Andy's Glasses

Do you go to a gym? You know, one of those places filled with mirrors depicting depressed and strained fat bastards, red-faced and half a squat away from a hernia? Gym. You know.

Well I don’t. I’ll keep my 125 quid a month to spend on dirty burgers and beer, thank you very much. Ok, and lattes, because I’m a true metrosexual. Though not as true as those vain bastards pumping up their abs, pecs and triceps so they too can look like they’re in advanced steroid abuse just before they go off the rails and murder their wives. I simply hate the discipline. I hate the ‘but you’ll feel so much better afterwards’ ethos. I live for instant gratification. Have no patience. No discipline. Never discipline. Not even for fun or 50 shades.

But we do our Tai Chi in a gym. So they have many implements of torture just lying around. And our guru, our grandmaster takes his responsibilities seriously. Though you’d never believe it to talk to him. And as I see it, our Tai Chi comprises three elements. He would see it as different facets of but one concept, because that’s how they see things in China and High Barnet, complete one-ness. But for me there’s three. First is the ‘forms’, the Tai Chi ‘dance’ that everyone’s seen and finds amusing, because they simply don’t understand. I do it every day and I still don’t understand. But at least one day I’ll be enlightened, whereas for you there’s no hope. The forms represent every action you need to take, but in a slow, stylised and exaggerated style. So that when you do get the chance to hit someone really hard, and then run away very quickly, your balance will be perfect, your strike assured and you won’t hurt your back. Because the second thing we do is the ‘applications’ of the movements. Basically; hitting each other. Or kicking. Head-butting. Stabbing. Nice.

And thirdly, because of who, as a group, we are, we do a lot of warming up, stretching out and stuff that lesser people would think of as ‘pilates’. We’re real men with swords, so we deride ‘pilates’, that’s for Gwyneth Paltrow along with drinking green slime. But as we’re mostly the wrong side of 50 (or even older!!! and still alive; who’d’a thought that possible??) you can’t just start doing high kicks without warming up and stretching out. How this would translate to your would-be assailant in the real world I don’t know yet. Just hope he comes at you so slowly that you have time to do a few ‘downward dogs’ before needing to defend yourself.

So last night we grabbed the exercise balls from the corner. Who fucking invented those things? What kind of sadistic, tortuous, spine-aching bastard thought up such a thing? They probably arose in Abu Graib. And they hurt. Whatever you do on them is just the same exercise you’d perform without it but just 20 times more painful and stressful. Like the pose depicted above. Its hard. Horrible.

And yet even I, exercisaphobe that I am, felt benefits and feelings of not exactly ‘goodness’, more ‘pain, suffering and agony’ but could see some value in such activities.

Off to France early tomorrow morning. Very very early tomorrow morning. Going to spend a few days with Mr & Mrs Oldest Mate, who are refugees out in the Carmargue.

Happy friday

A xxxx

Angel di Maria is a lucky man. He has risen from being an Argentinian slum-dog, working in the coal mine with his father when he was 10 years old, to becoming the most expensive footballer on these shores when arrived at the more modern slum that is Manchester. Ok, maybe its no longer the slum it was 30 years ago, but its fucking bleak up there. And according to Rory Smith in the Times, Angel will wear that revered number 7 shirt: “graced at Old Trafford by George Best, Eric Cantona and Christiano Ronaldo.” WHAT ABOUT DAVID BECKHAM????? Even Bryan Robson should be included in that exalted line-up too. Is Rory Smith an Anglophobe? Two England captains, two outstanding footballers, yet deemed unworthy for inclusion as Manc ‘superstars’. David Beckham, the most successful footballer of all time, the best known face in the world, a man who can be recognised universally by the merest hint of even a half of any of his 642 tattoos. Yet not worthy of inclusion into the list of nobility who wore ‘that shirt’. Which he wore from when he was a baby to when he was 50 years old and Alex Ferguson attacked him with a hairdryer.

Why do I care? Who gives a shit what happens ‘up there’?? I’m no Man United fan. And yet I do. Because the glamour and brilliance of that team has shone throughout the nation for my whole life. When they won the European Cup in 1968 (when it was worth winning) they played ‘for England’ and we loved them for it. And although I can resent Chelsea and Manchester City for winning the league through foreign investment, I can’t bring that level of resentment to United when they win it. Almost as if its their rightful place as it has been, again, for most of my life.

So you may think that despite what I said above, that I am some closet, hanging-on-the-shirttails-of-success (because I get none whatsoever from my team) Man U. fan. But I can’t be. Because when they lose it makes me happy.

Oh, what a bastard. How fickle. Yeah, get over it. Like you’re different?? The old schadenfreude kicks in as the newscaster reads “MK Dons 4, Manchester United 0” and I grin. OMG, they lost to not only a terrible, lower-league team, but the most hated team on the planet. If you don’t remember, the once great (hmmm) Wimbledon football club of Vinnie Jones fame, of crazy gang fame, got in financial woes, lost their ground to property developers and ended up half way to ‘up north’ in Milton Keynes. Such practices are acceptable in America, though not happily by the cities losing teams, but its not the British way. Our teams are ‘part of the community’ and are fated to live forever in the hell where they were born. Otherwise Tottenham would long ago have moved to somewhere nice and leafy and suburban, rather than living the life of royalty in a favela.

Yet Milton Keynes beat the Man United second 11. Or third 11. Doesn’t matter, that’s the team they chose. And if Luis van Gaal thinks that the sad and sorry Capital One Cup is unimportant and worthless, then he should speak to Man United fans as to how they feel to being not just beaten but totally trounced by a team whose collective worth wouldn’t keep the Mancs in bootlaces for a month. The fans who have to go to work today and face horrible grinning bastards like me.

This season is getting better and better,

Happy wednesday

A xxxx

I always thought the purpose of G-d was to make the world a better place. To instil morality that, according to those of a religious nature, would be lacking without a religious framework underpinning society’s laws. So any kind of ‘holy war’ has always seemed a complete contradiction in terms, even for one as ungodly as I am. But here in the west we have reached a balance between God and the state, with a separation between the two, one the domain of keeping food on the table and the streets safe, the other in charge of the spiritual. God won’t give you a parking ticket, David Cameron seldom performs a miracle.

So how does that line get crossed? What happens when the godly take over? Or try to?

The first problem is ‘which God?’ The Protestant one? Catholic one? Jewish one (he’s the oldest with the longest beard)? The Muslim one? Or one of Hindu’s 1200 odd gods? Some of them very odd with elephant’s trunks and bejewelled fingers on their 7 hands.

‘God’ for those of us who have some kind of peripheral interest in the concept, is a man-made construct. We invented him/her for some kind of understanding/accountability for things beyond our grasp. And as more and more ‘things’ became understood, God’s role inevitably took something of a back seat to the explanations of science and technology. We no longer needed ‘Him’ to provide rain for the crops; we had watering cans and hosepipes. The last big unknown, how we all arrived here, and why? can be explained by The Big Bang theory, but that in itself is just another belief, another construct, and if you like, you can call that ‘God’ for want of a better term. Just depends what you choose to believe.

But the idea of God is strong, is guiding and is essential for keeping order. In theory.

So which God would approve of mass slaughter in His name? They tried that in the Crusades and to be honest, it wasn’t very popular with the agnostics.

I saw a banner at a protest which read:
“no to democracy
no to secularism
yes to Islamic State”

It could have been just a little better, it could have read: ‘vote no to democracy’, then I’d have been happy.

Every religion has its own version of ‘thou shalt not kill’. Every religion should preach, above all else, tolerance and understanding.

Where the fuck did it all go wrong? And is ‘God’ happy with slaughter, genocide and horrendous actions in His Name?

For God’s sake have a happy Tuesday

A xxxx

No, its not a football score, that (sorry Dave) was 4-nil and iced the cake on the week for Spurs fans. Taking us ‘top of the table’, in that ‘yeah, really’ kind of way. Still looks nice though. In case you haven’t seen it:

BARCLAYS PREMIER LEAGUE 2014/15
POS TEAM PLD W D L PTS
1 Tottenham 2 2 0 6
2 Chelsea 2 2 0 0 6
3 Swansea 2 2 0 0 6
4 Arsenal 2 1 1 0 4
5 Hull City

I’ve already had a 6 foot by 4 foot photograph of this commissioned by ‘photobox’ to sit in the lounge. Let the season end now.

Anyway, the 2-1 refers to the movie we saw last night. Deux jours, une nuit. Only the French could make such a film. Though oddly its Belgium. As if there’s a difference. There’s no sex or violence (ok, one little, very un-glam punch), there’s no car chases, explosions, space ships, no cars turning into giant robots nor into household appliances for that matter. Any cars that are there just stay as cars for the entire movie. Unusual, eh? Nothing gets stolen, no-one gets kidnapped, no-one taps their heels together three times and ends up in Kansas. This movie is 7 million miles from Kansas. That should have been the title but there’s no French word for Kansas.

Its a simple tale of a working woman whose job is threatened by her boss who offers her co-workers a choice to either have their hard-earned 1000 Euro bonus OR keep Sandra (for that is her) in her job. Oooooh. That’s a bit of a moral quandry. And these are not wealthy people, these are good, honest-to-goodness, working class scum for whom 1000 Euros represents not ‘a good meal in Paris’ but a year’s utility bills, or dentistry for the children, or the ability to keep up house payments.

So you get the idea: its dull. A dull and unglamourous world filled with poor people in poor housing around industrial estates in middle-Belgium. And Belgium is pretty much all ‘middle’ really.

Yet the film is gripping, emotional but never slushy, fantastically interesting and brilliantly acted. Particularly by Marion Cotillard as Sandra. In fact its fair to say that you barely notice anyone else on the screen when she’s there, so luminous is her presence. Yet there’s no Gucci, Mischoni and Prada, there’s no make-up, there’s nothing fancy at all other than take-away pizzas and scuffed shoes. This is a movie sponsored by Primark and Matalan and Ford. Even though La Cotillard wears no make-up and didn’t (so it appears) wash or even brush her hair for the entire 7 months of the filming of this movie, she is simply gorgeous. In fragile unpolished and damaged way. And there’s very few of us that can get away with such a thing.

If you see no other foreign film this week, make it 2 days 1 night. You’ll thank me for it. And if you hate it; its your problem.

Happy wet, rainy, dull bank holiday Monday

A xxxx

No-one was more upset last night as Arsenal scored their late and completely undeserved equaliser against poor Everton, who had to listen to those horrible, nasty travelling gooners singing: ‘two nil, and you fucked it up… etc, etc’. OK, maybe the Everton fans were almost as upset, but when a striker as wasteful as Giroud actually manages to hit the net you know the game’s up.

Spurs meanwhile are not only 4-nil up against QPR at this moment, but currently TOP OF THE LEAGUE!!!!! Which I proclaim now because one goal by Rangers and we drop back to 2nd. I mean, we’re not talking real league tables, just proto-ones, but as a Spurs fan; you take it where you can.

Angel di Maria is going to Manchester United, for a mere 60 million quid and 200k a week. Just in case that wasn’t enough to live on, fill the car(s), feed the children and send some flowers to mum in Argentina every few months, his agents approached Manchester City to see if they wanted to ‘bid’ as well. Scum-sucking, bottom feeding, great fat jews. Even if they’re Catholics. Its not about religion, its a Mackayism. But is di Maria, wonderful player that he is, the man to turn round United’s fortunes? Smells like a panic buy to me, but only time will tell. And that is one commodity there is plenty of as we’re only in week 2 of the season. Though the way the press react to every goal or throw-in you’d think Van Gaal has to win today or he’s gone. That had Arsenal failed to draw yesterday that their season would have been over. If only.

So this morning, in honour of the football, we went down to Columbia Road to buy some flowers in the East End. Which are cheaper than they are in the west of town by about 50%. And its the coolest place in the world to be on a Sunday morning. You can even park free. Then we went for brunch. Brunch? Yeah, its breakfast but you eat it at lunchtime. And its bigger than breakfast. Much bigger. Great little place in Faringdon. Also achingly cool and fabulously indulgent. And all out in the lovely sunshine.

I love a bank holiday weekend.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

So there’s 2 guys ‘avin’ a chat darn the pub, right?

An’ Iain says: “‘ere, Malky, youse never gonna guess whooo they just signed to play on the wing. Only a faaaarrrrkin’ Chinky!”

“Naaahhhhh!!!” says Malky, “yer ‘avin a laaarf, ain’t’cha??? A frikkin Chinky? Ya know why, cos ‘is agent is a fat jewboy and once they sniff money… or food…”

This is the gist of what occurred in what passes for communication, between Malky Mackay and Iain Moody, when both worked for Cardiff City. And according to every report on such conversations, and there were many, with others describing women in a most un-feminist type terminology, with phrases like ‘the rack on that!’ and ‘well I would!!!’ and ‘not even with yours, mate’ being banded around like it was still 2013 or such dark ages. Because now we know better. That’s what the writers said. ‘People don’t use such racist, derisory, derogatory inflammatory terms any longer, now we’re all very PC and right on and equality rules the nation’.

Well oddly, I disagree. Conversations with ‘blokes’ simply do not adhere to any rules or structure other than ‘make him laugh, preferably as cheaply as possible’. And racism, sexism and virtually any other -ism will do the trick every time. And if they don’t, start on nob jokes.

So the moral indignation and righteous disgust at these two footballing stalwarts being engaged in ‘banter’ of a nature which flies in the face of all modern standards of acceptability is really just a load of total bollocks or otherwise complete naivety and ignorance of how people (errr, well, ‘men’) behave when alone and unmonitored. Because we are vile, evil, horrible, and perpetrate every variety of knuckle-dragging -ism that is possible to use. Those very same journalists are not monks. They don’t spend their lives writing columns of condemnation, they also go down the pub and joke with their mates, sometimes objectifying women or using quasi-racist expressions, even if used ‘ironically’. Go on; tell me otherwise and I’ll show you a liar.

And so we’re faced with a problem not of two men behaving very badly but with a problem of someone making a private conversation public and thus accountable. And another of how to then react to people who hold seemingly awful views WHILST IN PRIVATE after its made public.

I fucking hate hypocrites. More than I hate people who use racist or sexist terminology in a non-offensive way. Yes, it can be non-offensive, but that can only be viewed on ground level and not from up on a high horse. Bloody poofs.

And in fact I’d like to thank both Iain Moody and Malky Mackay for producing the kind of footballing stories that are re-kindling my love for the game (like that was ever going to take long, especially after Spurs beating both West Ham and the mighty Limasol in one week), because much as I love the game, its the peripheral shit and the politics that’s really wonderful.

Balotelli at Liverpool; but only if he promises not to bite anyone and to be a very good boy. Yeah. Gonna happen. Like asking Gazza to promise sobriety.

Happy Saturday

A xxxxx

Vitamin D deficiency comes about due to lack of sunlight and/or certain foods. Its particularly common in pregnant women, children under 5, people over 65 and Australian tossers who’ve spent 2 years hiding in the Ecuadorian Embassy in Knightsbridge. You can get rickets. Whatever the fuck they are. But Julian Assange can pretend he’s got just such a condition, anything to get sympathy. Also, you don’t get much fresh air inside the Embassy. Too many Ecuadorians using up what little arrives through the front door to make it upstairs to the Assange Appartment. So Julian is suffering from a cough, dodgy lungs, probably bad breath and I suspect the very comon, Irritable Aussie Syndrome. And it wouldn’t be much use stepping outside to get some air because during the summer months the whole of SW7 becomes a race-track for Qatari supercars and uninsured Saudi drag-racers.

And of course, before Assange could even take his first lungfull, he’d have a pair of handcuffs on his pale, skinny wrists by the bobbies who’ve been waiting for him for 24 hours a day, for 24 solid months, at a cost to ME, personally, of 7 million quid. The police would then drive the poor, sputtering wheezing hacking hack straight to Heathrow to be escorted to Sweden to face charges of sexual assault. Lots of charges. All bogus, according to Mr Wikileaks, and contrived merely to get him to Stockholm under false pretenses so he can from there be flown to Washington to face the death penalty for something or other that Americans kill people for. Maybe Texas. You don’t need a reason to kill people there. Nor in Ferguson Missouri, apparently.

I’m big on free speech. I make them all the time. Never take a penny. And I don’t like governments who lie to the public, forgetting the correct order of things which is that THEY work for US. But there are some things you simply have to entrust to those in power. Like spying. The whole clandestine thing. Secret Agents. Secret Squirrels. Victoria’s Secrets. Because it wouldn’t be right if the names of such people were made public. It would be dangerous. In fact, in the case of the Afghanistanis who covertly worked with the Americans during the war there, publishing their names, addresses and distances from the nearest Taleban beheading party, would pretty much be signing their death warrants. And for their families too. And that’s what Wiki leaked. Not sure if that was before he ‘allegedly’ raped a few Swedes or after, but whatever, I don’t like the man.

Come out Julian, all is forgiven. Yeah, right.

They set up a website for this most charmed and blessed generation of students, to help them when they do their almost mandatory semester/year ‘studying abroad’. So you do two years Media Studies at Barnsley Polytechnic and then bugger off to McGill, or UCLA, Princeton or the Sorbonne to learn how foreigners watch telly. Its ‘expansive’. Definitely ‘expensive’. Life affirming. Learn a new culture, a different view of the world, change perspective. Wow.

So what do these students ask of this most informative help guide for living abroad? About rents? Visas? Can they supplement their income by working in such places? Is it easy to get contraceptives in Spain? Is the quality of drugs acceptable?

No. The main questions were whether they could get iplayer to work so they wouldn’t miss the fucking Bake Off. Could you get British tv. Was there a way to see Eastenders in Korea?

I despair. I wouldn’t mind if it was Match of the Day, but Bake Off??? GO OUT AND GET DRUNK FOR FUCK SAKE.

Happy Thursday, wherever you may be

A xxxx

Part… 963, Culcha.

There’s very few places in the world that really do offer ‘everything’. I mean ‘everything you’d want’. Not necessarily buying little boys or beheading practice, but everything you might want to see or do of a nice nature. And London is right up there with so many fantastic opportunities. Ok, we don’t have ‘the seaside’ but they now have a few horrible beaches along various parts of the River, just for heaven’s sake don’t immerse any part of any toe in or you’ll end up with something that would make Ebola look like hay fever.

And we have trees. As many as you’d ever need in any one go anyway. Yes, you can go to British Columbia and see more trees than there are Chinese people in Hong Kong. Then what do you do with the rest of your time? Count them? I have a tree in my garden. There it is; pear tree. Cross ‘trees’ off the list and find something proper to do. If my tree is not enough, go to Hampstead Heath or Richmond Park and see as many as you’d ever need. Any more and it becomes needless repetition.

We have football. In London alone there are several big teams. Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, QPR. There’s also West Ham. And a whole host of other lesser teams. There’s rugby, there’s cricket, in not one but two wonderful grounds; Lords and The Oval, where just yesterday the glorious and victorious England team beat those Indians. And yes, for sporting events only we do count south of the River as ‘London’. Just sporting events.

Then there’s culcha. So much fucking culture you barely need to get drunk to the point of vomiting. So much culture that you’d expect this City to be positively awash with foreigners all summer long. Oh, it is. And they get in the bloody way. But even though we don’t want to be a part of it, we’ll take their Euros all day long. And most of the night too. Museums, the best in the world and amazingly, all free. The proper ones are anyway. The silly tourist rip-off type London Dungeon and Madame Toussauds and Sherlock Holmes house (HE WAS FUCKING FICTIONAL!!!! HE NEVER EVER LIVED IN BAKER STREET NOR ANYWHERE ELSE. GET A GRIP. AND SAVE YOUR MONEY), they do charge, but half the galleries too; free at the point of entry. Without breaking in. We have multiplex movie popcorn vending establishments and we have lovely, decent, independent cinemas too which even show non-English films on occasion.

And of course, we have theatre. Not just ‘a theatre’ but an entire industry. Ok, most are crumbling old Victorian relics which need a bit of work to hold the ceilings up, but they are the theatres of Shakespeare, of Oscar Wild, or Lawrence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, John Geilgud, Judi Dench and Kristen Stewart. Well everyone turns up there eventually, regardless of talent. And if that’s not sufficient, we have ‘the fringe’. London’s ‘off-Broadway’, but as we lack a Broadway to begin with, we call it Fringe Theatre instead. And its for those who’d rather spend 12 quid to see rubbish than to spend 75 quid to see worse rubbish in Town. But sometimes there are little gems to be found.

Sunday night at the Gatehouse Theatre, a grandly named room-above-a-pub in Highgate Village, Mel & I went to see a show. Mel found it. I had nothing else to do, so followed along. With reservations. I don’t mean for the seating.

We saw ‘confessions of a rabbi’s daughter’. One person show. Musical. 85 people sitting round watching. And it was great. Really great. Different. Original. It was about a rabbi’s daughter, coincidentally, bearing in mind the title. And she’s about to marry a rabbi herself, to the pleasure of all concerned, including herself for whom this represents a lifelong ambition, when on the wedding morning she… she… she realises she’s in love with her (female) best friend. Holy. Shi-ite. One young woman, wrote it all, words, music, performed it, probably made her own prop (there was only one). Proper unsung talent.

And London has rainbows. This one arrived last night. Spectacular.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Yesterday 3 magpies landed on the lawn. Just a few hours later Spurs won. In a ‘brilliant’ match (though reports may vary due to the pro-Arsenal stance of much of the so-called ‘neutral’ press) my boys grabbed the points at West Ham.

So are those magpies responsible for my team’s victory? Doh. I don’t even think my team are responsible for my team’s victory, that was really in the hands (and certainly feet) of West Ham’s collective ineptness and profilgacy, and so the world can hear Sam Allardyce’s excuses in the ‘start the season as you mean to go on’ kind of way.

Back to the plot. Must stay focussed.

Suppose I noticed that every match day magpies landed on my lawn, but 6 times out of 10 when it was 3 of them, Spurs won their matches. Could I then state that Spurs victories (may it please The Lord) are due to the magpies? Rather than to our clueless (on yesterday’s showing) players, or new, Argentinian and very exitable manager?

Of course not. All it would show was there was some bizarre, coincidental correlation between the number of magpies on my lawn and Spurs results. At which point, for the Arsenal, Chelsea and certain other big matches, I’d be in the park with a net hunting for little black’n’white fuckers to nail to my lawn.

And that’ because I’m a sports fan and we’re all stupid, optimistic against all logic and tragically superstitious. Anything for the slightest advantage the gods might bestow.

Because, as we learned: correlation is NOT causation. There might be some odd, random connection between magpies (shitting) on my lawn and Spurs success, but they sure as that shit ain’t causing it.

Every time there’s a hold up on the A1 my wife ends up with bruises. Do those hold ups cause her to spontaneously bruise? No, of course not. They’re not responsible. But I get held up, become very angry and do what any man would do, and she ends up bruised. (Please note; this is just an illustration, put the phone down, social services do NOT need to be contacted. Not at this point anyway). So again, correlation between hold-ups on the A1 and spousal bruising but not direct causation. Even though they both correlate to me.

Then there’s Anjem Choudary, leader of… well, various groups of horrible hate-mongering tossers, until they get banned and his job is to work out new names for those groups so they can carry on peddling thier evil legally again. He was previously a lawyer. Then stepped up the moral ladder to become a purveyor of terrorism. But he’s ‘clever’ in that annoyingly horrible way that legal people have of never saying anything with any substance in front of a camera. Sam Allardyce could learn a lot from him. But Sam is not who he preaches to. No. Choudary preaches to young, susceptible Muslims, lost souls looking for some ‘meaning’ in their lives. And he gives them a cause, a path, a view. And turns them into instruments of death, reduces them from humans to mere actions even if those actions kill the human within.

Which is why the guys who beheaded the soldier, Lee Rigby, in broad daylight on a London street, they were students of Choudary. The Maida Vale DJ who was filmed with ISIS holding up a severed head in Iraq, was one of the preacher’s prodigies. The handing out of ISIS leaflets inciting young Muslims to ‘join up and do God’s work’ was done by Choudary’s students.

The man himself never critisised the actions of his ex-students. In fact in all cases he spoke with pride whilst invoking the inevitable distance from them and their wicked and illegal actions. Because he’s a lawyer. And he knows that ‘correlation is not causation’ and to be illegal you need a causative connection. He’s allowed to preach that Britain should be a sharia state. That’s free speech. Which oddly would be banned under Sharia. I never said he had a sense of irony, just that he’s clever.

So for once, under any kind of ‘three strikes and you’re out’ kind of rule, we must look at the link between dire acts, poisoning of minds, death and destruction and the man with whom they seem to correlate. And surely, in a world awash with awful terrorism, special needs arise so that we can get that awful fucker off the streets and lock him up indefinitely so he can’t peddle his evil poison to others.

Otherwise, have a happy Sunday,

A xxxx

Spurs are third from bottom in the league. The relegation zone. The drop. But I don’t care because until 12.45 today the league table is a blank page, a clean slate, a tabla rasa for those of us so pretentious and trumped up that nothing other than the language of Caesar can truly…

yeah, right.
But the league is all zeros. Alphabetical zeros, if such a thing can happen. That’s my point. Burnley are the same as Manchester City. Leicester are equal to Liverpool. Spurs haven’t lost a match. All to play for. Nothing to lose. Ok, plenty to lose. Like the next 38 matches spread over the most important 9 months of any year. And it all begins today. Wow.

And if I’m honest, I could hardly be any less enthusiastic. Maybe that’ll change by 3.01 this afternoon. Maybe it’ll take a week, a month, but my enthusiasm is certainly, at this moment in time, somewhat dimmed. Maybe its the other things in the world that have caused my flagging spirits about the game I sort of love. Maybe the whole Gaza thing, the IS(IS) crisis, the Russian treachery, Robin Williams dying so horribly (is there a ‘good death’?? not at 62 there ain’t), followed by Lauren Bacall, the last of the true Hollywood mega-stars, maybe its put me in a place that’s temporarily detached from the Premiership.

How about the cricket? What cricket?? you may ask. Well, England, of course. Stuart Broad. Superman. Gets hit in the face by a cricket ball last weekend, a ball which ripped through the grid of his helmet to break his nose and inflict wounds that any jihadist would be proud to claim, and then 6 days later he bowls his brilliant overs at the Oval, black eyes and strapped nose and all.

Or possibly its just listening to the radio (as I do), to Talk Sport and 5-Live, endless droning on about Luis van Gaal, about how his greater success than David Moyes puts Man United in a different place. About how Liverpool have lost their bite (good pun, that one) when Suarez took his 3-month ban over to Barcelona, along with the 32 goals he scored last year, and replacing him with a few injured Southampton rejects. Hearing Arsene Wenger stating the ridiculously obvious in that ‘well, if we take points from the big teams we can win the league’ kind of way. How about ‘if we get more points than everyone else we will definitely be champions’. So all Spurs have to do, really, is score more goals in every game than they concede. And if they do that…

Alexis Sanchez is a great buy for the goons. Diego Costa similarly for the hatefuls at Stamford Bridge. If Manchester United do manage to sign Angel di Maria that will also be a brilliant addition to our league. Which is already (according to spokesmen from the Premiership) ‘the best in the world’. And Cesc Fabregas returns to these shores, fresh from being a World Cup loser with Spain and spending 4 years as a reserve at Barcelona. And not happy with the level of hatred he received wearing the red of Arsenal like last time, now he’s gone the whole way and will wear Chelsea blue.

It all kicks off today. Wow!!! Amazing. Can’t wait. I have my Daily Mail Season Planner open on the kitchen table and my best coloured pencils. I’m so excited that at 3 o’clock today I shall probably mow the lawn, have a nap or beat the wife.

Happy start to the season day. If only.

A xxxx