There really is nothing like a bit of drama. Especially on the internet as the internet is a very serious business you know.
If somebody made a South American soap opera via the web it’d be the most serious drama of all time. No storyline would be too outrageous. No plot twist too incredible. No acting too hammy. As we move more and more into this digital world, when we swap our newspapers for online versions that we can read on giant iPhones, when we get our TV programmes and films delivered ‘on demand’, we trust the medium more.
Everything we read becomes undisputed fact, whether it comes from the BBC or Johnny Bungle’s Arsenal Blog that he updates when he gets home from his job at the clothes packing factory where he is entirely responsible for looking after men’s upper body garments which have dropped to the ground and one day hopes to become supervisor of the entire shirt lifting team. In fact, such is his ambition he has set up a Facebook group to help him achieve his goals:
‘Make me number 1 shirt lifter and get Arsene Wenger the sack at Arsenal!!!!!’ – *Mongs like this.
So as ‘tradtional media’ sit around worrying about entire generations who have never bought a newspaper, and never will, they know they have to make their presence felt online. And what works best for these people who thrive on drama, for whom every day is another hammy acted episode of ‘Fuego en la Sangre de la Arsenal‘? Mischief. Misleading headlines. Taking not what someone says but what they don’t say and making a story like that. A love triangle between two raven haired beauties. Erm. Maybe not. And timing. Timing is all important.
Like that joke. What’s the secret of good comed – TIMING! It really doesn’t work in print. In print. Hark at me like I’m some kind of newspaper man. Forgive me, it was a long night at the clothes factory. Anyway, my point is thus. When Arsenal have had their worst week in an age, when fans are rightly upset, when they’re feeling low at seeing another season finish (relatively) poorly, when we feel our players have let us down, when we just can’t get over the fact that Chiquita and her twin sister Mercedes have been playing a huge trick on evil doctor Enrique Corazon de Mierda and instead of marrying him they leave him jilted at the altar so he goes driving off in his car but crashes into another car which is being driven by the mother of these wicked but gorgeous twins and both cars go off a cliff and the music kicks in and the slow motion happens and they’re going ‘Aaaaarrgggh’ while the twins are drinking a cool glass of fizzy wine as they’ve plundered doctor Enrique’s bank accounts thinking they’re so clever, basically when the drama is at its highest, what do you do?
That’s right, you find an article somewhere, take it completely out of context, take one word from it, ensure that gets into most of the headlines and then belch it forth so as to ensure the drama of the car going off the cliff is a mere trifle. I might, perhaps, have laboured to make my point this morning but that’s essentially what I think of the Samir Nasri stuff that appeared yesterday. Someone took an interview from the official Arsenal magazine, no doubt conducted way before this week of pain, and decided this would be a good story because they knew how fans would react.
Lash on a headline about how trophies aren’t everything, a dash of lack of respect, and you have the perfect combustible mixture to add to the smouldering fires of Arsenal grumposity. I must try this when my edition of the magazine arrives. I’ll take an interview piece, select just the bits I want, and make my own article out of it. Could be fun that. However, I won’t comment on the Nasri piece until I read all of it and in the right context. And I certainly won’t let it upset me. No way. Not when we’ve still to find out what handsome gardener Carlitos and seductive, glamorous housewife Purisima are going to do now that the maid, Guadalupe, caught them at it in the toolshed and is threatening to tell her viciously tempered husband, Alejandro Maricón, unless they pay millions of pesos.
Bar one post-match interview and the manager’s immediate post-game thoughts the Arsenal camp has remained resolutely silent since the Wigan game. Understandably so. I’d be working hard to try and find the right words to say when I did speak again. And until they do I shall wait and react to that, not this.
In other news Gael Clichy says he’s flattered at being linked with Barcelona but says he is focussed on Arsenal … till the end of the season anyway. There’s always going to be speculation about Barcelona needing left backs as long as they’ve got players as average as Abidal and Maxwell playing there, but based on this season’s form Gael would certainly match them in a crap-off. Let’s not forget Clichy was named the best left back in England a couple of seasons ago and it’d be nice to see him get back to that level. I know we’ve got Kieran Gibbs waiting in the wings but I’d prefer to see the young Englishman get into the team after decent competition for his place and given the players who might be leaving this summer anyway I don’t think we can afford to sell Clichy.
Youngster Conor Henderson talks about his first team initiation. He had to get up in front of everyone and sing a song on the bus up to the Wigan game. Clearly his singing is not inspirational but fair play to him. I’d hate to have to do that. Not that I don’t have a wonderful, rich singing voice but I’m very shy. If I had to do it now I think I’d do the Trolololo song. They’d be begging me to stop after 20 seconds.
Not much else going on really. I do hope the team are being well and truly put through their paces in training this week. And by that I mean lashed to flogging poles, being made to watch that last 10 minutes at Wigan over and over again whilst being thrashed to within an inch of their lives with cat o’ nine tails. Nine? Pfff. Fuck that, I want them thrashed with cat o’ twenty-seven tails.
The Man City game looms on the horizon. There’s pride to play for, there’s revenge to be had for both defeats we endured at their place this season, but most importantly there are Premier League points required to ensure our season doesn’t end with more drama. Like if Carmen, who used to be married to the ex-husband of Purisima, comes home to discover Alejandro’s long lost brother in bed with her teenage daughter.
We don’t need that.
