Andy's Glasses

We all love that song. When the last night of the proms cries out ‘Rule Britannia!!!’, waving their little Union Jack flags, and holding their hearts, showing their collective pride in our national glory. Guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes of… well, certainly Nigel Farage, but to a lesser degree to the eyes of those who aren’t overtly nationalistic to the point extremism, xenophobic or out-and-out racist.

But they don’t sing it any more. For two reasons.

1. It offends people. No, I don’t get that either. If you can’t celebrate being British in Britain, something’s fucked, but the presence of all those flags upsets many jihadis, lots of communists, loyal to Moscow, a whole trough of hypersensitive ass-wipes, and Zac Polanski. Obviously.

2. It’s hard to ‘rule the waves’ when you have no boats. And currently, we have virtually none.

HMS Dragon is a fab and sophisticated Destroyer. But there’s a bit of a delay getting it over to protect the Cypriots from Iranian drones, so they’ll just have to manage for a couple of weeks whilst we finish the paintwork. No-one likes a shabby boat.

We have no 2 aircraft carriers, but they’re not ready. We have no battleships. Well, there’s one due for completion any time soon and another which isn’t working properly.

And then we’re sending our ‘armada’ over there to put the FEAR OF GOD!!!!, into those Iranians. HMS Dragon, plus the Cutty Sark, which is being readied right now, in Greenwich, even though it hasn’t sailed for 200 years and will take 3 weeks to get there. And they sending my mate, The Boatman, in his houseboat out there too. He’s got an arsenal of air rifles, pistols, crossbows and knives. So the Ministry of Defence asked him if he’d join the battle, for King and Country. He can be there, armed and ready, probably by June. July the latest.

We’ll show ‘em who rules the waves.

So why the dithering? Over everything. As someone pointed out, Starmer is more worried about the ‘process’ than the act. And we know he is a lawyer, so is obviously concerned about legal issues. And yet…

Britain is pretty much unable to defend itself from an attack. Not saying there’ll be one but hy-per-fett-ically, were we to come under attack, America would defend us. They’d have to. We are, in terms of our military ‘assets’, incapable of defending ourselves until the boats are finished and the aircraft updated in proper numbers. Ok, Europe and NATO are duty-bound to help us, but they are all a bunch of lily-livered Starmers, procrastinators and tossers.

America would have ‘our back’. We know they would. So when even an imbecilic US president like Trump calls to war; YOU FUCKING GO TO WAR. Especially when it was only the refuelling of US aircraft from our bases.

Starmer is shackled by his back benches, filled with former Corbynites who hate America, despise Israel and find themselves rather uncomfortably supporting the most toxic, evil, misogynistic, homophobic, repressive regime the world has ever known, just to defend their anti-Americanism and antisemitism. But Starmer needs these people. He needs their votes in parliament. So he’s always very measured in everything he does and says.

Tony Blair is right; when ‘they call’ you turn up.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

This beautiful picture shows a group of devout Christians, joined together as they harness the power of Jesus into their lives. Because Jesus died to save us. And if ever a group of people needed saving, you’re looking at ‘em. Because the alternative view of this photo is that it’s a group of hypocritical sycophants worshipping the Lord Trump. Himself a total fucking hypocrite unless you can reconcile ‘grabbing ‘em by the pussy’ with a life of adherence to the moral standards laid down in God’s laws.

I have no trouble with ‘true believers’ and their rights to pray. Whether that’s on your knees at bedtime, prostrating yourself towards Mecca 5 times a day, beating yourself with thorny sticks or tying little boxes on your arm and head when you wake up in the morning. Live and let live.

But what makes me cringe is a posed ‘pray in’. A photo-op for your Instagram page. Or Truth Central page. Why are they all holding Trump, FFS? As if he is the re-incarnation of Christ. Which he may believe, but no-one else does. Other than the suck-ups in the Oval Office. These are the people declaring wars all over our planet. Ok, I’m not necessarily opposed to any of those wars. But they can’t be about religion, or driven by prayer. Then it all becomes a ‘crusade’. And praying to God before, let’s face it, murdering lots of people, seems a bit desperate. It’s like Spurs fans praying to God for help, as we’re all currently doing. The difference is; we know He has abandoned us. And Pete Hegseth, for all his alleged devotion, looks like a man abandoned by God too. Maybe he’s a closet Spurs fan.

You wanna pray; be my guest. But I don’t think you need to show the world. We’re not impressed. It wreaks of insincerity. And HE will know. Amen.

So much has happened this week. War started, planes grounded, travel disrupted, football teams (almost) relegated. And yet, I went into work four days on my e-bike. That makes up for a shit-load of missiles dropped on Tehran. And I only prayed every time I rode a red light (praying that there were no police around) and every time I overtook a bus on the inside. Actually I don’t do that. I’m daft but not stupid.

And my prayers must have been answered in some way because it was just about dry enough for tennis this morning. So He looks after me, but not Trump. As it should be.

Happy Sabbath Day

A xxxx

You know when you hear something really horrible and it puts your mind in a total spin. Like someone’s disease; a tsunami in Rochdale; plague in Nairobi; stock market crash in Tangiers, war in Iran. At first you deny it could be possible, then you look for what can be done to make it right, or make it a bit better and, eventually, you just have to accept it for the tragedy it is.

And so it is with Spurs. I’ve reached acceptance that we ARE going down this season. I just can’t see any way we can possibly win a match. And thus I no longer care. Phah! Easy as that. Spurs are in the championship and I shall look forward to hosting Hull City and Swansea and Stoke and all the other third-rate mud-hoofers and brawlers who play in our ‘lower leagues’. We, obviously, don’t do ‘mud’ at the Lane, but maybe next year, we’ll rise to the occasion. If we can afford to buy some.

Because they reckon the net loss to Spurs if they go down will be about £250million. That’s all. TV rights, loss of gate receipts, merchandising, European stuff (unless we win the Champions League!!!), all manner of add-ons, or in fact ‘add-offs’ in this case. The players will be clamouring for the door. I’ll volunteer to carry their bags out and even pay for their Ubers out and away. There’s none I’d want to keep (other than Djed Spence and Archie Gray) but the problem will be one of ‘who will buy them?’ Who will pay their ridiculous salaries. When asked their qualifications they’ll answer: ‘well, I played total shite for 2 years under 3 managers, 2 owners and five captains’. Oh yes, they’ll say at Manchester City and Barcelona and Inter Milan; that’s just what we’re looking for; a worthless, talentless moron with 3 Range Rovers and a massive sense of entitlement.

Our next game is away at Liverpool. That’s surely 3 points in the bag.

So I’m ‘accepting’; doesn’t mean I can’t be fucking miserable.

Not quite Happy Friday

A xxxx

Listen, there’s only so much time and space and energy I can devote to international wars of potentially catastrophic consequences, to deaths, murders, tyrants and inept Prime Ministers unable to send our nation’s one and only boat over to save the Cypriots from invasion or devastation. It gets boring .And quite frankly, there are more important things than world wars.

There’s football.

Generally.

More specifically, there is the match tonight at White Hart Lane which will have more impact on the future of the world (well, my world) than all the bombs in Tehran. Than all the submarines in Sri Lanka. This match is more important than…

Jeffrey Epstein!!!

If you look at the league table, above, (well, the bottom third, the important bit), you will observe the following:

Wolves are gone. Recent change of fortunes may temporarily flatter, but only in the way that a fabulous manicure can flatter a great fat smelly ugly person. (Use of the word ‘bird’ was banned by this site in 1987).

Burnley the same. No hope. Much as I love Scotty Parker, they’ve sadly come up way short of the mark. Too little, too late.

So there’s one relegation slot up for grabs. And the contenders are: West Ham, the favourites, (well, ‘my’ favourites) to go down, but now level on points with Nottingham Forest. Last night the Hammers beat Fulham and Forest amazingly drew with Man City. Doing no-one any favours. Except Arsenal. And possibly Nottingham Forest.

One point above those two sit Spurs. I’d like to remind you all that Tottenham Hotspur are officially a ‘top 6 club’, even though they sit in the bottom 5. We are ‘Champions League, top 6’!!! That we are a ‘big club’, as defined by the size and quality of our stadium and the amazing amount of cash that we never spend on decent players. In any measure of dicks, we are hung like an elephant. Except if that measure includes success on the pitch.

