Andy's Glasses

I really couldn’t care less if David Cameron wants to give a knighthood to the Lithuanian refugee who washed his ministerial car every thursday. The man did a good job, the car was always shiny. Arise Sir Herkus. And Samantha always looked lovely. Shiny hair, polished nails, lovely dresses. Which totally justifies giving out OBEs and MBEs and CBEs to her entire team of hairdressers, stylists, nail buffers and foot massagers. Fully justified. Though it doesn’t need to be justified by anyone. Its tradition.

Outgoing Prime Ministers get to ‘honour’ all their mates, their helpers, their supporters. They’re allowed to band about ‘gongs’ to all and sundry. To window cleaners and secretaries and political supporters and aromatherapy gurus and fitness trainers. Its what happens.

Where I personally draw the line is at anyone who ever ‘donated’. Either to the party itself or to the ‘remain campaign’. Otherwise it looks like a reward. Like they’ve ‘bought’ the honour with their money. And as the entire ‘honours’ system is totally overblown and stupid anyway, its best to avoid making it any more so by giving dubious awards to billionaires. And that’s all I’m prepared to say about it. Unless I want to say more.

The Olympics start today. Even though the official opening is not til Friday. Rio is the place to be. Particularly if you’re a builder, so you can hopefully finish the stadia, which are in some cases quite some way from ‘ready’. Or if you’re a dope-tester, obviously, or if you’re a health and safety officer as a lot of the work that is finished ain’t very good. As in: “when your taking your run up for the long jump, veer to the left a bit otherwise the track might collapse where the loose bolt is”. There again, pre-olympics are always a bit shambolic. There’s always a ‘BUT ITS NOT FINISHED YET!!!!’ deal otherwise you wouldn’t be sure its the Olympic Games.

But Rio has other issues. The water is full’a shit. But literally so. Sewage is washed into the bays, along with lots of other rubbish, chemicals, detergents, radioactive waste… and that’s where the sailing, rowing and open-water swimming will take place. Add in the ever-present threat of muggings, the Zika virus and the danger from eating way to much beef (I’ve been there, the beef’s wonderful, and much bigger than beefs here) and Rio is where its at.

The contemporary Girl from Ipanema got mugged on her way to hospital with suspected Zika virus, bacterial infection of the gut and diarrhoea.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

When you’re in a hole; stop digging. Sound advice. Heeded by all men (and that’s the inclusive use of ‘men’, not the sexist one, it includes anyone who has a pair of testicles). But no-one ever told Donald Trump. And if they had he wouldn’t have listened. Or, he’d have listened, but only after digging another 18 feet. Because he’s a tosser. And a moron.

A muslim couple stood up at the Democratic conference to tell of their son. An American born muslim who, as an American soldier, was killed in a war (can’t remember which; so many to choose; middle East somewhere). Ergo: said son is an American hero. By any definition. And so the parents were basically pissed of with Donald Trump’s overtly Islamophobic stance. Fair point.

Enter the Trumpster who, basically, mocked the couple, made a big issue that the man had done all the talking, probably because ‘the woman wasn’t allowed to’. Good work, Don.

So the couple laid into the Presidential wannabe, as they rightly should. To which Trump moaned that he was being ‘attacked viciously’ by them. Combed-over-cry-baby-tosser. This is Donald Trump, the man who attacked, personally, professionally, nastily, every man, woman and political opponent he met en route to his candidacy. The man who called women ugly, who slagged off the wives of his opponents, questioned their American-ness and insulted virtually all of America. Yet to ask questions of him provokes the inner-cry-baby. Mainly because he is not a great thinker. He can’t counter an argument, he can only get nasty and rude.

WHY CAN AMERICANS NOT SEE WHAT KIND OF A MAN THEY ARE SERIOUSLY THINKING OF MAKING THEIR PRESIDENT?????

Whilst on the other side of the world, the Russian bit, Putin is a very angry man. Someone shot down one of his helicopters in Syria. And that helicopter was in Aleppo to ‘deliver humanitarian aid’. And Santa Claus is not only real but a transgender hermaphrodite, the tooth fairy has been filmed tooth fairying in Bolton and Leicester can win the Champions League.

Russia don’t deliver aid. They deliver bombs. And lots of them. Its so complicated out there that I’m really not sure who are the ‘good guys’, if there are any. But one things for sure: it ain’t the Russians. Who have been bombing the shit out of Aleppo for 6 months. Civilians, rebels, their bombs aren’t capable of differentiating and they don’t really care one way or another. The rebels are anti-Assad, who is a very bad man, but has held stability there, the Russians love Assad, thus hate the rebels. None of which has anything to with ISIS, upon whom the full might of the Russian military was supposed to fall, but that never really happened. The Americans are bombing ISIS, supposedly with Russian support, even though they’re bombing somewhere completely different. What a mess. What a lot of bombs.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Must have been about 12 years ago. We were on holiday that summer in Florida; and we went out for dinner. Which is the same as going out for dinner anywhere else in the world, except much earlier. You eat by 5 because last orders are at 6 and the places closes at 7. Seems odd but with a state-average age of 92 you can almost understand it.

We ordered drinks. Beer for me. I like beer. Mel likes brightly coloured concoctions in long glasses filled with ice and little plastic toys. And so ordered a ‘sex on the beach’ or a ‘banana, peach and peppermint daquiri’ or something along those lines. Chocolate mojito, whatever. She tasted it, said the usual ‘oh, that’s lovely’ and we all had a sip to confirm. When the straw (one of the 9 that came with the drink) was in Rachie (then about 13 years old)’s mouth the waiter started screaming. But like, really screaming.

“WE COULD LOSE OUR LICENSE!!!!! SHE’S A CHILD!!!!! CAN’T DO THATTTTT!!!!! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?????!!!!!” kind’a along those lines. He would have called me a motherfucka or some other Americanism but, along with ‘underage drinking’, swearing with children present, or ‘cussin’ as they call it in the South, is probably illegal too.

And you have to admire the Americans. No, really, you do. They have this ‘no means NO’ attitude to things. There’s no flexibility, no ambiguity, no room for wriggle. Its not like Rachie was on the floor with a bottle of vodka in one hand, her mother’s knickerbocker-glory flavoured margerita in the other singing football songs. That came a little later in her life. She just took a sip, to taste.

Because our kids were never strangers to alcohol. With a mother like theirs that would have been impossible.But I place no blame. The kids were little we gave them sips of wine. They grew up, they tasted our drinks. It was never VERBOTEN!!! it was never a deal, big or otherwise, its just a drink. And for them, I hope, it simply de-mystified the whole booze thing. It wasn’t to be, when they reached that inevitable milestone, something illicit and unknown and therefore more likely to become a problem. It was no big deal. Like they do in Europe.

So Liz Hurley goes to a party with her 14 year-old son. Damian, if you’re interested, the kid with the awesome MILF if you’re not. They drank champagne on the lawn of some manor house or other and ‘Hello!’ did what they do best; filmed vacuous people being vacuous.

And then they edited out the glass from the kid’s hand. Photoshopped. Gone. Never there. Just looks like any other kid but with a deformed hand. Because although its no crime to drink in private whilst ‘underage’, it is apparently, and stupidly, ‘against medical advice’. Like they know anything. So Hello! did what it does best; act like a bunch of tossers.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Happy Anniversary to the England World Cup winning team of 1966. 50 years ago yesterday. Or, as someone else said to me yesterday: we’re celebrating the fact that we have won nothing for 50 years. Glass half full, half empty, ya take your choice.

But I read a fact today that is much more telling. In these 50 years, in ‘major competitions’ (World Cups, European Championships), England have won, in all the knockout stages combined (I make that 25 tournaments) a total of six matches.

Do the Germans celebrate how many years since they first won a world cup? They don’t care. They’ve won loads. Brazilians are too busy designing new bikini bottoms to worry about the first, second, third world cup wins. Too many. Its a work in progress. Football is dynamic. It moves on. Its all about the NEXT World Cup. You don’t, as England appear to have done, just give up when you win it for fear of being disrespectful to the legends who won it for us. And legends they are. But they shouldn’t be. We should have had new legends from the 80s, from the noughties, who are also winners. And then the stars of Bobby Charlton, of Geoff Hurst, Roger Hunt et al, would be allowed to fade. With dignity.

Don’t get me wrong. I love those guys. Every one of them. Ray Wilson, George Cohen, Nobby Stiles. They’ll always have a place in my heart. It greatly upset me to learn that Martin Peters has alzheimers. As have Wilson and Stiles too. Peters always was ’10 years ahead of his time’ and this proves it.

And as I watched Bobby Charlton on one of the hundreds of 1966 programmes on tv yesterday, talking about Bobby Moore (the 2 best players this nation ever produced, by some way) it made me emotional, and it made me sad. Let these guys retire already. Its been long enough. Time to pass the baton onto the next ‘winners’. We’ve heard all the stories. ALL of them. We know how good Bobby Moore was. That Geoff Hurst was trying to put the ball into row Z when he ‘accidentally’ scored the final goal. That Nobby Stiles took Eusebio completely out of the game in the semi-final even though Jackie Charlton gave away the most stupid handball in the entire history of the game. Its time to move on.

They think its all over,

It SHOULD BE BY NOW

Happy Anniversary

A xxxx

Nuclear power is the thing. A big thing. A powerful thing. Unquestionably the thing of the future. Coal runs out and makes a mess. Gas runs out, eventually, and is carbon-unfriendly. The sun don’t shine enough to be viable and windfarms are all well and good but simply don’t produce sufficient power for half time during the the FA cup final when 26 million kettles get turned on simultaneously.

The best way to conserve electricity is to stop people filling up their cars with the stuff. Its a waste. All those hybrids getting plugged in to avoid paying the congestion charge takes power away from all those machines in hospitals the keep people alive!!! (Its very ‘of the moment’ to indicate any benefit against its impact to the NHS or health. OMG!!! people think, if I charge my stupid Renault Leaf someone in St Thomas’s loses his respirator!!! I’m going out to buy a new car that runs on… petrol, which won’t be murdering sick patients).

So we’ll go nuclear. The good things: its relatively cheap; a few pounds of radioactive stuff will last for 37 million years. The sun is a nuclear power plant and that hasn’t run out yet. Its clean; you’re not burning anything. Its very efficient, if done properly.

Bad things: people are inherently scared of anything involving the words ‘nuclear’ or ‘radioactive’, with pretty good reason. ‘Accidents’ on a nuclear scale tend to be a bit more catastrophic than in conventional power plants. Like the destruction of 150 square miles of neighbouring everything plus the added bonus of nuclear fallout. Chernobyl, Sellafield, hmmmm… And its rather costly to set up a nuclear plant. Particularly if the French are involved.

So Hinckley Point. Our ‘nuclear plant of the future!’ As it was hailed 9 years ago when the plan was conceived. Nine fucking years of French bureaucracy-bollocks waiting for an offer so financially punitive for us (but only for the first TEN YEARS) that it will be probably cheaper and more efficient just to burn migrants for our power. I’m just sayin’.

Furthermore, the technology for Hinckley is completely untested anywhere in the world. You really wouldn’t wanna be in that part of England for the ‘snagging’ process.

There is new nuclear technology used in Japan that is neater, safer, more proven. Didn’t exist when Hinckley started. So why use something immediately outdated? And if getting ‘into bed’ with the French isn’t bad enough (and it really is bad enough all by itself) then why not add the Chinese into the mix too? Let them take a third share and grab what little financial opportunities may present themselves in decades to come.

The plan is flawed. The French are even more flawed. Theresa May is right to bale us out. I hope.

Happy saturday

A xxxx

Two weeks tomorrow the new football season starts. Wow. Where’d the summer go? As usual, in a continual saga of clouds, sharp showers (they only became ‘sharp’ in 2014 and haven’t blunted yet) with the odd day yielding 32 degrees and 800% humidity. The perfect day for tube travel. Never mind, football, our ‘winter game’ is returning, with all the joy and excitement it brings. Though its really now our ‘winter, spring and autumn game, with a bit of summer too’. And I’m not sure how wintery its gonna be in Qatar in July but I suspect some way short of the ‘full arctic experience’.

So they’re playing ‘friendlies’. Good to do during August because the transfer window’s still open and you can see what’s missing. Managers earmark their preferred players and the owners and financial people go negotiate for a ‘deal’.

Like Paul Pogba. Euro failure but Manchester United want him desperately. So desperately that they’ll pay over £100 million for him. Even though they gave him away for nothing a few years ago. The price was originally less to pry him out of Juventus, then the pound suffered the Brexit crisis and the 85 mil became over a hundred.

So best buy your players from English clubs, then you don’t suffer the exchange rate hit. You can buy John Stones, the (very so-so) England defender from Everton. In pounds. But if you’re Manchester City he’ll cost an eye-watering 50 mil. Last summer he’d have been 20 mil. Maybe. But with the new tv deal payout arriving at clubs this year, its silly season for player prices. Because clubs now have much more money. And Manchester City weren’t exactly ‘short’ before that windfall.

If that deal goes through, Barnsley will immediately net 7.5 million quid. Barnsley. That’s more than they normally earn in 9 seasons. They can stop darning old socks and buy some new ones. Its part of an old ‘sell-on’ agreement from when Stones went to Everton from there. Who said that the 5 billion pound tv deal for the Premiership doesn’t ‘filter down’ to the League??

This season will be defined by the three new managers who are elevated (in their own minds, at least) to the status of gods. Morinho, the Unstable One, Conte, the Unknown One and Guardiola, the Nice One. Though the words ‘nice’ and ‘Manchester City’ share very few sentences together.

The chances of Samir Nasri featuring for City this season are slim. Unlike Nasri himself who apparently has some issues of a ‘slightly overweight’ nature. The obnoxious ex-Gooner has eaten a lot of pies this summer and is a fucking porker. According to reports. Guardiola has exacting fitness, and fatness, standards and Nasri failed at the first hurdle. In fact he ate the first hurdle.

15 days to go.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

In the Vietnam war, in the 60s, American soldiers were given steroids and amphetamines to enhance their battle performance. Greater strength, longer endurance, less tiredness. Some drugs do that. That’s why they’re called ‘performance enhancing’ and became the mainstay of the athletics industry since then. In ever less-detectable forms. Steroids for strength and muscle, amphetamines for energy; how can you go wrong with that? The rest of the drugs they took, in massive, vast, industrial quantities during that awful war, they did voluntarily. The heroin, the cocaine, entire forests of cannabis. That’s what happens when you go to war in a jungle. Drugs just grow wild.

But the steroid/amphetamine grounding is kind’a logical for soldiers doing physical exertion for ridiculously long stretches and trying to stay sharp, focussed and energised.

However, due to this pharmacological paradigm being embraced by many athletes, gym-heads and virtually every Russian who ever donned a pair of running shoes, there have been found to be associated problems. Steroid psychosis is a big one. You build someone up into a be-muscled mega-god, then he goes nutty and runs wild. The metaphor used in ‘The Hulk’. Be careful what you wish for. Amphetamines are great. Until you actually do need to sleep, then you have to end up taking other shit to force slumber. Drugs to overcome the drugs. The old lady who swallowed the fly.

So now they’ve come up with a new kind of ‘drug’. Something more appropriate in the post-Pokemon world. Something delightfully digital.

Its a headset that looks like the same ones all those tossers wear on the street so they’re never not blue-toothed from Facebook, but in fact the rubber pads that hold them in place send electric pulses into the brain (Facebook types, contrary to their appearance and actions, do in fact have a rudimentary kind of brain) which stimulate muscle action. Its called ‘neuropriming’ and they’ve found that soldiers (in America where its tested; you wouldn’t wanna try it on real people, just in case) developed up to 12% extra strength using the device. Wearers develop ‘more precise, more co-ordinated, more explosive movement’. Brilliant for soldiers. Hmmmmm, brilliant for everyone. Especially athletes.

Upon whom, its already being tested.

Is this cheating? How long before (let’s say) the Russians develop an incy-teensy version powered by a Tesla battery, that sits inside the ear/under the skin? Will it be banned? Its not a drug. Its a… a thing.

And I want one. Just for hauling myself out of bed in the morning, or watching a particularly strenuous tv show.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

For the times, said Bob Dylan, they are a’changin’. He wrote some of his best lines whilst stoned out of his box. Yet that doesn’t dilute them or lessen them. Nor make them less valid today than when he wrote them.

The times are a’changin’. We have a new prime minister (in case you missed that). She’s a gel. Well, a woman. And we have a new foreign secretary. Boris. He’s a boy. England have a new football manager in (Big) Sam Allardyce, and good luck to him. He’s gonna need it.

And so the last remaining piece of the puzzle of international stuff, is America. The Presidency. Because we now know who the two candidates are going to be. Oh, we’ve known it unofficially for about a year, but there’s a rule in the American Constitution that states candidates cannot be officially endorsed by quiet, discrete or subtle means. THEY HAVE TO SHOUT IT FROM THE HIGHEST POINT, THROUGH THE LOUDEST MICROPHONE WITH AS MANY WHOOPS AND YEE-HAAAHS AS THEY CAN WHILST SAYING ‘I LOOOOOVVVVEEEE YOUOUOU’ to the population multiple times. Unless you’re loud and brash, you can’t stand for president. I don’t make the rules, just obey them. The President of The United States of America is not a ‘statesman’ in the normal sense. He (or She) is a fucking ROCK STAR!!! And must always act as such during ‘the process’. Otherwise known as ‘the interminable process’.

Yet all is not happiness and joy in Democrat land. Hillary received more than a ‘little help’ from the Democratic National Committee (DNC, not to be confused with Run DMC; 80s rap band; they don’t get to influence high level politics). The DNC decided that Hillary was ‘their man’ because they didn’t want Bernie Sanders and his rather un-American form of neo-socialist populism. No, they wanted Hillary, so they campaigned against Bernie and forced Hillary in, even though she’d have probably won anyway. And, of course, they made sure that all and any suggestions of any kind of dodgy, biased or influential nature were written down and stored, kept on multiple computers with copies and ccs sent everywhere. You wouldn’t want to act in a shady way and be discrete about it; what’s the point in that? So the emails were hacked, the DNC exposed and all the more grist in Donald Trump’s mill.

Oddly there is a suggestion that the actual hacking was done by Russian state hackers. (They’re in the Kremlin, next door to the athlete doping department). Who released the emails to wikileaks to circulate. Why would the Russians do that? Why would they want Quick Draw Trump with his finger on the ‘nuke’ button? Hmmmm…

You can’t vote for Trump; he’s an ass. But can you trust Hillary???

Vote Michelle. I love Michelle.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

When Jeremy Corbyn becomes Chairman of the United Kingdom, by then a communist state with an ‘executive committee’ of comrades, rather than parliament, future elections banned due to being unnecessary under the new regime of fairness and equality (for all except women, Jews and anyone else he doesn’t like), capitalism will be gone from these shores. Little Britain will be an EU-free island of wonderful, caring, gentle, soft, touchy-feely political standing filled with love and peace and harmony. All administered by Momentum’s (by then) armed thugs and militant trade unionists. Len McClusky will be minister for charm. A statue of Bob Crowe will stand in Trafalgar Square, replacing that fascist bourgeoise war-monger, Lord Nelson. The ‘working people of this country’ will change from being the most abused phrase by all political parties, to being the dominant class. So they can stop working. Come out from the pits (which have all closed anyway), leave the production lines (Japan having moved all operations to Belgium) and instead claim state payments and spend quality time down the pub. Production will cease, the economy will implode, but we’ll all be really happy.

If only.

But now from a most unlikely source, anti-capitalist mantras are being chanted. Theresa May. Our Prime Minister, our leader, our main Conservative, wants to change capitalism. Always a tricky one in a free market economy. And the most anti-Tory message any Tory could ever spout. And yet she has a point. Some things have gone ‘too far’. Even for me. And I’ve applied for re-instatement of legal slavery.

The rail bosses have pocketed, between them (and there’s only 3 worth considering) 20 million quid in the last 5 years. Whilst producing a service generally described as ‘worse than shit, not much better than nothing’. Ok, they work hard, I’m sure, though not so hard that they don’t do non-exec roles in their spare time, but they fail miserably at the primary task. To get the trains taking people (yes, working people) to work. They have to get paid, and properly paid too, as men of such standing would earn in any other sector. But bonuses? How do you arrive at a bonus situation when your work has failed and your debt increased?

Then there’s the ‘big 2’. Big in girth, at least. Mike Ashley and Philip Green.

Big Mike does indeed make zillions from his Sports Direct empire. Unfortunately, he beat me to the whole slavery thing and rules his underpaid staff in a way that would actually make a Victorian workhouse overseer wince.

And Philip Green, Mr Shifty, though I did give him the benefit of the doubt when the BHS scandal first erupted, and still try to be equivocal, is an irredeemable shit. How’s that for ‘equivocal’?

Ok, time to go and be a capitalist pig. WHERE’S MY COAT, FOOTMAN??? TAKE THAT!!!!!

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

this is the face of the Olympics. The ‘Brazilian Bottom’. Ok, for those really up to speed on bikini styles, its actually the Brazilian Bottoms, referring of course the (very) briefs and not what is contained therein. Generally, if swimwear is more swim-not-wearing, then its Brazilian in title if not origin. Brazilian used to be used to refer just to footballers and waxing, now it has many flavours.

The actual ‘face’ of the Olympics is that of Gisele, the apparent embodiment of the Girl from Ipanema. And that’s for the opening ceremony. Which is not so much a ‘ceremony’ these days as as a show. A very flamboyant and expansive show. And apparently the Brazilian take on this will involve a lot of beautiful girls and a lot of Brazilian Bottoms. They’re opting for a kind of soft-core porn approach. Which is the right spirit for the occasion. They want it to be fun. Even without the Russians. However hard that sounds.

And yet, after final consideration by the International Olympic Committee yesterday, giving the matter due consideration (receiving bribes), taking account of options (death threats to their families from the KGB) and using the even and fair hand of justice (capitulating, caving in, wimping out and acting like a bunch of tossers), they have given the Russians something of a reprieve. In fact they’ve let Russia off completely and changed the entire nature of the ‘punishment’ (what there is of it) to not fit the crime.

The whole point was that the drugging of Russian athletes was institutionalised and actually run as a state-organised program, like other countries have ‘feed the poor’ programs, Russia has ‘drug the athletes’ ones. In all likelihood the athletes themselves were at best ‘encouraged’ to take performance enhancing drugs. At worst they were simply told to take them or spend the rest of your career in Siberia. The state provided the drugs, it made/forced/encouraged the taking of them, it sorted out those pesky urine samples. This was never about individual athletes, cheats though they may be. It was about Russia. Who institutionalised that cheating, set up a separate polit-bureau for it, probably have a few ministers for drug-taking.

The IOC in their (fear? complicity?? wankiness???) ‘decision’ has implicitly exonerated Russia from all responsibility for this crime. They’ve made it about the athletes, the ones who are drug abusers, not about the country, for making it happen. Possibly forcing it to happen.

Of course I feel for the few honest, exceptionally hard-working Russian athletes who’ve given their lives to their sport just for the opportunity to represent their (rotten, foul, corrupt) country at the Olympics. Its every athlete’s dream. Yet it was Russia who committed the crime and the entire nation should have been banned.

The IOC is the new FIFA. Tossers.

Happy Monday

A xxxx