Andy's Glasses

Much as I have no time for statisticians; those evil, mercenary, sold-to-the-highest-bidder quasi know-alls who can ‘prove’ whatever the hell they want, depending on who is paying for the ‘independent research’, I have endless time for proper scientists. And you kind’a need endless time really, when contemplating the universe…

Astronomers have found a new planet. Wow; that’s interesting. There are, in our galaxy alone, millions upon millions of stars, each of which probably has half a dozen or so planets circling them. Its what planets do. They get no choice in the matter. Because the matter of which they are made, which condensed some time after the Big Bang, was sucked into the gravitational orbit of the nearest star. We’re all attracted to ‘stars’, its nothing new, didn’t just begin with Hello! magazine, ya know. Pre-dates it by about 14 billion years. Even before Keith Richards was born. Though you wouldn’t know it to look at him.

This new planet is very exciting. Try to contain yourself. Firstly its ‘star of choice’ is probably our own sun’s nearest neighbour at just 5 light years away. That’s so close that Usain Bolt could run that in about 5 million years, though if his girlfriend was waiting in Jamaica, he’d probably stop a few times for shag-stops along the way. As he does.

The star which the planet circles is Promixa Centauri and the planet is called, sweetly, I think, Proxima B. Nice. But here’s the amazing (ish) thing. And all this is bit difficult because Proxima Centauri is not a big bright star that dazzles in the night sky. No. Its a ‘red dwarf’, which are quite dull. They are the Jeremy Corbyns of the celestial world. So you can’t see Proxima C. with any normal (and I mean ‘normal’ for NASA) telescopes. However, that didn’t stop them finding a ‘blip’ in its light pattern, which could only be accounted for by a planet. And not just any planet, but one ‘a bit like Earth’. It has New York, a Great Wall of China… ok, not that much like Earth. This is the astonomer’s version of ‘a bit like Earth’. In that it orbits in the range of its star that creates the possibility of liquid water. And if your water is liquid, you can sell it in silly bottles with French names and make a killing.

Sorry, if water is liquid, as opposed to ice or steam, then there’s the possibility of life there!!!! We have to assume its not more evolved than us (you call THIS evolution??? Jesus fucking Christ) otherwise the inhabitants would already be here. Talking to us, invading us, communicating with us, eating us, whatever. But life. Maybe.

The mere fact that it is theoretically ‘inhabitable’ has the press calling it a ‘new home’. Estate Agents are already advertising apartments there. The mobile networks are bidding for rights there.

It is exciting though. In that sciency way.

Happy Thursday, boldly going wherever,

A xxxx

This is Jeremy Corbyn. He’s a tosser. Possibly The Tosser. And that’s a very heavy mantle to earn. But Jezza is certainly in contention with his latest act of stupidity and ignorance.

He boarded a Virgin train to Newcastle. I don’t know why. To take coal (not even funny any longer as they haven’t done any mining up there since Arthur Scargill died), to watch lower league football, to enjoy the drunken raving partiness of that city’s nightlife? We just don’t know. Nor particularly care.

He got on the train, sat down on the floor and had himself filmed whilst saying how the trains are so over-crowded the owners should be punished and the entire service put back into the public domain. The workers, he stressed, suck-up nonce that he is, were doing a great job and working very hard. But the owners, fascist capitalist pig-dog, tax-avoiding billionaire that Richard Branson might be; fucking useless. Look at how I’m forced to travel!!!!

That’s not why he’s a tosser. Not for the same old stupid, 1960s hard-left, nationalise-it-all message. Not even for having but one mantra his entire career: what you see is what you get; no spin, no change, just Honest Jez.

He’s a tosser for not realising that in 2016, his were not the only cameras on board the train. Like all trains, it was riddled with cctv. Which showed quite clearly a man who looked remarkably like Jeremy Corbyn, walking past loads of empty seats en route to his little corner of the floor where he chose to sit. And moan about the lack of seating.

Of course, Jeremy and his entourage (not so humble that he doesn’t travel with his posse these days) could have booked seats when they bought their tickets. You can do it on a computer, Jeremy, that machine that is the tool of oppression for the working classes. You can do it on your phone even.

That notwithstanding, it would appear that selling off the rail networks back in Maggie’s day was perhaps not the best move for the traveller. Southern trains has been fucked up for about 6 months and have now announced their next strike days. Such is the level of service that the commuters notice no difference on strike days to ‘normal’ days.

But selling off the energy supplies to private companies; big mistake. Renationalise that if you must. At least it would save me speaking to 17 dickheads a day trying to sell me ‘their’ energy.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

They’re voting today in California. Not whether to elect Jeremy Corbyn as the still leader of the Totally Worthless Party, they’re fortunately spared that rubbish over there. They’re voting on whether to legalise cannabis for ‘recreational purposes’. Not for procreational purposes, though they may be related. Nor for recreational vehicles which shouldn’t be driven under the influence of recreational substances. Shame they don’t do ‘irony’ over there.

Smoking pot is legal in Colorado. Also in Oregon, Washington state and DC. And as well as California, they’re also voting today in Arizona, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts. The kind’a ‘cool’ states. The normal ones. They ain’a votin’ in Kentucky. Nor Tennessee, Alabama or Georgia. No sirree. Nowhere where people burn in the eternal fires of hell for theya sins. I’ve never actually smoked brimstone but I’m sure you can get a buzz. Of some sort.

It does strike me as rather odd that cannabis is still illegal. You can buy six cans of extra strong lager for about a fiver, with or without Id, get off your face, become hopelessly aggressive, stab three people, drive a stolen car into a crowded bus stop and that’s fine. Because alcohol is society’s drug of choice. To the exclusion, it seems, of all others.

And don’t get me wrong, I like alcohol. But its a bit Orwellian in its ideal. Get the people pissed and they forget their misery. For a time. My life’s shit: I’m going down the pub. But it really doesn’t help. It just feels like it does in the very short term.

Cannabis is different. It doesn’t increase aggression. It calms. It mellows. To the point of near-coma, maybe, but at least its a drug that leads in the right direction. Well, it did when I was a young whippersnapper stoner. And yes, it can lead to ‘psychosis’, whereas alcohol can’t(???), and it can be mildly addictive, but nothing like as badly as tobacco always is. Yet that’s legal too.

So getting off your face is not in itself illegal, nor is using addictive substances. But cannabis is. Makes not a lot of sense to me. If its legal then it can be taxed. What’s wrong with governments? (i appreciate that’s a very complex question and may require several books to answer fully).

Time to go to work, better roll a big fat spliff for the journey. Its fine, long as you don’t inhale.

Mellow Tuesday

A xxxx

Now the Olympics is officially and forever over, the stomach-crunchers give way to the number-crunchers to see who can perform the best statistical analysis of the results. And whatever way you crunch them, America won. Ok, the Russians had overdosed their way out of most of the sports and some (particularly me) reckoned they should have been banned altogether. But this isn’t about drugs. Iss’about medals.

Britain came a fantabulous second. Beating China, who actually won more medals but the tables are ranked on golds. A team with one gold and nothing else would rank above a team with no golds but 472 silver and bronzes. I’m not sayin’ its fair, I’m just sayin’.

But we know all that. History. Now we have the new rankings. The more creative ones, possibly the more significant ones. If they calculate medals (any colour) per capita of national population, New Zealand win. 1 medal for every 250,000 of population, or for every 2,000,000 sheep. Even though the sheep aren’t allowed to compete (they’d fail the drugs testing) I don’t think its fair to leave them out altogether.

Britain, by comparison, won one medal for every 970,000. Which is decent? (who fucking knows, or cares, what any mythical ‘norm’ might be?). Whereas China, who came third in the regular table, won one medal for every 19.5million of population. There’s a lotta Chinamen not pulling their weight out there. Many competing countries don’t have 19.5million of population.

But, of course, in any event there are winners (that’d be us then, smug bastard that I am, doing my bit by watching more tv in the last 3 weeks than in two non-olympic years), and there are losers.

Some nations won nothing. Like the Pacific Island of Nahru, population 10,000. They sent 2 athletes over, itself something of a big achievement. Good luck to them. Bit late I suppose for that.

But how about Chile? Uganda? Zimbabwe? Not a medal between them. Big countries. But nothing like as big as Pakistan, who also scored zero. And what about Saudi Arabia? Massive and massively rich country, they sent over 11 athletes but to no avail. Even though they probably sent them over first class or on a private jet.

A complaint has been lodged by the Saudis to the Olympic Committee for them to instil a fairer cultural mix of sporting events, so as not to discriminate against the Saudis. They want to get rid of the 100m, 200m and all the swimming. And replace them with events in wife-beating, gay-stoning, eating-til-you-vomit, misogyny (5k AND 10k), camel-shagging, terrorist-sponsoring and political repression.

Happy Monday; its over

A xxxx

He did it. Mo. Our Mo. Not Mo the Uber driver, (one of 42,539 ‘Mos’ they have on their books), nor Mo the cook in the take-away, Mo the Imam nor Mo the builder’s mate. No. Mo. Mo Farah. Best runner in the world. Since that Finnish dude back before I was born. Ok, the 70s, so ‘before I was re-born’ (we all did that in the 70s). Mo won the 5000 metres, to go with the 10000 metres he won last week, and the same two he won at the London Games. Making this the most successful games since the last one. Brilliant. Come on team GB!!!

So now, after tonight, we can forget about athletics for another 4 years. Just as ‘fantastic!!!’ starts to give way to ‘overload’, just three medals short of ‘enough, already’. Goodbye to hockey, farewell to gymnastics, adieu Taikwando. But…

The fucking football’s back!

And, of course, because its only just back, Arsenal are down at the dirty end of the league. The dodgy end. Where Losers hang out. Because they always start seasons poorly. They’ve won just one first-game-of-the-season since the premiership began 26 years ago. Useless fuckers. Sadly, and inevitably, they’ll be top of the league by November and back to their never-changing 4th for May. I don’t blame Wenger (not sure there’s actually anything to blame him for; entry to the Champions League every single season of his tenure) though his reluctance to spend money on a new striker might be minor cause for concern when your team enjoyed 89% of possession and had 243 attempts on goal and still manage to draw 0-0.

Whereas at Spurs, the winning ways have returned. Ok, its was (apparently) a bit of a struggle. It was not exactly ‘spectacular’, but free points is free points. And that’s all that counts. For now, at least.

Liverpool are being pursued. By the Chinese. They want to buy the Scousers. Not to, sort of, airlift Anfield to Shanghai, but to become the new owners. Which isn’t much of a loss to the city of Liverpool as the club is currently owned by Americans anyway. The difference being that the consortium currently in possession is a private bunch of investors. Whereas this is China. Like, the nation. The funding will come from the state financial institution, thus meaning that Liverpool would be subject to the same laws as the rest of China. Kick out the Bhuddists, death and torture to the opposition and shit-loads of rice. They’ve only offered £800million so I’m not sure it’ll all go through. The Yanks paid 300mil a few years back so not much of a profit on the investment there then.

You’ll play Liverpool and an hour later you’ll want to play them again.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

This has been the best Olympic Games for at least 4 years. London was special. Because it was in London, obviously. But Rio is brilliant. I can’t get enough. Other than golf, football, tennis, for reasons previously spouted, and Greco-Roman wrestling, because its silly and Taikwando, because its really dull. Other than that: wow. Brilliant. The hockey last night was spectacular. What an event. Penalty shoot-out against the twice olympic champs, the Dutch, then Britain won the gold. The Olympics is all about promoting sports that you’d never normally watch. Handball. Diving. Even bloody show-jumping. Won by a man so ancient he’s barely alive. So you’d believe hearing the plaudits for our 58-year old gold medalist.

Its been wonderful and its been a great success for team GB. Are they all on drugs? they ask. Surely they must be to have come from, like 2 gold medals just 20 years ago, to this meteoric rise in success now. But no. Its not about drugs. Its about that other evil; money. Lottery funding has increased the amount of cash in all our Olympic sports massively. And funny enough, the more you spend, the luckier you get.

So we’re having a victory parade. I love a victory parade. Because they all come down Fleet Street so they can see me in my natural environment. We’ve had Ashes winning cricketers, we had the Olympians and paralympians from the London games, we get them all.

But not this time. This time they’re parading up north. In Manchester? Other than the massive bonus this will bestow on the umbrella manufacturers of Lancashire (its ALWAYS raining in Manchester, because God hates Mancs), I can’t see what the purpose of this move will be. Why would you want it there? Do the athletes fancy a day out? Will the nation’s fans flock up north for the day? Will they fuck! Why would you send all those sudden superstars to a ‘northern powerhouse’ (read: 3rd world slum) when they could parade where parades belong; in London.

I have no grudge against Manchester specifically or ‘up north’ generally… other than that written above, nor do I have one of those terrible attitudes to the provinces that ‘some Londoners’ seem born with… but… but… its just not right.

One northerner worthy of special mention is John O’Neill. A man so fucked up, so sick and weird that a court has issued the most bizarre order ever conceived, just for him.

John is a sadomasochist. But, like, both. He likes pain, and he likes to give pain. If he just spent his spare time abusing himself with knives and soldering irons and stuff, surely that would be ‘the dream’? Actually fulfilling two dreams. Inflicting and receiving pain simultaneously. And at the same time. But John don’t do dat. No.

He goes out and starts fights (easy up north; its what they do up there) so he can ‘enjoy’ getting beaten up. Then he finds girls and, kind’a rapes them, bites them, burns them, cuts them. Otherwise he can’t ‘get off’.

So the court served him with a ’24-hour sex notice’. He must notify police 24 hours before he intends to have sex.

How’s that gonna work, exactly? And what are the police gonna do about it? Watch? Place him and his ‘sure thing’ in a padded room with no sharp implements? How? Never mind ‘why’ and ‘what the fuck use is that, then???’

Happy Olympic penultimate day

A xxxx

I wake up in the morning, reluctantly, unhappily (I love sleeping) and earl-ily when Mel plonks a cup of tea next to me (bless that saintly woman) and announces in her bouncy, early-morning-manic kind of way, that she’s off to swim. She’s leaving me for David Lloyd. Again. This is often accompanied by the delicate sound of a list. Things to do before work. Email the pension guy (known alternatively as ‘God’ or ‘The Muthafucka!!!’, depending on recent performance), water the garden (not today; pissing down out there), sort out her ipad (battery’s dead) or phone (battery’s dead), pick up chopped liver from the butcher… I hear none of it, just washes over my semi-consciousness as it tries to hold desperately to the bliss that was oblivion.

Then the paper bangs through the letterbox. And I’m awake. I love the paper. But today there was no ‘bang’, there was no nothing, no paper. Didn’t arrive.

Ok, this is the post-technical world, I can turn on a tv (NEVER before evening, unless its football or Olympics. Whisky, any time, tv: show some control), I could look at a thousand ‘news’ sites and get information way more up to the minute that the newspaper printed 8 hours ago, I could turn on the radio. Remember radios?

But that’s not what I want, so that’s not what I do. Instead I pine. I want my news in paper form. Clumsy, unmanageable, dirty, forest-killing, world-ruining, ozone-depleting paper. Love the stuff. Can’t get enough. Its my guilty secret, along with about 300 others, that’s not really a secret.

When it finally arrived, I learned of the events of the Olympics, the bit when I was in bed. We won a gold in the taikwando. Again. Jade Wassername; won in London, gold yesterday. I saw some of it. And, having never watched it before, thought it might be a cross between Bruce Lee and Usain Bolt. That’s some ‘cross’, I grant you. But its not. Its two babes trying desperately to avoid being kicked in the head. Really boring to watch. Tai Chi is much more fun. Even in slo-mo.

Jeremy Corbyn wants to attract Tory voters. By, errr, aligning himself with a whole host of hard-left parties of fringe nutters. The Socialist Party (which has a massive 200 members), the Alliance of Workers Liberty, 120 members, and the Socialist Party of England and Wales.

How is that going to attract the vast majority of Blairish New Labourite Champagne Socialists who are fleeing his party as fast as their guilt-laden Bentleys will carry them over to Theresa May’s donation office? But they’re ‘working people’ too and don’t like the cut of Corbyn’s jib. Personally I’d like to cut his jib off and stuff it where the sun don’t shine. But that’s because I’m a ninja warrior. Sorry, still in that part-sleep wonderland…

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Oh. My. God. This is the shape of the future. My own worst nightmare (that doesn’t involve Arsenal). No longer will ‘tossers’ be forced to hold their phones clumsily in their outstretched hand to ensure that they never look where they’re fucking going. Because you can now buy an Oculus Rift… thing. And never need to be bothered by the real world again.

Its essentially the world’s most expensive virtual reality gaming accessory at about 550 quid. But I see it as ‘the future’ of a lost generation. Who will never need again to exist in the real, actual, living world that they obviously don’t like very much. I see this picture as how the crowds walking down the Strand will look in about 6 months time. Fumbling around banging into each other, using google maps to direct them 25 yards in a straight line to the tube station because ‘looking’ is just so 1974.

God help us all. I’ve seen the future, but only through a screen.

Whereas the present is where its at. Well, it was last night. Went out for dinner with friends, arrived home, just in time for the news. So I thought. It was delayed. For the cycling at the Olympics. Oh, not so bad, I like cycling. Its very technical, the rules for each race are completely opaque to anyone who isn’t racing, including, as it transpired, most of the judges, but when the dust settles, Britain normally has another gold medal.

So the absolutely adorable Laura Trott (BIIIIIG Spurs fan that she is) won the ‘Omnium’ (don’t ask, 6 different events, most of which involve racing round on a bike faster than everyone else). Yippee. Her 4th gold medal. I love her.

As does her fiancee Jason Kenny. Who was riding next. Already the proud owner of 5 golds from the London and Rio olympics, he was in the final of the Keirin race. Which was delayed because of a little crash in the previous race. Which in turn is unnerving and unsettling. But Jason has nerves of steel. What you could see of him beneath his helmet and full face visor.

Finally the race started. And the keirin is odd (they’re all a bit odd, otherwise cycling would be the most boring spectator sport ever, other than golf). They have to follow a motor-bike round the track for about 4 laps, and they mustn’t overtake him. At precisely 3.5 laps (there’s a white line, so ya know), the bike has reached 50kph and leaves the track and riders all go mad for 2.5 laps to try and win or die, whichever comes first.

The first time someone overtook the motorbike prematurely. Probably 2 riders actually but despite having 67 million tv cameras spread around Rio, they’ve managed to avoid putting one on that white line. Which is so critical to the race that it was stopped. The judges, due to lack of camera-in-the-right-place, didn’t disqualify anyone, just restarted them about 10 minutes later.

More nerves, more unsettlement, more waiting, just what athletes love.

The race started, all good, 3 and a half laps and… someone overtook the motorbike again and the gun fired to stop the race. By which time everyone was getting bored and the judges didn’t even bother doing anything, they just started the race a third time. Probably with the instruction that if anyone fires that gun again, they will be shot. With that same gun.

The eventual, last 2.5 laps were magical. Jason Kenny was simply brilliant. Another gold.

Yiippee-ay-aye

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

The main difference between ‘us’ in the ‘so-called’ civilised West, and the extremists from ‘so-called’ Islamic State is a matter of tolerance. Not to gluten, even though that’s a matter close to my heart, and certainly to my intestine, which lives nearby. Extremists are intolerant of pretty much everything. Unless its done, prayed, eaten, worshipped, everything according to their very narrow rules. We’re happy (ish) for them to eat, pray, worship, according to their wants and needs, as long as they don’t cut people’s heads off or blow things up. I think that’s reasonable.

So to sum up (not much to sum, I grant you); we are tolerant to everything; ‘they’ are tolerant to nothing. All Muslims can do what they want here, within our laws, obviously, which preclude beheadings and suicide vests, as long as they respect our right to do what we want, subject to those same laws. Which also protect the rights of gay men to hold hands in Sainsburys, by the way.

We’re tolerant; they’re not.

And then the French, the greatest mouthpiece for ‘libertee, fraternitee, egalitee’, has chosen, in certain cities, to ban the burkini. That rather odd (to my eyes) full body covering which is the chosen beachwear for Muslim women. To protect their modesty. And cover any waxing failures too. An added bonus. This is not about the covering up your women debate.

They Mayor of Nice banned it after the terrible massacre there, and now they’re banning it in parts of Corsica.

But if you preach ‘freedom for all’, you can’t then exclude certain classes just because it seems fashionable to do so. Or, in the case of the burkini, pretty unfashionable, but suitable to the cause.

If we are defending above all else, and we are, our right to live in a completely liberal, open and TOLERANT society, you can’t start banning things. If people are ‘free to adhere to their religion’, then let them, however odd, bizarre or silly we may find it. All religions are odd. They all have silly customs that really don’t do well in any reductionist paradigm. So don’t reduce them to ‘the bits’, just leave them alone.

The mayor in Corsica said he was banning the burkini because they represent extemism. They don’t. That’s bollocks. The burkini represents an adherence to a way of life alien to us in the West. Doesn’t make it wrong. Whether its a symbol of repression or a symbol of empowerment is the same argument you can use for a very skimpy bikini. But its not about that. Its about the fascistic exercise of banning something harmless because of what it represents.

You can’t be ‘tolerant’ to your own way of life and the exclusion of all others. That’s the whole point of tolerance.

Bloody French…

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Its great being 60. You get free tube travel. And… and… and…

You get to shit on a stick.

That’s it really. You’re suddenly old and two really big things happen. One is free transport (ONLY in London, the rest of the country, the ones that don’t count, have to wait til they’re 62), the other is that everything that hasn’t already fallen apart immediately starts to do so. And ‘they’ worry about you.

Every year brings about a new worry. You’ve crossed some threshold and gained entry into a brand new group of ‘at risks’. And at 60 its bowel cancer. So literally, the day after my birthday a letter came from the NHS. A big letter. I picked it up. “What’s this shit now”, I asked of no-one (you talk to yourself a lot at 60). And shit it was. Or, more precisely, very precise instructions how to shit. So they can test you. Without having to soil any NHS toilet facilities. In the comfort of your own home. Then you just post it off. Easy peasy.

Well, fairly easy. The ‘samples’ they require are tiny. And shit is, generally, much bigger than the quarter-inch square windows supplied. Hence the sticks. For transportation purposes. I’ll spare you the rest of the details. You’ll find out when you’re 60. If you have a wife like mine, ever vigilant, who wouldn’t let you just throw the thing in the bin.

So two guys, (above), are shopping in Sainsburys. Holding hands. In case anyone could be in any doubt that these 2 are gay. They couldn’t look any gayer if they were wearing tutus and Arsenal shirts.

A security guard called them over because someone had complained about their ‘behaviour’. Asked them to act properly, or some such.

He shouldn’t have done. Sainsburys should know better. The ‘complaint’ was either just because it was 2 men holding hands, in which case that is discrimination and illegal. Or it was about anyone holding hands in public, in which case the complainant should be immediately removed from society and shot.

There are so many public displays of anger, aggression, of road rage, shouting, screaming, fighting, how on earth can it be wrong to act in a perfectly innocent, in no way ‘inappropriate’ or even mildly offensive, display of affection? In who’s eyes can that be wrong. Unless its the gay thing, then the complaining asshole has transcended ‘wrong’ and entered ‘discriminatory’.

The gay and lesbian community held a ‘kiss-a-thon’ at the store in protest. A brilliant response. And Sainsburys gave the two guys a £10 voucher off the price of condoms. Ok, just a voucher. To say sorry.

I should think so too.

Happy Monday,

A xxxx