Andy's Glasses

America is up in arms. Some bastards voted in a moronic, egotistical, racist, misogynist orange thing to be their next president. Who’d’a thought? So they’re protesting, rioting, last night in Portland, Oregon, there was even a shooting.

3,000 miles away from Trump in New York. Because if you think about it logically, these people are not protesting against Trump. They’re protesting against the minority (because Clinton actually polled 53% of the vote; but ‘college systems’, like our own constituency based one, does that) who voted for the Tosser.

So they’re angry with their neighbours, their bus-drivers, their teachers, students, bosses, workers, with everyone who voted for Trump. He was the man who was ‘up there’, because democracy does that. But the hate is directed at those who give him victory.

And this is very very divisive. Like Scotland was horribly divided after their referendum. Like Britain still is over Brexit. Trump realised this, which is why he’s suddenly being really nice about Hillary and Obama and all the others he’s been trying to imprison for the last 18 months.

There is a theory that Trump only wanted ‘the victory’, not the actual job. He doesn’t want to be CEO of the USA in anything other than as a figurehead. He said that the VP would do most of the domestic and foreign ‘shit’, leaving Don to ‘make America great again’ (please ask for no details on that). So maybe Don either realises his own limitations (unlikely) or he can’t be bothered with the boring stuff. Either way, Mike Pence is gonna be a busy guy.

And there’s another good person. He must be. He’s an evangelical Christian. Oh joy. I love an evangelical anything. But that does come with a few assurances. Not altogether good ones. He’ll hate gay stuff. All of it. Burn in hell forever, kind of hate. He’ll be so anti-abortion that you have to worry about any ‘choice’ that may remain after a few years. He’ll love guns. I don’t know why, he’ll quote ‘an eye for an eye’ and the right to defend, where really he should be ‘turning the other cheek’ (though getting shot in the bum is apparently very painful) and adhering to ‘thou shalt not kill’. And would be if Colt weren’t paying all the Republican party wages.

But he’ll be good on Israel. Evangelicals luuuuuurrrrve Israel. But they, like their leader, hate Muslims. I’m not sure what the Bible says about Mexicans but we’ll find out, for sure. The bible is nothing if not very accommodating to interpretation. As has been proved by Apartheit, by ISIS, by Hitler.

So I’m not panicking. I don’t even live in America (thank Trump) and in the words of the prophets, ‘it is what it is’. Let’s see what happens.

Yours (naively?) optimistically

A xxxx

There are, currently, 75 outstanding lawsuits against Donald Trump. He may become the first President-Elect to have to go to court and defend himself and his companies. Will this affect Don’s Supreme Court choices? Will he choose judges who were kind to him? He’s unlikely to choose Judge Gonzalo Curiel from San Diego, who Trump called ‘a Mexican who won’t be able to judge fairly because of his hispanic heritage’. Even though the judge is from Indiana. Which may sound a bit ‘ethnic’, a little ‘tomahawk and teepee’, but is, at this time, part of the USA.

More importantly, Theresa May was the 12th world leader to receive a phone call from DT yesterday. After Saudi Arabia. Egypt. South Korea. Israel. Even fucking Ireland got a call before we did. Even Mexico. After all he’s said about that fine nation and its people.

But heh, I can’t be all doom and gloom. I would normally say; whatever happens, we’ll survive. But in Trump’s case that may not be so true. He does tend to act or speak first and think much, much later. If at all. But he’s the one we (a big ‘we’) have got and we can only see what happens in the fullness of time. Nuclear holocaust or not.

Meanwhile I was accused, just last night, of being rather ‘narrow’ in my view of football. Of being a little ‘one-sided’, blinkered, even ‘parochial’!!!! in the way I see the beautiful game. Basically, the gripe was that I never mention Crystal Palace. Well there you are, Malcolm, I done it.

The fact is that we (as in ‘we football fans’) all see all events of the game filtered through the very powerful lens of our own preferred team. I try to kerb this tendency as much as possible, to remain impartial and as objective as I can. But fail miserably. In fact, I fail very happily. I love that failure, its one of my best failures (of very very many; speak to Mel for the full list).

So when I read that ‘England really need Harry Kane, even though he’s not fully fit’, my national pride and love of my country lead me to think: THEY CAN FUCK OFF AND LEAVE HIM OUT SO HE CAN GET FIT FOR THE NEXT SPURS MATCH. PLAY SODDING ROONEY!

And every result I see is analysed for its impact on my team. I can’t help it. Its a disease. And alas, as poor Crystal Palace have as much effect on Spurs as does Ed Balls in Strictly, I ignore both. For which I would apologise, if I was a better person. But I’m not, I’m me. A Spurs fan.

If anyone else would like me to mention their third-rate, non-league, Sunday football, Hackney Marshes type team, just send £5 to the Tottenham Hotspur benevolent fund and I’ll happily slag them off.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

In bridge you play your hand in spades, clubs, hearts, diamonds or no-trumps. Last night, during a particularly challenging rubber, I decided to call ‘no-trumps’, a ‘clinton’. In honour of…

and now I’m bored with it. Not bridge, never. But ‘that’. Its over. Thank fuck for that.

If you want to travel to Stoke (no idea why you would, other than for football; but that’s the place they chose in the paper) the train will get you there in 1 hour 20 mins. Once we’ve ‘invested’ (read: ‘pissed away’) the 70/80/90 billion quid on the proposed HS2 (high speed railway), that time will come down to just one hour. Giving you 20 minutes extra time to enjoy the pleasures of that fair city. Phah.

If you go by ‘hyperloop’, it will take 12 minutes. The 400 miles between LA and San Fran (that’s more like it; give us glamour, give us cool, fucking Stoke!) would take just half an hour.

This ‘thing’ was kind of invented by the Galileo of our times, Elon Musk. The paypal dude who went on to create Tesla cars and space rockets and other really cool stuff. But after working it out he just put the idea ‘out there’ for others to use. What a mensch.

A ‘hyperloop’ is a massive tube that sits on stilts. And inside it there are pods in which people can travel at 760mph through the vacuum tube. It is, apparently, a cross between ‘Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table’. Basically, the pods are not propelled but more ‘fired’ through the tube. And being a vacuum there’s no air to slow you down or create friction. Or, errr, breathe. But I’m sure they’ll work that out. And because the tube is on stilts, you don’t need to spend billions and billions flattening hundreds of miles of ‘track’.

The first one is being built now. To run between our two favourite Emirates; Dubai and Abu Dhabi. 78 miles, 12 minutes. Be completed in 2020 by a Danish company called B.I.G.

I’m going. Having never visited the uber-luxurious culture-void of the tackiest most superficial place in the world (other than South Manchester, and I’ve never visited there either) I will go to Dubai in 2020, just to have a go on the hyperloop. Speed of sound. Mach 1. And me. Oh yeahhhhhh.

Happy Thursday. Now I’m getting on the Tube (6mph; 6 miles in 34 minutes)

A xxxx

That was the phrase that greeted me on The Godson’s facebook post this morning. Its brilliant. But requires a little thought. Just a little. In fact its much too clever for the Godson to have conjured it up himself but I’m just very proud he copied all 5 words without making a spelling mistake.

Donald Trump is the new President of the Unaaarted States of Ameeeeericaah.

Will Americans be subject to the same border control restrictions to the UK as the Poles, the Romanian pick-pockets and the middle-east boat-people? As they flock from their homes to avoid what will follow?

Though in his ‘acceptance speech’ this morning he was very up-beat. And he intends to make America prosperous. That’s unusual. Get people in jobs (building walls), tighten security (lynch mobs searching out Mussslims or anyone who might be or might one day become, Mussslims). He’s going to create jobs, prosperity, infra-structure, wealth, work and regular visits from Santa Claus. Its so easy what needs to be done; its amazing no previous prez-to-be had ever thought about it. Then it turned into the barmitzvah speech he never had, or the Grammy-winning speech he never gave, as he thanked all the lovely people that he’s spent the last 18 months annihilating in public.

Hillary? She’s been banging on about the ‘glass ceiling’, making it all about whether America is ‘ready for a woman president’. But this result wasn’t about ‘a woman president’, it was about ‘that woman president’. If it was Michelle Obama (praise her saintly soul) we’d have been listening to an acceptance speech rap this morning instead.

But more importantly: HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT THEY’RE DOING TO TOBLERONE???? Its a crime against… against me. I love Toblerone. And chocolate, as we know, is not about what it made from so much as the ‘mouth-fill’. Which is why a Cadburys Flake tastes different from a Freddo. Same chocolate, different mouth-fill. Its about the texture. And they’re fucking about with Toblerone. Damned Swiss. I bet FIFA are involved. Either by corruption or by deciding that old, proper Toblerone was ‘too much a political statement’ for their fragile little minds to cope with.

What an awful day this is becoming…

Happy (??) Doomsday

A xxxx

Someone is now planning another lawsuit over Brexit. Cos we really need another one. The one we have isn’t really enough trouble that civil war is now imminent and the entire judiciary is about to be sent to a gulag in Hartlepool until they can ‘learn to get the right answers’.

Now someone is intending to demand another referendum (NOOOOOOOO!!!! ANYTHING BUT THAT, ANYTHING!!!!) because of false claims made by both camps during the pre-vote debacle. Mainly by the Leavers but both sides stretched the truth way beyond the point where it had any truth left in it.

£365million A DAY TO GO TO THE NHS IF WE LEAVE!!!! Oh fuck off. But that kind’a thing.

So because of these misleading (to the electorate) distortions, the vote has no validity.

As if MPs are honour-bound to be honest. They should be, but they’re not. The only ‘check’ in place is the other side. If they think claims are wrong or totally exaggerated they can say so and use it as a rod to beat the enemy with.

And then I heard a fantastic statistic. Not that I believe in anyone’s statistics unless I know who’s paying for it. But this seemed valid. As I heard it spoken by a comedian on a current affairs quiz show. Can’t be more significant than that, surely?

They’ve been monitoring every word spoken by Clinton and Trump (haven’t we fucking all) and have calculated that Hillary runs at 24% true statements. Which apparently, and rather disgustingly, is perfectly average at the hustings. Trump runs at 4%. And that includes stating his name, rank and serial number.

America is all wrong for us, time-wise. The elections don’t start til lunchtime and by the time Hawaii has finished it’ll be tomorrow morning. Not that you learn much whilst voting is taking place. But I’m going to stay up anyway (yeah; right) and watch the baseball-hatted nation as it leaves the polls. And I’m going to have an ‘American themed party’. Not sure what to serve foodwise, not sure it even matters, as long as the portions are FUCKING HUMUNGOUS.

Happy US Voting Day

A xxxx

Arsene Wenger has managed Arsenal since the Ice Age. Not the last one, the Ice Age prior to that. Humans weren’t formed. You could walk from Siberia to Alaska across the ice. Can you imagine, a real ice age with no-one there to blame cars/planes/carbon emissions?? Anyway, Wenger, been there forever. And whenever they play Spurs we sing to him. Our special Wenger song. As soon as he stands up, normally because someone’s unwrapped the cotton wool on one of his delicate little superstars, we sing: ‘sit down you paedophile, sit down you paedophile…’ and (you’ll have to trust me on this) its very funny. Always makes me laugh. The mere fact that Arsene (probably) is not a paedophile, has never been one and would be horrified by the very thought, is largely irrelevant. This is football. Its much more important than mere facts. And Wenger simply deserves all the abuse you can hurl at him. Because on Friday he stated that ‘he’s not worried about Spurs, Arsenal are just too strong for them’. And because he’s a bad loser and an even worse draw-er. ‘2 points lost au jours d’hui’ he smugly asserted after the game yesterday. Never credits the other team with anything, other than the invisible penalties they inflicted on his players that the biased refs failed to pick up.

Arsene Wenger (manager extraordinaire; and sadly, he really is) is thus my ‘Tosser of the Week’. And pretty much, every week.

Meanwhile, over in Pukesville, USA, the presidential campaign rolls on. And on. And… will it NEVER FUCKING END?!?!?!?!? Oh yeah, tomorrow, its over. Praise be the Lord. And Hillary has been exonerated by the FBI. Again. Her emails were harmless. All 650,000 of them. Just rubbish, non-sensitive, shopping lists, orders from Amazon, penis extensions, usual rubbish. Helluva lot of rubbish but there ya go.

I would execute the head of the FBI. Just shoot him where he sits. He needs no trial, no judge nor jury, just shoot the bastard and be done. For causing such a massive massive nothing. For destabilising the most unstable election run-in of all time. All for nothing.

So who you gonna vote for; Donald Trump or Arsene Wenger?

Happy monday

A xxxx

This is me and the legend at the Emirates today. Bloody sun came out, ruined the selfie, but I’m the grey fuzz on the left.

And its not my first visit to that noble stadium. Been there a few times. But previously I’d only gone in ‘Club Level’ and today I was down and dirty with my own boys (read: scum) in the ‘away fans corner’. The most hated area of any pitch. Except the Emirates. Not because Arsenal fans are nice, nor polite, nor welcoming. But because they’re nothing. They don’t shout, they don’t sing, they don’t nuffink. They just sit there. Being smug. Its like a ‘liyberry’. As we told them. Repeatedly.

‘Club level’ is the corporate bit. About 30% of the whole ground. Expensive and mainly filled with people who don’t care about the footy, they’re there for the freebies.

The Emirates is not famous for its atmosphere. Oddly, old, shitty Highbury had oodles of the stuff. But new, slick, sanitised Emirates has somehow silenced the Arsenal faithful. So ‘we’ did all the shouting and singing. And swearing. Lots and lots of swearing. The guy behind me apologised at one point after one serious chain of abuse following an Arsenal ‘dive’. Apologised? Do I look like the Pope? He spoke my mind. All expletive.

So they built this uber-stadium, just 10 years ago. And, in previous visits I’d drooled over the carpeting, salivated over the beautiful, tasteful decor, reached near-climax at the wonderful toilet facilities. And stated that: one day all stadia will be like this. Its so post-millenial, so clean and super.

Until you get to the ‘away fans’ bit. The design budget apparently ran out just before they finished that particular corner of the ground. So they just copied the old, circa 1922 model of facilities provision. “The look we’re aiming at” claimed the now unfunded, almost pro-bono, design team, ” is ‘squalor'”. And they succeeded. Its a shit-hole down there. Crowded, insufficient toilets, poor facilities, dingy, dirty, fucking horrible.

But who fucking cares? When we went there and came away on even terms. We weren’t brilliant. Neither were the Arse. We were probably less-not-brilliant than they were as we gained our forth draw in a row. But heh. Its the Arsenal. They smash teams to bits. But not Spurs. Not today.

Happy very hoarse-voice, post-screamy, Sunday.

A xxxx

What the f***!!! is going on? Not only has America fallen upon itself in an unprecedented wave of hateful slagging off in a presidential run-up, making a farce of both the 2 candidates and the whole process itself, but also here! In Britain!!! Wonderful, conservative, subdued, almost anally retentive Britain.

The judges decided on Thursday that THE LAW STATES that Brexit must be passed by Parliament before it can be implemented. It was not a statement of what those judges personally wanted, nor a comment on the farce that was our own referendum. It was just their interpretation of the law. The implications of their decision was not considered, in that context. They’re judges, they know the law and they apply that in their judgments.

So I fully expected the Sun and the Mail to attack those judges; they are there to provide sensationalism and reactionary outpourings, particularly when those papers’ own views are opposed. Because newspapers are run by tossers for other tossers to read. Particularly those newspapers.

But when the government joins in those attacks, that’s very different. That’s nasty. That’s fascism. That’s so bad its Trumpish. He too is prepared only to accept democratic and legal validity when he wins by it.

So half the Conservatives, the Leavers, obviously, are now questioning a legal decision, which is fine, but also the motives by the judges for stating them, which is really not fine. Not fine at all.

Half the problem is that this government is exceedingly light in the legal world. It has a Lord Chancellor who has no legal experience at all. And a lightweight attorney general (if you can name Jeremy Wright there’s a free Curly Wurly on offer… ooops) who was appointed as a QC two years after he actually stopped practicing law. Because you have to be a ‘silk’ to be in that office. He then took his youthful inexperience (in criminal law) to the High Court (not criminal), to clash wigs with David Pannick, probably the best civil advocate in the country, if not the world.

To question the integrity of our judiciary is seriously unworthy and grossly ignorant. For the government to do this is quite frankly unforgivable.

The judges were not saying ‘you can’t Brexit’, they were just saying how, legally, it HAS to be done. By parliament.

You don’t shoot the messenger. Unless you’re a tosser, or one of the Prime Minister’s inner circle, apparently.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Gina Miller is a beautiful lady. She’s also very clever, incredibly successful and speaks right posh, like wot I do. Innit. She’s my new hero. Not because of any of the above, but just because she has such fabulous principles. As in: ‘look at da principles on dat one!! Phwoarrrrr!’. The new cry from builders in the PC world. If Gina is a Spurs fan I’d believe in God.

Gina took the world to court. And bloody won. Ok, she took the UK to court, and won. All because of the Brexit vote. Which this court ruling does not in any way overturn, you can’t do that. But it makes the ruling that ‘article 50’; our way of leaving the EU, cannot be invoked without firstly passing it in parliament.

Ok, which at that point, does present a bit of a constitutional dilemma. Because ‘the nation has spoken’ in the stupid referendum, and out of Europe we must go. But probably a majority of MPs did not want Brexit. And so could refuse to pass the necessary bill to trigger article 50. Which would be stupid, would go against democracy… but in a very democratic way. Just a different part of democracy. You followin’?? The people were asked, the people decided, but aren’t allowed to have their way til the guv’nors have nodded approval.

Or, they could only approve the Great Exit if the terms we seek are the terms the majority ‘remainers’ want. As we now call ‘a soft brexit’. Whereas most Brexiteers want a ‘hard one’. In a nice way.

The matter now rests with the Supreme Court. Next month. And if that institution agrees then Theresa May will pretty much have to call a general election to extend her mandate.

Its all fucked up, and all due to Gina. Who had the idea, who paid for all of it and who just wants everything legal and kosher. And not at all to try to reverse the decision now ‘the plebs have spoken’ nor just make things difficult for everyone after all those involved lied for all they’re worth in the run-up.

And the only reason any of this is in any way relevant is because football is currently too painful to consider. This is a welcome distraction.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

So I’m walking along the Embankment, on my way to work yesterday, and the sun’s shining and the River’s gleaming and the Shard is… errr… Sharding and Big Ben is… just behind me. And all is well with the world. Mainly because I was walking. The cars were jammed up in both directions. Not that that is in any way unusual.

Then I hear a whistle. And then again. And again. But, kind’a frantically. A referee’s type whistle. You can hear the ‘pea’ rattling round to emphasise the whistlage. And I’m looking round for a football match. Or a game of rugby. Hockey. Something where its all got out of hand, because there was a lot of whistling by this time.

Then I saw the policeman. On his motorbike. Whistle in mouth, leaning over his shoulder at the oncoming traffic. Well, it would have been oncoming but he wouldn’t let it on-come. He had his hand up to the cars and his whistle whistling. STAY THE FUCK THERE!!!!! Even though he didn’t use one word, that’s what he said. And they understood. We all understand cop-lingo. Its universal.

He was joined by a second whistling bike-cop. A duet. A double act. Really good they were too. Like Roger Whittaker with aggression. Then another came.

Ahhhh, outriders. At which point, as I branched up Temple Place, I stopped to peer. Could it be Her Majesty? David Beckham? Kim Jong Un? Donald Trump??

The motorcade slid into view. Big Rolls Royce (like they make small ones), with a flag flying on the mascot. Couldn’t see which country cos the wind was blowing. The Rolls was followed by a Range Rover. Black. Very close behind. Followed by a big black Mercedes van, close behind that one. Which, in my mind, had a SWAT team, all in black sitting on benches, with balaclavas and machine guns, all going ‘hut! hut! hut!’ like they did in the Blues Brothers. In my mind. The Range Rover held some form of ‘secret service’. If we had an FBI, as well as fucking up elections, that’s what they’d do. Follow some dignitary or other in a black vehicle looking for trouble. Or preventing trouble. In secret. Though whistles, sirens, flashing lights definitely affects secrecy.

And I thought: wouldn’t it be nice if I wanted to drive up to Selfridges one Saturday but didn’t fancy sitting in the traffic, to phone the police and get them to stop all the traffic, every car, whistle me through every set of traffic lights, tell all the other drivers to: STAY THE FUCK THERE!!!! ANDY’S COMING!!!!, but in ‘whistle’, and just ease me through each and every hold-up. Ahhhhhhhh.

They’d do it for the Mrs First Lady of Columbia (probably who I saw), so why not me?

Its discimination.

Happy Thursday. Even after last night at Wembley. Bleuhhhh.

A xxxx