Andy's Glasses

We went to see a quite amazing ‘thing’ last night. It was at the theatre. But it wasn’t a ‘show’. Nor a play. And it wasn’t a concert or recital. Nor a ‘reading’. Nor a football match. Definitely not one of them. I’d have recognised it immediately.

It was a ‘thing’. Called ‘the pianist of Willesden Green’.

When I first heard of this I thought they’d made a play about me mate, Dom. He’s from Willesden Green and as he’s always been a bit of a nob I thought they’d just made a small typo with the title.

But its not. Its the story of a 14 year-old girl, a piano prodigy, who left Vienna in 1938 on the Kindertransport, alone, and arrived in England. Its her story. Told by one woman. Who is herself an incredible pianist. So the entire telling is accompanied by Greig and Rachmaninov and Beethoven. Which sounds like the midfield of Dynamo Kiev but its not. All the music was totally relevant to the story. And all played wonderfully.

And it is very funny and very happy and very sad and very moving and, as the general consensus agreed at the end, leaves you speechless. Its on at the St James’ Theatre in Victoria if you’re interested. Short run only.

Ok, that’s done, great, fine, reviews, culture, penis-jokes, all boxes ticked; LET’S GET TO THE FOOTBALL.

Today is a day of history. A day so momentous that the Premier League, in all its vast 14 year history, has never before seen its like. For on this very day, Valentine’s Day, no less, there are to be the two pretty much biggest games of the season. In about 5 minutes Arsenal (3rd in the league) host Leicester (1st). Then at 4.15 Manchester City (4th) face Spurs (2nd). There’s every cliché to play for. Combined this will represent a game of four halves! And at the end of the day: night will fall. It does that. And with it will come a new league table. Unless both matches are drawn in which case it’ll look pretty much the same and Louis Van Gaal will think all his Christmases may have arrived together to give him the faintest glimmer of hope.

Here’s what I think we’ll happen: Arse 1 Leicester 1; M.City 1 Spurs 2.
And here’s what I hope will happen: Arse O Leicester 3; City 0 Spurs 9.

Because although arguably if Leicester lose Spurs will be better placed to win the league (especially after beating City 9-nil, for gawd’s sake), I can only ever wish for Arsenal to lose. Its nothing personal, its just… its just what it is.

(Let us pray it is a very-) Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Who was the biggest genius of all time? Me? Isaac Newton? Stephen Hawking? That taxi driver who won Mastermind? Leonardo da Vinci? Charles Darwin? Elvis?

Or Albert Einstein? ‘The Boss’, as I call him. Because quite frankly, where true ‘genius’ is concerned, pure ‘understanding’ of things that most even clever people barely understood to be actual ‘things’, Einstein is peerless. His record always spoke for itself. He scribbled out a few formulae in a coffee shop in Switzerland and re-invented Newton’s gravity for the post-industrial world. Ironed out the basic over-simplicities so that those laws became truly universal, rather than relating to mere worldly things like falling apples.

He then applied himself to relativity and explained something that no-one even knew existed.

In the following hundred years, during which they’ve invented all manner of massive computers, incredible telescopes, amazing measuring equipment (like the 15km particle accelerator at CERN), several thousand doctoral dissertations have set out to test the great man’s theories using all this new-fangled shit. And no-one has ever managed to disprove Einstein’s work. Produced on the back of a fag-packet in the Starbucks of its time. But without free wifi.

Only one of his theories remained untested. Because it was pretty much untestable. Gravitational waves. Ooooooooh. What are them? I have no idea. Nor a care. But they’ve finally found one and guess what? Einstein was right. Both in predicting their existence and in the way they’d work.

He just did the maths. You wanna test it? Go ahead. Make stuff to test it, see if I care.

So they did. They built a couple of perpendicular tunnels somewhere in America. Each 4kms long and containing amazingly precise lazar beams. So sensitive that they could detect a gravitational wave when it ‘hit’ the planet. And when I say ‘hit’, I’m not talking like an earthquake. Not like a Mike Tyson punch. They were looking for a movement in the beams of so many hundredths of a wavelength of light. If you think ‘the smallest thing I could ever imagine’, then divide that by about a million and you’re in the right ball-park.

Einstein 3; the entire technology and scientific knowledge of the entire humanity; nil.

There’s some other ball-parks that need considering this weekend. Less sort of ‘scientificky’ more kind of ‘footbally’. But more tomorrow.

Today was about a new discovery, or confirmation, so profound, so massive and all encompassing that we can almost re-write or correct the entire history of our universe right from the first second.

Tomorrow is much more important than that. Arsenal vs Leicester; Man City vs Spurs. Wow.

Happy, slightly nervous Saturday

A xxxx

On the BBC they gathered a group of 20 people, ‘common members of the public’, to discuss ‘Europe’. The exit. Or not. Ok, they were northerners, from Stafford or some such, but they didn’t seem overly dense or homeless or anything you’d normally expect. And at the end, these fairly intelligent people with interesting points to make, were asked to sum up ‘Europe’ and the whole ‘exit’ thing, with just one word. And about 6 of them held up the word ‘confused’.

And I thought ‘yeah’, I can buy that.

I read two newspapers every day. Ok, from the back pages forwards, granted, but I read all the non-sporting stuff too. I’m addicted to tv news. And I love politics and I find most things interesting (particularly diets, evolutionary anthropology and women in wet shirts). Yet I too have no idea whether leaving Europe, as we’ll be asked to decide in June, is a good thing or not.

There’s all the emotive rubbish spurted by those with agendas. ‘Control the borders’. Reclaim our sovereignty. Withhold benefits from immigrants. A united Europe prevents war. Facilitates trade. Increases our value to non-European business partners. Blah blah, fucking blah.

And I too am confused. Not just confused but unqualified to make such a monumental decision. Its not my job. That’s why we elect a government. To either make complicated decisions for us or to educate us sufficiently and impartially to enable us to have a referendum. This isn’t a simple thing, like Scottish independence, which we all want, but its Europe. Its complicated.

This whole fiasco started with the explosive rise of Nigel Farage in the run-up to the last election. He shouted that the only way forward for England was to close its gates, shut the doors, deport the useless, exterminate the needy and leave Europe with its stupid ‘human rights’ agenda and all that tolerance and niceness. We don’t need it. Rule Britannia. Land of Hope and Glory; altogether now…

So in his panic to match any election promise, by any party, however peripheral or irrelevant they may be, David Cameron played his euro-card. “I’ll give you an in/out referendum on Europe and YOU can decide!!!!”

But we’re not qualified. Nothing like.

‘Europe’ costs us 13 billion quid a year. We pay 9.6 million pounds a day to be part of the union. The value of membership to our trade is 30 zillion a month. Who fucking knows what any of this means. What will stop were we to leave, what would carry on. Would the price of a new Audi rise significantly? Will I be thrown out of the lift queue at Courchevel? For not being European? Or not being Russian?

So please, Mr Prime Minister, I think, with just 4 months left to go, that its time to start educating the masses. I’m even prepared to include myself in that group. Just for once.

We need to be told.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I think the best way to get your head around the current wave of pan-European protests about football ticket prices is to first view the phenomenon of ‘the Testimonial Match’. To put things in their correct perspective.

This is what happened; back in the day.

Kids would leave school at 14, they were grubby, grimy, smoked like chimneys and fairly dim. They would either go to work down the pit, for £1, 2s and 3d a week, or, if they were so inclined, they’d go and play for Liverpool, for £1, 2s and 9d a week. That was sixpence more every bloody week!!!. I’ll take it; where do I sign.

And these would be Billys and Bobbys and Nobbys Alfies and Johnnys. We’re a long way off from having a Yaya or a Mousa or a Wolfgang in the top flight of football. Long way off.

After 20 years of physical abuse on knees, groins and hamstrings, they’d ‘retire’. Ah, but I’m only 32. I’m uneducated, half-crippled, no work experience, never, and I can’t even speak proper. Wharr’am I gonna do???? At least for the next 14 years when the resultant concussions from 2 decades of heading a 15 kilo ball made of concrete takes its toll and renders me either completely stupid or completely dead? Wharr’am I gonna do?? Ain’t got no money.

Ahhh, we’ll give you a ‘testimonial’, say the clubs. We’ll play an exhibition match and all the fans will turn up to wave you goodbye AND you get to keep the entire game receipts as a little nest-egg. Now how does that sound, Billy/Nobby/Jimmy???

And thus they’d raise £22,462.94, which would represent the player’s entire retirement fund. But it was enough to buy a pub. Which was all they ever wanted to do. Job done. It was basically ‘a whip round’ by the fans to give something to the retiring player.

Someone was telling me how, a few years back, some magnanimous Premiership superstar donated his ‘testimonial money’, about 500 grand, ‘to charity’. Ahhhhh, what a mensch. No, what a disgustingly overpaid no-goodnik who sees half a mil as ‘pocket change’ and a tax liability. And furthermore, the concept of a ‘whip round’ to benefit someone who earns (in their playing days) 400 times per year what the average man on the street does, is somewhat anachronistic. To say the least.

And that, basically, is the nature of the problem. Clubs pay such outrageous salaries to players and its funded by people earning less than a tenth in a year what the players do in a week.

So Liverpool are putting up the price of some tickets to 77 quid, so they all walked out of Saturday’s game on the 77th minute. If they’d have had the sense to convert the money to Euros they could have stayed til the 98th minute and enjoyed their side conceding the late goal which robbed them of a win. The American fans at the Superbowl didn’t all walk out in the 14,000th minute in protest at their outrageous ticket pricing. But they’re Yanks so they don’t count.

Crystal Palace fans are bemoaning the same thing. Increased ticket prices; decreased enjoyment. Dusseldorf fans too. And Germans pay about 20 quid to see a Bundesliga match.

The fans fund the players. Excessively and ridiculously. Wayne Rooney earns more than Rooney Mara. More than Jennifer Lawrence. They should have become football players when they had the chance.

Cap player salaries. Its the only way. THEY EARN ENOUGH, FOR GOD’S SAKE.

Happy Wednesday

A xxx

Gwyneth Paltrow has been stalked for 17 years. The man wanted to marry her, also to kill her, blow her up, cleanse her of sin. He bought her clothes, earrings and stuff.

Oh, that’s not a stalker, Gwynnie, that’s called ‘a husband’. They love ya, they hate ya; its all part of the game (the game called ‘love’, as the song goes).

Yet this man did something no husband would ever be so brave, stupid or suicidal to do. He bought her a Weight Watchers cookbook. Holy shit. And buying her a diet book is a bit like buying Jihadi John a copy of ‘the joys of murder’. She knows how to diet. She’s invented more ridiculous eating crazes than anyone else alive. Though to be fair, most of the others are no longer alive due to either malnutrition or kale-extract overdoses. ‘Death by Slime’ will be the title of Gwynnie’s biography.

But meanwhile, she’s in court, trying to ‘consciously uncouple’ from the stalker of 17 years. That’s a long stalk. By a 66-year old man. Who is a ‘Christian’. The capital ‘c’ meaning not that he’s merely a Hindu, or a Jew or a Muslim, but that he actually is someone who buys into all that Jesus shit. Though obviously not to the point where he has any concept of decent behaviour or morality. Maybe he’d been a priest? They didn’t say.

I’d hate to be stalked. Though might allow La Paltrow to stalk me for a while.

Meanwhile Spurs are STILL second in the league. Just. But an inch is as good as a mile, ask my friends at www.extend-your-penis.com. And this weekend it could all change again. We could consciously uncouple from Arsenal. Its amazing. Leicester play at Arsenal on Saturday (for the runners’ up prize) whilst Spurs take their awesome away form to Manchester City. Top four teams; 2 games. Let’s hope there’s only one winner. And that they’re wearing navy blue and white with cockerels on.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT ON YOUR COMPUTER???” “OPEN THIS DOOR!!!”

“I’m just looking at porn, honest”.

“SHOW ME YOUR SCREEN NOW!!!”

“Look, I told you, its just lesbian anal threesomes with baseball bats and engine oil”

“WHAT’S ON THAT OTHER SCREEN; THAT ONE THERE!!!”

“Its nuffink; Kazakhstani choir boys with Catholic priests and donkeys, honest!”

“ITS NOT!!! YOU’RE LOOKING AT THE LEAGUE TABLE AGAIN, AREN’T YOU!!!!”

Spurs are second in the league. First is Leicester, second is Spurs. Tottenham Hotspurs. 2nd. In the league. The Premiership. Arsenal could overtake us today, but they’d have to win 17 nil at Bournemouth to do so.

But you know what? Even in this most glorious of times for MY team, I have to just take a moment for Leicester City. The team that so nearly weren’t even in the league this season as they so narrowly avoided the relegation that so many thought inevitable. Leicester, before the season started, were 5000-1 odds to win the league. Longer odds than given to any other team.

Their season looked so precarious that they dared not buy any players. Sensible. So they started the year with a team that cost, collectively, £22.5 million. And that’s the team they still have. That’s approximately Gareth Bale’s right leg. Not his left one; that’d cost you 48 mil. Its Raheem Stirling, but only from the waist up. And he’s not really fit to wipe Riyad Mahrez’s (400,000 quid, if you can believe) nose.

And this humble Leicester side went to the mighty Etihad Stadium to play 250 million quid’s worth of Manchester City superstars. The club where money is never, ever any kind of problem. They buy players like others buy a Starbucks coffee. Just because they fancy. Their books never balance, their bankroll limited only by the oil supply in the Emirates and they represent pretty much everything that is wrong, horrible, immoral and vile about the modern game.

But Leicester won. Didn’t just win, they thrashed Man City. Which was wonderful for Leicester and wonderful for Spurs. Whose win against Watford put us above the Mancs.

Second in the league. Pinch me again, but pinch me harder.

Obscenely happy Sunday

A xxxx

A few years back a parcel arrived at home for me. Addressed to me; my name, my address. Ooooohhh, I thought, must be my birthday!!! Even though it was in November and my birthday’s in June. So I opened ‘my’ package and in it was delighted to find half a dozen puke yellow polo shirts, size: ‘child small’. Wow! Just what I wanted!!! How could they know??? So rather upset, cos I really wanted the James Bond Dinky car, I phoned the mail order company whose name was on the invoice. To tell them a mistake had been made. I had never ordered, blah, blah, blah.

And was told: ‘ah, actually, that’s part of a fraud operation’. Holy shit. Jail time.

The way it works is that someone sets up a mail order account at an address that won’t flag up the credit police and orders something cheap and fairly worthless, like 6 puke yellow kid’s shirts, and the invoice is processed. But before payment is due, the dastardly fraudsters phone again and order 12 plasma tvs, 96 inch, and, er, can you send them to a different address please? Of course Sir, where would you like them? Because the fraudster’s account looks clean and fine and the computer says ‘yes’.

They put me, ‘free of charge’ on some register or other which would double check every transaction in my name from then on. Like the sex offenders register for people with higher credit ratings.

A few years later I received a call from t-mobile, my phone bastards. Well, they’re all bastards, mobile phone types. “Did you order the latest, state-of-the-art, all bells and whistles, £1200 Subaru Super-phone?” Doh. “Ah, we thought not, because normally you’re a cheap bastard who only wants free upgrades to a 4 year-old Nokia”. “But someone ordered it in your name and requested a different delivery address.” Fraud. More fraud. Andy fraud. “They even knew your password!!” I don’t have a password. “Oh, there’s one on the account, they must have set it up. Its ‘Manchester'”.

Manchester!!!! What is the fucking chance of that being my password? I hate Manchester. Hate the city, hate the people, really hate the football teams. Manchester; not on my watch.

Yesterday I came home to find a bank statement from the Royal Bank of Scotland. With whom I have never banked. In the name of ‘Mr Mike A Agha’. At my address. Where I’ve lived for 27 years. Where before that Mr & Mrs Block lived for 40 years. The account was opened with 100 quid on the 25th of January, and closed the same day.

So we phoned the bank; cos you can’t open an account without proof of address, and there’s no way Mike A Agha could have that. Mainly because I’d have seen him around. Even I’d have noticed a potential fraudster making a cup of tea with my kettle. Surely. But the bank simply didn’t give a shit. They don’t care.

But its not a mistake, not a typo, a clerical error or a computer glitch. Its fraud of some sort. It always is.

Where is Mike?

Happy Frauday

A xxxx

I have a cold. A stinking, rotten, bacteriarised, virus-laden, snotty, bunged-up fucking cold.

A man-cold.

Women don’t get them. They have no idea quite how severe such a condition is. Man-colds are medically proven to be very severe, incredibly life-threatening and rather miserable. But they only affect men. Clinically tested. The only functions that remain for the victim are those that enable the drinking of tea that someone else has made and the operation of a remote control device. And moaning. Lots of moaning.

Its not the dreaded ‘man-flu’, the world’s most horrendous of untreatable diseases, because I have no high temperature. Praise be to Jesus. But I shall refrain from Tai Chi tonight on the grounds that: a. I feel like shit and haven’t slept for two nights; and b. its unfair to share germs. Sharing biscuits is good, germs is bad. And I’d hate to infect one of my co-warriors with a nasty cold as I’m breaking their arm. Wouldn’t be nice. Unfriendly. And we only ever break each others bones in a friendly way. Its one of the rules.

But it could be worse (apparently); I could be in America. Where a vast majority of people interviewed are ‘angry’. With what? Do they have a man-cold epidemic over there? Presumably they interviewed women too? No, these are just plain ‘angry’. With the economy, with immigration and with Washington. Not the city, that’s very pretty, but with the people who make it famous; the government. Over 80% of Republicans don’t trust their government and over 70% of Democrats. Probably nothing to do with the more trusting nature of the latter, more that they have a Democrat president so it wouldn’t do too well to show too much distrust of your own party.

Fortunately for them all, there’s an election coming up in November. A ‘new broom’ will be employed to help Obama move all his golf clubs out of the White House and a new person will be installed. So this year becomes like an 11-month Superbowl build-up. The Iowa Caucuses this week gave Hilary Clinton a tiny lead over Bernie Sanders for the Democrat nomination. Bernie is 94 years old (well, he looks it) yet took over 85% of the under-30 vote from Hilary Clinton, who only gained votes from old people. Many of whom may even die between now and November.

And Donald Trump lost the Republican vote to Ted Cruz. A man who is barely an American. He is a Canadian. From Canadia.

So who will win the election? The comb-over xenophobic misogynist? The foreigner? The cuckolded ex-1st lady? Or the ‘socialist’ Corbynesque old man? (and remember, ‘socialist’ in America is about 3 feet to the right of Maggie Thatcher).

Watch this space. Or watch yer own space; this one’s full of germs.

Miserable Thursday

A xxxx

Every few years events happen that are massive. That are memorable. That are simply out of the ordinary.

A total eclipse. A pod of whales swimming down the Thames. Meteorite storms. The Queen turns 120.

Or Spurs find themselves ahead of Arsenal in the league. After August.

Such an event occurred last night. Astronomers are baffled by this. But not so football fans. Who await such moments which are, to people like me, oxygen to a drowning man. The stuff that makes life worthwhile. That reaffirms our faith in… in God. Who is also a Spurs fan. Even though we may not choose to believe in him for the 973 days out of 975 when we aren’t above the Arse.

Spurs have gone 11 away games without a defeat. We have the best goal difference in the league. The best defensive stats in the league (when does that happen???) We’re playing (all of us; especially me, even though I was at Tai Chi) with conviction. With confidence. With belief. Belief in the manager, in the system, in team-mates.

Ok, our home form is not as great, but it ain’t bad. And if we can beat Watford on Saturday then all will be right in the world once more.

The problem will be when we lose a game. My expectations and hopes are now so high, so lofty, so grand, that one loss will shatter the very fabric of my world. But these are the chances we take when we (stupidly) align our emotional wellbeing to something as capricious as a football team. Let alone my football team.

Leicester are still top. The dream continues for the Crisps (as I’m going to call them) with a goal that may have taken ‘goal of the season’ from Dele Alli’s wondergoal the other week, scored by Jamie Vardy last night against Liverpool. Who still can’t find form. Which is good news for Spurs. We don’t want Liverpool finding their form. Nor Manchester United but they actually managed to win last night and score an almost record for the season, 3 goals!!!

Arsenal failed to score against Southampton. Wenger immediately attacked the referee for his team’s inability to find the net. If you have 21 shots on goal and fail to score, its hardly the ref’s fault, as the Southampton manager pointed out.

Villa are doomed, like that was ever in doubt, West Ham are flattered by being in 6th place and Manchester City just about hung on to win at Sunderland, watching Sergio Aguero limp off in the process.

So today, as I look (again, and again, and again…) at the league table, I’m in a dream. Even with my stinking man-cold that I’m bravely fighting with every corpuscle in my corpuscle place.

Pinch me. So I know its real.

Exceedingly happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Ever read any Harlen Coban? American writer. Thrillers. Well, he writes really cool, twisty, never-guess-the-who/what/why books, like Tell No-one, which was made into a French film many years ago, and he writes the Myron Bolitar series (his world is just full of bizarrely named people) about a detective, albeit a rather unusual one.

I’ve read them all. And currently I’m reading ‘The Stranger’. Oooooohhhhh, sounds steeped in mystery and other such stuff.

Without wishing to spoil this for you (as if you can read!) the ‘stranger’ in question is a baddy. You kind’a get that right off, even though he’s nice and smiley. But its what he does that makes him both bad and strange. Because he knows ‘stuff’ about you/your family. Secret stuff. Intimate stuff.

Now I’m a big fan of Stephen King and his books are filled with people who ‘know stuff’. They just know it because; they’re some kind of supernatural; they’re in touch with the dead (who presumably get to read different newspapers than the living; more intimate content ones); they’re visionaries, they’re people who see your entire life with one touch of the hand (Dead Zone); they were drawn to the knowledge by forces outside their control.

Because in the 60s and 70s, when Mr King started his life’s works, if you knew something that you really had no right knowing; you were some kind of fucking freak. There was no other way.

So that was where my head was at when I started the book. Ah, Harlen’s gone all Stephen King and introduced a clairvoyant of some type who uses his ‘gift’ for naughty purposes.

Yet it transpires (again; this should not spoil the book in any way, should you choose to read it and if it does, then ‘sorry’) that he has no supernatural powers. He can’t even leap tall buildings or race speeding trains. He’s a nerd. A geek.

The Stranger is some kind of hacker.

So what 40 years ago required a direct connection with God/the Devil, today just needs BT Infinity and a smart-phone. How the world changes.

Pep Guardiola moving to Manchester City (what a surprise!!! amazing!!! who knew???) for a paltry 15 million a year plus all the midfielders he can eat. And the club have promised him ‘several significant signings’ so he can Pep up the team a bit. In every respect. So they’ll spend a few more hundred mil on players (they want Pogba; that’ll be cheap) and the salaries that go with them.

Two questions:

1. who said ‘you can’t buy trophies’?
2. what happened to the Financial Fair Play fiasco?? And could you explain it firstly to me, then to the owners of Manchester City.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx