Andy's Glasses

Last week Spurs lost a midweek game to Liverpool. I didn’t give a damn. Nobody gave a damn. Probably some of the players did but the manager didn’t. He played a second string team, gave some youngsters a run-a-bout and the match was hardly mentioned. Because it was in the EFL Cup. What? Who? Where? The EFL Cup. One-time merely The League Cup and a ‘vessel to prize’, a ‘path to European glory’ and prestige all on its own. Now; its nothing. A distraction. A chance to get players injured or exhausted before ‘important’ matches coming up.

I blame Arsene Wenger, myself. But I blame him for the war in Syria, for the American election debacle and the fact that my 4 Spades contract went down by 1 at bridge last night. He is my scapegoat of choice. Yet in the League Cup issues, he may be to blame. For being the first manager to have the foresight, about 10 years ago, that nobody will give a shit about the League fucking Cup in 5 years time, so its not worth doing anything other than making token gestures. And thus he started the trend of ‘playing the kids’ for League Cup matches.

Its a shame because that cup used to have kudos and everyone wanted to win it. But money changes all and when the Premier League came about and the Champions League arrived in its current format, everything changed. Finishing in the top 4 of the league became EVERYTHING. Because it gained entry to the Champions League. Winning the League Cup, if you could be bothered, only got you as far as the UEFA Cup, another much diminished trophy.

Again, this is a horrendously elitist viewpoint from the very top of the top league. I’m sure Watford would give their naming rights for the chance to win the League Cup or play in the UEFA. But (and I hate this term) ‘Big Clubs’ have big aspirations. And want the Champions League or nothing. Nothing being what most get. Most of the time.

Well Spurs got into the Champions League last year. We just did enough before the inevitable collapse to ensure entry. Yet still keep one eye, a very big, Cyclopean type eye, (maybe we can borrow one from Mezut Ozil), on league position. Which once again, is not as healthy as we’d like.

Tonight we play Bayer Leverkusen at Wembley to pretty much decide whether we will continue on past the group stages into the knockout phase. More to worry about there, but we’ll do so later. And then on Sunday we go to the Arsenal. Who are currently so full of goals and confidence and amazingness that if I didn’t hate them already, I’d start right now.

A big week. A very big week.

Worrysome Wednesday

A xxxx

Ok, so just imagine, for a moment, a possible scenario.

The Royal Fam. are all together for a lunch, a party, a gathering. Maybe to watch the Bake Off final together, or see Ed Balls on Strictly. Maybe they do that. THEY ARE HUMAN! So they must do normal shit too at times. You can’t spend your whole life waving at crowds and inspecting troops.

So they’re together for this ‘casual’ event. So casual that Prince Philip is not in uniform. Well he is, but he’s left half the medals off. Charles is a lounge suit and the Queen is crown-less. Casual. And Prince George picks up a gun. The Royals love guns, they’re like Americans in that respect, probably have them all over the place, as well as the ones on all the walls. But this gun is no ‘civil war musket’, this is a proper gun. A big one. And his little Princiness accidentally opens fire. And shoots the Queen, his own parents(!!!) Wills and Kate, and even his gorgeous little sister Charlotte. Oh my, quel tragedie. (Its only make-believe though so don’t get too upset and start looking to sign the ‘memory book’ and stuff, not yet). Little George gets so upset that he then shoots himself, realising the magnitude of his inadvertent actions.

Harry would be the King. In one fell swoop the man 5th in line to the throne of England, Wales and wherever else is left, would ‘ascend’. War hero, drunkard, champion of wounded soldiers, humanitarian and all round pretty damned good bloke, would be our monarch.

And ‘she’, her above, might be the Queen. I know, she doesn’t look like a Queen, as we know it. She looks like a serious ‘babe’. And she’s foreign. American. Mixed race. Divorced. We’d have a ginger King and a babe for a Queen. How cool would that be?

Harry is ‘besotted’ with Meghan Markle. She’s an LA actress, currently shagging co-workers against filing cabinets in some legal ‘drama’. A series so earth-shattering its on channel ‘Dave’. Harry has the hots for her. Serious. Cancelled meetings in foreign lands to play eager puppy in LA. And I’m not saying she’s not worthy of his attention. In fact, after the string of limp blonde arm candy Harry’s used to, Ms Markle is a revelation. And she’s also a ‘humanitarian’ (aren’t we all? on some level? other than Nigel Farage?) and into yoga. Which Harry said he loves too. But you would, wouldn’t you. And I love kale and vegan food.

I hope this works out for Harry. He is definitely a good bloke.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Ok, that’s it, I’m simply not going to cast my vote in next week’s Presidential election. I refuse. I abstain. Ok, I don’t actually get a vote, as such, but… errr… yeah, well, good point. No vote. Thank God for that.

Who the fuck are Americans going to vote for? The brain-damaged molester? Or the woman so careless that she accidentally places 650,000 state department emails on the personal computer of a serial sex offender?

Just when you thought this campaign could get no lower, it just dug itself in yet further still.

The FBI, that semi-evil force of good-ish, the acceptable face of the secret police (mainly because they dress so smartly. In fact they dress like Mormons), were investigating Anthony Weiner. Again. Mr Weiner, if you’ve forgotten, was the Congressman who was kicked out for sending pictures of his… errrr… of his Weiner… Little Weiner, to various women. Who didn’t want to open up a message on their phone and find this dick’s dick staring at them. He was kicked out of congress. But was still in possession of his dick. So started ‘sexting’ some girl. A 15 year-old girl. Oooops. Which in America, is ‘underage’. For… err… sexting? Whatever. Age is an odd thing in the States. You can drink in some states at 18, some at 19, a lot at 21. But you can vote at 18, drive at 16, have sex at 16, possibly whilst driving, but NOT whilst drinking, and you can own a gun at 4. Or 3 with parental supervision. Though you have to be 9 before you can steal dad’s high-powered machine gun firing 100 rounds a minute.

Anyway, The Weiner was married to Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s closest aide and colleague. And obviously some link between the emails and ex-hubby/perv/dirtbag.

My first thought when this all came to light on Friday was ‘what: NOW???’ YOU HAVE TO BRING THIS UP NOW??? 10 days before the fucking election? Must be a Trumpspiracy. Trump has paid off the director of the FBI and got him to spread the dirt at the most sensitive time imaginable.

And yet the emails are there. 650,000 of the fuckers. On the computer of a total liability. If there is any dirty doings here, Americans need to know this before the election. If it was just a ‘mistake’, they really need to know that too. Because where we have ‘silicon valley’ and ‘silicon roundabout’ and silicon implants, the Russians have Hacking Central, Hacking Peripheral and Hacking Everything Else. And if Hillary is accidentally sending sensitive stuff to sex offenders computers, that ain’t safe. Its stupid, ignorant and shows a complete lack of understanding. And she’s the ‘clever candidate’.

I’m not talking about football until it gets better. Much better.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Went to see ‘Motown: The Musical’ last night. Brilliant. Ish. Very ‘ish’. In fact much more ‘ish’ than brilliant. Because its a formula now. Jersey Boys (Frankie Valley: the musical), Sunny Afternoon (Kinks: the musical), Beautiful (Carole King: the musical), Queen: the Musical (Queen; the musical)… ya get the picture.

And of course the music’s great, which is why the audience was 90% 50-plus. It was our music. And mainly pretty fantastic. They performed it well, a little OTT in places but pretty much anything by the Four Tops, Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, Diana Ross, Martha Reeves, etc, etc, etc, is a pretty good starting point.

Ok, these shows ‘tell the story’ behind the music. But so do all those fab BBC4 documentaries that I’ve been addicted to for… since the BBC went up to ‘4’. And they play the real thing. And have the real faces speaking about it. But heh, this is ‘entertainment’, ain’t’a fucking documentary. Yeah, but I wish it was. Because then they wouldn’t come into the audience for a little ‘join-in’ sesh. Oh. No. I was safe, I was in the Circle. But any semi-decent show immediately becomes a downmarket shit-fest for semi-drunk daytrippers from Blackpool as soon as they get a few slappers on stage for some karaoke.

That’s where they lost me totally. Sadly. Because the cast works hard. Really hard. And does it well. Ok, unless you’re Marvin Gaye you really have no right singing ‘What’s going on?’ but he’s been dead years so that’s difficult. So its ‘a trubute’. Ok, I can almost live with that, until the singer walked down ‘among us’.

What was much more interesting though is the awakening I had.

I was 14 when the Temptations brought out ‘Ball of Confusion’ and I loved it. Great song, great dance tune, fab, blah, blah, teenage adolescent blah. But it wasn’t a ‘fun’ song. It wasn’t ‘baby love’ or ‘my girl’, this was a song about the state of the world, the state of America, and racism. 6 years after the civil rights bill was passed and still there was an almost-apartheit situation in many southern states. And a full apartheit in music. ‘White’ radio stations wouldn’t play ‘black’ music. The sponsors wouldn’t allow it. Segregation was outlawed in 1964 but continued in so many real ways.

And I never realised that in 1970. Didn’t occur to me in, even then, multi-cultural, liberal Britain, that the USA, the country we all idolised and aspired to, was in some parts just like the South Africa we’d boycotted, banned and hated. And the music of Motown, like all good music, was a reflection of the society that spawned it.

Must listen to the words more carefully.

Happy Sunday. Ok, not for Jose Morinho, but for everyone else.

A xxxx

The Brexit vote, that fateful day that has so far increased the price of an Apple Mac by £300 and dropped the pound 20% against the dollar and the Euro (funny money used by the garlic eaters of Western Europe and the racists and anti-semites of Eastern Europe), was on June 23rd. Since that day, over 4 months ago, they are still talking about ‘having the vote again’.

Bad losers blame the system. Which is why the Liberal party has been banging on for Proportional Representation for 50 years.

The rationale behind the re-vote demander’s claim is that both sides misrepresented their ‘facts’ and effectively lied to the electorate, consistently and enduringly, they told lies, stretched hypotheses, distorted facts.

In which case every election in democratic history should be re-run. Posthumously where necessary. Politicians lie. Its what they do. The word ‘politician’ comes from the ancient Greek ‘poli’- lying, ‘ticia’- fucking scumbag. We know they lie. They all do. And cheat and use horrible and devious tactics.

I didn’t want to leave Europe. Mainly because I can’t see how my country will benefit by the cost of my holidays rising by 25%. But I accept the result. And however reluctantly I accept it, there will be no cry for a re-vote from this man. Unless someone is prepared to pay me £365 million a week to do so.

America is different. They vote directly for a person. Assuming either Hillary or Donald is a person. I’m not convinced. So the process starts off much more personal, much more contentious than our elections. And then it goes to the next level. Hyperspace level. Exponentially higher than the levels of bullshit us Brits are used to.

Don will only accept the result, basically, if he wins. Tosser. And why? Because he feels the press have conspired against him, and the Democrats too. He may even have a point. Every sane and sensible person SHOULD be conspiring against Trump. But that’s his position.

Then yesterday the FBI re-open the Hillary email-gate investigation that closed once in July. Re-opened 10 days before the election. And this is all Donald’s Christmases come at once. But will he then refuse to accept a victory (should he, heaven forbid, win) on the grounds that Hillary has been conspired against? Yeah, right.

Trump won’t see the hypocrisy in this, he’s way too self-centred to appreciate it. But you just have to ask why, and how, the FBI could suddenly do this, at this time, if some ‘influence’ had not arrived from the Billionaire’s camp. Is it right for a very powerful, national agency, effectively decide an election?

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

West Ham United are struggling to find sponsors for their new stadium. Currently named ‘the London stadium’, in honour of the city they stole it from, the club are desperate to find ‘that deal’ but have now almost exhausted all the middle eastern airlines with no sign of success. They’re now approaching Stanley Knives to see if they’d like to spend 50 million quid having their product name emblazoned across the former Olympic Park centrepiece and others have been approached too.

It could become The Stab Vest. The Knuckle Duster. How about the Pie & Mash? Like its a big pub or cafe? Real East End stuff. How great would that be? Ok, not very, granted. But its a thought. Because otherwise David Gold will just do some corporate shuffling of funds and call the stadium The Anne Summers. Or why not just The Dildo? An appropriate metaphor for many of those who frequent the place. And I dare say Mr Gold could find a way to use his corporation to gain from a massive naming rights deal in his stadium, and get the council to pay 96% of it. He has ‘form’ in such matters.

Or they could call it: The 1984! In honour of the retrospective they appear to be staging there at the moment. Bringing back all the joys of the past, all the history of inter-city-firms, of mass violence, pre-match, post-match, during-match, or riots, running battles down high streets, hurling missiles, all the fun of the past. And also ‘The 1984’ would tip its hat at the futuristic dystopian world Orwell created as his version of a ‘hell-on-earth’. Which is again an appropriate metaphor for West Ham’s stadium.

The sad thing (one of 96) is that with the advent of the Premiership, with the shifting of the game ever corporate-wards, with the massive money in the game and its every gentrifying effect, we thought the ‘bovver boy’ days had been consigned to yesteryear. But apparently not in the East End, where they have risen like the phoenix from the ashes of the shit-hole that was the Boleyn ground.

They’ve identified 200 scumbags from this and other photos of the Chelsea match t’other night. Who’ll be banned for probably 10 years from football. My worry is: then where will they go? They’re going to want to start fights and hit people, I’d much rather they were doing it at The 1984 than on the streets of London. Much rather they were hitting Chelsea fans than little girls in TopShop.

You can put lipstick on a pig…

Happy Friday

A xxxx

So today’s the day. Canadian Delivery Day. Young Justin Trudeau, pinup boy for the French speaking prime ministers of the world, is being delivered to Brussels. To finalise the ‘trade deal’ between the fine nations of Canada and… er… and Europe, that’s been about 27 years in the making. So in jets Justin, pen in hand, and…

…and they’re not quite ready for him. Some far flung corner of Belgium has decided its not happy with the terms. And because its Belgium and therefore really boring, they have a rule that Euro delegates can’t make decisions for the country, each region gets a vote. Like there aren’t enough fucking votes already in the fiasco that is Europe Central. And the Belges, because there is simply nothing else to do in that country, have found fault with the plan. More deliberation needed. How easy is Brexit gonna be?? 7 years for Canada, and they don’t absolutely hate Canada, like they do Britain.

We are having Canadians delivered too. Its an epidemic. Our lovely friends (for Candians) are in the country, free-loading off our British (and thus almost-non-European) hospitality. We haven’t seen them in years. Which is the way God intended it. But they’re only here for 2 days and quite frankly ITS NOT ENOUGH.

So we missed the bake-off final DON’T TELL ME, DON’T TELL ME, DON’T TELL ME!!! Its recorded and will be the ‘surprise’ that we all need.

Meanwhile, Carlos Alberto died. He too was delivered, unto the Lord. The scorer of the best goal ever scored, ever, anywhere, EVERRRRRR, died of a heart attack. The captain of the best football team ever to play the game, the 1970 Brazil World Cup winning side, and scorer of ‘that goal’ is no more. Such a great and lovely guy. I think I’ll just watch the goal 600 times in mourning for him.

Happy brief Thursday

A xxx

The winner in the ‘New Runway’ competition (part 724) is… (pause for effect, like they do in bake-off)… is… HEATHROW!!!!! Oh, that’s brilliant!!! Isn’t it?

Well I’m first going to put on my ‘person living in London, thankfully nowhere near fucking Heathrow’ hat. Its a Spurs hat. I only have Spurs hats. And in that hat I’m very happy. I ‘love’ Heathrow (as much as you can love any sodding airport). Its near enough to be very accessible to all of London but far enough away that I can’t smell it or hear it. Oh, and its busy. Amazingly, alarmingly busy. The runways they have there work to total capacity. A plane takes off every 45 seconds (guessing here) from Heathrow. But not the same plane, obviously. Lots of different planes. So to create more capacity there simply has to be another runway.

Gatwick wanted the new runway too. Because then it could possibly increase its status from ‘that fucking awful hell-hole a zillion miles away that you sometimes just have no choice but to fly from’ to, ‘that fucking awful hell-hole… with an extra runway’. It doesn’t matter how many times you choose to call it ‘London Gatwick’, it ain’t in London, nor nowhere near. Might as well have ‘London-Manchester’.

Boris Johnson, when mayor, suggested building an island in the Thames and using that as our main airport. I rather liked that idea. Again because it was far enough away from me to be viable but near enough to be easily accessible. Unlike Gatwick. But because Boris is a tosser who spends most of his time in dreamland, it was never taken too seriously.

Then I change into my ‘eco-warrior, tree-hugging pragmatist’ hat. Its also a Spurs hat, but a different one. More pragmatic.

Heathrow is by miles the most expensive option. The runway will have to be built ‘uphill’ to lift it above the M25 at one end. And with the houses they need to demolish (only 800 of them… 800!!!) and families relocated, possibly to nice, quiet Gatwick area, the total cost could be 17 billion quid. For a runway. Couple miles of tarmac… some lamp-posts, rubble, foundation… yeah, 17 bil should cover it, Gov, you wanna proper invoice or ya payin’ cash?

If they sort out vertical take-off it would be so much easier. They could have a runway in my garden. The kitchen could be ‘terminal 1’ and Mel could do passport control before she goes swimming.

Ok, I lied about the ‘eco-warrior’ bit. If you’re talking about a runway, saving the planet from carbon emissions is a bit King Canute-ish, so I’ll leave that for now.

I personally reckon that if they get away with legal fees over the next decade of 17 billion they’ll be doing well. Just fighting for this monumental decision (that took just sooooooo fucking long to reach). Before the first brick is… errr… do you build a runway with bricks? No idea, never built one.

This ‘decision’ is not the end. Its just the beginning. Like so many before it.

Happy take-off

A xxxx

So two poofs walk into a bakery…

Sounds like the start of a joke. But is in fact the start of a really long and protracted court case, decided, finally, yesterday in Belfast. Wedding-cake-gate. Or Wedding-cake-gay, as it may be here.

A man, let’s suppose he’s Northern Ireland’s leading gay rights activist, because he is, enters a bakery to order his wedding cake. He wants two little men characters on it, obvs., and the words: ‘support gay marriage’, iced onto it, in pink icing. I made that up about the pink but would be prepared to wager a significant amount upon it.

The bakers, ‘fundamentalist protestants’, took the order then called 2 days later to cancel it. Because they don’t support gay marriage because they’re Christians. Fundamentalist ones apparently. Ok, bring on the law suit. Discrimination against gays. Because if the message had been ‘support heterosexual marriage’ they’d have iced it. Hence they lost the case, and it cost the bakers 500 quid in damages. But it was a show trial anyway, never about any ‘crime’, just about rights.

You don’t have the right to discriminate. But you can uphold your views. How not icing words onto a cake is some kind of statement I don’t know. To me, its bad business. They lost the sale. Lost money. But being ‘fundamentalist’ they’re probably into a bit of ‘poverty’ and ‘sacrifice’, like wot Jesus done.

The words on a wedding cake should surely be viewed as mere shapes. Like when you scan a letter into j-peg format, the computer doesn’t recognise it as text, just as single photo image and won’t let you edit it. Its just a ‘meaningless’ pattern.

And yet…

What if I was a baker and someone wanted me to make them an Arsenal cake? Would I bake it? Of course I would, I’m a whore with no principles. I’d spit in it, obviously, but I’d make their cake. Or what if they wanted a swastika on it? Ok, that’s illegal, how about an IS flag? A KKK-cake with a little grand wizard figurine. Or a picture of Donald Trump? With his hand up the bride’s dress? Something really offensive and nasty.

If I knew at what point Christians become ‘fundamentalist’ I might have a better understanding. But really, once you write Christian with a capital ‘c’, you’ve already lost me. And, apparently, the appeal court in Belfast too.

Why didn’t they just go to another baker? Probably because they’re fundamentalist gays.

Glad they sorted it out before tomorrow’s bake-off final anyway. In which, apparently, Candace has to bake a cake with ‘lipstick is for sluts and whores’ on it, Andrew will bake and ‘I fucking hate Scotland’ sponge and Jane… errr… hmmmm…

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Oh no! My team appear to be suffering from abject humiliation, in no small part due to my poor team selection and all is grim. I NEED A DOCTOR!!!! Well, I need someone to blame. What??? There’s no team doctor or physio here within 20 yards?? Shit! I shall just have find a scapegoat elsewhere. Now where’s Antonio Conte? He’ll do.

I had no idea what Morinho said to Conte at the end of the game. The ‘quiet word in his ear’. But you could see it was not a happy quiet word. I don’t even know what language they were speaking. Didn’t look like English, but when Jose speaks English it doesn’t really sound like English either. Could have been Portuguese, his native tongue and the one he’d possibly resort to for some serious swearing and temper-tantrumming. But we found later that it was Italian. Jose is a good linguist and his time at Inter Milan we can now say was not totally wasted. So as the lip-readers of Europe were called out by the press, like sending up the Bat-signal for an emergency, it was the Italians who identified both the language and the content. Jose wasn’t saying just a very long, protracted and angry ‘well done’, nor asking Antonio to share a bottle of vino, as managers are wont to do. Instead he picked, as his scapegoating moment, his someone-to-blame incident as Conte geeing up the crowd to sing and celebrate after Chelsea’s 4th goal. Why not? It was as glorious a victory as any Chelsea win can begrudgingly be. But no, according to the ‘hanging-on-to-sanity-by-a-whisker’ Portugezer, that was rude and inappropriate. You can do that at 1-0, but not 4-0.

It was in fact a great match. Bit one-sided, as the score would suggest. But basically Conte got his game plan spot on and Morinho didn’t. More importantly, Chelsea stuck to the plan and executed it perfectly. Making them look, sadly, like they’re going to be a very hard team to beat this year.

Which I find a bit depressing. Arsenal can’t stop winning, even though they did on Saturday, Liverpool are looking very strong, Chelsea now resurgent, and that’s with poor Willian only just returning after the death of his mother, poor fella. And Manchester City…

The ‘team to beat’. Or; the unbeatable-looking. As they were for their first games this season. Now looking nothing like as happy. 5 in a row without a win. Only the second time that’s happened in Pep Guardiola’s managerial career.

We’re 5th now. I liked being 3rd, preferred second, but we’re (fucking) 5th. With Manchester United below us. Can you write them off? Can’t do that really. Too much talent. Too much money. Even though Zlatan, from looking like the best bit of business this year, has just turned into an old Swede with a funny name.

Early days still (I’ll tell you when to panic) but WE NEED TO WIN GAMES!!!!!

Happy Monday

A xxxx