many, in most cases all the rest of your family, didn’t survive. And the struggle affected their loved ones, massively, and into future generations.

And I’m reading a book now called ‘The Choice’ about just that. An Auschwitz survivor (from Hungary. Most survivors are Hungarian because their Jews weren’t sent to the camps until 1944, ‘just’ one year before liberation) who became a psychologist so she could help traumatised people but found the most difficult person to help was herself. She lived in part-denial, never spoke of her time there, tried to ‘protect’ everyone around her. Whilst actually damaging her close, personal relationships.

Her then 10 year-old daughter comes to her parents holding a book with a photo of the liberated at Auschwitz. The filthy, skeletal, almost dead in their ragged stripes. The mother rushes from the room and throws up. Her husband tells the daughter ‘your mother was there’.

Reading that in the bath the other night I suddenly started sobbing. Not, ‘tears in my eyes’ as I do in rom-coms, adverts involving puppies, goal celebrations, happy times. No, this was actual sobbing. The bath was going to overflow. An outpouring of… what? Empathy? Understanding? Realisation? I don’t know, haven’t worked it out. But it was powerful.

And that was the night that we learned of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. With the neo-Nazi dickhead shouting ‘death to all Jews’.

And people wonder why we’re paranoid.

Happy, healthy, free Wednesday

A xxxx

If we have dinner together, I will probably eat something off your plate. Just grab it. With my fingers. Or fork. Possibly with my toes. When you’ve finished I’ll eat what you’ve left. If we ‘share’ something, you better get in quick. If my fork is busy, I’ll use yours. If yours is busy too, I’ll use your knife. If we are eating crisps, or chips in communal ketchup, I will double dip!!

Double dipping is when you dip your crisp (or carrot baton, if you really must) into some, say, hummus, bite it, then put the half bitten crisp/carrot back into the hummus for more. Double dipping. Apparently there are 2000 times the amount of bacteria consumed when you double dip. Holy shit! How am I even still alive? Though it’s ok if its at my house because I’ve probably already sneezed in it before it made it onto the table, so the bacteria’s mine anyway.

If I drop food, I pick it up and eat it. Ok, maybe not from the pavement, like Lila does, but at home. Where Lila also does. I have the 3-second rule. Plus extra time.

When someone blows the candles out on a birthday cake, there are a whopping 12,000 times more bacteria on the icing. Perhaps they’re suggesting that you blow the candles out and throw the cake away. The metaphor ‘the icing on the cake’ should be replaced with ‘the bacteria on the icing’.

Bacteria is not all bad. Yoghurt is full of the stuff. And people have become convinced that by eating ‘live’ yoghurt they’ll live 100 years longer. They can have mine. But more importantly, you have to get your body ‘immune’ to bacteria. You need to eat germs. Early on and frequently. Babies put everything in their mouths. Food, germs, toys, chair-legs, bed-clothes, mud, sand, grass, whatever. And its important. So why the big fuss about sharing bacteria in food? It actually keeps us healthy. Improves our tolerance, reduces infections and allergies.

So reckons this pig.

And all because talking about football is just too painful. Ok, after conceding a goal after 5 minutes it looked like it could get altogether more humiliating, but Spurs held it together to survive the first half and looked positively impressive in parts of the second. But couldn’t score. Harry couldn’t score. One touch in the Man City box. Not enough. We looked better when Dele and Eriksen and Winks came on, but it was late by then. And if we’d played that kind of attacking formation early on we’d probably have conceded 7 by half time, without the midfield muscle.

But losing is horrible. Even if it was always somewhat inevitable.

Happy-ish Tuesday

A xxxx

I’d like to use my blogger’s, non-parliamentary privilege to name Philip Green as the businessman implicated in the spurious allegations of sexual misconduct and racism for which the Court of Appeal upheld the non-disclosure orders on the staff concerned. In doing so I appreciate that I’m making a farce of the country’s legal system but I’m prepared to do this because this is a matter in ‘the public interest’. In that the public really hate Philip Green and will really enjoy sniggering at this latest discomfort for him, and will probably enjoy reading all the sordid details too. I’d also like to stress that there is absolutely no conflict of interest here for me personally, even though I am a paid consultant for the law firm acting to overturn the gagging orders.

Thank You.

Lord Tosser of Ulterior Motive.

Thus spake Peter Hain, who unilaterally decided that those pesky gagging orders were wrong and thus, being much cleverer and more switched on and morally astute than a bunch’s trumped up judges, effectively overturned their upholding of the gagging orders. More ‘steamrollered’ than overturned in his case. Because what’s said in Parliament is protected against legal action. Even for dickheads.

There’s a lot of issues here. What we all dislike about Philip Green not being one of them.

There’s the whole non-disclosure orders thing (NGOs). They were invented by some clever legal bods to protect things like the recipe for Coke. For financial company details. Corporate business shit. They weren’t created to protect lascivious directors when they behave in Neanderthal manner. Or rapist footballers.

But that’s what gagging orders have become; a rich man’s (let’s face it; its ALWAYS a man) tool for trying to avoid getting caught for what he obviously did. Not in a ‘getting caught in a burglary’ kind of way; that can’t be avoided. But for being naughty, immoral, disgusting, vile or just awful.

There’s also that no facts have been established as to the allegations against Green, though doubtless they’ll follow soon, but that leads to a presumption of guilt. Which is wrong. Though it must be noted that people who spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on gagging orders, plus the inevitable ‘pay-offs’ that often accompany them, can’t really be viewed in any way as ‘innocent’.

I don’t like Philip Green. Who does? I’m sure once the facts do emerge they’ll be horrible and sordid. But Peter Hain was so wrong in his action. Because what he basically said was ‘you think no man is above the law? Well this one is.’

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I’ve never had a season ticket for Tottenham. Never. When I was young (horrible phrase) I couldn’t afford one and when I was older I always preferred to go to selective games rather than the total commitment of going to every single match. You could say that ‘I lack commitment’ and in this most cases you’d be right. I love going but choose when to go.

The only time this changed, when I did choose to go to every single home game, was in the late 70s. Because when Glenn Hoddle was playing you simply couldn’t afford to miss a game. So me and me mate Stan (alas no longer with us) would pitch up at White Hart Lane and stand in ‘The Shelf’. Before Hillsboro’ you could do that. Just pitch up to virtually any ground and, because so much of the ground was for ‘standing’ with, rather bizarrely, only the so-called ‘stands’ designated for seating, (whereas actual standing was done on the Terraces), you could always get into a match. They weren’t big on limits on crowds back then and, if worse came to worse, you give the turnstile guy a fiver and he’d let you jump over.

Spurs were a good team back then, not a great team, that came a bit later when Ozzie Ardiles and Ricky Villa came from Argentina to join Glenn in the midfield. But we were good. And had always tended to go for the skilful rather than the pragmatic type players. We loved a showboater, we adored brilliance and if we didn’t win as many matches it was the price paid for the team being wonderful to watch.

But when Glen started he was given freedoms that other rookies aren’t. Because he was ‘special’ right from the start. He was, quite frankly, a footballing genius. It wasn’t just the skill, the art, the sublime finishing that made him thus. Many players have amazing technical skills. What set Glen apart was his vision. He saw things that others simply didn’t. He would thread a pass 60 yards to a player who no-one knew was there. Sometimes even the player himself barely knew. He would do the unthinkable, see the impossible, confuse the opposition, and sometimes his own teammates, and best of all, he had the amazing talent to put his visions into reality.

And now he’s ill. Had a (presumably) quite massive heart attack at the tv studio yesterday.

If you didn’t know Glen Hoddle, the player, the magician, the wonder, or weren’t around when he spun his magic, just google: ‘Glen Hoddle my sweet lord’ and watch the best 3 minute video of total amazement.

I wanted to talk about Philip Green today (invoking my non-parliamentary privilege), I wanted to talk about the massacre in the Pittsburgh synagogue, but today my heart is with Glen.

Get well soon.

A xxxx

They’ve found the ‘pipe-bomber’ who sent 14 bombs in the mail to top Democrats and Trump critics. He lives in Florida. In a white van totally covered in ‘support Trump’ stickers, ‘make America great’ banners and photos of democrats all superimposed with ‘crossed hairs’ over them. Nothing particularly incriminating there then. His name is Cesar Sayoc. And when I heard that on the news my first thought was ‘Keyser Soze’. Must be his cousin. He’s guilty as fuck. But will probably get away with it and limp away. Or not limp away…

The crisis in America is divisiveness. Same as it is here about Brexit, over there its about Trump. Americans have always split along bi-partisan lines. You’re a Democrat (if you’re a decent, moderate, compassionate human being) or you’re a Republican (if you’re a semi-educated Southern Baptist with a confederate flag on your Chevy pick-up, 14 guns in the cupboard and sympathy for the KKK if not actual membership). You vote as your father voted and as your kids will vote. Both kids if you’re a Democrat, all 9 kids if you’re a Republican. I make no judgments. Fine with me.

Because under previous administrations, whoever wins, about half of America doesn’t have its chosen representation. But heh, it is what it is; you cope, you manage, you survive. The Republicans may have disliked Obama or Clinton but they accepted him. The Democrats would never have chosen Bush or other Bush but that’s what it was. Fine.

Until Trump. Because he has caused the great divide. So much as now, post-mail-bombs, he stands up and calls for unity and an end to ‘divisions’, and says how threats and violence have no place in politics, prior to this week he’s always been the main culprit. Endless tweets of threats, derision and attacks on the press, the inevitable ‘tough guy’ stance on everything, verbally attacking Democrats.

The divisions are indeed great in the States. They never had been thus before. The politics is the same, the people are the same, only the President is different. You do the maffs.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I walked out the house this morning and there was… sort of… like… water! like, coming out of the sky! Really!! Where the air is normally, virtually always, dry, it was wet! I mean, WTF???

This phenomenon, I eventually recalled, is know as ‘precipitation’, more commonly as ‘rain’, often called ‘fucking rain’, especially by tennis players of the outdoor variety. Yet I’d forgotten. After the hottest summer for 2 billion years (before the ‘atmosphere’ had properly formed and long before weather girls had been properly formed), the best late summer, a fantastic Indian summer, a brilliant early autumn, and the warmest mid-to-late autumn we’ve had since the term was invented 2 minutes ago, I’d forgotten about rain. Our normal, British, accompaniment to all activities.

It was only a kind or ‘drizzle’ so I biked it to the station. But when I arrived at Embankment, it was proper rain. The big wet kind. Not nice. Ah, I have an umbrella. Everyone in the country carries one at all times. So I dug in my ruck-sack and fished out the little flip-up fold-up thingy that lives there and had lain undisturbed since about March. I pressed the ‘protect me NOW!’ button on the handle and… half of it opened. The other half was dead. Dislocated. Sprained. Dysfunctional. And I thought; ‘shit!’ But then realised that half an umbrella is better than no umbrella. Much better. You only use half anyway. Ok, a shoulder gets a bit wet but your head and most importantly, you glasses, stay dry. People use newspapers on their heads. Plastic bags (fucking planet-murderers!), briefcases, so half a brolly? In the valley of the wet the one-sided umbrella man is king.

Which immediately made me think (don’t ask ‘why’, there is never a ‘why’ in my head) about evolution. About how the human eye was always held up as ‘undeniable proof’ of divine creation. So complex, so wonderful, so brilliant, the creationists would say. ‘How could that “evolve”?’, from what? And then the killer: ‘what use is half an eye??’ Ok, we now realise that the bible-bashers had no concept that an animal that had some form or rudimentary light perception, seeing shadows of predators, whatever, would bestow a truly massive advantage over his mates who lacked such a facility and who were known as ‘dinner’.

Half is good. Half is better than none. Unless its a balloon. An airplane engine. The hull of a ship.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Sometimes football is the greatest thing ever invented, (that’d be when we win then), other than perhaps the wheel, V8 engines, Cadburys and… oh yeah, and women. And sometimes it feels like shit and you really wish you were like the 24% of the country who just say ‘oh, who played last night then? Did Stanley Matthews score again?’ Because if you’re going to lose, at least do it properly. Losing can be humbling but it can also be dignified, motivational for the next game, a test of character. But ‘losing’ by conceding a (virtually) last minute equaliser is really really horrible. And nasty. Unfriendly. Its actually a draw but it feels like you’ve lost. Just as those horrible Dutch fans felt like they’d won the World Cup when that goal went in last night at the ‘Phillips Arena’ somewhere in the Netherlands. And if you think where abouts your ‘Nether regions’ lie, I think that just about says it all.

So now we’ve played 3 matches in the Champions League and have 1 point to show for them. Just 1. But now I’m going to think positive. We can still qualify for the knockout stages. We just have to beat Barcelona in the New Camp, and how hard can that be, really? And beat some Italians and also beat PSV when they play us on proper, British soil, in 2 weeks time.

Before then, it would appear that 120,000 Americans are going to receive parcel bombs in the mail. That’s if they’re sent to all Democrats and not just those who’ve spoken out against Trump. Is this Donald’s Mohammed bin Salman moment? Because the bombs, all nine of them thus far, have all been received by Trump critics. If they intend to send to every such person in the world they’ll run out of explosives. So they’ve started in New York. With Hilary Clinton. Barak Obama. Various other politicians and Democrat supporting media groups. Which is fine. They’re in the game, they know the risks. But this morning, the 9th parcel was sent to… Robert De Niro!!! I mean, come on; the man is royalty, verging on deity. I’m not talking about Fockers and Fathers of Bride and all that pension-lining garbage. Taxi Driver. Godfather. Goodfellas. He was the Italian’s Italian. Still is really.

Though I suppose its when they start on overseas, Trump-critical bloggers that I really need to start worrying.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

First you need to understand the concept of the nation of Turkey getting royally and very understandably pissed off about the killing of a journalist in their fine land. Ok, anyone gets pissed off about any foreign nation coming into their home to commit state-sanctioned murder. But Erdogan stressing that Khashoggi was a representative of the free press, using freedom of speech to criticise his homeland, and that in doing so was merely exercising his right to free speech is just a tad rich.

Its like Jeremy Corbyn demanding that the government are taxing the rich too much. Its like Chelsea fans trying to ban anti-racist songs. Its like IS fighters singing ‘give peace a chance’.

Because Turkey doesn’t have a very good record (and ‘give peace a chance’ was a really good record) with journalists. It has, and is now, been responsible for locking up more journalists than any other nation. When the coup against Erdogan failed, the first thing he did was to lock up all the journalists. And most of the country’s academics too, for some reason. Anyone with a good brain represents a danger to him. What does that say about Erdogan’s rule? What? 3 years down the line? Most are still incarcerated. Trials? What are they??

Whereas Trump has a different take on things. Always. He is more concerned that the ‘cover-up’ was the worst in the history of ‘cover-ups’, that it was laughable, ridiculous, how can any decent nation operate a cover-up so poor, pathetic and facile and still wear a headdress with any pride? All of which is true. But it may be worth pointing out, during his flurry of disappointment and disapproval, what exactly was being covered up. And why the need to cover anything up in the first place. We’re talking about a sovereign state organising a murder in someone else’s country, including a 15-man hit squad, torture, death (obvs; murder, innit?) and dismembering the body before disposal to location(s) unknown. But that cover-up, sheesh! A joke!

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

There are so many cases going on involving detachment from reality.

The first is the Khashoggi ‘incident’ in Turkey. First the Saudis said ‘no, he’s just missing’, which changed to ‘there was a fight’, later morphing into ‘he is dead’, which eventually ended up as ‘he was murdered!’ No shit, Shylock. Then they added: ‘but by a rogue group’. So you know it wasn’t an authorised, legal murder. Presumably most murderers involving Saudis aren’t ‘rogue’. Bit like Russia. But at least most Saudi murders are perpetrated with good ole British weapons.

Then there was the woman on the radio phone-in who will ‘never, never, never, never (four ‘nevers’, that’s serious) vote Conservative again if ‘we don’t get the Brexit we voted for’. Heavy. Will the conservatives survive into the future without Carole from Bexley Heath? But the point is that Carole wasn’t voting for a specific Brexit. She voted to leave Europe. (That’s the ‘full stop’. Same one as on the ballot paper.) Did she not think that there might be a few ‘details’ that need ironing out before we take our little Union Jack flag out of Brussels permanently?

And there’s Jezza. Le Corbyn. The anti-semite’s anti-Semite. He’s simply loving the whole Brexit debacle. As any labour leader would. Sitting back in the opposition benches watching the government of the day fracture and self destruct day by day. So he finally perked up yesterday, as he does about every 4 weeks. He came out of hibernation to repeat: “The Conservative government is in a shambles and don’t know what they’re doing. It’s time they GIVE WAY FOR A PROPER GOVERNMENT WHO ARE CAPABLE OF NEGOTIATING EXACTLY WHAT WE WANT!!!” He always ends up shouting these days, obviously part of the image make-over. But no amount of image enhancement, or shouting, can make Jeremy Corbyn a statesman. He’s a duffle-coat forced into a suit and tie. He’s a protester and banner-waver, and I’m sure a very good one. But negotiate with Europe? Maybe Kier Starmer would lead the charm offensive on that front. God help us all. Though none of them have come up with any details. None of which would be acceptable to the Europeans anyway.

Back to reality. For a while. Don’t like to spend too much time here, its depressing.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I cycle to the station every day. Long as its not raining. Its not far, maybe half a mile, but its far enough to save time and be much more enjoyable than the walk. Though in winter it takes longer getting home. Do up jacket, put on scarf, hat, gloves, hi-vis vest, lights, remove front chain, back lock… zzzzzzz. Then I’m off!!!

But because its the same journey every day you become very sensitive to changes. High winds; headwinds are no friend to a cyclist. Especially a fat cyclist. You need streamlined, wind-deflecting, rather than wide as a bus. Wet roads. And changes in your bike. Subtle changes. Breaking getting more difficult, gears not changing smoothly. And the ride getting just harder. Feeling like you’re dragging an anvil behind you. Everything much harder work than it should be. So whereas you normally take that little hill in 5th gear, now I’m in 2nd and struggling. Maybe its me??? Maybe I’m having a bad day? Getting too old to ride?? Weak legs??

So I took the bike for a service. Easier that taking me for a service. Cheaper too. In fact much cheaper. And they changed the break pads, cos they were worn (20 quid) and fitted a new chain (20 quid). Did you know chains on bikes wear out?? Who knew?? I’ll tell you who, the geezer in the bike shop who spent 25 minutes showing me everything that was worn or dodgy, why it had worn, how it had worn, the reason it was dodgy, the history of the person who first discovered that dodginess in 1863, absolutely everything about my old bike that I never knew, never wanted to know, never needed to know and yet now I do. I just wanted to say ‘THANK YOU BUT JUST MAKE IT BETTER!! But he was so nice.

The bike now feels turbo-charged. Oil on the chain, pump up the tyres and that’s what happens, I reckon. Almost feeling ready for some lycra. Nooooooooo…

Happy Monday

A xxxx