Andy's Glasses

the omens were good. Lila was born and a mere 7 hours later Spurs won at Burnley. Obviously completely down to her. The very next day, yesterday, the day when, had she the power of speech, she could actually say: ‘do you think I was born yesterday??’, that very day Arsenal and Man City drew at the Emirates. The perfect result. For Spurs. Chelsea even lost on Saturday, so aware were they, unconsciously, that in the world there now existed a presence. A very little and pretty sleepy presence, but a presence nonetheless that is the future for Tottenham. The force is strong in this one.

But she’s a baby. So she don’t know nuffink. Not yet. She is the ultimate ‘tabla rasa’. But when is a good time to start learning? I turned up yesterday with some things which I strongly believe, in keeping with the ‘Suzuki method’ and various other brutal and merciless ‘tiger-mom’ paradigms, will make our baby a true wunderkind. So I brought a violin, obviously, a tennis racquet, The Sunday Times, a logarithmic calculator and a Samurai sword. For the perfect, rounded child. I thought I’d leave the Nirvana and Black Sabbath cds til next week.

Unfortunately, none of it would fit in her little car seat. No room. Mel wanted to take her a swimming pool but that was really out of the question.

When you have a child it just becomes your life. Everything else, whilst not exactly stopping, certainly gets put on hold or postponed, cancelled or takes second place to the tiny little presence that has a beyond-exponentially dominating effect. But when you have a grandchild its different. Its more relaxed. I loved my babies (I stress: WHEN THEY WERE BABIES) and now its like being given another go. Stick another 50p in the slot and you get to play again. Because babies are fun. They have no agenda. They live totally in the moment. Well they would do, wouldn’t they? They don’t have much of a past and don’t understand what the future even means. So if a baby wants to dump a bowl of porridge on its head, it just does it. The world of ‘consequences’ (a slimy head) and repercussions (none) simply doesn’t exist.

I’m going to try not to be obsessive, not to be a baby-bore. But its going to be really really hard. I’m a bit obsessed already and she’s barely opened her eyes. I’m renaming these pages ‘Lila’s Diary’ and will dedicate it to parental advice (God help her) and comparisons of baby clothing with a particular view to health and safety…

So look out for pictures of ‘baby with electric screwdriver’ and other caringly grandparental stuff.

Yours over-indulgently

A xxxx

I’m new to this grandparenting lark. From what I’ve seen so far, its fantastic. I get to stare at the most gorgeous baby in the world, as long as I like. And I do like. She’s wonderful. Not that I’ve seen her with eyes open yet, but there’s time for these things. No rush. I know what you’re thinking: all babies are gorgeous, everyone thinks theirs is the best. Which is normally true, but little Lila really IS the best. I’ve done a poll. And both Mel and I agree. So that’s final. And babies are all gorgeous, they have to be. If not they really wouldn’t survive the first 3 months of incessant demands and attention-seeking, let alone bed-wetting and shitting themselves. If you tried that; I’d kill you, no question.

People who aren’t grandparents just don’t understand. Ok, that was me until yesterday morning too, but now I’ve seen the light. Because people say ‘oh, so shall we cancel dinner then, you’re grandparents now’, or ‘oh, so you won’t be playing tennis will you, you’ll be grandparenting’.

Wrong. On all counts. (Misconception number 1) And that is what makes grandparenting special. You get to choose. Ok, we accept that we’re on call 24 hours a day, or with elder daughter, possibly 29 hours a day, and we like that. But its really not like the whole world stops with the birth of a grandchild and there’s no return whatsoever allowed. That’s called ‘becoming a parent’.

Grandparents are different. We need to spend all our time (misconception number 2) worrying about what the baby will call us. Grandpa? Grandad? Poppa? (Then come the Jewish ones) Zaida, Zaidee, Oompah, Kinderfarterfarter (German/Yiddish, very literal), Schmendrick (only stupid grandfathers) or Wally (my grandfather). And the truth is: I don’t give a shit what the baby calls me, as long as she keeps calling me. Not like she can speak yet anyway.

Mel will NOT be a Booba, Gran, Granny, Nanny, anything even vaguely goatish or Fanny. Her grandmother’s tragically anachronistic name. She wants to be ‘Grandma’ and nothing else. Good luck with that, 2 syllables, hmmmm.

When people ask me what I want to be called I just answer ‘Kevin’. I have no idea why. Prince George calls his grandad ‘Sir’. Or possibly, ‘Princely’. Everyone else calls his grandad Schmendrick. So there’s obviously no real rules.

Well, I better get back to baby-staring or name-working.

Very happy Sunday

Dorothy
xxxx

So the biggest ‘worry’ at the moment is the plight of the ‘misplaced Europeans’. We have millions over here and thousands of our good, British, post-Brexit workers ply their trades and live their lives ‘over there’. The status of these people was suddenly, on the day after the referendum, put into question. ‘Can we chuck out all the Poles?’ was the first question asked, probably by ten thousand third-rate, semi-unemployed useless British builders, looking to seize their chance. But what about all our bankers in Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin??

Theresa May immediately said a great big, soft, fluffy blanket: no-one here will be sent home, won’t happen, they’re safe, we love our Euro-workers and their families. But the next day as she crossed Westminster Bridge and was pick-pocketed by a group of Romanians, accosted by beggars from Bulgaria and had to step over 55 Albanian families sleeping rough on Parliament Square, she reconsidered.

So instead of her ‘they can ALL stay’, it suddenly became subject to how Europe treats our ex-pats. Conditions were set for immigrants from Europe. Basically: we’re happy to keep the useful ones but you can take the fucking rabble of freeloading parasites back. We’ll implement a system based on salary earned, job done, stuff like that. ‘Criterion based’ is the by-word. Others instead used the phrase ‘bargaining chips’ as this band of happy people became part of the process. So we’ll keep 10,000 more Germans for a 1% drop in sales tariff. 62,000 Lithuanians will give you half a BMW at the pre-Brexit price and… no, no-one wants the Greeks. At any price.

But how will this affect the football? That’s the most important political question of the day. Never mind Trump’s consistent cock-ups in the US, the rapidly escalating fiasco of corruption that is the French election, WHAT ABOUT OUR BLOODY FOOTBALLERS?????

Who, currently, would only pass the immediate ‘can stay’ rules if they’re internationals. Others, however good, for some unaccountable reason, might have to leave. Like Juan Mata and Ander Herera at Manchester United. Azpilicueta at Chelsea. Fuck off back to Spain, you’re not good enough. Bastard rubbish. Many think that turfing out the ‘Europeans’ from the premiership (currently 30 of the players) would actually be good for English football as it would encourage young English kids to fill the void left. And yet footballers certainly pass the ‘highly paid’ criterion. And some.

Its a bit of a mess really. Though the whole thing’s a bit of a mess. But just a word to David Davis and co.: YOU’RE NOT TAKING DEMBELE!!! NOR ALDERWEIRALD OR ERIKSEN!!!! Nor Arsene Wenger. We need him too.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

At 12.25 yesterday, GMT, Britain’s Dear Jean (French for John, innit) letter was submitted to the European Union. By 12.29 I was bored with fucking Brexit. I have no idea about the significance of that particular time. It was a totally ‘un-Kennedy’ moment. In that, no-one will ever remember what they were doing at 12.25 on Wednesday, March 29th 2017. But as its such a significant event of world-shattering consequence and repercussion, I’ll show you the letter.

Dear Foreigners,

Theresa xxxx

It was brief and to the point. And now the negotiations begin in earnest.

The Poles want to ensure that their thousands of nationals will be secure in Britain. The Germans want to make sure we’ll still buy their BMWs. The French surrendered. They don’t know who to, but its what they always do when things get rough.

What an exciting time for the Nation, for Europe, for the WORLD (zzzzzzzzzz…)

Happy post-article 50 Thursday

A xxxx

A judge on Monday gave a cricketer a suspended sentence ‘so he could pursue his professional career’ after his trial, rather than banging him up. For banging his wife up. With a cricket bat. Oh, and forcing her to drink bleach when she… because she… Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Forcing someone to drink bleach is not something most people would ever think about, let alone do. Its ‘not normal’. But Mustafa Bashir is not really normal. He also lied about having a contract with Leicestershire Cricket Club, which earned him the virtual reprieve, but they denied any knowledge of him. The prosecutors are going to appeal the sentence. Otherwise what message does that send out? That its ok to attack your wife with things if you’re a sportsperson. I would never hit my wife with my cricket bat. Its an expensive and delicate bit of kit. I’d use a broom handle.

But cricket, even without the help of Mustafa, is in a funny place. Because its such an odd game. It is the most curiously unexciting of sports. You watch it for 3 days and if you’re really lucky, the last 2 hours will get really… really… well, sufficiently interesting that you stay awake in the summer sun and possibly feel so engaged that you put off the next trip to the bar until the end of the over. And then its a draw, however much the excitement suggested otherwise.

Which is why its not good for tv. Too bloody long. So the only people who really watch county cricket (3 days) or even test cricket (5 days) are the retired and the unemployed. TV needs stuff that grips you to the seat. Speed it up so as to force the entertainment value. Make it bigger hitting, faster bowling, shorten it and put it on at night. Then workers can watch it too, when their labours are done for the day.

People still watch test cricket. In fits and starts. Its a great place to host corporate hospitality. More deals are done at Lords over an Ashes test match than in 11 months of boardroom antics in the entire City of London. I made that up, but it could so easily be true as all the brokers and dealers and multi-nationals all have boxes and suites there. Come to the cricket, bring your lawyer.

So the Indians, the most cricket loving nation on the planet, invented a wham-bam version of the game just for the impatient masses. T20 they call it. Just 20 overs each, highest score wins. Oh, and change the ball from the red its been forever to white, just so we know its different. And cos its at night. Generally under floodlights but maybe ‘dark cricket’ is the way forward. A little dangerous, but with infra-red glasses, (only for the fans, not the players), a real spectacle. Anyway, they want to do it here. Pay lots of money to just 8 clubs, move them from the rural wastes where cricket lives, to the Cities where the spectators live and make a version that can be watched in one sitting. Mainly at home on tv. Where the money is.

Lots of crusty old English gentlemen are turning in their graves. And Sky are rubbing their hands together.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

This looks like Stephen Hawking, the world’s most brilliant man, giving a lecture. Or possibly floating in space among the stars, but that would be cruel, even if rather appropriate. But its not. Its a hologram in Hong Kong. Whilst the Prof was at home in Cambridge. And seeing as hopping on Easyjet is a bit of a problem for the ageing physicist, and they don’t fly that far anyway, holograms are the way forward. Though they cost a bit more than an Easyjet flight.

What’s amazing though is that Stephen Hawking is still alive at all. I know a guy with Motor Neurone Disease. I saw him a couple of years ago and he just looked a little ‘stiff’ when moving. Then a few weeks ago he came into work and he has become a Stephen Hawking impersonator. It was terrible. Chin down, speech impossible to understand, distorted completely. Just 2 years. Stephen Hawking was given 5 years to live in nineteen sixty-whatever (go watch the film again if you want precise details) and is still miraculously ‘here’. A brilliant mind, possibly the most brilliant since Einstein, trapped in a totally useless body. And winner of the prize for ‘the most disabled person ever to cheat on his wife’. For which he must be praised to the stars.

Meanwhile, back on the building site, all is not looking good for bricklayers. Our favourite construction worker, the ‘brickie’ is counting his days (ok, or ‘her days’ but really…) as they’ve invented a robot brick-laying thingy. Wot lays all the bricks you want, all perfectly, all with the correct amount of mortar, all perfectly… bricklike in ever way.

Furthermore it just lays bricks. It doesn’t request that passing women bare their breasts for it (though the technology is there), nor stop for 6 pints over a 3 hour lunch (only when on daily pay, not hourly, obviously). It doesn’t ‘piss like an elephant’, nor request tea with 9 sugars every 40 minutes.

The bricks have to be loaded, presumably by a humanoid of some description, probably wearing a hard-hat, and I assume that the parameters are input first, otherwise it would just keep building a wall forever. Fine for Donald Trump, not so good for your new garage, the wall of which goes on for 600 yards windowlessly and breaks 736 planning regulations.

They’re comin’. The robots, holograms, techno-peoploids, just you wait.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Mauricio Pochettino, the holiest of holies, the manager of Tottenham Hotspur football club, the man who WALKS ON WATER, who has taken a rag-bag group of bad buys, poor attitudes and abject appallingness and turned it into a wonder-team of togetherness and passionate artistry, the best man in the whole country…

was seen in a restaurant in Barcelona with no other than Josep Bartomeu, the president and head honcho of FC Barcelona!!!!

The incumbent manager at that exalted football club is leaving in the summer. And, cor blimey, what a coincidence, I pops into me fave tapas bar for a glass of Rioja and some Serrano ham (its what football Presidents eat) and fuck me sideways; ain’t that Mauricio Pochettino, the wonderkind of football management, just as my super-rich team are looking for a new top dude???? What a stroke of luck. Amazing coincidence. ‘ere, Mauricio, share a plate of meatballs with me, let’s ‘ave a little chat.

Apparently, according to the leading expert in Spanish football, the meeting was merely a coincidence, a chance encounter in which the two men, old friends anyway, simply hugged, exchanged pleasantries and went their separate ways. Mauricio went for the sardines and Josep the lamb chops and 3 bean salad. Nice. Fresh.

This was no ‘tapping up’ restaurant encounter as made famous by Ashley Cole who ‘coincidentally’ bumped into Jose Morinho in a restaurant. Ashley coincidentally had his agent with him, 2 advisers, 3 secretaries and a legal team from Clifford Chance.

So despite everyone (read: Arsenal fans, Chelsea fans) making a big deal of this encounter in Catalonia, it was just that. The scummy end of English football would love for Pochettino to leave Spurs. But he won’t. He’s found his ‘inner Yiddo’ and is loved at the Lane. Why would he want to swap that for Barcelona?

Ok, money. Lots of fucking money. Obscene amounts of money. And a team that has the most winning mentality in the world. With the best attacking line that very world has ever seen. And a history of glory. A recent history, not like Spurs one. BUT…

It is also the most unforgiving environment in the game if success is not massive and immediate. You don’t get 3 seasons at Camp Nou. You don’t get one. You win or you’re gone. Though in the Mickey Mouse league that they have there, you only have to beat Real Madrid twice to win it.

So, Josep, let me tell you now, HE AIN’T FOR SALE, AT ANY PRICE, SO FUCK OFF.

Just in case.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Gwyneth Paltrow has decided that its wrong to eat squid because, in common with other cephalopods, ‘they are intelligent’. Therefore; we mustn’t eat them. In case they… errrr… realise what’s happening? Get scared?? Write bad things about us on Squid-Advisor?

The first thing that has to be taken into account is that the word ‘Paltrow’ translates from the Lithuanian as ‘FUCKING NUTTER; REACTIONARY DO-GOODER, TREE-HUGGING OVERLY SENSITIVE HYPER-FADDIST’. Its true.

Have you ever seen a squid reading a newspaper? Playing video games?? Yes, we all have, in Disney films. Squidley Diddley even fired a gun. Well, about six guns at any one time. But he wasn’t real, you know that, right Gwynnie? That’s what we call anthropomorphization. Bestowing human characteristics onto animals.

Something I feel the vegan world does to excess. Ahhh, pretty ickle piggy-wiggy. No mate; bacon sandwich in waiting. But LOOK at the eyes, they cry, it understands!!!! No, it doesn’t mate, it really doesn’t. Neither do squids, octopi nor cuttle-fucking-fish.

So I raised this issue with The Bubble after Tai Chi. He’s ‘almost a vegan’. Which to me is like being ‘almost a virgin’. Almost a house-plant. But his motivation was a film showing a bull, reared by a lovely Spanish man, a virtual father to this lovely beast, who then stuck him in a bullring and… well, bullring, ya know what came next. Weren’t pretty.

I’m opposed to bullfighting. Horrible activity. I wouldn’t ban it, because I don’t like banning stuff that’s culturally entrenched. Bit like banning boxing. But bullfighting is different, its simply the abuse of animals for human pleasure. Which is, to any non-Spaniard, revolting. Like dog-fighting.

That’s not why I don’t eat dogs though. I don’t eat dogs not because they’re cute, nor because they’re not kosher (they don’t have scales, just sayin’) nor anything other than they don’t sell them at the butcher. They don’t sell squids either but you can get them elsewhere.

I approach the whole debate from a more evolutionary perspective. Starting with ‘I am a carnivore’ and ending with ‘if bulls, squids or dogs had evolved opposable thumbs which could send text messages, they’d fucking eat us’. So I’m getting in first before any bizarrely un-Darwinian effects might occur

Happy omnivorous Saturday

A xxxx

They keep making movies of old tv shows. Either for lack of other inspiration or, more likely, for an easy retro-nostalgic buck. They did Miami Vice, big movie, Michael Mann, wow. They did Starsky & Hutch, also big names, big money, shit films. So now they’ve re-booted CHiPs, which, OK, I kind’a watched every week without fail and rode my pretend Harley round the lounge wearing my mum’s sunglasses and had a man-crush on Erik Estrada’s smile, but it was definitely shit. But now, rather than turn cult-but-poor tv shows into crappy films, they’ve cut out the ‘cult’ requirement and gone for the worst ever show and sending it to the big screen. Power Rangers.

My girls, when very very young (I stress) luuuuuurved Power Rangers. Every Saturday morning, red-eyingly early in the morning, ‘we’ had to watch it. This is what happened. Every fucking week, without fail, deviation or anything that may have invoked the word ‘interesting’. Five schoolkids, boys’n’gels, one black one, one oriental (gotta be PC, this was 1995 or thereabouts) were in Maths class when suddenly a light went on upon someone’s belt. “Holy SHI- Holy Moly”, he/she would intone, depending on whose belt it was, obviously, “THE WORLD’S BEING INVADED BY ALIENS!!!!! And, fortunately for us, as we’re not in fact old enough to drive yet, they’ve chosen to invade just around the corner by the park, right in our back yard!!!!” The most convenient and considerate marauding aliens ever. Bless. And always the same. Men in ‘clay’ suits. Or ‘mud’ suits. Who crumbled when the Power Rangers… did whatever they did. Anything would work, so it appeared.

And now they’re back. Big screen, bit time, big lumps of disintegrating clay. Doesn’t get better than that. Or does it?????

They’ve made Yellow Ranger a lesbian. Just, ya know, for the kids. Sweet. Or perhaps she’s bisexual, as one critic proposed. So I’ll go with ‘gender neutral slut’ for the time being, just to avoid any possible ambiguity. And its never too soon to confuse kids over the whole sexuality issue.

I quite liked the old Yellow Ranger on tv. She was a ‘she’ and a rather fit one. Pink was quite nice too. The boys had the butch colours, black, green, red. No ambiguity back then. Yellow was my fave. Not that I dressed up like her or anything. No, my PR suit was red. Sorry, RED! The leader of the Power Rangers.

Onwards and upwards and beyond infinity and living long and prospering… they never had a tag-line. Show was too cheap to buy one. Maybe they’ll invent one for the movie.

Think I’ll give this film a miss

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Yesterday’s attack in Westminster marked the anniversary of the attack on Brussels last year. It also occurred within 24 hours of the death of Martin McGuinness.

Which is an interesting tale of what happens to terrorists when they get old. They become peacemakers. And then we forgive them and hail them as heroes and they get to meet the Queen.

Because ‘freedom fighters’ always have a point, a case to make, they have a cause. The IRA had a cause and ISIS have a cause. And we, the normal, regular, minding-our-own-business citizens of free, democratic countries, are the victims elect of the demonstrations of the cause. So we ignore them and hope they’ll go away or simply play the statistical probability game, security in numbers, and simply pray that ‘it doesn’t happen to us’. Not that we don’t fear, not we don’t care about those poor people yesterday who died or were horrendously injured by the as yet unnamed motherfucker of a cowardly piece of jihadi shit, because we do. Deeply. But we have to carry on. Firstly because otherwise the motherfuckers win, and secondly because there’s probably more chance of Arsenal winning the league this year than of me or my loved ones getting caught up in that kind of shitstorm. Statistically speaking. Optimistically.

Martin McGuinness was at the head of the most violent, murderous terrorist organisation that the ‘civilised west’ has ever known. He killed enemies. Well, it was a kind of ‘war’, so that’s almost understandable, if not forgivable. But he also bombed pubs. Here, in England. Birmingham, Guildford, London. The IRA blew up Brent Cross flyover one Friday night. It woke us up. Close, but no cigar. Murdered innocent people. Blew up the hotel in Brighton to try and kill Maggie Thatcher, but missed her and others were killed or terribly injured. He organised the death of the Queen’s cousin, Louis Mountbatten, for fuck’s sake.

I can’t help but draw parallels, its just how my mind works. For all the good that Martin McGinness achieved in his later life I could never forgive him for the sadistic evil her perpetrated for two decades when he was younger. Because there is never, ever a reason or a cause that could ever justify killing innocent people. If you do that, your cause is lost.

Maybe McGuinness is today borrowing some of yesterday’s jihadi’s ‘virgins’ in Hell. I’d rather think they’re bubbling away in an eternity of boiling oil, watching re-runs of 1-nil Arsenal games.

Shaken but not stirred

A xxxx