Andy's Glasses

We went out with friends for dinner last night. Booked it a few days ago. Just somewhere ‘local’, so we went to our favourite. Ok my favourite. I have as many ‘absolute favourite restaurants’ as I have ‘absolute favourite movies’. But the Hummus Bar is wonderful. And the… errrr… hummus, is outstanding. It happens to be kosher. Even though I’m not. In any significant way. Other than my wife’s house, which is kosher. This is not an uncommon situation among the half-fallen. And the Hummus Bar is in Golders Green. Where, yesterday morning, about 100 yards up the road, a fucking nut-job with a knife stabbed 2 perfectly innocent guys just because they were overtly Jewish. They wore skull caps. Ok, one was wearing a bit more, the full ‘Poland in the winter’ get-up. That was their ‘crime’. They were Jews. And this fucker tried to kill them. Not just ‘slash them a bit’, no. I’ve seen the video. He went for their throats. Hard. If his knife had been longer they’d both be dead. But because he was deranged, a mental health case with a history of violence, (WHY WAS THIS MAN WALKING THE STREETS AT ALL????), he chose about a 2 inch blade. Thank God for small morons.

Golders Green is almost a synonym for a collection of Jewish people. Even though half the high road is now owned by Turks. Who we like. Because Likya is my favourite kebab place. But as you head north up the Golders Green Road, you get more why it has the reputation. It gets ‘very Jewish’. However, if you walk through the crowds of Jews, mostly in some form of Jewish attire, even if just a kippa, and you were a vicar, or a Catholic priest, or you had a headscarf or full Indian garb, that would be just fine. No-one would break their conversation (always a lot of talk going on) to even notice. We don’t demand exclusivity.

So Mel asked me, understandably just as we were getting ready to leave; ‘should we be going to a kosher, Israeli restaurant in Golders Green? Is it safe?’ To which I replied: ‘fuck, YES. We’re going’, in my best John Wayne. Because he probably loved hummus too.

And you have to carry on with ‘normal life’. Even though ‘we’ seem to be under attack. Golders Green has become ‘hate central’ as various groups of assholes have fire-bombed, desecrated and now attempted murder, on the Jewish community. For no reason other than it is Jewish. No-one asked if these people were zionists. Which is perceived in some circles as some sort of crime. Many ultra-religious are not Zionists. The first guy stabbed yesterday, in the full Charedi kit was very likely not a Zionist. They don’t think Jews should live in Israel until the messiah comes back. And they’re not talking about football. But anyway, Jews are under attack.

And I really don’t know why. Ok, we can be very annoying and argumentative. No names. But generally we’re not aggressive, poisonous or violent. We don’t demand anything from anyone. We’re a very self-sufficient group. Yet we are now apparently hated to the extent where it is quite literally ‘open season’. So why the hate?

Much of the problem, obviously, stems from the Middle East. Even though half of us come from Poland and Germany. But we are Zionists. We may not love Netenyahu, we certainly don’t agree with a lot of what he does, but if anyone needs to ask the question as to why we’re Zionists, the current state of affairs in north London tells you the answer. We need a refuge. But the media, the hate groups, the Palestine Actioners, aided and abetted by a toothless government too scared to cause any possible offence to the greater Muslim community with elections coming up next week, have conflated ‘Israel’ with ‘Jews’, just like Hamas does, and the IRCG does. And therefore, if you hate Israel, you’re now allowed to hate Jews, AND do so demonstratively and violently.

The government have pledged another 25 mil for extra policing and security. Which is a band aid and does nothing to address the actual problem. As Johnny Friedland said last night, quite brilliantly, basically, ‘where’s the Black Lives Matter’ demos about this? In which everybody, not just those persecuted, came out and protested about racism. Where’s the ‘anti-racists’? And those who spout equality and diversity all day long? Where are all the bishops and imams and priests, leading their flocks down Whitehall in a statement of support and abhorrence of the recent attacks? Protesting that my wife can’t go to a local restaurant without security concerns?

We’re not Millwall. Everyone hates us but we DO care. But from most people, however ‘anti-racist’ they might be, the silence is presently deafening.

This is a serious ‘WTF?’ moment for Jews.

Happy deeply concerned Thursday

A xxxx

I bought my e-bike for a specific reason. Bloody tube strikes. When a strike was called, I in turn called me-mate-Mark, to borrow his e-bike. Which had sat in a corner of his house since he’d bought it, annoying his wife. Who prefers different types of ornaments. So, several tube strikes later, I bought it off him. We negotiated. We haggled. We bargained. And eventually came to the perfect price. We both felt we’d done well, and both felt ripped off. Perfect.

Of course, since its acquisition, I started to use it on non-tube-strike days. Yes, there are a few in any given year. And if the sun shines, I’ll take the bike. And the number of days increased (global warming?) to the point where if its not raining, I’ll take the bike. Its quicker, nicer and the best fun you can ever have… in traffic.

I don’t go through red lights. Although I do suffer from colour blindness, on occasion, which make me ‘red-green deficient’. I’m not averse to using the pavements if the roads are blocked. Or traveling along the cycle path for the opposite direction, if I really have to. Like on Haverstock Hell. Used to be called Haverstock Hill but Camden Council have made it 3 year project to keep it under endless reconstruction works.

I love traffic jams. Because I ignore them/go round them/ride across driveways. And I stop for pedestrians… if I absolutely have to. I do try not to kill anybody. Starting with ME.

Tube strikes returned last week; but I was ready. And eager.

And just in case you missed it, last night’s Champions’ League semi-final between Bayern Munich and PSG is only reported upon in untapped depths of hyperbole. And if you read all the reports and distil all the superlatives down and remove the torrent of ‘gushing’ and the plethora of adjectives, all you’re left with is a 5-4 game which is possibly the best match ever played. I’m so pleased to be a lifelong fan of both PSG and Bayern. Well, tomorrow is always the first day of the rest of your life, so why the fuck not? Otherwise I’d be saddled with Spurs forever. And no-one should have to endure that.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

How can they miss?
There’s been not one, not two, but THREE!!! assassination attempts on Donald Trump during this presidency, and they’ve all missed. I mean, Americans are full of guns, full of target practice, they have laser guided sights, they have machine guns, shotguns, handguns and yet… he lives. What? He’s not big enough? He’s fucking humungous and bright orange. HOW CAN YOU MISS THAT, FFS??? All we can surmise is that assassins ain’t what they used to be. ‘Back in the day’, all you needed was some old Winchester single-shot thing and BOOM!!, there drops Abraham Lincoln. JFK similarly and he was small and slim and not orange. They managed to shoot Ronald Regan, in the same venue as Saturday’s Trump not-shooting, but fortunately didn’t kill him. Do they need compulsory eye tests for getting a gun license? They should do but as licenses there are available to ‘all’ according to their precious Second Amendment, being half-blind doesn’t preclude gun ownership. Nor does being an escaped convict, a serial killer, drug dealer, schoolkid with a grudge or any other form of mental disability. The greater the level of potential insanity, the more guns you get. Free. On ‘benefits’. Every month you get $1400 and an Uzi.

There’s something deeply troubling, as our Lord and Monarch flies into the ‘land of the free (guns), home of the brave (shooters). And more deeply troubling about an already troublesome president suffering from severe ‘John Wayne syndrome’. He not only reconciles all these shooting attempts as ‘part of the job’, but he actually loves them. They ‘add to the legend’. Of a vain narcissist. They lionise him.

Any normal president, even a mathematically challenged one, could perceive some vague correlation between the number of guns on the streets (estimated at well over a billion on all the streets of the 50 states) and the quite ridiculous level of gun crimes, shooting sprees and murder attempts. They may even have some fleeting thought of trying to do something about it.

This latest shooter was, by all accounts, a really decent guy. A teacher. Highly qualified. Quiet, good family, nice home, decent area… blah, blah, blah. He lived with his parents at 30, but… well, ya’know, maybe saving for a home? Who knows. And no previous anything. Yet when something ‘clicked’, some ‘trigger’ happened, this guy grabs his gun(s) and goes chasing the president. Why? Because he has guns around. And he can.

I bet Ernie Dosio wouldn’t have missed. But a few African elephants put paid to that, so we’re stuck with Trump for a little while longer. He’s currently ‘in between assassination attempts’.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I’d like to discuss the ‘world of football’. I’m not actually talking about the leagues, the non-league teams, the Bundesliga, La Liga, Le Liga or any other fucking Liga, nor international football, World Cups, nothing like that. I want to ‘refine the search’. I want to ‘focus in’. Because my poor, tragically abused Spurs mind is currently completely oblivious to all of that ‘world of football’ and is concentrating with laser guidance at just the Premier League. Or more specifically, positions 17 and 18. And that is currently where my entire life is being lived. Below 18 is of absolutely no significance whatsoever. Above 17 is merely of no concern at all. Ok, for Arsenal to win the league is something even some of their own fans don’t want. Yes, I’ve spoken to them. And they say that, were they to win the league, they would become so unbelievably smug and condescending that they’d hate themselves totally and forevermore. So they’re secretly hoping that the previous levels of choke-age return soon.

Position 18, which we currently occupy, is the position of death. It is relegation. It is oblivion. Disgrace. Shame. Doom. Penury. Disaster. A black hole. Bankruptcy. Whereas position 17 is salvation. Security. It where Jesus lived when he ‘died to save us’. That’s currently occupied by West Ham United. And with Nottingham Forest just about ‘clear’ and Leeds up-and-away, it would appear that the mighty, the beloved, the magnificent Tottenham Hotspur, God’s own team, are battling evil, nasty, demonic, working class!!!, West Ham, Beelzebub’s team, and only one will survive. Only one will be at 17 when the dust settles.

Yesterday was sheer agony. Because an amazing thing happened. Something that hasn’t happened before since 2026 began. An event so rare that hen’s with a mouthful of teeth stopped clucking in amazement. Blue roses turned their heads towards Wolverhampton. Where Spurs won a football match. Yes, it had to happen sometime. It was never likely to happen at home because for some reason we’re not allowed to do that. So dids’t occur, the miracle of Molineux.

But starting the day 2 points behind West Ham, we really needed them to lose, or even draw, to overtake them, should that unlikeliest of wins happen. And the Hammers took the lead against Everton. We were 0-0. The games were getting late. When suddenly two things happened. Everton scored at West Ham and Spurs scored at Wolves. The Holy Grail. The stars aligned. We were ahead, 85 minutes into the games, ‘as the table stood’ at that time. We had reached Nirvana. 17th place! Holy shit. Dare we resort to that most fickle of emotions: hope!

And that lasted for about 15 minutes until West Ham hit a late winner. Jumping back to 17th, Spurs back at 18th, still 2 points behind.

To say that goal was ‘devastating’ is to understate all previous definitions of ‘devastating’. And whilst the world appeared, to the uninformed, to just ‘carry on’, my world, viewed through my blue-and-white lens of despair and desperation, just narrowed down to the league table.

I need help. Either more goals or more psychiatrists. But something.

Happy Sunday (will they EVER be happy again???)

A xxxx

We will all share in the mourning of poor Ernie Dosio. Even though we never heard of him whilst he was alive for 75 years. Lots of animals had heard of him. Though they probably never heard the shot of the bullet that killed them from Ernie’s rifle, as bullets travel faster than sound and you never hear the bullet that kills you. Well, bison have ears. Warthogs, leopards, deer, lions, antelopes and yellow-backed duikers. Because Ernie was one of those rich American ‘hunters’ with a room filled with animal corpses. Well, he called them ‘trophies’. And he’d killed so many, he even had a rhino head. All ‘legally killed’. Most things are ‘legal’ if you pay enough money.

But then the tragedy. Ernie was after his yellow-backed duiker (funny looking, hump-backed cross between a cow and a deer and a hyena; but when you’ve killed all the normal lovely animals you have to do something with your spare time) when he and his guide walked into 5 female elephants who were in various stages of giving birth. It was basically a free-form maternity ward in Gambon.

Things to know about African elephants:
1. They’re fucking massive
2. They’re fucking massive
3. They’re fucking massive
4. They’re no fun when giving birth. Not quite as angry as female humans giving birth, but much, much bigger.
5. They are very protective of their young.
6. They’re fucking massive.

Had Ernie known any of this, he may be alive today. But he obviously wasn’t interested in ‘animals’, other than shooting them. So he strolled in and got trampled to death by a few 5 ton elephants. And when I read about this terrible end to a life, I couldn’t help but think:

There is a God. And very occasionally he acts in ways not so mysterious. And because he’s God, He has the ultimate sense of irony.

