Andy's Glasses

Southampton beat Sunderland, eight to soddin’ nil
that’s a score indeed, magnificent total thrill
(unless of course, Gus Poyet is your name,
in which case, never mind, what a bloody shame)

And Chelsea just keep rolling on, vile though they are,
but just too good for everyone else, Fabregas again the star

They put lowly Palace to the sword, even without Diego Costa,
who got banged up playing for Spain, got taken off the roster

Morihno’s pissed, quel surprise, for losing the prodigal son
The Brazillian Spanish traitor has been his major big gun

But I shed no tears for the boys in Blue, they have many in their ranks
I save my sorrow for my beloved Spurs, who play like total w-ubbish

We can’t defend, we can’t hold the ball, we fail to score more than one
we give the ball away eagerly, miss passes all the time, and foul just for fun

Without Lloris we’d be bottom of the league, he’s the only one to stop the rot
We can’t even score from 12 yards out with the ball on the fucking spot.

I’ve given them their time, their chances one and all,
let them settle, be very patient, more time on the ball

But 100 million quid we spent, on players from wide and far
and all they do is fall to the ground and hit the bleeding bar

Well, middle of the table, eight games in, ain’t so very bad
but once more aspirations shot down at the bastard Etihad.

Don’t talk to me about West Ham, evil little thugs
4th in the league, won’t last long, but maybe its time for drugs.

Arsenal once again come up late in a match they failed to win
in a home game against Hull, gave 2 points away, just threw them in the bin

But the Arse aren’t my problem, they’ll get there in the end
its Franco fucking Baldini who drives me round the bend

Our ‘director of football’; what does that even mean?
Ahhh, but he has a plan, a devious little scheme

He’s like a ‘youth opportunities programme’ for Europe’s orphaned dross
100 million wasted and he couldn’t give a toss

If he chose those players, disasters one and all
why is it the managers consistently take the fall?

He should be removed from his post, chained to a wall
ceremonially beheaded, disembowelled by one and all.

And on that cheery note, the season carries forth
now our team has come back from the north.

Happy sunday

A xxxx

Is this the face of a rapist?

Once again the ugly subject of rape tarnishes our otherwise pristine and perfect world. Phah! Yet rape is evil, is horrendous and is always a violent crime even if no apparent ‘violence’ took place, because it is an assault on someone’s body. So if Judy Finnegan thinks its not rape if no-one gets punched, kicked or threatened with weapons, then she needs to rethink things. Possibly before she decides to opine on things other than her book club or the latest recipe for quinoa extra-virgin gluten-free cup cakes.

Ched Evans, footballer for Sheffield United, was released from jail yesterday after serving 2-and-a-half years of a 5 year sentence for rape. His mate found an incredibly drunk girl in a kebab shop, took her to a pre-booked hotel and texted Evans to tell him ‘I’ve got a bird’. Evans turned up, the mate was already in flagranti… already involved, Ched joined in, the girl woke up naked and alone in the morning, probably with a seriously sore head, and cried rape, even though she could remember nothing of the evening. Though was more concerned about the loss of her handbag than anything else.

None of which makes it automatically rape. If the incident is forced by threats, it is rape, if forced by alcohol, which achieves the same end of rendering the victim powerless, its still rape. But the alcohol was self inflicted. In this case. And although standing in line for a kebab in Rhyl, North Wales is yet another invitation to bodily abuse of a different kind, that still doesn’t make it rape.

What makes it rape is lack of consent. Or even lack of ability to give consent due to unconsciousness. You need unambiguous consent before… well, before anything.

And the final question, the last past of this rather sordid little puzzle; should Evans be welcomed back to Sheffield United to play football? When he has shown no remorse, other than to maintain his story that it was not rape, backed up by the fabulous ‘evidence’ or at least ‘mitigation’ that ‘footballers are rich and fit and every girl wants to shag one’ in not so many words. If that were the case, why didn’t he take his pick whilst at the bar? Why wait for your mate to find one so out of it that she didn’t know a footballer from a Premier Inn £29.50 special weekend room deal?

None of which is very ‘hollywood’, its more ‘the arse end of Cardiff’. Ched’s girlfriend ‘stood by him’ to claim it was not rape. Yet oddly was seemingly unpurturbed by her boyfriend engaged in sex with a drunken bimbo along with his mate, whilst being filmed by a couple of other mates on their phones.

I make no judgments. (Yeah, right). But simply wish to raise a few points for consideration of this indelicatley delicate matter.

1. ‘Consent’ is a tricky one. Can’t it be implied? Does it have to be stated before 6 witnesses as many seem to imply? Whether drunk or not, if a woman is willing, eager even and passionately engaged in preceding events, cannot, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that this is definitely a ‘game on’ situation?

2. Evans has served his time for the crime, has he not repaid his debt to society? Should he be further punished by not being allowed to play football? If he was a policeman, lawyer or schoolteacher, I could see a point. Even a politician. Positions where trust is required, where morality is assumed. But he kicks a fucking football in the lower leagues. Half his team mates are rapists, and worse, they’ve just never been caught.

3. Should all of Wales just be shut down? On moral grounds.

4. Will any of this affect how Spurs fare at Manchester City today? And is there any possible way we can abandon the match in protest? Against Chad? The sentence? The victim? Anything??

Happy Saturday… so far.

A xxxx

‘Multi-cultural Britain’ started in the 1950s when immigration started from the West Indies. Because many West Indians lived in British colonies and were entitled to come here and live and work. Which they did. Encouraged to do so by shortages in many work sectors, they brought their music, their food and their fabulously laid-back attitude with them which, despite the inevitable racism that would have greeted their arrival, enriched our country. We now had reggae. This was followed in the 60s and 70s by massive immigration from India and Pakistan. Again, decent, hard-working people bringing something new, something desirable to our country (in this case: curry, which has changed all our lives for the better) and introducing us to yet another rich and fascinating set of new cultures.

As Churchill said: think not what your country can do for you, think what you can do for your country. Bloody Tory.
Somewhere along the line it all went pear-shaped and tits-up. Because people entering Britain were coming to a welfare state. In which they would all be housed, educated, fed and given free medical care and free BBC. And a penny dropped. Ahhhhh, they thought, or whatever the Albanian/Thai/Bangla Deshi/Scottish is for ‘ahhhhh’; we can go to England, do nothing and be provided for. Why stay in Albania/Bangla… etc, and earn nothing for doing nothing when we can go to England and live like kings and queens doing absolutely nothing. Look at their queen; she does it. 3 palaces, 400 servants, kept by the state.

And if this is sounding a touch ‘ukip’, a soupcon ‘Farage’ then I can only hold my hands up and say: ‘mea cupla; I’m a fascist bastard’.

And what turned me was reading last night’s paper. A proper paper, the Evening Standard, which is a London paper. No-one else is worthy. And in it was yet another article about the horrible homeless people situation in Park Lane. Which, according to the Monopoly board, is the most expensive road in Britain. And there is a recurring problem with Romanian homeless living in cardboard boxes in and around that part of Hyde Park. And they’re threatening, or they’re begging, they’re pick-pockets, petty thieves and they smell bad. Business suffers in the area and they use the underground walkways as their toilet. Eeeeeuuuuuwww.

And when approached by the police (who move them about every other week) they cried out yesterday: ‘we are EU citizens; give us homes and we won’t be here’.

Tragically the best advert for UKIP you could ever create.

Though I would never, ever vote UKIP.
“Give us homes”. Like they grow on trees. Or near trees. Like we have room for every European destitute to come here just because they want a better quality of social benefits.

The jews had arrived here in numbers from the early 1900s. Before there was a welfare state. And instead of culture, they brought herring. And they blended right in so you could barely tell them apart.

Happy not-voting-for-ukip Thursdasy

A xxxx

Great Tai Chi class last night. They’re always great but last night Grandmaster Lazlo was away so Guru Graham took over and gave his own take on the finest that eastern philosophy and mystical karma can aspire to, whilst inflicting serious damage on any possible assailants and causing pain and suffering to any would-be attacker. Job done, take a shower, sit down with a cup of tea before bed and just a quick flick through some mindless tv channels (Mel tries to hide the remote but I’m telepathically bonded with it and have a special in-built gps tracker in my head to find it every time) and found The Fast and the Furious. Oh my, that’ll do.

I mean how totally anti-zeitgeist can a movie be? In 2001 they should have been making movies about low-emission vehicles, about electric-powered Noddy cars, about cars so pure and environment friendly that they use trees for power by converting horrible carbons into lovely, pure oxygen for virgins to inhale into their pale and pure lungs. Aaaahhhhhh.

But no, they made a film about car racers. There is a story in there somewhere but its facile, childish and totally irrelevant. I mean, how much of a story can there be if you use Vin Diesel to act it out? The man simply can’t act. He can only smoulder. And brood. And get angry, violent, ripple a few muscles and then smoulder some more. He likes smouldering. He’s good at it.

And he smoulders in some wonderful American Muscle cars. Others in the movie use neat, clean little Japanese vehicles, but not Vin. He only drives US and V8. He’s a bad boy hero in the Clint Eastwood mould. Or smould. An anti-hero. A criminal, a thief, a baddie that you really wouldn’t want your daughter bringing home. “Hi Dad, I’ve brought Vin home for a quick smoulder before we go the movies in a very muscle-ripply way. Sorry about the noise, that’s his new 17,000 horse power Camaro that emits 3 tons of carbon every hundred yards”.

Yet its precisely because its such an awful film (6.2 on IMDB; not catastrophic but not The Godfather either), is why I want to watch it. Because it doesn’t matter if I leave it half way through and go to bed. I know what happens. Nothing happens. But whilst nothing is happening, just turn up the volume and enjoy some truly fabulous rolling metal.

Nothing happens in Rugby League either. Well, not in my life because I don’t watch it. I won’t watch it. Its a horrible game, a brutal, violent, northern cousin to the ‘real game’ of Rugby Union. Which is a gentlemanly, intellectual, considered brutal violent game played down here. (OK, its not strictly geographical, as it used to be, but I’m just making a point. And inventing stuff that fits that point, like all good research). And in the Rugby League Supercup on Satruday, the Wigan prop, Ben Flower, punched an opposing player so hard he knocked him almost unconscious. But rather than leave him there to get over it, as they would in Rugby Union, obviously, Ben bent over the supine and semi-comatose man and punched him again. And that’s just not cricket. Obviously, its Rugby League. And sucker-punching a prostrated invalid is arguably giving the spectators what they want. Its what they like in the North. A 6 month ban from the game? He should have been man-of-the-match. Only on the pitch for 3 minutes but its given that awful, God-forsaken game more publicity than its enjoyed in the last 20 years.

Happy brutal Wednesday

A xxxx

This is Mel in Vienna. Could be New York, Marbella, Ethiopia or Croydon. She sees some sunshine, a chink (I’m allowed to use that word in this context) in the clouds, a glimmer behind a wall, and she’ll turn and face it, anywhere, anytime. And smile. Because the sunshine makes her feel happy. Ahhhhhhh. I know, it sounds pathetic, but in fact its not, its good sense, good health and logevity. And animals as well as Mel and other humans, get depressed in the dark, dull winter months due to lack of sunshine. SADS. Seasonal affectation Disorders. Very sads.

We’ve had a long and varied stream of (worthless?) advice about sunshine. Its good for you. It’ll kill you. It’s great for the skin, it’ll ruin your skin, you’ll get cancer, you’ll live longer, you’ll be happier, its depressing, and on and on and on.

In the 70s we used to rub oil onto our skin. Sun protection was unthought of, the oil was to help you fry and moisturise your skin so you could burn it longer before going to hospital. And we went from Baby Oil, as an old girlfriend used always on the beach in California, to factor 50, in 30 years. Mainly because the Aussies invented a hole in the ozone layer to become paranoid about.

Well fuck them! New tests have shown that sunbathing makes you live longer. You shouldn’t, you should be a dried up prune with skin cancer, but its not the case. In fact they’ve shown that vitimin D (wot we get from the sun, as well as a tan) deficiency increases a whole range of the usual horrors, including melanomas. Go figure.

The upshot is; they really don’t know shit from shinola when it comes to the Sun. Or vitimin D. I’ve never been a pill popper, not vitimins anyway. But I love the sun, so I’d rather just go on holiday.

Like Kim Jong Un. Well, he went somewhere. The fat little leader of the North Korean peoples disappeared for 6 weeks, only to return yesterday without much comment. Rumours were rife that he’d died, he’d eaten so much as to become immobile, he fell and injured a leg. He could have been kidnapped but unlikely the ransom would cover the food bill for Little Billy 2 Dinners. Because apparently he has a ‘thing’ about Swiss Cheese. Very healthy stuff, even without sunshine. But his ‘thing’ is of an Elvis kind of nature; obsessive, compulsive and with no-one allowed to comment or suggest moderation. Not and live to see tomorrow from outside solitary confinement.

I’ve missed Kim. The world wasn’t the same without him. No, I didn’t actually notice either.

Happy sunny Tuesday (even though its wetter than wet out there)

A xxxx

I had to look on a map yesterday to find out where, and in fact what, Estonia might be. As a kid I learned my geography of England by the location of the significant football teams. A process that would seem, whilst in my expanded horizons, to be continuing today. The rule is: if they don’t play football there I have no need to know where it is. So I sat watching last night’s match and in the quiet bits, the boring bits, the frustraing bits, I learned about Estonia. So I had time to be very thorough and very extensive. Lots of time.

The ‘where’ is easy. Estonia lies on the Eastern shore of the Baltic, just below the Gulf of Finland. I never knew Finland had its own Gulf either. You see how educational football is? And across that gulf, to the north, lies Finland. The West Coast of Estonia is on the Baltic. To the south is Latvia and its other border, to the East is Russia. Or, ‘where the problem lies’.

Because historically Estonia has always fancied itself to be Scandinavian. It has belonged, at points in its history, to both Denmark and Sweden, and is filled with fair-haired people demanding free sex and charging 17 quid for a pint of beer. But in the mid-20th Century Russia developed other ideas. And poor Estonia, sitting in a very important strategic position, was swallowed into Soviet Hell along with so many other nations with the tragic geographical misfortune to be anywhere near that monster.

Flash forward, the wall came down, Pink Floyd rose to power, communism was difficult to sustain in a land flowing with billionaires driving Bentleys, the USSR split up and in about 1987 Estonia became a free republic once more. And it does ok. Its ‘rich’ for a baltic state, and part of the EU. Poor bastards. They thought they had it bad under the Russians. So now it can once more get in touch with its inner Scandanavian. Even though they’ve never made a tv series like the Bridge or Wallander, never written books like The Girl with the tattoo on her Arse, Do they not have murders in Estonia? That inspire ‘popular international culture’??

Tallin, the capital, is known as ‘the Las Vegas of the Baltic’. Which is a bit like being ‘the Knightsbridge of Burnley’.

With a population of under 1.5 million Estonians, England should have trounced Estonia. Annihilated them. Beaten them soundly and reassuringly. Yet that wasn’t the case. So the noble Estonians, seeing England in trouble, had the decency to have their captain removed from the field of play, to give Rooney’s boys a better chance, playing against just 10 men. Still not much joy from England. Who eventually managed the single, deflected, solitary goal from a set piece. Leaving Estonia to mourn.

But what places Estonia culturally and realistically as more Russian than Scando is the fact that they keep their fans behind bars. Metal meshwork separated the crowd from the pitch. Ya never get that in Stockholm. Nor Oslo, even Helsinki. But you do in most other ex-Russian countries because the people are monsters, racists, anti-semites and thugs. Which I base on nothing other than ‘gut feeling’.

How’s your gut feeling today?

Happy monday

A xxxx

Now here’s a funny thing. Two-and-a-half years ago, whilst walking round Ayers Rock (ok, ‘Oluru’ ya PC pedant) with Bulawayo Johnno, he told me of a film that ‘I simply HAD to see’. Yeah, ain’t they all. It was called ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ and its ‘brilliant’. Yeah, ain’t they all. He gave me a precis but to be honest, it was in the mid-40s, I was dehydrated, exhausted and jet-lagged, so his words just washed over me. As they always do even when I’m hydrated and in my own time-zone.

In the ensuing 3 weeks, 7 flights and 47 koala bears, the conversation was forgotten. But not lost. They never are. They’re stored. In a little cabinet in the corner, just above my left ear, called ‘shit and stuff’.

Fast forward to June this year and my birthday. Which you forgot, ya bum. But the elder daughter didn’t forget and her and hubby bought me a dvd. Called ‘Searching for Sugar Man’. Telling me they’d seen it and ‘its brilliant’. I rumaged around for that earlier conversation and found it. Hmmmmm.

Then I forgot all about it once more.

Until last night when amazingly we were in. And Mel said: be great if we had a film to watch. No comment from me. And she rummaged and came up wit this dvd. What’s ‘Searching for Sugar Man’?? she asked. OMG. A ‘sign’.

What a superb movie. Its a documentary about the most fabulous musician that no-one’s ever heard of. Unless you happen to be South African. Even though the musician in question is a Mexican American from Detroit called Rodriguez. And he wrote and sang fantastic songs. And sang them beaufully. But they weren’t 60s kind of songs as everyone else sang. Rodriguez was a proto-Bob Dylan and he sang songs about things that actually mattered. He was a working class kid who wrote about unfairness, about misery, about life’s little pleasures, about how its ok to question the establishment and complain about it. And unlike Dylan, you could actually hear the words. Sadly though, no-one wanted to. Rodriguez had the top producers of the day (Detroit was Motown, so music was right there) lining up to work with him. The record labels fought over him. And no-one bought a single fucking copy of his albums. Well, maybe his mum. An aunt. So after 2 albums, both commercial failures, rumours started that at a disastrous concert, Rodriguez had killed himself. Voilently (gun or fire, there were tales of both) and in full view of the crowd of… not that many. End of Rodriguez, the music and the man.

Except somehow, one of the 15 copies in circulation made its way to Cape Town. And its anti-establishment message just ‘hit the spot’ massively amoung the young whites who, under apartheit, hated their country, their government, the grotesque unfairness in which they were forced to live and their complete lack of any freedom. Blah, blah, blah, they estimate 500,000 copies of Rodriguez albums sold in the province. And he was a god. But only there.

The movie is the story of 2 South Africans who tried to find the true story of their hero and their 25 year quest to do it.

And its wonderful, its marvellous and fantastically feel-good and up-beat.

Now wouldn’t it be an ironic tragedy if the dvd only sold copies in South Africa and not the rets of the world? History repeating?? Don’t let it happen. Buy it today. You’ll thank me. And Natalie, and Bulawayo Johnno.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

After the news on tv last night came Graham Norton. If you don’t know Graham, its Johnny Carson meets Judy Garland meets Riverdance. Very funny, very gay, very Irish. And generally, I’m not the biggest fan. But he does pull in some majorly A-list guests to abuse and… and… well, what does he do to them? He talks to them sufficiently about their latest book/film/album to meet contractual obligations, chats about other interesting things that his researchers have dug up and then the rest of the time he just takes the piss. In his ‘harmless, you-wouldn’t-hit-a-gay-Irishman’ kind of way that would be endearing except I find myself in the position that I would hit him. Hard.

But anger management issues aside, I kept La Norton on because he had John Cleese as a guest and if he’d never done anything since the Dead Parrot sketch he’d be a God. But he did more. So much more. And is wonderfully funny. Who’d’a thought that? Also on was Kevin Peterson. The greatest cricketer since WG Grace. Since Garry Sobers. The best batsman since… no, the best ever. He said so in his book. Along with some interesting views on the rest of the English cricket team. And he is nothing if not passionate about England cricket. Patriotic as the Queen. Not Graham Norton, the real one. Except KP is as South African as PW Boetha. As Apartheit. As Oscar Pistorius. As biltong (texture of shoe-leather, taste of wet socks, delicious).

Yet as with most sportspeople, they simply aren’t very interesting, other than their sporting tales of hilarity. Which in a game as inherently funny (?) as cricket, truly leave the crowd in convulsions. Even though it looked like they were asleep. The revelations in KP’s new book about the bad side of the gentleman’s game are controversial. But no-one really cares. Even though as a batsman, on his day, he was incredibly brilliant. Though his days weren’t as many as the not-his-days.

The other guest was Taylor Swift. And I’m such a big fan I would definitely be a stalker at one of her houses, if I knew where any of them were. And I love her music. Its aimed at me. Teenage tales of unrequited love in the school yard. My boyfriend chucked me so I’m gonna burn his underwear drawer. Songs that all middle-aged married men can relate to. But I don’t care, I love the music. Though I’d never seen her speaking before. And it was awful. Because she is bright, clever, funny and highly intelligent. Who’d think such a thing? British songstresses are thick as shit. Cheryl Cole. Jesse J. KP’s wife (don’t worry, no-one can ever remember her name) who ‘sang’ with Liberty X, that wonderful, 10-minute wonder mime artists who won some early karaoke, Simon Cowell type show. But not like ‘my’ Taylor. Writing her own songs before she could walk. 20 zillion dollar contract for her 9th birthday. And truly wonderful. Talented. And although I still find room for Hendrix, Talking Heads, The Clash and so many other gritty, manly, stuff-of-my-generation music, I would find room for Ms Swift on my autochanger any day. As Shania Twain proved conclusively: if the singer is sufficiently gorgeous, country music can be almost acceptable.

Happy Saturday-almost-Sunday

A xxxx

It was always going to be a battle. There were always destined to be winners and losers. The victors and the vanquished. And the making of history. Though everything makes history; a trip to Sainsburys, having the car washed, taking a piss. We just need to be selective about what gets consigned to the history books and what is unworthy. And of course, how that history then unfolds.

And thus Wayne Rooney and Nigel Farage didst battle it out. Both engaged in foregone conclusions, it was always going to be a matter of ‘how big a victory’ and how it would be accepted. A battle for headlines.

Farage is today celebrating the first UKIP member of parliament, elected yesterday in Clacton-upon-Sea. A win that was never really in doubt. When the shit hits the fan, Essex man turns to the right. Even Essex woman, so it would appear, though many didn’t realise that they were actually allowed to vote. Being as they’re not like normal women who won the vote in nineteen-twenty-whatever. But in repsonse to David Cameron’s namby-pamby, wishy-washy form of government, trampled on by European legislation, failure to address immigration issues and generally being a bit of an upper class twit, the Tory ‘faithful’ (phah!!) abandoned their party in droves to hook up with UKIP. Whether this is yet another ‘protest’ vote, as it counts for pretty much nothing other than a statement of discontent, and those same good voters will change back to their customary blue rosettes next year, remains to be seen.

More significant in many ways was the result of the other by-election in Heywood & Middleton. No idea either, but way ‘up north’, in the Labour heartland. UKIP didn’t win there, but they came very very close, losing by just 617 votes. Yet really, this victory for Farage’s purple team is way more impressive than Clacton. Because to turn the tories of Clacton 10 degrees to the right is easy. Many conservatives see UKIP as ‘how the conservatives should really be’, the ‘old style’ conservatives, you know, white, English, racist, misogynist, xenophobic men. Whereas traditional labour voters have a long way to travel to hook up with Farage. They have common interests though. Beer, fags and McFlurries. And UKIP are less elitist than the Tories, and try to appeal to the common man. In most cases, the very common man. So their ‘very close second’ in that election is highly significant because it shows the massive discontent Labour have with their party and specifically with Ed Milliband, its hapless leader. The forgetful one.

Ironically, if this voting trend is representative of the next general election, Ed Milliband could actually end up as the beneficiary of so many new UKIPpers. Why that is really is too boring to bother explaining, especially as you’re not that bright, so just trust me on that.

But all is not bad news. England thrashed San Marino 5-0 at Wembley last night. FIVE NIL!!!! Wow. But that, oddly, is not very impressive. Sounds like it should be but San Marino are, officially, FIFA ranked, the worst team in the world. So there is massive disappointment that we didn’t score more, impress more, against a team of bricklayers, chemists and accountants. Our massively over-paid superstar representatives of the finest league in the universe, apparently underperformed. And none more so that Wayne Rooney. Our captain. Our leader. Our main scumbag.

So I make that Farage 1, Rooney 0.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I hate shopping. I used to enjoy a troll round the high streets, back in the day, the boutiques round Carnaby Street, the novelty shops in Covent Garden, obviously any of the shops in Soho that had curtains on the window and an inflatable doll as the doorman. Then someone standardised the high street. Starbucks. Next. Boots the effin chemists. Phones For Us, Fones for You, AnyPhone, More Fuckin’ Fones. McDonalds, All Bar One, Pret. All the same. Every shopping centre, every road. Boring, boring, boring. No-one realised that you can’t actually standardise humans in the same way. Some of us want different things. Like inflatable dolls.

Then came the internet and the game was changed once more. In fact the game is almost up for video/dvd rental shops that were the dominating feature of every shopping parade for so long. No longer needed. Superfluous to requirements. Travel agents are a dying breed too. We book holidays online. No more ‘brochures’, no more having some smiling saleslady extolling the virtues of the Parador del Mar with its fine dining (congealed buffet), luxury health spa (broken cycle machine) and the artists impression of the magnificent infinity pool (due for completion some time in 2027 as long as the funding comes along). We now take virtual tours round resorts and by licking the app on the screen, you can actually taste the food to make sure its fresh.

The only stores to not merely survive but thrive in the post-internet world are those involved in computer-free activities. Gyms have increased in number by 114% since 2003. Why? They’re horrible places of pain and suffering. Whereas, ironically, fish’n’chip shops have also increased by a whopping, batter-coated 84%. Presumably they’re buying a take-away on the way home from the gym next door. So fitness and fatness are still worthy of the Great British High Street.

And up by a staggering 173% comes tattoo parlours. Once exclusively for drunk sailors and builders, now even the Queen has a tattoo. On her face. A great big ‘SPURS’ banner, just under her crown. If only. Though apparently she does have a ‘tramp stamp’. Well why not? She can afford it. And tattoos now cross the class divide. Samantha Cameron has one, and she’s posh. Wayne Rooney has loads and he’s a hairball.

This is a gap in the market. An opportunity not equaled since the Sinclair C5 (what?). Not since Betamax has something this big come along. Ya ready:

www.tattoo-yourself.com

You download the software and special, super 3-d ‘inkjet’ printer with needle attachment (patent pending), choose your design from the massive selection, or even create your own using our special programme guaranteed to misspell at least one word out of 7, for authenticity, and just insert the relevant body-part into the printer (which come in 5 sizes: Victoria Beckham, Cheryl Cole’s Arse, Small, Normal and Fat Bastard) and just 4 hours of sheer agony later, 3 hospital visits and a possible amputation for gangrene, you have your very own, personally designed and created, tattoo. Probably upside down. But there ya go.

Press 1 to go to the payment page and checkout

Press 2 for a lovely thursday,

A xxxx