Andy's Glasses

Don’t’cha just love facebook? Don’t’cha???

I ‘joined’ facebook about 5 years ago when a mate told me he’d ‘posted some great pictures’.
‘Can’t you just send them to me?’ I asked. Like, email them? Print them and post them over?? (He lives in France). ‘No need! Its easy!! Just join Facebook. Its free!!’ Look, I’ll pay for the stamps then…

So I joined. Only took about 6 hours of intense questioning but eventually I ‘passed’ and was admitted to the world’s least exclusive club. I looked at the photo which, to be honest, wasn’t that great, and it was indeed singular. One fucking photo; 6 hours of my life wasted.

I then spent the next 3 years fighting off the Facebook Nazis with their incessant demands and threats. GIVE US YOUR EMAIL PASSWORD AND WE’LL FIND YOU ‘FRIENDS’. ‘DO YOU KNOW THIS PERSON?’ THESE PEOPLE WANT TO BE ‘FRIENDS’ WITH YOU.

Well they can all fuck off; I don’t want any friends; I’m happy on my own with stamp collection and bizarre assortment of girl’s panties stolen from washing lines.

Still they bombarded me. Incessantly. Its like a juggernaut. Which eventually, praise the Lord, subsided. Though I still got the odd message from them, ‘someone’s left you a message!!!!’ Which was normally an advert from Bangkok about getting a mail order bride or renting a ladyboy by the hour.

And of course I forgot my passwords. Used once, ate the paper it was written on and its over.

So a few months ago, someone else ‘needed’ me to go on F/b, so I got a new password and re-entered that part of the world that everyone else has been occupying for years. Me and my 6 ‘friends’. Do you suffer from ‘friend envy’?? I bet lots of kids do. And lots of ladyboys from Bangkok. But I don’t.

Because I’ve worked out the formula. For every ‘friend’ you have, you get 17 videos per day showing really cute puppies and adorable (ish) babies. You get 9 really sincere messages about God loving you and how a good friend (without the ” quotes) is worth six premiership clubs. And 14 posts about Donald Trump being a wanker. Which I heartily approve of. Not so much that I’d ‘like’ them in that official ‘like’ way, but just in the old fashioned, make-me-happy, kind’a way. The official ‘like’ is too big a commitment for me at the moment. I’m building up to it.

I have no idea how to make my own post. I find it all very opaque. I know, a 9 year old child could do it! Which I don’t doubt. But a 60 year old man (even one who looks much younger; honest) can’t. Isn’t even sure if he’s ready to bare his soul to a rag-tag bunch of screen-fixated strangers. I can’t even change my photo (Gareth Bale in a Spurs shirt). But I like it now; its ‘ironic’.

What you post says a lot about who you are. Which is why my younger daughter only posts about being drunk. Why Sizi posts about motor racing (its his job), and why most people post about lovely trees and gorgeous pets.

But what gets me most, what really makes me laugh more than even the ‘funny’ posts, is the amazing sincerity of the comments. “lovely picture!!!!’ means ‘you look dog ugly. “Oh, gorgeous dress!!!!”; your bum looks humungous. “Beautiful flowers!!!”; who gives a shit. “you are SOOOO talented”; way too much time on your hands.

Ok, must go see if I have any more ‘friends’, looking for number 7.

“Like!” Thursday

A xxxx

Yesterday I received an email. That’s exciting, all by itself. But this one was special.

‘Dear A Conway’, it started, which is a rather alarming form of address really. I mean, was it for me? As in Andy Conway? Or just the indefinite article, ‘A’, like, any old Conway will do? But it went on: ‘the Kindle that you were stupid enough to leave on the number 11 bus on the 18th August (wow), HAS BEEN FOUND!!!!! Come to Baker Street and get it.’

Oh, the kindle I lost and replaced, after falling out with Amazon totally (but not so ‘totally’ that I haven’t used them 19 times in the interim) on the 20th of August, has been found and matched up to my online form’s description. Of… err… ‘a Kindle’.

Transport for London have a Lost Property Office but I’ve always been under the impression that its looks like the Steptoe house and employs three old Harolds to just bury all the umbrellas and mobile phones, or flog ’em on ebay whilst sending out messages to enquirers that just say, basically: ‘lost your phone? you expect me to look for it? you’re ‘avin’ a laugh, I’m goin’ down the pub’.

And then THIS happened. What’s more, some kindly soul (bless ’em) actually picked it up and handed it in. Didn’t steal it. Didn’t smash it repeatedly against an old lady’s head, but handed it in to the correct person.

And just 6 weeks later, they’ve found it. Remember, this is TFL, delays of 6 weeks for them are called ‘Good Service’. They’ve probably had four 3-day strikes in the interim too.

Its restored my faith in humanity, in decency, in TFL, in the entire world. Until I realise that however many times I click my heels together, I can’t wake up from the dream that has Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. Its sadly only too real.

There was a gig played over the last weekend in the Desert in California. My mate who lives in New York went, with his wifey for their anniversary celebration. To see: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and The Who. Wasn’t cheap. But the entrance fee included zimmer frames, nappies and a carer at bed-time. By all accounts it was simply brilliant. They had to air-lift all the Grecian 2000 in otherwise the desert sun shining on all that silver hair could have blinded the ‘youthful’ crowd. Pete I-hope-I-die-before-I-get-old Townsend was there, hopes apparently dashed once more. But I think they avoided performing ‘my generation’ on grounds of either ambiguity or just plain misrepresentation.

Happy Tuesday, fast well

A xxxx

And it goes on. The contest to find the most unworthy person in America to become the next president. ‘Honest’ Hil or Dirty Don. Its farcical that out of 360 million people, they’ve ended up with these two. Lock-up-yer-Daughters Don and Protect-your-password Hillary.

Hillary has made mistakes. Arguably marrying Bill was a big one. I’m not saying that Bill was the only past pres. to abuse his position and use the Oval Office for affairs-not-of-state, but he’s the only one actually caught ‘not’ having sex (his definition; ridiculously upheld by the courts) there. But that’s ok. ‘He’s a man’. ‘He’s only human’. ‘He has frailties’. ‘No-one’s perfect’.

And so to the ‘locker-room bragging’. The best thing that’s happened in international politics in my lifetime. Certainly the funniest.

Rudy Giuliano, Republican former mayor of New York said that he could no longer support Trump, nor even vote for his own party in the election because of ‘how Trump’s behaved this week’. If only that was the problem.

Because Trump has in fact behaved rather well this week, panic-defending himself. Its the last 40 years that have been the real problem. These weren’t ‘this week’ things, Rudy. The first tape was from 11 years ago. And since then about 14,000 women have come forward with their Trump-tales of gropage, molestation, inappropriate approaches, grabbing thighs under restaurant tables, attempted slobberings, getting so into their personal space that they ended up with orange stains on them.

Nigel Farage, the last of Trump’s defenders still standing, has called it ‘just bragging; all men do it’. Actually, all young, strutting, daft men do it up to the age of 30. And all men do talk about women, leer at women, have lewd thoughts about women (and sometimes about animals too… errr… some men, that is) but Trump is stinking, fucking rich. And is thus empowered to actually act upon it where most men might just indulge in the odd fantasy. Sometimes very odd fantasies involving clergymen, wet-suits and aardvarks.

Contrary to what you read on feminist t-shirts (look at the t-shirt on THAT) which ironically you’re not allowed to read because you mustn’t look ‘there’ whilst talking to a feminist, EVER, all men are not in fact rapists. We just have fertile imaginations. Which we limit by our innate sense of decency, propriety and fear of rebuttal. And that’s where Trump is different. He feels his money has given him the right to simply act as he pleases. He has no filters, no sense of morality, nothing. He’s just a orange dick with a comb-over on top.

Great choice for President. Where do I put my X.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

“… and yes, I am do be finding Donald’s words to being unacceptable and inappropriate, but I is being glad to forgiving him and hoping you am too. And if not speaking with sincerity I am on very next plane back to Slovenia for penniless eating of cabbage for rest of life poverty, no Prada, no money, with all other ex-wives…”

Well, Melania’s onside then. Good for her. Stand by you-our ma-aa-aaan.

England played Malta last night. We played our normal array of eye-wateringly expensive over-paid mega-stars who won’t get out of bed for less than 100 grand a week, and they played their rag-tag bunch of amateurs who do get out of bed quite early to deliver the post. Or go to teach, I think there’s a doctor in there, pharmacist maybe. AND WE WON!!!!!!

However, due to the size of Malta and the lack of a proper pool of players, their unfortunately average defeat in international matches is about 7-0. Therefore, to beat them 2-0, as we did, in my mind means we actually lost 5-0. In ‘real terms’.

However, last night I had a life-changing experience. I drove a Jaguar F-type. Belonging the brother-in-law it was consequently the ‘total nutty-bollocks’ version with as many high-spec, go-faster additions as it could come with. 4-wheel drive, 5 litres of supercharged V8 engine.

But is that enough?

I wasn’t sure. Until it started. And best of all, way beyond all the high techiness and computerisation, is the noise. Which is awesome. And the performance, which should actually be illegal. And pretty much is if you drive it as God intended it to be driven. Its frighteningly fast, seriously loud and handles like a dream. Ok, we love that then; great car. But now we’ll hit the ‘sport’ button.

FUCK.

ME.

The button should actually be labelled ‘totally mental’ but there isn’t room for all those letters. The suspension stiffens (apparently; I don’t know nor care), the steering tightens, other magical things happen, including the exhaust valves doing something profound. Like turning the volume up from ’10’ to ’11’. And the performance becomes ballistic. You no longer ‘drive’ the thing, you just ‘point and fire!!’ And hear that beast roar. Everyone hears it roar. Passengers, neighbours, most people in 7 adjacent boroughs.

This car is the antidote to the Prius. It is the anti-Prius. It is truly wonderful and everyone should drive one. Though the noise might become an issue.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

With a whole month to go before the American elections, Hillary has now, officially, ‘peaked too soon’. Doesn’t say it in the papers, nor the pundits, newspeople, but I’m saying it. She has now reached the ‘total fucking gutter’ of electioneering, leaving no-where else to go. She can get no lower, and she’s trying, she’s really trying, but when you reach the absolute sewer and you’re swimming in shit; best call it a day.

And I’m a Democrat. (Theoretically, of course, as I’m not American. Though I think as the rest of the world has to suffer all the pre-election bollocks for 3 years, we should be allowed to vote).

Donald Trump, the man already declared as ‘the most unfit person to be given high power since Kim Jong Un’, is, essentially, a fucking idiot. Always has been, always will be. No news there. I won’t list all the reasons why this is so; if I need to then you ain’t been paying attention for the last year. But his ‘attitude to women’ is one of the things in question. Well, its actually beyond question. In ‘Don’s World’ women are either ‘babes’ or ‘dogs’. There is nothing else. They can be brilliant, they can be benevolent, creative, helpful, Godly, whatever. It don’t matter to Don. Babes or Dogs. He can judge them in one look. The only way to find anything ‘deeper’ than superficial looks in any woman involves sexual penetration.

And Hillary’s diggers found a tape. An old tape. 11 years old. Don on a bus. Talking about women. How he likes to grope them. And they like it!! (yeah, really Don?) And he’d like to f*** this one and actually did f*** that one, even though she’s married, and… and… and… and ain’t I great, and can’t I brag and don’t I do ‘boy-talk’ really well???

Never ask a woman how old she is or what she weighs. Similarly, never ask a man how big his dick is or about his sexual exploits. Because no-one is ever honest. Except me. (Hung like a horse; 22,498 women, all at the same time; 4,672 actually died from satisfaction overload, 6000 killed themselves because they’d ‘been to heaven’ and life was no longer worth living).

I really hate political correctness. I hate the term and I hate what it means. Which is that no-one can truly say what they think about a whole spectrum of things. Like attitudes to women. Like feelings about other people. Like everything vaguely meaningful. It now has to always be filtered through the very thick lens of PC. Which means that we all lie when talking about most subjects. We speak depending on who we’re talking to and what they want to hear, what they’re prepared to hear without shock. And that ain’t ‘real’.

So to take a ‘mano-a-mano’ private conversation in which one total asshole was bragging to another and put it up against the yardstick of political correctness should be beyond even American campaign red lines.

We know Trump is a misogynist, we know he’s an idiot, we know he’s a neanderthal imbecile. This latest ‘find’ may confirm all of that but it also brings the judgment of those who produced it into serious question as well.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Tempers get heated at a UKIP ‘meeting’. In Strasbourg. Two UKIPpers ‘take it outside’ where an altercation occurs and one of them ends up in hospital after suffering seizures. That one was Steven Wolfe, one of the potential new leaders of their party. Nigel Farage, the leader, ex-leader, leader-again, ex-leader-again, now temporary leader once more, said that if fisticuffs were involved then the members would be suspended for ‘bringing the party into disrepute’.

How disreputable do you need to be to get banned by UKIP? That’s like getting thrown out of a gay bar for being too camp. Like being thrown out of Arsenal for being too smug. Like being… well, lots of things. All bad.

UKIP have no reputation. They are a fucking joke. Always have been. As I stated many years ago, ‘they’re BNP in suits’. I think I said that. If I didn’t, I really wish I had. They elected a new leader who lasted 18 days. Basically, reading between the lines, because she was (and still is) a woman and the neanderthal party members couldn’t get their rather thick heads around such a ‘modern’ concept of ‘woman-in-charge’ and they obstructed her every move.

The ‘boys will be boys!!’ argument really doesn’t apply here. The whole point of politics is to debate. To hold differing views and resolve them or at least try to accommodate them. Not to take a swing at someone. That’s what thugs do. Which is really the point with UKIP. Who, other than me mate Wayne, are a bunch of thugs. Who had but one message which is now over. GET OUT OF EUROPE!!!! That was it. Done that, time to go away.

Also time for Shaykh Hamza to go away. He’s here to give talks at a Shia Muslim school in London. His view is that God is all-merciful. Except for gays. According to him, the ‘best’ thing to do with homosexuals is ‘behead them’. Followed by, in order: burn them to death, throw them off a cliff, tear down a wall so they die under it and finally: a combination of those. Or, ‘all of the above’, if you feel like having some real mercifulness. Yet Shaykh reckons he’s not in any way trying to spread hatred or violence.

He should attend a UKIP meeting.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

There are times in one’s life when choices need to be made. Sometimes uncomfortable choices. Big choices. Sophie’s choices. ‘Should I eat the lamb or the beef?’ Sometimes even more important than even that. ‘Should I vote Trump or Clinton?’ ‘Go to the football or out for dinner?’

That fine, upstanding nation of Iran (???) have no choice. They’re playing a World Cup qualifier against South Korea. FIFA told them when to play it. They have no choice. Even though it falls during the most somber, sober, sad festival for Shia Muslims.

This ‘festival’ is a ‘celebration’ of the death of Mohammad’s grandson, which pretty much set up the divide between Shia and Sunni Islam. So its a big time for Iranians; the biggest Shia nation we are so fortunate to have. And the ‘festival’ is ‘celebrated’ by, basically, beating yourself up in public. The harder you do so, the better a person you are. Its simple. You display grief, you pound your chest, you hit yourself with sticks and stuff.

What you don’t do is cheer, scream with joy, hug a centre-back, do the Klinsman ‘dive’. It would offend… whoever. Whether that ‘whoever’ be in the heavens, in which case you take your chances, or whether that ‘whoever’ wears a peaked cap and carries a pistol and a baton and is there to enforce the will of the guys in black hats and capes.

The problem with religious states, whatever the religion, is that there is no freedom of choice. If that’s how the Iranians like it, then good for them. But there must be one or two Iranians (no names; couldn’t pronounce them anyway) who are less… less passionate, less dogmatic, less stringent in their adherence to the spiritual ways and more concerned with whether they’re gonna play 4-4-2 or a midfield diamond. My kind’a religion. As Mel often says: ‘football is the new religion’. Except in reality its much more important than religion.

The Ayatollah’s main-dude is worried that ‘there is no guarantee that if Iran score then someone in the country may celebrate’. A big worry.

So let me put the Ayatollah’s mind at rest. Iran have no fucking chance whatsoever of scoring a goal. They’re a shit team and ever since Spurs signed Son Heung-Min, I’m the biggest South Korea fan around.

No nation should put its rules and regulations above football. Its against the laws of nature.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I’m always amazed when I look at the American presidential campaigns. Because they’re so different from our own. I know, we don’t have Presidents, we have a Queen, God bless her, and no-one votes for her. But we have Prime Ministers and that role has certainly, over the last 20 or so years, become much more ‘presidential’ than before.

Our electoral system votes for individuals in local areas. And the party that ends up with the most individuals becomes the government. The leader of the governing party is the PM, but it is essentially the party that you vote for, or your individual MP. You don’t ‘vote for the PM’ directly. Which is why when Theresa May was asked whether there should be an election because ‘no-one voted for her as PM’ she could rightly say that it wasn’t necessary as the voters had the party they voted for, with just a ‘minor’ change in leadership. Issues of total changes to the manifesto that voters were given tend to be ignored at such times.

Our system reflects our ‘condition’. It is impersonal, detached and relatively calm. It is very British.

Americans are different. They’re never impersonal, detached and certainly not calm. They shout a lot. And so the presidential elections again reflect those very differences.

And they are dirty. Really dirty. And if you find a bit of ‘dirt’ you don’t just mention it, en passant, or allude to it in subtle ways. Americans do subtlety like they do irony. Instead they take out a tv advertising campaign to let the nation know of the latest dirt dug up on their foe.

Hence Hillary’s latest one about Trump’s lack of tax payment. To which he replied: “no tax paid! How clever am I??” So she said: “so clever you managed to lose a billion dollars in one year, ya shmuck!” and so it went on.

The ever-nearing election has caused a dilemma. Republicans hate Trump and Democrats hate Clinton. A bit of a problem. But faced with horrible choices they’ll vote along party lines. Because the core values to Americans are what’s important. Security (Trump wants to build walls and get rid of ‘foreigners’, even ones born there, which is most of the population at some point), more guns (very Republican), anti-abortion (Republican), or pro-‘choice’ (Democrat), keeping the KKK (Republican), providing welfare (Democrat).

What’s odd is that you only ever see Hillary and Don only talking to their own supporters. Singing to the choir. I suppose we all need to feel the lurve.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Dont’cha just hate it when you go to bed at night and wake up 9.6 million pounds of jewellery poorer? Oh, not again!!! you think. Phah!

Kim Kardashian went to bed in Paris in a very shi-shi hotel. One that can provide the special beds she requires that don’t cause static electricity when in contact with silicon. The potential with KK in that situation is estimated to be able to run the national grid for 17 hours.

So she went to bed, wearing 9 million quid’s worth of jewels and a fleecy, winciette nightgown from the closing down sale at BHS. Allegedly.

Robbers broke in, put a gun to poor Kimsy’s head and made her hand over all the valuables.

This is a crime against humanity. It represents the worst offense ever perpetrated to the whole of mankind. The magnitude of this will have repercussions for generations; morally, socially, saniti-ly.

WHY DIDN’T HE PULL THE TRIGGER WHEN HE HAD THE CHANCE??????

Jesus fucking Christ, Kim Kardashian, the world’s most self-serving, vapid, vacuous, egotistical end-point of the evolution of cosmetic surgery; the Frankenstein woman of her generation, the spin-off queen responsible for the dimming down of the entire tv networks, and there she was, in their cross-hairs. She has no cross hairs, they’re removed by lazer. Yet the coup de gras was not given. The opportunity lost.

I hope they catch these criminals, give them life in prison watching re-runs of all the Kardashian shit that they are now TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR. Generations of the bastards, all with their own mindless ‘shows’. How much shopping can anyone watch in one lifetime?

Ok, just so’s you know, the operation was a complete success. The shoulder. Mine. Injections, knitting needles, pain, remember? So just for the record: I LOVE CORTISONE. It has, quite literally, changed my life. Ok, gotta do some sadist’s idea of ‘physiotherapy’ to ensure all stays well but wow; that stuff is brilliant. Pain to painless in just 45 minutes of massive fucking needles.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx