Andy's Glasses

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

Nadine Dorries! I mean, Nadine Dorries!!! How dare she???

The Secretary of State for… well, lots of stuff, but ‘telly’ is included so we’ll skip the rest for current purposes, has not merely declared war on the BBC, but actually administered the death knell! And although no-one actually gives a shit for that antiquated, totally biased, pro-left, anti-Semitic national institution, by actually giving the date of its demise, in 2027, she is effectively signalling the real-life(?) death of our unquestionably most treasured national treasure!!!

Because all debate about the BBC and license fees go like this:

I don’t watch the fuckin’ BBC, why should I pay 150 quid a year for it?

Because it needs to be there because…

Yeah, but I only watch Netflix, Amazon and Disney. I pay for them. Yet to have a tv in the house I have to pay. For a service I don’t get.

Ahhh, but we produce Strictly Come Whatever and New Old Faces Doing Great Stuff and all sorts of very popular programmes.

But I don’t watch none’a dem.

Without the BBC we wouldn’t have… DAVID ATTENBOROUGH!!!!!

OK, I give in. I’d pay 300 quid a year to keep that old person out of a care home. He’s a national treasure.

And that is how the BBC justify their fee. David Attenborough. The world’s most wonderful naturalist. They sell his magical programmes everywhere across the planet. Even to places where they don’t speak English. Like America. And they rake in fortunes doing it. Almost enough money to pay about a quarter of what the next series will cost (including nursing fees and life support). So for Nadine fucking Dorries to set a time limit of 2027 on the BBC means she’s imposing that on the man as well!!! She’s giving him five years to live! I hate her.

Does anyone not note a certain similarity between Boris’s ‘partygate’ and Kier Starmer having a beer in the office with a few ‘colleagues’? Ok, its a different ‘culture’, its a different circumstance, its a one off (so far), but to me its sufficient for our esteemed leader of the opposition to just moderate his indignation. As he too, broke half a dozen Covid laws by his actions.

Why are all politicians such tossers?

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I had flu yesterday. It was horrible. Terrible. Debilitating. I was fit for nothing other than lying in bed feeling awful. My skin hurt. All of it. Ok, playing tennis probably didn’t help it but in my defence I didn’t realise what was going on at that point. I tested myself, even though I already had before going to tai chi, and was negative. As I still remain.

But some things are worse than Covid. And man-flu is certainly one. So I immediately went into the protocols. I went to bed, took 2 paracetamol, put myself on furlough, declared a national emergency, locked down the economy, banned anyone from seeing anyone else and then organised a party for 96 people in my bedroom for last night, as I was incapable of moving anywhere. In my house I am the prime minister. As long as Mel agrees.

So here’s the state of play for ‘entitled tossers’, live and as it stands right now:

Novak Djokovic is on his way home from Melbourne. Deported by the Aussie government who have equipped themselves in this whole episode with all the dignity and diplomacy of a gang-rape in a car park on a Liverpool council estate. They definitely ended up with the right result but… holy shit, what a fucking mess.

Prince Andrew is using ‘dodgy memory syndrome’ as part of his defence against Virginia Giuffre. A medical condition invented by desperate lawyers when all else seems doomed. Question the memory of the litigant. Epstein’s lawyers used it, Ghislaine’s lawyers used it, it has become the go-to affliction for child-abusers.

Boris Johnson has said ‘sorry’. Big. Fucking. Deal. Sorry he was caught. Not sorry for doing it. Not sorry for lying when first questioned about it. Not sorry for enabling that hypocritical, arrogant culture rife in his government, but sorry because he has to be. Is he sorry for being the type of person who chose to act in such a manner? And would do so again tomorrow?

With such competition, Boris would normally win the ‘tosser of the week’ award hands down. But this is not a normal week so the award has to go to Arsenal football club for postponing today’s match at Spurs. Until Covid teams could never request such a thing. Even now, you only can if you have an epidemic in the team. But Arsenal just have a few injuries, Xhaka suspended, as usual and one or two (probably unvaccinated) dickheads with Covid. And the league agreed. This is not just about a nation’s rights to control its borders in a pandemic, nor the rights of nobility to abuse, not even about a Prime Minister flouting his own laws and holding his country in total contempt. This is football. And should be above all that shit.

#shameonArsenal

A xxxx

Helleow,

I’m you’re Queen. Elizabeth. You know the one. Old. Wrinkly. Sweet. Royal. And I wish to address you, the entire population of my nation, on the matter of ‘the son who cannot be named’. The Un-Son, but not in the heroic sense.

And I am deeply, profoundly saddened to have to announce that as from Thursday, January 13th, 2022, That Person is no longer a part of the royal family. Even more sadly, he is still my son. But no longer a Royal one. We have un-Royaled him in the most serious of ways. He can no longer use ‘HRH’, nor can he ponce around dressed as a toy soldier at official gatherings. (His medals, all 497 of them, will be on ebay on Tuesday so be sure to make your bids early.) He will no longer be an active ‘working Royal’. Which you can tell by the obvious fact that he’ll be doing what he’s always done whilst working, which is nothing, but doing it out of fancy dress from now on. And without the salary of £587,000 a year he previously earned. Plus all the fees he received for prostituting himself to anyone in the world who wished to make contact with me.

This almost unprecedented move of taking the royalness out of a Prince comes about after lengthy consideration and discussion with my eldest son, the one with the predilection for somewhat older women, most unlike his brother, and his son, William, who as yet has not manifest any overt sexual deviation or peculiarity. Of which we are thus far aware. In my family: never say ‘never’. And between them, Charles and William have reached the brave but necessary decision required. Of throwing Andrew not exactly ‘under the bus’ but more ‘under a rather splendid, gilt edged, horse-drawn carriage’. Which we feel is more appropriate.

What is of course most important is that the sleazy little shit is in some way distanced from The Family when he goes to court in America to defend the indefensible.

My family history goes back to the Battle of Hastings, to the Bayeux Tapestry, to King Arthur and in all those centuries we’ve never had any family member actually caught kiddy-fiddling. So until we can resolve these allegations, we must simply protect the Royal image totally. And I thought last year was our worst shit-storm with the Harry nonsense. One can always depend on one’s family. Andrew is perhaps one too many.

Happy Saturday

Her Maj
Xxxx

I should have been a superhero. No question at all. I should have been Superman. Possibly Batman (though his own ‘superpower’ was excessive wealth, and I wouldn’t object to that), maybe ‘Flash’, for obvious and ambiguity reasons, I was never that keen on Thor or Green Lantern because I was worried if I dropped my ‘magic implement’ I’d be NOTHING, and walking around carrying a lantern is very lame as, in other situations, would take some explaining.

Like if I took it to a garden party at 10 Downing Street, f’rinstance. Probably wouldn’t get it past security. They don’t even let you take a phone in the building (I’ve been there, I know), unless you promise that its only enabled to photograph events guaranteed to cause shame, disgrace and total embarrassment, in 18 months time. To film, say, a ‘work meeting’. The same excuse they used for the first, 6-person piss-up, sorry!!, work meeting in the garden. And the same questions: if its ‘work’ why the fuck are you drinking so much? And if its such important work, what the fuck is Carrie doing there?

Boris was strutting round, as ever, like Quasimodo in a Barbara Windsor wig, showing how ‘sorry’ he was. No-one cares. It’s irrelevant the first time the apology card is deployed. And gets no better by the third. You just become a serial liar. Because it all boils down to power! Not superpower, like me, because I never got caught! But power. Sufficient to create a feeling of untouchability, of mastery of the universe. Otherwise known as ‘arrogance’.

Prince Andrew suffers from the same affliction. Power borne from the most arrogant sense of entitlement possible. If a football crowd had been present at Jeffrey Epstein’s house/plane/island they’d have been singing: “he’ll do what he wants, he’ll do what he waa-aants; he’s Prince Andrew, he’ll do what he wants”. And he pretty much can. So his denial, ‘I remember nothing, I wasn’t there, I was eating a pizza in Surrey (FFS), I’m not able to sweat’ means so much more than if a commoner was laughed out of court for using such pleas. Well Andrew now is being laughed into court. And the timing, coinciding with Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee… I mean, Virginia whassername has waited 19 years, would another few months have hurt her? For the sake of the Queen!

The words ‘Tottenham’, ‘Chelsea’ and ‘Carabou’ are temporarily suspended from use. Until further notice.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I hate it when I get things right. I hate those ‘I told you so moments’ because anyone can be right. The whole point of these pages is to be as wrong as possible as often as possible. Where’s the fun in being right?

After Boris’s disastrous vote in December when 99 of his own MPs voted against him as a ‘protest’, they demanded that, basically, he gets his shit together for the next 3 moths. To which I flippantly commented (I do ‘flippantly’ really well, I took a course) that its not the following 3 months which will be the problem for our esteemed PM, but the previous 3 years. Because Boris’s cockups were all ‘historical’; the redecoration of the flat, funded by money-laundering drug dealers, the drinks in the garden fiasco (we’ll now call that one: Part 1), it was all things Boris HAD already done/participated in/condoned/lied about which suddenly emerged. From the ether. Sprinkled by fairy dust emitted from Dominic Cummings’ phone.

And now we have… GARDEN-PARTY-GATE 2!!!! THE PREQUEL!! (As I think it took place before the other one and can’t be bothered to check). But this time it wasn’t just 6 people on the terrace. It was 40 people all sent an emailed invite by Boris’s head civil servant. Because clever people should always put everything in writing, especially when they’re breaking the law/regulations/advice (being decided as we speak by the inevitable fucking ‘sub-comittee’).

And Boris was there. As if Mr Good Time would miss out on a piss up. In May 2020, the day after stressing how WE could only meet outside with ONE other person, and he was sending police round the parks to enforce it. The Tories know all about social distancing, see photo above.

Boris won’t deny being there, mainly because he was there and there’s 39 witnesses whose silence can’t be guaranteed. And I’m sure we’ll have photos before long. Mr Cummings has a long lens and a longer time for his revenge to get really cold. Dominic Raab was asked if he was there and gave an emphatic ‘NO’. At which point I actually felt sorry for him, because he has no mates and no-one likes him.

The one rule for us and another for them is a nice way of saying that our politicians hold us, the general (AND VOTING) public in total and utter contempt. It’s time to call Guy Fawkes in.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

On behalf of all Serbians the world over, I’d like to offer a statement of congratulations to our brother and son, Novax Djokovic for his ‘biggest victory of all time’ in the courthouse in Melbourne yesterday. He has always been a ground breaker and a champion of many causes but yesterday was indeed a high point. He was 40-love down against the most powerful server in Australia and won the game. And this is a victory, not just for him but for all of us persecuted, unvaccinated, Serbian ultra-nationalists, the world over.

Because this was a victory of wrong against right. Of stupidity against intelligence. Of immorality against decency. And a victory of every man’s (or woman’s) right to be a complete asshole. This is what we Serbians aspire to.

Novax was exempt from normal visa regulations because he had tested positive for Covid on December 15th. Which you know because on December 16th he was filmed, unmasked, with a massive group of schoolchildren in Belgrade. Which is ‘doing the right thing; Serbian Style’. We ignore Covid rules, regulations and protocols. We laugh at vaccines and the poor foolish guinea pigs who take them. We wait for their testicles to enlarge, for their limbs to fall off, for their implanted chips to kill them. And now we can spread our message, plus all the diseases we carry, to the entire world (Melbourne).

The so-called ‘immigration minister’ can still veto Novax’s visa, but I don’t think he’d dare. Because he would risk subjecting all of Melbourne, probably all of Australia!!! to another week of Serbian folk dancing and music. Some things carry to high a price.

And so its today Melbourne, tomorrow: THE WORLD!!!! As no one, no nation, no state would dare to ban Serbs from anywhere for any reason. Well, one Serb. That one. They simply wouldn’t dare. Would they?

Happy Freedom Day

Ljubomir xxxx