Andy's Glasses

What happened to all my Easter Eggs? Like, WTF???

Ok, not mine, the ones I bought along the way, that’s a rhetorical question. Long gone. But the rest of them. The ones I didn’t buy. Which, normally, over Easter weekend are lined up, piled up, amassed in pyramids in all the supermarkets waiting for me to rent a van and buy the lot. But this year? It’s all gone a bit ‘Man United’ on the Easter Egg front.

Just to recap. I love chocolate. But ONLY ‘proper’ chocolate. And you can tell its ‘proper’ because it comes in purple. Nothing else will suffice. I don’t define ‘chocolate’ by its cocoa percentage, nor its ‘purity’, fatlessness or how much it costs. I just want Cadburys. Milk chocolate. In pretty much any form (flake, Dairy Milk, twirl, Freddo…) but the best, the ultimate, the definitive mouth-fill of my favourite foodstuff, is Easter Eggs. Maybe because of the texture, maybe because they’re only available for about 3 months a year. Maybe because they’re big.

Except this year. When there weren’t any to fucking buy.

My typical shopping trip between February and April, just ‘popping out for some milk’ will see me return with 8 Easter Eggs. And, in all likelihood, no milk due to the sheer excitement. Because every Supermarket, Corner shop, petrol station, has piles of them. And always ‘on offer’. 2 quid, maybe 4 quid for a bigger one, and only Cadburys, obvs.

But this year was different. Waitrose didn’t stock any smallish eggs. M&S didn’t but I’m not sure if they ever have. I did make a major acquisition at Aldi, but its a horrible place and I didn’t return. But last night we went ‘for a walk’. Because yesterday was the first day after Easter. Last year on that day I went into my little Tesco on Fleet Street and bought half their display. All half price. I just put my credit card in the machine and told them to stop ringing up eggs when I’ve reached my credit limit. This year they had not one. Same at the Sainsburys Local, the Iceland (FFS) and Budgen.

Have Easter Eggs become the new Petrol? Pricey beyond belief and not always available? Or like gas? Do they come from Russia and are thus sanctioned? Were they sent to Ukraine to help the troops, along with the anti-tank missiles? Or is this part of a sinister government conspiracy related to the national obesity problem so wonderfully exemplified by our Prime Minister??

All I know is, as we enter the Spring period, when my normal problem is storage of overstock, I’m down to my last 1-and-a-half eggs. Another fucking crisis. Just what we need.

Unhappy post-Easter

A xxxx

There’s a lot of football coming up. The season is drawing to a close. The Premier title race is reaching its conclusion, the fight for top 4 looking like Lviv on a bad day and relegation battles are being… well, lost really. Liverpool and Manchester City can both win the league and Champions League but Liverpool already have the League Cup and are in the FA cup final next month too, going for an ‘unprecedented quadruple!!!’

Ahhhh, silverware, who needs it? Well, it does make you feel better. And now that Emma Raducanu has come out as a Spurs fan (wearing a named replica shirt in training, increasing her gorgeousness 10-fold) there are moves that we can have a copy of the American Open tennis trophy in the Spurs cabinet. Just because…

My team didn’t do very well on Saturday. They went all ‘Spurs’ again. Taking on what should have been ‘straightforward opposition’ and losing. Not because Brighton were so fantastic but because we were so awful. However, with Arsenal losing (agaiaiaiain), it was not all doom and gloom in 4th spot. But Manchester United winning was a bit of a problem. Well, as has happened a lot at Old Trafford recently, Manchester United actually lost to ‘can’t buy a win’ Norwich, but Ronaldo won and gave them the points.

United play Liverpool tonight. And we desperately need the Scousers to win. Although its almost unthinkable that slick, consistent Liverpool could lose to arch-rivals and currently clueless Man United (probably without Ronaldo who tragically lost a baby yesterday), you must remember that ‘this is football!’ And anything can happen. United winning would be a catastrophe for us and for Liverpool. But then United play Arsenal on Saturday (draw would be nice) and Chelsea the following Thursday (Russian missile would be nice). About which the Mancs are moaning, obviously. Probably pull the ‘Covid card’ and ask for a deferment. Oh, but we’ve got toooooooo many games to play, its not faiaiaiaiaiaiairrrrrr. But, quite frankly, fuck ’em. They really don’t deserve to be anywhere near 4th place this year so the further away the better.

Much as I hate football when Spurs lose, it is getting a bit exciting up there.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx

We had a little ‘tea’ yesterday. For the exceptionally old and the extraordinarily young. We’re in the middle. Much nearer the latter, obvs. We brought ‘the dads’ (combined age 193) to see their great-grandchildren (combined age 8, nearly) because its good for generations to mix. Beneficial to all. So the old’uns get to fall asleep near children and the kids have 2 more ‘things’ to ignore as they run around breaking everything in the house. We’ll have just one new rule for Lila and Joey (making a grand total of… errrr… one) which is ‘DON’T BREAK THE ZIMMERS!!!!’ Great-grandfathers can be repaired or will heal, as they often are and do, but Zimmer frames become the most essential thing in their lives as neither can walk even across a room unaided. It’s what happens. Will happen to us all (should we be so lucky to live so long, pth, pth, pth).

On Friday night Mel & I ‘led’ the Passover festivities in the care home. I’ll spare you the details because all went swimmingly well except for a few reservations. Summed up by the old expression: you can please all the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time and a room full of Jewish nonagenarians NEVERRRRR!!!!! But that’s life. What was interesting was that in a room full of about 30 pretty old people, at least half used Zimmers. Because modern medicine is a brilliant thing, capable of keeping us alive and… not so much ‘kicking’ as possibly ‘limping’ or ‘staggering’, for longer than previous generations would have imagined possible. But it can’t stop the natural deterioration of bone and muscle. Which, kind’a, holds us all together and keeps us moving swiftly. Or slowly. And more importantly, stops us falling down. Thus the Zimmer frames. They can’t help with the other inevitabilities, like loss of hearing and sight, but they can stop you falling over so much. And provides amusement as you see three or four all heading for the door, as if racing, but in slo-mo. Very slo-mo.

And so the contrast. Lila and Joey, all energy and activity, and ‘the dads’, somewhat less so. But you can’t help thinking that its somehow instructive for the kids as well as a tonic for the elders.

I’m ordering my Zimmer today. In case they run out in the next 30 years. I’m getting the GTI-Twin-Turbo, capable of up to half a yard every 3 minutes.

Happy Families

A xxxx

Ok, so this is how you decorate a bedroom. You choose curtains. Takes, approximately, 2 years. If I’m honest, I left ‘most’ of this to Mel. Partly because I’m simply not fussy (I have one rule: no flower designs. Love flowers, hate florals), some might say ‘barely even care and one week after fitting wouldn’t be able to identify the design from a choice of 2’. And partly because I trust my wife’s judgment. In most cases. Some cases. A few. Ok, I trust her judgment about curtains. Possibly lampshades.

So we have our curtains chosen and being made. Now we can ‘co-ordinate’ the rest of the room. Yippie-yiy-ayyy. So we need paint. And thus ensues the square dance. In which little squares of loads of different colours, shades and depths just ‘appear’ on the walls. Most of which are ‘too dark’, ‘too light’ or ‘too pink’. And this continues until Dulux, Crown, Farrow & Ball and Little Green have run out of colours and its reached the point where if I stand still to put my pants on, I’ll have a square on my back in ‘Sunset Harmony’ before my testicles are settled. But eventually after a great deal of work and square paining by Mel and even more ‘FFS!!!!’ from me, The Colour! is chosen. The decorator arrives, spends 5 days applying The Colour, not just to the walls but also to the woodwork, wardrobes, skirtings, because that was ‘the look’ that ‘we’ wanted.

The day it was finished Mel hated it. I have no idea why, my aesthetic conceptualisation chip is broken. But she fucking hated it. ‘Sunburst Morning Yellow’ became ‘vomit and pus yellow’. ‘Aardvarks at the watering hole green’ became ‘road kill shit’ and was a source of anxiety and upset for my wife. (2 days had long passed so I’d stopped noticing).

A few weeks later we re-entered squaresville. That mysterious twilight zone where little coloured squares start appearing. And eventually we found a new ‘The Colour!’. Obviously a very different one. Not a sunburst or aardvark in site. And not willing to go to the not inconsiderable expense of getting the decorator back…

How’s your Easter weekend going? Onto the second coat yet?

Happy Paint-splattered Saturday

A xxxx

What do you know about Rwanda? Hmmmm… its in Africa… It’s… possibly hot… errrr… lions?… elephants?… in fact it sounds much nicer than England. It’s famous for beautiful hills and it seems a very nice place, predominantly Christian but no-where’s perfect. And the pictures I’ve seen make it seem quite pretty and lovely.

So much so that visitors to England are now going to be sent to Rwanda instead. It’s sort of an annex of Britain, just round the corner. Ok, round a 4,000 mile corner into the deepest darkest deep bits of the Southern Hemisphere in landlocked Africa. But a free, (unless you’re a UK tax-payer), all-expenses paid holiday for 3 months is not the worst deal.

If I’d spent 14 weeks trudging across the whole of Europe on foot then risking life and limb on an inflatable dinghy made for 12, accompanied by 74 others, as it crosses the channel, only to arrive in fucking Dover, inevitably grey, wet and windy, I’d be the first on the plane to Rwanda.

Because Boris (tosser) and Home Secretary Priti (bitch) have between them decided that Rwanda is the place to send all the refugee, asylum-seeking single men who arrive here seeking asylum. But, obviously, only the brown people. From Afghanistan. Bangladesh. Pakistan. The white ones, from Ukraine, are fast-tracked in the Aryan Races channel to the 100,000 British people eager to take them into their homes.

So it is possible that the Muslim hordes are being sent to Rwanda as a reward; they won’t have to endure British winters… spring and autumn are trying as well, whereas the Ukes will think January over here is summer. Plus, we all remember Nigel Farage with his ‘non-racist’ Brexit poster of a boat load of channel-crossers telling us to ‘reclaim the borders!!!’ Nothing subliminal about that message.

And you kind’a have to think that otherwise there is absolutely no reconciling the totally differing sides of our nation’s apparent racism. White people welcome, brown ones over there with the suspected terrorists, no-good-niks and criminals. Yeah, sorry matey, we don’t do ‘discrimination’ here at all, its against the law, now get on that fucking plane to Africa!!

Happy Easter (but apparently only if you’re white)

A xxxx

Tomorrow is the festival of Passover. And Easter. And as Passover is all about ‘telling the story’, you could, if pushed, combine these two festivals, merge them together. So when the Jews finally flee the horrible, sadistic Pharoah who had enslaved them, you could have Jesus leading them through the Red Sea instead of Moses. It’s a small thing but nicely inclusive. And then kill off Moses and let him get re-born, for a change, just before he brings down the 10 commandments.

I’m not a religious man. But I do like food. So ‘being Jewish’ simply means I get to eat chopped liver more than your average non-Jew. The praying bit I don’t get so exited about. In fact, I avoid it like… well, it is Passover, like (one of) the (10) plague(s). So Passover is always my favourite event of the Jewish calendar. Because it is ALL about food. Ostensibly in a restrictive way, because you can’t eat bread or anything made with flour, for 8 days. But in fact that means some (probably greedy, piggish) proto-Jew got really creative and established a whole ‘gluten-free’ world long before it became the world’s most fashionable allergy. And its all good and fab. We can eat ‘unleavened bread’ all we want. And its ok. In a ‘rock-hard, cardboardy’ kind’a way. But the festival bit is all about the special food and most importantly, its symbolism within ‘the story’.

So you have what’s called ‘the Seder’, where families sit round, tell the story, which we all know, but its gotta be done, of the Jews escape from Egypt, back in the day. And eat. You eat during the telling, bitter herbs to symbolise the bitterness of slavery. Matzo because they didn’t have time to leaven their bread before fleeing, in the pre-Paul-Hollywood days. We eat granite to symbolise building a pyramid, we eat cats because of the Egyptian thing, and we eat humble pie because of the slavery. Please don’t treat much of that literally. But the point is, the food represents the history. And then: we have dinner. And sing a few songs.

They asked for someone to ‘lead the Seder’ at the care home where my dad (97) and Mel’s dad (96) both currently reside. And we thought… well why not? All you need is 12 years of rabbinical study and a degree in Religious History. Or a cheat book. Which I have. I’m thinking changing the ‘symbols’ to ‘cymbals’ so at least it’ll be something they can all hear, and it may keep my dad awake for the duration.

Happy Easter/Pesach

A xxxx

As Boris Johnson becomes the first ever serving Prime Minister of our fine nation to be convicted of a criminal offence, we need to consider the future. Not just the matter of who should be at number 10 but much wider, grander, deeper: the entire structure of politics in Britain. Sorry: …in Britain!!!

So I just wish to make two points:
1. Boris really should resign.
2. Boris ain’t going nowhere.

Legally, morally, politically, Boris should fall on his sword, or better still, have a Julius Caesar moment with the full ‘et tu, Rishi’ as he falls in a puddle of his own blood, as his former allies and comrades sneer at his dying moments, thinking how far this will advance their own careers. And not for having the parties nor for the sheer hypocrisy of setting laws ‘for the nation’ which he chose personally to flaunt. Over 50 times. But his real crime was denying it happened. Lying. That’s, for me, the red line. Boris should not just leave but totally fuck off.

Ironically, the only thing keeping him in his job, allowing him to survive when he has no right, is Kier Starmer.

Because every time you start to think of a Westminster without Boris, the limp and soggy, lacklustre, red-faced twit of an opposition leader, gets his horrible face into a camera to say “he really must go”. And he’s been saying that, and pretty much nothing else, for the last 3 years. He has so overplayed the ‘really must go’ card that it has become meaningless. As does any word or phrase stated 40 times in quick succession. And you think ‘would I ever want that horrible man as the leader of our nation?’ Making Boris’s lying, cheating, disloyalty, bumbling and incompetence seem worth putting up with for just a bit longer.

Starmer’s latest ‘he must go’ was obviously Boris and his Fixed Penalty Notice. But ten minutes before, Sir Kier had been ‘he must go’-ing about Rishi Sunak. Because according to our Labour Party Leader, Rishi just ‘doesn’t get it’. Doesn’t get the cost of living problems, the gas price rises, nothing that poor, probably northern, working people are enduring. Well how could he? He spends his spare time working out how to save every last million quid from the tax man’s claws. So how could the chancellor thus understand the single-parent working mother of six children (from 7 different partners… you do the maths) living in a shoe box in Lincolnshire on 73p a month?!?!

I’d just like to point out that while Sir Kier Starmer QC has never been guilty of having sufficient billions to worry about tax avoidance, nor the wherewithal to investigate such a thing, he is about 36,000 miles from ‘poor’. He was a barrister. A QC. Then the Director of Public Prosecutions (not a very good one). He made a lot of money. Not Sunak/Murty millions but plenty. Enough that he personally will not worry about his electricity usage. Does that mean he ‘doesn’t get it’ either? Does he really believe that only the poor can understand the horrors of poverty? That no-one with a positive bank balance has any empathy? In which case, he ‘can’t get it’ either. Such a tosser.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

I think we need to give Akshata Murty a bit of a break. Poor thing. Ok, rich thing. But she’s having a really really bad time at the moment, to such an extent that her husband, Rishi Sunak’s political aspirations are being called into question. And this is Crown Prince Rishi, heir to the throne currently sat upon by Blonde Boris’s fat arse. The very man who started his bid for Prime Minister by throwing 70 billion quid at the population in furlough payments. It’s hard to be more heroic and loved than that. And yet that was yesterday. Today, we fucking hate Rishi for being a lousy husband to a stinking rich, tax-avoiding billionairess who fucking hates England, never wants to live here and has robbed the NHS of MILLIONS!!! If your uncle Reg is currently on a waiting list for a new hip, it is HER FUCKING FAULT!!!

So we need to act in a more equivocal and less reactionary manner as we consider Ms Murty. In the name of fairness.

Is it a crime to pay less tax than you have to? Which is what she did by using her ‘non-dom’ status to pay tax earned in India for her Indian earnings. Even though she lives here. Is that wrong? She saved £2million a year by doing that and still had to survive on the 7/8 million left over. Plus her husband’s earnings and the overseas trust funds. But she has to pay for her gas’n’lectric too, ya know. Fill up the car; well, she has people to do it for her but someone’s gotta pay!

Is it a crime that her non-dom declaration states that ‘she lives in India and has NO intention to settle permanently in the UK’? And hubby wants to live at number 10. Ok, not permanently, our democracy doesn’t work like that. Unless there’s a divorce in the future which we don’t know about. Because we like our possible PMs to live here. Call me old fashioned. But not just live here, but be committed to the UK. Not possibly view it as one of so many places we may choose to live. California? Mumbai? London? Ahhhh, so many choices. Even Rishi’s Green Card, which he gave up just before becoming chancellor, commits him to living in America.

Yet none of this is a crime. Everything’s legal and above board.

Rishi Sunak has told us that we need to pay more tax. For the country. For the NHS. Because we need to pay back for the pandemic. We have emptied the pot and its going to hurt to refill it. And to state that, sincerely, whilst finding personal loopholes to avoid the impact personally, is not a crime either. Its just a bit hypocritical and not very nice. Wherever Akshata chooses pay her tax, at whatever preferential rate, its safe to say she won’t be poor.

Terrible political judgment aside, the only real ‘crime’ they’ve committed is to be exceptionally rich.

Happy Monday

A xxxx

There’s bad weeks, bad weeks, and then this week. Holy shit. However, due to reporting constraints imposed upon me by the International Board of People Wot make up shit and present it as news, I can’t actually give a full report of the Sunak/Murty affair, until the Inland Revenue, the CIA and Tescos Clubcards give me expressed permission to fabricate something nasty. Not that I could possibly make up anything nastier or more sordid than what they’ve done. And in case you’re in any doubts, this is the most vicious hatchet-job ever perpetrated on a serving politician. The timing, the extent of it and the amazing details of so much international financial and tax arrangements are an onslaught of positively Putinian proportions.

So I need another bad week. Something different. Suffering of even greater magnitude than that of our Chancellor and his Mrs. And there is just such a tale. The also tragic and devastating woes of Arsenal football Club. And if, after you learn of the events unfolding over the last 7 days in Emirate-land, N7, your eyes are still dry, then YOU HAVE NO HEART. Even the eyes of the most ardent of Spurs fans will be greatly moistened. But possibly from laughter. Which is cruel. Yet totally understandable.

Before last weekend, the mighty Arsenal were on a wave of victories. Which had left them comfortably in 4th place in the league, a good 3 points above Spurs with a superior goal difference. In fact, according to Arsenal fans, with superior EVERYTHING. Spurs, beat Newcastle 5-1 with style, class, aplomb and other words meaning ‘fuckin brilliant!!!’ Thus did Spurs overtake Arsenal in the table, on goal difference.

But Arsenal went to Crystal Palace, intent on reclaiming their rightful place. But played the wrongful game and fucked up royally, losing 3-nil. And then… yesterday happened!

Arsenal played first. An ‘easy game’ against Brighton, a team great to watch but poor at actually winning the games they tend to dominate. But yesterday they did win. Some say ‘rather easily’, I make no judgments. Unless I have to.

So the stage was set as Spurs kicked off, later, at Villa Park. Where Stevie Gerrard had instructed his team, via an interpreter, to play some football but first and foremost KICK THE SHIT OUT OF SPURS!!! And they headed the manager’s instructions. It was horrible, nasty and violent. But my heroic team stood the test and ran out the first half 1-nil up due to a fab goal from an even fabber defensive cock-up. And then came the second half. By which time Villa had become tired due to all the kicking, punching and elbowing they’d done in the first half and Spurs just… just… just… aaaaahhhhhhh…

We were so good, so cool, so clinical, so… brilliant. The once again goalless Harry Kane was behind absolutely everything we did. Son was magnificent. And Kulusevski was well worth looking up how to spell his name properly. Outstanding player scoring an outstanding goal.

So now we’re 3 points clear in 4th place, with a big goal difference. And I know 2 things: the season ain’t over; and we are Spurs. Neither of which fills me with total confidence, but my my we look good.

Hope this week’s better. For Rishi.

A xxxx

It all started in 1967 when my mate Jimmy called my other mate, Tarquin, a poof, in the school dinner queue, aged 11. That was the first noted case of direct homophobia in the world. At which point I pointed out, over the sausage and chips trays, that ‘in 55 years time you’ll be arrested for saying that!!’ Because even then I knew that the world was destined to become a better place. A more inclusive place. A place where poofs are safe and protected from verbal and physical abuse. I also predicted that over those same 55 years, Spurs would become the greatest football team the world had ever seen, so I wasn’t infallible.

3 years later lesbians were invented, by another mate, Nigel, who had some pictures he found in a book under his big brother’s bed, which we all wanted to take home and in the end they got torn. And soiled.

And then it all became legal for ‘same sex partnerships’ and all went well. The Gays, as we were then to call them, and Lesbians joined together… in political ways, obviously, because together they were stronger, and were two sides of the same coin. So that was nice.

Later still the ‘bisexuals’ or (those who fucking want EVERYTHING!), joined the party. But it made kind of sense in a ‘freedom to choose’ kind of way. The ‘Bis’ were the pigs at the sexual buffet bar, but were tolerated by the gays and lesbians, so that was nice. Though then they needed to seriously start with acronyms. Because to get a t-shirt printed with ‘Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals’ was getting expensive, at 22p per letter.

Later still, after an unusual alignment of Saturn with the constellation of Ursa Minor, loads of people decided to change their gender-of-birth. And we call them ‘trans’. Not as just a term of general abuse, but to indicate their desire, their need, their total compulsion to change sex. To ‘transition’. To be transsexual. To cross over from one gender or sex to another. They were allowed to join the acronym of ‘non-normal sexuality and other revolting deviations’ (as coined by Lieutenant Sir Romsworth Smythe, the late minister for Gender issues under Edward Heath; where Romsworth actually spent most of his government years). So we arrived at LGBT+.

But unfortunately, although these are all worthy, good and noble initials, they don’t all share precisely the same aims. So they fight. In fact they probably bitch-fight. Lots of slapping. Not in a very Will Smith kind’a way.

And so the eagerly anticipated LGBT+ international conference, set for June in the UK, has been called off. Given the opportunity to actually do some good in the ‘non-cis’ world, they’d rather get embroiled in petty nit-picking, terminology-definition arguments and political nonsense than actually use the conference as a platform to advance all causes towards equality.

The government had banned ‘conversion courses’. Which are a horrible idea, redolent of some bible-bashing Methodist from Omaha, in which anyone with gender issues can be ‘converted back’ to heterosexuality. With the help of Jesus. And a heavy stick. Then the government changed tack. And said these courses were still banned for use on gays and lesbians, but NOT on trans people, who should be encouraged to return to use the public toilets they would have used before they started wearing dresses and wigs.

So the conference is boycotted. And off.

But there are many issues which would have been so important to discuss. Like the case of Emily Bridges, the cyclist. When he… errrr… she… hmmmm… when Emily was a man, he was a very competitive cyclist, won medals in men’s events. Now… she’s a woman, and has lower testosterone levels to almost prove it, she wants to compete in her chosen sport as her chosen gender. Is this fair? Answers on a postcard to:

Fairness in sport vs Fairness in sexuality
Someone’s gotta give
All end in tears
LG3 5BT+

Happy Saturday

A xxxx