Andy's Glasses

I know it was tempting but I chose not to watch Tunisia vs Australia this morning in the world cup, instead playing tennis in the park. I appreciate I missed 2 of the power houses of the modern game. With Tunisia being the best team in the whole of Tunisia and Australia being the champions of all places down under. My loss. And Tunisia’s too, as they lost 1-nil. Similarly when Poland beat Saudi Arabia at lunchtime, I ate lunch. I would never do such a thing if it was Spurs playing. Maybe even England would have had me eating later. But Poland and Saudi? I should support Poland. My grandmother was born there. Ok, she left when she was 1, in 1901, but still, blood’s thicker than… other stuff, right? Except my grandma didn’t jump on a dinghy in Calais in search of a better life, leaving her beloved homeland behind. No. They ran from rabid anti-semitism by the Poles. The Jews who didn’t run to pastures new were, 40 years later, rounded up by the Germans, ably assisted by the Poles, and murdered on a quite literally industrial scale. So my ‘love’ for that particular ancestral homeland is… shall we say: ‘limited’. Or we could say: I fucking hate Poles. But wouldn’t because its not a zeitgeisty thing to admit.

Basically, the best thing in the world is too much football to watch. And the worst thing is too much football to watch.

So right now I’m watching France play Denmark. Because I’m ‘se-lec-tive’, ain’t’I? France are the champions and always worth a watch, even though a lot of them seem to be French, which would normally preclude any involvement. But I can’t not watch Kylian Mbappe. A truly superhuman footballer, who plays for Paris St Germain, which is owned by… Qatar Sports Investments. Denmark have Christian Eriksen, who I love, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, who I also love dearly. And the France goalie is also the Spurs goalie. So I have to love him too. Which is why football fans are so fickle. We love players who are wonderful and we love players who play for us. Until they leave.

And now I’m in turmoil. It’s 5.30 and the rugby is just starting, with England playing South Africa. But there’s still 15 minutes of football left (plus probably 1 hour, 23 minutes of stoppage time). A true dilemma… Naaah, rugby wins.

Come on England

A xxxx

I was sitting in my kitchen, yesterday morning, in pre-work mode. Cup of tea, the morning paper open, just about to unveil the daily banana (what I call ‘cooking breakfast’) and I thought I’d check my emails. My morning check to see how much Groupon love me. And with Black Friday coming up, they love me lots. Thus I was in delete mode when a message caught my eye. ‘Appointment reminder’, it said. Ooooh. I wasn’t aware of any upcoming appointments, but there again, I live in a state of total oblivion and unawareness of the world going on around me. I clicked it. “Your appointment for the check up on your shoulder is on 23/11 at 9.20”. Oh, so that’s… TODAYYYY!!!! And as the time was 8.40… that’s… 40 minutes. In the West End. And I’m in the wet and windy north-west of London, eating a fucking banana.

One short car ride, a tube journey and a 10 minute walk in the pouring rain, and I calmly (yeah, right) walked through the door of the hospital at 9.19:57. Though not so much a ‘hospital’ as a clinic, but I don’t like that word because it invokes thoughts of STDs and syringed ears and other horrible, sterile, bleach-smelling, ultra-utilitarian industrial paintwork and metal folding chairs. And this is not like that. This is a HOSPITAL (clinic) that was only completed last year and its like an upmarket hotel. Full of helpful staff smiling and beautiful furniture and automatic doors and integrated TVs everywhere and fabulous design and computers operated by other computers, such is the level of high techiness in this place.

But they can’t work out that sending a ‘reminder’ ain’t no fucking use if its sent just minutes before the appointment time. Tossers. High tech, upmarket tossers. Like ‘yesterday’ wouldn’t be a better option?

However, the purpose of my visit was for a 9 month check on ‘the shoulder’. And my shoulder man moved to this hospital mid-way through my time with him. It’s him I want to see. Because I love him dearly. Like a father. A son. The step-sister I never had. Whatever. And I don’t care where he happens to be, I’ll go there. Because he saved me. From a life without tennis. Or ever scratching my arse with my right hand again. And this is what my shoulder now looks like. This ‘selfie’ was taken yesterday, which is why my arm looks a bit older than on the one they took back in February.

And the shoulder was such an amazing and brilliant improvement to my life I’m even prepared to put up with administrative incompetence to enjoy it. (Such a princess, I’ve become). And I don’t need to see my man again. I’ve been fired. Best news ever.

Until things start wearing out…

Happy, healthy Thursday

A xxxx

So now we’re really kicking off. Following Sunday’s ‘opener’ between Qatar and Ecuador, we’ve now had some proper football. Meaning: England played. Not just played, but were so victorious that the Ayatollah resigned (if only) and wants to become the supreme head of Great Britain instead now. Cos what’s the point of being the spiritual leader of such footballing no-hopers? And not just no-hopers, but no-hopers who fucking hate the Ayatollah! To the extent that the Iranian team refused to sing their own national anthem. Not just because its horrible and no-one understands a word of it; you could say that about the Welsh one, but as a ‘poli-tical state-ment’. And for that, the team which was thrashed 6-2 by ‘my boys’ commands my total respect, devotion and even love.

If Harry Kane didn’t sing the national anthem he’d get shit on social media, have a few nationalists up in arms, get slated by the press and the politicians. But his life would not be in danger. Which you kind’a feel is not the case for those brave Iranians who will return home to… who knows, but it won’t be good. The Ayatollahs, like all totalitarian heads, don’t really tolerate ‘protest’. They react to it with more… ‘murder’. Hence over 400 people dead so far for protesting in Iran. Protesting over the death of a woman killed by the ‘morality police’, and also over the terrible restrictions imposed on women’s lives there generally by the religious extremists who run their country.

So that was a ‘protest’ about which we were all totally on board. Then how about ‘armband-gate’? Harry Kane was going to wear his ‘one love’ rainbow armband in support of LGBTQ… rights but received threats from FIFA effectively forcing him, and all the others, not to. So he wore the official FIFA one which reads: “NO DISCRIMINATION! unless it is sanctioned by horrible countries who persecute women, gays, alcoholics and cross-dressers”.

To what extent should sports and politics mix? Well, given a world stage, a platform before hundreds of millions of viewers, it becomes irresistible to make your point. For FIFA to adopt yet another ignorant, enabling and hypocritical stance puts them in the same light as Qatar and does them no favours.

Happy World Cup (in its own way, the most interesting one we’ve ever had)

A xxxx

The World Cup started! Did you see that? Brilliant. Ecuador played the hosts, Qatar, in a match that was… can’t say ‘riveting’ because 1237 riveters died making the stadia… can’t say ‘breathtaking’ because all 6,500 who died stopped breathing at the exact moment of death… and I can’t say ‘outstanding’ because it really wasn’t. But it was football, so we must all be grateful. And no-one collapsed in the heat. Though Ecuadorians and Qataris are both hot weather people.

Ecuador scored a goal early on. It went to VAR for checking, as all goals must do, according to the 11th commandment, and… and… and… it was disallowed. The pundits checked it out, I checked it out, Gary Linneker had a look and we all thought it to be a righteous goal, but VAR thought otherwise.

Now here’s the funny thing. Everyone fucking hates VAR. In its 2 or 3 year tenure as the ‘official ruination of football’ we’ve all become almost immune to the quirks and vagaries of that horrible, destructive, heart-breaking system. And yet my first thought was not ‘VAR has fucked up again’, nor that there was some off the ball incident before the goal causing a problem. No. My first thought was ‘they’ve bribed the video ref’. And I was so ashamed for making such accusatory thoughts, so prejudicial against the host nation, that I thought I must have been the only person with such things in mind. And that, once again, its because I’m a bad and terrible person.

Then the meme, above, hit my WhatsApp stream. And I realised something different. That no-one trusts Qatar. Having used bribery and corruption to obtain their ‘dream’, why should it stop there? As has been mentioned a billion times: ‘they are not a footballing nation’, so why would they care about honesty in that game? When they live in a world where ‘everything has its price’ and they can easily afford to pay it. You get David Beckham for 150 mil, Morgan Freeman for a pretty penny, Gianni Infantino for whatever it takes, a humble video referee would get you change out of a few hundred grand.

Ahhhh, but the goal was disallowed for that usual VAR type nonsense, a toe was offside. Possibly just a toe-nail, but definitely offside, hence no-goal. We had no reason to doubt the honesty and integrity of anyone.

And yet I did. It was my very first thought. One never to have previously crossed my mind. That the game might have been compromised or corrupted.

The legacy of Qatar has begun.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I am’a gay.
I am’a disabled.
I am’a Qatari.
I am’a a migrant worker.
I am’a really stupid Italian man in charge of football’s governing body, and’a desperate to try and make a case in support of Qatar. And’a if I totally lose the plot’a in any way’a, its just because I’m’a stupid and NOT’a because I’m’a taking (more) bribes to speak out for Qatar.

I was’a a migrant too you know. I went from’a Italy all da way to Switzerland.
And I am a European, but truly. And Europe has’a acted badly for 3,000 years! Yes, my very own Romans were very poor’a in’a human rights. Ask Jesus. So issa very ‘ypocritical to complain about Qatar’s issues with migrant labour. The Romans had slaves, FFS, Qatar only uses cheap labour from India, Sri Lanka and Bangla Desh because they’re in plentiful supply and no-one cares if a few (thousand) go missing. It’s the same thing.

Ok, issa different thing because the Romans were two-an-‘alf thousand years ago and Qatar is now, yes I appreciate that. But still… errr…

Well Britain should take note of using migrant labour!!

Some’a people said that I make this speech to try and dig FIFA out of the ‘orrendous black hole created when we awarded this World Cup to Qatar. Others say I’m being paid millions to say these things.

And’a because I’m not very bright and I’m defending the truly indefensible on all counts, issa very difficult. So I’ll mix up my comparisons, make claims that are frankly laughable, re-write history where possible and generally wish I’d stopped at ‘Good Morning’. But you see the worse light Qatar is portrayed, the more ridiculous becomes the position of FIFA. The most important organisation in the world. And now an organisations desperate to clean up its image after the Sepp Blatter/Michel Platini years. Or, ‘the years of plenty’, as they’re known at FIFA HQ.

So in making this speech you really can see that the lunatics have truly taken over the asylum.

Come to Qatar; issa lovely place.

Gianni Infantino
Xxxx

Should footballers refuse to play in the World Cup because of human rights abuses and institutionalised homophobia by the host nation? Of course not. They’re footballers, they play sport. Politics, equality, social and cultural considerations are really not in the domain of Harry Kane and Lionel Messi. They’ll make their point, wear their rainbow armbands and play the game.

Qatar bid to host the World Cup. And by ‘bid’ I actually mean bribed, coerced, corrupted and cheated their way to win the bid. The decision always stank. But then the corruption was proven, quantified, names named, heads rolled. So why was Qatar allowed to retain the tournament? They were the perpetrators, not the ‘victims’ of the corruption. But it was decided to let it stay. For reasons known only to FIFA.

No nation is totally ‘clean’ when viewed through the moral lens of other countries. I get that. If they choose to criminalise homosexuality, is that worse than America’s stance on abortion? Or Russia’s invasion of… well, everywhere nearby? Then there’s slavery history, always a useful tool to use against countries and lots of them.

But there’s the migrant worker deaths. Apparently 6,500. Most of whom have not received compensation for their families, and many who haven’t even received the wages they earned up to the day they fell off the scaffold, died in the collapse, got hit by a flying camel.

However, there is a rather sweet irony in all this.

Qatar wanted the World Cup to present an image of its good side to a world who really doesn’t know much about it. They wanted to present the fabulous stadia, the wonderful hotels, fabulous boulevards and all the other shit that vast amounts of money can buy. They wanted the tournament to shed light on how wonderful Qatar is.

But instead, they’ve had endless criticism for 12 years. Who knew, 10 years ago, that in divorce in Qatar the father always gets custody of the children, whatever the circumstances, with no rights at all to the mother? Who knew? But now we do. And we hate them just a little bit more. And we already hated them for the other shit going on there. And then, 3 days before the kick off, they ban beer at matches. Itself really no big deal, fans will always find ways to get drunk. But its the fact that this was part of their FIFA contract. And they could just change it at the last minute. Unilaterally. When most of the fans are already there. What other rules will they change?

Never mind, they can drink in the ‘fan zones’. £13 a pint of beer. Because it includes a ‘sin tax’. If they drink at their hotels they’ll pay up to £80 a pint. It wouldn’t bother me that much but its not about me. Its about consideration to the fans.

So rather than the intended ‘sportswashing’, Qatar has in fact laid itself bare to the world. And most of the world thinks they’re vile and horrible. Whereas before, no one gave that nation a single thought.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I’d like to make it very clear (politician-speak for ‘what this lacks in clarity, it makes up for in higher volume’) that we, the Conservative Government, are the ‘party of low taxation’. Which is why I am proposing this budget today.

In which, we shall tax every many, woman, child, worker, pensioner, retiree, unemployed person, student, corpse, cat, dog and fucking mouse, higher than they’ve been taxed for the last 100 years. We shall squeeze and squeeze and press and shlep every last farthing from each and every one of you. Until you cry tears of blood. And then we’ll squeeze more.

Because we’re caring and compassionate. And we understand fully the ‘difficulties’ people are having with basic finances. Struggling with 50% higher grocery bills, 30% higher petrol costs, 70% higher energy spending. We therefore thought the best way to help everybody to cope with this massive burden… is to reduce the amount of money they take home every month.

And we have to take these measures because we’re ensuring a future for the entire nation. A future in which there is growth, prosperity, a wonderful standard of living and an abundance of fairy dust for everyone to make their own magic. A golden future with no carbons, very little pollution, wealth for all and everything you could wish for. Just don’t click your heels together whilst wearing red shoes.

All we therefore have to do is survive the present. During which you shall have the full support of your government every during every step of this recession, helping you cope with the austerity verging on bankruptcy. This support will start with words of wisdom, to guide you thus reducing your discomfort.

Eat less. Much less
Buy some more sweaters and turn down the heating.
Don’t drive: WALK.
Darkness is your friend, leave the lights off.
Enjoying yourself is ungodly and overrated. Get in touch with your inner misery.

You see? We care.

I commend this budget to Hell!!, sorry, to this House!!!

Jeremy
Xxxx

Rishi Sunak, out latest Prime Minister, still in the job for more than 3 weeks now, is working hard. Do you think its easy hanging out in a tropical paradise with a ‘package’ which totally redefines ‘all-inclusive’? Do you think wearing Hawaiian shirts is easy? Are you under some illusion that hanging out with world leaders whilst being fed, watered and entertained all day, every day, is ‘a doddle’? He spends much of his downtime with Justin Trudeau, the handsome Canadian geezer. The two are seldom apart. I’m making no judgments; what happens in Bali stays in Bali.

Yesterday Rishi addressed the G20, changing into a slightly more appropriate white shirt and no native headdress, and accused Russia of starting a war which has in a big way caused a lot of the financial crisis being felt right across the globe. Sergei Labrov, sitting at the assembly, looked suitably pissed off. But he always looks pissed off so I’m not sure if Rishi’s words offended him or not. Putin chose not to attend this meeting. For reasons best described by a slight change to the Millwall song: everyone hates me but I DO care. Otherwise he’d be there, defending the indefensible.

Later in the day Russia sent 90 missiles into Ukraine.

But then, a (even bigger) tragedy. A missile landed in Poland, right on the Ukraine border, and 2 people died when it exploded. Zilensky immediately called for NATO to react, because if you attack one NATO country (like Poland) then you attack them all. Moscow said ‘it was not a Russian rocket’. Ok, fair point.

Because who knows how many rockets, drones and heavily armed missiles are flying around in the atmosphere? It might have been a Chinese missile, being tested around Taiwan, and it went AWOL. It might have been Swedish. Serbian. I’m sure Serbs have missiles. Everyone does. It could have been a new project by Elon Musk, Death-Pal.

So why would everyone jump to the conclusion that it was Russian??? Other than the fact that they fired 90 yesterday and have fired thousands this year, all in close proximity to the Polish border. But as Putin was right to claim: this is just a ploy by the West to justify hostility against Russia. Meaning Jo Biden sent the missile just to frame poor, innocent Russia, so that we can go nuke Moscow.

A more interesting question than the ‘who?’ (because, really? Like REALLY?) is the why. I simply can’t imagine Putin would attack Polish land. Which leaves ‘human error’ as the more likely reason. But missiles aren’t launched by humans, we are fallible. They’re launched, directed and deployed with unbelievable precision by computer systems. They, basically, don’t miss.

I’m getting my uniform pressed because it can’t be long now. I’ll be reuniting with the 573rd Edinburgh Cowards as soon as the telegram arrives.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

If you look closely at this picture of our Joey, you might notice, on the left side of his forehead, a bunch of steri-strips. The things you use to close a wound. Hold it together. And thus really could have been invented for little Jo-jo.

We were eating dinner, Friday night, usual, noisy, bit’a chicken, some wine, Lila was colouring at the table, Joey was running round like a lunatic. All perfectly normal and (relatively) calm and sedate. Then came a ‘thump’. But possibly the most horrible thump ever. The sound of a head meeting something hard. In this case the corner of a stone kitchen unit. Everyone froze, turned to Joey, who screamed and appeared to have a hole in his forehead. Which then started to bleed. Quite a lot, as head wounds do.

His mummy grabbed him, I grabbed a bunch of tissues and dived on him. Pressure. That’s what you need. His aunt grabbed some frozen strawberries but instead of making a smoothie, put those on his head too. Ice the wound. And thus we stayed, all in shock, for a while until we dared look again. Half inch vertical ‘hole’. Oh dear. But the bleeding had stopped and we had some steri-strips. But, someone had the bright idea of running next door and getting the resident Pediatrician to come round.

And she was lovely, but a real killjoy. Yes, the wound now looks fine, bleeding stopped, blah, blah, blah. Ok, shall we bind it with steri-strips then? Oh no, with head wounds he needs to go to hospital for concussion protocol. But he didn’t pass out, wasn’t sick, and in fact was pretty much ok. No, he must go. Best if mummy and daddy go with.

Lila was already upstairs packing her suitcase. A sleepover. At our house. She was selecting books, making sure her ipad was charged for the morning, gathering clothes and, basically filled the case.

Joey was seen so quickly and efficiently at the Royal Free (where kids are prioritised and kids bleeding from headwounds even more so) that they’d checked him, glued him (its what you do) and put a few strips on within 1 hour. By Saturday morning it was forgotten. By him at least, may take the rest of us a while.

And so impressed was I with the hospital and so fed up with coughing all night long every night for about 10 days, that I went myself on Saturday morning. I tried the ‘children’s entrance’ but met the NHS equivalent of a night club bouncer who refused me entry. 2 hours later I was seen by a doctor. Then a chest x-ray, back to the docs, all fairly efficient at that point. Took my prescription to the dispensary, and got my little ticket with a number. 69. On the board it showed that 62 and 63 were now ready, so I’m just 6 away. How good is that? At McDonalds it would take 4 minutes.

Then it began: the death of a thousand knives. As I grabbed a coffee, stirred it, drank it, slowly, read my kindle, looked up at the board and… 62 and 63 still ready, nothing else. And so it went on. For over an hour.

At least the drugs do (seem to) work

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

…its getting; football’s getting lost…

So we had a full fixture list this weekend. Loads’a games, loads’a goals, loads’a… stuff, bit of VAR (inevitably), few ructions, plenty of excitement (Spurs), bit of boring (Arsenal), massive underdogging (Brentford), some ‘tragic’ losses, (Man City, Chelsea), several managers elevated to ‘tightrope’ status (Frankie Lampard, Graham Potter) and all the fun of the fair.

And now its over. Finished. Lost forever (it’ll seem like it) as the Premiership now shuts down until after Christmas. It’s not a ‘winter break’ because we don’t do them over here. It’s not a rest period (for many). It’s called the World Cup. Which would normally be a cause for excitement and eager anticipation for us fans as the ‘best in the world’ get to compete. And Qatar. They’re the only ones who get in for free because they’re the ‘host nation’.

The World Cup is a summer event. Always, in its entire history. Until now. Normally in the closed season, but now right in the middle of fucking everything, which all has to shut down in its honour. But this is no reason to have vetoed Qatar’s bid to host the tournament. Not at all. It would be prejudicial for any country to be banned from hosting just because several players might die from heatstroke, dehydration or (if they’re found to be gay) decapitation. And FIFA is all about fair.

Well, fair and money. In used, non-sequential notes handed over in suitcases down back alleys. But by the time the horrendous corruption was sorted out, Qatar had already built half the stadiums and a lot of the infrastructure for the tournament. You knew it was half because only about 3,500 foreign workers had died building them at that point.

The last World Cup, in Russia, highlighted the corruption and ‘sportswashing’ enabled by FIFA, but Qatar takes the cake. You always needed to be ‘a footballing nation’ to host a World Cup, which Russia is. But Qatar? Yet those Qataris want to show the world how lovely they are, as well as how rich. And they will be lovely to the fans. As long as they don’t drink too much. Which… errrr… football fans… hmmm… shouldn’t be a problem. Or hold hands with a person of the same gender. Or… lots and lots of other things considered ‘normal’ in the civilised world but ‘evil’ in that little totalitarian state where human rights laws are suspended.

But other than that, yaaaaay, the World Cup is here!!! Next weekend!!!

Happy Monday

A xxxx