Andy's Glasses

For the times, said Bob Dylan, they are a’changin’. He wrote some of his best lines whilst stoned out of his box. Yet that doesn’t dilute them or lessen them. Nor make them less valid today than when he wrote them.

The times are a’changin’. We have a new prime minister (in case you missed that). She’s a gel. Well, a woman. And we have a new foreign secretary. Boris. He’s a boy. England have a new football manager in (Big) Sam Allardyce, and good luck to him. He’s gonna need it.

And so the last remaining piece of the puzzle of international stuff, is America. The Presidency. Because we now know who the two candidates are going to be. Oh, we’ve known it unofficially for about a year, but there’s a rule in the American Constitution that states candidates cannot be officially endorsed by quiet, discrete or subtle means. THEY HAVE TO SHOUT IT FROM THE HIGHEST POINT, THROUGH THE LOUDEST MICROPHONE WITH AS MANY WHOOPS AND YEE-HAAAHS AS THEY CAN WHILST SAYING ‘I LOOOOOVVVVEEEE YOUOUOU’ to the population multiple times. Unless you’re loud and brash, you can’t stand for president. I don’t make the rules, just obey them. The President of The United States of America is not a ‘statesman’ in the normal sense. He (or She) is a fucking ROCK STAR!!! And must always act as such during ‘the process’. Otherwise known as ‘the interminable process’.

Yet all is not happiness and joy in Democrat land. Hillary received more than a ‘little help’ from the Democratic National Committee (DNC, not to be confused with Run DMC; 80s rap band; they don’t get to influence high level politics). The DNC decided that Hillary was ‘their man’ because they didn’t want Bernie Sanders and his rather un-American form of neo-socialist populism. No, they wanted Hillary, so they campaigned against Bernie and forced Hillary in, even though she’d have probably won anyway. And, of course, they made sure that all and any suggestions of any kind of dodgy, biased or influential nature were written down and stored, kept on multiple computers with copies and ccs sent everywhere. You wouldn’t want to act in a shady way and be discrete about it; what’s the point in that? So the emails were hacked, the DNC exposed and all the more grist in Donald Trump’s mill.

Oddly there is a suggestion that the actual hacking was done by Russian state hackers. (They’re in the Kremlin, next door to the athlete doping department). Who released the emails to wikileaks to circulate. Why would the Russians do that? Why would they want Quick Draw Trump with his finger on the ‘nuke’ button? Hmmmm…

You can’t vote for Trump; he’s an ass. But can you trust Hillary???

Vote Michelle. I love Michelle.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

When Jeremy Corbyn becomes Chairman of the United Kingdom, by then a communist state with an ‘executive committee’ of comrades, rather than parliament, future elections banned due to being unnecessary under the new regime of fairness and equality (for all except women, Jews and anyone else he doesn’t like), capitalism will be gone from these shores. Little Britain will be an EU-free island of wonderful, caring, gentle, soft, touchy-feely political standing filled with love and peace and harmony. All administered by Momentum’s (by then) armed thugs and militant trade unionists. Len McClusky will be minister for charm. A statue of Bob Crowe will stand in Trafalgar Square, replacing that fascist bourgeoise war-monger, Lord Nelson. The ‘working people of this country’ will change from being the most abused phrase by all political parties, to being the dominant class. So they can stop working. Come out from the pits (which have all closed anyway), leave the production lines (Japan having moved all operations to Belgium) and instead claim state payments and spend quality time down the pub. Production will cease, the economy will implode, but we’ll all be really happy.

If only.

But now from a most unlikely source, anti-capitalist mantras are being chanted. Theresa May. Our Prime Minister, our leader, our main Conservative, wants to change capitalism. Always a tricky one in a free market economy. And the most anti-Tory message any Tory could ever spout. And yet she has a point. Some things have gone ‘too far’. Even for me. And I’ve applied for re-instatement of legal slavery.

The rail bosses have pocketed, between them (and there’s only 3 worth considering) 20 million quid in the last 5 years. Whilst producing a service generally described as ‘worse than shit, not much better than nothing’. Ok, they work hard, I’m sure, though not so hard that they don’t do non-exec roles in their spare time, but they fail miserably at the primary task. To get the trains taking people (yes, working people) to work. They have to get paid, and properly paid too, as men of such standing would earn in any other sector. But bonuses? How do you arrive at a bonus situation when your work has failed and your debt increased?

Then there’s the ‘big 2’. Big in girth, at least. Mike Ashley and Philip Green.

Big Mike does indeed make zillions from his Sports Direct empire. Unfortunately, he beat me to the whole slavery thing and rules his underpaid staff in a way that would actually make a Victorian workhouse overseer wince.

And Philip Green, Mr Shifty, though I did give him the benefit of the doubt when the BHS scandal first erupted, and still try to be equivocal, is an irredeemable shit. How’s that for ‘equivocal’?

Ok, time to go and be a capitalist pig. WHERE’S MY COAT, FOOTMAN??? TAKE THAT!!!!!

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

this is the face of the Olympics. The ‘Brazilian Bottom’. Ok, for those really up to speed on bikini styles, its actually the Brazilian Bottoms, referring of course the (very) briefs and not what is contained therein. Generally, if swimwear is more swim-not-wearing, then its Brazilian in title if not origin. Brazilian used to be used to refer just to footballers and waxing, now it has many flavours.

The actual ‘face’ of the Olympics is that of Gisele, the apparent embodiment of the Girl from Ipanema. And that’s for the opening ceremony. Which is not so much a ‘ceremony’ these days as as a show. A very flamboyant and expansive show. And apparently the Brazilian take on this will involve a lot of beautiful girls and a lot of Brazilian Bottoms. They’re opting for a kind of soft-core porn approach. Which is the right spirit for the occasion. They want it to be fun. Even without the Russians. However hard that sounds.

And yet, after final consideration by the International Olympic Committee yesterday, giving the matter due consideration (receiving bribes), taking account of options (death threats to their families from the KGB) and using the even and fair hand of justice (capitulating, caving in, wimping out and acting like a bunch of tossers), they have given the Russians something of a reprieve. In fact they’ve let Russia off completely and changed the entire nature of the ‘punishment’ (what there is of it) to not fit the crime.

The whole point was that the drugging of Russian athletes was institutionalised and actually run as a state-organised program, like other countries have ‘feed the poor’ programs, Russia has ‘drug the athletes’ ones. In all likelihood the athletes themselves were at best ‘encouraged’ to take performance enhancing drugs. At worst they were simply told to take them or spend the rest of your career in Siberia. The state provided the drugs, it made/forced/encouraged the taking of them, it sorted out those pesky urine samples. This was never about individual athletes, cheats though they may be. It was about Russia. Who institutionalised that cheating, set up a separate polit-bureau for it, probably have a few ministers for drug-taking.

The IOC in their (fear? complicity?? wankiness???) ‘decision’ has implicitly exonerated Russia from all responsibility for this crime. They’ve made it about the athletes, the ones who are drug abusers, not about the country, for making it happen. Possibly forcing it to happen.

Of course I feel for the few honest, exceptionally hard-working Russian athletes who’ve given their lives to their sport just for the opportunity to represent their (rotten, foul, corrupt) country at the Olympics. Its every athlete’s dream. Yet it was Russia who committed the crime and the entire nation should have been banned.

The IOC is the new FIFA. Tossers.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

If you want to learn about Jeremy Corbyn as he likes to be portrayed, read the Guardian. They share his stated ideals, pretty much all of them, from a fairly hard-left stance to the anti-semitic undertones, with ne’er a mention of the alleged threats to women Labourites of rape, murder or just plain ‘de-selection’ if they don’t toe the Corbyn line.

If you’d rather read a more rabid description, filled with any and all connections to a more devious, conniving side of Le Corbyn, read the Mail on Sunday. Who attack poor Jeremy regularly, as ‘the mouthpiece of the Right’ should do.

The truth, the ‘real’ Corbyn, probably lies somewhere in between the two. But we have a ‘free press’, more so than in any other country, so as long as there’s some element of truth, or failing that, a low probability of sufficient contradictory evidence that might result in a libel suit, you can write what you want. And I love that.

Ironically, for Corbyn, whose main stated line is that everything should be ‘more democratic’, he’d probably restrict that free press should he ever (heaven forbid) become PM.

I can forgive hypocrisy. Ok, I lied, I can’t. Its fucking unforgivable. And shows startling lack of judgment.

Where is the ‘new, democratic’ way of running a political party when dissenters are threatened with de-selection from the party? How can you claim sympathy for underpaid clothing workers in Bangladeshi sweatshops, then use those very sweatshops to provide all the party line t-shirts?

And how can you preach about a ‘new, kinder, more gentle’ type of politics when you use a militant organisation filled with anarchists, bullies and thugs, to enforce your will? Because that’s what ‘Momentum’ is. Corbyn’s private army.

And now we learn that Momentum are affiliated with a fairly ‘hard’ (not to say ‘extremist’) Muslim organisation, the leader of which is a holocaust denier. Claimed David Irving told ‘the truth’ in the book which eventually sent him to jail.

Even worse than hypocrisy, even more serious than threats and bullying to achieve ‘democratic aims’, is being plain stupid.

If people choose to hate the Jews, that is their right. If they find fault with Israel, they’re allowed. Do what you like, say what you like. But don’t ‘deny’ a truth. You can’t just pick one single massively documented and undeniable part of history and ‘deny’ it. Its like denying Hitler. Denying the Romans. Denying gravity. Makes no sense. Serves no purpose.

Happy Sunday, the sun’s still shining, its still hot and lovely, perfect day for winding yourself up reading the fucking papers.

A xxxx

In bridge you strive to make a ‘contract’ to play the hand. And if you and partner can’t agree a suit that you both hold sufficiently, when all else fails, you play in ‘no trump’. In which… doh… there is no trump suit. Its the last measure.

Thus in America. All else has failed so now they too, as a nation, must resort to a No Trump policy. Its that simple. Bridge as a metaphor for political life, for last resorts, for the saviour of all mankind.

Because the Republicans have now chosen The Don as their presidential candidate. Well, the Republicans minus Ted Cruz, who refused to endorse his former rival. And like God ‘chose’ the jews to be ‘his people’ and thus condemn them to 4 millennia of persecution, hatred and abuse, thus should we treat America’s chosen one.

“AAAAHHHHMM GONNA MAKE AMEEEEERRRRRICA GREAEAEAEATTTTT AGIN!!!!” (No mention how this might come about, but heh, its America, a nation of believers).

“AAAAHHHHMM GONNA MAKE AMEEEEEERRRRRRICA SAFE AGIN!!!!” (Once more; big on ideals, a bit light on details. In fact not one detail other than the wall building shit and ‘keeping forinners out’).

And then, in Cleveland, he added that he would no longer see the violence and aggression in ‘our country’ AT THE POLICE. So no prizes for guessing which ‘side’ the Trumpster stands on that one. The aggression directed at the police must stop. No mention of what caused that aggression. Not in Don’s world. Its irrelevant.

For the sake of all that is holy, I implore the good people of America (there must be at least a dozen or so, surely?) NOT to vote Trump as the next president. As well as being stupid, ill-informed and risible, it would be fucking dangerous.

Here’s an expression that is officially outdated, redundant, obselete: ‘how did you hear about that??’

Asked this morning of me after I’d congratulated a lady I know on her son’s engagement. He proposed on Thursday night. Did she expect me to read about it in the Times social calendar next Wednesday? Await a postcard? View the postings on the Town Hall notice board??

Within 37 seconds of the acceptance of the proposal the status of the bride to be on Facebook changed to ‘engaged’, a photo appeared on her instagram feed 22 seconds later having posed fiancee back in the ‘down on one knee’ position. Within 3 minutes the news had been ‘liked’ by 4,592 people in 73 different countries. It all happens so quickly that even me, who follows none of the above and reveres ‘oblivious’ as an aspirational state, heard from numerous people.

So ‘how did you hear’, simply has no relevance in the modern world. Ditch it.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Do you like bananas? There’s an 80% chance that your answer is ‘yes’. We all love bananas. Except the 20% of bananaphobes who obviously don’t. So for practical purposes we can simply ignore them and consider just those of us who love those little yellow packages of wonderfulness.

I eat a banana every day. Mainly because apparently its inappropriate to eat hamburgers for breakfast. Even McBreakfast ones. Apparently. So I eat my banana and feel my body fill with sweetness and potassium and health and vitality and goodness.

So the next question is: how d’ya like yer bananas? Not in a ‘fried or boiled’ sense, but in a ‘just a tiny bit green by the stalk’ or ‘just turning a few brown spots’, kind’a way. I like mine yellow. No green, no brown, just yellow. I measure them on my patented ‘yellow-ometer’ for perfection, then examine them under a microscope for hints of brownage, and if they’re not totally, absolutely, unquestionably perfect… I eat them anyway.

But apparently most people don’t. As a nation we throw away 160 million bananas a year. There are monkeys and elephants crying real tears just reading that. But its true. And because we all love a graphic representation of stupidity; if laid end to end, those bananas would stretch from England to New Zealand. Not sure if that’s using the Panama Canal or going round the Cape. Either way its a hell of a lot of bananas. And a hell of a lot of waste.

Which is a serious first world problem. Food waste. We’ve all become totally princessy about food perfection. I know I have. Little bit’a mould never killed no-one. In fact its where antibiotics come from, so is arguably better for you than the food that’s creating it.

Check out ‘Olio’, its a free app that puts people about to waste what is often perfectly good food in touch with local folk who want it and will even pay something for it in some cases. Its so easy to use, maybe even monkeys and elephants will use it and we can stop wasting all those fucking bananas.

And take your vitamin D supplement. Its the new ‘biggest thing ever’. Because otherwise you’ll get osteoperosis, bad breath, warts and will lose the ability to play Mozart on the piano. We’re fine in the summer, cos we get it from the sun. But all winter we shrivel and harden due to a lack of Vit. D. Some of us, those blessed with really obsessive wives, have been taking it daily for years and didn’t even realise til yesterday when it was in all the papers. You don’t have to take it. You’ll just FUCKING DIE!!! Instead you can eat the right food. Like eggs. Unfortunately you’ll need 10 of them a day to get the required amount. Or an entire tuna fish. All 27 kg of it.

Though don’t worry unduly. By next week there’ll be a ‘death from vitamin D!!!’ scare and we can all go back to eating burgers for breakfast.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Every time there’s an Olympic games new sports seem to arrive, be included, get invented. Last time it was tennis. Never previously olympicised, now part of the games. Before that was basketball. Might as well just give an extra gold medal to America and save the air fares. This year they’re introducing golf and rugby sevens. Golf. Chess was rejected. Next time possibly karate.

It used to be so easy. If the Romans did it; runnin’, throwin’ spears, hurling heavy things, jumpin’, shootin’, ridin’ horses, Greco-Roman homoerotica, then it was ‘olympic’. If they didn’t; darts, fucking golf, Pokemon Go, then it wasn’t. But it went further. The Olympics was strictly amateur. No professionals allowed. Back in Chariots of Fire days you could be disqualified for having a paid coach. Nowadays its Ferrari City in Olympic-land and they even have football. So they’ve reached beyond the point of ‘no soul required’.

I loved the ideal of beating your body to shit and back for absolutely no financial gain whatsoever. For the sport. I loved that. Long as it wasn’t me doing it. Personally, I won’t get in the shower in the morning without a sponsorship deal from Showergel. Then they start to allow a little ‘expenses’ cash to change hands and the next thing the tv rights have gone Satellite and no self-respecting participant will piss in a bottle for less than £50k.

The only worthwhile addition to the Olympics of late is beach volleyball. Only the women’s.

They now want to get jousting accepted as an Olympic Sport. Why? Well, because some people like it and its really skilful. So is pick-pocketing. Or washing the dishes. And jousting is like, really ‘old’. Just like the Olympics itself. Maybe they should have ‘witch-hunting’ as an Olympic sport? Bring out the ducking stools. Well, that’s old and its certainly fun to watch. Much more so than golf.

I’m actually happy with jousting. Its like a Knight’s Tale all over again. And I dearly love that film. But I think the world’s ‘big sports’ like golf, like football, basketball and tennis, which already get excessive coverage on tv, just shouldn’t be there. Let someone else have a turn. Like Sir Ulrich.

And if they accept chess as an olympic ‘sport’ (they have applied), then I’m going to get bridge in there too. An equally brilliant spectator sport (zzzzzzzzzzz).

Happy Olympic Ideals

A xxxx

They’re gonna kick the Russians out of the Olympic games. In Rio. In a couple weeks time. We really need to kick the Americans out too, then we’d have a much better chance of winning loads and loads of medals. But the Americans don’t take drugs. Not in an institutionalised, Government-sponsored, state-aided, industrial kind’a way. Like the Russians do. A KGB officer comes in personally every day to force a tablet down your throat or inject your thigh. He has a gun. You don’t argue. Then when the urine samples are required, the KGB man comes back with a sample from his mum and swaps it with your own drug-tainted one. Easy. Effective. Until you get caught. Then its shame, humiliation and horror.

And what a shame for the athletes, training their little Russian socks off every day in the gym, on the tracks, in the pools, to be the pawns in Putin’s lust for glory. Which is what it all comes down to. Appeasing the masses because the economy’s gone to shit, the world hates us and everything is doom and gloom. Again. Never mind, give them a few olympic medals, that’ll cheer ’em up in the bread lines.

Of course, this is announced in Russia as ‘lies and persecution by the Western media’ but even the Russians must doubt that.

What’ll happen to the 2018 World Cup? In Russia? Which should never have gone to Russia, no more than the 2022 one should be in Qatar. All the result of corruption. I really think that in the aftermath of the upheavals at FIFA and the end of the hateful Sepp Blatter, these decisions need to be reconsidered.

But no need to reconsider the next Royal (ish) Wedding. Oh no. Pippa Middleton and her man are getting wed and have already had some serious reconsideration during the various splits in their tempestuous relationship over the last few years. But no more. The date is set, my suit is pressed, the wedding is on. The girl who upstaged a princess just by bending over in a tight dress is to have her own wedding to her own Hedge Fund Dude. Like all hedge funders, he’s dull as dishwater, sexually inadequate, probably supports Arsenal, and is richer than Croesus.

Congratulations to Pippa and, er, Whass’is’name.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

In the bad ole days of football, the early 1970s, extreme right wing organisations would recruit from football fans. It was easy. No mention of politics, ideology or social justice was required. Just the fact that if you joined the National Front (which no longer exists, being replaced by the also defunct British National Party with the remainder going on to UKIP), you would get the opportunity to fight. Lots of people and very often. Where do I sign? Will a ‘X’ do? And thus the skinhead movement, which had started as a kind of extension of the Mods for those who preferred reggae to R&B, became hi-jacked by the Nationalists and later the two became blurred. I’m not sure if you can still be a skinhead without nazi affiliation, I need to read the rules.

The point is that sociopathic nutters are not born political, they’re just born plain nasty. Or possibly raised in an environment that accentuates their nastiness. And are easily exploited by evil political, or quasi-religious organisations who offer them what they really want, which is the opportunity to act in a sociopathic way.

Mohamed Bouhlel, the Bastille Day murderer, was just such a soul. Mentally unstable, violent and sadistic and pretty much a worthless individual with no value system. He became ‘radicalised’ 2 weeks before his suicide mission. 2 weeks. Not really sufficient time to embrace the entire mis-reading of the Quran from a jihadi viewpoint, just long enough to be given a fantastic excuse to perpetrate an horrendous act of mindless violence.

He hadn’t even lived as a Muslim. He was bisexual, actively so, drank, took drugs, beat his wife and, (this is always mentioned so I feel I have to), ‘ate pork’. As if acting outside religious dietary laws is a strong indicator of militant tendency.

So in 2 weeks he grows a beard, just to show which side he’s now on, and learns how to increase his own violent leanings in an exponential way.

ISIS claimed responsibility but they would. They’d claim a fender bender in Wyoming if someone got hurt. There is no evidence that Bouhlel was approached or in contact with ISIS. He didn’t need to be. All he needed was some radical tosser telling him that his worthless life can not only have value but, that if he dies a martyr all his previous sins and misdemeanours will be forgiven.
As if any ‘god’ of any religion, any colour, any stripe, would condone such a thing. And Mo had some ‘form’. Lots of it, crimes, drug offences, many blots on his record and was in need of some forgiveness.

Mohamed Bouhlel was a disaster waiting to happen. He could just as easily have become a killer for the Front Nacionale or the IRA. The cause was irrelevant. He was simply a violent act waiting to happen. He just needed the right ‘push’.

And he was pushed. And it did happen.

That’s even more worrying.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

There’s only ever been one atomic bomb fired ‘in anger’. It hit Hiroshima in 1945 and a couple months later the war ended. You may have heard of this event. It was big. Sorry, it was BIGGGG!!!!!! And horrendous. Awful. Three generations later, they still haven’t got over it completely. Nuclear matter doesn’t ‘die’, it lives for thousands/millions of years. As we now understand a little better than we did when Oppenheimer’s ‘deadly toy’ laid waste to thousands and thousands.

In a way Hiroshima was a good thing. Obviously not necessarily for the former inhabitants, but as ‘the precedent’. The warning. To provide the ultimate threat. A threat to put fear into the hearts of even National leaders. And the entire ‘cold war’ and the ultimate military structure of the world today is based upon that threat. If you fire at me it will destroy me, but before it does I’ll have launched one at you. Won’t make me any more ‘alive’ but it’ll make us all feel a lot better. Ish. Don’t get mad; get even.

So are nations that don’t possess ‘the nuclear deterrent’ at greater risk than those who do? I have no idea. Never want to have any idea. Happy in my ignorance.

And our nuclear weapon of choice, and necessity, is a trident missile. Launched from a submarine. And our subs are 25 years old, bit rusty, probably leak a bit, barnacles, who knows what 25 years underwater could do to a lump of metal. So we need to replace them. Replace the Trident System completely. Or not. So they’re voting today.

To replace it costs (approx) £35billion. Haven’t looked on ebay to see if I can get it cheaper yet but it does sound a lot. To replace something we’ve never used and will probably never need. But…

You kind’a have to have a deterrent. Otherwise those who are nuked up can nuke us without fear of reprisal. And reprisal is all. Or the threat of it. We can have movable sites to fire from, but they’re not very good, or we can have hidden silos. But for the latter, apparently, you’d need ‘an area the size of Wales’ to get an equivalent protection to the subs. Well, if it saves a few bob, let’s use Wales then. Now the football’s over its not like it serves any other purpose.

Decision today in Parliament. To nuke or not to nuke. That’s the real question. Do we want to maintain our presence as a nuclear force, or wimp out into Corbynland and remain unprotected to the Putins and other nutters, of whom there are sadly many.

Happy Monday; LET’S HOPE ITS NOT OUR LAST!!!!

A xxxx