Andy's Glasses

Went to see the Bob Dylan movie last night. Complete Unknown. Quite frankly, it’s brilliant. And that’s without hearing a word spoken. Timothy Chalomet spoke just like Dylan, whiny mumble. He sang like Dylan too. Whiny mumble. But those words I knew, well most of ‘em. But the dialogue? My hearing’s almost as bad as Bob’s speech. And the denouement, not in the film but in the hard-to-hear, was his conversation with Johnny Cash, (deep whiny mumble). I’m sure it was an interesting one. I’ll never know.

But the movie was such fantastic picture of America in the early 60s and its values. How Dylan just arrived in New York with a guitar on his back and a few songs in his head. Just moved in with a series of women, because that’s what you did, and why not. Before he was famous, so this was not a ‘groupy’ thing. And he didn’t have a group then anyway. The roads he crossed on his travels were lined with fabulous 50s and 60s Detroit metal, more fins than an ocean full of sharks. And Bob takes his first pay check from Columbia Records and buys himself a Truimph motorbike. Riding round always helmetless and often drunk. As ya did. How we all miss those days. Those lucky enough to have survived the first time round.

I like Dylan’s music. I wasn’t mad on it at the time but really, it was a bit sophisticated for a 7 year old. Even me. And remember, sophistication was invented in Ilford. So whereas the Beatles appealed to everyone with their wonderfully early pop shit, Dylan was subtle, nuanced, brilliantly clever lyrics which, quite frankly, no 7 year-old wants to hear and if he does, he wouldn’t understand them. ‘She loves me, yeah, yeah, yeah’ is so much easier to get your head round than feeling ‘like a rolling stone’. But now I can admire the man, and his truly amazing words and both are great. And the film does justice to all of it.

I booked the tickets in the morning. How hard is that? Picturehouse, done it a hundred times. But somehow managed to book for Sunday instead of Saturday. Fuck. Phoned up, got a refund, and booked again.

For Sunday. Sunday??? WTF??? Tried one more time, after discovering how easy the refund process was. Ahhh, that’s better, this time it’s for… FUCKING SUNDAYYYY!!!!.

When I phoned for the refundS I booked with the geezer. Daniel. By then my best mate.

Anyway, glad we went, and even more gladder-er that SPURS JUST BEAT MAN UNITED!!!!!

Deleriously happy Sunday

A xxxx

JD Vance is the vice president of all America. As a good analogy to understand this very important role, if the President of America is a Rolls Royce, or a Cadillac, the VP is the spare tyre. Maybe just the jack. A locking wheel-nut. His job is to speak the words of his boss, in situations where the boss is otherwise engaged. Or couldn’t be arsed to shlep all the way to Munich. If you don’t realise that sending the vice-pres. to an event, a conference, to see world leaders, is actually an insult to those present, then just see the photo today of Vance shaking hands with David Lammy, our worthless foreign secretary, and you’ll realise how low a position VP actually is.

Vance made a speech about Ukraine. But spent the first 20 minutes slagging off all the European countries. Including, and in many ways, especially, us; the UK. And Germany.

Why? Because of our ‘assault on freedom of speech’. As exemplified by the Germans banning much of what the horrible ADF party want to do or say. And just because they’re virtually a reincarnation of Hitler’s Nazis. And us for locking up all those people who, at the time of the Scunthorpe riots, were posting information… well, posting lies that the murderer was an ‘illegal immigrant’, a ‘boat person’, basically any toxic mix of the words: ‘muslim’, ‘immigrant’, ‘asylum seeker’ and ‘refugee’. The postings which rallied an army which performed their own acts of sheer terrorism, anarchy and, vigilanteism.

The odd thing? No, not odd, just very ‘Trumpian’ is that during the election he (allegedly) lost, four years ago, everything posted about him which was bad, and there, obviously, was a lot to work with, was called ‘fake news’. Everything the Democrats said was ‘fake news’.

Therefore, the rules for posting are: anything centre-left is ‘fake news’, ‘total bullshit’, out-and-out lies, and must be taken down. Even if it’s true. Anything right wing, regardless of how extreme; Germany’s AFD or the English Defence League, even a bunch of northern neo-nazis making up shit to incite riot, is ‘freedom of speech’ and must be protected at all costs.

So well done, Mr Vice President, for the clarification. Now get back in the boot. Where you belong.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

All hail The Donald, the peacemaker supreme. As long as there’s a deal in it for him. Bless him.

He’s going to Saudi Arabia to ‘sort out’ the Ukraine business once and for all. And he probably will. It needs to end. He’ll meet Pooot’n there and they’ll plan the end of the war. Brilliant.

What about Ukraine? Shouldn’t they be at least allowed to listen in to these two ‘great men’? If only to hear ‘what they’re deciding’? Possibly, even, to offer input, maybe suggestions? Even to make claims or demands? Not that they’ll mean much. Because what these two, unquestionably ‘most powerful men in the world’ seem to be doing is ‘divvying’ up the world between them. Then there’ll be peace.

“OK, Vlad, I’ll take Gaza, Greenland and Canadia, you get Ukraine, Crimea and Estonia, maybe I’ll throw in Lithuania if you leave Poland alone. And I’ll give you Mississippi for free.”

It’s like a giant game of monopoly, but you ‘buy’ countries instead of streets. You can do that if you have all the bombs.

So, just to clarify: I like Trump on Israel. On everything else he’s an insane man.

And because I feel the two big boys are sharing out the world between themselves, I am, for the first time in my life, in agreement with James O’Brien. Don’t know James? You’re lucky. He’s a presenter on LBC radio. He’s the ‘anti-Nick-Ferrari’. Because whereas Nick is the nicest, loveliest, cleverest bloke in the world, O’Brien is a simpering, smug, neo-leftist, champagne-socialistic, total tosser who thinks that its fine to be a vile antisemite as long as he claims he doesn’t have a racist bone in his pathetic, flabby body.

The smart question is: “so why listen to his show?” But it’s too smart for me to answer sensibly other than ‘…keep your enemies closer’. Same as reading the Mail on Sunday. It’s to provoke myself. My life is otherwise too stress free.

So we shall wait and see what this proposed ‘peace’ will look like. But you know Zelensky won’t like it one bit.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

An amazing thing happened to me yesterday. I watched a sporting event on tv and came away at the end deliriously happy, thrilled to bits, excited with massive relief and feeling on top of the world, invincible and ready to invade Iran single-handedly.

The England France rugby match was always likely to be heated. At least for me; I hate the bloody French. (Please note, in the interests of not causing offence, there are exceptions to my blanket dismissal of an entire and populous nation, just not very many). And for my bestest, oldest mate, who ‘lives among them’, his life is miserable if England lose. Which, according to statistics and probably common sense, they were bound to do. The French have been rampant, dominant, colossal in European rugby of late, whereas England had lost their last 7 games.

All went to (devious, French) plan by half time, with the garlic-eaters having a slim lead. Then England took the lead. Then France took it back, with just 10 minutes left on the clock. And in the last minute, England scored a try. All Fin Smith had to do was convert the kick to win the match. How hard can it be? When you look like you’re 14 years old and are playing in front of 82,000 at Twickenham in your first ever England start? But the boy done good. He kept his cool. My heart raced to pre-surgical levels.

It felt so good to win a match. Such an unusual experience to end a sporting game not in tears of frustration, anger and despair. So I made a decision: I’m done with football. Finished with Spurs. It’s all over. Too depressing. Too annoying. Too… FUCKING EVERYTHING!!!!! And I’m not going to put myself through it every week. I mean, what do single or divorced Spurs fans do? They have no-one to take it out on. Must be awful. Anyway, we’re done, me and football. I’ve paid my dues over 60 bloody years and I simply can’t take it any more. WON’T take it any more.

Until 5.35 today. That’s a sufficient break, I think. From the rugby win last night to Spurs game at Villa today is almost a 24 hour ‘hiatus’. That should have cured me. I only hope it cured my fucking useless football team.

Happy/Desperate Sunday

A xxxx

A woman had a terrible reaction to her Botox fix. Ended up in hospital with her eyes so swollen they wouldn’t open, lots of pain and terrible swelling in her skin. Friends told her that at least there were no wrinkles. If she could have smiled, she would have.

I’m not saying this woman is a moron. She was given dodgy, black market Botox from China (where else?) and had a not uncommon reaction from injecting rubbish into your face.

So I have to ask: why fuck about with some delusion of youthful appearance at the potential cost of looking much worse than you did before? I keep seeing women on the tube with ‘those lips’. And I think ‘WTF?’ Which is not the normal ‘what the fuck?’ but the more appropriate ‘why the fuck?’ Because I get that kids who spend an inordinate length of time online are presented with endless images of ‘physical perfection’. And then they get ideas from the actual brain-dead like Kim Kardashian, who gives the message that whatever you wish to look like, however ridiculous, it can be achieved with sufficient surgical assistance.

People assume that I’ve had masses of surgery, that this level of beauty and youth simply could not be natural. Well it’s not. Its supernatural. And for those who aspire to such physical perfection my advice is simple: never look in a mirror and create the delusion of your choice. But fuck about with needles? I’d rather look like… a man of 68 who looks 78 and needs work done.

The problem in Japan though, is low birth-rate. Same as Italy. The men are too ugly to find women willing to have sex with them. Or vice versa. Yet, surprisingly, this has nothing to do with desirability. This is a truly troubling phenomenon where people aren’t hooking up and when they do, they decide not to procreate. They haven’t read their bibles sufficiently about go forth and multiply, so they don’t. The problem being that within about 10 years over a third of the population will be retired and needing medical care and pensions, with insufficient workers to top up the funds. And there will end what for most countries is a giant Ponsi scheme. But what is similar with Japan and Italy is that they don’t encourage much immigration. Which is arguably the solution to this problem. Except immigrants get old too, eventually, unless you can find ways to get rid of them once they pass 60. Donald Trump could do it.

Happy FA Cup Saturday

A xxxx

Donald Trump is a moronic imbecile who shouldn’t be allowed to order in McDonalds, let alone run a country.
Donald Trump is a complete antidote to the anodyne norm of benign and impotent national leaders.

If these two sentences seem incompatible, incongruous, contradictory? then welcome to my world. Every time I watch the news, those words come to my mind. In no particular order.

Because Don, as I call him when I’m in a good mood with him, gets things done. Ok, they’re not always good things, not from a ‘non-USA’ perspective especially. But he makes his seemingly ridiculous proclamations, issues his ‘executive orders’ and the whole fucking world catches fire.

He’s not stupid. Much of what he says is actually a circuitous route to blackmail people or countries into doing what he wants. Like the ‘tariff threat’ to Mexico. Which had the Mexicans finding 10,000 soldiers to guard the US border, within 24 hours. As Trump said: ‘permanently… and forever’. So possibly a bit stupid.

And he wants to take over Greenland. Which is part of Denmark. Like Gibraltar is ‘part of England’. But unlike those loyalist Gibraltarians, the Greens fucking hate Denmark. Which doesn’t mean Don would be welcome, they’d probably just like to be ‘Greenland’, full stop.

Now Gaza. Clear out all the ‘Palestinian’ people, send ’em to Jordan and Egypt, so Gaza can have a re-fit. Like when you eat in the lounge for 3 weeks whilst your new kitchen is fitted. There are many who see this as Trump taking the opportunity to acquire some really fabulous, beach-side real estate, for next to nothing. And when I say ‘fabulous’ and ‘beach-side’; despite current appearance, it could be fabulous and the beach is the same one I lie on almost every year, 50 miles up the road in Tel Aviv, and it is fabulous. Obviously the ceasefire would need to be made permanent before any sunbathing is likely to occur.

There’s also the point that Egypt and Jordan have never been overly keen on shipping in busloads of Gazan people. Coupled with the fact that it’s unlikely many of them even want to live in Gaza, but Israel. The ‘other’ ‘1-state-solution’ which nobody ever mentions even though its on Hamas to-do list. Saudi Arabia and Syria would never want that many Iran-supporting people in their land.

The reality is that Gaza could be a ‘riviera’ site. Israel is, Beirut was, Dubai wants to be (and will probably be working out a way to move the entire Mediterranean Sea into the desert as we speak), Egypt has done it in the Red Sea. But Gaza, instead of choosing a great route to future national prosperity, chose Hamas. Who promised them ‘all of Palestine!!!’, which includes what most people call ‘Israel’. And this delusion was embraced by the citizens of Gaza more than any appeals for a better future.

So is Trump’s idea any more far-fetched than Kier Starmer’s blanket disagreement because he wants ‘Palestinians’ to live in his mythical ‘2-state solution-land’? I’m not saying Trump’s plan is particularly viable, but it is interesting. And would solve many problems in the region. Possibly creating a few more but that’s politics.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx