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. 

After the derby

"In my world everyone is a pony, and they all eat rainbows, and poop butterflies." 

- Katie, from Horton Hears A Who; it's one of the DVDs I watched today, and the quote's something I suspect Wenger's guilty of thinking about his team

I was bored and tired, and didn't feel like trudging off to see another castle or palace or amazing mountain vista. Instead, I spent most of the day eating, watching DVDs and checking what the Arsenal blogs had to say about last night's result.

Turns out we're all upset about the draw.

Wenger's angry because we didn't attack enough in the last 6 minutes. Adebayor's angry because we didn't shut the game down. And a host of Arsenal blogs are angry because we're not experienced enough, we're not hungry enough, we're not defensive enough, and because we're as far away from the Premiership as we were a couple of years ago. 

I've kind of calmed down now. It hurts, of course, but what can you do? On the bright side, we're still 3rd on goal difference. We've still got essentially the same side as we had when we thumped Fenerbache and everyone thought we were awesome. Almunia's still the same much improved 'keeper that he was a couple of games ago. Clichy is still the best left-back in the Premiership, and Song Billong is still an awesome prospect with great, great hair.

We're not doing too badly. We need a defensive midfielder, and someone to knit the defence together. We need someone on the training pitch teaching our players how to defend. And ideally, we need a physical centre-back and a better goalkeeper as well. Otherwise, we're alright. We're not going to win the league this year, but that was apparent at the start of the season. This is another transition year, and we're waiting for Song, Denilson, Djourou and Senderos (if he comes back) to grow up. 

We'll challenge next year. We might even win something. And hopefully, Wenger will wake up to himself in between this season and the next, and buy the quality and the experience we desperately need. After all, not every player he signs is a pony that eats butterflies and poops rainbows. 

4-4 in the North London derby

"Just a joke. Be a draw at best. Like how many honours has Fabregas won with Arsenal? Then again, how many Arsenal players have won anything with the club in general, period?! Lol. Lose tonight, never be lived down and the struggle for 4th begins...."

- Glebs, a poster on the gunnerblog forum; a very funny guy

My link to the Arsenal-Tottenham game's just died on me. It's a shame because we're leading 2-1, Adebayor's missing simple chances, we could be 2 points from the top of the table if we win... and because it's the North London derby. I'm not sure why it's got a hold on me. I'm not a Londoner, so I've no real parochial ties to this fixture. 

Adebayor's just scored. 3-1 and the game's as good as over. 

Anyway, I'm not sure why, but there is a visceral thrill to see Tottenham mired to the foot of the table, four(?) points off 17th. I've been to the stadium and I've sung the songs and watched the Arsenal play live -  and somehow, I've caught that bit of parochialism that dictates Tottenham to be a side that is hated, loathed and despised. Schadenfreude as well, I suppose. 

I've been in Brasov for a couple of days - enough to make an opinion of the place. And I don't like it. When I first read about the place, I imagined a nice, pretty town like Cesky Krumlov. What I found was a medieval town square surrounded by the sprawl of a grimy, booming industrial city. There's still quite a lot of the 14th century town left, and it's interesting to poke around the narrow laneways, but it's half drowned out by the evidence of progress and the smell of cigarette smoke and dog faeces. 

It's a bit sad because there's so much of the old town that needs to be preserved. But as development encroaches on the town, I don't think much of what's left will survive. I suppose it's the fate of all little towns - get swallowed up and become an irrelevant, touristy backwater inside a much bigger city.

As I'm scouring the sites for a live feed (it's 4-2 to the Arse now, if you believe it), I'm wondering whether the North London derby will go the way of Brasov - to be swallowed up by something much larger than it. Maybe the days of the local derby are limited. I'm sure it's important for fans from London, and especially for those who actually know their way around Islington, or can point the direction to Seven Sisters, but for the rest of us, it's increasingly become a case of one team against another. 

When I think of our great rivals of the Premier League, I think can barely think outside of the Top 4. We've history against Man Utd and we've history against Chelsea. These are rivalries of the current age, the ones that decide trophies, the ones that really matter. 

And Tottenham?

Well, they're a bit like the old town of Brasov - a backwater side in the biggest booming league the world has ever seen. It's a pity, because it's apparently a cracker of a game, but them's the breaks in this globalised world. 

I think it's safe to call this one now: 4-2 to the Arse. 

No wait, Jenas just scored. 4-3 to the Arse. 

Wait again - Lennon scored in the 93rd minute. 4-4 draw. Bloody hell - what the fuck is going on over there? Bloody fucking hell. Gelbs was right.

Stuff about The Age

"Tell your friends, tell your enemies, never in the history of Australia has an issue been so important - WE HAVE A WIN!!," 

- it's not quite Churchillian, but from today, Australia has full-sized beer cans

The strangest things happen when you're overseas. 

The scariest is that the Aussie dollar turned into Monopoly money during the week. I'd always poked fun at those Depression-era economists who decided the solution was to print more money, but it IS very scary when stuff like this is happening to your own hard-earned. Especially when you're in another country and those currency transactions have a personal effect, instead of just being a sedgeway between news and sports. 

The silliest is the FFA's decision to ban the Eureka Stockade flag at Melbourne Victory games because of its "political" nature. If I'm not mistaken, doesn't that flag represent the little guy standing up against officious, heavy-handed bureaucracy? Somewhere deep inside the FFA, Mr Ironical must be hard at work because, before this moment, those flag-wavers at Victory games were just fans who were too cheap to buy Victory flags. 

The most depressing thing is that Aussie beer activists have forced Fosters' to change the size of their beer cans. Apparently, Fosters' wanted to downsize one of their Cascade beers from a 375ml can to a 330ml can without changing price. Now, due to public outcry, they won't. It's not the news itself that's depressing. It's that, amidst all the turmoil going on in Australia, from salinity and carbon emissions, to recession and poverty and the Dees being bottom of the AFL ladder, beer price is the defining issue for most Melbournians today. 

I should probably stop reading The Age while I'm away. 

I'm in the Carpathian Mountains, in the heart of Transylvania. It's interesting. I never thought I'd find a genuine Saxon town plonked in the middle of Romania, but there you go. It's pretty in its own weird way. Probably just have a wander around town today, and try and get on a tour to a few Dracula castles tomorrow. 

Here's St Nick's church, which looks quite nice if you like the look of spires and gilded ornaments and stuff: