Andy's Glasses

…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

I never really ‘got’ reality tv. It started with ‘Big Brother’ in which you watch a bunch of sub-normal morons talking about total rubbish for hours on end. For some reason, that never pushed my buttons. Other than the ‘channel change’ ones. Then they evolved into talent shows of various types, all equally horrible, and finally, they found a way to improve viewing figures even more, by using ‘celebrities’ as the contestants, featured victims, whatever. Yet how do you define a ‘celebrity’? Oh, as ‘someone famous’. Ok, goddit.

This week there were actual headlines in even proper newspapers announcing that Olivia Attwood had been removed from ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out’a here’ in a highly unusual and, well, not very interesting way. Did she have Covid? Was she pregnant?? Oh my word, the nation was on the edge of its collective settee with shock and amazement. Other than those of us thinking ‘who the fuck is Olivia Attwood??’ But she is, obviously, a ‘celebrity’, and like most of them, has equally obviously, had her face re-structured a bit, but for celebrity you need to be famous. So what’s Olivia’s claim to fame? And sometimes, you have to sink low to find things out. Up steps the Mail on Sunday with the information we’d all been so keen to know. Olivia, who is engaged to a Blackburn Rovers footballer (are you a proper ‘WAG’ if its not a Premiership team? Don’t like to get snobby about this, but there are standards…). But her ‘fame’ is not, as I first thought, for being on the board of a Footsie 500 company, setting up a charity to help children in need or even being a fifth-rate actress in pantomimes. No. Olivia’s fame comes from ‘finishing in 3rd place in the 2017 Love Island’. Wow. Impressive.

Strictly Come Dancing is another ‘celeb’ talent show I choose never to watch. But again, makes it into all the newspapers. And ‘strictly’ has a bit of a problem. The couples dance, the judges mark them but the decision as to who is thrown off each week is down to audience voting. Sounds workable. Always been workable. Until this year. When you have the perfect storm. Someone who is absolutely rubbish at dancing, but is immensely popular with a truly massive, loyal fan-base. Who all have phones.
Thus Tony Adams, ex-captain of Arsenal, does his passé doble, treads on his partners feet, falls over a few times, shows all the sense of rhythm of a goldfish dying on the kitchen floor. And then wins. Because there’s 100,000 Arsenal fans all phoning in.

Tony Adams is certainly the only Arsenal anything who I’d be prepared to make a phone call for. He not only captained a brilliant and successful team, he managed to do so whilst he and most of the others were addicted to drugs, alcohol, gambling, or all three. How most of them managed to lace their boots up every Saturday is a mystery, let alone win so many matches.

So that’s this week’s round up of our favourite tv shows. Unfortunately that is what they quite literally are, in terms of viewing numbers. And they wonder why our nation is in such trouble.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Are some Americans finally waking up to the reality the rest of the world has known for decades? Can they really have had a collective ‘eureka moment’ to realise what is an otherwise universally known fact?

That Donald Trump is actually not a man you would want in control of your country. You wouldn’t want him in control of your toilet. He’d flood it, break it, call it a ‘fake toilet’, then accuse it of never being a toilet in the first place and claim he was a better toilet than that. The last being the only factually true statement.

Because the American mid-term elections, for the Senate and the House of Representatives, have been something of a ‘slap in the face’ for the man with the most slappable face in the world, but I hope the orange doesn’t come off.

America has always loved divisions. Cowboys and Injuns, North and South, Country and Western, Black and White, all of which are, pretty much, ongoing, to add to Democrat and Republican and the latest: ‘last election believers and deniers’. Its become America’s Brexit. Politicians are described as ‘election deniers’ if they agree with Trump in that he actually won the last election. Even though Biden had more votes. That delusional, egomaniacal concept that ‘NO ONE COULD EVER BEAT ME!!!!’ was the start of the Capitol invasion. And its still going on.

So Trump, for these mid-term elections, loaded up the Republican candidates with his cronies, his buddies, his loyals and his ‘deniers’. He bigged em up, he paid for their campaigns, he promoted every pro-gun, anti-abortion, pro-rape, anti-Bealzibub policy he could find and hoisted his people upon the Godliness of its message.

And most of them lost. Ok, the Republicans have still won, once all the results are in, but that’s more a reflection of the incompetence of the current president than to any wonderfulness of his predecessor.

Trump is all about ‘divide and conquer’. Maybe the American people, being much brighter than him, are realising that you need unity, not division, to accomplish good things. Which is why us clever people here in Britain, still describe ministers as ‘was a strong Brexiteer’, 5 years after the vote.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

So I had a cough. And that rapidly developed into full-blown man-flu, which is, as all men know, if not exactly ‘deadly serious’, at least ‘fucking horrible’ and the cause of much whingeing and complaining and demands for sympathy. Since then nothing’s really changed. Still feel shit, bunged up, achy and coughing, especially at night. And I’ve been taking anti-biotics since Sunday. Because I had some; what can you lose?

So I called the doctors. Otherwise known as ‘pissing into the ocean’. Because all GPs have been in hiding since the first lockdown. And they’re not coming out any time soon. They’ve decided to collectively ‘isolate’. And the best way to isolate is to avoid making any contact with sick people. Even by phone. So they don’t answer. Then the problem never arises.

“You’re through to the Medical Centre. Don’t come in. If you need help because you’re unwell, stay away. If you’re really sick, keep the fuck away from here. Otherwise press 1 to arrange a phone call with a doctor. Press 2 to try and arrange something else we won’t do, press 3 to remain on hold for an eternity, or Press 4 to hear these rather limited options again. And don’t come in.”

I sent them an email. “I’m sick. You’re my doctors. I can’t get through. What can you do to help me?” And I’m still waiting for a reply. They obviously diagnosed, just from those few words, that my condition is definitely not life-threatening or in need of emergency care. Or any fucking care that they’re in any hurry to offer.

And what are you going to ascertain on the phone? Are these GPs so attuned to the sounds of different forms of coughing that with just one wheeze into their earpiece they’ll know a viral chest infection from mild flu from a fault on the line? All I know for sure is, I don’t have Covid and I’d like to see someone and I don’t want to go to hospital because hospitals don’t prioritise man-flu like they should. I just want someone to listen, prod, inspect, analyse, whatever, and tell me I don’t have pneumonia, cancer or a tropical parasite eating away my lungs from the inside until they grow to the size of gerbil and burst out through my chest. Because Mel would get really pissed of with all that mess. And I can’t afford to upset my primary carer.

So I went to see a doctor. A proper doctor. With a stethoscope. And a sphygmo- sfigmo- a blood pressure machine. And I’m fine. Fine and coughing but fine. Yet I worry about all those people who don’t have Doctors in their families who they can barge in on when they’re trying to eat and demand a full work-out. The above photo was taken after being ‘treated’ by the other family doctor, Doctor Joey, so please don’t be alarmed.

I feel better knowing that… I have a cough and some kind of virus. I can live with that. Hopefully. I’ll let you know.

Yours heroically

A xxxx

Do you remember when Spurs were 3rd in the league? Those happy, heady days when our position flattered to deceive. Well, I like flattery. And I’m a big fan of deception. Because now, having ‘plummeted’ down the table after yesterday’s debacle, I’m having to ask myself “are we EVEN worthy of 4th place???” This made all the worse by being overtaken by the Arabs. Not that league position is about human rights, morality, international murders or abuse of women. Otherwise Arsenal would be banned too, just on grounds of decency. But those Saudis from Newcastle, having bolstered their sad and sorry coffers from skinflint Mike Ashley to new levels of oil-driven billions, have done the inevitable (Chelsea, Man City…) and plotted their inexorable drive up to the top where the real financial penises get measured.

Spurs, meanwhile, are languishing in a netherworld of uninspired negativism. The plan of ‘don’t get going til the second half’ is clearly not working. It has never worked but we got lucky for a while. Then we came up against an almost decent team yesterday. Not fully ‘decent’ because this Liverpool is nothing like last year’s or the one before. But still good enough that if you gift them a 2 goal lead (the first goal deserves credit to them, the second deserves defenders getting shot. No names… Eric!!) its going to be very hard to recover. Because without poor, injured Son Heung Min, we seriously lacked a proper threat and even more, we lacked pace. When Conte brought on Kulusevski on about the hour mark, it proved a revelation. The recovering Swede injected pace, life and positivity into our attack, bless his socks. But unlike in our previous 2 games, we couldn’t get the last minute winning goal. Or even drawing goal.

I would have sworn more at the tv but my manflu cough won’t let me without consequences. Even though the players, and certainly the manager, needed to hear my displeasure. Otherwise how will they learn?

Arsenal won. Again. Which is even more depressing than Manchester City winning. Again. This time after giving their opposition a ‘one man head start’. And poor Bournemouth, after giving up a 2-goal lead last weekend to lose to us, they did the same against Leeds on Saturday. I wish I could feel their pain but I’m just not that nice a person and I have enough of my own pain.

I now feel that, in line with all newspapers and sports sites, I need to get some equality in my work. So for the next 37 days I’m only going to writing about women’s rugby league, women’s cricket and women’s football. Not netball. We don’t do that. Nor ironing. Just gels playing boys’ games. Otherwise I’ll get done by… whoever does such things.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I watched an event on the News the other night. Bunch’a American… mid-westerners? Southerners? You know, the not very bright ones, and they were hailing Jesus and praising the Lord and there were preachers shouting about the Devil and salvation and, my favourite bit, when people start feinting all over the place because Jesus has ‘entered’ them, in a non-#metoo way, or the spirituality became overwhelming or, well, whatever causes whole groups of evangelical Christian Americans to spontaneously fall down, had happened.

But this was not a church meeting. Not (strictly) a ‘religious’ occasion. This was a political gathering. A rally of Pennsylvanian Republicans. Who are fed up with ‘the lack of Jesus in American politics’ and the fear that their nation is now in league with ‘the Devil’ (spoken not in irony or metaphor, but literally. Trust me, these people are the walking, talking, feinting definition of ‘literal’). And as that ‘devil’ is a Democrat, they must mean Joe Biden. Yet however little you think of their current President, and you really couldn’t think less of him than I do, Devil? Having sufficient personality to be mistaken for demonic would be a step up for doddery old Joe.

But those gathered, to every last man, woman and imbecile, see Donald Trump as their salvation. Holy Fucking Shit! Never mind the man’s totally immoral actions, words and deeds, he is still their idol because he plays the ‘pro-life’ card.

The ‘preacher, typical gobby, screaming bible-bashing Jesus lover, shouted: ‘INSURRECTION!! YA AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN YET!! WE’LL SHOW YA INSURRECTION!!!’, obviously referencing the invasion of the Capitol building at Trump’s behest. Yet this dipstick (the Preacher, not Trump, though understand the ambiguity) maintained that he is a preacher of religion and NOT politics. Errrr… insurrection… what religion’s that then?

There is a strong move in many (of the illiterate) States now towards making America more Christian again. And that obviously involves Trump. The modern day Jesus Christ. God help us. Literally.

Gary Neville realised on Friday that being ‘quick-witted’ and ‘sharply spoken’ in the company of Alan Shearer and Ian Wright is not quite the same as when you’re facing Ian Hislop and Paul Merton, as Gary was in ‘Have I got News for you’. They questioned the increasingly squirming ex-Man United captain about his contract to be a pundit for Qatar state tv for the World Cup. And Neville, who addressed the Labour Party conference a few weeks ago, calling the Tories ‘a cancer upon this nation’, and who is all about ‘working people’ and his own version of the ‘class war’, fought through the windscreen of his Lamborghini, is probably not getting the full £150million that best mate, David Beckham is getting for being an ‘ambassador for the tournament’, but it’ll be lots and lots and lots. For which, Gary feels, he’ll be more than entitled to make endless points about human rights abuses, treatment of gays, death of construction workers, subjugation of women. And, obviously, corruption in international football. In between talking about how deploying wing-backs against a 4-4-2 can be very disruptive to a defence.

Happy rainy, shitty, man-flu Sunday

A xxxx

It’s happened. I developed a cough. The thing that makes you the undisputed #1 favourite with fellow tube travellers. A lovely, deep, chesty, phlegmy cough. If I had a bag of masks with me, I could’a made a killin’. Then a runny nose and a bit of sneezing. Yesterday I just felt like shit. Tired. Bit uncomfortable. Early to bed, even though I’m only up to part 7 of ‘music videos of the ‘80s’ and there’s another 19 left to see.

But, even though there’s no temperature, I decided, medically, that this is definitely… Man Flu!!! On the basis that: I’m a man. I seem to have flu. And no person on Earth has ever suffered as much as this. Ok, no person has moaned as much as this. Didn’t even go to tai chi this morning as its probably not fair to get ‘up close and personal’ with people then coughing at them when I’m supposed to be throwing them on the floor and kicking them. It’s not nice.

And so we look forward to a weekend of sport. England play Argentina at rugby tomorrow, followed immediately by Spurs hosting Liverpool. Which will be an interesting game. Liverpool are really underperforming this year, languishing in the lower half of the table, even though, unusually, there are virtually no public inquiries to distract them. But they can’t seem to win. Whereas Spurs have reached a watershed. Do we keep pissing away the first halves of matches with a total lack of aggression, excitement and passion, knowing that we can always win it later? Or should we change, step up a bit earlier and even try to avoid giving teams the inevitable head start? It’s very hard to demand change when Conte has produced the ‘most winning’ Spurs side in decades. And yet, if you ask 10 fans, all 10 will find our current methods unacceptable and decidedly uncomfortable. It’s truly wonderful to win matches with the last kick of the match. It’s also unbelievably stressful and leads to failure if they don’t manage to score in the ninety-whateverth minute.

And Son is injured. Surgery on a broken bone in his head. Nooooooo… even when he’s only playing half as well as he did last season, he’s still three times as good as everyone else in the league. You do the maths. And now he’s ‘gone’ for a bit. To mend.

Bit like me.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

A young woman was sentenced yesterday for… being a grabby, greedy, lying, cheating, stealing compensation-whore. She claimed ‘whiplash’ after a car accident, debilitating, painful, agonising, exercise-preventing, immobilising… blah, blah, blah. And the next week posted online how she’d completed a 5k Obstacle race. Then a week later climbed the Sydney Harbour bridge, also on Facebook. She should have gone to prison for at least life just for being such a stupid moron. Who is so obsessed with her online presence and image that she holds herself in contempt of court to sustain it.

And yet she was given a suspended sentence (plus a shitload of very expensive fines and costs), which is probably fair. Because I don’t think people like her are the main problem in such instances.

I get at least 2 or 3 phone calls a month telling me that “we have it on file that you suffered an injury in a car accident but didn’t make a claim, is that right?” That may look like a question but its actually a statement. My stock reply is always “YESSSS!!! Where was it, because I’ve forgotten. Remind me?” But the statement they’re saying is: if you had an accident we can both make money out of this!!! We just rip-off the insurers and they’ve got LOADS’A CASH, won’t even miss it. We just ‘massage’ the level of injury, make it last just a little bit longer and hey presto, we get 10 grand each. We do the work, all you have to do is perjure yourself in court, lie and cheat and we’re all quids in. What could possibly go wrong???

String up the ambulance chasers.

Because I’m too busy getting ready for the World Cup to worry about insurance claims. They didn’t make Qatar the most amazing event venue the world has ever seen by worrying about insurance claims, did they??? Mainly because of the 5,000-odd workers who died during the building of the stadia, none were insured. And when you’re the richest country in the world, employing modern-day slaves, you don’t in-SHURE them, you just buy more. At least it will be the ‘greenest, most carbon-zero event of all time’, so we were assured. And it bloody will be. Other than all the carbon used in its construction. Which apparently was MASSSSIVE. But other than that… and the alcohol issues… the gay thing… human rights concerns… 40 degrees in the shade… its gonna be BRILLIANT!!!!

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Leonard Bernstein’s moving song states that ‘there’s a place for us’… ‘Somewhere’. The message being that sometimes you need to find a place which will accept you for what or who you are, but you may have to look far and wide to find it. Whether you’re a Puerto Rican in love with an Irish Italian, whether you’re a gay person in Qatar or whether you’re a hapless ex-government minister famous for fondling a co-workers ass on a cctv camera feed.

So no-one should complain, moan or even be surprised by Matt Hancock’s brave and noble decision to join the tv program, ‘I’m a celebrity… get me out of here!’ In fact its almost fitting that nation’s most cretinous MP has found his ‘somewhere’ on the world’s most abysmal tv show. Harmony. Synchronicity. Karma. Matt should really win the thing because its all about humiliating yourself and he has such a head start on everyone else, in that department, that his lead is almost unassailable even before nauseating duo Ant and Dec have welcomed everyone aboard.

I’m not normally a big fan of that show. Ok, I’ve never watched any of it, but that’s definitely MY loss. I appreciate that my own prejudice against ‘watching total bollocks’ has deprived me of something that gives a lot of pleasure to other people. Mainly really stupid people but I don’t judge on these things.

Matt has been removed from the Conservative Party for doing this. A big loss. Because… errr… yeah, he’ll be really missed… errr… somewhere, I’m sure. Parliament is in recess during the filming so all he’ll be missing is his constituency meetings as half the people in West Suffolk will be starving or freezing to death in abject poverty whilst he’s trying not to vomit while eating insect larvae and everyone’s laaaarrrrfin’ and laaaaarrrrfin’ and laaaarrrfin’.

But sometimes in life you have to take a move for the sake of your career. For yourself. You have to make the ‘tough choices’. Matt feels that his career will be enhanced by being force-fed kangaroo penises. And looking at his parliamentary career thus far, you’d have to agree.

It is definitely the right thing for Matt Hancock to be doing. So let’s be with him, let’s celebrate his bravery and commitment, this is not about money… oh, actually it probably is a LOT about money, but let’s enjoy the fact that whilst he’s ‘over there’ doing the bidding of the most evil twins (aren’t Ant & Dec twins?) since The Shining, he won’t be over here.

Good luck Matt!

A xxxx

Well Rishi Sunak obviously reads my words. Which is why he’s now changed his Cop 27 status from ‘not going’ to ‘trying to find the time to attend’. Well, it was either reading me or Boris announcing his intended attendance. Either way, he kind’a has to go.

Because although our ‘never-ending summer of climate change’ is apparently ending, it is November, FFS. And the daffodils are ‘shooting’. Yup, we obviously have some bulbs out front (who knows where the fuck they are) which think its springtime. Even though I’ve told them countless times to ‘go back! It’s not ready!!!’

Because we do our own gardening. We had a gardener but he left because we asked him to do some gardening. “No, I don’t do that, its dirty”. But we need you to weed the flower beds. Plant the 1473 bulbs for next year which Mel got online. “No, that involves, dirt and digging, don’t do dat”. What do you do then? “Well, I’m a gardener, ain’ I? So I make loads of noise with petrol powered machines. Got a van full of ‘em, ain’ I? Mowin’, blowin’, choppin’, anything that can produce carbon emissions. Don’t do mud and shovels. Bad for the back, innit?”

So we do it. And, maybe its a sign of age, but I like it. I’ve always liked being let loose with chain saw, hedge cutter or even a pair of shears. Because I have a natural tendency to be destructive. Bit like Joey but with bigger toys. Yet now I can even bring myself to plant things. So we get someone in to do the hedges, once a year, because they’re very big, and the rest we do. And the fucking daffs think its March. They’ve got a shock coming when the frost arrives.

Apparently they’re not alone. There’s loads of flowers and plants doing springtime stuff. And although we might get some early blooms, it’ll totally fuck up the flower beds for next Spring, when they’ll have all shot their load. Even animals are struggling and confused. Ever seen a confused hedgehog? Look pretty much like a… hedgehog. But its all bad. And ALL because of climate change. Much as we’ve loved wallowing in the sunshine when normally we’d be wrapped in ski-gear.

Happy Winter

A xxxx