Andy's Glasses

There’s an American doctor, (they’re ALWAYS American and everyone there who passes their 11-plus becomes a ‘doctor’), who has come up with a nutritional plan to end what she calls ‘addictive eating’ or ‘cravings’. But what I call ‘perfectly normal desire to give your body what it is naturally wanting to redress an energy imbalance’. Or, in short: ‘chocolate’. Possibly ‘cake’… ‘biscuits’… ‘hamburgerS’… yeah, whatever. It’s just ‘nature’ instructing you unconsciously as to precisely what your body requires. When a pregnant woman suddenly starts munching sticks of chalk, you don’t send her to the Priory, you know her body needs increased calcium. Ok, a glass of milk would probably do it, but you don’t argue with a pregnant woman. If she’s already pregnant, the arguing’s done. When Mel sent me out for pickled yams at 3 o’clock in the morning when she was ‘with child’, I didn’t argue.

Well men don’t get pregnant. But suffer those same symptoms and desires their whole life to fill the gap which pregnancy would have provided. Which is why so many get big bellies later in life. It’s science, innit? So when I ‘crave’ chocolate (every day after lunch, without fail, in vast quantities, as long as its Cadbury’s and then just before bed), I don’t go rushing to some trumped up, highly polished, whip-thin American(!!!) nutritionist for advice. I go to Mr Shah in the sweet shop to buy stock. And I’ve surveyed 2,467 fat English bastards and they all agree: chocolate is no more an addiction than coffee… beer… cigarettes… crack… football…

And now the ‘sensitivity readers’ have started on Roald Dahl. And they have a massive amount of work on their hands as he was never the most flattering of writers. Loving his baddies to always be fat, ugly, spotty, grotesque, some exotic and colourful nationality; basically: anything offensive. Which is why his books are so absolutely wonderful, and so loved by kids. But they’ll be better. And considerably shorter. New Matilda is now 14 pages. The Big Friendly Giant now down to 7 and the Twits will be just half a page after the editing.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

I can’t tell you how happy yesterday’s football result made me… but I’m going to try. Not just to upset West Ham fans, not just to probably irritate Arsenal fans, but just because I want to due to my extreme joy at this event.

Also, here’s a funny thing: my mate Bobby became a grandfather yesterday, to a lovely little boy. Whose mother is one of our own, but whose father is a West Ham fan!!! Even though he’s lovely? Can you believe that? So little Baby (as yet sans name) was actually born on the day his parent’s football teams clashed. The decision was made, (not by me, if it was my grandchild there would be NO argument and I’d have tattooed a cockerel on him before you could say ‘cut the umbilicus’), that whoever won the game would be the team for Baby ???? forevermore. So he’s one of our own, he’s one of our oooooo-own, little baby ****, he’s one of our own.

And the match was Jimmy Greaves’s ‘game’a two halves’. The first of which was hard fought but very cautious and careful, and the second was slightly more open to the extent where Spurs scored a quite superb goal. I would say ‘brilliant’ but modesty prevents such excesses. Ok, it was fucking brilliant. Scored by our wing back.

And then Sonny came on. Consigned to the substitute’s bench he entered the fray to the joy and thrill of about 2,000 South Koreans for whom the man is a god. Waving their little white flags around, they were so happy it almost made me cry. And then their hero made West Ham cry. With a goal of true beauty (every time the ball hits the back of the opponent’s net its officially ‘a thing of true beauty’). But this really was. Harry Kane inevitably played Sonny in and our favourite Korean controlled it with a sublime first touch and a clinical finish.

That was it. Job done. Game over. We’d overtaken Newcastle to re-claim 4th place. Consigned West Ham to remain in the relegation zone (where they fucking belong!!!) and most importantly, showed this little baby the light. Even though unaware he was living a monumental and life-defining moment, even of his, at that point, pretty short life, the forces of good overtook the dark side and claimed him. So he too can enjoy his share of the dashed hopes, eternal longing, abject misery and utter despair, every Saturday (and sometimes Tuesday/Wednesday but NEVER Thursday) that the rest of us know and… errrr… love. What a (fucking) gift to bestow on one so young and innocent.

Mazzletov to all concerned. The family and ALL Spurs fans.

A xxxx

Buoyed by the amaaaaaazing success of ‘the best World Cup ever’ in November, possibly the ‘best World Cup ever in which more than 50,000 people died making it happen’, maybe even ‘the best World Cup ever in which freedom of expression and human rights were banned and the beer cost 20 quid a pint’, those sports-loving Qataris are on the move again. They already own Paris St. Germain and now they’re after Spurs. Their Qatari Sports Investment (QSI) wants to acquire a ‘share holding’, and ya know what that leads to. They’ve already done that at Braga in Portugal.

That’s QSI, remember that, cos that’s where it starts to get a little complicated.

The bid for Manchester United is not by QSI. And in no way should be confused by it or anyone to do with it. You’re not allowed to own 2 clubs in the same league, and the Qataris are well aware of this. And would never do anything to upset the footballing authorities. Unless they can bribe them, but that’s different. So the bid for United is by a man we’ll call JBH because his name is too fucking long to write out. But because he seems to be a bit of a ‘nobody’, a Doha bank manager of little note, you have to wonder where his 4 billion pound bid has come from. Obviously not from the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), another state fund, because then it would all get a bit ‘murky’. A bit ‘Etihad’. A bit ‘surely that’s all just different pockets in the same coat’, kind’a thing.

This massive surge in potential Qatari investment in our football clubs must have all the local builders in Manchester running for the hills, throwing down their shovels and changing career. Spurs stadium is brand new, so that’s fine. But a ‘rebuild’ of Old Trafford is on the cards; part of the bid. And ya wouldn’t wanna build a stadium for Qataris. Your life insurance would be cancelled with immediate effect.

Then there’s the other interesting problem. Qatar are the main funders of Hamas. The terrorist organisation who run Gaza. And who want not just death to all Israeli Jews, but death to ALL Jews. Me. Lila, Joey, the lot. And Spurs are currently owned by Jews and have fans who all ‘identify’ as ‘Yids’. Loudly, regularly and to the fabulous annoyance of David Baddeil. So how’s that gonna work, exactly? Never mind LGBT issues, alcohol concerns…

It fucking stinks

Happy sunny, gorgeous Sunday

A xxxx

For many years I’ve advocated a radical stance on diversity, inclusivity, support for marginalised minorities, particularly of a gender variety, the abolition of all statues of slavers, imperialists, colonialists, bankers, wankers, skanks, lanky people and any form of old white men. The worst kind of human. The ultimate dead end of the spectrum. And I think this should be taken much further.

Thus I’m in total agreement with Aberdeen University for implementing its new ‘decolonisation’ process. Re-assessing all its classes, its teaching, its reading lists to remove any type of stereotyping or presumptions of class or race superiority.

Its only a matter of time until we take this to its logical end and burn… well, pretty much every book written before 2017, when I invented ‘woke’, and at least 70% of those written after.

We simply can’t allow any books that may possibly have any content which may in any way offend anyone. So Dickens is out. Shakespeare’s complete works on the bonfire of political correctness (Portia dressing as a man just to pretend to be a lawyer!!!! The most un-trans thing EVER!!!!), all the history books about the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, everything about kings and queens, you can’t get more ‘classish’ than that, and everything else. Burn the fucking lot. To avoid offending one man from Great Yarmouth who will be offended by any use of the word ‘penis’ because he was born with a very little one.

Consequently, us writers (I’m a writer, ain’t I? I fucking write, don’t I?) are employing ‘sensitivity readers’. People who read through and edit books and articles to find offending phrases, words, ideas or actions which may cause upset or mental health problems in any reader or group of readers. And edit out references to ‘poofs’, for example, ‘spots’, in case of acne sufferers, ‘money’, upsetting for those without, any form of ‘winning’ anything, because there are so many fucking losers out there, and any mention of ‘Arsenal’ because, currently, it will greatly upset Arsenal fans, who are pretty sensitive at the best of times. The term ‘schvartza’ is officially ‘unsensitive’ and will not appear at all.

As my current ‘sensitivity reader’ is unfortunately in hospital, because I beat him/her/it to a fucking pulp, this blog will remain a touch ‘unsensitive’ at times. For which I thought of apologising in advance but then thought ‘naaah, bollocks!’ Which may offend or upset those with testicle issues, but what can I do?

Happy Saturday

A xxxx

She’s gone. La Sturgeon. Or, as numerous memes have alluded to this week, Le/La /Autre Sturgeon. But you can’t give credibility to memes. They’re insulting, abusive, should be banned on decency grounds and are incredibly funny.

But the legacy Nicola Sturgeon leaves behind after her eight years at the helm of Britain’s most Scottish of nations (for the time being) is quite incredible.

She took a nation, on its feet with debt, with a struggling health service, where they die younger than anywhere this side of sub-Saharan Africa, and tied by the yoke of near slavery to the ‘masters’ down in Westminster. And just a mere eight years later, she has resigned, with her nation on its feet with debt, struggling with its health service, still dying younger than anywhere else in the Western World and no nearer to leaving the United Kingdom of Charles and Rishi than she was then. A remarkable achievement.

However, that’s not all!!! She also managed to make 51% of the Scottish people and 98% of the English absolutely despise her. Banging on and on about having a referendum every 6 months, whilst all around her turned to shit. And worst of all, the standard of goalkeeping didn’t improve one little bit during her tenure at Holyrood.

Nicola replaced Alex Salmond as head of the Scottish Nationalists and as Head of all Scotland in what they call ‘parliament’ but is actually a social project to keep at least 129 Scots in work. And during her time has won more elections, more convincingly, than anyone other than Putin, Erdogan and Kim Jong Un. All of whom she coincidentally resembles quite strongly. Her arrival in the top job freed up her predecessor to go out and rape and pillage (none of the 473 charges actually stuck), get drunk, take drugs and ‘lead the life of a normal Scot’.

So she earned our utmost respect. And we must put aside any judgments made purely on appearance. However exceedingly difficult that proves to be.

There’ll never be another like her.

We can hope.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Well if the words to that football chant are correct, I’ve completely stopped singing. Not in the car. Shower. Kitchen whilst ‘creating!’. No-where. If you sing when yer winnin’, my voice has been silenced. My team have stopped winnin’. Even the other North London team has stopped winnin’. EVERYONE’S stopped winnin’ round our way. And I don’t like it. Ok, I can ‘cope’ with Arsenal’s almost-invincible run suddenly looking slightly less ‘invincible’ and a bit more ‘pleasant on the eye’, but that’s only because I have a thing for handsome Spaniards in total fucking meltdown. But this is about US, ffs. And our reversion to the old ways. The old paradigm. Flattering to deceive one week, all gone to shit the next. Beat Man City, lose to fucking Leicester. Losing half our team for the rest of the season in the process. Then off to Italy! Not for a holiday, but to work. The San Siro. We only lost 1 nil in Milan, and in many ways that’s encouraging as the second leg is at home and, depending on where we’re lying on our rapidly oscillating ‘sublime to shit’ scale, we have a chance.

Thank the Lord that the rugby has improved or, quite frankly, I don’t know what I’d do. Though appreciate, options are limited and you can’t run your life around random and meaningless games. Even though I do, I do, I do. We ‘thrashed’ Italy on Sunday. That should have served as a metaphor for Spurs but our total team commitment to self-destruction is far stronger than any mere symbolism. And as far as rugby is concerned ‘it’s only Italy’. Even though they’re officially ‘good’ and getting better. However, England looked simply awesome.

I keep getting emails from Spurs trying to encourage me get in touch with my feminine side… of football. Go watch a ‘gel’s match’. And its tempting. Due to the World Cup victory last year by them lionesses, we’re all a bit more girly in our soccer tastes. But a whole match? I catch snippets on the reports programs who now feel they have to include women’s stuff alongside the men’s, and it looks… different. And I should embrace that difference. But sadly keep failing. Can’t help thinking that if the women were a bit fitter (tragically, I mean that in the horrible, common, meaning of objectification, rather than the medico-muscular-stamina way), or a bit better at kickin’ and headin’, I’d be there in the flash of my fiver entry fee. I want to watch 22 women who look like Jennifer Lawrence and play like Lionel Messi. Can’t understand why that’s so difficult to achieve. And yes, I remain, an unreconstructed horrible person.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

So my head’s been itchy and scaly for decades. The twin looked at it to examine. Though it looked like a monkey looking for tasty nits as she parted my hair, she is a doctor, so she’s allowed to eat anything she finds on my scalp. But what she found was that it was ‘Seborrheic’. Holy shiiiiittttt! And suggested that I use coal tar shampoo. I mean, is that even legal in the globally-warming world??? Fucking coal!!! The devil’s substance? Anyway, I’m using it. And what happens is, you apply the shampoo, get a lovely lather, and then smell like a racing car. With a fuel leak. Its so strong and pungent that my eyes water. Though, obviously, that gets mixed up with the shower so its not a big deal. And then I emerge from the shower, but unlike the usual redolence of peaches, coconut, vanilla, cocoa-butter or chilli & garlic (I have some strange beauty products), I stink like the ESSO at Henleys Corner. But what happens if I was meeting Greta Thunberg? Can you imagine????

My education continues, hopefully forever. I finished Dave Grohl’s book, which is sweet. Lovely guy but by the end, all that amazingly gushing exuberance and humility actually starts to very very slightly grate a little. I still love him, but he’s away better drummer than writer.

So I found a new, BBC 4 music series called ‘discover’. Just half hour each. Potted histories, narrated by the same bunch of ‘talking heads’ as always narrate such things. Did Elvis Costello, Mamas and the Pappas, Crosby Stills Nash (and Young), (because Neil Young was always ‘in and out’ due to possibly being the most argumentative Canadian ever to sing Southern Man), and there’s loads more. And the BBC planned them, as I requested, to be ‘precisely the length of Mel’s bath-time’, which they are. And I managed to download a much longer documentary about John Belushi too. Because he was the best ever. Best ever drug taker, comedian, lunatic and wild man.

Education can be quite a time consuming exercise. But it does distract from the football, which is a waste of everybody’s time.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

We all love(d) Pink Floyd. They single-handedly brought down the Berlin Wall and instigated the end of Soviet rule. They crashed real airplanes and space rockets into the stage at concerts, with no-one getting hurt. And although they were bastions of ‘prog-rock’, Ummagumma perhaps took it a touch too far. A double album which had three tracks on it. Just about. As they invented ‘long music’ when everyone else was probing the four minute mark, they were already up to 15. Though I’ll always have a place in my heart for any track titled: ‘careful with that axe, Eugene’, even if the music itself was so much premature insturmental-action. And other than a few isolated tracks, (Money, Another brick in the Wall) my love affair with that band was over pretty much at See Emily Play. Which was ‘early’. Yet, amazingly, they scraped a living together even without my patronage. Probably because, love ‘em or hate ‘em, they were talented.

None more so that the band’s bassist, main writer and undisputed driving force, Roger (fuckin’) Waters.

And then the band split. Awwwww, shame. Waters was a control freak, egomaniac and serial tosser. The others couldn’t live with him. They re-formed later, due to a ‘license to print money clause’ which exists in all massive bands. The ‘pension pot tour’. And then they split again and finally and fairly acrimoniously.

That was when Waters became political. He became the spokesman for the Palestinian cause. Which is a good and worthy cause. Yet like so many warlike struggles, it is simply never a ‘black and white’ thing. But it was for our Roger. The Israelis were ‘Nazis’. And if ever there was a metaphor tragically misplaced, it was there. And ‘the Palestinians’ were the good and repressed. Even Hamas became his friends. The ones who send 120 rockets a day into Israeli schools and civilian areas. Fully justified, according to Roger. Who never took issue with President Assad using chemical bombs on his civilian population, but instigated the ‘BDS’ movement to boycott everything ‘Israel’. Then followed it up by personally calling any musicians scheduled to play in Israel to urge them to abandon their concerts. All together: “Rich Jeremy Corbyn, you’re just a rich Jeremy Corbyn; rich Jeremy Coooor-byn…”

This week he stated that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was ‘not entirely unprovoked’. He was justifying it. Even though, for all us ignorant, blinkered liberals, Putin’s attack was totally unprovoked. But only if you don’t view NATO as ‘an aggressive force for evil’. Like Putin does, and Roger does too.

Waters is now planning to re-record the brilliant ‘Dark side of the Moon’ album. And will not be sharing any of the royalties with any of his former band-members. Because “it was MY project!”, even though they all have shared writing rights from the original. May not end in tears, but definitely in court.

Johnny-the-would-be-tennis-star came up with ‘another prick in the wall’.

This is what Dave Gilmour (guitarist and vocalist with Pink Floyd)’s wife Polly wrote to Rog:

“Sadly [Waters] you are antisemitic to your rotten core,” she wrote. “Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac. Enough of your nonsense.”

I think she sums him up perfectly. And only missed the only word which really does sum him up perfectly. And is so totally appropriate and applicable that I don’t even have to write it. Because you know.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Oh! My! Go-o-o-d!!! You just won’t believe this! Its just unreal. Its, like, totally incredible and, quite honestly, hard to believe. In a really unbelievable way? Ya know what I mean?

But there’s this guy, right, and he’s like ‘really old’ and little and balding, wears glasses, and, like, he can make as much money as Kevin de Bruyne!!!! Who is young and fit and plays for Manchester City and is on the telly every week and was even in the World Cup, though not for very long. And he’s really really famous!!!

This old guy is some lawyer or other, and he’s going to play for Manchester City too! But only, like, ‘on loan’, even though he missed the official transfer window. And he’s an Arsenal fan so I don’t think he’ll be doing much kissing the Man City shirt.

The news that Lord David Pannick, KC, is to represent City in their ‘appeal’ against the charges by the Premier League, all 115 of them, for, essentially, being lying, cheating, bribing, money-laundering scumbags, has been met with amazement. Not that he’s representing them, he’s acting for them before. Not that he’s not good enough, he’s probably the best in the land. But because he might earn as much as a famous footballer.

And I expect such amazement and comment from Lilly Love-Island Lover, or Ines the Instagram Influencer Ignoramus and all others who’ve embraced ‘celebrity culcha’ with every fibre of their tragically obsessed aspirations. Those who equate ‘bein’ on tv’ as the absolute pinnacle of success and all its consequent benefits.

But these very same sentiments were expressed by the Times. By the BBC. “THIS MAN WILL EARN AS MUCH AS KEVIN DE BRUYNE!!!!”, they both proclaimed.

Firstly, all accounts of his fees, both past (as they quoted) and present, are hypothetical. Fabricated. Fictional and always exaggerated by the press.
Secondly the man is arguably the finest legal brain in the country who can possibly save or salvage part of the hundreds of millions which Man City might otherwise lose. He can’t do much for their reputation but even God can’t do that.
And thirdly, there are many ‘old, balding, spectacle wearing men’ who are fucking gorgeous and worth every fucking penny!!!! (Possibly the man who operated on granny and saved her life, the one who invested his pension so it makes money and I’ll include ‘the one who gives the power of sight!!)

There are a few things EVEN more important than the ability to kick a football. Even when you kick it as beautifully as Kevin de Bruyne.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I’d like to make a statement on behalf of Manchester City Football Club, Sheikh Mansoor, Lloyds Bank plc but NOT ADUG (Abu Dhabi United Group) which is owned by the sheikh but is nothing whatsoever to do with the football club or anyone involved with the operation at the Etihad ground.

Manchester City remain innocent of all and every one of the charges made against us. Of which there are just 115. No club is 100% ‘squeaky clean’, we’ve just lowered the percentage a little. To about 4%. Maybe less. And yet have constantly complied with all financial regulatory statutes of the Premier League. Well, certainly most of them. Possibly some of them. Ok, one. The one about car park charges.

But that shows our intention to total compliance. And the fact that these allegations of impropriety date back to 2008 is out and out racism due to that being the time that Sheikh Mansoor bought the club. Because he is very… racey.

And we are fully aware of fair play regulations in which all payments to players, staff, management must be declared and be within certain limits compared to the profits made and excess spending beyond that by the club is a contravention of that rule.

Allegations that the wonderful, legal and somewhat ‘flexible’ sponsorship arrangement we have with Etihad Airlines (which may or may not be controlled by Sheikh Mansoor) are illegal are slanderous. The fact that for 12 successive seasons this ‘sponsorship’ has varied by tens of millions and moves the club from ‘debt beyond what be acceptable’ by fair play rules, to ‘sitting pretty’ is purely coincidental.

Further payments allegedly made by ADUG to players, managers, cleaners and any other members of staff… in fact to all members of staff, are in ALL cases, for work done OUTSIDE the club’s responsibilities, nothing to do with Manchester City at all, even though all work for Manchester City. And are allowed to contract to ADUG, OUTSIDE of their Manchester City stuff.

Furthermore we have complied in full with this inquiry for the last four years with complete openness, helpfulness, transparency and integrity. Though not necessarily with honesty where it may compromise our excellence at blurring boundaries and creating offshore pretend companies created for purposes of money laundering.

We don’t understand why Harry Redknapp is not chairing the investigation, as we suggested early on. He’d understand. And if not, we’d put him on an ADUG contract until he does understand.

Happy Tuesday

Spokesperson for the Board (He, his, penis, gents, whatever)

xxxx