So long Fabregas… Adios Nasri…

Finally… After 4 years of will he / won’t he Cesc Fabregas has made the 35m move from Arsenal to his home club Barcelona.

(Side note – have you noticed that Febregas spell checks as Fibreglass?)  Quite fitting considering I can’t recall when he last played a full season for the Gunners.

If I said Fab wouldn’t be missed I’d obviously be lying – the guy is a genius on the pitch, when on top physical form.  But the farce his leaving descended into every transfer window for the last few years was getting beyond a joke.  It reminded me of the debacle of Thierry Henry’s leaving.  Why there has to be such a big song and dance about it – I don’t know.  In the end I could be forgiven for the many times I said to myself “Just piss of then!”

With Samir Nasri set to make the same cardinal sin as Emmanuel Adebayor and Kolo Toure before him –deflecting to Manchester City - it appears Arsenals hopes of ending the trophy drought are in shreds before the season has really even kicked off.  (Pessimistic maybe but I prefer to call myself a realist - last year I expected big things and where did that get me?)  With a ravaged midfield, a poor defence and a lone injury prone striker we can only hope that Arsene Wenger actually spends the money from these sales wisely - bringing in not only the players needed to compete, but the experience necessary to do so too.

The football season is never easy but when you’re an Arsenal fan it always seems that little bit tougher.

x x

London Riots 2011…

I’m disgusted, ashamed and embarrassed to be a Londoner. 

I work hard and have done all my life – trying to better myself every step of the way with the opportunities presented and I’m surrounded by other people doing the same.

Never forgetting for a moment the struggles my grandparents went through when they first came to London, England – The Mother Land – from their native Jamaica.  Coming here for a better way of life only to be greeted by hate and abuse and shut out of the very society they were led to believe they were a part of back home through colonization. 

When my grandfather came here he couldn’t rent a room, couldn’t get a bank account and could barely get a job.  Suffered racial abuse daily but still managed to buy a house and hold down a job by saving up money in a ‘pardna’.  He suffered hardships and difficulties the youth of today wouldn’t even know where to begin to comprehend.  But he struggled through raising his family here to the best of his abilities.  When he was alive I was reminded that things have changed greatly since when he was first here – but there is still a way to go.

The violence that has erupted on the streets of London over the last few days upsets and angers me because it is incited by greed.  Hoards of youth running around stealing trainers, computers and mobile phones.  I’ve been told to see the bigger picture and it’s about them fighting the system and the attitude of the police towards the youth and ethnic minorities.  If they have a problem with the police and the government and the “system” why are they shitting where they eat?  Why not take this fight to the doorstep of your local Police Station or Downing Street or Parliament or run amuck through

Oxford Street

?  Places where the powers that be will have to take note and listen sharpish to your voices.  Because they’re not stupid – trash any of those areas and they will be water cannoned or shot or hogtied before you can fart.  If people have points to make and concerns to voice, now is the time else this will have all been pointless and all this chaos is going to do is set the divide between the disenfranchised youth and the rest of society even further apart. 

The only victims of this madness so far have been innocent hardworking people – small business owners, homeowners and terrified residents afraid for their homes and their safety.  Once the dust finally settles and the cost of these riots has been calculated Council Tax and Insurance costs will soar, house prices will fall and these same already deprived inner city areas, will have even less funding for regeneration and an even bigger lack of investment for the future.

x x

Things that make you go hmmm…

Yesterday (3^rd August) the transport minister said that Londoners should walk or cycle to work during the 2012 London Olympics to ease congestion on London Transport.  This made me laugh out loud and spew my cereal over the table!! 

The Transport Minister and the Mayor should come with me on my daily commute on the lovely Victoria and District lines and see how feasible that suggestion really is.  Could it be that the penny has finally dropped, and the powers that be realise London Underground can barely cope with the hundreds and thousands of Londoners commuting to work on a daily basis without the addition of millions of tourists coming to town for the Olympics?  Not a day goes by that there isn’t some form of delay or overrunning engineering works on any one of the 12 LU lines.  And let’s not forget the stopping in tunnels and on platforms to regulate the service coupled with the overcrowding. 

Since we won the Olympic bid back in 2005, a lot of time, effort and money has gone into regenerating East London and the building the Olympic Park, but only a cosmetic upgrade has been slowly taken place on the London Transport Network which really should have been at the forefront of the whole operation.  How else do they expect all the people coming to the city to get around?

The fact that many Londoners and UK residents (me included) missed out Olympic tickets only adds to the farce that this is descending into.  And the latest titbit of advice from the Transport Minster is a joke worthy of any comedian on 8 out of 10 cats.

Hmmm indeed!!