Andy's Glasses

When Monty Python’s Life of Brian movie came out in 1979, there was minor outrage. Ok, there was major outrage. It was blasphemous. It was offensive. It was irreverent to the point of abuse. Yet still they wanted to ban it. As if those things weren’t good things.

But heh, its a movie; how much harm can it do? People likely to be offended by such a film have the power to, kind’a, just ‘not see it’. No-one’s forcing them. Its a bit like church. It exists, some people find it offensive but no-one ‘has’ to go.

The film was effectively ‘banned’ in the lovely seaside town of Bournemouth. By the council who insisted on it carrying the highest censorship rating they could impose so cinemas wouldn’t show it as most of its target market was banned. So a kid of 16 could probably blag his/her way in to see the violence of Reservoir Dogs, learn how to steal cars in Gone in 60 Seconds, see any of a million offerings of sex, rape, torture and murder, but weren’t allowed to giggle at a Jesus spoof.

Blasphemy laws were abolished here in 2008, but still Bournemouth wouldn’t downgrade the film’s rating, so its still never been shown within the land defined by the Pier at one end and Harry Rednap’s house at the other.

But now, for one day only, some 36 years since the film was released, the Town of Bournemouth are prepared to downgrade its rating to a ’15’. For one day only. So that all the residents can go and see it, even though its been on tv about 95 times and the dvd has been available ever since they stopped selling videos.

The new Bond film cost £200 million to make. 24 mil of which was used turning Aston Martin’s new, yet to be released or seen DB10, into scrap metal. And the funny thing is that even though violence in movies makes me cringe a bit (wimp!), and watching difficult situations make me feel uncomfortable, its seeing cars getting smashed up that really upsets me. I’ve never gotten over the start of the original Italian Job when a Lamborghini Miura goes off a cliff.

Does this make me overly metal-sensitive? Too in touch with my mechanical side?? Or just a stupid man?

Answers on a postcard…

A xxxx

2-nil, and you fucked it up, 2-nil, and…

You know that song? Well that was Spurs game yesterday against Manchester City. We won 2-nil but the linesmen fucked it up so they called it 4-1 instead. I don’t care. Free points is free points, whichever way you miss Kyle Walker being 19 yards offside. (Was the man blind?)

But really, I don’t care. Firstly because we won either way, though 4-1 has a magical ring to it that 2-0 kind’a lacks. And secondly because refereeing cock-ups are a part of the game and will remain so until they finally agree to actually use the 736 cameras present at every single match, and concede to take the 3 seconds to rewind and make what we call in rugby a TMO decision. One which no-one can argue with. Though who wants that?

I have one rule. To cover my entire life. I don’t moan about offside goals, whether they’re ours or ‘theirs’. Part of the game, get over it, move on. I leave the moaning to the professionals. Not professional footballers, professional moaners. Wenger, Morinho, the scapegoat-seekers, Arsenal fans and other miserable low-lifes. At Spurs we just score more goals until we get one or two that everyone is happy with or at least prepared to accept.

So we beat mighty City 4-1 and it felt absolutely wonderful.

Then the rugby started. And its a funny thing; I don’t resent those who play for the other side when they play well. I do at football, not at rugby. Its almost like I become some kind of closet gentleman or something equally as unlikely. But no, I’m still the same bastard, but just one that appreciates the skill of others.

The match was brilliant. But so fucking hard. 3 men stretchered off. Bloody and bruisy yet quite wonderful. Unfortunately England lost and will now struggle to qualify for the final stages of this world cup. Which is at home, so doubly annoying. But all is not yet lost. Just the game last night.

Wales were up by 3 with 2 minutes and some left on the clock when we were awarded a penalty. Ok, it was right by the touchline, which is not the easiest, but Owen Farrell had been kicking with amazing accuracy all night and wanted to tie the game up. But captain Chris Robshaw, upon whose shoulders such decisions lie, instead chose to kick for a line out at about 5 metres out. To go for the winning try rather than the tying penalty.

And sadly it all went tits up. A few more bodies got carried off, they swept up the severed limbs and Wales got the ball back.

I’m a big Chris Robshaw fan. He gives heart and soul to every game. And body. Lots of bits of his body. But he was damned. Take the penalty and everyone accuses him of not having the confidence to go for the win. Miss the penalty and its a matter that he should have gone for the win anyway.

We didn’t lose because of Chris Robshaw and his poor decision. We lost because Wales were totally fucking brilliant at times. And they chose those times very carefully.

Bring on the Aussies, that’s what I say. When I’m feeling bold.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Sepp Blatter? Little bald wedding singer who ran FIFA Euro-Tosser? Always has been, always will be. But suddenly his stance that he knew nussink is looking even more ridiculous than previously. He always stated the case for total fucking negligence and ignorance of the horrendous corruption and shit all occurring on his watch. In many minds (well, in MY mind) this was as great a crime as being complicit. Being blind to the abuse happening in the company you run is itself almost criminal.

But now the police have decided to speak to Mnsr B once more, and search his office and home, following a little problem of 2 million Swiss Francs that appeared to be paid by FIFA to Michel Platini, ironically the man tipped to take over Blatter’s old job when the fucker finally goes.

Let us hope they both end up in jail and we simply burn FIFA to the ground and start again. I’ve always said it: YOU CAN’T RUN FOOTBALL WITH FOREIGNERS.

Meanwhile, back home, there are (yet even) more issues about Jeremy Corbyn, the new Labour leader. The one with the beard and no dress sense. Not that we judge books by covers… but we do.

This time its about national security. And whether Mr Corbyn, as a major politician, should be privy to the information discussed at meetings involving security, as most other political leaders have been.

But the problem is that Corbyn is best mates with the IRA. He’s pally with Hamas and Hezbollah. He sides up to any bunch of terrorists with a cause. Do we want such a man knowing the intimate details of this nation’s defence potential? Personally I not only wouldn’t but I’d have him killed just in case he learns anything sensitive. A precautionary pre-emptive strike.

However, all of this pales into virtual insignificance as Spurs are 4-1 up against mighty (phah) Manchester City with 5 minutes to go.

So who cares about national security or the future of FIFA?

Come on Leicester.

A xxxx

I’m a feminist.

My wife told me to be one and who am I to argue.

But the truth of the matter is that I am a feminist. As a true liberal I adhere to the French motto of ‘libertee, fraternitee, egalitee’, and I really do. Most of the time. There are exceptions to my otherwise unbending sense of equality but its not really based on gender or race. More on ‘football team supported’. But that’s me.

And when I find myself in an inner discourse involving double standards I almost hate myself, except I’m really too lovely and wonderful to do that for very long.

One such problem is statutory rape. Underage sex.

If I’d read in the paper that a 30 year old teacher had been caught having sex with a 15 year old girl pupil I’d have been outraged. Abuse of trust. Abuse of power. Disgusting bastard, castration the only option.

Yet when I read today of this woman, 30 year-old Caroline Berriman, a teacher who’d been shagging a 15 year-old boy she taught at school, I didn’t instantly internally demand her castration. And not for the rather obvious reasons.

Instead I remembered what I was like at 15. When, at the boys only grammar school I attended, every waking moment (and plenty of sleeping ones too) that wasn’t used for football was dedicated to sex. To girls. Women. Birds. Tarts. Just talking about it. Obsessively. All of us. All of the time. You’re 15 years old and pumped so full of hormones that your body and mind are trying to cope with them but generally fail miserably. Yes, most of it is ‘big talk’, but its rooted in but one thing, the desire to have sex. Call it ‘animal’, call it ‘natural’, call it what you want, but every 15 year-old boy I knew would give his… something very important, to have sex with someone who looked a lot like Caroline Berriman.

Who narrowly avoided prison for her act of educational copulation.

We want every child to receive sex education, well this was a private practical session. Almost as much fun a putting a condom on a banana. And for that this woman is reviled.

Double standards be damned, the boy involved will not be ‘damaged’ by this, nor ‘scarred’, nor emotionally impaired. He’ll be fine. He’ll be happy. He’ll be over the fucking moon.

Caroline Berriman has taken over from Sylvio Berlusconi as my new hero.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I’m intrigued by the goings on at Volkswagen. Wolfsburg’s finest company (even better than their football team) is the largest car maker in the world. I think. Let’s say they are anyway. So I’d always assumed that they were just typical of wonderful German efficiency and organisation. That they storm-trooped their Germanic way through the automotive world with power and directiveness and a united game-plan. You know: they’re Germans. The staff are all blond and blue-eyed and wear lederhosen as they line up the engine blocks for insertion, singing jolly German songs to the accompaniment of the VW Official Accordion Player (accordionspieler) who has a special chair in the corner. At the end of the shift they all drink steiners of beer together and sing more songs. There’s no shortage of (terrible) German folk songs. Unfortunately.

But the truth is a million miles from that blurry picture of efficient harmony and agreement. Its more like a Jackie Collins (God rest her soul) novel.

Ferdinand Porsche, the original, had two children. Young Ferdinand and Louise. The daughter then married Anton Piech. Both Porsche and Piech had 4 children. So the company shares were divided into 10 and given to Young Ferd, Louise and each of their combined 8 children. Easy peasy.

Except families aren’t like that. Nothing’s easy. The two sides obviously hated each other and lived in a state of permanent power-struggle over the company. Which culminated in 1970 when, after employing psychologists at a family ‘meeting’ it was agreed that no family member could ever be allowed to work at the sports car manufacturer again.

So they turned their attention to the other cars. Like VWs. Though when that company was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1993, it was Ferdinand Piech who worked miracles to save all and send the company forward. He’d previously been at the helm of Audi and put them pretty much where they are today. No, not shamed and reviled, but right ‘up there’ with the ladies who lunch set and the yummy mummies. The reviled only happened this week.

Though he wasn’t the most popular family member, because in 1972 he left his wife and started an affair with the wife of Hans-Peter Porsche with whom he stayed for 12 years. And with whom he had 2 (of his 12) children. The other kids were from 3 other women.

Martin Winterkorn, the boss of VW until his ‘retirement’ yesterday, the official sorry-sayer on the newsreels, claims his own personal disgust at the whole emission-gate scandal, which would normally look to cost the company around 11 billion Euros. But as the main problem is sales in America, where ‘big litigation’ is something of a national sport, it could get much, much worse.

But we still don’t know who invented/authorised/decided on the emission test defeater mechanisms. And I think we should know that, really.

Happy families

A xxxx

Hitler invented the Volkswagen in 1937. The original ones had little moustaches under the grill and a greasy fringe hanging over the windscreen. He was a vain man. But the car was the Volks Wagen. The car for the people. As long, obviously, as those people were white, Christian, blond, blue-eyed and Ayran in descent. Naziism was fair like that.

The rest is history. Well, either history or boring, so we’ll skip the middle bit when VW became the almost most popular cars in the world (only Toyota supply more), became the must steal badge for obnoxious little rapper shits and, with the Golf, had/have a car that the world not only wanted to own and drive but that every other vehicle in its class really aspired to be. It was the mark of quality, solidity and safety.

And upon that came VW’s inevitable reputation for goodness, honesty and… and trust.

Oh dear.

VW is a group now. It owns Audi, Lamborghini, Seat. And is in turn owned by Porsche. The Porsche group. Whereby, apparently, lies the problem. The Porsche family don’t like outsiders running their company. They like to keep it in the family. Right across the group. And they don’t like investment in new technology, apparently. Odd in the car world, but that’s what it is.

So rather than modify their massively popular Diesel engine so that it might produce less emissions AND maintain healthy fuel economy, they devised a better way. More ‘pragmatic’ than going to all the bother of building a new motor.

They devised a system that ‘knew’ when the car was being tested for emissions. Which is easy because emissions testing is always done on a rolling wheel. So in that situation all these wonderful shit-control systems kick in and reduce pollutants to very little. Back on the road and the ‘really green and economical’ Golf turns into a 70-year old oil tanker, emission-wise, churning out crap into the very air we breathe. Because to keep the car running with low exhaust emissions would increase the fuel consumption.

Its ok though, because the CEO of the VW group has said that he’s really really sorry. Not just that he got caught, obviously, but for deceiving the car-buying public and lying to them. And he said it in German. Sorry, we fucked up, he said. But only 11 million times. (The number of cars mis-sold, worldwide.)

Hitler would be proud of them.

Happy Yom Kippur

A xxxx

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What was ‘Dave’ thinking? Really, I mean, ok, he was drunk, probably a bit stoned, caught up in a frenzied, orgified, peer-group, testosterone-fuelled, impress-da-birds party and so he dipped ‘part of his anatomy’ into the mouth of the severed head of a dead pig.

What’s wrong with that? We’ve all done it. Oral sex with a dead pig is just a normal part of growing up, surely? Its as natural as raping your sister. Shagging the cat. Exposing yourself in church. Feeling up old ladies as you ‘help them across the road’. Rights of passage. Teenage hormones. Ya gotta love ’em.

But the love ends when you become prime minister. And make enemies who then publish very unauthorised biographies about you in the quest for revenge.

Ohhhhhh, David CAMERON, Dave. Oh, that one.

Lord Ashcroft, former conservative peer and very rich, obnoxious and horrible man, gave millions to the Tories way back before 2010. Ancient history. He was promised a cabinet post in return for his un-UK-taxed, offshore, numbered Swiss donations, as he was a non-dom. Ahhh, but you can’t take political donations from thems wot don’t live here. Certainly not from thems wot don’t pay tax here. That’s the rule. In the inevitable brouhaha that ensued, Dave got away on the ‘I didn’t know it was offshore cash’ plea. But as Dave never like Ashcroft anyway, he didn’t honour the cabinet post side of the bargain. Hence one mightily pissed-off billionaire.

So Ashcroft and his writers came up with a hatchet job on Dave. And published it. Claiming many things, most of them when young Cameron was at Oxford. Involved in the ‘clubs’, smoking pot, possibly even having sex with women. Shock horror; students shag!!!

Now it comes to light that ‘cock-in-pig’s-mouth-gate’ was at best ‘unsubstantiated’. Evidence is scant. Witnesses unnamed ‘to protect them’. Oh, ‘those’ witnesses.

So the only crimes really committed by Dave were his possible knowledge, as the book claims, that he was in fact aware of Ashcroft’s ineligibility to donate, and the fact that our Prime Minister was an unrelenting, upper-class, monied little rich shit who bore the contempt his type generally do for everyone else.

We learn by our mistakes. Thus the David Cameron we all know and love must have learned a hell of a lot.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I competed in a triathlon yesterday. It was hard but infinitely rewarding. There again I’d been training for ages so my body was primed and ready.

The first ‘leg’ of the triathlon was football; Spurs playing Crystal Palace, which I didn’t see all of but enough to qualify. And enough that Spurs won, however shoddily, and claimed 3 points and a new superstar striker.

Then came the rugby part of my endurance, watching Argentina play the All Blacks. A wonderful game, close early on then dominated at the end by the Kiwis who seem to get stronger, fitter and faster as the game progresses and everyone else gets tired. Including me, so I took a bit of a nap during that, with some crossing over to see snatches of Man United at Southampton when the rugby got a bit mired down.

Then finally, when I really wasn’t sure I could go on, when it took all my reserves of energy, skill and concentration, I checked out some of the NFL, with New England playing the Buffalo Bills.

My sense of achievement was immense. I know pride is a deadly sin but sometimes…

Ok, I played tennis in the morning and mowed the lawn in the afternoon, but really just as a ‘warm-up’ for the event.

I’d like to thank my trainer, staff, wife, my stylist, spin-doctors, physios and Samsung. Without whom my wonderful achievement couldn’t have been reached.

Saw the movie ‘Legend’ on Saturday night. Its a biography of the Krays. With one actor, Tom Hardy, playing both twins, the madly psychotic, insanely pathologically murdering Ronnie and his brother Reg. Who only seemed ‘normal’ by comparison to his brother. Compared to anyone else living at the time or since, he was a screaming psychopath too. He was the ‘good twin’.

Its a shit film. Really bad. Amateurish. Cheap. Nasty. Piss-poor.

The Kray twins were notorious gangsters from the East End of London in the 60s. They were violent, murderous, evil and nasty. But very very successful and became celebrities, being seen with film stars, politicians and even royalty. It is a truly amazing story. Most of which the film completely failed to address in any meaningful way. Rather, it focussed on the violence and on Ron’s insanity and homosexuality. And even that in a very superficial and unsatisfactory way. Other than that, it was a great film. Yeah. Right.

I’d rather sit at home and watch re-runs of sporting events. In fact I think I will.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

If Chelsea played Dagenham & Redbridge, what are the chances of the Dags winning? Would Costa get all 11 sent off? What would the bookies say?

If a World Chess Grandmaster played Ole Bill from darn the pub, who’d put their money on Bill?

If a Ferrari raced a Morris 1000; which would win?

Yet underdogs do taste victory. Its called ‘the Corbyn Effect’ when a total no-hope wanker beats off hi-powered opposition to win against the odds.

West Ham beat Man City yesterday. Same thing. Lesser degree. High powered City hadn’t conceded a goal all season, won every game, and Cockney scum Hammers go to the Etihad and remind them how to let goals in and lose games.

Yesterday’s world cup rugby match between the mighty South Africa and the lowly upstart Japan was just such an occasion. A formality for the Springboks, a hope for the Japs to keep the losing scoreline below the level of total humiliation. The odds given for a Bok win were 1-1000 (I kid you not). Put a thousand quid on and you’d have got 1001 back. Following the inevitable win. Alas (ish) those pesky Japs didn’t read the script. Nor put their yen on South Africa.

It was a totally brilliant match which on its own, defined the fabness of a World Cup.

Which is as much about your world view as it is about rugby. Because for a ‘neutral’, you can sit back and just enjoy a game, the outcome of which brings no upset nor glory on a personal level. For you. I’m Japanese so its a bit different.

So you sit on the couch and think: do I like the Japs? Do I like South Africans? Who do I root for. Whilst I’m just ‘watching the match in a neutral and non-partisan manner’.

The Japs have a bit of a history, the wars, the warlords, lots of torture, lots of violence and cruelty, a dodgy gearbox my mum had on a 1972 Datsun Cherry, plus they’re obsessed with winning, almost as if its a good thing. But in the green corner, there’s the South Africans. Most of whom look like the descendants of the original Boer Voortrekkers who created all that unholy shit down there for so long, in the name of some God or other. There’s Oscar Pistorius, but there’s Mandela. And its all fine. Until they speak. Because to hear English spoken by South Africans is not just an abuse of a wonderful language, it actually hurts your ears and sometimes makes them bleed. I don’t know why; that’s the way it is.

So for 70 minutes the Japs have kept up with the Springboks, scoring to match them and keeping it all level. Itself an amazing feat against one of the three best rugby teams in the world. Then a penalty put SA ahead by 3. And for the final 10 minutes the Japanese had the ball. Wave after wave, phase after phase, they kept cool, they pressed, they were quite amazing. They won a penalty. A chance to tie the game right at the end, but they declined it, taking a line-out instead so they could win, rather than tie. Then another penalty in the 79th minute. They took the scrum on the 5 metre line. Against the best scrimmagers in the world. And they carried on, and on, and on, until, at about 85 minutes, they scored the winning try.

I screamed. Woke Mel up. Didn’t care (I’d worry about the punishment later). The elation on the Japanese faces, both players and fans, was pure magic. Matched by the despair on those of the South Africans, put to shame by rank outsiders.

I felt inspired. I felt engaged. I felt… hungry.

So come on Spurs. (Tottenham is ‘twinned’ with Nagasaki; though only since last night so most people don’t know it yet). Bring out your inner Ninjas. We can beat Palace.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Apropos of nothing…

my favourite phrase. Everything I have said, do say and will say could probably be preceded by that disclaimer. I like irrelevant. I like disconnected. I like nothing.

And I like joining up the dots, however out there those dots may be.

So this week they’ve been talking on the news each night about Artificial Intelligence. Not the type apparent in many mps, but the other type, intelligence generated by computers. Teaching computers to learn how to think for themselves. Not necessarily robots. More like the computer that taught itself to become a chess grand-master. Something we could all have done but just lacked the time.

But life imitates art. Much as art imitates life. Nothing confusing there. So we ‘know’ for a ‘fact’, because we’ve all watched Terminator (1, 2 and 3, where it all turned to shit), that if you let computers build the next generation of computers they take over the world, create a nuclear holocaust, build Arnold Schwartzenegger, programme him to speak with a stupid accent and send him back from the post-apocalyptic wasteland of ‘the future’ to come back in time to murder Jeremy Corbyn’s mum.

What a tragedy that would be. The leader of the Opposition suddenly disappears whilst not kneeling before the Queen or not singing the national anthem. Vanishes before our very eyes.

And yet the quest for AI continues with massive investment from Google to everyone else in IT. As it should really.

Unless they’ve all (like I have) been reading Ken Follett’s Edge of Eternity this week too. A great, easy-read Follett-sage (they’re all bloody sagas) set in the early 60s. In particular at the Cuban missile crisis. When the world came (in reality, not just in fiction) within a whisker (or something else very very small) of nuclear war. Russia had its missiles pointed at America from their Cuban bases, America in return pointed everything they had in Turkey (missiles couldn’t reach from America at that time) at every Russian city and major town. And it was a major face-off like there has never been before, with no-one wanting war but no-one prepared to lose face or show weakness. A bit like the rugby. But with more devastating potential even than that 20 stone Fijian winger who runs 100 metres sub-11-seconds.

We don’t have the cold war any longer. Though in 1962 it almost became a war so hot that the world would have been a melted wasteland for hundreds of years. Russia are now our friends. Unless you’re gay, Ukrainian, Crimean or a decent human being. So fingers have been withdrawn from buttons, hopefully never to reach out again.

But if computers design computers to design other computers and all the systems are literally ‘out of our hands’, then what happened at Cyberdyne Systems in 1984 could happen RIGHT NOW!!!!

Terminator meets Ken Follett meets the Cuban missile crisis and WE’RE ALL FUCKING DEAD!!!

Happy Saturday

A xxxx