RIP Ernie.

The elephants have asked if they can have Ernie’s body stuffed so they can put it in their lounge.

Joey and Lila had a tennis lesson yesterday. Their mum gave them some shorts and t-shirts to change into. Joey refused the blue shorts he’d been offered. Because ‘proper tennis players’ only wear orange shorts and white t-shirts. And the properest tennis player of them all is his grandfather. Who only ever wears orange shorts and a white t-shirt. WELL DONE JOEY!!! Who can hit a fucking tennis ball properly wearing blue shorts?? Phah.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

There’s a lot of issues about the Iran war. I mean, petrol went up, FFS, and no-one wants that. We’re strapped for oil, inflation’s rising and there seems no possibility to a ‘meaningful’ end to the war. Ok, Trump ‘extended’ the ceasefire at the 11th hour, as he fairly consistently does. As would any sensible person who has no idea where the fuck its going or what the hell he’s doing there.

But we do know what Israel is doing there. I’m no fan of Benyamin Netanyahu. But I’d want him on my team in times of crisis. And Israel is in crisis and has been for many years. Southern Israel and Northern Israel would resemble Gaza and Beirut if they didn’t have a missile protection system. They’d have been levelled years ago by the incessant missile attacks from Hamas in the south aallnd Hezbollah in the north. I don’t know how many liberal Brits marched every week to protest the schools and kibbutzim and hospitals in Israel which were constantly under potential bombardment, but I never received an invitation.

So for Israel, ‘doing something about Iran’ is not an opportunistic attack on an old enemy. It is a fight for its very survival and existence. Which is threatened daily by Hamas, Hezbollah and now the Houthis too, all ‘proxies’ of Iran. Funded, armed and organised by Tehran and its hateful regime.

Therefore, however Netanyahu managed to get Trump to ‘join him’ in the attack, was clever, probably devious, would have to have been made to be ‘Trump’s idea’ and explains why Benyamin is happy to receive the odd ‘slap on the wrist’ from Mr Prez.

And, because its now apparently almost morally illegal to be a Zionist in this country, the attack has been widened to just Jews. All and any of ’em.

Because Iran’s pledge, echoed by the Hamas charter, is not just to destroy Israel, but to get rid of the world’s Jews. To which end a really nice organisation called by the catchy name of Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, has claimed responsibility for the recent arson attacks on Jewish ‘things’ in north London. It would appear they ’employ’ total fucking morons, who can’t spell ‘ideology’, let alone embrace one, to go around petrol bombing synagogues, Jewish buildings, even possibly ambulances, ‘for the IRGC!!!’ How can they afford all that petrol at today’s prices??

I’m not sure if Green Party local candidate in Bournemouth, Feda Shahin, is employed directly by the Ayatollah, but she reckons “Zionists have killed 20 million Christians and are trying to control the world”. I’m a Zionist but, to my knowledge, haven’t killed any Christians. If I did I’d get a little cross tattoo under my eye. Though by Shahin’s reckoning I’d pretty soon run out of face. And as for controlling the world? I can barely control my own bladder.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

We listen to the news, we hear about the ‘energy crisis’, yet we pooh-pooh the very concept of ‘renewable energy’ as something we’ll consider when we need it, we burn oil and gas for all we’re worth and we laugh when we hear of countries having programmed power cuts to conserve power. Basically; we just take it for granted. Plug it in and turn it on. What could go wrong?

Well today I had a taste of doomsday. A brief insight into the world that, ‘Eye-ran deals or no-deals’ notwithstanding, we may soon be entering.

My power was turned off at work. It was ‘planned’, so two scruffs from UK Power could change a little box. Not just any ‘little box’ but the one wot brings electricity to my building. Because the old little box (no idea of its official description, but its important) had gone manky and horrid and, allegedly, potentially dangerous. So I spoke to ‘elf’n’safety’ (me) who contacted HR (me) and it was put to the board (more me) and voted, 1-nil, to replace the box. And whilst they did it; the power was off.

About 45 minutes of no power.

No computers. No phones (they’re digital and run on the wifis, which you don’t get without power). Same with the credit card terminal; can’t authorise without the router. I was charging my bike; that went off. And my phone, and that went off too. Can’t make tea. That’s a big one. Oh, or do any work. In any meaningful way.

And as we sat shivering heatlessly in the dark, twiddling our thumbs, I thought; this is what life was like, just after the Stone Age. When humans built houses and buildings but didn’t yet have anything to do in them as they waited for electricity to be invented just a few centuries later, so they could charge their… errrr… swords. And axes. Yes.

We could have built a fire to sit round, providing heat and light, but the fucking mess would have been terrible and indoor bonfires are banned. Due to what happened in Pudding Lane in 1666.

The power returned. The scruffs departed. Everything turned back on; we’d stepped (literally) out of the dark ages back to 21st century normal.

I went straight to Robert Dyas and bought a roof-top windfarm, three solar panels and a diesel powered generator. In case the little box needs replacing again. Though there’s no wind, the sun’s not shining and my diesel is stuck in the Straits of Hormuz!!!

Happy Monday

A xxxx

One resorts to poetry when mere words strung together won’t suffice,
In matters of love and sorrow, broken hearts and departures from this life.
Like Country and Western, with dead dogs excluded, but without the silly hats,
and obviously no line-dancing to make them look like twats,

Outpourings of a devastated soul and shattered dreams sound better if they rhyme
Or football match victories ripped mercilessly away in the depths of extra time.
Its that feeling of ‘I’ll never get over this’, something deep with boundless sorrow,
Which won’t feel any better when you wake up on every tomorrow.

And so to yesterday, in the game at White Hart Lane,
When Brighton came a’striding, to play the beautiful game.
They were the ‘best team in the league’, measured on current form,
And strutted onto the pitch with winning as their norm.

And let’s be honest, Spurs have not been playing ‘very well’,
An understatement of such magnitude, it makes anxiety swell.
But heh!, there’s a new manager come to make it all better,
a funny little Italian wrapped up in a dark blue sweater.

He’s worked his magic elsewhere, ironically first at Brighton
Then at Marseilles where he was also pretty right on.
And this was his time, to raise the spirits, lift his sorry team above the gloom
Something we all know, cannot come a moment too soon.

With a future in ‘the Championship’ looking very beckoning,
Our little Roberto faced his true day of reckoning.
The last manager lasted for an entire 9 awful games
Would di Zerbi be added to that tragic list of names??

But he plays stylish football, attacking to a man
With flair and flow and excitement, the players ran and ran.
And scored a goal, a beautiful thing, headed by Pedro Porro
The fans were immediately elevated from all their previous sorrow.

But just before half time a tragedy didst occur
A volley from a Brighton player, so hard it was just a blur.
Yet onwards did Spurs play, for once not giving up
Playing their hearts out as if in the final of a cup

To be magnificently rewarded, late on in the game
By a goal of such exquisite quality, a masterpiece by any name.
The crowd went wild, the joy was just unbounded,
Starved as they were by a victory the cheering loudly sounded.

And then the tragedy occurred, in the late stages of extra time,
A defensive error, an horrendous mistake, by a player playing so fine,
I won’t say who this was, its sad, I just can’t apportion blame,
But if you’re interested, KEVIN DANSO, is his fucking name.

Brighton scored, the match was drawn, 2 points mercilessly stolen
The players hung their heads, their hearts were truly broken.
As they stripped off their shirts, down to their vests of Lycra,
Thinking of next year, swapping their Ferraris for a Nissan Micra.

But is us, the poor, poor fans, who really shoulder the suffering,
The anxst, the agony, the waiting, like watching a computer buffering
Because whatever happens next, its only us who remain
We have to stay positive, which is easy, if you’re insane.

Happy ‘woe is me’ Sunday

A xxxx

Ok, we’ve got a great candidate here for a really top job. You need someone with a proven track record, oodles of charisma and no skeletons in the closet. Well, with this guy, nothing’s in the closet, he came out years ago. But he has everything we need to be Britain’s top overseas representative. A man our nation can be proud of in every respect. But first, obviously, he’ll have to be thoroughly ‘vetted’. And we here at the Foreign Office use the finest of… errrr… vets, to do it. No stone left unturned. If he’s ever even so much as passed one single joint across a room without even smoking it, never mind ‘inhaling’ or not, we’ll find it. Anything untoward, illicit, illegal, immoral (other than being a poof, if you see things that way), or just mildly ‘tainted’ and we’ll find it and that’s it.

So we have Peter Mandelson. Best friends with a convicted paedophile. Thought to have been instrumental in his ‘husband’ acquiring beneficial business loans’ from said paedophile billionaire. We haven’t found ‘membership of Al Quaeda’ yet, but its only a matter of time. And there’s also the very questionable taste in underpants.

Thus, the alleged ‘vetting process’ did indeed find lots of questionable events in Mr Mandelson’s life. So many that he’d struggle to get a job as a teaching assistant in Charlton-with-Newbottle, let alone be the UK Ambassador to Washington.

So we’ll tell the PM that Mandelson has indeed been vetted, within an inch of his life, and that ‘all checks have been completed’ and all that shit, BUT… we won’t mention that he failed miserably and got the lowest score since Fred West and Gary Glitter. We’ll just say ‘all the tests have been done’, full stop. Don’t mention the result.

Which the Prime Minister, or his team, or any of the collective squad of dickheads we loosely call ‘government’, duly accepted as gospel, even though they all knew of the Mandelson/Epstein link.

“But I didn’t know!!!!”, cried a desperate Kier Starmer. “No-one told me!!! Its all because of the civil service failures!!!”

So our hapless, hopeless, clueless Prime Minister threw under the nearest bus the head of the Foreign Office, Sir Olly Robbins. The elected ‘fall guy’. So that everyone thinks the PM didn’t do anything wrong. Or was neglectful in any way. Couldn’t possibly have known ANYTHING!!! about the whole affair.

This will restore Kier’s popularity in the polls. Give us all loads of confidence in the man.

Phew, I’m glad that’s all over now. Nothing more to see here. Let’s move on.

Can’t we?

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Red-heads are taking over. It’s not a quick thing, it moves at glacial time, but ginger hair is increasing in frequency. I know how relieved everyone feels knowing that. Which is why a Harvard study spent umpteen fucking years and countless billions of dollars (not mine, fortunately; I’m neither a benefactor of Harvard nor a red-head) conducting DNA tests on as many dug-up human remains, going as far back as they could, and checking for the ‘ginger-gene’. Which also, apparently, makes you more prone to coeliac disease where you’re allergic to wheat germ.

So red hair, and its associated pale skin (same genome set), is evolving in humans. It is evolution, occurring over 40,000 years, so it’s not like everyone in the world is going to wake up next Tuesday with a ginger mane. But for a trait to increase over a significant time, that, my friend, is ‘evolution’ at work. That’s how it works.

So why would red hair be evolutionarily successful if it’s accompanied by an auto-immune disease? Traits are carried forward in reproduction and the more copies of the genome survive, the more successful it is. ‘Bad genes’ carrying diseases generally don’t ‘succeed’ in evolution because so many carriers die without reproducing. It’s all about reproducing. Nothing else. In coining: ‘Survival of the fittest’, Darwin was not talking about tattooed, pumped-up narcissists in the gym or ultra-marathon runners. He was talking about reproductive fitness and nothing else. The more copies of a gene that are made, the more successful it is. End of.

Evolutionary Theory is the Science of Shagging.

Therefore, ginger birds get shagged more than blondes, brunettes and mousys. It is proven, analysed, quantified and is statistically significant. I know, it’s hard to believe when you think of Ed Sheeran, Prince Harry or Fergie, but the numbers don’t lie. If all ginger-tops looked like Jessica Chastain I could understand it, but there ya go. Part of life’s rich tapestry. The red-heads are taking over.

Whilst over in Munich, last night, there was a football match. Bayern played Real Madrid. Champions League quarter final. And if there has ever been a better football match I don’t think I’ve seen it. Other than the 1970 World Cup final. It was simply brilliant. Both teams just outstanding. Harry Kane scored; nothing unusual there; it was his 50th goal this season. And however shitty the Bundesliga might be (and it is) that is still a massive achievement for ‘our’ Harry. Bayern won but… wow. Just… wow. So pleased I’m a lifelong fan of Bayern Munich rather than a wrist-slitter at Tottenham.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx