Andy's Glasses

There’s so much fuss about ‘back in the day’, about ‘the old days’, about how life was better before the internet, before the contraceptive pill, before the car.

Well, its all bollocks. The old days were there, they were fine at the time, now move on.

We all get nostalgic about Spangles. About actually going into a travel agency to book a flight. About breaking down in the car on the A47 at 2am and having some local farmer come out and mend your broken fanbelt with your wife’s tights. (That particular act of kindness and salvation is now termed ‘sexual abuse and assault’ and any involvement with someone else’s wife’s underwear instantly renders that person ‘a stalker’).

Yet there is always a tendency to reminisce fondly, to become dewey eyed and nostalgic over ‘how it used to be’. Mainly because we tend to remember the good bits and even the bad bits become comedic in retrospect. When Johnny broke his arm trying to artificially inseminate the cow; getting sent home from school early because of the power cuts during the miner’s strike; the hotel in Majorca that actually hadn’t been finished yet (hope it doesn’t rain; we have neither windows nor roof).

But we’re learning the truth about ‘the past’. That it wasn’t all friendly neighbours and drip-dry shirts. That everyone knew the milkman by his first name not because he was such a nice bloke but because he was stealing their stuff.

That for every Cilla Black there were 15 Edward Heaths. For every Morecombe & Wise there were 9 (yes NINE!!!) Jimmy Saviles and Cyril Smiths (he counts as 6).

And the past was littered with child-molesters, paedophiles, perverts, weirdos, deviants and other politicians. The entire houses of Parliament was one big child-porn ring. Protected by the police, controlled by MI5, regulated by the SAS.

Jeremy Corbyn, aspiring new Labour leader (emphatically NOT; NewLabour leader) wants to take us back to the 70s. Just to be contrary to those accusing him of wanting to take us back to the 80s. He liked the land under James Callaghan. With the above mentioned power cuts. With striking refuse collectors resulting in piles of rotting garbage on every street corner. The winter of discontent, it was termed. And that is Corbyn’s dewey-eyed nostalgic moment. Tosser.

The past is the past, it was fun while it lasted but leave it there and move on. Except the bit when Spurs won things. That we can go back to. Any time you’re ready.

Happy wednesday

A xxxx

In just 5 days the football season kicks off once more. I know, its barely finished from last year and managed to drag its way limply through the summer (summer? where??) with the Gels’ World Cup and a bunch of soggy friendlies played all over the world as the Chinese and the Malaysians and the Americans will all pay good money to go out and watch Aston Villa’s 3rd reserve team. For some unaccountable reason to do with ‘the power and pull of the Premiership’. We don’t count Scotland, which started last week, nor really anything else; just our Premiership. Its all that matters. You can keep the Charity Shield, the Women’s FA Cup (but only because Chelsea won it; they’re all a bunch of women there) and The Sodding Emirates Cup.

And as football is undoubtedly the most important thing in the world, and the Premiership is the most important thing in football, it is rather befitting that the very first game of the season features Spurs. Playing away at Manchester United. Starting early. Making it a difficult journey for the Spurs fans, a very early start, just for prayers that the trains run properly. But arguably making it much more difficult for the ‘home’ fans, who also need trains from London, Birmingham and Newcastle, planes from Paris, Rome and Bangkok, boats from Somalia and Fiji. There is now apparently one single Old Trafford ticket holder who still lives in the Greater Manchester area, though there are rumours that he died in 1974 and his ticket is used by family from Radlett.

Spurs have strengthened their squad. That’s a footballing euphemism meaning that we haven’t signed the proverbial ‘marquee name’, we haven’t acquired anyone exciting but we have bought a few East European journeymen thugs to make our defence stronger. Which we needed because we let in too many goals last year. Arguably we could do with a midfield superstar goal-maker but we’ll make do with what we have. Minus (please, Dear God) Soldado and Adebayor. And when you have Harry Kane you really don’t need anyone else.

Whereas Manchester United have off-loaded their Real Madrid ‘reject’ Angel Di Maria, all 60 million quid’s worth, and are replacing him with ‘superfluous to Barcelona requirements’ Pedro. To join Memphis Depay, Schneiderlin and Bastien Schweinsteiger. The latter two signed specifically to increase revenue from the replica shirt naming department. Because at £1.25 a letter, the difference over a season between Schweiny and Ji Sung Park represents about 13 million pounds.

The problem is that Bayern Munich sold Schweinsteiger because he’s injured. Averages just 20 starts a season because of knee and ankle injuries. Which, as a rule, don’t tend to improve as you get older. So that must be seen really as a much better contract for Schweiny that it is for Manchester United.

Arsenal feel confident enough that Wenger went into ‘rude mode’ and refused to shake Morinho’s hand on Sunday, Chelsea are Chelsea and Manchester City have made sufficient acquisitions that its really hard, at this time, to work out which one of those will drop down the league to let Spurs finish in the top 3.

Only time will reveal the answers.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.

Thus spake Karl Marx in his communist doctrine. And that’s how communism works. Everyone works as hard as they possibly can, 80 hour weeks in Siberian mines, flat out in a Moscow bank, laying bricks, selling derivatives, but only takes in return what is required to live on, feed the family, keep the home fire burning.

Because what’s the point of ‘more’? What do you need money in the bank for? It doesn’t do anything. Similarly a car. Why? When you can’t afford to fill it up nor go anywhere because you’re only going to work and back. Holidays? Phah! They’re for weaklings, gays and fascists. And of those three, only the first is in any way tolerated in Russia.

Unless you consider Putin a fascist.

Last week a long-term Putin spokesmen (and ‘long term’ is not a term often applied to people in contact with the ruthless Russian dictator; more common adjectives are ‘buried in the cement holding up the Leningrad bypass’, ‘disappeared’ or simply ‘brown bread’) married some ice-dancer half his age and was spotted in the photos wearing a watch that costs £379,000. About half a million dollars/euros. And probably 20 times the annual income of the average Russian.

But its his wedding gift from his bride, apparently. Ice-dancing must pay well over there. And what else would he do with 379 grand? Buy a couple of houses? How many do you need? And that would be very un-Russian, owning houses. They can only own what they need plus any football teams they can find. He could have given the money to Gay Pride to help remove the virtual death penalty his country has on homosexuality. He could invest it in some really serious drug programs for the athletes taking part in next year’s Olympics.

Lots of things he could do with that money other than stick it on his sodding wrist. A second-hand Bugatti Veyron would be nice. Something useful. Thoughtful. A gold plated Kalashnikov.

Hilary Clinton, pipped at the post 8 years ago by ‘upstart’ Barak Obama’ for Democrat presidential candidacy, looks like she might get cast aside again. By vice-president Joe Biden.
Hilary may have the experience, the intellect, the wit, (obviously not the looks but that would not be a nice thing to add) and all manner of brilliant qualifications. But Biden has 3 deaths in his immediate family. Wife and baby 40 years ago and son in May. Brain tumour. But the son was an Iraq war vet. Hilary should throw her cards in now. America loves a sob story. Death, war heroes, tragedy. Biden has it all. A blow job under the desk in the Oval Office sadly doesn’t count as a ‘family tragedy’.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

British people generally and David Cameron specifically, have been accused of ‘racism’ and ‘xenophobia’ because of the ongoing and worsening migrant problem currently engaging the world.

Calling them ‘a swarm’ was not Dave Cam’s finest choice of words, but no-one ever said he was clever when under pressure. Yet that term really encapsulates the nature of this problem. Because its all about the plurality. And what is the correct collective term for illegal immigrants? I don’t know, neither does David Cameron.

So Britain ‘lacks compassion’ and has ‘forgotten its humanity’ because we’re trying to stop a mere 2000 people a night from crossing onto our island. Our relatively small but exceedingly welfare stated island.

If you read of one man, let’s say from Eritrea, or Syria, who was persecuted at home, lived under threat and worked his way laboriously westwards, swimming over seas, paying piratical bastards to over-fill dinghies and float them rudderlessly across the Med, walked from Italy to Calais and wanted to come to Britain, we would be compassionate and show him care and consideration. Ok, then we’d probably deport him, but we’d give him the benefit of the doubt. Or maybe the benefits of the doubt. Because once he’s here we’ll support him completely. Its what we do.

But this is not one man. This is thousands. Never ending. Limitless. And not just those under political threat, but also those who are ‘economic migrants’ looking for a better life. And who can blame them if they have no future in the land of their birth?

Logically, any European country would offer the same opportunity of work and wealth, maybe not Greece, Portugal, Ireland, but most. Yet its Britain they want. And we simply can’t sustain half a million people coming here every year with an ‘open-door’ policy.

So yes, I do ‘feel’ for many of these people. But we simply can’t take the massive physical, social and financial burden of accommodating them all. It doesn’t add up.

Let the Irishman who accused us of racism open a refuge in Galloway for them and we’ll send them over there. Thousands and thousands and thousands of them.

Happy racist Saturday

A xxxx

What d’ya fancy for dinner? Steak? Chicken? Lasagna? Ants?

You can eat what you want really. I couldn’t personally give a damn. Its all a matter of taste. However revolting that may be to others. Walking in Honk Kong a few years back there was a shop that reminded me of the insect house at London Zoo. But it was a food shop. Cos that’s what Hong Kongers like to eat. Fishing bait. Shit that we’d normally scrape off the windscreen after a long drive. Stuff that crawls and has a zillion legs, or no legs at all.

And apparently ‘we’ (ie, civilised Europeans) want to eat that shit now too. Even though most of its not kosher. Though for some amazing reason, locusts are kosher. Despite having no cloven hoof that I’ve ever noticed, nor a spine, nor any discernible scales. And if they ‘chew the cud’ they do it in a very small way. But there ya go.

So people want to eat maggots. Just like they do on the telly. The difference being that on the telly its done to demonstrate revulsion, horror and is almost a punishment. Restaurants are actually popping up extolling the virtues of mealworms and scorpions and tarantulas. Ok, they may be low in fat, I’m sure, but they’re much lower in desirability and anything remotely nice.

So Brussels, that great, sprawling horror that decides every facet of our lives, has decided to regulate insects like they regulate everything else. And ban their sale. So you’ll probably still be able to eat Giant Leaf Cutter Ants, but only if they look like cows. And the plea of ‘but it tastes like chicken’ is no longer mitigation once ‘Europe’ and its Food Standards Agency has had its wicked way.

There’s not enough money in the world to make me eat a scorpion. But if people are sufficiently hip, groovy, out-there, open-to-all, receptive and above all, fucking stupid, they should be able to eat what the hell they want.

The cricket is going splendidly at Edgbaston. How amazing that this series is so wonderfully unpredictable. With yesterday’s hero becoming today’s tosser.

And West Ham are struggling in their Europa League qualifiers. Which they gained entry to by virtue of their ‘fair play’ record. How ironic that they’ve had three men sent off in their first 3 games. Or ‘how funny’ perhaps. If you’re that way inclined. Now the world waits to see if they can turn over Astra Giurgiu in the second leg. How exciting is that?

Happy friday

A xxxx

I’m anibivalent. Don’t look that up; I just invented it. Won’t be on google for at least a year. Its like a bisexual where animals are concerned, and their welfare. I love animals. I like to see animals. But I don’t have issues with eating meat, nor fox hunting (foxes are pests and need culling; no-one denies that, its just the methods that are an issue). And I’m aware that animals die in not very nice ways in order to feed our starving population, and so be it.

I think my personal attitude was best summed up a decade ago on a safari in South Africa. We went out and watched the amazing majesty of the herds of zebra and wilderbeast and kudu and springbok, with elephants and lions and giraffes. Wow. Then we stopped in a clearing in the game park and had a barbecue of most of what we’d just seen. The perfect evening.

But I just can’t get my head round ‘big game hunting’. If, say, a dentist from Minnesota went out and fought a lion, hand to claw, to the death, I might be impressed. Going to Zimbabwe and paying lots of people loads of money to arrange and execute the execution of a lion is something completely different. A misplaced act of vanity perpetrated by a rich sadist (all dentists are sadists, they don’t all go the full ‘Marathon Man’ but its in there somewhere). And you have to ask: what is the fucking point?

Ever been to a house with dead animals hanging on the walls? Nice. Tasteful.

Lion populations are down 75% in Africa, (the lion population in Hampstead remains unchanged), in no small part due to tossers like Walter Palmer paying impoverished and illegal trackers to find and kill fabulous creatures. With Cecil’s death, the lead male in the pride has gone, there’ll be a power struggle, the death of his cubs, all sorts of contingent shit going on. It’ll be like the Ukraine out there in the jungle for a while.

Evolution can’t be stopped. Put enough dodos in front of starving Mauritians, who saw them as half a ton of deliciously unflying chicken, and oddly they’re gone. Man is a destructive force in evolutionary terms. But he’s not the only one. An asteroid killed the dinosaurs, the birds ate the bees. In 1000 years time there’ll be no lions. There will probably still be dentists in Minnesota. Unless the lions start killing them and hanging their heads on nearby trees.

Jihadi John is forgotten. Now we hate Walter. T-shirts available right now.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

What a fuss and bother over in Reims. That’s in France. Our neighbours and friends.

Some mademoiselle was sunbathing in a park wearing a bikini, as you do when sunbathing, when a girl walked past and made a snidey comment. Mademoiselle offered an insult of her own and the two came to blows. Now that’s a good thing if its in mud, or with lots of water, but just a bit of bitch-slapping in Reims is otherwise a bit low really.

Except the comment girl had four mates with her and also has a muslim name.

So the French, being the French, have blown this up into an Islamaphobic ’cause’. The bikini was an insult to Muslims. To undress is ungodly. Decency rules… er rule. Implying that the commenter and her allies were burqua’d up religious fanatics intent on cleaning up France, starting with a park in Reims. And good luck with that, by the way.

So a million tweets and instagrams and other social media stuff flew round Le Internet, showing bikinis and breasts and thighs and all manner of French undress in public places. Support for French values (undress, bikinis, breasts and thighs) against the infiltration of Sharia demands (head-to-toe covering, headscarves, full-face Darth Vader things).

Except that wasn’t really the case. The commenter with the Muslim name was just a French girl with a Muslim name. Nothing more, nothing less. She was dressed ‘western’ (or ‘undressed Eastern’ as its also known) and confessed to using bikinis in parks herself.

So its not a big massive ’cause’. Its not a civil war. Its not an insult against France and everything it stands for (extra-marital affairs, underarm hair, capitulation with invaders…). The girl was NOT a fundamentalist Islamic crusader. Just a bitch.

And what else is a bitch is depicted above. Coming back to the tube station to find some baaaaaastard has nicked me back wheel. And don’t give me the ‘desperate people…’ plea, you can’t feed your family with spokes and rubber. I’ve tried. They don’t like it one bit.

So if you see a bike with a tyre that looks like it should be on my bike, punch the rider in the face and drag him to a police station.

Happy bleedin’, wheel-less Wednesday

A xxxx

John (Lord; for the time being) Sewel is a Scotsman. I think its important to get that out there right at the start. And until Sunday he was the chairman of the Standards and Privileges committee in the House of Lords. The group that monitors, err, well, standards and privileges I’d imagine. To stop Their Lordships and Ladyships stepping over the line. Because if such high powered and ennobled people step over lines, some of the coke might get spilled. Common sense. Or Lordy sense, maybe. Nothing common about these people.

And Lord Sewel set up his committee to prevent abuse of position, to stop any further expenses scandals or even expensive sandals. Anything that we, the good people of Great Britain, are paying for, must be approved and decent and proportionate. He even orchestrated a system, should it be required, for un-Lording people who are naughty. So they can no longer be a part of the Higher House. Which needs to be kept clean so the money-launderers, expense cheats, rapists, child molesters and Arsenal fans can rule the land unimpeded.

He did a good job. A dirty job, but one that needed doing. Without that, there can be no confidence in that part of government. No trust. Its bad enough that they are totally detached from the ‘common man’ but if you can’t trust them to act in our interest, as opposed to their own, then it all comes crumbling down. So well done, John.

Then he met The Sun. Its always The Sun. They video’d him, I don’t know how, enjoying some quiet private time, in the seclusion of his own flat (which we subsidise, by the way).

Some men watch tv to rest and relax. Some play bridge. Others hold dinner parties. John Sewel prefers to hang out with hookers and snort cocaine whilst wearing a bra. But its his own private home. His privacy was invaded by the phone-tappers of the Sun who suddenly create their own version of ‘moral high ground’ for scumbags.

What was really so wrong with Lord Sewel’s behaviour? If you look at it from a non-judgmental position.

I mean; other than from any viewpoint involving morality, decency, legality or acceptability? Other than that he was just minding his own business. My main criticism is that he paid for 2 hookers, at 200 quid each, which is a bit excessive for a man on wages.

We need men like John Sewell. Mainly because to act in such a manner when you aren’t chairman of the standards and privileges committee is funny. If you are, its priceless.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

The football season is just days away. Next weekend is the Community Shield/Charity Shield/No-one-cares Shield at Wembley, the traditional season opener between the winners of the League and FA Cup. Chelsea against Arsenal. Lovely. And the following weekend its all, literally, kicking off.

And I find myself a bit numb to it all. It seems distant and meaningless. Rather than immediate and depressing, as football normally is. But that’s just probably the effect of all the friendlies being played. Of which I’m no big fan.

Arsenal won the Emirates Cup yesterday, as they would, with Theo Walcott scoring the winner against Wolfsburg. After which Wenger was extolling ‘young’ (is he still ‘young’? as he seems to have been for the last 27 years? He must be about 50 by now, surely) Theo’s skill and natural striking ability. Arsene said he had a lot of ‘offensive players’. I too find most Arsenal players offensive, and Arsene and I seldom agree. And he thought Theo was best suited to ‘playing off’ a bigger, stronger striker. Even though he looks like a winger and spends a lot of time winging it up the sidelines. Odd really that after so long in an Arsenal shirt no-one yet knows where to play him.

But this weekend was really about wheels. Lots of them. Bikes and cars.

Chris Froome showed that you can hurl all the urine you like at him; he can still pedal better than anyone else in the world. But cycling is all about the team. Yet they only make one yellow jersey? The finer points of the Tour de France are beyond most people. What it isn’t is just a race from one end to t’other. In between its all about teamwork and other cycly things and drugs. And then England won. Yippee.

An Englishman didn’t win the Grand Prix in Hungary yesterday. He came 6th. A German driving an Italian car won it. For his team-mate Jules Bianchi, who died last week, although he really died last year when the awful crash happened. The drivers had a minute’s silence before the race in his honour yesterday. And what goes through your mind as you stand head-bowed in mourning over a mate who had a massive racing car wreck, when you’re (in 60 seconds; 59, 58, 57…) going out there yourself to fly round a track at almost 200mph with no more than about 70 million quid’s worth of safety measures between you and that life-support machine? Probably along the lines of ‘there by the grace of God…’

Its almost enough to make you drive slowly. Almost.

Spurs first match; August 8th. Away to Manchester United at Old Trafford. Easy peasy. Three points in the bag already.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Do you remember where you were on July 23rd 2011? Probably not. Its not like the Kennedy moment, not even like Spurs beating Inter at the Lane.

We had a barbecue. Ahhhh, nice. Yep, our great mates had popped round, all the way from Toronto just for a burnt sausage and some of my patented minty lamburgers. Ok, not so much patented as condemned, if we’re being accurate.

So we were enjoying a lovely summer evening when Canuck Dave’s phone rang. With some terrible news.

Much as they love a good lamburger, Mr & Mrs Dave had really flown all that way for a family party. Big one. At his cousin Lucian’s house. And that’s big too. The house. Because Lucian is the CEO of Universal Music. And he’d called Dave to say that Amy Winehouse had died. She was due at the party too. Not gonna make it.

And it was a tragedy.

But I’d never fully appreciated the extent of that tragedy and that loss until last night. When we went to see the bio-pic ‘Amy’.

Because it wasn’t that the greatest singer of her and many other generations had been lost, but a true superstar had gone forever.

Lots of people have ‘good voices’, but few can reach right into your heart and squeeze it from the inside. The lyrics she wrote were passionate, intimate and real. She bared her soul, both with her words and her delivery.

She never wanted ‘fame’. That really wasn’t her thing. She just wanted to make music. Sounds clichéed but it was true. She never went on talent shows or karaoke competitions or courted celebrity. Ironically, her ‘hard-to-get-ness’ made her much more alluring to the press than those who ‘turn up for the opening of an envelope’ in their pristine, gelled-up thousands.

The music industry came to her. They found her. Because she was always going to be too good to live under the radar. And her star grew brighter and brighter with every award won, with every new record, with every major sell-out concert in another immense stadium. When all she really wanted was to sing jazz in little clubs.

But she’d become a machine. Really, more a gravy train. So she was pushed more and more by more and more people because they depended on her for their lifestyles. And that train grew large.

Amy was always ‘real’. She never spoke like a princess, she swore, she had zero tolerance to boring questions, interviews or people. She was very funny. And she never changed.

Sadly, she had inner demons. Lots of them. And her death, rather than being attributable to neglect by her father (as the film strongly implies), her manager, he scum-bag husband, was merely an inevitability. That ‘accident waiting to happen’.

And it happened when she was 27. As it did for Jimi Hendrix, Curt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison…

Can you be so talented that you simply can’t cope with it? Or is that level of exceptional giftedness just one manifestation of inner turmoil?

Fuck me, that’s deep for a horribly wet, tennis-free Sunday morning.

Happy Days

A xxxx