Andy's Glasses

What the fuck is our government taking with its tea? What is the drug which makes seemingly (or hopefully) sensible, slightly knowledgable people, take massive world problems and think that some kind of facile ‘just world theory’ can be used to solve ALLLLLLL the problems. Add a little fairy dust and EVERYBODY will be happy and live in peace forevermore!!!!

Well I have some tragic news for Sir Kier and his fuckwit-in-chief Foreign Secretary: the world ain’t ‘just’ and it never has been. So by stating, along with a few other Euro-tossers, that ‘Ukraine may have to concede some land, but we’ll insist on a security backstop including membership of NATO…’ they show an ignorance beyond anyone’s imagination. The war started (that’ll be Putin, then) because Ukraine stated its intention to join NATO. Putin’s worst nightmare. American military on his doorstep. So Putin’s reaction is, as always, just take the place over. All of it. Throw a few million of its finest young men at it and you get what you want. To prevent having NATO there. And Lammy thinks that’s the way forward. What I call (in tribute to the Marx brothers) ‘the insanity clause’. Yes, no-one believes in-Sanity-Claus. Other than David Lammy.

Who then, in talks with JD Vance, told the American our government’s ‘solution’ to Gaza. Just recognise a ‘Palestinian State’. JD said that the first aim is to get rid of Hamas. Oh yes, agreed Lammy, the ‘new State’ will have to be without Hamas, obviously. So we’re all agreed on that then. Oh, just one detail: how do you get rid of Hamas? Does Lammy think they’ll just put down their arms and hand over their missiles and walk out with their hands up? Does he imagine that after the last almost 2 years the insanely jihadi terrorists who revere death will just walk away from everything they’ve done and leave it for others? (Though who those ‘others’ might be is another question altogether).

Vance represents and reacts to the real world. Lammy is playing the ‘fantasy football’ version. In his quest for a ‘happy ending’ (and a knighthood), our foreign secretary is living in a world of make believe. In order to try and delude the more realistic among us that our government know what’s going on and are fit and able to solve international issues.

It’s like Wayne Rooney running a symposium on AI.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I just read that ‘55% of the food consumed by Americans is Ultra processed’. Wow! 55%!!!

What they don’t tell you is: 55% of what? The overall calorific values? The overall weight? And is that an overall figure for the nation? Or that the average American eats 55% u/p food?

However, as there is no accepted, scientific definition of exactly what constitutes ‘ultra processed food’, it all becomes a bit academic. Literally.

And those academics probably discovered this horrible truth in their chronically obese nation by watching people in McDonalds. Who, as a demographic grouping, probably consume 85% of their own bodyweight every day by ‘supersizing’ everything, then going home to eat crisps and drink beer in front of the tv.

One good thing about u/p foods is that they never really make you feel full. They just make you want more. Salt, sugar and fat do that. Protein fills you, but its terribly overrated.

I went to McDonalds yesterday. Its now a kind of ‘red letter day’ when I do that. As opposed to 10 years ago when going to McDonalds just meant there was a ‘y’ in the day. Ahhhh, life before statins…

When you order, on the McScreens, its almost impossible not to end up with more than you wanted. Everything you order is then offered bigger, double sized, with chips and a drink, with a ‘side’ of another hamburger? Then when you try to pay, they’re still offering to supersize you ‘for just 80p!!!’ Like they used to until it was banned after that movie. Yet obviously has become socially acceptable once more to try and force ‘just’ another 475 calories on your child’s meal. I ended up with a ‘double’ Filet of Fish. To accompany my other burger. I didn’t want a ‘double’. Didn’t even know they made one. But if your concentration slips for just one second in McDonalds, you’re 300 calories worse (better?) off.

I want to know what percentage of the u/p food eaters vote for the parties in America. I like to think that ALL the Republicans are massively obese and eat shit all day, whereas the Democrats are careful, diet-conscious, health-aware gym bunnies and lettuce munchers. I may be prejudiced.

And what about Sydney Sweeney?? Nothing obese about her. And a card-carrying Republican!!! Must be the only Hollywood star in that particular demographic. Shame she’s so un-woke that she’s almost a nazi.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I read the most terrible thing this morning. Convertible cars are doomed. The motor industry has conspired to take away the bestest, most fun, incredibly enjoyable experience that driving can offer in order to normalise the world into a homogenous gloop of faceless SUVs. Nah mate, ya don’ need a convertible, ‘ave one a these, looks jus like a farkin’ Range Rover, dunnit? Only comes in black…

Hence the number of manufacturers NOT making any convertibles at all for the UK market has grown from 20%, 20 years ago, to 70% now. A tragedy.

What are you supposed to do for your mid-life crisis!!! Run off with the paper-girl? Get a Harley?? Take up line dancing (shoot me now, FFS)??? Acquire a Fender guitar?? Ride an ebike???

But the first option was ALWAYS: get a convertible. Just because you need a car that is functionally almost completely useless. Though if you live in a country like England where it rarely rains and is warm and sunny 365 days a year, you’re ok. Hmmmm. Otherwise, half the car is taken up with ‘the place to store the roof’, you generally lose a couple of seats, there’s wind noise, leaks, and always a risk the roof may get slashed. Or the car may get slashed in, if you leave the top down.

I always wanted a convertible. As a kid I watched a program on tv called “77 Sunset Strip” and the coolest of the characters drove today’s pic. Still, possibly, the most beautiful car ever made. But ‘Cookie’ (the character in the prog) always had the top down. Ok, I get that Sunset Strip in in California, not Hornsey, but still… I fell in love with the concept. As soon as I could afford one, I bought a drop head. A Fiat X19. Another truly beautiful car. And so it went on. I managed never to outgrow the love of that feeling. The freedom. The air. The rain-panic to GET THE TOP UP!!!

And they want to take it away. Government will probably ban it. Or tax it to death. Well, THEY WILL NEVER PUT A LID ON MEEEEEE!!!!!

Had a new idea today for a really cool fitness concept, I’m thinking of taking out the patent. As Mel came back from her ‘spin’ class, I arrived on my ebike. She was sweating like a… sweaty thing, I was cool as ya like. I’d gone further. So I’m going to set up ‘E-spin’ classes. Where the static bikes are all motorised. Like mine. Then you can do the class without all that horrible strain and sweat. Remember: you heard it here first!!!

Happy open-top Wednesday

A xxxx

Hi, its me again, Trish, from the Palestine Action march a few weeks
ago. Remember? I was the tall fair-haired woman (not completely
natural in colour but everyone says it really suits me) wearing Laura
Ashley and my keffiah, singing about rivers and seas before I got
arrested. Anyway, my husband pitched up with our solicitor and 2
eminent barristers from his golf club and they arranged my release.
Humphrey was understandably a bit put out that I was in a jail with a
dozen certified jihadis, 3 imams and Marge from my bridge club. Told
me I should be keeping better company, he’s never been keen on Marge.

Well next weekend it’s going to be even better. As I gave my email to
everyone at the rally who asked for it, I’m on the register for action
for Palestine Action, action? Along with the new Palestine Action
Workers Collective, the Group for Action in Palestine and Save the
Whales. Whatever, I’m pretty darned ‘hard core’ if you ask me. My
knitting circle were literally agog when I told them. So I get the
bulletins of upcoming ‘events’. Along with calls for sharia law and
voting for Jeremy Corbyn, the wretched little man. I could never vote
for anyone that grubby. But still, I don’t have to reply to all the
messages. Like the ones asking for money to support the Holy War. But
one did catch my eye.

This weekend we’re going to March again, but all proclaiming our
allegiance to Palestine Action again and, according to Imran, 500 of
us will sit down with our banners of support and consequently get
arrested. BUT… and here’s the good bit, the time and money and
resources required to process 500 people is so ridiculously excessive,
for a bunch of middle-class half-wits who’ll never get to court, means
the Police won’t bother. We’ll have won. I’m just not sure precisely
what that victory will mean, but that’s the whole point of protesting;
it’s sheer pointlessness. Because its safe to say that not one, single
Gazan child will avoid starvation because a bunch of virtue-signalling
imbeciles sat in Parliament Square trying to get a group of
treasonous, destructive terrorists to become un-banned by the
government.

But if I don’t go to the protest I’ll have to start baking for the
cake sale in the village in the Cotswolds where our farm is. And I’ve
run out of flour.

Happy Tuesday

Tricia xxxx

There are numerous eateries in our country which are ‘banning’ Coca Cola. Because of its ‘ties to Isreal’. Which I think means an Israeli once drunk it. Probably Diet Coke. It’s very popular over there. Maybe that’s what causes the insanity in the IDF to commit all the atrocities they’re accused of. I’ve seen what a sip does to Joey and that was pretty bad.

So Starbucks and KFC and McDonalds are basically boycotted in towns and cities with a high Muslim population. Because no link to Israel, no matter how disconnected, fleeting or distant, is too vague to avoid boycott. Whereas much closer and more direct Israeli-influenced items remain un-banned. Like i-phones and i-pads, pacemakers and a vast number of medications.

And here’s the problem. As the nation, in fact probably as ‘the world’, divides into factions over the war in Gaza; as the ‘pro-Palestinians’ gain traction over those caught in their normal, safe, middle-class, waspy lefty-liberalism which makes them ‘protest’ in defence of any cause or minority or (often misplaced) sense of injustice. The ones who go around singing ‘from the river to the sea’ because they don’t understand what it means and think it’s something to do with a summer holiday. And as ‘Israel-phobia’ catches on, extends and becomes all pervasive, we have to ask where it all stops.

We have 5 ‘Gaza’ MPs in parliament now. There’s also lots of MPs with really tiny minorities over ‘independents’ (Gaza), like Wes Streeting, the minister for Health. 500-odd majority where last time it was over 25,000. Corbyn’s new party will dominate the pro-Palestine lobby and will attract, they estimate, 29% of the ‘new’ voters, the 16 to 18 year olds eligible to cast their ballots for the first time.

And much as Corbyn has never made any difference between pro-Palestine and pro-Hams, nor pro-ISIS for that matter, this conflation of convenience, this blurring of lines, works the other way too. Where ‘anti-Zionism’ can almost interchange with ‘anti-semitism’ for contextual reasons. And thus anyone seen as ‘pro-Zionist’ is the enemy. As most (but certainly not all, for some really ridiculous reason) Jews are Zionists, the Corbyn attitude, the coke-banners attitude, the Towns and Cities which elected Mayors and MPs on ‘pro-Palestine’ tickets, will all view Jews as ‘the enemy’ by virtue of their presumed Zionistic leanings.

At the end of my road are few shops, known collectively as ‘the Market Place’. And on the central reservation railings are tied hundreds of yellow ribbons. The sign of support for the hostages still imprisoned by Hamas. The ribbons are cut down, then replaced, then cut down, regularly. Someone bravely confronted a ribbon-cutter and videod it. As a very nice-looking, normal type, presumably Muslim guy was shouting at the woman, telling her how the ribbons are supporting ‘the genocide’!!! And ‘apartheit’!!! And that’s why they had to come down. The irony that the ribbons actually represent the day when a true genocide was attempted on Israel, when rape and the most brutal of murders took place and men, women, children and babies were kidnapped was lost in the re-written history of that awful day.

This ain’t good.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I have private medical insurance. I have had it with the same company for about 30 years. And other than a few instances (new shoulder; what they reckoned was a ‘tma’ but I think otherwise as every test out of about a million came up negative, but there ya go) I’ve been a net loser. I pay my money and I don’t get ill. And although my insurers were taken over by AXA a few years ago, they still act as if they’re a nice, small, non-profit, almost caring(!!) bunch. They answer the phones. Yeah, honest. And the person you speak to will be the only person you need. And they’re charming to deal with. And don’t charge excesses on anything. Because we’re somehow hooked into the plan we had when we started and they keep things the same. God bless ‘em.

But now, it’s payback time for them. I seem to have an appointment a week. I have my own parking space at Highgate Hospital. The receptionist knows how I take my coffee.

I had my mole removed on my belly. I miss it every day. And the biopsy came back; it’s not cancer. Thank the God I don’t believe in. BUTTTT… it’s something unpronounceable which they treat as if it WAS cancer. Oh. So they want to remove another chunk of me, around where the mole was, to be ‘safe’. I’ll be 24gms lighter. Maybe 26. But with a big hole in my belly.

I came back from Croatia with ears so blocked they had virtually ceased to function in any hearing relevant kind of way. They served only to slow me down on my bike with their wind resistance. I saw an ear-doc, it wasn’t infected, nor waxed up, some other, more subtle problem. Sorted with drops. Better than having great chunks cut out of my ears too.

And now, this very morning, I was running round the tennis court like a… like someone who shouldn’t be running round a tennis court, when something deep, painful and seemingly catastrophic occurred in my left hip. Which, if I’m honest (something I try to avoid), has been bothering me for about 3 weeks now, but I ignore. Other than the ibuprofen I’ve been self-administering for the last 2. Lot of fucking use that turned out to be. I was just stretching for a shot and KA-BOOM!!!, an invisible alien put a pick axe through my hip. A horrible, sudden and intensely… horrible event. I think I won the point. Hope so. It may be my last for a while.

So I’m gonna go get a scan. See a doc. Get help. They need to get me back on the tennis court as soon as possible. It’s a terrible loss to the whole game.

And by having private medicine, just think of the benefits to the nation. To the NHS. I’m not seeing their doctors, clogging up waiting lists (I’m not one of life’s natural ‘waiters’) or wasting NHS time. I’m so benevolent. Even in pain.

Happy HEALTHY Saturday

A xxxx

I’d just like to say that, just like you, Mr, Mrs, Ms, They, Whatever, Football Fan, I have about the same degree of interest in ‘pre-season friendly’ matches that I do about Women’s football. And yet, just look how that one turned out after last Sunday!!! Now I’m an honorary Lioness (I’ve no idea what that means, I’m just jumping on any winning bandwagon around) and wear my hair in a ponytail in their honour.

And today the other big ‘why fucking bother’ of football created yet another moment of re-think. The friendlies one.

Friendlies are to warm the players up, get them back to match speed, before the season starts. You can spend 15 hours a day in a gym but it’s not the same as spending 90 minutes on a pitch. Even if that pitch is in Luton. But a few years ago ‘friendlies’ became a good little ‘earner’ for the clubs. You play in Reading, you have to pay for the diesel getting there. But if you play in Saudi Arabia or Buenos Aries or Hong Kong, you get paid a lot of money. And the Saudis probably give you a barrel of diesel to take home. Sort of a ‘party bag’.

Chelsea won some worthless piece of silverware earlier this summer break by beating PSG in Abu Dhabi. No one cares. No one went. Unless they were given jewels and Lamborghinis and diesel for playing there.

But today, everything changed. Today the whole concept of a ‘pre-season friendly’ took on a new dimension. It got unfriendly. It got a bit more real. People actually took notice. Ok, I actually took notice. But only because someone told me it was being played, half way through.

For the first time ever, a North London derby, the most important matches in ANY season, was played in Hong Kong. Ok, that in itself wouldn’t normally cause me any degree of excitement or joy. But the fact is: we won. We thrashed Arsenal. Ok, 1-nil doesn’t sound much of a thrashing, but trust me; even though I didn’t see one kick of it, a thrashing it was. Psychologically. And possibly psychiatrically. Either way, it’s a fantastic result. And they gave us a cup. ANOTHER one. We don’t win one for 30 years and then 2 come along together. Phah! We’ve barely got room in our trophy cabinet for it; maybe we’ll lend it to Arsenal for the season…

Basically, don’t you tell me any match is ‘only a friendly’ from now on. They’re important games. BIG games. You can read into it whatever you choose, for me, it is absolute proof and guarantee that we’re going to win the league. And the cup. Probably champions league too.

Very happy Thursday

A xxxx

I am going to officially recognise the official state, officially known henceforth as Conwayland. I will lay down precise demarcation of this area, as agreed with my wife and both grandchildren (who have been promised princely titles and Lego sets). Furthermore, I will demand that Conwayland will be treated as an overseas territory for tax purposes. Its occupants will be exempt from all taxes including vat and road tax. And parking tickets. White vans are all banned from entry.

And thus to Kier Starmer, ‘recognising a Palestinian State’. Along with Macron the trisexual and a host of other Euro-fuckwits and deviants. What the fuck does that even mean? Other than rewarding Hamas for the October 7th murders and kidnappings. And then, it was so important, that David Lammy (!!!!!- sharp intake of breath!!!!), no less, made a whole speech about it. And demanding!!!! a ceasefire. So that a 2-state solution can be worked out easily and peace will ‘flow’ in the region forevermore, amen.

Israel listens to the UK government like your mother-in-law listens to a fly that lands on her table. It is a complete irrelevance. But they reckon if enough countries spout the same shit, the dung-heap-in-chief; the United Nations, will make the declaration. The same UN who said nothing when over 1000 Druze were murdered in Syria 2 weeks ago. Not a mention. Similarly, Amnesty International didn’t deem this worthy of any comment, let alone condemnation. Nor to the hundreds of thousands starving in Sudan. 26.6 million people on the verge of starvation, yet how many cries for ‘aid’ have you heard?

You can’t recognise a state when it has no recognised government. Other than one which you, the government of the UK, has already declared to be terrorists. What message would that send to terrorists the world over? Go on a murder spree and get a free country!!!

And its irrelevant that Bibi Netenyahu and his horrible cohort of right wing nasties won’t approve a ‘2-state solution’, because Hamas, nor the PLO, nor any other Palestinian faction or body will approve that either. They don’t want it. They want a 1-state solution. The whole lot. From the river to the sea. That’s why they’ve rejected the offer 3 times in recent times.

Kier Starmer has now been elevated. Promoted. Re-designated. He has reached the exalted position of being The Official Dickhead’s Dickhead. All stand.

Starmer is not reacting to the truly horrible scenes from Gaza. He is reacting to the pressure from his own MPs, many of whom are still deciding whether to move over to the party of their spiritual leader, Jeremy Corbyn. A Hamas fan and ‘friend’ to Islamist terrorists. These are the people influencing our weak and pliable ‘leader’. Coupled with political threats from both Corbyn and Farage, Starmer is ‘taking a strong stance’. Which will probably change next week anyway.

By holding Israel responsible for the horrors of Gaza is to miss the plot. Hamas are responsible for the horrors of Gaza. Any ‘normal’ government, faced with the death and starvation of its people would surrender themselves (as they are the problem, not the rest of Palestine). But instead, they keep fighting. Because it feeds their narrative to sacrifice the population for its cause. Every dead Palestinian, every starving child is a ‘win’ for Hamas. Who do NOT play by normal standards. These are people who lovingly send their own children out wearing suicide vests. Who hide munitions under hospitals, missile launchers in school playgrounds, waiting for the inevitable strikes which give them miles of PR, just for the cost of a few dead kids, sick patients. A win-win for them.

And Starmer wants to give them a state. What a totally moronic tosser.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

WTF is going on in Epping? A town made famous by being named on half of all central line tube trains heading east. The end of the line. The end of London. Deepest, darkest Essex. It’s a nice town. Sweet. Got its own forest, innit? A fabulous expanse of ‘wild’, where we used to go on school trips. Collecting frog spawn. Doing bark rubbings. In the days when school trips were by coach, rather than by BA763 to Quito, as they tend to be now.

And suddenly, Epping is ALL the news. Rioting every day. Protests. Counter-protests. Masses of police drawn in from all over the country. And all because of a sexual assault. Ish…

The ‘ish’ being because there was a sexual assault, which is horrible, and the perpetrator was an ‘asylum seeker’ from a local hotel where they store such people. Therefore, the ‘event’, the actual sexual assault, immediately becomes secondary to the immigration status of the perp. The poor victim becomes an anonymous pin-up girl for Nigel Farage.

As happened following last year’s horrendous murders in Southport of the little girls at a dance class, without much in the way of concrete information, the hard right take over, on a national level, and escalate the ‘response to the crime’ to truly riotous proportions. In that any ‘white’ man committing a sexual offense is just a bad person. Whereas any asylum seeker doing the same is just a representative of an entire class of people who collectively must be punished. If one does it, they can all do it.

So the nice people of Epping complain, understandably, that they really don’t want an asylum hotel in their midst, because their daughters are no longer safe. I’d think the same. But then the aggravators and instigators and provocateurs come along from Burnley and Norwich and Taunton, bringing their gangs with them to escalate the cause. Its probably not the residents of Epping throwing fire extinguishers at the police.

And we have a problem, really. That our asylum seekers are predominantly young, fit, able men. And most of them arrive here having been brought up in a different culture altogether. Often a culture where women are viewed as second class citizens, except their mothers, obviously, or otherwise a culture where contact between the sexes is forbidden. Then they bring these mindsets here and are presented with all the freedoms the liberated West can offer. And they don’t know the limits.

So what do you do? The asylum seekers arrive, they have to be kept somewhere, and yet by the very nature of their gender and culture represent a threat.

Not all refugees are rapists. Unfortunately, you don’t know which ones are. And that’s something the hard rightists play on.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I cannot tell you how proud I am of my Lionesses. I’m proud to be English. When we win things. I’m proud of every single waggling pony tail and waxed thigh. I’m proud of EVERYTHING! Because in all the interviews after the match, they were all proud of each other. The word was used 247 times in 5, 2-minute interviews. Then Prince William was proud, and even the King himself!!! And I was proud they were all proud.

I have to confess that yesterday’s final was the very first women’s football match I’ve ever watched in its entirety. And I was suitably impressed. The passing, particularly by the Spaniards, was at times brilliant. England defended superbly. And yet…

There’s an underlying ‘chaos’ to everything that happens. First touches are a bit clumsy, passes a bit weak, positional play not always as it should be. But I’m being picky, and that’s wrong. And I’m comparing it to… that other football, played by people who possess and act like a penis. This is a different game altogether and must be viewed through a different lens.

It was enjoyable. Ok, I’m a bit football-starved as July turns to August, same as every year bar the ‘big finals’. So I watched it as ‘an event’, and it was great and at times, the football was fab.

Then it came to penalties. And I’m now going to say something which will offend you. A terrible, unforgivable thing which could land me in prison. Here we go:

They should NEVER allow women to take penalties. It simply doesn’t work. They have no idea. Or they have what they think is a good idea, but it really isn’t. There’s something hormonal which prevents a basic understanding of the art of penalty taking. That if you hit the ball hard, INTO THE CORNERS, even a diving goalie can’t stop it. “Hannah Hampton heroically wins the final for England”, rang out the worthy praise for our goalkeeper. And she was very good, and quite lovely, but the Spaniards kept hitting the ball right at her. Or near enough that you could have saved it.

If matches go past extra time, perhaps they should have a knit-off? An iron-off??

None of which affects how proud I am of…

Happy Monday

A xxxx