Andy's Glasses

I never knew Jesus. Not personally. Even though a few years ago by Lords Cricket Ground some… errr… person came up to me and said, with no pre-amble nor introduction: ‘JESUS DIED TO SAVE YOU!!!’. Then he walked away. The odd geezer, not Jesus. He wasn’t there. Not in body anyway.

But Jesus was just another errant Jew. Some take drugs, some run off to Thailand, some eat pulled pork burgers with kale and truffle fries, a few become bhuddists, Jesus just went off and turned the other cheek. And created a bit of a stir. A lasting legacy. He’s bigger than Donald Trump. Bigger than David Bowie. I know, hard to believe, but its true.

So although me and Jesus haven’t had a great deal to do with each other, I’m loving him right now. As I do every Easter when Monday arrives and instead of leaping out of bed stressing, I can merely roll over and wait for tea to arrive. I love him at Christmas too. More holidays. Shame He didn’t have the foresight (or foreskin, truth be told) to be born or crucified or reincarnated in about August time, then we’d have better weather for these bonus holidays. Can’t have it all. Jesus taught us that. Just before he saved me.

So when the world is an Islamic State, under sharia law, will they keep Easter? I think it would be decidedly anti-semitic to cancel it. What would they do with all the Easter Eggs?

Donald Trump has declared Britain ‘unsafe’ due to the recent terrorist atrocities in Paris and Belgium. He has warned fellow Americans to ‘avoid crowded places where you have no control who might be there’. So that keeps you to your sitting-room then.

But its a fair warning. Because its a dangerous world and Europe, sadly (whether we stay in or leave the Union, its still a matter of geography) is danger-central.

And I find a curious irony that the land of the free, ‘home of the brave’, can be somewhat less than courageous when it really hits the fan. We all remember, post 9/11, post 7/7, that American tourism dropped more than that of any other nation. I’m not suggesting that anyone should endanger themselves, ever. But what I do know is that if you change your lifestyle significantly then the terrorists win. That’s what they want. A world cowered by fear. No-one going to football matches, concerts, people avoiding the Tube and shopping centres, forsaking airports, not sitting in the sun outside cafes.

So, Mr Bigmouth, Mr Big, Brave, “I’ll PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE!!!!”, Mr Meaningless Soundbyte Trump, I’m sure Jesus loves you. But I don’t. I think you’re a tosser. Who really understands nothing.

Happy Easter Monday

A xxxx

Easter is magical. Always has been. Four days off work. Free. Not missing nuffink. And its lovely. Relaxing.

Couldn’t play tennis yesterday due to rainage. Then Mel & I went for our ‘walk’, got half way up the road and it started raining again. Turned round, came home, turned on the tv. Well, I did, ‘she’ went to sleep.

And there was no sport. Worth watching. Not a thing. Rugby league from Tasmania. Darts from Kiev. Wrestling from Ethiopia. So I flicked. And I flicked. And I came across a channel showing ‘Supergirl’. Oh. I love a superhero. Even when its a gel. Batman. Superman. Iron Man. They’re all ‘men’. Or man/machine/alien hybrid type things. So Supergirl. And its a really unusual and unique story…

Her planet, Krypton, was exploding, so her parents devotedly put her in a pod thing, to save her, and sent her to planet Earth where a lovely family adopted her as ‘one’a their own’ and brought her up as a normal little middle American miss. Other than her ability to pick up an entire train, lorry, house or airplane. And she became a journalist, hiding her secret behind a pair of silly glasses.

So nothing like cousin Clark Kent then. No, nothing like that at all. Totally different from Superman, other than a slight similarity in their names. But cousins can have similar names, can’t they? Even if the name is ‘Super’.

Supergirl’s brilliant. She fights baddies. And wins. (see: super-powers, above). And she has friends, some of whom know of her ‘alter-ego’ and some who don’t. And a bitchy boss, wonderfully played by the still delicious Calista Flockhart, even though she’s had some work done and some of her face no longer functions to the full Ally McBeal extent.

And when it finished there was another. Then another. Then another…

It was Supergirl day on Sky Whatever. So I fell asleep too. There’s only so many baddies you can watch get their comeuppance. Even when the superhero is wearing a very short skirt.

Then more baddies; the Germans. Playing football against Spurs. Sorry, against England. Watched about 10 minutes of that then fell asleep again. Then woke up as we had people coming for dinner. The Germans went 2-0 up, then Spurs came back. First Harry Kane, then someone else, then the winner, in injury time, by Eric Dier. Man of the Match: Deli Alli. Danny Rose played a blinder. Made me proud.

I love international friendlies.

Happy hypocritical Sunday

A xxxx

I normally hate ‘international breaks’ in the football. Especially for friendlies. Mainly because I’ve lost heart with ‘England’ football, much as I’m madly in love with ‘England’ rugby. Odd, eh? Or not, that’s what it is.

This international break is a good one though, because I’m relaxed about the league. Spurs are second. They’re nicely poised, let them rest. Its a very unusual position for Spurs fans.

But they’re not resting. Four of my boys are starting for England tonight. Doesn’t mean they’ll finish tonight because its a friendly so players are changed with the speed of changing lanes on the motorway. Which is why friendlies are so useless and uninformative.

My ‘relaxation’ is only bothered by the injury worry. Four of our players are going out there against a bunch of bloody Germans who have a point to prove. I have no idea what that point is but its just the way they play. Maybe they’re making a statement against Angela Merkel, maybe its their stance on the migrant crisis, but they’ll be making some point or other; its what Germans do. They used to invade nations, now they make points.

And if Harry, or Deli, or Danny or Eric (the half-German) get injured, I’ll fucking hate England even more. That’s it, I’ve made MY point. Look after my boys; send them back safely.

Easter’s here. You can tell. They had a bunch of Jesus look-a-likes being crucified in Trafalgar Square yesterday. And that only happens at Easter. Also its raining. That’s a very Easter thing too. But yesterday, although it was very Easter (Good Friday, in fact; the day Jesus went to Trafalgar Square… errrr… with Lord Nelson, and… errrrr… did something very good and Christian) it didn’t feel like it. It felt like summer. Wonderful, warm, sunny, gorgeous day.

Mel & I went to Waitrose. She had a shopping list; I had a mission. We split up at the door. She in search of broccoli and sweet potatoes and milk and… whereas I got stuck at the Easter Eggs. Right by the door. To tempt the children (however old). And tempted I was.

“HOLY SHIT!!!!” I thought. Because it was a holy day and the almost last chance to buy Easter Eggs. That most unique form of chocolate that really tastes like no other. And is only available til… MONDAY!!!! “HOLY SHIT!!!!” I thought once more. For effect. And then spent so long agonising whether to buy 3 big ones (special offer, 3 f’ra tenner) or 10 little ones (a quid each), that by the time I’d made up my mind, Mel had filled her trolley with everything a family needs for a month.

But shopping is about quality, not quantity, and who enjoyed the experience more? That’s what I wanna know.

Happy Easter

A xxxx

Adam Johnson gets 6 years for grooming a ‘child’ and having some kind of sexual activity (he said, she said… we don’t want or need to know) with her. Good riddance to his career. But that’s a small price to pay, though not in monetary terms.

Yet there are some who reckon that 6 years is in fact too long a sentence. Not because the rotten shit doesn’t deserve it, but more because there are murderers and rapists who’ve received lesser sentences.

So much for ‘consistency’ or proportionality in the law then. As in so much else.

And although the crime is what he’s being punished for, that crime has a context. And in Johnson’s case its a very tragic context for his victim. Who, due to Johnson’s stream of constant denial, was reviled and accused of lying, trolled on social media which led to her taking an overdose. A girl of 16 (by then) who’s only ‘crime’ was to be naive and to have been preyed upon by an exploitative, entitled shit of a sportsman who’d been her hero.

But as ever, the ‘full details’ are never revealed until sentencing, lest they be prejudicial to the specifics. If someone can be viewed as ‘always a scumbag, does that all the time’ it would be rather difficult to find him innocent of the specific crime in question. But once guilty all bets are off. So the details emerge.

Johnson’s counsel claimed Johnson wasn’t ‘into children’, but it ‘just happened’. In her words: it was an aberration.

But its not an aberration. What is an aberration is the animal porn on Johnson’s computers. That’s seriously fucking aberrant. I didn’t even know animals watched porn. Ya live and learn. And the minor STD problems due to his confessed ‘flings’ with fans. Loads of them.

But on a happier note, the picture was taken this very morning at Daniel’s bakery in Temple Fortune. And they bake the sacred ‘challah’, the most holy sight in all Judaism. The Western Wall’s all well and good but you wouldn’t wanna eat one. Whereas these, mere minutes out of the ovens… aaaahhhhhhh…

Happy Friday/Shabbas

A xxxx

What’s happened to sport? Where’s the ideology gone? The problem is that someone made it a bit too competitive. Oh. It is competitive. That’s what its all about really. The nature of ‘sport’. Competition. They’re equivalents. So you want to win. Always. And sometimes you need to try a bit harder, work a bit longer, be a bit more aggressive. Sometimes you just need ‘an edge’.

So the cricketer puts some gravel in his pocket to rough up the ball. The footballer dives when no-one touched him. The motor racing driver has a car that is just 3mm lower/longer/faster than it should be.

And everyone else takes drugs. Shit loads of them. Steroids, growth hormones. Uppers. Performance enhancers. Go fasters. Throw longers. And we call them cheats.

Quite rightly.

All sports have rules. To ensure everyone’s on the same page. Then someone introduced a few more pages.

And now every sport is rife with cheating. And it all started with a Canadian. Typical. When Ben Johnson beat Carl Lewis in the 100 metres Olympic final it was the most mind-blowing run I’d ever seen. (Usain Bolt hadn’t been invented yet). It was amazing. Lewis was the world champion, tall, lithe and elegant. Johnson was stockier, pure muscle, pure power. Mixed with just the right amount of steroids as it transpired and they took his medal away. But the man flew. Just flew.

Baseball had the two biggest hitters of all time in the same season, both replacing the regulation chewing tobacco with something a little more pharmaceutically synthesised.

Then came the cycling fiasco. Followed by every Russian athlete ever. All on drugs. Regular ‘trainers’ replaced with pharmacologists. They’re cheaper and much more efficient.

Tennis. Sharapova is on drugs for a heart condition she’s never had, taking the prescribed 6-week course for 14 years.

And now its Chinese swimmers. Replacing their diet of rice noodles with a cocktail of something a little more potent, more helpful, more illegal.

All that happens is that the drugs, as they’re made illegal, are then made harder to detect. These chemists are clever and devious.

They should just have two parallel sporting worlds. The ‘natural’ one and the ‘drug enhanced’ one. And although the former would be more important, the latter would be much more fun to watch.

Shame on the whole fucking lot of them

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I love an election. (The late Benny Hill, in Chinese persona, made a career out of that sentence). And there’s loads of elections just around the corner.

First though you need to work out who is going to stand. And the American bandwagon keeps on rollin’. Now its the turn of Utah to vote. So Ted Cruz decided to use this poster of Madame Trump. To ‘offend’ those straight-laced, bible-bashin’ Mormons. A spokesperson in Utah stated that: “within the Latter Day Saints there is deep opposition to pornography”. I’m willing to bet that opposition isn’t quite so strong within the male, 14-25 group of ‘saints’. But this is how low Ted Cruz, Trump’s opponent for the Republican votes, is prepared to stoop in his quest to discredit his nemesis. And he’s spent $63million in the last 2 months trying to do so.

Meanwhile, incumbent Prez, Obama, is in Cuba watching baseball matches with Catro’s brother. The new Castro. And Obama’s message was interesting. A little parochial, some might think.

He told the Cubans that ‘they’ve come a long way’, that basically ‘they’re doin’ fine’, but need to work out more in the way of democracy and free speech before being fully acceptable by their (very very big) brother to the north. ‘We’re all Americans!’ shouted Barak.

Actually, you’re an American, they’re Cubans. They can do what the fuck they want. They don’t need to become a cut-out mini-me of the US of A just to get the approval of a President that no-one likes any more and didn’t think much of in the first place. They don’t need to emulate American values (free speech, McDonalds, democracy, obesity, pornographic political campaigning…) to be a proper nation. Even a nation that America will befriend. ‘There’s human rights issues’, Barak stated too. As if this is some stumbling block to… to what??

Nations can do as they please. Even if its the antithesis of our values. America has, to my knowledge, an embassy in Saudi Arabia, don’t they? In China? Russia? Why doesn’t he tell those lovely nations how to run themselves along American lines?

Cuba is a communist country. Whether you agree with communism or not, its of no concern, its what Cuba is. It doesn’t need to become Puerto Rico, a playground for American tourists. Nor does it need approval from patronising Americans. Just their trade.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

“I have a lot of respect for (fill in name of your choice); BUT…”

That’s the sentence that precedes a hatchet job. Always. No-one ever says they have respect for someone before praising them. Its not really necessary, the respect is implicit in the praise. But when someone starts by proclaiming ‘respect’ for; Donald Trump, George Osborne, Steve McLaren, Martin Dimichelis, you know its gonna get nasty.

Yesterday Serena Williams stated her ‘respect’ for Novak Djokovich… BUT…

She may as well have just called him a c**t. Its just more media friendly.

The world of tennis is in an uproar. Sexism is the new drug abuse in the professional circuit. And the drug abuse is only just starting itself.

In 2007, after decades of campaigning (it was actually decades of ‘complaining’ but again, we skirt round the issues with clever wordage), women were granted equal pay for winning tournaments as men. And its worth pointing out that the men’s money was not reduced in any way to kind of ‘subsidise’ their fairer colleagues, the women were just given more. And in case you’re concerned, we’re not talking about an extra £1.32p an hour here; we’re talking hundreds of thousands of pounds/dollars/whatever.

To put this in perspective; in my entire tennis career, my total winning profit is 1 bottle of champagne for the bi-weekly round robin doubles at my little club. (If a woman had won it she’d have received a Babycham and a new iron. I’m not stating that my club is some bastion of post-feminism).

Some geezer stated that the women’s game ‘rides on the shirt-tails’ of the men’s game and the women should be eternally grateful to the men, without whom nobody would ever turn up or watch the game. So he said.

Which is patently not true. As long as long-limbed blondes turn up wearing very little there will ALWAYS be a place in this sports fan’s life for such voyeurism. Sorry, such appreciation, devotion, love of the sport, blah, blah blah. I’ve rallied for years to make them wear wet t-shirts but the Tennis Association don’t take it seriously.

Anyway… Novak the miserable Serb immediately took up the baton and agreed that men should earn more because they are the ones who draw the crowds. Why he became involved in this is another question totally. Firstly if women were paid less, he would not earn any more. Secondly, he’s stinking fucking rich beyond most people’s wildest dreams anyway, so its not ‘about the money’ itself.

Therefore its a matter of principle. Serbian principle. Because I think it safe to say that nobody at the top end of professional tennis is hungry or homeless. And they argue that ‘men play a longer game’ and ‘its more exciting’ and all sorts of irrelevance. No-one has to ‘clock on’ to Centre Court. The seats all sell out every day. And if you give women the chance to play, you pay them the same. End of. Its the way of the world. Other than in Serbia, obviously, and in Indian Wells, California, where this all started.

I have a lot of respect for Novak, but he’s a Neanderthal tosser.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

As the final part of the ongoing and intentionally excessive celebrations of Mel’s birthday, we went to see the show ‘Beautiful’ on Saturday night. With Mel’s twin sister who shares the same birthday. What are the odds? And a few other selected brothers and sisters and in-laws.

Its simply brilliant. The show. Ok, and the birthday. The story of Carole King. Songwriter extraordinaire, singer and pregnant teeny (I never knew that; wasn’t relevant listening to ‘Tapestry’, back in the day). So the starting point is fantastic music. But the show is spectacular. The whole production. Very funny, very up-beat and performed brilliantly. And those songs, so many fantastic songs.

So to continue with the weekend theme of ‘beautiful’, I went to Spurs yesterday. After playing some seriously beautiful tennis in the morning with Spurs Paul. Who, as the name would imply, also went to see Spurs.

But he probably left early enough, or avoided the 3-way temporary traffic light in Muswell Hill and arrived at the ground on time. We were 1 minute late. And thus missed the opening goal. Which Harry Kane scored after 44 seconds. Or Kyle Walker scored after 44 seconds but Harry claimed it anyway. Either way it was the goal that counted. And although I missed it, I was very happy. Because it was our goal. Its like they’re saying to me; “look, I’m sorry about the traffic (and the stop at the sweet shop; but that’s compulsory) but we just can’t hang around waiting for you to pitch up, we need to score goals quickly and we did.”

It wasn’t so much a ‘match’ as an exhibition. It was very one-sided. Thus lacked the drama of an ‘end-to-end battle’. But when the end that’s missing contains your team’s goal, that’s forgivable. When Harry scored again 15 minutes later the game was effectively over. Other than some wonderful attacking play by Spurs and some staunch defending by Bournemouth who’d parked their bus early and had no intention of moving it.

Yet at 2-0 down Eddie Howe is sufficiently astute to work out you have to come out of your own box and make an effort. So in the second half Bournemouth looked much better, more intent on attacking, more Bournemouth really. But inevitably left themselves open for the break. Which Spurs capitalised on wonderfully.

We were fast, we were accurate and we press teams like (currently) no other. I love this team. Its almost perfect. Eric Lamela remains the question he’s been since he arrived, and although he can be frustrating to point where murder becomes a viable option, he can also be quite sublime.

What a weekend. The best presents Mel could wish for. Beautiful and 3 points. Life can get no better. Though if Leicester had maybe dropped some points? For Mel? On her fucking birthday?? Is that too much to ask?

Very happy Monday

A xxxx

We need to talk about Turkey. Not the food, though that would be nicer, tastier and a bit more ‘nigella’, but the country, the nation, the state. And what a state its in.

Turkey straddles two regions. It borders Europe to the west and the middle East on its eastern borders. Syria to be precise. And on that border there lives (and sadly dies too) the Kurds. Well some of them. Less than before but the rest of the Kurds are spread across parts of Iran, Iraq and then distributed, like Amazon products, across the rest of the world.

And the Turks hate the Kurds. Always have. Don’t ask me why, cos I don’t know. Its one of those ‘wrong kind of mulsim’ things that seem to be plaguing the world currently. So the Kurds want their own land in Eastern Turkey and the Turkish response is essentially a policy of killing them. And because that’s frowned upon by the sometimes overly-sensitive Western world, they now adopt a policy of ‘letting ISIS kill them for us’, which is why Turkey has never raised any issue, let alone its army, against the marauding jihadis lodged on its shores.

Because of its position, Turkey has always been an important place from a military strategic standpoint. The Americans keep planes there in case Iran (another Turkish neighbour) gets stroppy, and the Turks have maintained the stance of overtly being ‘the friend of the West’ and desperately wishing to become part of the European Union.

But now that strategic importance has been raised massively by the ‘migrant crisis’. Because Turkey is ‘ground zero’ for migrants. Its the last place they get to before entering Europe. Normally by boat to a Greek Island. Thus its fairly safe to assume that most of the people-transporters are Turks. Or at least have some kind of sanction by the Turks. Because we’re talking about millions of people. You’d have to have more than one ‘blind eye’ to turn to be ignorant of that.

So the Turkish Prime Minister (they are a democracy, though do have a history of opposition leaders ‘disappearing’ and although they are officially ‘secular’ there’s an ever-increasing shift towards Islamic laws) is in a fabulous position in which Europe needs him. Really needs him. To control the migrants. Which he is prepared to do, with just a few ‘conditions’.

Like 6 billion Euros to ‘help’ with migrant aid, refugee camps and the massive administration required. Fair enough. S’only money. Quite a lot, but only money. Then he wants an acceleration of Turkey’s acceptance to the EU. And THEN he wants almost unlimited access for Turkey’s 80 million inhabitants, to travel in and around Europe. And work there.

I like Turks. Some of my favourite kebab makers are Turkish. But do we potentially want to swap a million tragic Syrians for 78 million marauding Turks coming to Europe?

So big a worry I’m going to White Hart Lane to consider the Turks in their natural environment; Tottenham.

Happy Sunday (we hope and pray)

A xxxx

Iain Duncan Smith has resigned his post of work and pensions secretary. And I’m going to miss him.

He was at one time the leader of the conservative party but lost his job due to excessive blandness and the almost unique ability of making the most exciting thing totally dull and boring in his expressing of it. He could tell wondrous tales of thrills and horrors that could put an insomniac to sleep in 22 seconds.

And now he’s gone. Well, he’s still an MP, I suppose, but no longer the welfare minister, as such a position used to be known. And all because the welfare changes that he proposed were horrible, nasty, discriminatory and unacceptable in any fair and just society.

Sounds a bit odd really; he can no longer live with the injustices put into place by his own department. You’d shoot yourself really, rather than resign, were that the case. Yet he didn’t. He slagged off George Osborne instead. Which just shows that he may be bland, but he’s not totally stupid. Or that he doesn’t own a gun.

And one can only assume that all the policies and cut-backs made under his watch, of which he is so retrospectively unhappy, were in fact made under duress by the Chancellor. And the last in the long line of those cuts, the proposed (but now in fact withdrawn about an hour before IDS handed in his resignation) changes to disability payments, was his final straw. He wrote so in his letter to Cameron. Basically stating that he couldn’t live with cutting benefits to the disabled in order to fund tax relief on pole dance club expenses and heating supplements for yachts. Ok, maybe I exaggerate a touch but that was the gist.

Meanwhile, in Molenbeek, they caught Salah Abdeslam, the last of the Paris murdering scumbags. Yet how big a scumbag is Salah?? Even from the very high starting point of all mass-murderers? Because although his brother died in Paris, with his suicide vest, Salah actually took his off and thus ran away. And generally jihadis are never caught, they die. Yet Salah didn’t die. He was shot in the leg. Mainly because he was unarmed. And why was he unarmed? Because he’s a yeller-bellied scumbag. So now they can ‘interrogate’ him. Which normally you wouldn’t imagine bearing much fruit, information-wise. But this guy shows a bit of lack of commitment to me. I think he might talk. Get the nipple electrodes ready, its time for a chat. How do you spell ‘water-boarding’?

Happy Saturday. Will fucking Leicester NEVER lose a fucking game???

A xxxx