Andy's Glasses

Barak Obama is a black man. You may not have realised that. And although he’s from Hawaii originally, he lived his adult life in Chicago. Where they view black people as, kind’a, ‘people’. Chicago is a civilised place. Its up north. Where civilisation appears to begin and end in the United States. Minnesota is up north as well. So far up north that attitudes there have gone a bit southern.

The American civil war happened 150 years ago. But it was never really resolved. It wasn’t just about the industry of ‘slavery’, which that brutal and horrible war sorted out. It was about the kind of attitudes that create and sustain that industry. The view that because people have a different coloured skin that they are in some way, in fact in many ways, inferior. That view couldn’t be removed by the war. And it appears to be live and well in so many parts of that nation.

Some southern states only became ‘integrated’ in the 1960s and 70s. The ones who fought for all they’re worth to keep separate buses for blacks and whites, separate schools, public spaces, toilets. Like white people’s shit don’t stink. The Kennedys were massively responsible for the integration. Which is why that name is still ‘dirt’ in Tennessee and Mississippi and Alabama.

Because of this, millions of blacks are socially deprived. Particularly in the South. There are glass ceilings regarding jobs, housing, education (unless you’re really good at football/basketball, obviously, only sport really transcends racism in the South) which sustains an underclass. Who respond as all secondary citizens do, by giving up and turning to violence, crime and drugs. Creating the situation where the police, when stopping a man for a broken tail-light, immediately get very nervous when the driver is black. And young, and dreadlocked. So even though the driver told the policeman that he was legally armed and licensed to carry a weapon, which he was, when he reached for his wallet, the policeman shot him. And he died.

The policeman panicked, was pumped up on adrenaline and expectation, so he did what all Americans seem to do; shoot first.

The killing in Baton Rouge the day before was different. The black driver was hauled out of his car and held down on the floor by 2 policemen and was completely incapacitated. One of the cops then, whilst holding the man down with one hand, drew his gun and simply executed the man on the ground. Who posed no threat, immediate or otherwise, as he lay there held by 2 men.

I dunno what’s going on over there. (Thank Gawd) its not my country. The random shooting of a dozen white police in Dallas doesn’t resolve anything. Just makes it much worse. Elevates it to another level. In a country where over half of its citizens are already armed to the teeth.

America has become two separate countries; the North where there is such equality that even a black man can become President. And the south. Where he would never get a white vote.

Time to act. Good luck with that.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Nero played fiddle whilst Rome burned, I played bridge when Wales crashed. Out of the Euros. Tuesday night. Missed the match. Saw the rather depressing goals (has there ever been a better headed goal than that? Everrrr???) but my life was in the realm of 2 Hearts rather than 2-nil.

Earlier that very same Tuesday there had been the two finest tennis matches ever played. Ish. Federer against Cilic and Murray playing Tsonga. The second of which actually delayed the start of bridge due to excessive levels of excitement and amazement produced over at Wimbledon. Murray had been 2 sets up then lost the amazing 3rd and the incredible 4th. He kind’a breezed the final set probably because Tsonga is bigger and burns more energy over the almost 4 hours required. And a shame because I really like Tsonga. And I really don’t like Murray though it must be said that the Scot is at times breathtakingly brilliant.

However, I absolutely luuuuurve Roger Federer. Who had come back from 2 sets down to win his match earlier on. Never mind, I have the Wimbledon hi-lights program on series record. I shall enjoy that later. When bridge is done, when the world is at peace. No problemo.

The BBC, who have been broadcasting Wimbledon tennis since 1347, got a bit snarled up with having two very long games played one after the other. So mid-4th set, Sue Barker announced that ‘BBC1 is now leaving Wimbledon…’ NOOOOOOO!!!!! ‘…but this match is on now on BBC2’. Thank fucking Christ. Then, later, during the 5th set, she mysteriously announced that ‘those viewers wanting to watch Masterchef should switch to BBC1 because we’re not leaving this match’. Fucking Masterchef! Who wants that when tennis is on?? Anyway, quick changes were made to accommodate the games, rescheduling on the fly, all good. Didn’t miss a point.

Much later, found the ‘Wimbledon Hilights’, pressed start to watch Federer, the greatest player of all time in his finest moment and… and… and there was some stupid tart making a stupid tart with radicchio, rocket, caramelised onion marmalade and fennel, with some loud-mouthed bald-headed geezer shouting at her about the length of her courgettis. The BBC had obviously not told Sky about the changes.

Last night I managed to miss all of the French beating the Germans. Busy.

Never mind, on Sunday there’s the feast. The dream day. Men’s tennis final followed by the Football grand finale. But I’m going to a wedding. All day. All night. Never mind I’ll set the recorder and watch Celebrity fucking bake-off when I get home.

Happy friday

A xxxx

I haven’t finished the Chilcot Report yet. I’ve read 386 words, just 2,672,481 left then I’ll know everything there is to know about the Iraq war and Britain’s part in it. Oh, except what really was going through Tony Blair’s mind at the time which no-one but TB will ever really know. And as its the only question worth asking, I think my time would be better spent reading 2 million oddd words learning all the goalscorers from all the FA Cup finals since the competition began. Or the complete works of Shakespeare. I don’t even know 2 million words. Unless you can include swear words. I know loads’a them.

I feel for the 179 families who lost soldiers in that war. I really do. Every night on the news when they showed pictures of lovely young men (usually), holding babies, who’ll never now know them, with brides, who are now widows, it was awful. Just awful. Waste of life. Tragedy.

And yet…

You’re a soldier. You carry a gun and you fight others who do likewise. You face an enemy. You take yourself to very dangerous places. Because you’re told to. And if nothing else, you obey orders. Its not like being an accountant. Its not really like anything. Its the armed forces. And thus death is something that is both consciously and unconsciously there at all times. It is a high risk job. That, for many, is the very appeal that made them sign up in the first place.

And if you’re soldier you go to war. And if you go to war you may get killed.

I don’t think the moral arguments against starting any particular war are relevant to the deaths, however horrible they may be, that result from it.The army says ‘go in’, then in ya go. Wars are always stupid. Always due to someone’s perception of ‘the greater good’, however ill-thought or misguided that may be. And its safe to say that no war has been either as ill-thought or misguided as that one. You can’t just topple governments because you don’t like them. And if you do, having an exit strategy is normally a good thing. Assuming that everyone in the world wants, craves and will be greatly improved by the addition of democratic values is as stupid as it is narrow-minded. Arguably the most undemocratic thing you can do is thrust democracy on people who don’t want it.

The war was wrong, for a million reasons. It left total disaster in the middle-east, that we now call ‘ISIS’, a far worse evil than Sadam could ever be and much much greater threat to the rest of the world. And Tony Blair was wrong, either for the right reasons or the wrong reasons, he was just fucking wrong to start it. And still I can’t find it to hold him personally responsible for the deaths of those lovely young soldiers who could have died anywhere.

Happy reading

A xxxx

So now we’ve left Europe, we can no longer dress like Europeans. It’ll be law soon so might as well get the jump. Or the jumper. Cos they’ll be back, big time. Sweaters are gone, jumpers are back. We just need to start the process of dissociating ourselves from European stuff.

I’ve already got rid of all my Euro clothes. Sent all my lovely, fitted, pastel Italian shirts to the charity shop and went on HAWAIIAN SHIRTS-R-US!!! dot com and ordered a dozen mixed. Mixed between REALLY FUCKING LOUD and TOTALLY AWESOMELY LAIRY. A good combination of ‘bright’, ‘brutal’ and ‘gross’. Shirts that will take an eye out at 50 metres. Sorry, 50 yards. Enough with all that metric shit, I’m going Imperial.

Tailored trousers? Fuck dat. I’m going with elasticated-waist-pants from now on. You can buy them online from American stores and they’re genuine imitation polyester. They come in three sizes, US Small (waist 38-44), medium (45-57) and upper-medium (58-walking dead). Time to get a little less ‘San Tropez’ and a little more ‘Miami Beach’.

For leisurewear I’m going oriental. I’m ordering a Ninja Warrior outfit (like the one I wear for Tai Chi but in aqua). And I’m going cowboy. Got the Levis already, just need some vile gingham shirts and stupid ‘just fucked my sister’ hat. Oh, and boots. Hand-tooled, rhinestones, the full yee-haaah.

And we need to sort out the high street. Get rid of all those pretentious fucking croissanteries and patisseries, all those nice little cafes and al fresco foreign rubbish, and pasta places and tapas bars and… (what do Germans eat? Don’t think it exports much in that line). Then replace them with sushi places, McDonalds and KFC, Burger King and Starbucks; real American food. Real shit. Actually, we’re half way there on that score.

Maybe get some Aussie restaurants too; that’ll be nice and un-European. Oh, Aussies don’t eat, they just drink. Though they do drink a lot. Well get some Aussie bars then.

The only big problem is glasses. Eyewear. Sunnies. Which you can either buy (one-get-one-free) from Specsavers, made in China, that instantly make look like you need a new pair of glasses, or you buy something proper. And it will be European. Italy, France, Germany, Denmark. No-one else makes anything you’d really want on your face.

Ok, we can leave now, its all sorted.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

You know what its like. You’re driving round the M25, singing away to ‘Islands in the Stream’ or showing Adele how ‘someone like you’ really should be done justice to, and you get to the end of the apple you’re eating. Do you: a. put the core into a specially designed glove-box-composter you had made specifically for organic waste on the move? b. keep the core ‘safe’ for later disposal? or c. toss it out of the window?

If the answer is ‘a’ you’re definitely either lying or someone so sad I have nothing more to say to you. If its ‘b’ then well done. But ‘c’ is the one we justify. “Well, it’ll decompose, naturally”, “its not like its plastic, destined to roam greater London for eternity before choking a fish to death!!” “I’ve never even seen a fish on a motorway”. “What’s one apple core in the grand scheme of thousands of square miles of M25?”

This is not a judgment upon you. You slovenly, environmentally unfriendly, eco-devastating, heartless BASTARD!!! No, its just a thought.

So how about up in space. You’re in your spaceship, singing along, arm out the window and when you drain the last of your coke, you simply toss the can outside. Why not? Space is… space is fucking big. What’s one coke can over an area so vast that the human mind cannot conceive it? The end of the universe is 14 billion light years away, I really don’t think they’ll notice one little red can (the person throwing a can out of the window is hardly likely to drink diet coke, is he??) in the immense vastness of space, will they?

In fact they will. And they do. And its becoming a bit of an issue.

Space debris is now reckoned to be around 7,000 tonnes. Big apple core. And because its space, and thus a vacuum, nothing decomposes, nothing rots, rusts or does anything other than just find its gravitational orbit around the nearest heavy mass. Which, for the purposes of this enquiry, is planet Earth. And there they stay. Forever.

When they started putting satellites up in space in the Cold War, to spy on everyone, no-one gave a thought to the ‘end-game’. When the satellite stops working, is finished or done with. What do you do? Well, its space, innit? There’s plenty room for a few old rust-buckets flying round at 35,000 miles an hour; discarded booster jets, jettisoned landing gear, what’s the problem?

The problem is that 50 years later we are dependent on satellites for football on tv. And nothing can jeopardise that. NOTHING. There are other uses for them too, apparently. And now, its dangerous. The space agencies monitor all debris over 10cms long. And its not like you can send a dust-truck up there to collect it. They’re not powerful enough for take-off.

Its a problem.

Be careful what you throw away. And where.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

We have three shows currently ongoing in the world.

We have Wimbledon, which is not only the best tennis tournament of the year by simply miles and miles, but also the only one I ever watch. I can’t get my head round blue tennis courts on the tv. And even though I play my own tennis on rather drab grey courts, green is my choice for viewing others upon.

Then we have the continuing European football saga, down to the last four now. Or, ‘Wales and three others’ as they say in Swansea. Wales play Portugal on Wednesday. Bale plays Ronaldo. The Welsh Wonder vs the Preening Portuguese Ponce. Teammates at Real Madrid, ‘good friends’ and yet you know Ronaldo resents every single goal or act of wonder by Gareth. You just know. He’s not one to happily share the limelight in any situation. Then on Thursday its France against Germany. The host nation against the team with the most winning culture in football.

Then we have the government show. Over here. The Americans are staging their own one, probably calling it the ‘World Presidential Battle’ but that’s only because that’s how they view the world. A bit like Christiano Ronaldo views his world.

Our government fell apart when Brexit happened. The battle for conservative leadership, which conveniently and rather effortlessly makes you the Prime Minister as well, gets nastier and nastier with each passing moment. Today its the alleged ‘plot by UKIP to instal Leadsom’. Because Angela Leadsom is the only candidate who says we should get out of Europe ASAP, and I suppose UKIP are worried that others may dither or worse still, find a way to avoid our departure. Though interestingly, if we do leave, UKIP are immediately redundant. They had but one purpose, one aim, one message. GET OUT OF EUROPE. So if we’re out, what’s the point of them hanging around?

The Labour leadership is even more daft. Everyone wants Corbyn out. Except Corbyn. Who steadfastly refuses to fall on his sword. And if they just have another leadership contest, he WILL stand again. Which will inevitably result, win or lose, in a split in the Labour party. Which in terms of policy is actually common sense. But in terms of dividing itself in parliament would be a catastrophe.

Yet the Labour party remains two parties. The hard left Comrade Corbyn inspired socialist collective who will never get elected, and the New Labour Blairites who moderate their left-leanings to appeal to middle England and retain electability. Ideology against pragmatism. Having the purest views that no-one will ever vote for or compromising for the sake of actually become some future government.

Personally I don’t give a shit one way or the other. Fun to watch though. Maybe the Liberals would become the opposition. With 9 seats in the House.

Happy days

A xxxx

I have a tendency to channel flick. I am man therefore I flick. Rene Descartes said that before they even had Sky. And what I’m really looking for is ‘comfort tv’. Just 10 minutes of something I know and love. And my defaults are Kill Bill (yes, very comforting, in a very bloody way), A Knight’s Tale and the most comforting of all, Terminator 2. Perhaps its because I know them so well that it really is of no consequence which ‘bit’ happens to be on. Its irrelevant. I can pick them up wherever they may be. And leave them just as easily when I get shouted at.

Last night was Terminator 2. James Cameron’s finest movie. Certainly a zillion times better than Titanic which, even without that god-awful song, would never make my comfort zone. And it was the ‘best bit’. When the cops surround Cyberdine’s office and Arnie blows them all up. All of the them. Nice. Comforting.

Young John Connor is talking to Arnie about his ‘dad’. Who, as we know from Terminator 1, was a time-traveller who came back, impregnated the mum and fuckin’ died. Typical man. So John says to Arn: “yeah, wierd that my dad won’t be born for about 30 years”. And for some reason I’d never picked up on that line before. Even after 833 viewings.

Yet its profound. And the classic ‘time paradox’. In that ‘chicken and egg’ kind’a way. Because if John’s dad only came back from the future to protect that future John Connor, how could that older John Connor have even existed? The father came back from the future to save a man (his best friend, in fact) who couldn’t conceivably (sorry, sometimes it just happens) have been born until his visit back. Confused? Don’t be. Its just a chronological impossibility. But when such things enter the realms of ‘serious mind-fuck’, we call them time paradoxes.

Though there is a possible explanation. But as it involves worm-holes in space, 17-dimension maths and the square root of minus-1, I’ll spare both of us the aggro.

Germany go through on the worst penalty shoot-out of all time. Tonight its Iceland. Come on Iceland.

Happy sunny Sunday

A xxxx

Let me just get this straight: we’re out of Europe but we’re still in Great Britain. Aren’t we? Scotland want to leave GB now we’re out of EU. Wales likes GB but hates both EU and needless acronyms. The Northern Irish simply don’t count. Not in the big debates.

So when Andy Murray wins at Wimbledon, which he may well do this year now that The Miserable Serb has finally lost a grand slam game, I can claim just a little ‘British glory’ from the very small part of the English-hating Scotsman that is proper-English British. Even though I can’t stand him. And he makes The Miserable Serb seem like Coco the clown by comparison.

Its like when Rory McIlroy wins the golf. I’m suddenly forced to cross 2 ‘red lines’. I have to pretend I’m interested in golf, and imagine, for the purposes of polite conversation, that it is an actual ‘sport’. And I have to claim allegiance that other bit of Great Britain. The bit that was pretty much unmentionable for most of my early life.

And now its the Welsh. But this time I’m going to embrace my inner leek totally. Last night’s match against Belgium was a triumph for everything good about football. A triumph for small nations against big ones. A triumph for a ‘team’ over a group of highly talented individuals. And a triumph for my Welshness against my last remaining Englishness, shattered not once within the last week but twice.

Wales in the semi-finals of the European championships is almost as remarkable as Iceland making it to the quarter-finals. Wales is a small country renowned for singing, rugby and excessive drinking. The national team has one superstar, in the ever-wondrous Gareth Bale. It has two pretty decent players in midfield, Joe Allan and Aaron Ramsey, even though the latter is both a very recent blond and worse still, a Gunner. They have a superhero captain in the ever-awesome Ashley Williams. And the rest are the usual Welsh mish-mash of third division rejects, wife-beaters, drunk-drivers and Hal Robson-Kanu. Who scored last night. The best goal of the tournament by a country mile. Whichever country. And he doesn’t even have a club. Unwanted. Well, until last night, that is.

The goal was such a thing of beauty that grown men cried. Trees straightened. The moon… ok, nuf hyperbole.

Gareth Bale plays a 40 yard pass of total perfection into the path of Ramsey who’d made only the second such run of his career without an ensuing injury, and controls beautifully. Crosses to Robson-Kanu, the un-signed player, 12 yards out, back to the goal, 3 defenders in the way. He did a ‘Cruyff’. Johann himself lifted from his grave to smile and give a thumbs-up, then went back to dead as the striker took out all 3 defenders with his turn and slotted the ball sweetly past the keeper.

So happy to be Welsh.

Happy Saturday, boyo

A xxxx

At what level does doing something bad become doing something good?

A little philosophical conundrum for a Friday. We all like that (??)

Do we torture terrorists to get information that could prevent hundreds of innocent people being murdered? Do we engage in wars in which the ‘good guys’ bomb entire fucking cities to the ground along with all the poor unfortunates who once lived there? Do we run Arsenal fans over at a crossing to prevent them from ever being smug again?

Deep questions. There is no right, there is no wrong, there just is. Its all relative. I may gain personally by an act, but someone else will lose. Like using your credit card number to book my flights on. Sorry about that.

Thus it becomes about a ‘greater good’. We bombed the shit out of Dresden in the war to save the world from Hitler. Ok, some did it just for fun, others because they have a thing about Germans, then and now, but generally these acts are seen as for a greater good, or as a lesser evil. Its all relative to your viewpoint.

And so Boris. And Michael Gove. Neither of whom can really be described as a lesser evil to virtually anyone, other than perhaps Jeremy Corbyn. So they act in ways of ‘dubious morality’ to say the least. That they would argue is for some long-term greater good.

If Boris supports Brexit, even though he’s a lifelong Europhile, then tells a whole heap of lies in order to win the referendum, is that not for ‘the greater good’ if it means he’ll end up as Prime Minister and is undoubtedly (in his mind) the absolute best person for that job in the entire world? I thought that to be the case until yesterday morning. Not that Boris was the best man for any job, but that HE thought so. Vain, arrogant opportunist that he is.

And Michael Gove. Michael “I have no intention whatsoever of becoming PM” (2 days before), fucking Gove! Then he declares Boris unfit to lead a troupe of girl guides, let alone a nation, and decides to stand himself. For the role he didn’t want 2 days previously. He’d had a revelation. A ‘eureka moment’. God spoke to him directly. In Aramaic. Who knows. One minute he’s Boris’s ‘campaign manager’ then next he’s walked over Boris after knifing him in the back.

The only odd thing in the total moral vacuum that is what’s left of the government, is that Boris just accepted it. Didn’t fight, didn’t protest, didn’t shout ‘Judas!’, nothing. Just said, ‘ok, I won’t stand’.

They have dirt on Boris. Its the only explanation. There is a skeleton in Boris’s closet so big, so Greville Janner, so serially shaggish, so joined the Hitler Youth aged 7, so crucifyingly, career-shatteringly massive, that he had no choice but just roll over.

The question that remains is: SO HOW THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO PLACE OUR COLLECTIVE TRUST IN THESE MURDEROUS, CONNIVING, DEVIOUS, BACK-STABBING, HYPOCRITICAL BASTARDS????

Theresa May must be laughing her whiter-than-white head off. She stays well under the parapet.

Happy devious Friday

A xxxx

So there we all were, revering the Icelandics, loving those Icelanders, admiring those Icelandishers for being such a sweet, itty-bitty ickle nation, ahhhhhhhh. And that they’re all great and underdogs and blond and eat rotten herrings that have laid (dead) in the sun for about 4 months, and all good thoughts like that. Icelanders? Love ’em. Beat us fair and square, we woz shite, they was grite, (cross between ‘gritty’ and ‘great’, just trying it out for the quarter-finals).

And now we learn a little more about the volcanic rock dwelling, undergroundly thermal Scands from up there where the Northern Lights don’t shine. Well they bloody didn’t when we went there.

They’re fascists. Bastard, nazi, nanny-stating fascists. Because…

When you have a baby in Iceland, its a great thing. Only 330,000 babies have ever been born there before! (I don’t count dead people.) So you think, as all new parents do, what you’d like to call your baby. Don’t fancy ‘another’ Eidur, or Gylfi or Kolbeinn, cos EVERYone is called that on your block, never mind, call him Nigel. After the saviour of all Europe.

Ah; sorry. You can’t name him that. Its not on the approved list. WHATTTTTTT!!!!!! What fucking approved list? Its my baby, I can call him what I sodding want. In fact I can call him ‘Sodding’ if I want.

Actually, you can’t. Iceland has a list of about 1700 ‘approved names’ for Icelandic children and you have to use one of those. We are Iceland, which is why our supermarket wasn’t called ‘Tesco’. It was deemed un-Icelandic. True that they never referred to the TOTAL FAILURE OF THE BANK OF SOMEWHERE ELSE, did they? No, it was ‘the bank of Iceland’ that failed miserably. And proudly. Icelandic-ly.

Similarly, to ensure our cultural heritage, all children should have Icelandic names. From the list. How do you feel about Eidur?

A couple of Anglo-Icelanders (must have been hell for them on Monday night) named their daughter Harriet. Nice name. Sadly, Harriet was never the name of a Viking slayer of three-headed bison, nor a godess of cold things, nor anything vaguely Icelandic. So on her passport it just referred to her as ‘Girl’ followed by her surname.

Twelve years later, they have finally been given approval to use the name Harriet. And, fair enough, the government there are in the process of removing this very silly law.

SO DON’T TELL ME HOW BLOODY WONDERFUL ICELAND IS!!!! WHEN THEY DO THAT!!!!! AND BEAT ENGLAND!!!!!

I bear no grudges.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx