Andy's Glasses

I just want to restate the terms of the contract. For clarification. And enlightenment.

We look after Lila on Thursdays, herein and forthwith known as ‘Liladay’. (Well why not? They renamed December at some point as the 12th month when the name is a bit of a giveaway that it started life as the 10th.) And to facilitate the process and make things better for all, Liladay officially starts on Wednesday night. Like Jewish holidays all start the night before, thus Liladay starts at sunset on the previous day.

And that works well because ‘Lila sleeps well’. ‘Never wakes up’. And although babies get up a bit earlier than would be perhaps optimum, they do so in such a full-on, brilliant, energetic and happy way that we forgive them for the 5.45 starts, or 6.14 because they’re so sweet and happy. And can’t tell the fucking time.

But then came last week. When Lila was up for an hour at 4am. Ok, she went back to sleep about 5 but that is more difficult for adults to do. But she was ill. Cough, cold, horrible, sympathy, horrid, poor babe.

This Wednesday night she woke up at 11.30. No cold. Not much cough left. Just ‘da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da…’ So we ignored her as her monosyllabic monologue continued.

At Lila’s house they have a Lilacam. And although Lila instructed lawyers about this infringement of her human rights of privacy, her mum can see Lila from wherever she might be, on her phone. And it is 2-way. So mummy can be in the cinema, see Lila is upset and mutter ‘shhhhh, shhhhhh, shhhhhh…’ down her phone, all the way to Lila. Who is comforted and consoled by the familiar voice. Unlike the other movie-goers who are probably really pissed off that someone appears to be shushing Bradley Cooper or Iron Man.

We aren’t like that here. We have a Lilalarm which sends her bedroom moans and murmurs to the kitchen, but its one way. We can’t send comfort back, we have to do it the long way. By sneaking up to her door and shushing from there. Didn’t work. She remained unconvinced. ‘Da-da, da-da, da-da…’ and on it went. Took both of us til way past midnight to get her settled.

So we had a lie-in yesterday morning. Didn’t get up til 6.05. Luxury.

And I felt like shit and exhausted and horrible. Until I went in and saw that little face, all bright and expectant and jabbering away. Which is why God made babies so adorable. Because otherwise you’d kill them.

Happy Friday (not talking about Brexit. Ever again.)

A xxxx

So we went up to Leeds to pack up Mel’s dad from his house and ship him to Manchester to his new flat. Sounds easy. Chaos theory sounds easy. Climbing Everest sounds easy. I’ll spare you the details/agony. But Sunday we packed and Monday we shipped over to Manchester, following the removal van as the gorgeous sunny Yorkshire morning gave way, half way across the Pennines, to the dull grey wetness that IS Manchester’s only ever weather.

But we had to stop for coffee. Because the kettle was in a box marked ‘KITCHEN’ and we’d been deprived of hot drinks since breakfast. And hence ‘gasping’. I stopped at a petrol station that was also an M&S and had a ‘Wild Bean Cafe’. Brilliant. And even more brilliant; it wasn’t from an automated machine but actual, real, proper, frothed up, ground-in-front’a-yer-face, barista coffee. But the barista, nice though she was, was the cashier for the petrol station. So do they only employ cashiers who can barist? Or do they only employ baristas who spend 90% of their day taking petrol payments?

Surely they’re not implying that ‘anyone can make coffee with one’a them machines’ so they get 10 minute training when no-one’s filling up with diesel and they’re away? Qualified.

The coffee was great, as it ‘appens. But when I’d ordered, ‘large latte and small latte’, this petrol-pumper/barista hybrid person told me of a wonderful offer. If I upgraded my order (£5.15) to ‘2 large lattes’, they could throw in 2 ‘sweet treats’ and all for just £6!!!!! Holy shit!!! What are ‘sweet treets’? I inquired. Because I love ‘sweet’ as a class of stuff, generally speaking. She pointed me to a rack with one moth-eaten croissant, 2 really iced cinnamon things and a whole bunch of multi-coloured muffins. So Mel was out of the equation.

And so was I. If there’d been an amazing almost croissant I couldn’t have resisted. Pan au raisin? Now you’re talking. But that lot?

What she was doing was offering me fatness. Obesity. I was ordering a coffee and she was offering me cash incentives to up my order by an extra 400 calories per person for virtually nothing. She was a Temptress. Professionally. Possibly on commission to upsell. And if I was a lorry driver or a sales rep and had a long, lonely stretch ahead, I’d definitely have gone for it.

Which you can see when you stop at any service station. The size of the average travelling Brit. And in every service station they have the same kind of ‘offers’ too. After you’ve had your Burger King or Pizza Hut lunch.

It’s not for nothing that we’re the fattest nation in Europe. Takes a lot of work, lot of incentives, lot of temptation.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I just spent 2 days travelling 500 miles around our lovely, verdant isle. Well, I say ‘lovely’ because some of it is. Not much, judging by the views from the M1 and M6, but the odd smattering of green fields and pastures new, a few sheep a’grazing and all that other rural bollocks that ‘we love’. But I was able to witness first hand the UK’s major industry. Roadworks. Never mind Brexit, we don’t need ‘em. We’ll just employ everybody here on the roads. It’s Britain’s answer to any unemployment crisis; repair more roads. Give up your useless, unproductive job selling financial services to the Germans, get yerself a hard hat and stand on the M1 with a cup of tea in your hand. Though in fact on the (approximately) 200 miles of roadworks out of those 500 we traveled, I saw two lorries driving up central reservations and not one solitary road-worker. Not one. What does that do to the tea industry??? Maybe they have automatic machines that operate themselves and its just all too clever form me to understand. But there were no workers. Nowhere the twang of hot tarmac.

If you live in Australia or America, you kind’a know with a fair degree of certainty that a journey of 500 miles would take you so many hours. And it would. Ok there may be a holdup somewhere but you could time the trip with a precision that we Brits are never allowed. Because they don’t dig up a couple miles of motorway, which would be a minor inconvenience, they close off 30 miles of it and reduce it to narrow lanes. And the killer touch, they impose 50mph limits on those sections controlled by the dreaded ‘average speed cameras’. The ones you can’t drive up to at 90 and slam on your brakes for a hundred yards then hit the superchargers again. These are the bastard cousins of the normal (just standard ‘motherfucker’ speed cameras) which work out your average speed along a whole section of road. So I reckon 53/54 is the limit. 50 is agony, 54 is merely deeply, profoundly frustrating.

So all in all, I reckon that my 3 hour journey was increased by 2 hours. Not by traffic, which was remarkably ok, but by the ridiculous speed restrictions. And so many of them. No-one there in road-control-land seems to realise that if traffic moves faster it causes less problems. Or better still, the problems become someone else’s because they happen 17 miles up the road in a different county.

The easy way to slow down traffic is what they do on the way up. They put big signs up offering directions and show you that you are headed to ‘The North’. And as no-one really ever wants to get there you automatically find yourself lifting your right foot a bit. Ok, a little bit.

Home never felt so good.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I love rugby internationals. Normal, kind’a weekly rugby is good, is certainly worth watching on those horrible rainy afternoons when you can’t walk or do anything constructive, and it aids restfulness. But in a sporty way. But internationals I get excited about. And never more than agains the All Blacks. It’s just so special.

The Hakka always gets me going. I suppose that’s the point of it. Well, to get the players going, not the old men in North London watching on tv, but I love the thing and I love even more how seriously they all take it.

But there’s also the enigma. How can a nation of 4.5 million souls (Alexa just told me) produce generation after generation of the absolute and unchallenged best rugby players in the world? It makes no statistical sense. Is it the air there? Is it just that there is nothing else to do there? Or maybe the coaching techniques? But then every national team in the world would be coached by a Kiwi. To glean their Maori-inspired, Hakka-stimulated ways.

Yesterday’s match was quite special. Very special. England came out the blocks with a mission. And scored a try within 2 minutes. Holy shit; that never happens. Then they scored some more and were soon 15-0 up. When does that happen? When do you see such a score on the screen. ‘Eng 15, NZ 0’. I remembered it for posterity. Which was just as well considering what followed.

What followed was the All Blacks suddenly playing like the All Blacks. All speed and bluster and power and wave after wave of breathtaking stuff. And they scored a try. A really great try by the smallest guy on the field. The minnow among the leviathans.

Then they scored a penalty, then a dropped goal, and then it was 15-13. And guess what? They scored another fucking penalty and it was 15-16.

Then came ‘the moment’. The could’a been, should’a been, WANTED IT SO MUCH TO HAVE BEEN! moment which re-defined the game. We scored a try. A quite brilliant, wonderfully opportunistic, rather exquisite try. Which the (fucking) referee then (fucking) disallowed after a (fucking) video (fucking) review.

Rugby is a very very technical game. I won’t bore you. Not sure I even could. But basically WE WOZ FUCKING ROBBED!!!! by the lousy, stinking, Anglophobe refs.

At least Spurs won, which is the main thing.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

These are my favourite Johnsons, in no particular order:

Ulrika (just because)
Dave (relative of ours)
Michael (wonderful bobbing sprinter)
Howard (for every ice cream, some of which Lila was finishing in that bowl)
The Brothers (Strawberry Letter 23; still a great song)
Johnson & (all that baby powder)
Gabi (watch Blazing Saddles again)

And these are some of my least favourites:

Boris (tosser Brexiteer)
Joe (tosser Remainer)
Rachel (sister of 2 tossers)
Stanley (father of all the above; hence no fucking chance, even before he went on some stupid reality show)

Please note that I didn’t include my penis in any of this Johnson talk because its such an American term and my penis is British.

But the current debate is about Johnsons off a sinking ship. First Boris resigned his cabinet post, not because he realised his position had become untenable due to him being a total embarrassment, but because the ‘Checkers plan’ for Brexit was so short of the mark from his perspective. Which is that of a rampant Brexiteer. The definitive ‘no deal’, leave with nothing proponent.

Now brother Joe has resigned his government post too. A lesser post as befits someone that virtually no-one has heard of and those who have aren’t unduly impressed. And Joe has resigned because the the Chequers Plan is so short of his mark, which is from his remaining position.

So ‘Chequers’ is too soft for Boris, too hard for Joe.

And thus, in their (rather annoying) way, these Johnsons have exemplified the entire mess that is Brexit. Not as some vague, wispy-washy concept in which we never have to speak French again or see the Polish builders nick our plastering jobs because they’re so much better than we are, but as an entire, all-encompassing, every-fucking-facet-of-our-lives nightmare. ‘Taking back the borders’, whatever the hell that even means, carries a big price. And the biggest price-tag is attached to the Irish border.

I’m actually at the point where I think we should just walk away from all of it. Just say a great big ‘au revoir’, ‘auf weidersein’, ‘Ciao’ and (something in Romanian) and work out what follows as we go along. What we call ‘no deal’. Because dealing with the Europeans is more difficult and obstructive than we even imagined it might be. It’s much easier to go to war against them than deal with them.

So fuck ‘em. And fuck the Irish. Because they will be.

Theresa May, for all her efforts, should have preparing our nation for this occurrence. But I fear there is kind’a no ‘plan B’. Mainly because there’s no ‘plan A’ either.

Such a mess.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Let me state right here and now, on the record, plain as day but thrice as stupid: this latest shoot-up in California where 12 people died, has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH GUNS!

