Andy's Glasses

OMG! Top Gun is back!!! The (almost, nearly, kind’a) best film ever (one of about 428 candidates) is being sequelised. Being re-done, re-visited, re-born, re-kindled. But you can’t get it on kindle, you have to go to the movies. And Tom Cruise is returning as Maverick. Which either means that he’s failed fighter pilot school for the past 32 annual attempts since the original in 1986 and is still ‘the rogue pupil’ or they’re bringing him back in some other capacity. Like as a teacher, or the grizzled, veteran, superhero of a thousand dog-fights. And I think they’re going to make him taller this time. Like they did when he played 6 foot 4 Jack Reacher. Easy in movieland to grow 8 inches. Or maybe it’ll be set in the Top Gun retirement home for ex-super-hero-fighter-pilots-and-other-really-cool-babe-magnets.

Kelly McGillis won’t be in this one, I’m guessing. And if she is she’ll be playing Tom’s grandma. The real unfairness of the movie industry, its not all about the money, its about men retaining the right to play ‘cool’ into their 90s whilst women can only do ‘babe’ until they’re 32. By the time they’re 41 they can only do grandmas or waitresses in diners. Whilst a man at 50 can still be the quarterback in a High School movie. Time’s Up is a political thing and won’t affect casting whatsoever.

Tom is going to be flying a fab F15 bomber-jet-fighter thing. Made from cheap Chinese steel, assembled in Canada and controlled by British technology and missile system with a French white flag under the seat, just in case. (The French have loads).

But that’s all set to end. Trump, pissed off about (everything really, but mainly-) the cheap steel from China, he’s decided to put punitive import tax on… everything except Chinese steel. No, I can’t see the logic either, but this is Trump we’re talking about. So he’ll tax BMWs and British steel and English asparagus and I heart Megan hats and Scotch (because he’s a fucking teetotaller) and all things of a Euro or even a soon-to-be-ex-Euro nature. Pasta’s going up, French bread dearer than gold. Even Canada gets increased duty put on… maple syrup, polar bears… other things Canadians sell to America. And in return, we’ll hike the tax on Levis and Harley Davidsons and Jack Daniels. China remains unaffected.

At least we won’t have to pay more for films. But I reckon Top Gun 2 or whatever they call it will be a tragic disappointment. You can’t repeat brilliant. As much because of the zeitgeist. The original took our breath away and had ‘1980s’ stamped all over it. But ok, what time you wanna go? I’m in.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

‘Ere? Wanna really great laugh with all yer friends and family, but like a real scream? Fantastic fun for everyone? Here’s what you do.

You go to Kiev, in Ukraine, where they hate Russia, and you get the government there to put out a statement that you’ve been murdered by Russian agents, gunned down in your own doorway-in-exile. Because if you’re a Russian journalist, hated by Putin for being very outspoken against the regime there and always banging on about freedom of speech and fake news, what better way to do things than to heap layer upon layer of irony, faking news yourself to make the point about the evils of fake news. That point being… ah, that’s all part of the fun, fun, fun!!! And then, (this is the really fab bit), when you’re friends are just getting over the shock, when your family has dried up the first batch of agonised tears, you come on tv and announce: “I voz on-lee yokking!!! Haaa, haaa, haaaa…!!!”

What a frikkin riot, that Arkady Babchenko.

Though he didn’t actually do it for laughs, he did it to make a point. See above to understand just how great a point it was he made.

Lila-day has been officially extended to Lila-day-and-the-night-before. That way, oddly, its less of a panic in the morning than to go to her house in time for her mummy to go to work, we can ‘relax’. At half past six in the fucking morning. But in fact babies have developed the most amazing, Darwinian survival strategy. They become incredibly gorgeous when they wake up. Even more gorgeous than the rest of the time. Otherwise, quite frankly, who’d wanna know them at that time of the day? So as you go in at some un-godly hour of the dawn, in semi-sleep, total-grouch mode, they switch it on. And you melt. And within 5 minutes you’re wishing she could have woken you even earlier. Almost. Therefore Lila comes over, plays bridge with us (she’s awfully bright, MY baby) and sleeps over.

Happy what would be Lila-day but due to staff stuff, I’m actually working, dammit.

A xxxx

My body is a clean sheet. I have no tattoos. I have scars, plenty of them, but no ‘ink’. A couple of Christmases ago we were in India, walking in the glorious sunshine down the main street in Goa when we came across a tattoo parlour. As you would in Goa. Next to the shop selling ivory elephants. Across from the ‘British Pub’ offering ‘full English breakfasts’. And I saw the tattoo place and said to Mel, ‘come on, let’s go get tattoos; one each’. And I almost meant it. I realise there is nothing sadder than fresh ink on a middle-aged body, but if Mel had agreed, I’d have even faced up to my lifelong needle-phobia and got drawn upon. But of course, she just laughed, not giving the suggestion the credibility it warranted. She assumed I was joking. “Just a little one” I said.”You have the ‘yin’ and I’ll have the ‘yang’, under our armpits where no-one will see them. Soles of our feet. On our bums. Or maybe a 9 inch swastika across the centre of our faces?”

But the question is always, particularly, I’d imagine for the first tattoo, what do you have? What symbol, word(s), picture can you paint PERMANENTLY that you choose it to represent something/someone/everything? A drawing so profound it summarises your very soul.

A Tottenham cockerel, obviously. Don’t think Mel would be so keen. Our names in hearts? Not too nauseating. Our children’s names, in case we forget them when we’re really old? Lila?? Though she wasn’t born then. A pair of glasses? A Bugatti? An anchor? A portrait of Ant & Dec, with Ant shaded out?

But at no stage did I consider a gun. Why would you? Unless you were into gun culture or any other resident of Texas, Florida, Alabama… or Raheem Sterling. Who, in case you missed it, chose to have not just any gun but an M16 assault rifle inked onto his right calf. And, particularly with just 3 weeks to go before the World Cup and Raheem one of our absolute stars, the first question to ask is: who fucking cares? He’s a footballer. They have no sense, just loads of money which they like to convert into pictures all over themselves. There’s no ‘meaning’, there’s no logic, no train of thought, its just ink. Wayne Rooney has a fuck-off cross on his arm. Which he possibly covered when out shagging over-age prostitutes whilst his wife was pregnant. It doesn’t mean anything. Certainly, in Wayne’s case, no sense of faith, belief or morality, heaven forbid.

Anti-gun people are making all sorts of accusations about ‘glamourising gun crime’ and ‘role models’ and shit, but it is just shit. Its a tattoo. In Raheem’s case, one of many. None of which probably mean any more than the sanskrit text on his forearm which he was told translated as: ‘light is life’ or some pseudo-philosophical tosh, but which actually reads: ‘another stupid, gullible Englishman who can’t read Sanskrit’.

Looking for arguments about the meaning of tattoos is daft. Leave the poor twit alone.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Ok, I’ve been home a day, I’ve seen the lightening (holy shit, did I see lightening), I’ve mown the lawn, I’ve played with Lila, so can I go back to Moscow now? Is it time? Is it still called ‘defecting’ even if its just for a holiday? I missed Russia (other than those events above) terribly until Mel got in the bath last night. And then I surfed the tv channels. Watched the new video by Jess Glynn, which is great, and then saw, ‘England vs Barbarians’ on Sky Sports something. There used to be 4 Sky Sports channels, now there’s 246. Most of them showing the same 4 things but doubtless makes Sky feel better about themselves. So I flicked and it was just starting so would be the perfect accompaniment to the sunday papers.

Which didn’t get read. Even opened. The Baa-baas scored their first (of what ended up as 9!!) tries 2 minutes after the start. But it wasn’t really that in itself that was so captivating, it was the style in which they played. You kind of expect that from the Barbarians who started in 1890 (ya gotta love rugby) as a representative team from all clubs/nations whose brief is to dazzle if not always necessarily to win. That in itself makes it unique in world sport. Its not about the winning, its about the style, the attitude. Liberated by the shirt. If you think it pointless to ever play competitive sport without desperation to win, then you’re probably American. Here we do it all the time… ish. And on a philosophical level I appreciate that. Not just because it gives an intellectual gravitas to a man who would otherwise be just another football hooligan, but because that’s the tennis I play. Ridiculously flamboyant, outrageous shot-selection, go for absolutely any and everything on or off the court, but no points offered nor accepted. You end up being competitive against yourself, striving to do it better. How fucking noble is that??

And as soon as the newspaper arrives the first thing I look for is the status of the next wedding. Between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump. Its on… its off… its on… it maybe off… China’s to blame… we love each other like no other clown-like national presidents have ever loved each other’s hair styles… you’re a little rocket man/you’re a fat orange dipshit… let’s call the whole thing off. Then on again.

Repeat until one or other, or preferably both simply explode.

A new Israeli felafel bar just opened up in Temple Fortune, opposite the police station (if you need to ask directions) and is fantastic. Anywhere that actually writes on the menu: “if you like spicy then just tell us” is exactly where I want to be at mealtime. But who invented felafel? And who invented hummus?? About 97 nations all claim both, because chick peas probably grow in all of them, but they must have started life somewhere. I’m guessing probably not in Temple Fortune.

Happy bank holiday Monday

A xxxx

My facebook photo is Gareth Bale. In a Spurs shirt. Making the ‘heart’ sign he did every time he scored. Which was ever such a lot. He left Spurs in 2013 but that’s fine. The photo has become ‘ironic’. Yet when one of (previously) ‘your own’ does good things you score ‘points’. Its like, when Harry Kane scores, that goal is yours. When Gareth Bale scores, it is 10% yours. Its the nature of the contract. We’re allowed a kind of ‘glory-by-association’ on former players. Not Arsenal players, obviously, they always leave under the most acrimonious of circumstances and generally join the Gunners’ rivals. Like Van Persie, Fabregas, Sanchez. But nice players. Spurs players.

So although I wanted Liverpool to win last night due solely to some misplaced sense of nationalism, another part of me was really rooting for Gareth Bale and the sublime Luka Modric, everyone’s favourite Croatian, both of whom happen to play for Real Madrid, having previously worn an different white shirt, that of Tottenham. And I’m not sure whether it was the brilliance of Bale which won the match for Real, giving them their 3rd consecutive Champions League title, or the abysmal goal-keeping of poor, hapless Karius who had the nightmare of nightmare games.

Strikers play on confidence. ‘You’re only as good as your last goal’ kind’a thing. But goalies are different. They’re always as bad as their worst cock-up. Paul Robinson had a terrible event in an England game when Gary Neville’s backpass bounced over his head and he was never the same again. No matter how many wonderful saves he made, he seemed cursed by that moment. So how is Karius, who has been a bit doubtful most of the season, going to get past almost gifting Real Madrid 2 of their 3 goals? However he decides to try, you kind of feel he ain’t gonna be doing it at Liverpool. Nor, hopefully, at Spurs.

Meanwhile, look at my rhododendron bush. Just look. Go on. Its fab. And only looks like this for a couple of weeks a year. When we went to Russia it was green with a few shoots starting to appear. We come back a week later and LOOK! And its covered in bees, which is apparently a good thing, because we love bees. Apparently. That hedge is at least 3 metres high, so the bush is a big one. We’ve been here nearly 30 years and it was ‘mature’ then. No idea how mature, bit like me, but it always gives me an ‘isn’t nature wonderful!!’ moment.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Ok, so this is a question that is profound, deep and meaningful: would you be happy learning your future? Would it make your life better, or worse??? Ooooohhhh, so you’d know how long you’d live, how your kids would grow, who they’d marry, which rehab clinics they’d frequent, all sorts of stuff. Or would that ruin everything. Holy shit, I’m getting hit by a bus crossing Ludgate Circus at 16.47 precisely tomorrow. Could you then avoid it? Or was that avoidance factored into that version of the future too??? It all gets a bit Terminator at that point, but we all love a time paradox. However, the future, knowing thereof; good or bad?

I only ask because in Russia they have this annoying thing at the traffic lights. A timer. Telling you, the driver, how many seconds the light will stay green, or how long you, the pedestrian, will have to wait til you can cross. Jaywalking in Russia, suffice to say is NOT AN OPTION!!!!! Because if the KGB monitor every crossing, which they do, and see a jaywalker, which they would, they press 2 buttons. One shoots the pedestrian, the other nukes his house. All done with really simple face recognition software and all data kindly provided by facebook, even though they don’t know it. So no-one crosses roads there illegally, ever. As someone who never normally crosses a road legally, ever, I’m not sure how others might view this countdown shit. But I think it bothered me. I’d rather stand there thinking: ‘can’t be long now, surely?’ than knowing its precisely 32 seconds until- 31 seconds until-30 seconds until I can- 29 seconds, cross the road. Because seeing ‘9’ seconds up there is a treat and seeing 92 is a major league bummer of proportions so big they could only be in Russia. I know, its not exactly the same as learning the precise date and time of some major life event, but its… similar.

Leaving now, which is a massive shame because we’ve had the most fabulous 7/8 days ever had in an East European city/cities. And Moscow is like the biggest secret ever, and it just keeps giving. Every time you think you’ve been really impressed by something, an even bigger thing comes along and kicks you in the gulags. To say ‘Russia has embraced capitalsim’ is like saying ‘the pope is thinking of becoming a christian’. And nowhere can that be more true than Moscow. Where you see Bentleys, Porsches, every Mercedes ever made that bears the AMG marque, and lots and lots of all of them. More Chelsea Tractors than Chelsea. And its a happy city. Even though the vast majority of its population appear anything but. Don’t know how that works, exactly, but it does.

Welcome home

A xxxx

This is the entrance to Gorky Park. Probably the main one, granted, but there are dozens of ways in. My park at home where I play tennis every weekend has more of a ‘hole in the hedge’ kind of thing. Slightly understated, modestly humble but more importantly, Stalin never intended to drive 300 tanks into Northway Gardens. Well, he probably did intend to send his tanks into every corner of every nation eventually but alas (??) he died. And I still miss him today.

Gorky Park is a wonder. I remember the eponymous movie, taken from the book, about a dark, seedy murder in the cold war. Alexi Sayle was in it, as a baddy Russian. All baddies in all Cold War movies were Russian. It was the law. But the reality is that now, it is a truly amazing place, filled to overflowing with art. And, of course, its fucking massive. And, of course, there’s virtually no signs in English so you don’t have a clue what most of the buildings do or hold. So you have to guess. Corpses from Stalin’s rule in one (really big building, obviously), torture chamber for the KGB in all the others, the Cabbage Museum, etc, etc.

The one exception is ‘Garage’, the new modernist gallery put up by Abramovich’s second ex-wife, Dasha Zukhova, she of the gorgeous face and wonderful dental work. So we went there. And NOT just because over-55s get in free. But because we love modern art. And the building is just wow, and the space is just achingly cool and minimalist and bare brick and pipework and the cafe is where you NEED to be… but the art’s gone. WHAT??? Yes, sorry, we’ve cleared out the old shit and are getting ready for the next, summer exhibition. So the 43 million square feet of gallery space is currently empty. Other than one installation called ‘atom’ outside. Its free. Which took about 14 seconds to analyse, enjoy and get bored with. Iss an atom; innit. Worth 50 Rubles of anyone’s money, that one. But its free.

There’s also an area given over to monuments from the Soviet era. Basically, statues of Lenin and Stalin, suitably vandalised, to remind us Russians of ‘the dark days’. A kind of communist retrospective. And every work is magnificent, everyone depicted there has serious bucketloads of blood on their hands and its actually quite wonderful.

This morning we ‘did’ the Kremlin. But you’re not allowed to. I got a bollocking for taking a photo in the Armoury. Not that its still an armoury, with like nukes sitting round and planes with ‘next stop Syrian civilians’ written on them. Its the armoury museum. And you’re allowed in there. Because you’ve bought a ticket. But you can’t go any farther. If you want to buy a ticket for another selective building you can. What you can’t do is wander round and murder people. Or even wander round not murdering people. And to be honest the only Russians you’d really want to murder are the hotel staff who are horrendously unhelpful, and the restaurant staff who try to ‘upgrade’ everything you order without telling you, and… all the other Russians you meet.

But Moscow is fantastic. I love it, love it, love it.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

So my first love was St Petersburg and I really thought there could be no other. But then I came to Moscow. And I thought it would be dirty. And smelly. And filled with mafia (which it probably is but they generally don’t advertise) and pickpockets and all tea would be served with either lemon or enriched uranium and every doorhandle would be covered in novochik virus and… and… and…

…and then I arrived. And it is simply wonderful. And big (everywhere in Russia is apparently humugous in size) and beautiful and ancient and modern and high and low and fast and slow and everything a really vibrant and amazing city should be. And the Muscovites are an elegant and stylish bunch whereas the St Petersbrugers look like quarter pounders with cheese. The people are still horrible here, but they look much better. Its a start.

And when in Moscow… ya go to the Bolshoi, don’t’cha. Its just the thing to do. The world’s best ballet right where it lives. What could go wrong?

We saw La Sylphide. A wonderful tale of a two gay men madly in love with a woman? Although one of them really fancies this fairy. Which sounds more appropriate until you realise that the fairy is a woman too! Then a witch comes along and there’s lots of Scottish dancing because the men are, in this ballet, wearing dresses too, well kilts anyway, and then it all goes tits up and everyone dies except one of the gay men who marries his dead best mate’s ex-fiancee. Brilliant. Like a soap opera. And so true to life as to be… as to be a ballet. But the dancing is spectacular and the music divine, the orchestra not exactly shabby, the building a dream and the ice-creams over-priced. If you work on the fairly safe assumption that ‘all ballets are a load of bollocks’, then you might as well see the best load of bollocks in the world. Really, really enjoyed it. And not just because it made me laugh in all the unfunny places, honest. I almost felt cultured for a while sitting there.

There’s a buzz around Moscow that you can only feel. An excitement. Not about the KGB, they’re gone now. But just a wonderful energy like you feel in Berlin, in parts of New York, in Shoreditch. And its great. Today we did a lot. And ended up getting the tube back to the hotel. Which involved changing tube lines twice. Sounds easy. But try doing it with no English names written anywhere, either for directions or train destinations. There’s a distinct lack of signage all over Russia but the Moscow Metro wins the prize for ‘opaque’. Even the entrances to the stations are often hidden.

But I love it nonetheless. Nothing had prepared me to actually like Russia. But I do. I really do.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I’m on the Sapsan, the fast train between St Petersburg and Moscow. Its awesome. Currently travelling at 209kph through the Russian countryside and building up speed still. Feels like crawling over Brent Cross flyover at 45 (which is actually 5mph faster than the speed limit there, as I know to my cost). The train takes 4 hours that ‘normal’, slow, shitty, smelly, smokey, Euro-type trains take 12 hours to do. Amazing. And so ‘easy’.

So I went to bed last night, all pretty well packed and ready for our early start today. And closed my eyes and…

Started the check-list. Which went like this:

6am Alarm goes off; 2 of them set, one must work. Check.
6.10, tea, shower, dress, finish packing. Check
6.55, hotel lobby, check out, get breakfast ‘take-away’ packs, order Uber. PANIC!!!! What if it doesn’t arrive on time, what if it doesn’t arrive at all (happened just 2 days ago), what if the traffic’s bad, what if… what if… what if… PANIC!!!!
7.30-ish (see above) arrive at Moscovsky station (St Petersburg). It’ll be big. PANIC!!! It might all be in Russian signage, PANIC!!!! There’ll be security! queues!! interrogations!!! torture!!!!! delays, PANIC!!!!!
745-(please God!!) find the platform, how big’s the station, is it signed in English, ticket check, passport check? unknown, unknown, unknown; PANIC!!!!!
8.08 train leaves. Check. As long as none of the above turns to the shit option. Unknown, unknown, unknown, the motherfucker of invention. Don’t sleep til all issues resolved, lie there sweating and palpitating like a fat bastard at a spin class instead. But how can you resolve issues that you can’t even imagine? OPEN EYES!!! Breathe, breathe, breaeaeaeathe…

Repeat until dawn.

Then of course it all goes rather well. And even though its all unknown to me, the Russians have been running trains for centuries so they’re pretty good (and as always, ruthlessly efficient) at it. And the train appears to have wifi (as does almost everywhere here, bless ’em) but that doesn’t seem to work. Ah, said the woman behind me, maybe its only free in First Class and not here in steerage with Leonardo di Caprio and a bunch of Irish Russian scallywags? And my first thought was: WHAT THE FUCK DID ‘WE’ HAVE A REVOLUTION FOR???? Shades of Marie Antoinette: The people have no wifi: let them eat 4G. Ok, wrong revolution but moral’s the same.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I know its MY problem. I know in some respects I’m not ‘normal’. Who is? Logically, statistically, the world would be the most boring of boring places if everyone was strictly on the mid-line of a normal distribution in every facet and parameter you could measure. So my ‘deviation’ is that I lack patience generally and that I grow impatient very quickly with repeated stimuli that are all of a similar class… except when that class of activity is ‘a football being kicked’, then I’m fine.

The Hermitage is (or surely fucking MUST BE) the largest museum in the world. Oh no, I just remembered, the Louvre is slightly bigger. That’s it behind Mel looking splendid. The building too, ha,ha, haaaaa…

Its an entire block AND is a deep as it is wide. Built as the Winter Palace for Peter… possibly Catharine, maybe a Nicholas or Paul, they didn’t exactly skimp on either space or quality. Because it was built in (guessing here) 1786, that’s pre-Brexit so they used mainly East European builders, carpenters, bricklayers, which is why its still standing now. It is humungously big. And outrageously flashy. And filled with so many treasures that if you were to spend 30 seconds at every piece on display, you would be there for 8 years. That is honestly what they tell you.

After 8 minutes I was bored. I’m always like that. Its cultural. If I was like everyone else there, ie a group of 37 Orientals with cameras mounted on selfie sticks pointing at every available everything, blocking the paths, pushing and shoving, then I’d be fine. But I’m not. I’m just a solitary English geezer with the attention-span of a flea. Yet the building fascinated me. In which every room you think must be ‘the ballroom’ because its the size of a football pitch but with marble columns round it. But who needs 35 ballrooms? So some must have been ‘living rooms’, ‘tv rooms’, family rooms, who knows. If they did tell us they did so in Russian, which is a touch problematic for those who struggle with the Cyrillic alphabet. Like you. I worked out yesterday that its so similar to Greek and my old, beloved list of mathematical variables and constants, that I can read a lot of it. I worked out that ‘PECTOPAH’ is actually ‘restaurant’. And was smug for a day.

So we ended up walking the bits of the Hermitage that no-one else wanted. If the 19 groups from China, Japan and Korea turned left, we turned right. And eventually found some lovely things in peace and quiet. Very similar, no doubt, to the lovely things they were looking at, but ours were European pre-17th century and theirs were early Macedonian. Who gives a shit. An artefact’s an artefact, innit?

Tomorrow morning, bright (probably) and early (very) we’re catching the fast train to Moscow. Loving St Petersburg though, and loved every minute.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx