Andy's Glasses

Well, they had it; ‘the debate’. All seven (???) political leaders saying how wonderful it would be if their party won the upcoming election.

So the first question is: why was Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish Nationalists, present and in fact according to most commentators, the winner of the debate, why the fuck was she there? Because she’s part of ‘Britain’. Even though given a choice (which she was), she would not be part of Britain. But she lost that vote, is still desperate for Scottish Independence (though not as desperate as I am for it) and now fancies her chances of aligning her deep-fried, batter-coated party with Miliband so she can detach her nation from Westminster. The ‘Westminster’ she loathes and despises. So a welcome addition to parliament she would be.

Similarly, why was that Welsh bird there? Can’t remember her name. (In fact I didn’t watch the debate, too busy at tai chi). She spoke only about Wales. Which is very nice. But useless for the un-Welsh. And if this debate was so ‘inclusive’ where were the Ulster Unionists? They weren’t absent just because we hate them. If that was the case then the Scots and Welsh wouldn’t have been invited either. Nor Ed Miliband on that criterion.

I’m not sure, but I’ll be fairly surprised if we have a Plaid Cymru candidate on my voting list here in North London. So why were they even invited to the party? And more importantly, this is NOT a presidential election. We are not voting for ‘Miliband’ or ‘Cameron’ but voting for a faceless party representative who does have a second home, paid for on expenses, near to where I live.
So I’m not really convinced of the validity of this debate in the first place. Other than to outline party policy and intention should any of them win a majority, which is very very unlikely.

I do take issue with Ed Miliband though. His horrible insistence that he represents ‘workers’ and will make their lives better, make Britain better. Well I’m a worker. He seems to think that unless you wear overalls and come home every night with a dirty face, you’re not a ‘worker’. It may also surprise Mr Miliband that even bankers work a bit. Ok, they do have 7 hour breaks for lunch and champagne, get chauffeured around from meetings to dinner at the Ritz and spend the rest of the time counting their bonuses received for investments in child labour in the third world, but they do work.

I find Miliband terribly, horribly, creepily, nastily patronising. He likes to ‘dumb things down’. To make things simple so that even we can understand him. Mansion tax will save the NHS. Bollox. Zero hours contracts are evil and must be stopped. Even though Unite, Labour’s biggest sponsor, uses hundreds of them. Hypocrite. And now, Labour will help ‘you’, the people, ‘the workers’ at the expense of bonus-laden, Ferrari-driving bankers. Simplistic garbage. If he wins I shall have to consider assassination. A Guy Fawkes moment.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Ask any good Brit what ‘Easter’ means and he/she’ll say: ‘a four-day weekend’. Its biblical, innit? You get Good Friday off work, and Easter Monday, plus the Saturday and Sunday in between. We all love Easter. And we eat chocolate. Loads of chocolate. Which has no calories for the entire 4 days. A modern day miracle. Pig out. You know you want to.

And it is symbolic. Of course. Everything in religion is symbolic. So on the Thursday, Jesus had ‘The Last Supper’, then he was killed on the Friday, because the crucifiers wanted the weekend off to watch Roma vs Lazio on Sky. And he rose again on the Sunday. As ya do. If you’re the son of God. All ok so far? Jesus, born to a virgin mother, died and then was resurrected. Nothing unusual there then.

Jews celebrate passover. When the jews were led out of Egypt from their slavery, bondage and a whole host of 50 shades kind of things, through the Red Sea, which God parted for them, having first sent 10 plagues to the Egyptians to soften them up.

Its no coincidence that Easter and Passover coincide. Both are based on the Hebrew calendar and Jesus was Jewish. So The Last Supper was in fact the Passover supper, or Seder, as its called. Almost as we know it and celebrate it now, but with sandals. And the whole passover thing is not to eat bread for 8 days. Because the jews, in their hurry to get out of Egypt, didn’t have time to leaven their bread. They had to get out without popping to Waitrose for some ‘fast acting synthetic yeast’, so they had their bread flat and crispy. Or ‘matzo’ as its now known.

And Jesus too was into matzo. He even said to ‘leave the yeast out’ and bizarrely, in Holy Communion, it is ‘wafer and wine’ to represent the body and blood of Christ, not bread. Because it all happened at Easter/Passover time and a good Jew like Jesus wouldn’t want proper bread.

The Pascal lambs were sacrificed every Friday before Passover and thus a whole other symbolism has arisen where Jesus IS the sacrifice. But as that leads to implications of symbolic cannibalism every time I dig into Kleftiko, we’ll leave that bit out. All gets a bit Jeffrey Dahmer.

The chocolate we eat is eggs. And I love them. Cadburys ones. You can keep your Lindt and Suchard and Hotel Chocolat, I WANT CADBURYS EGGS. And I want them now. Which is good news cos you can’t get them for 9 months a year. Thus I ‘stock up’. Because nothing tastes quite as Easter Eggs. And again, passover is a very eggy time of year as well. Not chocolate ones, but real, egg-flavoured ones. Not as wonderful so you have to eat many more to compensate. Because eggs, coupled with matzo, increase the constipation that all must suffer at passover time. As it is written.

Happy Easter/Kosher Passover/Whatever/Both

A xxxx

This hand of cards was dealt to me last night during a bridge ‘tournament’. Ok, we play every tuesday, in the kitchen, with my brother and his partner. But its like a tournament. In terms of excitement (sometimes all four of us stay awake all evening) and other than the lack of other players and a trophy, it feels just like a tournament. And then I was dealt this hand.

If you’re a bridge player then you’ll quickly count up the points and see its the holy grail of a ‘2-club’ opening bid. Which says, basically, “fuck me, I’ve got a shit-load of points”. In this case, 25 high card points. The whole pack has 40. Probability would average 10 points per hand per player (and when that happens you have a ‘throw-in’ and deal again), so you generally have to wait a long time for such a hand. And although this hand is not a great ‘shape’, its what is called a 4-4-4-1 hand, which is a horrible shape to play, you just can’t argue with all those picture cards.

So I did what anyone would do in such a circumstance and hold up the play to take a picture. For posterity. So I can remember, as I shuffle through my inevitable hands filled with 3s and 4s, how great it felt to receive such riches. A ‘picture gallery’ as Guru Clive calls such a hand. And he’s the best player in his house, so he should know.

Meanwhile England drew a football match in Italy last night. As it was a ‘friendly’ it would normally not be worth the wear and tear on the keyboard to even mention it. But as England were ‘saved’ by a late goal from Spurs ‘hero’ Andros Townsend, I have to state the facts and burst with pride.

Paul Merson, noted ex-Arsenal player, then drug and gambling addict, now pundit, has criticised Townsend relentlessly, saying the player ‘should be nowhere near the England squad’. Many people think he shouldn’t even be that near to the Spurs squad. Particularly Spurs fans. He’s yet another ‘one-trick-pony’, that seem to find favour at White Hart Lane. He runs (often like a headless chicken; very fast and very aimlessly) then he always shoots. And always misses. Which can be somewhat frustrating for the assembled spectators. But then, on balance of probabilities, yet again, I pull a 2-club opener, Andros scores a spectacular goal. Which he has done on previous occasions for England. Less for Spurs. Way less.

So remember; 9.30 on March 31st is a special time for long odds. My cards, his goal. Next year I’m going to the petrol station on that date at that time to buy a lottery ticket. There’s magic at hand here. Forces we don’t understand. Paul Merson certainly doesn’t understand them.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

There’s a shed at Luxembourg airport just filled with art. Serious art. Picassos, Lichtenstiens, Gaugins, all manner of very expensive artwork. Hundreds of masterpieces. Just sitting there in a high security ‘prison’. Because of import tax.

Luxembourg is a ‘free port’ so the super rich can keep their art acquisitions there without paying duty. And duty on art is a weird and varied thing. A collector from Brazil bought a painting for $60 million. As ya do. To take it to Sao Paulo would have incurred the eye-watering 40% ‘import tax’ of $24 million. Whereas the US has a mere 1% levy on imports. So for less than his 24 million he bought an apartment in New York and hung his picture there.

Ok, tax problems are generally ‘good problems’ in that ‘we should all have such problems’ way of how to offset a billion here or a few hundred million there. But there’s an interesting illustration. That if you tax too highly you just scare people away and END UP WITH NOTHING. Surely its better to have 1% of something than 40% of nothing?

Our election is 5 weeks away and ‘the economy’ is the big issue. And as ‘the economy’ is how they intend to spend our tax, its become rather important.

David Cameron went to see the Queen yesterday at Buckingham Palace. Like Christopher Robin. But Cameron asked her to dissolve parliament. She pulled out a dozen barrels of sulfuric acid and said, “bring the fuckers in, Dave, I’ll sort ’em”. If only.

This promises to be the closest election in the entire history of tv newsmen running around across great big, multi-coloured maps of Britain, shouting excitedly about swings and marginals and so many percentages. Because the two main leaders are neck and neck. From which most people would like to see them dangle.

Popularity for both Miliband and Cameron is at 34%. What that actually means is that 66% of people just can’t stand Miliband and a different 66% fucking hate Cameron. Because this is the most negative of elections. More about who you don’t want in power than who you actually feel may be of benefit. And because of the low expected gains for the big 2 parties, there’s more talk about coalitions than ever. In fact, in my lifetime, until 5 years ago, the words ‘coalition government’ was a term only used to express ridicule at the Italians and all those other sad nations who could never find a proper, majority government to guide them haplessly and blindly through their term without ‘help’ from others. And having had 5 years of first hand experience, my view of coalition government has not exactly been enhanced.

So we will have either the Conservatives with (possibly) the Lib Dems, agaiaiain, plus some support from a UKIP or two, maybe a Green and a Fight the Tax; Fascist Banker Bastard Independent Party dude, or we’ll have Labour, with the Scottish Nationalists (lord have mercy), a Socialist Worker (there is only one, the rest are all on benefits) and a left wing National Fronter.

An ‘interesting mix’ whatever happens. Emigration has never seemed so appealing.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

What’s the worst thing that can happen in the world? Other than Arsenal winning the league, obviously? Plane crashes by suicidal depressives? Invasions by Jihadi extremists? Ebola coming to a neighbourhood near you soon?? Or the Aussies winning a sporting event?

Other than the French winning football or rugby, the Aussies are the next dread nation to win things. Because they’re smug. Some may say they have a right to be, because they’re good at sport. I don’t say that. I say they’re smug first, good at sports second. If they weren’t smug about sports they’d just find something else. And they won the cricket world cup on the weekend. A weekend almost devoid of sporting distractions as the football was ‘off’ because of the International Qualifiers and there was nothing but the Head of God goal by Harry Kane. Plus Gareth Bale royally sticking two fingers up to the whingeing Madridistas by scoring twice for Wales to show everyone that he still CAN do it, but not necessarily for Real Madrid at the moment, even though they ‘stole’ him from Spurs for a poxy 86 million quid.

So they won the cricket. In Melbourne. So allegations of match-fixing, of corruption and umpiring bias are rife. Though only in my house. Everyone else has no problem with any of it.

But what is amazing is that they played New Zealand in the final. New Zealand. A tiny country which lives next door to Australia and has a population of about 84. Yet they have produced the world’s undisputed best rugby teams for the past 50 years, and now they reach number 2 in cricket. They also win the sheep-shearing world cup every year, or four, or whenever they have such a thing. If they ever have such a thing. But this is a massive achievement. India, the world’s most cricket-obsessed nation has a population of over a billion, all dressed in white and ready to bat. Half of them are even called ‘Bhatt’, just in case you doubted their cricketing credentials. Pakistan is big and cricket-mad, shit-loads of people, though since Imran Kahn retired to marry his Goldsmith, enter politics, get divorced, marry again and cause havoc in his beloved nation, they haven’t done shit. Even England, and we invented the bloody game (bit like football, then…) and we were abysmal. Though its only what we used to call ‘1-day’ cricket, now ’50 overs’, not the real, mind-numbing, goes-on-for-frikkin’-weeks, test cricket.

My tennis was even rained off yesterday and that hardly ever happens. Except when it does. And when it does you need a more ‘indoor’ pursuit. Something drier. So we went and test drove some cars. Pretending Mel wants to change her little Fiat. Which is really the prettiest piece of shoddy mechanics ever built. And this is what we found out, on our ‘Clarkson’ day.

That the Mercedes garage in Temple Fortune serves the best coffee of any main dealership. That Audi in Whetstone has the prettiest receptionists, but the tea is very sub-standard. And that Mini garages are busier than all the others put together.

Ahhhh, happy days,

A xxxx

Went to see a play last night. Called: Bad Jews. An unusual title, granted. An unusual play. A marmite play. Half of those who’d seen it thought it ‘great’ the other half ‘fucking awful’. But heh; all said it was ‘interesting’.

And that’s how we ended up at Leicester Square at 7 o’clock last night. Along with 35 million other people. Shoppers laden with carrier bags on their way home. Early night-outers arrived for the evening. Tourists in vast numbers. School parties of mini-Frogs, little-Italies, the entire Scandinavian under-14 population and loads of others. Crowds. Everywhere. Horrible. I prefer the back streets of London always. I share that with Jack the Ripper, but he probably didn’t like vast crowds either.

And Bad Jews. The title refers not to ‘jews who are bad people’, but just to ‘jews who are not good at jewish stuff’. Committing murder would not make you a ‘bad jew’, eating a bacon sandwich would. But only if it had butter on it (Jewish joke… Bad Jewish joke). But the title’s subtlety led to posters in tube stations being removed by some bunch of PC do-good-nobs or other.

Its a simple play; 4 ‘kids’ (stage ‘kids’ can be any age up to 47, as long as they wear pony-tails; you can ‘act young’) sharing a tiny flat after the death of a Granddad. Two brothers, one of their girlfriends and a cousin. And they argue. Oy, do they argue. Mainly about the right of every jew to proclaim his own level of jewishness and defend it against attack. And attack these protagonists do. Loudly, almost violently and with a lot of swearing. Which I have no problem with but Hettie (77) and Yankel (82) Finklestein from Hendon probably felt a bit uncomfortable about. But fuck them, this is ‘art’.

And the questions raised are interesting, they are relevant, they are almost uncomfortable-making in their accuracy and generality. Which is a good thing. The play is very funny. Also a good thing. And captivating, a very good thing as I often struggle to ‘engage’ with live theatre.
But none of the characters is sympathetic. They are horrible. Objectionable. Whether bad or not, they’re fucking awful jews. The worst kind.

Most of the people looked shell-shocked upon leaving. That made me like the play more. It obviously made everyone think. And it divided. You could hear ‘awful’, ‘terrible’, ‘amazing’, ‘brilliant’ from the open-mouthed masses as they left in search of (I hope ‘kosher’) food.

Leicester Square had advanced by 10 o’clock to ‘queuing for nightclub entry’ status. We stood out starkly as the only people actually dressed for a freezing night in London. They were all dressed for a beach party in California. Ahhh, the youth. Ahhhh, the numbing effects of vast amounts of alcohol.

Happy Sunday,

A (very bad jew) xxxx

What can you say about Harry Kane? That hasn’t been said already, thousands of times, in every newspaper, on every tv channel (including Al Jazeera), on the radio and all over the web? Even Her Majesty the Queen apparently said “well I’d have his children”. Apparently.

The man is a genius, a star, a god, and now: national treasure. He’s the league’s top scorer, which is great for Spurs, but to come on as a substitute for England and score within 80 seconds. So now yer gonna believe us, so now yer gonna believe us…

When I started my car this morning at 8.15, they were talking about Harry’s debut for England. When I arrived home from Tai Chi at 10.15, they were talking about Harry’s debut for England. This was not Radio Harry Kane, nor even Radio Tottenham, but BBC.

When Harry came on last night, 83,000 England fans all forgot their club loyalties and embraced the Man of the Hour. Standing ovation. When he scored, just a minute later, he could have become Prime Minister, had an election been called right then. People are building shrines to him all over the country. Pilgrims are walking from Tibet and Machu Pichu all the way to Stratford to see the school he (and David Beckham, coincidentally) attended. They’re printing Harry Kane postage stamps. There’s even talk of incorporating his saintly head onto the Union Jack permanently.

But I can’t help but think, amid all this fervour and press adoration: what happens when he has a minor ‘slump’? As all strikers do. Even the Jimmy Greaveses and Gary Linnekers and Alan Shearers go through bad times. Droughts. Can’t score. Confidence wanes. And the same press who are presently licking Harry’s boots clean after every sensational match he plays, can become instantly brutal, fickle and exceptionally nasty. They build up heroes and they then publicly castrate them. It sells newspapers. Gets higher rankings on Google.

And how would Harry cope with that? At just 21 years of age?? Its easy to ‘ignore’ the wonderful things everyones writing about you, to try and keep it all from going to your head, from believing the hype. But when it turns to shit, its much harder to ignore. When the insults and abuse are everywhere.

I sincerely hope that Harry plays for the next 15 years (for Spurs; telling Real Madrid to keep their £300 million and just FUCK OFF!!!!), scoring every week, hitting the winning hat-trick in the 2019 Champions League Final, scoring 9 against France when we win the 2018 World Cup and never hitting a lean spell. But life, and football careers, generally isn’t quite like that.

I need to work on my Harry Kane scrapbook. Lot of work to do today.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Great event last night, “MILIBAND vs CAMERON!!!!!”, the great political head to head, the semi-final of the General Election in 6 weeks time, the chance for the public to see the leaders of the main parties in the studio, debating, answering questions, getting caught out, LIVE ON TV!!!!!

But not necessarily at the same time, nor together. No, first DC answered questions from the audience before being grilled by Paxman, then when he was safely 3 miles away, Miliband was brought out of his cage for the same treatment.

Jeremy Clarkson would have gone head-to-head with Ed Miliband, no doubt about it, but David Cameron refused. He offered to go into a 7-way free-for-all with a load of leaders of parties no-one’s ever heard of, but not mano-a-mano with Ed. And judging from last night’s performance, you can see why.

Though I missed it. The most important event in the history of… of… of… tv let-downs, I decided that Tai Chi was more important. Politics may decide our nation’s rule, our next government, massive issues like the economy, taxation, education, immigration, national debt and the NHS, but Tai Chi concerns my place in the entire universe. So that’s more important. ‘Single Whip’ was of greater concern than the single currency. My body may occupy space in the UK, but my spirit is somewhere in China. Probably eating noodles in oyster sauce.

And I recorded the debate, not willing to miss it altogether but once I returned home and all everyone was talking about was ‘the debate(s)’ I simply couldn’t face watching it. I saw some of Miliband, sufficient to make my skin crawl, and on the news they showed Cameron facing Jeremy Paxman, probably wishing he’d faced Ed instead who is nothing as bright, clever or nasty as Paxo.

The difference between these two leaders is that Cameron has some ‘statesman-like qualities’ and speaks very poshly, but lacks the presence of mind to be a good stand-up, or even a third rate stand-up in a very dingy club in Camden. Whereas Ed, for all his odd looks and socialist agenda, is actually rather good in front of a crowd. Even a crowd baying for his blood.

……………………………………………………………

I’m not exactly ‘unshockable’ but you do get numbed by all the constant bad news and tragedy around. Beheadings, cities bombed to the ground, another 1986 overweight MP was fondling little boys, its all horrible and loses its power to shock.

But the GermanWings flight shocked me badly. Not when it came down, that was bad and tragic but we’ve been there before. The shock came when we learned that the co-pilot crashed it intentionally. That was a real ‘fuck meeeeee!!!!!!’ moment. Made the whole episode a million times worse.

The head of Lufthansa, which owns GermanWings, Stormbahnfuhrer von Bustenhalter (not his real name), said that “there was no way Lufthansa could have anticipated this, they did everything they could in terms of psychological testing and failsafes” and when questioned further he actually became nasty and arrogant and drew his Luger. Now we learn that the co-pilot has had serious depression and psychological issues which Lufthansa were all to aware of. So WHAT WAS HE DOING IN CHARGE OF A FUCKING PLANELOAD OF PEOPLE?????

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I can’t remember the last time I watched Top Gear. Yet in some ways I consider myself ‘a fan’ of the programme. Contradictory? Possibly, but I don’t care. I’m a fan because when I do catch bits of it I heartily approve. They slag off battery-powered Noddy cars, they crash lorries into school buildings, they put supermodels into a Vauxhall Nova and race them round a track in the rain and they insult virtually everybody. And they revere BIG fucking engines in ridiculously over-powered cars.

Its like the police. I never call them, don’t speak to them, but its reassuring to know they’re there.

And the problem is: Top Gear IS Jeremy Clarkson. Ok, there’s James May and Richard Hammond in there to make up the numbers, as straight men to share his insults and (much more mild forms of) abuse, to compete with and get pally with. But Clarkson is 76% of the show. (I could explain how I arrived, very scientifically and statistically valid-ly at that number but you lack the understanding of numbers to follow).

And now he’s gone. Forever. Which will cost the BBC (which is ME, and even you) £50million a year in lost income. Yet he had to go. You simply can’t punch a colleague in the face because he did his job badly, even if you want to and he deserved it. Its just unacceptable in any situation.

James May & Richard Hammond have stood out ‘in solidarity’ now and said they may not go on without him. Like in some Victorian romantic melodrama. But really they’re not in a great place, whatever happens. Because if there’s a new ‘main dude’ and its a success he will take all the credit. And if it fails, Hammond & May’s good light under Clarkson will dim significantly for being there as mere useless foils to Jeremy’s brilliance and they’re nothing without him.

There’s also the question; if the BBC don’t run Top Gear then who will? Because its a massive success financially. Yet would be very difficult to run on commercial tv upon which there are more car adverts than anything else. So would Top Gear be at liberty to slag off the new Skoda as a ‘worthless piece of shit’ when the parent company spends £10million a year on advertising on that channel? And if not, would it still be Top Gear? Or become a ‘nice’ and ‘sanitised’ and ‘inoffensive’ Top Gear that everyone would consequently hate?

Chris Evans is seen as ‘the man most likely’ because, like Clarkson, he’s objectionable and loves fast cars. But he’s just too enthusiastic whereas Clarkson was melancholy to the point of lethargy. Jodie Kidd is in the frame too. Because she managed to get her high heel stuck under the accelerator whilst being the ‘star in a car’ and did a fast lap as a consequence. Or some geezer no-one’s heard of who’s a TT bike racer.

Its all a worry.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I’m a disagreeable, reckless extrovert. And if you agree with that, then you’re not a Londoner. Because we’re ‘disagreeable’, apparently. Therefore you shouldn’t agree. Instead you should jump off a tall building whilst stark naked and singing the National Anthem at the top of your voice. That’s what reckless extroverts should be doing most of the time, surely?

Scientists at Cambridge (with nothing better to do and doubtless trying to justify a research grant) tested the ‘personalities’ of 400,000 people to try to find regional variations.

Before we concern ourselves with their findings, and the massive impact these will have on our lives (???), its worth looking at psychological testing in general, and online testing even more so, as this test was performed by the BBC online.

If IQ is defined (by many) as ‘the ability to perform well on IQ tests’, and nothing more, then personality tests should be pretty straightforward. But they’re not. Because we (the subjects) are humans, and the human condition means we think. Then we overthink. So when someone asks you a question, you don’t spurt out the immediate, visceral, knee-jerk response. You ask yourself what is ‘really’ being asked. What does the questioner expect me to say? How will various answers to that question make me look?

Q: “What do you think of Nigel Farage?”
A: “HE’S A C*******NT!!!!” (the initial, uncensored, honest reply)
A: “He’s a misguided man with seemingly honourable intentions” (Mr Moderate)
A: “He’s a bad joke that’s become its own reality” (Pretentious Tosser)

No-one wants to be seen in a bad light. So, particularly when you’re being tested remotely, in the time and comfort of your own home/office, you can consider your answers before carefully choosing your reply.

I cannot believe that there are 10 million ‘disagreeable, reckless extroverts’ in London. We can’t all be the same, that’s the very nature of ‘personality’, itself a concept so vague and unquantifiable that no two people will ever agree on the ‘personality’ of a third. That’s why so many people use ‘football team supported’ as a much more accurate measure for stereotyping people. It has far greater predictive value than the almost meaningless ‘personality’.

People in South Wales are ‘introverted and neurotic’. All of them. Yeah. Right.

The Scots are agreeable and calm. Though not necessarily in Glasgow on a Friday night. Nor at Auld Firm matches.

Northerners are introverted and agreeable. No they’re not, they horrible, rude and speak funny.

People in Norfolk don’t have any personality at all. (I made that one up)

In fact the only interesting fact to come from this study (or the quarter of a page in the Times relating to it) was that ‘neurotics are more likely to vote Labour’. An interesting thought.

Happy Wednesday. Unless you live in Swansea, Dumfries or the Isle of Mann.

A xxxx