Theo should be ready for the next game

The problem is, that means the next game for England.

On a different matter, one of the interesting things about yesterday’s little piece about the Lord Wenger leaving the club was the way the commentaries on the piece could be analysed. Including not just the comments that went up on the site, but also those I received directly, it worked out at something like this…

50% thought it amusing or downright funny (one reader burst out laughing at one line – I am most grateful to you sir, you brightened my day considerably, and I must admit the “Eboue because he is Eboue” line made me smile too, and I wrote it)

20% thought I was criticising Wenger – and virtually every one of those swore like buggery at me – which is fair enough – everyone to his own opinion

10% thought the piece was stupid, pathetic, childish, and made me look stupid, which I guess is also fair enough since presumably I have every right under Magna Carta to make myself look like a prat if I want to

20% criticised others for not getting the joke in the first place – and I must say although I don’t criticise I couldn’t quite get myself around the idea that the piece could be read as an anti-Wenger piece.

What’s clear (as it has been clear I guess since the very first joke was cracked – which makes me think, what was the very first joke?) is that most things which some think are somewhat amusing, annoy others. I thought the “Wrong Door” on BBC3 earlier this year was the funniest thing since Monty Python, but most of my friends never got the joke at all. I don’t think Mitchell and Webb are funny, but they get awards and stuff. I find the Tiny Fantasists down the Lane endlessly amusing. So it goes.

One thing I would disagree on however is that I didn’t think the piece was sarcastic. More, post-modern ironic I think. Perhaps we should debate this at length.

Anyway, what I do find fascinating is that while anyone who has absolutely nothing better to do than to read my ramblings from time to time will undoubtedly know that this is a blog that is totally pro-Wenger, covers football finance and indulges in what I (but clearly not everyone) consider to be humour, some readers come here for the first time and clearly get the wrong end of the stick.

I’m not sure what to do about this – should I post a health warning on each note? Maybe something like…

“Some of the pieces on this blog are meant to be funny. Because I am not a very good writer, and because different people’s senses of humour differ (probably due to evolutionary effects dating back to the New Stone Age) you might not get the joke, but that is more likely to be my fault rather than yours, and I am happy to take the blame.”

That should do it.

If you have been, thanks for reading. If not, well, I can’t think what to say.

Tony