Andy's Glasses

If I start a debate about cancel culture, will I be ‘cancelled’? Probably, ‘yes’. Because extremists (and the cancel thing is nothing if not the extreme end of the already horrible obsession for a totally PC world) have no sense of irony. In fact, if you have a sense of humour of any description (but for heaven’s sake, be very careful how you do choose your descriptors) you will probably be ‘called out’ and ‘cancelled’ already and thus not invited to join the most obsessive, intolerant, dictatorial, inflexible bunch of fascists who ever proclaimed left-wing leaning. Because the holy grails of that movement are inviolate. To such an extent that they become unmentionable with any kind of question mark attached. They are, quite simply, not open to debate.

JK Rowling tried to question a gender issue and was attacked, insulted and cancelled. Not that she gives a shit, quite rightly, and she continues to argue her side. Which no-one else will take up because of the ‘dangers’ which await on fucking Twitter. That could have a big effect if, unlike Ms Harry Potter, you don’t have a couple of bil in the bank.

Then there was the Eton school debacle where in a debate about feminism, a teacher role-played ‘the bad guy’, the one with opposing views. Banned from school, ostracised, probably hunted online by the morons who do such things. Feminism, a wonderful and noble thing, has been reduced to a set of rules-by-consensus, (which is fine), that are not open to any discussion (which is the opposite of fine).

And now, once more, we have Prophet-gate, up in Batley. Where we return to the deliciously circular, ridiculous question dilemma like the one at the very beginning this message. This time it reads: is it blasphemous to show examples of blasphemy in a blasphemy lesson? And because absolutely any issue anywhere can be ‘called out’ as ‘Islamphobia!’, there has been uproar. The school immediately suspended the teacher concerned. There have been protests every day by ‘concerned parents’ about this ‘blasphemy’ and ‘insult’.

And then someone showed some sense. The school board actually defended, subject to a little enquiry to check the context, the teacher. The government spoke up about free speech and the importance of debating uncomfortable subjects as educationally beneficial. And so the people who almost invented the extreme version of ‘cancel culture’ (just ask Salman Rushdie), are being frustrated in their attempts to see someone stoned to death over the matter.

Sometimes you need to step back, stay calm and consider the implications.

It’s enough to make you vote for Laurence Fox as Mayor.

Happy Saturday. May your clocks go forward and your matzos not constipate your movements.

A xxxx

I’m always concerned greatly about matters gender related. Specifically two (of the countless) genders now available. Male, because that’s how I was born and on occasion choose to ‘self-identify’ (how am I doing so far? This is so difficult) and female because that has been my major source of obsession since I was 11. And I haven’t always treated (self-identifying, chromosomally orientated) women in ways I was always proud of, but I’ve definitely avoided prison. So far.

However, in the light of the recent ‘#me-too-extension’ we all have to reconsider what is or isn’t acceptable, both currently and historically. Even though really, its about moving forward. Into a world where perhaps women might feel less vulnerable, less pestered, less objectified. By shifting the responsibility onto the males. Particularly, but not limited to, builders and politicians. Taxi drivers. Accountants. Social workers, statisticians, footballers, cleaners, doctors, lawyers, car-washers…

Thus the obvious solution. Men, when still boys, must be educated. Less geography and woodwork, more ‘respect for women 101’. A ‘fuller’ education. Where social norms and protocols can be included. Manners. Politeness. Good behaviour. A bit like they currently do at the ‘finer’ of our schools. Because if you send your son to the Scumbag Academy, Dagenham, your expectations are very different to those if he’d gone to Eton. Westminster. St Pauls. Dulwich College. Where they train you first and foremost to be a ‘gentleman’. Then a Tory MP. Unless you’re not quite bright enough, then you get fast-tracked to Prime Minister.

And yet what do we find? That these ‘elite’ schools, the ‘finest in the land’, are in fact centres of excellence for rape, misogyny, groping, abuse and sexual assault. These ‘top’ schools are rife with porn culture among their ‘boys’ and reports of horrors to the girls they encounter or socialise with.

It was different in my day. Sexting was unavailable. Or was called ‘flashing’ and would land you in serious trouble. Revenge porn didn’t exist unless you had a film studio and ‘online romance’ normally meant being parked on a dark stretch of railway track out near Ongar.

Smart phones are not the whole problem but are definitely the facilitators and enablers of an entire culture of Neanderthalism. And when that meets the horrendous levels of ‘entitlement’ found in those ‘better schools’, it ain’t going to end well. And it doesn’t.

It’s not like these kids don’t know what they’re doing is wrong. That’s part of the game, the creator of even more frisson. The ‘education’ required is to realign their moral standards and remove the ‘boys will be boys’ bullshit. Or at least try to modify it to add; as long as you’re not causing hurt and suffering to girls.

Or train all girls in martial arts.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I’m not particularly a wine snob. I should be really, as I generally like to act as smug and princessy as possible at all times over any snob-worthy thing. “Oh, you wear ‘synthetic’, do you? How nice…” or “we only eat organic, high fibre-fed, free-range, naturally grazing Cod. Don’t YOU???” Or even, “well we had to close the house in the Cotswolds because of Squatters, so we had them killed, its a terrible mess”.

Yet wine snobs are definitely the worst. It’s not that I can’t taste the ‘underlying blackberry and lard with tones of lemming and elderbury and hints of mud’, its just that I’m not that bothered to try and discern them. I either like the taste or I don’t. I’m too binary to be a wine snob. I like hamburgers. With a heavy aroma of meat, base notes of ketchup, mustard and onion, and just a soupçon of bun. And more meat.

We like Torontes. It’s an Argentinian white wine. Which is very light and fresh and fruity and fab. But not the easiest wine to get hold of because it has to come a long way and its not an expensive wine. Evita probably liked it. And Maradona. Who, like me, was probably a ‘quantity over quality’ wine aficionado.

Our first stop on the great world tour of Argentina was in the north, a town called Salta. Most spectacular place in the world. And there, in the northern Andes, grows the Torontes grape. Which they send down to Mendoza to process, but ‘up there’ at altitude and northerliness, they only grow that white grape. The Malbec reds come from farther south. And in a nice restaurant on our first night, we sampled this local white and fell in love. It cost less than 3 quid for the bottle. In a decent restaurant. (Reasons why I LOVE Argentina, number 3. Would be number 1 if there were no sheep or cows to eat down there).

Waitrose announced in the newspaper that they had Torontes ‘on special offer’. Holy shit! A sign from heaven. I rushed up to North Finchley with a flat-bed truck. Only to find that they didn’t have any. I was devastated. But while the very helpful lady was searching the stock-room, I found my favourite whisky on offer so grabbed a bottle of that instead. God moves in mysterious ways. And I am a terrible whisky snob. The worst.

The moral is: as long as it gets you pissed; who gives a shit?

Happy (hic) Tuesday

A xxxx

I’m over it. We’re over it. Everyone’s over Spurs ‘temporary’ run of bad form, resulting in THE WEEK OF HELLLLL!!!!!, for all concerned, but was washed away like a nasty stain with yesterday’s victory at Villa  Park. Well, perhaps a bit more than a mere stain, more… more… a FULL FACE TATOO, so deep runneth the scars from the humiliation by Arsenal and then in Zagreb. But to be a football fan you need a thick skin and a terrible memory. A kind of elephant/goldfish hybrid. Whereas to be a football manager you only need to have others to blame for any collective failings which may occur. And Jose Morinho is a very good manager, by virtue of his unerring ability to deflect. But only the blame. Never the credit. 

Ursula Von der Leyen has declared war on Britain. The nation which, in the 1970s, adopted this virtual ‘refugee’ in danger for her life. She was ‘wanted’ by the Baader Meinhoffs, a German terrorist organisation, because of her liberal views and very rich daddy. Both of which made her a target for the hard-left militants who were, for their time, outrageously nasty and violent. By standards of today’s industrialised, multi-national, Footsie-100 terrorists, they would be seen as amateur lightweights. But they were bad enough that young Ursula came over here to study at LSE. Under an assumed name. Where she thrived in the ‘wild and crazy times’ in our capital in the heady, pre-punk days.

And she repays her wonderful hospitality here by threatening to ban vaccines made in Europe from coming here. Strictly against the rules of the Union of Europeans that she is in sole charge of. All 365 million of ’em. 

There was a protest yesterday. Over the right to protest. Bit ironic really. If you can’t protest, how can you protest about it? What do you with all your duffel coats? But they went to Bristol and protest they did. Duffel coats, banners, songs, chanting, usual protest shit, unchanged since Vietnam. Even though we have new Covid laws about gatherings and proximity. But the police are not totally insensitive to recent current affairs, so they just let them sing and wave their banners. Then night fell. And either these protesters are affected by the moon, like werewolves, or the protest was  taken over at nightfall by the somewhat more militant. Because it  all kicked off. Police vans set on fire, attacks on the police station, police injured in wave of ‘missiles’. And much as protesting is an essential right in any true democracy, there is a difference between ‘protest’ and ‘riot’, whatever the underlying point being made. Once the first 57-inch flat screen runs off down the road that marks the end of the official ‘protest’. 

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Anyone reading this who is over 35 years old may remember a weird, archaic and historical problem. Cars breaking down. Remember? Like, just ‘die’ on the motorway? Fan-belt snapped on the A23 just outside Brighton at 2am. Fan belts only ever broke on the A23 (because no-one lives within 50 miles of its entire length) and never before 2am. Then you first had to find a phone box (like an iPhone but 8 feet tall and concreted into the roadside. You couldn’t take selfies from a phone box. There again, you can’t take a piss in an iPhone.) Which could be 5 miles up an unlit, forested, country road, filled with vampires, crazed chain-saw murderers and princesses who would rescue you in their pink Porsches. The mind did funny things on the A23. Eventually you phone the AA, who wake up Kenny. He’s the on-call dude for ‘that area’. Lives 72 miles from you. But is on his way as fast as his Morris 1000 van can speed him there. 4 hours later he comes and changes the fan-belt. Hooray! I’ll be back in London just in time for the fucking rush hour.

Cars no longer break down. The cheapest model of Japanese owned, communist built eco-budget vehicle comes with the same internal computerisation which runs the space program at NASA. It tells you when things aren’t working properly and when to have a service and when to inflate your tyres. They’re just soooo clever.

I took Mel’s Mini for an MOT and asked them if it needs a service. So they plug it into a laptop which told them, and me, that it needs an ‘oil service’ and something minor changing over too. You can’t argue. So I had it done. And I know they did it properly.

Because this morning, in the space vacated by Mel’s car, was a fucking great oil spill. On the driveway. The new, lockdown project, driveway. All over our brand new, super, high grade marble, mined by 12 year old virgins from the SOUTH side of a hill in Timbuktu and floated across the Indian Ocean on the backs of hawksbill turtles, so as not to upset its essential marbleness. Even though its granite. Then each slab is wrapped in cotton wool and enclosed in silk. Then delivered by a gorilla with a crane all over the fucking flower-beds. This driveway was the holiday in India that we didn’t take due to… ya know.

Mel’s car is 6 years old, done about 20k miles and has never leaked or done anything bad in its entire life. The computers won’t allow such things. It’s either that the computers have been hacked by Russian money-launderers, Chinese cyber-bullies, or… some tosser didn’t tighten the oil filter properly. Technology can only get you so far.

Happy, oily Saturday

A xxxx

The narrative of this ‘orrible pandemic has been one of numbers. As every day we learn of the number of ‘new cases’, of ‘deaths’, ‘hospitalisations’ and now vaccinations (not applicable in Europe). With cumulative totals added in most cases too, to compliment the rolling averages and daily snapshots. Numbers. And of course, their partner in crime: graphs!!!

So here’s today’s numbers.

New cases of depression: 76,920
Wrists slit at the final whistle: 49
Hospitalisation due to despair: 3,991
The chance of Harry Kane leaving: up 27.86%
Those who think Jose Morinho must go: THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE WORLD!!!!!

This has without doubt been the absolute worst week of the pandemic (so far!!!). In purely quantitative terms, Spurs have played 2, lost 2, scored 1, conceded 5. But the actual numbers ignore the context, the nuance, the emotion, the importance of those games lost. The qualitative considerations. 

Losing to Arsenal is never a good thing. For most of us it is the worst thing imaginable (second is nuclear attack on London, third is Chelsea being given a humanitarian award). It goes beyond tragedy. And yet, there are losses and there are losses. And Sunday’s was the ‘total capitulation’ variety, with the second half of the match simply awful and disgraceful, until the 87th minute when our ‘stars’ suddenly woke up to the grim and inevitable realisation and tried, in vain and too late, to make the effort which had been so sorely lacking beforehand. To no avail and thus plunging their entire fan base into the very depths of glumness. At which time the ‘numbers started to rise’. The ‘second wave’ heralded by our probable loss of a ‘4th place finish’. 

But heh, we’re all pandemic hardened, so we had four whole days to ‘just get over it!!’, just 4 days of endless memes and ‘really funny jokes’ (apparently) from every Tom, Dick and Dickless who ever wore a red shirt in anger, before we could proudly go  marching again. This time to face the Dinamos of Zagreb in the UEFA. Where we proudly took our 2 goal  lead from the first leg and said: ‘go on then, see if you can score THREEEE then, if yer ‘ard enough!!!’ Which, of course, they did. Sending those numbers into the realms of the truly astronomical. 

I’m not a silverware whore. I really don’t count trophies (don’t take much counting if I did) as the justification for my team’s existence. I want them to please the eye, first and foremost. I want to enjoy watching them. If trophies follow that, so much the better. But this week… oh my gawd, this week…

Happy (???????) Friday

A xxxx

I’m rather concerned. About clottage. Blood clottage, to be specific. In Europeans. Because issues have been raised… ‘over there’ about a problem with the good, British, UK, Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine, which is the fish’n’chips of covid vaccines. It is the veritable roast beef and Yorkshire pudding of drugs. Solid, consistent and representative of all things Britain. It’s so good and desirable and United Kingdomish it is almost the full chicken tikka masala!!! of medicines.

Yet it ‘doesn’t work’ on foreigners. Not European ones anyway. They suffer blood clots from it. (WARNING: this is NOT just a political statement due to being snubbed with Brexit then forced to buy our drugs and then, being a bit let down with expected deliveries. There is NO concerted effort on the part of the European Union to defame a product just because its English. Even though it kind’a looks very much like that’s the case.)

Because statistics don’t lie. Except when they do. But in this instance, the statistics are brutally consistent and damningly significant.

In Britain, we’ve vaccinated 25 million people. About half have received the Astrazeneca version. 12,500,000 people. I won’t  name them here. And of those, there have been 3 reported incidents of a blood clot. Which, ironically, is far less than the blood clots you’d expect from any ‘normal’ sample of  that immense size. Indicating possibly that the AZ drug may actually prevent clotting!!! What’s French for ‘YOU’RE A TOTAL DICKHEAD, MONSIEUR!!!’? 12.5mil, 3 clots. Whereas ‘over there’, they’ve now vaccinated, between France, Germany, Spain, Holland and Italy, a total of 327 people and have found 496 blood clots! Half of them fatal!!! 

Disclaimer: these numbers have not been validated or confirmed by the ONS since they were invented by me this morning. Vaccines can go up as well as down. 

So the question is: in what way is European blood so massively different from good ole British blood? Ok, our blood is a bit  bluer, because we’re all posh, but other than the colour, how could this horrendous difference be reconciled with our fundamental understanding that: blood is blood, innit? Inconceivable. 

So without being too cynical, if this is a fiendish (read: ‘transparent and stupid’) plot to discredit ‘our’ vaccine, it should be pointed out that their continued efforts to do so are effectively using the entire population of Europe as pawns, as cannon fodder, to try and score a political point. Because whereas we’ve all been rushing around with our sleeves rolled up, searching for a suitable syringe, since November, there is already far greater resistance to vaccination ‘over there’. And this is a further impediment to getting the EU vaccinated. 
Emmanuel Macron is our Tosser of the week! (and month, and year). 

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Ok, let’s just have a quick re-cap. Sarah Everard gets abducted and murdered; women from all over the country speak out about acts of violence and harassment against them; Sarah’s murderer turns out to be a policeman; Sarah becomes an icon, a catalyst for society to change its behaviour towards women totally, so they don’t have to fear going out alone or worry about whether they are dressing or acting suitably and appropriately to not get attacked or raped.

So they had a vigil. The courts banned it because gatherings under covid rules, blah, blah, blah. But you know what; this is actually bigger than covid and certainly more enduring and we’re all bored with that shit anyway. So the planned vigil went ahead. And it was nice and it was peaceful and women felt they should be there. To make the point. To support Sarah’s family. To state their own case about violence towards women.

And the police responded by showing extreme violence towards those women. I mean… I mean… I mean… WTF?? 

Couldn’t Cressida Dick, the chief of all police and at one time a woman herself, couldn’t she have told them that a bunch of women lighting candles and laying flowers engaged in mass mediation should not be treated like Burmese freedom fighters. I mean, ‘softly softly’ should have been the order of the day. And night. Illicit gathering or not. 

However, in their defence, footage  I saw last night showed, in the front line of confrontation with the police line, a rather unlikely group of ‘feminists’. They were young men. Wearing hoods, balaclavas, masks (not that kind) and overtly provoking. They looked  like hard lefties. Or hard righties. Ok, they looked like scum. Possibly Chelsea fans. That type. In which case, why weren’t they arrested instead of a few sweet young women? 

More importantly, on to ‘chocolate-gate!!!!’ The Sunday Times presented its ‘best easter chocolate’ page yesterday, with pretentious fucking eggs, dogs, bunnies, covered in nuts and elderberries and fucking za’atar and wrapped in vine leaves, gold leaf and dried seaweed and I thought: NAAAH, I thought. Naaaah. Because for 35 quid, you can keep your sickeningly ostentatious and overblown ‘creation’, I’ll stick to the original. The best. The unmatchable. The totally perfect in its honesty, simplicity and pure wonderfulness. A Cadbury’s egg. Available in my little Tesco store for… a quid. One measly, miserly, cheapER-than-chips, pound. Which is why I now travel to work with a wheelbarrow. 

And all this so I don’t have to talk about football. Never again. I’m over it. I am an EX football fan. I’m taking up origami. 

Happy Monday (ish)

A xxxx

A UPS dude called into work yesterday with a package from France. One of my regular suppliers. And indeed one of our regular UPS dudes. “Here’s your package” he proclaimed, so fluently that I reckon he’s said that before. But his little bleeper wouldn’t bleep the bar code, despite frequent attempts, a modern-day, first-world tragedy! “Oh”, he said, “its because there’s an invoice”. Not from the suppliers, but from UPS. Not delivery, that’s paid. But ‘duty’. “One hundred and nine pounds and seventy-five pence”. He’s never done that before. Never asked, begged, demanded or even requested one single penny. But, ahhhhhhh, Brexit!!!

So I approached today being not too pleasantly disposed to our thieving neighbours across the Channel. Even though this ‘duty’ is British duty on imported goods because ‘we’ chose to leave the EU. I did a quick calculation, but did it in ‘Farage style’ of mathematics rather than the usual Cartesian type. It went like this: Ok, so I pay 110 quid and that guarantees that boatloads of Afghani terrorists (who don’t actually come from Europe, but I don’t wish to disturb the sums) will NEVER DARKEN BRITISH SHORES AGAIN!!!! Small price to pay. Even though it felt like a big one. And a very annoying one.

So then I read that ‘Europe’ (and by that I only mean the bits that count: Germany, France, Italy, possibly Spain) will not reach vaccination max. until August, at very best, whereas over here, where we chose to, sort of, ‘use’ a really good vaccine like the AstraZeneca, rather than invent fictional issues with it for political reasons, will be done by June. And here’s the best bit. Economists have worked out (no idea how, that’s why they are the economists and not me) that each month after vaccination will improve the nation’s GDP by 18 billion quid! So in those 2 months, we become 36 billion quid richer than any German, Frog or Eye-tie. And that can only be good news. For… everybody! They should not give a penny of that to anyone refusing the vaccine. Because they’re stupid and don’t deserve a share of the benefits.

Anyway, I have bigger things to worry about than the vaccination programme in Antwerp or how to spend 18 billion quid. Spurs are playing Arsenal tomorrow. Needless to say, but I will anyway: biggest game of all time. Start worrying… NOW!!!

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Houston, we have a problem! Though for ‘Houston’, read ‘society’ and it’ll be more accurate. Because last night on Question Time a woman asked a brilliant question. In the light of the terrible abduction and murder of Sarah Everard in South London there’s been a surprising (in its extent and magnitude) outpouring of ‘I was followed, shouted at, molested, attacked, groped, filmed, raped… by a man when on my own’ stories. And her question was: when is this going to be seen not as a ‘women’s problem’ but as ‘society’s problem’? And I thought: ooooooohhhh. She’s right. And she was a bit of a babe, to tell the truth, so I even listened. 

Yet really, its worse that just a  ‘society problem’ because it happens, in varying degrees but marked by their common similarities, virtually everywhere. In India women are raped frequently. Often by gangs. Who virtually never get prosecuted, even when known. In many countries it is almost, if not exactly ‘allowed’ then at least condoned by laws which blame the woman. Because she was wilfully and persistently… female. Its a problem anywhere where alcohol is sold and anywhere where it isn’t. So its not so much a ‘society problem’ as a ‘chromosome problem’. Because wherever there are men, women get attacked. Could be coincidence but it really isn’t. And I don’t know why. Which makes it much harder to cope with or permanently change. 

Its just a ‘sticking plaster’ to say ‘women must be more careful!’. That they shouldn’t walk alone at night, exercise near building sites or housing estates, shouldn’t wear heels, get drunk, dress provocatively, smile in public, frown in public, look too available, look too aloof, look… like THAT! Its the fact that they even have to think about it which is the problem. 

So its ‘education!!’ they cry. Men need to be told, from when Joey’s age, that women are to be respected, adored, revered (they do that already) but NOT TOUCHED without permission. And  that’s the problem. I blame evolution. Because the Darwinian model  is not about survival of the fittest in a ‘she’s a right fit babe’ way. Its about reproductively fittest. Able to produce more progeny. Thus nature’s elaborate way of creating sometimes ridiculous things, like a peacock’s feathers, which exist just to attract a mate. And there are loads of elaborate appendages and extensions and designs which actually sacrifice practicality for desirability. And they work. Which is why God designed women to be as alluring and desirable as possible. 

The bit that’s needed to be understood is that, unlike with most other animals, rape is a crime. Grabbing, groping, sexual harassment, all crimes. Dogs go round sniffing arses but if boys try it THEY WILL BE ARRESTED! As they should be. 
Men’s role is to ‘find a mate’. Consenting, agreeable, even keen. Everyone else is strictly out of bounds and off limits. However fabulous they may look. Its like the old saying: God gave men a brain and a penis but only sufficient blood to operate one at a time. How you overcome that without medication is precisely what is required. And as a (worrying) husband, father of daughters, grandfather, I hope they work it out soon. 

Happy Friday

A xxxx