Of Mice and Men

I have been rather preoccupied over the past week or so with some work and the odd birthday celebration. There have been new developments -- at home as well as on the footballing front...

First things first -- football. I lambasted Arsenal's performance against Fulham in my last proper post. Yes, it was a shameful display for a club with Champion's League/League Title ambitions. However, that said, we got the response we wanted from Wenger and the team. First against Shteve Mclaren's FC Twente, (4 goal romp. Thank you very much!) and then a 3-0 football exhibition against Keegan's Barcodes. 'Going Home' is not much fun when you're going empty handed with a pea-brained convict (not to mention - a twat) on your team.

The transfer window has been shut, bolted, locked, blocked by a large steel cupboard with a 16 tonne weight on top, covered with radioactive waste and guarded by an army of specially trained, cucumber-weilding grasshoppers. In other words, silly season is over -- for now. It has been a strange-ish transfer window where we lost a huge chunk of our team.

Exits
Mad Jens - VfB Stuttgart (Bosman)
Alex 'The Ice Cream Man' Hleb - Barcelona (£11.8m)
Mattheiu Flattuso - AC Milan (Bosman)
Gilberto 'Invisible Man' Silva - Panathanikos (£1m)
Justin Hoyte - Middlesborough (£3m)
Big Phil Senderos - AC Milan (1 year loan deal)
Armand 'Armed and Dangerous at White Hart Lane' Traore - Portsmouth (1 year loan deal)

Entrants
Amaury 'Crocked' Bischoff - Werder Bremen (Undisclosed)
Samir 'The New Zidane? More like the New Pires!' Nasri - L'OM (£11m)
Aaron 'Rambo' Ramsey - Cardiff (£5m)
Mikael 'Goldfish' Silvestre - Man-chester United (undisc.)

Well, it is safe to say that we're sorta light in the DM department. Nonetheless, Arsene knows! He has suggested that Eboue could fill the gap in the middle, but we're yet to see if that is the effective solution. He has now converted Eboue from a mercurial right-wing back to an ineffective right winger and now it seems that the man from the Ivory Coast will make one more transition -- the nonsense, hard man of midfield. (Hardy Har! Har! Har!)

Emmanuel Eboue exploring his softer side.

What he does provide is direct running, rolling around on the pitch, ridiculous goal celebration routines with Adebayor, and the occasional assist. More importantly, he's not a goal scoring midfielder but neither was Gilberto or Flamini to be honest. Still, I'm not sure Eboue would be as effective or as feared as Flamini in the middle. I mean, when the team is not having a good day and a Michael Jackson look-alike decides to pull out the party tricks to the chorus of 'Ole!'s, you need someone who can stamp it out...

That is a hard act to follow and I'm not sure Eboue is the man I'd pick, then again, he may not need to be that man and perhaps we'll see something different from one of the other players -- something we didn't know already.

Closer to home, namely -- Casa del Manchas, there has been a small invasion of sorts. First they were giant, flesh tearing ants (who are still around) and now it is mice. So where have they been coming from? I haven't a clue! And no, I haven't been secretly playing Jumanji.

This house has been around for over 40 years and this is the first time we've had to face something like this. So far we've discovered a large mouse trying to climb out of the dustbin, and then the mouse trap caught this little fella on Saturday night. We didn't kill either, because well, we're not into the mouse extermination business. The first bugger was tied up in two plastic bags with the trash and ingeniously left right outside my house by my wondefully, intelligent part-timer, Sushma di. (Please to note sarcasm) Within the span of 10minutes, Mouse #1 had torn both bags, spewing trash all over the gutter lane, and escaped into the darkness.

The little chap who was caught in the mouse trap was a crafty little devil who chewed away a corner to escape while we were out to dinner. Fortunately, he didn't go scampering away back into the house, as I had to come back home briefly to send a contact detail to a friend, which is when I heard him gnawing away at the wood. Since I couldn't deal with the bugger there and then, I decided to remove the trap from the house and out onto the landing outside, just in case he decided to emulate Houdini. Sure enough, when we got home we found the trap empty and no trace of Jerry Houdini but tiny shards of wood.

This morning's edition of The Grapevine claims that the mouse menace has struck both floors below our flat. One was apparently found swimming in a commode while the other was KIA. So far, our mouse trap has been baited with things like pumpkin and, more recently, something called Kerala halwa (which looks nothing like proper North-Indian halwa). However, the rodent community seems to have sent out circulars to all infiltrators to steer clear of such tasty morsels in wooden boxes.

When you have a mouse in the house you must spend some time browsing through youtube for interesting mousetrap designs...



I also came across an elaborate setup (which any self respecting mouse will probably avoid given the effort involved in getting to the bait), and as always the PETA are around to make money off you with their design which looks fucking ridiculous.

Fucking ridiculous mouse-trap design

A wise man whose face was hidden once said, "*Sheesh!*". Thank you, wise man whose face is still hidden.

I noted that this mouse infestation has coincided with the emergence of PCI 'No Parking' signs all the way down my lane and all over my area. PCI, of course, stands for Pest Control India. Conspiracy theory? I'm not going to completely discount one.

Anyway, I'm off to have some cheese before Jerry Houdini gets to it! And for all those mice reading my blog...'Mi Casa no es Tu Casa'.