Andy's Glasses

I don’t think we talk enough about state sanctioned murder. I really don’t. I’m not talking about those primitive countries who still impose ‘death sentences’ on naughty people, that’s just the result of unevolved, primitive societies, like America, where the ‘eye for an eye’ mentality overrides the ‘thou shalt not kill’ bible thing but only on demand. I’m talking about international hit squads going into other people’s countries and ‘taking someone out’.

Like the Saudis did with the journalist Kashoggi in Turkey because they didn’t like him. Like Kim Jong Un did with his own step-brother in Thailand. Like the Russians do pretty much every week with someone or other, Skripals, Navalny, Litvinenko…

All messy, all shabby, all a bit… amateur. Though you kind’a have to think that with the Russians, if they wanted you dead, you’d be dead. If they want to give you a ‘nudge’ or a warning, they just put you on the brink of death on life-support for a few months as a casual ‘reminder’. In case, like, a text message wouldn’t do the job. But if Carlsberg did executions, they’d be Israeli.

They went to Iran, they executed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and they came home. Probably had to quarantine, take a test, blah, blah, blah. I’m not saying I condone the action, if I was Fakhrizadeh I’d  be understandably pissed off. But we’re not (currently) talking about the ethics (mainly because there aren’t any), just the mechanics of the event. Because this man was not some random Skripal wandering round Salisbury looking for a pizza. This was the head of Iran’s nuclear everything. A man surrounded night and day by security, who travels only in convoy, who is protected completely 24 hours of every day by his own little army.

The Mossad studied his every action for 8 months. Meanwhile they smuggled into Iran (how hard can it be?) a massive robotic machine gun. Thing weighs a fucking ton. Literally. So they smuggled it in bits. Little, bite-sized bits. And eventually, they had enough of it there that it would probably work. So they strapped it to the back of a flat bed truck and, getting between the man’s car and his lead vehicle, deployed their weapon in a somewhat aggressive manner. Firing 13 shots into Mohsen’s car.

And here’s the amazing bit. The target person was unsurprisingly killed, or we’d be talking about the price of eggs right now instead. But his wife, sitting 10 inches from him, was unhurt. Physically at least. As were the security men riding in the car with him. Which in my mind makes this ‘the hit of the year’, and wins a golden… golden… bullet? gun?? coffin??? Whatever. Because they didn’t blow up the car with all inside. They didn’t rocket his office building. There was no ‘collateral damage’. They just took him out.

And it was wrong. On many levels. The only mitigation being like the old question: ‘if you could have murdered Hitler in 1930, would you?’ Because Fakhrizadeh was not some scientist searching for renewable energy to save the planet whilst warming his population. He  had one aim. To build a nuclear bomb. Which in turn had one aim. Which was at Tel Aviv. Overtly stated and oft expressed. Iran wants to nuke Israel and Fakhrizadeh was the man responsible for making that happen.

Would you have murdered Hitler? 

Happy morally equivocating Friday

A xxxx

Brighton & Sussex University Hospital will no longer refer to
‘breastfeeding’. Instead they will say ‘chestfeeding’. Or ‘milk from
the feeding mother or parent’. Rolls off the tongue. Like breastmilk
does, all down the t-shirt of the non-specified parental unit of
unknown gender identifiers, but tits essential. Similarly there will
be no assumption that the person who just spent 47 hours thrashing
around in agony forcing 10lbs of writhing baby out of a tiny little
cervix, is a ‘mother’. She is a ‘birthing parent’. Did I say ‘she’???
Holy shit, what was I thinking. IT is a birthing parent. No
assumptions. No prejudicial terms. There’ll be no ‘midwife’, just a…
mid-thing? mid-person?? Or how about: ‘an event coordinator’. Well why
not?

And you know how ‘right on’ I am; you know I’m so woke I’ve gone all
the round and back to sleep; you know that there is simply no minority
anywhere, even if its just one single person in the whole world, for
whom I wouldn’t change every fundamental we currently hold sacred,
just to avoid upsetting their sensitivities in any way at all. But…

But it does seem like as we’re trying to re-write the entire world
history to eliminate anything and anyone to do with slavery, the
Empire, overseas rule and any connection to any Churchill, we’re now
moving our somewhat obsessive attention over to biology. And as all
those busy home-schooling will undoubtedly know; there’s a big
difference between the arts and the sciences. Because it is much
easier to rename a building, or an entire village, than it is to
remove a penis. One involves a lot of red tape, the other a lot of red
blood. Not the same at all. And the (original) purpose of all animals,
the actual reason they are here, and the only reason they arrived here
to even have the conversation, is procreation. You can philosophise
the meaning of life all you want, but if a biological act hadn’t
produced you, it would definitely affect your philosophical
aspirations. None of which relates to ‘how you identify with your
pronouns’.

Yet it is just so wrong.

Because the person giving birth may no longer identify as a female. It
may consider itself something else. Womb and breasts be damned. They
are (apparently) meaningless concepts in the face of our right to
define ourselves according to… according to… something other than
‘mere’ genitalia and secondary sexual characteristics.

It would appear that in a institutionalised effort to reduce any
possible offense to a tiny minority, we are approaching the
logic-defying realms of total insanity.

But I maintain an open mind.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

There’s a report out, 157 pages long, by ‘Historic England’ which lists, basically, slavery shit. This is a list of homes, castles even, schools, hospitals, pubs and sometimes entire villages, built by those financially benefitting from the transatlantic slave trade. The benefactors were either slave ship owners or ran plantations in America or the Caribbean.

And quite frankly, I take this as a call to arms. All us right-on, woken-up, anti-vax, anti-big-pharma, LGBTQIA (plus any more initials added to this ever-increasing acronym since publication) supporting, pronoun quoting, statue-toppling, portrait-burning, bust-busting, take-a-knee-ing imbeciles must stick together and do what we’re best at! Which is making frankly ridiculous protests, destroying beautiful objects of collective ownership and, most importantly, re-writing history! I could NEVER live in a village built by a slaver. Even if it is 300 years old, of incredible beauty and feeds the poor. NEVER!! BURN IT DOWN!!! We must not only react and reject all such horrors, all those revolting stately homes, useless schools, vile hospitals, but BE RID OF THEM FOREVERRRRRR!!! 
Signed, 
Lord Ponsenby, Tobacco-R-Us Plantation, Georgia, USA (he, she, it, them, us)

Australia doesn’t have slaves. Instead it has morons. Who get married to people they’ve never met before. Yes, series 6 of ‘Married at First Sight, Australia’ is now available, all 653 episodes. All of which come with a guarantee that ‘nothing will happen’. But if something should, we’ll show it endlessly for the rest of every episode. Which they do to heighten tension. Because there is, quite frankly, nothing more boring on tv than watching two people, deeply in love, being nice to each other. Who the fuck wants that???? We want to watch nasty, we desire sleazy, vile and horrendous. We want physical, as well as emotional abuse. And we want it NOW! This series is so bad it should come with a warning. “TOTALLY ADDICTIVE; KEEP OUT!!!” But there’s a fatal flaw in the concept. That the people you want to see because they’re so awful and horrid, leave early. So that all that remains is… is… is… nice people!!! Which is no program at all. Mel could just watch me all night if she just wants ‘nice’. 

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

When I left Los Angeles in 1982 I stopped in New York on the way home. For about a month. Lived with my mate Joey. It was on Long Island but it was like being in Saturday Night Fever. Everyone had Italian names. Everyone had real, Italian grandmothers who wore black and looked like retired olive pickers from Tuscany. And everyone was ‘connected’ and spoke of their ‘connections’ with pride.

The morning I arrived Joey picked me up from JFK, after the all-night ‘red-eye’ flight, and took me straight to a park. Where a bunch of his friends (Bellucci, Vespucci, Fabrisi, Tagliatelli et al) were going to play ‘football’. Great. I love football. Oh, not that football. The other one. The one normally played in armour. But we instead opted for shorts and t-shirts. And yet, because they were Italian, and young, and still pretty drunk/stoned/wasted from the night before, and definitely a bit stupid, it was decided to play ‘tackle’ as opposed to ‘touch’. The latter meaning that to stop you all they have to do is touch you and you have to stop, the former; you tackle. Proper. Stop me IF YOU CAN!

It’s worth pointing out that these were Italian Americans. Real Italians would definitely have played ‘touch’ so as not to crease their suits.

I scored a touchdown. Everyone did. At least 5. There were only 10 of us playing. But mine felt so good. I’d seen it on the tv (you simply can’t avoid NFL in America, it is on EVERYWHERE) and now I’d caught the ball and run it in to score. Outrunning half a dozen drunk Italians. I was very proud.

Tonight is Super Bowl 55. (Just FYI, the FA cup is 149 this year). And it features the one and only Tom Brady. He’s the quarterback (it really doesn’t matter) of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And he’s married to Gisele Bundchen. But the incredible thing (ok, Gisele is pretty incredible) is that Tom is 43 years old. And the most highly decorated player in NFL history (decorated with those ridiculous and revolting Super Bowl rings they get). And playing his 21st season of the most injury-prone sport in the world. And the focus of the game, the focus of the injuries, the focus of every defensive player, is the quarterback. Put him down, take him out, kill him, whatever it takes. Yet Tom has survived that pounding for 21 seasons. The NFL average career is 3.3 years.

So whatever you feel about American Football (probably not much) you have to have a thought for Tom Brady as he vies to win his 7th Super Bowl.

Because I’m the biggest NFL fan now that I’ve given up ‘football’ football because it is hateful and horrible. My malaise is so bad that I barely enjoyed Arsenal losing to Villa yesterday. That bad.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday

A xxxx

You just gotta love them Corbyn boys. You gotta. Because there’s no denying, they learn from their mistakes. Well, not so much ‘learn’ in any normal sense of the word, more… more… more… more repeat them again and again ad infinitum until you just wish them all dead.

This time its brother Piers. Bless his unholy wooden head. Unholy because if there is a God, he fucking hates all Corbyns, and wooden because there was no room for a brain inside it. Which is why he’s an…

ANTI-VAXXER!!!!

In fact, brother Piers, along with David Icke, is the anti-vaxxer in chief. Brilliant scientific minds whose intellect, knowledge and understanding would have us in a world rife with Polio, smallpox, whooping cough and measles. Ahhhhh, Utopian dreams. These people are, in short, total tossers. That we know. But then we have to consider ‘the method’.

They made a leaflet encouraging people to abandon the vaccine. It was written and designed by Corbyn, and claims as such. And on the front is the ‘Auschwitz arch’, which normally holds the legend ‘arbrecht mein frei’ (work sets you free), but this time cannily replaced by ‘freedom from Coronavirus’. How the equation leaps from one to the other is beyond me, but I’m no mathematician. But the idea is relatively simplistic: enter ‘here’ and you’ll be free (as if).

Why is the hard-left default analogy always the holocaust? Ken Livingstone was always overly free with his ‘nazi’ accusations, even to Jews. Brother Jeremy spent his entire spell as Labour leader defending the indefensible, that invoking the holocaust as a comparison is NOT ok. He too used the N-word (the Hitler one, not the other one) with a frequency well beyond decency.

And so his brother had a lightbulb moment and thought, here’s a great idea, let’s use an iconic death camp image to show people what that vaccine is REALLY about.

Jeremy Corbyn is up in arms too because he resents the massive amount of money the big-pharma companies are going to make from the vaccinations. Thus if (heaven forbid a million times) he had won the last election, vaccines would actually be banned from the UK. And we’d all be dead by Christmas. Particularly as Diane Abbot would be working the numbers.

So a message to Piers Corbyn: PLEASE don’t have the vaccine. Or any medication for anything. PLEASE. I’ll send you a DNR tag myself.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Captain Dr Sir Tom Moore died the other day. We’d never heard of him until last April but he immediately became the most important man in the country. At a time when the high point of our entire week was eating a Milky Way, when there was no movement allowed, no traveling, not even football!!!, Sir Tom’s laps of his garden with his little walking frame became the focus of our lives. He became our hero. He set out to raise £1000 for the NHS workers and ended up with 39 million.

How is that even possible. He’s not even a proper influencer. Doesn’t have a 36 inch synthetic chest. Doesn’t have peroxide hair extensions. Doesn’t spend lockdown traveling round the world at everyone else’s expense and shitting in the face of covid rules for ‘work’. Because don’t kid yourself, lying on a beach in Anguilla for 8 hours a day drinking only the right kind of rum is hard work. Taking fourteen selfies of your sandals can be really exhausting. Yet old Captain Tom didn’t even have a contract with Zimmer. And his Instagram account showed just 9 ‘followers’ but 32,562 crierchers. They’re like ‘followers’ but just do it much more slowly and stiffly. And normally by mail. Or telephone, (landline only).

It’s worth mentioning that although we all lionised this exceptional man, he was very ‘normal’. Although normal for his time as opposed to this one, hence the shirt-and-tie, the jacket, the medals. No trackie bottoms for Tom. No death metal t-shirts. And yet the transition from ‘ahhhh, sweet’ to ‘I love that man with all my heart’ came with his first tv interview. Because old Tom was not just lovely, but very very funny. He could have been a stand-up, other than his frailty preventing such a thing. And such charm. That’s why we loved him. And the Queen loved him, so she knighted him. She did it with him standing up. Because if he’d have ‘taken a knee’, as is usual custom, he would never have got up again. And the army loved him, so they promoted him to Major for the last few months of his life. 

And then his maker called him. “Ground control to Major Tom…”

The world lost a true legend this week. 

Happy Friday, unless you’re a Spurs fan, in which case I’ll message you with the Samaritans number.
 
A xxxx

“I’m off to a physio appointment”; “my back’s ok now so I just need a bit of physio…”

Casual sentences, banded around regularly among the creaking, aching classes, but they don’t tell the real story.

You know that wonderful bit in ‘the 40-year-old virgin’ when Steve Carrell, hirsute to the point of gorilladom, gets his body waxed. And as the first strip is yanked from him, this quiet, calm, polite, mousey man yells a string of expletives that would make ME blush. Yet its funny because it resonates. The effect of sudden, quite unexpected and brutal pain.

The word ‘physiotherapist’ comes from the Greek word ‘Physio’ meaning, probably, physical and ‘therapy’ is from the Latin ‘theror’ meaning terrorist. But when they first advertised themselves as physical terrorists the work did not exactly have their phones off the hook. Until the Spanish Inquisition arrived at which point it was a constant ‘Christmas’ for all purveyors of torture, and the ability to cause intense physical pain made the re-named physiotherapists the tech entrepreneurs of 1479.

Fast forward to 2021 and I went for my appointment yesterday. My inner masochist, who I never even realised was in there, so well surrounded by all the inner cowards and pain-averse wimps, arranged a visit because my bad shoulder has entered new realms of badness and needs improvement for when the tennis courts re-open in… errrr… well, its not just tennis. Putting a cup on a shelf in a wall cabinet should not require a 10 minute warm-up and a high dose of ibuprofen.

And my physio is wonderful. The absolute best. Sweet, charming, gorgeous and thus its so easy to lie there, all warm and comfortable (in my sodding mask) as she gently manipulates and massages my shoulder area. Ahhhhhhhh…

All done to lull the unsuspecting into a false sense of relaxation. Of preparation for the ‘real work’. When her thumb finds that knot of tissue and MUTHAAAAFUCKAAAA!!!!

Water boarding is banned by the Geneva Convention. Yet physiotherapy is still allowed.

The strange thing is, it tends to work. It improves. Relieves. Strengthens. Whitens. Sorry, that’s dentists, the next on my list of WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE ALLOWED TO HURT EVERYBODY???

In fact it was so horrible I’m going again next week. I have a history of endlessly repeating agonising and painful experiences. Being a Spurs fan has its merits.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

It comes as no real surprise that the leader in the vaccination race is Israel. It has the best medical research in the world, the best tech innovations and a population, all raised in the army at some point, who listen and obey. Argumentatively, but they obey. They also have a government who are used to making quick decisions. 70 years of living surrounded by sworn enemies will do that. Ok, the ‘ultra orthodox’ are an obvious exception in terms of anything to do with common sense, but that’s another conversation.

Next on the ‘jab-em-quick’ table comes the UAE. A tiny nation of 9 million people, all so rich that none have to actually go to work.

Then comes the UK. Bless ‘em. We’ve vaccinated over 8 million of our people already.

Europe is way down on the list. I mean ‘waaaaaay’ down. Because they don’t have enough vaccines. And so are enraged that Astrazeneca have told them they can’t supply all that the EU ordered in the time promised. Which is why the Europeans went into vaccine-panic on Friday and… and… and…

What they did was threaten to overturn a Brexit agreement which had only taken 3 years, 5 prime ministers, 785 negotiators and millions of foreigners to agree. Three weeks later the EU threaten to ‘prevent exports of vaccine from the EU’.

Seems a little harsh, a little greedy, a little reactionary. But that’s the tip of the iceberg. And the iceberg in question is the island of Ireland. As anyone on the Titanic could have told you, icebergs are dangerous things.

To ‘prevent exports from the EU’ translates, in English as well as Gaelic, into ‘putting a border up between Northern and Southern Ireland’. Always a fractious place. Between those that no-one can understand and those who understand very little that doesn’t involve concrete. As the government went into overdrive over this horrendous threat, the statisticians were greatly concerned as to whether renewed ‘troubles’ in the Province would count as ‘Covid deaths’?

The Euros have, obviously, removed this stupid threat, with even tossers like Macron realising that you don’t start a war because of… because of…

Because of your own tragic inefficiency.

The UK ordered 100 million Astrazeneca vaccines in May. The EU ordered 300 million (their population is 8 times what ours is, so not a massive amount), in August. 3 months later. The UK then ordered 40 million Pfizer (including my one) in July. The EU ordered their Pfizer supply in November. Four months later. Four months of (I’m guessing, but you just KNOW) endless bickering, arguing, debating, procrastinating and bureaucracy. It’s what they do best. Much as I didn’t want to leave Europe, the horrendous ‘processing’ of any decision or action whatsoever is something I won’t miss.

Our government, for all the accusations of it ‘acting too late’, got the vaccine bit spot on. ‘They’ didn’t. Tossers.

Happy peaceful Sunday

A xxxx

There’s a fascinating article in today’s Times. It’s proper title is ‘the calorie swap guide’, but I use the working title: ‘FUCK DAT!!!!’

It tells you everything you deeply, profoundly, intuitively and educationally know. Which is that all the food you really love is massively high in fat, calories, poly-unsaturated stuff, E-numbers and death. Which is why it tastes so good. And by a quick and ‘painless’ substitution, you effectively eat ‘the same’ but stay healthier and obviously LIVE LONGER. Unless you get Covid, obviously, then, as you lie in hospital being fed through tubes, you have time to wonder whether replacing scrambled eggs with boiled eggs actually paid any benefits?

Cynicism aside (impossible, I know), it was very informative, useful and, as everything has to be to find space in your morning rag, life-changing.

Who’d know that if you replace your lunchtime burger (2, quarter-pounders, cheese, bacon, mayo, more mayo, extra fat, extra bacon, sausage, pepperoni and extra cheese), with a Brussel sprout wrapped in lettuce, you save 2,397 calories and ‘it tastes the saaaaaaame!!!!’

Yet really some of the ‘swaps’ were logical and simple and, dare I say, painless? Like pasta, f’rinstance. Who needs fusilli, tortellini and penne when you can eat those very same shapes made from lentils, kale and… errrr, yoghurt, cod-liver oil and spinach? Once you get over the revolting texture change and stop gagging you’ll quite enjoy it. Similarly, tinned tuna in spring water has exactly half the calories of tuna in oil. And precisely a quarter of the taste, but that’s a reasonable ‘swap’. Whereas smoked mackerel being replaced by prawns saves you about 70% of the calories, unless you keep kosher and then the saving is a whopping 100%!!!!! because you won’t eat the prawns at all.

However, there’s more to life than calories. Which, its also worth remembering, are a measure of energy, not just, like fatness. And mackerel is a massively good and fabulous food, which they’ve been banging on about for years and we all should be eating it 3 times a day. Because its loaded with goodness, with omega-3s and great, cholesterol-busting shit and live forever-ness and is what God eats when he’s gonna do some miracles or create heaven and earth or such like. And just because all that goodness carries a high energy-producing designation like calories, doesn’t detract from its superfood qualities.

So here’s my rules. Eat whatever you want. But if its creating problems, just eat less of it. Only order 2 chicken tikka masalas for yourself, instead of 3. Easy.

Happy substitutions

A xxxx

Tomorrow night sees possibly the biggest football game in the entire history of the known universe. Which, as you know, dates back 13 billion years!!!! Because Tottenham play Liverpool. Doesn’t matter if its home or away, football’s really not about that any longer. But its a game that, up until a few weeks ago, would have been a classic ‘top versus second place’ battle. Now its a battle for 4th place. As long as West Ham aren’t still there.

And, I mean, like, how, at the end’a da day, I mean, in what world are West Ham in the top 4/6/8 of the best, hardest, meanest league there is? They should be fighting for relegation. Biting referees. Trying to get their rent reduced at the London Stadium for Coronaviurs, to bring it down from the 30 quid a week they currently pay (including policing and every other benefit you could, and possibly could not, imagine). Instead they’re up there with the big boys as if they have some kind of right to be at the top table. Or perhaps the top of the table.

Arsenal won last night too. So with that, West Ham beating Palace and the reaching of 100,000 people dead from Covid, yesterday was indeed black Wednesday. Black, red, claret-and-blue Wednesday. Whereas Monday was buoyant when we beat Wycombe in the cup. Doing it properly. Letting everyone think its a draw until 5 minutes before the end. Then get the winner and score two (very) late goals for emphasis. Hah! I knew it all along, never had a moment’s doubt. Really. Confident in their abilities. Honest. My nails are always bitten to my elbows at this time of year.

Manchester City become the 8th team this season to be ‘top of the table’. Tragically, according to the pundits, they’ll probably be the last. But eight teams? Amazing how coronavirus has improved our football.

Frank Lampard was sacked by Chelsea. Just because he has the lowest win ratio of any manager since records began. Is that any reason to sack a ‘legend’? Very unusual for Roman Abramovich to show such little patience and such a lack of confidence in someone with such promise. Rinse and repeat.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx