Andy's Glasses

“GOT’CHA LUVVERLY TSATSUMAS, PERND’A’PERND. WE GOT BANANAS, ORINGIZ’N’ GRAPES. DON’ TOUCH THAT, LOV, I DON’ KNOW WHERE YA BEEN. GRANNY SMIFFS!!! 90p A PERND. ‘ERE; WHERE YA GET DEM, DARLIN’? DON’ GET MANY’A DEM TO DA PERND, DO YA????. YA WAN SOMINK JUICY’N’SWEET DO YA? COME RARND DA BACK DEN, HHHHAAAAAA!!!!!”

Greg Wallace was a greengrocer. And though his tv persona attitude possibly implied that he was some kind of ‘Michelin-starred greengrocer’, he just, kind’a, sold fruit and veg. Probably very loudly, I grant you, probably with lashings of smut with some not-so-mild innuendo drizzled on top, but he flogged potatoes and kiwis; guavas and green beans. That was his background. Where ‘the man’ was formed. An environment not renowned for its subtlety, its gentility or its political correctness. An environment more Benny Hill than Newsnight. More pinch-yer-bum than ‘tell us your pronouns’. It was called ‘being a bit of a lad’. And, believe it or not, during vast swathes of human advancement (the 1960s, 70s and a bit of the 80s), this was acceptable. If not quite desirable in attracting people to a greengrocers’.

So, fast forward a few decades, past numerous business ventures, including a very successful greengrocery suppliers and some rather unsuccessful forays into fine dining, and you have the man as a regular on tv. A man now so recognised, ubiquitous and well-regarded that I was prepared to have dinner with him.

OK, he has a connection with a spectacle company and he sat next to me just for the main course as he had to ‘rotate’, to share the joy. And I’d like to say that this ‘meeting’ did not qualify to enter me into the ‘#metoo’ movement. He didn’t abuse me in any way, or pinch my bum, didn’t act in any way inappropriately or even stare too long at my chest. I was actually a bit upset about that.

Yet now we learn that Greg is an awful person. Suggestive. Makes sexualised comments. Makes women feel uncomfortable. Particularly humourless, dour, Scottish tv presenters called Kirsty Wark. Who was so offended it took 10 years to complain. Or maybe she was 10 years ahead of ‘woke’ and set the standard for such ‘crimes’.

I’m not forgiving Greg for all his ‘crimes’. Mainly because we don’t know what they were. But it’s ‘emerging’. His major crime seems to be ‘inappropriateness’ of a very high standard. When it ventures to unwanted contact, I’ll get upset with him. He’s not a rapist. He’s just a man not quite bright enough to judge the people he’s talking to. He seems to have no filters. And no clue. Assumes people like to hear about his fantasies. No concept that it makes people very ‘uncomfortable’. Next time we have dinner I’ll tell him about mine. That’ll put him off his food. Its puts me off mine.

But it does piss me off when 120 women just start calling out how ‘he said something I didn’t like’. They should be sent to the greengrocers for some ‘desensitivity training’.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Tomorrow we get to vote. On ‘assisted dying’. Whether our nation-state becomes complicit in murder (if you’re a Catholic/Christian/anti-abortionist/Hassidic Jew/devout anything) or whether it allows people the freedom to choose their time of death when there is absolutely no hope and staying alive only adds pain, suffering and loss of dignity (if you’re me). Or not.

To be honest, I don’t think the bill, as it currently stands, goes quite far enough. It needs to include people with more than 6 months to live but with all the above criteria of irreversible downward decline towards horrors. It needs to include people who no longer have the ability to ‘administer their own suicide’, because they’re the ones who really need it. It should include anyone who sits at a green traffic light staring at their phone. And anyone actually adhering to the 20mph speed limit. And telesales people generally.

I haven’t mentioned my brother for a while. Since they told us he has terminal cancer, back in July, is too weak (after 6 months in the ICU, who wouldn’t be?) for treatment, and ‘won’t make Christmas’. Well, as he’s not eating, he won’t miss the turkey. And yet seems, in relatively ‘rude health’ for that prediction. Even though he’s totally bed-bound and hasn’t moved significantly since January. Though he was ‘moved’ in July to a nursing home for his ‘palliative care’, which was a really good move. It’s very nice there. And on the basis that ANYWHERE IS BETTER THAN THE ROYAL FUCKING FREE, he’s doing ok.

So he has darker days, as you would. But generally he’s ’in a good place’. Which was made more ‘good’ by his decision never to go back to the hospital for any more blood transfusions. Which he’s done about 4 times in the last month. And he absolutely fucking hates it. Not the procedure, that’s nothing. The ambulances, the waiting, the sheer NHS-ness of the whole extended, protracted, paint-drying-ness of being lifted about. When all he wants is to lie in his bed and listen to Alexa play him stuff.

I told him that his decision (should he choose to stick with it) may actually ‘put him ahead of the assisted dying bill’. Which, in our little Monty-Python inspired, The Young Ones sustained, world where sick and dark humour prevails, he thought was very funny. Because he still acts like my brother, talks like my brother, insults and abuses me like my brother (don’t worry, its reciprocated, like you’re worried…), he just doesn’t move much.

He’s in no pain, no discomfort. And I think a place where he’s not afraid of dying. So now, with his decision for pretty much ‘no more intervention’, it’s almost like he’s been liberated. Like he’s ’back in control’. And as we sat there this morning with ‘Carry on Wayward Son’ thumping out of the speaker (by Kansas, such a great track), he was just ‘Rich’. Not a patient, not a dying man, just Rich. He’ll die when he dies and just doesn’t want to suffer.

So if that does not simply define the entire ‘assisted dying debate’, then I invite any dissenting voters to come with me to see my brother.

Happy voting

A xxxx

God bless our government!!! I’m so pleased that lovely man is our Prime Minister. The fact that he’s a masssssive Arsenal fan only adds to my pleasure and my confidence in the entire leadership process. Which is going so well! Especially regarding our ‘green’ policies. As someone who would never step on an ant or destroy a polar bear’s habitat, I’ve been gluing myself to motorways and bridges for 5 years now, getting wet feet from my aversion to leather and living as ‘carbon free’ a lifestyle as is possible, like Greta, I hail the COP29 to have been a wonderful success and the new laws regarding electric vehicles to be ‘life-changing’. Not just for me, but for the badgers. The shrews.

And all we have to do, once we’ve brought back all the 470 delegates we sent to Azerbaijan, is to just pay the small, poor islands and countries 300 billion dollars a year and that will make all that carbon just disappear!! Well, it’s ‘my’ money, isn’t it? I pay my taxes!! Though, I suppose there’s a good case that I don’t as I live on sickness benefits. Membership of the Green Party gives you instant rights to claim mental health disability, the application form comes with the Party badge and the rules of veganism.

But even better than pissing away hundreds of billions of dollars in countries we’ve never heard of, full of corrupt politicians and evil dictators, we’ve implemented rules right here in the UK to replace all those horrible, petrol and diesel cars and vans with proper, green, electric ones, which will save the planet by 2030. Even though we only produce 0.9% of the world’s emissions.

Best news of all is that Vauxhall Motors are finally closing that horrible factory in Luton. Well, I suppose, other than the airport, that factory IS Luton. No more rotten, smoke-spewing vans coming out of there!!! Ok, a few jobs will be lost. Alright, 1100 jobs will be lost but those people can just join the Greens and claim mental illness, can’t they? Remember, to be ‘working class’, you don’t actually need to work.

As a nation, we NEED to be producing 80% electric vehicles by 2030. And if the manufacturers fail to adhere to this very important, virtue-signalling, post-woke and mildly insane objective, THEY WILL BE FINED HEAVILY!!! As they should be. It is irrelevant that people in this country don’t want to buy these vehicles, make them anyway!!! They’ll have to buy electric if there’s no choice, won’t they?

And why would any decent person NOT want an EV? They only cost about twice as much as a ‘horrid-fuel’ vehicle. They only need minor restructuring of the neighbourhood electricity supply to install a charging point. And they go into ‘panic mode’ once you’ve gone more than 32 miles from home. The electric car charging infrastructure now can’t cope at all. So by quadrupling the number of EVs on the road, that should become better. Errr…

I know it looks bad, closing a great big factory and losing lots of jobs, but trust me… well, trust Kier, this is what ‘economic growth’ looks like.

Happy Veganember

xxxx

Sometimes I write poems and sometimes I don’t
It depends what I’m writing and whether I will or I won’t.

Poetry is the medium of those truly inspired. Those who are on another plane of love and appreciation and wonderment, for whom mere words are insufficient to express what their hearts are truly feeling.

Which is why I never read poetry. What’s the fucking point? It’s pretentious, often pretty meaningless, vague and opaque by design, cryptic and… I could go on. Do I really want to know what is buried deep in someone else’s heart?

Shakespeare wrote in rhymes. And he was a Spurs fan. Big time. So, like the ‘other’ bard, I write in poetry when moved beyond the scope of what normal sentences can possibly hope to express.

So I only do it for football. I could extend it to the mountains, except we ‘don’t got none round ‘ere’, or to flowers, birds, all of God’s majesty, the sunset, the stars, all host of really boring, dull things. Yet its only football that inspires me to wax poetic. Even though ‘rhyming couplets’ are arguably the cheapest form of verse. The easiest. Birthday Card Poetry. Lila can do it. Though, as you can see from this picture, biting into an apple would be more of a challenge for her currently.

Football simply lends itself to verse. But only if certain criteria are met, so that an emotional ‘critical mass’ causes an inner nuclear ‘explosion’ (body cells do have nuclei, so its appropriate) of wonder, awe and love.

So first of all; there’s the ‘importance’ of the match. Ok, none are unimportant, but winning against, f’rinstance Ipswich (as fucking IFFFFF), would not be as exiting as a win against, say, Manchester City. To make the mighty fall is a biblical thing. The magnitude of the win is massively relevant. I’ll take one nil, against any team, any day. But when the number creeps up to, say, 4!!! The realms of ‘thrashing’, or ‘drubbing’, then it gets really poetic. Yet its about the boys. And when they, man for man, simply outclass their outrageously overpaid and ‘rock star’ opposition; when Dejan Kulusevsky outplays Gundogan, Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden all together, and James Madison outshines Erling Haaland in front of goal, and our make-shift centrebacks keep a clean sheet, and our goalie is spectacular… Then I get inspired. More than inspired; I feel the need to… to… to make things rhyme. Just like Shakespeare.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

The stage was set, a showdown at the Etihad for us to see
Spurs visit Man City, well, how hard can that be?
As it turned out, the answer was ‘not very’
Glued as I was to my boys on the telly.

But this was a new version of Manchester City,
Of late, they’ve been playing rather shitty.
Lost 4 in a row, that’s never happened before
Unless you return to the days of yore.

Since Abu Dhabi arrived bringing its riches and treasures,
Their fans have been treated to just endless pleasures.
A sense of entitlement had become their right
Simply buy your way out of trouble; well not last night.

Yet Spurs are Spurs, this is unquestionably so
The highest of the high to the lowest of the low
As unpredictable as Trump, as fickle as your ex-wife
Filled with fun, yet endless trouble and strife.

The first ten minutes were difficult in extreme,
City bossed it, the ball we’d hardly seen
Fortunately it wasn’t to be Haaland’s night
The lumbering Norse just wasn’t quite right

Then up steps James Madison, returned from his exile
He hadn’t defended enough, his efforts too febrile
Kulusevski was a magician, before our very eyes,
Madison finished, to Man City’s great surprise.

Then again, just seven minutes later,
Birthday Boy Madison does once again cater
To the massive holes in City’s appalling back line
Arriving to finish just in time.

As any Spurs fan will tell you, being 2 nil up at the half
Is stressful and worrying and enough to make you barf.
So many leads have slipped over the years,
The memories of which leave me in tears.

But soon as the second period settled down
Pedro Porro arrived to see the City fans drown
In their own tears and that was 3 nil
But still time to pull something back still.

They brought on Kevin de Bruyne, a shadow of his former self
Would have better off staying on the shelf
As wave after wave of City attacks broke down
With Haaland having taken off his crown.

And at the very end, as City poured up the pitch
Desperate to score 4 goals in the stitch (of time; gimme a break)
Spurs broke, sped down to the other end
The fourth goal a big message to send.

Not sure to whom it was sent but I got it loud and clear
Happy days are coming near
Leaving the Gallaghers of this world wondering of the story
And mourning the glory.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Ahhhh, tis a wicked web you weave if at first you do invade Ukraine, or defend yourself from murdering, raping terrorists, or plan to build a nuke.

Probably like you, I’d always felt that America elected themselves as ‘guardians of the free world’ and international peace keepers, which they demonstrate by sending troops to invade other countries, and use bluster and threat to keep the world in order. This is probably because the dollar rules the entire world and it’s their buck. Bitcoin was proposed really as an alternative, being so international and secure that no-one really wanted them, other than as a dodgy investment vehicle which could turn you into a billionaire or a homeless bum within 10 days of purchase. The BRIC countries are the ones who feel America’s had it too good for too long, with China getting especially pissed off every time President Xi has to write a cheque in $$$$$. And yet, America rules, the dollar rules.

And if you had any doubts about our friends in the ‘special relationship’, the prospect of having Trump at the helm once again, steering his meandering, almost drunken, way through the turbulent seas of world events, seems to have been demonstrated this week.

Biden, in a final push, like a dying mother giving birth to triplets, has permitted Ukraine to fire US made missiles into Russia. Putin has all but declared war on America, Europe and everyone else, with emphatic threat of nuclear attack. Trump wants to ‘negotiate a peace’ which, to be honest, makes more sense than trying to play chicken with Putin.

Then on Thursday the ICC placed arrest warrants for Binyamin Netanyahu and the (dead) leader of Hamas. With all due respect, the ICC are a bunch of totally one-sided tossers following their own agenda and desperate to improve their frankly risible reputation. The leader of Hamas is, firstly, dead, and secondly, a fucking terrorist. He’s not guilty of ‘war crimes’ but of mass murder, rape and extreme terrorism. Even implying some kind of equivalence with Netanyahu, even if you really hate Netanyahu, is simply ignorant and wrong.

Americans have now stated that not only do they think the ICC ruling to be ridiculous, meaning the Israeli would not be arrested in America, the incoming Trump team also state that any countries who promise to abide by the ICC ruling will get sanctioned by them. And that, basically, means us.

And as Starmer’s plan is to build trade links with America without duties being imposed, our hapless PM needs to think long and hard before he does his normal knee-jerk, virtue-signalling reply.

Trump will also do all in his power to prevent Iran becoming nuclear in arms. Something Obama actually facilitated because he ‘trusted them’. Iran? Trust??? Trump, for all his faults, knows better.

So yeah, we’re all waiting to see what happens next. Who blinks first.

And it won’t be me. I’ve been practicing my ‘stare’.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I’m deeply impressed by author, Richard Flanagan. Deeply. He has won both the Booker prize (non-fiction) and now the ‘Baillie Gifford’ for the same book. The latter is worth 50 grand. Which Flanagan turned down. Well done Richard!!! A man of total principle and dedication to the cause.

Which cause? Oh, Baillie Gifford, a massive investment company, are ‘complicit’. He didn’t say that, it’s my word. My new favourite word because it’s the easiest, laziest, stupidest, most vague, wish-washy accusation that any moron can level at anyone/thing/company when you decide to hate them. They’re ‘complicit’ in global warming. The war in Gaza. Ukraine. Wars. Oil. Fucking investment bastards might as well just nuke all the major cities in the world and kill everyone more quickly!!! But if they could do it AFTER they pay out the next round of dividends, that would be really appreciated.

I’m not saying that there aren’t moral considerations when making investments. It’s just how much ‘weight’ to give them, compared to the returns you might make. Ooooh, that’s harsh. And yet we’re at a place where if you invest people’s money in slavery, international assassinations or boats for illegal immigrants, you’re gonna have a few issues with your clients.

And if, as Flanagan said in his condemnation of Baillie Gifford, that it was ‘complicit’ in the war in Gaza by investing in Amazon and Nvidia (both American techno-giants), then I’m afraid you leave the land of ‘making a statement of virtue’ and enter fuckwitland. If you really want to eliminate everything remotely Israeli from your life, just bin all your tech. Phone, computer, pads, everything. Empty your drug cabinet in the bin. Ditch your Sky box and Alexa. Then you would not be ‘complicit’ in any way. In a democratic country trying to protect its people and defend itself. No-one would want to be complicit in that.

And the professional ban-ners, the cancellers, the protestors, all those with red paint sprays, will find the most tenuous of distant links to any of their chosen hate-list at any time. And it’s very very hard to find any bank or financial institution that doesn’t have dealings with Big Oil, or arms manufacturers, and every bit of modern technology can go back at some stage to Israel.

They’re going to make missiles with or without my pension pot’s contribution in share acquisition. In fact, there’s never been a better time to buy. Or not, if that’s not your thing. But essentially accusing companies of ‘arts-washing’ and refusing to accept their money only makes a statement of the most stupid and on-woke-message kind. It makes you look like a dickhead. A 50 grand poorer dickhead.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

As we stand on the verge of World War 3, The Final Countdown!!, (I thought this one deserved a subtitle as its firstly a sequel and secondly, possibly the last in the series, if not the planet), it is time to stand up and be counted. Time to be a man. Even if you’re a woman. Or a man identifying as a woman. Because President Biden, realising that as he’s not long for this life, has taken a massive roll of the dice with our lives. By consenting to Ukraine using American long-range, super-fast, almost-un-shoot-downable missiles into mainland Russia, Old Joe is invoking the wrath of the planet’s foremost warlord who has threatened the ‘n’-word in response to such an action. Not that one, that’s not allowed any more, the other one: NUCLEAR!!! And furthermore, once GI Joe gives the go-ahead, Britain and France will follow suit with the use of their missiles. They were just waiting for the US lead. And now we face the very same threat. That if NATO country ordinance is being used against Russia, that is a declaration of war by those countries. You know how touchy Putin is. And, other than sending Joey round, there is no greater threat to civilisation. To humanity. To the entire planet!!!

So here in London I’m preparing for nuclear war. Digging a bunker’s out of the question really, digging a few daffodil bulbs in takes forever, so its stand and fight. I’ll be out there with my samurai sword (wooden one) bashing those nukes out of the skies. As long as it’s not too cold out.

But before it all kicks off, Starmer’s taking full advantage of his air miles surplus. Following the meaningless COP summit in Azerbaijan, he’s now in Rio for a conference of “World Leaders and other Tossers”, slotting, as he does, nicely into the latter category.

Just to show the complete cluelessness of our Prime Minister, he flew out to the Save the Planet from Carbon meeting in Baku with a team of 470 people. All doing a 5000 mile round trip for 3 days of telling everyone that flying in planes is killing the planet. And 470 x 5000 x lots of carbons equals… equals dead polar bears in my reckoning.

And now he’s gonna ‘tough it out’ with Putin. They argue, everyone else dies. The futility of war.

Happy (?) Tuesday

A xxxx