Andy's Glasses

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

Oh wow, we finally won something. Brilliant. And when I say ‘we’, I’m prepared, for once, to become British. Because Northern Ireland is part of Great Britain, albeit a consistently troublesome part, and Rory McIlroy is from ‘the province’ and thus his victory is our victory and we can bask in the collective joy of his brilliance. Ok, its only golf, not a proper sport, but we take what we can get. And this is not like Andy Murray winning Wimbledon, because although he’s (for the time being) ‘British’, we hate him. Whereas Rory is charming and delightful and also prodigiously talented. He’s now won three major tournaments and is only 25. A feat only ever previously achieved by Tiger Woods (we’ve all heard of him) and someone else that we’ve collectively forgotten. Now all Rory has to do is crash his car whilst rushing out to shag 14 mistresses and he can become one of the sport’s true greats.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with golf, per se. Its just… its just… that ‘sport’ involves sweating. Not just the sweat you get whilst sunbathing in Tenerife, but proper, down the gym, running the track, rugby-scrum type sweat. The sweat of endeavour, of hard work, of pushing the body beyond its comfortable limits, or of sitting on a tube train in July. Proper sweat, for proper sport.

Lewis Hamilton sweats four times his body weight (ok, that’s not much, agreed, but its all he has… other than Nicole Scherzinger) every race he drives. But its sitting down sweat. Driving a car. I drove to the City yesterday afternoon, had the top down and sweated like a pig. But no-one took out a magnum of champagne and sprayed it over me when I parked. Not even a poxy can of Coke. Though Lewis did really well, coming from 20th place on the start to finish 3rd. Wish I’d have seen even the teensiest bit of it… there again, not really, but a wonderful result for the diamond-earringed-one, and thus for all of England.

The cricket’s not looking so good. But we have confidence in our tail-enders, even if we have none in our openers. And we can beat India. Though the Indians don’t seem to be aware of this. At the moment.

Then, after searching all the sports pages, every little nibble and snippet, I found about 4 words about football. I mean, come on, is that all there is? And in 4 very succinct words, it transpires that all the players Spurs want to sign are going elsewhere, Arsenal are spending loads on the superstars they always used to pride themselves on never signing, Manchester United still have a new manager and Chelsea are buying everyone else.

But I’m still exited, because until that first ball is kicked, in about 3 weeks time, we’re all level. Anything can happen. Its all about promise. Potential. Hope. And praying. Lots and lots of praying.

Happy monday

Amen.

A xxxx

What a great word that is: shalom.

Its hebrew. And it means hello, goodbye and peace. All at the same time. So every time you greet someone, you’re actually wishing them ‘peace’ as well. And we could all use a little ‘shalom’ in troubled times.

Peace occasionally breaks out in the Middle East, but its rare and soon gives way to violence again, which is almost the natural status quo in the region.

So yesterday there was a demonstration in support of Palestinians. Although it looked just like a fun-filled day of anti-Israel hatred and passionate anti-semitism in general. As one observer noted; where were these people when Assad was (and is still) murdering his own people; when ISIS slaughters thousands across the region; when Boco Haram kidnaps 250 children in Nigeria? Even when Britain and America was bombing the shit out of Lybia? Yet when Israel attacks the places in Gaza responsible for sending over 250 rockets into its land, every day, the entire wold is in outcry. ‘Disproportionate!!’ yells uber-tosser Nick Clegg. “Children are being killed!!!” cries the BBC and the Independent and the Guardian as they conveniently fail to mention that ALL the rockets fired by the Palestinians are aimed at civilian targets. And that before this ‘heavy handed’ Israeli response, Israel sends over leaflets, sends text messages, automated phone calls and now, they even fire warning shots at every building targeted before they strike in earnest. No other nation in the world would offer such things to the ‘enemy’. Yet the fact remains that innocent Palestiians do get killed by the fire. Mainly because Hamas encourage those receiving warnings to ignore them and become ‘martyrs’. As an Israeli said the other day: ‘we use missiles to protect our people; they use people to protect their missiles’.

Today was a ‘peace rally’ in support of Isreal. Specifically, to show that Israel, like any other country in the world, is allowed to defend itself. To protect its citizens. Mel and I went down to Kensington to show that we don’t read the fucking Independent and its poisinous and partisan reporting, and we don’t beleive what the BBC’s horribly biased reporting tells us and because there are two sides to every argument. Unless its a jewish arguement in which case there’s one more side than the total number of people arguing. But no-one was arguing today. This was about peace and it was so peaceful it felt like a street party. And it was fun and it was funny and there was no hate-mongering, no nastiness, no anti-anything. Except one (Zohanesque) banner which read: SAY YES TO HUMOUS, SAY NO TO HAMAS.

Hamas refuse a ceasefire. Even one in which, if things were as ‘disproportionate’ as they maintain, you kind’a think they’d want just to protect their people. The truth is they really don’t give a shit about their people as much as they care about the destruction of Israel to which they have sworn.

Because Israel has the Iron Dome defense system which manages to destroy most incoming missiles does not mean those missiles aren’t being sent in anger. Or just to make a statement. Of course the Palestinians mourn the death of a child. Yet they publicly celebrate the death of any Israeli, man, woman or child.

Israel has the right to defend itself and its populus.

Happy peaceful sunday

A xxxx

What a night. What a day. What heat. What’a what’a.

Some places do ‘heat’ really well. Holiday places. Nice places. Maybe a sea breeze, maybe some mountain air, but it can be hot and it can be nice. London’s different. We don’t do heat well. So just as well we don’t get that much of it or it could become a problem. Though as global warming sets in and the ice caps melt and the seas swell and the Priuses rule the roads and Al Gore found a new career, who knows what might happen? Maybe London will become so hot that we should all get in the AirCon business immediately ahead of the rush.

Yesterday London reached 31 celcii. That’s about 85 to any primitive races out there who don’t know a celcius from a kilowatt hour. On the Conway scale of temperature measurement, that’s ‘fucking hot!’, just one down from ‘JESUS!!!!’. And as London is pretty well made of concrete, just like we like it, that all heats up nicely too, so we all put on the AirCon, which we have at work, and pump all the humidity out onto the streets. Which is nice of us. So if ‘the temperarture’ is ’31’, the streets of London are bout 40, with 325% humidity. And that’s humid. You step outside and you sweat. Profusely. Even ‘ladies’ who according to legend don’t sweat, do so like the proverbial pig.

At 9.30 last night as I drove round the North Circular (how lucky am I?) the car told me it was still 26 degrees. And it felt like it. When I returned home I showered and stood, still wet, in front of the fan and it was wonderful. For about 3 minutes. Then I was dry and sweating once more. Then went to bed. And that’s where the real trouble started.

Its not in fact a mere ‘fan’. Not for me. We have a Dyson Air Amplifier. Pretentious? Non. Its heaps better than a fan because… because… because Mr Dyson, sorry, Sir Dyson told me so on the telly. So it must be. It certainly looks nicer. Though after 15 minutes of sweating into my pillow I started playing with my… Air Amplifier, moving it, raising it, angling it, lowering it, anything just to try and enjoy some air. Even some non-amplified air would have been wonderful, but nothing. Or not enough to avoid the stiflage that I was feeling.

At 2 o’clock I gave up, came down, drank tea… TEA? in that heat??? Yes, I’m British, its what we do, I read for a couple hours, hoping that sleep would take me and lead to where I wanted to be. But it wasn’t so. I’d just moved my place of sweating to somewhere else in the house. Which was nice, don’t get the impression that I was unhappy or upset or frustrated about being up HALF THE FUCKING NIGHT.

By 5 o’clock I dozed off. The alarm went at 7.25 for Tai Chi, but my chi was simply unwilling. So I had some Tai (ha, ha, haaa) and went back to sleep.

Lovin the heat, just lovin it.

Cool Saturday

A xxxx

Ya gotta love those European Rules. A bunch of overpaid do-nothings in Brussels who do nothing but eat out all the time on expense accounts paid for by us, have passed a new law. Don’t know where they found the time in between all the foie gras and private jet flights and mistresses in love-nests in The Hague, but find it they did. And they have decided that obesity is now officially ‘a disability’.

So what? you may think, ya gotta call fat people something, so ‘disabled’ is as good as anything else. What’s in a name??

But you’d be wrong. Because by classifying immenseness as a disability it becomes protected as such under laws of equality and discrimination. Like, well, like disabled people, and women and gays. And effnicks. Hermaphrodites. Romanians. Lib Dem voters. Minorities in general. And so when Terry Tubby, who you employed in 1994, becomes 2-ton-Tel, you have to provide him with a wider chair, desk, toilet. You have to instal a lift, a winch, widen all the doorways in the offices, provide masseuses for his legs and other extremities, wash him weekly and you need to set up a McDonalds franchise no more than 2.6 metres from his workstation.

And when interviewing for the receptionist position at Gyms-for-Babes-a-go-go, specially marketed with that ‘only way is essex’, WAGy kind of thing, you cannot discriminate against Suzie, who weighs in at 327lbs and looks like Ayers Rock. And if she’s qualified and doesn’t get the job then she will sue and take you to court. Which in turn will have to be widened, strengthened and installed with all kinds of mechanical facilities just to get her on the stand.
As a lifelong fat bastard, cruelly trapped in thin body, I think we need to thank those Euro-tossers for hitting yet another nail right on the chins.

But really, if people are just a touch overweight, or smoke like chimneys, or live a rotten terrible lifestyle that involves excessive carbohydrates, masses of fats, no fucking exercise whatsoever and fourteen packets of Nachos a day because tv watching is just not the same any other way, even with the 18 cans of beer to wash them down, for those lucky people, there’s now no need to change their seemingly destructive ways. No. Instead we can just give them statins. The new(ish) wonderdrug that for years has been taken by those with raised cholesterol levels is to be rolled out (like most of the people due to take it) to up to 40% of the population. To ‘save them’. Yes, just one little pill a day and you can maintain your unhealthy lifestyle without worry nor care. In fact you should start thinking about taking 2 pills a day and supersizing those portions. Why the hell not?

Well its good for the drug companies, terrible for the NHS who will fund it, and much easier than trying to educate a bunch of fucking slobs.
Its not a perfect world. But with the right drugs…

Happy Friday

A xxxx

There’s something about a Harley Davidson. Something wonderful. Something big. Something very shiny. Something very very very loud.

My mate popped over yesterday on this rather splendid toy. Its a fat boy. No, not the geezer sitting upon it, he is The Perfect Man, but the bike. And as my mate is in more of a mid-life crisis than most, strapped to the back of the Harley is a Fender Stratocaster. Every biker should have one. Helps with the aerodynamics. In fact he’d just bought the guitar and was going to pick it up in a car, which would have been, sort of easy, convenient, sensible. But mid-life crises aren’t about sensible. They’re the antithesis of sensible. So the bike it was, 47 little bungee cords holding the beast in place and stay off the motorways or the ‘sail’ you’ve created causes all sorts of horrible and destabilising effects.

So now I want one. The Harley. Just think how great it would look on the drive, next to ‘the car’ which also does a lot of sitting on the driveway during an average week as I can’t fit it on the Tube and there’s nowhere to park it even if I was prepared to undertake the ‘traffic jam to madness, suicide or murder’ every day, which I’m not. So maybe I should just exchange one seldom used crisis for another? Maybe I should have neither and get a new pushbike? Or just give up and buy a wheelchair in readiness for ‘the day’. That’s depressing.

Another ‘star’ found guilty (by public opinion, if no-one else, yet) of tax avoidance. Chris Boardman, old Olympic cyclist, joins the named and shamed who put money into strange and complex vehicles (like the Harley really) of a twisted and purely conceptual nature, for the purposes of sheltering money from the tax man. The other day they actually listed lots of rich stars who would never cheat on tax. They pay loads, give lots to charity and are fine, upstanding, holier-than-thous, if e’er there was, and I wanted to punch each and every one of them. Because for JK Rowling, she can afford to do lots of ‘giving back to society’ with half a billion in the bank and a big ‘KER-CHING!’ every time Harry Potter is on tv or some new kid is introduced to the joys of wizardry.

Everyone I know ‘pays enough tax’. We all do. We pay fucking shit-loads. And more. And when our mates, or accountants, or the papers, say: take out an ISA; that’s fine and cool and shelters (a little bit) of money from tax. And when its pointed out that certain payments made are tax deductible, we bloody deduct. And yet when people with loads of money are advised to do things that are NOT ILLEGAL but which shelter some of their money, they are lambasted by all and sundry. No-one makes anyone take out an ISA. If we’re so fucking righteous, we should all decline such things and insist on paying the government as much as we possibly can. But we don’t. We pay too much already. So we look for ways out, for small savings. Really we shouldn’t be so quick to ‘j’accuse!!’ those who try to save a bit more. They are heroes. Though indeed fun to ridicule and pillary as immoral bottom-feeders.

If we pay more tax we can have more public inquiries. And you can never have too many of them.

Happy Thursday,

Born to be Wild.

A xxxx

If they made a boy-scout badge for murder, what would it look like? A woman with someone’s hands on her throat, like a cartoonish Nigella and Saatchi? Or a knife in a heart? I think we should speak to the scouts associations and inquire. Also there should be badges for adultery, sado-masochism and sexual prowess, possibly for football violence and joy-riding too. Cross-dressing. Pole dancing. In the Romanian Scouts they have them for shop-lifting, pocket-picking and sleeping rough in Park Lane.

I was never a Boy Scout. They never wanted me. Ok, I never asked to join. Even as a kid I thought the whole enterprise a little bit creepy. Particularly the uniform. I have no specific objection to short trousers (as opposed to just ‘shorts’, which are fine) except they are exceptionally stupid. Less so on the little boys of the Scout movement, but very much so on the leaders, the grown men with their little trousers and funny things round there necks and all manner of bizarre scouty stuff.

The Boy Scouts were invented in 1907 by Lord Baden-Powell. Who was 50 at the time and had a burning desire to spend a lot of his time around little boys wearing shorts. Would never be allowed to happen today in the post-Savile, dark-side-of-Rolph-Harris era. But in 1907 the words ‘game boy’ had a very different meaning to what it does today.

I’m generally in favour of any activity or group of activities that gets the kids off their tubby little arses, away from the tv and their computers for a few hours to go out, catch butterflies, plant seeds, tie knots, sail a boat and make tents. But I’m not convinced that becoming a Boy Scout is anything but plain fucking weird.

Lord Baden-Powell’s great grandson has just been sentenced to prison for murdering his wife. In Australia. Who’d’a thought that you were’t allowed to do such a thing in Brisbaine? But apparently its almost as illegal there as it is here, in a civilised country. If you watched Home & Away, as my family do, you’d think wife-murder was more common than barbecuing. Prawns, not wives. They’re a bit tough in the eating. Specially gym-toned, surfer-babe, Home & Away type wives. Anyway, Gerald Baden-Clay (yes, it is a rather oddly derivative name that’s passed through that line) strangled his poor, long-suffering wife after having long-standing affairs with lots of other gym-toned, Home & Awayesque women. Then drove her 8 miles away and dumped her by a river. Is that a fit way to behave in a marriage?

And watching the Germans parade the World Cup by the Brandenberg Gate yesterday brought tears to my eyes. And memories. Do we allow Germans to congregate in such large groups? In public?? Where’s the Yankee troops when ya need ’em?

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx