Andy's Glasses

On Saturday night we were up in Leeds. So we had Mel’s dad (the purpose of the visit) over to the hotel for dinner. Like all hotels that are either decent or in most cases, aspire to decency, they have a posh restaurant. Which they try to get you to eat at, obviously. And as the very narrow, single-track road leading to this (very) country hotel was 1.5 miles long, you don’t really want to go anywhere else.

“Yes, we have a new chef!!” they proclaim. Even if they acquired said chef from a job-centre or head-hunted him from McDonalds, he’s the New Chef!!! with exclamation marks. Italian. So was Mussolini.

There were about 12 ‘mains’ on the menu. And I have a rule (possibly my only one) that if the words required to describe a meal take up more space on a plate than the meal itself will; don’t eat it. Not because I don’t like words, cos I love ’em. I just don’t want to eat them. And its also a sign that someone is seriously over-thinking stuff. “Locally sourced free range chicken thighs seared to perfection then slow-baked with a red wine, pomegranate (the go-to food of the pretentious) and shallot reduction, flavoured with toad-stalls, camembert and raspberry jelly, served on a bed of pigeon testicles, banana-flavoured spinach and chorizo (another absolute essential in post-millennial dining)… blah, blah, blah.

We found one thing that not only sounded good but was actually great. Braised beef. Wonderful, simple, nice. I almost felt ashamed to have a meal that didn’t contain quinoa, chorizo, pomegranate or gluten-free rhubarb, but my hunger overcame my shame. As always.

Nice. Not cheap. Are they ever when they have you prisoner at the end of an alcohol-free 1.5 mile driveway? But acceptable. And I can’t really complain about the price because for some reason the meal wasn’t added to the bill. Oops.

Last night we went out with friends to an old established local eatery. Greek restaurant, nominally, called The Carob Tree in that area that calls itself ‘Highgate’ but is so almost Kentish Town that you can afford to eat there. And we’ve eaten there lots of times. The owner is my best friend. He’s a big Spurs fan. Unless you go there and you’re a Chelsea fan, in which case he is your best friend and a massive Chelsea fan. One of those types. Fortunately wasn’t there last night.

And I’ve never looked at the menu there. Never. They cook all the usual Greek stuff and probably do it really well, but what they do better than anywhere else is fish. Up on the ‘specials’ board. Grilled. On their barbecue. Not ‘measly’ fish, not ‘sardines disguised as seabass’ that you get everywhere else, not a sliver of ‘blackened cod’ for 60 quid. No. Big fishes. Fucking whales. Though they called it sea bream. Big enough to share. Probably big enough And its cooked so wonderfully with the skin crispy and the rest moist and… errr… fishy, without being ‘fishy’. And that combination of ‘big’ and ‘perfect’ just hits the spot. Without requiring a four page essay to tell you what its like. Cos what its like is fantastic.

Lila knows about eating.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I’m fed up with goals in football. Fed up with the spectacular and the amazing and the concerted and the wonderful. Because they’re not currently being scored by Spurs. I have no desire to watch Manchester United score great goals, nor Chelsea, Manchester City or even Huddersfield. I can’t include Arsenal in that because they currently don’t score any. But this is not about gloating at the misfortune of others. Not yet anyway. Time for that later.

Because on Saturday we witnessed the foul of the season. When there’s still 35 matches to play. We’re here to celebrate an act of momentary insanity which took grievous bodily harm to the next level on any sporting arena that doesn’t have Conor McGregor in it. This was so ugly it became a ‘thing of beauty’.

Brighton vunderkind Anthony Knockhaert runs onto a ball on the wing. And he’s quick. From the middle of park comes Miguel Britos, Watford ‘enforcer’, on the diagonal. And at the point of their eventual meeting (Pythagoras worked it out easy-peasy) Britos lunged at the Brighton player, whilst travelling at full speed, with both feet off the ground, out of control and studs-up. The ball, it is barely worth mentioning, was on the other side of Knockhaert, ie the side Britos wasn’t arriving at soon, so simply was never part of anyone’s equation, other than perhaps Britos’ in which case, his maths is pretty damned weak.

The maniac defender’s boot landed on the side of the other player’s leg, just below the knee,  hitting with all studs. What is known as a ‘leg-breaker’. The leg was saved by being off the ground. If it hadn’t been so Knockhaert would not have walked again this season, if ever.

Though he’d probably have got into the Arsenal squad, mangled leg and all. Because they were, by all accounts, total shite. No clue, no passion, no fight, no nuffink. Gary Neville said he would ‘sell the lot of ’em in the next 10 days of the transfer window and get decent players in’. Arsene Wenger… pretty much agreed. Though he called it ‘work to be done’ rather than ‘THE MOST PATHETIC DISPLAY EVER WITNESSED’.

Spurs still yet to win at Wembley but I flat out REFUSE to make it ‘a thing’. Its just…

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

There are very few times in life that you can simply put your foot down and leave it there. As a driver it happens on occasion. As a husband hardly ever. But today I experienced such a moment of sublime exaltation as I pulled onto the A1 just south of Leeds.

Leaving Yorkshire is always a wonderful moment (I realise that ‘technically’ we were still there and would be for 50 odd miles more, but psychologically the road home is ‘no-man’s-land’ and thus unaffiliated and can be considered part of ‘home’).

There’s a long ‘on-ramp’, downhill, leading onto the main motorway, so we came off the roundabout and I hit the pedal. Probably started at about 30 mph and by the time I got to the motorway I was kissing 100 and g-forces were pulling on my face and it felt wonderful. Not totally convinced Mel was enjoying it quite as much as I eased onto the fast lane, traffic light but there were cars enough. I’d slowed down a bit by then, in the interest of license retention, so was doing no more than the car in front (doh), about 80. When the car in front of him hit the central reservation. Just kind’a ‘bounced off’ it.

And the world went into ‘bullet time’. I was Neo (I decided in a hurry) as the car, a black BMW bounced off the metal wall and lurched over to the left, into the middle lane. Where a little black car was sitting. The driver of this little car was alert and swerved instantly to his left where, on the slow lane was… fortunately nothing. A gap in which he could veer out of the danger of the bouncing beemer.

Its amazing how fast your mind works at such times. I’d already calculated the probability of the BMW hitting the little black car, knocking it into a Skoda, which flipped over, as ya do, rolling into another car… I saw a motorway pile-up. Because it just becomes a pin-ball thing with cars, all travelling at 70 or so, being pushed, banged and shunted around. And the net result is: we all die.

However, the evasive action of the little black car, coupled with the BMW driver managing to get his vehicle straight once more, meant it never played out that way. Thank fucking Christ.

The Beemer was driven by an elderly man who, I presume may have fallen asleep at the wheel. If he’d been a younger person I’d have presumed phone usage or stereo changeage, but old = sleep. Normally. I needed a nap myself after that.

But I learned a valuable lesson from that ‘near miss’. Cars moving fast are potentially dangerous projectiles in certain circumstances. So the best thing you can do is drive faster than everyone else and GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY!!!

I don’t do football these days. Don’t need to. I have Lila. And she’s spectacular and reliable and doesn’t CONCEDE STUPID GOALS IN THE 92ND MINUTE!!!!

Happy bank holiday Monday

A xxxx

Did you see Gylfi Sidgurdsson’s goal last night. His first for Everton and probably the best goal he’s ever going to score for anyone. 50 yards, on the run, so much though that as he kicked the ball he fell over. Made no difference. He’d spotted the goalie a mile off his goal line and knew what was required. Beckham’s done it, Rooney’s done it, Nayim did it most magnificently, but its always spectacular. Because you need the wherewithal to appreciate the fleeting situation AND have the ability to capitalise on it.

Gylfi’s 45 million pound price tag is looking like a bargain. Ok, its not. In fact its nothing like a bargain, its quite ridiculous. Even though you could buy 4 Sigurdssons for 1 Neymar. And get a new deal for Ibrahimavic with the change. Should that float your proverbial (and very expensive) boat. Don’t get me wrong; I love Gylfi. He’s a class act and always has been. But his price tag was purely a reflection of Everton’s windfall in selling Lukaku for 75 mil to Man United. If that hadn’t happened, Gylfi either wouldn’t have gone or would have gone for the 18 mil he’s probably ‘worth’.

But his arrival means that Everton can now also unload Ross Barkley. And as a Spurs fan, as we are apparently the most likely destination for that man, I would rather have Sigurdsson back any day than the somewhat stroppy, sometime nasty, often unpredictable quasi-wayward midfielder. Especially as Barkley too is likely to carry a price tag north of 40 million. And for what? For 3 goals a year and ‘loads of potential’. Bit like David Bentley a few years back. Potential is sometimes realised but more often than not, in football, it just isn’t. It just ‘withers on the vine’. And again, its 40 million because its Spurs and they’re a ‘rich club’.

A champions league club is what we are. Unlike ‘some’. But what a group we seem to have been included into. Easy bloody peasy. Real Madrid, Dortmund, no problemo. Get the big boys out the way early then we only have the dross to contend with later in the season. A nice easy run to the final when we’re inevitably tiring a bit. So that’s the plan.

Holy fucking moly

Happy Friday

A xxxx

40% of middle-aged people do not manage a 10 minute walk once a month. Front page of the paper.

How the fuck is that even possible? You would have to actually avoid walking. A trip around a supermarket takes half an hour, that’s walking. Not TO the supermarket but just buying shopping, walking round the aisles, seeing if there’s anything free to eat. Sometimes they have ‘try this’ type stalls, sometimes you have to go to the grapes to ‘try’ them independently. There’s always something to snack on whilst you’re on that grueling walk.

The problem is that they invented remote controls for tvs. If they hadn’t then at least you’d have to get up and walk to the tv 3 times a day. That’s about 1.5 minutes. If you walk really really slowly. They should also make a rule that walking staring at your phone doesn’t actually count. You have to look at who you’re bumping to to make it worthwhile.

I walk miles. Every day. Maybe its a London thing. We are much fitter down here than in the arctic wastelands of ‘up norf’, like Leeds (where I’m going on Saturday, grrrrr), like Newcastle, like Radlett. Because to work in town means you have to get here. And that normally means public transport. Which rarely arrives at your office chair. You have to hoof it from the station. Because I’m a ‘change-a-phobe’, I walk further. I hate changing tube lines. So I take the Northern Line to the nearest stop and walk. No matter how far. Don’t care. Its never more than 20 minutes anyway, by which time I’m twice as well off as those fat bastards who don’t get off their lardy arses each month and the day’s barely started. That in itself justifies the morning Kit-kat and three Mars bars for tea.

Though I’m exempt anyway. Because they defined ‘middle-aged’ (those ageist fuckers) as ’40-60′ and I’ve exceeded their fairly meaningless and totally arbitrary upper fucking LIMIT!!! Yet still, I like walking. Even at my age. Hours and hours a week. But this isn’t about me. I’m holier than 5 southern ‘thou’s and up north I’m holier than the Pope himself. Who, incidentally, barely walks anywhere. Why would you when you’ve got one of those chairs people carry you around in?

They even tried to make it a socio-economic thing; ‘the rich more likely to walk than the Corbyns’, all that bollocks. Walking is free, as far as I can tell. Other than the coffee, kit-kats, brunch, on the way.

GET UP AND MOVE!!!!!

A xxxx

I’m not a boxing fan. Haven’t been since Mohamed Ali hung up his gloves. The sport just doesn’t do it for me. Don’t mind doing it, but watching is a bit dull, gets technical, I fall asleep. Which, if you’ve paid your tenner to PPV to watch it, is a bit of a waste. If you want to watch fighting go see West Ham play at their new stadium.

But on Saturday there’s a welterweight contest that is exciting. Really exciting. Because its different. Because its interesting. And because its probably the most cynical fight ever billed, in a sport so overflowing with money and cynicism that it takes quite a bit just to make the top 10.

Floyd Mayweather is 40 years old and ‘retired’, undefeated after 49 matches. We’ll call that the ‘grey corner’. He is, many say, the best welterweight ever. Brought out of his retirement by… well, by money. And there is quite literally no-one in the world who people would pay to see him fight. No worthy opponents. And if the fight is to be no good, people won’t pay to watch it (the pay-per-view in America costs about $100 due to… errr… being able to get away with it) like the 4.8 million who paid last time Floyd boxed. So they went outside of boxing to find his opponent. And found an Irish plumber called Conor McGregor. Who happens to be the world champion at Mixed Martial Arts. He is awesome and a massively popular crowd puller on… wherever you watch MMA. But, inevitably, there’s big money involved. Yet not quite as big as in boxing.

Mixed Martial Arts is like boxing without the rules. Well, one rule: no biting. Anything else is pretty much fair game. I don’t think they allow guns in the ring but may consider it. You can kick, throw, strangle, wrestle, grapple, punch and spit. Maybe not. Only blood. Its brutal and, oddly, fairly violent. And Conor is ‘da man’ in MMA. A killer.

So in some ways its logical; he knows how to fight. Just not as Floyd fights. Personally I think they should have 2 fights, one boxing, the other with MMA rules. But that wouldn’t be fair. Though I’m not sure why. And so Conor can’t kick, can’t grab, can’t break legs, just box. Which is why they’re calling it a mis-match. Which it is. Its like taking a formula one car and racing it in first gear only.

My tai chi class is mixed martial arts. But perhaps more gentle than Conor is used to. He couldn’t take the pace.

So I’m, for once, rather engaged by this 700million dollar spectacle. Even though only Lila could have me out of bed at 4 o’clock in the morning, so they’re not getting my tenner.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

This is the result of the latest research: ‘NEWS HEADLINES WILL KILL YOU!!!’ Its now been shown in tests (my kitchen, every morning) that the increase in anxiety, neuroses and panic attacks is enhanced by stupid fucking, attention-grabbing headlines that are essentially dishonest and therefore daft.

On the front page of the Times this morning, right at the top, even above the solar eclipse in America (I thought it was a metaphor for the Trump administration too but in fact its real), was the headline: “Gum disease sufferers 70% more likely to get dementia”!!!!! Holy shit!!! 70%. Then, (after flossing, brushing, rinsing, gargling, flossing some more and checking my gums fourteen times), I read on. Firstly the study was on Taiwanese people and they’re nothing like me. More gummy generally. Secondly, and possibly even more importantly, the sums they quoted didn’t add up to anything like 70%, more like less than 10% but they may not have published all the data properly. And then, the kicker, right at the end, that people with long-term gum disease are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, depression and other shit which all increase likelihood of dementia. Factor those out (the article actually states) and gum sufferers ‘were not at a higher risk overall’. What did we learn (well I did) in statistics 101: “correlation is not causation”. If I wanted ‘sensational’ lies I’d read the Sun or the Mail. I (naively) expect more from the Times. Wrong again.

So we’re temporarily safe from dementia, even if our teeth are falling out. But what about tics? Matt Dawson, world-cup-winning rugby superstar (who sold his soul to Question of Sport to fund his long retirement) was bitten by a tic in Chiswick Park. Contracted Lyme disease and ended up needing two heart operations over two years of misery. You might be better off with gum problems. I wonder if you get tics in Taiwan?

But its all ok if you eat properly. Too many tomatoes (yesterday’s ‘superfood’) are apparently bad for you if you’re an ‘elite’ sportsman, like me. They prevent absorption of calcium which us sporty types need to prevent cramp. Snack on beef jerky. That’s the advice. Good for you body but hell on your teeth. Which are attached to your gums! Don’t these people see the big picture. And have greek yoghurt before bed. I’d rather sleep with the tics.

None of which prevented 50 million pound superstar elite Manchester City player Kyle Walker getting sent off last night. I allowed myself just a little snigger. Just one. Sniggering reduces carbon uptake by the quads. Unless you eat mangoes and tortilla chips to compensate.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I really don’t like football, have no desire to discuss it, no interest in it whatsoever. There’s no need. There’s things like cricket; we just beat the (once the absolute mightiest) West Indies by an innings and 200 odd runs in the first test. Took 3 days (note to non-cricket fans: that’s a virtual blink of an eye in that game; like winning a tennis match in 22 minutes). And there’s rugby.

Rugby? But there’s no test matches being played and the season hasn’t started yet??? I hear you ponder… ish.

Ahhh but this isn’t about the game, per se, more about one player. One of our own. Toby Flood. Superstar fly-half who has played 60 times for England. Blond feller. Played for Toulouse for 3 years and now… he’s going to play in Germany. Germany? They don’t play rugby, surely? They cheat at football with that penalties thing, they drink beer, do strange things, but rugby?

They are not traditionally a ‘rugby playing nation’, that’s true. But no nation is until they start playing it. Then, by some kind of definition, they must be. And they beat Uruguay in the last world cup so they can’t be that bad. And they want to get better. They want to field a team in the next Olympics, which will probably be run by a pharmaceutical company to save time and effort.

And Toby is part-German. Had a German grandfather. An actor in Berlin called Anthony Lieven. But he fled Berlin in 1936 because, like all Jews, he was about to become persecuted like no people have ever been persecuted, before or since. He came to England, in fact. Where he was watched by the government for being a ‘possible communist’. Virtually every German Jew in 1936 was a ‘possible communist’ due to their desire to get as much distance from Naziism as they could.

And that’s why it makes me happy. Toby Flood is (in some way, some small part, some degree) a Jew. An international rugby-playing Jew. And as Jews, so well represented in business, in the arts, in scholarly pursuits, in general bookishness and cleverness, are tragically under-represented in major sports, its wonderful to find a new one. Even though (the grandfather’s son had a half-sister who is Toby’s mum) the link from outside half to barmitzvah boy may be tenuous, I don’t care. I’ll take one Jewish toe-nail. We can adopt him.

So to claim his German-ness, Toby has to play domestic German rugby for 3 years, which, at the end of his glowing career, he’s happy to do. For his ‘other’ country.

Next week: rabbis playing the Eton Wall Game.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

What makes you happy? A sunny morning? A beautiful woman? A sculpture? Your children? The feel of your lover? The sound of the birds? News that Donald Trump has been assassinated?

It can be anything. We’re all different. But with so much shit happening in the world, some balance is always required. For every piece of shit neo-nazi in Virginia there’s a lovely child. For every jihadi motherfucker there’s someone getting three A* a-levels. For every Chelsea fan there’s a good person somewhere. For every punctured car tyre there’s a backhand down-the-line winner on the run. Every cloud has a silver lining. Apparently. It just doesn’t always feel like that when your in mid-cloud. So I’ve included today a photo of a cloud and a silver lining to show you.

Because after tennis this morning we stopped at our cafe and I was chatting to some people when I looked up and saw… Lila. Just sitting there on her dad’s lap. And I felt pure, simple, unadulterated happiness. A Lila surprise. Simply wonderful. Quite an amazing effect.

Last night I had a similar moment of pure joy. Read on, its clean, I promise. After our dinner guests left I sat down, turned on the tv and, quite by chance, Match of the Day was on. Oh, that’s nice. Not quite the Lila surprise that would follow later, but nice. And the screen told me it was Stoke 1, Arsenal 0, with 72 minutes played. I had no idea of the score of the match played hours before. So I could enjoy the remaining hilights. When the Arsenal player was ruled offside when appearing to score. The un-goal. Though later it was shown that the player was about 7mm offside. So how that is ‘not’ offside in Arsene Wenger’s mind I don’t know, I’m no psychologist. But I know a bad loser when I see one. That made me happy. Really happy. Ok, in a more ‘schadenfreudey’ way than perhaps a Lila moment would be, but happiness is such a seemingly rare commodity (when sober) that you take what you can. Even if it might appear to make me rather shallow and pathetic. I can live with that.

Spurs play Chelsea this afternoon. Lila’s coming to watch it. Our talisman. Oh please let her be our talisman. I’m way more concerned that its our first league match at Wembley than that its Chelsea coming.

(Let’s pray for a-) Happy Sunday

A xxxx

It would have become ‘Charlotteville-gate’ but its too long to print on t-shirts and it would go round your coffee mug twice. So instead we’ll call it ‘The Fuck Up’. Which is nothing if not completely accurate. An object lesson in how not to handle a disaster. By Donald J. Trump.

The town of Charlotteville decided to remove a statue of Robert E Lee, the confederate leader in the Civil War. Even though he was, at heart, a bit of a liberal. So every shit-kicking, mother-fucking, cross-burning, swastika-wearing, gun-toting redneck racist in the entire south of America turned up in protest. They’d announced they would. And when they turned up they were ready for war. In Virginia, if not other places in the US, you’re allowed to have a private army of gun-toting paramilitaries, just walking the streets, fully armed and loaded.

On the other side were the anti-nazis, the anti-fascists, the black rights groups, the Vegan Alliance, all kinds of ‘alt-left’ and tree-huggy types inherently opposed to fascism and racism. They too were kind-of armed, with clubs, pepper sprays, broccoli, that kind of thing.

The racists arrived. Not singing about slavery (bit late for that), nor about Robert E Lee, not even about jihadis. They were chanting this: “Jews will not replace us”. What? Who? How? Why???

Maybe the KKK had been getting a large number of rabbis making applications to join? Perhaps there’d been an invasion of Yeshiva-dudes in their Country & Western bars, the ones where the musicians play behind chicken wire? The odd thing being, there simply aren’t enough Jews in America to replace the rednecks anyway. And most of them would struggle to drive a beefed-up Chevy pick-up. But that’s what they sang.

Fights were inevitable, skirmishes, police involved trying to keep the rivals apart. Nothing unexpected. Until one dude drove his car into the anti-racist crowd and killed a woman.

Ok, so on day 1 Trump accused ‘both sides of causing trouble and violence’ and didn’t pick out the murderer for special praise. Nor even call it an act of neo-nazi terrorism. That had to wait til day 3 for that to emerge from the lips of the president but they were the words of others which he read off an autocue. At least he’d made a very belated, half-assed effort.

Then yesterday he went back to the ‘violence on all sides’ being the problem, giving, in the angry words of Paul Ryan, the Republican Chairman, ‘a moral equivalence’ between the neo-nazis and their opponents. For which David Duke, ex-head of the KKK, thanked the president. And when a man with his record thanks you, you know you’re way south of ‘doing the right thing’.

The saying goes: when you’re in a hole, stop digging. Donald J Trump has called in an industrial sized earth-mover.

I hate that man.

God Bless America

A xxxx