Andy's Glasses

Much as I’m always happy to see any Corbynite discredited, disgraced, demoted, demolished, even disfigured, I must admit to feeling a little ‘something’ for poor Jared O’Mara. Though what I’m actually feeling is in no way sympathy or support, even compassion. But that’s because he’s a Lefty-Labour Tosser. What I’m feeling is a touch of schadenfreude and a sniff of the total hypocrisy that always arises in these situations. Coupled with the wonderful irony. An MP on the Womens and Equality Committee in parliament spouting sexist, misogynistic, homophobic comments of a seriously nasty nature. I’d pay money for that. He also attacked fat people and celebrities in the rant which occurred 13 years ago. Part of his campaign to become a councilor. How does that make you a councilor?? But that’s history, this is now! How can a man who ever held such views possibly be on a committee for, basically, equality and tolerance? When he’s a sexist homophobe, fattist bastard?

His argument, pretty much because its the only argument you could ever make, is the ‘Trump defence’. “I’m not like that any more”. Ok, we have ‘leopards, spots…’ but do people change? I reckon they do. Because what the attention-seeking (council membership is nothing if not that) little ginger-haired plonker’s comments really are is just so much intentionally outrageous anti-PC ranting. I dare say they didn’t even represent his true feelings even then. Ok, ‘they came from somewhere!!!’, that’s true, but I’m familiar with… errrr… ‘people’ making inflammatory statements just for effect and they come from the desire to offend as much as from any deep-seated belief system. Other than that: SACK THE BASTARD, HANG HIM FROM THE YARD-ARM OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND WATCH HIM TURN BLUE!!! (obviously not blue in the political sense).

And speaking of Trump, who can’t even be nice to a frikkin’ war widow, I’m worried about Melania. There are deep suspicions that the Melania we see (big hair, dark glasses, misery-pout) is not the same as the ‘real’ Melania (big hair, dark glasses, misery-pout) but merely a big haired, dark-glasses-ed, miserably pouting imposter!!! Who fucking cares. She says nothing, does nothing, merely turns up alongside… him. A clothes horse on wheels would do. Would probably look happier.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I’m looking for reasons to be cheerful if you’re a Manchester United fan. And I’m thinking… and I’m thinking…

Naah! Its all gone to shit. Lost a game, not such a big deal, happens to the best of them, (though apparently not to Manchester City), second in the league; that’s ok, early days still. But there is darkness on the horizon. Extreme darkness…

Jose Morinho has an interesting personality. Something you could also say about Hitler, Stalin, Jesus Christ and many others. But Jose’s is interesting because he swings between smug, arrogant smiley Dago (can I say that word??? oh, I already did) to psychopathic whingeing excuse-monger on a turn of a centre-forward. Not his, the opponents. He simply cannot handle defeat. Well, strictly, he does handle it by playing his own version of the ‘blame game’. There’s nothing in the middle. No ‘normal’ for Jose, he’s either gloating or self-destructing.

Most famously this happened in his last term at Chelsea when he blamed the team doctor for the loss of a match. She’d gone on the pitch, as is her professional and ethical duty, to tend one of Jose’s princesses, who he trains to treat all contact as seriously as they can get away with, clutching heads, holding faces, waving for medics, and he chose to put the entire match responsibility upon her pretty little head.

And now, following the loss at Huddersfield yesterday, Jose’s at it once more. He’s blaming the ‘really poor attitude’ of the team. Who he then has to work with tomorrow and get them all ‘onside’ and team-spirited before the next match. Which he has now made way more difficult by his statements to the press.

There’s no doubting the man’s talent. But it tends to stall. Anyone can manage a team who are playing brilliantly all the time (does that even exist??) but its the minor hiccups that really define managerial skill. And Jose’s minors explode into majors of his own making, and they seem to get worse each time it happens.

But good managers are hard to come by. Can West Ham afford to sack Slaven Bilic? Who would they replace him with? Does anyone even care? I like him being there, particularly as we’re playing them this week.

My main worry is that Spurs magnificent midweek performance at the Bernabau spotlighted 2 things. That Pochettino is the manager that Real really want, and Harry Kane is an anagram of ‘Christiano Ronaldo’. But only if you’re dyslexic.

Liverpool this afternoon. Gonna watch it with Lila. Big game. Even though it is indeed ‘early days’ in the league, I’ve unilaterally decided that all Spurs matches henceforth are now ‘massssive!!’

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Do you have a mobile phone? Just wondered. I used to have one. Then I replaced it with a mobile Lila-photo-storage-facility. Its much better. There’s no room for apps, text messages, phone numbers, just photos. Only of Lila. Except a few that sneak in of Harry Kane or even Donald Trump when someone says something funny about him when he fucks up. Ok, which is pretty much a daily event, but Lila really trumps all. Even trumps Trump. Though 49 photos a day really doesn’t satisfy totally. It gives me a little taste, but mainly of what I’m missing. So this morning, after over a week’s forced separation (holidays, work, life), I managed to squeeze a quick visit after tai chi but before tennis. I was in mid-activity mode and so was Lila. Every minute is an activity for Lila, even if that activity is just chewing her socks. So we got together. And all I can say is: denim jacket. Don’t like to be the love-struck, totally-obsessive grandparent thing but sometimes… just sometimes…

Lila knows nothing about the intricacies of Brexit. She has that in common with Theresa May, Boris, David Davis, Jean-Claude This and Michel That and everyone else involved in the divorce fiasco. Which is more akin to the lottery than to any logico-mathematical process. Think of a number, in billions, double it, add on the number of lovers enjoyed by the entire French parliamentary ministers over the last 4 years (also in billions), divide by the national debt of Lithuania and THAT’S HOW MUCH BRITAIN HAS TO PAY!!!! Then Theresa May offers them 75 quid, in cash, and negotiations start in earnest. And its all bollocks. Because much as I love numbers, as a general statement, I never trust them when spouted as a gospel. Particularly by politicians. First we had the Boris “350 million quid EVERY DAY to go into the NHS when we leave Europe” blatant lie. No-one ever mentioned the pay-back we get against that Euro-payment, but they wouldn’t, would they. Today I heard that ‘Britain has paid 200 billion more than any other nation over the last 40 years’. I’d question that one a bit too.

So if we aren’t sufficiently generous in our offer they won’t discuss trade. If we are generous everyone cries ‘Judas’ for still cow-towing to those Euro-bastards. Then there’s borders. Then there’s laws. What happens to EU citizens still living here, as they’ll be allowed to, if their vast array of European human rights are abused in some way (Europeans should have their human rights abused at every opportunity, nothing more than they deserve) and we’ve left the Euro legal thingy? Where would that poor person stand? How would it work? Oh my.

I’m still aching over the price of an iced-coffee in Tel Aviv and I’ve got all this to worry about.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Churchill once described Russia as ‘a riddle wrapped in mystery inside an enigma’. I thought he was talking about China. Googled it to find the quote and learned it was Russia. Bummer. Churchill also once famously retorted to a woman at a dinner party when she said to him ‘Sir, you are drunk!’, by saying ‘yes, madam, and you’re ugly, but in the morning I’ll be sober’. You gotta love Churchill.

But getting back to China (?), they’re holding their five-yearly national congress of the communist party. Not quite as big as the 10-yearly National Assembly or whatever they call it, with just 2280 delegates at this one. All smartly dressed (compulsory), full dress military uniforms (compulsory) and all in receipt of a hard copy of the three-and-a-half-hour President’s speech so they can study it as he delivers it. And study it they do, making notes in the margins like a bunch of schoolkids in history class. If you yawn or fall asleep you’ll be taken out and never seen again. That’s democracy in China. Ruled by one man with the power of all the gods combined. Who set in motion the process to extend his 10 year tenure, which ends in 2023, longer. Much longer.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. (Not Churchill, different old geezer, not as funny).

And the Harvey Weinstein ‘thing’ is all about power. And its chronic and sustained abuse. Its not about sex, per se, but about feeling you can live out your fantasies just because you can get away with it. Getting caught with your fingers in someone else’s cookie-jar. 47 times.

But you can’t help wondering when this, the biggest story for decades in Hollywood, and looking certain to get much bigger as doubtless other ‘big players’ will become accused and the entire ‘casting couch’ culture suddenly put in the spotlight with whistle-blowers (among other things) queuing up in the wings, you have to wonder how Donald Trump feels when he reads (or probably has people read it to him) every day the story unfolding. Because its his story too. He must be squirming every time he hears the name Weinstein mentioned.

Though whereas Weinstein has effectively lost his job, his company is being boycotted by all and sundry, he’s a national disgrace and may end up in prison, Trump’s punishment was to be elected president. Unsurprisingly, the White House has made no comment whatsoever so far on the scandal.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

That vile place, Piccadilly Circus, is famous for its billboards. Always has been. Because 23 million tourists mill around there all day every day and night, you can’t actually get in there now if you’re a uk passport holder. Sorry, them’s the rules. But we don’t wish to go there anyway, its horrible. They can keep Eros. When they replace him with Harry Kane I’ll think about returning.

But due its rather large footfall, Piccadilly Circus has become a evolutionary history of the billboard, pretty much in my lifetime. They used to have massive posters, with lights shining on them. Then they went to screens with stationary images. Then flashing images, changing every so many seconds. Which morphed into full-fledged big screen technology with moving images, changing messages, all kinds of display wizardry. But now they’re become ‘interactive’. But not ‘interactive’ like you get to have a go as well, or you can push some buttons, no. This is more devious, sinister, surreptitious type interactive.

They have installed cameras which scan the crowd and work out the changing demographic and control the advertising content accordingly. So if a bus full of pensioners from Grimsby arrive, the ads would be for… things they like and need. Wheelchairs. Nursing homes. Soft food that doesn’t require too much in the way of teeth. Surgical supports. Then they get displaced by 17 coaches from Tokyo and the ads change to those for cameras, pizzas (Japanese love pizza), sex-bots, ladyboys, all the things culturally and age specific to their demographic. Football fans get beer ads with lots of lovely, semi-naked white women on them. Nothing ‘gay’ like clothes or body products.

The next step, surely, is to ‘reach out’ to the phones of those collected in the square and quickly search their browsing history and present up-to-the-minute relevant ads. Bit of a problem with school trips because they’d have to advertise porn sites but this is obviously the way its headed.

Just a quick mention of last night. At the Bernabau. In Madrid. 1-all draw. Which is, for Spurs, simply MASSSSSSIVE. To go to that temple of Madridista Magic and not lose 4-0 is a victory. To come away with a draw (only the 3rd team to do so in the Champions League in the last 24 home matches there) is the stuff of dreams. And despite the Times printing the group table wrongly, with Real at the top, Spurs in fact top the group due to higher number of away goals.

Pinch me.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

What is athletics? What constitutes a ‘sporting activity’. There are probably clearly defined parameters, but who can be bothered with all that. So generally, what happens in the Olympics decides what are ‘sports’. So skateboarding is now a ‘sport’, snow-boarding, mountain biking, various things done with a horse, not in ‘the French way’, dancing (on ice), beach volleyball (praise be) and all kinds of runnin’, throwin’, liftin’, heavin’, hurlin’ and fightin’. Basically, all you need is a method of quantifying it. An objective measure of scoring based on proper criteria. And so now, due to the efforts of one woman to do exactly that and work out a scoring system, we may well see pole dancing at the next Olympic Games. Which I think is absolutely right and correct. I would take it further and include pole dancing in an entire section based on ‘prostitution and the sex industry’. Stripping. Kerb-crawling. Sliding 20-pound notes into underwear (lightweight and middleweight only). It would legitimise the ‘oldest profession’ and increase the viewing 10-fold. A win-win. Shame Peter Stringfellow is not around to witness it.

And whilst we’re contemplating ‘changes’, they want to put a time-limit on peerages. You can be a ‘Lord’ but only for 15 years, then we have to kill you. Ok, then you ‘retire’. No more crusty old seniles pitching up for 10 minutes to claim their 300 quid a day and then buggering off to the bookies for the afternoon. Or worse still, staying there for 3 weeks (that adds up to £4,500) until someone realises they actually died on day 2 but no-one noticed.

The House of Lords is a vital part of our democratic process. A ‘check’ on Parliament. That’s its role. But now it has 800 members, second in size as a legislative chamber only to the People’s Congress of China. And as that one is a total farce anyway, I think we can claim ‘the biggest in the world which actually does stuff’. To stress the point, Andrew Lloyd Webber (notice no hyphen? he had to ditch that to become ennobled, rule number 354/3296/bqv43.7: ‘no fuckin’ hyphenated tossers allowed’) has resigned his peerage. Has no time to sit as a Tory peer as he has for 15 years because he wants to bring Cats back on the stage for the 17th time. Well, too busy was what he said, but we all know.

Basically; I’m ready. For a Lordship. Ditch the old useless ones and get some young blood in. We’ll sort it out.

Happy Tuesday

(Lord?) A xxxx

This was a very special weekend. Partly due to being in the biblical, spiritual homeland of all the world’s major Western religions and simply feeling that… godly fucking vibe, just permeating through your very fibre. Partly due to being on holiday, relaxed, fab experiences, hot and sunny. Yet mainly, really, attributable to a far more lofty cause. Spurs won a home game. I don’t even know if it was a good game, a worthy result, a ‘well-earned’ three points. Don’t give a shit about any of that. We played at Wembley and we won. That’s a first for this season, broken the duck, shattered the curse, re-written the book, whatever. Now we can think about winning properly. Away from home we ease to 4-0 wins, at home we struggle and just cling on to 1-0, but I JUST DON’T CARE.

What I do really care about is Crystal Palace. Poor lowly Palace, rooted to the bottom of the table with just a row of zeroes except for the ‘goals conceded’ column. No wins, no draws, no goals scored… just shit. What they needed, to break this duckiest of all imaginable ducks, was to be given a team to play who could possibly be even more shitty than they were. And that’s why God (who lives just round the corner here) invented Chelsea. As a gift for Crystal Palace to alleviate their plight. The 3 points they get for beating Chelsea is insufficient to lift them off the foot of the league, but its a start.

And in case the weekend hadn’t been good enough by then, holy moly, there was even more good things to come. Arsenal went to Watford. A team I like (Watford, not Arsenal, doh, obvs) but who generally don’t excel at the top level. Though this year they’ve been punching well above their weight. Surely it couldn’t last? Arsenal? They’re a (fairly) top team! (Normally) Play in the Champions League!! Have a host of top (under-performing, want-away, injured, brain-damaged) players who can win a game in 3 seconds! Surely Watford couldn’t hope to win against such a team. Surely??

And yet. And yet the Red Sea parted once. The fourth plane missed the Pentagon. Horrible rapist-types like Donald Trump or Harvey Weinstein DO become accountable for their past actions, and Watford can and do beat Arsenal.

Ok, West Ham didn’t lose so even HE didn’t get it all right, but all in all, a very very productive weekend. And all I had to do was lie in the sun and float on the Dead Sea. Glad to have had such a valuable contribution.

Happy Monday (from departure lounge, Ben Gurion Airport)

A xxxx

So I have a MASSSSSIVE problem. Simply massive. Its 30 degrees here at the Dead Sea, having cooled down since the day’s activities. And now, 2 hours ahead of British Summer Time, the football’s on. Not, like, on tv, no, bloody savages round here wouldn’t be so bloody cooperative as to do that, would they??? No, I have to go to the BBC web-page and keep refreshing it. And the problem is: the wifi coverage in the pool area is simply awful. But this is where I want to be. Rather than sitting in the super wi-fi reception area like a sad and sorry bastard. I’ve told Mel, if she was a proper wife, she’d sit in reception and run back here, very quickly, every time Palace score against Chelsea, Man City score yet another against Stoke or, obviously, should Spurs score against Bournemouth. For some reason her love for me is insufficient for her to do that. And I don’t have a butler here either. This is just AWFUL!!!

Meanwhile, first world problems aside, I love it here. Haven’t been down here since 1974 but when you’re considering its all about geological time, those 43 years represent half a milli-second. The dead sea is in fact losing 1 metre of depth every year but there’s not a lot I can do about that really. The odd thing is, it doesn’t look real. Because its massive yet the surface doesn’t move. The water, the saltiest in the world, is thick and viscous and there’s no waves or tides because… because there aren’t. So it just sits there looking majestic. And a bit surreal. With Jordan on the other side.

The ‘dead sea cosmetics’ company, Ahava, have been greatly affected by the assholes of the world who have adopted the ‘BDS’ against Israel, banning products made by Israeli companies on the West Bank. So Ahava have no choice but to move their factory out of the West Bank and into Israel. Right here in fact. Which will cause the loss of hundreds of Palestinians’ jobs. How does that benefit them, exactly? They become unemployed so a bunch of pseudo-lefty, right-on, middle-class history professors at SOAS can feel smug in their anti-semitic zeal. That’s fair.

This hotel employs refugees from Eritrea, Sudan and Yemen. The chamber-maids are local Bedouin women. The front desk staff are Jordanians, Egyptians, Lebanese. But you’ll never hear of such things on the BBC.

Right, back to the football. Nil, nil at half time? How is that even possible???

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

We’re at the Dead Sea. The lowest point in the world. That’s relative to sea level. If it was the lowest point from a moral standpoint then I’d be in Las Vegas. But I’m not, I’m here in the Holy Land looking at the amazing salt lake in the middle of a desert. It was a 2 hour drive from Netanya in north-Central Israel. And you go down towards Jerusalem and then follow the West Bank all the way down. And we saw a bit of ‘the Wall’, that most contentious of things. And it looked pretty much… like a wall. Then we hung a left (following Waze, of course, like an Uber driver; blindly, naively and unknowingly placing all my faith in an app on my phone) and drove into Palestine. Oh. Palestine. Ok. Or not? I’ve driven through Arab villages before, they’re all over Israel and they’re fine. But the occupied West Bank? Actual, for’real Palestine? Ok, its the Fateh bit rather than the Hamas bit but still. We saw the wall again. But this time from the inside, I cunningly worked out. As it was on the other side of the car and we were still heading south. And from this side, the Wall looked… like a wall. And then we drove round and back to Israel, according the wishes of the god, Waze.

I won’t lie and claim I felt persecuted, repressed, empathy with the plight of the poor Palestinians, I can’t really state that I was even nervous. Mainly because at no time was I ever sure precisely where I was. We didn’t see crowds of stone-throwing youths, groups of shooting soldiers, ululating women beating their chests, tanks screaming backwards with turrets swirling. Nothing. But I reserve the right to claim heroic status, just… because.

We’re staying in a place called Ein Gedi. Its an oasis. Nothing to do (thankfully) with either Gallagher brother, nor any kind of arrogant Mancunians at all. A natural oasis in the desert filled with waterfalls and little freshwater lakes you can swim in and trees and green and all manner of un-desert-like stuff. And its hot here. Hellish hot. As you’d kind’a expect. Because on the drive down you leave Europe and you enter the middle-east for real. Sand and dunes and camels and searing heat, its an incredible and quite sudden transformation. Mainly because all of Israel used to look like this bit until they Europeanised the northern bit extensively.

But this is the real, biblical Palestine/Israel/Canaan of old. Down here was Sodom & Gamorrah. Which, apparently, made Las Vegas seem like Rome. Jesus probably walked round here at some point. So the place is now full of Christians. Proper, guitar-playing, hymn-singing ones making a pilgrimage. Many of them (the Germans) actually putting the ‘grim’ into pilgrimage.

So forgive me (Lila) for I have sinned. Not forsaken you, that would never happen, but just thought for once a photo for purely explanatory purposes was called for. And I look fucking gorgeous.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Ok, so I haven’t written to you for a few days, didn’t phone, never called…

I’M ON ‘OLLLIDAY!!! ‘AVIN’ A REST!!!! ISS’ALLOWED!!!

Right, so having used up my years’ supply of exclamation marks in one (poorly constructed, verbless, grammatically evil) sentence, I’ll tell you why.

Because I’m ‘busy’. Really busy. Not in the normal sense of being in any way productive or a useful member of society or even a moderately helpful individual. None’a that. Just ‘busy’. When I’m not eating (which already reduces the available time by about 60%) I have duties to perform. Beaches to be sat upon. Rays to be caught. Granddaughters to be checked upon. And, for staying with my (very) old mate who’s lived in France for 25 years, there’s catching up to do, conversations to be had, reminiscences to be remembered or fictionally re-created, things to be done.

All the while whilst enjoying all that Israel has to offer a poor tourist. Most of which is by making him (or her, its certainly equal opportunity) much poorer than he was when he arrived. Not their fault. I blame Nigel fucking Farage. Because the pound has plummeted against the dollar (on which Israel’s economy is based) and the Euro, which is also important, our British coin of the realm is sodding worthless anywhere south of Dover. So the car park we’ve always used in Tel Aviv still costs the same 20 Shekels (NIS) that it did 10 years ago. And then it was ‘3 quid well spent’. Now its ‘good value for a fiver’. Even though strictly its £5.40. Food’s gone up. Wine has moved its price from ‘och’ to ‘vey’. All cos of the pound, cos of Europe, cos of Brexit, cos of Nige.

‘Historic sex offences’ were really trendy in the UK a few years ago, but really only a few late-coming losers like Ted Heath are still trying to get on the bandwagon. But over in the States, always a few years off-trend, Harvey Weinstein is having a pretty bad time of things. First Ashley Judd (oh but she was sooooo exquisite, back in the day) tells tales of how that nice Harvey (who I’m quite sure is every bit as lovely as a person as his appearance would suggest) made seriously inappropriate suggestions to her in a hotel room, using his not negligible weight, both physical and professional, to threaten her into actions that might have upset her and thrilled him. Then everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to Cara Delevine have suddenly had ‘total recall’ moments making similar claims against the poor man.

Perhaps, like with footballer-chasing tarts, these women are just publicity-seeking honey-trap babes out for a quick ‘kiss’n’tell’ with the National Inquirer. Then you realise they’re superstars in their own right, needing neither the money nor the publicity, so perhaps there’s something in it after all? All Harvey really did was use his position as head of the casting couch to cajole a few women into sexual favours on the implied promise of film stardom. Is that such a crime?

Yes. I suppose it is. And when you look as ‘fetching’ as Harvey, he’s likely to get 10 years.

Happy Wednesday/Simchas Torah

A xxxx