Andy's Glasses

Interesting experience the other night. I went to see ‘Warhorse’.

Oh, I hear you enquire, the play? Or the movie??

Well that’s an interesting question… what did I see…

I saw the plovie. Or the plilm. Maybe the Flay.

The play was on at the National and they had a live link to various cinemas across the land (and other parts of Europe too, probably ones where they speak English) so we watched the play ‘live’ on the screen at the Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley.

Well then, that’s the best of all possible worlds then, surely?

Hmmmm…

The problem is that plays and movies, even when both tell the same story, are totally different things. Doh. Like, one’s a, errrrrr, play and the other… hmmmm.

But its not just about a story; its about the experience. And at the theatre, what (generally) captivates is the live performance aspect, the subtle but definite interaction between cast and audience. And for that high degree of captivation the ‘action’ is understandably less important. Which is good. You wouldn’t put Top Gun on as a play. Movies ‘move’. Nor would you make a movie of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ starring Arnold Schwartzenegger. Therefore the lack of direct link between cast and audience is not there in films but there’s so much shit happening in fast and furious manner that its all fine.

We had the worst of all possible worlds. No interaction with the actors and a film that didn’t move.

But Warhorse. Ahhhh, Warhorse. We mustn’t let the cross-media failure affect the most talked about/ watched/ sold out play since the Bible. Or was it Mouse Trap? Anyway, Warhorse.

Its a brilliant story of a retarded boy… what? he’s not retarded? Oh, sorry, well he’s from Dorset, same difference. Anyway, its a love story between this boy and a pantomime horse. In rural circles this is not just acceptable but quite common. All those cold nights in the hay, blah, blah, blah. And then it goes on… and on… and he trains his young horsey, and then it gets bigger and goes to war and on, and on, and on… and then they meet up again and ride off into the sunset once more, back in Dorset where men are men. Unless they are half of a pantomime horse.

Fab play. Or film. Whatever.

Not an experience to repeat. Unless its a really good looking pantomime horse.

Happy thursday

A xxxx

…lend me your ears. I come to praise Bob, not to bury him. The evil that men do lives after them…

Ever since Mark Anthony made that speech it has become the benchmark for eulogies. Particularly hypocritical ones made by 2-faced bastards who never had a good thing to say about someone until they die and then paint them as saintly. And by ‘hypocrites’ of course I mean ‘the press’. And politicians too, of course. Yet in Caesar’s day there were no trade unions. The RMT didn’t cover chariot drivers and the gladiators had very little representation. ‘Collective bargaining’ back then involved swords, spears and loads of blood. Because although the Romans invented democracy, they were very selective about who used it.

Yet Bob Crow, the leader of the most powerful, militant, some might say ‘horrific’ trade union in the land, certainly for Londoners as it controlled the tube lines, drivers and trains, has been elevated, in the hours since his death, as a god among working men, a hero, a powerful and stubborn negotiator, a man of intelligence and style, a statesman, diplomat, gay icon, fashion statement, celebrity chef, pop hero and all round great guy.

Which of course he wasn’t. He was just plain horrible. Nasty, aggressive and worst of all, a Millwall fan. He caused chaos with his approach to his union which was to strike at every opportunity.

There’ll be thousands of train staff crying at his funeral. They can afford to take the day off. They are the highest paid workers in the land, if not the world. 37-hour working weeks, 7 weeks holiday a year, great pensions, loads of overtime. They’ll be the ones driving Jags to the cemetery. Because Bob stopped at nothing to get the absolute best for his ‘boys’. Nothing. And consequently will be remembered as their hero. Like the traffic warden who gave the most parking tickets and had the most cars towed away; a hero in his own world. Though not necessarily in ours.

Bob Crow; he certainly did his job.

But how do you lose a plane? How is that possible?? Planes are tracked, followed electronically, they interract with beacons, with satellites, with air traffic contollers on their path to their destination. Two stolen passports can’t make a plane disappear. David Blaine probably could. But he wasn’t on the flight. The passports are a red herring.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was eaten by a giant squid. It was tractor-beamed to a mother-ship by aliens. It was blown up by terrorists who then when back and picked up ALL the pieces.

If you want to lose a plane, just put it over there, on the table with my phone, car keys and wallet. Then it can get lost. Almost guaranteed. Otherwise, IT MUST BE SOMEWHERE.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Charles Darwin. What a tosser, eh? Bloody twit. Didn’t know nuffink about nuffink. Because some bird in Australia found that female birds sing as well as male birds. And I’m not talking about Beyonce here, nor Rhianna. Real ‘birds’, lesser-spotted thingumies and red-throated whatevers. Can you bloody adam’n’eve it? Who’d’a thought??

In his seminal work, (there’s nothing rude about that word, it has nothing to do with fluid, nor watching porn; Darwin died in 1882, a hundred years to the day before the website www.bimbo-slackers.com was even invented), On the Origin of Species, Darwin, as well as shattering literal creationist theories about the world being made in 6 days just over a few thousand years ago, our Charles elaborated to ideas of ‘sexual selection’. The factors in animals (amongst whom we all count; well you do, most certainly, I’ve seen you eat) which are differentiated between the sexes of a species specifically to attract a mate/mates. Darwin uses the word ‘mates’ in a context nothing to do with ‘people you go drinking with or play football with’.

And he noted that male birds are generally brighter in colour, have longer and/or more elaborate tail feathers and sing more complex tunes than their duller, drabber, shorter-tailed female counterparts, who also generally sing more like Victoria Beckham than the males’ more Elvis type chirruping. In fact Darwin thought the females of most species didn’t sing at all. Because its all about ‘show-biz’. The males display and sing to attract mates (in a ‘shaggable’ way). In much the same way as drunk Japanese business executives sing ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ at the karaoke bar to try and impress women. And whereas these stupid Jon Bon Jovi wannabees generally fail to impress anybody, male birds who sing well definitely get the best birds.

That was the theory. And its still true. But lady-birds sing as well, according to an Aussie woman with nothing better to do than study over 1100 species of the things. And sing quite well. Apparently to protect their nests, to claim territory, to support their Aussie-rules football teams. But that’s not sexual selection, more a social thing. Ok. Let’s be nit-picky then.

The headline ran: ‘Darwin proved wrong!!!!’ For that alone I feel we should disown Australia, cut it off from the Empire and give it back to the Aborigones. If this so-called ‘scientist’ was any good at anything she’d be on Home & Away with all the really good looking Aussie babes. But she’s not. She’s out there in the relentless heat listening to bloody birds singing so she can try and discredit one of perhaps the top 5 true geniuses of all time. (Einstein, Newton, Darwin, Glen Hoddle, Pele).

Darwin’s theory changed the world. To pick a little hole in some of his data is fine, but to use it to try and discredit the man is unworhty and downright low.

I’m going to sing Suspicious Minds now on my karaoke machine. God help us all.

Happy tuesday

A xxxx

Poor Uncle Cyril. One day he was right as ninepence, the next he took ill and a day later he died. He was 82 and ka-boom. Such is life, such is death. For those left behind, it was sudden, unprepared for, shocking. As my father (his older brother) said, when I told him: ‘great way to go’. No suffering, no long-term misery, no hospital food, no disappointment that the nurses who should look at very least like Barbara Windsor in Carry on Doctor, if not like the full Jenny Agutter in American Wearwolf, instead look like great fat Lithuanian farm girls. Who, in turn resemble (both in stature and temperment as well as compassion) the cattle they once tended back in the motherland.

So this morning, arguably the finest tennis morning in the whole history of forever, I want to the cemetery for a consecration cermony some six months after Uncle Cyril walked the dog for the last time.

And how appropriate to be at that place of such symbolic finality. Where ‘the end’ is so represented. The place where the future is buried. For there, I took a moment to have my own metaphorical internment. And over my little hole in the ground I invented a new prayer. An unusual prayer really in that it used the word ‘fuck!!!!’ 19 times, the word ‘bollox!’ 8 times and the word ‘shit!!’ 5 times. And it was only 42 words long in total. Short for a prayer, but long on feeling and emotion. And profanity.

Into that little hole, locked into an empty box (I borrowed the trophy cabinet from the Emirates, ha, ha, haaaaa), I buried any lingering hopes, dreams and aspirations for Spurs season. Which died yesterday at Stamford Bridge. Died quickly (ish) and with extreme and agonising brutality. And really, dodgy refereeing decisions aside, it was suicide. Killed by our own hands. Or feet. A tragic and hapless display of capitulation to a team who weren’t even playing that well. Whether going down to 10 men so soon after conceding the first and consequent second goal was relevent we shall never know. Kabul went, heads dropped, and we conspired to just keep giving them goals.

But on the bright side… is there a bright side?? Yes, there’ always the UEFA cup. Possibly, with Manchester United false dawning once more, might be our only chance for any European football next season.

Rest in peace.

Happy Sunday. Phah! Even though its the most lovely day ever.

A xxxx

what a great headline that is. Apropos of nothing, but I’ll save it for use in the not too distant future.

And although Crimea specifically, Ukraine generally and Russia horribly is on our minds and in our thoughts, there is simply too much amazing sport this weekend to expend too much mental energy on mere geopolitics.

There’s a whole bunch of football matches on today at 3, but they’re not of much consequence. Because at 5.30 Spurs are at Chelsea. Good versus evil. The Righteous against The Damned. The powers of light against the purveyors of darkness. And the game is so important, not just on a moral level, not just for the good of all mankind and the future of civilised humanity, but even on footballing grounds. So important that every Arsenal fan is willing Spurs to win. All fans of Liverpool, of Manchester City will temporarily be putting on their Spurs shirts and rooting for my team. Even though we actually hate the lot of them and don’t want or need their fickle, insincere and self-serving support.

To win at Chelsea is ‘a big ask’. Its like a Ukranian Grandma in a wheelchair invading Russia. Because here’s few horrible statistics about Spurs and Chelsea.

We haven’t won at Stamford Bridge since 1990 when Gary Linneker scored the winner. And that’s 26 games ago. Even more scary: Chelsea have never lost in the league at home under Jose Morinho. Never. Though I was at Stamford Bridge one night to see Chelsea lose to Charlton on penalties in a League Cup match, and very nice it was too. But heh; statistics have no predictive value, they only analyse the past. And I’m holding on to that thought as if my life depended on it.

All we have to do is prevent the most lethal attacking force in the country (apologies to Liverpool fans with delusions of grandeur, but they are) from scoring, whilst trying to break through the most impenetrable defence there is. Unless David Luiz is playing at centre back which makes them more vulnerable, then the bastard scores a couple from 45 yards out.

But our away form is great. Well, it was until Norwich. Though Chelsea are no Norwich. No. Chelsea are a really good team.

Tomorrow England play rugby against Wales to decide the 6 Nations trophy. Winner takes all, loser takes comfort from his loved ones, if he still has any after losing. Massive game. Played by massive blokes.

Great weekend. Even the weather’s great.

Great.

Have a good one

A xxxx

In the 60s there was a tv show called ‘Dixon of Dock Green’. Arguably the first ever ‘cop show’ on’t telly. This was no Starsky and Hutch, this fell way short of CSI, lacked the legal intrigues of Homicide and the fly-on-the-wall gritty feel of Hill Street Blues. In fact, I think it safe to say that Dixon of Dock Green was the dullest, most mundane, drab, boring, tedious and unexciting show ever to reach the sreens. Until Big Brother came along, of course, and redefined ‘fucking mindless NOTHING!!!!!’ for the post millenial generation. Dixon never did flashy wheel-spins; his bike wasn’t up to it, nor his legs. No gun was ever fired, other than at an errant fox (presumably one that the dogs missed as this was rural Britain in pre-hunt-ban days) and there were no drugs, pimps, ‘hos’ or even any dark-skinned people of any type. Which wasn’t the racism we now know to be epidemic both in the police force and in the representation of stereotypes during later tv years, but merely a reflection of English Country demographics in the 60s.

I hated ‘Dixon’, the show, because it was soooooooo boring. But I loved ‘Dixon’ the man because he was like a PR film for the English Bobby. He rode round on said bike, pulling cats out of trees, helping people get back into houses after locking themselvs out, smiling, helping old ladies across busy roads (busy roads; rural England… busy-ish roads) and once in a while apprehending not just petty criminals but really really petty criminals. ‘Feeling their collars’. ‘You’re nicked, son’. At which point they’d give up and say ‘oh, its a fair cop’ and await handcuffing like true gentlemen. And Dixon, about 80 years old and incapable of any physical action more demanding than lifting a cuppa tea, woud oblige.

He was the definitive gentleman at all times. He never swore, spit, lost his temper, shagged someone else’s wife, wore an earring, got drunk, took drugs, voted Labour or supported Arsenal. He supped his occasional pint of bitter warm, in his ‘local’ and went home to his loving Mrs Dixon of Dock Green every evening for his ‘tea’.

Tosser.

Though really that was how the police wanted to be viewed and how the public really wanted them to be. Decent, honest, trustworthy, dependable. No-one called them plebs, no-one thought they would ever become what they seem to have become today. Institutionally racist, riddled with corruption, spying where they shouldn’t be spying and in many cases acting way above the law. According to the Ellison report.

Interestingly, on BBC’s Question Time last night, from Barking, an exceptionally multi-cultural area, the audience, when asked if the police were trustworthy, were divided in two. White folk thought they were whereas anyone of physically different colour or culture said they definitely weren’t and virtually all had tales to explain why on a personal level.

Ahhhhh, for the perfect world of the 60s…

Yeah, right.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

We beat the Danes last night. At football. Anglos 1, Vikings 0. It was brilliant. We were magnificent. It was truly outstanding…

Ok, it was dull, drab, and we just about beat a team that has Nicklas Bendtner as their star player. So let’s not get too excited about our World Cup prospects, assuming Brazil is finished in time for the games, which is looking more doubtful every week.

Because according to the bookies, England don’t rate a bet. Only if you back rank outsiders and are feeling very lucky.

Germany, Spain, Italy, even frikkin Uruguay (the Suarez effect) are in the favourites, but not England. Brazil, unsurprisingly, are much favoured, and will get stronger as the lack of progress in the stadia progresses. Because all the Brazillians grew up in abject poverty kicking coke cans around building sites. Unfinished grounds will suit them perfectly. The wealthy Europeans generally play better on grass rather than rubble. Even France, the most famous 1,2,3, outers in the modern international game, even they rank in the top dozen. But not us. We’re down with Azerbaijan, Ethiopia and Canada. We are the Faroe Islands of international football. Other than the Faroe Islands themselves, of course. We are like Scotland.

And I so used to love international football. And now I really really don’t. Can hardly get excited about it, until the Spurs players come on, then I love my country like Churchill. He was a politician. Not a footballer. Just in case…
And its not a matter of not winning anything since 1966, its a matter of club football being far more important to most football fans than national games. My main worry for England matches (particularly ‘friendlies’) is a hope that no Spurs players get injured. Watching (Limping-)Jack Wilshere hobble off last night just made it all so real once more. So painful. Though not quite as painful as watching Gareth Bale score for Wales, when I cried real tears.

The answer is simple.

Though to which question?

Ahh, the ‘why are England shit at football when we INVENTED THE BLOODY GAME?????’ question.

Because we allow foreigners to come in and contaminate our league, that’s why. And because all the English kids are sitting at home on their fat little arses, eating doughnuts and watching shit on tv instead of kicking coke cans round building sites. And also because English kids are not Brazilian. Like they should be.

The Spaniards manage to keep a wonderful flow of super new stars coming out of their youth programmes, as do the Germans and even the (loathsome) French. The Belgians have suddenly come forward as a world force, and no-one had even heard of ‘Belgium’ until 6 years ago; wouldn’t have been able to find it on a map of Belgium. So why can’t we produce ‘the future’? We have the best league in the world and yet it contains 87% foreign players.

Ban them all. Other than those playing for Tottenham because they’re lovely and have ’embraced the culture’ (spitting, rape, livin’-it-large, earrings, tattoos…) and therefore are worthy even by UKIP criteria.

Come on England

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

More testing. Always testing. Testing, testing, testing…

This time its in Southern California (thus on geographical grounds is probably doubly worthless) and its about proteins. Ahhh, proteins, the ‘good stuff’. Yeah, well, it used to be. But no longer. It’ll kill ya fucking dead!

“Too much cheese and meat in middle age is recipe for early death” rang the headline. Well I’m fine then. Because I’m not middle-aged. Though I play bridge so I suppose on some level I must be a little bit middle-aged. And that term is a euphemism for ‘old’ anyway.

A cheese and ham sandwich (as well as breaking almost every law of ‘kosher’) is now the Russian Roulette of foods.

Yep, animal proteins, meat and cheese, in vast quantities (is there ever any other way to eat them? particularly in Southern California??) increases your likelihood of death by whatever percent over the norm of however many years that will be. Its all very conclusive and not vague at all.
And fancy publishing that article the week after I return from a trip to France? How dare they?? Not normally a massive cheese eater, my four day ski trip saw me put away about 18 kilos of the stuff. Its everywhere. Cheese fondue, cheese omlettes, pizza, cheese after every meal, in vast quantities. The French even eat it for breakfast. But they would. They’re French. If you smoke 50 untipped Goulouises a day, a bit of dairy fat’s the least of your worries.

So we can’t eat meat and cheese. Obviously carbs are out the question, sugars are the devil’s own food and is in half the fruit and vegetables we used to eat too. So that leaves water, obviously, and… and… errrr…

And chocolate. You can eat as much chocolate as you like because God wouldn’t have invented it if it wasn’t good for you.

Its all crap (eventually I suppose that is very true) and its all just excessive reductionism used to keep an entire industry’s worth of researchers in work. Otherwise they’d be on unemployment (where they should be) eating Cornish Pasties from Gregs and ham and cheese sandwiches and dying young and impoverished.

Reductionism is the paradigm of breaking everything down into smaller and smaller units to try and better understand it. Its a throw-back to the early days of atomic physics where everything was broken down into molecules, then atoms, then electrons and protons, then quarks and all manner of ensuing bollockage which, instead of producing ‘The Answer’ merely provided shitloads more questions that they can’t even answer at CERN, a hundred years and a hundred billion dollars later.

Because when you break things down you remove context and you remove the whole ‘sum is greater than the parts’ concept which is essential to real understanding. The physiological process involved, at a muscular or molecular level in writing your name on a birthday card is absolutely identical to writing it on a check for all the money you have. The same can be said for speaking the words ‘I love you for all eternity’ as opposed to ‘just fuck off and die!’. Identical at an atomic or biological level, slightly different in meaning.

So all reductionism is therefore total garbage. And thus, you have my blessing to eat what the hell you want. And loads of it. Make mine a double.

Happy Wednesday

Kill a scientist today,

A xxxx

The Oscar for the most clinical shooting of a girlfriend is… Pistorius!!!! (Hooray, applause, cheering, whoop, whoop, whooooo).

Poor Blade Runner. An enigma. Either wide eyed and legless victim of his own paranoia who inadvertently shot his dearly beloved to death after an evening of romance and lurve. Or a cold and brutal dictatorial killer with a vicious temper in need of serious anger management counselling. And, er, prison.

There’s two ways to go about this. You can have a long and protracted court case costing zillions of Rands, enriching the lawyers, creating an associated media whirl as its all on tv. Ironically, ‘live’ on tv. As opposed to poor Reeva, who is neither. You can call witnesses, listen to fabricated fictional accounts, cross-examine so confusingly that no-one can work out which way is up, call in ‘expert witnesses’ who speak in useless probabilities, and listen to an account by the perpetrator that has had a year and a bit to be polished, honed and distorted to fit his own needs.

Alternatively you can use my approach. He’s guilty as fuck. Because he looks it and speaks with a horrible South African accent which is like fingernails on a chalkboard in my (sensitive) ears. I actually think all South Africans are guilty of something, its just a matter of finding out precisely what.

How many times have I ‘heard noises in the night’ only to find its my wife’s bladder responsible for the ruckus. But as I roll over, semi-conscious, in bed, I’m kind of aware that she’s not there. Which, if I owned a gun, would probably give me pause before opening fire randomly at imagined ‘intruders’. I’ve managed never to shoot my wife in all our years of marriage. Quite an achievement really. Or would be if I was South African, legs or no legs.

And just as an aside: there’s ‘intruders’ and there’s ‘intruders’. If confronted with a gang of machete-wielding, drunk, Afrikaaner inbred farm-hands I’d grab my AK47 as quick as the next man. But when confronted with a (presumably not completely dressed) gorgeous blond super-model, I might just hold fire. In the literal if not metaphorical sense. Unless there’s some kind of pest problem in that part of the world where there are fucking blonds everywhere; they get stuck in your bloody teeth. Like a plague of supermodels. (I can dream).

At least Russia is more democratic, no ‘law of the gun’ out there. Well, not when everyone’s toeing the line. Soon as someone in the Ukraine says they want to loosen Putin’s vice-like grip on them, up comes the navy, the infantry, the artillery and 125,000 Russian troops are suddenly all on ‘training exercises’ within 200 yards of the Ukraine border. No threat. Nothing to fear. No implication of anything. Just Putin’s boys out for a walk in the snow with 58lbs of gunfire strapped to their backs. No big deal. No need to get all defensive and start changing sides, running away or making a protest. They’re so touchy those Ukrainians. Lucky they’re not armed like the South Africans. Oh, they are, are they. Hmmm…

Happy gun-free Tuesday

A xxxx

you know that funny thing footballers do, when they aren’t very good with one of their feet (you wouldn’t expect two-footedness for just £4million a year, would you?), and they are stuck out on the wrong foot and need to pass? So instead of just kicking it left footedly, they plant their left foot and swing their right foot behind the left and kick in a way which generally results in falling over and the ball going anywhere but where it was intended, and the managers get really pissed off? Well that’s got a name. And its called a ‘rabona’. Which, as everyone knows, means: ‘stupid, vain. Portuguese, show-boating tosser’. Even if you happen to be a Belgian, like Eden Hazard, who performed just such a move on Saturday for Chelsea at Fulham. And odd that the speedy midfield dwarf is normally quite ambi-footstrous, or bi-pedal, or whatever its called. But he chose the ‘rabona’ to impress his manager. Who is generally more impressed with parked buses than flashy and unnecessary footwork.
Hazard wins the Oscar for the best showoff who managed not to fall over.

Whereas his teammate, Oscar, wins the Oscar for best Oscar on the park.

It must have been Belgium’s National Showboat Weekend. Because Jan Vertongen, superstar Spurs defender, performed the Zidane Double Drag-Back move with aplomb against Cardiff. Choosing to do it in a fairly deep, defensive position might have been deemed risky, stupid or downright fucking daft. But only if it failed. Which would have perhaps shown the virtues of defenders ‘sticking their boot through the ball’. But it didn’t fail, it succeeded in spectacular fashion and gave the long-suffering Spurs fans, bored shitless and freezing cold in a dire win at the Lane, something to be happy about. At least for a little while.

Jan wins the Oscar for best supporting leg in a fancy move.

And in the real Oscars, nothing really… well, nothing anything really. All so totally predictable and nice and clean and sanitized and inoffensive and totally Dior and dressy and nice. And nice. As always.
Best foreign film: Schalke 1, Real Madrid 6 (worth watching on youtube just to see how unhappy Ronaldo is when his teammates score)

Best bad language in a foreign land: Wayne Rooney, any Manchester United away match in Europe.

And the Best Movie Oscar went to 12 Years a Spurs Fan. Because Steve McQueen, the director, is one. A big one. Well, he’s quite a big everything. And he walked up the diamond encrusted staircase in his Tottenham 4-Ever scarf. Ok, not in any ‘real’ sense, but he would have if he could. I definitely would have. But again failed to make the invite list. Even though I spend so much going to the cinema.

Best make-up Oscar goes to Ramirez for his Zorro special mask.

Best performance in a swimming cap, as usual, Petr Cech.

Best act of mindless violence: Alan Pardew in The Hopeless Headbutt.
And that concludes this year’s Academy Awards and football results.

Happy monday

A xxxx