Andy's Glasses

The wonderful thing about the internet is that it has no bounds nor limits. The awful thing about the internet is that it has no bounds nor limits.

When it was set up (Sir Johnny Internet, 1988) it was just a way for people to connect to each other. Write someone a letter. Send them a photo. Put an article ‘out there’ and someone will pick it up. Or not. I put stuff on my computer and you can access it on yours, should you choose. Simple, easy, neat.

This is very difficult, conceptually, for those of us who didn’t grow up with such things as Intrawebs. In our world, due purely to ‘the way things work and have always worked’, the internet was a big shop, or office, with The Internet!! written boldly across the top. And inside sat some people. About 27 at first, growing later to 4.32 million of them. And every time someone posted or advertised or put something publicly available on their computers, Mabel would have a look at it, read it, check the spelling, and examine it for ‘content’. So anything pornographic would be censored, everything nasty would be removed, everything financially dubious and she’d call Charlie, in the dubious finance department to check it out. “What’cha reckon, Chaz? Seems a bit dodgy, don’it?” And that would be cut, after they’d talked about over a nice cuppa tea.

But that model doesn’t apply. Similarly, YouTube, as a company, don’t get to choose what people put on their platform. And it is a platform. Just a place to put things. Anythings. Facebook too is just a virtual-land that connects people and content, and data, lots of data. It’s not ‘their’ data and content, its yours, you just use Facebook to display it. By choice.

So when MPs urge big business to ‘boycott Facebook and Google’ because of terror issues, which are unquestionably true and valid, its almost a return to the old model attitude, expecting someone to just go on and delete offending items like you delete your spam emails every day. Just wipe ‘em away.

But the world is now run by algorithms. Which analyse numbers, not words or pictures. And if that algorithm calculates that the demographic of people watching a ‘how to behead a kaffir with a Stanley knife’ video is the same as those buying sparkling kitchen cleaners, they will be linked for advertising. Which was why Unilever abandoned their Facebook advertising. Even though, when you think about it, as every bomb seems to use bleach, peroxide, cleaning soda, Jihadis probably represent a pretty good market for the manufacturing giant.

Which is a case in point. Unilever make stuff to clean with, nasty people choose to abuse those products and make bombs with them. Is that Unilever’s fault? Are they responsible?? Are Ford Motors at fault because one of their vans was used to attack innocent pedestrians?

Politicians love to find someone to blame. And I don’t think YouTube and Facebook and the others act sufficiently to remove horrible and dangerous content. But its people. We do the posting, we put it out there. They have algorithms to try and locate and remove, but it can’t be easy.

Computers now run the world. And they’re fed by us. The good bits and the bad bits. Just like the world’s always been run.

Happy Black Friday

A xxxx

Along with everyone else involved or interested in any way with the whole Brexit business, I know nothing. And yet even that ‘nothing’ is a completely different ‘nothing’ to the one I didn’t know at the start. Or at any point since. Though it must be stated that those nothings change daily. I’ll invent a new acronym: NINO. Nothing in, nothing out. Just for Brexit bollocks.

When that total bastard David Cameron cursed us forever with his ‘in-out referendum’ it is not just fair to say but actually proven beyond any doubt that both sides of the debate told the voting public total lies, outright fictions, embellishments so severe as to be almost fantasy. Ok, the only possible mitigation was that no-one knew what was going to happen back then. Because we (nor anyone else) had ever left Europe.

So 2 years down the line we know a little more. Still ‘nothing’ (within the normal statistical margin of less than 5% which is the same as random chance) but more informed nothing.

Therefore the (what we shall now call ‘first’) referendum was polled in complete ignorance. Actually worse than ignorance; it was polled knowing only a head full of lies and propaganda. Ignorance is at least neutral.

The Brexit divorce that we are possibly due to sign in a legally binding agreement on Sunday is half a Brexit. The wrong half. We’ll still be tied to European laws and diktats. We’ll still be in the Customs Union because of Northern Ireland, which prevents us from forming independent trade deals with countries outside Europe. We’ll still be allowing almost all free movement of people, which we desperately need but most ‘outers’ fucking hate. And for the privilege of getting precisely nothing new, we lose the right to have any say in new laws and regulations because we’ll no longer have Brits in Brussels. AND all for just 39 billion quid!! What a frikkin bargain!!

If I was the staunchest May fan in the world I would not, could not vote for that deal. And with half the conservatives out of the team and the Irish suddenly abandoning their half of the ‘government support’ deal, for which we paid those anti-abortionist, bible-bashing bastards a billion quid, there is virtually no chance of getting it approved.

Which means if we do go out it will be without a deal. The doomsday scenario.

And surely that is the time for another referendum. Something I’ve been opposed to in principle, so sue me. But on the grounds that we were lied to for the first one and are now presented with the ‘no deal’ scenario as a likely reality, the ‘falling off a cliff’ version of Brexit, I think WE (the good people) need to decide. Because the politicians are incapable of doing so. Nor can be trusted to.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Marks and Spencer are in big trouble. Not the financial troubles and woes that have been plaguing them for the last few years, that’s insignificant compared to the shit-storm created by this window display in their Nottingham store. Because you can scorn accountants and auditors (even lie to them, cheat for them or get them to do both for you) but you scorn feminists at your total fucking peril!

And this Christmas window was deemed, (quote:) “vomit-inducing” by one woman, I’m gonna guess she’s a feminist, who questioned whether M&S ‘have learned nothing in the last 35 years’.

So men get to ‘dress to impress’ and women get to ‘dress to undress’. I can’t see the problem myself. Other than the colour of the ‘fancy little knickers’ they used. The mannequin looks like an Arsenal player, only a bit taller. Which is such a turn-off. But heh; that’s me and my preconditioned, socially-induced sexist/Goonerist stereotyping issues that I am aware have a way to go in resolving.

I’m not saying that anyone, particularly the feminist fraternity (I know, but I had to) are over-reacting to this whatsoever. I think its justified vilification of a company with a rather large ‘pay gap’. And I think its appropriate for the Times to get a quote on this matter from the Count Dead Women Project (I wish I’d made that up but its real, its alive and it records the number of deaths of women caused by men). I mean, I don’t like women wearing Arsenal kits but I wouldn’t kill one. Maybe a Chelsea kit…

Ok, I struggle to understand the jump from ‘sexy underwear’ to murder, but that’s just because I’m a man! Probably. M&S doubtlessly use that window because their marketing department has shown that men love buying underwear for their partners. And even more surprising is that partners GENERALLY love to receive it. It means their man cares, thinks of them, ok, possibly thinks of the gorgeous salesgirl too, and finds them desirable.

Why can’t that window be viewed as a testament to women’s empowerment? You ‘must have’ fancy little knickers like Beyoncé and Lady Gaga wear on the stage, FFS. Two bastions of feminine empowerment. Lady Gaga’s ain’t bad either. Sorry.

The feminists didn’t complain about David Gandy in the other window causing men ‘handsome stress’ and ‘six-pack envy’ and reducing us to virtual eunuch status, did they? No. They didn’t.

I’m all for feminism, even let my wife buy MY knickers. And I’m all for equality. But as in all wars, you have to pick your battles. Otherwise you end up look like a totally obsessive, over-reactionary nob. Sorry again.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Houston, we have a problem. Those immortal words, or in fact, exceptionally mortal words, bearing in mind where the problem occurred, were uttered by the astronaut Tom Hanks, way up in space in Apollo 13. Hanks survived to make a series of gushy rom-coms so all ended well there.

But space is not a place for a problem. And we (that is ‘we’ the planet, the solar system, the galaxy) have a bit of a problem.

A neighbouring star system is dying, as do all stars eventually. And there’s 2 ways for this to go. (There’s probably a thousand variations, but in my mind which craves simplicity, which yearns to create systems from the chaos, there’s just 2). It can either crush itself to death and become a ‘black hole’ or it can turn itself into a Wolf-Rayet star and eventually explode.

I like black holes. They’re neat, simple. The gravity in the star pulls itself inwards until that gravity becomes so strong that the actual atoms collapse into themselves. And if you remember ‘pictures’ of atoms, they’re vast spaces with a few tiny particles whizzing round, joined by elliptical lines. Well take away the spaces, (and the lines, cos, like, you know they were never really there, don’t you?) and you end up with the same mass in a microscopic space. Infinitely dense, they call it, like a lot of football fans. A ‘singularity’. Possibly like the one that started the ‘big bang’.

Anyway, the other option is this Wolf-Rayet thing. And here the star burns itself to death, eating up all its own mass from the outside in and finally explodes. But during the process it creates solar winds of 12 million kph. You wouldn’t want to put an umbrella up in that. But best of all, as the star explodes it releases gamma ray bursts. Ooohhh, gamma ray bursts!!!

And they’re fucking awesome. They release as much energy in a 2/3 second burst as our sun produces in its entire lifetime. And without a calculator, I can tell precisely that THAT IS A FUCK OF A LOT OF ENERGY!!!! And would be sufficient to strip our weeny little planet of its atmosphere, even from 8,000 light years away where this is currently happening. So have your roof tiles checked as soon as possible.

But they didn’t say whether this is a ‘now’ problem or an 8000 years time problem. Which I reckon is rather significant. I need to book a holiday.

It’s not very neighbourly to explode so close to other people. Rather rude. I might call the council.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

This is Gareth Thomas, the Welsh ‘legend’. I use the word cautiously because today it would appear all you have to do to become a legend is hold a door open for someone. “Fanx, mate, you’re a legend”. But to be a real legend you need a back story. That’s what a legend means. A story. Passed down by word of mouth. Or by the collective archives of the press and tv stations in the case of our Gareth. And embellished along the way.

Because after becoming the first rugby player to reach 100 international caps for Wales he then captained the British Lions twice as well. Few men ever achieve this. Because the Lions only play every 4 years and to be uninjured for two series is rather difficult. To be good enough is something different altogether.

And then, at the near end of his career, this super-tough ultra-man announced to the world that he was gay. Perhaps the toughest and manliest thing he ever did. And, with no intention of slurring any nation, he did this in Wales. To make such an announcement in London, New York, Paris, would reduce it to mere conversation. “Oh, so you’re gay, fine, pass the salt would you?” But Wales is more… more… more ‘provincial’ in attitude, more conservative, more… Welsh. They voted ‘leave’ FFS. Ok, not all of them, but a vocal majority.

If I ever decide I’m gay I shall come out in Los Angeles, where you can shout it from the Hollywood sign and no-one would give a shit. Other than Mel, maybe. I wouldn’t do it in Islamabad, I wouldn’t do it in Riyadh and I wouldn’t do it in Cardiff.

But that’s Gareth’s home town and we all want to feel safe and comfortable in our home towns. Then this weekend Gareth suffered a ‘homophobic attack’. He was attacked by a ‘queer basher’ and battered and bruised, which you can see on the video he posted.

They caught the assailant and, being Gareth Thomas, instead of pressing charges against the 16 year-old, he opted for ‘restorative justice’. What? Yes, I was unenlightened too. I thought it was a euphemism for leaving the little bastard in a locked room with Gareth who could beat the living shit out of the fucker. But its not that. It means that they get to talk to each other about what happened. Which ended with a (presumably sincere) apology from the kid.

And thus the legend of Gareth Thomas just keeps on growing. Always positive, always generous, always a true and proper man.

But I want to meet the kid who attacked him. Gareth Thomas is 6 foot 3 and made of hardened steel. And looks like it. Couldn’t the kid find someone smaller to attack? Wasn’t Tom Daly around that weekend? Wayne Sleep? This 16 year old is either the hardest man in the world, or certifiably insane.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Went to the movies last night. It’s what we do in winter. Because that’s when they bring out the good stuff. The proper films. In the run-up to the Oscars. During the summer its just ‘kid’s shit’ but I don’t like sitting in the dark when its sunny outside anyway, so we rarely go. But when winter comes…

Virtually everyone I know seems to be a ‘film buff’. That is defined by knowing not just who stars in any particular film (that’s just a ‘movie-goer’) but who directs it too (ahhh, you’re a film buff…) And one such person told me a couple months ago that as a member of the BFI (oooooh, real film buff) she went to lots of not-yet-released stuff at the London Film Festival. And the best was called ‘Widows’. Directed by Steve McQueen (so a real film buff comment) and a ‘heist’ movie, but different.

In fact its a Lynda La Plante story that became a tv series a few years back, which I never watched, so I really had no idea what the eponymous movie was going to be, other than guessing that it probably involved a few dead husbands. And it starred Viola Davies, the Oscar winner, and was directed by Steve McQueen who is awesome. And the reviews had all been sensational and the critics unanimous in their superlatives and praise and wonder.

And its shit.

Not like, total, ‘I’m bored’ kind of shit, more a type of ‘this really doesn’t add up’ version. And from there, ‘so I really can’t be bothered’. Because once you doubt anything on a movie screen, the contract is broken and the deal’s off. And doubt I did. Plus it is almost agonisingly long-winded so you find yourself thinking ‘why do we have to watch this? GET ON WITH THE PLOT’. And in fact its so long-winded about stuff that wasn’t so important that the actual heist, the crux of the movie, was almost glossed over. Oh yeah, well any group of totally amateur but heart-broken and financially desperate women could steal 5 million bucks, that’s easy-peasy. Just one run round the block looking at the intended scene of the crime tells you all you need to know.

The cast was stellar. Viola is powerful. Liam Neeson over-acted for all he’s worth. Colin Farrell was in it as a pantomime baddy, Robert Duval (all bow), and Jacob Haas. Who was ‘the kid in Witness’, Kelly McGillis’ Amish son. Who still looks the same. Which is odd and very deer-in-the-headlights.

In fact the best thing about the movie is Elizabeth Debicki. She is wonderfully watchable and had the funniest lines.

So although this film ticked many political boxes; women’s empowerment, women in power, powerful women, women killing people as well as men do, women… you get the idea, it just didn’t work. Not for me.

Happy Sunday

The Movie Buff
Xxxx

Ok, family stuff first. Rachie’s come home from Berlin for the weekend. Just to play tennis with me tomorrow. But while she’s here it just happens to be my dad’s 94th birthday (today! Happy Birthday Moish!!) so she’ll come for the lunch tomorrow. So here’s a lovely photo of him last night with his granddaughters and his (yet unborn) great-grandchild.

What???

Yes, Lila is sibling-bound. Something that never occurred to me on one level. I’ve got MY baby, my glass is full. What will I do with another?? Find out next May (may it please the Lord).

But what kind of world will little baby ******* be born into? What will it look like? I’m hoping that the totally insane dystopia that is ‘Brexit negotiations’ will be over by then. But I’m doubtful. I’m hoping that Britain will be moving forward in some direction rather than this stifling and toxic dross that’s been miring us down since the referendum. And I’m really hoping that Corbyn, McDonnell and all are in prison for racism, nastiness verging on naziness and for being a bunch of ultra-Marxist tossers. And obviously I’m hoping that Spurs will be top of the league by 19 points by next May with Arsenal failing to avoid relegation.

With Brexit, I’ve reached the ‘fuck ‘em!!’ stage of negotiations. Fuck the government, all three halves. The Brexiteers, the Remainers and the rest. Fuck the opposition who think that because they’ve come up with three ridiculously simplistic ideas (more jobs, a better economy and workers’ rights) and if we just vote them into power, they’ll get this past Europe as if… as if… as if Europe were the kind of people who actually ‘negotiate’ in any meaningful way. So fuck Europe. They’re horrible, controlling, megalomaniacal, greedy and obstructive. And if it all comes down to the inevitable, mind-numbingly boring ‘Irish border’ (repeat and repeat and repeat until your eyes bleed), then fuck the Irish too. Just don’t put a border up. The Europeans certainly won’t, just leave it open. The effect on London will be thankfully minimal.

Ok, that’s sorted then. Easy. Just need an open mind.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I just want to restate the terms of the contract. For clarification. And enlightenment.

We look after Lila on Thursdays, herein and forthwith known as ‘Liladay’. (Well why not? They renamed December at some point as the 12th month when the name is a bit of a giveaway that it started life as the 10th.) And to facilitate the process and make things better for all, Liladay officially starts on Wednesday night. Like Jewish holidays all start the night before, thus Liladay starts at sunset on the previous day.

And that works well because ‘Lila sleeps well’. ‘Never wakes up’. And although babies get up a bit earlier than would be perhaps optimum, they do so in such a full-on, brilliant, energetic and happy way that we forgive them for the 5.45 starts, or 6.14 because they’re so sweet and happy. And can’t tell the fucking time.

But then came last week. When Lila was up for an hour at 4am. Ok, she went back to sleep about 5 but that is more difficult for adults to do. But she was ill. Cough, cold, horrible, sympathy, horrid, poor babe.

This Wednesday night she woke up at 11.30. No cold. Not much cough left. Just ‘da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da…’ So we ignored her as her monosyllabic monologue continued.

At Lila’s house they have a Lilacam. And although Lila instructed lawyers about this infringement of her human rights of privacy, her mum can see Lila from wherever she might be, on her phone. And it is 2-way. So mummy can be in the cinema, see Lila is upset and mutter ‘shhhhh, shhhhhh, shhhhhh…’ down her phone, all the way to Lila. Who is comforted and consoled by the familiar voice. Unlike the other movie-goers who are probably really pissed off that someone appears to be shushing Bradley Cooper or Iron Man.

We aren’t like that here. We have a Lilalarm which sends her bedroom moans and murmurs to the kitchen, but its one way. We can’t send comfort back, we have to do it the long way. By sneaking up to her door and shushing from there. Didn’t work. She remained unconvinced. ‘Da-da, da-da, da-da…’ and on it went. Took both of us til way past midnight to get her settled.

So we had a lie-in yesterday morning. Didn’t get up til 6.05. Luxury.

And I felt like shit and exhausted and horrible. Until I went in and saw that little face, all bright and expectant and jabbering away. Which is why God made babies so adorable. Because otherwise you’d kill them.

Happy Friday (not talking about Brexit. Ever again.)

A xxxx

So we went up to Leeds to pack up Mel’s dad from his house and ship him to Manchester to his new flat. Sounds easy. Chaos theory sounds easy. Climbing Everest sounds easy. I’ll spare you the details/agony. But Sunday we packed and Monday we shipped over to Manchester, following the removal van as the gorgeous sunny Yorkshire morning gave way, half way across the Pennines, to the dull grey wetness that IS Manchester’s only ever weather.

But we had to stop for coffee. Because the kettle was in a box marked ‘KITCHEN’ and we’d been deprived of hot drinks since breakfast. And hence ‘gasping’. I stopped at a petrol station that was also an M&S and had a ‘Wild Bean Cafe’. Brilliant. And even more brilliant; it wasn’t from an automated machine but actual, real, proper, frothed up, ground-in-front’a-yer-face, barista coffee. But the barista, nice though she was, was the cashier for the petrol station. So do they only employ cashiers who can barist? Or do they only employ baristas who spend 90% of their day taking petrol payments?

Surely they’re not implying that ‘anyone can make coffee with one’a them machines’ so they get 10 minute training when no-one’s filling up with diesel and they’re away? Qualified.

The coffee was great, as it ‘appens. But when I’d ordered, ‘large latte and small latte’, this petrol-pumper/barista hybrid person told me of a wonderful offer. If I upgraded my order (£5.15) to ‘2 large lattes’, they could throw in 2 ‘sweet treats’ and all for just £6!!!!! Holy shit!!! What are ‘sweet treets’? I inquired. Because I love ‘sweet’ as a class of stuff, generally speaking. She pointed me to a rack with one moth-eaten croissant, 2 really iced cinnamon things and a whole bunch of multi-coloured muffins. So Mel was out of the equation.

And so was I. If there’d been an amazing almost croissant I couldn’t have resisted. Pan au raisin? Now you’re talking. But that lot?

What she was doing was offering me fatness. Obesity. I was ordering a coffee and she was offering me cash incentives to up my order by an extra 400 calories per person for virtually nothing. She was a Temptress. Professionally. Possibly on commission to upsell. And if I was a lorry driver or a sales rep and had a long, lonely stretch ahead, I’d definitely have gone for it.

Which you can see when you stop at any service station. The size of the average travelling Brit. And in every service station they have the same kind of ‘offers’ too. After you’ve had your Burger King or Pizza Hut lunch.

It’s not for nothing that we’re the fattest nation in Europe. Takes a lot of work, lot of incentives, lot of temptation.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I just spent 2 days travelling 500 miles around our lovely, verdant isle. Well, I say ‘lovely’ because some of it is. Not much, judging by the views from the M1 and M6, but the odd smattering of green fields and pastures new, a few sheep a’grazing and all that other rural bollocks that ‘we love’. But I was able to witness first hand the UK’s major industry. Roadworks. Never mind Brexit, we don’t need ‘em. We’ll just employ everybody here on the roads. It’s Britain’s answer to any unemployment crisis; repair more roads. Give up your useless, unproductive job selling financial services to the Germans, get yerself a hard hat and stand on the M1 with a cup of tea in your hand. Though in fact on the (approximately) 200 miles of roadworks out of those 500 we traveled, I saw two lorries driving up central reservations and not one solitary road-worker. Not one. What does that do to the tea industry??? Maybe they have automatic machines that operate themselves and its just all too clever form me to understand. But there were no workers. Nowhere the twang of hot tarmac.

If you live in Australia or America, you kind’a know with a fair degree of certainty that a journey of 500 miles would take you so many hours. And it would. Ok there may be a holdup somewhere but you could time the trip with a precision that we Brits are never allowed. Because they don’t dig up a couple miles of motorway, which would be a minor inconvenience, they close off 30 miles of it and reduce it to narrow lanes. And the killer touch, they impose 50mph limits on those sections controlled by the dreaded ‘average speed cameras’. The ones you can’t drive up to at 90 and slam on your brakes for a hundred yards then hit the superchargers again. These are the bastard cousins of the normal (just standard ‘motherfucker’ speed cameras) which work out your average speed along a whole section of road. So I reckon 53/54 is the limit. 50 is agony, 54 is merely deeply, profoundly frustrating.

So all in all, I reckon that my 3 hour journey was increased by 2 hours. Not by traffic, which was remarkably ok, but by the ridiculous speed restrictions. And so many of them. No-one there in road-control-land seems to realise that if traffic moves faster it causes less problems. Or better still, the problems become someone else’s because they happen 17 miles up the road in a different county.

The easy way to slow down traffic is what they do on the way up. They put big signs up offering directions and show you that you are headed to ‘The North’. And as no-one really ever wants to get there you automatically find yourself lifting your right foot a bit. Ok, a little bit.

Home never felt so good.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx