2-0 to the Stoke

"Great hostel once again. The location is not ideal, but its only a bus ride away to the city. While I was there, I just sat and admired that 6 kittens sitting on my lap. What a great experience!!!"

- icejaxx, a former lodger at the Butterfly Hostel

Bucharest is a distinctively ugly city. It's grimy and industrial, and the whole place seems worn-out with age. But there's also beauty here. You've got monasteries hidden beside communist apartment blocks, tree-lined streets and Victorian buildings which retain their dignity despite being covered with soot. It's impossible to make a city this large completely ugly. 

However, my favourite thing about this city are the kittens from the hostel. There are three at the moment, from a litter of six. They have sharp claws, they pounce on your food in the kitchen, and they're always underfoot, but you can't help but love them. They're just so cute. 

I'm watching the match at the moment. It's only half time, but it's been such an abject performance that I'm calling it now - Stoke City 1, Arsenal 0. 

It's disappointing. After Wednesday's debacle, I thought Wenger would've done something to solve our defensive inadequacies. But we conceded the goal via a Rory Delap long throw. It's irritating, because after two years, you would've thought our susceptibility to deal with aerial attacks would have been addressed. 

We're playing Cesc, Song, Denilson and Diaby in midfield. There's something un-Arsenal about that. The Arsenal I know plays with pace, directness and crisp, one-touch passing. And we can't play that way if we're playing four central midfielders at once. We tend to over-elaborate without Walcott. 

But back to the kittens. They're not really kittens anymore. They're half-grown cats who still try to act like kittens because they know it makes them look cute, and if they look cute, then gullible backpackers like me will give them a bit of their lunch. It's manipulative, but from their point of view, if they can get away with it, why not?

That's an allusion, folks - our "kids" and the Butterfly's "kittens". 

At the moment, the punters on the gunnerblog forum are wallowing in an orgiastic display of self-loathing and mutual disgust. But I can't do that. It's still the Arsenal, after all, and they're still my team. I feel very, very disappointed, but they're like a bunch of half-grown kittens that steal your food and scratch your lap. Despite their faults, you can't help but love them. 

Now it's 2-0 to Stoke. And van Persie's been sent off for ramming into the goalkeeper. Fucking hell. Those kids of ours have VERY sharp claws. If they don't grow up soon, they're going to be cast out with the other strays. 

Don't have the mental fortitude to continue with this post. Here's the kittens, though:

It's not a crime to eat an ice-cream

"No it's not a time for celebration, it's a time for quiet reflection".

- De Simone, after being acquitted for stealing (and eating) an ice-cream in a supermarket

In 2004, Giuseppe De Simone took an ice-cream from a box of four and ate it in a Coles supermarket in Brunswick. When caught by the cashier, he offered to pay for a whole box, on condition that he be able to take three home. The cashier declined and called the police. When police arrived, Guiseppe bit one of them before he was subdued by capsicum spray. 

I'm trying to figure out how to link this story to something relevant to either Arsenal or Bucharest, which is where I'm going to be for a few days. But it's really difficult. I suppose I could make a comparison between Arsenal's bizarre capitulation on Wednesday and Guiseppe's theft, but while the former was sickening and crazy, the latter was just weird. And I suppose I could talk about that cat that jumped on my lap and tried to take my sponge cake, but that's not the same as well. 

It's just really hard to just to grips with this guy's behaviour. 

It's difficult because people are programmed to respond in certain ways -  common little decencies which govern these over-extended communities we call cities. We queue in lines while waiting for the bus. We swerve to avoid bumping into other people on the street. And we always, always pay for our ice-cream before we open it up and eat it. 

 

No, wait, I forget myself. I remember in Budapest, I was so desperate for a sugar-fix that I did snatch at a strawberry sponge cake and almost unwrapped it there and then. It was all I could do to walk to the cashier and pay for it, before scoffing the thing on the pavement outside the store. 

Does that make me as bad as Guiseppe, then? I was on the edge there, I think. If I'd waited another day or so before I bought that snack, I probably would've unwrapped it in the aisle and ate it on the way to the cashier. So maybe there's a fine line between an acute craving and criminality. All that prevents one from stepping over that line is circumstance and opportunity. 

Guiseppe Do Simone was right - it IS a time for quiet reflection.