Andy's Glasses

Spurs won again. For the 3rd time 7 days. Swansea, Newcastle, Burnley; we even won a league match at home. And that never happens. Lamela scored a scorcher, starting to pay off his (outrageous) price-tag already. Its only been 18 months and that must be his third league goal. But more importantly, as the young Argie swept in from the right wing, cut inside and hit a stunning left-foot curling shot inside the angle of the goal, other than the lack of ear flappage it could have been Gareth (the Lord) Bale. Who himself, sorry, Himself, could not have had a worse, protracted start for Spurs. Harry Kane is now a god too. Just with a small ‘g’ for the moment. But he keeps on scoring and that is a price above rubies. Which is probably just what we’ll sell him for next year, when he’s really fantastic.

But it was a good weekend for football, not just for Spurs. Unless you support Newcastle, Hull, West Brom, Palace, Stoke or perhaps even Arsenal on the logic that if Liverpool’s draw felt like a win then Arsenal’s must, quid pro quo, feel like defeat. And the Arse had 35% possession during that match. Their lowest ‘since records began’. So for shitty performances, this was Arsenal’s Tsunami, their Hurricane Dorothy, 17 feet of snow in 2 hours. That kind’a day. There again, they drew? If you can play your worst and still draw, how bad can ya be? Or how bad can Liverpool be? For not capitalising on it?

Manchester City had no such problems. Which they rarely do. But only if Toure and Silva are both playing well. Aguero they miss but survive, Yaya and little David are way more important. And sadly, they’re both pretty fit.

At least until they go to Stoke. The pre-emergency ward of the Premiership. The Britannia. Where the fit and healthy go to die. Where the line between ‘physicality’ and ‘common assault’ becomes blurred. Like Spurs, over dozens (literally) of managers, thousands of players, decades of time, maintain their total devotion to ‘the beautiful game’, to fast, flowing, pretty football, transcending all those who might change it (for something more productive, even), so Stoke are the Rottweilers of the league. Different players, different managers, their devotion to ‘the ugly game’ is as enduring as it is bloody. And it was bloody last night. Oddly, referees seem to downgrade offenses at that stadium. So a blatant red-card, stud-up lunge is awarded a mere yellow. Well, its Stoke, what d’ya expect?? they seem to echo. To get a straight red someone’s pulse has to actually stop for more than 25 seconds. Or a limb severed.

The win of the weekend though was QPR’s after being 2-0 down at home to West Brom. Harry Rednapp’s advanced twitching mode ensured the win, as it tends to go into overdrive with every goal his team concedes.

And now its Christmas time. Or ‘football time’ as some of us think of it.

Happy eve of Xmas eve.

A xxxx

“Jesus Christ!!!!” exclaimed the CEO of a massive, mulit-national retail perveyor of semi-erotic underwear, “this is Christmas, for fuck sake, it has nothing to do with Jesus Christ”. (Well, he could have done, couldn’t he? I might have made it up but I might not).

What have we become? Where have we ended up? What is the state of the world when Christmas is now measured entirely in terms of sales figues, percentage increase on the high street, the effect of Black Friday on the Christmas boom, and now, even, whether the rapidly declining rouble will reduce sales in the next three days in London. Presumably as the Russian trillionaires decide to replace their Christmas turkey with 3-for-2 frozen pizzas from Asda. Which are now, incidentally, so ‘loaded with goodness’ that they count as one of your five a day. Though four more like that and you probably won’t live til Xmas.

So I think it is time to become a little spiritual. To divest ourselves of our materialistic constraints for just a few moments, to get in touch with our inner Christ and go back to what Christmas was before its cynical exploitation by the marketing departments. To what Christmas was, where it began, what it really stands for in its own context.

Its the story of a baby. Born in Bethlehem. Which is now in the occupied West Bank and run by Fatah under the Palestinian Authority. But then it was just Bethlehem, a home to Christians. Though logically, not til after the first Christmas. Obviously. So it was full of Jews, mainly, and Arabs. Though in fact the prophet Mohammed wasn’t born until 570 AD so that left just the Jews. And pagans. Anyway…

A young Jewish couple, Joseph, a shepherd, and Mary, who was constrained by the ‘glass ceiling’ even then and gave up her aspirations to become the Chairperson of a FOOTSIE 100 company and had to be a housewife. Though Mary was childless. Which was unsurprising because she was a virgin. And they’re generally a childless group. We’ll ignore issues regarding whether an unconsummated marriage is in fact any marriage at all, but cut to the relevant bit.

Mary, the virgin, pitches up at home one night when Joseph’s been out probably having illicit thoughts about his sheep all day, hopefully not actions, but marriage to a virgin couldn’t have been easy on Joe, and Mary announces that she’s pregnant.
” You fucking toe-rag of a slapper!” sayeth Joseph, understandably, “you dirty whore-bag slut!!! You been hanging round with Matthew Mark and Luke again? You dirty slaaaaaggg!!!”

“Naaah, Joey, it weren’t nuffink like dat, honest, I ain’t bin screwin’ nobody. Errrrrr, God diddit. Honest. God dunnit when I was sleepin’, and now I’m gonna have His baybeeee, ain’t I?”

I can only assume that Bethlehem in the just-BC era was nothing like Camden Town today, or Huddersfield, where such cries would have been met with a slap and laughter. They were more naive then. More believing.

And so it came to pass that Jesus Christ, the son of God was born (on Christmas dayyyyyyyyyy).

How we got from there to 4.6 billion quid spent in Oxford Street in 9 days is quite frankly beyond me.

But I’m not a Christian.

Happy Sabbath day to those who are.

A xxxx

The movie The Interview, written, directed and starring Seth Rogan, will doubtless be full of nob jokes, sexual innuendo, bare breasts, slapstick and probably would be quite funny. For which, in order to interpret such things, you need nothing more than ‘a sense of humour’.

Which is banned in North Korea. Along with most other ‘freedoms’ that we take for granted. Freedom to eat. To speak when we want. To eat pizza. To get blind drunk and throw up on someone else’s car.

And this movie, that we’ll never get to see, also includes the assassination of Kim Jong Un, the esteemed (phah) leader of the North Korean people. A man so clever, gifted, intelligent, wordly, experienced and just that he was a natural for the role. And that he was the son of Kim Jong Il; that didn’t hurt the cause much either. Along with the fact that there is no Korean word for ‘vote’ but there are seventy-six for ‘army’, ‘execution’ and ‘prison camp for life’.

So the North Korean government hacked into Sony Pictures computers, took loads of sensitive information and threated to expose it all if the film was shown. Oh, and while we’re there, we’ll blow up any cinemas that choose to show the movie. Nice. That’s what Koreans call ‘politics’ and we call terrorism.

Sony Pictures immediately stopped release of the film everywhere, even though that’s pissing the $48million it cost to make down the drain. But heh, we can’t be risking our cinema-goers, and more importantly, our insurance policy after a threat of terrorism.

Actually, you can. You bloody should and you almost must do just that. George Clooney said so and I agree with him.

So here’s what you do. You open the film in 1000 cinemas across America on Boxing Day, as planned. And if no-one gets killed in the first week, then you open it here too in February.

If you give in to terrorist threats you are unworthy. You are cowardly. You are a nob. The next thing there’ll be a song someone doesn’t like, or a play, or a stand-up comedian, and the Koreans will be demanding its removal from our lives. Well bollox to that. Where’s freedom of speech? Where’s artistic integrity? What’s it all for if you run away when its threatened?

President Obama has promised ‘revenge’ in time. Then got on a plane for a 17 day holiday in Hawaii. His doctors recommended it because his putting arm was getting repetitive strain so he needs to rest it and smoke Cuban cigars. A proper president would have nuked Pyongyang by now.

Kim Jong Un is a little chubby baby throwing his toys out of his pram. He needs a good slap…

BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!

Only joking. Not that Koreans would understand.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1961 is finally over, just 53 years after it began. The world can relax once more, phew.

Relations of a diplomatic nature can be resumed once more between the largest of Caribbean islands and its massive, continental neighbour who lives about 50 miles away.

And that’s a great thing. Its also the first headline for about 7 months that hasn’t involved murders, suicide bombings, kidnappings, beheadings or Chelsea winning matches. Nice to have something positive for a very welcome change.

You have to wonder, though, how fast Americanisation will destroy what is left of the real Cuba. If you can work out what is ‘the real Cuba’.

The first thing we noticed when we visited Cuba about 8 years ago (we’re British, we could always go there, it was only Yanks who were banned, and rightly so) was that there was no Starbucks. How weird, to enter a busy city on planet earth where that franchise is conspicuous by its absence. No McDonalds either. Bigger problem, but heh, we’ll get over it. An even bigger problem was the general lack of ‘stuff’ everywhere in Havana.

Ok, they have amazing buildings wot the Spanish built, and magnificent constructions built whilst that corrupt mo-fo Baptista was in charge and capitalism went a bit crazy. And they have all those amazing 1950s American cars running round, generally with the engines out of a Nissan Micra having long since replaced the original monster gas-guzzling units. And lots of people. Generally happy people. Dancing on the streets. They really do, every time a band plays. When a band plays somewhere in London 6 people complain about the noise and call the police regarding the disturbance. In Cuba they just dance on the pavements.

But there was no food for sale. Or very little. And nothing much in any of the shops. Very sad. This was a poor country. Zero unemployment, but only in that communist way where everyone has a job title, if not anything to do once they get it. They get the same money from the government whether they work or not. The only item readily available was Che Guevara t-shirts. Fortunately, I love Che Guevara t-shirts and bought loads.

Now all will change. Opening up diplomatic doors with America will open up trade. The Yanks will buy their sugar, their Bacardi, their cigars and in return, Havana will be over-flowing with coffee shops, burger chains and pizza outlets. Which none of the locals will be able to afford, but in time, businesses will grow, the economy will revitalise and all will boom.

I’m glad I was there during the Castro years. They’re gonna fucking ruin the place. But in a good way.

Another crisis averted last night was Newcastle in the Capital One Cup, quarter final. We were ‘brilliant’. I’ll say no more. Brilliant. Powerful. Dominant. Lust-worthy. Awesome. Brutal, but in a kind way. Magnificent…

Happy thursday

A xxxx

I have a cold. Such a bad cold, its actually approaching the lower limits of the dreaded ‘man-flu’, a terrible condition which renders the sufferer unable to function in any normal way and can lead him (always a him, doh: man-flu) to lie inert for several days watching re-runs of Match of the Day and drinking gallons of tea that MUST (man-flu has very strict rules) be made by other people. Nurses, wives, children, parole officers. But that is the only possible cure for this sometimes fatal condition. Though its only really fatal when the afore-mentioned wife gets so pissed off that murder seems the only possible relief for all. Almost a mercy killing.

Anyway, its just a cold for now, but I’ll keep you posted in case you need to send me grapes, magazines and bottles of lucozade.

Paracetamol is currently my best friend. But heh, I’m not one to feel sorry for myself. That would hardly seem fair when there’s good, honest Queens Park Rangers fans out there really suffering

But even that could be worse. We could be in Syria.

Which is in such a state now that I just had to re-read an article 7 times to try and ascertain who is killing whom and where/if there are any good guys. Here’s the problem, as seen in Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city.

The rebel fighters are about to lose their long time battle with Assad’s forces. Assad has murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people, possibly used illegal chemical weapons on civilian populations and is the baddest of bad dudes. So ‘we’ here in ‘The West’ (I like that, makes me sound like a cowboy, yeee-haaah) have been supporting the rebels for many months in their fight against this awful tyrant. But over that period the secular rebels have also been fighting with the jihadist rebels who were originally there to help them. As ever though, the power and message of jihad, plus the murder of all opposition, swamps all other issues and gradually the non-jihadis have buggered off. Leaving the ultra-conservative Ahrar al-Sham group, which fights with the Nusra Front, which is aligned to al-Quaeda. Who have strong alliances with ISIS, the biggest evil the world has ever known. And we, ‘the West’ are supporting them with air strikes.

Which is why Britain won’t get involved in Syria against ISIS, but only in Iraq, even though we’re cowboys. The only other conclusion you can draw is that there simply are no good guys in Syria. Just a lot of tragically innocent people.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

There was a meteor shower on Saturday night. It comes every year on the same day, December 14, early in the morning. So I went outside at about midnight when our dinner guests left, stood there for about 2 minutes and was absolutely amazed by the sight. There was nothing there. Sod all. Not a sparkle, not a shooting star, nor a whole bunch of Geminids that had been promised on that clearest of nights.

I realised two things: firstly that you probably needed to stay there for a few hours, and it was fucking freezing (literally so as I stood there in an open shirt and no jacket/coat/sweater) and secondly that you probably need to know roughly where to look, and the sky, if you haven’t noticed, is very big.

So could the people who arrange this annual event be a little more considerate to the viewing public, please. Can we have it in the summer, could the asteroids come a little earlier in the night, say about 10-ish, and can they put up pointers so we know where to look. Otherwise, quite frankly, its easier to watch them on youtube or just buy the dvd.

Though one star which continued to shine ever more brightly as Sunday progressed was Harry Kane. As I said yesterday, my confidence in my football team is almost limitless. And even though I named former ‘director of football’, Damien Comolli, instead of current tosser, Franco Baldini (artistic license), Spurs indeed went marching on.

You watch Harry Kane and he doesn’t really look like a proper footballer. He looks more like a heating engineer. His touch is a little wayward, his running rather clumsy and his style of play not very compact. But what he lacks in intrinsic skills he more than makes up for in effort, passion, determination and grit. Unlike so many of the current team, Harry really wants to be there. He’s hungry for the ball, he chases back, he is every manager’s dream. He is the most un-diva-ish player in the league. And he scores goals. I just love his spirit.

Especially on a really shitty day in Swansea, with the rain driving down and in a match that quite frankly, Spurs had absolutely no right to win. Outplayed, out-possessed, out-everything, our wayward, often completely absent defense managed to hack its way through 90 minutes of sustained Swansea onslaught and, as in so many matches this year, relied on Christian Erikssen to score the winner in the 89th minute. I almost felt sorry for Swansea, though managed to stop myself at the last minute, instead choosing the moment to leap around the tv, dancing and shouting with joy. I felt that was better use of my time, in the situation.

So now, as everyone pointed out yesterday, Spurs are just 4 points off 4th place now. Wow. What they didn’t point out is that in the time it will take us to get those four points, all the teams above us will have earned 9. But maybe, just maybe, we’ve now ‘turned the corner’. Though corners in the world of Tottenham are generally not simple right-angles, but complex, 6-dimensional, chaos theory type geometrical constructs.

Happy optimistic Monday

A xxxx

1 Chelsea 16 23 39
2 Man City 16 19 36
3 Man Utd 16 12 31
4 West Ham 16 8 28
5 Southampton 16 12 26
6 Arsenal 16 9 26
7 Newcastle 16 -4 23
8 Swansea 15 3 22
9 Liverpool 16 -3 21
10 Tottenham 15 -3 21

I generally like speaking to football fans. Proper ones, who know about football. Not necessarily West Ham fans, who thrive on gloating and hatred, but real devotees who understand the nuance and politics and technicalities and subtleties of the game we all love.

And the consensus among these fans, genuinely speaking without point-scoring is: something’s not working at Spurs.

The question is: what is that ‘something’?

And how far is ‘something’ from ‘everything’

Obviously the whole team, but what is the cause of the malaise? And why can no-one within an organisation with a multi-multi-million pound turnover, work out why? Or rectify it. Make it better. Or make it go away, as most Spurs fans feel at present.

This afternoon we play Swansea at the Liberty. And we’ll pick a team that may (Everton, Arsenal) work, or may not (Crystal Palace, West Brom, Newcastle and too many others to list). It seems fairly random. Were it up to me I’d put a bunch of our home-grown kids in the team on the basis that they could really do no worse than our current ‘stars’. But allegedly, Daniel Levy and Damien Comolli will not allow that, as the stars cost so much money.

And therein lies the root of the malaise; that Pottechino is not allowed to pick ‘his’ best team because we have an interfering chairman and fucking useless ‘director of football’ who must at all times have the final word. Thus taking any autonomy away from the manager, reducing his power and yet leaving him to take the full flack from the press. He did a wonderful job at Southampton last year, which is why we spent millions terminating several contracts and paying off new ones in order to get him.

THEN LET HIM FUCKING MANAGE, is what I’d like to say to Messrs Levy and Comolli. Though really, I’d like Comolli gone. He is soooo surplus to our requirements and does way more harm than good.

With Man United’s continuing resurgence, the top 3 places in the table look pretty much sorted. Which makes the fight for that most precious of 4th slots all the more important.

West Ham won’t last, of that there is no doubt. Southampton, Swansea, punching well above their weight and again, it will end. Newcastle are running on vapour and Liverpool are the only team to currently makes Spurs’ spending and playing policy look good. Which leaves Spurs and Arsenal. And quite frankly, after the Goons struggled last night to thrash the Geordies 4-1, I think 4th slot is ours for the taking.

We just need to win.

NOW.

Happy Sunday? Ask me in 2 hours

A xxxx

Cats. Not the animal, the show. Cats: The Musical. You seen it? If not I would check immediately for a pulse. Because everyone’s seen it. Its essential. Part of growing up. You reach puberty, you masturbate a lot, you go to your first football match, you go on your first date, you probably still masturbate a lot, you have your first ‘relationship’, you start your first job, have sex with your first animal (only applicable in certain countries… ok, in most countries other than England) and you go and see Cats. Its on everywhere; London, New York…er… London… whatever. And its brilliant. Everyone tells you just how brilliant it really is, that show. Wow, all dressed as cats and singing, dancing, really REALLY catlike in all their mannerisms and movements, brilliant.

I fucking hated it. Ahhh the wonderful poetry of TS Eliot, brought to LIFE, like, really to total life, in cat form, by actors singing songs. Well, singing a song over and over again. Moonlight. Midnight. Both. Together, apart. TOUCHCHCHCH MEEEEEEE(oww). Andrew Lloyd Weber. In his early, unhyphenated days. Absolute bollocks, from start to finish. But more boring.

When the girls were young I felt duty-bound to take them to see it. Its a right of passage. Unfortunately, the back passage, as I remembered it. But maybe I was wrong? Perhaps I’d just had a bad day? Had a black cat run in front of me before the show? Maybe everyone else had been right all along and it IS and always has been the best thing to happen since Spurs winning the double in 1961. Maybe I saw it on a bad night for the cast? Their Kitty-Kat was off or something? A dog in the audience??

Everyone deserves a second chance. So back we shlepped to Drury Lane and I endured it again. It was more slick than I remembered it from 17 years previous. They hadn’t bothered to add another song, but really it is a very good song, how many do you need? McCafferty was still a stupid man wearing a cat suit. Everyone else was just a different stupid person wearing a different cat suit. And they stood around licking their ‘paws’ and wiping their little cat-like faces and I could have punched them all.

So they took the show off. What a loss to London. To the world.

But now they’ve brought it back. Well, there’s a new generation around who need to suffer it and try to work out what all the fuss is about. Ahhhhh, but the poetry, we’ll tell them, sniggering behind our hands, and the movements; so cat-like. We won’t use the word ‘bullshit’, nor ‘garbage’, nor ‘the poetry of TS Eliot’, even ‘the ability to lick your own testicles’. We’ll just take them because that’s what parents do; repeat the sins that were done unto them.

Except this time it stars Nicole Scherzinger. Who has ‘previous’, from being a Pussycat Doll. Ha, ha, haaaa…
So now the ultimate dilemma: to endure Lloyd-Webber’s bollox (not literally, you understand…) for the third and possibly fatal time, or to miss Nicole S in a leotard stretching her gorgeousness all over the stage for 2 hours. Hmmm…

Meooowww

A xxxx

We have house guests. Or had, they buggered off this morning, probably with half our silverware and the tv from the spare room. But what a joy to share one’s home, one’s house, one’s life, albeit temporarily, even with freeloaders from Australia. Yes, Bulawayo Johnny and Dr Bill (that’s a ‘she-doctor’ in case you’re wondering about Johnny’s sexuality; something we’ve all questioned at one time or another) came on Wednesday aaaalllllll the way from Sydney. Where, just 2 short years ago, they hosted Mel & me with such hospitality and charm, that we felt duty-bound to try to reciprocate in some small way.

So we took them last night for fish’n’chips. In Hatch End (don’t ask). Because its part of the true and full ‘British Experience’ that when you leave these shores your arteries should be just that little bit more clogged up than when you arrived here. So we went to eat that most British of things, singing ‘maybe its because I’m a Lundunna’ in the car on the way, to heighten the full, white-van-man, UKIP, Milwall-supporting, working-class, Inglish-wayya-loife. Strictly speaking we should have gone for a curry, but that for can be next time.

Even though they only moved to Aus 25 years ago and lived a long time impersonating Londoners before they were deported to the penal colony.

Bill was asleep in the car on the way back, Johnny at least waited til he lay on his bed, fully clothed, before appreciating what the words ‘jet’ and ‘lag’ really mean when strung together in a certain way.

So I watched Question Time. And came to the realisation that all politicians are totally worthless. Yes, this stunning insight came as I watched Nigel Farage (who personally defines the term ‘worthless’, sorry Wayne), some Tory tart, a Labour loser, Russel fucking Brand (politician? revolutionary?? he’s barely a credible comedian) and some horsey looking bird who was that curious mix of plummy, posh, poncey demeanour with right-on, slightly lefty attitude. And this is what I learned after devoting about a half an hour of my life (which I’ll never get back again) to what they had to spew out:

That any criticism of immigration, any mention of purely common sense ‘we’re full up and can’t take no more’ is met with cries of ‘racism!!!” from some nob or other.

That the Labour party are putting their house (or their chance to live in it for 5 years) in the hands of the NHS. They have cleverly(??) aligned their entire election campaign with the National Health. Everything they do, all the shit they spout, comes back to ‘protecting our NHS’. Mansion tax = survival of the NHS; increasing income tax = saving the NHS; slaying of the firstborn = saving the NHS. Its like a broken fucking record.

That all political parties waste more time on their parties than they do on the country, its future, its population.

So I’m done with politics; I’m going to follow football instead.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Was torture perpetrated on the inmates at Guantanamo Bay and similar detention camps by the Americans, and possibly the British, upon Al Quaeda suspects? And were the US and UK governments aware it was happening? These are the ‘big questions’ that are being asked. Though why they’re being asked now when the term ‘waterboarding’ entered the collective consciousness over ten years ago, is another important question. They’re all important questions, fucking thousands of important questions are asked every day, but they don’t all make the newspapers. And stimulate international comment.

Ironically, those first to shout ‘j’accuse’ at the Amercians (because it was mainly them, really, we were just playing along) are those fine nations: China, Iran and every other morally upstanding place for which ‘human rights’ is in the glossary just under ‘Father Christmas’ and for whom torture is as part of their routines as jogging.
Is torture ever justified? This is the big one really.

Ok, so if YOUR family (I’m assuming you like them, just for the sake of argument; if you really hate your family, skip to section D) was under a threat, kidnapped, in serious trouble and a man (or a woman; there are bad women in this world, despite what they say to the contrary) holds the information required to find/release/save them; you would ‘beat it out of them’. I would. Anyone would. He’s a baddy, they’re loved ones, no-brainer; whatever it takes.

So Bush/Obama, faced with a similar problem, but instead of his ‘family’ its up to 10,000 innocent people under his watch? More importantly, 10,000 voters? Do you ‘beat it out’ of someone who might know?

Therefore its a matter of unambiguously deciding who is definitely a ‘baddie’. You can’t just pull some dark, swarthy, maybe smelly person who flips burgers at McDonalds and waterboard them. We’ve all tried that. There needs to be evidence, proof really that they are bad. And you can work it out. You just have to read enough books by Robert Ludlum, Dan Brown, Lee Childs and then you’ll know exactly who’s da baddies. And then you can get the pliers and soldering iron. Eeeuuuwww.

There’s a fabulous private school in Brighton, called Varndean College. And the sociology students have been sent an invitation for a fabulous opportunity to go and observe ‘the working classes’ at first hand. Nothing remotely patronising or snobbish about that then. Plus, as an added bonus, to witness ‘gender performance’, racism, sexism, mob-mentality, possibly violence, aggression… All just by going to see Milwall play against Brighton tomorrow night. They also promise a chance to ‘actually speak to football fans’.

“Oh, so you’re a smelly, working-class, stereotypically male, moronic, under-educated sexist, racist, banner-waving oik, are you?” Fortunately, there’s a hospital very nearby. Though the A&E unit is in all likelihood closed.

Good luck with the sociology

Hooray Henry
xxxx