Andy's Glasses

Its the second week of Liladays. And… Lila’s here. Asleep for now, as per instruction 1472.87A/9726:e71. And I’m glad, because otherwise she might have read in the paper about the terrible scandal of the Presidents Club annual charidee dinner at the Dorchester, no less. Which raised a quite amazing (until you read who was there) 2 million quid, which was given to various charities. Who’ve now all given it back. Cos its ‘tainted money’. Raised from drunk billionaires whilst they were groping and molesting women. It was, by all accounts, a tribute evening to Harvey Weinstein. As it has been every year. Molest 1 or more of the 130 ‘entertainment’ girls employed for the night, and to make you feel like your not a totally amoral abusive man-handling fucking neanderthal, bid on a ridiculously expensive item in the auction to correct the moral downslide. Which was concurrently downsliding all the way down a blonde’s cleavage. The other hand raised for the bid. “I’ll bid 50 GRANDDDD”, he would slur, having drunk his fill of very expensive champers and 40 year old single malts, “for a 20 minute ride on a Boris bike acherley signed by Boris hissself, hic!” Then this suave and debonair gentleman would undo his £5,000 Armani dinner suit and slap his dick on the table. Haaaaa!!!… (drunken laughter all round at the ultimate nob-joke). And that’s why the President’s Club doesn’t admit women. Unless they have a nob they can slap on the table. Though it can’t be someone else’s.

How this has endured for 35 years is almost beyond imagination. But only almost. Because whatever the facade of chauffeur-driven high browiness and nouveau-riche purchased attempts at ‘class’, even Lords and true gents, they’re just men/boys. And you can take the boys out of the sleaze but, apparently, you can never take the sleaze out of these boys. Who will all doubtless feel a sense of entitlement just due to their wealth if nothing else.

The ‘entertainer’ girls sign a massive disclaimer that also silences them ‘for ever’. What happens in the Dorchester stays in the Dorchester. Until this week. When one of those girls, this one an undercover (nothing sleazy in that, its what you call spying in the journo world) reporter for the Financial Times. And she was groped by billionaires, fondled by financiers, molested by moguls and generally was totally appalled and amazed at what happened there on such an industrial scale.

All the girls should have worn pre-emptive ‘me too’ dresses. Or perhaps ‘me to, ya muthafucka’.

What’s perhaps most incredible is the timing of this event. Right at the very tipping point over the entire globe, well, the western bit of it, when the zeitgeist is massively against ‘boys just being boys’ when its at the expense of the girls, and yet it went ahead anyway, with no change to its mission statement.

Lucky I hid it before Lila saw it, or chewed it.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Nigel Farage, that stalwart of total Britishness, the most Europhobic man in history, smiling beer-drinking chain-smoker and one-time leader of the political party known as ‘UKIP’, if you remember them, has stated that if the current leader of the party, Henry Bolton, doesn’t resign, ‘the party could be history in 18 months’ time!!!!’ I reckon Nigel is about 3 years too late in his maths. They’re already a massive irrelevance in the political world and therefore we can only view this latest debacle for the fun it represents rather than in terms of any ‘impact’ on the politics. Which there won’t be. Any of it.

UKIP had but one message: get out of Europe. Done that, move along. But there’s nothing there to move along to. So they fight among themselves, elect a new leader every 3 months, comment on the process of how we leave Europe and then go back to infighting.

In a meeting on Sunday the ‘board’ or whatever they are, of UKIP showed a unanimous vote of ‘no confidence’ in their leader. But still he refuses to go.

Henry Bolton’s ‘crime’ was to leave his wife. Ok, to leave his 3rd wife, so its not like its anything new. And take up with a very unglamorous ‘glamour modew’ called Jo Marney. Bolton is 54, Marney just 25. OMG!!!! Older man leaves wife for younger woman!!!! Surely not. That’s never happened before, has it? There was some minor ‘uproar’ but essentially no-one cared nor cares now.

Until Jo Marney sent some texts. About black people, generally, which weren’t very nice, and specifically about Meghan Markle, which were rather horrid. And as Meg has been given instant ‘national treasure’ status due to upcoming nuptials of a royal nature, Jo Marney instantly becomes persona non grata, in my house at least.

Henry Bolton won’t resign because, as he reckons, he’s all about the Party and his personal life is no-one’s business but his own. Which is true. He wants to shag an anorexic peroxide blonde schoolgirl tart, that’s his business. But he should have picked one who isn’t a racist.

Its not about his personal choices. Its about appropriate choices. Particularly as UKIP have always trodden a very fine line between centre-rightism and outright xenophobia and racism. So is it appropriate that their leader, however well spoken and clever, is shacked up with someone with those views? Great judgment, Henry.

But really it all falls under the category “who gives a shit?” because UKIP died the moment the Brexit vote was counted.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

There’s a wonderful book that opens with the sentence: “Who is John Gault?” And then it spends about 1400 pages of tiny little, 5-point type telling you. But today, to save you reading Atlas Shrugged in its entirety, I’ll start with a different question.

Who is Kyle Edmund?

Won’t take many pages to answer. He’s a tennis player, inn’he? And he’s ENGLISH. Not ‘British’, certainly not ‘Scottish’ and definitely not ‘European’ soon. And last night he reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open in Melbourne. One of our own. And that is quite amazing because until last week I’d never even heard of the man. Not that I spend much time reading up on the obscure international tennis tournaments in Abu Dhabi and Chechnia and Madagascar through the year. I only like Wimbledon. But the ‘opens’ are big. I have to take note. And this pale and pallid, skinny ginger-haired kid starts winning, in temperatures that even normal people with normal colouring are struggling with, and I need to get involved.

I thought he was Scottish. The nightmare. Just as it looks like we’ve finally got rid of Andy Murray, here come Ginger McTavish to replace him. But no. He’s English. Like… oh, like Tim Henman.

All the old ‘British champs’ are pundits on tv. They have to be. They never won any prize money so they have to pay the rent. And when they come on the little flash-up badge says ‘Buster Mottram, top British player 1982 to 87′, or some such flattering nonsense. He was ranked 873 in the world and reached half of a ’round of 16′ match before losing the rest of it to a Lithuanian schoolgirl with biceps like Arnie. They never mention his involvement with the far-right. Not relevant. Only to me.

Andy Murray, for all his faults (that’ll be: miserable and Scottish), ‘is’ or possibly ‘was’ (depending on the success of the surgery) an amazingly brilliant tennis player. Tim Henman never was. Buster Mottram certainly wasn’t. But they all start with promise. And Kyle Edmund is certainly doing that. He’s 23, ranked 46 in the world and he’s in a grand slam semi-final.

England have even won some cricket in Aus too. The One Day Internationals. Smashed those Aussies out of the park. Brilliant. Easy. World Class. Shame about the Ashes.

So all is looking good. Especially for Alexis Sanchez who is to be paid by Manchester United between 450 and 500 thousand pounds a week (depending on where you read it). I don’t give a shit about Alexis one way or the other. But to give you an idea of how massively, expensively destabilising this is going to be for the Premiership, he’ll be earning more than twice what Eden Hazard gets paid. Four times Harry Kane. Greedy agents and stupid, desperate managers, the horns of the devil.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I never quite realised how 16-year-old me was such a revolutionary, forward-thinking, free-spirited music pioneer. Until yesterday when I read it in the Times. Not in those words, precisely, but a lot of boxes were ticked.

When the first Roxy Music album came out in 1972 I was indeed 16 and had a Saturday job in the ‘world famous’ Mr Byrite chain, in Ilford High Road. Class. My Byrite sold ultra high fashion, mega-ultra-low quality clothes for young people to have a great night out in, then throw away. Cos they were cheap, so something had to give. And in Ilford in 1972, that something wasn’t going to be style.

There were about 20 of us working there on Saturdays and between us we’d buy about 4 or 5 albums every week. And that week, Roxy Music’s first offering came along and we played it. As with everything, we played it deafeningly loud. Well, loud enough that you couldn’t hear someone say “DO YOU HAVE THIS IN BLUE, SIZE 15????”

I never realised until yesterday what a total game-changer that album was. And that the band was. I never realised that it had a sound that was original and unique combing many existing musical styles and incorporating new ones into the mix. Songs without a chorus. Songs that changed half way through. Odd time signatures. An even odder voice with Bryan Ferry’s falsetto yodelling away. Well, in fact, I did realise all of this at the time, and more. I explained it more in these terms: “iss fuckin’ great, dat album, innit?” Sorry, that’s how one spoke in Ilford, circa 1972 (and 73, 74, 75… still do).

I went to see Roxy back then too, at the Astoria Finsbury Park, and they were simply brilliant. Like Bowie, like Talking Heads, they were not ‘merely’ musicians, they were art graduates and believed in the integrity of the entire performance. From the songs to Bryan Ferry’s socks. Everything.

But what really sold that album to me, back when I was was 16, was the cover. Judge books by covers, albums by covers, its all the same. That’s why so much marketing budget is always invested in cover photos. A beautiful girl, scantily clad, that was fairly standard. But that look of fragile vulnerability… that’ll sell an extra 400,000. If only to 16 year-old boys.

I played the album yesterday (well, the cd) and its still brilliant. Matured with age. Even though Mel hates it. But really, its a game of two halves. Cos the first ‘half’ (don’t really have ‘halves’ on cds, but ya know what I mean) is mind-blowingly brilliant, the rest merely ok. Unlike Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album, which also came out in 1972, which is 100% genius. But in Virginia Plain (the solo single track wasn’t on the original album but is always included now) is the best lyric ever. “… where my Studebaker takes me, that’s where I’ll make my stand…” Simply love that. Note: doesn’t work if you substitute ‘Studebaker’ with ‘Prius’ or ‘Gee Whizz’.

Lila’s dad said something interesting yesterday, that WASN’T about the conservative party, pointing out that the Alexis Sanchez swap-move to Manchester United brings Henrikh Mkhitaryan to Arsenal in a straight, no cash swap. So how is that ‘good business’ for Arsenal? To swap a world class superstar with a proven record for… someone else. Its like swapping Harry Kane for a goalpost, straight swap, and trying to convince everyone its a ‘good deal’ and good for the club.

I think Wenger’s going a bit senile.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Sometimes you go see a movie, a real 5* rated unequivocal ‘winner’ by all who rate such things and your expectations are sky high and… and… nyeh, it was ok. I fucking hate that. The movie marketers do their thing, ply their magic and convert any third-rate sequel to a shitty original, in the minds of the critics, to ‘masterpiece’ status because its made by a big studio and stars Tom Cruise. Or Arnie. Or has the name ‘Star Wars!!’ attached to it.

And other times you see a film that’s somehow ‘quieter’, but still rated very highly. Not in any way a ‘blockbuster’ but some kind of independent movie that just gets rave reviews. Something like ‘3 Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri’, f’rinstance. Which, coincidentally, I saw last night.

And quite frankly, and in the absence of any discernible hyperbole, it is the best film ever. Ok, definitely the best film of 2018, and you might as well include 2017 in that too. Its just wonderful. How can it not be? It stars Frances McDormand, the world’s most unlikely superstar. She looks like your cleaner, never smiles and wears less make-up than I do. (For the record, just to illuminate this point; I don’t wear make-up. I AM this beautiful quite naturally). And yet she won an Oscar for Fargo (the only other real candidate for ‘best film ever’) and in 3 Billboards she simply shines. But being McDormand, she shines in the dullest of drab ways. And she does ‘dysfunctional’ better than anyone. Maybe being married to Joel Coen for all those years does that to someone, I’d be surprised if it didn’t. And best of all, even playing the tragically ‘hurt mother’ (losing a child in horrible way; not that there are good ways), she is no saccharine goody-goody. As the film progresses you gradually, systematically, lose a lot of sympathy for her, whilst she still remains a kind of heroine.

It has bouts of violence and is fantastically, drily, darkly funny all the way through. And it is quirky, in a very Fargo-esque, small-town, fucked-up, semi-psychotic American way. Its almost The definitive ‘indie’ movie. Yet is written and directed by a Brit, not a Coen.

Woody Harrelson is in it too. And he too is simply fantastic. Compassionate and menacing at the same time, but smiling as he does both.

3 Billboards doesn’t have a dance sequence by Fred Astaire, nor any significant space-rocket fighters shooting at each other. But it does have a dwarf. And it manages to leave almost everything completely unresolved, yet is very satisfying. And whilst in no way whatsoever a ‘feelgood’ movie, it leaves you feeling really good.

I fucking loved that film.

Go see.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Boris Johnson doesn’t so much ‘shoot from the hip’ even though his hips are pretty humungous, as ‘speaks out his arse’ which is of a similar degree of humungousness. So if you think that endless cycling and jogging will make you fit and slim and gorgeous; just look to Boris for that model. Like a model of the Taj Mahal topped with straw.

Let’s build a bridge to France, the foreign minister said. Its easy. And logical. And it says lots (to President Macron, who just happened to be standing there when he said it) about togetherness, about unity, cohesion and brotherhood, that we should, logically, become ‘joined’ permanently. Awwwww, nice.

But totally fucking stupid. 120 billion pounds worth of stupid. Because that’s a conservative estimate for building a 21 mile span bridge between our fine nations. They should’a built one in 1724 when it would have cost 73 guineas, 15 shillings and seven-p’nce. Ok would’a been made of wood but think of how much easier it would have been to fight about 300 years of wars against our ‘best friends’ if the troops could have just walked across to fight. Which is pretty much all we did for those 300 years; fight the French.

But now they’re our BFFs and we want a (fucking) bridge. Well, Boris wants a bridge.

And in return for our 120 bil, the price of wine would drop by 42p a bottle and a Camembert would be at least 12p cheaper. Plus, the added bonus of having the French side not in Calais itself but in Sangatte next door. Making it sooooo much easier for all the economic migrants/jihadis to just stroll over at their leisure. Even worse, it would get the French here more quickly and easily too. Holy shitttt!! Didn’t think of that, did’ja Boris??

France really doesn’t need to be any closer. Its a beautiful country filled with beautiful women, as long as you don’t talk to them. I can get to Paris in 3 hours on Eurostar. I can get to Calais in about the same time by car through the tunnel. I can fly there in less than an hour or get a leisurely ferry if I really want to. I don’t need a fucking bridge. Whereas, speaking for the nation (as I’m authorised to do) 120 billion pounds goes quite a long way. Much further than just 21 sodding miles.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Peter Wyngarde died this week. Jason King. Words like ‘louche’, ‘cad’, ‘suave’ and ‘rakish’ can now be consigned to the historical section of the Oxford English Dictionary. To be honest, its where they belong anyway. But back in the early 70s…

We already had ‘The Saint’ with Roger Moore, camp to the point of positive effeminacy, exemplifying all those adjectives (ok, ‘cad’ is a noun, but who fucking cares?), sweeping women off their feet with the raise of 1 solitary eyebrow and yet with one really limp and pathetic punch could floor 17 stone of shaven-headed Commando, as long as he was a bad guy. And then into our lives came Jason King. Who took ‘smooth’ and elevated it (or ‘plunged’ it, not sure really) into another stratosphere. He didn’t need to even raise an eyebrow to have women swoon, just a stare, through the inevitable plume of cigarette smoke would take her from the office to the bed in 22 minutes. Jason King was the proto-medallion man, as he loved jewellery and, when not wearing ridiculously massive ties, would generally opt for the open-to-the-navel look. Whilst smoking. Always smoking. Not just any cigarettes but ‘special’ ones.

I loved Jason King. Even with the moustache he was an aspirational figure, driving round in a Bentley Continental, wearing ridiculous suits and with all the women he could eat.

This was shattered a bit when a few years later the real life Peter Wyngarde was arrested for unseemly acts in a public toilet with a crane-driver. But we won’t go there. In fact we’ll never go there, geographically or anatomically, but we’ll remember the man who, however much ‘of his own time’ he was, and they certainly wouldn’t make such tv now, he enriched our lives in some small, 4 o’clock on Sunday afternoons, way.

There’s a picture in the paper today of an over-heated Novak Djokovich in Melbourne. After playing in the Aussie Open in 39 degrees. Where many players are suffering from heatstroke, dehydration, all the usual stuff you get when doing something where, basically, you shouldn’t be. And my first thought was: ‘Qatar, 2022’. The world cup. Where players will be dreaming of cooling down in 39 degrees over there. How can they do that????

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Thursday has been renamed. Its now ‘Liladay’. Because that is the day designated for Mel & I to be left in sole charge of our granddaughter. All day. With no ‘help’. Holy shshsh-

So on every other day when I post a photo of ‘my’ baby, its just because I want to. It has no relevance to Donald Trump’s nuclear aspirations, Chelsea’s laughable form or the trans-gender vegan movement’s plans to ban animals altogether, other than hermaphrodites. But on Thursdays that photo becomes highly symbolic and representative of life, as we know it.

Last night I was suffering from a particularly ‘first world’ form of sleep deprivation. Its called Avios Insomnia and is the result of trying to perform the almost impossible task of booking a flight home from Australia next year. And I mean, 2019, as in, errr, next year. Because BA opens flights up 354 days before they take off. At midnight, GMT. But the London office is closed at that time. You can’t just grab seats online because they need to be hooked up with the outward ones, booked weeks ago, and for that you need to phone. So you phone ‘New York’. Which, once you get through, you realise, is actually in New Delhi. But they call it ‘New York’ to avoid confusion. And to avoid paying New York rents and wages. In fact the staff there are lovely and very helpful. As they need to be, cos one thing the process isn’t, is easy. But that feeling of elation when you actually manage to get almost exactly what you want (always ‘almost’, never perfection but heh, life’s a compromise) is like scoring the winning goal in a cup final. The level of achievement makes you feel like Uma Thurman at the end of Kill Bill 2. Its like you wake up and realise that Donald Trump was just a (very) bad dream.

Then you can’t sleep. Because you’re so excited. Even though its now 1.30 in the morning and Lila duty starts, according to Natalie’s no-nonsense, no haggling, no prisoners time-table, at precisely 7.30. That’s a.m. In the morning. Early in the morning.

Lila is now asleep. Her scheduled ‘nap’ in the afternoon. Honest, Nat, at precisely 2.22 she went down. Because she is the perfect baby. She eats everything you give her. In that ‘1 for me, 1 for the floor’ way of babies. She doesn’t moan, she rarely cries, she’s just happy and placid, wonderfully responsive and, quite honestly, even if she wasn’t my granddaughter, I would have to say she’s the best baby in the world. Ever. Ok, mealtimes get a bit ‘post-apocalyptic’ in the kitchen, so I’ve been lecturing her on ’cause’, ‘effect’ and ‘gravity’. Never too young to learn basic physics.

And its 3 in the afternoon and I’m exhausted. Time for my nap.

Happy Liladay

A xxxx

Ok, I’ll say it up front: its not normal to have 13 kids. Perhaps they kept trying to have one that didn’t have a blurry face, I don’t know. That in itself is a shame. But whatever the reason for having a multitude (a full football team AND two reserves; an entire basketball match and three umpires) its gonna end badly. And for the now famous (as of yesterday) Turpin family of Perris, California, their fifteen minutes has started. But not in a particularly good way. Others who’ve had too many children have also been a bit odd. Remember the Old Woman Who lived in a Shoe? Fucking child abuser, she was. ‘Smacked them all soundly and sent them to bed’.

Which I suppose is better than ‘smack them all soundly and chain them to bed’ which is what happened here. Well, ‘there’ really.

So the Turpins were just a ‘normal’ family. With 13 children. Who they dressed all alike (gender considerations notwithstanding). That’s normal. And Mr & Mrs Turpin used to go regularly to Las Vegas, with the entire family, to renew their wedding vows. In a ceremony officiated by an Elvis Presley impersonator. That’s ‘normal’ too. So far so normal. Even all having the same haircut is pretty ‘normal’. Just a little ‘eccentric’ on the scale of ‘normal to barking’.

There’s only ever two reasons why terrible things like this happen. 1. They’re mad as hatters, or 2. God told them to do it. (Obviously these two are not mutually exclusive). And those can apply to having 13 children as well as choosing to ‘torture’ them. Starve them. Chain them indoors, never letting them in the fresh air. Other than to take photos to post on Facebook of the ‘happy family’ in Vegas, Disneyland or any other cliché they chose.

Maybe the children were really really naughty. Yeah, maybe. But even so… Maybe the couple just ‘flipped’, or maybe an angel of the Lord came to them one night…

David Turpin’s mother has defended her son and described the family as ‘a good Christian family’. The kids were home schooled and apparently had to memorise large parts of the bible. There again they had time as they were never allowed out of the house.

I’m pleased that the children, now all in hospital and range in age up to 29 (children???), are ‘friendly and happy’. I really hope that with years of counselling they can get over the tragic misfortune of having such ‘normal’ parents.

I blame Trump.

Happy Wednesdsay

A xxxx

Yesterday’s picture was two of me gels outside the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Today’s picture is one of the installations there. A really good one. Which had two oriental selfie-stickers walking on it, which you’re apparently allowed and encouraged to do. Even though you want to punch them and tell them to fuck off stop being so disrespectful. I liked this ‘thing’. It was rather impressive and quite moving. Like the Chinese walkers…

But its the building that is the real work of art. Designed by Daniel Libeskind it is so grotesquely ugly that it becomes a thing of beauty. As was the intention. But I couldn’t help but being disappointed with the content inside. There are countless memorials, museums and ‘things’ specifically about the holocaust. All credit to modern Germany for having such a genuinely remorseful and open attitude to ‘their worst moment in history’. So I thought that the ‘Jewish Museum of Berlin’ would use a different remit. Would perhaps go back to happier times when Berlin was a friendly place for Jews. When it was just about the only country in Europe that allowed them to own property, have normal jobs, to integrate. Unlike Spain and Italy and, yes, England, in which everything was restricted and money-lending was the only option work-wise. That was ‘pre-Germany’, as that nation didn’t exist until the end of the 19th century. Before that it had been Prussia and before that all manner of warring things.

But the museum focussed once again on the holocaust. And in fact the entire building, which is kind of ‘odd shaped’ is a model of the ‘voids’ to represent the void in Berlin society created by the Jews murdered in the war. So there are ‘voids’ everywhere in the building. Big ones. Massive empty spaces, great high ones that you can’t see to the top of, and they’re impressive. But ‘voids’ can only get you so far. You want a story. Well I did. And I didn’t get one that I hadn’t heard countless times before.

So if you find yourself in Berlin and think about going to the Judisches Museum, save the fiver and just look from the outside. Its worth the tube fare.

Better get to work then.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx