Andy's Glasses

Here’s some free advice for all sports-people engaged in tournaments of a high profile nature: TURN YOUR FUCKING PHONE OFF AND LEAVE IT OFF. In fact you can leave the phone on, in case your mum wants to speak to you. Or your dad wants to give some advice about taking penalties. But turn off all data. Don’t let one single little millibyte pass through to the screen. Because it’ll be abusive. And that’s upsetting. Destabilising. Which you really don’t need when you’re about to play that semi-final, first round match, anything. You don’t even have to do anything wrong.

If you miss a penalty it doesn’t help. But not a necessary requirement to being trolled. Just being there will do. Even Katie Boulter who is only ‘mixed race’ if you count ‘white’ and ‘whiter’ as 2 separate races, suffered terrible abuse during Wimbledon.

Bukayo Saka suffered terribly after his penalty miss for England, and even though he plays for Arsenal, that was undeserved. Harry McGuire is white and regularly gets online abuse when playing for both England and Manchester United. Ok, a lot of it is not completely wrong, but still.

Now Jess Carter, the Lioness, racially abused during the present Euro competition.

Online abuse is a particularly cowardly, anonymous and limp example of the art. The scrawniest of horrible little shits sit in their bedrooms getting off on sending out horrible, hate-filled messages, death threats, rape promises, knowing that ‘no-one will ever know’. These nasty little sociopaths are the ‘flashers’ of the post-digital world, the guys (sexist, I know, but I’m guessing 90% of these are guys) who sit in the corner of the room fondling themselves through their trouser pockets. And ‘online’ gives them the opportunity to say things they would never say to anyone’s face. They’re just too creepy. They voted for Corbyn, support Chelsea, claim sickness benefits, watch Eurovision, surf kiddie porn and drive Teslas.

Even with the Lionesses winning last night, the abusers will be there. So the logical approach would be: don’t look. The abuse doesn’t appear by magic, you have to go on the app. So don’t. No social media during competitions.

Poor Ozzie Osbourne. In a world dominated by the exceptionally bland, we need 3-D, 5k, ultra-HD characters like Ozzie. And for all the years he spent in Hollywood, he always sounded like he’d just walked away from the Bullring on his way to Villa Park. I’d love him for that, if nothing else. But there was so much else. I would say RIP, Ozzie, but it’s a bit inappropriate in the circumstances. He worshipped the devil and will be happy in hell. It’s how it should be.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Best day ever yesterday. I went to a protest. I love a protest and have an app which tells me all the protests going on, any given day, so I can pick one. And yesterday was a bumper day. There was a protest against school dinner funding in Bolton, garbage disposal in Birmingham, social services in Streatham and one for Iraq war veterans in Esher. But I picked the one in Westminster for a number of ideological and political reasons.

Firstly, the protest against the proscribing of Palestine Action was easily accessible on the tube. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I bought a keffiyeh in a car boot sale in Chelmsford and I’ve been looking for the right moment to wear it. And I wanted to make my statement about all those children being killed in Palestine. Or Gaza. Possibly in Israel, I’m not really sure, but if children are dying ANYWHERE!!!, it’s just not acceptable. Someone at my book club meeting in the church hall in Crouch End the other day said that the information coming out of Gaza is all lies and exaggerations from Hamas. But does it matter where the info is coming from??? Hamas are also ‘proscribed’ and how DARE this government keep on proscribing groups?? Calling them ‘terrorists’ when all they’re doing is fighting for their rights?? Its awful. Mabel told me at bridge on Tuesday.

So I pitched up along Pall Mall and it was wonderful, even in the rain. I coupled my keffiyeh with a lovely Laura Ashley shirt-dress and a black leather jacket, so I looked suitably ‘cool’ and less like the captain on the Borehamwood Golf Club (women’s section), which I am. I took a selfie and sent it to my children so they could show it to my grandkids to see how fab ‘Nanny’ can be.

