Andy's Glasses

The American Dementia Society has shown conclusively that exercise not only reduces the onset of dementia but also ‘builds up the brain’, significantly increasing its volume over time, as compared to the ‘non-exercise’ group in the trial. Or ‘Americans’ as they’re normally called.

This represents almost a ‘national disaster’ in the States where it was shown that ‘going to fridge for another beer/doughnut/tub of dip for nachos/pound of lard does not constitute ‘exercise’ in a beneficial way. Tossing the tv remote control from hand to hand similarly is short of the required energy expenditure to be classed as ‘exercise’. As is sitting in the pickup while Juan fills it up with gas and checks the tyre pressures. Exhausting though that might be.

This will end in tragedy as the fattest nation on the planet collectively forgets why they shouldn’t be eating more.

And who was it said “you can’t trust women?”

Oh. That was me. I forgot. Better do some more exercise.

Equality is taking yet another giant leap forward in the civilised world with more ground breaking leaps by assertive females into roles formally the almost exclusive domain of men.

This time its the glass ceiling of serial murder that’s been smashed, on both sides of the Atlantic. First Joanna Dennehy goes on trial in Peterborough (half way up north, full of retarded and inbred people with tattoos on their faces) for the brutal murders of 3 men and attempted murder of 2 more, one of whom was stabbed 42 times. So whilst in prison Joanna surely should be working on her stabbing skills and her aim.

Also on trial, this time in Pennsylvania, Miranda Barbour, a rising star in the serial killer world at just 19 years old, ‘stopped counting after killing 22’, as you would. She’s a satanist. Whatever the fuck that means.

So ‘way to go, girls’, as female empowerment takes anther giant leap forward. This time without any twerking.

Vanessa Mae is a classical violinist. A very beautiful one. And rich, now she’s been plucking her fiddle for a number of years and never using her sexuality to advance her career; don’t all violinists play Bach wearing just their Victoria’s Secrets? In fact she’s such a brilliant musician that even a philistine such as I started to appreciate the wonders of the classical genre due to her. Though I must confess I generally watched the videos with the sound off.

Anyway, today, Ms Mae is competing in the Giant Slalom in the Sochi Winter Olympics. Yeah, I’d forgotten there was Winter Olympics on too, I must take more exercise. So how fantastic is that? As well as being the world’s best (looking) musician, she’s a fuck-off skier too. Or, she can wear lycra as well as lace. Either way I’d vote for her.

Happy wednesday

A xxxx

I love it when a plan comes together. Which, let’s face it, isn’t too often.

Had an exhibition to visit today at the Excel Centre down in darkest Docklands. We planned to drive. Its Sunday. And then I pondered, and I deliberated, and I did lots of other indecisive things and decided to take the tube instead. Drove down to St Johns Wood, Jubilee Line to Canning Town, Docklands Light Railway to somewhere else south of the river and you’re right there. 40 minutes, no stress, ho hassle, no wasted petrol, no exhaust emissions polluting our lovely clean city (??) and no 15 quid parking fee. Trains park free, it would seem.

But most amazing of all is that there was something really really strange and unusual at the DLR stations. Something odd and exotic that you don’t get on other tube lines. Nothing to do with being in South London either.

When you get off the train they have these weird things walking round in yellow jackets with Transport for London insignia offering help, assistance and advice to travellers. They’re called ‘people’ and they’re really nice and friendly and helpful and polite and charming. So you know they can’t really work for TFL or they’d be rude obnoxious scum. Like Bob Crow. They call them ‘travel ambassadors’ and they’re just like the ‘games makers’ we had at the olympics; lovely people being really nice and showing you where to go.

Nothing at all that you’d expect on a London Transport system. I might complain. We (apparently) want less people working at stations, not more. I can feel a strike coming on.

But no complaints about Dallas Buying Club, the oscar-tipped Matthew McConaughey movie. What an incredible film. Gripping, happy, sad, funny, tragic and uplifting. As only a film about people dying of aids can be. Though its really not about dying at all, its about staying alive in the face of adversity, about taking drugs when the government keep trying to stop you (good drugs, that is, although most pharmaceuticals were represented and abused during the movie), about breaking down stereotypes, about dumb-ass redneck Texan trailer trash (oops), about silly men with moustaches riding rodeo bulls and about extreme weight loss.

And its quite brilliant and well worth the time, effort and cost of the tickets, a bucket of popcorn, three extra large cokes, four hotdogs and a packet of Revels.

Happy sunday.
Yes, it was. I played ice-tennis this morning in honour of the Winter Olympics, which was as much fun as it was very slippery. But the sun shone so who cares?

A xxxx

I went outside this morning, fighting the wind to open the front door, took a few steps that Marcelle Marceau would have been proud of into the gale force morning and threw a tennis ball up in the air. Just to, kind of, ‘service height’, just to see. I never saw the ball again. I had a phone call 27 minutes later from a man in Southend telling me I’d broken his window and I should be more careful with bloody sports equipment and send me a cheque for £27.92 for a new window. A small one. Obviously.

So I did what any red-blooded, honest, loving, devoted, post-modern man would do in the circumstances and watched the hilights of Spurs match at Newcastle again. We won 4-0. Again. Still brilliant. And then to Tai Chi.

And Tai Chi is not subject to wind. Not subject to anything because it is ‘internal’ and therefore is all a state of mind. That’s the whole premise, the entire point, mind over matter. Thus it must have been my ‘state of mind’ that brought down half a dozen trees in Finchley on the way to the Dojo. I’m THAT fucking powerful. And I never realised.

The Times this week has been publishing lists. Music lists. We all love a music list. But there’s been ‘uproar’. In a very Times Reader kind of quiet, gentle, politely uproariously way. Because the thing with ‘top 20’ lists is that there’s only, generally, 20 entries. My lists are different. All chronically indecisive people have top 10s that extend to 46 places. But when you limit yourself to 20, as Bob Stanley did in the paper, you’re always going to be in trouble.

Top 20 guitarists. What??? No Pete Townsend?? No Tony Iommi?? What about that guitar solo on (Black Sabbath track of your choice, if you know any). What about Eddie Van Halen??? The best guitarist his mother ever gave birth to!!!!!! How about that geezer, Dave something-or-other, played in a pub band in Dagenham in 1983 before he lost both arms in a fork-lift accident; fucking brilllllllllllllllliant was Dave…

Yeah, everyone has a favourite guitarist/singer/band. The best bands list left off the Rolling Stones. As it should have. Fucking old gits, child molesters (Bill Wyman), drug addicts (Ketih Richards), dead people (Bryan Jones), nearly dead people (Ronnie Wood), strutting poseurs (Mickey Jagg) and… and… and Charlie Watts.

And singers: no Aretha? How is that even possible? Yet John Lennon rates high. Whereas he was more ‘most influential’ rather than a ‘singer’, its almost an insult to reduce his importance to a mere voice. Rod Stewart should be insulted, hard and often, but he made the list and Roy Orbison didn’t. Go figure.

However, the most contentious omission of all is in the guitarist section. And there, notable by his startling lack of presence is Eric Clapton. Or ‘God’ as he was referred to in the 70s. George Harrison makes the cut but not George’s greatest influence and friend.

No mention of Peters & Lee, The Bay City Rollers or David Cassidy. How about Kylie? Yeah, ok, she’s a Pete Waterman fabrication, can barely sing, doesn’t know a crotchet from a diminished chord, from a hole in the ground, but she’s GORGEOUS.

Obviously Bob Stanley’s criteria were different from mine.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

In 1929 Al Capone brutally murdered 7 ‘opponents’ in the gangsterly world of gangland Chicago. He knew how to treat the opposition. A model embraced by Kim Jong Un, Putin and so many other legends who adopted their own take on ‘democratic bargaining’. Big Al did his negotiating with a baseball bat. If only London Transport was run by him today.

But Valentine’s Day became a celebration of lurve. It went from bleeding corpses in Chicago to red roses, heart-shaped chocolates and unbookable restaurants. And cards. Loads and loads of fucking cards.

The love bit actually preceded the massacre by several centuries, apparently. Even before Spurs were born. Chaucer was a loved up dude who celebrated the day. Its written plain and clear in the sentence about ‘throng-guggling plastitudinous virtues of larft-spangled diversionation’. And in fact it all stems from some sainted person who performed Christian marriages for Romans. Who weren’t, ironically, considering where they are now, Christian at the time.

So as kids we’d send ‘valentines’ to those we loved. Or lusted after. Or wanted to see behind the gym at break-time. And you weren’t supposed to sign the cards. Oh no, they were signed with a flourish of question mark(s) from an apparently unknown admirer. Who was generally the red-faced kid looking coy with a bulge in his trousers.

When our kids were young we’d send them cards every Feb 14th. Because they were ugly and horrible and no-one but a parent (who is contractually obliged to do so) could actually love them.

Cards, cards, cards. Its all about cards. The manufacturers of which cannot create enough spuriously stupid days to ‘celebrate’. Fathers’ Day, Mothers’ Day, Whit-Sun-Day, Eat a Lemming Day, Kick a Tramp Day. Its all cynical bollox by Hallmark et al to fleece us out of more card money. Which used to be about 30p, then suddenly became a fiver. How did that happen?

So I never buy Valentines cards any longer. Nor flowers. Those roses which yesterday cost 7 quid a bunch today cost 27 quid. “Ahhh, but they come from Holland”. Well where did they come from yesterday? Bradford?? I’ll have some more of those Yorkshire ones. “Can’t get them today; market’s closed”. Oh.

So I avoid the whole day. I hide. I shirk. I don’t play their games. I don’t have to. Surely its better to demonstrate your love on the other 364 days of the year than save it all up for the day you’re told to? Surely. Mel is indeed a lucky woman (as I frequently tell her) that she is loved so much. And its NOT, just about proximity and availability. In that ‘love the one you’re with’, Crosby Stills and Nash way. Its real, its constant and its a many splendoured thing.

And all this because I forgot to buy a card.

Love you lots,

Happy Valentines Day

A xxxx

The people of Manchester are accustomed to seeing women lying on the floor. Its normally a Friday night about 11.30 and the pavements are littered with little frilly skirts, high heels and orange faces, laughing, screaming, puking. But this was different. This poor soul was blown over by a wind so strong that they actually cancelled two football matches last night. And that never happens. Sadly, much as we prayed that the Etihad might actually blow away, that never happened.

What did actually happen was that the league was decided last night. The ‘new order’. The way forward. The rest of the season. Which has now become wonderfully obvious, totally transparent and blindingly errr… errrr… well blindingly something.
Those previously known as ‘the top teams’, and I say ‘previously’ even though they’re still actually at the top… for the moment, are all in melt-down. Arsenal have taken one point from their last possible 6, Chelsea have gone to shreds and the goal machine that was Manchester City have failed to score in two games and totally wimped out of last night’s match because the weather wasn’t nice enough. You need to be paid way more than a mere £250,000 a week to out in the rain, I’m afraid.

Manchester United are looking for someone to talk of ‘the big 9’ so they can be included in something worthwhile.
So the ‘big three’ are on the downward slide, no doubt about it. The only teams really doing what they should be doing currently are West Ham, Liverpool and Spurs.

West Ham went from relegation hopefully (well, I was hoping) to European contenders in two weeks. I wish I could feel happy for them. The Premiership’s ‘artful dodgers’. Though the Artful Dodger had charm, style and charisma, all of which are patently lacking at the Boleyn, and haven’t been seen there since Billy Bonds hung his boots up in 1836. And so they have become less Ray Winstone (cockney charm and lovely) and more Bob Crow (dangerous, ugly and gangsterish).

Liverpool are on fire. If only. Sadly that’s only in the metaphorical sense. Hammered Arsenal, did enough to beat Fulham in last night’s tricky little fixture and cast aside all who come before them. Very high scoring, very consistent, bit dodgy in defense at times but score loads and loads. Destined for greatness.

And then Spurs. The mighty Spurs.

At long last not just a victory but a WIN, a proper, 4-0 demolition of lesser opposition. Albeit not very good opposition on last night’s showing. We were wonderful, we were awesome, we were magnificent. I’ve seen the future and its called Nabil Bentaleb. The French (yes, French, but still good. Go figure, eh?) teenager was outstanding as we blew Newcastle away. The whole team looked fab but there again, the whole of Newcastle didn’t. Which always makes it easier.

Should the season come down to goal difference, we have no chance. But if can continue to play as we did at St James’, I predict a top 2 finish. Some might say ‘a big “if”.

And so the league will finish thus come May:

Tottenham
Liverpool
Everton
Southampton
——————————————————
West Brom

lots of teams that no-one cares about, whose supporters
are worthless and inbred and they just shuffle
around the middle of the table forever and ever

West Ham
——————————————————
Arsenal
Man City
Chelsea

Sweet dreams are made of this.

Happy thursday

A xxxx

Well the good news is, the strike’s off. Hooray, the tube shall run and God (Bob Crow) saw that it was a good thing and it came to pass.

Though what I reckon actually happened was the they all bottled out and wimped off like a bunch of (Milwall-supporting) little girls.

This current argument is about closing ticket offices in stations. And I speak to a lot of people each day and whilst its maybe not the first words to be discussed, its kind’a in there somewhere and virtually everyone I speak to is against closing ticket offices. Women because it would make the stations less safe, particularly at night. And men because they won’t be able to find the trains without someone to point them in the right direction. Maybe that’s just men from South London, I don’t check addresses.

Turning up to a station and finding no-one to answer a question, or sort out a dodgy barrier or a failing Oyster card, is an effin pain.
And I reckon that the strike last week, although also a right effin pain in its own right, was accepted by a majority of Londoners who really support this cause.
But if they went out again, I think that support would start to wane. It would get lost in the mess that strikes cause. And thus the union would lose sympathy and the backing of the public. So they cancelled the strike and agreed to ‘talk’. Or ‘shout’, as Bob Crow usually does. Particulary when he is at Milwall.

The bad news is the rain. Its horrible. Its dark. Its really wind-driven and cold and yeuchy and vile and I don’t like it one little bit. I know, I know, there are people in this very country having to sail round their own lounges in little dinghies and need a canoe to take them to the toilet. Half the countryside is awash, afloat or a-fucked-up totally by rain and floodwater. But to be honest, I can only be so concerned for those people. They chose to live in flood plains, they bought homes ‘on the river’, which is a fine sentiment in 1527 when you need to sail along to see the hangings at the Tower every week, and fab for the Henley Regatta, but the rest of the time being on the river holds very few merits. And being visited by that same river for a month or two in a rainy January/February is awful. Almost tragic.

So here, on the high ground (in every respect, I’d like to add… but won’t, out of decency to the sufferers), I just want the rain to stop and it to get 20 or 30 degrees warmer. Is that too much to ask??

And tonight its a BIG night in football. I don’t know who decided that February 12th must be special, and keep it holy, but that’s how its worked out.

Spurs go to the frozen and arctic wasteland that is Newcastle. Can we win? Can we draw? Can we keep warm even?

Arsenal host Manchester United. And that should be big. It would normally be big. It would often be massive and crucial. But Manchester United have lost the plot of late. And face an Arsenal team humiliated on the weekend by Liverpool. Oddly, following that one, poxy, (ok, a bit humiliating in magnitude) loss, there were questions being asked about Wenger. The man who’s had them top of the league for months. And also, quite suddenly, the latest incarnation of Jesus Christ Our Lord Who Walketh on Water, the ‘best transfer the premiership has ever known’, the Second Coming of Mezut Ozil, is being slated as a mistake, an error, he’s a waste of space and time and certainly 42 million quid and can’t keep up with life in Our League, so should piss off back to… back to… back to wherever they welcome people who look like he does. I have no idea where that might be. I can think of certain institutions, but not a specific geographical location on planet Earth.

How fickle. Ozil’s brilliant. Has an off day and he’s a tosser. I despair at fans and pundits.

But I only despair really when Chelsea are winning, and last night they managed to fail to do that, having been leading for all the match.

So maybe there is a God.

If so, DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS SODDING RAIN, PER-LEASE!!!!!

Happy wet wednesday

A xxxx

There are only so many ways to become a football commentator or pundit.

You can be a famous player with a skinful of trophies and a deep understanding of the game. Like Gary Neville.

You can be a famous player with no understanding at all of the game. Like Alan Shearer.

You can be a famous player with trophies, possibly a deep understanding of the game, but no-one can tell because no-one can understand a word they say. Like Kenny Dalgleish and Jamie Carragher.

You can never have played at a high level but have an encyclopaedic knowledge. Like John Motson, Jeff Stelling.

You can be a really really good looking woman/girl who knows nothing about anything except how to pout, show cleavage and bend over a lot in a tight skirt whilst pointing at a giant league table.

Or you can be Gaby Logan. Who probably ticks more boxes than anyone else.

You can even just appear to be nice, like Gary Linneker (who apparently isn’t very but don’t quote me on that).

Lastly you can be a foreigner whose only English sentence is ‘at de end’a da’day’ which is repeated for the entire hour, but you wont’ be invited back.

What you can’t be is Nancy Dell’Olio.

Unless footballing knowledge is transmissible with bodily fluid exchange (eeeeuuuuwwww) its hard to imagine that her years as Sven Goran Eriksson’s main squeeze improved her education much. And if that was the case, Ulrika Johnssen is much more qualified in other ways to be a pundit (see ‘cleavage’ above).

Nancy is a silly orange person who is allegedly a lawyer, apparently an Italian and increasingly an annoyance.

And she wants to commentate on the World Cup. Well don’t we all? Stupid lump. The average man on the Clapham Omnibus probably knows more about football than Nancy and her entire extended family. Mainly because Italians only know about acting, diving, cheating, feigning injury and being boring as fuck when on the ball.

Ah but Nance, as I call her, has an ‘average knowledge’ about our beautiful game, but thinks we need to discuss ‘other things’ during the game.

The price of fake tan. Handbags by Louis Vuitton. Scicillian vs Neapolitain food. The history of cosmetic surgery (not including Wayne Rooney’s hair transplant). The best vibrators by kilowatt/hours of battery life.

ITS FOOTBALL YOU DOZY TART; WHAT THE FUCK ELSE IS THERE TO TALK ABOUT??????

There’s a fab new game on the internet. No, not suicides, they’re old news. This is even better than that.

Neknominate is a drinking game. Someone goes online and challenges you to pour half a pint of Scotch, a litre of vodka, a quart of red wine (must be red, mind), two pints of lager and a dash of lime into a big bucket and drink it within 3 minutes. Or 5. Irrelevent really. You film yourself then post it online.

Fucking brilliant.

3 kids have died already. That’s how much fun it is.

But that’s not why its tragically, chronically, irredeemably sad.

Its sad because why not play such games when together? Why the ‘online’ shit? At least make it sociable, make it fun, plus you have someone to call the ambulance for you.

Maybe we can get Nancy Dell’Olio involved.

Happy Birthday to Rachie

A xxxx

Who was it said that children should be thrashed hard and often? I can’t remember, and neither can google, so perhaps it was me who coined that phrase in response to my own nightmarish offsrproglets. Bless them.

Well its the same with football teams. Spurs are indeed thrashed hard and often but despite the logic of the argument (if there is one) that such things build character, create precedents never to be repeated and demand the sufferers to ‘bounce back’ with a vengeance, it never quite works like that for us. Unless you count a poxy, dire 1-1 draw at Hull as ‘bouncing back’. Personally I don’t see it that way. A thrashing is humiliating, its horrible, it attacks your fundamental need to, if not win, then not to lose too badly, it destabilises your momentum. Basically; it hurts.

In a way England thrashed Scotland in the rugby yesterday, even though the score was only 20-0. Could have been more. Should have been more. We (this is a different ‘we’ than the Spurs ‘we’, this is about patriotism, about Englishism and nothing whatsoever to do with Briitishness) were in a different class to the Scots. They were awful, we were wonderful. The Scots were so bad they couldn’t even sort out their national pitch, which looked like some of the football pitches I used to play on in my youth over at Hackney Marshes, when it was a marsh, before they Olympified it.

But Spurs didn’t play yesterday, they play today. Against Everton. Big match. Massive. 12 pointer (I could explain but you simply wouldn’t understand). Its basically the battle for 6th place. Wow. Doesn’t get much bigger than that. Maybe 5th? The only other match today is also massive in its own not-quite-so-massive way. Manchester United play Fulham. The disappointed against the tragic. And I’m not prepared to say which is which. Fulham haven’t won since Prince George was born and Manchester United are underperforming. Which is the Manc way of saying ‘not top’. Arrogant fuckers, why are their expectations so high that anything except a runaway league-topping season is deemed ‘underperforming’? By that logic there are 91 teams underperforming every year.

But I’m afraid I can delay no longer. No mention of Chelsea’s romp over Newcastle to go top, no-one cares that West Ham beat Villa, and Manchester City have suddenly just run out of goals. Or they’ve used up their quota early in the season and aren’t allowed any more. So much as I’m never one to gloat, nor snigger, jeer or in any way display any kind of schadenfreude, we need to talk about Arsenal.

I didn’t see the game. Who the hell has ‘BT TV’? But I managed to keep up with the score (though only just) during lunch due to the incessant text messages from some of my friends. Nothing spiteful, nothing gloaty, just odd messages that were very informative. And nice. I was in the car when the 2nd goal was scored. By the world’s only living corpse, Martn Skertl. Then the texts; 2-0, bite of chicken, 3-0, sip of water, 4-0, spat the water over the table as I high-fived Rachie. Perhaps a high-four would have been more appropriate at that time but I couldn’t get my thumb out the way. Then it all calmed down in the second half and we had to wait ages for the 5th. Oddly, or perhaps because I’m a Spurs fan, I have this morbid fear that however great the lead in a game, ‘its not enough’. Spurs have squandered so many big leads in so many big games that I almost forget that when other teams are dominant, they generally remain so for the duration. Wankers. That’s not entertainment.

So Liverpool, the season’s other big scorers, managed to throw the table open at the top. Whilst they remain a few points short, Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City are now, to all intents and purposes, neck and neck. But only Chelsea are (horribly, revoltingly) consistent and the Scousers could close the gap if the inconsistencies continue. Everton have hopes and Spurs are just Spurs.

I fully expected Arsene Wenger to find 5 faults with the ref and demand his usual re-count. To blame the officials, the stadium, the rise in fuel tax, anything. But he manned up and took it upon himself. For once.

So come on Spurs; do it for England, for London, for… for… for meeeeeeeeeeee.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Call me perverse but I love it where the old world meets the new and causes ructions. I like it when value systems clash and no-one really knows what to do about it. Because its like rugby; these are the ‘breakdowns’ and its where it all gets interesting.

Princess Dutchess Middleton Catherine of Cambridgia is one such breakdown. No, she’s not having one, not yet anyway, she is one. Because she’s a Queen in waiting and therefore is dutybound and honour-bound to act in a particular way. A way set down when Boudica was around, when Mary Queen of Scots was shedding blood, when Victoria was a mere babe. And these rules state that unlike those three who actually took the throne, a queen who is ‘merely’ the wife of a king is essentially an heir-production mechanism. She’s a womb with a view. But no-one cares about her views, only in viewing her. So she must look fab all the time. That’s her job. Look good and bear fruit.

And this is just soooooo contrary to popular feminist zeitgeist. Its diametrically opposed to any form of equality. The whole royal thing, if you think about it, is a complete anachronism, a throw-back to feudal times, which is why Americans love coming over to see the whole regalia. Cos they don’t got one where they live. They could have shared ours but instead decided to have a tea party and go it alone. So fuck ’em.

All people ever say about Kate is how lovely she looks, how it took her 93 minutes in the gym followed by 6 months of anorexia to get ‘back to her pre-birth weight’ and what fabulous clothes she wears. Which may be flattering in a bland and superficial kind of way, but is that something to aspire to? When we’re talking the rest of the time about more women in the boardrooms, certainly more in parliament? All she has to do is look pretty and have babies. She needs to get a proper job. Like a lap-dancer.

Another breakdown would appear to be right outside 10 Downing Street. In the little guardroom that one passes through en route to visit the Camerons. Yes, I’ve been there, hasn’t everyone?? And you go through a Heathrowesque room, answer a few questions, show id, get scanned, have a full-body search with rubber gloves, give a DNA sample, sing the national anthem in Yiddish, pledge allegiance to Guy Fawkes and call the guards ‘fucking plebs’, then they let you pass.

But those guards; what a job. Awful. Standing around all day in the cold looking like policemen with nothing to do between visits or terrorist attempts. Which is why they have time to pretend some Tory mp called them plebs, to fabricate the evidence, make up a lovely story and end up in jail. Cos what else is there to do all day? And night??

The answer being: look at porn. Of course, its so terribly obvious. You can do it on your smartphone, its easy, even if you’re a particualry unsmart policeman.

“‘ere Terry, got a great picture ‘ere of some tart gettin’ shagged up the gazebo by three horses; I’ll bluetooth it over to ya”

They were accused of sending ‘extreme pornography’. Which I though was soft core porn viewed whist hanging upside down on the top of a mountain. But I was wrong. Its very naughty porn. And looking at it during working hours is not quite cricket. And right where the Cameron children are less than 200 yards away through only 7 brick walls!!!!

Its all bollocks. Just don’t film them and send it to your mates. Not during office hours.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I’m a hugger.

Always have been. Probably a deep-seated insecurity thing, but I hug. Men, women, girls and boys, I hug. Unconditionally. Especially women. But I generally don’t ‘cop a feel’ unless I can get away with it, or I’m paying good money for it. And as most of the men I hug are old and ugly, who’d want to feel that???? I come from a family of huggers. Maybe my ancestors were pick-pockets, I don’t know, but I grew up with hugs and that’s kind’a what we do.

Some people don’t feel comfortable being hugged. Well tough shit. Close your eyes and think of England. Others reciprocate too enthusiastically and it becomes almost sexual foreplay. In Waitrose. By the yoghurt counter.

Yet you have to be careful with all this hugging. Rule 1: don’t hug strangers. Even if you really want to. Because she might slap.

Dave Lee Travis, noted (who???) old BBC radio DJ and Top of the Pops host, ‘back in the day’ is also a hugger. Well, was also a hugger. He’s probably slowed his huggish tendencies by now. Court cases do that to you. And for some reason I believe his protestations of innocence to the charges of sexual assault. What did it for me was one of the witnesses, Dee Dee Wilde. One of the first group of (appalling) dancers known as Pan’s People who pranced around every week on that very tv show. And they made up for any lack of artistic skill and dainty-danciness by being gorgeous and wearing very little that wasn’t diaphanous or invisible. And Dee Dee said in court that DLT indeed hugged them every week, but in a very ‘uncle-ish’ sort of way. No groping. No groin thrusting. No wandering hands. Just nice, safe, warm hugs. Every week for all the years they worked together. And I believe her because she was so gorgeous, back in that very day when it all allegedly happened. I can actually say that his failure to grope a Pan’s Person, when given the chance would actually indicate that he’s either gay or completely asexual.

Working on the ‘no smoke without fire’ principal DLT must be guilty, but I feel for him. As opposed to feeling him up. Which would be horrible.

Whereas William Roach was acquitted of all charges yesterday. And his charges were not mere gropage and naughtiness but rape, pillage and plunder. Then more rape. And serious sexual assault. And for some reason (maybe because he looks like a weasel and always seemed to have slightly less personality than a door-frame) I’d already found him guilty on all charges. But these were serious allegations, horrible ones, nasty and abusive. So why take 40 years to come forward? I can’t believe every one of his accusers and all of their parents (those who were told) felt too intimidated or ashamed to come forth? Rape is a vile crime and its very very difficult to prove. And that’s if it happened yesterday. 40 years ago? No chance.

It all comes back to Jimmy Savile. Who has been declared ‘too dead to testify’.

Happy Friday

A xxxx