Andy's Glasses

So here was the deal. Coronavirus arrived, we retreated. To our homes. Locked down. Shops closed. Everything closed. Work from home. Unless you can’t. Then don’t work. Only at home. Or from work. If you have to. But mustn’t. Not really. Wash hands. All the time. Wash your shopping. Don’t touch anything. Or anyone. Avoid like the plague (hah), 2 metre distance. Masks? Don’t be stupid, we’re British, we don’t wear masks, they’re useless in the face of a PAN-DEM-IC!! and only for delusional Orientals. Don’t meet anyone, don’t see anyone, don’t… don’t… don’t… JUST DON’T ANYTHING!!!! Except allow plane loads of foreigners into the country every day. Unchecked, untested, unbelievable.

And the odd thing was; we complied. Scared shitless by the power of the government rhetoric, we hid from the virus, we locked down completely, we did as we were told. All 60 million of us. Except for a few ‘raves’ which still went on and in the confines of extremist ends of religion where the the ‘God’s will’ brigades of all flavours continued to join in prayer. And in the wholesale spread of contagion. Personally I’d have put those priests and rabbis and imams and bishops in a garage and let God sort them out, rather than waste valuable NHS resources on them, but they were taken into hospitals just like ‘normal people’.

And then gradually, it started to lift. Just a bit. Then a bit more. Then… football came back! But no crowds. People could meet up, in limited numbers and wrapped in cling-film. Liverpool fans were exempt from the bans because they hadn’t won the league in 30 years. Which is fair.

But as the ‘gradual’ becomes the new normal and the general feeling of ‘I’m so over this’ pervades, boundaries get pushed and guess what? The virus is returning in numbers. Not the same, over-exaggerated heaps of statistical dung that they were using in the first instance. It’s been refined and remodelled. And as people come into more and more contact, so the virus ups its game. Or plays the same game but with more people once more. Because it never ‘went away’. It took a holiday. But unlike the rest of us, it was allowed back.

So the second wave is coming in isolated regions. Generally up north where its just not so important but return it will. Because it never went anywhere whilst we were hiding from it. Thus, as we peek out from our hidey-holes, it grabs us once more. Which is inevitable.

I would despair but having been in pretty much that very state for the last 6 months, I wouldn’t be able to feel it. And its not really the virus I despair about. It’s more the endless statistics. Where’s that whisky bottle gone…

Happy Days

A xxxx

I mean… I mean… I mean… I mean what kind of football season has it been whereby my entire footballing joy for the entire year hinges on the possible departure of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from Arsenal? How is that a ‘defining moment’ in my life? How could I be so shallow and low?? Oh, that’s easy, I’ve done that all my life. But now that Arsenal have won the (fucking) FA Cup (agaiaiaiaiain), my only hope for salvation of the entire human condition is that their talismanic Frenchman with the funny forehead and unpronounceable name, might leave to ‘find glory’. Like; the FA Cup is not enough???? Loyalty to club and badge, plus entry into the Europa League of Not Quite Champions, is insufficient ‘glory’ for a man of his stature? Is he unaware of how big the FA Cup, the world’s oldest sporting club competition, is? Or, rather, how big it used to be, not so long ago? The answer is ‘no’, or rather, ‘non’. Because he’s French journeyman tosser who wouldn’t know Islington from a hole in the ground (ok, there are similarities) if someone else pays him 250 grand a week.

However, I don’t want him to go because he’s a tosser. I want him to go because he’s so bleedin’ good. Much too good. So please, get onto twitter, follow him, or whatever one does on such a thing, and just tweet “you’re too good for this shit” and appeal to his inner arrogance. Which, being a Frenchman, is not too far from his outer arrogance. And then he’ll leave.

One man whose loyalty can never be questioned is Eddie Howe. The (former, as of yesterday) manager of Bournemouth. He, basically, other than a few aberrant years, spent his entire career either playing for or managing The Cherries. If you bit him there’d be a stone in the middle. He was THAT Bournemouth. But they sacked him because they were relegated. Never mind that he took that team from Division 2 to the Premiership and kept them there for 5 seasons. Four more than the most optimistic Bournemouth fan would have dreamed. And without the normal ridiculous levels of over-spending that stupid clubs delude themselves into making.

I will miss Eddie. Quite frankly, I love him. He is eloquent, charming and quietly spoken. But unlike some (virtually all) managers, he accepts his responsibilities and never blames others. In fact, he’s much too intelligent to be in football altogether. A thoroughly ‘good bloke’ all round and his departure (though probably not for too long) is football’s loss.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

“Yesterday, in England, 274 people tested positive for Coronavirus…”

Ooooh, that’s up on last Tuesday, 29 less than Sunday, just above the average for the weeks with a ‘2’ in their dates…

We get this daily. Initially from dour governmentalists and health type people, now from the news presenter. And we look at the trends and the totals and the… important data.

And its all total bollocks.

274 tested positive. OUT OF HOW MANY?????

If they only tested 275 people then Houston, we have a problem. And Houston, like most of that God-forsaken state, does indeed have a big problem. Other than the President.

But if 274 tested positive out of 100,000, that’s rather different. Yet if they test 100k one day, 80k the next, 30k the day after and 120k the following week then its all irrelevant verging on totally meaningless. But no-one tells us ‘…out of xxxxx tests performed’. Because… errrr… because its of no use? Because we can’t handle the numbers?

Even Trump realised this when he stated that if too many people are testing positive we should do less tests. Yes, even a retarded sex-offender with an IQ smaller than the size of his quiff realised the abject stupidity of meaningless numbers, yet we’re presented with them daily as if… as if… as if our lives depended on them.

Statisticians have a lot to answer for. In fact, they have the square root of the difference between the second differential of the binomial expansion and the square on the hypotenuse, to answer for. Not just for the above but for the succession of ambiguous and meaningless numbers hurled at us over the last 2 months.

1,463 Coronavirus deaths in Wales, today. Holy shit!! But that doesn’t include (probably about 4,381) deaths in care homes ‘or the community’ but does include the man who was smashed to bits when hit by an express train. Because 6 weeks before he had tested positive for Covid 19.

I would say ‘go figure’ but quite frankly, they’re not up to the task.

Yesterday was the hottest day since Coronavirus began. That’s hot.

Happy FA Cup Final day (yes, I’d forgotten that almost-irrelevance too)

A xxxx

How many BMIs make one Covid? Alternatively if the score is: Covid 19, BMI 8.3, will the victim die? These are interesting questions. Ok, stupid questions with possibly interesting answers.

Boris has decided that obesity is the key to life. Or, in fact, to death. Fat people die more of Covid than thin ones. In case he hadn’t noticed, fat people die of many things more than thin people. The only benefit of obesity, healthwise, is that they never die of malnutrition. Everything else is bad news for big’uns.

So now there’ll be no more adverts for ‘junk food’ until after the ‘watershed’. When all the thin kids are asleep in bed and the fat ones are watching tv whilst inhaling their third pizza of the night.

Britain has an obesity crisis, with more fat kids than any other country. Surely that can’t count America? I’d be amazed but can’t find the article that inspired this investigation into food habits and the world distribution of tubbies.

Boris’s answer is simple: cycle more. So, riding on the tailwind of the virus (EVERY-FUCKING-THING rides on the tailwind of the virus), Boris has essentially given half the capital’s roads over to new cycle lanes. This has the double advantage of making everyone healthier by cycling more and keeping the air cleaner with less room for traffic. So, presumably, in Boris-world, Tescos will only need their stock lorries half the time, carrying half as much produce because… Ok, so Tescos will still need their trucks, but the vans… well, maybe only half the building work will be needed, and half the things that break down, will do so… errrr… because of the virus.

Ok, so in reality there’ll still be the same number of vehicles, but moving half as quickly. Which, trust me, wasn’t very quickly at all, to being with. Therefore the Tesco lorry plus all the vans will be sitting on the Embankment (once they bother again) spewing out more carbons each day than Battersea Power Station. Although that’s now a block of flats so presumably its carbons have diminished from its ‘glory days’.

But we’re on the right path. I think. It’s just that, like Boris, I’m not really sure where that path leads.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Well that was exciting. The football season. Finished. Finally. Usually its over by the FA Cup Final in early May. This year we had a stay of execution until almost August!!! I think they should keep that every year. Then give everyone a month off and be ready to start again in early September. New season starts on September 12th. But, as with everything, this is ‘subject to change due to conditions and viruses’. So the putative footy season might end up like Spain. Being; totally fucked. On the whim of a government long accused of ‘acting too late’ on virtually every step of the corona pathway, so suddenly acting very very early. “We’re banning Spain, the entire nation, as from… NOW!” No more: “these very important measures will start in 3 weeks from next Friday”, gone are the “we think masks are important now, even though we thought them rubbish for the first 3 months, so you have to wear them in shops. From 19 days time. At midnight”. Those days are gone. Boris has become ‘Action Man!!’ From the ‘Fat Man!’ he once was. Again, as with everything he does, this is ‘virus driven’. Less fat, less likely to die of Covid. Simple. The PM has lost a stone already. Though still resembles a cross between a pig and a tub of lard in a shaggy wig.

Liverpool still won the league. Which they pretty much did in January before ‘the delays’. Which were organised by God so that no-one had to be there to actually witness it happening live, or risk being immersed at Anfield with 50 thousand smug, overly-entitled Scousers. Thank you God.

Spurs managed to limp to 6th place to be sure of European football next season. Hooray. Arsenal didn’t. Spurs may now have to sell Harry Kane. Not because they want to sell him, not because he wants to move, because he loves Spurs like I do. But because the press, collectively and unanimously think ‘its the right time for him to move’. He’s 27 today (Happy Birthday Harry, I love you, love you, love you!!!) and thus can’t wait any longer before… I don’t know. So to the entire sporting press of my fine nation I’d like to offer a single, heart-felt and sincere: FUCK OFF, THE LOT OF YOU!!!

The relegation battle was as edgy as always. Norwich were already down before Christmas, but they needed accompaniment down to the depths and so Bournemouth, Watford and Aston Villa were the contenders, 2 of whom were to take the dive. Villa won the prize of staying up and we say a fond (ish) farewell to 3 teams who were punching way above their weight to begin with. And I wish them well. (Read: good riddance).

The rest is history. The weirdest football season since records began (1327 or thereabouts) and its finally, eventually, agonisingly, over.

Happy season’s end

A xxxx

So what do you do when the news finishes on tv? And its late (because you have the news on series record because you’re stupid and obsessive and its not like you believe what most of the lying scumbags who appear on it say anyway), but you just have a quick flick and… The Blues Brothers is on. Oh my. Now Pretty Woman is on another channel because the new law states: masks MUST be worn in shops; Pretty Woman MUST be on every night. But the Blues Brothers. Which is without doubt, possibly, my favourite film of all time. It simply has it all: stupidity, insanity, driving cars way too fast, crashing cars in vast numbers, complete madness, brilliant songs by incredible artists, a storyline so ridiculous as to be virtually irrelevant to the plot (no other movie ever has achieved that particular feat) and it even features Illinois Nazis. Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Carrie Fisher, James Brown, Aretha!!!, Ray Charles, Cab Calloway and so many other luminaries in the worlds of comedy and music. Rather than, errr, acting, note. But how many films have the line: “we got a full tank’a gas, half a pack’a cigarettes, its dark and we’re wearing sunglasses”. You don’t get that in Gone with the Wind or the Godfather. ‘We’re on a mission from God’. As it must have felt for John Landis who directed a drug-crazed John Belushi, when he could find him on shoot days and sober him up sufficiently. It’s legendary. Not necessarily in a good way. All fabulously related by Bob (Watergate) Woodward in his brilliant biography of Belushi called ‘Wired’, which shows the genius and insanity (strong connection) of the big guy as he self-destructed. What? You thought Jonny Depp invented drugs and terrible behaviour? RIP, JB.

And, all you (little) Englanders, today is FUCKING MASK UP, YOU NOB!!!! day. As of midnight last night (in case you were making a late trip for some quinoa that just couldn’t wait) it is COMPULSORY, it is MANDATORY to wear a mask in all enclosed spaces. All of them. Other than the exceptions. Of which there are many. So if you walk into a take-away food store YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW if you’re not wearing a mask. However, if you decide to perch on a stool and eat the food there, you may remove that mask for the eating. And remaining time. Even though you’re just as likely to be infected/not infected as you were before. Taking a mask off in public is ILLEGAL unless you want to. Or need to. Or have to. Or don’t feel like wearing the thing. But the basic rule is WEAR THE MASK!!

It almost makes you wonder what might have happened if they’d said that back in March. But heh, who am I, who are we, to question.

Happy Tennis morning (I hope, weather looking iffy)

A xxxx

Not content with going to battle with those pesky Chinamen, our tough, hardened, powerful, almost super-heroic Foreign Secretary (even though he looks like the ‘last man picked for a football match’, or a reject from a school for failed accountants), has now started war on a new front. The Russian front. Hitler tried something similar in 1943; how’d that go? But this is currently just a war of words. Words of distrust. Words of accusation, words which basically are like pushing someone repeatedly to start a proper fight.

But Russia and China are joined by a common difference. They’re both ‘communist’. Which at one time meant something deeply political and somewhat noble in intention, if a little failed in the realisation. But now, what’s left of communism, in both of those fine (hmmm) nations is all the bad bits. The noble intentions went when the politicians did a deal for bulk buying Lamborghinis. The proposed ‘equality for all’ mantra gave way to a ruling elite who are neither questioned nor elected (in any significant sense of the people having ‘freedom’ to vote). Free speech went out of one window and returned as state propaganda machines. And with that came what both those nations see as their self-governed right to zero accountability. What’s good for China/Russia, as perceived by their dictator, is good for all. Even if it might appear to be bad for most.

Like Hong Kong. Like the Uyghurs. Like institutionalised athletic doping. Like sending hit squads to wreak vengeance in foreign countries using radioactive isotopes. And most recently and most damning, interfering with other countries internal politics (the Russians) and/or security (the Chinese). I won’t even mention Alexa. Not out loud anyway.

But what both these nations now specialising is is denial. They are so proficient at it that they have elevated it to levels so blatant, so at odds with evidence, so downright efficient that it needs no thought, no consideration, it just happens. It’s autonomic. Whatever is said; we didn’t do it. There film of it? Fake. Here’s the dead bodies you buried? Not us. The hackers all come from Moscow. Must be a different Moscow. In, like Alabama, maybe. And so on.

So its war with the communists. How awfully 1955.

Happy times

A xxxx

Spurs played yesterday. Beat Leicester 3 nil. Brilliant. Superb. Stunning. Free points. To take us nearer to a competition we really don’t like very much but Morinho has won the Europa League twice with various teams and if we were to win it, we’d get into the Champions League (a competition we like very much) the following year. If we hadn’t already qualified on league position. Or by winning the league 35 points clear of the next team. Which is the best case scenario. Or the least likely scenario, if you’re of a more pessimistic or anti-Spurs kind of mood.

And here’s the problem. That we’re winning. Gathering up those points like they were falling apples off the trees. Which must be a good thing, right? Winning games. Beating teams like Leicester who, not so long ago were high and dry in 3rd place. Beating Arsenal? That can never ever be a bad thing.

Leicester have injuries. That’s the party line. Essentially, they’ve lost it. Can’t beat anyone, look quite likely to have squandered a seemingly invincible entry to the Champions League. And they weren’t very good. Yet came to ‘my’ stadium yesterday and had the audacity to have 70% of the possession. Leaving us with just… errr… 43.95%. Or less! They had 24 attempts on goal. We had 7. Their time might have been better spent going to Specsavers.

For Jose Morinho, life gets no better. A good win against a good club. A clean sheet. Strong and resolute, almost impregnable.

BUT ITS NOT SPURS.

It’s not what we do, not how we play, not what we want. It’s George Graham’s Arsenal. It’s Stoke. Route 1 football. It’s about parking buses and scoring on the break. Even in home matches. Which we did to great effect yesterday, obviously. But as Jamie Rednapp astutely noted; we’d never get away with playing in such a way with a full stadium. The fans would get nervous, that would transmit to the players (usually in really unsubtle, totally unambiguous ways), and frustration would result in errors.

So yes, of course I want my team to keep on winning. But do I want them to win ‘like this’? Would I sacrifice points for style? Hmmmm. Why does David Ginola’s face always spring to mind when I have this conversation? And as its generally a conversation I have with myself (a more common occurrence with age, and the arguments get more passionate and demonstrative, even when I’m on the train or walking down the street), it ends with ‘I want it all’. The wins, the style, the grace, the flowing football, the strong defence, the killer through balls, rampaging wing backs, power, pace and glory…

Which is why I’ve now become a Manchester City fan. Possibly Liverpool. Even the very recent Manchester United. Never Chelsea or Arsenal, obviously, they’re unworthy and not very good.

I’m struggling with Morinho.

Monday in a quandary.

A xxxx

We’re going to war. Say goodbye to your sons, lock up your daughters, build a shelter (though possibly a financial, off-shore ‘shelter’ might be more useful than a bunker at the end of your garden), its all kickin’ off!!!

Boris Johnson has declared war against China. And remember, Britain, never never never, shall be saved. Even though there’s 60 million of us and 1.6 billion of them. All experts in martial arts, sword fighting and eating with chop-sticks.

But this won’t be your usual ‘boring old’ war, with guns, soldiers, nukes maybe, submarines and bombs. This is economic warfare. Which is much more bloody. It’s cyber warfare, which is much more… oriental. Yet its war nonetheless.

Boris ‘kowtowed’ (exquisite irony) to Donald Trump and told Huawei to fuck off, they’re not wanted in our telecoms infrastructure because it represents a massive security risk, which it unquestionably does. But Trump is embroiled with his own trade war with China because they make steel much cheaper than he can make it in Pittsburgh, which pisses him off greatly. So Boris ditched Huawei from our 5G project. Even though 5G is essential for our businesses and telecoms and without the Chinese giant company providing the infrastructure (lots of which is in place already and has been here for many many years), we’ll be making our own 5G stuff using old car radio parts, breaking up our Betamax players for components and using a lot of balsa wood, empty washing up liquid bottles and string. Should work fine. By 2073 at the latest.

China has immediately retaliated. In that fabulously opaque Chinese way which proclaims they are an ‘open’ and ‘democratic’ society, Tik-Tok, the online video site, yesterday ditched its plans to have its world centre here in London. Employing 3,000 people. Tik-Tok is obviously a free and independent company acting in no way due to any influence from its government. Who are famously ‘hands off’ in such matters. Yeah. Right. And if the Chinese pull all their students from our shores (there are millions of them, literally) half a dozen universities will immediately become financially unviable.

So Boris has, for some reason, brought in the moral issues. The apparent genocide of the Uyghur people. China hates them. Has somehow ‘reduced their numbers’ by 84% in a year and is involved in a campaign of forced sterilisation of Uyghur women. All denied by their ambassador to London on Andrew Marr today. Who hotly disputed authenticated video footage of truckloads of Uyghurs being carted off never to be seen again. ‘Lies by the west’. Obviously. Bloody westerners!

But the Uyghurs won’t make my phone download yesterdays goals any quicker. Huawei can. For that alone, Boris should reconsider. I’ve asked Alexa and she agrees. She told me the Chinese were the most honest, trustworthy, non-listening people in the world.

Who am I to argue?

Happy days

A xxxx

In the entire Cities of London and Westminster there is only place buzzing with activity. The shops are deserted, offices empty, roads and pavements like the fucking morgue. But at the virtual junction of those two fine cities sits the Royal Courts of Justice. The High Court. And every day as I walk past there is the crowd of paps, the journalists, the tv vans. Two of our posher coffee shops have opened up in their honour. And when I walk in to get my morning latte (pretentious fucker that I am) every table in a Pret the size of a ballroom has three cameras sitting on it, each with a metre long lens attached.

Finer points of the legal system would not receive such attention. Intricate cases upon which may turn legislation that could affect our lives would be ignored. But stick a couple of A-list slebs in there and the world’s press descend like… like… like a virus!! It is nothing more than collective voyeurism by proxy. We send in the hacks so we can learn about ‘lives of the rich’n’famous’ whilst they’re under oath.

And this is what we learn about Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.

They are both certifiably insane. Immoral. Amoral. Revolting. Disgusting. Evil. Nasty. Horrible. Vile. And more revolting. With no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Other than Amber looking like Amber. That redeems quite a bit in my mind, but is it enough??

So in Depp’s desire to ‘save his reputation’ after the Sun newspaper’s allegations that he is a ‘wife beater’, he’s prepared to present himself as pretty much the world’s most obnoxious and disgusting human (barely that), who takes drugs and alcohol to excess, falls over unconscious quite a bit, remembers very little about decades at a time, behaves in a terrible way to everybody, loses all his money, never washes, throws tantrums, eats shit, but DON’T CALL ME A WIFE-BEATER! The rest he’s proud of. Or at least insufficiently not proud to be happy to parade it in front of a court and thus the world’s media.

But by all accounts, and there are many, she was just as bad, if not worse. And there is just cause, it would appear, if we lived in a world of true equality and non-presumptive egalitarianism, to call Amber a ‘husband beater’. But the term doesn’t exist. It’s not allowed to exist.

Yet it seems that basically they spent their entire marriage fighting, but like, proper, physically assaulting, beating, attacking with a variety of household implements, real, gloves-off, fighting with each other. When she wasn’t in bed with Elon Musk that is. But that’s not an implication of any moral judgment. Just a massive fucking question mark about her taste in men. In fact if I had such poor choices of men I’d become a lesbian too.

Amber speaks next week (or two). But so far it just seems to have painted a picture of a totally dysfunctional marriage between two equal and opposite imbeciles.

The whole thing is so stupid as to be totally compelling.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx