Andy's Glasses

For the last two weeks the indoor pool at Mel’s gym has been closed for maintenance. Ok, not the end of the world, but a pain. Because she swims there 4 times a week doing on average 2km a day. So by now she’s 16km off where she should be. Which is like being in Brixton when you really should be at Oxford Circus. They do have an outside pool there too but Mel only likes swimming in that when its sunny, even though the water’s hotter than in the inside pool. She swam in it once but to be honest I’m never happy with her swimming there. And for the very reason that I read about today.

A woman and a girl have been attacked by a shark. Off the coast in Queensland, by the Barrier Reef. Which is definitely ‘outdoor’. And I know that Finchley is not quite Cairns but you just never know with sharks. They’re unpredictable and may pop in for a swim on their way to the Homebase store.

Meanwhile, how sorry do you feel for Theresa May? And how revoltingly horrible are those Euro-trash who are demonstrating, in the build up to our departure, why even staunch remainers like me are becoming almost pleased to be distancing ourselves from such horribly pedantic, inflexible, bureaucratic tossers as rule the Euro-roost over there.

Ms May’s ‘Chequers plan’ was summarily dismissed in Salzburg yesterday by Macron, Merkel, Tusk and the whole merry band of trumped up stuffed shirts. Ok, and stuffed blouses, where appropriate. These ‘leaders’ are insistent that they want ‘a deal’ with Britain, which they need as our trade with Europe is over 600 billion quid a year in both directions. That’s a helluva lot of customs checks. They maintain that they want a great working relationship ‘afterwards’. Yet are not prepared to move one pesky millimetre (itself a horrible French invention) towards any kind of compromise.

Not that the Chequers suggestions are exactly ‘universally acceptable’ over here either. It goes too far for most remainers and falls way short for all leavers.

Europe was never going to make departure easy or pleasant but they’ve really gone the extra mile on the ‘difficult’ front. In fact its more ‘impossible’. Making the ‘no deal’ deal the only one left on the table. Because the over-riding feeling you get after each and every attempt at negotiation, is just a big ‘FUCK VOUS!!!!’

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I fasted. Yesterday. Yom Kippur. The fast day. 25 hours, no food. Not a morsel. Then you go to someone’s house, in our case that of my brother, and eat 72 hours worth of food in 22 minutes. The 25 hours is the ‘rule’, the other statistics just mere testament to piggishness. The best piggishness you can ever get because, after the ‘deprivation’, there’s no guilt. Pile it high and eat it fast. Food never tastes better. You’re not supposed to drink anything either, but I kind’a ignore that. Because the fasting thing is symbolic and I’m opposed to literal interpretations altogether, but especially when they inconvenience me greatly.

The thing is, I have no idea why I fast. Ok, I’m a Jew and that’s what ‘they’ do on Yom Kippur, but I’m a cultural Jew, not a religious or in any way spiritual one. What is euphemistically known as a ‘chopped liver Jew’. Ironic term considering the debate in question. Because on that most sacred of days I become the ‘no-chopped-liver-jew’.

We are atoning for our ‘sins’. And everyone sins. Even Jesus sinned. Adam; the original sinner. Had sex with Eve, to produce children when they weren’t married. Couldn’t in fact marry because she was ‘created’ from his rib, making her, presumably, a genetically identical clone, other than the ‘bits’, obviously. And you can’t marry a clone. So sinning is normal.

But we don’t kind’a beat ourselves up over the insults, the slights, the nastiness, the road-rage, the dubious expenses claimed against tax or anything over the last year. We’re not Catholics. We’re not fasting as ‘punishment’.

The idea is that on Yom Kippur we enter such a spiritual state that we simply ignore our bodily demands. We’re just too busy being ‘up there’ with God to concern ourselves with mere physical functionality. Ok, the toilet is possibly an exception to avoid unwanted smells in the synagogue due to all the pissing angels. Other than that we don’t eat, we don’t drink, we’re not supposed to shower or shave or wax our legs (epilating is acceptable but not using electricity). We’re not allowed to rape anybody on Yom Kippur, nor start a fight with the rabbi. We leave our bodies and enter prayer and spirituality and… and… ommmmhhh…

Ok, we don’t meditate like that, we use unintelligible Hebrew instead, but same difference.

I like the message though. We have ‘sinned’ as every human does, but we’re going to improve next year. We make a plan to do that. And improvement is good. We can improve as a person. Because I don’t think home improvements count in the spiritual world.

And my personal improvement did indeed manifest itself for up to 45 seconds after the fast finished and I found myself driving behind a total tosser and had to let everyone in the car know. Sorry God, I’ll try harder next year. It’s just that if You’re so omnipotent why do You allow so many useless drivers on our roads? Just askin’…

Happy calm, relaxed, improved Thursday

A xxxx

I gotta new iPad. And I’m hating it already. If the ‘set up’ process’ doesn’t kill you then the added new features will drive you insane within 2 days. Plus the additional benefit of every time you press something new it wants to give you lectures, tutorials, videos, instructions and, basically TOO MUCH INFORMATION. It wants to spellcheck everything, which, even for a quasi-dyslexic like me is hateful. I reserve the right to invent new words and mis-spell whenever I frikkin want. A clever person would work out how to switch off the evil that is ‘predictive text’, whereas I just keep a hammer nearby in case it gets too much.

My old iPad was about 10 years old but still functioning. Unlike Mel’s ‘mini’ one which had suddenly refused to use its web browser in any meaningful way. Like ‘at all’. So we went to Brent Cross (Soddom and Gomorrah for the digital age) on Sunday to visit the Apple store. And it is the most horrible place on planet Earth. Every mother who goes shopping dumps their kids there to ‘play’. They could go to the little playground, but heh, iPads and laptops are much more fun. And involve much less movement.

There’s lots of Apple People (black shirts, logos, lanyards, earpieces, silicon chips where their eyes would normally be) so you ask one for help. “We want to buy 2 new iPads, a big one and a little one, please”. Almost smiling the woman says “do you have an appointment?” I thought she was joking. Firstly because there were at least a dozen black-shirted semi-bots milling around aimlessly (unless they were doing some kind of internal processing that lesser mortals don’t know about). And secondly because I didn’t need an appointment to buy shit in Marks and Spencers, nor Waitrose. “Ah but some of those are technicians and others engaged in… Apple shit, someone should be with you in about 10 minutes”.

We found a ‘miller’ who was quite nice and helpful and showed us our options. Which were severely limited. Severely. If you need a keyboard you need the iPad Pro!!!! Did you know that? The ‘pro’ is 300 quid more than the regular one and the keyboard is 160 quid on top. But the ‘pro’ offers a million brilliant advantages… that I will never use. Whereas a keyboard I use all the effin time. “Sorry, can’t help you”.

Despondent we went next door to John Lewis. Where they not only sell keyboards for Apple stuff that Apple don’t, because its not made by them, but they give you proper advice. So I bought last year’s model, because fits the keyboard case that is quite brilliant, all for (in Apple terms) virtually nothing. John Lewis keep slightly older stuff in stock, Apple don’t. Mel got a keyboard for her new mini one too. In case she should succumb to keyboard envy.

I’m still definitely not talking about football. Any football. And its Yom Kippur today, so I’m not allowed anyway. No food, no football. No f-words, in fact.

Happy Fast day (ok, re-think the f-word thing)

A xxxx

When you’re bored with New York, you’re bored with life. Can’t remember who said that but I’ll bet he was a New Yorker. Now the new one is: when you’re bored with Brexit, you’re bored with Brexit. So good they said it twice. Or so bad, as is the case. But its understandable. You would normally have 2 sides in any serious negotiation. In Brexit I’ve counted 34 sides. All with different agendas, all with different views of the withdrawal and all a bunch of tossers. Ok, 27 of those are the ‘member states’, so we’ll ignore them. Most of the disagreement is here, in the UK. We can’t agree on what we want so Theresa May has come up with the ‘Chequers plan’ which everyone else hates. And has basically said; take it or leave it. To Europe, to her cabinet, to Boris, to everyone.

Yet the lib-dems, and many others, want another referendum on ‘the terms of leaving’, for us, the common or garden voters, to agree upon. Because we did such a good job last time? Because we can trust our politicians to be frank, open and ‘transparent’ with the details and predictions??We need another referendum like the Pope needs Gary Glitter taking holy orders. The last one showed clearly that we’re not worthy to make such decisions and that our government aren’t fit to present one to us. Nor are the opposition.

But one little glimmer of ‘interesting’ appeared in my paper this morning. Michel Barnier, the Leading Foreign Bastard, has stated that any ‘deals’ and agreements made with Theresa May must be binding for the future leaders of our fine nation too, and mustn’t be ‘unpicked’ in the future. Oh, so its like a ‘deal forever’. And how brutally undemocratic is that? Or ‘how typically EU’, you could phrase it.

The whole essence of ‘dealing’ and governments is that everything remains dynamic. New deals improve things for the people, reduce costs, increase availability, new products arrive, businesses relocate, the entire political and business systems of the whole world depend on flexibility and changes for the good of all. And yet here’s Barnier saying that what’s done is done! Fini! Game over. What if Britain suddenly had a product that was unique and everyone in Europe wanted it, something totally British, like… like depression. Would HE not then want some kind of deal from US? Would we then have to say; ‘ah, but Michel, under the terms of departure in 2019, you prevented us from re-working any future deals’. I’d like that. You could actually reduce it to ‘FUCK YOU!!!’

And that’s it. I’m over Brexit. Even though Brexit itself is far from over. The only thing European I’m concerned with is the Champions League. Tonight. Inter Milan. Not in a happy place.

Good Tuesday

A xxxx

I really don’t want to talk about football. Even though I missed it last weekend, it can be so horrible as to be totally depressing. I’m looking forward to next season now. This one’s finished.

But I had a row the other day. At the Library. Where I take Lila for her nursery rhyme half hour. We love it there. All the carers get to sing all the nursery rhymes, with hand movements and actions, whilst Lila and the other kids get to run around throwing soft toys, oblivious to the grown-ups best efforts. And, as I mentioned the other week, the shit kicked off with the ‘wheels on the bus’, that most insidious, hateful, nasty, mysoginistic and evil of child-indoctrinating stereotyping.

So as we all sang ‘the mummies on the bus go ‘chatter, chatter, chatter’…’ one woman, a ‘newby’, which I can say as a veteran of 3 months nursery rhyme tyme, sang instead, rather loudly, and much more rather, smugly, ‘the DADDIES on the bus go ‘chatter…”. Oh my. Dissent in the ranks. A fenemissed. Which is like a feminist but one who TOTALLY MISSES THE FUCKING POINT.

Firstly I wanna know when ‘chattering’ became some term of abuse. Why is it insulting to ‘chatter’? The answer, of course, is that it isn’t. Its nothing. Another woman joined in. At which point the lovely lady who runs the show was put off and stopped. So I asked what was the problem. Which I learned was that chattering wasn’t uniquely feminine. Neither is farting, I didn’t say, but held back. The word, not the fart. “But all you’re doing is taking a completely innocent children’s entertainment and politicising it”. So the stupid woman started singing ‘the men and women on the bus go ‘chatter…” NOOOOOOO!!!! I exclaimed. ‘How terribly, horrendously, tragically binary is that??’ That shut the stupidly over-sensitive, looking-for-a-fight feminazi up totally as she had to reluctantly agree with my totally ironic and totally stupid comment because otherwise, having embarked upon the ruinously obsessive road to political correctness hell, there is no turning back.

The next day I read how Carrie Symonds has been vilified by the press in the next great act of misogyny. One possibly more serious even than the wheels on the bus debacle. Carrie’s the ‘researcher’ who ‘allegedly’ had a ‘close relationship’ with Boris Johnson. The fenemissed who wrote the article was pissed off by the lack of substance given to Carrie’s career in all the articles and how they should have applauded her 10 years of indeed great success in politics, never an easy place for a woman to thrive and succeed. Why didn’t they write about that? Her good work, her achievements?? Double standards, she proclaimed. If she’d been a man they’d have extolled her.

And if she’d been a man (or indeed, to continue the pc theme, ‘anything in between’) it would have been a different story for sure. But the story wasn’t about the career of the alleged affairee. It was about Boris the fat old ugly fuck shagging a young blonde. If she’d been a he it would have been almost the same but just another sordid arrow in Boris’s debauched quiver. (There’s a metaphor there if only I was clever enough to use it). The professional achievements required to share a bed with Boris (yeuch) aren’t very high, and certainly not relevant.

Feminism is still my hobby and devoted cause. That’s why I get so pissed off when people take it too far. At which point it becomes stupid and self-destructive.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Well that’s it then. We now know that Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov are innocent of all claims that they tried to murder the Skripals in Salisbury back in March. They couldn’t have done it because they simply didn’t have time. They came on a whirlwind visit to measure the steeple on Salisbury Cathedral (123 metres, if you’re interested) and see why it is ‘one of the most must-visit places in the world’??) and see Stonehenge (a vvvunder of pagan constrrrrruction). Even though they didn’t actually appear to do either. Though they did appear quite a lot on local cctv cameras. They were in Salisbury for a total of about 2 hours, which is not a lot when you come all the way from Moscow. And having gone to all the trouble of acquiring false names and corresponding fake passports, you’d think you’d want to at least see the catacombs and the cloisters too, even though that entry might cost an extra £3.20 per Russian. The problem was that having travelled from Moscow to London, then London to Salisbury, arriving at the train station, they inadvertently walked the wrong way. Because it was probably quite hard to see the cathedral from there, with that steeple only being 123 metres tall, even though you can see it from fucking Scotland. Whilst ‘lost’ they happened to walk in the direction of and quite near to the Skripal house. Cctv camera coverage is not total, even in Salisbury, though it probably will be by now. There’s no coverage inside the cathedral itself because God’s watching you there so its not needed. But of course, they had no idea who the Skripals were, where they lived or anything about anything, just being ‘sports nutritionists’. Who presumably aren’t allowed to read anything other than ‘Sports Nutrition Weekly’. Because if they read anything else in Moscow it would have had the Skripals posted across the front page on and off for about 5 years. Mr Skripal has been a sustained and reviled hate-figure for a long time ‘over there’.

But Alex and Russ have answered all the questions and quite frankly I believe them. They’re very credible, not at all shifty and knew precisely the dimensions of Salisbury Cathedral. They’re just nice Russian boys. Leave them alone.

They’re going to make it compulsory to put calories on restaurant menus. So when you next order your (vegan version) veal in Fois gras with shallots and marrow-fat at Heston Blumenthal or fish’n’chips at Rick Steins, you’re going to know exactly how guilty you need to feel. This latest extension to the vast and accumulative nanny-statism regulations does have a good side though. Because you’ll be able to see that if you ‘hold the side salad’ when ordering the double bacon-cheese-burger with chilli-cheese fries, you’ll be saving 23 unnecessary calories. That you can more constructively use when ordering the sticky toffee pudding with double-cream custard and extra lard for dessert.

Happy low cal Friday

A xxxx

Politics is a serious business. Its about running the country, our lives, our tax bills. Can’t get more serious than that. Yet I tend to make judgments about people by their humour, rather than their seriosity (new word to describe the terminally humourless). And I’m not the most natural Conservative voter, let the truth be told. Ok, I’m an ageing old middle class tax avoider (if only) but I’m also a ‘craft beer socialist’, even a ‘whisky socialist’, which are the modern versions of the champagne variety. I want a fairer world for everyone, I just don’t want to be totally, personally responsible for paying for it.

But the fact of the matter is, the Tories have humour. Not all of them, certainly not their leader. But Michael Gove does, Boris did have but overplayed that hand excessively. Jacob Rees-Mogg would be humorous but chose to be a devout Catholic instead (totally opposing positions, incompatible in human form). And I count ‘wry’ as humorous. And lots of Tories are very much that.

But Labour has none. Maybe they are gut-bustingly, Monty Pythonly funny in private but don’t deem it appropriate in their public personae? In which case they keep it really well hidden. Possibly the only success of the current Labour Party, should that be the case. I hate people who take themselves too seriously. Especially if they are idiots.

Jeremy Corbyn leads the way for humourlessness. He has never made me even smile, other than when he’s caught lying. Which is quite often but the fun wears off. There again, he’s not that bright so its no surprise. He went to Loughborough polytechnic to study woodwork. And failed. But its not about education. Because I’m sure John McDonnell is better educated (can’t be bothered to look him up on Wiki) but also lacks humour completely. Diane Abbot is absolutely hilariously funny virtually every time she speaks. And always whilst taking herself really seriously. But there’s no intention, no wit, no ‘irony’, no nuffink other than plainly ridiculous stupidity.

The undisputed most humourless man in all politics, possibly in the whole world, including Kim Jong Un, is Kier Starmer. The shadow-Brexit-bore. You’d think, as a one-time eminent QC, as former Director of Public Prosecutions, that he’d be quite bright, a bit witty, have a quick put-down. But no. There’s nothing whatsoever behind the eyes. Its a void. Almost vampire-like in its totality. And never mind ‘funny’, the man struggles to put a coherent sentence together that doesn’t include “Theresa May’s failure to reach a new deal”. Yet never offers his own version of what that ‘deal’ might look like.

So Kier Starmer, QC, MP, becomes my ‘tosser of the week’ (and many other weeks too).

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

When ‘the future’ arrives, then what happens to tomorrow? These are the questions I ask myself in the shower. Important questions. Stupid questions. Questions that have you chewing a tile. But the future is where we’re all headed so its worth giving it some minor consideration at least. I don’t mean fucking pension planning, I mean THE FUTURE. Its always been a place of interest. So we look to fiction to create possibilities for us, then laugh at them half a century later.

Phones went from big bulky things wired permanently to the wall in a horribly analogue, sound-only kind of way, to being smart phones without any of the sci-fi predictions of ‘video phones!!’ which were always depicted also being hard wired to a wall, in black-and-white. And all within 25 years. Evolution happens fast in the techno-world.

Breaking the genetic code was a monstrously big tidal wave of futurism, enabling a complete re-writing of the medical cure book.

Then there were the Big Brother type visions of the future. Dark, nihilistic worlds ruled by all-seeing bastards. That’s in a way more accurate. As is Brave New World where there’s nothing to do all day so the population is just kept drugged up with happy pills to dull it into inertia. Terminator is more accurate still; the computers take over and start the nuclear holocaust. Cheery.

But that’s only because ‘cheery’ doesn’t sell books and films whereas Blade Runner sells and sells and sells.

When ‘the future arrives’, as with smart phones and self-driving cars (God help us), it does give you a buzz. But only if you’re old enough to remember the past.

Nostradamus made loads of predictions, most about the end of the world, but he was just a self-publicising tosser so no-one listens to him any more.

Whereas just last week I spoke of the 3-dimensional taxis in the Fifth Dimension, as driven by Bruce Willis. Ok, seemed a bit chaotic but at least it gives more space. And now Vertical Aerospace have built a ‘taxi’ that is essentially a drone, driven by four horizontal propellers at the corners, which will whizz you over the traffic to a landing strip or helipad near where you need to be. You wanna go to Cornwall (why?) take a vertical taxi drone thing. They’ll have drivers/pilots but only for a while, then… driverless/pilotless!!! You could get across London in minutes and fuck the traffic.

“‘ere, you’ll never guess oo I ‘ad in me drone the uvver day…”

Happy Present

A xxxx

So accusations of Labour’s anti-semitism is poo-pooed by the left as ‘just trying to discredit Corbyn’. Even though Corbyn joined Hamas and (figuratively) danced on the graves of murdered Israeli athletes, he is absolutely NOT an anti-semite, its just a conspiracy by the right wing to oust their beloved leader.

But then the anti-anti-semites want accuse the left of trying to discredit their valid claims of anti-semitism by shrouding it in a cloud of anti-right-wingism that supposedly the ‘Zionists’ and ‘Trump supporters’ and probably child molesters and drug dealers, that is there to unseat Corbyn.

And so with Boris. Yet another prime example of circular discrediting. He’s trying to discredit Theresa May because he wants to be leader of the party/country/world. Then he can shag who he damn well pleases, whenever he wants to. So Boris writes (its always written down with Boris, nothing that can ever be denied or removed from context) that May’s Brexit plan is a ‘suicide vest round Britain with Barnier holding the detonator’. Nice analogy.

So Theresa May compiles a dossier to discredit Boris. Even though he does such a fantastic job of it all by himself. And now they’re both shouting about how they’re being discredited with untruths and exaggerations, and so it goes on.

I was a big Boris fan. I liked him. He’d had a proper job, albeit only as a journalist, but at least he was quite a funny one. A clever one. Ok, he wasn’t perfect, because he’s human. And thus is flawed. So he had a few extra-marital affairs, always with upper class bimbettes, mainly because no-one else could ever find him attractive in any way. Only women raised in close proximity to the aristocracy with its unique brand of odd-looking semi-inbreds could find something appealing in Boris Johnson.

Then he became mayor. And I liked that. Because his potential for damage is limited in the mayoral role, and he was still quite funny.

Next, by then an MP he stopped being funny. He not just attached himself to Brexit but saw it as his clear path to the top and thus became the calendar girl for the campaign. And embarked upon the lie-fest and scaremongered his way to some awful victory. Note: he had previously been a fairly keen ‘remainer’. But seeing an opportunity for self-advancement, he changed sides in a moment, the cause, any cause, being far less important than Boris himself.

I don’t like him any more. He doesn’t make me laugh at all. In fact he makes me quite nauseous. And I really don’t care about his dalliances, that’s between him and his (now ex-) wife. But they do show a lot about loyalty and commitment. Which in Boris-world are as fleeting as they need to be to take him to the next level.

Now he can discredit me. That’s the way it works.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Went to see the movie ‘Cold War’ on Saturday. It was that rarest of things; the recipient of glowing reviews which actually lived up to the praise. And even rarer, it was black’n’white, and rarest of all; Polish.

And it really is a fantastic movie. Dark, depressing, but gripping and beautifully filmed. It starts in 1949 with Poland in the wake of the war and under the Soviet machine. The story follows a group of kids recruited to continue the tradition of Polish folk songs and dance. Who were taken to a lovely old abandoned manor house to train and learn. It was like Fame: Poland. And instead of Manhattans’ glowing skyline, the back drop was more… mud. Lots of mud. And snow.

It follows events up to about 1969, the effects of the Cold War, the Russianisation of Polish life, the loss of its own cultural identity and the general badness of life under the Soviet hammer. Which kind of bashes you on the head 6 times every day in case you might have found something to be a little happy about. And all through the filter of the songs and dances.

Its great. Go see, if you can find it. Black’n’white, subtitled Polish movies obviously lack the mass appeal of Harry Potter or Die Hard 27.

Sunday was a fab day. All sunshine and tennis and Lila. Because she’s moving. In with her other grandmother with her mummy & daddy for about 3 months whilst they’re re-building her house. So it can be made all lovely as she enters the most brutal period of toddlerhood and can smash the place up again and they can test the washability of crayons on the newly decorated interior.

And today is Rosh Hashanna, the Jewish New Year. Less a party, more a day of adding up all you’ve done wrong in the last 12 months so you can get forgiven on Yom Kippur 10 days later. Its all a bit catholic for my personal taste; I reserve the right to be a total bastard every day of the year. And the price I’m prepared to pay is to host 25 people for dinner tonight.

Boris Johson is not invited.

Happy New Year/Shona Tova

A xxxx