Andy's Glasses

What a final it was yesterday. Sadly the best man lost but heh, Djokovich is a pretty good ‘second best’. And can only be admired even more for playing against a seriously pro-Fed crowd.

Tickets for such matches are valuable. Rare. Sought-after. They sell on the black market for, apparently, up to £44,000. Which, considering its free on tv (if you pay your license fee or even if you don’t and watch it later on i-player) seems a bit rich. But if you are a bit rich then Wimbledon is certainly a great place to get a little poorer. And for people who simply ‘have to be there’ for big events, there’s only so many ways to get there. Ballots and draws and waiting lists and queues.

Unless you’re famous. Then you get in free. In the Royal Box, no less. So the Queen saves her 44 grand for painting up Buckingham Palace. Not that she was there. Wills & Kate have been breezing in on and off all week. Pippa virtually moves in for the fortnight and Harry nips in once or twice too. Stars of tv are so important now that if Fanny from Eastenders turns up (I’m guessing; no idea who is in Eastenders, but there should be a ‘Fanny’) they kick the Queen out to make room. Hugh Grant was there yesterday. Cumberbatch. Kate Winslett, Helena Bonham Carter, Anna Wintour, half a dozen tv bakers, a whole host of former tennis winners and players.

And Lewis Hamilton. The racing driver. The world champion. Who was so buzzed up about going he posted a photo of his tickets online in the morning.

But you didn’t see him in the box. Nor in the stands. Even crouching down by the net as a ball-boy. They didn’t let him in. Lewis sadly didn’t read the bit on his tickets stating about ‘lounge suits AND TIES’, so turned up dead slick and cool but sans jacket and tie. Oh my. The world would end. Britain would crumble. Heaven would evaporate. A quick row with the steward (probably along the lines: “do you know who I am????”, “yes, Sir, but you ain’t wearin’ a tie so you can’t come in”), and off trots Lewis, refusing the offer of a borrowed kneck-tie, to watch the match on his SatNav on the way home. He’s a great driver, he can do that.

I’m the most pro-casual, anti-dress-code person in the world. I wanted to wear shorts and a Spurs shirt for my own wedding (vetoed, obviously). But if I went to the Royal Box at Wimbledon I’d wear a sodding tie (the most hateful implement of torture ever invented). Because you have to. I wore one at Lords (I had to borrow it from the son-in-law) and I’d wear one there. Its the rules. And I hate rules too, but sometimes, Lewis…

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I’m gonna say it: Serena Williams is a beast. And I mean that in the nicest possible way, to refer only to her prowess on the court. She is fucking awesome. Verging on very, very scary, but if you can still scare opponents shitless when you’re 33 and they’re much younger, fitter, more athletic and lacking the inevitable history of injuries, then you’re a beast. Young Gabi (I just won’t bother with her proper name because even if I manage to spell it correctly, its meaningless, mispronounced nonsense syllables) was truly brilliant, as was the match. But Serena knows how to win matches. Eventually. I’m happy for her. She’s done a lot for ‘old people’.

Roger Federer is also old (in relative terms). Though never a beast. Roger is the un-beast. Others hit the ball harder, smash it louder, serve faster but Roger has something extra that no others possess. He has finesse, he has grace, he has unbelievable style. And he doesn’t sweat. How that is possible I know not. But its true. I think it safe to say that I sweat more just walking to my courts in the middle of January than Fed does playing 5 sets in 40 degrees in Melbourne. And as I too play with style (of a one-legged ski-jumper), with grace (of an elephant) and with consummate elegance (Keystone Cops springs to mind), I think I’m qualified to comment.

Djokovich is a wonderful, fantastic tennis player who surprised the world when interviewed a few years back by actually seeming quite nice. In stark contrast to his perceived persona. But Roger is beyond mere ‘nice’; he’s wonderful.

The first Ashes test finishes with an England victory. Four days was all it took to put all that brash arrogance in its place. Ok, I’m not the biggest cricket fan in the world but I just like beating the Aussies at anything, any time, anywhere.

But help is at hand. Not for the Aussies, I hope, but for mankind. The new football season is just a few short weeks away. And its all happening behind the scenes.

Spurs are sharing their new ground with the NFL, even having a retractable pitch so the Yanks can play on the artificial surface that lives underneath the proper one, thus can play without ruining our grass.

Chelsea too are rebuilding (though not as big as ours; nneeuur nneeur ne-nneeur-nneeur) and want to hire Wembley for the transition times. Not content with Milton Keynes, like Spurs may have to be. (Milton fucking Keynes? Gimme a break.)

And Bastien Schweinsteiger is moving to Manchester United. The bastard love-child of Eva Braun and Franz Beckenbaur is to grace Old Trafford next season. I hope he’s happy there. I hope he’s happier there than Di Maria, than Falcao, and all the others duffers who’ve worked almost as well as Spurs recent acquisitions.

Happy Sunday

COME ON ROGER

A xxxx

When Dylann Roof shot up a predominantly black church in South Carolina, he probably never realised the full political impact of his actions. Looking at pictures of him, its doubtful he could button his own fly, let alone consider far-reaching consequences of deep cultural impact.

But he shot a bunch of lovely (by even his own admission) church-going people, because he was an ignorant moron and the son of several generations of ignorant, white supremacist (if only Americans did irony, they’d look at Dylann’s picture, along with ‘supreme’ anything, and finally understand the concept) morons before him. And in his Facebook photos he was always shown holding a Confederate flag. Because that flat symbolises so many things.

First and foremost, it IS the Southern States. No-one in Boston ever flew that flag. But like all symbols it then acquires baggage. And ‘the South’ bit implies cowboy boots and hats, it implies Country music, it implies beer and bourbon (never Scotch), it implies Ford and Chevy pickups, never Toyota or Land Rover, and it implies a good-ole-boy, shit-kickin’, baccy-chewin, rip-roarin’… White men.

I think it safe to say that no black family has ever flown a confederate flag anywhere. Because the original reason for forming the Confederate States was to fight the Union over slavery. The Northerners wanted it abolished whilst the Southerners liked it just the way it was, thought it was just faaaaarn and dandy.

And whatever protestations people make about how the flag is just about southern-ness and apple pie, it is first and foremost the sign of not just some benign form of quiet racism, but an out-there statement of supremacy, subjugation and domination. That was where it began, you cannot divest it of its origins just by flying it over a hot dog stand.

The car above is the General Lee. If you weren’t a Dukes of Hazzard fan. And I hope you weren’t because it was a tragically awful series. And the car was the star. As it should be, the acting was pretty much non-existent and the plots pathetic. Whereas this Dodge Charger R/T was a truly amazing machine.

The first one they used (there were loads, obviously, cos cars don’t last if you jump them across rivers and crash them into buildings) was bought for hundreds of thousands of dollars. And after the church shooting, the owner made the decision to take the confederate flag off the roof. Me, I’d have painted it all black anyway, but what do I know?

Then on Friday, South Carolina, the first state to remove itself from the Union before the Civil war, for the first time since then, removed the Confederate flag from its municipal buildings. Its taken them 150 years and a bunch of dead people to realise that the flag of Pro-slavery was somehow racist and nasty, even offensive to black people.

They’re replacing it with a swastika…

Only joking. Good for them. Now they just have to convince the ‘good people’ of South Carolina that its a good thing to do. They don’t seem convinced. Especially the ones in white robes with pointed hats.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Dawn was yet to break as we left the castle and entered the early-morn in the glistening, dewy forest and headed south.

I’m conducting a life-long study of fish & chips. Not, like, every day. That would be excessive. It would kill you. Or me. But there is something rather special and unique and comforting about one of probably only 3 totally British meals. The other 2 being roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and chicken tikka massala. I don’t count jellied eels because the very thought makes me wretch.

Fish is good for you. Though cover it in heavy batter and fry it in beef fat and it probably loses just a touch of that ‘goodness’. Just a touch. Chips are the devil’s work. And all the better for it.

So every few months we’ll get a take-away (because if you eat in you will smell like fried cod for a week) from our local, the Poseiden in East Finchley. Which is wonderful. Not cheap, but really, consistently fantastic. Cooked by a Greek man who had the sense to leave his homeland 25 years before ‘the trouble’.

But when you go to the British seaside its a legal requirement to eat fish’n’chips. Has to be done. You can get all varieties. From stands on the beach, in little cardboard boxes, to up-market Rick Steineries in Padstow. Also served in cardboard boxes, but his ones are ironic. Which you can tell because you’re paying a tenner more for the irony.

And in Whitby last week, which is first and foremost a fishing village, we ate at The Magpie. Widely regarded, though there’s always debate, as ‘the best in town’.

The connection between the seaside and this meal is fairly obvious really. Haddock doesn’t (as I recently learned) grow on trees, but instead swims in the sea. Until some Yorkshireman with a boat, a flat cap and net rips it gasping out of the sea, away from its family and murders it…

Ok, that’s vegan talk. We know why fish are caught.

Basically, so I can eat them.

If you start with really fresh fish, as The Magpie does, as Rick Stein obviously does (his restaurant gets wet at high tide; almost) and as the Poseiden in land-locked East Finchley does, and batter it lightly and fry it really well, you have fish’n’chip perfection. Not greasy, not slimy, great chips, all is good in the land.

But is there a difference between Rick Stein, the Magpie in Whitby and any of the really good fishy places in London? Or Leeds? Or Birmingham? Because it doesn’t take very long to get fish around the country and basically, fish is fish. So its all in the cooking, and the batter. And by now, most people know how to do that. And they all know how everyone else does it too. There are no secrets because even the Rick Steins of this world pride themselves on cooking it ‘the old way’, ‘the proper way’. And it ain’t rocket science. No lettuce at all allowed in fish’n’chips.

So I’ll keep on trying out fish’n’chipperies in far away places in the UK. To see if there really is any difference. Or whether next year we should just holiday in East Finchley and save the petrol.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Barak Obama is soon to visit Kenya, from whence his family hail, with all the pomp and ceremony such visits bring. But the Kenyans don’t want him. Because America has legalised gay marriage.

Are the Kenyans fearful that homosexuality is contagious? That it can be ‘caught’, not from in fact a gay man but from a man who comes from a land with no (overt) gay discrimination? They’ve had marches in Nairobi, to ‘Protect The Family!!!’ Do they not realise that there’s quite a difference between legalising gay marriage and making it compulsory. You don’t have to have a gay marriage if you don’t want to, really, its optional. A matter of choice.

Kenyans have stated that they are prepared to refuse foreign aid if it ‘is tied to gay marriages’. Which leaves that rather poor country in a bit of a pickle, money-wise, as they’ll only be able to get financial support from ISIS, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Meanwhile, Andy Murray marches on, having yesterday beaten The Terminator’s second cousin. Well, he looked like a cyborg. Massive fucking ‘thing’, 6 foot 11 of dour Croat who served like a canon. Didn’t so much hit the ball as ‘FIRE!!!!’ But Murray prevailed. The Cyborg warped back to the future for modifications to his circuitry for next year.

Thursday should be fun. They’re having a strike. On the tubes and trains. No-one will get anywhere. We’ll all be walking round our houses waving our Oyster cards at each other waiting for a bleep.

This is a positively 20th Century action that shouldn’t happen in 2015. Holding the country to ransom to meet what can only be considered unreasonable demands. The tubes are due to become ’24-hour’ as from September and ‘terms’ need to be sorted. They’ve been offered more money all round for this, plus bonuses for night-working, on top of the 50 grand a year they already earn, plus overtime, even when they’re on their 42 days’ of holiday. But its not enough. Never enough. So the Unions are ‘protecting workers’ rights’. Industrial Action.

Coincidentally (yeah, right) the trains are also striking, at the very same time. What are the chances? So as well as London grinding to a halt, fans going to Wimbledon and even the cricket in Cardiff will be royally fucked.

Bring in the army. Bring over the refugees from Calais. I’ll drive a train. How hard can it be?

The Legend is burying his dad today. My heart is with him. The loss of a parent is always a tragedy. The loss of a Spurs fan, doubly so.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Watched a fab documentary film the other night about James Hunt. The racing driver in the 70s. It was exactly like watching the movie ‘Rush’ (brilliant film) which told the same tale, but this time with real people instead of fake ones. The real James Hunt, who died aged 44, and all the greater legend for it, and the real Nicki Lauder, the most heroic man of all times. The movie version was great because the story itself is so magical. The documentary even better because James Hunt, the real one, was so much funnier and more ‘out there’ than the actor in the film, chosen for his blond good looks rather than personality.

James Hunt went out the night before the Toronto grand prix, picked up a singer, drank and shagged all night, had 10 Marlboro (he had to, it was in his contract) for breakfast and went and won the race.

He’d probably have failed a breathalyser test, but who cared in 1976? Who knew that if you drank 75 units of alcohol at night there might still be ‘traces’ of it in your blood the next day? Though wobbling round and grinning inanely might have given it away.

Brands Hatch was filled to capacity for the grand prix in 1976 and that year the tv stations were fighting over the rights for the races as the world ‘woke up’ to the excitement of the competition.

Yesterday Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. 140,000 people were there to watch, making it the biggest sporting event in the country. 140,000 heads all turning to the sound of “nnnnnnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHhhhhhhhhh” once every ten minutes then going back to their Sudoku puzzles.

I love Formula 1 like I love cricket. Long painful agony but worth checking the results and watching the best 25 seconds on the news. And wondering what happened to ‘personality’ as a concept in motor sport.

Greece vote OXI!!!! That’s ‘no’ to you non-linguists. Good for them. Or possibly very bad for them. They’re fed up with being ‘persecuted’ by Europe, bullied and having their sovereignty threatened by Angela Merkel and Francoise Hollande and those bastards at the bank.

Its a bit like telling your bank ‘Well that’s it!!! I’m taking my overdraft elsewhere’.

Where do you take a 300 billion Euro ‘overdraft’?

Happy Monday

A xxxx

So we’re back. Just in time for the rest of Wimbledon. Does everyone think its the only decent tennis tournament of the year or is it just me? I never watch the French, US or Aussie, just can’t get excited about it. But Wimbledon? Brilliant. And this week I’ve missed most of it, due to holidaying in various parts of the world, but I’ve caught some. And its wonderful. Seeing how those Brits ‘almost made it’ to the next round. How we were ‘that close’ to beating someone half decent. Or in the case of Heather Watson and Serena, beating someone twice decent.

Never mind, we still have Andy. Everyone’s favourite Scotsman, other than all the other Scotsmen you know, met or read about, goes on and on. And although he may not be any nicer than he was 3 years ago, he’s certainly a much better player. He’s won 2 grand slams and a Wimbledon gold medal. That alone is enough to make you believe in Britain still.

Though without the nationalism practiced by the (tossers) group who yesterday protested against the ‘jewification of London’. I really have no idea what that means. Is it anything to do with Waitrose selling gefilte fish? Are these guys really upset that you can now buy a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel at Spurs? I mean what is the ‘jewification’ of anything?

But neo-nazis generally aren’t into concise definitions of words or phrases. They like sound-bytes which cause upset or unease and imply something they don’t like. Like jews. Same as oldo-nazis in that respect.

The police, at the last moment, moved the demonstration from Golders Green, a particularly hardcore Jewish area, to Westminster, which has yet to be properly jewified. And about 20 ‘neo-nazi activists’ turned up. A good turn out. Its like having a dinosaur rally and 20 brontosauruses and tyranosauruses turn up. We had no idea there were that many still living. If you call that living.

On the other side of the massive police presence stood hundreds of left-wing activists, anti-racists, equality fighters and jews. Breaking the sabbath to stand up against the… errr… against the tossers, who were wearing wonderfully contradictory t-shirts proclaiming either ‘keep Britain white’ (know many black Jews?) or ‘National Rebirth of Poland’. Huh? Its a neo-nazi group in Poland that these boys have latched onto.

The police escorted the storm-troopers back to the tube for their own safety, to shouts of ‘scum, scum, scum’. To make it easy to identify them, other than the t-shirts, the baddies had the skinhead hair-dos and full sleeve tattoos.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

A family of 12 leaves Luton to move to the so-called-alleged-Islamic-State/ISIS/Daesh/whatever David Cameron wants us to call it this week. Good for them. I hope they have a lovely holiday there. Like we did in Scotland and The North. Though its doubtful. You can’t get fish’n’chips in the Islamic State. Its banned. Along with music, fun, good things, nice things and any form of enjoyment. Unless you really enjoy beheadings specifically and death generally.

And I know Luton is not the nicest place in England, and realise that for the last 15 years there’s been a 50 mph limit on the M1 there for the longest roadworks in the history of mankind. Ghengis Khan built a thousand miles of elephant trails across the far east in the time its taken to repair a bit of motorway. But is that reason enough to go and join the most poisonous, brutal, bloodthirsty regime in world history? And take your family, wives (another story) young children?

The head of the family has spoken to say how glad he is to be: “in a land free from the corruption and oppression of man-made law and is governed by the perfect and just laws of Allah”.

Some may feel this to be somewhat contradictory, a touch odd. Even blasphemous in that its blaming their God for all the atrocities. But I don’t. I think everyone can have their own views and opinions, their own dreams, their own versions of Utopia.

And the best place to have such thoughts is over there. With like-minded vermin.

They should never, ever, be allowed back into this country. Why is such a fuss made about finding these people, stopping them going, repatriating them? They want to go there, its not our choice, let them go. Its where they belong. Taking their children to a fucking war zone that’s bombed every night. Its their freedom. More freedom, ironically, that they’ll ever have in ISIS-land. I feel for the children, they’re not given a choice. But arguably in a strictly Muslim household they’re not given much choice wherever they are.

We never want these people back. They have chosen a life that is not only at odds with our own but one that at heart seeks to destroy our way of life. A regime that plants seeds of hate, death and destruction all over the world. From the London Underground to a holiday resort in Tunisia. New York to Bali. An ideology so sick, demented and horrible that if people wish to join it, extremists, radicals, jihadis, just let them go. But don’t let them back.

If you take a paedophile (our other favourite people) and jail him he is still a paedophile. It can’t be cured. Its the way he is made. You can’t un-screw a pregnant woman and you can’t reform an Islamic extremist. The poison is there. Forever. Yes, they can change their minds once they get out there and realise that hacking people’s heads off and murdering whole villages kind’a loses its appeal after a few goes, but the ideology remains.

I appreciate that there are rules about British citizens and making people ‘stateless’ by refusing them entry to their ‘own’ country, but fuck that. These are not normal times. These are certainly not normal people.

Holiday’s over. Driving back to London later today. Been a blast. Been a lorra miles.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

So we’ve been to Loch Lomond, which is simply stunning. Then we crossed over land and sea to Islay, which is beautiful. And then to come back to the mainland for a quick 60 mile hike (ok, drive then, if you must) to see Oban. The jewel in the crown of the Highlands. The most beautiful place in the world.

They rave about it, they praise it to the heavens. And on that 60 mile drive, up the coast road, all sea and mountains and incredible majesty, you keep thinking: ‘wow; how great must Oban be if Kochmachracherchie (or what–ev-er) doesn’t even get a mention when it looks the greatest place on earth???’

And they finally, you round the bend, and there, right in front of you, is the reality, the actual town of Oban. Which you know because no-where else has an Aldi, right next to a Tesco Superstore. Ahhhh, the Highlands. There’s the ferry ports, three of them. There’s a high street filled with pound shops and fish’n’chip takeaways and empty units where they couldn’t sell souvenirs.

There are good bits of Oban, the gorgeous castle ruins, the McCraig Tower, but they all close at 4. I don’t know why, but they do. Its a Scottish thing; when people might want to come and see your attraction/eat your ice-cream/walk your castle, go down the pub. Fair enough.

So they lied about Oban. The rest of the highlands is simply magnificent and Oban is kind’a ‘nyehhh’.

Until sunset. And then Oban becomes almost worth most of the hype. Because its not about looking AT Oban, its about looking OUT FROM Oban. Its on the west coast, it has loads of islands around it, its a gorgeous natural bay and as the sun sets and all the Scottish people are inside the pubs, it becomes simply beautiful.

So beautiful that we left this morning, for a quick jaunt over to Whitby in North Yorkshire. Only 350 miles, we should’a walked it. And here we shall shall stay, until the end of… our stay. Ticking off the ‘never been there before’s.

I’m gonna miss Scotland.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx