Andy's Glasses

Sometimes its hard to be a woman…

They need to re-write that song. Changing the next line from “giving all your love to just one mayun”, to, possibly, “especially when she has a penis”. Or even “so I’m changing to be a mayun too”. They rhyme doesn’t matter; its country & western. Nothing matters. But they need to contemporise these terribly 1970s concepts of gender stability, monogamy and its evil twin ‘affairs!!’, and all the terrible horrors of men leaving home, dogs dying in car crashes and men fighting to show they’re meyun. Whilst love-torn, heart-broken women stay at home crying into their peroxide bottles.

There’s a D.I.V.O.R.C.E. being fought out in the high court currently between, unusually, a man and a woman. Ridiculous claims made on both sides, obviously, it’s a divorce, and pissing away the usual few hundred grand enriching lawyers. And let’s face it: no-one likes lawyers. Today’s photo is me, this morning, with my two fine examples of the ugly faces of modern day law.

Anyway, the slight difference in the case in question is that the guy described, quite horribly I feel, as a ‘City Trader’, is the one suing his ‘ex’ for maintenance. She’s a squillionaire of some sort, and they were married for 3 years.

To refer to someone as a City Trader is to use a term loaded with prejudice and stereotype. A wide boy, so barely literate he can hardly spell ‘Rolex’, of which he wears two. One on each wrist. He drinks champagne for breakfast, drives a Ferrari and blows 20k on dinner just because. This is the horrible image implied. Though in this case it would appear to be fairly accurate, especially as it was her 20k he was pissing away on the top end of pretentious wine list.

So after 3 years of luxury and high living, he’s gone. But is demanding sufficient maintenance to eat his breakfast at the Ritz every day, lunch at Hawksmoor and dinner at Nobu. He wants £36,000 a year for flights. Which is reasonable. Because if you fly out of Heathrow these days you may need to use ‘contingency plans’ to get home. And because he’s basically been spoiled rotten for 3 years, he feels entitled to be spoiled rotten for the rest of his life. Prenup notwithstanding. Because he ‘can’t even cook an omelette’. The judge told him to learn, which I think is judgmental (errrr… yeah, I suppose quite applicable really), prejudicial and insulting.

I think he should be given everything he asks for, and more, even though he is, apparently, a serial marrier and a bit of a tosspot. Otherwise what message does this send out to users, abusers and free-loaders in general???

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

The Office of National Statistics has to work out whether we (the entire economy, not just you) are suffering from inflation, and to what extent. So they use a ‘basket’ of representative goods and services, 752 of them, and see how the price of these things change from quarter to quarter. And I’m worried that their chosen ‘basket’ is becoming a bit too ‘Waitrose’ to be applicable to the more ‘Aldi’ parts of the country. I say this with no sneer, no superiority, nothing that living in the most suburban of London suburbs would ever cause any smugness on my part. I live where Waitrose is considered ‘downmarket’!!! So when we do go to Aldi (for whisky and wine), we do so only under the cover of darkness.

But they’ve taken out of their ‘basket’, ‘cooked pork’ and replaced it with ‘pulled pork’. Very Soho, less Solihull. They’ve included mangoes, FFS. And, in the non-edibles, ‘exercise mats’. Such things don’t exist north of Stanmore. Other than the part of Manchester where all the WAGs live. VR headsets are included now whereas they’ve actually got around to removing ‘cd rentals’. When no-one has rented a cd since Blockbuster closed in nineteen-ninety-whatever.

I’m concerned that they don’t include the increasing cost of footmen. And the price of slaves, if you can even get them!! And how can you have a system ‘representative of the whole country’ if fees for boarding at Eton aren’t included?

A funny thing happened this week. The sun came out. And it was warm. Well, yesterday was. So I wheeled out the electric bike. Which wasn’t really electric at that point because the battery was deader than dead. So it was just a bike. An amazingly heavy one. I pumped up the tyres, charged it up, and, having had the brakes ‘done’ at the end of last summer; I was ready. Eager.

The traffic was light. But that doesn’t really matter. The traffic lights were often red. But that doesn’t matter. There were a lot of people at the crossings. But fuck ‘em. And I rode in from home in 35 minutes. And it was wonderful. Ok, and very easy. Your legs are turning but they ain’t doing much. And when the chain came off its cog, my legs were achieving even less. But there ya go. 5 minutes and one pair of ridiculously greasy hands later, I was back on board. The life of the biker. The fair weather biker. And even though the tube is free for very old people like me, the bike is exhilaratingly liberating. Makes the commute a pure joy. Because nothing stops you. Except the chain coming off, obvs.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Spurs were at Fulham yesterday. In the league. And were doing ok. Well, they hadn’t conceded, were actually playing abysmally, but nil-nil at 70-plus minutes is pretty much all we can hope for, and as its better, mathematically, than 4-nil down, I was happy to take it. For the time being!

Meanwhile later that evening Barcelona were playing at Athletico Madrid. Not the ‘El Classico’, that’s when they play Real Madrid. Same city, different colour shirt. This is the El Something-else-ico. And if Athletico win, they overtake Barca into second place, just behind their Madridista buddies at Real. Though they’re not really ‘buddies’. This is football. Everyone is hated. And after 70-odd minutes, Athletico were 2-nil up.

So, other than the teams, the cities, the countries AND the scores, you can see precisely where I’m drawing these amazing parallels from.

Because 20 minutes later, at Fulham, Spurs were 2-nil down. The second goal, agonisingly, scored by Ryan Sessegnon, the ‘biggest waste of time (and money!!!) Spurs ever signed’, duly returned to the club wot spawned him, Fulham, to hammer a nail in our coffin. Thank you Ryan! Fucking ingrate. Anyway, that’s how it ended.

But its not how it ended in Madrid. At 73 minutes the Barcelona team suddenly and collectively woke up! With a start!! And won 4-2. To overtake Real Madrid in their (stupid, Spanish) league to go top.

My first thought was: that’s how you do it.
My second was: why was I born in London?
My third was: it’s just as well I’m a rugby fan; supporting Spurs would FUCKING KILL MEEEEE!!!!

Saturday’s rugby was sensational. Ok, we didn’t win the 6 Nations, that went to the (bastard) French. But we played the best rugby the world has ever seen. Against a sad and sorry bunch’a Welshmen who only got sadder and sorrier as the tries scored went up. And up. And up. It made me proud to be a supporter of England rugby. In the same way watching Spurs makes me want to vomit copiously.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Britain became a ‘welfare state’ in 1906. Which is so long ago that the Liberal Party, who were then in government, decades before they became a political irrelevance, introduced measures like national insurance and poverty payments for the unemployed and, yes, an early form of disability benefits.

When a Labour government started the National Health Service, to be ‘free at the point of service’ (a phrase which has cursed so many proposals for improvement and modernisation) in 1948, we officially became ‘the’ nation where you were cared for’ regardless of your circumstances.

Which is possibly why boatloads of people, literally, arrive on our shores every day.

But now we have a ‘new Labour’ government (note the lower case ‘n’ in new, because Kier Starmer may be many things, most of them bad, but he’s no Tony Blair) government and they’ve decided that ‘welfare’ is probably a thing better kept in the last century.

All those millions of benefit claimants, so staunchly defended and supported by Labour all through their opposition years, have suddenly, with their ascension to government, become, according to the Chancellor, ‘a total fucking liability. Freeloading, workshy skivers, the lot of them’. (I may have improved her grammar a little). And today they’ve added the disabled to their strategy of raising funds for the army.

NATO have demanded we increase our military spend. Trump has demanded we increase our military spend. Neither have offered to pay for it, so the money has to come from the welfare budget, apparently, because of black holes, immense debt and a complete lack of the promised ‘growth’.

Why don’t we just put all the unemployed and disabled in the army??? Two birds with one stone. It’s a brilliant way to achieve two ends with no added cost. Ok, the disabled may have some physical issues dealing with marches across the Brecon Beacons in full battle gear, but they could be used in the HQ, depending on their disability, or as sandbags, in some extreme cases. You see; you just need to look at the problem from outside the box.

This government are fast becoming the most anti-social socialists since the Russian revolution.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I didn’t watch Spurs last night. Couldn’t. I was at tai chi hitting a punch bag. And although I do think of football whilst I’m channelling my inner Bruce Lee, those thoughts are normally reserved for Chelsea players, Arsenal managers, Match of the Day presenters, who form the focus for my aggression. As well as hitting punch bags, I also managed to hit my mate’s car door whilst parking too last night. Don’t ask. Just an ‘added bonus’. I was getting ‘into character’.

So the Spurs match was far from my mind. Which, generally this season, is the best place for it to be. But not last night. No. We won. A match. A whole one. Actually it was ‘2 whole ones’ as it was a 2-parter. And we played brilliantly. Then played shit. Then were fantabulous. Then fucking abysmal. Then…

Usual Spurs really. EXCEPT… for the final result. At which point the wonderful had exceeded the dire by one goal. Which was all we needed to progress to the quarter finals of the Europa League. To play Eintracht Frankfurt over two legs.

We deserve to win a trophy. Not the players; they’re terrible. Certainly not the manager, though it might save him his job. But the fans. WE deserve something. We spend every year making excuses for not winning anything and playing rubbish, whilst still spending our money and giving our hearts to our club. Who, in return… just take it.

Dealing with Putin is much easier. Predictable. Stable. I’m not saying ‘nice’, necessarily, I’m not saying ‘fair’ at all, just a man who knows what he wants. And takes it. Regardless of who anyone else thinks it may belong to. Like Ukraine. He wants it, he takes it. So as they now discuss ‘ceasefire’, this may be difficult given Putin’s criteria. And also that among the Russian’s ‘concerns’ are that Russia must be protected from ‘this happening again’. Yes, Ukraine must agree to not drag 200,000 Russian soldiers onto its land like it apparently did last time. And as for the ‘security force’ of European (cos Americans won’t do it) military on the ground, that’s a red line. Basically, short of Moscow’s total control over Kyiv, just like in the ‘good old Soviet days’, Putin’s going to be difficult.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Our wives are trying to kill us. There’s no doubt about it. Married men are three times more likely to be obese than single men. THREE TIMES!!! I read that in a very reputable newspaper. So it must be true. As a groom walks his bride away from the alter to a life of married… bliss?, his waistline starts to increase. She doesn’t have to feed him, it just grows and expands all by itself, merely by the knowledge that its owner is now married. Its an evolutionary thing. It ‘takes him off the market’ forever, thus increasing survival of the fittest. In the strictly Darwinian meaning of ‘fittest’, obviously. No-one dates a fat bastard. Stops ’em ‘straying’.

But I can see a flaw in the statistics. The ‘married’ and ‘unmarried’ men.

Unmarried men are either too young to get married, in which case they’re all skinny, or they’re ‘bachelors’ of a later age. And as we all know, ‘bachelor’ is an euphemism. No-one’s actually described anyone in that term since Quentin Crisp died and Oscar Wilde went to prison for being a ‘confirmed bachelor’.

So I wish to know the ages of all the people in this study alleging ‘3 times more likely…’

And their social demographic. Because as we all know, Northerners eat shit. Whilst we in the south eat free-range Ostrich-meat (no fat), flown in from… probably where ostriches live, on private jets, Northerners eat ultra-processed, high fat, no veg, tv-dinners from Lidl, blasted in dysfunctional microwaves. Even the Northern bachelors, like Jimmy Summerville, Marc Almond, they eat it too but somehow manage to keep slim.

But whilst husbands get fat, their wives stay slim. Go figure. At least they have a figure to figure.

Interestingly, married mens’ hearts are better than single ones. Which, considering they’re hauling round 17 stone of blubber with them, is quite a surprise.

And here’s the best bit: if wives die, their husband’s health deteriorates. Whereas when husbands die, there is no change in the widow’s health. BECAUSE THEY’RE SO BUSY LEAPING UP AND DOWN WITH THE JOY OF NOT HAVING TO WASH HIS UNDERPANTS ANY LONGER!!!

I didn’t say any of this is ‘fair’, its just what it is. According to some flawed mess of statistics or other.

Happy Thursday

The Husband xxxx

So it’s taken America about 3 weeks to see beyond the bravado, the bluster, the total bollocks, which is the work and words of Donald J. Trump and start panicking. Realising that their self-professed ‘saviour’ is in fact a liability of global proportions and a moron to boot. And when America panics, it does so as it does everything; in money. The stock markets plummeted on Monday, having since the inauguration been buoyant and rising on the bold and a bit vague promises by the Orange Man. As the Nasdaq dropped more than 4% in one day, the sweetest irony of all was that Tesla was the biggest loser at over 15%. Bringing Elon Musk’s ‘personal loss’ this year just $132 billion. I mean, should we re-think this whole ‘no-God’ thing?

Trump speaks a lot of words. A lot of words. And always twice, making it even more words. All of which carry a threat. A promise. A demand. A statement of intent. But never in any qualified or quantified manner. He has a deal with Russia and it’s big. BIG! He’s going to exact revenge on Hamas for the hostages, ‘like the world has never seen’. LIKE. THE. WORLD. HAS. NEVER. SEEN. Ukraine doesn’t hold many cards. Russia holds all the cards. All the cards.

Nothing of any substance. Nothing you can base your economy on, look forward to peace from, even make the proverbial fucking ‘deal’ from. Just superlatives spoken in a manner fit for any playground. Obviously not in the senior school though.

So the markets in the US are positively quaking at the realisation that the tariffs, should they actually start in earnest, will result in massive inflation for Americans as their fuel bills rise if Canada imposes its own taxes. Trump, inevitably, doubled down and raised the tariffs from 25 to 50% but then delayed them. The incoming PM of Canada, Mark Carney, (almost) ‘one of our own’, won’t take shit from Trump, nor donate his nation as the 51st state.

So whilst Trump sees himself as ‘the solution’, most others view him far more as ‘the problem’. Like changing sides in the Ukraine/Russia war every 10 minutes. That helps.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

They have officially found not one but two people in the world who actually give a shit about Colleen Rooney. Amazing, when you think about it. But these two individuals are the ‘rubbish-content bidding mavens’ of Amazon TV and Disney Plus. They not only have the usual, peripheral, inconsequential, irrelevant awareness of Mrs Rooney that every single normal, decent person of an intelligence anywhere above ‘clinically sub-normal’ has, but the ‘winner’ from Disney + has agreed to pay Colleen 10 million quid. And those, like me, who might say “well, I wouldn’t get out of bed for less than 9.5 mil!!!”, have to accept that that is precisely what they’re paying that horrible, useless woman to do. Get out of bed. Eat breakfast. Shout at the kids. Go to the gym. Make dinner. Sleep with Wayne.

It’s a new ‘fly on the wall’ series, (God help us), to be filmed chez Rooney. In Cheshire. Where they live and really should never be allowed to leave. They are to become… The Next Kardashians!!!! The Rooney’s four boys similarly all have ‘K-‘ names. Except one who only got a hard C because they don’t like him so much. Kia (after her favourite car), Kolin (made that one up), Klueless and Colostomy. Sweet.

Well, we assume all four are the progeny of Colleen and Wayne. We’ll know once they’re a bit older. If any show any signs of beauty we’ll know they’re not Wayne’s. And if any start to look like an old granny, we’ll know they’re not Colleen’s. And that may sound a bit awful but we’re talking about a footballer and his glory-seeking, monetising, publicity-whoring, litigating wife.

I’d like to think that the only person on the entire planet who might find such a ridiculously moronic programme of any interest at all would be Rebekah Vardy. Because that vindictive imbecile will sit there with her husband, Steptoe Vardy, glued to the Rooneys in a purely schadenfreude-ish way.

Yet the most damning indictment of ‘the British viewing public’ is that Disney is shelling out 10 mil because it knows that sufficient numbers of viewers are expected, and doubtless are already clutching their remotes in readiness. Those same viewers who spent 73 weeks watching Kim Kardashian’s putting her make-up on and having her tits enlarged. Then reduced. Then enlarged again.

The only issue of any interest is whether they’ll dub Wayne’s voice into English or use sub-titles.

Happy Viewing

A xxxx