Ian Tanner
Holding my pint of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord (no cold, fizzy, tasteless lager for me!), I found a vacant table. Real ale to drink, and an unsullied issue 245 of The Gooner to read whilst doing so. Bliss. Turning first to page 3, as one does, the left-hand article was titled: The Bloke Down The Pub Told Me. Only then did I notice my two nearest neighbours, who were all smiles. “Eighteen years and counting”, said one (let’s call him Dixon), as they raised their glasses (both half-full, I noticed). ‘Fellow Gooners’, I thought, ‘And not only that, fellow Arsene Knows Bests’. Like myself, they weren’t wearing any merchandise, official or otherwise. Plainclothes Gooners, moreover. “Sorry to interrupt”, I said, “But I’m also an Arsenal and Arsene fan. To think that he was Mr Who? when he arrived eighteen years ago!”.
“We aren’t football fans”, said the second (let’s call him Winterburn, though, looking down, I noticed that he did have a right foot), “We’re global warming sceptics. We’re just celebrating a little-known fact: “The Pause” – by which I mean the pause in 20th century global warming – has now lasted eighteen years. You probably haven’t heard the news; after all, George Clooney’s recent nuptials were far more newsworthy”. I didn’t much like Winterburn’s sarcasm but let it pass.
“Oh! But surely 97% of scientists cannot be wrong?”, I attempted. “Listen mate”, said Dixon, we’ve a friend who supports your boys and he posed a ridiculous theory just to emphasise that correlation does not equal causation. Apparently Arsenal won some trophy in 1998?”
“Two! The Premier League and FA Cup “Double””, I asserted. “Whatever”, Dixon continued, “1998 was the recent peak year so beloved of “global warmers” – or at least it was at the time. And didn’t you do rather well in 2004? That was also a very warm year, at least by the standards of the last 150 years or so.”
“2004”, I said, reminiscing and supping. “We won the League without losing a game! No team, before or since, has achieved that other than Preston North End in the league’s inaugural year, 1888-89!”
“Calm down, calm down!”, said Winterburn, in his non-Scouse accent.
“But it gets better”, continued Dixon. “Our Arsenal mate says that your heyday was the 1930s …”
“It most certainly was. Seven major trophies in nine years – twelve if you include the Charity Shield (which I don’t, incidentally)”, I interrupted. “But what of it?”
“Well, the 30s was an extremely warm decade. Some people believe that 1934 was even hotter than 1998!”
“We won the old Division 1 that year, but where’s all this leading?”
“Everywhere and nowhere, baby”, said Dixon. Winterburn guffawed.
“Don’t you see?”, Dixon continued, “When it’s unusually warm, your football team has won trophies. Now, ask yourself this: do Arsenal play better when it’s warm – our mate says many fans think so – or does the temperature increase when Arsenal play better? Or is it all just a coincidence?”
Talk about the pub bore or, rather, bores, dear reader. Before I could excuse myself, the blokes down the pub also told me that there is a correlation between temperatures and carbon dioxide levels. Temperature rises (and falls) lead the rises (and falls) of CO2 levels, though, not the other way around. What’s more, the lead time may be between 600 and 800 years, or so they reckoned. Dixon and Winterburn, I concluded, had had one over the Arteta (= Podolski, geddit?).
If the above were true, I’m sure our many and varied organs of truth would have informed us that temperatures are the same level now as when Bruce Rioch was sacked. I’m just repeating what those two blokes down the pub told me. Please don't shoot the messenger, I'm just repeating...
