3rd April 2010, FOOTBALL: Arsenal 1 Wolves 0

After Barcelona, it was always going to be difficult for the team to pick themselves up for this. So, the insipid performance that we saw wasn't altogether surprising. An erratic performance from Walcott, a few stinkers from Eduardo and an anonymous return to the starting line-up for Rosicky characterised the match. Wolves defended stoutly. We created the odd half chance but lacked a cutting edge. The real story of this match though, for me, was Wolves' time wasting, which started at roughly 3pm. There were two incidents, both occurring towards the end of the match, that summed up the absurdity of the situation. A Wolves goal kick, the ball lands on the edge of the area. Walcott, in a rush, grabs the ball for Wolves keeper Hanneman, placing the ball on the spot. Hanneman walks past Walcott to where the ball previously laid, then turns and shrugs his shoulders, as if confused that the ball might've moved from its spot before lolloping back towards the six yard box and, with the speed of a tortoise, moves the ball to the other side of the goal before taking the kick. Later, Wolves have a throw-in. The ballboy throws the ball to the player who, seemingly, has lost the use of his hands, as twice he lets the ball hit his chest and fall to the floor. When opposing teams dash your hopes in the final and 5th minute of injury time added because of your anti-football tactics to, you deserve everything you get. I should also mention the sending off of Karl Henry, which, I have to say, looked like a yellow card challenge to me. Rosicky made a meal of it and the player was dismissed. I don't like to see Arsenal players doing that (or imploring the ref to send a player off) but, hell, name a team that doesn't employ those kind of tactics and you'll be naming a team who don't win much. Henry's post-match comments were idiotic. Arsenal are not now treated any more fairly than before because we've had some bad injuries. But yes, it's entirely likely that our players may well be a bit more sensitive to bad tackles when they've seen team mates legs' recklessly snapped in two so often.

2nd April 2010, GIG: Daniel Johnston + Jeffrey Lewis, Troxy

Having only found out about this on the day, I was surprised to see that it wasn't sold out and even managed to buy front row seats in the circle. First of all, the Troxy is an amazing art deco theatre with a huge balcony that has little booths with tables. Wish I'd got one of those. The first band on were a massively inappropriate group from Belgium who peddled dull, 'impassioned' singer-songwriter fare. It went down like a lead balloon. Then on came Jeffrey Lewis who played with the accompaniment of Fran from The Wave Pictures on what was possibly a ukelele. Jeffrey Lewis, in my experience, is never less than brilliant. He has a laconic, New York drawl I could listen to all day and his lyrics really must be heard. He did a song about Sitting Bull with home-made visuals and finished with a gangster rap about mosquitos. Superb, I implore you to go see him if you've not done so before. Daniel Johnston then took the stage alone and played three or four songs in his typical style then left the stage to be replaced by an 11-piece big band who played some weird cartoon jazz stuff without the main man for a bit. When he did re-take the stage they backed him in a variety of styles. With mixed results. Some of it sounded a bit of a mess, some songs, in particular the more croony ones, were just plain odd (if you've heard Johnston's voice, you'll know he's no crooner). The slower ones, where the band sounded more like a small orchestra, were most successful. His songs are good enough to stand up to such accompaniment and they did. It's hard to explain the appeal of Johnston to those who aren't familiar with his back story and sometimes I wonder if it's actually all about the back story. When he performs he visibly shakes throughout and twice asked what city he was in. There's definitely an element of the freakshow going on for sure. He can't play too well and his voice, of course, is as rudimentary a voice as you'll hear. But you don't go to see Johnston for technical artistry. His songs appear to me as 100% lacking in cynicism. There's not a drop of it there. And you don't hear that too often.

Note: This gig was mildly spoilt by a man who took exception to Johnston's band. He showed his displeasure by shouting "you can do better", "lose the band" and "we want more" so loud Johnston actually heard him. Most people around him took exception to him and told him so, which meant he changed his shouts to "CASPER...CASPER...CASPER" after every song. Twat.

2nd April 2010, ART: Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, The Barbican

You might know this as the thing with the birds that play musical instruments. That's all I knew anyway. We arrived at the Barbican to find a quite huge queue, backed up to a sign that said it was one hour's wait. We joined. An hour didn't seem too long since we'd made our way there. Two hours, however, did seem too long. And it was. Two hours. Boring. Once in though, it is fun. In the enclosure are a load of extremely cute zebra finches and some upturned guitars and cymbals mic'd up and often with bits of foliage on them. When the birds land on said instruments, they inadvertently make 'music'. The birds love getting up and making a bit of skronky avant-garde noise it seems. They also enjoy landing on people's shoulders and shoes. They are really cute, honestly. There was an amusing/borderline-horrifying incident when one finch landed on Mary, causing her to trap the poor little blighter between her coat and neck, as she flinched in fear. That would've been an awkward situation, had death occurred. After 10 minutes of amusement, we were done. Worth going to see. Not worth queuing 2 hours for.