Andy's Glasses

This weekend is the annual ‘Boat Race’. There’s only one. Which counts, the rest no-one gives a shit about. And that’s precisely the problem. Shit. In the water. More specifically, in our rivers, streams and seas. Loads of it. To the point where there is a warning on the River Thames, the nation’s only ‘proper’ river, by virtue of it running fru Luundun, which none’a de others don’t. The warning is for e-coli, the horrible bacterial infection. Which is such a problem in ‘the River’ that they’ve said that the Oxford and Cambridge boat race teams really shouldn’t throw their cox into the water after the race, as is tradition. Because he (or she) will possibly be dead before they resurface. Ok, so they could take a spare one, for the ride home, as they’re only small, but that misses the point.

Our waterways have basically become the nation’s toilet system. Because the water and waste companies get confused about that particular bit of multi-tasking and confuse the water with the waste. And thus, in times of stress, or even heavy rainfall (this is England, FFS, we ARE heavy rainfall) the shit gets dumped… anywhere. Rivers, the Sea, waterways to a massive extent. The actual magnitude of which is the real issue under discussion. Well, I’m discussing it, everyone else thinks it’s too gross, but I care for my environment in ways you wouldn’t even know about.

Because they seem to be measuring the quantity of shit dumped (yes, very funny…) not in kilograms, pounds and ounces or tons. But in ‘hours’. Last year they dumped waste for 3.6 million hours. Their limit should be just 1.8 million hours. Ok.

What the fuck does that even mean. Let’s get a bit graphic. I take a dump, that takes approximately 42 seconds. I’m good. Efficient. So if you allow, say, a minute and half, even two minutes with a good groan and push, then 3.6 million hours, divided by 2 minutes… that’s sixteen trillion tons of shit. Maybe 3 billion. Let’s just say ‘a lot’. Even ‘a shit load’. Because really, for any meaningful understanding, we need to know how much effluent is being siphoned off every ‘hour’. But we’re not told. Just the number of ‘hours’. Which is bit like telling everyone how big your penis is; in amps. The units are simply wrong.

The water companies make simply humongous profits. Yet bemoan sorting out this sorry, sad and soiled mess. I’m thinking of going on a toilet strike until this dire situation is rectified. Not sure how that’ll work out but that’s the meaning of most strikes really.

BOYCOTT THE BOG! NOWWWW!!!

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

So we’re all preparing for World War 3: the Final Apocalypse!, which will in fact be filmed live on YouTube, according to the law, and starring… well, all of us, really. I was going to play Schwarzenegger, but due to my recent shrinkage, I’ll now play Tom Cruise instead. The ante was upped on the weekend with an attack in Moscow by ISIS (allll-eggggg-edly) in which 134 innocent Russians were brutally murdered. How on earth did they manage to find 134 innocent Russians? Who knew there were that many? But murder them they did. Putin immediately blamed Ukraine. Well, why not, he blames them for most things. Then ISIS not only claimed responsibility but showed video proof. So Putin changed his tack and claimed ISIS did it ‘on behalf of Kiev’. Because he needs to maintain that narrative for ‘his people’ lest they think him to be a murderous, tyrannical warmonger sending their sons to their death in Ukraine.

It is now suggested that the attackers were part of what is known as ‘ISIS-K’, which is very much like ISIS but a bit more… K-ish. They come from Afghanistan and they fucking hate the Taliban. Because they’re too… errrr… well, murderous, too hard-line, right-wing-Sharia, Islamist, fundamentalist Muslim… which is a bit different to ISIS-K who are more… hmmmm.

ISIS-K perpetrated a suicide bombing last year at a mosque in Kabul in protest (they ‘protest’ a bit differently over there, less posters, more Semtex) against the Taliban. And they hate Russia. Not just because everyone hates Russia, but because of the military aid Putin gave to Assad to try to rid Syria of ISIS. Ok, while they were there they murdered tens of thousands of non-ISIS Syrians who happened to oppose Assad, but their stated mission was ‘destroy ISIS’. Or, at least halve them, so they became just IS. So there’s ‘history’ there.

