Poft Baggage

Time, DGR, for a trip in Ye Olde Wayback Machine to re-visit a simpler micro-micro-epoch: a micro-micro-epoch when You Tube was but the well-nigh exclusive haunt of Weird-Al-Yankovic-video-swappers; when the hegemony of the three-buttoned men's sportcoat was, if hardly still solidly assured, then at least not yet the laughing stock of water-coolerly men's-fashion anoraks; an MME when, indeed, it was not unheard of for the Angry Londoner to launch into a post by avowing that it was 'time to take another dip into the old post bag'--all the way back, in other words, to a modus postandi not seen in these here pages since March of '06 at the latest. In a comment appended to my last post, Mr Caleb Stanhope of Carbondale, Illinois, USA writes, 'Way to go, Rugger! I’m just positively loving your blog—especially the whole soccer-fanny part of it. I can’t wait till the World Cup starts: I’m sure you’ll have a field day with it. Go England! [Just kidding: of course I meant Go USA! (Jeez! Like we even have a chance against you guys!)]'.

Jeez! to Mr Stanhope retorts your run-of-the-mill bone-headedly jingoistic English football yobbo: Like you guys even had a fighting chance of having a fighting chance against us guys in the hemisemifinals; and Jeez! retorts your run-of-the-mill cartiledge-headedly cuntish English football anorak (not that the two ethical types are by any means mutually exclusive): Like you guys even had a logical chance of having a fighting chance against us guys in the finals, seeing as how our respective national teams were consigned to the same super-group; but I, being a representative of neither type, retort instead: Jesus motherfucking Christ! Whence the fuck did you ever derive the besotted notion that I'd ever given a minute of rat's-schphicterly arc about the worldcupperly fortunes of the English National Football Team eo ipso?

'Well,' you, Mr Stanhope, might perhaps retort in turn, 'I've only read the last two posts. And there was certainly nothing in either of them that might have dissuaded me from making such an assumption.'

A fair enough objection on the part of Caleb Stanhope qua conjectural Angry-Londonindian newbie. But what of such demurral as might be raised by CS qua AL-ian semi-old-timer, viz:

'I know all about your showdown with the so-called Insular Arsenalaphobes back in March. But I always assumed that your spats with them and their like were confined to settings in which Arsenal FC figured as a competitive entity. Vis-a-vis such a setting as the World Cup, a setting in which they figured not, I assumed you would root for the home team--in this case the English team--by default.'

An equally fair-enougherly objection on the part of Mr Stanhope qua conjectual Angy-Londinian semi-old-timer. But what of such demurral as might be raised by Mr S qua genuine AL-ian long-in-the-toother, viz:

'I remember vividly a remark you made in your post of March 12, a remark I am obliged, in view of its damning evidence of your hypocrisy, to quote in full as follows: How, I ask you, if there were any justice in this world, would this tatty pack of cuntinental swashbucklers [i.e., Arsenal FC] have been suffered to slip through the elimination rounds [of the UEFA Championship] like an armadillo-sized rat through a cunt-hair-wide gap in the floorboards, to emerge at the other end transmogrified into England's last best hope in ought-six, a veritable batallion of Winston Churchills decked out in the armour of St George--and this at the very moment when they were only just beginning to get their long-overdue comeuppance at home? If, as I submit, on the evidence of this passage, the focal point of your animus against the Gunners is centred on the prevailingly continental provinence of the squad's personnel, how can you help but cheer on the English National Team to victory in any competition in which they figure, e.g. if not i.e., the World Cup of the present calendar year?'

A cuntishly Jesuitical or berkishly imperceptive retort indeed, my conjectural, dentally-over-endowed Carbondalean friend, for all the Angry-Londinian erudition evinced therein! I shall concede that as a general, perduring condition the prevailingly continental composition of the Gunners' roster contributes a faggot or two, if only just, to the fuel supply of my Arsenalophobia. I shall concede, moreover, that during the micro-micro-epoch in which the above-cited passage was composed, the micro-micro-epoch of Arsenal's ill-fated UEFA Championship run, the fact that we English were being shamelessly, tirelessly adjured, by innumerable TV and radio chat program presenters (all of them, no doubt, on M. Wenger's payroll) to jump on the Satanic bandwagon of Arsenalophilia on the nipple-disclosingly flimsy argument that the Gunners were an England-based club--for the sole duration of this micro-micro-epoch, I say, the Continentalophobic sector of my Arsenalophobic bonfire burned with proportionately greater ardour than it had done in micro-epochs or has done since. These concessions having been granted, I must take you to task, Mr Stanhope, for having neglected (deliberately, I daresay) to procure from your local chemist's--or drugstore, as you would call it--a refill for your Ockham Mach 3 razor; as anyone in possession of such a finely-honed shaver could not help but observe that as--notwithstanding the prevailingly continental composition of the Gunners' roster--the flyers of the cross of St George amongst its ranks are outnumbered only by the flyers of the accursed RW&B tricolour, in any match between my home nation and any other country save France, a dyed-in-the-poly-wool Arsenalophobe such as myself would automatically favour the side that was pitting itself against the English squad.

[Conjectural long-in-tooth-cum-unstroppy Mr Stanhope]: 'Case in point: Portugal against England in the late quarter-finals?'

'Case in perfect point, inasmuch as Portugal's roster is a hundred per cent Gunner-free. And case in super-perfect point: Portugal against France in the later semi-finals.'

'I see. But what about, say, a case in which one Gunner-rich squad is pitted against another Gunner-rich squad, as in the even later final ass-off between Italy and France? Do you Arsenal-Bashers then find yourselves in a situation analogous to that of a state delegation to our presidential electoral college--i.e., obliged to root wholeheartedly for the Gunner-poorer of the two?'

'Not at all. In such a case, the actual outcome of the match is, at arse, irrelevant; in such a case, we root for (in your Yank parlance) whichever non-Gunner happens to be thwarting the progress of a Gunner at any given moment.'

'Jeez. That sounds awfully complicated.'

'Sounds and indeed is. But that's not the half of it. For just as in chess the taking of a rook is de jure incommensurable with the taking of a knight or bishop, let alone of a pawn; so in the international Arsenalophobic calculus the failure or penalisation is a given Gunner is de jure incommensurable with the F/P of any of his other clubmates.'

'And precisely what set of factors determines this calculus, the calculus that eventuates in the labelling of one Gunner a rook-equivalent, the next Gunner a bishop-equivalent, and so on?'

'The set of factors comprising, inclusively, and in that order of magnitude...skewed me whilst I consult the rubric...ahem: Team Title, Year of Birth (the later the more cuntish), Proportion of Career Spent as Club Member, Field Position, Total Number of Seasons as Member of First Squad, Total Number of League Goals Scored or Stopped, Total Number of First-Squad Appearances. Thus, according to this calculus, and all other things being equal, a setback for Thierry Henry (the Unholy Grail of Arsenalophobia) is perforce the equivalent of four setbacks for Lauren Etame Mayer (b. 1977, right-back, six seasons on the first squad/in the club, six league goals), three setbacks for Jay Simpson (b. 1988, Gunner since birth, winger, zero first-squad goals/appearances), and ten for Mart Proom (b. 1972, goalkeeper, Gunner since fall of '05, zero first-squad stops/appearances).'

'And all other things not being equal...?'

'...As they of course aren't 99 per cent of the time. Well, in such sitches--as in parallel sitches in chess--the rank of the player/piece takes second place to his/its strategic importance vis-a-vis the game as a whole.'

'I see. So Thierry Henry's flubbing a kick in the opening minutes of a game would be outranked in point of Arsenalophobic significance by Mart Proom's allowing a touchdown--excuse me, goal--during the last ten seconds...'

'...No, no, no. You're not getting the big picture here. Note that I wrote "the game as a whole" and not "the match as a whole". Let me remind you that the two words are not synonymous on this side of the pond. By the game I mean the World Cup tournament in the aggregate, qua running tally of Gunnerly abjection.'

'So, then, in Arsenalophobic terms, TH's being sent off in the first round might very well be outranked by Jay Simpson's being yellow-flagged in the quarter finals, which might very well be outranked in turn by what-his-name's...'

'...Mart Proom's...?'

'Right...Mart Proom's allowing a goal in the final or semi-final match?'

'You got it.'

'Jeez-to-the-googleth power! This system makes one of our fantasy football seasons sound like a game of tic-tac-toe. How do you manage to keep it all straight in your head?'

'By hours and hours of intra-match swotting, that's how. But no matter how thoroughly he's swotted up beforehand, in the thick of a match--or even in its aftermath--a Basher is all too apt to find himself utterly flummoxed, scarcely able to tell friend from foe, after the manner of a lowly infantryman in one of those so-called grittily realistic war movies. Indeed, come the dawn of Day 2 of the Cup, what with no fewer than four Gunner-loaded teams having participated in the preceding day's melee-age--and I having managed to catch only a smattering of two matches (one smatter-half in replay, at that)--I instantly perceived that the whole to-do of gauging, let alone recording, where we Bashers stood from day to day would prove so cuntishly impracticable an enterprise, that I had best postpone committing jot or titter numero uno relating to the Cup till the whole fracas was over and done with, till the dust had settled on the pitches of Krautland's stadia from Hamburg to Bamberg, and the confetti, condoms, bloody bandages and beer cups had been swept clean of the stands thereof. Hence the notable, if hardly exceptional, gap between my last post and the present one; and hence, epiphenomenally, Mr Stanhope, the tardiness of my reply to your comment, for which I extend the most guilt-oozingly heartfelt of apologies.'

'No worries, Rugger.'

'Well, in that case, Mr Stanhope (by the way, that's an Aussie-ism, not a Yank-ism, you know: no worries. Just thought I'd mention that for the benefit of any eavesdropping left-pondial dialect-ical purists), what do you say to my closing out this post and girding myself for the opening of the next one, provisionally entitled The Angry Londoner's World Cup Special?'

'Knock yourself up, is what I say.'

'Right, then. G'dye t'yer, Mr Stanho..'

(DGR, butting in, both querulously and stroppily): '...Pardon me, Mr Stanhope, but I have a word to address to Mr McGyver in private.'

'Look, MDFC. The opening sop to you notwithstanding, the dialogic meat of this this here post is for the gobs of Mr Stanhope and me only. I see exactly why you're butting in here, though. You're jealous, aren't you? Can't bear to see me chatting up a genuine flesh-and-blood reader, can you?'

'It's got nothing to do with jealousy, I assure you.'

'Well then what has it got to do with?'

'It's got to do yet again with--confound it!--your traducing of the hallowed principle of psychological verisimilitude. Good heavens! As of close of the last post you had avowedly just suffered the full panoply of country-and-western-tune-mythified tragedies. And yet you launched into this post without making mention of a single item in the catalogue--the girl, the dog, the best mate or the car. Are we to assume that you've retrieved them all and that everything is once again simply hunky-dory in your lifeworld? Or that, having failed of retrieving one or more of them, you're weathering his/her/its/their absence with classic British slack-lower-lipped stoicism? Because on the evidence of your comportment so far today, a much more plausible assumption than either of these would be that this so-called trip in Ye Olde Wayback Machine has carried you clear off the chronographic scale altogether and set you down in some alternate world in which, in addition to all blokes' sporting black eyepatches and green members, a certain eyepatched-and-green-membered bloke who need not be named is as yet unacquainted with Ronnie, Esmeralda, the Mazda or even (here I cannot repress an audible sniffle) little Lucy.'

'OK, DGR, you've said your piss, now let me say mine. First off, let me remind you that, as of the close of the last post, I had already got me car back. So that's one item struck off the tragic checklist. As for the other three, well, strictly EN on the DL (cover your orioles Mr Stanhope): the real reason I put off writing another post till after the end of the Cup...well, how shall I put this...it was for the sake of a certain effect of aesthetic symmetry. I mean, you know how a couple of posts back I opted to approach the UEFA Championship match obliquely, by way of an account of the progress of my liaison with Esmeralda...?'

'...Yes.'

'Well, no sooner had the next footerly landmark--i.e., the World Cup--come into view on the horizon, than I thought, Wouldn't it be simply brill if I could pull off the same sort of performance in reverse...if I managed to make my way round to the continuing saga of my LW by way of an account of the WC?'

'Hence, not only the notable, if hardly exceptional, gap between my last post and the present one, but also, epiphenominally, the anaesthetization of Your Bloke-esty's loyal readership with twenty-pages' worth of footerly ephemera.'

'That's harsh. And disingenuously so, I'll wager: don't say you haven't been enjoying it.'

'ZZZZZZ....'

'All right, we'll have it your way. Lads! Change of plan! Take up your big, non-flesh-and-blood pole with the magnet on the end, strike THE ANGRY LONDONERS WORLD CUP off the marquee for the next post and queue up the letters for UN AMOUR DE RUGGER PART FOUR. And sorry again, Mr Stanhope...'