Andy's Glasses

He did it. Mo. Our Mo. Not Mo the Uber driver, (one of 42,539 ‘Mos’ they have on their books), nor Mo the cook in the take-away, Mo the Imam nor Mo the builder’s mate. No. Mo. Mo Farah. Best runner in the world. Since that Finnish dude back before I was born. Ok, the 70s, so ‘before I was re-born’ (we all did that in the 70s). Mo won the 5000 metres, to go with the 10000 metres he won last week, and the same two he won at the London Games. Making this the most successful games since the last one. Brilliant. Come on team GB!!!

So now, after tonight, we can forget about athletics for another 4 years. Just as ‘fantastic!!!’ starts to give way to ‘overload’, just three medals short of ‘enough, already’. Goodbye to hockey, farewell to gymnastics, adieu Taikwando. But…

The fucking football’s back!

And, of course, because its only just back, Arsenal are down at the dirty end of the league. The dodgy end. Where Losers hang out. Because they always start seasons poorly. They’ve won just one first-game-of-the-season since the premiership began 26 years ago. Useless fuckers. Sadly, and inevitably, they’ll be top of the league by November and back to their never-changing 4th for May. I don’t blame Wenger (not sure there’s actually anything to blame him for; entry to the Champions League every single season of his tenure) though his reluctance to spend money on a new striker might be minor cause for concern when your team enjoyed 89% of possession and had 243 attempts on goal and still manage to draw 0-0.

Whereas at Spurs, the winning ways have returned. Ok, its was (apparently) a bit of a struggle. It was not exactly ‘spectacular’, but free points is free points. And that’s all that counts. For now, at least.

Liverpool are being pursued. By the Chinese. They want to buy the Scousers. Not to, sort of, airlift Anfield to Shanghai, but to become the new owners. Which isn’t much of a loss to the city of Liverpool as the club is currently owned by Americans anyway. The difference being that the consortium currently in possession is a private bunch of investors. Whereas this is China. Like, the nation. The funding will come from the state financial institution, thus meaning that Liverpool would be subject to the same laws as the rest of China. Kick out the Bhuddists, death and torture to the opposition and shit-loads of rice. They’ve only offered £800million so I’m not sure it’ll all go through. The Yanks paid 300mil a few years back so not much of a profit on the investment there then.

You’ll play Liverpool and an hour later you’ll want to play them again.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

This has been the best Olympic Games for at least 4 years. London was special. Because it was in London, obviously. But Rio is brilliant. I can’t get enough. Other than golf, football, tennis, for reasons previously spouted, and Greco-Roman wrestling, because its silly and Taikwando, because its really dull. Other than that: wow. Brilliant. The hockey last night was spectacular. What an event. Penalty shoot-out against the twice olympic champs, the Dutch, then Britain won the gold. The Olympics is all about promoting sports that you’d never normally watch. Handball. Diving. Even bloody show-jumping. Won by a man so ancient he’s barely alive. So you’d believe hearing the plaudits for our 58-year old gold medalist.

Its been wonderful and its been a great success for team GB. Are they all on drugs? they ask. Surely they must be to have come from, like 2 gold medals just 20 years ago, to this meteoric rise in success now. But no. Its not about drugs. Its about that other evil; money. Lottery funding has increased the amount of cash in all our Olympic sports massively. And funny enough, the more you spend, the luckier you get.

So we’re having a victory parade. I love a victory parade. Because they all come down Fleet Street so they can see me in my natural environment. We’ve had Ashes winning cricketers, we had the Olympians and paralympians from the London games, we get them all.

But not this time. This time they’re parading up north. In Manchester? Other than the massive bonus this will bestow on the umbrella manufacturers of Lancashire (its ALWAYS raining in Manchester, because God hates Mancs), I can’t see what the purpose of this move will be. Why would you want it there? Do the athletes fancy a day out? Will the nation’s fans flock up north for the day? Will they fuck! Why would you send all those sudden superstars to a ‘northern powerhouse’ (read: 3rd world slum) when they could parade where parades belong; in London.

I have no grudge against Manchester specifically or ‘up north’ generally… other than that written above, nor do I have one of those terrible attitudes to the provinces that ‘some Londoners’ seem born with… but… but… its just not right.

One northerner worthy of special mention is John O’Neill. A man so fucked up, so sick and weird that a court has issued the most bizarre order ever conceived, just for him.

John is a sadomasochist. But, like, both. He likes pain, and he likes to give pain. If he just spent his spare time abusing himself with knives and soldering irons and stuff, surely that would be ‘the dream’? Actually fulfilling two dreams. Inflicting and receiving pain simultaneously. And at the same time. But John don’t do dat. No.

He goes out and starts fights (easy up north; its what they do up there) so he can ‘enjoy’ getting beaten up. Then he finds girls and, kind’a rapes them, bites them, burns them, cuts them. Otherwise he can’t ‘get off’.

So the court served him with a ’24-hour sex notice’. He must notify police 24 hours before he intends to have sex.

How’s that gonna work, exactly? And what are the police gonna do about it? Watch? Place him and his ‘sure thing’ in a padded room with no sharp implements? How? Never mind ‘why’ and ‘what the fuck use is that, then???’

Happy Olympic penultimate day

A xxxx

I wake up in the morning, reluctantly, unhappily (I love sleeping) and earl-ily when Mel plonks a cup of tea next to me (bless that saintly woman) and announces in her bouncy, early-morning-manic kind of way, that she’s off to swim. She’s leaving me for David Lloyd. Again. This is often accompanied by the delicate sound of a list. Things to do before work. Email the pension guy (known alternatively as ‘God’ or ‘The Muthafucka!!!’, depending on recent performance), water the garden (not today; pissing down out there), sort out her ipad (battery’s dead) or phone (battery’s dead), pick up chopped liver from the butcher… I hear none of it, just washes over my semi-consciousness as it tries to hold desperately to the bliss that was oblivion.

Then the paper bangs through the letterbox. And I’m awake. I love the paper. But today there was no ‘bang’, there was no nothing, no paper. Didn’t arrive.

Ok, this is the post-technical world, I can turn on a tv (NEVER before evening, unless its football or Olympics. Whisky, any time, tv: show some control), I could look at a thousand ‘news’ sites and get information way more up to the minute that the newspaper printed 8 hours ago, I could turn on the radio. Remember radios?

But that’s not what I want, so that’s not what I do. Instead I pine. I want my news in paper form. Clumsy, unmanageable, dirty, forest-killing, world-ruining, ozone-depleting paper. Love the stuff. Can’t get enough. Its my guilty secret, along with about 300 others, that’s not really a secret.

When it finally arrived, I learned of the events of the Olympics, the bit when I was in bed. We won a gold in the taikwando. Again. Jade Wassername; won in London, gold yesterday. I saw some of it. And, having never watched it before, thought it might be a cross between Bruce Lee and Usain Bolt. That’s some ‘cross’, I grant you. But its not. Its two babes trying desperately to avoid being kicked in the head. Really boring to watch. Tai Chi is much more fun. Even in slo-mo.

Jeremy Corbyn wants to attract Tory voters. By, errr, aligning himself with a whole host of hard-left parties of fringe nutters. The Socialist Party (which has a massive 200 members), the Alliance of Workers Liberty, 120 members, and the Socialist Party of England and Wales.

How is that going to attract the vast majority of Blairish New Labourite Champagne Socialists who are fleeing his party as fast as their guilt-laden Bentleys will carry them over to Theresa May’s donation office? But they’re ‘working people’ too and don’t like the cut of Corbyn’s jib. Personally I’d like to cut his jib off and stuff it where the sun don’t shine. But that’s because I’m a ninja warrior. Sorry, still in that part-sleep wonderland…

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Oh. My. God. This is the shape of the future. My own worst nightmare (that doesn’t involve Arsenal). No longer will ‘tossers’ be forced to hold their phones clumsily in their outstretched hand to ensure that they never look where they’re fucking going. Because you can now buy an Oculus Rift… thing. And never need to be bothered by the real world again.

Its essentially the world’s most expensive virtual reality gaming accessory at about 550 quid. But I see it as ‘the future’ of a lost generation. Who will never need again to exist in the real, actual, living world that they obviously don’t like very much. I see this picture as how the crowds walking down the Strand will look in about 6 months time. Fumbling around banging into each other, using google maps to direct them 25 yards in a straight line to the tube station because ‘looking’ is just so 1974.

God help us all. I’ve seen the future, but only through a screen.

Whereas the present is where its at. Well, it was last night. Went out for dinner with friends, arrived home, just in time for the news. So I thought. It was delayed. For the cycling at the Olympics. Oh, not so bad, I like cycling. Its very technical, the rules for each race are completely opaque to anyone who isn’t racing, including, as it transpired, most of the judges, but when the dust settles, Britain normally has another gold medal.

So the absolutely adorable Laura Trott (BIIIIIG Spurs fan that she is) won the ‘Omnium’ (don’t ask, 6 different events, most of which involve racing round on a bike faster than everyone else). Yippee. Her 4th gold medal. I love her.

As does her fiancee Jason Kenny. Who was riding next. Already the proud owner of 5 golds from the London and Rio olympics, he was in the final of the Keirin race. Which was delayed because of a little crash in the previous race. Which in turn is unnerving and unsettling. But Jason has nerves of steel. What you could see of him beneath his helmet and full face visor.

Finally the race started. And the keirin is odd (they’re all a bit odd, otherwise cycling would be the most boring spectator sport ever, other than golf). They have to follow a motor-bike round the track for about 4 laps, and they mustn’t overtake him. At precisely 3.5 laps (there’s a white line, so ya know), the bike has reached 50kph and leaves the track and riders all go mad for 2.5 laps to try and win or die, whichever comes first.

The first time someone overtook the motorbike prematurely. Probably 2 riders actually but despite having 67 million tv cameras spread around Rio, they’ve managed to avoid putting one on that white line. Which is so critical to the race that it was stopped. The judges, due to lack of camera-in-the-right-place, didn’t disqualify anyone, just restarted them about 10 minutes later.

More nerves, more unsettlement, more waiting, just what athletes love.

The race started, all good, 3 and a half laps and… someone overtook the motorbike again and the gun fired to stop the race. By which time everyone was getting bored and the judges didn’t even bother doing anything, they just started the race a third time. Probably with the instruction that if anyone fires that gun again, they will be shot. With that same gun.

The eventual, last 2.5 laps were magical. Jason Kenny was simply brilliant. Another gold.

Yiippee-ay-aye

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

The main difference between ‘us’ in the ‘so-called’ civilised West, and the extremists from ‘so-called’ Islamic State is a matter of tolerance. Not to gluten, even though that’s a matter close to my heart, and certainly to my intestine, which lives nearby. Extremists are intolerant of pretty much everything. Unless its done, prayed, eaten, worshipped, everything according to their very narrow rules. We’re happy (ish) for them to eat, pray, worship, according to their wants and needs, as long as they don’t cut people’s heads off or blow things up. I think that’s reasonable.

So to sum up (not much to sum, I grant you); we are tolerant to everything; ‘they’ are tolerant to nothing. All Muslims can do what they want here, within our laws, obviously, which preclude beheadings and suicide vests, as long as they respect our right to do what we want, subject to those same laws. Which also protect the rights of gay men to hold hands in Sainsburys, by the way.

We’re tolerant; they’re not.

And then the French, the greatest mouthpiece for ‘libertee, fraternitee, egalitee’, has chosen, in certain cities, to ban the burkini. That rather odd (to my eyes) full body covering which is the chosen beachwear for Muslim women. To protect their modesty. And cover any waxing failures too. An added bonus. This is not about the covering up your women debate.

They Mayor of Nice banned it after the terrible massacre there, and now they’re banning it in parts of Corsica.

But if you preach ‘freedom for all’, you can’t then exclude certain classes just because it seems fashionable to do so. Or, in the case of the burkini, pretty unfashionable, but suitable to the cause.

If we are defending above all else, and we are, our right to live in a completely liberal, open and TOLERANT society, you can’t start banning things. If people are ‘free to adhere to their religion’, then let them, however odd, bizarre or silly we may find it. All religions are odd. They all have silly customs that really don’t do well in any reductionist paradigm. So don’t reduce them to ‘the bits’, just leave them alone.

The mayor in Corsica said he was banning the burkini because they represent extemism. They don’t. That’s bollocks. The burkini represents an adherence to a way of life alien to us in the West. Doesn’t make it wrong. Whether its a symbol of repression or a symbol of empowerment is the same argument you can use for a very skimpy bikini. But its not about that. Its about the fascistic exercise of banning something harmless because of what it represents.

You can’t be ‘tolerant’ to your own way of life and the exclusion of all others. That’s the whole point of tolerance.

Bloody French…

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Its great being 60. You get free tube travel. And… and… and…

You get to shit on a stick.

That’s it really. You’re suddenly old and two really big things happen. One is free transport (ONLY in London, the rest of the country, the ones that don’t count, have to wait til they’re 62), the other is that everything that hasn’t already fallen apart immediately starts to do so. And ‘they’ worry about you.

Every year brings about a new worry. You’ve crossed some threshold and gained entry into a brand new group of ‘at risks’. And at 60 its bowel cancer. So literally, the day after my birthday a letter came from the NHS. A big letter. I picked it up. “What’s this shit now”, I asked of no-one (you talk to yourself a lot at 60). And shit it was. Or, more precisely, very precise instructions how to shit. So they can test you. Without having to soil any NHS toilet facilities. In the comfort of your own home. Then you just post it off. Easy peasy.

Well, fairly easy. The ‘samples’ they require are tiny. And shit is, generally, much bigger than the quarter-inch square windows supplied. Hence the sticks. For transportation purposes. I’ll spare you the rest of the details. You’ll find out when you’re 60. If you have a wife like mine, ever vigilant, who wouldn’t let you just throw the thing in the bin.

So two guys, (above), are shopping in Sainsburys. Holding hands. In case anyone could be in any doubt that these 2 are gay. They couldn’t look any gayer if they were wearing tutus and Arsenal shirts.

A security guard called them over because someone had complained about their ‘behaviour’. Asked them to act properly, or some such.

He shouldn’t have done. Sainsburys should know better. The ‘complaint’ was either just because it was 2 men holding hands, in which case that is discrimination and illegal. Or it was about anyone holding hands in public, in which case the complainant should be immediately removed from society and shot.

There are so many public displays of anger, aggression, of road rage, shouting, screaming, fighting, how on earth can it be wrong to act in a perfectly innocent, in no way ‘inappropriate’ or even mildly offensive, display of affection? In who’s eyes can that be wrong. Unless its the gay thing, then the complaining asshole has transcended ‘wrong’ and entered ‘discriminatory’.

The gay and lesbian community held a ‘kiss-a-thon’ at the store in protest. A brilliant response. And Sainsburys gave the two guys a £10 voucher off the price of condoms. Ok, just a voucher. To say sorry.

I should think so too.

Happy Monday,

A xxxx

I feel I’m drowning. In a sea. Of sport. There’s just so much at the moment. Though yesterday it was rather depressing turning on the tv to find a choice between golf and tennis. Who needs that? Golf is not just boring, its grossly overpaid boring, and tennis I can’t watch unless its filmed live from SW19. Anywhere else is just rubbish. Fortunately I have a tv that has full NASA capability and is registered with data protection and can actually perform medical treatments of a very basic nature. So I finally found the ‘red button’ and there was even more choices. Loads more. Shooting things, badminton, windsurfing. I didn’t say they were particularly good choices, but certainly better than those made by the BBC for their two offerings. I opted for trampolining. Fuck me they go high. Apparently higher than a two storey house.

The problem is that all the good stuff is saved for insomniacs. Or dullards. Maybe a few early-home clubbers. You wanna see Mo win the 10k; its 3am. Jessicaaaaaaahhh, she’s on about 2, coming second in the pentathlon.

So whilst you’re waiting for that lot (as if) they brung ya back the football. It happened. Yesterday at 3, but the PM one, they started the Premiership season. Not on tv, obviously. Well, obviously to English people, decidedly lacking in obviousness for everyone else in the world. The bits where you either watch sport live in tv, or you don’t watch it at all.

Americans never got it together with this ‘recorded hi-lights’ shit. But we grew up with it. Live football was almost banned for my entire youth. All because of the failed rationale that ‘if you put it on’t telly, no-one will bother going to the games and the teams will suffer and games will be played in front of 7 people and a dog.

Football is massive. Its always been massive. West Ham just moved to a new stadium, twice the capacity of their old one and there’s a ten year waiting list for season tickets. And that’s West Ham; they’re shit. Do they really think that no-one’s going to go to Old Trafford to see United play Liverpool, just because its ‘live on tv’?

Of course, Sky changed things a bit and the ‘big game’ is allowed to be shown live on Sunday. So fans can go to church first, applying the same anachronistic illogic that prevents 3 o’clock Saturday matches being shown. And those Sunday matches seem miraculously to fill the stadia.

People go to football because its a fantastic (or fantastically violent) experience. Its an ‘event’. And its wonderful. Tv is a very poor substitute. Like Juan Mata.

Ironically, pubs are allowed to show Saturday matches live. That won’t encourage drinking then. And you can stream them yourself from Albanian sites, or Latvia or Ethi-fucking-opia, but not here. No. Is illegal. Innit.

We NEED more live football on tv. 17 matches a week is not enough for my wife. She needs more.

Show it live on Saturday. If they had, maybe Spurs would have won? Who knows.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

It doesn’t feel like the first day of the new football season. It feels like the Olympics. I can’t think about Mezut Ozil when Jess Ennis is on the other channel. In fact I can think of nothing else whilst Jess Ennis is around, generally. But now I need to focus. Because it starts today.

So forget Jihadi brides from Bethnal Green getting killed in IS-land (what the fuck did she expect when she went to war?) and forget rail strikes, at least til Monday morning, and forget the cricket. Its all irrelevant. I’ve already forgotten Donald Trump as irrelevant, because he doesn’t play for Leicester.

The football is back and it must be obeyed, revered and given the total focus and respect that it probably doesn’t deserve but will get anyway.

This is my favourite time of the year. 3 hours before the first ball is kicked. The potential is limitless. Anything can happen. To any team, by any team, in any host of the billions of probabilities and contingencies that will unfold in the following months. (Deep. Fucking deep.)

Spurs can win the league.
Leicester can win the league.
Arsenal can get relegated.
Manchester City can go bankrupt.
The financial fair play might actually be enforced.
Hull might get a manager.
Jose Morinho might explode.

5 minutes after kick off it’ll become a little more transparent. Although it generally takes a few weeks for teams to settle in and for any patterns to emerge.

After the usual insanity of the summer transfers and new managerial appointments, its show-time.

Everyone wants to win the league (please note; there’s only ONE league, the rest don’t count). But only one team can. Doh. And we have seven teams vying for that, realistically. Although as Leicester showed last year; there’s room now and again for a bit of the positively surreal.

So we have to consider Leicester as contenders. Even though there’s more chance of me winning a gold medal in the women’s gymnastics than of them winning the league again.

Manchester City have their new, very expensive manager, and loads of multi-squillionaire new signings. Manchester United have Jose and now Paul Pogba, on 300 grand a week, and yet no Champions League. Chelsea are horrible. New manager or not. John Terry or not. Horrible. Arsenal are still Arsenal and will be for the foreseeable future. So they’ll come 4th. Liverpool are still living on memories of the 70s even though their manager is good fun. And Spurs. Ahhhhh, Spurs. New players, best manager in the league, nicest fans (by some way) and Champions League football. Can we win the league? Can we finish above Arsenal??

Answer the second question first.

Happy Football Season. If only.

A xxxx

I worry that I’m becoming slightly gluten intolerant. Which would be fitting in a way as I’m pretty fucking intolerant to most things. But they’re all a matter of conscious choice, not bodily function.

So here’s the problem. Not the intolerance itself, should I be the ‘victim’ of such a thing, but the fact that I’ve always had almost zero tolerance to food intolerants.

Allergic to seafood? GROW A PAIR. Just man-up and eat those prawns; I’ve got an epi-pen which I’ll gladly stick in your face if you swell up like a balloon and lose your respiratory system for any significant length of time.

Lactose intolerant? Oh just fuck off, will ya? Stick to your soya latte and I’ll cream up. Like a real man.

And then gluten. Wheatgerm. The term for a gluten intolerant is a coeliac. Looks like a word for some commonly occurring invertibrate fossil, but in fact its not. Yet because its a fiddly word, the Younger Daughter coined her own term. Mainly to upset her flat-mate who suffers this affliction. She’s a ‘glutard’. I love that. Unless I’m included in the genus in which case DON’T YOU DARE USE THAT WORD!!!

And the problem is; I love bread. And every day I have a sandwich for lunch. Which is pretty immediately followed by a feeling of bloatedness, discomfort and fatigue.The very symptoms that some know-all geek expressly mentioned in a newspaper I read the other day that would indicate gluten intolerance. Well what about journalist intolerance? When you throw up over members of the press?

Why can’t I be intolerant to lettuce? Broccoli? Spinach? Radishes? Anything but bread or meat. Or chocolate. Potatoes. Bananas or ice cream. Banana-flavoured ice cream.

Is this what happens once you turn 60? Is this the beginning of the end? First you seem to exhibit a mild gluten thing, the next you’re in a care home, incontinent, with tubes sticking in and out of everywhere, dribbling down your tie? (I haven’t worn a tie for about 20 years other than daughter’s wedding and a dinner at Lords, but maybe I should start again, its what old people do).

This may affect my chances of being in the next Amerian Womens Gymnastics squad. My new aspiration.

Needs further testing. Where’s all these scientists when you need them?

Happy gluten-free Friday

A xxxx

I’ve decided that being Jewish is a ‘condition’. Like a disease, but not life-threatening. Like eczema. And the term ‘condition’ is appropriate because, like everyone else in the world, we are conditioned. Ours is just a bit different. Maybe because there are so few of us, maybe because we have a collective history that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, but we’re conditioned to find good things in Jews or find good things in other people and try to make a Jewish connection. Conversely, we try to disown Philip Green at every opportunity. Its the same thing. Big up the good, downplay the bad.

The language of the Jews is not strictly hebrew. That’s the language of prayer. So, many European religious Jews won’t use hebrew as a ‘language’ but only in prayer. To use it otherwise is somehow blasphemous. So in all of old Poland and Russia and Germany and Holland, they spoke Yiddish. A kind of pidgin German which endures today in all communities where ‘black hats’ are the prevailing trend. Even in Israel which, being a secular nation, has hebrew as its official language, the ultra orthodox there stick to Yiddish. Because its more fun.

Ok, that may not be their strict motivation, but Yiddish is undoubtedly more fun than most other languages. And certainly more expressive. The Yiddish expressions that have endured among the non-Yiddish speaking peoples (all of those who don’t do the black hat/long beard thing) are very difficult to translate. Because other languages have words sort of equivalent, but they lack the feeling, the emotion, the depth.

A ‘shlemiel’ is an idiot. But so much more than just any idiot. A shlemiel is such an idiot that he (or she, its very egalitarian) is almost a schmuck. Which is like a tosser, but raised to several powers of idiocy. To ‘shlep’ is to drag. But much more. To wrench, but with pain attached. If it doesn’t hurt, you ain’t schlepping.

Pride is a more complex thing. There are two wonderful Yiddish words for pride. But more than pride. Nachas is the pride you receive from someone doing something wonderful. Its the noun, pride, but its bigger, its bursting with pride, its tears in the eyes, its massively heart-felt. Whereas ‘kvell’ is the verb. To kvell is to do all of the above. You kvell because your grandchild came first in a maths test (he cheated, but that’s ‘chutspa’, something else for another day), so you get lots of ‘nachas’ from him.

Gwyneth Paltrow wins an Oscar, we find out she had a Jewish dad. Yippee, one of our own. David Beckham’s grandad was a Spurs supporting Jew, that’s like finding out my rabbi won the world cup with Brazil.

And last night, during the becoming-ever-more wonderful Olympics, the quite amazing American girls won the team gymnastics. Their captain is Jewish. So I was allowed to kvell a little. It was like every jew in the world was doing triple back somersaults with double twists, even the black hats. Though I took nachas from the whole team. Jew, Christians, white, black, hispanic. Amazing.

Now let me go check out Usain Bolt’s family tree…

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx