Andy's Glasses

Let me tell you about the island of Islay (pronounced ‘Eye-la’, you southern illiterate baaastaard). Its relatively small, about 35 miles north to south, less side to side; it has very few trees, which can give it a rather bleak look in places; I would guess that the incidence of road rage is zero as you don’t encounter many cars and those that do all wave at you. As if you’re the last living souls on the planet. Which at times here it feels like you are. The people though are generally really lovely and friendly. And I don’t think they have a single traffic warden in the whole island. Bit like Heaven. No traffic wardens there either; they all ROT IN HELL.

The only things that happen on this island are, in order of frequency: sheep eat grass, cows eat grass, sheep eat more grass, cows take a shit, the sheep get shorn for their wonderful, very expensive wool, and someone produces a bottle of whisky.

Because Islay punches above its size, if not its weight (I couldn’t quite get the weight) in terms of whisky. Not quantity, but quality. It is Single Malt Central. This is where they make it and this tiny island has 8 top distilleries of single malt whisky anywhere in the world. They make more Scotch here in Scotland than they do even in China. And each distillery produces loads of varieties. And loads of ages. 10 year, 40 quid. 17 year, 65 quid. 25 year, 120 quid. There is an equation but its beyond me. And after what they call a ‘dram’ here you really don’t care any more. Whisky is whisky and has a much greater value than money could ever have. And you always have a dram at the end of a distillery tour. You have to. Its the law.

So after two tours in two days I know everything there is to know about making single malt Scotch. Here’s how you do it.

You kill a malt. But just one. Obviously. They run wild here, along with the cows and sheep. You get a bunch of Islay virgins, and remember, the plural of ‘Islay’ is ‘They-lay’, and they stomp on the poor malt until its dead and squished, keeping all the natural juices. In a pot. Which you boil for a bit. You put that pot into a barrel for 10 years and then you flog it for 50 quid. Easy money.

I love it here and I’m never leaving. It could take almost 2 weeks just to meet every inhabitant here. And four to visit the other distilleries.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

So I’m on a boat. Big sodding boat. Taking us from one bit of Scotland to another. Ok, more specifically, from mainland to the Isle of Islay, over in the West. And the boat, once you’ve parked the car in a very crowded, cramped car-park, downstairs, is surprisingly luxurious. It has a bar. It has tvs. It has fruit machines. It even has wi-fi. Unlike our last hotel, which didn’t. And, as we realised quite soon, I’d almost rather do without a roof than wi-fi. Until it started raining, then I got the roof put back on.

And it does rain a lot.

But back on the boat; its like a cruise ship. Or, like I’d imagine a cruise ship to be if I was old or infirm enough to ever go on a cruise. Similarly, I imagined the ‘Kennacraig to Islay’ ferry as being a strictly utilitarian, bleakly austere, protestantianly grim and serious and full of all the poverty that Nicola Sturgeon keeps banging on about. But no. We have (a degree of) luxury. You can even drink whisky here, at 9.30 in the morning, without having to put it in a paper bag and sit in a doorway. Its that civilised.

Loch Lomond was exceptionally beautiful. Everywhere here is exceptionally beautiful. If you like green, you like water, you like trees and mountains, and most of all, you like BIG. Its vast. Fucking immense. And there’s mountains all around so you’d call it ‘the Highlands’ if someone hadn’t named it so already. They could have called it the wetlands, that would be accurate too. Cos its wet here. But driving around is just fab around the Lochs with every bend and turn bringing new wonderful views. Or the same wonderful view but from a different angle. Love Scotland. Good people. Some of them.

And thus I’ve left behind the woes at home. Almost. The good thing about Scotland is that you get BBC news. For the time being. Whilst its still part of ‘B’. The bad thing about Scotland is that you get BBC news. Though

Which is great because England have won the World Cup! Almost. Semi-finals of the women’s world cup is seriously brilliant. I’m now prepared to, if not exactly get excited, at least get involved. That’s a start. And for some reason I think if the women do manage to win it, that will be a touch humiliating for our boys. Yet I haven’t worked out why that should be.

The shootings in Tunisia were awful. And obviously targeted specifically against Britain. But its really not a ‘Tunisia’ problem. If I was there (and not shot) I’d stay for my holiday. Because you’re probably safer there than anywhere else in the world for the next few weeks. The ‘lone wolf’ terrorist is the most dangerous of all because he can strike anywhere, any time, any country, city or school/hospital/beach. You can’t fight a philosophy, however fucked it may be, with conventional weaponry or rules. And this particular ideology is so vile, poisonous and evil, I’m not sure how you’d fight it at all.

Ok, another 2 hours and I’ll land, so I need to go and be sick somewhere, so I know I’ve been on a boat.

Happy first Monday of Wimbledon. Come on Murray; for Britain, FOR SCOTLAND.

A xxxx

So when you see a long, straight, smooth road you say ‘ah, a Roman road’. Not because it looks like a Roman nose but because those Latins built their roads long and straight. Shortest distance between two points, etc, etc.

Then was the Emperor Hadrian on drugs? Was he drunk when he built the Wall? Because whatever is the opposite of ‘straight’ (a very very contextual question that one) where lines are concerned, Hadrian’s famous Wall is that opposite. Did the bastard never consider urbanites from Londinium 2000 years in the future who might want to walk the sodding thing? Only to find that not only it bends about like a motherfucker, it goes up and down like a yo-yo (and a ‘yo-yo’ is, in this context, the bastard second cousin of the motherfucker in question).

Cos those yo-yos will kill ya. Though not hardy adventurers like me and Mel, toughened up by years of walking round Waitrose AND John Lewis. We walked the wall for 10 miles. Felt like 20. Very very beautiful up there, quite amazing really. That you could find such astounding beauty such a long way from White Hart Lane.

Though this picture is in fact not Hadrian’s Wall, as may be deduced by: a. the lack of wall; and b. the vast amount of water. Glad you’re paying attention. The picture is Loch Lomond. Which translates from the ancient Celtic as ‘Lake of someone or other’, or from the ancient yiddish as ‘a big hole in your Lomond’.

We arrived yesterday, having driven all the way up once again with the top down (average consumption 28.3mpg, almost another record) and arrived in that rarest of things: a sunny day in Scotland. According to hotel lady, its their first of the year. Rains a lot here. Which is why its so beautiful and green. Then more green.

So rather than waste time making hay (the cows have got so much grass here they really don’t need it) we decided instead to spend the sunshine on a boat on the Loch. Where we learned all about Rob Roy, the famous Scottish 17th century criminal/hero (depending if you’re English/Scottish). He was a hero ‘to the people’, like Robin Hood, Ned Kelly, David Bowie. But due to all the clan stuff, the McTavishes and McGregors, the Campbells before they made soup, and probably the McDonalds over rights to deforest half of Scotland to graze the cows for Big Macs on McGregor land!!!! basically its a tale of aggressive warring Scots people robbing each other blind. Like Celtic vs Rangers, with Nicola Sturgeon, but 400 years ago.

Wonderful here. Scotland is famous for Scotch, for wide empty spaces and for midges. And Loch Lomond is ‘midge central’ apparently. But we’re prepared (pics to follow…)

Happy whatever day I can find some wi-fi to send this

A xxxx

Fascism. The far right wing of the political spectrum. Then a little more to the right. Not a nice place to be. Neither is too far to the left either, it must be said, to show an impartiality that I don’t feel. Because at least to the left you get some kind of equality. In theory. In actuality you end up with something indistinguishable from far right. Just a different kind of totalitarian rule. Stalin, Mao, Hitler, was there ever any real difference?

UKIP are not far anything. They are on the ‘quite right’ scale of things because they’re very firm on immigrants and keeping Britian… if not ‘white’ exactly, then ‘British’. And getting out of Europe; too foreign for them, and they’re very nationalistic, which can be a bit scary.

And now they’ve been banned from taking part in Gay Pride. Nigel Farage was in the office polishing his Louboutins when the call came in. UKIP are not welcome at Gay Pride. They’ve been un-prided.

Which is logical in some respects. UKIP are anti-gay-marriage, they have queer-bashing events and they have groups of thugs calling people ‘poofs’ as they walk past pubs. And right wing thugs are not generally ‘gay-friendly’. One UKIP man blamed an earthquake on homosexuality. God’s revenge. They sacked that enlightened creature promptly. Not so much because he was anti-gay as because he was a screaming fucking nutter.

BUT… gay people can have any political affiliation they choose. Gay is not a political stance. And if gays are politically UKIP does that make them less gay? No. It just makes them a little like Jewish Nazis, but they are allowed.

Thus the Gay Regulatory Committee (I made that up) have decided that UKIP can’t march in Pride. That would be having their cock and eating it.

The other fence I’m currently teetering on, deciding whether to slip down the ‘humanitarian’ and ‘love of all mankind’ side, or to jump headfirst onto the ‘old fascist’ one is the ‘migrant problem at Calais’. Those thousands of the saddest and sorriest, most desperate and impoverished souls, left their families to be ripped off by people-traffickers, in search of economic improvement in Europe. By hanging onto the axle of a lorry going through the Eurotunnel. And all because of our wonderful ‘benefits’ system. Net migration is up, and that’s just the legal ones, the illegals don’t register, don’t count. And hence don’t get benefits.

Sitting here in the vast wilderness of the Cumbrian countryside you think ‘what’s a hundred thousand more people in all this?’. But they won’t come here. They all go to London. And London is: FULL.

Off to Hadrian’s Wall. Can’t be late. Its only been there for 2000 years, what’s a half an hour one way or the other?

Happy Friday

A xxxx

This picture means nothing of any value to anyone who doesn’t drive a ‘mid-life crisis’. Those who do will shout: FUCK ME, 30 MILES PER GALLON!!!!! those who don’t will bemoan the pollution and lack of economy or wonder what’s wrong with the car.

And such a thing could never happen in London, which is why I was, at that time, 174 miles from home. On the motorway approaching Liverpool. And we still had the top down on the car, even though the beautiful sunshine left us at about Stoke. Normally its ‘the will to live’ that departs at that particular junction on the M6 but not yesterday. Sunny in London, grey up north.

We knew the risk yet went anyway.

Liverpool’s an interesting city. A ‘work in progress’. Where what’s been developed, particularly around the fabulous old docks and wharves is wonderful. There’s some gorgeous old buildings too, one even with the ‘Liver Birds’ on top. The centre is a horrible, pedestrianised nightmare high street that pretty well defines what ruined shopping forever. Boots. BHS. H&M. Topshop. Primark. Costa Coffee (I can almost forgive them). KFC. McDonalds. Put them all together and you get ‘GET ME OUT’A HERE!!!’ Loads of money, but money can’t buy me love.

Go a few streets back from there and you get ‘old Liverpool’, which, Beatles aside, was not really much to write home about. So I won’t.

There’s tons of development in the area, which some might say it really needs. The un-sanitised docks first because they offer such massive buildings with wonderful potential. Though you then need to find people to buy/rent/occupy the spaces. Its all very well creating a Yuppie haven, but you need a few yuppies to… er… to yup.

The people are friendly though. In that very Scouse way that you’d expect them to. Arrrrrright Guys? They all say. Pardon? I reply.

Went to the Tate Gallery, lovely space in tourist central. But basically, after my 19 hours there, I’ve seen Liverpool. A daytripper, yeah.

So we left this morning and headed up the West coast-ish as far as Carlisle. On Hadrian’s Wall. This time we managed to get half way before stopping to raise the roof on the car. Rain. We’re actually staying just outside, in a gorgeous little town called Wetherall. The satnav took us to the middle of fucking nowhere and then we had to wing it for about 10 miles before stumbling upon it. This place is so quiet and far away from civilisation that they actually use their garages for cars. Imagine.

More tales from ‘up north’ to amaze you as the adventure continues. And hopefully the rain stops.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I’ve had few regrets in my life (so far; still plenty of time, I hope) but one was not buying tickets for Taylor Swift in her current concert series. How could I have missed that? She played in Glasgow last night, even though I won’t be in that city til Saturday on my own ‘world tour’. But I can’t hate her for that. She’s not only wonderful, but she speaks to ME. She is MY personal best friend. More, my BFF. Maybe another F as well. Even though forever is a long time and it could be decades before another teeny-country-pop legend pops up with legs that long.

But its not about the legs. Ok, a bit. Its about the attitude. Not a Rhianna type ‘fuck-you!’ kind’a attitude, but a Taylor type ‘I love you’ in a platonic, besty kind of way. She speaks to me personally, just me. And all the other 12 year-old schoolgirls and proto-feminist wannabes. And, as she did with Sony Music, she gives off a massive ‘don’t fuck with me!’ A sentiment she doesn’t appear to share with her almost endless list of a-list celebrity beef exes. Never mind, today’s dumped feller is tomorrow’s number one hit.

However, I need to go to Scotland. Its destiny. Because Nicola Sturgeon has decided to cut the Queen off without any money. Bitch. That poor old lady whose given her entire life for Britain, will be destitute and possibly homeless without the Scottish funding. Ok, homes she’s not actually short of, but their upkeep is not exactly cheap. Buckingham Palace alone needs 15 million quid spending in it just to fix the boilers and do some re-pointing. Really, I suppose, the Queen should move into an assisted-living facility in Barnsley, a care home for the elderly, but that’s not Nicola Sturgeon’s bloody decision.

Nicola Sturgeon hates the Queen. Hates royalty. She’s a die hard (if only) lefty of the worst order. But that shouldn’t take the place of sheer economic sense. The royals generate money. People go to Edinburgh for two reasons: the festival and its history. And to see the Queen when she’s at Balmoral. Millions rush to the Scottish capital every year. And its not to see La Sturge, that’s for sure. So for a poxy (all in relative terms) 2.2 million, Nicola would rather keep her distance from Her Maj and make pathetic pseudo-socialistic gestures.

I’m gonna look her up and give her a piece of my mind. Right on the bridge of her nose.

Off to Scotland, can’t hang around.

A xxxx

Johnny Depp and his wife, Amber Heard, are ‘boycotting Australia’. What a massive loss to that lowly, upstart nation that it won’t be blessed with an official visit by Mr Handsome-but-in-need-of-a-good-wash and his actress wife. You have to wonder if Australia will survive. Or whether there’ll now be a mass exodus of Australian boat-people arriving… well, somewhere nearby, which limits the options a bit, as their former nation’s credibility is shot to shit by Mr & Mrs Show-Biz.

I was nearly arrested in Australia. Ok, maybe that overstates it. But I was in the process of committing a serious crime. I was about to board a plane in Melbourne whilst in possession of a banned and illegal item. An apple. Taken from the hotel breakfast bar. It was a nice apple. Clean. Australian. But they search you at all Aussie airports pre-flight. Not for drugs; you can take all you want. Guns, no problem, mate. Bombs, long as the safety’s on. But food??? No way. Plants?? Flowers??? Shot on sight.

I didn’t have a dog with me, they don’t offer them on the buffet. But livestock of any description is pretty much a ‘no-no’ too.

Because Australia is an agricultural place. They grow stuff. An amazing amount of stuff. And anyone who grows stuff (probably farmers) lives in fear of diseases of their plants and animals. And the easiest way to get those diseases is to transport them from other areas. Hence the blanket ban on pretty much ‘anything living or that ever lived, other than people’ getting on any plane.

Johnny D and the Mrs reckoned they were really clever, arriving Down Under with their two vile little terriers, ‘Pistol’ and ‘Boo’, in a private jet so they could circumvent the strict controls. Well, they implied, we’re rich and famous, therefore surely above any laws made for the masses of great unwashed (in the euphemistic sense, rather than the Johnny Depp way). But no. The Agriculture minister of that nation threatened to have their dogs destroyed.

I personally wouldn’t have done that. I’d have instead sent them on another plane ride to Yulin in China. Where every summer solstice they have a ‘lychee and dog-meat’ party. And although I wouldn’t personally eat dog, not on any moral grounds; I have no morals, but simply because dogs are dirty animals, probably very tough too. But hungry people eat what they can. Even dogs, many of which are stolen pets. But only people with a full stomach (often a very large one), people for whom Ocado deliver twice a week, complain about eating dog-meat. The starving masses don’t have such issues.

Happy Wednesday, perhaps keep Rover on a lead.

A xxxx

Britain is always keen to protect ‘the pound’ against Euro invasion as the wars which plagued the entire continent for the entire 17th/18th and 19th centuries, not to mention the 20th, have moved from the battlefield to the economic environment; the banks and boardrooms.

European nations no longer try to invade one another, no longer fight over distant empires, instead they try to protect their heritage and history (and finances) as Europe becomes more homogenous.

Yet we still hate the French. Can we ever forgive Waterloo? I can’t. If we hadn’t won the war against Napoleon there, they wouldn’t have felt the need to build that god-awful, dog-ugly station in its memory. We just about tolerate the Germans. We hold everyone else pretty much in contempt, and rightly so.

Now the Italians are upset. Because their language, that beautiful, unintelligible, musical method of ordering pasta and pizza, is becoming bastardised by the inclusion of English in its vernacular.

Yes, they keep stealing our phrases and words on adverts, inserting English words like ‘cool’ and ‘sexy’ and ‘location’. How outrageous.

Personally I’ve never forgiven the Italians for dropping Latin as their first language. At least I know a few words of latin. But they in turn fear that their language is being diluted, being hi-jacked, by English. Though what they’re really pissed off about is that English is, as it should be, the world’s international language. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what its become. So its impossible for it not to seep into foreign cultures. But the Italians apparently draw the line when they have shops called ‘Green Life Bio Concept Store’ and ‘Lele’s Barber Shop’.

What those Eye-ties don’t see to get is that language is not set in stone and fixed forever. It evolves, it mutates, it changes with the times. Which is why they keep re-doing the dictionaries. To include words like ‘google’ as a verb. Just because Julius sodding Caesar never googled anything doesn’t mean its not a viable addition to world linguistics.

If its any consolation I always order my coffee in Italian. To redress the balance. I hope that makes them happy.

Ciao

A xxxx

Some things in life are inherently sensible. The Queen is sensible in a posh way. The BBC is sensible in an often annoying way. And in the absence of alternative data, we use ‘sensible’ as a feeling to test things out. Is it sensible to park the car there? Where it says ‘ambulances only’? Or there, where I probably won’t get towed away? Is it sensible to run and jump onto that moving bus? Probably not but I’ll be late if I don’t.

So is it sensible to have a European Union? Yes, I reckon it is. Sounds right, feels right. Probably good for trade and other stuff. That was how we voted in our nation’s last referendum in the 1970s. We knew fuck all about it, but it felt the sensible thing to do. No-one gave us any true, impartial reference points, much as they’re not now. The ‘ins’ tell you its essential, the ‘outs’ tell you its a shitty place full of foreigners and Greeks bearing no gifts whatsoever; they can no longer afford them. No-one’s on the fence. And yet another referendum awaits us soon and we’re quite frankly unqualified to make that decision. That’s what we vote governments for; to make decisions about the future of our nation. Not to ‘ask the people’ every time they need to take 76p out of petty cash to buy some toilet paper.

Is it sensible to have a single currency across Europe? Definitely. As long as Britain remains out of that particular nasty. In fact its brilliant. I no longer have to keep little envelopes with 37.84 French Francs, mainly in centimes, and 14.62 Deutschmarks in another, and 586 million Italian Lire in another. All piddling little amounts that you ‘keep for next time’. Now we keep one envelope with Euros and that’s that. So the Euro’s great.

Except its not. And it doesn’t work, and really its the least sensible thing Europe ever did. It works fine in northern Europe, where the countries are rich, the workers work and the taxes get paid (I’ll even include Italy and Spain in that, which gives them way too much benefit of anyone’s doubt). But the further south you travel the worse it gets.

And you end up in Greece. Which is on the verge of such a total collapse that the Russians have sensed weakness and fragility and they’ve moved in for the kill, as they always do. Like vultures with armour-piercing shells and jack-boots. And promises of loans.

The Greeks are upset about what they call ‘austerity’. What we call ‘paying taxes, giving money to the government to provide services and pensions and stuff’. The Greeks have never been on board with this concept. They prefer to avoid taxes altogether, or pay some paltry, token gesture amount. Yet still want to retire at 50 on a full and rather excellent state pension.

Its not their fault. The Greek ‘man on the street’. Stavros. He’s been brought up on this culture which has served the last 15 generations of Stavri perfectly well. And now the nation has no money, it owes billions to everyone and there’s a rush on the banks which will produce the total collapse of the economy.

And I feel really sorry for the people of Greece. Because they’ve been screwed over by decades of terribly inefficient governance which has led them, blindly, down this terrible alley, which has Angela Merkel at one end and Vladimir Putin at the other.

Not a great place to be for the nation that invented democracy and the right-angled triangle.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

How many ‘white supremacists’ does it take to murder a bunch of black people? The answer (strictly, though variations apply), is 2. One to be amazed at how all his preconceptions about black people are wrong when they invite him warmly and with love and welcome to their church, shattering the stereotypes he’s been building up for all of short lifetime (thanks, Pa), about how they only want to rape his sister, mug his mother and fill his wonderful white world with drugs and ‘ho’s. And the other to pull the trigger.

If I was a white supremacist, and the only thing that’s ever stopped me is that we don’t have such a group in my synagogue, nor tennis club, much to their eternal shame, I’d actually be appalled by the actions of Dylann Root. The Charleston Shooter is a tragic fucking disappointment to everybody, white supremacists included.

Because such people are always quoting the Bible in defence of their philosophy (if ‘hate’ is actually a philosophy as such; see ‘Isis’ for confirmation) and God said, but like actually SAID; “thou shalt not kill”. And then he would have said, ESPECIALLY IN A FUCKING CHURCH, YA DIMWITTED RACIST FUCK!!!! but as he gave those words to Moses, who wasn’t allowed to have Gods other than his Jewish one, He held back. And how stupid do you really have to be to grow up in an area populated by blacks and whites, to think that ‘all blacks are bad’ and actually be surprised to find that really, they were lovely to me, and nice and friendly, to the extent that ‘ahh hayad ta thiyunk twaace befowah I acherly kilt a whole bunch’a ’em’.

At least it wasn’t the gun his Daddy bought for him for his 21st birthday that was used in the murders. That’s a big relief to everyone. His dad bought him a Colt Nigga-Blasta and the gun used in the church was a Kalashnikov Kolored-Killa. Like it makes any difference to anyone, especially the nine dead and their grieving families.

Never mind, its only another ‘American goes crazy ape-shit ballistic with a gun’ type story. The 732nd since the beginning of June. So its not like its a problem or anything. Even though Obama wants to ‘start a debate’ about gun freedom in his nation. Ok, Barak, this is how the debate would go:

Barak: we need to restrict guns
Gun Lobby: then we’ll pull all the funding in politics
Barak: ok, let’s talk about something else then, like golf.

End of debate.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx