Up the Arse

On Thursday we welcomed Manchester's Queer Vegan poet Dominic Berry to the shop for the London launch of his new collection of poetry 'Tomorrow I Will Go Dancing'. It was a great evening and after the success of our last poetry event with Myra Schneider, I'd hoped that someone (anyone) from one (any) of our local poetry societies would be brave enough to break out of the safety of their prospective clubs and join us. Alas, despite of very good crowd, they weren't part of the audience.
Here's Dominic, posing beautifully for the camera. He was joined by another poet (from Liverpool) John Leyland, and together the evening was a right old corker.
Thankyou

And so to today's non bookshop event.

I was very very lucky to be invited by my very good friend Alister to watch Arsenal play Manchester United at the Emirates today.
Flippin' eck. We joined the throng on our way to the ground, and the atmosphere was electric. There wasn't a really positve attitude toward Arsenals chances, and I have to say I wasn't expecting Mr Wenger's red and white army to produce the goods.
The stadium is spectacular and over 60,000 fans turned up to watch.

United started as expected, and within 30 seconds had won an indirect free kick inside the penalty area , and from then on poured forward and had countless chances. Rooney was as ugly as I expected, meaning he had a really ugly attitude and was constantly sulking and moaning to the ref. Berbatov was sublime at times, and Ronaldo was given all the protection in the world by the suspiciously biased ref. Please bear in mind I don't support Arsenal (the mighty Bristol City continue their charge with a 1-0 win today), but they played with a great passion and Nasri was brilliant. It was against the run of play when The Arse scored, but Nasri's deflected goal wasn't a huge surprise. There could have been 5 goals beforehand. Half time came and Alister looked pensive.
The second half was as fast paced and exciting as the first and Arsenal scored again early on when Nasri knocked in a great shot. The Arse were beginning to enjoy themselves and the speedy Theo Walcott and the much under rated Bendtner were very dangerous, and could have put a goal or two more in.
In the style of all big football matches Arsenal then decided that holding on to a 2-0 lead was the thing to do, and United pressed some more.
In the last couple of minutes of normal time, the very unpleasant Raphael scored a cracking goal, and then the 4th official held up the board that announced 6 minutes of added time.
Arsenal held on and probably deserved it.
Here's Alister a relieved man.

I got into the spirit of things too.

A brilliant game, and a brilliant day.
I have an announcemant regarding my poor betting ability on Monday, so hold onto your hats for that.