OVER THE TOP, BELOW THE BELT

Jan 7, 2012

END OF THE WORLD AND OTHER RELATED STORIES.

6 days down and you can already feel that 2012 is being a jerk and not just your average sleep-with-you-and-never-call-you-ever-again jerk. The kind of jerk that’ll let an entire nation starve while he throws down £350,000 a year on expensive Hennessy VSOP cognac ...

Kim Jong il's alcohol addiction: an artist's impression

... and invents the hamburger but only for University students.

Speaking of wishful thinking, here's my list of stuff that'll go down in 2012, in no particular order.

1) ANNA HAZARE FASTS. AGAIN.

It’s obvious that, having done it twice already in 2011, Anna Hazare will go on a fast (Fast-onto-death for three days and weather conditions permitting) again for the Lokpal Bill.

A cornered Manmohan Singh will of course try a last-ditch attempt to make Anna the Prime Minister for a day, but fail. (Apparently that shit only works in celluloid.)

Meanwhile, a big company, probably Kent water purifiers, will offer Team Anna an endorsement deal entailing that Anna break his fast with their product.

This water smells like soap!

Take it from me, as a brand trying to make it in the cluster-fuck world of advertising, you can’t buy that sort of visibility anywhere. Unless you advertise in porn. Or pay Baba Ramdev to get your brand logo tattooed on his body.

You want a piece of that?

2) SACHIN GETS A FILMFARE

I don’t know if Sachin will ever complete his 100^th century. OR if he'll complete 100 half centuries before his 100th century. I don’t know if he’ll get the Bharat Ratna. And I don’t know why anyone would want to buy his autobiography at $ 75,000 just cause it’s got traces of his blood.

QUESTION: Just who the fuck wants to put so much money into a book just cause it’s got traces of some famous guy’s blood?


PICTURED: Target demographic

But I can tell you this: Them folks at Filmfare will give Sachin an award. Because, as you must have heard by now, SACHIN TENDULKAR ISN’T A CRICKETER. HE’S AN ACTOR.

While he hasn't worked in anything worthwhile, it’s only a matter of time that he gets offered a movie.

Of course, with Sachin turning to acting, the veritable Vinod Kambli, whose only known area of expertise is explaining the mindset of Sachin Tendulkar, will get an half hour slot on a TV channel reviewing movies. Possibly after having been rejected the role of playing dutiful sidekick to Tendulkar which eventually went to Johnny Lever.)

3) END OF THE WORLD? NO SWEAT!

Remember Armageddon? Or Independence Day? Or the Die Hard franchise? Or Rambo?

Or Osama bin Laden in real life? If you do, then you know for a fact that no matter what horror threatens the sanity of the world as it were, the Americans have got our back.

A crack team comprising Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Steven Segal, Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li and Mel Gibson will be assembled. The elite team of course will be accompanied by THIS MAN.

The plot will involve time travel, tomfoolery, chicanery, medieval kick-assery and doing what the Americans do best: entering foreign countries illegally to fuck with them over the flimsiest excuses. All this to retrieve a part of Mayan calendar from a evil coven of witch doctors to save the world.

Why is a part of the Mayan calendar being hidden in a different continent altogether, you ask?

I could tell you. But then I’d have to kill you.

So, what I’m saying is, a lot of shit will go down this year.

My advice? Use sunscreen.

Whether you’re off in Africa fighting bloodthirsty witch doctors or sitting on a fast-onto-death or catching a Sachin movie at a theater near you.

That's all, folks. And in the words of Anna Hazare, ‘Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish’

Nov 8, 2011

ARSENAL’S CATCH-22

(Originally written on OCTOBER 2, 2011)

IT is a reflection of the mess Arsenal find themselves in when the only positive you can take out from the loss to Tottenham is that they did not score an own goal.

IT seems as though everything that can go wrong at Arsenal has already gone ahead and done so. Cesc and Nasri leaving; defenders blanking out in the middle of games; injured players; red-carded players; the defeat at White Hart lane; the humiliation at Manchester United; the manager being sent off to the stands in the Champions League and the death of Arsenal’s most notorious fan: Osama bin Laden. Now, it emerges that this hurriedly put together side can’t play the type of attractive football that the Gooners have grown accustomed to. Add to that the Robin van Persie contract situation.

And the season has only just begun.

Arsenal’s predicament is a simple Catch-22: You cannot win trophies if your team does not have top players. And you cannot attract top players if your team isn’t winning trophies. (Unless you’re Manchester City, who clearly didn’t get FIFA’s financial Fair Play memo and are collecting players.)

This leaves Wenger crippled, considering the best players available to him are injury prone (van Persie, Walcott) or are already injured (Wilshere, Vermaelan). Some others are simply not good enough (Yes, Denilson, I’m looking at you!) Arsenal’s new signings are good but Arteta is not Fabregas and Santos is not Clichy. If Arsenal have another trophy-less season, you can expect more players to start looking elsewhere (Robin van Persie) while the manager, even with his eye for picking up diamonds out of the rough, will be unable to convince them to join Arsenal. Because let’s face it: no player worth his six figure-per-week salary wants to play at a club that hasn’t won anything at all for the last seven years as Juan Mata pointed out earlier this season when he snubbed Arsenal to sign for Chelsea.

The fans might be justified in chanting ‘Spend some f***ing money’ but everything can’t be solved by waving money at it, no? Just ask Manchester City’s ‘homesick’, £250,000-a-week Carlos Tevez.

Meanwhile, the other existential dilemma Arsenal face is the future of the manager himself.

In the last 15 years, Arsenal developed a style of football that made it an enjoyable team to watch even when they weren’t scoring; became an international club with massive fan following in continents other than Europe; moved to a bigger stadium while remaining financially self sufficient; became a grooming academy for some exceptional young talent and won trophies too. All of which is courtesy Arsene Wenger.

In the last six years, however, Arsenal has won nothing, coming close sometimes but always choking when it mattered most. But what do you expect of a team whose average age is consistently below 25 years. For six years now, Arsenal fans have been buying the ‘Future is bright’ dream while player after player has left for other clubs after coming of age.

To compound Arsenal’s misery, transfer window economics evolved over the years.

Players were sold at inflated prices (Andy Caroll to Liverpool for £35 million!) Quite simply put, there emerged a huge difference between the ‘auction buying’ of players that the transfer market encouraged and the flee market bargains that Wenger was looking for. Wenger’s philosophy suddenly found itself at odds with the transfer market thereby ensuring most players in their prime were out of Arsenal’s reach.

To make up for this, Wenger brought Jens Lehmann out of retirement in March 2011; re-signed 35-year-old Sol Campbell in January 2010 and gave Manchester reject Mikael Silvestre a second chance.

The ‘bright future’ never came and this became obvious even to the most ardent Wenger fanboys when we had to sell Fabregas and Nasri and lost humiliatingly to Manchester United, who we beat one-nil in April earlier this year. More alarmingly, even the fast and fluid passing game of Arsenal supported by heavy doses of possession seem to be waning at Arsenal. The balance sheets of Arsenal are healthy but the goal difference after seven games is -6.

Wenger may be the best manager Arsenal ever had but it seems that his best is clearly behind him. Even then, how on earth do you even start replacing someone who has won you three League titles, four FA Cups and four Charity/Community Shields. Not to mention, his ‘Invincibles’ of 2003-04 showed you the artistic mastery that could be achieved on a football pitch long before Barcelona came along with their tiki taka. (Barcelona in 2003-04 could not even qualify for the Champions League.)

It is only fair then, as much as it is ironical, that Wenger’s current (and future) Arsenal teams will be judged against the performances of the Invincibles, which have set a benchmark for every Arsenal performance. Wenger’s best performances as a manager in an Arsenal blazer are being held up against him.

So, how then can Arsenal get out of this Catch-22?

Ask that man, Arsene Wenger. After all, he knows best.