Andy's Glasses

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

altogether now:

HE SHOOTS; HE SCORES; HE EATS YER LABRADORS; SON HEUNG MIN; SON HEUNG MIN… (repeat and rinse).

I’d firstly like to thank Spurs Paul for introducing me to that wonderful little ditty about our new striker, even though its an obviously facile and insulting stereotype of the entire Korean race. Its racist and unfair. Not all Koreans eat dogs and not all dogs get eaten.

Just thought I’d clear that up.

So Spurs have their second victory in the same week. A feat not achieved since… well, long time. On Sunday, should we beat Palace (may it please the Lord; it would certainly please me) that would be a hat-trick of wins. And that surely is the marker for what is to come. For the riches of silverware and glory inevitably destined to arrive at a White Hart Lane near you, sometime in the middle of next year.

Ok, we beat bottom-of-the-table Sunderland (well, they were, Newcastle have since ‘undertaken’ them for that coveted slot) in a very unconvincing win at the Stadium of Shite last Sunday.

And then last night we beat the mighty Qarabag. A team known as ‘The Real Madrid of one little part of Azerbaijan’. But so what that they were far easterners pretending to be European for the sake of the European riches. We can only play who they give us and we beat them proper. Though apparently (I wasn’t there; too much tai chi; too little time) the victory was rather hesitant at times.

Who fucking cares? Its about results. Not excuses. And in a week when English results in European competitions has been rather poor. With both Manchester teams losing their opening Champions League (what? never heard of it?? No its ‘the other’ European cup for those not worthy to play in the more proper Europa League) matches and Arsenal getting beat up in Zagreb and losing their only striker to a red card. Lucky they didn’t waste all that money buying another. Better off keeping it in the bank, Arsene, definitely.

So the glory days are back. Just make sure you keep bringing on the crappy teams. That’s not too much to ask, surely?

Happy days

A xxxx

We had a demonstration in Fleet Street yesterday. A bunch of very wet people marching down the road in the pouring rain, escorted by the police, banging a bloody drum and not doing much else. There was a banner or two but they didn’t actually state what the protest was about, nor who the protesters might be. Which is all a bit odd really. In a ‘then what’s the fucking point?’ kind of way.

Surely the whole point of a demonstration/march is to garner support? Or at least let people know what it might be that you want them to support. But this was different. This was a secret. Though marching down a road stopping traffic and banging a drum is not normally how secrets are kept.

Then I noticed that many of the marchers were wearing lanyards round their necks. Attached to which, if you know and have good vision, were Hackney Carriage license badges. As worn by all taxi drivers. Ahhhhhhh, their cabbies. And they’re pissed off about Uber stealing their livelihood. Oh, now I geddit.

So these cabbies, who, in their taxis, will tell you everything about everything, inform you of things you didn’t even know you ever wanted to know about, chose not to advise the good public of their grievances, their aims, their goals. We had to guess. No leaflet saying ‘Boris is a nob’, no placards showing ‘UBER IS THE DEVIL’S WORK’, no nothing. Just umbrellas and their badges.

They ended up in City Hall, where they heckled Boris, indeed called him a nob, and hit a security officer.

And I sympathise with them. I really do. Boris calling them Luddites was perhaps a touch insensitive, but it is rather an accurate metaphor, rather than just a random insult. Because the Luddites tried to stop the industrial revolution, they wanted to revert to the old ways, hold back the tide of progress. A bit like Jeremy Corbyn but without having shagged Diane Abbot.

Sorry, I have to let the nausea pass.

Ok, so Uber. Love ’em or not, they provide a service. And because it happens to be a service that impacts severely on Hackney Carriages, its inappropriate to ‘ban them’ or ‘stop them’ or anything them at all. We live in a free market world where the consumer is the ultimate decider on what grows and evolves and what dies off and becomes extinct.

There are many people who would rather spend ten minutes fucking about with smart-phones, searching for some decent 4G coverage and bumping into pedestrians, than just sticking out a hand and yelling ‘TAXI!!!!’ There’s also price considerations too. Uber are cheap. Mainly because their drivers are terribly exploited. But when you’re on the sex offender’s register you have to compromise something in your quest for work.

There are many sides to this question. None of which I can be bothered to answer. Not today anyway.

Happy thursday

A xxxx

Britain has never been very good at sit-coms. Ok, there was Fawlty Towers, the best sit-com the world has ever seen, and a few other notables, mainly anything with Leonard Rossiter. And there was Ab Fab. But the rest were and are simply awful. On the Buses. Love thy neighbour.

And then Citizen Smith came along in the late 70s. And it was such a brilliant idea as the Cold War neared its end and communism was seen as a failure generally but socialism still held its rather frayed-round-the-edges hopes at certain points in the Labour party and beyond.

The eponymous anti-hero, Wolfie Smith, was played by Robert Lindsay, now the best actor in the world. According to his agent. And Wolfie led a group of just 4 ‘subversives’ called the Tooting Popular Front. They wanted to liberate Tooting from the repressive capitalism and imperialism that the rest of the country suffered. And they planned marches, which no-one attended, they gave speeches, to 3 old ladies and a dog, who only wanted to get out of the rain, they arranged acts of sabotage, which didn’t happen. And it was funny. Not just because Tooting is unworthy of liberation, but because radical socialism was dead and these four sad and sorry guys just didn’t know. No-one had told them.

And no-one has told Jeremy Corbyn either. So it would seem.

Its not his ideals that are the problem. They’ve never changed from when he watched Citizen Smith. Its the meaningless statements that kind’a grind.

His refusal yesterday to sing the National Anthem. His inability to dress as anything other than a tramp. The deep-seated ‘pacifism’ which prevents him from displaying a poppy for remembrance.

This same pacifism that sees him a lifelong defender of very un-peaceful groups of nutters. Like the IRA. Like Al Quaeda. Like even ISIS, who he defends as being no worse than the Americans invading Iraq.

Like Woolfie Smith, Jeremy Corbyn is just an ‘anti’-man. Whatever is accepted, often acceptable, respectful or decent, if it in any way is part of the ‘establishment’ then he’s against it. Whoever is reviled by normal people, Jeremy courts as his friend and ally. Like Hamas. Like the IRA. Because they, like him, are big on causes, big on underdogs.

I wonder if he’s going to Manchester today to visit the underdogs there?

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Sent from my iPad

Busy day yesterday. Jewish New Year. We’re in 5776 now, having evolved before normal people. So I went to synagogue to pray for your sins. (I don’t sin). And pray for the Lord to forgive you (I’ve done nothing to forgive) and to work out how you can be a better person in the forthcoming year (I have scarcely any room for improvement). So other than my unfailing arrogance, smugness and self-delusion, it was a quiet day.

Though I did pause to wonder about this whole ‘God’ thing, wondering, as I do this day every year, if it’ll ever catch on in any significant way.

Because as we agonise over every slight, every slur, every mis-deed, dodgy act, every cause of any minor upset we may have caused anyone, we have just 9 days to sort them all out before The Day of Atonement comes and seals our fate. And people really do agonise about things. Ok, not really sufficient that when the holiday season is over they won’t commit exactly the same acts of immorality, lies, cheating and so forth for the next year, but its good to wonder, in a hypothetical way, how you might improve.

Then I wonder about the potency of it all. Ok, I oversold a used car, stopped short of filling the gearbox with sawdust to stop the rattling, but perhaps made claims that were a bit optimistic. And for that I may get condemned at some level? By a God who lets Jihadi John behead innocent journalists, who tolerates Kim Jong Un’s excesses against his people, who allows ISIS to decimate half a continent and leave its natives drowning in boats in their efforts to escape and allows Chelsea to win the league.

This omnipotent and omniscient God who sees everything, has unlimited power (like SuperMario but with more lives) and yet chooses to do nothing. Ever. His last act of direct intervention was to burn a bush for Moses.

So instead I turned to the Legend and spoke of modern miracles. Spurs first win of the season at Sunderland. Important things. Life-changing. For Spurs fans, at least.

Then we hosted 26 people for our annual Rosh Hashannah dinner. And it was chaos. And it was loud. And we ate too much. And we drank too much. And thus I realised the real meaning of holy days. Its about family. And friends. And fun. God was invited too but I’m not sure if he turned up. He’s a bit quiet these days so might have been in the corner nibbling some chicken. Or maybe not.

Happy New Year

A xxxx

if the season finished now, Man City would be champions. United runners up. Crystal Palace would be in the Champions League. Spurs would just avoid relegation, by one point and Chelsea would be just one place above that.

Ok, so probably not much change at the top, if we’re looking for some kind of prophecy here (which we’re not, this is more plain stupidity) with Arsenal 3rd; they’re always around there, just one or two players off the top slot. Players which Wenger always refuses to buy in August and then by Christmas will blame lack of squad depth for any failures as inevitable injuries set in.

Spurs avoid relegation; always the first dream. Europe comes second, the Champions League remains an unrealistic wish unless Gareth Bale comes back.

But Chelsea. In 16th place. That’s possibly an even bigger dream. Though not necessarily for Morihno. Who has gone from blaming the refs (first two weeks), blaming certain players (the following week) and now is just laughing. Yes, we’re shit, isn’t this funny, what can I do? in a shoulder-shruggy, smiley way.

Whereas what he really feels is much more WHAT CAN I DO?????? in a panicky, help-me-Lord, I’ll be unemployed by Christmas, kind of way. Though if he is unemployed, his 50 million contractual pay-off should ensure he won’t be on the streets.

Chelsea are the (current) champions. Last year they swept away all who came before them. They were strong in defence, solid in midfield and simply awesome in attack. With Hazard everyone’s player of the year. They strengthened a team that was already almost flawless. Yet its all turned to shit. They’ve lost 3 games already. 3 out of 5 matches. A season’s worth of losses in the first month. Doesn’t bode well.

So where did it all go wrong? John Terry’s still John Terry; Eden Hazard is still Eden Hazard, Diego Costa is still a stroppy, violent Brazilian Spaniard.

There’s only two possible reasons for this terrible slump. One is arrogance, the assurance that wins will just happen because they are Chelsea and winning is what Chelsea do.

The other reason is that there is indeed a God. Who is probably a Spurs fan. And he’s pissed off with the little Portuguese whinger and his overpriced team of mercenaries and is punishing Abramovich for sins past. Yes, believe it or not, becoming an Oligarch billionaire by the age of 33 probably involved some foul play.

Fortunately, though only time will tell, the season is not over. Not for Spurs with our more modest aspirations. But Chelsea already 11 points behind Man City?

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Jeremy Corbyn is the new leader of the labour party. Its official. The hustings are over, the speechifying done, the voting voted and nearly 60% of those eligible to do so put the Corbyn-meister at the head of their parliamentary party.

Well done Jeremy.

You ridiculous, anachronistic, throw-back, blinkered, single-minded tosser.

Though I have a great deal of respect for the man. Well, not in excess, obviously, but there is one unquestionable truth about Jezza: he is a man of principle. Sadly, its only one principle. But he sticks to it like a waterproof band-aid. As he has done since he invented this principle in about 1969.

He won’t move from his far-left, socialist, green, anti-nuclear, working-man, nationalised industry stance that he adopted back then and has steadfastly held, unchanging with time, with zeitgeist, with the changing world, since then. No, that’s his principle, that’s where he is now, much as he was then.

That’s his appeal. He does not court popularity. He does not tell people what they want to hear. He does not moderate his position to accommodate party lines. He IS his principle.

And that’s why he is so unbelievably popular (literally unbelievable); because he is that rarest of things in politics; an honest man.

Unfortunately, he is true and honest to a principle that no-one in the country (other than the deranged) would ever choose to vote for.

He wants Britain to be unilaterally disarmed. Fine, in 1972 when nuclear was all about the cold war. Not so clever in 2015 when the middle east is both nuclear and more unstable than it has ever been.

He wants to control rents. How can you do that? With no government or council housing to accommodate the current, once he opens the floodgates to hundreds of thousands of refugees, where they gonna live? Ok, in private rentals. So he needs landlords. Yet will tell them they have to rent their living space below the rate that makes their investment viable.

And best of all, this wonderful, principled man is a rabid fucking anti-semite who counts Hamas among his ‘friends’, defends the bombing of Israel by Gaza, courts holocaust deniers and other rabid scum and has a history of jew-hating almost longer than that of his socialism.

At least he doesn’t wear ties.

Well done Jeremy. Now you just have to find a cabinet from MPs who are unilaterally opposed to your views. Shouldn’t be hard.

Happy Corbyn-Day

A xxxx

Ever been shown a new ‘game’ by someone. Preferably by someone of a competitive bent. And as you play the game, they kind’a invent rules that have but one purpose; to ensure that they win.

Ahh, no, if you hit the ball out on the RIGHT, like I did, you win the point, but on the left, like you did, you lose the point, so that’s… 7-0 to me so far. Ok?

Well, the jack normally beats the 3, but not on a tuesday, when 5s are wild. Except the 5 of hearts which is THE CARD OF DEATH. You see?

No, its not ok; I don’t see; you’re making up the fucking rules as you go along.

And so it is with feminism. There are strict rules and guidelines, but the rules change and shift and mutate fairly randomly, but ONLY can they be changed by women. Never by men. The poor males have to work out tomorrow’s rules today and if they guess wrongly, may the Lord have mercy…

We’re back to LinkedIn-Gate. Suave (so he thinks), smooth (like a snake), charming (Leslie Philips in Carry-on movies, springs to mind) Alexander flatters ‘young Charlotte’ (O.M.G. that’s condescending, patronising and insulting all in one go; lose three points) on a work context web directory. She goes crazy ape-shit and is reporting him to various legal standards people for misogynistic and sexist behaviour in a profession that is, like it or not, rife with such practice.

Ms Proudman has in the past (because it all comes out, eventually) commented on Facebook that various men are ‘HOT!!!!’ and ‘PHWOAR!!!!’ and stuff, but that was in no way objectification because 1. she’s a woman and invoked the rule that sexism can NEVER work both ways, and 2. because Facebook is a social media site and LinkedIn is a business site. And what is appropriate in a social context is not necessarily so in a work environment.

When I was called ‘hot’ by a young woman I would have been thrilled except the young woman was a nurse with a thermometer up my rectum.

And I can see that if a man ‘comes on’ to a woman in a business situation, there are power considerations, abuse thereof, to work out too.

Or are men simply never allowed to compliment any woman without taking vows or signing a pre-compliment document of intent first?

I think Charlotte should tell us, precisely, how, exactly, a lecherous old twit is supposed to make an honest play for a woman younger than his children, with evil in mind, without upsetting the feminist within? I think she owes us that, at least.

Happy Friday (can I say that? on a Friday???)

A xxxx

Wayne Rooney is now, officially, the scorer of more goals for England than any other player. He overtook Bobby Charlton on Tuesday night and so ranks higher than Gary Linneker, than Alan Shearer, Jimmy Greaves, higher than anyone. Well done Sir Wayne (surely? No???)

Yet is he ‘a great’? Would you put him on a list with Pele and Maradona, with Platini and Klinsman, with Klose and Kleivert? Would you put him in the same category as Bobby Charlton, even?

Personally I wouldn’t. With none of the above. Because the main thing that elevates you from ‘a man who scores a few goals’ to ‘a great’ is whether I like you or not. Its that simple. Kicking a ball into a net alone is insufficient. Otherwise Robbie Keane would be a great. And I quite like Robbie. The man with more ‘teams supported as a kid’ than 47 normal kids combined.

David Beckham is on anyone’s list of greats. Has to be. He’s the nicest man in the world. And could still become the first man to be knighted whilst having more than 60% of his body covered in ink.

Beckham blasted onto the scene with that magnificently precocious half-way line goal against Wimbledon when he was 18. Rooney was merely 16 when he strolled onto the pitch for Everton as a substitute and scored a wondergoal against Arsenal from 40 yards. A magnificent introduction to the world. Which was then marred by ‘the stroppy years’. About 12 of them. When all you saw from Wayne, other than a few goals, was tantrums, aggression, headbutting tv cameras, spitting, swearing and red cards.

Now he’s calmed down somewhat. Adopted the captain’s armband for the national team. He’s trying. But a ‘great’? Not on my watch.

Two lawyers hook up on LinkedIn. 57 year-old Alex Carter-Silk sent a message to 27 year-old Charlotte Proudman saying her photo was ‘stunning!!!’ Like that, with three exclamation marks. He also actually mentioned that it was probably very un-politically correct to say so.

When Charlotte attacked him publicly as a misogynist and sexist using a professional site as some kind of dating agency (hmmmm, now that Ashley Madison has gone there is indeed a gap in the market there), and basically, that’s he’s a dirty old fucking letch.

He replied sheepishly (could there be any other way in the circumstances? after such a monumental ‘crash-and-burn’?) that he was referring only to the professionalism of the photography. Ahhh, that’s why there was all those exclamation marks then. But if that was the case, why make reference to political correctness? Even for ultra-aggressive uber-feminist right-on lefty barristers, commenting on photographic style can’t be un-pc.

Happy thursday, and watch what you say

Like me

A xxxx