Andy's Glasses

I love science. And most of what happens under that rather large and disjointed umbrella generally gets my approval. Because science works to understand the physical world, to explain it and, where possible, to harness it for our benefit. Hence the motor car, space travel, replacement hips, IVF and cling-film. And I realise that, particularly in the genetics field, there are many and great moral issues that come about. Frozen embryos, stem cell research and, the old favourite, animal testing. Not sitting a giraffe down to answer questions on geometry, but using animals to test products. But morality aside, science expands our knowledge and our world. Hence the ipad upon which these words are writ. And if a dozen lab-rats died so that my new smartphone holds its battery charge for an extra 14 minutes, then God bless those dead rats. But…

They want to build a mammoth. A wooly mammoth. Extinct for 4000 years, this massive (size of a small house/large shed), hairy elephantine thing is to be (new word alert!!!!) “de-extincted” by scientists. They’re gonna make one. Not with Lego. There’s barely enough Lego in Scandinavia to build a full-size mammoth, so there gonna use the DNA they have from old fossils plus, and this is the important bit, stuff from an elephant. You can’t build a dinosaur because although there’s loads of fossils, the DNA is degraded over time and there’s no close relative still living. Other than in the metaphorical sense of ‘dinosaur’ and Westminster is full of them. But you need the real thing. So an elephant, 99% mammoth, is used and the other 1% tweaked for extra mammothness. Fantastic. Order one now!!

And as I read this I thought: why the fuck would you do that? To watch it die? After a particularly fruitless life (well, unless you count the 87 tons of fruit a day you’d have to feed it) of loneliness and having (literally) no mates, in any sense of the word. It would be an exhibit. A freak. Or it would be hunted by ivory poachers. Its nothing but a vanity project for the geezer in charge to show it can be done. At least the lab-rats died for a cause. Animals die to feed us; I have no issue with that either. But just to make one because you can?

Whereas the Dodo was, apparently, exceedingly tasty. Which is why it became extinct in the first place. Make me one’a them. Roasted with shallots and mushrooms.

SAVE THE MAMMOTH… or, rather, DON’T SAVE THE MAMMOTH… you know what I mean.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I’m not a bad person. I don’t rob old ladies, mainly because I don’t want to get hit with a swinging handbag, I can be kind and considerate, loving even, and try to always do the right thing. Honest. I do. Its my nature.

But I have a ‘red line’. In fact its not so much a red line as a red shirt. An Arsenal shirt. For there, at that specific point, my niceness ends. Its not even a conscious thing; it just is. Its hard-wired, almost since birth (can you blame ‘genetics’ for such a thing?), an inherent nastiness towards the Gunners and everything they do. Almost spite. Ok, its probably based in part on jealousy of their various successes, its a ‘chip-on-the-shoulder’ thing, but its also revenge on the smugness of the average Arsenal fan. Because hard-wired into ‘them’ is an arrogance that transcends all other football fans.

So if you search the word ‘schadenfreude’ on the Spurs website, the result comes up as ‘Arsenal’. Its simple.

Thus when Manchester United go on a winning run in Europe, or Liverpool beat Barcelona, I can enjoy it. From a ‘British’ perspective. ‘Us’ against ‘them’. Especially post-Brexit. Temporary brothers under a flag. They may normally be a bunch of obnoxious northerners, but today they represent England so they are momentarily ‘my team’. I never feel that way about Arsenal. Even when they go to Serbia and play some racist, white-supremacist, monkey-chanting pogrom-descendents, I’ll join the KKK for the night. For one night only.

Don’t hate me. Its not considered or subject to debate. Its just a feeling.

Last night as Tory Boy was leaving after dinner, he told me that it was 1-all in Munich. Arsenal had just scored that ‘vital away goal’. Bummer. He’s a Spurs-Tory boy and thus feels as I do. That’s why we allowed him to marry number 1 daughter. It was in the terms and conditions.

‘Never mind’, I said, ‘the 1 away goal won’t matter if it ends 5-1’. I honestly did. Bad, evil person that I am.

An hour later, during a particularly taxing defence of a 2-clubs contract (zzzz) at the bridge table, I received a message from him. 5-1, final score.

If only I could have such influence on Spurs results.

Don’t hate me.

Happy Thursday. For some.

A xxxx

Kim Jong-nam is dead. That’s not ‘our’ Kim Jong, he’s Kim Jong-un. There are loads of them. Come in all different flavours. Kim Jong-nam is the bastard half-brother of the current lunatic-in-chief of North Korea. Sorry, WAS the half-brother. He died yesterday. Mysteriously died of almost natural causes. After two women at Kuala Lumpur airport sprayed poison into his face. So really, he died from exceedingly unnatural causes. They haven’t identified the mystery liquid yet. Nor the women involved. Police are looking for two, slight, black-haired women with slanting eyes. How hard can that be to trace? They’re either in Malaysia or Korea. Possibly China.

Kim Jong-nam didn’t like his half brother. There again; who does? What’s to like?? So lived his life as a playboy-in-exile, criticising the North Korean leader at every opportunity. Which is why he couldn’t set foot in North Korea. Didn’t even go to his father’s funeral. So North Korea went and found him. With the inevitable consequences.

I’m gonna miss him.

The only other totalitarian regime in the world currently, is America. Just like North Korea it is governed by a megalomaniac tyrant with funny hair, who (thinks he-) has total power and rules mercilessly. Particularly where his team is concerned. As Mike Flynn, the National Security Advisor, ‘resigned’ yesterday. This is what his cv will look like:

December 2016: employed by incoming president as Security Advisor
December 2016: had secret chat with Russian ambassador talking about sanctions being lifted.
December 2016: told the Vice President ‘we never spoke about sanctions’
January 2017: Someone found a recording of the conversation
February 2017: ‘resigned’ to… errr… spend more time with the family, play some golf…

Of course, the more interesting question (for the rest of the world) is whether Trump was told of the conversation, which is believed to be the case, adding the adjective ‘duplicitous’ to the ongoing stream of applicable terms.

The more interesting question for Donald Trump is ‘why all these leaks???’ As it would be. Always the victim.

Happy Wednesday

Be careful out there

A xxxx

There’s a by-election coming up next week. In Stoke. Up north. Fairly. I’ve only been there twice, both times to see Spurs, would have no reason to go any other time. Its hardly up there with Machu Pichu on anyone’s bucket-list. Certainly not mine. Stoke is like its football team; rough, ready and fairly industrial. And is a Labour ‘stronghold’. Tristram Hunt, who just resigned to go and run the V&A, had a majority of 5000. He pooled 35% of the vote last time as a Labour Candidate. He could stand as a Historian this time, but there’s no mileage in it.

And UKIP want that seat. Ok, having just one member of parliament currently, safe to say, UKIP want any fucking seat they can muster. Even a folding chair in the corner. So they’ve put Paul Nuttall, their leader, as their candidate and, with the ‘Corbyn effect’ (the slow, inexorable ruination of a once fine political party by stupidity, communism and incessant use of the word ‘workers’ every 9 seconds, whether appropriate or not) UKIP have as good a chance as ever to win their second seat in parliament.

The Conservatives, at the last election, in Stoke, polled almost the same as UKIP, but although its the Tories who’ll take us out of Europe, they’re seen, correctly really, as ‘the pro-Europe party’ as Labour have remained equivocal (posh way of saying ‘fucking clueless’) and UKIP… Europe… yeah. Stoke was the highest Brexit vote in the nation. 70% of those fine Stoke-ites wanted out. So becomes a natural fit for UKIP’s xenophobic nonsense and working class racism.

Labour’s candidate, Gareth Snell, is a good one. A good man. Or, rather, a ‘bit of a lad’. Likes tweeting abusive things, particularly about women. Always a good way for any parliamentary candidate to behave. Didn’t do Trump any harm, election-wise. And although I want UKIP to win that by-election, purely as another great big ‘FUCK OFF!!!!’ to the truly hateful Jeremy Corbyn, I don’t want the country slipping ‘to the right’, any more than I want it rolling to the left. I like it in the middle. Dead centre.

Its award season. The time of year when red carpets are rolled out and superstar billionaires make a big fuss about receiving worthless trinkets in the shape of Oscars and Grammies and Baftas. I’d cry if I was nominated and lost. Adele cries because she won. As she does every year. Not only because she’s the best singer and songwriter in the world, but because she’s a Spurs fan. And they need to win something, even if its only a few Grammies, rather than the League. She ‘gave’ her best album Grammy to Beyonce. Who joined in the tears. Everyone was crying.

There’ll be tears in Stoke next week too. But different ones. Working Class ones.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I play tennis. But I don’t serve. Ooooh, that’s contentious. Or rather, non-contentious; how can you play if you don’t serve??? If you don’t score?? Well, due to long-term shoulder-fuckage, I stopped serving about 15 years ago when, as a keen statistician, I noted the subtle correlation between serving, overhead, four times, and the agonising pain emanating from my right shoulder. No serve; no pain. Let me just crunch those numbers…

The answer was ’42’. So I stopped serving. And started, essentially, ‘just knocking up’. And purists find this odd, bizarre, un-worthwhile and faintly amusing. Like ‘what’s the point of that then??’ Competitive types simply can’t understand why you’d ever do anything in which you can’t WIN!!!!

So, to put things in perspective, I want you to consider what happens when you watch tennis on tv, or play ‘a tournament’ or whatever it is that enables you to score lots of winning points.

You play an amazing rally, a Federer/Nadal kind’a thing, 15 shots, running round, amazing, incredible, HOW DID HE GET THAT????? Then they stop. They sit down. They drink a glass of Ribena, eat half a banana, chew half a dozen salt tablets whilst towelling themselves off. Then they stroll back to the court, bounce a ball 28 times and hit it into the net. Then they bounce another 28 times and play another point.

In my peculiar, unserving, non-scoring tennis its different. We play an amazing rally, but, if the ball is going well out, we play it anyway, we volley from the base-line, if its way short, we let it bounce twice then hit it back into play, and finally, when it goes into the net, we immediately throw another in and start playing again. Or keep playing again. No pauses, no breaks, no changing ends, none of those effeminate affectations that plague the more princessy verion of the game. We just keep playing. Its hard, fast, non-stop and relentless.

And I love it. And so does Spurs Paul, and others. Who just want to play for play’s sake. In the snow (yesterday), in the rain (today; though not too much rain), whenever.

Its what I like to do. Don’t like running, hate swimming (unless its 85 degrees and a marguerita involved), get bored on a bike after 5 minutes, I just want to chase a ball around. Like a Labrador puppy.

I certainly don’t want to watch football, though the rugby was totally outstanding. Totally.

Have a lovely (cold, wet) Sunday

A xxxx

What’s wrong with eating meat? Whilst so many cry out that vegetarianism will make you live forever, that vegan is the path to physical and moral purity, I’ve decided that carnivores need to take a stance. We must harness the inner tyrannosaurus and ensure that loads of animals end up on my dinner plate. Well, assorted bits of them anyway.

We were taken to the Goucho Grill the other night. In Hampstead. There are others. Well, I say ‘Hampstead’ but really, whatever the satnav says, Goucho Grills are all in Argentina. They’re like embassies, sovereign territory of their parent nation. So we stepped from Hampstead High Street into Buenos Aires and into another world. A meaty world where, when it comes to eating flesh, they really don’t fuck about. Ok, the place is rather gorgeous, the atmosphere relaxed and the staff Hispanic, but its about the meat. The beef. Argentinian beef. Which is like Waitrose but much more betterer. Because rather than having it in little plastic covered eco-unfriendly polystyrene plates, they bring you a board to show you what meat looks like. A fucking great big wooden board with about 6 different ‘cuts’ on it. Big ones. Some of them actually humungous. They tell you what they’re like, how they’re best cooked, what they’ll be like.

They don’t tell you so much about the chips. Though they do 2 different types. Nor the spinach, broccoli or caulflower. They’re just there to make up the numbers. And the bill.

We drank Malbec. As you do in Argentina. And the combination of that wine and that meat is rather sublime. Though by the third glass McDonalds would have probably done it for me.

But most reassuringly, the place was more than busy. It was rammed, choc full of dedicated, unapologetic carnivores. With blood dripping down their chins (they mainly have more than one chin, that is a bit of an issue, but we’ll address that another time, in a more salady frame of mind).

Eat meat! Kill an animal today!!!

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Do you ever just think: the world has become too clever by far? And, kind’a, left YOU behind? I’m fine, I’m a high tech dude fully conversant with all electronic wizardry and smart phoniness that you could be. But don’t’cha just worry at times when you’re looking for a book and it knows where you are within half a postcode? That Google searches bring up Amazon offers relating to the search, of stuff you’d previously looked for? I google ‘windscreen wipers for a mini’ and up come seven offers of tennis balls. I buy a lot of tennis balls. Not much good for wiping windscreens.

This is because its just too fucking clever. Too fast. Too automated. And, without wishing to sound too paranoid: because they know too much about us.

This, I learned today, is what happens when you visit youtube. You want to see Lionel Messi’s latest goal or revisit California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Papas and you know one of those really annoying adverts will probably pop up first. That you can ‘skip in 5… 4…. 3…’ Well that advert is there because advertising companies have bid, whilst you’re waiting for the connection to youtube, all of half a second, in an auction with some clever google ‘doubleclick’ device, after first checking your browsing history to see what you’ve searched for previously. And on that basis, if you’ve spent time researching say cars, then the agency for Mercedes, or Ford, will bid higher than companies representing feminine hygiene products and so before you can enjoy Mamma Cass you have to watch a fucking pick-up trundling offroad around the countryside for 18… 17… 16… seconds.

The problem is that some of the most viewed things on youtube are evil, nasty things relating to ISIS, to right-wing extremists, to all manner of baddies, and Kim Kardashian. And when the adverts are played, the sites get a part of the fee. Extremist sites as well as those of vain women with massive arses, are supposed to be banned, blackballed, removed by youtube. But the postings can remain there, as they seem to do, and thus when you buy your next Mercedes E Class, half of the door mirror was paid to fucking ISIS.

Its awful. Its wrong. And its up to google to sort out the mess.

Meanwhile, my new phone arrived yesterday and I’m scared to use it. Once I turn it on the entire digital world will know all there is to know about me.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I never realised that you ‘apply’ for a knighthood. Who’d’a thought that? You just go on the website, knights-of-the-realm.com (don’t go, I made that one up) and download an application. I want to be a knight. I’m a good guy, I have my own sword (no euphemisms here) and I’m fucking noble.

Yet its not that simple. I wonder if there’s a fee for application. Yet apparently that’s how its done. You tick the boxes and Her Majesty decides whether to get you to take a knee before her. I’d always thought that some kind of committee-of-toffs would meet at, like, Camelot, and summon you, with a horseman, because they’d noticed how wonderful you were.

David Beckham didn’t qualify. Well, he did qualify, but then became unqualified. And he wants a knighthood. He really wants a knighthood. Alex Ferguson’s got one. Bobby Charlton’s got one, Elton John’s got one. Why not Becks? Sir David and Lady Posh. Think of the letterheads.

The reason Beckham didn’t get his knighthood was that he had invested in some offshore tax thingy, not an illegal one, but, as most are, a little on the dodgy, ‘tax avoidancey’ side. As you would if you were worth hundreds of millions. By contrast, Philip Green was (and is) domiciled in Monaco (for tax purposes) when he was knighted. Jimmy Savile we don’t even mention. Ooops.

And what qualifications do you need to get knighted? Well, you need to have done things. Good things. Sitting in the pub all weekend watching football doesn’t qualify. Sadly. Or we’d be a nation of knights. So, despite the fact that Beckham is one of the most loved people in the country, he also does good stuff. Stuff unrelated to getting more tattoos or driving big cars and trucks. He worked very hard on the Olympic bid for 2012, which we won, in part through his efforts which, its safe to assume, in his case, was just by turning up and smiling. He was captain of his country’s football team and single-handedly dragged that sorry bunch through lots of victorious battles. And he is loved. Throughout the world. Both for the grace he displayed when playing our game (kicking out at Argentinians notwithstanding) and for his seemingly endless charity work.

He didn’t get knighted, so ‘allegedly’ sent some rather unhappy emails to his mate. Which were stolen/hacked and they tried to blackmail him. David Beckham, victim of bottom-feeding scum. He refused to pay them so they appeared in the Daily Mirror. Complete with the required righteous indignation from the collective world of media high horses. Like Piers (fucking) Morgan. Who’d give both testicles for a knighthood. Or any recognition from anyone, even his own mother.

Ok, so slagging off opera singers isn’t particularly nice, but so what. We’ve all done it. ?????

Leave Sir David alone. He’s lovely and we love him and he should be rewarded for putting up with Victoria for all these years, if nothing else.

Happy Wednesday

Sir Andy
xxxxx

A state visit is an event. A big event. Fucking massive in fact. They wheel out the horse-and-carriage sets, polish up the Coldstream Guards, dust off the Crown Jewels and, oh, provide a bit of security too. Just 40 or 50 thousand police should do it. Plus secret service, anti-terrorism boys, and any teams the recipient of the State Visit should deem fit to bring along for the ride. There are more earpieces on view than at a hearing-aid convention. But basically, London grinds to a halt (well, the traffic generally does) as the received dignitary and Mrs Received Dignitary get to enjoy British pomp and ceremony from the back of their very own Landau. And we do pomp and ceremony better than anyone. Its almost our national pastime.

And its great for tourism. Those Poles and French and Japanese simply pour onto these shores armed with just selfie sticks and little union jacks to wave about. Lovely.

So who gets invited to a ‘state visit’? Not everyone, that’s for sure. And certainly not just the people we like. They don’t need one; we’re already mates, do business, agree on things, very pally. No. We give state visits to people we need on board. The people we want onside. Certainly ones we wish to engage in business with or increase business with. That’s the whole point. We don’t go pissing away 50 million quids worth of hospitality on someone who is just a ‘good person’ who maybe sat under a tree for 7 years contemplating his navel. No, Bhudda would have had a tea on the lawn of the Palace, no more.

We had the Saudis for a state visit. Nice people. Repress their women. When they’re not stoning them to death along with any gays they find. They fund about 64% of world terrorism (all figures here have been validated by a random generator in my head), engage in torture, but just for entertainment, and they send their youths here every summer to burn rubber in solid gold Bugattis outside Harrods for a month. But we trade with them. So we invited them. State Visit. Not because we like them or agree with their lifestyle. Same with China, just last year. An abusive and repressive regime, but rich. And we want their money. So, despite the protesters lining the route to scream at President and Mrs Xi, they were treated to the best of everything. So we could do some deals.

And trumped-up (no pun intended) little shit John Bercow, the ‘speaker of the House’ in Parliament, has unilaterally decided that Donald Trump should not be allowed to address parliament if he comes over. Because Donald is a bad person (agreed) and has terrible sexist, racist views (agreed) and has no respect for the independence of his judiciary (agreed) and so shouldn’t get the honour of a speech.

The same honour that Bercow himself was instrumental in giving President Xi. Standing there in simpering sycophancy smarmily shaking the man’s hand after a grovelling introduction.

We don’t invite people here just because they’re lovely. We invite them because on some level we need them.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

The problem with Donald Trump is that he says (or normally just tweets) what he thinks. No filters. The good thing about Donald Trump (yes, there is one good thing) is that he says what he thinks. No filters. When he fires off a tweet at 3 o’clock in the morning he’s just lying there in bed, possibly with Melania, possibly not if she’s in the basement lying on Transylvanian soil, and he learns something and instinctively he sends words out there. His words, his thoughts, his ideas, his complaints. Its safe to assume that although there are hundreds of others in the White House, many of them awake and working, at that time, he does not consult them. They’re not in the bed with him at the time. I hope.

And although I disagree with about 90% of what the Donald says, and find the other 10% morally repellant, I actually like the way he says it. No filters. He just shouts the first words that come into his head. And other than the fact that its him that’s saying them, I find that rather refreshing. Most politicians say nothing without 17 spin doctors working out the damage potential, the correct manner, the obfuscation of the truth, the dimming of unpleasant facts. In Trump speak; presenting the alternative facts.

So Trump is a plonker, but he’s an honest one. Like yesterday when challenged about Put’n on the basis that the Russian leader has teams of killers, Trump replied that America has killers too. And we all know that. We’ve all seen the movies. We know about hit men, we know about ‘sanctions’, we know about ‘cleansing’ we know about the CIA, and the NSA and FBI and fifty more groups of acronyms who carry guns and do the dirty work. Its just not a particularly presidential thing to admit such a thing. Yet Trump did. And although I wouldn’t have voted for him if he’d been the only person standing, I can actually see why so many Americans did. Because he talks straight. Even if he is a little detached from reality.

The only other redeeming factor in the Trump fiasco is that he’s the only world leader who is sceptical (understatement) on climate change. As any sensible person should be. Because the entire scientific field on that subject is rife with ‘alternative facts’. Its like the measles scandal all over again. Most ‘climate research’ is flawed, we now learn. Because if it shows what people want it to show then further, and very lucrative, grants are then forthcoming. So ‘studies’ become altered, facts become distorted, the ‘truths’ are redefined. All of which spoils it for the good guys. Because now we feel we can’t trust any ‘facts’ about global warming. Which is happening TO A DEGREE but nothing like its being promoted to be. An entire, yes, Global, industry has been built upon very little concrete data.

Happy Monday; its fucking cold today, no danger of global warming this morning

A xxxx