Andy's Glasses

So Mezud Ozil and Alexis Sanchez are in deep talks with Arsenal about their new contracts. Which they don’t give a shit about. And the money on offer, which they really, really do. They earn 140k a week (a fucking WEEK!!!!) but want 250k. Like Pogba. Fine.

Then Oscar, Brazilian not-quite-superstar-enough to play regularly for Chelsea, moves to Shanghai (iss in China, innit, setting up a ‘big-time’ football league, ain’t they) for an eye-watering, testicle-shriveling, nausea-inducing 400 thousand pounds a week.

Now them Chinese, those last bastions of world Communism: from each according to his ability (Oscar is very able) to each according to his needs (must be some ‘needs’) have offered Zlatan Ibrahimovic 1.2 million pounds a week. £1,200,000 every fucking week. He’s 36 years old and wears a pony tail. You’d think he’d know better with all that maturity, but for 1.2 mil a week, he can look as stupid as he wants. Though he’s turned it down. For now.

That’s totally fucked up. Absolutely outrageous. Obviously, in a free-market economy, you can pay what you want. The Chinese reckon they can sell 1.6 billion ‘Ibrahmovic’ shirts, one for every person there, probably just by passing a law making it compulsory. If you’re caught not wearing one you get locked up without a trial. Fair enough. But what message does it send to our already ridiculously rich footballing ‘stars’? It gives the message to be greedy. Be very greedy. Make outrageous demands and use the ‘Chinese model’ as the ultimate threat. Pay me ‘what I’m worth’ or I’ll play in Shanghai, Beijing, wherever.

Swansea City won’t be making an offer for Ibrahimovic. Nor Ozil or Sanchez. They’re in trouble. Big trouble. Conceded 18 goals in their last six away games. Or ‘road games’ as their manager, Bob Bradley, calls them. And there’s the problem.

Managers, no matter how great they may be, have to sound right. They can use the ‘northern scumbag’ model, like Sam Allardyce, they can use the Welsh paradigm, like Clive Coleman, Mark Hughes. They can be crafty cockneys, Geordie morons (Shearer) or they can be ‘foreign’. But only within clearly defined limits. French, German, Spanish, Italian, all fine. Mastery of English not essential (Pochettino), at first at least. South American is fine and dandy.

But to hear a full-blown Yank… its just plain wrong. We don’t have ‘road games’ cos our roads are shitty. We don’t have ‘winningest’ teams, nor all those other phrases which simply don’t translate. Its like calling a goal a ‘touchdown’. Which he hasn’t. Yet.

American accents are fine. I like them. Wouldn’t want a cowboy to sound any different. Nor televangelists, baseball pundits or Hollywood moguls. But a manager of a British football team, (even a Welsh one)… naaaaaaaah. No wonder they’re losing.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Thursday. We’re off. India. Land a million curries. A billion people. 42,000 known forms of stomach upset. 1200 Hindu Gods. With 92000 limbs between them. And lots of curries. Did I mention those already? Good. I love curry.

But that always supposes we take off from Heathrow. The weather’s nothing special, no ice, no snow, no hurricanes forecast, just dull and grey, neither of which bothers jumbo jets in the least. The problem this winter is what has rapidly become our national malaise: strikes.

Everyone’s doing it. First (and pretty much always) it was the tube. Then the other railways. And now, just in time for the busy, busy holiday season, its the airlines. Virtually all of them. Initially at BA it was the flight crews, but now the baggage handlers have joined in too. So far the pilots have been pretty quiet.

So here’s what we’re gonna do. I’ll make the sandwiches (I’m a great sandwich maker, as long as you’re not on any kind of diet or allergic to any kind of food, because everything’s gonna be in there), and I’ll shlep my own cases onto the plane. Mel will load them up and then I’ll do the pre-flight announcement. I’ve always wanted to. “BRACE! BRACE!”

“In case of sudden de-pressurisation GET OFF THE FUCKING PLANE!!! or, use the oxygen masks that will drop down automatically”. Attend to your own mask first and then, if they haven’t already suffocated to death, sort out any children or old people. You life jacket is under your seat unless some obnoxious little bastard hasn’t nicked it to inflate in the swimming pool in Torremolinos to impress the babes. As we used to do.

If necessary, Mel will do the flying, because she’s much more safe and considerate with vehicles than I am, and you never have to parallel park a 747. I’ll sell the duty-free. Cash only.

>> So I must warn you. If, for any reason we don’t take off as scheduled (we booked these flights last January) you will, on Friday morning, read a rant the likes of which has never graced these ‘pages’. Please don’t partake if you have a weak heart, a mild disposition or a problem with fucking swear words.
>

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

They’ve finally ‘liberated’ Aleppo. Hooray. The good guys marched in and outed the bad guys and they’ll all live happily ever after. That can only be good news. But for whom?

Well its good news for Assad, because he gets his country back. What’s left of it. And its good news for Russia, because they’ve backed him all the way and formed a wonderful alliance in which they’ve both proved world masters at ‘acting one way and speaking another’. Which is pretty easy really. Here’s what you do:

You send in 47 top grade fighter jets, the most sophisticated in the world. You pin-point your target, maybe something military, possibly a ‘rebel stronghold’ or arms depot, and then you use the amazing precision of the air-power to bomb the shit out of every building in 9 square miles. That way you can say ‘ve vere bombing rebel targets’ whereas in fact you’ve destroyed 3 hospitals, 14 schools and 22,000 homes of just kind’a regular Syrian civilians. Women, children, priests, doctors, nurses, policemen, just so much collateral damage. Because as we all know, the only way to really single out the rebels is with the chemical weapons that Assad swore he didn’t use. And use them liberally. Because those chemicals are so special that they only actually affect rebel fighters. They just, kind’a, sort of, ‘bounce off’ normal people who aren’t rebels. You could see it on the news, hosing down children, hundreds of them in the hope that you might save their sight, their lungs, their lives.

Assad is unquestionably a horrible and bad person. He is the motherfucker’s motherfucker.

Which is why America and the UK and others were supporting the rebels 6 years ago when all this shit started. ‘Our side’ in the hope that the rebels would see off ISIS in the East, and defeat all round bad buy Assad in the West. Then Russia joined the ‘war on terrorism’ and hooked up with Assad’s government against ‘our’ rebels.

Yet somewhere down the line the rebels changed. From being merely anti-government, in which ‘we’ supported them, they morphed into an all round rogues gallery of non-ISIS extremist hit squads. Al Quada, the Nusra Front and their ilk, who are radical Sunnis. They were joined by Shia militia. And that was never going to work. So they spent their days (and nights) killing each other. There were also a few Kurds knocking around, just to spice up the already explosive mix.

Blah, blah, blah, and Assad won. Assad and Putin won. ‘Liberated’ Aleppo from the rebels.

I wish I knew whose side I was on and whether to be happy with relief or devastated with sorrow.

One way or the other Friday

A xxxx

Its a funny ole game, is football.

Jimmy Greaves words, set in stone, the foundation block of the apparently random and capricious nature of football. Any team can beat any team; on the day. Anything can happen. As they often do. Shitty teams beat high flyers, top teams fail to finish things off, last minute, last-gasp equalisers, Barcelona have 98% possession and Celta Vigo, in the 93rd minute, score with their measly 2% and its a draw. Basically; shit happens. And it happens to everybody. That’s why bookies always win. Nothing is ever 100% certain.

Until this week. When we had that rarest of treats; a midweek full fixture list. The Christmas warm-up. And over those 2 evenings and 10 matches, you could have predicted every result with fair confidence and you’d have been right in virtually every one. In fact, every match was won by the team higher in league position. Other than West Ham beating Burnley. The only draw was the 0-0 between Stoke and Southampton, middle table teams separated by just one point.

Ok, there was one notable exception. Everton beat Arsenal. And due to the fact that every other match went according to rankings, according to expectations, I think it fair to deduce that Arsenal’s league position is in fact an aberration. Its wrong. They shouldn’t be there. Thus will now make moves to take up their ‘proper’ league position just under West Brom. This isn’t me; the footballing Gods have spoken and what they’ve said, in their godlike way, is “move out the fuckin’ way, Arsenal!!”

And all this because Spurs won a match. In some style, according to pundits. And we now, apparently, have sights on Ross Barkley, the Everton midfielder. 35 million they want for him. Even though he’s been pretty useless this season and is the latest in a very long line of England superstars seemingly failing to live up to early promise. But maybe, just maybe, he’s not used to his best advantage at Everton, perhaps their style of play stifles his unquestionable talent? Who knows. Does seem odd though that a team collectively just 2 years out of a care home, should sell one of their youngest and best. Though history (very recent history at that) shows that Spurs and ‘record signings’ (which it would be) often don’t work out as well as we hope. Very often.

Happy Thursday; its all to play for.

A xxxx

Don’t know if you realise but Christmas is fast approaching. If the endless ads on tv didn’t alert you to this, nor the lights on every street, nor the 7 miles queues for every shopping centre in the land, then that’s just because you’re either stupid or, like me, in denial. But you can only deny so far. In fact, so far, far. Because Far Far Away on a distant galaxy…

That’s really how you know its Christmas, because a new Star Wars movie is coming out. Disney, having paid over $2billion for the franchise, gotta fast-track the income stream to recoup the investment. So last year we had a Star Wars Movie, official, number 7, I made it (though lost count about a decade ago and lost the chronology long before that, or maybe soon after that). This year’s is NOT number 8!!! No. Its a ‘spin-off’!!!! Wow.

In a normal Star Wars movie (and don’t get me wrong; I fucking love them, live them, buy the little toy soldiers and would give my left arm to be Darth Vader except he lost it in part 5 to his own son’s light sabre!!! ungrateful little bastard…) you get a bunch of good people, which you can tell because they’re dressed really shabbily, about 5 of them, armed with water pistols and slingshots, and they go up against 725,000 heavily armed, nuclear-powered, armour-plated, laser-shooting bad guys (dressed really well; Dolce & Gabbana Titanium Collection; Black Capes by Armani; smart, powerful, clean) and they destroy the baddies ship/planet/space station with three toilet roll holders, an empty washing up liquid bottle and loads of cunning and ‘grit’. And ‘the force’. Can you feel it? I can. But I’m ‘special’.

Whereas in ‘Rogue One’, this year’s, un-Star-Wars, spin-off, its all different (no spoilers. Mainly because I know virtually nothing about it). In this one the goodies are all really scruffy and they beat the very elegant baddies using ordinary household waste, and are really heroic and there’s probably some really cool robots that they polish up at the end to receive their medals of valour.

See, its totally different. Spin-off, innit. Luke Skywalker has turned into Felicity Jones, (I would willingly die by those teeth), a nod to the transgender acceptance currently showing popularity everywhere except where Trump is, and there’s no Vader, there’s no Hans Solo, none of our old faves. Harrison Ford’s care home refused to let him go out unaided.

Having a ‘lead woman’ should mean nothing. But Disney have a bit of a reputation. Walt himself was famously a sexist, racist misogynist and his ‘spirit’ seems to have endured. But by 2017, even the great Disney Empire (the one that didn’t strike back) is prepared to have women and even people of colour(!!!!) in the movie.

I can’t wait for this new un-Star-Wars, Star Wars movie. I don’t even know what that means.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Someone kindly sent me an amazing set of photos. Yesterday, the day
Theresa May announced a formal definition of antisemitism for the UK,
in case people don’t know what the term means, a set of quite
incredible old photos arrived in my in-box which certainly relate to
the term.

This one is my favourite because its a Jewish holiday service being
conducted by American soldiers in the house of Joseph Goebbels. I’m
gonna stick my neck out and say this is probably the only time ever a
Jewish service has juxtaposed with a swastika. And I like that. I like
the fact that its a big ‘FUCK YOU!!!’ to the nazis, who had just been
defeated, from the very people they chose to persecute above all
others. And they did some serious persecution of many peoples, them
nazis.

The other contender for photo of the day was one of a sabbath service
taking place in the Buchenwald camp just after liberation. But its
actually too moving to use. Thousands of people sitting there in their
horrible stripey camp clothes looking bemused by the sudden onset of
‘freedom’. And I thought: they’re free; why are they still there?

I suppose because the simple physical removal and transportation of
thousands of people is a logistical exercise in itself, but where
would they go? They have no homes, no family, other than a very few,
no country, they were totally displaced people. Left stateless,
homeless, penniless and everythingless by the most horrific act in
human history.

So yeah, if antisemitism needs defining, in case any Corbyites want to
make sure they’re doing it properly, then the PM is right to actually
clarify the issue.

Happy belated, no-time Tuesday

A xxxx

Look at this ‘table’:

1. Chelsea
2. Manchester United
3. Liverpool
4. Manchester City
5. Arsenal
6. Spurs

Now look at the league table:

1. Chelsea
2. Arsenal
3. Liverpool
4. Man City
5. Spurs
6. Man United.

The first table is the ‘most hated football team’ as voted by groups of fans representing all the premiership clubs. The least hated in the poll were Bournemouth (no-one cares about them and they haven’t been here long enough to build enemies), and Leicester (same as above but remarkable achievement last season earned masses of respect from all neutrals. Except Chelsea fans, obviously).

It doesn’t take a genius, or really a moron, or even a Chelsea fan, (if you can find one who can read) to note the similarities in the two tables. Thus it can be deduced that football fans hate success. They hate ‘rich’ teams, they hate ‘big’ teams and there’s a big jealousy element in all this.

I don’t think geographical factors enter, even though there’s just 3 London clubs and 3 from the North West. No-where else represented in the top 6. And as most London fans would ‘hate’ another London club more than anyone else, and the same applies to the Northwest, its not that these two sad regions have been ‘ganged up upon’ by the rest of the country. The bits no-one ever bothers to visit.

Stoke were 7th on the most-hated list but they always punch above their weight. No, literally, they punch everybody, will never rid themselves of their rather ‘industrial’ style of play, so are entitled to suffer in any popularity poll. And West Ham, currently 17th in the real league, were number 8 on the most hated. An interesting disparity that can only be really accounted for by accepting that they are really hateful in oh so many ways.

Yet the jealousy must be about perception of success rather than success itself. Spurs haven’t won anything for decades and yet rank high on hate. Arsenal haven’t won anything worth winning for ages but always act as if they have.

And when asked ‘which team do you hate?’ its really nothing about the players or their performances, past or present. Its a visceral distillation of everything you really feel about the club, the fans, the ground, the players, managers, team doctors and the price of a hot dog. Its everything boiled down into one byte. Just like the old hot dogs in fact.

Putting on my ‘impartial’ hat, the unpartisan, independent, free-thinking, Renaissance Man, neutral hat, I really think Spurs are wonderful and that if people hate them its just because they’re repressed Tottenham fans in need of counselling to bring out their inner cockerel. That’s not a gay thing. Least, I don’t think it is?

But you can’t argue with Chelsea at the top.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

My mate Rob, with whom I’ve worked for 12 years, never willingly moves. He doesn’t gym, he doesn’t play anything more taxing than an a cd and he won’t walk if a bus can take him there in just twice as long. He’s a bit overweight. Yet he never has an ache, a pain, a pulled muscle, a nothing.

I’ve played sport my whole life. Always. I walk a lot, I cycle, I have difficulty sitting still unless there’s food in front of me or Spurs are on tv. Even then I often ‘jiggle’ a leg or fiddle, and NOT just to annoy Mel. I’m a mover and shaker. Unfortunately, in the literal sense.

And I suffer. Back aches, I have a damaged thigh muscle from a high kick about 12 months ago, I have tennis elbow in my left arm, an occasional dodgy knee and a recurring shoulder injury from 13 dislocations during my footballing years.

So really, sport/exercise is bad for you. DON’T DO IT! You’ll be healthier without.

Why have I been so terribly depressed then? Over the last couple of weeks as my ‘repaired’ shoulder was so bad I wasn’t allowed tennis and then for one awful week, I stopped my martial arts too, I became steadily more ‘down’ and ‘blue’ and ‘low’. I almost started listening to old Leonard Cohen cds. It was that bad.

Today I played tennis. I tai chi’ed on Thursday and yesterday, and I feel great. I feel happy, I feel pretty and witty and bright. Yes, I almost burst into song. Though not that fucking song, I hate that one. I was singing ‘already gone’ because I watched (for the 65th time) the Eagles Story, in honour of dear-departed Glen Frey.

So happy that I got Spurs Paul to take a photo of me on the court this morning. ‘Man in his element’, I thought would be an appropriate title. Or, ‘gorgeous man looking pretty and witty and briiiiiiiiiight’. Whereas he suggested as a more appropriate title to represent my sheer joy and happiness and liberation from my tragically debilitating injury: ‘who gives a fuck???’

And I can’t argue with that. I think I’ve become a ‘shoulder-bore’.

The sun’s shining, the world’s good (other than all the bad shit) and I’m happy. What could possibly go wrong???

Happy Sunday

A xxxx (share the love)

I’m not a religious man. I would be but I simply can’t see the point. If you pray to a God you need to see results. I’m a materialist atheist. And you don’t see results. When someone gets over the flu people say ‘thank God, she’s better’. When they die of cancer they say ‘well, it happens’. ISIS happens. The holocaust happened. Tsunamis happen. All kinds of shit happens. Ahhhh, that’s because He gives us ‘free will’. Yeah, so again: SO WHAT’S THE POINT???? Where’s the bolts of lightening knocking the beheading knife out of Jihadi John’s hand? Where’s the hole that opens up to swallow that Nissan Micra driving at 18mph in the fast lane? GIVE ME A SIGNNNNNN…

And if there should, by some miracle (yes, that is a pun) be an old Lordy, bearded ‘thing’ up there, with all that omnipotence and omniscience, he certainly doesn’t need me to tell him 700 times how great he is every week. He’s not vain, but He knows He is the dog’s bollocks. Doesn’t need the endless flattery that is what structured prayer inevitably represents.

I went to synagogue this morning. Always reluctantly, but essential. My mate, the judge, has a grandson who today had his barmitzvah. And I love that aspect of religion, the continuity, the cultural niceties that accompany rights of passage. So I went to hear the boy-but-today-man sing his piece. And sing it really well.

Though we arrived late. Because I went to my Tai Chi class first. If God helps those who help themselves, then self-defence is pretty godly in my mind. So its almost like synagogue. Almost. Except its in English, with just a hint of Chinese. And its fun.

Which synagogue most certainly isn’t. But I only had to endure about an hour of mumbling and then… and then… and then it was time for fishballs!!! The only reason I ever really go to ‘pray’. I pray for fishballs. Good ones. And they were. Other stuff too, but its the geflilte fish balls that for me define Judaism. Firstly because we’re a very food-orientated culture. And secondly because whatever happens, we break out the fishballs. Someone’s born, eat a fishball. Someone dies, eat two. Barmitzvah; mazzletov! where are the fishballs. Weddings: bride looks gorgeous, fishballs a little dry. No event is too big or too small to indulge in this ancient form of ritual.

Done now. With a little luck it may be 9/10 months before I enter a synagogue again. Whereas I can buy fishballs any time.

Enjoy the Sabbath, to keep it holy.

A xxxx

Who speaks for ‘us’? I don’t mean ‘me and you’ or even ‘my family’, but who speaks for ‘us’, the entire nation of British people, and some Scots? Not sure about the Northern Irish but feel duty-bound to include them just this time.

Because the government is elected by us, though never all of ‘us’, that’s democracy. And we effectively hire and pay it to represent us in all things large and confusing and more important than which channel to watch.

So when Boris Johnson mouths off against Saudi Arabia, whose ideas is he espousing?

Theresa May decided, unilaterally, that his words were NOT representative of government views. No, they were big-mouthed Boris’s own personal views. But Boris (for better or for worse) IS the official Government dude, appointed by Theresa herself, for issues overseas. How can his views not be understood to be representative? She put over his blond head a large cloak that has written upon it: “I may look like an overweight party clown but I AM NOW Britain’s foreign mouthpiece”. She can’t just take it off him for odd phrases and conversations that occur in the public domain.

Boris said that Saudi Arabia were ‘puppeteers’ in the whole middle east. Using the many, many battles currently being engaged there as a ‘proxy war’ against Iran. Which many (virtually everyone, in fact) holds to be a completely true and factual statement. Wherever Sunni meets Shia with guns, you can simply assume those guns, and most of the ideas, come from Saudi and Iran.

‘But the Saudis are our friends and allies’, says Theresa May. Wrong. They are HER friends and allies. We (the entire nation) fucking hate the Saudis more than we hate any other nation on Earth, other than in times of sport. They are a vile and evil nation, the total antithesis of any liberal democracy. Never mind ‘equality’, they murder women for fun there, stone gays to death; they invented Wahabism, that vile extrapolation of Islam that created Al Quaeda, ISIS and a host of other lovelies. They are currently attacking Yemen with full (and massive) military might. Allegedly to ‘defend themselves against the Houthis’ (unsurprisingly a bunch of Shias), by apparently fire-bombing civilian populations. With weapons supplied by Britain, their mates.

If the Saudis didn’t spend zillions of pounds every year with us to supply arms our troops would probably be in Riyadh today to stop the evil.

But we have a deal. They spend shit-loads of black gold over here, we turn a blind eye to the vast array of global atrocities they perpetrate. And allow their super-rich Saudi-brat-pack to burn rubber around Harrods every summer in solid gold McLarens and diamond-encrusted, 6-wheeled Bentleys.

So yes, Theresa May, you can pretty much just fuck off. Boris, for once, is actually stating the thoughts of the British public. As we pay him to do.

We may face bankruptcy in Britain, but not of the moral variety.

Happy, much holier than thou, Friday

A xxxx

Saudi Arabia