Andy's Glasses

Great event last night, “MILIBAND vs CAMERON!!!!!”, the great political head to head, the semi-final of the General Election in 6 weeks time, the chance for the public to see the leaders of the main parties in the studio, debating, answering questions, getting caught out, LIVE ON TV!!!!!

But not necessarily at the same time, nor together. No, first DC answered questions from the audience before being grilled by Paxman, then when he was safely 3 miles away, Miliband was brought out of his cage for the same treatment.

Jeremy Clarkson would have gone head-to-head with Ed Miliband, no doubt about it, but David Cameron refused. He offered to go into a 7-way free-for-all with a load of leaders of parties no-one’s ever heard of, but not mano-a-mano with Ed. And judging from last night’s performance, you can see why.

Though I missed it. The most important event in the history of… of… of… tv let-downs, I decided that Tai Chi was more important. Politics may decide our nation’s rule, our next government, massive issues like the economy, taxation, education, immigration, national debt and the NHS, but Tai Chi concerns my place in the entire universe. So that’s more important. ‘Single Whip’ was of greater concern than the single currency. My body may occupy space in the UK, but my spirit is somewhere in China. Probably eating noodles in oyster sauce.

And I recorded the debate, not willing to miss it altogether but once I returned home and all everyone was talking about was ‘the debate(s)’ I simply couldn’t face watching it. I saw some of Miliband, sufficient to make my skin crawl, and on the news they showed Cameron facing Jeremy Paxman, probably wishing he’d faced Ed instead who is nothing as bright, clever or nasty as Paxo.

The difference between these two leaders is that Cameron has some ‘statesman-like qualities’ and speaks very poshly, but lacks the presence of mind to be a good stand-up, or even a third rate stand-up in a very dingy club in Camden. Whereas Ed, for all his odd looks and socialist agenda, is actually rather good in front of a crowd. Even a crowd baying for his blood.

……………………………………………………………

I’m not exactly ‘unshockable’ but you do get numbed by all the constant bad news and tragedy around. Beheadings, cities bombed to the ground, another 1986 overweight MP was fondling little boys, its all horrible and loses its power to shock.

But the GermanWings flight shocked me badly. Not when it came down, that was bad and tragic but we’ve been there before. The shock came when we learned that the co-pilot crashed it intentionally. That was a real ‘fuck meeeeee!!!!!!’ moment. Made the whole episode a million times worse.

The head of Lufthansa, which owns GermanWings, Stormbahnfuhrer von Bustenhalter (not his real name), said that “there was no way Lufthansa could have anticipated this, they did everything they could in terms of psychological testing and failsafes” and when questioned further he actually became nasty and arrogant and drew his Luger. Now we learn that the co-pilot has had serious depression and psychological issues which Lufthansa were all to aware of. So WHAT WAS HE DOING IN CHARGE OF A FUCKING PLANELOAD OF PEOPLE?????

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I can’t remember the last time I watched Top Gear. Yet in some ways I consider myself ‘a fan’ of the programme. Contradictory? Possibly, but I don’t care. I’m a fan because when I do catch bits of it I heartily approve. They slag off battery-powered Noddy cars, they crash lorries into school buildings, they put supermodels into a Vauxhall Nova and race them round a track in the rain and they insult virtually everybody. And they revere BIG fucking engines in ridiculously over-powered cars.

Its like the police. I never call them, don’t speak to them, but its reassuring to know they’re there.

And the problem is: Top Gear IS Jeremy Clarkson. Ok, there’s James May and Richard Hammond in there to make up the numbers, as straight men to share his insults and (much more mild forms of) abuse, to compete with and get pally with. But Clarkson is 76% of the show. (I could explain how I arrived, very scientifically and statistically valid-ly at that number but you lack the understanding of numbers to follow).

And now he’s gone. Forever. Which will cost the BBC (which is ME, and even you) £50million a year in lost income. Yet he had to go. You simply can’t punch a colleague in the face because he did his job badly, even if you want to and he deserved it. Its just unacceptable in any situation.

James May & Richard Hammond have stood out ‘in solidarity’ now and said they may not go on without him. Like in some Victorian romantic melodrama. But really they’re not in a great place, whatever happens. Because if there’s a new ‘main dude’ and its a success he will take all the credit. And if it fails, Hammond & May’s good light under Clarkson will dim significantly for being there as mere useless foils to Jeremy’s brilliance and they’re nothing without him.

There’s also the question; if the BBC don’t run Top Gear then who will? Because its a massive success financially. Yet would be very difficult to run on commercial tv upon which there are more car adverts than anything else. So would Top Gear be at liberty to slag off the new Skoda as a ‘worthless piece of shit’ when the parent company spends £10million a year on advertising on that channel? And if not, would it still be Top Gear? Or become a ‘nice’ and ‘sanitised’ and ‘inoffensive’ Top Gear that everyone would consequently hate?

Chris Evans is seen as ‘the man most likely’ because, like Clarkson, he’s objectionable and loves fast cars. But he’s just too enthusiastic whereas Clarkson was melancholy to the point of lethargy. Jodie Kidd is in the frame too. Because she managed to get her high heel stuck under the accelerator whilst being the ‘star in a car’ and did a fast lap as a consequence. Or some geezer no-one’s heard of who’s a TT bike racer.

Its all a worry.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

I’m a disagreeable, reckless extrovert. And if you agree with that, then you’re not a Londoner. Because we’re ‘disagreeable’, apparently. Therefore you shouldn’t agree. Instead you should jump off a tall building whilst stark naked and singing the National Anthem at the top of your voice. That’s what reckless extroverts should be doing most of the time, surely?

Scientists at Cambridge (with nothing better to do and doubtless trying to justify a research grant) tested the ‘personalities’ of 400,000 people to try to find regional variations.

Before we concern ourselves with their findings, and the massive impact these will have on our lives (???), its worth looking at psychological testing in general, and online testing even more so, as this test was performed by the BBC online.

If IQ is defined (by many) as ‘the ability to perform well on IQ tests’, and nothing more, then personality tests should be pretty straightforward. But they’re not. Because we (the subjects) are humans, and the human condition means we think. Then we overthink. So when someone asks you a question, you don’t spurt out the immediate, visceral, knee-jerk response. You ask yourself what is ‘really’ being asked. What does the questioner expect me to say? How will various answers to that question make me look?

Q: “What do you think of Nigel Farage?”
A: “HE’S A C*******NT!!!!” (the initial, uncensored, honest reply)
A: “He’s a misguided man with seemingly honourable intentions” (Mr Moderate)
A: “He’s a bad joke that’s become its own reality” (Pretentious Tosser)

No-one wants to be seen in a bad light. So, particularly when you’re being tested remotely, in the time and comfort of your own home/office, you can consider your answers before carefully choosing your reply.

I cannot believe that there are 10 million ‘disagreeable, reckless extroverts’ in London. We can’t all be the same, that’s the very nature of ‘personality’, itself a concept so vague and unquantifiable that no two people will ever agree on the ‘personality’ of a third. That’s why so many people use ‘football team supported’ as a much more accurate measure for stereotyping people. It has far greater predictive value than the almost meaningless ‘personality’.

People in South Wales are ‘introverted and neurotic’. All of them. Yeah. Right.

The Scots are agreeable and calm. Though not necessarily in Glasgow on a Friday night. Nor at Auld Firm matches.

Northerners are introverted and agreeable. No they’re not, they horrible, rude and speak funny.

People in Norfolk don’t have any personality at all. (I made that one up)

In fact the only interesting fact to come from this study (or the quarter of a page in the Times relating to it) was that ‘neurotics are more likely to vote Labour’. An interesting thought.

Happy Wednesday. Unless you live in Swansea, Dumfries or the Isle of Mann.

A xxxx

The history of England is a long and complex affair. One the details of which I’ve managed to avoid for most of my life. Lists of kings going back 2 thousand years; who needs it? You just kind’a pick it up as you go along. A bit like geography. I learned the cities of our nation by the quality of their football teams. So Manchester, Leeds, Burnley and Coventry were BIG places because they had (then) First Division football teams. Whereas Plymouth, Oldham and Norwich were rubbish places with shitty lower league teams. Birmingham was a problem. Because Birmingham City were lowly, so didn’t count for nuffink, whereas Aston Villa and West Brom were big, but didn’t say where they were from. The best teams all came from London anyway, so it wasn’t THAT important. At the time. Nor now really.

While geography was football, history was more cricket. Because it was all about counties. Yorkshire, Lancashire, Essex. When they spoke of the War of the Roses I thought it had something to do with Geoffrey Boycott. And a box of chocolates.

Richard the 3rd was one of our many kings. In fact he was the last king of the house of York. Whatever that means. He was the last Plantagenet king. Again, no idea what one o’them might be. And he had a hunchback. Well, not a proper one but he suffered from scoliosis which curved his spine a bit. It was only when he was played by Kevin Spacey that he developed a proper hunchback. And an American accent. As if he didn’t have enough trouble already.

Richard (as I call him) died in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was a proper king. He led his troops into battle. Not for him, shagging his way round the assorted blondes of the European capitals, flying a helicopter or going round insulting exotic people in strange distant lands. He led from the front. Setting the example for heroics and, well, stupidity really, for every subsequent monarch to avoid like the fucking plague. He was the last one to die in battle.

And because his team lost that war, he was not properly buried but merely dumped into a hole in the ground in a car park in Leicester. Not very regal. Neither Leicester nor the car park. Though it wasn’t actually a car park when they dumped him. NCP didn’t exist until 1593 with the first multi-storey horse park.

It was a church. At that time. Later a car park. And a couple of years ago they found him (what was left of him) identified him as Richard and moved him, with all due modern pomp and ceremony, to Leicester Cathedral. Which they opened to the public yesterday. Queues round the block. Richard 3rd t-shirts, key-rings, hats, ice creams (special bent cones). They paraded the coffin around, as one tweet said ‘like the FA Cup on an open topped bus’ en route to his final place of rest.

Because Leicester is a scummy place. Their football team are currently languishing at the foot of the Premiership and the city’s main reason for being there is to make Walker’s Crisps.

They should bring the poor man to Westminster Abbey. Where he’ll be treated with the respect he deserves. And the ice cream’s better down here.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Botox?? Who needs botox? Injecting rat poison into your boat-race always seemed like a fairly stupid thing to do, though when you saw the wrinkle-altering effects on those injected, you then knew it was a fairly stupid thing to do. Their faces stopped working. Smiling like a zombie was never big on my ‘must have’ list of looks. As was ‘complete lack of expression’.

The ageing process bestows character. Its a sign of experience, of having lived life, of reaching a point where you may indeed look, not like shit but more like really fucking ancient shit, but you have a knowledge and understanding that the youth can only envy. They don’t though. They’re happy, they have youth instead and in a society tragically ranked on some glossy magazine cover version of ‘beauty’, there’s no place for the Jeremy Clarkson jowels in this superficial and size zero world.

But now instead of botox, they inject you with your own blood. In the face. Like you don’t have enough of your own blood in there already. Kim Kardashian does it so it must be beneficial. Or give you an abnormally large bum.

And thus with ‘old’ footballers. Once you reach 30 you’re on the edge. Some will play another 5 or six years. Ryan Giggs managed to play til he was 40 at about as high a level as you can get. But that’s rather unusual. The injuries and constant stresses and strains on the skeleto-muscular system mean that these superstars generally retire at 32, and then enjoy their billions in the bank from the comfort of a wheelchair. A really flashy one with solid gold wheel-spokes and sat-nav (or sit-nav as its called in a wheelchair), and stripes. Loads’a stripes.

But older players have a massive value to a club. Because ‘they’ve been there before’. Wherever ‘there’ may be on any occasion. They’ve played the big games, the crunch matches, the must-wins, and they know what is required. So they can add their calming and instructive input to the younger guys who will do all the running around. They can motivate, they can inspire, they are the voice of experience, the mentor, the guru, they have the benefit of wisdom.

So what the fuck was Steven Gerrard thinking yesterday when he came on for Liverpool at half time, into a bad-tempered match, as all matches against Manchester United tend to be, and lasted precisely 41 seconds on the pitch before being sent off for stamping on someone’s leg?

You may not like Steven Gerrard, may see him as a miserable, moany, unintelligible Scouse git who ran off shagging size zero babes when his woman was pregnant, but you have to admire his career. It has been stellar. Who can forget when he lifted Liverpool to win the Champions League virtually single-handedly from an impossible position? A feat he repeated in many other situations for his team. He’s always been a strong player, aggressive in a good way, as opposed to a Roy Keane type, more psychopathic way, and he has a deep understanding of the game.

And the first rule of that game is that you ain’t gonna win with 10 players on the pitch. Particularly when you’re 1-0 down to start with.

They need to work out some kind of ‘botox for the brain’, to stop minds from getting old, wrinkly and stupid. And give Stevie Gerrard the first jab. I’ll pay for it.

Happy Monday. But ain’t they all??

A xxxx

What a day was yesterday. What a feast. For sporting gluttons like me, it was just a wonderful, almost endless buffet. And I don’t even need to be watching all of it, just knowing its being played is sufficient. Such excitement, the likes of which the sporting world hasn’t really produced since… well, probably since last weekend. Amazing.

There were both sports. Football and rugby. (Are there any others? Really??) Spurs won. England won. Unfortunately Arsenal won too. And England, after the most incredible game of international rugby ever, and winning in record breaking form against the horrible French, failed by a whisker to win the 6 Nations title. So having beaten the Frog 55-35, all our players acted like they’d lost. Which was a shame because for everyone watching, the spectacle of the match almost over-shadowed the failure to top the table.

But what really stood out was the refereeing in our two national sports. And attitudes to referees.

The ref in rugby is God. His word is final, absolute and beyond question. He is thus treated with the utmost respect. He is never harassed, bullied, cajoled, pushed, shouted at, insulted, abused or ganged up on. But that is because the refs in rugby act totally professionally. Consequently, players in rugby don’t cheat. They don’t act, they don’t feign, they don’t ‘simulate’, they don’t dive. To be honest, they don’t really need to; its fucking brutal enough without that rubbish.

And how refreshing to see the ref call over the two captains, tell them what he’s doing, and why, who the culprits were, what they did and the action to be taken. The skippers don’t argue, they can make a point but often the ref just silences them. Without argument or debate.

In the football, just yesterday, a ref sent off the wrong player in the Manchester City match. And a sending off in the 2nd minute of a game is awful. The ref didn’t listen to players telling him ‘it wasn’t me/him’, he just acted alone and got it magnificently wrong.

The problem is that whatever happens on a football pitch, there’s always about 15 players in the guy-in-black’s face screaming and shouting, half proclaiming innocence, the other half demanding a red card. So when something significant actually does happen, the ref is simply immune to the protestations of the players. Boy who cried ‘wolf!’ syndrome.

And it could all change so easily, so simply. Just legislate to protect the refs from the John Terrys of this world, and the others who abuse and try to bully them, its so easy to do. Use the 4th official to check a few things on tv replay, just important things, and don’t allow managers anywhere near the refs. Particularly Morinho and Wenger, or the game would never reach half time as they demand a check on every dubious throw-in award.

The only arguments against such an action revolve around money. Its not good tv. The players are the Gods, even though they act like scum. They cheat, they dive, they are horrible.

So don’t moan about poor refereeing when it really is so pathetically simple to change the whole culture and improve the standards whilst protecting the refs at the same time. I can’t understand why the footballing authorities are so ignorant and stupid. There again, they awarded Qatar the World Cup in 2022, so we can’t really expect much sense from them.

Happy Sunday, (Man United at Liverpool; Chelesa vs Hull; the classico this evening, busy day for Mel)

A xxxx

You ask two people where they live, say, at a party. One says: “I live in Penge”, the other: “I’m domiciled in the UK for tax purposes”, could you guess which one is the hedge fund manager? Yes, right once more, all hedge fund managers love Penge. Even though 9 out of 10 couldn’t find it on a map of Penge. Also, no self-respecting hedge fund dude would EVER be domiciled here when places like Monaco, Geneva and the Caymans still stand and can reduce their personal tax liability by 80%.

Yet Ed Miliband has managed to find a hedge fund manager who not only still ‘lives round ‘ere’, but also one who supports the Labour party and has in fact bunged £600,000 its way over the last few years.

But rather than use this Martin Taylor guy as a shining example that not all hedge fund managers are total bastard, tax-avoiding, exploitative, capitalist shit-head, selfish, greedy, poor-bashing, child-labour-employing rapists, our Ed just kept him very quiet whilst still claiming all of the above for hedge funders and in fact using the term as a euphemism for ‘almost criminal Tories’.

Which, of course, makes Ed look almost as stupid, clueless and hapless as he did eating his famous bacon sandwich.

Yeah, well all hedge fund managers are total and unrelenting bastards, except our one.

Right.

Some people have issues with wealthy labour supporters. They simply can’t reconcile having personal wealth or extensive business interests with a level of compassion and selflessness that the Labour package theoretically brings. Like paying more tax, both corporate and personal, in order to perhaps increase benefits and services for those who don’t drive round in chauffeur-driven Bentleys. Or whose children don’t go to Eton. Or get pregnant at 13.

I want a better life for everyone in this country. I want a health service ‘free at the point of delivery’, I want good schools for every child, housing for everyone, blah, blah, blah. I just don’t want to pay for it all myself. Or watch the hapless economists Labour seem to employ piss all the money away without ever reaching the place its most needed.

So much as the whole pre-election business is about core values of ‘austerity versus increased taxation’, you have to think a little further. Beyond the principles, which are noble, and on to the reality of what those dimwits will actually do with the money they save or tax once they get into power. Squander it on a health service which is the biggest and most tragically inefficient organisation in the world. Or ‘lack of organisation’ in the world, having thrown away £2 billion on an ‘integrated computer system’ that doesn’t work. Yet still had to be paid for in full.

So Martin Taylor is ‘domiciled in the UK for tax purposes’ because he chooses to be so. 99.9% of the rest of us just live here by quirk of fate and birth. And taxes. And I am all in favour of you paying as much tax as its possible to squeeze out.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

We’re suffering an eclipse this morning. Most people enjoy an eclipse, maybe experience an eclipse, even get thrilled by an eclipse. But here, we suffer them. Because its totally fucking cloudy and the eclipse looks… well, just like a grey sky. Never mind, we still have an hour and a half to go before ‘wow-time’, when we all look skywards, see the solar eclipse and go ‘wow!!!!’ just before we all ship off to Moorfields Eye Hospital suffering radiation burns to our retinas. “Oh; when they said ‘don’t look directly at the eclipse’, I thought they meant something else. Now all I can see is a big white ring on a black background. Driving’s a bit difficult”.

Someone (and I’m not saying who, nor whom) sent me an email yesterday saying that in the last 5 years Spurs have played in more Champions League quarter finals than Arsenal. “Sacre Bleu!!!!” I thought. I often think in French. And then I realised that this is indeed the case. Arsenal qualify for the Champions League every year, relentlessly and without fail, and yet haven’t progressed beyond the ’round of 16′ for half a decade. Whereas Spurs, on their one, their only, their most wonderful foray into that esteemed competition, did indeed make it to the quarter-finals. I went. When we lost to Real Madrid and that poncey bastard Ronaldo. But I bear no malice. Grrrrrrrr.

So now, rather than playing better, changing things, mixing it up, meeting the challenge, Arsene Wenger has instead decided that the system is ‘wrong’. And NOT, as the mean-spirited or cynical might think, because Arsenal lost agaiaiaiaiaiaiain, but because the tournament as a whole would benefit if they change the ‘away goals’ rule. That annoying law that says, quite simply, “in the event of a draw after 2 legs have been played, away goals count double”. And NOT because it would seem that Arsenal have fallen foul of this rule more than any other club in the history of the tournament, but just because… errr… because its ‘not fair’, to quote Professor Wenger.

The rule goes back to 1965, the old (and wonderful) European Cup, and it was to prevent away teams playing very dull, defensive football, parking buses and being boring, hoping to win the tie with a sneaky goal in the home leg. The rule made it irresistible to try and score away from home. Which indeed is part of why the tournament is so exciting. Or for Arsenal, so exit-ing.

What Wenger actually suggests is that, like the League Cup, the away goals effect should only occur after extra time. Why he feels this will make it fairer I have no idea. Then he’d complain that his players are too tired after playing so many hours of football in one week, no doubt.

The system is the same for everyone. Thus, by definition, is ‘fair’. What’s unfair is losing. Grossly unfair. As a Spurs fan I get my share of unfairness every sodding week.

But to blame the system is like the Lib-Dems preaching about proportional representation as the only ‘fair’ election system. Its sad, a touch pathetic and is only for losers.

Next time Arsenal WIN a game on away goals, then people will listen to Wenger’s demands for change. Until then; grow up.

Happy eclipse (just an hour away and still the sky is full of mud)

A xxxx

There’s a ‘survey’ thing going round, I’m trying to get a copy, which asks you what you think of certain political statements and opinions. And apparently many of the questions are so subtle that people end up with scores telling them that they’re 60% UKIP when they’d swear they were staunch Labourites, or 72% Green when they’re crusty old Tories.

The questions are not the normal:

“Do you hate poor people and wish they’d go and live elsewhere?” (70% Conservative; 30% UKIP).

“Should all foreigners and non-white people be deported tomorrow?” (60% UKIP, 40% BNP).

“Are tax avoiders criminals, even if they’re the leaders of supposedly left-wing political parties?” (50% Labour, 50% clueless, 50% Maths Deficient Party).

“Shouldn’t we be trying to recycle car exhaust as edible seaweed?” (90% Green, 10% Looney).

“Do you think the Health Service would be more efficient if hospital waiting lists were organised according to skin colour?” (85% Nazi, 15% Scottish Nationalists).

No they’re more subtle and the results apparently surprising. Except its not that much of a surprise as all it really shows is just how similar, how ‘grey’, how much wishy-washy middle-ground the political parties all now spout.

It also shows my own personal problem with political affiliation, which is that I only like about 10% of what any party says. There is never a ‘whole package’ of views, stances and propositions that I adhere to so totally that I reach a ‘that’s for me!’ moment. Never. Instead I get degrees of hatred. Levels of contempt. And end up voting for the ones who offend me least. Or, on many occasions, not voting at all.

So yesterday we had ‘the budget’. Where our esteemed chancellor shuffled the nation’s funds to try and offer sweeteners for everyone so they’ll vote for the government. Well, you can’t vote for all of it because its a coalition.

For the ‘wealthy’, he increased levels before higher rate tax is paid. Great. Higher rate tax payers (ie, whilst not necessarily ‘rich’, not poor either) will be £80 a year better off!!!! Get on the list for a new Ferrari now.

For the lowest paid, the tax threshold is raised so they’ll be £900 better off, which is significant and good.

For the boozers, beer has been reduced by 1p a pint. Wow. They now have to drink 100 pints a night so they can tell their wives they saved a pound. What a waste of the paper its written on. 1p. I didn’t even realise that 1p was still currency.

So I think I’m going to vote for Lionel Messi. On last night’s performance alone, when he didn’t even score, he just showed, again and again, how impossibly brilliant he is. How fantastic to watch. How electric and mesmerising football can be. The best ever? I think he has a case.

I certainly won’t be voting for Manchester City.

Happy Thursday

Axxxx

I must admit that I’d never heard of the ‘Exclusive Brethren’ before. They’re a Christian sect who hang out in Plymouth. An offshoot of the original Plymouth Brethren from whom they separated in 1840. Oh, them. ????

They’re a strange bunch, them Brethren. But most sects do seem strange to outsiders, that’s why we call them ‘sects’ instead of ‘people’. Because sects have rules. Loads’a rules. And the Exclusive Brethren don’t generally mix with others. They try and avoid people in general. And you can’t blame them for that.

They’re a bit extreme on the Christian front, but they would be. That’s their bond. Their link. Their common ground and raison d’etre. Being a Leyton Orient fan is just a thing to do, belonging to a sect is different. Its all encompassing. It becomes your life. And that of your family. Who are completely ruled by that sect. And who can be cut off, or ‘shut up’ or ‘withdrawn from’ in cases of bad behaviour or rule breaking. Although there are exceptions. Like the ‘brother’ who is still fine and active and neither shut up nor withdrawn from despite 2 convictions for sexual assault on a 4 year old child. No, that’s fine. Won’t affect the Second Coming, or the Apocalypse in any significant way.

So they educate their kids in special schools, the books in which have the pages on evolution and sexual reproduction ripped out, and any other shit they don’t like. They don’t have tvs nor use Google (Satan’s home page, obviously). The kids are segregated in school but generally perform well academically.

All the inevitable secty weirdness we can forgive. Almost. But the Brethren get tax breaks. Big ones. Last year it amounted to £13 million. That’s a lot of prayers. Most of them answered, some would say. Yet they have an annual income of £70 million. A sect of just 17,000 members. But they’re building up their cash reserves. No shit. For ‘The Rapture’.

Oh, for The Rapture. This is when The Brethren will leave the Earth. Ok. In 2022. Hmmmmm. I don’t know where they’re going but they’re gonna be pretty rich when they get there. Maybe Las Vegas is worth considering.

They don’t pay their schools ‘fees’. Instead they make ‘voluntary contributions’ to the schools. Thus making them subject to tax relief which fees aren’t. And this wealth flows all the way from Plymouth to the Grand Pooh-Baah, who lives in Sydney. They don’t call him the ‘CEO’, or the ‘Boss’, they call him ‘God’s messenger on Earth’. And they give him a private jet and loads of great stuff to facilitate his Godliness. Its a far cry from a pair of sandals and a crown of thorns to a Jetstream but life moves on, even for Christian extremists.

I think the government should leave them jolly well alone. So they can pray. And amass vast billions, subsidised by us hard-working tax payers.

Amen

A xxxx