Andy's Glasses

We’re all heading for June 21st!!! The biggest day in HISTERRY!!! Not just because its 5 days after my birthday and my hangover would have subsided, but because lockdown gets unlocked. If nothing else happens. And no-one else dies. And the Indians keep their variant to themselves. Said so in the headlines. Because the ‘big crowd’ trials have been very positive. Not like ‘testing positive’ but positive meaning ‘good’. They stuffed hundreds of people together in Sheffield and made them watch snooker for days on end (poor souls, I hope they received sufficient compensation) and only about 3 tested positive afterwards. Same with concerts they held in Liverpool and the Brit awards. Lots of people, no distancing, no masks, all spitting at each other. Ok, no spitting but all those ‘aerosols’ in one place!!!! And very little consequential infection. Which is brilliant.

But in a lesser headline, just next to that one, is a list of the 8 places in England that YOU MUSTN’T GO TO!!!! Including Hounslow. The rest are ‘up north’ so aren’t an issue for me at all. Though possibly I’m more likely to go to Burnley than Hounslow. Until Heathrow opens properly. These are the Indian Variant Hot Spots. Where you mustn’t go. Or leave. Unless you need to. Or want to. Or, do so accidentally. Though its NOT a lockdown, it has no law or legislation behind it, just ‘advice’. Reads like this: DON’T FUCKING LEAVE HOUNSLOW OR WE’LL SHOOT YOU DEAD!!!! Nothing too strong, just ‘advice’.

Similar to the advice about holidays, with school half term coming next week. Don’t travel unless its ‘really essential’. Which all becomes a matter of interpretation. You could argue that you have a week booked to sun yourself in the Algarve and as it won’t come to your garden, it becomes ‘essential’ to travel there. Unless you can ‘beam’ yourself there. James T Kirk did it and he wasn’t even vaccinated.

So I hope that’s clear. The path to being totally unlocked is clear. Unless you live in Bedford or Leicester where they’re building a wall to keep you in. And only travel if it is… something you want to do.

Joey was 2 years old yesterday. I bought him a samurai sword, a gun, knuckle dusters, a machete and some Japanese fighting sticks. Even though he is undecided about how he intends to self-identify so will wait til he’s 3 before announcing his pronouns.

Happy Birthday Jojo

A xxxx

At the end of a truly fabulous and wonderful league campaign, Spurs have achieved not just glory but quite literally history! Because by cleverly avoiding the top 4 league places, deftly ducking fifth and side-stepping 6th, we get, as 7th placed, to enter the most coveted, very first, the inaugural, the brand new Europa Conference League!!! And no-one’s ever been in that before. Because its new. In case you missed that. So that is really exciting. In fact it is beyond excitement.

My main concern is when they intend to play the matches. The Champions League (snobby, bit elitist, arrogant) plays on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The Europa League (a bit sad and decidedly second rate) plays on Thursdays. Because no-one watches football on Thursday evenings. So the new Europa Conference League (unknown… but… but…) will have to be played on Monday mornings or in the middle of the night. Otherwise there’ll be ‘conflict’. Because really, who’d bother watching Bayern Munich play Barcelona if Lech Poznań were playing Molde over on BBC7? Or Spurs were taking on Ludagrets Lazgrad? So set your alarm NOW for 03.27 for the first kick-off!

It all ended in tears. Harry Kane did or didn’t play his last EVER game for Spurs, depending on… but still managed to achieve a massive ‘first’. Because not only was he the top scorer in the league, he also had the most ‘assists’. Neither of which did any favours to his asking price for interested teams. Which is probably ‘all of them’.  

Yet Spurs win at Leicester not only deprived the east Midlander above-weight-punchers of a champions’ league place, but also, tragically, inhumanely, gave it to Chelsea! 

Man City won the league. And much as I hate that, I have a deep and profound man-love for Sergio Aguero, now departing. He has blessed our league for 10 years with style, grace and shit loads of goals. Half of them against us, little bastard. 

West Ham are ‘frilled ter bits’ about reaching the Europa League (second tier, fairly shit, see above) because its so much better for them to just be celebrating relegation avoidance, as they do every other year. 

And Arsenal… errrrr… well… hmmm… 

Happy End of Season F’rever!

A xxxx

Martin Bashir murdered Princess Diana! And the BBC took out the hit! Encouraged by Prince Philip. Who threatened to refuse payment of his license fee if they didn’t agree. Prince Harry took to drink and drugs. Prince William took to the Scottish hills to find solace and comfort from… the heather? Thistles? Never smoked either myself so I can’t really say.

But what did Martin Bashir really do that was so bad? Other than lying, cheating and a bit of mid-level forgery? Coercion. Bullying. Fabrication. Distortion. Other than that, what was his crime?

What he did was so wrong on pretty much every imaginable level. And yet what the BBC did was actually worse on an exponential scale. Because they knew, they had an inquiry, in which they managed to cover up everything and proclaim their and Bashir’s innocence, and were content to let it lie. Let their lies lie. Which they did for 25 years and then KA-BOOOM!!!!, it all kicks off once more. But this time with the benefit of hindsight. And into a different world, a generation later, in which ‘transparency’ is one of the (ok, nauseating, vile and over-used) catchphrases of our time.

The BBC is a journalistic organisation, first and foremost. In fact it would like to think it is the ‘best’ of class, in the whole, wide world. And best, in journalistic terms, means impartial (which it sometimes is), unbiased (hardly ever), totally neutral (ish) and biggest of all: TOTALLY TRUSTWORTHY.

Martin Bashir created a bunch of bank statements which allegedly showed payments made by the Royal Family to people or persons to keep tracks on Diana. He showed them to her brother, who thus encouraged the Princess to be interviewed. To tell ‘her side of the story’. Which she certainly did with her famous: ‘there were 3 of us in that marriage’ speech.

Did ‘bank statement-gate’ increase the much-loved Princess’s paranoia? To the point where it may have contributed to her terrible death? I don’t know.

But I do know that the BBC have been irreparably damaged by this. Because trust has been broken. The contract between broadcaster and punter has cracked.

Personally, as I watch the news every night, only and always on the BBC, I find it rather amusing as they report this massive story. Using the 3rd person. Even though they’re all BBC themselves. And their discomfort is our great tv.

Martin Bashir didn’t wish to be interviewed and I was playing tennis anyway.

Happy last day of a horrible football season Sunday

A xxxx

I feel sorry for the poor people of Gaza. The real people. The ones just trying to live, to work, to educate their kids. The ones who only want peace. Which is proving difficult currently, due to the governance of Hamas. Who have long been at war with Israel. In fact the only purpose of Hamas is to destroy Israel. An unrealistic and illegal goal for which the entire Gaza Strip suffers regularly and routinely.

But Hamas is, and always has been, a terrorist organisation. It started life as a breakaway from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and began the attempted Islamisation and control of the fairly secular Gazans. When Hamas took political power, Egypt built a wall between their nation and Gaza. Interestingly, there was no public outcry. Hamas began building tunnels to Egypt to bring in arms and explosives. Then building more tunnels towards Israel through which they could push their suicide bombers. There are an estimated 300km of tunnels under Gaza. Which are well built and used to house armaments, rockets and troops. Most of the money sent to Gaza by charities and by Qatar, its funder-in-chief, intended to re-build homes and schools has instead found its way into the creation of their underground system, leaving the normal Gazans hungry and homeless.

Hamas is brutally ‘clever’. They fire rockets from schools and hospitals and mosques. Knowing that when those launch sites are destroyed, the PR fallout lands on Israel for destroying such places, which are all morally protected in the court of public opinion.

Hamas has been firing hundreds of rockets each day, until yesterday’s ceasefire, into Israel. You would believe from most of the press that these rockets have special ‘child-protection’ devices in them. Because although they are randomly fired at towns and Cities, hitting bus stops and shopping centres and schools and hospitals, the press almost makes light of these attacks. Whereas Israel’s bombs are all aimed at children and babies, according to those same reports. Though in reality Israeli attacks are targeted on Hamas strongholds and those tunnels. About 60km of which have been destroyed in the recent actions. They also announce where the strikes will be and give notice for civilians to leave. Whether Hamas allow them to leave is less certain. High death tolls suit their narrative.

The reality is that Israel is at war with Hamas and only Hamas. Hamas is at war with all of Israel and every man, woman and child in it. Even, so the indiscriminate rocket firing would indicate, with Israeli Palestinians.

Hamas is, ideologically and functionally, the same as IS. Al Queda. The Taleban. Different names, same approach. Kill, murder, maim, destroy. There’s no such thing as ‘innocents’. Suicide for the cause is noble, as long as you take lots of people with you. Sacrifice your family willingly for the ‘cause’. ‘Martyrdom’.

If Hamas lived in Wales, we would build walls. We would protect our population. If they started firing rockets at Bristol, Exeter, then Reading and eventually London, we would take whatever action was required to ensure the safety of our people.

Unfortunately, the ideology endures, whatever the names and titles may be. If you could destroy ‘Hamas’, the next snake would crawl out from its skin.

There, I’ve said it.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

No, no, no
If you go
I’ll be sad and blue…

Stevie Wonder. 1974. Brilliant song from a brilliant man. Who not only predicted the birth of Harry Kane, 20 years later, but also his imminent departure from the club WHICH MADE HIM, loved him, nurtured his fledgling talent, groomed (in a good way) the boy into the man into the world’s best superstar striker. Erling Haaland? Nothing. And thus, driven by an incessant culture of reward-driven, materialistic, nothing-else-to-write-about-in-covid press, dickheads to a man, woman and child, coupled with a bunch of free-loading no-goodnik agents and advisors and tossers who see an instant retirement fund appearing before their blinkered eyes, Harry wants to leave and I’m going to be sad and blue.

But dark blue. Royal blue. Spurs blue. Not (fucking) Manchester City horrible sky blue. Eeeuuuuwwww. The blue of smugness. The blue of greed. The blue of vile and evil mercenary types who ‘follow the money’. Ok, and play ‘semi-decent’ football and win lots and lots of shit, but football’s not just about that. Is it?

Harry, apparently, wants to work with Pep Guardiola. Because in the span of Harry’s time at Spurs, he’s won nothing whatsoever, whilst Pep has won 27 Champions Leagues, 42 league titles in Spain, Germany and England, 93 cups of various colours and, pretty much, everything there is to win, 20 times over. He’s won the power-lifting gold in the Olympics and the figure skating on ice. So why would Harry be drawn to that? When on the other side of the… pitch, is love. Endless love and devotion which, in Harry’s case, goes both ways.

There’s always the argument to ‘work harder and win where you live’ but I honestly don’t think that applies to Harry. Because he works hard and committed always. And really has been let down by either lacklustre teammates or Portuguese management (Portugal may be ‘green’ for covid travel but its very very ‘red’ for football management) or… or… or something that stops Spurs winning.

As a fan I don’t care about trophies. I should, but I don’t. But I do care greatly about Harry leaving and even more concerned that others may follow when the ‘boss’ goes.

£150million. It’s totally obscene. And yet a bargain.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I’m going nowhere. I’m riveted to the spot. Well, to England. I won’t even go to Wales because I’ll never remember if I’m allowed to be in a group of eight, indoors, from 3 different bubbles or in a group of 12, outdoors, from 9 different bubbles starting with 6 different letters. Nor do I care. But getting on a plane? Even though its allowed again, naaaaah.

The younger daughter came over in April from Berlin. In ‘normal times’ that would have been a long weekend. But with Germany still very locked down, with the ridiculous cost of testing before and after travel, and with bars open over here, she stayed for 5 weeks. Booked to return last Friday, on the 8.30 morning flight.

At 5.30 Thursday evening she received a text from NHS England offering her a vaccine. On Sunday. Hmmmmm.

She’s desperate for a vaccination. Travels a lot. Normally. And lives in Germany. Where you have more chance of getting eaten by a polar bear than getting vaccinated. So we decided to take the jab, change the flight. And BA, who always state, ‘flights can be cancelled up to 24 hours before departure’, were called. As it was an ‘air miles’ flight, plus 50p (that was the honest cost), we figured it a small sacrifice. We’re not currently short of air miles. Yet 12 hours before the departure time, the wonderful dude at BA just said, ‘naaaah, don’t worry, we’ll just change it to Monday, no problem’, and did so. No charge, no more air miles, no hassle. When does that happen?

So, several more tests later (the one she took Wednesday was obviously going to be outside its ‘48-hour’ window), she pitched up at Heathrow. And queues. Because Monday, yesterday, was day 1 of being allowed to travel to up to… errrr…, well up to 1 country (Portugal) which is safe to visit. And it was chaos. Queues to check test results (covid bollocks), hassle about visas (Brexit bollocks), plus all the usual airport bollocks which can always leave the most stoic suicidal. But in masks.

So I shall wait til October. When we’re booked to go to… Israel. What could possibly go wrong with that?

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

These are a few of my favourite things, not in the Julie Andrews way; football, films, fuck-ups and food. The photo above I’ll get to later. It will divide. 50% of people will be excited, the other 50, bored and uninterested. So today its food. Real food. And you can’t get more real than sausages. Well, maybe you can, but its my page and that’s what I’m talking about.

In particular, pork sausages. Even though they’re discriminatory. Against both Jews and Muslims and therefore should offend everyone. And yet its only the vegans who complain. Go figure.

They couldn’t exactly re-invent the wheel but they have re-invented the next best thing: the sausage. They took a small piece of pig (who is, I kid you not, anaesthetised at the time), in fact a tiny piece of muscle and a tiny piece of fat. And they send these to a scientist who… does things with them. Like… genetic stuff… like… cloning type activities, and a few weeks later, hey presto, a pork sausage!!! And yet, the ‘donor’, we’ll call him Piglet, though his real name is withheld, is alive and well and all healed from his minor ‘procedure’!!! In fact you don’t just get one sausages, you get shed loads. Without blood being spilled. Ok, a little spilled but no deaths are incurred in the production of these sausages. And they only cost about 25% more than normal sausages! So when your friends come round for a barbecue, they’ll know that you ARE in fact not just the dickhead they thought you were, but a new, extravagant and totally stupid dickhead who pays too much for a fashion item. And then, two weeks later they all turn into pigs so it doesn’t matter what they think. The risk of GM foods.

In a survey, 75% of people said they’d eat them. And 100% of pigs said it was a brilliant idea.

Then they tried it with a prawn but it wriggled at the wrong moment and… and… I’m sorry.

Marmite with chilli. The world’s most divisive food is not happy with upsetting half the world’s population, it now wants to alienate those in the ‘love it’ half who don’t like chilli. People like my wife. Loves marmite, hates chilli. And although I’m a ‘love it’ dude, I don’t eat it often. But I do like chilli. In fact I love chilli much more than I love marmite. And thus this ‘limited edition’ has me eating marmite again. Will I buy another? Probably not. But I’m enjoying the ride.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

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