Andy's Glasses

Are you intelligent? Then prove it. Do something clever. Right now. Go on. You can’t, can you. No.

Because intelligence is not like that. In fact its not really like anything. You can’t even judge it by behaviour, otherwise you’d have to think Boris Johnson was thick because he acts like a buffoon. And he’s not, he’s very very clever.

There are certain types of behaviour which do indicate strongly a complete lack of intelligence. Like singing “one nil, to the Arsenal” repeatedly. Irredeemably lacking intelligence, even when viewed as some kind of ‘group behaviour’ like lemmings jumping off a cliff. In fact intelligence has been described as ‘the ability to perform well on intelligence tests’. And that’s quite accurate.

And now there’s a whole ‘debate’ (I hate that word; it lacks intelligence) about intelligence and, agaiaiaiaiain, whether it can be altered, modified, adjusted, affected by home, education, family, or whether you’re born with or without it and nothing will change it.
The old nature/nurture question comes to the surface once more.

Yet now, according to clever people, only 50% of intelligence is inherited. G-d help my children then. Like most parents I was more concerned that they should be die-hard Spurs fans than displayed anything remotely like intelligence. Fortunately they haven’t let me down, bless them, showing total and absolute dedication to our football team and never indicating any tendency towards being intelligent.

Boris Johnson was in fact hi-jacked on a radio show and given ‘intelligence test’ questions which he failed miserably. Our own mayor of London, seemingly as thick as some Mancunian, as moronic as a Chelsea fan. How can this be? He’s clever. Went to Oxford, for Christ sake. Ok, what he did at Oxford was mainly dress as an upper class twit and get blind drunk with David Cameron whilst smashing up a few restaurants. But he uses big words, has extra-marital affairs with upper class bimbos, he must be clever.

I took an 11-plus exam at school. When I was 18. I was slow. And that exam was nothing but ‘verbal and non-verbal reasoning’ which is another way of saying ‘IQ testing’. I passed. Yippee, what a genius am I. Einstein failed his. Not that he was in my class, but he was subjected to the same kind of test, albeit in German. If mine had been in German I’d have failed it too.

And then kids who passed were sent to ‘grammar schools’ where this supposed intelligence was used as a basis for a highly academic programme. Whereas kids who failed were sent to ‘secondry modern’ schools to learn woodwork, knitting and how to hit things with other things.

11 years old and this crowd of potential Einsteins was deemed ‘beyond hope’ by the government and the education mavens. Because at that time it was thought that ‘intelligence’ was fixed, set and ‘immutable’. Whereas now its been downgraded to only being 50% so.

Intelligence testing is fine. Its what the fuckers do with it and how they act upon it that is rather scary.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

what a fabulous word: palpable. It means ‘touchable’ but is only used for things you can’t actually touch. Anger. Fear. Desire. Or relief. So really it means ‘almost touchable’. Who gives a shit. My contempt for that word is palpable.

But we use the word most often for relief.
And what is the most common cause of the frustration that demands relief? Air travel (I was so relieved to get home after 72 hours fucking about in airports and waiting for flights/taxis/passport control I nearly shagged the fucking cat).
An end to constipation. (no example required I feel, in the interests of decency)
Passing an exam.
Your children passing an exam.
Or football.

The magnitude of relief (or disappointment) at the end of a particularly harrowing football match is seldom matched anywhere else in the real world.
Because football is not the real world. Its far more important than that. More important than anything.

At the end of the Spurs match at Sunderland last night, which we ‘enjoyed’ on our tv screens rather than trek 300 miles into the godforsaken wastelands of the arctic northeast, the relief was palpable.

I received 2 texts, almost simultaneously, both containing exactly the same three words. They said: “never in doubt”.

Which is Spurs-ironic for saying ‘that was the most painful, agonising, frustrating, pathetic, inept, hapless, hopeless, hide-behind-the-fucking-sofa, agonising, horrendous 20 minutes of football I’ve ever had to endure.
Since the last Spurs game anyway.

The Times today described ‘stylish Spurs’. They must have been watching a different game to me. Although we were ‘stylish’ but only in our own half and a bit into theirs. Then we stopped the style and turned up the agony.
We were 2-1 up and one more goal would have just made it comfortable, watchable, nice, friendly, cheery, a bit pre-christmassy, but no. We instead went into ‘squander’ mode and pissed away 96 chances to ease the fans’ agony and torment.

The relief on Andre Villas Boas face went even beyond mere palpable and into the realms of job security and a future career.

But heh, we won. Which is more than Chelsea could do at mighty(?) Stoke, more than Manchester City could manage at Southampton and hopefully more than Arsenal can do today against Everton. Hopefully. Another interesting word; hopeful. One so often the death of expectation and joy.

Where’s it written in my ‘Tottenham til I die’ handbook that I must be tortured regularly?

Have a palpable Sunday

A xxxx

England are in the ‘group of death’!!!!!

Just like they were last time, in the Euros, and the time before that in the last World Cup. The group of DEATH!!!!! Because its the group in which England generally die. So even if we happened to be grouped with San Marino, the Faroe Islands and Hawaii, it would still be THE GROUP OF DEATH!!!!! because England always die in football tournaments. As it is written. Ironic that this particular group of death was hand-picked by Sir Geoff Hurst, World Cup winning, 1966 hat-trick hero (that crossbar goal still stands, even after nearly 50 years of analysis).

So next year we’ll be packing up our hats and scarves, polishing up the trumpets and drums, ironing our St George crosses and setting off for Brazil, for the World Cup. Oh, and fishing out those abominable vuvuzelas we brought back from South Africa last time round.

In other words, we’ll probably buy a new tv. A 107″ super-duper ultra-HD monster screen so that when the players spit, you can really appreciate the colour, texture… eeeeuuuuw. And spend four weeks on the couch with dozen cases of Tesco Special Super-Saver World Cup Lager, six boxes of Primark crisps, hand fried by Sri Lankan children who wear no protective clothing, and a giant pack of Prozac for the inevitable depression.

By the time the World Cup arrives I’ll be ‘there’. With ‘there’ being a mental place rather than a geographical location. I’ll (hopefully) be eager for the games, having had a six week annual hiatus from the football by the time the tournament starts in June just in time for my birthday. Whereas right now, I’m bored with the World Cup already.

The other evening on the radio was a programme discussing who England MIGHT get drawn against and how that might go. Are they that desperate to fill air time? Who gives a shit if we might be grouped with Brazil, Latvia and Bosnia? What might happen if we face Spain AND Russia??? Its all rubbish. Might as well discuss UFOs or crop circles or peace in Syria.

So we have Italy and Costa Rica and Uruguay. Ooooooh. Could be worse, we could have Belgium, Spain and Germany. But the real problem is that England will be playing in places that have weather. As opposed to playing in perhaps the Large Hadron Collider which is weather free. One game is in ‘the jungle’. Hot, steamy with snakes all over the fucking place and you keep getting your boots caught in the vines. Oh, no, apparently its a stadium in the jungle. That’s quite different, I s’pose. Then in San Paulo in the ‘stadium of death’ where a crane fell on the workers and killed them. Not a good omen.

Basically, the gods of the World Cup have once again conspired against England.
We’ll get through the group, just, then get beaten by Brazil/Spain/Argentina or Germany on penalties.
Inevitable.
Same old same old.

I’m depressed already. Where’s my drugs, Nigella?

Happy saturday

A xxxx

Tom Daley, olympic diver extraordinaire and pin-up boy for the swimming pool classes and other teenage schoolgirls, this week announced that he is in a great and happy relationship, with a man (!!!!), though he still ‘likes’ girls.

Now some cynics initially thought that sweet Tom was simply apparently hedging to keep those teenies screaming and throwing their underwear at him as they represent the major part of his following.The rest of which is, funnily enough, middle-aged gay men. One of whom he is currently dating.

Yet I then read an interesting article on how Tom Daley ‘should not be classified’ as ‘gay’ or even ‘bisexual’ because those terms are simply too restrictive and pigeon-holing (that’s a metaphor, not a bizarre sexual practice on Hampstead Heath after dark… as far as I know) and people no longer have to fit into distinct categories of sexuality just to please others. I mean, someone might be bisexual but want the odd fling with animals. Or Lib Dems. Someone else might be gay but be into cannibalism or necrophilia. That’s fine and dandy, we simply don’t need to constrain these activities by giving someone a category in which they must live.

The Romans lived by their motto; ad nauseum nils illigitium cosa nostra domine ave maria. Which translates (loosely… very loosely) as: if its gotta pulse, shag it, if it don’t, cook it. They didn’t discriminate nor differentiate between sexual proclivities.

The other approach to this new libertarianism so we know who’s into what with whom and how many of them, is to create new and unambiguous definitions. Ones that could be worn on badges so that potential partners or suitors or dominatrices, subservients, slaves, pseudo-masochists, neo-zoophiliacs or Mormons know the score before they even make their apporach.

I’m a straight man. But I have, and I admit this freely, often been tempted to become a lesbian. Does that make me some kind of straight dyke? A ‘stryke’?

Or little diving Tommy; he’s gay but not definitively. He’s a ‘spoof’.

Someone who sleeps with men for 2 weeks then women for 2 weeks would be a bicyclist

Sex with dogs would become Fidophilia

A pedagog likes staring at feet

Jimmy Saville abused over 100 kids to become a centipede.

And someone who likes their testicles being nailed to floorboards is a fucking idiot.

Right, that’s sorted out the world of sexuality, real and imagined.

A great man died yesterday. Probably the greatest man of several generations. Rest in Peace, Nelson Mandela. There’ll never be another.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

They played football last night. Some dork at the Football Association got Saturday at 3 mixed up with Wednesday at 8 so they all had to play in the dark and cold. Whatever next???

There are teams ya love (errrr, Spurs?) and teams ya hate (hmmmm; Chelsea? Man City??? Stoke????) and teams you kind’a quite like. Don’t ask me where these decisions come from, nor where they go, they just are. They are ‘feelings’, not particularly conscious thoughts, just sort of ‘flavours’. I’ve consulted various psychiatric mavens about this and apparently it all stems from penis envy. That’ll be £355, please pay Miss Faversham on the way out, we don’t take cheques or credit cards.

So I like Fulham. Always have. Maybe a throwback to them being the only team who looked right on black and white tv, maybe because they had Johnny Haynes (in the 60s) and later Rodney Marsh, Bobby Moore even, but maybe just because they play in a fab ground and they’re very inoffensive. And apparently not very defensive either. Or they wouldn’t have conceded 2 late goals last night to give Tottenham a well-deserved victory. And when I say ‘well deserved’ its no reflection on the game itself, which I haven’t seen, just on the basis that Spurs always deserve to win. God’s will. And all that.
Though I feel sorry for Fulham and their dire plight and plummet from grace to their current status of ‘below that line’. The line that separates relegation from survival. But early days still. I don’t feel as sorry for them as I would have if Martin Jol was still in charge. Because him we love. All Spurs fans love MJ. But he’s gone. Left the building. Pastures new.

I did watch the hilights program, a bit of it anyway, when I got back from dinner. Asian Fusion. China is no longer a world power in food. (How d’ya like them apples, Mr Li???? Not so nice when the boot’s on the other bound foot, is it??) Asian Fusion is everything. But Eden Hazard is even better. In fact from what I saw, he is the best player the world has ever seen. Even though he’s a fucking tosser for taking his shirt off in celebration. And it was only Sunderland he was playing so we must limit our praise a touch. Very very impressive though.
Competition for the ‘best player’ title was in the buck-toothed form of Luis Suarez. The racist cannibal scored 4 last night against poor Norwich and 3 were quite breathtaking. Some would say ‘sublime’. But that’d be the Liverpool fans, most of whom are not familiar with such words.

Arsenal won. Nuf said.

But Manchester United lost.
At home.
To Everton.
David Moyes’ old team.
And couldn’t score.

That’s a lot of baggage for poor Moyes to cope with. I wonder when the calls for his head will come. I’ve already heard disgruntlement from Man United fans (cos they all live round here, in London) about ‘not being the right man’, ‘not big enough for Man U’. What bollocks. Great manager’s a great manager and he is.

Ok, free points, a very happy thursday

A xxxx

David Cameron’s still in China. So I went to Tai Chi last night. Me mate Ken went out to the Hong Wah house and ate Kung Po chicken and Kev watched Fist of Fury. Mel stayed home and read Wild Swans. Its all part of ‘getting in touch with your inner Chinaman’ and following the example set by Mr Cameron. Josh went out and set fire to a Tibetan he found on Regent Street but he was extinguished by the fire brigade before any cars got damaged.
Tony Blair took the whole thing a bit too far, maybe, and got in touch with someone else’s Chinawoman. Its not my place to speculate on the ‘inner’ bit. Eeeuuuuwww.

And in return for this ‘association’, this olive branch of ‘brotherhood’ towards the most populous nation on the planet, they slagged us off. Britain, England, London. Said we weren’t ‘big players’ in the world, just an old European nation that’s good for tourism and education. Oh, and fucking Downton. For Christ sake. (That’s ‘sake’ as in ‘rake’, not as in ‘sar-key’)

The Chinese press were fairly nasty about us. The Global Times (owned by the government) called Brits ‘a bunch’a slags wot fraternize wiv the Dalai Poxy Lama’. Whereas the People’s Paper (owned by the communist party, which is different from the government because… er… because its spelt differently) made similarly snide and nasty comments about ‘interfering with China’. Maybe that was the Blair bit they were referring to.

Well Britain may no longer be a big power in the world, but we’ve still got the best football teams. China was designated ‘Red China’ because so many of its population support Manchester United.

The whole ‘reds under the bed’ concept came from a visit by Ryan Gigg’s wife to her sister, under who’s bed she found her own husband.

And so to the ‘Class of 92’. A new movie about David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and the Neville brothers and their involvement in Manchester United and their success leading up to winning the triple in 1999. And although some of these guys are definitely, unashamedly, blatantly northern, I still want to see the film. Because these were indeed ‘special’ guys playing in a remarkable team. And we all love a football biopic. Maybe Mel not quite as much as some others, but it just HAS to be seen. I may have to go alone.

Happy wednesday

A xxxx

David Cameron yesterday announced that he is in a very happy relationship with a man and has been for 6 months.

Oh, that was Tom Daley. Same difference.

David Cameron actually announced that despite the constant atrocities perpetrated by the People’s Republic of China, the genocide in Tibet, the persecutions, the human rights abuses, the child labour issues and other niceties you get from a brutal totalitarian regime, Britain and China are to enjoy a ‘special relationship’ and engage in lots more business together.
This has nothing to do with money.

Ok, this has everything to do with money. We’re broke, China’s rich, that’s a perfect fit. Everything else is mere contingencies.

The problem with the Chinese paying for HS2 and building the new proposed high speed rail network is that you’d take a journey and an hour later you’d want another.

But the Chinese know about rail travel, having installed their own 6000 miles of super new mega-trains in a 5 year period. Ok, they had a terrible crash but that’s just teething troubles. 40 Chinese have died; how many are left then?

The press weren’t allowed in any of the meetings DC had with the Chinese premiere yesterday. The press aren’t allowed anywhere in China. ‘Free speech’ is something you make at a wedding in that part of the Far East.
But they have untold riches and we want them. For this latest ‘special relationship’. We already have those with America, with France, with Germany but this is different. 5.6 billion quid’s worth of different. It wreaks of being China’s whore.

At least Tom Daley is loyal in his ‘special relationship’.

Whereas Miranda Kerr, Victoria’s Secret uber-babe and former wifey of Orlando Bloom, has unsurprisingly been inundated with offers of special relationships herself. And she has brushed aside advances from Leonardo di Caprio to do a Cameron and ‘follow the money’, choosing to date Jamie Packer. Son of Kerry, the (dead) Aussie media billionaire. He’s a big fat ugly thing, like his father, and also like dad, he’s a billionaire. Though I’m sure that didn’t enter into the equation for sweet Miranda at all. But if the romance fails, she can always date China.

Happy tuesday

A xxxx

Paul Walker, star of the Fast and the Furious franchise of movies, died yesterday. In a car crash. A very fast car crash. A Porsche. Being driven (not by Paul; he was the passenger) in a very fast and furious manner. As the police said, in that non-committal, policey way they have, ‘speed was involved’. Quel surprise.

And what a tragedy. Not necessarily for the world of good movies, but for his family and that of the driver.

I loved the original movie. I always love original movies, then get bored really quickly once the 4th one comes out to accompany the latest version of the eponymous video game and back up the 2nd tv spinoff series.

The original movie starred Paul with Vin Diesel. All shaven head and smoulering stares. Beauty and the Beast. Paul smiled, Vin grimaced and flexed his muscles threateningly.

If I’m honest I only loved the film because it featured a Dodge Charger with a 1000 horse power engine and a supercharger so big that the car couldn’t drive under low bridges. And it roared. Seriously, loudly, throatily, wickedly did it roar. And I love that roar. That’s why G-d invented V8 engines, so they could roar. And burble.

Someone who loves drag racers and street cars must have found that car and built a film around it. I would have if I was in the movie biz and found a car like that. But you need some people. Otherwise its not really a movie, just a car. Ok, we’ll have a dangerous bald one with muslces, taking the ‘muscle car’ theme to a living metaphor, and we need a pretty one. Ok, let’s use Paul Walker, he’s pretty. Get a whole bunch of other cars, slicker, Japanese shit, all high tuning and computerised turbo chargers, and a few women. Gorgeous women. You gotta have women with cars, they go together like… like… well, like women and cars. Take off as many of their clothes that still allow a PG rating and make a 2 hour car chase.

Rinse and repeat.

Other films have starred cars.

Bullitt, with Steve McQueen driving a fantastic Mustang; Vanishing Point, starring an amazing Dodge Challenger and a few actors (very few in fact), even such total shit as Starsky and Hutch, the dire Dukes of Hazzard. All about American Muscle. Proper cars. That pollute the atmosphere, deplete the ozone layer, chew up natural resources and are pretty much anti-social in every way. Which is why I love them.
That and the noise. The roar.

Rip up the tarmac.

Or, for Paul Walker, R.I.P. the tarmac.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Spurs can win the league this year. That’s a fact. Statistically distinct probability. You can work it out yourself. All you need is a calculator, an iphone, three pieces of green paper, an empty Fairy Liquid bottle and a lifetime’s unyielding devotion to Tottenham and some drugs which increase optimism beyond any logical limits.

That and the priviledge to witness Spurs match today against the very overrated Manchester Bleedin’ United. Who cheated their way to a draw with a penalty awarded by the ref, a Mr Ferguson, and a goal gifted to them by the otherwise superb Kyle Walker.

But my word it was early.
I had to play tennis at the crack of 9.30 so as to have time to shower and change before heading off to the Lane with the Legend.

The Man United fans make a big fuss about ‘coming all’t way t’t Luunduun’ for the 12 o’clock kick off but they’re not big on things like showers up there so that’s time saved. I heard some whingeing Manc saying how he’d been up since 5.30am, blah, blah, whinge whine. Well no-one asked him to come. No-one wanted him down here. So no point moaning now. Whereas me and the Legend had to sit in a warm car for almost 35 minutes to arrive at the game fresh as daisies. And smelling lovely and clean and southern.

Anyway, enough personal hygeine.

Spurs were great today. Outplayed the Mancs considerably and worked hard. Ok, we gave them two silly goals and should have been 3-0 up by half time but the world is not a perfect place. If it was Arsenal would be in the Scottish second division, Real Madrid wouldn’t exist at all and Gareth Bale would still be at Spurs and English as well.

Dembele was fab, Paulinho great, Sandro scored a wonderful goal and little Aaron Lennon was back to his pesky self. Which apparently gives defensive thugs carte blanche to hack him to the ground at every opportunity. The same ref who gave the Mancs their penalty with neither thought nor delay, was certainly mean with yellow cards which may have protected our ‘stars’ from physical abuse from the cynical ‘champions’.
Sadly the result is a gift for Arsenal who now have 10 points on Spurs. Just where we want them. Complacent and arrogant. And we’ve jumped from 9th in the table to er… 9th. A brilliant days’ work.

Chelsea currently losing to Southampton. More good news for Arsenal. Particularly with Liverpool losing at Hull.

Well, it was lovely to be down the Lane today with the faithful. A religious experience. True devotion.

God help us.

Happy sunday

A xxxx

I’ve just ‘read’ the Time magazine. And its all about ‘how to be a man’.

I know how to be a man. I may not act like one but I know what’s required. I’ve been aware since I first saw the original True Grit movie with John Wayne. Fill her hands ya sunnovabitch. That’s how to be a man. Swear a lot and take no shit from not nobody never, and don’t use a double negative when a triple or quadruple is available.

And did you know that there’s all different types of men? Who’d’a thought such a thing possible? I’d imagined that we were all exactly the same. All of us. Me, Wayne Rooney, the Pope, Jimmy Savile, Prince Harry, Elton John. Seperated at birth.

Apparently I’m a ‘J-Crew Man’. Sadly though, I have no fucking idea what J-Crew might be. I’m assuming its a line of clothing. Which I shall rush out immediately and bankcrupt myself acquiring because I’d hate to disprove a stereotype.

“Wears a serious watch or no watch”. That’s me. No point wearing a watch that doesn’t work. It’ll only be right twice a day, the rest of the time (good pun, huh?) you have to guess.

“Fussy about jeans”, yep, only Levis. But in the same way I only listen to music from the 60s to 80s. Because I lack the imagination to change my ways, not as some mission statement towards a shmutter company I’ve never heard of.

“Knows who Cara Delevigne is”; you’d actually have to be a dead man not to know as that anorexic waif is on every page of every paper/magazine every day poking her sodding tongue out.

“Wants a sports car”. Done that. But I did that as part of a general mid-life crisis, not out of deference to the George Clooney ideal. And he rides motorbikes anyway.

They only have rules for men ‘under 40’ and ‘over 40’. So either the latter includes everything up to 103 or those of us over 50 just don’t count. Agist bastards.

On consideration of all the information given, I’ve now decided, conclusively and unambiguously, that I am the ‘perfect man’.

I’m butch, but in a delicate way. I’m gorgeous, in a manly way. I’m a metrosexual, in a muscly way and I’m a proper, post-feminist, in a knuckle-dragging way. If told to buy ‘feminine products’ I know to ask ‘with or without wings’. That’s how fucking in touch with my feminine side I am.

All Spurs fans are the same. They don’t allow rabble into White Hart Lane. Only trendy (but effortlessly so) over/under 40s with style, class, manliness and good, groomed facial hair. The men have different rules.

Lunchtime

Happy Saturday

A xxxx