Andy's Glasses

So there I was, sitting by the pool, gorgeous sunny day (but ain’t they all) in Southern California, just chillin’ with me posse, when out of her flat (ground floor, fortunately for her) stepped Bonnie, Philip’s girlfriend. And next to her, clad in a gold bikini, was 6 feet of blonde. Not a blond with 6 feet, you have to go to Alabama for one’o them, or Norfolk, but a six foot tall blonde. Slim but not skinny, with legs somehow 7 foot long and a sway that caused every pair of male eyes to suddenly look over the tops of their sunglasses. Susan had arrived.

Fresh off the boat from Indiana. Or the plane? Car? However one travels from there to here, that’s what she did. To work at the ‘world famous’ (everything in America is ‘world’ famous, even the local paper shop) Fredericks of Hollywood. As a lingerie model. Fredericks was a kind of proto-Victoria’s Secrets. Before Victoria was born. Or maybe Freddie was a ‘trans’ and later became Victoria, with that information being the ‘secret’, I don’t know.

What I do know is that a group of us went out that night to some Hollywood night haunt or other and were all high and drunk and having the best of times. The next morning, Susan & I were still having a great time… well I was, at least. A ‘long relationship’ in LA, circa 1982, terms. Though at what point two people ‘hooking up’, as its now known, becomes a ‘relationship’ is a matter open to interpretation, to discussion and dependent on other opportunities not as yet apparent. Hmmmm…

I’d given up the horrors of telephone sales and become a Professor. I saw an advert in the LA Times for a lecturer at the American College of Optics in Downtown LA. I impressed them with my cv (gas pumper, seller of dubious, FBI investigated products over the phone…) and started work about a day later. I loved teaching, loved the ‘kids’ (many of whom were older than me) and only lectured 3 days and 4 evenings a week. So no massive drain on pool time, clubbing time, fun time. And even time for Susan, in our as-yet-undefined relationship.

Meanwhile, what’s to love about LA? On a day in March my mate Paul said: do you fancy skiing on Wednesday? But of course, I love skiing. But its kind’a hot and sunny and… errr. flat here? Ah, we’ll go to Squaw Valley. We set off early, really early, arrived just before lunch and had to stop half way up the mountain to put snow chains on the car. We skied, it snowed, a lot, and then they announced they were going to be closing the (one and only) access road to the resort due to the conditions. We fled. Just made it out of Dodge in time.

3 days later I went sailing with Robert and Debi at Marina del Rey, just on the coast in LA. Hot, sunny and gorgeous. What’s to love about California?

Some would say ‘too much’. Because whilst Susan was waiting relationship-definition, Debbie arrived from New York, an old friend of Joey the ‘hit-man’. And life got a little complicated.

Happy Days

A xxxx

A man came up to me 27 years ago, threw his arms round me and kissed me!! Ok, it was my dad, but that’s really not the point here. The point really is that you were not only abused or harassed, but that it happened so long ago that no-one can remember where they were that day, let alone where you were. Only then, really can you “#me too”.

And I’m worried. Not that I was sexually harassed at any time and have repressed it, but because I’m the ultimate touchy-feely guy. I’m a hugger. Big time. Men, women, dogs, in no particular order. If I know you, I probably hug you. If I don’t, then check your personal hygiene regime; there’s a reason. Ok, I rarely ‘cop a feel’, only if he’s really gorgeous. But limbs flail, hands ‘brush’, shit happens.

I really don’t want to make light of a serious problem. Though, as ever, I reserve the right to. As I explained to my 93 (next week) year-old dad last night, who is very much of the ‘what harm is a pinch on the bum’ thought. The act itself is fine-ish. Unless it comes from a boss. Or an authority figure. And then its about power. Then it says ‘I can do this and there’s nothing you can do. I can invade your personal space whenever I choose because if you say anything it may seriously affect your career’. Then it stinks. Then it is sexual harassment, it is abuse.

Kevin Spacey is ‘allegedly’ 7 miles beyond all that. And I say ‘allegedly’ because whilst we’re all condemning him and his vile and abusive conduct, there is, as yet, not one shred of anything other than hearsay and a bunch’a #me toos. The poor Welsh MP killed himself because of someone’s allegations. He wasn’t even told what they were. Ok, there’s a part of me that says, ‘then he a. knew exactly what it was, and b. that he was totally guilty’, but part thinks that sacking ministers and dubbing Kevin Spacey out of films, when there has been no cases actually presented yet, is a bit reactionary. Its trial by media. ‘No smoke without fire’ is not valid in a court of law.

The Queen herself, on tour in Australia about 5 years ago had to suffer the then Aussie Prime Minister putting his arm round her waist and resting it on her bum. So at the Cenotaph tomorrow for Remembrance Sunday she’s wearing a special dress, across the front of which is the legend: “#One too”.

Happy Armistice Day

A xxxx

Do you know what ‘F’ means? Not as in ‘f-all’ or ‘f-off’, bust just a single, solitary F.

Its the Facebook sign. When you sign in, that’s the first thing you see. F. And it controls lives.

They’ve now shown that the little ‘F’ instantly stimulates the same areas of the brain that respond to addictions. Crystal meth, alcohol, crack cocaine, Facebook. And this wonderful ‘joining together of the whole world into a lovely cohesive network family’ is in fact more cynical, more destructive and, as you can see walking down any London street, totally dominating lives.

The Facebook dudes realised early on that we’re all, to a greater or lesser extent, rather needy. We need love, we need to be involved, we need affirmation of our lives. And that’s what Facebook does. And it does it instantly. Feeling low? Just put up a photo of your nob and get 27 ‘likes’ in 3 minutes. Then you feel better again.

But then the pressures start. Kids feel they have to keep posting stuff. And good stuff. Otherwise they don’t get the ‘likes’ and that makes them feel worse than if they hadn’t bothered. Like any addiction, like gambling, the thrill that you may win outweighs the possibility that you may crash and burn. This creates massive social (media) pressure on the kids, who are always more susceptible, more vulnerable to crises of confidence.

I only started using Facebook about a year ago. I’ve nominally been a ‘member’? or whatever, a ‘face’ maybe, for years but never touched it. I use it really, and this will really surprise you, to put pictures of Lila up there so my overseas mates can get a fix. (796 ‘likes’, 492 ‘loves’ and three emoticons that I have no idea what they mean). But once I go on I feel I have to ‘take a look’. Because I need to see all the vegan recipes, as I’m eating my lunchtime salt-beef and foie gras sandwich. Because I need to know that Kevin has just ‘checked in’ to McDonalds in Baker Street. That someone has found a potato that looks exactly like Boris Johnson but is actually cleverer. And I need to see the comments.

People always feel obliged to ‘oooh’ and ‘aaahh’ and ‘oh, that’s lovely’ and ‘gosh you look gorgeous!!’, lots of gushing and enthusiasm and encouragement. Which in fact merely encourages the recipient to repeat. The addictive cycle.

So if you post something on Facebook and I comment ‘tosser!’ or ‘loser!’ or ‘your bum looks fucking humungous in that’, I’m actually being nice, doing you a favour and trying to help you with your addiction. I’m like a social (media) worker. Which is probably why I now have a whopping 17 ‘friends’.

God help our children.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Donald Trump is in China. The east meets the west in a clash of the superpowers. If only it was a straight fight, boxing match, punch-up or something equally mano-a-mano, that would be fine. Do we want Trump representing ‘the west’? Which includes us? But it has to be done. He needs China onside regarding North Korea (never gonna happen in a million years) and trade deals need to be sorted. Because there’s lots of trade between the two world superpowers. I don’t count Russia anymore, simply because I don’t want to.

Interestingly, most presidents, most of whom generally serve the maximum 8 years, don’t go to China. If you happen to be the prez when China has just slaughtered a million Tibetans, you wouldn’t wanna go shake their collective hand (everything in China is, nominally, collective). So the presidents that have been are: Nixon, Reagan, Clinton (Bill, obvs, Hillary never quite made it) and Obama. And bizarrely, ALL of them were indicted of crimes. Except Reagan and Obama.

Nixon was Nixon, Watergate, shame and scandal. Clinton was almost indicted, so ‘almost’ that I’m prepared to include him in possibly the most lop-sided and incorrect generalisation ever, for lying under oath. Got off on a technicality, because for ‘sex’ to have occurred with Ms Lewinsky, his penis needed to be inserted into a different part of her body from the one in which it was discovered. Bill’s Rule.

So maybe this is a (far-fetched, way ‘out there’) omen. That Trump himself may be impeached. There’s so many wonderful opportunities to do it, be a shame to waste them all.

Meanwhile Priti Patel, as expected, got the boot from cabinet. They dragged her sorry ass all the way back from Africa to do the dirty. And Priti was wrong. She didn’t tell anyone that she was going to be involved in exceedingly high level discussions of national concern. She said she was gonna be on a beach eating felafel. Big difference. Less calories in meetings with Binyamin Netanyahu, probably not quite as enjoyable as the felafel, but can be productive. And what she was trying to produce was a deal with the Isreali army. Which, in the eyes of most, sadly, is ‘dining with the devil’, but more, together they were setting up an aid programme for the army there to help Syrians in the Golan Heights. So Priti couldn’t have informed her ministry what she intended because Britain doesn’t recognise the Golan Heights as ‘Israel’ because its occupied territory. So Priti goes. And the only losers really are the poor Syrians who now get help. How this is beneficial to anyone, I really can’t answer. Red tape is red tape. And is always so much bollocks.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Driverless cars are here. Ok, most round my way are just kind’a ‘parked’, so they’re allowed to be driverless. But I’m talking about proper cars that don’t require a driver whilst moving, they do it themselves. With a little bit of software and a few sensors. And the winner in this race, possibly the most potentially moneyspinning thing since the iphone is… not Apple, not Tesla, not even Uber, but Google.

Waymo, (subsidiary of Alphabet, Google’s father), are actually going ‘live’ with driverless cars, on real roads, in Phoenix, Arizona. Initially they’re only used by Waymo employees and temporarily, they’ll all have an engineer sitting in the car as a monitor/undertaker, until tests are complete. And here’s the most amazing thing: Waymo have covered more than 3.5 million driverless miles so far and had just 14 minor collisions. 13 of which were due to humans.

I wonder if you can choose a ‘setting’ when you call your car. ‘Fast’, or ‘careful’ or ‘road rage’. Changes the mode of use. ‘Aggressive!’ Right up to ‘OUT’A MY WAY, MUTHAFUCKA!!’ Just so its more like the normal driving experience.

Remember: don’t drink and driverless!

Boris Johnson is the latest in a very long line of government ministers jumping ship at the moment. They’re falling like Premiership managers. If the sex scandals haven’t got them (Fallon, Green), or lying about ‘holidays’ in Israel whilst having high level talks with foreigners (Patel), then its Boris just… being an arsehole. What he does best.

About the Iranian/British woman currently in prison in Tehran for ‘spying’, even though she was just on holiday seeing her family, with her baby daughter, at the time, Boris spoke up. And said that she was only there ‘to teach journalism’. Which she wasn’t. Boris, when he finally, sort of, apologised, said that ‘his words were taken out of context’ and so was sorry if they misled. How there can be any other ‘context’ for such a simple statement is known only to Boris and others who live at such a high level of language comprehension. The problem is that in Iran ‘journalism’ is a heavily loaded word. Its like ‘terrorism’ or ‘child abuse’ or ‘free speech’ and thus the poor woman may now be imprisoned for a further 5 years for ‘propaganda’. Major cock-up, Boris. Something he knows all about.

We’ll have no government left soon.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

How much tax is ‘the right amount’? When you get your tax bill, it hurts. Every payslip seems to have two amounts on it, gross and net, separated by a small fortune. Everyone moans about tax. And yet moans even more if others aren’t paying their full whack. For doing what we’d all like to do.

I get it. I get both. I hate paying tax but I resent like hell anyone who gets away LEGALLY with avoiding it. I’ve said it before, but a reminder is due: an ISA is a tax avoidance scheme. Ok, you do it with the Bradford & Bingley down the road, but its legal and its a way of avoiding (a very little) tax. Not quite the same as paying Bermuda-based shell-companies your salary and taking personal ‘loans’ from it. Not the same as jetting (metaphorically) money half way round the world and back, charging different parts of the same company massive amounts for invisibles like ‘intellectual property rights’ to reduce their domestic profitability and hence tax burden. As is done by Apple, by Nike, Starbucks and many others. So the fucking Americans are to blame!! Bastard tax-avoiders!!!

But the Queen does it too. Oh. She’s certainly not American. She’s as British as Britain itself. Probably doesn’t even eat apple pie. But the Queen is rich. She’s allowed to be, she’s the fucking Queen. And has her money invested by various trustees. Whose job it is to maximise her return. Just like every investment vehicle. And if those investors deem that the way to provide her maj. with a few percent extra is to send some of her funds offshore, legally and within all tax and banking parameters, why wouldn’t they do that? Arguably, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be doing their job properly, which is to maximise her investment profits. Its not like they were funding crack labs or buying shares in child-labour factories in Bangla Desh. Both of which, so I understand, can be very profitable. Hmmm…

The Queen will get a yearly statement, I dare say, and, probably like everyone else, she’ll look at the bottom line. The intricacies of hundreds of transactions may be scrutinised but I’m guessing not by her. She has ‘people’. Shit-loads of people.

Apple pays more tax than any other company in the world. Yet still avoids a bundle.

The newspapers and media love this shit. Whilst half the BBC ‘contractors’ are paid ‘offshore’, their news team takes the moral high ground. In a seriously Corbynistic way. Look at all the services these bastards are depriving us of. They’re not paying their fair share.

The problem is basically that these very clever circumventors are always cleverer than HMRC. And if everything is ‘legal’, the argument becomes about morality. Basically asking big companies to make ‘charitable contributions’ on top of the tax they already pay, to fund the NHS, age care, schools…

The whole issue is a tightrope over a sea of hypocrisy. Which is why I love it.

Happy Tuesday

The Tax Payer
xxxx

Men, feelings, always an issue. Men feeling up others, a particularly big issue in the current climate. But despite protestations to the contrary, men emphatically DO have feelings. Even above the waist, sometimes. Particularly when football is concerned. Then we can display deep feelings. Almost to the point of tears. Yes, men cry. And not just because you’re star, 65 million pound striker just missed an open goal, men can cry from emotion too.

So when you hear that Liverpool have just put the 4th goal past West Ham, how did that make you FEEL? It made me feel rather happy. Not because I’m a Liverpool fan but because I’m not a West Ham fan. West Ham fans are generally rather horrible, particularly about Spurs, so their loss is my gain. I also felt ‘thank God it wasn’t us conceding 4’ because every fan thinks that first and foremost. Then the gloating starts. Its what we do.

So West Ham sack Slaven Bilic, their floundering manager who should have been sacked months ago but hung on by the skin of his dental implants. Because the Hammers are in crisis and need a new broom. In the shape of David Moyes. Whose last job was to run Sunderland because they were in crisis. A job he did so well that they went down anyway. But The Davids: Sullivan and Gold, probably chose the Scot because they can get a jobcentre grant for employing him.

Then Spurs played Palace. Missed that game too (I miss them all at the moment) but we won. Which made me feel totally wonderful. Without knowing too many details, which only spoil the fun, we played a fairly poor team, we struggled but came away with 3 points. Job done. I almost cried with joy, or possibly with relief. Either way, manly tears.

Next up, in a massive Sunday of immense matches, came Arsenal’s visit to the Etihad. Wenger’s sometime shambolic, occasionally brilliant group of overpaid divas played probably the best club team in the world at the moment. And lost. Which shouldn’t have made me happy, should have at least divided my feelings because City are running away with the league and that’s bad. But… but… but an Arsenal loss always produces the best of feelings in me. Ok, I’m not saying they’re ‘nice’ feelings, nor ‘good’ feelings, but they’re mine, they’re real and I was over the fucking moon. Particularly when Arsene went straight to ‘bad loser’ mode and attacked the appalling standard of refereeing. Tosser. If you know Sterling is a ‘diver’, and everyone knows that, its up to your defenders not to put themselves in that situation.

And finally came another biggy. Chelsea vs Man United. Morinho’s return the last place he suffered a total mental melt-down. Before the one he’s about to suffer at Old Traf. And I had good feelings about this match. Mainly because I was watching it with Lila. A minor problem because the tv was behind me. And it was no competition. Because however good either a Man United (as happened) or Chelsea loss would be to watch, watching Lila is immensely more enjoyable. And in the battle of good feelings, watching Lila squirm is infinitely better than watching Morinho squirm.

All in all: I feel good.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I’d rented a flat in Hollywood, right opposite the Chevron I’d been working in. It was an easy commute. Of 20 to 45 seconds, depending on traffic. But long before that I’d realised that if I was to stay in LA I’d need wheels. There are no tube trains, no real trains (only really slow ones that go, like all the way to Kansas and pull about 140 carriages of mainly freight) and the buses are shit. And I was in America, where every one of my dream cars had come from. And where all anyone really wanted to drive, in 1981, was a VW Golf. It was the right-on aspirationalist’s vehicle of choice. Preferably a little-engined diesel. The Prius of its day. And to add insult to injury, over there it was called a ‘Rabbit’. The days of ‘gas guzzlers’ were dead! Small, neat and European was the way to go. Unless you happened to be a small, neat European, in which case what I craved was ‘muscle’. And funds were limited. Fortunately, the Golf/Rabbit that I really didn’t want was expensive. Foreign, economical and very in demand. Whereas a 1973 Pontiac Le Mans with a 6-litre V8 engine and the size of small cruise liner (but with worse steering) was yours for 200 dollars. Because no-one in their right mind wanted such a thing. With petrol at OVER A DOLLAR A GALLON!!!! So that was my ‘ride’. And even with 150,000 miles on the clock, I never had a moment’s bother with it.

I changed job to telesales. And I would suggest that if anyone ever suggests this as a career move for anyone you know, punch them hard and run like the wind. Its a terrible job. I did two in fact. One was a complete con, selling ‘futures’ in ‘strategic metals’ to people who didn’t have much future and needed a ‘position’ in strategic metals (titanium, ruthenium, basically military metals) like the proverbial fish needs his bicycle. A month after I left the office was shut down by the FBI for a whole host of naughty things. The other job was selling jewellery supplies to jewellers in Idaho and Nebraska and Wisconsin who struggled with my accent. And that was without the rhyming slang.

People kept coming into the petrol station telling how they were in telesales and made millions. ‘Then why are you driving a car older than mine?’ I wanted to ask but was too polite to do so. But I gave in and tried. And fucking hated both of those jobs. Which is why I became a professor.

Meanwhile I moved into a much nicer flat, in a much bigger block on Hollywood Boulevard. I liked Hollywood. It was sleazy, edgy but always fun. My mate Robert lived in this block and it had a lovely swimming pool. Robert’s mate Craig was coming over from London and so Craig and I became flat-mates. Just like that. And at the pool there were always loads of people. All young. None of whom seemed to ever work in any way that I would define it. Hence it became a social centre. A sit-com with a constantly changing cast. Robert and girlfriend Debi, his friends from London Nigel and Philip, with his girlfriend, Bonnie, and, eventually, once they arrived from New York, Steve and Joey. The mystery men.

Mystery? Because they spent all day every day by the pool, yet had been sent to LA ‘on business’. Then about once every 10 days or so they’d get really excited and tell us they were working that night!!! But wouldn’t say what they were working at. And they had a small, spare bedroom in their flat that was forever locked. We thought ‘hit-men’. Gotta be. The room’s where they keep the guns. And dead bodies. Steve was a big, burly New York Jew, Joey was thoroughbred Long Island Eye-talian. Obviously ‘connected’. Obviously.

But then Bonnie’s friend Susan arrived from Indiana. The Hoosier State. Another fucking mystery; what is a ‘Hoosier’? No-one knows. But they named the state after it/them anyway. And Susan was interesting. In a bit of a ‘wow!’ kind’a way.

Happy next day

A xxxx

Last week I joked that I’m apparently the only person who (despite really trying hard) has never been sexually assaulted, abused or harassed. This week its no longer a joke. I am the only person. I mean, wtf???

First off we had Kevin Spacey. I mean; Kaiser Sause, for fuck’ sake. (Or was he???) molesting little boys in 1926 or 1984 or whenever. Whenever it was, it was bad. Netflix immediately cancelled the next series of House of Cards in sympathy with him. Ok, they cancelled it because the merest allegation of sexual anything but normality (or even gay-ality) can adversely affect your ratings. And so distance is required. Preferably long and certainly immediate. No point waiting for anything so sponsor-immune as ‘evidence’ or ‘corroboration’ or even ‘proof’. No siree, the weakest sniff of wrong doing and the guvnors go into ‘Weinstein mode’ and get the sand-bags out.

And then it shifted, not so subtly, to our very own Houses of Parliament. Starting off as ‘inappropriate behaviour’, like knee touching, thigh holding, bum-pinching and unseemly comments by text message (ALWAYS a good idea when you act like a total sleazebag to put it in writing, for posterity). And this is not junior people. We’re talking cabinet ministers and deputy leaders and high up, powerful dudes. No dudettes, as yet. But then the stories went to the next level. ‘He hugged me whilst rubbing his crotch up and down on my leg’. Like a fucking Labrador. Full on sexual assault. Some things done were so heinous that no-one knows what they were but those accused have been sacked and thrown out of their party. Well, the tories throw out, Labour just kind’a make noises.

These allegations are so widespread, so sexual, so frequent, you’d think this was the Elysee Palace rather than that of Westminster. And yet this is obviously an international problem. Or rather, its a man problem. Why do men feel the need to exert power over underlings by sexually predatory behaviour? Is it in our DNA? Chromosomal?? Is it true that ‘all men are rapists’? The sad thing is; it looks that way.

But I blame God. Because when He (definitely a ‘he’ for this argument) made women, he made them soft and tactile, and if this was ‘in his own image’, I wanna see him. Let’s face it; He did a pretty good job, generally. And sadly, men in a position of power feel they can act upon this rather base desire. To touch women. And often more.

And in a way the Weinsteins and Spaceys of this world, although just as evil, lack the pure hypocrisy of their political perv-mates. These are the people making the laws. Telling us how to behave. And that is completely wrong.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

So I’m reading an online article yesterday about the Balfour Declaraion. As ya do. And on the ‘page’ were related articles. One of which said ‘read this about PPI, very important’, an article, not from those annoying bastards who phone up every 20 minutes through the entire working week to see if you’ve made your claim yet, this was an article in the Telegaraph. So I read it and on the page was ‘FREE CHECK FOR PPI’, and as I’ve never looked into it, my interest was piqued. So I hit the link and was taken to a simple ‘name, postcode, phone number and we’ll call you back’ message. I did read the ‘terms & conditions’ though, which stated: we’ll check whether you’re entitled to make a claim. This is FREE but if you proceed we’ll take 30% of your ‘winnings’, etc, etc. But if you choose to make your own claim, the service is FREE.

Half an hour later Jason’s on the phone, checking my mortgage history details. Nice feller. Ish. And then he says that it’ll take 10 days to get hear from the banks then we can proceed. “Ok”, I said, “then I can decide whether to proceed or not? Because finding out whether there is a claim to be made is free, right?” Silence. “Er, hello? Jase-mate?” Oh, he says, no, not exactly. Because it costs us 10 quid each bank and if you don’t proceed we may charge a fee.

“So where does the ‘FREE!!!!’ come into it, precisely?” Errrrr, its not free, we charge.

Ok, so the banks mis-sold policies; they mis-represented them. And these scummy, ambulance-chasing morons make that crime right by mis-representing their own services? Are we going to spend the next 10 years being phoned to ‘claim against mis-sold PPI, mis-sold claim companies’?

More importantly, and whilst still on a ‘high’ from Spurs win on Wednesday, the inevitable paranoia starts to creep in. Real Madrid will want Harry Kane now even more than they did before. Ronaldo is yesterday’s (gender-undefined) man, Harry is all man. And better (based on nothing but love). Dele Alli will be a must. They’ve always wanted Pochettino. Throw in Harry Winks, Eric Dier, Jan Vertongen and Kieren Trippier and we might as well just rename the new stadium ‘The Tottenham Bernabau’ and lose the cockerel altogether!

Keep away Madrid. Worry about Catalonia, leave N17 alone.

Happy Friday

A xxxx