Andy's Glasses

The good thing is that Meghan Markle, aka The Dutchess of somewhere or other, is pregnant. Nothing to do with me. Sadly. But a new royal is currently being growed. The bad news is not that her dad wasn’t told but that the Mail on Sunday deemed as ‘front page worthy’ that ‘he heard about it on the radio!!’. And that’s why we love the Mail. Because they either don’t understand the words ‘they are estranged’ or else they think its only specific to certain events, like the wedding, so have to show their apparent amazement at each and every instance of their estrangement.

And the ‘ugly’. That’s how Spurs won yesterday. Ugly. It’s the new way. Liverpool did it too at Huddersfield. ‘Winning ugly’. A newish term but I actually really like it. You can win a game like Manchester City did against Burnley yesterday (not that the result there was ever any kind of question) with style, flair, amazing moves involving speed and skill and accuracy and wonderful flowing teamwork, scoring 5 unanswered goals in the process. Or you can grind out an almost painful 1-0 win against a team you really should beat with ease and grace but instead just dig in, defend for all you’re worth and pray that you have a world class goalkeeper who can keep your sheet clean. Even if he likes a drink or two… before driving home.

In ‘home’ matches you expect more. And Man City were playing at home indeed. Spurs don’t really have a home as such currently, even though its getting closer every second. (According to a ‘reliable source’; on the first ‘safety check’ they performed on the new stadium, a few months ago, it failed on 98 out of a hundred criteria. Can’t wait to go. You can buy hard-hats in Spurs colours.) But at our temporary (we hope) ‘home’ we play proper. Away from home we look less confident, less flowing, less… Spurs. And yet we manage to win. Ugly. I’m happy with that and will take it any day of the week.

Manchester United were 2-1 up at Chelsea in the 95th minute. The very last minute of added time, when Chelsea equalised. The draw was probably the ‘right result’ (a truly subjective term, its never ‘right’ when you were winning, always ‘right’ when you’d been down) and it was definitely one of those draws that felt, for Chelsea, like the sweetest victory ever. And thus, for Jose Morinho, especially as it was at Chelsea, it felt like the worst defeat ever. And thus he deemed one of the Chelsea coaching staff’s celebration, right in his face, as ‘inappropriate’ and possibly ‘excessive’. So he did what any thinking person would do and tried and kill the sneering motherfucker with his bare hands. For once I think he was in the right.

Happy ugly football days

A xxxx

There’s no taxes in Saudi Arabia. Whereas death…

Well, there’s death everywhere, obviously. People die. In Yemen in fact, lots of people die, innocent children whose school buses are targeted by the ‘government’ troops. Which in fact are not of the Yemeni government but their next-door neighbours’, Saudi Arabia’s government. What’s even better is that those amazing fighter planes and the guided missiles they use are all from the UK and the US. But heh, that’s immorality by proxy, its once displaced, therefore it doesn’t really count. We aren’t guilty. We sell them weapons, what they choose to do with them is their business. Though when America chooses to allow the sale of guns to every and anybody, we condemn them as being guilty by association. It’s not easy.

Anyway, Saudi Arabia (my least favourite country in the world, and that really takes some doing to reach that particular summit), for years restricted, constricted and tightly bound by their ultra-conservative form of Islam known as Wahhabism, is ‘changing’ because of the wonderful(?) and revolutionary(?) reforms taking place under their new leader, Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS, as he’s known). He’s young, he has new ideas, he wants to ‘liberate women’, he wants to introduce things like music to a population previously never encouraged to use their leisure time in any way other than studying the Quran. Every holiday is a busman’s holiday.

MBS was going to allow women to actually drive cars. Obviously with expressed permission from their ‘man’ (husband or father) every time they go out, but to drive themselves. Hasn’t worked out that well but it was an apparent start. A step towards the liberal. A demonstration of his nation’s eventual acceptance of certain world expectations. Good man, that MBS.

Until last week. When Jamal Khashoggi, outspoken critic of Saudi Arabia, entered the Saudi embassy in Turkey. Where, by all accounts, and there are plenty, he was tortured, mutilated and dismembered, either before, during or after actual death, and then dumped in the forest. Certainly dead by now.

The people entering the embassy at that time, 15 of them, were Saudi ‘security’ (great title, see ‘KGB’ for full definition of this term) agents. Most of them MBS’s personal guards and aides. And it is believed that the murder, and the horrendous brutality of that murder, were ordered by MBS himself. Oh.

Saudi have now said that ‘there was a fight and someone may have got killed’. Which, were that the case, would beg the question as to why the poor victim of this ‘accident’ was hacked up and buried in a forest rather than calling perhaps the paramedics? Or even the undertaker?

Trump loves MBS. Well, he did. They both love a great trade deal and abusing and repressing women. But now even the POTUS has to consider the perceived morality of friendship with the roguest of nations that manages to command respect due to its wealth, oil resources and buying power. 60 billion dollars of trade is a lot of morality.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I’ll be so pleased when we leave Europe. I know, I’m a ‘remoaner’ and anti-Brexit and feel, like all such holier-than-thous that the 51% of my compatriots who voted ‘leave’ did so because they are an ignorant rabble of racists, Europhobes, sub-educated dick-heads, gullible nob-ends, the Boris-believing-brainless and me mate Wayne. And my dad.

But when we leave (assuming it’ll happen in my lifetime, or even Lila’s) then we’ll be free from the European law-machine which is the only truly evil bit about life among the Euro-heathens. Ok, and the billions it costs every week to run the EU machine and keeping the Euro-MPs in the ridiculously excessive, expense-abuse lifestyles that we currently fund. But the laws. OMG, so many laws and so ridiculous. Did you know I’m not even allowed to beat my wife with a broom handle any more? (EU: 2568554121221/AGLEYUUU/254AG56S/323288kk). But more importantly, I have to allow my co-workers to take holidays.

I have to. Its… in their contracts. And sort of, like, law. But that means I have to miss out on Lila-days on occasion. Because someone’s gotta bloody be there! Jesus. So yesterday I had Lila-morning but that was it. I didn’t hear a nursery rhyme all day! Do you know how hard that is? I missed my share of ‘our’ morning almond croissant. Because I had to leave and go to work. Though the couple hours we shared did in fact prove sufficient for me to pull a muscle in my back, so the day wasn’t completely wasted. And I know its not nice to blame lovely, innocent little Lila for all my bodily woes of an orthopedic nature, mainly because there’s so many of them, mostly self-inflicted. But I know that when I went to bed on Wednesday night my back was fine but by the time I cycled to the station it certainly wasn’t.

So I did what any sensible person would do in the circumstances and went to my martial arts class. Didn’t hurt it but not sure it helped it much either. So I’ll do another tomorrow morning before making any judgments.

But its all because of staff holidays. They’ve got to end. Even if I have to fucking chain them to the desks.

Happy achy Friday

A xxxx

They’re clever, those football people. Every year they run loads of international ‘friendly’ matches, meaningless events with unlimited substitutions in which great players get hurt, the games are awful because they’re trying out ‘new systems’ every 20 minutes and no-one really gives a shit who wins or, in my case, who is playing. So they invented the UEFA Nations League. An equally meaningless thing but playing by normal football rules (ie 3 substitutions as per usual) and little league tables, in this case very little with only 3 teams in each, and hyping up so it feels almost like a World Cup, but just for Europeans. And Russians. Israelis. Kazakhstan-people. Sort of ‘fringe’ Europeans. They live somewhere near Europe, get ‘em involved. Nice.

And it works. Much as I hate international breaks disrupting the sanctity and integrity of our football season, I find myself actually turning on the tv when I remember that there’s football being shown. With a degree of actual excitement.

I didn’t realised Israel were playing Scotland on Thursday night until I saw it in the paper the next day. I was on my way home as England beat Spain in rather sensational style. And last night I eventually remembered that France were playing a very lacklustre Germany who were doing very badly. So I passed on the Wales vs Ireland game on the other side, because it looked dull in comparison. And watched the second half between the two teams that my entire nation hates more than all others. The French because they’re French. And the Germans because they win enough already and we have a history (read ‘Mein Kampf’ for the full version). But they have stars. They have talent. And Germany, having lost on the weekend to Holland, have been shit. But apparently, in the first half, France were shitter. And consequently 1-0 down.

But football being the game of two halves, I was watching the French one. As they were awesome. Even Paul Pogba looked like he was for once playing for a team he wanted to be with.

Antoine Griezeman scored a fantastic header to equalise. A header. He’s 4 foot 7 and outjumped half a dozen German giants. Actually he didn’t. He just performed a miracle. Watch it and you’ll see. It is stunning. Then he scored a penalty and won the match.

England were great against Spain. 3-0 up at half time is quite an achievement. And we looked good. But more importantly, Gareth Southgate is looking to the future. So unlike former managers, he is not afraid to gamble on younger players who are not so tested in the international part of the game. And it worked.

It’s coming home. Football’s coming home. (Rinse and repeat for the next 2 years til the Euro finals start. And repeat. And repeat…)

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Ok, you can go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, but they call that ‘the Haj’, or you can do one to Rome, and if you’re a Roman Catholic priest you can even do a pilgrimage to Chang Mai (cryptic and cruel in just one little suggestion). Druids have pilgrimages to Stonehenge. Rockers go to Graceland, gamblers make theirs to Vegas, Spurs fans to Glen Hoddle’s house. But really, if you want a proper ‘pilgrimage’, a proper religious journey as part of spiritual enlightenment, Israel’s the place. Jerusalem is so packed full of spirituality that you can sometimes see all the Gods actually arguing above its hills. Bethlehem is, for some reason, a bit of a place to be seen, as is Lake Tiberius. Caesaria. Mount Carmel. If bushes burned there, seas parted there, tablets were brought down there, martyrs martyred there, then it probably happened in Israel. If not you get a full refund. In the next life.

I don’t come for any of that. I make my annual pilgrimage to the shwarma bar in Hertzliya. To the iced coffee machine at Aroma, the amazing restaurants of Tel Aviv and the ice cream shops everywhere. Mine’s a pilgrimage for food. Yeah, praying’s all well and good but basically, for a man of my culture, sophistication and level of enlightenment, if ya can’t shove it in yer face, I ain’t gonna be there.

That’s not to say I’m totally oblivious to the amazingly vast and colourful truly multi-cultural history and symbolic importance of the Holy Land, its just that if I’m honest, the chilli sauce you get there is probably of greater significance in my life. At the moment.

So at the airport on the way home was (I’m guessing) a group of pilgrims from Italy, led by their Main Monk, the Head Hoody, the Boss Bishop, whatever. They all stopped to say a prayer over some beans. I really didn’t get that. And if I wasn’t so Omni-tolerant to all mankind, however fucking misguided they may be, I’d have possibly pointed out that ‘its all a load of bollocks’, but chose not to. Mainly because the Italians seemed such a nice bunch of misguideds.

Then I decided that the Father was on his phone because there’s a new ‘confession app’, available from www.vatican.com/dog_collar/dog’s_bollocks. It’s brilliant. You just click on the sin icon (remember that in this context, ‘icon’ means ‘little symbol on your keyboard’, not ‘THE FINGERNAIL OF CHRIST!!’) and that might be having lewd thoughts about the choir, stealing from the collection plate, hot-wiring the pope-mobile at night, and the app works out what you need to do to stay on that heavenly course. Say a few Hail Marys, whatever, and bing-bong, yer back on track.

Also at the airport yesterday, pretty much a first for me at Tel Aviv, were groups of men in kilts and Scotland shirts. Ahh, I said to one in the security queue, you must be football fans then. To which he replied, ‘I was til Thursday’.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Now I’m home. And its cold and grey and dark.

Ok, I miss Lila. I would. She’s special. And I would be missing the football, but its internationals and I really don’t care about them one little jot. Although if I’d have known Israel were playing Scotland on Thursday I might have been tempted to go to Haifa and watch. It’s only an hour away. But I didn’t in fact realise it until Friday morning which, even here, is a bit on the too late side. I also missed ‘the (very very other) royal wedding’. In which an unknown royal married a completely unknown un-royal and they rode off down Windsor Park in a carriage.

I also missed Celebrity Silly Dancers so would normally have no clue (nor even vague interest) in ‘the reaction of the audience to ‘that kiss’’, except it was on the front page of the Sunday Times. I mean; WHO CARES???? Someone must, but who, exactly, is bothered that some Eastern-Euro-dancing-babe was caught kissing an L-list celeb when (probably) one or other of them may or may not have been married to another at the time of the kissage.

What I’ve also blessedly missed has been all the latest Brexit discussions. I look at the paper every day and I think; Brexit… hmmm… Theresa May… David Davis… hmmm… customs unions, trade deals, hard borders… NOOOOO!!!! And I turn the page. Digitally, obvs, cos I only have it on the iPad here. I simply can’t bear it any longer. Reading about Brexit is like Arsenal’s ‘invincibles’ season; really horrible and gives you a headache and makes you want to cry.

But David Davis is trying to unseat Theresa. Boris is waiting. All kinds of Tory ne’er do-wells are loitering in the wings. In that ‘support Theresa fully’ way that means they’d kill her in a second if they could do so without getting caught. And in another room sits Le Corbyn. Doing nothing, saying very little and just biding his time before getting his opportunity to join us with Russia, murdering the monarchy, removing the word ‘democracy’ from our constitution and installing Momentum as the Red Army/KGB.

Make it go away.

Happy Last day of holiday

A xxxx

They’re having a competition for jet pack, errr, people. Those who ‘fly’ around the place, almost like Iron Man but without the extreme levels of sophistication that only the truly talented, like the CGI dudes at major film studios, can really achieve. Robert Downey accelerates up past the ozone layer in 4 seconds whereas these guys sort of drift about 12 feet into the air in a more wobbly, drifty kind of manner.

And I want one. Or want to be one. I want a jet-pack. It’s probably all I’ve ever really wanted. Other than (please complete standard and very very long list here of all ‘normal’ things, all ‘mortal’ things). I told Mel that I need a jet-pack. Right, she said, you‘ve always wanted to be Superman. As if that’s a bad thing. But if I was Superman, I informed her, lovingly, I wouldn’t need a FUCKING JET-PACK!!!

But as its too late for me to be born on the planet Krypton and sent as a baby in a mini-baby-type-Lila-size space ship for planet Earth, Iron Man it’ll have to be. And he can only fly with assistance. So I need a jet-pack. Simple.

In case I haven’t mentioned, I love Israel. And its hot here, and we’re on the beach, which is miles long and clean and beautiful. But then Saturday comes and it all goes to shit. Because they let the Israelis out. For the sabbath. It’s ‘their Sunday’. Issa biblical thing, innit. Observe the sabbath to keep it holy. And ‘holy’ in the modern Israeli definition is thus: find a beach, preferably where Andy is enjoying peace and quiet, invade it in your thousands, shout and scream, bring the kids and hit very loud balls with bats for hours on end.

The beach gets busy. The poolside gets busy. It all gets busy. But its still wonderful. Just in a noisier, crowdier way.

Suffering Saturday (I really expect no sympathy whatsoever)

A xxxx

Man plans, God laughs, what does EasyJet do?

The errant daughter, the one that we banished to Germany because she’s deemed too evil to live in Britain, flew over to join us today, from Berlin. I was tracking the flight on the EasyJet system, which is in fact quite impressive and genuinely ‘live’. You press on the right little plane on the big map and it tells you how fast its going, the altitude, a whole host of irrelevant and meaningless numerical data. Fascinating. Most important is: ‘arrival time: 1.24pm’. Then it changed. ‘Your flight is no longer in the air’. Oh, ok. One hour into a 3 hour flight and its… its… WHERE THE FUCK IS IT????

It’s landed in Budapest, is where it is. Sick person on board. Had to emergency land for medical attention. Here’s the funny thing. He was dead ill when he boarded the plane. In a wheelchair, with a serious heart condition, nurse in tow, the patient the colour of lime jelly on a grey pavement. And he was ill! On the plane!!! Who could have predicted that??? Tossers. They shouldn’t have flown him in the first place.

Anyway, enough about him. He’s probably very happy in a Hungarian hospital. I wish him well.

So with just a mere 2 hour delay, the plane arrived about half past 3. But the good thing was; we didn’t leave for the airport until the new, re-scheduled arrival time so that was all good. And the babe arrived. Which was, quite frankly, wonderful. How long that feeling will last is best not to ask.

And after a brief lunch we enjoyed the last of the day’s sunshine.

I love this place.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

A third of under-25s in Britain do not drink alcohol. Not a drop. The rest address the whole ‘getting pissed’ thing with a disinterest verging on the plainly sensible. It’s almost as if they view binge-drinking, throwing up in Ubers, falling over drunk and waking up in the kerbside as some kind of bad thing.

What are the 16-25 year olds going to do in the park at night? To wash down the drugs with? How are they going to explain dancing like a total nob-end when they’re sober? Sexual inadequacy will have no excuse other than sexual inadequacy. Drunken fumblings (not like Kavanaugh, normal ones) will just become fumblings of a more pathetic, inexperienced and clueless nature. Or just plain ‘sexual assault’. The kids will no longer have a reason to pick a fight with the biggest guy in the pub. What will they do at football matches? Rush down at halftime for a bottle of Evian?

The whole fabric of the ‘British way of life’ is being compromised by these selfish, egotistical young people who consider themselves too sophisticated and enlightened to follow the traditions of their cultural heritage. Of drunkenness. At every opportunity. In excess. Which has always been moderated by an ethos of ‘until its all gone’. Then you steal someone else’s and the fights start. How could these youth not want to embrace that??

Ok, that’s a little extreme. Sobriety can only be a good thing. Apparently. Just doesn’t feel that way once the first Scotch of a Friday night has settled itself warmly in your brain. Abstinence may make the heart grow stronger (and protect you from cancers, liver disease, blood issues and a whole host of baddies) but there’s a little bit of me that actually mourns this new information.

I like the fact that teens don’t listen to their parents. I like they fact that they question everything and demand empirical experience before making judgments. That they try alternatives before adhering to some set of normalising rules. I am aware that there is a difference between ‘thinking outside the box’ and ‘thinking smashed out-yer-box’ but both are expressions of expansive minds. Just ones that are expanding in slightly different directions. Possibly a yin and yang thing.

Ok, I just fear the word ‘abstinence’ like I fear the word ‘censorship’ and the word ‘don’t!’

I need a beer.

Happy Wednesday from the Promised Land

A xxxx

It had to happen. Man can only work, play, tour, run around like a headless chickens, baby-care for so long and then he (or in fact she, not in reference to any impending trans events coming soon in my life, but because women can get tired too) needs to rest. So we went to Russia in May but it wasn’t restful. Avoiding the KGB alone is exhausting before you’ve even started the normal tourist shtick. We went to Rome for a wedding and ran round like mad things so as not to miss any church, temple, Pope or any of the ‘must sees’ in the Eternal City. So we needed to rest. Just rest. And sun. We always need that. And when I say ‘we’, of course I mean ‘she’.

So we’re in Israel. The land of my people. And, unfortunately, as history has shown and continues to show, the land of lots of other’s people too. Or, in fact, possibly fortunately. Because the Arabs who live here, in Israel, are lovely, friendly, work in the supermarket we went to last night and emphatically add to the multi-culturalism of the place. So just for one single ‘bang on the drum’, the peaceful Arabs who live here, who’ve always lived here, are an important and necessary and totally included part of ‘Israel’. It’s only those who live under the Hamas spell and therefore train 8 year-olds to murder innocent civilians, who represent a problem for which walls get built and shit takes place.

Meanwhile, I’m going to lie in the sun and think of England. Or possibly Lila. Maybe Spurs. But its only for a week so I better think quickly.

And its only a 5 hour flight. Which manages to take an entire fucking day. We left home at 4.30 in the morning and arrived, local time, 6 o’clock in the evening. That ain’t right.

But at least I didn’t miss any football. That was all played on the weekend. And Spurs won. Which was fantastic, in a really, totally, absolutely un-fantastic way. We went 1-0 up (against frikkin, lowly) Cardiff after 10 minutes and… and… and that’s how it stayed. Love the 3 points but a bit worried about the total display. Arsenal saw off Fulham in some style, Liverpool and Man City couldn’t breach each other’s defences Chelsea won easily.

But Manchester United were something else. I watched the first half and was thrilled that lowly, can’t-buy-a-win Newcastle ended up 2-0 to the good. Shame, for them, that they had to play the second half. Which the Mancs won 3-0. Making a final score of… whatever. Too early for maths. Morinho exploded at the press telling them ‘fuck off you sons of whores’. There’s an inquiry. Though only by linguists as he used Portuguese to say it. Yet even with the win, you have to feel Jose is on borrowed time. Yes, he managed to rally the team of massively over-priced mega-stars to beat the team second from bottom in the league, but it really shouldn’t be that hard. They really shouldn’t have been so terrible in the opening 45. Or, as say in Israel: all good fun.

Happy holidays

A xxxx