Andy's Glasses

Jeremy Corbyn is a vegetarian. If that alone is insufficient to turn you into a major league carnivore then I simply can’t help you any longer. Although Jeremy Corbyn is also an anti-semite but I’m not suggesting that you all similarly convert to Judaism.

Though perhaps you should? Maybe its time for Jews, who never ‘evangelise’, who don’t try to ‘bring the world into its fold’, to start a recruitment drive. To increase the numbers and thus increase the proportion of voters who would never, under any, freezingly hellish or otherwise circumstances, vote Labour at the next election.

Because in a world of ‘tipping points’, Jeremy and the Jews has reached its apex. For some of us, this happened with the first ‘Hamas are my friends’ speech, seemingly decades ago. The constant stream of anti-zionist garbage and ‘nazi-state’ and ‘apartheid-state’ and other hard left nonsense almost became acceptable within the intense anti-Israel stance of the Corbynites and Momentum. Almost. Until you ask why Israel is always and only singled out as the world’s ‘rogue state’ whereas Burma is fine, Darfur a model of peaceful… mass-genocide and Syria not even spoken about.

Last week they found Corbyn on a couple of facebook groups (them again?? they really are the source of ALL the world’s evil, it would seem) which specialise in violently anti-semitic posts as well as holocaust denial and my actual favourite, the post-modern version of the infamous ‘blood libel’; ‘Israel takes Palestinian children and strips ALL their organs’. Ya gotta love that. Well, Jeremy did, though of course is now questioning ‘how his name got on that group’. Or groups, really, as there were a few.

And now we have ‘mural-gate’. This lovely mural was painted on a wall in East London. It depicts a group of obviously Jewish businessmen playing monopoly on the backs of workers. Its so horrible that the then mayor of Tower Hamlets, the corrupt and later sacked vote-rigger, Lutfur Rahman, himself not an outspoken anti-semite but certainly no ‘friend to the Jews’, demanded its removal. An act opposed by… Jeremy Corbyn. Not, I should add: someone who knew Jeremy Corbyn; not someone using Jeremy’s name on Twitter; not some third-rate Momentum acolyte, but Jeremy Corbyn himself.

Its now reached such a point that even Baroness Chakrabarti might struggle to defend the Labour Leader and his toxic stance on Jews. Though she’d certainly try.

Ahhhhhh, happy Sunday.

Vote… ANYTHING BUT CORBYN.

A xxxx

Is this the end of facebook? Has it faced its last book? Booked its… whatever. Is it even possible that the world’s biggest… errr… thing, with 27million users, possibly 3.7 billion or 1.43 trillion (neither know nor care), and valued at about 426 billion dollars (or was til last tuesday), could simply vanish from our phones/screens/lives?? What would happen to Mark Zuckerberg? Would he just die? Vanish. Or get unliked by everyone who has ever heard of him?

Because, like all tech companies, facebook is a ‘smoke’n’mirrors’ kind of deal. Its just a facility for processing data. In the normal case, our personal data that we ‘share’ and ‘like’, like ‘I’ve just checked in to Burger King in Leighton Buzzard with a woman named Zenith who used to be a man named Kevin. Please don’t tell my wife. Who used to be my husband.’ Very important information that could change the future of the entire democratic structure of the entire planet!!

But following recent revelations, it would appear that this information has a value beyond rubies in the electoral world and has been somewhat abused by facebook with the aid of the Cambridge Analyticas of this world. Because I’m sure they weren’t the only company to benefit from facebook’s immense wealth of personal data it stores about us.

So first Mozilla decided to take away its adverts on facebook. Then, very tellingly, Mr Technology himself, Elon Musk, deleted his facebook pages for both his Space-X and Tesla cars businesses. And that’s big. Because Elon Musk, as well as probably being the cleverest man on the planet (no competition at all now that Stephen Hawking has gone to his black hole in the ground), is a lover of innovation and techno-inspiration. Others will follow and abandon facebook, doubtlessly, even though they haven’t done anything strictly illegal. Other than selling personal data without permission. Though it did have kind of permission, at least to hold that information and we all know that such details are used in marketing, because we see it every day. And as they say; all the data in the world can’t make a shitty politician electable (though if there was a case for that argument it looks a lot like Donald J. Trump), but it can help to discredit a good politician, either like Hillary Clinton, or even an honest one.

Or it maybe that facebook has just run its course. It does get a bit boring after a while. That ‘while’ being about 3 months. He who lives by hi-tech wizardry may possibly die the same way. Who knows?

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Obesity is the second highest cause of cancer in the UK. So if you think you could lose weight by taking up a hobby like, say, smoking, to remove those food cravings, probably best not to because smoking is still, unsurprisingly, number one on the list. If you’re a fat smoker, it was nice knowing you.

I’m not fat. I was a thin smoker for many years before I eventually managed to transfer my allegiance to vaping. Am I at risk from digital cancer? e-cancer?? I don’t know. I was at a meeting and a chap saw the top of my e-cigarette in my pocket and enquired if it was an epi-pen. To which I replied that it was similar. Because I’m severely allergic to a lack of nicotine. Its just physiological, innit.

I missed Lila-day yesterday due to staff illness at work. I managed to do the ‘early shift’ whilst madam went swimming, then I was wrenched away, off to the tube. You know how when you leave babies they sometimes cry in protest or feeling of loss? Well that was me. I cried and had to be dragged away from my baby. Who seemed quite happy chewing some Amazon packaging. I am that easily replaceable.

Yet spring is in the air. Until you walk in that air and it feels just as wintry as it has been, but a bit brighter. Well, air can’t be ‘bright’ but ya know what I mean. So I’m hopeful that, unlike last weekend which was awful, some tennis might actually get played. Very difficult with snow-covered courts. But the clocks go forward into British Summer Time tomorrow so you have to be optimistic. At least it’ll be light coming home from work. In the snow.

And of course, there’s no football this weekend. Which is a knife through my heart. Normally I’m ok with ‘international breaks’ because if we don’t play we can’t lose. But we’re good at the moment and, if I can use the word that seems to have been totally hijacked by Corbyn’s gang of thugs, I don’t want us to lose ‘momentum’. Not ‘Momentum’, that’s ‘his’ gang of bullying, sexist, misogynist, hard-left anti-semites. But ‘momentum’; being on a roll. Never mind, at least they can have a nice rest. Those who aren’t representing their nations.

Ok, great start to the day; I’m off to the dentist. Yippee.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

There’s a new brothel opened up in Paris. In the haughty 14th Arondisment. Well, nothing new there then, French, sex, prostitutes… plus ca change, non? But this is a change. Because this particular brothel has no women. No girls. No hags even. Just dolls. Sex toys. You pay… well, I’m not saying ‘you’ in any accusatory mode, obvs, but you pay your 89 Euros and you get an hour with the post-millennial version of a blow-up doll. And they’re trying to work out if this is illegal. As prostitution is (ironically, bizarrely) illegal in that fine nation. Which in fact clarified its position on such matters in 2016 when it became a criminal offence to pay for sex, but not to charge for it. So basically, you sleep with a prostitute, she says ‘zat iz 100 euros, monsieur’ and you do a runner. She can charge but you can’t pay. Common sense.

The new ‘brothel’ is claiming that it is not in any way prostitution, all its doing is renting out ‘toys’. Toys for the boys. Which is a logic you can’t really fault.

If I was a French prostitute (and its not for lack of trying, I promise you) I’d be royally pissed off about this place. Its demeaning. And it says a lot about FRENCH men, that they’re just happy to fuck something, regardless of what that something is. A melon with a hole bored in the side would do.

Bloody French! (Although they already have such places in London too apparently, Barcelona and, obviously, Amsterdam.

So you see, in matters of the flesh, even plastic flesh, we’re on song with our (temporarily) European counterparts. We’re all on message. Singing from the same song-sheet. United, solid, together-forever, BFFs. On important matters. Like blow-up dolls.

On slightly bigger issues, like the (allegedly) state-sanctioned murder on foreign sovereign land with totally illegal substances, we’re not quite so ‘together’. Well, most are as we all damn Putin and his cohorts (or puppets) for his probable actions and pathetic denials. And as the anger and recriminations heat up, no less a person than Jean-Claude Junker, the (hateful) president of the whole EU, sends Vlad a congratulatory letter in all sycophantic sincerity and slimy groveliness for winning the ridiculously rigged election in Russia on Sunday. I mean, WTF?? I’d have voted for the blow-up doll.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Uber have suspended the driverless car which killed a pedestrian in Arizona. Without pay. And pending police action to see whether the modified Volvo C90 will have to appear in court to face charges.

That’s what I saw in the distorting image of my warped mind. The headline actually read that Uber have suspended the driverless trials. For a while. Though there are no details of what happened yet, which is odd because with all that techno-shit, don’t they have a simple dashboard camera onboard? You’d’a thunk.