Ok, that was just in case anyone out there in bloggerland is so higgorant, so asinine, so… so… so goddam Democrat! as to believe that this tragedy, which is the first of its kind in nearly 2 weeks, fr gud sake, not like its a daily event!, believe it has anything other than mere coincidence and non-causal correlation with our wonderful, free, liberal US gun laws.

Or lack of them really, cos if you live in most places out here in Hicksville, its a darn sight easier to get a semi-automatic assault rifle, sniper-scope, enhanced magazine with easy conversion to fully-automatic, than it is a pizza. Thing is when you order a pizza they don’t do a mental health check, criminal record check, suitability check. There again they don’t when you order a gun neither.

At least it wasn’t another school. This latest shooting was a college bar instead. So these poor innocent victims had enjoyed most of their teen years before having the rest of their lives removed, deleted, ended in a flash. No re-set button on death.

And although a bit simplistic in what is a very complex issue, the posters telling Americans that they can choose their children or choose to have guns, makes a very telling point.

Trump attacked Theresa May’s comments about America and guns by stating how Britain, particularly London, is the knife-crime capital of the world. Which currently would appear to be true. And tragic too. The difference is that our stabbing virtually all take place within the rarified world of drug gangs. Not saying that’s good, not saying anyone ever deserves to die like that, but its a problem specific to that particular culture. And anyone who might be nearby to get culturally involved, unfortunately.

America has guns. Virtually everyone. Well, everyone who wants one. As is written into the constitution of the Unaaarted States of ‘Merica. Amen.

You can’t legislate against people with mental health issues, like yesterday’s killer. But having loads and loads of guns lying around does nothing to limit the potential for the mass tragedies which keep on occurring.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

That’s it; Trump’s gone. Lost the election, now he’s faaaaarkin’ history.

Ok, he wasn’t actually part of the vote, in any ‘tick the Trump box’ kind’a way but yesterday’s ‘mid-terms’ in America have put the Democrats back in charge of the House of Representatives, which will make it difficult, verging on impossible, for Trump to get his key issues made into law. It also empowers the House to take actions and/or sanctions against any alleged dirty dealings by The Donald or any of his team. All the shit that’s never really gone away. Though most of the original Team Trump have indeed gone away.

And because this election was always going to be a ‘referendum on Trump’ he has indeed worked tirelessly in his campaigning. Generally ‘preaching to the converted’ because that’s what politicians like to do. They get a better reception when singing at the choir.

Mid-terms are always protests against incumbent presidents. This was never likely to be any different. But what is amazing is how fast they managed to count the votes.

California polls must have closed at 10 last night (guessing; ours finish then), which is 6am our time. Yet an hour and a half later I’m reading the results. Yet not long ago, when George W Bush and Al Gore were arguing over Florida in their presidential battle, it took 3 months for the recount. By which time George W had worked out where Washington was and everything. But now they’re digital. Which is brilliant. Unless the Russian hackers… Alexa…

I think the Republicans lost this election because of Donald’s new face colour. It’s changed. At the rallies he attended his face changed from its usual EasyJet-lite to a more Harry Belafonte burnt-orange. Maybe his make-up artist went back to Russia, was caught up in a sex scandal or found taking bribes. Who knows. The replacement is now working on the ‘presidential palette’. At this rate, should he reach the next presidential battle, he’ll be in full Al Jolson.

And while all this was going on, Spurs won a European Champions League match at home. In the 3 previous games we’ve been on top and managed to lose or draw just in time to be very depressing. Last night was different. As I was eating Japanese in Golders Green and refreshing my phone, we were 1-nil down to a goal scored by PSV Eindhoven in the 2nd minute. We were still 1-nil down as they cleared away the plates with those little bits of soy-sauce soaked rice that you can never manage to get with chop sticks, at 75 minutes. I needn’t have worried. Just as the chicken livers landed on the table Harry Kane scored. I almost kissed the ‘geisha’. Then realised she was Turkish in disguise. But a draw was never going to be enough! A draw and we’re out! So Harry’s second goal arrived with the blackened cod. Both the goal and the cod were a bit dodgy, but who gives a shit. We won. We’d eaten. We just need to beat both Barcelona and Milan and we’re home and dry.

I’m hungry for more.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Do you remember in the wonderful movie Chariots of Fire how there was a race round the courtyard of an Oxford college when the runners had to complete the run within the sound of the 12 o’clock chimes.

I love that. No-one had a stop-watch (they weren’t invented until 1952 by Ronnie Stop and Jimmy Watch) no-one fired a gun to start nor put tape up for the finish, let alone a checkered flag (checks didn’t arrive until the Bay City Rollers in 1973).

It’s what people did whilst they were waiting for someone to come up with the smartphone which could then dominate every waking moment of their lives.

Well apparently there were many such events. And in 1934 a woman known as Florence Ilot (possibly her real name) ran across Westminster Bridge between the noon chimes from Big Ben.

Apparently this midday run was a regular but infrequent happening, normally by politicians whilst they were waiting for politics to be invented in 1962 when Harold Wilson came round. So they had time for a run. Can you imagine Theresa May, Nicholas Soames, taking off their jackets for a midday run?

Anyway, they reckon (because it was all wonderfully vague) that this woman, the first person to succeed, in fact, man or woman (!!!!) ran about 350 yards in about 38 seconds. That’s impressive. Probably wearing a pencil skirt and heels.

And now they’ve possibly found ‘the secret’ to the Pyramids. The secret being the question: ‘how the fuck did they do that?!?!’ Because over a thousand years before Jesus (allegedly) Christ was born they put up these immense ‘things’ in the desert. And no-one’s ever worked out how massive stones were hauled up the amazing heights. It’s not like they could use Amazon Prime to deliver them. Well they’ve found what is possibly a ramp. Right next to a pyramid. And it has a series of holes that they reckon would have facilitated some kind of rope & pulley system that the 24 million slaves could shlep to help them in their task. Using pulleys equated to losing less slaves. Gotta be good business. Damned clever them ‘gyptians.

There was a whole world happening before Lila, you just tend to forget what it was like. Or never knew.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I like bad behaviour. Always have. Mel will confirm. But not just my own. I have certain expectations of certain classes of people. I expect politicians to be sexually-assaulting, expense-rigging megalomaniacal tossers. I expect footballers to be semi-literate flash-Harrys oozing gold and diamonds, with the number of supercars in their garages higher than their IQ score. If they can spell ‘IQ’. I expect estate agents to be bastards, doctors to be patronising, nurses to wiggle round in little blue dresses and Chelsea fans to be horrible. And I expect rock stars to be rock stars.

Perhaps I just like confirmation of stereotypes. So when they are confirmed it pleases me. And the new almost-authorised biography of Eric Clapton has just been released. Almost authorised because Eric (as I call him; like what else?) gave the writer access to all his diaries and contacts and phone books and then later withdrew his permission. But by that time all the interviews were complete, the notes taken, the damage done. Publish and be damned.

The author is Philip Norman, the world superstar of rock bios. He ‘did’ Buddy Holly, Elvis, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Elton John and others. Now Eric. And although I read very few biographies, I might break the trend and check this out. Not just because I love Eric Clapton, guitarist, singer, songwriter, but because he was undoubtedly the baddest of bad boys.

He crashed 3 Ferraris. Avoided a helicopter crash by changing seats in the last seconds. Lost his 4 year old son in a tragic accident on a New York hotel balcony, spent 10k a week on heroin for 2 years whilst putting away 2 bottles of brandy every day (well you can’t live on heroin alone, ffs) and had over 1000 one-night stands. He also stole his best friend’s (George Harrison’s) wife.

So what’s to admire? How about that at 72 years old, he’s still alive and still playing the guitar better than anyone else around. He should, by rights, have died at 27, the chosen age for lifestyle-challenged rock’n’rollers through history. Yet he has endured. And all you really have to do is listen to the opening notes of ‘Layla’ (written for Patti Boyd, George’s then wife), or play ‘while my guitar gently weeps’ and if you don’t have tears in your eyes then you’re not human. You’re a fucking ‘bot!!! Something I’ve suspected for a while now…

My Philip Norman Story.

I don’t know him well but our daughters were and still are friends and I’ve known him indirectly for 20 years. He’s a very very quiet man. A thoughtful, clever, intellectual man. A man of words. Which he speaks very softly. His lovely wife produced the movie ‘Into the Void’. They’re clever people.

I went to pick up the daughter one night from their house about 11. Knocked on the door, no reply. Knocked again, nothing. So, being Hampstead I had to walk around for half an hour to get any kind of phone signal and eventually I called this mild, gentle, bookish man. Who answered the phone thus, in his mild, gentle, bookish way: “IF YOU DON’T STOP FUCKING CALLING THIS NUMBER I’M GONNA CALL THE FUCKING POLICE; I’VE FUCKING HAD ENOUGH OF THIS BOLLOCKS NOW GET OFF THE FUCKING PHONE AND DON’T FUCKING CALL BACK EVERRRRR!!!!”

Nice. Apparently they’d had some prank caller problems and he’d already called just before me. But still…

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Over dinner last night with my Man United supporting mate, (obviously short-term happy with the win at Bournemouth, long-term panicking as to whether Morinho can keep his team out of the relegation zone. Ok, he termed it as ‘getting into the top 4’ but we all know what he really felt, deep down), and he said ‘Spurs MUST win a cup this year’. Not because they’re so wonderful, not because their cup play is superlative (see: ‘champions league’ for more on this), but because they’ve gone so long without a trophy that they just simply MUST win a cup. And this year! To which I could only say: ‘or what?’

Will they cease to exist if we don’t bring the Caribao Cup to N17? Will Brexit collapse if we get knocked out of the FA Cup? Will the new stadium fall down? Even though its not up yet??

Oddly, his Spurs-supporting barber had said what I too feel, which is: I really don’t care about the cups. Be nice to win them, but so what? Of course winning cups is lovely, makes everyone happy (‘cept the losing finalists, obvs.), you have a little procession, boosts morale, wonderful. But personally I don’t see it as any kind of essential validation. I’m sure Arsenal would have swapped the cups they’d won recently for entry into the Champions League. Because we’d all rather play Barcelona than Rotherham. And you get about 50 million quid more for doing so.

I’m not discrediting the cups. Ok, the Caribao one maybe, but cups in general are wonderful. Knockout games are always another level of excitement. But what we want is progress for our teams. Well, security first, as any West Ham fan will tell you, virtually every year, and then progress up the league table. The cups may flatter (Wigan?) but the league don’t lie.

And then I read about the (agaiaiaiain) proposal for the ‘European superleague’!! Which they’ve been banging on about for decades. A 16 team league of ‘Europe’s Elite’. And there was no mention of Spurs. Liverpool, Man United, Real Madrid, even fucking Schalke get a call, but not Spurs. Not ‘elite’ enough. Not ‘European’ enough (?)

But maybe its about cups. We don’t win them very often, we haven’t won the league since 1961. Liverpool haven’t won it since the 70s but they’ve always been this mythical ‘big club’, plus the amount of Scouse whingeing that would ensue if they were left out would make Brexit negotiations look like buying a Whopper at Burger King.

Yesterday’s win at Wolves felt more like a failed suicide attempt than a normal victory. Fortunately for me I was eating at the time in Hampstead. The last ‘wilderness’ that has virtually no phone coverage and about half a ‘G’ of downloadability. Otherwise I’d have spent half an hour of my life in yet more panic. Rather than stuffing my face.

We’re forth in the league but I remain seriously unconvinced. Wish we could just play West Ham every week.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx