Andy's Glasses

A beautiful game, ruined by the referee. I can only agree with Mikel Arteta completely and totally. The purpose of referees is purely ornamental, to look beautiful decked out in black; historical, from the old days before VAR; and as beneficiaries of the Premier League’s job-creation program to keep the unemployed off the streets. They have absolutely no right whatsoever in actually having any effect on the match. That would be prejudicial, subject to possible corruption and not in keeping with the spirit of abject violence which the quiet, seemingly intelligent Spaniard, seems to promote amongst his moronic players.

These players need to be given their freedom on the pitch. To create this ‘beauty’. They need to be able to play with flair, to give vent to the wonders of their athletic artistry, even when it resembles more Bruce Lee than Glen Hoddle. That’s just a matter of ‘style’. All this banding about of ‘cards’, yellows and reds, simply spoils the fundamental aesthetic of the game. So I have to ask: what was referee Paul Tierney doing? What was he thinking??? Awarding penalties? Bringing out coloured cards to wave?? I mean: WTF???

The problem is emphatically NOT down to Mikel Arteta, we need to get that straight right off the mark. Such a gentle, delicate man would never be the person to implement tactical systems on his team which result in brutality. It is not his way, certainly not the Arsenal way. Not since George Graham hung up his boots. Martin Keown perhaps. But during Arteta’s brief tenure, his team have been the victim of refereeing discrimination, persecution and unwarranted sendings off no less than 13 times!!! During the same period the next most ref-abused club is Brighton, with eight. Bastard, anti-Arsenal, Arteta-hating refs.

I get it really. When you play Spurs you’re in awe of Harry Kane but its Sonny who’ll kill you. The speed, the agility, the skill, the all-round slipperiness. So Rob Harding would have been instructed to ‘LET ‘IM KNOW YER THERE!!!’ in all the euphemistic understanding of that term. So Harding dutifully did.17 times in the first 10 minutes. Clattering and battering and butting and everything just short of rape. Unfortunately, Harding never got the second text which read: ‘once you receive the inevitable yellow card: BACK OFF!!! so you don’t get sent off’. And with an IQ of 46 the defender couldn’t work it out for himself.

All the ref’s fault. We woz innocent.

And so they were punished. Severely.

Happy no-justice Friday

A xxxx

So the football season has reached the point where even the most reddest of red Scousers has to admit defeat. That the ‘almost quadruple’ will have to wait til next year. Because even if Manchester City lose a match, which they won’t, they need to lose by 7 goals. Or thereabouts. Which, in terms of mathematical probability, is about the same as getting a wrong number on the phone from a life-form in another galaxy, on the same day you won 35 million quid on the lottery. And bumped into Elvis, in Brent Cross. Not gonna happen. City are too strong, and that’s without Erling Haaland, Europe’s new Harry Kane from Norway via Dortmund. Who joins them this summer. On apparently in the region of 200k a week. And as that’s only 10 million a year, it won’t affect Man City’s strict adherence to the Financial Fair Play rules, which they piss all over every fucking year. No, no, you must understand, please, Etihad airlines nusssink to do with Etihad stadium, vot vere you tinking???? And Sheikh Mansoor, Mr Chairman, is completely different Sheikh Mansoor who sign personal cheque to club each year, all perfectly honest and not corrupt at all, honest please…

Because no-one cares about Man City. Not today. Not tonight. This evening, all eyes are on the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium of White Hart Lane where my ‘lillywhites’ (who play in blue) take on the Arsenal of Scumsville-just-down-the-road. In what can only be described as the biggest north London derby since the last one. Possibly bigger. Because Spurs and the Arse are in the battle for 4th place. A two horse race with only one winner. And to that winner goes the spoils. European Champions League entry, glory, money and finishing above their rivals. To the loser goes the ignominy of the Europa Cup of sorrow, just some pocket money and the abject shame of seeing your name listed below the enemy.

And tonight we see… who gets a bit closer. It ain’t totally over until the fat lady sings on the last day of the season but unless Arsenal (heaven forbid 1000 times, pth, pth, pth) win tonight, or possibly draw, its still open for both teams to self-destruct as they’ve been doing on and off all season. Spurs and Arsenal between them this season have lost 43 ‘easy wins’, just to prove a point really.

So may the best team win. Which is Spurs. If Arsenal win I’ll throw all my toys out the pram and cry. But if Spurs win? IF SPURS WIN??? Then we’ll probably lose to Burnley on Sunday and we’ll all wonder why we got so excited in the first place.

Nervy Thursday

A xxxx

I’m not a judge. You may have noticed. Because even though I have the wisdom of King Solomon, the brain of an Einstein (just not necessarily the Albert one) and the moral sensitivities of Liam Gallagher, I don’t make judgments. However, if I WAS a judge and I WAS sitting in a court of law dispensing justice, and someone brought me the case of Rooney vs Vardy, I would take that someone and hang them just for wasting the time of the courts, the legal profession and the press over ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The whole, ridiculous, long-winded fiasco, at massive expense to two women who, I’m guessing, are not ‘cost-of-living-sensitive’ at this troubling time. Their increased electricity bill will not preclude the purchase of a 5 grand, Louis Vuitton handbag.

Both women are ‘WAGs’. Which is not the acronym most think, but simply an amalgamation of the words ‘wives’ and ‘slags’. Because the bar for the ultimate WAG, in terms of decency, fame, independence and sleeping with footballers, was set by Victoria Beckham. So its not exactly ‘high’. The original term was ‘Winger’. From ‘Wife who’s a rotten sINGER’. When Jamie Rednapp then married Louise, they left it the same but took out the ‘rotten’. In the case of Colleen and Rebekah, they invented the term WUNTS. You do the maffs.

Colleen is not essentially a bad person. She puts up with Wayne. Rebekah Vardy is, essentially, a very bad person. A horrible person. A WAG and a WUNT by my definitions. I don’t know if she can sing. But she has a history. Of selling personal secrets to newspapers. Before she discovered the pot of gold at the end of every footballer, she sucked up to any ‘sleb’, even ones as minor as Peter Andre. She then reported to the press that his endowment was somewhat short (and thin) of the full Errol Flynn. Rather a disappointment. Therefore she has no barriers to earning a quick buck from the papers for selling ‘stuff’. She’d sell her children’s teeth for the price of a Gucci belt. So did she sell Colleen Rooney’s ‘secrets’, which were put on instagram, but still ‘secret’? Definitely. Does anyone care that she did? No. Would anyone notice if neither of the two was ever seen again? No.

Happy Days

A xxxx

Poor Queenie. My beloved ruler of the waves has decided to miss the State Opening of Parliament for the first time since 1963, when she was pregnant with one of her evil children or other. This time word is that Her Maj is experiencing ‘episodic mobility problems’. Which is a posh way of saying ‘falling over’. Well she is 96, she’s allowed to fall over. It’s just not very cool to do it live on tv whilst walking behind Black Rod. Which is NOT a racist term, nor a porn star, but a job title. All old people fall over. When I go to visit my dad in his care home there’s always heaps of them all over the floor, just dropped off their zimmers and awaiting ‘episodic staff member support for re-erection to the vertical’.

There’s nothing funny about it. It’s dangerous for old people to fall because their bones are brittle and any break would be their last. So why not get the Queen to, kind of, retire? Abdicate. She’s put in the hours, done the hard graft, let her rest for her remaining days. Bonnie Prince Charlie is up to the job. Ok, his face wouldn’t be something you’d really want to lick on postage stamps, or in any situation really, but he can’t help the way he looks. He means well and has grown into a decent fellow, albeit in a tree-huggerish way. And as he’s already about a decade past retirement age, he’s just perfectly ripe to be the next very old monarch. The Queen is retiring! Long live the King!! Until he starts falling over.

Meanwhile, back in Starmerville, the unthinkable has happened. Fed up with demanding the resignations of Boris, Rishi Sunak, Rees-Mogg, Liz Truss and anyone else who utters a sound, he’s now threatening his own!!! Following beer-and-curry-gate, up in Durham during the lockdowns, Sir Kier has announced that should he receive a statutory fine from the police HE MUST GO!! The expression ‘hoist by his own petard’ springs to mind, even though no-one has a clue what it means.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

So the other major headline from Thursday’s elections is in Northern Ireland. ‘The Province’. Where, for the first time in that sort-of-nation’s 101 year history, the majority vote went to Sinn Fein. What used to be called, back in the day, ‘the political wing of the IRA’. This could lead to that most extraordinary of events. Which is that one group of very loud, shouting, completely unintelligible people, will be replaced with another… who sound exactly the same! But they’re not the same. They’re not only different, they’re prepared to kill each other for that difference.

The Republicans have won. Those who wish Northern Ireland to be reunited with their brothers in the South, independent bit. The Unionists have lost their right to lead the Irish government. They’re the ones who are fiercely loyal to Great Britain, love the Queen, hate abortion and march through the streets of Belfast every year in parades which cause massive upset and inflammatory situations. In ‘marching season’. Where, like other animals in their ‘mating season’, they are driven by an almost unconscious imperative to pick up a bass drum, put on a bowler hat and march through the streets with all the other Protestants upsetting the Catholics. Generally, no-one minds anyone upsetting Catholics but this is on an industrial scale.

The cruel irony is that it really doesn’t matter who ‘won’ the election because their parliament can’t sit. Because the Unionists have not returned to Stormont since Brexit. Because of the ‘virtual’ border which now exists. And the law there says their parliament cannot sit without both sides represented. Its not good enough if a few nationalists stand on the other side and pretend, even though it sounds the same (loud, shouty, unintelligible). So the Unionists have their victory but its rather hollow, currently.

Spurs draw at Liverpool on Saturday did no favours to either team really. Sounded like a good result for us but just not enough. And Liverpool must accept that Man City just ain’t gonna lose a game. And we go into Thursday night’s Arsenal match uttering numerous prayers, most of which are dependent on winning that game. And that… yeah, well…

Everton’s win yesterday puts massive pressure on Leeds and Burnley. One’s going. The other will have to wait for next May to get relegated. But it does make for an interesting final couple of weeks.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Yep, if you could just pull that noose, just, like, a little bit tighter round my neck, yep, yep… that should be fine.

I’ll come clean. ‘Transparency’ (which I thought was another new gender option initially). State my position honestly. Clearly. Without deliberation:

I don’t like Kier Starmer.

I know what you’re thinking; that I don’t actually like anybody (other than Lila, Joey and Son Heung Min). And you’re close. But no cigar. Though I do reserve most of my real dislike for politicians. Only when they lie and cheat and steal. Which is most of them, most of the time. And always when they commit the ultimate sin: hypocrisy. For them the bounds of my hatred are stretched to limits only normally witnessed during child-birth.

I wrote a few weeks ago about how boring (Kier’s middle name) it is that he only has one single cry: ‘HE MUST GO!!!’ Sometimes he amends it slightly to ‘HE MUST RESIGN’ but that in itself is not exactly evidence of a fertile imagination. And although he’s made his call virtually every time the Prime Minister says or does anything (though it should be noted that most of what the PM does is either illegal, immoral or stupid). But he saved his particular form of endless repetition for the ‘party scandals’.

The Prime Minister has broken covid rules; HE MUST GO!
The Prime Minister has broken the law: HE MUST GO!
The Prime Minister has been fined by the police: HE MUST GO!

And now, in the sweetest denouement anyone could ever wish upon a limp and toothlessly benign and banal leader of Her Majesty’s opposition, all that has now been brought to light ‘in Durham’ has put Sir Kier in the exact position Boris occupied when Starmer called for his resignation. Again and again, like a fucking parrot with only one sentence in its beak. The ‘spontaneous working dinner’ which just had ‘a few beers’ has been revealed to be an organised 15-person party, pre-arranged and pre-invited, by Starmer’s office.

Those wonderful words: ‘position’ and ‘untenable’ and ‘tosser’, possibly ‘hypocritical nonce’ need to be arranged in a sentence, the end of which reads: HE MUST GO!

Few teams GO! from Anfield with anything in the way of points. Spurs did last night, to their eternal credit. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really enough points. Which is precisely how Liverpool must be feeling too. Not that we care about them.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

There were elections here on Thursday. I went to vote. With Lila and Joey. Who were given free pencils. So it wasn’t a completely wasted event. I voted for the Conservatives because its the fucking council elections so who cares? The Tories generally keep the expenditure down and thus we pay less council tax. Who knows? If services are a bit reduced as a consequence, I’ll just have to put my lawn mowings out for collection once every two weeks. I can live with that.

I think I was the only person in the country who entered the polling station with local considerations in mind. Everyone else, especially here in Barnet, had an agenda. Based on national, governmental politics. Basically: fuck up Boris every which way you can. Because everyone hates Boris. Rightly so. And local elections are always used as a protest against national government, everyone knows that. Because the result doesn’t really do much harm one way or the other, so you can protest almost ‘for free’. Until Labour get in, as they did here in Barnet, and your council tax goes up 400 quid a month. Then its not quite as ‘free’ as it should have been.

So it was always going to be bad for Boris and the Conservatives. Except… it really wasn’t anything like the bloodbath that was expected. Ok, the Tories lost their 3 ‘crown jewels’ of Barnet, Wandsworth and Westminster, but they never had a great deal of local control in London anyway. Yet Labour, who won all three of those, did pretty much nothing else of note. Which is strange in our pretty-much 2-party nation. But when you go to put a cross in the box for a Labour person, you see Kier Starmer. And your pencil starts to hover. Then shake a bit. And your arm won’t move it towards the box. Then, at the last moment, it slips into the Lib-Dem box instead. Which, as is always the case, is pretty much like just spoiling your voting paper. A waste of time. Like the Lib-Dems. Who actually had the best result of all the parties from these elections. Due to all the hatred of Boris and Starmer.

All the leaders proclaimed victory. Boris, because it was nothing like as bad as it could have been. Really should have been. Starmer because his poxy party took three London boroughs. And what’s-iss-name, Sir Thungumy, claimed that the Lib Dems will now go on to win the next general election. They’ve suddenly become ‘Manchester City’, even though they play like Scunthorpe.

Then Starmer got summoned by the police for his own little ‘not-a-party’ in Durham during a lockdown and that soured his already sour expression somewhat.

Basically, the people get to vote against all the lies and distortions and spin, then the leaders come out and lie, distort and spin. Learned that lesson then.

Happy Saturday, from the People’s Republic of Barnet.

A xxxx

Shell Oil announced their figures yesterday. They made a 7.2 billion pound profit in the last 3 months. Shame. To add to BP’s 6 billion announced last week. And when I say ‘shame’ I don’t mean ‘awww, how can anyone live on that’, I mean ‘shame’ in a more Green Party way: ‘rewarded for single-handedly devastating the entire world with the product causing most increase in carbon levels’. Or in a Labour Party way: ‘these two parasitical mega-corps have made obscene levels of profit on the pain, suffering and financial devastation of every working person in the world and must be taxed accordingly. Punitively’.

There are questions to be asked really, because the massive increases in these two giants’ quarterly figures are due to the vast increases in oil and gas prices worldwide. Causing people everywhere to be forced to make horrible decisions. Feed the kids, pay the gas bill or have a night down the pub with me mates? Looks like the kids’ll be cold as well as hungry then. Others are having to burn old people to heat their homes, so scared of turning on the heating. All of which deprivation has translated into vast wealth for the oil producers. Causing unease in all the usual reactionaries. Kier Starmer, Angela Rayner et al see it as a ‘no brainer’ that as much as this profit should be stolen as a ‘windfall tax’ by the government. 50% of that vast total, taken in taxation, could mean every home in Britain having an annual energy cost reduction of almost one pound!!! And that’s gotta be worth having, surely? To offset the 200 quid a month increase in monthly payments?

Because it costs us nothing to just steal a few bil from a big company. Especially an… OIL!!!! company, for whom there can’t be much support or sympathy. For ‘preying’ on the frail and incontinent. (?)

Yet there are problems with such a move. Firstly, though of no concern to the Labour Party is the whole morality of a ‘windfall tax’. Which is basically: you’ve got more than me, I’m gonna take it and you can’t do nuffink about it. And then there’s the other considerations. Like the increased value this little profit will put on virtually everyone’s pensions, including the state one. Like the billions in research which Big Oil is spending on renewable and greener energy. Which they do because otherwise, when oil and gas are banned in 2040/2050/20-whenever, they’ll have nothing to sell. But also because they have the infrastructure and cash to build wind-farms (million quid each windmill) and build car-charging points and look for alternatives to fossil fuels. Well, they do unless we steal it from them.

Sometimes you need to look beyond the knee-jerk indignation. You listening, Starmer?

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I didn’t see the Spurs match yesterday, for the main reason, it wasn’t televised. I could have opted for the ‘Bulgarian stream’ or the ‘Lithuanian hackers’ but instead went out for tea. So I watched the hilights on Match of the Day 2. Which didn’t take long. No idea how Leicester weren’t 4-nil up by the time Harry scored his goal, but they didn’t capitalise on their opportunities. Then we scored 2 more lovely, wonderful, Sonny goals, the second of which was something of a masterpiece, and comfortably saw the match out. Other than the goal we conceded at the end. Which didn’t matter. Other than, it did. They all matter. But I was lifted by the result. As were Spurs. To… 4th place!!!! Above Arsenal. Yippee.

Two-and-a-half hours later we were back in 5th, just below the Arse. Or ‘the return of the doomsday scenario’, as we feel it. So now it becomes all about… The Run In!!! How the last 4 matches turn out as we are 2 points shy of the Goons but with a much better goal difference.

We start next weekend with an easy game. Unfortunately, I don’t mean easy for us. But possibly easy for Liverpool. Who aren’t very good, don’t score many goals and really have nothing left to play for anyway. (Reality alert: you can’t win matches on self-delusion alone, but it can never hurt). Then we play Arsenal. Unless Arteta catches covid again and calls it off until next December. Tosser.

Arsenal have an easy run-in. Other teams’ run-ins are always easy. That way you can laugh more as they drop points. So ‘it’s all to play for’. And I’m feeling nauseous at the thought.

Meanwhile, down the bottom end, things have gotten more interesting. Burnley are ‘on a run’ and must be fancied to stay up just because teams ‘down there’ don’t win three in a row and can’t count ‘games in hand’ as any points. Cos they probably won’t get any. Leeds too are now ‘in the fray’. And both of those teams are just 2 points clear of the drop zone. In which sit Norwich, who’ve already gone, Watford, who sadly virtually have too. And Everton. Who should be relegated just for having Horrible Frankie as manager but actually won yesterday against Frankie’s very own Chelsea. And the likelihood of that result is so minuscule that I’m immediately thinking far-eastern gambling syndicates or a glitch in Frank’s departing terms from his old club allowing him one impossible result when he manages a team.

So its either Burnley, Leeds or Everton to go. My heart is on Everton but I really wish I cared more about any of them one way or the other.

My focus must remain on 4th place. And now with Christian Romero showing everybody precisely what 47 million quid’s worth of centre back looks like, (and he’s sooooo pretty too!!!), we must stay positive. No, we MUST!!!

Happy May Day

A xxxx

Tonight in New York there’s a boxing match. Nothing new there. They’ve been doing it since Mohammed Ali got knocked down by Joe Frazier in Madison Square Garden. And that’s the venue for Amanda Serrano to make a title attempt against Katie Taylor, who holds not just one title but is currently as entitled as Prince Andrew was before he went for a pizza in Surbiton. Nothing new in that, boxing’s always had trouble working out who runs it, so about 17 organisations all have their own titles.

But this boxing is… is… is… for gels! Yep, two women slogging it out in the ring. With gloves on. Not white silk ones with pearls, but boxing gloves. Real ones. For punching. They don’t make ‘slapping gloves’, I checked on Amazon, so these are proper, girl boxing gloves.

I am aware that boxing has been ungendered for many years now. The Olympics is full of women beating the shit out of each other. And that’s just they gymnasts and certainly the ice-dancers. But this ‘real’. Professional. Million quid each contender. More media coverage than last week’s heavyweight men’s title fight.

And thus the ‘sport of gentlemen’ (even though they don’t really look like gentlemen when they’re doing it) has been equalitified (a new word I’ve had to make up for when a gender biased thing is brought into the post-stupid arena) and the world is a better place for it. A less discriminating world. More egalitarian.

So next Sunday there’s the first ever Men’s new triathlon, the Ironing Man competition. In which a group of geezers have to iron 14 shirts, make dinner for 8 people without making any mess and then mince to the coffee shop in very tight skirts and high heels where they have to bitch about other men for 32 minutes without stopping for breath.

It’s a lovely day, a long weekend so everything’s looking good. Nothing to cause negativity at all. Until Spurs kick off tomorrow at 2. I won’t say how ‘big’ this weekend is but suffice to say, bigger than last week’s but not quite as big as the next.

Happy Friday

A xxxx