The car was in ‘fully autonomous’ mode but had a driver behind the wheel anyway. Just in case. In case of what, when he missed the pedestrian, I don’t know. In case it ran out of gas, maybe. So maybe the pedestrian just kind’a jumped out from behind a parked car or something. I don’t know, but we must presume the Volvo to be innocent until proven otherwise.

Ironically, the first words out of everyone’s mouths relating to this terrible tragedy were about how much safer autonomous vehicles will be than cars with drunk, tired, telephone-obsessed humans at the wheel. Which is probably true. And I didn’t mention ‘speeding’ on the grounds that it might incriminate me.

But wouldn’t a driverless car be the perfect weapon for the perfect murder? You could eliminate an enemy with just a tiny little tweak to a computer program. And then have that computer do the digital equivalent of ‘eat the paper’ upon which it was written. We could send hit-cars round to those who need murdering. Not just Jeremy Corbyn, but perhaps other worthies too. You’re on holiday in the Czech Republic at the time and the car won’t break under torture.

Top Gear is now a raging success, again. Apparently. They’re praising Matt Le Blanc, quite rightly, but really it was getting rid of toxic boy-man Chris Evans that really saved the show. The first series, in which they both starred, was simply nauseating. I watched 10 minutes of one show and actually vomited. Mainly because the old (real?) Top Gear, was ‘laddism’ in the most British, reserved, non-contact way. In which true bromance and love is demonstrated by insulting each other really nastily and pretty much constantly. Its subtle. Its wicked. Its funny.

Whereas by getting in Matt Le Blanc, Chris Evans chose to do ‘laddism’ the American way. Which is all high fives and man-hugs with a lot of screaming and whooping. Which is bad enough when perpetrated by real Americans but when wannabe ginger-haired northerners get involved its time to get programming the driverless hit-car.

They’ve toned it right down, made Matt the Englishman’s Yank, and all is well in Top Gear Land once more. What a relief.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Pick up the ringing phone; there’s a pause on the line for 5 seconds, then noise, lots of background noise, as if… as if… as if there were 300 people sitting in an office in New Delhi all on the phone at the same time as a heavily accented voice asks “Is this Mister Andrew Convay? Its ok Mister Andrew (always) I’m not trying to sell you anything today, just ask you a few questions”.

And that’s how the world gets fucked up. That’s how little pieces of your life, your views, your habits and your preferred choice of newspaper get ‘out there’ into the public domain, forever and for every company who chooses to help build a comprehensive profile of you.

Without wishing to sound like a paranoid conspiracy theorist, be careful what you say to whom, because information is power. And you end up with a situation in which a data analytical company get hold of the vast banks of information held by Facebook and you can influence an election in the ‘free-est’ democracy in the world. Ok, maybe this is just the post-digital version of ‘door-stepping’. Instead of walking round the freezing streets of Boise, Idaho, knocking on doors and talking to voters, sending electronic messages by a variety of methods does the same thing but much more quickly and easily to way more people than could be ‘door-stepped’ in 15 presidential campaigns.

As soon as I started searching for hotels in St Petersburg for our Russia trip, Facebook knew. And started offering me Russian stuff. All the travel sites suddenly started targeting Russian hotels at me in emails. ‘They’ know everything you ever google. Facebook keeps telling me now how many of my ‘friends’ have visited St Petersburg.

And the problem is always the same. Security measures can only be reactive. Someone has to commit the crime before anyone realises the crime can be committed. Then its playing catch-up to try and shore up the systems and prevent it happening again. Even though the know-how is already there for all to see.

But if the data held tells ‘them’ how many people are worried about gun control, or abortions or gay marriage, or Russians, that can all be used by politicians when they write their speeches. And they know these preferences by age, race, region, any variable you can imagine. And maybe that is just a better and more economical use of time than speaking to individuals on doorsteps, but when information is used on such an industrial scale and inevitably, very profitably, its US that’s getting screwed.

So the next time someone calls to ‘not sell you anything’ just tell them to fuck off. Because what they want from you, for nothing and free of charge, is the most valuable thing you have; your personal information.

And all this from someone who puts his every movement, bowel or otherwise, on a blog every day. I see no irony.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

There was a wonderful documentary a few years ago about the phenomenon of ‘fatty feeding’. Where normal, thin, regular people enable seriously obese people (normally their partners) to consume masses. They encourage them. They buy them ‘little treats’, like a sack of cream doughnuts, a wheelbarrow full of bacon sandwiches, even though they know that its killing them. But its not, apparently, in the world of the super-obese, an uncommon situation. Its like buying a recovering alcoholic a bottle of whisky and making him drink.

Or like buying Mel a fit-bit for her birthday. It just encourages obsessive behaviour. And makes everything worse. But what do you buy your wife for her birthday???

So I thought, I know, she’ll love one of those (really annoying) wrist things that count your steps during the day, monitor your sleep patterns during the night and quantifies all manner of health and fitness shit.

Mel is fit. She swims 80 to 100 lengths four mornings a week, she does two spin sessions a week from which she returns home disguised as a little soggy red-faced thing. And of course, she does pilates. Everyone SHOULD do pilates, but only the dedicated few really do. You have to want to contort your body where, at almost any age, it really doesn’t want to go. You need to crave a degree of suppleness that you’re never going to re-gain and you need really to be a middle-aged, middle-class Londoner. Fortunately I don’t do facile stereotyping.

And we walk, of course. We walk a lot. Though not necessarily when its minus 5 and snowing. Then we do more sitting.

So we strapped the fit-bit on and downloaded the inevitable app and its really… really there. And great. And the next day I come home from work to find my wife pacing the kitchen. Because she’s nearly reached her ‘target’ for steps but not quite. At which point I realised I was the health’n’safety version of a ‘fatty feeder’, enabling and encouraging obsessive behaviour. Albeit of a ‘better’ version than the chocolate eclairs.

Jose Morinho is in a bad place. Maybe a fit-bit would help him? I don’t know. Leaving the country would certainly be good for the rest of football, but meanwhile he’s here, he’s unhappy and he’s managed to take Manchester United, the ‘biggest team in the world’, the veritable metaphor for hard but glamorous attacking football, and turn them into Stoke City, parking buses all over the City. Well, his half of the city. Guardiola in the other half of Manchester is doing simply wonderful things, to further rub Morihno’s nose in it. But then he publicly attacks his team. “No personality, no fight, no nuffink…”. Strange choice of words. He should have signed Bruce Forsyth, while he was still alive, if he wanted ‘personality’. Maybe Ant’n’Dec if they’re available and out of rehab. But footballers? He’s already making his excuses for another shitty season (relatively) and trying to distance himself from any responsibility. He is definitely my ‘tosser of the week’. And most weeks.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

You put 23 intelligence agents in, you pull 23 intelligence agents out, ya slag off the president, shake him all about, ya do the Hokey Kremlin and ya suffer from gout, that’s what its all abaaaart… (repeat til you get bored or are murdered by ex-KGB agents).

We’re taking ‘sanctions’ against those horrible, nasty, evil, sarcastic, wicked Russians because we’re… fairly sure… 92% convinced… 88% certain, that they were responsible for the attempted murder in Salisbury the other week. The lingering doubts, which the Russians express daily, are that basically there is no proof as yet that they actually did it. Someone else might have murdered 2 Russian official ‘enemies of the state’ with a nerve agent never manufactured anywhere except Russia. So in theory, anyone could’a done it. The check-out girl at Tescos, ISIS, someone building a basement in Kensington, any Arsenal fan, Prince Harry, anyone.

So after the first wave of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions of each other’s spies, we are now considering what happens next. Who blinks first. And the latest suggestion is to withdraw from this summer’s world cup. Hmmmm. Sport, politics, ne’er the twain. Unless we do. I would actually withdraw the England team from the following world cup in Qatar, as a protest against the Russians. In some respects it makes no sense, but the world cup should never be in Qatar, its too hot, too unfootbally and too stupid to even consider. That’d show Putin.

We banned all sports in South Africa for years, when apartheid was in place. But we’d banned all trade, all commerce, investment, everything between the two nations. Its different to isolate one single sport to use as a punishment. And who, exactly, would be most punished by it? The Russians wouldn’t give a shit as there’s still every other country going. They would barely notice the loss of income from the (inevitable) 3 matches played by the England team. And the fans would suffer because we’d be deprived of spending the entire summer moaning about how shit our national team is and agonising on why it always performs so badly in the major tournaments. And how likely is it that the French (now, temporarily onside again) and the Americans and Italians and Germans will follow the boycott? That would produce a much greater problem for the hosts but really is quite unlikely.

Jeremy Corbyn’s plan is a good one. That we take the opportunity to just declare ourselves part of Russia. If ya can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Embrace our inner communist. Except most people don’t have one. Twin St Petersburg with Islington. Oh, and shoot the Queen. Useless fucking rich bitch.

I just don’t know… anything!

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Nonchalance is a wonderful and underused word and a consummate skill for the true exponent. And having just read a wonderful article in the Times which should have been entitled “I LOVE LIONEL MESSI WITH ALL MY HEART!!!!” but actually bore a slightly more eloquent and objective strap-line, it lead me onto nonchalant. The ability to do things with no apparent care, consideration, excitement or enthusiasm. But it only really works when its something special. Going to the office in such a manner really doesn’t count.

I realised (reading an article about Lionel Messi? go figure) that’s why I find Lila’s eating process so amazingly hilarious. Not because she systematically picks out all the carrots (which yesterday she couldn’t cram in her mouth fast enough) and simply drops them onto the floor to get to the peas underneath, so that every alternate handful of those can suffer the same fate, but because its so effortlessly care-free for her to do it. She doesn’t laugh while she’s doing it, nor even really look, she just does it, without an apparent thought nor care. Neither of which, at 11.5 months, she’s really that good at yet.

Lionel Messi is a bit older. Though not much bigger. And I’ve never seen him eat, so I can’t comment on that. But I have seen him play football. And as the debate rages as to a. is he better than Ronaldo (absolutely no doubt whatsoever) and b. is he the greatest ‘ever’ (ie Pele, Maradona, Messi), I just ignore it all and enjoy watching an absolute master of the game. Not only blessed with the most incredible ball control ever, including all of those mentioned above, amazing balance and the most incredible left foot since they were invented, he plays the game as it should be played. He enjoys himself. And best of all, he is the least likely forward ever to ‘take a dive’. Its just not in his repertoire. You push him over, he just gets up and makes you look stupid, you kick him, he ignores it. He is drawn to the goal like a moth to a light, like flies to shit, like me to Easter Eggs, and nothing will get in his way.

And its once again the sheer nonchalance of his actions that is what is so incredibly special. He just dips a shoulder and is gone, no fuss, no stupid fucking step-overs, just balance and speed and of course, end product. He scores goals. Shitloads of wonderful goals. Including 2 on Wednesday against Chelsea, putting the ball through the goalkeeper’s legs both times. And that’s Courtois, allegedly one of the best in the world.

Its also worth mentioning that Messi never gets accused of racial abuse, of biting opponents (like some of his team-mates), of spitting at little girls on the way home, or anything nasty. Just a few ‘issues’ with the tax man (case ongoing) but no-one’s perfect. Not even Lila. But Messi is about as near to perfect as any sportsman could ever be.

See, I love him too.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

They’re funny things, children. Especially babies. They don’t say much that you’d wanna repeat but they do lots. Most of which is blatantly destructive, but all of which is really funny. Odd. Bizarre. Illogical. But they do it with such a charm, such wonderful total innocence that even Mel can’t get upset that the entire fucking house is totally trashed within 10 minutes of Lila’s arrival. The Who in 1971, high as kites and in full Keith Moon insanity mode, couldn’t have been more destructive.

And you get babies ‘toys’ and ‘games’ and traditionally, they’re more interested in the wrapping paper and delivery boxes than they are in the games and toys themselves. Because they just like ‘things’ and are pretty indiscriminate about them.

Last weekend we went to the loft and retrieved The Toy. The killer game that every child loves. It was adored when our girls were babes and all who visited became obsessed with it. The Fisher Price ‘kitchen’. Its big, colourful, got lots of doors and pots and pans and food and toasters and blenders and all safe and blue and pink and yellow and plastic and safe. And we presented it to Lila. The kitchen and the box of about 2,000 ‘things’ to throw, play with and chew. And she left it after about 30 seconds and hoisted herself up by the drawer in the (real) kitchen that she knows is full of plastic containers. Because every synapse in her lovely little body craves disorder; its instinctive. And, it must be said, is possibly part of her genetic inheritance from her grandfather. So she systematically examines every single tupperware thing, every lid, every carton, jar and item, chews it then throws it onto the floor to pick up the next exciting… thing. She is yet to master the physics of sliding drawers and little fingers but she’ll learn. We all do. Even Stephen Hawking had to start somewhere.

Everyone’s ganging up on the Russians now, as expected if ya go round administering illegal toxic weapons of mass destruction in quaint and sleepy little English country towns. Everyone except Jeremy Corbyn and the French. Can’t see the connection but the French want more proof and Corbyn is somehow blaming cuts in the diplomatic service budget ‘BY THE TORIES!!!’ for the whole episode. And because of OUR PAST ISSUES WITH W.M.Ds and their incorrect assessment. Even his own party now find him an embarrassment, a dick-head and a throw-back. And those three adjectives are actually the best 3 things about our esteemed leader of the opposition. From there, its downhill all the way.

Happy LilaDay

A xxxx