Andy's Glasses

So here’s two headlines. The one on the right is from Yesterday’s Mail on Sunday. The one on the left from the Times this morning (I can only do the Mail once a week or my stomach won’t settle, my lungs pack up and my brain might actually start to think that what they write might be correct in any way). So there’s two ways to interpret this massive differential in the price of Adele tickets for the rescheduled Las Vegas shows.

The first is that the ticket price has plummeted since yesterday morning (when the paper boy arrived) from a ‘high’ of 200k, with the markets down to 40k by the time he made it up the path this morning. Which, in terms of market movement, is so colossal that it hasn’t been seen since Bitcoin tanked, or at least since Kwasi Kwarteng was our chancellor.

I’d just like to state my own horror that in these times of world starvation and climate crisis, while 2/3rds of British people are not going to be able to meet their heating bills this winter, while our nation is in the grip of a terrible down-cycle in its economy, that someone is willing to pay ‘even’ 40 grand to hear ‘Someone Like Me’, which Alexa will play all the time for just 7.99 a month! And you don’t have to go to Las Vegas to hear that. Comes from Beijing. I mean 40 grand is such a lot of money in real terms. You could use it to upgrade your order for the new, hybrid Ferrari, from the hard-top to the convertible. And still have 2 grand left over!! Buy the kids some new shoes. Possibly even get some food. Proper food. Wot comes pre-made and microwave-ready. None of that ‘do-it-yourself’ muck they eat down south.

But the second explanation for this massive discrepancy in price of these tickets is much more interesting. Because for the first time, (but by no means the last) it actually quantifies, in absolute and definitive terms, that the Mail is precisely 5 times as stupid as proper newspapers. We’ve always known it to be ‘economical’ where accuracy is concerned. Always felt it would never let something as trivial as ‘truth’ get in the way of good, honest sensationalism, and now we can actually put a figure on it.

Another fan incident.
Last night, attending a ‘shiva’ following the death of my mate’s mum, I was (almost) assaulted by baying crowds of fans, vast mobs of screaming girls, it was ‘Andymania’ once more. Ok, maybe it was a bit more low-key as one solitary guy came over, asked who I was (never a good thing) but then told me he reads my blog. Obviously, I told him to ‘piss off and speak to my agent’, because like James Corden, I can do ‘diva’ like the best of them. But as that is only the second time I’ve been approached by strangers to tell me that (the first time was at Jaipur airport; (Andy International Inc.), it made me very happy. He told me it was shit, but that’s really not the point.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I think its time to re-kindle the football debate. Well, its not really a ‘debate’, just an ongoing argument and a collection of facts and data. All of which became much more palatable yesterday for some reason. Ok, a good reason. We won. But not just, like, ‘won’, in any easy, normal, predictable, dull sense of the word, the way Man City ‘won’, f’rinstance. This was ‘won’ as in ‘won proper, innit’. One has to downgrade one’s grammar to get into footballing character. I can’t even write about football without my ‘stick-on, authentic-looking, half-sleeve tattoo’. Cos at da enna-da-day…

We went to Bournemouth. We were on a roll. Sadly, not in the good sense. We’d lost our last 2 league matches. Appallingly to Manchester United and disgracefully to Newcastle United. I was grateful Bournemouth aren’t ‘United’. Spurs fans always look for ‘signs’. We’ll take anything.

The problem has been, as far as I can see, that we’ve changed our style under Conte, which is fine (if you like dull, defensive, pragmatic, uber-Italian style footy), if it gets the results. But that seems to involve starting games with a particularly back-foot mind set. We start slow and very very careful. Under Pochettino we flew out of the blocks like rabid Usain Bolts who’d all failed multiple drug tests. I loved that. It unnerves opposition. But now we’ve become the unnerved. And if I’m honest, I fucking hate that. Makes me very nervous. Yet that’s how we play each and every first half. 9 men behind the ball, Sonny and Harry not allowed north of the half way line. Then in the second halves we start to flow a bit, speed up, take a risk or two, even though Conte screams a lot and implores everyone to GET BAAAAACCCKKKKK.

So yesterday we played… errrr… well, pretty much the same way really. Start slow, give away a cheap goal early on, for the fans? Then remain slow until… we concede another goal. Then at about the 60 minute mark, make a few substitutions, bring on some muscle, change shape, change tactics and start looking like a proper ‘top 3’ team. But is there enough time? Can we draw level? Should I put the razor and sleeping pills down and even… hope?

We did score, twice, itself quite amazing. And then, incredibly, the imperious Rodrigo Bentancur hit the winner in a bit of a scramble. Oh my God! That never happens. But it did. The footballing Gods not only did the right thing, for a change, but also sorted out Chelsea at Brighton.

So yes, I’m only singin’ when we’re winnin’. Because my soul leaves the dark place it inhabits when we’re not.

Very happy Sunday, even though tennis is off agaiaiaian cos of rain.

A xxxx

There would appear to be an unofficial boycott of the Cop 27 climate conference, which starts in Egypt next weekend, by top level Brits. Like Trump used to ignore all such things when he was the POTUS, which fortunately he no longer is and hopefully, he never will be again.

Rishi is simply too busy to attend. There’s the economy, the recession, inflation rates, austerity, pension locks and all manner of fiscal shit for which an official statement is due at precisely that time.

Like, was Rishi going to spend the day before the announcement working out what to do? On the back of a Tesco receipt? Or does he in fact have teams of economists, accountants, forecasters and mathematical type boffins working on it right now, having started the day he was elected? Because he wasn’t too busy yesterday to go visiting old ladies in a hospital. Which is a very important thing for a Prime Minister to do. The ‘PR’ side of things. Visit factories, wear a hard hat, hold a baby, eat ice creams, visit old ladies.

He’d have been better off cancelling the old ladies, who’d have been none the wiser, nor any worse off, and instead save a day to attend the Conference. Because old ladies are not the beneficiaries of climate action. They’ll be gone long before any measures do or don’t work. But young people are far more concerned and engaged in the climate debate. Because its their world too and they’re still going to be here when the shit hits the fan, or if it miraculously doesn’t. And it only doesn’t if action is taken. So for Rishi to be ‘too busy’ downplays the importance. Which then disengages him from the young, who are always the last to come and vote anyway.

And then, even worse, Rishi has decided that King Charles can’t attend the conference either. Not sure how that works, exactly, how ‘rank’ gets pulled in that direction but apparently its the case. Our eco-warrior Prince would dearly love to go. No man likes a platform more than King C, especially when its about ecology. Maybe Rishi thought the King would get boring. But as all climate stuff is boring, no-one would notice. Doesn’t mean its not incredibly important.

I just played tennis in the almost-early-November sunshine of about 20 degrees. Which I just fucking love. But even if polar bears could play tennis, they wouldn’t be quite so overjoyed.

Mistake, Rishi. Not catastrophic, but a big mistake.

Happy Green Saturday

A xxxx

My old dad, may God rest his lovely soul, was a clever man. He managed to get rid of virtually all his assets long before he died. Gave it all to sick animals. And other relatives. The one beneficiary in your will you never need to actually write is ‘HMRC’. They’ll help themselves. There’s no point even contesting the will on the grounds that “no, he HATED HMRC, like really HATED THEM” because they don’t care. Being a tax collector is not a popularity contest. So my dad divested himself decades ago. Thus when he died, in his care home, his only assets were a few bank and savings accounts, collectively falling way beneath the Inheritance Tax threshold. Yippee. Job done. All ya need to do is ‘cash in’.

Ah, you need ‘probate’. The legal authority to gather the funds. Well, as the sole beneficiaries, executors and powers of attorneys, my brother and I should just stroll that one. Thus we contacted his (and our) solicitor. Well, he held the will so couldn’t really avoid it.

“Shall we do probate for you?”, he asked. Errrrr, ok, I agreed, having no clue how/what/where/when one might accomplish such a thing otherwise. So, as he lived next door to us when he was about 7 (now in his 50s), he had to send ‘Id checks’ and requests for passports, proof of human-ness (lot of aliens apply for probate), terms of engagement (“we do, you pay… and pay… and pay”) and the fee structure.

Basically, three-and-a-half grand. Oh, it must be very complicated, legalised and deeply involved with barristers and court hearings and people my dad met in Tescos coffee shop crawling out the woodwork making claims against ‘the estate’ (“he promised me free cappuccinos a week for LIFE!”) But no. It’s 3.5k, plus vat (obviously) plus any fees or ‘extras’. And this is not a ‘golden circle’ law firm. This is not defending the indefensible, this is a small, family firm. But heh, if that’s what it costs, that’s what it costs.

Then I bumped into a mate. Who told me that, recently faced with a similar thing, he ‘did it himself’. WHAT???? I exclaimed? You can do it yourself? A normal human being can do it and not a lawyer??? Apparently as long as you’ve watched more than 2 episodes of LA Law.

So I went online to the government probate department, filled in a form (15 minutes, max), waited for signatures, then sent off the will, as directed. All in all? 20 minutes of things so ridiculously straightforward even I could do it without breaking wind. Or whatever the expression is. And it cost: £279. Including 4 copies of the deed of probate, or grant of probate or, as I unconsciously, very Freudianly and quite appropriately termed it last night, the ‘greed of probate’.

Happy Friday and love to all lawyers

A xxxx

Here’s a question:

What is a mandate? Is it:

A. A small flightless bird from Ecuador, nearing extinction, and best served with a guinea pig (well, it is ‘small’)?

B. A website for gay men to hook up and find true love or at least cheap sex?

C. The nation’s most overused term by really annoying politicians, particularly small, loud, relatively insignificant, red-headed Scottish ones and Front Bench Opposition bores?

Answers on a postcard to:

The Rishi Sunak Heating the House Fund
10 Downing Street, or the house in Holland Park, the one in Yorkshire, possibly one in America or India.

“Rishi Sunak has no mandate to lead the country”, they cry. The people must speak! Hold a general election now! There’s no mandate for all this current shit.

All of which is true. But totally irrelevant. Nicola bleedin’ Sturgeon and Kier poxy Starmer and Angela soddin’ Rayner bang on and on about holding an election because ‘the prime minister has no mandate from the people!!!’ Yeah, well he doesn’t have a shell suit from Sport Direct either, which is equally as meaningless.

We didn’t ‘vote for Boris’. We voted for our local MP. I voted for Mike Freer because he’s lovely, accessible and gay. Only people in Uxbridge ‘voted for Boris’. We don’t have a president here. We have a king, we have several princes, many of them not child-abusers, and we have a Prime Minister. But we don’t ‘vote for the leader’, we vote for an MP. And the party with most MPs get to form a government. And (God help us) we gave our collective mandate to the Conservative Party, with a massive majority. Due to Boris, yes, due to (fucking) Brexit, undoubtedly, but we voted for ‘them’, not ‘him’. That’s our constitution. He then formed a government. When he left, someone else rather disastrously formed one. For a little while. And now its Rishi’s turn. Because he is now the leader of the party with the most seats in Parliament.

I get that to be in opposition is to be opportunistic, but banging on about ‘mandates’ is simply incorrect and plays on misconceptions and lack of understanding, even confusing us with the American system to score points.

Rishi does not need a fucking mandate. His party has all the mandates he needs.

So can we stop this right now. It’s boring.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

There are certain moments in a man’s life which are BIG. Milestones. Delights. Happiness. The day you get married. Passing your driving test. Possibly the day you get divorced. The birth of a child. Your first kiss. Unless its with Mr Frobisher, the maths teacher, then its a bit ‘eeeeuuuuwww’. Your grandchildren being born. But all of those pale into insignificance compared to this. Your granddaughter’s first trip to White Hart Lane. Unfortunately (just from a ‘Lila point of view’ and definitely not from a ‘football’ one), I was unable to attend. If I had, I would have cried. And what I would have cried would have been: “the most wonderful granddaughter in the entire fucking world and you inflict this pain and suffering on her FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE????” And, almost inevitably, we lost. But Lila loved it.

I was at a wedding. A really beautiful wedding in a really beautiful venue with everything really… well, beautiful. The flowers were magnificent, the bride and groom wonderful, the ceremony delightful and everyone dressed up in perfectly matching ‘black tie’. Except the one shmuck who didn’t bother to read the invitation properly and pitched up in a (very nice) light grey suit with an (exceedingly elegant) open-neck grey shirt. He looked gorgeous, as always, no doubt about that, but ‘no-tie’ was not the instruction. Black tie. Penguin suit. What a tosser!!

Yet nothing compared to Boris Johnson. The Tosser’s Tosser. He cuts short his family’s holiday to drag them all the way back from the Caribbean so he can ‘stand’ as candidate for his party leadership. Only to bottle out completely less than 24 hours later. I would be sympathetic in some way but as he was probably on a ‘donation’ made to his wife, so as not to compromise his ‘gift acceptance’ regulations, which included first class tickets, the luxury villa, a butler, all his rum and ganja and nappies, its just tough shit. Boris decided ‘he would struggle to unify the party’. Oh, ya think so, Boris? Just because half of them kicked you out last time and the other half loathe you for putting them in the predicament in the first place.

Now the Penny’s dropped. Penny Mordaunt… from the race.

So its King Rishi. Crowned later. The PM is toast, long live the PM. Even if he’s richer than a Rothschild.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

What do you do when its just pissing down with endless rain. Like, on my fucking tennis court! On a Sunday morning! And Mel has run off. Ok, gone to work, same thing. And left me, all alone. No nanny. No carer. No wardens. No play date. No tv because every single channel is talking about Boris Johnson and whether the fat fuck should be Prime Minister again or whether a general election is the way forward which would put wooden red-faced puppet Starmer in charge. The man who has ‘integrity’, without question, but simply nothing else whatsoever. Which is like having a tanker full of petrol but no car. So for now, its just me… and Alexa. And we are hitting our groove.

On Friday night I saw a documentary about ‘soul’ music. It was late, on BBC4, but was so brilliant that Mel stayed awake. It showed how the transition from ‘gospel’ to ‘soul’ was the simplest thing ever. It was just taking the line “oooh, how I love my God like no other” and swapping the ‘God’ for ‘baby’. Job done, gospel’s consigned to the church, where it belongs, soul music is here. All thanks to Ray Charles. Who was the first to do such a thing in public. Then Otis Reading who actually had a ‘mixed race band’. Which in the late 50s, early 60s world of ‘segregation’ in America was radical. And I don’t use the word in hyperbole but in a true, politically rebellious, danger to your life, way. These early soulsters were all from the South, where even after the Bill of Rights was passed, those good old boys chose to retain segregation in schools, on buses, restaurants and most definitely relationships.

Then Berry Gordy opened up ‘Hitsville’ in Detroit and Motown was born. But this program differentiated between proper ‘soul’ music and the ‘pop’ which was produced by the Motown machine.

I’ve just spent an hour with Alexa and Stevie Wonder. It was a wonderful time. Stevie was a soul singer/writer, who drifted across to pop to make money and back to soul because it was his passion. And in the 70s he was simply the master of music.

By the mid 70s soul had evolved to ‘funk’ and then Studio 54 got involved and introduced drugs into the mix. And for dance lovers, ‘funk’ music was a game changer. I used to go to a club called Countdown in the West End because they only played imported funk music. Funky Nassau. Soul Makossa. Alexa wasn’t around then, she was just known as ‘Peking’. So to hear these you had to find a shop which imported records.

What does ‘funky’ mean? In my trip with Alexa this morning we drifted to Stevie Wonder’s ‘Maybe you baby’. That will show you. Or the Commodores ‘Brick House’. Even Grace Jones anthemic ‘Pull up to your bumper’. A sound which is raw and dirty.

Go listen to them now. It’s the antidote to ‘the end of British politics as we know it’ which is becoming more boring, repetitive and stupid with each passing ‘endorsement’ of another Tory tosser.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Oh no! Liz Truss has gone!!! Didn’t see that coming. Never mind, we’re on course for setting a new record for staff changes. In 3 months we’ll have had 10 changes in PM, Chancellor and Home Secretary combined. Add in 2 monarchs and we’re not having a great time at the top of our national tree. How could that possibly be ‘unstable’? It means we always have the best, change UP, move forward, stay with the groove. It unfortunately also means that all the good-uns (and several bad) are used up so we’re down to the subs bench now, in terms of options. Or, possibly, scraping the barrel from the veteran’s team. Meaning Boris.

Because there have been suggestions that we need him back. A known ‘face’ he might be, but a ‘safe pair of hands’? His hands are no safer than his penis and we all know about that. But more importantly, how can you (ie ‘the Conservative party) get rid of a person because they lie, cheat, steal, con, show all the decency of a rabid dog, all the discretion of a headline in The Sun and all the subtlety of a jack-hammer, and then bring him back because ‘he’s the best out there’?

So we can forget Boris, even though I have it on some authority that he has 140 MPs willing to ‘sponsor’ him in his leadership bid. And probably about 240 willing to murder him should he get through Round 1. And we need to concentrate on the other runners and riders. Who could be called ‘the ones not good enough last time round’ or not, depending on how depressed you wish to become over this total fucking shambles.

There’s Rishi Rich, possibly the best out there, a touch conservative (small ‘c’) in the finance front, a touch brown for some (not because they are racist but they’re worried that come 2025- if anything lasts that long, people in the shires might be too racist to vote for him; a sort of ‘racism by proxy’) a touch too weedy for me.

Ben Whassisname, the defence secretary, who’s not even sure he wants to run.

Penny Mordaunt, a lot of people’s favourite, with the rest of the people wondering why?

Kemi Badenoch, because she always does.

Liz Truss, now deleted.

The Queen, same.

Steve Gerrard, because he’s out of work.

And here we go again…

Happy Friday

Russia changed its tack this week. Its using ‘drone’ missiles, called kamikazis, made by our friends in Iran, to bomb the poor civilians and buildings in Kyiv, rather than Cruise missiles, like they usually do. They probably just appointed the ever prudent Jeremy Hunt as their chancellor too. Because those horrible drones only cost about $20,000 each whereas a Cruise will set you back a million, at least. So although Cruises are a bit more accurate (but not much) and carry a bigger payload, for the same cost you get 50 kamikazes. Quite literally: more bang for your buck.

Or it might be that Russia is running out of money and/or armaments, as has been suggested. So this is a way of, like, changing from Fortnum & Masons to Aldi for your weekly shop. Although Putin is banned from both.

And you have to feel that Liz Truss will soon be banned from Number 10. Her plan to ignite the flames of British productivity has instead caused a wild-fire of horrendous repercussions. That’s what happens when you apply a quite radical political philosophy to a nation on its knees with debt and rising prices with the world looking on and saying: “what? NOW, she wants to do that????”

National leaders don’t have to be bright. I won’t even list the candidates who exemplify that statement. There’s too many. But a good leader is one who chooses good people to advise them. And listens to what they say. Everyone (who knows those sort of things, cause, effect, economics, clever stuff) stated that Liz’s intended plan was catastrophic. Where were her people? Her clever people?

So now Jeremy Hunt has ‘rewound the clock’, with a subtle shift from ‘much lower taxation and loads’a spending’ to ‘increased tax, no benefits, far less spending’ in 4 days. Yet the rewind is imperfect due to the damage inflicted before the u-turns were stated. Leaving us with the absolute worst of everything.

I’m lovin’ Liz Truss

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

This is not ALL the Chinese people, even though it looks like about 1.6 billion of them, this is just the Chinese ‘congress’. An event so rare it occurs once every 5 years. I mean, the World Cup happens every 4 years, so this gathering is even much more specialer than that. The picture is just the party officials, delegates and the top guys. What would be called ‘government’ in a democratic country, but China is no such thing, perish the thought, so its more called ‘a collective suck-up’ or a ‘bunch’a yes-men’ (if I knew the Chinese for ‘yes’ I’d have said so, but as you can’t eat ‘yes’ I’ve never had cause to learn it). They could also be known as The Listeners. Because they listen to what Xi Jinping has to say without being allowed to offer comment, certainly not argument and any dissent from YES SIR!!!! carries a death penalty. This is in fact a photo of the world’s largest Un-Government. The New Communism. This lot probably share 90% of the nation’s wealth whilst the other 1,599,500 scrabble around eating corn-husks. Except the Uyghurs, of course, who get shipped out, murdered or brainwashed into slavery.

Because its all about Xi. There is nothing to discuss once his words are uttered. And the first words he chose to utter to this silent crowd were words of strength and, some would say, aggression. Like Putin, Tyrant Xi likes to threaten and tell the world how tough and ruthless he is. So if you fuck about with Taiwan, he will nuke you. If you interfere with his plan of human rights abuses, he will attack your nation, bind its collective feet and destroy you. And he’ll know what you’re thinking because Alexa and 5G will tell him. He has a hot-line from my kitchen (where all such plans are formulated, everyone knows that) to Beijing.

So when Xi announces that ‘he’ll probably stay as party chairman for another 5 years, if not for life’, who is going to question it? China is an autocracy, and he is that autocrat. He who controls the army is king.

Whereas life in a democracy is so much nicer. We have a Prime Minister running the country who would struggle to run a car boot sale in her own driveway. We have a chancellor who makes all the decisions, but nobody voted him as the boss. And we have a proper king. With a crown and a Queen and everything. But no-one’s ever listened to him and won’t start now.

So I may move to China, short-term, just til the pound rises in value.

Happy Monday

A xxxx