The Arsenal Strip Show

Like myself, if you’re an Arsenal supporter, you might be furiously fending off nasty comments from the Chelsea and Manchester United faithful, or just tearing your hair out in exasperation. Against Chelsea yesterday, after yet another promising start, the Arsenal succumbed to the ugly determination and sheer [brute] strength of a lesser deserving team.

My disappointment is so immense, I can’t help comparing watching the Arsenal week after week to going to a strip club, week after week. You get to watch some great ass, but if you don’t get any action from one of the lovelies on show, it becomes an expensive waste of time. Just like the Arsenal; fantastic moves but they don’t get to score…

Football is about scoring goals; the intricate passing and fluent movement should be just a bonus. Sometimes… no most times, an ugly goal or two will do just fine. It’s time some of the players showed that they’re not just ballerinas in baggy shorts, dancing across the turf.

I’m actually convinced that Wenger, being the shrewd economist and tactician he is, is actually colluding with the board by playing percentage football. My theory is that he just does enough with his (showy, but ultimately inadequate) team, winning games to keep the fans interested….just so that they can continue keeping the club profitable. Perhaps he’s trying to seal his place seat on the board of directors.

I read about one fan last night who is determined to start supporting another club. Who knows how many others there are. I know that the die-hard faithful will stay, but these performances are hurting the club.

It’s time Wenger showed us that he can coach as well as make profits. I’ll tear the rest of my hair out in appreciation.

Something stinks in South Africa, and it’s not Lolly Jackson’s dead body

I’ve been following two recent events with some interest; not because they’re particularly riveting, but because they reveal a stark contrast in the competence of the Police in two different countries.

On Saturday, 01 May, a potential car bombing in New York’s Times Square was foiled because of an alert street vendor and the work of the Police. Follow-up detective work eventually led to the arrest on 04 May, of a Pakistani man who was within minutes of escaping. But thanks to the brilliant detective work of the New York Police, the suspect was apprehended on board a flight ready to take off. He apparently confessed soon after being arrested. A nice neat, happy ending, in little more than 3 days.

On Monday, 03 May, notorious strip club owner, Lolly Jackson was gunned down in a house in Edenvale, South Africa. The killer apparently called the head of Crime Intelligence, Joey Mabasa to report the shooting on the same night. Speculation about why the killer, an alleged drug dealer and police informant had the number of a senior police officer so readily available, is not important for now; although it may well be at a later stage. What’s important and somewhat nauseating is why the police have still not managed 2 days later, to apprehend a self-confessed killer, who is apparently well-known to them, and driving the victims car around.

Indications are that the police are clueless as to the killer’s whereabouts, and it’s likely they will remain clueless for some time to come. I don’t believe South Africans are too surprised though at the apparent incompetence of the police. It’s all too familiar.

Something really stinks in this whole saga, and it’s not coming from the body of that rotten scoundrel, Lolly Jackson. No, this smell is rather familiar; we get a whiff of it every time a crime is committed in South Africa, and we find the police either unwilling or unable to do something about it.

It’s a national disgrace.