Andy's Glasses

Here’s the rules for ‘giant-killing’ in Cup Football.

1. The Giants killed must ALWAYS be someone else’s team.
2. The Giant-killers must be lower league rubbish, preferably from Up North.
3. The relative monetary values of the 2 teams must be HUGELY different.
4. The giant-killing is greatly enhanced by the arrogance of the giants. By their attitude of entitlement to success. Even if that success is not due to the history of a football club tracing its roots back to the Battle of Hastings, but more due to the ‘investment’ by a bored Emirates playboy billionaire looking for a new toy about 10 years ago.

So how is any of this relevant to the match last night between Wigan and Manchester City?

Nottingham Forest were ‘giant-killers’ in the previous rounds. They beat Arsenal. So a team who lives in the top half, maybe even 7th/8th type position, of the Premier league, gets beat by a team from the next division down. Giants duly killed. Albeit only Arsenal.

But Manchester City? I’ll repeat: MANCHESTER CITY??? Who are being hailed this year, as they run away with the league and not just beat all who come before them, but trounce them, as not merely ‘the best team in England’ but actually, possibly, the ‘best team EVER in England’. Holy shit! And they went to Wigan and got beat. A lowly ‘First Division’ side, which is two whole leagues below the Premiership upon the very pinnacle of which sit Manchester City. So far at the pinnacle that Jose Morinho, manager of second placed Manchester United, has been on anti-depressants since October. And they’re not working because he still depresses me every time he opens his mouth.

I was just kind’a watching the second half of the match, amazed it was still 0-0, and was semi-distracted. But was then gripped. Wigan were amazing. Against the team who score more goals than everyone else put together, this bunch of lowly northern half-wits were keeping City out by sheer grit and determination. To such an extent that Pep unleashed Kevin de Bruyne from the bench. So the Wigan boys, exhausted after 70 minutes of constant defending, have to face the fresh legs of the best player in the league. Yet even he couldn’t create his magic. Whereas at the other end, grossly over-valued full-back, Kyle Walker, showed exactly why he was no longer good enough to play for Spurs and gave the ball away to a Wigan guy who, cool-as-ya-like, scored the winning goal.

The stuff of dreams. The fuel of legends. The magic of the Cup.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

The first road trip you simply have to do from LA, by law, is to Las Vegas. How can you not? Its so close. In that American way of being close on a really big map but hundreds of miles of endless driving to actually get there. Though its worth it. Even though I don’t gamble. Not really, I’ll stick a few quid into a slot machine, you just have to, compulsory, but actual gamblin’? Naah. But we would go to Vegas for a weekend to save money. It worked like this.

In the LA Times there were always offers to entice people to Vegas. If you had a hotel with 9,000 rooms in it, you’d want a few bods kickin’ round. And the hotel rooms they’ll gladly give away, so they can make their real money from the gambling. So they offer ‘room at the Flamingo Hilton, $20 a night!!!’. And five of us go. One room. The rooms are massive, several double beds and we only used to sleep a bit anyway. And worked out that if you change, say, another 20 dollars into quarters and sit at a machine, they keep bringing you drinks. Free, obvs. In the UK its illegal to ply gamblers with free booze, but over there?? So we put a few bucks in a blackjack machine, and you win and you lose and you win, and after 3 hours you’re either ahead $2.50 or down $3.64. And you’re blind drunk from the endless margaritas, beers, JD & cokes, whatever. You then take your money to the ‘all you can eat’ buffets that all the hotels do, and pig out all you need. Fill a bag. Fill your car. And best of all, Vegas is in the desert. Always hot, always sunny. So you spend the day getting over your hangover at a massive pool in glorious climate.

Me mate Paul had worked for a car hire franchise. And despite what you think, the car that you pick up in LA and drop off in San Francisco is not always just part of some great global ‘stock’ which all ‘balances out in the end’, that ain’t the case. Paul’s Dollar Car franchise, on Hollywood Boulevard, was one of 3 privately owned by one guy. Who owned all their stock. So when some bastard from Texas chose to drop his Chevy rental in San Francisco or Palm Springs, or even Vegas, to fly home from there, those cars needed to be collected and returned to base. And when Paul left Dollar he stayed friendly with the owner and was ‘on a list’ of people to call up when cars needed collecting. And off we’d go, to some great but not too far destination. Best of all, Byron, the owner, had a plane that he flew. ‘Just’ a twin engine turbo-prop but still a really cool, and pretty useful way of getting relatively long distances quickly. So along I’d tag to pick up various cars (love cars) from various places (love places) whenever schedules and needs aligned.

We did San Francisco, we did Palm Springs, we did lots of California. Free ride there, all the tourist shit you can do in a day/2 days, free wheels back.

But if there was anything better than traveling and other people’s American cars, it was, to a 25-year-old me, women. And the best place in the world, so it seemed, to meet and acquire such things was at the pool at our apartment building on good ole Hollywood Boulevard. The building wasn’t called ‘Decadence Central’, nor ‘If this is Hell then that’s where I wanna live’, but it should have been.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I never believe I’m ill. Even when evidence may exist to the contrary (throwing up, fever, sweats) I just think ‘naahh’. Just soldier on, you’ll be fine. Cos I am Man. And therefore pretty stupid, by design. So when Saturday came, as it often does at the end of a week, rather than take the opportunity to just rest and do nothing, I gave in to a temporary ‘feel good’ and went to tai chi for my usual 8.15 class and from there to tennis. Which I had to, because the sun was shining. And having played for the last 4 months in various degrees of damp/wet/cold/grey/horrible, to play in the sunshine when the courts aren’t covered in ice was too much to resist.

Mistake really. I ran out of energy that I never really had to begin with, came home and slept. And to show you how really ill I really am, I cancelled my booking for today. I’d never do that unless in a semi-delerious state. And I’m still coughing. Not all the time but it sounds horrible. And I cough up stuff that I’m not sure whether to spit into the toilet or take to the council dump. Nice.

Lucky I’m not an actor then, having to film sex scenes. Cos you wouldn’t want my saliva at the moment. Even if normally that is something you find appealing?

But new guidelines are being drawn up in Hollywood to protect actors and actresses from… well from EVERYTHING. In a typical over-reaction as we enter the post-Weinstein era, any touching between any two humans in any capacity whatsoever will now produce a ‘me too’ reaction and the ensuing legal action. Obviously. Everyone tends to over-react to big events and Hollywood normally over-reacts to everything. So the combination is severe.

In kissing scenes no saliva shall change… hands? Ok, no exchange of saliva. Presumably along with any other bodily fluids that might normally, in pre-me-too times, have been acceptable. No more. We need to protect actors of all genders, sexualities and combinations of the three. Or more. As yet undiscovered. Hmmm.

And all because ‘sexual abuse must stop!!’ as of course it must. Not that mere legislation can effect such a thing. Sexual abuse has never exactly been ‘legal’ or ‘part of the contract’ and that doesn’t seem to have prevented much. But is sex simulation in a movie that is part of the script, is that ‘abuse’ or any other of the terrible me-too things to occur? Acting is difficult, which is why when someone does it really well they become big. You should never be watching ‘acting’, you should only be aware of the character. And if that character is totally believable then the actor is doing a great job. But what if that totally believable character wants to have sex with another totally believable character who loves him/her/it/them/any of the above?? Then they have to be protected from ‘abuse’. Like touching. Snogging. Fondling. Because that’s abuse. So Hollywood needs to produce a metaphor for sex. In the old days that was ‘cut to the post-coital cigarette’. But smoking is now more of an abuse than raping a gerbil so you can’t use that. Maybe fondling at a suitable distance away. About a foot should do it. That should be safe.

Or you could just cut out all sex scenes until some vestige of normality has returned to the purveyors of silver screen entertainment after all the real horrors revealed of late.

I’m wonder if they’ll remake Blue is the Warmest Colour just to show how easy it could all be.

Happy, healthy Sunday

A xxxx

It was about this time that Steve’s girlfriend arrived in LA. She was a gel, whose name I’m struggling with at the moment, but it’ll come. But as a gel she was unhappy with the level of provisions in their flat. So she wanted to do a ‘shop’. A big shop. And neither Steve nor Joey had a car in LA. Presumably ‘hit men’ don’t use cars or if they do they just rent them or steal them. Steve had his motorcycle shipped over from New York, but that wasn’t much use for ‘big shopping’. Though for all else, it was fantastic. A massive Kawasaki 1100, loud, fast, fabulous. The girlfriend borrowed my car. No problem, I said, I need it for 6 to go to work. “Phah”, she said, “I’ll be back long before then”, as it was about 3 o’clock and the supermarket was one block away. By 5.45 ‘no problem’ had become a potential problem. By 6 it was indeed a real problem. And at 10 past 6 Steve gave me the keys to his bike. Which I’d ridden before but never properly ‘borrowed’. He loved that bike whereas I had nothing but contempt for my car.

And after that we simply ‘car-pooled’. Or ‘bike-pooled’. Just take whatever’s there. And if I got to the bike first, where was the tragedy if I chose the $20,000 bike and kindly left 250 bucks’ worth of Detroit garbage? As I pulled into the car park at the College on a balmy night (they’re all balmy), helmetless (cos I was stupid and there was no ‘helmet law’ in California in 1982), I was indeed the coolest dude that’s ever been in my head.

