Andy's Glasses

I’ll tell you how bad Joe Biden is. He makes Donald Trump look like a man in control of all his faculties. That’s how bad Mr President is today. By November he’ll be worse. And in almost 5 years time, at the end of his 2nd term, should he win it, he’ll be losing the battle not to piss himself 5 times a day. Because he doesn’t remember which room the toilet’s in. So just a brief question to the Democratic Party of America: really?

Over here we have different election issues. Somewhat more pressing as we have but 5 days to go!!!! before relighting our nation with Leninist ideology. Ok, maybe not the full ‘red mist’ that will descend immediately, but it’ll be in the background, loosely disguised as a beefy northern bird with red hair.

And as we have a ‘first past the post’ electoral system here, horse-racing analogies are as perfectly acceptable at this time as debates trying to get men into women’s toilets.

So late onto the field trots a 3-legged nag with a shaggy mane and one eye on the glue factory. It runs under the name of ‘Farage’s Reform’ and has never won a race in its long and miserable life. Yet it stands proudly among the thoroughbreds (Starmer? Thoroughbred???).

Farage, the xenophobe’s xenophobe, has spent the last 15 years, as well as telling us how bad ALL foreigners are, whether in the EU and telling us what to do, or whether they’re arriving here in boats, planes and on the backs of lorries, he’s been saying that his party, whatever that may be called at any given time, are absolutely NOT racist. Perish the thought. Heaven forbid. He wears a suit, FFS, how can he be a racist???

Yet he’s just sacked three candidates for being racists. And then, some Reform ‘canvassers’, pre-election door-knockers, were caught by secret cameras being really, really, REALLY racist. Ok, they didn’t do much due diligence in the selection process, they had neither time nor resources, so the people who turned up went out extolling the wonders of the Reform party. By calling Rishi Sunak a ‘fucking Paki’ and saying how incoming boat-people should be used for target practice. In case you happen to be a UKIP/Reform fan and don’t therefore realise it; those are not nice things to say.

So Farage, rather than have the ready answer, apology, excuses for which he’s famous, turned into Donald Trump. A lying, denying ‘fake-news’ist.

“It was a set up!!!”, he proclaimed, “they weren’t my people; Channel 4 planted them”. And consequently, pissed off with the BBC for showing the footage, Nigel refused to go on the Kuensberg show today. And for any party leader, 4 days before a general election, to not go onto the foremost political tv show we have, is a virtual statement of having given up. Of near suicide of a party which was a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster in the first place. Cobbled together from old bits of other failed entities.

I used to always be in admiration of Farage, even though not liking him particularly and hating most things he stood for. But now? He’s just a thin, white version of Donald Trump. (Nothing to do with race, just the facial foundation colour of choice).

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Last night the England football team did us all proud. Even for those football fans who, like me, don’t really give two shits what happens in the Euros. But England won their group. Which is brilliant. Yet the press is being really unfair about it. Criticising their play, accusing them of lacking ambition, neither entertaining nor producing, calling them ‘BORING AS FUCK BUT WITH LESS CLUE!!’ Really unfair. They were playing Slovenia and that’s a really hard fixture. Fielding, as they do, no less than 11 Slovenians in their team. That’s more than you’d get anywhere else in Germany. Or England. And although Slovenia is ranked 57th in the football… errrrr… ranking table, that’s not to underestimate them. In a nation famous for… Sloves?… errrr… famous for not doing well in football tournaments, they were always going to be difficult opposition. And if they’re not, we’ll play so awfully that we make them look like they’re difficult. And that’s how good we were. Who needs goals when you can win the group with a nil-nil tedium-fest? Better that way.

Kier Starmer (England fan, Arsenal fan…) has 3 problems. The Greens, who feel he’s not green enough. The Pro-Palestinians, who feel he’s not Palestinian enough; he never wears a keffiyeh in Parliament, nor shouts ‘from the river to the sea’ at the Tories. And from the ‘trans’ lobbyists and ‘feminists’ who between them have produced Fermat’s last theorem for the non-mathematical. A problem for which there is no solution within the bounds of all we know. Even Alexa can’t help with this one.

The ‘trans’ group want empathy, understanding and compassion for their plight, which is definitely a difficult one. So they want to be treated in their chosen gender. Particularly trans women. Even if they have a penis and a beard. Whereas the feminists are stubbornly insistent on having ‘safe spaces’ for women. Like public toilets. Changing rooms. So the question is: at what point in this ‘transition’ is a former man unquestionably a woman? Anyone can wear a dress. I do it all the time. Means nothing. And Kier has pledged to make it ‘easier to be certified’. Which is one step away from ‘self certification’, the absolute farcical situation they tried in Scotland for 10 minutes until a bloke used it to get into a women’s prison and, surprise surprise, assaulted women (ones without penises).

Wherever you draw the line will upset one party or the other. And both are militant. So good luck with that one Kier. And he thought he only had to bother about the economy, education, policing, knife-crime and the Euros.

Happy One week to voting day, day

A xxxx

People assume, when they see me, that I’m this, pretty perfect physical specimen, neat, compact, tidy kind’a guy, fully in control of his limbs and extremities. Unfortunately this is not strictly the case as I’ve always had the pretty unfailing ability, as my dear mother used to say, to ‘fall over a blade of grass’. I try to control it. I medicate. I attend Clumsy Bastards Anonymous meetings, I wear padded suits. Yet just when you think all is safe, bits of the world jump up and bash me.

I was playing tennis with Spurs Paul on Saturday. Ok, it had been raining a bit (remember rain? Phah, thing of the past), and I went for a shot that was, if I’m honest, a bit out of reach. So I did what any dedicated tennis god (or total fucking schmuck) and I dived for it. I got the ball, then realised I was in mid-air and under the influence of gravity. Grazed my right hand and right knee. Bled a lot. Stuck on a few plasters and played on.

Sunday morning was bone dry. It was a fabulous, clear, sunny morning. When I was attacked by a hedge. There I was, on my bike, just cycling down the alleyway on the way to more tennis. Both sides of the alley have big hedges. And this time of year they all become triffids and explode in size. So as I weaved my way down between the bushes, my handlebar caught on a branch. Leaving me in mid air and under the influence of gravity. Left elbow, knee, hand, hip and shoulder. Lots more blood. Considered getting a transfusion, just in case, but instead washed the blood off, stuck on a few plasters they gave me at my cafe, and went to play. The blood stains clashed with the coffee stains which adorn all my (174) white t-shirts, but not much I can do about that.

My brief in such such situations is: just make it look not too bad for when Mel sees it.

I mean: fuck me!!!! I’m a wreck. Beaten to shit by gravity and gravel. So when I said to Mel that because the weather’s so beautiful, I’m going to take my electric bike into the City today, she banned it. Stole the battery so it won’t go. Hid the keys. Let the tyres down. Because she feels that klutziness comes in cycles. Or perhaps it’s karma for all the bad shit I do.

I’m going to be very careful from now on. Meanwhile, I’ve bought shares in Elastoplast. I would say ‘hedging’ but after Sunday…

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

So let’s get it straight. What Farage actually said. Which was that Russia was provoked into attacking Ukraine by the ever eastward extensions of the EU and of NATO. You can disagree with that. But only if you’re a moron, an imbecile, any politician trying to score pathetic moral high ground points or anyone else who either knows nothing or chooses to re-write Nige’s words so it seems they know nothing.

This alleged provocation was not intentional and yet was totally predictable and understandable. Russia sees NATO as ‘the enemy’ and ‘Europe’ too. So to see all his neighbours gradually inducted into the EU is bad enough if you’re not a paranoid megalomaniac. But when they join NATO, the ‘armed forces bit’ of the West, he simply HAS to react. With the blessing of his people who eat up his rhetoric about the evil West who aim to take over the world. Their world.

Farage didn’t justify the war against Ukraine. He just put it in that context. As he did 10 years ago.

I don’t even like Farage, so why am I defending him?

Because I sadly listened to the radio on the way back from the dump (long story) and heard every MP, every spokesperson for every political party, spout the same shit. Which is that ‘Farage supports Putin in his war on Ukraine’. Where’d they get that? Some took it even further and called him ‘a threat to national security’. Really? One even stopped just a whisker short of accusing him of being complicit in the recent Russian hacking of the NHS computers. FFS.

It’s all about timing. Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th because Israel was on the brink of signing an accord with Saudi Arabia. Iran’s greatest enemy (other than Israel). So it sought to destabilise so that yet another Arab nation wouldn’t side with Israel or even be on good trade and political terms with them.

Similarly, Ukraine applied to join NATO, and that was Putin’s red line. Well, Russia’s all a bit red, this is a different red though. So he invaded. He’d reached the point where American rockets and missiles could be sited within a mile of his border.

How can every politician in our country misread something so wrongly? Other than to try and gain some weak advantage from it. Turn Nigel into a straw man and set him alight for their own gain. Unfortunately for them, Farage is just cleverer than all of them and won’t be bothered in the least.

Honestly, it’s enough to make you vote ‘Reform’. Almost.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Rishi Sunak made the greatest sacrifice possible, for a political leader. He knew that whenever the election was called he was going to be humiliated. There was no doubt nor question, it was only a matter of ‘how badly’. So he took one for the team. The football team. Because knowing how badly most ‘real’ football fans (the sober ones who don’t have vuvuzelas) feel about internationals, he realised that the only way to actually make the football seem interesting was by instigating something so dull, so drab, so predictable and banal, that it would even make the footy look exiting. Hence the call for an almost unprecedented July election. In the middle of the Euros.

Yet when he called it (the odds were 34 to 1, at that point), he had no idea that, either the football was to be so bad, or that, had he waited another 4 days, he could have got his team 57 to 1 from Betfair. Lost opportunities.

Because the football has managed to out-dull the pre-election-bollocks!!! And that hasn’t happened since John Major won against the stiffest opposition from Arsenal’s George Graham years. (1 nil, to the To-o-ries, 1 nil…).

First it was the Scots. Ok, that was fairly amusing in an ‘auld enemy banter’ kind’a way. But then England played. The first match was merely awful. Last night we were elevated to ‘simply dire’. The Scots have since drawn a match which, in this part of the Euros, and if you are desperate, counts as a ‘VICTORY!!’, a chance at least.

The leader of the SNP has an accumulator on. His party to tank in Scotland without a majority and Slovenia to beat England by 6 goals. 250 to 1. As far as independence goes, if the SNP win, that’ll be a mandate for a referendum. If they lose, that’ll be a mandate for a referendum. Every time I hear that song from Frozen, ‘Let it go’, I think of Scotland. (32 to 3 against).

I’m going to the bookies this afternoon, even without any inside information at all. I’m putting 50 quid on Kier Starmer to stick to a statement for 5 consecutive days, George Galloway to get killed in what would be a ‘friendly fire’ terrorist attack, Spain to win the Euros, Harry Kane to win the Golden Boot, The Lib-Dems to take Somerset East and the whole Serbian team to get burned alive by their own fans flares. 2 million to 1.

I’ll bet its a good Friday

A xxxx

The main political parties, and also the Lib Dems, Greens and Farages, have now laid down their projections and intentions should they win the election. Why the ‘other’ parties do so is beyond me, but they’re on election autopilot and know no better. It’s manifesto season so you ‘show your plumage’. Tossers. The Faragers, being the illegitimate love-child of Sir Nigel and some other clever xenophobe who wishes not to be named, have instead issued their ‘contract’. It’s like a manifesto but for parties that won’t win many… any… seats. And it’s a good idea. Less presumptuous than issuing ‘your plans when elected’, when you obviously won’t be. Reform’s ‘contract’ is what they want to do in 5 years time. Subtle but very clever. Very Farage. He has an unerring understanding of how not to piss everyone off, even and especially, those who actually disagree with 90% of what he says.

If only the ‘big two’ had any such clue. They do nothing but piss me off. Because now the manifestos are launched, we enter the analysis phase of telling everyone how THEIR manifesto won’t work. Doesn’t add up. Sums are wrong.

Ahhh, cries shadow chancellor Rachel, the Tories are cutting tax by 0.6% of 22 billion of the first 75% of national GDP and in fact that raises the overall tax burden by 9.34% over and above the 22.7% increase in bank rate reconstruction considerations. That will cost everyone in the country precisely: £4,800!!!!

Fuck, I’m voting Labour then!!!

Ah, but the chancellor has analysed Labour’s plans and within 0.3% of national debt interest limits, the planned NHS expenditure exceeds budgetary means by 26% over the drop in National Insurance contributions by the self-employed. Which will cost everyone in Britain, precisely, £4,800!!!!

Even Farage has made fiscal promises of a rather dodgy nature. But he’s allowed more latitude in such respects because of his inherent ‘dodgy geezer’ status. He’s just a skinhead with hair. He’s going to find 50 billion quid to go towards the NHS (everyone has to say that, its as mandatory as it is worthless and stupid) and to help fish out foreigners in the population and deport them. 12 billion of this money will come from ‘making a 5% cut in the Civil Service workforce’. The total annual cost of which is 9 bil. Making 5% about 450 million. A bit short there, Nigel, but there ya go.

At least Nige has made it a much more interesting election campaign than it would have been. But unless I can remember where I put those photos of Starmer in bed with three children and two sheep, I think it’s a foregone conclusion. In fact, any photo of Starmer doing anything remotely ‘interesting’ would be good.

Happy Hustings

A xxxx

I’m taking down all my posters from the bedroom wall. The 55 year-old one of 20 year-old Olivia Newton-John with flick-up hair, Charlie’s Angels, with more flick-up hair (I like flick-up hair), Kylie Minogue in hot-pants, Gal Gadot in Wonderwoman and the Wonderbra ad. All coming down. Mel doesn’t mind, long as it doesn’t leave marks on the wallpaper. And it’s because I have new crush. This one. Jude Bellingham. Not in a sexual way, obviously, as I’ve always identified as a lesbian, but just because he’s so beautiful. Big. Strong. And wonderful. I can almost even forgive that unforgivable Brummy accent because he speaks so nicely and is witty and charming. He is possibly the most totally perfect man since… well, since me. No faint praise.

Despite telling you how uninterested I am in the Euro football tournament, I was an unwitting victim of place and time. My birthday party guests had left (Lila and Joey, couple’a daughters, Tory Boy) so we cleared up the destruction and devastation, which only took 3 or 4 hours, and I just found myself sitting with the Sunday papers quite near a tv at 8 o’clock. What can you do?

I watched, but only the first half. Then, because it was my birthday I took a bath. So now I’m clean for another year. Plus, I can’t watch Gary Linneker without wanting to damage the tv and Cesc Fabregas’s teeth were distractingly bright. Apparently the second half wasn’t much anyway. But that first half was: The Jude Bellingham Show.

Never mind his goal, which was absolutely brilliantly taken, it was his overall total control of the game that had me hooked. He moves majestically, he’s tough, he tackles. Those horrible Serbian hooligans tried to push him around, he just pushed back. He goes down; he just gets up again. Thus was the main cause of the Serb’s 19 fouls. But they couldn’t stop him. For someone so big and strong he’s remarkably agile, quick and graceful. And that’s such a rare combination that I haven’t seen in any player since Zidane. A previous incumbent of the number 5 shirt at Real Madrid. And if you’re being compared to ZZ when you’re 20, you’re not doing badly.

So that’s it, my new man-crush. Poster going up today. Because Mel thinks he’s gorgeous too. She loves big(?), strong, dark(ish), rugged types.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

We all hate Alexa, right? She sits there in the corner, as if she’s minding her own business. And we think her ‘business’ is to play us the radio channel of our choice, the album which springs to mind, a weather report that will be fucking awful. Whereas her actual ‘business’ is spying for Beijing. She reports directly to President Xi, who listens to every conversation we have, eager to learn what we’re making for dinner, when the car needs charging, how Mel is struggling (again) to work out an Amazon return, even though she’s done 3 every day since the first lockdown.

And no-one likes a spy. An eavesdropper. Yet here I am in the kitchen with Wishbone Ash playing loudly behind me. I finished The Groundhogs playlist whilst preparing lunch. The old vinyl albums are somewhere in the loft. I’ve tried sticking one in the Sony SoundBar but it won’t fit. But the Chinese can play it for me without any bother. So, it would seem, resistance is futile.

Been lucky this weekend. At 10.25 yesterday morning the torrential rain just stopped. We play at 10.30, and we did. Then as I was back, about 100 yards from home, the heavens opened again. The courts dry quickly, leaving just 2 slippery patches. One each, which was nice. Thus I hit a ball, looked up to see no opponent. Spurs Paul had vanished! He slipped on his ‘wet patch’ and gone over. He was fine. I know you’re concerned. As you should be. He’s no youngster. He got up, we played on. And I thought: it’s much better to fall over whilst running round a tennis court than when getting out of bed at 3 am to go to the toilet. Young person’s fall, old person’s fall.

Which I mention just because today I am officially 68 years old. Which accounts for listening to The Groundhogs, Wishbone Ash, etc. Then I realised that with age comes experience. And thus, in this morning’s tennis, I used that extra ‘maturity’ and ‘statesmanship’(?) as Spurs Paul isn’t 68 for 3 weeks. Whippersnapper. Yet it’s only when you write it down that ‘68’ takes on meaning. That meaning being ‘Jesus!! That’s fucking old!!!!’

But heh, you’re as young as you feel, right?? And how I feel depends on the time of day, or night, and how many cars I’ve washed, lawns I’ve mowed, tennis matches I’ve played. Can feel 25, can feel 107. And I can still get into my lovely, age-inappropriate car. Just takes a little longer.

Happy Birthday and Happy Father’s Day

A xxxx

There’s a football tournament on. Don’t know if you caught that. Started last night. In Germany. Which makes all the metaphorical talk of ‘Munich being invaded by a Scottish army’ a bit… insensitive? Or maybe I’m just being too soft. Too historical. Anyway, there’s football in the middle of the summer and that’s something we should all be exceedingly grateful for. Not only that, but… it’s a showcase for all the bestest, most exitingest, most heavily tattooed, most ridiculously overpaid, soccer super-talent. Ever!!! And dressed in their full international kit regalia. Brilliant!

Except…

I’m finding a growing number of serious football fans becoming ever more disillusioned with international football. And I don’t know why. I’m there in my full England kit, my Gareth Southgate waistcoat, my bass drum strapped to my chest and a ‘King Charles face’ strapped round my head, cross of St George blowing in the wind, ready to go to Heathrow and no-one’s coming with me. It would appear that proper football fans don’t want to go to internationals any longer. They leave that to those who just like to drink beer all day and all night and more in between, if possible. Football England seem to be doing their recruiting at Alcoholics Anonymous. The failures section. Fallen far off the wagon.

International football seems to have lost its connection with sober people. And as someone who is sober at least some of the time (when I HAVE to be), I’m struggling to find my enthusiasm for this tournament. Maybe it’ll come, as it progresses and gets a bit more exiting. The match tomorrow, England’s opener against Serbia will just open the old Harry Kane wounds and have me wondering why Jude Bellingham earns his (outrageous) wages in Madrid. And the match will be played, as all Serbia matches are, under a cloud of red smoke. It’s either a case of Serbians having some kind of ‘all the flares you can carry’ permanent deal, or it’s that Serbians spontaneously combust at football matches, leaving just plumes of red smoke. And the ones who aren’t ’auto-burners’ are just there for the fighting. And to demonstrate just how far ‘to the right’ most of Europe has moved.

So if I’m not interested in England much, what is the point of the tournament? Ah, you see, the purpose is to enjoy the suffering of other nations. Like, shall we say, just for an example… so many to choose from… ok, Scotland. No one likes to see the Germans win anything. And much as I really like most Scots who I meet, the ones I can understand anyway, when it comes to international sport, they are our enemies. I didn’t want to see them so humiliated last night but they must learn from their mistakes. Heaven knows they made enough. Primarily they must learn that ‘someone standing between the goalposts is not automatically a goal keeper’. They need certain skills not apparently available north of the border.

So the tournament moves slowly through the group stages. Giving the commentary team the chance to learn the pronunciations of lots of obscure stadiums all of which sound like cheap wines made from antifreeze.

COME ON ENGLAND!!! (We are in the tournament, aren’t we? What about Brazil?)

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I was eagerly awaiting the Green Party manifesto. I’m desperate to know how they’re going to save the planet. Or, at least, save the borough of Barnet. And yet I’m a little confused.

To get their ‘manifesto’, they need to meet up. Traveling from across the country to a meeting place in, say, Stony Stratford, using up valuable resources, burning carbons, they can’t all fucking cycle there, can they? Then they turn on all those lights in the meeting room, drink coffee, or probably bark-water, being Greens, using only the bark of dead trees. And then they write down their manifesto. They plan it. Make notes, compile the list, embellish, re-do, put it on the computer (electricity and… wear and tear on fingers, shedding skin cells into MY environment) and eventually, they print out the ‘finished article’. On paper!! No wonder there are so many dead trees for their tea, they’ve cut them all down to print out their document.

Which no-one will ever read. Or care about. Or give a single thought to. Because, politically speaking, they are an irrelevance. A waste of my oxygen every time they speak. Yet they have some brilliantly innovative ideas. They want to throw another 40 billion quid at the NHS!!! Like it’ll make a difference. But where will they get it? Oh, they’re going to have a ‘wealth tax’. Millionaires and billionaires will be taxed on their assets. ‘Just 2%’. Well, a billionaire will be more than happy to give them 20 million quid every year. That sort of money is always ‘liquid’, lying under the bed in used notes. It’d be cheaper to get a divorce. Or… he/she could just move to Switzerland/Monaco/Caymans/Bermuda. And take their innovative, creative, job-creating mind over there. Great idea. Get rid of the people we need to ‘grow’.

They’re also going give a knighthood to Greta Thunberg and declare freedom for all of Palestine, an officially recognised state, with borders ‘from the river to the sea’.

Meanwhile, the leader of the Opposition, soon to be King-of-all-he-surveys, did the best ever impression of a ‘deer in the headlights’ when asked a fairly straightforward question for which he wasn’t prepared. Then was asked the best question of all: why did you say, prior to the last election, that Jeremy Corbyn would make a great Prime Minister? When later you sacked him from the party and accused him of all manner of evil? His answer: ‘Jeremy was never going to win that election’. Making Sir Kier my undisputed Tosser of the Week, even with such staunch competition from the Greens. Because, yet again, the man changes his mind about absolutely everything to the extent that he cannot be trusted.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx