Andy's Glasses

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

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