Andy's Glasses

Danny Finklestein at the Times argues today that we ignore genetic influence on behaviour at our peril. He makes this point after the recent sacking at Google of the guy who said there are less women working there because they’re more ‘neurotic’. Fair comment. Or not. Google thought not. Or thought they had to say ‘not’ rather than look bad, easier to sack him, easy to employ another man, Google employ men all the time. Disproportionately, so it would seem.

But is this a problem with ‘genes’? People react strongly to implications that ‘you are your genes’ and you’re stuck with it. Because that leads to a whole raft of horrible extrapolations. Most of which end with mass sterilisations or elevations of the chosen ‘alpha’ (say… Aryans?) to an exalted position that they neither justify nor deserve. And consequently creates an ‘underclass’. One which, because you can’t change your genes, not yet anyway, you will never leave.

This is how the caste system works in India. Its how the nazis thought. Its why Singapore had a program for years in which wealthy people were encouraged to have lots of kids, using tax breaks, whereas poor (presumed ‘inferior’) were penalised for having more than one kid. And none of it ‘nice’ or ‘friendly’. You are your genes, it says, and you’re never going to be any better/higher/anything. So you might as well give up now.

Its all so predestined and nasty. And Danny’s point was that we’re all blessed/cursed with our genes and they’re not bad and they do contribute and all is good and it shouldn’t frighten the more sensitive or PC among us to just accept that. A good point. He wasn’t proposing extermination of the gypsies.

But its all about nature/nurture. Which is why everyone’s obsessed with the quite ridiculous concept of ‘gender neutrality’ for little kids. Boys CAN wear pink. Girls CAN play with soldiers (long as they’re not real).

The problem is that you cannot ever really separate nature from nurture, genes from environment. Which is why identical twins are so interesting. Which is why I married one. As a longitudinal psychological study. But twins are always different. Virtually always raised in the same environment, with 100% identical genes, yet behave differently. In Mel’s case, rather badly. So that’s conclusive (??)

The biggest affect on behaviour is environment/upbringing. I look at Lila, just 4 months old and she is ‘bright’ because she experiences levels of stimulation that are verging on cruelty. Its non-stop. And I look at what she ‘has’ in terms of her things. Books, educational games, masses and masses. But it works. She can now chew books that are French, or Latin, as easily as English ones. That speaks volumes. Unlike Lila, who doesn’t yet, but makes a lot of noise anyway. Kids raised in a non-caring environment will not do so well. Other than the chewing.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Ok, its back. Official. Started. The football. We’re there. After the inevitable summer 8 weeks of hell, the premiership started again last weekend. And it started on a Friday night. That’s a first. There used to be a big fanfare, now there’s a big payoff. The quid pro quo being; we need to put more matches on tv. So Arsenal played Leicester and even beat them. Eventually. 4-3. What’s known as ‘a great score for the neutrals’. But the Arse don’t win their opening matches very often so is this 3 points in the bag, or 3 goals stupidly conceded? Doesn’t really matter either way because if you can defend that badly and still win then that’s fine.

Saturday brought more mayhem. Chelsea, the champions, played a ‘nice, safe’ home game against Burnley who last season managed one away win out of 19 and consider themselves very lucky indeed to still be in the top flight for another year. And they were 3-0 up at the Bridge. Or 0-3 really, properly. Chelsea were down to 10 men after just 14 minutes though. Gary Cayhill sent off for a basically clumsy, but illegal, studs-up, off the ground tackle. Manager Conte went immediately into Wenger-mode and blamed all his teams woes on the fact that they keep getting players sent off. Thus its a conspiracy by the union of football referees. So the manager has put in requests to Abramovich to immediately buy 4 more players. All expensive. All experienced. All old enough to never be able to recoup their money if sold. Spending your way out of trouble. Someone should tell Antonio that it doesn’t matter how many players you own, you’re only allowed 11 on the pitch, and if one of them (or, as on Saturday, 2 of them) are stupid enough to get a red card, the three coach-loads of reserves can’t help you at all.

Brighton and Hove Albion were given the traditional ‘welcome’ to big-time football. They played the second most stupidly over-funded team in the world and got beat. No surprise there. But big surprise at Vicarage Lane as Watford held Liverpool to a 3-all draw. Great one for the fans, abomination for Jurgen Klopp.

Spurs went to Newcastle and were beneficiaries of the single most stupid act of madness ever seen. When Jonjo Shelvey, ‘winding up’ Dele Alli, as was obviously their game plan, knowing of Dele’s famously ‘short fuse’, decided to tread on his ankle. 3 yards in front of the ref. Spurs played much better against 10 than they had been against 11 and had a pretty easy win.

Man United thrashed West Ham. Who were awful. Toothless. Second best everywhere on the pitch. Lukaku scored twice, his real skill being to do such a thing whilst at no time looking anything like a ‘quality footballer’, let alone a 75 million pound striker. But you just can’t argue with goals. Even Pogba has started to look a bit more useful than he was last year. Not quite up to the 89 million they paid for him, but he’s up to about 7 now. A vast improvement from last season.

Early days. All to play for. Everything’s still… everything. And we play Chelsea on Sunday.

Welcome back

A xxxx

Politicians don’t like lying on the record. They love lying, do it all the time, but in the public eye they rein it in for obvious reasons. And at that point, they obfuscate. They blur things, equivocate, ‘muddy the waters’. Ask Jeremy Corbyn any question about anti-semitism and he answers ‘I’m opposed to all kinds of racism’. He will NEVER make specific mention of the question asked. Not THAT question.

So I’m not sure if it was reassuring or terrifying that yesterday, after the horrific white supremacist murder in Virginia, Donald Trump stated that he was against all forms of violence (that he was not directly causing, obviously) but refused to condemn the action as ‘white supremacist terrorism’ specifically. For which he has been attacked by absolutely everybody. Not even a tweet from the most twitter-obsessed blond on the planet.

Because Trump is (vaguely) aware that black people now are allowed to vote, in some states of America, the White Supremacists are His People. Trump was endorsed by David Duke, the grand poo-bah, ex-Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Where dyslexics dress in robes and burn crosses. Trump is heavily entwined with the ‘alt-right’ who are just the KKK with Harvard degrees. So at least they know how to spell ‘racism’.

When Trump proclaimed, again, and again, and again, that he was going to ‘take America back’, he never actually stated from whom or to whom. I personally think he meant to ‘take America back to pre-civil war values’ but you simply don’t know. So everyone can use that rather vague and obfuscate-y phrase for their own cause.

Trump further ‘shamed’ both Obama and Hillary C for not ‘naming’ the problem of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. “IF YA DON’T NAME IT, YA CAN’T CURE IT!!!!” (Shout and repeat). Yet now the boot’s on the other wing…

Who gives a shit about Donald Trump, other than the entire world? He’s not that important anywhere else. Whereas Dele Alli is a star on Jupiter. Christian Erikssen is supersonic in space. And Jonjo Shelvey is a total nob-end anywhere in the entire universe.

Happy Monday. And it is, it really is.

A xxxx

I’m just into declining a few verbs this morning, brushing up the old Latin in case I decide to become a Catholic. But those 2 words are in fact very relevant to last night’s little escapade. In their own little ways.

We had free cinema tickets. Lila’s mum has one of those fit-bit things that turns you into a compulsive step-counter obsessive, but that was given to her by her health insurance. And if you reach some target or other each week, they send her 2 free tickets to the movies. Only at the Vue chain but that’s fine. Free’s free, right? We nearly booked at the wrong Vue, so easy to do online. And Mel had commented that we were due to save 20 on the ticket price. When we’d corrected it so we didn’t have to fly to Edinburgh to see the movie, but selected the correct cinema on the Finchley Road, our saving immediately went up to 30 quid. I’m still trying to work out if I’m lucky to be in London to save more or cursed with a 30% hike on everything we do.

Its August, in case you missed that. Silly season. No news (other than nuclear war), no traffic and certainly no good movies. They don’t release anything worthwhile in August because everyone’s on holiday and those all-important ‘release ratings’ will be shit. So its either kids films, the Emoji Fucking Movie (shoot me now) or Atomic Blond. ‘Cold War Blockbuster!!!!’ starring Charlize Theron. Who is gorgeous, no doubt about that. And she can fight like 17 ninja warriors on steroids.

And its violent. Gratuitously violent. Which you can forgive because the film is very stylised. So you’re allowed to up the blood’n’gore accordingly. That’s the rule. Tarantino’s Law. Basic physics.

Charlize smoulders. And fights. But other than a lesbian love interest bit, that’s all she does. James McAvoy is also in it. And for some reason I just don’t see him as ‘action hero’ or even ‘action baddie’ type material. He’s a little Scottish wimp and should realise the professional limitations this imposes.

The odd thing (very odd) is that Mel loved the film. And she always complains about films. Too long, too violent, too… filmed, too everything. But not this. Which I slept part through and missed nothing. Because its so predictably confusing (Cold War Rule, number 4) and twisty, it was all rather hollow.

But fortunately the popcorn only cost £6.30 (medium, couldn’t afford large though they do offer finance plans), so a cheap night out.

Oh well, at least the football’s back.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

You have a choice. You can buy a football team’s worth of international megastars. It’ll cost you 300 million quid, the cost of Man City’s starting line-up on Saturday when they play Brighton (31 million; the whole team, less than City’s goalkeeper). Or you can buy cheaper players. Maybe those with prospects, the young ones, the old ones, those with potential not yet realised, and price tags that reflect that. Obviously, if you buy a 50 million pound footballer, you can’t pay him minimum wage. If he’s worth that much he’s going to need to earn north of 120-150k a week, minimum. Then 3 weeks later, his agent is bemoaning the fact that another player on the team earns 200k a week and ‘our boy’ feels devalued, humiliated, ashamed to park his Bentleys in the car park.

But the problem with the ‘economy model’ is that you must always be careful what you wish for. In Spurs case Pochettino built a team of, in the most part, cheap players. Harry Kane was from the youth academy. Dele Alli, 5 million quid from Milton Keynes. Christian Erikssen, bargain, Kyle Walker, bargain, Vertongen, Danny Rose, Eric Dier, all cheap and young. And did exactly what Spurs hoped, dreamed, lusted for them to do. They became Stars. So here’s the kicker, though it should be no surprise to anyone really: they now want to be paid as the 60 million pound Superstars that they have undoubtedly become. They’re all earning (a paltry!) 50 thousand pounds every fucking week (in Danny Rose’s case, 40 of those weeks in hospital care and the physio’s office), and are suffering from Neymaria. Which is like Malaria but much more expensive.

Danny Rose is probably the best left back in Europe, if not the world. Every Spurs fan loves him because of the wonder goal he scored against Arsenal and everyone suddenly took notice. And Danny, from his sick-bed, has now spoken out against Spurs’ pay policy and effective 100k a week ‘cap’. Unsurprisingly he now has a lot of support from the rest of the Spurs squad. And the absolutely revolting thing is; Danny is right. And Spurs are in a bit of trouble.

This has nothing to with ‘real worth’, or ‘value’ or ‘how far would all that money go in the NHS?’ This is not Corbyn-land. This is football. And words like ‘value’ and ‘worth’ have no value or worth of their own. Football exists outside of the real world and massive bubble, made of 50-pound notes, funded by tv rights and the vanity of narcissistic international squillionaires, (Russians and Arabs) or businessmen looking to cash in (Yanks). The old ‘model’ of a football club being a ‘family’ is nothing more than a quirk of history. Paris St Germain is a ‘family’ like ISIS is a family. Some would say a rather appropriate analogy.

Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is a clever and canny man, no doubt about it. But I think his pay structure could be his downfall. All my boys will leave. They have the distant cousins of their agents to think about. Would you work for £50 a day when someone else (albeit a slimy, sleazy Qatari) is willing to pay you £100?

I worry about Lila’s first Spurs match and what it will look like.

Happy Friday, DANNY!!!!

A xxxx

The world is on a precipice. Not since October 1962 have we been on ‘the verge’ in such a horribly, dangerously, vergish kind of way. Back then it was Khrushchev and Kennedy playing ‘handbags’ with nukes. Two essentially intelligent, decent, moral (except for Kennedy), guys caught up in Cold War mania and for one dreaded moment, both standing with fingers over the buttons.

Now its different. The world has evolved. Nukes are waaaaaaaay more powerful than anything that could have even been imagined in the 1960s. And back then they could still remember Hiroshima pretty clearly. The only time a nuke has ever been deployed in anger. Not nice.

And here we are again. But this time instead of cool, level-headed Kennedy we have Donald J Fucking Trump in the blue corner. The school  bully given a world-sized playground to strut upon. The bragger. The pusher and shover. The dick-measurer. And a president so adrift and out of his depth in the political world that he actually needs this, is probably yearning for an excuse to push the ‘go’ button just to try and up his personal ratings a bit.

In the red corner we have Kim Jong-Un, the world’s most silly person. A cartoon character of a spoiled little fat brat given absolutely everything he ever wants. Certainly all the pies he can eat. (Ever tried eating a pie with chop-sticks? No wonder he’s angry). And as well as being a narcissist, like Trump, and a psycho, like Trump, Kim is also totally paranoid. His nuke obsession is because he feels (as do many, to be fair) that the ultimate protection from attack is a nuclear deterrent. But Trump fears Kim’s burning desire for a ‘defence’ system that is also capable of defending itself 7,000 miles away in Chicago.

So here we are; poised with the 2 most unstable men in the world pushing each other, sending silly messages of bravado, derring-do and stupidity at each other, neither capable of appearing to yield in the most minute of ways.

They fit stop-start on cars these days. To save on exhaust fumes while you’re sitting at the traffic lights. Reduces world pollution. And here we are threatening to use weapons that will send hundreds of billions of lethal, atomic particles of radiation into the atmosphere.

This is just sooooo fucked up.

Happy Thursday, I hope

A xxxx

Who are your heroes? Your real heroes? People you admire beyond all others. Or have admired, cos they can certainly be historical. Maggie Thatcher? Churchill? Mozart? Da Vinci? Paul Weller? Jeremy Corbyn? Isaac Newton? Donald Trump? Carl Marx? Groucho Marx?

My heroes are, in no particular order: Einstein, Glenn Hoddle, Taylor Swift, Charles Darwin, Paul Simon. There’s probably more. But I’m drawn to people who do things extraordinarily and way ahead of their time. And if someone attacks one of your heroes, it hurts you. You become very protective of them and try to defend them, or their memory.

So when I read the other day that AN Wilson, pompous history writer and arguably the most Godly atheist in the world, has written a scathing biography of Darwin, my hackles indeed did rise. I felt it. In my hackle-place. Not saying. And then I read his little ‘precis’ in the Standard lovingly entitled “its time Charles Darwin was exposed for the fraud he was” and my blood did boileth over.

Wilson accused Darwin of, basically, nicking an idea that had been out there for decades and using it as his own. That’d be evolution then. And it had been, in one form or another. A Frenchman called Lamark had an almost evolutionary theory and another Englishman called Wallace was about to ‘go live’ when Darwin finally agreed to publish ‘The Origin of Species’ to pip him at the post. Why did he have to be persuaded? Because Darwin, trained originally as a priest, knew that his ‘theory’ would blow the fucking lid off the whole ‘God thing’. At least it was bound (and did) cause massive problems for and in the church. Who weren’t placed to accommodate a theory of billenia with ‘God done it in 7 days’, and one of them was to chillax.

Darwin’s accomplishment was in stating a theory that is an unquestionable truism. That the more offspring you produce, the more your genes get to future generations, which then get to more future generations of their progeny. And if, whilst basically shagging everything that moves to try and impregnate (I’m thinkin’ ANIMALS here, but feel free to include your own family, they’re animals too), you have a gene that makes you stronger, faster, more beautiful, better plumage, sharper teeth, better vision, any possible advantage, then that advantage MAY get passed down. And because you are ‘better’ in that way, it may put you up the (literal) pecking order and you’ll get to reproduce more. Its just pure logic. And that’s what ‘survival of the fittest’, the most misunderstood phrase ever written, means. Reproductive ‘fitness’. Not gym workout fitness, nor, ‘cor, what a fit babe’ fitness. What made Darwin the genius was that he didn’t have the advantage of the word ‘gene’. It didn’t exist back then. He knew there was ‘a mechanism’ but had no framework of what that might do. So he guessed how it would work.

Wilson also blames Darwin for the Nazi’s ‘Eugenics’ theory whereby population is controlled qualitatively by selective breeding. In other words: sterilise all ‘undesirables’ and shag all the blondes quick. Which is a bit like blaming Newton for the dropping of bombs. Because if he hadn’t rationalised gravity it probably wouldn’t be there, right?

I don’t know why, specifically, Wilson decided to pick on Darwin. But now he’s upset me and that’ll… that’ll… I have no idea, but I’m not happy with him.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

You kind’a have to look at the ‘big picture’ sometimes. Because things are connected. Its all good saying ‘3 units of alcohol a day will reduce risk of diabetes’ but it obviously increases the risk of liver problems, alcoholism, vomiting on the tube (if you choose ‘before breakfast’ as your chosen medication time).

Similarly with motorised vehicular transportation. Or ‘cars’ as the simple-minded call them. You can ban petrol and diesel because they’re bad things that pollute the atmosphere and create greenhouse gases and things, because you can replace them with ‘electric cars’. Which is why one leading manufacturer has come up with a slogan for his e-vehicles: “Less smog, more smug.”

Ok, that may have actually been me, but its not about that. Its about how you replace the 99% of current oil-burning vehicles with electric ones. Questions like ‘how do you charge them’? ranks quite high on the list. ‘Will the electric grid be able to cope with 500,000 Teslas all plugged in at the same time?’ Will charging be fast enough for motorway travel? What is the global impact on the massive change?

Details, details. The devil is in the details. Or is it: God is in the details? Whoever, but more details have come to light. Yes, my ‘source’ is the Mail on Sunday, so that immediately relegates it to ‘dubious’ or even ‘downright lies’ but it came originally from a tv documentary on child labour. In The Democratic Republic of Congo. Where kids as young as 5 sort through rocks to find cobalt. Other than lithium, the most important component in batteries for electric vehicles. And 60% of the world’s cobalt comes from the DRC and the industry is totally unregulated. But its not like you can just go to Sainsburys instead and buy the ‘Fairtrade Cobalt’, its not like that. So the kids work all day for about 8p. And the entire motor industry with its current obsession for ‘replacing conventional motors’ is driving this tragic industry.

So if you’re driving a ‘plug-in’ electric car, you’re a heartless fucking exploitative bastard with the blood of little African children under your accelerator peddle. If you’ve got a hybrid you’re just a tosser. Which is less bad really, but probably more smug. Its that atheist/agnostic metaphor again. Which is why I BELIEVE in petrol forever.

Happy Monday

A

Its all starting today. The football season is BACK!! Sky tv has now an official football-exclusive designated channel which won’t become the darts channel at 8 o’clock, or the world mountain biking championship channel at 02.15. No. Even insomniacs can enjoy football for 24 hours a day. Every day. Lovely. And it all starts today at Wembley (Spurs have lent it to them for the day) for the No-one Gives A Shit Cup. Used to be called the Charity Shield, the Community Shield, the Asda Cup, the BHS Shield (they stole the silver and replaced it with zinc, silver-plated), but no-one cares anyway. Its the team wot won the league (that’ll be Chelsea then) playing the team wot won the FA Cup (Arsenal). Meaningless. Worthless.

Yet tomorrow the press will be ‘convicting’ one of the managers. The losing one, to be precise. Even with the proper season a week in the future, the entire season for either Conte or Wenger will be assumed from today’s result. If Chelsea win Wenger will be right back in the firing line. Though having lived in it for the past 5 years, he won’t even hear the boos or notice the inevitable ‘Wenger Out!!’ signs that will be in the back pockets of half the Arsenal fans before they set off for the match. I Arsenal win then they’ll be attacking Conte for spending 130 million on ‘worthless’ players.

All of which is destabilising for the players. Fortunately though they don’t read newspapers. The foreign ones don’t read English and the British ones can’t. Though they all have ‘people’ to read for them. Who generally edit out any bits that may cause upset or temper tantrums and cost them their jobs.

Man City have spent 218 million on players last month, Man United 145 mil. Even Everton have spent 95 mil, but having cashed in 75 for Lukaku, their ‘net’ is modest. All the lower teams have spent 10 to 40 mil on several moderate players. How is this fair?

Never mind the quite ridiculous Neymar ‘affair’, which is nothing to do with football, everything to do with a tiny but obscenely rich and terribly evil nation, (how ‘bad’ do you have to be for Saudi Arabia to find you immoral?), showing the world… something. That its rich? That its stupid? That it just wants to make a statement to go with their other statement when they ‘bought’ a World Cup. That enough money will find the necessary corruption anywhere to enable it to do what it likes.

Qatar should not be allowed to ‘buy’ Neymar. Salaries of 300,000 pounds a week should never happen. And its not about ‘the money men’, its about those who rule the ‘beautiful game’ (phah!) allowing it to happen. The manage to ‘cap’ things in the NFL, the richest game in the richest, most capitalist country in the world. Why can’t Europe manage the same thing here? Its positively obscene that no efforts are made to ‘level the playing fields’. Its sickening.

Happy Charity Shield Sunday

A xxxx

“Russian inquiry robs voters of democracy”, said Donald Trump. What he didn’t say was which voters. I reckon he was actually talking about Russian voters as really they’d be the only ones to lose out if the US presidential election was to be ‘reversed’ or re-run or whatever would be deemed necessary if it should come to light that Ruski interference affected the US election. The American voters, if they actually did vote for that man in a true majority, don’t really deserve the right of democracy.

Similarly, a new film made by, among others, Joaquin Phoenix, tells you that eating one egg is worse for you than smoking 5 cigarettes. I’ve already cleared out the egg drawer in the fridge and filled it with Marlboros. The film is called What the Health and is all about ‘health’ and ‘diet’. But is actually the work of evangelical, radicalised vegans. No longer content with showing endless clips of cattle being slaughtered or chickens doused in chlorine (I really don’t care, I JUST DON’T CARE!!!!) with less than what you’d normally term ‘success’, they’ve now moved onto how eating meat and dairy will ‘kill you!!!!’ And I don’t care about that either. I’d rather die 5 years earlier having enjoyed every meal I’ve ever eaten than die the death of a million cous-cous at 108.

More importantly, its not like meat eaters only enjoy consuming flesh because of the pain and suffering of animals, that’s just a bonus (JOKING!!! Jesus, you’re sensitive…), but we don’t go round to vegans or even vegetarians (like being a foodie-agnostic rather than full-blown almond-milk-atheist) and try to persuade them to chow down on rare steaks. Nor do we criticise their greasy hair, poor skin and chronic halitosis on the grounds that if you don’t eat proper proteins and the right kind of fats, your fucking teeth will fall out and your fingernails crumble.

As it happens, I rarely eat steak (no pun intended), but do just luuuuurve a good hamburger, I eat loads of fish and lots of eggs. And chopped liver. Because I’m a human. Homo Sapiens. Not Homo Veganus. They’re extinct through muscle wastage and the inability to find mates. We’re omnivores. Not pulse-eating soy-milk-aholics.

Here’s a novel idea. Eat what you fucking want. As will I. We’re all aware of the pluses and minuses of every food known to mankind, we make our choices. To suit ourselves. Not for the benefit of Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow or Donald Trump. Sound like a deal?

Happy Saturday

A xxxx