Andy's Glasses

Because the weather is not only lovely but GUARANTEED not to rain, I’ve been taking the e-bike into work. Not because it’s quicker, which it is. Not because it’s cheaper because us old folk get tube travel freeeeeee. But because it is just wonderful. Fun. Enjoyment. Puts a great big smile on my face which only grows with every red light I ride through. By the time I get to work, and not very much time at that, I have to take special medications to bring my mouth back to ‘neutral’, from ‘Joker’ mode.

And on Friday, I donned my helmet (yes, MELISSA, I always wear my helmet on the e-bike, have you seen the way I ride, FFS?), put my ruck-sack on my back, and wheeled the beast towards the door, as always, eagerly awaiting mounting the machine, firing up the… errrr… battery, and flying home in the setting sun. But there was a funny squeaky noise as I pushed it. Hmmm. Break stuck? Something rubbing? No, my fucking rear fucking tyre was fucking flat. Fuck.

I may have sworn. I apologise unreservedly. I don’t have a pump. Not that it would have helped. For a tyre to go from 60psi (very hard) to zero in a few hours is catastrophic. Not a small ‘leak’. I left the bike at work and tubed home. Miserably. Disappointedly.

Monday morning I wheeled it 200 yards up the road (so heavy it felt like 6 miles) to Evans ‘the bike shop’. Upon who’s website they proclaim to do ‘repairs!’, even ‘punctures’ and state ‘punctures to e-bikes!!!’, because they cost a bit more. Obviously?

“Ah, can’t do that one mate; its an e-bike”. But… your website… repairs… issa fucking inner tube FFS; mend it! “We’re not allowed to work on e-bikes we didn’t sell.” Well, you wouldn’t would you. Tosser. He did sell me a bottle of ‘gunk’ which you pump in and the tyre’s good as new in minutes’ and then even better! Didn’t work. Flat as a pancake, even with a tenner’s worth of slime in it.

So today, I found a company who pick up your bike, repair it and deliver it back. And so far, phase 1 is complete. Picked up. Now we wait…

Happy tube-travel Tuesday

A xxxx

We won. Spurs. A football match. Beat Southampton. Who were ‘fighting for their lives’. And alas, they died. Got relegated. At least they did it in the best stadium in the world. Surely that was some comfort to them? But Southampton aren’t my problem. Spurs are.

With that magnificent win, our first home win since February, not that our away form has been what you’d call ‘brilliant’, but with the win yesterday we roared up the table from 16th (relegation starts at 18th) to a positively nose-bleeding 16th!!! At this rate, by my calculations, we can be first in the league with 5 wins. Assuming we move up 3 places every time. Which we should. But may have to change the rules of the league a bit. I’ll speak to Liverpool.

Who amazingly lost yesterday. I can’t actually remember the last time that happened and can’t be bothered to look. But they went to Fulham, scored a goal, went all ‘arrogant’ and strutting around with the air of the invincible, and got trounced. Because this is football. You have to act invincible, rather than just posture.

Arsenal, the only other team with an unrealistic chance to prevent the title going to Merseyside, failed to win in the other bit of Merseyside, the blue bit which never wins anything. Arsenal were 1 nil up and if they’d have just made it 2, or 3… but it wasn’t to be and Everton were awarded a penalty. Obviously, it was wrongly awarded, it was against Arsenal which, according to Arteta, automatically makes it not just wrong but part of the overall persecution of Arsenal by the combined match officials of the Premiere League. Because shlepping a man twenty yards across the box with your arms and then falling into his legs should never be a penalty.

So all in all, it was a brilliant weekend’s football. Other than the Manchester derby, or the ‘has-been derby’ as it has now been re-named, which was boring as fuck. As you’d expect from two teams which, unlike Tottenham, have faded from their glory days.

Happy Monday, I shall watch MOTD for the first time in 2 months.

A xxxx

Two Labour MPs decided to take a trip to Israel. Why not? It’s fab there this time of year; not too hot yet, and gorgeous. Furthermore, unlike when I go, these freeloaders get the taxpayers to fund it. Whole trip, right down to the extra chillies on the felafel. They took a few ‘aides’ with them too. Why wouldn’t you. You’re not paying.

And they arrived at Ben Gurion airport and… got refused entry. Interrogated, summed up and sent for deportation.

Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed were kicked out of the Holy Land (though not necessarily their holy land) before they got in. Why? Because they planned to ‘document details about the security services and spread hate messages about Israel’. Really? Labour MPs??? How could those pesky Middle Easters even think such a thing?

David Lammy, our Foreign Secretary immediately called this ‘unacceptable!!!’, to reject our parliamentarians from an allied nation. Even one where he, David Lammy, called for their Prime Minister, Netenyahu, to be arrested on sight if he arrives in the UK.

Leader of our opposition, Kemi B., said she understood the Israeli’s point of view and they have the right to evict undesirables. For which she is now being panned by Labour MPs and the more moronic of the press.

I make no a priori judgments about either Yuan Yang, nor ABTISAM MOHAMED, but the Labour Party in general has a rather poor record against Israel and Jewish people. And in government they have not improved this standing. They, like the BBC, completely buy in to the 100% Hamas produced narrative about genocides and baby murders and all the figures which, to any sensible, non-biased person, are inflated beyond any form of common sense. Labour has proved, time and again, that it is NO friend to Israel. Who is suddenly the ‘ally’ which it obviously wasn’t when tosspot Lammy cut arms dealing with Israel a few months ago.

What Israel doesn’t need at the moment is any more people, especially those like ‘parliamentarians’ whose opinions are viewed as more accurate, entering Israel to come back with yet more accusations and nonsense to further feed the prevailing insanity over the war in Gaza.

Israel is perfectly comfortable with Muslim people. Over 20% of its population are Muslim. But it is rather circumspect about politicians from an ever more hostile nation, who represent a party only recently, and very superficially, ‘cleaned’ of antisemitism, who constantly insult the Middle East’s only democratic nation by giving parity to a terrorist organisation in all considerations.

The Labour Party is virulently anti-Israel (mainly for ideological reasons rather than the current issues there) and crosses the line into antisemitism regularly. I wouldn’t let them in my country either. If I had one.

You reap wot you sow. Hope they have a safe flight home. That we’re also paying for.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

So we’ve done taxes to death this week, with all this tariff talk, so we need to concentrate on death. Ok, I never promised ‘cheery’, some might find it positively morbid, but it needs to be discussed. Not the actual deaths themselves, but the attitudes and moral relativity of two particular kinds of deaths.

Firstly there’s abortions. I think it safe to say; no-one likes a dead baby. And the current debate is not even about whether a 12 week foetus is actually ‘a baby’ or not. It’s about America’s favourite topic; freedom of speech. An abortion clinic protester was convicted of something or other because she was standing near an abortion clinic with a sign saying: ‘here to talk; if you want’. Which even I, as a massive proponent of ‘pro-choice’, think is actually rather touching. She didn’t say: YOU’RE GOING TO DIE IN HELL YOU BABY MURDERING BITCH!!!, nor even JESUS DIED TO SAVE YOUR BABY AND NOW YOU’RE DROPPING HIM ON THE GOAL LINE!! But they arrested her. In case she unbalanced someone’s mental health or presumed upon their gender or something, though granted, presumptions where pregnancies are concerned are probably valid. For me, much as I disagree with this ‘heart in the right place’ woman, for interfering with someone else’s legal right to a termination, she has every right to peacefully protest. She wasn’t arguing against the right to an abortion; she was saying that if someone is having last minute doubts, I’ll counsel you. To arrest her exemplified most of what is wrong with the police today. They don’t think. To actually convict her because ‘she might affect mental health’ in some way, is plainly moronic and cow-towing to the prevailing imbecilic zeitgeist.

The second deaths are the sought-after ones. The Assisted Suicides. This is also tricky. From a moral perspective. And yet comes into the category of ‘choice’. People who want to choose their death when faced with irreversible pain and suffering to an inevitable and horrible end. The arguments against are always (other than by religious people, obviously. They revere life and the bible normalises pain, suffering and agony, even treats it as heroic and the best way to serve The Lord) that “I’m disabled and I still have a lot to offer and don’t want to be die just because I’m not perfect and haven’t got long to live”. The answer to which is: then don’t. It’s fucking CHOICE. Yet again. And if you don’t wish to terminate yourself, having such a facility in place won’t force you to do it. Just because there’s a petrol station on the corner doesn’t mean you have to fill up. Ok, I appreciate the moral differential with that particular parallel, but at £1.40 a litre, there’s not much morality in petrol stations either.

Basically. Just give people the right to choose. No-one’s being forced into anything. That’s grown up. If others with to protest about it, that’s fine too. Everyone else, including the police, should just fuck off and let everyone get on with it. Including, perhaps especially, JD Vance, who is ‘appalled’ at the intrusion against freedom of speech for the anti-abortion protester who was arrested. I wonder if Mr Vice-Prez would have been so vociferously outspoken in favour of a Climate protester, or an anti-oil one, or any vaguely left-wing value or any protester in a proper duffle coat?

Happy Saturday; its good to be alive

A xxxx

So here’s the ‘deal’ for tariffs.

England gets to incur 10% on all goods imported to America, because we’ve been ripped off for so long and cheated and it should be 19.7%, based on the refusal to accept chlorinated chickens and toxic Texas beef and the fact that they impose a 20% tax on all American imports. They call it V. A. T. But whatever you call it, it’s there to persecute Americans. Oh, they charge it on British goods too? Whatever. It’s punitive, it stops Londoners buying our fabulous range of cars. Unfairly. Makes them uncompetitive. You can buy an English car, like a Toyota, for £20,000 and it is totally wonderful. Whereas an equivalent Chevy will cost £25,000, whilst looking like shit, handling like an oil tanker on stormy seas, struggling up any hill and containing more plastic than the recycle centre. That’s not “re-cip-ro-cal”.

For Charna, I’m being very considerate by charging those fuckers 34%. They charge us 67%!!!! Well, as calculated by some very clever people I use over near Harvard. Not ‘in’ Harvard, but pretty close. And these guys are bright, I can tell ya’, and they told me that factoring in rice and the inflated cost of chop-sticks in Charnatown, its 67%. And we’re only charging them half. To be re-cip-ro-cal. Re-cip-ro-cal.

Vietnam gets hit with 46%. I hate those fuckers and they made us spend all that money in a war back in Kennedy’s day, so it’s payback time. And Cambodia too! They get 49% because… because I can, I want to, and who’s gonna stop me?

This will make the world a fairer place to do business. I get that the reality of it is that these are taxes on Americans for buying overseas shit. They’ll pay it. The government gets it and we become great again. Rich again. Other than the guy who just bought a Range Rover, he’ll be much poorer, but he ain’t my problem. If you want zero tax on cars, build ‘em here!!! I told Giorgia Meloni, you wanna build Ferraris in Wyoming?, they won’t pay a tariff.

And all those doom-mongers out there in the Democrat and communist press, they’ll see that these moves will make everyone’s lives better. Everyone’s. In the whole world. Except possibly, the retired, the working, the living, some of the dead, those who hold shares, pensions, savings, those who were broke before and anyone going to Morecombe on their holidays. But this will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!!!!

Happy reciprocal Thursday

D.J.T. xxxx

Marine le Penn is the leader of the French National Front. Whatever exalted title they give their neo-nazi party these days, it’s the ‘national front’. But written in French. Obviously.

Whilst engaged as a member of the European Parliament (where failed politicians tend to end up) she basically stole money from the EU to fund her political party. Which, funny enough, is not allowed. Even though the EU parliament is widely viewed as a Free at the point of service, unlimited cash dispenser, there are a few rules in place, which generally, they don’t enforce. Because the EU take such a vast amount of money from its member states, it can’t waste time ‘counting the change’, it has 32,000 useless, unproductive free-loaders to do… errrr… whatever they do. Probably working from home, mostly. And the EU also allows its members an allowance of up to 30,000 Euros a month for ‘staff’. As long as those ‘staff’ are doing stuff for the EU. Or anything vaguely European. So basically you can pay your wife 300 grand a year as long as she eats a croissant every day and has Spag. Bol. every week.

And Marine was taking this money and using it to fund her party. All political parties are short of money. Most get ‘sponsors’. ‘Donors’. But if your support base is, basically, a bunch of skinheads living on benefits, money is in short supply. So where better to find cash than from Brussels’ limitless supply.

The French court decided that Mdm Le Penn be removed from political party leadership for 5 years. A reasonable punishment? Well, the problem is (for Marine, not for anyone else, anyone decent) that she therefore cannot stand in the next presidential election. Which she is quite fancied to actually win. Unlike her poor, late fascist father, who lost every one he ever entered. And she’s now shouting that ‘the courts are politically motivated’, similar to what Trump shouted every time he was in court, but in French.

Unlike her father, a nasty, nazi, rabidly anti-semitic, racist bastard, Marine has toned down the party’s hard-rightism and adjusted the hate figures to, primarily, Muslims. Secondarily: Muslims. And thirdly…

Hard rightists need a scapegoat. For all society’s woes. And Muslims are a big force in France now, and are much easier to identify than Jews. They’re colour-coded. Even though a vast majority are French citizens and have been for generations in Senegal and Algeria and Morocco and all the other ex-colonies, Le Penn wants rid of them. Then she can start on the Jews.

Yes, Marine is a tragic loss to French politics. We’ll all miss her smiling face. Ok, I lied about the smiling.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

When Justin Welby was… elevated?, promoted?, ascended?, raised on the high alter of Christianity to a table so high he sat with just God and the Pope for company!!!, I thought: what a nob. There’s something horribly smug about the man. Something smarmy. There’s someone who really thinks he’s cleverer than everyone else. And can explain why in words of so many syllables no-one else could ever understand. In a very ‘wet’ way.

Then, after 10 years at the helm, floating around the place angelically in his cherub’s garb, they sacked the fucker. Ok, strictly, ‘he resigned’ but we all know. And as the only person above him was God him(or her, or them)self, it was not taken lightly.

It transpired that in that intervening decade Welby had spent his time protecting the reputation of his church. At the expense of the countless children abused, beaten, physically and sexually assaulted and raped. By ‘men of the cloth’. His brethren. In the crusade. For Jesus.

Welby stood up to make his ‘farewell speech’ in the House of Lords. And he chose, in all his brilliance and wisdom and total understanding of human nature, to ‘have a bit of a larf’. Make it witty. No mention of the victims, no apology for being the most negligent person since the ‘Atomic Lookout’ in Hiroshima in 1945. No remorse, just sanctimonious shit and horrendously inappropriate humour. (And coming from me, a world-class exponent of inappropriate humour; that’s saying a lot).

But for some reason, Laura Kuenssberg decided to resurrect the man, to drag this horrible, grey person back into the limelight to interview him. I watched as much as I could bear. And decided, after due consideration and examination of all facts, that he’s still a tosser. Possibly a worse one than when he’s all in white with a silly hat on.

He let serial abuser John Smyth ‘get away with it’ because poor Justin was ‘overwhelmed’. Not with messages from God. Not with counting up collection boxes. But with sex accusations. Desk full of ‘em. Heaped up three feet high. But that didn’t fire up any red lights in Justin’s world. He knew Smyth. The man had a very bad reputation for 30 years of abusing little boys. But Welby was so ‘overwhelmed’ he instigated no action. Too many candles to light to be worried about hundreds of children getting beaten, bloodied and abused by some sick fuck mate. Don’t want word of that getting out, might be damaging to the church.

Asked if Welby would forgive Smyth, he pondered then said ‘yes’, he would. And I thought ‘really????’ The man was pure evil. A literal ‘devil’. And surely even the Christian obsession with forgiveness must have some limits? I reckon even Jesus would have kicked John Smyth in the bollocks.

Happy birthday Lila!!! 8 today.

A xxxx

I wanted to drive from age 2. They wouldn’t let me. Bastards. I had to wait til I was 14. Because my brother’s mate, also-Richard, was given a van for work when he was 17 and he took me to a little airdrome in Romford which had been converted into a faux road system for driving ‘practice’. It was private and you didn’t need a license. And I drove. It was the best thing ever. That same year, along with 2 friends, and not telling our parents until afterwards, we bought a motor scooter. A Vespa. Which again we couldn’t use on the roads. Firstly because we were too young and secondly because it was a fucking death trap we bought from Harvey the Nutter, who liked death traps. We paid £4.50 for it. We massacred garden lawns with it. Which gave the already disapproving parents much more to disapprove.

Then, as 17 approached, I bought my first Mini. Red one. NKN 802F. Because it was a couple of months til my birthday, I couldn’t drive it. Only wash it, stroke it, hug it and love it.

And that feeling, of owning a car, the sheer wonder of it, has never left me. Even after all the cars, all the driving, I get in MY car, I feel empowered. Liberated. It represents total freedom. Other than the speed cameras, pot-holes, traffic lights, congestion charge, speed bumps and traffic jams. Freedom can’t get more total than that. So I still clean our cars. I don’t go the local Albanian car-wash and money-laundering syndicate, I don’t get the guys with hose-pipes in their vans to come round. I do it myself. Because I enjoy it. It’s more satisfying than watching the bottom of the league team beat Spurs. I wash Mel’s car too. Though you have to be careful with all that water around an electric car. It’s like putting an electric fire in the bath. I wear rubber soled boots.

And of all the cars I’ve had, this one is my favourite. What Joey calls ‘the racing car’. I will drive this car, if not ‘forever’ then at least until I can no longer get in it without help.

Happy Sunday, drive carefully,

A xxxx

I appreciate that not all Republicans are aggressive, domineering, scornful, malicious, lying, denying, avoiding, side-changing, disloyal, anti-Europe, anti-UK scumbags. Only the ones we see on tv. And most of the others. Who have three approaches to any question: deny, lie, shout. Even simple and easy questions like: what level of incompetence does it take to bring a random stranger into high level, sensitive chat about a bombing raid?, brings immediate denial “IT WAS NOT SEN-SI-TIIIIIIVE!!!!”, followed by “THIS IS THE COMMUNIST MEDIA MAKING AN ISSUE OUT OF NOTHING!!!” And then a swift “FAKE NEWS!!!”, for good measure. And from one spokes-(wo-)man for Trump to an English journalist: “YOU NEED TO SORT OUT YOUR OWN MESS AT HOME; THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU!!!”

This is ‘diplomacy’ chez Trump. This is representatives and members of the government of the most powerful nation on earth, demonstrating their views to the world. Joey is more subtle.

When did it all get so fucking rude? At what point did diplomacy become a slagging match? Did negotiation become a basis for personal abuse? Yep, it happened when Zelensky went to the White House. When the President set the precedent. The government with no filters.

Much as I like people to ‘say it like it is’, there are ways of saying it that don’t involve personal abuse.

The culture of the American leaders is to shout it loud and hit ‘em hard. “Europe are freeloaders! So why should WE bomb the Houthis in the Suez Canal when we don’t sail our ships there?” In fact a good question. The answer being in the nature of the relationship. America funds NATO; the member countries just prostrate themselves before the alter of Americanism and grovel a bit.

Then there’s Greenland. Which, unfortunately for Greenland, has become the strategically and commercially most desirable place in the whole of the Arctic circle. Strategically because it stands between Russia and America; commercially because it holds untold riches in rare metals. The entire island is like one big branch of Ratners. Which ‘just’ needs digging up. And that ‘just’ will cost an investment of billions and billions, without which, no rewards will be reaped. So American intervention and investment would be good for everybody.

Which can be stated in words other than: I want it: I’ll take it. It’s gonna happen.

Some of what Trump says is actually good things. But the way he says it is simply awful. Too brash, too flash, too arrogant, too rude. As for JD Vance, the only shame was that he wasn’t on Greenland long enough to get a whale harpoon in the head.

God Bless America.

A xxxx

The Lord Trump has issued a decree!! That henceforth and forthwith and foreverafter, (until his next brainless whim), there shalst be a tariff on ALLL imported cars in the WHOLE of the United States of America, of 25%!!! And so it is written. Amen.

This will cause major fuckage in the UK. Because 20% of all our car exports are currently to the USA and the prices of those cars to Americans have just gone up. But really up. Your $30,000 car will now cost you £37,500. That’s a hike. And the Toyotas and Hondas which make up a massive part of US car sales will suddenly become unaffordable. But this isn’t about Japan. It’s about ME!

Americans will just have to buy American cars which, obviously, will remain un-tariffed. That’s the whole point. But what will they buy?

The American car market basically follows perfectly the American social demographic. Thus the vast majority of Americans (those ‘in the middle’) buy trucks. Because gun-toting, cowboy-hat-wearing, Bud-drinking, yee-haaaing good old boys wouldn’t drive a Nissan Micra. So the biggest selling cars in America are the massive, 4-door, flat-bed trucks made by Ford and Chevy. Followed by SUVs. Unsurprisingly, big ones. The ones you see a dozen of following Trump around when he goes to McDonalds. Great bit, ugly monsters. Like Audi Q7s on steroids. Cadillac make them. Lincoln make loads of different ones. Which manage to all look the same.

The people round the edges of the country, California, New York, Washington, you know, the ‘civilised bits’, live in proper cities where you occasionally need to find a parking space. So they drive Hondas and Toyotas. And Mercedes and BMWs if they want to. Proper cars. Normal cars.

America has never really been good at designing ‘normal’ cars. Every car I’ve ever rented there has been a piece of ugly shit. Poorly made, horrible interior, tragically underpowered. Ok, they make Mustangs and Corvettes and all sorts of wonderful ‘fun’ cars, but we’re talking ‘normal’ cars for normal people. And you get the Chevrolet Malibu, today’s picture. In fact the picture that paints a thousand words. 900 of which are ‘ugly’. You can buy a Tesla!! But we know how most Americans view electric vehicles, and how they view Elon Musk.

I can only imagine how happy you’d be if you own an Audi franchise in Houston.

I can forgive Trump for teaming up with Putin, but condemning his nation to drive revolting cars is a step too far.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx