Andy's Glasses

Gareth Bale is up for the world player of the year. If he beats off some weak opposition from  the likes of Lionel (who???) Messi, he will be proclaimed God. Master of the world. The most gifted Welshman since Harry Secombe, Gareth Edwards, Neil Kinnock. The best player since Pele, the most talented individual since that fat ugly Scottish bird won that useless pathetic tv talent contest.

As a true reflection of our multi-cultural land and mixed up world, nationality should be movable, transferable, saleable. It should be subject to corruption, bribery and whatever else it takes in modern football, as exemplified by the World Cup in Qatar.

I still can’t believe that anyone can understand Hungarian. Even Hungarians. Its a big joke. Speak total gobbledigook and pretend they can talk like normal people to each other whilst really sniggering cos its all rubbish. No-one could make sense out’a that. I don’t normally have this issue. Languages have a rhythmn, a tempo, so even odd ones like Korean or Xosa still sound like langauges rather than just noises.

Hungarian’s different. Its the linguistic equivalent of dragging fingernails across a chalk-board. It jars. It actually makes you want to cover your ears and shout ‘NO!! MAKE IT GO AWAY MUMMY’.

Though Budapest is fab. Mainly because of the bridges. I simply love a bridge. In another life I’d have been a bridgitect. Designing and building bridges. They’d all look fab. But wouldn’t necessarily work as I lack the engineering background. First person to step onto the thing and it would just tumble into the river/off the cliff/by the road. But they’d look fab.

Because its a fundamental European requirement for every city to have a fucking great river through the middle, you need to cross them. Hence the bridges. And they’re all different vintages here, and all different structures. Suspension bridges, girder bridges, green ones, Victorian style ones and a chain bridge. Which is the one in the attached pic. I have no idea how any of them stay up; its not my problem. Staring at them and going ‘wow!!!’, that’s my job.

Spurs job is to win football matches. And get the points on offer to the victors. Which is precisely what they did yesterday. Hung on in there in what has been described as ‘the dullest football match ever played everrrrrrrr’ and got a possibly undeserved last minute penalty to claim the spoils. Its not exactly the way I’d envisaged the season playing out but heh, free points is free points and ‘ya gorra be in-it-ta win-it’.

What’s Hungarian for COME ON YOU SPUUUUUUURSSSSSS?

I must ask.

Happy monday

A xxxx

What do we really know about Hungary and Hungarians??

The early Magyars were obviously savages and barbarians who raped, slaughtered, pillaged and were big on incest because that was pretty much the early (pre 1973) way all round this part of the world. Soon as they decided to have a Europe, in 637 ad, then the wars started. And, as dynasties went, the Hapsburgs were pretty damned good at it. Surviving until the war when, as with so many parts of Europe,  it all went to shit, they joined the wrong side, like Man City fans, and then the Russians took over and it got even worse.

Famous Hungarians? There’s only really 3.

1. Ferenc Puscas, great footballer in the 50s and 60s.

2. Liszt. As in ‘Brahms and…’ They needed a composer to rhyme with pissed and he just fit the bill perfectly.

3. Biro. Invented writing. With a ball-point anyway.

And that’s it really. Other than those involved in the slaughter and rape and pillage, which still happens nightly in Budapest. Which is why Mel & I have come for the weekend.

And to get away from the football because Arsenal won again and London can at times like this become intolerable.

And its wonderful here.

We’d literally stepped off the plane and hadn’t even made it to the end of that little tunnel to the terminal when we saw our first ‘serious’ moustache. Like, the real Franz Ferdinand job. (the emporer, not the band, obviously).  By passport control we’d seen three more. Big, bushy, waxed jobbies, brilliant. You could spend a lifetime in London without witnessing such incredible moustachage.

So we’d arrived in the city which used to be 2 cities. Buda, where they were rabid nasty racists, and Pest, the inhabitant of which were vile anti-semites. So they joined up, across the Danube, and called it Budapest and everyone can be both an anti-semite AND a racist.

Great city though, really beautiful and fab. Could be in Wales, its so lovely.

Happy delayed belated day (blame British Airways)

A xxxxx

When I was 14 I went to a summer camp. It was like a prison camp but with songs. And gels. Which is why my old mate Jem made me go. “My brother went last year and they let you loose on all these girls who can’t escape because you’re locked in!!”. Brilliant. So I went and spent my days playing football and my evenings with my tongue down someone’s throat. And that someone was Lisa. From Hull. Or, ‘Ool’, as they call it up there in Hull-land. We ‘were madly in love’ for the two week duration of face-sucking, grope-fest camp, had a tearful farewell, all ‘sealed with a kiss’ and ‘long lonely summer’ and ‘leaving on a jet plane’, even though it was actually a coach back to Victoria. And then we never made contact again. Never.

Scarred by this emotional trauma (??) I’ve never been to Hull. Its too painful. Like most cities up north. Painful.

And all this because Spurs are playing Hull tomorrow. I wonder if Lisa will be coming to London? To Tottenham?? I wonder if she’s now their biggest fan? Do Hull have fans? Like people who really like them, as opposed to a bunch of bored northerners who can’t find anywhere better to go drinking on saturday afternoons than the KC stadium. Maybe Lisa doesn’t live there any longer. Maybe she moved ‘up’ to Grimsby. The high life. Who knows?

Spurs must beat Hull. There’s no doubt, there’s no question, there’s no other alternative nor consideration. (Just like the West Ham game; SHUTTUP!!) Because I don’t care how flattering Hull’s current league position is, they have no right to be there. They are at best, next year’s relegation fodder, at worst, destined for a late season plummet to oblivion. So we must beat them.

I was very depressed after the West Ham game and then read just last night how (like I couldn’t work it out all by myself with a calculator and computer) we’re just 3 points from the top. Free points. Dat’s nuffink. We just need everyone else to lose, to score 17 goals and we’d be right where destiny is surely leading us.

So first, Arsenal need to lose at Crystal Palace. They lost to Dortmund in the week so anything can happen and although Palace might not be as good as the Germans ‘on paper’, they are English so there’s a good chance for an upset. The Times give the Arse about a 96% chance of victory today. I love an underdog.

Chelsea play Manchester City tomorrow in what some consider a ‘big game’, others just a ‘very expensive game’, as the oligarch’s rabble take on the oil-king’s pawns in the battle of the money launderers. A draw would be the best possible outcome for this horrible game. The combined wealth of the players on that pitch will exceed the GDP of 37.9% of the world’s nations. (Accounts may vary depending on which, er, ‘equation’ is being used or made up).

Liverpool host West Brom, which should be an easy one for the Scousers. But firstly there’s simply no easy games any longer, and also, that one time really intimidating statement that faces all players as they come onto the pitch, the one proclaiming just “THIS IS ANFIELD!”, has now been replaced with something more appropriate. It now states: “THIS IS ANFIELD. NO REALLY, IT IS. HONEST”.

Then there’s the always mouth-watering el classico too as Barcelona take on Real Madrid at the Nou Camp. Always a passionate and hate-filled affair, today might even see El Welsho, the one and only Gareth Bale, play some of the match. His first game for a while and what a game to be thrust into. Those bastard Catalans have been lampooning Gareth due to his lack of fluency in Spanish. Which is cruel. We never took the piss because he could barely speak English, did we?

Happy saturday, I’m off to drag the younger daughter onto the tennis court.

A xxxx

We won, we won, we bloody won. There’s dancing in the streets all over the world today.

I love Villa Park (read: total shit-hole) and wish we could play there every week. I wasn’t there yesterday, though I’ve been there before and they stick away fans in a little cauldron under the ground and beat them with sticks and pour boiling scorn upon them, then you come out into a ground that was really something quite special in 1972 but now is so much faded Brummie wasteland ready for demolition. I suppose that’s why its still ‘Villa Park’ and hasn’t been gobbled up into the corporate marketing machine and re-branded as ‘The KFC’ or ‘Mothercare Park’ or even ‘The Bull Ring Balti Arena’.

So in strutted Spurs, all clean and white and weighing in at just about £657 million as half their new signings, the really expensive ones, weren’t playing. But those who were looked gorgeous and shiny and bright, whereas the Villa crew all had crooked black teeth and tattoos on their faces and prosthetic limbs. And they smelled funny. You could tell. Even on the tv. That’s really HD.

There were some serious questions asked during the game.

Are Spurs really G-d’s own team? I think that one was answered emphatically.

Does Andros Townsend really walk on water? And does that make drinking rather difficult? Or a bit dirty??

And best of all, from a nash-null perspective, England have finally, after 37 years, since Chris Waddle, since Nobby Wilkinshaw wore the number 11 in 1863, they’ve finally solved ‘that left side problem’. Converting Ryan Giggs to ‘English’ was never likely to happen and almost my entire adult life England have lacked a true left winger. And now, up steps Andros, fast, skilful and left-footed.

So what do they do? They play him on the right. Go figure.

And so the match wasn’t the prettiest. Villa weren’t good for much and Spurs, although having 98% of possession in the first half, really didn’t seem to know what to do with it. Like they’d won the lottery and didn’t know what to buy. Some brilliant passing moves, but mainly between the back four. So there are still ‘issues’ to resolve, still troublesome niggles that a better team than Villa would have exposed.

And yet…

and yet…

and yet…

we won. Free points is free points. No matter how, now matter where. Even in Birmingham. The end justifies the means. To the victor the spoils. A sleeping snake is more dangerous than a waking tiger (old Tai Chi philosophy that I just made up). The pen is mightier than the Range Rover. And much easier to write with.

So bring on Hull; bring ‘em all. I think we’re ready. Aren’t we??

At least Andros Townsend seems ready.

Happy monday

A xxxx

When you go to Melbourne they warn you: weather’s wierd, you get 4 seasons in one day. We had: summer, summer, summer and summer. All four. Most fab weather ever. Whingeing Aussies; they simply don’t appreciate what they’ve got.

Whereas here this morning we had almost four plagues. The first being flooding. Holy shit but did it rain. Woke me up. Torrential. That’s depressing. Outdoor tennis in the rain is not exactly one of life’s pleasures. In fact its not even played cos its horrid.

So I read the papers. And there was plague number 2. Arsenal beat Norwich City yesterday. And the reports were all aglow with superlatives and gushing in how even more beautiful than beautiful the game is when played in that manner. I almost threw up last night’s Indian. Saw a picture of Jack Wilshire, who seems to celebrate every day with a new tattoo. He’s running out of arms. Soon it’ll be his legs, neck, hands and eyeballs. He’s turning into Lydia (oh Lydia, that incyclopidia)  the tattooed lady. Or maybe just another Beckham. Without the style.

But then the rains stopped. Halleluyah. And the clouds parted. And then… and then… the sun shone. At 15 minutes to tennis.

I am truly blessed.

I may not be the world’s best tennis player. But I’m quick. No skill. Lots of speed. And it works. If you’re there early you can play any shot. Normally. But not today. I was sluggish. Arriving late, playing off balance. Not great. It was as if I was playing whilst filled with a curried lamb shank inside me, rice, naan bread, samosas, pakoras, several bhajis and half a gallon of Cobra beer.

Funny how that happens.

I’m very saddened by football. Its depressing. I haven’t got over the West Ham game and I don’t know that I ever will. And that it was consolidated by the two week hiatus. I hate international breaks.

Spurs currently lie 7th in the table. Frikkin 7th. When we were right up there at the pointed end sitting pretty and looking super. If we win today we overtake Southampton. That sentence alone is sufficient to send me to tears. If we win by 11 goals we go 4th. Arsenal are top. Chelsea won by cheating. Manchester City won because they’re horrible. Only Manchester United continue in indifferent form, drawing at home to (that same frikkin) Southampton. Liverpool don’t count. No-one else matters.

Though things appear to be looking up. I received a speeding ticket on Friday. From our weekend in Wales. I was amazed it was only 1. Though I may ask for numerous other crimes to be taken into account. They like that sort of thing. ‘Sorry I was going too fast, yer honour, I didn’t see the sign saying 50 because I’d spilled my can of lager and was rummaging for another’.

Happy sunday

but only if we win

Come on you Spurs

A xxxx