Andy's Glasses

I’ve always been a bit cynical about statistics. You may have noticed this. And today this cynicism became fully justified with the headline: “97% of all drug trials back the firm that paid for them”.

But who paid for THAT research? Someone must have paid the boffins at Stanford to test the test results. In which case there was bias. There’s always bias. You start with a question. Or a hypothesis, and that’s where you’re headed. Though in the case of drug tests, it is apparently perfectly legal to just leave out results you don’t like. Ignore negative, or non-corroborative data. Which is what happened when our government bought 500 million quid’s worth of Tamiflu vaccine the other year only to find it didn’t work.

Doctors prescribe drugs on the basis of these comparative test results, so people are basically getting the wrong drugs as a consequence. I can understand that if you’re Glaxo and just spent billions developing a new drug you’d be rather keen to sell a few packets. But really…

Parliament is crumbling.

Not the government, though they’re not looking too pretty either, but the building. The Palace of Westminster. The Houses of Parliament. They haven’t been repaired since the war when bombing damage was put right. And the buildings are full of asbestos, the stonework is rotten, as are the electrics and plumbing. To put it all right will cost £7billion.

Which is a lot of money, in these times of ‘austerity’. You could keep 3 banks afloat for less. But its reached a point where its becoming dangerous. People could get hurt. And not necessarily the people I’d be really happy to see get hurt. And the work will take 2 years.

I think that in the interests of economy and prudence they should just move parliament out of Westminster altogether. You could get a nice warehouse up in Stevenage for about half a mil, put a few chairs in it and make do nicely. ‘Black Rod’ couldn’t really knock on the door as he usually does, instead he’d have a remote and simply have the shutters lift electronically for the ‘opening of Parliament’. And to avoid David Cameron getting caught up in the terrible train service every day he could move from 10 Downing St to 10 Magnolia Drive, on a nice little estate round the corner from New Parliament. Well, when I say ‘nice estate’, I mean nice for Stevenage.

Then the developers could get their hands on the Westminster site, flog it off and put billions back into the national coffers which could go to Greece to help them meet their payments. The Houses of Parliament could become a housing development with a Westfield Centre and a really nice car park, which is desperately needed in the area. And Big Ben could be sold to the Americans, they love that kind of shit.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Humanity has reached a kind of melt-down. Evolutionary perfection peaked (apparently on June 16, 1956) and we’re now in a continued down-slide from which I predict humans will become extinct by 2017. Maybe a bit later.

Obesity is the biggest thing (no pun intended, but I’ll take it anyway) as now 62% of British adults are overweight, with 24% being ‘obese’. That’s not just an insult, but an actual scientific description. In 1960 only 2% were obese. By 1980 it was only 6%. So we’ve collectively put away a few burgers since then, its fair to say. Though not as many as the Americans, where 98% of everyone is a fat bastard.

Yet obesity is only half the problem, but with twice the weight. There’s also growing infertility. Low sperm counts in men. The newest ‘big problem’. And its to do with certain plastics which we breathe in and they affect unborn as well as… er… already born. But while scientists are there (and someone else is paying) they looked at other factors too. As well as the plastics from shower curtains and car interiors (NEVER take a shower in a car; it’d be the end of your gonads) they found other things that drastically reduce sperm count. Like cheese. Fatty stuff. Good stuff. And most frightening of all, they found that hours watching tv relates to lowered sperm count as well. Which seems counter-intuitive if you’re watching porn but I didn’t see the details.

So the way its going is: humans are so fat that they have low fertility. Coupled with the fact that they’ve become horribly unappealing to other humans. So in their depression and lack of options they watch tv all day and night, which further reduces their potency and generally increases their obesity as you can’t ‘just’ watch tv without snacking? Wouldn’t be right. So a vicious cycle follows as they become fatter, more infertile and less desirable even if they do have any working sperm left. (Do really fat men produce really fat sperm? Like sloooooow and lethargic ones who’d rather eat some protoplasm than chase a fucking egg?).

One way to at least massage the statistics a little is to export obesity.

Ed Balls is going to Harvard.

I have no idea what his sperm count is like. But having lost his election and becoming an unemployed house husband, he’s now going to Harvard to be an academic researcher in McDonalds. Ok, maybe not, but to research economy and stuff like that. Which is nice. As he leaves behind his wife, Yvette Cooper, to run the labour party, fight her own election, look after the 3 kids, do his washing, spell-check his homework and in her spare time…

Bye Ed, gonna miss you. The man who all by himself is the definitive example of ‘where evolution went wrong’.

Happy thursday

A xxxx

Eight summers ago I was in Israel at the Sea of Galilee. August time. It was beyond merely ‘hot’ in any normal sense of the word. You simply withered under the relentless heat and sought out air conditioning desperately. Just like the ancient hebrews did. Like Jesus did when he was there. So one lunchtime with the temperature a slightly cooler 47 degrees, I went to the reception area, where they had wi-fi (so much has changed in just 8 years). I was wearing shorts (blue, if you care, with a nice, sweat-stained white t-shirt) and the pavement was so hot my flip-flops were insufficient insulation, as I ran to the air-conditioned room with my lap-top. I entered the sanctuary of air-conditioned wi-fi-ness and wondered briefly if that’s where visions of ‘heaven’ originally came from. I mean, would Moses have climbed all the way up that mountain and shlep back with the weight of those stone tablets if he could have just downloaded them in an air-conditioned room? Then I stopped in my flops. There were about 30 people in the room. And they pretty much all looked the same. ‘Clean’ was the first impression. Unsweaty. Shaved. Smiling. The men all wore long black trousers, long-sleeved white shirts and normal leather street shoes. Their hair was parted neatly, their teeth were gleaming.

“What the fuck are you????” I wanted to ask, but instead adopted a more gentle approach to these ultra-polite young adults (‘no Sir, let me move, so you can plug in over here, Sir, its really no bother, Sir’). Sir?? Do I look like a knight? In my YID ARMY!! baseball cap?

They were Mormons. They were ‘on the Jesus trail’. Well, sorry guys, you’ve missed him by 2000 years. I didn’t want to mention that he was dead. Then alive for a bit. Then dead again. But they’d come to see the actual water that He had walked upon. And other ‘things’ relevant to Jesus Christ (our lord).

Last night I revisited my Mormon past. My daughters bought us tickets for The Book of Mormon which I’d wanted to see forever, but Mel really really hadn’t. She relented, we went. And to be honest, it changed my life. Because although I’ve seen lots of musical shows, I can simply say, there is nothing that has ever been produced that is like this one. The music is fab, the dancing brilliant, the stage sets wonderful, blah, blah, blah. (They all do that). But the content. Ahhh the content, the words, the lyrics, the white-toothed smiles…

The show is an incredibly funny, totally irreverent, bible-bashing (literally), blasphemous, satirical and quite vicious total deconstruction of the Mormon faith, history, missions and aims. Its written by the South Park guys and they know ‘funny’. Really know ‘funny’. It is quite simply brilliant.

Unless you’re a Mormon, in which case there’s gonna be a lot of theatrical people burning forever in the fires of hell. And possibly many of the audiences too.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Since 2005, the number of 16-24 year-olds who are teetotal has risen from 19% to 27%. Which initially sounds like good news. And it would be if the young were replacing quality binge drinking time with line-dancing, five-a-side football, shagging each other senseless, sitting in gangs in the park all night drinking water, but they’re not. They’ve replaced drinking with more time spent on computers, social media, internet games. Just what they fucking need. Solitary time at one with a sodding screen. Binge drinking may be the most anti-social of social activities but at least it is a social activity. Facebook, twitter, first-person-shooter games aren’t. Ok, nor is blog-writing, but its the future I’m worried about. I’m beyond hope. I drink while I write. Hic.

And anyway, its my birthday. Today. And with age comes the right to employ hypocrisy. To indulge in it, embrace my inner hypocrite.

So if the ‘kids’ are no longer going to the park at night to drink, to socialise, to take the first forays into fumbling, regrettable sexual advances, how are they ever going to learn such essential life-skills? By staring at their phones? I fear not just for the young of this world but for the future of all mankind.

So next time you find your child alone in their room on a Saturday night, sending fucking emojis all around the world, drag them out by the scruff of their necks, give them a half bottle of vodka, a packet of condoms and a sharp knife and throw them out onto the streets. Its time we used some ‘good parenting’ to avoid the complete loss of a generation.

Don’t remember if I mentioned it but its my birthday. Don’t remember much of anything these days. And I won’t say how old I am, because its a woman’s right not to, and I’m nothing if not full of equality, but next year I’ll be 60. Fuck. Me!!! Or, what my father calls ‘the new 40’. Though he’s 90 (the new 88). And quite frankly, I was perfectly happy with the old 40, I really don’t need a new one, thanks all the same.

So tonight I’m going to get rip-roaring, blind drunk, then collapse in the kerb in just a pair of shorts and a bikini top and probably wake up tomorrow speaking with a Geordie accent. Although Mel says we should do something different as its my birthday.

Happy Birthday

A xxxx

I mean, its a bit ironic, innit? One minute we’re all Charlie Hebdo and defending the right of free speech with (literally) the dying breath in their bodies, and the next we’re sacking a Nobel-winning professor for some slightly misplaced jokey comments.

Sir Tim Cole said, in a speech, that ‘women in science labs only produce 2 outcomes; they fall in love with the males, or vice versa, and they cry when criticised.’ Ha, ha. Ok, not very funny but in the right context I’d giggle. There again I’m a simpleton and spend most of my days giggling at inappropriate times. Or I’d have giggled because the comments went down like a dead weight in the company of hypersensitive women scientists, no doubt frustrated by their inability to ‘bag’ their professors in romance and still crying over his last critical criticism. And as we all know, political correctness has no sense of humour whatsoever. It is in fact the diametric opposite of humour and takes offence at every innocent comment. That’s its job. To find insult in every word spoken and elevate the most innocent statement into never-intended abuse or discrimination.

The other problem was that this speech was made in Korea. And I’m not sure how ‘subtlety’ translates into that language. I know they have many words for ‘silly haircut’ and ‘death penalty without a trial’ but dry humour would cause problems.

Leave the man alone. Give him his job back. Because by kow-towing to this kind of righteous indignation, University College London is making itself look stupid and sycophantic. They should listen to Tammy Wynette and stand by their man.

Today’s my wedding anniversary. They tell me its 29 years. Which is impossible because I’m only 27 years old. And I’m not sure that ‘the perfect marriage’ is ever a total reality, but if it is, then Mel has one. She’s a very lucky woman. Mainly because I’m so forgiving. I forgive all the times she’s cleared up my mess after me, the countless meals I’ve let her cook for me, the endless washing that magically appears in a neat, clean pile the day after I’ve dumped it in the hallway, bathroom, lounge, kitchen, garage. The balance, the quid pro quo, is that I’m the technical department. Which means I can diagnose problems with her phone (it needs charging, darling), with her computer (you need to plug that in, sweetness), with her car (the key goes in ‘this’ way round, petal). And thus we have balance, we have accord, we have love. As I said, she’s a lucky woman.

Happy Anniversary

A xxxx

The Affordable Art Fair is on again in Hampstead. On the heath. They erect this absolutely massive ‘building’ that isn’t a real one, just an illusion of buildingness. Its basically a marquee, loads of scaffolding and smoke’n’mirrors, yet it feels from the inside like a proper structure of substance and permanence. Yet if it was permanent the National Trust would probably have quite a bit to say about building on London’s finest green space. Yes, there are bigger areas (Richmond Park), there are prettier places, but Hampstead Heath is special. And also the home to thousands of rare species of flora, fauna and gay men. So buildings are banned from the Heath, other than those of old, and you’re free to do anything you like there (especially after dark, apparently) except ride your bike. Which is rather annoying for those of us who like riding bikes in such places. Its hilly, naturally undulating and just fantastic for mountain biking. So they ban them. Though its not enforced. They don’t employ bike police. Just crusty old locals who wave their walking sticks angrily at you and tell you ‘that’s not allowed!!!!’ The tourists don’t care, the young don’t know and the Russians are just happy that they’re not being arrested, tortured by the police and sent to Siberia.

The most affordable thing about the Affordable Art Fair is the entry price. Though many of us don’t pay. There are ways round it as virtually every art gallery in London has piles of free entry tickets for about three months before the Fair starts. Take a pile and pass ’em round. Its only the northerners who’ve made the trip down to’t Luundun that have to pay. As they should.

So then it becomes a simple matter of the definition of ‘affordable’. What do you understand by that? Cheap? Bargain?? Under-a-fiver???

Then think again. There is ‘art’ there for 45 quid. If you want the world’s most expensive postcard. Or posters for 85. Anything hangable or sculpted (that doesn’t look like your 3 year-old did it at playgroup) starts at about £2500. Anything really nice or unusual, original, outstanding, starts at about 5-6 grand. Which is affordable, if you sell the car/cancel the holiday/take a loan/cancel your kids orthodontistry. But its still a bit of a misnomer, this ‘affordable art’ thing.

After that we continued our art theme by going to the Finchley Arts Depot last night for a comedy night. It was a fundraiser for the charity ‘Grief Encounter’, the most worthy and wonderful charity which helps mainly kids cope with bereavement. A brilliant cause but more importantly, a charity whose sole aim is based on helping the intended beneficiaries, rather than providing handsome lifestyles for boards of directors and upper level management. Nothing cynical about me then. And Grief Encounter have never harassed pensioners to suicide with incessant phone demands.
Check out their website. But before you go to the Affordable Art Fair and empty the family coffers.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Its illegal to beat children in Britain. I know, its a silly law that removes ‘the stick’ and leaves just ‘the carrot’. And you can’t do much damage to anyone with a fucking carrot. We all remember the days when we could just thump the kids because they were small and defenceless and it was a fun thing to do. I still like to beat my kids, even though they’re adults and sometimes hit back.
But the law’s the law and must be obeyed.

Unless…

A judge found this week that a father, in fact a known wife-beater, who hit his son with a belt, should be shown leniency because he’s from India and ‘cultural considerations must be taken into account’. No-one said all judges were bright. But they should apply the law, that’s kind’a their job. As far as I’ve always been aware, ignorance of the law is never a plea. “I didn’t realise what those ’40mph’ signs meant, which is why I was driving at 90”. Yeah, well don’t do it again, now you know.

But its much worse than that. Firstly its discriminatory. Recent immigrants can beat wives/children and anyone they fancy hitting whilst us poor indigenous Brits will incur the full force of the law if we do similar. And secondly, its plain fucking stupid. You cannot allow people to break laws because ‘that’s what they do at home’. Oh, we’re allowed to murder people in Zimbabwe, we do it all the time, didn’t realise you couldn’t do it here. Honour killing would be rife.

Without wishing to sound in any way ‘Farage’ about this; if you live in Britain you are bound by British laws. Full fucking stop. From the moment you jump off the lorry that smuggled you over from Calais.

And that’s why we’re all dead impressed with the Malaysian authorities for titty-earthquake-gate. They handled what could have been a nasty incident brilliantly after the group of students stood naked around a holy site. They punished them, but delicately. 3 days in jail, which they’d already served, a small fine and deportation. Enough to teach a lesson that they’d probably already learned, but not enough to have half the world shouting about human rights abuse.

No-one in Malaysia claimed leniency for those kids on the grounds that ‘they can do it at home’. Because its irrelevant. They were in Malaysia, they adhere to Malaysian laws.

Only in fucking Britain is this not so.

When in Rome, do as the Serbians.

Happy lenient Saturday

A xxxx

There’s a rally planned for July 4th. American Independence Day. Though its nothing to do with America. Nor independence. Its about Jews. Specifically its about “The Jewification of Britain” according to the far-right dickheads who are arranging it in their semi-literate way. And even more specifically its in opposition to the ‘Shomrim’, the volunteer security group who guard Jewish areas. Because why are the Jews allowed to have their own ‘private army’? Good question. The answer to which is probably because such dickheads who ask it are the ones who attack Jews, desecrate synagogues, smash up cemeteries and persecute and pester overtly religious Jewish people. Who dress in a way that ‘differentiates’ them from the rest of the population. God never actually instructed His chosen people to dress like they live in Warsaw in 1863, but its what happens. Its just a uniform. Punks dress like punks, skinheads dress like skinheads and Chassidic Jews dress like they do. They’re allowed. Unlike other types of uniform, its not exactly ‘threatening’ in any way. You wouldn’t cross the street in fear of an 80 year-old rabbi wearing a black hat.

So they’re having what is basically an anti-Jewish rally. In Golders Green. The home to more Jews, percentage-wise, than anywhere else in Britain. They had a rally in Stamford Hill last year and it fell completely flat as everyone ignored it. Good job.

But in fact its not a good job. Because the rally, whatever its called, whatever its proclaimed ‘aims’ or ‘points’ is actually of rally for anti-semitism. And it makes very little sense.

The population of Britain has 0.5% jews. There are more Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus than there are Jews. There are as many Bhuddists. There are, collectively, more ‘other religions’ not mentioned above, (try to think of an ‘other religion’ that isn’t just a part of a mainstream one, just one), than there are Jews in a Britain which has 60 Christianity and 30% who don’t claim any religious affiliation at all.

So numerically the Jews aren’t much of a threat. And Jews don’t evangelise. We don’t convert (or subvert, even) others, other than introducing them to bagels and chicken soup. We don’t attack others. We don’t form gangs, perform acts of terrorism, declare wars or do anything that would make us late for Friday Night Dinner. Most of us don’t even pray. And those who do don’t do it very often.

And yet if you’re born a Jew you are a Jew. And you’re always conscious of that fact. Even if you live a life completely at odds with that. Hitler showed that to the world. That you can assimilate all you like, but when the trains are waiting in the stations bound for Poland, if you had just one Jewish grandparent then you were given a little yellow badge to wear and membership to a club no-one wanted to join.

I’m not a big ‘holocauster’ generally. But it started from rallies by far-right anti-semites and thus ignoring such things really can’t be that ‘good job’. And it lead to the motto ‘never again’, which is powerful. In this instance, ‘semi-literate’ is an anagram of ‘anti-semite’. Metaphorically if not actually. Unless you’re dyslexic.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I love a bit of science. And especially when it justifies and encourages something I love. I’ve always been waiting for ‘tests have shown that watching football makes you incredibly fit and strong and will lengthen your life as well as your penis’.

I’m still waiting for that one. It’ll have its day in the sunshine at some point. Everything does.

And today its the turn of the humble peanut. That most wonderful of foods. Packaged by the gods into neat little individual twin pods, they’ve always been my nut of choice. Roasted with heaps of salt preferably, then adorned with honey, caramel, toffee, chocolate, or anything else that makes them really healthy.

And a team at Maastricht University have ‘proved’ that eating ‘a handful’ of peanuts every day will make you live longer. But, like, much longer. By chomping through a few peanuts a day you lower the risk of premature dying by a whopping 26%. So logically, if you double the 10 gram a day recommendation, or quadruple it, you’ll lower that risk above 50%. If you pig out on peanuts all day every day, you’ll fucking live forever. Like a vampire. But without the sun issues. Though maybe some weight problems.

And that’s the difficulty I find with peanuts. Eating a few is relatively easy. Stopping eating them is way more difficult, verging on the totally impossible until the pack/bag/sack is completely finished. The only people who find it easy to moderate their intake are the allergists, who will probably get to 5 grams before their airways start to close up, and just make it to 10 before going into anaphylactic shock.

Poor Eleanor Hawkins. She’s not so much in shock as in jail. The gap yaaaar student was arrested in Malaysia for posting naked photos of herself and some mates on top of a holy mountain. An act not just destined to upset that rather devout Muslim nation, but one which actually really pissed off the local gods to the point that it caused an earthquake. She must have SOME tits!!!

Or maybe they’re not very nice ones and the gods were disappointed and smiteth the people from on high as a sign of disappointment.

Whatever the reason (for the naked pics, not for the earthquake) you kind’a have to be aware of local sensitivities when you travel, making a conscious effort not to upset the locals with their strange ideas and folk lore. When we go to Scotland I won’t speak with an English accent because I know it to be inflammatory to those fine folk up there. And I won’t use the words ‘good’ and ‘football’ in the same sentence for fear of arrest or riots.

Happy peanut frenzied Thursday

A xxxx

There’s big news from Texas. Criminals beware, baddies are quaking, because in the Lone Star State, the big guns are coming out. Literally. Because bizarrely, Texas is one of only four states in the US where carrying a handgun openly is currently illegal, and has been for over a century. And this ‘blatant crime against the second amendment’ is to be righted. Texans can carry guns. Yee-haah.

What’s less ‘yee-haah’ though, when I read this, is that although guns can still be banned in private colleges, State colleges won’t have such a power and will have to establish ‘gun free areas’. Presumably places where kids are encouraged only to stab each other. Possibly use flame-throwers.

Ok, arm kids with guns… hmmmm… that’s worked well in the past, yup. And shooting people generally has been pretty effective recently, even by the police with their seemingly random killing policy against black people which has caused a riot or two. Oddly, its only ‘handguns’ that have been subject to this ban. Its always been fine to pop into Sainsburys in Dallas carrying an M16, a shotgun or a hunting rifle. Obviously. Its only pistols that have not been allowed. Probably deemed ‘too small for Texans’.

Guns are not a deterrent. They are very bad things that kill people. Quite often the wrong people.

Meanwhile back in the real world. Ok, Canada, almost the real world. There’s the answer to my dreams. In theory. There’s the end to the ‘summer of discontent’ in which there’s no World Cup, no European Championships, no nuffink. Because over there in the frozen north bit of the Americas (and Canadas) they’re playing the World Cup for Gels. The Women’s finals. Which should fill me with joy and pleasure and love for all mankind. Or womankind. But it don’t. Even though 2 of my absolute favourite things are women and football, the two don’t go together. A bit like drinking and driving. Wonderful things but not necessarily at the same time. Except in Scotland. Or having sex and going to church. Great events, don’t particularly combine very well. Unless you’re a certain type of priest.

So women and football. But I’m not a sodding dinosaur, like Sepp Blatter, who’s pre-historic (certainly pre-feministic) views were aired that women footballers should have tighter shorts and lower cut tops. What a throw-back that man was. I think they should play in bikinis. Or thongs, like they do on Copacabana beach. Less passing, more jiggling.

Yet the outcome is the same. England lose the first match. 1-0 to the bloody French. At least the French girls had the decency to score with their feet. Unlike cheating French bastard Thierry Henry. Who didn’t.

Oh well, happy Wednesday

A xxxx