Andy's Glasses

Today is Yom ha’atzmaut. Israel’s Independence Day. The Declaration of Independence was 14th May 1948 and since then they have turned a complete desert into a thriving, lush, beautiful and incredibly productive nation. Fiercely democratic, ultra-liberal, inclusive, tolerant and leads the world in technology and medical advancement. It also leads the world in weaponised defence systems, unfortunately but essentially.

But no one wants to know that. It’s all counter to the current narrative. To which Gary (faaaarkin’) Lineker added his own dagger in the back the other day by calling the October 7th massacre, during which 1200 people were murdered, raped, tortured, burned alive and a further 350 kidnapped, he called it “that Hamas thing”. Such a trivial ‘thing’ that he not once tweeted/said/wrote one word of horror, of condemnation, of disgust, even of amazement. Because he is a toxic imbecile.

I’m not saying that in the intervening 76 years Israel has not had a few ‘issues’. But when you live in the middle of hundreds of millions of people who wish you weren’t there, life can have its difficulties.

And here we are today. When Israel is the word that cannot be spoken. Except in Lisbon where it’s actually fine and the Jewish artefacts, memorials and buildings remain unmarked, clean and proud among a population who are accepting and tolerant. But across much of Europe and, it would seem, most of America, to even be Jewish is tantamount to a ‘crime against humanitarianism’.

So when Israel was ‘allowed’ to enter the Eurovision Song Contest, there was uproar by the virtue-signalling, uninformed, moronic and mainly antisemitic tossers of the world, led by the toxic dwarf, Greta Thunberg and those fine nations, Ireland, Greece, Switzerland, who dusted off their swastikas and made a big fuss.

Sweden, to their credit, took a stance and let Eden Golan sing her powerful song. Under massive security, armed escort, boos, protests and all the shit you’d expect. But this amazing woman simply soldiered on (poor choice of metaphor?) and eventually came 4th. Which is just so irrelevant. The Eurovision used to be a singalong talent show for the tragically untalented, showing the worst of their home nation’s inability to produce decent music. Now, it is fiercely politicised. If you’re not protesting a war, a national problem, a gender issue or someone’s abused rights, you’re not there.

I’ve never watched a Eurovision. Not since 1974 when ABBA’s Agnatha wore those skin-tight blue satin pants to help her sing Waterloo. You’ll never beat that. No point watching. Certainly no point listening. But this year I voted. Not once, not twice, but 20 times. The maximum allowable and (at 15p per vote) the maximum I could afford. And as a direct consequence of MY action Israel was the most voted song by Britain. Ok, one or two others voted for her too. Firstly because she deserved support for accepting to endure the world’s wrath and the media and social media shitstorm which inevitably occurred. But secondly because however much I agree or disagree with Israel’s methods, I can’t fault the underlying logic of getting rid of Hamas and the cancer that it brings, not just to Israel but to all of Palestine. And also because the wave of rabid antisemitism that has become part of the ‘protest’ is just fucking wrong.

Gary Lineker should rot in hell. Or at least get booted out of the BBC.

Otherwise,

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

We fly home today. 5 o’clock flight, in case you fancy picking me up from Heathrow. And who doesn’t love that trip? Which is why God invented the Elizabeth Line. Upon which special people (very very old ones) travel freeeeee!!!

It’s been truly fantastic. Yesterday we set a world record of over 26,000 steps walked. 10.2 miles in one day. Though the last 2 were walking back from dinner so we don’t remember much of that bit. But guessing, a fair bit was uphill. Lisbon is all uphill. Don’t know how those Romans, possibly Moors, arranged that but you NEVER walk downhill here, only up.

And I’d like to mention Belem. Again. Because (apparently) there’s much more too it than just the difinitive custard tart. There’s a history there. There’s intrigue, castles, monasteries, Portugal’s most famous tower, and there’s this fab memorial. The bit behind Mel.

I has a long list of names, commemorating the dead. As memorials do. Not sure when they died, I was too busy looking for selfie opportunities to bother about details. Similarly, the tower, next to this memorial is just wonderful. Worth a tenner Uber ride of anyone’s money.

Yet to actually go up the tower was more of a problem. There was a queue. Not just any queue but what we term a ‘fuk-dat!’ queue. Because the sign said ‘queuing time 2 hours’ and I said ‘fuk-dat!’ Because time is precious. Standing in 85 degrees for 2 hours is not fun. And I’d maybe have learned a few facts, but we have Wikepaedia for that, so who needs it? Similarly, the truly magnificent Monastery of someone or other had about 4 different, 2-hour queues outside. Fuk-dat! The tour coaches were arriving as fast as the Pasteis were being hauled out of the oven next door, dumping their cargo of camera-wielding, selfie-sticking, barge-you-out-the-waying… tourists!!!!

So it’s best if you invent your own history, it’s good, useful, dementia-defying creativity, to just jumble up these phrases, words and dates until it sounds plausible.

1427. Roman invasion. Moorish invasion. 1629. 1722. Burn a few Jews. Inquisition. Carlos V. Pedro IX. Paulo II. Republic.

And, based on past experience, whatever they tell you is forgotten before you’ve left the building. So why learn it in the first place when there’s sun to be bathed in, custard tarts to be eaten?

I’m thinking of starting a travel company called Impatient Tours. Surely I cannot be alone? (Again).

Happy Monday

A xxxx

So I’m still loving Lisbon. I know it’s been here about 2000 years (bloody Romans, what did they even do for Portugal???) but I like it as much as I did yesterday, if not more!! Possibly because we went to Belem for ‘the ultimate custard tart’, which was the 28 day cured Kobe beef served medium-perfect, to a Big Mac, compared to all the others. Which doesn’t mean all the others are not worth eating. Even more amazing, at the Pasteice Belem they cost 1.40 Euros. If they came from Gail’s they’d be £7.95. Paul’s Patisserie, £12.77. Because they don’t do pretentious here. They just do perfection.

And Lisbon is exceptionally beautiful. In its own way. It’s when you get out of the main city that it really gets fabulous though. Beautiful, spacious, everything well considered. It all seems to fit.

This morning we took a ‘Jewish tour’ of the city. We love those. Must have done at least a dozen, round Europe, Buenos Aries, Mumbai, loads. Wherever any Jew hath walked, we shall do a tour. To see where he went. Learn what he ate.

Portugal had a massive Jewish community. The ‘famous’ Spanish and Portuguese Sefardi Jews who still roam the planet from as far away as Golders Green to Tel Aviv. And beyond. Portugal loved its Jews, they were good at money, business, government, lots of things, back in 14 hundred and whatever. And then you get the bit which is repeated wherever you choose to do your Jewish touring. It’s always the same. Goes like this:

Then in 1523/1684/1422 a new king came to the throne. He then decided to throw all Jews out/convert all Jews to Christianity/slaughter all Jews for being too unCatholic. God made me do it. Or, that geezer with the dog-collar who speaks for God in all matters of torturing confessions and wholesale executions (economy of scale issues there). So they all left. Here’s where they used to live before it was burned to the ground/smashed to shit in pogroms/(in the case of Lisbon) destroyed in an earthquake. Pretty biblical in itself, as the earthquake was combined with a fire and a tsunami, as it was in 1755.

Yet modern day Lisbon is a tolerant place. Liberal. Accepting. Feels nice everywhere.

So we went to Belem to eat custard tarts. Because that’s what you do when the weight of history sits hard on your shoulders. Or when you just want to eat them.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

On Thursday it was Richard’s birthday. So a party was completely out of the question; they wouldn’t allow the entertainer to take animals into the ICU. And apparently strippergrams aren’t medically approved either. No cake, no champagne, no nuffink. Though the ever-wonderful nursing staff did make an effort, bless em. So I treated him to giving me a weekend in Lisbon. From where I am corresponding. It’s the least I could do for him. And I’m just loving it here.

There’s four famous Portuguese people. They are, in strict order of importance:
Christiano Ronaldo
Eusebio
Vasco de Gama
Paula Rego.

And that’s about it. Ok, there’s half a dozen B-listers knocking around, the Luis Figos and some priests of merit, one way or another, but otherwise, you would have to ask yourself if we actually need Portugal at all. Until you come to Lisbon and then it all starts to make sense.

Lisbon is built on seven hills. That’s what they tell you. Once you start walking around the place you realise that they are actually mountains. Really steep ones which don’t get any easier to climb when the thermometer rises. As it does most of the time. So you look on Google Maps and find the restaurant/bar/cafe/museum you want and it shows it to be 420 metres away, three streets across. So what’s that? 5 minutes? Yet once you cross the first traffic light you need to get your climbing gear on, or if you’re coming down, your abseiling equipment. Or a helicopter. But you do it, because wherever it was you were headed (other than the ‘museum’; the weather’s much too nice to bother with them) you will be greatly rewarded. Especially if you were looking for pasteis de nata. Little custard tarts. Yet so much more. They are ingestible orgasms. The are little bits of heaven in a world of pain. They are simply… simply… little custard tarts, the likes of which they can’t make elsewhere. And you have to eat several every day. Which you can because God has decreed (well MY God has, I can’t speak for yours) that these little wonders have absolutely zero calories at all. And no fat. Sugar. Just angel dust.

They’re great but tomorrow we’re headed to Belem, where (I think; no-one actually knows, well, no-one who can speak English actually knows, nor cares) they were invented. By monks. So you visit the Monastery tower, go wild for the view for as long as you can, then you go eat Pasteis.

Today’s trip took us to Sintra. Another wonder of Lisbon.

And the Lisboans are delightful, polite, charming, friendly and helpful. All of them.

Lisbon is the best European city I’ve ever been to, this year. No doubt about it.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

It’s getting a bit horrible in Gaza. Well, it’s been a bit horrible for months now. 7 months to be precise, almost exactly. Since the ‘troubles’ began. And now we’re at a ‘crossroads’. To Rafah or not to Rafah. To ‘do a deal’ with the devil (Hamas) or to just finish the job.

The ‘deal’ was proposed by mediators. Hamas ‘agreed’ to it in a last gasp attempt to prevent Israel from invading Rafah because that’s where they’re holed up. Literally. In holes in the ground. Very nice holes though, with electricity and central heating (?) and running water. Probably a few Picassos on the walls provided by their mates in Qatar. And hostages. Lots of hostages. Who the world, outside Israel, has widely either forgotten or just chosen to ‘take out of the equation’, not ever mentioned along with the any sentence including the word ‘humanitarian’. That word is exclusively for use elsewhere.

They want ‘a ceasefire’. Which means they want Israel to stop firing. Hamas fired rockets the other day which hit a military base, killing 4 and injuring more. It barely received a mention. Ok, it was a military base so, unlike virtually every other rocket they fire, was a ‘fair target’. And those rockets came from… Rafah. Almost as if provoking Israel, not that they need much provocation.

‘If’ Israel attack Rafah ‘properly’ (it’s already started in a limited way), Hamas will relish every Palestinian death as it stokes the fires of international condemnation against its enemy. Hamas’s only consideration is for its own security, buried deep under the ground. Hamas not only doesn’t care about the ‘innocent Palestinians’, it uses them towards its PR machine. Hamas has nothing but contempt for Palestinians, uses them as human shields, murders them if they dissent.

Biden has now ‘paused’ aid to Israel. Because he’s a senile fuck-wit worried about his up-coming election. And sees all across America, on those ‘Free Palestine’ encampments, thousands of eligible voters. As opposed to seeing thousands of misguided, entitled, virtue-signalling sheep, herded there by teams of Iran-driven radicalisers. Long since beyond mere ‘Free Palestine’ and moved on to ‘get rid of Israel’ and ‘no Jews allowed in here!!!’. They’re doing Hamas’ work for them. All these trust-fund tossers who couldn’t find Gaza on a map of Gaza and have simply no care nor thought for atrocities happening elsewhere.

Hamas showed on October 7th its clear intention. And it definitely knew exactly what the response would be. Since then, the world has been royally ‘played’.

So Rafah? If I were a Gazan, I’d clear out now. And if I was a student at Columbia/Harvard/Yale, I’d look for a brain.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

A really nice thing happened to me yesterday. I went in to our local kosher butcher to buy a pound of mincemeat to enable my wife to create! Meatballs. But whilst in there, they gave me, free of charge and at no cost, a tub of potato salad. So even though the meat cost the average monthly wage of a Tibetan potato farmer (though they’re probably vegetarians anyway, and if they weren’t they certainly wouldn’t pay the king’s ransom demanded for any kosher meat) it was a great gesture. As I thought: how lovely, how wonderful, how delightful… must I be to receive such a gift? No, I mean really, I must truly be a special person of incredible wonderfulness to have people lavish gifts upon me!! Even if those gifts may have been so perilously close to their sell-by date as to create the options of ‘give it to Andy or bin it’.

Then the football started and my conceit began to waver. By 3 nil down at half time even I had to realise that my delusions of messiah-hood may need to be moderated a touch. When the forth goal went in I reverted to my usual “WHERE’S GOD WHEN YOU NEED HIM/HER/THEY?????!!!!” mindset and gave up. Fourth straight loss. Nothing to play for, other than the total destruction of Aston Villa Football Club. The only remaining goal (not that we can score them when we need to) we have is for Arsenal NOT to win the league. How is that a worthy aspiration? I’d be ashamed of myself for even thinking such a thing if I wasn’t such a totally wonderful person (see ‘potato salad’, above).

But I managed to… delay?, postpone?, hide from the inevitable disaster at Anfield by timing a hospital visit to see the brother at kick-off time. Yes, I am a coward. And how is the brother?, I hear you ponder.

Well, he’s doing… ok. Still in the ICU (4 months FFS!!!), still on low-level life support, but chatting, fairly ‘normal’ (you have to re-define ‘normal’ when someone is permanently prone with 57 tubes and pipes coming out of various body parts and hooked up to ‘just’ half a dozen hi-tech ‘things’. Still not eating. And if I’m honest, although it’s always lovely to see him (alive), I’m kind’a thinking we need a little proper progress. Eating (the ‘swallow reflex’ stops with long term inactivity, bit like Spurs strikers), movement, as he’s still incredibly weak and wasted away, they’d be good. Really good. Because otherwise he’ll get depressed. Which he kind’a is now anyway, as you would be if someone pulled the ‘rug of life’ from under your feet. And although the care he’s getting is unbelievably brilliant and faultless, I think we need to ‘accelerate the plan’ a bit. For his sake. Being in the ICU is a wonderful thing (saves your life, kind’a wonderful) and yet is the worst place in the world to stay, because everything gradually packs up and your energy levels are like the Duracell bunny which stops. I need to speak to someone. Tell them what needs to happen. They’ll like that.

Happy Bank Holiday Monday

A xxxx

So, I’m Sara, and I’m, like, 22 years old and I’m just doing my second yaar exams, history of art and culinary sciences, here at Bristol. Well, I should be, but instead, I’m spending my days in a tent in a field just outside the main uni building in a ‘Free Palestine’ protest. The union have arranged it, and I’m on the union committee, procurements section, because my dad owns a company which wholesales booze, so I’m really involved. And quite frankly, even if I wasn’t active on the union, I would definitely be on the protest, because what is happening now in Israel is total genocide of a displaced group of refugees, who’s parents were murdered by the Israelis before they were even born!!! Not sure how that works, exactly, but this Iranian guy whose name is ‘Joe’, though I’m not sure that’s his real name, has come to talk to us about these atrocities and the apartheid state in which poor Israelites, or possibly poor Palestinians, are forced to live. And now they’re murdering all the children!

So I asked mummy to get me a tent, which she did, from Harrods, so its really good and I sleep rough so I really get a feel for the suffering going on with those poor Hamas guys in the Suez Canal. This Iranian guy called ‘Joe’, told us last night, all about deprivation and suffering, and, as of last night, Deliveroo have stopped delivering to our camp. Which is this government’s way of starving out poor students just trying to make a political point! Typical of this fascist country where the rulers were all slavers, imperialists and colonisers, which is why they sympathise with the IBF in the killing of civilian children and women. So let them try! Let them take away our humanitarian aid, sent by Uber, on daddy’s credit card, direct from Gordon Ramsey and Ricky Stein, but in, like little styrofoam boxes!!! That’s roughing it!!! Excuse me just a moment, I need to chant.

“FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA!!! PALESTINIAN WILL BE FREE!!!”

We do that every half hour, so the bastard American war-mongers know that we will return the land stolen from the Palestinians by the Jewish people who live in New York, Los Angeles, Golders Green and Hendon. Return that land to whom it belongs. Which is why Hamas was totally justified in making that statement of despair on October 7th. Because of the oppression. And the… errrrr. Anyway, we’ll hound out the terrorist genocidal bastards by shouting at any Jewish people we can find, make their lives miserable until the land from the River Nile to the Baltic Sea is returned to Hezbollah who lived there since the Romans invaded New Zealand.

Do you think this Palestinian flag clashes with pink? I wonder if they have an alternative flag, something more purple…

Happy Protesting Sunday, we shall not be moved!!!

Sara xxxx

‘When I were little…’ as the phrase goes, every kitchen had a ‘gas stove’. Whether it was actually gas powered, or possibly the new-fangled, ‘electric’, was totally irrelevant. People referred to having ‘an electric gas stove’ as adherence to anachronistic nomenclature is strong, Skywalker.

Then many decades later, we had a hob. It was fab. A thing of beauty. Because when we bought it, when having a kitchen fitted, about 15 years ago, it was the only one which came with not four, but FIVE… things. Hobs? Heaters? Burners? Whatever, you’ve probably got 4 on your hob, the One-up-obsessed Conways have fucking FIVE!!!! And those people at Siemens or Bosch or whichever bunch of ex-concentration camp slave labour abusers made it, created a fabulous trapezoid shape to accommodate all those burners. Over a metre long at its widest point. Gorgeous. A ‘ceramic’ hob. Electric, innit, about an inch deep. Clever. And the granite work surface was cut to accommodate its odd shaped beautifulness.

Fast forward 15 years, two replacements (shit falls out of cupboards at times, sometimes heavy things) and a now aging, failing hob and… they’re finished. Discontinued. No parts. No nuffink. Oh. And we have this fab, metre wide, trapezoid shaped hole in our granite and once removed, we’ll have nothing to put in it. Certainly that will fill it. Oh dear. There seemed to be just two options: buy a camping ‘stove’, with its own gas canister, or re-do the entire kitchen. Because you can’t change the granite without breaking the back thing. And if you remove that, the one-piece, pink splash-back will crack. And if that goes then…

Like the spider who swallowed a fly; one thing leads to another, each one more disastrous. But then we met a genius. Who suggested that if we make the whole bigger (because you can’t make them smaller) we could put a bigger hob in that hole. But no-one (and I mean absolutely no-one) makes a 1 metre long hob. Ah, but you could put 2 smaller ones in. Oh. My. Fucking. Godddd!!!! And that’s what we did. Which I mention, not just because everyone loves a good hob story, but because we fitted a 4-burner side by side to a 2-burner. So now we have 6. Of which we may, on occasion use 3. But it can be a different 3 each time!!!

These are ‘induction’ hobs. The thing I never wanted. But after 2 weeks I am so sold on induction cooking. It’s so fast, responsive and… errrr… hot, that it’s almost like cooking with gas. Which is where we came in, so I’ll go now.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

Little children are wild things. Yet wild in different ways. And I’m fascinated by gender differences. Birth gender. Not gender ‘claimed’ and self-identified definitively yet, that’s to come. But for now we’ll go with the really old-fashioned ‘if ya got a dick, yer a boy, if ya ain’t yer a gel’ technique for gender assignment. And I’m prepared to commit the most fundamental and basic of statistical errors and use a sample size of just 1 boy and 1 gel. And from that sample reserve the right to make generalisations of a truly global, world-spanning, all-of-humanity type nature.

Mummy dropped Lila and Joey round this morning on her way in to work. And mornings are high energy times. 10 hours sleep, two breakfasts and they are fully tanked up and ready to rock’n’roll. And it’s how that manifests itself that is really the point of interest for this study. For which we have to make allowance for the age difference. Lila is now 7, and thus ‘mature’, in a way that quite staggers. Ok, she’s bossy (I will NOT make any statements about maternal genetic lines, that would be… well, possibly true, but definitely unfair), but she’s funny and comes in showing stuff she’s taking in to school, playing with ‘stuff’ (anything) and eating another breakfast, cos you can never have too many (and if you haven’t tried Otolenghi granola, DON’T; its fucking addictive!!!), and climbing on various bits of the house. But she’s very co-ordinated and in control. And eloquent. Frighteningly eloquent. (Read: ‘GOBBY!!!’)

Joey, at almost 5 (just 3 weeks time), has a different approach. He also wants more breakfast(s), all he can get. Doesn’t eat them all, just likes to have them there in case. As he wanders round trying to find any sharp, dangerous, possibly deadly, objects we may have forgotten to hide before his arrival. Any drawer containing knives is locked. So he’ll got to my tool box and find the sharpest, deadliest, most wicked looking chisel, trowel or drill he can find, upon which to base his next ‘game’. Which will not be about building. No. With Joey, it’ll be about destroying. Then 2 minutes later he’s ’playing’ with the cactuses. He knows they’re sharp. Knows they’re a DON’T TOUCH THOSE!!!!’ kind’a thing, but he’s there, prodding. Until he can find something else to possibly break, or something electrical to unplug, tamper with…

Therefore, it can be stated with an accuracy slightly less than 5% probability, that all gels talk too much and all boys are destructive violent monsters. Traits which never leave their respective genders through life.

Now I need some trans-kids (surely there’s loads?) to work out whether they suddenly bite the heads off their Barbies and spit them at passers by, or whether they suddenly drop all the knives and tools and embrace soft cuddly things, whilst removing their fingers from the electric sockets.

More research is urgently needed.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

When I was a kid the only vegetables I would eat were peas, preferably tinned or frozen, and runner beans, preferably… runner beans. Everything else of the class of food which accompanied meat and potatoes was not just disliked but truly hated. Broccoli? Yeuch. Brussel sprouts? Revolting. Cauliflower?? Fuck right off. And cabbage? I’d run out the house if I smelt it cooking. Yes, I blame my parents, totally, not just for raising such an obnoxious little shit of a child but for not force-feeding him all that ‘goodness’. Even doing a Jamie Oliver and burying the offending vegetables inside a massive pizza. Obviously, with age comes… mainly shit, but also changes. I love all those vegetables now. Not merely seen as ‘something to accompany nice food’, not just because I don’t think chicken tikka masala, pilau rice and three naan bread is not a perfectly balanced meal, but I actually love the things I used to hate.

Humza Yousaf hates his greens too. Even if he didn’t, he does now. They stuffed him. Deposed him. Forced his abdication. He was king of all Scotland. He was Braveheart. He was Mel Gibson (he hates Israel too). He was a God. And then the Green Party shafted him so royally he may never walk again. Though he probably will walk alone because everybody hates him.

As the First Minister without a majority in Holyrood, Hamza had an ‘alliance’ with the Greens to support him, create that artificial ‘majority’ for voting purposes. Well that’s nice. What Humza failed to realise was that alliances are essentially symbiotic. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch your (eyes out). And the quid pro quo demanded by the Greens was that in return for their votes and support, Humza would implement Scotlands perilous and rather costly path towards the holy grail of ‘net zero’ carbon emissions. But then, last week, he realised that all that carbon shit is a bit too complicated, bit too expensive, and he has more important things to worry about, like self-identification of trans status. So he told the Greens that the whole ‘net zero’ thing was off the table, not gonna happen, yesterday’s problem. But, of course, you’re still going to support me, aren’t you???

Humza’s rather touching, tear-filled resignation speech mentioned that he had no idea that abandoning the Greens totally would cause such ‘upset and anger’ that they’d in return abandon him and withdraw their support.

Is he a fucking moron??

How could he not realise that without the Greens he is ‘first Minister’ in name only, devoid of all power and credibility? And that shelving all their plans might upset them, having been his promise all along?

Humza can get some solace though, he may have lost his job, his status and become a total laughing stock, but he can still claim to be my ‘tosser of the week’. That should give him some pride.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx