Andy's Glasses

Walking round London you get used to being approached by all sorts of individuals. There’s the charity dudes, clip-board in hand, ready to sign you up to pay a tenner a month to Oxfam, at least 9 quid of which will pay the charity dude and the company who hired him out, leaving just a pound a month to save all the children in Darfur. Then there’s beggars of various types and colours and of course there’s the police. Not many, granted, and they only approach me if my nob is hanging out. Fortunately, they can’t get me for ‘historical crimes’ when I’m walking down the Strand.

Yesterday I was walking past Temple Station when a young guy with a big smile approached me. My first thought was ‘rent boy’. And he was pretty. But he was very clean and smart and he just said: “excuse me, Sir, would you like to come to church this Sunday?” Because I was in a big hurry to get home so we could attend a 60th birthday dinner, I just said ‘FUCK OFF!!’ Actually I just thanked him, and politely refused, without breaking my stride.

Which is unusual. Not the approach. But me letting him go. Because I love a Christian. They are such wonderfully ‘good people’. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to say: “oyyyyy, have you got the wrong atheist!”, but who had the time.

We get Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on the door. I always spend ten minutes trying to convert THEM away from Jesus. I apply logic. Really annoying logic because that is something you don’t find in religion. So when a JW asked me “how do you think we could achieve peace on Earth?” (They love a ‘big question’), I replied that we need to ban all forms of organised religion, as they’re the cause of about 95% of the world’s problems. He then tried to quote me from Corinthians 19, or the book of Luke, saying that “when Jesus passed to Mark at the far post, thus dids’t Habeus Corpus…”. He showed me the passage in his bible. So I showed him a line in a Stephen King book I had nearby. Well why not? Thus I then insisted that we could continue the conversation but without the bible. Because I question its factual provenance. And we battle to convert each other. Apparently Jesus died to save me. Who knew? And from what???

I love a Christian. But in a very ‘Book of Mormon’ kind’a way.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

So its all kicking off again. Elon Musk started it, shouting across the Atlantic about our ‘grooming squads’ of sex abusers up north and how we need a proper inquiry. Cos we’re short on public inquiries and got too much money in the exchequer, right? And this has been jumped on by the ‘right wing’ over here.

There was an inquiry, which laid out various plans for the hopeful avoidance of abuse in the future. Alas, the future hasn’t arrived just yet, but will soon. Its the nature of ‘futures’. But there are still questions about how the gang in Rotherham, f’rinstance, managed to abuse 1400 girls over a 10 year period, without anyone knowing about it, suspecting it, trying to prevent it, nuffink.

It has always been suspected that the issue was ‘sensitive’, because the abusers were all men (no surprise) of ‘Pakistani heritage’, and the victims were all little white girls. And in our totally fucked-up, on-its-head and politically-correct-gone-insane world, no-one wants to be seen accusing any minority group of anything nasty ever. They’d rather throw 1400 innocent kids (well they were innocent before the gangs got hold of them) under the bus of ‘social sensitivity’ than call out what were effectively gangs of Muslim men. In case this bunch of rapists, child molesters and monsters, should get upset, or worse still, shout ‘Islamophibia!!!!!’ Thus the police acted in a way so ‘softly softly’ that even when the pattern was repeated in Oldham and other places, they never wanted to make any issue over the Pakistani element.

Elon Musk does. He hates Pakistanis. Hates all immigrants. Except South African ones. And even then only white ones. In his case, extremely, unhealthily white with unnaturally dark hair. And, of course, the right wingers over here have all jumped on this too because they are Islamophobic and proudly so. Kemi Badenoch is all over the matter, but mainly because she’s not sure what else her job entails at the moment.

The problem is not muslims, nor even muslim men. The problem is cultural rather than religious. In India they are having a ‘rape crisis’ currently. By Hindus as well as Muslims. Its about how society views women, gives them ‘rights’ or has any respect for them at all, other than as objects for possession and abuse. Pakistan is the same, Bangla Desh and definitely Afghanistan. And certain people choose to interpret their religion in a way which suits a particular narrative. To justify atrocities.

I want to know that although the ‘gangs’ were caught and imprisoned, no action was taken towards the police, the local councils, the social services, all of whom knew what was going on to a greater or lesser extent. And if it takes an inquiry to ascertain all that, then that’s what we need. Even if our current (fuckwitted) government will accuse me of ‘jumping on a right wing bandwagon’, I don’t care. They can call me Ethel if they like. Just get the job done.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Elon Musk wants to rule the world. In a rather ‘alt-right’ way. So aligning himself with Trump is a logical step, he’s the new Steve Bannon. Because the old one ended up in jail. And Trump has to have a ‘populist’ person on his shoulder. How long these two super-egos can remain friendly is a rather big question. So much arrogance in any one room has to cause a burst at some point.

Then Elon starts taking swipes at the government over here. And a good thing that is too. He may be ‘forrin’ but he’s allowed to say what he wants. And he controls Twitter and is obsessed with ‘free speech’, particularly his own, so who’s going to stop him? Its not ‘overseas interference’ until he parts with some cash.

So he attacked the government over the Rotherham grooming gangs, accusing Jess Phillips of ‘rape’; bit strong, but we got the point. Then he vented about Starmer’s releasing convicted paedophiles from prison to make room for ‘protesters’ who were just enjoying their ‘freedom of speech’. Even though it looked like they were militant arsonists forming vigilante hit squads against immigrants.

Musk is so clever that he fails to see the wonderful irony in his general ‘anti-immigrant’ theme, that he is not an American, but a South African immigrant to their shores.

So obviously, Nigel Farage has great appeal to Elon, they are cut from the same cloth. I’m not saying its the cloth they used for SS uniforms, just sayin’ its the same. And the anti-immigrant/purity of nation ‘thing’ runs strong in both men.

What Musk doesn’t quite get is that ‘alt-right’ must never venture into ‘far right’ territory. You can talk Brexit, but not whilst wearing a KKK suit.

And thus: the divorce. Elon & Nige had barely consummated their marriage when its over. Last week it was all talk about 17 million quid coming to the Reform party so Nige could be the next PM, and now Musk is calling for a new leader of the Reforms as he’s declared Nigel unworthy. Why? Because Elon wants Tommy Robinson to become part of Reform. Once he comes out of prison. And he is ‘far right’ in anyone’s book. Ok, he has a strong ‘pro-Israel’ stance, but only because he hates Muslims more than he does Jews. At the moment.

But Farage, who has spent the last 10 years distancing himself from The British Nationalists and the Britain Firstists and the National Nasty-ists cannot hook up with a virtual neo-nazi or anyone even tainted as such.

What Musk also doesn’t get is that the Reform party is the Farage party. No-one voted for them before he joined and no-one will if he’s not there. Its not a matter of ‘replacing him’ because he is so much greater than the party. Because even those who really don’t like much of what Farage says, like me, will always listen to him because of his openness and honesty and his ability to ‘get’ the common man. Like me. More than any other politician.

So once again, my advice to Elon Musk remains as always: just fuck off.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I wish to talk about prejudice. Today. In a society so full of equality, anti-discrimination and diversity, there is still one terrible prejudice which remains alive and well and was demonstrated just last night, in Brighton.

There is a systematic and institutionalised discrimination against Arsenal. By not just the referees and lines-people who implement the on-field decisions wrongly against the team, but also by the Premiere League which enables this disgrace.

Yesterday evening the referee at the Brighton match actually awarded a penalty against Arsenal. If you can believe that. And merely because of a head-butt. I mean, really? It’s not like the Arsenal player stabbed anyone, raped them, is it? VAR agreed with the ref, but it would do. It’s paid by the same sponsor. Who speaks with a Liverpudlian accent. And this is not an isolated incident. Just this season, Arsenal have conceded other penalties too! Surely someone in the league must have realised this was wrong? And that’s before you consider the VAR decisions which have actually cost the team goals. Ok, they’ve all been shown to be ‘righteous’ decisions, but as judged by whom???

Some very cynical people think that Arsenal’s manager should grow up, grow a pair, stop fucking whingeing like a stuck-pig being gang-raped by a herd of bulls and, sort of, almost… ‘accept’ that shit happens to all teams and that the best way to avoid disappointment from these events is to just score more goals.

Well many of us think that that is a ridiculous attitude which completely misses the whole persecution point. Which is that when other teams are penalised by refs and VARs, it’s justified, or sufficiently ambiguous as not to matter one jot. Particularly to Arteta. But when it happens to Arsenal IT IS A CRIME AGAINST FOOTBALLL!!! IF NOT AGAINST THE WHOLE OF HUMANITY!!!!

In this respect, Manuel Arteta is indeed a worthy successor to Arsene Wenger. Because like the previous incumbent at the Emirates, he alone sees the injustice and the constant discrimination.

Whereas at Spurs, we need no ill-given penalties to lose matches. We can do it all alone, with no interference from VAR, crowd riots, snowfalls, nuffink. We can find our own ways to lose games and drop points. And do so with a consistently amazing range of new-found incompetencies.

I fucking hate football

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

We haven’t been to war against America since 1783. After they dumped a ship-load of tea (a ‘ship-load’ is 3.7 times the size of a ‘shit-load’, for those not familiar with imperial measures) into Boston harbour. They won that war. And look at the state they’re in now, as a consequence. They should be thriving under Kier Starmer’s stewardship, watching the ‘growth’ in the economy as it shrinks by the day, but instead have to suffer all that wealth, money and success. The price of ‘independence’!!! That’ll show ‘em.

Relations improved over the centuries until we developed ‘the special relationship’ in which we simply do their bidding. They invent ‘weapons of mass destruction’, we go and ‘find’ them, even if they’re not there. We go to wars, they come help. They go to war, we help them. It’s ‘special’. But like all relationships, it takes work. Effort. And… compromise. Because most of the time, fortunately, we’re not at war. And that’s when the trouble starts.

Most PMs develop their personal friendships with the President of the day. Thatcher and Reagan had a real lurve. But both were of a political accord. Blair and Bush were almost lovers, because even though it was a ‘lefty’ and a Republican, they were both bloodthirsty war-mongers and found a bond in slaughtering Afghans. Trump and Boris were good with each other, big on flamboyance, low on intellect.

But Trump and Starmer is simply never going to work. Trump isn’t even the President yet and is constantly taking swipes at Starmer. You have a very right wing president dealing with a limp tosser who, regardless of his personal political stance, because it changes daily, has to at very least, appease the hard left in his party. Which has left him almost joining Hamas.

If you then add in to this already toxic mix the world’s richest man, a hard-right, gobby, slobby, genius, that puts the final nail in the coffin of the ‘special relationship’. Because said man owns Twitter. Whatever he chooses to call it. And uses it prolifically. To attack Starmer, and Britain. And much as I find Musk repugnant, he makes some very valid points. Which, unfortunately, align with Trump’s preconceptions and make ‘the relationship’ more tragic than special.

We have to declare war on America. It’s the only way out of this mess. Or declare war on someone else which will bring the Yanks in on our side and we’ll feel the love once more. Otherwise, for all Starmer’s talk of ‘trade deals’, every one of his ‘policies’ has been something of a disaster, and when viewed through a Republican lens, they’ve been a hell of a disaster. To the extent that Musk will now sponsor Farage and his Reform party in a distant attempt to… errrr… to make a point.

Happy Saturday

Well, it would be if Spurs hadn’t lost again.

A xxxx

I’m back from holiday. I’m home. I can tell because I slept in my own bed last night and woke up this morning in Antarctica. It’s so cold, I don’t know how anyone can live here. And Mel went swimming at 7 this morning, outside(!!!! But heated, obvs, she’s keen, she’s not fucking stupid) when it was -2 degrees and dark. I passed. Funny enough. Preferring to do my swimming in Tenerife. Even more preferably with Lila and Joey, then I don’t have to do ‘lengths’ but just ‘play’. I’m as dedicated a swimmer as I am a Padel… person? Player? Whatever. Anyway, it was a wonderful trip. We went nowhere, saw nothing, ignored the volcanos, the lagoons, the ‘special beaches’, just a 5 hour coach ride including 14 stops to see ‘local’ (read: Taiwanese) produce and have the ‘opportunity’ to buy it!!! We stayed on the lovely resort, leaving only for walks along the really gorgeous promenade and to go to restaurants. Anywhere you couldn’t get to in 30 minutes on foot didn’t get seen. We weren’t there on a mission of discovery. We weren’t evangelical missionaries intent on converting the indigenous, we just went to lie in the sun and learn to play padel. The first of which was completed successfully.

You go on this type of ‘do nothing’ (NOTHING? Have you met Lila and Joey??) holiday to cut yourself off from reality. And from bad weather for a bit. Yet the world creeps in. I can actually read a newspaper on my ipad! Not, like, in ‘paper’, but it’s there. I don’t like it but it’ll have to do for 10 days. And I learned some interesting facts. One in particular which I’d like to share because you’d never see something like this on the BBC.

There are constant cries of ‘ethnic cleansing’ coming from Middle East protagonists and anti-Israel commentators. And yet the reality speaks differently.

In 1948, the year Israel was born, there were large Jewish populations all over the Middle East. Because they’d always been there. In Lebanon, Syria, hundreds of thousands in Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, even… Iran!!! Today none of those countries can count more than about 50 Jews in their populations. The rest, whose families would have been there for literally thousands of years, all left or were expelled or killed. Whereas in Israel, in 1948, the Arab population was about 150,000 and today counts 2.2 million. All of whom are full Israeli citizens.

So who’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ now then?

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I wish to complain about the airport. Every fucking airport in the world. And, before you accuse me of hyperbole, I have visited EVERY SINGLE ONE. The lot. Because they all suffer from the same pitiful inadequacies. Exemplified by here, today, at Tenerife airport. And the problem is: there’s too many people here. And not just any people, really scummy, holidaying Brit type people. And trust me, I’m no snob. I would never judge a man by his face-full of tattoos any more than I would by his replica football shirt (away colours). I grew up in Ilford, FFS, I couldn’t even spell ‘princess’ til I was 19, let alone act like one. But when I’m stuck in the endless queuing system of queuing systems which we call ‘air travel’, I can’t help but examine my surroundings. And those with whom I share them temporarily.

The Island of Tenerife is neatly divided into two parts. Not, as travel agents would have you believe, into the north and the south, but in fact into the ‘posh’ and the ‘scuzzy’. Yet at the airports these two groups are forced to converge so they can fleetingly breathe the same horrible recycled air for the duration of BA 7463 and then diverge once more upon landing. Separating back into their life’s paths, with no more choice than salmon returning to where they were born, in order to spawn. So as we speed off back to the leafy confines of North London in our environment-nurturing, battery-powered sense of superiority, ‘they’ get picked up in their brother-in-law’s Transit van which isn’t allowed within 36 miles of London due to the excess diesel fumes it spews out in second gear, to chug them back to a trailer-park in Milton Keynes. I’m not saying it’s the correct order of things, it’s just what it is.

Before we’re allowed on the aircraft there’s the essential ‘water-dance’, without which the plane can’t take off. It’s quite a simply dance really. Here’s what you do: you get to the airport and you’re forced to discard the bottle of water which kept you hydrated on the ride there. Then after you’ve done the queuing thing, then the hokey-kokey and turned around, you go buy a new bottle of water. It may look like the one you’ve just thrown away but it’s not. It’s ‘safe’. Bought from ‘air side’, thus has no toxins, ricin, nitroglycerin, nerve agents, chemical warfare shit or other military grade explosives. Just water. But such pure and wonderful water that you can ONLY buy it if you have a valid boarding pass for a flight. It’s distilled from the urine of pre-pubescent Unicorns. Which is why it always costs 3 times the price of that ‘land side’ rubbish. Fair enough. Presumably the boarding pass is so the water is ‘duty free’, because the import tax on Unicorn’s urine is 82%, as everyone knows.

And now I’m home. And it is fucking cold. I’m going back. Where’s my bottle of airside water?

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Because of the change in our monarchy, following the death of the Queen (the Elizabeth queen, not that other, new, fake one), the New Years Honours List for 2025 has changed its focus. In line with the disastrous new government, the abysmal state of the economy and, basically, nothing at all good happening anywhere in the UK, this honours list is intended to credit the unworthy. The losers. The tossers. The no-hopers, gloom-mongers, cretins, the morons and those who have failed to achieve. It is thus the most egalitarian honours list ever. And we should be proud of both the government for such a bold and zeitgeisty move, and to the recipients who otherwise, in many cases, instead of taking the knee before the king, would be in the front row of a court room, manacled to the dock.

Sadiq Kahn gets a well deserved knighthood. He’s been London’s mayor for almost ever and has accomplished absolutely nothing of note. Plenty of shit has happened on his watch, lots of rubbish has been spouted, and in really poor English, but he’s managed to be the most worthless of civic leaders and is duly rewarded for it.

Gareth Southgate is knighted for not winning anything with England in all those years of his stewardship. I’m not saying winning World Cups is easy, I’m just sayin’, he didn’t win none. Nor Euros. Thus deserves this honour for his abject failures. Though we all love the man dearly.

And in this context, I must this year be grateful for my continued absence from the honours. By not being honoured, I can claim that my life can’t be the total disaster it often feels like and most people think it is. If it was that bad, I’d be Sir Andy and you’d be on your fucking knees!!! But once again, even with the offer to buy Kier Starmer some underwear from M&S, my ‘services to the nation’ have gone unrewarded, and the PM’s testicles will remain cold this winter. Assuming he has some. And I don’t mean that in the metaphorical sense.

Because he stood up to Elon Musk. In the continuing worsening relationship between our two nations. Musk stated, quite honestly, that he didn’t wish to open a new Tesla factory in Scotland, which had been on the cards, because ‘no-one wants to invest in Britain under the current administration’. To which Starmer’s people (yes, he has ‘people’; you get them free when you become PM) replied that ‘the PM is 100% committed to growth in the economy’. That showed Musk.

In a battle of words between two men about business, economy and productivity, who would you put your money on? The self-made richest man in the world, even though he’s fairly hateful? Or the trumped up civil servant who’s never really worked in the real world and supports Arsenal?

Happy New Year,

(And practising for next year:)

Sir Andy of Londonshire xxxx

I’m here today to specifically and emphatically NOT discuss the ‘f-word’. It is herein and thereafter and thrice-whatever guaranteed to be absent from these pages. Other than one token sentence which may, or may not, have been expressed previously in these postings. Ready? I fucking hate football. Two f-words for the price of admission to White Hart Lane. I’m done with it, I’m over it, I’m not spending another hot, sweaty afternoon in glorious Tenerife drinking pints of Spanish lager to try and make my team look a little blurry, a little distorted, anything which might be a little better.

So I’m instead going to discuss the tragedy which has now gained traction in, predominantly, the right-wing press. The ‘end of woke’. As if, by a few neo-Faragists and MAGA-monkeys, who’ve stopped adding their ‘pronouns’ to their email signatures, the whole movement which we’ve spent years engaged in, to help the minorities, to help the dysfunctional, to give hope to the more ‘diverse’ and dysmorphic among us, it’ll just end. Boom. I’m a well known author, journalist, Tory, and I’ve declared that from now on you need a penis to enter a man’s toilet. Or, rather, that having a penis will preclude your entry into a ‘women’s toilet’. Yes, let’s go back to the Stone Age and persecute those among us who really don’t know where to take a piss in public. Again. Like we’ve been persecuted for millennia. Well, the Romans were ok with diversity. From diversity springs perversity (ex diversum perversum natus est… whatever). But in recent, post-war times, it has taken almost 3 years to move from ‘poof’ to LGBTQ++. And that covers barely a third of the options which any decent society MUST cater for. Because this once minority now measures a massive 0.0000317% of people in our nation. And therefore we DEMAND a proportionate amount of discourse and legislation. Ok, we actually demand a totally disproportionate amount of discourse. Not debate, we simply don’t do that. There is NO room for debate in the woke world. That would be totally undemocratic. If you even question one of our precepts, YOU ARE THE ENEMY AND WILL BE CANCELLED, a pariah in our rainbow nation! No, not South Africa, the other one. And that includes our passionate stance in defending Palestine against those apartheid and colonising land-grabbers, Israel!! We demand that our politicians act NOW to save Palestine for its own people. The ones who would have us thrown off of tall buildings or stoned in public for our ‘diverse’ lifestyles. We see absolutely NO hypocrisy, or even stupidity in that.

And this is what ‘they want to end’!!!

I don’t have that many issues with the end of woke. But, speaking as a satirist, it’s like half my life has been ripped away!!! The world of woke has been the piss-taker’s dream scenario. I don’t know how I ever managed without it. And now, they calling out its death knell. A tragedy.

To compensate, and get more in touch with my more feminine side, I played Padel again today. And realised that if you put a bat in my hand and throw a ball at me, I’m just happy to hit it. Whatever you call the bat. However big the ball. It’s just enjoyable. But to replace my tennis????

Happy Monday

A xxxx

For about 4 years now various friends have been mentioning, demanding, imploring that I try padel tennis, and/or pickleball. “It’s the best!!!”, they yell. “You’ll love it!!!!”, they say. “It’s just like tennis but… errrrr… not tennis!!!!”

Ok, so just to clarify and remove any ambiguity, its like this: you want me to stop playing tennis, which I love, adore and play every single weekend and have done, passionately, for about 40 years, and instead play some alternative version of ‘not tennis’, loosely based on the game I know and love, just because ‘it’s different’. Is that the gist? Or how about: so I have to give up tennis to appease a bunch of venture capitalists who’ve invested billions in ‘the next big things’ and soon all the tennis clubs will be steamrollered out the way so they can build more Padel courts which are smaller and have a much bigger yield. Because you can play tennis in any park for a fiver. But you can’t play Padel for much less than 60 quid an hour. Ooooooh, go the VCs, licking their lips, so that’s 12 tennis courts, making 17 Padel courts, each bringing in £60 an hour, seven days a week, half under cover… THAT MAKES A SHITLOAD OF CASH!!!!

My little tennis club in my local park is a prime example. It was called ‘The Angela Buxton Tennis Centre’ since she opened it in about 1958, just after Angela Buxton made it to the Wimbledon final. Lost, obviously, but SHE WAS THERE! Then later becoming the Northway Tennis Centre. Its lovely. Just four courts in a beautiful park. The new ownership of which has now received preliminary approval to be converted into…

Fucking Padel courts. Obviously. I applied to become a Padel player but Barnet Council refused. On the grounds that I’m a massive asset to the game of tennis, an exemplary and elite player of outstanding skill and beauty.

So here, in Tenerife, we joined a Padel session at our resort. They have courts, it’s a Spanish game, ffs, they should have courts. And we played. Mel and I with an ‘instructor’. Hit the ball that way, there its out, here its in, you can bounce it off the back wall and play it. Go.

It’s like tennis but… not tennis. It’s tennis for those who can’t play the real game. It’s a poor facsimile of a beautiful game. Bit shorter, less running round, very Spanish. Funny little racquet, almost a paddle. Hmmmm.

If I may say, candidly; it’s a game for poofs. For lowlifes with no talent, no skill, not enough fitness for tennis. Criminals will like it, paedophiles, clergymen in general, anyone with more than one letter of ‘LGBTQ…’, and Kier Starmer probably loves it. Plays with Kim Jong Un, Jeremy Corbyn and Putin.

Yet I absolutely hate to even say it: it was fun. And enjoyable. But sadly I’m a man of (very few) principle(s), so I won’t be enduring that again. Other than this afternoon. Possibly tomorrow.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx