Andy's Glasses

Its amazing (and, ok, a bit sad… tragic almost) how much I miss football. Last weekend’s ‘International break’, though tolerable in that JUST GET THROUGH IT!!! way, was awful. When they kicked off yesterday afternoon, I sighed a big, loving, healthy sigh of relief. I missed my children when they moved out from home (kicked out, actually), but nothing like the emotion and upset caused by one week of Premiership missing.

And what a week. For Bournemouth. Fucking Bournemouth!!!! Beating Hull 6-1. Great result for the Bournes. I like that name. Its Jason, its tough, ruthless, its Matt Damon, Robert Ludlum. ‘Cherries’ is a bit limp, I’m afraid. Its ok in Division 1 but not for where they are now.

Spurs went to West Bromwich. Lucky Spurs. And we were great, then we were shit, then Nacer Chadli, of all people, did what all Spurs rejects do and scored against his old masters. Then Dele Alli equalised so we still haven’t lost a game. But we have lost a player. Not just ‘a player’ but probably the most important player in the world.

Toby Alderweireld. Him. Spurs best player since the day he arrived. The most amazing Belgium since Tintin. Ok, you fucking think of famous Belgiums. Not counting Eddie Merx (because most people over 35 won’t know the name) or Jean Claude van Dam who is very silly. Belgium simply doesn’t produce people of interest other than footballers. Yet oddly produces a disproportionately high number of those.

And Toby twisted his knee. And knees are horrible things. As in ‘out for months’ kind of horrible, but we don’t know yet. Need some scans. Oh please let it be just… just… something not very bad.

Arsenal were at times horribly brilliant and at others wonderfully fragile as they pretty much blew away Swansea. Theo Walcott will be 98 years old by the time we actually decide whether he’ll ever reach ‘all that potential’. Having for years failed in his efforts to be a consistent ‘scorer of great goals’, he’s actually now not doing badly as a ‘great scorer of goals’. From Thierry Henry to Gary Linneker in one season. But both only in wild aspiration.

Manchester City. ‘The team to watch’ according to all who ‘know’. Yet they can’t win a game at the moment. Missing one penalty is unfortunate. Missing two… shows that ‘stutter-stepping’ is for absolute tossers. Even if those tossers look remarkably like Sergio Aguero, the best player in England. But you gotta love Pep Guardiola. He’s a mensch. Bet he’s really looking forward to returning to Barcelona on Tuesday after City’s poor run of form.

If you don’t like football, I have no idea why you’re still reading this. But if you don’t, then go and see Hunt for the Wilderpeople instead. Its a truly wonderful, very different and absolutely charming New Zealand film. Totally magical and brilliant.

Happy Sunday, get well Toby, get well

A xxxx

All men are rapists. Except Donald Trump and Ched Evans. The courts have said so.

Well, the court spoke about Ched, Don is just the ‘victim of a vile and sustained campaign by the Democrats and the Liberal press’ against him.

Which creates the bizarre situation in which possibly the two most vile, abusing, misogynistic, neanderthal, objectifying and evil men are emphatically NOT rapists.

Where does that leave the rest of us? Holy shit!!!

Don’s never actually (or rather ‘yet’) been accused of rape. He’s spoken about it, he’s certainly into being a serial gropist without consent, he’d like to, virtually all day every day, but even The Big Tosser apparently has some limits. Not enough, but some.

Ched Evans is a different thing altogether. Acquitted of the rape charge he was found guilty of last year. The Wales and (then) Sheffield United footballer appealed and won yesterday. In part due to his girlfriend’s offer of £50,000 to witnesses leading to his release, and in part due to the virtually unheard of ‘evidence’ about the victim’s sexual history.

So once again the court was led to that fateful night, filled with all the glamour and up-marketness of the world of (not-quite) Premiership football, and the events at the Premiere Inn in Rhyl. And the lovely, caring, tender text message sent by Ched’s mate, whilst he was actually fucking ‘the victim’ saying: “got one”.

At which point Ched headed for the hills. Or the Premiere Inn, as its called in Welsh.

He never denied having sex with the drunk, unconscious?, girl, but it all came down to consent. Maybe, just before she blacked out from the alcohol his friend had been plying her with, she did consent. She may have said: ‘once I pass out, get yer mate here to fuck me senseless. Even though I’m already senseless and soon to be in a coma. I love a threesome, even when I’m not awake to actually be aware its happening’. She may have done. You just don’t know. Reasonable doubt. Which was certainly present when the girl’s ‘history’ of just such an act was told the court by ‘witnesses’ who were in no way moved by the potential 50k on the table.

Rapist or not, Ched Evans would be the biggest scumbag in the whole world, if it wasn’t for the existence of Donald Trump. Who’s had a 40 year head start on the Welshman.

If, like me, you go to the cafe and think: hmmmmm, pain au chocolate or almond croissant? The eternal dilemma. Love chocolate, adore almond. Well here’s the solution, provided this morning by our new local ‘artisan’ baker. I only went in for a loaf of bread but something about this just… just… just CALLED ME. BY NAME. REPEATEDLY. An almond pain au chocolate. Hardly any calories. And possibly the most obscenely wonderful thing I’ve eaten since… the last thing I ate. A snip at £2.60. TWO POUND SIXTY!!!! FOR THAT!!!!! I too was amazed by the price. Until the first mouthful melted. And it suddenly seemed a bargain. O.M.G.

Happy FAT Saturday

A xxxx

Ok, so we all accept that electric cars are ‘the future’. Not a nice future, not a very fast, noisy, V8-rumbly future, but ‘a’ future. And if they’re going to be electric, they might as well be driverless because the whole point of driving is for fun and electric cars are as much fun to drive as spending a night at the opera, so its going to be dull. Therefore: driverless.

And if they’re driverless, you won’t actually need to own one. There’s no point. We’ll all belong to ‘schemes’ and ‘clubs’ and stuff and when we need a car we’ll just ‘app’ one and it’ll arrive in 3 minutes. Unlike Uber, it won’t have Mo in it, it’ll be empty. Take you where you need to get and then sit there waiting for its next call. When you want to go home you just call another.

You won’t need taxis either, at such a time. So expect more demonstrations and road-blocks from Hackney Carriages some time soon. No-one will ever say ‘ere, guess who I had in my driverless car today; you won’t believe it…’ because there’ll be no-one to say it.

The future. Not too distant either as everyone is working on driverless, electric cars, and they are among us already. In some form. Samsung will probably make one too. It’ll come with a very large fire extinguisher on the roof.

So; you’re driving your (proper, driven, peopled) car down the road, 40mph, listening to Bob Dylan because he’s a nobel laureate, and suddenly a woman pushes her baby buggy into the road 20 yards ahead. In that way some do, just, kind’a, push the baby out, as a tester, so he can see if there’s a 40 ton truck bearing down, or whether its safe for her to cross.

And you slam on the breaks and have about 1.3 seconds before inevitable impact with the buggy. Or, you can veer onto the other side of the road where a school bus is heading towards you at 35mph.

You do a calculation; pretty quick one, obviously, and your maths is really not that great. Yet doesn’t need to be. We’re hard-wired with a sense of preservation and a sense of morality. Well, I am. But to kill a baby? Or kill lots of other kids, and probably yourself too?? What if that bus was filled with Arsenal fans??

There’s no answer, no ‘right and wrong’, you’d do what you would do, same as I would. Who fucking knows; we just hope we never have to.

But driverless cars don’t have fretting, panicking, morality-cursed humans at the wheel. They have no wheel. They have… Google! Which is not ‘AI’, nothing like. It can’t think. Nor react, it is pre-programmed.

So some motherfucker has to create a program which will tell the driverless car how to cope with such dilemmas. Whether to always save the passenger first, as Mercedes claim for theirs, or whether to use a ‘least number of deaths/injured’ option. Kill the one to save the 5, kind’a thing. And computers calculate much much MUCH quicker than you do so they can work it out.

That’s cold. Very cold.

Happy driverless, murdering Friday

A xxxx

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