I got my mobile phone out of my jean pocket, it was 18:29 precisely. I had arrived a minute ahead of schedule. Perfect. Now I just had to wait for Terry. I was outside Finsbury Park tube station. It was the first Tuesday of 2007. I was about to head to a football game. Considering all the things that had happened, I felt good. I suppose, I should rewind and head back to my first day back in the office. Nothing like an easy day, to ease you back into the motions. The phone lines were dead. The calm before the storm perhaps but I think many people have taken an extended break and are not back in work until 8th March. Coming in early and leaving at 4.30pm perhaps helped, just a little as well.

I had borrowed my sister’s Creative Zen V+ to give it a proper road (or rather more accurately tube) test. I had forgotten how great MJ sounds on ear phones. I was tapping along to Beat It, Smooth Criminal and the other tracks I had transferred across on Monday. Never before have I been able to escape in such away into the music and let the journey on the tube just drift into the background. For a brief moment, I wanted to break into an attempt at the moonwalk, but it was not appropriate and I already had the electric eyes all over me and did not need any further unnecessary attention.

The first game of 2007 was against Charlton, now under the stewardship of Alan Pardew. I had a feeling, when I booked my tickets over a month ago that Henry would come off the bench and score some goals. I was not too far off the mark. Instead of being on the bench, he started. Woo hoo! I was with Terry, he arrived a few minutes after I got to the station but we had to wait a good fifteen minutes for Henry. (No, not that Henry but Terry’s work colleague). While we waited I bought two programmes, one for my work colleague and fellow Gooner Paul in the office. Terry was in one of his grumpy moods, where is is all pessimistic.”You going to read the propaganda from the ‘tain then? I refuse to read that BS”. He does make me laugh. The Sheffield united defeat had got to him, but then every single defeat gets to him more than any other fan I know. I prefer to always remain positive, to look on the bright side. Defeat is not an easy pill to swallow but you know that the next 90 minutes is just around the corner. Redemption is never far away.

After grabbing a bite to eat and a drink of over priced mineral water, I headed to my seat. Shaking hands with both Terry and Henry, in what has become a pre-match tradition. I went up to my seat, which was right at the end of a row, which is both a blessing and a curse. Great view, but I have come to expect that now and quite a full house. I was looking forward to the game as the players came out. The atmosphere was good but once again one of the many golden rules were broken. Before we even scored our fourth, final decisive goal many people were walking out of the ground. That is just stupid. I would never dream to leave a game before the final whistle blows and can speak from bitter experience. Which I may bring up some time in the future. I can understand people have a long journey home but if you pay quite a bit of your hard earned cash for ticket, I expect my full monies worth. A great game to watch, you could see Thierry was in the mood and he was nowhere near match fit. Perhaps the most kind of gesture was him passing the ball to Robin for the second penalty. Some of the taunting of Pardew was derogatory but you could not say he did not deserve it.

I wanted to watch it tonight, I tried, honestly I did. However, my television tuner is off. What am I talking about? Celebrity Big Brother? Why would I watch this poor excuse for reality television? My record with this “genre” of television programme has perhaps been poor in recent years. For me, it started with ITV’s The Popstars back in 2001, then the following year with Popstars: The Rivals but since then I’ve rarely watched beyond the auditions of the Pop Idol series and this year’s X-Factor I gave up before the live shows started. A colleague at work, avoids them at all costs and personally I have never really watched BB (celebrity or nobody flavour). Although in my house it is unavoidable, as you will usually find one of my elder sisters tuned into the live feed on E4. This year I wanted to to at least watch the show on standard Channel 4 and perhaps catch the odd show on E4. I will not be watching and I will explain why. I read on BBC News that Bollywood actress, Shilpa Shetty would be taking part (for a cool £450,000, which at current exchange rates is 38,838,499.58 Indian rupees. They use a strange numbering system but she hardly needs the cash, being a chorepatni herself). Well that was the draw. Strange I know for me, someone who despises contemporary Bollywood cinema and longs for the action era of the 1980s. However, how could I not want to watch the stunning 32 year old (and single, apparently) actress on the show. Well, the she walked in and she opened her mouth. That was it. One of the few things that makes my blood boil, is Indians speaking English. I just find the accent so annoying. Now let me put this into context, I am sure I have already stated on this blog, several times that I think Hindi is the most romantic language in the world when sung and perhaps second only to French when spoken. However Indians speaking English just does not work. They try, I give them that, but to me it does not sound right.

Okay rant over. Trying to book Le Mans for the summer but it hardly looks like the cheapest holiday for a petrol head. We may also be going down of to a group of two instead of four which would be a shame but is fully understandable. You never know, Teg might be able to drill it down to a little better value.