Andy's Glasses

I don’t gamble. Its not a religious thing, nor set in stone. I just don’t really enjoy it. So I don’t. Some do. Lots do. A few years ago on a ski trip we were having lunch discussing the forthcoming FA cup match between Manchester United and Spurs, being screened in a bar in Courchevel that very afternoon. There were 8 of us, all boys, all football fans, except one. He was a gambler. And piped up, excitedly: “Wow, Spurs, Man United, I wonder how many multi-corners there’ll be in that one!!!!”

Stunned looks. Confusion. Had we missed something? Was there possibly a facet of the beautiful game that in 7 lifetimes of intense study, we’d somehow missed?? What the f*** is a ‘multi-corner’????

Oh, he explained, its the number of corners won by one team multiplied by the number won by the other. Multi-corners.

Ahhhh, multi-corners. Like betting on raindrops sliding down a window pane. Multi-corners. I couldn’t understand (still don’t in fact) why Spurs/Man U. would, in such a context, produce more, or indeed less, ‘multi-corners’ than Orient vs Wrexham? Gedafe vs Villareal? The Dagenham girls choir 11 vs The All Girl Mud Wrestlers First Team?

Its just a vehicle for gambling. Like raindrops. Not relevant to anything, just a random event, hence worth a punt. WHAT’S THE POINT??? You might as well just go to the local bookies and hand them 300 quid and walk out again.

Which sort of defines all gambling.

But now a scandal. Online gambling is ripping off its punters. It is an industry worth £3.5 billion a year. That means that punters are losing 3.5 billion quid a year between them. Unless one very rich one is losing it all, I don’t know the statistical breakdown. And yet the bookies change the odds. After the race is run. You think your horse has come in at 7 to 1, but they only pay you at 4 to 1. Ahhhhh, its in the small print; we can do that. And the algorithms are so great now that successful online punters are only allowed tiny bets, like 10 pence at a time, in case they eat too much into that £3,500,000,000 annual windfall. And then they don’t let punters take out their winnings in big lumps. ‘Oh no, can’t do that; its against money-laundering regulations’. The same ones that they easily manage to circumvent when punters are paying in.

I’m not anti-gambling, if people wanna be stupid, its their right. Fine by me. But I hate the constant advertising of it during football matches, tennis games, rugby, cricket, encouraging and enticing mainly kids to start on a very slippery slope. One minute you’re using mum’s credit card to put a fiver on Liverpool, the next thing she owes BetFair 3.5 billion quid. Poor woman.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

When the going gets tough, the stupid plummet to new depths of stupidity. Don’t they say that? Ok, they don’t but they will following Donald Trump’s riveting words last night as he showed the world that just when you thought no man could ever make himself look any more ridiculous, he pushed that limit even further. Went the extra mile. Downwards.

Not like I stayed up and watched the debate, I’m not daft. No, I went to bed dreaming of Lionel Messi. And in my dreams he was wearing a Spurs shirt. And I was wearing Oscar de La Renta… in coral…

I didn’t even get to see the whole of the bake-off semi-final!!! (don’t tell me, don’t tell me, don’t tell me) as Mel fell asleep and I couldn’t take the strain and pressure all by myself. Puff pastry is never easy.

Anyway, Trump. All the usual stuff, all the expected garbage, shoring up the coastline, building walls, grabbing tits, more guns, abortion is the devil’s work (“so ya might as well take a mother 9-months pregnant and kill her baby!!!!” Tosser-missing-the-point-by-a-mile) and how Hillary is unfit to govern. Which is a view shared by many.

Then he said that if he lost the election he wouldn’t accept the defeat. Think about that. And how that might work. Would he still pitch up at the White House 6 months later with his suitcase and a few assorted blondes? Demanding the keys? Or would he have a military coup to oust Hillary (assuming she’d won at this point)?

He might not accept the legitimacy of the result because its ‘rigged’. But, obviously, only if he loses. If he (God forbid a thousand times) should win, then ‘AAAHHH LUURVE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY; FARNEST IN THE WORLD”.

This is the grown up version of ‘its my ball and if we lose I’m taking it away’.

The Trumpster also spoke of his ‘friendship’ with Putin. Or his admiration at least. Why wouldn’t he admire the Russian leader? He’s another misogynistic thug who doesn’t believe in democracy. And he’s done alright for himself too. “Wouldn’t it be great to have a president on friendly terms with Russia??” “So we could fight ISIS together!!!!”

Russia have no interest in ISIS whatsoever. Never have. They’ve dropped 42,759 bombs in Syria, not one aimed at ISIS.

“Wouldn’t it be great to have a president on friendly terms with the nation who’ve murdered every last civilian in half of Western Syria, mercilessly and without thought nor care???”

Go Donald! No, but really, just fucking GO!

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

The problem with Russia is that its a problem. On virtually every level. Vladimir Putin took a country that everyone hated because of human rights abuse, international invasions, political repression and murder, secret police and all manner of evil; and managed to make it worse. That really took some endeavour. His predecessors had seen to the invasion of all neighbouring countries, chaining them behind the ‘iron curtain’, enforced by nuclear power, military might, secret police and a manner of ‘enforcing’ their will that relied on the KGB, gulags, expulsion to Siberia, killing opponents to the regime, whatever it took.

Michael Gorbachov was different. He was a statesman, a diplomat. He saw the Wall come down in Berlin and the Soviet Union unravel. He smiled while it happened. Happy that Russians would perhaps know something of the ‘freedoms’ that had eluded the previous 4 generations. Or 79 generations if you include the Tzars who also lacked any kind of ‘democratic fairness’.

Then came Vlad. Twice. And this time with a vengeance. Its like ‘Putin 2; The Sequel!!’ And under his watch came good things. Like the murder of Litvinenko. The invasion of Ukraine and now, the bombing of every living civilian in Syria. And all about a definition.

When the Russians sent their bombers to Syria, in accordance with American and UN wishes, it was to ‘fight terrorism’. Which the Americans and British were already doing, out in eastern Syria where ISIS were tucked in. Yet Putin’s planes didn’t bomb there. They were over in the West of that fine nation, bombing Aleppo. Hmmmmm. But you’re supposed to be bombing ‘the terrorists’, Vlad? I am, he cried. I’m bombing the rebels who attack Assad’s power, isn’t that terrorism? Ahhh, well that’s a different kind of ‘terrorism’ altogether and we’re not so concerned about that one because Assad’s a bad man. I know, said Vlad, that’s why I love him and will support him. So now we’re on the verge of World War 3.

On Sunday John Kerry (no less!!!!) came all the way over here to speak with Boris about Russia!!! We must DO SOMETHING. But after 17 hours realised there was nothing they could do. Without starting that war. And although no-one wants that, you had to redefine the term ‘toothless’ in the aftermath of that great ‘summit meeting of the haircuts’.

They don’t have freedom of speech in Russia. They don’t have freedom of anything. Not allowed. State controlled. Like the drugs for athletes and international computer hacking. Instead of free speech they have Russia Today (RT), the Kremlin based international tv station. Which is Putin’s propaganda machine.

So Nat West bank yesterday said they were closing the RT UK bank account. Hah! That’ll show those Russians. Right. As they immediately threatened to close the BBC accounts in Russia and report the UK for breaching freedom of speech issues. Ironic? Clever? No. Just fucking Russian.

They’re not dangerous because of the bombs, they’re dangerous because they are so clever and have not a care for how people view them.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

On these very pages, not 2 months ago (I really can’t remember which blog it was, precisely; I can’t even remember where I put my phone 6 minutes ago. My blogs are like children born on Burnley council estates, I pop ’em out and put them into care, never to think about them again), I wrote the words, along the lines: Jeremy Corbyn may not be an anti-semite but he has created a culture in which those who are feel very comfortable. And now some poxy parliamentary committee has basically nicked my words. Even though they didn’t know they existed. Bastards. Thieves. Plagiarists.

But they’re part of government so they’re allowed. They’re obviously a bit slower than the casual observer too, but we don’t expect speed of thought from the people who run our nation.

They reckon that since Corbyn’s tenure, 50 Labour MPs have been either secretly or openly been sanctioned or cautioned over anti-semitic comments. 50. In 14 months. How could anyone dare to imply some kind of institutionalised ‘safe haven’ for Jew haters? Shami Chakrabarti looked into it. During a coffee break, whilst knowing almost nothing about anti-semitism and gave Labour a ‘clean bill of health’ on that score. Ten minutes later Corbyn bestows upon her the one and only peerage he’s ever given or is likely to give. Hmmmmm.

The parliamentary all party committee went much further. They re-defined anti-semitism, something Chakrabarti didn’t deem necessary. So whilst totting up their anti-semitic incidents, they excluded specific comments about Israeli politics. Because you can criticise Israel without being an anti-semite; its allowed. But you have to be careful. Because Israel’s settlement building (which I disagree with) and its manner of coping with Hamas are indeed worthy of comment. But once you extrapolate to all of Israel, and then blur that to merely, ‘all Jews’, it becomes more of a problem.

Sadly, the new response to any accusation, however true, is to claim a conspiracy. The Trump model. Trump blames the media for his knuckle-dragging reputation even though his knuckles do certainly drag along the floor. And Corbyn claims ‘Blairites’ at the root of every claim against him, however factual and however based on fact.

Its a minefield. Fortunately, Toby Alderweireld appears only to be suffering from ‘bruised nerves’ in his knee. Praise be.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

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