Andy's Glasses

Honestly, that Angela Rayner…

Now I’m not going to even try to explain the nature of her (alleged) crime(s), but its along the lines of having two homes, one of which she kept her name to but lived in the other, with her husband, and where her children were ‘registered’ but she was on the voting list at the other address and claimed to live in both. Seperately. Or possibly together. Sleep for 3 hours in one, then at 4am walk down the road for the rest of the night. Who fucking knows what went on? It was in Manchester too, so who fucking cares? What happens in Manchester stays in Manchester, as far as I’m concerned.

Unless it breaks the law. Ooooohhh!!!

So now the police are involved. Which is a bit of a game changer for the opposition party’s greatest advocate for ‘honesty’, ‘openness’, transparency’ and ‘more honesty’.

She also sold her house. Which she bought from the council at a 25% discount. And she’d forfeit all or part of that discount if she sold the house within 5 years. She didn’t have to live in it, but claims she did. Sometimes.

Thus the police are now involved, at the behest of the Conservatives, obviously, to see if any ‘shenanigans’ were going on. The police don’t prosecute you for hypocrisy, but if they did, this could be her ‘Carlsberg moment’.

Meanwhile, I’m eagerly awaiting the delivery of the new wooden flooring for one of our rooms in Conway Palace. Not a big room, so not a lot of wood. They emailed me to say “it’s coming Thursday!!!”, as ordered. Alas, the ‘driver got sick’. So “we’ll bring it Friday between 10 and 2.00”. But either the driver had to go to hospital or the van broke down or possibly the road was closed for white vans, but it didn’t arrive. So it’s coming today!! No, really!! They promised. Between 12.00 and 2.00. And I have absolutely no doubts or reasons to not believe it’ll be here. I have absolute faith both in the delivery companies and in the morons employed by them who I fear have eaten my wood. Surely they wouldn’t fail three times!! That’s unthinkable. The idea of a concrete floor is becoming more appealing with every excuse they give me.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I look forward to my monthly email from Google telling me of my ‘activity’ during the month. In fact, it’s the only email I get which I want. The rest are all from groupon who, I’m sure, are lovely people but in the interests of sanity should just FUCK OFF! A better man than me would ‘unsubscribe’ or do something technical, but really, it takes me no more than 17 minutes to delete the 274 emails I get each day.

Google Maps is a god. Because it is omnipotent and omniscient. It not only knows every single place I’ve been, it knows how I got there. Ok, I get that others might reduce the ‘godlike’ bit to ‘invasive, intrusive, unwanted, stalking, tracking, Big Brotherish’, but I get my monthly hilights and can actually re-live those fabulous moments spent in ‘Edgware’, which is odd because I avoid that place more than Covid, but may have driven past it on the A41 on the way somewhere better. Or that fabulous time in Colindale buying rawl plugs. That lunch at the Bells of Ousley, with a proper Harvester salad bar. It’s my monthly walk down memory lane.

Last month I drove 472 miles. It was a ‘big’ month for me. I had to drive to Chelmsford twice for the new car, and I went to Windsor to see the boatman. Both of which involved motorways and, generally, faster roads. Yet those 472 miles took me 29 hours. I’ll never get them back. That averages to about 16mph. Including the ‘fast bits’. Thus, I can deduce that it is quicker to walk round London than drive. As long as you can walk at about 12mph which of course you can’t. But 16mph?? That’s awful. Yet according to Sadiq Kahn and a bunch of pedestrian protectionists, stop oilers (even for Electric cars), Labour councillors, Vegans, pedophiles, Hamas supporters and Arsenal fans, the traffic needs to be slowed down. On the odd occasions you move at 24 mph, you now have to slow down to 20. Well, you don’t have to, you can keep driving at the ridiculously dangerous and highly emitting, deathly speed of 26 and get flashed 3 times on the same day and get a driving ban. Like my mate Jon did. But it can happen to bright people too.

The government have realised that there are one or two voters who actually drive cars. And thus are acting to prevent tossers like Sadiq Kahn implementing blanket 20mph limits across entire boroughs.

And in a few weeks get to vote for a new mayor. As a stalwart ‘Anyone but Kahn’ devotee, I’m still trying to find a candidate worth the 3 minute walk to the polling station for. It’s just like the American presidential election: how do you find the most ridiculously inappropriate and useless people out of massive populations, to stand for important jobs?

