Andy's Glasses

Well, no-one black, that’s for sure. The Oscars don’t do ‘colour’, aren’t interested in ‘minority’, I’m amazed that they even have prizes for women. But I suppose otherwise they’d have to do away with the ‘casting couch’ and other fringe benefits. So keep the women in. Just don’t pay them too much. You can always find another ‘babe’ to do some acting, when she’s finished ironing my shirts.

I’m not going to the Oscars tonight. Its a ‘protest’. Of course I was invited, they still let jews in, but I decided that the whole Academy thing is just too racist for my liberal sensibilities.

But its nothing new. When they filmed Zulu in 1964, the cast comprised of Stanley Baker, Michael Caine and 22,759 Zulus from South Africa. Yet the white men won all the awards. Which is almost statistically impossible. If not institutionally racist. I make no rash judgments or unsupported statements. Ever. Unless I choose to.

The only real surprise about ‘no black nominees’ this year is that anyone’s surprised by it. That people still ‘believe’ (not like Spurs fans ‘believe’; we do it different) that America is some wonderfully homogenous melting pot, land of the brave, home of the redneck, bring us your poor, your sick, blah, blah, wonderland of tolerance and equality. Well wake up and smell the JD on ice.

We, as Europeans, visit selective places in America, like New York, Washington, San Francisco, and unconsciously extrapolate from that tiny and very unrepresentative sample to the rest of that vast and sprawling nation. In which the races were still segregated in just 50 years ago. Ok, that was ‘darn Sarth’ but without wishing to use facile generalisations: a redneck’s a fucking redneck, whether he’s from Mississippi or Minnesota.

And before high horses start getting mounted (in that stiruppy way, I quickly add), we in Europe even hate most white people. Poles, Slavs, Bulgarians.

My main issue with the Oscars is that they are now, and probably always have been, terribly politicised. Awards aren’t given because of merit but because of fear of insult, because someone failed to win one last year, because of virtually anything other than who was the best actor, actress or movie.

So next year, we will be having the conversation about how great it is having 50% of nominees being representative of black and minority communities.

Then we can work on the police over there. And good luck with that.

Meanwhile, I’m voting for Jennifer Lawrence. Whether she’s in it or not. Whatever colour she might be.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

The esteemed Victoria and Albert Museum, no less, unless you just call it the V&A, which is much less, is having an exhibition of memorabilia from ‘the 60s’. An homage to flower power, but not exclusively a hippy show. There’s other stuff too. The ‘actual’ chair that Christine Keeler posed naked upon back in the Profumo scandal days. But really the tone of the exhibition is stated clearly on the tickets with: “warning! may contain sex and drugs and rock’n’roll”.

I was alive in the 60s but sadly, was too young to make much use of anything there other than the rock’n’roll. So I waited for the early 70s before embracing the rest as the freedom ‘invented’ in the 60s was still alive and well and thriving for us coming of age baby-boomers.

And embrace we did.

I didn’t know any drug addicts back then. But I didn’t know many people who didn’t ‘do drugs’ of some description either. Ok, maybe I exaggerate but low level druggage was fairly ubiquitous in London. Possibly because all the good music was created by people under some serious influences, so to really appreciate it you had to get onto their level. Had to. Compulsory. No-one undrugged was ever going to appreciate Pink Floyd’s ‘Ummagumma’ album, were they?

And when first Jim Morrison, then Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Bryan Jones and Keith Moon departed early from their mortal coils, thier deaths inspired if not perpetrated by drugs, for some reason this did not reflect badly on the use of recreational drugs. Perhaps we were all too stoned to make the connection.

And then there was sex. Ahhhhh, sex. It obviously wasn’t that the act itself had changed, more the attitude towards it. And mainly from a woman’s perspective. The prevailing understanding up to the 60s was sex was something men wanted and women somehow reluctantly ‘gave’ if they had to. Then that wonderful decade liberated women by telling them they could want sex too. Not necessarily with lurve, just the physical, the animal, the sensory enjoyment. That’s what we told them anyway. That we were setting them free. In just 32 seconds flat. Liberation may come easier, but never more quickly.

I’ll check out the V&A, if I can find a day without football. Them’s rare this time of year.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Adam Johnson is a bit of a tosser, really. He joins that (somewhat massive) club due to improprieties of a very naughty nature.

The Sunderland (and, apparently, England) winger ‘groomed’ a ‘child’. And then either did or didn’t involve in some kind of sexual activity with her, depending on who you believe and how you define ‘sexual activity’. Its all a bit Clintonesque at that point, with lines drawn and then blurred in very indistinct places.

So Sunderland sack Johnson, as they had to. Eventually. They should have sacked him last year when they found out he’d been ‘snogging’ an underage girl.

This sort of thing is rife. Particularly with ‘superstars’. Like Adam Johnson. Who, whilst being no Lionel Messi, nor Brad Pitt, nor even Tony Blackburn, is sufficiently in the private eye to attract followers, devotees, people who have his poster on their bedroom wall and swoon whenever he falls over running down the wing at the Stadium of Light.

So Johnson would leave the club after a match to find hosts of kids screaming his name and calling for autographs, selfies, any kind of attention, recognition or memorabilia. And these kids are vulnerable. They perceive glamour and want to associate with it. They create heroes and demigods and basically prostrate themselves before them. And they are naive.

So whilst these screaming fans don’t all stand around waving their Id cards, passports or birth certificates around, they are there to meet, to speak to, to associate with, ANYTHING, with their gods.

And it must be very difficult for these ‘stars’ who, in the case of footballers, are generally not overly bright or self-controlled, to protect themselves. And I don’t mean by wearing a condom, that’s too late.

A decade ago Graham Rix, the former footballer and then Chelsea coach, went to prison for having sex with a ‘child’. She was 15, she’d stalked him at a London hotel, she looked 21, acted 31 and I reckon, in all honesty, ‘he didn’t know’.

Adam Johnson did know. She told him. Many times. And yet he courted her, despite the pregnant girlfriend at home, or perhaps because of the pregnant girlfriend at home, and groomed her for the sexual activity that may or may not have then followed (the case continues). He even looked up ‘the legal age of consent’. WHO DOESN’T KNOW THE LEGAL AGE OF CONSENT??? Doesn’t he read any newspapers? Any article about the BBC over the last 30 years would have told him that. Yet the fact he even looked makes him cynical and abusive.

Jimmy Savile, Rolph Harris, Greville Janner, Adam Johnson. Add in Tony Blackburn and they have a 5-a-side team.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Well, Europe or not, us British folk are simply the best at music. Always have been. Last night at the Brit awards, the British swept the board. Funny that. Other than Justin Beiber who won ‘the token Canadian gesture’ for being a silly little tosser that no-one likes. The sympathy award. In fact it wasn’t British people who won the gongs but a British person. Adele. Who won them all. Because she is simply the best. Without parallel in the modern music industry. And she’s a Spurs fan. I was in tears. Well, I would have been if I’d have seen any of it. (A girl from-) Tottenham lifting four trophies in one night. The dream.

And Chris Martin won an award and ‘dedicated it to all the refugees’. What a man. ‘Because they could be us and we could be them’, as he put it, obviously in honour of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. And I’m sure none of those refugees (can you get ITV in Calais?) felt in any way patronised by this multi-squillionaire muso with homes in 6 countries and a few jets to take him between them. In fact the next fragile, rapidly deflating dinghy that lands in Greece with 150 more people on board than it was designed to take, will dedicate their safe arrival to Coldplay.

But they’re still building robots. Artificial Intelligence. There’s a new one. He(?) is called Atlas and he’s a big bugger. Stands not just like a man but like a defensive lineman in the NFL. And he does ‘tasks’ like stacking shelves (worth $3billion of anyone’s money) but he can also resist bullying. Yes, if you hit him with a big stick, he just gets up again. Amazing. And doesn’t even need counselling afterwards.

And that’s the issue. They build robots but want them to be ‘thinking’… er… humanoids? thinking people?? thinking things. So you have all that fantastic technology, governing jointed arms and legs and opposing thumbs and all the great stuff that evolution worked out for us, plus superhuman strength, limitless energy (like your mobile; possible problem there) and armour plating. And they have them sweeping floors or stacking shelves. Because they’re basically fucking stupid. You can’t build a brain, however many circuits you have at your disposal.

So the answer is: just build the robot suits, all the joints and helmets and shit, lightweight, missile-proof and probably armed with all kinds of firepower, and wrap it round a human. Who CAN think. Ok, who might think evil things, but then you don’t have the stumbling block of the oh so illusive Artificial Intelligence.

Build Iron Man!!!!

And give it to me to try out. I’ll be good, I promise. I won’t just cruise the night sky above the North Circular blowing up Nissan Micras doing 38mph in the fast lane, I promise. I won’t shoot all the nobs and wankers glued to their phones. Ok, there may be some collateral damage but I’ll really try to be good. And I want Gwyneth Paltrow to be my assistant. Not much to ask, surely?

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Arsenal have always been ahead of the game. They lead the way. So as the rest of us are pondering whether to leave Europe or not, Arsenal last night pretty much guaranteed their own personal exit from anything Euro-esque.

Or, rather, Barcelona guaranteed it for them.

And I am biased, I warn you now. Not because I have any resentment of my north London neighbours (my shed is filled with axes, all red-and-white, and three grindstones) but because I am a proud and noble Catalan. To the very heart. Barcelona-Man; tis me.

Not because I was born there (my part of Hackney hadn’t been annexed to Spain at that time), nor spent much time there (2 trips, neither longer than 3 days) but just because in my soul, that’s where I am. Its not just the flamenco suit I bought there (pink and flouncy, size: ‘Girl, age 8-12’) nor the fact that I can’t speak the language at all. No, its in my blood. The football. Barcelona style. And style is what they have.

Going right back to when Johann Cruyff played there. Gary Linneker. Neeskins, Ronaldo (the ‘proper’ one, the fat one), Luis Figo, Maradona. They all graced the Nou Camp. Along with supporting casts so prodigious, so skilful, so wonderful that at all times they have been ‘the team to watch’.

I didn’t watch it last night.

Firstly it was on BT Sport and I don’t subscribe ‘on principle’. Though I’m not precisely sure which principle I’m referring to there. But more importantly, it was bridge night. And bridge is sacred. Hmmmmm. Lionel Messi… 6 spades, vulnerable… hmmmmm.

So I combine the two and play bridge like Lionel Messi. Or like he would. With style, grace, panache, unbelievable skill, close ball control (???) and a smile.

Yet I realised last night that in a partnership game, I am a fucking awful partner. I’m horrible. Which is why I don’t partner my wife but instead my (lucky, lucky) sister-in-law. To protect marriages. So when we first started learning, we split into non-divorcable teams and we’ve stayed that way.

And partners are odd and fickle beings who do unpredictable things. The rules of bridge dictate that you never scream or shout at ‘partner’, nor physically abuse them in any significant way (a ‘stare’ is not physical abuse, I checked with my lawyer). But I do. I can’t help it. “WHY DIDN’T YOU PLAY THE FUCKING ACE?????” I gently enquire during the inevitable post-mortem of one hand. “JESUS; DIDN’T YOU SEE HE WAS VOID IN CLUBS?????” And that was whilst we were winning.

So I apologise to my partner. It’ll never happen again. Unless you lead away from an ace, play ‘third hand not-very-high’ or forget the suit I lead.

I wouldn’t shout at Lionel Messi.

Happy Wednesday.

A xxxx

The picture is the athlete and Arsenal fan, Kelly Southerton’s tv. With the remote buried in the screen, thrown by her when Flamini gave away the penalty last night. She should learn bridge to calm her down.

Politics should be about policy. That’s how it got its name. And ironically they named it in Greek. Ironic because the Greeks, so influential in our language, represent the best and the worst of the whole ‘Europe’ thing.

Should I stay or should I go now? Asked the Clash in 1979. Don’t leave me this way; I can’t survive. The songs say it all. Ok, they were intended to be about lurve and relationships, but Europe is a relationship. Albeit a rather loveless one with all the sex happening with the French in sleazy hotel rooms in Brussels.

But the in/out referendum is a big thing. On a scale of ‘big things’ and ‘not such big things’. Its massive. And like most people, even most informed people, I don’t know enough to decide. So I need help in understanding the full extent of all the implications of a ‘Brexit’ (pukey term, that one).

Yet what I’m seeing and hearing and reading is so much posturing, positioning and politicians out to make personal gains.

Like Boris. A man I trusted sufficiently to vote for twice as London mayor. Ok, because he’s funny and the others are dreadfully dull, but mainly because he seemed to shoot straight. Yet now, tempted by the lure of potential prime ministership, Boris has turned Judas on his old schoolmate David Cameron and gone to the dark side. The Outers.

“Nothing to do with personal ambition; its the best thing for London” he cried. And yet when you read the letter imploring continued In-ness signed by a hundred very influential business leaders, you kind’a start to wonder.

So I’m starting to fall more heavily on the ‘in’ side of things. Which started the moment George Galloway turned up for the outers. On the grounds that whatever is viewed as in any way beneficial by the world’s most horrible, vile and evil man, must be bad for me.

Thus the ‘debate’ has become one of personalities with their agendas or the emotive issues with their predictable cry to arms of ‘immigration!’ and ‘sovreignty!!’

They gloss over the important issues. Will I have to queue longer to take a flight to Rome? Will my pizza crust get soggy? Will they still subtitle French films in English? And most importantly; will it affect how many Champions League places are given to the Premiership???

Because undoubtedly the very best of what Europe has to offer is on view tonight at the Emirates when Arsenal take on Barcelona. Exemplified by that most European of things: three South American forwards.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

So you’re walking down a busy street, rush hour, packed with pedestrians, not much space, and the tosser coming towards you is staring at his phone. Walking straight at you. There’s no room to manoeuvre, crowds everywhere, and he’s staring at his hand. What do you do? What are the protocols? The etiquette?

The simple, elegant solution is to punch him repeatedly in the face and then when he looks up, probably a bit startled by all this violence, and rejoins planet Earth momentarily, you kick him in the bollocks. Not because it’ll get you home any quicker but just because it really is what he deserves. And it’ll make you feel much better. May even make him slightly more cautious about his phone addiction next time. But that’s doubtful.

I have a real thing about obsessive phone staring. Every time the traffic light changes to green and the cars don’t move you just know there’s some tosser phone-staring. Even though its illegal to do so in a car.

And now in a few countries they’re actually going to try and implement the same ban on phones when walking along the street. Or, and this is for real, have ‘phone lanes’ on the pavements where all the tossers can amble along in their oblivious-to-the-world state, banging into each other, holding up all the other tossers, playing Candy Crush at their leisure, away from people who actually have somewhere they want to be.

In Hawaii they want to ban phones at crossings. Because people get run over when they’re Whats’apping their mates instead at watching oncoming vehicles. As they deserve.

But evolution takes its toll, as always.

A study in Israel has shown that keeping a phone in a trouser pocket seriously fucks up a man’s sperm. Seriously. Nothing to do with the porn he may be viewing. The proximity of the phone with all its ‘radiation’ and shit, to the testes, caused abnormal sperm in almost 50% of those tested.

The scientists thought this was a problem. I think its brilliant. Its God’s way of sifting unworthy populations. If the ‘tossers’ (as I call phone-starers) have abnormal sperm they will reproduce less than ‘normal people’. And over a few generations this should eliminate the next generations of phone addicts, by natural selection. Ok, assuming that being glued to a smart-phone is an inherited characteristic, but heh, we’ll take what we can.

So perhaps, when you next see such a tosser on the street, instead of hitting him (plan A and always worth a try anyway), give him another phone to keep in his trouser pocket. Hit them in the gonads. Let Darwin take care of the rest.

I’m not talking about football.

Ever again.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Reaching the end of your playing career? Fed up with winter Tuesday evenings in Scunthorpe? Want just one more little ‘earner’ before retiring? Go to China. The Chinese Super League. Its paved with gold.

This is what’s happening. All our (one-time) talent is upping (walking) sticks and moving to China. With a population of 1.6 billion, just think of tv rights if you could get even 10% of the buggers into football!! And to do so the Chinese are importing as many big names as they can. Well, they have quotas of overseas players but they’re in big demand. Didier Drogba could almost look Chinese anyway. And he’s there. Along with Nicolas Anelka, Freddie Kanoute, Yakubu, Keita and many others.

You watch a game in the CSL and an hour later you want to watch another.

Now they want John Terry. And as no-one else does, that’s a no-brainer. And also Wayne Rooney. Ok, bit early some say to label the Roonster as a has-been but, a few recent goals aside, he is not a shadow of the player he once was. So the 500,000 pounds a week may look like quite a lot of money for Wayne. But he won’t go. Never. He won’t leave his family, the council flat he still keeps in Toxteth, all those granny ‘massage parlours’ in Wallasey, oh, and his wife, Waynetta, and the kids.

But Wayne also wants to overtake Bobby Charlton’s goal-scoring record and become Man United’s all time top scorer. He’d also like to become, like Bobby, Man United’s nicest man ever, but the odds on that one are much longer.

Meanwhile, what a great result at the Emirates yesterday as the Arse failed to beat Hull. A thrilling (zzzzzzzz) nil nil draw. And oh so topically it brings the question of ‘the cup replay’ in the very week everyone’s saying they shouldn’t have them any longer. Play extra time; have penalties; toss a coin; play til someone scores or someone else dies; but no replay.

Even Hull have four matches scheduled in the next 20 days. Arsenal have dozens. League, champions league, loads of matches. What neither team want is a replay. Wenger, never a man to spare his moaning, has always wanted fewer matches, winter breaks, he’s always wanted to wrap his delicate little players up in cotton wool for periods of rest and recovery. And now they have to shoe-horn in a cup replay.

Strange move by Bournemouth yesterday; playing the second team. The Cup is big. Just about. Though maybe not as big as risking relegation. Who knows why such decisions are made?

Spurs play today. We’re gonna win the double. In colour this time.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Ahhh Europe. Sorted. All resolved. Fantastic. The way forward. The future is bright. And its all thanks to Dave. Our mate. Our pal. He went over there and he sorted out all those pesky foreigners can came out a winner. Got what he wanted. Exactly. Maybe even more.

And the odd thing is; they all got what they wanted too. Perhaps even more. Brilliant.

So David Cameron is proclaiming it a massive victory.

And so is everyone else.

A win-win-win-win-(carry on 28 times)-win situation.

So if that is even possible, WHAT THE FUCK HAS EVERYONE BEEN ARGUING ABOUT FOR 2 SOLID YEARS????? What a total waste of time and money. My money. If everyone can apparently win then everyone obviously wants the same outcome. So where was the problem? That needed 48 hours of solid discussion at the very end of this incredibly protracted ‘debate’?

You always have to be careful when both sides (or even 28 sides) all claim victory. Because its impossible. Therefore they’re all lying. Or some of them are.

Dave created his ‘special status’ for Britain. We get all the benefits of Europe (that’s… er… trade stuff… err… croissants… errrr…) and yet we get to control almost everything. We can keep out smelly European types, deport Polish builders, arrest Romanian pickpockets, and retain the right (if not the actual ability) to stop sending child benefits to families who’ve never been here and are currently living in Estonia.

The Polish PM said, quite clearly, though in Polish so no-one’s really sure, loosely translated as; “what the fuck does that ponce know anyway? He thinks cabbage is something you eat, as opposed to everything you eat. He’s an over-privileged rich kid who’s never had a job in his life and yet he wants to close the UK Social Security payments office in Warsaw. Motherfucker. I hope his kitchen cabinets fall off his walls. Then he’d start to appreciate Polish workers”.

Never happens in football. Only one winner there. Except in a draw.

Now we just have to decide whether we want in or out.

Happy Saturday.

A xxxx

Shane Warne is on one of those enlightening and morally uplifting ‘let’s take a bunch of hasbeens out to the jungle and humiliate them’ shows. Australia’s best ever spin bowler (according to his mum), former Hurley-shagger, sometime cricket commentator and poster-boy for ‘New-thatch!’ hair transplants is with a group of other ‘used-to-be’s on a show where they force them to eat slugs and worms, swim naked with electric eels, swallow handfulls of maggots, sleep next to an inflatable Jeremy Corbyn, wear an Arsenal scarf for an hour and listen to ‘Reg’ from Mumbai telling you why you need to change your power supplier. Difficult stuff. Testing a man’s mettle.

Shane’s ‘trial’ was to dip his head into a tank full of snakes. Wearing only protective eyewear. And his shorts.

“IF THERE’S ONE THING WOT REALLY SCARES ME SHITLESS!!!!!” shouted the big Aussie, “ITS FRIKKIN’ SNAAAAAKES!!!!” (I have no idea if all or any of those words were uttered but they so easily could have been.)

Whereas actually, what really scares Shane, like all Aussies, is excessive sobriety, losing cricket to the Poms, wearing a suit, losing his hair or acting in a civilised manner for more than 3 minutes.

So in went Shane’s head, to the tank of wriggling, slithering, writhing horrors, and he got bitten on the face by an Anaconda. Which isn’t poisonous. So that’s fine.

NO, ITS NOT FINE. ITS HORRIBLE, VILE AND REVOLTING AND THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES FOREVERRRRRRR!!!!!

Because maybe snakes are Shanes ‘biggest fear’, as he claimed, but they’re certainly mine. No reason in particular. But I’m not sure you need a reason for a phobia. That’s the point of phobias; they’re irrational. “Oh, don’t be silly, that 6 foot long FUCKING LETHAL FUCKING COBRA is more scared of you than you are of it”. Wanna bet?

When we travelled round Australia a few years back I always picked the hotel room on the highest floor. “Oh, don’t you want to be near the pool/beach/lump of rock/kangaroos/whatever???” No, I want to be as far away from the snakes as possible. Snakes hate stairs. Scientific fact. And they get claustrophobic in lifts. So yes, room 3904 will be fine, thank you very much. Its not a problem in Berlin, Paris, Iceland. Ground floor is fine. But anywhere hot, anywhere even vaguely tropical, that becomes snakeland and I want altitude.

So I wish Shane’s face better (something I’ve always thought) but for me it would be the psychological wounds that would never heal. I’m not sure mine’ll heal even now having only read about it.

Happy snake-free Friday

A xxxx