Andy's Glasses

In 2001 Roy Keane, the captain of the great, treble-winning Manchester United team, was annoyed with a Manchester City player who, Keane felt, had ‘disrespected him’. Which is a word generally used by people unaccustomed to so many syllables, as a declaration of a fight. Not even a declaration, more a prelude. And because Roy Keane is an obnoxious and violently pugnacious asshole who, if he hadn’t been such an amazingly good footballer would have had a stellar career as a terrorist, hit-man or executioner, fighting wasn’t what he chose. Instead he chose to inflict damage on the man who ‘dissed’ him. And in such a calculated and cynical manner that why he was not arrested afterwards is still a mystery to many.

Keane had a long-standing injury which needed medical attention which would take 6 months to recover from. So he planned his surgery for the end of the season knowing he wouldn’t be available to play for a long while. And he chose Manchester City as his last match. In the dying stages of that match, he picked his moment, when the ‘disrespecter’, Alf-Inge Haaland, was running with the ball. And Roy Keane just flew in and broke his leg. Nothing mis-timed, in fact his timing was perfect to inflict the damage, nothing ‘accidental’, even ‘negligent’. It was just ‘job done’. Roy turned, didn’t even look to see the red card and walked off the pitch. And in case anyone should be of the view that ‘it was just an bad tackle’, the man actually wrote of the incident, complete with intention and pre-meditation, in his autobiography a few years later.

But, like any good legend, the wounded man had a son!!! And Alfie’s ‘little boy’ turned into possibly the best striker the world has yet seen. That is no hyperbole, the man is outstanding. Skilful, talented, fast-as-fuck, strong-as-an-ox with an unerring eye for goal. He just focuses on the ball. If players get in the way they are not pushed, nor shoved, nor kicked, but just ignored as he steamrollers his way towards his target. A masterclass in ‘focus’. And so effective that no team as yet has worked out quite how to handle a flying giant whose immense appetite is fed by the likes of Kevin de Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and Jack Grealish. Never mind Phil Foden.

And yesterday, Alfie Haaland was in the stands as his son Erling scored yet another hat-trick. This time against Manchester United, with Roy Keane sitting in the Sky Sports box in his anointed role as chief moaner about why Man United are nuffink like as good as when I played for them, they’re a disgrace and everyone should be ashamed and break more legs. Because the man is, if nothing else (and there really is not much else) passionate about ‘his team’.

Well fuck you, Roy, you can get revenge without sending people to hospital. I really hope Alfie and Erling spent a long time watching the little Irish shit squirming. In slow motion.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Just a quick summary of recent events, not counting the Queen bit, cos we’ve done that, been there, joined the queues, haven’t so much got the ‘t-shirt’ but I have a pocket full of money to remember her by.

So Liz Truss became PM, killed her Maj so she could have 10 days to work out her plans before anyone noticed she’d moved into Number 10. And Liz was voted in, by the ‘Conservative party members only’, not the parliamentarians. So those ‘grass roots’ dudes had one thing in mind when selecting her: winning the next election. Which is why she won. Rishi was seen, by them, sitting in their shires in their twin-sets sipping G&Ts on their lawns as servants iron their Daily Telegraphs, as seemingly unelectable. He is too rich, too clever, too brown to win an election, so Liz got the vote. And two weeks later Labour are 33% higher in the polls.

I’d just like to stress here and now that in this country ‘we don’t do personality politics’. Which may possibly account for Kier Starmer’s success, because he doesn’t have one. Furthermore he’s an Arsenal fan and therefore is untrustworthy, duplicitous, smug, arrogant, horrible and probably smells badly. Though he has ‘got rid of the toxic anti-semitism in his party’, which is true, at least superficially. My query has always been: where was this passionate anti-anti-Semite during the Corbyn years during which he smiled that horrible ‘punch me in the face’ smile standing at Jezza’s shoulder?

Anyway, due to having the incredible good fortune to be the leader of the Labour Party at a time when their political opponents have taken just two weeks to ensure the destruction of our economy for the next 67 years (if we’re lucky), Kier has stormed into the lead at the opinion polls. And even more ridiculously, he has had the unique opportunity to re-brand his party as the one ‘prudent with the economy’ as Truss and Kwarteng effectively put the entire Bank of England on number 27 at the roulette table.

So you’d think that the Labour Party would be deliriously happy. Yet that is not the case. They’re deliriously pissed off because Starmer has turned them back into ‘New Labour’. He’s employed a bunch of Blairites and taken his nominally ‘socialist’ party (they still sing ‘the red flag’, FFS) back to a centrist position not seen since Tony Blair days. Thus the party’s left wing, which is a lot of it, is accusing Kier of selling out. Because these hard lefties are the ones full of toxic ideology which can never win an election. Yet take it 4 degrees to the right and they might possibly do just that, as Blair did. But then its not being true to their core values: Proper socialism, taxing ‘the rich’ then taxing them more, militant trade unionism, a hatred of business and (for some reason) rabid anti-semitism.

There are many Conservatives who think Liz Truss should go NOW. To deliberate is to dither and lose even more credibility. Personally I think we should let things pan out first, at least wait the OBR report next month and then panic. And because its all so stupid and quite hilarious, let’s just wait until I next go on holiday and need to buy some dollars. Guy Fawkes didn’t do foreign exchange, but I do.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

And thus starts the most stressful time of the year. The first Arsenal versus Spurs match. I hate them. I’ve been to loads but they’re way too horrible. I’ve watched hundreds and its possibly worse on tv. No other match has this effect. So I’ve decided to play ostrich and bury my head in lots of other activities and pretend I’m not aware what’s going on about 4 miles away at the Emirates. I don’t want to know. So I’m writing this, oblivious to events on the pitch, la-la-laaaaa, la-laaaahhhh… (checks phone, still 0-0), laaaahhh…

I had to buy some food. We’ve been saving up since last Friday when the economy died and we need some things for ‘breaking the fast’. That’s what we do when Yom Kippur ends, at 7.15 on Wednesday. We eat. No, we EAT!. WE REALLY FUCKING EATTTTT!!!! As if we’ve never eaten before or will again. That’s the rules, I just obey them. And if I’m honest, although I’m very spiritual and believe all the bible and shit like that, I only fast because I simply love how eating feels afterwards. Because for a fat (metaphorically) Western, first world, entitled, spoiled rotten bastard like me, who grazes his way round from Starbucks to lunch to croissants, cookies, doughnuts, cakes to dinner, snacks, wine and fucking roses, not eating for 25 hours is a big deal.

(We conceded a goal, FUCK!!!, then scored an equaliser, YIPPEEEE!!!!, while I was out and became my own personal hate-figure, walking down the Finchley Road with my face buried in my phone).

It’s not like I’ll starve, for 25 hours. It’s not a physical thing. It’s psychological. I’m used to eating my way through the day with 14 cups of tea, each accompanied by… something, obviously. And then Yom Kippur? Ok, I still have a cup of tea or several but NOTHING with them!!! A massive sacrifice as befits the magnitude of the day.

(Arsenal just scored again; a stupid, stupid goal, AAAAGGGHHHHHH).

And the food of choice to do this fast breakage, for me, is and has always been, ‘the full Ashkenazi’. The food of our forefathers. Not the ones who cruised round Egypt and Babylon chased by Pharoahs with whips, but the ones from Poland chased round by Cossacks with swords and clubs. And I needed pickled herrings.

(Emerson Royal sent off, TOSSSSS-ERRRRR, Spurs down to 10 men)

Because all else is easy to buy but for herrings I needed to go today, lest we don’t have any and therefore, break the… errrr, covenant, contract, whatever, with the lord. Who hath forsaken me in my hour of need as Arsenal have now scored a fucking third goal. Nooooooooo…

So now its complete. We shall have fishy things, pickled things, wonderful things for the end of the fast. And although we will have atoned, it’ll take my team a good while longer for them to atone for today’s debacle.

Fast well, happy Saturday

A xxxx

This week represents the most important, most serious, most spiritual and most… everything! week of the year. It is the week bounded by the Jewish New Year at one end and the Day of Atonement at the other. If we were catholics it would be ‘the week of deep shit’, but we do it a bit differently. However, do not assume that its any less serious because of that.

On the New Year, Rosh Hashannah, we add up all our sins, crimes, misdemeanours and any murders committed or cases pending. And we work out how we’ll improve that situation in the year coming. Basically summed up by the old testament words: ‘don’t get caught!!’ Then Yom Kippur arrives eight days later and we enter a spiritual plane with the angels; as opposed to being out there with the fairies, which is different, and atonement is forthcoming. Though not really ‘atonement’ so much as ‘intended improvement’. We’re always moving forward. Like sharks…

And this is a time for Jews to be with their God. Who is different from other Gods because his beard’s longer, he wears a black hat, tells jokes and is a Tottenham fan.

Hence this year becoming even more significant in importance than possibly any other year in the 5,800-odd year history of ‘our people’. Because tomorrow, on the special sabbath which comes between these two really big days, Spurs play Arsenal. It has a special name: Shabbas Oy Vey. And only happens when the lunar calendar and the solar calendars align with the World Cup in Qatar and the price of smoked salmon goes above £5 a quarter pound.

So tomorrow we all join in prayer. And we pray hard. And long. And even in extra time. And we don’t stop praying until that horrible fixture is over and done with and I’m either the happiest man in Christendom (nothing ironic there then) or I’ve thrown myself under a gefilte fish ball. Because buses are too hard and heavy, so this is a symbolic gesture to go with the time of year.

Have a wonderful Sabbath. But ONLY if you’re a Spurs fan.

A xxxx

I’m not happy about developments. In a nuclear way. Russia is threatening (plus ca change…), and Iran, thanks to Barak Obama’s acceptance of their nuclear ‘ENERGY ONLY AND NOTHING TO DO WITH ARMS WHATSOEVER’ program, are 17 days away from nuclear armament, should that choice be made. And you know they want to. Apparently, at this stage of their nuclear advancement, it only takes 17 days to convert that… stuff?… technology?… infrastructure? into a proper ‘nuke’. Rockets are rockets, we’ve all got plenty of them, but a nuclear warhead? That’s the goal. And if Iran has one, the Saudis would definitely get one. To redress Middle East balance. But Iran is Putin’s ally and Saudi is seen as a freind to the West. Even though we don’t really like them. Iran only wants nuclear capability to attack either Israel (who it has sworn to destroy and ‘wipe off the face of the planet’) or Saudi (who it hates) or possibly both. If it was shown that Iran was definitely going to nuke Tel Aviv, or Jerusalem, Israel would ‘pre-empt’. There’s no doubt. Its their modus. They haven’t survived since 1948 by being considerate to their enemies nor by giving anyone ‘the benefit of the doubt’. When it comes to making itself ‘safe’, Israel will always act first and worry about the fallout later. For the purposes of this conversation, that’s literal ‘fallout’. Because they have nukes (unconfirmed but you wouldn’t bet your capital city on the possibility that they haven’t) and they have the most advanced weapons systems in the world.

Then Russia would retaliate. So America would step in as protectors. If they could wake Biden up in time and give sufficient power to his batteries to have him stumble over to the ‘red button’. London would probably be attacked just because I’m here and then we have the doomsday scenario:

No wifi!!!!

Jeff Bezos would be fine because he’s just bought a unit in a nuke-proof shelter. So that’s good.

How would our children survive? Without Instagram? Tik-tok? How would I survive without WhatsApp? We’d have to draw memes!! And send them! By post!!

I heard on the radio yesterday Elvis’s ‘return to sender’ and I reckon no one under the age of 45 has any clue what the fuck that song even means.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Well, you gotta hand it to Liz Truss; she used her 10 day ‘grace period’ well. With her Chancellor she worked out a system to take an economic situation which looked fairly precarious and managed, in just a few days, to plunge it into the depths of never-before-land. And I don’t mean necessarily about the rapidly declining exchange rates, nor the horrendous rises in interest rates or the mortgage problems to follow. I mean she’s sent us through the looking glass into a world in which the Labour Party is seen as the ones ‘prudent with the economy’. Whilst the Conservatives run fast and furious into decades of increasingly expensive debt. Which is not a very conservative thing to do.

It has to be said that this is a longish term strategy and therefore may indeed come good. But the response from the entire world has been one of something less than wholehearted approval. Which may prove wrong in time, we don’t know. The tax cuts haven’t even been applied yet. It may come to pass that Liz and Kwasi are just much cleverer than everyone else and got it spot on. Or it may not. And they will be consigned to history for making a small idea into a global catastrophe one night when staring at the ceiling under the influence of a certain smokable substance which does that to thought processes. Cheech and Chong never did politics, and there’s a fucking good reason why not.

Meanwhile, we’ve had a ‘nice’ break from football this weekend to give the national team a chance to… errrr… to improve on their recent form. And they did so. Not, like, to any ‘stunning effect’, or any type of redemption or salvation, but improve they did. Because although they lost the first weekend match to Italy, 1-nil, making it 5 straight losses in a row, they did manage to hold those Germans to a 3-3 draw last night. Which normally would not be cause for any massive, coronation-type celebration. But firstly we didn’t lose and secondly, we scored some goals. Something which has been sadly lacking from our national game since losing to Italy in the Euro final.

Next up, the World Cup!!! In Qatar. Which will be… interesting.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Italy has a new Prime Minister today. And this is what she looks like. Not necessarily on the outside, but her inner depths are as dark and rotten as were those of El Duce himself. Who will be looking up, from Hell, with a big smile on his face. Even though his testicles are in a vice which squeezes more for all eternity, and his head is being pounded with a hammer all day, every day, since 1945, and will do forevermore.

Because Georgia Meloni is a chip off the old fascist. Yet in fact, she’s a lot worse. Because he was a tyrant and dictator who allied himself to Hitler and she, firstly, should know better, and secondly, now has a vast immigrant population to ‘work with’ which Mussolini didn’t possess.

She is the leader of the Brothers of Italy, bit ironic as she’s obviously a ‘sister’, which she has taken from being a neo-nazi, paki-bashing bunch of racist, xenophobic, ultra-nationalist thugs, to a degree of ‘acceptability’ by lowering the tone of her usual rhetoric and using a very diluted line on a more general population. And in the hard times (and Italy only ever has hard times) blaming it on immigrants is such a cheap and easy way forward. ‘Blame the Darkie’ has an enduring history in right wing history, although Hitler modified it for those not so dark. Any minority will do the job. Then direct everyone’s hate in that direction. Which sadly always has a mass appeal for those who consider themselves ‘hard done by’.

And sadly, although this may seem a horribly ‘right wing’ attitude, so you’d think, there was an interesting call on the radio yesterday from Colin from Essex or Mervin from Rochdale, saying how Liz Truss’s proposal to increase immigration for workers in healthcare, farming, the usual, were awful because, basically ‘WOT ABART GOOD INGLISH PEOPLE ‘AVIN JOBS AND ‘OUSES???’ And Colin/Mervin was hard Labour. So hard you could almost hear the shadow of Corbyn as he spoke. Even though it was just what you’d expect from the far right.

Georgia Meloni is apparently very bright. But not so bright as to think that having Sylvio Berlusconi on her team is actually going to give her some kind of credibility.

Ciao bene

A xxxx

Anyone can win a tennis tournament. Anyone can win loads of grand slams. Well, when I say ‘anyone’, I mean those who play the game even more betterer than wot I do. And possibly speak better English too. And here’s two guys who have won way more than ‘their fair share’ of tournaments. Possibly more than anyone, if you don’t count: miseries, Serbs and Covid-risks. Because for more than a decade all the major tournaments have been won by those three, and a couple by Andy Murray (see: ‘miseries’, above). So they all played in a tennis tournament at the O2 in Greenwich last week and there were many photos of the Fab Four. With Andy Murray definitely ‘Ringo’.

And then I saw this photo in today’s paper. And I cried. Quite literally, I had tears in my eyes which fortunately precluded me from reading all the bad news which surrounded it.

Because not everyone can be a big enough man to cry in public and hold another man’s hand for comfort. They lost a doubles match. But they weren’t crying about that. Only real tossers, wooses, the feeble-minded and losers do that. These two monsters of their sport were crying about The End. The end of the era. Roger’s last match and who knows whether Rafa will play more, having magnificently limped his way to winning Wimbledon this summer after endless injuries. Djokovic and Murray simply don’t count. The first no one likes and the second was just not quite big enough to be an equal. A true ‘great’. Only a British great because we calibrate greatness differently. Properly. But maybe, quite soon, Novak and Andy can share a man-crush moment of their own.

Meanwhile, I shall just enjoy this shared moment. It’s not like footballers hugging and kissing after a goal. Firstly, this is raw and that is just following the guidelines, plus the fact that they’ll all probably be trousering another 50 grand for that goal.

This is what true greatness looks like.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Liz Truss was blessed. She had an unprecedented 10 day period of ‘grace’ after becoming PM, due to a dead queen. She took the reins and before anyone could attack her for anything, she was given 10 days to work on her plan as we were all mourning, queuing and crying. So she has no excuses. For possibly instigating nation-saving radical policies, or possibly ruining the nation’s economy forever and longer. The jury’s out and will stay that way until one or the other happens.

Her policy is basically ‘spend, spend, spend’. She must have learnt that from Mel. For whom that is generally the answer to every problem. But we do it on a relatively ‘micro’ level. Liz is a macro-babe. It’s her job. Even though she looked a lot like Kwasi Kwarteng when she said it. And this is what she/they said:

You can have all the money we can throw at you. As long as you earn more than 100k a year. Everyone else can whistle. But it better be a cheap whistle. Because you’ll get NOTHING from me or my government. Income tax is coming down. We all love that. Except the people who don’t pay any, not much difference for them. Corporation tax is coming down, great for businesses, not much relevance to a foundry worker. National insurance is reverting to its former lower rate, which is fine because its not like the health service needs much in the way of funding as we’re all healthier and younger than ever. And bankers’ bonuses are no longer capped. Fine if you’re a banker, absolutely shitty if you’re a trade unionist to whom bankers represent all the evil in the world that doesn’t speak Russian.

These measures are to encourage economic growth and overseas investment. By making Britain a great place to come and set up business. Tax is low, corporation tax is low, your bankers can earn billions and as half of London is currently empty, rent is probably cheap too. And in the slipstream of these businesses comes employment, spending, tax dollars and all sorts of benefits to our economy. That’s the plan.

But man (woman, even) plans, God laughs.

Because big earners pay big taxes, they are the biggest beneficiaries of all the tax cuts. Which pisses off lots of people, even though those top 10% of earners will still be contributing 90% of all tax paid. Yet for Mick Lynch, the leader of the RMT union, these budgetary moves quite literally shit on the heads of ‘workers’. And if its offensive enough for Mick Lynch, then its good enough for me.

Happy new world order

A xxxx

When I talk about ‘revolting’, I’m not just referring to Joey’s eating habits, there is another meaning. And it seems that good, honest, decent people are taking to the streets, in countries run by not-good, dishonest, indecent people and making a stand. Which, due to the very nature of those leaders, is a bit dangerous.

The Russians are up in arms or, more sensibly, just running away, in response to Mister Putin calling them all up to help kill Ukrainians. He wants to ‘mobilise’ 300,000 reservists, give them no option (though who, ever, would volunteer?), and send them to either die or to kill people who most consider their own flesh-and-blood. Probably the former because Russia doesn’t do ‘military tactics’. It never has. It uses ‘outnumbering’ as its sole form of warfare. Not that Ukraine is a ‘war’, no way Vlad. It may look like a war, it may feel like a war (to the people who live there), but its just a ‘special military action’, to protect Russia and Russians. Right. So as Putin’s fragile grip on sanity leads him down ever darkening pathways, he wants to send in another bunch of healthy young men to get killed. To protect his nation from a threat no-one else can see. Except that scumbag Sergey Labrov, his liar-in-chief. So Putin loses his young, the very future of the nation he’s allegedly doing it all for, as they flee its borders in search of safety and the opportunity to live a life.

Whilst in Iran, possibly the only nation less tolerant than Putin’s, they’re burning… well, lots of things but mainly hijabs. Which may be good for the manufacturers because being seeing without one is an offence in that lovely country, but its a statement that merely represents the total hatred most Persians (I’ll call them that to differentiate them from the horrible Ayatollah-wallahs) feel for the hard and brutal Islamic regime they find themselves living under.

So ostensibly, the riots are about the death of a 22 year-old girl. Who died, ‘of a heart attack’, according to the ‘morality police’, in whose care she was at the time. She was fit, healthy, no underlying medical anything. They arrested her for ‘not wearing her hijab properly’. A phrase that has no meaning whatsoever anywhere outside of Tehran. And she died in the police van. And although it’s about that tragic event, really that’s just a catalyst for the deep-lying resentment Persians have for being forced to live a sharia life when they want to be dancing in the streets of Paris and Berlin, but in their own country. Where, according to government spokesman, ‘wearing a hijab is voluntary’. Yet they have police to enforce it and the Prime Minister refused to be interviewed in America by a journalist until she wore one. Where’s a Shah when you need one?

Happy riotous Friday

A xxxx