Andy's Glasses

Israel is a confusing and unpredictable place. That’s why its in the middle east. Because it spans the civility and politeness of Europe (errrr… Bosnia, Catalonia, Spanish Civil War, The War to end all Wars, and the one that followed it…), yeah, civilised. And the far east, those savage orientals who murder with swords, eat funny things and make copy Gucci handbags. Thus the middle east. In the middle of… pretty much the sublime and the ridiculous, but I’m not saying which is which. And the middle east is a big place. Massive. 47,346.9 cubic hecti-acres of bigness. (Don’t quote me on that one, but really don’t). And in all that vastness, there is but a weeny little stip of land, between the Mediterranean on its west coast and the RedSea on its southern easterly coast. And that teeny bit of land peopled by the most peaceful, bookish and yet persecuted people on the planet, has always (well, since 1948, when it became ‘official’)`been a bit of a problem. An enfant terrible in the vast masses of the combined Arab Nations.

And yet the food is so fabulous. That in itself should be a cause for love, for inclusion, to some form of acceptance. Israel is pretty much summed up, you could say, by Yotam Otalenghi. He’s a chef, a brilliant chef. A brilliant Israeli chef who is gay. And whose partner is a Palestinian. But this is all fine here, and even in Britain where he’s actually much bigger than he is here. Yet anywhere else in that vast expanse of ‘the middle east’, Otalenghi wouldn’t even be allowed in, because they don’t allow Israelis into almost all the Arab nations. And if they did let him in, it would only be to execute him for his homosexuality. Yet here its cool. All is well. Because the bit they never tell you on the news, in between the ‘apartheid’ bollocks and the ‘nazi’ accusations of total fucking ignorance, is that in Israel Jews and Arabs coexist everywhere in happy, harmonious equality. Burkinis are not banned in Israel. They’re just part of the scenery on every beach. Arabs live here, work here, vote here, join the army here, play in the national football team.

But they rarely mention that. They prefer to focus on Gaza. In which there are thousands of Palestinians who used to work in Israel, who still go to hospitals in Israel, but who can’t now ‘cross the wall’. Because unfortunately, their little land-strip is ruled by an organisation who have in its charter ‘the destruction of Israel and the death to all its Jews’. And these are not mere words for Hamas. These words incite action. Hamas are just ISIS spelt differently. Same ideals, same ideology, same methods. So in response to the years of bombing and suicide attacks and shootings and stabbings of Israeli citizens (not soldiers, just civilians), in response to that they built a wall. And the attacks dropped by over 90%. And its cruel and its tragic and its an awful thing to do to the large proportion of Gazans who are truly innocent. But if we, in London, or Manchester, or Brussels, or Paris, could build a wall that would ensure our citizens safety from terrorist attacks with such effect, would we not do it?

And you have to wonder why otherwise all the arabs would choose to stay in Israel. When most are Jordanians, Lebanese, Syrians, Egyptians and north Africans. The answer to which is that here they live in a free and liberal democracy. The only one in the entire ‘middle east’. Where their children are educated at state expense, where the hospitals, some of the finest in the world, will treat them on their Nationalised Health system and where they can live in peace, pray to whoever they wish, integrate as much as they want to. And eat some really amazing food.

Sorry to rant after such a long pause, but every time I come here I get such a fantastically strong positive vibe that I re-wind every relevant news report for the last 6 months and think, once again: why would people spout such crap so consistently about such an amazing place that they’ve obviously never visited.

Now I’m going to the beach and I’m going to eat lots of things.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Well did’ja hear? Americans are looking at gun regulations! Not just Americans, but even… Republicans!!! And not even just, kind’a ‘normal’ republicans but even the NRA!!! The all-powerful National Rifle Association, mouthpiece of right wing, second amendment, right to bear arms obsessives have actually said that something needs to be done, in the wake of the latest mass slaughter of the innocents in Las Vegas. Normally, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But this ‘event’ got out. Meanwhile, in the 3 days since the Vegas massacre of 59 people, 87 other Americans have died in random gun crimes throughout the country. But they don’t really count. Probably because most barely make the newspapers.

The NRA could have said that more stringent questions need to be answered before selling guns. But that would affect gun sales. They could have had some limit on buying bullets. Hmmmm, that too affects the ‘bottom line’. So they’ve instead all come out demanding a ban on ‘bump-stocks’. WTF?

A stock is the bit at the back of a rifle that sits against your shoulder. Or against your hip if you’re Arnold Schwartzenegger. Its the butt of the gun. And some clever psychopath designed a special one, called a bump-stock. Because in America you can legally buy any fucking gun imaginable. Massive monster canons, 3-mile range sniper rifles, whatever ya want. As long as its not ‘automatic’. Automatic means its a machine gun. Pull the trigger and the bullets fire until you take your finger off. That’s automatic. And illegal over there. Semi-automatic is when you get just one bullet for every trigger pull. And hence slows down the number of schoolchildren, concert-goers or church devotees you can kill in any given time period.

A bump stock takes a semi-automatic rifle and makes it into a fully automatic machine gun. You could actually hear it in the videos of the Vegas killing. Not the 20 rounds-a-second type Kalashnikov ‘spray’ but the constant, regular ‘tat-tat-tat’ of rapid fire. That was the bump stock wot did it. Turning a ‘perfectly innocent’ thing, like an assault rifle, into something that can commit mass murder. Without that bump-stock, its just a soft cuddly thing. Like a Barbie doll. So we need to ban them.

Perfect. Won’t affect any sales of guns or bullets and will appease the world and those horrible Democrats. Shows that ‘America cares and listens’. This is emphatically NOT just some pathetic attempt at token gesturism.

Yesterday, gun shops sold out completely of bump-stocks.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Say what you like about Boris, and most of it will be expletive, doubtless, but at least he knows how to speak in public. How to put on a show. Ok, he’s a back-stabbing, lying, cheating, egotistical narcissist who would murder his own mother to move half a rung up the career ladder, but he has ‘charisma’. And that, in the political world, is hard currency. Because in that world, appearance is sadly way more important than substance. Its wrong but that’s how it works. We live in a world full of tossers who shout loud to let us know they’re important. Well, not so much live in it as watch it. So when Philip Hammond and Jeremy Hunt stand there to address the Conference, there is lots of substance. But the delivery is so tragically dull that no-one hears it or heeds it. There is no emotion, there is no passion, its cold and sterile and factual and as rousing as a 0-0 draw at the Emirates. Watching the Tories speak makes you realise why they had to invent recreational drugs. Then up steps Boris and is immediately a ‘wow!’ due to what has preceded him. Ruth Davidson knows how to speak too. And today we’ll see how ‘rousing’ the Prime Minister can be. (Shudder).

Any political party, as we now know, needs to engage the youth and cater to the aged. Not always that easy to reconcile. University money or care homes? Can we have both? At least the young can walk to the polling stations, I suppose. Yet its the old that generally vote. Ruth Davidson can engage the young voters. I’m not sure Theresa May can. How the fuck Jeremy Sodding Corbyn can do it I really don’t know.

Busy week. We have the Aussies coming round tonight for dinner before they fly off back to Sydney. Then tomorrow the Canadians are coming over to stay the night, which is fab cos we see them even less than we do the Aussies. Then Saturday we’re going to Israel to stay with my oldest mate who has just moved there from France where he’s been holed up for the last 26 years. Fortunately its the ‘international break’ (how appropriate) so there’s no proper football around now. Otherwise we’d be missing all our friends due to ‘important events’. I mean, you can always make new friends, but if Spurs were playing Burnley…

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Shares in American gun companies dropped yesterday. Smith & Wesson (as was) fell by 7%. And anywhere else this would be a good thing. Ahhhh, people are getting the message: guns kill. Horrible things, mass murders, evil, wicked, blah, blah, blah.

But this isn’t anywhere else, this is America. (Well, ‘there’ is America, strictly speaking but ya know what I mean.) And the message is a completely different one.

Traditionally, after a(nother) mass shooting murder, shares rise. Because Americans panic that new gun legislation might be introduced and they’re down to their last 17 rifles, pistols and anti-tank missile launchers. So better go and buy quick, before them lily-livered-liberal-lefties start making life difficult. Like making us fill in a form before buying a cannon powerful enough to take out a 15-storey office block. And that fear, that buying guns might be harder, creates a panic buying spree. After every shooting in the Obama years. Making the shares rise.

Not so under Trump. Relax, dude, pass me another Coors and we’ll finish up the carbs on the Camaro before we go to the gun-shop. Maybe burn a few crosses on the way over. Because Trump will never do anything to improve gun control. He promised it at the hustings and he’s promised it since. “The eight year assault on our second amendment rights is over” he stated when he came to power, referring to Obama’s constant attempts to bring a little sanity to the nation of the insane. Which never made it past congress or the senate because the gun lobby in America is all-powerful. And all-murdering.

Guns don’t kill. People do. That’s the party line. But guns do make it so much easier. Particularly to reach the big numbers. Like the 59 killed in Las Vegas yesterday. Making it another boom year (no pun… well, not much of a pun) for ammunition makers. And keeping up the average in the States of over 30,000 people killed every year by guns over there. In the total years of US and British ‘intervention’ in Afghanistan and Iraq, there were 7,500 deaths of troops.

So when Donald puts his hand on where his heart used to live when he had one, and goes into ‘sincere’ mode to mourn the loss of those fine individuals, he doesn’t mention the agency of those deaths. Nor the fact that as president, he could actually try and do something. He would fail, like Obama did because most of the Republican Senators are funded by guns. So he’ll just put that ‘sincere and devastated’ facade back on the shelf today, ready to fish it out when he next needs it. The risk of it getting cobwebs are minimal.

Happy (ish) Tuesday

A xxxx

If Jeremy Corbyn should come to power in this land formerly known as Great Britain, I want to declare the area bounded by the North Circular Road, the Edgware Road, Lords to the south and East Finchley High Road to become an independent state. North West Londonia. It will be independent, have very strict border controls and be ‘part of Europe’ but only for holidays. Oh, and while I’m there, its gonna be tax free. Why not? Like a little Monaco resting by the Heath of Hampstead. I’ll be the king (well its my frikkin idea, innit?) and my granddaughter will be henceforth known as Princess Lila. Which is pretty much what she is now, but she’ll have the title to go with it. And there’ll be no fucking speed bumps. Or speed limits on the roads.

Well why not? Everyone else is doing it. Up in Catalonia, the home of my second favourite football team, they want independence from Spain. So the Spanish police sent in the heavies to, basically, beat up anyone who thinks they might like to vote in the referendum on the subject. Which is almost as democratic as locking up and shutting down all the polling stations. We should try that here. But they’re having a referendum. That most evil and divisive of political weapons.

Because a referendum sounds like a great idea. “Let’s ask the people what they think”. Very democratic and egalitarian. Except its not. The Catalans are having theirs because they want away from Spain. Like the Scots did when they wanted independence from the UK. Except we let them have their vote and Spaniards are keen to prevent the Catalonia one from happening. Which is almost irrelevant anyway. As the mere mention of a referendum instantly divides the people into warring factions. Ok, the ‘wars’ are manifest as protests, generally peaceful (but not in Catalonia once the police arrive to ‘help’). So the community is divided into those who want the referendum and those who don’t. Pretty much, you’d think, those who want independent Catalan region and those who want to remain part of Spain. But why? What purpose would independence serve? Its not like Catalonia is some forgotten wasteland outpost. Have ya been to Barcelona??

The Scottish referendum painfully divided the Scots. There’s still heaps of bad feeling up there over it, all those years ago. Same with the Brexit debacle. Which demonstrated why referenda are wrong, because the people you’re asking are insufficiently qualified to make that decision. Which is why Brexiteers can’t get out quick enough, regardless of economic consequences and remainers think the ‘out’ voters just ignorant Faragists with a racist agenda.

I want to ban referenda. We should have a referendum on that very subject today.

Happy Monday

King A
xxxx

So why do you fast? People ask me this. Knowing my precise thoughts on the whole ‘relgion’ thing, which loosely translates as ‘its all bollocks’. And there is but one reason. Or two. I fast because I can. I fast because its really not difficult. I fast because everyone else does. And I fast because as the bell goes for the end of that 25th hour, we eat food that never, under any other circumstances, tastes a fraction as good. Why do you bang your head against the wall? Because its great when you stop. Why do you fast?

Though I did murmur the weeniest of prayers yesterday. Even before the Spurs match kicked off. I prayed that my hip would be ok for today. Because my dear old (very old, in fact) mate Aussie Johnno is over for the usual, brief, temporary, fly-through visit to these shores. And for those who don’t know, when he was Rhodesian Johnno, he was in fact the Bulawayo Boys Tennis Champion of about 1973 or 74 or thereabouts. So the once in a decade chance to compete with ‘the best’ (phah!) was too great to heed the consultant’s instructions to ‘just rest the hip and it’ll be fine’. I’ll rest it tomorrow. In fact, due to upcoming holiday, I’ll be resting it quite a bit. So no point being too hard on myself. How much harm can one gentle knock-up do? Particularly with the Bulawayo (white-)Boys Champion of 1975?

The signs were great. Weather conditions perfect. It was raining. But not much. Barely a drizzle, hardly a torrent. And it was great. Like the old days when he was London Johnno and we’d play more regularly. And all was fine. Until that fatal run to the right. Ahhhhh. Fuuuuuuu- no, I’ll be fine. And I was fine. The pain ceased, I gingerly went back on court and played out with increasing comfort/ lesser limpage. No problem. Course, I can’t fucking move now, but heh, I’m in ‘rest mode’ for the next couple of weeks.

Theresa May has found a way to get the kids onside. Bribe them. Like Corbyn did. But he lied properly. Made promises that would never be even considered should power ever, heaven forbid (see, I do religion sometimes) fall into his lap. But Theresa’s bribe is more subtle. She’ll ‘freeze’ student tuition fees. Wow! That’ll buy me… errr… nothing? Yes, in a magnanimous move, she’s promised to hold the fees at the current 9,250 quid a year, subject to the preposterous 6.25% interest (bank rate currently: 0.25%). She will NOT, I repeat NOT be increasing them by the published £250 each year. I think Ms May needs to go back to ‘bribery 101’ and re-learn the basics: promise EVERYTHING, give nothing. She’s promised nothing. Thus just looks like a panic.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

We don’t sin. Jews, that is. Fact. Because today, Yom Kippur, the ‘day of atonement’ is all about, well, atoning. But not for sins. I endured 2 hours this morning of an ‘explanatory service’, the nearest I can actually bring myself, if not to synagogue, then to ‘prayer’. Don’t do praying. Unless Spurs are taking a penalty. Explanatory is different. More philosophical. More differenter. And I learned that the hebrew word used in all the prayers for this most holy of days is not ‘sin’. Its a hebrew word that very loosely can be translated as that, but the word ‘sin’ is just too specific, culturally. Too English. Which is a Christian language. Thus cannot translate middle-eastern concepts easily. Its more a ‘missed target’, an accidental sin. Ooops. And I was relieved at that pedantic little quirk. More because its interesting how all these things came about. Then I went out and did my ‘security’ which is great. I’m outside in the sunshine protecting those who feel they need to beat their chests and plead to God himself (you’re only allowed to do that on Yom Kippur really and NOT when you’re just driving round the North Circular and get cut up by a Nissan Micra drifting across the lanes) for eternal forgiveness.

Because I’m really not ‘a believer’. Nor a ‘Belieber’. Though I believe in Justin more because he’s kind’a there. Normally in prison. But definitely real. And as a cynical skeptic I need ‘proof’. Let God prove his existence to me. Personally.

And I went round to Lila’s and Spurs were 3-0 up at Huddersfield!!!! Holy shit!!!! I thought, there really IS a God!

So now I’m gonna go the whole 9 yards and grow my beard really long, dye it grey (as if) and wear silly clothes. Then maybe Spurs will even win at Wembley too. Who knows how far this thing could go?

But first I have to get through the day. A 25 hour fast. No food, no nuffink for a day and an hour. But its not a penance. Its not a punishment. Its because today (thankfully only today) you enter a plane of such intense spirituality that you simply ignore your basic, normal bodily demands. Unless the toilet’s involved, then you concede. Otherwise synagogue would be a bit of a mess. You become, like an angel. All spirit and no testicles.

So here’s the moral dilemma for yom kippur: would I become super-religious if it would guarantee Spurs would win every week? Hmmmmm. God’s definitely a Spurs fan anyway; he doesn’t need me.

Happy Yom Kippur

A xxxx

There was a geezer on Question Time last night whose little sign proclaimed him as “Ian Lavery; Labour Party Chair”. Just like that. Much too pc to be called a chairman, or chairperson, I thought, so he’s just ‘the chair’. I’d never seen him before. Then I heard him speak. In fact you’d have to be fucking deaf not to have heard him speak even if your tv was off as he has no volume control. Its set and stuck permanently on ’11’. He’s that new breed of politician; doesn’t matter what shit you speak AS LONG AS YOU SPEAK IT LOUOUOUDDDDD!!!!” He didn’t answer one question directly. Lots of politicians don’t. They twist a question about Angela Merkel’s open door immigration issue into the evils of Tory party taxation. Every other question he ended up talking (shouting) about the NHS. And being a Geordie, the louder he gets, the less you can understand. Yet when actually speaking about the NHS, as with many other things, whilst pausing to work out which direction to obfuscate, he ummed and ahhhed and showed a distinct lack of facts, figures and details. Obviously he’s the man responsible for shouting loud sound-bytes, they leave the facts and figures to Diane Abbott. And thus they call him ‘the chair’ because he in fact appears to share an IQ with my (previously) favourite piece of furniture.

Hugh Hefner died. The man who invented pornography. The man who brought us women clad only in bunny ears and tails, and nothing else, has gone to a ‘better place’. Though if there is a (straight) man alive who can think of a better place to be than the Playboy Mansion wearing pyjamas, he must be a religious devotee. Though God never looked as good as any Playboy Centrefold I’ve seen. God doesn’t even shave his beard, let alone…

Playboy has been around my whole life. And it was, for the first 40 years or so, the only ‘general interest’ magazine for men around. Whilst women had hundreds of weeklies and monthlies which talked of fashion and recipes and holidays and lifestyles and kids and movies, men were stuck with ‘Practical Electronics’, or ‘Motoring Weekly’, ‘Caravanning for Simpletons’ or ‘Line and Reel’. There was no magazine, until the arrival of the ‘lad mags’ which catered to men in an ‘across the board’ way. You were either into Mediaeval Calligraphy or you weren’t. But if you wanted to read about cars and clothes and music and… and… ok, and naked women, then Playboy was the mag to get. That was the justification anyway. The Party Line. Playboy catered for ‘things men like’ and ‘fabulous tits’ rank high on that list. Hugh was a god. Albeit a rather odd one, I felt. RIP.

I’d like the Labour Party under current stewardship to RIP too, but that’s a long way off, I fear.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Capitalism is in crisis! Thus spake Corbyn. And in some respects he’s right. The banks fucked up royally, buoyed on by greed and arrogance so for 10 years we’ve all been paying the price for their mainly illegal excesses. Ryanair fucks up the travel plans of 40,000 more travellers and offers them each a Kit-Kat as ‘full and final compensation’. The Americans and the Canadians are battling over the aeroplane market and so the Yanks have imposed a 220% import tariff on Bombardier (Canadian) planes, risking 10,000 jobs in Belfast, where they have a massive plant. We have a housing crisis and a few other crises as well.

But what is the alternative? To capitalism? Well, according to the Corbyn/McDonnell axis of dickheads, the answer is Marxism. Put everything into the public domain and what you can’t nationalise you control to death. Can’t buy all the private homes but you can control the rents. Can’t buy all the multinational companies but you can tax them to death. Can’t replace CEOs with unemployed fruit-pickers but you can cap their salaries by tax until its no longer viable for them to work.

Never mind, everything is ‘state run’, every worker union affiliated and gets a 10% salary hike each year, regardless of profitability, viability or even workload. So might as well sit in the corner and let someone else sort out the in-tray. Everyone has an in-tray because everyone works in offices trying to run the massive number of nationalised industries which are failing. Just like last time.

Communism doesn’t work. Even if capitalism is fucked 6 ways to hell, it functions economically 1000 times better than communism. There has never been a viable economic communist state. I’ll repeat that: THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A VIABLE ECONOMIC COMMUNIST STATE.

Which is why, in anticipation of what we’ll call ‘the glorious day’ when the red flag is raised over both the Palace of Westminster and Buckingham Palace (just shoot me now; at least its painless), those pragmatically Marxist labourites are working out the inevitable. Which is that if Corbyn gets in, there’ll be a run on the pound as foreign investors get their money ‘the fuck out’a Dodge’ faster than you can say “there’s no place for Jews in the Labour Party, because we deplore all forms of racism and ethnic intolerance”.

But its ok, I’ve booked my way out of this mess, just in case. Ryanair flight RY24…

Happy thursday

A xxxx

There are three reasons to be cheerful this morning: Harry Kane, Harry Kane and Harry Kane. A masterful hat-trick last night in Nicosia left Harry with free goals, Spurs with free points and all good in the world. As long as you ignore all the bad.

And I missed it completely. Spending my time at a hospital having my hip checked out. The result of that match: no hat-tricks, no score really, a nil-nil draw. I wanted instant surgery. “Ahhhh, I see the problem, let me just hack that bit away, screw in a new plate there… where’s my hammer-drill?… yes, that’s got it… NOW WALK!!!!! Free from pain, free from anything!!!! Except my fucking fee, obvs.” Not to be. We visited the ‘imaging centre’ (don’t have ‘x-ray departments’ any more; what are you; living in1962??) and had came out with a new suit, slicked down hair and shiny shoes. Ok, I came out with x-rays. Sorry, ‘images’, ‘scans’. That kind’a thing. Which showed that I’m probably over 60, Jewish and, after staring at my pelvic scan wondering what was wrong, I have no penis either. Oh, they don’t come out on x-rays, phew. Or the x-ray machine wasn’t big enough, more likely. Anyway, nothing horrendous, all ok, just rest it and give me your credit card. Not necessarily in that order.

So then we came back. And the football was over, the fat lady had sung her last wonderful note and we were 3 points to the good in the Euro. And I thought: ‘I love Harry Kane’. Spurs, by all accounts, didn’t play brilliantly. Not even that well. But the first three attempts on goal all fell to Harry and he scored the lot. Which means lots of things.

Firstly, he has answered the ‘world class’ question with 5 goals in 2 matches in the finest footballing competition in the world. Consequently, secondly, he’ll be at Real Madrid before next September. Its what those bastards do. Steal our heroes. Well, if 100 million Euros counts as ‘theft’. It also means that the nicest, most humble, normal, common-or-garden geezer is one of the top 5 strikers in the world.

You don’t have to look like Beyonce to be a brilliant singer. You don’t have to look like, well me probably, to be a Hollywood superstar. And you don’t have to look like a pumped up, leg-waxed, tan-sprayed, tattooed steroid-receptacle to be a top footballer. And that’s Harry’s charm. He’s so wonderfully ‘normal’. Not educationally, obviously. But in his demeanour. In his manner. He looks like a plumber’s mate. The one who brings the wrenches and pipe-cutters, makes the tea, rolls up the fags. He looks like white van man. In a Range Rover. He doesn’t need to pose. He is the real deal.

Very happy, slightly limping Wednesday

A xxxx