I’m going to stand next time. Then London can become a complete ‘no speed limits’ area and we can finally approach the Mad Maxian dystopia I’ve always craved.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

We need to discuss Angela Rayner. It’s not my favourite subject, by a long way, but it needs to be done. Because Angela Rayner stole 1500 quid from me. Ok, from ‘us’. She avoided capital gains tax in precisely that amount when selling a ‘home’ which may or may not have been her first or only home and if not, she’s robbing the poor, working people of this faahn coontreh (her words) of money needed for hospitals, schools, care for the elderly and a new tyre on an ambulance.

Normally, if anyone ‘avoided’ payments to HMRC by almost-legal, slightly-dodgy little ploys, I’d be burning with admiration. But Ms Rayner is the deputy leader of the Labour Party. Furthermore, she’s always banging on about everyone else’s dodgy dealings and financial benefitting and sleaze and how that will all end when Labour are in government. And therefore must hold herself to higher standards. Otherwise you become that political pariah: a fucking hypocrite.

The whole issue began because of a book by (Lord) Michael Ashcroft, the former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party and one of its biggest donors. Even though (for tax purposes) he doesn’t live here. He likes it in Belize. Better climate. Financial climate, that is. So he is, in fact, most ideally placed to point out instances of tax avoidance as he is an absolute master of the art.

Yet on the radio the other day (the real radio, not a ‘podcast’) they were trying to say that Ange is unpopular because she’s a woman and northern to boot. And many would like to boot her. And as someone married to a northern woman, who still cannot say ‘bath’ or ‘glasses’ with a suitably long ‘a’, despite the beatings, I think it is terrible to accuse everyone who hates Angela Rayner of mysoginistic northernism. It is limiting. When there are so many other reasons to hate her. And although I don’t think I was precisely who Neil Young had in mind when he wrote ‘Southern Man’, that’s what I am. Why must these people take a specific example of a rather obnoxious person and try to use it as just an example of a more generalised problem of mysoginy or Nothernphobia? Although you are well within your rights to hate anyone who pulls the stock phrase ‘nothing to see here’ because they can’t manage ‘FUCK OFF!’

What needs to happen is that we need ‘transparency’ and ‘openness’ and all those other nauseating things which Labour insist upon, and we need to examine Angela Rayner’s house sale from a properly informed perspective. I’m already examining it from the perspective of a highly cultured, politically engaged wide-boy. And I don’t like it one bit.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Because I’m a deeply cultured man with a vast array of eclectic interests and passions (read: ‘I like rugby as well as football’), I found myself last night at the Barbican concert hall for a symphonic concert. As ya do. When yer fuckin’ cultured. And it was wonderful. It was a celebration of modern composers by the London Symphony Orchestra. And the music was… errrr… well… at times almost musical! Not much of the time, obviously, because these were ‘modern’ compositions and those modernists don’t like music which, sort of, sounds like music. Nah. It’s about the (lack of) structure. It’s about replicating nature, creating an atmosphere, Its about the total avoidance of anything which might be mistaken for ‘a tune’. Even though they’re all in tune. Because we heard them tuning up. Which was more pleasant on the ear than most of the compositions. And yet, it’s all technically brilliant and musically… ‘interesting’. Modern orchestral works are basically musical masturbation. Without a happy ending. The woman sitting in front of me had a solution. See pic.

I’m not saying that all classical music written since the death of Beethoven is shit. I would not be so crass nor, as above, uncultured. But with yer Tchaikovsky you knew what you were getting. Even Wagner, Hitler’s favourite, could bang out a tune that you’d be singing all the way home, and in some cases, use in wars to come (Apocalypse Now, helicopter rockets to the Flight of the Valkyries; THAT is inspirational music. Even if it only, sort of, inspires mass killing).

At its very best, modern classical music all sounds like the soundtrack to a horror movie. It’s like listening to Psycho. All mood and drama and jagged edges and sharp corners, catching you by surprise. I was sitting in the Barbican waiting for Freddie Kruger to leap on me.

But watching an orchestra is always wonderful. Whatever they’re playing. Most of the ‘band’ have fairly static roles. But the percussionists don’t. They run around, basically, banging things. But so many different things, all set up in different places and all needing to banged with different bangers. So you hit a cow-bell, (C-sharp, if you’re interested) with a drum-stick, then rush over to the bass drum, grab the big furry-ended stick and hit that a couple time, then whizz back to the pipes, for which you need a bow, then grab the drum-sticks…

Its frantic and positively exhausting. If only there was a way of having the drums and bells and cymbals all arranged together, sort of ‘surrounding’ the percussionist? You could call it… a drum kit!! and invent Ginger Baker to go with it.

Then play on.

A xxxx

This is my cat. Possibly the most beautiful cat in the whole world. You didn’t know I had a cat, did you? No. I didn’t either. He, possibly she, just arrived one summer day when the back door was open. We get lots of local cats ‘appearing’ but they run away. This one didn’t. Joey screamed at it, whilst holding a big stick. Joey’s default is ‘holding a big stick’. But this cat just ignored him, strolled up to the back door and squeezed his/her/their way in, lay on the floor and did a bit of ‘grooming’. Not, like trying to coerce Joey, or me, in some sort of sexual sense, but just licking himself and scratching. That kind of ‘grooming’. And he/she returns. Frequently. We’re having a bit of ‘work done’ (unfortunately not in the cosmetic surgery sense, even though I need that more than a new floor) and our builder left a door open and in walked… Kevin? Deirdre? Merlin? Just strolling round to see what’s going on. As ya do. If you’re a totally fearless/oblivious and exceptionally beautiful cat.

Football’s getting a bit depressing now. Arsenal keep winning, Manchester City keep winning, Liverpool… play in a few minutes. Against their true enemies and rivals, Manchester United. Who, this year, are shit. But engaged in the ‘thrilling’ ‘battle for 4th place’, though possibly 5th, we’re not sure yet, which will bring the kudos and lucre of Champions League entry. Later on Spurs are playing Nottingham Forest. That’s a big one. I don’t know why, but it just is. We should beat Forest. On any measure of any sometimes predictable criterion, we should beat them easily. Like Luton. Possibly West Ham (just on moral grounds). Yet it won’t be easy. It will be painful to the point of excruciating.

And I just want to mention Kathleen. She’s not a cat, she’s a storm. Well, she’s a wind. A very strong one. So they’re banging on about how half of Scotland has blown away in Kathleen’s wake, how the NorthWest coast of England is… well, stormy, wind and rain and waves half a mile high upsetting the residents of Scarborough and Blackpool. But there’s no mention on what Kathleen does to tennis balls. Its awful. You go to play your forehand down-the-line winner and by the time the ball arrives, it’s a backhand drop shot. Which will float over to the next court and interrupt their doubles match. Yet they don’t tell you that on the weather reports, do they? We’re suffering too, ya know!

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

The world moves along at a pace.

In 1974 I met my first photocopier. We called them ‘Gestetner’ after the cousin of the man who invented it. Probably because the actual inventor was either in prison for war crimes or hiding out in Argentina. And, obviously, the first thing I did was slap my penis on the plate and make a photocopy. You had to. Then drop your pants and sit on it. A right of passage. In this case, the back passage. No employer would give you a proper contract until you’d photocopied some naughty bits and pieces.

And you’d show the print copy to your mates and laugh. Yes, a group of men laughing at your penis doesn’t do great things for your confidence, but for making people laugh, no price is too high. I’d very rarely hand copies out to women on tube trains.

I didn’t show the copies to any gay men, because gay men weren’t invented until 1979. Prior to that the entire population of the world was heterosexual.

Then flash forward (pun very much intended) to 2024 and you’d no more have a photocopier than you would a fax machine. Instead you have a phone. Which is in fact a massively powerful computer which can handle bank transactions securely, photocopy any document, count your daily steps, monitor your heart rate and play every song that’s ever been sung. And it can send things. Messages, documents and, of course, photographs.

And thus that stupid, puerile, pathetic need to display your genitals to others has the perfect vehicle for dispatch.

Thus did William Wragg, a ‘senior Conservative politician’, one of the people charged with running our entire nation, chose to send a picture of his nob to some geezer he’d never met, on a gay dating app. Said picture was then used by Mr Anonymous to essentially blackmail poor Willy (nothing is ever better than a nob joke). If he didn’t provide contact details for a whole bunch of very important ministers, Willy’s willy would be on the front page of the… Mail? Mirror? Sun? Daily Penis? So he gave the horrible man some contact details of various top MPs. Some of whom then received photos of other people’s genitalia. Male and female. So poor Willy had to confess to his compliance. And make himself the ‘victim’ of this cybercrime. Thus getting himself off the hook.

But a ‘senior politician’ sending pictures of his dick? Really? How ‘senior’ do you have to be in the Conservative Party to realise that is probably never a good idea?

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I’ve solved the economic crisis. It’s so easy. You just have to think ‘outside the box’. And as most politicians have trouble even working out where the box might be, I’ll help them out. Rishi needs help. I really don’t want Starmer to be PM, he’s an Arsenal fan and not a very likeable one. I’m not opposed to a Labour government, it would be impossible for them to tax us any higher than the Tories do, but just not ‘this’ Labour lot. So here’s what we should do.

Import Taylor Swift. Kidnap her. Steal her. Force her to become English. (Not British, though I appreciate her citizenship may be tarnished by association with the Scots and the Welsh). She can stay at my house. We have room. I’ll make room. But the boost to our economy would be…

Taylor is now a billionaire. We know that. Was only a matter of (not very much) time. But more importantly is that she just improves any micro-economy which comes inside her immense gravitational pull. Which is not to say she’s massive, like it would if applied to Jupiter, f’rinstance, because she’s totally perfect. LIKE MY WIFE!!! (who may or may not read this but you just don’t take chances like that).

Her current world tour has grossed $1billion. But the boost this tour will create just in the American part of it (she’s touring 5 continents) is $6billion. Six bil. That’s a shit-load of “I heart Taylor” t-shirts, bottles of peroxide and curling tongs. Probably a few sparkly mini-dresses thrown in too.

Because of her relationship with Travis Kelce, she came back from performing in Japan just to see him win the Superbowl. It became the most viewed Superbowl ever. And for those of us fortunate enough not to be American, The Superbowl is simply MASSIVE in viewing figures, advertising revenues, every monetary measure possible. And she made it significantly better, without even playing. As a comparison, when Lionel Messi’s mum came and watched him win the World Cup, total sales increased by 3 hot dogs and a box of popcorn.

So, yes, we all love Taylor. We the songs she writes, the tunes she sings, we love the ‘don’t fuck with me!!’ attitude and of course, we love her legs. Or would do, if we were allowed. But she is a complete industry, the benefits of which spread out to improve all of society. Just think what she could do for the NHS!!!

Come over, Taylor, MY BROTHER NEEDS YOU (and your money).

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Went to see my brother yesterday. And realised that I’m now fully conversant with the protocols for and at the Royal Free Hospital. Like; don’t even try to park within 500 yards of the place, it’s impossible. Like, if you take the lift to the 4th floor you end up in ICU reception and need to be buzzed through security doors to the wards, which in turn have their own security doors. But the reception desk is not always… ‘manned’? Can I use that word??? In Scotland I’d be arrested for even thinking of it. Anyway, you need a ‘person’ behind the desk, of unspecified religion, race, gender, sexual preference, football team supported, political affiliation or preferred chocolate bar, to ‘buzz’ you in, and at weekends and evenings such a person is absent. So you have to wait. Either for the next day’s shift to start or for some staff member to come from the wards into reception, when you barge them out the way and make a break through the open doors. Whereas, if you take the stairs, they bring you out on the ward corridor, the ‘other side’ of the reception doors!!!

The problem being that the ICU is on the 4th floor. and the stairs are very steep. So that’s how I can justify all the cake and chocolate I’m going to eat to replace all those calories burned on the way up. But here’s the weird bit; you go to floor 1, then 2 , then 3 and then, just as your thighs are burning and your breath coming short… you arrive at floor… nothing. Its not marked. Just a door with ‘no entry’ on it. Not ‘4th floor but you can’t come in’, not ‘danger: nuclear waste facility, you will grow extra limbs if you enter!!!!’, nothing. Yet it is a floor, so why don’t they number it? Possibly its just there to persecute the stair climbers by giving them a false sense of arrival. Bastards. Then another flight to the (nominal) 4th floor, even though we know its really the 5th.

Then we see the Brother. Yesterday, sitting in a chair. Holy fuck. That’s a good thing indeed. Still wired up like the NASA space centre but sitting. But this is the official progress report.

1. Stay alive. Check
2. Keep alive. Check
3. Regain consciousness. Check
4. Speak again. Check.
5. The ultimate sign of real recovery, at least for the time being, the true indicator that ‘he is back’. Complaining. Moaning. Impatience. Check, check, and check again.

And glorious that he is. All three. He hates sitting in the chair, and now he can let us know. And rather than my usual response which might be: stop fucking whingeing you ungrateful fucker, instead I just appreciate how massive an improvement it is that he can feel uncomfortable and express it and smile lovingly.

Onwards and upwards

A xxxx

Lila is 7 today. She’s (absolutely nobody’s) April fool. She’s so bright she’s found a way to monetise losing teeth. Her first of which fell out yesterday. She was duly compensated by the ‘tooth fairy’. And has been sitting in front of the mirror with a pair of pliers since then adding up her potential gains. Ok, maybe not the pliers. I would.

So that’s massive excitement, birthday, first baby tooth departure and she’s flying off to Florida to see Mickey Mouse this very day. Which should hopefully act as some compensation for her going to see Spurs on Saturday. Poor child. Social Services should offer guidelines.

Because Spurs were, by all accounts, both professional and fan-based: total shit. Appalling. An agonising game against ‘easy’ (they’re always ‘easy’ until kick off) opponents, which Spurs, eventually, didn’t so much ‘manage to win’, as ground their opposition down to lose. At the ‘11th hour’. Well, the 86th minute. Yaaaayyyy!!! We won!!! But at what emotional cost? This is where all those ‘mental health issues’ start.

But if an 86th minute winner is not late enough for you, you should have gone to Brentford to see Manchester United (remember them? Used to be a ‘big team’, arguably ‘the biggest in the world’, now they’re hoping to stay above Brighton so they might overtake Aston Villa). United scored in the 96th minute of an until then goalless game. Only to have Brentford equalise in the 99th minute. Such minutes simply didn’t exist 3 years ago. I don’t’ know where they actually get them from. You can’t just manufacture time, can you?

The funniest result of the weekend, though probably not for residents of Tower Hamlets, or those with sympathies for them, was at St James’ Park. Where West Ham took a 3-1 lead against the Geordie Saudis, and Moyes was actually smiling and smugness and arrogance was all over the pitch, wearing claret and blue. But then things changed. Personally I reckon a text came in from Mohammed Bin Salman himself, threatening to cut the right feet off the entire team if victory was not immediately forthcoming! Which, oddly, it was. 4-3 to Newcastle. Shame on West Ham. Not shame ‘for’ West Ham because they’re horrible.

And then came ‘the match of the season’ as it was cracked up to be. As Pep Guardiola called it: ‘the final!!!!’, even though we don’t have Premier League ‘finals’. Liverpool had beaten brighten in the earlier kick-off to go top. So when Manchester City and Arsenal strutted out on the Etihad grass, it was a kind’a ’winner takes all’ scenario, with the winner going top. And it was the perfect match up between the two best teams of the moment, a definite ‘goal fest’ in the making, a game to define all the glories of attacking football. What actually happened 90 minutes of paint drying, duller than dishwater mutual neutralisation which had me asleep within minutes and with nothing worthy to bother awakening from my slumber for. For entertainment Watford Leeds was in a different league. Ok, they are in a different league, but you get the point.

Happy Easter Monday. Jesus rose up from the dead. Spurs only have to rise above Aston Villa. Which would you put your money on?

A xxxx

I went to visit the boatman yesterday. He’s moored up in Runnymede, (out near Windsor, where they signed the Magna Carta, you remember, surely?). I didn’t want to visit, no-one does, but I needed some ‘work done’. And in a former life, Mr Boat-person (not presuming nuffink), before he became aquatic, ran garages. For cars. And I needed a job doing on my mid-life-crisis, and a thirty mile blast round the motorways seemed like a good way of getting it done. Although you don’t so much ‘blast’ round the M25 as… stumble?, agonise?, crierch??, though really it wasn’t too bad.

And the job was: change the number plates. Which, I admit, in a little car park down by the river, looks a little on the dodgy side. But it was legal. They’re my ‘vanity plates’. Well, actually, and obviously, they’re Mel’s. But I want her name on my car for all to see. So they’ll know the love, the contentment, the happiness of our life together. And if I get flashed for speeding, (which I probably did on the way home), they’ll think it’s her.

And by then it had even stopped raining. Then the sun shone on the world. And all was wonderful! Except I was busy changing the details on my insurance, really quickly. It only takes ten minutes but if the car was nicked during those 10 minutes I wouldn’t know how to report it. And that cost £5.50. ‘Admin fee’. I thought it meant they were going to pay me as I was the one who did it, but turns out I had to pay them. For… well, ‘ad-min, innit?’ Then last but not least, I had to go to the DVLA and ‘put’ the number on the car. Then, and only then, could I enjoy life on the river.

Which started with shooting an empty beer can on the shore with an air pistol because… it deserved it? Or just because; ‘why not’? Lunch was in a local pub, right on the river, The Bells of Ousley. Lovely place. Now a ‘Harvester’. And as harvest brings to mind fields of wheat, ripened apples coming off trees, digging potatoes out of the ground… we had the ‘vegan special’. Which, in a Harvester, consists of meat. And more meat. Then more meat. Oh, and a few eggs. But even they had meat underneath them. Even the ‘salad bar’ in a Harvester is meat. The ‘vegan’ bit was the chips and onion rings. And you need both because… because you do. That was two of our ‘five a day’ right there. All nicely fried.

It was wonderful. I’d eat it every day, though if I did I probably wouldn’t have many more ‘every days’ left.

Then I drove back on surprisingly empty roads, top down, sun (ok, and a bit of wind) on my face, trying to keep the speed down even though I had the reassurance that Mel would take the hit if I got caught.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx