Andy's Glasses

What a strange week this is becoming. And I love a strange week.

It started with Spurs beating Bournemouth. Oh, that was nice.

Then it continued with George Osborne getting his tax credits proposal rejected by the House of Lords. An ‘unelected house’, no less. Having the sheer audacity to overturn the democratic House of Commons. How dare they!!! But dare they did. The first time that House has ‘interfered’ with financial planning since 1283 when Ethelred the Priapic tried to impose a tithe on mobile phones. Or whatever. The Lords interfering doesn’t happen often. But it is kind’a their job to act as a reviewer of intended policy.

As it happens, George Osborne is right in wanting to abolish the tax credits. They’re stupid and very very expensive. When Gordon Brown introduced them (what? 6 years ago? 7??) they cost 1.1 billion quid. Last year that had risen to 30 billion. And its a credit for lowly paid individuals. And has thus become a subsidy for horrible employers to encourage them to keep wages as low as possible. Because the government will top it up. If they raise wages those workers would lose their benefit. So they don’t. And everyone’s happy. Except those of us who pay for it. The employers should pay higher wages themselves, then we wouldn’t need a tax credit. Ok, not quite so simple, I grant you. Some jobs can’t justify higher wages.

But George went too far. He needed to bring the changes slowly, to ease people out of them. Not just ‘ok mate, we’re taking £1300 a year off you as from tomorrow, even though you only earn £18,000. Tough shit’. Its not nice. It doesn’t exactly appear ‘caring’ or ‘benevolent’ in any way. And appearance is everything. A conservative government can’t ever appear to hit the poor. Not in such a big way.

Then last night the world turned upside down.

Arsenal lost to Sheffield Wednesday in the Capital One Cup. Didn’t just lose to the low-league club, but 3-0. That’s a big one. And losing players to injury won’t please them much either. Time for Wenger to start bemoaning the ‘lack of depth’ in his squad. The same squad he steadfastly refuses to increase every summer on the basis that he doesn’t need to.

And Chelsea lost at Stoke. Not quite such an upset as Chelsea are losing to everyone at the moment. But I fear for Jose Morinho. He’s now totally insane and the loss of his job, albeit with the inevitable 25 million pound pay-off, might push him over the edge. Time for his meds.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

A group of whale-watchers in Canada had their boat sink on them whilst watching whales. 5 dead, loads injured, the water, off the Canadian Pacific coast this time of year; 12 degrees. Or in Farenheit, Kelvin or any other scale: FUCKING FREEZING!!!!

But reading about this tragedy brought back some wonderful memories…

15 years ago we took a whale-watch trip from Victoria, Vancouver Island. Not far from where the disastrous vessel set sail from on Sunday. And we ‘drove’ out for about 30 miles because someone with a helicopter had spotted killer whales. Orcas (as ‘we’ call them). And this was no luxury, martini-sipping, sun-tanning trip. The boat was stripped bare and built for speed. Because although we knew where the Orcas were, they didn’t know we knew. And weren’t prepared to hang around waiting for a bunch of pasty Brits and Yanks with thousands of pounds worth of photographic equipment dangling round their necks.

We were very lucky. We found an entire ‘pod’ of whales, a family of about 60 Orcas, with a few other ‘fishes’ swimming with them, like dolphins and porpoises. You know, big grey fishes.

And because this was 15 years ago, mobile phones: a. didn’t work out there, and b. didn’t have cameras and videos fitted. So I had my faithful Sony Camcorder with me, to capture that moment. Or, to miss that moment because I was staring into a fucking camera instead of watching the majestic wonder of nature unfolding before me.

Everyone had a camcorder. Any parent not in possession of a video camera could be reported to Social Services for poor parenting.

As well as the wonderful videos taken of the whales, I made another, taken all the way back to base, as Mel and the ‘driver’ got into a… errr… a ‘debate’, shall we say. Which went like this:

Whale Watch Dude: have you seen Orcas before?

Mel: Oh yes, at Sea World, in Florida.

WWD: Oh! That’s terrible. Sea World is an evil place where wonderful animals are captive in claustrophobic conditions in which they die young and miserable.

Mel: Yeah, but its there, so we went and its not everyone that can afford to go whale watching when Sea World is so cheap and you get a free hat and 50% off your first 9 hot dogs and supersize coke with extra sugar.

WWD: but its cruel. People are better off watching on tv than going to evil places like Sea World.

Mel: though it encourages children to engage with beautiful animals, and Sea World does lots of conservation work with animals too.

WWD: they should never be captive, they’re unhappy and as an eco-warrior I’d rather they were only seen in the sea

Mel: well Shamu dived through a flaming hoop eating fish; you don’t see that out here. And she seemed to be smiling at the time.

for the full movie; come round for tea one day and I’ll fish out the dvd. No pun intended.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

We went to Bournemouth (not personally, that’s the footballing ‘we’ in which I AM MY TEAM and MY TEAM IS ME; only happens when we win) and we thrashed those poor South Coasters. And its all because of…

… of God.

HE put an angel on earth for the afternoon. And that angel was called Artur Boruc and he’d forsaken his wings and halo for goalkeeping gloves and a beer belly.

Because like me, God is a Spurs fan. Big time, never misses a game. That’s what ‘omniscient means’. It also means he never misses any game, any sport, played anywhere in the world at any time. Imagine how pissed off His wife gets.

And He saw that His team weren’t doing brilliantly, mainly due to the somewhat indifferent form of our (formerly) superstar striker, Harry Kane. And thus the intervention. Some may call it cheating, but I firmly believe in taking any advantage you can in life. And the Lord saw that Arsenal were, for a few hours, top of the league, and that’s sacriledge, and He’s angry at Morinho, like everyone is. HE is only human… hmmmm…

And so 5-1 it was with both Harry Kane and Boruc scoring hat-tricks for Spurs. God bless ’em.

Meanwhile up north it was a different story. Even God doesn’t go up north. Finds it too dull, drab and miserable.

Sunderland beat arch-rivals Newcastle, for the 7th time running. 6 of those times (by my calculations) with a new manager. They change often, as teams who are simultaneously ‘up there’ (geographically) and ‘down there’ (league table-wise) generally do.

But that win sent Aston Villa bottom of the table with the immediate effect of more manager sackage. Tim Sherwood’s gone walkies. Leaving a real plum job open to offers. I’m sure they’re queuing already, or maybe that’ll be Morinho’s next gig once Chelsea finally get round to sacking him.

Even the 2 Manchesters couldn’t score a goal, not a solitary one between them in their match yesterday, scheduled early to avoid rugby conflict. They left that for Liverpool on the grounds that no-one wanted to watch Liverpool play Southampton anyway.

And West Ham go from strength to strength. The Bilic effect? Or just every dog having its day? I favour the latter hypothesis. On the grounds that they’re scum.

Very happy Monday

A xxxx

Well the only question (unless you’re Jose Morinho, in which case there are thousands of BIG questions) about West Ham’s win against Chelsea yesterday is: does this in fact count as the Hammers run of beating ‘big teams’, after their earlier season dispatching of Arsenal and Liverpool. Do Chelsea still qualify as a ‘big team’? As they are currently 15th in the league and, should the absolutely unthinkable happen and Spurs lose at Bournemouth this afternoon, Chelsea would then drop to 16th. Just one spot above the relegation zone.

And although I hate to be some harbinger of doom, a gloom-mongering sooth-sayer, for Chelsea, I’m prepared to live with it.

Christmas is just around the corner. And should Chelsea be bottom at that time (I know, but I’m saying, kind’a hypofetical, innit) then the chances of them being relegated go up by a factor of 6.9. I worked it out empirically. Or plucked a random number out of thin air; same difference.

There are three photos in the paper today. One shows Zouma’s effort with the ball photographed not crossing the line. Ok, it was only a quarter in shy but that’s no goal. Does Jose think his eyesight, from 70 yards away at a funny angle is better than ‘goal-line technology’. In which case he’s a bigger tosser than even I previously thought. And believe me, that’d take some doing.

The second photo is Cesc Fabregas, a touch offside for what would have otherwise been his goal. Again, a miss is as good as mile, or if its happening to Chelsea, its much better than a mile. Its sixty miles.

The third photo is the game’s referee immidiately after sending off Matic, with John Terry’s pointing finger about an inch from his eyeball. Aggressive, threatening, intimidating. I’d have sent that bastard off too.

Instead Morinho was sent off to spend the second half in the stands, his assistant was sent off and five other Chelsea players were booked.

I’m no strict disciplinarian. I don’t advocate national service for the young, I’m not into corporal punishment (unless you’re paying someone for it and she’s wearing slinky black underwear and high heels). But when I watch rugby I simply love and admire the respect with which the referee is treated. And when I see the horrendous scenes that plague football in the same situations I simply hate it. And furthermore cannot understand why it is tolerated. So easy to correct.

Refereeing decisions are not democratic. They can’t be. And even if they were, democracy doesn’t work in an environment of threats and intimidation.

Now come on Spurs, let’s win, and let’s do it in a nice, calm, gentlemanly way.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

this is a Jaguar CX75. And its gorgeous. Not only that; its ‘lectric. Innit. It has electric power of the plug-in variety and a ‘little’ 1600 turbocharged engine. And its featured in the new Bond film out next week. Ok, driven by the baddie but its a cool set’a wheels, driven by anybody. And how wonderful that its a proper, greener-than-thou hybrid.

Well, the one in the picture is. The one that goes on sale will be. But the one in the movie, seen chasing Bond’s Aston Martin, screeching round corners and burning rubber down the autobahns (haven’t seen the movie, don’t do ‘Bond’, just guessing where they chase) is in fact not a ‘lectric car at all. Nor a hybrid. No, its got a fuck-off, gas-guzzling V8 proper petrol engine emitting more noxious carbon than all the VWs in America. Even though the car will never be produced with that engine for sale. Which is kind’a ‘trades descriptionish’ in my mind, showing people that this car, yet to reach the shops (shops?), is a Supercar, whereas in reality its a milk float that runs on 26 AAs.

Apparently the car in electric form is rather perky. According to some electric car fan who was interviewed. What he didn’t say is that even if this car in full electric mode could perform that well, it could only do so for about 77 yards til you need to plug it in again. Which would make the film 7 hours long and really really fucking boring.

If I was a car, I’d be a Jaguar CX75 (the film version, obvs.). Beautiful, sleek, loud and really uneconomical and inefficient.

You’d be a sodding Prius. In grey. With dented bumpers and a cracked windscreen.

But if I was a rugby player, I’d definitely be Dan Carter. I think I have a man-crush on him. The All Blacks were fantastic in the second half against South Africa and get to play in the world cup final next weekend. Not the most spectacular game, in the rain, but gritty and dirty and wonderful. With the right result. I feel. And Dan feels that too.

If he was a car he’d be a CS75 too. Maybe in black? And we’d ride off, side by side, into the sunset. Aaaahhhhh. Then 75 yards later we’d stop, plug in, chat about the weather for half an hour, then resume. Et cetera, et cetera…

Happy Saturday night; don’t forget to put the clocks back or YOU’LL BE LATE FOR TENNIS. Or, in fact, very early.

A xxxx

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “oh no, Bastian Schweinsteiger, the German football captain and Manchester United semi-permanent hospital visitor is a closet nazi. He spends a half his time dressed as either a footballer or a patient, the other half as a Wehrmacht officer. Oh no!” But don’t worry, Bastian’s no nazi. Well, he might be, but there’s been no real positive sightings thus far. Its just a doll. A plaything. A child’s toy. Phew.

Yes, for just 80 quid (80 fucking quid???!!!!???) your child can replay his (or her, let’s have some equality here) favourite nazi fantasies with this ‘Bastian Doll’. That’s its name. By sheer coincidence. Bastian. Like Schweiny. What are the chances? Phah!

Teach your children all the horrors of nazi atrocities, relive Krystalnacht, invade the tv room (which we’ll rename ‘Poland’), build a mini-Auschwitz in the kitchen. So much fun to be had.

And the doll is made in China. No surprise; everything’s made in China. Even though most say ‘made in Italy/France/Bulgaria’ on the label. This one doesn’t. It is unashamedly Chinese.

Schweiny’s legal people have taken issue with the doll. And you can kind’a see their point. Who would want to be the ‘face of naziism’? Never mind the name.

Yet according to the manufacturers, they just gave their doll a ‘typical German face’. In fact the company boss went one (quite unbelievable) step further to assert that ‘all Germans look like this’. And ‘Bastian is a very common German name’. Not like Hans then. Or even Helmut? Why not go the full Adolph?

Noooooooooooooo. They really don’t. Has this man never heard the expression: when you’re in a hole, STOP DIGGING? You just can’t say ‘they all look the same to me’. Not since 1972. Its illegal. Its a fucking cliche. A joke. “Bloody caucasians; they all look the same!”

Chinese people don’t all look the same. No. 1.599.999 billion do in fact all look the same, the other 2 are Lucy Liu, who is gorgeous, and President Xi, who looks like a third rate Elvis impersonator from ‘The American Bar’ in Bangkok.

Bring back Barbi & Ken but bring them up to date. Give them guns.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

What do ya wanna do on Tuesday night, Luv? Fancy a curry?
No, we’ve got Xi Jinping coming over for dinner, thought I’d invite a few mates round. Maybe Mrs Xi will get pissed and sing a few songs for us.
Ok, shall we say a formal dinner for 430 then, in the great room at the Palace? Shame, I really fancied a curry.

The Chinese leader was met by the Queen. Driven to the Palace in a golden, horse-drawn carriage with a battalion cavalry riding alongside. He’ll stay at the Palace for 2 nights. Even though he’s a communist and really should be travelling by bike and sleeping in Gary Neville’s abandoned building with a bunch of like-minded squatters. But Xi, ever the man of the people, bit the bullet and, so as not to cause offence, agreed to stay in the abject luxury of the world’s biggest house (well biggest in this part of the world) with a team of servants to cater for his every need. Such a sacrifice.

But its not hypocritical. No. What’s hypocritical is inviting the bugger over in the first place.

I have no gripe against the Chinese people, all 1.6 billion of them. But the regime stinks. Its oppressive, repressive and vile. There is talk of ‘human rights issues’ but really the issue is that humans don’t have rights in China. They persecute Tibet, they murder any opposition and they are corrupt and brutal.

Yet we need their money. China finances the world. And David Cameron wants some. Wants lots, in fact. So we have to ‘make nice’ to the leader of a country which is allegedly ‘communist’ yet has masses of poverty whilst the ministers are all billionaires. Nothing hypocritical there then, either. Such is politics. You befriend people with whom you disapprove totally in order that you may benefit each other mutually in a financial way. Its called prostitution in other circumstances. In this instance you prostitute your principles for the finance for a nuclear energy plant.

And nice for Princess Katie, sitting next to the Main Dude. Looking sooooo bored. As you would seated next to someone who speaks no English. They ate Venison. Out of cardboard boxes with chop-sticks and everyone got a fortune cookie. Kate’s said: “you spend 5 hours with a dull-as-dishwater Chinese leader and an hour later you want another”.

Happy Days

A xxxx

Well, its done. Our invasion of Germany in general, Berlin specifically, culminated with our escape last night, on a crowded plane bringing us back to the safety and security of Stansted bleedin Airport. And the good thing about arriving back approaching midnight is that there’s no traffic. Just speed cameras.

Loved Berlin. Great place. Wonderfully interesting City. Really funny street names. And an odd thing. The streets, particularly in the central shopping areas, are crowded with people, day and night. Pavements rammed with walkers and bloody bikers (they kind’a cycle anywhere over there). And at night its worse. They illuminate some of the fabulous old buildings for Oktoberfest so the crowds gather and block passage.

But the roads are always quiet. And on every road there are parking spaces. And parking everywhere. Ok, we didn’t have a car, but for once, I wish I had, just so I could park that easily. That’s what you get when you have a city the size of London but only 3 million inhabitants. You get parking spaces. The Dream. Where was my Traban when I needed it?

And on the way home on the radio they were discussing the Neville-gate scandal. Though why its a scandal I don’t really know.

Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs, two of the most loved and celebrated ex-footballers on the planet, are opening a hotel in Manchester in February. They’ve bought the building, formerly the Manchester Stock Exchange. No, I never knew Manchester had a stock exchange either, but there ya go. And its empty. So on the weekend a bunch of squatters went in ‘through an open window’ and, er, squatted. Funny how a brick somehow circumvents the law that you can’t break into an empty building but you can gain access through an available opening.

Neville and Giggs said; ok, you can stay there, with our blessing until work starts in Feb. Not only that, they’ll provide a cook and, using a homeless charity food recycling service, will ensure that their first ‘guests’ will be looked after. In return, they don’t want the place trashed and the occupants will ‘house-sit’ to prevent… errr… squatters from moving in.

I personally think this is a rather nice thing to do. But the general consensus on the phone-in was that ‘Neville and Giggs are rich bastards and therefore should just turn their intended up-market, luxury, boutique hotel into a homeless shelter instead. Permanently. Because they’re rich.’ And I’m sure the banks financing their plans would be fine and happy with that minor change. From a business potentially generating income to repay the debts, to a charity, a bottomless pit.

I’m sure Giggs and Neville do charitable stuff. But they’re allowed to create investments, provide jobs for people. Its allowed. Even though they played for Manchester United.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Its hell here in Germany. They don’t do rugby and their idea of ‘football’ is the sodding Bundesliga, a third rate bunch of semi-professionals who queue up each year to get the chance to get beaten by Bayern Munich. And who knew, when booking a weekend in Berlin, that it would coincide with the World Cup rugby quarter finals and the four most incredible matches in rugby history. A history, I’d like to remind some, that is older than that of America, Australia, certainly Germany and lots of other countries I like to hold in contempt. And if I’m wrong on that, its only in a chronological sense, not a moral one.

Wales did mighty well against might South Africa but alas it turned into a game of two halves, the second of which proved too much for the injury-blighted Welsh.

New Zealand simply thrashed France. Simply. Easily. Efficiently. Mercilessly. Job done.

Argentina amazingly beat Ireland and beat them well.

But the most incredible game was Scotland’s against the Aussie foe. No-one gave Scotland a chance, and that proved to be correct. But not until the 80th minute. Because at the 78th minute the Scots were ahead by 2 points. And just had to ‘see out the match’. Then a penalty given away and in the last minute the Aussies kicked the 3 points and won.

Raising the question: how sorry can you ever feel for Scots? The answer to which I’ll leave to you and your personal innermost feelings and history. The Andy Murray effect, Nicola Sturgeon, Alex effin Salmond, the year 5 geography teacher, Dave Mackay, Billie Bremner, The Hogmanay Show…

The indigenous Eskimo-type igloo-dwellers, formerly known as ‘Eskimos’ before it became incorrect to do so, have allegedly, 100 words for ‘snow’. Similarly, Americans have 200 words for ‘hamburger’, 300 for ‘beer’. Well in Berlin they have 600 words for ‘grey’.

Its grey today. Which almost adds to it, unaccountably. Off on a 5 hour walking tour. In the rain.

Oh happy monday

A xxxx

I love Berlin. My favourite city in all of Germany. Though I’ve not visited others. Its a funny place really. Not staggeringly beautiful, like Vienna or Prague, not picturesque like Venice or Paris, its more like a cross between Burnley and a council estate in Croydon. Nice.

Ok, it does have some nice old(ish) buildings but as over 90% were lost in the war bombings, those have all been rebuilt subsequently. It also has the remains of the Soviet years in the East, horrible blocks of flat, stone, bland, ugly apartment buildings. Those in the West ain’t much better.

Yet Berlin has a great feel about it. And great shops, bars, restaurants. And an energy. Which is mainly spent considering its past. And what a past.

Mainly, the nazis and then the cold war. More recently the Wall and Volkswagen.

Germany is really cool about the war. In a seriously good way. They are genuinely sad and remorseful about their nazi past and have memorials everywhere for the atrocities of Krystalnacht, the Holocaust, Hitler in general. His famous bunker is not open to view so you have to stand 8.5 metres above it in a car park, and piss on the grass and feel better.

Very few buildings survived the war. So there’s a lot of ‘this is where ***** used to stand’. Which is great. The war obliterated the nazi horrors and no-one was in any rush to replace them or remember them.

Great.

Then the Russians arrived. And the oppressors became the oppressed. East Germany, including East Berlin, which became the living embodiment of the total failure of Communism on every level.

Lots of nice cars here. Oddly, a lot of German cars. Including VWs. And Trabants. Remember Trabants?

Happy Sunday

A xxxx