Andy's Glasses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Basically, so I can eat them.

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

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

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

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Monday

A xxxx

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m gonna miss Scotland.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Let me tell you about the island of Islay (pronounced ‘Eye-la’, you southern illiterate baaastaard). Its relatively small, about 35 miles north to south, less side to side; it has very few trees, which can give it a rather bleak look in places; I would guess that the incidence of road rage is zero as you don’t encounter many cars and those that do all wave at you. As if you’re the last living souls on the planet. Which at times here it feels like you are. The people though are generally really lovely and friendly. And I don’t think they have a single traffic warden in the whole island. Bit like Heaven. No traffic wardens there either; they all ROT IN HELL.

The only things that happen on this island are, in order of frequency: sheep eat grass, cows eat grass, sheep eat more grass, cows take a shit, the sheep get shorn for their wonderful, very expensive wool, and someone produces a bottle of whisky.

Because Islay punches above its size, if not its weight (I couldn’t quite get the weight) in terms of whisky. Not quantity, but quality. It is Single Malt Central. This is where they make it and this tiny island has 8 top distilleries of single malt whisky anywhere in the world. They make more Scotch here in Scotland than they do even in China. And each distillery produces loads of varieties. And loads of ages. 10 year, 40 quid. 17 year, 65 quid. 25 year, 120 quid. There is an equation but its beyond me. And after what they call a ‘dram’ here you really don’t care any more. Whisky is whisky and has a much greater value than money could ever have. And you always have a dram at the end of a distillery tour. You have to. Its the law.

So after two tours in two days I know everything there is to know about making single malt Scotch. Here’s how you do it.

You kill a malt. But just one. Obviously. They run wild here, along with the cows and sheep. You get a bunch of Islay virgins, and remember, the plural of ‘Islay’ is ‘They-lay’, and they stomp on the poor malt until its dead and squished, keeping all the natural juices. In a pot. Which you boil for a bit. You put that pot into a barrel for 10 years and then you flog it for 50 quid. Easy money.

I love it here and I’m never leaving. It could take almost 2 weeks just to meet every inhabitant here. And four to visit the other distilleries.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

So I’m on a boat. Big sodding boat. Taking us from one bit of Scotland to another. Ok, more specifically, from mainland to the Isle of Islay, over in the West. And the boat, once you’ve parked the car in a very crowded, cramped car-park, downstairs, is surprisingly luxurious. It has a bar. It has tvs. It has fruit machines. It even has wi-fi. Unlike our last hotel, which didn’t. And, as we realised quite soon, I’d almost rather do without a roof than wi-fi. Until it started raining, then I got the roof put back on.

And it does rain a lot.

But back on the boat; its like a cruise ship. Or, like I’d imagine a cruise ship to be if I was old or infirm enough to ever go on a cruise. Similarly, I imagined the ‘Kennacraig to Islay’ ferry as being a strictly utilitarian, bleakly austere, protestantianly grim and serious and full of all the poverty that Nicola Sturgeon keeps banging on about. But no. We have (a degree of) luxury. You can even drink whisky here, at 9.30 in the morning, without having to put it in a paper bag and sit in a doorway. Its that civilised.

Loch Lomond was exceptionally beautiful. Everywhere here is exceptionally beautiful. If you like green, you like water, you like trees and mountains, and most of all, you like BIG. Its vast. Fucking immense. And there’s mountains all around so you’d call it ‘the Highlands’ if someone hadn’t named it so already. They could have called it the wetlands, that would be accurate too. Cos its wet here. But driving around is just fab around the Lochs with every bend and turn bringing new wonderful views. Or the same wonderful view but from a different angle. Love Scotland. Good people. Some of them.

And thus I’ve left behind the woes at home. Almost. The good thing about Scotland is that you get BBC news. For the time being. Whilst its still part of ‘B’. The bad thing about Scotland is that you get BBC news. Though

Which is great because England have won the World Cup! Almost. Semi-finals of the women’s world cup is seriously brilliant. I’m now prepared to, if not exactly get excited, at least get involved. That’s a start. And for some reason I think if the women do manage to win it, that will be a touch humiliating for our boys. Yet I haven’t worked out why that should be.

The shootings in Tunisia were awful. And obviously targeted specifically against Britain. But its really not a ‘Tunisia’ problem. If I was there (and not shot) I’d stay for my holiday. Because you’re probably safer there than anywhere else in the world for the next few weeks. The ‘lone wolf’ terrorist is the most dangerous of all because he can strike anywhere, any time, any country, city or school/hospital/beach. You can’t fight a philosophy, however fucked it may be, with conventional weaponry or rules. And this particular ideology is so vile, poisonous and evil, I’m not sure how you’d fight it at all.

Ok, another 2 hours and I’ll land, so I need to go and be sick somewhere, so I know I’ve been on a boat.

Happy first Monday of Wimbledon. Come on Murray; for Britain, FOR SCOTLAND.

A xxxx

So when you see a long, straight, smooth road you say ‘ah, a Roman road’. Not because it looks like a Roman nose but because those Latins built their roads long and straight. Shortest distance between two points, etc, etc.

Then was the Emperor Hadrian on drugs? Was he drunk when he built the Wall? Because whatever is the opposite of ‘straight’ (a very very contextual question that one) where lines are concerned, Hadrian’s famous Wall is that opposite. Did the bastard never consider urbanites from Londinium 2000 years in the future who might want to walk the sodding thing? Only to find that not only it bends about like a motherfucker, it goes up and down like a yo-yo (and a ‘yo-yo’ is, in this context, the bastard second cousin of the motherfucker in question).

Cos those yo-yos will kill ya. Though not hardy adventurers like me and Mel, toughened up by years of walking round Waitrose AND John Lewis. We walked the wall for 10 miles. Felt like 20. Very very beautiful up there, quite amazing really. That you could find such astounding beauty such a long way from White Hart Lane.

Though this picture is in fact not Hadrian’s Wall, as may be deduced by: a. the lack of wall; and b. the vast amount of water. Glad you’re paying attention. The picture is Loch Lomond. Which translates from the ancient Celtic as ‘Lake of someone or other’, or from the ancient yiddish as ‘a big hole in your Lomond’.

We arrived yesterday, having driven all the way up once again with the top down (average consumption 28.3mpg, almost another record) and arrived in that rarest of things: a sunny day in Scotland. According to hotel lady, its their first of the year. Rains a lot here. Which is why its so beautiful and green. Then more green.

So rather than waste time making hay (the cows have got so much grass here they really don’t need it) we decided instead to spend the sunshine on a boat on the Loch. Where we learned all about Rob Roy, the famous Scottish 17th century criminal/hero (depending if you’re English/Scottish). He was a hero ‘to the people’, like Robin Hood, Ned Kelly, David Bowie. But due to all the clan stuff, the McTavishes and McGregors, the Campbells before they made soup, and probably the McDonalds over rights to deforest half of Scotland to graze the cows for Big Macs on McGregor land!!!! basically its a tale of aggressive warring Scots people robbing each other blind. Like Celtic vs Rangers, with Nicola Sturgeon, but 400 years ago.

Wonderful here. Scotland is famous for Scotch, for wide empty spaces and for midges. And Loch Lomond is ‘midge central’ apparently. But we’re prepared (pics to follow…)

Happy whatever day I can find some wi-fi to send this

A xxxx

Fascism. The far right wing of the political spectrum. Then a little more to the right. Not a nice place to be. Neither is too far to the left either, it must be said, to show an impartiality that I don’t feel. Because at least to the left you get some kind of equality. In theory. In actuality you end up with something indistinguishable from far right. Just a different kind of totalitarian rule. Stalin, Mao, Hitler, was there ever any real difference?

UKIP are not far anything. They are on the ‘quite right’ scale of things because they’re very firm on immigrants and keeping Britian… if not ‘white’ exactly, then ‘British’. And getting out of Europe; too foreign for them, and they’re very nationalistic, which can be a bit scary.

And now they’ve been banned from taking part in Gay Pride. Nigel Farage was in the office polishing his Louboutins when the call came in. UKIP are not welcome at Gay Pride. They’ve been un-prided.

Which is logical in some respects. UKIP are anti-gay-marriage, they have queer-bashing events and they have groups of thugs calling people ‘poofs’ as they walk past pubs. And right wing thugs are not generally ‘gay-friendly’. One UKIP man blamed an earthquake on homosexuality. God’s revenge. They sacked that enlightened creature promptly. Not so much because he was anti-gay as because he was a screaming fucking nutter.

BUT… gay people can have any political affiliation they choose. Gay is not a political stance. And if gays are politically UKIP does that make them less gay? No. It just makes them a little like Jewish Nazis, but they are allowed.

Thus the Gay Regulatory Committee (I made that up) have decided that UKIP can’t march in Pride. That would be having their cock and eating it.

The other fence I’m currently teetering on, deciding whether to slip down the ‘humanitarian’ and ‘love of all mankind’ side, or to jump headfirst onto the ‘old fascist’ one is the ‘migrant problem at Calais’. Those thousands of the saddest and sorriest, most desperate and impoverished souls, left their families to be ripped off by people-traffickers, in search of economic improvement in Europe. By hanging onto the axle of a lorry going through the Eurotunnel. And all because of our wonderful ‘benefits’ system. Net migration is up, and that’s just the legal ones, the illegals don’t register, don’t count. And hence don’t get benefits.

Sitting here in the vast wilderness of the Cumbrian countryside you think ‘what’s a hundred thousand more people in all this?’. But they won’t come here. They all go to London. And London is: FULL.

Off to Hadrian’s Wall. Can’t be late. Its only been there for 2000 years, what’s a half an hour one way or the other?

Happy Friday

A xxxx