Andy's Glasses

Mel drinks ‘mint tea’. No idea why. I’d bathe in it, but drink it?? Not even ‘tea’, just mint leaves in hot water. Why? What’s the point? But she loves it so who can argue. So having had 47 mint bushes lost/buried/killed by slugs/died of unnatural causes in the garden, we had to concede that the plant that ‘never stops spreading and growing; it’ll be all over the garden!!!’ in fact won’t grow in our garden. So you can buy 14 leaves on 3 stalks from Waitrose for 75p, or you can visit the lovely Turks down the road and buy an entire tree’s worth, in a sack that needs two people to carry, for £1.49. Its so fresh it must have been picked that day by someone really happy and exceptionally beautiful. But unfortunately it doesn’t stay fresh. It withers. And if you drink 5 cups of mint-shit (can’t use the word ‘tea’, see above) a day, it would last 7 months. But unfortunately would be unusable within 2 weeks. So what do you do with mint?

There is only one use I can think of, which is that it is a vital ingredient in my patented, best-in-the-world, minty vegan lamburgers. If I say so myself, they are exquisite. And they really are ‘vegan’!!! Except for the lamb bit, so I may have overstated that a little to appear a bit more woke-ish and edgy than I possibly am. Anyway, mint is a fairly vital ingredient in ‘minty lamburgers’ so I decided to pre-empt my mint-need for the next batch I make and freeze some of this glut of mint.

But mint leaves have a central stalk, even the tiny leaves, which upsets the inherent feng shui of the eating experience. As you sit there picking stalks out of your teeth with a mouthful of meat and bread. So being a bit obsessive about food, I remove those stalks. Every one of them, before blitzing the mint in a blender. And it is what you might call ‘Labour intensive’. Place each leaf on a board and use a sharp knife to cut the stalk out. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Someone asked me how much mint to use for a pound of lamb mince, and I told them: as much as you have til you get bored.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. De-stalking mint leaves. For freezing. And I know in a months time I’ll defrost a sludge of green pulp and bin it. But I have to try. Because that’s what you do when you fuck up your already fucked up hip doing a knee-block at tai chi and you can’t play tennis.

I’m going to go out for a walk later and kill all the mint plants on the Heath.

But Spurs go marching on. Top of the bloody league!! (West Ham don’t count).

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Everyone’s favourite ex-president, possibly future-president, has spent the last 3 weeks doing the Intensive Super Zoolander Course for ‘The Look’. At the end of which he had to pick The Pose which would define him, his election campaign and be The Image for making America even more greater-er than it was last time he spent four years repeating everything he said twice. And this was the winner.

Its called ‘No Surrender’. Which, when you are, officially ‘surrendering yourself to the court’, would be something of an irony, if Trump even understood what that meant. He had other options, after 2,317 hours in front of a mirror. He had ‘Tosser in a Trance’, but felt that lacked the sheer… edginess he wished to portray. There was ‘Wanker in the Wild’, which quite frankly requires virtually no effort, but was deemed to make him look not quite ridiculous enough. There was ‘The Fuckwit Frown’, the ‘Tit in a Trance’, the ‘Daring Dickhead’, so many wonderful options. But this one won it because of its wonderful grittiness, from which you can actually feel the complete lack of any logical or sensible thought coming right at you.

Yet best of all, legally speaking, is that if you’re on trial for basically being a serial liar, you should describe yourself as a ‘strawberry blond’ who weighs ‘215 lb’, when everyone knows you’re a fat ginger fuck weighing 300lbs of blubber.

And half of Americans love, believe and worship this criminal imbecile.

‘That kiss’ is now breaking the entire nation of Spain apart. Instead of celebrating their amazing World Cup win in the Ladies competition last week, they’re caught up in a woke-storm which threatens to destabilise the entire nation’s inherent insistence on a more Neanderthal set of societal norms, which has now resulted in the entire winning team refusing to play again until the President of the National Football Federation, Luis Rubiales, resigns. And all he did was grab a woman by both sides of her head and force his lips on hers. I mean, WTF? Not like he grabbed her crotch or anything. Which, according to him, would have been ‘consensual’. Like the kiss was. Though in fact he did grab his own crotch in celebration at the final whistle. A diplomatic act that not too many could pull off (the look, not his crotch, he didn’t pull that hard). Yet its not for us to judge the Spaniards. Not when we have Mason Greenwood to look up to. And when nations like Saudi Arabia don’t let their women drive without permission, Afghanistan prevents education for women, and going to parks and beauty salons, Spain could be viewed as having a really high level of equality. Because really, its only when you compare it to civilised nations that it appears to mired in pre-evolutionary sensibility. Leave Luis alone. He was just doing what generations of ignorant misogynists have done before him. Women should know their place. And in Spain, that would appear to be not a very good place.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

It wasn’t precisely a ‘Kennedy moment’ but there’s something about the death (allegedly) of Yevgeny Prigozhin which is universal. In that: wherever you were when you heard of ‘the plane crash’, whoever told you and by whatever means (news, phone message, internet), your first thought was ‘Putin done it’. And your second was, ‘I’m surprised he waited so long’. Because from the moment he set his private army’s direction of invasion to ‘Moscow’, even Waze told him ‘you’re a dead man walking’. Because however much power you may delude yourself into thinking you have, Putin has so much more it simply is no competition.

Ok, so ‘presuming’ that Prigozhin actually died in the crash (not proven yet) and ‘assuming’ that ‘the Kremlin’ had some kind of hand in this, what is really really awful beyond anything else is not that the state of Russia sanctioned or actually perpetrated the murder of the man. The real crime was the ‘collateral’ death of at least 6 other people, deemed ‘inconsequential’ for fulfilling the objective. Putin could have had him shot. Or just imprisoned him like he’s done to thousands of competitors. Even poisoned him with Uranium. But to take others with him is simply horrendous. And if you didn’t think of Putin as a callous, heartless, amoral fucking scumbag before, you should now. Not that any of your, or my, thoughts will diminish his power, nor his propensity for revenge.

Went to the cinema yesterday with the kids. School hols, rainy day… ya know. Went to see ‘Just Super’, a sweet little Scandi-cartoon. The sub-titles proved a bit tricky for Joey… ok, it was in English, but it still proved a bit tricky for Joey. Which you can tell because he starts climbing over the seats, looking for things to break, to eat, or both.

And its a lovely film with a sweet message. That you really don’t need ‘superpowers’ to be a ‘superhero’. Hence the title, I s’pose. That superpowers will only get you so far, but even without them, we can all be fabulous and do good things. And Lila got that and loved the film. But at 4, little Joey not only didn’t get the message but more, would rather they’d just kept to the superheroes, horrible villains and keep their fucking messages to themselves. Thank you very much.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Have you watched ‘A Spy Among Friends’? The series on ITV? Its been on for a while but I just started. As is my way. Its the story of Kim Philby, the Russian spy in MI5 just and after the war. And it has pedigree. Written by Ben McIntyre, the best writer of non-fiction in the whole library. And a stellar cast including Adrian Edmonson, NOT as Vivian from The Young Ones, with studs in his forehead, but as an ‘older statesman’ of the secret services, all posh vowels and dinner jackets. Bloody sell-out.

And it is ‘dark’. But like really dark. You can’t see much on the screen because its all filmed in the shadows and the fog and in rooms with no lighting. Because that’s how people lived in 1951 and spies and agents hung out in the darkest places they could find. So they could… spy… and… agent. And its fairly quiet too, as they all mumble, with plums in each cheek, as everyone posh had in 1951, and whisper a lot because you wouldn’t want the Russians/Americans/baddies to hear secrets.

Basically, you can’t hear a fucking word nor see anything at all.

Yet it is compelling and wonderful. Damian Lewis plays a good spy, Nicholas Elliot, Philby’s best mate and possibly the man who let Philby escape to Russia (I’m only on episode 3, so I’m not in a position to offer spoilers. Or you know I would). Anna Maxwell Martin plays a fictional character who interrogates Elliot to find out what happened, and she is totally fabulous, as only really plain and dowdy women can be in a very powerful role set in a time when women just made the tea.

Philby was the last of the ‘Cambridge 5’, with Burgess and McLean and… the other 2. They all went to Cambridge, slept with little boys, then became communists, Russian sympathisers and worked for MI5 as ‘double agents’, giving away our secrets!

But its a really good watch. A Rolex amongst the drossy Timexes of TV.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I’m not the world’s best shopper. For clothes, I am absolutely the worst. But for food, I’m not so bad. Because I love food but would rather go around naked than try on 16 different shirts/trousers/socks. Food doesn’t need trying on. And because I moved, 37 years ago, from the deprived wilds of way out East to the gentrified and leafy suburbs of London’s northwest, our ‘local’ supermarket is Marks & Spencer’s food hall. We love it there. If we want a ‘bargain’ we have to cross the road to Waitrose. Ok, there’s a Tesco the size of Ipswich up the road at Brent Cross but its a 24 hour a day nightmare. We’re also blessed with the best really local supermarket 3 minutes on foot away, which sells everything the Turks can buy. Not the cheapest but they always have what you need, however obscure. ‘Do you have zataar paste? Not the powder, the paste, but the one with garlic and tahini?’ ‘Yeah, over there, next to the eggs with three yolks and the unicorn steaks’.

But no-one is ever that far from a ‘real’ supermarket in London. There’s always a Morrisons, Lidl, Asda somewhere a short drive away. I just wouldn’t know which direction to point the electric vehicle. Though I do for Aldi.

Possibly the cheapest and most downmarket of all. And yet brilliant. And the staff are always really nice and helpful. And pierced all over and covered in tattoos, but that’s an HR requirement. And we go there for drinks.

Because, f’rinstance, a 2-litre bottle of low-cal lemonade (yes, I don’t do ‘water’, so its for my health) in Waitrose is £1.75. In Aldi, 45p. How can anything be 45p? We buy Scotch there, because Aldi have their own distillery on Isla and its the best-kept and least-snobbish secret around that you can get a bottle of truly fab single-malt for £16.99. A truly fab ridiculous price. And apparently there’s lots of other bargain stuff there too, of the more edible rather than drinkable variety, but you have to rummage around for that. And as we came out with about 15 litres of liquids, that was sufficient on weight grounds alone to end the spree.

I love Aldi. And I’ve never seen Rishi Sunak there.

Happy Shopping

A xxxx

So my hip’s still bothering me, about 8 weeks after it started, thanks for asking!!! No better, no worse. So I started playing tennis again, on the grounds that; if this is ‘the future’, then better start learning to ‘play through the pain’. Because I’m stupid. But, inspired by the Lionesses, I manned up and worked out I can tolerate the pain. Its the fear I can’t live with.

So, buoyed by last weekends fabulous almost-panic-attack up on the Spurs roof, this morning I went into an MRI scanner for the hip. And experienced once again the pure joy of heart-thumping, sweat-pouring, pale-facing entry into the world of claustrophobia. Or, ‘an MRI scanner’ as its known. I was out within 3 seconds. Then I embraced my inner lesbian, worked out that I could just, just, juuuuust see the room and re-entered hell. Calmer. LBC chat show on the head-set, and listened to Geoff Hurst (!!!!), bless his godly soul, discussing the world cup yesterday.

“Well the Lionesses can be really- BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG… (for 4 minutes)… the legacy for women’s football and for- EEK-EEK-EEK-EEK… (3 minutes)… another 57 years before- BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM…”

I don’t really give a shit about the noise. Just the confinement. And I love wearing hospital gowns because the world needs to see my arse.

Saturday night Mel & I were in Soho. And I mourned the loss of yet another fabulous part of London to boring, vanilla, corporate gentility and homogeneity. My first thought was: ‘where did all the inflatable ‘dolls’, which adorned virtually every shop window, back in the day, go?’ Did they just let them down, gently? Burst them? Put them all in a warehouse in Milton Keynes? Or fill them with helium and let them drift away?

Soho was London’s Little Italy. Full of coffee shops and little restaurants. All now gone. The coffee shops along Old Compton Street were where musicians came when they arrived in London to seek fame and fortune. And we’re talking the Beatles here. Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, the Stones, the Kinks, they all hooked up with other musicians and management in those coffee shops, before the gays came along and made the street their own. In the same restaurants and bars, but with more pink.

And on Saturday you couldn’t walk down there for hen parties from Crewe, day trippers from Hull and piss-heads from Peterboro’. Millions of them. Staggering from generic bar to generic bar, oblivious to the history of the area. Oblivious to pretty much everything by 10 o’clock.

Ahhhhh, there ya go.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Its over. The dream. Us gels. Football. Australia. World AND Euro champions. Sarina Wiegman. Pony tails. Its not comin’ ‘ome. Whatever ‘it’ might be.

No kings or princes or PMs went to Sydney to witness our noble, valiant and courageous loss to those fucking Spanish bitches, to whom I bear no grudge. Obviously. They were better on the day. It was a game’a two halves. At da enna’da day. But we should have won. For the simple reason that our girls were good, honest Inglish gels, and theirs weren’t. Even though half of them play over here. So alas, it was not meant to be. Rishi must have known and took a leaf out of the Harry Kane book; go nowhere without a guaranteed medal.

Whereas at Spurs!!!! We beat Manchester United at our ‘new’ stadium for the first time. But we don’t care. United squandered chances and then looked shit. But we don’t care. We bossed them in midfield and scored 2 fab goals. And we barely care.

Because under the wonderful Ange we’re playing like a Spurs team again. Free-flowing, creative, fast, eager, strident, confident and flowing. Ok, there are ‘gaps’, they’re inherent in the style of play, you just have to try and fill them before the opponents do. And a better opponent might have capitalised, early on when we hadn’t properly settled. But they weren’t better. They were, pretty much, the same Man United as we had last year, with Mason Mount added for fun. Though he didn’t seem to have much fun playing against Sarr and Bissouma, with James Madison flying round being wonderful. Lovin’ our new manager. So I’ll give him at least another 3 weeks.

Man on the radio this morning complaining that women footballers should earn the same as men footballers. I mean what a tosser. It’s not about glass ceilings or equality or anything other than tv revenues. Where does this man see these 10 million pound salaries for every lioness coming from? Maybe the government should step in and pay it. There’s also a good case that if tv rights for cancer treatment were as valuable as for football, oncologists would deservedly be on those salaries too. Its not about what you do but how many people want to watch you do it.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

We’re in the final. Its amazing. My Lionesses are one step away from being world champions!!! Ok, it can be quite a big step, but you have to feel confident. Sarina Wiegman (surely a Damehood is just around the corner; what’s the situation with the Dutch?) has groomed (not like that) this squad into something special. Unlike the men’s teams, she has engendered a culture of winning. She is the star, the eleven blond pony-tails running around the pitch are just an extension of her will. They won the European Championships and now they’re poised for totally dominant greatness and re-writing history and all that other shit they all bang on about in the papers.

So today, a special flight is being arranged to take King Charles out to Sydney. And Camilla. Prince William, the head of the Football Association of the whole of England is hitching a ride and Rishi Sunak will be going along too. Tony Blair. Robbie Williams. A few Spice Girls. Geoff Hurst. Harry Kane. Prue Leith. All going out there for this historic and amazing outpouring of national pride.

Oh. The flight’s been cancelled. No-one’s going. No-one cares. Rishi’s busy. Prince Wills has a busy diary, everyone else… doin’ stuff, can’t go, sorry, maybe next time.

Yeah, next time A NATIONAL TEAM IS IN A WORLD CUP FINAL!!!

I think this is really shitty. No-one’s going to be there. Oh, sorry, the ‘culture secretary’ will attend ‘on behalf of His Majesty’s (poxy) government’. And if you can name her without googling there’s a prize draw for the actual bra worn by your favourite player in the final!!!

I haven’t yet watched a whole match, I have to confess. In fact I haven’t watched very much of any match, England or otherwise. I hate myself for that, there’s no denying it. But if it was ‘the boys’, every Tom, Dick and Suella would be grabbing freebie tickets as voluntary ‘ambassadors’ for our nation, jumping on Sarina’s gravy train, riding on a blond pony tail and having a few days on Bondi beach whilst I’m there, thank you very much. Its not about ‘the distance’, and I’ve done that trip 3 times and that’s more than enough for any lifetime. Its not about anything other than a bunch of total fucking hypocrites telling us how ‘its all about the legacy, the advancement of the women’s game, etc, etc’, and then not being arsed enough to make the trip, cos its only a bunch’a gels, innit?

Shame on them all.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

… and God laughs, as the saying goes. But Rishi Sunak is no mere mortal! He’s a Superman! Even though he looks more like The Atom. Because according to Rishi: “its all going to plan!”, as wages take their steepest rise for 22 years. Not mine, must be yours.

But what was that ‘plan’ exactly? The one which is working so well and to which the nation’s economy is almost powerless in its wake? Was it to arrange record levels of inflation and fuel charges, add in massively increased cost of goods and services to the point where half the nation was on the verge of bankruptcy and homelessness, thus forcing employers into ‘inflation matching’ wage rises? In which case ‘the plan’ is indeed working. And for that we must all feel much, much better. As long, of course, you don’t have a mortgage, eat any butter, cheese, eggs or fruit, drive a car in London or ever intend to heat the house again. Then you’re fucked.

It feels like the country is being run by spin doctors. Who, it would appear, are the only doctors who don’t come with 6-month waiting lists.

Its much easier to write the problems in a different way than to actually resolve them. Same as the ‘waiting lists’.

Meanwhile, life for us Lionesses just got one million times better than ever before. We beat the (fucking) Aussies, poor, saddened Wallabesses or Kangaresses or Brucesses, in the semi-final of the actual (Gels) World Fucking Cuppppp!!!! The first time an England football team has made it to a final since the days when you needed 11 penises to get there. I AM LIVING A DREAM! Albeit a slightly frilly, lacy, flouncey-yet-quite-butch version of that dream. England did reach the rugby world cup final, AND it was in Sydney, AANNDD it was against the Aussies, and we bloody won that, but it was only the boys.

This is so exiting I may actually watch it! COME ON ENGLAND!!!

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

Rishi Sunak is clever. He’s stuck with NHS waiting lists which, quite frankly, he could do without. They almost sit there as a constant reminder of how unworking/unworkable, the NHS machine really is. Over 7 million people are waiting for something or other. Which represents 14% of our nation. One in 7 people requires medical care to some degree. Which is almost impossible to believe except probably half are just waiting for a sick note to be ‘signed off’ from work for a nice rest.

Rishi promised to ‘reduce waiting lists’. Yet after the pandemic, when all ‘non-essential’ procedures ceased for a long period, came ‘the strikes’, during which ‘non-essentials’ got fucked over once again. And many of these ‘non-essentials’ have things like cancer, which, unfortunately, over time, tend to become very very ‘essential’.

As the obvious (if a bit mindless and unsustainable) solution is to pump another 17 trillion quid into more units, more scanners, more doctors, nurses and more everything, Rishi instead has decided to tackle the waiting list problem a different, slightly ‘non-medical’ way. He’s restructuring the lists themselves. Its a bit like printing money to pay off national debts. Just shift the emphasis elsewhere. Particularly with an election coming up and ‘reducing waiting lists!!!’ is one of Rishi’s keystones. So, for cancer patients, he’s creating three new lists, from which, basically one third can safely be removed. Bringing the numbers down, the statistics look better and his claims appear a little more realistic. Brilliant.

Obviously the sick people are still sick people and if you have cancer you’re still not going to be seen for 3 months, but it looks better. Which must be good, right?

The NHS don’t cover Saudi Arabia. Where Steven Gerrard manages a football team containing all of Europe’s old veterans. So Jordan Henderson made his debut last night for the team to which Neymar is flying to right now, and they’re all earning billions. But that debut was played, at night, in 35 degrees and about 90% humidity. Just what ‘old men’, already struggling with fitness, really need to help their ageing bones. Apparently Saudi hospitals are great. For anyone earning more than 200 grand a week.

Happy, healthy Tuesday

A xxxx