Andy's Glasses

The headline ran: “200,000” children watch hardcore porn”.
What I want to know is what’s wrong with the rest of the bloody children, the ones who don’t? The porn’s there, its free, be stupid not to use it. How else you gonna learn about nipple clamps? They should have a GCSE in porn, validate it properly. Or maybe call it a BDSM.

Today’s picture is the most beautifully tragic baby-pic ever. The fabulously happy, chubby, gorgeous little baby, called Wang, died on Flight 370. For some reason I found this very upsetting. Maybe because I love babies (though normally fried in batter) or maybe because of the Tai Chi connection. Or perhaps because its hard to relate to ‘a bunch’a people wot all died’ but not to such a wonderful image as this. Rest in peace, little Wang, you touched the world.

Paul Scholes reckons Arsenal are ‘a million miles from winning the championship’. Arsene Wenger says that its only six points. I make that 166,666.6667 miles, (to four decimal places; you have to study a bit of your maths as well as the porn) per point. So Arsenal can travel about 500,000 miles if they beat Manchester City today. Though as this is a six pointer really, they can go for the full mil. Either way, I don’t think they’ll be going anywhere. Man City are unfortunately in rather impressive form and I can’t see the Arse stopping them. Not on current displays by our red foes who seem to have lost the ability to scare teams in attack, and lost the plot completely in defense. Getting yourself sent off is NOT a good plan.

And tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. The Big Game. Massive. 22 points. 4 light years to Paul Scholes. Not that he knows what a light year is. Spurs at Liverpool. At one (tragic) time in my life, we had gone 72 years without winning at Anfield. That’s fortunately passed. And looking at the statistics you would have to give Spurs absolutely no chance whatsoever in the match. None. More chance of Putin giving Crimea back to Ukraine.

When the awesome Sturridge and Suarez are together, Liverpool have scored 200 goals, won 93 games and seen a 27% increase in their personal pension plans.

When Adebayor and Soldado have played together Spurs have won 1 game. By 1 goal. Once. And tomorrow they won’t even be together due to Adebaoyor’s injured foot.

Gerrard holds the key to Liverpool, as he always has. Its his drive, his passion, his motivating force that makes it all happen. Coutinho too is awesome, having about 194 assists this year. But that strike partnership is awesome. If Spurs had a decent defense that would be the way to keep the Reds at bay. If we had proper strikers we could outscore them. In the absence of all of the above, we should just get hammered. Again. Even though we outnumber them in the ‘mediocre midfielder’ department, hands down.

But this is football. Its not like that. Its not predictable in ways that the weather (sometimes) is. The odd can happen. Accidents happen, meteors collide, worm holes appear in space and Spurs can win at Anfield.

And I’m afraid that’s all we have: no logic, no statistics, just hope. Every Spurs fans worst enemy.

Happy sunny, summery Saturday

A xxxx

It was Mel’s birthday last week. Or the week before. As if I’d forget. And I booked a ‘surprise’. Ahhhhh, how sweet. Yes, I am that kind, considerate, caring, loving, romantic and totally fucking wonderful. I am New Man. Soft enough to moisturise and be in touch with other’s feelings yet hard enough to spit. When called for.

Mel has always wanted to go to Vienna. Because I went years ago and she didn’t and thus the status quo needs to be maintained. So how perfect, a weekend in Vienna for her birthday. Brilliant. A ‘surprise’.

Which it would have been if the world was as it was when I went to Hitler’s birthland about 30 years ago. But its not. Its a changed place. Changed generally for the better. Except for ‘leaving a trail’. Hmmmmmm.

I booked the flights on Air Miles; long story, expensive flights, refusal to go to Gatwick for a 7am flight (I’m ‘hard’, just not totally fucking stupid), and I had a spare companion voucher that was going to be wasted. And for once, and not just once in my lifetime but once in the entire history of everyone’s lifetime who’s ever collected as many as 1 single Air Mile, the flights I wanted had seat availability. I’ll repeat that: the flights I wanted had seat availability. Was that ‘my day’, or WHAT????? The usual Air Mile experience is that you want a flight to Madrid on Tuesday the 4th at about 11am and you end up going to Calcutta on the 26th at midnight. Cos you ‘have to be flexible’.

Anyway, flights booked, job done. And BA operate a paperless, ticketless system, which is great. So four seconds after my booking my email confirmation came through, my ‘e-tickets’ and I immediately forwarded the email to my work address and deleted the original from my home address. In case it be seen. Brilliant.

2 days later Mel (who, to her constant annoyance and my total oblivion, always opens the post) called out: “there’s a letter here from British Airways for you… let’s see…”

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! running to intercept, “DON’T YOU KNOW ITS A FEDERAL OFFENSE TO TAMPER WITH SOMEONE ELSE’S POST????? GIMME THAT QUICKLY”.

Phew, don’t think she tumbled to any anxiety on my part there. The old poker face (at that time dripping with sweat) worked once more as I opened the “e-ticket confirmation letter”. The single most futile and contradictory waste of postage ever considered. A letter, full of paper, to confirm how wonderfully paperless BA are. Tossers. They sent it twice too. Duplicated. In case Mel missed the first one.

Close call but the mystery was maintained. The surprise in tact. We ducked the bullet.

I booked the hotel. On Bookers.com. Great. Lovely hotel. Right near where Hitler once pissed in a doorway when he was a student. The site told me: “we will never take your payment for hotel bookings; they will take it directly from you”. Ahhh, brilliant, I thought, so I’ll pay when I check in/out or never if I can run fast enough.

Yesterday Mel’s looking at the Amex bill. “Oh, what’s this fror the Schveinenschturblersheissen Hotel in Vienna?”

OH. FUCK. ME.

So she knows where we’re going, who we’re flying with, where we’re staying.

But she doesn’t know when, and she doesn’t know what colour underwear I’m taking, so its still a big surprise. Though not as big as it would have been years ago when I’d have paid in cash, torn up the receipts and gone by boat.

They are watching you, monitoring your every movement AND TELLING YOUR BLEEDING WIFE.

Happy surprise Friday

A xxxx

When the movie Emma came out I fell in love with the exsquisite young vision that was Gwyneth Paltrow. Call me fickle but I generally fall in love about 3 times in every movie. That’s why we see films. Well, that’s why I see films. To be absorbed in the plot, to actually become, temporarily, inside the story. Something I struggle to do in live Theatre. But heh, that’s just me.

A little later Gwynnie was in Shakespeare in Love and I found she still loved me, as well as young Will, and she was still the most perfectly gorgeous ‘thing’ on the planet. Even dressed as a boy (about as convincingly as Mike Tyson in drag) she was simply divine.

Sadly, when she learned to speak outside of scripts, it all went to shit. Then she left me, ran off and married Chris Martin and turned into a fucking headcase. Which is the nice way of describing people who overthink things to the point of tragedy, who hug trees, spend months on yoga retreats lying on the floor looking at stars and refuse all solid foods on spiritual grounds. She became the mouthpiece for drinkers of horrible green slime, the face of Estee Lauder, the blubber at award shows, she became Churchill for the Pilates classes. And she named her children Apple and Moses.

Alas and alack, as all stories, however lovely and loving and loved up go, they have a beginning, a middle and an end. And for Gwynnie and Chris, we’re in the end game. Well, we’re in the start of the end game. We’re in extra time.

This ‘supercouple’ have parted ways. Or, intend to part ways. Possibly some time soon. They’re not separating, in fact they’re on holiday together right now. They’re not devor-, sorry, mustn’t use that word in this context, its inflammatory and negative and can really dissociate one’s yin from one’s yang. So no, they’re not doing none of that shit, no way. Think of the children!!! They have enough trouble having stupid names, more stigma would not be fair.

They are: ‘consciously uncoupling’.

Sick bags are available near you right now.

This wonderful, airy fairy, prune-juice and alphalpha sprout phrase was coined by one of Gwynnie’s health gurus. And that’s mental health too. Which is why she’s pretty mental.

Its a wonderful sentiment. They still love each other. (Don’t ask.) In fact they love each other more than when they were happily married. Honest. Almost as if ‘consciously uncoupling’ can actually enhance a relationship. Wow. Powerful stuff. And I’m really happy for them that they have reached this divided path in their lives and will travel them separately but together, walking apart but still metaphorically hand in hand. Which is fine until your shoulders get wrenched out of their sockets.

We’ll see how ‘consciously uncoupled’ they are when they’re screaming over the cd collection. When their lawyers are dividing up their immense and entangled vast wealth. When he wants the kids in the UK and she won’t let them get on the plane because the pilot ate meat last Wednesday so the karma’s all wrong; ‘remember flight 307!!!!!!’

Its a shame. Gwynnie and Chris have become the A-list version of Arsenal football club. Pretty to watch but totally dysfunctional.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

My first ever Saturday job was helping my dad’s mate out in his bespoke tailoring shop in Soho. 1970. I was 14. And ran lots of errands and stuff, as my tailoring skills weren’t quite honed yet. In fact they never were, I can’t sew on a button. But I wasn’t there to stand with a tape measure round my neck and a piece of tailor’s chalk in my hand, I was there to gather, collect, deliver and buy coffees for those whose skills with a piece of cloth were legendary. If you were into that sort of thing.

And Soho, to a naive but overly-hormonal, post-pubescent teenager, was something of an eye opener. And tongue-dropper.

Originally London’s French Quarter, we fortunately managed to get rid of that population centuries ago and in their place came Italians, Jews and hookers. With the latter being the dominant influence. Thus Soho’s image in the 60s and 70s was ‘sleaze central’. Where better for a young boy to go exploring?

Because of the Italian influence, Soho was about the only place where you could buy a ‘coffee’ that was as we know it now. Everywhere else in England it would be a styrofoam cup filled with Nescafe and cold milk. In Soho they made proper, frothy, hubble-bubble, steamy Cappuccinos in monster machines shipped over from Italy.

And there was sex. But so much sex that Berwick Street made Amsterdam look like the Vatican. Every other store was a sex shop. Windows full of books, whips, inflatables (no, not fucking dinghies, but fuckable blow-up dolls), costumes, fetishwear and all sorts of bizarre and rather beautiful stuff. It was all on open display. So groups of teenagers could stand there in shock.

As well as the sex shops there were the sleazy strip joints, the more ‘upmarket’ sex clubs (all terms relative) and on the upper floors of virtually every shop was a brothel. Other than our ‘cutting room’ which shared its stairway with about 653 hookers. All of whom were lovely, friendly, cor-blimey, wanna-good-time-darling?, get’cher’ands’offer-me, proper English tarts. No slaves from Albania, no crack whores from Bradford, just super girls who enjoyed their work. (I did say I was naive, didn’t I?).

Raymond’s Review Bar was the first place in Britain to allow naked women to move on stage. Before that, ‘impersonating a statue of a nude’ was, for some puritanical reason, acceptable, but as soon as anything jiggled, you’d get your collar felt by the law. Difficult when you’re not wearing a collar. Good fun for the police though.

Soho always attracted artists of every type. Its where London’s music scene started, hence all the record companies started there, it was and is a focus for jazz, for painters, for the movie business, but above all this, for sex. So even though they now have the ‘evils of modern society’ (Starbucks, Boots, Sainsburys Local, etc, etc) plus a zillion upmarket restaurants, Soho has still retained its wonderful feeling of edginess.

And now Paul Raymond’s granddaughter wants to modernise the dirty little alleyway that houses her grandpa’s palace. Do away with the few remaining brothels there, tidy up, get rid of the vibrators, sweep up the syringes. And that’s awful. Paul Raymond managed to buy most of Soho with the proceeds of his sex shows and this ungrateful spoiled little bitch wants to accelerate the ruination of one of London’s true remaining treasures. Probably turn the Review Bar into a Zara or Next. Just what we (faaaarkin) need.

You can get 100-1 on Arsenal winning the league. That must be worth a fiver of anyone’s money. Or you could burn that fiver and scatter those ashes at White Hart Lane. Same difference.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Its all a problem of perspective. Bit like a one-eyed man at a 3-d movie. But what’s happening in Egypt is a bit too gory for even Hollywood, at the moment.

A court in Cairo yesterday sentenced 529 people to death. All in one go. A 45 minute ‘hearing’ but don’t ask me what was actually ‘heard’ because neither defense lawyers nor witnesses for the defence were allowed in the room. Fair enough, I’m da judge, its my fucking court, I’ll do as I please. Also you really can’t knock this process from a viewpoint of efficiency and ergonomics. To reach that endpoint in Britain would take 15 years of costly, agonising, protracted trials and tribulations. And that’s before all the appeals and ignoring the fact that we don’t do ‘death penalty’ here, even when it is warranted, for people driving at 28mph in the fast lane.

But this is not Britain, nor the USA, nor even Russia (where those 529 would have all just simply ‘vanished’ while in custody anyway and their bodies laying the foundation of the next Putin monument). Its Egypt. Where they overthrew their old president in favour of Mr Morsi, the ‘people’s choice’. Then decided they hated him more than his predecessor and ousted him, leaving a militarised vacuum and 529 of his loyal supporters on death row.

And all this is only odd, bizarre, disgraceful and evil when judged through the eyes of Western democratic and judicious process. And its not our choice. Nor our place to make judgments. Expecially as Egypt’s judges are apparently brilliantly efficient at making their own, without all that messy, drawn-out and human rightsy bollocks getting in the way.

Egypt, like Syria, Lybia, Bahrain, is stuck in the quagmire resulting from the Arab Spring. They all wanted to depose old tyrannical, hereditary leaders and embrace the democratic ideal, but they lack the understanding of it and the committment to it. In the west these concepts are fundamental to our lives, ingrained in the collective conscience. In America kids in school recite the constitution every morning, whilst eating their doughnuts. But in many countries they never adopted this type of society. Instead of democratic debate they have screaming whilst firing rifles in the air. They’d rather maintain their feudalistic regimes, hoping that the new dictators they implement will be kinder to them than the last. It all becomes a matter of who is the loudest screamer with the most bullets.

But that’s their way. And its their countries. And who are we in the West to go round forcing our ‘way’ upon peoples just because we think they’re better? We’ve done that before in the Crusades and rammed Christianity down half the world’s throats, quite literally on pain of death. And that wen’t well.

There are no absolutes, only differences. We generally don’t sentence hundreds of people to death without what we perceive as a trial, they don’t have to put up with Nick Clegg.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

There’s a new ‘outcry’ about MP’s expenses. Not the last outcry, nor the seven before that, nor the previous 73, but a new one. And its all about glasses. Overspending on ‘designer’ models then claiming them as expenses for us to buy for them.

Eyewear. Spectacles. Something about which I claim something of an understanding.

The most successful optical retailers in the world are Specsavers. They are everywhere, they are cheap, fairly nasty, treat people as if on a production line and flog them two pairs of glasses for the price of one. Both pairs are shitty but the price is so cheap that it doesn’t matter. And this model is so successful, with people who want to look like they’ve been to Specsavers, that their advertising campaigns have entered the general language as a metaphor. Which is about as successful as you can ever get.

“Should have gone to Specsavers” rings the phrase. And it was used just yesterday in the Times following Andre Marriner’s sending off the wrong Arsenal player after ‘an incident’. And in that context its rather funny. And its used in lots of instances when people miss their target in some way.

Specsavers’ model is built on the ‘pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap’ ethos. And it works. But results in a particular Specsavers look which is not the most flattering, but is very cheap. And, I mean, they’re glasses, they only sit on your face, not like its anywhere important really.

Then Specsavers decided, many years ago, that some people prefer to pay more for their glasses, want better quality, a better look, something perhaps befitting a Government Minister who faces the cameras 25 times a week. So they introduced their ‘designer range’. Wow; ‘designer’!!!! Fab. Presumably because the other ranges aren’t actually designed, they just grow naturally on industrial estates in China and are plucked by 9-year-old Orientals to be shipped west. But these others: ‘Designer’. Which for Specsavers involved making the same cheap, mass-produced, low-cost rubbish but embellishing the sides with an unlikely ‘designer’ name, in really big letters. Specsavers never did ‘subtle’.

Alphonso Mollinari, these specs proclaim. Spaghetti Carbonara. Leonardo di Piscardelli. Allessandro Del Pieiro. Francesco Capuccino.

Hey, pretty ‘designerish’, eh?? Italian = Designer, surely.

And this, for the general populus, particularly Specsavers’ fans, created the ridiculous expression ‘designer glasses’, implying something better, something more desirable, certainly something more expensive. Hence the outcry that MPs have spent “£174 on a pair of glasses!!!!!!!!!” That money would buy 16 pairs in Specsavers or one really good quality lens in my practice. A lens that would eliminate computer fatigue, cut out reflections, be perfectly focussed at all distances, be scratch resistant, light as a feather, increase the size of your penis, remove wrinkles, eliminate halitosis and make women drop at your feet. Particularly after you’d spent the other £174 for the other eye and a few hundred on a seriously gorgeous frame guaranteed to have absolutely no wankers named on the sides. Italian or otherwise.

Ya pays yer money ya takes your choice.

Should have gone to Westminster.

Happy monday (for Spurs and Barcelona fans, or both, it certainly is)

A xxxx

Is this the best headline ever; from today’s Mail on Sunday:

“Rebel Catholic priest confesses to sham gay marriage to a married Muslim to help him stay in the UK.”

This is no mere: “Elvis ate my hamster!!!!” or “aliens stole my greenhouse!!!!” or “Tory MP grabbed my testicles at a party!!!!”
Because this one is spoken from a very high up moral stance.
Just how much knee-jerk, reactionary judgment can come from one sentence? Not only this guy is a priest but a Catholic one!!! And obviously we all hate Catholics. Particularly one that apparently was an Anglican but left that church because of its ‘loss of traditional values’. Presumably values of corruption, distortion and fraud.
And as for ‘secret sham gay marriage’; that is just so seething with right-wing contempt. The stuffed shirt, tweed-jacketed, purple-haired Mail readers hate secrets, shams and gays, probably equally. Their hatred for such things is only topped by that for Muslims who don’t belong in this country staying here on false pretences.
I personally feel that the clergy should be allowed to commit crimes as long as its ‘the will of God’ for them to do so, and only they probably know whether that is the case.
And joining the Catholic Church on moral grounds is a bit like becoming a Millwall fan to be more popular.

All my other favourite headlines today featured Arsenal. Following what is undoubtably the funniest match of the season, if not the decade, if not ever. I like superlatives.

If Spurs can’t actually beat the Arse, and let’s face it, that doesn’t happen often, then we can only bask in their loss to others. Its our duty, as well as our pleasure. If that sounds a little mean, a bit nasty, a touch horrible, then so much the better. This is football. Not religion. Oh, that’s a bit mean and nasty too, yeah, forgot.

So Arsenal go to Chelsea to celebrate Arsene Wenger’s 1000th game as manager and it all goes to hell in a handcart. But much faster. To hell in a Ferrari. I turned on the car radio to hear that Hazard was about to take a penalty. Wow, I though, match is only 16 minutes old and Chelsea are about to take the lead. I didn’t realise that Chelsea were already 2-0 up and Arsenal were down to 10 men. The wrong 10 men. Because Alex the Ox committed not just a mere handball but a full-blown, diving, hands out save. And the ref sent off Kieran Gibbs. Why? Because he didn’t see it? Because he’s stupid and didn’t listen to anyone telling him the reality?? Or because ‘they all look the same’??? Arsenal players, I mean, not mixed race players of equal height. Which is why there wear numbers on their kit, Refereeeeeeee. A comedy of errors. Unless you’re an Arsenal fan. Then its probably not quite as funny.

So now my head says that hateful Chelsea will probably win the league. Whereas my heart is temporarily lodged in Liverpool. Because their games are all so enjoyable at the moment. They score loads, concede just a few less. Or rather, Suarez, the cannibalistic Uruguayan scores loads and the others help.

Spurs are playing very soon and Barcelona much later. What a day this promises to be.

Enjoy it

A xxxx

Kate Bush is going to perform live for the fist time this century. Wow. Brilliant. 15 nights at the Hammersmith Apollo in August. Fab. Tickets will be like gold dust. Jest to hear her sing (??) Wuthering Heights again; amazing. Then she could do… errrr… hmmm… well, one of her other songs. Numbers. Tunes. Dances. Whatever.

Don’t get me wrong; I loved Kate Bush. Massive fan. But couldn’t name another of her songs if you nailed me to the floor and beat me with gluten free, high omega 3 veggie wraps.

My image of Kate is of doing that dance to her song, all lithe and dark and hard-bodied and exotic and incredibly sexy and and and and… (pause for cold shower).

Nothing else. There was no more. I wasn’t going to go and buy the album was I? I’d done that before. The late, great Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street. One brilliant song, the rest might as well not be there.

So instead of going to see Kate I’m going to watch el Classico tomorrow night. Barcelona visit Real Madrid in the most important game since the last one. I love this fixture, it always seems to decide the Spanish league. As b those two teams they’ve shared about 49 of the last 50 titles. Barcelona have been marginally superior over recent years but now visit Madrid four points behind Real with Athletico Madrid uncharacteristically in between the two. Like Aberdeen sitting between Celtic and Rangers and you think ‘what are they doing there??’ Remember Rangers? Used to be a big team. Well, for Scotland.

Arsenal play Chelsea in our own version. These two teams hate each other but mainly because everyone hates them both and they just join in. Its not like Barca Real which is a rivalry based on politics, jealousy and deep seated seperationist type extremism. Arsenal and Chelsea are just horrible. Different type of hatred altogether.

Though this is Lord Wenger’s 1000th game in charge of the Arse. 1000 matches. Which is simply amazing when the average manager lasts about 25 and gets sacked if his team have failed to win the Champions League. Or 17 matches if he’s at Fulham. Only Alex Ferguson lasted a long long time and his successor looks fairly doomed already, especially as Robin van Persie, the ex-Arsenal rapist and striker, has an injury that will keep him off the pitch for at least 6 weeks and the team, other than a great win in Europe on Wednesday, are shit.

Spurs play tomorrow. Spurs always play tomorrow. Southampton. Massive game. 4-pointer. Don’t know why because I’ve given up on this season altogether and intend to study dance instead until May. So I can join in with Kate Bush when she does her roll and fall in green. Ahhhh, its all coming back.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

When flight MH370 went missing I learned that 270 Chinese people had disappeared along with it. They’re still missing. And although there’s certainly plenty more Chinese left in the world, particularly in China… doh… this is not only a general tragedy but a deep personal one for me. Because as a student of Tai Chi (you’re always a student, even when you’re 90 years old and been doing it since you were 3 and you’ve got 26 black belts and can knock a house down just by staring at it for 2 seconds) I’m affiliated to the Chinese way, to their philosophy, their karma, their yin and yang and, in particular, to sweet and sour dumplings in beef broth (number 43).

But as my path in Tai Chi continues, I’m constantly amazed at its ‘wholeness’. At the fact that all the actions have a purpose, every move, every step, every knee-bend, every kvetch, has behind it an intrinsic necessity in the application of that act when used as a strike, as a block, as defence, attack, passive, aggressive. And every act has its own ‘yin and yang’ in the way part of you yields whilst another is powerful. Every move starts from being relaxed and supple, never braced and tense. Quite incredible, the power of that softness.

Because Tai Chi Chuan is known as an ‘internal martial art’. Which is perfect for jews because we’re so good at beating ourselves up we might as well do it properly. Though I’m not sure that’s the true, ancient Chinese meaning. Here the ‘internal’ refers to the power of the mind and how it can channel energy. Rather than ‘tai chi; shmai chi’ kind of thing.

Grant Schapps, the Conservative party chairman should have gone to tai chi instead of tweeting classes. He’d be a better person for it. In the wake of the budget, Mr Schapps, a one time successful businessman, though oddly, under a different name (nothing dodgy about that then, your Honour), tweeted that with a penny (a fucking penny!!!! the most worthless coin on the planet) off the price of a pint of beer and tax relief on Bingo, ‘the working man is pretty well sorted’.

In Tai Chi we call such an exponent of this type of statement a ‘fucking tossssssserrrrrr’ because it is possibly the most misguided, shamefully stereotying and horrendously patronising sentiment ever to leave a Tory’s mind. And believe me, they have a long and brutal history of patronising.

As if working men only need beer and bingo and they’re happy as Larry. As if their inability to pay for heating, buy school uniforms or get a job is way secondary to a pint and shouting ‘HOUSE!!!!!’ very loudly at the Kilburn Palais.

I can do patronising, its my job as a cynical satirist. (Oddly, also known as a ‘tossssserrrr’). But Grant Schapps can’t; he’s a whole other kettle of political fishiness. And his yin has been dissociated from his yang in a very brutal manner.

Be at peace.

If not, kick the shit out of someone today.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

George Osborne has presented his new budget. And it a brilliant one if you’re an old, grey, well-off saver with loads of money, who doesn’t smoke and really hates pot-holes in the road. In other words, a budget for old Tories. And cyclists. A grey budget. Which is odd for a man who is rather unnaturally not-grey at all. In fact I think it safe to say that I’m rather more concerned with the state of the Chancellor’s barnet than I am with the budget itself. Because it keeps changing colour. And shape. Tomorrow he’ll probably turn up at Parliament with a bright green Mohican. We can but hope.

This budget is a fairly typical ‘warm them up before the election’ budget so falls short of core Conservative values, like piling the poor people up on street corners and burning them so they stop claiming benefits. It makes no concession to ‘the young’ but they don’t vote and don’t care so its not worth spending too much in that direction.

Because Nigel Farrage has suddenly become ‘the voice of the common man’. Mainly because anyone else has more sense than to listen to him. And Nigel is fighting the good cause for ‘working Britain’, so long as its white and Christian and heterosexual.

In response, George Osborne has graciously knocked 1p off a pint of beer. And that’s massive. The average lower class oik (sorry, these are Mr Osborne’s words, taken from the script he wrote when at Eton) drinks 19 pints of beer a day. So over the course of a month, this massive financial windfall will save Willy Window-Cleaner up to… er… add three, carry nine… times 14… well, it will save this ‘average low person’ several pounds!!!! So the working classes are sorted then. If they want to save more money all they have to do is drink more beer and those savings just mount up and up. A win-win.

Even better, there’s no rise in petrol prices. Which is good because had he increased duty on fuel the entire nation would go on strike and George would be ritually disembowelled by the ghost of Bob Crow. So for those among ‘you’ who choose, selfishly and unecologically, to drive ridiculously consumptive vehicles, you may now sigh with relief. Along with me. Aaaaahhhhhhhhh.

In conclusion; this budget is, like most, a semi-futile and worthless shuffling of minutiae which won’t affect anyone with any degree of significance. It won’t make the rich nicer, the poor less smelly, the unemployed more employable nor the old more secure as they freeze to death unable to afford to turn the heater on. It won’t make the world prettier, it won’t make Tottenham win, it won’t keep David Moyes in his job any longer nor return Crimea to the Ukraine.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx