Andy's Glasses

Man cannot live on food alone. Ok, maybe he can, actually. But he also needs other things to obsess about. Often he needs many. But one can suffice. If its football.

And for some reason, far away from England and the Premier League, I feel a little ‘something’ for today’s football. Something that’s been missing since the season started. A new beginning. A reincarnation. A resurrection. A little fluttering deep down. Maybe just last night’s sushi coming back to haunt me, but I think not.

Because today is the first day of the rest of our season. And its a big day. With a very big match. Very big indeed.

Spurs are playing at Stoke.

But otherwise, there is one match that truly captures the imagination. A match so vast in its potential that on my downloaded paper today I noticed that it made it into the main paper as well as dominating the sports pages.

The Manchester derby. Oooohhhhhh.

Normally it would slot into the ‘who gives a shit’ category; the battle for some northern supremacy battle that leaves me cold. Will the Gallaghers be victorious in their light blue tosser hats or will the Reds from Esher, Dorset, Balham and Pnom Penh win the bragging rights for the day?

Yet today this battle is of interest to all. In no small part because it represents the end point of the cynical manipulation of our once noble game, as the 22 players starting are, collectively, the most expensive anywhere ever at £700 million between them. Personally I value each of Harry Kane’s testicles at more than that, but I don’t make the market.

So which bunch of over-priced, over-payed mega-stars will work out how to play sufficiently well as a team to overcome the other? Or, way more interestingly, which massively over-priced, over-payed, over-hyped manager will get his unmanageable bunch of super-egos to coalesce into the Barcelona or Real Madrid of their individual pasts?

Because really, this match isn’t about Pogba and Ibrahimavic, De Bruyne or Sterling, its about Pep Guardiola and Jose Morinho. THE two managers of their day. They hated each other’s teams in Spain and will continue that over here. That’s healthy. But its also a clash of styles. Guardiola’s possession football obsession against the very pragmatic, park-a-bus-if-neccessary style of the Portuguezer.

Its intriguing, its tantalising and, despite my personal desire for both teams to get relegated this year, it’ll be fascinating.

Shabbat Shalom, as we say in Israel

A xxxx

The day they invented ‘sharing plates’ in trendy restaurants was the day I started looking for anorexics to go and eat with. I don’t wanna ‘share’, get’cher own fuckin’ dinner, cos if you touch mine I WILL KILL YOU. Which is really not a Nobu kind of sentiment. Its not cool to contemplate murder where Asian fusion meets South American ceviche. But I do get the point; kind’a.

That you order lots of variety and share them all together. Its more interesting. As long as you remember that stabbing hands with forks is not nice. Stabbing them with chop-sticks even more unpleasant. So don’t do it!! Its not how to behave.

The first time I encountered this concept formally was here in Tel Aviv. In what has become my favourite restaurant of all. Abraxis North. And the waitress (think: Bar Rafaella meets Giselle but with undertones of Woody Allen) knelt on the pavement next to our table and spent 10 minutes explaining the concept to the accompaniment of me salivating. Nothing to do with the food at that point.

The food, however, is beyond good. Its different. And amazing. Everything you share you never want to end. Until you try the next thing. And the place is self-consciously unpretentious. They’re into brown paper. Instead of table cloths. And brown paper bags, in which a lot of the food comes to table. Often slammed down, so the bread opens up like petals on a flower, or the (most incredible) roast cauliflower (in the world) separates into florettes. Or the Eton Mess just splatters for all to dip in. Its as brilliant a concept as it is amazing to eat.

Abraxis is not cheap but its not expensive either.

But last night we went somewhere different. Because the geezer (or ‘chef’ if you must) who runs Abraxis, and a few others, has opened a new place up the road. A different concept. Its called Ha Miznon, which means ‘the counter’ and it offers street food. Basically, they take all the fantastic combinations of foods from Abraxis, stuff ’em into wonderful fresh, fluffy, light pitta bread and charge you a quarter the price. You have to find a table, plastic, cheap, help yourself to everything, and all orders are shouted over the near-deafening music when ready. It is nearly-organised chaos. By design.

A fine-dining experience it ain’t. And all the better for it. If, like me, your favourite place to eat is anywhere where food can drip down your forearms, then you should go there. If you’re a pretentious tosser who doesn’t do dirty fingers, give it a miss. Life is about variety, ya know?

Happy Friday

A xxxx

The drive back from the Ramon took precisely the expected 2 hours of easy-peasy freeway, straight road experience. And the rental-car-panic was resolved when I realised that the exhaust/sump/axle was not overheating to the point of explosion but that I’d inadvertently pressed the ‘heated seat’ thing. And the last thing you need in 35 degrees is a burning bum. Well, the last thing I need. Can’t speak for you. Who’d’a thought a base model Nissan Micra would have such an option?

So we effectively followed the path of Moses. He didn’t use the freeway, was too mean to pay the toll, so he took the desert path and walked. Exodus. From Egypt. Across the Sanai and then just when he’d probably had enough sand to last 3 fucking lifetimes, he reached the Negev. Ok, Moses, just a few more years of trudging through more endless fucking sand dunes eating dust, schlepping your ten commandments in stone, and you’ll arrive in Jerusalem!!! Which hasn’t been built yet, but when it is? Oy; when it is???? Such a city that will be. (I’m figuring God to be some old Polish Jewish guy from Brooklyn here, just for effect; all heart, no grammatical structure.)

But where Moses went to Jerusalem (I’m guessing) or up to Tiberias, we took a left to Tel Aviv. Because its the most fab city in the world. Ok, it has a few traffic issues, and you can’t park anywhere, but once you’ve dumped the car, or had those nice people tow it away, you can enjoy the wonders.

The saying goes: Jerusalem prays; Tel Aviv plays. But it also eats. And not just eats well but has the most fantastic variety of amazing places and things to eat. From the street food to the seriously upmarket eateries, with loads of Otalenghi in the middle, its all a wonder.

So we went to see my mate’s ‘little boy’ who lives in a suburb of TA, with new wife (his only wife, just not of very long) and very new baby. All was great so we left them and stopped to eat at a cafe we saw along the way. This is a fairly downmarket area, but its still Tel Aviv. So the place was buzzing in that totally relaxed way that only exists here. And the food was amazing. Cheap but amazing. This was so off the tourist zone that they had no English menus. Only hebrew. And although I can read the hebrew for ‘blessed is the lord our God’ and ‘who gave us the fruit of the vine’, you know, the really useful, conversational stuff, I can’t read ‘haloumi salad’ or ‘garlic bread to fucking die for’, so someone had to translate.

The picture is Mel on a lilo that about to fall into the Ramon Crater!!!! Ok, its an infinity-pool illusion. I would never put that saintly woman in jeopardy unless it was really funny do do so.

Happy felafel

A xxxx

You have to be philosophical about things. Especially here in the Holy Land. Even unbelievers like me can’t fail but to feel a holy presence in every shwarma you eat, every iced coffee you drink, every dollop of hummous that falls on your new t-shirt. God is everywhere. and He was a chef. Didn’t you know that? That’s why swearing is not a sin.

So we arrived yesterday, picked up the car and instead of heading north to Tel Aviv and the wonderful, European and culinary miracle that it represents, we instead headed south. Made a right before Jerusalem (too much religion, too little food) and went southwards. Towards the Negev. 180 kms beyond was the Ramon Crater, a geological wonder of the world. A natural erosion crater, as opposed to an ‘impact’ one, 42kms wide. In the middle of the desert. Been there for 15 million years, but they only built an amazing hotel there a few years back so no-one bothered to come before.

Anyway, got the car, on the road, headed to Be’er Sheba. Straight road, freeway, round that little city then straight down south to the Crater. Easy Peasy. What could go wrong? 2 hour drive. What could fucking go sodding, bleeding, awfully, catastrophically fucking wrong?????

Let’s just say everything. I took one wrong road. Just one. But straight into the world’s worst traffic jam. So it was an hour before we could turn round. One whole hour. Never mind, we’re back, we’re on the freeway again, Ramon here we come.

Oh, there’s roadworks. Big ones. Diversion. Which tells you in no uncertain terms how to get off the freeway, but not a mention of how to get back on. So we managed to take the wrong road out of Be’er Sheba and headed south but not in the direction we really needed to be. And as its a desert, there just aren’t roads going across. You either drive across the desert (not recommended) or you reverse your tracks and start again.

5 hours after setting off our 2 hour journey was completed. Easy peasy. Jesus fucking Christ. Though he left here a long time ago.

The crater is magnificent. And interesting. But only in a geological, evolutionary, historical and biblical way. Otherwise iss just a fucking big hole in the desert. What’s all the fuss about?

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Its horrible when your heroes let you down. When your favourite actor turns out to be a drug-crazed serial child-molester, when your favourite footballer is arrested for rape, when your favourite mp turns out to be an Arsenal fan. Or when your favourite company turns out to be just like all the others.

For years I’ve been an evangelical Amazonian. Amazon is just a brilliant company, I would say to any who would listen and many who really didn’t want to. But they’re great! I’d say, they are so efficient, so cheap, so reliable, so thorough, and: if you have a problem they will sort it out so easily, no nicely, so considerately. I love(d) them like no other.

This hero-worship came about mainly because of a few incidents. Like when I sat on Mel’s kindle. Her 7 day-old kindle. Ooops. They were lovely, they were caring, they replaced it at a discount, they sent the new one in day, all was great. As it was when Mel dropped the next one in the bath. They were great. And everything was fast and furious and fabulous in Amazon-land.

And they kept growing. And growing. And, fertilised by all that unpaid tax (for which I fucking forgave them totally, just because they were Amazon), they grew bigger and bigger and bigger.

Two weeks ago I left my kindle of a bus. A number 11 if you’re interested. Big red one, if you’re not. The kindle was 3 or 4 years old but its upsetting. But heh; this is Amazon. THEY CARE.

Well, they did. In the old days (2012). This time my request was met by a stony-sounding automaton spurting the company line. No, we don’t discount for that.

It wasn’t the tenner off that bothered me. It was his horrible attitude. Gone was the friendly Irish people I’d previously engaged with. This was someone who sounded a bit like Stephen Hawking reading from a corporate auto-cue.

So I wrote to Jeff Bezos. You can do that. Explained my disappointment. Unfortunately and surprisingly, Jeff was a bit busy, so I got a reply from a clone (they can do that at Amazon, they can do anything) or from some 5th grade minion with absolutely no sense of humour or ability to answer the question asked. Instead he sent me a full-page disclaimer of all Amazon responsibility, a copy of the kindle warranty, the terms and conditions of the sale, countersigned by 3 lawyers and a judge. Like I didn’t realise that ME leaving MY 4 year-old kindle on a bus was in fact down to me.

Tosser.

I’ve also noticed that the ‘free postage’ option has changed at my former fave corporation. You would generally receive goods within a couple of days. But since they invented Amazon Prime (which gives you FREE next day delivery, for a tenner a month… otherwise its free), and charge a hefty premium to buy a next day charge, their normal delivery has become decidedly third-rate. Its almost as if you’re being punished for not being a ‘prime’ customer. Almost?

But again, it ain’t about the money. Its about the general attitude of the company changing from one that really strived to care to one that is more concerned about exonerating itself from any responsibility including being nice to its customers.

I have a new kindle, of course, named ‘Andy’s 7th Kindle’, when we only have 2, but I am so over Amazon. I wish I could stop shopping with them but for some things, like tennis balls, its just impossible to beat them. I just hate them now. And I hate Jeff, and I’m gonna tell all my friend to abandon them for a massive failure. From being a fantastically successful company who are so much better than all the rest, they’re now just a group of stereotypically inaccessible corporate shit-heads. Don’t expect anything else from them. You won’t get it.

Happy Monday from the Ramon Crater. (oh, look it up, then you will know)

A xxxx

There’s confusion and there’s confusion. And then there’s the mysterious case of the gay bishop. Who is ‘celibate’ anyway. So if he’s celibate, what possible difference does it make to anyone which form of sexual activity he chooses to abstain from? Its like a teetotaller saying gin is preferable to whisky.

Its fucking irrelevant.

In this case literally so. I sincerely hope. Because if the Bishop of Grantham is in fact telling porkie pies about his ‘celibacy’ or re-defining it in some Bill Clintonesque way, then he will certainly burn forevermore in the eternal hellfires of damnation! Otherwise known as being transferred to Peckham.

But assuming the Bish is an honest dude, what’s the problem?

The main one, of course, being that the Church, as in the institution, doesn’t like queers of any stripe. Though most gay men would NEVER wear stripes anyway; not with those shoes. The church has a bit of a problem with homosexuality generally in that even though it would appear that probably three quarters of all clergymen are gay, the church opposes gay marriage, gay ministers, gay anything. They live in a constant state of denial. And that’s just the Anglican Church; the Church of England. In the Catholic church the rate of gayness goes up radically, as does the stated opposition to all things homosexual. Go figure.

Odder still is that Nicholas Chamberlain is indeed Anglican. And in that church, forced celibacy was abolished in 1549 (I googled the Bishop of London himself for that little snippet). Probably when some mediaeval cassock-wearer who was horny as hell. Who knows?

Yet Bishops are indeed expected to take on the whole ‘poverty, chastity, obedience’ shtick as proof of their worthiness to wear purple.

More interesting, and certainly more heterosexual, is the new Woody Allen movie, Cafe Society.
Saw it last night. Its my duty to watch everything the great man (who himself is no stranger to sex scandals) produces.

Its a wonderful film. Stylish, beautiful to watch, funny and re-assuringly only 90 minutes long, it was great. Jesse Eisenberg played… well, he played Woody Allen; everyone plays Woody Allen in his films, that’s his rule. Woody himself narrates, then all the actors and actresses impersonate him as they read his words in his style, with his mannerisms. And its about love. In Hollywood in the 1930s. Kristen Stewart smoulders in her first attempt at love without vampires. Steve Carrell is great, Eisenberg pretty good himself. Its not ‘vintage Woody’ because he simply doesn’t do that any longer. But it is a lovely movie.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I’m what’s known as ‘good with faces’. Which is different from having a ‘good face’, which I fortunately do, but means I recognise people. And I do. Can’t always put a name immediately to the face, but faces I just know. My dad, bless him, is the same. He bumps into people he hasn’t seen since the last war and still recognises them. Its what we do in our family; recognise faces.

Even ‘old’ faces, that we haven’t seen for 20, 30, 40 years, I immediately know that I know them. I’ve even been known to approach these seeming strangers to work out from whence I know them.

“Yesssss!!!! I’ve got it!!! You were that really great looking babe from the Room at the Top in Ilford High Road; we went out, I got you pregnant, faked the dna test by giving them my mate’s toothbrush, ran away, left the country, never answered the calls from you or your solicitors, punched your mother in the face… How the hell are you??? What happened to your face?”

That kind’a thing.

So when I see a face that I don’t know, even on someone I’ve seen very regularly in movies, on tv, then something is amiss.

I was watching an interview on the news and wondering why this complete stranger was talking about the new, as yet unseen (as it, and all its previous incarnations, will remain unseen by me) Bridget Jones movie. I only realised it was Renee Zellwegger when she started denying to Fiona Bruce that she’d had any ‘work done’. Talking about how angry she is that everyone assumes she’s been under the knife! Just because she looks totally, completely, unrecognisably different from how she did 6 weeks ago. And seems to have a face totally devoid of movement or any other human characteristics. What an awful assumption for people to make!!!

They need to change the law. If you get a new face, YOU MUST GET A NEW NAME TO GO WITH IT. Otherwise its just too confusing. She should call herself The Remake, Lady Frankenstein, Bridget Jones, Vinnie Jones, anything but Renee Zellwegger, who she no longer resembles in any way shape or form.

Ok, I had a little nip and tuck, some botox, new lips; I wanted Brad Pitt, ended up with Mick Jaggers, a few fillers, but nothing that major. I had to have it done for my… errr… blocked sinuses. Honest.

Happy Saturday (even though the season’s three fucking weeks old and has been stopped already for ‘international bollocks’)

K xxxx

Sharon Stone famously said it took her 19 years to become an ‘overnight success’.

A parallel, one must feel, to events on the final day of the football transfer window, yesterday.

Moussa Sissoko, the (ex-)Newcastle midfielder arrives at Spurs so late that the trains had stopped running and he had to take an Uber. The cost from Newcastle; £3674.23, his driver was Mo, who rated a strong ‘4’, the Prius needed recharging at Newport Pagnell, and due to the nature of footballing contracts, Spurs had to pay the player’s agent a commission on the Uber, of £426,839.22. Seems fair.

The saga to sign this player has been ongoing for seemingly, about 7 years, though in reality, only a few months. Footballing time is not like real time. The final day of the transfer window was shown by Einstein to be 3 weeks long.

Yet this ‘day of drama’ (zzzzz) and suspense(!!!) is a distraction. From football. Which started 3 weeks ago. It is, other than the fact that it is NOT good tv, whatever all the tv companies think, a load of bollocks. Because it should end in July. Before the football starts. It would be just as dramatic, just as ‘exciting’, just as mind-numbingly dull listening to Danny Murphy and Jermaine Jenas ‘intellectualise’ a process that is as simple as it is uninteresting as they just wait for players to be bought, about once in every 6 hours of dead time.

Its also a bit ‘Groundhog Day’ as Chelsea re-sign all the players they signed a few years ago, then sold a couple of years later. David Luiz? Is he the man to provide security and consistency at the back? Yeah, right.

But best of all was Bournemouth’s acquisition of Jack Wilshere, on loan from the Arse for a year. The little Cockney Sparrer, the British Bulldog, was about to leave football and star in a movie sequel, as The Man with No Brain. Steve Martin had 2, Jack Wilshere, nil. But Eddie Howe, Bournemouth’s main man, sorted a loan arrangement with Arsenal. Though why, exactly, Arsene Wenger would be prepared to part with the poster-boy for Benson & Hedges is another question. All that talent!!! Ok, not in an England shirt… nor really in an Arsenal shirt for the last few years, but he still remains the finest player to grace many orthopaedic hospitals. AC Milan was also keen to take him on loan but Wilshere chose instead the glamorous and stylish option that Bournemouth could offer. His salary of 80,000 a week will be paid by Bournemouth, into the Hampshire NHS trust directly. But most of all, Wenger couldn’t keep this moron under control. He’s an indisciplined idiot. Good luck Eddie.

Ok, I’m finally ready for the football season now.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Getting angry with tax avoiding companies is only natural. Its part of growing up. So when Starbucks are shown for the exploitative tax dodgers that they are, a lot of people boycotted them. Talking with their feet. Its what we do. It was no loss to me, I’d avoided them for years because their coffee’s shit. So I’d made my, kind’a, ‘pre-tax statement’ ages ago.

But companies are in the end, in some way or another, accountable, first and foremost, to their customers. Without whom, there is no company.

It was harder to boycott Google because it is without a doubt the most essential ‘thing’ in the life of every civilised person in the world. So we just amended their name in our ‘favourites’ to ‘Fucking Google!!’ and let that be sufficient to voice our extreme displeasure. Using another search engine is, quite frankly, unthinkable.

So now its Apple. The biggest company in the world. Paying tax amounting to about 0.005% of their profits, which are expressed in loads of billions every quarter. Even in Ireland that’s low. But that’s how its been.

Until now. When those ‘fucking Europeans’ have voiced their displeasure and demanded a payment of back taxes amounting to 13 billion Euros. To be payed to the Irish government.

Who don’t want it.

I’ll have it. Then everyone can be happy.

The Irish don’t want it because the deal they did with the late Steve Jobs, back in the day, allowed very favourable tax terms. Ok, perhaps not quite as favourable as those mentioned above but creative accounting is what corporations do. And that is why Apple is based in Ireland. And not in the British Virgin Isles, Bermuda or Grand Cayman. Employing 6,000 Irish persons and putting masses of cash into the local and national economy. That was the deal: set up shop here, rather than over there, and we’ll give you all sorts of benefits, because OUR ECONOMY IS SHIT AND WE NEED OVERSEAS INVESTMENT. And it was shit. And now its not. Because of companies like Apple and many others, who took advantage of what the Irish offered in a wonder of quid pro quo which turned the Irish economy around in a decade.

Now Europe wants its quids out of the pro quo and everyone’s up in arms.

As a (fairly) staunch ‘remainer’ (remember THE VOTE?) I’m curious about this. We have some Euro bitch demanding that a sovereign nation (Ireland is an independent republic, in case you missed that) within the Eurozone implement a fine on its favourite company because it breeches European tax laws, not Irish tax laws. They obviously don’t have many, if any.

So really, from my perspective, I don’t give a shit about Apple, nor the 13 million, because I won’t benefit from it in any way at all. But I do care that unelected Euro demigods can try to force an independent country to go back on a long-standing deal because ‘they’ don’t like it.

I normally delete the little ‘signature’ from my words but today, in protest (no idea against whom), I shall leave it in.

Happy Wednesday,

A xxxx

Sent from my iPad

My life changed in 1974. Blazing Saddles came out. And hit the screens with a bang, a crash and an oy-vey! No-one had ever seen anything like it before. Ok, I’d never seen anything like it before. The world learned of Mel Brooks. And of the redefinition of irreverence.

Blazing Saddles attacked every stereotype in Western movies. They had a black sheriff, and consequently employed the ‘n-word’ with abandon throughout. There were Native Americans (red indians, as they were known) who spoke yiddish. There were shit-head red-necks galore, dirty dealers, ballroom whores and baked-bean eaters who farted. And farted. And farted.

And an alcoholic gunslinger played by Gene Wilder.

Who’s role really was to add a subtlety to what would otherwise have been a very good but undiluted slapstick-fest. And their lay the genius of both Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder.

A few years later, even though it had come out a few years earlier but no-one bothered to show it, I saw the Producers. And my life changed again. (Yeah, my life changed a lot back then, pretty much with every movie I saw, every book I read, every girl I passed at the bus-stop). The Producers remains to this day My Favourite Film. There, I’ve said it. I’ve finally reached the zenith of my lifelong equivocation over best movies. The Producers wins. And the Blues Brothers. Play it again, Sam. And Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Gene Wilder was one of The Producers. Playing the nebachy Jewish, panic-attacky mother’s boy accountant (Mel Brooks loves a sterotype like no-one else), the straight man to the comic tour de force that was Zero Mostell; the other Producer. The perfect film. Based on a brilliantly clever ploy (that if a musical production loses money, you don’t have to give back the sponsor’s money; even if you’ve sold 650% of the costs), the two finest of comic talents, ably accompanied by the incredible Dick Strawn as Hitler, and their chosen production that ‘had to fail’; Springtime for Hitler. So brilliant. So Mel Brooks. So Gene Wilder.

Wilder also starred in a film that no-one ever saw, other than me, because I was already ‘his biggest fan’. It was called The Frisco Kid and looking back, it was a bit Mel Brooks derivative but only because it had Gene Wilder and a silly plot. About a Polish rabbi (Wilder) crossing all of America in ‘cowboy days’ and applying the black-hat values of the shtetl to the wild west. Very funny, very Gene Wilder.

When he died yesterday a legend left this world. But left it a much happier and funnier place than we he arrived.

RIP

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx