Andy's Glasses

So we’re bombing in Syria. Despite my misgivings, Cameron won the day and the bombing’s started. Good. I said my bit, but I’m not unhappy with the eventual outcome because as long as they realise that bombing alone will achieve very little and lots of other avenues have to be taken as well, then what harm can a few bombs do? Oh, lots, yeah, forgot that. Corbyn reminded me. There ya go.

But now ISIS have moved into Afghanistan. How is that even possible? England and America couldn’t defeat the Taliban but ISIS just push them aside. Though, obviously, we’d kind’a softened them up quite a bit. And they’re crumbling into Islamist disarray. There’s a new government there, installed under our protection, but everyone ignores them anyway.

So ISIS move into Eastern Afghanistan, on the Pakistani border. having taken over the local group there, Wilyat Khurasan. I would say ‘in a bloodless coup’ but it probably wasn’t. So let’s call it a ‘merger’ between like-mindeds. And now ISIS are recruiting. With their patented technique of: either join us or we’ll hack your fucking head off with a potato-peeler; then start on your family.

Never mind, we’re bombing them. Ok, not necessarily over there, but in other places.

Then I saw the map. The map of (most of the) world, showing where ISIS either recruit or cause acts of mindless violence and horror. And if you imagine the world as, say, 100%, then ISIS only have influence in about 30% of it. Which is ok until you realise that 60% of the planet is water and ISIS don’t swim. Though apparently they do drown quite nicely if you add a little concrete.

You are completely safe in a small unpronounceable town in North-West Scotland. As you would be on a raft off the coast of Papua New Guinea. 57 miles south west of Slovenia also claims an area of 227 square yards where ISIS have no influence whatsoever. Not yet, anyway. The rest of the world is slowly becoming engulfed in the rot that is ‘the so-called Islamic State’.

Where do they get their money? A lot of money. Billions of monies. And when you wanna catch baddies, ya follow the money. Cut that off and its a different battle.

Good luck with that.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

My old neighbour, Ian, (now moved out to ‘the country’ for some peace and quiet from horrible neighbours) retired early from his City bank job, as they do, and decided to take a masters degree. In football. Ok, not football, exactly, but he was working (and possibly still may be) on a theory suggesting that the better the footballer the greater his intelligence. I told him to expect a serious negative correlation. That the better the man is at football, the more stupid, uneducated and dim he’ll probably be. Based on the Rooney Study, Conway et al, 2014.

Yet this week a premier league player (well Sunderland are just about still in the Premier league, if he fails and needs resits we may have to change that) will graduate with a first class degree in Economics and Business Management from Newcastle University. And that is rare. Its like finding a monk who can break-dance; a government minister who rides bulls in the rodeo; a ballet-dancing tree-surgeon; a UKIP candidate who can read.

Duncan Watmore comes from a clever family, yet is great at football. So after being rejected at 12 years old by Manchester United’s youth academy, he returned to education and played his football at amateur level. But like many Man U rejects before him; Paul Pogba, Kevin de Bruyne, he was a talented individual, but just peaked a little later. Kids are taken into the system when they’re about 8 and turfed out when/if the clubs find any kind of insufficiency. Its fucking brutal. Yet every kid wants to play premiership football; 100 grand a week, all the Lamborghinis you can eat, all the tattoos you can fit down one arm, all the groupies you can gang rape; what’s not to like???

But they strive for that in lieu of an education. You can’t have both. You don’t have time for both. And if you’re one of the very lucky, very top-of-the-tree few, you can make your first team debut at 16/17/18. Like Rooney and many others. And the dream has been reached.

So football is full of uneducated dimwits spoilt rotten by the massive rewards they gain. Education is the anti-culture in football. Its a joke. A slur. An insult. Grounds for taking the piss.

Graeme Le Saux, former Chelsea and Blackburn defender, spent his whole career ridiculed because he chose to read a broadsheet newspaper, rather than a titty-filled comic like his teammates. They called him ‘The Poof’. Not because he was gay, which he wasn’t, but because he was educated to some minor degree, spoke relatively nicely and took an interest in the world beyond diamond ear studs and video games.

The Americans breed their sportspeople in their colleges. It forces them, if not to get an education worthy of the name, at least to play their sport in a vaguely educational environment. But College Football, for instance, is massive. As big as NFL. So the young adults go to College, where they play and train all day and they get a Ferrari each, three houses and $4 million a year. Even though they’re strictly ‘amateur’. Its a ‘scholarship’.

Wouldn’t it be just lovely if now and again they could interview a footballer after the match and he could actually speak. Like he knew something. In an informed manner. Proper sentences.

But at the end’a the day, issa game, innit, iss’all abart the winnin’. Free points is free points.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

What you’re looking at here is a miracle of modern times. Its no burning bush. Not even a burning car. Thank God, cos that’s Mel’s car. But miracle it is.

Because last night we went to see Carol. Ahhhh, Carol. Oh Carol. It was at the Everyman in Hampstead. Which is the illuminated building behind the car. The one with ‘hunger games’ just about visible.

We go to the Everyman quite a bit. Have done for years. And we drive into Hampstead and park. Usually half a mile away and trudge back up the hill. Because parking in Hampstead village is impossible. Daytime is bad, night is worse. So many restaurants. So many people, so many fucking cars. Yet last night as we arrived, 10 minutes early to allow for a good hike, a car pulled away leaving… The Holy Grail. The best parking space in the world. Tears sprang from my eyes. It was emotional.

First World problems.

Unfortunately the film didn’t really live up to the parking space. Its a lovely film. Its an exceptionally beautiful film. The acting is fabulous. The clothes and sets and cars from 1950s New York are just wonderful. But its sloooooooooooow. Really slow.

Not that I was in any rush. I had the best parking space money can’t buy, was seated on a lovely red sofa with my first wife, sipping my latte, I had not a care in the world. I was ready to be entertained. And I was. A bit. Just not enough.

Its a lesbian love story. Set in a time when such activity was rather frowned upon and deemed amoral. The Carol in question was married and fell for a shop-girl, played by Rooney Mara. Who is at times exquisite, elfin, delicate, Hepburnesque. Whereas Cate Blanchett looked like her mum. Albeit a fantastically dressed mum.

I’ve had a couple of lesbian relationships myself in my time. Well, I’ve been on a couple of lesbian porn sites, which is the same thing, surely? They weren’t as slow moving as this. Nothing like.

Not sure Carol lives up to all the massive hype really. But stunning to watch. For a bit.

Came home, turned on the 24 hour news channels and they were all reporting ‘live from California’. The latest shoot up in San Bernadino. Great news reporting. Helicopter film of a shot-out SUV (the ‘perp’s’) in a car park. With the newscaster telling us all the things they didn’t yet know. “We don’t know how many killed yet”. “We don’t know if the police have shot the perpetrator”. “Or perpetrators”. “We don’t know how many shooters there were”. All this for about 20 minutes.

Message to 24 hour news channels with all the time in the world and not much to fill it: COME BACK LATER. MOVE TO SOMETHING ELSE.

It made Carol seem fast-paced.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Much as it grieves me to ever agree with Jeremy Corbyn, I don’t think we should bomb Syria. Make mine a ‘non’ vote. Not that I get a vote.

Let me make perfectly clear (a political expression meaning ‘you won’t understand any of this’) my position. In case it impacts today’s crucial vote on the proposed air-strike action.

Firstly: I hate ISIS. Ok, that’s a given.
Secondly: I hate Jeremy Corbyn. But I’m not agreeing with his reasons, just the outcome.

Corbyn wants us to ‘have talks’. With whom? ISIS? Asad?? One of the many factions of anti-government Islamists who aren’t (at the moment) affiliated with ISIS? Maybe with Putin. That’ll be interesting. As Russia has its own agenda completely out there.

So whilst I’m generally ‘a lover, not a fighter’, I’m really not opposed to war, to bombings, to all manner of force, defence of principles, nuclear deterrents and martial arts. I just think you have to pick your battles.

You cannot destroy ISIS. Something that for some reason Obama, Cameron and the other nations and combined 22,752 expert advisers don’t seem to comprehend. Its an ideology, not a ‘thing’. And if you did manage to kill every single member of that hateful organisation, another would immediately spring out of the ground to replace it. ISIS is merely the end point of a sick and distorted philosophy, armed with religious fervour and which feeds on vengeance and victim status. It exists to exact revenge. Bombing will make the philosophy grow, it will not diminish it. The creation of thousands more ‘martyrs’ would make them stronger. They have no fear of death. Radical Islamists revere death and happily sacrifice themselves, their children, anyone, for ‘the cause’. That’s just one measure of how fucked up they are. They love to be persecuted.

And you can’t persecute much more than 20,000 bombs. That would be the best recruiting device ISIS could ever dream of. You can’t apply our logic that ‘life is sacred’ and ‘give up or everyone dies’ thinking it will get results. It won’t. Not the results we want anyway.

The result will be revenge. In London. Paris. Washington. Berlin. Who knows.

But I don’t fear that. I just think it shows the futility of the intended action and the lack of understanding by us and our allies, who really, we have no choice but to support. Even though we’re all stupid in doing so and inviting horrors to be enacted upon us.

And if the bombing is successful, then what? Asad is a bad man. Putin is armed up, in the neighbourhood and keen to defend the man. The ‘rebel militia’ in Syria who aren’t ISIS are simply a different type of terrorist. Mainly because they’re Shia, rather than Sunni. So you get rid of ISIS and Hezbollah take over. Great plan.

We don’t understand Syria. Which is why we’re now bombing to effectively protect the man we wanted to bomb ourselves 2 years ago.

Every other middle eastern action has ended disastrously. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. Awful. Create a vacuum for extremists to fill. You can’t impose democracy on people who have no understanding of it nor desire for it. Its a philosophy as alien to middle easterners as suicide bombing is to westerners.

Its a lose-lose situation, whichever way you look at it. So I’m voting an emphatic ‘non!!’ thank you very much.

Happy Black Wednesday (well we have black everything else, why not??)

A xxxx

150 world leaders gathered in Paris yesterday for the first totally all-world global warming conference. I wasn’t invited. Bit annoying really, as I’ve reduced my carbon footprint to a size 2 and don’t burn any coal whatsoever.

But conference they did. If ‘conference’ can be a verb. Probably is in America. Like ‘golf’.

So the first thing to note was that someone inevitably calculated the carbon cost of getting the 150 most important people in the world together for the day. And its big. Hundreds of private or personal jets, thousands of big, bulky, bullet-proofed limousines chugging out their diesel fumes between airport and meeting. They’d have been better off on video link. The planet would be better off.

Global warming is a ‘thing’. Its a fact. Its a problem. But most of all, its a cause.

And a cause that has to be addressed at a national level. Because we can turn off the central heating for an hour each night to ‘do our bit’ but all you end up with is a wife with freezing cold hands moaning at your concerns for the future of polar bears. You can change your car to a Prius and adopt a suitably smug attitude, but in reality, carbon emissions on a personal level are totally negligible. The major sources of carbon are industry, air travel and taxis.

However, there has actually never been a satisfactory link established between carbon emissions and global warming. Lots of scares, lots of scientific papers, but no causal link.

There are schools in several London boroughs where the pollution is terrible. Above the acceptable limit set by some boffin or other. So our kids are being polluted, which is horrible. But that is a different problem to ‘global warming’. Its localised. The assumption being that local pollution will lead to the polar ice caps melting. But it doesn’t. It just leads to kids getting coughs and colds. And thus is a bad thing. But a different bad thing.

China has the worst pollution in the world. It hangs over their cities day and night like fog. So they are now doing things the Chinese way and building solar ‘farms’ the size of small counties to produce some of the electricity that would formerly be made by fossil fuel. But only some.

India on the other hand have three quarters of their population living without electricity. Not in protest, but because they’ve never had it. And they want it. They just sit there at night watching a blank tv screen. But to produce the electricity they burn coal. Which they have in such abundance that its cheap. Much, much cheaper than any alternative. And the worst thing of all for carbon emissions and pollution.

I don’t know what the answer is. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t invite me. I’m not even sure what the question is any longer.

But whatever: IT MUST STOP. NOW!!! (but what?)

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Not mine. I wasn’t fatigued. My team were. Spurs. Knackered. Shattered. Exhausted after their ‘quick’ trip to Azerbaijan for Thursday night’s game. Its a fact. Proven statistically. And statistics never lie. Except when they do. Which is often. But that’s mainly when they’re produced by some government agency or other. When produced by Carling Opta, the people who measure every step, run, pass, slip, shot and fart, they’re right on the money.

And according to them, the Spurs team yesterday collectively ran a total of 108km. That’s a lot. A 10k run for every outfield player whilst the goalie runs round and round his area for 8. Something like that. But in games that haven’t followed the Thursday night Europa games, Spurs have run over 120km. That’s 10% more, and some. 10% more energy, 10% more effort, 70% more goals. Ok, I made up the goals bit, because we didn’t score one yesterday so even 1 goal would be an improvement of (literally and mathematically) infinite proportions.

Sadly, you don’t get more points for excuses, even if they’re validated statistically. So we just got the one point for our nil-nil draw against Chelsea.

Is that a good result? Would have been great last year, when Chelsea were ‘unbeatable’. Yet, oddly, that was when we beat them 5-3. I remember it vividly. The best day of my life. On the grounds that the birth of children is an inherently messy, slimy affair with lots of swearing and abuse.

Still, we kept a clean sheet, unlike childbirth. Morinho, the greatest hypocrite when it comes to accusations of bus parking, played with caution and consideration. As should any manager of a ‘lower half team’. So arguably 0-0 was an even better result for them.

I missed the game completely. 12 o’cock kick off? We were lunching to celebrate my dad’s 91st birthday (the grand old man seen here with his elder granddaughter).

So I returned in time to see the second half of the Arsenal match. Alexis Sanchez had already limped off, Koscielny had gone too and Norwich were really fantastic. Delia must have been proud.

So the weekend was ‘the dream’ for Manchester City. They won, everyone else (who matter) merely drew. Liverpool are in fact starting to matter, though they don’t do their mattering in a very convincing manner.

Amazing game at Bournemouth with the seeming winner scored in the 95th minute by Everton, only to be equalised in the 98th minute by the home team.

13 games undefeated. The pressure’s on, the heat’s turned up, and I’m only hoping my own fitness is sufficient to see out the season properly.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

There’s just no point avoiding it any more. Christmas is rapidly approaching. Which I know because:

the ads on tv that you can’t fast-forward to escape are all about Christmas.
there are lights in all the big streets of London
you can’t drive anywhere near any kind of shopping centre or mall because there are queues of monumental proportions jamming up the roads
we’ve just had ‘black Friday’. Black because if you love shopping as much as I do, that single day represents THE END OF THE FUCKING WORLD. As far as shopping goes. Even online is too busy on that day, so I’ll pass.

And also, we go away in 3 weeks, 4 days, so Christmas must be near.

The good thing about Christmas is that its one of the few times a year when they bring out good movies. You wait months and months and suddenly there are loads you want to see. We’re going to see Carol on Wednesday. Its not fast paced, its a love story. Set in the 50s. And its a lesbian love story. Not like Blue is the Warmest Colour, which was more lesbian hardcore porn, this one is soft, tasteful, sweet, moving, nice. But I’ll let you know. And I have no issues with lesbian hardcore porn but it does have a shock value.

There’s also loads of good stuff on tv. As well as football. (Which is not really an exclusively Christmas thing; more of a constant in our blessed lives).

And its odd how we choose our tv series. None but the terminally dull can watch them all. And of those only the ‘barely alive’ then watch even more on box sets.

So I missed all of Breaking Bad, I shunned The West Wing, ignored House of Cards and instead selected Homeland and Fargo. Homeland because the first series was set on a brilliant premise, of a POW from Iraq returning after 10 years imprisonment to the States. And has he been ‘turned’? Great idea. They killed him off at the end of series 1 and in fact its become better since. Series 3; wonderful.

And Fargo. The best movie ever… made about North Dakota. Certainly in my top 5 all time greats. The first series of the tv spin-off was outstanding. The now half-way through second series is spectacular. Beyond merely ‘great’. As a reviewer said yesterday; ‘its perfect’. As long as you like dark, very funny, rather weird and extremely violent. The perfect combination. True to the Coen brothers original game plan.

Certainly better than trying to play tennis in the pleasant combination of driving rain and gale-force winds. Even supermen baulk at that.

Happy wet, windy Sunday

A xxxx

Politcs is crumbling, before our very eyes.

The entire fabric of government is in a shambolic mess.

Grant Schapps, former chairman of the Conservative Party has resigned over involvement in the bully & rape scandal of the Tatler Tories. Or rather, his lack of involvement because he was in fact made aware and chose not to get involved. Shame, I’ve met Grant Shapps and he’s a nice bloke. Not a diamond geezer, not a total star, just a nice bloke. But he’s fallen on his sword because, probably, Cameron has told him to.

The Labour Party is in a total mess. A shambles in total disarray. The tossers to the left and the plonkers to the right. And in the middle, with his finger on the button (though not ‘that’ button; never ‘that’ button) sits Comrade Corbyn.

Meanwhile they chose for BBC Question Time on Thursday night, as the representative of the Labour viewpoint, one Kenneth Livingstone. Who in fact left the labour party years ago and has done nothing to endear himself to them since. So how he’s qualified as ‘Labour’ I don’t know. And I don’t care.

But when the question came to the inevitable bombing in Syria, Ken’s point was that bombing never does any good. Which indeed is a fair point. That Afghanistan and Iraq did us no favours. Nor did it do much for Afghanistan or Iraq really.

And Ken, when asked, said that the horrendous 7/7 bombings in London, when he was mayor, involved four young men ‘giving their lives’ for their cause, which he saw as a direct response to Tony Blair’s illegal invasion of Iraq. Where did her learn this? On the Jihadi Bastards of Birmingham website. And so actually blamed Tony Blair for the 52 Londoners who died on that terrible day.

As if he believes a jihadi/al qaeda website as ‘fact.
As if he buys into any ‘justification’ of an unjustifiable act.
As if 9/11 wasn’t a completely unprovoked action.
As if there is ever any ‘justification’ for any act of murder of innocent civilians, be they in Paris, New York or London.

As ever, Ken won’t apologise for his statement. He is prevented from doing so by the total ignorance of almost everything, which he has steadfastly maintained for his entire career. If not his entire life.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

David Cameron wants to bomb ISIS. His parliamentary party are largely, but not totally, in support. Fine, that’s what is known as ‘democracy’. Dissenters get a vote too. The Scots will vote against bombing, most of them, so Cameron needs support from the very many Labour mps who are in favour of the action. And there are lots who believe that Britain joining America and France, as well as Australia, Saudi Arabia, to a small degree, Qatar… ish, is what is needed. But it all depends on whether they get a ‘free vote’. Whether their esteemed (joke of a-)leader allows them to vote with their conscience or whether he applies ‘the whip’ to force his whole party to vote with him against the bombing.

Which, for a man (using the term loosely) whose entire USP is in total democracy, the party that talks, and listens and everyone has their own views and we’re just a collective, blah, blah, meaningless fucking blah, seems a bit off.

So Corbyn is in a damned-if-ya-do, damned-if-ya-don’t situation. Which to be honest, is just where he belongs. If he forces his mps to vote with him, half his cabinet (at least) will resign. And he struggled to find one cabinet full of ‘fans’ let alone another. And if he allows them a free vote, knowing they’ll all vote against him, his leadership skills (currently approximately zero) will plummet further.

That’s what you get if you vote a tosser to lead your party.

I didn’t mention Russia because even though they’re bombing in Syria, no-one’s convinced that they’re actually bombing ISIS. They have their own agenda out there.

Meanwhile in Azerbaijan, Spurs beat the mighty Qarabag (who?) to qualify for the Europa League knockout stages. Yippee-yiy-ay.

The journey to Qarabag is 2,500 miles each way. Probably a 6-hour flight. Which translates in real terms, as always, to ‘a day’. Travel always take a day. So my boys have lost 3 days to the Very Far Eastern wilderness, and now have to be superfit to play Chelsea on Sunday. Ironically, a ‘home’ match. Its all al bit much.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Ain’t it great wot billionaires find to do with their money. Or, in the case of Jeff (Amazon) Bezios and Elon (paypal) Musk, wot they do with our money.

They’ve been competing to produce the first rocket that can go into space and come back, unscathed, upright and intact. Oh, and on land. No prizes for ‘yeah it was fine and in perfect condition… when it sank in the Pacific’. Because its all about re-usability.

And Amazon won. Bezios’ rocket, catchily named BE-3, soared up 62 miles high and landed just yards from the ‘bullseye’ on the landing pad. Wow, 62 miles! But that isn’t very high, in real terms. The moon, for instance, is at least 135 miles away. At least. The sun, probably almost as far away as Australia. So 62 miles is basically a rocket that (were it to fly horizontally) could take you to Milton Keynes. In about 1 minute.

Which is really good news, potentially, for Spurs fans, who may end up spending a season, when they rebuild our stadium, playing at Milton Keynes. And we’re all worried about the journey time and wasting days on the M1 in traffic jams. Well here’s the answer. A rocket. That can travel 62 miles, land safely, AND, being reusable, it can bring you back again. Landing in your own back garden. In one minute.

Its the dream.

How much can rocket fuel cost anyway? Surely be cheaper than a British Rail weekend return ticket.

And George Osborne, another man great at spending our money, has made a famous U-turn on scrapping the tax credits for the lowly waged. And the rule is: when ‘we’ do it, its called ‘listening to the public and parliament and responding to what people are saying’. And when ‘they’ do it, its a U-turn; the ultimate cop-out for any mp. I’m not sure about George Osborne. But I am sure about his opposition, John McDonnell. I’m sure he is an absolute and total wanker. Who should be on the next text flight of any rocket going anywhere and not coming back.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx