Andy's Glasses

I went to the Albert Hall last night. Went to see Jeff Goldblum and his ‘jazz ensemble’. Which weren’t really that ‘jazzy’, but were definitely an ensemble. Loads of ’em. And they were really superb. Whilst Jeff walked around, mainly chatting, joking, laughing, generally… just being Jeff Goldblum. But with a bit of singing and a tinkle or two on the massive piano which I think was a collaboration between Steinway and Winnebago. It was great in that Jeff’s brief was just to have some fun, which we all did.

And I was in a box. I don’t mean wrapped up in the corner brought by DPD and dumped in the rose bushes, I mean ‘a BOX’ at the Albert Hall! Of course I was. Man in my position wouldn’t sit in a mere chair!!! And here’ a pic of my mates in our box. Ahhhhh. BUT!!!!…

If you look on my pic, past the Wolf-man, beyond Scouse-Shazza, there’s just a little white-haired head poking out in the adjacent box. Whatever device your using; zoom in.

Yes, it was an ‘OMG!!!!! moment’. Dustin Hoffman, real and live and in person sitting next to us. Holeeeeeee shitttt! A God of the screen.

I didn’t talk to him. Which is odd as, according to my permanently embarrassed daughters, I’ll fucking speak to anybody. But Dustin gave off a really strong vibe. Which emanated as “keep away or FUCK OFF, whichever you prefer”. He was sitting with his wife and Twiggy!! and her husband. And Dustin didn’t say much to them either.

At least I didn’t have to watch the tennis. Where, at Wimbledon, 10 British players got beaten on Monday and another 6 yesterday. All the (relatively) ‘big ones’ have gone, with Raducanu and Draper not even starting due to injuries or not being bothered to play. Out of the 16 who went out, I could possibly name 1. And only because I find Katie Boulter rather attractive in that fit, lean, blonde… kind’a way. The good news is we still have about 6 players still remaining in the Wimbledon tournament.

Tomorrow will doubtless be a different conversation.

Where’s Andy Murray when you need him?

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Today’s heading was intended as word play. Between incense, the smelly wooden things which hippies used to burn in order to commune with their inner yogis, and incense, the feeling of extreme anger following some form of tragic, possibly catastrophic, injustice, like getting a parking ticket. Then I realised that my odd and low-level dyslexia prevents me from knowing how to spell either, or even copy the fucking word from google without mixing up the ‘c’s and ‘s’s. So we’ll just skip straight to the PISSED OFFFFF without worrying.

The United Nations (all spit. We used to ‘all bow’, but they’re not what they were…) have a ‘special rapporteur’ for women’s issues. Mainly, abuse and rape. But also ‘climate control’, as specific to women. And before you say the inevitable ‘WTF?’, remember, any woman with a climate control will set it higher. So she’s there, by the self-appointed ‘highest court in the fucking world!!!!’, with a brief to care for women’s rights. And following her inquiry, she concluded that on October 7th 2023, “no rape took place”. The ‘evidence’ she had was, essentially, the videos that Hamas posted, live on the day, on their own site, of women being raped, beaten, mutilated and murdered. Some of them pregnant. But Reem Alsalem simply wasn’t convinced it was anything to make a fuss about. Nyah; was only a few hundred people, whass’all the noise about? Nothing against women happening there.

So I’d just like to say a quick: FUCK YOU!!! NEEM ALSALEM. And FUCK YOU!!! THE UNITED NATIONS. You are clueless, worthless and I have to agree with Donald Trump, you are not worth the money. If you promote yourselves as ‘the ultimate judges of world morality, unbiased and impartially’, you should be sued for misrepresentation. Oh, and I HATE YOU!!!!

Well, glad that’s off my chest. Note to self: don’t read newspapers; they raise your blood pressure. And at your age…

And so to football. The World Cup!, no less. Currently gracing screens worldwide. And everyone will be positively glued to their tvs on Wednesday night as England take on the Democratic Republic of Congo. A team ranked so lowly that they almost drop off the list. And we need to beat them. But properly. Not 1-nil, not 2-nil, but 7-nil, maybe 8. That’s how you make a statement. Like France do. Even the Swiss notched up a few goals on their path through. We need to start the second half first. I know that sounds tricky, but it can be done. It needs to be done as we apparently take 45 minutes to get started. Except the Ghana match when we never got started at all. Some kind of rest day.

And that’s it. Play better or I’ll become a Brazilian. Again.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

When you get old, there’s only the past. The future is… uncertain. In length and quality. But the thing is; the future is completely unknown and the past so full of rich and wonderful memories. Hence the business of nostalgia. Which sounds like it’s a rheumatic condition affecting the… errrr… nostrils, but is in fact the sheer enjoyment of some facet of long-ago.

Like this 1967 Alpha Romeo Spyder. For aficionados, its the original ‘boat tail’ model, before Alpha applied some horrendously ruinous ‘modernism’ a few years later. And after watching The Graduate movie, which starred Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, a totally ‘fuck off’ soundtrack by Simon & Garfunkel and in top billing, a red Alpha Spyder. I wanted this car more than I wanted oxygen to breathe. Never mind I was only about 15 and 2 years away from driving. Or that my car fund was about £2 16s 9d, and a new one of these cost about £10k. I just wanted it. Because to have such a car was the sure fire path to acquiring Katherine Ross, who also starred in the film. And I desperately wanted her too.

So imagine my joy 3 years ago when my favourite brother-in-law told me he’d bought one. Holy Shittttt! I thought. And flew round to take it for a spin. Only to find it arrived in about 14 boxes. Engine in one box. Camshaft in another. Doors. Windscreen. Seats. Wheels. All in boxes. The body was bare. And paintless, other than a few patches of colours past. Being a 1960s Italian car meant it was rusty before the 1970s started. The Italians used only recycled steel for their motor industry back then.

Oh.

I’d have packed it all up and returned it to Amazon, or wherever, for a refund. But the brother-in-law is made of different stuff. He wanted ‘the project’. I wanted ‘the car’. So I let him take the welding course, buy an arc welder (the most after-dinner fun since Trivial Pursuit) and spend the next year cutting massive steel panels into shape and replacing virtually all the underside of the car. Then he had it sprayed and got it back to ‘finish’. Like putting every single part back on. Another year or so. Nothing’s easy. Except my part in the program. Which was go round every now and again and tell him how well he’s doing and replying positively to all the photos and videos he sent me. Even though it was miles away from looking like a car.

But now he’s got this. Sorry, WE have got this. Suddenly it’s a collective thing. And it drives fantastically. It’s noisy, relatively powerful and the most beautiful thing ever. And as I was rounding a corner (the speedo is possibly the only thing not working, which is brilliant, you’re never speeding!!) he put the track ‘Mrs Robinson’ on the system. Jesus loves me more than you will know. Woh, woh, woh. And I cried with nostalgic joy. Which blurred my vision on the next curve, which wasn’t ideal, but hey ho.

I still want one. But without all that sweat. Though my car fund has now increased to £27 12s 9d, so I’m getting closer.

Happy driving

A xxxx

Andy Burnham hasn’t even started the leadership contest for his own political party yet. He’s only been an MP for 2 weeks. And yet is fast becoming burnt out, before he’s even started. The cynical way he was boosted onto the path to Noombah 10 (as he calls it; before he moves it to Manchester, which he’s already planned) has led to the almost universal presumption that ‘he IS the next Prime Minister’. Of MY fucking country. Which, in all likelihood, he will, sadly, become before the heat-wave dies off. Probably why he wants to stay in Manchester. Where it’s always cold and rainy. There is no northern expression for ‘heat-wave’. They don’t have them. Oop thah’re.

He wants to send our money north. To the devolved mayoralties where a bunch of no goods can apparently ‘tackle welfare dependency, deliver social housing and improve 16+ education’. Yet we know that no-one builds houses. Not previous governments, not current ones and certainly not OUR mayor here in London, Sir Sadiq Fuckface. Half the money sent up north will end up in Gaza, run by Hamas, who’ll use it to improve their missiles. The other half will be squandered on meaningless projects, consultancies and quangos on the take. It’s what happens when you send money north of Watford.

But Andy, the socialist, sees ‘the South East’ as some bottomless pot of cash. “We take too much tax from work and not enough from assets”. Setting out his stall. “We need to increase Capital Gains Tax in line with income tax and charge ‘building tax’ on valuable homes.

None of which will raise one extra penny for the exchequer; tax hikes never do. What they do is send all the job creators looking elsewhere. And I’m not talking about Sheffield. They be on the first boat to Dubai, Monaco, Spain, any place where their invaluable talents are appreciated. But Andy has never done a day’s work in his life outside the political arena. He knows nothing about the people who create work; he just sees them as a target for his ‘student-lefty ideology’ and his ‘just world hypothesis’. In short: he’s a tosser. And he’s got a funny face.

In my mind; whatever the problem is, Andy Burnham is never the solution. And then you have to imagine him on the international stage. He’ll need subtitles for the English speakers. Somehow, the socially awkward Keir Starmer managed to get on the right side of Donald Trump. Burnham doing so is simply inconceivable. With his current act as ‘Mr Normal’, ‘Mr Down-to-Earth’. He acts like the leader of the student union.

I’m so unhappy about all this, I may have to watch England play football tonight. At least the temperature in New York should be more tolerable than my tennis was this morning.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

This pic is the Jewish Museum in Warsaw. Just because I like it.

I simply have to talk about the football. Its been on, seemingly forever, at odd times of the… well, of the night and even more nighter. Not in the day at all, really. I’ve just become used to the fact that whenever I turn on the tv (and I watch no daytime tv ever, outside the football season, obvious exception), there’s footy on. And I like that. I like that a lot. Even though the World Cup didn’t excite me, its definitely ‘growing’. And I specifically need to write about football for my mate, Sparkle. Who, just last night, told me how he loves to read my (shit?) stuff, except the football. But the thing is; he SHOULD like the football. Even if you don’t watch one ball kicked the entire season; THIS IS THE FUCKING WORLD CUP!!!! and its an event. Which gathers momentum with each passing day. Until even I start to care about Cape Verde, Curacao are lost, Ecuador beat the Germans, FFS, life gets no better than that!!! You just need to embrace your inner Gary Lineker (if I had one, I’d go see an exorcist tomorrow) and join the ride.

In my heart, I’m Brazilian. They are the benchmark for my kind of football. They first and foremost play for fun. A trend which runs right across South America, and to a slightly lesser degree, across the African nations too. They basically put 11 total show-offs on the pitch and let them show off. Which at times leads to immense frustration, but at other times, to amazed wonder and excitement at the flow, the deftness, the skill and sheer artistry of these guys.

In the northern Hemisphere, we’re more serious about things. We stress more. Hence in the Scotland vs Brazil match, those dour Scots (not as dour as the Poles but on the same page) decided that a dour approach was the way to inhibit and frustrate the Brazilian superstars. No place for fun; too serious. So they ‘stayed back’ and tried to defend their allotted 90 minutes away, but… but… conceded three goals trying. Because Brazil were just more fun.

The 9 o’clock games (4 o’clock, ‘over there’) are great because they end about 11 our time and I’ve watched the final 20 minutes of about 26 matches in the last weeks. A much better use of time that watching the first 70 minutes of those games. The end’s always the good bit. Like last night. The sheer pleasure of seeing Germany beaten, even though they’re far from ‘out’, sent me to bed with a smile on my face and in my heart.

England started fairly well, then played Ghana and descended to the usual England shit, dross and disappointment, so unless things change in the upcoming Panama match, I’m Brazilian. Possibly Colombian.

Basically, despite my initial lack of enthusiasm, I’m hooked. And it can only get better!!

Happy Friday, Sparkle (if you’ve read this far).

A xxxx

And so to Warsaw. What a great city. Its big. Really big. Don’t know why they always called it ‘packed’, but there ya go. And as all Poles are quick to point out; at the end of the war, their nation was “”””Liberated””””. And the excessive use of quotation marks indicates the level of irony in that ‘liberation’. Because their liberators from Nazi occupation were the Russians. Who, after the inevitable session of murder, rape and pillage which still signifies any Russian visit, to this day, stayed in Poland for the next 40-odd yeas until perestroika in the late 80s finally un-yoked them from the communist masters in Moscow.

The Nazis marched into Warsaw in 1939 and by 1940 had built a ‘ghetto’ to house the Jewish population. Estimated at the time to be in excess of 300,000. So by the forced removal of all these people from their affluent homes, their humble apartments, their synagogues and schools and clubs, the Germans had provided themselves with some nice accommodation. And the ghetto was basically the standard Nazi tactic of rounding up ‘the enemy’ so they could be locked in, starved and ‘readied’ for ‘shipment to the East’. That fabulously mysterious phrase, so full of promise, but with a reality so horrendous none could ever guess and even if told, would never believe it.

But unlike all the other ghettos, the Warsaw ghetto had an uprising. They actually took on the Nazis in combat and did pretty well. Having realised you are pretty much dead whether you stay compliant and bullied or whether you stand and possibly inflict some form of damage on your enemy; what would you do? Who of us would ever know and if we’re lucky, will never have to know. But the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto dug into the basements and forced the Nazis into hand-to-hand combat. The ghetto was destroyed, most inhabitants remaining (the vast majority had been ‘deported’) died, but it was the resistance which was important.

Which leaves us with the Poles. Not the friendliest race in the world. Bit grim. Bit dour. Yet our guides across our visit are keen to stress that the Nazis were the baddies, which they were. And the Poles were the invaded people, which they were, and they already had the Russians who’d invaded half their country. So it’s always stressed that the Poles were victims, alongside the holocaust. Because many Poles were sent to the camps as well, like all the communists they could find. Yet, as with the French, there was undoubtedly compliance. Much of it forced; turn in Jews or you’ll die, and your family. Kind’a thing. And many Poles joined the nazis. We know this, even though it’s not mentioned by the tour guides. And I’m not making judgments, the Nazis not only made it very appealing to join the club, but also made life very uncomfortable if you didn’t comply willingly.

My grandmother left Poland, aged 1, in 1901, to move to the opulent luxury of a 3-room flat in Petticoat Lane. Because life had become too violent, too hard, too antisemitic for her parents to raise their family there. Long before either world war.

So ‘the jury’ (which sits permanently in my head) is out on Poland. Though Krakow and Warsaw are fabulous cities, rich in a long and wonderful history. Ok, some of it is wonderful.

I’m home now. And God, it is so fucking hot!!!!

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

If I’d have known that Keir Starmer was resigning on Monday, I’d have asked him and ‘Vic’ to join us in Poland. Not like he’s got anything better to do. There’s only so many times you can write: “I FUCKING HATE. ANDY BURNHAM WITH ALL MY HEART AND SOUL!!!!”, before getting bored. Even dull-as-dishwater Keir must have limits to repetitive, boring statements, unless they’re coming from his lips, preceded by “let me make this perfectly clear…”

It was of little concern yesterday morning as we took a really fantastic walking tour of ‘Jewish Krakow’. Fascinating. Because Poland is unique among European countries, particularly Catholic ones, in that they never officially threw the Jews out. Like the Italians, Spanish, French, Portuguese… all did. The usual: CONVERT! LEAVE! OR DIE!!, never reached Europe’s eastern reaches. Which is why, during the 13th, 14th, right up to 19th centuries, Poland’s Jewish population grew, as it became a welcome exile for all Europe’s tossed out Jewry. This may be because, and I mean no offence here at all, the Poles are a bit dim. And therefore the Jews could do the things the indigenous love-children (or more likely ‘rape victims’) of Russians, Germans, Austrians and Slavs, probably weren’t that good at. Things like: counting. Reading. Thinking. Speaking in more than mere grunts. So the Jews were not just tolerated but encouraged. Of course, it was not plain sailing all the way; that would be impossible. Thus every few hundred years some (usually) priest or man of power would accuse the Jews of eating local babies, being devil worshippers, causing the floods/droughts, cheating at backgammon and the pogroms would ensue. Otherwise, Poland was good to and for the Jews.

But when the Nazis marched into Krakow in 1939 to reclaim that bit of Poland as ‘forever part of Germany; always has been’, the locals thought it might be rude to point out that ‘Germany’ didn’t actually exist until 1871, so in came the Panzers and the long black leather coats. The Jews were put into a ghetto because Krakow was declared ‘German’ and thus could not be ‘tainted’ by such horrendous racial impurity as rabbis and bagel bakers or, in fact, anyone with a circumcised penis. And these tragic souls became the first part of Hitler’s horrendous ‘final solution’. Shipped off to the camps which would later become places of industrialised death.

There were 75,000 Jews in Krakow before the war. Today there are 900. The ‘Jewish Quarter’ is a wonderful, vibrant, hip, cool and trendy area of cafes, restaurants, bars and fab food markets. They filmed Schindler’s List there, FFS, because his famous factory is just around the corner. And if 65,000 murders can’t put you on a map of the world’s conscience, 10 minutes of Spielberg and Hollywood gives you immediate world headlines.

In common with ‘Jewish Quarters’ all over Europe, just like Le Marais in Paris, they stand as a stark reminder of where Jews USED TO live. They survive as areas re-purposed whilst retaining their pre-war description. They are trendy places to hang the terrible signs of where the ghetto stood, where the Jews were shipped off from, with reminders of how many died and how happy they’d been before the Nazis arrived. A testament to tragedy.

However, I fucking loved Krakow. It’s a really gorgeous city. And now I’m in Warsaw to learn of more joys and tales of disaster and death. Why else would anyone ever go to Poland?

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

We’re quite experienced travellers. As you’ll know if you’ve been paying attention. All those pics of me in my bikini; they’re generally not taken in Trafalgar Square. Me and Mel at the Taj Mahal, Iguasu Falls, Royal Palace in Bangkok, Sydney Opera House; they’re not in fucking Shoreditch!!! And to travel is stressful, we know that, and the airlines generally try to make it as difficult, unfriendly and hostile as possible. But I can’t really blame them for us missing our flight to Krakow Sunday morning. That was… probably… in all likelihood… on balance of probabilities… my fault. I won’t bore you with the details, it’s too painful for me, but there we were, at Heathrow, 8 o’clock in the morning, being told we can’t get on, there’s not enough time. Even though there was. BA were really helpful. Ok, they weren’t. They really weren’t. They were the diametric opposite of ‘helpful’. They were, collectively, a sneering bunch of obstructive motherfuckers only toooooo happy to say, ‘no’. There were no other flights to Krakow that day. We found an EasyJet from Gatwick in the afternoon but… no room on board for our bags. So we took a lunchtime flight to Warsaw. Then had to get a (2 hour) train down to Krakow. We made it. We had ARRIVED!!!! Ok, it was midnight, but we had ARRIVED!!!

In case there was any doubt we were in Poland, the instant awareness of the over-riding national pastime of ‘scowling’ left us in no doubt. We’d arrived in a post-Soviet Eastern bloc country where the shackles were lifted a generation ago but the cultural after-shocks last forever. No smiling. No eye contact. Better with the Gen Zs or Millennials or however you described young people here, but the middle-aged and over are grim. Maybe they think the same of ‘us Westerners’. Grim but smiling like idiots.

Yesterday we went to Auschwitz. Its horrible. I don’t think I actually learned a lot about it that I didn’t already know, having taken what probably amounts to the collective degree level of studies taken over a lifetime, but it gives it a real place. And a real size. Because it’s fucking massive. 40 square kilometres dedicated to the murder of people the Nazis didn’t like. Yes, Jews, but lots of others too. Gypsies, gays, ‘political enemies’, Russians. But mainly the Jews. In 1935, 10% of Poland was Jewish. Now it’s virtually nothing. Same for most other European countries occupied during the Nazi reign across Europe.

And when you get to Birkenau, or Auschwitz 2, as they call it, the sheer scale of the German death machine just hits you. It’s a massive place which, in its ‘heyday’ could slaughter up to 10,000 people a day. It was industrialised murder on a scale never before or since even imagined. The marriage of ruthless German efficiency to the insane ideology of Hitler and his acolytes. And you would really have to admire the efficiency if it related to anything else other than the wholesale slaughter of human beings. Who first have to be ‘de-humanised’ in the eyes of the guards, the soldiers, the camp workers and everyone else. Otherwise the machine would break down if there was any kind of conscience in play.

It is, quite frankly, fucking horrible. The absolute worst place the world has ever known. It didn’t have me breaking down in tears, nor any other form of emotional outpouring. It just made me feel sick that people could be made to willingly participate in such an activity over such a prolonged period of time.

Otherwise, we’re having a fab time in Poland (?)

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I think I’m ready. I’m 70. (Though possibly only 60 according to the Times today). All my life I’ve heard about ‘the concentration camps’ and about Auschwitz. And so tomorrow, that’s where we’re headed. To Poland. To Krakow. To… Auschwitz. To see the site of the worst GEN-O-CIDE the world has ever seen. This was not some: “Oh, 3 people died in a car crash; ITS GENOCIDE!!!”, this was the real deal. Hitler’s masterplan to enhance the master race by exterminating the Jews of Europe. All of them. He ‘only’ managed to murder 6 million of them. A vast number at Auschwitz/Birkenau. So we’re doing a… pilgrimage?

2 weeks ago we visited the Nova exhibition. Which showed how, when and where 378 people were murdered at the music festival on October 7, by Hamas. Arguably another act of genocide as Hamas’s stated intention is to rid Israel and then the world of Jews.

And thus is life for the Jew. Visiting sites of death, destruction, murder, annihilation, eviction, persecution or slavery. Our most sacred world site is the Western Wall in Jerusalem. All that’s left after the Romans left the city, having probably run out of wine to drink or sheep to shag. So they destroyed the Second Temple (don’t even ASK about the first, oyyyyyy) and left us a wall. Ok we have some lovely synagogues; in Florence, in Budapest, even Buenos Aries, truly magnificent places. The one in Rome is spectacular. But we love our wall. I think there’s a degree of self pity involved in this. You have St Paul’s Cathedral; the Dome of the Rock; the Vatican. We have three quarters of a broken down wall. It also fits into the more Catholic narrative of deprivation and poverty. Less is more where religions compete for devotion through suffering.

Basically; Jews are like Millwall. Everyone hates us and we don’t care. Well, we do care, but seem powerless to stop the hatred. But my question really is deeper. More profound. More philosophical. More theological.

What the fuck was God doing over the last 2000 years and more, whilst all this shit was going on? Had he gone to the World Cup? Was he watching Netflix? I mean, why bother praying to a God for ‘protection’ and ‘salvation’ when he can’t look away from ‘Married at First Sight; Australia’ for long enough to save any of the above?

And for those who pray regularly to ‘commune’ with their maker. Why the fuck would you bother? Because when the shit hits the fan, God’s apparently on a tea break. So what’s the point of praying to God? When He clearly doesn’t give a shit about you? That whole ‘omnipotence and omniscience’ thing is all well and good but if it’s not used for good purposes, then what’s is the point? It’s pretty well proven that since the parting of the Red Sea (yeah, but bear with me) God has done nothing for the Jews. The Holocaust was his ‘cup final moment’. When he could ‘so easily’ have done something purposeful. Yet didn’t. So what’s he likely to do when Aunt Kitty breaks her leg?

And yet the history of ‘my people’ intrigues me so much that I’ve always felt the need to visit ‘the camps’.

Go figure.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Not Charlie, he’s fine. It’s a metaphor, innit? The ‘king’ in this instance being Keir Starmer. Knight of the realm, King’s Counsel, Gooner and southern pooftah. And the new ‘king’, who shall ‘long live!’, is Andy Burnham. Former mayor of Manchester and… errrr… well, MAN OF THE NORTH!!! Proudly so. No shortening of those horrendous Manc vowels in that man’s life. If you cut him he’d bleed some horrible northern ale, all flat and warm and tasteless. Like his wife.

Because today’s the day that just 75,000 people get the chance to change our PM. That’s the size of the electorate in Makerfield. And if Burnham wins he’ll be an MP again, and he’ll challenge Starmer’s leadership, probably by breakfast tomorrow. This is probably the likely outcome of today’s vote. Because Reform’s vote has been reduced by the other bunch of sanitised neo-Nazis, Restore UK. Which will allow Andy a clear run.

Which, in turn, will be pretty much a(nother) disaster for Britain. The last thing we need is a ‘career politician’ in number 10. Having lawyers there is bad enough but at least they understand the ‘working world’ to some extent. They’ve been ‘in it’. Burnham not only lives exclusively within the rarified confines of politics-land but has restricted himself to the northern half of it at that. It’s like becoming an estate agent because you’ve played monopoly. On a board upon which ‘Piccadilly’ is not the one near Leicester Square, but 200 miles up the road.

Burnham will tax anyone who doesn’t speak like he does. He hates London. He resents the south. Probably jealous of Spurs.

So thank God for the football, as a wonderful distraction from the by-election.

I’m so glad I’m the biggest England fan ever. I have a 3 Lions tattoo just under my heart. Ok, it peels off, but it’s REAL to me. And I wouldn’t miss a match. Not counting those I’ve missed. But last night… LAST NIGHT!!!! I was in Texas! Ok, bit like the tattoo, I was there but not necessarily bodily. I only go there in person for KKK meetings. And the beers in my lounge are 3.50 a can as opposed to $15 at the match. It was a game of two halves. The first was more fun, the second more clinical for England. Harry Kane! HARRY KANE!!! Other than that stupid ‘stutter-step’ penalty miss (which I fucking HAAAAAAATE), he showed Andy Burnham the virtue of Londoners. Even Declan Rice was quite good, despite playing for Arsenal. Djed Spence was outstanding when he came on; being both London born and playing for Spurs. Brilliant match, fabulous time, lovin’ this World Cup. Til we draw.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx