Andy's Glasses

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

We all love a good book-burning, there’s no doubt about that. Standing at Oxford Circus round a great big bonfire in which great works (phah) of literature turn slowly to ashes as we all warm up and sing ‘gin-gan-gooly’ type songs. Bonding. As the Brontë bindings burn. Even though its August and hotter than the fires of hell virtually all the time at the moment. And there’s a good argument to be made that we need more fires. Yet it has been revealed that kids at universities are reading… books!! Particularly subversive in this respect are students of English. And in those books one can find… horrible things! Sexism. Sex. Racism. Xenophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, anti-working-classism, Islamophobia, nationalism, war-mongering and things guaranteed to offend or upset virtually everybody. So the universities want to get rid of various books which, they view, are particularly offensive.

A movie came on the tv the other night. Can’t remember what, I wasn’t actually watching, but I glanced up from a rather challenging Sudoku just to see the ‘advance warnings’. You know, ‘may contain scenes of sex, violence or crimes against football’ type of thing which are essential. To protect… errrr… from… errrr… whatever. And the message said ‘contains attitudes from the period’. As a warning. Which is odd, because every single film ever made contains ‘attitudes from the period’, unless its set in the future, like Blade Runner, and no-one knows what the attitudes then might be. Or Terminator. Because do robots and cyborgs have ‘attitude’? Interesting…

So the question is: how much fucking protection do we need from fiction? Does fiction even have the right, either written or on film, to portray reality, if that very reality might possibly offend someone, somewhere in the world, just a little bit? They’ve banned A midsummernight’s dream at one university. For ‘classism’. What about Downton Abbey then? Or The Queen??? Can’t get more class discriminatory than them. And Shakespeare, FFS. The most brilliant playwright ever and yet wrote about a time when a woman had to dress as a man if she wanted to work or be taken seriously. Well, you know what? IT HAPPENED. It was 500 years ago. Its allowed to have happened. That in no way reduces Merchant of Venice to a racist, sexist, deeply misogynistic treatise about the virtues of anti-semitism.

History happened. In the way it happened then, not as we’d like it to have happened now. You’d hope someone at a university might get that. Or the bloke on tv with the warnings. Otherwise, whilst we’re being revisionist, can we do anything about a few football match scores which caused me great upset and stress? And still do!

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Do you like cauliflower? That’s the question. I can’t answer for you. Not this time. As a kid I would run out the house if my mum cooked cauliflower, the smell revolted me, wouldn’t get anywhere near my plate. And then… something changes as you start shaving, when you change from little squirt to Man and Superman, and not just around your testicles. So I started to like cauliflower. Broccoli too, previously verboten!!! then became something I could eat. Brussels sprouts. Hated ‘em, now I adore them. Go figure.

Then, about 10/12 years ago, I went to a restaurant in Tel Aviv called Abraxis. And my life changed. Because they roast whole cauliflowers in a way that no-one else can. And since then every Tom (Parker-Bowles) Rick (near enough, Stein) and Harry (Kane) bakes a poor facsimile of the definitive version.

Then about 5 years ago, Eyal Shani, the man behind Abraxis, opened a ‘fast food’ version of his restaurant, also and unsurprisingly, in Tel Aviv, called Miznon. Which is Hebrew for ‘counter’ or ‘bar’ or even ‘buffet’. And they also do the same cauliflower, and its still the best ever. But its half the price of in the restaurant. As it would be, the place has a total vibe of manic, loud, cheap, fast, wild and chaotic. Whilst not being ridiculously cheap or in any way chaotic. And before you think I’ve gone vegan on you, (shoot me now), as well as the cauliflower, there’s the chicken liver pittas which, quite frankly, would be my last meal before I’m executed. They cook a vast variety of ‘fast foods’, most wrapped in pittas and all amaaaaaazing.

Miznon opened branches in Paris, then New York, then two more in Paris (you can never have too much cauliflower) and now… London. Yippee and about fucking time. I went last night. And because we went early, there was no queue!!!! (Couldn’t work out if or how to book). Just cauliflowers. And chicken livers. And wonderful things. With almost the same vibe as in Tel Aviv but, being England (Soho is part of England, I’m fairly sure), with a touch of reserve about it.

Just go there. Now. You’ll thank me.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx