Andy's Glasses

Men and women have certain differences. Chromosomal. Genetic. You can’t argue with science. Well, you can but then you’d probably be some kind of bible-basher, they argue with science all the time. Though about men and women the bible-bashers would be the last to argue any form of blurred lines. Men are men, they wear dark suits and they pray a lot. Women are smaller and prettier (we’ll talk about moustache issues in fundamental Christian women another time) and wear skirts. Long ones. Dark. Clothes God would like.

But the zeitgeist is to accept these kind of differences as merely physical, superficial, relatively unimportant in any grand schemes of the totally encompassing egalitarianism that must be seen at all times. Its what the entire ‘political correctness’ industry has been built upon.

So firstly, I’d like to say that I love the differences between men and women. Always have. I revere them. That’s why, in all my vast 60 years, I’ve played football with boys and played different things with gels. Because we are different. Biologically. And God bless those differences. Though not the God mentioned above, I’m talking about a much more permissive, naughty kind of God.

Women, if its ok to say this, give birth to live young. From within. Its an amazing process. The elder daughter is currently in just such a situation; carrying round a massive personage just above what used to be her waist. Its what women do. Almost a defining criterion; a womb. Ahhh, motherhood…

Yet now, in the most stupid advisory document ever produced anywhere in the world, the NHS have advised doctors NOT to use the term ‘mothers’ when referring to pregnant women. Because there is one person, in the entire world, who happens to be a pregnant transgender… errrr… thing. I’m gonna guess that this is a ‘woman to man’ sex change. Just a hunch. But its not complete (NO SHIT!!!) so it looks a bit like a very girlish boy, but its pregnant. And thus must be referred to as a ‘pregnant person’, and NOT a mother.

I wonder how much NHS money was wasted on the consultations to reach such an outstandingly daft decision.

Donald Trump has banned all muslims from America. So he can sift out the ‘radicalised jihadis’. Like they wear badges, or ISIS masks. There again, he’s also suggested reverting to torture if the situation is appropriate. So maybe he should just torture all muslims as they arrive at JFK, waterboard the whole fucking plane-load until they confess. ‘To protect us from another 9/11’. Even though he’s banned the wrong 7 countries. The ones from which no 9/11 participant had come. So 9 days in and it can be stated: Trump is still a tosser.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

How much do you like traffic wardens? Parking charges?? I know, I know, these are emphatically first world problems, or more precisely, they are inner city first world problems. In the countryside you can park on a cow. By the stables. Up a tree. Anywhere. The only yellow lines there are when someone has pissed in the snow.

I rarely drive into Town. Its just never worth the aggro. Mainly parking aggro. So you end up in an NCP paying three times what an Uber would have cost for the return trip. The tube’s even cheaper. For those of a rather ‘senior’ status, especially.

But people do drive into town. In their thousands. I have no idea where they all park, not my problem. I walk past them every morning, overtaking them on the pavements as they’re stuck in one great big endless jam, thinking ‘why do they bother?’.

10 years ago the then Labour government had a drive to get people using diesel cars and vans. ‘Better for the environment’, innit? So the populus, particularly those who really care about such things and buy into the global warming thing (no judgments here, no position taken, just some implications), traded in their old petrol cars and went all tree-huggy by replacing them with diesels. Save the planet; go diesel. Unfortunately it don’t ‘go’ as fast or furious as petrol but heh; where’s the rush?

Yet now we find that diesels are full of shit. Well, their exhausts are. Pollutants. Particles. Terrible for the atmosphere which now, in London, is horrendous and dangerous. All because of the diesels. Which they encouraged us to buy.

I don’t know how this can be a surprise to anyone. Petrol is an ultra-refined spirit. Diesel is a thick, gunky oil. Of course its got more shit in it.

Because the air quality is bad now, new(ish) mayor Sadiq is taking affirmative action. He’s increasing parking charges just for diesels in central London. And if you’re reading this in High Wycombe or West Wales or North Yorkshire, let me put this into perspective. To park in Marylebone for one hour currently costs £4.90. One hour, a fiver. The new ‘D-charge’ (not to be mistaken for the C-charge just for being in London) will raise this to £7.35 an hour. Four hour maximum parking, in a diesel, now £29.40. Fuck. Me.

There’s gonna be a lot of people prising the ‘D’ off their car’s rear badges. I’m gonna stand in Marylebone selling screwdrivers to diesel drivers. Make a killing. If I can survive the air.

Even though I’ve never had a diesel car; why would I when petrol ones are so much faster, louder, more dangerous? I feel sympathy for these poor misguideds who were only adhering to government policy and now are getting punished for it. Sadiq Kahn, who I generally like, is being a bit of a shit. Give people a chance to change their cars.

I reckon in 3 years time someone will find evidence that electric cars are ruining the environment. Break up the magnetic field of the planet. Kill birds by osmosis. Give people heart attacks.

Meanwhile, just take the bus. Oh, they’re diesel too. Ok, a taxi. Hmmm, more diesel. Easier to stay at home.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Do you use ‘waze’? The sat-nav system favoured by Uber and so many others that Google bought the company a few years back. Its not just a ‘shortest distance between two points’ kind’a deal. Nothing like. It ‘knows’ where the traffic is, the roadworks, the speed cameras, and it avoids them. And it is, quite frankly, fucking brilliant. Not infallible, but it kind’a demonstrates the ultimate understanding that computers can take on new information, analyse it and spit out changes within milliseconds. So many websites that are allegedly ‘live’ (like Transport for London) give little information, virtually none of it being any use because the time signature was yesterday afternoon. When the computer operating union stopped for tea and went home early.

And waze is most impressive on short journeys that you do all the time. Because they’re the journeys for which we use ‘autopilot’. Waze is better. Mel had a nightmare journey coming back from her swim the other day (David Lloyd; 10 minutes away). So the next morning she used waze and it took her a route that indeed took her 10 minutes (the previous day was 40) but took her places she’d never been before. Over school playgrounds, through church car parks, down alleyways, over loads of speed bumps, and in and out of Sainsbury’s. Brilliant. Job done. Very few pedestrians injured. Just a few a bit scared.

I was in an Uber on strike day. And the driver’s ‘system’ crashed. The Uber system. He was fucked. We were round the back passages of some Islington council estate going through the garages when it happened. No idea where we were. Only waze knew, and it was not telling us. I accessed it on my phone and all was saved. Phew.

Systems crash. Its what they do. You’re writing an email and your screen freezes. Your ipad suddenly loses the screen you’re checking the football scores on. Its not often but its annoying.

So when you have your driverless car, what happens when the system crashes? Presumably you crash too. The metaphor becomes the reality. In a very dangerous way. Last year a Tesla on ‘self drive’ crashed in Ohio. Literally crashed. Into a lorry. The driver(less??) was killed. Wasn’t paying attention, according to the inquiry. But its a driverless car, no? You’re not supposed to pay attention. You’re supposed to be reading the paper, making tea, having casual sex in the back seat, watching baseball, whatever.

Tesla have said that the car, at the time, had only one camera, the new ones have 8. Not much of a relief to the geezer in Ohio who died. They’ve buried seven new cameras with him.

But systems crash. Its what they do. As someone who doesn’t trust other drivers, I certainly could never trust other driverlesses. Could you?

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I was watching some football a couple of months ago; I know, its unusual. But I was. And Spurs superstar midfield genius and vunderkind, Dele Alli, appeared to have what I thought was a new tattoo. Nothing new there, footballers and tattoos. Its like love and marriage, horse and carriage, lawyers and divorce. Even though Dele is relatively ink-free. Because upon his lower calf were thick black lines, extending up to his knee, in a nice, Maoriesque pattern. Nice.

Then I learned this was probably not the case. Mainly because a couple of weeks later the ‘tats’ were gone. These weren’t in fact tattoos but the latest in physiotherapy practice. K-tape. Short for kinesiology tape. Heard of it? Its great. The stuff of dreams. If you have odd dreams involving adhesive shit. Or if you’re Mel (unlikely) and are the ultimate believer. Mel loves medical stuff. She can’t get enough. We had to have the bathroom extended just to accommodate the pills, potions, medications, applications, dressings and now, k-tape.

In the ‘old days’ when you pulled a muscle or had a little ache, you’d use a strap, a bandage, an elastic tube-thing on the afflicted area. But no more. Now its all about ‘k-tape’. Take a lump of basically sticking plaster, make it stickier, most importantly, give it a proper colour, no ‘fleshy, pinky’ rubbish, black, blue, fluorescent green, strong, unashamed colours, and make it big. Two inches wide. And you buy it by the mile. Well, by the tens of metres. Cos you never know where you’ll need it next.

You don’t just stick it on and hope though. Its not like its magic. You put it on in such a way that it pulls your muscles in certain directions. To relieve or to enhance. In fact its so non-intuitive that you have to visit u-tube and watch Americans sticking the stuff all over each other. And learnin’. So you can repeat it.

Mel bought some (£2.14p on Amazon for half a mile, including post and package, how can you go wrong???) and we spent a couple of very productive hours on Saturday night anointing each other as if for some form of religious sacrifice or post-modernist artwork. On shoulders, f’rinstance, you don’t use one measly piece, you use 3. Necks? Another 3. By the time we’d finished with all Mel’s aches and pains she looked like a bright blue version of the invisible man. I opted for the shoulder, on the basis that when you’re desperate you’ll try any form of neo-quackery available to stop the aggro.

Does it work? Jury’s out for me, Mel’s convinced. She won’t ever have an unadorned upper body again. After a few days of showering it comes a bit loose at the edges, so you remove it. Which is far easier to write than it is to actually do. Its like the waxing scene in the 40-year-old Virgin. Lots of sticky = lots of shouting/swearing/motherfucking!!!

Happy taping

A xxxx

So Cameron’s Folly takes another little turn. The biggest mistake of the ex-PM’s life and career (other than forgetting to take his baby son when leaving a pub and driving off, but we’re all human) has become Theresa May’s gift that keeps on giving. She had Brexit thrust upon her, but that could be her defining chance of fame and glory. Still can. She was never a particularly outspoken ‘remainer’, just ran with the crowd. Most of whom were stabbing each other in the backs, fronts and anywhere else they could reach. So she ran with it. Brexit means Brexit, she famously intoned. Like it could mean much else.

Yesterday the Supreme Court, the highest court in our fair and verdant land, (ironically they could probably now take it to the European Court but I feel they probably won’t), decided that to trigger Article 50 needs parliamentary assent. Oh. So Brexit’s off then? No. Not even close. Brexit must go ahead, its a democratically binding referendum, but because it involves laws being changed, it must be put before parliament first. To keep it democratic. Democracy trumps democracy.

Nigel Farage is ‘horrified and angry’. Plus ca change there then. Yet that’s really because he’s an overly dramatic cry-baby with a small penis and very little understanding of democratic process. Or ‘a Farage’ as that syndrome is called. Because we will leave Europe, his every dream come true, but we’ll do it properly. According to the laws and ways of the land. That way it can’t get reversed later on, which would probably please him even less.

Gina Miller, who brought the case to bear, has won. She’s hated, reviled and now needs constant security guards to protect her. But she’s a hero. She’s every redneck’s nightmare. And I’m going to use the term ‘redneck’ even though we don’t strictly have them here, but we can borrow the term for loosely encompassing a majority of the ‘leavers’. Gina is a black woman with money. Three things that singly would cause upset. Taken together she has become a hate figure extraordinaire. And thus my hero.

The stupidity is that this legal ruling does not stop Brexit. That was never the intention. Its just about doing it properly. Something the redneck tribe fail to comprehend, as exemplified by Hillbilly Nigel, their guru.

Granit Xhaka, the Arsenal midfielder, is having a great week. Sent off on Sunday in the Burnley match, he then found himself arrested at Heathrow for calling a British Airways employee a ‘fucking white bitch’. In German. He doesn’t speak English. As a Swiss-German Kosovan Albanian, English is pushing it a bit. Even though he lives here. So he swears in German. And he swears in racism. Which is odd, firstly because he is white, and secondly because he himself represents about half the races on the planet. Fucking Swiss-German Kosovan-Albanian English tosser.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

We almost made it through the first weekend of Trump without a problem. Almost. Then the toys started getting thrown out of the Presidential Pram.

And we learned a new phrase. That may define the up-coming term of presidency. I hope not, but you kind’a think it will. Coined yesterday by child-of-the-devil Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager and, I think, one-time Rosemary’s Baby, when interviewed on tv and presented with ‘the cold facts’ which she was disputing, came up with the term ‘alternative facts’. Oh. Other facts. Different ones. From the ones that actually happened. Alternative. Ok.

According to the ‘facts’ from the White House Briefing Room, between 250,000 and 720,000 people attended the Trump inauguration at the Capitol. Whereas in Obama’s first win there were 1.8 million. Yet Trump’s team claimed his turn-out to be ‘the biggest in history’ and the press was conspiring to demean the presidency.

The President needs no help from anyone in demeaning this presidency; he’s doing fine all by hisself.

And so begins the fun. Because like all children, Trump is paranoid. He sees conspiracy just because there is one. 2.6 million people marched against him in the States alone on Saturday. And the press do hate him, mainly because he is a liar. Sorry, because he uses ‘alternative facts’ and then has his people refuse to answer questions from the press about them. Fair enough, he is the President.

Its all getting a bit funny. He thinks the CIA and intelligence agencies conspired against him by leaking to the press. Now he’s calling on those very agencies to help him sort out the press. The American Constitution holds ‘freedom of speech’ right up there with ‘the right to bear arms and use them on anyone you fucking like, or dislike’, as a rule set in stone. But once you create an environment of ‘alternative facts’ then you’re re-writing history. Fuck, you’re re-writing the present!! And just like Donald’s mate, Putin, the press is no longer ‘free’. Like North Korea. Saudi. Nice places. All also run by vain, narcissistic tyrants. Hmmm…

Funny; I’ve moved from ‘cool and amused’ to ‘starting to panic!!’ in his first 3 days. Tomorrow we move to Defcon 3.

Happy (???) Monday

A xxxx

When is a penalty not a penalty? When the ref doesn’t give it, that’s when. Similar to ‘when is a handball not a handball’? Unless its perpetrated by ‘our side’ rather than yours. Here’s the rule. Andy’s rule. Ready? At the end of the game you add up all the goals, allocate them numerically to the teams that respectively scored them and you get, after some basic calculus and three new algorithms, what we’ll call ‘the result’. If you can count to 3, maybe sometimes 4 or 5, then your pathetic maths skills are still sufficient to the task.

What you don’t count (unless you’re a total nob or an Arsenal fan… just thinking that one… can you be an Arsenal fan if you’re not a total nob? Hmmm…) is the missed opportunities, the refereeing decisions, the travesties of justice, the tragic unfairness, the fact that the ref has issues at home, none of that. Its what we call IRRELEVANT. Just so’s you know.

Therefore, with no further delay, I’d like to compliment Spurs on yesterday’s quite frankly amazing result at Manchester City. Amazing. 2-0 down and playing about 10% as effectively as they were last weekend, they didn’t give up. Which may seem logical and obvious but it isn’t to Spurs fans. Our memories don’t have to be that good to remember the heads down, shoulders slumped ends of matches in a state of complete surrender.

But no more. Not under Pochettino (who never talks about ref’s decisions, either way, unless specifically asked and then he just shrugs it off). We scored a fab goal, we pushed Raheem Sterling over a few times, we scored another great goal, pushed Sterling again, for luck, then saw the game out even after losing our Toby, the best centre half the league has ever seen. AND we started without his mate Jan Vertongen, the other best centre half the league has ever seen.

The only way you can actually question the comeback is to think: ‘yeah, but its only Man City’. Something we wouldn’t have thought under the previous 19 managers (over one year, seven months). But for some reason, the ‘best manager in the world’, given an unlimited budged and the most expensive team ever assembled outside China, has ended up with a very fragile bunch of superstars who can neither score sufficiently nor defend properly. Not enough to justify their pay-cheques anyway.

So we didn’t win but by Donald it felt like it.

Happy Sunday. Jack Frost has certainly fucked up my tennis schedule. Bastard.

A xxxx

Well, we’ve all survived the first 18 hours of the Trump presidency. In fact its gone rather well, so far. The sun still rose this morning, the tennis court still managed to accumulate sufficient fucking frost to render any play impossible, Tai Chi was still life-changingly awesome and no nukes fell anywhere in the world. So all is looking good. Except…

America’s in turmoil. Its almost broken. Like Britain was (is?) following the Brexit vote. Like Scotland was after their (no) independence vote. Because democracy is a divisive thing. Its not supposed to be, its supposed to bring the population together to make a wonderful, collective decision. But its only wonderful for the winners. For the losers it can be horrible. Sometimes it doesn’t matter so much. Sometimes it does. And it breeds a discontent.

So today there’s yet more protests. They had them yesterday, and they got a bit nasty in Washington. And today there are ‘women’s’ marches all across America and all over the world. Basically protesting against Trump. Because if you protest for women’s rights you are protesting against all forms of sexism and misogyny, most of which are frequently displayed or voiced by Trump.

But really, a protest against Trump is not a great idea, whatever you may think of the man. Because he only had one vote. So your protest is actually against democratic process, for failing YOU, or against your neighbours, colleagues, workmates and soccer moms for voting for the tosser in the first place. And that is the divisive bit. You end up protesting against fellow Americans because you think they’re stupid.

Trump’s speech yesterday was a lot of nothing. Same as all his speeches. He should have addressed the hateful divisions in his nation. Because that’s for now more important than jobs, the economy and foreign policy. Cohesion first, the shit can be shovelled later. Though the first shit he yelled about was ‘eradicating radical Islam from THE FACE OF THE PLANET’. A sentiment as noble as it is totally ignorant, naive and quite frankly pathetic. We know that Americans love a ‘strong man’, one who goes up to the plate, they love a John Wayne (even though he was a fucking ACTOR), Davey Crockett, men with guns.

To ‘defeat’ radical Islam would take a massive shift in a philosophical culture deeply embedded in millions of minds. One man with a gun, even a really big gun, can’t ‘defeat’ that. An army can’t defeat that. It would take several powerful people from within the Muslim world.

Ironically, even if Islamic terrorism ended tomorrow, there’s still 22 million psychopathic Americans who own sufficient weaponry to kill more innocent people than a hundred ISIS armies. Obama tried to do something about that and failed, its not really even on Trump’s agenda.

Early days,

Spurs at Man City. That’s almost bigger than a new Prez.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I love a food fad. In fact, I just love food. Preferably in excess, but lots of moderation counts. As in, that was a ‘moderate’ food intake, now I’ll eat yours.

But I love a food fad because they’re so transparently stupid. And they last for approximately 3 months until someone says ‘actually, if you DO eat that three times a week you’ll die of heart failure within… well, TODAY!!!!’

I used to love looking at the ‘recipe’ bits in the Sunday mags. Fabulous steaks, golden chickens, roasted this, broiled that, topped with melted cheese… I didn’t even mind that they’d add a salad now and again, just in the interest of adding another colour to the picture (that’ll be green then) but also to make us feel better about the immensely high-carb, red-meat calorie-fest they wanted us to replicate.

Now it all leaves me cold. Because mainly, it is cold. Jamie, Ella, various Hemsleys, they’re only publish recipes that are ‘on message’, that are heavy on the quinoa, rich in kale, exceptionally low in taste. I mean ‘greens’ are fine. When consumed next to something big and meaty and juicy. They are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Unless you count ‘the end of enjoyable eating’.

And we’ve had a couple years of ‘clean eating’. Which was basically ‘cleaned of any or all possible goodness, flavour or calories’. Bring out the spinach but for God’s sake DON’T COOK IT!!! And salad dressings (remember them?) are a thing of the past. Kill ya. Stone dead. Sugar? Salt?? Jesus; what were you thinking? Bread? Might as well eat broken bottles. Carbs?? Devil’s food. Why? Because it was decided that the entire world is gluten intolerant. Even the (now reckoned) 99% of us who aren’t. Yes, we’re all closet glutards just waiting for that bloated feeling. Gluten intolerance. Might as well cut out all wheatgerm. Which, in previous fads, was the best food possible.

So now they’ve debunked the whole ‘clean eating’ think for the stupid, excessive over-reacting fadism that it really is. Which, if I’m perfectly honest, makes absolutely no difference to what I’ll now eat, as I never really bought into all that bollocks in the first place. But now, I can eat proper foods again without the sad looks of anorexic waitresses, without the disgust on the faces of the ‘believers’, without any guilt.

Clean is over; let’s eat dirty. Yeahhhhhh!!!!

Happy steak and cheese bagette with extra mayo Friday. Hold the lettuce.

A xxxx

Pep Guardiola, Manchester City’s outrageously expensive manager, took his lacklustre bunch of under-performing but over-payed fading stars to the cinema yesterday afternoon. To see LaLaLand. The Abu Dhabi budget could stretch to a few seats at the local Odeon. So I went to see it last night too. Only to see what effect the movie might have had on Manchester City because they play Spurs on the weekend. In the biggest game of the season (part 17). Otherwise, obviously, I’d have gone and seen something more manly. With guns, aliens, tanks, death, Trump, sinister…

And the City players saw a gloriously vibrant and glossy and bright film about striving for your dreams. Which, in the absence of subtitles in 12 different languages (assuming they can all read to a degree) would have been mainly lost on the international mish-mash of non-Anglophones. But all was not lost, the movie is exceptionally visual. And musical. International things.

Ryan Gosling is everyone’s favourite Canadian. Though most would be hard-pushed to name another, other than Mark Carney and several Trudeuax. He’s not my favourite Canuck because Mel was born in Vancouver, even though she sounds more Yorkshire than Klondike. And we have the Torontonians to consider when we talk ‘favourite’. Anyway…

I like Ryan Gos. He’s funny and cool and learned to play jazz piano for the part. And it is exceptionally impressive. He sings. Not well, but well enough and it all seems very ‘real’ for a movie in which traffic jams are the cue for massive song-and-dance numbers.

Emma Stone is odd. She looks odd. And alternates between totally gorgeous and ‘nyah’. But she has more true star quality in front of a camera than any other actor currently out there. Certainly more than the entire Manchester City team combined. She mesmerises, she simmers, she lisps, but she is just wonderful in this, as in The Help, as in Birdman. She has that innate Gene Hackman (blessed be) quality of capturing all the light in the room and becoming the only person you see.

There is (hateful, overused word alert!!!) ‘chemistry’ between the stars. Unquestionable. If they weren’t shagging each other between sets they really should have been. Two great actors being totally credible and realistic in a fucking musical. Takes a bit of doing.

Did I like the film? Yeah, I liked it a lot. Did I love the film?? No, not really. Did it live up to the hype? Do they ever? Would it look better with Spanish sub-titles? Hmmm…

Most importantly would it have inspired Man City for the weekend? Oh Gawd I hope not. Let them be shit, just one more time.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx