Andy's Glasses

Its not easy being an intrepid international explorer, forging new frontiers, breaking new ground, creating new barriers and discovering places and peoples that no-one else knows about! Its like finding out that there is actually life in Leicester, but in even more exotic and surprising places.

And the reality is, of course, that we arrive at an airport, grab anyone waving a placard around that bears our name, and they lead us onwards down the river bank, to the hillside, across the hostile native lands… to a hotel of sufficiently high standard that my wife may find happiness there in any of the first 4 rooms they show us.

We think; ‘we’re in Medellin’, that’s cool. Escobar country, most dangerous most murderous city the world had ever known, and we’re strolling round eating ice-creams as if it were the most natural thing to do. Which, on a balmy evening in the tropics, it kind’a is.

And then you realise that the place you’ve been wandering round for a few days is the most civilised, the most rarified, most upmarkety, middle-classy, super-softy region in a city made up of hundreds of regions catering to all types. And that’s when you go to the ‘centre’, where there are thousands of homeless, tens of thousands of drug addicts, multitudes of poor living on the breadline. And there are slums and ramshackle housing and shanty towns. And its great and its real and although a bit more ‘edgy’ it does make you realise how sanitised a version tourists usually get. Not that I mind sanitised too much.

Then the weirdest thing happened. We got on the plane in Medellin (altitude 2km +) and on the plane, as virtually everywhere I’ve sat for more than 3 minutes in the last 6 days, I fell into an exhausted sleep. 50 minutes later we arrived in Cartegena (coastal; altitude +1 metre) and as soon as the plane doors opened it was like a weight lifted off my head, the curtains vanished, the muzziness, fatigue and general ‘shit’ I’d been feeling just disappeared. Ok, I’ve still got a bit of a cough which I brought with me, along with my Spurs hat, for comfort, but the feeling of just ‘bleueueuhhhhh’ was suddenly no more.

Altitude Sickness. Never had it before. But it must have been. Which is such a relief. Because you can’t die from it So I can stop googling things that you really can die from which share the symptoms. Its sea level for me from now on. I’m moving our bed downstairs when we get home, first thing.

Happy clear-headed Friday

A xxxx

Buy a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; show him a rock and he can spend a lifetime… doing stuff with it.

Because that’s what you do with rocks the world over. You look at them, you film them, you watch them at sunrise, check them out at sunset, admire them at noon and, in the case of this one at El Penon, you can even climb it!!! Because someone built some stairs on the side. 760 of them. Not that I was counting. I didn’t have to, they number the significant ones (‘125’) to encourage you (‘575’) or to depress you (‘600’). They don’t let you climb Ayers Rock in Australia but that’s because it is very historically important to the Aborigines. The El Penon rock has no such stigma attached. But being at well over 2000 metres above sea level, its not really the same easy climb that 760 steps would be at Southend. And when you get to the very top, you just fight your way through 263 market stalls selling beer, sweets, t-shirts and hats. Not ‘kiss-me-quick’ hats, like you’d get in Southend, probably ‘shoot-me-quick’ ones, being in Columbia. If I could read Spanish, I’d know.

We ‘did’ the rock and we went to a nearby town called Guatape. A very hard place to pronounce. Hence the ‘rock and the hard place’ tour from Medellin. Not convinced its worth the entry fee, if I’m honest, lorra miles covered for not too much gain. Though Guatape, a ‘one-fish-town’ if ever there was, does inevitably have a Bolivar Square. Phew.

Loving Columbia though. Lovely people, friendly, wonderful. But oddly they get a bad press. In fact for decades they lived through some of the worst violence known anywhere on the planet, with Columbians finding novel and horrendous ways of killing each other for any manner of reasons.

The country is rich in gold, emeralds, silver and platinum. The plains, due to volcanic events, are amazingly fertile, so coupled with a wonderful, moderate tropical climate, absolutely anything will grow here with ease and abundance. Coffee, avocados, bananas, all manner of fruits, potatoes, cows can graze everywhere because it all so wonderfully green. And to compensate, the social history of the country is plagued with terrible political corruption, instability and murder. Which goes back really to just after the last war, about 1948 or so. Communist guerrillas from Venezuela, paramilitary gangs from Columbia, civil wars; when the drug shit happened it was almost a form of stability. Though the murders escalated massively in the Escobar years.

So now, ole Pablo is remembered in contradictory ways. Medellin was ‘his town’, where he was born, where his family still live, where he always ruled. Where there is the only metro system in the country. Where he built housing for thousands of poor Columbians. And they remember him by selling t-shirts with his image. No beauty, ‘the perfect face for radio’. But as with Al Capone, with the Krays, the world likes to remember gangsters fondly. Even ones almost totally irredeemably evil, like Pablo Escobar.

Wonderful City is Medellin. Tomorrow we head off to Cartagena in the north.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

So its all been a bit quiet on the Columbia front, you may have noticed. Because my current lurghi has meant I have two distinct and exclusive modes at the moment. I’m either travelling or sleeping. Nothing else. I go see a city, or a coffee plantation or, yesterday, a cloud forest and then, I sleep. Its all I can do. Other than eat. I can stay awake for that, but only cos its ‘medicinal’, innit. Then I go back to sleep. Or try. Ok, so I moan a bit too, but its allowed.

I wasn’t too upset to leave Bogota, although we did eat at a couple of quite amazing restaurants. The food here is pretty wonderful generally, but the portions are so humungous that once we learn that for an unquestionable fact, we’ll order one meal and ‘share’. Even though I’m not really a natural ‘sharer’, as much as a natural ‘FUCK OFF ITS MIIIIIIIINE!!!!’r. But order a steak and they give you two. Order a fish and you get two. Which sounds great, is great, but its actually too much. Apparently. So I’m told.

I know so much about coffee, its scary. I will never again go to Costa (I fucking hate Starbucks anyway) and order a ‘latte’. I want to know which grade of bean, grown in which country, at which altitude and the name of the geezer wot picked it. Because I probably met him yesterday. And don’t get me started on the roasting. I intend to become the world’s biggest coffee-bore. I’m qualified. The main problem being; I only do just want a latte.

From Bogota and the big cities, to the little towns up in the mountains of the cloud-forest, there’s a ‘Bolivar Square’. Its compulsory. And they probably have them in loads of other countries in South and Central America too. Because, it would appear, Simon Bolivar single-handedly ousted those bastard Spaniard dictators from: Columbia, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. If I’d have known that’s all you have to do to get all those squares named after you, I’d have gone to war against Spain myself. Bolivar was by birth a Venezuelan but died as a Columbian. Which is a bit like living your life as a Spurs fan but being buried in an Arsenal kit. They also name squares after dates. 23rd October Square, or 19th July Square. Any date will do because Bolivar freed some country or other on all 365, so pick your fave and name that square. Ironically Bolivar became, when president, the dictator he’d spent his whole life opposing.

This pic was after we’d walked up to the almost top of the cloud forest. Its about 2,600 metres above sea level so there’s no air, as we know it, and the 30 degrees of temperature feels like 40 because there’s so much more UV. Such is life in the ‘coffee triangle’. Where today we leave and fly off to Medellin. A place one time at the heart of Pablo Escobar’s empire. Apparently there’s less murders there now. A helluva lot less, I’m hoping.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Are you familiar with the word ‘schvach’? Its yiddish. Its pronounced ‘shvu’- then a ‘ch’ in the most guttural you can manage. Like all yiddish words still in common usage, its fabulously expressive and can mean 200 different things. All of which, in this instance, relate to ‘weak’ or ‘feeble’ or inadequate in some way. You can moan that a cup of white-ish tea is ‘schvach’, or a dress that’s dull and lacking colour could be so described too. And it can also be used in the first person. And for 2 days I am that first person. Schvach.

I’ve had a bit of a cold. No biggy. Just a bit of a cough, bunged up, usual stuff requiring just a little ‘man-heroism’, which we’re good at. Then Friday night I boarded a plane. And by the time I arrived in Bogota, 12 hours later, felt so stiff and tired and horrible, that I just put this down to it then being 4 am local time. So we went to bed and woke up at 9 feeling a bit better. Or were we?

By the time I’d even realised where I was and what time differences were involved, Spurs were already 3-0 down at Man City. And that is NEVER the best way to start a vacation.

Mel was shattered all day as we cruised round our bit of Columbia’s capital. Which is so not what you’d expect. Its quite beautiful, very up-market and we hardly saw anyone get shot nor were offered sacks of cocaine to smuggle out of the country when we left, in condoms. Its nice here. Civilised. If a little unspectacular in the normal way of former Spanish colonial cities.

This morning after a ridiculously early night, I felt ok, still a bit coldy, and Mel was much better. 14 hours sleep will do that. So we went with our guide on a ‘city tour’. Which was fine. But as it progressed my increasing levels of ‘schvach’ reduced my energy to nothing. I felt like shit. Left Mel to finish an art gallery as I sat on a bench in the shade and dozed. Then came back to the hotel and slept for two hours in drug-assisted bliss. Just ibuprofen, don’t get excited.

So is this just the cold? Jet lag? And the fact that Bogota, at 2.5kms above sea level doesn’t have much in the way of oxygen as us sea-level dwellers know it?

Tomorrow morning we’re flying off to ‘coffee country’. Where coffee comes from. We’d always thought it comes from Starbucks or Waitrose but it doesn’t. The world’s best coffee comes from a place called Pereira in Columbia.

Happy Sunday, except for Rachie in Australia, in which case, happy Monday

A xxxx

We love a winter holiday. Mel ‘needs’ sunshine because she’s SADS and I ‘need’ to go with. To carry the bags. And buy water. Loads and loads of water. So come Christmas time, we’re gone. And because you need to go far and wide for sun at this time of year, we book early. To put this in perspective, we’re planning next Xmas trip now. Even though the flights haven’t come out yet. But we’re going to Australia next winter because our mate’s daughter is getting married so we’re waiting, like vultures, for BA to make the flights ‘live’, then we shall pounce. Though instead of razor sharp beaks we use airmiles. Its an evolutionary thing.

So tonight’s trip was booked last Feb. 10 months ago. And its a big trip, all around Columbia, which is a very beautiful (apparently) and very large country. And we’re seeing all of it, except the druggy, murderous, gang-killer bits. Hopefully. So that’s sorted. Great. Done. Dusted.

Or is it?

Checked in last night for our maiden flight to Bogota and there’s a little problem.

We’d booked ‘extra leg room’ as its a night flight and we’re too mean to actually pay for business class travel. Avianca (Columbia’s) airline are the only ones to fly direct and they don’t take our airmiles so its ‘extra leg room seats’. Not that we have extra legs, just, cos…

These are emergency exit seats, so at the online check-in it asked the usual questions: are you disabled, do you know more than 3 people who are? are you a child? are you capable of opening a door in the middle of a TOTAL FUCKING PANIC!!!!!? Yeah, yeah, we’re fine and cool and able bodied and not children, blah, blah, blah. Then an unusual question: ‘do you speak Spanish?’ Ooohhh, in all honesty I’d have to answer ‘no’ to that really as quite frankly, I don’t. Barely a sodding word. “If you’re sitting in the window seat you MUST speak Spanish”. Well I don’t. Then you can’t sit there, end of!

So from February, we now learn, just 24 hours before take-off, that we possibly, probably, don’t have the seats we’d pre-booked 10 months ago. And may have to thus travel in the hold with the baggage. And this is discriminatory. This is an abuse. This wrong. And this is certainly now very stressful as I woke up at 5 this morning having been dreaming of being strapped to an airplane wing.

I hate… things.

Happy worrysome Friday; they’re getting back to us, they’ve dealt with hysterical phone calls before.

A xxxx

Yesterday morning Spurs were in 7th place in the league, just behind (fucking!!!) Burnley and with a resurgent Leicester creeping northwards up the table behind us. That was horrible. 7th place is not nice. And with not even a UEFA place for 6th place this year, 7th is… just shit. I know, I know, there are teams who’d give their collective spleens for 7th place, in fact, safe to say, all the teams who occupy positions 8 to 20 probably fall into that category. But I’m a Spurs fan. We think big. We think big club. We’re arrogant, we feel a sense of entitlement, we feel its our damned RIGHT to be in the top four. And as of last night, we once again are.

For how long I don’t know as we’re visiting Manchester City on Saturday. Not for tea. For football. The latest lambs to be offered for sacrifice on the alter of Noel Gallagher’s Abu Dhabi billionaires. And much as I hate Manchester City, they have now won their last 15 games in a row. Superlatives abound. ‘The best team EVERRRRR’ is now the pundits cry as they’re fast running out of appropriate gushing. All of which, I hate to say, are deserved and earned.

Pep Guardiola has taken the potential that 64 zillion bitcoins can often buy you and turned it into the slickest, most brilliantly oiled footballing machine. Because that’s what is written on HIS tin. Its what he did at Barcelona, the previous incumbents of ‘best team ever’, and he did it at Bayern. And you have to love Pep. He is the anti-Jose. He is lightness and charm. And he admits defeat and takes responsibility. Not that he has to do that often. He doesn’t whinge about referees and attack team doctors for doctoring.

So we forget about Man City. We don’t look back in anger, just hope that statistically, their unbeaten run has to end, and whenever it does it will be ‘unlikely’ so why not this Saturday? IS THERE SOME FUCKING LAW AGAINST THAT?!?!?!?!

With Liverpool and Arsenal both failing to score last night, or concede either, oddly, that elevated my team back to 4th. Where competition is stiff as… a very stiff thing. Whilst down at the other end, West Ham’s point, though doubtless welcome by them (if not by Arsenal) wasn’t sufficient to lift them out of the ‘dead zone’, where competition is equally as stiff but far less pretty.

At the end of the day (a phrase all footballing tales have to include) night will fall. Deeds will be done. Acts completed. And as Spurs travel to Manchester, I’m traveling to Columbia. Tomorrow night, in fact.

Meanwhile,

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Everyone’s talking about Bitcoins. Shame we didn’t have conversation a decade ago when they were worth nothing and 100 dollars’ worth bought then would now be worth about $1.6 billion. But no. They told us it was a ‘fad’. That it was a way for money launderers, dark webbers, drug dealers and arms buyers to pay for things in an anonymous way. Its like having a Swiss bank inside your computer. But in English. Or in numbers really. And this remarkable ‘currency’ really doesn’t exist in any real sense. Bitcoins are just assigned values to blocks of data which, and this is the really, really, REALLY important bit: are finite in number. There’s only so many, like shares, so you need to buy an existing one if you want to join the bubble. They can’t, as they do with currency, just print more.

They don’t ‘print’ anything, in fact. You have a virtual ‘wallet’ and in it you keep your Bitcoin(s) or part thereof. Because at the current day $17,000 valuation per Bitcoin, you can buy just a little bit of one, should you desire. Though, from personal experience, it ain’t quite that easy.

Two weeks ago I started thinking about the Bitcoin phenomenon. Because, like so many things, it seemed to have ‘easy money!!!’ written all over it. But when you dig a little deeper you learn about the potential pitfalls. Mainly that it is currently a ‘bubble’. Something that can burst, leaving you with, basically, the inside of a bubble. Nothing but air. Others think that ‘it is the future’ and can only just keep going up. Like the ‘dotcoms’ did?

Anyway, I joined a company called Coinbase who, according to everyone who knows, is ‘the place’ for Bitcoin. There are loads of others but these are ‘the guys’. And its not easy. And in fact three days after trying to register I received an email telling me that I’d passed security. Sorry ’bout the delay, busy here. Then I read, just yesterday that should you be Bitcoined up and need to sell, particularly if things were starting to look a little ‘downslidey’ or dubious, it could take you so long to sell the fuckers that in the 3, or 4, or 5 days it might take, the bubble would be certainly in gross deflation mode, at very least.

But what’s really scary is that these things aren’t real. You have this ‘wallet’ that is virtual and in it, a potential fortune. And most ironic for this totally virtual and online thing, as all the gurus stress massively, WRITE DOWN YOUR PASSWORDS (keys, as they’re known) ON PAPER. WITH A PEN. IN INK. KEEP A COPY. OR SIX. Because if you lose it, your money has gone. Forever. There is no ‘forgotten password?’ button in Bitcoinland because you wouldn’t be secure. They reckon there is currently about $40 billion in lost-password-hell, never to be claimed. Other than by me, but they won’t let me have it.

So to join the bubble or to not to join, that is the question. Fucked if I know the answer.

Happy Chanukah

A xxxx

I’m going to talk about the weather. Because I’m British. Its what we do. But normally its about the likelihood of rain, the possibility of sunshine, the incoming winds from Siberia. I want to talk about proper ‘weather’. Weather with a !!!! Like yesterday weather.

Because snow does fall in northern Europe. And here’s the rule for Britain: its falls in Kent, it falls in Scotland, it falls up north. In London we don’t get much. Mainly because God knows that cities are really the worst places for such precipitation. Where it looks gorgeous for 10 minutes and then screws everything up for 10 weeks after. We don’t like the snow, we can’t handle the snow, WE FUCKING HATE IT because we’ve got lots of busy things to do with our busy little lives. Like playing tennis. Can’t do that on snow. I’ve tried (obvs.) and failed. And the other thing we like to do on weekends is drive places.

And there’s the problem. We had to go to Kingston-upon-Thames for dinner. 15 miles away. We were under 3 inches of fresh, slushy, wet snow (there’s lots of different types, this was the worst) and yet a mere 15 miles away there was, according to the mates there, nuffink. Little snow overnight, now all gone. Whereas in the rarified atmosphere of norf-west London, it was coming down think’n’fast still with no sign of slowing. Should we go? Shouldn’t we go? Should we go? Shouldn’t…

Of course we went. The car went into 2 slides on our road, I turned left, the car didn’t. Then I braked at the end of the road, but the car didn’t and we slid out onto the (fortunately empty) next road. Both of these events occurring at speeds not in excess of 4mph. After those first 100 yards everything was fine and clear. And indeed Kingston was devoid of snowy deposits. Weird. And as Barnet council can only afford a couple of 2lb bags of grit each year, they obviously use it on the bigger roads and not little ones like mine. So all was fine coming home too, in fact the roads were delightfully quiet, no idea why, until we came back to the skating rink where we live.

I missed most of the football. Except the bit when Jose Morinho said Manchester City were ‘lucky’ to win against his Manchester United. Lucky. Funny how generally a team who enjoy about 70% of possession will tend to be ‘luckier’ than those who park buses. Bad day at the office for Jose? Or the start of the inevitable slide from delusion to completely losing touch with reality and then total meltdown? Even though they’re second in the league.

Happy slushy Monday

A xxxx

When Heung-Min Son first arrived at Tottenham, we gave him his own, special song. It went like this: “He shoots, he scores, he eats your Labradors, Heung-Min Son, Heung-Min Son… (repeat until bored)…”

As this was a rather unsubtle and mildly racist comment referring to the player’s Korean roots, reeking of facile stereotyping and unfair assumptions, I only sang it quite softly. Though its really funny at any volume. Son might be a vegan for all we know, and, if his understanding of the Queen’s English, as slurred and screamed by 30,000 half-drunk cockneys was sufficient, may have found offence in this.

Similarly the rumours that our new player was related to Kim-Jong Un were patently untrue. Though there are a few physical similarities on some level, I grant you, but insufficient to justify any further investigation.

We (and I speak for all Spurs fans here) really LOVE Son. He’s a ‘true Spurs player’ but is even prepared to fight back and tackle, hence avoiding the ‘luxury’ branding of many of our forwards in former generations. But we love him because he adds everything to the team. Skill, pace and a fantastic eye for goal. And never have we loved him more than during yesterday’s single-handed demolition of poor (as if we cared) Stoke City.

Pace was the key. Because Stoke can always cope with skill, using violence. They can handle ‘tricky’, by breaking legs, but if you’re quick, you can run away from the flailing legs, arms and, on some occasions, knives, swords, baseball bats, (something of a metaphor) that Stoke bring to any game against ‘class’ opposition. And if, as Son does, you run away from those thugs but keeping the ball with you, a rather productive afternoon can be had. And was.

Last night we saw a new play at the great and cool Almeida in Islington called The Twilight Zone. A really clever and funny homage to the 1960s tv series with the most famous theme riff of all time. And I thought, ‘its like Spurs; that Twilight Zone stuff’. I didn’t choose to share this with Mel, mainly because she was asleep at the time (no slur on the play; its the highest compliment she could pay). But Spurs have had a recent run of dire form, particularly at Wembley and even more particularly against shitty teams. Like Stoke. Nothing snobbish about my ‘premiership view’ then.

And yesterday it all changed. In an almost supernatural way. 5-1. Outstanding. Unplayable. Brilliant. Had we just entered ‘The Twilight Zone’? Or had we left it…

Ooooohhhhhhhhh.

Happy Snow Day (2 inches and counting)

A xxxx

What do we do about Mo? ‘E’s a luvvely boy, was a medical student at Exeter, specialising in children’s heart surgery, spent his spare time working voluntarily in a food bank and helping little old ladies cross the street, then he went to Syria. Joined ISIS, murdered 396 Christian women after raping them first, slaughtered their kids, beheaded the menfolk and sent the videos home for his mum to enjoy.

And now he wants to come home. And even worse than all of the above mentioned is the other thing he’s bringing back to Esher. The ideology. The sickest and most destructive philosophy since Hitler interpreted Nietzsche. The poison for mind and body and entire societies. Radical extreme Islamist jihadism. His coming home gift.

So again; what do we do about Mo?

We could watch him, ask him a few questions, like ‘will you murder anyone in the next few days? Have you decided to be a nice person now?’, shit like that. And he’ll be fine. Just go back as normal. But which normal? The pre- or post-Syria ‘normal’?

Furthermore, there’s sadly, not just Mo. There’s quite literally thousands of them. All in possession of two vital things; a UK passport and a mind so sick and distorted that death and destruction are simply part of it. A hatred for ‘the West’ and its values. And its people. And its coffee shops and football stadia and concert halls and pubs and bars and restaurants. Not to mention police, government and monarchy.

The perfect solution would be: don’t let them come back. But alas international law precludes such action. And do we really want to spend a small fortune imprisoning these people, following due court process (a second small fortune), only to risk them spreading their messages of hate and death to other inmates?

We should send them to Assad as it was against him that their previous crimes were committed. But that won’t happen.

So Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, no less, came up with a brilliant plan. Ok, not a ‘nice’ plan, but a solution to the insoluble problem. Gun the fuckers down in Syria and Iraq, wherever you can find them, even if they’re just sitting there playing backgammon or praying at the time. Find them, shoot them, bomb them, whatever it takes to stop them coming home.

Ok, its illegal under any form of law, rules of engagement or war, even though there is no war.

And people find that terrible. Without actually thinking of any decent alternative. Or even an alternative indecent alternative.

Its a problem.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx