Andy's Glasses

What is time? Yeah, fucked if I know either, but its such a good question. I like David Bowie’s definition best of all: “Time. Inflexes like a whore, falls wanking to the floor…” Not because it explains anything whatsoever, but just because its quite gratuitously rude and vulgar, and I like that.

Another definition might be that time is always wrong. Which is why I’m always late. Not my fault, guv, my watch did it. But that’s just ‘the measurement of time’, which may be accepted by all of humanity, NOW, but that’s all to do with the passing of the Earth round the sun and dividing it into bite-sized bits because having a zoom meeting when Ecuador passes through 179 degrees of the passage round the sun is a bit vague for some people. Particularly pedantic people, seemingly obsessed with knowing precisely when ‘now’ is as described by Big Ben. Even though, by the time you’ve looked, that ‘now’ has changed.

You can measure time. But you can’t make it, change it, delay it or increase it in any way. Unless, according to Einstein, you can move as fast as the speed of light. And even a Ferrari can’t do that so we’ll leave that as ‘hypothetical’ for the time being (pun intended, or not).

But here’s how to make lots of time just disappear. You get Lila and Joey to stay at your house so their terrible, negligent, selfish, indulgent, entitled so-called ‘parents’!!!!! can go and lie in the sun for 3 or 4 days whilst drinking alcohol!!! and eating things. Because then, you’ll be woken long before Dawn has even gone for her middle-of-the-night piss by little people jumping on your head and demanding the unthinkable. Like movement or action. But heh! That gives you loads more of those man-made hours to enjoy, to utilise, to put to good use!!! I’m up really, really, really early, just think what I can achieve extra!!!

But then in steps ‘time’ and makes it all disappear in a whirl of breakfastS (one is never enough), colouring books, ipads and putting shoes on the wrong feet.

So there’s your answer. Time is all bollocks, but it CAN be extended by grandchildren, but not in any useful manner.

Happy exhausted Wednesday

A xxxx

Well that’s over. The coup in Russia. Possibly a ‘putsch’, maybe a shove. Almost a civil war. Its done with. You see, Mr Putin is such a nice, forgiving and tolerant world leader that he’s completely accepted the actions of the lovely Mr Prigozhin as ‘just a bit of an error, an over-excitement’, really nothing to worry about. And they all hugged and smiled and went out for an ice cream together. Holding hands. No foul, no penalty.

And Mr Putin even apologised for earlier, in an uncharacteristic show of aggressiveness, most out of character, for accusing the Wagner leader of treason. Prigozhin in turn smiled, in that way that people who earn their living murdering, raping and torturing people smile, and said he wouldn’t be naughty any more and upset his friend Vladimir.

Awwww.

However, just to complete the picture, just… ya-know, for ‘closure’, its perhaps worth noting that Putin’s stock on the international stage, as well as most definitely his ‘iron man’ image in Russia, has been severely damaged (the former) and dented (the latter). He has, for the first time in 20 years, shown weakness. Backed off. Gave ground. Did a u-turn. To allow anyone who opposed him in any way to simply walk away is absolutely unheard of. There is no precedent. Opponents just die, wherever they’re hiding, or they languish in a Siberian jail for 35 years.

Never mind, its hotter than hell over here and Wimbledon starts in one week’s time. The only tennis tournament in the world that actually means something. Not wishing to be parochial about this but other Grand Slams simply pale into the insignificance of Eurosport 3 and BT4, whereas Wimbledon belongs to the BBC. And we’ll need to see how the Russians ‘identify’ so we can decide whether to let them play.

Happy Sunday,

A xxxx

OMG! Have you heard??? There’s going to be peace in Ukraine. Putin will lead a flock of doves over Kiev whilst hippy Muscovites sing a medley of Bob Dylan songs, translated from the original Yiddish, hugging trees from Odessa to Donetsk and everyone will declare love and brotherhood forevermore…

Almost.

The good news is actually that there is some sort of quasi-proto-coup going on in Russia. And anything that is detrimental to Putin can only be good for every other human on Earth. However, its almost reminiscent to the Nazis being expelled from Berlin at the end of the war when the Russians (agaiaiain? Always the Russians) arrived. When everyone thought “anything’s better than Hitler” and in strolled Stalin, saying (in hindsight) “oh, ya reckon???”

Because the coup which is not a coup, just the taking over of a couple towns around Moscow, so far, is being headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the ‘Wagner Mercenary group’. Which is a seriously nasty, violent, sadistic and evil group of… well, mercenaries, many conscripted from jails in a kind of ‘Dirty Dozen’ moment, who have been fighting in Ukraine for Putin. And for money. Lots of money, but we’ll get to that later.

Prigozhin has been pissed off with the heads of Russian military for months now because his group don’t get the support they need. Like food. Armaments, missiles, tanks, uniforms, pretty much everything. So the group who were doing most of the damage in Ukraine on the Russian side, fell out with the Russians. Prigozhin is NOT opposed to the war. He’d like to escalate it, feels Russia have committed no war crimes and couldn’t give two shits if every school and hospital in Ukraine get blown up fully occupied.

And that really is the bad news. That should this coup unfold into a full-blown take-over and Putin is deposed, then Russia would be under the control of the original ‘Bad Mutha’. Who makes Putin seem like the Archbishop of Canterbury by comparison. And he only deals in cash. Hence the three truckloads of rubles found with about 5 million quid in cash at the Wagner office in St Petersburg.

Although instability in your enemy’s nation is normally a good thing, I don’t think Ukrainians should be uncovering their barbecues any time soon.

All we are saying is ‘Give Peace a Chance’. But it doesn’t translate into Russian.

God help us Saturday

A xxxx

So some geezer had an issue with online attack from vegans. Nothing unusual in that, there’s nothing as aggressive as an unprovoked, over-sensitive grass-eater. But this was in Perth, Australia. Land of the blunt and direct. And the man was restaurateur John Mountain and he responded in a fabulous way by stating ‘the vegan option in this restaurant: eat somewhere else’.

A young vegan woman claimed this to be ‘discriminatory’. I claim her to be a ‘fuckwit’. Even though she was rather lovely and surprisingly healthy looking for someone willingly deprived of meaningful proteins, calcium deficient and with a body lacking in so many basic vitamins.

And I thought: what kind of misplaced sense of entitlement gives you the right to expect every shop in the world to cater to your rather specific and generally unwanted needs? Its like me going into McDonalds and demanding strictly kosher food. (There is no less-likely scenario, I get that, but in a way that’s the point). I’m basically in the wrong restaurant. Its like going to Starbucks and ordering a new BMW in blue with black alloy wheels. In vegan world, I’d wait 3 minutes and it would just appear, lovely car with ‘Adny’ scribbled on the side in felt pen. With standard name mis-spelling, obvs.

So even though I have nothing but sympathy for the vegan sisterhood (ok, some contempt, but I think I’ve hidden that rather well) they seem to be the edible equivalent of the ‘trans’ generation where the ‘odd’ 99.76% of the population have to change attitudes, views, words, descriptions and behaviour so as not to offend a tiny minority bunch of beansprout-sausage-eating waifs.

Tragedy of the Submarine. There is not enough money in the world to get me on such a thing. My absolute nightmare. Even before it imploded ‘catastrophically’. Though find me a non-catastrophic implosion at three and a half kilometres under the sea and I’ll find you a tolerant vegan. But how could they let an unchecked, unregulated vessel with many safety questions unanswered, take passengers to their death? Its up-market people-smuggling.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

We were leaving the Promised Land. Even though we are ‘chosen people’, in this instance we decided to choose to be somewhere else. Not really out of choice, I’d have stayed on that beach or in the hummus bar, but holidays end, blah, blah, blah, don’t expect sympathy or compassion from YOU.

We left our dear friends in Netanya, filled up the car, cos otherwise the rental companies charge you even more per litre than the Shell garage in Highgate, as a punishment. And that went well. Possibly the last thing of the day which ‘went well’ for a good while. As you’ll see.

Because I know the way to the airport in Tel Aviv. I’ve driven it, probably, 25 times. I’ll tell you the way. Ready? You go down the 2 road, over the bridge to the 5 and follow the little airplane emojis all the way to Ben Gurion International. They’re everywhere you need them to be, and more. Right or left??? Just follow the airplane. Goddit.

They’ve really improved the roads too. Widened them, resurfaced them, brilliant. Smooth, even, fabulously freewayish in every way. Except… they didn’t get round to replacing all the signposts. The ones with the little airplanes on them. So we very soon found ourselves… fucking lost. Totally. Middle’a fucking nowhere. With not an airplane pic in sight. Never mind, turn on Waze. But the phones (both of them) wouldn’t pick up the airwaves. No idea why. Turned on ‘data’, had ‘4G’, but no function. Total fuckage. And the clock’s ticking.

Stopped the only person on any street and found an angel. Who looked up the way on her phone which we photographed to use. I’d buy her dinner, lunch and breakfast if I knew who she was or where the hell we found her. And thus we arrived at the airport. Not toooo late, but on the anxious side of mild panic, just before you scream.

Security, fine, check-in, fine, more security (this was Israel), pretty good and then…

I beeped the scanner. Ok, off with the belt, out with the loose change, I beeped it again. Ah, possibly the metal shoulder? We need to do a check. But only a man can do it. Even though the gorgeous babe in the uniform would definitely have been my first choice. And second. No, wait for a man. I tried arguing diversity, but she remained firm. But, like beautifully firm and…

Eventually I got the personal treatment (14 seconds) by some humourless automaton who confirmed that Osama Bin Laden I wasn’t, but after waiting 10 minutes.

Then just a minor hiccup because the automatic passport reader couldn’t believe my photo was so beautiful so it rejected it and made me go to see a non-automatic person.

Bottom line: we’re home. So what’s stressful in that?

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

We returned from the Golan. Fabulous up there but we missed the beach. The odd thing is; we don’t even like the beach. All that fucking sand everywhere, its awful. Hot, sticky, windy places, crowded like here in Netanya, terrible. But much as we protest our dislike of being on beaches, we just love walking on them. This morning we walked about 3 miles, there and back. Though where ‘there’ was, I have no idea. Just a rock. Near a hard place. So we turned and went back. We like pools really. Mel can do her lengths, I can do my length… width if I’m not quite up to it, and its all clean and nice and you don’t end up with sand on your testicles. But walking on beaches is simply magical. Especially this beach. Completely devoid of stones, shells and seaweed, the sand is soft silk and testicle-repellant. And with the sea over your toes, it goes on forever and is half a mile wide.

And we stay with my very old mate and his fabulous wife. We can’t stand them, but its free here so you can’t be that fussy. And the WiFi’s good, gotta give ‘em that. And its free. Everything’s free here.

Unlike my ‘data roaming’ on the way up to the Golan, where the m*thuf*ckers charged me 25 quid for using Waze for about 3 hours. Therefore I just spent half an hour having a ‘chat’ (one of those annoying little typing box ‘chats’) with a nice man with a completely unpronounceable name at Id-Mobile. Took about 3 minutes (after the inevitable 20 minutes of ‘security’ clearance worthy of MI6 and other assorted bollocks, to get £20 back off the thieving bastards. Because you know if you send an SMS message it will cost you £1.50. You know calls will bankrupt you within 3.6 minutes. But you don’t know ‘data’. Its so opaque and mysterious that “£1.50 per megabyte” is simply meaningless. To me anyway. Do they measure how many megabytes Waze is sending me as it mis-directs me up the toll roads??? Or does someone else with a different unpronounceable name just say… “hmmm, Andy’s on Waze, charge the fucker 25 quid! That’ll show him”?

Anyway, we’re coming home tomorrow. So its time to go back to the beach. Even though we don’t like it at all. We’re doing it for YOU!

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

The thing about the Golan Heights is given away a bit by the name. They’re high. And, hilly. Ok, mountainous, but they don’t tell you that til you get there. So we picked a Golan Height and went there. Turned off the road onto a track. Bumped along very precariously for a couple of kilometres because they don’t have any miles here. Got out and started walking along a marked trail. But it wasn’t a path. It was rocks. Big ones, going up very steeply then down even more steeply. Taking us to a stream. Which was beautiful. We followed that (more rock climbing) then went up to view a waterfall. At which point we should have turned back. But we didn’t. We went on. And on. And on. Because climbing up and down rocks in 36 degrees (they don’t have Farenheits here either) is actually quite fun. Strenuous fun but fun. And after about an hour of intense sweating, we saw ‘a sign’ (Lord!) which said: ‘car park- that way’, towards more rocks. We felt immense relief. Until we saw the path. Upwards, unbelievably steep and about 300 metres (yards, same fucking thing) long. It was the hardest, hottest, sweatiest hike I’ve ever done. And the sense of achievement as we made it to the car park was just…

Just ruined by the fact that it was in fact the wrong car park. It had cars in it, but not ours. Which was about a kilometre away back along the track.

We did so many steps and burned (literally) so many calories that it almost made up for last night’s dinner entirely and possibly some of breakfast too.

I have been reading the Times most days here. But its dull. What I’ve learned is: Donald Trump is dangerous fuck-wit, which is not really news at all, and that Boris is still, has always been and will always be, a total tosser. There ends the news.

Happy Hiking Saturday

A xxxx

So we left the fat, lazy, over-eating, ice-cream-laden world of Tel Aviv’s most gorgeous seaside resort and headed north. By Northeast. And now we’re in the Golan Heights. Its spectacularly beautiful, but we know that, we’ve been here before. We’re about 2 miles from Syria but we’ve never been there before. And as its all bad news there, we’re not going now. Also, if we take the Israeli rental car into such places, it will spontaneously explode. Because there are very strict rules when they hand over the keys.

What happened last time we came to this kibbutz was: I looked up on the map where to go, wrote down the names and numbers of all the roads, got in the car and drove here.

But I’m soooooo beyond that. Who even knows what a ‘map’ is any longer? This time I used… Waze. Which I use a lot. And I first used here in Israel, when it first started before it became totally ‘everywhere in the world’ and then sold to Google. And I have absolute faith in Waze. Whatever it says, I go.

And I would go north up the coast road; the ‘2’ road. But because of some local roadworks, Waze took me further east. Ah, we’ll take the ‘20’, another road I know. But no, we went past that and onto… the ‘6’!!! Firstly, that’s a toll road, and they’re always an issue in rental cars because about 4 months after traveling on one you get a bill for ‘toll charge, $2.25, admin fee: $49.50’. But that wasn’t our main concern. We were worried that the 6 road lies fairly east. And may possibly even be in the West Bank. And the West Bank is, from a Hertz/Budget/Avis point of view, worse than going to Syria. They fine you just for being there. And being an electronic toll road, they would know.

I didn’t know if I was in the West Bank or not. I didn’t have a map. So I turned off and headed back to the 2 road. Which took about 30 added minutes and could have affected our strict timetable for over-eating.

So I still adhere to the ‘In Waze we trust’ maxim which is tattooed on my chest.

And it was my birthday. A very lovely one. Driving worries aside.

A xxxx

Every day (so it seems) the Times ‘T2’ section offers health advice, normally, and to be honest, quite insultingly, aimed at the over-40s, over-50, over-60s or pre-dead. What’s even worse is that although I’ve skipped over those pages and filed them under the ‘health bollocks’ section, Mel reads them. Out loud. To me. Even if I’m not listening. And they always say pretty much the same thing. Exercise more. Eat less. Oh, that’s big fucking news, I’ll write that down right now so I never forget. But then they get specific. Over 60 you need to be working with weights. Why? You’re supposed to avoid lifting heavy things when you’re old, ain’t’cha? No, its good for bone density, so you have to do resistance training. Fine by me, I’m so resistant to training I’m way ahead of the curve. Do yoga! Fuck off. I don’t want to. I do tai chi and that’s basically yoga with violence. The way we do it anyway. You need ‘cardio’, yep, I play my tennis. I ride my bike. Just, not very far. 5 minutes each way to the station playing chicken with a bunch of school-run mums in Teslas, and back. 6 minutes if I get stuck behind the refuse collectors on a Wednesday and take evasive action by making new friends on the pavement.

This week is different. Holiday routine. Out at 8 to walk along the beach for half an hour. Back to the pool to swim our lengths. In ‘her’ case. Hundreds of them. I stick to widths and by 12 I’m bored. Though yesterday I zoomed in on my tai chi session on my balcony and that was splendid and bodily-nourishing and I kicked a lot of things. Mainly the glass doors and the table and chairs, cos its not the biggest balcony. So all that lot, coupled with my tennis, twice a week, and quite frankly, I’ll live as long as I’ll live. If doing 32 squats every day (where do they find such precise numbers for a population of such diverse body-shapes and abilities?) will give me an extra 3 days more incapacitated dribbling onto the floor of a care home, then that’ll be my loss, my regret.

Meanwhile, I haven’t reviewed a book in ages, so I must just make a mention of something quite extra-ordinary. The Traitor and the Spy by Ben MacIntyre. Its a completely true story of Cold War espionage written by a fantastic journalist. If it was fiction I’d have put it down as being ‘ridiculous’ and beyond credibility. But its true. Validated. And as such is just the brilliant story of an amazing man.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

As I stepped off the plane in Tel Aviv, I felt a ‘little tickle’ in my throat. The sort of ‘just a little tickle, nothing’ which, just 3 years ago would have had me barricading myself in the spare room for at least 10 days, taking my meals from Mel at the door dressed in full Hazmat. But now; just a tickle. Which has developed over the last 3 days into a full-blown… man-something. Not sure what. Hasn’t stopped me sunbathing or swimming. Certainly hasn’t stopped me eating. But at night it bothers me. All fucking night. And you know the rule: anything that bothers me is going to bother Mel. We ‘share’. That’s love.

And that’s all so much sympathy cravings, attention seeking, I get that. We’re all a bit Munschausen at times. But this morning my voice started to ‘go’. Just words weren’t coming out fully. “Pass me the schmaltz herring, darling” at breakfast became “-ass -a tz—errin—ling”. Ok, I probably didn’t need another bit of herring anyway but this is cause for great and grave concern. The very thought that I might be saying things of massive importance, of global significance, of profound scientific innovation or political creativity, and it could get lost in some pre-laryngitial mish-mash is of deep concern to all mankind. For the duration of this ailment I shall be recording every word uttered on my phone. Just in case. The complete, uncut recordings
will be available on Spotify from tomorrow under ‘The Lord has Spoken’. Even if he was only asking for another toilet roll.

And here’s a thought. ‘We’ can now choose to ‘identify’ as whatever gender, sex, hybrid, monster or thing we so choose. The arguments against are all along the same lines, vis a vis; you were ‘born’ as one definitive ‘thing’, biologically and now you choose to change it. And yet society is being forced to accept, for the sake of not wishing to offend a very few but very noisy minority, you are allowed to change how you are described.

So, despite being 67 on Friday, I IDENTIFY as a man of 42. And if you disagree, if you prove empirically that this is wrong/stupid, if you even challenge my assertion, I will fucking cancel you, murder your children, rape your pets and MAKE YOUR LIFE HELL!!!

So on Friday, we’ll be singing “42 today, 42 today, ee ai addiyo, 42 today.”

Happy Tuesday, unless it identifies as Wednesday

A xxxx