My kids immediately questioned what (the fuck!!!) I was doing??? So I told them: I’m protecting innocent children from dying!!! That’s what I’m doing!! But my son told me that it wasn’t a protest for Gaza in any way. It was a protest against banning a protest group who had attacked a military installation, basically committed treason and therefore became a threat to our nation. It wasn’t about the ‘cause’ but about the manner of protest. Nothing to do with Palestinian children, everything to do with the acceptable limits of any ‘protest’.

Oh.

I went anyway. Marched with a whole load of other women from my golf club, the vicar’s wife from church was there, though she wasn’t wearing a keffiyeh, and I saw Nadine Hapthorpe’s chauffeur milling around, so she must have been there too. And we all sang: “from the river to the sea…” and “save the children!!!…” and the atmosphere was wonderful. It was like Glyndebourne with lots of Palestine flags.

Then we all got arrested. I called my husband. He was out sailing. The way I was treated was quite appalling. Like I was a criminal, for God’s sake!!!

But it was worth it.

For the children.

Happy Sunday

Tricia xxxx

Dianne Abbott was the first black woman MP, back in 1987. Her career went steeply downhill from then on. From being Corbyn’s main squeeze for a number of years (a relationship which could act as the absolute definition of ‘ick’), she held tight to the hard left of the Labour Party, which reached its zenith under her ex and for which she became the spokesperson in charge of getting it wrong. She became a liability, then a joke. Her name is now a metaphor for ignorance and incompetence.

That just about covers it, other than the antisemitism. And there were several incidents of this arriving at our shores from La Abbott. As it should be if you’re a spokesperson for the most antisemitic party this country has known since Moseley’s blackshirts. Who weren’t really a proper ‘party’, more a group of nazi thugs.

Once Starmer arrived her position became difficult. She was no longer a protected species as she had been under Corbyn. But she was an MP and Starmer was leader of the opposition and he needed her, even with the fight to rid the party from the Jew-haters. He needed the numbers. Though Dianne and numbers is never a happy marriage. And she wrote a letter to the Observer in 2023 in which she stated that discrimination against Jewish people (the subject at hand), like that towards ‘travellers’ and Irish people, was not like the racism black people endure every day.

She created, in one ill-conceived letter, a ‘hierarchy of racism’. Not appreciating that such a thing only divides further when anyone with one functioning brain cell would perhaps feel the need to try joining people together in this context.

More importantly, again in that specific context, of antisemitism, the issue of the undeniable racism against black people is irrelevant. As is global warming and the fuel consumption of Hybrid cars. And her letter only served to produce an ‘it’s all about MEEEE!’, moment.

She apologised, after they remove the Labour whip from her, because she wanted to stand as a Labour candidate in the election. Her words were facile (obviously), transparently insincere and meaningless. Which was fine for Starmer. He’s not one for confrontation so her returned the whip. And she won her seat once more and all was fine.

Until this week, when they played an interview with DA in which she stated that she wasn’t at all sorry for her original letter and the statements contained therein. So Labour suspended the whip once again. Probably never to be returned. But it doesn’t matter. She’ll go and join ‘love of her life’ Corbyn in ‘the new party’, should it ever materialise, and abandon her lifelong love of Labour. And with Dianne as the new party’s ‘intellectual heavyweight’, how can it go wrong?

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I was so lucky last night. I turned on the tv for the news and it was delayed because of the football. Women’s football. Which, amazingly, I’d forgotten all about!!! Even though it was the quarter final!!! I mean, turning on in the last minute of extra time. I could have missed it!! And you know how I love women… ‘s football. So it was time for penalties!!! I wasn’t prepared for so much excitement!! All ready for winding down with a cuppa tea with the news and there I was, in the peak of a thrilling penalty shoot-out!

But I didn’t realise that the rules are different in the Women’s Euros from our all to familiar Men’s version. In which we’ve lost a penalty shoot-out or two over the years. They must have found that the reason we had such disasters with Gareth Southgate and John Terry, was due to excessive practice and too much skill and technique. So to resolve this problem, the rules for Women’s penalty shoot-outs would appear to be:
Blindfold the penalty taker and spin her round 3 times (off camera) then put her somewhere near the ball and get her to either roll it gently towards where she thinks the goalkeeper might be, OR, slam it as hard as she can over the bar, so it won’t hurt the goalie if it makes contact. And that in turn creates the most wonderful randomised feeling about penalties. Rather than ‘most footballers can score a penalty’, we have a much more, ‘roll of the dice’ type outcome, with about 1 in 6 being about right. It makes it even more exiting, even more wonderful! Further benefits from women’s football.

The only exception seemed to be Lucy Bronze. She cheated. She acted like a total fucking MAN!!! Strutted up, like she knew what she was doing and with no blindfold, and slammed the ball into the net. And because of that action, I’m not sure I can be as happy with England’s reaching the semi-final as I should be. Taking penalties should NOT just be about scoring goals.

Can’t wait for the semis!!! Unless I’m washing my hair. Cleaning the car. Doing a jigsaw puzzle…

Happy Friday

COME ON LIONESSES!!!

A xxxx

Been e-biking quite a bit lately. Its just too gorgeous out not to. So I bloody do. I mount up, put my helmet on (YES, MELISSA!!!! I ALWAYS PUT MY HELMET ON) and take off into the sunshine for thirty-five minutes of pure joy and freedom. And everyone asks if I feel vulnerable, fearful, concerned about the ‘dangers’. And, of course I’m concerned. Just not enough to outweigh the pleasure. And after getting bashed off my bike by a blind man in a white van, I’m always ‘wary’. But its not really buses and lorries that concern me. They’re big enough to avoid. The main problem is bikes. They’re dangerous, Stupid. Stop for nothing. Ignore other vehicles, particularly other bikes. Won’t stop at red lights. Drive through pedestrians. Go on pavements. Ride through shops.

Yes, I am the problem. It’s like they used to say when you drove too fast; “one day you’ll meet yourself head on, coming in the opposite direction”. Which, of course, is total bollocks and logically impossible. But we all get the message. And yet the only thing I really fear when I’m biking is the Police. Who, according to our friendly City postman, were yesterday stopping battalions of naughty bikers as they broke numerous, so-called ‘laws’ in Farringdon. Though I’m always pissed off with slow bikers, erratic bikers, Lime-bikers and, basically, every other biker on MY road, or cycle path. Maybe pavement, if I have to. I need to know that if I’m actually going through a green light, all legal and kosher, that I’m not gonna get broadsided by some tosser on a Lime bike wearing headphones, sending a text message, as he flies through a red.

There’s an outcry in the scientific world because a BBC presenter said that science has become the domain of ‘left-leaning atheists’. Which is probably true. And because the answer to every big question, from the mouths of the devoted, is ‘God dunnit’, it actually makes sense. Darwin, who studied for the clergy, spent half his life fighting the church over his evolutionary theory which they deemed ‘ridiculous’, verging on ‘blasphemous’. Because it removed God from the equation.

Scientific study is always a reflection of the views of society. Were you to initiate a study today to ‘show’ that white races are ‘superior’ to all the ‘darker’ races, that they are ‘more evolved’ and generally ‘better’, I reckon you’d struggle for funding. Unless the KKK have any spare cash. But in Europe in the 19th century that’s what all the ‘scientists’ (rich white men) ‘proved’ in many ways. (Why I have no faith in statistics whatsoever, without knowing who paid for it).

Science and religion should always be separate. One is strictly ‘material’ and one is, or should be, strictly ‘spiritual’. Otherwise religion gets offended when anything ‘hand of God’ is explained (I don’t mean Maradona’s goal) scientifically, and science gets all shitty, like Stephen Hawking, and actually ridicules people for any religious belief at all.

The late, great Stephen Jay Gould, master of many sciences at Harvard and scientific historian who, in his own way, believed in God, laid this out beautifully in his work on ‘NOMA’, non-overlapping magesteria. Keep religion and science separate. Where they belong.

So scientists should be atheists. And preferably ones who don’t ride Lime bikes round London.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I’m a theoretical cricketist. In theory, I love the game. Love the figures, the scores, love the way everything is analysed by the run, by the wicket, by the minute. It’s a statisticians dream sport. And although every other sport now measures how many drops of sweat each player produces per minute, in the first half/set/chukka because the computers are monitoring and recording everything, giving tennis and football matches much more useless information than we really need, cricket has always been a bit more ‘pencil and paper’. It’s always used these stats. They’re part of the scoring.

Yes, I love everything about cricket. Except watching it. I simply lack the patience to watch 5 days of anything. 5 hours would be a push. My attention span is measured in milliseconds. So I don’t watch much. I love the 2-minute hilights on the news reports. Half the wickets, a few sixes and a stunning catch. That’ll do; move on. Even one day cricket is about half a day too much.

But the cricket does captivate me. Especially when it moves from its normal appearance of ‘leisurely’ to 5th day of the test ‘manic’. And when it gets like that, with England playing, there has never been, in my lifetime, a captain like Ben Stokes. We’ve had Athertons and Brearlys and Jo Root and Colin fucking Cowdrey, but none can do what Stokesy does. Simply win a match, single-handedly, with his unique mixture of bat, ball and 100% commitment and inspiration.

When he thumped a guy outside a pub one night, somewhere up north, I thought, ‘yeah, another arrogant, stupid, ginger (sorry, Mark), tattooed, sporting thug’. But one year later he won us the World Cup. And became (quite literally because I use this word very sparingly) ‘a legend’. His performance in that final against New Zealand was just magical. And massively inspirational. He leads from the front.

So yesterday, with the match so finely balanced, once more England relied on the sheer brilliance of our ginger-haired thug to orchestrate an amazing win against India. Who, in case you’d never realised, take the game of cricket rather seriously. Probably because they are the best in the world. But not yesterday. Yesterday our Lord and captain, in the ‘11th hour’, brought on a bowler who had a broken finger. But with his other 9 he managed to deliver the final, fatal, and really slow blow.

Ben Stokes is 34. He’s had injury issues aplenty. But he brings everything he has to the job. Everything. And mustn’t ever be allowed to retire.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

So I went to pick the kids up from school and decided, on the spur of the moment, to do so without trousers on. And I never wear underpants because, due to my ‘neurodiversity’, Marks & Spencer’s finest cause me terrible irritation. Even Calvin Kleins are bothersome. Therefore, I am Commando! The head teacher stopped me and called the police about ‘an inappropriate degree of danglage’, but I just told the officer that I am in fact on the Autistic spectrum and therefore its perfectly acceptable to behave and dress (or undress) in this manner. Furthermore, I told him that I could actually commit murder, in the relevant circumstances, due to my ‘condition’. Possibly rape. Certainly common assault or GBH.

Gregg Wallace is a fucking idiot. Whatever spectrum he’s allegedly on, if its measuring IQ or common sense, he’s down in the 3rd percentile. He was my absolute BFF for a while (ok, 20 minutes at a corporate dinner) but now I’m not going to call him again, or even send messages. Mainly because I don’t have his number. And its not even about the ‘alleged’ incidents with over 50 women. Its about claiming his ‘autism’ was the cause. As if that would prevent him knowing basic ‘right and wrong’. When he can work out the consistency of a white sauce with his eyes closed.

Of course, whilst we can’t and shouldn’t hold his ‘neurodiversity’ to blame for his actions, we can in fact cite his production company which received complaints about Greggy and his behaviour, as complicit. As, basically, they did nothing. Like Jimmy Savile Lite.

Serial sex offenders in high profile positions continue to be shielded by large organisations so protective of their ‘image’ that they’ll willingly and consistently throw victims under a bus to ‘save face’. Whether the BBC, the Catholic church or a tv production company.

And the last word about Wimbledon fortnight was spoken emphatically, if in slightly German accent, by Yannik Sinner. After a truly amazing match in which the 2 close friends literally slugged it out for 3 hours, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that they were watching the best 2 players on the planet. Every game was HARD. Every point was HARD. Every shot was HARD. Sinner was magnanimous in his victory. Alcarez was simply wonderful in defeat. He appreciated how these 2 simply have to ‘take turns’, and it was Yannik’s. About whom I may just have to change my mind about my initial perceptions. Rather than my cry of the last 12 years of ‘Djokovich is soooo good, but I hate him’, at least we now have 2 worthies, neither of whom I hate. That much.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I’ve been so busy this week, I haven’t had time to even mention Wimbledon. Not only the finest tennis tournament in the world, but more importantly, the only one which really matters. Ok, the only one I ever bother watching. And I do watch it. I would say ‘religiously’ but me and religion enjoy a relationship that such a statement would immensely downplay the importance of Wimbledon in my life. I play tennis all the time but the only I time I want to watch it is there. Or ‘there’ on tv. I think that when the grass there went green, in about 1973, when we got our first colour tv, that became the definition of the sport. And even though I play on ‘hard courts’, they’re also green now, just so as not to confuse me.

I find the French open too boring, the American too American and the Aussie too late. But like Goldilocks, Wimbledon is just perfect.

The tennis has been spectacular. The problem is; the people playing it.

There’s no longer any ‘stand out’ characters. They’re all a bit dull. The shouters, the screamers (I don’t mean whilst hitting the ball, that’s really never a good thing), the late-night partyers, the wild ones, the funny ones, they’ve all gone in the name of sponsorships. “Here’s 5 million quid a year for wearing a white hat. But if you act naughty we take it back. Not the hat, they’re useless, the 5 mil”.

So in the absence of any discernible personality, we need to judge our favourites in other ways. And being humans, we do that predominantly by how they look. We can’t help it. We take one look at Roger Federer and we love him forever. I can never forget Gabriella Sabatini; who never won anything but looked so gorgeous whilst losing that no-one cared. Anna Kournikova, similarly, beautiful. Hence loved.

Then you get Novak Djokovic. Possibly the best player EVER!! But no-one likes him. Because he looks like he’s sinister, nasty and sneery, even if he isn’t. Nor does it matter. He looks a bit evil so the world collectively will always ‘support’ whoever he’s playing.

Until Thursday night. When he played Yannik Sinner. And no-one in Centre Court knew who to hate more. We (the tennis fans of the world) have finally found a worthy successor to Djokovic. Not in a good way. Like Djok, Sinner is spectacularly good at tennis. In fact, he’s the world number one. And would be totally dominant if not for pesky little Spaniard called Alcaraz, who is universally loved and keeps beating Sinner in the big events. And hopefully will do so this afternoon.

What do I have against Sinner? Well, for starters… actually nothing. Nothing you can explain. It’s the Germanic look. The pale, almost vampirish appearance. The ‘buttoned up’ Germanic manner. In short ‘I don’t like the cut of his jib’. No idea what a ‘jib’ might be but the message is clear.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

So we download books. For the kindles. And Mel & I, plus any assorted daughters, all read them. Generally. I generally take a pass on any book with ‘flowers’ in the title and Mel didn’t read the Roy Keane biography. I’ll read the rom-coms, because I’m that kind of man. One who likes crying.

But one book I downloaded a long while ago was ‘The Salt Path’. Mel read it, liked it, but I didn’t… couldn’t… wouldn’t… it was non-fiction. But not of a footballing nature. Possibly not of a political nature. Even of a mildly rugby nature. But the ‘memoire’ of an old couple walking along a path? Errrrr… don’t think so.

Then for some reason, just a couple of weeks ago I thought: “I’m gonna read that”, and I did/am. Midway through. And what a fucking storm its caused.

Not me reading it, as such, but just the timing of the ‘scandal’.

Because when you write a memoire or an autobiography, you generally want to portray yourself in a very positive light. As a fundamentally ‘good person’. Possibly something of ‘the victim’; that’s acceptable and will garner sympathy from the reading masses, maybe some degree of heroic, a true ‘fighter’, something good. A wonderful partner, to someone with ‘special needs’, that’ll do it.

And that’s what you get with the Salt Path. So much so that the movie came out about a month ago. Starring the X-files babe and one of the wizards from Harry Potter. Good pedigree for Raynor Winn’s book.

Which, according to a newspaper report last week, is a total pack of lies. The ‘victimhood’ was in fact self-inflicted after years of fraud and embezzlement by the writer, the ‘terminal disease’ of the husband, still living and apparently quite healthy. The ‘being made homeless’ also subject to the fact that they own a place in France.

And I’m in the middle of this book. Still full of sympathy and compassion for a couple persecuted by the courts, given terminal news by the doctors and rendered homeless so their only option is to walk 630 miles around SouthWest England with no money. I’m sharing their plight and their suffering and their perseverance and their determination in the face of horrendous odds. But I don’t get a share of the 64 grand the author allegedly nicked from her previous employers. Which was what led to the repossession of their home in the first place.

All I’m saying is; they might have fucking waited for me to finish the book before exposing it as a total fraud.

And I think I need to get Lila a slightly smaller e-bike.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Our nation has indeed been blessed, this week. We have had the honour to bestow an appropriately grandiose, full state visit to the president of our neighbour-nation and long-term allies, the Republic of France. We rolled out the king and queen to greet him, lined up the Cold Stream Guards for his inspection and opened up Windsor Castle. All of which was greatly, some might say ‘smugly’ appreciated by the trumped up little shit, Macron. Who strutted around as if he was an important person. With a look on his face you just wanted to punch. I was only surprised that faced with all those resplendent soldiers, he didn’t just surrender.

But now the glad-handing is over. The Royal banquets are done, we’ve put Charles and Camilla back into care, and it’s down to work. That being: the immigrant crisis.

The boat loads of refugees which invade our shores on a daily basis, 20,000 or more this year so far. And although they’re from Afghanistan, Algeria, Vietnam, Eritrea or wherever; they actually come from France. All of them. As far as I’m concerned, they’re French, the lot of them.

Yet even Macron admitted that, though he doesn’t particularly want them, none of the immigrants want to stay in France. Well, why would they? There’s too many immigrants there for the immigrants to want to mix with. So Macron identified a major problem, which is that England is ‘too appealing’ for them. There’s our benefit system which, although asylum seekers can NOT claim benefits, as we’re repeatedly told, they do get accommodation, food, phones, clothing, maids and jewellery. Oh, and health care, education, BMWs…

Another big plus for this multinational mass is that most of them speak English. Which Macron identified as a major problem in stopping immigrants. Kier Starmer will announce tomorrow that from now on everyone in England can only speak Lithuanian.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to work. But how am I gonna get my pizza delivered if they don’t, FFS??? I’d have to collect it myself and miss some of the tennis. I’d send Mel but I don’t trust her not to nibble it on the way home.

So we’ve now devised a ‘one in, one out’ system in which out of every 42,000 illegal immigrants, we can send one back to France. BUT: we then have to bring another one in who has a relative here already claiming asylum.

I’m not Enoch Powell. I’m just 3 generations from immigrants myself. I empathise. I don’t want people living in fear. Or with absolutely no future other than misery and starvation. But there are other countries. Nice ones. Europe’s full of them. And you don’t have to go very far in England, either physically or on the phone, to realise we’re pretty full up. If you want to increase our numbers you need to arrange it so that Doctors appointments can be made. Hospitals can cope. You can get your children into a nearby school. You can travel with a degree of freedom. WE NEED HOUSES. Flats. So we’re not paying stupid hotel prices for accommodating people long term.

So thanks for your time, Macron, and your advice. I’ll pop in when I next go to Paris for a weekend. One when it’s not rioting, hopefully.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx