First Half Alekhinetroll and the Raiders of the Lost Arsenal
"But oh, whatever of worst ill betide,
Choose not this manner to evade your woe:
Be true to God
on Him in faith abide
And sure deliverance you at length shall know
It may be that some path his hand will show
To your dear earthly homes
or He will shape For you at length
a way of glad escape."
TRENCH.
As the day dawns Wilshere and Wenger enter.
Wilshere carries his sword in a sword-belt of rope.
Wenger examines the place carefully.
At last he looks towards the background,
which remains in deep shadow,
whist the rising ground in the
middle becomes, after a time,
more and more brightly illuminated
by the SUN.
Wenger:
Our journey ends here;
Here we halt.
Wilshere:
[Sits down under the lime-tree and looks about him.]
So here I shall learn what fear is?
A far way thou hast led me;
We have wandered lone together
A whole night long in the woods.
This is the last
Of thee, Mime!
Can I not master
My lesson here,
Alone I will push forward
And never see thee again.
tHe OrWellian
Spending the night out of doors has nothing attractive about it in London, especially for a poor, ragged, undernourished wretch. Moreover sleeping in the open is only allowed in one thoroughfare in London. If the policeman on his beat finds you asleep, it is his duty to wake you up. That is because it has been found that a sleeping man succombs to the cold more easily than a man who is awake, and England could not let one of her sons die in the street. So you are at liberty to spend the night in the street, providing it is a sleepless night. But there is one road where the homeless are allowed to sleep. Strangely, it is the Thames Embankment, not far from the Houses of Parliament. We advise all those visitors to England who would like to see the reverse side of our apparent prosperity to go and look at those who habitually sleep on the Embankment, with their filthy tattered clothes, their bodies wasted by disease, a living reprimand to the Parliament in whose shadow they lie.
"Beggars in London"
Public opinion
because of the tremendous urge to conformity
in gregarious animals
is less tolerant than any system of law
If you take the private finance out of PFI, you haven’t got much left . . .
if you transfer the financial risk back to the public sector
then that has to be reflected in the structure of the contracts
The public sector cannot simply step in and lend the money to itself
taking more risk so that the PFI structure can be maintained
while leaving the private sector with the high returns these projects can bring
That seems to us fairly ridiculous.
Alekhine Troll: Wenger!
Arsené Wenger: Good afternoon, Dr. Troll!
Troll: I ought to baptise you right now!
Wenger: Not a very private place for a immersion!
Troll: Well, these guys don't care if we baptise each other. They're not going to interfere in our business.
Wenger: ... [Alekhine then sits down while the monkey then crawls off his shoulder.] I see your taste in friends remains consistent. How odd that it should end this way for us, after so many stimulating encounters. I almost regret it. Where shall I find a new adversary so close to my own level?
Troll: Try the local Stamford Bridge.
Wenger: You and I are very much alike. Football is our religion, yet we have both fallen from the purer faith. Out methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am a shadowy refelction of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me, to push you out of the light.
Troll: Now you're getting nasty.
Wenger: You know it's true. How nice. Look at this. [holds out a pocket watch.] It's worthless. Ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless...like the Arsenal. Men will kill for it. Men like you and me.
You also will be drunken
You will be hidden
You also will seek a stronghold because of the enemy.
All your "Arsenal" will be like fig trees
with the first-ripe figs
if they are shaken
they fall into the mouth of the eater.
