Andy's Glasses

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

I’ve said it before and I’ll doubtless say it again, but it seems to be an eternally appropriate sentence.

Ed Miliband is a nob.

Just in case you had doubts.

Yet to a degree, what you actually ‘view’ of any political leader in reality goes way beyond the man himself. They don’t just spout the first rubbish that comes into their heads. Except Nigel Farage, of course. What the leader of any serious political party says, particularly in election year, is a distillation and analysis of views and information sifted, sorted and synthesised by his elaborate team of aides, researchers and cabinet colleagues.

So when Ed is in McDonalds and the Serbian behind the till asks him ‘if he wants fries with that’ (long as ‘that’ is not a bacon sandwich, of course), Ed will hold up a finger in gesture of ‘give me a second’, then he’ll phone his deputy leader to check on the viability of such an order, then Ed Balls, shadow chancellor, to ascertain whether such a purchase is within budget. The health people will have to decide whether the nation’s obesity problem may be worsened by adding chips to his meal, and his image consultants need to calculate whether Ed is in fact capable of eating them without looking like a total tosser. Again. Do proper socialists order more food than the bare minimum required to sustain them? Would a post-feminist eat such fattening fare or is it seen as somehow misogynistic to do so?

25 minutes later, with a queue behind him now stretching round the block, Ed says: ‘no thanks, pass on the chips; just the Big Mac and six kit-kat McFlurries, please’. Food for nobs.

The point being (point? sorry, you’re on the wrong blog if ya want ‘points’) that when Ed Miliband has spent the entire week in attack mode about the Tories and tax avoiders and has pointed the finger at every Conservative donor that has at any time been involved in any form of tax avoidance, however legal and above board, you’d think Ed’s rather extensive and certainly expensive team would have checked its own lists of donors first. Just, ya-know, just to, kind-a, just to see that all in Labour-land is totally squeaky clean on that specific subject. And it wouldn’t take very long, Labour don’t have many donors at all. A quick look would have sufficed. Just to avoid LOOKING LIKE A TOTAL FUCKING HYPOCRITE.

But no. Due diligence was apparently not performed and so out of the closet comes Sir David Garrard. Big Labour donor, hundreds of thousands given, this year alone, and not only is he a long-term tax exile, he also had funds in that now notorious Swiss HSBC Scoundrel Account.

Miliband is a nob.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Last week I went to the Doctor. Being a real man, in every sense of the word, it must have been really fucking serious, because going to the Doc’s is such an effin’ chore. But I went because I needed the final instalment on my inoculations from the holiday. I know, I’ve been back ages and the incidence of Yellow Fever in the Hampstead environs is not exactly in epidemic proportions. But you have to complete the ‘course’ otherwise either that or Hepatitis, or whichever of the dozens required it was, won’t work, like forever. So I went for a jab. Hate jabs. And as the nurse was loading up syringes and blunting the needles on a stone (I know what those fucking sadists do), Mel, who was there with me, not just to stop me from running or crying but have her own final instalment, pipes up: “can we get flu jabs while we’re here?”

‘NOOOOOOOO!!!!’ I thought, don’t want a soddin’ flu jab, don’t want any more than I absolutely must have.

“Oh yes, pipes the nurse (aka: the jabbing bitch), we have some left over, I’ll get a couple”. What a heartless cow. So we got stuck in both arms. Grrrrrr.

Two days later, on the news, there’s a report on how totally fucking useless this year’s flu jab is. Less than 3% successful in preventing flu. Cos when they make the jab, back in last summer, they have to kind of guess what the strain of virus is going to look like the following winter. And they guessed wrong. So jabbed me with some rubbish placebo nonsense-vaccine. For 3% I’ll pass on the jab thanks very much. But too late.

And then I developed a cold. Thursday night. Had a terrible night, drowning in snot (nice) but I was again braver than Russell Crowe in Gladiator and went to work, took some paracetamol and braved what turned out a busy busy day. Went to bed last night, dosed up with ‘EXTRA DROWSY’ cold/flu meds and lay there sniffing for 7 hours sleeplessly. Mel was great and really concerned about my wellbeing, repeatedly saying: “STOP SNIFFING AND KEEP STILL!!!”

So this morning I went to Tai Chi. Why not. And felt better for it. Energised. So off to tennis and started hitting a few balls. Then after about ten minutes I started shaking. Most odd thing. Like palpitations, shaky limbs. “Well fuck dat!” I thought and ‘played through it’. Though ‘it’ didn’t end, just kept making me shaky and rather odd. And a half hour later I had to retire hurt. Which is right up there with ‘snagging my tights’ and ‘having my period’ as manly excuses go.

Spurs Paul understood. And sniggered, of course, as any man would do. So I came home and ate things. Feed a cold. Feed flu. Feed anything, anytime, anywhere.

Happy ManFlu Saturday

A xxxx

Its out.
The movie.
We’ve all been waiting.
And now its here.
O.
M.
G!!!

If I’m honest, (which I generally try to be unless I choose not to be or there’s some financial gain to be made by not being), and being a true movie lover, I intend to go and see 50 Shades of Grey, the movie. Just as soon as hell freezes over.

Though I did read the book. On the basis that everyone else in the house (all women) had read it and it was lying around. And it was such pure, unadulterated shit that I immediately read the next two parts. Otherwise I’d started feeling a little left out of conversations. And always needing to get in touch with my feminine side. The side where I keep my tits.Yet until then, not my nipple-clamps.

Yet I felt it my duty to read EL James’ offerings, if nothing else (and quite frankly, there is very little else) to see what all the fuss was about. And the fuss was about the semi-erotic, midly pornographic (everything is ‘mild’ after you’ve been to www.chainsaw-up-the-jacksy.com) chic lit that’s USP is that its heavy on domination, S&M, as it once was, now BDSM, in honour of a particularly good driving school.

And for the uninitiated, its yer basic, formulaic love story. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl falls in love with boy. Boy introduces girl to pain, bondage, whips, butt plugs and mild electric currents. Girl says: ‘fuck dat for a game’a soldiers’ and runs away with her tail nailed to the coffee table. Boy chases after girl, pleading ‘it was all a big mistake; I luuuurrrrrve you almost as much as I love my rather brutal collection of leather-bound, metal-studded dildos. Please come: back/home/to the ball/away with me/to the red room of pain/whatever.’ Girl takes out a restraining order preventing boy from coming within 500 metres.

But the boy in question is really special. Really, REALLY special. Not only is he stunningly beautiful and richer than any other 7 tax avoiders combined, he has immaculate taste, he is generous, intelligent and can bring a woman to orgasm from just by lifting a single eyebrow at a distance of 50 yards. He is POTENT. So NO, this is not just some woman’s fantasy figure of male perfection because that would be a little too Prince Charming. So let’s give him a near-fatal flaw. Just a little one.

He likes to torture women. But being an uber-mensch, only with their consent. Bless him.So really, the book (and presumably the film though I’m never going to know) is about consent. Not just brutal sex. If it was just that we might as well follow the Dominique Strauss-Kahn trial in Lilles. Where he reckons that ‘he might just be a little more brutal in bed than most men’. Well he’s not more brutal than Christian Grey. But only with signed and notarised consent.

Its all a load of bollocks. Which are then clamped in a vice and stabbed with a soldering iron. Eeeuuuuwwww.

Happy perverse Friday (but ain’t they all?)

A xxxx

Its Rachie’s birthday today. So if you haven’t texted, emailed, phoned, posted a card, sent a present, delivered flowers, bought diamonds, booked a surprise weekend away on Necker Island or arranged dinner tonight (as I have, phew) better attend to it now or you’ll be on the shit-list of shit-lists. Because failure to pay attention to The Birthday is the only remaining capital offence in Britain. There is no appeal. There is no re-trial. There are NO second chances. You have been warned.

And what kind of birthday present is it for Spurs to lose last night at Liverpool? How can that happen? Why was it allowed to happen? Surely there should be laws? Rules, regulations, specifically to prevent such a travesty.

I didn’t see the game. I was playing bridge. Apparently it was a ‘great game for neutrals’ which means it was a terrible game for Spurs fans. What do we give a shit about ‘neutrals’ for?

According to esteemed sports writer Jack Barclay yesterday, no-one now gives a toss about who finishes top of the league. It will be Chelsea. If, by some amazing series of calamitous events that is not the case, then it’ll be Manchester City. But they’ve lost the ability to score goals so its not looking great for them. No, said Jack, the real battle, the real excitement, the real scramble, is for the other 2 champions league places. And there are 5 teams currently vying for those essential, lucrative and prestigious spots. And that’s where this year’s real thrills are happening.

Saturday saw Spurs beat Arsenal (in case you’d forgotten) to gain a slight advantage. But last night’s loss to the Scouse Victims (they’re always victims of something or other) negated that win as Arsenal beat poor, hapless Leicester who are already relegated in the real world not lived in by Gary Linneker and a few selected others.

But that is the secret of Arsene Wenger; an immeasurably valuable skill. That he can take a team who aren’t particularly very good, see them lose to their local enemies, yet still manages to put them in a mind-set to have self-belief 3 days later. Even though they’re rubbish, lightweight and flawed. And yes, it was ‘only Leicester’ but you still have to actually beat them. Spurs have shown that beating the ‘onlys’ in an ‘easy 3 points’ match at home can often be fraught.

Spurs twice came from behind to level the score. I was checking when I was the dummy hand. When partner was fucking up yet another slam-dunk 3-no-trump game. It was almost less stressful to see events at Anfield than to watch the card table in my kitchen.

Then Balotelli scored. The miserable, sulking, moronic Italian with so many chips on his shoulders he could sell them to McDonalds, hit the winner then sulked off, ignoring the adulation of the fans who normally give him a quite deserved hard time.

THAT WASN’T IN THE SCRIPT!!!!! Not the script I’d written anyway.

Oh well…

Happy Birthday Rachie,

A xxxx

Samsung are taking over the world. The Korean electronics giant have just flogged me two new phones (one for me, one for the Mrs) and so their profits are well up for the month. Even though I didn’t actually pay for them.

They also make tvs. And their new ‘smart tv’ has, as they all do, a ‘voice activation’ thing. So instead of having to push buttons on your remote to change channel or turn up the volume when Spurs score, you just yell at the screen and it’ll do it for you. Like wives used to do in the old days.

“Change to BBC1”

“CHANGE TO BBCEEEEEEE ONNNNNNE!!!!”

Oh fuck it, I’ll bloody do it myself.

And if you might feel in any way stupid, self-conscious or daft yelling at a screen, be assured; you are. Totally. Its a ridiculous thing to do and totally unnecessary. Because voice recognition is never very good at recognising words. Unless you speak them with a Korean accent.

“SKY SPOT FLEE!!!”

However, those Koreans are nothing if not wily, crafty and quite frankly, odd. Because its now been discovered (by the one person out of 500,000 buyers who actually read his ‘terms and conditions’) that Samsong is in fact listening to each and every utterance made at the tv and sends it back to Korea where an army of little people listen, analyse and record your every word, which is whizzed over to them via the internet connection.

The question is not about invasion of privacy, its a question of ‘why?’ What the fuck does Samsung want with instructions yelled at a tv screen? So they can work out how much sport I actually watch and blackmail me with the threat of telling my wife? So they know when I’m watching a little bit of Terminator 1 or 2, Kill Bill 1 or 2, Animal House, the Blues Brothers or so many of the others that I just need like a drug?? Or worse of all, so they can sell it to a marketing company who can then phone us on our Samsung phones while we’re having dinner and offer us tailor made deals.

“Hi Andy, this is Kenny”, spoken with an almost unintelligible Bombay accent, “we have a special offer this week for yellow, Uma Thurman cat suits, in your size, with a free Samurai sword!!!! Okayyyy?”

No, its not ‘okay’ actually; its a fucking intrusion; piss off ‘Kenny’ and go bother someone else. I already have seven Uma Thurman suits in yellow anyway.

Though Samsung have now pointed out that ‘information recorded will NOT be sold to a third party’. Oh, that’s ok then.

But it isn’t. We already have phones that track our every move and know where we are, Oyster cards that know where we go, credit cards that know exactly what we buy and when, and ‘loyalty cards’ which know when we take a sodding piss. And that’s all without the 60 million cameras in my street alone, watching me. And me alone…

When I finally get a new tv, when I decide that waiting for valves to warm up is no longer acceptable, and that having a tv the size of a compact car is a waste of space, I won’t be buying a Samsung.

Happy slightly paranoid Tuesday

A xxxx

I went to a trade fair yesterday afternoon. At the Excel Centre in Docklands. That’s exciting. A trip to the wilds of the south east. Of London. Millwall Country.

Our traditional optical trade fair is in Birmingham. And for that one you have to, in fact, travel all the way to Birmingham. Generally. Which is itself quite horrible. You have a choice of spending 3 hours tangled up in motorway snarls on the M1 or M6, or both, or you can take a smelly train direct to the National Exhibition Centre. Either way, within 6 minutes of your arrival you start having those ‘why the fuck did I come to this????’ thoughts. Which quite frankly poison the whole experience.

So having an event in London is a bonus. For Londoners. The rest don’t count.

Thus we set out. Drove down to St Johns Wood, where cars can be left on Sundays safe from Camden Council’s usual Parking Death Squads who hunt in packs, ticket cars 24 hours a day and drink the blood of small children. From there you simply hop on a tube train which takes you effortlessly from North West London over to South East London. A couple of stops on the delightful little DLR and you arrive at the Excel. About 40 minutes. Rather than driving all the way and regretting every single yard you crawl.

It was a sunny afternoon, so ‘everything looked lovely’ bathed in the glow. There was The Dome, or Faulkner’s Folly, as some of us still remember it. All… domed and… big. A fabulous monument to New Labour ‘investing’ 850 million of our English pounds to build a tent on a swamp. They then sold it to O2 to become The Arena, for about 50 quid. Good business, that.

In the other direction is the Emirates Air Line, the cable car named after Arsenal’s stadium because its a bit slow and all about show with not much ‘go’, sailing majestically across the River.

And all around those iconic landmarks there is… there is… there is shit. Old warehouses, disused rail-yards, horrible, fit-for-demolition 1960s council blocks, heaps of garbage and all the other crap that lets you know you’re in South East London. I’m not even sure if I was north or south of the River at that point, as it doth meander so. Whichever bank I was on; it looked pretty horrible. So I’ll assume: South.

So we have Canary Wharf, we have a sodding Dome, City Airport, an Excel Centre and a cable car. But holy moly they need a lot of work doing round there to make it in any way ‘nice’. Plant a few trees for fuck sake, make a bleeding effort.

Nice to be home.

Happy Monday

A xxxx