Andy's Glasses

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

They’re closing Buckingham Palace. The entire Royal Family is being suspended from duty with immediate effect following the recent allegations of racism, lack of care and being generally ‘as woke as a sleeping thing’. Following mass protests by Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and another person even less significant than those 4 (Abbott’s calculation), the government have stopped all royal activity. Except crown-wearing, which can only be done indoors, whilst wearing a mask. Newly minted coins will depict the head of Boris Johnson.

Can you imagine? An anti-royal revolt? Suspension? Instead, Her Maj is conducting an investigation to the allegations ‘in private’. They are a private bunch, them Royals. For people who spend 40% of their lives in the cross-hairs of the world’s public, they like ‘private’.

I mean, its not like the Queen is a ‘proper’ racist. She’s not like some KKK type, new-nazi, Trumpite, Faragesque, Piers Morganish real cross-burner. She’d never get a tiara over the white hood. But no-one’s accusing her of that. Or anything really. Not personally. Yet someone, somewhere in the ‘Firm’ is showing a lack of political correctness that is wholly unacceptable in the ‘woke era’.

I’ve been speaking to people about ‘The Interview!!!’, as its now known. The interview to end all interviews. Although many proudly proclaim ‘I didn’t watch it’ as if that puts them on some kind of moral pedestal or intellectual upper class. But those who watched it simply fall into two distinct camps. The Meglievers and the Megliars.

You either believe what she said or you don’t. If you don’t, then the Queen can reign on for another 60 years with your total support and backing and can stay on our stamps. Piers Morgan called her a liar on tv and quit his job 10 minutes later after being slagged off by a colleague and receiving 41,000 complaints during those 10 minutes. Yet Piers knows about liars. Being proven to be one himself, publishing photos, when editor of the Daily Mirror, that were false. So now the world’s most obnoxious Arsenal fan (oh my, that is a hard mountain to climb) is unemployed. As he should be.

If you believe Meghan, as I do, then indeed the Royals need to answer the accusations. Even if that belief is based on something as superficial as her ‘being a total babe’, which I say in the most woke way possible, and that she’s much too gorgeous to lie. And there’s a cheque in the post.

No-one is ever going to know the truth, so a pair of lovely legs is as good a way as any to resolve the situation.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Spurs won last night. I was there. In the crowd. Well, it felt like it. I watched it with Lila’s daddy. Which, by today’s standards, is a big crowd. So we turned off the ‘artificial, simulated crowd-noise bollocks’ and made our own noise. Though not waking the babes, obvs. And before you start calling the covid police, or alerting the NHS app to ‘illegal activity’, I AM ALLOWED! Because they’re part of our ‘care bubble’. And as we both care deeply about Spurs, that totally counts as ‘an acceptable meeting of more than one body in a confined or indoor space for purposes of caring’. Without masks. Because with masks on, eating our curry would have been problematic. I make enough mess eating a curry without a mask on. And yes, it was a take-away. The gods had aligned to put a Spurs match on at dinner time whilst giving Lila’s daddy a half-price Uber eats voucher. I mean ‘GIVE ME A SIGN, LORD!!!’, or what?

The problem with ‘half price offers’ is that you generally, as a consequence, order twice as much. It’s almost an unwritten law. Money is worthless, because currently you can’t do anything significant with it, whereas chicken Jalfreizi is priceless. A few ‘craft’ beers and we were THERE. Yes, I’ve become a beer tart. If its not made in a London suburb and has hints of elderflower and narcissus, I won’t fucking drink it. New rule.

Spurs looked good. They looked all the better for Palace having Wilfred Zaha sitting on the bench, as Palace’s only real player is getting over injury. And, inevitably, we scored. A fab goal, inspired by the work ethic of Lucas Moura, created by the master, Harry Kane and finished by ‘that waste of space and money’ Gareth Bale. The pundits can start eating those words now, won’t be as tasty as my lamb dansak but that’s their fucking problem.

But then, as the Doom Bar flowed and the aloo gobi was finished off, Palace equalised. Christian Benteke scored a fab header. Not a good sign. Because Benteke is a striker in the Emile Heskey mode. Does lots of stuff but scoring goals is not really one of them. But the bastard scored, just before half time. “The worst time to concede a goal!!!!” Tell me when’s a good time.

I needn’t have feared. Spurs came out strong in the second half and our wonderful, Bale-inclusive, front line became unstoppable. Gareth scored again, followed by an amazing Harry strike and then finished off with another Harry goal, which JUST got  past the VAR nazis. And I mean JUST. They put all those lines across the pitch, perform multiple geometric calculations and decide, that by so many millimetres, Harry was onside. I’ve never been so happy that Harry isn’t circumcised. It was that close. And 4-1. 3 games in 8 days, 3 wins. As Liverpool lost their 6th successive home game, to ‘mighty'(???) Fulham, Manchester City imploded against neighbours United and Arsenal fumbled (literally), Spurs go marching on. And as there’s  plenty of curry left in the world, I can be nothing but optimistic. 

Deliriously happy Monday with a mildly dodgy tummy,

A xxxx

Just the day before she was scheduled to appear with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan agreed to an interview with andysglasses.com as a special, exclusive (except for Oprah, obvs) online, zoom-skype type face-time gig with me. Because like her I represent an ethnic minority, but unlike Oprah, who arguably represents one too, I’m not worth 2 billion dollars. Barely worth 2 dollars. Like… $1.73 on a good day. And YOU, lucky readers, can share the full transcript of that earth-shattering, royalty-revolting, amaaaazing conversation. As if you were THERE!

Me. Hi Meghan, thanks for joining me.

Meg. How much did you say you were paying me?

Me. Errrr… hang, on… errrrr… kettles boiling, back in a sec!

Me. Sorry, so as we were saying; Do you like the Queen? Or think she’s a nasty, controlling, dictatorial autocrat mired in the values of an antiquated hierarchical system stuck in 1467?

Meg. Netflix are paying me and Harry 72 million dollars an hour, you said you’d match that.

Me. Yeah, course I will, no problemo, money’s good as in your bank. (HOLY FUCKING SHIIIIIIIIT!!!!)

Meg. Ok, cool. Well, the Queen is a lovely woman, really sweet and nice and offered me all the kindness and courtesy she extended to all the other servants at the Palace. Then she realised I was engaged to her grandson and it all went a bit Ku Klux Klan at that point.

Me. Are you implying racism???? From Her Majesty!?!?!?

Meg. Not overtly, obviously, but its hard to find an whiter establishment anywhere on the planet, so I shook their world a little with my arrival.

Me. Do you think being a really good looking babe helped disguise the total bitch you’re alleged to be? With the bullying, the ‘Princess Pushy’, with treating Harry like a lap-dog, dragging him away to a foreign land after splitting him up from his brother…

Meg. The ‘bitch’ thing is a media construction. I’m a pussycat. I do charity work, for fuck’s sake. Any empowered, beautiful woman represents a threat to the status quo and I’m just more empowered and beautiful than most. Life is not just about a few million in the bank a pair of tits. But that helps. A lot.

Me. What do you think of… Catherine!!!!

Meg. Who?

Me. Sister-in-law? Tall, thin thing? Married to Harry’s brother?

Meg. Oh her. She suffers from ‘mirror mirror, on the wall’ syndrome. Couldn’t handle the challenge. Poisoned Wills against Harry and me. She IS a bitch.

Me. Do you think Liverpool will ever win again at Anfield?

Meg. All managers go through ups and downs. Jurgen Klopp is a class act but obviously Manchester City have run away with the title already. But those other three top four slots will provide a fascinating end to the season. Did you make the payment yet? It doesn’t seem to have gone in.

And from there it all went a bit downhill, I have to admit.

A truly lovely woman given the roughest of rides by the gutter press. I think this totally illuminating piece will help the world understand who ‘the real Meghan’ is and how strong are her values and her bank account.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx