Andy's Glasses

Donald Trump is the president of the United States of America. In case you missed that. He is also, according to a book coming out today, a paranoid retard with the attention span of a goldfish, the mental agility of a rubber plant and the facial colouring of a tangerine. That last bit is perhaps less relevant in the current inquiry.

Steve Bannon, by all accounts someone else way short of any definition of ‘normal’, has written a book, actually authored by someone else, but his input for sure, revealing all about the election campaign and the current status quo at the White House, as he was heavily involved in both until the inevitable fouling foul of the chief exec a few months ago. So as word comes out about the book Trump is faced with the decision of what to do about it. And making decisions, particularly quickly, is not what this POTUS is very good at. So he set his lawyers on getting the book banned. Which, as a single move, has increased the initial sales potential probably to 10 times the initial print run. However big it might be. Everyone now wants to read it. I want to read it.

Trump tweeted the other day (his tweets are the perfect yardstick for how dire is his understanding of any particular situation) that ‘the East Coast is set for a freeze; how lucky we didn’t waste trillions of dollars on ‘global warming’!!!’ I mean; how dim can you be? But the tweets come when he’s alone. They’re unfiltered. And without his teams of advisors, he really does know absolutely nothing. As those tweets show again and again. He just ‘shoots from the hip’. Unfortunately, both hips are in need of replacement.

Meanwhile in Yemen, the Houthi rebels have now pretty much ‘taken’ most of Sanaa, the capital. The president has been killed and all has gone to shit. As its been destined for the terribly devastating years of this rather evil and cynical ‘war’. The Houthis are Iran-backed Shia militants and next-door neighbours Saudi Arabia are fighting them in the name of Sunni Islam. And because they fucking hate Iran. Thus Yemen is that awful thing; a proxy war. A war between two military powers but in someone else’s garden. In this case, in Yemen. The poorest of all the middle-eastern countries.

And nice to see, in one of the very few videos to have made it out of Sanaa (internet shut down, phones dead, no contact with the outside world) the Houthis celebrating their victory riding tanks round the streets shouting ‘death to America’ (who have no involvement in that particular battle whatsoever), ‘death to Israel’ (ditto) and ‘death to Jews!!’ (hmmmm).

So that’s all going well then.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

The problem with going on holiday is that you miss the new Star Wars movie when it comes out. We generally go away every Christmas, as we have for 33 years, and every one of those has seen ‘the latest’ Star Wars movie come out. And this year’s one, The Last Jedi (isn’t that me??), received such praise, such hype, so many 5* reviews that I was cancelling the Columbia trip just so I wouldn’t miss it.

I’m glad I didn’t. Saw the movie last night and… and… and it was great-ish. I really did expect more. Though more of what I’m not sure. This is what happened (SPOILER ALERT!!!!): the baddies have a fuck-off massive space ship, a floating city, filled with guns and phasers and tasers and bombs and shit and they wear really smart uniforms and sneer imperiously. There’s a ‘grand master’ type dude, who was originally Peter Cushing and now is a really ugly, part-CGI parody of evil with a wonky face. And a bloke in black with asthma wearing a face mask .

The ‘rebels’ are way cooler, dressed for brunch in Shoreditch, unshaven and live on a much smaller ship. A space canoe, by comparison. And they’re witty and really charming. No sneering in the rebel camp. And the baddies are going to destroy the goodies, all of them, but someone ‘feels the force’ and… well, the goodies don’t actually ‘win’. Because if they did that would end the most lucrative franchise in cinema history. So the rebels merely get to live on. To survive.

And lots of people die. But in that Star Wars-ey way that they reserve the right to come back anyway. You can die 5 times at least. Even Carrie Fisher was brought back to life to star in the film. The ultimate metaphor for a story based on the power of the life-force.

But I think where it went wrong, or possibly went right (according to the pundits) is the relationships. Yet I thought it had actually descended into soap opera time. You mean he is Hans Solo’s son!!! But he’s a baddy! Her brother died then came back as someone’s gay best friend!!! I’m the sister your mother never knew she had!! It all gets a bit ‘Home & Away’.

Yet next Christmas they’ll be another. And I’ll be desperate to see it. Because its my duty. As a Jedi.

May the Force be with you

A xxxx

I went back to work yesterday. As ya do. When you absolutely have to. And Lila went to school. No more slacking for the babe, time to get real and put in the hours. So at nine months and one day old, off she toddled. Well, she can’t really ‘toddle’ as yet, she can only do this ‘commando style’ crawling and her mum won’t let her do it on the roads. Lila loved her school. Because it involves ‘things’ and Lila is really into ‘things’ of virtually any description. So its a perfect fit because there’s lots of things there. Like other babies. Food. Good things. University next week.

By which time Spurs will be top of the league. Ok, maybe there is more chance of Lila starting at Cambridge than my team being top as Manchester City have a slight point advantage. And she is brilliantly clever. If there was a degree in ‘putting everything in your mouth’ she’d be at Phd level already. I think that says a lot.

But controversy continues to mar the beautiful game. Arsene Wenger has accused the entire world refereeing fraternity of persecuting his team because a penalty was awarded against them on Monday night. Which was ‘dubious’. Bit like the one Arsenal got in the last minute at Burnley earlier on. Yet in Wenger-world that didn’t account, didn’t matter, was something totally different altogether. Tosser 1.

And Jose Morinho, my other fave, has slagged off Paul Scholes because the ex-United star accused Paul Pogba of lacking effort. Jose’s attack was fair-ish, until he said that Scholes was jealous because Pogba earns more money. And that crosses a big line. Obviously not in Portuguese but in English. Because every Man United fan loves Paul Scholes. And loves the fact that even with none less than Zidane calling him ‘the best player in the world’, Scholes never wanted to leave Old Trafford. Never interested. Only wanted to play for the team he loved. Could have earned more elsewhere, didn’t ever consider such a thing. Loyalty. Something Morinho knows nothing about. Hence he’s put the entire fanbase, some of whom even live in the Greater Manchester area, apparently, ‘offside’. Tosser 2.

Spurs won last night at Swansea. Playing in the floods. Horrible weather. Horrible game. Not like the bridge I was playing, that was at times rather beautiful. But when I kept running in to see what was happening, it weren’t great. No-one drowned is probably the best thing you could say about it. And that WE WON. And yes, the first goal was offside and I DON’T CARE. And it wasn’t pretty but I DON’T CARE.

Tomorrow we get to do it all again against West Ham. Stupid scheduling but that’s what happens. Ok must go and watch Lila crawl to school.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

‘The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls…’

Thus spake Paul Simon, in about 1964. Monumentally brilliant line. One of about 42,000 little snippets of genius and inspiration that the great man has written over his stellar career. Only perhaps eclipsed by the late, great Ian Dury’s sublime social commentary of: ‘my love affair with Nina/in the back of my Cortina/a seasoned-up hyena/could not’a been more obscener’. But maybe that’s just because I’ve always been a touch more Essex than Lower Manhattan.

But its new years’ day. The day made more fuss about, more pledges to, more hype from, than any other in the contemporary calendar. Its become the ‘defining statement’ day of the year. Understandable in some ways. Especially if you’re in firework sales or gym memberships. Not so good for pizza sales, but only for a week or so. And just as Valentines Day is ‘the day’ we’re told to love someone we’re supposed to be loving all year, so New Years is about making commitments, making resolutions, planning a ‘new me’ for the forthcoming year. A better me, a healthier me, a more caring, considerate, successful, handsome, adorable, creative, wonderful me. A Wonder Me. New, improved and fucking awesome!

What bollocks.

Here’s my resolutions:

1. Watch more tv. I simply don’t watch enough and there’s lots of it on. I’d never noticed before today. And I started with the 2012 Paul Simon concert in Hyde Park. Hence the above. And a better concert there probably has never been. (I’m into big statements for 2018; no more fence-sitting, no equivocation, just hyperbole and superlatives).

2. Watch more football on tv. Unfortunately I started with the Everton vs Man United game and its enough to make me return to my 2017 values.

3. Cancel gym membership. Ok, I don’t belong, but I’ll cancel a few anyway, just in case I forgot to cancel them after the last few new years.

4. Eat more food.

5. Use more petrol. And if not by driving then just burning a few tyres in the garden.

6. Don’t grow a man-bun. Or do anything else that might make me look like a TOTAL TOSSSSERRRR!!!!

7. Make no judgments based on man-buns.

8. Make no judgments based on supporting shitty teams.

That’ll do.

Whatever you resolve; have a fab year.

Happy New Year

A xxxx

We’re here in San Andres. And its faulty. We’re only here for logistical reasons really. In that we need to fly home at some point, I’m afraid, and to do that you need to go to Bogota. They don’t fly there from Providencia cos the runway’s tiny and you can only fly turbo-props in and out. So they fly you to San Andres from where you can get to Bogota in 2 hours, which is just 11 more hours of chronic discomfort and diabolical food from civilisation. If Heathrow could ever be so termed.

So yesterday we took the 22 minute hop over to San Andres for an overnight.

This is the other ‘Colombian’ caribbean island. Next to Prov. up there a hundred miles off the coast of Nicaragua. Its the bigger island and… bigger. And one day, when its finished, it might even be lovely. Though its seriously stormy here at the moment. Typically tropical, you could say. But the weather’s not the issue. Its the rubbish.

You know when you’re clearing out the shed or dismantling an old wardrobe and you think, in that exclusively manly way, that a lump of wood, six foot long and four foot wide, ‘might just be useful one day’ so you decide to keep it. Just in case. Well San Andres has elevated that form of collectomania to an industrial scale. So it appears, as you see massive piles of driftwood and corrugated iron and lumps of concrete, in front of every single house here, along with old boats, fridges, (big) bits of cars and bikes, that no-one ever throws anything out here. Ultra-recycling mania. And yet next door is all the stuff they have thrown out, but no-one’s collected. Or maybe they leave it there for others to ‘enjoy’. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Who knows that someone else might ‘need’ a seized-up cylinder from a 1973 Suzuki 125? Its an act of altruism to leave it there by the roadside.

So whereas Providencia maintains a beautiful unspoiled ‘quaintness’, San Andres is a fucking tip. Where nothing works. And best of all, attached to the top of the shower head is some form of heating attachment. With 2 wires just taped to the housing. Live wires. In a fucking shower. I looked up ‘health & safety department, San Andres’ and find it shares an office with the refuse collection department. ‘Closed on Mondays. Tuesdays, Wednesdays…’

It almost makes you wish for home comforts. Maybe that’s why we’re here.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I read the news today, oh boy. Sorry: I read the news when I can. If the wifi is working properly, rather than its normal, Caribbean-meantime, ahriiit-mon style, like everything else, I can get the Times. If not I can struggle through some BBC pages. But its Christmas, hence news is in fairly short supply. The Queen giving a speech is not really ‘news’ as such, in fact its very ‘olds’. Even Brexit-bollocks is temporarily suspended for the duration.

Thank Gawd for the football. That’s all I can say. As at so many other times in my life (approximately 9 times each week), thank gawd for the football. But only cos we’re winning. And winning big. And creating goalscoring records. Which is a bit like winning trophies, but without the trophy.

Liverpool have paid 75 million quid for Virgil Van Djiik, the Southampton defender. As if he alone can shore up the most porous defence that doesn’t belong to West Ham. Maybe he will. But how far have we come from the old (there have been so many) Real Madrid manager who famously said ‘we don’t pay big money for defenders’ after he paid 38 million for Zidane followed by 48 million for Luis Figo. Score enough goals; who needs defence?

Everyone needs defence. Morinho’s moan of the week, which always happens when his teams fail to win, as they have twice in the last few days, is that Manchester City spend ‘striker money’ on full-backs. Which they do. Therefore, his 300 million spend during his 18 months at Old Trafford he sees as pitifully insufficient. And he needs more. Who he’s going to buy I have no idea, but it won’t be Harry Kane. He can fuck off. He paid 75 mil for Lukaku. Who can indeed score a few goals. But who, in general footballing terms, ain’t fit to clean Harry’s shoes. His first touch can be somewhat industrial, hold-up play very so-so and other than sticking his foot out goalwards, he don’t do much. Pogba is indeed a class act. But like so many, is falling into that part-time player, part-time patient role which is another big problem after spending nearly 70 million on him too. So Jose is basically bemoaning the fact that he made some wrong choices. But this translates from his native Portuguese as: its everyone else’s fault, not mine, so give me more money to piss away on more underperforming almost-Galacticos so that we might be able to beat Burnley at home or Leicester away. As any ‘big club’ should do. Although his re-defining of what exactly constitutes a ‘big club’ and why is another doctoral thesis all by itself.

Suffice to say; Spurs scored 8 this week and Man United didn’t.

Come on Palace

A xxxx

They call them ‘mules’ round here. Motorised golf carts. They don’t even have windscreen wipers. Kawasaki 600 cc engines nicked off a motorbike and shoved under the seat of a buggy thing. 4-wheel drive, for the beaches, sounds like a lawn mower but isn’t quite as fast. But even at about 25mph (no speedo, no idea) it only takes about 40 minutes to circumnavigate the entire island of Providencia, so how much faster do you need? The answer to which is always: as much as I can get. But heh, its the sleepiest of sleepy places, even I can cope with the lack of horses under the… seat. Best of all though, there is no concept here of ‘parking’. None whatsoever. There’s as many traffic wardens on the island as there are IFAs. The same number as ‘formal dress hire’ shops. When you arrive where you’re going, you just stop. That’s it. No restrictions, no laws, nothing. As long as you’re not inside someone’s house of on top of a child, its cool. None of the ‘mules’ have license plates, most of the cars here don’t either. And the motor-bikes, the majority vehicle on the island, would appear to have the basic minimum to make them go and they’re mainly about 25 to 40 years old. When did you last see a ‘Honda 50’ on the streets? And if you’re under-50 you won’t even know what I’m talking about.

But its vastly liberating having no regulations, no rules, no nothing. We saw a mother and her 3 children on a motor-scooter. People with babies. A passenger holding a jack-hammer on the back of a bike. And not a helmet in sight. Three people riding a scooter, all on their phones. Its like going back to a former time in evolution. A simple time when as long as you weren’t hurting other people then anything is fine. Because there just aren’t that many vehicles of any description on the roads.

I did manage to get told off though. I needed to put petrol in the ‘mule’, as opposed to hay, and I drove past the petrol station before I realised. Its the only one on the island. So, the road inevitably being empty, other than lizards, who also don’t wear licensee plates, I backed up a bit and drove in. Ok, it was the ‘out’ side but fuck me there was no other car, nor bike in there and the road was empty for 5 miles in each direction. But the garage dude told me how dangerous this was, I could have driven into someone coming out!!! There’s no-one here to come out! I wanted to shout. But didn’t. Show the man some respect. At least while he was shouting in Spanish.

The official language here is Spanish, obvs, its Colombia, innit? But everyone here speaks Caribbean patois, exactly the same as they do in Jamaica, Barbados and all the others. Which is a strangulated, stretched and herniated version of English. Which consequently, everyone speaks too. Making life much easier for us Spanophobic linguists. Also making it harder when you drive in the ‘out’ road of a petrol station. Cos you can’t pull the ‘no habla’ card.

Lovin’ the island life. May grow some dreadlocks and stay. I’d need Lila here. To carry on my motorbike. Can’t see her mum having any issues with that.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

So from Cartagena we need to get to the island of Providencia, in the Western Caribbean. How hard can it be? When our days in Cartagena are spent looking at that very body of water. The problem is that bodies of water are big. Unlike, say, human bodies or glasses of water. And furthermore, access to places is ruled by the gods of the skies. The airlines. Who decide that to fly from Cartagena to Providencia is just too easy. It might encourage tourists and you wouldn’t want that. So on xmas morning we woke at 3.30 to go to the airport to fly… south. Away from the Caribbean, to Bogota. From there, after a suitable wait, obvs, we few north and west, over the coast, to the island of St Andres. Which is so close to Providencia you can almost smell it. Ish. And only after waiting for another 3 hours at that tiny little island airport do you qualify to get on a weeny little plane (because Providencia is a weeny little island with a weeny little runway) and be among the 18 people who finally arrived where we wanted to be, just about 15 hours after leaving our hotel that morning. You could almost have swum it quicker. Well, Mel could. Though I’ve never seen her swim carrying suitcases. Whilst I cheer from a boat, sipping margaritas.

Providencia is Colombian like the Falklands are British. Or Gibraltar. Along with St Andres, the two islands are much nearer to Nicaragua than Colombia. And Panama lies between those 2 fine nations, should you be looking solely at the land. But Colombian they are, which you can tell because you have to pay your excess baggage fines in Colombian money. Otherwise the island is just like any other Caribbean island. Nothing works properly. But that’s because its really ‘unspoiled’ here. No massive, luxury hotels ‘spoiling’ all that coastline. No spoiling workers coming out to mend the wifi, which is patchy at best, because its Christmas and the locals don’t work that day. Or on many of the others. The great thing about the unspoiliness is that the beaches are simply wonderful. Just beaches and tropics. Nothing commercialised. No hordes of great fat Americans breaking the sunbeds and blocking out the light. Mainly because there are no sunbeds and the light is spectacular.

When we arrived, the rather immense feeling of ‘middle of nowhereness’ almost overwhelmed my inner princess who bemoaned the lack of luxury… then I got back in touch with my long-lost back-packer-dude and embraced the fact that Providencia is just different. In a good and fab way.

And when the wifi returned, learning that Harry Kane had scored his second hat-trick in 4 days to become the best goalscorer in the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD, was the icing on the cake. Even if the cake tends to be a bit stale.

Buenas Dias

A xxxx

So we’re in Cartagena, still. Cos its lovely. Still. Or perhaps, ‘again’ now the cruise ships have left leaving behind a distinct lack of hats and hundreds of thousands of dollars for the local economy, so they’re not all bad. Part of the charm of Cartagena is that it was a Spanish fort. Which still stands. aWhere the colonialists kept all the gold they could steal from the local people. Like all colonial ‘civilising forces’ the Spanish introduced to the Indigenous natives 2 things in particular: theft on a nationalised scale and the Spanish Inquisition to ‘help’ the locals see the error of their ways. A red hot poker up the jacksy will often serve as a catalyst in spiritual revelation more swiftly than a thousand psalms.

And there was lots of gold here in Colombia. There still is. The natives had been using it for generations so the Spaniards just gathered it all up and locked it in the fort. Which, as I learned yesterday, was a fairly awesome structure. But it had to be. Because Cartagena de Indias was Jonny Depp central in the 16th and 17th centuries. This was where the Pirates did the Caribbean. They came from all over the world to sack the Spanish ships which tried to sail back to the motherland laden with all their stolen treasures. And most of the pirates were British. Few French, probably some Portuguese, maybe even Italians, though doubtful as they’ve always had surrender issues when it comes to a fight. Not so the British. Always loved a fight. You can just imagine, hanging off the ships by their cannons shouting ” come on, Jose, bring it on, if yer fuckin’ ‘ard enough!!!”

And here we are, a mere 400 years later, shouting the same thing at Jose Morinho, though obviously in a slightly different context. Because we all know, Jose is not in any way ‘hard’ when it comes to psychological robustness. He cracks under pressure. And because for him that ‘special one’ title is not just some mere aspiration but a God-given right, even without the poker, with each relentless victory of Manchester City, his delicate psyche crumbles just a little more round the edges.

Yesterday’s failure by his Manchester United to hold on to a sure-looking victory against 10-man Leicester hit the man hard. Firstly he started on his own team, accusing them of childish mistakes, a very Jose thing to do. Act like a baby accusing others of childishness. And then he started the personal paranoia shit about Manchester United having the worst possible holiday fixture list of all the ‘top teams’. As if Sky, BT and the Premier League’s main objective in setting the 85 odd fixtures over the next 10 days was to, first and foremost, upset the little Portuguese twit.

All I know about (and certainly care about) is that Spurs were the only top 7 team to win yesterday, other than Man City, who simply don’t even count any more in the true battle. And that made me feel very nice. Very good. And very hot. Though the latter may have been due to the weather here.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I have friends who ‘cruise’. I admit it. People I know and consider ‘close’ are among those who like to spend two weeks a year trapped in an immense floating city with about 5000 like-mindeds. Though I’m not sure there is too much mind involvement at all. And whilst there they will be given 9 square meals a day, plus snacks, obviously, in case you get peckish, and have ‘all the entertainment you can eat’, just like at Butlins. And every day this floating palace pulls up to some port or other and literally vomits out 5000 people into some small, quaint local environment to clog up the streets, fill the shops and restaurants and get set upon by the locals. Who lie in wait with endless supplies of virtually everything the cruisers don’t really need but aren’t bright enough to realise. Its part of the rather horrible elitism of cruisers that they know they’re going to be ripped off but simply can’t help themselves. They’re put on this bit of land to spend and by George that’s what they’re going to do.

The gorgeous northern Colombian port city of Cartagena lies on the Caribbean. And hence is ‘on the route’ for the hundreds of cruises that pootle round that part of the world every Christmas. So the cute little ex-colonial streets started filling up really early with hawkers and sellers of everything from bottles of water to hats, more hats and even more hats. I don’t know how many heads people on cruises have but it must be at least 4 each judging by the number of hats currently available round here. Unquestionably, you need a hat; its freakin’ hot. But the question comes as to why you need 8 hats. And food. Why offer food to people who’ve eaten 3 full meals before breakfast? Better to sell them a diet plan or exercise program. Why they all want to buy emeralds is another issue altogether.

A few years ago we were in Venice for a weekend. And as our waterbus pulled round a ‘bend’ (can you call it a ‘bend’ on the water??) we saw about 10 fucking humungous cruise ships, each one about 20 stories high. But every one was empty. Because the normal cruisers who occupied them had temporarily suspended their eating to be unceremoniously dumped, en masse, into St Mark’s Square. Which became, when we strolled casually in there an hour later, the most horribly congested place in all of Europe. We managed to escape down an alley whilst they were buying their hats and found lovely quiet streets filled with art and cafes and even Venetians, who don’t wear hats.

We used to joke, Mel & I, that we’ll go on a cruise ‘when we’re old’. But in fact I think euthanasia is preferable. The old dilemma; heaven or hell. Because the more I see of cruises, the more like ‘hell’ it seems to be.

I’m hoping the boats are calling their people back for the next meal by now. So it’ll be safe to once more venture out into the lovely streets here and have a drink in a piazza to celebrate Spurs victory at Burnley. I’m declaring it a national holiday.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx