Andy's Glasses

Took this lovely pic this morning as I strolled through Embankment Gardens, the worlds best, and possibly smallest, park. And I thought: who’s the tosser in the yellow jacket ruining my photo???!!!! The only yellow thing you normally get there is tulips. Daffodils. Errrr… flowers. But not today. As I walked through, the presence of these hi-viz dudes and dudettes (yes, they have gels in the police too, ya know, otherwise who would you sexually assault in the coffee room?) increased with every step. Reaching its maximum saturation at the back doors of the Savoy hotel. But carried on all the way through the park and in the road behind it. I asked 2 young bobbies (sooooo fucking young, one of them wasn’t completely weaned yet and the other I’m sure had a dummy on his utility belt) what was going on and was told ‘its confidential; we can’t tell you’, or, presumably they’d have to shoot me but were unarmed so I need to speak to the gun squad.

And I thought. Hmmmmmm, is precisely what I thought. Who would warrant such a security operation that’s very very ‘overt’? Who’s coming to England to visit? Someone of an inflammatory and divisive nature or stature? Ahhhhhh: Bibi.

Binyamin Netenyahu is due (no pun) a visit this weekend to ‘discuss Iran’. Which probably means Rishi wants the opportunity to stop Bibi nuking it. And Netenyahu is a divisive character, for sure. Possibly the most divisive since Moses. And he only divided the sea, rather than opinion. Because about 9/10ths of the middle east simply hate him, ok, mainly on principle but more recently for more valid reasons. And now, approximately 53% of his own, fellow Israelis hate him too. The ones who don’t wear big black hats with lots of things dangling about; fringes, hair-locks. In fact it is possible that Bibi is the most hated head of state in the world, with the notable exception of Mnsr Macron. Who is only hated by the French, but all of them.

Freddie Flintoff, the man who single-handedly won the Ashes for us in… yeah, whenever, retired from cricket to become a car ‘expert’. Well, he can drive, can’t he? Loves cars? Therefore he’s as qualified as Lewis Hamilton to become Jeremy Clarkson. And Freddie has been wonderful on Top Gear for a few years now. And then… he crashed. Not catastrophic; scarred his face and broke a few ribs. Thus has now retired from Top Gear. His job on the show was ‘dare devil’.

Eddie the Eagle was a dare devil. Didn’t look as pretty as Freddie (nor really as pretty as Freddie’s dog), but he broke every bone in his body 19 times ski-jumping. Well, ski-crashing-off-the-jump-ing. Freddie’s predecessor on Top Gear, diddy Richard Hamilton nearly died in a car crash for the show. Back again as soon as the surgeries healed and his brain-swelling reduced sufficiently for him to remember who he was. That’s a dare-devil. Its a synonym for ‘schmuck who doesn’t learn’. NOT, one scratch and I’m gone. Sorry Freddie, bit disappointed.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

When is a party not a party?

When Boris Johnson is there. Simple. As soon as he arrives, amid the boozing, feasting, snogging, groping, dancing, human pyramids, orgies, spirits being poured down the throats of Special Parliamentary Advisors, tied to chairs, the party is suddenly, amid all the mayhem, NO LONGER A PARTY. Even though all that shit is still going on. Boris is the diametric opposite of John Belushi in Animal House. And that makes perfect sense.

To Boris.

Because Boris, as Gary Lineker, of all unworthy people, pointed out in his latest foray into the world outside of football, creates his own fantasy world of innocence. If he thinks something is so, it is so. End of.

But the inquiry today is not about whether he went to and organised parties, which he obviously did and has been fined by the police for doing so, its about whether he intentionally misled parliament. Oooooh, IN-TEN-SHEN-ALLY. Big word with big consequences. Because inadvertently is forgivable, intentional is very naughty.

The reality is that I don’t care. Find him guilty, suspend him from parliament, force him out of his seat, none of it will harm his ‘main career’ as a public speaker, which has earned him nearly 3 million quid in the last year, with his writing work. Whatever happens only adds to ‘the legend’. If he’s officially a ‘bad boy’ then even more people will want to hear him speak. It all gives him kudos and encourages him to keep fictionalising his reality, bless him.

Antonio Conte is leaving Spurs. No announcement yet but his ‘position’ is way more untenable than Boris’s. They’re apparently just ‘working out his compensation’. Whereas I would be working out how to dispose of the body. Because when any manager repeatedly states ‘it was not my fault’, then you know one thing for sure: It was all his fault. Vying with Boris for ‘tosser of the week’, though I think we can give the award to our ex-PM and find a more appropriate word for Mr Conte. Let me take inspiration from his name and think…

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

‘Hands off her!!!’ is nothing to do with the police force. Not in this context anyway. Its actually plenty to do with our ‘sexist, racist, misogynist, homophobic’ police, who rape, molest and grope, apparently quite regularly, all of them, but that’s for another time.

This particular use of the expression is more figurative than literal. On the assumption that neither me no Sathnam Sanghera, from the Times, has ever laid a hand on Taylor Swift. Though probably not for want of trying. In either case.

But his article, entitled ‘my midlife crush on Taylor Swift’, is nothing short of emotional appropriation! I’m consulting lawyers as I write this. Although appreciate I may end up in court myself, even if only the court of woke public opinion on charges of ‘objectification’ and for persistently being an ancient, cis-male, middle-class, white, non-trans, lecherous bastard. Mea culpa.

Sathnam talks like he is the only ‘old-ish’ man to become a ‘fan’ of TS. Like he’s some kind of arriviste inspiration. Where there must be… well, there’s me, that’s one, me mate Ronnie, that’s two… thousands of old men who lust over the woman. And then justify it, or advertise it as ‘musical appreciation’.

I first became aware of the Ms Swift when she was really just a gel (can I say that???), on Jules Holland (thus she arrived with 100% musical validation), when her first ever single, Love Story, was released in 2008. It changed my life. Ok, not really, just figure of speech. But she was a fantastically talented songwriter and singer, writing precisely the songs that resonate completely with 15 year-old girls and middle-aged men. Since then she’s been prolific in her output. None of which I’ve ever bought or downloaded, if I’m totally honest, but that doesn’t mean I don’t listen to them. I just do it for free.

But if there’s one thing that elevates the merely ‘beautiful’ into the totally ‘must have’, that is intelligence. Not just mine. Hers. She’s clever, she’s witty, political and strong, taking no shit from no-one. Of course, if she looked like Hilda Ogden there’d be no amount of fantastic lyrics that would engage me. Does that make me a bad person? Yeah, probably does.

Basically, I’ve had a crush on Taylor (as I call her) for 15 years. I don’t need no trumped up, pervy journo trying to steal MY woman. Get yer own or I’ll cancel my subscription!!!!

Annoyed of NW11

xxxx

After a busy morning of tennis and saving the polar bears (which is I how I now call ‘driving’, in the electric vehicle, from my elevated driving position of ‘the moral high ground’, knowing that Greta Thunberg would smile at me as I tried to run her over, enjoying the silent smugness that only the fully electrically-vehicled can really appreciate) I found myself on the couch at about 5.30 with the tv showing me the second half of the FA Cup semi-final between Manchester United (boooo, baddies, rich, horrible, arrogant, petrol-driving) and Fulham (yaaaaaay, the good guys, lovely London low-key team with proper values and a stadium within the ULEZ). Surprisingly, at Old Trafford, over half the match was done and United hadn’t even been awarded one penalty. Unusual. Anyway, that soon changed. But before, Fulham scored.

They’d been pretty much all over United for the first 45 and always looked more likely to score. United looked like they hadn’t woken up properly. After a very long night of booze, rape and pillage. Usual for United players. But then…

Its kind’a why I love football. ‘What happened next???’

United were attacking, someone took a shot and little Willian arrived at the near post with his little Brazilian elbow stretched out to make the save. Oh dear. Handball. But, (and this is where it gets ‘good’), VAR has to intervene first. No-one can take a sip of water without VAR approval. And then the ref was called to watch the incident himself. At which point the Fulham manager hurled a torrent of abuse at the man in black, who promptly grabbed his red card and sent the Portugezer to the stands. He then returned to the pitch where he pointed to the penalty spot (there was never any question) and also waved his red card at Willian. Again, the ref had no choice, nearest to goal, prevents that goal, red card. So the Fulham players go ballistic. No idea why, it was all fairly obvious, but that’s why we love football. For the explosions of frustration, anger and the horrible realisation that you’re probably going to lose a match you’d been winning.

Aleksander Mitrovich, everyone’s favourite Serbian thug, grabbed hold of the ref to ‘remonstrate’. The posh term for GETTING IN HIS FUCKING FACE!!!!!! That went down well too as the ref showed him a red card as well. On the basis that there’s never a wrong time to send a Serb off the pitch.

And so United went on to beat 9-man Fulham.

That’s why I love football. Why I hate football is because, in the same way I wasn’t born the son of Bill Gates, Elon Musk or even a nice billionaire, I was ‘born’ as a Spurs fan. To suffer.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

After a truly wonderful evening at The Blonde and The Bastard’s house (‘wonderful’ in this context means the food was great, the whisky free and their company sufficiently engaging that neither Mel nor I fell asleep into our coffee cups), we went home, electrically, changed into our dressing gowns, amazingly, and made a cup of tea, obsessively, (‘making tea’ is that kind of deal). And turned on the tv.

Match of the Day is still banned in our house, in protest against Gary Lineker, but mainly because Spurs were shameful yesterday and I really had no desire to listen to our arrogant, aggressive manager bang on for 10 minutes blaming everyone at the club for his dismal failures. In case I damaged the tv. So I ‘found’ Women of Soul. Oooooh. And as I turned on there was Aretha, back in 1968, banging out ‘Say a little prayer’. It was a ‘live’ rendition, but everything in 1968 was either ‘live’ or ‘stoned’, even on Top of the Pops. And Aretha was just… she was… it was… simply, she was Aretha. I reckon, the best woman’s voice ever. And in the time it took to drink my tea, which was at least six or seven 3-minute tracks, I had no cause to change that view. And this was no mean cast of challengers. Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Randy Crawford, it was fantastic, but not Aretha. The only one who came close was Whitney. She of the angelic voice, the stunning beauty and the horrendous choice of partners and lifestyles. God rest her soul. And such Soul.

Then I went to bed. With the strains of ‘I wanna dance with somebody’ still ringing in my ears. It had stopped by this morning. But there’s always Alexa.

But Alexa won’t help me with Antonio Conte. She doesn’t do assassinations. He’s doing what all ex-Chelsea managers do: holding everyone else responsible for their own tragically malfunctioning shortcomings. Blaming the players lack of motivation is a bit rich. Considering he’s paid 15 million quid a year to do nothing else but ensure their commitment and cohesion. He’s a fuckwit Italian tosser and must go NOW.

Otherwise: happy Sunday

A xxxx

Well it had to happen sometime, I s’pose. The bloody car arrived. The ‘lectric one. Having ordered it in November 2021, it just became one of ‘those things’. Santa Clause coming at Xmas, Spurs winning a trophy, new car arriving. And then, out of nowhere!!!! (Ok, we had monthly apologies telling us of components troubles, assembly difficulties, delays in transportation, shipping disasters, delivery postponements, Brexit bollocks…) it just… CAME!!! Oh. What do I do with it? Are the batteries included? Do I need a 200-mile extension cable to play out when I go up the motorway? Will it drive like ‘normal’? Will it be more ‘milk float’ than ‘racer’, what will… how do you… why is that light red… WTF???

And yet. Its just a car. You get in, you press ‘start’ and you drive it. End of. The rest is just so much ‘glitz’. You need a steering wheel, check; you need to know how many miles before it dies, check, you need a ‘celerator and brake, check. Off ya go then, what‘s the fuss?

They do drive differently. If you (dare) put your foot down, electric cars just fucking fly. And the power is ‘instant’. There’s nothing mechanical, nothing pumping, nothing ‘injecting’, just power. And shit-loads of it. That’s scary thing number one. Number two is that the car brakes for you. Take your foot off the accelerator and it feels like you’re braking, when you’re not. Its a ‘retardation’ thing which sucks up the power wasted on slowing and pours it back into the batteries. They all do it. But it feels different. For 10 minutes, then it feels perfectly normal and I know that next time I drive a petrol car I’m gonna run into the back of the car in front. Not that I EVER would again be a polluting, environment-destroying, polar-bear killing, carbon emitter!!

But to just ‘drive’ a car like this is like buying a state-of-the-art i-book to use as a calculator. You download the manufacturers app (everyone and everything has a fucking app, essential, innit) you can check the charge, where it is, all sorts of useless shit, BUT; you can get it to defrost itself before you go out there. And if it happens to be plugged in, that will cost you ‘nothing’ in miles. Just in electricity, but that don’t count.

The car has two tiny little black ceramic ‘tiles’ on the steering wheel. They are the mouses (yeah, I know, but ‘mice’?) for two of the screens. And I thought of Mel and I thought… naaaaaaah. Not gonna happen.

Its so clever it has hundreds of computers in it and I only worry that it may ‘go rogue’ on me, like the robots in Terminator. I want to go to Waitrose but ‘it’ wants to go to Middlesboro’. Or ‘home’ somewhere in Ursa Minor? Like WTF?

So we have much to learn. Very much. You can even talk to it. I asked for some toast yesterday, with marmalade and chips. Ok, it has limits. I just have no idea what they are.

Happy driving

A xxxx

Gary’s coming back!!! He’s possibly forgiven? Probably restrained? Warned? Instructed?? Reprimanded? Who knows? What goes on at the Beeb, stays at the Beeb. But everyone’s favourite footballing smooth-bastard is returning to Match of the Day on Saturday night, with his full team of strikers (Shearer and Wrightey), plus a few midfielders (Danny Murphy, Jermaine Jenas), and the odd defender (Ashley Williams, Martin Keown) to ensure the flow of drivel continues as always. Before ‘the lost weekend’. And Lineker will undoubtedly make comment about his enforced purdah. And it will be smug (I won!!) and it will make you cringe.

Gary drew his own close on the issue yesterday, after his liberation, with a(nother fucking) tweet. Saying ‘however bad this weekend was, its nothing like being forced from your home in fear of death and getting on a little boat… blah, blah, blah’. So full of righteous indignation and compassion and empathy for the dispossessed that I read it and instantly vomited into the waste paper bin at work.

Gary ‘feels for you’. From his 5 million pound house. Or possibly whilst traveling only ever in the back of a big, black SUV. Never a rubber dinghy.

But heh, we need rich people to show feeling and sympathy and ‘show us the way’ to understanding and helpfulness. Surely, though, we need that understanding to come in an informed and balanced manner, rather than an off-the-shelf, hard-left sound-byte of stunning simplicity which completely fails to address any of the real complexity of the situation.

The ‘Germany in the 30s’ comment was tragically ill-conceived. Corbyn would have loved it, Ken Livingstone applauded it. But we are talking about controlling who enters our country illegally. Germany in the 30s was about evicting, eliminating, murdering people who were completely legal citizens, in many cases quite upstanding, who’d lived there for generations, fought for ‘their nation’ in the Great War and were an integral part of society. Big fucking difference, Gary.

We all want compassion and to offer protection to the unfortunate. Yet really don’t want the drug-dealers, rapists and free-loaders who tend to accompany them. It ain’t easy, but something must be done. With or without Gary’s permission.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

It all started with my shoulder. My new one ‘arrived’ and so the younger daughter came with it, like a package deal. I came home from hospital and she flew in from Berlin to ‘care’ for the ‘invalid’, who was cut and stapled back together and drugged up to his eyeballs and slinged and in all sorts of trouble, pain and discomfort. Except it didn’t really work like that. In fact it all worked very well. And I wasn’t in pain and discomfort. I did a sling but only for ‘protection’ so soon dumped that, other than when out.

So me and my carer took to visiting ‘things and places’. Mainly ‘things and places’ where they serve coffee. And…

Its the ‘and’ which makes the whole trip worthwhile. Bakery ‘stuff’. Calories. Sugar. Carbs.

On our first visit, we went to visit the dead in Highgate Cemetery. They were all fine, other than poor Alexander Litvinenko who is still so radioactive he had to be buried in a lead coffin about 30 feet underground so we don’t all end up ‘nuked’ when go to mourn him. And we breezed down the hill and found a Gail’s. For coffee. And…

I’ve always been an almond croissant kind’a dude. I love them. Some too sweet (I can forgive), sometimes too dry (harder to forgive) and often just… hmmmm. But on that day, as that daughter don’t like almond (like: really???) I broke my cinnamon roll virginity. And quite frankly, it changed my life. I’ve tried quite a few but in all honesty that first one was like the first hit of heroin, you never get to ‘that place’ again. Unless I went back to Gail’s, then I got there for just a stupid amount of money for such a little thing. And then someone said: ‘go to Ole & Steen; they’re the best’. I had tried them before. Danish people. Except on the Strand where they are quite rude, rather unhelpful, more, sort-of, generic forriner people. From whom I’ve walked out in disgust before.

But I found myself there again this morning, and I could ‘smell the cinnamon’, even though I was on the other side of the road breathing in diesel fumes. It called me. So I succumbed. Went to see ‘the Danes’. Was served by morose and miserable Serbian babe who ‘gave’ me a cinnamon roll, relieved me of… well, it didn’t matter because they only take cards, so effectively ‘its free’ (at the point of sale; sort out your differences with Amex).

And its good. Really good. But if I’m honest, it ain’t as good as Gail’s.

Let me know if you know of any that I don’t, which are SPECTACULAR!!!! Prepared to spend up to £1.25.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Gary Lineker is ruining my life!!!

Match of the Day last night was 14 minutes of… well, of football! No commentaries, no debate after each match as to whether this ones elbow was offside when that one passed the ball, or whether the goalie was unsighted due to having a strikers fingers in his eyes, no analysis of whether midfield diamonds work with wing-backs and a lone striker called Charlie. All the important stuff. Missing. No-one there to talk about it. Watching football without commentary? How do we know that Son passed to Kane, FFS, with no-one there to tell us??? I mean, its almost like being at the game! And no-one wants that.

So, devoid of the commentary (meaningless, inane, worthless) and the punditry (same again but worse and with Gary Lineker’s ‘invaluable’ barbs and quips), it was just… football. Just the good bits, just the goals, the great saves, it was just… brilliant. Best Match of the Day ever! In which we could enjoy Spurs beating Forest without Ian Wright telling us how Harry Kane MUST leave Spurs, for the good of mankind. We watched Liverpool suffer defeat to Bournemouth with no-one questioning ‘how long Klopp can last’. And for those inclined to ‘fast forward’ though to the good bits, there were far fewer bad bits to ignore.

But its not just my life that has been ‘ruined’ by that man. It is now affecting the whole of society. The front pages of all the Sunday papers feature a man who talks about football for a living. A fucking amazing and disproportionate living, it may be said, which WE, the taxpayers, fund. The Times was full of the main issues concerning the impartiality of the BBC, whether Lineker should be bound by such constraint, how it may all pan out. Whereas for the Mail, Gary has crossed the rubicon. He questioned not just A government, but A CONSERVATIVE government. The punishment for which is ‘death by tabloid’.

And Spurs go marching on. With or without him.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Its amazing. One little flurry on twitter and Gary Lineker has started a veritable shit-storm of hate (right wingers), support (left wingers), vitreol, (home secretaries), venom (home secretaries) and those eager to ‘moron-match’ his original message (more home secretaries). And this is a problem now on sooooooooooo many levels.

There’s freedom of speech, content of speech, BBC impartiality, the contractual obligations of ‘freelancers’ and whether they are perceived as being ‘BBC’ just because they’re on match of the day every week and there’s issues of smugness and these are, in this context, unique to Mr Lineker.

Gary supported the right of refugees to arrive here in boatloads and resents the government for trying to stop such occurrences. Well, as long as Lineker can be proved to be ‘human’ then he has a right here to ‘free speech’. As to the question of whether he ‘represents’ the BBC by every inane and misplaced tweet, personally I don’t think he does. I read his stuff and think ‘Gary Lineker is a smug tosser’ and NOT ‘the BBC are smug tossers’. So case proven. Furthermore, he is not a news reader. He presents the football. And thus invokes the ‘presumption of imbecility’ which such a profession fosters. In much the same way that Gary Neville does NOT represent Sky TV when airing his similar brand of smug, ill-informed pseudo-millionaire-leftism, just because that’s where he lives.

The other issue was comparing Britain 2023 with ‘1930s Germany!!!!’

The 1930s was a big decade in Germany. Possibly stretching about 75 years in ‘real time’. So, obviously, if Gaz was referring to the worst genocide in all of history, he’s in the wrong decade and miles off the mark. Whereas if he referred to Hitler’s earlier keenness to encourage ‘Jews and other undesirables and race diluters’ to leave the Fatherland free for blue-eyed blonde Aryans to roam free and procreate into THE MASTER RACE!!!!, then that’s also different.

Suella Braverman’s immediate leap to defend ‘the holocaust’ was at least misplaced too, using a nuclear response and politicising that tragedy for her own purposes.

Lineker’s a tosser, we all know that. And now he’s been… suspended. Which becomes really important. Football is much too important to be affected by the whims of politicians. How can I watch my program without Alan Shearer? He’s stood down in protest. Along with Ian Wright and all the others making a stand for… whatever this is really all about (see above).

I may boycott MOTD too!!! But only if Spurs lose (HEAVEN FORBID!!!!) because I never watch it when they lose. But this time it would be a different way of not watching it.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx