Andy's Glasses

Things you don’t expect from the geezer filling up your car at the Chevron on Hollywood Blvd in 1981:

Ability to speak English
Ability to be English
Any intelligence whatsoever
A sense of humour

So as I stood there fillin’ up the old Cadilacs and Pontiacs and Chevies with ‘unleaded’ and regular, wearing my rather fetching blue shirt with the Chevron chevrons on the front, and I asked if Sir would perhaps require cleanage of his windscreen or checkage of his oil??? I was something of a novelty. “Are you Australian?” they would inquire. And conversation would ensue. They never spoke to Noe (Guatamalan) or Boris (Mexican) or anyone else. But to a white Englishmen they are prepared to break convention and have a conversation with an ‘unworthy’. Without actually asking the ‘elephant in the forecourt’ question of: what the fuck are you, a beautiful, urbane, educated white person with perfect Hollywood bad-guy diction, doing THIS for???

On my first day there, just round the corner from the ‘Chinese Theater’ (the one with the stars’ hand and foot-prints in the concrete) a yellow Ferrari pulled in. No gas, but can you help me with my mirror; its broken. James Coburn. My Man Flint. The third of the Magnificent 7. In ‘my’ gas station. Oh my. The following day Bobby Womack came in. Nicest guy in the world. Even worked out I was English and insisted on shaking my (greasy, oily, petrolly, tyre-pressury) hand.

I was offered jobs, given business cards, asked to be taken to dinner (women and men), propositioned regularly, and all for minimum wage.

One particularly friendly Mexican American (sounds American, looks a bit Mexican) asked if I liked ‘soccer’ because he played in a Sunday game with loads of Brits. So along I went and found my footy-fix for the next year, attended by a varying crew of players and a referee. Referee? In a friendly?? Because he loved the game and had an injury that wouldn’t let him play proper. He was John Helliwell of Supertramp, possibly the biggest band in the world at that time, 2 years after Breakfast in America came out. Welcome to California. Where superstars referee football games and Englishmen pump your gas.

Then one day a really sweet English girl came in for gas. Can’t remember her name, but she was lovely, Geordie and a nanny. To baby Lilly, sitting in the car. The child of Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenbergen. Oh. My. God. Malcolm McDowell; Clockwork Orange fame. Kubrick’s ‘If…’ one of my fave movies everrrrrr. And Mary Steenbergen who had just won an Oscar for Melvyn & Howard (really fucking odd movie), possibly the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen (but ain’t they all?) and I was in love. Again. Unfortunately not with the nanny who I seemed to be dating a bit, but with Mary. Who was funny and charming and wonderful, and the least available person ever.

So other than the shit money, the filth, the constant scrubbing of fingernails and the ever-present smell of gasoline; how could it have been anything but ‘the best job ever’? And although pumping gas can be dull, it was a proper ‘garage’ doing all kinds of technical shit to people’s cars. And we had an in-house Triple-A guy. He’d get a call for a breakdown, go pick up the car and bring it back to us. He’d get paid by the Triple-A and we’d get the work. Lou had 2 trucks, a little ‘repair at the scene’ kind’a thing and a fucking monster tow-truck. And I mean ‘monster’. He could pull (and did) a bus with it. And I used to move it round for him. 8-litre, V8 diesel. Most powerful thing ever. You could win any ‘demolition derby’ in the world. But he wouldn’t let me. Obvs.

Yet sometimes even the best jobs ever need to end. Life moves on. A day’s a long time in politics, a month was a long time at Dan Fetter’s Chevron.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Much as I have nothing but sympathy with the entire Grenfell Tower business, I’ve now officially ‘ad enough. The event has been politicised, hi-jacked and has descended into a class-war witch hunt. Not to the degree that it’ll detract from the rugby tomorrow but its just become really annoying.

Emails show that they cut costs when organising the… cladding!!!! A word that will never ever be used again by anyone who is not in a court of law. Never by anyone in the building trade. It is forever tainted. And by saving a few grand here and a couple of hundred thousand there they ended up with a building effectively covered in fire-lighters. Like those white sticks you use to start a barbecue. But here’s the thing: they didn’t know. Ok, maybe they should have known but that’s what building regulations are for. To ascertain any risk and make sure all materials and structures are safe and ‘compliant’. And those shitty, awful, deathly sheets of cladding, although illegal in America where they’re made, did indeed ‘conform’ over here.

But we’re all clever in hindsight. And virtually every tower block in the country, we’re now learning, is covered with the same shit. The cheap option.

And although Jeremy Corbyn et al are implying/suggesting that the council saved money “on the poor” because Lord Shit-don’t-Stink up the road needed a new footman to clean his Rolls Royce, that is just simply not the way it works. Councils, all of them, whoever is in charge, try to save as much money as they can. So the question is not about negligence but just simple choices. Do you want the more expensive cladding, even though the cheap one is totally approved and within regulations, or spend the money on teachers in the schools? Dinners for the kids? Rubbish collection? Police patrols?

Or they could have hiked the Council Tax to have it all, that’s always popular. Every council is always urged to cut costs. Obviously not with disregard to safety but they need to provide care for the elderly in vast amounts too. And you can only cut a pie so many ways. I know, I love pies. And never get a big enough bit.

This is nothing about ‘rich and poor’, nothing about ‘let’s burn the place down with everyone in it’, its just a thing. Ok, a horrible thing but let the inquiry take place and STOP ALL THE WORTHLESS ACCUSATIONS, SPECULATIONS AND BLAME-GAMING until its over.

Lila’s best friend is a giraffe. Should I be concerned?

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I’ve said it for years. Though mainly to Mel. And mainly on holiday. I’ve said: HOW MUCH FUCKING BOTTLED WATER DO WE NEED???? Because she worries about dehydration. In Scotland. Where the risk of dehydration is seven hundred and ninety-six thousand times lower than the risk of drowning. But water we buy. And worry about buying. So we buy more. Keep spares. Fill the car. Not with petrol, but bottles of water. Water, water everywhere but… well it is for drinking.

And today in the paper there is total vindication for my aquaphobia (not rabies, the other one). ‘Plastic bottle menace rivals global warming’!!!! (I put the exclamation marks myself because it was in The Times. If it had been in the Sun or Mail they’d already have been there).

We (and I speak for everyone in the entire world here, except probably me) buy a million bottles every minute. Ok, not all water, there’s all those vile brilliant orange and radio-active green sugary drinks that kids buy too. But bottled water is the main culprit.

“Oh, I only drink Patagonian Trench Water” (£7.26 for 500mls) “because the bottle is recyclable and no sheep have to die making it”. And yes, a lot of bottles are ‘recyclable’ but you have to collect them first. And then assume there is sufficient recyclability in the world to cope with them. Otherwise they just end up in land-fills and most certainly on beaches, in rivers, on every single green (and bottled) field in the land. And then they break up and enter the food chain. Everything’s less recylcable when its hurled out of a car window.

Drink Evian today; kill a fish tomorrow. That’s gonna be my next tattoo.

Every other person walking round the City is carrying a bottle of water. In London. 17 degrees outside. And raining. Yet walking from the office to the coffee shop, you need water. Just in case. Its almost as annoying a ‘badge’ as the phone carried in the other hand. Held just in front of the face. Its a statement. “I drink water”. Not a powerful statement but nonetheless its a club. The water-drinking-to-excess club. Or as it will now be known: The Trout-Murderers Collective!!!

I’d like to point out that whisky comes in glass bottles only. And coffee comes in paper cups (ridiculously, they’re virtually all un-recyclable). Coke comes in cans (tomorrow’s Vauxhall Aventurama).

So next time you buy a bottle of water; think again. And just throw it away. Errrr…

Happy dry Thursday

A xxxx

Jon Snow, the veteran news broadcaster has found himself(ie) in deep doo-doo. He was photographed in the deep other-doo-doo that is the mud at Glastonbury with bunches of kids, all having fun and frolics in wonderfully high spirits. And Jon was joining in a rousing chorus of ‘fuck the tories, da-dee da-dum, dee-whatever’. Oh no! But he’s a newscaster. He IS Channel 4 news. Has been for three centuries. How can he claim impartiality if he’s a closet Corbynite anarchist militant Trotskyite Momentum-er??

There’s calls for his immediate resignation. And in fact he should resign. For having the appallingly bad taste to be caught being ‘an old person at a rock festival’. Not for joining in a sing-song which is a pretty meaningless thing to do. One seldom expresses one’s deepest political feelings whilst performing in a group knees-up. Perhaps he could appeal that his singing was perhaps inappropriate but after dropping a few ‘E’s, throwing back fifteen cans of Red Stripe and sucking on a spliff the size of a bus, his judgment may have been impaired. Oh, that’s ok then.

If you Google ‘greedy, monopolistic, world-dominating, megalomaniacal, people-screwing profit-monger’, you just stay on the Google page. There is no-where finer. And no-one better really. And now they’ve been fined for being all that. 2.4 billion is the size of the fine. But its ok, its only Euros.

Of course Google has a monopoly. That’s why we use it. Because we know that everyone else on the planet uses it so we’re never ‘missing out’ when we google something. We assume that every piece of information, everything that could ever be sold, every phone number and address that ever existed, lives on Google and no-where else in such quantity. And with such accessibility. It couldn’t work for us so well if it wasn’t such a monopoly. We’d only be getting half the story. And no-one likes that.

Did Google abuse its position? Was the fiery Danish bird right in attacking them? Oh yeah. On both counts. Google puts up its ‘sponsored links’ first and foremost when you search an item to buy. And I, as a consumer, assume that those are the best deals available. But they’re not. They’re the best deals that will pay Google when you click on them. You may be able to find your tennis balls or ink cartridges or nappies cheaper, but you’ll have to look down the page a bit for that. Something that Google know, is a path less traveled.

Do I care that Google abuse me like that? Not really. Will Google miss the 2.4 billion Euros? Not really. But I suppose you have to keep fiery Danes in work and Google in check.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

How’s this for scary. For thousands of years people had found great
big, almost perfectly triangular white stones, about the size of a
hand, and not known from whence they came. Speculation went with the
times. They’re petrified tongues of dragons, they’re from the moon,
God done it, usual stuff.

But what they in fact were is teeth. Can you say ‘were… is’? Who
cares. Not just any teeth but those from a shark. But teeth the size
of a hand??? Oh yeah, its quite a big shark. In fact its not. Great
Whites are ‘quite big sharks’, up to 20 feet long. These teeth came
from a 60 foot long Megalodon, errr, shark.

Unfortunately (???) they became extinct. About 2.5 million years ago.
Shame. Otherwise the shores of Australia would be full of them. Not
that the megalodon inhabited the Pacific specifically, but all really
dangerous creatures seem to be drawn to the Antipodes. Normal sharks,
box jellyfish, snakes and spiders, rugby players. What kind of shark
net would make you feel safe when the predator has about a 12 foot
jaw-span? Answer: fucking massive ones made of reinforced concrete.

They reckon there was some kind of mass extinction. Which happens.
Like when the dinosaurs died out almost completely because of a
meteoric impact in Mexico. Which killed off the vegetation, which
killed off the herbivores, leaving the poor carnivores nothing to eat.
The sun was obscured for 5 years so only the weeny little (previously)
insignificant, barely-a-snack sized mammals survived. And one minute
you have a mouse or a cat, and just a few million years on they became
my great-great-great-great…great-great grandfather, Schlomo ben
Yehuda ha-Cohen. Though I prefer to imagine my family evolved directly
from sloths and didn’t need to adapt so much afterwards.

This extinction was less dramatic. But a Megalodon is gonna have a
healthy apetite. 60 feet of it. And they reckon that something
happened which massively reduced the number of aquatic mammals upon
which he dined. Also lots of turtles, again, BIG ones, became extinct
at the same time. Hmmmmm. They think the sea waters may have receded
for some as yet unknown reason. But I reckon it was those American
carnivores fucking up the atmosphere with carbon and pollutants. The
antecedents of Donald Trump were in fact bottom-feeders, but drove
Cadillacs. Its the only answer.

Happy evolution

A xxxx

The initial hypothesis of this study in child psychology was that an infant could be quite happily separated from its mother (and more importantly, from her breasts) for a short period of time as long as sufficient care, protection, love and alternative foodage were to be made sufficiently available.

The purpose of the study was to ascertain whether a baby would starve itself rather than accept bottle feeding? I refer to previous studies that found this would likely be the case: Conway et al, 2017, Bell et al 2017, Conway et al 2017, Bell et al, 2017 (and countless fucking others!!!!)

The baby was removed from its parents by the research team, Professors Conway and Conway (Phd, Phd, Op,Tom1,sT1c, Hons) and placed in an alternative home along with various items for providing comfort. Vis a vis: play mat, bouncer, a truck load of brightly coloured objects that rattled, squeaked and sang when manipulated.

The subject was placed on the mat and observed. Observing was in fact quite magical as she squirmed, kicked, smiled, gurgled, giggled and performed many other acts that don’t have adequate descriptions in the ‘handbook of scientific terminology, and other bollocks’ book. After an hour, on her front, on her back, singing songs (the scientists, babies don’t do that), and pulling funny faces, the clinical team were suffering from deeply strained facial muscles so the subject was moved to what is known as a ‘baby bouncer’. Where she happily… did what little babies do. Which is nothing productive, nothing creative but is for some unscientific reason, immensely satisfying and rewarding for all present.

It was then noted by the team that baby was possibly getting a bit hungry. A little fretful, rooting behaviour, so we deduced that ‘feeding’ might be the appropriate course and duly applied the food source (bottle of mummy’s milk) to the subject.

To say ‘this didn’t work’ is an understatement akin to ‘an atomic bomb will remove stubborn stains’. In fact the similarities between a nuclear reaction and what took place in normally placid, happy little baby were strong. She went ballistic, as the euphemism goes. In psycho-babble terms, she went fucking ape-shit. No amount of calming, coercing or £50 note bribes would induce her to accept the food.

We quietened her, bathed her, changed her and tried once more. An attempt so successful that the mother was phoned to COME AND SORT OUT THIS HYSTERICAL CHILD!!!! Who at the time was blue in the face and hyperventilating.

The experiment was deemed a great success. Well, greatly enjoyable. In parts. Other parts, nyeh.

Conclusion.
Babies are illogical, stupid and stubborn. Which is why we love them so much.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

The rugby yesterday was awesome. The Lions were amazing in places, outstanding at times, wonderful in general. Very impressive.

Yet not enough. Which is why they lost. Because to compete with the All Blacks you need to be all that, but ALL the time. Any lapse and its punished. As happened yesterday.

As I like to start the weekend with a different type of violence; just as gratuitous but more personal than just watching the rugby, I went to my Tai Chi class and recorded the match for later consumption. And when I decided to consume, I noticed that the ‘match programme’ on Sky had lasted 3.5 hours. An 80 minute game, 210 minutes of programme. Which breaks down as follows:

Pre-match bollocks: 40 minutes
Post-match bollocks: 40 minutes
Adverts: 50 minutes

(Note for purists; I omitted ‘half-time bollocks’ because its actual content is statistically insignificant compared to the adverts).

It was a wonderful match to watch. All Blacks games always are. Hard, fast and simply impressive, all across the pitch. The Lions had two instances where they just lost concentration, for which you cannot criticise them under all that pressure. Both times cost them tries. But the Kiwis just do a little bit more of absolutely everything. As Kieran Reed collapses at a maul under a heap of 18 stone forwards, he amazingly has the presence of mind to flick the ball up as he falls into the arms of his scrum half. Another try. Beauden Barret, the world’s best fly-half has to move to full back due to an injury and becomes the world’s best number 15.

The scary bit is not losing the match. Its that the Lions played so well, and still lost the match. If they’d been shit, improving would be simple.

This afternoon should be interesting. Lila needs to take a bottle. Not of gin, like her grandmother, but of milk. Something she’s been understandably reluctant to do. But needs to because her mummy (or as Lila calls her: ‘McDonalds’) wants to go to a wedding next weekend and that will be difficult without baby taking a bottle. So today me and Auntie Rachie are taking charge. The world’s two most irresponsible people left in charge of a starving (ish) child. But a man’s gotta do… or a wo-man.

God help us all.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Here’s something new. An actual quote, as it was spoked, from Jeremy Corbyn, with no embellishment, enhancement, improvement or abuse: (clear throat, ahem):

From Hillsborough, to the child sex abuse scandal, to Grenfell Tower – the pattern is consistent: working-class people’s voices are ignored.

How is that viewed as anything short of blatant politicising? Of completely hi-jacking three terrible tragedies and abusing them by making them part of his ‘class war’? Why does anyone listen to that tosser? Why has no-one complained? That he does not know all 98 people who died at Hillsboro’, nor the hundreds injured, some may have been doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and thus exempt from his exclusively ‘working class’ sympathy. Similarly abused children are just plain fucking children. Doesn’t matter if they’re black, white, rich, poor or whatever antiquated adjectives he chooses to describe them by. They may have all been boy scouts. Christians. Arsenal fans. Irrelevant. They were children and the abusers were not all conservative MPs, or upper class anything or lower class something else.

Is he implying therefore that child abuse by ‘working people’ is somehow more acceptable? That if it had been Chelsea at Hillsboro’ instead of Liverpool that would have been better because they’re less ‘working class’? What does ‘working class’ even mean??? Does Bill Gates qualify? For his 98 hour weeks? The CEO of a footsie 100 company; does he/she (as if) not ‘work’?? If so then everyone is a ‘working person’ from a cleaner to banker. So why use the term at all. Might as well call them ‘human people’. Its unnecessary. Unless its intentionally prejudicial, of course. And used to imply that the death of any working ‘class’ person is always the fault of someone rich or the government. Whereas the death of rich people doesn’t matter. 

If I was a Hillsboro’ survivor/family member, (not normally any kind of ‘silent minority’) I’d be fuming that my tragedy has been stolen for out-of-context political gain. It was in fact, after about 16 public inquiries, to be found the fault of the police. And they are public sector working people. So what the fuck is that tosser on about????

Happy ranting

A xxxx

“Last night I dreamt of Manderlay…”

Opening words of Daphne Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’. Which I know firstly because I’m a totally cultured and literate literary litter-lout who adores true love, romance and the whole chic-lit schtick, and secondly because its Mel’s favourite book/film ever. Otherwise, if I’m honest for once, I wouldn’t have a fucking clue. If it ain’t in a Spurs match program, it ain’t worth readin’.

Daphne Du Maurier also wrote another book. My Cousin Rachel. Not ‘My Cousin Vinny’, that was someone else. Someone who wrote good books. Funny ones. Nothing funny about My Cousin Rachel, so they made it into a movie. And because its Daphne du M, and because… because it was on, ‘we’ just ‘had’ to see it.

So to reason. There’s a reason why everyone’s heard of ‘Rebecca’. And a reason why virtually no-one knows ‘My Cousin Rachel’. Always a good reason. And there’s a reason why a busy cinema is empty. How often do you see that? Ok, it was a gorgeous hot and lovely mid-summer eve, but heh, there was air-con in the movie. That alone should have dragged half of Crouch End off its collective sweaty arse and into the film? But no. The film is shit. Even Mel asked me about 2/3 the way through if we should bother waiting for the end. Unfortunately I was asleep and thus missed my opportunity.

Maybe its the old ‘good books don’t translate into good movies’ thing. Other than Shawshank. The Shining. Godfather and a million others. That’s why there was never a movie of a JT Edson book (so obscure even I’m struggling with it, but those who knew JT will understand; even if they’d never admit it in public).

Never mind; the British (ok, ‘and Irish’) Lions are playing the All Blacks tomorrow morning. And that won’t be nap time. Its a win-win for me. I love a Lions tour and yet I’m a massive All Blacks fan. You don’t have to be a kiwi. You’re allowed. Because when Dan Carter resigned from international rugby after being the best fly-half the world has ever seen, (apologies to Barry John) they just ‘found’ Beauden Barret who may possibly be even better. When Ricky McCaw left the game after captaining over 100 times, in steps Kieran Read. Where do they get them? Where do they make them? In a population of about 47 people and 92 million sheep, how can they keep producing such superstars?

Come on Lions… ish

Happy Friday

A xxxx

So there we were, me and Ivani, the gorgeous Brazillian, off to Disneyland. We had fun. And spent the next 3 days together until she went back to Sao Paulo. Leaving me bereft. Again. The last time I’d been ‘bereft, when I left the stewardess on the plane, only lasted a few minutes. Though Ivani returns to our story in a later, exciting episode.

So I stayed with ‘the uncle’ and his son for a bit and then had a needle-in-a-haystack moment.

You gotta remember, this was 1981. No mobile phones, no email, so contact was by telephones fixed to walls in homes or in little boxes in the street, or posted letters. How did we survive?

About 5 years previously I’d met a guy whilst working a summer on a kibbutz in Israel. An American called Paul. We collected eggs together. We beat up chickens together. Then I came home and Paul was left there, his ‘future life’. And then one day, looking up a phone number in the San Fernando Valley phone book (56 million entries, big as fucking bus), I saw his name, as he has a rather unusual surname. Could it be??? Oddly, it was. He’d returned home and was now living near enough that he was in the same phone book as I would have been if I’d had a phone.

And Paul introduced me to ‘proper’ LA. Tommy’s Burgers. Oki Dog. The Whisky-a-go-go. And, much as everyone generally hates LA, after a few weeks I actually started to get it. The place. The size of it. The fact that its not ‘a city’ but loads of them all stuffed together. Each with its own centre and eateries and bars and stuff. And I liked it and decided that, rather than travel alone, I’d stay for a bit. So I went and got a social security number. Told them I wanted to open a bank account for my travels and they just here you are; 35653445676, or BC87665/76 or whatever it was. And with that number, the world (as Americans understand the world, generally a world that runs from San Francisco to Boston, from Alaska to Miami) becomes your oyster. Because it enables you to work. No-one ever asks for the mythical ‘green card’, but everyone wants your social security number. And I had one.

But I was still, really, a ‘wet-back’. An illegal. I just spoke better English than such types normally do. In fact, with all due modesty, I spoke better English than 98% of the ‘legals’ too. Even with my East End twang I was still more Trevor MacDonald than Barbara Windsor. At least to Americans.

Me (new/old) mate Paul also loved a road trip. And I was the willing Clyde to his Bonnie. And off we’d trek to Las Vegas, San Francisco, Palm Springs, even over to Lake Havasu in Arizona (where they stupidly bought the ‘wrong’ London Bridge) and to ski in Squaw Valley.

So I needed to work. To supplement my meagre savings and allow me to hang around longer. But was nervous about working because of my tourist status. But Paul knew a geezer, who knew a geezer… and I ended up as so many illegal immigrants do, pumping gas at the Chevron station. Or, ‘the best job I ever had’, as its now known.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx