Andy's Glasses

Ahhh, the MayDay holiday today, even though official ‘mayday’ was officially yesterday. Officially. So rather than hurling bricks at Goldman Sachs and setting fire to various Starbucks, the normal Mayday rioters took to Clerkenwell to listen to the great Jeremy Corbyn address the masses. I’d rather paint a wall. So I did. In Mel’s study. With virtually no police presence around.

And there was JC, in his element, surrounded by red flags and, apparently, people holding aloft images of Stalin. Oh, that’s nice.

I could understand perhaps, if you’re almost off-the-scale to the left, revering Mao Tse Tung. Lenin. Maybe Castro. Certainly Che Guevara. But Stalin?? Firstly he was dog ugly; always the most important consideration when passing judgment on political leaders, and secondly, he killed so many millions of Russians, and imprisoned so many millions more in ‘labour camps’ that actual numbers remain unknown to this day. Unlike Stalin’s neighbours, the Nazis, he didn’t make the mistake of keeping meticulous records of all names, dates, numbers. Some things are best not recorded.

And this is the man deified by Corbyn’s mates. The most brutal tyrant the world has ever known. Including Hitler. The most total totalitarian ever. His political style was not so much ‘my way or the highway’ as ‘my way or the FUCKING CEMETERY’. He considered no opposition. Such actions would be deemed treason, anti-party, anti-Russian and dealt with rather severely.

And this is Corbyn’s aspirational leader. Which in a way puts into context the ‘great progressive’, the great ‘man of the people’ (Jeremy, not Joseph) his adherence to all bad people in the world he can find. The IRA, Hamas, as long as you can claim more than 100 murders, JC’s your man.

More importantly, Leicester City are one point away from the league title. One which I really can’t begrudge them. For the people of Leicester it is quite a magical moment in history. I’ve been to Leicester; fucking awful place. Give them something to relieve the misery of living in the East Midlands. Surely some of them must deserve it?

And magical it will be (because it is quite inevitable now). A fairy tale. Even though football is the most homophobic place in the modern world outside Riyadh.

But I don’t want them to win it tonight. And only a win for Spurs at Chelsea can prevent it, or at least, delay it til the weekend. For numerous reasons I want my team to win tonight. The main one being based on a philosophical point that I FUCKING HATE CHELSEA!!!!! and all the other reasons being rather less intellectually based.

Happy Monday (oh let it be so, per-leaeaeaease)

A xxxx

The world is being divided. Round here it is, anyway. Not just between the anti-semites and the good people, but so much division. And its bad. Its… divisive.

The Labour Party is now totally divided over the Ken Livingstone ‘shit’. If he’s thrown out of the party for his comments, the left will be in uproar. If he isn’t, the right will. Either way, one thing’s for sure: Ken won’t apologise. Ever, about anything substantial. And I don’t know why this lack of apology for saying disgraceful things is such a surprise that its front page news. Ken was suspended from being Mayor ‘back in the day’ for telling a (Jewish, son of holocaust-survivors) journalist that he was like a ‘concentration camp guard’. No, wouldn’t apologise. Not Ken. He was and is a tosser-of-principle. Which is like being a man of principle but one that’s always wrong. In principle.

Then there’s Arsenal. The Wenger debate is heating up as it does every season at about this time when the Arsenal ‘loyal’ realise it really hasn’t been so great a season, even with 87% of possession. So one half of the Emirates during last night’s game was holding up banners calling for Wenger to leave, with some going so far as to state this a reason for a Brexit from Europe, so Wenger and other smelly French people would no longer have rights to work here. The other half proclaimed its eternal devotion to ‘the Professor’, and we’ll call those fans ‘the ostriches’ for having their little red-and-white heads buried so far in the turf. So its divided.

Europe? Divisive. Terribly. Much as the Labour party is split over its unwanted left-turn since Corbyn arrived with McDonell, Goebels et al, so the Conservatives may not recover from the stupid European referendum. If we leave Cameron will simply have to go. If we stay, what happens to Boris? To Michael Gove? To all the Brexiteers?

So now they’re debating the video of the Queen being funny and relaxed and natural with Harry in the company of the the Obamas. Honestly, the Queen fraternising with black people; whatever next? Oh, no, what they’re saying is that its ‘unbecoming’ for her to be seen basically, having fun and being relaxed. Well fuck ’em. After 90 years of totally committed stiffness, formality and impeccably perfect behaviour, Her Maj is entitled to let her guard down for 4 minutes on youtube.
I can’t behave properly for 4 minutes out of every year; give her a break.

Only Spurs are undivided. We stand united, together and solid. We love each other and have no issues we can’t cope with. Not Chelsea, not Leicester, nothing. Even without Dele Alli, we will go marching on. As one. Amen.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Throughout history the Jews have existed so that the rest of the world has someone to blame. For all the shit that goes wrong; the Jew(s) did it. Whatever ‘it’ may be. So they were persecuted throughout most of biblical time by various versions of Egyptians, Canaanites, Assyrians, whoever was around and could wield a big stick. They were persecuted in Europe, repeatedly invited in to Spain, Portugal, Italy, Prussia, France, then kicked out again all through the middle ages (or the ‘Yiddle Ages’ as we called them). Britain too. Henry the this allowed the Jews to come and trade, William the that kicked ’em out. In Russia and Poland they institutionalised anti-semitism almost to an industrial level. Pogroms. Which may sounds like a group of small, furry elf-like characters from Lord of the Rings, but in fact was violent Cossacks rampaging through the ‘shtetls’, the Jewish villages, causing destruction and injury. Nice. Then, of course, Hitler found not only someone to blame for Germany’s extreme economic woes (nothing to do with losing the First World War; blame the sodding jews) but also a way to fund the forthcoming war. In one fell swoop he rounded up half of Germany’s wealth, confiscated the good bit (money, art, businesses, houses) and send the rest, the ‘human’ bit (or ‘sub-human’ in Nazi speak) to extermination camps. The only war to be funded by the scapegoats.

Fucking Jews!!! They must be really horrible people.

And some are. Some of every ‘people’ are horrible. Human nature. Diversity.

But what is it about Jews that makes us the Millwall of the world’s ethnicities? Everyone hates us but we DO care. Mainly because the publicity is generally wrong. The bad publicity, that is. And that’s pretty much all we get. Phah!

Jews represent 0.2% of the world’s population. Approximately 14 million. Most of which live in Israel and America. The rest are all over the fucking place. There are 290,000 in the UK. Less than 5% of the population. There are 800,000 Hindus here, 3 million Muslims, and a few Christians. So we are not numerous.

Yet appear to be everywhere. Perhaps that’s the reason why anti-semitism never really goes away. It dies down for periods but it never disappears. Because Jews tend to punch above their weight. 2% of the world’s population have produced 20% of Nobel winners. Hollywood is full of Jews, most often behind the camera in one place or another. Writing, directing, producing, organising the ‘casting couch’…

Lots of Jews are successful in business. And then get involved in politics.

But none of that is reason for the Labour Party to become institutionally anti-semitic, as it appears to have done in the very short tenure of Jeremy Corbyn. Himself an outspoken ‘anti-Zionist’. And yes, you can indeed be an anti-Zionist and NOT an anti-semite, but you have to be careful and not let your guard slip. Because all Jews, to one extent or another, have a vested interest in Israel. Its where we could go when the next shit happens (see above).

Jews are lovely people. They don’t evangelise, they have no desire to take over the world, they only commit blue-collar crimes. They’re good at fraud. And they love peace and stability above all else.

So, without getting all Woody Allen about it, the nebachy Jew getting his glasses stamped on, a wonderful metaphor for the entire Jewish People, I would love to know exactly what problem Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone and all their gang have with my people? When they’re happy having lunch with misogynistic, homophobic, undemocratic mass murderers on a regular basis.

Shabbat Shalom

A xxxx

The Hillsborough disaster was a game-changer. Quite literally. It changed the game I loved. Or rather, it changed the way it was watched. As a consequence of Hillsborough, all top flight grounds became ‘all seating’. I hated it at the time and sometimes I still do. I watch in on tv whilst standing up, but crowd problems are rare in my lounge. But it was essential and inevitable and the disaster, back in 1986 was one that had been waiting to happen for years. It was just the catalyst that forced football to, basically, accept responsibility for the 30-70,000 people that would be crammed into their grounds every saturday. (Didn’t do Sundays back then).

Yet it wasn’t just that the grounds were unsafe fire-traps (Bradford City?) with no escape routes at all (Heisel?) but also that the fans were, not always, and not all of them, not very nice. The seating and rudimentary safety precautions that followed increased the costs, so prices went up, quite drastically. And this installed a more genteel edge to the game. The fights and riots that occurred at virtually every game kind’a fizzled out. No-one wanted to get thrown out of the ground having paid over a tenner for a ticket!!! Or even get arrested before the kick-off.

And whilst I will generally disagree with anyone speaking in Scouse, on principle, I stand in awe and admiration of those families who’ve fought for nearly 30 years for ‘justice’ for the 96 that died. The police lied, blamed the fans, across numerous inquests and inquiries, whilst all along it was Old Bill wot done it. Gross negligence. Manslaughter. And now their names have effectively been cleared. Which doesn’t bring them back but it makes everyone feel better about it.

And the policing along with the ’emergency services’ (over an hour for an ambulance) were horrendous. The death toll would have been far less if everyone in authority had behaved properly. Even just done their jobs.

Yet I can sort of understand, if not the cover up itself, though everyone wants to save his or her own ass, the behaviour of the police and others on the day. Because its all based on an assumption, a normally fairly accurate one AT THAT TIME, from vast experience in such matters, that ‘all football fans are thugs, hooligans, drunks and total scum’. So keeping them ‘penned up’ was what you did to keep rival fans apart. Forcing them with horses into channels. Treating fans as you would cattle, but much more dangerous cattle. Drunk cattle.

So when the shouting, screaming, panic and struggles occurred that day, the police would be slow to react. They saw it every week.

The completely unforgivable bit is doing nothing once they realised that this was in fact a serious problem, not just ‘fan aggro’. And nothing was how most of that force responded. Then they covered it all up. Blamed the fans. Continued to cover it up right up till a few months ago.

Is the ‘Naz’ in Naz Shah short for Nazi? Just askin’.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

On Sunday night’s news they announced that British Home Stores, BHS, was about to go into receivership. My first thought was: “are they still around??” I thought they’d gone the way of Woolworths decades ago. They were a store from my childhood and I curiously assumed they’d ended when I entered adulthood. I no longer needed ‘school trousers’ so didn’t understand that anyone else might. Apparently now they don’t.

So having realised that BHS did in fact still exist on many of the country’s best shopping streets that I strive so hard to avoid at any cost, this has now become the next tragedy.

And it is a tragedy. Always, when 11.000 people will lose their jobs. But that’s only part of the problem. There’s also the pension pot…

Like all companies, BHS had a large ‘pot’ in which the employees pensions sat. Hopefully growing, but as they say: ‘investments can go down as well as up’. Unfortunately, BHS offered ‘final salary’ pensions. These offer the retiree basically his income in perpetuity. As opposed to my pension which just offers to give me back what I’ve paid in, plus any ‘growth’. And there’s the problem. Growth.

My puny little pension pot dropped about 25% during the financial crisis of 2008. Shares plummeted, currency was worthless, there was pretty much no vehicle in which you could invest (legally) that wasn’t headed in a downward direction. So doubtless, BHS pension money went the same way. Direction: hell. Thus this 500 million pound ‘hole’ in the pension pot there is not necessarily because someone has taken the money away. More that the money has been invested in a way that didn’t, or even couldn’t, produce the level of sustained growth it needed to produce the arbitrary ‘projected target’.

Yet before anyone makes any other considerations, long before any facts have been properly examined, the first port of call is a scapegoat. Who can we blame? Ahhhh, there’s Philip Green. He’s a fat bastard billionaire, spends his greasy life cuddling up to Liz Hurley and Kate Moss, hobnobs with Simon Cowell, has not one, not two, but three of the world’s biggest private yachts, is based ‘offshore’ in Monaco, and he’s fucking rich. Even if I mentioned that, its worth repeating. RICH BASTARD. He used to own BHS, sold it for a quid. Bastard. Sold it to a man with ‘form’ in the backrupcy department. But before Le Green sold it, he paid himself 1.2 billion quid. Just, like, a bit of pocket money til his horse comes in.

And stating it in that way: BHS pensions down half a bil, Philip Green up 1.2… it implies the connection. It implies theft. It implies all sorts of bollocks that may or may not have happened but WE DON’T KNOW YET.

I don’t know Philip Green. I’m sure he is really, totally, irredeemably horrible. But put away the cross and nails for a while; let’s see what he actually HAS done before crucifiction begins.

Happy very late Wednesday.

A xxxx

The sun is out, the sky is blue, there’s not a cloud to spoil the view, but…

And the irony is; it really is a beautiful, good-to-be-alive, get-out-there, wonderful morning in London today. I actually wish it was raining, dull, grey, cold. Would be a better fit. Suit the mood.

Because last night was the tragedy at White Hart Lane. Spurs lost. Not the game, that was drawn, but lost the momentum, lost the chase for the top. Lost the dream. And I can’t understand why.

The first half was so impressive. It was typical of Spurs Nouveau, fast, furious and beautiful to watch. Then in the second half it stopped. Just like that. The pace, the movement, the pressing, just dropped off. I have no idea what the team talk was like at half time but it didn’t work. We dropped back and let them in. And struggled to get going. Whatever has been going so wonderfully well most of the season just stopped.

And immediately my mind raced to find the worst possible scenario following this loss (of 2 such vital points). Relegation? No, we’re safe. Dropping out of the top 4? Only if we can’t bounce back. Allowing Arsenal to overtake us? NNNOOOOOOOOO…

Chelsea next week. They hate us. Good. I’d hate to be liked by them. It would be like Kim Jong Un trying to ‘friend’ you on Facebook. Jeremy Corbyn taking you out for a drink. But that’s become a monumental game now. Don’t really have sufficient zeros on my keyboard to say precisely how many points are at stake. Pretty much all of them.

Never date a songwriter. Or marry one. Well, you can do, but NEVER, EVER break up. Or even be unfaithful.

Rumours abound that Jay-Z has been getting ‘close to’ one of his clothing designers. The extent of that closeness is unclear at present, but I think certain assumptions can be made, or ‘bootysumptions’ in this context, that its close enough to not see the join. So wifey, Beyonce, has on her just released album, tracks about the ‘affair’. Subtle tracks like ‘the muthafucka done shagged that bitch’. Well, that would be the title if I’d written it. Beyonce’s more subtle. Slightly. Though Beyonce has really ‘let herself go’ lately, (see pic).

Taylor Swift has charted her relatively short but vastly varied love issues on every album she writes. “Small Penis Blues” was revenge for some bust-up or other. “Halitosis Rock” was another song, another relationship over.

Revenge Rock. Its all the rage.

Miserable Fucking Tuesday

A xxxx

Yeah, a lot of nerves being shown at Leicester now. Right. We’ve been waiting for this. The pressure, the realisation of what they are probably about to achieve. The loss of their talismanic (and a lot of other ‘manic’ too; have you seen his eyes??? there’s something of the night about Jamie Vardy) striker. The expectations on their inexperienced shoulders. So they breezed over Swansea 4-nil. I won’t labour the new ‘force of 4’ but suffice to say; it weren’t a close match.

The most amazing thing Leicester have done is to manage to send their stress, troubles and pressures 100 miles down the M1 to Arsenal. I don’t know how you’d do that, didn’t know you could, but someone must have invented a new app or something and all the jitters that Leicester should be experiencing have fallen in Arsenal’s lap.

Which is itself not a bad thing, but just strange as this time of the season is so often Arsenal-time. And this year they can’t hit a rather porous Sunderland goal from 7 yards. I didn’t see that match. Mel, inspired by our Holland flower-power trip last weekend, went and bought an entire garden centre’s worth of fucking flowers. Well, bedding plants. Their entire stock. So that our driveway can resemble the Kuekenhof Gardens. And they needed planting. Bastard things.

Anyway, shame I missed that one. A Sam Allardyce team desperately trying to protect their goal in despair for 95 minutes whilst Arsenal play never ending circular passing games round the midfield. Nah, I’d rather do menial labour, thanks all the same.

And now Chelsea have come out as official ‘Spurs haters’. They don’t want Spurs to win the league. They really, desperately, horribly and probably violently, don’t want Spurs to win the league. They sang so at Bournemouth. They hate Spurs. Yeah, that’s news (stifles a yawn).

West Ham already hate us, for what, I don’t know. And I’m not unhappy about that. Better to be hated than ignored, as Oscar Wilde almost noted (probably an Arsenal fan; too gay for other teams). Arsenal hate us too, but in a more respectful way. I don’t know what that’s based on other than the nature of my dislike of them.

Its like Jesus. A man comes along who is so pure, so white, so right, so amazingly, unforgivingly good, that everyone hated him, other than his loyal ‘mates’, who numbered 12. His posse. Though they called Jesus’s gang his ‘disciples. Bit pretentious for all that supposed humility but we’ll forgive; its Jesus way. The rest of the people wanted him hit, hurt or preferably dead. They were jealous of his purity, his honesty and integrity, felt threatened by his whiter-than-whiteness.

So it is with Spurs. Another bunch of wandering Jews (metaphorically). So good, so lily-white, so wonderful and inspirational that other than the devoted (that’d be me, then), the jealousy and inherent nastiness and badness in other teams wishes us ill. Well, in the words of Jesus: FUCK ‘EM. FUCK ‘EM ALL.

We just need to keep winning. Tonight. West Brom. 37-pointer.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Have you heard of Gematria? I’ll give you a clue, its not an East European country between Serbia and Albania. Its not a disease of the lower intestine of arthritic type. Nor is it a new form of yoga in which you eat kale whilst sitting in a sauna on your head.

Its about numbers. You assign numerical values to letters, like A=1, B=2… I’m sure even you get the idea. Although these really have to be hebrew letters, or it don’t work. So you look at a sentence, which may be (in Hebrew, but I’ll translate it just for you); “Blessed be the Lord who took us out of slavery and gave us Association Football. Amen”. And you add up, say the values of the first letters of each word… and that comes to… 64. Which is the same number as the sentence: “my penis is exceptionally large”. And so that must be true. God said it. In numbers.

I didn’t say it either made any sense nor had any use. It just is.

Because we love numbers. They help us understand the world. Even if its just to realise that the car wash bastard just short-changed me. Numbers tell us. So its only ‘natural’ to attribute superstitious (13!!!) or supernatural powers to numerical coincidences or sequences. Well, some of us do.

Yesterday in the Premiership, 4 games of football were played. For Man City this was an important day for their quest for a top 4 finish. So they beat Stoke 4-nil. There’s nothing significant in that alone. Everyone beats Stoke 4-nil. Though its perhaps rather significant if you are a Stoke player or fan, in that those numbers say: YOU ARE FUCKING USELESS; GET A GRIP AND A DEFENCE BUT NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER.

In the massive game between Liverpool and Newcastle, for the former as they chase a top 4 finish and the latter to try and get to 4th from bottom to avoid relegation, they split 4 goals between them. A somewhat better result for the Geordies than the Scousers.

Chelsea put 4 past Bournemouth and Southampton did the same at Villa.

Four matches, four lots of four. Teams playing 4-4-2 (made that up, just for effect).

Luis Suarez played for Barcelona yesterday, scored 4 goals. For the second time in a week. Shame he’s not very good. Even bigger shame he didn’t go to Arsenal instead. Though luckily, according to Wenger, they don’t need a world class striker anyway. Who does?

So now I’m going to spend the rest of the day translating all the newspapers to hebrew and looking for the number 4 in any way shape or form, and trying to work out how that can mean “Leicester will lose at Swansea”. I feel that’s good use of my time.

Happy Sunday (39)

A (1) xxxxx

Malia Bouattia has been elected president of the National Union of Students. Hooray for Malia! And a bit of a shame for everyone else. Because Malia is basically horrible. Nasty, evil, vile and, even though she’d probably disagree, a fucking racist.

Its not her fault that she won her election in the week of Passover. But its a bit of a game-changer for me at least that she did. Because on Passover even total lost-cause, lapsed atheists like me become just a little bit more Jewish. And in turn (because it comes with the territory) a little bit more paranoid and a little bit more defensive.

Malia is a very clever lady, no doubt about that. So clever that she can claim she is no anti-semite when she so obviously is. That’s very clever indeed. She’s no Islamist but seems to have such endless support for them and a never-ending stream of good reasons why she won’t condemn them, that she might as well be. She doesn’t have a bad word even for IS. On the grounds that ‘it would justify blatant Islamophobia’. ‘The I-word’; a word so potent and inflammatory that it can hardly even be uttered in polite company. And once mentioned it is immediately invoked. And she’s not very keen on Israel, I think it safe to say.

She refused to support the Je Suis Charlie movement after the bombing of their Paris office. On the grounds that it was ‘essentially to accept that only white people’s freedoms and liberties matter’.

And that’s where the racism comes in. Because what she’s actually saying is that only white people’s freedoms don’t matter. And that makes her a horrible bitch. In my mind, at least.

But its, once again, the hypocrisy that really grates. Malia and her family came to Britain from Algeria to escape Islamists in the 1990s. Because her father was an academic and an intellectual and such types don’t fare too well in an Islamist environment. So they came to Britain where everyone is free to be whoever or whatever they want to be. They came here for our core values and freedoms. Tolerance and acceptance.

Then she shares a conference with a man who advocates the stoning to death of adulterous women. The man being from ‘Cage’ the organisation which praised Jihadi John and thought the murder of Lee Rigsby fully justified.

So having come to Britain for its wonderful freedom, vile people, as exemplified by Malia, seem hell-bent (judicious choice of words there) on following strict Islamist values and having them thrust down our throats. The very values that saw her family flee in fear 20-odd years ago.

So as a hypocrite, an anti-semite, a closet Jihadi and an all round nasty piece of work, I wonder exactly what it was that appealed to all the students who voted her in.

Happy Saturday, Happy Pesach

A xxxx

Finishing fourth at anything generally gets you nothing. You can win a gold, silver or bronze medal. They don’t make one out of plastic, wood or shit. Which is all you deserve for such failings. Horses ‘win’, ‘place’ or ‘show’. They may ‘turn up’ and even ‘finish’ but its only the first three that count. Except in the Grand National but that’s special as half the horses in that race are dead by the end anyway. Brutal but true. Its top three, or nothing.

Except in football. Where in the Premier league that fourth place is coveted, revered and esteemed. It is a path to riches and glory. And sometimes pain and suffering but there’s always a downside.

The top four teams at the end of the season enter the Champions League. Where they’ll play the creme-de-la-creme of European footballing royalty. And it is very valuable. Millions and millions of pounds in the tv rights and extra matchdays just for getting in. Though teams finishing third and fourth have to play a ‘qualifier’ and they can be very tricky. You can get a team of Nordic ice fisherman from an Arctic place you’ve never heard of and they can beat you, and that’s that.

But the promise of the glory is simply massive. Every team wants to be in the Champions League, every player wants to play in it. Against the very very best. And Arsenal.

And at this time of the season it becomes real. Gritty. There’s an eight figure difference between coming 4th and 5th. Not to mention the incredible prestige attached to qualification.

Leicester are in already. Guaranteed a slot. Spurs should (may it please the Lord, it will certainly please me) get a place too. And hopefully at least 2nd place, so qualification is not required and we won’t have to go to fucking Siberia to qualify.

So two other places. And vying for them, Arsenal, Man City, Man United and possibly even West Ham and even, though its a long shot, Liverpool. 5 teams, 2 places.

It all becomes a battle of nerves. Who blinks first. The only top 7 teams who failed to win last weekend were Leicester and West Ham, who played and drew. So even the hopeless Man United kept hopes alive. Arsenal drew on the weekend but managed to beat West Brom last night. Liverpool are on a bit of a roll. The Klopp and the Kop seem to be happy. Man City alternate between brilliance and incompetence. Would you want West Ham in the Champions League? As representatives of England?? It would be like inviting a tramp to a ball at Buckingham Palace. But they are playing well.

But I will not ‘look down’. No. I still cling to hope of looking upwards. We just need another Vardy-inspired slip by Leicster. Or two.

Nervy Friday

A xxxx