Andy's Glasses

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

So the other day when I was into David Duke mode, lying in the bath listening to the great ex-imperial wizard of the KKK as he simperingly explained so elegantly the historical, scientific and biblical basis for the evils of globalism, of Jews (the cause of all the world’s evils, all 0.2% of the world’s population), and of the dreaded ‘multi-culturalism’!!!, I got bored. I’ll admit it. It took three 15-minute ‘lectures’ to reach some kind of point which was, loosly: KEEP THE FUCKING RACES APART!!!! Especially the darker ones. Keep them well away from him. That was the point he was so laboriously, patronisingly trying to make.

And today I read how the ‘alt-right’ are dreaming of an ‘ethnostate’ which they see as ‘very Jane Austen in nature’. I don’t think they mean a land filled with neo-nazi skinheads dressed as swooning Victorian damsels all looking for Mr Darcy. I think they mean ‘somewhere very white’. But I’ll retain an open mind on that. So now they’re stealing our classic authors as models for their obscene, divisive fascism. The ‘alt-right’. Trump’s mates. One of them even went so far as to claim Taylor Swift as being a ‘nazi’. Just because she’s tall and blond, presumably, and filling some kind of Aryan dream persona. I don’t have Aryan dreams, but I do dream of Taylor, oddly, though rarely in lederhosen.

Well hear me now, Alt-Rightists of the world (that’ll be American then), you can have Jane Austen, we have loads of sexually frustrated, unfulfilled-in-love, bosom-heaving, Yorkshire-moorsish writers, loads’ of ’em. But LEAVE TAYLOR SWIFT ALONE, YA MUTHAFUCKERS!!!

However, Duke’s end-point, had I gone on another few hours of listening before the hot water ran out, was indeed separation of the cultures and races. ‘For the good of all of them’. Yeah. Maintain their wonderful uniqueness (starvation), their individuality (tribal warfare) and geocultural ties (keep them away from ME). So I really want to know how the KKK, when they take over, plan to do this. The logistics. Will the white Americans just kick out the ‘immigrants’? And if they do, which ones? Just those of different colours? Or the Spanish? Italian? Irish?? And do they then carry on until America is historically, culturally and ethnically ‘pure’ once more, devoid of immigrants completely, in which case its just the Sioux and the Comanches who’ll run the place. And where will Duke be? I think they should fence off a little bit of the Arctic Circle, (that should be ‘Nordic’ enough for the most Aryan of nazis) and give it to the ‘alt-rights’ to live in peaceful, harmonious whiteness.

Ahhhhh, happy Wednesday, feels a bit Nordic round here today

A xxxx

Donald Trump’s passionate hatred of ‘fake news’ began when Kellyanne Conway (aka: THE SHE-DEVIL) announced that at the presidential inauguration there had been a record turn-out. Even though most of the seats were empty. And when most of the press noted that fact, she coined that wonderful phrase ‘alternative truths’. Which is different from the ‘fake news’ that the rest of the press put out. In that… errrr… because… errrr… you see… well, its different. Mainly in that the White House machine puts out ‘alternative truths’ and anyone else uses ‘fake news’.

So how fake is the FBI? Or the National Security Agency (to avoid too many acronyms spoiling the broth once GCHQ enters the fray). The CIA have remained quiet. They do the overseas stuff, assassinations, war-mongering, over-throwing baddies, that kind’a thing.

But the presidential election is now forever tainted with hacking. And that hacking was done by the Russians (nothing ‘fake’ or ‘alternative’ so far? And Trump won. Which if nothing else makes him the beneficiary of outside interference in democratic process.

So Trump’s camp have claimed that Obama bugged Trump Tower. Why would he bother? He didn’t seem very interested in American politics for his last 2 years as president, why would he care about the ‘afterwards’?

And now the FBI and NSA have denied that any Trump Tower bugging ever took place, and they would know. Yet the Russian electoral interference remains on the table.

Elections are a problem. In France yesterday the 5 candidates for their own presidential farce took to a debate. Which was dominated by just 2 people. In fact I’m not sure any of the other 3 could speak French at all, such was their combined contribution. But Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen went at it. Over Europe, over immigration, over frikkin burkinis. And the problem is that Macron is the only viable person to take on the evil one-time neo-Nazi Le Pen, and he is currently being investigated over several issues regarding money. Euros. Francs. And dollars.

GOD HELP THE FUCKING WORLD

A xxxx

This was, results-wise, the almost perfect weekend. The ‘almost’ bit was Chelsea’s undeserved win at Stoke. ‘Undeserved’ purely on moral grounds. If ever you needed proof that there is no God, just look at the top of the league table. The very top, obviously. God starts at 2nd place. In all His magnificence.

And we won. We won the first half of the match against Southampton sufficiently well that even though we definitely lost the second half totally and absolutely, it was enough for our 10th successive home win. But without Harry we’re definitely not quite the same team. Good enough for teams like Millwall but lacking really in attack. Its only when he’s not there that you realise the amazing amount of non-goalscoring work Harry Kane does. And Pochettino’s continued reluctance to give Vincent Jansen a game does nothing for the big guy’s confidence. Meaning that for the inevitable 6-minute cameo he gets ‘to show his worth’, he tries way too hard and looks a good distance short of the ‘world class’ we paid for. He looks a bit short of ‘Hackney Marshes’ at the moment but needs time and exposure. I hope. And although Deli Alli scored his penalty, I wonder why Eriksen didn’t step up for it. He’s a dead ball expert. Deli’s penalty, unless he saw the goalie move first, was in fact fairly awful. And worrying. We seem to get a lot of penalties at the moment. And they’re quite useful.

Arsenal lost at West Brom. Even with all those planes flying overhead with messages to their manager. It was like the damnbusters up there in the Midlands. “WENGER OUT!!!” they proclaimed, “WENGER MUST STAY!!!” said others. The man himself remains as ever illusive and enigmatic about the whole thing. There’s 2 important things to bear in mind though. Firstly, Arsenal are currently total shit. The team are not playing for Wenger, nor for themselves, they’re just awful. They did score but only because the West Brom defence didn’t see any reason to mark Alexis Sanchez when he was in their box. Not like he’s any good or anything. And the second thing to bear in mind is that Arsenal are currently 9 points behind Spurs, ok with a game in hand, but still…

Leicester, the new ‘model’ of ‘how to deal with a manager you no longer like’, continue to win under their new boss. Though only at West Ham.

The icing on the cake though for the weekend was the draw at the Etihad between Spurs 2 hottest pursuers, slightly increasing our breathing space, point-wise. Liverpool and Man City gave a superlative demonstration of how fucking hard it is to score a goal in top class football. So many chances blasted over (Aguero… Aguero???), hitting woodwork or just missed (Lallana), the final result was fair. Especially for Spurs. Don’t really care about being fair to northerners, if its good for Spurs, it is, by definition, ‘fair’.

Free points woz hardly ever sweeter.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

So we came home from the movies last night, made a cup of tea, sat down with the papers and, although really disappointed (Mel) that Match of the Day was over, we found a rockumentary on Neil Sedaka. Who I never really liked, too clean, too creepy, too neat, too Jewish (yes, indeed you can be). But he was a phenomenal talent. Several of his songs were written for the singer Connie Francis, the woman in the pic. Ok, she’s older than the mountains and seen more surgery than the Wellington, but she’s still fun. But if you look at the right hand side of the tv screen, there’s a sculpture/figurine thing. A headless woman (is that the best kind? jury’s out) in steel. Then move your eyes to the left hand side of our unit and there it is once again. Amazing? Coincidence? Or is this a new interactive thing where the tv shows something from ‘your’ room on the screen. So someone else would be looking at Connie Francis with a blue vase, like theirs. Or an Arsene Wenger effigy with needles in it, like yours. Just sayin’…

We saw Elle. The new Paul Verhoven film. We saw it because its in French and we are sufficiently pretentious that we love subtitled films just because they’re foreign. And Paul Verhoven always has a porn element. Whatever language he’s directing in. Basic Instinct and Showgirls were English, the wonderful Black Book was in Dutch & German and Elle in French. He should make up his mind.

Its a curiously disturbing film. Wonderfully starring Isobel Huppert, the ‘middle-aged’ French babe. And she’s a dark and damaged character. Very dark. Quite perverse. I won’t spoil it. But its odd for a film made by a man. Because all the men in it are either evil or stupid. Perhaps that’s a fair reflection on my gender, in which case, its very depressing. Ex husband’s worthless, son’s a total moron, lover’s a deceitful scumbag, even the neighbours are dodgy. And Mrs Neighbour is a Christian Extremist. Not in a violent way, but in the worse way; can’t get enough Christ in her life.

The acid test for any movie is if Mel stays awake for the entirety. And she did. So I can attest to the fact that it is a very gripping movie, beautifully filmed as the French do, and a touch disturbing. But in a good way.

Spurs play Southampton this afternoon. Its the biggest match since… since 2 weeks ago. Worth so many points I can barely add them all up. With Arsenal losing, Liverpool playing Man City later and everything else happening in the world, we must win. Without Harry Kane. Ooooohhhh…

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Without a doubt, my favourite ex-Imperial Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan is David Duke. Mainly because he must be colour blind and didn’t realise that the wig he bought was the totally wrong colour and doesn’t match his beard. But also because he’s just soooooo nasty. But in a very polite, intellectual, exceedingly patronising and re-born Christianish priestly way. He is therefore also my absolute favourite rabid anti-semite as well. Wow.

So how is it that I know so much about this fabulous cultural hero and you know nothing? Because I’ve spent half the morning listening to his ‘lectures’ on youtube. There are hundreds. And they’re the most fun you can have… listening to rabid anti-semitism and abject racism thinly veiled under a gossamer thin web of ‘science’. And ‘istry.

Though there were no banner adverts on youtube for his bits. Which is really where the problem became apparent. Because Duke’s videos, as well as those by ISIS and all manner of other divisive and death-inciting vicious bastards all carry ads paid for by major, high profile multinational corporations. Well, they did, until most were pulled, at massive expense to Google, yesterday. McDonalds pulled their youtube ads, Audi, L’oreal, BBC, Sainsburys and many others including Havas advertising agency who, for all the companies they represent, spend about £25million a year with youtube. A small percentage of which goes to the sites posting the videos.

And smiling Davey-boy hates everyone who isn’t a white, Christian American; safe to say. But he reserves a special place where his heart would be if he had one, for Jews. He fucking hates Jews more than any anti-semite ever has. And I’ll include Hitler in that too. Even though, according to ex-Imp. Wiz Duke, the holocaust never happened. But he doesn’t just hate them, he holds them responsible for pretty much all the evil in the world today. And yesterday. Last Tuesday, July 17 1994 and every other day not previously mentioned. Its all a ‘global zionist conspiracy’, controlling the banks and the media in order to take over and enlsave everyone in the world. He ‘proved’ it from its biblical roots (taken in an out of context quote from Deuteronomy), to Goldman Sachs, to the fact that all the presidents of the Federal Bank since the 1980s has not just been Jewish but been, in his words, ‘a zionist extremist’. And he doesn’t use the term ‘extremist’ just to be prejudicial or suggestive. Oh no, he uses it because its TRUE. You can tell an Islamist extremist because they’re 20 years old, wearing black and a ski-mask and have 15 pounds of semtex strapped to their chests. Similarly, in David’s World, a ‘zionist extremist’ is a 70 year old, bald-headed, slightly stooped semi-retired businessman from Brooklyn wearing a suit and tie. Fucking extremists!

You should watch/listen to DD. The IW of the KKK. Formerly. It is oddly enough, very funny. My concern is the million views each has had. Presumably by many people who are sympathetic to this absolute drivel. Who sit there nodding whilst cleaning their guns.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

The Scots are revolting. Is that news? Well, what’s actually happening is that Nicola Sturgeon has become even more revolting than even we thought possible. In the wake of the worst rugby defeat by the English last Saturday, Nic has decided that she can no longer be a part of the United Kingdom. So she has embarked upon a quest in which she will abuse the word ‘democracy’ with bias, prejudice, ambiguity and selective degrees of one-sided democratic thought. And she wants to drag all of Scotland with her into the abyss.

She’s obsessed with the fact that ‘Scotland voted in’ and therefore its ‘undemocratic’ to take them out of Europe. In fact, ‘Scotland’ didn’t. 60% of Scottish people did vote to remain, but 40% voted to leave. Aren’t those 40% entitled to ‘democracy’? Because strictly, Edinburgh and Fife should stay in Europe but not be part of the UK, whereas Lanarkshire and John O’Groats will leave Europe but stay in the UK. Loch Lomond is undecided and will therefore become an independent principality under an ISIS mandate. I mean, WTF???

Democracy, as it works round these parts (and I’ll include most of Scotland in that) is majority rule. That’s it. England voted ‘out’ too, but 49% of us didn’t want it, don’t want it, fucking hate it. But we’re not out protesting to become part of some Scottish pipe-dream based on precisely nothing. Wales can go fuck itself. Northern Ireland has enough problems without worrying about the ‘Europe’ which lives on its southern border.

So The Sturge has now threatened another Scottish independence vote. Which has to be approved by parliament. Oh, she cries, or really ‘ooooohhh’, that’s not very democratic, ‘London’ going against the democratic rights of the democratic Scottish people!!!! Well, going against rights of one stupidly obsessed and rather undemocratic Scottish tart, actually.

Theresa May has refused to allow it until after Brexit terms are sorted out. Because Scotland is, for the time being, part of the UK and may increase our bargaining power. Maybe there’s some Hearts fans in Brussels.

Ironically, if Scotland voted on independence now, they reckon it would stay part of the UK anyway, because most Scots are decent people who realise that ‘stronger together’ is really more than a mere motto.

But Nic don’t want it. She wants to stay in Europe. Well, Nicola, why don’t you just move to Paris and do us all a favour. See how ‘democratic’ Marine Le Pen is.

Happy Friday

A xxxx