Before you can even say 'commemorative dvd', let's just reflect on this not only being a game of two halves but of alternative worlds. Part 1 - the natural order of things - we trounce the Totts again and again. Part 2 - We are no better that that which we cannot name, in fact they are quite useful.

I have read enough Phil Dick novels to realize that either I have inadvertently taken some wildly hallucinogenic substance like Chew Z and am in a cruel universe at the mercy of an omnipotent god or that I have a false memory of Arsenal always being utterly superior at home - especially to Spurs. That man did give me his free Mars bars after all – was it kosher or laced? Has that FSB radiation leached into the drinking water at the stadium or are the team replaced at half time by some existentially confused simulacras, with the exception of Arshavin, who cannot compute that 2-0 against the oldest of enemies is just the start?

My eldest son was not even a foetus when we last lost to them, my youngest refused to go because he thinks we're a bit rubbish at home this season. Replace learning curve with one of those flat lines at the end of the hospital drama before they pull the plug. And we're still in it - nah must be the drugs, the Blue Meanies lost again? Not so much a topsy turvy world as what loose change feels like in a washing machine. Don't know where this journey will end but am feeling rather dizzy.

Away all points, home is not where we hang our hat or anything else for that matter except our confidence, ruthlessness and superiority.

I want back in the old universe and now.