3-0 to the Arsenal

We love the Arsenal, we do
We love the Arsenal, we do
We love the Arsenal, we do
Oh Arsenal, we love you!

- me, about 6 hours ago

10 minutes to go and I'll do this quick.

I spent ten minutes after the match just watching the crowd disperse, watching the attendents clean up the pitch, watching the gardeners bring out the lawnmovers. I decided to leave when the security guards started to give me stern looks.

I'll never see the Arsenal again. I know it as a fact. So this match was bittersweet in so many ways. It's almost cruel to be given a chance to see such beauty, but to know that it's fleeting, and that will never been seen again. Almost. Because I will be able to say, for the rest of my life, that I was there at the Emirates, that I've seen Cesc and Clichy, Toure and van Persie, and dear sweet Theo (who's such a nice boy) play in the flesh. And if the rest of my days are spent watching a poor substitute in the middle of a lifetime of freezing Melbourne nights, so be it.

To put it in Platonic terms, I've stepped out of the cave and I've seen the trees and birds and sky. And if I'm to go back to the cave and if I'm to go back to watching flickering shadows dance over the cave wall, so be it. I'll have the vision of Emirates on a perfect Saturday afternoon to sustain me. I'll have seven goals burnt into my brain to relive. And I'll have a Theo Walcott shirt hanging in my wardrobe even when I'm an old, old man.

In the Myth of Syphysus, Camus ended it with the vision of Syphysus on the coast, watching the sea. He'd defied the gods and traded an eternity of damnation and rolling rocks up hills for one perfect day on the beach. And Camus asked the question - was it worth it?

Yep.

So thank you, Dimitre, if you're reading this. It was amazing.

1 minute to go, so I'd better be off.

I bought my Theo shirt

4-0 to the Arsenal, 4-0 to the Arsenal, 4-0 to the Arsenal....

- me, at Emirates Stadium

It was very, very, very good. In fact, I'm lost for words. Might also to do to me paying £1 for 15 minutes of internet, but still, I really can't describe how good it felt to be at Emirates. I started tearing up when I sat down.

I wil say one thing, though - Walcott was the only player to applaud the crowd at the end of the match. He's such a nice boy. I'm glad I bought his shirt.

The market closes soon

"I do not know why we are always under pressure to buy £30m or £40m players. I am under pressure to buy good players, it is as simple as that. Good players are not always necessarily linked to the price. There is still a market to buy the right players. We are struggling to find them but we will find them, don't worry. "

- Arsene Wenger, breaking my heart

No Connolly's agent, there is no Wenger Claus.

He is an apparition, much like the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny. Arsene Wenger isn't going to splurge on a big, big player. Rather, he'll merely splurge on a medium big player - if the price is right.

I've been buying a lot of meals at supermarkets lately. It's cheaper than the restaurants. For a couple of pounds, you get a couple of sandwiches or a cold pasta salad. It's a compromise, because while it fills me up, it doesn't beat a hot meal. Sometimes, I walk past a dodgy Chinese restaurant offering a buffet meal, and my stomach quivers. I have to remind myself that a buffet does more harm than good. My stomach has shrunk at the moment. I couldn't eat that much, anyway. And if I did overeat, my stomach would expand again, which creates its own problems.

Wenger's got a similar mentality. He's been shopping at Tesco's for the past three years. Now and then, he'll walk past a three-star restaurant and get hunger pains. He'll be salivating in the window. Then, to fill that gnawing pain in his belly, he'll skip over to the nearest, nastiest buffet he can find and eat until he can't eat anymore.

To cut a tenuous metaphor short, he'll buy injury-prone players like Silvestre and Bischoff because they're cheap and can satisfy that groaning belly for just a little while. And he'll watch with envy as Chelsea sign Robinho, Man Utd sign Berbatov and someone else signs Alonso.

I agree that we shouldn't pay exorbitant prices. But we do need at least ONE defensive midfielder, and everyone knows it. Our choices seem to have narrowed to Alonso, now. Liverpool knows we're as desperate to buy as they are to sell. If £16 million is the going rate, maybe we should just do it.

I desperately want to believe we'll get someone before tonight's FC Twente game. But I'm not holding my breath. After all, I shop at Tesco's, too.

We're tupping Barca's ewes

Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe.

- Iago (Act 1, Scene 1) from Othello

According to the grapevine, we're closing in on Iago Falque. He's the latest in the long line of Barca wonderkids. Wenger's got a taste for Barca - first Cesc, then Fran, now Iago? Maybe it's his little revenge on all those summers of tapping up our players. Maybe he likes a little Spanish colony in his side. Maybe we really are so skinflint that we've got to buy promising youngsters.

I don't know. All I know is that the Mastia keeps producing these beautiful, budding roses - and we're plucking the shit out of them.

Is it legal? Yep. We'll pay the compensation and take their player. Is it moral? I'm not so sure. It's good for the player, because they'll get first-team football before they can drive. It's good for us because Wenger likes buying kids. But it's not particularly nice for Barca. I don't have much sympathy for Barca, but just imagine the fuss if they tried to steal Wilshire from us?

In other news, Senderos is off to Milan on loan, possibily for good. The rounds of the arsenal blogs are saying we need a Hulk-esque defender to compliment Toure, and it's a pity he's going. I don't know enough about football to comment about it, but it boils down to: If you're an optimist, you could say that he'll learn a hell of a lot at Milan, and when he comes back, will fit right back into the first team; If you're a pessimist, you'll wonder why we replaced a 23 year old with a 31 year old.

I'm not sure what I am, right now.

Went to the Notting Hill Carnival the other day, and did a tour of the palace grounds. One's very loud, the other's very large. Found out that Buckingham Palace was built by the Earl of Buckingham, then comandeered by the royals because they felt St James' wasn't flash enough. Imagine building a house that's prettier than a royal palace. How good would that've felt?

Greenwich next. 30-ish hours until my Arsenal match. Hope we've got someone then.

Overpacked

"I want a small squad so the players are hungry for a position and everyone can be satisfied."

- something I think Wenger said once

I packed too much stuff - too many socks, too many jocks, too many shirts and pants and really naff things. Why the fuck did I think I'd need a book? I'm going to have to cart Cloudstreet with me for 6 months now. At about 1kg over 180 days, that's a cumulative load of 180kg.

I'm going to have to dump something. It's taken me a hour this morning to figure out how to fit everything in my bag. My bag groans every time I pack, and I'm fearful that one day it'll just give up. But I'm quite attached to stuff; it's nice to know you've got enough clothes to avoid laundry for a week.

I'm not sure where I read the above. Maybe I dreamt it. Maybe my subconscious made it up after weeks of trying to figure out why we haven't bought a replacement for Flamini yet. I don't know. It sounds like something Wenger would've said, at any rate.

Maybe Wenger doesn't like throwing out stuff as well. He wants a lean, lightweight bag so that he doesn't have to cart dead weight all over Europe for 6 months. He wants three pairs of socks and jocks, one pair of pants, two T-shirts and a toothbrush. Because nothing's worse than trying to stuff Tim Winton's masterpiece (and yes, it's one of the best in terms of Aus lit) between a pair of moldy underpants. That's just wrong.

But I hope Wenger realises that under packing is just as bad as over packing. A couple of days ago, Fulham pulled our pants down. And the whole world realised we were skimping on underwear. We can't let it happen again. A feisty defensive midfielder isn't a luxury item - it's a necessity. I read that Inler's about to be signed. Good.

I liked the Tower of London. It's a lot bigger than I thought, and a lot cushier. Apparently, Sir Thomas Moore had his family and his servants with him while he was incacerated for not allowing Henry VIII to split from the Catholics. And Sir Walter Raleigh had the time to write a history of the world. They were "political prisioners", and as such, were treated as gentlemen - or like Mafia bosses in American jails. Which just goes to show that there really is one rule for the rich and one for the poor. And the crown jewels were shiny.

I think I've exhausted most of central London. Maybe I'll do a palace or two. Or see the London Eye. Or take one of those London Walks that get promoted from every tout on the street. At the least, I should go and get breakfast.

It's all been quite good.

1-0 to Fulham

"We lacked a bit more quality in our passing. We you look at the possession we had and what we did with it that is always a sign it is not only down power but vision and technical quality. That was not there today. I don’t know why. You have to credit to Fulham as well."

- Arsene Wenger, doing a passable impersonation of an ostrich

I'm not going to dwell on the unpleasantness of yesterday.

I like St Paul's at dusk. There's something quite meditative, sitting on the steps. Tourists walk up the steps and take photos. Business folk scurry past the statue. Double-decker buses and those black cabs hurtle down the road. The sun sets somewhere behind Fleet Street, and it's kind of poignant imaging the funeral processions of Nelson and Wellington as they were brought down that road to be interred.

Actually, I will say something about the match. What do we expect? We've lost our two midfielders, have two more who are injured, and one winger who's going to need time to adapt. We don't have the strength in depth to win games without our first team. But it's not the end of the world. We're still good enough to make the Top 4. Denilson and Walcott will get experience from this. Djourou should've been retained (we'll need him), but I'm not one Who Knows.

That said, we need someone like Alonso, Inler or Barry. Just someone who can get a beer without a driver's license. I hope we're getting him before Newcastle, because I'd like to see a functional Arsenal side.

Tower of London today.

A Town full of Cassiuses

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights;
Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

- William Shakespeare, Julius Caeser (1. 2. 192)

Things I've noted about London:

• Londoners seem quite thin. What is it about major metropolises that make its denizens so svelte? It's something I've observed in New York and Hong Kong as well. Is it the stress of the rat race? The expensive food? The constant walking? Or do places like this just attract thin people?
• Everyone seems to come from somewhere else. I get lonely by myself, and due to my lack of human contact, I've started chatting to random strangers. And I've only talked to one English person (a sweet old lady in front of Guild Hall). Everyone else seems German, French, Spanish, American, Scandanvian, or from some Eastern European country I've never heard of.
• If the above is valid, Arsenal really is a true representation of London, isn't it?
• It's easier (and cheaper) to buy a beer than it is to buy an apple. Around where I was staying, I circled for maybe twenty minutes before I found a Tesco that sold fresh fruit. I bumped into three, four pubs lining the road along St Paul's. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but I'm worried about scurvy.
• The British Museum should return all its foreign exhibits. ASAP. There's something creepy about wandering around the Elgin Marbles, the gates of Nimrud and a chamber full of mummies, knowing that they'd all been blasted out of some forgotten city many, many years ago.

I've had time to think about the Silvestre deal. It's not that bad, especially since Traore's going out on loan. We've an experienced back-up to Clichy and Gallas now. At 31, he's old, but he won't get in the way of Traore or Nordtveit's development. And you can't go wrong with 750,000 pounds. It also means that Senderos is on his way out, and Djourou is probably going to become a defensive midfielder.

That said, it's a worry we're getting him instead of someone like Kompany (heading for Man City). This means we really didn't have enough money to buy two experienced players. I'm presuming we're still going to spend 10 million on a Inler-type DM. If you add up all the sums this year, we broke even. Despite what the board's saying, we ain't got the money in the till.

Anyway, it's been two and a half days, and I'm beginning to smell. I'm going to wrap it up. The stench isn't pleasant.My socks, in particular, offend me greatly. Think I'll take a shower after I finish this post.

Actually, I started smelling two and a half days ago, courtesy of a 36 hour plane trip in a stuffy cabin, but I did take a shower when I got off the plane. My current funk is all English. If you rub off a bit of my skin and put it under the microscope, you'll find sweat, dead skin cells and bits of central London. In a couple of minutes, it'll be the first time ever I'll get to scrape London off my skin.

Which has its own kind of beauty, methinks.