Andy's Glasses

I’d like to make it very clear (politician-speak for ‘what this lacks in clarity, it makes up for in higher volume’) that we, the Conservative Government, are the ‘party of low taxation’. Which is why I am proposing this budget today.

In which, we shall tax every many, woman, child, worker, pensioner, retiree, unemployed person, student, corpse, cat, dog and fucking mouse, higher than they’ve been taxed for the last 100 years. We shall squeeze and squeeze and press and shlep every last farthing from each and every one of you. Until you cry tears of blood. And then we’ll squeeze more.

Because we’re caring and compassionate. And we understand fully the ‘difficulties’ people are having with basic finances. Struggling with 50% higher grocery bills, 30% higher petrol costs, 70% higher energy spending. We therefore thought the best way to help everybody to cope with this massive burden… is to reduce the amount of money they take home every month.

And we have to take these measures because we’re ensuring a future for the entire nation. A future in which there is growth, prosperity, a wonderful standard of living and an abundance of fairy dust for everyone to make their own magic. A golden future with no carbons, very little pollution, wealth for all and everything you could wish for. Just don’t click your heels together whilst wearing red shoes.

All we therefore have to do is survive the present. During which you shall have the full support of your government every during every step of this recession, helping you cope with the austerity verging on bankruptcy. This support will start with words of wisdom, to guide you thus reducing your discomfort.

Eat less. Much less
Buy some more sweaters and turn down the heating.
Don’t drive: WALK.
Darkness is your friend, leave the lights off.
Enjoying yourself is ungodly and overrated. Get in touch with your inner misery.

You see? We care.

I commend this budget to Hell!!, sorry, to this House!!!

Jeremy
Xxxx

Rishi Sunak, out latest Prime Minister, still in the job for more than 3 weeks now, is working hard. Do you think its easy hanging out in a tropical paradise with a ‘package’ which totally redefines ‘all-inclusive’? Do you think wearing Hawaiian shirts is easy? Are you under some illusion that hanging out with world leaders whilst being fed, watered and entertained all day, every day, is ‘a doddle’? He spends much of his downtime with Justin Trudeau, the handsome Canadian geezer. The two are seldom apart. I’m making no judgments; what happens in Bali stays in Bali.

Yesterday Rishi addressed the G20, changing into a slightly more appropriate white shirt and no native headdress, and accused Russia of starting a war which has in a big way caused a lot of the financial crisis being felt right across the globe. Sergei Labrov, sitting at the assembly, looked suitably pissed off. But he always looks pissed off so I’m not sure if Rishi’s words offended him or not. Putin chose not to attend this meeting. For reasons best described by a slight change to the Millwall song: everyone hates me but I DO care. Otherwise he’d be there, defending the indefensible.

Later in the day Russia sent 90 missiles into Ukraine.

But then, a (even bigger) tragedy. A missile landed in Poland, right on the Ukraine border, and 2 people died when it exploded. Zilensky immediately called for NATO to react, because if you attack one NATO country (like Poland) then you attack them all. Moscow said ‘it was not a Russian rocket’. Ok, fair point.

Because who knows how many rockets, drones and heavily armed missiles are flying around in the atmosphere? It might have been a Chinese missile, being tested around Taiwan, and it went AWOL. It might have been Swedish. Serbian. I’m sure Serbs have missiles. Everyone does. It could have been a new project by Elon Musk, Death-Pal.

So why would everyone jump to the conclusion that it was Russian??? Other than the fact that they fired 90 yesterday and have fired thousands this year, all in close proximity to the Polish border. But as Putin was right to claim: this is just a ploy by the West to justify hostility against Russia. Meaning Jo Biden sent the missile just to frame poor, innocent Russia, so that we can go nuke Moscow.

A more interesting question than the ‘who?’ (because, really? Like REALLY?) is the why. I simply can’t imagine Putin would attack Polish land. Which leaves ‘human error’ as the more likely reason. But missiles aren’t launched by humans, we are fallible. They’re launched, directed and deployed with unbelievable precision by computer systems. They, basically, don’t miss.

I’m getting my uniform pressed because it can’t be long now. I’ll be reuniting with the 573rd Edinburgh Cowards as soon as the telegram arrives.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

If you look closely at this picture of our Joey, you might notice, on the left side of his forehead, a bunch of steri-strips. The things you use to close a wound. Hold it together. And thus really could have been invented for little Jo-jo.

We were eating dinner, Friday night, usual, noisy, bit’a chicken, some wine, Lila was colouring at the table, Joey was running round like a lunatic. All perfectly normal and (relatively) calm and sedate. Then came a ‘thump’. But possibly the most horrible thump ever. The sound of a head meeting something hard. In this case the corner of a stone kitchen unit. Everyone froze, turned to Joey, who screamed and appeared to have a hole in his forehead. Which then started to bleed. Quite a lot, as head wounds do.

His mummy grabbed him, I grabbed a bunch of tissues and dived on him. Pressure. That’s what you need. His aunt grabbed some frozen strawberries but instead of making a smoothie, put those on his head too. Ice the wound. And thus we stayed, all in shock, for a while until we dared look again. Half inch vertical ‘hole’. Oh dear. But the bleeding had stopped and we had some steri-strips. But, someone had the bright idea of running next door and getting the resident Pediatrician to come round.

And she was lovely, but a real killjoy. Yes, the wound now looks fine, bleeding stopped, blah, blah, blah. Ok, shall we bind it with steri-strips then? Oh no, with head wounds he needs to go to hospital for concussion protocol. But he didn’t pass out, wasn’t sick, and in fact was pretty much ok. No, he must go. Best if mummy and daddy go with.

Lila was already upstairs packing her suitcase. A sleepover. At our house. She was selecting books, making sure her ipad was charged for the morning, gathering clothes and, basically filled the case.

Joey was seen so quickly and efficiently at the Royal Free (where kids are prioritised and kids bleeding from headwounds even more so) that they’d checked him, glued him (its what you do) and put a few strips on within 1 hour. By Saturday morning it was forgotten. By him at least, may take the rest of us a while.

And so impressed was I with the hospital and so fed up with coughing all night long every night for about 10 days, that I went myself on Saturday morning. I tried the ‘children’s entrance’ but met the NHS equivalent of a night club bouncer who refused me entry. 2 hours later I was seen by a doctor. Then a chest x-ray, back to the docs, all fairly efficient at that point. Took my prescription to the dispensary, and got my little ticket with a number. 69. On the board it showed that 62 and 63 were now ready, so I’m just 6 away. How good is that? At McDonalds it would take 4 minutes.

Then it began: the death of a thousand knives. As I grabbed a coffee, stirred it, drank it, slowly, read my kindle, looked up at the board and… 62 and 63 still ready, nothing else. And so it went on. For over an hour.

At least the drugs do (seem to) work

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

…its getting; football’s getting lost…

So we had a full fixture list this weekend. Loads’a games, loads’a goals, loads’a… stuff, bit of VAR (inevitably), few ructions, plenty of excitement (Spurs), bit of boring (Arsenal), massive underdogging (Brentford), some ‘tragic’ losses, (Man City, Chelsea), several managers elevated to ‘tightrope’ status (Frankie Lampard, Graham Potter) and all the fun of the fair.

And now its over. Finished. Lost forever (it’ll seem like it) as the Premiership now shuts down until after Christmas. It’s not a ‘winter break’ because we don’t do them over here. It’s not a rest period (for many). It’s called the World Cup. Which would normally be a cause for excitement and eager anticipation for us fans as the ‘best in the world’ get to compete. And Qatar. They’re the only ones who get in for free because they’re the ‘host nation’.

The World Cup is a summer event. Always, in its entire history. Until now. Normally in the closed season, but now right in the middle of fucking everything, which all has to shut down in its honour. But this is no reason to have vetoed Qatar’s bid to host the tournament. Not at all. It would be prejudicial for any country to be banned from hosting just because several players might die from heatstroke, dehydration or (if they’re found to be gay) decapitation. And FIFA is all about fair.

Well, fair and money. In used, non-sequential notes handed over in suitcases down back alleys. But by the time the horrendous corruption was sorted out, Qatar had already built half the stadiums and a lot of the infrastructure for the tournament. You knew it was half because only about 3,500 foreign workers had died building them at that point.

The last World Cup, in Russia, highlighted the corruption and ‘sportswashing’ enabled by FIFA, but Qatar takes the cake. You always needed to be ‘a footballing nation’ to host a World Cup, which Russia is. But Qatar? Yet those Qataris want to show the world how lovely they are, as well as how rich. And they will be lovely to the fans. As long as they don’t drink too much. Which… errrr… football fans… hmmm… shouldn’t be a problem. Or hold hands with a person of the same gender. Or… lots and lots of other things considered ‘normal’ in the civilised world but ‘evil’ in that little totalitarian state where human rights laws are suspended.

But other than that, yaaaaay, the World Cup is here!!! Next weekend!!!

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I never really ‘got’ reality tv. It started with ‘Big Brother’ in which you watch a bunch of sub-normal morons talking about total rubbish for hours on end. For some reason, that never pushed my buttons. Other than the ‘channel change’ ones. Then they evolved into talent shows of various types, all equally horrible, and finally, they found a way to improve viewing figures even more, by using ‘celebrities’ as the contestants, featured victims, whatever. Yet how do you define a ‘celebrity’? Oh, as ‘someone famous’. Ok, goddit.

This week there were actual headlines in even proper newspapers announcing that Olivia Attwood had been removed from ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out’a here’ in a highly unusual and, well, not very interesting way. Did she have Covid? Was she pregnant?? Oh my word, the nation was on the edge of its collective settee with shock and amazement. Other than those of us thinking ‘who the fuck is Olivia Attwood??’ But she is, obviously, a ‘celebrity’, and like most of them, has equally obviously, had her face re-structured a bit, but for celebrity you need to be famous. So what’s Olivia’s claim to fame? And sometimes, you have to sink low to find things out. Up steps the Mail on Sunday with the information we’d all been so keen to know. Olivia, who is engaged to a Blackburn Rovers footballer (are you a proper ‘WAG’ if its not a Premiership team? Don’t like to get snobby about this, but there are standards…). But her ‘fame’ is not, as I first thought, for being on the board of a Footsie 500 company, setting up a charity to help children in need or even being a fifth-rate actress in pantomimes. No. Olivia’s fame comes from ‘finishing in 3rd place in the 2017 Love Island’. Wow. Impressive.

Strictly Come Dancing is another ‘celeb’ talent show I choose never to watch. But again, makes it into all the newspapers. And ‘strictly’ has a bit of a problem. The couples dance, the judges mark them but the decision as to who is thrown off each week is down to audience voting. Sounds workable. Always been workable. Until this year. When you have the perfect storm. Someone who is absolutely rubbish at dancing, but is immensely popular with a truly massive, loyal fan-base. Who all have phones.
Thus Tony Adams, ex-captain of Arsenal, does his passé doble, treads on his partners feet, falls over a few times, shows all the sense of rhythm of a goldfish dying on the kitchen floor. And then wins. Because there’s 100,000 Arsenal fans all phoning in.

Tony Adams is certainly the only Arsenal anything who I’d be prepared to make a phone call for. He not only captained a brilliant and successful team, he managed to do so whilst he and most of the others were addicted to drugs, alcohol, gambling, or all three. How most of them managed to lace their boots up every Saturday is a mystery, let alone win so many matches.

So that’s this week’s round up of our favourite tv shows. Unfortunately that is what they quite literally are, in terms of viewing numbers. And they wonder why our nation is in such trouble.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

Are some Americans finally waking up to the reality the rest of the world has known for decades? Can they really have had a collective ‘eureka moment’ to realise what is an otherwise universally known fact?

That Donald Trump is actually not a man you would want in control of your country. You wouldn’t want him in control of your toilet. He’d flood it, break it, call it a ‘fake toilet’, then accuse it of never being a toilet in the first place and claim he was a better toilet than that. The last being the only factually true statement.

Because the American mid-term elections, for the Senate and the House of Representatives, have been something of a ‘slap in the face’ for the man with the most slappable face in the world, but I hope the orange doesn’t come off.

America has always loved divisions. Cowboys and Injuns, North and South, Country and Western, Black and White, all of which are, pretty much, ongoing, to add to Democrat and Republican and the latest: ‘last election believers and deniers’. Its become America’s Brexit. Politicians are described as ‘election deniers’ if they agree with Trump in that he actually won the last election. Even though Biden had more votes. That delusional, egomaniacal concept that ‘NO ONE COULD EVER BEAT ME!!!!’ was the start of the Capitol invasion. And its still going on.

So Trump, for these mid-term elections, loaded up the Republican candidates with his cronies, his buddies, his loyals and his ‘deniers’. He bigged em up, he paid for their campaigns, he promoted every pro-gun, anti-abortion, pro-rape, anti-Bealzibub policy he could find and hoisted his people upon the Godliness of its message.

And most of them lost. Ok, the Republicans have still won, once all the results are in, but that’s more a reflection of the incompetence of the current president than to any wonderfulness of his predecessor.

Trump is all about ‘divide and conquer’. Maybe the American people, being much brighter than him, are realising that you need unity, not division, to accomplish good things. Which is why us clever people here in Britain, still describe ministers as ‘was a strong Brexiteer’, 5 years after the vote.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

So I had a cough. And that rapidly developed into full-blown man-flu, which is, as all men know, if not exactly ‘deadly serious’, at least ‘fucking horrible’ and the cause of much whingeing and complaining and demands for sympathy. Since then nothing’s really changed. Still feel shit, bunged up, achy and coughing, especially at night. And I’ve been taking anti-biotics since Sunday. Because I had some; what can you lose?

So I called the doctors. Otherwise known as ‘pissing into the ocean’. Because all GPs have been in hiding since the first lockdown. And they’re not coming out any time soon. They’ve decided to collectively ‘isolate’. And the best way to isolate is to avoid making any contact with sick people. Even by phone. So they don’t answer. Then the problem never arises.

“You’re through to the Medical Centre. Don’t come in. If you need help because you’re unwell, stay away. If you’re really sick, keep the fuck away from here. Otherwise press 1 to arrange a phone call with a doctor. Press 2 to try and arrange something else we won’t do, press 3 to remain on hold for an eternity, or Press 4 to hear these rather limited options again. And don’t come in.”

I sent them an email. “I’m sick. You’re my doctors. I can’t get through. What can you do to help me?” And I’m still waiting for a reply. They obviously diagnosed, just from those few words, that my condition is definitely not life-threatening or in need of emergency care. Or any fucking care that they’re in any hurry to offer.

And what are you going to ascertain on the phone? Are these GPs so attuned to the sounds of different forms of coughing that with just one wheeze into their earpiece they’ll know a viral chest infection from mild flu from a fault on the line? All I know for sure is, I don’t have Covid and I’d like to see someone and I don’t want to go to hospital because hospitals don’t prioritise man-flu like they should. I just want someone to listen, prod, inspect, analyse, whatever, and tell me I don’t have pneumonia, cancer or a tropical parasite eating away my lungs from the inside until they grow to the size of gerbil and burst out through my chest. Because Mel would get really pissed of with all that mess. And I can’t afford to upset my primary carer.

So I went to see a doctor. A proper doctor. With a stethoscope. And a sphygmo- sfigmo- a blood pressure machine. And I’m fine. Fine and coughing but fine. Yet I worry about all those people who don’t have Doctors in their families who they can barge in on when they’re trying to eat and demand a full work-out. The above photo was taken after being ‘treated’ by the other family doctor, Doctor Joey, so please don’t be alarmed.

I feel better knowing that… I have a cough and some kind of virus. I can live with that. Hopefully. I’ll let you know.

Yours heroically

A xxxx

Do you remember when Spurs were 3rd in the league? Those happy, heady days when our position flattered to deceive. Well, I like flattery. And I’m a big fan of deception. Because now, having ‘plummeted’ down the table after yesterday’s debacle, I’m having to ask myself “are we EVEN worthy of 4th place???” This made all the worse by being overtaken by the Arabs. Not that league position is about human rights, morality, international murders or abuse of women. Otherwise Arsenal would be banned too, just on grounds of decency. But those Saudis from Newcastle, having bolstered their sad and sorry coffers from skinflint Mike Ashley to new levels of oil-driven billions, have done the inevitable (Chelsea, Man City…) and plotted their inexorable drive up to the top where the real financial penises get measured.

Spurs, meanwhile, are languishing in a netherworld of uninspired negativism. The plan of ‘don’t get going til the second half’ is clearly not working. It has never worked but we got lucky for a while. Then we came up against an almost decent team yesterday. Not fully ‘decent’ because this Liverpool is nothing like last year’s or the one before. But still good enough that if you gift them a 2 goal lead (the first goal deserves credit to them, the second deserves defenders getting shot. No names… Eric!!) its going to be very hard to recover. Because without poor, injured Son Heung Min, we seriously lacked a proper threat and even more, we lacked pace. When Conte brought on Kulusevski on about the hour mark, it proved a revelation. The recovering Swede injected pace, life and positivity into our attack, bless his socks. But unlike in our previous 2 games, we couldn’t get the last minute winning goal. Or even drawing goal.

I would have sworn more at the tv but my manflu cough won’t let me without consequences. Even though the players, and certainly the manager, needed to hear my displeasure. Otherwise how will they learn?

Arsenal won. Again. Which is even more depressing than Manchester City winning. Again. This time after giving their opposition a ‘one man head start’. And poor Bournemouth, after giving up a 2-goal lead last weekend to lose to us, they did the same against Leeds on Saturday. I wish I could feel their pain but I’m just not that nice a person and I have enough of my own pain.

I now feel that, in line with all newspapers and sports sites, I need to get some equality in my work. So for the next 37 days I’m only going to writing about women’s rugby league, women’s cricket and women’s football. Not netball. We don’t do that. Nor ironing. Just gels playing boys’ games. Otherwise I’ll get done by… whoever does such things.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

I watched an event on the News the other night. Bunch’a American… mid-westerners? Southerners? You know, the not very bright ones, and they were hailing Jesus and praising the Lord and there were preachers shouting about the Devil and salvation and, my favourite bit, when people start feinting all over the place because Jesus has ‘entered’ them, in a non-#metoo way, or the spirituality became overwhelming or, well, whatever causes whole groups of evangelical Christian Americans to spontaneously fall down, had happened.

But this was not a church meeting. Not (strictly) a ‘religious’ occasion. This was a political gathering. A rally of Pennsylvanian Republicans. Who are fed up with ‘the lack of Jesus in American politics’ and the fear that their nation is now in league with ‘the Devil’ (spoken not in irony or metaphor, but literally. Trust me, these people are the walking, talking, feinting definition of ‘literal’). And as that ‘devil’ is a Democrat, they must mean Joe Biden. Yet however little you think of their current President, and you really couldn’t think less of him than I do, Devil? Having sufficient personality to be mistaken for demonic would be a step up for doddery old Joe.

But those gathered, to every last man, woman and imbecile, see Donald Trump as their salvation. Holy Fucking Shit! Never mind the man’s totally immoral actions, words and deeds, he is still their idol because he plays the ‘pro-life’ card.

The ‘preacher, typical gobby, screaming bible-bashing Jesus lover, shouted: ‘INSURRECTION!! YA AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN YET!! WE’LL SHOW YA INSURRECTION!!!’, obviously referencing the invasion of the Capitol building at Trump’s behest. Yet this dipstick (the Preacher, not Trump, though understand the ambiguity) maintained that he is a preacher of religion and NOT politics. Errrr… insurrection… what religion’s that then?

There is a strong move in many (of the illiterate) States now towards making America more Christian again. And that obviously involves Trump. The modern day Jesus Christ. God help us. Literally.

Gary Neville realised on Friday that being ‘quick-witted’ and ‘sharply spoken’ in the company of Alan Shearer and Ian Wright is not quite the same as when you’re facing Ian Hislop and Paul Merton, as Gary was in ‘Have I got News for you’. They questioned the increasingly squirming ex-Man United captain about his contract to be a pundit for Qatar state tv for the World Cup. And Neville, who addressed the Labour Party conference a few weeks ago, calling the Tories ‘a cancer upon this nation’, and who is all about ‘working people’ and his own version of the ‘class war’, fought through the windscreen of his Lamborghini, is probably not getting the full £150million that best mate, David Beckham is getting for being an ‘ambassador for the tournament’, but it’ll be lots and lots and lots. For which, Gary feels, he’ll be more than entitled to make endless points about human rights abuses, treatment of gays, death of construction workers, subjugation of women. And, obviously, corruption in international football. In between talking about how deploying wing-backs against a 4-4-2 can be very disruptive to a defence.

Happy rainy, shitty, man-flu Sunday

A xxxx

It’s happened. I developed a cough. The thing that makes you the undisputed #1 favourite with fellow tube travellers. A lovely, deep, chesty, phlegmy cough. If I had a bag of masks with me, I could’a made a killin’. Then a runny nose and a bit of sneezing. Yesterday I just felt like shit. Tired. Bit uncomfortable. Early to bed, even though I’m only up to part 7 of ‘music videos of the ‘80s’ and there’s another 19 left to see.

But, even though there’s no temperature, I decided, medically, that this is definitely… Man Flu!!! On the basis that: I’m a man. I seem to have flu. And no person on Earth has ever suffered as much as this. Ok, no person has moaned as much as this. Didn’t even go to tai chi this morning as its probably not fair to get ‘up close and personal’ with people then coughing at them when I’m supposed to be throwing them on the floor and kicking them. It’s not nice.

And so we look forward to a weekend of sport. England play Argentina at rugby tomorrow, followed immediately by Spurs hosting Liverpool. Which will be an interesting game. Liverpool are really underperforming this year, languishing in the lower half of the table, even though, unusually, there are virtually no public inquiries to distract them. But they can’t seem to win. Whereas Spurs have reached a watershed. Do we keep pissing away the first halves of matches with a total lack of aggression, excitement and passion, knowing that we can always win it later? Or should we change, step up a bit earlier and even try to avoid giving teams the inevitable head start? It’s very hard to demand change when Conte has produced the ‘most winning’ Spurs side in decades. And yet, if you ask 10 fans, all 10 will find our current methods unacceptable and decidedly uncomfortable. It’s truly wonderful to win matches with the last kick of the match. It’s also unbelievably stressful and leads to failure if they don’t manage to score in the ninety-whateverth minute.

And Son is injured. Surgery on a broken bone in his head. Nooooooo… even when he’s only playing half as well as he did last season, he’s still three times as good as everyone else in the league. You do the maths. And now he’s ‘gone’ for a bit. To mend.

Bit like me.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx