Andy's Glasses

Venice is full of culture. Good bits, like pizza, an essential part of Venetian life, along with ‘spritzers’ which are the best type of culture; that which leaves you flat on your back after 3 or more. Then there’s the buildings, the boats, the water itself. All parts of what makes Venice Venice. And stops it from being Camberwell. Or Hull.

And then there’s the high culture that all Italian cities have and most other nations (only perhaps France and Spain) can ever hope to equal but never surpass. You have to get on the football field to surpass Italy, not an art gallery, palace or cathedral. And because Venice was always a very rich city, everything here is bigger, better, more ornate than even other parts os Italy.

Every church is filled with paintings by Botticelli and Da Vinci, every vaulted ceiling a work of unique magnificence. There’s performances every night of Puccini and Vivaldi. Every one’s a Maserati.

But this weekend was the start of the Bienali. What?? Oh, you didn’t know??? You’re such a pleb. Well we didn’t know either, or we wouldn’t have randomly picked the start of Venice’s annual massive art festival for our days to visit. But who knew? Now I’ll find a ‘Bienali app’ and know exactly when it falls. But this year? Phah.

All the fabulous art galleries put on wonderful shows of classic and modern art, every museum, every everything has some Bienali things going on. But what makes it great is not that lot. What makes it great is that you’re walking, lost (you spend half your time in Venice ‘lost’ but it really doesn’t matter), and you spot a big building with a big poster outside declaring some profound work of art. And it’ll be one artist’s ‘thing’ and best of all and almost unique in the very long history of Venice; its free.

Today we stumbled on a Welsh artist, because every nation is represented here, even Wales, with some… errr… interesting stuff. Also an Italian film-maker with an ‘installation’ about how movies are not about the story of the movie but about the intellectual process of thinking about the movie. How that fits with ‘Die Hard, VIII, Revenge of the Bombing Bastards!!!!’ I don’t know and didn’t ask. But it was fabulously done and, as they all are, in a brilliant ‘space’. Yesterday we found an exhibition of painted driftwood occupying the most magnificent old Abbey right on the Grand Canal. You don’t get that in Muswell Hill.

I’ve decided I love Venice. As long as you avoid the really busy bits. Which is in fact quite easy as the waterbuses are fun and take you everywhere. They should have a tube system here. Or maybe submarines. Just a thought.

Happy homecoming Monday

A xxxx

The car came for us at 5.30 yesterday morning. To take us to City Airport. Ooooohhhhh, City Airport, that’s a new one for me. And its great. So small you can barely fit a 50 seater plane in the car park. And if there should be two planes at the same time, one has to wait next door. At The Dome. Thus; no queues for security, no queues at the coffee shop (only one), no waiting, no bother, no hassle whatsoever. One day all airports will be like that. The irony being that they then become popular, take more flights, get 6 new runways, four new terminals, have massive, off-site parking (like, in Kent) and turn into the nightmare that is Gatwick.

However, City Airport, brilliant. Got on a weeny little plane, basically just me, Mel, a pilot, couple of ‘waitresses’… ok, ‘steward-essessesssesss’, (though I’m now used to the gay guys you seem to get at other airports I was almost disappointed), and 37 other people. Good people. Voted for Cameron. Didn’t smell too bad.

And Venice is both the dream and the nightmare. The sun’s shining, it beautiful and filled with fabulous places and stuff. But its busy. Soooooo sodding busy. Its Oxford Circus at 5.30, but all day. Its the January Sales at Brent Cross. They unload great big cruise ships here and dump the contents, thousands of day-trippers, into St Mark’s Square. Where they all seem to be taking photos of each other, rather than the Doge’s Palace.

And as a tourist myself, I fucking hate tourists. Go figure. The traveller’s dilemma.

So we ventured off down the back streets, along the canals, in search of quieter places, nicer places that didn’t feel like Old Trafford 15 minutes before kick-off. And we found them.

The water-boats are fab, the restaurants and bars abundant, the food superb, the wine even better (and 1 Euro a glass; just gimme a tenner’s worth, por favor, hic), the Venetians are lovely and rather gorgeous and the weather is amazing. Except for about half an hour last night when we happened to be on a walking tour of the Ghetto (the world’s very first Jewish Ghetto, even older than Stamford Hill) from which all other ‘ghettos’ are named. Then it pissed down. But really pissed down.

There are more French people here than Italians; it would appear. You can smell them.

Ok, the sunshine is calling me. Loudly and clearly. And in Italian.

Bene Sunday (yeah, whatever)

A xxxx

Oh what a night. And I must say that I never realised quite what a massive impact this blog has on the 60 million people of our fine land. And even on a few Scots, not that that did much good. Because you read my words, my cautionary warnings that life under Ed Miliband would be no life at all, that ‘ending austerity’ would in fact become so severely austere that Brits would be sailing over to Libya for a better future, and that having a tosser for Prime Minister is seriously uncool for any self-respecting nation.

And you have spoken. And this is what you’ve said. And they’re your words, so don’t have a go at me for foul language and nastiness.

You’ve said: FUCK OFF ED, you trumped up, back-stabbing, nob.
You’ve said: FUCK OFF ED BALLS, TOO. The man who can’t consistently count past 11 (what comes after 17?) and who was ‘destined’ to be the next chancellor, has just lost his seat in Leeds. Oddly, the only place in the country where they actually deserve Ed Balls, but there ya go.
You’ve said: FUCK OFF GEORGE FUCKING GALLOWAY (he deserves an extra ‘fuck’ because he’s just soooo hateful). Who now wants to stand for London Mayor. Well, why not, he’s Scottish, hateful, been rejected by every political party and no-one likes him. Waste some more money, George.
You’ve said: WE DON’T LIKE THE LIB-DEMS AT ALL. A strong case of ‘careful what you wish for’ as their years in coalition government have come back to condemn them almost fatally. Simon Hughes out, Danny Alexander out, and best of all, Vince fucking Cable OUT OUT OUT.

You’ve said lots of other things too but most aren’t worth saying, to be honest.

So thank you for your support in this. We, as a nation, could not have done it without all three of you swaying the entire election result.

And oddly, we really don’t know quite what we’re doing or saying. Because for weeks, right up to Thursday morning, the opinion polls have been consistently showing that ‘its too close to call; bring on the coalitions, the arrangements, the teamwork, blah, blah’. That’s how WE told the pollsters we intended to vote. Yet the ‘exit poll’, which says how we actually HAVE VOTED, came in last night showing a massive swing to the Conservatives. Which proved to be correct, if, even, a little understated seeing the results.

UKIP? Oh yeah, lotta votes, not many seats. If you call ‘1’, not many. So they’ll be crying for Proportional Representation for the next five years. If it was good enough for Hitler to gain power in Germany, its good enough for UKIP here.

I see no point in mentioning the Scottish Nationalists. They’re not English, they don’t want to be here, they’re nothing to do with me.

So Cameron remains, this time unencumbered by the Cleggists, and I’m still not a big Tory, but I can’t bare the class-war divisionism of the Labour Lummox. Myself and the rest of the Landed Gentry are now free to repress the (working family) serfs for another five years. Hoorahh. Let’s have champers for brekky.

Bollox, gotta go to work.

Very Happy Friday

A xxxx

So its time to decide. Time to make up your mind and finally choose.

Who is better: Ronaldo or Messi?

The time for thinking is over, the endless almost mind-numbing saga of appeals and spin has finally (almost) reached its conclusion.

And last night, against Bayern Munich, Little Leo showed me, personally, why he is not just the best, but probably one of the best ever. And you know what; its not about goals and percentage of fucking pass success. Its about the Man. I like Messi and I don’t like Ronaldo. Not that I wouldn’t have the Portugezer at Spurs, when he lowers is 3 billion buyout clause and come to the Lane to play for ‘the team he supported as a boy’, but I just love Messi.

So last night at 0-0 with 13 minutes to go it was just a case of ‘cometh the hour, cometh the little Argentinian boy/man’, yet again, this time to haunt his old boss and mentor, Pep Guardiola.

Messi’s first goal was fab. But by his standards, rather ordinary. His second, by any standards, was a thing of beauty. It was a 1962 Ferrari; a Woman in Gold; a Zublodovicsz Collection; Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich. And then, to top it off, he made the final goal of the evening for Neimar with a stunning pass.

And so to vote.

I’ve never been comfortable with any of the mainstream political parties. I’m a social reformer at heart, a true (small ‘L’) liberal and a monster raving loony more often than I care to remember. But I shall be voting Conservative today; my least favourite option but one that is truly essential. Because anything else (‘voting with your conscience’ be fucked) might let Ed Miliband become our Prime Minister and the man is simply awful. Dishonest, creepy and a puppet of the Trade Unions. Whose idea of a ‘working family’ is one in which the working man gets paid 70 grand a year for a 30-hour working week and gets 9 weeks holiday out of every 10. The government can make up the shortfall. Or the ‘bosses’ can suffer. Or go broke. They don’t care.

And coupled with the threat of Nicola Sturgeon having a big share of power, that is simply too horrendous to even contemplate.

So bollox to all the issues, let’s just put paid to the Miliband threat once and for all. As he won’t survive a defeat; he’ll be an ex-leader of the party. Deservedly.

Vote anything other than Tory and it’ll be Ed’s face smiling (eeeuuuwwww) from the front pages in about 6 weeks time when they’ve sorted it all out.

I’ve said my piece

A xxxx

Saw an interesting trailer for a new movie the other night. The Age of Adeline. And Adeline is born in 1908, marries, has a child, then at 25 years old has a ‘terrible accident’ in a car. The consequence of which (other than a really mashed up old car) was that she never ages. She stays forever 25, even as the years tick by. No grey hair, no back ache, no wrinkles, no need for botox. What a shallow existence; life without ‘work’. They didn’t say if this was a true story. But what I want to know is: whose fantasy is this? A man’s, having a gorgeous young wife who never needs to be changed for that younger, more gorgeous model? Or a woman’s, never ageing, never worrying about physical failings, not having to spend 15 grand a year on anti-ageing, anti-wrinkle creams and potions or incontinence pads?

Back to work.
Its the last day of the election campaign. Thank fuck for that, I’ve ‘ad enough. And we look all settled for… for… for… I have no idea. Some kind of hung parliament (I don’t mean that in a testosteroney way), a type of coalition, a minority government that doesn’t have a partner but has tactical voting promises, a government in which the Prime Minister doesn’t even represent the party that won the most seats, a government in which the decisions are made by an anti-government group (that’ll be the Scots, then), or all of the above.

Its a shambles.

But anyone who says the words: “no, Russell, it ain’t gonna ‘appen, it just ain’t”, thinking such language impresses anyone, is simply unfit for anything. Miliband said those words, trying to impress… well, someone, certainly not me. Because to be credible you need to be true to yourself. You need to be big enough to say: ‘this is who I am’. Not, ‘this is who I think you might want me to be’. David Cameron is a posh, plummy twit but at least that’s all he ever is. Miliband’s pathetic efforts to ‘get down wiv da kids’ made him look an even bigger pratt than usual. No mean feat. And it made him look dishonest.

Then came the ‘carved in stone’ fiasco. Miliband actually had his promises written onto a limestone block, ‘to instal at 10 Downing Street when he’s PM’. Presumptuous fucker. Only for one of his election gurus on the radio to state yesterday that ‘it didn’t mean he would absolutely not break any of his promises’. She fell short of saying: ‘its not like they’re set in stone or anything’ but the implication was there. Oh my.

Then in a BBC interview, the Labour Leader once more, in the space of 30 seconds spoke 17 times of making the country fairer for ‘working families’. A group he has never defined. I’m a working family. The paper shop on the corner is run by a working family. Mr & Mrs Chief Executive of a Footsie 100 Company are a working family. And the car worker from Bromsgrove is part of a working family. So who exactly do you mean, Ed? You have my permission to drop a few aitches when you explain. If you think that’s what I’d like.

Tosser.

Happy pre-election Wednesday

A xxxx

I twisted my sodding ankle yesterday morning. The sun was shining, I’d missed tennis due to precipitation on Sunday, it was a bank holiday, so the Wolf-man and I rescheduled our fixture to yesterday morn. Perfect. And it was lovely, and it was dry and it was sunny and warm. And all was swimmingly super and delightful until, with no warning, no reason, no fucking nuffink, my left foot just kind’a ‘went under’ as I went to play a ball. I heard/felt that revolting ‘crunch’ which any lifelong sporting no-hoper recognises as his/her ligaments getting fucked, and hobbled off to feel sorry for myself. The tennis was over, the ankle swelling. Bollox!!!!! We’re going to Venice next weekend, for some pasta, some cornettos, for loads of walking. Oh dear.

Picked up my latte, for medicinal purposes, for its healing powers, and went home for an ice pack. But ice packs are flat, which is useless as swollen ankles aren’t. That’s why God invented frozen peas. Though being a total princess about it, I selected the petits pois instead. Smaller, sweeter, better coverage round the swelling. Real athletes like petits pois. My new motto. As I sit here with elevated leg and strapped-on bag of Waitrose finest frozen.

I told Tai Chi Graham about it. He text me that I shouldn’t get involved in non-violent sports. You can get hurt. How true.

But life must go on. Ever the hero (read: schmuck) I soldiered on. Heroically. Only demanding that Mel do absolutely everything for me. Mel? MELLLLLLLL!!!!!! Can you pick up that thing that’s 3 feet away from me and put it in my hand, please? Even though you’re at the back of the garden pulling weeds and I’m upstairs on the bed.

We went to the movies last night. Already booked. Needed some more art in my life after Sunday’s debacle at the Zabludovicsz Collection. So we went to see Woman in Gold, the story of the painting (a proper, pitcher-type one, of a gel) by Klimt which was stolen by the Nazis in Vienna from a Jewish family during the war. Helen Mirren plays the woman who sued the Austrian government and… well I won’t spoil the ending, but its a happy one. And a fascinating story. One that doesn’t really endear you to the good people of Austria, either then or now.

And my leg barely bothered me at all. So sitting down doing nothing is obviously what the doctor ordered.

Mel? MELLLLLLL!!!!!

Happy swollen Tuesday

A xxxxx

Yesterday we went to see the Zabludowicz Collection. Yeah, someone’s been collecting Zabludowiczes for years and put them in a cabinet in Kentish Town…

Oh, not reaeaeaeaeallllly. Mr & Mrs Z (I can’t be arsed with writing that out every time) are wealthy art collectors. And they put their collection of modern art together in a sweet little former church for the world to see. And as Mel and I count ourselves as part of ‘the world’ we went down to see it. Mel had seen an ad in the paper and the picture shown therein was kind’a cool. Though, unlike most of the art in the exhibition, it was actually a paintin’. Like, painted on canvas with paint. Much of that on display were what we now call ‘installations’. Which is term formerly used for boilers, computer systems, central heating. Now art gets installed. For better or worse.

The one shown above (on the left, that’s actually Mel on the right, pretending to be an artwork) was a demonstration of man’s inhumanity to man; possibly a show of the artist’s inner turmoil after a particularly troublesome curry, or his displeasure at Chelsea winning the League. What it looked like was an open perspex tube daubed with shit. Like a contemporary take on the old ‘dirty protests’. And that was one of the better things.

You know you’re in trouble when you can’t decide what is artwork and what might be just the packaging it arrived in. There were piles of plastic containers, just stacked there on a pallet. There were rooms filled with flashing lights, tv screens and horrible music. There was a step ladder from which you down onto a screen showing images, the screen sitting on a pile of cat litter. Brilliant. Fucking serious ‘art’.

When we went to the toilet, I had to ask 3 people if these were actual places for people to relieve themselves, or just more ‘installations’. Well, you wouldn’t take a piss onto the Mona Lisa, would you? (Newcastle fans need not answer that and if they do we will waive prosecution).

Ironically, the toilets were great, the rest was full of shit.

I hope Mr and Mrs Z enjoy their art collection. I really do. That old expression: ‘a fool and his money are easily parted’ kept springing to mind.

Happy Bank Holiday Monday

A xxxx

“Ok, someone in a pub tries to punch you in the face. You ‘raise hands’, deflect the blow, yielding so the punch follows through and unbalances the puncher, whilst moving to the side. You take the arm, put on an outside wrist-lock, twist it round, then step through the (would have been a) puncher with a ‘slant-fly’ move and break the arm.” Game over. 1.6 seconds. Call an ambulance. In Tai Chi we deal with what could be called the cataclysmic culmination of confrontation. Could be called that but we avoid pretentious bullshit wherever possible.

What we don’t do, when presented with some bastard trying to punch you in the face, is spend 3 hours of prime (well, 3 o’clock in the morning) tv, pay-per-view time, bitch-slapping each other, stopping every 3 minutes for a rest. The guys in the pub watching would get bored and go back to playing pool, get another round in, take a piss against the wall.

But you can’t piss against a wall at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Its a very big hotel that operates as a gambling racket and brothel, and it looks like a brothel. All the hotels in Vegas look like brothels. And with this fight worth 300 million dollars (though sadly, not to me) I wish I could have been exited about it. But alas, boxing is for girls.

Not like football. And with Manchester United amazingly losing at home yesterday to West Bromwich Albion (how can you lose a game in which you’ve had 80% of possession??? You need Robin Van Persie, that’s how), their hold on 4th place in the league is looking ever more tenuous. Tony Pulis didn’t so much ‘park his bus’ as ‘put a fleet of cruise liners’ across his goalmouth.

Could have done with Liverpool not winning yesterday but if Man U. keep losing (3 in a row and counting), and Liverpool should slip, SPURS COULD GET INTO THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE. But first we have to beat Manchester Shitty this afternoon at the Lane. A scintillating battle between two tragically disappointing, malfunctioning teams. Should be great; could make the boxing look fabulous.

Chelsea will win the league today, unless several unthinkable things happen. All of which would be good for mankind, but as likely as the fucking rain stopping this morning for long enough to play tennis.

Bournemouth steal the Championship title from Watford who concede an equaliser in the 91st minute. Tossers.

And Newcastle are on a roll. The kind of ‘roll’ that ends up in a ditch being run over by a tractor. I could actually see them going down. Burnley and QPR I’m sad to say have no hope. Leicester are looking good for a last minute reprieve, Villa always manage to avoid the drop, though Hull have 3 impossible games out of their last 4. But Newcastle are just rubbish. The entire team and management structure is in disarray.

This may be that Shearer moment. Worked well last time. Cometh the hour, cometh the moron.

Happy rainy sunday

A xxxx

I want to save the planet. All by myself. I want to stop carbon emissions. I want nuclear power and an end to fossil fuels. I want no more birds with asthma. I want pollution to become an historical artefact. You don’t need to have factories spewing out shit from their chimneys; you can use a few hundred Chinamen instead to do the same job. I want airplanes to run on fairy-dust and I want cows to stop farting their evil methane.

But I’ll never drive a Prius.

However, there are some electric cars, worthy of the name, which actually look and drive fabulously. Not the BMW i8; that wins on looks but in reality is only ‘electric’ because the clock runs on that particular power. For the engine to take you beyond its 30 mile range you need petrol. Same with all ‘hybrids’, they just exist to avoid the congestion charge and make people feel smug.

Tesla make electric cars that are fast, efficient, classy and have no petrol/diesel at all. And they can even take you a few hundred miles without running out of charge. Which is fine because my range between bladder stops is about 40 miles. So I stop for a pee, plug in, charge up, drink a coffee, which then means only 20 miles til next stop/pee/coffee/charge. Works perfectly. You do the maffs. As long as the coffee shop has a spare socket.

But now Elon Musk (its a person even though it sounds like either a new aftershave or a small, civil-war-torn African state) has expanded his horizons. He’s the dude who owns Tesla. Originally set up Paypal, sold it to ebay, so he has ‘funds’. He’s also flown a rocket into space and done a whole host of imaginative, inventive stuff, as geniuses do.

His latest ‘thing’ is going on sale in the States. Its a great big battery that you put on the wall of your garage. And it stores electricity, either from cheap rate grid stuff, or from your own wind farm or solar panels. So for about £2,000 you can save a fortune of that oil-burned shit power the big companies provide for you. And think how smug you could be then? Saving hundreds of pounds a year whilst saving the planet at the same time. You’d have a halo.

I want to know what mobile phone Elon Musk uses. And if he has to charge it up every 20 minutes like I do with mine. And if so, WHY IS HE WASTING SO MUCH TIME SAVING THE FUCKING PLANET WHEN HE COULD DO SOMETHING REALLY USEFUL WITH HIS LIFE???

Happy Saturday, keep it green

A xxxx

Some stories just kind’a grab ya. Right in the cajones. Or, in the tits, perhaps. Or for Bruce Jenner, maybe both.

Because its an amazing story. Of winning, of success, of fame, fortune and limitless plastic surgery, of attention-seeking taken to a stratospheric level and of the ultimate in bizarre.

Bruce Jenner was an athlete. An Olympic decathlon winner in 1976, world record holder and all round, clean cut American boy. He married, had a few kids, made a lot of money in business, then divorced because American statutes dictate that once your fortune reaches over $100 mil you have to find a newer, younger wife. Or one that’s had so much ‘work’ that she at least looks a bit younger. So enters Kris Kardashian. ‘The Mother’. They become the first family to put themselves right ‘out there’ on tv for the whole world to observe the day-to-day happenings in the lives of the super-rich, vain, spoiled rotten, ultra-superficial morons who get a Range Rover for their 16th birthday present and a breast enlargement for every birthday thereafter. Or a new bum. Both if its a ‘big’ birthday. Or a big bum.

My daughters lurved the Kardashians. I fucking hated it. I’d rather pay attention to what’s happening in my own house that watch what’s happening in theirs. Which was generally nothing of any value. Other than monetary. But Bruce, the father figure, was obviously no stranger to the scalpel. Nor to bottles of hair dye. And he and Kris had some daughters of their own too. As ya do. Gorgeous ones, obviously, or the show would have been cut.

And now, having left Kardashian hell by divorcing Kris, all those years among those beautiful women made him decide that he wants to be one. Not only that, he wants to become Mrs Doubtfire. Good luck Bruce.

I’ve never trusted men who dye their hair. Its stupid. Look at Andrew Neil. Can’t be any more stupid than that. But now its more serious. Dying your hair can lead to penis removal; BEWARE. Its a slippery slope.

I missed the leaders of the main parties last night as they embarrassed themselves in front of an audience in Leeds. (Why Leeds? Why not somewhere normal??) But I did see Nigel Farage. And I may not agree with him but I don’t half admire him. Because he is normal. He has the confidence of a man who has lived and worked in the real world and it shows. Something the Camerons and Milibands, professional politicians since birth, simply lack. And Nigel is credible. Human, charming, very intelligent, engaging and yes, nice. I would never vote for the bastard but in terms of presence he leaves the other pathetic offerings standing.

Happy Friday

A xxxx