Andy's Glasses

Tomorrow is ‘our day off’. Its Lila-Joey-day but due to them being in Crete, our daughter has reluctantly agreed that our services will not be required, having made extensive inquiries with various airlines about flight availability for ‘day trips’ for ‘staff’. So we had booked, a few months ago, a trip to Wakehurst. That’s ‘the other Kew Gardens’, the much bigger one, down in Sussex. Supposed to be fab. And when we booked it, in March, going in August sounded a great idea. I love a road trip; anywhere, and trees are always… well they’re always trees.

Except when their dying from dehydration. And the rolling fields of green are now the dried out fields of brown. And 2 hours each way on the M25/M23 way past Gatwick suddenly seems not so great as we overheat in the inevitable hold-ups/ road works/ disasters.

So we’ve cancelled. We’ll go when the weather’s nicer. With the daughter’s permission, obviously. And hopefully when the trees have recovered and the grass is a bit greener once more.

How fucking weird to be cancelling a trip in England ‘because of the weather’ and not referring to horrendous rain, freezing winds, horrible wintery shit? And they were showing pictures of Kew yesterday and its tragically arid and ‘orrible. So four hours in the car with the top down suddenly doesn’t sound so good. And there’s no way I’d put the top up! Who do you think I am, FFS??? I would die of sunstroke rather than turn on the Air Conditioning. That’s who I am. An idiot.

So instead we’re going to Trent Park. Apparently you can’t fry unless you go past Hadley Wood. Trent Park House was a spy centre during the 2nd world war. Spying for our side. I’ll let you know more once I’ve been. Unless we’re sworn to secrecy, then I’ll tell you, but I’ll have to shoot you.

The House was owned by Sir Philip Sassoon. Scion of the Sassoon family who left Baghdad, made zillions in the opium trade during the 19th Century when based in Bombay (as was). By the time they came here they were in all sorts of more ‘sanitised’ interests, like shipping and finance. And were so rich that despite their druggy beginnings, they were made aristocracy upon arrival. Things were like that in ‘those days’.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

It has to first be accepted that newspaper column ‘advice’ is as changeable as the wind. (I’m working on a new metaphor for that as we don’t have wind any more, nor rain). “DRINK RED WINE EVERY DAY AND LIVE TO 120!!!”, one day, followed the next by “AVOID WINE; IT’LL KILL YOU!!!!”. The response is predictable too, to such advice. Generally, when it relates to something we like, we want confirmation. We want our intuitions to be sound. We will keep drinking red wine, based on the former, because we want to, and we’re consequently probably too pissed to even notice the latter when it appeared.

But sometimes you just have to sit up and take note when a headline grabs you. Like the one above.

As a confirmed anti-lettucer, to see words like that, in print, with the inevitable ‘rent-a-scientist’ validation, is to see true beauty. Is to start questioning if maybe there is some Devine being ‘up above’. A thought I hadn’t considered since Spurs avoided relegation, back in May.

Because this is vindication. This is justification. This is… EVERYTHING!!! I never have to eat lettuce again and I will carry this piece of newspaper around at all times so I can annoy people I find being overly saladish in restaurants. Warning them. I’ll get my old sandwich board out, which says ‘Jesus died to save you!!!’ on one side and ‘Save the Wales!!!’ (Not a typo, it was there from the Charles & Diana days), on the other. I’ll overwrite it with ‘LETTUCE KILLS!!!’ and ‘AVOID SALAD LIKE THE PLAGUE IT IS!!!’

I accept that I’ll probably get thrown out of a lot of places. Possibly beaten up by the salad marketing board, a notoriously militant bunch.

I don’t like lettuce because it brings absolutely nothing to the party. Less than nothing. It is a waste of chewing. Unnecessary wear on your teeth, which need to be kept sharp to rip the flesh from roadkill. Same for ‘rocket’, spinach, all those other ‘leaves’. They’re there for animals to eat. Not humans. We need a more balanced diet. Chicken AND steak. I love potatoes and they’re a vegetable. Not necessarily a ‘leaf’ as such, I grant you, but almost ‘salad’. Almost.

So to Dr Microbiologist, I bless you. You have given credibility to my leafaphobia. Never again will I be the recipient of smug looks over the plates of salad-eating nonces as the juice from my cheeseburger drips down my chin. No more having to explain to people at poncey dinner parties that I’ll pass on the lettuce, thank you very much, BECAUSE I FUCKING CAN’T STAND THE STUFF. I’ll have no further embarrassment walking straight past the salad bar en route to some massive slab of almost raw meat or other.

This is just the best news ever. And I bet me mate Mark agrees.

Happy Meat Eating.

A xxxx

If you said to me (and I fucking wish you WOULD!!!), ‘Andy, you can have any car you like; I’ll pay for it’, what would I choose? Well, if I wanted a truck I’d get a Bentley. They have convertibles and it simply MUST be convertible. Range Rover? I’d literally rather take the fucking bus. They look similar. Tesla? Shoot me now. A Ferrari? Lamborghini?? Naaaahhhh, too poncey. I’d rather have a McLaren than either anyway. But that’s not what I’d choose. Because I love old cars. From the days when style was everything (except for brutal levels of power, but we’ll get to that in a minute) and no-one gave a shit if having a gorgeous chrome bumper might cost 1 mile-per-gallon in lack of aerodynamics. You make it chrome. Also, no-one ever bought a car like I would want for its fuel economy.

Jeremy Clarkson summed up the issue in this week’s Sunday Times, when he said cars are either made ‘practical’ and hence dull as dishwater, or ‘for fun’ and they’e impractical, barely functional and NEVER have iPads on the dashboard.

And this was exemplified in the 50s and 60s when fuel was cheap and style was paramount. Green Party members probably shouldn’t read on. In fact, they should just fuck off, in any circumstance.

So if you bought me a 1960 Porsche Speedster convertible, I would probably love you forever. But if you bought me a 1958 Chevrolet Corvette (in red; it must be in red even though I generally hate red cars. Never said I was logical or consistent), then I would happily bear you children.

But what I really want, what I really, really want is this. Above.

The AC Cobra. Year irrelevant because they still make them. And have done, in tiny editions, with many ‘replica’ versions using original parts, since 1953. And Carroll Shelby’s original idea was to find a tiny, British car manufacturer and get them to design a beautiful body (we were good at pretty bodywork back then), with a very large space under the bonnet. For which he shipped over the biggest, most powerful, brutal, excessive, engines America could make. And America specialised in such things. Because the original, straight-6 Ford Zephyr engine was never going to win races for team Shelby. That was a 2 litre engine. Shelby tried the ‘small block’ Ford V8, which was 4.2 litres and that went faster. Oooooh. So he increased it to the 6.2 litre version and what d’ya know? That was faster still. The addition of a supercharger didn’t exactly slow it down either.

Because that’s what Americans did, ‘back then’. Just keep adding power til it bursts.

The one pictured here has a 6.3 litre Chevy engine. That should be big enough. And odd because Shelby was employed by Ford and virtually all Cobras have Ford engines. But WTF?, if the Chevy goes a bit faster, drop it in!!! Carroll Shelby would approve. Because he was building cars with absolutely no restrictions. They were built as racers but what the hell, get a tax disc and put it on the road. I’d buy it for the engine noise alone. But that styling, that beauty…
Beauty on the outside, brutal within. Bit like my wife.

So that’s what you’re gonna buy me. The car, not the wife.

Thank you very much.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Yeah, I’ll send my cv over. Its impressive. And my PhD thesis, you’ll like that, its quite brilliant. But basically, I was born a bit odd, developed somewhere on some spectrum, but was consequently a touch ‘Rain Man’, without all the stuttering. When I was 7 I wrote The Merchant of Venice. People said I nicked it from Shakespeare, but that’s not true. I don’t plagiarise. It was all my own work. As proved by my next work I created, a brilliant thriller called The Da Vinci Code. I got a degree in Literature when I was 9. And captained the football team at uni to win the FA Cup, beating Man City in the final, 2-1. I scored the winning goal, 7 minutes into added time with an overhead scissors kick. I support a wonderful charity by running marathons. I ran 6 of them in a single day, 2 of them with a broken ankle and dislocated hip. The King gave me a special award. And I’m really good to my mum.

If this sounds in any way believable, then you must be very clever. Probably sit on the selection board at Cambridge University(!!! All bow) for bestowing professorships. Like they did to Jason Arday. Who has now been described as a ‘serial fantasist’, and kicked out. His resignation statement was written by AI, which was why it was so good.

But how could those bods at Cambridge buy into the obviously blatant crap on Jason’s cv? Did they not check it out? Do they not understand ‘due diligence’?? They’re supposed to be clever people, ‘La crème de la creme’, but act like a lump of cheddar that’s been left in the garden for 3 weeks of heatwave. (You’re not allowed to use a hose on cheese either). The guy’s thesis was plagiarised, the rest of his cv total rubbish, but transparently so to anyone with common sense. And there’s the problem. The Cambridge dudes are in no way ‘common’. So are not allowed to use common sense. Only algorithms. And Ancient Greek logic. Tossers.

But I don’t think they’re racist tossers. Not at all. Though, obviously, Jason is pulling the race card now he’s found guilty, so any legal action will have to tread very carefully. Because once you’ve pulled that card, you can’t un-pull it. A liar and a cheat is a liar and a cheat. Being black doesn’t lessen either. It just makes it all more difficult and, if I’m honest, more stupid.

On another note, I’m trying to kerb my excitement about the forthcoming football season, just 2 weeks away. Because for Spurs fans this is the ‘dangerous time’ of the year. The time when hope can explode into terribly unrealistic expectations. Because this is the time when… no ball has been kicked yet. (I don’t count ‘friendlies’). This is the fantasy football time of the season. When you put all our new players, all our existing ‘stars’ into a line up and just imagine how brilliant they might be. And we’ve bought well and we love our manager and…

No-one ever includes opposition teams in their pre-season fantasies. If only the League would let us play alone, with no opposition. I’ll speak to Infantino, when he’s finished shagging his mistress (fully paid for by UEFA as part of the ‘shagging clause’ in his contract when he was employed by them), see if we can arrange something along those lines. If there’s a few bob in it; Gianni’s yer man.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I’ll just say it once: it’s hot. Fucking hot. Ridiculously hot. Which is not really the point. The point is that it’s been like this… foreverrrrr!!! I can’t remember what rain even looks like. Sleeping under the covers. Wearing long trousers. It’s all consigned to history. The only time I’ve used the tube lately was to get to an airport. My commuter days are strictly e-bike. And what’s more, I no longer even bother to ‘check the weather’ before leaving. Because I simply KNOW it won’t rain. And if it does… if it does… how wonderful would that feel? But it won’t. It’s never going to rain again. The world has become a dry, rainless, arid desert. All the world. We’ve fucked it up so royally that it will never recover. Farmers can’t farm. Forests can’t stop burning. And the temperature remains solidly over 30 with no chance of respite in the near (or far?) future.

Basically; you can’t please the Brits. We’re either moaning that it doesn’t stop raining or we’re moaning that it doesn’t rain enough. We went from ‘chilly for the time of year’ to ‘I can’t stop sweating’ in one day, long ago in about May (I really have no recollection of when it wasn’t like ‘this’).

I think the benefits of heatwaves slightly outweigh the costs. Mainly: it’s sunny outside. The whole day. And half the night. We can plan barbecues more than a day away. It helps me to tan. I haven’t driven with the top up for 3 months. No tennis matches have been cancelled due to ‘the weather’. (There’s no such thing as ‘too hot to play’; not in the heterosexual world). We get to eat more ice cream. Lots more.

On the flip side: we can use hoses. Well, in my guise as ‘Mr Loophole’, I’m allowed to water mine, but generally, NO! And the trees are dying. They reckon up to 75% of British trees cannot survive this sustained heat and drought. Which will then reduce the oxygen available to you humans to breathe. I’m alright, I’m a cyborg. But farming is a big thing. It’s not just something Jeremy Clarkson invented a few years ago so he could stay on the tv. No. We need farms. They provide food. But this year; not so much. Luckily it’s not all food. Just… bread. Milk. Cheese. Meat. Oh, and vegetables, I suppose.

It’s so hot here that Lila and Joey have gone to Malta. For some ‘relief’. (Have you ever been to Malta? I have. It’s the world’s furnace. But they’re having fun. And using sun screen.)

But next Wednesday the sun takes on a new role. As part of a duet with the moon for the purposes of the eclipse. And this time; there’s no cloud cover expected to ‘rain on the parade’. At about 6.15 in the evening the moon will travel across the sun and obscure most of it, before our very eyes. Though really, you’re not supposed to look at it because you’ll go blind. Though we will all look because humans, and cyborgs, are just drawn to such wonders of natural majesty. You can buy all the virtually opaque 3-d glasses things from Amazon, but when it happens, you just wanna see it for real.

So enjoy the heat, enjoy the eclipse, I’ll see you Wednesday about 8.15 in the A&E at Moorfields Eye Hospital. Or I won’t see you.

Happy Sunny Saturday

A xxxx

… a day makes. 24 little hours…

Because today, if I use a public toilet I absolutely KNOW that the great fat, threatening, shaven-headed, tattooed, knife-wielding head-case who just stomped in, is in possession of a dick. I don’t have to fear that it might be a ‘trans’ person, pretending that ‘they’ do have a nob when they don’t. And I can’t tell you what a relief that is to me. Relief in every sense.

Of course, should I choose the boroughs of Waltham Forest or Camberwell to take my leak, then I won’t be so certain. Because they’re ‘green’ boroughs. Councils led by the Green party. And the Green party mantra is: ‘NOBS DON’T MATTER!!!’ (Including the biggest nob, who is leader of their party). If you’re a drop-dead gorgeous babe wearing killer heels and a teensy mini-skirt, but you’re ‘feeling a bit manly today’, then you’re welcome in the Gents. In Waltham Forest and Camberwell only. If you try that in Hackney or Lewisham, you’ll go to jail.

Well, you would do, but you’ll have to wait until they’ve freed up some space. Bit crowded at the moment. But don’t worry, they’re going to send home a few murderers, GBH-ers and serial burglars to make room. For all the ‘non-victim hate crime’ people who’ve posted nasty things on X. And those in a possession of a penis in a Ladies public convenience. Its all about prioritising.

In the UK, we’ve closed 23 prisons in the last 15 years. Losing nearly 8,000 places. Ok, the prisons were old, decrepit, cost a lot to maintain. But they were prisons. Yet no-one thought that with the crime rate rising (always and forever, sadly, until we reach Nirvana where there’s no crime and the traffic lights are always green) we should, kind’a, think about building new ones BEFORE closing the old? Nah, I get that. Its a bit ‘outside the box’ for politicians who are too busy worrying about allowing big hairy men in Ladies changing rooms at Uniqlo.

So that’s where we are: Only women can use the Ladies, except in Waltham Forest and Camberwell, and we’re emptying the criminals back into the ‘community’ so they can commit more crime.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I hate to bang on about Gianni Infantino but… I have to. He’s horrible. He’s vile. And if you are a football fan, you’ll understand my complete contempt of the man. And if you’re not, then go read the new Robert Galbraith novel for the next 3 minutes instead. I’m reading it and it’s fab.

In an article in today’s Times, they made the totally credible case, to the point where, with hindsight, it actually becomes blindingly obvious, that this World Cup was Infantino’s showcase of precisely what he can get away with, in terms of the commercial underpinning of the event. He’d been planning ‘the great sell-off’ for ages and used the tournament to prove how financially rewarding for all it can be, if handled correctly.

Thus the introduction of ‘hydration breaks’. Dividing the game into quarters rather than the normal halves, to create extra advertising, brining in extra revenue. The half time show (scuse me whilst I vomit) in the final lasted 27 minutes and 17 seconds, despite FIFA’s own rule that it mustn’t exceed 15 minutes. Because a ‘half time show’, even one as dire and stupid as the one they had, keeps people watching. A ‘break’, has them running to the off-license for another case of Stella (UK), or rushing to the kitchen to throw tequila and ice in the blender for another 45 minutes (plus stoppage time) of margaritas (US). A half-time show keeps people at the tv, keeping advertising revenues high. Not so good for the drinks trade.

Christiano Ronaldo was on a 3-match ban for violent conduct in a game against Ireland. Meaning he’d miss Portugal’s first 3 games. Then he went out for dinner with Infantino, Elon Musk, a couple of Kushners (there’s a stupid ‘selfie’, which has in time become quite incriminating) after which FIFA ‘suspended’ 2 of the match-bans. No reason. Ronaldo is a big ‘draw’ on tv, so they wanted him to play; just ‘leave it to Gianni’. In a similar way to overturning the red card for Folarin Balogan to allow him to play America’s next match. Which, fortunately, they lost, otherwise that would have absolutely proved the absence of any possibility of any ‘God’ and would have destroyed all the religions of the world.

But worst of all is the complete ‘lack of transparency’ (I’m being sick once more; maybe I ate something dodgy). The man who came in just to create an ‘open book’ at FIFA, does the corruptest of deals without telling anyone, and then offers a bribe of $30million to every country who votes for him and his terrible plan.

Two countries remain in full support of this evil, corrupt football-terrorist. Qatar and Morocco. The former who Infantino awarded the most undeserved World Cup ever to; and the latter who, when they host the next World Cup, won’t have to play qualifying matches, whereas Spain and Portugal, the co-hosts, do have to. And again, no reasoning, no precedents (host nations ALWAYS have automatic entry) and no explanation given.

I’ve called this story ‘the last word’ because I sincerely hope it is. That he’ll be gone by tomorrow. Or assassinated on Tuesday. I don’t care which. Yet I suspect he’ll hang on, hated and reviled, for as long as he possibly can. Increasing his own humiliation with every hour.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

If you were around in the 1970s, you’ll remember it was ‘sit-com’ ground zero for British humour. Loads of sit-coms; they just ‘exploded’ into life, like the Cambrian Explosion, when millions of diverse life-forms just ‘appeared’ on the planet. So with comedy shows. Some were brilliant. Like Steptoe & Son. Some were abysmal. Like On the Buses. Some were (by today’s standards) exceptionally racist, like Love Thy Neighbour. And some just became part of your life. Like The Good Life. Stupid concept whereby a ‘comfortable’, middle-class couple give up working and decide to eat what they grow and ‘leave the rat-race behind’. Idealistic twaddle, obviously, but fun whilst doing it. Why was it so popular? Because it starred Felicity Kendall. Who was gorgeous beyond normally acceptable levels of gorgeousness. And Penelope Keith (who sadly died about 2 weeks ago), possibly the funniest woman ever to ‘tread the boards’. Certainly the driest. It just worked. Everybody loved it.

And stupid though the concept might be; of going ‘off grid’ and turning your garden into wheat fields, with cows and sheep for… cow and sheep stuff, and maybe chickens. For eggs. And soup. It’s not a life for vegans. I wouldn’t have a beansprout in my home.

So we’ve started. With this tomato bush. We grow them every year. You buy a little plant for about a quid. You water it and it becomes monstrous and then… and then… you get tomatoes!!! Like… free!!! I picked on to put in my sandwich yesterday. It was wonderful. Tomato flavoured. So I thought… we could do this. Grow lettuces (hate them; waste of chewing), courgettes (the devil’s food; awful things), radishes (fine but how many can you eat ffs?), and a chicken. So we could eat egg salad every day and be totally ‘self sufficient’. And with the ‘surplus’, the extra cabbages and carrots we don’t need, we could ‘barter’ with them. To fill the cars up. Buy jewellery. We’d turn up at the cinema with a wheelbarrow full of potatoes. It would work! Everyone needs potatoes.

Of course, hose pipe bans don’t help with the agro-project, but those bans don’t apply in my house. Until I get caught.

We’re on week 2… possibly 3, of the reign of Andy Burnham and other than parts of England burning down (well it’s his fucking country, innit? He should be more careful), nothing too radical has occurred. In fact nothing at all has occurred. He spoke up against Gianni Infantino who is now running with tail between his horrible, scrawny, corrupt little Italian legs. If he survives this weekend then there is no justice and no chance for world football.

Right, I’m going to my garden to plant my cheeseburger seeds. The guy who sold them to me said they work really well. In shady areas. Bit like him, really.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I’m thinking that City Airport is my absolute favourite airport in the whole world. But is having a ‘favourite airport’ a bit like having a favourite ‘incurable disease’? Or a favourite ‘London football club which isn’t Spurs’. A favourite poem by Chaucer? Because let’s face it; although we all need airports, they are fucking horrible places filled with queues and stress. The younger daughter doesn’t get stressed. She flies more than anyone I know. Arrives 10 minutes before take-off, breezes through, gets a free upgrade and a glass of champagne. Security, the bane of every flyer’s life, simply parts, like the Red Sea before Moses when she saunters through, with not a care in the world, even though she’s now 5 minutes from take-off and half a mile from the plane. She’s never missed a flight. God only knows how. But I have missed a flight. Therefore my stress levels are even more heightened than usual at the mention of the word ‘airport!’ BA have offered me counselling. I accepted and turned up, only to find a 3 hour delay because the counsellor had only just left his last appointment because of bad weather.

The ‘airport process’ was designed by sadistic bastards intent on making the process as intolerable as possible, as stressful as it can be and with as much queuing up as they can arrange. And they’re always ‘tweaking’ the system to make it just a touch more hostile, a little nastier, giving a little more uncertainty to the innocent traveler. Like when they invented the ‘naughty lane’ after the carry on is scanned. The legal stuff comes out down one lane, ready to go, whilst the items of warfare, terrorism and murder travel down the naughty lane to be examined by a customs dude pulling on rubber gloves. And no-one EVER wants to see rubber gloves at an airport. Mel got stopped once for carrying a lethal pair of tweezers. In Florence it was a forgotten can of Sprite. Which, I grant you, could do a lot of damage if you rammed it up someone’s nose. But a shoe-bomb it ain’t.

City Airport has all the same shit. But with about a hundredth the number of passengers. So you don’t queue. You don’t wait. You don’t take out your liquids. They don’t call stud earrings ‘weapons of mass destruction’. They just do it all quickly, calmly and efficiently. The DLR stops right inside the airport and that’s the most fun way to travel across London other than an e-bike. So the whole experience is different. It’s… pleasant!! It’s (almost) stress free. Though we did arrive about two and a half hours before our flight due to… recent flight issues.

Unfortunately, most flights from City are small planes going to European destinations. Maybe that will change to a broader offering. Or maybe, just maybe, someone from some airline, probably one as yet undiscovered, will start a process to restructure ‘air travel’, to make the ‘customer journey’ (that everyone bangs on about, in the metaphorical sense) a little nicer, more pleasant, more considerate. LESS FUCKING AWFUL AND HORRIBLE than it is now.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Gianni Infantino, football’s favourite slap-head, was called in to run football’s over-ruling international body, FIFA, because his predecessor, Sepp Blatter, was a corrupt and self-serving nest-featherer who spent his time as boss in running the biggest gravy train in sport. And unlike other trains, it always ran on time. Blatter worked out that of the 211 nations who are part of FIFA, about 150 are piss poor. Some you’ve never heard of. Ok, I’ve never heard of. Like Eswatini. New Caledonia (clue: it ain’t in Scotland). São Tomé and Príncipe. San Marino is a ‘country’. We’ve all heard of it but it has a population the same as Kensington High Street, but obviously not such a posh one. But Blatter’s modus operandi was that he could ‘sell’ the World Cup to a host nation. Who wanted the ‘honour’ for credibility, for ‘advanced sports washing’. To improve their international status massively. Thus Russia was ‘awarded’ the World Cup, even though it was under sanctions worldwide for human rights issues. Qatar was ‘awarded’ it too. Even though the primary criterion is that the host nation must be a ‘footballing country’. Qatar isn’t. Its a camel country. An oil country. Its the country of sanctuary for Hamas leaders and other terrorists. But it ain’t a footballing country. Its too fucking hot to play football there. But Blatter took… however much (a lot), knowing he could use a big chunk to offer bribes to the 150 poor countries, most of which are corrupt anyway, to win the vote. The rest of the cash was his.

Suffice to say: this wasn’t really how FIFA was intended to be run. So they booted him out. And sent in… The Saviour!!! The Son of God!!! Gianni Infantino. Brilliant. Clean up the mess. Perfect.

And ten years later, we’re seeing what the man is really like, and how his new proposal to ‘sell off commercial rights’ of the World Cup, will use that same Blatter methodology of, basically, giving loads of money (relatively) to piss poor countries so they’ll vote for the proposition, with the ‘national heads’ of their associations inevitably being enriched in the process. Sadly, in the current structure, its unstoppable.

“The world cup in America was a massive success”. So say FIFA and so say America. Because they made $18billion from it. Wow! Which inevitably means a few hundred thousand dedicated football fans were ripped off, royally, to generate that figure. Ticket sales were hiked, transport costs outrageous, hotels charging exploitative rates. So a ‘massive success’, other than for the people for whom the game exists. For the parasites who run it and organise it; its all their Christmases come together.

Now he wants to sell FIFA. To Donald Trump’s mishpucha (distant relation). Because Infantino is already ‘in bed’ with Don, to an embarrassing degree and now he wants to let a bunch of unfootballing Yanks control our game.

Which will ruin the World Cup, forever. They’ll have it every 2 years, maybe every year. Tickets will only be affordable to Beyonce and Taylor Swift, a 20 minute train ride will cost $120 and a cup of coffee at the stadium; £25.

I just fucking hate this. I just fucking hate Gianni Infantino.

Otherwise: HAPPY WEDNESDAY!!!

A. xxxx