Andy's Glasses

Its just mental.
I don’t know what, specifically, but its just mental. Innit?

Queens Park Rangers have plans to move from Loftus Road, their home for over 100 years, to a new mega-site in Willesden. In NW10.
I live in NW11, so that’s really just ‘1’ away from here!!!
Ok, the London area numbers are actually by alphabetical place names, but still… but still… that’s damn close for comfort. I don’t mind me mate Dave popping round for a cuppa tea on a Saturday afternoon but if he starts bringing 42,000 QPR fans with him I’ll need to get more milk in.
Do QPR even have 42000 fans?

The new stadium will cost £500 million. They haven’t said so but they always do cost that much. And they’re building a new ‘transport link’, yeah, right, like they will for the new Tottenham ground.

The area is being called (optimistically): Willesden meets Little Venice. Which is like saying ‘The bombed out shell of Damascus meets Monte Carlo’. An area formerly known as Wormwood Scrubs, after which they named the prison which sits there. Maybe they’ll send the prisoners in to fill the empty seats. Though that may be deemed ‘torture’. Even prisoners have human rights.

Meanwhile, they played a bunch of European games this week. As usual. First they had the Champions League in which all four English teams made it through to the final stages of that worthless tournament. Celtic didn’t. Sadly they were thrashed by Barcelona and leave the European stage. As they do about this time every year.

Arsenal lost, yet go forwards, Manchester United scraped a win and Chelsea were similarly unimpressive, though they were already through so who did they need to impress?

Manchester City were fucking awesome. No other way to put it, I’m afraid. Awesome. 2-0 down to Bayern Munich, the best team in the world, at the Allianz Arena and came back to win 3-2. And then they have the arrogance to moan at their manager for ‘losing count’ because he didn’t realise that one more goal would have sent them top of their group. Oh. As if wanting a goal is all you need to do to actually score one. Tossers.

Thursday night is BIG NITE (even spelt wrongly) in European football when the proper teams come out to play. The Europa Fairs Cup League of not quite Champions. And Spurs won. Again. Brilliant. They beat… er… well they beat someone unpronouncable and won their group with maximum points and shit-loads of goals.

Which oddly, is our problem. We have a bunch of European players who can only seem to play well against other Europeans. (And of course, I do not count England as European here. Why the hell should I??) Against English teams we falter, we fail, we can’t score, we fumble and bumble around looking singularly unconvincing even when we win. But in Europe we’re wonderful.

This is Andre Villas Boas’ problem. To un-Europeanise our players in time for the league matches. For Sunday. Against Liverpool. A real 16 pointer. If not more.

And Arsenal playing Manchester City. Ooooooohhhhh, that’s a big one.

Happy victorious Friday

A xxxx

Can you split an infinitive? Can you actually pray ‘boldly’ as opposed to humbly, sincerely, smirkingly, fires of hellishly?
Who cares?

My point is that they have officially confirmed that Scientology is ‘a religion’. In my eyes, and in those of any good Something-fearing person (even if that which you fear is only losing to Arsenal in the FA Cup), scientology is Star Trek. Its Star Wars.
Katie Holmes was right; its total and utter bollox of a sci-fi nature. Yet now its been officially sanctioned as ‘a religion’ so that a couple (of dorks, obviously) can get married in their ‘place of worship’.

L.Ron Hubbard, wasn’t a very good science fiction writer so he turned his most stupid of books, Chariots of the Gods, or one of them anyway, into a quasi-religious bible. A statement of fact. YES; aliens did invade the planet Earth 75 million years ago and YES these aliens ‘attached themselves to humans’ and the only way to divest ourselves of these evil ‘Thetans’ is to pay most of our worldly possessions over to the Scientology ‘church’ and we will be freed. Halleluyah! Or ‘nanu-nanu’, maybe.

Oddly, there were no humans 75 million years ago. Not even cave-dwelling Neanderthal types, Lib Dems, insurance salesmen or Charles Saatchi. But such details didn’t stop those damned Thetans…

In 1970 scientology was refused religious status, even though it fulfilled the criterion that ‘groups of people meet and worship’ (groups of very odd people do, anyway) but failed because it lacked a deity, a single god-type central figure. A star. A Simon Cowell type A-lister to be the focus. But in 2013 the judges have become more accepting and as no-one really gives a shit about religion any more, you can register any kind of nutty following and achieve credibility.

And more importantly, you can get tax relief. A ‘religion’ (as opposed to a group of Trekkie nutters meeting to fleece each other out of money) has charitable status and thus gets all kinds of benefits. Therefore I am personally going to be subsidising Tom Cruise and John Travolta and fund the former’s elevator heels and the latter’s hair transplants and jumbo jet habit.

Top Table, the restaurant review and cheap table website, has listed Britain’s top 100 restaurants according to those bargain hunters who use its site. And Gordon Ramsey came out on top. McDonalds hardly got a mention, nor Efes kebabs in Great Titchfield Street, the finest eatery in the entire world, especially sitting on the wall outside with chilli sauce dripping down your shirtsleeves.

But predictably, London had over 50% of the top restaurants. (For anyone reading this in Norfolk; that’s over half). Birmingham, our ‘second city’ boasted 4 of the top 100 and Manchester, which has serious pretensions at being slick and cultured, had 6. Probably all those Thetans attaching themselves to the Mancunians.

Scotland had 9. All of Scotland. Which is about 8 more than I would have predicted. Maybe the world of haute cuisine is just not ready for deep fried mars bars wrapped in animal intestines. Well that’s their frikkin loss.

Happy thursday

A xxxx

If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, how about a woman pissed off by inappropriate behaviour by her husband at a memorial service?

Like Michelle Obama in this picture of a picture taken at the Mandela memorial in Johannasberg yesterday.
Barak and David Cameron, flirting with each other and with Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Danish premiere and blond Cameron Diaz almost lookalike, and taking a ‘selfie’. A move that would please anyone under 19. A trio that would give credibility to Tom Daley’s confused sexuality.

Obama wowed the world with his fantastic speech about the ‘greatest liberator’ and super, humble wonderman that Mandela was. Then started fucking about in the stands ‘trying to impress the girls’. The ‘girls’ here being Helle and Cameron, who’s had a rather confused sexuality ever since his days at Eton.

As someone who always finds it difficullt to adhere to correct protocols at funerals and memorials I actually find it rather encouraging that world leaders share my inability to behave appropriately at times of seriousness.

And last night I found myself at a Carol Service. At St Dunston-in-the-West church on Fleet Street. Where I have to sit quietly (unless singing carols or saying ‘amen’) and look serious and thoughtful. Oh dear. If only my mind worked in such a way. Let alone my mouth.

Its an annual event (how odd, eh? having a carol service every year, always at Christmas time; amazing coincidence) put on by C Hoare & Co, the only privately owned bank in the country, if not the world. Its relatively new, only been there since 1652 or thereabouts, owned completely and exclusively by the Hoare family.

And they have 300 ‘worthy’ people to the service, then its all back to the magnificently splendid bank for a seriously up-market piss-up. All champagne and canapees of utter delightfulness and poshness and gentility.

But you have to work for your supper. And that work is sitting quietly in the gorgeous little church. Which is fine. And listening to a truly magnificent choir, who are so good its almost enough to have you believe in some kind of deity.

But then they have the prayers, which are a bit more… prayerish, and of course, they have the dreaded… readings!!!
From the New Testament, I’m gonna guess. And that’s when it all goes a bit ‘Life of Brian’, a bit wey-hey, a bit other worldly. As we listen to tales of virgins getting banged up by ‘Holy Spirits’ (iz dat wot our Ron is callin hisself dese dayz?), of non-sexual inseminations in sheds up by Bethlehem and Nazareth, and I’m thinking ‘can anyone believe this?’ Or more imporantly, ‘did Joseph really believe this???’ Its not meant to be metaphorical or allegorical, but literal. Mary was a virgin. Who gave birth. And her husband, poor, frustrated soul he was, had to believe it was ‘God wot done it; honest’.

I make no judgments. Just drank a skinful of champagne and attacked every tray of food as they entered the room, like the leading locust.

Great night. I wonder if Barak Obama had a good night when Michelle got him back to the hotel?

Happy wednesday

A xxxx

Going against a US government request for all flags to be flown at half mast following the death of Nelson Mandela, the sheriff of Pickens, South Carolina, refused to do so over the courthouse/schoolroom/poolhall/brothel in his town, because Mandela ‘wasn’t American’.

So I’m thinking here a kind of Dukes of Hazzard kind of sheriff; white suit, ten gallon hat, bootlace tie, big belly and moustache. The kind’a sheriff who spends a lot of his spare time dressed in white robes burning crosses outside the homes of people who look just like Mandela.

I may be wrong. It may just be some ultra-nationalistic statement in which people other than Americans just don’t count. They’re good at that over there. Like the ‘World Series’ in which ‘the world’ (as we know it over here) aren’t invited to play.
Or it may be just that, like me, the sheriff is already bored with the non-stop, endless, repetitive obituaries, biographies and testimonies to the great man.

Even so, lower the bloody flag man, just pretend that even in South Carolina they can appreciate greatness. Even if its greatness somewhere even further away than Atlanta Georgia.

Meanwhile, there’s dirty work afoot in the world of football. So that’s really serious. I mean, executions in Iraq, nuclear bombs in Iran, trouble in North Korea are one thing, (or even three things), but football??? That’s really important.
And it seems that footballers have been compromising their normal high moral standards (gang rapes, shagging sisters-in-law, drunken brawls…) and getting involved in ‘match fixing’. Again. For far eastern gambling syndicates. Again. They should ban the entire Far East, the world would be a much better place.

So if Leyton Orient beat Manchester United, I could understand that odds would be high, that stakes would be big, that big money could be placed and won. But this wasn’t the case. This was ‘spot betting’. Betting on certain events. In really crappy, low level games.

A man was paid £70,000 for getting sent off in a game between Portsmouth and Oldham Athletic. Or maybe Tranmere Rovers; it doesn’t really matter at this point. 70 grand. So how much was the bet? And how much did the better win?? And how on earth did the bookie not realise something was a touch foul-smelling when some Chinaman (its always Chinamen, despite David Cameron’s visit) puts £250,000 on a man to get sent off in a game between teams the bookie’s probably never even heard of? Do rats not get smelled in the Far East?

Now more footballers are involved. And its pretty shameful. Though sadly, knowing the mentality and mind-set of most of the players of our ‘beautiful game’, its all too credible.

I bet they get off.

Happy tuesday

A xxx

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