Andy's Glasses

I have no idea why I found myself thinking about this event, whilst soaking in the bath after tai chi last night, but, sometimes things just, ‘spring’ to mind. So I’m gonna share. Because that’s what I do.

It must have been the summer of 1974, possibly 75 and I found myself a job for the summer holidays. Driving vans round the country delivering consignments of watches to jewellery stores. My dad’s mate was a director of this importers in Clerkenwell and they needed help in the ‘despatch department’. What those pretentious fuckers would now call ‘logistics’. We spent all day posting shit around the country but then, every couple of weeks, there’d be ‘a run!!!!’ Like that. With exclamation marks. It meant that the sales people had sold sufficient quantities of stuff to justify getting someone into a big white van to deliver it all. And it would load up with maybe 15 or 20 big packages, in each being a load of watches, a stand, display stuff, all the paraphernalia. I can’t even remember the name of the watches. But they did work. I think.

So we’d map it out. ‘Ok, you leave home at 5.30, be in Manchester by 9.30 (it was a van, remember, and in 1975), first drop. Second in Stockport, then onto Liverpool, the Wirral, back up to Carlisle… and so it went. As near to a loop as you could arrange. Overnight in Burton-upon-Trent, then Derby, Nottingham… and so on. And I loved doing them. Despite the damage I managed to perpetrate on both the vans. It’s a contact sport, driving. But it allowed me to finally understand what ‘up north’ meant and also to add the word ‘squalid’ to my vocabulary.

We also used to send lots of things by ‘red star’. Ooooh. This was popular and meant taking a package to the station and, almost literally, putting it on a train. To be collected by the recipient at his train station. In the ‘red star office’ because all stations had them back then. And yeah, you had to go to a station but Amazon make all that fuss about NEXT DAY DELIVERY!!!! and we did it SAME DAY. So fuck you, Bezos.

One day my dad’s mate came rushing into our office. “You gotta get this to Waterloo red star for the 3.10 train to… somewhere!!!” It was 2.45 and we were in Clerkenwell. “Ok, Ivor, no problem (ever the optimist)”. “The van’s too slow”, take my car, he said, throwing me the keys to his BMW 2002 Tii, super-bollocks, mega-testosterone, ultra racer, penis-extension thing. “And take Eddie”.

Eddie had a cab-drivers head for roads and short-cuts, quite amazingly so. Thus, with images in my mind from ‘The Sweeney’ and ‘The Professionals’ of precisely how to ‘get a car somewhere really quickly, we fired up the Beemer. Following Eddie’s directions I was flying through Smithfield’s meat market (afternoon, so shut and pretty empty), at some ridiculous 1970s speed (45 on a 30mph road was NOT ‘fast’ in 1974) when there was a long and loud screech. A van. White. Just avoided hitting me. But like ‘just’. As I slowed I noticed the sign on the side said ‘POLICE’ at precisely the same time my mouth said FU-U-U-UCKKKKK.

I would never get out of prison. The twelve occupants of the van all came over to me. And in their lovely navy blue uniforms, they didn’t look particularly ‘happy’.

Basically, I’d gone through a ‘give way’ sign at a junction. They had right of way, I ignored that, at probably about 60. Holy shit. But… but…

There was no ‘give way’ sign. And, more importantly, the double lines at the junction to show me to do so were not there. Smithfield was old (still is) and too busy to maintain. So the dozen of the Met’s finest plodded over to investigate. And found, unanimously, that the give way lines had in fact disappeared completely. Probably about 1953 and no-one had re-drawn them. No signpost either. Thus, they let me go. I would not face the gallows. And they were actually nice about at that point. Something I’ve never understood, considering I was basically an obnoxious boy-racer in a flashy car.

But I learned a valuable lesson that day. Though, even with that delay, still made it to Waterloo in time to get the package on the train. Thanks to Steve McQueen in Bullit.

Happy Friday, drive carefully

A xxxx

Apparently we all have a doppelgänger. Mel definitely does because she’s an identical twin. Which is cheating. The point being how difficult it is to find your double, not phoning them 6 times every day to make sure you’re both wearing the same clothes. They’ve found some in a Spanish study. People who look probably more identical than identical twins (who always vary a bit). And they’ve also found a tendency for those seemingly duplicates, to share actual characteristics too. Like right/left handedness. Long/short sightedness. And whether they eat their peas first or save them to the end of the meal. Ok, I made that one up for interest and intrigue.

I want a good doppelgänger. I want Bradley Cooper. Paul Newman (not sure whether being dead for decades affects the doppelgänger standards). I used to think I had a striking resemblance to Arnold Schwarzeneger in Terminator. Then I started shrinking a bit so now I’m a bit more Danny DeVito. Hopefully not the version in ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’. I’d really like to be Jennifer Lawrence’s doppelgänger but that’s not really a conversation to be held in public. Though I reserve the right to ‘doppelgänger identity’ as I fucking choose!!! My mate Mark always thinks we look ‘identical’ even though I’m gorgeous and he’s dog ugly. The similarities end with ‘grey… lots of grey’ and glasses.

So I’ve searched and searched for this illusive double, my alternative lookalike and finally found him (safe presumption of gender in this case). And that’s his photo above. Could be twins.

And in my nightly (Mel’s bathtime) series of ‘watching tv programmes that everyone else ignored when they came out 5 years ago’, I’ve been doing a Sky Arts series (cos I’m very fuckin’ arty, ain’t I?) on movie directors. The Coen Brothers. Not doppelgängers but they do resemble each other and most other Jews in the world. And there were those movies. Blood Simple. Raising Arizona. Wonderful films, always different, always classy, always funny. Then, possibly… even though I hate to say it, its probably true, the best film of all time (!!!!!!!) Fargo. The movie which ‘got me’ when it first came out and has never let me go. Bit like William H Macy’s wife who they kidnapped. And then: The Big Lebowski. Possibly the coolest film ever, but I don’t know why, it just is. And now I want to see them all again. And again. And again.

Lucky Mel.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Tonight Liverpool play Manchester United. At football. In the Premier League. This is a big game. Particularly for Manchester United who, for the past… well, since Alex Ferguson left really, have been shit. They’ve had different mangers, they’ve changed their playing staff, they even bought Harry Maguire!!!, but still can’t seem to win a match. And this morning languish at the foot of the table. Along with West Ham. And I really wish I could be sad for the Hammers too, for playing 3, losing 3 and failing to score a single goal in any. But I can’t. It’s just not in me. I’m a nice guy, but obviously not that nice that I can stop sniggering gleefully at their horrible plight.

Because football is a game of rivalries. And Spurs fans hate West Ham fans. Not really anything to do with football matches, more that they are a bunch of low-life scumbags worthy of any decent person’s contempt. You see? It’s intellectual hatred, not just the moronic kind.

Thus with Liverpool and Manchester United. A rivalry as fierce as any. On a world scale these are ‘the big two’. Ok, Real Madrid are big, Barcelona, maybe Bayern Munich, but none of those have a fan-base circling the globe in big numbers, as do Liverpool and United. And both sets of fans share a completely unreasonable sense of entitlement. Yet the wonderful ‘ups and downs’ of football dictate that currently Liverpool are on a very big ‘up’ and United are about as ‘down’ as down can be. So if the form book prevails, Liverpool will slaughter the hapless Mancs tonight and send them into further misery. Possibly to the point of sacking their new manager before he’s even finished unpacking his socks.

Spurs won on Saturday, to the relief and joy of the whole world (of DECENT people), even though it was a win somewhat lacking conviction. The only result of the rest of all the matches that wasn’t on my wish-list was Arsenal’s win at Bournemouth. The rest were all wonderful. Even Manchester City dropped points at Newcastle. But best of all was Chelsea’s dire performance at Leeds. It was punishment for being horrible to Spurs last weekend and making such a ridiculous fuss about hair-pulling. Just one little tug on the hairy weed’s barnet and you’d think we’d invaded Ukraine. Ok, it was done with sufficient force to almost break his neck, but ‘it’s a contact sport’, innit? You don’t get sent off for that!! Not in the ref’s eyes anyway. I think he must go to Specsavers.

So do we want Liverpool to stamp their authority in the Northwest as Man City’s only real challengers, or do we want United to start their fight back and gain some pride?

If the answer to that is ‘neither’, then you’re welcome to come watch with me tonight.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

So to recap: ‘we’ have the biggest boat on the entire canal system. Because its built for Thames living, not Milton Keynes canal-ing. But we don’t mind that because narrow boaters, or even not so narrow boaters, are a ‘community’. And they’re welcoming and friendly and, well, nice. Sit on my little narrow deck and have a little narrow cup of tea, because wide cups won’t fit, they say. Then they find out that your boat lacks sufficient narrowness to be a true part of the community. You are, quite literally, a London wide-boy.

So Mel & I visited, which is like being press-ganged. “Loosen those ropes-grab that pole-untie the main-brace… do something else boatey, and quick!!!” The instructions/orders come thick and fast. Because in the four hours we were on board, we sailed about 5 miles. And that’s a good day. We also hit about 6 other boats. Or were hit by them. Most don’t have residents so… fuck ‘em. No damage is generally done anyway, boats have bumpers all the way round. But others get a bit pissed off and rightly so.

As you narrowly miss a narrow boat coming the other way, some disgruntled git mumbles about “… too big for the canal…” which is probably true. But as driving it down the M1 is not a real option, how the hell ya supposed to get it to London??? But the comments are all a little tinged with jealousy. Because narrow boaters all spend their days standing sideways, in case someone wants to pass you to put the kettle on or take a pee. On ‘our’ boat, we stand square on! Because we have loads of room. Acres.

Driving the boat, as I did because I just had to, was… different. You have to think where you want to be in about 10 minutes time and start getting ready. Ah, there’s a boat, want to avoid that (ya win some ya lose some) so you start steering then, 5 minutes before arrival so the boat can do its slow, leisurely drift into something like the right direction by the time you get there. Then you have to compensate for daring to move the rudder in that manner otherwise you’ll oversteer and so you may miss with the front of the boat but 22 minutes and 22 metres later as the rear swings by there may be a problem.

A day on a boat is definitely the most relaxing way you can ever totally stress out. It’s beautiful, peaceful (you forget the noise of a 4 litre Diesel engine after a while) and serene. But if you look away for one second, it is fatal. Pour your martinis before taking the wheel.

Happy Sailing

A xxxx

So what do you do when you get divorced and sell the family home? You can either be a limp-wristed, pussy-whipped ladyboy (if its possible to upset more people with so few words, let me know how) and get a nice little pied-a-terre in Tooting with your share of the sale (cos in and around Lundun, ya ain’t gonna get much more), ORRRRR… you can man-up, get in touch with naycha and live… on a BOAT!!! Yup, a boat. Wot floats. Hopefully. Because although you get a meagre bricks’n’mortar property for a shit-load of money, you can, quite literally, buy the best fucking boat you ever did saw, for about 25% of that money. Mooring is cheap, costs very low and you can either stay put in one place f’rever, or you can move around. Within limits.

And we worked out some of those limits on Thursday. Quite a few, in fact.

Because we went ‘up north’ to pay the Boatman a visit.

He’d picked up the boat in the Midlands, cos that’s where they made it, and it was in a marina on the canal system. The Grand Union system which comes all the way to London enabling you to have a Hammersmith/Kingston/Putney address for bargain money. And in the intervening 4 weeks he’d got as far south as… The Midlands. But a different part. More southerly. Ish. In fact he was in Milton Keynes. So up we went.

The first thing you notice is a distinct lack of concrete. They’ve completely ruined the area around the canal by making it all green and grassy and tree-lined and, what some would call ‘beautiful’ even though there’s not a multi-storey car park for miles.

And the boat. Wow. It is magnificent and inside is simply wonderful with bedrooms and bathrooms and showers and a fitted kitchen and a barge pole (see above) and absolutely everything you need, but probably nicer. And its spacious.

The downside of which is that all that ‘space’, when translated to the outside, makes it twice as wide as every other boat on the canal. And at 22 metres long, let’s just say that it doesn’t handle like a speedboat. In fact, it doesn’t really handle at all, it just kind’a drifts, very slowly but at 38 tonnes, rather brutally, through the water. Which would not be much of a problem. If there weren’t other boats around or if the bridges, at approximately every 200 yards, weren’t approximately 9 inches wider than this boat. And of course, when you own a boat which is about half the width of the canal, you’re never going to be the most popular man on the water. Though fortunately, The Boatman was never the most popular man anywhere and so remains oblivious to the abuse which would have Captain Ahab in tears.

To be continued…

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I love Scandinavians. Ever since my mate had a Swedish au pair in 1971, I’ve been in love with the entire sub-continent. Basically because they’re all the same, Swedes, Norweiges, Finns, but also because they were always more ‘liberated’ than us crusty Brits. And for the 15 year-old me, ‘liberated’ meant (possibly still does): don’t wear a bra, walk around naked, be a total sexual fantasy for any teen who is blessed with more newly arrived hormones that he will ever know how to deal with. Oh, and gorgeous. Yet not necessarily blonde. As this pic of Sanna Marin shows. Unless she is so, but dyes her barnet.

And Sanna has done for Heads of State what ABBA did for satin pants. She has elevated the entire class to new heights. She’s highly intelligent, a great leader, 36 years old, and a total babe. I would vote for her any and every time.

Yet the Finns have issues, currently. Sanna was seen at a rock concert wearing denim shorts!!! and a leather jacket!!! (I’ve seen the pics, they’re good. But copyright protected, the bastards) And then she was filmed at a party. But a serious ‘party’. Not a standing round in suits sipping champagne, Covid-type party, more a drink til you fall over, dance like a dervish, type one.

So half the Finns are up in arms. How could she! Looks like they were taking drugs. Even though they allegedly weren’t. Irresponsible!! A Prime Minister having fun??? Disgusting! Enjoying herself like… like… like a 36 year-old woman!!! Preposterous!!! I’m guessing that’s the opposition half. The other half are all in favour, happy that they’re represented by a ‘normal person’, even one with friends. Unlike most, who have colleagues that are friendly but always poised to stab in the back.

Liz Truss has never been invited to a party, other than the Conservative one, and that was only after the Lib-Dems, her first choice, didn’t want her. Just sayin’…

And the a-level results out today make a bold statement that I’ve been saying for years now. That northern people are more stupid than those from the south. A massive divide in cleverness, to go with the innate smugness, has been revealed by yesterday’s results. So well done to all those in Surbiton, tough luck in Bradford. I simply cannot believe that this unequivocal statement has anything to do with any sort of advantage from which rich kids may benefit. It’s basically geography and IQ. We got the brains, they got funny accents. Perfectly fair.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Sometimes statistics is stupid and pointless but sometimes it serves a valid and useful purpose. I’m not talking about political analytical numbers, that’s all bollocks, similarly drug trials, who needs ‘em? But they did a big analysis about take-out food. Now that is important. And exceptionally interesting.

Mainly because this ‘fish’n’chip nation’ is losing its love of its signature dish. Which is so incredibly British that it can now only really, authentically be made by Greeks, Turks and Bangladeshis.

Unsurprisingly, or possibly very surprisingly, take-out preferences are generational. Old people still love fish’n’chips, the young would rather have pizza or Chinese. When I was 64 I was far less likely to eat fish’n’chips than the moment I turned 65. Amazing. The things I didn’t know about myself, phah! My kids never order fish’n’chips and Lila and Joey will probably never know what it ‘was’. Like ‘spam’. (The sort-of-food, not the email variety).

Even more bizarre is that those who wished us to leave the European Union, the ‘Leavers’, are far more likely to get fish’n’chips than us ‘Remainers’. Possibly because they’re generally less aware of life’s realities than we are, possibly because they’re fatter, or maybe just because they like fish’n’chips because “iss Britttish, innit!!!”, I really don’t know. The statisticians didn’t delve that far. I may apply for a grant for further study.

Indian food, my own personal fave, came out in the middle. Which upset me. Although we never in fact get an Indian take-away, nor really many others. That’s generational too, cos the kids do.

The study mentioned neither demographics nor geographical considerations. Like, if you live in Shoreditch you can get 472 different varieties of food, from Thai to Tanzanian, from Chinese to Chechnyan, from Pizza to Patagonian Lamb. Whereas if you’re in Burnley, the options will be more limited. Chinky or Coorreh, pizza or pies. The rich will eat differently to the poor. They always fucking do. And its delivered by horse-drawn carriage rather than a moped with a box on the back.

I think we actually need more studies on this subject. And I’m going to volunteer for the eating part.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

When someone near and dear dies you need a bit of comfort. At the very least. Even if its a very very old person who no-one could work out how they’d lived so long in the first place. It doesn’t matter. Someone loved and cherished is no longer with us; send in the hugs. All cultures do it and have done since 10,000 BC when Raquel Welch’s husband got mauled by a sabre-toothed tiger and barely made it back to the cave in his blood-soaked loin cloth before passing forth unto the next world. The mechanics of mourning vary but in essence its just about routines, rituals, customs which have evolved to soften the blow. Not make it go away. Not pretend it didn’t happen. For those you need a Ouija board or some vile and exploitative chancer who has ‘heaven’ on speed-dial. But just to soften the blow and enable acceptance. That’s what we all need.

For Jews it is a wonderful and slick process. Probably because its the one I’m so familiar with. But also because it involves a lot of eating. Mainly cakes. Danish pastries. Rugele. Biscuits. A lot of eating. Someone has died: take food! Which is similar but not identical to ‘a child’s been born: take food’ or even ‘nothing’s happened: take food!’

So my lovely old dad was buried on Friday, 42 hours after his final breath. Not a record but another stellar performance. And then we enter ‘shiva’. Which is Hebrew for ‘seven’. As, traditionally, the immediate mourners sit in low chairs for 7 days and everyone comes to visit them, bring Danish, offer comfort and then you say prayers in the evening to remind God to look after the Newbie. But we opted to ‘sit shiva’ for just four days, which ended last night. And due to the weather, we decided to have the wonderfully cross-cultural-sounding: shiva al-fresco. Which is a bit like a 2-day garden party, but with prayers.

And everyone comes to pay their respects and offer words of comfort, of love, of anything of a nice nature. People my dad owed money to, or had really wronged badly, stayed away. Though I don’t think there were any. And if there were: fuck ‘em, they would have deserved it. And its cross generational with our friends and family, the girls’, and a few of my dad’s mates, really really old ones, who’d made the long trek to do the right thing. It is, in short, quite lovely. We bought 100 bottles of water and over the two evenings, most went. And some of the whisky, as its traditional at such times to offer a ‘l’chaim’, which means ‘to life’ and you need no further explanation than that.

And then, just as it was all ending and people were drifting away, a truly amazing thing happened. After 6 weeks of drought, it started to rain. And I just wondered if that was my dad’s final joke? Or if God was so pleased with the New Boy that he rewarded us. Either way, its good.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

It just goes to show; never say never. Salman Rushdie, the author, thought he’d… outgrown?, outlasted? his fatwa, thought he was over it and then, Ka-baam!, he’s stabbed giving a lecture in upstate New York. Land of the brave (which he was), home of the free (which he hadn’t been since 1989).

Because in that year, way back in the 20th century, he wrote a book called ‘The Satanic Verses’. I’ve never read it. If I’m honest I find Sir Salman a touch pretentious in the wordage department, and many other departments too. But the book says things about The Prophet, Mohammed, which shouldn’t be said. In fiction you can make up shit about absolutely anything you like. Except that. The then Ayatollah of all of Iran issued fatwa against him, offering a reward for his death. Nice.

He went into hiding, lived a life protected and off the radar, pretty much ever since. Only coming out to attend the most prestigious of awards ceremonies or his own knighthood.

And yesterday he took to the podium to speak about ‘how America is the best defender of free speech’. Unfortunately some bozo leaped onto the stage and managed to stab him 15 times before they dragged the man away. In terms of reaction times, that seems pretty slow, but the nature of knife attacks in these ‘orible times is just that. Fast and frantic and repeated. I just did a dummy run and managed 15 ‘stabs’ in 4 seconds. Poor Mel. So maybe I’m being harsh on the protection services who are never far from Mr Rushdie.

Where I really should save my harshness for the Ayatollahs. Because where else does a state AND religious leader choose to not merely condone murder but to actively encourage and in fact demand it as your duty? And people wonder why they don’t want Iran to have nuclear capability?

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

My lovely old dad died on Wednesday. And people ask: ‘was it sudden?’, to which I reply, ‘no, its taken 97 years’. Because he died of old age. It all just packed up. Slowly, gradually until over the last couple of years he had virtually no sight, very poor hearing and was ‘mobile’ with a walking frame for any distance up to 25 yards.

He was a truly remarkable man and a truly wonderful man. Everyone said so. But unlike in the case of 97% of deceased, this time they actually meant it. He loved talking to people. All people. Especially ones he didn’t know. At the funeral today two women turned up who he used to meet in Tescos for coffee on Wednesday mornings after some chance encounter at the checkout one day. He spoke to both regularly even during covid and in his care home. As he did with numerous friends of 50, 60, 70 years.

He used to call in to LBC radio. Normally, in his 80s, to tell Nick Ferrari how whichever incumbent Tory prime minister was a disgrace to the party and needs to move far more to the right wing to regain any validity. ‘Morris from South Woodford’ was just the mouthpiece of someone engaged in every facet of life, from his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, arts, music (up to and including Glen Miller), everything.

As his sight deteriorated from macula degeneration he still read his Daily Mail every day, ‘stretched out’ on his iPad and still with a magnifier. Then, about 4 months ago he cancelled his Mail subscription and told me ‘he wasn’t interested in politics any more’.
And I’m like, WTF???? It’s like a lion telling you he’s giving up meat. But as his hearing too was failing and even Alexa could no longer help, it was just too difficult to keep up. I now realise, the beginning of the end.

His physicality was compromised by back and knee problems until, other than his sharp-as-ever mind, there was nothing left. That mind had no outlet, nor much input.

Last Sunday I visited him and he ran me through all his paperwork, all his files, all the key addresses. Basically a to-do list for ‘when it happens’. Because he knew. He felt it. Building up, painlessly but inexorably, so he put everything in order, as he always did. He was neither fearful nor unhappy about the inevitable but pragmatic to the end.

Wednesday my brother and I ‘got the call’. “Come in, I think you should be here”. He went back to sleep after getting showered and dressed and, basically, wasn’t waking up. I don’t think he wanted to. So we sat, we spoke to him, we held him, and he slept, but aware of our words by his minimal responses, nods. And at 3 o’clock, I was holding his hand as he took his last breath. It was a lovely, painless, peaceful end to a wonderful and long life. No-one could ask for better. Well they can ask but they ain’t gonna get it.

I was dry-eyed and at peace with it. Sat with him for a while. You know, just in case. Then I went to tell someone.

And that’s when the problem started. Because whoever I spoke to told me how lovely he was. The other residents, the carers, the managers and directors, how lovely, how polite, so nice and helpful and considerate and… lovely. And I’m supposed to remain in manly cool mode with all that? I had entered some kind of ‘emotional meltdown’ without even knowing as I had sat tearless in his room. And the trigger was niceness. People being nice, people saying nice things about him, how much they loved him.

After a really protracted ‘niceness’ session with the care home’s management team I was blubbing for all I was worth. And I said to my brother: ‘I’m fine, if only they wouldn’t be so fucking nice!’ Insult me, abuse me, anything but be nice. Please.

Rest in Peace, Moishe, our hearts are with you.

A xxxx