Saturday Night Live is an American institution. Has been since it started in the 1970s. Its still on now, with Alec Baldwin providing endless amusement as Pres. Trump. By 1982 the show was fielding regular stars like Eddie Murphy, just before he hit the movies. SNL has always been a massive springboard for comedy talent. But I didn’t watch the ‘new’ ones, I was generally out at 10 on a Saturday night. But on the ‘local’ tv channels (as opposed to the networks) they showed the ‘old’ SNLs every night. From the late 70s. And they starred Dan Aykroyd, Chevi Chase, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Steve Martin, all before they became mainstream ‘stars’. I would always watch it when in, they were brilliant. Of course I knew Belushi and Aykroyd from the Blues Brothers (which started as a sketch on SNL) movie and Animal House, Bill Murray from Stripes, but to see them all in early mode, rough cut, unscripted, was fantastic.

And then my hero, John Belushi, died. At Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard, couple of blocks from where I was living. He basically snorted himself up his own nostrils. Had a problem. Being John Belushi, it was a big problem. If you’re interested in his incredible life, there’s a biography by Bob Woodward (of Watergate fame) called ‘Wired: the short life and fast times of John Belushi’, which is as manic as it is amazing.

So you know what you do when your feeling doomy and gloomy? As Belushi said himself in Animal House: “ROAD TRIP!!!”

And we had a few.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Donald Trump stood up yesterday, in the wake of the the latest of oh,
so many high school shootings and said that the main concern for the
nation was… mental health. Not guns, mental health.

At which point I actually thought ‘he’s right’, this is an issue about
mental health. The President’s mental health. Not that of the shooter.
We all know he’s a fucking nutter already. And we’ve been half way
there with the president’s since those revelations in Steve Bannon’s
book claiming the man ‘unfit’ on insanity grounds.

The President and most of the Republican Party are sponsored by the
biggest lobby in America. The NRA. National Rifle Association. They
represent the immense gun industry in that fine nation and give 2/3/4
million dollar hand-outs regularly to Congressmen and Senators who
speak their language. What they call, with stress on the noble and
democratic; ‘2nd amendment rights’, what everyone else with any common
sense calls ‘the gun problem’. Trump received masses of campaign
dollars from the NRA and is thus now unlike to shoot off the hand that
feeds him.

For Donald Trump I say one thing. That mental health is obviously a
massive issue for anyone who is going to commit mass murder. And a
small percentage (we hope) of people will always suffer from mental
health issues. We don’t know who they are until they ‘explode’,
although in the case this week, it seems everyone from the school to
the FBI did in fact know about Nikolas Cruz. Mainly because his
aspiration in life, openly stated, was to be a ‘high school shooter’.

But if a tiny percentage of kids crack up, for whatever reason, does
Mr President in any way feel that having exposure to virtually
unlimited firearms and ammunition, being raised in a culture of gun
use and bigger-is-better-ism where firearms are concerned and
gun(g)-ho attitudes to shooting in general, does he feel that this has
no influence on such an outcome?? And, of course, access. Nikolas
didn’t just bring ‘a gun’. Like a pistol. No. He brought GUNS! Serious
rapid fire automatic rifles and loads of them, with sacks full of
ammo.

If you go to any mental health institution, what you normally won’t
find lying around in the playroom, is guns. Of any description. So
surely, if mental health is a problem, albeit in a small percentage of
people, wouldn’t there be some benefit in not having 360 million guns
lying around the country? (The current estimate; as many guns as
people).

President Trump is a fuck-wit.

I’ve been in my own battle this week; with man-flu. The dreaded
disease that only affects the fit, strong, brave and gorgeous among
us. Been awful. I’ve been heroic. Almost uncomplaining. Almost.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Warning: food that’s really easy and tasty is gonna kill you. They’ve found the missing link. Possibly. Because they still say that eating ultra-processed foods MAY increase cancer risk. Crossing a road MAY increase the likelihood of getting run over. There again, it may not. Three-headed monsters, 9 feet tall who eat live babies and support Chelsea ‘may’ live on Mars. So they started with an hypothesis; that super-processed foods, factory made, marinated in sauces, filled with preservatives and additives, may increase the risk of cancer. And they do extensive research on 105,000 people. Big test. And find that, yes, that MAY be the case. May not; but may be. Mainly because it would take a very brave scientist to condemn pizza. Even Cornflakes!!! ‘Ultra-processed’ therefore increased cancer risk. And chocolate. At which point it just becomes a matter of ‘well, we’ve all gotta die sometime’.

Your risk of dying, however, is definitely, massively, incredibly, humungously increased by being an American schoolkid. There’s not ‘may’, there’s no ‘within statistical significance’, there’s nothing but a hail of gunfire and dead bodies to prove that theory. And the fact that yesterday’s shooting in Florida was the 19th in the US this year. And we’re half way through February. That’s one shooting every two-and-a-bit days. 17 people died in yesterday’s incident.

And yet Trump, when told off by Theresa May about something tweeted along the lines: ‘we don’t got no jihadis here; America’s doing fine’. Whereas in reality the jihadis can’t get any ammunition for their guns because all the schoolkids are buying it up wholesale. And more people die in America every year in gun crime than die in the rest of the world in terrorist attacks (made that up, sounds about right though). The Trumpesque approach to gun crime adopts the philosophy of ‘the old lady who swallowed a fly’. In that if the baddies have guns, make sure you have bigger guns. The solution to the school problem would therefore be to arm the rest of the kids so they can take out the would-be shooter before he gets on a roll.

Another fucking tragedy, more kids die, but Americans demand ‘the right to bear arms’ and leave them lying around, fully-loaded so anyone can pick them up and go play.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I like to read. I read books, I read newspapers, I read magazines, but only if they come with newspapers, and I read stuff online. But my favourite ‘read’ is after Spurs win. Or even if they don’t ‘win’ in any normally accepted meaning of ‘winning’ but it feels like they did anyway. And I’ve been reading about last night all morning and intend to continue until at least Saturday. Having only just finished reading about the Arsenal game last Saturday. My cup runneth over. Not that we’ve won a cup.

Everyone loves Spurs. Ok, let me reign that in a bit. I love Spurs. Spurs fans generally love Spurs and a few others do too. Obviously not Chelsea fans (hateful and spiteful), West Ham fans (ugly and racist) or Arsenal fans (jealous). But ‘neutrals’ love the way Spurs play because its so gorgeous to watch. And when we play in Europe, then all those ‘neutrals’ can fish out their old, blue-n-white, Gareth Bale scarves, dig the lily-white bobble hats out of the ski-wear cupboard and get on board. Because in those games we’re representing England. The whole nation. From the Prime Minister and the Queen to a bunch of boozy, overweight rugby league fans from Wigan.

And how’d that go last night?

Well let me illuminate, illustrate, demonstrate and possibly hyperventilate over the details. Because God is in the details. Or the devil. Never sure which, not convinced there’s much difference.

We played the mighty Juventus. Not just top of the Italian league but the team no-one scores against. They’re Italians so they’re filthy dirty, cynical as fuck and cheat for all they’re worth. Pulling shirts, kicking ankles, diving to the ground every 3 minutes. It ain’t beautiful but it gets the job done. No-one has scored a goal past them since December. The goalie, the wonderful Buffon, hasn’t personally conceded since November. Ya get the picture; it ain’t easy to score goals in Turin.

So we had the best possible start and conceded a goal after one minute. 10 minutes later they scored again. 2-0 down against the hardest team to score against and we’re looking shaky. “This could end 5-nil!!!” said the pundits, “15-nil!!!!”.

And with ‘olde Spurs’ it would have been. But this weren’t them. This was my boys. This was the stronger, quicker, more resilient, pull-yer-socks-up, go-for-it, a-man’s-gotta-do, new-fangled, cliche-ridden Spurs of now. So they did the seemingly impossible and scored a goal. No prizes for guessing; Harry Kane. Then, later in the game, the equaliser from Christian Eriksen. At which point Spurs were totally dominant, unfazed, unflappable and brilliant. Even to my impartial eyes.

2 ‘away’ goals to bring home and the second leg all square and at Wembley.

Frikkin awesome.

Happy Valentine’s Day

A xxxx

All men are not, contrary to popular belief and certain t-shirts, rapists. Some are very nice. But at times it does kind’a feel like its part of the male condition to ‘lead with yer nob’ and ask questions later, taking advantage of any and every person, sexually, that you can possibly entice, bribe, coerce, blackmail or physically overcome in the process.

And when you read of such things happening at Goldman Sacks, you just think ‘fucking bankers’, in that case, quite literally. And when its Hollywood, there’s a ‘well what d’ya expect?’ kind of attitude that goes with ‘the territory’. A century ago, being an actress was seen in the same light as being a prostitute.

But charities are different. They come with an implicit morality that (certainly) banking and definitely show-biz, don’t. You HAVE to act in an ethical and considerate way when your headline brief is to ‘help people’. Increasing their suffering or giving them food in return only for sexual favours kind’a misses the point. By a fucking mile.

The problem escalates, once whistles are blown. In the case of Oxfam, that’s not the only thing which was blown. Because Oxfam and the others, so it now transpires, have been aware of these problems for years. And faced with the shameful, immoral actions of some of their workers, they chose to try a cover-up. Or, at very least, keep it ‘in house’. Or ‘in Haiti and Chad’, perhaps. But, again, this was not a stag weekend in Las Vegas, where what happens there stays there, this was a systematic and continuing cycle of abuse. So the logic in sending a habitual sex-fiend from Chad over to Haiti was never really going to be a ‘cure’ of his demons, was it?

And cover-ups make the organisations as guilty as the perpetrators. Like the church when they did, and still do, cover up sexual abuse because admitting it might affect their moral standing. Tossers. Covering it up makes them part of the problem rather than any possible solution. It makes them enablers.

And when ‘Christian Aid Overseas’ becomes tarred with the same brush, how good does that make Christians feel? When you adopt the moral high ground it gives you a far greater distance to fall.

Happy righteous Tuesday

A xxxx

The Winter Olympics have begun. In Pyeongchang, South Korea. Not Pyongyang, that’s in North Korea. Who used to be ‘the enemy’ but now are best mates with their neighbours to the south, even sharing sports teams in a joint-Korea friendliness. Its like having a new best friend in the playground who has beaten and bullied you for the past 10 years and carries a knife in the hand that’s not wrapped around your shoulders. Nothing nervy about that at all.

And to show this new accord, this new solidarity, the games are attended by Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong. I never knew Kim had a sister. I knew he had a brother. (Emphasis on the ‘had’). Because Kim had him murdered with a deadly nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur airport last year. But a sister? Where’d she come from?? How come she’s still alive? Why doesn’t she have a silly haircut? Not genetic then, that hair thing, obvs.

The winter Olympics is not, if I’m honest, my preferred sports viewing. I love a ski like the next man. But watching hours of it? Speed skating? Shooting whilst on skis? Yet this event is now effectively the Oscars ceremony for the pharmaceutical industry. They can test not only the effectiveness of all their wonderful, performance-enhancing and muscle-building shit, but also its detectability, or lack thereof. And whether the athletes (or ‘guinea pigs’ as they’re known in medical circles) are playing for ‘Russia’ or using an acronym of ‘The Country that Used to be Russia Before it got Banned for Sytematic, Industrial-sized, State-Compulsory Drug-Abuse and Fucking Cheating’, its still wrong. The last games was a joke. Except in Russia. Putin don’t joke.

But the 3 athletes who are emphatically Russian but didn’t fail drug tests (don’t mean they didn’t do it, like everyone else, just means they didn’t get caught), competing under some novel ‘state-flag-of-convenience’ is even funnier.

So that’s why we love football. Where drug abuse is purely recreational, where cheating is done by hurling yourself, arms spread, into the penalty area, and where we don’t let the Russians play.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Oh by golly, oh by gosh
Arsene Wenger is full of tosh.
His useless dilettantes lost, not a penalty in site
Defeated by a Spurs team full of flair and might

I’m not one to gloat, not one little bit
but the Frenchman needs to realise, his poxy team are shit.
Championship material, right through the ranks
wouldn’t take any one of ’em, even for nothing, thanks.

Ok they can win, at home against rubbish teams
But take them away from Emirates and they crumple at the seams.
You can put all the foreigners you like with unpronounceable names
They still don’t add up to even half a Harry Kane.

I didn’t go to Wembley, couldn’t take the strain
But now I wish I’d been there, even in the rain.
Because that wonderful victory puts us seven points clear
of an Arsenal team now living on nothing but hope and fear.

The Arsenal teams of old traded on skill and style and speed
the present collection of Euro-trash are mainly there for greed.
I’m not surprised Lacazette missed a sitter of an open goal
For just 200 grand a week he might as well be on the dole.

But this is not about Arsenal, they’re just too depressing,
This is about Spurs, I must keep on stressing.
We’re great, we’re good, we’re solid, we’re fast
We can almost start to forget our recent past.

We’re strong and skilful and no longer frail and porous
even all the neutral fans seem to really adore-us
Because we play the game as it should be played
With artistry, finesse, chances created and goals made

We flow and dance and play as a team that truly rocks
With just a very few instances of diving in the box.
Kane and Allie, Eriksen and Dier,
If I said I didn’t love them, I’d be a bloody liar.

What a birthday present for Rachie.

Really, unbelievably, ecstatically happy Sunday

A xxxx