Andy's Glasses

Bu-ut ohhhh, those su-ummer niiiiii-iiiiights…

Ok, I loved Grease, no shame in that. Everybody loves it still. But I really loved it because I was deeply, madly, passionately in love with Olivia Newton-John. Just me and 37 million other teenage boys, and probably as many girls were in love with that gorgeous Aussie bird wot couldn’t sing for shit but who gives a damn when you look like that? I had a big poster of her on my (purple) bedroom wall. The one from her single, Country Roads. Terrible awful quasi-C&W songette limply moaned out by Lovely Liv. My brother (massive Black Sabbath fan) sneered at me. I didn’t care. Love has no barriers. Not even to that song.

But the summer, which is where we began, is such a lovely time. Or so I thought til I downloaded the Times today and, as usual, hit the sports’ pages first and foremost and…

Fucking golf. Who voted golf a ‘sport’. Winston Churchill famously described the game as ‘the perfect way to ruin a good walk’ and I just can’t see it as a ‘sport’. A pastime (like landscape painting), fine. A very skilful game (so is bridge), no problem. But sport? Where’s the sweat? Where’s the exertion? Golf is great, just put in on the ‘pages for people who like wearing smart-casual wear and walking round in silly shoes’, and leave the sports bit for others.

So I flicked through the 18 pages of golf and found… women’s cricket. I’m no sexist, as you know, but women’s cricket? On a Sunday morning? When I’m looking for tales of footballing artistry, stories about wayward All Blacks eating lesser mortals in a new, more sacrificial type Hakka. Then there was cycling news. Hmmmm. And finally, almost an afterthought, a little bit of football. Because its only friendlies being played and we all hate friendlies. So I wouldn’t normally even waste the memory space on my ipad talking about Chelsea playing Arsenal except for 2 reasons. Firstly that it was played in Beijing. Stamford Bridge busy that day, was it? The Emirates not good enough? Oh, of course, by playing it in China each club probably gets to pocket enough cash to fund 3 NHS hospitals for 6 years (that being the new and only currency ever spoken about in the UK).And secondly because Arsenal lost.

Which, in the grand scheme of even exclusively footballing things, is meaningless. But just nice to write anyway. And apparently lost bad. Or good, if you’re that way inclined. Chelsea looked great, no change there then, and Arsenal defended like the National Ballet and were weak in attack. Even with new 65 zillion pound signing.

Which must make you a little bit happy. Even if life here in the heat, the luxury, the peace and ease of holiday-mode, doesn’t make one happy enough already.

My cup runneth over. Never mind, they have people here to wipe it up.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Ok, so here’s what you need to know about Malta. So this won’t be a long message. Because Malta is very small. Tiny. Yet its a proper country and a republic too. AND, its actually part of the EU. In fact it is officially the chair-nation, or whatever they call that dubious honour, of the EU this year.

Malta is an island in the med. The southern Med. Just below Italy, half an inch from Tunisia on most maps, not far from Libya. Nice. Hot. In terms of its importance in the world and its history, I was quite prepared to make up a total fiction. As I’ve been known to do. Along the lines of: “invaded by the Greeks in 572 BC, raped by the Romans in 32AD, pillaged by the Vikings in 743, taken over by rampaging Moors in 1219 when it became a Muslim state, governed by Napoleon, that sodding French dwarf, in 1774, who stopped here for a beer on his way to Mexico, ruled under a British mandate from 1823, then… then became a republic, survived a UFO landing in 2276 when aliens ate their babies and that’s that”.

But I checked on Wiki and found that my fiction is totally on the money. Which is no feat of historic genius on my part, but its the same history of virtually any country in these parts, especially the little ones. In fact my history and what we shall loosely call ‘the official one’ only vary because they missed the bit when the Vikings arrived and I didn’t. Big bastards they were, fucking great horns on their helmets. Blondes. Don’t know how they could have missed ’em. The UFO thing we’ll have to wait and see.

But now we’re in Gozo. And this is what it looks like. Its that bit of brown lying on the Sea just behind Mel. Impressive. That was on the boat on the way over. You don’t need to invade to come to Gozo, they have ferries every hour to take you. But heh, nothing stopping you if you really want to, everyone else seems to have done it. Gozo’s even smaller than Malta. Though is obviously part of it.

The interesting thing about Malta is that its language, errrr, Maltese, is basically an Arab language, from the Moorish days. But, and this is unique, its ‘written in English, innit’. So although it sounds distinctly Arabic, it uses Roman letters. Or English letters really, cos the Romans couldn’t speak English. Yet the Maltese can and do. English is their official language. Praise be. Which does make life easy. Which is what we’re here for.

You’ll notice that Lila is not in Gozo. Not allowed. Tried to steal her but her mum found out and scuppered the plot.

Hot here though. Nice.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

So there we were, me and Lila, discussing the finer points of worker’s entitlement, the democratic rights of the proletariat, the dissolution of the imperial ruling classes as proposed by Castro, Che Guevara, Karl Marx and Diane Abbott, when she fell asleep. In the water. The pool gently splashing her little body and then in a puff, she’s asleep. Lila, that is, not Diane Abbott, who I’d happily have let drown.

But its all down to the heat. Its hot here in Malta. Hot as Hades. Hot as an oven. Which is why I thought me and Che would spend a little quality time on Lila’s political enlightenment before her parents turn her into a mini-Maggie for the post-millenial’s post-millenials. Generation… Y? Generation… Why? No idea what we’ll call them but we’ll think of something.

And I must confess, I’m all newsed-out. I read the Times this morning, as I do every morning, and it said: “bleuhh, bleuhh, bleuhh, bleuhh”. Don’t know why, just nothing exiting, nothing new, nothing other than yet more BBC bollocks. So let’s put that to bed once and for all.

Superstars paid too much? Money wasted on ‘celebrity’ show-biz-bollocks shows quite at odds with the somewhat hi-brow international image that’s taken 70 years to attain? Dumbing down?

The BBC has to compete, I feel. It doesn’t need to, it gets its money whether 8 million viewers enjoy Celebrity Come Dancing or whether just 17 watch ‘The plight of the slug’s mother’. Yet to justify its very existence it has to prove, in viewing figures, that ‘Britain’ is watching it. And to do that it needs to put shows on right across the intellectual board. And to do that you have to pay market driven salaries. No other way.

So you either want the BBC to stay, pretty much as it is, or you don’t, in which case it must just go. And we’ll all save 175 quid a year. Personally, I get more satisfaction than the license money costs me, every time I watch Wimbledon and there’s no adverts.

So that’s it. Done with the Beeb, done with the news, tomorrow Mel & I leave Malta ‘proper’ (and alas Lila too) for a few days on the nearby island of Gozo. Now that’s exiting.

Happy Friday/Shabbat shalom

A xxxx

So yesterday we had the big ‘reveal’ as the BBC announced the outraaaaaaageous salaries paid to its ‘stars’. In particular, its men stars. Who get paid more than the women and more of them get on the list (150k+ for entry), in fact 2/3rds of those were men. And I’d like to say, here and now, that its all bollocks. The whole thing. From the criticism of the actual wages to the division between the genders; all bollocks.

No mention is made of how much ‘work’ any of these ‘stars’ actually do. So Chris Evans, who indeed is the knob’s knob, gets his 2 million quid a year but puts in quite a few hours for the Beeb. Whereas the really annoying Claudia Winkleman only gets 400 grand but puts in about 2 hours a week. Its just a matter of how much it would cost to replace these people, and how much they get offered elsewhere. Us poor grafters and suckers who work in the real world obviously feel cheated by these folk getting so highly paid. But only because we’re the ones paying them. No-one moans about Jonathan Ross, now he’s on ITV, for his millions. Even though he’s a tosser. Because he’s not on ‘our’ BBC.

Get over it.

I’ve got bigger things to worry about. Well, actually, smaller things. Lila-shaped things. She had her first ever swim today. And when I say ‘swim’, I don’t mean it as, f’rinstance, Mel swims. Up and down at a rate of knots, like a fish on steroids. I mean ‘swimming’ like we do, you and me, when we’re on holiday. Frolicking around in a pool for a bit. That kind’a swimming. Lila was dressed appropriately. Obviously. UV absorbing burkini, sun-hat and shades. And loads of factor maximum-for-babies. And even though she doesn’t look too sure in the pic, trust me, she loved it. As did ‘nanny-granny-bubba’ Melissa.

No-one ever asks you what you’d like to be named. Until you become a grandparent. Then you can re-invent yourself. “Are you going to be ‘grandad'” they ask, “or grandpa, zeida? What?” To which I’d reply, “I’m going to be ‘Chuck!’ or ‘Clark Kent’ or ‘Spiderman!!'” Mel wanted to be anything other than her hated, nanny, granny or bubba. Hence what I now call her. And will continue until it sticks and Lila learns it properly.

Malta is a wonderful place. Hot. Nice. Lovely.

Happy whatever day this finally gets out-day

A xxxx

The BBC is today publishing its accounts. And for the first time it has to include the actual salaries of its ‘stars’. Anyone earning more than 150 grand a year has to be named. And shamed!! Though earning lots of money is not really much of a shame, in the normal sense.

But the BBC is nothing ‘in the normal sense’. Because it is a noted broadcaster and producer, and yet is state-funded. Or, ‘paid for by us’. Therefore we’re entitled to know the nitty-gritty of who gets wot. And then we can say, with righteous indignation: ‘WE’re paying him HOW MUCH???? He’s not worth it. I want my license money back’.

I think Dr Who is a waste of money and time (travel) and space (time-continuum), but I get no say. Wouldn’t want a say. I actually trust the BBC to do what they think is best with MY cash. And if that’s to pay Gary Linneker 500 grand a year (guessing) to present Match of the Day, then so be it.

And because they are an entertainment company, they have to pay stars what they’re worth. Even though many are totally worthless. Because if they didn’t pay Gary his due, he’d be stolen by Sky, or ITV, or BT. So its not a matter of some kind of intrinsic worth or value, but just conditional on how much someone else would pay him to do the same job. Same as everything else, the market for ‘talent’ sets its own limits. We can either spend our BBC time staring at a bunch of moronic goons mumbling, or pay the price.

Off to Malta this afternoon. With MY baby. A week of slathering factor 70 over Lila and pulling her round a swimming pool. Probably screaming but she’s gotta learn. I would call it a ‘holiday’ but I’m not sure at this point.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

The biggest killer in the world today is dementia. You’d think it was Assad, ISIS, moped-riding stabbers, but you’d be wrong. Dementia. And the best way to avoid it is to eat. Ok, I’m listening now. And salivating. Going to McDonalds to ‘eat my way out of mental disease’. Make that 3 Big Macs and 4 cheeseburgers. Then they go spoil it by telling you its all about WHAT you eat. That previously a ‘mediterranean diet’ was deemed the most righteous, whereas now we’re going ‘Nordic’. Because in a study in Stockholm, those adhering to the Scandi way were 80% less likely to show cognitive decline. 80%!!! That’s a very big number. Highly significant. The poor, dribbling, incoherent 20% ate other stuff, presumably. Suckling pigs. Earth. Sugar Puffs and almond croissants.

The Nordic diet is as follows: apples (I eat them already, every day), fish (eat loads of that too, and if you include tuna mayo on a granary baguette, I eat it every day too), tea (no problem), water (more of a problem), then it gets a bit technical about different types of unrefined sugars and starches, none of which, I’m gonna guess, is gonna be found in a Mars bar. But fruit juice is BAD. I get that, never drink it, spoils the vodka. So basically, I don’t really think you need to go to Helsinki to buy your groceries. Nor even to shop at Iceland. Just eating the stuff you know you should and cut back on the good stuff. Sorry, cut back on the stuff you really know you shouldn’t.

Off on a slight tangent was the other news today, even making the front page, that middle-class life expectancy is greatly reduced by dementia. Middle-class… hmmm… Not Upper-class because they have servants to suffer dementia for them. Or they all have a head start due to tragic in-breeding in the Victorian era. And not Working Class because they all die in industrial accidents. Even though we have no manufacturing industry any longer. And if we do its so protected by ‘elf-n-safety that you’re probably safer in a foundry than ‘working from home’.

But its middle class because that’s where the increase in longevity has been most marked for decades. They can afford better health care and nicer holidays. And better food. From Denmark. So the greatest downturn is there, due to the upturn in dementias.

The King of Norway must therefore be the person most unlikely in the entire world to suffer from Alzheimers.

And me, as a middle-class total pig, the king of eating bad things, had better watch out.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Its all about ‘quality. Innit. As in ‘equality’ but pronounced in a more East Luunduun, or Sarf Luunduun, or even west Essex kind’a way. And there’s nothing wrong with equality. The director general of the CBI is a woman. The head of the Metropolitan Police is a woman. The Prime Minister is mostly a woman. And even Miss World is a woman.

So why not Doctor Who?

I’ll tell you why; because Doctor Who is a man. Always been a man, always will be a man. Except, obviously, when she’s a woman. So that’s straight. The total cop-out of the entire history of Doctor Who is that every few years he (now /she) gets reborn. Reincarnated. Recreated. Re-booted. That way you never got tired of seeing the same ole Doctor every series. And now they’ve taken a woman, given her blond hair, and called her the Doc.

And I for one… really don’t give a shit. Because since series 3 I haven’t watched it, and if I never see another episode it won’t affect my life in any way at all.

Nothing monumental or offensive or emotional happened in series 3. In fact nothing monumental, offensive or emotional happened before or after it. And that was the problem. On series 3 I just gave up watching because nothing had happened, nothing was happening and nothing was likely to happen in the foreseeable. It was dull. Which is forgivable. But being stupidly childish and daft isn’t. The plots were stupid, the baddies laughable and the ‘scary bits’ would pretty much send you to sleep. In a warm, peaceful way. It always looked as if it was made in the producer’s garage using any bits and pieces he had lying around as ‘props’ and ‘special effects’. You can film an old metal dustbin seven ways to hell, its still a fucking dustbin. Even if you call it a ‘Dalek’.

And this was 1963. I was 7 years old and already had learned to expect much more than Doctor Who could offer, even if the alternatives were Bruce Forsyth on ITV or a documentary on steelworkers’ haircuts on BBC2. I loved the old Batman series, for fuck sake. How discerning could I have been?

Roger Federer is definitely a man. No question. And from being ‘the best player of his generation’, he is now widely accepted as probably ‘the best player ever’. Yet now he’s seemed to have become ‘the best sportsman ever’, which is another kettle of herrings altogether. By tomorrow he’ll be ‘the most important person who ever lived’. Move over Newton, Einstein, Darwin, Beethoven, Watson & Crick and Ronald McDonald, there’s a new kid in town and yesterday he earned more than the lot of you did in your combined lifetimes. Except Ronald, of course.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Spoke to a friend this morning on the way to tennis. She went yesterday to Chichester to see Fidler on the Roof. Starring Omid Djalili as Tevya. And I thought; that is the real beauty of the much-abused term ‘multi-culturalism’. A Christian Iranian comedian playing a Polish Chassidic Jewish milkman. And apparently, quite brilliantly.

Mel & I went out for a curry last night. Was quite wonderful. Very wonderful. I love Indian food and, in fact, I love India. And yet, although no-one has mentioned it, I fear that the current wave of acid attacks stem from, if not India itself, then definitely from their culture. Because acid attacks are very common on the sub-continent. Always have been. Linked to those bizarre distortions of noble concepts like ‘honour’ and ‘respect’ and ‘disgrace’ in a manner that only the worst of religion-driven patriarchal societies can descend into.

The first time I remember such an attack, it was in West London by a Sikh man against his own daughter. For refusing to marry the man he chose for her. But its not a Sikh thing. Nor Muslim, nor Hindu. It tragically embraces them all. In a culture of adherence to parental views or pay the consequences. Formed in the outlying villages in India and Pakistan and Bangla Desh and then brought here with immigrants. The children of whom spend all day watching the same tv shows as any other kids, go to mixed race schools and, basically, ‘go native’. As they would. All kids want to conform. Then the father tells his 15-year-old daughter, just getting ready for her GCSEs and really into Love Island, that she is going to India to marry her Uncle’s brother-in-law, aged 48, and live out her life being subservient to him in a mud-hut in Udaipur. And according to HIS cultural understanding, she has no choice, nor say in the matter. If she refuses then HE is disgraced, she has upset everyone’s ‘honour’ and it all goes to shit.

Its not mentioned as a problem coming from India because it might be prejudicial, even if its true. And now, of course, acid attacks are ‘out there’ so all manner of nutters can do them, all manner of races. So it becomes almost like blaming the Chinese for a(nother) mass shooting in America, because they invented gunpowder.

Its not about ‘blame’ as such. But when you embrace multi-culturalism, you get the good with the bad. You get chicken tikka massala. And acid attacks.

Anyway, too busy to think about that now; the tennis is on soon.

Come on Fed!

A xxxx

Someone decided to rank the 10 best dressed women tennis players. Oh my. What were they thinking? You might as well rape them as rank them on appearance. Sexism, chauvinism, anti-feminist disgustingism. Who did that? ‘Loaded’ magazine? ‘Neanderthal weekly’? Penthouse? No, it was actually the Women’s official Lawn Tennis association wot done it.

What at terrible error of judgment. What a complete misunderstanding of the zeitgeist. In which women are demanding equal pay, striving for equality and then the LTA decide to see which gels look the prettiest in their whites. Why not just have a ‘pert nipples’ competition? Best thighs? I’d probably be more interested in that myself, but not the new, reconstructed, me. Just the old knuckle-dragging pre-modernist me. Who looks similar, but inside?

I think the women look gorgeous in their whites. There, I’ve said it proudly. Maybe that’s why I don’t have time for the US Open or the Aussie, where they turn up in black shorts and red t-shirts and look like the people who got turned away from Glastonbury on sartorial grounds. Because Wimbledon insists upon whites. The anti-Henry Ford. Any colour, so long as its white. And all the better for it.

Venus collapsed today, even though Muguruza looked much better in her whites. Or perhaps because she did. Venus had two points to break serve and take the first set and blew them both. Then, after a women’s final that had been pretty damned close for the first 10 games, just went to pieces. Venus. A ‘Williams’. And just folded up. Lost the first set in the next game and then lost the second 6-0.

And ‘apropos of nothing’ as they say, I’d just like to offer a bit WTF???? about ‘acid attacks’. Oh they’re all the rage now. Or all in rage now. Whatever, get some really serious acid (available everywhere to unblock your sink; I bought some myself on Tuesday) and throw it in someone’s face. Where the fuck did such a grotesque obscenity come from? Who would want to do that to someone? A sick fuck, that’s who. But its ok. The total psychos out there hurling concentrated sulphuric around like confetti so the police are now onto them. The headline today read: “knife-crime laws to halt acid attacks”. So we’re safe. They’re going to apply the same laws to acid as they do to knives. And as we all know, stabbings have reduced from 24,576 last year to 98,322 this year. So that’s good. Hmmm…

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I’m just reading a book by Robert Harris. He’s a writer. Likes a historical novel. He’s written about the Nazis, he’s written about Tony Blair and he’s written about the Romans. Loads of books about the Romans, starting with Pompeii. They’re great. Not because of the history of the events but because of the picture they paint of that time and that society. Which was a rather clever and brilliant one. Ok, bit brutal by modern standards, but it was noted by being uncommonly democratic. The Greeks invented democracy but the Romans nicked it, as they nicked half of the civilised world when they ruled the planet. Money, artworks, furniture, political philosophy, they stole the lot.

In the latest, ‘Imperium’, its a quite wonderful quest of Cicero (Roman Senator) exposing corruption before the forum. Which was itself pretty corrupt. By our standards. Everything was by their standards though. So in their democracy, the votes of the aristocrats actually counted for more than those of the poor citizens. Slaves, women and other no-goodniks couldn’t vote at all. But it was still more democratic than anywhere else. And as the jurors were bribed, the judges rigged and everything pretty wayward from our post-modern perspective, I can’t help thinking how Donald Trump would have been perfect out there in ancient Rome. Though the Romans worked hard, defeated everyone then sat back and got fat. Trump’s done it the other way round; got fat and lazy first, then went into power.

I’m not saying Trump dunnit. Wiv dem Russians. There are always many ways of examining things and many different lights to shine. F’rinstance; the picture they found yesterday of Trump in restaurant with that Goldstone geezer (who set up the whole Russian connection out there, and a Brit we can therefore really be proud of) and some senior Russian spy, says nothing. Its 3 men coincidentally eating together. But the implications….

Trump junior actually responded to “we have loads of shit on Hilary Clinton from Moscow” and went to meet Put’n’s lawyer lady to discuss, again with Goldstone. But ‘the meeting told us nothing’, it was very short and there was nothing to report back to ‘Dad’, so he wasn’t involved at all. Oh, that’s ok then.

No, its actually a million fucking miles from ‘ok’. A presidential campaign team went to meet a foreign spy (how else would you describe someone with classified information?) with a view to learning dirt. That in itself would have him disembowelled in ancient Rome. With hot irons before crucifixion. But in Trump-world ‘its ok’ and he’s a ‘good person, a transparent, honest person’.

Like his dad. Yesterday in Paris. “Yes we left the Paris accord on climate change but we may go back. And if we do, that’ll be great. And if we don’t, then that’ll be ok too”.

Tell me what the fuck that means, Donald. And why its ever worth spending good words saying precisely nothing.

To the Forum!!

A xxxx