Andy's Glasses

Lila’s in Berlin. This is her at Heathrow yesterday morning. She has a passport. Bunny (the blue thing) doens’t. Could that be a problem? Now we’re leaving Europe and losing the whole ‘borderless’ thing? How do soft toys feature in the Brexit negotiations? At least she’s handing in her bread roll, which certainly doesn’t have a passport. But she’s gone, with her mummy & daddy, to see Auntie Rachie, who is so excited by their arrival that she stayed almost sober for 2 nights beforehand. Commitment, dedication, love.

So we had a cultural evening. Which, as all culture should, started at Nandos. I haven’t been there for years but I don’t know why. Because, like any fantastically successful food chain, it starts with the food. And Nandos know their strength. Which is chicken. Which they do in a hundred different ways and all are really good. Ingredients all fresh, nothing is pre-cooked, salads are fresh (just thought I’d add that to impress you; because, quite frankly, you really don’t go to Nandos for salads) and cooked really well. Its not ‘fast food’ per se, because it takes 15 minutes to get to the table. But its priced as fast food because it is almost ridiculously cheap for what you get. I would go further and say that, being chicken-based, the food is ‘healthy’. Not that I give a shit but its amazing how food-snobby people get about Nandos. Yet they willingly go to the over-priced, overly-pretentious Ivy cafes and eat half-cold, poorly prepared, badly-delivered crap and pay 5 times the price for it. I’m never eating anywhere else. Going to learn Portuguese so I can order in their natural language.

But we went there because its where the cinema lives. And we went to see ‘Black Klansman’. Which is a very good movie, but its not the ‘great’, the ‘wonderful’, the ‘5 star!’ offering that its been hailed. I liked it a lot, Spike Lee makes good ‘joints’ but not brilliant.

However, it was the trailers that interested me a lot. Because there’s a seed change occurring in Hollywood. Its started and I think its its response to the ‘me too’ thing. So they’re bringing out films which are basically: ‘behind every great man is a greater woman’. No more Jack Reacher, James Bond (who now has to actually ‘ask’ before he can have sex; to ‘send the right message’; tossers), male super-hero, love-em-an’-leave-em types. Now we have a new film out about Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. Or, rather, a film about Neil Armstrong’s wife without whom, we will learn, small steps for man… etc, would never have happened.

Then there’s another with Jonathan Price as a nobel laureate for literature who we will learn was NOTHING without the driving force of Glenn Close as Mrs Nobel Laureate. She’s come a long way from boiling bunnies (no relation to Lila’s bunny, thank gawd).

And being someone who enjoys a knee-jerk, over-reacting, Daily Mailesque generalisation; ALL movies now will HAVE to have a strong woman as the main story. We MUST move from just having respect for women to revering them. So starring as the rags-to-riches hooker (Pretty Woman), or the world-champ pole dancer (Showgirl) simply won’t cut it in this more enlightened age.

Society moves on.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

There was a famous advert on tv for Mars bars, many decades back, which used the line: a Mars a day helps you work, rest and play. And it showed how this (still) wonderful treat gives you energy to work and play, whilst… really not sure where the ‘rest’ came in, but it rounds off the ad nicely. It was all about ‘energy’. Surely, if you eat 2 you can work, play and rest even more fully? The original slogan: ‘a Mars a day helps you… get FAT!’ was rejected by the marketing team, despite its honesty.

We need energy to survive. You put petrol in a car (if you’re an environment-killing, air-polluting total BASTARD!) and that is used to produce the power. Similarly, you put ‘energy’ in a human and they can function. And in food that ‘energy’ is measured in kilo-Calories. Which is a term with serious baggage for dieters and the food conscious. (Speaking of dieting, I decided yesterday, as Mel & I were finishing off a jumbo bag of pretzels as a pre-dinner ‘snack’, that our 5-2 diet intention has now officially become modified to a 7-nil).

So energy in, wakefulness and different energy out. Runners eat pasta, boxers eat half a cow and two pigs, 3 chickens and a dozen eggs for breakfast. Because hard exercise burns energy and if you don’t put sufficient fuel in, the engine will seize up. (I like this metaphor and thus will push it towards the outrageously ridiculous, where all metaphors belong). Porridge is a really healthy, fibrous, energy-giving start to the day. And is very calorific. But no-one minds those calories. And breakfast is indeed the best meal to ingest hi-carb calories.

We give our energy levels a ‘boost’ at times. The morning coffee ritual used by so many gives us caffeine, which is a drug appearing to lift energy levels without the need for horrible accompanying calories. Cocaine is even better (which, originally, was the ‘secret ingredient of the fizzy drink which shares its nickname), amphetamines better still. But drugs tend to give ‘false energy’ and making you feel energetic without anything to back it up, so you burn your own muscles instead.

And sugar is the simplest way to intake calories, or ‘energy’ as those pesky little k-cals can also be known. Even though refined sugar is metabolised in such a way as to make fat rather than create actual, useable ‘energy’. Even though it feels like it does. Because, like caffeine, it gives you a ‘buzz’. A ‘rush’. And that is as addictive as, maybe not cocaine, but pretty close.

So is there a problem with selling ‘energy drinks’ to kids? I don’t think so. Could there be a correlation between kids in the UK consuming 50% more ‘energy drinks’ than in… Europe and the fact that we’re the most obese nation on the planet. (I’m not including America, obviously, because I’m not sure, under current leadership, that’s its still on this planet). Is there an issue with getting children addicted to cans of shit containing up to 20 sugar cubes and two double espressos of caffeine? That they drink 3 or 4 times a day? What’s the problem? Just give your kids ‘energy drink money’ every day along with the ammunition allowance for their guns. Its fine.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I’ve just come back from nursery rhyme time at our little local library. Its free, its wonderful, its packed with little kids and Lila loves it. The downside is that I have nursery rhyme ear-worms for the rest of the week. Any mention of ‘ducks swimming one day’ or ‘monkeys jumping on beds’ or ‘catching fish alive’ (very topical at the moment; well, fish, scallops, what difference?) and I go into all-out mode, complete with hand movements, jumping up and down, whatever is required. More like a ‘full body worm’.

But apparently there have been complaints about that old favourite ‘the wheels on the bus’, as being ‘offensive’. No, not by bus drivers, nor by Wheels-R-Us, but by feminists who think that mummies on the bus going ‘chatter, chatter, chatter’ is an unfair and prejudicial stereotype. This is not at my library, we all have sufficient sense of time, place and irony to just accept an industry standard. But I’d guess… Camden? Islington?? possibly Hackney??? they were offended by that patriarchal, typically male-oriented slur on an entire gender. By the wheels on the fucking bus? So I’ve re-written it. In a hopefully more politically correct manner. So it can’t cause offence to anyone.

The single-parent mothers on the bus say nothing that could possibly offend anyone, nothing that could possibly… etc…

The Gooners on the bus say ‘not again, not again, not again…’

Please feel free to add more categories, we wouldn’t want to appear prejudicial by omission. So if I’ve forgotten anyone, please append.

Happy totally inclusive Thursday

A xxxx

Great British Bake Off is back on our screens. The new series. In which a dozen hapless amateurs make food which goes wrong. Compelling viewing. Wouldn’t want to miss a limp biscuit, a cake that’s gone flat, an undercooked pie.

And its true. I wouldn’t want to miss it. Any of it. I want to know precisely how much yeast Kevin puts in his dough. I need to see how Olivia made such a perfect pain au chocolate whilst her croissant looked like a turd. I hold my breath as Nigel takes his Victoria sponge from the oven, in case it sinks. (names have been changed to protect… someone)

And I ask myself: WHY? Why do I care? Why do I watch? Why bother?? Ok, I bake, like a really little bit, and I go to Waitrose and buy their pastry dough. All different types. Who needs all that kneading? Open the packet, roll it out and you’re off. I wouldn’t know what to do with yeast, nor bicarbonate of soda, other than leave it in the cupboard. Used in bomb-making, I think.

But I suppose what I’m hooked on is the format of the show, the formula. Which of course, they’ve also done with painting pictures, probably origami, possibly yoga, maybe car repairs. I don’t know; don’t watch any of them. Love Island passed me by as does anything with the word ‘Shore’ in the title. But Bake Off compels me. Yet the format is old now, I should be bored with it. Like… errrr… football… but I’m not. I don’t like Paul Hollywood, he’s a humourless Brummy who looks like Damian from The Omen, just before he ripped his mother’s spleen out with a soup ladle. Though if Paul H had done that, the spleen would have been cooked to perfection, with a scalloped edge and no soggy bottom. Pru Leith is a pretentious, pompous cook with aspirations to aristocracy. Yeah, they make you a Princess for cooking a cake. And the ‘other two’ are corny, cheesy and stupid.

So what’s to like?

But its on series record, along with Match of the Day, and there it shall stay.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

And it came to pass, that a football team from London (previous 21 London team’s visits, including Spurs,have failed to win) went to Manchester and by the grace of all that is holy, they came away with a win. Amen.

Not only a win. We also got 3 points. You do when you win. Its… never mind. And we came away with a clean sheet. Them’s rare, particularly at Old Trafford where referees traditionally ‘look benevolently’ at the home side. But we came away with so much more. We came away with a belief, and, for some of us, with the realisation that in the team playing last night, there is no ‘dead wood’, no player you’re not sure of, no-one who makes you shudder. Every one a fucking Maserati.

It was indeed the game of two halves. Man United came out all guns a’blazing in the first half and for 20 minutes we looked shell-shocked. But with Jan Vertongen’s class and Belgium compatriot Romelu Lukaku’s incompetence, we held it together to go in 0-0, with great relief, at half time.

And during that break something happened. Two things happened, in fact. One was Morinho putting the reins on his team, pulling back the flamboyance, organising what had been a bit chaotic, even though great to watch, other than for the nail-biting Spurs fans, who were unhappy. And the second thing was Mauricio Pochettino, bless his little Argentinian soul, did ‘something’ to Spurs. In a mere 15 minutes he managed to transform them from lacklustre and unconfident into the best team on the planet.

We were sharper, more aggressive, more organised, quicker. The back four soldified as Toby Alderweireld, after swallowing a can of spinach, turned back into the absolute best centre back in the world. Ironically, the one Morinho was desperate to buy in the transfer window but wasn’t allowed. He was deemed ‘too expensive’. Though 50 mil looked a bargain after the way he played yesterday. He missed nothing and then, after dispossessing, distributed the ball like Andrea Pirlo. The classiest player on the pitch.

But football’s not all about defence. And we suddenly started attacking like Spurs. Ok, Man United’s defence was as poor as ours was brilliant and they left some massive spaces open for us to exploit. Harry Kane scored his first Old Trafford goal. In August. That breaks every hoodoo ever. But then up stepped tiny little Lucas Moura who’d been a bit pesky all night, fast and nippy and somewhat Brazillian. And he turned into an unmarkable, unplayable superstar. He looked like Hazard, like (all bow) Messi even as he just bounced off tackles, shrugged off defenders and added a couple of fantastic goals to his tally.

Spurs failure to buy in the summer suddenly appeared cured by a re-birth of a player we bought last January. More evidence of the magnificent ‘Pochettino effect’. And if that effect is defined as taking underperforming players and bringing out levels of ‘very best’ they didn’t even know they had, then sadly, the Morinho effect is the exact opposite.

What a win. What a game. What a… what a… what a…

Amazingly happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Chelsea football club is for sale. You’ll need a few bob to buy it. But you’ll need much, much, much more to sustain it. Because Chelsea, like most (but thankfully not all) ‘big’ clubs, makes massive financial losses every year. Which turned Abramovich’s initial 140 million purchase of the club (including the debts) into a ‘loan’ over the last 15 years, of 1.1 billion quid. Fair enough, he can afford it. Because for his investment of 1.25 bil, Abramovich has first and foremost bought himself a place in society, a place somewhere near, but not quite immersed in, a community (of right-wing, aggressive, hard-core, violent anti-semites… and David Baddeil) above whom he hovers as benign and omnipotent benefactor and the enabler of their dreams. That was his mission. To create a profile. Not as a gangster. Not as one of Putin’s ‘untouchables’, not as someone who sold his soul to many devils to acquire massive wealth in such a short time. But as a kind of ‘celeb’. As someone ‘clean’.

He also raised Chelsea’s profile, from mid-table wannabes to consistent league winners and, most coveted of all, winners of a Champions League, albeit the worst final (for Spurs fans) ever. And as the team becomes bigger and attracts true world class star names, so the ‘brand’ of Chelsea becomes more saleable. Sponsorships become massive, sales increase worldwide, tv gives more. And thus, if you want to buy Chelsea today, and some even want to, the minimum to be considered is 2.5 billion pounds. But remember; what you’re actually buying, just from a business point of view, is the right to spend at least another billion (plus the new stadium in all likelihood, for another bil) over the next decade. By which time you’ll sell them for 6 bil. That seems to be the modern football business model. Invest, invest, invest until you’re very blood runs dry, then sell for a massive profit.

Clubs get bought and sold. Managers get bought and sold. Players get bought and sold.

I’d like to offer myself as a ‘fan for sale’. I’m good, loving, loyal (for the purposes outside the present conversation), devoted and really proficient at annoying fans of other clubs. I shout loud, swear often and sing like a dog-during-castration. I’ll even buy my own scarf. A bargain at £220,000… ok, £125,000 if its lower league. But £5million for Arsenal. And there isn’t enough money for me to go to West Ham or Chelsea. But Abramovich is welcome to make an offer through his usual channels.

Happy bank holiday monday

A xxxx

So its a rotten, shitty, rainy, grey, nasty day. What better thing could you possibly do than drive from Manchester to London? Its in all the guide books. Just after ‘nice things to do on Tuesday evenings’ and before ‘rotten things to avoid before you die’. So to make it really interesting, they operate it as an obstacle course. How exciting! This is how it plays:

Day 1. Drive up to Leeds on bank holiday weekend. The M1 is at its finest; crammed with cars, with roadworks (temporarily suspended because you wouldn’t want to see any workers at all actually doing something on the 18-mile stretch of motorway they’ve marked off with cones, would you? That would spoil all the fun), and with the odd accident or broken down car. All in all, a fairly painful 200 miles and great relief at your arrival. Until it actually dawns on you that it is in fact Leeds you’ve just arrived at, rather than somewhere nice, somewhere desirable, somewhere cool.

Spend the night at father-in-law’s place, go to bed early (the easiest way to ‘make it go away, Mummy!’) to be fully prepared for the main event on:

Day 2. After breakfast set off cross country (M62) to Manchester. In the (fucking) rain. Just in case Leeds isn’t quite awful enough, they send you there. Attend to business there (care homes, wardened flats, fun, fun, fun!!!), have the worst possible version of industrialised, mass-catered, leave-on-a-hotplate-for-a-week-it’ll-be-just-fine, slops and then set off for London. The Holy Grail.

Its still wet, still raining, misty, grey and… well, its Manchester; what d’ya expect? Within 5 miles we had hold up number 1. By hold up number 3, 50 miles down the M6, Waze took us off that road altogether and across country (the other way, A50), over to the M1 because an accident earlier at the M1/M6 interchange had fucked things up beyond all normal levels of fuck-up. The M1 was fine. For about 30 miles. Then it stopped. Just stopped. Engine off, phone a friend, feet up on the steering wheel, stopped. Eventually it started again but then Waze once again took us off the road because there was a broken down coach, 2 lanes closed. Waze led us (‘blindly’ doesn’t even half cover it) round the back of Stony Stratford, over a few farms, through a campsite, across a river (no bridge), in that Waze way, and we returned 15 miles south and into almost flowing traffic.

Arriving home (THANK FUCKING CHRISTTTTT!!!!!) just 5 hours after leaving.

Fun, fun, fun.

Happy rest of Sunday. Mine is.

A xxxx

Ok, its not really a ‘sequel’, as such, more an alternative indication that just how, as a species, we’re either doomed by genetic predisposition, or by later indoctrination. Or ‘religion’ as it is sometimes known.

The Pope is visiting Ireland. Lucky Irish people. Even though since the last papal visit to the Emerald Isle, in 1979 (different pope; same dress), church attendance has dropped in the Republic from 90% of the population to 40% now. That’s a big drop. And probably due to the missing 50% of the entire population of Ireland having the sudden realisation that as children they were abused by the church, to some degree or other.

SPOILER ALERT!!! I fucking hate the Catholic religion. Just so you know. Ok, I pretty much hate all religions including the one I’m nominally a member of. I only accept my own as a cultural legacy between a group of people who lack all sense of irony and eat chopped liver. Spiritually; I’m done with it.

But the Catholics get you from birth. All babies are born with ‘original sin’. So you start life with your first ever cry with a score of minus 20. Not appreciating and rejoicing the wonderful innocence and simplicity of a newborn, but seeing it as the result of their perception of someone else’s sin. Guilty until proven innocent.

But that really is the least of it. The next 18 years of church and education see the physical abuse by nuns in schools, the sexual abuse of priests and teachers of boys and girls alike and heaven help the kid who is taken ‘into care’ by ‘the church’. And its not just ‘the odd priest’ that is a sicko, paedo perv. Its a high number. Such a high number that the church itself has sustained a consolidated cover-up for quite literally decades of horrendous crimes of which it has been fully aware. And so concerned for ‘the image of the church’ that known child abusers are not sacked and banished, but that would lead people to ask ‘why?’ So they’re just kept on and shifted sideways to abuse others. Better that than risk embarrassment, surely?

And the reason? Celibacy. Its unnatural. Its stupid. Its immoral. It opposed the human condition. And thus it breeds frustration. So the nuns get violent and the men take out their frustration in more traditional ways.

So the Catholic church, across all 5 continents has basically fucked itself to death. In every sense of the word. And the cover ups simply MUST go back to the Pope. Whichever one is wearing the dress at the time.

So ‘welcome him to Ireland’? I’d have him arrested.

Happy Papal Saturday

A xxxx

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘humanity’? What are the
defining characteristics that it takes to be human? Ok, we speak, we
are self-conscious and we use our opposable thumbs so we can text more
quickly, but there is more. There should be more. We can show
compassion. We help the needy. Rather than eat them, as done by most
of the rest of the animal kingdom. We can be altruistic.

But the flip side of humanity is a darker one. We can be nasty, mean
and horrible. Animals fight over food or mating, humans fight because
they like hurting other people or to show how ‘big’ they are. Humans
murder, whereas other than one type of chimp, (our nearest genetic
‘relative’ sharing over 99% of our genes), animals never kill in that
way. They don’t plan a murder. Not pre-meditated. Only manslaughter.
Ok, animalslaughter.

I spend a little time with my granddaughter, in case you missed that.
And in doing so, without wishing to make you positively vomit, it is a
longitudinal study of human development. And that development is
rapid. Not just in Lila, even though she has an intellect and
understanding of the world way beyond her months and is so far beyond
merely ‘perfect’ as to be unique (in my world), but all kids develop
massively over the first two years; basically going from ‘nought to a
person’ at exponential rate, then it slows down. And in fact by the
teen years it reverses again and they re-evolve as animal/monsters.
But we’re at almost 17 months old and all is wonderful.

So we went, after the inevitably predictable Lila-day rains, to the
park. To the playground. We weren’t alone. Who’d’a thought that on a
sunny afternoon in mid-August there’d be other parents and carers
taking kids to play on swings and slides? Haven’t they got tellies?
Anyway, Lila walked (in her stumbly way) to the play-house, occupied
by two sweet LOOKING little girls about 4 or 5. One of whom tells
little baby Lila ‘THERE’S NO ROOM IN HERE!’ which, as we know, is
kiddie-speak for ‘fuck off!’ Lila, unperturbed by this act of (to her
witnessing grandfather who was looking for a big, heavy stick at that
time) OUTRIGHT HOSTILITY due to her being a veteran of nursery, walked
to the climbing frame. Upon which was a little boy, who we shall refer
to as ‘the TOTAL FUCKING BASTARD!!!’ for the purposes of convenience.
Because as little Lila put her hands on the platform upon which TFB
(about 2, 2-and-a-half, maybe) was standing, he carefully, gently but
quite purposefully put his shoe on Lila’s fingers.

My martial arts training immediately kicked in and I stepped forward,
broke the offending leg, pulled my sword and eviscerated him with one
stroke. Well, that’s what I wanted to do. Its not allowed in the
playground. There are signs. No dogs. No smoking. No eviscerating
TOTAL FUCKING BASTARDS!! His mother (probably a crack-whore; though if
so she was a pretty well-dressed one) didn’t see. But I did. Lila
cried, for like 1 second and the little shit walked away.

But I know his face. And will never forget it. And I thought; what is
it about the human condition that makes kids act in nasty, spiteful
ways? Its almost like they’re preconditioned to towards humanity but
towards being an absolutely spiteful little shit. Not Lila, obvs.

Happy but worrying Friday

A xxxx

I keep reading articles about how unpredictable things are in the Emirates. Not the stadium but the actual place, which was obviously named after the stadium because its full of Arsenal fans. Just last week a British citizen, who happens to be Swedish, was arrested at Dubai airport because she had the smell of booze on her breath. The drink was given to her on an Emirates flight out there from Heathrow. Free. She wasn’t drunk, loud, offensive or hostile. Though did start filming things when the immigration officer got a bit nasty as he refused her entry to the country. She spent a few nights in jail before charges were dropped. How was YOUR holiday?

Now an engineer in Abu Dhabi is on bail after being in jail for six weeks charged with ‘sexual assault’. He’s a 52 year old grandfather accused of sexually assaulting 2 ex-military young men in a hotel lobby. Because apparently, in Emirate-land, any form of ‘touching’ is a bit of an issue. Even when you brush past someone in a hotel lobby, f’rinstance.

Visitors are now warned that they must avoid any ‘touching, swearing or offending anyone in authority’. Which happen to be the list of my 3 favourite hobbies. Also be well to avoid boozing, smelling of booze, looking Western or being too ‘there’, presumably.

So for all its supposed luxury and six-star hotels and fucking submarines to get to restaurants, you should do what I do, and just never go to the Emirates. There are places to visit in the middle East where touching is commonplace, swearing compulsory and arguing with authority figures is just a way of life. And the car park attendants may wear smart uniforms but don’t have powers of arrest. Well, ok, there’s ONE place in the middle east.

Manchester United are a team torn. Again. Jose Morinho is really pissed off that he’s only spent 400 million pounds on players since he arrived 2 years ago. And that he couldn’t get the centre back he needs and wants. Even though he personally bought the two current incumbents, useless as they appear to be. The chief exec won’t give him more money and as this chief is responsible for the current £3billion valuation of the football club, he has ‘some influence’ there with the Glazers. Let’s just hope they stay in as much disarray as possible until after we play them on Monday night.

Happy Lila-day

A xxxx