Andy's Glasses

The world needed a new word, and here it is: foneley. Its neat, succinct, durable(?), errr… washable, comes with a 2-year warranty and is very flexible in usage.

Foneley Harry Kane would’a kept that shot down. Foneley I could have caught the earlier train. Foneley that tennis ball would have stayed the right side of the f-f-foneley line.

Its compatible with all languages, long as they’re English, and it never runs out of charge. So there you are. And its free. At the point of usage.

I’m so bored with Brexit. Foneley the great unwashed weren’t allowed to vote. Foneley the politicians hadn’t all told lies. Foneley we could have seen the future and realised that it pretty much doesn’t exist. Foneley.

Even the Europeans, the Barniers and Tusks and Junkers and all those horrible, nasty, anti-British foreign people are bored with waiting. ‘Bring us a plan’, they demand. ‘Anything’. Ok, so they can shoot it down in the fucking water, but at least that would be movement. But it ain’t happening. The government can’t agree what terms and conditions they want the Euros to reject. Which they obviously will, its what European parliament always does; reject proposals until 63 new laws have been introduced to ratify the situation.

We can have a ‘soft Brexit’ in which so little changes that it really isn’t a Brexit at all. More a Br-stays the same. The good thing is we retain free trade which means all those overseas companies manufacturing here would have no need to relocate to mainland Europe to save export taxes. The bad thing is that we’d have to have open borders, free passage to Romanian pickpockets and we’d still be answerable to the European legal framework. Ireland would remain Ireland.

If we opt for ‘hard Brexit’, we basically tell all those horrible people listed above to fuck off because they’re no longer needed in our lives. Companies would possibly leave, taking lots and lots of jobs and giving them to French or German workers, who we hate, at least til the World Cup is over. We’d shut our borders to everyone, except possibly skilled workers, whatever that might be, and crop-pickers, who we need. Ireland will become a massive problem. Which is nothing new, but in a different way.

I think the Labour Party has it about right. Do nothing, say nothing, spare all opinions and hope it goes away. Good to have positive opposition.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Yaaaay! England won!!… the rights to enter the ‘easy’ half of the draw for the rest of the World Cup. And depending on how long that ‘rest of’ may be will decide if the manager’s decision to ‘rest’ 8 of his starting players for a game that ‘didn’t matter’ was a brilliant one or possibly the penultimate one he makes as England manger. He still has at least one match guaranteed to play. Though I am a big fan of Gareth, approaching man-crush status.

My own preparation for yesterday’s big match was a long one, starting at 5.30 in the morning for early training. Ok, Lila was in-da-house and woke up, giggling, calling, happy-as-fucking-Larry at 5.30 in the morning. There simply is no ‘rolling over and going back to sleep’ when such a thing occurs. Firstly she certainly won’t let you and also you’d miss the wonder. Sleep’s overrated anyway. Though doesn’t feel it when so brutally disturbed.

And there’s no doubt that by finishing second in our group rather than top, we have an ‘easier run to the final’ but that is a statement beyond any normal limits of ‘presumptuous’. Because the price paid is that all that winning mentality will have slipped, regardless of any justifications after the fact. Like, it will be easier to progress. Like, we were only playing a ‘b-team’. The players, at the end of last night’s match, weren’t punching the air in jubilation for not having to meet Brasil, France, Argentina or Uruguay until the final. No. They were upset and despondent at having lost a match. And that is a feeling that lingers and destabilises.

But heh, by the time we play Columbia our star players will return, having rested for over a week. So we can get the Spurs boys back. And its ‘only Columbia’. Who are, by all accounts, a fairly useful team.

I missed last night’s game. Saw the beginning, thought we looked quite good, I love seeing the kids trying to impress. Then I went to Tai Chi. Because football is all well and good (as I constantly tell Mel) but my martial arts will ensure my physical wellbeing, my spiritual harmony and my never-ending quest to hurt people really badly.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Yippe-yiiy-yaay; Uber have been given another licence to… to Ube. Once more we can press a button on our phones and be taken anywhere in the entire fucking world for nothing. Well, not exactly ‘nothing’ but without the need to handle that dirty, folding stuff for payment. And that is, quite frankly, brilliant. A 15-month ‘stay of execution’ granted ‘on probation’. To appease the 850,000 Londoners who helped the appeal. The argument levelled by Mayor Sadiq Tosser of TFL and his personal army of ‘Ackney Carriage drivers is that of depriving individuals of their livelihood. Which was not the nature of the failed licence, which was about safety, security and other issues. Because we don’t allow monopolies here, even lovely quaint ones like black cabs. And the argument against, basically, viable competition could be leveled by corner shop owners every time a Tesco local or M&S Foods or a Lidl the size of a small African state opens in their neighbourhood.

So Uber goes on in London and the 850,000 people who signed the petition had their wish come true.

Uber is very clever. You get it on your phone, you part with no cash, your destination is in there when the driver arrives to pick you up. And it works brilliantly. Efficiently. Reliably. Until you go abroad, then its a whole n’other kind’a experience.

In Delhi we paid £1.20 for a journey of 20 minutes. Bargain. In Russia you’re warned by everyone ‘DON’T USE THE TAXIS! THEY’RE THIEVES, MURDERERS, RAPISTS AND VAGABOND COSSACKS!!’, so you call an Uber and you get the same basic personality type but with the constraint that Uber brings. That they’re not allowed to rip you off, rape you, murder you or whatever. They don’t have to be ‘nice’ though, and they’re certainly not. But good value and almost reliable sometimes. Almost.

In Rome last week it was different again. You pay more for an Uber than a taxi. But they come in fancy schmancy BMWs and Audis. And the drivers smell nice. But aren’t always that reliable in arrival times and stuff.

But basically and, probably unaccountably, I DO trust Uber. With my daughters, with my ancient father, with my wife and, most importantly (always) with me. So I’m glad they’re still going. And we’re used to them, they just can’t take them away. We can’t ‘un-know’ them, can we?

Happy Wednesday, BENNY!

A xxxx

They say Rome’s hot. London’s hotter. Trust me, I’ve tested it. And
apparently its hotter than Rio, hotter than everywhere. We are, in the
rather silly world of ‘competitive weathering’ Heat Central. Which is
fab, of course, until you get on the tube or try to sleep. But we cope
because its so wonderful to wake up to clear blue skies and sunshine.

That is the end of the weather. Not, like, forever, just the end of
the report. You know…

Its hot in Russia too. And although I’ve kind of ‘engaged’ in the
England matches, I’m not properly ‘into’ the football as yet. How
excited can you get when Portugal play Iran? And yet it was a match of
interest. And violence. And VAR. And the worst refereeing decisions
since the last match played out there. And its always nice to see The
Great Ronaldo! taken down a peg or two as his European Champions could
only draw with the Ayatollah’s boys. In fact he should even have been
sent off, so they reckon, for an elbow into the face of some lovely
Iranian boy who’d been wrestling him to the ground just moments
before. Yet he was only booked. Takes a brave ref to send off The
Great Ronaldo!

And we beat Panama. Beat them soundly. So immediately the British
press are in 1966-mode and we’re going to ‘win the thing!!!’ We won’t
be happy with semi-finals, even losing finalists, its ours for the
taking. Even though we haven’t played a decent team yet. Which happens
on Thursday when we play Belgium to decide who wins our group. And I’d
love us to win the World Cup but really? Can it happen? Who knows.
Loving the thought. As I have done every 4 years since 1966.

Today does feature an interesting possibility rather than an
interesting match. Nigeria play Argentina and, essentially, the winner
goes on and the loser don’t. In fact if Argentina win and Croatia lose
to Iceland (anything can happen) then Messi’s boys are still out.
Which is quite unthinkable for the Argies whose team is filled with
superstars and led by the superstars’ superstar, Leo Messi. Such a
massive game that I’m going to play bridge. Its what the tough do to
survive.

And before you ask, you can’t buy Lilas at Waitrose. Because they
don’t have a barcode.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

We didn’t exactly get ‘thrown out’ of the Vatican, because at the last moment I managed to not cry out ‘YID ARMEEEEE’ on grounds of impropriety. But we were turned away from the entry. Because Mel is such a hooligan. Ok, she was wearing a (gorgeous little, obvs) dress that failed to cover her shoulders. Which was the official reason given but I think its just because the catholic police know trouble when they see it and sometimes it comes in very small packages.

The covered shoulders thing is a red line out there in Pope City, they turned many away. Because bare shoulders are… hmmm… are obviously… sexual? provocative? alluring? will lead inevitably to sin and therefore HELL!!! But heh, we didn’t argue, rules are rules. Nor did I point out that behind half the closed doors upstairs in the Vatican you could probably find little alter boys giving ‘spiritual relief’ to rotten old cardinals. But bare a shoulder and yer outta here.

But its Rome. And full of magic absolutely everywhere. So although my idea of Rome is along the lines of ‘how many coffee shops and cafes can you sit outside and watch the world go by before its time to start on the spritzers?’ Mel needs some pure culture. Not culture by association like wot I like. So we chose a museum. Out of the 43,591 that there are there, we chose to visit the Palazzo Altemps. And its the best one here, by miles, and that’s based on probably seeing 3 of the others (possibly) over the last 15 years. An informed choice.

Its an old palace. Doh. And therefore big and airy and wonderful. And its quiet and cool and peaceful, where just 20 steps away there’s 20 million tourists screaming and shouting and taking selfies. The rooms are massive but have maybe 2 or 3 sculptures in each, a couple of paintings, that’s it. And there’s funny too. The original artefacts from the 16th and 17th centuries and the collections of antiquities were arranged by the artist/designer Fornasetti who chose to add bikes and electric guitars to the mix. And, in the photo of Mel’s filthy shoulders above, a ‘person’ taking a selfie, but its just an installation. No-one there would be so uncool as to take a real, non-ironic selfie.

From there we chanced upon an incredible church, San Andreas della Valle. Fucking massive place with the second biggest dome after the Vatican and the usual art and sculptures and Jesus dying a million deaths, all depicted by the great masters. But the place barely gets a mention in the guides. Which is great because it was quiet and free. And more fashionable than the Vatican because bare shoulders are almost ‘de rigeur’ in there.

And while all this was going on, England have almost won the bloody world cup. Showed them Belges what ‘goal difference’ really means.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

The last bastion of pure maleness has been breached. The last domain in which men ruled, seemingly unopposed, has now fallen beneath the great sword of equality. And I’m not talking about football, the game that has for many years been played by gels as well as boys, but football commentary and punditry. Gary Linneker World. And he’s a MAN.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a football pundit thus:

A GEEZER (note, not a woman, girl, bird, tart or nuffink remotely female or feminine), a geezer wot talks abart football within a very set specific set of rules. He must speak in stupid, repetitive cliché wherever possible. He must say ‘ya know’ once every 9 words or may lose his licence to pundify. And if he doesn’t state the phrase ‘at da end’a’da day’ once every turn then Golgotha will fall. He must at all times talk in improper English, never complete his sentences and is forbidden from pronouncing the ‘H’ at the beginning of any word. Glottal stops are optional. Ridiculous jargon is mandatory and the mixing up of adjectives and adverbs is good…ly, and more betterer.

Which is why Alan Shearer is the perfect pundit. Lovely fella but someone who obviously left school long before the grammar class started, to practice headers. Which further influenced his word flow as the inevitable concussions took their toll.

Then one day, along came a blond. Gaby Yorath/Logan. The first name that of her father, one of a group of infamous Leeds thugs from their heyday in the early 70s. The latter name that of her husband, former captain of Scotland’s international rugby team. And although it was only Scotland…

Sorry. Yeah, Gaby. Not quite as pretty as Gary Linneker but she was no mere eye candy as she became the virtual Ms Linneker and presented all the sports shows he didn’t. But she was educated, almost posh, pronounced all the letters that other ‘sports personalities’ didn’t know existed.

And so to this world cup, in which there are lady footballers commentating (some even in possession of law degrees), and ladies introducing the shows. Not just to comment on the handbags carried by the WAGS but actually talking about football. In a new way. With feelings and emotions… ok, maybe not, but its different, its intelligent and quite honestly its refreshing. I’ve heard every phrase that Jermaine Jenas knows, repeated a million times.

So there’s outrage. Obviously. But its a good thing. A great thing. It speaks of the game moving away from its dinosaur past into the bright and more equal future. I just wish they’d show a bit more cleavage, is all.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

When you arrive at the Coliseum you do so with a pre-assembled cast of 42,000 people. At least 29,000 of whom are trying to sell you, in order of annoyance:

‘Beat the queue’ tickets, but the queue to buy those was way bigger than the one to get in.

Bottles of water. To whom I said: DO YOU NOT KNOW MY WIFE??? I COULD FUCKING SELL YOU WATER; WHAT DO YOU THINK I’M PULLING A WHEELBARROW FOR????

Selfie sticks. I’d rather die in a torture chamber.

Postcards, little plastic Coliseums-es (I bought 4 before Mel told me they weren’t going to be displayed in the lounge; but you can never have enough), hop on/off bus tickets (how do you think I fucking got here?), guided tours, tours with lunch, tours with extras, tours where you actually get to kill a Greek.

I kept asking who could get me in the ring with a sword and a lion, but no-one could deliver. Because swords aren’t allowed for health’n’safety reasons, lions are ten a penny.

If they banned hawkers the place would be so much more pleasant and less crowded.

But I love Rome, simply love it. Everywhere you look there’s like two thirds of a brick wall with 2 columns sticking out the top, one broken in half, and it dates back to 235BC. Well, that’s what they tell you. There’s an excavation by the Spanish Steps and one of the walls has ‘Made in China’ on it. Ok, I made that up, but you just don’t know.

And the Romans were just so civilised. They invented the Pimlico Plumbers. They invented central heating AND just like mine, Romulus could set the thermostat from his ‘smart-slave’, just press a button and its 10 degrees hotter before you actually arrive there. They invented excessive eating, politics, democracy and… and death. Ok, they didn’t invent it but they turned it into an art form. A spectator sport. The gorier the better. Even with 50,000 people inside it, there was never crowd violence at the Coliseum. Well, nothing that could possibly match that which was there for ‘entertainment’. I’ve just seen 14 Mesopotamians eviscerated with blunt instruments; wanna fight?

Such wonderful contradictions; Rome is full of them. The culture, the violence and, of course, the religion. Which is almost a combination of the first two but with God thrown in just to stir things up a bit.

If only someone here would realise that to cook food that isn’t ‘just’a like’a mamma used’a ta make’ is neither a slur on her name nor a disgrace to your national flag. Its called progress, originality, experimentation, its called DIFFERENT.

So where shall we go for spag.bol/pizza tonight? That is the only question.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I’m lovin’ Rome. Lovin’ it. Though it is hot. Hot as hell. Which I think is very appropriate as our apartment is in the shadow of the Vatican. You can almost see the Basilico from our room. If your neck is 17 feet long. And Catholicism and hell just go hand in hand. On so many levels.

And I’ve seen… I’ve seen… I’ve seen Lila. Which, trust me, is cause for no complaint whatsoever. She offers more fun and rewards than ancient Rome ever could. And in between Lila-times there are wedding things. Lots of wedding things. Which involve eating (massively), drinking (even more massively) and socialising. Rome’s always been a sociable place, right back to Frankie Howerd and the days of the Forum.

So Wednesday night, the day we arrived, we were taken for a ‘pre-wedding’ dinner at a gorgeous restaurant right in the centre, where the streets are cobbled, the piazzas teeming and the food outstanding. When we left at midnight it was so warm and balmy and we were so boozed up and fuzzy that we walked back to the apartment. An hour of gorgeousness along the river.

Then was Thursday, or wedding day as is known. In the magnificent Grand Synagogue. Which is like a Jewish version of a cathedral with lots of marble and columns and Roman type stuff. And from there we bussed up to the hills to a villa for eat, drink and merriment. In vast quantities, all done outside. What’s the Italian for ‘al fresco’.

Today we had a lunch. Again wonderful, again everything abundant to the point just before ancient Romans would have been puking up to prepare for the next onslaught, but this time Lila came too. When we had deserts we learned from her the origins of the term ‘grazing’ as applied to humans eating. Something her grandfather excels at. See above.

Tomorrow we’re going on a walking tour. We love walking tours. And we’ll learn why Trevi has a fountain; where Caesar called Brutus a double-crossing motherfucker; why Italian steps are Spanish and if the Pantheon and Parthenon are just one building sold twice or 2 separate things.

Ciao

A xxxx

I’m going to Rome. To visit the Pope. To speak Latin. Have a toga party. To drink capuccino, in its natural habitat. To watch the world cup in a place where they have no personal interest. And to go to a wedding. Which is tomorrow. And that’s exciting. Almost as exciting as the fact that Lila is currently at large (or ‘at little’ really) in Rome. She’s learning to speak Italian. Pretty much as she’s learning to speak English. Its all greek to her.

I booked the flights last year. As soon as the ‘save the date’ thingy came round. And got them on air miles. The only outbound flight they had was Business Class, for not very many miles so that’s what we got. Which makes no difference on a short flight. Other than the lounge.

And I’m sitting there with my (English) capuccino, chewing my (English) pain au raison, perusing the paper. And learned something massive. Other than thinking that possibly it might be an idea to do drug tests on the Russian footballers. Just because: a. they’re playing so much better than anyone imagined they could, and b. they’re Russians.

But on the front page I learned the most wonderful thing. That people who ‘drink’ will live longer and suffer less possible cancers than teetotallers. I mean how amazing is that? Trump and all the other smug, alcohol-free-thinkers will be buried by a bunch of hiccuping piss-heads. So I immediately hit the free bar in the lounge and started on the path to a longer life in earnest.

Then, before my vision started doubling I got to the bit where they used the horrible, hateful, most-dullest of all terms, the ultimate ‘m-word’… Moderation! At which point I poured myself another (well, it may have been 7.30am in London but it was 6pm somewhere in the world, right??) large one and pondered how flexible a term ‘moderation’ is when you really start to think about it.

As some clever person once said: I just want one drink, because it makes me feel like a new man. But then he wants a drink too.

More Brits watched England beat Tunisia on Monday than watched the royal wedding. Therefore Harry Kane is more gorgeous than Meghan. Its beyond question.

Aribaderchi

A xxxx

I have never received a ‘sext’. Perhaps I would have if Mel could use her phone properly, but that will never happen. No-one else ‘sexts’ me so I’m a loser. Because this activity is now so common that 70% of ‘young’ people have received them. And this is how they voted: the men, receiving naked, nude, explicit, pornographic, surgical shots from women deem them to be ‘acceptable’ (the process, not, obvs., the quality of the actual picture or desire-worthiness of it). The girls (because 18-24 is pretty young) rated getting unwanted dick-pics as fairly inappropriate. Again, depends on the dick, I suppose.

When I was 18-24 it was much weirder. You had to take a photo of your dick, and unless you wanted to take another 23 photos of it (though it is remarkably photogenic, I must say), you then waited til your next holiday when you finished the roll of film. Then you take it to Boots, who may or may not refuse to print penis pictures, depending on who’s doing the printing and how lovely the penis is. You then pick up the photo and post it to the intended recipient. But it gets delayed by being sent to a sorting office in Solihull by mistake and takes ages to get there. By the time the photo arrives at its intended recipient you’re already going out with her best mate’s cousin. Worse still, in the intervening 7 months since taking the shot your willy looks different.

The only way to speed up the process and get results anywhere even vaguely approaching Instagram speeds was to just wait at the bus stop and show the intended recipient the real thing. But there were legal issues involved and dirty raincoats to consider for such an action.

But what is really interesting is that whilst women don’t like getting naked pictures (or at least are prepared to say they don’t), men/boys absolutely love it. And its just ‘there’. A genuine, not-to-be-equalitised, gender difference. Men’s minds are inherently pornographic, womens’ are more ‘Mills & Boone’, or so they’d have us believe. Gay men obviously have no such worries about causing offense. Gay women presumably just don’t ‘sext’.

I put it down to ‘biological, evolutionary differences’ because no-one can argue with that. Men’s ‘biological need’ to spread seed (even when compliant with condom regulations) is ‘inherent’ and required for procreational purposes of a strictly Darwinian nature. Therefore every woman in the world needs to see your seed-spreader?

England won last night; that’s the main thing. Three points off those wrestling Tunisian cry-babies.

I LOVE YOU HARRY!!! (But probably won’t be sending him any sexts to show that love. Different kind’a love, innit.)

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx