I do not know. We do not know.
Words which you rarely hear during a summer transfer saga because somebody always claims to know. Even if they don’t know, they know. The not knowing provides them with knowledge based simply on the fact that they don’t know. Ignorance is information.
So this morning you’ll have people who know one thing about our captain and his plans. And another person who will know something entirely different. All based on the same nothing that all of us know at this moment in time. Which is fair enough. You can look at a situation and make some assumptions based on previous goings on, but right now the only thing we know is that we don’t know if Robin is going to stay and we don’t know where he might go if he does decide to not stay.
We can guess, of course, but that’s just gambling in your mind for no real reward so I don’t see the point. There are no mind chips which you can cash in and buy shiny things with. And much can happen in the next few weeks anyway. You can say ‘He’ll go here’ or ‘He’ll go there’ or ‘He’d never go there, would he?’ and you’ll drive yourself mad with various permutations and possibilities.
You know, I’m not a man who believes in the divine, I think we’re pretty much an accident of the universe and space dust and what have you, but there is a small part of me that might think we’re part of some hilarious game to watchers in the sky who move us about like chess pieces for their own amusement.
For example, would it not be in everyone’s interest to start developing a ‘deep sleep’ chamber into which football fans could put themselves at the end of a season, setting a timer to wake up at the beginning of the next one. You clamber out, have a look at what’s happened – “Oh, we sold him and him and bought him and him. Ok. And it’s football tomorrow, yay!”.
Yet doing so would mean sleeping through the entire summer, which is the best season we have. I’m making the ridiculous assumption that many of you actually live in places where you have seasons and not perpetual Sprinter (that’s a combo of Spring and Winter) like we have here in Ireland. Those above laugh – not only at the fact they purchased 500 hundredweight of cloud mix too much and simply have to use it before it goes off – but at the decision we’d have to make.
Do we forego the beach and mojitos and wearing flip-flops and cooking huge chunks of meat over fire to avoid the tedium and frustration of not knowing stuff that we really, really want to know? Is 3 months in the deep freeze worth missing out on tabloid headlines, Twitter spats, conjecture presented as iron-clad fact and the Internet Joe-ification of life in general? It is, it really is!
But what about beaches and mojitos and so on? DAMN YOU SKY LORDS. This is the choice we’re forced to make for their glee. As someone whose glass is generally half-full (unless it contains beer) I’m holding out for a summer, for some sunshine, lying on the grass, shrieking and running away from wasps (the Joey Barton of insects), and the long evenings. That means living with the theorising and minutae of the nothing being pored over day after day after day.
And really, anything could happen this summer. Anything at all. Except sunshine, but apart from that anything. We might be visited by aliens and have to fight them off to save the human race and we would use a letter V for victory like in that show where they had to fight off aliens to save the human race and the rebels used the letter V. I think it was called ‘The woman who ate the rat’.
We might be forced to fight alongside those we hate for to save our planet. Imagine the scene. It’s you and Waspy Barton against a whole warehouse full of aliens, bent on the destruction of those we love. We are the last chance, the ultimate renegades.
“What are we going to do?” Barton would say. “I’m as scared as scared can be. And that’s not piss you smell, honest.”
“I have a plan,” you’d say.
“What’s that?” he’d say.
*shoots Barton in the face*
“This!”
Hey, the aliens are much stronger, much more advanced and far more intelligent. Their weapons are like nothing you’ve ever seen and they’re capable of inter-galactic travel, for fucks sake, so there’s nothing you could have done to fight them off. You might as well take the little victory where you can get it.
Yes, it’s unlikely but it could happen. However, I don’t see too many people on Twitter talking about this possibility and what might occur if we were invaded. Where are the debates about the implications for the human race and our ambition to survive? Why aren’t people on the same side fracturing into different cliques to show off how clever and intelligent they are whilst decrying the other side for being stupid heads and poo faces?
My point is … well … I’ll come back to that. What’s clear, however, is that not knowing is like a mild, shared psychosis which is only going to get worse the longer we don’t know. Unless we accept that we don’t know and, you know, maybe just make up our minds when we do. I know, it’s a crazy thought and perhaps hold onto the idea of shooting Joey Waspton in the face to give you some comfort during the dark and difficult times, but we still don’t know.
In the meantime, have a mojito and lie on the grass.
