Andy's Glasses

We went to an exhibition yesterday. In Kensington. Which is dead posh, obviously. We walked through Holland Park to get there and you can’t get posher than that. Its where Rishi Sunak lives, ffs, so you know there’s money around. Not in the park though which, although really beautiful, was full of Russians and Poles and Koreans and Albanians pushing babies round in buggies, dressed in shell suits.

And at the end of the park there sits the Design Museum. Inside which was the works of Ai Weiwei, the noted Chinese artist, ‘activist’ and all-round troublemaker, the one who’s seminal work filled the hallway of the Tate Modern a few years back. That was a 120 metre display of stones. Not painted, not tipped or dumped, but each one ‘placed’. Millions of them. It sat there for ages. Because no-one could be bothered to pick them up again. And also, because it was ‘art’.

The Design Museum is a gorgeous space, massive, which was good because Ai Weiwei doesn’t really get the whole ‘minimal’ thing at all. For him, art is BIG. And so, inevitably, there were lesser rows of stones on the floor. Broken tea pots, all arranged nicely, lying there, about 30 metres by 20. Its what he does. I get that. And its meaningful. Didn’t get that quite as much but there is an aesthetic there, no doubt. And the man has spent his life defying the Chinese authorities, for which he must be credited. And why he now lives in Portugal.

But here’s the amazing thing, if you’re into coincidence.

Having written extensively yesterday my personal homage to Lego, and Yego, it turns out that there is one fan even more devoted than me to little Swedish bricks, and that is Ai Weiwei. He’s done loads of work with Lego bricks. Massive works with tiny bricks. There’s his version of Monet’s Water Lilies, amazing, 25 metres long, obviously, and must contain a million little Lego pieces.

When China put him in prison, Lego wouldn’t or couldn’t send him any bricks. So people sort of ‘crowdfunded’ his needs and send him tons of them. Which is what he displayed in the traditional Ai Weiwei manner, by dumping them on the floor. Like Joey would. That wouldn’t please his mum, I’m sure.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

When you think of Sweden, what springs to mind? Lots of blonde people running round healthily (your mind will be in summertime, obviously, if its in winter those same blondes will be frozen solid in near pitch black lightlessness for those 8 months)? Or ABBA??? Volvo? Ikea? Bjorn Borg? Smorgasbord? Herring??

I used to think along those lines, but now, to me, Sweden = Lego.

Which, I admit, is pretty stupid because Lego is Danish. But is there a difference? Like, really? Not from down ‘ere there ain’t. The only things to notably occur in either of those places, according to their tv offerings and popular literature, are grizzly murders. Lots of them. And other than during the World Cup, Sweden=Denmark=Norway.

When I was a kid, I played with Lego. When I had kids, they played with Lego. Now my kids have kids, and they play with Lego. Well, Lila does, Joey plays with Yego. If he still refuses to pronounce an ‘L’ like an ‘L’ by the time he’s 18, I’ll be worried. For now, its sweet. And never sweeter than calling to his sister “YIIIYAAAAAAH!!!”, (think along the lines of Fred Flintstone’s ‘Wilmaaaa!’, but louder).

We used to buy boxes of ‘bricks’, from which we created… stuff. Castles. They were easy. Houses. Easier still. Anything curved had to be made really big so you could fashion those curves from straight bricks. Which is good for Lego, cos you had to buy more. Building walls was good. Towers. Boxes… you get the drift.

But now, you buy a Lego kit and it forms a fully articulated Tyrannosaurus Rex with swishing tale and bad breath, which actually (for a £4.99 upgrade kit) gives birth to live young. It is THAT fucking brilliant. The Lego dogs bark (and shit too, for £4.99 extra), the cars work, doors open, windows hinge. Its all too clever and brilliant to be true. And best of all, Lila can build absolutely anything Lego, because the instructions are so simple, clear and clever. Maybe that’s the Danish bit. Which they need to pass across the mermaid to their mates at Ikea.

On Thursday, Joey’s birthday, ‘we’ made a fire station. With a fire engine, fire helicopter and everything you could imagine a child of 4 could want. Other than, in Joey’s case, the box of matches and a REAL axe. And it all ‘works’, using clips and ball and socket joints and little fake lights and roller-blinds, ffs. But even better than the previous ‘best of all’, you can’t break any of the pieces. No matter how small, how seemingly fragile, how delicate, they’ll outlive all of us by 25,000,000 years. Which is perhaps the only issue you could take with so much plastic, but… but… OMG, so much pleasure and even Joey can’t break it.

Have a yoveryey day

A xxxx

I don’t know if you’ve noticed (and in many ways, it says a lot of good things if you haven’t) but there are many footballers around who aren’t… what you’d call… could be described as… white. Some of us remember when Luther Blisset played in the 60s and 70s, and Clyde Best and they suffered terrible abuse from their own fans, never mind everyone else’s. Mainly because the world was filled with morons and now the terraces are full of brilliantly clever egalitarians and equal rightsists. And any morons left over have now been sent away and banished from these shores. To Spain.

Where it is perfectly acceptable and normal to make monkey chants at black players. As happened to Real Madrid’s Brazilian superstar Vinicius, on Sunday at Valencia. And, apparently, at virtually every other ground he’s graced with his magical feet, virtually every week. And I get that everyone in Spain hates Real Madrid and so to ‘get at’ one of their star players is ‘the thing to do’. ‘Wind him up’. But, really? With juvenile racist tropes?

So Vinicius ‘lost it’, and to be honest, he has every right. Real Madrid have made legal accusations against Valencia and attacked this horrible culture, rife in Spanish football.
At which point the Chairman of La Liga himself, Snr Javier Tebas, came out and made everyone feel much better by stating that, no, there is no racism problem in Spanish football. Not at all.

Ok, so if its not Valencia that have a racism problem, as viewed by the governing league body, then its that view that’s wrong. And if the Spanish government then agree that there’s no problem, then the only conclusion is that the whole nation is institutionally racist and thus finds tolerable and acceptable what the rest of the world finds abhorrent. Its like Corbyn with his antisemitism. If you deny the abuse that is pretty obvious to everyone else then you’re saying such things are perfectly fine. Whereas you’re just trying to normalise racism.

And when I say ‘the rest of the world’, I mean the relatively civilised bit. Go east of Berlin and it all goes downhill rapidly. Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Russia (obviously, they hate everyone), and its a shit-storm of racist abuse at every opportunity.

“Stamp it out” should kind’a work everywhere. That’s, sort of, the point?

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I’m no fan of the Home Secretary. Not the ‘job’ as such, that’s quite important, but our current person in charge of police, homes and… immigration!!! And to be honest, I find her a bit too ‘Conservative’ for my particular tastes, a bit too anti-everybody, a bit too ‘send ’em off to Rwanda’-y and a bit too Brexity. But that’s just me. I don’t have to love her, just put up with her and all the good work that she does. Or doesn’t do.

But what she does in her spare time is not for me to say. Though does appear for everyone else to say. Particularly tossers, who always have a lot to say.

She drove too fast and got caught. Which immediately gets my sympathy. Even horrible hard-righters have a right to speed.

Now here’s an interesting irony. The speeds on our roads are set by boroughs, and some are set by government. But the Home Office is in ultimate charge. So if some are too slow (they’re ALLLLLLL too slow) then she really should do something about it. Rather than effectively breaking her own legal limits.

Anyway, Cruella got flashed, got a ticket, and was offered a ‘speed awareness course’. Just like everyone else. So she asked someone in her office if she could have a ‘one on one’ version of the course. Rather than the group bore-a-thons that the rest of us endure. And I get that. Because she’s famous, and because its really embarrassing for a minister to be mixing with us normal law-breakers.

Yet this is a red line. For Kier Starmer and his acolytes. Wes Streeting was on the news calling for Braverman’s head. Starmer insists on her resignation, but that’s all he ever says about anyone. “This needs to come before the ethics committee!!” “We need an investigation!!” “This is a clear breach of the ministerial code!!!” they cry.

To which I can only ask ‘why?’ Why waste time, effort, energy and MY money on absolutely nothing? Just to try and score a few pathetic political points. This isn’t Boris and his lockdown parties, its not watching porn during a parliamentary session, nor joining a conference with a bunch of ‘nationalists’, its not even sexual assault. Just, ‘I’d rather do this on my own’. Speed awareness courses are a perfectly legal option. They’re not ‘hiding the crime’ or ‘looking for a way out’, they’re just self-inflicted punishment by boredom on those duped into thinking their insurance company won’t know. Cos they will. Have these people got nothing more important to worry about?

There’s a million reasons to pick on and hate Suella Braverman. This ain’t one of them.

Happy Monday

I want to apply for a transfer. I’ve written to Daniel Levy to request being put on the transfer market, so I can go and be a fan at another club. I have a lot going for me as a football fan. I’m experienced, I’m loyal (well, til yesterday), I love the game, I’m completely stupid (otherwise I’d have put in a request decades ago) and I know lots of great football songs. Which can quite easily be shifted from one team to the next. Other than ‘sit down you paedophile’ which doesn’t really adapt in any meaningful way. Though it was a nice tune which Mr Wenger always seemed to enjoy. And instead of ‘Yid Armeee, Yid Armeee, etc, etc, etc…’ I could just change it to ‘… Armeee,… Armeee…’ So you can see, I’m quite flexible in my skill set.

So where should I go? Obviously, Arsenal is completely out of the question. They’re an easy journey, play super football, have a wonderful stadium and enjoy quite a measure of success. Who wants that? Also, I’m fundamentally too decent a person to qualify for Arsenal fandom. And really, I think I need to ‘get back to basics’. So I reckon I’m actually looking for a really horrible, train-strikey, 5 hour trip each way, to a northern shit-hole, in order to enter a Dickensian, piss-smelling, red-brick stadium where everybody moans all the time. But to become a Manchester United fan would make me the ultimate cliché as three quarters of their ‘fans’ live in London. The rest all live within the M25 except for 9 people, all named Ramsbottom.

If I was glory seeking I’d endure the same journey but to go to the ‘other’ Manchester team. Who are now known as ‘Manchester’s first team’, with those in red colours now relegated to the mid-table wannabe status their erstwhile ‘poor relations’ used to enjoy until they suddenly became the exceptionally rich relations. Though there is appeal in becoming a City fan. Firstly, but not necessarily the most important, from my current perspective, is that you win trophies faster and more frequently than they can cast them. Secondly, you get to buy up every single best player in the world and keep them forever. And thirdly, you get to entirely restructure the whole world of profit and loss accounting, just to try and satisfy a bunch of European pedantics who obsess about such things.

Liverpool don’t accept Londoners, which is good, because we don’t accept them. Newcastle is a great possibility except for the language barrier and Chelsea are obviously not prepared to take me until my martial arts skills have improved greatly.

So that leaves the south coast. Because I like Brighton and Bournemouth. But there’s always a chance… a possibility… that they might… not be… so… errrr… permanent in the Premiership. And I couldn’t face Championship football. Or worse. Sorry, or ‘lower’. I’m too much a Princess for such unsnobbish, grounded, good fun, low expectations and accepting type fan attitudes.

There’s a place for me… somewhere, a place for meeeee…

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I really love connectivity. I love the way things go round and you end up where they started. Its the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon. Its finding that a guy your friend met is the friend of another guy who was your best mate in 1973. And thus, the tale of Maiwenn.

Who?

Oh, Maiwenn, the French bird wot wrote, directed and stars in the new movie, Jeanne du Barry. Starring… Johnny Depp!!! OMG!!! Have we forgiven him yet? For… for… well, have we? Anyway, he’s in her film. She does have a surname but no-one uses it. No-one can pronounce her first name but its all she needs. Like Beyoncé, like Keanu, like Pele, like Lila, they only need one name. But its her appearance which is really amazing.

This picture was Maiwenn in 1997. She was blue. And had dangly things. And a fucking great head. And she sang a fantastic operatic pop song in The 5th Element movie. One of the 17 films in my all-time top 5. No idea why I like it because it is very silly. But Bruce Willis was… Bruce Willis, always amazing value. It had the oh-so-beautiful, naive and yet exceptionally dangerous Mila Jovovich, speaking gobbledygook, oh-so-beautifully. And it had Maiwenn.

Who was married, at the time, to the director, Luc Besson. Another reason I loved the movie, because Luc was pure class. His ‘Leon’ was a true classic. About a 12 year old Natalie Portman having her parents shot dead and falling into the care of a hit-man. The relationship between this beautiful child and Jean Reno’s weirdo hitman who was in love with a rubber-plant, was tantalisingly blurred at the edges.

And yet, Luc Besson was in a relationship with Maiwenn when she was 15. She had his child when she was 16. So in retrospect, Leon possibly had some kind of autobiographical resonance for Luc. I make no judgments. And the French lack certain ‘boundaries’ that more civilised people adhere to.

Maiwenn is no longer married to Luc, and is no longer blue. Maybe that’s why the marriage failed, when she changed colour. I don’t know. But she’s gorgeous in a highly toothsome way which doesn’t always look great in other nationalities, but is fab in French.

So that’s it. The director of a movie starring a ‘persona non grata’ for 3 years, was once a light blue opera singer in a film directed by her slightly perverted husband’s fabulous movie 26 years before, which I’ve loved ever since. And that makes me happy.

Never said I was ‘normal’.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I’m lovin’ every minute of Brexit. I feel… free! From Europe. I feel… pleasantly isolated, on my little island with the borders closed FOREVER. I feel… wonderfully liberated from all those stupid, pesky Euro-laws which have made our lives miserable for decades. I feel… wonderful. God bless Boris Johnson and his team, and Nigel Farage especially, for finally delivering what we all wanted. And needed.

Needed?

Yes, needed. Because you see Britain is perfectly self-sufficient in everything. And we’re brilliant at banking and finance. Insurance. And, apparently, money-laundering but that goes hand-in-hand with the rest of it, I s’pose. But we make so much money from these core businesses that we don’t need anyone or anything else.

Ok, we need a bit of food, but that’s fine as long as its not Brie, Camembert or Champagne. We can make our own pizzas but pretty soon we won’t be allowed to call them ‘pizzas’ due to Euro-regulations. Hummus is fine because it comes from further afield.

It would be nice to manufacture something really, but its not that important to us as a nation, especially if you live within the M25 where absolutely nothing is made, except money. So we can fund the rest of the country who are all out-of-work due to factory closures. When all the car manufacturers pulled the plug here and took their plants over to Europe where its easy to get the parts in without any fuss. Because since Brexit we’ve become the world leaders in ‘fuss’. Everything arriving from Europe needs certification, duty, vat, forms, palaver and endless bollocks. Those bastards, just because we chose to voluntarily leave the biggest free trading block in the world. We showed ‘em!

Elon Musk went to France yesterday for the meeting of the world’s 2 most obnoxious people. And he agreed with Macron to a massive new plant, in France, obviously, to make batteries for Teslas. The ones he makes at this brand new factory in Berlin.

Musk is not coming to Britain on his little Euro-tour because he’s on a private jet, obviously, and the irony of the man leading the ‘green motoring revolution’ spewing another 14 tons of carbon into the atmosphere is a bit rum. Especially as he has no need to come here. No business to conduct. Too difficult to deal with Britain.

Well at least we’ve stopped all those bloody migrants. Oh, we haven’t. Cruella is sorting that out now. We’ve stopped the European ones at least, removed their free access to our nations riches. So if you’re free for the next three months, there’s 47,329 vacancies for harvesting on farms otherwise another year’s crop will just rot.

We got Brexit DONE! And we’re all the better for it.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I’m conflicted. And it makes me feel… uncomfortable. Conflict does that.

You see, the problem is football. Its always football. And at this time of the season, the deals get done, the projects finalised, the outcomes realised. There’s nowhere to hide when you’re heading for relegation and can’t score a goal. Like Leicester last night against (sometimes-)mighty Liverpool. And we all have a, sort of ‘mini-soft-spot’ for the Foxes because they won the league 7 years ago against all imaginable odds. And then degenerated into something less wholesome. Something a bit more Jamie Vardy. A bit more Gary Lineker. So if they should take the plunge, you can’t help but think that may take at least a smidge of smugness off Linker’s face. Jamie Vardy’s face is simply a lost cause.

But my main area of conflict is at the top. As Arsenal virtually conceded any chance of winning the league by losing to Brighton my initial, instinctive and unconscious reaction was one of joy and happiness. That doesn’t make me a good person, I appreciate that, it just makes me a Spurs fan. Which is not always a logical, considered, even decent place to be. But there ya go. Because when I do consider, I realise that I’m apparently happy for Manchester City to win the league. Again. And firstly that’s a bit boring and secondly I’m in the unholy position of cheering for the devil. For the immoral, unscrupulous and corrupt. A team who appal me with their flaunting of at least 105 rules (according the ongoing case against them). Who twist and turn and conceal and obfuscate at every financial mis-dealing.

Hence my conflict. The thought of Arsenal winning the league fills me with dread. The thought of Man City winning fills me with disgust.

Dread… disgust… dread… disgust…

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I am a European.
I was a European. Now I’m a narrow-minded, small-worlded, Island-mentality-ed, isolationist INLISHMAN.

There was good and bad with Brexit. In fact, there was bad and worse with Brexit. The only good bit was that we could get rid of some of their ridiculous laws which led to a packet of peanuts showing the statement ‘MAY CONTAIN NUTS’. Which is nuts, unless you’re a Euro-bureaucrat, in which case its making the world safe. They never considered the nut-allergists who can’t read, did they???

Anyway, none of that has happened yet. The 4,762 (no idea really, but its a lot) laws we wish to dispose of are still sitting there awaiting the immense task of being written out of law and replaced with good, British laws. So a packet of peanuts will say ‘DOES CONTAIN NUTS’. So what part, exactly, of GET BREXIT DONE, has actually been done?

And why are we still in the Eurovision Song Contest? Why the fuck was Australia EVER in it? But they’re in it by choice. I want out so I don’t have to suffer the humiliation of my beautiful, walled in, foreigners-out nation coming second from bottom. To a bunch of gender ambiguous, hip-hop, electro-rapping out-of-work EUROPEANS! Among whom, I no longer number.

Turkey wants to become part of the EU. They saw an empty slot with ‘UK’ rubbed out and they want in. Well, only if Erdegan’s opponent wins, obviously. If the incumbent president is victorious he’ll just continue to erode as many democratic rights from his people as he can, then he’ll do a Xi Jinping and pronounce himself President for Life and possibly declare war on Europe. But the problem there today is that the reports of the incoming ‘results’ are all different, all contradictory and, basically, can’t be trusted. I wouldn’t say Erdegan is ‘corrupt’, never, but he is. Totally. The Turks will abandon their nation. And if they try to come here they’ll end up in Senegal. So that’ll be the place for kebabs. I’m booking my flights now.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

So whilst you were lazing around, reading the papers, relaxing in front of a hot tv screen, putting the kids through the car-wash, sitting in a beer-garden, strolling round some village or generally being a lazy fucking bastard!!!, some of us were busy. But like, busy. (Note: for the purposes of this message, neither ‘gloating’, nor ‘wallowing in Arsenal’s displeasure and frustration’, counts as ‘work’. It is pure pleasure.)

Because one of Mel’s staff had the bare-faced cheek and outrageous audacity to take a holiday, I was seconded to go and help. Even though I insult people and generally cause way more bother than I’m worth, there was no-one else to ask. And because of that, I had to play tennis at 9 instead of my usual 10. The sacrifices I make…

Tennis was great, it barely rained at all. Then home, shower, change, and to work. Which was, as always on a Sunday morning, busy.

But then I left at 12.45 because I went to a stone-setting. Its the Jewish version of a ‘memorial’. About 9 months after burial, its time to accept that they ain’t gonna rise up, (as did happen to one Jewish guy a couple thousand years ago), so its ok to put half a ton of granite on top. And whilst you’re doing it, you might as well say a few prayers. Which we duly did. And its comforting for the bereaved and a nice kind of ‘closure’. Even though it was in Bushey. Though it was unusually sunny and lovely, which always adds.

I came all the way back to London from Hertfordshire, (20 minutes), only to go to the Affordable Art Fair, for which we’d acquired tickets many months ago. And the art was… affordable. If you can blow 5 grand on a dog made of scrap metal, or a collage which Joey would be proud of, then its very ‘affordable’. But its on Hampstead Heath. Which is lovely. And on a sunny day, what could be nicer. Ok, getting there without getting really lost on the Heath might be a bit nicer, but that’s the nature of trees. They all look the fucking same. We didn’t get quite so lost getting home. Just… let’s just say, if I had a step-counter I’d have hit any target 6 times.

Home for the last 10 minutes of the Arsenal game which, due to, as mentioned above, my refusal to claim any enjoyment from, ended about 10 minutes later.

Happy Sunday,

A xxxx