Andy's Glasses

Its funny how you can read a whole article in a newspaper and then, from a two page spread, just one tiny little, seemingly inconsequential comment leaps out, jags you in the eye, sticks in your teeth and punches you just above your testicles.

Our new Health Secretary is Victoria Atkins. It’s now her job to spend the next 12 months apologising for the NHS and making promises she can’t keep. That’s what the ‘health secretary’ does. But wait! There’s an ‘issue’!!! Her husband!!! The bastard!! He’s the CEO of a massive sugar producing company. SUGARRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!! The food of the devil! The total cause of our nation’s obesity!! Which, of course, is the Health Minister’s job to sort out. How hard can that be? There’s only 57 million fat people out there, slim ‘em down before they start to drain more resource from the NHS. Start with the kids. CUT OUT SUGARRR! Oh, but that might affect my husband’s income (probably well into seven figures) so I’ll just approve Tescos new ‘all you can stuff’ lunch package of one processed meat and strawberry jam sandwich, four packets of high fat/salt/sugar crisps, three Kit-Kats and a Mars bar, PLUS… an almost free litre of full-fat Coke!! Because the more sugar you consume, the richer I am.

I think it safe to say that ‘the world needs sugar, and always will’. Whether we reduce the amount consumed in sweeties and treats and chocolates and puddings is irrelevant, because we need it in everything else too. Just in smaller doses. Which I really don’t think will massively affect the profitability of the world’s largest producer.

So why would the press make implications of almost ‘impropriety’ or ‘conflict of interest’? Why? Because they’re a bunch of tossers fed up with vanilla politics perpetrated by chronically beige politicians who generate about as much interest as the cement drying on my new black brick tower. So they create ‘excitement!’, they manufacture ‘interesting’ in the dullest of dull and they love nothing more than a bit of ‘conflict’ where none exists.

I think, having banned tobacco, Rishi should now ban sugar. Alternatively, when you go for a bag of Haribos, they should quickly weigh you, work out your BMI and only let you buy it if you ‘qualify’.

And I’m only posting this photo today in protest. Because Lila & Joey’s parents’ seemingly never-ending but oh so desirable photos of MY GRANDCHILDREN!!!, seems to have ‘dried up’. Have the kids turned into the vampires they always wished to be and hence no longer cast an image? So this pic is a protest.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Suealla Braverman is no longer the Home Secretary! She’s gone! “Resigned” (sacked) after a minor difference of opinion with, pretty much, everybody. She upset the Prime Minister, pissed off the police, made enemies of the Pro-Palestinian marchers, royally aggravated the Labour party (most things do that) and only made friends with a group of neo-nazis. A step to the right a little too far for even her own party’s hard-liners.

The police ban far right wing marches, but not ‘far lefties’, was her point. Therefore it has bias. Which is odd because most people see the police as one step removed from the English Defence League anyway. Then she accused the Pro-Pally marches as being ‘hate marches’ as they descend into virulent antisemitism, but only a minority of the participants. Dressing up as Hamas fighters, using the star of David in a lot of horrible ways, singing ‘from the River to the Sea’ without accompaniment, nasty, but definitely a minority. Yet the fact remains that all the other, non-extremist, either totally committed to this (and pretty much any other) cause, or blissfully ignorant of the full meanings of what is shouted out or written ‘in their name’ marchers are happy to share the proverbial platform with these extremists.

The police were right not to ban the march. You simply can’t because then we no longer have the rights to free speech and protest which we should all protect with our very souls. But the marchers should themselves be sensitive to their environment and should have called it off. March next weekend. Tuesday morning. Thursday night. Because to insist on a march on Remembrance weekend is exceptionally disrespectful to pretty much the entire country. Other than those opposed to King and Government on principle in every way, who relish the opportunity to spit in the face of authority as well as ‘making their point’. And as that really describes the fundamental demographic of those marchers, it went full steam ahead.

The Right Wing extremists were there ‘to protect the Cenotaph’! Which they did by drinking 14 pints of lager each and singing football chants, then trying to engage the police in a big fight. They were basically there because they don’t like Muslims. Oddly, they used to not like Jews so we must presume a policy change in Nazi Central.

The irony being that the EDF feel suddenly ‘protective’ of Jews and Jewish sensitivity and accuse the hard left of anti-semitism. Which is weird because when Moseley and his blackshirts marched against the Jews in 1930s, it was the trade unionists and dockers who stood against them.

Never mind; Suella’s out now and David Cameron is in. In a new role as ‘Foreign Minister responsible for avoiding foreigners’, following his Brexit success. Even though he never wanted it himself. John Major is to be Ireland Secretary, Ted Heath is Welfare and Pensions and Winston Churchill gets the Ministry of Defence.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I tried to mis-spend my youth, fairly successfully really, because it seemed more fun than the alternative. But only with the wonder of hindsight do I realise I had some kind of dyslexic ailment/affliction/disability/disease? Yet because dyslexia wasn’t invented until 1993 (Ronnie Dyslexia, et al, ‘Plobrem pselling in chlidrne’), I was just called ‘thick’. Although I was great at maths and pretty good at any science subject which didn’t have too many words in it. I hated English. History. Too much reading, too many words. I’d rather watch Dixon of Dock Green, thanks.

The retrospective irony, of course, is that I truly love readin’ and writin’ now, obviously, which is why I’m here every bleeding day with an outpouring of words. All checked by someone in the Apple ‘cloud’ before you read it. Yet I never picked up a book to read until I was about 21. Not for pleasure. Because it wasn’t. I loved comics, but never books. Since that first book (Exodus by Leon Uris; bit relevant today really), I haven’t stopped reading.

But so what?

What was worse that I grew up in a house with the two most ‘capable’ people alive. Although my mum was incredibly capable in a very pragmatic way, my dad and my brother were truly exceptional at ‘doing things’ which to me were impossible. My dad built fitted wardrobes. Not from a flat-pack, but from… like… wood… nails… paint. He paved our front garden, beautifully, then built a fabulous low-level wall around it. He could do anything with his hands. And he was an optician, not a builder.

Whereas my brother was a world expert at the nascent ‘solid state electronics’ (when it got ‘small’; going from valves to transistors, moving from massive to really small and neat), when he was 10. He taught his physics teacher. He built the first stereo I ever heard (Sargeant Peppers; the first album produced in ‘stero’) and, given a ‘wiring diagram’, or, if there wasn’t one, just drawing his own, he built amplifiers, mixing units for his rock band, absolutely anything up to and including his first computer. When he started driving he would just service his car himself. Got a book, followed the instructions, how hard could it be?

I looked at those ‘instructions’, those ‘exploded diagrams’ with 7,000 components, washers, valves, bolts, cylinders, and saw nonsense. Confusion. No meaning whatsoever.

My talents were less useful really. I was good at football, a world champion at lusting after beautiful girls and I could generally make people laugh. I was simply fucking useless at anything more practical than turning an album over on a record player. Didn’t stop me trying, but I always had my dad around to put it right afterwards, and my brother there to laugh.

But we needed a new plinth in the garden for our iron sculpture. And the only ones available were really dull and boring or ridiculously expensive (360 quid for a pile of tiles). So I built my own. Bricks and tub of cement: 35 quid, and from that, from NOTHING, I produced… THIS!!! I’m not saying it’s like the 7 days of The Creation, mainly because it took me at least 14 days of procrastination and rain before I started, but wow. I built it, laid those bricks, used a spirit level (I love tools, have literally a shed full, I’m just not very good at using them) then abandoned it because it must have been broken, telling me my bricks weren’t straight, when they almost were, and I did it. If it’s still standing in 3 months time is yet to be seen, but for now? It awaits our ‘Dolly’!

Happy cement drying day

A xxxx

I’m marching today for peace. Well, actually, for a ceasefire in Gaza. That’s the headline cause for the march. Ceasefire. Yeah. And 50,000 of us misguided tossers parading round the streets of Westminster shouting for ‘jihad’ (no idea what that means but it sounds great) and ‘from the river to the sea!’ (I asked three people which river and sea but they couldn’t tell me) and calling for a ceasefire so loudly that the IDF over there bombing innocent children in Gaza will immediately stop. And furthermore, Hamas will definitely listen to me and my group of data processors from Milton Keynes when we make our demand. Cease-fire!!! Hamas are good at diplomacy. My mate told me. Ok, I know they killed a few people in Isreal the other week, but that was… errrr… that was different. From a humanitarian perspective. Because… well, there’s history. Apartheid. Oppression. Held in the ‘prison’ of Gaza. By the ‘nazis’ of Israel. My mate Nigel told me and he once shook hands with Jeremy Corbyn, so he must know. Someone told me that 20% of Israelis are Arabs! I mean, that’s obviously fake news, right? Otherwise they’d have the right to vote, access to healthcare, education, even for women!!, and be soldiers in the IDF and part of the judiciary!!! I mean; can you believe that? Rubbish. Even though I’ve never been to Israel, or Gaza, and couldn’t really find it on a map.

We’re also really opposed to ‘the West’ so we’d like to go to the American embassy, because they need to hear our cry as they are… they are really West!!! So we hate them. And then we’re going to try to get to the Cenotaph. Because it represents Western war-mongering and Imperialism. Nigel said so. Though my great-grandad lost a foot in Flanders, so I’m a bit conflicted. Though don’t suppose they’ve got the foot at the American embassy.

However, for today, I’m a Palestinian first and British just by virtue of birth, upbringing, culture, education and all my entire life except for 2 weeks in Magaluf and a weekend in Berlin in 2016 with Nige. That’s why I’m holding a ‘Free Palestine!’ flag and another which shows Jews being marched into gas chambers. Because Jews are the problem. Not sure what that problem is, but getting rid of Jews seems a good place to start. Then we can have our Ceasefire!!! Like the last ceasefire which was on October 6th. Well, Hamas broke that one but only because of the force of ‘history’. It was an awful thing that happened on the next day, but you can understand why it had to happen. So we’re marching for peace. And that’s a ‘peace’ as defined by Hamas, which may differ from classical understanding of the word.

Ceasefire NOW!!!

Rupert xxxx

Hello, my name is Suella Braverman and I am your Home Secretary. All of England. Few other bits too. But please note: that is HOME secretary, not HOMELESS secretary, that will be someone else. Anyone else. Not me. Not my job to pander to those spoiled and entitled dossers who choose to live in tents under Selfridges awning. My job is to clear the street of tents because they get in the way of middle-class voters.

But first I wish to discuss the up-coming, so-called, pro-Palestian march scheduled for Saturday. Armistice Day. An affront to… armistice. Because that is our national day of peace to celebrate war. It’s a day when we gather together to remember those lost in fighting for our nation and to garner hatred for all those not of our nation, the ones we didn’t manage to kill at the last two attempts. And we don’t want our peaceful day of Britishness upset by the waving of Palestinian flags all over the place. It would be rude. And inappropriate. I told this to the commissioner of police but he asked me, politely and considerately, to fuck off and leave the streets to him and his boys in blue. The march can go ahead, he said, and we’ll ensure it doesn’t impact on the solemnity of Remembrance Day. Particularly as that’s not in fact til Sunday, the day after the march.

I therefore had to take the matter further afield, as all those in my government seem hell-bent on applying ‘the right to protest’ and considerations of ‘freedom of speech’ to everything, without using the prejudice and bias for which they were voted into power. So I went to Tommy Robinson. He’s the leader of the British Defence League… possibly the Front for Britain’s Defence… The Nationalist White Person’s Brigade, whatever. But Tommy, if he’s not currently in prison, appreciates the sanctity of Remembrance Day. And so is prepared to deploy several of his ‘troops’ to help protect the innocent civilians marching for peace, from the vociferous jihadi hate-mongers who want to turn the demo into a call for the death of all Jews everywhere and turn Britain into Afghanistan. Because if that happened they wouldn’t be able to march anywhere, other than to jail. Tommy’s troops may be quite busy that day because Saturday is the day when British Defence Leaguers do their duty (kicking, stabbing, head-butting) at the other league, the Premier one. But this is even more important than supporting Chelsea.

In fact, if the truth be known, I’m opposed to the march totally. It’s a march of hate, and no-one wants that. No-one wants the incitement to violence, the outcry to destroy Israel and everyone in it, involved with it, supportive of it, or can just spell it properly. Or looks like they might.

When Tommy and his boys ‘march’ in their hob-nail boots in support of wars past, (they love nothing more than a good war which Britain won), it gets banned because of the expected racism and violence which will ensue. But if those same aims are proposed by a group supported mainly by champagne socialists from Shropshire, lefty-liberals from Lowerstoft and Corbynites from Colchester, then that’s ok, even though there will be powerful minority, led by irritants from Iran, to get the spray paint out and desecrate anything representative of ‘The West’. And they don’t mean ‘the west end’.

I will do all in my power to represent you until they carry me away wearing white coats or my Prime Minister sacks me. Either of which could be imminent.

Yours sincerely,

Suella xxxx

The new Beatles single is out. Its called ‘Now and then’ and its a fab… song, featuring all the usual suspects, but not necessarily in the correct order. Because this song, although an ‘original’ John Lennon track, was deemed, in 1977, when he writ it, too shit for the Beatles. But then he died, just a few years later. I would say ‘murdered’ but that sounds so mundane for such an incredible, world-changing person, so I’ll say ‘assassinated’ instead. Only really important people are lucky enough to get that. Its an honour.

And when someone that famous dies, the value of everything gets hiked exponentially. So when they found the demo John had made of Now & Then on his home studio, they decided to complete it. Why not? The McCartney half of the partnership is still live and well and as long as he can still hold a pen he can finish a few verses. Then comes the clever bit. They wanted to John to sing it. And after 30-odd years in the ground, let’s just say ‘his voice ain’t wot it used to be’.

But this is now 2023. And mere death is no obstruction to producing a sure-fire number 1 hit. So they called in Peter Jackson. He’s the geezer that turned New Zealand into the Hobbit. He made normal people into dwarves, abnormal people into Gollums and other weird things and most importantly, he is a master at AI. Which is so clever that if you play your nearest Robot a few old Beatles songs, he/she/it will ‘BE’ the voice of Lennon in all its idiosyncrasies, Scouse twangs and actually sound more like John Lennon than he ever sounded. Just like Terminator could do. Play a few George Harrison riffs and solos and your own R2D2 will play While My Guitar Gently Weeps like the man himself. Ok, like the corpse himself. Paul and Ringo are good to go. If a bit old, so Mr Jackson might need to enhance slightly.

And thus, the ‘Fab 2’ are once again the ‘Fab 4’, for the purposes of the new song. And that’s brilliant. So coming soon, there’s the new album by Jimi Hendrix, ‘Purple Grave’; Sinatra’s revamp hit; ‘Come Die with me’ and Bowie’s re-release of ‘Under Pressure’.

We no longer need musicians. We have computers. We have Peter Jackson.

Fab Wednesay

A xxxx

I’m interested in words. They way they sound, their meanings, because all words can mean slightly different, or even vastly different things. And I love a new word. Just because. And if its an Arabic word, so what? I can borrow it.

Most of the Arab world uses the word ‘naqba’ to describe the day Israel became an independent state. It means ‘disaster’ or ‘catastrophe’. I use the word in slightly different context, to describe the day my football team imploded. Catastrophically. Disastrously.

It wasn’t even a normal ‘catastrophe’ which would have been merely losing to any team, but Chelsea in particular. This is less metaphorical and way more literal than that would have been.

Romero got sent off. We lose him for 3 matches. Destiny Udogie was sent off and will miss a few too. Both ‘stars’ in the current (til last night) wave of wonder. James Madison, the best player in the league, limped off with a dodgy ankle, followed by Micky Van der Ven, our new and really star defender, with what looked like major hamstring trouble.

Half the team was either kicked off or carried off the pitch. And by the time the dust settled, we were down to 9 men, half of those substitutes. So what do you do?

What most do is two things:
1. Sit 8 men permanently on the edge of the box and stay put.
2. Start working out the statement blaming VAR for all the woes and unfairness.

Postecoglou is not ‘most’. What he did was:
1. Sit his 8 men on the half way line. So we could attack, given an opportunity, and playing a very dangerous ‘offside game’. Which was so dangerous it failed 3 times and Chelsea scored 3 of their goals from them. Well, actually, they scored the same goal 3 times. Mainly due to the players we lost were the fast ones. And you can’t play an offside trap depending on the likes of Eric Dier to race back and do something useful. With Van der Ven it may have worked, but he was on his way to hospital by then.
2. The fact that there were 4 disallowed goals by VAR in the first half alone speaks volumes. Neither I nor Ange is blaming VAR for our woes, they were certainly self-inflicted. We leave the blame game to Arteta and Klopp.

I love Cristian Romero deeply, madly, truly. I would bear his children. But he needs to keep his cool and return to the more disciplined style he’s managed this whole season until last night. His sending off tackle was almost as bad as Kai Havertz’s on the weekend.
And Udogie has been a revelation. But again, he narrowly missed a sending off in the first half, so thought it a good idea to repeat it in the second?

We’re still second in the league and I’m still loving Ange. And the fans who were there sang their little hearts out right to the final whistle, in support and love for they way our team played and our manager managed.

There was no shame.

Just a touch of upset. Bit of anger, maybe…

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

It has become customary, in a very short time, for football managers to ‘blame VAR’ for all their woes. Every game lost is down to that cumbersome and miserable system which combines flawed technology with incompetent analysts. And never has this VAR-scapegoating been so apparent as in yesterday’s splendid match between Newcastle and Arsenal.

Newcastle won a fraught and fabulous competition by just one goal. But such a goal…

I was fortunate to see the event ‘live’ in my lounge as I was preparing to host what used to be called a ‘dinner party’ before Covid, but now is just ‘some mates comin’ over for a bite’, due to the post-pandemic informality laws. And I was preparing my Brussel sprouts for their later sautée-ing. I would tell you the recipe for the best fucking sprouts ever but I simply have to keep it secret otherwise… slice them, fry in olive oil with a little or preferably a lot of finely chopped garlic After a very precise length of frying, possibly 3 minutes, possibly 8, add soy sauce, balsamic vinegar and maple syrup in the correct and precise amounts… like… well… enough. Put the lid on, simmer, low light for about 4 minutes. Possibly 6. Serve, eat, enjoy, send undying thanks to the ‘chef’ who invented this.

And Newcastle attacked and the shot was blocked, was going off for a corner, or a throw in. But the Newcastle player was ‘playing to the whistle’ and ran alone after the ball which was too far for the Arsenal players to be bothered with. And the Newcastle boy managed to retrieve that ball, stopped it from crossing the line and crossed it to the far post, where another Newc. bounced the wimpy Arsenal defender out of the way, leaving the ball for his team mate to slam home from half a yard. Brilliant.

But we had to wait for VAR. And wait… and wait…

Did the ball cross the line? Ambiguous, I’d say ‘no, it didn’t’, obviously.
Was there a foul on the Arsenal defender? No, he just fell.
Was the Newcastle player offside? Impossible to tell. And if it’s that close, then NO.

After about 20 minutes (was actually 4 but felt like for-fuckin-everrrrr!!!) the goal, amazingly, was given. The hapless had conspired with the incompetent, aided by the blind, and came up with the right result. Based on the ‘old way’; if it looks like a goal and there’s nothing obviously wrong with it, even in a bit of a ‘goalmouth scramble’, then GIVE THE FUCKING GOAL.

At the end, a very sad and angry Spaniard called Arteta stated categorically that ‘it was not a goal’. When asked specifically why, he told of being in England for 20 years, he questioned the status of England having ‘the best league in the world’ but no more, because of ‘THIS’, but couldn’t actually come up with a reason why the goal should have not stood. What he was really saying was ‘why couldn’t VAR help me to not lose this game???’ Interestingly, he didn’t criticise VAR for not sending off eternal disappointment, Kai Havertz, following his truly disgusting ‘tackle’. Funny that.

I felt his pain. Ok, I didn’t. Arsenal lost and therefore didn’t overtake Spurs. I think that has to be considered in the VAR office too.

Happy sunny Sunday

A xxxx

This photo is entitled: “GOD HELP USSSSSS!!!”

We’re top of the league. Don’t know if you know that. But we are. We have about 4 hours left, I reckon, before Man City (probably) or Liverpool (possibly) overtake us, or 6 hours before Arsenal play at Newcastle. Then we play Chelsea on Monday night. Ooooohhhh.

I’ll try to put this, intellectually, into a context which manifestly expresses deep felt honesty of my feelings. I fucking hate Chelsea. That intellectual enough for ya? The reasons are many. Any Spurs fan who’s spent any time at Stamford Bridge will understand. It’s not a nice experience. And I don’t just mean the football.

But now it’s more complicated. Chelsea’s manager is our beloved Mauricio Pochettino. He came to Spurs at a bad time (we’ve had many… too many to even number, but we’ll call it ‘bad time no. 5,729’, just for reference) and he elevated us. Not just in the league position but in absolutely everything. He brought back belief. He brought love. He brought fabulous football, team spirit, totally engaged fans and a new top-to-bottom cohesion which we’d lacked for decades and have only just found a way to replace under Ange.

So when Mauricio went to Chelsea we were initially jealous, then most concerned that he might take that team of over-priced, under-performing no-goodniks and turn them into the team which cost a truly ridiculous amount of money should be. Fortunately, he has (thus far) failed miserably and is the leader of a hapless bunch of divas who simply don’t appear to play in any joined up way. And we pray that lasts until at least Tuesday. Because whatever happens today or tomorrow, if we beat Chelsea on Monday night we stay top.

And that’s where we need to be. Where I need to be.

Happy Saturday, even though tennis was rained off AGAIAIAIANNNN!!!

A xxxx

We have 3 ovens. There, I’ve said it. Now you know. Because I eat a lot. Because we cook a lot. Because we cook big. Because ovens were on sale that day. Or, because now and again we get ‘the (extended) family’ over for dinner and there’s not enough room in one oven. Or two. And we had the fucking room, so why wouldn’t everyone have 3 ovens? And even if we don’t often use all three ovens, we very frequently use the timers that each one has. Boil an egg? Well set a timer for 8 minutes (10 is WAY too long, 7 is pathetically insufficient). Ah, that timer’s in use; Mel’s timing a tumble dry and the machine’s own timer hasn’t worked since Lila was born. (Should have had 3 tumble dryers, maybe, hmmm…) And in precicely 10 minutes I need to do… something special, and I’ll forget, because I do. Set a timer.

Then I sit down for breakfast, write some of this, read the paper, eat a banana, make more tea… and a beeper goes off. Ahhhh, the timer. But what for? Which was that? Is my egg ready? Is my towel dry? Do I need to… whatever the fuck I was supposed to be attending to???? WHICH WAS WHICH??? And in this morning’s confusion, at the sound of the beep I shlepped the bedsheets out of the tumbler AND turned off the eggs. Only to get another beep 4 minutes and 17 seconds later. Oh. Better put the egg back on then…

First world problems.

Then I got an email from Rishi Sunak. Honest, from him, himself, ‘personally’ and signed ‘Rishi xxx’ an’ everything. ‘Dear Andrew…’ it started. Only my mum called me Andrew and she died 10 years ago, God rest her wonderful soul. Ok, telesales people do too. So when the phone goes and they ask for ‘Andrew’, its either my mum re-incarnate or someone selling me life insurance, offering me a class action law-suit or telling me my computer’s been hacked and they need to hack it themselves, what’s your pin number? But this was the Prime Minister of the whole of England, parts of Ireland, most of Wales and (for the time being) Scotland. And he was asking for money. His exact words, if I could ‘chip in’. 100 quid, maybe 50, right down to a fiver. To help his God-forsaken, scandalised, sexually harassed, serially incompetent political party help us keep the nation free from Kier Starmer (bad) and Angela Rayner (much worse). G’wan, Andrew, chip in fifty quid, mate, g’wan.

Rishi Sunak, net worth about 750 million quid, asking AndREW Conway, net worth about £632.47 plus 3 ovens, for a hand-out. There was no box which specifically said “FUCK OFF!!!”, so I had to create my own.

Happy Friday

A xxxx