Andy's Glasses

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

Manchester City were the team of the moment,
they came to the Lane and endured some torment

Six wins out of six, so far, thus the record showed
But records are for breaking, their progress to be slowed

Pep Guardiola, the total football man
watched his scheme go right down the pan

Against a Tottenham side a few key men down
the pundits said against City we would surely drown

to Navas, Aguero, Silva and all their silky skills
but they couldn’t keep the ball, that was the first of their ills.

Spurs were right at them, in their faces all
from the moment of the kick-off, their fans to enthral

We pushed them hard, pressed them high
nipped their ankles, bit their thighs (poetic license; figurative)

City looked jaded, lost and well off the money
Gave the ball away so much at times it was quite funny

Then amazingly we went a goal to the good,
Didn’t matter who scored, just that we could

Devilish Danny swung the ball in from the wing
It hit poor Aleks Kolarov, the Serbian he did sting

Yet still the Spurs came swarming, with pace and energy and style
City were lost at sea, coming second by a mile

After half time we became the gift that kept on giving
Another goal, Dele Alli, Pep inclined to be less forgiving

Then we defended, in heaven and on earth
blocking, tackling, marking, for all that we were worth

A penalty miss but other than the frustration
it didn’t spoil the win that thrilled the entire nation (the important parts of it, at least)

The Arse went up to Burnley, won with the very last kick
Which was actually the very last ‘hand’, its enough to make you sick.

We’ve got more clean sheets than the Premiere Inn
So the inevitable hope and belief now has to begin

What a wonderful start to the new year of the Jews
A big ‘shona tova’ and let’s break out the booze.

A xxxx

The first album I ever bought was ‘With the Beatles’. I was 7. Knew fuck-all about music, but I loved the Beatles. Because I was alive and conscious, in a 7 year-old kind’a way, and therefore I loved the Beatles. Everyone loved them. You simply had to. They were ‘different’ enough to be special, with their long hair and matching suits, yet normal enough (arguably, being Liverpudlians, ‘sub-normal’ might even be appropriate) that you kind of related to them rather than revered them.

Which was probably their Unique Selling Point. That and the total mass hysteria that they created from the moment Please Please Me hit the charts. Everyone became a part of the Beatles story. Albeit a pretty small part, unless you were John, Paul, George, Ringo, Brian Epstein or George Martin.

Last night I went to see the new Ron Howard movie, The Beatles: 8 days a week. And it is totally brilliant. Not just for those of us who remember some of the events shown from their insane ‘tours’, playing in front of crowds of up to 55,000 people. No, actually not ‘people’ in any regular sense, 55,000 screaming teenage girls. But really screaming. To the point that no-one could hear the music, neither the crowd nor the band.

The movie shows everyone why the Beatles were great. Mainly because they were the first ‘pop group’ who wrote and played their own brilliant music, four guys who truly loved and supported each other, but who were always funny and irreverent at a time when such a thing was tantamount to anarchy. They answered back. Which turned them into the first ever ‘superstars’, even way beyond Elvis’s wildest dreams (and he dreamed pretty ‘wild’, particularly where food was involved).

They refused to play at a stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, because it was ‘segregated’ (the American Apartheit system so popular in the South in those days), so the authorities had to de-segregate it. Which they didn’t do for the civil rights movement, but they did for the Beatles.

In an interview John had said that ‘the Beatles were bigger than Jesus’. He said it not literally (obviously; to us, at least) but ironically. The fact that 55,000 people wouldn’t have turned up for a prayer meeting but would to see the Beatles was not really what he meant. But it was ironic, thus the Americans misunderstood it, banned them, burned their records in Birmingham, Alabama (bible belt; ‘segregation’, you gotta love that southern mind-set), and issued death threats.

The movie showed the fantastic relationship between the four guys, and their wonderfully charming way of dealing with the madness they created. At the end they show the concert at the Shea Stadium before 55,000 shriekers but manage to filter out most of the screaming. And its wonderful. Four amazingly talented guys living ‘the dream’ just as it was really turning into something of a nightmare. But what music…

Go see it.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

This was me yesterday. Ok, this is just a random photo of the genre: ‘guided injections’. But imagine that victim as me, without the hat, and the jab was in my shoulder. Or jabs, really. The table rotates and raises and the big arm thing moves around, all by magic. I felt like a Ford Fiesta in the paint spray factory.

There’s two things in life I dread. Snakes and injections. We should get that straight. Fortunately there were no snakes on view in Harrow yesterday when I had my injection. There were probably snakes around (there’s ALWAYS snakes everywhere, that’s why we need to check under the bed, behind the sofa, in my shoes, my garden, EVERYWHERE!!!) but I didn’t see any.

Ok, one down, just the needle issue to contend with. More difficult. When you’ve gone for an injection. I realised that.

I survived. That’s all I can say. I survived. Bravely. Didn’t cry. Didn’t take my comfort toy. She was working. And the ‘injection’ turned out to be about 14 jabs of local anaesthetic followed by several of cortisone.

And although its a bit sore (no tennis today, no tai chi; banned) I slept for the first time in months without waking up in agony. Ahhhhhhhhhh. I love injections.

Meanwhile its the weekend and therefore its more football. They do that. In between the endless scandals and sleaze and corruption-in-our-beautiful-game stories and inquiries, they play the odd game just to redress the balance. But to be honest there’s only one match worthy of mention this weekend. Tomorrow. 4pm. Spurs playing Manchester City. Top-of-the-table battle. 1st versus 2nd. Could’a been 1st vs 3rd but Everton couldn’t beat Palace last night.

So I’m gonna be first to state the hyperbolic: this is a season-defining game. There, I’ve said it. For us, this will show us how far we’ve travelled on our journey to greatness; how much work there is still to do. Being a game of two halves, we need to play a high line, get at them, high-pressing tactics, win the second ball, win the first ball, win every fucking ball, and invoke as many cliches as you can think. Only then can real joy and happiness happen.

On the eve of the (Jewish) New Year, we need Him to play his part too. You know, the omniscient and omnipotent Spurs supporter in the Heavens.

Happy Saturday, pray hard.

A xxxx