Andy's Glasses

I should be used to it by now. In 1962 I was 6 years old and have my first memories from then of football scores and results. Its blurry, but its there. I’d missed, by just one year, our ‘glory season’, winning the league and cup ‘double’. I was alive for it, just not aware. My footballingness had not yet been awakened. So for the last 56 years I’ve just been treading water really, waiting for the good times to return. Which is a bit unfair, a bit ‘stark’, and is not really how it works.

Because ‘good times’ can be good matches. Can be great results. Can be just one spectacular 42 second spell in a game of nothing in a season of shit. You take the good bits where you can. Its what keeps you going. I think. Football is not, generally, a high scoring affair. Its not like basketball. You work hard for a goal and then wait (sometimes foreverrrr) for another. And great goals are memorable. Particularly when scored by your team. Or, as is the case at the moment, against your team. You try to forget them, you want to forget them but your internal Match of the Day facility keeps re-playing them. And we seem to be shipping ’em in wholesale at the moment.

We beat Liverpool 4-1 at Wembley 5 weeks ago. And thought, ahhhh, the Wembley curse has lifted. We can play here, we can win here, against good opposition, and the world is rosy and shiny once more. Since then we’ve managed to amass 4 points from the following 6 matches. A 1-0 win against bottom-placed Crystal Palace was our only win. A point from Saturday’s West Brom game, the rest all lost. Ok, we managed to thrash Real fucking Madrid in between all that and get a remarkable away win at Dortmund, but domestic form? Oyyyyy.

We seem to start every game 2-0 down. That is; by the time I’ve checked the score we’re losing by 2. Other than the West Ham game in which we were winning by 2 and still managed to lose. That was worse.

And I know that there are people out there, real people, who support Brentford Town and Hartlepool and Luton and Arsenal, people who never see glory, wouldn’t know it if it bit them, who just go, just follow, just passionately support their no-hope teams. And they’d laugh at the arrogance of ‘bit team fans’ for having expectations to which their own teams will never aspire.

But it is what it is. I’m a Spurs fan. I do have expectations. I have, stupidly, hopes. And when it all goes to shit, it hurts.

Happy (phah!) Wednesday

A xxxx

Well, it had to happen. The Ashes started and then, just a few days later, it finished. The first test. Failed. Miserably. Leading, inevitably, to a national gloat-fest by the Aussies. Fair. We’d do the same. Just not as horribly. So now our only hope, as it always has been really, lies with Ben Stokes. Who is unfortunately on a ban for assault outside a pub in Bristol. So can’t play for England. And yet has just taken a flight to New Zealand carrying all his cricket stuff with him. Hmmmm, New Zealand, just a short ‘hop’ from Australia… hmmm…

Because the Bristol police are just about to announce whether he’ll be charged or not. And if he isn’t, and the ban can be lifted? He’d make the 2nd test, easy peasy. And then we might have a chance. So, dear police-people of the fair city of Bristol, can you drop the charges? Please?? Travesties of justice are what the police are all about, its not like its new or unheard-of, is it? Even though there’s that horrible video footage of him beating the shit out of those 2 guys, its not… errr… conclusive, in any meaningful way. THINK OF YOUR COUNTRY, FOR ONCE!!!!

Harry’s engaged. To Meg. Or, as they call her on the BBC, ‘Meghan Markle’. The full thing. They won’t call her just ‘Megan’, she’s soon to be a royal, so protocols dictate a level of respect precluding the ‘tu-toi’ familiarity. And ‘Ms Markle’ sounds like an Agatha Christie heroine who is 84 years old and wears a hat in bed, so they won’t do that. So in the meantime its ‘Meghan Markle’. Whilst we’re waiting for a princess-ship to become vacant. We may have to kill Eugenie.

Once they’re married they’ll get, from the Queen, another title. Just what every royal needs, more fucking titles. So they reckon Mr & Mrs Harry will become the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Which doesn’t mean they’ll own Brighton or anything, in fact the title comes without land or property, so bit of a waste of time really. But they won’t be hard-up or anything because of the new Universal Credit.

But this is a big and great move for the Royals. Capitalising on Harry’s massive popularity by marrying him off to a half-black divorcee. How right-on and Islington-council-circa-1974 is that??I mean, in the absence of any potential ‘trans’ thing for the Prince to woo, she ticks a lot of boxes that have previously been off limits, royally speaking. Oh, and she’s pretty gorgeous too. Which helps. As she’s going to be even more all over the papers for the next 18 months than she has been in the previous.

Can they use ‘H&M’? I wonder.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

“Ich bin ein Spurs fan!!” Everyone remembers exactly what they were doing when JFK uttered those famous words. No-one knows why he said them, but just lived in that moment.

And if JFK represented, in 1963, everything that was great about the West, that was good, honest, adorable, loveable, peaceful (ish) and wondrous, then by extension, Arsenal must stand as a metaphor for the East of the Cold War days. For the forces of evil, for oppression, arrogance, totalitarianism, insidious infiltration of our core values and of smelliness in general.

No, I really don’t think I’ve stretched that metaphor too excessively, particularly as it didn’t exist until two little paragraphs ago. Thus: its fair.

But I’m not in Germany to waste my time with football. Not this weekend, anyway. Its all terrible. Glad I’m away and missing all the ‘fun’. I’m here to pound pavements. And pound them we have.

When we arrived yesterday morning it was raining. We then walked, all told, 11.7km in the pouring, pissing, fucking rotten, German rain. Not saying we weren’t productive. We saw some apartments (awful), we had lunch (wonderful), we learned much about the area and, eventually, we had dinner (amazing). We traveled by tube (‘U-bahn’) and by overground (S-bahn) and went from far west to farther east without getting arrested, getting shot or meeting the KGB.

Today we did similar. Brunch was different, but equally great, and we walked another 11.2km (according to Rachie’s phone) but this time, most of it in the dry! Germany without rain. Its like Arsenal without dodgy refereeing decisions. But we lived that dream. Til about 4 when it started to drizzle once more.

So we stopped for coffee and cake in the most decadent of decadent places ever. Shared a piece of chocolate tort cake that wouldn’t actually have fit into my carry-on suitcase. Though I reckon it was almost calorie-free. Because… errr…

And yet again, despite the awful weather and the icy-cold, I just love this city. You walk three blocks. The first is ‘knightsbrige’, with chi-chi shops and Luis Vuitton paving slabs and Rolex trash cans. Cross the road and you’re in Mill Hill; all suburban with parks and gardens and lovely apartment buildings. The next crossing takes you to Hoxton; old places re-done to the height of hipster chic and with coolness seeping out of the drains, street-art, graffiti and beards everywhere. And wherever you stop, its great value. Even with the sinking/sunk pound, nothing here seems expensive. And call me old-fashioned, but I like that.

One more day, then we return tomorrow afternoon/evening. Though with Rachie coming for good in January, the chances of returning here are… pretty high, I’d say.

Auf wiedersein,

A xxxx

I’ve been to Berlin. Went 2 years ago. Totally brilliant city. More interesting than Romford, more beautiful than Wigan, more history than Milton Keynes, better vibe than Aberdeen and Wandsworth combined. That good. More than good; wonderful.

But that’s not why we’re here again. This isn’t just a ‘weekend break’, nor a ‘city mini-holiday’, no. Neither. We’re here this time on a serious mission. To unload a daughter over here on a semi-permanent basis as from January. Therefore we need to either find her suitable accommodation or otherwise register her for a refugee camp. Whatever’s cheaper.

So if you saw me in a Prius at 5.30 this morning and thought I was returning from ‘another wild night on the tiles’, I wasn’t. I was on my way to City Airport. The nicest of all London’s airports because its only little. It has little planes, therefore little numbers of passengers, little rooms there and its so small it only has 9 coffee shops. Passengers basically get one each.

Rachie’s off to Germany. If she wasn’t she’d have still been in her old office in Oxford Circus yesterday to face the MASSIVE EMERGENCY!!!!!!! situation that closed half of the West End yesterday afternoon. Her old colleagues were locked in on police orders, as were half of those unfortunate to be in that area. The other half (those in Selfridges, for some weird reason), were ordered to evacuate the building. Thus adding to the immediate and immense panic and chaos that was occurring.

Was this another terrorist attack? Armed robbery?? A riot??? No, it was worse. It was London’s, possibly the world’s first ever Social Media attack. Because nothing happened. Nothing was happening, nothing did happen, nothing was going to happen. But someone (not saying who, because if I did you might go round and kill him/her before I get there) ‘thought they heard gunshots’. That was it? A ‘that-sounded-like-gunfire’ situation, possibly.

We’re brave us Londoners. Fuckin’ heroic to a man/woman/thing (gotta be careful these days). Or we pretend to be. Whereas in reality we’re living on the edge. Running scared. On a hair-trigger. Its impossible not to be, to some extent. Don’t think about it for 99% of the time and then one little BANG!!!! and your mind is on Westminster Bridge, Manchester Arena, London Bridge. How can you not?

Thus yesterday did panic ensue. But mainly because a couple of ‘celebs’ tweeted the third-hand speculative comment about gunshots. And celebs, however pathetically inadequate and limp-brained they are, have billions of ‘followers’. More than Jesus did when he won X-Factor. And thus dids’t the panic get retweeted and within minutes there were 17 battalions of police, Marines, SAS, Mossad, FBI and SWAT teams that we don’t even have in Britain. All there, armed to the teeth, ready for…

For nothing. Thankfully nothing, it must be said, but how much of it was really necessary? If ever you wanted a ‘decoy’ for something serious, you know what to do.

Safer in Berlin. I hope.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Football’s ruling ‘elite’ really are a bunch of tossers. Their belief in ‘the status quo’ is so overwhelming that they seldom, if ever, actually do anything. They don’t have to, they’re part of football, the biggest gravy-train there is. But sometimes even the FA and their partners in crime simply have to yield to pressure. And rush into action over what are, literally, life-and-death matters.

Jeff Astle died in 2002 from dementia, aged 59. He’d been a footballer and a good one. Famous for scoring headed goals. In the dark days of the 60s and 70s when the ball (felt like it-) was made of concrete but got much heavier in the wet. So, many people thought that there may possibly be a link between repeatedly banging your head against things and brain damage. As they seemed to have realised in boxing. It doesn’t take a massive leap of lateral thinking to relate head-banging to possible brain issues.

So due to the severity and the potentially massive impact (no pun) this could have on the game, just 15 years later they’re about to start a study on the link between heading a football and both brain damage and any likely implications in advancing dementia. I mean, what’s 15 years when the known universe is 6 billion years old?? Come on, its just a blink.

Alan Shearer, himself no mean header of a football, was the subject of a documentary last week introducing this study. And they’re gonna look at everything, from 15,000 current and former players and 45,000 members of the general, non-football-playing public; the ones arriving by bus as opposed to Bentley. For a ‘control’. A comparison to see what ‘normal’ people’s brains do.

And I’d personally be amazed if there wasn’t a massive difference in brain damage/function between the 2 groups. A centre-back can head the ball 30 times in a game, never mind training, practice and head-butting strangers in pubs. We shall wait and see. But remember, even if there is a difference, golden rule of statistics: corr-el-ation-is-NOT-caus-ation. Just cos two things seem to be linked doesn’t mean one causes the other. There may be ‘other factors’. Like, f’rinstance, and in no way is this example gleaned from my years of listening (in agony, with ear-ache and shame) to footballers and pundits grunting and groaning and glottally stopping their inarticulate ways through interviews, but it could possibly be that many people in football arrive almost ‘pre-brain-damaged’ in some way. Not a fact, I’m just sayin’ it could be the case. In da interests of scientific impartiality and… errr… equality.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Today is ‘Thanksgiving’, so… errrr… congratulations? to all Americans? Thanks?? And a belated ‘sorry’ to Canadians for forgetting their one a couple weeks’ ago. So easy to forget Canadians. Because Thanksgiving is a big deal over there, where here, it barely even registers. But if you ask most Americans what they’re, precisely, giving thanks for, they don’t know. Which is fine. Its a holiday, enjoy. Day off work, they play the years only NFL game on a Thursday and, less surprisingly, they eat too much and drink more. But the reason? Errrr, pilgrims? settlers? harvest? Who knows, who cares.

I care. Deeply. Ish. But only because I read an interesting thing about it yesterday.

The puritans and pilgrims arrived in America in the late 1500s. They heard of a ‘new world’ and thought it would be a good place to go and sell Jesus, in case the locals there were ignorant of Christian ways. Which was always gonna be likely. So out they went, pretty brave too, not like some kind of gap year hi-jinks, this was for real. No Pan-Am, not even any internet. And they landed in Massachusetts and made home. And pretty much starved. The crops they’d brought from England didn’t work so well over there and they were suffering. McDonalds was still 350 years away. Then some local tribe of ‘Native Americans’ showed them the errors of their ways. And they then thrived over there and became ‘Americans’. And in 1621 they had a massive feast with all the tribe members in celebration of the proper harvests and abundant food that became the distant forebear of the Man vs Food Challenge. And to give thanks to the ‘Red Indians’ for their live-giving help.

Just before they engaged in their wholesale slaughter and mass genocide across the entire nation.

Thanksgiving was never a religious festival, even though with those involved, God would’a been a big recipient of some of those thanks, doubtlessly. Religious types don’t take a pee without thanking the Lord. But even ‘back then’ they decided that Thanksgiving shouldn’t detract from their sabbath, which is why its on a Thursday. Or a Monday if you’re Canadian. So it becomes a kind’a pre-Christmas. Another excuse to eat turkey. Or quinoa if you’re a vegan. Or any other ‘trans’ type of personality. (See? Equality, innit.)

So Happy Thanksgiving

A xxxx

A lawyer is suing Oxford University. Nothing unusual there; lawyers sue people all the time. But this is the lawyer himself suing the University because when he studied (modern history) there, in 2000, he only achieved a low 2.1 degree. Which has held back his legal career sufficiently to sue the University for £1million that he would have earned if he’d been better educated and qualified with a higher degree.

Basically; his opportunities in working life were reduced because of their failure to get him a first, or even a good 2.1. He blames ‘inadequate teaching’.

You’d really have to see how all the other students on his course fared before making any judgments. Because if they all got low 2.1s and 2.2s then maybe he has a point. But often the lines between graduate marks kind of ‘float’ so that a certain percentage get a first, the next so many percent a 2.1, etc. Which makes it even more difficult to forensically diagnose the problem.

An alternative reading of the situation could be that Faiz Siddiqui (for ’tis he) is just a bit of a thicko. Nice, but dim. Not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Clever enough to blag his way into Oxford but perhaps lacking in academic industry? Who knows? Who fucking cares? I hope he wins the case and gets 5 million.

Because then I’m going to sue my old PE teacher (from 1971) for not making me Lionel Messi. I’d have earned (and not paid tax upon) billions. I was keen, I was ‘gifted’ (to a degree… a very lowly degree, probably a 2.1) but due to ‘lack of proper teaching’ Barcelona never offered me a contract.

I’m going to sue my driving instructor for not making me Lewis Hamilton. I can drive. I can certainly drive fast. Why didn’t he ‘push’ me to excel? £132 million. In cash, per-lease, payable in Monaco. Like Lewis.

Can you just imagine the legal precedent if every under-achieving, lazy dipshit could sue his education for his failure to succeed all the way to unrealistic expectations? I’d be the first in line.

Happy slowly recovering Wednesday

A xxxx

Do you remember when a ‘virus’ was a microbial sort of thing? Nothing digital about it, nothing to do with technology, more to do with vomitus? With feeling like you’re going to die, then wishing you could die, then sweating a lot, shivering, shaking, all the while feeling much too hot and much too cold at the same time. Remember that? Well, its best if you do. Because viruses are probably the oldest form of life on the planet. A billion years old (random number picked because its BIG), and yet still going strong. Very strong in some cases.

On Friday night Lila’s mum had ‘the night from hell’, sickness, diarrhoea, all kinds of evil were perpetrated upon her by an evil fucking virus.

So on Saturday night, Lila’s dad suffered the same fate.

Not wishing to be left out, both Mel & I succumbed on Sunday night. One minute we were in bed, almost asleep, but both feeling a little ‘queazy’, and then next we’re in separate bathrooms engaged in a bout of competitive grossness. Ok, I was given a 20-minute head start just because… whatever. Not sure who the winner was, or how you’d define a ‘winner’ at all, but we were both losers. I had visions of the movie ‘Alien’ and the song ‘both ends burning’ by Roxy Music sprung to mind, no idea why.

But fortunately I’m a man. And therefore not prone to give in to such minor obstacles in any significant way. So slept til 3.30 in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day moaning. Heroic. That’s me.

Decided not to go to work today either, mainly because I don’t want to spread the joys of this horrible, nasty, evil thing around.

So instead, I’m learning about one of my modern day heroes, Elon Musk. Having virtually invented the viable totally electric car and driverless vehicles, in between his own personal space programme, he’s building up the Tesla range. He brought out the ‘3-Model’ as a cheaper alternative. But can’t make enough to supply demand. Telsa have orders for 1500 but only made 260 in the year. During which the company spent one billion dollars a quarter (that makes… errr… carry 1, divide by 9… errr) 4 billion spent in a year. Mainly trying to get production up. And now, whilst he’s busy not building the model 3s he’s promised, he’s introduced the amazing lorry thing (0 to 60 in 5 seconds in a 40-ton truck) and a new supercar. Neither of which currently, he has any hope in hell of producing. The problem is that his mind races on at a speed which industry can’t hope to keep up with. Ya gotta love him though. Just don’t invest.

Happy foodless Tuesday

A xxxx

Things I really love: (in no particular order)

Sunday morning tennis in the sunshine.
Gypsy Kings at the Royal Festival Hall last night.
Food.
Lila smiling.
Lila sitting.
Lila… anything.
Food. (“you said ‘food’; I like ‘food'”)
England beating Australia at Twickenham.
England beating Australia anywhere else.

Things I really hate: (in strict ranking)

Arsenal winning.
Spurs losing.
Everything that happens for the next 6 hours should those two hatefuls occur simultaneously.
Olives.
Nuclear armageddon.

Ok, there are other things I hate too; whilst I’m fucking at it!! Its my blog, innit? I can hate what I want. I hate Jeremy Corbyn, because if he doesn’t actually hate me, he hates everything I stand for or value.

I hate all type of ‘reality’ tv because its the worst kind of misnomer. There’s nothing real about the Kardashians, and nothing watchable about any of the million other ‘famous for being famous’ shows depicting groups of vain and narcissistic morons obsessing about themselves and their tragically shallow lives.

And I hate football managers who bemoan ‘the standard of refereeing’ to the point where the testicle-free zone that is the Football Association actually fine them, only to smile smugly when their own team become beneficiaries of such adjudication errors.

In case I didn’t mention it; I hate Spurs losing to Arsenal. Particularly this (ok, and any other) year when we’ve been playing so well. It hurts. Its horrible.

And yet life goes on. Even Spurs go on. To play (hopefully) hapless West Brom next weekend who may very possibly be without a manager by then as the daggers are out for poor ole Pulis.

I may even rename this page ‘Lila’s Glasses’ as she seems to have taken those now too. As a stark reminder that however bad anything ever gets, there is light, there is love, there is indeed hope for the future. At least off the football field.

Happy (nyeh) Sunday

A xxxx

Who invents this shit? Somebody, somewhere decided that babies have difficulties eating yoghurt off a spoon. Which is true, they can’t really hold a spoon properly (doh; they’re fucking babies; of course they can’t; they can’t do anything properly, its why we have them), so let’s invent a canny thing. A ‘bag’ of yoghurt with a little pipe at the top that enables them to squeeze the yoghurt, ‘gently’ from bag to gob, via tube. How hard can it be? (See above; the video is even better and even more inevitable, with yoghurt squirting all over the place).

‘Spoon-feeding’ has now been consigned to life as a mere metaphor. Its origin will be forgotten. That, once upon a time, we mashed up food, pulped it into something usually only done by waste-disposal machines, then slid the slop gently into a waiting baby. Done with. Finished. Because we live in a world (well I do) of ‘baby-led weaning’. At precisely 6 months old, to the day (Lila’s mum is nothing if not precise, bless her), Lila was sat in a high chair and presented with food. Ok, not like a pizza, certainly not a baguette or steak, but food. Peach. Banana. Some porridge. And for an exclusively breast-fed baby this was not ‘food’, just ‘things’. We’ve had bright red balls and fluffy teddy-bears, now we’ve got this shit to play with. Squeeze it, throw it around and, importantly, stick it in my mouth. Aaaaah; unlike the balls and teddys, this has something that I’ll come to know of as ‘taste’. Hmmmm. And its a good thing. So good I’m gonna stick this mango right in my ear. See what it sounds like.

And from small beginnings, Lila is now an official eater. Ok, I won’t lie, it can get a bit messy in there. Basically she eats like a fucking animal. No cutlery, no plate, just hands, feet, mouth, whatever happens happens. Some goes in, chewed, swallowed even on occasion, the rest gets distributed around the globe, like 3rd world aid.

I was horrified when I heard that this is how babies are trained to eat. But now I’m a total convert. Firstly because it actually seems to work, but mainly because it is probably the most entertaining event in the world. Funnier than Michael Mackintyre, more gorgeous than Harry Kane, it has now become my most viewed event. And will remain so. Unless we should beat the Arsenal tomorrow at the Emirates. Then I’ll have a proper choice of viewing forevermore.

Happy Friday

A xxxx