Andy's Glasses

Went out for dinner last night. The ‘works Christmas dinner’. Obviously there was no turkey involved, if Jesus was around today he’d eat Asian Fusion, like the rest of us. So it was that we trecked across to fancy Fitzrovia to our destination, upmarket (read: eyewatering), trendy (dark), Asian experience.

We were met by a stony-faced Russian, as you’d expect. Probably KGB trained cos she was only small but ‘menace’ seeped from every one of her pores, undisguised by the beauty treatments. She was hard. Cold. Not exactly who I’d choose as my ‘front of house’ greeter, but what do I know? She led us to the bar area. “Oh, let me see if I can find you a space”, leaving us in the doorway. 5 minutes later she returned, elated, that, yes, she had managed to secure somewhere for us to squeeze in, thrilled that she’d succeeded in this achievement. We went down to a bar area large enough to seat 200 that had 4 people in it, plus 26 staff. Oh, yes, this was our lucky night.

Dinner was pre-booked. Tasting menus, all the Thai you can hurl down but brought on small plates so you don’t make an obvious pig of yourself. 7 of us were ‘normal’. As in meat-eating and tolerant to most foods. The remaining 1 was abnormal. A gluten intolerant vegetarian. Who had called the restaurant a month ago, when we booked, to inform them of her disabilities. ‘No problem’, they said. At that time. Because all restaurants are very ‘right on’ about preferences, as half of London won’t eat various things and the other half can’t. Or they can, but then they’ll swell up and vomit and the taxi won’t take them home. If their swelling still allowed them to actually fit in the taxi.

Yet as the waiter (an Italian; which is odd because you never find Italian waiters in Italian restaurants any longer) took our order; “ah! issa problem’a”. Apparently you have to have 2 vegetarians at any one time. They don’t exist singly. ‘But we’d booked, but we’d told you, but we’d emailed our preferences…’ “Sorry, the manager (Lithuanian), ee says it ‘as to be 2’. Then send him over (fists balling, face reddening, teeth gritting). “Actually; iss’ok!!!” How lucky were we?

Then we mentioned the gluten thing. “Ah, issa problem’a”. Of the 9 courses listed on the vegetarian menu, Luigi/Paulo/Alfonso said only one item was gluten free. And faced with the ‘riotous taste spectacular’ claimed, tofu salad weren’t gonna cut it.

Some serious anger, frustration and cajoling later, they indeed conjured up a meal not just almost fit for a queen, but for a coeliac vegetarian Queen. Though still brought all the things she couldn’t eat as well, because… errrr… because they’re either stupid or concerned we might haggle on the bill.

The food was actually fab. The booze tasted like booze and slipped down remarkably easily. The ambiance was wonderful there, but I left with a rotten taste in my mouth. Nothing to do with the food. I contemplated this during the 10-minute, total they’ve-lost-my-fucking-bag panic, as the aforementioned Russian who took our bags laughing that she might need a ticket to find them again, couldn’t find them.

Food 9/10, staff 1/10.

Not good enough really.

Happy eating

A xxxx

Mark Carney, in an address in Liverpool yesterday, asserted all manner of stuff, as the governor of the Bank of England would. He actually questioned whether free-market capitalism is still viable, though failed to mention too many alternative models. Now that Fidel Castro is dead. And he bemoaned the plight of the now legendary ‘working man’ (or wo-man) as being left behind. Further, he added, to cheer everybody up, there’s the potential loss of a further 15 million jobs due to advancing technology and robots. I wonder if he’s counting prostitutes among the casualties.

Because shagable robotics is where its all at, currently. That is the new pinnacle of man’s technological aspiration. Robots you can not only have sex with, but that can be made to look like anyone you want them to. Sounds submissive? No, its just programming and make-up. Though not sure I’d personally want to ‘plug in’ to a lump of titanium. Even a lump with an Angelina pout and Scarlett Johansson wig. Maybe they’ll cover the metal with some flesh-ish substance, like Arnie in Terminator. Though I never fancied him much.

And rather than a totally programmable, bent-to-your-every-whim, Jennifer Aniston/Thandie Newton/Gigi Hadid, surely your average Scouse punter would rather a greasy-haired, cold-sored, smelly crack whore from the Wirral?

On a totally different track, Alexis Sanchez and Mezut Ozil, Arsenal’s 2 mega-star players, are in contract renewal talks. The time when their agents prove their… their… well, they prove that they’re still alive (if ya call that livin’) and that their greed knows no bounds.

The players are currently earning about 150,000 pounds a week. How can ya live on that? They’ve been offered more. Up to the 160 grand a week because Arsenal’s ‘ceiling’ is the manager’s salary. Or has been. The club are prepared to break this for their two superstars, going up to possibly 180/190,000 a week. (A FUCKING WEEEEEEK!!!!)

But its not enough. Nothing like enough. They want ‘parity with Pogba’. A phrase that I think I want printed on my t-shirt or mug. Sounds like a worthy protest, a union cry, the shout of a political protest or moral crusade. PARITY WITH POGBA.

Paul Pogba earns £290,000 every single week. Oddly, he ain’t that great. I reckon he’s worth about 10 bob. In ‘old money’.

Arsenal can’t pay that. They should never pay that. Because in 3 months’ time 7 other players will renew their contracts and the club will end up bankrupt.

But if they don’t get ‘what they’re worth’ (always questionable) ‘they’ll leave!!!!’ Because they’re mercenary scum with no loyalty to the club that nurtured them. But where will they go? It would have to be to Bayern Munich. Because they were rejected by Barcelona and Real Madrid originally and no-one else other than Paris St Germain could afford them.

Much as I love football, I think I hate it more.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Today is the long-awaited supreme court decision on the legal basis for Brexit. That is the question. Whether tis nobler to leave the European Union in one go or by slinging arrows and misfortune at the hapless government to force parliament to agree terms. This will affect greatly whether the current Brexiteers maintain the ‘headless chicken’ approach of seeming to not know its arse from its elbow, or adopt a more ignorant course in which right hands know nothing of left-hand’s movements.

So I’m gonna talk about sport. Which is both far more interesting and also greatly less boring than yet more Brexo-bollocks.

For even though my tennis was iced off yesterday morning, there were other events of massive interest occurring all over the weekend, seemingly unbothered by the status of my shoulder or the frost conditions in NW11.

The rugby. England against Australia. The real ‘enemy’ in the rugby world. Scotland may be the ‘Auld enemy’ but that’s only because they can’t speak properly and they’re not very good. Australia has that arrogance and almost limitless facility to cause offence to everyone at the same time. So to beat them (as we did 3 times earlier this year in Aus) is extra special. To beat them at Twickenham after falling behind early on was truly special. Eddie Jones may not be convinced that the England team is magnificent, there’s always ‘work to do’ in Eddie’s world, but we certainly looked the part.

And at almost the very moment that Jonathan Joseph was scoring his second try, 10 miles away in Tottenham, Harry Kane was demonstrating his very own world class status when he scored his second goal in the 5-nil drubbing of Swansea. A team whose organisational skills make Brexit look positively simple.

Earlier Chelsea had gone to Manchester City and beaten them bad. Really bad. And it all went downhill in the end as normally quiet, calm, thoughtful Sergio Aguero attempted to eviscerate David Luiz with the most orthopaedic tackle of the year. A horror tackle. Roy Keane would have been proud of it. Aguero’s red mist turned to a red card and then another was bestowed upon team-mate Fernandinho. Who’s ‘crime’ was attempted strangulation of Cesc Fabregas. On the basis that ‘any act of aggression or violence against Fabregas is good for mankind in general’, the Brazilian should actually have received commendation for his action. But the ref saw it differently.

Poor West Ham’s season took a turn from ‘shit’ to ‘fucking shit!!!’ at the hands of Arsenal and the feet of Alexis Sanchez. I would say ‘poor West Ham’ but instead will say ‘good!’, even though it was Arsenal wot done it.

And finally to Liverpool. Playing at struggling yet classy Bournemouth yesterday. Breezed to a 2-0 lead yet managed to lose 4-3. Ya just gotta love Bournemouth. Because whatever happens they only play one way. The right way. Bless ’em.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

man plans, God laughs.

Bollocks!!!

xxx

We all crave freedom. Freedom from, and freedom to.

Freedom from persecution, freedom from starvation, poverty, slavery, freedom from gloating Arsenal fans and all manner of horrible things.
Freedom to vote, freedom to live as I please, to pray as I please, to not pray as I please, freedom to enjoy road-rage. And to do all manner of nice things.

Like tennis.

Man’s greatest freedom. Ok, this man’s greatest freedom. To run around like a mad thing, chasing little yellow balls in the hope of hitting them so hard they don’t come back. I didn’t say all freedoms were clever. But tennis has been off the agenda for about 6 weeks. My shoulder physio banned it. Every week, the same question, the same answer. Not yet. Not ready. Still healing.

So I was faced with a choice. Wait for the shoulder to recover completely (assuming it will at some point), or find another physio. Not necessarily a better one, just one who thinks playing tennis is not such a bad idea. And yesterday I found just such a thing. Who happens to be rather brilliant too, but that was way secondary to giving me the permission I sought so desperately.

Recommended by half my tai chi class (all old, pre-injured, sports-wounded men who, like me, just don’t know any better), I went to see ‘Mike’. He’s big, he’s blond and he’s funny. And he hurt me like a motherfucker, but in the fullness of time I shall forgive him. Because when I asked about tennis his reply was: “does it make you happy?” to which I replied in the affirmative. “So play” he said, “and then we’ll cope with whatever happens after”.

It was that simple. I’m not saying he’s right, I’m not saying everyone would agree with his ethos. But it appealed greatly to me. Whereas my old physio, she was different. Way more cautious, way more protective, way more… female. Some might say ‘more sensible’, but those saying that would probably be female too. Because, as we learned the other day; men’s and women’s brains are different. Maybe its just two different schools of thought in the physio world, and nothing to do with gender?

I’ve never ‘erred on the side of caution’, but I’ve erred plenty.

Spurs win 5-0, England beat the Aussies in the amazing rugby, the omens are good.

Playing tennis this morning.

Very Happy Sunday

A xxxxx

Zac Goldsmith is basically a good person. I think. His father, Sir James, wasn’t. But he shouldn’t be punished for that. You can’t choose your parents. Though if you are being selective, an offshore billionaire would be right up there with ‘loving, caring, nurturing’ on most lists.

So Zac was the Conservative Party MP for Richmond, posh place over in the SW of London. Not a million miles from Heathrow, making it convenient for the locals to whizz off regularly to their second homes in Grasse, Tuscany, Como, but far enough that its not THAT big a problem as it is to those who live in Hounslow.

Zac decided to stand to be mayor of London. But failed. Not just because he’s wetter than a thunderstorm in a rainforest but also because Sadiq Kahn was the better candidate. Never mind, he’s still an MP.

But he put his reputation on fighting the expansion of Heathrow. He was the ‘people’s anti-expansionist’ for that airport. And they decided to do just that; expand Heathrow. Zac was pissed, his own Conservative government passed it, against all his expressed wishes. So he resigned his MP-ness. So he could fight the constituency again, this time as an ‘independent’ on a ‘protect Richmond from Heathrow’ ticket.

Meanwhile, in case you missed it, we had Brexit. Ok, you would have to be dead to have missed it, but I’m just sayin’. Brexit. Zac was a big ‘out’ campaigner. Whereas Richmond, who he represented at the time, was 73% in favour of ‘remain’.

So Thursday’s by-election in Richmond was about 2 things. Heathrow’s expansion, which won’t happen for 10 years, if at all (the proposed runway thing has been bounced out of parliament numerous times before), and about Brexit.

The Lib Dems canvassed strongly on Europe. Massively. To the virtual exclusion of all else. Zac banged on about Heathrow, because its all he knows. Labour did nothing. Not relating to anything relevant; they’re stuck in 1917 Russia. The Tories didn’t field a candidate, out of respect to Zac. So the lib-dems won. The people of Richmond feel way more strongly about Europe than they do about a few more planes whizzing overhead.

That means the Libs now have about 10 mps. And they’re already talking about ‘landslides’ and ‘labour are finished’ and the next election. No-one learns; by-elections are for protest, general elections are never predicted by them.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Francoise Hollande, the most unpopular French leader since Luis XIV, is not standing for the next presidential election. This is very unusual in a country where the top job is highly sought after, due to its great salary and fringe benefits. Like the Eylsee Palace as your crash pad, all the mistresses you can consort with, and use of the ‘presidential scooter’ to go visit them surreptitiously.

But the toady little Anglophobic misery has decided, magnanimously, not to stand again in next year’s elections. In part because he’s probably had enough, but in the main because he stands as much chance of winning as I do. And I don’t mean that in a Donald Trump kind’a way (someone else who had ‘no chance of winning’). I mean; NO CHANCE. He is so low in opinion polls that he’s lucky they haven’t guillotined him, never mind vote him in again. And no-one deserves to end a hopeless, hapless, clueless presidency by heaping yet more humiliation onto their weak and narrow shoulders. He should slink away back to whichever rock he started underneath. I wonder if Julie Gayet will now find her true happiness with her soon-unencumbered-by-office, but now powerless, love? C’est la vie.

Fivers. New ones. Bit of a problem.

The new five pound note is a thing of wonder. You can bend it, fold it, soak it in water, insert it into any orifice you choose, burn it, attack it with anti-aircraft missiles, it just bounces back to shape. Its only if you spend it that its gone forever. So its plastic, it won’t degenerate and, most importantly, its forgery-proof. Wow; that’s progress. Or not.

The new fiver is made of meat. Pure, unadulterated prime rib. The choicest cuts, from freshly slaughtered (fairly painfully, probably; helps the taste) cattle, allowed then to age gently for 32 days, wrapped in foix gras, then slow cooked until it resembles a 5-pound note. Brilliant.

Unless you’re a vegan. And if a vegetarian is a Muslim, a vegan is ISIS. They’re the far-right, military wing of radical vegetarianism. They take no prisoners, they wear no wool. Nor leather. Their belts have to be made from cardboard, which is useless so most vegans wear boiler suits. And they fucking hate the new fivers, because they contain tallow. Beef fat. Oh no. Its not like you have to eat a fiver, I’ve tried, horrible. But the question, and ensuing petitions, is about ‘why do you ave to use ANIMAL FAT?????

May I suggest that it wasn’t a conscious decision to find the most offensive additive to our currency. Otherwise they’d be made of seal-cub-juice. But like it or not (definitely the latter), radical vegans have to share this world with normal, carnivorous people. Thus tallow is a waste product. Surely better to use it than put it in landfills or pump it into the rivers? Where it would hurt the fishes!!!! Bloody vegans, got no consideration for animal welfare.

Why do people have be so totally, fundamentally, radically LITERAL in everything. Its the cause of all the world’s problems that don’t involve Spurs.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Well ‘Europe’, that club to which we once belonged, but will soon depart, is good for lots of things. They’re very good at speaking foreign languages. French, Spanish, German, all spoken really well over there. The wine’s good in France, olive oil in Italy, sausages in Germany. They’re pretty good at football too. Spain in the lead, probably, Germany, Italy.

But they can’t touch us Brits when it comes to traffic jams. Oh no, matey, when it comes to crawling along pulling out your hair in 6 miles of nose-to-tail snarl-up, we cede our crown to no nation. Well, no European nation. You can’t compete with Bangkok, Sao Paulo (60 mile jam last year) or Mumbai.

London’s the best place for really good jams, as you’d expect. And the M25 by Heathrow is the worst spot of all. The total cost to ‘the economy’ of all London’s jams is £42billion. Wow.

How on earth do you calculate that? I sit in a jam, it costs me a fiver for the wasted petrol, plus a kit-kat and a bottle of water, so add another 2 quid. Or another 5 quid if you got them at a service station. But if you include money spent by motorists, that is arguably a boost to the economy, not a drain. Oh.

The government are looking at ways to keep traffic moving, speed it up, get it out of the way. Let’s see how that works in reality once local councils are involved.

They put up speed bumps. Width restrictions. 20mph speed limits. They organise traffic lights to slow down the cars and give equal time to the pedestrians. Of whom, at some junctions, there are none. Never mind, give it 5 minutes, someone might pitch up looking to cross the road.

Everything the councils do to the roads reduces the speed of traffic. Rather than keep it moving they’ve found a million ways to reduce it to a crawl. Then they put speed cameras there to ensure that on the odd occasion the road might be clear, you still have to drive very slowly, causing more delays.

Here’s what they need to do.
Remove all speed restrictions, all roads, everywhere. Especially near schools. Ban Range Rovers within the greater London area. There’s no point in them. Any driver found on a clear road hogging the fast lane should be fined. If he/she is hogging the fast lane and driving below the speed limit, he should be shot. In the gut. So he dies very painfully whilst all the other drivers can watch him bleed out. Attach guns to the speed cameras and reverse them so that any car driving too slowly gets shot at. First a warning, then, if they don’t speed up, the money shot.

You see, its all really sensible and logical if you look at it in a proper, socially-mindful way.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

This’ll shock you: men’s and women’s brains are different. Who’d’a thought? That’s why men are so much better at football, the obvious benchmark for high level cerebral activity. Along with throwing, parallel parking and the inability to iron a shirt without burning it. And scratching your testicles.

So for years they’ve been performing tests on new drugs for horrible things like strokes, like Altzheimers, all manner of nasty brain stuff, to produce new medication. Most of the testees (as opposed to ‘testes’) are men, and neuroscientists have found that contrary to intuition, these results can NOT be simply extrapolated to women. The drugs don’t work, as the song goes. Because men’s and women’s brains are different. Not just store different stuff, as we’ve always known, nothing to do with nagging or shopping, but fundamentally, profoundly, biologically different. And they’ve been scared to say so.

Because of political correctness, the findings from research have been left unpublished because they’re frightened of upsetting equality groups, feminists and other big, burly people who pack a punch.

But now its out there. Because women are so hormonal, it affects the structure of the synapses and the total ‘wiring’ of the brain.

So next time you ‘forget’ to pick up the dry cleaning, paint the bathroom ceiling or bring the dog back from its walk after a quick stop at the pub, just blame those pesky synapses. “If only I had a little more oestrogen acting on my cortex, it would all be so different…”

I actually don’t understand why advances in medical science would be buried for stupid PC considerations. There’s no implication that men’s brains are better, NOR IN ANY WAY WORSE (he hastens to add) just that they are structurally different. Which is probably why my pastry always falls into my chicken pie when I bake it. And in a way this vindicates virtually every excuse I’ve ever had to make to women my entire life. “You don’t understand!” and now, apparently, its true.

I’ve always appreciated the differences between the genders. Just not in such a… errrr… kind’a… ‘brainy’ way.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx