My Madeleine Moments

"And as soon as I had recognised the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me... the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea."

- Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust

I took a walk through Leicester Square this afternoon. 

The sky was bluish, the sun was kind of shining, and it wasn't raining or snowing or sleeting. It was actually kind of pleasant walking through the twisting, winding streets, with all those bars and pubs and restaurants lining the footpaths. I think it's my favourite little bit of London, that bit between Leicester Square and Covent Garden, with Trafalgar Square to the south and the Five Points to the east. 

Nice to have seen it one last time. 

It's my last full day in London, and it's pretty much the end of my trip. Just a stop-over in Hong Kong left, and then I'm back to Melbourne and back to reality. I've an old job to slunk back to, and an old rut waiting for me back home. 

It's not without a fair bit of trepidation that I'm going back. I'm not ecstatically happy at the moment, but I'm pretty much content. Six months on, and I'm relatively sane. And I've discovered that of all the things worth valuing, sanity is probably up there alongside allegiance to a beautiful football club and a facebook account. And since Arsenal's in the shits at the moment, and I've never bothered with facebook, I should treasure my sanity all the more. 

I've been thinking about why I'm writing this in a blog. 

Partly, it's because I've a relentless monologue in my mind that needs some kind of release. Partly, it's for my brother, who reads it now and then and probably wants to know where I've been; and I suppose, for him, this blog is a bit like to those "Hi Mum!" signs you occasionally see at sporting events. But mostly, it's for those times in the future when I need a reminder of what it felt like when, for six months, I put aside everything and just lived.

It's my little bit of madeleine dipped in tea, I suppose. 

Our Defense

"What makes me happy at the moment is that we have a good combination of defensive balance and offensive efficiency... at the moment we are combining the two and it means when everyone puts the effort in we still can be very dangerous going forward."

- Arsene Wenger, a bit bullish at the moment

It's a bit like that with the Arsenal. We can go games and games without conceding much and scoring freely, but then freeze up in a game we really should win. We'll miss shot after shot, our passes will go astray, and we'll concede a cheap goal through a set-piece. 

When it suits us, we do okay at the defensive part of the game. When everyone's focused and determined, we're quite good. We hustle their midfield out of the game, our defenders mark their men, and we even cope with the odd long-ball pretty well. The problem is that we don't set up to defend well, so that when our player's aren't as focused as they should be, we leak costly goals. 

Throughout the first half of the Blackburn game, I kept think it was only a matter of time before they equalised. They scythed through our midfield, they dominated set-pieces, they had chance after chance, and we didn't have enough pressure on their players to stop it. The fact that we went into the break 2-0 up was due to very, very good fortune and nothing more. It was better in the second half, when the defensive pressure from Cesc and Denilson was more apparent, but still... it was scary for that half. 

The encouraging start to the season is telling Wenger that we don't need a central midfielder in January. Denilson and Song are both improving by the game, and there's still Diaby to come back. But I disagree with Wenger. I'd still like someone experienced, either a Flamini-type who can be relied upon to hustle for 90 minutes, or a Gilberto-type who's dedicated to shield the back four. 

Because we need a Plan B in case the youngsters fall by the wayside, right? 

I'm in London again. I've seen my folks and showed them around the city. They'll be leaving tomorrow, and then, a few days later, I'll be flying to Norway. It'll be interesting. Never been to Norway before. Haven't even been to Stansted airport before, either. I wonder which will be more exciting?

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.