Andy's Glasses

What a day was yesterday. What a feast. For sporting gluttons like me, it was just a wonderful, almost endless buffet. And I don’t even need to be watching all of it, just knowing its being played is sufficient. Such excitement, the likes of which the sporting world hasn’t really produced since… well, probably since last weekend. Amazing.

There were both sports. Football and rugby. (Are there any others? Really??) Spurs won. England won. Unfortunately Arsenal won too. And England, after the most incredible game of international rugby ever, and winning in record breaking form against the horrible French, failed by a whisker to win the 6 Nations title. So having beaten the Frog 55-35, all our players acted like they’d lost. Which was a shame because for everyone watching, the spectacle of the match almost over-shadowed the failure to top the table.

But what really stood out was the refereeing in our two national sports. And attitudes to referees.

The ref in rugby is God. His word is final, absolute and beyond question. He is thus treated with the utmost respect. He is never harassed, bullied, cajoled, pushed, shouted at, insulted, abused or ganged up on. But that is because the refs in rugby act totally professionally. Consequently, players in rugby don’t cheat. They don’t act, they don’t feign, they don’t ‘simulate’, they don’t dive. To be honest, they don’t really need to; its fucking brutal enough without that rubbish.

And how refreshing to see the ref call over the two captains, tell them what he’s doing, and why, who the culprits were, what they did and the action to be taken. The skippers don’t argue, they can make a point but often the ref just silences them. Without argument or debate.

In the football, just yesterday, a ref sent off the wrong player in the Manchester City match. And a sending off in the 2nd minute of a game is awful. The ref didn’t listen to players telling him ‘it wasn’t me/him’, he just acted alone and got it magnificently wrong.

The problem is that whatever happens on a football pitch, there’s always about 15 players in the guy-in-black’s face screaming and shouting, half proclaiming innocence, the other half demanding a red card. So when something significant actually does happen, the ref is simply immune to the protestations of the players. Boy who cried ‘wolf!’ syndrome.

And it could all change so easily, so simply. Just legislate to protect the refs from the John Terrys of this world, and the others who abuse and try to bully them, its so easy to do. Use the 4th official to check a few things on tv replay, just important things, and don’t allow managers anywhere near the refs. Particularly Morinho and Wenger, or the game would never reach half time as they demand a check on every dubious throw-in award.

The only arguments against such an action revolve around money. Its not good tv. The players are the Gods, even though they act like scum. They cheat, they dive, they are horrible.

So don’t moan about poor refereeing when it really is so pathetically simple to change the whole culture and improve the standards whilst protecting the refs at the same time. I can’t understand why the footballing authorities are so ignorant and stupid. There again, they awarded Qatar the World Cup in 2022, so we can’t really expect much sense from them.

Happy Sunday, (Man United at Liverpool; Chelesa vs Hull; the classico this evening, busy day for Mel)

A xxxx

You ask two people where they live, say, at a party. One says: “I live in Penge”, the other: “I’m domiciled in the UK for tax purposes”, could you guess which one is the hedge fund manager? Yes, right once more, all hedge fund managers love Penge. Even though 9 out of 10 couldn’t find it on a map of Penge. Also, no self-respecting hedge fund dude would EVER be domiciled here when places like Monaco, Geneva and the Caymans still stand and can reduce their personal tax liability by 80%.

Yet Ed Miliband has managed to find a hedge fund manager who not only still ‘lives round ‘ere’, but also one who supports the Labour party and has in fact bunged £600,000 its way over the last few years.

But rather than use this Martin Taylor guy as a shining example that not all hedge fund managers are total bastard, tax-avoiding, exploitative, capitalist shit-head, selfish, greedy, poor-bashing, child-labour-employing rapists, our Ed just kept him very quiet whilst still claiming all of the above for hedge funders and in fact using the term as a euphemism for ‘almost criminal Tories’.

Which, of course, makes Ed look almost as stupid, clueless and hapless as he did eating his famous bacon sandwich.

Yeah, well all hedge fund managers are total and unrelenting bastards, except our one.

Right.

Some people have issues with wealthy labour supporters. They simply can’t reconcile having personal wealth or extensive business interests with a level of compassion and selflessness that the Labour package theoretically brings. Like paying more tax, both corporate and personal, in order to perhaps increase benefits and services for those who don’t drive round in chauffeur-driven Bentleys. Or whose children don’t go to Eton. Or get pregnant at 13.

I want a better life for everyone in this country. I want a health service ‘free at the point of delivery’, I want good schools for every child, housing for everyone, blah, blah, blah. I just don’t want to pay for it all myself. Or watch the hapless economists Labour seem to employ piss all the money away without ever reaching the place its most needed.

So much as the whole pre-election business is about core values of ‘austerity versus increased taxation’, you have to think a little further. Beyond the principles, which are noble, and on to the reality of what those dimwits will actually do with the money they save or tax once they get into power. Squander it on a health service which is the biggest and most tragically inefficient organisation in the world. Or ‘lack of organisation’ in the world, having thrown away £2 billion on an ‘integrated computer system’ that doesn’t work. Yet still had to be paid for in full.

So Martin Taylor is ‘domiciled in the UK for tax purposes’ because he chooses to be so. 99.9% of the rest of us just live here by quirk of fate and birth. And taxes. And I am all in favour of you paying as much tax as its possible to squeeze out.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

We’re suffering an eclipse this morning. Most people enjoy an eclipse, maybe experience an eclipse, even get thrilled by an eclipse. But here, we suffer them. Because its totally fucking cloudy and the eclipse looks… well, just like a grey sky. Never mind, we still have an hour and a half to go before ‘wow-time’, when we all look skywards, see the solar eclipse and go ‘wow!!!!’ just before we all ship off to Moorfields Eye Hospital suffering radiation burns to our retinas. “Oh; when they said ‘don’t look directly at the eclipse’, I thought they meant something else. Now all I can see is a big white ring on a black background. Driving’s a bit difficult”.

Someone (and I’m not saying who, nor whom) sent me an email yesterday saying that in the last 5 years Spurs have played in more Champions League quarter finals than Arsenal. “Sacre Bleu!!!!” I thought. I often think in French. And then I realised that this is indeed the case. Arsenal qualify for the Champions League every year, relentlessly and without fail, and yet haven’t progressed beyond the ’round of 16′ for half a decade. Whereas Spurs, on their one, their only, their most wonderful foray into that esteemed competition, did indeed make it to the quarter-finals. I went. When we lost to Real Madrid and that poncey bastard Ronaldo. But I bear no malice. Grrrrrrrr.

So now, rather than playing better, changing things, mixing it up, meeting the challenge, Arsene Wenger has instead decided that the system is ‘wrong’. And NOT, as the mean-spirited or cynical might think, because Arsenal lost agaiaiaiaiaiaiain, but because the tournament as a whole would benefit if they change the ‘away goals’ rule. That annoying law that says, quite simply, “in the event of a draw after 2 legs have been played, away goals count double”. And NOT because it would seem that Arsenal have fallen foul of this rule more than any other club in the history of the tournament, but just because… errr… because its ‘not fair’, to quote Professor Wenger.

The rule goes back to 1965, the old (and wonderful) European Cup, and it was to prevent away teams playing very dull, defensive football, parking buses and being boring, hoping to win the tie with a sneaky goal in the home leg. The rule made it irresistible to try and score away from home. Which indeed is part of why the tournament is so exciting. Or for Arsenal, so exit-ing.

What Wenger actually suggests is that, like the League Cup, the away goals effect should only occur after extra time. Why he feels this will make it fairer I have no idea. Then he’d complain that his players are too tired after playing so many hours of football in one week, no doubt.

The system is the same for everyone. Thus, by definition, is ‘fair’. What’s unfair is losing. Grossly unfair. As a Spurs fan I get my share of unfairness every sodding week.

But to blame the system is like the Lib-Dems preaching about proportional representation as the only ‘fair’ election system. Its sad, a touch pathetic and is only for losers.

Next time Arsenal WIN a game on away goals, then people will listen to Wenger’s demands for change. Until then; grow up.

Happy eclipse (just an hour away and still the sky is full of mud)

A xxxx

There’s a ‘survey’ thing going round, I’m trying to get a copy, which asks you what you think of certain political statements and opinions. And apparently many of the questions are so subtle that people end up with scores telling them that they’re 60% UKIP when they’d swear they were staunch Labourites, or 72% Green when they’re crusty old Tories.

The questions are not the normal:

“Do you hate poor people and wish they’d go and live elsewhere?” (70% Conservative; 30% UKIP).

“Should all foreigners and non-white people be deported tomorrow?” (60% UKIP, 40% BNP).

“Are tax avoiders criminals, even if they’re the leaders of supposedly left-wing political parties?” (50% Labour, 50% clueless, 50% Maths Deficient Party).

“Shouldn’t we be trying to recycle car exhaust as edible seaweed?” (90% Green, 10% Looney).

“Do you think the Health Service would be more efficient if hospital waiting lists were organised according to skin colour?” (85% Nazi, 15% Scottish Nationalists).

No they’re more subtle and the results apparently surprising. Except its not that much of a surprise as all it really shows is just how similar, how ‘grey’, how much wishy-washy middle-ground the political parties all now spout.

It also shows my own personal problem with political affiliation, which is that I only like about 10% of what any party says. There is never a ‘whole package’ of views, stances and propositions that I adhere to so totally that I reach a ‘that’s for me!’ moment. Never. Instead I get degrees of hatred. Levels of contempt. And end up voting for the ones who offend me least. Or, on many occasions, not voting at all.

So yesterday we had ‘the budget’. Where our esteemed chancellor shuffled the nation’s funds to try and offer sweeteners for everyone so they’ll vote for the government. Well, you can’t vote for all of it because its a coalition.

For the ‘wealthy’, he increased levels before higher rate tax is paid. Great. Higher rate tax payers (ie, whilst not necessarily ‘rich’, not poor either) will be £80 a year better off!!!! Get on the list for a new Ferrari now.

For the lowest paid, the tax threshold is raised so they’ll be £900 better off, which is significant and good.

For the boozers, beer has been reduced by 1p a pint. Wow. They now have to drink 100 pints a night so they can tell their wives they saved a pound. What a waste of the paper its written on. 1p. I didn’t even realise that 1p was still currency.

So I think I’m going to vote for Lionel Messi. On last night’s performance alone, when he didn’t even score, he just showed, again and again, how impossibly brilliant he is. How fantastic to watch. How electric and mesmerising football can be. The best ever? I think he has a case.

I certainly won’t be voting for Manchester City.

Happy Thursday

Axxxx

I must admit that I’d never heard of the ‘Exclusive Brethren’ before. They’re a Christian sect who hang out in Plymouth. An offshoot of the original Plymouth Brethren from whom they separated in 1840. Oh, them. ????

They’re a strange bunch, them Brethren. But most sects do seem strange to outsiders, that’s why we call them ‘sects’ instead of ‘people’. Because sects have rules. Loads’a rules. And the Exclusive Brethren don’t generally mix with others. They try and avoid people in general. And you can’t blame them for that.

They’re a bit extreme on the Christian front, but they would be. That’s their bond. Their link. Their common ground and raison d’etre. Being a Leyton Orient fan is just a thing to do, belonging to a sect is different. Its all encompassing. It becomes your life. And that of your family. Who are completely ruled by that sect. And who can be cut off, or ‘shut up’ or ‘withdrawn from’ in cases of bad behaviour or rule breaking. Although there are exceptions. Like the ‘brother’ who is still fine and active and neither shut up nor withdrawn from despite 2 convictions for sexual assault on a 4 year old child. No, that’s fine. Won’t affect the Second Coming, or the Apocalypse in any significant way.

So they educate their kids in special schools, the books in which have the pages on evolution and sexual reproduction ripped out, and any other shit they don’t like. They don’t have tvs nor use Google (Satan’s home page, obviously). The kids are segregated in school but generally perform well academically.

All the inevitable secty weirdness we can forgive. Almost. But the Brethren get tax breaks. Big ones. Last year it amounted to £13 million. That’s a lot of prayers. Most of them answered, some would say. Yet they have an annual income of £70 million. A sect of just 17,000 members. But they’re building up their cash reserves. No shit. For ‘The Rapture’.

Oh, for The Rapture. This is when The Brethren will leave the Earth. Ok. In 2022. Hmmmmm. I don’t know where they’re going but they’re gonna be pretty rich when they get there. Maybe Las Vegas is worth considering.

They don’t pay their schools ‘fees’. Instead they make ‘voluntary contributions’ to the schools. Thus making them subject to tax relief which fees aren’t. And this wealth flows all the way from Plymouth to the Grand Pooh-Baah, who lives in Sydney. They don’t call him the ‘CEO’, or the ‘Boss’, they call him ‘God’s messenger on Earth’. And they give him a private jet and loads of great stuff to facilitate his Godliness. Its a far cry from a pair of sandals and a crown of thorns to a Jetstream but life moves on, even for Christian extremists.

I think the government should leave them jolly well alone. So they can pray. And amass vast billions, subsidised by us hard-working tax payers.

Amen

A xxxx

I am boycotting Dolce & Gabbana. As from tomorrow. To be ‘on message’ with all the latest hashtags, I will not be visiting their clothing emporia until this whole Elton-John-gate mess is cleared. up.

So today I’m off to Sloane Street to get six new suits, at £9,600 each, a new shirt, £872.48 and some ties, £(don’t even ask).

In actual fact, I can’t even afford the carrier bag. But I can dream…

In reality my dreams have never travelled too far past the Levi store, Marks & Spencer and Primark.

What Stefano Dolce should have said in reply to the question which would have presumably been along the lines of: ‘you’re a stinking rich poof, why ain’t you got no children? You can buy as many as you like with all your money?’ He should have replied: ‘no thanks, I’ve decided I don’t want any children. THE END’.

But no. He had to take it further, make it a moral issue, revert to his Catholic upbringing, invoke judgments from the bible, use values from the Spanish Inquisition to bolster his prejudices. So he slagged off gay men who adopt babies, who use IVF to create their own and he called such children ‘synthetic’.

We have synthetic children. They’re called ‘dolls’ and the girls played with them endlessly when they were little. And there are advantages. You can put a synthetic child in the washing machine once your (real) child has dragged it round the mud for an hour before pouring a tin of Heinz tomato soup over its head. For ‘dinner’.

Because we can no longer draw a line between gay couples and couples of different gender (I think that’s me, I’m not sure any more), to attack adoption and IVF for gays must attack such processes for all. Which is so ignorant that even a gay Italian dress-maker should have realised his error and censored his thoughts before spouting such inflammatory clap-trap. He then went further and even deeper into the New Testament to claim that children should be born ‘naturally’ and raised by that family.

And hell hath no fury like a person scorned. So Elton John, one of two fathers of 2 such synthetic babies, reacted as any self-respecting billionaire trumped-up be-wigged homosexual would do in the circumstances and flew off the handle, demanding a boycott of both Dolce and Gabbana.

Maybe there’s an agenda here, one that ‘we’ don’t know about. Maybe as so many gay couples are acquiring children, its become a bit of a trend and thus, like all trends, it will have its detractors who oppose it merely because it is fashionable. Bit ironic that D&G are opposed to something fashionable, but there ya go.

So its handbags at dawn for Elton and Stefano. Victoria Beckham has sided with Sir Elt and I, quite frankly, couldn’t give a shit one way or the other. But its all good fun.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

So I watched the game. The match. The big one. Spurs at Man United. And it was… it was… it was just fucking horrible.

I know what the rules are; I’ve watched plenty of football. Some (Mel) would say I’ve watched way too much. But the rule is: look for positives. And I looked. And I searched. And I watched more. I looked under the sofa. I tried the Sunday papers. But there were simply no positives to be found anywhere. We were just shit. In fact the nearest thing to a positive I could find was: at least we’re not Chelsea. We still play the game honestly and properly, with a minimum of diving around and hardly any ganging up on the ref. Maybe that’s where we need to wise up: more ‘gamesmanship’. Though a lot of good its done Chelsea this week.

So once again, I’m forced to ask the question: if there is a God, why would He forsake His own team at such a critical time of the season? When a win would have kept us right there in the mix for 4th place whereas the loss sets us totally adrift (some would say ‘and without a paddle’). Though in fact we have a paddle and his name is Harry Kane. Sadly he sank without much trace yesterday afternoon.

We are all aware that God doesn’t interfere with everyday shit. He’s too busy… er… well, he’s too busy. So when Boco Haram kidnap 200 innocent schoolgirls in Nigeria, He lets them be. There’s no bolt of lightning out of the sky to stop it. When ISIS beheads charity workers there is a distinct lack of Seas parting, plagues of locusts or burning bushes around to help. And when Wayne Rooney burst through the Spurs defence, having been gifted the sodding ball by one of our very own, I waited for the clouds to suddenly part, just as he crossed into the box, and that Godly face, beard and all, to appear and call down upon the Roonster to cease and dissist, IN THE NAME OF ME!!!!!

And Wayne would have stopped dead in his tracks. Because he’s a Christian. Says so on his arm, tattooed just under the massive cross on his bicep. You can’t get more devout than that unless you ink it on your face. Though one feels that he is that ‘Christian’ in purely some abstract, political sense, in that he lacks all and every trace of any remote kind of ‘moral fibre’ that you might normally expect a Christian to possess.

Its a ‘test’. A test of our faith. That we still ‘believe’ even after a trouncing by Manchester United. Because without faith, without belief, there’s just nothing. So its all part of His plan. His best laid plan. And, as He is neither mice nor man, He’s exempt from fucking it up. So you’d like ta think.

Happy sodding Monday

A Believer
xxxx

There you are, its true. Must be. It was in the Mail on Sunday. And it is simply the dream. The new answer to the question: “don’t you think you should go to the gym, you fat, lazy, worthless piece of male shit?” is simply “actually I was going to but its probably more beneficial to sit and watch the entire box set of Coronation Street going back to 1962; bring me some snacks when you pass with the hoover”.

The BBC, those hateful, hurtful, Clarkson-sacking bastards, have made a programme about calories and it shows that a man can burn 650 calories just watching tv for one hour, whilst a woman will only burn 270, and really ‘needs’ to be doing housework to get any significant calorific benefit.

This is possibly the best news ever, setting the female empowerment movement back 250 years. This, for men, is so wonderfully sexist-based-on-scientific-‘proof’; its the thinking man’s Sharia Law. Or maybe the drinking man’s Sharia Law. Its the slob’s manifesto.

Apparently there are variables. Its statistics, without variables there’d be nothing to manipulate in favour of whatever the test is trying to show. But the variables here are things like ‘size’. Big people burn more calories (doing nothing) than smaller people. So in fact, you could justify getting really fat and obese (“I’ll have a chicken tikka masala, pilau rice, three naan, onion bhajis and on the side, another chicken tikka masala and a pizza, please”) on the grounds that the bigger you are the quicker you will burn calories. Make sense? Does to me. I need to weigh more so I can burn more calories. Perfect sense.

Very frustrating that I only saw this after playing tennis. I’d have cancelled it and watched tv instead.

So today as I get comfortable to watch Spurs play at Old Trafford, I shall feel no guilt, shall merely enjoy the fact that ‘its good for my health’. But only if we win. Obviously.

Happy Mother’s Day (and if you need the slimy manufacturers of over-priced greeting cards to tell you when to love your mother, merely to create a market for them to exploit, you need shooting.)

A xxxx

They’re introducing 20mph speed limits on numerous roads in London. What would Clarkson say about that? If he wasn’t in jail (metaphorically) and persona non-grata, he’d be yelling about the freedom to drive dangerously, about the inalienable right of every man to drive as fast as his Ferrari can possibly go, how the namby-pamby tossers at Westminster should leave the fucking motorists alone. If we all drive at 20 all the time we might as well all be Prius drivers now that gay marriage is legal. But he can’t say all that. So I have to say it on his behalf.

Though its the reasons for this imposition that I’m concerned about. Its ‘to save cycling deaths’. Because we have many. Too many. Well, (as a cyclist myself), one is too many. And we don’t have one, we have hundreds in London and its awful. So those in charge, as opposed to those who actually know, have decided that if you slow traffic down that will reduce cycling deaths. Like fitting dentures to prevent Ebola. It looks like ‘something is being done!!’ but obviously not the right thing.

Virtually all cycling accidents occur when trucks and other big vehicles are turning left with a cyclist unseen on the inside. The average speed of a vehicle of that size and weight whilst turning left is about 8mph. Very few cycling accidents are caused in or by fast moving traffic. I’m sure there are some.

All that is achieved by slowing down the traffic, even more than it slows itself down almost all of every day on every road, is increased driver frustration, anger and subsequent irrational behaviour. So for every one minor cycling accident you may prevent, you’ll create 10,000 unexploded bombs in the form of erratic, angry road-ragers.

What they should do is build cycle paths. Like they have even in third world countries like France. Somewhere for cyclists that motorists can’t reach.

Alternatively, my own fear whilst cycling, my source of terror as I pedal to the station in the mornings is women driving massive four-by-fours to take little Jessica, alone in the vastness of the back seat, to school. These women are dangerous, clueless and aggressive. And if that sounds in any way sexist, IT FUCKING SHOULD.

Happy Birthday to Mel

A xxxx

We need to talk about Jose. The Morinho one. Little Portuguese feller. Works for Chelsea.

And the question is: pretty much as always: is he an inspirational footballing genius with revolutionary ideas and a quite truly amazing track record, or just a moaning little tosser who only sings when he’s winning and is the stand-out worst loser in the entire history of our national game, preferring to destabilise his own team rather than accept any responsibility on his own rather pathetic little shoulders?

Is his obsession with pre-match ‘mind-games’ his greatest asset or the route to his demise?

Chelsea played PSG on Wednesday night. In case you missed that bit. They already had that precious ‘away goal’ from the first leg in Paris. So all they needed was to not lose. Or not draw at home by more than 1-all. That’s all. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently so. Because Morinho has always been rather schizophrenic in his management style. Always been 2 managers. One is the bus parker. His really true comfort zone. He first used the phrase ‘to park the bus’ in accusation of others (see; bad loser, above). Yet from his early managerial days at Porto he has consistently been guilty of doing just that. Piling on a massed defence and hoping to score the odd goal on the break, never compromising the strength in numbers staying deep. The other manager is the creative one. The one who has at his disposal the best players that dirty Russian laundered money can buy and he lets them run wild and free. Eden Hazard, Diego Costa, Willian, Cesc Fabregas. Oscar…

So playing at home and starting at 1-1 for the second leg gives Morinho a problem. Do you defend the ‘lead’ that the away goal bestows upon you? Or go for broke and actually try to win the game, put the tie to bed, but leaving inevitable holes if you do??

Before the game there has to be the inevitable mind-fuck session with Jose accusing everyone from opponents to referees, from schedules to conspiracy theories, of bias against his players. And then there’s the culture of ‘gamesmanship’. Which is very different from cheating. In that what WE do is gamesmanship, what THEY do is cheating. Ahhhhh, now I see.

So Chelsea get Zlatan Ibrahimovic sent off after a tackle on Oscar in which the skanky little Brazilian lived up to his name with the performance. Then all the Chelsea players, as they always do, mug the referee into sending the opponent off. They always try. John Terry’s protestations that ‘he was just being the peacemaker and all the rest of his boys followed’ is as pathetic as it is transparent.

Ok, PSG down to 10 men; we can just sit back and relax, other than a few cursory forays and a hell of a lot of ‘gamesmanship’.

Didn’t work. They drew 2-all. Away goals still counted double, so Chelsea go out of the Champions League and Morinho immediately blames his lacklustre players.

Chelsea are still horrible. Morinho’s still a tosser. Plus ca change.

Happy Friday

A xxxx