Andy's Glasses

Having waited about 3 weeks for Sue Grey’s report, only to have the police steam in and insist on a greatly reduced content so as not to upset their own inquiry, I’ve had to simply produce my own one. I’m not a patient man and the world needs to know the truth. Cos they ain’t gonna learn it from Boris, that is for absolute sure. And here is the report, in its entirety, un-edited and non-redacted:

Boris and his team of worthless devotees are all tossers.

End of report.

They showed with an amazing consistency the art of being arrogant, entitled and smug, laughing at the population which they had locked up, legally and morally, whilst choosing an alternative life-style for themselves. An entire culture grew around booze and parties whilst (allegedly) ‘working’. For the good of the nation. Phah! But then, the worst crime of all; the denials. The twisting, turning, down-playing, the nonchalance. Lying. Boris failed in the old dictum: ‘when you’re in a hole, stop digging’. He dug. And dug. And dug. Until the metaphorical blisters on his fingers burst and bled. And still he dug.

Reaching the point at which we currently find ourselves. With a government we don’t believe, trust or in any way like or respect. In fact we hate them. For the duplicity, for the funerals we couldn’t attend, the loved ones who died alone, the weddings cancelled, the birthdays missed. They suspended our lives totally whilst carrying on with their own. And then denied that they’d done that. And continue to do so, but just a little more apologetically than before. If Boris is so ‘totally’ sorry, why has he spent the last 3 months denying he’d done anything to be sorry for?

It’s time for a new broom. A big one. Not for sweeping, but for hitting. Repeatedly. The lot of ‘em.

Happy Report Day

A xxxx

Don’t fuck with Darwin! That’s the golden rule among Spurs fans, evolutionary dabblers, life insurance salesmen and Jurassic Parkers. If you try and re-wire evolution, you are basically messing with God. So recent tales that they’re going to ‘remake’ a Wooly Mammoth, should send a shudder down any vertebrate’s spine. Mainly cos no-one else has one, you get that, don’t you.

Jurassic Park came out in 1993. The original one. The one I saw and loved. The other 18 I ignored. But that was ‘science fiction’, just 29 years ago. Taking a cell from a T.Rex and cloning it. But today that’s easy. Commonplace. Amazon probably do it. Next day on Prime. There’s nothing fictional about it. But why would you? A fucking Mammoth? Who needs one. Who’s that hungry?

On one of the Galápagos Islands, some ship, possibly Darwin’s, who knows, inadvertently unloaded a rat from its hold onto an island. Probably 2 in fact, cos it needed a ‘mate’. And because of the nature of those islands, plentiful food for all and no predators, the rats ‘took over’ within about a week. Ok, a year. So someone introduced a cat. Ok, two cats. I don’t know their names. Within a few years the rat problem was over. But the island was overrun with fucking cats. Arguably a worse problem because of all the hair-balls all over the place.

Of course there’s loads of instances of ‘man’ messing about with evolution, like industrial meat production, dairy farming. And on the other side of the evolutionary coin, there’s hundreds of instances of species, particularly tasty, cookable, served with potatoes and greens in a shallot sauce, type animals, literally eaten to extinction. But man’s a species too. So if we’re particularly piggish at times, isn’t just ‘natural’ evolution due to advantageous or disadvantageous food supply?

Yet ‘bringing animals back’ just doesn’t seem to offer much to the animal being brung back, does it? Just to show how clever we are? To show our total mastery over nature?

To such an extent that the planet is fucked up beyond all belief and won’t be able to support organic life by the time the Mammoth has children. If its a gel Mammoth, obvs.
And can find a boy one.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I must admit to not having watched any of the Australian Open tennis tournament. I should have. I love tennis. I play tennis. I watch every second of Wimbledon I can find. But the Aussie… and the French… New York… nyeh, not so keen. They’re every bit as Grand Slammy as Wimbledon but just not green enough for my tastes as a spectator. Even though I never actually play on grass myself. Preferring other drugs. More medical ones. Though the incentive to watch the Aussie this year was great because Djokovic was sent home, rather spectacularly and famously and as I can’t stand him, that should have made me watch. But didn’t.

Maybe having the big matches on at breakfast time over here was the issue, I don’t know. So I missed the women’s final today. Won by… An Aussie!!!! For the first time since Evonne Goolagong in 1977. So well done to Ash Barty. Even if she looks a bit like the simpleton brother in the Paul Hogan show. I won’t hold that against her. Takes a lot to win a Grand Slam and she was worthy.

The men’s final is tomorrow morning/evening, depending on where you’re watching it and I’m hoping Rafa Nadal wins it. Because he’s lovely. He’s nice. He’s Spanish. And he’ll beat the horrible Djokovic to a 21st Grand Slam win. Though Novak will in fact hold a different record. For the chestiest, stupidest, unvaccinated-est fraudster in tennis. Possibly ever.

His ‘proof of entry’ originally submitted, for an unvaccinated Serbian dickhead, was in the form of two forms. One showing he actually had covid and was testing positive, and another to show he was over it and testing negative. Thus establishing he has antibodies but no longer ‘active’. Yet there’s a little problem. The forms, generated by Serbian computers, show that the ‘negative’, second test has a much higher serial number than the first one, which was generated two weeks before. Which is strange. As computers are nothing if not logical. And, as journalists discovered, is almost impossible. Unless…

Surely the Serbian Conspiracy of 2021/22 couldn’t be such that the nation were behind Novak’s pathetic attempts to dupe the Australian immigration system? By apparently ‘back-dating’ the first test so that his ‘infection’ was in the required time period? Would an entire nation lie?!?!?!? Apparently they would would. And did.

Come on Rafa

A xxxx

Prince Andrew is ‘going the whole way’. He’s going to bat against Virginia Whassername and is demanding a trial by jury. But surely a jury is a ‘jury of your peers’. So they have to find 10 Princes, ideally ones that have also been disowned by their families, and sit them in a room with Gregory Peck. That’s the rules. And Andrew’s defence is based on the ‘amnesia plea’ which is basically: ‘I have no recollection of ever being anywhere or doing anything bad with any children, but if photos or other evidence comes to light which indicates I was there, then I’ll find other methods of obfuscation and squirm out in a different direction’.

And Boris too is in even more trouble. Itself almost unimaginable. Now its Afghanistan. He stated, live and on the BBC, that he certainly ‘didn’t send a demand to evacuate all the dogs from a sanctuary and get them on flights to Britain’. And now a letter has ‘emerged’ which shows that was precisely what happened. The question: ‘who the fuck is worried about stray dogs when Kabul has hundreds of thousands of civilians who in some way aided ‘the occupiers’ and who will face severe hardship under the Taliban and can’t find space on planes’ is best considered from the perspective of (the incumbent) Mrs Johnson. She’s a tree-hugging pet-lover, dog-fancier (YES, I do mean her husband) and all round animal saviour. Whereas in Carrie-world there’s no shortage of Afghanis, thousands on every news report, so if a few get lost along the way… oh please, Boris, PLEA-EASE, get the doggies home to mummy…

And so we await the Grey Report. Which is not a general report of Boris repeatedly lying to, misleading, telling fibs and being a reprobate, both to Parliament and, more importantly, to us, the voting population, but just comments on whether rules were broken during lockdown. Do we really need a ‘report’ and an ‘inquiry’ to decide whether any of the 19 gatherings of up to 60 people getting pissed in close proximity in any way constituted ‘a party’? Do we really need that?

With Boris and Andrew, the moral example from the upper echelons of our society is not really the best. Unfortunately we can’t sack Andrew. Even though the Queen already has.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

When you hit 65, by all accounts you should just be dead. It’s the way it used to be. It’s the way humanity began. But back then, living in caves, eating raw dinosaurs, you’d probably only make 38. Not that anyone could actually count that high ‘back in the day’. Biblically it became ‘four score and ten’, raising life expectations to 70. Unless you got crucified. Eaten by a whale. Floated down the river as a baby. Or slain by Babylonians.

But now at 65 you’re barely entering middle-age. It’s a fact. Because in the old days they held old people together with blu-tack and sellotape and performed medicine with a carpenter’s tool box. And nowadays its a bit more slick. And efficient. All ‘key-hole’ and genetic re-modelling.

I had a blood test. To check my thyroxin levels. Which were absolutely fine. But…

But. There were 47 other things wrong with me, according to my blood. Mainly, my cholesterol level was… the same as it was last year! And the year before! And for over a decade before that!!! The same. Holy fuck, is that serious? It hasn’t changed. Ah, but you have, because you’re now 65, thus the algorithms change and your risk changes, therefore you’re going on statins. Ok, I can do another pill.

But your PSA is raised! Oh. That’s the ‘marker’ for prostate problems. And for ‘problems’ read ‘cancer’. Yet not quite because there is no easy way to test or scan for prostate cancer, otherwise the number one killer of men would have us all undergoing it every year. PSAs are like Spurs buying a new player. It may be a massively great thing, but probably not. But if your PSA is high, they have ‘protocols’. Testing. Don’t ask. And that’s the least of it. Scans, bladder tests, more blood tests. Over the last 3 months I’ve pissed more into little plastic pots than into toilets. And finally, having a ‘biopsy’ of my prostate. And I don’t have cancer. I do have ‘atypical cells’, which are (apparently) different from ‘abnormal cells’, but I can live with that. I hope.

So now I’ve got that shit out of the way, I can have my new shoulder. It’s waiting for me, they’re polishing the titanium right now and I asked them just to copy Roger Federer’s.

Having spent the first 65 years never going to hospital, I’m now thinking of moving in permanently to save on fares.

Happy HEALTHY Wednesday

A xxxx

I’ve been researching cars. Pretty much for my whole life. I like cars. But specifically, what makes a ‘supercar’ and what makes a ‘hypercar’? And from what I can ascertain from my extensive and in-depth 4 minute look on Wikipedia is that ‘hypercars’ suffer from excessive hyperbole and thus supercars must suffer from excessive superbole. But really it comes down to price. There’s normal cars. Then, when they get really, stupidly expensive, they become ‘supercars’ and when the price exceeds what 25 bus drivers will earn in 3 lifetimes, they become ‘hypercars’. Though as a rule of thumb, cars that produce in excess of 1000 horses of power kind’a qualify as ‘hypercars’. And they’re all going to cost north of a million quid.

And much as its all a bit ‘for the purists’ and is a form of mechanical masturbation to build cars capable of speeds in excess of 250mph to drive on roads with 20mph speed limits plagued with pot-holes and speed bumps, I’ve always been fond of excess.

So your average Porsche of high end Merc or even Ferrari is a ‘supercar’, you need to venture into the McLarens and Paganis and Koenigsegg or Bugatti to enter the real ‘hyper world’. Or something Lamborghini or Ferrari which is limited edition to really have something to brag about and mention the ‘H’ bomb. Something so fast and furious as to be barely road-worthy. And needs to sound like the start of the Indianapolis 500.

Then along comes Elon Musk and upsets the apple cart. With this little Roadster. Which is ‘only’ going to cost about 200 grand (order one now, or maybe 2 in case one gets a flat tyre). It’s (obviously) electric. And it goes like a rocket. But in this case, literally so. Because the car gets from 0 to 62 (used to be ‘0 to 60’ but inflation took over) in 2.1 seconds. Which is faster than any car around, super, hyper, anything. BUT… Elon fitted to the car the same compressed air boosters that he fitted to the Space X rocket. And if they are deployed, the car travels from 0 to 62 in 1.1 second(s). Which is close to the speed of light (more hyperbole) that I think this car, albeit cheap and nasty American rubbish, must surely be elevated to Hypercar status. Although its probably silent. Other than the roar of the air compressors.

Much as we all hate Elon Musk, he does do things right. Sometimes.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I went to the cinema on Saturday night, for the second time in about 2 weeks. Or the second time in about 2 years, whichever you prefer. There were big queues for popcorn, so we didn’t get. And in the absence of ‘eating’ you have to wear your mask. So I had to pretend to eat popcorn. Same motion, just no popcorn. Reduced calorie option.

And we went because for the second time in 2 Saturdays we’ve been cancelled due to someone ‘testing positive’. Or saying they have just to avoid us; its what I’d do.

We went to see ‘Licorice Pizza’, which is the American way of saying ‘Liquorice Pizza’ because they’re just stupid. And I knew nothing about this film other than it had great reviews. And because the ‘star’ of the movie is Alana Haim, of the rock-sister band ‘Haim’, I kind of presumed that the ‘liquorice pizza’ may have been some euphemistic reference to a ‘record’, vinyl, a 33, if you can recall such things, because the movie was set in the 70s. Which you could tell by the fab cars. I also knew the cast included Tom Waits and also Bradley Cooper, who has been known to croon himself on occasion, most notably with Lady Gaga. My presumption was wrong. It had nothing to do with the music biz or music at all, other than a fabulous soundtrack. It fact it had nothing to do with anything really. It was just a movie that travelled along, at its own pace, not particularly going any place special but providing a most enjoyable ride whilst not getting there. The ‘stars’, Waits, Cooper and the ever-awesome Sean Penn, were given wonderful cameos. The real stars were a young tubby kid and Alana. Who, whilst not being in any way ‘beautiful’ or even ‘pretty’, has a quirky charm that is very endearing. Tubby (I’ll leave out ‘pimply’ and ‘greasy’, even ‘ginger-haired’) Kid was likewise wonderful as a 15 year-old ‘entrepreneur’. With a big crush on 25 year-old Alana. Who is called Alana in the movie. And lives at home with her 2 sisters. Who were played by her 2 real-life sisters. And her mum and dad, played by her mum and dad.

But I wouldn’t recommend this movie to you. Not because it isn’t fantastic, nor because its not wonderfully enjoyable. The problem is you. If you need a structured plot, car chases, gunfights, sex scenes, people dying of horrible diseases, this ain’t the movie for you. Go see all the others. It is a very quirky film and should carry a warning. A ‘quirk-alert’.

But I loved it. Much more than I loved the football yesterday. Much, much, much more. At least the movie didn’t make me cry. Nor punch people nearby.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

If you’re a small, weedy, pimply, probably bespectacled, nerdy, sand-kicked-in-yer-face, mummy’s-boy type and outside your front door you can see the school bully and his six best mates from the rugby team and boxing squad, all doing their marshal arts training in their beefy, muscly, deep-voiced way, would that be cause for concern? Would it worry you in any way?

Well we should ask Ukraine as they seem to be in precisely that situation. The only difference is that the above described nerd does not occupy a politically and militaristically important region of immense sensitivity. Nor has he just agreed to join a new gang in the big boys’ school up the road.

Putin has amassed a hundred thousand troops on the Ukraine border. Who spend their days (and nights) performing ‘military exercises’ which are in no way intended to intimidate, frighten or threaten their neighbours. Even though there has been hostility between the 2 nations ever since Ukraine was reborn in 1991, freed from Russian domination. Ukraine wants to be part of Europe and Russia is paranoid about having ‘Europe’ so close to its borders. Further intentional involvement by Ukraine with NATO would make Putin very nervous and unhappy. But there is an empty space in the EU currently, recently vacated, which Ukraine would love to occupy. Putin, meanwhile, is under some kind of impression that Ukraine is merely on a short term lease from him, who remains the ‘ultimate landlord’ of what the natives consider a free and independent nation state.

Britain has sent troops over. American has sent troops. Yesterday France sent 300 soldiers there, possibly in case the situation requires any kind of surrender or retreat, and arms are building up.

Not to over-react or anything but THIS IS SERIOUS SHIT. We’re entering Bay of Pigs territory but much closer to home. America and Russia love a proxy war. They really enjoyed Korea, loved Vietnam and had decades of realigning allegiances and arming up opposing forces in the Middle East. So whilst Joe Biden sounds like Trump with his threats, who in turn sounded like a very poor John Wayne impersonator, Putin is unyielding, unbending, brutal, dogmatic and not really very nice at all. The Russian language has no word for ‘negotiate’, but seventeen for ‘attack!’

So next time we’re agonising about the price of gas, lateral flow tests or whether Boris is just a tosser or in fact the greatest tosser ever to occupy Number 10, just remember that there’s some big stuff going on in the world. And I don’t just mean football.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

To all those Spurs fans who went up to Leicester on a shitty, rainy, cold January night in support of a team who have not given too much cause for celebration in recent weeks, in the hope of seeing something special, something out of the ordinary, something even spectacular, I hope you enjoyed it.

To those who left 5 minutes before the end, just to get a jump on the traffic, to catch the earlier train, to have a quick pint before the journey, because ‘we’ve lost this already!’ I salute you. Basically, you fucked up.

Sometimes its the ‘game of two halves’, often its four quarters, occasionally even 7 eighteenths. But last night’s was all about the last 2 minutes. Of injury time. OMG. There’s never been an ending like that. (Never once that my team’s been on the winning end of, for sure). The 1999 Champions League final ending was special but even Ole Gunnar Solskaer didn’t cut it that fine. Last night it went down to the wire.

The silly thing, the Spurs thing, the annoying thing, was that we’d played really well and created a shed-load of chances. Which amounted to nothing. All the statistical superiority is simply meaningless (just ask Barcelona, or Arsenal) if there’s still a big ‘zero’ after your team name on the score-sheet.

But we’re Spurs! We never say ‘die’, we can barely spell it, and we pressed and pressed and eventually, inevitably, as with all good, hard, honest work; we went a goal down. But wait, it was far from over. Harry Kane was on the pitch!!! And if you can remember, he’s not just good at hitting woodwork and looking miserable, he can score goals. And he did. Which was fab. Until Leicester scored once more, with just 15 minutes to go and looking much better than the sad rabble they’d resembled in the first half.

And it got late and we were still 2-1 down, and it got to the end, so they added on a few minutes of injury time and we were still 2-1 down. And then it got to 95 minutes and and and WE SCORED!!!! The equaliser that feels like a winner. Late as late could be.

But not quite late enough as about 70 seconds later… we scored again. That one in the 97th minute. Both goals by Stephen Bergwign. Our favourite… Dutchman. OMG it was truly, madly, deeply insane. Matches simply don’t end like that. Not for us anyway. But they can, it did and we won.

And you left at 87 minutes feeling depressed and wondering why you’d bothered to go in the first place.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Without wishing to appear smug or presumptive (both of which I excel at), Britain is doing very well in the Covid game. Ok, its the long game, but 2 years down the line and we’re kind’a getting ‘there’. Where, exactly, ‘there’ might actually be located we’re not 100% sure yet, but on January 26th they’re going to ban working from home completely and anyone caught NOT in the office thereafter will face a firing squad. You’ll no longer be required to show a ‘Covid pass’ to enter clubs or bars and you’ll no longer be arrested for sneezing on a tube train. Although part of me thinks that Boris is going to politicise this event to save his sorry and shameful ass by becoming the Covid Saviour he’s always professed to be. He’ll open up all doors to create sufficient feel-good that he might even be able to reclaim 1 or 2 percent of the 97% support he lost by being a lying, cheating worthless scumbag. It’s very Boris. Delay the full value of his crimes and misdemeanours by having ‘an inquiry’ and when its all a bit faded, hit the nation with a raft of wonderfulness the likes of which we haven’t seen for 2 years. The ‘inquiry’ is totally worthless. We know what happened. We don’t need Sue Gray to tell us what is completely beyond question. It’s just to delay. Let emotions subside. More cynicism from the man on trial for being a cynic.

So Britain is doing great. Wow. Fab. However, apparently, even though no-ones been there for a couple of years, there’s a whole other world out there too. Where they’re not all so Covid-successful as we are. They’re still in ‘cautious’ mode. Ask Novak Djokovic. And now the Chelsea match in Lille in March is under threat. Because France, like Australia, don’t want unvaccinated people to enter their land. They don’t really want anybody who doesn’t speak French there at the best of times. And lots of Chelsea players are unvaccinated. Which is a good thing. For anyone who doesn’t really like Chelsea.

But this is a tale that will repeat. With other teams. Possibly nice teams as well. For some stupid, dickheaded reason, being unvaccinated has become something of a ‘badge of honour’ for the great overpaid tattooed who wear our nations football shirts. Vaccinations are like literacy; not needed and not wanted in football.

They’re talking about playing the Chelsea match on ‘neutral territory’, in a country where they don’t care about Covid. I’m thinking Serbia. Home of the unvaxxed.

This problem is going to repeat and repeat. The world will close in for those without vaccinations. Which is discriminatory and an infringement on their right to choose. But in a good way. A sensible way. A nice way. In fact I have a new motto I’d like at all border controls, the world over:

NO VACCINE? THEN FUCK OFF!!!

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx