Went out last night, round to some friends; he’s a Newcastle fan in fact, so we didn’t speak about football. Its too sore for him, too depressing for me. But before we left, I caught just a little of the Arsenal match. Sunderland at the Emirates, fighting for their very existence. And doing it pretty well. Actually doing it not-very-pretty well. Parking buses, defending in numbers, and it worked. A nil-all draw. Perfect for Sunderland. A continuing malaise for the Arse who, having gone from their loss at Spurs in January to winning every game for 3 months, have now gone into something of a slump. They haven’t scored a goal in their last 3 home games. And yet at times, they can be spectacular. After a rare Sunderland attack Arsenal went on the break. They moved the ball fast, very fast, up the pitch, one-touch football quite superb to watch. Four passes and the ball was sweetly struck across the box into the path of Jack Wilshere, moving in from the right, unmarked.

It was a Messi moment. He too always attacks down the right hand side, so he can cut in onto his favoured left foot. Like Jack Wilshire. The difference being that Messi would have scored last night and Wilshire didn’t. Ok, perhaps its not a fair comparison. Messi is the best in the world and possibly the best ever. And Wilshere was delayed for a moment whilst he put out his cigarette. But his touch let him down and the keeper beat him to the ball, and got injured doing it. And I thought: ‘what a shame’. That was the goal of the season right there if that fantastic move had ended with a bulging net.

Wasn’t to be. He failed. Arsenal, for all their pretty play, didn’t score, Sunderland dodged the bullet, avoiding relegation and all was good in the land. Unless you’re a Newcastle or Hull fan. Do Hull even have any fans?

In the slot in today’s Times normally reserved for kale, alfalfa, beansprouts, seaweed and other ingredients of the dreaded green slime and other inedible fucking ‘wonderfoods’, there is instead, for today only, a feature on hamburgers. Therefore hamburgers must be healthy. And you don’t even need a blender before you eat them.

I’ve been banging on about hamburgers for years. They are the perfect food. Knives and forks are just soooooo pretentious. And there’s pictures of Prince Harry and Helena Bonham Carter and even President Obama, as part of the ‘burger tribes’. As if you need celebrity endorsement to eat MY favourite food. As if the hamburger is a new creation, designed by Byron, enhanced by ShakeShack, ‘taken to a new level’ by Hache. Bollox. Hamburgers are the true food of the Gods, with Ambrosia being seriously overrated and slimy. Eat one today. And then another.

Happy Burger Day

A xxxx