Hello there, welcome to a brand new ars blog arscast right here on ars blog dot com.

Hope you're well. It is the very first one of 2011 and no doubt I find you at this moment in time up to your neck in your New Year's resolutions, the fitness regimes, putting the debauchery of the festive season behind you, getting rid of those few extra pounds that have been packed on with the booze and the drink and the drink and the booze and the booze and the drinking and the cake and the sweets and crisps and turkey and everything else. January will be a good month. It will be and it's been good so far 2011 for arscastle hasn't it? Unbeaten?

Get to concede a goal? Start as you mean to go on as they say and should we continue in the same vein? I predict quite confidently a rather happy end to the season. Unless of course we draw every game nil nil between now and may. Even then you could draw every game nil nil and still win the Champions League, couldn't you? Provided you were good at penalty shootouts? Can't see that happening. Not everyone plays like Manchester City. Do they are coming up on this week's show?

If you play about all the bits and pieces that have been going on, internet show will be along, we've got talk shite radio and we'll be looking ahead to the games in the carlin cup against Dave Switch and of course in the FA Cup against filthy nasty despicable horrendous awful leads. If you don't know why leads are filthy despicable horrendous nasty and awful, I'll explain it to you a bit later on but sure do you know already why? Why that is? It's because well their leads. So since we last spoke, the year has gone.

And well as I said New Year's Day, a trip to Birmingham away, a place where we've conceded last minute equalizers and last minute goals, rather too often. And a place which holds some bad memories of course because of the Eduardo incident and the fallout from that game and everything else, you know that season when we should have been champions but weren't. So New Year's Day, you're thinking, well I've got a bit of a hangover, this could go badly. It didn't go badly. Birmingham were a bit rough. They were. I thought the tackle on SESC having seen it again a couple of times on replays.

This was bad Roger Johnson, a name which really doesn't conjure up the footballer. Does it know Roger Johnson is an alcoholic solicitor or a tiling expert. Need your bathroom tile to call to Roger Johnson's tiles. Anyway, he was to get some back in the shape of the own goal. But we did extremely well. I thought overall played good football. Bit of luck on the first goal. Perhaps wasn't a free kick. Perhaps.

But it definitely hit Boyer's hand on the way through. So if it didn't go in, it should have been a penalty. And of course, Birmingham were looking for their own penalty with a handball on Robin Van Persian. You know, you've seen them given the ball hits the hand. But by that rationale, Arsenal should have had a penalty against Manchester City the other night. Company had his hand sort of there and it just sort of hit it. And Van Persian was trying to head the ball and he missed the ball and it just sort of landed on his arm. It wasn't that he gave it a good swat away. And when things were getting a little bit dodgy, Nazari popped up with a brilliant second.

And then Fabregas and Nazari, interchanging, intertwining, bamboozling the Birmingham defense and making them look like the big, slow, useless, clogging cuts that they are people say Birmingham don't lose an awful lot of games at home.

I would have to ask why? How is that possible because they were pretty terrible. Maybe they gave it everything they got against Manchester United, but they were shot. Let's face it.

And Lee Boyer stamping on Sanya, raking his studs down Sanya's Achilles. You expect nothing less from Lee Boyer because he is simply Lee Boyer and he gets a three match ban on the back of that.

Rather ironically, Sanya's got a three match ban after the man city game for a little bit of rotting, you might say, with Zabba Letter. And I don't think we can complain too much about that. And of course, it was the TV coverage ESPN, which I have canceled in the meantime.

Because I watched the game on ESPN. I had to sit there and listen to John champion who is probably the most snide pass remarkable commentator that there is.

I don't like many of them. Most of them annoy me, but champion in particular always seems to be looking for an angle. And it's not just arstile. I have to say, I'm not just doing this with my arstile hat on because I've heard him commentate on other games.

And it's like, geez, if I was a fan of that team, I'd want to kill him. But Chris Waddle, who cannot speak English? And as someone who has a bit of a background in broadcasting and still works within that industry a little bit, it offends me to hear somebody who cannot speak English.

Now, I don't expect them all to be like Brian Soule, for example, speaking plummily and pronouncing words and using vocabulary beyond the reach of the common man. But I do expect, upon it, being paid money by a broadcasting organization to be able to speak in the correct tense.

I also expect him to be able to pronounce simple words like penalty, not penalty penalty. And I don't think it's unfair to expect a broadcaster to have certain standards and ESPN don't have those standards and didn't have those standards. So I rang them up and I canceled.

And that's that. I didn't get a chance to tell them why I was going to cancel because I rang up and you have to ring up sky. And I rang up and the guy said, hello, welcome to sky. And I said, I'd like to cancel ESPN, please. And I was expecting one of those, well, why are you going to cancel?

Is there anything we can do? We'll give you a half price. And he goes, yeah, all right. No problem. Right. It's canceled. So I didn't get a chance to tell them why I was canceling. But I did put it on Twitter. Maybe I'll write them a letter.

Tell them, dear ESPN, you are now slightly, slightly poorer this week because I canceled because of Chris Waddle.

And maybe when you get some people back who can speak English, then I might subscribe again.

But I don't think I want to pay any money to an organization that will have Chris Waddle as a pundit. And I know it opens up a can of worms because there's so many other desperate pundits.

I know Jamie Radnap. He's another one who can't speak in the correct dance. And it does. It does open up a can of worms. But you know, little steps, little fights, one at a time. Don't have me take them all on it once. I am only one man. Anyway, man city. There's a lot to come on the man city game.

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