Andy's Glasses

The true ‘romance of the FA Cup’ is when Basildon Town beat Manchester United. Because it can happen. Doesn’t often but that’s what the Cup is all about. Anything is possible. However improbable. That’s the bit that the proponents of the failure that was the EPL missed completely. Never cared about it in the first place and were shocked that any kind of ‘level playing field’ could ever be allowed to stand in the way of increasing their personal fortunes. Well, fuck ‘em; that’s finished.

But another ‘romance of the cup’ is when anyone other than Chelsea, Man City or Arsenal win it. Especially Chelsea because I’ve been conducting a straw poll and they are definitely the team most football fans hate. With good reason. Which I’m not going to tell you. Just trust me: very good reason.

And Leicester City are not in any way a ‘big club’. They were, back in black’n’white days, but then they floundered mostly in the lower leagues for decades. Only to return to the top flight about 5 years ago and, despite being mere impoverished upstarts in the established ‘money buys everything’ years, they won the league. That was romantic. Outstandingly so. To be a relegation-favourite team with little money and beat off the real big (read: ‘rich’) clubs was, in essence, the fulfilment of a wonderfully anachronistic ideology which sustains fans of Bury and Dagenham and Yeovil and Arsenal. And runs contrary to every facet of the EPL.

So for Leicester, everyone’s favourite above-weight-punchers, to beat Chelsea yesterday was a thing of true beauty. Everyone’s other favourite beating the team we all hate. Perfect. And romantic. Because although its ‘only the Cup’, it carries a strange and unique status. Which is that of being greatly diminished from its worthy past and yet still something teams really want to win. And Man City and Chelsea seem to win it most years. Funny that. That richest two clubs in the world (PSG notwithstanding) and they keep winning stuff. But not yesterday. Leicester City won. The romance returned.

And then Spurs just beat Wolves and can still make the top four. If three other teams all just go away. Otherwise its probably Europa Leauge for us next year.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

The Mayor of Greater Manchester is Andy Burnham. And even though he was born in Liverpool, and hatred between our two ‘great’ (?) north-west cities is strong, he was voted mayor and last week was re-elected with a massive majority.

I’ve never been a massive fan of Burnham. Not because he looks like an early Thunderbirds prototype puppet that they decided to abandon and use Scott Tracey instead. And not because he’s a Labour man, because I’ve always been sympathetic to left-leaners, other than Corbyn, who leaned over so far he fell off the end and when they stood him up he was stuck in that anti-democratic wilderness between hard left and hard right where you really can’t tell the difference.

Burnham stood against Corbyn for leadership, obviously failed and then took a career change from his days in Westminster. He became…

A professional Northerner. The great spokesman for The Entire North. And, as a lifelong and dedicated southern softee, a Lundunnna fru’an’fru, I’d just like to define what I consider as ‘the North’ before continuing.

The North consists of, mainly, northern places. But it is not limited to merely this. Because most kids learn their geography of Britain from football, and because most football fans are thick as shit, mere compass points lack proper relevance to show the real contempt which is felt. So obviously the ‘Covid Belt’ is well up north. Liverpool, Manchester, Bolton, Blackburn, Burnley and Bristol. These extend all the way to ‘well up north’ places such as Middlesboro’, Newcastle and Penzance. Go any further and you get to Scotland. Or Wales. Same difference. Bournemouth is ‘south’, mainly because we like Bournemouth, rather than the fact that it happens to be on the south coast. Whereas Portsmouth is ‘up north’, even though its next door to Bournemouth.

So Andy Burnham, as far as I’m concerned, is the president of ‘the rest of England’. Benefit Land. But he’s always trying to claim special status for ‘his people’. More money. More Covid testing. More vaccinations. He complains that whilst every Londoner has now had 5 vaccinations each, the rest of the country has only had 326 between them. I’m not sure what point he’s trying to make.

And now, as Labour degenerates into the nothingness of the Starmer years, struggles to find an identity, never mind vote-ability, there’s talk that Burnham should become their next leader. So that they can once again come second in an election but with some pride.

My worry is that Northerners (see above) love him and as there’s more of them than of us, he could win an election. And turn London into… a Northern City!

Frightening Friday

A xxxx

I’ve always embraced my inner nerd. I wear glasses. I read a lot. I like science. Sadly my geekiness is almost catastrophically tarnished by my love of sports and ‘hitting things’ in general. Hitting tennis balls, hitting people, this is a total distraction from proper, full-fledged nerdiness, and I can only apologise. So in terms of me and Bill Gates, I’m one tennis racquet to the good, and 130 billion dollars in the hole.

But as the Gates divorce begins to unfold, tales emerge of the ‘inner life of geeks’, the ‘other side of the coder’s coin’. When pale, spotty, pasty, 19-hours-a-day on the screen creeps let rip. Because as the sun began to rise in Silicon Valley and all the way up the west coast to Gates’ ‘own’ Seattle, the tales of the wild parties, the orgies, the drug’n’booze filled, 4-day pool extravaganzas of which Caligula would have been proud, begin to emerge. And shed new light on the species, nerdus softwarian.

Because these dudes, the Gates and the Elon Musks and Zuckerbergs were the rock stars of their day. But they didn’t look like Jon Bon Jovi and Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison. They looked like the kids who got bullied at school, didn’t bathe too often, and had a wardrobe of 6 items, 4 of which are ‘dirty t-shirt’.

But the rules of engagement are the same universally. FOLLOW THE MONEY. And these guys had the money, growing vastly even ‘back then’. And where there’s money there’s generally groupies, drugs and lots of sex. Call it ‘misogyny’, call it ‘boys being boys’, call it Cyril for all I care, but its just what happens. And this gets taken back to the workplace and manifests as ‘abuse’ and harassment and all kinds of HR nightmares, as the division between the ‘work’ and ‘play’ becomes a little blurry and the geeks feel liberated from their snail-like persona to live the full ‘masters of the universe’ life they can very quickly adapt to. Probably more quickly than non-nerds because real ‘rock stars’ grew up gorgeous and had babe-magnet status at 12. And the nerds were the untouchables until the money flowed.

And Bill Gates, the nerd’s nerd, the straightest, nerdiest LOOKING of them all, was, by all accounts, a fucking animal. I don’t condemn him for this. He may be brilliant and rich, but he’s only human. And more, he’s a male human and thus fatally flawed from birth with ‘that organ’ which causes endless trouble.

Among Bills vast array of properties is a little (by his standards) beach-side, wooden house in North Carolina. Which he keeps to share one weekend every year with the same ‘ex-girlfriend’, with consent from Mrs Gates. So although the amazing Mr Gates, philanthropist extraordinaire, giver of money all round good person who strongly resembles a preacher from Boise, Idaho; there’s something of the Weinstein there, just waiting to come out.  

#me0010 (binary code joke)

A xxxx

It’s over. Again. Covid? History. Not one single person died yesterday from Covid in the whole of England! Which is brilliant!

Unfortunately, 14 died from ‘Covid Boredom’ a disease which attacks the brain during repeated pandemic statistical information broadcasts. 34 died in crashes on their way to have Covid tests and three more passed away from over-excitement at the thought of hugging someone significant in just a few weeks time. 97 Fulham fans died of disappointment and one political party (errrr, Labour) committed suicide. Though as that is in fact a ‘work in progress’, it won’t affect statistics.

But Covid wasn’t all bad. Because it has revolutionised ‘recycling’.

Just over a year ago, if you had broken garden furniture, dead TVs, ragged mattresses, you’d pile them in the car and head for the dump. Where you’d queue behind 47 white Transit vans, all arguing with the dump-geezers, “Naaah mate, it ain’t ‘trade’ waste, iss personal, from me ‘ouse, innit. So I don’ have ta pay 40 quid, cos iss not ‘trade’. Even though me van says ‘BUILDERS AND WASTE REMOVERS’ on the side”. Then you get your turn, open the car, shlep out the broken old grand piano, single-handed, as 14 blokes in hi-viz jackets stand there watching.

No more. In our (almost) post-Covid world you go online and book an appointment. To dump my old lawn mower. Because its… dead!!! (But didn’t test positive in the last 28 days so doesn’t count). And I’ll probably be invited to see a ‘consultant’ when I get there. In a yellow jacket. At a (recycled) desk. Where he’ll question what I’m dumping. And why. Do I need counselling for the loss of the prospective dumped thing? Has it been replaced? Can he google a new lawn mower for me. Do I need finance?

Because ‘The Dump’ became ‘The Recycling Centre’. But the email confirming my appointment, presumably from the dump secretary, came from…

“London Energy”!!!! Holy shit, that’s impressive. Probably named thus because you really need a lot of energy to get all the shit out of your car and you’ll be exhausted when you’re done. Done dumping. Or perhaps, done energising.

Saturday at 12. I’m so excited.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

‘Nice’ is possibly the most horrible word in the English language. ‘Bollocks’ is in most cases a much nicer (nooooo) word, though obviously with a different meaning.

Yet sometimes I just think that so many people act in ways of such arseholish dickheadedness that really, what we need is more niceness. More tolerance. Understanding. Empathy. Compassion. Because the opposite of ‘nice’ is not ‘horrible’ or ‘nasty’ or even ‘not nice’, but is in fact ‘dogmatic’.

And whilst we’re talking words, how about ‘heteronormativity’. It’s a play in which Jesus is gay. Ok, its about a straight man’s heart rate during exercise. Ok, none of those. You know what it means. The normalisation of heterosexual standards!!! An awful thing. Which is why, at a school in Nottingham, the inclusivity person in charge came up with a new school chant of ‘SMASH HETERONORMATIVITY’. Songwriter, she ain’t. So the chaplain at the school, which is a Church of England school and is funded due to its almost toxic levels of Christianity, made a sermon. As chaplains are wont to do. And in it he said that you should listen to all the lovely, rabid, totally-woke LGBT+++ sentiments but obviously you have a right to challenge their ‘ideology’. Key word. Calls it for what it is. A set of demands for equality and inclusivity that carry the weight of religious doctrine, the questioning of which SHOULD BE ILLEGAL!!!!

And this priest then stated the official Christian line(s). Marriage is between a man and a woman of opposing genders and only ever one set of pronouns. And sex belongs in marriage, not in phone boxes, car seats or anywhere outside a proper, hetero-type marriage. As marriage between anything else, gays, transes, animals or hedges, is banned by God.

The best bit of the story is that the school, in its shock horror of the chaplain’s words, called Prevent. They are the anti-terrorist, anti-radicalisation unit of the police. I mean, really??? Prevent told them politely to fuck off and waste someone else’s time. The priest is sacked, the wokeness prevailed, the Christians can go… well, they can’t ‘fuck themselves’ because that’s not within the bible instructions.

So what you have is your essential ‘rock and a hard place’. A battle between two sets of horrible, rigid, dogmatic, unyielding paradigms, neither of which allows ‘wiggle room’ or compromise of any significance.

The wokes don’t want mere acceptance for their minority, they want total domination and control of the 99%. Who are ‘normal’ IN THE STATISTICAL WAY ONLY!!!!!, (holy shit, ya gotta be so careful), but not allowed to act it. And the Christians who feel that God’s word (not that anyone’s ever heard him speak) is unarguable and set in the stones Moses carried down from the mountain.

So I’d just like to say: its all bollocks (nice word). And if people were just a little nicer (horrible word), everything could be nicely accommodated in a really nice way.

I’m over football. It has no meaning in my life.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

We have a vast political landscape in this fine, democratic nation. And its blue. There’s hundreds of other colours in the palette, but they don’t count. Don’t contribute. Don’t reckon into the equation. Which currently reads: Boris 1, everyone else didn’t.

It is remarkable that they’re now talking about a Conservative government with greater longevity than Maggie Thatcher’s 11 years. Possibly. And all they really need is a pandemic every year to ensure it. Ok, maybe unfair, they need a pandemic AND they need a hapless, meaningless, message-less Labour Party to contribute to their wellbeing. Which, under the stern-appearing, solid-sounding but with a very very soft underbelly leadership of Kier Starmer, they seem to have.

I’m undecided about Kier. Never liked the look of him, I find him quite repulsive, but ‘this is not the cult of personality or beauty’… yet it always is. And when Kier came in, suspended Corbyn on about day3 and spoke harshly about his predecessor’s evil ways, my first thought was ‘well said, Kier-baby’ and my second thought was ‘where the fuck have you been for the last 3 years other than standing right next to Corbyn nodding your fucking head? Supporting these ‘evil ways’, even if that ‘support’ was just doing and saying nothing. When he became leader he ‘suddenly realised’ that his wife was Jewish and rose to defend her race and her people. Hmmm…

Is it still about Brexit? I really don’t know. Why would the good people of Hartlepool (I’m sure there must be a few, aren’t there?) just abandon their voting patterns of the last 60 years because they ‘believe in’ the Conservative way. It’s actually unthinkable. And if they were Corbynites protesting, the last person in the world they’d vote for would be a Tory. So it can only be a dislike of Starmer or they’re hanging on so tightly to their Brexit ways that only Boris could possibly represent them. As if anyone else might take us ‘back in’. Whereas only Nicola Sturgeon has the power to do that. According to Nicola Sturgeon. And Hadrian’s Wall is like green kryptonite to her anyway so her powers don’t work down here.

I’m not sure about the argument that ‘Starmer is just another posh, southern softy, London lawyer’ and thus can’t understand the lives of a northern working class rabble, when Boris is just the same, without the lawyer bit.

All I know is that without some kind of viable and united opposition party, government doesn’t work properly. And the opposition party currently have no message, no visible path to success, no viable nuffink. Sir Kier needs to get his shit together and have a, kind’a, ‘plan’. And quick. Because Boris is not the God that he is actually beginning to think he is.

Happy wet Saturday. Real men play tennis in the rain. Especially silly ones who know no better.

A xxxx

… a thousand words. But in this case, David Mellor’s headline in the Mail on Sunday uses fewer than a thousand words to… errrr… to… to deconstruct our esteemed Mayor of all London Town. Some may feel this assessment a little harsh. Not me. Others may find it cruel and heartless. Not me. More than a few will think this typical of an arch-Tory, opera-loving, fat, myopic, adulterous Chelsea fan. Yeah, I suppose I do.

But, hyperbole aside, Sadiq Kahn is a complete waste of space (though granted, not much space required), time and effort. I simply can’t stand the man. He was a lawyer. And if that’s not bad enough, he was a lawyer who spoke like a bus-driver’s assistant. And still does. I’m no ‘class snob’, generally us Eastenders aren’t. And I love a dropped ‘H’ or a glottal stop on occasion as much as the next (very common) man. But Sadiq represents London. Nationally. Internationally. At conferences. Heavyweight shit. And can’t even speak proper whilst doing it. Other than that, he’s ineffectual, worthless and has spent the last year, his Covid bonus year in office, hiding. From Coronavirus, from people, from everything. Whilst Boris was out there contracting all the virus he could, Sadiq led fair and square from the back. Didn’t leave his house for 7 months. Sprayed the Ocado man with Detol. And agreed the plan with Boris (who basically fits the description of David Mellor above, in all but the ‘myopic’ bit) to hike the congestion charge in price and make it ‘24/7’. Tosser.

Well on Thursday we vote again. Finally. A year late to select our ‘new’ mayor, but as it was such a terrible year for Sadiq, safe to say it wasn’t a totally wasted 12 months. He built… let me count… three there… six on the A.417… he built NO houses at all. Knife crime is increasing. And has no worthwhile plans to ‘reflate’ London and its essential economy.

So for whom are we to vote? The obvious choice would be ANYBODY BUT HIM!!!, yet its not that simple. Because the Conservatives have found as their candidate the most lightweight choice open to them in Shaun Bailey. Almost like if they selected anyone else it would be unfair on Sadiq. There’s the Greens, but really? Dig up the Marylebone Road and plant trees there? Ban cars totally? Lawn mowers? Knock down Brent Cross and put tents there for refugees? Actually that’s not a bad idea.

We have Laurence Fox standing as the ‘offend everyone’ candidate. Various tik-tok and instagram ‘stars’ throwing in their hats on the basis that they happen to be free this Thursday. And the Lib-Dems. As always: good luck to the Lib-Dems.

I’ll either vote for the Woman’s Equality Party or the Monster Raving Loonies.

Is this really the ‘best’ London can offer? I’d stand myself but its Lila/Joey day so I’m busy.

Happy day before Election Day

A xxxx

I like football. Well, I used to. It was easy. You just went and watched your team on Saturday and they’d win or sometimes not and then you’d watch Match of the Day and The Big Match to see how all the other teams did so you could abuse your friends properly on Monday. Then you wait a week and repeat. The FA Cup was the biggest event in the year. Life was simple. Football was simple.

Then Sky came along, invented the Premiership, La Liga, Le Ligue, Das Bestenfutballgrupen and the others and it all changed. Players swapped their bus passes for Bentleys, wives became WAGs, peroxide sales rocketed, Billy English lost his place to Johnny Foreigner and those hard-working beloved old club ‘owners’ either cashed in or were forced out by financial clout. An ongoing process, exchanging cash for vanity, reaching its apotheosis when Chelsea and Manchester City were re-born. Because, like Jesus before them, those two teams had suffered. For years, for decades, they endured ‘crucifixion’ on a
regular basis and learned humility and goodness as a consequence. Without the goodness.

And with money comes politics. The rules change so everyone tries to seek advantage. Money speaks and in football it tends to speak in an American accent, or possibly and Arab-oil one.

As I mentioned, the FA Cup was the most important event in the
nation’s sporting calendar. And now it is virtually nothing. Because when the European Cup changed into the Champions League, it was just bigger, better, more prestigious, and much, much richer than any national competition could ever be, being the greatest recipient of Sky’s massive cash inflow.

Yet that wasn’t enough cash to please the greedier of club owners. So they attempted a coup. Which would ensure more money but GUARANTEED EVERY SINGLE YEAR. With no squabble for ‘4th place’, no aspiration for lesser (financed) clubs. And they failed and died in 48 hours. Why did it take so long? That’s the only relevant question.

So Manchester United fans ‘protesting’ is fine by me. Even having their match abandoned as a consequence (which probably spared them the indignity of possibly losing to their greatest rivals and simultaneously handing the league title to their local neighbours) was ok. Something needs to be done and you can bet the Premier League won’t do it as they lack testicles.

But the violence? That immediately negates any good the protest mighthave achieved. Because the ‘cop-haters’ will attend any event that enables them to cause mayhem and hurt. Which is nothing to do with. football. But all to do with being some kind of ‘tosser’ who likes attacking the police.

What should have been a really great statement at the biggest club team in the world turned into a shit-storm of stupidity.

And then Spurs had a MASSIVE four nil win and that’s all that counts.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Today I’m going to give you the benefit of some tips for having a beautiful garden.

Gardening tip number 1: don’t do it. It’s dull, laborious, back-breaking and it’ll all look exactly the same when you’ve finished, 7 hours and 35 Ibuprofen later. So get a gardener, marry a gardener, or move to a flat.

But then there’s the lawn. Ours is not ‘big’, like Buckingham Palace big, like Hyde Park big. Like Old Trafford big enough to hold a riot. But its big enough. And I like mowing the lawn. Because it doesn’t take long, gives immediate sense of satisfaction and beautifulness and makes loads of noise and involves smelly internal combustion, petrol engines. And my trusty, faithful old mower just died. I pulled the cord and… and… and nothing happened and the cord didn’t whizz back in. It just… dangled. Oh well, I would reassess the whole ‘trusty’ and ‘faithful’ shit but its not a dog. It’s a machine. Old and now dead. So its time to google another.

And they’ve changed. Oh my, how they’ve changed. In line with the recently announced ‘exemptions from any climate change consideration’, like Ferraris and gas heating boilers, lawn mowers have grown in stature. Ok, they make electric if you want to spend all afternoon repairing the cable you’ve just mowed in half, and they make ‘re-chargeable’ if you’re unsure of your pronoun affiliation. But lawns require power. And, with all due apologies to Greta Thunberg, petrol delivers.

And now they make them with four-stroke engines. Big ones. Which need radiators. And superchargers. Well, ‘need’… But how can it hurt to make a grass-cutting equivalent of Vin Diesel’s Dodge in Fast and Furious? They come with electric starters, no more cord-pulling, and gearboxes and… and… and…

It’s lawn-mower porn. And I’m ordering today.

Happy bank holiday Monday

A xxxx

It’s not easy spending your life gorgeously. In fact it is downright difficult and most of the time, filled with discomfort and embarrassment. Because being blessed with the kind of face which Michelangelo would have sculpted, the body of an Adonis, a six-pack riding proudly where, if there were any kind of God, a great, fat, chocolate-filled beer belly would sit, buns of steel and legs of such curvaceousness that women swoon and feint as they pass the tennis courts yelling ‘phwoaoaoaoarrrrr!’, is not all its cracked up to be. Because I’ve spent my life being objectified. Ogled. Groped (if only). Harassed.

And I want to shout at these women (yes, it’s ALWAYS women… mostly) “But that’s not ‘me!’, that’s not WHO I am, that’s just an exterior!!!” I want to tell them that underneath all that meaningless awesome perfection lies a dull and listless halfwit. A man!! With thoughts, though obviously not many, with ideas, mainly bad ones, with emotions, of a vague and empty, manly kind, and with feeeeeeeelings! I AM NOT JUST AN OBJECT OF PERFECTION!!! I AM A PERSON!!! And as such I wish to be engaged, first and foremost in such a manner. With no shouting as I walk by, no cat-calling (dog-calling?), no ‘accidental’ bumping at the bar, no revisiting the old ‘no taxation without representation’ line and replacing it with ‘no job promotion without fornication’, because it’s WRONG to treat a man in such a way. And we’ve put up with it for too long. Turned the other cheek, only to find it being pinched by some Amazon in Louboutins grinning lasciviously over her G-and-(low-cal)-T.

The problem is that I like looking gorgeous. Sometimes I even accentuate that gorgeousness in ways that some might perceive as almost enticing! That I’m actually looking to attract women!!!! When really I’m just wearing tight shorts and a crop top because it empowers me. Though I do try to avoid Piccadilly Circus when kitted up like that.

So following decades of such misery, I’m appealing for historic sex crimes against me to be taken seriously and I’m going to issue of list of perpetrators, going back at least 40 years… in fact it then stopped 35 years ago, but THAT’S NOT THE POINT. It happened, it changed me and I want the law to take this matter up and… and… remove all these people’s films from tv, sack them from their cabinet posts, take away those dame-hoods and ladyships.

#me-he!

Just sayin’…

Happy Sunday

A xxxx