Au Revoir Aubin…
Even though Aubin & Wills is soon to be no more, its nice to see that Jack Wills’ older sibling decided to keep up its seasonal Christmas film, this time starring Liberty Ross and Alex James.
quipx
Fashion to Fiction. Eccentric to Everyday. Style with Substance.
Archive for the month “November, 2012”
The Not So Grim Reaper
Whilst the English poet Rupert Brooke evoked death in his sonnet to show that, among the horror and carnage of war, those who sacrificed their lives did not do so in vain, one can always look to the Australians for a more grimly comic contemporary treatise on death.
Don’t Bottle It
If the Big Soda corporations thought they might be able to satisfy their more environmentally conscious consumers by highlighting their recycling credentials, they may find they need to rethink their approach in light of an amusingly provocative new television campaign for SodaStream – “If you love the bubble, set them free”.
Developed in part by highly acclaimed and influential advertising innovators Alex Bogusky and Rob Schuham of the COMMON agency and directed by Daniel Benmayor, the advert skilfully demonstrates how the home-carbonation system is seeking to make bottles largely redundant.
Admittedly, SodaStream has the unique competitive advantage that, barring the different flavoured syrups, it doesn’t need bottles to deliver its product. It’s pretty hard to argue with the fact that no matter how much you try to recycle, it will never be as effective and getting rid of the bottle in the first place. A single plastic bottle in a landfill site takes 450 years to biodegrade and we are only effectively recycling 30% of our plastic bottles. That’s before we even touch on the carbon footprint involved in producing the bottles.
“There are an alarming 460 billion bottles and cans manufactured every year, of which the vast majority – nearly one billion per day- are dumped as waste across parks, oceans and landfills. We challenge the entire beverage industry and its arguably outdated business model, showing people that when you can make soda straight from tap water, there exists a smarter choice,” noted the CEO of SodaStream Daniel Birnbaum.
SodaStream have worked with the celebrated designer Yves Béhar who designed “The Source” model in addition to hosting pop-up SodaStream bars at the Milan Design Festival, the V&A in London and the window of Harrods.
This is evidently a multi-channel assault on the global sparkling beverage industry. An industry that is increasingly finding itself outflanked on environmental and sustainability issues.
Déjà vu
As a cultured, educated and erudite Frenchman, Arsene Wenger should be acutely aware of how the Gallic expression déjà vu has come to symbolise and often epitomise aspects of his ‘project’ at Arsenal in recent years. The reasoning and analytical skills honed during his degree in economics enable him to appreciate that whether it is the lack of silverware at the end of seven consecutive seasons, the departure of marquee players from the club or failing to remain in contention for the Premiership title towards the end of the season, there is collectively a sensation that we have experienced this before.
The fans, including myself, range from the merely disgruntled to the outright mutinous with fewer and fewer willing to stand unquestioningly by the philosophy of ‘In Arsene We Trust’. The worst start to a Premiership campaign since it began in 1992, with recent defeats to Norwich City and Manchester United (painful for different reasons), did not augur well for the North London derby with Tottenham Hotspur.
Admittedly our rivals for 4th place hadn’t had an ideal start to their season but they humbled Manchester United at the Theatre of Dreams whereas, a fortnight ago, we went up there and suffered the same recurring nightmare: defensive frailties, lack of composure and very little in terms of creating chances. The 2-1 result was the equivalent of a housewife’s M&S tummy tucker spandex. It flattered us when seen in print, and in the light of the 8-2 defeat last season, but there was no doubt that, over the course of 90 minutes, we looked well past our prime.
I should clarify that I’m not one of those masochistic fans that revel in such morose reflection but it serves to set the scene and encapsulate the apprehensions of most Arsenal fans before today’s game. Only the blindly optimistic would have been confident in the team putting in a flawless performance.
Watching it in a pub in Muswell Hill, the initial shouts and jeers in this converted church were exclusively from the Spurs congregation. In the guise of heathen interlopers, the Arsenal fans were eerily quiet and when William Gallas seized on an opportunity to score what looked to be the opening goal, the church erupted. My heart sank but the offside flag signalled a false alarm. Silent relief as I continued counting my pagan beads.
To paraphrase the redoubtable Lady Bracknell, to be caught out defensively once might be regarded as a misfortune, but twice looks like carelessness and within a minute, Emmanuel Adebayor, the scourge of the Arsenal fans nipped between the Arsenal defence and found the back of the net. One nil down to Tottenham on the stroke of ten minutes. The only consolation was that it had taken them twice as long as the current Judas Iscariot, Robin Van Persie, who had scored for Manchester United before the clock had struck five.
Déjà vu.
This was going to be a long and painful match. For the benefit of Le Professeur, a few other choice phrases came to mind, the printable ones being along the lines of “quelle surprise”, “plus ca change”, etc.
And then it happened. As if the footballing deities looked down at us with pity and thought “…this is taking it a bit far. Emmanuel Adebayor opening the scoring against his old club in the North London derby? Could this be the same Emmanuel Adebayor who, when he played for Manchester City (he gets around) ran the entire length of the pitch to taunt the Arsenal fans after he scored. No, agreed, this isn’t on.”
So quickly did he turn from hero to villain that it could only put it down to divine intervention. A recklessly high and dangerous challenge on St Cazorla brought forth a red card and instant dismissal. We downed our beads and cheered. The joy of seeing him dismissed not unlike The Ecstasy of St Theresa. Maybe, just maybe this would turn out okay.
The incident had the desired impact on the players as they seemed more confident, decisive, incisive and daring in the knowledge they had a numerical advantage for the remaining seventy-three minutes. And thus it proved. Walcott charging down the right wing put in a perfect cross for Per Merterseckar to rise up and head in his debut goal for Arsenal. 1-1. Not wishing to be outdone by his fellow German international, Lucas Podolski then gave Arsenal the lead with a fortunate deflection off William Gallas. From being a goal down, Arsenal were flying. 2-1. As if to remind the Germans that the French contingent were not exactly idle, Olivier Giroud took the opportunity to slot home a third before half time.
It would have been a little remiss if St Cazorla, the architect of so much of Arsenal’s best movement was denied a chance to get Spain on the scoresheet and after a soaring run into the box, Podolski laid across a perfectly weighted pass to make it four. Joy, sheer, unadulterated joy. Well, almost unadulterated. For with this Arsenal team, even with a three goal lead, one can never be certain they won’t squander it. Thinking back to last season, I remember speculating with fans as to how far ahead would Arsenal need to be before you could be sure they would take all three points? Eight? Ten? Fifteen? It may seem absurd, but when Arsenal choose to collectively press their self-destruct button, it is a sight to behold.
Therefore, when Gareth Bale weaved his way through the napping defence to peg a goal back, it looked for a while as if they had done just that. Time to hunt around the floor for those beads again. It was only in injury time when Oxlade-Chamberlain set up England teammate Theo Walcott to make it five that we could be sure the game was won. A truly remarkable victory.
Interestingly, in the same fixture last season Arsenal came from two goals down to rout Spurs 5-2.
For once, it was Tottenham fans feeling a rather uncomfortable sense of déjà vu.
Sunny
North London based writer and commentator on lifestyle, fashion, music and culture. Working in PR, aficianado of crime fiction and perpetually optimistic Arsenal fan.
