Andy's Glasses

I grew up in London. The best place ever. Biggest playground in the world. All things were available at every stage of life. Brilliant. I could smoke like a chimney by the time I was 12, play a decent game of snooker by 14, knew the tube network inside out, all that was missing was shoplifting and pick-pocketing to be the entire Artful Dodger. But I never knew about ‘the ways of the countryside’. That mysterious and mythical region that existed the other side of Epping. Full of mystical beasts (sheep) and enchanted forests (Richmond Park) and things that townies just didn’t really understand. And even though I’ve now traveled quite a bit, I still don’t really get the whole countryside thing. The ‘rules’.

So yesterday, on our way back from Arundel, we thought we’d have a nice walk on the South Downs. They’re big green things they have down there. There are ‘public footpaths’, advertised on little green signs to tell you where to walk. I missed about four because I was in ‘get back to London’ mode which means driving very very fast. At the fifth I stopped, turned the car round and went back. Public Footpath.

There’s a gate. There’s always a gate. Double one. Big locked, tractor-sized one and next to it a little ‘person sized’ one. For persons. Public persons. Let them in, keep cows out. And they never teach you, in London schools, how to open a fucking gate in the countryside. They should do. So ten minutes later, Mel & I proudly (yes!!! I’d done what a thousand country folk do in 5 seconds without even a thought) walked into ‘the countryside’. Hmmmm, lovely, smell that air, feel that grass underfoot, wonderful.

There were a bunch of cows in the field. Sorry, a ‘herd’. About 200 yards away, 30 or so bovines. Who all looked up. Fine. Then started ambling. Towards us. I don’t care, but Mel really is no fan of any animal that’s not on her dinner plate. I laughed, ‘they’re cows for God’s sake!!’ and God in fact made them daft and extremely timid. Sharks, I’d be worried. Lions, for sure. Cows? Just walk on, darling.

The cows broke into a run. All of them, heading for us. Most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. We arrived at the next gate just before they ‘arrived’ and stood in the refuge of the next field. And the cows piled up to the gate and just stood there staring. I think they were attracted to Mel’s jacket. You can see the attraction. I’ve since learned that cows are pretty much colour blind. Though are aware of ‘yellow’ when presented in such Mel-type quantities. But fuck ’em. We walked on. Round the next field, conscious that unless we wanted to walk back to London, we’d have to return the same way to the car.

Eventually we returned, half hour later. And there; staring where we’d left them, were ‘our cows’. All of them. The whole ‘gaggle’. Just staring. At their messiah in yellow. Mel.

I opened the gate and they did what cows do; cowered and moved away. I would say sheepishly but I’m not sure if you can say that in the countryside. Mixing your meataphors. They scattered. Knowing that I do martial arts. We walked on. And left them… doing pretty much what they had been doing, but somewhere different.

Bizarre. I’ll never understand the ways of the countryside. That’s part of the charm.

Happy cow-free Monday

A xxxx

What a weekend that this… has been? is being, will continue to be??? Cos it goes on and on, seems like for 4 days. Which of course it is. I’m loving Jesus too at this point. Yesterday Spurs won. Again, not just a win but a blow-away, fuck-off annihilation. Superb, elegant, classy, fast, powerful. Frikkin wonderful.

Played some tennis on Friday, f’ra change, tai chi on Saturday, no change, and then today Chelsea lost. The dream. I only saw the end. We went to Arundel Castle. In… errr… Arundel. Down south. Put it on waze and 2 hours later you get there, as if by magic. And its fab. Most wonderful gardens ever. But I can’t talk about it now. Because in between all that, and swooning over the fact that blue and white Spurs make pink stuff for baby girls, I got involved with Asian lesbians in a big way. Really big way.

We went to see The Handmaiden. Korean movie based on the book Fingersmith. They moved it from Victorian England to Korea under Japanese rule. So its very historical and therefore ‘hi-brow’ and its subtitled, unless you speak Kim-Jong-anything, therefore its ‘arthouse’ and it is probably the most beautiful filming I’ve ever seen, so its classy. And yet what stands out is the lesbian porn.

Though really I’m perhaps not giving the film the credit it deserves. I never read the book but I’m now going to because the story is quite brilliant. Twists and turns like… something very twisty and turny. Like the road to Arundel. Wonderfully so. Even though its over 2 hours long you’re just gripped. In fact you’re scared that if you miss just one word your life may never be the same again. Its also really funny in places (though don’t worry its horribly violent in others, in case I’d put you off) and wonderfully acted. I don’t expect humour from far Eastern films. I expect people leaping over buildings whilst killing 17 birds with a samurai sword. But you don’t get that here either. They missed a trick

All you get is probably the best film you’ve seen for a decade. Ok, for a year for sure. Maybe 5. And definitely on my all time top 10 list (currently 86 films). Go see it.

In tomorrow’s exiting episode of The Pesach Journal we need to talk about cows. No really, we do.

And I need to tell me mate Ali that tomorrow night I’m right with him. Us ‘Boro boys gotta stick together in time’s of (mutual) need.

Happy very late Sunday

A xxxx

Jesus, feels like I’ve been away forever. Oddly, Jesus has been away forever too. But is due back now, tomorrow or the next day, so don’t worry. But its a funny thing, I get time off work and suddenly my time’s not my own. So even though the world has now taken about 4 more steps closer to nuclear oblivion, even though now Trump has found the buttons to push, he keeps on pushing, and even though Spurs won yet another game today, even though Kelvin McKenzie has become a bigger hate-figure than Assad, I haven’t had a chance to put ‘pen to paper’ (its a metaphor for writin’ things, in case you’re under 23).

Every second has been spent planning a holiday. Just 8 days in June. In Scotland. At Christmas we spent 2 weeks in India, it was all pre-arranged and wonderful. One phone call and it got sorted. But this one is more ‘self-service’. And it ain’t easy.

Firstly, this is Scotland we’re talking about. Its not the French Riviera, the Alps, the Croatian coast. No-one knows Scotland is lovely. Even though its where most of their Scotch comes from. They just make judgments based on its football league and its whingeing mps and assume its a midge-infested vitimin-free-zone where it pisses down all day every day of the year. But when we went 2 years ago we learned the magic of the Highlands. And decided there and then we wanted to return and go further north. So I booked the flights yesterday, on airmiles. Bargain. Which proved to be the easy bit. The really easy bit.

Because even though we decided long ago we were going to fly to Inverness, get a car, if they have such things, if not then a horse-and-carriage, and tootle round the northern coastal bit, round to John O’Groats. Ok, and a few distilleries, if we must. Then last Sunday, just before we were finalising dates and stuff, the fucking Sunday Times printed a massive piece about the Northern 500!!! Never heard of it? Me neither. Its a road trip. Starting in Inverness and driving round the northern coastal bit round to John O’Groats. Bastards!!!

So the first stop we decide, let’s call it ‘Glengoolie’ (not its name but the real names get really complicated, AND I DON’T WANT TO GIVE YOU IDEAS). It has 3 hotels worthy of the name, 4 inns and 17 B&B places. All fully booked til November. “We’ve got the garage you can use. Bring yer own bed and the roof leaks. Just 200 quid a night. Supply an’ demand, innit?” So finding 7 different places to stay is proving very time-consuming. We still haven’t finished, but you kind’a get Booking.com-ed out after 19 hours of sheer frustration and depression.

Kelvin McKenzie? Attacked Ross Barkley the Everton player who was knocked out in a bar in Liverpool last weekend. McKenzie, writing in the Sun which he used to edit before he moved onto the Murdoch first team at Sky, insulted Barkley, really viciously, attacked the entire city of Liverpool and most of its inhabitants. Who mainly deserve it and Barkley is a bit lame. But demanding he be sacked? Elevating insulting Liverpool/Liverpudlians to the status of high treason? Demanding that McKenzie be summarily sacked for his insulting words? I won’t even mention the racism-that-isn’t-racism because that might give it a validity above the contempt it really deserves.

McKenzie is horrible. And he wrote an opinion column that quite frankly he shouldn’t have, which was approved by a sub-editor who shouldn’t have done so either. His crime is one of writing a terribly unfunny piece. Nothing even vaguely amusing in it. So yeah, sack him for that. But not for ‘crimes against Liverpool’. And once someone on the radio mentioned ‘Hillsborough’ in this context, I almost murdered Alexa (Amazon joke).

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I love Facebook. I’m a recent ‘convert’. And now it allows me to post
photos of lovely little Lila every day for loads of my friends, and
even more people that I don’t even know, to swoon over and ‘like’ and
‘love’ and ‘aaaahhhhhh xxxxx’. And once one person has ‘liked’ it, the
photo goes onto their site too, for their friends to ‘like’. And if
any of them ‘like’ it…

I reckon, working on the ‘7 degrees of separation’ model that there is
only one man in the entire world who hasn’t seen Lila sleeping with
her hands over her head. And he’s a bastard, so we don’t care. His
loss. And that happens within minutes of the photo being posted.
That’s why Facebook made 10 billion dollars last year from
advertising. Because it reaches almost 2 billion people.

But its not some passive form of inter-connectivity, leaving us to our
own devices; you like my granddaughter, I’ll like your chocolate cake.
He likes your puppy vomiting over the Vicar, I’ll like your chimpanzee
in a Ferrari. No, its an algorithm. And it monitors every click we
make, every breath we take, every vow… sorry. It monitors everything
we do on phone, pc, tablet, anything connected. It probably hooks up
with ‘Alexa’, our Amazon music player which/who allegedly is run by
the Chinese hackers. Its all connected. And those clicks dictate which
adverts Facebook shows us. Which friends it thinks ‘we may know’.

The algorithm is a secret. They’re all secret as far as I’m concerned,
in that deeply opaque way of very advanced mathematics. But Facebook’s
is their fortune. Or was, till they started showing people paedophile
sites and instructions for beheading. Which, it must be said, it will
only do if those people are ‘that way inclined’. If you are mates with
Jihadi John and Abu Hamza, its a fair guess that you’ll be into
advanced bomb making. So the Times journalists who set up a bogus page
essentially inviting kiddy-pornographers and Islamic extremists on,
were not disappointed.

Algorithms don’t have a morality. They’re just a very advanced method
of offering you what, statistically, you’re most likely to want. And
when people complain about inappropriate sites, I can’t image that
process is done by people either. If 1% of people complain about
sites, that’s 10million investigations. They probably have another
algorithm for that. Who knows? But its a problem. Advertisers don’t
like being connected with the bombing of a school, the rape of a baby,
Arsenal’s current form. Its immoral, its wrong and really, with all
their vast billions, Facebook should be able to stop it.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Boris goes to the G7 summit, because they need a court jester in that Falstaff mode over there to lighten things up. He was already made lame by his cancellation of a meeting with Putin because he didn’t want to take the glory away from Rex Tillerson, the American Secretary of State and ‘former’ friend of Russia, who wants to present ultimatums to Putin about his links to Assad in the wake of ‘gas-gate’. Because America handles these situations… so well?

Donald Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer made several basic, rookie errors when talking about the attacks yesterday. Firstly he spoke off-the-cuff, and he ain’t that bright, and secondly, the cardinal sin, he dropped the ‘H-word’. Hitler. He should have asked Ken Livingstone how that worked out for him. Rule 1: NEVER, EVER MENTION HITLER, even when you think you’re using it in the right context. “Even the evil Hitler never used gas”. Errrrrrr… “Well, he never used chemicals on his own people”, stop digging Sean, you’re already six feet under.

O.M.G!!!

And he said that on Passover!!!! As if that makes it worse. Perhaps if he’d said “Pharoah was never bad to the Jews” I could better understand the connection. There was outrage, accusations of ‘the worst kind of holocaust denial!’ What crap. This was no holocaust denial, this was plain stupidity. In Sean’s (feeble little) mind, Hitler never bombed his own people so Assad was worse. The ‘chemical/gas’ thing is obviously in a completely different compartment of his mind from the gas chambers. He fucked up, and that’s bad. He’s incompetent, that’s possibly worse, considering his position, but holocaust denial?? I don’t think so. And all the tragic over-reaction to the comments just serve to make any mention of the holocaust too difficult. Like discussing problems about Muslims. A no-go zone. He’s a tosser, not a denier.

Meanwhile over in Chicago there’s yet another fuss. This time on a plane. In a scene strongly reminiscent of the movie ‘Airplane’ a 65 year old Doctor was dragged out of his seat and turfed, bruised and bleeding off the United Airways flight. And quite right too. Just because he’d paid for his seat and was sitting in it doesn’t give him the right to think he can stay there for the duration of the flight. Who does he think he is? The flight was overbooked so he was ‘randomly selected’ by the computer to ‘lose’. And he refused to go. What a total bastard. The UA computer was programmed to ‘find a Chinaman to beat the shit out of’ and it did. Just can’t see the problem here. Bloody liberals…

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

The thing about Passover, other than not eating bread for a week,
unless you’re at work, or you forget, or you just can’t be bothered
not to, is about ‘telling the story’. You have to tell the story of
when Moses led his people out of bondage in Egypt, over to safety,
passing of the Red Sea, 10 plagues, slaying of the firstborn, blah,
blah, blah. And of the 92,487 (conservative estimate) ‘rules’ that
Jews have to run their lives, this one, the ‘telling of the story’ is
the only one I’m prepared to do. Mainly because most of the others
involve some form of mindless sacrifice, blind adherence, missing
football matches, limiting options, being really bored for protracted
periods of time, so I don’t bother.

So at passover you get together with family and/or friends and you
‘tell the story’. And I like it because its fun, to a degree, its
mainly in English (as opposed to Hebrew which we can all read but only
the few actually understand and they’d be the ones in the black hats)
and you get to eat lots of nice things.

Even when I lived in Los Angeles, in 1982, a group of friends got
together to do the passover thing. We interrupted a whole load of
other stories (mainly sex and drugs and rock’n’roll) to tell this one.
That could only be described as ‘an alternative story-telling’ but we
did it anyway. Force of history? The strength of family programming?
Who knows. As Nike say: ‘just do it!’

So last night was Lila’s first experience of The Seder (as it is
known). Not sure exactly how much of ‘the story’ she took on board
because without teeth you really miss out that whole ‘matzoh’
experience. But she loved it. I could tell. And as it just kind’a
passes down through the generations, that’s really what its all about.

In another room, some sinner had switched on the tv, muted, obviously,
so it didn’t interrupt ‘the story’, so that we- NO, not ‘we’, so that
HE could keep track of the Arsenal match being played on that holy
night. And what happened there, on the tv, live from Selhurst Park,
was every bit as amazing as what happened in Egypt all those thousands
of years ago.

Because God, being a Spurs fan, was Royally pissed off with Arsenal
for playing football on a night of such holiness, so He abandoned
them. Just left them floundering like fish out of water, flapping
haplessly. These weren’t the Jesus fishes, different ones. Ozil-fish,
Sanchez-fish, most certainly Walcott-fish. Nothing you’d wanna eat.
And He smote them. Its what He does. Smote them good’n’proper.

Shame. Hmmmm…

Happy daze

A xxxx

Whilst Jesus was just coming up for resurrection, at the same time of year (but a thousand or so previously) Moses was leading his Jews out of Egypt. Out of bondage, slavery and the whole 50 Shades thing but on an industrial scale by the rotten, evil Pharaohs (boooooo). Which is why this time of year sums up everything great about religion. The food.

The Jewish bible is basically a rather long and drawn out and very cryptic cook-book. It tells you what to eat and how to eat it. All through the year. Preferably without stopping. Some people choose to pray and stuff in between the meals, but I’d rather not. I’m too religious and therefore head straight to the chicken soup, knocking the rabbi onto the floor reaching for the fish-balls.

We don’t do the whole ‘Jesus thing’, obviously, even though he was ‘one of our own’. He was just another naughty Jew picking and choosing the bits of the religion he liked and ignoring the rest. He was another Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks without the slapstick. And we don’t do Jesus because we can’t believe in immaculate conceptions and ‘sons of God’ and reincarnation.
They stretch anyone’s imagination, let alone belief. And as a pragmatic race, the Jews would rather stay grounded with the Red Sea parting and the angel of death striking all the Egyptians’ first born, passing over the Jewish homes. Which the angel knew because they were all watching the golf.

But we’ll take the Easter Eggs. Oh my, yes we’ll take those Easter Eggs. Or, as they have to now be called in this (stupid, hypocritical, post-PC, totally fucking moronic) world: Eggs. Or Chocolate Eggs. Just don’t mention ‘Easter’ in this ‘Christian Country’. Presumably you now go to the bakers to buy buns. Do you want hot crosses, stars or crescents? What about the Hindus? Hot elephant buns. Thank you.

But we can’t eat them, whatever logo they carry. Because its passover tonight and we don’t eat flour products for a week. We all play at being glutards. Because when the Jews left Egypt they didn’t have time to leaven their bread. If Mary Berry had been there instead of Moses, would have been a different story. And like all religions, taking the quaint and pleasant symbolism of a jolly festival and extrapolating it to the point where it becomes painful and stupid is what we do best. So strictly, we don’t eat anything that may have even come into contact with flour. Like Easter Eggs. Someone might have spilled a bag of self-raising all over the fucking chocolate. Happens all the time, I’m sure.

Some of us aren’t quite as observant in this as others. Particularly when EASTER eggs are concerned. I’ll say no more.

Jesus died to save you. Moses ate cardboard for a week to save me.

Happy Passover

A xxxx

You know what they say; get a life; or a granddaughter. I’ve chosen the latter. And I’m evangelical. Not about grandchildren in general, just mine. Because she’s special.

Born after an immaculate conception. Every bit as believable as ‘the other one’, I mean: come onnnnn. And the morning she was born, 3 wise men arrived. Me, the neo-natal doctor and Lars, the Polish cleaner. I mean: what are the chances? I brought me mate, Frank, who had some incense and we ordered a murgh masala take away. Uncanny.

Anyway, Lila had arrived, Spurs won. Lila watched her first football match on Wednesday, (when I say ‘watched’, I mean she was in the room, asleep, head buried in my shoulder), and we won again, nothing short of ‘the miracle of the Liberty Stadium’, and yesterday we played again. And by ‘we’, I mean me, Spurs, Lila. We.

This time we didn’t wait for the 88th minute to score the first goal. We were, quite frankly, imperious. Watford were semi-decent in the first half and were unlucky to find themselves 3-0 down by the end of that 45 minute spell. Of blinding brilliance, superlative attacking football and not one, not two but THREE top-drawer (whatever that means, but seems appropriate) goals.

To play that well and score scruffy goals or tap-ins is impressive. But to cap wonderful play with quite stunning strikes is even more betterer. Says it, just like that, in the ‘football pundit’s handbook’. Volume 3; return of the clichés.

Lila’s response to her third victory in 8 days was to look around as if the world was somehow all new to her, burp and feed for another hour.

That win put us within 4 points of Chelsea. For all the 3.5 hours until they beat Bournemouth. Even Liverpool managed to win, away at Stoke, but there ya go. It also put us 14 points ahead of the Arse, who play at Crystal Palace tomorrow. Palace, who beat Chelsea then got hammered by Southampton. All I can say is: COME ON YOU EAGLES.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I have some questions, a few issues, just to clear up before we go to war and the nukes start flying and nuclear winter takes over for the next 12 million years. The questions concern the total hypocrisy of the entire political world.

Saudi Arabia has been bombing the Houthis in Yemen for years. No-one complains. People die, children maimed, populations displaced, no problem. Other than for those affected, when its a fucking massive problem. Just not OUR problem. So Saudi bombing is fine. Legal. Then they use a few cluster bombs and there’s outcry. Theresa May takes issue, even the UN roll over and sleep on the other side for a bit, its outrageous. Cluster bombs are illegal!!!!

And made in Britain. Supplied by us. We don’t mind indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations, or merely accept it, until a particular type of bomb is used which WE HAVE SUPPLIED. Ahh, say the government, cluster bombs aren’t illegal, only if used on civilian populations. Well, that’s fine then, you can spend 23 billion quid on cluster bombs but only if you use them in the empty desert.

Cluster bombs are just more efficient at killing people. Therefore, I wanna know where the line is? When is killing innocent, civilian people ok, and why is it any different when you just use a different implement, a stronger tool?

Move over to Syria. Assad and Russia have bombed the shit out of Aleppo for 3 years. There is nothing left of Aleppo and every single day civilians, children, babies, all die. Every day. Then he just changes the method, not the intent, that’d be ‘death!’, just the method. Uses chemical weapons and suddenly there’s outcry.

DO THE DEAD PEOPLE GIVE A SHIT WHICH PARTICULAR FORM OF MUNITIONS KILLED THEM?

I’m not saying chemical weapons are ok. Obviously they’re a zillion miles from even acceptable. But I suppose my main question is: WHAT IS THE FUCKING DIFFERENCE????

Trump (who won his election in part by promising not to intervene in overseas conflict) sits on his lardy orange arse whilst tens of thousands of Syrians are murdered by their own president. Then that President uses a different method of killing people and Trump, with no concrete evidence or proof, sends 59 missiles into Syria. Normal, non-chemical, un-cluster, ‘green’ missiles, obviously. But at what cost?

When we saw the images from the chemical bomb, the knee-jerk reaction from every person in the world in possession of a heart, was ‘punish him!!!’ Me too. But then you have to consider consequences, you certainly need process and proof before assuming moral high ground, and you need to think where it might end.

I suppose my main question, to Trump, Putin, Assad and all the other trigger-happy warmongers, is: WHAT THE FUCK???

Happy Saturday. We can only hope the world doesn’t end before Spurs have finished a season above Arsenal. Never lose sight of the big picture.

A xxxx

Are babies addictive? Should they be given a ‘class 1’ rating? Like heroin and cocaine? Have they set up support groups for tragic grandparents who swoon over any and every photo of their sleeping progeny? “My name’s Andy and I haven’t seen my grandchild for 35.72 hours”; “HELLO ANDY!!!!”.

Because last night I went to tai chi. I needed to get in touch with my spiritual side, fire up my energy levels and also to kick the shit out of something. Done that. Job done. Now where’s my baby?

Thankfully she’s in London. Safe and sound as you are anywhere in this semi-horrible world. Unlike the babies in Syria. 27 of whom died in Tuesday’s diabolical chemical bomb attack on a ‘rebel-held’ town. ‘Rebel’ means ‘anti-Assad’. Their president. Killing people. Killing babies.

The UN will probably start ‘talks’ over this next September. They’re too busy issuing resolutions against Israel. Russia are Assad’s mate, ally and probably supplied the planes and the chemicals. So its left to John Wayne, sorry, to Donald J. Trump, to take action. Which came in the form of an air-strike on the airfield from which the chemical attack came.

Assad has, meanwhile, denied the attack. No mate, weren’t me. Was some other geezer with access to fleets of military bombers and chemical weapons. Everyone has those round my way.

So America condemned Russia for being in some way ‘complicit’, which they undoubtedly war. Doing nothing when you know what’s going on is a big crime. And Assad certainly has ‘form’. Bombing Gouta in 2013, killing 1300 people with ‘banned chemical weapons’.

Undisputed fact: Assad is the motherfucker’s scumbag.
UndisPutined fact: Putin could be worse.

Trump has been cosying up to Russia for some time. To ally himself with them against China. Which coincidentally is meeting him today in Florida. Well, not all 1.6 billion of ‘China’, just President Xi. (That’s pronounced ‘Zi’, not ’11’) And now Russia are pissed off with Trump for accusing them of complicity at worst, tacit negligence at best, in the chemical bombings.

Which puts me (yes, it IS always about me) on the verge of World War 3: The Big One.

Should we be worried? FUCK; YEAH. Though personally I’ll be fine, we do ‘self defense from nuclear weapons’ in tai chi. We have a ‘move’. But you? And more importantly, baby Lila???

Worrying Friday

A xxxx