Andy's Glasses

So we left Arsene Wenger in a hole. Stuck in the middle of a story in the depressing bit, desperately searching for his happy ending. And we feel that unless he chooses to visit one of the fine ‘Oriental Massage’ establishments, of which there are many in the back streets around Tottenham, run by fat, moustachioed Turkish women, that happy ending he otherwise seeks will be unfound.

The statistics would not be very uplifting reading for Arsenal. The percentage of teams to get through a 2-leg match after losing the first at home 3-1 is a mere 2.5%. However, its not zero. It can be done. Be a fucking miracle, statistically speaking (statisticians always swear a lot) but there is a glimmer.

Those same (bastard) statisticians claim that if you draw the first leg 1-1 (conceding that ‘vital away goal’), your chance of progress is 24.7%. As Spurs showed last night. Never a team to buck a trend, they decided to concede easily to conserve energy for the Cup Final on Sunday. A good plan.

And the loss in Florence frees the very busy schedule up a bit, so we can concentrate on important matters. Now we’ll have more time, more energy, more rest, so we can hopefully finish 5th and get into the Europa League. There’s no irony that our only hope of getting into that tournament next year is to get out of it this year. No irony, perhaps, but a great degree of circularity.

Liverpool went out of the Europa too, as did, so they keep mentioning, as if we care or consider them kindred souls, Celtic. If a mere 37 extra Scotsmen had dragged themselves out of the pub to vote ‘Yes’ last year, Glasgow would no longer be part of ‘Britain’ and we wouldn’t have to watch their football results. Scotland would be an independent sovereign state with Kenny Dalgleish as King, Alex Salmond as Oliver Cromwell and Gordon Strachan as Princess Eugenie.

So Everton remain the sole English survivor in the Europa.

And fancy putting Spurs on at 6 o’clock. Stupid bloody time. Didn’t they know I had to go and see my pension guy? So he could tell me that I should be able to retire (in abject fucking poverty) when I’m 107. So we booked a cruise for 2063. Though they’re not sure there’ll be any water left in the world by then.

Happy Ending

A xxxx

I’m a reader. Never used to be. Then I read Leon Uris’ ‘Exodus’ when I was bored shitless in my first ever proper job aged about 23 and ‘my life changed forever’. I became bookish. Nerdy. I gave up drink, drugs, fast cars, loose women, football and cannibalism and dedicated myself to the words of others. And I still love books, some 35 years later. I read on the tube every day, I read in bed every night, because there are so many books out there and so little time.

I mainly read novels, because they’re wonderful escapism, but will also, at times, read non-fiction. The odd sporting autobiography, The Wolf of Wall Street, science type books. Chaos Theory. Relativity made very very simple. Fermat’s Last Theorem. Evolutionary biology. History of Science. I like it. But mainly its novels.

But now I’m going to give up reading. Because, apparently, there’s only 6 stories in the world and on the assumption that I’ve read about 10,000 books, I must have covered those 6 many times over so I don’t need to keep repeating myself.

A professor at Stanford, no less, has analysed 40,000 books using a computer (saved a bit of time, I reckon, cheating like that) and the results show just 6 storylines. Which is pretty much what Kurt Vonnegut, the author and lecturer had said to inspire the research.

He identified very few story types. In fact mainly two.

The computer plotted emotional content against time. And found two main options.

Graphs that looked like a valley. Emotionally happy at first, then a plummet (sudden poverty, lost love, someone dies, Chelsea win) and then up at the end to leave the reader on a high note filled with messages of positivity and luuuuurve. Niiiiiice. These he termed ‘man in a hole’.

The other main type was where the graph was the opposite. Raised in the middle and low at the edges- ‘man on a hill’. These start miserable, then get bright, breezy, rich, in love and happy in the middle only for everyone to contract ebola at the end or Manchester City win the league. Ahhhhhhhhh. Shame.

I wonder if Arsene Wenger is a man in a hole?

Happy whatever day this finally gets finished.

A xxxx

There’s trouble in Ulster. Nothing new there then. But this isn’t a new wave of ‘knee-capping’ or sectarian violence, not even marching Orange-men. This is all about a subject much closer to my own heart (in oh so many ways, Doctor); cake.

A bakery in the Province was commissioned to make a wedding cake for a gay marriage. The bakers, being Christians, refused. This lot don’t approve of those who turn the other cheek. “We’re a Christian bakery” they said in that Gerry Adams way of pronunciation: ‘beyerkerry’; we don’t believe in gay marriage. Fine.

Or not fine. If someone wanted a Christmas cake with Santa Claus on it, would they refuse because they don’t believe in Father Christmas?

But Santa is not divisive. Nor is he protected by anti-discrimination laws. So the bakery is being fined and refuses to pay, obviously, and is now being backed by the church in their fight against the sodomites. As they probably see it.

Legal marriage in Northern Ireland, according to their laws, states that ‘it is between a man and a woman’. Therefore anything else is NOT legal marriage, therefore they don’t have to bake a sodding cake praising it.

But the last time I looked Northern Ireland is still part of Great Britain. That the whole point of it being there and occupying space on the news. Southern Ireland is Ireland, the Republic thereof, and has nothing to do with us. The Northern bit unfortunately belongs to us and therefore, slightly devolved government aside, must be subject to our rules. Britannia rules the waves and the cake shops.

I don’t care about the cake, I’ll have mine and eat it too. But I do have a problem with homophobia because its only practised by really horrible people. Like Russia. Saudi Arabia. ISIS. Nasty fascist regimes. Not in Britain where we are tolerant and nice. Except Chelsea fans. And West Ham fans. Who are neither.

On Saturday evening Manchester City looked like they were the best football team in the entire world. Last night they were humiliated by Barcelona. Again. Good. Much as I like to see English teams fare well in Europe, that only really applies to Tottenham. Lionel Messi, caught at a casino just 2 nights before the match at a very late hour, seemed unaffected by his excesses. Other than missing a penalty. If that’s Messi ‘a little worse for wear’ I’ll have him any day. He’d love to come to Spurs.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

The Theory of Everything is a good film. Not a great film, but by the essential criteria that:

1. Mel didn’t fall asleep
2. I didn’t get bored
3. I never looked at my watch
4. my phone didn’t start vibrating

it must therefore be considered worthy entertainment. Which it undoubtedly was. And we understand that it is ‘her’ story, taken from ‘her’ book. Mrs Hawking. The first Mrs Hawking. Played with gorgeousness beyond the call of duty by Felicity Jones.

Many years ago I read ‘a brief history of time’; Hawking’s dumbed down explanation of the workings of the entire universe for mass consumption. Sadly it didn’t quite go ‘dumb’ enough for me, but in fact its a great book, written with wit and charm and with amazingly complex concepts explained in such a way that at the time of reading, the ‘man on the street’ can actually grasp them and almost understand them. Though not necessarily be able to explain them to others afterwards. The ‘answers’ only remain in the mind for the duration of the reading, grasped fleetingly, then lost as the book closes. Lots of sciencey books are like that. The good ones really.

Yet in the movie I felt the essence of Stephen Hawking was lost a little in the translation.

He learned about black holes. Dead stars collapsing under their own immense gravitational pull until the atomic particles are crushed into the spaces that normally they whizz round in. Leaving a single point that weighs the same as a star (pretty heavy) and therefore has the same gravitational pull, but exists in a single point; a black hole. Hmmmmmm. And then in a ‘eureka’ moment, according to the movie, whilst watching his cream swirl round in his coffee (they used cream in 1964, which is why their life expectancy was only 62) he devised a theory.

That the universe is expanding. We all know that. You can just look out the window and see for yourself. So if you ‘run the clock backwards’ and contract the universe, where would it end? Or, in fact, where did it start? Ahhhh, thought Hawking, in his electronic mind-voice, all the matter would collect together, the stuff from every planet, every star, all in one lump. Then what? Keep running backwards and he decided that this matter would then keep compacting, like the dead star, and eventually all collapse into its own black-hole-ish point. Which he called a ‘singularity’. Others call ‘God’. And at that singularity, best of all, there was no time. Time doesn’t start until you run the clock the right way, forwards, from that point. Which he called ‘the Big Bang’. Ohhhh, yeah, one of them.

And in the movie they kind’a left it there. What a great mind to come up with such an ‘out there’ concept; brilliant; give him a professorship and buy him a new wheelchair.

But what Hawking did, almost unmentioned in the film, was prove his ‘big bang’ mathematically. Now I realise that’s just the easy bit, the leg work…

No, actually its not. He could barely use his legs. He didn’t even have an iphone, probably not a calculator, just a pencil. Because that’s what theoretical physicists like Hawking, and Einstein do, they do the sums. They don’t work in labs, they don’t spend hours analysing moondust, they do da maffs.

And I’m not suggesting that watching a man agonising for 5 years over serious number crunching would enhance the film’s Oscar potential, but some reference would have been nice.

I now calculate I’m probably late for work. Depending on when you start ‘time’ from.

Happy tuesday

A xxxx

Well, not West Ham, that’s for sure. In the blockbuster at White Hart Lane yesterday those poor Hammers managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 2-nil, and they fucked it up. And I could almost feel sorry for them, if I wasn’t so amazingly, deliriously, almost tragically happy about it. It felt like a win, (it felt like a wi–in, etc) as Spurs somehow, after the most awful display for 80 minutes, managed to score a fluke, out-of-nothing goal and then secure the draw (though it soooooooo felt like a win) with the last kick of the game. Harry Kane. Whoever wrote that script certainly wins an Oscar for that. Just as the Oscar for ‘most blinded by bitterness’ goes to Sam Allardyce for his consistent and emotional failure to judge that Alex Song tripping up Harry, then diving on his back to make sure he went over, might have been a righteous penalty.

In the other Oscars, the American ones that went on all bloody night, fewer surprises. Except for the nature of the films up for awards. Because the main movies in the final counting were really the poor relations of the global movie world.

The Imitation Game, Grand Budapest Hotel, Selma, Birdman, Theory of Everything, Boyhood and Whiplash, together, globally, grossed $293 million. American Sniper grossed $312 million all by itself. A true blockbuster. Deservedly winning an Oscar. For sound editing. It did sound pretty good, I must say. Those bullets, fucking thousands of them, sounded almost like real bullets. I think.

In 2010 the Best Picture nominees had grossed $4.7 BILLION. This year’s lot; less than 0.7 bil.

So the Oscars, having always been a vehicle to promote movies to the masses, have now become more ‘inclusive’ of non-blockbusters to the extent that there is a great divide between what a bunch of movie-snob culture tarts in Hollywood reckon are ‘great movies’ and what the general public actually go and see. Which is, it has to be said, mainly franchises of comic book crap and anything involving lots of guns. The separation of ‘good’ movies and popular movies. The main difference being that I go and see good movies and all of America goes to see popular ones, except for a few dudes in New York who are into art-house, mainly because they’re pretentious bastards like me.

I saw The Theory of Everything last night. Great film. Eddie Redmayne was brilliant as Stephen Hawking. But best actor? Not sure about that. Playing a character who is tragically denied movement and much in the way of outward emotion or any kind of subtlety is not so much acting as impersonating. Which young Eddie did wonderfully. Sadly very few will go and see it.

Now if they’d put a few guns on the wheelchair…

Very happy Monday (West Ham fans should take the day off)

A xxxx

I love an Oscar. Love the whole thing. The event, the parties, the goody-bags. Brilliant. And such a perfect demonstration of the austerity the world faces. The event goes on for 4 hours. Four fucking hours of sobbing, stumbling over dresses never designed to be walked in, smug, self-satisfaction married to hateful, resentful stares by the applauding ‘losers’ and the speeches. Oh. My. Gooooooooood, the speeches. Tear-laden, overly-emotional, unprepared (though how is that even possible??) rants thanking everyone from directors to the manufacturers of their juice-makers, from ‘mom’ to their high school cricket coach, and they’ve never even played cricket. The losers consoled with goody bags containing a Porsche, three houses; one in Gstaad, one in Malibu and one in Harlow New Town, a million pounds worth of jewellery, perfumes, games consoles, 98 inch smart-tvs, an iphone 7 and a signed Harry Kane Spurs ‘away’ shirt. Lucky, lucky, spoilt, over-privileged, indulgent tossers.

Yet it means so much. To, errr… to… hmmm… well, to the world, to the poor of Tanzania, to the dispossessed of Syria, to the prisoners in China, and especially, to the movie industry.

And the Oscar for the best Drama Queen of 2015 goes to… (pause for effect, expectation and flatulence)… goes to Jose Morinho in The Persecution Complex. A brilliant portrayal of a man tortured by his own demons, seeing the world in a conspiracy against him, especially anyone dressed in black. He plays his role with passion, with emotion, with pathos and in a very strange accent. We hope his psychotherapy is successful and he can be let out of his padded room any month now.

The Oscar for most consistent behaviour over a very long time goes to… Joey Barton for his part in Why Did you Send Me Off when I only pushed One Geezer to the Floor and Punched another In The Stomach???? A wonderful film showing how psychopaths never change their spots. Or cross their metaphors.

Newcomer of the Year goes to… Harry Kane. We’ve said it all before and doubtless will again before the Season’s over. Boy’s Own hero. He’s English. He’s common as muck. He’s wonderful and we love him.

And finally, the Oscar for 50 Shades of Despondency goes to… Louis Van Gaal for his ongoing part in The Man with the Funny Shaped Head. Louis consistently shows the entire range of human emotion; from frustration to depression, from anger to hatred, from bad to worse. Brilliant. Long may that show continue.

Arsenal came 4th.

Happy Oscar Sunday

A xxxx

Usual Friday night scenario. We watch the news, we’re bathed, dressing gowned, tea-ed up and relaxed. I’m failing miserably on some cryptic crossword compiled by a dyslexic Lithuanian-speaking sub-normal (obviously, otherwise I’d be racing through it…) and Mel’s asleep. Fast asleep. Head hanging on one side, just sufficiently that even a 3 minute snooze will result in neck pain for a month, but I couldn’t wake her. So instead I channel surf. I’m a man. Iss what we do.
And there, on channel 371 or 259, one I’ve probably never used before, was Top Gun.

The Holy Grail. One of those simply must-watch’a-bit-of movies. Oddly (it must be on special offer right now to tv companies) I’d watched a bit of it the other night on channel 732, or 563 perhaps. But this was the end of the film. Tom lands his plane after killing loads of Russian bastard scummy scuzzy, suicide-bombing, Chelsea-supporting vermin and everyone cheers and loves him, the returning hero. All 5 foot 3 of him. But he’s almost normal size when sitting in an F15, or whatever those planes are. And I thought two things after my 7 minutes of Top Gun:

1. I LOVE this film

2. This film is just plain shite.

Seemingly contradictory, the ill-informed may think, but they’d be wrong. My life is one big contradiction so holding seemingly opposing views is just same shit different day for me.

And I love it because its almost the ultimate feel good film. It wasn’t Tom Cruise who shot down those evil Russians, it was me. And it wasn’t him that walked off with a simmeringly gorgeous Kelly McGillis, it was me. And it wasn’t him on that fab motorbike riding without a helmet, it was me. And that’s what the best films do; they put you ‘there’. They’re inclusive. (Going to see The Theory of Everything tomorrow night; wonder how I’ll feel after 2 hours in a wheelchair speaking with an electronic voice??).

And its a shite film because it is just one big cliché. Amazingly predictable, horribly formulaic from the love angle to the big rivals become big mates man-hugs at the end, the bad boy comes good, the Maverick (in so many ways) becomes the team player and saves the universe, almost single-handedly, and rides off into the sunset with the babe. Ahhhhhhh.

See, its crap. Hope its on again tonight.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

… let me count the ways.

Let me say from the outset: I really don’t like Chelsea very much. And thus I’m really enjoying the scandal surrounding the fans in Paris completely living up to the stereotypical image we have of them. Shaven-headed, ignorant, racist yobs. Fab. Job done. I’ve always had that impression of them and now the world knows its true; its been ‘proven’.

And the poster boy for this ‘proof’ is Josh Parsons. 21 years old, city trader, ex-public-schoolboy, alleged UKIP devotee and of course, Chelsea fan. On the train in Paris, identified from the pictures, so the newspapers have been taking their usual ‘neutral’ and ‘impartial’ look at the ‘evidence’ against Josh.

Who is either an active part of a horrible group of Chelsea boot-boys who extol racism and would probably revere Adolph Hitler (surely only a matter of time) or just a guy ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’.

And the truth is: we don’t know which. So the press, in their accustomed manner, present the ‘facts’ for us to make an ‘informed judgment’. By their usual tools of implication, innuendo and assumption.

That Josh Parsons is a public school boy. Strike 1. We fucking hate public school boys; over-privileged, spoilt, morning-suit-wearing upper-class tossers who fondle each other’s genitals over toast at tea time. For which their parents pay a fortune. Milfield School, where Josh went (never heard of it either; probably third rate sub-educational army cadet college for thick rich kids), charges £25,000 a year!! According to early reports. By this morning’s papers that had mysteriously risen to £35,000 a year!!!! So we can hate him more.

Then, the researcher’s dream. A photo of Josh with none other than Nigel Farage. Strike 2. Leader of UKIP. The party that spends approximately 92% of its political time denying accusations of racism. This photo, innocently taken outside a pub, is the most damning, incriminating, most cut-and-dry bit of chance in the history of the press. This picture is the judge, jury and gallows for both Josh and UKIP. Because both have assumptions of racism, and here they are ‘in bed together’. Its enough to make any sub-editor soil his underpants. Josh MUST be a racist because he’s UKIP and UKIP MUST now be racist because they’re with a Chelsea nazi.

If I saw Farage in a pub, I would definitely pose with him. Then punch him.

Next is the vague ‘city trader’, something in hedge funds, something sufficiently bankerish to implicate Josh in the entire financial crisis, probably for the economic and political downfall of Greece too. Strike 3. He could have been described more jobbishly; he’s a tea-boy, he’s a financial person, but no; trader, hedge-fund, banker are all far more suggestive of being bad. Rightly so.

Thus the assassination is complete. The boy is doomed. He may have just left the airport with a group of fellow travelers and was still with them when, to his horror, they abused a black man on the Metro.

But naaaaaaaaaah; where’s the headlines in that. Hang the bastard out to dry and worry about mere details like ‘the truth’ later. Can always print some vague apology on the foot of page 72, just under the obituaries.

Happy Friday, Josh, though I fear not.

A xxxx

I’m just reading a great book by Ben Elton. Safe to say, all his books are great. So far. This one’s about time travel.

“Oh, not tiiiiiiiime tttttttravel; boooooooringgggg. Don’t say; its all about going back to 1963 and becoming your own grandfather, or the other ‘time para-fuckin’-dox’ where you bang your head in 1357 and immediately disappear because the person who stopped to help you out missed his one opportunity to bump into his otherwise-would’a’been wife at the armour-repairers sorting out her dad’s breast-plate, and thus they never had their one and only child, who would have eventually become the head-banger’s great, great, great… you get the picture”.

But its none of that. I’ll spare the mechanics but they’re original. So a guy goes back to just before the first world war, to stop it happening, hopefully to make a happier Europe for the entire future of Europe. Good luck with that.

And you can’t help but think; what if you went back to… pre-revolutionary Russia, or pre-war Germany, or Cuba for the Bay of Pigs, Tottenham in 1961? Or how about you went back to a football match in about 1975? When it was baaaaad. When rival fans would arrange mass fucking riots between themselves, fuelled only by Carling Extra Strong Lager and all the Stanley knives you could eat. When one minute you’d be standing (yes, we stood standing in them dark days) there admiring a wonderful goal by Martin Chivers, (yes, we scored goals in them dark days) the next you’d find 75 West Ham fans in yer face because they’d run across the pitch and dived into the Park Lane end for some ‘aggro’.

And on the way home groups of horrible, loud, drunk thugs would terrorise people. All people. Any people. But especially people who might be ‘different’. They’d be an instant target. Black people. Indian people. Eskimos with their huskies. Lotta them round Tottenham in 1975. And these vile specimens would insult, abuse, push, cajole and be openly racist and scummy. And very scary.

In fact, if you did manage to time-warp back to such a time, it would look pretty much like Tuesday night on the Paris Metro when a group of Chelsea dirt threw a black man off a tube train, twice, insulted him, racially abused him and any others just going about their business, threatened stabbings, and generally acted in a way that can only be described as ‘the way Chelsea fans have always acted and probably always will’.

Its all very good and well sticking a couple of ‘kick it out!!!!’ anti-racism posters up at Stamford Bridge; its also rather ironic that half of Chelsea’s ‘superstars’ are black and that the team is owned by a Jew. But its all window-dressing if you can’t change the attitudes of the horrible rabble who go there.

Lobotomise all Chelsea fans TODAY!!! Its the only way.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

That’s from the bible. I googled it. And its true. Though I kind’a reckon that in Deuteronomy they meant ‘bread’ to mean ‘food’ and went on to explain that the word of God is needed as well as ‘bread’. Whereas until Gourmet Burger Kitchen start a ‘word-of-God Burger’, I’m afraid I’m going to take it literally.

I can’t live on bread alone. I need meat with it/in it/next to it/on a separate plate because its such a humungous lump of flesh. And in fact if you did live on bread alone, you’d be a fat bastard with scurvy. All those carbs? You havin’ a laaarfff??? Die if you eat that.

Such is the received wisdom, that ‘carbs will kill you’ by rendering you obese. We live in a carbophobic world where many folk would rather pass on the baguette and drink a glass of green slime instead.

All this because on Sunday Mel & I did indeed go to Gourmet Burger Kitchen for lunch. Because its wonderful. And fills you with guilt, as well as carbs and fats.

Because of that, we only go there when its nice enough that we can walk there. Oh, and when they have a ‘2-for-a-tenner’ offer. So conditions really do have to be perfect. All parameters aligned before we do it. Like a lunar take-off.

Because you don’t just eat a burger there. Even though they’re big and wonderful and filled with all manner of ‘manna’. You ‘need’ chips. And whilst you’re there, mate, bring us some onion rings too. And more beer.

Ok, we didn’t have the beer. Drank water. Just like in the bible. Until they messed up the order a bit and insisted we had free ‘strawberry fizzers’ so we wouldn’t sue them for the distress it caused me. And not bringing me food does cause me massive distress. Even after the fantastic meal I could feel a bit of ‘post-traumatic’ coming on.

So we pigged out. Royally. Wonderful too. And fully justified by the 2 mile trek across Hampstead Heath it took to get there, and the same on the way back. Mainly because Mel wouldn’t let me call a taxi, even though it was right there and empty.

And every day I read the papers for those little snippets that ‘a glass of wine a day is highly beneficial and you’ll live longer’, followed a week later by ‘if you drink, even one glass of wine, each day, you are an alcoholic’, and a month after, ‘one glass of wine is great for digestion; 2 and YOU WILL DIE!!!’ And then vegetables which one day are life-affirming, the next are death-inducing if you cook them, or eat them with fish. And I wait for the one that says ‘eat a hamburger every day, a really big one, with cheese and fries and chillies and you will live forever’.

I’m still waiting.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx