Andy's Glasses

This was Joey on Monday night… leaving the hospital. Where they’d just applied a few steri-strips to his head. I could’a done that. But Joey was kept waiting for 4 hours and I’d have made him wait for 5. Just because. So the local hospital got the job. And not the neatest job I’ve ever seen either. I know, they have to check after a head wound for possible concussion. But as he was chatting happily and generally fine, other than the blood and the hole, its safe to eliminate that, I reckon. And after head-gate 1, when he split open the other side of his forehead one friday night during dinner, Mel actually went and bought some special glue. Like Superglue… ok, it is superglue, but its sterile and has anti-bacterials in it. So you buy it from the chemist instead of the builders’ merchants and it cost 14 times as much. We call it ‘Joey glue’ because he’s Joey and as such needs to give blood once a month. To the pavement, the playground, the park, the kitchen floor… because its what little boys do. Lila never did it; she never identified as a little boy. So she rarely goes looking for hard, pointed surfaces to bang her head against.

Tomorrow we’re going to Ischia. Ischia? Yeah, its a little island off the bay of Naples, just past Capri. There’s a wedding. No idea whose but what the hell; food, drink, dancing, possibly a rabbi, how can you go wrong? We gatecrash a destination wedding every month. Just go anywhere nice and there’s bound to be a someone tying the knot, ok, may have to give the rabbi bit a miss sometimes but that’s the story of my life, avoiding rabbis wherever possible. Except for the 2 who’ll be going to this wedding because they’re the groom’s cousins.

But I’ve never been to Ischia. Who the f*** has? You have to take a boat from Naples to get there, and as my over-60 tube pass doesn’t take me to Naples, its just one more lost opportunity. Until tomorrow! Yet Naples would seem, by reports, to be Italy’s ‘crime central’. Don’t carry money, valuables, small children, cameras; don’t speak with a foreign accent (but all Italians do, I don’t get that bit) and avoid ‘scammers’. Which, after reading for a bit, you realise is absolutely any local.

Which really, is my normal policy. Anyone who sounds like they weren’t born within the M25 should be avoided at all costs, run from, beaten or murdered.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

The current and latest (of oh so many) scandal to hit the BBC is ‘presentergate’. A nameless (so far) ‘top’ BBC presenter was paying a young man, arguably and allegedly, a ‘boy’, when the saga began, for naughty images or videos, in exchange for quite a lot of money.

I won’t speculate who this ‘presenter’, now suspended by the Beeb, might be. That would be presumptuous and ungentlemanly. I have a very strong adherence to the presumption of innocence and thus will refrain from entering into the ‘but who could it be???’ debate. Everyone has the inalienable right to present their case and defend their integrity. Even Welshmen. Not that I’m sayin’…

The young man was paid 35 thousand pounds over three years for lewd type images sent to the presenter. So said young man’s mum. Enough money that the kid developed a serious crack addiction. As you would?

Note for any other ‘presenters’ out there: I’ll send you lewd selfies for 20 quid. 30 if you want any dangerous animals involved. (Snakes not included).

But hang on!!! Wait just a moment before crucifying any possible, unnamed and unknown grey-haired news readers, before dismantling the national institution that is the BBC, for failing to act quickly enough about the allegations, because the boy/man in question hath spoken, and in stark contradiction to his mum. Well, his lawyers did, anyway. They said ‘nothing illegal has happened’ and, basically, ‘you can all just fuck off’.

And that’s the interesting bit. The only actual illegality in this is if the boy was indeed 17 when this started. If not, then indeed, ‘nothing illegal has happened’. How a newsreader chooses to spend his money is his business. Morality aside (ok, quite a big ‘aside’, but I try to run my whole life with that disclaimer) if the boy was 18, then its just 2 consenting adults engaged in mutually beneficial sleaze. Nought wrong with that.

What Rita Chakrabarty does with lemmings is no-one’s business but her own. If Clive Myrie engages in an orgy of masochism with 3 whip-wielding dwarves; that’s fine by me. And as for Sophie Raworth…

So no more speculation, no more pre-judging, no more guessing who it might be!

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Just before I start on the tennis (OMG, the tennis!!!!), we need to talk cricket. Specifically: The Ashes, third test at Headingly. And the foe was bested. Ok, it wasn’t ‘comfortable’. When Ben Stokes left the pitch English heads dropped. Mine included. Which wasn’t great because I was driving when it happened. Perhaps cars sold in England need to offer a ‘heads down display’ for just such moments. Of which there are many. Spurs fans would never look up. But we fucking won. And that’s brilliant.

So I watched the tennis which I STILL can’t play because of my hip issues. And it was, quite frankly, brilliant. Not the hip, obvs, but Wimbledon. And my pick of the day was… not the Djokovic match because it didn’t finish, and was, quite frankly, a bit boring with him playing some giant with a massive serve, up to 141 mph, ffs, and in the first set getting over 90% first serves in. Djokovic on the other side is no slouch at serving either so the first set went to an inevitable tie-break, but in about 20 minutes because there were no rallies. And much as I love Novak like I love Kier Starmer and Vladimir Putin, he was simply bloody brilliant and beat the glumph to first blood. Because we may not like the man, but he is simply brilliant.

My match of the day was between Victoria Azarenka and Elina Svitolina; battle of the unpronounceables. It was a simply brilliant game, start to finish, hard-fought and swinging both ways, sometimes at the same time. Then Elina won the final set deep into a long tie-break.

And that’s when the trouble started.

Because Elina is Ukranian and Victoria is from Belarus, which remains Russia’s strongest (and only) ally in the current… special… whatever; the shitstorm. Elina had stated that she would NOT be shaking hands with any Russians or Belarussians. So Victoria, who had just entertained the centre court crowd for 3 hours with her amazing contribution to an incredible game, politely raised her hand to her opponent as she walked off, to spare her any embarrassment at the net. And then She left the arena for Elina to receive rapturous applause. And the crowd booed Victoria off. And I thought, even with my ‘Ukraine f’rever!!!’ hat on, I thought: what a bunch’a fuckers. Azarenko is NOT Aleksandr Lukashenko. She’s probably lived in America since the Florida abduction centre for tennis prodigies from East Europe grabbed her. I get Elina’s point. But fans should appreciate the fucking tennis, its not a comment on a political system, nor proof of a love of Putin.

Appalled of Norf Lundun

xxxx

Whilst we’re waiting for the new football season to start, this weekend represents some kind of pinnacle of ‘other sports’ stuff. As England enter the 4th day of the 3rd Ashes test with every chance to win it but, obviously, an equally ‘every chance’ of losing it. Should the former happen, ‘THE SERIES IS ALIVE!!!’, but if the latter it just becomes damage limitation and seeing just how hateful Australians can gloat.

I have to decide whether to keep sending blogs out about my beloved Premier League or whether to instead write about the Saudi Arabian league for £365,000 a week. Possibly a day, need to read the proposal again. As if.

And then we have the tennis. It took me a few days to fully engage. Seeing Roger Federer sitting in the royal box did nothing to help me. The player who based his entire style of play on me, and the most elegant, wonderful, perfect exponent of the game, now reduced to babysitting Princess Kate and wearing a tie. No Rafa, just a limping Andy Murray and a still obnoxious Novak Djokovic. Plus new wonderkid Carlos Alcaraz and a few 7 foot 3 east European serving machines.

Then there’s the women’s. And I started not knowing any of the gels, they just drift into so many pony-tails with -ova on the end. But once I got over that, I realised the thing which makes Wimbledon so wonderful and special is precisely that. That they don’t need names. Because they all dress the same. None of those green and yellow twin sets they wear at the Australian; no black shorts like in France, no… no nothing!! Except little white dresses and long, tanned legs. And that would be enough, even without the tennis. Then I re-discovered Katie Boulter and I was in love again, until she lost. Yet they know how to play the game too. Which is not ‘that’ important, compared to the length of their dresses, but it helps.

So this week it gets even more exiting. And the cricket’s just gone a bit off as we need 8 runs and there’s only 4 wickets left. Nooooooooo…

Happy, not-depressing-yet, Sunday

A xxxx

America’s announcement yesterday to send cluster bombs to Ukraine to help ‘our side’ against the Russians has been met with many different opinions and posed many moral and political questions.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly; are cluster bombs any less vile, evil, nasty, indiscriminate, vicious and illegal (in most countries) if you refer to them as ‘cluster munitions’ as it has become suddenly ‘the thing to do’? Cluster bombs are deployed by scum-ridden dictatorships and gap-toothed mercenaries, whereas cluster ‘munitions’ are up there with Louis Vuitton handbags, Moët & Chandon and Wimbledon as the epitome of gentility and aspirational desirability.

Change the name all ya want, cluster bombs cluster fuck! That’s their job. Causing major, widespread (literally) death, destruction and fuckage. And best of all; there’s always some of the cluster left unexploded for later on. Just lying around waiting for future generations to ‘enjoy’. As they go off under foot/car/baby-carriage.

Most decent countries in the world have pledged never to deploy such things. Including nations like Great Britain, so noble as to deplore such weaponry, but not so stupid as to stop making a living selling them to less wholesome countries, like to Saudi Arabia, who have used them in Yemen. But three countries who haven’t agreed to ban them are Russia (no fucking surprise there), Ukraine (they never previously had any so jury’s out on them) and America (questions of morality don’t count if asked between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans). So Russia have been using them and now, courtesy of America, Ukraine will too.

The usual arguments that such bombs are indiscriminate if falling near civilian populations hopefully won’t count as you can’t see Ukraine bombing its own people. They’ll presumably only use them in ‘Russian only’ areas.

Oh, that’s ok then. Indiscriminate killing doesn’t count if its against poor Russian kids, dragged away from college and forced onto the front line without pause for question, debate or appeal.

And personally, I have issues questioning ‘war’ on any ‘moral issues’. Because war is bringing death to other people. If that is in any way acceptable in any situation then you’re either an awful person or a politician.

The whole thing is a cluster-fuck, now they’ve just made it official.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

I’m a Lundunner. Not one oo speaks like’a, ya’know, one’a dem kids wots needin Kier Starmer’s speech and locution bollox, none-a-dat-shit fer me, but a real Lundunner wot don’t never stop for pedestrian signals. I’d rather get run over dodging buses, trucks and speeding police cars than wait for a little green man to tell me when to cross a road. I wouldn’t stand there like an Italian school party when the road’s perfectly clear. Not in my blood. Which may get spread the road at odd times, I appreciate that, but such is life. But sometimes, when I come to cross a road, the little man is coincidentally green. So I have to pretend I’m a tourist and cross at the correct moment. Like this morning. And as I took one stop onto the crossing, with the little green man smiling at me opposite, I nearly got hit by a tosser on a Lime bike coming through… well, I would say ‘red light’, but as this particular tosser was riding the wrong way down a 1-way street, there wasn’t actually a light there. Because they don’t have traffic lights where no traffic should be. At which point my anger and indignation simply melted in admiration. This guy’s either just pure oblivious or cares even less for traffic rules and regulations than I do. Respect.

For yesterday’s entertainment combined with free child labour abuses, I engaged two very willing helpers to wash the car. Sunny day, dirty car, Lila and Joey totally enthused; what could possibly go wrong??? Well, first, we need to ‘take a sponge’. But there’s 5 and they both want the same one. Why? Stupid question. They just do. So after a little game in which I clean a car and they lob wet sponges onto the roof for me to retrieve, Joey got hold of the hose. It took about 10 minutes of pouring water onto the offside rear wheel until he got bored and pointed it at his sister. Then it all went a bit ‘reservoir dogs’ for a while, as I sponged and soaped away, because I turned round to see Lila, two feet away from Joey, with the hose in hand, just soaking him. Something he really didn’t mind at all. Just took it like a… well, like a four year-old boy who likes getting wet.

3 changes of clothes later, we were good as new. And the car was clean. Job done.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

What the fuck is going on in France? They’re supposed to be cleaning the place up and getting ready for the Brits who will be arriving shortly in the same kind of numbers as the Normandy landing, but every day through August, as they take the kids for some sunshine and baguettes whilst they sip Bordeaux and Cab. Sauv, in the shade and load up their cholesterol levels with their annual cheese-binge.

But instead they’re setting fire to the place, burning cars, rioting, protesting, making a lot of noise and generally causing great unpleasantness all around. And for what?

Well, that’s the question. Ostensibly its about the killing of a 17 year old boy. But really, that’s just become a catalyst, a fuse, igniting long-standing malaise and dissatisfaction into a mass ‘je deteste France’ movement. The country, the government, the President, the police, the whole lot. Pretty much ‘everything French’. Which really brings those Frogs in line with the rest of the world, thinking-wise.

But the problems are many. Everyone hates Macron. Understandable. He wants them to delay retirement by pushing pensions further away. And there’s nothing the average French person loves more than work avoidance.
Other than perhaps shagging the wives of others. And the social problems they have there are difficult. And never more so than when the police shoot a kid in a car who, judging by the news film, was no ‘threat’ whatsoever to the shooter. The kid in question was of Algerian descent, thus the shooting was racially motivated, even if it wasn’t.

You should never give a gun to a Frenchman. A white flag, sure, but a gun? And in the banlieues, the hi-rise suburbs, over-crowded with high immigrant populations, the police are expecting trouble. And will consequently always find it. And that immigrant population, mainly from north Africa, arrived looking for a ‘better life’. And they were housed and fed and clothed by a resentful indigenous population because most were from French colonies with a ‘right to entry’. But there was no ‘right’ to go straight to the middle classes. And that’s possibly where the trouble starts.

They need another revolution. One’s never enough.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I’m pleased and quite frankly relieved to see that the Bank of England have decided to go ‘on message’ in the post-woke workplace. Rather than wasting their time sorting out interest rates which are at a pre-2008 high, worrying about inflation which doesn’t seem to be coming down as quickly as predicted/expected, or generally, doing what the Bank of Fucking England should be doing, they’ve sorted out their inclusivity policy. And although offering ‘leave to a birthing parent’ will not directly stop poor mortgage payers being made homeless, and the fact that gender reassignment is now part of their private health package is unlikely to reduce the average and punitive gas bill, I’m sure that people queuing at food banks will be greatly comforted to know that ‘all the toilets on the 7th floor are unisex’. Its not exactly ‘playing the fiddle whilst Rome burns’ but its kind’a along those lines. Kowtowing to the collective insanity whilst England goes bankrupt. And you’re the ‘bank’.

Wimbledon starts today. I just love Wimbledon. Even though Djokovic has returned and Emma Raducanu hasn’t. In honour of the world’s only proper tennis tournament, I didn’t play myself yesterday. Ok, I didn’t play because playing Saturday gave me bother of a hip, rather than hipster, nature. It fucking hurt. Trochanteric Bursitis. Nothing to do with age. Its something that all elite sportspeople should get to prove their eliteness.

Which is why none of the England cricket team suffer from it. Although to be honest, they were brilliant against the Aussies. Well, Ben Stokes was. Johnny Bairstow would have been but the Aussies proved, once again, what a bunch of cheating scion-of-convict low-lifes they are. I won’t bore with details, you either know or you won’t understand, but the spirit of the game of cricket, itself a metaphor for ‘doing the right thing’, was simply trashed in one blow of a metaphorical digeridoo. 200 years of gentleman-ness blown.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

As if Kier Starmer doesn’t make your skin crawl already, he just keeps upping the creepiness factor until, quite frankly, no-one else could ever get a look in. From being a horrible, anti-Semite-enabling do-nothing, sitting on Jeremy Corbyn’s shoulder for the ‘years of terror’, he’s now become the most negative, whingy-moany opposition leader ever, elevated to the top slot by virtue of not having anything positive to ever propose, seemingly content with demanding government sackings whenever a top Tory goes to take a piss during parliamentary session. Ok, part of that’s his job, but there must be MORE, you need substance, you Arsenal-supporting, charisma-free champagne-socialist reptile!

Yet on he bangs. This time an old and familiar drum. Which has no place in any drum-kit because its so irrelevant. “Rishi Sunak can never understand a ‘cost of living crisis’ because he’s so rich”. “Rishi Sunak can’t understand mortgage rate increases because he owns 150 million quids worth of properties outright”. And, best of all, just to really hi-light how totally free from understanding he really is: “I have a mortgage and the repayments have just gone UP!!!” Just like yours!!!, is the implication, whereas the reality is the mortgage on Starmer’s 2 million pound north London pad is probably about 27k and between his ‘paltry’ £150k a year plus his wife’s salary, they’ll barely notice the difference.

Starmer suffers from a chronic case of socialist guilt. The symptoms are an inability to accept that you are pretty well off, financially, because it might make you appear ‘less worthy’ a socialist than a homeless man. As if ‘socialism’ were a lifestyle choice rather than a political ideology. And by constantly banging on about Rishi’s never-denied wealth, he implies that he is ‘hard up; just like you’ whereas nothing could be farther from the truth. And furthermore, Rishi’s never been raped. Does that make him less empathetic to victims than a PM who had been? You don’t need to be poor to sympathise with the poor. A point sadly never grasped by the Leader of the Opposition.

I think therefore, that we need to add, to the growing list of failings and shortcomings of ‘the man who might become PM (God for-fucking-bid!!!)’, that he just isn’t very bright. Clever, in a bland and non-creative academic way, but dim.

A killer irony is that as I was googling Starmer a link came up about his actual name. And apparently ‘Starmer’ is an olde English derivative from ‘starre’ or ‘sterre’ which mean ‘bright’ and “…would generally be given to someone with a bright or lively personality.” He is, therefore, a disgrace to his family name.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

I love a flower as much as the next man. Possibly more. Though it gets a bit less when I come home from work one day in about May and Mel tells me she’s bought ‘a few bedding plants’. And I open the car to find 2,000 little polystyrene boxes of earth looking at me, all with tiny little shoots on them. Shutting the door doesn’t make them go away. I tried. They need planting. Petunias, daisies… errrr… flowers… shit-loads of ‘em, so we dig. And then its done.

But its not. Because bedding plants need watering. Every fucking day. All of them. Otherwise THEY DIE!!!! Which, after a few weeks of watering, wouldn’t be such a bad thing. And you never get a hose-pipe ban when you need one. But actually its a type of therapy, watering the flowers. Its cathartic. And feels great when it’s done.

The other night I was watering (“I’ll clear away the dinner stuff, you water the garden” is an irresistible division of labour) and I just managed to finish before it started raining. I mean, how lucky is that??? Phew, I thought, just made it in time.

And much as I love flowers, I really love metal. Not the music. Not just my new shoulder, but just metal ‘things’. Objects d’art. Objects d’anything. Objects d’metal. So when they fitted our new bathroom and intended to throw the old radiator out, I cried “NOOOOOOO!!!” because giraffes get lonely too, ya know.

I’m turning into my father. I called LBC radio. Talking about the NHS. Now the new, government initiative to create 300,000 more key workers in 12 years. Wow! That’ll solve ALL the problems. They’ll be doing hip operations when your 19, just cos they’ve got the time and man-power and you’re going to need a new one sometime. Right. But the government haven’t announced either how these new workers will be paid, nor how the old workers (currently on strike half the time) will get the pay increases they really deserve but the government can’t afford. And for ‘government’, read ‘us’. So my point was: isn’t this national obsession with ‘free at the point of delivery’ simply unsustainable and the NHS needs a new model whereby users possibly contribute?

So many problems in the world, I’m only one man ya know!!!

Happy Saturday

A xxxx