Andy's Glasses

Yep, if you could just pull that noose, just, like, a little bit tighter round my neck, yep, yep… that should be fine.

I’ll come clean. ‘Transparency’ (which I thought was another new gender option initially). State my position honestly. Clearly. Without deliberation:

I don’t like Kier Starmer.

I know what you’re thinking; that I don’t actually like anybody (other than Lila, Joey and Son Heung Min). And you’re close. But no cigar. Though I do reserve most of my real dislike for politicians. Only when they lie and cheat and steal. Which is most of them, most of the time. And always when they commit the ultimate sin: hypocrisy. For them the bounds of my hatred are stretched to limits only normally witnessed during child-birth.

I wrote a few weeks ago about how boring (Kier’s middle name) it is that he only has one single cry: ‘HE MUST GO!!!’ Sometimes he amends it slightly to ‘HE MUST RESIGN’ but that in itself is not exactly evidence of a fertile imagination. And although he’s made his call virtually every time the Prime Minister says or does anything (though it should be noted that most of what the PM does is either illegal, immoral or stupid). But he saved his particular form of endless repetition for the ‘party scandals’.

The Prime Minister has broken covid rules; HE MUST GO!
The Prime Minister has broken the law: HE MUST GO!
The Prime Minister has been fined by the police: HE MUST GO!

And now, in the sweetest denouement anyone could ever wish upon a limp and toothlessly benign and banal leader of Her Majesty’s opposition, all that has now been brought to light ‘in Durham’ has put Sir Kier in the exact position Boris occupied when Starmer called for his resignation. Again and again, like a fucking parrot with only one sentence in its beak. The ‘spontaneous working dinner’ which just had ‘a few beers’ has been revealed to be an organised 15-person party, pre-arranged and pre-invited, by Starmer’s office.

Those wonderful words: ‘position’ and ‘untenable’ and ‘tosser’, possibly ‘hypocritical nonce’ need to be arranged in a sentence, the end of which reads: HE MUST GO!

Few teams GO! from Anfield with anything in the way of points. Spurs did last night, to their eternal credit. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really enough points. Which is precisely how Liverpool must be feeling too. Not that we care about them.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx

There were elections here on Thursday. I went to vote. With Lila and Joey. Who were given free pencils. So it wasn’t a completely wasted event. I voted for the Conservatives because its the fucking council elections so who cares? The Tories generally keep the expenditure down and thus we pay less council tax. Who knows? If services are a bit reduced as a consequence, I’ll just have to put my lawn mowings out for collection once every two weeks. I can live with that.

I think I was the only person in the country who entered the polling station with local considerations in mind. Everyone else, especially here in Barnet, had an agenda. Based on national, governmental politics. Basically: fuck up Boris every which way you can. Because everyone hates Boris. Rightly so. And local elections are always used as a protest against national government, everyone knows that. Because the result doesn’t really do much harm one way or the other, so you can protest almost ‘for free’. Until Labour get in, as they did here in Barnet, and your council tax goes up 400 quid a month. Then its not quite as ‘free’ as it should have been.

So it was always going to be bad for Boris and the Conservatives. Except… it really wasn’t anything like the bloodbath that was expected. Ok, the Tories lost their 3 ‘crown jewels’ of Barnet, Wandsworth and Westminster, but they never had a great deal of local control in London anyway. Yet Labour, who won all three of those, did pretty much nothing else of note. Which is strange in our pretty-much 2-party nation. But when you go to put a cross in the box for a Labour person, you see Kier Starmer. And your pencil starts to hover. Then shake a bit. And your arm won’t move it towards the box. Then, at the last moment, it slips into the Lib-Dem box instead. Which, as is always the case, is pretty much like just spoiling your voting paper. A waste of time. Like the Lib-Dems. Who actually had the best result of all the parties from these elections. Due to all the hatred of Boris and Starmer.

All the leaders proclaimed victory. Boris, because it was nothing like as bad as it could have been. Really should have been. Starmer because his poxy party took three London boroughs. And what’s-iss-name, Sir Thungumy, claimed that the Lib Dems will now go on to win the next general election. They’ve suddenly become ‘Manchester City’, even though they play like Scunthorpe.

Then Starmer got summoned by the police for his own little ‘not-a-party’ in Durham during a lockdown and that soured his already sour expression somewhat.

Basically, the people get to vote against all the lies and distortions and spin, then the leaders come out and lie, distort and spin. Learned that lesson then.

Happy Saturday, from the People’s Republic of Barnet.

A xxxx

Shell Oil announced their figures yesterday. They made a 7.2 billion pound profit in the last 3 months. Shame. To add to BP’s 6 billion announced last week. And when I say ‘shame’ I don’t mean ‘awww, how can anyone live on that’, I mean ‘shame’ in a more Green Party way: ‘rewarded for single-handedly devastating the entire world with the product causing most increase in carbon levels’. Or in a Labour Party way: ‘these two parasitical mega-corps have made obscene levels of profit on the pain, suffering and financial devastation of every working person in the world and must be taxed accordingly. Punitively’.

There are questions to be asked really, because the massive increases in these two giants’ quarterly figures are due to the vast increases in oil and gas prices worldwide. Causing people everywhere to be forced to make horrible decisions. Feed the kids, pay the gas bill or have a night down the pub with me mates? Looks like the kids’ll be cold as well as hungry then. Others are having to burn old people to heat their homes, so scared of turning on the heating. All of which deprivation has translated into vast wealth for the oil producers. Causing unease in all the usual reactionaries. Kier Starmer, Angela Rayner et al see it as a ‘no brainer’ that as much as this profit should be stolen as a ‘windfall tax’ by the government. 50% of that vast total, taken in taxation, could mean every home in Britain having an annual energy cost reduction of almost one pound!!! And that’s gotta be worth having, surely? To offset the 200 quid a month increase in monthly payments?

Because it costs us nothing to just steal a few bil from a big company. Especially an… OIL!!!! company, for whom there can’t be much support or sympathy. For ‘preying’ on the frail and incontinent. (?)

Yet there are problems with such a move. Firstly, though of no concern to the Labour Party is the whole morality of a ‘windfall tax’. Which is basically: you’ve got more than me, I’m gonna take it and you can’t do nuffink about it. And then there’s the other considerations. Like the increased value this little profit will put on virtually everyone’s pensions, including the state one. Like the billions in research which Big Oil is spending on renewable and greener energy. Which they do because otherwise, when oil and gas are banned in 2040/2050/20-whenever, they’ll have nothing to sell. But also because they have the infrastructure and cash to build wind-farms (million quid each windmill) and build car-charging points and look for alternatives to fossil fuels. Well, they do unless we steal it from them.

Sometimes you need to look beyond the knee-jerk indignation. You listening, Starmer?

Happy Friday

A xxxx

I didn’t see the Spurs match yesterday, for the main reason, it wasn’t televised. I could have opted for the ‘Bulgarian stream’ or the ‘Lithuanian hackers’ but instead went out for tea. So I watched the hilights on Match of the Day 2. Which didn’t take long. No idea how Leicester weren’t 4-nil up by the time Harry scored his goal, but they didn’t capitalise on their opportunities. Then we scored 2 more lovely, wonderful, Sonny goals, the second of which was something of a masterpiece, and comfortably saw the match out. Other than the goal we conceded at the end. Which didn’t matter. Other than, it did. They all matter. But I was lifted by the result. As were Spurs. To… 4th place!!!! Above Arsenal. Yippee.

Two-and-a-half hours later we were back in 5th, just below the Arse. Or ‘the return of the doomsday scenario’, as we feel it. So now it becomes all about… The Run In!!! How the last 4 matches turn out as we are 2 points shy of the Goons but with a much better goal difference.

We start next weekend with an easy game. Unfortunately, I don’t mean easy for us. But possibly easy for Liverpool. Who aren’t very good, don’t score many goals and really have nothing left to play for anyway. (Reality alert: you can’t win matches on self-delusion alone, but it can never hurt). Then we play Arsenal. Unless Arteta catches covid again and calls it off until next December. Tosser.

Arsenal have an easy run-in. Other teams’ run-ins are always easy. That way you can laugh more as they drop points. So ‘it’s all to play for’. And I’m feeling nauseous at the thought.

Meanwhile, down the bottom end, things have gotten more interesting. Burnley are ‘on a run’ and must be fancied to stay up just because teams ‘down there’ don’t win three in a row and can’t count ‘games in hand’ as any points. Cos they probably won’t get any. Leeds too are now ‘in the fray’. And both of those teams are just 2 points clear of the drop zone. In which sit Norwich, who’ve already gone, Watford, who sadly virtually have too. And Everton. Who should be relegated just for having Horrible Frankie as manager but actually won yesterday against Frankie’s very own Chelsea. And the likelihood of that result is so minuscule that I’m immediately thinking far-eastern gambling syndicates or a glitch in Frank’s departing terms from his old club allowing him one impossible result when he manages a team.

So its either Burnley, Leeds or Everton to go. My heart is on Everton but I really wish I cared more about any of them one way or the other.

My focus must remain on 4th place. And now with Christian Romero showing everybody precisely what 47 million quid’s worth of centre back looks like, (and he’s sooooo pretty too!!!), we must stay positive. No, we MUST!!!

Happy May Day

A xxxx

Tonight in New York there’s a boxing match. Nothing new there. They’ve been doing it since Mohammed Ali got knocked down by Joe Frazier in Madison Square Garden. And that’s the venue for Amanda Serrano to make a title attempt against Katie Taylor, who holds not just one title but is currently as entitled as Prince Andrew was before he went for a pizza in Surbiton. Nothing new in that, boxing’s always had trouble working out who runs it, so about 17 organisations all have their own titles.

But this boxing is… is… is… for gels! Yep, two women slogging it out in the ring. With gloves on. Not white silk ones with pearls, but boxing gloves. Real ones. For punching. They don’t make ‘slapping gloves’, I checked on Amazon, so these are proper, girl boxing gloves.

I am aware that boxing has been ungendered for many years now. The Olympics is full of women beating the shit out of each other. And that’s just they gymnasts and certainly the ice-dancers. But this ‘real’. Professional. Million quid each contender. More media coverage than last week’s heavyweight men’s title fight.

And thus the ‘sport of gentlemen’ (even though they don’t really look like gentlemen when they’re doing it) has been equalitified (a new word I’ve had to make up for when a gender biased thing is brought into the post-stupid arena) and the world is a better place for it. A less discriminating world. More egalitarian.

So next Sunday there’s the first ever Men’s new triathlon, the Ironing Man competition. In which a group of geezers have to iron 14 shirts, make dinner for 8 people without making any mess and then mince to the coffee shop in very tight skirts and high heels where they have to bitch about other men for 32 minutes without stopping for breath.

It’s a lovely day, a long weekend so everything’s looking good. Nothing to cause negativity at all. Until Spurs kick off tomorrow at 2. I won’t say how ‘big’ this weekend is but suffice to say, bigger than last week’s but not quite as big as the next.

Happy Friday

A xxxx

Oh dear, its all getting a bit Harvey Weinstein over in Parliament. Actually, it always been so in the hallowed halls of Westminster, its just that, unlike 100 years ago, its no longer allowed. Not that there were women in Government 100 years ago, but they’d just started to creep in, having just been allowed to vote. Presumably before that it was just a bit more Kevin Spacey. The problem being that where there are groups of men, there are, generally, groups of penises. And there lies the problem. Dangles the problem, maybe.

Fresh on the heels (6-inch, stiletto) of Angela’s-thighs-gate comes Porn-gate. Misogyny: The Sequel! In which the star (as yet unnamed) sits in a debate in parliament watching pornography on his phone. Which, apparently, is not a good thing. I have no idea what type of porn he was watching, no-one else seems to think that important. They’re more concerned with the implicit misogynism of watching porn in the first place. No-one else seems concerned that he was ‘enjoying’ this ‘leisure activity’ on my fucking dollar! We, the tax payers, finance our government, pay their wages, so they can work on official matters of state on our behalf and behest. Yet Johnny Tory was pretending he was so engaged whilst his actual reality was in Lesbian Threesomes with Animals. Or some such. And you simply can NOT decide on the future of HS2 when stuck between 3 lesbians and a donkey. It’s simply not possible. It’s not a question of the gender of the donkey even. It’s a moral issue.

Watching pornography is an act of misogyny. And that’s the problem. According to those who decide on the nature of problems. Pornography objectifies women. Unless you’re watching gay male porn, then it doesn’t. So at least 60% of male Tory MPs are safe from that accusation. Whilst the other 40% are staring at Angela Rayner’s thighs. Though, if I’m honest, and speaking as a straight, cis-male, superman, stud, icon of manliness exemplified!!!, why would you wanna look at any part of her?

Pornography is there. It is not a crime to watch it. It’s there to show young men how to abuse women, treat them like shit and judge them as worthless shag-toys. And how else would they learn that? But Westminster is just not the place to view it. Not while I’m paying.

I just thought someone had to take an objective and logical look at this and clarify the matter completely.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

Do you do jigsaw puzzles? I don’t mean a cardboard photo of a smiling elephant cut into 6 pieces. I mean a proper fucking puzzle. 1000 pieces. Or more. (Not that I’ve ever done more, but not the point, I’m just establishing what is right for an adult to do and what is NOT). I’ve always loved puzzles. And for Mel and I, and in fact Rachie too who started ‘the first lockdown’ with us, we had a puzzle renaissance. I think it was made a law back in March 2020 that you had to complete at least one a month to avoid getting an FPN. Probably different if you were in government. And then we did lots. Basically, all we could get. Because once you start, they become deeply obsessive. They bring out the OCD in the most stable of calm karmas. So we bought them, we swapped with other (equally sad) people, and we bought more. Though I’m quite fussy. I like cartoony type puzzles, I like ‘funny’ picture, I like pop-arty type images, but would never, ever, be drawn to a 1200 piece photo of the Sacre Coer. Or Taj Mahal. A royal group portrait. Whichever bunch of royals. Kew Gardens (how many shades of ‘green’ can the human eye discern?). So we did puzzles. In fact we didn’t stop. For months. Probably overdid it. That’s what you do with an ‘obsession’ so you know its not just a hobby. And as it started to wane, we happened to be in Smiths one day and saw something called a ‘WASGIJ’. Which, for anyone not reading in a mirror, who isn’t Michaelangelo or isn’t an instant anagram-solver, is ‘jigsaw’ backwards. And it looks just like a normal puzzle, but…

They’re not. Nor are they just ‘backwards’. They show you a normal picture on the front, but that is NOT how the puzzle will look when completed. If completed. It just shows you the kind of scene that will be represented. Not the scene itself. They say ‘its what the people in that scene are looking out at from that scene’. In other words: yer on yer own. You can’t identify a piece from the picture on the box, because that piece is not from that picture. But another. Different one altogether. And if a normal puzzle creates a minor obsession, Wasgij puzzles represent the equivalent of mainlining heroin in one eyeball and crystal meth into the other. So we did about 7 because it was all we could find. And then stopped. Way back probably near the end of 2020.

Until a trip to Smiths the other week to buy a birthday card. Probably for Lila because Joey’s birthday isn’t til next month and there’s no-one else for whom I’d waste the 3 quid. And I found a Wasjig. A new one. (Not that an old one would be any easier but its not how its done). And it sits in a corner of the lounge on a card table. Calling me. “Andeeee…” it says. “Oh, Andeeeeee…” and I’m in the kitchen with my hands over my ears saying ‘no… no…NOOOOO!!!!” And then I’m sitting there, box in my hands, rummaging through the pieces, wondering how I arrived there. And when????

We need help. Therapy. Support Groups. Wasgijers Anonymous.

Happy puzzling

A xxxx

There was an interview on tv, either last night or possibly tonight (the report may have been from a press preview), with Donald Trump (vile and obnoxious) talking to, or probably shouting at, Piers Morgan (revolting, slimy and obnoxious). And guess what? If Trump was still president, the Ukraine crisis would never have begun. Fuck!! Just think, all that death and suffering and destruction and migration would never have happened because Donald Trump would have… errrrr… well, he’d have, apparently ‘done a deal with Poot’n’ and countered the Russian’s nuclear threat with a proper John Wayne reaction telling him ‘our nukes are bigger than your nukes and we have MORE!!!’. The precise nature of ‘the deal’, which Biden should have ‘done’ is a bit more obscure. As it would be from the master of his wonderfully detail-free world. The man whose entire life is a tweet. Everything being reduced to 35 words. Just enough to make a loud statement but insufficient to provide any substance, detail or explanation. In fact Trump only uses 17 words because each one has to be repeated.

And speaking of misogynists, apparently Westminster is chock full of them. Which is why the now national debate about Angela Rayner’s thighs is so important, politically. The facts, as we know them, though there aren’t many, is that a Tory MP, who remains nameless, accused Ms Rayner of crossing her legs in sufficiently repeated manner as to destabilise the Prime Ministers thought patters, which really needs not much help from her. But the very fact that some Tory, probably a closet-rapist, they all are, and ex-Bullingdon boy, entitled, maybe minor gentry and in possession of testosterone without a license, has brought this shameful matter to light is sufficient to question the entire nature of women in parliament. Whether they should even be viewed as ‘women’! Rather than just ‘MPs in very short skirts, crossing their legs’. Or the suggestion that women have to take much more care with simple actions just to avoid any suggestion of ‘being suggestive’ or ‘naughty’, JUST because men’s minds are so sick and leery.

If Ange was doing this accidentally, then this whole matter is simply a manifestation of typical misogyny and objectification of females in a decidedly pre-Emily Pankhurst manner. If she indeed intended to bother Boris and his famously libidinous disposition, then this is ‘female empowerment’ at its finest, used to fine effect of making the Prime Minister look stupid. But due to the way Boris looks and acts normally, how could we tell?

This story will run and run. At least until someone spends $40 billion buying Twitter.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

Sometimes I love football and sometimes I hate football. And I don’t just speak of my relationship with my team. Itself something of a unique relationship in its total and absolute one-way-ness. I give them love and loyalty and total dedication and they give me… basically contempt. I’m just a number on an email list of people who sometimes give them money for things. And if I don’t buy things, my data is there’s forever. A few bytes among the millions they hold.

But the current malaise is not just because ‘we blew it’ against Brentford on Saturday, much as we ‘blew it’ the previous weekend against Brighton. 200 minutes of football without a shot on target. From the team who’ve scored more goals in 2022 than any other. The team with the ‘best attack in the world’, possibly, as described only 3 weekends ago. By some pundit or other. I’m hoping that next weekend we’re not playing a team beginning with ‘B’. Yes, that’s what its come to. Wearing my socks which are unwashed from both legs (pun) of the 1981 Cup Final!

But the problem is money. Too much of the stuff in the game. So Paris St Germain are in pretty much a meltdown of discontent and unharmonious chaos borne of Qatari funding giving a sense of entitlement which requires IMMEDIATE satisfaction. Their current head coach, the wonderful and lovely Mauricio Pochettino, will be sacked this summer. The latest of 5 coaches who have delivered the French league title and then been sacked. Because of delivery failures on all other competitions. Which translates as ‘didn’t win the Champions League’. The Qataris, as we’ve learned at great cost (both in human lives and blatant corruption) like to spend their way out of a problem. If they throw enough cash around, then WHY CAN’T THEY GET WHAT THEY WANT????? The answer to which is actually ‘because they’re spoilt, entitled fuckers who need to grow up and the world don’t work like dat’. They bought Neymar, they bought Messi, FFS, and still their ultimate prize remains elusive. Their fans are up in arms about the owners, their best player, Killian Mbappe, is walking away in the summer, probably to the Bernabau where he’ll doubtless be paid several trillions of Euros, dollars, whatever, because Real Madrid don’t care and have seemingly no limits.

The irony is that probably the most successful, certainly the most enduring, manager of all time was Alex Ferguson. Manchester United were patient, allowed him a few fallow years to establish his own team, left him in control, and he returned them untold riches over the following decades of his stewardship.

That would never happen today. The Russians, Qataris, Americans and Emiratees who own our clubs have more money than patience, more greed for prestige than love for the game, more cash than class. So they get what they deserve. Mainly. Which is disappointment. Spurs fans get that for nothing. So whose laughing now???

Happy Monday

A xxxx

Just when you thought it might be of some, minor, educational or informational benefit to actually read the Daily Mail (in this case the Sunday version but its definitely the same beast) then you really need to think again. You should only EVER read a Mail publication to laugh at its stupidity or get really angry because it is so awful. And worse still, its read, as a kind of gospel, by an awful lot of people.

That sorry newspaper reported that whilst Boris speaks in parliament, he is being distracted, titillated, provoked and possibly aroused. By the Shadow Chancellor who apparently crosses and uncrosses her legs repeatedly when Boris is speaking, in a move reminiscent of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. There’s a photo of a gorgeous Sharon Stone, in that gorgeous white dress, from the movie. In case you’ve forgotten it. Which no man who saw the movie ever has. Or anyone who identifies as ‘male’. He. Him. His. Nob.

And I can understand how easily Boris gets distracted, that is possibly the source of all his current woes. And we all know how he has an eye for the ladies. Possibly other body parts beyond an eye too. He has a history. A long one. History, not sure about anything else.

But Angela Rayner? ANGELA RAYNER??? I think possibly that Kier Starmer is more attractive and he’s the ugliest labour leader since Michael Foot. The very thought of that great northern lump of Corbyn-idealising, Bolshy, gobby horse doing anything with her legs fills my mouth with bile. Boris maybe desperate, but Angela Rayner??? She’s unworthy to share a page with La Stone.

But at least the time spent in my indignation over this farce was time spent away from the sports pages. Where depression lies. And upset. And tragedy. And horror. And a level of pear-shapedness which my football team seems to unconsciously crave. The match itself was beyond abysmal. I don’t need a bunch of Daily Mail Man United fans telling me how bad Spurs played. I KNOW!

Happy Sunday. At least the sun’s shining.

A xxxx