Andy's Glasses

How strange, you may think, that coming just a couple of days after Kathrine-Jenkins-gate, when the opera star lost her bag on a flight to Rome, we now learn of Bluebell-gate, in which Bluebell, a Labrador, was sent to Nashville to join its owners, but instead, arrived in Riyadh. Ooops.

But is it strange? Or is it that BA just lose about 3/4s of all cargo they handle but its only when it happens to someone famous, Like Kathrine Jenkins or Bluebelle, that it makes the papers? When its just my hiking boots, NO ONE CARES.

The consequences of this latest incident could have been tragic. What if the dog had been sent to Korea instead? She wouldn’t have made it outside the airport before some cunning restauranteur saw her potential.

Are female dogs allowed in Riyadh without a face covering? Headscarf, at least. Are they allowed out without a male dog’s permission? She certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to drive.

But its ok now, she’s safely in Nashville. Well, I say safely but she is a black Labrador. A golden one would be safe, but be careful, Bluebelle, watch out for the men in pointy hats.

Elon Musk. The most brilliantly clever and exhaustingly industrious asshole on the planet. Who so misjudged his ‘audience’ with delusions of his own amazingness that he simply failed to realise a massive truth. That people hate him. For being rich. For being smug. For being revolting, South African, obnoxious, successful, ugly and… that pretty much covers most of it.

So when he decided to ‘poll’ Twitter’s billions of registrants to vote for him just to ‘stay or go’ as the media platform’s chief person, they were always going to say ‘GO’. And they did. A shock to no-one, other than Elon. Leaving him with a… errrr… a ‘thing’ that cost him £36billion, with hardly any staff left, users leaving in droves and no-one there to run it. Plus, his promises to let free speech reign only seems to apply to free speech he personally approves of. Which is, kind’a, missing the whole ‘free speech’ thing really. Even though he chose to let Trump and Kanye back on board. Giving that freedom of speech only to right wing lunatics and followers of nazi doctrine. Which is not fair on the militant communists, conspiracy theorists, flat-Earthers and tree-huggers.

If I used Twitter I might be bothered, but I don’t know how.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Lionel Messi was officially crowned ‘the best player ever’ after we sat riveted for three hours to the ‘the best World Cup final ever’ and the entire tournament was re-named as ‘the best World Cup finals ever in winter’, the ‘best World Cup corruption’, ‘the most workers ever dead because of a world cup’ and the most things ever banned in a World Cup environment (booze, gays, human rights…) and I’m still shaking with excitement now. I hope its excitement, early-onset Parkinson’s is the only other option and I don’t fancy that much.

I would say ‘the match started’ but really it didn’t. Argentina started but France… didn’t. The (then) holders decided to give Messi and co. an 80 minute head start. It’s only fair. So the Argies surged and weaved and the totally brilliant Angel Di Maria combined with incredible Lionel and the sensational Alexis Mac Allister (how long’s he going to remain at Brighton??) to be 2- nil up at half time. So they ‘relaxed’. And that seemed to be going well too. France’s super-mega-star, Kylian Mbappe, was asleep. Maybe a late night party on Saturday, who knows.

But sleeping lions wake up at some point. Normally to eat, but in this account of twisting metaphors and generally terrible prose, this time it was to score! Twice in 2 minutes, the first a penalty, the second a goal of total Mbappe-ness and spectacularism. Holy shit. 2-all, ten minutes to play and suddenly we were all awake again.

Extra time was simply spectacular, especially the second period. The distillation of an entire match in 15 minutes of frantic, end-to-end amazement. The incomparable (as he was about to become during the next hour) Messi, inevitably scored what looked like ‘the winning goal’. But in the absence of obese people identifying as female in full song, it weren’t over. Because the other side had the soon-to-be incomparable Mbappe around to score an equaliser and send the match to the dreaded ‘penalty shoot-out’. The cruelest of cruel endings.

Unless the French lose, when its ‘plus ca change, plus ca meme chose’. Which means: MESSI WON!!!!

It was definitely the right result. But the journey to get there was what World Cups should always be about. Even ones as dodgy as this one.

Happy Monday to all Argentinians. We forgive you for the Falklands. Almost.

A xxxx

Now here’s a tragic story. Katherine Jenkins, the Welsh opera singer and all-round super-babe (I mean that in the ‘she’s such’a luvverly gel’ way, nothing to do with any objectivity, misogyny, racism against the Welsh or any other way which people may find objectionable; even though she’s well worthy of all the above) flew to Rome. To sing for… The Pope!!! And British Airways lost her baggage. Which included the beautiful, opera-ish dress she was to wear for her performance. Which is not massively tragic, the Pope’s got lots of dresses, he’d lend her one, I’m sure, being ‘charitable’ and all that other Catholic stuff, but was sufficient to make the newspapers. Ok, sufficient to make it into the Mail on Sunday.

Whereas when BA lost my hiking boots somewhere between Heathrow and Inverness one summer, it didn’t even make it into the Hampstead and Highgate Gazette. Nor the Jewish Chronicle, even though I claimed ‘antisemitism’ as the cause of the loss, nor even in the Hampstead Garden Suburb newsletter. Though I appreciate that someone installing a new drain-pipe in a non-approved colour and the ensuing legal battle is far more important that ME GETTING WET FEET IN ULLAPOOL!!!!

But that’s the price of fame. You become newsworthy. Everything becomes newsworthy. Even losing a dress. You’re in Rome, FFS, buy a new one and send the bill to BA. Or claim on your insurance.

Yet Harry and Meg have courted the fame that they blame as the cause of all ‘the troubles’. The irony is not lost that they fled the country to avoid the press, then invited them into their home for 6 months to film their most intimate of feelings. And during the release of this ‘documentary’ by Netflix, ‘the Palace’ has been noticeably silent, regally restrained, royally pissed off, no doubt, but elegantly silent.

Then today in creeps a little article how ‘Meghan drama harmed the Queen’s health’. Oooohhhh. Not ‘Harry and Meg’s’, just hers. They didn’t mention what colour Meghan was, nor inquire ‘where she’s from’. But the implication, a very subtle form of ‘MURDERING FUCKING BITCH!!!’, is writ large. Doctors failed to explain whether this was done by osmosis or whether Meg actually has the power to accelerate cancer, which the Queen died from.

Yet there is a connection. And Netflix should issue a warning on the series: THIS PROGRAM MAY MAKE YOU GIVE UP THE WILL TO LIVE!

Football at 3. Getting into pre-match mode. By eating.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Well that’s it then. Decided. The rabble have gone, the chaff blown away in the wind, all that’s left is ‘the two’. France versus Argentina to decide the championship of the entire fucking WORLD!!!

And, of course, I’d like to point out that the ‘World Cup’, unlike all American sporting competitions nominally ‘world’ this or that, actually means, like, sort of, ‘the whole world’. Not just the little bit between Florida and San Diego, which no-one other than Donald Trump cares about anyway.

France and Argentina. From a footballing perspective it is indeed quite tantalising. But then you have to consider who you really want to lose more. And that’s where it gets quite difficult. Do I wear my “10 MESSI” shirt? Or paint my face that horrible tricoleur and hope it doesn’t rub off on my shirt?

We’ve had more wars with France than any other nation. Although, thankfully, all are historic. Yet the reason for those wars still applies. They are a horrible nation of arrogant, smug ‘orribles, with exceptionally good looking women who can bring you to near orgasm just by having a conversation with you about bus time tables.

Argentina is also home to exceptionally beautiful women and is one of my favourite places on the planet. But we had a war with them in 1982 over a little island no-one gives a shit about. And I truly love little Leo Messi. But when they beat the Netherlanders last week on penalties they disgraced themselves by being horribly unsportsmanlike. All of ‘em. Which was the only instance of such nastiness in the whole tournament. And it left a sour taste.

But then you have to think: Mbappe and Messi… the absolute upcoming star of the game against the best ever(??? Another debate entirely). And of course, they’re teammates at (Qatari-owned) PSG, which adds yet more layers. The main difference is that if you take out Messi (and good luck with that, creating economically-viable nuclear fusion is possibly easier) Argentina will struggle. But if you take out Mbappe, Griezman will kill you (ask any England player), and the French are solid in depth and great at defending.

So who, as ‘neutrals’ are we to support on Sunday? We don’t. We just wait for it to finish and then proclaim ‘yeah, I said from the off they were gonna win it…’

Happy Friday

A xxxx

We all know about ‘splitting the atom’, it happened a hundred years ago. In Manchester, oddly. Lot of bad things happen up there. But Ernest Rutherford ‘split an atom’ and released a shitload of energy. Later they ‘invented’ nuclear fission, yer bog-standard, chain-reaction type atom-splitting thing. It wasn’t until Robert Oppenheimer came along and turned that into a bomb in 1945 that anyone took notice. Then rather a lot of people took notice. Many of them noticing it just long enough to say “FUUU-!!!”

Nuclear power stations work on fission. Take a very dangerous product of a radioactive nature, like Uranium, like Plutonium, and effect a fission process but in a controlled manner. No-one wants to see a mushroom cloud over Esher. Loads of energy, because once started the process goes on and on and on as the energy released by the atoms ‘splitting’ causes the next ones to split, with loads of energy left spare to heat my kettle and allow 300 million people to watch the World Cup.

But its a nasty process. It goes wrong. Chernobyl. And nastier still possibly is that it produces ‘nuclear waste’. Plutonium and Uranium that is ‘depleted’ but only as far as its energy yielding days are concerned. It has to be ‘dumped’. But where do you dump it? It may be depleted but its still highly radioactive and will be for a few thousand years. You can’t just fly-tip it into Waitrose car park. They have cctv.

So the ‘nuclear power’ dream has always been ‘fusion’. Fission is splitting, fusion is combining. Which lets off even more energy, works with lovely, clean hydrogen rather than rotten, dirty radioactive isotopes and is very controllable. Its how the sun works; how hard can it be? In fact it is very hard and requires way more energy to create than is generated in the process. You’d need to imput 3 boiled kettle loads to boil one kettle. And then yesterday, those damn Yanks, for the first time EVERRRRR, created nuclear fusion which produced 50% more energy than it ‘cost’ to fuse. And that is truly fabulous. Cheap energy here we are!!! Unfortunately, it ain’t cheap, its very very expensive. And needs a day to set up each fusion.

So the race is on; get it cheaper and it needs to be happening once every second, rather than once a day and we’re in biz. So all you have to do is work out how to get there first.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I don’t do ‘yoga’. Which used to be skinny south Asian people sitting under trees cross-legged for 16 hours with their eyes closed and pinky fingers aligned to enhance the force or create a karmic orgasm or whatever the fuck they were doing it for.

Now its for not-so-skinny white women and its all about streeeeeeeeetching and flexibility and downward dogs and upwardly mobile and warriors and that’ll be £42.75 for the session, thank you very much.

But is that ‘yoga’???

Well, its not yoga in the ancient Indian sense of the word, but who cares about them? They’re all dead. It’s the new, sanitised, Lululemon-world yoga. Which starts when you park the Porsche Macan in the car park and unfurl your Harrods, Designer’s Guild mat on the gym floor. And ends 30 sweaty, stretchy, healthy(?) minutes later. Fine. If it makes you happy, its good. I wouldn’t do it because I don’t drive the right car, so generally have no thoughts one way or another. Live and let ohmmmmm.

Yet there are forces (in India) at work claiming ‘cultural appropriation’, ‘whitewashing’ and how this massive ‘industry’ should be paying back to where it all began. And that’s where I come in really. Because I am the anti-woke guru. Ooops, can I say ‘guru’ in a metaphorical context??? And those words feel like razor blades scraping down a window to my soul.

If they called it ‘yoga-based, Pilates-style stretch classes for entitled middle-class Sweaty Betties’, all would be fine. Because yoga is a spiritual exercise and at the David Lloyd they don’t sell spirits. And they have no souls either.

The yogis should feel flattered that they are given a nod for inspiring one of the most modern forms of popular masochistic narcissism.

I do ‘tai chi’. That too is ancient. Like most of the guys I do it with. But we modify it, our ‘guru’ has changed it. Mainly made it much more violent, but that’s exactly how the ‘ancients’ did it before it too was ‘culturally appropriated’ on cruise ships to mitigate that extra portion of chips with morning coffee.

There’s only so many ways a body can move. Possibly less for my body. And does it really matter what you call your chosen path to subtlety and vitality and a promise of eternal life? To quote from the ancient Indian sages and the ancient Chinese monks: “iss all a load’a bollocks anyway”.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Listen: we coped with losing the football on Saturday night; we can cope with a little snow, FFS!! We are England!!!

However, once I’ve put down my 6 foot cross of St George flag, covered up my ‘BNP’ tattoos and changed out of my steel-capped Doc Martens, I realised that there may in fact be a few minor issues. Weather-wise. In London. Though its not our fault, we just don’t, kind’a ‘do’ weather. We’re fine when there is no weather, then its all just great. Even a bit of frost and fog won’t keep the heroes off the tennis court. But when the weather comes, that, kind’a ‘foreign’ type weather, we don’t do so good. We struggle. Too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too snowy, too… not enough snowy. Then it all turns into a perfect shit-storm. Like it did this morning.

The kind of morning that is truly ‘picture postcard’. The kind that is absolutely beautiful to behold. Full of majesty and brilliance. When viewed through the bedroom window. It’s when you go out that the trouble starts. Unless you’re Lila and Joey, then its when the fun starts.

I swept off the 6 inches of snow from Mel’s car so she could go swimming. Then swept the path and driveway because… its actually fun. And you can only do it when its powdery. Give it an hour and its rock hard and requires dynamite. Then I checked the trains.

Transport for London’s website just said: YOU’RE JOKING, RIGHT? on the home page. So I clicked on the underground section and it stated ‘JUST FUCK OFF’. Well, not in those precise words, but so much of everything was ‘suspended’ it appeared to be a day only fit for going on strike. Maybe working from home. Best of all would be striking from home but I’m not sure that’s legal. Lila’s school was shut for the day because… well… you wouldn’t want… its not safe to… oh bollocks, just close, that won’t be very inconvenient, will it?

And so I set off. And eventually, circumventing the closed stations, getting buses, trudging along like a polar explorer, I arrived in the City. As usual, snowless and clear and business as usual, but without any people (see above). If/when I get home tonight, I’ll be back in Greenland. So its whale blubber for dinner. Again!

Happy snow day

A xxxx

Oh no, its the tragedy or tragedies: England are OUT of the World Cup. Even though it was ‘coming home’ (stupid fucking expression), it has decided to stay away for another 4 years. Possibly somewhere warmer. Argentina or maybe Morocco. Hopefully not France because… well, just on principle. But not England. Won’t be coming here. It’s just like 2018 all over again! 2014… 2010, 2006, 2002… 1974, 1970 and 1962. (The World Cup did exist before tv but not in any meaningful sense). In fact it only ‘came home’ once and the Beatles were on the throne at the time. I do think Spurs fans are best placed to deal with this catastrophic national calamity, because this is our world. We excel at not winning things. But doing it really well. Stylishly.

If Harry had just scored that second penalty…

Then it would, in all likelihood, have just delayed the agony, going to extra time, penalty shoot-out and giving the rest of the team the opportunity to feel as shitty as he does today. We have a bit of a ‘history’ with penalty shoot-outs.

My dirhams are now on Morocco. Not because I like them in any way, heaven forbid. But because they’re just amazing. They beat Belgium, Spain and Portugal, whilst fielding just one player I’ve ever heard of. Ziyech from Chelsea. Not a good omen. Argentina lost a lot of fans by choosing to celebrate their penalties victory over Holland by taunting and laughing at the crest-fallen losers. Nice. And Croatia… have a lot of players whose names end in -ic. All of their players, in fact. Management… fans…

Anyone can play tennis on a hot sunny day in Wimbledon. Only real men (and total fucking idiots) can play in the ice, fog and frost. I wore a sweat band under my beany hat. And then you get really hot and a bit sweaty, so you take the hat off and your heads a bit damp from sweat so it instantly freezes. Thus I took one glove off, went the (not quite) full Michael Jackson, to try and regulate my temperature, left the scarf on and removed my jacket. That worked. One hand, my feet and head were then at -5 Celsius, my body and neck were at 48 and my legs at 39. Which averaged at 37!!! Perfect body temperature! Job done.

Happy cold Sunday

A xxxx

Tonight England play France in the biggest match since matches began. Mainly because the game being played is always the most important ever because nothing in the past is relevant and even I can’t predict the future. And I’m brilliant.

So why do I waste my time and efforts reading the pundits, the analysis, the player ratings, the history, the averages, the aggregated results over the last 100 years, the prices and/or salaries of the teams, the number of tattoos per square cm of skin, fucking EVERYTHING? But taking all that into account, running the statistics, performing my own analysis of such a deeply mathematical nature that I can’t even spell it, and using the full Tarot, I have come to the absolute and unarguable result:

No one knows.

When the match is played, we’ll know who’s winning at any particular time, and even that isn’t always a valid predictor of who’ll end up the victor. It’s football. Anything can happen. Brazil should beat Croatia. Manchester City should never lose. It all depends on immeasurable contingencies at the time. A good bounce here, a tug on a shirt there, the eventual result is the outcome of 237,493,091 various incidents and events during the match. (Using my special maths… stuff). Therefore the answer to ‘who’s gonna win?’ is meaningless until the final whistle blows.

So we shall have to wait and see. Like they did last night when Argentina, eventually, beat Holland, sparking the third mass brawl of their evening as Lionel Messi dragged his otherwise mediocre team to the semi-finals.

All I hope is that we set up a proper attacking line-up, in a manner which will enable Jude Bellingham to strut his stuff, rather than making him the 7th defender. Because we need to score goals. As you feel France probably will. Can Kyle Walker tether his man? Doubtful but it’ll be a good race.

Happy Quarter Final day

A xxxx

So there it was. Finally. After literally months of eager anticipation. In front of my very eyes. Harry and Meg: the Series!!! Full of venom, hatred, lust, death, violence, accusations, implications, devastations and repercussions of a truly royal nature!!! Except… it wasn’t. I was expecting Reservoir Dogs of the Monarchs and got Love Story goes Limp. I mean, I get how Harry could have deluded himself that the stirrings in his regal loins were ‘love at first sight’, because we all know how that phrase translates directly from the gonads. But for her to feel that too? When ‘their eyes met across a crowded room…’ she would definitely have looked somewhere else. Unless he was wearing a crown; that shifts the whole ‘love’ dynamic.

And that’s half of that entire, exceptionally long episode (I couldn’t handle the second part, not sure I ever will, might just jump to 6 when its released); how in love, in tune, two hearts beating as one, on song, yin and yang and every other clicheed phrase they could get from the Thesaurus. Had me reaching for my bucket.

The other half was slightly more interesting. A touch more revealing.

Harry and his mum.

Because not in an Oedipus way, Harry was and definitely still is, obsessed with his mummy. Her life, her death and the Press wot dunnit. That night in Paris defined Harry completely, possibly his brother too, to a slightly lesser degree (but how would ‘we’ ever know? Like really?), and still does. His hatred for the media runs understandably deep and enduring. Not sure that making the ‘boys’ walk behind the coffin did them any favours either, especially as they had to walk with Di’s brother who’s a tosser. Lord Tosser.

So here’s Harry; fucked up and confused and punching photographers, getting pissed, taking drugs and going wild. Like most other 18 year olds. Who’ve just left Eton. So he goes to Africa to find himself. But instead found loads of Africans. Then he found Meg and… aaaahhhhhhhh, (deep sigh, followed by gag reflex).

But this ‘match’ is barely 15 minutes old. (One sixth of ‘a match; stay with it, FFS), nowhere even close to half time. I’m going back for the penalty shoot-out.

Happy Friday

Your Candle in the Wind. xxxx