Above Spurs, by just 2 points lie Leeds United. Who you simply have to hate, because they’re from Yorkshire. And three points above them are Crystal Palace. The team coming to Spurs tonight. And, tantalisingly, the last team Spurs actually beat. Back at Christmas. When Joey, Tory-boy and I watched it in Tenerife, celebrating like… like people celebrate when they are greatly relieved.

If we win, we rise to a lofty 15th place, above Leeds and four points clear of West Ham and Forest. But if we don’t…

Those two teams have both reached that place and time where they ‘have to play well’ (a condition that you would imagine ALL teams reach, ALL the fucking time) and have risen to their respective occasions. Whilst Spurs, on current form, are the worst team in the league. Not yet psychologically realising the nature of their situation to the extent that they’re playing like the grossly overpaid ‘superstars’ they were bought for. Rather than playing like fat, ugly birds with painted nails.

Without sounding too ‘west side story’: Its all about ‘tonight’. We win, or we’re fucked.

God help us. Even though he’s abandoned us for the last 2 years.

BIG Thursday,

A xxx

What does it mean when Donald Trump accuses Kier Starmer of being ‘no Churchill’? Does he mean he’s not a fat fucker smoking a cigar? Probably not. He’s referring to Churchill’s famous war-time leadership, strength and natural understanding of the bigger picture, rather than sweating over the minutiae, the legalities and the nonsense from his party members. I think it safe to say that Starmer is not even a Ghandi. Because although Mahatma was always anti-violence, at least he was clever and knew what was going on. Starmer’s more a ‘Macron’. Ineffectual, dilly-dallying procrastinator with an Oedipus complex, who won’t start his petit-dejeuner every morning until its been ratified by the Supreme Court. That’s Kier Starmer’s more comfortable position.

Because he’s an insecure introvert. And thus pairing him with Trump’s MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE; alpha-male, LOOK-AT-MEEEE, personality, the ‘special relationship’ (the term coined in fact by Churchill himself) was always deemed to be a little one-sided. Ok, Kier presented Don with a Royal invitation on his first visit to the White House, but that just solidified the nature of the deal. Starmer was always destined to be the nerdy little suck-up sycophant to Trump’s school playground bully. So when Starmer decides to ‘stand up and speak out’ over something like the invasion of Iran, Trump resorts to ‘name calling’. If it was a zoom call, he’d have stuck out his tongue.

Starmer’s problem is not to do with backing the ousting of the Ayatollah. Everyone is agreed on that. The difficulty our PM has is that half of his political party and ‘on the left of the middle’, and as such just have to be anti-American. If America does ‘it’, then ‘it’ MUST BE, ipso facto, wrong. Its ’empire building’, its ‘invasion’, its ‘only done for profit’. Which in many cases is true. But in this case, it ain’t. What Trump’s real motivation for attacking Iran NOW might be, we’ll probably never know. As the reasons he states tend to change daily. With all previous reasons then forgotten.

All Starmer had to do was back him. His ‘special relationship’ ally. His ‘brother’, in-arms. And Kier was found not so much lacking as contemplating his navel. Worrying about the legalities. Trying to work out new ways to define ‘defence’ which can accommodate re-fuelling planes which are going on the serious ‘offence’.

What we should all be concerned about is where it ends. Cos ‘they’ are not going to ‘give in’. But that shouldn’t stop where it begins.

Happy Wednesday

No Truss xxxx

I love contemplating my navel. I’m a ‘liberal’. I believe in negotiated peace in all worlds, wherever possible. And I’m a believer of ‘talking’.

Therefore I am the problem. Because I’m symptomatic of the British malaise, exemplified beautifully by our Prime Minister, in which problems are addressed by navel contemplation, by wishing for unrealistic outcomes, by assuming that everyone in the world can be negotiated with and worst of all, the presumption that ‘good will prevail’. But only after 13 judges have contemplated the ‘legal framework’.

That’s what we do. We talk. We debate. We have ‘conversations’. And nothing ever gets resolved.

So when Israel swore to eliminate Hamas from Gaza, everyone was in complete agreement. In theory. And in that theory, there was some kind of ‘negotiated settlement’, possibly? Or invitations to leave? Maybe force a few out but obviously as long as there was NO collateral damage. As I kept saying during the Gaza demolition: THIS IS WHAT DESTROYING HAMAS LOOKS LIKE.

Israel doesn’t do navel contemplation. It’s too small, too sensitive, too vulnerable. It can’t afford to make stupid presumptions of ‘good in all people’, when those people have just raped, tortured and murdered 1250 innocent civilians. So it ‘cuts to the chase’. And gets the job done. It’s not pretty, it’s certainly not popular, but they don’t care if it protects their population.

And now we have the ‘we need regime change in Iran but not ‘the American/Israeli way’’ brigade. This takes naivety way beyond normal levels of stupidity and elevates it to the ridiculous. The Iranian people tried the normal route of protesting, back in January, and 5000 of them were murdered, 50,000 still remain in jail. Will they ever be seen again? Possibly not if the IRGC are still in charge.

Regime change HAS to come from within. But getting rid of the old one, in this instance, HAD to come from without. From above. From outside. Because they would never otherwise go. Tyrannical rulers don’t just ‘leave’ because lots of people hate them. THIS IS WHAT REGIME CHANGE LOOKS LIKE. Or ‘starts like’ in this instance.

The Iranian people, the good ones, the civilised ones, do not want to ban religion. They want democracy. In which everyone is free to practice whatever devotion they wish. But aren’t forced to adhere to certain levels of a belief system they don’t wish to partake in. ‘The Regime’ forced an extreme form of Shia Islam on everybody. A new regime won’t remove the mosques, the imams, the beliefs. It will leave them to choice. And others so choosing will be allowed to listen to pop music, for instance. Wear clothes that a bunch of state-employed thugs might deem ‘immodest’. Women will get the freedoms that all women should be allowed. Education. Driving. LIVING.

I’m looking forward to this weekend’s protests over here. The ‘Free Palestine’ brigade now have another reason to hate and blame Israel (because these people never marched for any other world issue, regardless of how many ‘innocent civilians’ were dying) and America. So they’ll change their banners to ‘Free Iran’. But they won’t mean that phrase like we all mean it. We want to free the Iranian people. They want to free Iran from American and Israeli intervention, presumably consigning it to another few generations of horror and repression. And Zac Polanski will be leading it.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Today is not only beautiful and sunny, but is officially, the first ‘zero day’ of the year. That’s what I call days when the hourly weather forecast for north London (I really don’t care about the rest of it) is just a series of zeros in the rain column. And why do I care? Am I against the farmers, who apparently love rain? No, I don’t care about them either; I like frozen peas. A rain-free day means that I can roll the e-bike out of hibernation, charge it up and break various traffic laws 87 times before Kentish Town. It means fun has returned to my commute. It means… happiness. I had the bike serviced in October because I had no back brake. It had just got looser and looser and then, nothing. So I had it serviced. And then the rains came. For about 5 months, rain, rain and more rain. Until today. And the brakes are fine. Though I must admit, I don’t use them very much, because I DON’T STOP FOR ANYTHING!!! Certainly not for red lights, road works, traffic jams or fucking pedestrians (GET OFF MY FUCKING PAVEMENT!!!!). Every week in the papers I read of some journalist’s crusade ‘against the bikes’, which ‘terrorise her travel’, and I read the description of ‘the nightmare biker’ and it is me. Yet its really not my fault. The government (both national and local) have made driving the most horrible of experiences. Speed bumps, pot-holes, 20mph roads, cameras; its just a misery. So the last bastion of enjoyable travel is on 2 wheels, ‘assisted’ by some electric power. So I can still vote for the Greens, because there’s no petrol involved.

And I’m so Green that I now have to mourn the ‘passing’ of the Ayatollah. (I hate the term ‘passing’, which is why I’ve used it here. It implies an afterlife which I don’t believe in, it implies something voluntary and good, which it often isn’t. But particularly when it applies to someone who died by 30 rockets blowing up an entire compound in which he happened to be. That’s not a ‘passing’; that’s more a ‘hurling’).

I don’t know why ‘we’ are mourning him, he was an evil fucker, directly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, and totally responsible for promoting a repressive, hateful, restrictive and violent regime. Which is what Zac (first name terms here) actually said, back in 2023. But now we’re on the side of the Ayatollahs. Its that easy to change. Just follow Zac. And the world will be under sharia law before you can say ‘save the whales’. I still can’t see the link but Zac will tell me why he’s abandoned the women of Iran in favour of the oppressors, I’m sure. Like when he abandoned his Jewishness in favour of the terrorists. When we become Green-land (no relation) all will be explained.

Happy e-bike Monday

A xxxx

I’m very concerned as to whether yesterday’s attack on Iran was ‘legal’. I’m a very ‘legal’ person. Unfortunately, I’m a different person behind the wheel of a car or, possibly more so, on the saddle of my e-bike. But whilst I’m stationary, I’m very legal. And I need to know that, should our government get off its fucking fence, make yet another u-turn (I lost count at the 14th back in January), and actually offer support to our allies and get involved, that it will be ‘legal’. Because we, the very legal people, are concerned that sending missiles which destroy buildings and indiscriminately kill civilians, has legal backing. Basically, we’re asking the lawyers to give us permission to commit murder and enter a sovereign nation with a view to eliminating the government and creating the sort of chaos we created in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan…

Diane Abbot has proclaimed the attacks as ‘illegal’. So in all likelihood they are completely legal, just based on that alone. Kier Starmer is a ‘human rights lawyer’. Really? I thought he was an ineffectual Director of Public Prosecution before he became Jeremy Corbyn’s ineffectual lackey and currently an ineffectual Prime Minister. There’s a pattern there.

How is starting a war ever ‘legal’. Or, conversely, how is it ever ‘illegal’. Who you going to arrest? And on what charges? Could killing the Ayatollah be considered ‘legal’. Let me consult a lawyer.

The whole ‘legal/illegal’ debate is a waste of time and space. Which is why I’m giving valuable time and space to considering it. ITS A FUCKING WAR; ANYTHING’S LEGAL. Or, everything’s illegal. Depending which side you’re on.

Donald Trump makes his own laws. On really big pieces of paper which he signs with a really big pen in letters six inches high. And despite his almost insane desire to win the Nobel Peace prize, he just attacks countries he deems as ‘baddies’. His life is an overly simplistic Western. The good guys are always allowed to get rid of the bad guys. Fill yer hands you sonofabitch; do not forsake me, oh my darling. Go get-em.

But being Donald Trump, he sees no further than ten minutes ahead. Depose the current regime. That will, in his mind, instantly and positively, make ‘everything better’. The Islamic State is the problem; destroy it and leave the State of Iran to find its best, democratic, peaceful future.

The Iranian procession down the Finchley Road this (and every Saturday and Sunday) morning was even more jubilant than ever before. All displaying ‘victory’ signs out their car windows. We love our Persians. Did you know that Finchley is an official part of ‘Persia’? But never of Iran. I had to film this lovely woman with a flag which says it all.

Yet with the most optimistic outlook I can find, I’m yet to conceive of a way forward for the good people of Iran (not the shit-heads, who have to wear rags to stop the shit falling out) to ‘take control’. The IRCG are brutal and still dominant, even with the demise of their boss. Were they to ‘lay down their arms’, they would ALL be beaten to death by the general population who they’ve terrorised and tortured for 47 years. I’d go over and beat them to death, and I’m (allegedly) a pacifist.

The future is… undecided.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

We’re at war. Well, not Britain, exactly, we’ve sort of ‘bowed out’ of any specific involvement, including using our Middle East bases. But ‘we’, the rest of decent people of the world who aren’t Kier Starmer, are rather pleased that Israel and America have attacked the most dangerous and awful regime on the planet.

Until the Green Party take power over here; then we’ll be the worst.

I’ll admit that I did vote ‘Green’ on Thursday, because they’re the only politicians who really ‘speak to me’. Though I must say that during their entire election campaign there was no mention whatsoever of ‘climate warming’, ‘renewable power’, ‘protection of the environment’ or ‘polar bears’. Nothing. Not a word. Not in English anyway. They may have actually mentioned a ‘green issue’ in the Urdu version of their election pledge brochure, but they never told me. They ‘spoke to me’ because of their words about working. ‘DON’T DO IT!!!’, they say, ‘YOU’RE JUST MAKING THE RICH GET RICHER!!!’ Oh, fuck, I never realised that. But Zac Polanski told me it’s true and he’s not only clever, but looks like the ‘before’ picture in my orthodontic handbook. Not only that but he said it in all in Arabic. Because all the other messages from the Greens were about Gaza. I’m not aware of Gazans being that good at recycling but they must be to garner such unwavering support from the only party intent on global ecological stability. Aren’t they? Yet they seem way more aligned to Hamas than to Greenpeace. If we’re lucky, Zac and his crew will go over to help those poor Iranians and Ayatollahs, currently under fire from Trump. I think they should. Wherever radical, extremist Muslims suffer, they need a wind-farm.

Back to the war. They’re blaming Israel. What a massive fucking surprise that is. Some dozy slapper on the radio said that ‘Israel only wants chaos, peace is not on its agenda’. Really? Short memory some people have, not even reaching back to October 7th 2023. And the constant bombardment they’ve endured for decades from Hamas and Hezbollah, both proxies of Iran. So yeah, Israel would be aggressive, and yeah, the last thing Israel wants is a nuclear bomb in Tehran because they know where it would be aimed. Israel wants peace. It’s what it has always and only wanted. But victim-blaming does not apply to Israel. It’s allowed. And eventually leads to ‘globalise the intifada’ shouts and protests, even painted on a statue of Churchill.

Its great. It’s just what us Greens want. Shame that when Zac P was scheduled to speak before an extremist Muslim group, he was forced to withdraw because he’s gay. Oh. We’ll get over that. Green is the new colour. We need plumbers in Westminster. But this time; not just unblocking the toilets!!!

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

We picked up Mel’s new car on Sunday. Its gorgeous. And hybrid. We’re done with range anxiety, f’reverrrr!!! Well, I think we have. I’ll have to ask the car. If I can find out how to do it.

Because cars are not cars anymore; they’re just computers with a few mechanical bits attached. In order to drive up the road to get a pint of milk, you need a masters degree in game theory. It’s no game with me. It’s more chaos theory.

My car has ‘buttons’. You press them, and things happen. Fans come on. Heaters blow heat. All you have to do is work out the icons, most of which are pretty self-explanatory. And there’s only one rule: if it’s red, don’t press it. But new cars don’t have buttons. They have ‘menus’. Lots and lots of layers of software which the Japanese instal to ensure that the thing you want is buried deep. So deep you can’t find it. The guy who gave us the car turned off the ‘heads up display’ because it bothered Mel. I liked it. Thought it was a bit ‘Tron’ (if you can remember that far back). But off it went. And he hooked Mel’s phone up, so that the constant connection to twin sister remains unimpeded. Anything else? We’re fucked. We have been invited back for some more ‘lessons’ which we don’t want but simply have to do. Otherwise, what do we do if it rains? If we need to open the boot?? The only redeeming feature is that with a hybrid you don’t have the most annoying thing ever invented; ‘stop/start’. So there’s 3 hours of our lives we get back, not having to find how to turn it off. Yesterday Mel told me the radio isn’t working. She can’t find the (fucking: her word, not mine, I would never…) radio. Its gone off. She ploughed through a series of endless menus, nothing looked like a radio. I went out and pushed the button under the computer. The only button in the car. Big black one. And the music came as if from the angels. Or Bose. Either way; it was on!!!

When Jeremy Clarkson (all bow) reviews cars, the first thing he does is spend 3 days working out how to turn all the auto-health-and-safety-Euro-ispired shit off. Stop/start. The stuff that drags you back into the wrong lane when you try and overtake. The beepers and bells and alarms and sirens telling you a dog just shat within 3 feet of your back bumper. We need bureaucrats in car design like we need Jesus to save us.

But I won’t make judgments on the car because its very pretty and drives fabulously and is a hybrid and I can put petrol in it whenever I like. I’m done with the polar bears.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx