Finding Carlota

"Are you really Carlota Fabregas? If you are, could you please tell Cesc to stay with Arsenal?"

- me, after finding Carlota Fabregas' Twitter account

Sometimes, I love Twitter. It's mostly irrelevant, but every now and then it does something that makes you think that it's a profound piece of technology - like when I message Carlota Fabregas to tell her brother Cesc to stay with the Arsenal.

I guess it started when I was reading the Arsenole, and the Arsenole decided that marrying Carlota Fabregas will become his new life's mission. It's a worthy goal. Imagine being the Arsenal captain's brother-in-law? The mind boggles at the honor.

Still, when I read his article, it made me wonder what kind of person Carlota is. So I clicked on her account and had a look. She's in university, judging from her posts. She lives in Barcelona, I presume. She wears a beret at a jaunty angle and she's fiercely nationalistic and advocates a separate (and possibly socialist) Catalan state, I imagine. If I remember correctly, all earnest young Uni students wear jaunty berets and advocate left-wing agendas.

I can imagine the scene now.

It's a quite Friday afternoon, and she's sitting in an out-of-the-way bar in the Gothic Quarter. Maybe George Orwell Plaza. She's debating Catalan nationalism and the Barca 4-3-3 with her uni friends and they're drinking cervezas by the dozen and slowly get plastered. And as they drink, you can tell that there's something altogether ethereal about young Carlota, something that separates her from your run-of-the-mill Barcelona teenager.

She's holding court, and the others are looking at her with a mixture of awe and resentment. She's Cesc Fabregas' sister, after all. Whenever anyone looks at her, they're trying to see if they can spot Cesc's talent in her. What makes Cesc so special, they ask to themselves. Does Carlota have the same genius? And why does Cesc have it, and Carlota too, but not them? Those questions rise up in the warm September air and float unanswered in the beer-sodden afternoon haze.

And Carlota's flattered by the attention, but resentful of it at the same time. She's been the sister of a famous footballer since she was twelve. It's like growing up with a famous parent, only a little bit worse because the comparisons are more direct. She's used to it now, of course, but still it's a bit irritating when people look at you and only see you for your footballing brother.

And now that I think about it, I've just joined in the queue. I've just twittered Cesc Fabregas' sister because I quite enjoyed the idea of twittering someone tangibly connected to the Arsenal. And while I was doing so, I gave very little thought to our nationalist, socialist Catalan patriot who's getting pleasantly plastered in a Barcelona bar on a lazy Friday afternoon.

Nick Hornby was right; football fans are just middle-aged, balding groupies.

Mr T's on Twitter

"There some fools goin unpitted on Twitter right now. I'm here to fix it."

- 80s_Mr_T, on Twitter, 2:11PM 27/02/09

I've been playing around with Twitter a bit, and it's not all bad. Found the fake Eboue's Twitter site, and Ashton Kutcher's site. Fake Eboue's really funny; sounds lik a cool guy to have around in the dressing room. Ashton sounds like a sweet, earnest guy, but a bit dim at times.

Best of all, though, I've found Mr T's Twitter page. It's most amusing. As he puts it himself, pity the fool who doesn't know who he is.

I also pity the fools who are trying to blog about Arsenal during an international fortnight. It's pretty damn difficult for a savant like me, so I imagine it's doubly hard for those who actually try to report Arsenal news. You scour newsnow hoping for an Arsenal story, but you really don't want one because it's most likely about one of our players getting injured.

There's a report on sport.co.uk about how we're going to buy Gourcuff at the end of the season. It's a pretty pathetic story, as the only substantiating evidence is a Nasri quote taken from L'Equipe saying:

“He (Gourcuff) had a hard time during his stay with Milan. Many people wrote him off too quickly. But, as far as I am concerned, I was always aware of his potential."

It's not exactly a proclaimation of eternal love and fidelity by young Sammy, but he likes Gourcuff okay. And since Gourcuff's french, young and a potentially brilliant attacking midfielder, I suppose it's reasonable to suggest Arsenal might be after him. My only query is why on earth Milan would want to sell a guy who's just had an outstanding season at Bordeaux and is rated one of the best prospects in Europe.

The Sun's still on about Cesc's spitting incident. Alleged spitting, I suppose, since there weren't any witnesses and it's Horton's word against Cesc's. I didn't even bother linking on the link, because you kind of know what it's going to be about; the uncouth habits of those dastardly continentals.

And then there's Myles, from Arsenal News Review, with dramatic news about Tomas Rosicky:

"My latest info on Rosicky is that he's had body problems for years."

It doesn't take a network of reporters, snitches and insiders to come up with that kind of news, Myles. He's been out injured ever since he signed with Arsenal, and Dortmund sold him because they were sick of his injuries. You could probably google "Rosicky" and the top three links would be hospitals in the General London area.

As I said, I pity those fools (bloggers, that is).

All in a Twitter

Mr Happy: What can I do for you today?
Ms Catastrophic: I've a fishbowl on my head.

- from the Mr Men Show this morning

I'm on Twitter.

It's the hippest thing on the net at the moment, and as a hip dude, I'm obliged to join in to maintain my hipness. Otherwise, I'll consigned to the ranks of the hipster doofi, to moulder slowly into terminal unhipness. And then, there'll be no going back. I'll be growing a comb-over and hitching my hipster jeans up beyond my navel, and wearing flares and platform shoes and singing along to the Bee Gees, who once were hip, but are no longer and never will be again.

But I've been twittering for a day and a bit, and it all seems a bit self-absorbed. I know the world wants to know what I think about the Arsenal, but I don't think they're that curious about the minutae of my life. Which, when you get down to it, is what Twitter is all about. It's glorious me in all my mundanity, and I'm starting to think that there's a such a thing as too much information. You don't need to know about me doing me work, and me eating dinner and me scrubbing my backside in the shower.

It's not magic if you can see the strings.

Not much Arsenal news at the moment. There's this from van Persie:

"The quality is there but, also, more importantly, so is the winning mentality. We are just not dropping points any more. We are not doing those silly things any more which have cost us earlier in the season. We have to keep on thinking positively all the time, though."

True to form, he's been saying nice things about Bendnter and Diaby, who are both young and who are both potentially very good players. And he's saying we're invincible at the moment and gonna win the FA Cup and the Champions League. It's nice of him. We need that kind of optimism from our older players. Positivity can be infectious.