Andy’s Glasses

April 18, 2025

Cotswolds…

We’ve just returned from a fab little stay in a Cotswold. Not sure which one, they all look so similar. It wasn’t Clarkson’s one, that’s for sure. Though there were plenty of cars there, but during Easter hols, that’s to be expected.

We went on Thursday because I needed to drive very fast and there is, quite literally, nowhere in the whole of Greater London where such a thing can be done, even just marginally illegally. Only very VERY illegally. So we needed open roads, some Motorways, and lots of fab, windy little race-tracks. Ok, not race tracks by any normal definition but country lanes where, if you’re driving above 90, the odd little ‘20mph bits of some tiny village or other’ you pass within 3 seconds. How much damage could you in that time?

We stopped in the fabulous town of Burford. Oh, you MUST know Burford? Surely? It’s a Cotswold, but a bit different. Achingly sweet, twee, almost smug high street, filled with loads of independent stores, cutely named, run by locals, selling bottles of 2-quid liquid soap for £2, plus £22.99 for the ‘Cotswolds’ label. Which is actually made in China. The high road is 100 yards long and then goes off into a beautiful vista of rolling hills covered in green stuff. With trees on. It really is sweet. And the local people are all Japanese. Amazing. Such diversity in such a ‘WASPy’ area of the country, but that’s what we found. Japanese in their national costume of jeans, Uniqlo, Nikon camera, selfie stick with go-pro.

Then, in the evening, we went to a wedding. NOT a ‘destination wedding’ because you have to get on a plane for one of those. More and ‘in-our-nation’ wedding. In another Cotswold just 10 minutes from our one. There’s hundreds of them out there where Oxfordshire meets Gloucestershire. Whereas in London, there’s hardly any.

I suppose, for Mel, we went to a wedding and drove there. For me, we went for a drive and took in a wedding. To kill a few hours. Let the car cool down.

It was fantastic. In a place call ‘the Stone Barn’. I never said they were imaginative, but what a place. Just wonderful. There was a bride there. Who looked almost as fabulous as I did. AND even a groom. And we through confetti over them. But being the Cotswolds, this was not yesterday’s Daily Mail run through a shredder (as all copies should be, preferably before reading) but real, genuine rose petals. Because it’s in the countryside, innit? The whole event was simply brilliant. Wonderful atmosphere in our ‘barn’. Sort of ‘barn’ the King would would have, if he hosted corporate events, weddings and barmitzvahs. And we ate, we certainly drank and then we danced the night away under the Cotswoldian stars. Which are different from the ones in London. Mainly because they’re not shrouded in smog.

Anyway, that was done. Today we got back in the car and drove like mad things!!! Ok, mad thing.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

April 16, 2025

Defend with my life!!!

I hate what that man is saying (could be a woman… especially if its a woman) but would defend with my life (!!!) his/her/their right to say it.

That’s what… errrr… Winston Churchill said. Possibly George Bernard Shaw… Emily Pankhurst… Groucho Marx… someone said it. And I agree. I agree totally with everyone’s ‘first amendment rights’, especially my own. Even though in the UK we don’t have a constitution to amend.

But when people say things you don’t like, you are mildly conflicted between the ‘freedom of speech’ thing and the ‘he’s a total scumbag tosser’ kind’a thing. Should these people be allowed to spout opinions which are contradictory to your own? Of course they are. Even if offensive? Hmmmmm. Inflamatory? What about when that freedom of expression (protests, sit-ins, rallies) ostracises completely a section of society, a minority class, to the point of persecution?

Donald Trump, everyone’s favourite presidential chaos machine, is having words with Harvard, possibly the greatest (once, at least) university in the whole of America. Certainly the only one everyone’s heard of. And Harvard, unsurprisingly, like Zelensky, like the UK, like China, appears to be coming off second best in their discussion.

Trump is demanding that they stop the antisemitism they encourage by pro-Palestinian activity which rapidly rendered half the campus a no-go zone for any Israeli or Jew. Harvard is defending its right to ‘freedom of expression’ for all students. Encouraging bilateral political debate. Even if one half of the debate are completely wrong, totally moronic and are supporting terrorism, whilst not knowing the River, the Sea, or where to find their own navels.

We all agree that Trump is correct in this. Ok, I agree that Trump is correct in this. But then, being Trump, he takes it further. No more Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy for hiring staff. No more ‘quotas’, no more ‘box-ticking’ in that, “well this person can barely read joined up but we’ll give ‘them’ the post of associate professor because ‘they’ are bisexual, non-binary, multi-racial with multi-disabilities, mostly mental, and we haven’t got one of them”.

Furthermore, being Trump, he’s backing it up with removal of grants and tax exemptions which add up to over $2billion a year for Harvard.

What do I think? I know you’re dying to know. Well, if they’re so fucking clever at Harvard, how did they ever get tied up in all that ridiculous woke-shit in the first place? Which, as a direct consequence and extrapolation thereof, allowed freedom of speech to become an encampment spouting antisemitic nonsense.

Keep their money, Don. Freedom of speech only applies to those who agree with you. Don’t have to tell you that.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

April 15, 2025

power mad…

Its all about power. Bit like rugby. But more… electrical. Because it seems that whoever rules the power supply rules the whole fucking world. And not just rules it, but can supply it, consistently and, if possible, cheaply.

The world is a massive consumer of power, I get that. I would say I had a ‘lightbulb moment’ but I simply can’t afford it in today’s post-April, no-government help, hyper-inflated electricity prices. So instead, I just had ‘a moment’.

A.I. is the future, right? You want to do your ‘personal statement’ to apply for uni? You want to improve your cv? You need to send a letter? Chatgpt will do it for you. Better than you ever could. In 92 seconds. Barely needs an edit. And I read yesterday that if you get that AI system to write you 5,000 words on anything, that uses enough electricity to power a microwave for an hour. Your broccoli would be cooked before AI has written “Dear Sir…” . AI is massively consumptive. That’s the point.

Not as consumptive as those who ‘mine’ for Bitcoin. A little dig around that area uses sufficient energy to power a city for a week.

And then there’s our steel industry. What’s left of it. Because we use blast furnaces whereas those pesky Chinese use electric ark ones, which are much cheaper to run and more energy efficient. But even if we get the ark furnaces here, as we will in Port Talbot, they run on electricity and we pay… shitloads more for it than the Chinese do.

So the answer to all the questions is: power. Preferably cheap power. And, obviously, to appease the Gretas, renewable power. Green power. Like in Wales. Massive wind farms out there; brilliant. They’re building a series of fucking great pylons across the beautiful, virgin countryside, to shift that power to a storage station. And the Welsh don’t like it one bit. ‘Dig the cables underground!’, they yell, in Welsh. But that costs 5 times what pylons do.

Build nuclear. It’s clean, cheap, easy. But has a bad rep. Solar panels, they look nice, but across 4 acres of farmland, not so nice, especially if the farmland was yours and was compulsory purchased.

Here’s the killer irony. Yes IRONY. We need to make steel at a competitive price to China. So we need cheap power. The power companies here are all owned, in part, by Chinese finance. The wind farms use Chinese parts. The solar panels are all made from Chinese components. To reduce the cost of these items we have to implore the Chinese to use younger children in their production. You only have to pay an 8 year old about a third what they currently pay 12 year olds.

Because as we move forwards, power demand increases exponentially.

Essentially, we’re either fucked, or we just accept the reality and all learn Mandarin.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

April 13, 2025

Isn’t it ironic…

We should be talking about steel. Everyone else is. Especially those lucky enough to live in Scunthorpe. The little town, somewhere ‘up north’, where they have a football team, who play in the ‘lower leagues’, lots of tattoo parlours, judging by the protesters you see on tv, easy availability of beer, and a steel works. In fact, Britain’s last remaining steel works. So British, it’s owned by the Chinese. Who choose to export China-made steel to Britain at about a third the price of the stuff they make here. We need some Trumpian tariffs. But instead, ‘we’ bought the business. Yesterday. In a weird and unusual recall of parliament on a Saturday during what would be their Easter recess, a new law was passed in just that one day, taking back control of the steel works. Yes, the good people of Britain now have the rights to pay the £700,000 a day it takes to keep the works going. Lucky us. Well, lucky 2,800 workers in Scunthorpe. Who would all be out of work if the works shut down. Which would financially ruin the entire town. Except the tattooists, obviously. When you see unemployed people, they always have loads of ink.

But we’re not going to talk about steel. Because I read a headline about ‘the irony of the steel industry’, and quite frankly, that sentence should not be allowed. It’s just wrong, on so many levels.

So we’ll talk about football instead. And the game everyone’s talking about. That amazing ‘battle for 15th place’ between Spurs and Wolves this afternoon. The footballing world is riveted to this amazing event where the fixture program actually brings together the two teams involved on precisely the right day. A game of as much importance as any steel debates.

And then there’s The Tuchel Conundrum. Not an uncommon one for managers of the English football team. Sorting out the glut of midfielders, all worthy of inclusion. In particular, the role of ‘attacking midfielder’ which, as a nation, we seem to breed copiously. We lived through the Gerard/Lampard years, in which our two undoubted best midfielders couldn’t work on the pitch together. And now we have The Elevation of Declan Rice to a Demi God.

Obviously I can’t stand the man. From hateful West Ham to Arsenal is not the path followed by decent people. But in one week, the man has become the best midfielder in the land. A declaration (no pun intended, but I quite like it anyway) in 2 amazing free kicks followed by creating a wonderful ‘goal out of nothing’ yesterday against Brentford. If I was Thomas Teuchel, which I’m not because unlike our England manager, I’M FUCKING ENGLISH!!!, would I put Rice’s name down first on the team sheet? But then you’d have to create a space. Phil Foden maybe? Put him on the wing? But the real contender for the very position Rice excels in is Jude Bellingham. And to push him down the pitch into a more defensive role is to waste the incredible talent which can so damage opposing teams. Furthermore, Bellingham offers more. He can beat people. Does so effortlessly. When he boldly chose the number 5 shirt at Real Madrid, I took a sharp intake of breath. That is a shirt with a history. ‘His’ shirt. Zidane!!! But then I watched Bellingham. And decided (fortunately I can make such decisions alone and unilaterally), that Jude is worthy. Totally. He plays like Zizu. Strong and muscly, fast and skilful. You simply can’t drop him out of the team or around into an alternative role.

There you are Thomas, problem solved. Bellingham stays in the number 10 role, Rice moves.

If only the steel problem was so easy. Less ‘ironic’.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

April 10, 2025

Timing…

This lovely young woman is Lily Phillips. Would you like to have sex with her? Well join the queue mate, there’s 99 in front of you.

Yes, last year, Lily shagged 100 men in a day. For charity. Ok, not for charity in the normal sense, but for… well, sadly, for fame. Which came (no pun) fast and furious (no more pun). Although apparently she was already quite famous as a porn star anyway, but this… act?… acts?… put her on a world stage. Elevated her status among porn stars to the positively stratospheric. Very few such people ‘reach’ the world outside their own domain. Stormy Daniels. Linda Lovelace… errrr… and now Lily. She’s broken through the veil of soggy Kleenex into the vast universe of the ‘real world’. And all she had to do to achieve this was have sex with 100 men in 14 hours.

That’s about 7 an hour. 8’n’a’half minutes each. Including dinner, foreplay, consummation and post-coital fag. As in cigarette, for those ambiguously inclined. The Uber home is in your own time.

Lovely Lily feels that such an event empowers her. I’m not sure I get that, any more than Beyonce being ’empowered’ by twerking in gold hot pants. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy this new type of ’empowerment’, just that I struggle with the mechanics of it. Empowerment is the diametric opposite of objectification. And yet both the empowerees and the objectifiers both seem to enjoy themselves, so it must be working quite well. It’s just hard, speaking as an old fashioned feminist, to wrap my head around. What would Germaine Greer say? Would she approve of being basically gang-banged by a bunch of rotten smelly men, all suffering from premature ejaculation, for the titillation and erotic stimulation of even more and even grottier men online, in the name of ‘empowerment’.

I burned my bra in 1969 but I’m not ready for gang rape. Not yet. And after ‘the event’, poor Lily broke down in tears. Because although the obvious parts of her anatomy were emphatically ‘fucked up’, I reckon her head was too, to a degree that surprised her as well.

Happy Thursday

A xxxxx (visit my ‘only fans’ page, for a ‘chat’).

April 9, 2025

who wants to be…

A Millionaire!!!!

Wow!

The measure used by those people who just love statistics and demographics for ‘wealth’ is to be a ‘dollar millionaire’. That’s how they assess ‘the rich’. Which is why London has more than anywhere else. Well, it did have until a few weeks ago when Moscow overtook us. Livin’ that communist dream. From each, according to his ability, to each, according to his need for a Ferrari. Marx loved fast cars. And I’ve been to Moscow, back in the days when you could do such a thing, and it’s full of top end vehicles, Prada bags and Louise Vuitton jock-straps.

But, my point is, (sometimes there is a point even if I have no clue what it might be), that if being a ‘dollar millionaire’ you need £781,000. Which means virtually the entire middle class in London, who no longer have a mortgage on their home, is ‘rich’. New York would be more so except the majority of people there don’t ‘own’ their homes, but rent them. Well, they did until last week when their shares plummeted, their investments tanked, their pensions wiped out and their imported goods businesses folded. Now they’re homeless. Definitely not millionaires.

So they’ve counted up the number of ‘dollar millionaires’ in London and its less than it was a year ago. But these pseudo millionaires might be temporary residents, taking their 780 grand with them when they leave. 18,000 of them have left. Whereas only about 15 people with over 100mil have left. That’s a more serious kind of ‘wealth’. A proper degree of richness, worthy of the name. And now they’re off paying less tax, but in a different country. Big win for the exchequer, getting rid of those rich bastards. Leaving just you and me to pay tax and support the benefits frauds and to keep the Boat People in Soho House and the Dorchester.

Lila and Joey have gone to New York. For Easter. Though by the time the Bunny arrives they’ll be down in Florida. Where its hot. New York is like here; looks fab but you get frostbite putting your sunglasses on.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

April 8, 2025

wheeler dealer…

Because the weather is not only lovely but GUARANTEED not to rain, I’ve been taking the e-bike into work. Not because it’s quicker, which it is. Not because it’s cheaper because us old folk get tube travel freeeeeee. But because it is just wonderful. Fun. Enjoyment. Puts a great big smile on my face which only grows with every red light I ride through. By the time I get to work, and not very much time at that, I have to take special medications to bring my mouth back to ‘neutral’, from ‘Joker’ mode.

And on Friday, I donned my helmet (yes, MELISSA, I always wear my helmet on the e-bike, have you seen the way I ride, FFS?), put my ruck-sack on my back, and wheeled the beast towards the door, as always, eagerly awaiting mounting the machine, firing up the… errrr… battery, and flying home in the setting sun. But there was a funny squeaky noise as I pushed it. Hmmm. Break stuck? Something rubbing? No, my fucking rear fucking tyre was fucking flat. Fuck.

I may have sworn. I apologise unreservedly. I don’t have a pump. Not that it would have helped. For a tyre to go from 60psi (very hard) to zero in a few hours is catastrophic. Not a small ‘leak’. I left the bike at work and tubed home. Miserably. Disappointedly.

Monday morning I wheeled it 200 yards up the road (so heavy it felt like 6 miles) to Evans ‘the bike shop’. Upon who’s website they proclaim to do ‘repairs!’, even ‘punctures’ and state ‘punctures to e-bikes!!!’, because they cost a bit more. Obviously?

“Ah, can’t do that one mate; its an e-bike”. But… your website… repairs… issa fucking inner tube FFS; mend it! “We’re not allowed to work on e-bikes we didn’t sell.” Well, you wouldn’t would you. Tosser. He did sell me a bottle of ‘gunk’ which you pump in and the tyre’s good as new in minutes’ and then even better! Didn’t work. Flat as a pancake, even with a tenner’s worth of slime in it.

So today, I found a company who pick up your bike, repair it and deliver it back. And so far, phase 1 is complete. Picked up. Now we wait…

Happy tube-travel Tuesday

A xxxx

April 7, 2025

Best team in the world…

We won. Spurs. A football match. Beat Southampton. Who were ‘fighting for their lives’. And alas, they died. Got relegated. At least they did it in the best stadium in the world. Surely that was some comfort to them? But Southampton aren’t my problem. Spurs are.

With that magnificent win, our first home win since February, not that our away form has been what you’d call ‘brilliant’, but with the win yesterday we roared up the table from 16th (relegation starts at 18th) to a positively nose-bleeding 16th!!! At this rate, by my calculations, we can be first in the league with 5 wins. Assuming we move up 3 places every time. Which we should. But may have to change the rules of the league a bit. I’ll speak to Liverpool.

Who amazingly lost yesterday. I can’t actually remember the last time that happened and can’t be bothered to look. But they went to Fulham, scored a goal, went all ‘arrogant’ and strutting around with the air of the invincible, and got trounced. Because this is football. You have to act invincible, rather than just posture.

Arsenal, the only other team with an unrealistic chance to prevent the title going to Merseyside, failed to win in the other bit of Merseyside, the blue bit which never wins anything. Arsenal were 1 nil up and if they’d have just made it 2, or 3… but it wasn’t to be and Everton were awarded a penalty. Obviously, it was wrongly awarded, it was against Arsenal which, according to Arteta, automatically makes it not just wrong but part of the overall persecution of Arsenal by the combined match officials of the Premiere League. Because shlepping a man twenty yards across the box with your arms and then falling into his legs should never be a penalty.

So all in all, it was a brilliant weekend’s football. Other than the Manchester derby, or the ‘has-been derby’ as it has now been re-named, which was boring as fuck. As you’d expect from two teams which, unlike Tottenham, have faded from their glory days.

Happy Monday, I shall watch MOTD for the first time in 2 months.

A xxxx

April 6, 2025

Reap wot you sow…

Two Labour MPs decided to take a trip to Israel. Why not? It’s fab there this time of year; not too hot yet, and gorgeous. Furthermore, unlike when I go, these freeloaders get the taxpayers to fund it. Whole trip, right down to the extra chillies on the felafel. They took a few ‘aides’ with them too. Why wouldn’t you. You’re not paying.

And they arrived at Ben Gurion airport and… got refused entry. Interrogated, summed up and sent for deportation.

Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed were kicked out of the Holy Land (though not necessarily their holy land) before they got in. Why? Because they planned to ‘document details about the security services and spread hate messages about Israel’. Really? Labour MPs??? How could those pesky Middle Easters even think such a thing?

David Lammy, our Foreign Secretary immediately called this ‘unacceptable!!!’, to reject our parliamentarians from an allied nation. Even one where he, David Lammy, called for their Prime Minister, Netenyahu, to be arrested on sight if he arrives in the UK.

Leader of our opposition, Kemi B., said she understood the Israeli’s point of view and they have the right to evict undesirables. For which she is now being panned by Labour MPs and the more moronic of the press.

I make no a priori judgments about either Yuan Yang, nor ABTISAM MOHAMED, but the Labour Party in general has a rather poor record against Israel and Jewish people. And in government they have not improved this standing. They, like the BBC, completely buy in to the 100% Hamas produced narrative about genocides and baby murders and all the figures which, to any sensible, non-biased person, are inflated beyond any form of common sense. Labour has proved, time and again, that it is NO friend to Israel. Who is suddenly the ‘ally’ which it obviously wasn’t when tosspot Lammy cut arms dealing with Israel a few months ago.

What Israel doesn’t need at the moment is any more people, especially those like ‘parliamentarians’ whose opinions are viewed as more accurate, entering Israel to come back with yet more accusations and nonsense to further feed the prevailing insanity over the war in Gaza.

Israel is perfectly comfortable with Muslim people. Over 20% of its population are Muslim. But it is rather circumspect about politicians from an ever more hostile nation, who represent a party only recently, and very superficially, ‘cleaned’ of antisemitism, who constantly insult the Middle East’s only democratic nation by giving parity to a terrorist organisation in all considerations.

The Labour Party is virulently anti-Israel (mainly for ideological reasons rather than the current issues there) and crosses the line into antisemitism regularly. I wouldn’t let them in my country either. If I had one.

You reap wot you sow. Hope they have a safe flight home. That we’re also paying for.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

April 5, 2025

Death and taxes…

So we’ve done taxes to death this week, with all this tariff talk, so we need to concentrate on death. Ok, I never promised ‘cheery’, some might find it positively morbid, but it needs to be discussed. Not the actual deaths themselves, but the attitudes and moral relativity of two particular kinds of deaths.

Firstly there’s abortions. I think it safe to say; no-one likes a dead baby. And the current debate is not even about whether a 12 week foetus is actually ‘a baby’ or not. It’s about America’s favourite topic; freedom of speech. An abortion clinic protester was convicted of something or other because she was standing near an abortion clinic with a sign saying: ‘here to talk; if you want’. Which even I, as a massive proponent of ‘pro-choice’, think is actually rather touching. She didn’t say: YOU’RE GOING TO DIE IN HELL YOU BABY MURDERING BITCH!!!, nor even JESUS DIED TO SAVE YOUR BABY AND NOW YOU’RE DROPPING HIM ON THE GOAL LINE!! But they arrested her. In case she unbalanced someone’s mental health or presumed upon their gender or something, though granted, presumptions where pregnancies are concerned are probably valid. For me, much as I disagree with this ‘heart in the right place’ woman, for interfering with someone else’s legal right to a termination, she has every right to peacefully protest. She wasn’t arguing against the right to an abortion; she was saying that if someone is having last minute doubts, I’ll counsel you. To arrest her exemplified most of what is wrong with the police today. They don’t think. To actually convict her because ‘she might affect mental health’ in some way, is plainly moronic and cow-towing to the prevailing imbecilic zeitgeist.

The second deaths are the sought-after ones. The Assisted Suicides. This is also tricky. From a moral perspective. And yet comes into the category of ‘choice’. People who want to choose their death when faced with irreversible pain and suffering to an inevitable and horrible end. The arguments against are always (other than by religious people, obviously. They revere life and the bible normalises pain, suffering and agony, even treats it as heroic and the best way to serve The Lord) that “I’m disabled and I still have a lot to offer and don’t want to be die just because I’m not perfect and haven’t got long to live”. The answer to which is: then don’t. It’s fucking CHOICE. Yet again. And if you don’t wish to terminate yourself, having such a facility in place won’t force you to do it. Just because there’s a petrol station on the corner doesn’t mean you have to fill up. Ok, I appreciate the moral differential with that particular parallel, but at £1.40 a litre, there’s not much morality in petrol stations either.

Basically. Just give people the right to choose. No-one’s being forced into anything. That’s grown up. If others with to protest about it, that’s fine too. Everyone else, including the police, should just fuck off and let everyone get on with it. Including, perhaps especially, JD Vance, who is ‘appalled’ at the intrusion against freedom of speech for the anti-abortion protester who was arrested. I wonder if Mr Vice-Prez would have been so vociferously outspoken in favour of a Climate protester, or an anti-oil one, or any vaguely left-wing value or any protester in a proper duffle coat?

Happy Saturday; its good to be alive

A xxxx