Andy's Glasses

I’m going back to work tomorrow. If I can get in. The tube strikers have conspired to increase my holiday by calling a 24 hour strike from tonight til tomorrow night. They’re striking for… errr… well, they’re striking for ‘safety of the travellers’. Probably. That’s the normal reason. And you can’t complain about that, can you. Can you?? Yeah, actually you can.

If the workers don’t get more money then the travellers are in danger. No doubt about it. Its very dangerous getting on a train staffed by workers who feel they’re undervalued. Even though they already earn 6 times the national average and get 13 weeks a year holiday, 14 weeks sickness pay and loads of overtime cos they only schedule a 4 hour week. (Figures may vary… from reality).

If they want to introduce new technology which will arguably make travel safer, the Unions complain that it would actually endanger travellers. If any job is at risk, its us who are in danger.

Jesus, if I’d have known how fucking hazardous it was down there I’d have declined my free, over-60, all-you-can-eat travel-card.

But I didn’t. I took it and said ‘thank you very much’ to each and every tax-payer in the land for their amazing generosity and consideration for the aged and infirm (gotta bad shoulder, ain’t I? Even though I used it to play tennis yesterday and today).

So really I don’t know why they’re striking. And I don’t fucking care. I hate strikes, but tube strikes? Good to be home.

And it is good really because Spurs played today in the glorious FA Cup. The oldest cup competition in the world. When it started New Zealand was still attached to Africa. Wooly Mammoths roamed around Times Square. The Romans ruled Hampstead Village. Long time ago.

So The Cup (there are others but they mean nothing any longer) is still a credible thing to want to win. But…

even with all that history, its also falling victim to the Champions League mania and thus is marginalised in our sporting calendar as a mere side-show, almost a distraction from the league. So even though Spurs beat Aston Villa (hoorayyyyy!!!!) and Liverpool were almost giant-killed by Plymouth Argyle, and there were thrills and surprises, I can only get so excited about any of it. Bournemouth lost to lowly, scummy Millwall yesterday after playing a second string team. Eddie Howe, their manager, claimed that ‘sometimes you get it wrong, you misjudge and pay the price’. But really, Eddie is probably the most intelligent and considered manager in the Premier League and he got it just right. Get out of the cup, survive another season in the top flight, don’t waste energy and fitness on a cup they really could never win.

Ok, gotta go, leaving in 10 minutes to walk to work.

Happy Sunday night

A xxxx

Arrived home yesterday morning at about 9. Managed to stay awake all day, then crashed about 10. Bed. Turned on my Kindle, nah, not tonight, turned off my Kindle and disappeared from the world of the conscious. Woke up at 2, Mel was already awake, slept til 4. Mel still awake, but really, that wasn’t my problem, selfless, caring, loving husband that I undoubtedly am, I did what any man would do. I pissed like an elephant and went back to sleep. Woke at 6.30. Felt good. A very unusual feeling for me at that time. Jet lag is not all negative.

India is 5.5 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. Five and a half. What’s that all about? Nowhere has ‘half’ hours. But India does. Because its big and would span two time zones. With the West side being 5 hours ahead and the East being 6. But they couldn’t handle that. Because somewhere in the deepest Gudjerat, just past the donkey as you cross the road for the chai-wallah, you’d gain/lose an hour. And you probably don’t even own a watch, nor a tv, so wouldn’t have a fucking clue what the time was. Other than ‘tea-time’. But its always tea-time in India, its worse than England. So to simplify, all of India is 5.5 hours ahead. Simple.

So at 6.30 today my body was ready for lunch. Though its always ready for lunch at any time, day or night. But instead, I went to Tai Chi. And on the way, via my radio, I learned that Paul Whassisname, the Scouse moron wot now leads UKIP, thinks its a disgrace that Nigel Farage, ex-leader of UKIP (and probably future leader too once everyone else realises what a waste of space new-guy is) should have been knighted in the new year’s honours list. Which I think is a good idea. To put Farage in the ranks of Jimmy Savile, Rolph Harris, Phillip Greene and a host of other diabolical dignitaries. Its almost a rank-of-shame. Which is why they gave one to Andy Murray.

Knighthoods simply perpetuate the ridiculous class system that probably does more to harm the progress in our otherwise fine land than all other acts of stupidity. They’re an anachronism. The only exception really should be judges. I don’t know why, its just what I think. To bestow a useless title on a has-been bongo-player from a boy-band which shone for all of 6 months, in 2003. Or a former footballer who then gets convicted of rape and ends up in jail for tax evasion. I don’t mind Bobby Charlton being knighted either because I love him. But really, unless they want to give me one, for services to… errr… to something, let them go. No value.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Ya, Houston, we have a problem.

Mel & I hardly ever argue. There’s no point. She’s stubborn as anything and I’m just the most annoying person you’d ever want to argue with. So for me its sport and then we laugh, or she punches me in frustration and gets her own way. Ha, ha, haaaa…

Except water. We argue about water. A lot.

Only in hot climates, obviously. No-one dies of dehydration in Basildon in February. But Melbourne in December? Israel in June? Or, Mumbai in January. These are hot places. Searingly so. And when we visit such places we have ‘the water conversation’ quite regularly. It goes like this:

Mel: ‘oh, there’s a shop, let’s buy some water’
Me: ‘Ok’, let’s buy a bottle
Mel: ‘better get 2- no, get 3, just in case’
Me: ‘in case of what? exactly? We’re walking 362 yards til we pass the next shop selling water, and in 22 minutes we’ll be back at the flat/hotel/restaurant where I’m sure they might have some’.
Mel: ‘well, you never know, and we can use the rest later’.
Me: ‘So we need to carry round litres of water so we can drink it later when its really warm and horrible, in case we don’t see another vendor. And we’re in a shopping mall’.

And so it goes on. I am Aquarius. The fucking water-carrier. When I should be Gemini, even though she is a real twin. Go figure. Show’s how valid astrology is.

Then I often just kind’a ‘find’ bottles of water. Every time we unpack, there they are, we brought them from Goa to Mumbai, just in case the Taj Mahal Palace doesn’t have any. And today, unpacking sadly at home, there they were; her ‘guilty little secrets’, bottles just sort of ‘appearing’ in the dirty underwear, lying unopened in the shirts. I have them lined up in the kitchen in ‘j’accuse!!!!’ fashion.

And when asked what was the ‘hi-light’ of our India trip, what was the bestest of all best bits, I shall have to say; checking into the flight at Mumbai’s brand new airport. ‘WHAT!?!??!?’ they’ll shout, but surely; the Taj Mahal, the manic streets of Delhi, the Red Fortress, the lakes of Udaipur, surely??

No, check in at Mumbai. This pic is Mel ‘in the queue’. Oh, there isn’t one. No. ‘Just sit there and relax and let me have your passports, please’, said the nice little BA chap. We sat, our luggage just there on a trolley. He came back, handed us our passports, boarding passes, some luggage labels and said; ‘don’t worry, just leave it to us, you go through’.

But! I need to queue? I need to get really frustrated. I need to strain my back putting the cases on the conveyor belt, I need… I need…

I need every flight ever to be like that.

Not so sure I need to be home but there ya go.

Happy Friday, happy home-coming

A xxxx

no time today; too fucking busy for this.

and no gloating

A xxxx

So we’re done with Goa. We are sooooo over Goa. Literally though cos we’re just flying out on the way to Mumbai. Only for a couple days, that’s all we have then home.

And I love India. Be lovely when its finished.

Which is the impression you get here. Of a massive work in progress. One day all the roads will be hole-less, all the buildings finished, or demolished, all the walls painted (to facilitate pissing) and everything ‘nice’. Throw in a few rules of the road and you could almost have a civilised nation. But then it wouldn’t be India. It wouldn’t be the place where quite literally, anything goes. Except eating cows in public, obviously. Anything else goes.

Fast forward several manic hours and we’re in Mumbai. The (Indian) City of my dreams. Its fantastic here. Perhaps its a comfort thing and I’m not the adventuring hero that I pretend to be. Because Mumbai is just a wonderful, beautiful, glorious city. Its barely like India at all. Except for the Indians. And the food. Its coastal, thus it has water, and its just wonderful. Big, but wonderful.

Okay there’s lots of shanty towns and manic motorists, but there’s a superb vibe about the place that makes you wish you could stay here longer than our allotted couple of days. But I can’t complain. Though, as a Spurs fan, I might. Its what we do.

We’re staying at the amazing Taj Mahal Mumbai (where the fuck else would it be?) and, like all hotels in India, they’re big on security. Cars get searched, bonnet up, boot open, mirrors looking underneath, then you go through security scanners like at airports, before they let you in to pay half the average Indian’s yearly income on one night in the most obscene luxury you could imagine. Its so decadent I’ve buried my champagne socialism for the duration, in fact I’ve drowned the ‘socialism’ bit entirely in the champagne half, so as not to be too hypocritical. Je suis un fascist bastard. And right now, I’m lovin’ it. The ‘floor butler’ (available 24 hours a day) just brought up some stuff that might make us more comfortable.

Can you hate yourself and love what you’re doing at the same time? I’ve tried ‘social conscience’ but sometimes you just have to give in to your inner imperialist and say ‘fuck it; its only for 2 days’.

Now all we need to make this day/week/holiday/year/LIFETIME complete is to beat Chelsea tonight.

Come on you Spurs,

Happy penultimate day in India

A xxxx

“Authorities are now worried about a new wave of terrorist attacks from ISIS.”

Holy shit! Literally. Depending on your definition of ‘holy’, that is.

I want to know how we’ll be able to discern this new wave from the old wave(s). At what point does Paris, Nice, Berlin become Istanbul? Are they different? Are some ‘ISIS’ and some a different form of sociopathic homicidal maniac(s)?? Do ISIS murderers of innocents differ in any objective way from ‘lone wolf’ killers or Al Queda motherfuckers??

Not to me it doesn’t. But it probably does to them. Different philosophies, different adherences to alternative micro-adulterations of various Koranic verses, In their world its all different. To us ‘poor uninitiated’ they are just so many different justifications for slaughtering innocent people. To them its a bit more ‘life of Brian’, in that ‘no, we’re not the people’s Christian Front, we hate them, we’re the front for Christian Peoples…’ kind’a way.

So I don’t differentiate. To do so gives them a credibility. Gives them a tacit validity that what they have to ‘say’ is in any way relevant to anything. To acknowledge an ideology, even to condemn it, is to give it the recognition it really doesn’t warrant. No-one asked Fred West or Ted Bundy ‘why’ they killed all those people. We just knew they were fucked up and evil. Thus with ‘jihadis’. ‘Holy’ war my penis.

On a more important note, Premiership referee is taking yet more stick. And its most unfair. There he is, stood standing in the middle of 22 (or in his case, generally, 21 or 20) overpaid superstupid, grossly overpaid, arrogant, obnoxious footballers, earning an honest crust and he is constantly pilloried for making mistakes. This is the list of grievances this season, broken down by type and boiled down into reality.

Manager: we should have had a penalty. Opponent manager: was never a penalty.

Manager: he should have sent of (opposing player). Opponent manager: he made the right decision.

Manager: my player should never have been sent off. Opponent manager: terrible, career-threatening tackle, ref had no choice.

Spurs do well by Mike Dean’s decisions. That doesn’t make him incompetent, biased or questionable. That makes him a God. Arsenal hate Mike Dean; had over 100,000 signatories in a petition to prevent him at Arsenal matches. That makes him a double God. LEAVE MIKE ALONE; WE LOVE HIM. AND NEED HIM.

Dinner last night at the ‘Banyan Tree’ restaurant. Wonder why they called it that? Amazing meal. Off to Mumbai tomorrow. Getting cold here. Only 93 degrees today.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Ok another reason for loving India. This a really big, really profound one, transcending the normal, the cultural, even the spiritual. This is a big one.

Since we’ve been here Spurs have played two matches. And won them both. By the same score. 4-1. Big wins. Dominating performances. Great results against at very least ‘stubborn’ teams (and please, find me a team that isn’t ‘stubborn’, other perhaps poorly Swansea). In the same period Arsenal have played bottom 4 teams and just about managed dull wins. Have you noticed that Arsenal seem to play all the bottom 6 teams 3 times each and the top teams hardly ever? That’s surely not fair.

Anyway, I think this is some form of Karma. That great Indian way of looking at life. That the Gods will redress imbalances, punish past evils, reward all good deeds. In which case, really, Arsenal should have lost at least one of those matches. But heh, even Gods fuck up.

So now we need to extend that vibe until Wednesday. When we play Chelsea at the Lane. I’ll still be in India, continuing my good work here for the good of my team (? I never said I understood karma, just don’t knock things when they seem to be working). When we played them at the end of last season it was more karate, more kung fu, other eastern things. But karma is stronger. In its own quiet way.

When you venture out into ‘real’ India, which even hardened western tourists like us are forced to do on occasions, the first thing you notice is: ‘the world is your toilet’. I think there are less rules about where you can take a pee than there are about traffic control. And there are absolutely no rules for that. And despite Hindu protestations of the value of women (3 goats and a pashmina) and egalitarianism, in terms of pissing its always a patriarchal world. Men are just better at it. Far more versatile. We don’t need a flat patch of land behind a bush. We just need… well, anywhere. But there is one social protocol that’s quite rigidly adhered to: when you need a pee; FIND A WALL. Anywhere there are walls there are men, stopping their cars, getting off their bikes, leaving their donkeys, to piss against them. Maybe its a religious thing. Its rude to pass a wall and not piss against it; I don’t know. Just makes it a bit more ‘third world’, a bit more ‘like they writ on the tin’.

Next time we’ll venture into the world of spitting. India are in the Premiership of all forms of expelling fluids from the body. But next time. Getting a big gross.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I think I’ve ‘gone native’. A week in India, soaking up their history, eating their food, living their culture, its actually happened. Not that I’m some re-born Hindu (they’re all ‘re-born’; that’s the whole point of being a Hindu), mainly because I have difficulties with having one God. Having 14,000 gods fails to facilitate my scepticism. Though I really like Ganesh. He’s cuddly. Half elephant, half tandoori chef; how bad can he be?

But when I wake up on a Sunday morning and I’m oblivious to the fact that in another world there have been football matches played which effect my team, my life, THE ENTIRE NEW YEAR!!!!, then I know something is profoundly different. Ok, I was minorly hung-over from the New Year party here on the Goan resort, but really. This is football, for Ganesh’ sake, its always on my mind.

And I’d like to thank the many people who sent me security warnings last night when Israel declared Southern India ‘the place most likely’ for terrorist attack on New Year’s Eve. Which caused me something of a dilemma.

What do you do when you think you may be a target? Lock yourself in the room and ram the bed against the door? Not go to the ‘new year extravaganza’ that all hotels in the world force you to attend and you’ve already paid (handsomely) for? Not that its about the money. Its about changing your lifestyle to the point where you may be safer but then ‘they’ have won. Its a moral issue: freedom from harm against free curry. If you change your ways the bad guys have achieved a victory. They don’t want us enjoying our normal freedoms. Well fuck ’em. I hate bad guys. And I love curry. Unfortunately it got a bit too ‘Bollywood’ even for this neo-native, so we still managed to get in the pool for our laps at 8.30 this morning. This is Mel beating the crowds. I was the crowds.

Tragically they did strike last night, but in Istanbul rather than Goa. May they rot in hell.

But we have a new year. Resolution time. Too late to make pledges about Europe, Trump or, so it would seem, Chelsea. And as someone told Mel last night: ‘I’ve already scrapped my resolutions because no-one likes a miserable, sober, skinny bitch’. So my resolutions will be the same as last year. 1. Don’t make any resolutions. Just do what you do but better and most importantly; enjoy it. Or there’s just no point.

Happy 2017

A xxxx

India is soooo different. Wonderfully, loudly, brightly, olefactorily, different. It assaults the senses, all of them. Simultaneously. And at once. but you have to be careful. First there’s Delhi Belly. Then we left there and we’re in Goa. Where, presumably, you can get Goa Gut. Generally, you are careful of India Intestine. But the colours here, the smells, the sights are sensational.

The other main difference between ‘home’ and India is moustaches. They’re everywhere. Mainly on men, but by no means exclusively. In Britain when you see a man with a moustache you know it must be November and he’s doing it for charitable purposes. Over here, every month is Movember. And you have to consider why? Why would any nation with aspirations to be an economic super-power, a rapidly developing society, keep such an oddity as the moustache? And they appear to wear them with no sense of irony whatsoever. I call it ‘Sultan of Brunei Syndrome’, in which the desire to look like a Bollywood superstar overtakes common good sense and style. I’m going to set up a charity: send all your old razors to India to help keep them in line with the west where, as a rule, you can have a moustache or a sense of humour but you can’t have both.

Barak Obama; saintly pioneering first afro-Am Prez ever, or hateful Judas-tosser who left his last 3 weeks to show his true colours (no pun intended) and upset everybody whilst he still can? I make no judgments. Ok, I make loads of judgments and he is a tosser. And remember, this is a man we all loved to pieces when he first won, 8 years ago. Following that, he’s done virtually nothing of any substance for 7.95 years, until last week. When America refused to use its veto on the Israeli settlements bill which was passed. Not that the UN knows or means anything, as has been proved… every time its said or done anything, itself a rare occurrence. But that’s not the point.

I can even forgive Obama his misguided failure to stand by its ‘ally’, but never for allowing John Kerry to whitter on for 45 minutes of lip-licking (what IS that all about?) boredom as he tired to explain the decision, seemingly oblivious to the old adage: when you’re in a hole, STOP DIGGING.

I love Isreal; hate the settlements. But, unlike, apparently, Obama and Kerry, I appreciate that the settlements in the West Bank are not ‘the issue for peace’. Its so stupidly naive and moronic to think otherwise, let alone bang on about it when everyone else in the room has fallen asleep 20 minutes ago. Maybe Kerry hasn’t read the Hamas charter, or that of Hezbollah, which wants the complete destruction of the Jewish state for ever. No mention of settlements.

Then Obama sent home 35 Russian diplomats. Wow!! That’s tough! Though not exactly Kennedy’s Cuban missile crisis. Putin, in the sweetest ever retaliation states he ain’t sending nobody home and invites all the American diplomats, and their families to the Kremlin for a New Year’s party. And intends to wait for ‘President Trump’ before doing anything. See, Putin has no moustache but a wicked sense of homour.

Happy hot Goan Saturday

A xxxx

Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. Most gorgeous city in… in… well, anywhere. Other than Tottenham, which has its own, unique beauty. Because some geezer, not just a random geezer, but a Maharaja, about 500 years ago, built a palace here. Not like the one/two/three in Delhi, they were built by a conquering King, nor like the three/four/five in Jaipur, which were indeed built by a Maharaja, but (probably) a different one. Taller. Fairer. Spoke with a lisp/stutter. Possibly. It all starts to get a bit dizzying. Its called Maharajitis. The names start to blur, the wives (about 9 each), blend together, the architecture: Islamic, Hindu, Persian, Turkish, McAlpine, all starts to induce migraine.

Which wasn’t what happened to Mel at the fabulous ‘City Palace’ here. No, that was more Delhi Belly. She suddenly, horribly, went from pink to white to green (she does have ‘Hulk’ moments), started sweating and, the real tell-tale sign with Mel, she went into the shade. Something she never, ever does when awake/compus mentis/breathing. So I knew it was serious. Thus unfortunately we missed the other 2 palaces here on offer, built (I’m fairly sure) by the same Maharajah, might have been his brother Mikey.

And because building 3 palaces lacks sufficient ‘show of wealth’ to attract anyone’s attention here, he also built 3 massive lakes around which he constructed everything. Ya wouldn’t want a palace without a lake, would you? How tacky would that be?? The result of all this is a spectacularly beautiful city. But like all Indian cities, has its myriad of back alleys in their ‘old town’ parts, which are wonderful. Loud, dirty, congested and filled with a million people, cows, dogs, motor-bikes, cars and ‘auto-rickshaws’ (tuk-tuks by any other name).

I’d already figured out last night, on our way back from the restaurant ‘probably’ responsible for Mel’s tum issues, things about this fantastic mode of transport. Because here in the back streets it is the only way to travel. And what they are is a little frame stuck onto a motor-scooter. Not just any motor scooter but one with a twist grip gear-shift. Which I haven’t seen for 40 years. So they are using a scooter built 50 years ago to take Roger Daltry round the set of Tommy, to carry a metal frame and up to 8 people round the city.

We took one home today. ‘Our’ car would have resulted, it was estimated by a local, to put 20 extra minutes between Mel and a toilet. So the tui-tuk won easily.

Bit like Spurs last night. Spurs always win when I’m in India.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx