Andy's Glasses

When one reaches a certain age, should that ‘one’ be sufficiently fortunate to still be in possession of one or perhaps even two living parents, discussions inevitably occur as to modes of death, dying and disaster. And brings with it the corresponding comments along the lines of: if I get to that point, just shoot me. Which is NOT in this context, in any way a mere throw-away line, nor a metaphor. It is sincere and heart-felt.

(Note to my children: I DON’T MEAN YOU. Not yet anyway)

Mel & I agreed virtually on our first date that if we ever reached the point where either entered a drooling, vacant vegetative state, that ‘termination’ was the desirable option. Terminally in increasingly worsening pain with no hope of improvement? Shoot me now.

Its not harsh, its not about being a burden, its not about the cost of care-homes, its a selfish act of suicide for the benefit of all but particularly for the sufferer. An end to misery. Or an end to horrible nothingness that may have replaced ‘life, as we know it’.

Lord Falkener proposed an assisted suicide bill a few years ago which was rather brilliant and much-needed. But it kind of ‘lingered’ as not being considered worthy of political expediency, and, after a lot of suffering, the bill just died. Ran out of time.

Now they’ve raised it again, this time with former Director of Public Prosecution, now MP, Kier Starmer, a big hitter with a big brain. And this time they’ll pursue it to the bitter end.

So entering the fray steps the combined chiefs of the world’s religions, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Zoroastran, whoever, and levelled their opposition to this proposal. They don’t want assisted suicide, they don’t want Dignitas UK, they don’t want nuffink. God wouldn’t like it. None of the gods, apparently. He’d rather watch people suffer?

The thing is; this is a massive moral question. As much as it is political. And therefore in this one instance I can forgive religion for getting involved in what is a legislative and legal issue. They kind’a have to. Its their right.

Much as its our right to ignore them, as we do in all other facets of religion-led dogma and stupidity which exists purely to remove choice. Particularly ‘big choice’.

No-one will be tied up and injected with carpet cleaner against their will because they’ve become a bit of a burden. Or because we want our inheritance and WE WANT IT NOW! The proposals are very thorough in their protection of the ‘candidate’.

Over 50% of people want to allow assisted suicide in this country. Well, over 50% of Daily Mail readers, which is almost the same.

It is time. It is definitely time. Everyone deserves the right to choose.

Ok, now we can get back to living.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Is suffering a good subject for a movie? Death is fine (see Kill Bill, Django Unchained, anything Sam Peckinpah, anything Chinese, Saving Private Ryan). Death happens. In war it happens a bit more frequently. In Kung Fu movies it happens at a more alarming rate. Brutality is fine. Illness is different.

You have to be more careful when you make a movie about terminal illness. Because you might end up with ‘Love Story’. Even though everyone knows what happens in the end. That’s why they call it ‘terminal’. Not in the ‘5th at Heathrow’ way.

A few years back I read a book called The Fault in Our Stars. Because (probably) it was cheap on Kindle. I’m discerning like that. Ok, it was recommended too. On virtually all women’s book sites. Girl meets boy. At a teen cancer support group. Oh, that (was) is different. He gets sick, then goes into remission, she gets sick, then goes into remission. They have a tiny window of like 18 hours when both are sufficiently remiss to fly to Paris, indulge in ‘romance’ of the most sacchariny variety, create enough shmaltz to drown fifteen chickens, lose their virginity, give meanings to their tragically short lives, then everyone fucking dies and you cry. Real tears. Man tears.

They made a movie of it. I saw it on a long flight when I’d seen everything else. Great film. Shailene Woodley outstanding with a tube up her nose. I cried again. Even though I knew how it was going to end.

So last night we went to see ‘Me, Earl and the Dying Girl’. Its a story about a girl with Leukaemia. Who meets a boy. Hmmmmm. But… and there are a lot of buts. They don’t have a romance. They don’t spread the shmaltz thickly, even thinly. They don’t get all weepy and slushy. They’re just a couple of kids in a horrible situation. And in a very un-hollywood way, reacting to it as kids.

And its brilliant. Really brilliant. I won’t spoil the ending (Hollywood can treat far more major illnesses way more efficiently than bloody doctors can, so ya never know) but the whole thing is remarkably uplifting. Its set in Pittsburgh but the ‘dying girl’ is an actress from Oldham, of all places. You’d never know. And that’s the finest accolade you can give any film. That there are no horribly Lancashire accents knocking around.

Happy, HEALTHY Sunday

A xxxx

Cockapoos in handbags is so 2014. Home cinemas? Done that. Midlife crisis in the driveway? Been there. Still there. Smart tvs? Smoothie makers? Gluten extractors? Tattoo on your testicles? All been done.

This year’s ‘must have’ accessory is a Syrian family in the spare room. We’ve all got them. Bob Geldoff… er… Bob Geldoff… and… errr… probably Bob Geldoff. As he has loads of homes. And we’ve been invited to ‘open up our homes to refugees’.

And much as I think that is a noble, virtuous, honourable and (as Cameron would doubtless say as he opens up number 10 to the Hussains from Damascus), ‘morally responsible’ idea, I think more that is the most stupid, irresponsible, inconsidered, vacuous and moronic way to address this issue.

A lovely little boy has drowned; open up your hearts and your homes. Doh?

And I’m sure that at least 99% of these Syrian people are lovely, distraught, decent people in desperate states. Maybe 98%. A lot of ’em anyway. But 2% won’t be. They’ll be child-molesters, rapists, thieves, wife-beaters, they’ll have rap-sheets a mile long, they’ll be Arsenal fans, snow-boarders, work for PPI claims phone rooms, they’ll be bad people. And as none of them have ‘papers’ of any description, how the hell do you know?

Tell you what I do know: San Marino shouldn’t really be in the European Championships. Nothing against them, but it just makes it a bit of a farce. If East Croydon declared itself an independent European state, it would have a bigger population that San Marino and a lot more decent footballers. So why bother playing there? Just give the other teams 3 points each and save the air fares. Lower your carbon footprint. Have a rest. Avoid token gestures at all costs.

Happy saturday

A xxxx

They use the term ‘game-changer’ to describe an event that shifts the balance, that tips the point, that causes a massive reaction.

The two little Syrian boys washed up on a Turkish beach after their people-smuggling bastard’s inflatable went under on the way to its designated Greek island. And the image of the younger brother in a soldier’s arms, dead and lifeless, have moved the world. You’d have to be inhuman not to react to such a tragic sight. Or you could be Putin, I suppose. Can’t see him shedding tears about mere loss of life. Even Margaret Thatcher would have been moved.

But what Maggie wouldn’t have had would be a knee-jerk, illogical, stupid reaction. Like David Cameron did.

Whether it was the picture itself that moved our Dave, or whether it was the unanimous reaction of the entire nation’s voters, we’ll never know. But Dave immediately came out with his ‘moral responsibility of a moral country’ line and stated we’d take more migrants from war-torn Syria.

Which is a bit like fixing the dome-light on your car because you have a flat tyre.

Firstly because the family of the boys was on its way to Canada so any asylum/refugee status changes here would not have had any effect. Sadly we no longer own Canada. All that oil…

Secondly, changing the numbers to be admitted will have no effect on the numbers leaving and using people-smugglers to get them here in the first place. In fact it may increase it.

Politicians just have to react to things, its their job. But how they react should be considered, should be logical, should be designed to help the problem they’re reacting to. Dave’s intentions tick none of those boxes. It was a pure knee-jerk reaction to a tragically dead baby.

What he should be doing is getting on a plane, or a little, pilotless inflatable perhaps, and going over to see Ms Merkel, and Mnsr Hollande and all the other hundreds of Euro people of influence and power and sorting out a united, joint, combined strategy for this immense problem. A solution that we can all understand and may relieve the ridiculous scenes that have happened in Hungary all week as confusion reigned supreme.

The European parliament is filled with ridiculously overpaid Nigel Farages, people with agendas far removed from actually running a cohesive continent. Let them for once start to show that the gravy train they’ve ridden for decades has some fucking purpose.

I don’t know what the answer is, but they should.

Tossers

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Its been raining all summer. On and off. In that annoying way. And the rule is (yes, I have one rule, just one) that if its pissing down in the mornings I don’t take my bike to the station, I walk. If the bike’s there in the evening and its raining, I ride. Because I don’t mind getting wet. I just hate being in wet soggy clothes all fucking day. And I don’t do ‘protective out garments’ because you look like a paedophile.

Such was yesterday. Arrived at the station to find it brilliantly sunny and yet raining quite heavily. Ok, that’s rule 7, we ride home. And as I peddled my way home I started to do some calculations to explain a rather strange phenomenon.

That if I cycle in the rain (about 5 minutes of biking) I appear to get 38 times wetter than if I walk, which takes about 15 minutes. Surely, assuming constant rainfall (we must consider all variables here, this is frikkin scientific, innit?) I would encounter exactly the same number of raindrops in either situation, just encounter them 3 times more quickly on the bike. Its not like I walk between the raindrops. And cycling between raindrops would be strange verging on extremely dangerous. I have tried that. And got breathalised by a confused and concerned policeman.

So I performed some preliminary calculations to ascertain where the errant factor of 38 comes from and arrived at the rather elegant and scientifically valid conclusion that ‘God fucking hates cyclists’.

I need to think of other things. Like migrants. I’m still torn. I have a devil on one shoulder (we’ll call that demon ‘David Cameron’) telling me that we don’t want these pathetic, homeless, stateless, burdens on the economy in our midst and we won’t let them in to abuse our welfare state. And I have an angel on the other (Angel Merkel, in fact) telling me that Syrians, in particular, and everyone else there, are desperate refugees from civil war, from IS, from horror and death and should be welcomed to Europe from a humanitarian standpoint.

The problem is that the entire middle east and half of sub-Saharan Africa can’t all come here; there’s not the room nor the finances to support them. Though I’m not unhappy for them all to go to Germany. That way, as part of ‘Europe’ I’m being a humanitarian by proxy but don’t have to put up with all that inconvenience of having them here.

Does that make me a bad person?

Yours badly,

A xxxx

Its all about time. About timing. Because the clock never stops, it just imposes arbitrary constraints on almost every facet of our lives. That’s why my favourite kind of holiday is one where I take off my watch when I get there and don’t put it back on until I’ve missed the sodding flight home. Dammit. But the joy to wake when you’re ready, to eat when you’re hungry, walk when you want to, stop for a coffee just because you can, not because ‘yeah, I’ve just got 18 minutes before my next meeting/appointment/anger management session’.

Yesterday was the last day of the football transfer window. It opened at the beginning of August and ended 6 o’clock yesterday because Monday was a bank holiday over here and you can’t end a transfer window on a bank holiday. Jesus! End it on bank holiday? What were you thinking??

And so as the clock did its inevitable thing, ticking away, slicing off chunks of our lives and putting them in the bin, deleted forever. With every click the price of players went up. The deals got nastier, the prizes more sought after, the panic more apparent.

Manchester United are unhappy. They won their first few games but not comfortably (at Spurs we take ‘winning in discomfort’ much more philosophically) and they looked shabby. And they’d only bought 3 ridiculously expensive players so far, in Schneiderlin, Memphis (as we have to call him) and Old Schweiny, who was actually transferred from a Munich hospital to the Manchester General Infirmary where he’ll spend the rest of his 4 year contract.

So on Monday night Luis Van Gaal and his team secured a teenager from Monaco, Anthony Martial, for a mere £36million (rising to 58 mil on performance stuff), the next ‘next Thierry Henry’. Another will be along shortly.

Whilst on the other side of Manchester, the City side, the Gallagher side, having already paid almost 50 mil for Raheem Sterling, they coughed up another 55 for Kevin De Bruyne the Woolf of Wolfsburg.

Yet the most startling transfer was one that didn’t happen. David De Gea, the Manchester United goalie, didn’t move to Real Madrid for £30 million. Nor for 80 million or even 2 million. The move failed. Everyone was responsible, in an irresponsible way, for the failure of the most talked about, most protracted, most stupid non-transfer since Cesc Fabregas didn’t move back to Barcelona 3 years running. It was the Gareth Bale sage all over again, but they changed the ending. Thus David De Gea can stay at the club he… err… well, at the club who own him, with the manager who… errr… who he can’t stand and just play on like the true soldier he was never likely to be. Disgruntled players who want away? They’re useful.

Like Saido Berahino. West Brom kept him from predatory Tottenham. So he can tweet his unhappiness and share it with the team he no longer wants to be with.

Ahhhh, I love a transfer window. Can’t wait for January. Its only a matter of time.

Happy Tuesday

A xxx

Did you know that they now make telephones that you can carry around in your pockets? Don’t need any wire, let alone an annoying, twisted curly wire. Did you know that? Phones that are also capable of taking photographs, mainly of your genitals, to send to other people? Its incredible. Technology moves so fast that you no longer need to learn ‘cobol’ to use a computer. Wow. Whatever next.

I’ll tell you what’s next.

I just bought a ‘smart’ tv. Ok, everyone else bought one about 6 years ago but not me. Hah, not that old ‘you’re tv’s out of date because its black’n’white’ ruse to try to get me to spend money. No Siree. But eventually, a new tv is what you ‘need’. So it might as well come with as many initials as you can get for the money. HD. HDMI. USB. 3D. Ok, I didn’t want 3d because its stupid but enough acronyms that I had to get a new Sky box to go with it. Because I only watch 2 things on tv: News and Football. BBC and Sky Sports. That’s it. Maybe a bit of BBC4 because I love 20 year old rockumentaries. And the old sky box ran on coal so probably needed an update.

How ‘smart’ is this tv? Well I’ll tell you.

Because when faced with the tv and the Sky box, all under wraps and pristine, I just took out the instruction manuals to see how to proceed. And what they said was: “undo the box, then connect the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah… (continue for 63 pages of ‘blah’)”. I panicked. Don’t know a Scart port from a Big Mac. Not that this tv has anything so ridiculously primitive as ‘scart’. So I called The Brother. He Who Knows. Because he works setting up computer networks and doing technical stuff. Which is why I pay him the big… er… the big cup of tea, really.

And that was when I learned why the new tv was so ‘smart’. Because I read the manual and ran out the house screaming, whereas really, it only needed two cables. Just two. All the old ones from the old Sky box we just threw away, cast aside, ripped out the wall. The tv does the rest all by itself. Connects to the wifi, connects to whatever else it needs to connect to, as if by magic. Oh, and a smug brother, that helps too. One who makes it all look so simple that any normal person might feel stupid, pathetic and ludicrously inadequate for not just pushing in two plugs and saying ‘abracadabra!’

Now that’s smart. The ‘features’ of the advertised smartness are almost irrelevant. For some of us ‘plug’n’play’ is the only way things are ever going to work. That and Big Brother.

Happy viewing.

A xxxx

Jose Morinho after losing 2-1 at home to Crystal Palace yesterday: “We played well enough to win the match, certainly we played well enough not to lose it.”

Wise sentiments from the manager. But, actually, Jose, you did lose the match. So what do those fucking words even mean? That on a different day, with different players, a good head-wind, temperature 4 degrees lower, with more chances going in at our end and less at the other, then: ‘we would have won’? Is that what it means? In which case I’d like to create a second league to run parallel with the ‘old’ boring Premiership. The League of Should’a’beens. The League of Broken Dreams. The League of Just Deserts.

Spurs would be top. Permanently.

Take yesterday, f’rinstance. First half we struggled, couldn’t get going, Everton keeping possession, creating chances. But the second half we were dominant. Sublime(ish), majestic (almost), stunning (nearly). Yet failed to hit the net. Not once. Ok, Tim Howard was fantastic in the Everton goal, but so many squandered chances. Never mind, we’ll have bought six more strikers by Tuesday. One must be ok? Surely??

Meanwhile, its not really fair to gloat the failings of the mighty Chelsea… without talking about Liverpool. The biggest club in… Liverpool, if not the world. And they lost in a rather humiliating manner (0-3) to West Ham, who last won at Anfield in 1963. When Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters, later to become world cup superstars, scored the goals. The rest of the team were Billy this and Bobby that and Alfie Cor-blimey and Jimmy wossname and Ronnie and Reggie and Big Jackie and Little Albert and all manner of chirpy cockney… err… scum.

West Ham are doing brilliantly away from home. Played Arsenal and Liverpool and beat them both. At home they’re shit. Maybe that’s why they’re soon to be moving their home to the Olympic Stadium. Which they’ve stolen from the nation’s tax payers.

So there you are. The mighty fall. Very little gives supporters of teams suffering indifferent form the joy that occurs when big teams get shafted. We like to see them squirm, we like to see whether their managers man up and take the responsibility. We like to see the aftermath.

And if, like Spurs, you happen to be 15th in the league table, its comforting to have Chelsea just above you.

Ahhhh, happy Sunday

A xxxx

Sent from my iPad

Do you believe in democracy? I do. But only when it works in my favour. If Ed Miliband had won the election I’d have opted for Sharia rather than his, or Corbyn’s, brand of ‘total bollox’ rule.

Do you believe in justice? Punishment fitting the crime? A society based on a strong morality? Yet one that moves with the changes to the demands of the majority?

No, neither do I. But they gave women the vote anyway. Then they did away with the death penalty, stopped using torture chambers and started banging on about equality. Of all things. As if all people are basically equal. Imagine.

But we do all that because its what we believe in. Apparently most of Europe is pretty much in accord about those societal fundamentals. Its what makes us Europe. America, Australia, even undeveloped countries like Canada, where adultery was invented (on an industrial scale), all have similar values. Similar but not identical. Which is as it should be. In America they still have the death penalty. Its called ‘the right to bear arms’. And is very commonly used and very indiscriminate. They also have state funded death in a lot of states in accordance with their laws.

Does that make the democratic/Euro-Amer-Aus version of society the only way to be? Is it the best way to be? Is it the most advanced, civilised, evolved or correct way to be?

We think so, because we’re all brought up on that particular value system. The Greeks invented democracy (bit ironic bearing in mind recent events). The Romans invented baths. But there’s loads of people who choose not to shower every day. (Unfortunately many of them travel on the Northern Line).

Other countries run to their own laws. Unbothered by the vagaries of ‘democracy’ and judicial process, they opt for something different. Something more tribal perhaps. More feudal. Ultimate rulers. Local warlords. Sharia. Ways that are alien. Seemingly barbaric at times, apparently contingent on how much pleasure the 4th wife gave the Main Man the night before as to what punishment might be meted out today.

And these systems aren’t ‘wrong’ because there aren’t absolutes in such matters of society. They’re just ‘not as we understand nor would ever choose to do’ and thus can appear abhorrent to our wet and western way of thinkage. Where women not only get to vote but some of them are even allowed to work. Though obviously not at the same rates of pay as men.

In India they have a ‘caste’ system. Its awful. By my way of thinking. Condemning people, from birth, to a certain and pre-defined life path, by virtue of their parents. And recently, a low caste man ran off with a high caste woman, who happened to be the wife of another high caste person. Nothing Ashley Madison about this, it just happened. And off they ran. So the village elders have decided on a punishment to fit the crime. The low caste man’s two sisters are to be publicly raped.

That’s fair.

And just.

According to them. According to westerners it is simply appalling. The punishment is not only worse than the crime, but illogical, nonsensical and stupid. As well as kind of punishing the wrong people.

But its not our business to do anything about it. Other than be saddened and sickened. And also eternally grateful for what we know and understand as ‘civilisation’ but others choose to disagree or refuse to be enlightened about.

We can appeal to such people in those places. But they don’t share our views. Nor do they have to. The whole concept of fairness is based on your particular viewpoint. However fucked up that may be in someone else’s eyes.

Same with countries. When we interfere with Iraq, with Afghanistan, with Syria, we created a fucking monster. The void left by the whole Arab Spring was the vacuum into which ISIS flowed, Libya crumbled, Syria is in crisis. And all because these places weren’t run according to our ideals.

Yep, it really is a fucked up world out there. Or maybe in here, I’m not sure now.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

This time its from Melbourne. Where scientists (well, they always call them that, don’t they? but who knows, really?) analysed 88 studies of gender issues in the workplace and decided that ‘covert everyday sexism can damage women’s health’. The damage being depression and ‘deep psychological harm’ in an undefined way. And this is Australia. A land so subtle that chat up lines range from: “get yer tits out, Sheila, its yer lucky night!” to “wanna fuck?”

These studies were more concerned with constant workplace niggles. Digs at women, references to their attractiveness (“she’s a DEFINITE 9, that one”) to lower wages and difficulties in attaining promotions.

And they must stop. Now. We can’t have anxieties and possible depression caused by flirting at work. These ‘men’ must be stopped. Castrated. Put on bromides. Forced to abandon any ‘banter’ that could possibly be misunderstood as ‘sexist’, an umbrella that is growing by the day.

So whilst we’re talking about the need to reduce stress, I want politicians to act against people who drive at 25mph in the fast lane on a clear road. I want no supermarket queue at Waitrose, because its depressing. I want to pay less tax, earn more money, have more sunny days (like today… at the moment), more empty seats on the Tube, an end to roadworks, faster wi-fi and I want Spurs to win the league.

No, they’re right, its easier to try to stop men being men. And good luck with that.

Another facet of manliness is measuring dicks. We do it all the time. I never go to the toilet without a tape measure. But billionaires do it in a different way. They buy boats. But not just any boat. They buy a boat that is bigger than anyone else’s. That’s what Andrey Melnichenko is currently doing. Phillipe Starck has designed him a yacht (so far costing £300million and it remains an artist’s impression) that, at 142 metres is bigger than Abramoviches, bigger than the Sultan of Anywhere’s, bigger than big. Its fucking massive.

It is said that the best two days of a boat-owner’s life are the day he buys his boat and the day he sells it. I wonder if that applies to this excessive act of extravagant vanity.

Happy sailing

A xxxx