Andy's Glasses

They showed this photo on the news last night. And I thought; ‘wow! a bird giving a… a something a lift; brilliant! Nature is so symbiotic and wonderful; ain’t life (other than cup finals) fabulous’. That’s what I thought. And it all happened in Essex. Which really should have at least made me question the ‘loveliness’ of it.

An amateur photographer happened to be in a park in Hornchurch (near Romford, the car theft centre of the world) and all it took was 1/250th of a second for him to achieve ever-lasting fame and the eyes of the world.

The bird, a green woodpecker, just like wot I get in my garden on my bird-feeder, for which I charge the birds a fee, has what turns out to be a weasel riding pillion. And weasels, like many in Essex, turn out to be not very nice. They are the smallest and most voracious carnivores on the planet. They eat their own body-weight in meat every 3 hours (I made that up), just like I did in Argentina. But they kill their meat themselves. Rather viciously. So this ‘friendly’ woodpecker is actually scared shitless which, according to the News, you can see if you look at its face. Yeah, right. The weasel had jumped on its back to kill it. Bastard weasels!!! And in a fit of reflex/panic/good thinking (??) the woodpecker just took off, with rodent still attached as sort of ‘carry-on luggage’.

Unlike the scorpion in the famous tale of stinging the turtle taking him across the river because ‘its his nature’, the hugging weasel here realised that killing the bird might give him some landing problems so he stopped the murdering process for the duration of the flight. Apparently the bird actually got away in the end and lived. Ahhhhhhhh.

Unlike Dave Mackay, who died on Monday.

The great Scotsman, and there are few who can carry that title, was one of Spurs most wonderful superstars. Not for him the glory of the strikers, though he scored plenty. Not for him the silky skills of a Hoddle or Ardiles, though skill he indeed had. Dave was a Hard Man. Perhaps the Hardest of them all. And an inspirational and fearless Captain who drove his teams on from the front, by example, by his fierce determination and presence. And a gentleman to the end.

Rest in Peace, Dave Mackay, who gave Spurs fans so much to be thankful for. When ‘we only won in black-and-white’, it was Dave who made it so.

Happy respectful Wednesday

A xxxx

We call them ‘the Elgin Marbles’, the Greeks, who don’t really count any more because they’re bankrupt, call them the Parthenon Sculptures. And they live in the British Museum where all worthwhile antiquities should live. The Queen’s moving there soon. But unlike the Queen, or even Tutankhamun, who was merely ‘on loan’, we (the people of England) actually own the Elgin Marbles.

And that’s where the problem lies. The Greeks want them back. They’ve always wanted them back.

The Marbles are a series of wonderful sculptures created by some Greek geezer in about 400BC. When Lord Elgin held the almost unbelievable title of: Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty to the Sublime Porte of Selim III, Sultan of Ottoman Empire; in 1800 he basically stole the statues from the Parthenon and the Acropolis and shipped them over to Britain. At a personal cost of about £70,000. Because the government of the day refused to fund it. In today’s money that’s about 19.7 squillion quid. Its a fortune and more. So we can assume that Elgin was not a poor man. Though to his credit, he sold them to the British Museum for the cost of excavation and transportation, turning down offers of far greater monies from other interested parties.

Elgin always maintained that he had licenses and contracts to remove the sculptures, the Greeks have always denied this to be the case.

So 200 years later they call in Mrs Clooney to sort the mess out. So we’re led to believe. In actual fact Amal Clooney is but ‘the junior’ on the case, as she’s working with 2 top QCs. Who barely get a mention because neither gets to shag Gorgeous George. That we know of. No, its HER case.

Which would be fine if the Greeks only had to pay for her services. But they don’t. They have the fees and costs of employing a top legal team, flying them over to Greece a few times and having them compile a 300 page legal report. I hate to imagine what that costs. Lawyers are expensive. They make hookers look cheap by comparison. Even though both are engaged in screwing people.

So now the Greek government are refusing to pay the costs. Nothing new there. The Greeks are big on debt refusal at the moment. Thus some cultural benefactor who still has a few drachma in his bank account has offered to pay them.

I’ve lived within 10 miles of the Elgin Marbles my whole life and have managed to avoid them. I think maybe its time to check them out, see what all the fuss is about, before they get repossessed. Though Ikea do some pretty good PVC statuettes for the garden, I’m told.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Now look… listen here… sit down and concentrate… try to follow… pay attention…

I want to talk about the nature of sport. The very essence of sportsmanship, of the fundamentals of games, the very basics of what constitutes right and wrong in the modern world. Because sport is a global phenomenon, like McDonalds; its a worldwide event, like dandruff. So it needs to be treated with care and consideration, lest it should give the wrong message to ‘the young’, to the ‘vulnerable’ or to ‘total bastards’.

The purpose of sport is to excel, to win, to claim victory, to vanquish the opponent, to reach the glory, to climb the…

Yeah, winning. But winning isn’t everything, as they say, though losing isn’t anything.

Yesterday afternoon a match was played between the forces of good and the powers of evil. The dark and the light. The good guys, dressed in white, befittingly, under-performed, squandered their chances, they basically failed. They failed themselves, their fans, their God. Or perhaps, just perhaps, it was all part of His will; His masterplan. Perhaps. Only eternity will tell. Or maybe it’ll just feel like eternity. The bad guys had the upper hand and exploited it with precision, with defiant purpose. The devil lives in the details. And he did yesterday.

The Irish won. 19-9. Poor England. Even should they win the 6 Nations there’ll be no grand slam for them in this Rugby World Cup year.

There was very little divine intervention at the Cricket World Cup yesterday either as England lost heavily to Sri-bloody-Lanka.

And in the final evidence that ‘God doesn’t interfere’ with life on Earth, He allowed His very own team to lose the League Cup final at Wembley to Satan’s warriors. Because suffering is what He does best. Jesus Christ suffered, we all have to fucking suffer. To be holy. And Spurs are thus very very holy.

All round a pretty bad day for Goodness and Light. A great day for Jihadi John Terry and Satan.

Let’s hope today is happier,

A xxxx

Spok’s dead.

He will live long and prosper no more. Leonard Nimoy the actor died yesterday and I am greatly saddened. Old actors die all the time, but this one actually ‘hurts’. The great thing is that dead actors live on forever in their work. And live on as young people too. No-one remembers what Barbara Stanwick looked like the year before she died, but they remember the smouldering blond in Double Indemnity, even though it was made in about 1955. Bogart was Bogart, always the same age. Its actually a mistake to act too late in life, then people remember you as ancient (Peter Fonda, Jane Fonda, Kim Kardashian) or remember all the ‘work’ you had done. Act young, become a director, die in old age forever remembered as 29. Brilliant.

Though Spok did make a cameo in the last Star Trek movie and we loved him all the more for it.

The original Star Treks were made in the 60s and I loved them. I wasn’t an official ‘trekky’ because I never bought stick-on ears or a Captain Kirk yellow sweater with integrated fat belly. I just lusted after Ohuru’s legs.

But it was always Spok’s show. He had the best lines, the biggest impact, the best knowledge, was the most nerdy, the most cool, the most dangerous (you don’t fuck with the Vulcan Death Grip!!!!) and the most complicated, trying to reconcile his cool logical, detached Vulcan half with his emotional, soppy, illogical Human side.

May his soul rest in peace. A lovely man. For all I know.

As opposed to George Galloway. Not a lovely man at all. Neither half of him. One half Scottish bastard, one half neo-jihadi scumbag.

A journalist tweeted that George is antisemitic. So George, rather than ignoring this slur which no-one would have ever heard about, is suing the journalist and everyone who re-tweeted the message. £5000 each. His retirement fund. If only the git would retire, I’d pay him myself.

George has always claimed that he is anti-Israel but not anti-semitic. A questionable stance even from those who don’t fraternise with radical Islamists. But George supports Hamas. Who are sworn to Israel’s destruction. And Israel is the only jewish state in the world. And George is not a great fan of the Jewish people generally. So I won’t say that George Galloway is anti-semitic, because he’ll sue me. So how about the far less contentious, George Galloway is a total C**T.

Is that acceptable, George??

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

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