And so we reach what some uncouth characters have named ‘the festive perineum’, that is, the part of the midwinter festive season between one business end and the other. It has, as one might expect, been quite the epicurean odyssey period here at Gentleman Towers. On Christmas Eve, an unusual family tradition due a misunderstanding between one of The Gent’s ancestor’s, Odin, and the local butchers, has meant that we settle down to a nourishing feast of roasted reindeer.
Not content with scoffing an animal imbued with magical mythical powers, cook sees fit to further disturb the young relatives present by spit-roasting the beast, then serving it up to the table with a bright red apple at its nose. “Rudolph,” says cook, and awaits the inevitable wailing and snuffling from the assembled infants. This sets the bar very low for the rest of the festivities, and by the time ‘Santa’ has arrived, and deposits a lump of coal, an Indian rubber ball and a stick in their stockings, the little mites are simply ecstatic that there has no further animals have been slaughtered that they cry with joy.
On the subject of Christmas gifts, I like to think of Mr. Orwell as a wonderful early Christmas gift to us from the site of urban decay up the road. Wrapped in luxuriant paper from Fortnum and Mason’s and with a label reading ‘To all Arsenal fans, Love, Daniel Levy.” We should of course spare a thought for those poor unfortunates up the road, who have to bear a Christmas period knowing that their wonderfully inept Chief Executive spent £26 million pounds on Roberto Soldado, a player who makes Emile Heskey look like Cliff Bastin. Perhaps if they dropped their hilarious charade of utilising a bleak and sombre blue for Santa’s outfit (please see image right) then he might begin not treating them with such dispisal every year.
GRINDMAS
Chelsea fans, as we know, do not celebrate Christmas. Not only because they have no soul, but because they celebrate a different winter festival altogether. This is when they joyously delight in the birth of the Mourinho speciality, the grinding 0-0 draw. Merry Grindmas, they shout at each other, as they did last Monday. They dullified, they negated, they niggled, they obfuscated, they distracted, they countervailed, they abrogated. They did everything they could to kill football, and for Chelsea fans – from pot-bellied racists and slick-haired estate agent types to nine year old South Korean children alike – couldn’t have wished for a more delightful result. We should treat allegations that Mr. Dean was taking the rouble from Mr. Abramovich with contempt – he is merely maladroit.
AND SO TO THE EAST END
Mr. Allardyce, whose resemblance to an Atlantic Walrus grows by the day, has fashioned a team consisting of the elbows of Mr. Nolan, the street-barrow impishness of Joe Cole, a Rat, several Borstal Boys and Carlton Cole – a player whom Woolwich contrived to make look like our old tormentor, Monsieur Drogba. Faced with Mr. Allardyce’s two banks of five, we offered little in terms of thrust or endeavour.
When we went behind to what I shall call the ‘Starting Pistol’, the goal we so often require to remove a digit from our collective fundament. Fortuitously, our split personality attack whippet Fenton Walcoué was in his more agreeable guise, rather than resembling the errant deer-chasing hound of worldwide fame. His brace was most welcome, as was battery sergeant Mr. Ponsonby’s return. I have included his cigarette card from earlier this season in case you had forgotten what he looks like.
TO SOUTHERN SCOTLAND
The chaps leave on the Newcastle Express tomorrow for the wilds of southern Scotland, to St. James’s Horse-Punching and Nylon Clothing Emporium Park Stadium in Newcastle, where the odious Mr. Pardew’s rabble await. If they are vanquished, we shall emerge from this testing period with seven points from a possible twelve, atop the tree of the English League, where we shall inconveniently* reside. As the old saying goes, “when you emerge into bitter January, you’ll know if you are a milksop or a full blown MANUARY.”
*for the semi-human sofa of specimens the BBC employs as experts on Mr. Lineker’s menagerie Match of the Day.
TICKET PRICES
Finally, we learn that the club is to raise prices yet again. On the one hand, this is a very bad thing. It excludes those not fortunate enough to inherit 3,000 acres of prime Highland Estate, 20 or so buildings in Westminster and a country pile with its own deer park. On the other hand, it does keep the riff-raff out.