But attacking Russia? I mean… it’s Russia! The meanest, nastiest, lyingest, vile-est, warring-est, nuclearest, biggest horrible nation on the planet. Its like a flea attacking an bear. And yet Russia can’t retaliate. Because like Hamas, like Al Quaeda, like so many of these similar yet disparate groups, they exist nowhere but everywhere. They are merely an ideology. And even Putin can’t bomb, destroy or put troops into an ideology. If there was an ‘Islamic State’, he’d have a target, but there isn’t. The four dudes wot done it appeared in court looking in… not the best of health, after their ‘interrogation’. One was missing an ear. Another was unconscious in a wheelchair. The other two looked ‘worse for wear’. Russia doesn’t have a ‘no torture’ agreement with anyone. And how much sympathy can you feel for four deluded morons who’ve just murdered 134 people? And who would torture you without a moment’s hesitation.

Everyone else seems to have missed this massive point along the way, but Putin will now get it. That Radical Islamic organisations are there to promote death. They live for it. Ironically. And stirred up by religious fervour, there are no limits to the death they’ll spread. Israel alone is not allowed to defend itself from the repeated threat of ‘total annihilation’ of all its people. The UN ‘won’t allow it’s. But they can’t stop Russia.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Today is the Jewish festival of Purim. That’s nice. What’s Purim? Ahhh, it’s a celebration. Of… well, pretty much a celebration of the Jewish condition. Purim basically means ‘Tsurus’ or ‘Aggro’, as most Jewish festivals do. You see, its all about King Ahasuerus and Queen Esther…

This was in ancient Persia in about 400BC!! Yes, BC, before the dinosaurs. Almost. And Persia was still called Persia and was a great place to be; enlightened, a home of education, philosophy, architecture and all the wonders which ceased suddenly when the Clash released ‘Rock the Kasbah’ and Persia turned into Iran. They banned culture, imposed draconian measures on their population, wrapped the women up in black and re-introduced all those lovely biblical activities like beheadings, stoning, industrialised misogyny, all under the heading of ‘God’s will’.

So the King sacked his old Queen (literally ‘old Queen’, not a reference to Quentin Crisp or Ian McKellen) and chose Esther as his new one, after she won a beauty contest. (I’d be interested to know if they still have beauty contests in modern day ‘Persia’). Pretty much like they choose Queens today in most countries. Esther heard about a plot to kill the king and told her cousin, Mordechai about it. The King’s head dude, Haman, was a real mutha who wanted to kill all Jews. Esther saved the day, and her people, Haman was hanged and we survived until the next catastrophe.

Which run in a pretty much unbroken line up to today. Always someone wanting to kill all the Jews, normally, but by no means exclusively, Iran.

Thus Purim celebrates survival. As does Passover and… possibly some others. And just think; if we didn’t have Purim, there’d be no Blazing Saddles! Not one Woody Allen film would exist! The Jewish Chronicle would just be ‘The Chronicle’ and ‘andysglasses’ would just be ‘glasses’! What an horrendous dystopia that would be.

It’s traditional to tell the story of Purim and every time the name ‘Haman’ crops up you shout and boo and bang bangy things and make lots of noise. You also dress up. Mainly as Queen Esther but I couldn’t get my dress zipped up so I’m dressed as an old man in tennis gear instead.

Happy Purim

A xxxx

Great news! They’ve just brought out a(nother) new Ghostbusters sequel!!! That is precisely what the world needs, right now. Definitely. In its seemingly ongoing quest towards self-destruction and insanity, not helped by Putin ‘winning’ his election and Arsenal sitting top of the league, this could be the solution for all the world’s troubles!!!

Ghostbusters is my favourite film ever. One of only about 273 which carry that worthy title. From the soundtrack onwards, it was just one of those films which ‘hit a spot’. Top dead centre of your funny bone. Well, mine, don’t know where yours is. It introduced Bill Murray to the world even though ‘Stripes’ which preceded it was a pretty good vehicle for his incredibly morose, dry, laconic wit. But Ghostbusters sent our Bill stratospheric. Ground Hog day elevated him to ‘national treasure’ (not sure which ‘nation’, that’s not the point) and then Lost in Translation made him a god and enabled Scarlett Johansson to become the Marvel superhero she was destined to become.

I’d first seen him when I lived in California in 1981 and someone showed me one of the 57 tv channels (we only had 4 at home) which showed old (crap) editions of the early ‘Saturday Night Live’ shows, from 1977, 78, 79, featuring John Belushi, Chevi Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Martin and, yup, Bill Murray. They were brilliant shows, with an incredible cast in their early, pre-fame days, and Murray was magnificent.

But according to reports, he ain’t so magnificent in Ghostbusters part-whatever, as he and pre-octogenaric Dan Aykroyd zimmer their achy way around a bunch of cheap special effects.

Never mind, I’m sure you can get all those SNLs on YouTube.

Which our dear and beloved Princess of Wales might do as she enters her chemotherapy. She’ll need some laughs. Probably won’t get any from Harry and Meg.

And I simply loved her ‘statement’ yesterday. Because I read the entire thing ‘between the lines’ and it was simply brilliant, unarguable and bold. This is what it really said, if you just delve underneath the really posh delivery. It said:

“I’ve got cancer you bunch of headline-hunting, glory-seeking, meddling, interfering arse-wipes. So you can take your ‘fake photo’ bullshit and your endless speculation and conspiracy-theorising and all the absolute garbage you’ve been thinking, posting, printing and publishing and stick it anywhere you like as long as its nowhere near me or my family. Sincere thanks for all the loving messages, and as for the rest of you, you can just FUCK RIGHT OFF AND DON’T COME BACK’.

Well done Kate. And good luck.

A xxxx

It’s a spring day. Round here. Do I care that it’s snowing in Eastern Scotland? Pissing down in Plymouth? Windy in Wokingham? I wish I could say I do, but alas, I never said I was a nice person, just a guy who likes good weather. And, yes, I am English, so I’m allowed to discuss the weather, endlessly and if possible, gloatingly.

I didn’t know that today (possibly yesterday) is the official ‘first day of spring’, because that can’t be declared until you have a witnessed account of a Druid sighting. The spring Equinox is like a bat-signal and they all dig their way out from wherever they’re buried and head, like baby turtles heading along the beach to the sea, towards Stonehenge. Their spiritual home. A random but aesthetically pleasing bunch of mysterious rocks down in Hampshire. And once there, in all their… funny attire, they… errrr… they do what druids have done for thousands of years. Which is… to act in a Druid-like way. Then they’ll bugger off from whence they came and we will hear nothing from them until the Autumn Equinox in September. They just can handle days with unequal hours of dark and light. And who can blame them?

But where do they go? You can’t just live for 2 days a year? Its impossible. Yet you never see them otherwise. Maybe they die off at the end of the equinox after laying their eggs, like fruit-flies, and it takes precisely 6 months to hatch out a new one. In adult form, fully dressed in their white robes. It’s a mystery.

Meanwhile, I just saw The Brother and, other than the fact that he’s lying in bed plugged into 47 different things which enter or leave his body from a whole variety of places, and other than the fact that he’s basically the end product of an entire raft of technological wonder, he seems perfectly ‘normal’. We chatted, we laughed, ok, we coughed a bit, it all seemed so wonderfully ‘normal’. His consultant was there and even HE was so much more positive than previously. He was long on the good stuff, short on the usual caveats. So maybe Rich’ll be out by September and we can go to Stonehenge together in our white robes!!! Ok, or not necessarily, but thinking to the future is a big thing. A very big thing indeed.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

So my quest to rid the world of the obesity crisis has hit a minor stumbling block. Another one. A ‘hitch’. Because having worked out the evils of ultra-high-processed foods, single-handedly (I always read the newspaper alone), that was the ‘quality’ aspect of our foods totally sorted out. We now need to work on the ‘quantity’. Ahhhhh, stop the porkers binging. It ain’t rocket science, eat less, you’ll probably lose weight. You do da maffs.

So you can do the fairly obvious, like cutting out snacks (I’d rather die!!!) or eating smaller portions at mealtimes (is that all I get???) or, you can opt for something trendier. Something a bit more zeitgeisty, a touch more ‘Hollywood’, the Jennifer Aniston way, and opt for a ‘fasting diet’. They’re all the rage. The ‘5-2’ or the ‘4-3’, in which you only eat numbers which add up to 7. Ok, that’s not true. You eat for 5 days and starve for 2. Or if you’re a real blimp, opt for 4 days eating and 3 of fasting. But that really wasn’t quite a stupid enough idea for some, or perhaps, it was hard to monetise, so they came up with the concept of eating only during an 8 hour ‘window’ during the day. Not, like, non-stop for 8 hours, I appreciate you have to breathe now and again, but you have breakfast at, say, 10.00am, dinner at 6.00pm, and then you stop. Nothing more. And nothing before 10. 8 hours, yer done.

The pounds flew off. No-one knows where they went but collectively there were some 4,794 Kgs ‘lost’. We’re obviously not concerned where they went, but perhaps we should be. The diet worked. They all work. On the really complex principle of ‘eating less, and/or eating less shit’. As a Jew I’ve been a devotee of the 364-1 diet since I was 13.

Yet apparently, adherents to the ‘8-hour’ fasting diet are twice as likely to die of strokes and heart attacks than people who don’t choose to follow Kourtney Kardashian’s path to waifiness. Whatttttt!!!! The!!!!! F-!!!!!!??? Surely the whole point of dieting is to prevent illnesses. Not to fucking create them. Or increase them. Therefore all obese people are ‘at risk’, we know that, but now, all thin people are even more ‘at risk’ too, if they’re thin by virtue of the ‘8 hour fasting diet’. Probably best to admit every single in the person in the world to hospital, just in case. Otherwise the NHS might be overwhelmed… hmmm…

And just to lead by example, this photo is of the ‘ingredients’ of my sandwich. To use less would be neglectful. The wine is not included. Though, hang on…

Happy fasting Wednesday

A xxxx

All talk of football has been banned. Officially. There is NOTHING to discuss. It’s a horrible game and why people put so much stock into the outcome of such meaningless competitions played out by overpaid, mercenary morons, representing overseas money-launderers and sports-washers, I have no idea.

And there was almost no talk of tennis this morning either, as the rains descended and kept on fucking descending. But then a miracle! It stopped. Bit later than usual, but WTF, it’s ‘a sign’!!! So out we went. And lasted a good… 28 minutes before the descent renewed. But we must be thankful for what we had, not what we lost. That’s the theory anyway.

So I read the Mail on Sunday instead and learned that 142% of British adults are 82.9% fatter than they were in 1953, even though 76% hadn’t been born then. Oh, please, try to keep up. Statistics are important. According to Dr Someone-or-Other-always-on-the-telly, the reason for this massive poundage pile-on is UHP (ultra-high processed) foods. They are not just evil, but they are ALL the evil in the world, wrapped up in a bleached white, sourdough, over-sweetened wrap filled with calcium this and sodium that and 42 ‘E’ numbers and horrible, probably carcinogenic, preservatives and additives in such numbers (other numbers from the previous) that its incredible how anyone can survive one single bite out of Big Mac without just imploding on the spot. Even thinking about Pringles can make you diabetic.

So I decided, right there and then, that I will never again eat any UHP foods. Unless, of course, they taste really good or will make me more alluring to women.

I’ve just come back from a visit with the brother. And it was, without a doubt, the best visit… ever. Yes, ever. He was totally alert, wide awake, completely responsive ANDDDDD, spoke through his little voice thing, even though it’s difficult and he’d already had an exhausting morning of ‘sitting up’. Yup, if you doubted how ill he was, sitting up for 2 hours represents hard and exhausting ‘work’. He even laughed, in response to (loving) abuse, but then he coughed a bit. Though, quite frankly, if he’s going to get better he needs to man up and get used to things like laughing. And abuse. Dare we get optimistic? Dare we???

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

On Sunday night, I’m not going to bed. I can’t. It’s when the polling booths close in Russia and I’m not sleeping until I know who has won. I want to know that there’s a swing in some desolate, isolated Siberian town, I want Jon Snow with his graphs and ‘swingometers’ and a panel of talking heads discussing the implications this result has on the whole election probability. I want to be there as the winner(s) are announced in ‘the most democratic country in the world’. Because it is a completely ‘free vote’. You’re allowed to vote for any candidate whomsoever. As long as his name is Putin. The main issue is the lack of alternatives. Because in Russia, a ‘true democracy’, anyone can stand to be President. It’s a bit like here, except we need to up our game a bit.

Kier Starmer is pretty well guaranteed to win the next election, if he can get over his refusal to ‘demand a ceasefire’ in Gaza to appease the moronic masses who think one-way ceasefires are standard procedure in a war.

But that aside, the Starm-meister needs to really guarantee his place in history. Firstly he needs to murder Rishi Sunak. The man could slip in on a technicality and win, so feed him some nuclear waste with his tea. The leaders of the Scottish Nationalists and Lib Dem’s should be in prison. For… spying. Or… treason. Doesn’t really matter, just lock ‘em up. And anyone else even vaguely in with any chance of winning a seat will simply move to France, ‘in exile’, in fear for their lives. That’s how you win a fucking election. The man’s way!!!

The Church of England wants to give a billion quid in reparations for ‘their part in the slave trade’. And that’s a great idea. My deep-distant ancestors were slaves in Egypt, it says so in the Passover guidebook. So where’s my cash?

The Church’s problem was that it invested in the South Sea company, back in… back in the day. And that company ran slaves in their businesses. So the fucking Pope might as well have had a whip in his hand! Even though he’s not quite ‘England’.

When colonising kings rode into countries, they did so under their national flag and under the Cross. And they ‘converted’ indigenous populations to Christianity. They didn’t have to convert, they could hang from trees instead, but many chose Jesus as their path. And captured populations were always ‘enslaved’. Ok, the ‘slave trade’ kind of ‘industrialised’ the practice, but they certainly didn’t invent it.

And it was unquestionable the worst act of inhumanity until Hitler came along.

But it was in the past, and it was OF ITS TIME. However atrocious, and it was, that is what they did, back then. And ‘back then’ there was no ‘equality’, there was no ‘discrimination’ and ‘oppression’ was what people did to each other. I simply cannot see the point of applying contemporary standards of post-woke morality to acts which occurred hundreds of years ago at a time of a different morality.

Otherwise how long before America is given back to the ‘indigenous Americans’, India goes back to warring as one nation including Pakistan, and Norway goes back to the Vikings!!!

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

On Sunday night police moved into the Legacy funeral home in Hull. Oh, that’s odd. They weren’t dead, why would they go there? They weren’t discussing funerals either. They just went in and arrested 2 people. And found some dead bodies. Which, of all the places to find corpses in the world, could actually be expected in that particular one. So it all felt a bit ‘odd’.

But then, as more ‘news’ was drip-fed to the nation, rather than the clarity this might normally bring, it just made it odder still.

They found 35 bodies in the Legacy homes (there are a few; death is big business). We learn then that really, those bodies shouldn’t be there. They should be buried. And should HAVE been buried long ago. The funerals and cremations of these deceased people happened months ago. So who, if anyone, was buried at those events? Who was cremated and had ‘their ashes’ given to the family? When poor Uncle Ken is still in a fridge in Hull? Whose ashes did I sprinkle over Billy Bremner’s statue at Elland Road???

More to the point; why didn’t they bury the bodies they were paid to? Most importantly, what the fuck did they want to keep them for? Did they intend to save them to later ‘flood the market’? I think we should be told. Well, I think I should be told because I can’t for the life of me think of any reason why they would do such a thing.

Meanwhile, not in Hull but much closer to home, Rishi Sunak is busy in Parliament defending Frank Hester. He’s the Conservative Party donor who has given them 10 million quid in the last year. Frank said (in 2019, but its still as funny now as it was then, so Labour can still drag it out before the election) that Diane Abbot is enough to make him hate all black women. He then said that he has no problem with black women but Diane Abbot should be shot.

And I have to agree with him on both counts. That woman is a horror. Much as I might say ‘that rabbi is enough to make you hate Jews’. As you know, I’m a firm advocate of people ‘being shot’, but I don’t own a gun and use it purely as a metaphor. As hyperbole. Except Jeremy Corbyn, obvs.

But when you apply the 100%-literal, super-woke, insanely-PC microscope to any sentence using the word ‘black’, and/or ‘woman’, possibly with ‘shot’, and you are a racist, misogynist, probably a privileged, white, middle-class rapist murderer!! The context of the sentence is ignored. The nuance simply doesn’t exist in woke-world. And if you couple that, in pre-election times, to the remote possibility that the government might lose a hefty part of its ‘war chest’, then Starmer might as well get once again onto his high fucking horse of ‘equality’ and fish it out of the archive.

He’s enough to make me hate all white men.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

A seemingly innocent photograph, just a family shot, Lila, Aunty and mummy, just everything ‘normal’. OR IS IT??? I had this picture assessed by three different verifying companies who found 71 instances of ‘evidence’ of ‘editing’. Lila has been made 0.35 inches taller than in real life. Where her arm crosses over to Rachie, you can distinctly see where this has been taken from another shot, probably of Lila holding a gun!! And Natalie wasn’t actually on the sofa at the time but in a drug rehab unit in Cheshire!!! The painting, a Martin Fuller, actually sits in a pub in Potters Bar.

So you see; all is not what it seems. And if every picture used to ‘tell a story’, in the ‘old world’, in the post-digital world, every picture tells about 5. All conflicting. So if Kate chooses to upset the royal-lovers by ‘deceiving’ them, you do have to question why she’d do that. Why create an ambiguity which needn’t have arisen. And then you’re at liberty to ‘not give a shit’.

Whereas Jonathan Glazer chose a different path to ostracism. He won an Oscar on Sunday night for ‘best foreign film’. Because he knew he’d never beat Oppenheimer, nor out-pink Barbie, the Londoner made ‘The Zone of Interest’ in German. Its a bit like realising you’ll never be good enough to get into the England football team, but if you find a Maltese relative, you can become captain of Malta, easy.

His acceptance speech was a dialogue about Gaza. And Israel. Probably both. And peace for all mankind, and comparisons with? justifications of? or using ill-fitting metaphors including: the Holocaust. A speech so riddled with ambiguity that no-one really had any idea what the f*** he was talking about. And he managed, in one, short burst of outpouring, to upset Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Seventh Day Adventists, Israelis, Palestinians, Zoroastrians, Australians and Serbo-Croats. A feat of such widespread insult of all parties that he was immediately offered a job at the BBC. It was a totally biased speech. But no-one knows towards whom. We didn’t know whether to hug him and make him dinner, or cut off his head.

We can all learn a lot from a man who can offend virtually everyone in the world with a 3-minute speech. Takes me pages.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx