Andy's Glasses

Is this the best headline ever; from today’s Mail on Sunday:

“Rebel Catholic priest confesses to sham gay marriage to a married Muslim to help him stay in the UK.”

This is no mere: “Elvis ate my hamster!!!!” or “aliens stole my greenhouse!!!!” or “Tory MP grabbed my testicles at a party!!!!”
Because this one is spoken from a very high up moral stance.
Just how much knee-jerk, reactionary judgment can come from one sentence? Not only this guy is a priest but a Catholic one!!! And obviously we all hate Catholics. Particularly one that apparently was an Anglican but left that church because of its ‘loss of traditional values’. Presumably values of corruption, distortion and fraud.
And as for ‘secret sham gay marriage’; that is just so seething with right-wing contempt. The stuffed shirt, tweed-jacketed, purple-haired Mail readers hate secrets, shams and gays, probably equally. Their hatred for such things is only topped by that for Muslims who don’t belong in this country staying here on false pretences.
I personally feel that the clergy should be allowed to commit crimes as long as its ‘the will of God’ for them to do so, and only they probably know whether that is the case.
And joining the Catholic Church on moral grounds is a bit like becoming a Millwall fan to be more popular.

All my other favourite headlines today featured Arsenal. Following what is undoubtably the funniest match of the season, if not the decade, if not ever. I like superlatives.

If Spurs can’t actually beat the Arse, and let’s face it, that doesn’t happen often, then we can only bask in their loss to others. Its our duty, as well as our pleasure. If that sounds a little mean, a bit nasty, a touch horrible, then so much the better. This is football. Not religion. Oh, that’s a bit mean and nasty too, yeah, forgot.

So Arsenal go to Chelsea to celebrate Arsene Wenger’s 1000th game as manager and it all goes to hell in a handcart. But much faster. To hell in a Ferrari. I turned on the car radio to hear that Hazard was about to take a penalty. Wow, I though, match is only 16 minutes old and Chelsea are about to take the lead. I didn’t realise that Chelsea were already 2-0 up and Arsenal were down to 10 men. The wrong 10 men. Because Alex the Ox committed not just a mere handball but a full-blown, diving, hands out save. And the ref sent off Kieran Gibbs. Why? Because he didn’t see it? Because he’s stupid and didn’t listen to anyone telling him the reality?? Or because ‘they all look the same’??? Arsenal players, I mean, not mixed race players of equal height. Which is why there wear numbers on their kit, Refereeeeeeee. A comedy of errors. Unless you’re an Arsenal fan. Then its probably not quite as funny.

So now my head says that hateful Chelsea will probably win the league. Whereas my heart is temporarily lodged in Liverpool. Because their games are all so enjoyable at the moment. They score loads, concede just a few less. Or rather, Suarez, the cannibalistic Uruguayan scores loads and the others help.

Spurs are playing very soon and Barcelona much later. What a day this promises to be.

Enjoy it

A xxxx

Kate Bush is going to perform live for the fist time this century. Wow. Brilliant. 15 nights at the Hammersmith Apollo in August. Fab. Tickets will be like gold dust. Jest to hear her sing (??) Wuthering Heights again; amazing. Then she could do… errrr… hmmm… well, one of her other songs. Numbers. Tunes. Dances. Whatever.

Don’t get me wrong; I loved Kate Bush. Massive fan. But couldn’t name another of her songs if you nailed me to the floor and beat me with gluten free, high omega 3 veggie wraps.

My image of Kate is of doing that dance to her song, all lithe and dark and hard-bodied and exotic and incredibly sexy and and and and… (pause for cold shower).

Nothing else. There was no more. I wasn’t going to go and buy the album was I? I’d done that before. The late, great Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street. One brilliant song, the rest might as well not be there.

So instead of going to see Kate I’m going to watch el Classico tomorrow night. Barcelona visit Real Madrid in the most important game since the last one. I love this fixture, it always seems to decide the Spanish league. As b those two teams they’ve shared about 49 of the last 50 titles. Barcelona have been marginally superior over recent years but now visit Madrid four points behind Real with Athletico Madrid uncharacteristically in between the two. Like Aberdeen sitting between Celtic and Rangers and you think ‘what are they doing there??’ Remember Rangers? Used to be a big team. Well, for Scotland.

Arsenal play Chelsea in our own version. These two teams hate each other but mainly because everyone hates them both and they just join in. Its not like Barca Real which is a rivalry based on politics, jealousy and deep seated seperationist type extremism. Arsenal and Chelsea are just horrible. Different type of hatred altogether.

Though this is Lord Wenger’s 1000th game in charge of the Arse. 1000 matches. Which is simply amazing when the average manager lasts about 25 and gets sacked if his team have failed to win the Champions League. Or 17 matches if he’s at Fulham. Only Alex Ferguson lasted a long long time and his successor looks fairly doomed already, especially as Robin van Persie, the ex-Arsenal rapist and striker, has an injury that will keep him off the pitch for at least 6 weeks and the team, other than a great win in Europe on Wednesday, are shit.

Spurs play tomorrow. Spurs always play tomorrow. Southampton. Massive game. 4-pointer. Don’t know why because I’ve given up on this season altogether and intend to study dance instead until May. So I can join in with Kate Bush when she does her roll and fall in green. Ahhhh, its all coming back.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

When flight MH370 went missing I learned that 270 Chinese people had disappeared along with it. They’re still missing. And although there’s certainly plenty more Chinese left in the world, particularly in China… doh… this is not only a general tragedy but a deep personal one for me. Because as a student of Tai Chi (you’re always a student, even when you’re 90 years old and been doing it since you were 3 and you’ve got 26 black belts and can knock a house down just by staring at it for 2 seconds) I’m affiliated to the Chinese way, to their philosophy, their karma, their yin and yang and, in particular, to sweet and sour dumplings in beef broth (number 43).

But as my path in Tai Chi continues, I’m constantly amazed at its ‘wholeness’. At the fact that all the actions have a purpose, every move, every step, every knee-bend, every kvetch, has behind it an intrinsic necessity in the application of that act when used as a strike, as a block, as defence, attack, passive, aggressive. And every act has its own ‘yin and yang’ in the way part of you yields whilst another is powerful. Every move starts from being relaxed and supple, never braced and tense. Quite incredible, the power of that softness.

Because Tai Chi Chuan is known as an ‘internal martial art’. Which is perfect for jews because we’re so good at beating ourselves up we might as well do it properly. Though I’m not sure that’s the true, ancient Chinese meaning. Here the ‘internal’ refers to the power of the mind and how it can channel energy. Rather than ‘tai chi; shmai chi’ kind of thing.

Grant Schapps, the Conservative party chairman should have gone to tai chi instead of tweeting classes. He’d be a better person for it. In the wake of the budget, Mr Schapps, a one time successful businessman, though oddly, under a different name (nothing dodgy about that then, your Honour), tweeted that with a penny (a fucking penny!!!! the most worthless coin on the planet) off the price of a pint of beer and tax relief on Bingo, ‘the working man is pretty well sorted’.

In Tai Chi we call such an exponent of this type of statement a ‘fucking tossssssserrrrrr’ because it is possibly the most misguided, shamefully stereotying and horrendously patronising sentiment ever to leave a Tory’s mind. And believe me, they have a long and brutal history of patronising.

As if working men only need beer and bingo and they’re happy as Larry. As if their inability to pay for heating, buy school uniforms or get a job is way secondary to a pint and shouting ‘HOUSE!!!!!’ very loudly at the Kilburn Palais.

I can do patronising, its my job as a cynical satirist. (Oddly, also known as a ‘tossssserrrr’). But Grant Schapps can’t; he’s a whole other kettle of political fishiness. And his yin has been dissociated from his yang in a very brutal manner.

Be at peace.

If not, kick the shit out of someone today.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

George Osborne has presented his new budget. And it a brilliant one if you’re an old, grey, well-off saver with loads of money, who doesn’t smoke and really hates pot-holes in the road. In other words, a budget for old Tories. And cyclists. A grey budget. Which is odd for a man who is rather unnaturally not-grey at all. In fact I think it safe to say that I’m rather more concerned with the state of the Chancellor’s barnet than I am with the budget itself. Because it keeps changing colour. And shape. Tomorrow he’ll probably turn up at Parliament with a bright green Mohican. We can but hope.

This budget is a fairly typical ‘warm them up before the election’ budget so falls short of core Conservative values, like piling the poor people up on street corners and burning them so they stop claiming benefits. It makes no concession to ‘the young’ but they don’t vote and don’t care so its not worth spending too much in that direction.

Because Nigel Farrage has suddenly become ‘the voice of the common man’. Mainly because anyone else has more sense than to listen to him. And Nigel is fighting the good cause for ‘working Britain’, so long as its white and Christian and heterosexual.

In response, George Osborne has graciously knocked 1p off a pint of beer. And that’s massive. The average lower class oik (sorry, these are Mr Osborne’s words, taken from the script he wrote when at Eton) drinks 19 pints of beer a day. So over the course of a month, this massive financial windfall will save Willy Window-Cleaner up to… er… add three, carry nine… times 14… well, it will save this ‘average low person’ several pounds!!!! So the working classes are sorted then. If they want to save more money all they have to do is drink more beer and those savings just mount up and up. A win-win.

Even better, there’s no rise in petrol prices. Which is good because had he increased duty on fuel the entire nation would go on strike and George would be ritually disembowelled by the ghost of Bob Crow. So for those among ‘you’ who choose, selfishly and unecologically, to drive ridiculously consumptive vehicles, you may now sigh with relief. Along with me. Aaaaahhhhhhhhh.

In conclusion; this budget is, like most, a semi-futile and worthless shuffling of minutiae which won’t affect anyone with any degree of significance. It won’t make the rich nicer, the poor less smelly, the unemployed more employable nor the old more secure as they freeze to death unable to afford to turn the heater on. It won’t make the world prettier, it won’t make Tottenham win, it won’t keep David Moyes in his job any longer nor return Crimea to the Ukraine.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

At last.

A ‘test’ that we can believe. A real one performed by real scientists (Louisiana? real??) providing incontrovertible results. Meaning ‘ones that we want to hear’.

Chocolate is good for you.

But really good. Makes you live longer, stay healthier, enlarges your sexual organs, keeps you slim, fit, lowers blood pressure, raises… whatever’s good to be raised, reduces cholesterol, makes your hair shiny, increases brain power, improves your appearance, makes you a better driver, improves humour and makes you less likely to vote UKIP.

Ok, I’m ‘extrapolating’ a bit there. Which I can do.

The tests showed that compounds in cocoa ferment in the stomach to produce natural anti-inflammatories and reduce the risk of strokes. They also have anti-oxidant properties that reduce the likelihood of cardiovascular diseases. Wow.

These tests were performed on a ‘model colon’ at the University of Louisiana, as opposed to a ‘model’s colon’ which would have been more fun but less instructive as models don’t eat anything. Anyway, everyone who has a model colon inside them is going to be really healthy eating chocolate. Which is the best news everrrrrrrrr.

But, and there’s always a ‘but’. Its high cocoa, bitter chocolate that bestows these benefits and makes you live forever. The useful compounds are often broken down when that cocoa is processed with excessive sugar and fats. Or, ‘the good stuff’, as its known in scientific circles. So for those among ‘you’ who gorge on Cadbury’s finest, who see Easter Egg season as a gift from the gods, who hit that Mars Bar/Kit-Kat/Snickers trail every afternoon; you’re gonna die.

There again, its all about percentages. Green & Black’s awful chocolate-flavoured poison is about 75% pure chocolate. And consequently tastes like shit. Chocolate flavoured shit. Whereas the ‘real’ stuff, dairy milk chocolate, contains about 20% ‘cocoa solids’. So the answer is simple. Eat Cadburys chocolate, but make sure you eat four times as much as you would if you were eating ‘better’ chocolate. To give you the same amount of ‘goodness’. Its just common sense.

I’m off to the sweet shop,

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

The question that everyone really wants the answer to, the one which spawns a fucking industry of testing, research, trials, drugs, medical papers and general quasi-scientific statistical bollocks is ‘so when will I die?’

Its a fear we realise as soon as we’re old enough to actually comprehend the finality and futility of our pathetic little existences. That one day it will be over. Oh. My. Lord. Then I won’t be here any longer. But how will the world exist without me?? The answer to which is a rather sardonic: ‘it’ll cope’.

But no-one really wants to die. Other than, apparently, L’Wren Scott, who killed herself yesterday. Which is truly tragic. Not cos she’s some kind of b-list celeb, but because she must have been a deeply unhappy person. Though waking up next to Mick Jagger in the morning must be a bit like living in a horror movie. You’d just have to think it was a nightmare of Freddie Krugeresque proportions and then realise that, no, this was actually ‘reality’.

So after my ‘years of abstinence’ during which I’ve cut down my chocolate intake to a paltry 6 bars a day, reduced rich, frothy, fatty coffees to no more than 46 a week, cut fatty and fried foods almost completely out of my diet, except when I eat them, and generally adopted the healthy approach of living only for omega-3 oils and porridge so that my cholesterol will stay low and I’ll live to be 127, its now been shown to be wrong.

Saturated fats, (fried shit, processed rubbish, butter, dairy generally) will no longer kill you quite as quickly as a legless South Afrcian sprinter will if you take a pee in his bathroom. As was previously believed. The ‘live longer’ fish oils and ‘good fats’ don’t actually make you healthier, they just make you smell fishy (Conway et al, 2012).

Smoking cigarettes is now shown to be beneficial to heart, lungs and success with women. Particularly drunk women. Heroin reduces ‘bad cholesterol’. Exercise is the real killer; avoid at all costs. Take taxis.

Ok, maybe smoking’s not ready yet to be readmitted to the ‘okay in moderation’ list which has grown now to include everything we ever might want to eat or drink. Which is brilliant news for all of us. Because ‘in moderation’ is certainly open to definition, interpretation and debate.

Warning; all this ‘clinically proven nonsense will be contradicted in the next test to come your way’.

If only Einstein did diets. Then they’d not only work but be incontrovertible forever. Einstein did ‘forever’ like no-one else ever did. The scientists who weren’t involved in telling us that previously designated killer foods are in fact beneficial were out there in the sky measuring gravitational waves. Don’t ask, you’re just not bright enough. But these waves are ‘absolute proof’ that the Big Bang happened and the universe expanded in precisely the way that hairy Albert described. On the back of a fag packet in a Swiss cafe in 1912. In fact this is the last of the Great Man’s theories to be proven ‘beyond doubt’. Which is science talk for ‘beyond the comprehension of normal people’.

Einstein lived long, smoked loads, ate what he wanted and got to shag Marilyn Monroe.

A model for all.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I’d like to sum up these last 8 days of football with one word:
FFFFUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!! (said in a protracted scream)

Though on careful review of the circumstances, and the manner of our not 1, not 2 but 3 defeats, and adding in the quality of the teams we were playing, making allowances for the ambient temperature, the wind-chill factor, the price of quality property in the SW7 area and the fact that they still haven’t found missing plane 307, I think I can add 3 shits, four bollox and 57 TOSSERS!! to that one, quite frankly, pathetically inadequate word.

And yesterday’s Arsenal match summed up the whole thing really in a potted distillation of our season. We can play well, we can pass beautifully, we can defend ok when we’re not giving the bleedin’ ball away, but we simply CANNOT SCORE GOALS. Without which its all mere footballing masturbation. Its unrewarding, unfulfilling and flatteringly pointless. At least it doesn’t make a mess.

Football without goals is like a kebab without chilli sauce. Its like a movie without an ending (although Inside Llewyn Davies managed even that at an enjoyable level), its like sex without a climax; like a meal without a desert; like decaffeinated coffee, like a Toyota Prius. Just a total fucking disappointment and waste of effort.

But heh; let’s take some positives from this.

First there’s… hmmm… errrr…
well first we lost, second we didn’t win and third we failed to hit the proverbial barn door from 6 yards. And I’m not happy. Really really not happy. Playing well for the majority of the match and ‘enjoying’ (phah!) 60% of possession simply adds to the frustration. If we did so much and had so much of the ball, how could we fail to score?

Spurs spent 100 million of our English pounds on players this summer past. A tenth of a billion quid. On a bunch of players of such stunning indifference, such total ineffectualness, such startling waste-of-spaciness that it beggars belief. Sheer law of averages would have at least 2 of them performing adequately, if not well. But no, other than Erikssen, they are collectively just shite. Is this just ‘bad luck’? Or abysmal choices? How about panic buying?? Could our esteemed ‘director of football’, aided an abetted by his team of highly paid ‘scouts’, all fuck up that badly? And Daniel Levy is not the sort of chairman who lets them get on with spending his money. No. He is active in every deal, every trade, every negotiation for every player bought or sold. And of course we all know that playing in the Premiership is a little tougher and more demanding than playing in the Norwegian 2nd division, but surely allowances can be made, assumptions tested, predictions calculated? Its not fucking guesswork, its a science that other teams manage to get right most of the time.

Disappointment at the general performances this season is one thing, but losing to a very very mediocre Arsenal team: a tragedy.

The sun’s still shining here. But not in my heart.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

You know the situation; the ref gives a decision, maybe a foul that was dubious, maybe a penalty that’s controversial, maybe a yellow card that really could have been red. But his decision is made. And generally it is final. But into his face step the entire offended team, sometimes both teams, always Chelsea, and they shout, they scream, they cajole, they intimidate, they nag, swear and, if not actually threatening the man, they cetainly act in a very threatening manner.

Switch over to the rugby. There was loads on yesterday and it was all quite brilliant to watch. And there the most bizarre thing happens. Again and again. The referee makes a call and no-one says a word. No-one mouths ‘oh FUUUUCCCCKKK OFFFFFF!!!’, no-one jumps into his personal space and breathes foul air upon him, no-one questions the call. Its done, he’s the boss, move on. If there are things to be mentioned, the ref calls over the offending player and his captain and they talk in very respectful manner.

Respect for authority. That which is sadly lacking in football. Always. Overpaid scummy moronic individuals unhappy with not getting their own way and remonstrating with umpires like petulant children denied their treat. And it is simply awful. And I cannot understand why the FA do not simply end this dire situation. Its so easy. Insult or abuse the ref, red card. End of. Start it tomorrow and it would work without question. Its just a part of football ‘culture’ that is abhorrent to everyone except the players and is so easy to stop. But they do nothing.

What’s more refs can make mistakes, they’re human. Players make enough. Spurs players make loads. So if a ref does make an error, live with it. Over a season it all balances out. Jose Morinho was quick to point out the folly of bemoaning Younis Kaboul’s sending off last week because losing 4-0 kind of makes such protest a bit pathetic. But fast forward a week and there’s the little Portuguese shit bemoaning the ref for sending off Ramires for an intentional leg-breaking takle. Not even a tackle, just a stamp on the player’s leg which in rugby would see the player banned for the season.

And whilst I’m having a moan, I’d like to apologise to Jan Vertongen and Hugo Lloris for not guaranteeing them Champions League football and thus will help them to find clubs that can offer such riches and glory. Its shameful that Spurs have failed in this yet again and I, as a fan, obviously accpet full responsibiltiy for this failure.

Oh, hang on… but they’re the players. They’re the ones who can actually influence the outcome of our team’s matches, probably even more than I can? Yet I accept that Vertongen fucking up royally at Chelsea and playing like a tosser is my fault entirely and would never be so ingracious as to suggest that IF YOU FUCKING PLAYED BETTER, YOU DUTCH TOSSER, WE MIGHT HAVE GOT INTO THE CHAMPIONS’ LEAGUE!!!!!! Because that would be rude and might upset him. And him and Lloris obviously deserve much better. As long as its handed to them on a plate and they’re not required to actually work for it. Couldn’t expect them to do that for a poxy £100,000 a week, could you?

I’ve turned down three offers of tickets to go to Spurs this afternoon. Don’t these people realise I hate football?

Its rugby from now on.

Happy Sunday… if only

A xxxx

‘Experts’ are those same bastard dorks who tell us to drink wine one minute and that you’ll die from seven different cancers if you do in the next minute; the ones who advocate no sugar, then heaps of sugar, then no proteins, followed by ‘proteins are the food of life’. You know, the ever-changing merry-go-round of advice backed by ‘studies’ that show how fashions in anything health/beauty/development/anything related change with the fucking wind and should never be believed.

Well they’re at it again. This time its babies and i-pads. Parents are using such devices to entertain and amuse their children for up to 30 minutes a day(!!!!) and children are becoming ‘addicted to technology’. Not children; babies. The same ones who, when fed up with said app, generally choose to hurl the i-thing across the room onto a tiled floor. So my reservations about such practices are purely pragmatic; no wet-nappied little fucker is going to break my i-pad!

Also, people generally lie in tests. No, they always lie in tests . ‘How many cigarettes do you smoke a day?’ is the best one. Whatever the answer, double it and you have something approaching the truth. So ’30 minutes’ on the i-pad really means 2 hours because if little Charlie/Vanessa/Ching-Mae/Obafemi is happy in the corner then mummy can hoover/cook/drink vodka/sleep or whatever she chooses to do with her allotted time. What do women do with their time? Spray themselves orange and put on make-up? Fondle themselves? (I would if I was a woman).

Anyway, ipads, iphones, addictive to kids.

Unlike the previous decades’ kids who are all addicted to tv, thrown in front of telly tubbies from 2 months old so that by the time they’re 4 they actually think Power Rangers is quality entertainment. And thereafter can’t miss an episode of the Wives of Orange County, The Only Way is Essex or X-factor without going into total withdrawal.

And in my era (dinosaurs, ice ages, mud huts and sword fights) it was sugar. You want to keep little Andrew happy; give the noisy little bugger a bag of sugar and he’ll be happy as (Fat) Larry. All we ever wanted was sweets. Sherbet. Chocolate. Pear Drops, Flying Saucers, Foam Shrimps, lollypops, anything sugar-laden and you wouldn’t hear a peep. Then we just have a lifetime’s dentistry bills to get over and we’re fine.

Parents do what they have to in order to cope with the immense strain, frustration and tedium of raising children, for the 85% of the time when those kids aren’t just being ‘wonderful’. Its not getting them addicted that changes but only what you get them addicted to.

I’m still addicted to sugar, but it now shares my time with watching sport. And the rugby’s about to start.

Happy saturday

A xxxx

Barcelona is moving. All of it. To Chelmsford.

Ok, I read that wrongly. Barcelona football club are rebuilding their stadium, the Camp Nou. Which loosely translates from the ancient Catalan dialect as ‘you’re very likely going to lose here’. Already the largest football-only stadium in the world, they want it bigger, better, nicer, more Barcelona-ish. And why not. They are (prepare for a very big and profound statement:) the biggest and best football team in the whole world.

I visited the Nou Camp a few years ago. There was no match on so Mel made me take the tour. Which was very slow as she had to keep dragging me off my knees as I worshipped at the alter of pure football every time I realised where I was. I prostrated myself upon that haloed ground in supplication. For a lover of football Barcelona is Mecca. It is heaven. Jerusalem. White Hart Lane. But in the sunshine. And bigger. Much, much bigger.

And hard to believe that that wonderful stadium was built in 1950, such is its state-of-the-artness and impressiveness. But they want to increase it to 105,000 seats and other odds and ends, so they’re planning a rebuild.

But they are Barcelona. They don’t just find an Oligarch in the nearest upmarket brothel and get him to part with a few hundred mil, they’re not like that. Nor would they go courting an Emirate for stadium and shirt shit. They’re owned by their members who all get to vote on such matters. 100,000 of them. The new stadium will be called Camp Nou. Maybe Camp Nou-er. But not The Saudi Arabian Airlines. Nor Tescos, Sports Direct, The Fatwa or The Wonga. They are not Chelsea or Manchester City.

Best of all, the cheapest season ticket to see the greatest football played every week by the greatest club, costs 500 Euros. Not even one of our English ‘monkeys’. The best ticket is 1000 Euros. Half what the equivalent costs to watch Real Madrid. And about a third of what it costs to endure Spurs’ yearly quest for self-destruction.

All is not total perfection in Barca. There’s the Neymar ‘scandal’ where it appears the little Brazillian was acquired by much dodgy dealing and consequent tax evasion. Which resulted in the departure of the club president. But its hardly Harry Rednap.

So we now await the members’ vote to see if, by 2020, the rebuild will come about. The stadium is already Barcelona’s second largest tourist attraction and they want to double the tour capacity so that Gaudi’s cathedral can become the booby prize for those who can’t get tickets for the stadium tour.

I’m so happy to be a Barcelona fan. Can you just imagine how depressing it would be to support a team like… like Spurs, for instance? Jesus. All that disappointment, all that upset. That would be just totally FUCKING AWFUL.

Happy Friday

A xxxx