Andy's Glasses


The first time I set foot in an Indian restaurant my life changed. Forever!!!! It was 1973, the Star of India, in Gants Hill. And it was mind-blowing. Ok, and stomach blowing too, but isn’t that now a considerable benefit? When I returned from California and got myself a flat, it was a 3-minute walk to my nearest Injun. That was the primary criterion I gave the estate agents. The Rose of India. If a restaurant didn’t have the word ‘India’ in the title, it wasn’t Indian. So thought the Indians who opened them anyway. Although as we all know, over 90% of Indian restaurants are owned and run by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Which is absolutely fine by me. Because for me, as for most Brits, they create the ‘authentic’ taste of Indian food. As we learn it and know it. It’s only when you go to a ‘real’ Indian restaurant, catering mainly for ‘real Indians’, or even if you go to India itself, that you realise what ‘they’ eat is not exactly ‘chicken tikka masala and chips please, go heavy on the chilli, an’ a pint of whatever Gandhi would have’.

Not sure if Gandhi was a big boozer, but he was certainly a vegetarian. In common with a very high majority of Hindu Indian people. Hence all the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis catering to our South Asian requirements. And doing a great job of it, I must say.

Now, of course, the world has moved on. Not just the prerequisite for one of the words: Indian, Tandoori, Balti to appear in the eaterie’s name, that’s gone. ‘Dishoom’, ‘Gymkhana’, ‘Naan’a That’, they all allude to the cuisine rather than paint it in day-glo colours. And many Indian restaurants have ‘upped their game’, have achieved Michelin stardom, have out-priced the Savoy Grill. And I don’t mind that at all. You have choice. You pay £8.95 for chicken jalfreizi or you can pay £39.50 for the same thing but described in more detail on the menu.

We go to our local version. For no other reason than: as much as I love curry, Mel doesn’t. She spent 3 weeks in India eating pizza. And our little local place she considers ‘safe’. They won’t add a bucket of chilli to her meal. Whereas they will to mine if I beg them to. And I do. Furthermore, as their Google page shows: however expensive, however many Michelin stars, there is NO Indian in the entire UK that can promise a better view of Golders Green bus station.

We went the other night. Spectacular meal. As always. It’s the New Balti Tandoori for us every time. Even the name’s right.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Another person has been ‘cancelled’, this time an art historian who upset the Cambridge University Union. That hotbed of wokiness, right-on-ism, complete humour withdrawal and (if they weren’t so fucking clever to have arrived there in the first place), rank stupidity.

Andrew Graham Dixon chose to illustrate his side of the debate ‘this house believes there is no such thing as good taste’ with an impersonation of Hitler. And Hitler impersonations, unless perpetrated by Oswald Moseley or anyone wearing a white robe and pointed hat, are always mockery. Always. I’m sure the bright souls at Cambridge realise that Hitler himself didn’t speak in English with a joke German accent. That should be the first giveaway. The views expressed thereafter were blatant caricaturisation of the fucked-up little Austrian. Used to make a point. But alas the Hitlerisation was some kind of red line to the assembled band of those who always state their preferred pronouns and so the art dude was henceforth ‘cancelled’.

Other notables have since stated their support of the cancelled man and requested their own ‘cancellation’ in solidarity.

You’d kind’a hope that a bunch of fairly bright kids could work out what is a ‘piss-take’ and what is blatant naziism. You’d hope. You’d also like to think that the place that spawned Monty Python and the Goons and Derek & Clive would be receptive to wit in even some small way, rather than this ridiculous woke reactionary insanity which effectively precludes anyone from ever making fun in their collective presence.

Surely the whole point of a debate is to listen to at least one side of an argument with which you completely disagree? Innit?

I fear that these institutions, previously renowned for their free spirit and creativity, will be reduced to sterile and dull adherence to the politically correct zeitgeist. The alternative way of saying that is: what a bunch of tossers!

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

“Why can’t you take your car into the garage, have the petrol engine ripped out and stick an electric motor in there instead?” Makes sense. Logical. Instant fix to the emissions problem. How hard can it be? I’d do it myself. Here’s what you do:

Open the bonnet. Always a good start. Remove the engine and… all the ‘bits’ attached to it. Like exhaust pipes, gearbox… other things. And put it to one side.

Buy an electric motor. On Amazon, they probably sell them. Put the motor into the engine compartment. Wire it up to the wheels. Insert 47 AA batteries and off you bloody go.

No congestion charge, no road tax and no emissions. When the batteries die, about half way down your road, just replace them.

I spoke to a guy last week who is having his camper van ‘converted’. It will henceforth be known as ‘Shlomo the Van’ as removal of exhaust pipes counts as circumcision. Sorry, conversion joke. He actually converted it to electric. It cost £30k. I hope he’s very happy with it.

This problem basically polarises the market in new electric cars.

It is very challenging to take an existing car; body, chassis, frame, and ‘make it electric’. Though most manufacturers, in their panic to jump on the holiest of holy bandwagons (electric ones) have done precisely that. Take a Volvo X40 body, put a couple of electric motors in and jam all the batteries you can in every space you can find. Mercedes have done the same with their EQA. Hyundai have done the same, Kia, lots of them.

The way to build electric cars is to start from scratch. Then you can be clever. Like Tesla. Like the BMW I3. Like the VW ID3. Then you can put the batteries in the floor. This keeps them out of the way and gives the car a very low centre of gravity, which makes it handle like… like an electric car. And you actually design the thing with all the empty spaces in mind, extending the size of the interior because there is no engine block and gearbox. Using existing bodies does not allow this.

The problem is that some of the ‘old’ type electric cars, made with existing parts, are very pretty. The new ones have a space-age look. Which I love, but Mel doesn’t. And its her car. Apparently.

So do you go with old-tech-re-vamp? Or drive a space ship to Brent Cross?

First world problems.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

If someone offers to give you money, no strings, nothing illegal, and, say, you’re an overstretched educational body or an impoverished college desperate for funds, do you just accept it with outstretched arms with a big ‘thank you very much’ and an even bigger smile? Or do you check the provenance of the cash first and make a moral judgment on how that money was acquired, from whence it came, how it was produced? Even though you’re broke and desperate. This is the dilemma faced by Imperial College Oxford and University College London.

They’ve been given money, lots of it, by the estate of horrible sleazy little late Formula One dude and ALLEGED sexual deviant of a ‘let’s dress up 5 hookers in Nazi regalia and see what happens’ nature, to fill their empty coffers.

But wait! Before we start spending the cash, don’t forget that we now live in Wokeland. A horrible country where any comment, gesture or historical action can be brought up completely out of context and thrust back at the family, heirs, descendants with a J’ACCUSE!!!! and demands for action and compensation because someone’s human rights have been damaged somewhere along the way, or possibly some previously unheard-of gender-configuration has been neglected or offended.

In Moseley’s case though you really don’t need to dig too far. His father was a fucking Nazi. Not just an admirer of Hitler, almost an impersonator. So they cry ‘HOW CAN YOU TAKE THE MONEY WHICH HAS A NAZI HISTORY?!?!’ Yet Oswald Moseley didn’t make that money by selling Jewish body parts, though he probably wouldn’t have minded. He inherited the money. It is ‘old money’, as we do so well in England. The money long pre-dates the boss of the blackshirts by several generations.

One academic (and you can see why he’s an academic because philosophy trumps pragmatism in his world) has stated that this money should not go to Oxford but to Jews and Black groups who were given such a rough ride by the father. But its not on offer to them. And its legal money held in trust. You can’t just steal it and send compensation packages all over the Windrushees and Stamford Hill. Though Imperial College could make ‘donations’ with it if they chose, rather than just refuse acceptance.

It’s the same as the ‘slavery’ issues with ‘philanthropists’ of their day making their fortunes selling human flesh stolen from Africa. They were bad people, as we now know to judge them, but their money is useful. Take it and use it wisely. Don’t build them statues, don’t praise and extol them, but take their money. Call it ‘compensation’ if you like. ‘Bad money’ can help just as many people as ‘good money’. Just send it to me if you don’t want it and we can upgrade Mel’s new car by 100 miles a charge!!!

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I’d like ta’t meerk a brief stertment on be’alf’a Yorksher Cricket Cloob, due ta’t bad stoof being spoke abert on’t news and the like.

As the new cherman, cos old’t one ‘ad ter resign yesterday along wi’t most’a’t board members, and speaking as a lifelong member’a’t cloob, being a rich, old white man, born n’t bred in the whitest county in’t coontreh, I’d just like ter start with statin’ that ther is absolutely no racism at Yorkshire Cricket Cloob. Mainly cos we don’t generally let many darkies play ‘ere. In fact we didn’t let people from Nottinghamshire play here oontil 1991. Nor (fookin’) Lancashire, County Durham nor Shropshire. Certainly not Loondon… shire. Cos before that date ya had ta be born in Yorkshire to play for’t county. Simple. Then we realised that we were loosing lots’a matches cos our squad was shite compared to all t’oothers wot was playing forrin types. An’ I’m not talkin’ France and Australia, I’m talking ixotic places like Africa. Oh, well, West Indies realleh, but same difference. An’ India, Pakistan, like real forriners wot certinly weren’t born in the counteh. Not in any counteh we knew of. Unless Islamabad is a counteh now, I really don’t know.

But we welcomed these players with open ‘earts. We treated them like broothers, like meytes, like… well, a bit like slaves but that’s just our way. An’ we’re Yorkshiremen, so we generally call a spade a spade. An’ that’s prob’leh where’t problem started. But it were just banter, just bein’ pals, ‘n the culture at’t cloob is a sort’a camaraderie by insult, friendliness by abuse. Tellin’ soom-woon to ‘go back to Bangladesh ya fookin’ Paki!’ is jus’ not racism in Yorkshire, its just foon. We all ‘ad a grert laff. Oother than those wot ended oop cryin’ but soom folk jus’ ‘ave no sense’a humour.

And as fer Michael Vaughan; racist? RACIST?? Never. ‘Ow could he be? He were captain’a bloody England, captain’a Yorksher, ‘ee’s no more racist than wot I am. The man’s a god round these parts. Callin’ ‘im a racist is like sayin’ Geoffrey Boycott is a wife-beater or sommink, jus’ roobish.

So I ‘ope that puts an end t’all this tosh’n’nonsense about racism in Yorkshire. Giyyus back our cloob, giyyus back our players and most importantleh giyyus back our bloody sponsors, we’re starvin’ oop ‘ere.

‘Appy Sat’day

A xxxx

So this is the best analogy I could come up with:

A footballer does an horrendous tackle, two-footed, studs-up, both feet off the ground, the full Roy Keane, and takes a player out. He is shown the red card immediately by the referee, but his manager runs onto the pitch and demands that his player has the right of appeal against what might have been initially perceived as a ‘red card offense’ by his player, but for which there are many mitigating circumstances which might not merely render the foul acceptable, but in fact could make the man a hero for performing an act which was beneficial to all mankind!! The ref informs the manager that there is no ‘on pitch’ appeal and his word is final. The manager then demands that there be instantly a change in the appeals process so that gobby managers can make such demands to which the referees have to comply. So the ref shows the manager the red card as well. At which point, the manager skulks off saying how that type of appeal should be available but not perhaps immediately or retrospectively…

I’ve said it before and I’ll definitely say it again, many times: Boris is a tosser. Not just a normal tosser but one with God-delusions. Give the man a massive majority in parliament and he thinks returning from the climate conference in a private jet won’t really piss off the entire nation including most of his own party. In his words “we’re 5-1 down at half time!!!” and he just scored a hat-trick of own goals. And then, to compound it all, he tries to change the rules on standards and behaviour to give an 11th hour reprieve to his mate and ally, Owen Paterson. Who only breached the regulations 12 times, probably just a mistake. So let’s just change the rules as we go along then, I’m the fucking Prime Minister/God, WHOSE GONNA ARGUE??? Oh, everyone; opposition, my party, the press, the clergy, professional footballers…

It would never have happened if Antonio Conte was Prime Minister. He came, he saw, he conquered… Vitesse. Only just but a win’s as good as a mile. I remain cautiously optimistic. That should last 4 matches before the Prozac comes out again.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Manchester City? Phah!
Liverpool?? Just fuck off!!!
Arsenal??? You’re joking, right??
Chelsea? I don’t think so.

The stock in those four clubs took a massive nose-dive yesterday as ‘serial winner’ and ‘best manager in all the world’, Antonio Conte, took the reins at (previously) hopeless Spurs. Because under Antonio’s stern, disciplined approach which is rich in tactical understanding and creativity, Spurs are going to win the league. Like; this year. For everyone else: its over. When Spurs march out on Sunday at Goodison Park, they will look nothing like the hapless band of losers who dragged themselves, stooped and limping, off the stadium of Tottenhamness last Saturday. This will be Spurs Nouveau. Spurs Re-du. This will be… SUPERSPURS!!! Because teams under Conte are WINNERS!!! He is a WINNER!. And so it is written…

In all the press. Whom this week I’ve managed to extend my normal ‘total contempt and ridicule’ beyond its norm. Because on Saturday I read a massive, double-page article the headline of which read: ‘WHY CONTE IS SUCH A PERFECT FIT FOR MANCHESTER UNITED’. But unfortunately for the press, and for Spurs, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team won, rendering the headline redundant for at least another week. And now they’re frantically re-writing it as ‘WHY CONTE IS SUCH A PERFECT FIT FOR SPURS’. Just scrub out ‘underperforming, miserable Pogba’ and replace it with ‘Kane’… near useless Maguire, with any Spurs defender really, and you have your article.

Hyperbole aside though, Conte does win things. Ok, he’s never met such a trophyphobic team as mine before, but he went to mediocre Juventus and turned them into immediate and serial winners. He did the same at Chelsea and again at Inter Milan. He comes, he wins, he goes. Let’s hope he’s sufficiently ‘here’ to get to the winning bit before the ‘goes’ kicks in. Spurs managers aren’t generally given unlimited time. If any. Ask Nuno.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

So whilst me and Greta Thunberg are out test driving electric cars (VW ID3 was yesterday’s contender) setting our own gold standard for ‘zero emissions by 2022, the world’s collective leaders and other fuckwits were gathering in Glasgow for the ‘crisis conference!!!’ on the climate.

Fuckwits? Oh yeah. For who else but Joe Biden would so completely lack the sense of irony to turn up at an event specifically about reducing the world’s carbon in a fleet of jets, followed by a procession of (I lost count whilst watching it on the news) of about 15 immense, high-powered, 15-ton, bullet-proof, bomb-resistant, 2.5mpg SUVs filled with his ‘security’? Does he not know that Scotland has 3 bobbies on the beat to ensure his safety? Ok, one’s really fat, the other 2 have drink and drug issues and none have a gun, but still! It’s moronic. It sends the wrong message (1 rule for you, different one for us). It’s ‘making an entrance’, which really is not the point of COP26. And its like John Wayne storming into town in full True Grit mode for peace talks. Fill yer hands ya sunnovabitch.

The other 200-odd leaders arrived in private jets (the devil’s mode of transport), followed by hundreds of cars, none of which was even a fucking hybrid.

However it was all worth it once the meetings started. And the speeches were… well, spoken. First the Queen. She told those fuckers what we need. Then Sir David Attenborough basically repeated it. And then up strode Boris. Who said, kind’a the same thing. Which is: we’re in deep shit, speaking as a planet. Which Boris actually looks like. And we need to do… things of a very unspecified nature which we’ll lump together under the banner headline ‘reduce carbon’. Shoot coal. Throw away your diamonds. Ban Firework Night. No more barbecues.

I didn’t hear one proper ‘plan’. Just a lot of ‘throw a bunch’a money at the problem and then I’ll be dead and it’ll be someone else’s problem’. And lots of talk about ‘offsetting’ which is the wonderful loophole they’ve created to allow tossers like Biden to emit a year’s worth of CO2 just arriving in Glasgow.

So, along with the kids, I want to know how this is going to work. The sound bytes spouted in 73 different languages will not do anything. Especially when spouted in French.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

What a big day for ‘upsets’ in the Premier League yesterday! All the ‘big clubs’, except Chelsea, received big surprises with Liverpool held at home to a draw by Brighton, Manchester City LOSING at home, goal-less-ly, to Crystal Palace and, of course, Spurs being thrashed, again at home, by sad and sorry Manchester United. It could have been the single day which caused irreparable dents in the aspirations of Liverpool and Manchester City to win the league, and of Spurs to retain next years place in the European no-hope League for those not good enough to play in a proper tournament with Forriners.

Black Saturday. The day before Hallowe’en. Oooohhhh, spooky.

Chelsea romped on, as per fucking usual, but they only had to play Newcastle who, despite their new-found billions, remain only out-worst-ed by ever reliable Norwich. The Chelsea fans were apparently singing “no noise, from the Saudi boys”, which coming from a bunch of Russian money-launderers was perhaps a bit… rich? Even more ironic was that Newcastle have chosen to wear ‘rainbow bootlaces’ in solidarity with LGBTQ… etc, people. The team now owned by a nation in which homosexuality carries a death penalty. (Shagging camels carries an exemption from this, as long as they are opposite sex camels).

And so to the team I support. Follow. Love to the souls of my size 9s. And hate, in equal measures. If last night’s performance was not the most ineffectual, depressing, lacklustre, pathetic, clueless, hopeless, shambolic display ever seen in professional sport, I’d hate to be present for the one that beats it. I wasn’t present last night but instead chose my tv as my means of torture. Spurs were so bad we made Manchester United look good. Worse still, we made Gary Neville very happy. But I’m really not convinced that booing Harry Kane is either a decent nor productive action, even in the circumstances. Those circumstances being that he had a terrible day at the office. As he consistently has since the ‘transfer-gate’ scandal in the summer. For better or worse, he is still a Spurs player and as such WE FUCKING NEED HIM. Need him to feel better, need him to score, to create, to be the best Harry Kane possible, the one we’ve been drooling over for the last 5 years. Making him feel unloved in his own home is not the way to get him back. Even if it is only for the remainder of the season.

I’m off now to have the tattoo I’ve been thinking about for 53 years. It’s time. It reads:
SOMETHING’S NOT WORKING. AGAIN.

Happy shitty, rainy, tumbling down the league Sunday

A xxxx

Mark Zuckerberg, in an uncharacteristically modest gesture, has re-branded his web-site (which, like Voldemort, must not be named) and from now on will be known as The Hate-Peddling Site for the Promotion of Eating Disorders, Fake News, Juvenile Suicides and Body Dysmorphia, whilst making Me the RICHEST FUCKER ON THE PLANET. Dot com. Quite catchy. Make sure you don’t make a typo when you first enter it online. But there’s no need to worry. Its still the same ‘underneath’. You can still bully, cajole, groom, blackmail, threaten and upset in the just the same ways as before.

In fact the abbreviated name is META. Which is Greek word meaning ‘TOSSER’. Ok, I made that up out of spite and contempt, because in reality Zuckerberg named his site after the 5th meta-tarsal which both David Beckham and Wayne Rooney broke during their careers. And it sounds much better than ‘HAMSTRING’, the second choice.

But actually, ‘meta’ is a prefix. Not usually used alone. And it signifies ‘over and beyond’, it means something so over-riding that it becomes self-referential, so vast that it is beyond limits, beyond fucking everything except making shit-loads of cash at everyone else’s expense and then not paying any tax on it. That kind’a thing. ‘Big’ is the message. To let us know not how massively vast and immense the ’empire’ now is, but how big, how vast, how far-reaching and all-encompassing its going to be.

Because to be that successful that young, so able to see what is wanted, needed, what might make things easier, quicker, to have that foresight and ability, you need to be a megalomaniac. And, like Elon Musk, like Jeff Bezos, Zuckerberg probably realises that he’s never going to win a beauty contest or a popularity competition, and he, in all likelihood, from behind all those billions, probably don’t give a shit. He controls the world. And the money, at that level, is irrelevant in itself, but massive in its representation of ‘how powerful I am’. ‘Billions’ is the new penis measure for tech giants. Whatever you choose to call them.

Happy Saturday

Kevin xxxx