The World as I see It

Time seems to fly by and important things like writing a blog post tend to get forgotten with time. Finally I have got the time to write something. As you can see, there is a new look to the blog now. I recently added three pages whose links you can see on the top. Previous design was unable to show links to these pages on the top so I decided to have this one. I think it looks good. Only drawback that I see in this one is its relatively smaller width of the main content. other than that it feels good to me.

One benefit of not posting a blog post for long time is that you accumulate a lot of things to say in the next post, and that is somewhat the case here I guess. Umm, where should I start?

Yes, I have added new pages; most notable and lengthy among those is To be a Gooner. I have spent some time in accumulating my thoughts and write that page. I wanted to document many more details but it was already too long. I am not sure if an ordinary reader would read the whole text of it. Still it is there. Maybe I will read it some time in future. That is why I write it basically.

Moving on to the days between this post and the last post, last week saw a protest rally by lawyers who arranged a long march to Islamabad. They were supposed to reach Islamabad from all over Pakistan on Thursday. As a precaution, our boss announced vacation on Thursday. Lazy lawyers did not reach on Thursday and TV reports suggested they would reach Islamabad on Friday morning. As I was preparing to leave for office on Friday, my mother, as anxious as she always is in such situations, banned me from going to office that day. Lawyers reached later that night and two day vacation from the office turned out to be utterly useless. It also turned my usual 2-day weekend into a long 4-day weekend. Good for me.

This week saw return of Junaid to normal routine after two weeks lay off with metatarsal injury. Welcome back Junaid and good luck in future for your foot. Still he owes Waqar and me a treat in McDonalds

Adil Ahmed, my university class fellow is one of the most charismatic characters I have ever met. He talks a lot. The amount I talk in a year, he talks in just a single day. Next week he leaves for USA so a farewell/get-together party of our class fellows was arranged on Friday evening in Savour foods. It was great to see all of us together. Good luck to Adil for his stay in USA. God Bless him.

Major talking points come with regard to football. You can skip these few paragraphs and go to the end if you do not fancy football as such Its Euro 2008 fever these days and until now Turkey and Russia have been the surprise packages; Turkey in particular who have come from behind in last few games to win them in a fairy-tale style. It’s been classic comebacks from them. 2-0 down against Czech Republic and coming back to score 3 goals in last 20 minutes, ensuring their progress beyond group stages in to the quarter final. And then in quarterfinals they play a talented and tactically sound side in the form of Slaven Bilić’s Croatia who are by no means pushovers. They qualified from a group in which England of all teams failed to qualify. The whole team oozes, commitment, dedication and organization not to mention the technical quality of the players. Turkey’s quarterfinal game with Croatia was quite a game in terms of drama. Regular 90 minutes failed to separate sides as both teams cancelled each other out in a 0-0 stalemate. In 30 minutes of extra time, Croatia scored the silver goal in 119^th minute. With only one minute to go, Croatia were almost in the semi final. Slaven Bilić, their manager was jubilant and was celebrating the goal with the players on the pitch. Croatian crowd went crazy with delight. But hats off to the Turkish fans who were still singing and chanting for their team, and were hoping against hope that their team will find resources in the last minute to grab an almost unlikely equalizer. Well football is a funny old game and Turkish did find an Equalizer in 2^nd minute of stoppage time after the regular 120 minutes had ended. It was a bolt from the blue but it was mainly down to passion, commitment and refusal to accept defeat by the Turkish. Turkey forced penalty shoot out and even before the penalties were taken, Croatians looked as if they had already had the KO punch in the form of the equalizer. Their body language was that of disappointment and disbelief of the Turkish equalizer. In football we say that you loose a game on the pitch because you had lost it in you mind before you came on the pitch. Maybe that was the case with the Croatians and they missed 3 penalties while Turkish scored all of theirs. It’s Turkey into semi finals against the gritty and genetically professional Germans who had earlier beaten talented side of Portugal in a classic football performance. They were too good for them. If there is a lesson to be learnt from this Turkey side, its “It ain’t over until it is over”

Elsewhere in the second group of quarterfinals, awesome Russians performed a tactical master class in beating the favorites Holland. It was on the cards with the magical figure of Guus Hiddink in the role of Russian coach/manager. This guy is a legend when it comes to taking average teams into big times. He did it with Australia, Holland itself. Most notable was with South Korea in 2002 world cup where he took them to semi finals. They still have these huge statues of Guus Hiddink in the squares of Seoul. I won’t bet against Russia in the Semis who play the winners of tonight’s quarterfinal, which is between Cesc’s Spain and Italy. Italy might be with two key players suspended through yellow cards but you can never discount Italy in big games. They always step up to the occasion and Spain have a perennial habit of screwing it up on big occasions despite having expansive talents on their disposal. We shall see.

Elsewhere silly season is by far the most horrendous time in the life a of a footy fanatic. One drawback of supporting a side that plays beautiful football with extremely talented players is that vultures in the form of Barcelona and Madrid keep lurking over your prize assets. Apparently Barcelona have almost agreed the deals for transfer of Adebayor and Alex Hleb, two of Arsenal’s best players from last season. After France’s exit from Euro 2008, Samir Nasri who is often dubbed as “New Zidane” looks set to join Arsenal from Marseille for a reported fee of £13 million. He is believed to have passed the medical and formal announcement of his transfer will be made very soon. Loyality seems to be a thing of the past these days as Christiano Ronaldo looks set to hand in a transfer request to his current club Manchester United. Apparently he ‘dreams’ to be playing in all-white of Real Madrid. It’s a shame that a player of his talents snubs a club who had brought him out of nothing and made him learn his trade and made him the best player in the world, now he is snubbing the same club for just a little more money. Not that I am complaining about our rivals loosing a key player, but this is not right in principle.

Highlight of the transfer market in last fortnight was transfer of 17-year-old Welsh wonder-kid Aaron Ramsey. It was a really pleasing and satisfying thing for me in quite some time. Not because we signed a potential future start but because of the manner and circumstances in which he signed for Arsenal. Arsenal were not the only club interested in him. About 2-3 weeks before his transfer, one of our biggest rivals Manchester United issued a statement on their official website whose gist was something like Manchester United have agreed a fee for the transfer for Aaron Ramsey with his club Cardiff City and all that remains now is that player passes a medical and agrees personal terms. How arrogant and cocky of them. I mean this is not a tabloid website or some blog. It is your official website. You don’t have to say all this until you sign the player. Immediately after this statement, Ramsey’s then club Cardiff City issued a statement which read that bids from Manchester United, Everton and another club (Arsenal hate to reveal themselves until the deal is done) had been accepted and it was down to the player to choose which club he wants to join. They also said that they would prefer if the player joins Manchester United. Ramsey then met Everton boss David Moyes, he then went to see Manchester United’s stadium at old Trafford where he was shown around by the club captain Garry Neville. Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger who is working as an Analyst for Al-Jazeera Sports in Euro2008 and is in Switzerland these days, sent a private jet, which flew Ramsey and his family to Switzerland where Arsene and Ramseys had a dinner together and explained his ambitions and future plans for the player. In the next morning, Ramsey told Cardiff city he was going to sign for Arsenal. Seriously, when was the last time that a private jet journey and a dinner with Le Professeur was beaten by ‘convincing’ words by a c*nt of Garry Neville’s order who cannot even grow a moustache. And how arrogant of Manchester United manager who thought his club captain would suffice in convincing the player to join. Season hasn’t even started yet and it’s Arsene Wenger 1-0 Alex Ferguson. When the player was being heavily linked with a move to Manchester united I had my reservations about this player. But boy! Didn’t he pass the c*nt test with flying colors or what! His decision to join Arsenal shouted out just one thing on his behalf; “Fergie, Kiss my Gunner A*s” I’m lovin’ it!

Our very own Gael Clichy singed an extension to his contract and a new long-term deal this week. So there go the reports in papers linking him with a move to AS Roma.

This week also saw the installment of metal grill on our rooftop boundary and the boundary of balcony on the first floor. It needs to be painted to protect it against the rust and hopefully it will be done in a week or two.

These days I am enjoying the Ghanaian chocolates.

That’s all I can think of at the moment. More later

Till then..