By Lady Nina Bracewell Sunlounger
My old quaffing partner David Gill, the Manchester big chief pow wow has had a bash at the Football Association, accusing them of victimising his club with punishments that would not be given to rivals.
Now I know the so-called FA and quite honestly few of them are to be trusted within reach of a trowel and a pile of bricks.
David however is an old pal of mine and long term supporter of my campaign to make the House of Lords a drug free zone by 2015, so I respect his views deeply.
Rather like my dog “McGraw” (a charming fellow but with a bit of a taste for the alcohol of a lunchtime) the Gill fella is an FA board member and has been part of my campaign to have the FA Board replaced by a wooden signpost with the words “Do not throw stones at this notice”, for many years. (MrGraw ran the “Barking football” campaign with much success two years ago, as part of the FA bid to get the world cup in England. It was a significant part of our triumph.)
He (Gill, not my dog) spoke of Wayne Rooney’s two-game suspension for swearing into a television camera after scoring at West Ham in April. (When I say “scoring” in this context I exclude the presence of larger than life older prostitutes of course). He also mentioned the five-game ban imposed on Sir Axel for his attack on Martin Atkinson.
Now I remember that game because I was there with my man Biskit. We were talking about the relative merits of different sexual positions, I seem to recall, when the incident took place. It was clear to me as it was to most of the 98,000 people who were there to enjoy the sandwiches and cocktails that Atkinson had been bribed to throw the match in Man U’s favour, but had taken exception to Sir Axel’s commentaries from the “touchline” and so had taken his revenge.
Of course many ordinary folk (like Gill and Sir Axel, and indeed my man Biskit – and the dog McGraw come to that) who are not members of the Upper House and have to eat their meals on the streets do argue that things are amiss. I remember that awfully jolly fellow, Graham Bean, (brother of that fellow on TV – “Mr”) once accused the FA of acting “like a communist state”.
Well!
I’ve been to these so-called Communist States with my man Biskit (I recall we were debating the relative merits of electrocution against hanging as a way of reducing poverty around the Palace of Westminster at the time) and I can tell you they are not like that at all.
Take my old pal and quaffing partner Carson Yeung who single handedly threw out those dreadful pornographers from Birmingham’s delightful little club Aston City. Biskit and I were only discussing pornography the other day and how that funny little Tottenham club is trying again to get the porno men out of the Olympic stadium. Biskit kindly provided me with some of the materials and I must say it was quite an education.
However back to the main point. These jolly little chappies in foreign places are communists and I can tell you there is nothing wrong with that. They like their football.
They know that the man who can go into a patch of rough earth, fighting his way forwards to the goal, with the knowledge that only the Leader of the Party is watching him, and play his ball towards that goal without attempting any of this diving nonsense, is the man who will serve you faithfully and well. And the owner of Aston City is one of those.
To accuse Carson of money-laundering in Hong Kong. Really! Mr Yeoung owns 23% of Aston City. Do you think it is likely that such a man would be caught “dealing with property known or believed to represent proceeds of an indictable offence”.
Now on this matter I have to say that Biskit and I have an interest, because we have been approached. It seems that my campaign to remove the retail of alcohol from the playgrounds of Scotland’s Primary School by 2017 has not gone unnoticed. For I can reveal that I have been asked to take over the sinking ship at St Andrew’s. I telephoned my old pal and quaffing partner Sir Hardly Anyone who runs the Football League these days and he has confirmed I am in the running. We are meeting at a secluded Soho hotel tonight to discuss matters further. No press allowed!
You will recall that the delicious Mr Yeung took over at St Andy’s in 2009, when he gave the pornographers £81m. Now I know that is not much to you and me, but for some people who live in the provinces that can be quite a lot of the old dosh. Well those filthy little auditor people have said there is not enough money in the old firm to keep it going. Tosh! I happen to know Yeung immediately mortgaged his private kingdom of Greece to raise cash to keep the club up and running, and has a printing press in Ecuador churning out fake dollars and you can’t say fairer than that.
Of course I know that evil beast McLeish jumped ship, but what do you expect? Biskit tells me the man was useless in bed, but we should keep that to ourselves perhaps. Certainly the last time I saw McLeish he was white and shaken, like a dry martini, and that gives you the measure of the man.
But back to Sir Axel. He described Howard Webb as “the best referee in the country”, and you can’t say fairer than that when you have just given a man the free use of your private country estate (Portugal as I seem to recall it is called). But Sir Axel is made of stern stuff. He pulled what the bookies call “a fast one”. He didn’t acknowledge the letter from the silly little drug dealers in the FA and so they couldn’t do anything! Clever eh?
There will be more from Lady Nina in the near future if not earlier.
Untold Arsenal on Twitter is in the top 1% of all Twitter sites for followers @UntoldArsenal
On the history site: the three article review of 2001/2 is now complete
Your point is????????
If this is supposed to be a satire of Lady Nina’s interview, then i guess the editors of this site need not censor the AAA that post comments here because the name calling in this article dissipates any form moral high ground the promoters of this site spout. While she might have collected a cool 100 million for doing next to nothing, I personally agree with her that fresh ideas are needed at the level of the board.
If this article is meant to be funny, i seriously don’t find it funny especially with all the negative stories about our beloved Arsenal.
Hear hear, Countryboy!
I’m sorry but these posts are getting boring. It’s like going from reading The Guardian to reading the Sun. This Blog has for a long time been a routine and much looked forward to routine. I’m honestly very saddened when I see pointless posts TRYING to be funny. This is a serious source of information for me and many people so why are we having to see this rubbish. With so many blogs saturating the internet with rumours, Untold Arsenal stands noticed and respected. Hell, even the tabloids use the site as a source of information, it is that elite, so finding this sort of post isn’t just a bore, it’s also discrediting Untold Arsenal. It’s shocking seeing people who have nothing better to write than this rubbish. They seem to have a lot of time on their hands.
Hey fellas, take a chill pill! Tony is being funny. If you don’t get the joke, that’s okay, but don’t freak out. Go back and read the same recycled gossip about Fabergas somewhere else. There is no big news out there today so poking fun on some funny people doesn’t hurt. Where is your sense of humor?
@Getty: this is defamation at the least…
No need to be nasty when you don’t even know what really happened.
@Getty:
I as well see nothing wrong with these posts that are just intended to be humorous. It is a slow news period, after all, and nobody is being forced to read them if you don’t like them.
@Anne & Getty:
Well said, we all need to keep a sense of humour – particularly when we are constantly subjected to so much negative transfer speculation.
However, on a related topic, I actually disagree that there is no “big news” out there today. In fact, I think that this Birmingham money laundering story that Tony’s article touched on indirectly could well turn out to be the biggest football news story of the year (although I’m unfortunately not optimistic enough to expect the media to fully report on it)…
Is it just me, or do all of the news stories covering Mr. Yeung’s indictment seem to be ommitting one key fact? SPECIFICALLY, I’m referring to the fact that, if someone is laundering money, then that person is also necessarily linked a larger criminal enterprise that is PRODUCING the illicit funds that subsequently need to be laundered.
So, the question I have above all is, what exact TYPE of criminal enterprise was Mr. Yeung allegedly laundering money for? For example, could the case possibly involve some criminal syndicate that, among other things, might happen to dabble in gambling on football matches? Maybe not, but maybe so as well. And I think it’s interesting that the media has shown so little interest in what is, in reality, the most critical aspect of these charges against Yeung.
And although Birmingham has publicily claimed that these charges against Yeung have absolutely nothing to do with the operations of BIHL (the club’s holding company), to me, that doesn’t fully explain why the Hong Kong stock market chose today to suspend all public trading in BIHL shares…
In previous comments on this blog, I’ve actually pointed out that the current financial state of many football clubs in England (ie, the huge debts on paper that are nonetheless accompanied by huge financial outlays in player transfers and such), are entirely consistent with what you would expect to find in a company that was actually receiving illicit revenue streams through criminal enterprise.
As applied to a football club, channelling those illegal funds into exorbitant player transfer fees and other expenses for the club would, in fact, be a way of “laundering” those proceeds, and thus obscuring the money trail to their criminal origins. For example:
Last year, it “emerged that Yeung was preparing to mortgage his private properties in a cash-raising exercise to help keep the club solvent. (CNN)” Also, “the most recent set of accounts, for the nine months up to June 2010, state that Yeung has loaned Birmingham £14.9m during that period. (Guardian).”
So, assuming hypothetically that this was in fact a money laundering exercise, what Mr. Yeung would be doing would be lending his criminally obtained funds to the club, and thus getting the dirty money off of his own books and onto the club’s. He would then “recoup” this “loan” by “repaying” the club’s “debt” with cleanly obtained revenue from the club (ie, from ticket sales and the like).
Hence, the dirty money would have been “laundered,” and replaced with “clean” money. Naturally, you would expect a company that was being used in this manner to have certain difficulties in maintaining a regular profit.
So, the question is, where did all of this money that Mr. Yeung has been “loaning” to Birmingham actually come from? And is it possible that Mr. Yeung had some motive for getting these funds off of his own books and onto the club’s, aside from just his general interest in the club’s financial well-being?
Inquiring minds want to know, and I will certainly be doing everything in my power to find out the details of this criminal case. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get back to you in the future with something more concrete than the speculative “conspiracy theory” that I just presented.
Of course, I hope even more that I discover that my suspicions are incorrect, and that EPL clubs aren’t being used in this manner. Either way, I’ll try to let you know 🙂
Some more BIG NEWS:
Just in case anyone feels it’s really just a slow news period until an actual transfer occurs, well it might be time to seriously consider and launch an online petition for video replay. Why now? Well, thanks to Shard’s antennae, we do have this stunning link to an article (essentially a press release) whereby BOTH Platini and Bladder AGREE that there shall NOT be video technology. Shard provided the link above and I’m more than glad to echo its major importance: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/931381/uefa-president-michel-platini-says-technology-no-longer-needed?cc=4716
“In my opinion, technology isn’t good for football,” Platini said in an interview with Marca. “Nobody [at UEFA] wants to bring it into our sport – and nor does Blatter.” “The two additional referees in each area are a great help. They would have seen Maradona’s hand.
“Football was managed by just one man for 100 years and it was impossible to appreciate everything that happened on the pitch, so sometimes he would make decisions without having seen what went on. Now, if a referee doesn’t see something, it’s because he’s not very good.”
Please read the article and then ask if you agree. And ask if you’d consider signing a league-wide (not Arsenal-only) petition on behalf of video-replay technology at a minimum; and perhaps additional knock-on reforms of this sort (e.g. mic on the ref, a post-match ref interview, publishing of PGMOL post-match ref reports, etc.). These football deities have closed ranks and opined from on high to pre-empt such thoughts. Perhaps their pronouncement will spark a groundswell among some UA visitors for starters, and among fair-play minded fans throughout football. Any thoughts?
Anne,
Just as a thought experiment: Perhaps no video technology really means no review of dodgy calls that might have a reason other than the usual “explanations” – coincidence, all too human error, anti-foreigner bias, pro-northern bias, etc. etc. Right now, as some readers know, Greece is undergoing an ongoing massive football scandal – including arrests of referees, owners, police chiefs – that were purportedly based on 41 matches flagged by UEFA as “suspicious”. Next we have (as noted above) Platini/UEFA’s mind-numbing statement that Video Technology is not good for football! Since this makes no sense, perhaps it will make cents. Back to you, Anne.
This is probably the worst article in Untold history….
If this was supposed to be a joke, then it really lacks the sense of humour. Poor article.
Thank you your Ladyship for a fine article in the finer points of football from the rarefied air of thine boardrooms where nosebleeds are common.Don’t mind the riff-raff’s prattle -they just don’t get it-dashed poor form ,me thinks.
As for you, your Lordship ,Tony ,I like this new find of yours ,adding to the already impressive figmental personalities
that reside in the dark crevices of your brain.Oh what fun it must be to be able to pick your mind.
Someone ,(Alfred E. Newman, actually ), once said -a schizophrenic is never alone.
@bob:
I don’t know…And I ask you to bear with me on this argument, based on my experience with professional sports in the US…The problem with introducing video technology to football is how exactly you would manage to implement review of calls based on video evidence, without stopping matches to do it.
In all American professional sporting events, games are already stopped for commercial breaks. And once that starts, you see the trend of more and more commercial breaks. For example, in American football games (even on the college level where the players aren’t even being paid), you now have specific “TV time outs” where the ref comes out and throws down a white flag, which occurs for no other purpose than it’s time for a commercial break.
As a result, watching an American sporting event can’t EVER, possibly occur in less than 3 hours. And since they’ve introduced video technology to American football, it takes FOUR hours to watch a single match. It actually makes it almost impossible to even follow the sport at all anymore. And on top of that, the difference that it’s made in terms of eliminating bad calls, while worth mentioning, still hasn’t managed to shake things up enough to significantly change league results.
Honestly, part of the reason that I love watching (real) football so much is that you just watch the match. 45 minutes, halftime, and then another 45 minutes, and that’s the end of it. While I support things like goal line technology, or anything else you could do without actually stopping the match, I really don’t support anything that would require actually stopping the match to review refereeing decisions.
Based on my own experiences, stopping matches and allowing time for commercial breaks would actually destroy the sport more effectively than bad refereeing decisions ever could. And while I realize that that might not necessarily be the most popular thing to say around here, I really do strongly believe it.
Any thoughts, Bob?
@DP:
You’re just a right little ray of sunshine, aren’t you? If you hated the article so much, why did you even bother reading it?
@Anne
Funny. I’ve called him that before 🙂
I disagree that we can’t have effective use of technology. Rugby has managed it well. Hockey uses it. Both those games have running clocks (though hockey does occasionally stop the clock)IT is simply a matter of figuring out a way to use it effectively. I would say you can have challenges for the managers which would be looked at once the play (football already has phases of play in relation to the offside rule) has ended.
@Shard:
That’s completely fine. I guess what I was trying to say is that I support video technology in football, so long as you don’t actually have to stop matches to do it. If you have to stop the matches and allow for commercial breaks, I don’t think it’s worth it.
I honestly haven’t put much thought into how you would do that without stopping the flow of play. But if you guys can thing of ways to do it, consider me on board.
Oh, and just to be clear, when I mentioned “American football” in my post above, I was actually referring to the sport where guys in helmets run around and try to beat each other up. Not “Soccer.” 🙂
Funny that the things that are discussed in the comment section are mentioned in an article I wrote yesterday morning…
This is something new on Untold – we really are breaking through time barriers – : comments before the article 😉
@Walter:
I have to give you credit for the highly intriguing foreshadowing of your next upcoming article. In fact, I’m already disappointed that I’m going to be out of town this weekend and will thus most likely miss the entire comments thread… 🙂
@Anne
Why would there be confusion on that? Of course football to Americans is a distorted version of rugby where you have different teams for offense, defense, and then special teams for kicking the ball (you know the football). 🙂
Actually I’ve been trying to figure this out for a while. Why is it that Americans seem to like sports where coaches come up with ‘plays’?
@Walter
LOL 🙂
@Anne: we all read because we are interested about our club. And thats the basis of clicking on a link based on it’s origin, and importance. While right now, it only looks like just another blog looking for clicks, and even if you can’t understand that Anne, even Wenger himself always kept women out of dark waters. And that’s the way it should be. Now what’s the point slagging off Lady Nina, without the smallest peace of clue as to why she ended up being targeted after what she revealed?
But well. Fel free to kill your own readers.
But that seems to bypass your superior analytical mind.
Quick question: why did the person who wrote that not even sign it?
And I’m sorry for the author, but humor is like football. You can play with everyone, but you can’t just try a back-heel every day.
You’re just lossing readers with such bollcks. I thought you were just a little above that worms level… But actually starting to doubt.
That’s just plain “ant-anti-board” sarcasm and poison.
That just somehow sound sexist.
@Shard:
Well, I just wanted to be clear that when I mentioned “American football” people didn’t think that I was referring to the MLS 🙂
And my dad is a former rugby player, so I’m fully familiar with the relationships between American football and rugby as well. But as for your question of why “Americans seem to like sports where coaches come up with ‘plays’?….” Well, why wouldn’t we like it? It’s like a game of chess, but in real life 🙂
But seriously, the only American sport that I even follow anymore is American football on the college level (I do love the University of Georgia Bulldogs). So, outside of that, any questions you might have about Americans and their various professional sports are lost on me 🙂
@Anne
AArrrghhhh.. I’ve never gotten a satisfactory response to that question from any American. Sheeesshhh.. Guess that will have to remain one of the unsolved mysteries 🙂
It’s interesting because for me it is more fun to watch sport played on skill and instinct rather than a carefully charted out plan. I mean, I love tactics etc, but I’d rather the players were educated about it, but then left to deal with the game on their own and take their own real time decisions. Kind of like an audible I guess, though that is a rarity and even then, it is a set play being called. Perhaps that is why the only American sport I really follow is basketball. It has plays etc, but players still adapt on the court and make quick decisions.
I don’t know if I could really communicate what I meant there, but it is something I find interesting enough to want to understand.
The “Lady” articles are, I guess, a bit like the Billy the Dog articles. Some people hate them, some like them.
What is worrying though is that the people who don’t like them seem to assume that because they don’t, no one does, and therefore they should not be published.
I don’t see it that way at all, and virtually every article on Untold has people who applaud it, and those who feel it is awful.
The name Untold was chosen deliberately, in that the aim is always to cover ground that is not covered anywhere else, and this type of humour, like the Billy the Dog stories, and the newspaper reporter pieces, are not done elsewhere. If no one liked them, I would not publish them. But when it is a case of some do, and some don’t then yes, they do get published.
@IvoryGoonz:
I’m not sure that I even follow you on that post, and I have no idea how to respond to you… I guess I’ll just have to clarify that I have never had any intention whatsoever to “slag off” Lady Nina, and that I actually have nothing but full support for the Lady and her pornographic odyssies with various lovers…
@Anne- Had to read the whole article to make a judgement on it. I Cant judge an article based simply on the name of the article.
@Shard:
Considering the amount of time that I currently devote to watching football (and commenting on football blogs 🙂 ), I think it’s pretty obvious that I agree with you that it is always “more fun to watch sport played on skill and instinct rather than a carefully charted out plan.”
I used to like basketball, but I don’t even follow it anymore now that the NBA season lasts 10 months and you have to watch a match every night (complete with commercial breaks) to even follow it.
But anyway, to sum up, if you want me to give you a complete explanation of Americans and their obsessions with various sports, I’m certainly capable of doing that… However, I demand, and I mean that I absolutely DEMAND, that you first give me an explanation of Cricket…And that’s all that I have to say about that 🙂
If we keep nasri, fab and clichy and add the right signings, we’re in an awesome position. Has the damage already been done though? looks like it.
If clichy leaves, we need a LB. To get a better LB than clichy we’ll need to spend more than we get for him. If fab and nasri go, well, where does that leave us. we wouldn’t be able to replace them with the same quality since we simply wouldn’t have the pulling power. Also, to get the quality of nasri and fab you’d need to spend more than we’d get for them.
personally, i don’t think clichy has tweetered anyhthing. there’s no doubt that this situation of losing all 3 is real though. very real. we have little power over nasri and clichy. fabregas is the only one we have any power over. I just hope we don’t feel the need to do him any favours by selling him for cheaper. At the end of the day, he’s got 4 years left. You wouldn’t have seen united selling ronaldo for anything cheap if he had 4 years left. 80 million they got for him. And while that’s unlikely for fabregas, anything less than 50 should be flat out rejected.
At the end of the day, fabregas is the only one we can really do anything about, so i think we stand firm. because if we lose all 3, then we are looking at finishing outside the top 4 for CERTAIN. And i don’t use that word lightly. Others would inevitably follow and it might be a long way back.
We therefore need to stand firm over fabregas and hope nasri signs a new contract.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/13984029.stm
Enough said. Wenger is losing the plot and he admitted he expects to see a lot of transfer activity at the end of July – meaning he knows his beloved squad is off – Excellent news for me as I feel we need to dismantle this whole useless squad and start all over again
Do keep them coming Tony ,I ‘ve always enjoyed such articles and
the weirder the better.With satire you don’t need logic nor do you require facts – gives us both barrels !
The decent thing for those who don’t appreciate humour is to move on and not pass snide/ignorant remarks . Neither a twit nor a twat be – is what I always say !
Anne,
In US football people (clock) are used to replays, they cut to a commercial break on TV, and it can become part of the drama both on the field and on TV. Four hours to watch is emotional – that’s an exaggeration and US football is, for better or worse, the most popular US sport. No dent in fan passion for the delays. The point is that it gets it right and that does impact the flow and thus potential outcome of a game. In US baseball (no clock), there’s a short break on the field and they usually get the clock right. In pro (NHL) ice hockey (clock), there was/is (not sure) review by league HQ with a short delay. In tennis (no clock) there’s challenges with electronic review. There’s so much controversy over calls in EPL soccer, as you know, that it could well do with a half season trial period for that reason alone. If it unduly slows the game, people will not be shy, hardly, about removing it. But in this one case and the climate of Greek scandal and UEFA’s contradictory actions (flagging 41 suspicious matches and condemning tech replay), your argument is not on the side of an even playing field.
p.s. While the US football (helmets) replay does impact the flow, it’s not for long, and when it matters there is drama; but, most of all, “getting it right” in so short a season (only 16 games plus playoffs), getting it right really matters even more. Lastly, I suggest that the threat of replay might even speed up the game on the pitch – if it were applied by an umpire in the sky (off the pitch) – who ruled that player x (we all know names) actually dived. Game flow is often interrupted and potentially decided by divers.
Shard,
In US basketball, Many time-outs have plays drawn up by the coach on the sidelines, depending on the situation, and put into play. You make that sound robotic, but that’s a caricature. Sometimes the plays are brilliant, sometimes they fall apart in execution, but they add a dimension to the drama and sometimes an interesting talking point both during and after the game. But to make it sound like a puppet-master and his wind-up toys is off the mark. Also, sending in plays during US football with specialized offensive and defensive teams and kicking teams has been going on for a long time and is like a (violent) chess game. But it happens fast and does not take away from the look and feel or drama of the actual game as played and the fan experience itself. This said, US football is not my preferred cup of tea (though some moments and playoff games are brilliant), but it’s definitely not this mechanical uncreative thing that you’ve described.
@bob:
I definitely understand the potential merits of going to a video replay system in the EPL. But please don’t try to tell me that what has happened to American football, ie with the matches lasting 4 hours and all, has caused “no dent in fan passion for the delays.” Do I not live here, after all? Am I not in a position to describe to you the exact impact that it has had?
And what I can tell you is that the sheer amount of TIME that it takes to follow a professional sport in this country is absolutely killing all of our professional sports! Personally, due to the time issues, I don’t even follow any of them anymore…
So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I can certainly see uses for video technology in football, and I think that there are ways to do it without having to halt the flow of play. However, at the same time, please don’t write off these potential “delay of game” issues as if they’re nothing.
@bob
If I felt it was entirely mechanical I would not have watched it enough to know anything about it. Oh, and no need to tell me how great basketball is. It was actually my first love. I think you missed my last sentence there where I said that maybe I haven’t been able to express what I mean properly. So I guess I didn’t. The point still stands though that Americans seemingly love games where plays are drawn up and called by the coaches.
@Anne
How do I go about doing that? Do you have any idea about it? 🙂
Anne,
I live in the US, so I have my own life-long take on US sports. On this one, with collegial respect, you’re not a unique voice.
Anne,
The time delays are not fatal, nor are they nothing. There needs to be pressure for something to be tried. And some level of neutral, objective technology needs to be brought to bear to have a level playing field. My point is that something practical actually needs to be tried or the same ref-shite problems will never be mitigated. Some combination or even one of Video replay, and/or mic on the ref, and/or publishing PGMOL reports, and/or post-match ref press conferences, and/or pre-match ref assignment needs to be tried or nothing will ever change. Again, Platini and Bladder will continue to circle the wagons and invoke the sacred traditions of the game to falsely protect their play thing with all the potentials for everything bent that we well know.
@Shard:
How do you go about loving a game where plays are drawn up and called by the coaches? Well, I guess you either love it or you hate it…:)
If you really want me to answer that question, I guess I’m going to to have to try to sell you on the Georgia Bulldogs come September…:)
@bob:
Really?! Where do you live? I guess I’ve always just assumed that most people I encounter on here are coming from outside the US.
Anne,
just a wee hint: the very place where, ManUre’s strategic media partner (alas!) plays its baseball. and whilst detesting the former, I root for the latter (which most of our playmates consider the evil empire). but there’s one massive compensation: I do get to see TH play on a regular basis. (and please, no push back on sherman’s march to the sea!)
@bob:
I honestly don’t know enough about baseball these days to figure out which team you’re referring to. When you mention TH, are you saying that you live in NY? 🙂
And as for Sherman’s march to the sea…Well, so long as you don’t actually ADMIT that you’re a yankee, it’s probably safe for you to come ’round these here parts if you ever want to visit me, because I won’t rat you out. 🙂
However, I might force you into a tour of hundreds of graves that exist within a mile of my house…Because maybe then you would be slightly less flippant about the repercussions of Sherman’s march to the sea…
new york new york!