Andy's Glasses

Back in the 1980s a rugby player switched from Rugby League (horrible, nasty, northern game) to Rugby Union (lovely, gentlemanly, southern game, even though there are some similarities) and represented England. He was a wonderful wing. Fast. In that ‘how can you be that fast when you’re that big’ kind of way that only rugby can produce. He was already called ‘Chariots of Fire’ (of fire… Offiah… geddit?) and thus when he played at Twickenham, some fans started singing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’. In his honour. It didn’t just stick, it in fact became THE anthem for England rugby (rugby union, obviously, the northerners probably have their own song for rugby league, probably about beer and beating wives and living in mud huts, stealing hub-caps, I really don’t know). Martin Offiah retired a hero in the early 90s, but the song stayed on. And the fans sing it at every match. To lift, to inspire, to create a frisson which sends a shiver down your spine. It is that powerful. And wonderful.

So it has to be banned. Because it was a ‘slave song’. And it was indeed written by a slave. But that further honours the song. The power of it. The feeling it produces. Because it came from the heart. Of a slave.

I absolutely hate referring to ‘the slave trade’ as ‘the black holocaust’. I feel it dilutes and creates an equivalence that is not in any way true or helpful to either cause. But, and there’s always a ‘but’, for the purposes of the next 10 minutes, I will use that rather inappropriate parallel.

Because the motto for the holocaust for all Jews is this: ‘Lest We Forget’. Because the worst thing for historical tragedy is that it loses its context, loses its imagery, loses its potency. So we have the Holocaust Education Centre, we have lobbyists fighting endlessly to include the Holocaust in educational curricula. We have ‘Yom HaShoah’, the day of the holocaust, every year. Because if people forget, or are never even told, about terrible tragedies, then no-one learns from them. And they can repeat. Heaven forbid.

And yet the Black Lives Matter movement, which, in principle, has my total and absolute support, seem to want to erase all traces of their the slave trade. Knock down the statues, erase the history, remove everything of everyone associated. Though, granted, we never erected too many statues of Adolph Hitler in Hyde Park and in fact leading Nazis are seriously under-represented, statue-wise, even in Germany. Or rather, especially in Germany. I’m not suggesting we revere slavers any more than death camp commandants.

But songs? Beautiful songs? Keep them. As a reminder. Part of the education process. A powerful part. No-one remembers historical details but everyone remembers a good tune. Use it. Don’t just lose it. It’s all become a bit too reactionary.

Happy day of the Sun

A xxxx

Football’s back. My life once again has meaning and purpose. Direction. Motivation. Excitement. Black Lives Matter. Fans made of cardboard. Brilliant.

And watching Spurs last night play Manchester United, I realised what this cruel and heartless lockdown had been depriving me of for the last 3 months. What I’ve really been missing.

Frustration. Anger. More anger. Depression. Anxiety. The desire to murder. Angst. Full mental breakdown. The need for violence as a form of expression of despair. The understanding of torture as an aesthetic.

Oh, and beer and cake.

But it all came back within seconds, of Aurier giving the ball away for the 9th successive time in 3 minutes. Of Harry Kane using Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak to great effect, only to appear for fleeting seconds just to make you wish he hadn’t bothered.

I’m going to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and put it all down to ‘rusty’ feelings. Which is generous of me. But only because Arsenal played much worse on Wednesday than we did last night. Or, rather, uber-tosser and everyone’s favourite Brazilian liability, David Luiz, played much worse than any player has ever played since the world began. Which put a smile on many faces for the first time since March. When he last played almost as badly.

Been a busy week. Wedding Anniversary Monday, birthday Tuesday, Lila/Joey day on Thursday, very busy day at work Friday. During which I limped. A lot. I pulled something in my right hip last weekend at tennis. Which had me virtually hobbling from the station to work yesterday, yet barely bothered me playing tennis this morning. I mean: WTF?? It’s either shitty and painful, or its not. Depending on… the hour? The day? The time?

I’ll keep you posted. Must be the age.

But never mind, 2 metres is going to re-measured as 1 metre by Monday which is almost close enough to… to…

Missing lockdown already

Happy Hip Day

A xxxx

I’m 64. How did that happen? The Beatles released their song by that title in 1967. I was 11. Ringo was probably 20 years old. So ‘64’ to both of us was some science-fiction imaginary land inhabited by our grandparents, by the infirm, the wheelchair-bound, the disabled, silver-haired, crotchety, bent, stooped, senile and toothless.

Which, as predictions go, is pretty fucking accurate. Not in a wheelchair. Yet. But when I think or (worse still) write the number ‘64’ it is inconceivable that it represents my age. And yet, as of yesterday, it does. I checked my birth certificate, re-did the maths, checked with everyone and it would appear that I am, in fact, 64.

I celebrated by going in to work. Which was great. Because its so different from my (current) normal day. I went on the tube. By myself. Quite literally in fact as there’s still hardly anyone else using it. And I don’t have a carer yet. Yet.

I still drive like I did when I was 18. Which is, by your standards, ‘terribly’, but by Lewis Hamilton standards, ‘brilliantly’. Too fast, racing corners, rear slides on the high road, whatever get me there quicker. And today I turned off a main road onto a side road past a few cars waiting to pull out. One of which was half way across my side of the road. Even though there’s actually a line down the middle for the hard of thinking. And I managed to squeeze past (woman in a Mercedes SUV, if you’re interested in facile stereotypes) and just wanted to scream out: WHITE LINES MATTER!!!! Restrained myself. Because to make light of THE cause of the moment is to incur the wrath. I’d be seen as a slave-trade apologist, or sympathiser.

Covid is over!! Finished!!! Gone from our lives!!!!! Ok, I’m not counting China, obviously, where the bat-eaters are having a bit of a resurgence in Beijing. Unsurprisingly (to everyone outside China) it started again in a ‘food’ market (if you call bats, slugs and caterpillars ‘food’), but local authorities are blaming ‘European salmon’. As if. But we’re not scared of Covid any longer because we have… a steroid!!!!

You know that old legend that if you have enough monkeys with enough typewriters one will eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare? Well, if you have enough scientific researchers with enough drugs to play with, one will eventually turn up something useful. And a common-or-garden, cheap-as-chips, worldwide available steroid ‘saves lives’!!!!

It can save 1 person out of every 5 who is on a ventilator. And yet to hear our politicians speak, you’d imagine they now have the cure, the vaccine and a penis extension all rolled into one little, 50p per day pill.

But heh, its a start.

Poor Joey fell out of his high chair. Even though it looks like he’s just been at a BLM rally with Tommy Robinson.

Happy 64+ 1-day, Day

A xxxx

In response to the recent revelations about racial inequalities, a new commission is being set up to investigate all aspects of such injustice, from socio-economic to educational, from comments (other than those made by the Prime Minister) to opportunities. The commission will be headed by Sir Archibald Loughington-Quexwood. Who is ideally qualified as he received a very good education, at Eton, Oxford and Yale, and is known NEVER to have held one single racist view. Mainly because he has NEVER EVER met a person of any colour other than ‘white’ in all his 53 years. Not at school, not in the publishing house he inherited from his father, not at the bridge club, the golf club, the lunch club, not in ‘mummy’s house near Sandringham’ nor in the tea room at Claridges. So he’s perfect. Someone who can relate.

Ok, that was what I expected, whereas in reality the overseer (terrible word in the context, FFS) of the inquiry will be Kemi Badenoch. Who, being an African/American/English person of the womanly persuasion, knows more about inequality than the rest of parliament put together. So we can hope.

What we can’t really hope for though is that the dividing line between ‘inequality’ and ‘insanity’ might be re-drawn any time soon. Not content with the vandalism, removal or destruction of statues of any historical character who may or may not have done anything even vaguely ‘racist’ (by strict adherence to the 2020 code of wokeness), the English Heritage are currently looking into the backgrounds of all 950 people who have ‘blue plaques’ on buildings and that’s just around London. To ensure none of them had anything to do with the slave trade. Or knew anyone who had anything to do with the slave trade. Who ever referred to someone, even in negative tone, who had anything to do with slavery or colonialism, or who was a bit too white. Because who said that ‘heritage’ could ever be dark? Or bad? Or that evil historical figures aren’t just as interesting as the goody goody ones?

I’d like to see where Jack the Ripper lived. Difficult because no-one knows who he was, but due to speculation, they should put the plaque on Buckingham Palace. They should have one on 10 Rillington Place. The Krays house. Arsene Wenger’s home.

But that’s just me. Everyone else should just leave the blue plaques alone. No-one’s history is perfect and without some doubts and deviations somewhere. Especially yours.

Happy shop-opening-if-they-want Day

A xxxx

I love the fact that Britain is, probably, the most ‘free’ society, the most democratic, the most protest marchy nation in the world. Yeah the Americans have freedom of speech enshrined in their constitution, but they also have a lot of guns around, which can tighten jaws up a bit. The Scandis are all lovely blonde liberals who march around waving placards, but mainly just to keep warm when the whale meat runs low. But my little verdant isle (full of coronavirus and death, currently, but I’m in ‘big picture’ mode here) is a bastion of true liberty, as it ‘always’ has been. For the record, ‘always’ started in 1963 when the Beatles got big.

But there are inherent problems with this. Mainly that protests and marches often get politicised and hi-jacked. I’m not implying in any way that your average protester is a dim-wit. But they are susceptible to ‘outside influence’. Or simply victims of infiltration by those with a slightly different agenda.

So today we have marches and protests and sit-ins and sit-ons and statue-removals planned in 73 cities. Even though we don’t actually have that many cities. That’s not the point. The point is that Black Lives Matter. An unarguable truism. And ending racism is the noblest of noble aims. Not that its going to happen by swinging a few banners around Parliament Square but its a way of illuminating a problem. A fairly big problem. And I’m all for it. I’m not going because of Covid considerations (as if) and also because I’m playing tennis. Because old, white lives matter a bit too, so I have to try and look after this one.

There are also planned marches by ‘the right wing’. All of it/them. Tommy Robinson, jailbird leader of the English Defence League, president of the Paki-Bashers Collective, chairman of the Commission to Get Rid of Darkies, has rallied his troops. To counter-march against… well against any form of decency or tolerance or inclusivity, which he and his cohorts find abhorrent and subversive to ‘the Brittttish Way’a Life’. He has managed to get lots of rival football ‘firms’ on board and, as long as they don’t try to kill each other on the way to the protests, as rival football fans tend to do, they’ll be rewarded with lots and lots of duffle-coated liberals and ethnic minority people to attack at their leisure.

Thus the London BLM march was shifted to yesterday, where it was fairly peaceful, more people taking the knee than being kneed in the groin, to avoid the conflict. As two thousand Millwall fans gather today to ‘defend’ any statue depicting anyone involved in racism, imperialism, colonialism or whiteness. Which is basically, all of them.

Social distancing will be demonstrated, all punches swung from 2 metres. Use of baseball bats will be similarly encouraged, being aware of the threat of virus.

Happy Demo-day

A xxxx

Despite my natural and deep-felt opposition to covering this beautiful face ever, with anything, thus depriving the rest of the world from enjoying it fully, new information has come to light about the current maskage situation which I think is worth sharing.

Because previously, our government, when asked whether we should all be wearing masks, like in Germany, like in South Korea, like in China and all the other places which have done really well in this pandemic, has stated that ‘there’s no evidence masks help’. Oh. Well, Boris, its just that… errrrr… just… those countries had massively reduced infection AND subsequent death rates so I… errrr… just… kind’a… thought it was worth asking the question. Over here. Where we don’t wear masks. And everyone’s fucking DYING!!!!

Nope. No evidence whatsoever that masks help. End of. Game over.

Until you get on the tube on Monday. Then if you don’t wear a mask you’re breaking 10 laws and will be thrown off the train, possibly straight onto the tracks. But this will NOT count as a ‘corona-related death’. Unless the train was in a hospital when it happened.

A study in Germany has now decided that (for Germans at least) the spread rate of Covid is reduced by 40% if masks are worn. Oh, well that’s not much, is it. 40%. Not even half. Barely worth producing all that extra elastic. If that statistic is true, and if the same effect occurred with good, proper, English people as well as with the Germans, that would have meant 16,000 fewer deaths in the country. Or, alternatively, 16,000 more overweight, diabetic, heart-conditioned, obese, unhealthy, diseased bastards would still be sucking the life-blood out of the NHS on a weekly basis.

I have but one question for Boris, re: face masks, and it is this: is there any situation or circumstance in which wearing of face masks would or could make things worse? Because in any cost-benefit analysis you need to weigh such things up. And other than increasing my own, personal, short-term discomfort at odd times, there is simply nothing in the ‘minus’ column’. Ok, the ‘plus side’ is vague and unknown in the main, but Jesus, it don’t take an Einstein, or a Pasteur or Florence Nightingale to work out that masks are not a bad idea, really.

It’s only taken 3 months to work out that stopping diseased foreigners from entering our airports and railway stations is possibly a good idea. Give ‘em another few and word will get round number 10 that masks is possibly ‘something worth looking into’. Possibly.

At least they’ve removed the ‘don’t mention the war!!!’ episode of Fawlty Towers from the BBC site. That’s a good start on saving lives.

GERMAN LIVES MATTER!!!!

Happy Day of Stupid Things Generally

A xxxx

Living off immoral earnings is always an interesting subject. Our government has refused numerous offers from high earning call girls and prostitutes wishing and willing to pay their taxes, on the grounds that the government would be living off immoral earnings, which is a crime. Prostitution is not illegal here but apparently its sufficiently immoral that the exchequer want nothing to do with it. In their office hours at least. After work, who knows? Or cares. Most of the staff there sticking to far more reasonable rent boys around Piccadilly Circus.

Are nations which are stinking rich from selling their oil likely to be lambasted in the coming decades as being responsible for the entire climate change situation? Will we be tumbling statues of Mohammed bin Salman into the sea? Oh, we don’t have any. Not yet, anyway. Not until he can prove that he isn’t a murderous, war-mongering, Yemen-ruining son-of-a-whore.

Cecil Rhodes has had his personal history removed too. On that basis that his actions in South Africa were imperialistic. And a bit racist. Just a bit. But he made his money from diamond mines. Then used it for all manner of good causes including the Rhodes Scholarship which is still sending 32 bright kids a year to Oxford University.

The Sassoon family left their native Iraq and moved to Mumbai. Where they donated fortunes to the City in their benevolence and charitable enthusiasm. They built hospitals, schools, housing for the poor, community centres, Mumbai today is a testament to the wealth of one family. Yet that wealth came from opium. Grown in China, shipped to India, the Sassoons were a one-family drug cartel. The Pablo Escobar of their day, without the violence. Who basically laundered their money by funding the building of an entire city.

So what about Edward Colston? The man whose statue tumbled into the river Avon on Sunday night. The man who built half of the city of Bristol. All funded by his ‘business’. Which was the slave trade.

I’m never big on judging historical actions by today’s standards. People are part of their own zeitgeist and react accordingly. They can’t act according to standards which won’t be even mentioned for 300 years. And the slave trade was always endorsed by the Church as some part of ‘God’s will’. There were obviously dissenters in the clergy but as funding has to come from somewhere, God was obliged to turn a blind eye to catastrophic racism, so St Marks could replace its leaking roof.

The problem was not the trashing of the statue, but the fact that the statue was still there. The city’s failure to consider its ongoing reverence to a slaver (because that was not only his sole trade, but he was the big boss of the industry) was an error of judgment. And in the recent escalation of anti-racism feelings worldwide, the years of missed ‘debate’ about its acceptability led to this ‘act of vandalism’.

So, sorry Ed, it had to go. The council dragged its heels, the people spoke. Loud and clear.

They can replace it with a statue of Harry Kane. That’s morally acceptable.

Happy riotous days

A xxxx

Sociability is the new anti-sociability.

I made that up. During the coronavirus epidemic, pandemic, crisis and… bad thing. And it was bad because we all had to lock down, isolate and cross the street to avoid people who might have been smelly, but you just can’t tell from 2 metres away. Or who might have been lovely, but you’ll never know, having offended them deeply by crossing the street to avoid them. We were forced, as an entire nation, to be completely anti-social. We weren’t allowed to talk to anyone, but were encouraged to eat and drink as much as we liked. So next year’s obesity pandemic will be a good one, possibly our best so far.

Then last weekend it all ended. Not the entire ‘lockdown’ thing, but we were allowed to meet up with people ‘of another household’!!! Like, ‘from another planet!!!’ So we did. We went out for ‘supper’. A meal I haven’t in fact eaten since 1971, but if you call it ‘dinner’ then you imagine lots of courses, silver service, possibly waiters and a butler, three different wines and petit fours. So ‘supper’ is informal, light, easy, nibbly, and perfect for the garden, which is the ONLY PLACE YOU CAN LEGALLY MEET!!!! No greeting hugs or kisses, no groping, no physical contact. And no-one allowed to drink the wine directly out of the bottle. Unless they’re wearing rubber gloves.

And that worked really well. We did 4 in 4 days, home and away, loosely abiding by at least one of the rules. The one that says ‘no exchange of bloods or any other bodily fluids’. Which was a shame as that’s normally my favourite thing.

And then came Wednesday. Ahhhh, Wednesday. Our first ‘garden supper’ in the freezing cold/almost raining. Shifting the whole supper narrative from ‘I hope the Camembert doesn’t completely melt in this heat, to ‘I hope I don’t die of hypothermia whilst eating grapes’. And if I did, would that be a ‘Coronavirus related death’???

Last night we went again for the scheduled ‘garden supper’. It was horrible. Cold, wet, pissing down, horrid. We cut the pretence. Went inside. Set up a table with ‘them’ and ‘us’ ends, wore our masks whilst eating, drank with visors on, through straws, passed the wine bottle using disinfectant wipes, sprayed ourselves down with detol after each course…

We just, kind’a, sort of… had dinner. And it felt good. It felt different. It felt… sociable. Even a bit illicit. Like when someone at in normal times suddenly produces a gram of raw heroin and three hookers after the meal. Oh, ok, maybe not that illicit. But it felt nice.

Happy birthday to the mother of my incredible grandchildren.

A xxxx

Ok, so lockdown is not quite so much fun in the dull, cold and drizzle as it is in the brilliant sunshine, so we can go back to work now. With our masks. Which, I’ve now decided, are positively discriminatory!!! Yes, I’m taking masks to a tribunal. Because they discriminate against smokers. Not that I am one, but I’m a liberal and hence have empathy for any or all groups of deprived or suffering people. Masks also discriminate against spitters. Those revolting scumbags, usually from somewhere in Eastern Europe, or Eastern London, who like to gob on the floor as they stroll down Piccadilly with their best girl on their arm. You can’t spit whilst wearing a mask. Well you can but… eeeuuuuwww. Nose-pickers have a problem. And you can’t poke your tongue out at someone whilst wearing a mask either. An essential, non-violent form of abuse. Now taken from us by the mask-fascista.

We have a new mantra. When leaving the house, its no longer ‘keys, phone, wallet’, but now ‘keys, phone, wallet, mask’. Pocket hand sanitiser may follow in due course. Though appreciate that’s a lot of extra words to remember. At your age.

So I’m going into work today. After tennis, obviously. Because its the last day I can drive in without paying congestion charge. Which is being implemented on weekends too, praise be to Sadiq Kahn. Shitty little muthafucka mayoral dwarf. And I have so much to take in. PPE. Shitloads of PPE. Posters, boxes, gloves, masks, sanitisers, all manner of heavy, clumsy shit that I don’t want to carry on the tube. And I need to clean. Yes, me, myself and I. The clean team. Because anyone who might normally do such things is still furloughed. But you can’t furlough dust. The plague of the City. 3 months of undisturbed dust has occurred and needs removal before life can pretend to resume.

And, because the government are, basically, winging it every step of the way, we have no real clear guidance on what we can do and when. So we’re winging it too. As is everybody. And the winging starts in earnest on Monday, so we need to be clean. And fully PPE-compliant. Even though I have a life-long intolerance to ‘compliance’ in any form. Masks included.

Happy slowly unlocking day

A xxxx

This is my new look. It’s a bit like my old look but with a fucking great ‘thing’ stuck across my face. Hiding some of the beauty. All of the beard. Steaming up my glasses. Making me hot and sweaty, in a re-breathy kind of way. And from a back-to-work perspective, it also removes 90% of non-verbal facial expressions and 40% of verbal expression due to mufflage effects (Mumble, Muffle and Mmmmmm, 1974).

I use the mask primarily as a neck-warmer, at which its really effective. Certainly more effective than the government led us to believe it was as a protection from virus. So it lingers round my neck and then, when I go on the tube, I DEPLOY!!! Pull it up over nose and mouth. Turn into the urban terrorist look currently so big in riots in America.

Last week I pulled it into position when boarding at East Finchley. Opened my kindle, relaxed reading… by the time I arrived at Highgate (1st stop) I’d unconsciously dragged it off and it was back round my neck. How’d that happen? Who did that??? I tried again and same thing happened.

But now its ‘LAW’. Well, its compulsory from next week; masks on the tube. They’ve suddenly become very effective, according to health experts… who work for the government.

But the urban terror thing is big in America. Holy shit, its big. The murder (because there’s simply no other way to see it) of George Floyd was horrendous. No question about it. The reaction was predictable, the looting unfortunately diminishing the otherwise immense effect and simply nurturing existing stereotypes even further.

Yet the protest has now started, not a ‘new dialogue’ exactly, because we get it every time the police murder a black man in custody, which is tragically, fairly often. But it has elevated that dialogue of racism to a new high. Maybe because a majority of ‘African Americans’ are working class people and thus are suffering disproportionately from the Coronavirus economic effects. And possibly because they’re also suffering a disproportionately higher death rate than whites. Whatever the cause, America needs to address its massively inherent racism issues. In the police, in the South and in their society in general.

And who better to steer them through such a dialogue than Donald Trump. Who better to unite a nation than an idiotic, blinkered, quasi-racist, shoot-em-up dickhead? He’s perfectly suited to such a monumental task. And he is, because he doesn’t see ‘racism’. Not when its his race which isn’t suffering. So he won’t address it. He’ll only concern himself with the secondary effects. The demonstrations, the riots, the unrest. And like Gandhi before him, and George Washington and other such statesmen, he wants to call in the army and tell ‘em to bring their guns!

All we can hope is that between the Coronavirus denial debacle, the plummeting economy and this current shit storm, Trump’s standing has dropped sufficiently that he won’t win this year’s election. Which is itself dependant on a majority of Americans NOT being racist. And to be honest, I’m not sure how that will play out.

God Bless America!!!

A xxxx