Andy's Glasses

Mel & I took a couple of bikes and rode all the way to Ipanema, about 2 miles away. Doesn’t sound far, its as flat as a pancake, but the 37 degree heat doens’t help much. Neither did hitting a sodding bump in the pavement and in the ensuing tumble (during which I never looked anything but cool, dignified and gorgeous) I acquired road rash on every elbow and knee I possess. The shower I just took I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

The pain could only be relieved by reading reports of yesterday’s Chelsea match. Morinho’s such a tosser. Like that’s news.

What do you think when you hear the word ‘Brazil’? I think football, I think beautiful bums and I think coffee. The invented coffee here (I’m guessing). In the 60s and 70s when the world starting drinking the stuff, it was Brazilian or it was shit. Then that name was hi-jacked by the waxing specialists but surely that didn’t end the biggest industry of this fine country? So you’d expect in the year 2015 P.S. (that’s ‘post Starbucks’) that the cafe society forced on the entire civilised world have made Brazil leap on board as it was their product to start with. And yet…

After The Fall, once the bleeding had been staunched and I’d stopped crying (the last time I fell off a bike I was 9 years old and so immediately regressed), we rode on to The Lagoon. Which is a gorgeous, big wet thing with a cycle/running/falling-over path all round its 7 km perimeter. Who the fuck goes for a run in 37 degrees? Who goes when its 15? But I hate running. The Lagoon is faced by fabulous apartment buildings that shout ‘too expensive for you, ya scumbag’, but in Portuguese. And the people walking, running, cycling, are gorgeous and fit and wealthy. Except for us, obviously.

So we were looking for the coffee shops, for juice bars selling green slime to the body beautifiers, somewhere to fucking sit that wasn’t a saddle, to drink a latte, or a frappe-mocha-caremalino-extra-zinc-hold-the-balsamic, or something nice and frothy. But no. Not one. Restaurants which hadn’t opened yet or a little geezer with a box of iced water and cokes on the side of the road.

Where are all the coffee shops?? YOU INVENTED THE BLOODY STUFF, KEEP UP WITH THE GAME.

Ok, time for more pain meds.

Good Day

A xxxx

Ever had a ‘dream within a dream’? You know, when you ‘wake up’ but actually you haven’t, you’re still dreaming but think you’ve awoken.

I had that yesterday. I had a nap in the afternoon, I’m allowed, I’m on holiday, and I dreamed that when I woke up Spurs were beating Chelsea 4-1. Obviously a dream within a dream type situation, though it felt really good at the time.

I’ll admit to being aware that a football match was being played somewhere in the world because before my nap I’d seen on the web that Spurs had equalised after going 0-1 down. Itself (so it seemed at the time) a minor fucking miracle. But 4-1??? Sorry, 4-2 because some little Belgian bastard had the cheek to score a goal and its 77 minutes and some serious dream-fretting would be required.

I’d also dreamed that Arsenal had lost at Southampton. Oooooooh, spooky these dreams, kind of wish fulfilment in overdrive. And that West Ham had failed to beat West Brom in their earlier match. And that Liverpool had run out of penalties and squandered a 2-0 lead over lowly Leicester.

So a win against Chelsea would not only be amazing, it would really, on this specific occasion, be the real ‘stuff of dreams’ because we’d get the leap on all our closest foes. And that never happens. Normally in that situation we lose 7-0 at home to Dagenham & Redbridge.

Its also worth mentioning another salient point. Chelsea just don’t lose. They may draw the odd game and feel they’ve been robbed, the refs have cheated, the world is against them, but this season, they don’t lose. And to Spurs, they never, ever lose. Only in my dreams.

And in that weird and wonderful fugue state I found myself, Spurs scored again. 5-2. Impossible. Chelsea have never conceded 5 under Morinho. Impossible. So I dreamed my way over to my ipad and realised the worst thing about Brazil. There’s no Sky Sports, you can’t get 5-live (ok, clever dick, I-I-I can’t get 5-live) and so you have just the BBC for comfort and they lag real time by 3 minutes. Bastards; what do I pay my fucking license fee for???? Plus frantic emails from the daughters back home. Yet, in dreams you do have that sssslllllloooooooowwwwww movement in which you’re like living under the effect of quaaludes or in deep water and can’t effect proper speed of action. Just like the BBC.

John fucking Terry pulled a goal back. 5-3 in the 89th minute. Dream on Chelsea. I clicked my heels together 3 times, just to check. Sadly I’d left my red high heels at home and had to make do with flip-flops, but I didn’t end up back in Kansas, nor even (heaven forbid) London. So I just had to live through 4 hours of injury time… ok, 6 minutes but in my dream it sure felt like 4 hours, and we had won. In my dream within a dream.

But it wasn’t!!!!! It was real!!!!! And we really HAD beaten the rotten blues and we really had overtaken both West Ham and Arsenal and… and… and…

Next year I’ve decided to spend the entire football season asleep in Brazil.

Happy Friday. If its real.

A xxxx

and she dances on the sand.

(Duran, Duran, nineteen-eighty-something, the world’s first ever ‘fuck-off’ music video, as in one that cost more than 30 quid to make in me mate Dave’s garage. And the world’s most poseurish, stylised, vain, totally self-conscious band of tossers. Yet in fact a great song. As long as you can imagine it without conjuring up the image of Simon LeBon, wearing a Miami Vice style jacket with rolled up sleeves, on the prow of a ship in the Caribbean Sea with his hi-lighted ‘blond’ locks blowing majestically in the wind, without vomiting.)

Yet I’m learning that there’s much more to ‘Rio’ than just an early New Romantic song. Its a place. And its people. More fucking people than you can really imagine if you’re not Chinese. How many? Millions? Billions? Trillions? No; Brazilians. Wow! That many.

And every one of them was on the beach last night for New Years. Which they take seriously and put some immense municipal effort into their biggest event of the year.

To put that into context, flash back to yesterday morning’s walking tour of Rio. Which was as fantastic and interesting as any walking tour could ever be with temperatures in the low 40s. They should call it the water drinking tour of Rio: OR DIE!!!! And what we learned, possibly above all else, was that the good folk of Rio are great at starting projects and then… and then… they stop. And what was the Public Library is now the School for Music, which will shut down to be an indoor market. For a couple of years until…

They either run out of money or inspiration. Leaving a city full of wonderful buildings best summed up as ‘a great idea a the time’. Yet the combination of architecture, predominantly Art Deco but with many other styles too, is gorgeous to see, whatever the buildings are now used (or disused) for now in relation to their original purpose.

But New Years is different.

The main road in Copacabana closes at midday. And fills with portable toilets, medical stations, crowd barriers and ambulances. Hundreds of ambulances just sitting there, engines running, lights flashing, all day. The crowds descend on the beach, put out their towels and umbrellas, pens for the babies, and great big ice boxes for the beer. Given a choice; abandon the baby, keep the beer cold. No brainer. Ya can’t drink warm beer. Unless that’s all you have left.

The crowds come. And come. And come. And come. And keep coming until ‘critical mass’ about 11.30 when the entire population of Brazil is right here. The band then stop at midnight, and the fireworks start. And of course they’re brilliant; they’re fireworks. Set off from a series of barges moored off the beach. Spectacular.

There are police, stewards, guardia civil and the fucking army. There are doctors, nurses, paramedics and footballers. There is everyone and everything. Though, obviously, it is simply impossible to have sufficient toilets for millions of people. Who are drinking more and more with every hour. But otherwise it was impressive. And a magnificent and spectacular event.

I might have to come again next year. Or I might not.

Happy New Year

A xxxx

That’s Jesus. Christ the Redeemer as its known locally. And it is truly magnificent. I’m not a particularly religious man, certainly not big on Christianity and not too sure about worshipping graven images. Though it must be said, people don’t come to visit Christ the Redeemer to worship. They visit to take selfies. That’s the main objective, so it would appear. Though a strong secondary objective is to queue. Oh my, but do you queue. The Brazilians take queuing and elevate what is normally a mere chore, into a complete art-form. And its all done with stunning inefficiency, chaos, randomness and stupidity.

Here’s what happens. Or, what happened to us.

We’d booked the ‘tour of Rio’ for our first morning here, because that’s what you do. You don’t loll around taking photos of girls’ bums on the Copacabana… well, you do but not til later, you don’t lie out and burn, you don’t drink beer all morning and waste the opportunity; you get out there and go see Christ. So we’d pre-booked this about last April. Its not like He wasn’t expecting us.
The car picked us up at 9.15. A jeep. Big jeep. You wouldn’t want air conditioning or comfort when its only 35 degrees outside, would’ja? No, you want to be breathing the same superheated, diesel-heavy air that the locals breath.

Jesus sits on the top of mountain. Called the Corcovado. And half way up we stopped. Traffic. Lots of traffic. Lots of people. They reckon that two-and-a-half million people descend on Copacabana beach on New Years Eve. What they don’t tell you is that most of those people spend the preceding day taking selfies at Christ the Redeemer. And showing off their tattoos which, coincidentally, heavily feature crosses, jesuses and even a fair few Redeemers in ink.

So you get out of the jeep, eventually, after a half hour climb up the last bit of the hill. Then you join a queue. Two-and-a-half million people long, so it would appear. But that’s just one queue and no-one tells you what you’re queuing for. So when you get to the end the tour person managed to sneak us rather slyly into the next queue. Thus the first queue was merely an hour and a half warm up to get you ready to queue for the bus up the final leg to Jesus himself. And a half hour later we emerged to the point where you are effectively staring right up Jesus’ robes from below. And you realise at that point that, selfies aside, you’re not there to see Him. You’re there to see what He sees. The views from the top of the mountain.

And what Jesus sees is all of Rio. From the Macarana (he hasn’t missed a match since 1932) all the way to the beaches where He can check out the thongs all day from his amazing vantage point on the hilltop. It is quite magnificent. He is quite magnificent. Rio is simply fabulous. But could do with some serious organisational skills.

Off for dinner at the ‘actual’ bar where they wrote the original ‘Girl from Ipanema’. To look a the music, soak up the atmosphere and EAT TONS OF MEAT.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Chelsea suffered the abject humiliation and dire, almost-unheard-of misery yesterday of actually not winning a match. What a fucking tragedy. How shameful. Can they ever hold their gelled-up heads up again in decent company? Not that Chelsea players would mix with decent company.

And so unaccustomed are the boys in blue to such failings that their esteemed manager had to not only find someone to blame, but to extend his blame-mongering, which we’re almost used to, into a full-blown conspiracy theory. His own word: ‘a conspiracy’ of English referees against Chelsea!!!!! Because yet again his flailing swans failed to receive a penalty decision after a double-salchow, triple-somersault pirhouette in the box by Cesc Fabregas. Which looked not totally dissimilar to last weekend’s effort by Ivanovic or the previous weekend’s by Costa.

Chelsea are the only team to have a training section for ‘penalty acquisition’. The head coaches are Darcey Bussell and Tom Daley. And their players are encouraged to leap around collapsing at every possible opportunity. Then, when this practice wins a penalty, that’s a win, and when it doesn’t nothing’s lost. In fact there’s a gain. You gain a reputaion for being a bunch of diving, cheating, horrible little tossers. Unless you can come up with a pretty damned good excuse. Or even a laughably pathetic one, like a conspiracy theory.

Jose Morinho is two seperate people; the lovely, cuddly, handsome, smiling, generous version when Chelsea have just won, and the miserable stupid wanker when they don’t.

Mauricio Pochettino only has one persona: unintelligable Argentinian. But at least he’s consistent and nice. Even when, as yesterday, no penalty was awarded after Wayne Rooney’s penatly area semi-strangulation bear-hug on Harry Kane waiting (patiently) for a corner kick. Perhaps because realistically, a point is a good result against a suddenly quite awesome Man United, or perhaps because he shows class.

The final Homeland of the current series aired last night and I almost watched it live. What a brilliant series. If they award an award for the most jittery, nervy, manic, unpredictably bi-polar character ever on tv, it would be a toss-up between Claire Danes and Jeckyl & Hyde. She is totally brilliant whilst constantly making you feel nervous and uncomfortable whilst watching her.

Happy Monday from sunny Heathrow, Terminal 5.

A xxxx

There’s only two basic options for tennis on Sunday mornings at this time of year. Icy or wet. Neither of which is what can be considered ‘ideal’ playing conditions, neither would entice the Federers and the Murrays onto the court; they’d either play on their indoor court or have someone else play for them. A proxy. A servant. But for mere mortals like me, if the choice is not playing or playing in dire and somewhat dangerous conditions (if my wife is to be believed), then there is no choice. You play on an ice rink or a water hazard, because you’re a man. And men are supposed to be brave. And supposed to be ‘on the edge’ and supposed to be stupid.

This morning was the former. Icy. Just a little, which would have melted but the glorious sunshine was just to thin and weak to arrange much meltage. Though not so weak and think or even high enough in the sky that it couldn’t cause temporary blindness for every high-ish ball. That being one high enough to make it over the net. But its worth it. Because I need exercise after my days of excess. And particularly before the days of excess which are about to follow.

Yet before we fly off there’s just the little matter of Manchester United at the Lane. ‘3 easy points’ you may say. Well I’m not so sure. Not so confident. But…

But if we do beat them (from my typewriter to G-d’s ears) and should West Ham draw with the Arse, and if Chelsea, as expected, beat Southampton, and if the season was to finish at six o’clock today; we’d be in 4th place and Harry Kane would play Champions League football next year. And I’d go away a happy man. The happiest man.

Neil Warnock gets axed by Crystal Palace. Who sort of axed him already once, but didn’t do it properly so the whinging northerner stayed there to oversee Palace’s progress from bottom-of-the-table strugglers to bottom-of-the-table strugglers. Not enough though for the powerful men at Selhurst Park who fear the drop, both in leagues and income stream. Drop down a division, well, THAT division and they take back the brand new Bentley and replace it with a 14 year-old Nissan Micra. The players leave, either because they want to or because you can’t afford them any longer, then your wife leaves you to go marry a proper, Premiership owner wot can keep ‘er in da bling and stuff she’s got used ta. The kids are ashamed by the drop in lifestyle and accuse you of ‘ruining their lives’ and you have to start visiting places like Haretlepool and Rochdale on a regular basis.

So you need a saviour. Someone who can keep your team up ‘where they belong’. So you bring in Tim Sherwood. Probably. And he’s the man because… er… because he… hmmmm… well, he did a pretty good job at Spurs, even though he makes my skin crawl.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

To eat meat or not to eat meat, that seems to be the constant question. Though not necessarily at this rather excessive time of year, but a very valid question for January. When we (should) consider such moral quandaries and dilemmas.

My relationship with animals was best summed up on a safari in South Africa a decade ago. We went out just before sunset and saw magnificent sights, like thousands of zebra and wildebeest roaming the plains, herds of elephants with their young, dozens of kudu and springbok running majestically across the land, ostriches, giraffes, rhinos, wow. Amazing. In the wild. Wow. And it was truly magnificent, and an unquestionable ‘don’t I love animals’ moment for all the family.

Then the truck took us to a tented area where they barbecued zebra and kudu and springbok and ostrich and served them with flat bread and salad. Without any irony. And it was fucking delicious.

Because I have an almost infinite capacity for dissociation. I dissociate the living, breathing (biting, attacking, smelly) animal from the serving that appears on my plate. Or in the butchers in the cold cabinet. Different things, different purposes, different morality. I hate reading that Siberian Tigers may become extinct, or that 5000 acres of decimated rainforest endangers the Madagascan primates. But I’ll be reading that whilst eating a burger. Or a turkey.

Whether this dissociation occurs out of necessity, naivety or just plain ignorance, I’m happy for it. Its a blessing, not a curse, and I feel in no way hypocritical in this respect. Or putting it another way: I don’t give a shit; it is what it is.

And that dissociation is the same facility that prevents me from punching Arsenal fans when I see them. I hate the collective smugness that is epidemic amoung the Emirates faithful, that supercilious, almost billious superiority that accompanies their every movement, word and action, yet I can love some of them dearly as individuals. Seperate the one from the herd. The cow from the steak. And by the same token this may be morally wrong. I perhaps should punch each and every one of them at each and every opportunity, like I should never eat meat (unless my life depended upon it, or it was roadkill) but I seperate and make my choices.

If only Spurs had chosen to beat West Brom at home earlier in the season. Or Newcastle when they were really shitty. Then we’d be 4 in the league right now. But we cannot mourn such lost opportunites. Even though we really fucking want to. Because that path leads to depression, to despondency, to dark thoughts.

Never mind, off to Brazil and Argentina in two days to consider all my moral issues whilst eating nothing but steaks. Huge, red, dripping…

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Who needs a partridge in a pear tree?? Unless they’re holding a shotgun at the time, like Prince Edward’s son and heir, and its hunting season. For those who like semi-mouldy birds filled with lead pellets. Unlike me. I don’t like ‘game’ particularly. Much as I don’t like West Ham particularly, and they lost to Chelsea today so we have to wait and see how that affects their SSD. Seasonal Smugness Disorder. Or Football Seasonal smugness Out of Order. As the case may be.

But all those swans-a-swimmin and lords-a-leapin and all that bollox; who needs that? Maids-a-milkin has potential, and you do get eight of them, but quite frankly, you can keep the rest, my ‘true love’.

On the first day of Chris-mas my true love gave to me:
The best turkey anyone’s ever cooked, other than Jamie Oliver but he’s a nob, and Nigella, and she cheats. Our turkey was sublime. So that was brilliant. And everyone said it was the best turkey they’d ever eaten. Though I was still holding the carving knife at the time of asking.

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
3 points at Leicester. Brilliant and, once again, apparently completely undeserved, and again, once again, Erikssen scores the winner late in a game when we’re not looking too good.

AND

Sky Sports, as for some legal reason unable to show a game of football at 3 o’clock, even on a Friday, showed instead ‘the best goals of 2014’. No commentary, no ‘talking heads’, or even ‘talking morons’, like they usually have; they didn’t list them, nor rank them, nor get some tossers to vote, they just showed brilliant goals from all over Europe, as far away as Galataseray, Barcelona and Hartlepool..

On the third day of Christmas my true love is giving to me:
Tai Chi at 8.15 in the morning. And having not moved from a dinner table in 3 days, other than to turn on the tv, open another bottle of wine and stagger to bed, physical activity is as wanted as it is trying.

On the 4th day of Christmas my true love is bringing:
Manchester United to White Hart Lane. Not sure whether that is ‘5 go-old rings’ or 3 French Hens.

On the 5th day of Christmas I’m flying to Rio and quite frankly, I don’t give a shit much after that. Though I’d be fibbing if I wasn’t planning just a little trip to see the Maracana, a search for Pele so I can prostrate myself in front of him (and take a selfie), and spend time on the Copa Cobanna looking for the women’s beach vollyball team. And mugging Brazilians before they can mug me.

Happy Boxing Day.

A xxxx

I spent half of last night watching Mel scribbling down tips for cooking a turkey from first, Jamie Oliver’s Cockney Christmas Cooking C-C-C-programme (wasn’t called that but he does enunciate somewhat abysmally and if you don’t add the ‘cockney’ as some kind of intention then he just becomes a little street-urchin who can cook), followed by Nigella’s ultra-sensual breast-fest (hers and the turkey’s) involving lots of finger-licking, purring, chocolate sauce and sex toys. Where cookery meets soft-core porn. No problem with that.

Because we’re making Christmas dinner today. Because its fucking Christmas, innit. And in 28 years of the most wonderfully happy marriage (mine), or 28 years of miserable slavery (hers), this is our first. We’re never here at Christmas. Its our holiday time. When I remove the shackles which normally tie Mrs Conway to the oven and washing machine and release her into the wild (Heathrow) from where we go and find winter sunshine. Otherwise she gets depressed in all that dark, cold winter wank.

But this year our trip, to South America, starts on the 29th due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’ (Air Miles flights) and thus, here I am, on Christmas morning looking out on a bright, sunny London for the first time in decades and trying to decide whether to stuff a sodding turkey, and if so, how many minutes per kilo will that require before the ‘resting time’ after cooking? Resting time? Like the bird is knackered and needs a nap? Its fucking dead? How tired can it be??

After Jamie and Nigella (ohhhhh, Nigella…) I watched Top of the Pops, 1979 Christmas Special. Or ‘not very special’ as you realise as soon as Bony M hit the screen.

I loved TOTP, as did every kid, every teen, every young adult, from 1964 to 2006 when we’d all grown up and realised it was absolute shit presented by child molesting perverts and featuring the great and the rubbish who were not allowed to perform live. How was that ever allowed to happen? I mean, for Brotherhood of Man and Gary (paedo) Glitter, its what you’d expect, and more than you need. But at times when the greats, the Marc Bolans and David Bowies, the Who, Stones, Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, even the Beatles, all had to mime. As a ‘concession’ the BBC let them pre-record a backing track specially for the programme, but really, what bollox. Which is why Rod Steward performed Maggie May whilst kicking a football with John Peel pretending to play the mandolin. When Simon Le Bon’s mike flew offstage at the start of a song he just shrugged his shoulders and mimed into the mike-stand. And when they gave a live mike to Kurt Cobain he swore and told everyone to take drugs. Bless him.

So why did we watch it? Why bother??

Because of the ‘dancers’. Not just any dancers but consistently the worst, most arrhythmic, terrible dancers in the world. They auditioned them, Pans People and Legs & Co, specifically for their ability to dance like Peter Crouch who hadn’t even been born yet, or Stephen Hawking, and for their legs.

And it worked.

Happy Christmas, again

A xxxx

if I sang out of tune; would you stand up and walk out on me?

The wondrous Joe Cocker took those words, previously sung so… er… so… so mediocre-ly by Ringo, and elevated them to a new plane. And elevated himself to superstardom at the same time. Woodstock time. Yet more cast-iron proof that excessive drugs and alcohol, when mixed in just the wrong measures, produce simply perfect music. Ever since proper music gave way to ‘clean-living’ boy-band type tossers and they allowed vegans to write songs during Pilates, it has been the death of proper music. Which is why I won’t listen to anything post-1986. Other than shitloads of exceptions.

Anyway, poor Joe Cocker, died this week. 70 years old. Not particularly ancient but them’s the breaks.

Another who died way too young, back in 1982, was John Belushi, who lived a clean and healthy lifestyle. Other than cocaine by the kilo and any other drugs he could get up his nose, in his veins, down his throat. I loved John Belushi as he simply epitomised the extreme of ‘fuck you!!!’ attitude. And he used to do the most fantastic impersonation of Joe Cocker. The voice, the frantic mannerisms, everything, quite brilliant. One night on Saturday Night Live, Joe Cocker was the guest and they did a Joe Cocker duet. It takes a big man to stand up next to someone essentially charicaturising your every movement, so I guess Joe was a big man. John Belushi was very big.

And now they’re both dead. They’ve moved to the entertainment section in heaven. Which is fucking massive. So much talent.

But heh, its Christmas Eve! Bet you didn’t know that. So I thought I’d mention. Tonight Santa comes down the chimney, yeah, good luck with that, Fatso, and delivers presents for everyone except me. I don’t think I ever bought in to the whole Santa Claus shtick. I couldn’t work out how the presents went from the shops where we bought them, over to Lapland and back again, and who was paying whom? And how could he visit every house in the world in just 12 hours. Ok, plus time differences. Didn’t know you could get jet-lag from a sodding reindeer. I was such an annoying little fucker back then. Lucky I changed so profoundly then. Yeah. Right.

Well happy Christmas to all,

A xxxx