Guest Post – A Gremlin Boogie Trumps the Simple Broken Compass
Jun 13th, 2015 by 'holic
I am again indebted to the prolific Snowy, who submitted not one, but two guest posts in the wake of the FA Cup win, knowing the productivity of yours truly plummets when the season ends! Two weeks to the day since that wonderful evening at Wembley seems the right ‘anniversary’ moment to run with that second piece. Those who know her will appreciate that I may have amended a phrase or two (see italics!), but will know exactly what she typed originally. What’s it about? Six words.
What do you think of Tottenham?
When I awoke upon the Sunday after our Cup Final victory, I had something of a ‘boilk’ (as I believe the young people say). The ‘something’ being what PG Wodehouse would likely have referred to as the ‘Broken Compass’.
Now for anyone who is not a student of the inestimable Wodehouse, he had a rather fine category system for hangovers, of which the ‘Broken Compass’ is one of six. The others being: the ‘Sewing Machine’, the ‘Comet’, the ‘Atomic’, the ‘Cement Mixer’ and the ‘Gremlin Boogie’.
He clearly knew his stuff. And while he himself never bothered expanding upon the precise nature of these post-‘workout’ beasts with any form of additional description, I feel that most of us will have a pretty good grasp of what he meant by each of them. Helpfully, for anyone who has led a very quiet life or is perhaps teetotal, they have all been rather neatly described here.
So it is with a heart full of North London pride that I turned to Arsenal TV on Sunday to watch the parade, and in so doing discovered that Little Jack was boarding the victory bus in a bucket hat and dark glasses, clutching a beer. And he was clearly within the blissful Elysian grip of the much-coveted ‘Gremlin Boogie’.
So well done Jack, I salute you. Many have tried. Few have succeeded. Frankly you had me at ‘Barcelona at home’, but seriously you deserve special thanks for properly taking it up a level since then.
What I particularly admire about this whole episode is that that while in the grip of the ‘Gremlin Boogie’ Jack still managed to perfectly and comprehensively upset the delicate sensibilities of so many utterly dreadful chattering* classes that (depressingly enough) are actually PAID to produce opinion pieces within the sports sections of our daily newspapers.
So to the chattering* classes I feel duty bound to ask: what in the name of all that is decent are you thinking piously berating a young man who has just completely joyfully celebrated winning an FA Cup winners’ medal for reasons of sporting achievement, in a week where global football has been so comprehensively rogered for having its snout in the till, while another Premiership side has had their youth players unmasked as being of wholly questionable virtue by their very own mobile phones?
For any others who are as completely baffled by this completely tortured twisting of the basic moral compass as I, I hope you take some comfort in the quantum possibility that in some parallel Universe, Jack has now been made lifetime Emperor of the whole planet. By virtue of a Twitter poll. And the chattering* classes have been ground up into small pieces to feed my cats.
I rather hope it does not give the quantum cats indigestion there. And I also hope that what remains of the chattering* mass debaters will at some point soon realise that in whichever parallel universe they may be, on the morning after, Jack could well be sober, but they are still likely to be pretty flipping dreadful.**
* Click-whoring
** Hypocritical
Puma New Kit Launch On Monday To Be Streamed Live
If you have been on social media in the last few days you cannot help but have seen the news of a new Arsenal home kit launch at the Grove on Monday evening. As something of a first on Goonerholic (my grasp of technology permitting) it will be streamed live here from 9.30 pm until 10.00 pm.
On Tuesday evening I’ll let you know more about what happened at the event, and look out for player interviews later in the week. That is if I can remember anything afterwards!
Now to watch the England Ladies team. Have a good one (Sunday), ‘holics.
48 Responses to “Guest Post – A Gremlin Boogie Trumps the Simple Broken Compass”
On Tuesday evening I’ll let you know more about what happened at the event
Alcohol permitting 🙂
Numero Uno.
Nice bit of writing, young Snowy.
Well in Cynic.
Still a nice piece of writing.
Holy Almost, bathman
Good evening gents.
No Arsenal Ladies in the England starting eleven tonight 🙁
Sign of the times, that, H.
The FIFA fluffpic with Tim Roth in it has turned up, in full, on YouTube.
I won’t link to it, but the title is Paixões Unidas – Legendado 2014 Filmes Completos Dublados for those who’d like to see the full horror but don’t want to put a penny into the pocket of FIFA.
I’m catching up on Game of Thrones. Ireland v Scotland was enough non-Arsenal trivia for one week.
Oh God, Robot Wars commentating on BBC3 so it’s Eurosport 2 for me.
Oooh, we’re spoilt for choice tonight. Urallgay vs Jamaica on Premier Sport.
BBC3 for England Ladies.
Faroe Islands lead Greece 2-0 and are heading for fourth place in the group…
Ahoy!
Chattering classes, Snowy? You mean chattering classless, surely?
Öskar
Nice one, Snowy! I still can’t comprehend why more people condemned Jack for encouraging people to say what they thought of Tottnum than spoke about the vile conduct of those Leicester players.
People know who Jack Wilshere is, Cent.
This Argy game on Premier Sport is pretty decent.
Nice one, snowy.
It is, of course, all so terribly Daily Mail (amongst others), dear.
They make a story out of an incident which happened in front of an audience made up entirely of football supporters. In this particular case, entirely of Arsenal football supporters.
The press constantly bemoan the lack of opportunity given to young English players by the top Premier League teams. This incident was perpetrated by one such young English player and, moreover, an actual fan of the club he plays for.
And so, in front of those Arsenal fans, this player / fan provokes a chant and response which can be heard in and around The Emirates any week of the season.
The trouble is that this chant includes the word “shit” in it – some real hardcore four letter stuff.
The press, of course, are utterly outraged and write a story to persuade the rest of their various readerships that they should all feel equally outraged – which, of course, along with the F.A. they do.
The F.A. – an aptly formed acronym if ever there was one – are so shocked that they have no alternative but to charge the miscreant with misconduct. This despite the fact that the poorest of lip readers can discern most players “fucking” and “bollocking” at most match officials any Saturday night on Match of The Day. This, of course, is an actual offence about which no action is ever taken, either during or after the game.
Around 30 seconds after 9.00pm on most TV stations, footballers are joined by actors, comedians, presenters and vox-pop contributors in four letter tirades about almost anything you can think of with national audiences of football supporters, non football supporters, lovely old ladies and most children over 10 years of age.
The last time a member of the press saw fit to complain about that was, I believe, some time during the 1970s.
Standards of public behaviour must be maintained, however, but only when they exclusively involve Arsenal Football Club supporters.
Rude words, ooooh shocking when coming from Jack, but the same (and worse) regularly raise a laugh when broadcast to a much wider audience on Graham Norton.
On Norton the only people who react to the expletives are usually non-Brits unaccustomed to such freedoms on home TV interviews. They usually do a double take, and later drop an experimental one themselves for the sheer fun of it. Perhaps Graham should invite Jack on his show to sing his song.
Öskar
Always thought I had done an adequate job when I got to Cement Mixer
Stageeven if some people did call me a lightweight. 🙂
When I had first started following Arsenal even in those heydays the amount of oddly negative comments about the club and Arsene in British football establishment used to surprise me. I have never been a paranoid person so I originally thought that this new sense of having my team always targeted maybe a sign of “maturity”, getting into the late twenties as I was then. The world against me etc. So I tried to be more objective about the critical comments but very soon it became evident to me that the anti-Arsenal threads are real and not my imagination. Someone here — N7/Trev/NBN ? don’t remember now — had posted once a great historical analysis of the origin of that sentiment and the running theme through they years, and I think not only the press the FA too have had a permanent anti-Arsenal streak.
This episode was an absolute non-issue: Arsenal fans, Arsenal player, Arsenal’s victory parade, and no racist/sexist/personal abuses. The reactions have been so over the top — contrast that with no actions being taken to respective clubs for the hordes of supporters in old toilet or in the “lane” who have repeatedly abused Arsene with the vilest comments over the years — that I hope it would add one more brick to the foundations of solidarity among this wonderful group of players.
Are we not talking transfers anymore?
This would be a great signing …
https://www.facebook.com/onlinesoccermanager/videos/899303846793552/
🙂 🙂
[I am sure the Catalans are already asking the going price to the parents.]
But seriously, I hope the guardians just let that child be and not plan on milking his abilities.
Quality.
Dr Faustus @19,
Good grief ! That little No 10 hasn’t even been alive long enough to learn skills and composure like that.
The thing is, could he do it at Stoke on a cold, wet Tuesday night in November ?
Dr Faustus@19 – “We” don’t need to talk transfers. We have King GT to do that, worse luck.
COYG
Nice one Snowy.
Particularly enjoyed the hangover descriptions from Sir Plum. If memory serves, the recommended Jeeves restorative next time you’re suffering from a “Broken Compass” is tomato juice, a raw egg and plenty of red pepper. I always prefer to chuck a large vodka into the beaker as well, but each to their own.
The treatment of Jack by a media that is both a pimp for and prostitute of perpetual outrage, (with the execrable Oliver Brown of the Telegraph leading the charge), and with a reactive and acqiuescent FA in hot pursuit, was hysterical in both senses of the word. Nor, it must be said, did Arsenal, in their implicit and passive acceptance of “wrongdoing”, cover themselves in glory. When such puritanical dumb-fuckery provides a verdict on what was essentially a private party, a robust and resolute middle finger should surely have been the Club’s response. Banning Sky Sports cameras from the Premiership trophy parade next season would be a start.
It now seems a different age since Perry Groves stood on the balcony of Islington Town Hall in May 1989 and enjoined us all to tell our Tottenham-supporting fathers to fuck off. Nobody batted an eyelid, least of all the corpulent Mayor stood next to Groves. Such laissez-faire tolerance is perhaps too much to hope for in an age where agendas are increasingly set by vacuous and semi-literate fury from the twitterati. Nevertheless, and despite the many more external pressures that modernity has brought, the self-indulgent go-to position best summarised by the meaningless phrase “I am offended” should only ever be met with Stephen Fry’s memorable riposte “So fucking what!”
Back to the Cricket …
Howdy folks.
Due to some nice weather and other summery related stuff I haven’t been behind the laptop for a while so I had a bit of catching up to do.
To start off, I’d like to say well played to GSD, a fine initiative there young sir, glad to read it all went well.
Next up, bye bye Abou. Damn shame what happened to you, but I’m afraid it makes perfect sense to part company now. Hopefully you will find happiness somewhere else, maybe in a less demanding/physical league then then the PL you may shine again.
The Cech situation.
According to a few of the rags, it’s all but a done deal, which leaves me sceptical to say the least. I also see there’s a lot of trepidation here in the bar. I don’t usually do transfer speculation stuff, but I’ll join in this one just for shits and giggles (wierd phrase, but still). Things, I like to, take into consideration with any transfer are
a) Is he a good enough player?
b) Is he better then what we have?
c) Does the transfer make sense?
Answers;
a) There’s no doubting that he is a top class keeper, he has won almost everything there is to win.
b) Beter then Ospina? (IMHO) Yes, without a doubt. I still feel however that Woj has scope to grow. Cech would be a fine mentor.
c) Cech wants out, doesn’t want to sit on the bench and would prefer a team in London (a good one, so fuck off Spertz) as not to uproot his family, so logistically it makes sense. I still can’t shake the nagging feeling that Maureen will act the cunt though because it makes no sense to me that he would let Cech join us.
So in conclusion, I would take Cech in a heartbeat. I don’t buy the “we don’t need cast offs” arguements because, for one, he’s not a cast off persay. He himself wants to leave for regular footbal. Cortoius made it clear last year that he would leave if he wasn’t made number one and after the season he had at A. Madrid he had a pretty strong hand when it came to negotiating, and to be honest is probably in the top 3 of keepers in the world at the moment, way better then De Gea no matter what the meedja woud have you believe. Even if he is a cast off, then by that logic so where Ozil and Sanchez.
33 is not old for a keeper, in fact he could, not saying he is, saying he COULD be coming into his prime. Seaman and Jens have been mentioned, and I’ll think you’ll find that Edwin vd Sar was even older when he flushed up at Old Toilet and he didn’t do too bad there. Even if we only get two or three good years from him I think it would be worth it for the experience and winning mentality he would bring to the side. Plus the finger in the eye to Maureen would be worth the fee alone, not to mention it would probably mean someone like Rob Green being brought in to replace him on the Chav bench. How can that not be a good thing?
Now I’m caught up……
Nice one Snowy.
I pretty much enjoyed .com’s parade coverage, sat here, beer in hand, still reeling and basking from the previous days happenings. But, it was all a bit mundane really to be honest, all rehearsed, with the usual damp squib soundbytes from the media savvy (Theo is the king of drab) players, about how much it means to the team, the club, the fans, take one game at a time, 110% etc etc etc, meeeh.
Then I spotted Jack.
He was bladdered!!!!
And that’s putting it mildly.
That’s what I want to see. He was having it large, enjoying the moment like us the common folk, it was like it actually meant as much to him as it did to us. BRILIANT!!
At the Em’s the fans braved the rain (applause for that) to wait for their heroes to appear, one by one they took the plaudits, again all very nice, but all way too cosher, until again Jack the lad grabbed the mic and got the adoring public going. It was adlib, it was what supporters sing, it was what fandom is about……. it was FUN!!!
Yet according to the meedja, it was waaaaaaaaaaaay over the top, tantamount to enciting a riot, bringing the game into disripute, the worst thing ever and clearly a hanging offence.
OH, DO FUCK OFF.
The same cunts that are complaining that there are no personalities left in the game try to crucify an individual that actually goes against the mindnumbly tedious grain. Who the fuck died and made the dispicible vultures at the red tops our crusaders of morality? Fuck off and go back to tapping dead soldiers families’ phones you jizz stained scuzbuckets.
As for the F.A………
Well, did you really expect anything else?
Live kit release?
Remember last years’ “event”?
Waited for hours for a pre recorded ad with Santi, Flame and Ramsey (I think) and a speech, also pre recorded, from Le Boss that then went on loop.
But yeah, count me in. 🙂 😉
Trev @ 22: Yes, alarmingly precocious. Or wonderfully.
The question could also be what would the Stoke-ians (Stoke-ites? Stokers?) do to him on a wet Tuesday night etc.? 🙂
Speaking of child prodigies in Stoke, they actually now have one of their own, a La Masia prodigy to boot, the youngest debutant for Barca …
Barcelona, Rome, Milan …. Stoke. Poor Bojan.
This Football Focus profile of Alexis is great. Still can’t believe he’s a Gooner!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tczb1
England are journeymen , the execrable Phil Jones is the worst player I have seen in an England shirt for sone time.
Jack Wilshere is a class above anyone in the team and he doesn’t start for us! Two great goals Jack!
In fact when you see him you realise how good he can be if he stays fit and off the shisha.
Jack’s back!!
Can’t wait for the league to start….!
Excellent posts from H2H, tabs and Trev. And of course the main post by Top Man Snowy!
Funny that when Freddie Flintoff did much the same after the Ashes win he was lauded as a national hero. Apparently he even tried it on with Cherie Blair, he was that pissed.
I’m not sure I’d want my five year old grandson to hear that language….so I wouldn’t have taken him to the parade. In Germany even the TV commentators call Per ‘ the Big Fucking German’
The press have a vendetta against Wishere hence the fags and the shisha pictures. Leave the lad alone, he’s a genius as he proved today
Evening all.
Hope this shindig tomorrow runs on time or I will struggle to get home.
It will be interesting in tomorrow’s papers to see how the hacks deal with Jack’s two stunning goals for England today.
What odds would I get on the description of each strike being prefaced by some kind of “Wilshere, who was charged with misconduct just two weeks ago….” bollocks.
Very short ones, I would guess. (Odds, not bollocks)
😉
Wear your old ’71 classic, ‘H.
They might even give you a new one – extra slim-fit mind 😉
Quality, Snowy.
CrackerJACK performance today, motm playing just where I like him, deep in midfield. Pretty much rubbish the rest of the England team though, apart from Rooney perhaps. How crap like Townsend and Delph get to start ahead of Theo is a mystery, and Sterling continues to unimpress … some flashy touches, but unproductive where it matters. How anyone could value him at the current rumoured level is mystery #2.
Öskar
Apparently he even tried it on with Cherie Blair, he was that pissed.
Christ, he must have been close to death by alcohol poisoning if he was pissed enough to do that.
I couldn’t sleep so watched the England game which helped.
Jones – meh. Delph – meh. Townsend – meh. Sterling – meh. Smalling – meh. You know you’re in trouble when Henderson is in the “Pirlo” role.
Two crackers from Jack but Rooney gets all the plaudits after missing a shedload of chances that Giroud would have been crucified for.
Funny game, football.
UTA.
2 in 1 for LJW
The scouse and Chav supporters get jealous at the first sign of Arsenal progression.
I must say, he is getting quite used to those thunderbolts of shots lately. If anyone recalls, Jack used to be a finisher for the Academy, where he had more freedom. For the senior team, he has more link up play and has to be more disciplined.
But anyway, let’s not get too excited, as it was only one game and it was against Slovenia (whatever that means).
Heyho!
The problem is media are paid to create sensation and a lot of people get sucked into whats written. This includes me and a lot more. Any news relating to the game does get a read and if it is particularly about the Arsenal boys, every arsenal fan would want to read. So it is often a clear strategy to either admonish for silly reasons or praise to the skies the same player. case in this is that loads of shit(opps i said the word) called adrian durham who keeps writing vitriol about Arsenal. I am certain he knows he will get reactions and that means more hits on the website and his column.
Jack was brilliant against slovenia and i am convinced it will be him replacing santi soon. The double pivot of him and Aaron sounds so tempting but neither have the defensive stability to sit back. So they will end up fighting for the one slot available.
Boring summer makes every rumour a thought of what if. Cech apparently close makes me based on experience, think it wont happen, though i would love to see him come.
Sterling wants Arsenal than city makes me laugh for we will and should not pay the kind of money pool want to milk him out for. Imagine paying 40 million for him, the same money we bid for suarez, sterling will never be as good as suarez ever.
Hoewdes available, should we go for him which means end of mert??? i doubt of this happening as well.
Lastly Kovaecic of Inter is set to sign for pool, hmmm will be a good signing.
Noosa@40: Tut! Tut! Rooney doesn’t miss shedloads of sitters. Oh, no. As Hodgson said, he just lets “one or two chances [go] begging”.
From the ‘what ever happened to that young man?’ dept:
JET joins QPR
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33116332
Gavin Hoyte joins Barnet
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33098255
NBN @ 44 — JET was sensational for us in the U-21 level. I heard it was primarily due to attitude problems he couldn’t make the next step. Only 24, he still has time to push on and move to the next level and have a PL career. Championship next season may see a battle of ex-Arsenal strikers in him and Afobe.
I still have high hopes for Afobe, maybe even returning to Arsenal one day. 🙂
Petr Cech = Mart Poom.
I think Cech is still a much, much better keeper now than Mart Poon ever was at his very best.
Poon was well into his declining years when we signed him as a back up and he only ever played a handful of first team games. He knew he was coming as back up and clearly had no problem with that.
Cech is a top international keeper and is seeking a move from the Chavs to get off the bench. If he signs for us, he is signing with the intention of grabbing and holding the first choice keeper spot.
waw memory of arsenal legend ,, i like arsenal ,, thanks for sharing succes always