Happy New Year.
We begin 2016 on top of the league, and we got off to a good start in the defence of our FA Cup on Saturday with a 3-1 win over Sunderland (more on that later.)
Yes, if we had beaten such and such, and if so and so had been rested against someone or other and not got injured against whatchamacallit then we might be a certain amount of points clear, but after our opening game defeat at home to West Ham, and given the injuries we’ve endured, I would’ve sold a kidney to be where we are now.
No point looking back now, and living your life in a permanent state of “if my auntie had bollocks….”
There are teams below us that are wishing auntie would sprout a pair more than we are.
Happy New Year
January’s a bit shit really ain’t it?
Christmas is over, and most of us have to get back into the routine of starting work, rather than drinking, at 9am. Everyone’s skint, due to the aforementioned fortnight of drinking and eating from 9am, the weather’s crap, the Christmas trees that just two weeks ago added a seasonal glow to our streets are now nothing more than a trip hazard.
But above all else, the shittiest thing about January is the opening of the transfer window.
I’m sure it won’t be long before there is actually a ceremonial opening of the transfer window, like the turning on of the Christmas lights.
They could get Harry Redknapp to do it every year, just driving past Sky Sports HQ at midnight on December 31st, winding down his window and leaning out of it.
“When something is such a creative medium as the web, the limits to it are our imagination……” – Tim Berners-Lee
The transfer window; where usually sane people border on insane, driven to the brink of insanity by usually sensible people suddenly starting to “hear things.”
Don’t let yourselves be taken in by these people.
Like modern day psychics, I’m sure they actually believe they hear things, but, like modern day psychics, most of them are full of shit.
“Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He founded and Directs the World Wide Consortium (W3C) the forum for technical development of the Web. He founded the Web Foundation whose mission is that the WWW serves Humanity, and co-founded the Open Data Institute in London. His research group at MIT’s Computer Science and AI Lab (“CSAIL”) plans to re-decentralize the Web. Tim spends a lot of time fighting for rights such as privacy, freedom and openness of the Web”
www.w3.org
It would be no surprise if, over 25 years later, Tim spends most of January punching himself hard in the face, as he surveys the mess that what is probably the single most important invention that has been involved in shaping the way we live today has become.
I’m pretty sure that when Berners-Lee declared that the WWWs mission was to serve humanity, he was looking a lot deeper than giving some friendless virgin sitting around in his pants all day the opportunity to become @PremAgentITK or whatever for a month.
I’m also pretty sure that the time he spends “fighting for rights such as privacy, freedom and openness of the Web” has a greater purpose than allowing some oxygen thief the opportunity to spend days on end peddling bullshit.
Strangely, I found some quotes from Berners-Lee that, by replacing one word with “bullshit”, describe the transfer window web today;
“The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information bullshit.”
“It’s amazing how quickly people on the internet can pick something bullshit up, but it’s also amazing how quickly they can drop it.”
Thankfully, Tim is probably too busy to notice such misuse of his creation, because let’s not forget; if he invented the internet, he can surely break it, just like that.
Imagine Mr Berners-Lee wakes up in a foul mood on transfer deadline day? All he needs to do is boot up his PC at ……err……. the internet, open up the “worldwideweb.html” file and stick an extraneous backslash in there somewhere and…..BOOM! Pretty much the end of the world as we know it, and all because Agent Soppy Bollocks claimed that someone was due at London Colney for a medical.
A Good thing in January if the She Wore Shop Sale!
So, be warned; if this nonsense carries on, the transfer window could actually bring about THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND!
It’s not just the Twitter weirdos that are at it either.
Let’s be honest for a minute here, if you get yourself genuinely wound up by these people, then you might want to have a word with yourself. Feel free to mock them, they’re asking for that, but if you actually get wound up by them, the bottom line is that you’re probably getting wound up by someone that sits around in their pants making stories up on the internet all day.
@PremAgentITK
At least they aren’t getting paid for it though. A far greater threat to society these days are the journalists.
Back in the day, when the internet was nothing more than a mere series of binary digits in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye, we had a general rule; don’t believe what you read in the papers.
You know that “I won’t believe it until it’s on arsenal.com” thing? Well, it used to be “I won’t believe it until I see him on the back page of The Sun in an Arsenal shirt.”
Nothing has changed, they used to make stuff up then, they still make stuff up now. The only difference is that you get bombarded with it every second of the day, rather than when you looked at the back page on the way to school or work.
This seems to allow them in your head more if you let them.
The more you are bombarded with speculation, the more you convince yourself that not only must there be “no smoke without fire”, but that if this signing doesn’t go through, it will be completely ruin your life.
And of course, the only reason there is so much smoke is that there are more and more of them spending all day blowing it out of their arse.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica; “The earliest known journalistic product was a news sheet circulated in ancient Rome called the Acta diurnal….Said to date from before 59 bce.”
Acta is the Latin for “things that have been done.”
Just as Tim Berners-Lee didn’t create the worldwide web with ITK’s in mind, I’m sure the earliest journalists would’ve just kept their mouths shut if they had the slightest inkling that thousands of years later it would breed click-whoring schmucks circulating something closer to “bullshit quod mos forsit non fieri”, and “Ego terebravisse , I PERORO Gooners.”
(Thank you, Google translate.)
Ego terebravisse , I PERORO Gooners
I apologize for that last image, but if a picture paints a thousand words…..
This week also saw the return of the FA Cup saw if all the transfer nonsense isn’t bad enough, you get people discussing the importance / relevance / stature / whatever of the world’s greatest cup competition.
Personally, I refuse to even entertain any discussion on this.
It’s a non-discussion.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the point that we are in a great position in the league, and that the league should always take priority, it’s the suggestion that our last two FA Cup wins were down to the fact that other teams don’t take it seriously any more that is the most ridiculous thing of all. This sort of opinion should be left to two bob journalists and Tottenham fans.
If you call yourself an Arsenal fan and even entertain this shite, then do yourself a favour; find the nearest dustbin, remove the lid, climb in and stay there.
As far as the game goes, there will be plenty of match reports out there on various blogs etc, so as usual I won’t go into it too much here. I thought we played some pretty good stuff, especially in the second half, and our decent run of results considering our annual injury crisis continues. A third round tie against Premier League opposition is always a bit of a worry, so it’s good to get that out of the way.
One game at a time and all that, but we are entering a crucial period over the next few weeks, and we are a team that often thrives on momentum and confidence. Here’s hoping we can concentrate on the football, and not destroy the world.
Up The Arsenal
Islington born and bred, Arsenal through and through.
Published author.
Is Yours Gold? The Arsenal Invincibles Twentieth Anniversary – available now,
Over Land and Sea (and Lockdown), Arsenal 20/21 – The Corona Diaires – released 2021.
Clickbait: Life as a Modern Football Fan – released 2019
Anyway, I’ve heard that Elneny is just a decoy and we’re actually in for….