Andy's Glasses

Now here’s an interesting thing. Last year in England, Culture beat Sport, by 92 to 36. Yes almost three times as many millions of people visited our theatres, museums and music venues than attended mainstream sporting events. Its possible that many of the same people did both. Greedy people. Families of ticket touts. Its even possible that one person was counted at a million different events, just to up the votes. Like a Tower Hamlets mayoral election. However, there are many ways to look at these seemingly, er, appalling? errr exciting?? errrr catastrophic numbers and interpret them.

Some say that whilst our sportspeople have sadly let us down tragically of late, with World Cup debacles, cricket and rugby losses and a failure in the darts in Sheffield, we’ve always been totally world class and premiere league at ‘dull’. We might grow shitty footballers but our historians are second to none. So for those who find the thought of Lancashire versus Warwickshire unworthy of a visit for 3 whole days in a rainy period in June, there’s always the Cleethorpes and Wheeltappers’ Museum of Stuff, currently exhibiting their stunning collection of pre-Victorian horse brasses from Derbyshire. And how many people would look at thier tickets for Sunday’s match beween Chelsea and Manchester City and think; ‘naah, fuck dat, I’m gonna go see the Neanderthal cave paitings at the British Museum’? Many, I think. The lure of all that history and culture is simply too great to resist at times. (There are others among us who would opt for voluntary, unnecessary root canal dentistry without anaesthetic than ever go to Chelsea, but we are sick people. With fucked up teeth).

There is of course another way to look at the figures. 92 million visitors to culture, only 36 million to sports. Which I personally see as a total failure of this so-called ‘culture’ to actually become part of mainstream culture. Because football is on the tv. All the time, every moment of the weekend is filled with matches from all the divisions, with hilights, with French, Italian, even German football. So the real, true, dedicated sports fan never ever needs to get off his fat arse and leave the lounge. His only cultural concern is whether his wife bought him sufficient beer and whether his pizza(s) will arrive before the second half starts. That’s a true fan. That’s a man of the times. Or a woman, perhaps, but she’d be a bloody hefty one.

Whereas the failure of so-called ‘cutlural events’ is that you actually have to move somewhere to see them. Thus in reality there were 785,000,000 games of sport watched by, mainly, drunken slobs, with only the sad 36 million with broken tvs who actually needed to go to the grounds. 92 million attended museums and theatres because they’re not on the telly and there’s no choice. They don’t even have an ‘app’ that can show you Chagalle’s greatest, currently at the Iron Brew Gallery in Aberdeen.

Culture needs to step up. Needs to get gambling involved. Should be accessible from your ipad. Then it can compete with football. Until then, pass the Doritos and if you want to eat all the guacamole, buy some yerself!!

Happy friday

A xxxx

Do you remember, when you were very young and your mum took you to the Doctor’s to have inoculations and vaccinations, and when you turned up there were 27 little kids all sitting on laps awaiting their turn in the injection clinic, and one kid was screaming. Really screaming. The screams of horror, of panic; screams so loud and protracted that you’d think he was being tortured at Abu Graib? Being forced to listen to Cliff Richard’s greatest hits. Well that kid was me. It was so bad that when the nurse called to make the appointment she’d tell my mother: “the clinic is from 10 to 11.30, so bring Andrew in at 11.45 so he doesn’t upset the other children”. I got over the shame, but I’ve really got over my fear of the needle. Can’t watch them on tv. When they show smallpox vaccinations in villages in Africa, given to stoic little kids who barely blink, I’m behind the couch. When I took my kids for blood tests or anything vaguely involving needlework, my head swiveled so far away from the ‘action’ it took a week before the strained muscles in my neck eased.

This morning I went to have my yellow fever and hepatitis vaccinations for our Christmas trip. An early Christmas present; being stabbed in both arms. And I’m not happy about it. I still scream. I’ve just learned to do it internally. I said to Mel: let’s just go back to Cornwall at Christmas; you don’t need injections to go there, just statins for all the fish’n’chips and cream teas. Such a wimp. And as usual, its virtually painless. VIRTUALLY. That doesn’t mean its ok, but I survived. You have to laugh.

Unless you’re a woman in Turkey. Then you can’t laugh. Not in public anyway. Bulent Arinc, the deputy PM, has deemed it ‘inappropriate’ for women to laugh loudly in public. So presumably sniggering is ok, smirking acceptable, giggling just about fine, but laughing? What kind of country do you think this is? Women laughing in public?? Inexcusable. Might as well wear a sign saying ‘TOTAL FUCKING SLUT!!!’ Because happiness is not next to godliness, that’s cleanliness. And overt happiness is… is… somehow related to ‘immodesty’ in that parculiarly ‘honourish’ type mentality that certain cultures seem to promote, or at least accept.

I’m not in the best position to comment really, on what happens in Turkey. The nearest I’ve ever been is to Efes kebab shop on Great Titchfield Street. And a mighty fine place it is too. Filled with raucous women. And wonderful kebabs. But I grew up in the 60s and 70s when ‘equality’ and ‘freedom’ were the words of the day, along with ‘pass that joint this way’ and ‘whilst you’re burning your bra you might as well get rid of the rest of your clothing’. I also find religious doctrine repressive, though I do appreciate that some find it liberating. Mainly odd people, but who am I to judge? I scream at having a jab. But we’ve seen in so many countries that once you start imposing limits and constraints on ‘women’ (men can laugh all they like, can piss themselves laughing for all Bulent Arinc cares), its a short hop to the full niqab, to removing females from education, from public stonings for ‘adultery’, even, as in some places, for raped women.

So Turkey is hanging on to its ‘secular’ status by the thinnest of head-scarves. Watch this space.

Happy pain-free Thursday

A xxxx

The banking giant, Santander, have refused to open an account for a circus company, ‘on moral grounds’ because the troupe are a little risqué in their attire and a little ‘burlesque’ in their performances. But this is a circus. The girls dress for acrobatics. Its like making a judgment on runners in the Commonwealth games for wearing skimpy shorts and crop-tops. The Circus Uncertainty, as they’re known, are heavily involved in charity work. They visit kids in cancer wards dressed as the favourite cartoon character. Ahhhhhh. Whereas Santander make money. Take money. Steal money. Very aggressively, very successfully and very thoroughly. They even have my money. Which they lend to Greece and Spain and lose zillions, which they give out in toxic loans, whilst selling spurious insurances and protection vehicles which have been now deemed illegal. And they get bailed out by the government at massive cost to taxpayers. Yet some blond in a bikini and a feather boa is deemed immoral. Blondes in bikinis and feather boas should always be encouraged by institutions. And everybody else. Otherwise where would society be?

Our esteemed mayor of London has now stated that he wants my City to be pollution-free-ish. To which he is now proposing yet more punitive measures for drivers. Particularly drivers of diesels. Charge them a tenner to enter the City. On top of the tenner they already have to pay in congestion charge. Makes it an expensive business. Better off taking the tube. Unless you’re carrying 12 tons of merchandise for John Lewis, then its a bit more problematical. Yet just a few years ago everyone was encouraged to buy diesel cars. More efficient, more reliable, MORE ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY. Suckers! They bought that one, now we’ll fucking show them. Even Mel’s car, a Fiat 500, sold on the promise of ‘no congestion charge’ will in fact be congestion charged from 2016. If its still in one piece. It has an engine smaller than the Magimix, emits rose-scented vapour and can cure certain illnesses (that’s what the advertising said), make you more alluring to women (of the tree-hugging, hemp-vest variety) but its too polluting for London.
Which is fine. But they shouldn’t keep shifting the goalposts after people have made a relatively significant expenditure specifically for the existing guidelines. Immoral Bastards.

The dating site OkCupid has 30 million lonely hearts all looking for a quick shag with a stranger. Or ‘love’, as they call it on the website. And for ‘a psychological experiment’ the site purposely mismatched applicants. O.M.G!!!!! So Douglas from Berkshire stated his ideal mate was bikini-clad blonde on stilts with a feather boa and ended up with a Priest called Henry from Reigate. They’re now very happy together and are considering a trip to Africa to steal an orphan together. Whereas Matilda from Basingstoke wanted ‘tall, dark, handsome, GSOH, non-smoker, sober intellectual’ and ended up with a Scotsman.
The site has been reprimanded by a stunning, mid-30s (she’s 57), bundle of fun who loves ciabatta, chianti and chess.

Happy immoral wednesday

A xxxx

I love a good book. Or a good ‘bookish download’ as is now the case as they arrive in my kindle 1.6 seconds after buying them from Amazon. As long as you turn the wifi on. Of course. What? You think I’m stupid?? Cos you can’t download on the tube. Don’t work. Trust me. Or trust a more stupid person.

And I just read a great book. By the master of all good book-writing people. Stephen King. Or ‘God’ as we call him. Though maybe ‘The Devil’ is more appropriate given his earlier offerings. Its called Mr Mercedes but I won’t tell you why or it will spoil… well it will spoil page 3. Maybe. But its not horror and its not vampires and its not telekinetic schoolgirls, rabid dogs, psychopathic book fans, killer cars, devils wrapped in clown costumes or even prisoner accountants escaping from prison (yes, He wrote Shawshank, but people can’t make the connection between that and Pet Semetary. Unaccountably). Mr Mercedes is a crime thriller. And it is thrilling and, er, criminal. Bad people. Good guys. Even a bit of luuurve. Just a bit. Not like 50 shades of grey, (like my beard), because if Mr King had written that it would have been a good book. Because he does write exceedingly good books. All of them. Mr Mercedes is not ‘brilliant’, just pretty damned fantastic. Which is as bad as his books get.

And then it finished. The way books do when you really don’t want them to. So I started a book by Robert Galbraith. Who? You know; Robert Galbraith. Tall blond bird. Looks great in a (very) dark room. Pays as much tax as she possibly can, then gets all holier than thou about it. Wrote all those Harry Potter books; Robert Galbraith.

Oh, JK Rowling? No, Robert Galbraith. Says so on the ‘cover’ (the cover on my kindle is black leather; whatever book I’m reading). For some reason, Ms Rowling has written 2 detective novels (so far, ya never know with ‘her’) under this nom de plume. She was fed up being a West Country billionaire that everyone expects to be riding round on a broomstick, so she morphed into a Scottish geezer called Bobby, probably has a beard, unruly shaggy hair, a kilt (no underwear) and a Celtic scarf. He beats his wife, drinks like a fish and goes to church every sunday. Sometimes all at the same time. Banned from driving for 3 years. Hasn’t told the social security about his new job in case it affects his benefits.

And its a good book, because JK Galbraith knows how to pen a tale. Well written. And yet… ‘Harry Potter and the Dog that did Calculus’ it ain’t. Those books all moved with a pace. Ne’er a dull moment. This book has many dullish moments. In fact its almost one big dull moment interspersed with a few good bits. Maybe being liberated from writing books for kids and their limited attention spans, she has no empathy with adults suffering the same condition. Four pages describing a hallway in a Mayfair house is just about 3 and a half pages too much. I’m 55% through this tome and it kind’a feels like it, yet I’m not inclined to abandon it. Mainly because I never abandon books. Only wives, children and relatives who don’t buy me presents. And pets. Though I’m not sure cooking them is actual ‘abandonment’ according to the law.

Ok, to work, to the tube, to read in a tunnel.

Happy Tuesday

Doreen (well why not?)
xxxx

Why is it that no other country in the world is questioned about its ‘right to exist’? Only Israel. Which became a country in 1948 when the British mandate pulled out and left the natives to fight it out. It is a country. There is no question. No more than there should be about Italy or Bosnia or Zimbabwe. By every criterion of what makes a ‘country’, Israel is one. And it therefore has a right to be left in peace. But its not. It is bombed daily by neighbours who seek its destruction. The neighbours who gave the world ‘ the suicide vest’ as its contribution to civilisation, as well as its repeated ‘gift’ to its host nation.

Backed by the Qataris, Hamas has weapons and the ability to build tunnels into Israel for the sole purpose of death and chaos. Any country would in such circumstances defend itself. Protect its people from a very very real threat. Yet Israel is denied that by the world’s press, in most cases. They use the phrase ‘disproportionate response’. As if armies in a war (and by any definition this is a war) would attack in a manner that doesn’t give them some advantage? As if the D-Day landing was ‘disproportionate’ because they sent in hundreds of thousands of soldiers to attack just a few nazis.

I don’t necessarily agree with everything Israel does, but I do agree with why they do it. And the destruction of the tunnels is of paramount importance. No-one wants to injure innocent civilians. Except Hamas, who exist for little else. And Hamas, for years, have chosen to locate their weapons, their missile launchers and their arms in hospitals, schools and UN buildings. Cynically defying the Israelis to choose between leaving these instruments of death alone or face the wrath of the world’s indignation.

No nation in a war has ever sent warnings for people to leave before bombardment.

I’m not an Israeli. I’m British. Born in London. As were my parents and their parents. Cockney’s all, born within the sound of the Bow Bells. Which unfortunately stopped ringing before they could welcome me into the world.

Yet there are those, all across Europe who, whilst declaring themselves ‘not anti-semitic’, blur the line conveniently between Israel and Jews. The banners at last weekend’s pro-Palestine rally declared: “Free Palestine: Hitler was right”. Nice. Hitler died before Israel was born, though he undoubtedly had a bit of a thing about jews. Similarly, across France, Germany and even here in England, there has been a massive increase in anti-semitic attacks under the ‘leave Gaza alone’ banner. As if the destruction of a synagogue in Manchester could have any effect on events in the Middle East. As if all jews are somehow responsible for events in Gaza, even those who, unlike me, are passionately opposed to it.

Politicians like David Ward have done their bit for this end too. And assholes like Joey Barton. As if by the subtle blurring of the line between Israel and Jewish, it can be open season for anti-semites.

As I walked to tennis this morning, in the sunshine, in my lovely leafy suburb, with my fairly blessed life, for the first time ever, after reading today’s papers, I wondered if that was the sort of complacency that German jews felt in 1935 in their comfortable, affluent, settled, respected environment.

Its enough to make anyone paranoid. And sadly, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I’ve always been rather concerned about the welfare of crabs. In much the same way I worry that all grass seems to be green. Or that East Molesey cricket club lost a game on June 17. Or my shoes are a bit scuffed. It all falls in the ‘who gives a shit?’ category of too much important or interesting stuff going on to bother about.

Until now. Because apparently, the ‘proper’ way to cook crabs and lobsters, by immersing them still alive into their boiling cooking pot, is now being questioned by animal welfare organisations. Several interesting questions arise:

1. WHO THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE???
2. HAVE THEY NOTHING ELSE TO THINK ABOUT???
3. WHO PAYS THEM??
4. IS IT ME?? In which case I am now officially refusing to pay any more tax until its spent on more important things. Like banks. Maybe these animal welfare people are all unemployed bankers with nothing to do and too much time?

An Italian chef (I won’t bother with his name; long and Italian; any of them will do) tells of how he is still ‘haunted’ by the screams of lobsters being immersed into their watery graves. Nob. Typical fucking homocentric Eye-talian. No, that’s not a gay thing, though in his case, bloody crying at a stupid lobster…
Its giving every action the assumption that its exactly the same as if humans did the same thing. So when ‘a doggy looks sad’ he really doesn’t. He looks like a fucking dog. Upon whom we’ve mistakenly applied the expression to look like sadness if it was on a human. Maybe it means the dog is hungry, horny, thirsty, upset about the Lib-Dems in government (homocentric joke), anything. But if that’s the look you’d see on a sad human then ‘the dog is sad’. Even if its happy as Larry. And Larry is a right homocentric.

So maybe lobsters scream when they’re happy. If its kind of the only noise you can make its rather hard to be that specific as to its ‘meaning’. We had the same problem with the girls in Essex where I grew up. But even if it is ‘a scream’, has this man never heard a woman orgasm? Has he never watched When Harry met Sally?? Maybe the only way a lobster can reach a total and pure climax is to be immersed into boiling water? And by changing that you’d be depriving crabs and lobsters of their ultimate thrill. It must be hard to masturbate when your ‘hands’ are razor sharp and made to chop things in half.

They’ve now invented ‘the Crustastun’, brilliant name for wonderful invention. You put your fresh lobster inside and its stunned by a few thousand volts of electricity. Ahhhh, that’s nice, lucky crabs. Then put into boiling water.

I think I’d rather be a crustacian in an Italian restaurant than a death row inmate in America. Where this week the ‘lethal injection’ took 1 hour and 47 minutes to kill the victim. He died of old age whilst waiting for the ‘lethal’ bit to happen. I’m quite opposed to capital punishment, but if you’re gonna do it JUST SHOOT THE FUCKER!

Happy sunny Saturday. Even for lingustines.

A xxxx

When I was in Australia, couple years ago, I was still a smoker. Yes, one of those horrible, evil people who pollute the world and endanger the lives of small children and little furry animals with their plumes of noxious poisons. That was me. And when I smoked, before lighting up I always tried to find a nursery school, or a playground or petting zoo, near which to light up. So I bought a packet of cigarettes in a Sydney filling station, asking for a pack of Marlboro’ Lights. But instead of the familiar white and gold livery on the packet I got this horrible khaki and red box upon which were pictures of people dying in really horrible ways from tobacco abuse. Well that’s a strange marketing strategy, I naively thought, and enquired what happened to the handsome cowboy on a horse? The Marlboro Man, for years an aspirational figure, all cool and lifestylish and very manly and, with very intentional irony, extremely healthy looking. Where’s he gone then? Is that him depicted on the box with a tumour on his throat the size of a Nissan Micra?
“Naah, mate” drawled the disapproving Aussie fag-seller-in-petrol-station man, “pline packaging, that is; ain’t’cher seen that before?? You must be a Pom”. I was ‘a Pom’, still am, in fact. And no, I’d never seen this mythical ‘plain packaging’ before, nor the eye-watering price charged for it, though for smokers, life is never about budget.

But I understand the de-branding of cigarettes. Pulling out a pack of whatevers offers reassurance, comfort and familiarity to a smoker. Fag packets are ‘cool’, they have romance, they have glamour, they speak messages about this smoker, other than ‘he probably coughs a lot and stinks like an ash tray’. And plain packaging removes that. Which is a good thing. And it can then focus on the other aspects of the process. Like dying in agony and an old age of misery and oxygen masks.

So as a reformed (but still quite sympathetic) smoker, I approve plain packaging. In that it might, hopefully, put kids off. And if you can avoid that first cigarette, the following 40 years is a doddle.

Buoyed by the success of this plain packaging concept, even though after talking about it here for a decade, is still not actually quite happening, probably due to the amount of tax that cigarettes produce for the government, who care about our health, but apparently care more about big business and pressure groups and tax revenue, there’s now talk of extending the concept.

To food. Specifically, to sweets and chocolates. In an effort to stop little Tommy Tubby from snarfing up 6 Mars Bars with his mum’s plain-packaged cigarette money. But this is an awful idea. Its nanny statism gone mad. Apparently (and quite appallingly) Mars bars now have reduced fat (though probably not by much) and are smaller. NOT so they can make more money, heaven forbid, but to ‘protect us from obesity’. Right. 19gms of fat instead of 20 is gonna make all the difference there, I’m sure. Because ‘reduced fat!!!’ never means by very much. Yet we all know that fat is not a great thing to eat, though apparently now its far preferable to carbohydrates. But in moderation, all is fine.

So, Mr Government ‘Let’s Plain Package Everything’, why not just try to educate people about such things? Why not educate parents to get their children moving around a bit more? Eat good things as well, then a few ‘treats’ won’t hurt. Limit the intake of sugary, fatty stuff. Don’t wrap it in a brown package with pictures of the chronically obese on it.

And how would I be able to arrange my chocolate cupboard if the Milky-Ways looked the same as the Twixes?

A Mars a day; helps you work, rest and get really really fat. Good slogan.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Went out for dinner last night. Had cheese on toast with tomato sauce. Or ‘pizza’ as its known in certain parts of Glasgow. In a new place in Hampstead. Very Neopolitain, very Italian, very small. And as ‘the kitchen’ is basically a great big red open oven, it got very warm in there. I thought I was in the Bay of Naples, but with traffic. And I love pizza, though don’t eat it often because if you do you die very young and very fat. I read that in the paper. Pizza = certain death. But surely not a real one, served by real Eye-tal’yans, with fresh basil leaves on it??? Surely that counts as at least 2 of your 5-a-day? Its only pizzas that come on little motor-cycles to your door that kill you, isn’t that so? I read it in the Snobs Guide to Paranoia and Junk Food. Not that its ‘junk’ if served with a genuine Italian accent.

Then from Italian the accents went Scottish as I came home and watched the last bit of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony ‘live’ all the way from Glasgow. Who knew you could watch something ‘live’ from nearly 300 miles away. What will they think of next? And this may be the last time Scotland are part of the Commonwealth, should independence come their way in month or so, thus it was particularly poignant. The ceremony ran over time, which was fine, there was nothing else to do, and they kept telling us that ‘this was the Opening Ceremony to the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow’, in case you thought you’d been watching the next series of Homeland, with Alex Salmond instead of Claire Danes, and The Queen replacing Damien Lewis. Her Majesty spoke words, in English, and I had tears in my eyes. Probably from the chilli oil I hadn’t got off my fingers after the pizza. There were fireworks and dancers and lots of lovely men and women, all wearing dresses. As they do in Scotland. And then lots of other dignitaries came on to tell us how warm, friendly and cultured Glasgow is, and beautiful, and warm, friendly and cultured. So don’t be put off by the herds of drunks with blue-and-white painted faces head-butting each other on the streets after 7pm. That’s just part of the friendly cultured warmth of the region. Celtic Park has never looked so lovely. Mainly because it was pretty much devoid of Celtic fans. And Rangers fans intent on a bit of sectarian ‘warmth and friendliness’ administered with broken bottles. Colourful local culture. The colour being mainly red.

And the games start today. Swimming, diving, cycling, netball, all the usual Olympian type stuff, but without the (bastard) Russians and without the Americans. So someone else gets a chance to win the medals this time. There’s no cricket at these games. Mainly because there’s very few things in this world more dangerous than a Scotsman with a cricket bat. Similarly there’ll be no javelin, shooting or shot-putting. Nothing that can be used as an offensive weapon.

I’m sort of exited. Not normally a big athletics fan, the London Olympics converted me. It was wonderful. And this is ‘almost London’, Glasgow being virtually a suburb. Until it separates and moves over to Alaska.

Happy Commonwealth Games

A xxxx

President Hollande is getting a bit testy about Russia. Well, everyone’s getting a bit testy about Russia. And so they should. Its a terrible place. Filled with Russians, generally, who are awful people, and many other racists, anti-semites and semi-agricultural, knuckle-dragging peasants. Its always been an awful place. Joseph Stalin invented genocide in the modern world. Trotsky was nothing more than a Trotskyite, Karl Marx was never as funny as any of his brothers, and was a German anyway, and the only decent Russian was that bird from Pussy Riot who they locked up in prison. And Anna Kournikova. Ahhhhhhh, Anna Kournikova…

But Francoise Hollande, ever keen to change the subject from his personal love-life, itself a thing of totally farcical proportions, has accused Britain of sucking up to the Oligarchs, of welcoming Russians, even of selling them arms. Like they don’t make any weapons themselves. Does the French boss think ‘Kalashnikov’ is a type of vodka?

So because Putin’s probably in contention with Kim Jong Un as the world’s most evil person, now that Bruce Forsyth has retired, the Malaysian Airways flight was only blown up on thursday. Its a bit much to expect Britain to have had a pre-emptive kicking out of most of London’s billionaires 5 years ago. Also, its worth noting that the oligarchs are mainly here because they have fallen foul of Putin in the first place. They didn’t come here to get a council house and free NHS dentistry. They came because their lives were endangered by remaining in Moscow under the Great Dictator’s rule. And although anyone can get arrested at any time in Russia, they’re not big on ‘judicial process’ when a poison umbrella tip or a shot of something radioactive is such a clean and simple way of taking care of your foes. Putin is definitely an Arsenal fan.

He certainly doesn’t support Chelsea where his fellow countryman, oligarch and misery-in-chief Roman Abramovich, rules the roost. Its been said for years that Roman only came to London in the first place to try and raise his profile sufficiently to prevent a Russian hit-squad from performing the fatal version of a ‘studs-up tackle’ on him. He doesn’t travel with an armed guard just to stop muggers nicking his i-phone. He lives in fear. And not of Manchester City.

No-one will ever know what the deal was when Russia’s ‘national treasures’ were flogged off, for virtually nothing, to groups of businessmen, some, as Abramovich was, just in their 20s as they ‘inherited’ the gas, oil, coal, the mines, the press, the airlines, but it turned them instantly into some of the richest men on the planet. And no-one knows how much Putin himself was paid to ‘facilitate’ such deals which basically robbed the Russians of most of their wealth and channelled it into the hands of a mere handful. Not a very Marxist-Leninist move. But it made these men rich, it made Putin richer and the flack is still being felt all over the world as his tentacles extend on revenge missions. The Oligarchs are here because Putin hates them.

And now MH17. An awful, awful tragedy. All because of Putin’s desire to take back as much of the old Soviet Union as he can.

Putin should be shot. And good luck with that.
Whereas Francoise Hollande is just a tosser. So no change there.

Happy wednesday

A xxxx

Has anyone else noticed any pink men buried waist-deep in their gardens? I just wondered. The good news is he doesn’t eat very much, nor make a lot of noise. The not such great news is he doesn’t actually do anything. Breathe. Speak. Dance. Well, dancing’s hard with no legs, or legs buried under the soil, but nothing. At least he’s a Spurs fan.

And speaking of useless, plastic men who do nothing; Ed Miliband was in Washington yesterday. To ‘meet the president’. Wow, lucky Obama. But the Pres is a very very busy man. A man who’s schedule is so tight, so choreographed with military precision (mainly because the military kind’a follow him round everywhere), that he was too busy to give our esteemed leader of the opposition and back-stabbing brother-killer a proper ‘meeting’. Obama had to make a speech about Malaysian Airlines jets. Then visit a school, empty the dishwasher, present a medal to a wounded soldier, get his car washed, host a lunch for 7 Third World leaders, take the rubbish out, iron his shirts, speak to Putin, get some milk from Tescos (Michelle had bloody run out… AGAIN!) and head up an armament meeting with the chiefs of staff.

So Miliband was not exactly a priority. Also, and quite correctly, Obama is very sensitive about having an influence on elections elsewhere, and in granting Ed a ‘meeting’ would give the Labour leader a credibility that he quite frankly neither warrants or deserves. What he deserves is flogging publicly. But to qualify for The Full Obama would be to bestow upon Ed a badge of honour, influence and importance not normally accorded to third rate Wallace & Grommit impersonators.

Thus Ed was granted a meeting with some underling at the White House, for half an hour. At the very end of which, the President himself, the great man, the most important person in the universe, kind of popped his head round the door for a minute to say ‘hello Ed, can you leave now’, or something like that. The call it a ‘brush by’, though its more a brush off really. Or a fly-by. And is the sort of thing reserved for the chronically inconsequential. And apparently Ed wasted none of his allotted 45 seconds and told the Prez how he sees Britain’s role right at the heart of Europe. Oh, what about the ‘special relationship’ then? What about our love and alliance with America?? So although he stopped short of telling Obama that: ‘so American can just fuck right off’, you can’t help but wonder.

Ed Miliband. Statesman. Leader. Nob. We should have sent he Pink Man instead.

And what I’d really like to know is why the blowing up of a civilian airline, killing over 200 innocent civilians, is not being treated as it should be, like an act of terrorist murder. Because it seems to be some kind of diplomatic incident. Oh, sorry, we shot down the wrong plane, never mind, honest mistake. NO!!!!! Its terrible. Its awful. Its no different from 9/11 but on a smaller scale. Its not a ‘war crime’, nor in any way defensible or excusable. Fucking terrorism. Banning the import of Russian cabbage is not the same as finding out who was responsible and hanging them from the nearest oak tree.

Happy tuesday

A xxxx