Andy's Glasses

Its a faith thing. Trust. Belief. Devotion. Hope.

But mainly trust.

Unfortunately, God wasn’t available when AVB was sacked so we’ve got Tim Sherwood instead. Same difference.

Obviously Tim is not the holy of holies, he’s not the Divine Creator of All Eternity!, he’s not the Master of the Universe. I appreciate all that.
Furthermore, the real God would never support Arsenal.

But Tim’s what we’ve got, so we must trust him. And I really really believe that.

We’ve had shitty managers, we’ve had good managers, we’ve even had some truly great managers at Spurs, but when they’re with us I want to keep them. Because what I really believe in is the managerial system. That you (the club; I often forget that I don’t actually get a vote even though I’m the most important fan EVER) employ a man to run the team and then you let him do it for the very reasons you selected him, in the way he said he would. And you don’t hinder the manager, nor compromise his autonomy by appointing a ‘director of football’, an ironic title because they have precious little to do with the actual playing of the game. And when you have a chairman as active in all transfers as Daniel Levy, the last thing needed is someone else trying to justify an exorbitant salary and his place in the world.

So, much as I dearly loved Glen Hoddle, adored Martin Jol, loathed Jacques Santini and George Graham, worshipped Bill Nicholson and Keith Burkinshaw, I am totally indifferent to Tim Sherwood as a person. Yet I’ll stand by his every move because I am loyal and supportive to ‘the Manager’ whoever that incumbent may be. I’m like a fucking labrador in a Spurs hat.

So we won yesterday. Brilliant. Struggled to beat the bottom team in the league. But who cares? Free points is free points. We’ll take ’em to the bank.
Unspectacular? So what. Unconvincing? I’m convinced. Undeserving? You don’t always get what you deserve, and that can be for the better as well as worse.

Sam Allardyce is in a ‘skin-of-the-teeth’ situation at West Ham, David Moyes having a very shaky start at Man United, I’m worried for Gus Poyet’s sanity (never started from a high baseline in the first place) and about 6 managers have already gone this year.

Have some faith. Have some trust.

And have a lovely Sunday. I hope the ice melts in time for your tennis game, unlike mine.

A xxxx

They found 14,000 people worldwide and asked them who they most admired.

I didn’t even come in the top 96. Bastards.

Bill Gates came top. Obama was 3rd or 4th, the highest Brit was Stephen Hawking in 16th, his wheelchair came 17th.

Amoung Britains, the Queen was first, again there was no mention of me, but Cameron was very very low, after Ronnie Biggs, Emanuel Adebayor, Del-Boy and Angela Merkel. Ed Milliband didn’t make the list at all. Apparently his own wife voted for David Milliband.

Very few women were on the list. Which is odd. But depends who’s voting and how you define ‘admiration’.

Amoung Russians Putin came out on top. Surprise. Amoung North Koreans 98% voted Kim Jung Un as number 1.
2% were exectued at dawn.

My top ten:

1. Me (cos I’m worth it)
2. Me Dad (cos he’s amazing)
3. Larry my Tai Chi instructor (only cos if I don’t put him in he knows 977 ways to hurt me very very badly)
4. Jennifer Lawrence
5. Gylfi Sigurdsson
6. Kim Jong Un (funniest man alive)
7. Jennifer Lawrence (I know, but why not?)
8. Batman
9. Nick Clegg (2nd funniest man alive)
10. Francoise Holllande

Yes, the French president just sneaks in as a (very) late entry. My list yesterday morning wouldn’t have included the sorry socialiste under any circimstances, the man who’s done more for France than any man since Hitler invaded in nineteen forty-something. A president so useless, so clueless, so inept and disastrous that they’re considering bringing the guillotine out of mothballs.

But yeterday they published photos of him going round to his lover. On a motor scooter. Sadly (and for a rather sad man to start with, that represents new levels of sadness) he was on the back of the scooter, riding pillion. Tart.

Yet this is not his ‘lover’ in a Valerie Trieweiller kind of way; she’s more his ‘main bitch’, with whom he lives. Well, with whom he lived, until yesterday at least. This is a new ‘other woman’. The position held by Mdme Trieweiller when Hollande was married to Segolene Royale. You keeping up with this???

New bird is Julie Gayet who is French. And married to an Argentinian. Who is probably, in turn, shagging someone else’s wife, to keep up moral standards in the Gallic nation.

French presidents have a serious history of mistresses and lovers. Its possibly worth taking the job for that alone. At least they do it properly. No nation does adultery better. When John Major decided upon his constitutional right of a ‘friend with benefits’ he chose Edwina Curry. The man was fucking clueless in every respect.

So respect for Hollande. At least he’s got hisself a nice babe.

Happy saturday

A xxxx

Thomas Hitzlsperger is gay.

He ‘came out’ the other day, having now retired from professional football due to health reasons. If playing for West Ham can be considered ‘professional football’. I don’t know how you’d describe what the Hammers do currently, but ‘football’ would not readily be the term that springs to mind.

Thomas didn’t come out whilst still playing the game. Whereas a real man would have done. I think that needs a moment to ponder.

Its only the fourth time this has happened in football.

Justin Fashanu came out then killed himself tragically.

John Terry and Frank Lampard have been lovers for years.
And now Tommy the German.

The entire Arsenal football team, and most of its supporters are famously gay too, but haven’t collectively ‘come out’ just yet.

So Tommy Hitlsperger. Why is it a big deal, front page news, messages of support, write-ups, comment. Why does it even justify mention? When the gay rights act was passed in 1847, (just a few years before Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for sodomy, so maybe the dates need attention), when gay marriage is just upon us, when equality rules the land, equal opportunity for all and a legislative lack of discrimination to all mankind except Romanians?

Because its football.

Actors can be gay. In fact they should be. Singers, lawyers, accountants, certainly management consultants, designers (can’t get the qualification otherwise), and don’t even start on the clergy. Its about freedom of sexuality. As opposed to free sex which is different, very rare and worth keeping quiet about.

So why not in football?

Because football is an anachronism. Its in a time warp. One in which racism still exists and needs constant monitoring and vigilance; where sexism is rife and where sexuality is viewed through the eyes of, basically, an unevolved caveman whose had 7 pints of Stella. A world where fighting is acceptable behavior, where abuse and swearing are the lingua franca, both on the pitch and off.

Though really I think the issue here may also be more a pragmatic one. As it is with that other bastion of knuckle-dragginess, the army. And its all about close proximity, extreme physical contact and showering together. Management consultants seldom get to partake of this activity but footballers, and rugby players too, often do. And that’s the bit where it gets a bit ‘eeuuuw’. Even for an ultra-post-modern, neo-metrosexual uber-mensch like me, who should know better.

Football needs to come into the 19th century (we’ll work out the rest slowly, slowly) and get over itself. Macho is so 1973.

Happy friday

A xxxx

New Years here. In case you missed it while I was away. Its a time for making (hollow) promises, for resolutions destined never to make it til February, for turning over a new leaf. And, like all new leaves, it will turn brown, fall off and be swept away with one of those horrible 2-stroke blower things at the hands of a Lithuanian called Guri.

And this years prominent resolution would appear to be ‘weather’. Nothing more, no explanation; just ‘weather’. Lots of it.

We left Mexico in a deluge of biblical proportions, a massive tropical storm, of which there had been many in our brief stay there. And we returned to an England under a continuing bombardment of its own storms. Flooding, river banks bursting, water, water everywhere.

Whilst America has frozen over. Just like in the movie ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, a big freeze. Hell hath indeed frozen over. And where’s Jake Gyllenhall when you really need him?

Here’s my New Year’s Resolutions: (I’ve tried for goals that are achievable):

Increase my alcohol consumption to meet government minimum standards
Eat more sugar
Eat more chocolate
Exercise less
Be more of a slob
Watch more sport on tv
Get lots of chocolate

Though if you do buy chocolate, don’t get it in the Duty Free.

Bottle of vodka; 18 quid in Sainsburys, 12 quid in the Duty Free. Bargain.

200 cigarettes (for those of YOU who still use such things) 35 quid in the D/free, or £600 in the local shop. Bargain.

But a pack full of Kit Kats; £14 in the Duty Free, probably about £2.60 in Tescos.
Big bar of Cadburys, retail price £2.50, sells in the Duty Free for $47

So is there some kind of ‘reverse duty’ on chocolate, some kind of subsidy? so that removal of duty actually increases the cost? Is that possible? Is that legal? Its certainly immoral to charge more for chocolate than is absolutely necessary.

And the most important resolution of all this year: IGNORE ALL DIETARY ADVICE.
The 5-2 has become the 4-3.
Sugar will still kill you but they’ve found more, hidden everywhere, secret sugar, like a midnight feast lying under the bedclothes waiting for parents to sleep. Bottled water contains 14 teaspoons of sugar. Fresh air; 19 gms per cubic litre, its everywhere. An epidemic. Sugar is the new heroin, the new antichrist, its communism for the new millennium.

I just ate a banana. Better go find a stomach pump.

Happy thursday (thursdays contain 12 gms more sugar than tuesdays, proven fact. Avoid them!)

A xxxx

“Chelsea don’t harbour divers.”

Thus spake Jose Morinho, everyone’s favourite Portuguezer now that poor (not very) old Eusebio has gone to play in the great stadium in the sky.

Odd then, that sixteen Chelsa players have been booked in the last 3 games for ‘simulation’. I think the problem is that players in general but Chelsea players specifically, have no idea what ‘simulation’ means so they keep on diving, thinking its something else altogether.

FYI; simulation is nothing to do with a clitoris.

But never mind because Chelsea’s finances have never looked better. Brilliant year they had, making such a massive profit (errrr, a loss of £49 million) that they are well within the ‘Fair Play’ rules and regulations. Great stuff, long may it continue.

If you can make such an incredible loss (due to the twin evils of the modern game: overpaying for players, overspending on wages) which the Fair Play rules were set up specifically to combat, and be declared ‘ok’ and ‘sound’, then why fucking bother the pretence at all. Cos its all bollox and Abramovich just keeps writing out cheques.

Eusebio was our favourite footballer not because he was brilliant, not because he scored shit-loads of goals for club and country, not because of the honours he won. No, he was ‘one of the best ever’ because of the spirit in which he played the game. Maybe it was a zeitgiest thing and current players lack both the conduct and comraderie and also the enjoyment of the game itself (as opposed to the riches it can bring). Ronaldo may be a better player, scorer of more goals, winner of more things, but he’s a vain and selfish preening ponce of a poseur who thinks ‘Humility’ is a new fragrance by Calvin Klein.

Meanwhile, Adam Lallana used to be such a nice boy. Until about 4 weeks ago when he got an England call-up and turned himself into a hybrid of all the worst parts of Wayne Rooney and Ronaldo. So the ref told him so, and now faces investigation by the FA. Which is actually funny. Players, like Rooney, can constantly be seen calling refs all kinds of truly vile, foul and insulting things. All Mark Clattenberg said was ‘you used be a nicer guy’. And Lallana ran off to his agents, in-house lawyers, image consultants and advisers to see if action could be taken against such horrific persecution. Though the good news for Adam Lallana and Southampton football club is that they share this week’s ‘Tosser of the week’ award. So congratulations to them.

We don’t talk about cricket, we wil NOT mention Spurs and, out of the goodness of my heart, I won’t speak of West Ham either.

I’m coming home, England, and I really missed you. Like a… er…. hmmm…

Happy monday

A xxxx

I love sports. But hate exercise. In that I like doing things that involve others in a sporting situation but doing it on my own is like some form of mastubatory unfulfilment. I think its the trash talk I miss. I find it most unrewarding to sit in front of the mirrors at the gym insulting myself. And ‘exercise’ is just another way of saying ‘repetitive boredom’. All about discipline. And who needs that?

So I don’t go.

Normally.

But these aren’t normal times.

I’m on holiday. Until monday at least. So there’s no tennis. I did swim in the mornings then acquired a dastardly Mexican ear infection, so other than walking along the beach daily there was very little to counter the vastly increased food and drink intake.

So we went to the gym. Which is very much like an English gym except the instructions are in Spanish. And there’s tortillas in little dishes around the place. If only.

I went on the cycle machine; that was fine, if really, mind-numbingly, shout-out-loud fucking boring.

I went on the cross trainer. And it made me cross. So that must be working then.

And I went on the worst of all, the devil’s own workout tool; the running machine.

I set it on 7 miles an hour, or kilometres per taco, or nuclear decompositions per Iranian Presidency, and jogged at a nice leisurely pace. And jogged, and jogged. For 6 hours solid. Though my watch told me it had actually been 3.2 minutes. I watched the tv screen. Football. Zenit St Petersburg vs Vienna. Great. My favourite teams. But ‘any port in a storm’ and it was a welcome distraction. Zenit scored. Great goal. Wow, fab.

And I’m laid out on the floor on my nose behind the running machine.

No-one told me that even when a goal is scored, its probably best not to slow down or stop running.

And have you noticed how many really overweight people there are in gyms? Loads of them. Therefore gyms actually make you fat. So I’m not going any more. Its detrimental to my fitness. I’ll just end up a great fat bastard with a broken nose.

Last day of holiday,

the sun is calling

Happy monday

A xxxx

I’m going to Denver.

Colorado just this week legalised the use of cannabis for ‘recreational use’. Like 4 x 4 driving in the mountains; you can now do it stoned out of your box. Or deep-sea diving, marlin fishing, sailing or skiing. All recreations now to be greatly enhanced by smoking dope. Though good luck finding marlin in Colorado.

Much easier just to roll yourself a big one and turn on the National Geographic channel on tv. Marlin or not, that’ll take a good three hours of your life and you’ll have forgotten about marlin by the time the first advert for Doritos or Burger King comes on.

The legalisation of dope has always been an interesting question. Unless you’re Peter Hitchens who truly believes in his heart of hearts that the first puff of your first joint will take you straight to the psychosis ward, never to recover.

For normal people though, the ‘odd toke’ is just part of growing up, like your first time drunk as a skunk, your first fumbled sexual adventures, your first two marriages or your first 3-some with a nun and a donkey.

Bill Clinton did it (though ‘didn’t inhale’; like he didn’t ‘have sex’ with Monica Lewinsky), Tony Blair must have done it a lot to have ended up with Cherie, Ed Milliband, David Cameron, Prince Philip, The Archbishop of Canterbury, all stoners in their day.

And why not. It wasn’t so long ago that the demon drink was an illegal substance in America. Didn’t stop anyone drinking the stuff, just made the stuff they did drink far more likely to do everlasting harm. Instead of Smirnoff they’d drink ‘moonshine’ made by JFK’s grandaddy out of elderberries, used engine oil and distilled cow-dung.

So at least legalising it means having some control of the quality. Though not necessarily the strength.

The dope we smoked in the 70s and 80s had a ‘thc’ value of about 4. The shit they smoke today is up in the 30s. Which is a bit like comparing a green pepper with a habanjero chilli.

But heh; kids are going to smoke it anyway, and plenty of adults too. If you ‘need’ to get off your face then the only other option is hitting the bottle, which generally leads to hitting people with the bottle afterwards, throwing up, smashing up the town centre, fighting, being abusive, aggressive and a fucking nuisance all round, plus becoming an alcoholic and ruining your liver.

Whereas no proper stoner ever smashed up the centre of Harlow on a friday night. In fact they didn’t do anything more than stare at the walls, get really, really REALLY into some really really bad music and empty the fridge and larder.

So I vote a big ‘yes’. Even though it was not an election and I’ve never even been to Colorado so wouldn’t have had the vote if it had been.

Happy Saturday, maaaaan…

A xxxx

If you’re going on a nudist holiday, what do you pack in your suitcase?

The answer is: suncream. Loads of suncream. Very powerful, factor 250, viagra flavoured suncream.

When you walk along our beach here to the eastern (or possibly western, I have no idea, no clue and absolutely no desire to find out) extreme, you come across a rope barrier and a sign:

‘Nudist Beach; don’t cross over if this will offend you.’

Willy Beach. As I call it.

And to seasoned European travellers, this is no shock, no surprise, nothing new. Every beach in Europe has a ‘naturist’ section. Where we keep the fat naked Germans. And their knackwurst.

Topless bathing is de rigeur in France, Italy, Spain and nudist sections appear for the broad-minded exhibitionists who like to dangle in pubic. Sorry, public.

But this is not Europe. This is, to all intents and purposes, America. Where they don’t have topless sunbathing, they don’t do nudity, they maintain a prudish presbyterian puritanism that precludes publicly prancing penises and bare breasts. (I ran out of ‘p’s).

Many years ago we were on a beach in Cape Cod. It had been raining and then was suddenly lovely so we parked at a completely empty beach. Natalie was 4 and ran to the beach in her bikini bottoms. Rachie was 15 months and didn’t do anything really.
A life guard appeared out of nowhere to inform me that ‘topless bathing is illegal on the beaches of Massachusetts, so could I please cover my daughter’.

Ahhhh, I thought, this is finally proof that Americans can do ‘ironic’ when they choose and this is like a joke? Like a joke, but without the funny bit. Cos he wasn’t laughing when I did. He was the most earnest young man since Brigham Young.

‘But she’s four years old’ I informed him, in case he’d mistaken her for a 28 year old babe with a chest.
‘Yes, but she’s topless’.
‘Fucking right she’s topless; why wouldn’t she be???’

So rather than incur the wrath of the Massachusetts legal teams, I took off my shorts and covered her top half.

If only.

So how can Mexico get away with nudism without upsetting its major source of income?
And you can’t help but think that this is Bangkok syndrome all over again, where a fine, moral and beautiful place is raped, plundered and pillaged to provide what Americans want to have, but not in their own home.

This place is probably choc full of Bostonians running around with drinks in their hands and no clothes on.

Hypocrites.

Happy 2014

A xxxx

How is it a ‘tropical paradise’ if you can’t get Sky Sports 1??

You can eat as many meals as you like, drink all the Mai Tais and Mojitos, walk as many beers along the beach as your heart desires (not sure incessant beer-drinking when already 14 stone overweight is good for your heart anyway: I’ll check on that) but if Spurs are playing Manchester United it simply needs to be seen.

It wasn’t on in the rooms; didn’t have the channel. I went to the gym (yep, THAT fucking desperate) but it wasn’t’ on all the screens there and I was getting frantic.

Though ‘frantic’ round here is not the same as it is back home. Round here frantic is having to turn over to even up the suntan. Frantic is having to walk 40 yards to the next bar because this one’s run out of ice. Running out of tequila would be beyond frantic; that would be a NATIONAL DISASTER.

Anyway, finally heard that there was a screen here showing the match and I duly pitched up (at the Teens Club, funny I’d never found that building before) to find 6 Spurs fans and one ‘just like football, me’ which I read as ‘never spent this long with my girlfriend before and its FUCKING SUFFOCATING ME so I had to get away’.

And Spurs went 2-0 up as I walked in the door. And I cried. Before the first person had time to shout ‘stop that ya fucking girl’ Man United had pulled a goal back. Creating every Spurs fan’s favourite; the 25 minute panic. Can we hold on? Can we stifle?? Could we get a third goal? No to that one, very unlikely as we’d kind of chanced upon the first two out of nothing and it would be most unlikely to get a third. So we enter ‘HOW-LONG-LEFT? TIME’. And its horrible.

Manchester United had numerous penalty appeals turned down by the ref. To which David Moyes was indignant and appalled and felt cheated and held the referee personally responsible for the loss.

TOSSSSERRRRRRR.

You don’t lose matches because of penalty appeals rejected, Davey-boy, you lose because you don’t score sufficient goals to win. And although referees give more penalties to United at Old Trafford, its a bit much to just expect one to come along when you need one and ask the ref nicely.

Furthermore, if three Spurs players had pulled Ashley Young to the ground and ceremonially disembowelled him in their penalty area, the penalty would not have been given. Such is the little diving, simulating, cheating shit’s reputation that he could not buy a penalty for all the money in a Far East gambling syndicate. His reputation somewhat precedes him.

We held on, like we did in the same fixture last year, and continued our amazing away record and ‘kept in touch’ pointwise. All we can hope to do.

I left the teens club and had a new spring in my step. The flowers looked brighter, the sun shinier, the leaves greener, the air clearer. The world was just a better place to be in.

I love 2014 already,

Happy thursday

A xxxx

Men are brave.
Right??
I mean, if we gave birth we’d do it in the pub whilst playing darts. Or at White Hart Lane on match-day. Right??

No, probably not.

Men are ‘brave’ but mainly only in really stupid ways that run so contrary to any form of common sense that you could replace ‘brave’ with ‘dumb’ and would lose no meaning.

Douglas Bader lost both his legs but got straight (almost) back into his Spitfire to go back to fight the bloody Lufthansa. Sorry, Luftwaffe. Brave.

John Cleese’s Black Night in Holy Grail? Can’t get much braver than that.

Arnie Schwartzenneger’s Terminator lost all its metal limbs, most of its printed circuitry, was running on ‘auxilliary power’, with one flashing red eye and half a hand, yet managed to last long enough to shoot that mutherfucker other Terminator. Wow. Brave. And although the pedantic and anal may think that a cyborg is not exactly a ‘man’ in the usual sense of the word, I’m going to apply the official post-feminist, PC definition in this case; that if it ain’t got tits it ain’t a gel.

Morover, that poor, wreck of Cyborg stood as a metaphor for all that is great about manliness. And he didn’t even drink beer.

Ok, I’m man ergo I’m brave.

So I’d ‘die for you’, lay my life on the line, take one for the team, stand in the way of the bullet, blah, blah, testosterone-blah.

But if it hurts, mummy, I don’t like it.

Yesterday morning I was being my usual hero, in a pilates class on the beach. Something ‘went’ in my left knee. Holy shit. Painful, searing, agony. Inability to bend it more than 82 degrees (yes, I measured it so I could assess any later progress of the probably terminal lesion, haemorhage, tumour, thrombosis). So walking was fine, bending it beyond that and HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT HURTS.

Having played football (at a brilliantly high standard… ish) for years and years, I’d never suffered with knees as everyone else did/still does. No, shoulder’s shit, back’s bad, knees not just fine but downright gorgeous.

And now, its agony to bend.
So this was my (typically heroic, non-over-reactionary, very logical) thought pattern:

Fuck
won’t be able to play tennis
nor swim tomorrow
going skiing in feb, have to cancel
more ‘fuck’
could be bad,
amputation below the thigh
peg-leg
pirate
parrott
Pistorius

So one twinge and the next thing I’m an Afrikaaner blade-running murderer.

Though agony it indeed was. Though 3 hours later, the pain just went; gone, all normal, bendy, fine and dandy. How bizarre.

Happy heroic 2014

A xxxx