Andy's Glasses

Its Rachie’s birthday today. So if you haven’t texted, emailed, phoned, posted a card, sent a present, delivered flowers, bought diamonds, booked a surprise weekend away on Necker Island or arranged dinner tonight (as I have, phew) better attend to it now or you’ll be on the shit-list of shit-lists. Because failure to pay attention to The Birthday is the only remaining capital offence in Britain. There is no appeal. There is no re-trial. There are NO second chances. You have been warned.

And what kind of birthday present is it for Spurs to lose last night at Liverpool? How can that happen? Why was it allowed to happen? Surely there should be laws? Rules, regulations, specifically to prevent such a travesty.

I didn’t see the game. I was playing bridge. Apparently it was a ‘great game for neutrals’ which means it was a terrible game for Spurs fans. What do we give a shit about ‘neutrals’ for?

According to esteemed sports writer Jack Barclay yesterday, no-one now gives a toss about who finishes top of the league. It will be Chelsea. If, by some amazing series of calamitous events that is not the case, then it’ll be Manchester City. But they’ve lost the ability to score goals so its not looking great for them. No, said Jack, the real battle, the real excitement, the real scramble, is for the other 2 champions league places. And there are 5 teams currently vying for those essential, lucrative and prestigious spots. And that’s where this year’s real thrills are happening.

Saturday saw Spurs beat Arsenal (in case you’d forgotten) to gain a slight advantage. But last night’s loss to the Scouse Victims (they’re always victims of something or other) negated that win as Arsenal beat poor, hapless Leicester who are already relegated in the real world not lived in by Gary Linneker and a few selected others.

But that is the secret of Arsene Wenger; an immeasurably valuable skill. That he can take a team who aren’t particularly very good, see them lose to their local enemies, yet still manages to put them in a mind-set to have self-belief 3 days later. Even though they’re rubbish, lightweight and flawed. And yes, it was ‘only Leicester’ but you still have to actually beat them. Spurs have shown that beating the ‘onlys’ in an ‘easy 3 points’ match at home can often be fraught.

Spurs twice came from behind to level the score. I was checking when I was the dummy hand. When partner was fucking up yet another slam-dunk 3-no-trump game. It was almost less stressful to see events at Anfield than to watch the card table in my kitchen.

Then Balotelli scored. The miserable, sulking, moronic Italian with so many chips on his shoulders he could sell them to McDonalds, hit the winner then sulked off, ignoring the adulation of the fans who normally give him a quite deserved hard time.

THAT WASN’T IN THE SCRIPT!!!!! Not the script I’d written anyway.

Oh well…

Happy Birthday Rachie,

A xxxx

Samsung are taking over the world. The Korean electronics giant have just flogged me two new phones (one for me, one for the Mrs) and so their profits are well up for the month. Even though I didn’t actually pay for them.

They also make tvs. And their new ‘smart tv’ has, as they all do, a ‘voice activation’ thing. So instead of having to push buttons on your remote to change channel or turn up the volume when Spurs score, you just yell at the screen and it’ll do it for you. Like wives used to do in the old days.

“Change to BBC1”

“CHANGE TO BBCEEEEEEE ONNNNNNE!!!!”

Oh fuck it, I’ll bloody do it myself.

And if you might feel in any way stupid, self-conscious or daft yelling at a screen, be assured; you are. Totally. Its a ridiculous thing to do and totally unnecessary. Because voice recognition is never very good at recognising words. Unless you speak them with a Korean accent.

“SKY SPOT FLEE!!!”

However, those Koreans are nothing if not wily, crafty and quite frankly, odd. Because its now been discovered (by the one person out of 500,000 buyers who actually read his ‘terms and conditions’) that Samsong is in fact listening to each and every utterance made at the tv and sends it back to Korea where an army of little people listen, analyse and record your every word, which is whizzed over to them via the internet connection.

The question is not about invasion of privacy, its a question of ‘why?’ What the fuck does Samsung want with instructions yelled at a tv screen? So they can work out how much sport I actually watch and blackmail me with the threat of telling my wife? So they know when I’m watching a little bit of Terminator 1 or 2, Kill Bill 1 or 2, Animal House, the Blues Brothers or so many of the others that I just need like a drug?? Or worse of all, so they can sell it to a marketing company who can then phone us on our Samsung phones while we’re having dinner and offer us tailor made deals.

“Hi Andy, this is Kenny”, spoken with an almost unintelligible Bombay accent, “we have a special offer this week for yellow, Uma Thurman cat suits, in your size, with a free Samurai sword!!!! Okayyyy?”

No, its not ‘okay’ actually; its a fucking intrusion; piss off ‘Kenny’ and go bother someone else. I already have seven Uma Thurman suits in yellow anyway.

Though Samsung have now pointed out that ‘information recorded will NOT be sold to a third party’. Oh, that’s ok then.

But it isn’t. We already have phones that track our every move and know where we are, Oyster cards that know where we go, credit cards that know exactly what we buy and when, and ‘loyalty cards’ which know when we take a sodding piss. And that’s all without the 60 million cameras in my street alone, watching me. And me alone…

When I finally get a new tv, when I decide that waiting for valves to warm up is no longer acceptable, and that having a tv the size of a compact car is a waste of space, I won’t be buying a Samsung.

Happy slightly paranoid Tuesday

A xxxx

I went to a trade fair yesterday afternoon. At the Excel Centre in Docklands. That’s exciting. A trip to the wilds of the south east. Of London. Millwall Country.

Our traditional optical trade fair is in Birmingham. And for that one you have to, in fact, travel all the way to Birmingham. Generally. Which is itself quite horrible. You have a choice of spending 3 hours tangled up in motorway snarls on the M1 or M6, or both, or you can take a smelly train direct to the National Exhibition Centre. Either way, within 6 minutes of your arrival you start having those ‘why the fuck did I come to this????’ thoughts. Which quite frankly poison the whole experience.

So having an event in London is a bonus. For Londoners. The rest don’t count.

Thus we set out. Drove down to St Johns Wood, where cars can be left on Sundays safe from Camden Council’s usual Parking Death Squads who hunt in packs, ticket cars 24 hours a day and drink the blood of small children. From there you simply hop on a tube train which takes you effortlessly from North West London over to South East London. A couple of stops on the delightful little DLR and you arrive at the Excel. About 40 minutes. Rather than driving all the way and regretting every single yard you crawl.

It was a sunny afternoon, so ‘everything looked lovely’ bathed in the glow. There was The Dome, or Faulkner’s Folly, as some of us still remember it. All… domed and… big. A fabulous monument to New Labour ‘investing’ 850 million of our English pounds to build a tent on a swamp. They then sold it to O2 to become The Arena, for about 50 quid. Good business, that.

In the other direction is the Emirates Air Line, the cable car named after Arsenal’s stadium because its a bit slow and all about show with not much ‘go’, sailing majestically across the River.

And all around those iconic landmarks there is… there is… there is shit. Old warehouses, disused rail-yards, horrible, fit-for-demolition 1960s council blocks, heaps of garbage and all the other crap that lets you know you’re in South East London. I’m not even sure if I was north or south of the River at that point, as it doth meander so. Whichever bank I was on; it looked pretty horrible. So I’ll assume: South.

So we have Canary Wharf, we have a sodding Dome, City Airport, an Excel Centre and a cable car. But holy moly they need a lot of work doing round there to make it in any way ‘nice’. Plant a few trees for fuck sake, make a bleeding effort.

Nice to be home.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Tis a curiously ironic fact, you’ll see, than there is, in fact, no… ehm
word in the English language that neatly rhymes with po-em.

And poetry is greatly needed today as a fitting tribute to a man called Kane,
a man who saved us all from horrendous and unrelenting pain.

That Harry Kane thus serves for us as a suitable anaesthetic
may in some eyes makes us look sad, silly and quite pathetic

Yet to lose to the Arsenal, our deepest of foes, would on the day
indeed fill us with more pain than in 50 Shades of Grey

Nipple clamps are nothing compared to Ozil scoring his lucky goal
It ripped out my heart, daggered into my chest and seared my very soul

The boss-eyed Turkish German wheeled round in joy and bliss
and that, for him, was the end of the match, he might as well have gone to take a piss

A very very long one, that lasted 80 minutes or more
his urologist would be wondering too whether the Kraut was getting rather sore,

He vanished away, whilst still the pitch, a feat not performed by many
his presence no longer felt, he became like the mist, contribution there wasn’t any

And thus Spurs battled on, with passion, with fight, with determination
everyone willing them on, in this and every other nation (except ISIS; they’re all gooners)

Eventually, inevitably, that pressure payed off rather well,
a corner, a flick-on, the Arsenal defence ignoring Harry as if he was a bad smell

So in at the far post, unmarked and all alone,
Harry, for the sins inflicted by Ozil’s goal, really didst atone

But it wasn’t over, there’s time left on the clock
The Arse woke up for a minute or two, but Lloris was like a rock

Then, 80-minutes plus; when a draw was looking rather sour
Super Harry Kane; cometh the man; cometh the hour.

Bentaleb put in a cross, long and curling and high,
Harry followed the ball, jumped and hung there, then connected sublimely, easy as fucking pie

The ball sailed in, the keeper floundered, defenders hung their heads in shame
They’d witnessed a miracle, they now believed in God, and his name is Harry Kane.

‘Free points is free points’, an opinion so often expressed,
doesn’t matter where you get them, winning is always for the best

But free points against the Arsenal is immediately worth six at least
To beat the enemy, to put things right, to finally tame the beast.

I could almost feel sorry for the Arse, but only almost indeed,
For forth place in the league we have certainly sown the seed.

The sun doth shine, the heavens are appeased, the birds sing their merry song
A gorgeous day in London; Wenger pondering where it all went horribly wrong.

Happy happy HAPPY Sunday

A xxxx

The Six Nations rugby tournament starts tonight. England playing Wales. Ooooooooohh. That’s a big one. Its World Cup year in rugby so this is a great little hors d’oeuvres to serve up to the starving nations. Although rugby players generally don’t look too malnourished. So a mini-feast of sport awaits us.

All started, last Sunday night (round here) by the Superbowl. The world’s biggest sporting event. According to Americans. The ‘football’ world cup final may have more viewers but it doesn’t have as many singers at half time. And not as many costume changes by those singers either. As Katy Perry managed to wear 3 different ‘things’ in a 12.5 minute break. At Spurs during the half time break, we may get Martin Chivers, or Pat Jennings, maybe Stevie Perryman, to come on and say a few words. No-one cares what they wear. And they rarely sing. And never change clothes. But that’s only because most matches aren’t televised live and no-one needs to worry about advertising rates dropping for those precious minutes. At $3million per minute, you can’t let attention from the screen lapse. Not for the gridiron fans the long queue for a cuppa tea and the longer queue to piss against the wall in a dingy ‘bog’ under the pitch.In the game itself one of the teams (big guys, crash helmets, tattoos) beat the other team (big guys, crash helmets, tattoos) by 28 to 24. The winning team was the New England Patriots who are led by Tom Brady, or ‘Mr Giselle Budchen’ for non-footballing aficionados. The other team were the Seattle Seahawks but no one cares because we don’t tolerate losers.

Could you call Christiano Ronaldo a ‘loser’? Well, the world player of the year (this is ‘real’ football now, by the way, not that silly padded-up one) turned 30 and as well as his CR7 range of underpants has further diversified and has given his tips for a healthier life. Or, as its known in vainer circles; a 6-pack like his. In yer fuckin’ dreams. I imagined something useful, life-affirming, holistic, like ‘wake up; do a thousand sit-ups; have breakfast, do another 1000. Watch tv whilst doing 2000 more. Eat lunch (salad), 1000 sit-ups. Speak portuguese, do 1000 sit-ups’. But it wasn’t even that good. It was vague and namby-pamby and possibly just got lost in the translation but it was all ‘eat well; healthy stuff’ and ‘get your mind in the place to help you exercise’ and ‘I really am much better than Messi’. Still he must start thinking about life after football. He’s getting old.

Tomorrow sees the actual biggest game in world sport. In my house anyway. Spurs play the Arsenal at the Lane. And there’s so much at stake. Like pride. And pride. And shame. And pride. This match has nothing to do with 4th place, 9th place or even Katy Perry in a stars-and-bars onesy. Its just about ‘bragging rights’. Well, for Spurs fans its about bragging rights, for Arsenal fans its about smugness rights. And if we lose (heaven forbid) I’m not going to work Monday. Nor tuesday, wednesday or the rest of February and half of March. Nor go to my coffee shop or anywhere else where I might be patronised or given the lecture of ‘the nature of football and the management of teams’. Because causing actual bodily harm is a crime, even against Gooners, and I don’t wish to go to prison.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Have you ever thought that men and women are different from each other? Ever crossed your mind? Do you still have a mind? Or has your wife battered it into a mere empty vessel on a life-support system (if you call that ‘life’) that exists for the sole purpose of agreement with her? Or him? (Very 2015; wives can be anyone). “Yes, Dear”. “OK, Dear”. “If you say so, Dear”.

Well fuck that; WE ARE DIFFERENT. And its not just about football. No. Very different. Mainly physically. In case you hadn’t noticed. Men are sort of… manly, muscly (at one time in their lives), streamlined, athletic (phah! right!!!), whereas women are softer, smoother, curvier. They have areas that men simply lack. Or lack to the same extent. Women have a higher proportion of fat. There; I’ve said it. And in this case, uniquely, its not an insult, its SCIENTIFIC, innit? Clinically proven. Although many men, purely in an attempt to reduce this difference in order purely to please their women, unselfishly increase their own BMI by the consumption of 9 pints of beer every day to load up a proper ‘gut’. Such sacrifice.

So women have breasts. And bottoms. That men (well, most men) simply lack in those proportions. And these are fatty areas that men (real men, like me) have turned into muscle, over evolutionary periods. Ok, men grow ‘moobs’ but only because they’ve turned 40. But generally, that’s the domain of the females of the species.

Thus when men go looking for a mate, not in a ‘building sitey’ kind of, me mate Dave, way, but as in someone to mate with, they get a bit obsessed about these fatty areas. An obsession which for some sad individuals never, ever leaves them and fills every waking, and half their sleeping, lives for all eternity. And who would you want to mate with. Ok, ‘all of them’ is really neither constructive nor appropriate in a monogamous society. You want that; go become a Mormon. So for your wife, do you choose slim, petite, boney Carla Delevigne, Miley Cyrus types? Or some luscious lard-arse from Lancashire?

Because we have now learned, from proper, scientific type boffins, that those fatty areas on women are there not just for the titillation, obsession and seduction of boys/men, but they are to provide essential nutrients for their children. Who, whilst breastfeeding, ingest the ultra-healthy DHA fats which make those children brainy. And the biggest source of DHA in the world is Kim Kardashian’s bum. It said so in the paper, so it must be true. Women with bigger bums make brainier kids. Full stop. So you can keep Brigitte Bardot and Milla Jovovitch and Rita bleedin’ Ora; I’m after Hattie Jaques. And next time I see some immense backside waddling thigh-smackingly up the road (I’m gonna say in Huddersfield), instead of being disgusted by the state of the nation’s obesity, I’m going to propose to her. Well, to her arse anyway. Which is not so much mere flab as ‘our children’s Oxbridge entry’.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

In about 1968 I went Valentines Park in Ilford to watch cricket. Essex always played one of their fixtures at ‘our’ park, so it seemed rude not to go. It was a lovely summer day, bright and sunny, in the school holidays, and the cricket, against Gloucester, was as boring as any middle day of a league match could be. So at the tea break my mates and I ventured outside into the park and joined a kickabout. Three older guys came over and joined in too. They were some geezer who’s name (and career) I’ve forgotten, Frank Lampard Senior and Harry Redknapp (the 1st and hopefully only). And they were just great. They didn’t show off, they didn’t play rough, they never asked for a bung, they were just lovely guys enjoying football. And they signed all our scorecards and cricket bats and everything else, because even back then Harry could just about manage to write his own name. Thus I’ve always had a soft spot for Harry Redknapp. My mate.

But do I trust him? Do I believe his stated motivations, intentions and excuses?? Of course not. The man’s a rogue, a villain, one of life’s ‘colourful characters’, a euphemism for someone that causes you to check your watch is still there after a handshake. The watch on the courtroom where he was acquitted of tax evasion was definitely missing afterwards.

Unfortunately, after that fiasco of a trial, Harry was put forward as the next most likely England manager, a job he’d always lusted over. He never got the job, but the media frenzy surrounding Harry over the months of the trial and the job threw Spurs’ season completely out of kilter. He was our manager. We loved him. He took us to the promised land (Champions League) and showed us how great life could be. Then he pulled the rug away brutally after dominating the front pages for 3 months. He took his eye off the ball. Understandably in some ways, but no more easy to swallow for knowing the reasons.

So when he left Spurs I wasn’t sorry. Life had become about him, not the team.

And now he’s left Queens Park Rangers. For knee surgery. Which obviously couldn’t wait another 3 months til the season’s end, even though he’s carried the problem for years. No, it has to be NOW. Leaving QPR in the shit.

Maybe his ‘resignation’ was just a nice way of saying that Tony Fernandez sacked him. If so that’s rather odd timing, even for the impetuous Tony Fernandez. But never mind, Tim Sherwood, the stand-in’s stand-in, will take over at the club til the end of the season.

I’d love to know the real story here. Answers (or mere speculations) on a postcard, per-lease.

Happy wednesday

A xxxx

Remember Dominique Strauss-Kahn? He was the head of the International Monetary Fund who stood down after he was accused of raping a chambermaid in New York. Those criminal charges were eventually dropped more quickly than a hooker’s underpants… and that’s where the next problem starts.

He’s in court now (appearing for three weeks only, limited availability so book NOW to avoid disappointment) on charges of ‘aggravated pimping’. They obviously have different laws in France. So I’m not sure where the ‘aggravated’ bit comes in. He’s on trial with 13 others, one of whom is named, wonderfully: Dodo the Pimp. He owns a brothel near Lille. Apparently a really famous and good one, if you’re interested.

So Dominique, who at one time was a presidential hopeful (and to be honest, I can’t see any of this rubbish impeding him in France, they revere debauchery there like we revere intellectualism, honesty and big tits), is accused of arranging orgies. Big ones. Loads of women… er… arranged? organised?? acquired??? purchased???? And all for one purpose. To satisfy him. Just him. Dozens of babes, tarts and sluts, all over the fat git like a fucking rash. But literally so, I’d presume, a rash that fucks.

One girl, hired for the night, entered a room to find 8 naked women all over Dominique. She was ‘revolted’ and left. Now she’s the one I’d take to court, for breach of contract. What was it about people having sex that so upset a sex worker, who makes her living having sex with fat old rich men?

The problem for the prosecution (as opposed to the prostitution, which had no such problems) is that ‘pimping’ is defined as living off immoral earnings. And DS-K earned nothing. Unless you can put monetary value on an orgasm (or 8), he arranged hookers for him and his mates, but didn’t earn any profit from it that couldn’t be wiped away with a tissue. Yet the case continues, even though its virtually assured to fall flat.

And if everyone knows that, the only purpose must be to ‘make a moral stand’ against poor Dom. To take issue with his lifestyle. (Obviously, of the 8 or so women on top/underneath/around the man that night, safe to say not one was his wife). So they want to point out his bad habits, his immoral desires and practices.

Well good luck taking immorality to court in France. There is no French word for ‘morality’; doesn’t exist, has no place in their world. To such an extent that even now, 79% of French people would rather have Strauss-Kahn as president than Hollande. A man who embarrassed himself with merely one mistress.

I’d vote for Dominic, even if he has seemed to model his political career on Sylvio Berlusconi.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I think we’ve found the next American Sniper. And he’s just three years old. Rummaging around in his mother’s handbag (as ya do), ‘looking for an ipod’, apparently, but I reckon he was looking for cash to go and buy drugs, he came across a 9mm handgun. And although the weapon had hardly any tunes loaded on it, there were other things loaded instead. The kid fired the gun which managed to hit both his father and his mother. Just one shot. 2 hits. In dad’s ass, out through his hip and into mummy’s arm. Great shootin’, kiddo!!!

They need more guns in America. And they need to keep them lying around. What use is a weapon if its unloaded and locked in a secure cabinet??

But more importantly, today is the last day of the January ‘transfer window’ in football. Even though its February. The rule is that the last day has to be on a weekday because it gives Sky Sports tv something to waste an entire day upon. And its LIVE and UP TO THE MINUTE and AS IT HAPPENS with commentary by the usual team of ‘at de end’a da day’ and ‘game’a tooo alves’ pundits spurting tired and sad clichés about every possible movement and implication, every bid, every speculative possibility. And if you did that on the weekend nobody would watch it because there’s actual football being played which is far more interesting. Except Southampton versus Swansea which was so interesting I fell asleep for an hour, just waking up in time to see Jonjo Shelvey hit a stunning winner. Which made me happy from a purely selfish perspective as we really need Southampton to be lower down the league at this time. We have enough trouble with resurgent Manchester United and bloody Arsenal and can well do without usurpers from the South Coast getting in the way of our quest for 4th place. And much as I have no other issues with Southampton, I rather like Swansea City.

So today will see loads of activity. Not as much as the final day of the August ‘window’ because traditionally, January is for panic buys and losers. Making Emanuel Adebayor’s possible move to QPR almost perfect.

For Spurs this window is about unloading. Its about surplus to requirements being shown the door. Hopefully, as well as Adebayor, Aaron Lennon may make the move up to Hull. Lucky Aaron. He can enjoy the excitement of a relegation battle. Etienne Capoue is set to leave too, even though most of us have forgotten he even played for Spurs still, and Vlad Chiriches is on the way as well. Sadly a lot of prospective moves are merely ‘on loan’ deals. However, unloading dead wood is good for the soul; is therapeutic, cathartic. And dead wood is something of a speciality for my team. We collect it like others collect art. Or guns.

Happy Transfer Day

A xxxx

Went to see American Sniper last night. Because its on. And Oscar nominated. And got lots of stars from lots of critics. And because some friends said; ‘let’s go see American Sniper’. Mel didn’t know much about it, I’d read reviews. She doesn’t like war films, I’m ambivalent. Not my favourite genre (that’s reserved for pretentious, art-house, confusing, preferably sub-titled, surreal, low-budget flicks, starring a French mega-babe who falls in love with an emu in a dream-within-a-dream scenario involving fem-bots. And it has to be funny) but heh, I’ll go see anything.

So after about an hour-and-a-half, during the ‘hero’s’ 9th ‘tour’ of Afghanistan, with its latest round of shooting and killing, my she-friend turned and said she really didn’t expect so much killing, shooting, warfare. What the fuck, I enquired politely, did she expect from a movie called American Sniper???

Cos what you get is a man who was absolutely brilliant at killing people from a long way away. Insurgents, wearing their keffiyahs and holding anti-tank grenades were no problem, the women suicide bombers caused a minor moment of conscience-twinge, as did the children he had to shoot because they indeed represented a clear-and-present danger.

And its the (true) story of the man who was the ‘winningest’ sniper of all time. A killing hall-of-famer. The captain of the all-pro sniping team. If they’d had one. Afghanistan’s MVP. Being directed by Clint Eastwood kind’a tells you what you’re gonna get.

Americans revere guns. And shooters. And as I sat there watching this great exponent of the art of death, in Swiss Cottage, I couldn’t help but think that in other places the action would have been greeted differently. In Austen Texas, or Omaha Nebraska, or Bum-fuck Idaho, I reckon there would have been whooping and cheering greeting every kill-shot. Because in any situation involving America versus Somewhere else, there are simply no moral considerations whatsoever. In fact that was the Sniper’s thing. He was protecting America and Americans. And maybe he was. But to really appreciate that film I think you really have to be a part of that ‘God Bless America’ mentality and drive a pick-up.

Though it is enjoyable. In a gunny sort of way. Bradley Cooper is good, in a starey, blue-eyed manner. Sienna Miller does laughing gaily and crying despondently in equal measure, alternating between her scenes.

Right, time for tennis.

Harry Kane is a God.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx