Andy's Glasses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sad Monday

A xxxx

don’t know when I’ll be back again…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a gay day

A xxxx

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

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

I love London.

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

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

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

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

Happy Match Day

A xxxx

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

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

That’s what they’d have you believe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Friday

A xxxx

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy tournaments

A xxxx

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

This is no time for fence sitting. You’ll only get splinters in your bum. This is a time for Europe. And our future within it. Or without it. In politics as well as football. And decisions have to be made.

This picture is of sweet blond, Eva Van Housen. She sits on no fences. EVER!! She probably eats broken glass.

But she demonstrates quite nicely, one part of the political spectrum. Which many believe is not a linear affair with ‘right wing’ at one end and ‘left’ at t’other, but more a circle. Because that circle meets when you go just a touch to right of Nigel Farage or the left of Jeremy Corbyn. The place where Hitler meets Stalin and all is equal. Such extreme totalitarianism, however its marketed, is the same. Is Kim Jong Un a fascist or a communist? Makes no difference whatsoever to the starving masses of North Korea living in absolute repression.

Then Eva comes along and in fact starts to straighten that line once more. Because if you go all the way to the right, to the English Defence League, the Ku Klux Klan, Donald Trump and all manner of neo-nazis, if you then go just a touch further you reach the place where brain cells are replaced by tattoos. And that’s where Eva lives. The place where they have, to quote the Mail on Sunday: ‘a swastika on her breast’. Though you’re not supposed to be looking there when you talk to her.

How unusual, implied the Mail, that someone with such political views should also be an active member of the ‘vote leave’ campaign. I mean; who’d’a thought? That an ultra-nationalist should want our lonely little Isle to be freed from foreign input, foreign interference, foreigners comin’ over ‘ere, takin’ our farkin’ jobs, eatin’ our farkin’ babies, bein’ sick in our farkin’ ‘ospital beds.

But being the Mail, it has to be way more insidious than just that. ‘Look who is on Boris’ team’ the headlines shriek. All manner of neo-nazi vermin are handing out the official ‘Brexit’ leaflets.

And thus by Mail style implication of reciprocity, Boris must therefore be ‘one a them’. There are supporters of Spurs who are nasty, violent, bad people. That doesn’t make the team bad. Whereas at Chelsea, oddly, it really does.

Nigel Farage then today opined (and he has many things to opine, does Nigel) that staying in Europe will increase the number of sexual assaults on women by migrants. Which, presumably, is grossly unfair on proper, English sexual assaulters who won’t get their fair share.

The whole debate is now ruled by total tossers. Both in and out. It just becomes a question of who is the best, or worst, among them.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I’ve heard of the ‘naughty step’ where errant children are forced so sulk whilst contemplating the errors of their ways. That its not acceptable to show your hatred of broccoli by dumping it into grandma Gina’s lap. That the cat’s tail is attached permanently and should not be removed so it can be wrapped around a dolly. Other kids get sent to their rooms ‘to teach them right from wrong’. Mainly because we can no longer thump children round the head with broom handles. Iss illegal. So we have to be more subtle; more gentle in our punitive measures.

Different in Japan. Tough love. Sorry, Son, ya gotta learn the hard way. So even though you’re only 7, I’m gonna kick you out of the car, alone, in the middle of a fucking forest that’s filled with bears and probably a few snakes, jagged bushes, thorns, big holes to twist ankles, cos you gotta learn how to behave. Bye.

Its the Samurai way. Its the warrior way. He had to learn.

6 days later little Yamoto Tanooka had learned enough and the military found him. In surprisingly good health.

Ok, his dad meant to go back for him, but by that time he was lost in the wilderness of Hokkaido island. And I feel sorry for the dad. The kid not only got over it, but will forever be a hero. He’s fine. But dad?? Fuck me; what kind of parenting is that? But give him a break. His remorse will live with him always.

Mohammed Ali died today. According to the radio today, he was the greatest man of all time. Anywhere, ever.

And in many ways, for a guy famous for hitting people very hard and causing injury, he may well be just that.

I hate boxing. Bores me. Never seen the point. Don’t watch it. But I did. Only for Ali fights. Everybody did. Because he was brilliantly clever, wondrously witty and beautiful to look at. Other than that he didn’t have a lot going for him. He invented ‘sporting hype’ single-handedly. Or single-mouthingly. He was gobby. Wonderfully so. He was a poet, a civil rights activist, comedian and probably the best heavyweight boxer ever.

For once the endless eulogising is worthwhile.

Rest in peace

A xxxx

England played last night. Another, and the last, warm-up for the Euros, starting soon in a French country very near you.

I missed it. Thank God. I hate friendlies, even when England have become basically ‘Spurs with lions on’. And this friendly was so limp that Portugal’s only real player never even bothered to show up. He was busy hardening up his 6-pack for the next underpant advert, oiling his torso, bronzing his bits, gelling his hair, doing whatever preening poseurs do in their time off. Even preening poseurs who score 60 goals a year.

The great Christiano Ronaldo missed the game. And so did I. I was doing none of the above. I went to tai chi to ‘internally massage’ my muscles. And learn how easy it is to break a thumb. Someone else’s. You wouldn’t wanna break your own, tai chi doesn’t do suicide missions.

But I heard about Hodgson’s Howler on the way home in the car. How he played the Kane and Vardy out of position. Well, why not. We’re brilliant. We’re England. Let’s take our two most potent strikers and play them on the wings. That’ll show ’em.

I’m not sure what, exactly, it was supposed to show, but apparently it didn’t work. A failed experiment. Which is fine, that’s what friendlies are for. Experimenting.

But this was the last friendly. This is the ‘one you take with you’ to the tournament. The previous game. We played Portugal devoid of its talismanic superstar and managed to just about beat their 10 remaining men 1-0 with a goal scored by a centre-back in the last 5 minutes. Though all goals count, it must be remembered.

We should have thrashed them. 6-0. Even 3-0. There’s a time for tinkering and a time for consolidating. It wasn’t like he was blooding new players; he played what is, effectively, the A team, but played them in different positions.

However, the Euros start in 10 days time and I feel quite optimistic. Spain aren’t what they were. France always have political issues in the dressing room, however good their players might be. Belgium aren’t quite the real deal yet, despite producing about half of the best players in every top European league, and Germany…

Always an issue, them Germans. Maybe they’ll get some injuries.

Ok, 10 more days to go. I can cope. Its better than the usual 3 months.

Come on England

A xxxx