Andy's Glasses

So its 3.45 am and I’m asleep. Who’d’a thought? And then I’m awake. Because of a bang. Big enough to wake me. And Mel. She ‘heard’ the bang because she was only half asleep from a potty stop 10 minutes earlier. But I didn’t hear it because it was the agent of my awakening, so logically, I wasn’t awake and thus not conscious, at the time of banging. Then I was, suddenly, ‘rewound the tape’ and thought ‘bang!’ We got up, walked into our shower room to find one of the shower doors had simply ‘exploded’. There it was, in its constituent blobs of glass, all over the fucking floor. In the toilet. Over the sinks. Safety glass. Or, not very safe glass. Oh well, never mind, at least we know what the noise was, back to sleep…

Though accelerated heart-rates are not the best aides to slumber, we eventually managed. Never mind, it was only a shower door. So how did it break? Why? The door has no frame, so there’s no stress. Its not, like ‘wedged’ against a wall or in any kind of tightness situation. Its just a fucking door. Or it was.

What if I’d been in the shower? Like, at the time of explosion? What broke the door? Mel told a work colleague who said: ‘oh yeah, that happened to us’. It’s the new pandemic. Exploding shower door syndrome. Wear a mask.

So I googled it. As ya do. And under ‘exploding shower doors’ there’s (obviously) thousands of articles, comments, explanations, support groups, organisations for the rights of shower doors, just tons of it. Because it can happen. Doh. And it does happen. Its a function of toughened glass. Because the way glass is toughened is to cause stress patterns in which the glass is effectively ‘pushing out’ from the inside. So when something hits it, its meeting a force pushing out. But any flaw or penetration and those forces get released, all pushing out together, causing an explosion. And long-term chemical activity in the glass can do it, or any possible movement against a hinge or handle. As the doors are heavy. I know. Even when in a bin bag in crumbly little bits, it still weighs a lot.

I’m just glad we don’t have toughened walls in the house. Or they might explode too.

Be careful out there. Or in here.

A xxxx

‘The camera never lies’, as they say. So forget all the cutesy-wootsy posing and posturing which you’re used to from the world’s bestest granddaughter, because underneath all that facade of sweetness and compliance and good-girlish goo-goo, there lurks… a woman in waiting! This one. Unless she chooses to change how she identifies, later in life, like when she’s 7, and then she’ll be a ‘thing-in-waiting’, defying definition or labelling by anyone. And being a woman in my life, she may choose that very path, just for the obstructive value. Because although my family does a good line in well-behaved, compliant, docile men, like me, (though we also have Joey who can’t tick any of those, nor any other really, boxes), the women are strong. Opinionated. Argumentative. Even with men! And the funny thing is that we then adopt the new version of sexism. Because if a woman, or woman-to-be, is stroppy and self-possessed and headstrong and defiant (no names, LILAAA!), she is referred to as ‘sassy’. If a man acts in that way, he is referred to as a tosser and gets punched. Is that fair? Is that this new egalitarianism we’ve been promised??? Or do I have to dress as a woman pretending to be a man before I’m entitled to this illusion of ‘equality’??? Like I usually do, really.

Went out to a ‘dinner’ yesterday, provided by a contact lens manufacturer. Still breaking my fast. But as it became the nearest thing to a ‘free lunch’ you could get, we went along. And normally, at such ‘professional’ events, they adhere to the protocol of getting the technical stuff out of the way whilst everyone’s sober, offering no more than a mango punch or an elderflower consommé (pretentious fuckers) until you’ve been educated and indoctrinated, then you get pissed afterwards. If there’s time. But last night was different. Cocktails/aperitifs on arrival. Or, JD-an’-coke, as they’re known. Followed by… pretty much anything, everything, and loads more where that came from. The meal was withheld until after the ‘presentation’ but everyone was so drunk by then, no-one cared.

I think all professional events should now follow along this model. You don’t remember quite so much information… in fact, none. But WTF?

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I don’t know if angels say that, when they’re being angelic. I’m not sure they say anything really, especially if they’re Jewish angels, because then if there were two of them, they’d have 3 different opinions about the same thing and they’d end up arguing. Which is not just ‘not very angelic’ but defeats the entire point of angels altogether. So best if they don’t say anything. Because they are spirits and NOT humans. Hence they are pure in a way that only me and… well, just me really, can be whilst still retaining humanity. Because to err is human, as we all know, because we do it every day. Pretty much all day every day.

Except today. Yom Kippur. Misnomeringly (another day, another new word invented; well, bastardised to shit, at least) translated as ‘the day of atonement’ in English because English is a Christian language and goes straight for the extreme version involving heaven, hell, atonement, redemption and Forgiveness. Judaism is all about compromise. Negotiation. Coming to an accord. Everyone walking away happy. Unless you’re an angel, then you don’t walk so much as ‘float’. And you don’t ‘atone’ for your sins because they’re done, its over, move on. What you do is accept that you have sinned and, here’s the important, Yom Kippurish bit, try and make fewer sins next year.

So the aspiration of the day is just ‘improvement’ in a moral, decent, humanitarian way. And you do that by trying to feel like an angel, just for a fleeting glimpse… ok, done that, now we can say: well I’m ‘here’ now, lying, cheating, conning, robbing, mugging, swearing (iss’a sin, innit? FFS?), personising, (depending on whether you womanise or manise, or something in between), fighting, aggressive dipshit. And where I’m heading for (other than ‘hell’ or ‘jail’) is Angel! So I need to make just a small move in that direction. Anything is an improvement. HE will take that for this year, then we can improve again.

And you do that by sitting in a synagogue for 25 hours mumbling in a language you don’t really understand, whilst fasting. OR, like me, you can achieve spiritual ‘one-ness’, that holiest of states, by standing on a street corner wearing a stab-vest and walkie-talkie protecting your flock by looking out for terrorists, jihadis and pizza delivery men.

Almost done now, then we can eat!!!!

A xxxx

This is how it works. If you earn 25,000 quid a year and pay 20% tax, you are contributing £5k to the economy. Ok, that is sooooo simplistic, but iss just for illustration, innit. If you earn 250,000 a year and paid tax at 20% (in what world?), your contribution would be £50k. However, due to the fucking communists in our government, Billy Rich will actuallly be taxed at 40% (45 really, but that’s currently in debate), so he’ll be giving £100k. That I hope will put paid to the imbecilic “the rich gotta pay more tax, innit?” rubbish as quoted from some dozy bimbo on the News last night. The ‘rich’ do pay more tax. Shitloads of it. Many other dozy bimbos use this as their mantra too. Take note, Angela Rayner.

But then there’s the other dozy bimbo, the one currently running the country. Because she needs to get this too. Her and her big mate from the Chancellory. That if you reduce the highest of upper-rate tax bands, you are only giving money to the rich people in that band. Money you’re going to borrow, the repayment for which will be down to everyone, both rich and poor. Effectively robbing the (future) poor to pay the rich now. And for a Conservative government its not only spectacularly stupid but also is playing directly into the Labour party’s grubby little, coal-stained, calloused hands. So they’d have us believe. Kier Starmer is a lawyer so safe to say, he’s never done a day’s work in his life. 73-hour weeks at his desk sorting out prosecutions, by his own definitions, did not make him a ‘working man’, however many curries he ate out of the take away cartons in his office.

Thus, after a weekend of Liz and Kwasi assuring us that ‘the plans are the plans and will not change, none of them, not even a little bit, nothing’, by 7 o’clock Monday morning they had changed. Once eternal snake-in-the-grass/pain-in-the-ass Michael Gove and annoying little bad loser Grant Schapps had basically told their leaders that these proposals would never get voted into law, Kwasi realised finally what good sense would have told him 10 days ago (20cents on the pound ago; 1500 quid a year on the mortgage ago; 60 billion in the Bank of England ago) that the ‘rich’ don’t need a tax break funded by debt. They have their own offshore funds and avoidance tactics and hedges in place already, thank you very much.

Next is the OBR report on the tax proposals. The ‘Office for Budget (Ir)Responsiblity were supposed to pass judgment at the end of November but now its moved forward to later this month. Whether we still have a government by the next day remains to be seen.

Message for Liz: it can ONLY get better.

Happy Tuesday, fast well

A xxxx

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