Andy's Glasses

I’ll come clean. Be honest. I just went to McDonalds!l But it was for ‘a study’, nothing to do with eating. Ok, if you count ice cream, then we did ‘eat’. And the study was conducted whilst waiting for someone to download two streams of ice-cream into two cups. So, about 20 minutes in all.

You see, my wife and I are pretentious, middle-class health fiends, who ‘eat well’ and ‘exercise properly’, so visiting McDonalds without the excuse of grandchildren is simply unacceptable. Except for ice-cream. Which they do soooooo well.

Of course, the reality is that I’d eat Maccy-Ds every day. There was a time when I practically did. Then went virtually cold turkey (not the wrap, the giving up addictions thing) when my cholesterol was apparently middlin-to-high. Now I miss it, every day. But there ya go. So now, we get ice creams if we’re ‘nearby’ on a sunny day. And if we’re not nearby, we’ll travel up to 73 miles to get near enough to qualify.

So I ordered and I stood, looking at the numbers change on the collection board. And I looked around me and thought: ‘you’re fat’. ‘Oh, so are you’. ‘And your children’. ‘Blimey, look at the size of her!’ ‘That child should not be eating 3 Big Macs. He’s 7’.

And that was my ‘study’. I studied a group of typical McDonalds patrons. And found at least 57% to be ‘obese’, a further 19% to be ‘morbidly obese’ and at least 7% to be ‘JESUS!!!! Look at the size of THATTTTT!!!!’ And I thought: Houston; we have a problem.

I was standing there watching the future A&E waiting rooms of our local hospitals. The diabetics, the heart attacks, the… fat fucks who can’t move without help. The NHS will collapse under the weight of its chocolate milk shakes.

If you look at a rank ordering of countries by percentage of obesity; Britain sits (because it’s now almost impossible for it to stand) 55th. Out of 200. The nations at the top are ones you’ve never heard of, generally in the South Pacific where possibly, there are genetic influences, as they’re all bit inbred over there so they can go to New Zealand and play in the front row for the All Blacks.

America is high up the list, as you’d expect from the nation which invented fast food, fast women and President Trump. Then, basically, the list follows the ‘richer you are the fatter you are’ correlation very strongly. Except for Japan. Very rich, very thin. And we can discount them anyway because who the fuck wants to eat raw fish every day? Then the low, thin end of the list, is the very poor countries because they are half starved, literally. Ethiopia is the least obese nation on Earth, so I think we should get all the fatties out of McDonalds and send them to Addis Ababa for a couple years to do something ‘shedding’.

Or, if I were in a government desperate for the nation to lose weight, for both their own health and that of our health service, yet desperate for money, I’d weigh everyone once a year and tax every lb overweight they are. Then we could embrace and enjoy our overly hefty brethren rather than resent them for the burden they’ll become.

Happy dieting Sunday

A xxxx

I’ve just returned from Croatia, where it was 32 degrees of… that new one, not the Farenheits, they’re just for old people and Americans, and I’ve been to Ayers Rock in mid-summer and Sydney in a heatwave, done Death Valley in August, went to a wedding in Ischia where the bride melted, along with most of the guests. But nothing could have prepared me for London in the June time of mid-global-warming.

You want hot weather? Come to my house. It’s fucking horribly, unbreathably, breezelessly, suffocatingly, sweating-like-a-piggingly, hot. I was sweating this morning before I’d pulled my underpants on, at 7.40. Then I went to Tai Chi. Where white crane spreads wings, to show sweaty underarms, duck sat down because it was too hot to get up again and fair lady weaves shuttle became sweaty bastard weaves nothing in this temperature.

It was so hot by the time we finished, I cooled down by playing tennis. That famous antidote to overheating. Run around in the sun for an hour. Works every time. Just not very well.

So what can you do cool down? Drink plenty. In my case, of tea. It’s like water but warmer, browner. That didn’t work. I tried doing some gardening. Gave up fairly quickly.

The obvious answer would be to go to Brent Cross. It’s air conditioned. Or spend the afternoon in Marks and Spencer food hall, always totally frigid in there. Unfortunately I hate Brent Cross and can’t be arsed to go to M&S.

Holidays are going to change. We’re going to be going north, instead of south. Heading towards the arctic. Whilst it’s still there. Norway, Iceland. Greenland; bit drastic perhaps but get there before Trump gets it. Or Russia. Siberia. Which used to be a threat but now has become somewhere desirable for those gruelling summer months. Once they lift the sanctions.

As usual, the Conways are way ahead of the curve and in August we’re going to Newfoundland. Oooooh, that’s cold/bleak/far. But we’re cold/bleak/far type people. Intrepid explorers. Following the Klondike trail (I know, wrong end of the country but it’s a metaphor, once I work out what for) wherever there are really posh, princessy type hotels along the frontiers of civilisation. It’ll be just us and the bears. Mel doesn’t realise that ‘riding shotgun’ is literal over there.

But til August, we shall sweat in heat-soaked London.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I went to Pizza Express the other night. To enjoy some music which I use an excuse to eat pizza. You need an excuse. Otherwise you are just ‘part of the problem!!’, getting four a week delivered by a blind-man-on-a-bike. Well that’s how they drive. Anyway… the venue was the one in Holborn. And on the way from the station to the gig, we passed a cafe ablaze with Palestinian flags and banners and apartheid shit and stop arming Israel and everything else you’d expect. I didn’t get a photo. The one above is from an archive, presumably ‘pre-war’. Nowadays it looks much more militant. But the food concept is interesting. A Palestinian restaurant.

Everyone was sitting around their tables drinking water and looking at the road. An hour later a big truck arrived filled with meals. The diners all made a mad dash for the truck but were pushed, shoved and beaten aside by guys in Hamas green who ran off with all the food. But it was very good value.

And so to ‘Palestine Action’, the ‘group’ (not like the Beatles, more ‘the group’, like the Bader-Meinhof). They’re being ‘proscribed’ by the government, which, let me tell you, is serious shit. Especially with this government who love nothing more than terrorists running round the streets of London smashing things up, daubing everyone in red paint and causing riots, in the name of ‘free speech’. Which, if you’ve ever read anything on these pages, is a concept I heartily believe in and desperately need to keep me out of prison. The irony of using free speech to fight for organisations and nations which ban free speech is for another day.

So why are they banning Palestine Action in a way only used for the likes of the IRA, Hamas, ISIS and really toxic groups of violent nasties? When bunging up the M25 for 28 hours by gluing yourself to exit 37 is deemed as ok, as is painting the entire frontage of Barclays Bank on Cheapside not any kind of problem?

Because of their target. Palestine Action, in all their stupid, leftist-inspired, brainless adherence to a flawed narrative, left their nice middle-class homes in Hampshire and West Sussex to break into an RAF airfield and spray the inevitable, if rather unimaginative, red paint onto a military aircraft.

Its not the damage itself, that, for some unaccountable reason, is deemed ‘acceptable’, even though it will cost over a million quid to put right. Its the fact that if you attack our military, in any way, shape or form, you immediately become ‘the enemy’. Even if you should always have been recognised as such.

The question of how a couple of dickheads on e-scooters breezed into a supposedly sensitive and secure base, armed with spray paint is another question.

So, to clarify, peaceful protesting is ok, and within the rights of free speech. But being a keffiah-wearing nob is now an arrestable offence.

Glad that’s sorted,

Happy Friday

A xxxxx

The government has proposed some massive welfare reforms. So massive that half the MPs won’t support it when the vote comes on Tuesday. Which, with a majority in the House of 943, will be something much more than a mere embarrassment for the PM. More than humiliation. It will be a much more Trumpian ‘obliteration’ and ‘devastation’. The government’s bunker will be well and truly busted. Yet the plan has its merits.

It will save 5billion quid in Welfare payments. Which, and I’m no mathematician, I reckon will produce approximately 5billion quid less payments to those receiving welfare benefits. Give or take. And that will buy quite a few new bombs and missiles, which Kier promised to NATO this week. Sacrificing the poor and disabled on the alter of Donald Trump. What’s the problem with that?

But I’ve seen further conspiracy in this. You just have to look a little… deeper! Put on your Paranoid hat, embrace your inner Piers Corbyn or Robert F. Kennedy and just let it flow.

The welfare payments affect two groups; the lazy and the sick. The lazy don’t want to work and why should they when we’re happy (?) to pay for all the beer, fags and tattoos they need. So we’ll pull the plug on them, force them to get off their sorry, saggy arses and make them get poorly paid jobs. Which has the double bonus of saving us from paying their rent every month AND taxing the shit out of their meagre wages as well!! They’ll end up £12,843.77 worse off than if they’d stayed on benefits, but we, as a nation, will be much better off, and that’s what counts.

The sick are different. Long-term, even life-long, disability creates special needs and requirements, currently funded by the PIP (personal independence payment) scheme. Without which most disabled wouldn’t be able to cope financially. So we strip that from them, tell them to ‘just fucking man-up, will you??’, and we win again.

Plus, for those unable to cope with the mental strain of having their very lives ripped out from under them, there’s always the assisted dying bill, coming to a parliament near you real soon. And we ALL know where that leads. From all those specific and stringent criteria, exams by doctors, terminal illness, ability to self-administer, approval by judges, etc, etc; it’ll soon loosen up so anyone can top themselves anytime they like, or any time the welfare cuts become too much. There’ll be ‘assisted dying’ shops opening on every high street, (half price drugs-of-death on Mondays!!!), and Amazon will be delivering end-of-life packages free with (fucking) Prime.

Not saying that’s what’s going to happen, just that IT COULD!

With this brutal, meritocratic, heartless government, led by a flaccid and wooly nonce.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I’ve just come back from my time in Croatia, and now I’ve got to pack once again to fly out to Venice. What? You didn’t get the invite to Jeff’n’Lauren’s wedding? Oh, you poor loser. Jeff invited me because of my constant and total refusal to sign up to ‘Prime’. And NOT signing up to Prime when you’re on the site and checking out is a massive feat of care, concentration, consideration, de-coding intentionally ambiguous options and over-riding Amazon’s presumption that everyone MUST have Prime. Sometimes, I’ll be honest, I fail and the endless loopholes forcing everyone to Prime defeat me. So I have to cancel it.

Not saying that Amazon Prime isn’t brilliant, but Mel has it; she’s the family shopper. By some distance. But things I’ve found (normally power tools: I have so much testosterone) which don’t incur shipping charge, I use my account. For the fun of it. And because I like feeling like a repressed, second-class citizen.

So I’ll be flying out to the City of Canals on one of the 95 private jets that Jeff has chartered, or probably just bought (with Prime, then they’re delivered FREE!!!), for the nuptials. I’m presuming that Greta Thunberg isn’t going. If she is, she’ll be swimming. Anyway, it’s going to be a close, intimate, low-key affair.

St Mark’s Square is now known as St Jeff’s Square ($4million, free delivery on Prime), the canals are closed for 3 days in case a splash should touch Lauren requiring instant ‘make-up, hair and fillers’. Tourists are banned, Venetians not allowed, all the islands are to be completely emptied other than the ‘wedding party’.

It’s going to be fantastic as me and Bill Gates, Kim Kardashian, Barak Obama and Stormzy party away on Jeff’s money. He’s not going by plane, he’s making the sacrifice of taking the boat there. His boat. The biggest super yacht in the world. Possibly the second biggest. Elon Musk’s might be bigger. Bill gates gave his yacht to make boat people a bit safer in their crossing.

The world second richest man is now challenging to become the world’s MOST obnoxious person. At least then he’d beat Elon at something. Though to be honest, Jeff’s still a long way behind. Though with this wedding celebration, he’s closing the gap.

Congratulations to Jeff and the second Mrs Bezos (at current counting. Numbers may change).

Happy Tuesday,

A xxxx

Nigel Farage has come up with a totally brilliant idea for ‘when’ he becomes Prime Minister, in 4 years time. Brilliant. Like all his ideas. Because Nigel is the cleverest person in politics, by approximately 2,000 miles. Though looking at our government, that’s not such a heady position. And as well as clever, Nigel is also unfailingly charming, concise, open, devious, cheating, lying, duplicitous and sinister. I wonder if he’s a Gemini, like me? I have most of those traits, but without any fucking charm.

Nige’s plan is nick-named Robin Hood and serves a dual purpose.

To try to stem the massive outflow of our super-rich due to Rachel Reeves’ total fucking stupidity and lack of understanding of all things, Nigel will charge these guys and gels a one-off fee of £250k which will protect all their overseas assets from ever being taxable in the UK, up to and including when they die!!! They won’t pay inheritance tax, well, their kids won’t, on earnings and assets abroad. Ok, so they’re already in Monaco or Bermuda or Geneva, but they can keep an interest in the UK so that the benefits of their entrepreneurialism will hopefully stay in the UK to provide jobs and wealth and yes, tax.

And those 250,000 pound payments will be added up and divided evenly between the ‘poorest people in the country’, in its entirety, every year. Hence the ‘Robin Hood’ bit. Take from the rich, give to the poor. Oh, how wonderful!!! Then he gets the votes from both rich and poor. Or those who aspire to both.

But here’s my issue with Mnsr Farage and fiscal planning. It is the image of a bus, upon the side of which is a sign reading “LEAVE EUROPE AND THE NHS WILL GET £365MILLION EVERY DAY!!!!” That was a powerful message, a driver of votes towards Brexit. And four years later, the sum total of all added cash from Brexit into our health service is £37.42p. And unfortunately that is subject to capital gains tax.

Believe Nige at your peril.

Or Starmer too, for that matter. Mr ‘flip-flop’. He’s calling for a complete ‘de-escalation’ in Iran on Thursday. ‘Let’s talk, let’s negotiate, let’s pretend that there is no issue with Iran nuking half the world and treat their government as if they’re human beings’. Then the US bombs fell and he was ‘fully in support of the US, we can’t let Iran have nukes, now let’s get round that very same negotiating table’. Ever the weak man. Always taking the bull by the ear-lobes.

Because supporting Trump, which he absolutely has to, does put the UK in more danger, no question. But sometimes, as Israel did, with the complete backing of its entire population, you have to do the right thing. Which Starmer is now prepared to do. As long as the school bully is telling him that he has to.

Coming home today. Been fab. Been hot. Would say ‘been a blast’, but I think that’s inappropriate at the moment.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Yesterday we walked up 300 steps, in 33 degrees of high humidity, to reach Marjam Park. A fabulous hillside park stretching for miles along the coast. Oddly, the higher you go, the hotter you seem to get. The Jewish Cemetery was there, used from 1700 to 1946.

On the way we passed a group of Croatian… scumbags. Unshirted yobbos, drinking their beers in the shade and looking aggressive, though fairly harmless. One had the Croatian national requirement of at least 60% of your chest and arms covered by tattoos. In the middle was a large cross. I get that. All devout Catholics get pissed by 11.30 am. On his left shoulder, about 4 inches across was a swastika. Not an apologist type of ‘Indian love symbol’, because they are straight. This was the 45 degree, proper thing. And there is nothing which will bring my inner Jew to the fore like a Swastika. Particularly in Eastern Europe. I mean, swastikas are banned, right? But what you gonna do? Take the Shylock route and demand they cut it off him? And it’s futile anyway. The swastika is an unambiguous sign of an attitude. You can remove the ‘badge’ but the attitude remains.

So I went to synagogue to pray for guidance. Ok, maybe not in the literal sense. I don’t pray and for guidance I used Google Maps cos it was well hidden within the walls the ‘palace’ (built by a Roman emperor, the size of a small town). And it was a revelation. And just typical of virtually any European synagogue lucky enough to survive the Holocaust. Which hit Croatia big-time and murdered 80% of its Jews.

Albert opened the place up for us. It has stood there since the 1700s, though Jews have been here since the 4th century. A tiny little space, but as Split claims about 100 Jews, all non-practicing, they use it to meet there every sabbath and… eat. They collectively decided that they wouldn’t pray but were all happy to eat. And why don’t they pray? Albert’s mother lost her parents and all her brothers and sisters in the holocaust, right here in Croatia, to save the Nazis the train fares to Poland. And you have to ask yourself, as 6 million of your ‘brethren’ are murdered industrially, where God was at the time. In Waitrose? Putting some new moons on Jupiter? Restoring a vintage car in his garage? So therefore, ‘there is no God’. And if that’s true, why the fuck would you pray? So they don’t. Furthermore, Albert married a Christian woman but ‘keeps kosher at home’. A statement followed by, ‘all lobsters are kosher, right?’.

And I fell in love with Albert at that point. And I don’t even like lobster. But that attitude. Cynical enough to make me look like a ‘believer’. Realist enough to not give a shit. Almost anti-religion, anti-God, anti-Jewish. And yet…

He runs the synagogue. Keeps it alive. Tells the story, the history and maintains a presence there, all on a voluntary basis, because no-one else will do it. Gives up lots of his time because of the importance of continuity. Something all Jews get.

Because if you leave the world in the hands of nuclear powered Jew haters like Iran, continuity would be something of a problem. There is simply no question that Iran MUST be stopped from nuclear armament. Not just for Jews, not just for Israel, not even just for England (high on the Ayatollah’s hate-list), but for the security of the entire planet. It’s bad enough we have one unstable, mildly insane, unpredictable world leader in possession of nukes. But another would be unthinkable.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

So here’s the deal with Croatia. It’s packed with history and we all love history. Our tour guide today in Split told us that his grandfather was born in 1910 and, without ever leaving Split, has lived in 6 different countries. (Ok, he did die a few years ago, but after the last ‘change’ back to Croatia). All us other poor sods spend our lives whizzing round the world to travel to obscure countries, whereas here, they all come to you. Some people have all the luck.

Less luck when God was handing out the sand though. He, in his infinite wisdom, put truck loads of it on the building sites, but fuck all on the beaches. Which, whether you choose to describe them as ‘pebbles’, ‘stones’ or ‘razor sharp gravel’, are… not altogether comfortable to walk upon. Hence the acquisition of our water shoes. Otherwise known as ‘the best things you can EVER buy, EVERRRRR!!! (On a beach holiday in Croatia). Once I put them on, I am invincible. I can walk on gravel, I can walk on broken glass, fire, nuclear waste, I can even walk on water. And never have to worry about my poor footsies getting lacerated. But then an odd thing happened. I was swimming in the sea, stopped for a rest, as ya do, and to empty my (fucking stupid) googles, by laying on my back.

Usually, when I do this, I get the whole, ‘seawater’s so buoyant’ thing, but still have to waggle my feet to prevent sinkage. But with just 12 euros worth of magic super water shoes, my feet float up too. So I can just lie there, unmoving in the wonderful Adriatic. With no rubber ring, nor arm bands. Just man and sea, in perfect harmony and balance, thanks to a pair of shoes which are such amazing quality that if they last the 8 days of our holiday will be more amazing still.

And just returning ‘home’ for a moment, a word about yesterday’s vote in parliament.

I’m not into death… generally. But I am into choice. The word which, in America, is the term for ‘abortion’. If you’re ’pro-choice’, you’re pro-abortion. Because although no one is ever forcing someone to have a termination, the ‘anti’ lobby, want to take the choice away from everyone. And similarly with assisted dying. The bill will, eventually, allow people, under certain very strict conditions, to end their lives. The arguments against are always about how cruel it would be to basically have a cull of all the sick the disabled, the weak and the unwell. Which misses the point by so far that I’m inclined to recommend all those who protest against this bill to actually be culled due to their worthless lack of empathy, their cruelty and their sheer lack of understanding that NO ONE WILL BE FORCED TO DIE. All its for is to give people another choice.

Ok, back to the beach.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I’ve loved it in Hvar. Nazi war-crimes aside, it’s a truly lovely little island, filled with lovely… Croatians. Who split neatly into two distinct halves. The young women here are absolutely beautiful. Tall, lithe, gorgeous, fabulous, even when they’re dressed and not just lolling about in thongs. The other half are the males of the population. Dour, gruff, miserable, squat, cropped headed and more miserable. That’s it. Why fuck about? Let’s make sweeping generalisations about an entire population. Why not?

Though we’re only moving about an hour’s boat ride away, over to Split. So I have no high expectations of any major demographic shift in population types.

And that’s the thing with holidays. You arrive, you dump your bags, dive in the pool and you’ve instantly found ‘home’. You get attached. You get your own little bit of the bay for your morning swims, even though without the investment in water shoes (12 Euros a pair) you’d be having your feet bandaged every day after walking across the ‘beach’. And I get attached to breakfast. So there’s two choices: accept the temporary and fleeting nature of any holiday resort and the fact that you’re always going to leave. Or marry the local barman and stay f’rever. Acknowledging that ‘f’rever’ generally only lasts til winter starts, 3 months after the ‘I dos’.

The sea here is warm-ish. The word banded about by those in there is ‘refreshing’. I’m a cold-water-phobe. I drink it (if there’s nothing better on offer), but I can’t walk in. It reaches my knees; first stop. It reaches my testicles!!!, much longer stop. The entry process takes 20 minutes. On a good day. But here there’s a pier, from which I can dive in. And despite all of the above, I love that. The instant shock of the cold (which is not really that cold otherwise I wouldn’t fucking entertain the thought), the swim warming me up, ahhhhhhh. I can’t catch Mel, she’s part-fish. But I dawdle across the bay watching the real fishes as I go and looking out for the vipers which are indigenous here but they never told me before I came. And obviously don’t hang around in the sea, but ya never know.

To the ferry!!!!

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Look, I’m supposed to be on holiday. Relaxing. Eating. Drinking. Swimming. Nightclubbing. OK, eating and drinking for sure. It’s what you do. Even in Croatia. Where it’s 31 degrees today on our sweet little island of Hvar. But how ‘sweet’ is Croatia?

Inspired by a lawyer with a victim complex, I investigated further my holiday nation’s links to the Germans. Unfortunately, it’s the starting point for any Jew: what was YOUR grandfather doing in 1943? And our walking tour guide yesterday told me that her grandfather was ‘invaded by the Nazis and overthrown’. Oh, like France was? Where the ‘overthrown’ became active participants of the Nazis? Or like Holland. Where they were just a defeated nation?

Well the Nazis played the Croatians who were unhappy with losing their independence in the formation of Yugoslavia. So they brought them ‘onside’ (or, well ‘offside’ according to both VAR and the right side of history) as accomplices. On the basis that they could slaughter all the Serbs they wanted, as long as they included Jews and gypsies as well. Sounded good to Croatia. As it did in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, all willing and eager ‘converts to Hitler’s cause’.

So, in the interests of a lovely holiday, I doing care what anyone’s grandfather did in the war, for the next 6 days. Easier that way.

And we have new wars to consider anyway now that Iran has ‘attacked the USA’.

One of the Ayatollah’s missiles landed on the US embassy in Tel Aviv. And embassies, as we know, occupy land which belongs to that embassy’s nation, not the host one. So, effectively, Iran has attacked America. Albeit because their missile guidance systems probably still use short-wave radios and homing pigeons. But how will Donald Trump answer this attack? Always the great unknown in any situation.

Trump is all bluster and brag and John Wayne and a mans’ gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Until that man has to actually do it. And realises that there are just so many implications to any possible course of action.

He’s right now sending his Air Force into the area. That’s tough-guy. But he knows that the whole ‘MAGA’ thing was looking after America first. So fighting wars in far away countries which no-one in Alabama has even heard of, simply doesn’t fit that remit. Americans, after Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, do not want to lose any of their sons fighting any more towel-heads. They don’t want to spend billions bombing anyone further away than Mexico, or possibly Canada. And they’re Trump’s fan base.

Yet he is sworn to aid Israel and has to decide what level of ‘involvement’ he needs to still be the wild-west shooter his stance proclaims, whilst appeasing those who put him in the White House.

I’m going to lie by the pool and consider my options.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx