Andy's Glasses

I’m sixty. Holy shit. How does that even happen? Seemingly impossible and yet… and yet… one day you’re a young Turk (trying to get into Europe; eating kebabs, slaughtering Kurds…) and the next you get a message from the government offering you all kinds of benefits as befits someone your age. SOMEONE YOUR AGE!!!! Gotta say it louder.

So the travel pass comes, which is wonderful. I get free eye tests. That’s eye-ronic (old man type pun). And I get free medications. If fucking only. My main regret as I formally enter old age is that I’M NOT ON ANY STINKING MEDS, so where’s the benefit? I’ve asked for a cash alternative but they haven’t replied yet.

But first and foremost I’d like to offer my sincere and profound thanks to Theo Paphitis. He’s an Anglo-Greek, or a Greko-angle, I’m not sure. Greek bloke on Dragon’s Den. Rich. Owns Robert Dyas and Rymans and a few other downmarket, 1970s type retailers that still perform remarkably well, even though no-one ever admits to shopping there.

Theo runs a scheme, because he’s a canny retailer, of incentivising his managers. If they meet their target they get an all expenses holiday in the sun. Really nice, upmarket, non-Robert-Dyas type trip. Posh. In Mykonos. In fact to our resort. About a hundred pale and pasty Brits, a touch overweight, ranging up to ‘fuck me she’s MASSIVE!!’ and suitably tattooed as any representative group of Brits abroad should be.

And he spoils them. The managers from (judging by the accents), The Wirral, East Manchester, South Wolverhampton, West Wales, Central Glasgow, Lower Exeter, Upper Portsmouth and Bromley-by-Bow are all here. Among others. They drink all day and party all night. All on Theo. And last night was their gala whatever. We came down to take the shuttle into Mykonos Town for our celebratory dinner and wen’t to the bar for a drink. But the area had been taken over by Rymans. You could buy a stapler but not a drink. Well, it was open but they were busy pouring champagne for Theo’s gang. So I approached the barman and, whilst helping myself to a few glasses of champagne, informed him it was our anniversary. Which he didn’t understand but seemed happy for us to celebrate the sale of another 500 reams of high grade A4.

After that the waiter just kept coming over to re-fill us. 6 of us. We must have got through about 3 bottles before heading off for dinner. So thanks, Theo. My favourite dragon. Not that I could name another.

Happy birthday

A xxxx

Ok, so Brexit is winning. Should the polls be believed. And can we believe them? After the last general election when they all got it tragically, diabolically wrong? No, of course we can’t, they’re all tossers. Mainly because people lie when polled. And as the polls are used by all parties before any election to try and influence votes (‘you wouldn’t wanna vote for the losing side; would’ja?’ or ‘now come on, they are winning, we need YOU to help US!’) and are, in essence, just more meaningless statistics, we should always lie to pollsters. To keep them discredited and keep elections about the voter and his conscience. Without influence from overpaid number crunchers. Or from The Sun, with their very impartial and unbiased headline yesterday of: “BE-LEAVE”.

Yet it would appear that the leavers are winning. In no small part because Labour have decided that for something this important its probably best to let the Tories just fight it out among themselves. Comrade Corbyn is a leaver in remainer’s clothes. Which look about as good on him as all his other clothes; ill-fitting, out-of-date and uncomfortable.

So the Cameroonies, the now-panicking remain team, have gone to plan B.

Plan A was: scare the shit out of the electorate about how we’ll all die in a nuclear attack, economically if not literally, should we leave Europe. Didn’t work. Mainly because no-one knows but also because everyone saw it as just sensationalist lies and speculation.

Okay; hit them with plan B then. Send in the Chancellor! He’s scary. And he’ll tell us that the second we leave the EU he’s gonna tax the shit out of us. Even more than he already taxes the shit out of us now. Income tax UP, inheritance tax UP, fuel duty UP (we just don’t care and would hardly notice), alcohol duty UP: FUCK ME THAT WOULD BE A CATASTROPHE!!!!! On a national scale. Its like Cameron has ‘the ten plagues of Brexit’ lined up. And there’s still time for 8 more.

Gareth Bale has ‘done an Andy Murray’ and become an England hater/baiter. “Wales are better than England” is fine. What’s he gonna say? We’re a bunch of sheep-shagger progeny totally dependent on two decent players and a team spirit consolidated in the Gay Bars of Swansea? So we can forgive that. Then comes: “no England player would make it into the Welsh squad!!” Well of course not, Gareth, they’re not Welsh, wouldn’t be allowed. Oh, you mean ‘on merit’. Well that’s not such a clever statement really.

Its our anniversary today. 30 years. FUCK. ME. Where’d it go???

Happy anniversary

A xxxx

Good news in yesterday’s paper for all cholesterol sufferers. A miracle almost. What has previously been thought of as ‘bad’ cholesterol, the LDL stuff, that’ll ‘kill you deader than dead in no time’ that required 90% of men over 35 to take statins, that was the ‘heart attack waiting to happen’, has now been shown in a new light.

Yes, scientists (not sure if its the same ones who initially stated all of the above or different ones, and if so if they’re better ones or more stupid ones) have now shown that this ‘bad’ cholesterol is now a thing of such amazing benefit that its presence will actually prevent, yes, PREVENT heart disease, as well as cancer and even cataracts. I mean… I mean… I mean my previous levels of ‘slightly raised’ cholesterol, seen as something of a minor problem, watch what’cha eat, no need for meds, yet!, kind’a thing, should now be seen as a big problem. McDonalds is the new kale. Eat fat; the more processed the better. Load up on greasy shit as often as possible.

I actually think that this is simply more proof of my 2 overriding facts of scientific cynicism.

1. You can prove ANYTHING you fucking want to with statistics.
2. Scientists know absolutely fuck all about anything. Or rather, they know a staggeringly amazing amount about everything; that’ll all be wrong by tomorrow. Thursday at the latest.

So I’m in the process of re-living the Atkins dream, and remember Atkins himself, the inventor of the ‘eat all the fat you want and watch the pounds simply fall off diet’, died very young of heart issues. Which, for a tragedy, has a poetic justice all over it.

Spare a thought for those poor boys at Goldman Sachs. They’re too busy making money to have their cholesterol checked. And whilst making money in 2008, by the ‘shitload’ (the only unit they ever deal in at GS) one of their deals was with the Libyans. Their investment team. When Libya was still almost viable and hadn’t degenerated into a lawless, ungovernable shipwreck of bomb-site of its post-Gadaffi years. And apparently some government officials were ‘entertained’ by GS at the Ritz Carlton in Monaco and ‘prostitutes were employed’!!!!! Wow, bank providing ‘benefits’ to people they’re schmoozing up! Whatever next? Days at the track? Box at Old Trafford!!! The deal was eventually worth $370million to the bank. Shame the hookers weren’t on a bonus package. Next thing they’ll be saying how the Libyans were forced to drink alcohol against all their religious beliefs.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Can you imagine going to a football match, on a lovely day, with your family, big event, French hospitality (du pain, du vin and la mistresse) and you get invaded by a fucking army of Russian neo-nazi racist scum?

Not just a few drunk thugs taking offence at some banter. This was a pre-meditated, synchronised attack by a make-shift but highly organised ‘army’. A red army.

At the signal of a flare (and how exactly someone manage to get a flare gun into a stadium under ‘high security alert’ is another grande question, Pierre!!!) an army of Russian nationalists simply invaded the English fan area of the ground. The stewards and gendarmes did nothing; they’re French; what d’you expect? And it was a blood bath.

I’m not saying that there wasn’t provocation by the Brits. That happens. I’m not even saying that the Brits were in any way innocent after 3 nights of their own rioting and fighting in the streets of Marseilles. All I’m saying is: I FUCKING HATE RUSSIANS AND NEO-NAZI ONES IN PARTICULAR.

And I’ll tell you who else I hate. Ok, that’s a long list, so I’ll reduce it just for today. Homophobic jihadis. Hateful. Apparently, Omar Mateen, a security guard (again; shame Americans don’t do ‘irony’), saw two men kissing on the street. Lucky for me he wasn’t in Mykonos really. But he saw this in Florida and it greatly offended him. Ok, so for a moment, put yourself in the place of a homophobe. Or of any person faced with something they’re not happy about, but that is emphatically harming no-one. Do you: a. turn away from the offending ‘thing’. Or b. arm yourself with some serious fire-power and murder 50 innocent people in one night?

Tricky question. I see people walking the street every day wearing Arsenal shirts/badges. They’re grossly offensive but I don’t pull out the Kalashnikov nor the M16. And that’s perhaps another problem. I don’t have a kalashnikov. Nor an M16. Sometimes I wish I did, but justifiable road-rage is for another day. This was in Florida. Where its almost easier to buy weaponry than it is high fat sugar-laden food. Almost. Floridians can waddle their way into any 7-11 and buy guns of alarmingly destructive potential.

Now if the jihadi had gone on his spree among a crowd of right-wing, monkey-chanting Russians, I may find some level of understanding. But not this.

I take a short break and look what happens. Jesus; can’t I trust you to ‘watch the shop’ for a few days of ‘hell’???

Sad Monday

A xxxx

don’t know when I’ll be back again…

Well, I do really. Mel made me book return flights. Even though I didn’t want to. We’re on our way to Mykonos. By the time you read this we’ll be there. Greek island, in the med… not a fucking clue. Fortunately the pilot knows. I hope. Can’t send now because they don’t have wifi on Easyjet. And if they did they’d charge you £44.63 a minute to use it. And it would be shit. And cheap and nasty. And orange.

I’m leaving England in protest about the football yesterday. The ‘official’ start of the European Championship finals. When England play. And although the law is: England can NEVER, EVER, EVERRRRR win the opening match of this European tournament, we almost did it. Came within about 90 seconds of beating those thuggish Russians and then, and then, and then… we didn’t. They scored. We drew. Spurs 1 Russia 1. Bastard fucking… bastards.

Wales however (my other fave team on the grounds that Gareth Bale is a god, a star, is the son I never had, is the hairstyle I never wanted) managed to beat the Slovaks. An achievement that is as wonderful as it is amazing.

Wales haven’t entered any major football tournament since 1958. They went to the World Cup, met Pele, end of World Cup. Pele was about 12 and already the best player the world had ever, or possibly would ever, see. And since then; no Euros, no more World Cup finals. They’re Wales. They don’t do that. Not even during the Ryan Giggs years were they good enough to qualify. Not since Cliff Jones, John Charles, errrr… numerous other famous Welshmen in the late 50s.

More importantly, my other England (I have so many), the rugby one, beat Australia for the first time ever in Brisbane. Well done ‘my’ boys.

Mykonos is famous. And famously gay. In honour of which, I tried on my new outfit for when we go clubbing on the beach there. Looks pretty cool. Especially pretty. I thought.

Have a gay day

A xxxx

I had an ‘I love London’ moment yesterday morning. I had to pop up to a mate up on Ludgate Hill. As I strolled up Fleet Street I did kind’a wonder why the eastbound traffic wasn’t moving at all. Though really? It ain’t that rare an event. As I got to Ludgate Circus I realised why. They’d blocked the road. Ludgate Hill. All the way (about 200 yards) to St Pauls. And then beyond in the other direction. The Queen was coming. So they diverted the traffic. In fact, they killed the traffic stone dead. You wanna go east? Tough shit. Go north towards Kings Cross or south over Blackfriars Bridge into Sarf London. East ain’ gonna happen. Sorry mate. Fortunately, you’re gonna be there for about 4 hours to decide on the best alternative route, so take yer time.

All for the Queen. Not sure exactly why it was yesterday but heh, its as good a day as any. So hold a big service at St Pauls, wheel in a few coaches full of flag-waving schoolkids and start the party.

I love London.

Not sure about Marseilles though. They deploy tear-gas against ‘innocent’ English fans out there. Are there any innocent English fans? I Was just having a drink (my 19th in fact, since 7 this morning) and just because me and my mates shouted some serious Islamophobic abuse at a group of local lads, who we told to go back to ISIS, they bloody attacked us! And the police came and spoiled all the fun. So we did the only thing good, sober(ish), innocent English people could do; we hurled bottles at them. And got tear-gassed. I’m gonna write to tripadvisor about this.

In the actual football. It started last night. The host nation played Dracula’s own team; Romania. And all eyes were understandably upon France’s two aspiring superstars. Antoine Griezemann and Paul Pogba, the man destined this summer to become the world’s most expensive player. So no pressure on those two then. And unsurprisingly, they disappointed tragically.

I missed the entire game. But did see the goals on the news and caught a bit of the radio cover in the car. And by all accounts, the wonderful Dimitri Payet saved the host nation from a dire overall performance by doing for his nation exactly what he’s been doing for his club all season: Taking a shit team and scoring wonderful goals they don’t deserve.

Come on England!!! And I just mean the fans.

Happy Match Day

A xxxx

“THE EUROPEAN UNION COSTS BRITAIN £350,000,000 EVERY WEEK!!!!!!”

So proclaims the Leave Campaign’s bus. Plastered across the side of it. Huge letters. A blind man could see it from a mile away. 350 mil, every fucking week, pissed away on funding the vast, sprawling, undemocratic ‘thing’ that is ‘Europe’. And that money, which should be spent here, on our ‘elf serviss’, goes to put petrol (when he can get it) into Francoise Hollande’s scooter so he can go shag his mistress. It pays for their judges to make rules that persecute our way of life. Its used for ‘advanced bottom-pinching’ classes in Italy, neo-nazi tattoos in Croatia, it funds the Greek traditions of ‘no working, more pensions’ and is generally a ‘waste’ of our resources.

That’s what they’d have you believe.

But we get up to half of it back. Every week. In grants, in aid, in all sorts of red-tape shit. So we actually spend 175, or even 200 mil a week on ‘Europe’. Which is an alarming amount (though taken as a payment in isolation it doesn’t really tell much of a story… unless you make one up) but £350,000,000!!!!! grabs you right in your testicles and doesn’t let go. So ‘ok’, said Boris et al, ‘let’s use that figure’. Even though its basically meaningless, incorrect and pretty much a total fucking lie.

Meanwhile over at County Hall, new mayor of all of London, Sadiq Khan, is facing his own little problemette. “THERE WILL BE NO FARE INCREASES FOR LONDONERS BETWEEN NOW AND 2020!!!!”

That was basically the line that won Khan City Hall. That and the fact that Zac Goldsmith was a limp and sorry dickhead. We didn’t like Kahn much either, but heh, no fare rises? Sounds good to me.

Now we learn that fares will rise. As they do every year. “Ahhhhh” says Sadiq, “but they’re not Transport for London fares, they’re National Fare part of the London tickets. TFL costs will NOT increase; I have no control outside London”.

The net result: my travel card will go up in price in January. For travelling in London. Which is all I ever use it for. I’m a Londoner and my fares are going up. You lying, cheating, horrible little almost-terrorist-by-weak-association!!!

Fortunately for anyone… errrr… really old and over 60, travel is free. Hmmm, I bet people turning 60 in a few days time will be sniggering about those fare increases. For the ‘young’. Snigger, snigger…

When will politicians learn that telling half the story is TELLING A FUCKING LIE. And they wonder why we don’t trust them.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

The football starts on Saturday. Some may say it starts on Friday, tomorrow night, when France play Romania. But they’re wrong. It starts when I say it starts, and that’s Saturday when we play Russia. And we better fucking win.

You look at the endless hype, mainly because it is simply everywhere, and you look at England’s ‘Euro glory’, losing a semi-final in 1984, and you realise that as a nation, we haven’t really done very much in European championships. And the pundits (10 of them in today’s Times) all go for a win for either France, Spain or Germany. The perennials. Well, the perennials and Spain. Spain only started winning things a few years ago but they haven’t stopped winning since. Until the World Cup.

But the battle is not one between Harry Kane and Christiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Antoine Griezmann, its the battle within teams. Its about sanity and cohesiveness.

Holland regularly get fancied for big tournaments, though they didn’t even make it to this one, but never do as expected because they always seen to hate each other in the dressing room. Too many strong opinions, too many ‘generals’, too many opinions, a touch of racism. Fortunately for us, our players are all too thick and uneducated for that to be a problem.

France have a fantastic squad. Possibly the best. Though not as good as it could be because their best striker, Karim Benzema of Real Madrid, is kind’a ‘banned’. He’s banned because he tried to blackmail a France team-mate over a sex tape. I know, odd to blackmail someone when you earn about 15 million a year, but there ya go. Yet many think Benzema’s ban is actually because he refuses to sing the French national anthem at matches. I’m not sure of the specifics of ‘why’, not sure Benzema is either, but he won’t sing it. Being of Algerian descent, he finds the La Marsaillaises a touch nationalist or racist. Even though it was his choice to represent France, and not Algeria. Go figure.

One pundit reckons that Iceland could be ‘the surprise’. But it was a girl pundit and I think she fancies Eidur Gudjohnsson. I did when he played for Spurs.

It will indeed be very interesting to see what happens, at the European finals, if England decides to pull out of Europe on the 23rd. Just before the quarter-finals.

Luckily for England, we don’t have to worry about injuries. We’re taking Wishire (hasn’t played a full game all season) and Sturridge (never ever started 2 in a row, almost) who are pretty much already injured. So that shouldn’t be a problem.

Happy tournaments

A xxxx

About 6 years ago we were in Israel for the summer hols. And we went up, for a couple of nights, to the Golan Heights. Right on the Syrian border. In fact, they used to be the Syrian Golan heights but Israel borrowed them in the 6-day war and haven’t yet returned them. It is very beautiful up there. Mount Hermon, lots of low level hills, miles and miles of forests and lakes and just simply gorgeous. Oh, and hot. It reaches, in August, temperates just beyond ‘so fucking hot I’m never gonna make it’ to ‘gimme water!!! NOWWWW!!!’ Hot.

For our little trek, with our friends with whom we’d journeyed, we were suitably attired. T-shirts just to protect you from the sun and absorb sweat. Shorts because its just too hot for anything else. Hats. And hiking boots because its rough and rugged and up and down and Disneyland it ain’t.

And as you sweat your way round, when you think all is lost (including you and your party), you come across a wonderful mountain lake. There are hundreds there. And they’re cool and clean and (quite literally, I think) heaven sent. And you dive in. Aaaaaahhhhhhhh.

You trek early because it don’t get cooler as the day progresses. And around noon, we crested a hill in the middle of nowhere and came face to face with a family of Charedi. Like those in the picture. And the daddy of the group was dressed just like that. Silly furry hat, long black shiny coat, leather lace-up shoes. And he was pushing a buggy with a kid in it. Behind him was Mrs Charedi carrying a baby in arms. Out for a stroll. Dressed for winter in Omsk while climbing a mountain in Israel in August.

But its a holy place. So they score points for being there. Us more secular types just do it because its beautiful, they do it to get to heaven. Probably more quickly than if they’d stopped and put some trainers on beforehand.

I was reminded of this because on Monday night a group of ‘jewish students from London’, who are of a similar type to those depicted, but younger and hatless, went for a walk. Along the beach at Dover. By the famous ‘white cliffs’ that Vera Lynn sang about. And although these boys, about 14 to 16 years old, were with older supervisors, they managed to miss the 9 signposts, yes, NINE, stating that walking on this beach is very very very VERY dangerous. The beach is narrow, ending right at the cliffs, which are sheer, and the tide comes in very very quickly, leaving the beach submerged. But only for a few hours. Or so. Moses coped with worse when he parted the Red Sea. King Canute was less successful.

The tide came in, the young charedi scampered, in their inappropriate footwear, up the cliffs as well as they could, and phoned for help. Or, phoned for HHHEEEEELLLLLPPPPP!!!!!

All were rescued by the lifeboats and a helicopter. None were hurt. And apparently, none was remotely scared, frightened or even bothered by what had happened. As if incoming tides trapping you against a cliff-face is an everyday event in Stamford Hill.

Maybe praying all day every day does have benefits. Or maybe they should break from prayer just long enough to instruct people to READ THE FUCKING SIGNPOSTS.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Jason Gillespie was an Aussie fast bowler. He’s still an Aussie but now he’s old he’s the coach at Yorkshire Cricket Club. Alma mater of Geoffrey Boycott, Sir Len Hutton, Freddie Truman, with a history going back thousands of years. When most of the club attitudes were formed and set in stone.

Gillespie is a vegan. Like a vegetarian, but with attitude. Vegan to vegetarian is like atheist to agnostic. An attitude that has already put him at odds with the cricket club’s main sponsors: Wensleydale Cheese. Because to Jason, cheese is the work of the devil. An evil. Abuse of cattle. Though I don’t personally see how relieving a cow of her surplus milk is a problem for anyone, cow included. There again, I don’t have a problem with abattoirs either so perhaps I’m not a proper judge. Throw another lettuce leaf on the barbie, Sheila.

But food debate is fine. Gillespie wants an end to using leather for cricket balls. Make them out of rubber. Plastic. Wood. Make them out of non-animal products.

I can’t see the cricketing establishment having any problem with that suggestion. They’re famously tolerant and flexible and eager for change. Yeah. Right.

Meanwhile, back in court, Eva Carneiro, the ex-Chelsea team doctor, turned down a meagre offer of £1.2million from Chelsea to settle her case against them of unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination. And the case against Jose Morinho, the then manager.

It all happened on the day ‘Jose lost the plot’. Something from which he never recovered and eventually resulted in his own dismissal from the club. The ref signalled for the doctor to come onto the pitch to attend a fallen (probably diving) player; Eden Hazard. The doctor has no choice at that point. Its her duty and responsibility to do as she has to. Morinho didn’t want this because it mean Hazard would then have to leave the pitch for a few minutes, after treatment, and wouldn’t be able to take part in a free kick.

So Morinho went ape-shit. Ranting and screaming and leaping round like a mad thing. A mad Portuguese thing, as it happens, and he shouted words at Eva’s back as she ran on. And either said: ‘filho da punta’ or ‘filha da punta’. Neither of which translates a ‘go with God’, that’s for sure.

The ‘filha’ version, which Eva maintains she heard, means ‘daughter of a whore’. I have no idea what Eva’s mother did for work. The ‘filho’ is the more generalised ‘son of a bitch’ and thus couldn’t possibly cause anyone any offence. Though he maintains that the ‘son of a bitch’ version was just a general comment on the state of the situation, rather than to Eva directly.

So good luck to the legal teams there, trying to lip-read an insane Portugeser as he’s leaping around, deciding whether its an ‘a’ or an ‘o’. Shouldn’t be hard.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx