Andy's Glasses

…about Scarlett.

Yeah, she’s gorgeous to the point of near-impossibility, she’s divine, delightful, de-lovely and built like the collective fantasy collaboration from a million wet dreams. But that’s not why we’re here. No, not today.

Today we’re not drooling and lusting, that’s for tomorrow. Today its serious.

Our Scarlett (all men ‘own’ her; she’s said that’s ok) has been an ambassador for Oxfam for 8 years. And, as well as numerous other contracts with endorsing perfumes, clothing, shoes, blah, blah, red-carpet-blah, she is now the ‘face’ of soda-stream. Remember Soda-Stream? Do it yourself bubbles in a whole range of horrible, synthetic, plastic tasting mega-sweet drinks? I thought they died in 1973 when the last carbonated cartridge gave way to the reduction of the carbon footprint. But what do I know? And not only are they still going, they’re doing so well that they can afford a $4million advert during tonight’s Superbowl, with La Johansson sucking on a straw. I’ll just leave you with that image for a moment…

Ok. Wow.

Oxfam find this new role of Scarlett’s incompatible with their charity. Why? Do Soda-Stream manufacture arms? Produce suicide vests? Perform Female Genital Mutilation? No, Soda-Stream’s crime is that they’re Israeli. And Oxfam, if nothing else (and many, including me, would deeply question the ‘something elses’) are powerfully anti-Zionist. They claim that the Soda company, whose factory is built in a settlement in Palestine’s West Bank, is in breach of international law, just by being there.

I won’t go into the questions surrounding ‘land won in wars’, as every nation on the planet is allowed, rightly or wrongly, to keep land won. Except Israel. So never mind the Britishness of the Falklands, nor Gibralter, nor at one time half of the bleeding world, The West Bank, occupied by Israel in a war they didn’t start, in 1967, and partly given back, is some kind of ‘totally different status’.

Anyway, Soda-Stream employ hundreds of Palestinians in their factory, who work there happily, alongside Israelis, on equal pay terms and appreciate the prosperity. But because Oxfam are basically, a bunch of anti-semites, they’re ‘strongly opposed’ and boycott everything from the occupied territories.

The Mail on Sunday, which is no better than that shitty rag on any other day, has claimed ‘new insight’ into why Scarlett has abandoned Oxfam for Soda-Stream. Which they put down to money. Greed. Impoverished childhood. Money-grabbing (jew) bitch. Ok, not in so many words. But that’s the gist of their ‘suggestion’.

Which I find deeply insulting on Ms Johansson’s behalf. It trivialises what is an important message. That Scarlett stands by Israel and its efforts in Palestine. She really is not short of cash, to my knowledge. So to even imply such a thing is just typical of their right wing, reactionary attempts at defamatory speculation loosely disguised as ‘journalism’.

Never mind, Scarlett, we love you.
Oh boy, do we love you…

Happy sunday

A xxxx

Amanda Knox; innocent babe, framed and abused by those horrible Italians or murdering biy-utch finally gonna get what she deserves?

Its such an interesting case (zzzzzzz) that’s only gone on for about 17 years, although Amanda still looks as fresh as the day she slashed her best friend’s throat in a sex/violence frenzy that would shame co-ed Tai Chi. Allegedly. And to be honest, no-one is ever going to know what really happened, except me. And I’m not saying a word.

Knoxy has now been sentenced to 28 years for the murder, having previously been acquitted and released from prison in Florence. But she’s in Seattle and has no intention of moving anywhere. Not voluntarily anyway. Thus begins the horrible, dirty business of extradition.

Will the Americans yield to the Italians’ demands for one of their daughters so they can dress her in a very unflattering orange boiler suit and lock her away with a bunch of knife-wielding lesbians? Or will they refuse the process and risk a reciprocal knock-back next time they want a wayward Italian brought to America for crimes against the United States thereof??

Its a tricky one and I’m not sure what the answer is but ‘yellow’ seems as good an answer as any. Or ‘79.77’, as an alternative.

My rule of thumb in such legal quagmires is as follows:
if the person in question is fairly good looking and, even though you know she probably did do it, that somehow even adds to her unquestionable allure, then she’s innocent.
If its some rough old slapper killing/carrying a gut-full (literally) of cocaine/being very naughty, then lock her up, send her back, do what is required and may The Lord have mercy on her soul.

1- all at Hull. Not the worst result of the season but yet one more tragic fucking disappointment for Spurs fans who, quite frankly, have suffered enough this week.

West Ham won and Fulham lost. Shame on both counts. I like Fulham; they have a nice ground, lovely, gentle fans and they are a fragrant and worthy team. West Ham simply aren’t anything that isn’t horrible and nasty. But such is ‘the beautiful game’.

Everton won, which is a pisser, whereas Manchester United lost, which is rather good for Spurs. The Juan Mata honeymoon didn’t last long. He’s now regarded as the footballing equivalent of a premature ejaculator.

Speaking of which, Chelsea play on Monday at Man City which is a game of massive, immense and exceedingly large proportions. None bigger. As proportions go, that is.

And now its time for the rugby. So come on England. Can’t lose to the French. Ever.

Happy saturday evening (been a busy day)

A xxxx

A Francophilo is defined as ‘someone who hates the French but loves their patisseries’. And that’s me. I like to invent new words when the old ones don’t work any more.

Though I don’t really ‘hate’ the French in any real sense, I just hate the thought of them. Well, the French men that is. Don’t mind thinking about their women at all. Something I seem to share with their president. Though he’s a big supporter of the ‘actions speak louder’ campaign.
And apparently, London has between 300,000 and 400,000 French nationals living here.

Which means to me that there are 100,000 French people pretty much unaccounted for. I mean, they’re either here or they’re not. They can’t all be on Eurostar (at the time of the counting), nor out the house shagging someone else’s wife, surely. The Missing. They’ll make a movie of it.

400,000 French people left to come to London… but only 300,000 arrived!!!!

They’re all here (making London France’s 6th largest city) because of Mnsr Hollande. Not in moral protest, the French have absolutely no moral standards whatsoever as anyone knows who’s ever stood in a lift queue in Courchevel. Bloody savages. But here because their pres. decided to tax them at 85% so he can get enough money to trade in his motor-scooter for a nice Renault Clio as befits the leader of a major European restaurant.

There are parts of Kensington now where English is not spoken. The shops will only serve you in French, the staff are all appallingly rude and arrogant and there are gateaux everywhere.

I despair, but still remain keen to find these 100,000 errant Frogs in case they all turn up at my house seeking asylum.

I love Tai Chi. My new ‘thing’. My main event. Its a wonderful form of relaxation, stretching, exercise and brutal violence. You go from philosophical meditation to broken collarbones in 0.6 seconds. Its where Marcel Proust meets Bruce Lee. And I don’t mean ‘in heaven’.

Last night we abandoned the more meditative and used each other as punch-bags. STAB-KICK-JAB-CROSS-JAB-KNEE-ROUNDHOUSE-KICK, and repeat as the victim glides backwards across the room holding up the punchbags. And repeat, and repeat, until someone either dies or you’re sweating so much you might drown.

I ended up with 2 rather nasty blisters on two of my rather nasty toes. I may sue.

Happy, peaceful Friday

A xxxx

Alan Hanson said: ‘you can’t win the league with kids’
Andy Conway said: you can’t win the league with Yids.

Can I say that? Is it illegal? Will I be arrested?
Its racist, evil, unkind, like calling Mylie Sirus flat-chested.

I don’t care anyway, we’ll sing what we want to sing
Its only scoring goals that’s proved a more difficult thing.

But we won’t win the league, certainly not this year,
Even though the season can be considered rather queer.

Arsenal seem forever to have been top
but now they’ve started the inevitable drop

From from invincible, from wonderful, it seems to have been halted
Now who knows where they’ll end up being sorted.

Liverpool too, they were sublime, they had their days of glory,
now though its gone to shit, its just another story.

They beat Everton, rivals, foes and nieghbours,
and ended up still forth, for all their hard-fought labours.

Chelsea seem to have trouble scoring goals
West Ham ‘parked their bus’ to add to Morinho’s woes

Would Mata have made the difference? settled the score??
Irrelevant now, the Spaniard’s gone, what’s left was a nil-nil draw.

But no such goallessness last night at White Hart Lane
Man City scored almost all of them, which was the tragic shame.

We have hopes and dreams and expectations, we want to finish forth
But there was simply too much power from those bastards from up north

Its all gone to shit, to hell in a handcart, the game I used to love
Its women’s cricket for me from now on, a game sent from the heavens above.

We beat the Aussie women, Sheilas one and all
stuffed them rotten, got them Ashes, with bat and with the ball.

So all you gloating Gooners, all you West Hammers feeling smug
it ain’t over til its over, then still they can pull that rug.

But it makes no difference to me, whatsoever,
I don’t watch football, whatever the bleeding weather

Its bridge and women’s cricket, never fail to entertain,
football’s just a waste’a time and a right royal fucking pain.

Happy Bastard Shitty Nobbish Thursday

A xxxx

I know my rights.

No taxation without representation.

I pay my taxes.

Then I pay more.

Its all very well for George Osbourne to get all smug and complacent about ‘how well the economy is doing’ due to a few obscure economic criteria which affect not one ‘real’ person in this country. George has never had a proper job in his life. Unless ‘slagging off Ed Balls’ is now a vocational university course that I missed on the UCAS form. George arranged that we (the tax paying public) should buy the Royal Bank of Scotland and what a shrewd investment that was, on our behalf as they’ve now lost £40 billion in total and will never be able to repay the debt. But still manage to provide a nice bonus for their hard-working staff. Who were guitly of mis-selling virtually everything from dodgy insurance and unrepayable mortgages, to crack cocaine, 2nd hand Reliant Robins and double glazing.

Yet George isn’t the problem. In this particular context. Only in most others.

The problem is this ‘mansion tax’ that the Lib-Dems and Labourites keep banging on about. The ‘brain-child’ (though he apparently has very little brain and I don’t think was ever a child) of Vince Cable. The uber-tosser Lib-Dem business type person. Who first levelled the concept as ‘a tax on all homes valued over £1million’. Tax ‘the rich’.

But ‘the rich’ wouldn’t be seen dead in a mere 1 million pound home; their houses cost loads of millions. A one million pound house is half of London properties. Whereas the best house imaginable, a castle with a moat in 98 acres of Derbyshire countryside, up north, can be had for £427,995, including the servants, footmen, butlers, maids (see ’12 years a slave’ for full details). Thus they’ve now upgraded it to a house over £2 million being subject to this tax, should those total unfeeling bastards ever, heaven forbid, become our government. Though technically, I s’pose, Vince Cable is ‘government’ or ‘half government’ due to the folly that is ‘the coalition’.

So basically, this horrendous proposition, this outrageous suggestion will charge people 1% of the value of their house over 2 million quid. Every year. Just for having the thing. Income is unimportant; if the house is worth 3 mil, you pay 10 grand a year just for living there, you fucking rich, southern, cockney bastard!!

Yet to pay that 10 grand, you’ll need to earn 20 grand. Assuming that these people are high rate tax payers. Thus effectively its a 2% tax before you start. Let alone the consideration that ‘no man should ever be taxed twice… unless its vat… or fuel duty… or any of the others’ that we’re cleverly suckered into paying.

Mansion tax is a hateful idea conceived by hateful men. If it is implemented I shall be forced to move (even though I don’t have a 3 million pound house; but that’s not the point. If only I knew what the point was?) I shall go to the third world. Or ‘Leeds’ as its known. Maybe Barnsley, Liverpool, Grimsby, where everything is cheap. And nasty.

At least Manchester United Juan a game at last.

Happy wednesday

A xxxx

Well its been a rather dull January transfer window in the footballing world. Though many are heeding past mistakes and the received wisdom that January transfers tend to be panic buys which end in misery. Except for Spurs, who manage to achieve the same end in August.

After our ‘summer spree’, spending over £100million on players with ‘mixed results’, Spurs have been very quiet. In fact we’ve only done one bit of business which is selling Jermaine Defoe. One of our only 3 strikers, though he’s not moving to Toronto until the summer. By which time we’ll have replaced him with… er… with someone very very good. Even better than Soldado or Adebayor. Probably.

The only ‘big name move’ has been Juan Mata’s departure from Chelsea to Manchester United. So little Juan has not moved for immediate glory then.

Chelsea’s player of the year for the last two seasons was suddenly superfluous to requirements at Stamford Bridge, where Oscar and Hazard are playing so well that there’s simply no room for the wee Spaniard who most managers would chew their own legs off to have in their squad. I personally have teeth marks in both my thighs at this very moment but sadly it didn’t work. Just hurt a lot. And gave me a stiff neck.

Eden Hazard has now said ‘he can be like Messi and Ronaldo’ and will be ‘in that league’. So no false modesty from the Belgian dwarf then.

West Ham are trying to sign Dani Osvaldo from Southampton. He’s currently suspended for fighting with his own team mate. So will be a perfect fit in the Sam Allardyce/West Ham style. They like ’em tough. The hammers are also trying to sign Ross McCormack from Leeds. Don’t know the man, never even heard of him, but if he plays for Leeds he must be another thug. The Yorkshire club have a history and a culture and would never field a player who couldn’t ‘handle himself’, in that Vinnie Jones kind of way.

Because teams have to have a plan, a model, and West Ham’s, in the absence of anything resembling ‘football’, are trying ‘violence’ as the way forward.

Similarly, Arsenal, true to their model, are trying to sign Tom Daley and Lily Savage.

But you must be careful of what ‘model’ you choose and project. Because UKIP leader Nigel Farrage is complaining that ‘the wrong kind of people are in UKIP’. How strange that a party based on the reactionary insecurities and innate xenophobic tendencies of highly strung people should end up with a bunch of screaming nutters as their representatives. The bible-bashers, the wrath of Godders, the neo-nazis, rivers of blooders and other strange and exotic misfits are precisely who you’d expect with that sorry bunch of scaremongers.

So vote for Spurs today,

Happy tuesday

A xxxx

Have you ever bought anything through Amazon?

Of course you have. Everyone has. Not just ‘has’, in the past but still does and will do again. Because they’re brilliant. Fast, great value and amazingly efficient. But best of all, if you have a problem, they are simply brilliant at sorting it out. Brilliant.

What makes ‘brilliant’ on a ‘customer journey’ that has become a little bumpy?

You phone them up, get straight through very quickly to someone who speaks English (or Irish, which is almost as good) and sorts out the difficulty with wonderful ease and simplicity. If there’s any ‘jumping through hoops’ required, Amazon do it for you. All you end up doing is taking the ‘thing’ round to the local sweet shop and dumping it there. 2 days later you have a replacement, or a credit, or a repaired thing or whatever it was you wanted. And every time (damaged kindles, returned articles, problematic stuff) its handled so amazingly that I just think: why aren’t all companies like that?

They’ve now developed new technology which actually works out what you MIGHT be buying next and shipping it to a warehouse near you, just in case you do decide to ‘buy it now’. How fucking brilliant is that? Its magic, that’s what it is. Telepathy. Though actually they’re just analysing the clicks you make and the searches you perform and anticipating to reduce delivery time.

Contrast that with my recent experience with IBM.

I ordered a part for my computer, new motherboard, the old one died in a power surge. No problem, Sir, that’ll be a hundred and fifty quid and will take three days. I was initially impressed. Though 3 weeks later when it hadn’t arrived my impressionism was dented. And phone calls were met with part derision, part accusatory disbelief, part Germanic (that’s where the parts are kept, apparently) arrogance and rudeness.

Eventually someone actually worked out that the ‘couriers done it’. They had the part, tried and failed to deliver and didn’t think it appropriate to, like, kind’a, sort of, tell anyone about it. Ok, said I, have them call me and arrange another delivery. Seemed a reasonable request. Yet no call was forthcoming. So I got pissed off and on Christmas morning sent them an email telling them to keep the part and give me a refund.

By the second week in Jan I’d heard nothing. So I called and emailed and called and screamed and emailed some more. And still they were ‘awaiting the credit’, ‘all in hand’. Yeah right. It takes 1.3 seconds to take my payment and six weeks to credit it? I found an email address for the CEO and sent him a note telling him I was going to make a County Court Claim if I didn’t have my money back in 2 days. The next day I received a note saying ‘the credit note was being actioned’. Ahhh, what a relief. But its just that, a note authorising a credit. How long til they give me the money back? Oh, that takes up to a week.

You have to think, at that point: WHYYYYYYYYYYY????????? Why does anything electronic process take a week? How can that be possible?

I don’t usually use these pages to vent on atrocious service or aggro in the marketplace. But the world should know what its like dealing with IBM and be warned: DON’T DO IT!!! You’ll end up beating the wife and kids in frustration. Mine will probably be out of hospital before my Amex card has received the funds.

Yours tearing out his hair,

A xxxx

Its a funny thing, the movies.

Whilst playing tennis with Spurs Paul yesterday we discussed American Hustle. He’d loved it whereas I’d hated it (all of it except Jennifer Lawrence, of course). Well, maybe not hated it because of some truly fantastic performances, but it just didn’t work for me. Whereas it really worked for Paul. Now shut up and hit the fucking ball, this is tennis, not ‘film appreciation 101’.

Last night I went to see 12 Years a Slave. Spurs Paul’s parting words yesterday couldn’t fail to resonate: (he saw it last week) ‘its just horrible, brutality and torture and sorrow with nothing else; a feel-bad movie’.

So I now have to ask: what does Spurs Paul really know about movies???

12 Years a Slave is remarkable. Yeah, its brutal, yeah its violent, racist, misogynistic, sexist, evil and sadistic. But is that a bad thing? You would think it would be yet by the end I actually thought; be nice if they could just flay the flesh from yet another naked slave girl with a bull-whip, before we go home; go on, just one more.

Ok, I didn’t and in half the scenes I closed my eyes anyway, but the film is simply gripping from the opening credits to the final whupping. It moves slowly but the time goes quickly. The story’s ‘true’ in that Hollywood way where its probably anything but.

But its also a fascinating study of slavery. Like we don’t know all about it anyway. But in terms of understanding the people who used slaves, who benefitted from that awful system, who profited in so many ways, and who abused them so mercilessly, its so easy to make the fundamental error of judging history by our own, contemporary standards of equality and political correctness.
Because for those raised in the Deep South at that time, slavery was THE system. They were raised by slaves as children and grew up with fundamentally different mind-set from those NOW considered more enlightened. Even the more enlightened (by our standards, here and now) in the northern, Yankee states didn’t share their perspective. Those in the south simply knew no different and no better. And not a great deal has changed in the intervening years in that respect. A bit like bankers.

Slaves were a commodity, they were dehumanised by southern white society. Treated like animals. To be bought, sold, traded, beaten, abused and raped. Just like horses and sheep. The slaves were culturally and conceptually ‘animals’ to the white population. Because that’s what they were raised to believe. And all were God-fearing, bible-bashing, good-old-boy Christian folk, preaching justification from their bibles, just like the Afrikaaners would do a few years later to justify their own atrocious system.

The film is quite amazing.

Happy, very wet, rained-off Sunday

A xxxx

What do you do on the Sabbath? Whenever that may be. Friday/Saturday/Sunday, they all work for me. And I work on all of them. Because the seventh day has been changed from ‘…ye shall rest’ to ‘…ye shall shop’. That happened when they relaxed Sunday opening hours. Though for some of us its Saturday that’s the problem. And always has been.

Do you go to synagogue, THEN to football? Do you go to church then the pub? Do you pray then hit the brothel?

Ethical questions for our time. People used to be more religious, more observant, but now its the very few that adhere to the strict guidelines.

I went to Tai Chi at 8.15 this morning. That’s more philosophical than religious. The philosophy of ‘hitting people very hard’. From there I went to tennis and only uttered the name of The Lord once, when I hit a ball into the brook. So that probably counts as ‘in vain’, if I’m being strict with myself. As I must.

But what about the French? France is a Catholic country. Because its full of Catholic C-… people. And the catholics are outwardly a very strict bunch. They have issues with everything. Abortions. Crucifixions. Even contraception. Virtually everything is a mortal sin for Catholics except what most of the priests do in their spare time. They love a sin, and they love absolution. Which actually comes very cheaply. A few Hail Marys, a couple How’s ya Fathers and a Francis Ford Coppola and go back, Jack, and do it all again.

So Francoise Hollande went to the Vatican to meet the Pope. I just wonder what they spoke about. Because as the leader of a proudly Catholic nation, Mnsr Le President does not set the best example, from a spiritual standpoint. He’s broken most of the Ten Commandments this week. Its only murder left on his ‘to do’ list. Adultery, coveting thy neighbour’s wife, being a slut, speaking in Tongues (French), pride, gluttony, Jesus he’s a bad boy. Which is why the Pope looked suitably unhappy with the man.

But then just this very afternoon I had a ‘religious experience’. I was sitting in traffic on the Kentish Town Road and a woman was walking towards me. A muslim woman wearing a full face black scarf with the Darth Vader slits for the eyes. And as she drew level with me a gust of wind blew her headscarf upwards. Yes, it temporarily blinded her as she wrestled it down, but I just wondered if this act was, for those of her faith, a ‘Marilyn Monroe’ moment. For those who get off on chins.

Just a thought,

God bless the Sabbath, to keep it holy,

A xxxx

Its traditional for New York mayors to introduce ‘zero tolerance’ to something or other. Its kind’a expected of them.

Rudy Giuliano started it with his zero tolerance to crime. And he cleaned up the city completely over his term. Got rid of ‘no-go’ areas, cleansed, sanitised, removed the drug dealers, reduced muggings, it was a great success.
Michael Bloomberg must have done something of a zero tolerance nature during his 12 year tenure, but I can’t remember what.

But now we have Bill de Blasio, the new mayor, the new broom. And I think his main problem is that there really isn’t much left to be ‘zero tolerant’ about. But Bill knows how the public just love to hear strong words from strong men, how actions speak louder than screaming politicians and that zero tolerance is the way to leave an everlasting legacy.

So he’s having zero tolerance against jaywalking. The nastiest, meanest, most insidious of crimes. Kids start out crossing a little side street, even chickens have been known to do it, just to get to the other side. The next thing you’re crossing Broadway at 42nd Street and there’s fucking anarchy on the streets and Washington will fall!!!!

I simply refuse to have my life and my progress dictated by a little green man. Fuck him. Its the mark of a civilised nation when the people are given the freedom to cross roads, something most are taught by our parents at about 2 years old, where and when we choose. Ok, there’s collateral damage, people get hit by bikes, by motorcycles, by the odd bus or two, but its worth it. Because the alternative is walking to a crossing every time you need to cross a road and wait there, with no traffic for 6 miles in any direction to be seen, waiting for ‘permission’ to cross from that little green bastard. Who seems quite often to be on an extended tea break. Green tea, probably.

I see these people, these poor hapless prisoners to brainwashing, see them every night standing there waiting patiently as scores of Londoners barge past them to cross the roads. They’re called refugees from faraway lands. Foreigners. Tourists. From totalitarian regimes which punish road crossing with the full might of the law. Places like Hungary, where fascists march the streets, like California, where I was once stopped after crossing a road but thankfully ‘released’ once they realised I was an ‘alien’ and unaware that I was in a thought-controlled state.

Jaywalking saves time and gives people the freedom, just a small one, to do what they want. To remove such a liberty is probably how North Korea started. So be warned, Billy-boy. Today you’re fining people for street crossing, tomorrow you’re shooting your uncles for treason and having a stupid haircut.

Whereas in Miami, its even a crime to street-race a Lamborghini whilst under the influence of drink, drugs and certain other medications of a non-medical nature. As Justin Bieber found out yesterday when the arrested the tattooed moron under just such influences. Agreed, drink and drugs make you drive much faster, but its still not allowed in Florida.
Justin is now thinking (that’ll be a first) about returning to his native Canada.

Why?? Do they allow drink/drug drag-racing up there??? Bloody savages. Frozen savages.

Happy zero tolerance Friday

A xxxx