Morning all.
Today @shotta_gooner and I look briefly at the Brighton game before discussing where were stand, who and why we are standing 8th. What can be done, what might be done, who is best placed to do it? Despite the dire season Arteta looks safe, why?
Pedantic George.
Positively Arsenal 
Cheers lads.
” its like watching a horror movie, and I dont like horror movies!”
That line seemed so witty in its conclusion of this years events that it made me laugh out loud (even if it wasnt orginal intended to be funny…)
To me not wanting to watch horror is positive in itself, as watching a horror movie is surely a form of masochism-self inducing traumas?
Although some games this year were closer to watching Andy Warhols films!?
Thanks again and keep on keepin on!
COYG!
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Did you go to a lot o Northern Souls do’s George?
Good track!
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I did indeed Mills.
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I bet it was a good time I knew a couple of lads in Halifax who were on the scene, and talked about how they went to the tailors and got their trousers alterered with inserts to make them like the old Oxford bags.
Were you a Mod before that?
Those djs dug up some cracking obscures recordings…if you were into dancing must have been amazing really.
Shame you cant do a blog on that would be really interesting to read.
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Or if not a blog a compilation mix of your top 10 Northern Soul numbers. Too much to hope for any video footage of you throwing a few shapes, I suppose, but I bet you looked good on the dance floor!
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Tim, oddly enough I won the first dancing competition at Wigan Casino allnighter. I also played this as the first ever record played there. My one claim to fame really, I had found it on a record stall that afternoon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DFqNOfYvJQ
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It went on to be the most famous northern soul record ever.
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It ended up as one of the three to end the night with every time ( or 3 before 8 as they we’re more famously known I have danced to that record a thousand times
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Hopefully our Northern Soul PA kings (G and I)can gives us some playlists like Tim said? Certainly would make the idea of the long summer seem a bit easier, it might break the rules, but schools out for a bit?
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Thanks George: much respect! Is the Northern Soul movie worth a watch?
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https://dailycannon.com/2021/05/granit-xhaka-named-in-premier-league-best-xi-of-the-season/amp/
As doubtful as it seems, I do hope he stays next season.
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I haven’t seen it Tim.
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I was listening to a guy tonight whose involved with developing AI and deals with questiions of ethics in how AI will operate and how you can develop morality in AI.
Anyway as he was going along he spoke of how humans have instrumental goals and terminal goals and they use these to set up the basic principles in response to problems, of course its a bloody nightmare, in the same way coding was in early 8bit (48k) games ie you have to cheat the processors to allowed for multi tasking (combing music and the graphics/scrolling action with various colours was almost impossible in 48k from what Ive read) and its similar in AI, as the greater the sweep of the programming the bigger the illogicallity as it tries to be logical and flaws and bugs arise as they always have despite it only ever being binary.
Of course all AI must be based on our own understanding of ourselves, which might not be that much(?).
Anyway I started thinking about the so called “fallow” years of Wenger, although he would have had a terminal goal of winning cups and league, once the double-barrelled bs of financing and the new financing of other clubs he only had one option: instrumetal goals.
Play the game, and bugger the rest of it. I wonder if he knew that it might take a long time to get back to being able to really try for a terminal goal like the league once he got back on the path suddenly FA Cup rolled in and probably he was back on target again( if he had been gven more time).
I think the misunderstanding of people who were totally upset that Arsenal werent no 1 were not really getting it anymore than they do now in expecting Arteta to pull it off-exaclty as G and S have thrashed out in the pod?
What are Artetas and the clubs goals? OK club =money, but hanging round mid table, anti euro, anti domestic cup runs means anti cash so thats dumb.
But Arteta doesnt even seem to have the instrumental goal of playing good foootball, as best as we can and it will work to some degree( of course the myth is we were 4th in all the fallow period, and its not true-but really we were repected as a club), but look at the highlights in the fallow period: fantastic football, always in top level euro competition,OK were all knew the top spot wasnt going to happen, but then look at the landscape, it was at its most tilted and difficult but we still had a kind of hope. By sticking to by playing great football and not overtly cheating or messing about with professional sportsmanship, Arsenal had an integrity and in a way there was no compromise in that, and its tough to destroy what doesnt compromise?
And players knew they were being nurtured for the future, either at Arsenal or not, and that that was only better of sport in general-even if we felt betrayed at times.
It makes you wonder as you look across the world whether the old star systems are falling down and now we only have cogs that are soon replaced, only to be replaced again and again..? Talented but not the star quality-and we suckers seem to need that, not the cheesy fabricated bs of the Xfactor, but true nurtured, supported talent that can express itself over a long period and is allowed to grow.
Arteta was a pretty skilful player, and it seems odd that theres no transfer of that?
Humans mostly operate morally and ethically even when dealing with the most mundane elements of their lives in a reward system? You can see the reward system in operation with Weng: “ok youre gonig to tip the scales but Im going to be ( like McVicar) the best second best youve ever had(or whatever the quote is), and he did it. After teh CL final the long roads to the FAC’S wasnt easy, but it was a golden time compared to this?
So what is(are Aretas instrumental goal(s)( lets forget the terminal goal as from this minute where i look now I cant see us going for no1 spot any more than Stanley are-but miracles seem to happen so Im happy to be wrong) and what are his rewards ( I dont mean money) for this?
Look I couldnt do any better Im sure and football must be a nightmare with every tool ( like me) wading in there and giving his tuppence worth and its hard to see outside of your perspective but even the people at teh club must not feel partuclarly satisfied?
Anyway Ive gone on too long. Reminds me of that Miles Davis story. Coltrane would take forever to finish his solos on the bandstand and Miles asked him why it did so after a gig. And Coltrane said that he didnt know how to bring the solos to a conclusion. Miles just said: ” try taking the sax out of your mouth mutherfucker”.
And on that note…
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ACL Soccer
@ACL_Soccer
·
1h
Dan Micciche the current U15 coach, has been appointed coach Arsenal to the U18s for next season
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Northern Soul is a strange phenonium, most tracks are by artists that know normal people have never heard of, so I will post some from people you might have heard of, so you can see the difference between what is regarded as “their” style and Northern.
Here is a start, and what a track.
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Cheers lads for putting the tracks up,Ive only got 3 cds of of Ns ( the Deram one has some great tracks on it) so I know bugger next to all( doo wop/ jump r+b and Mod and Modern jazz was more my stuff), so it was great to hear a load of tracks-I didnt know any of them.
Must have been something to have been there, nice to think you won the first comp at Wigan George. Made me feel a bit sad too, sort of melancholy,( the music always has a bit of that lurking in it?)seeing things pass that were exciting and enjoyable, there wont be a scene like that again…
The footage from the FV track at the end looks more like 68 or slightly earlier ( Mod morphing into skin/suede?).
The musc of that time seemed to let you dance more and not mess with your head as a lot of dance music does today?
One thing that younger people might not apprecaite is how hard it was to go searching and getting the records you wanted. It took me ages to get Bulldog by King Coleman(even getting Mark Lamarr to phone me up and talk about KC) then the next minute the internets in full swing and its everywhere! Grrr! Everything seems over dosed and swamped these days?
Those djs must have really dug around to ge the tracks they wanted.
Sure woud be great to listen to some more…
Thanks again. CHEERS!
ps hope Stews looking in, Im sure he woud like some of the tracks?
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Basically in the US you could go into a recording studio record a track try a get the the local radio station to play it (and there were thousands of them) but if not drift back in to obscurity.
When Northern Soulies went to the US “digging” for records they would find a great track and try and find more by the same artist only to find they were taxi drivers or had gone to prison etc.
When promoters went to get artist who were massive in the UK they found the worked in the local Walmart and couldn’t believe they were so revered in the UK.
One of the biggest places for some of these old records was the Salvation army warehouseswhich stores thousands of records and so a good place to find obscurities.
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Thanks George, this is all great and new to me. My teenage years were in the early to mid 70s, but growing up in Sussex I was 100% unaware of the NS movement. I do remember an Under 18 England training week thinking that a few of the northern boys (Graeme Fowler and Paul Allott spring to mind) had very wide trousers! The only music I knew then was either heavy or prog rock, with the odd bit of glam thrown in. As the saying goes, every day’s a school day and its fun to be finding out all of this.
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Same for old rockabilly / country boogie/doo wop and r+b ( not blues) but the jump style stuff, endless local recordings, when you dig around some great stuff comes up ( although its easy now). The idea punk started in 76 maybe true but people were thrashing the pants already in the 50s. It interesting to find out the 50s werent really the 50s. Even Bill Haley wasnt really rock no rol he just adjusted it all to fit the new scene it was Bill Haley and the Saddlemen and the songs were country boogie but really similar to the Rock and the clock style.
Ive got some garage rock band stuff from the 60s, sort of brillaint kack and some of the tracks listed as unknown.
From what Ive read on the early blues / Mod scene the GI’s would bring over records ad trade them, and in the end the blues players came over and were treated like gods yet in their own country werent really seen as much outside of their own. Seems really similar to what youre describing on the NS scene.
Was the NS competitive or was it a friendly thing with people appreciating athletic dance moves?
What was the Ovaltinies thing?
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My first real encounter with Northern Soul was a week at Butlins Filey back in 1979. Me and my mate were Essex night club goers into Jazz Funk wearing beige peg trousers etc. Went to the Disco to find all these lads in tank tops and baggy trousers doing all the NS steps. We were well out of place. One of the tunes was There’s a ghost in my House’
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Rich
Sorry if my double post on the previous blog was ignoring your comments. When praising this blog in general for the assessment of the officials and impact on the league and the football I did not mention the comments, specifically the record by yourself and Mandy on most Arsenal matches. Thank you!
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I’d have been optimistic in a higher league finish next season if some of the bizarre off and on-pitch calls in the awful first half of the season had not been needlessly balanced out by equally baffling crippling calls during the most important part of the season. The last game of the season highlighting the folly in breaking up the midfield for no reason.
The classic thing about the Xhaka smearing football experts who now say “Partey has improved Xhaka” is them ignoring the comments from Partey wanting to come and play with Xhaka. If this midfield pair can kick on, if Xhaka stays you’d think the club could do better. But there are so many crippling calls. At random: I like Gabriel but if Arteta is saying the raw s.american rookie was ready to consistently start in the PL ahead of the “unready” Saliba then I am a pineapple.
Villareal 1 Utd 0 Infuriating score line.
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Utd equalise. 1-1. Still an infuriating score.
I try/tried not imagine what might have happened:
if the midfielder who has just equalled a Shearer record for goal scoring was available to come off the bench and attack one of those many crosses against Villarreal.
If the midfielder who played LB/LWB with praise and a resulting England call up against the two Petro club European cup finalists in an fa cup winning run was not playing on loan at a relegated team had been available as cover for Tierny against Villarreal.
If…I’d be a manager. I’d probably be more entertaining if less well known then the likes of Emery.
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fins of all the odd decisions in the second half of the season surely the worst one was to try out a new formation, no striker, in the first leg of the europa league semi final. Arteta trying to be too smart by half
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Eds. You’ve raised a contender no doubt about it.
A fair few rivals for this end of season award.
There was the repetitive overplaying of obviously fatigued or “red zone” yet crucial players Lacazette and Luiz just two examples from that crucial mad spell not forgetting Tierny and then finally predictably the constantly overplayed Xhaka & even Saka unable to start by the end. I suppose I would forgive a non-ego manic non mourinho-esque rookie coach such errors, which makes this a tricky call but I am happy to agree with Eds above. that call was a bad one!
I thought “sufferball” was a cruel jibe but it’s just an accurate term. Very Mourinho like IMO. Three years at any club max? Tempted to put a punt on it…
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So I will post some of my favourite tracks.
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Emery’s Villarreal win the Europa League, 11-10 on penalties, David DeGea missed the final spot kick
i suppose this will now mean Arteta done well as we lost to the winners
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We must be really poor not to win the Europa Cup with Unai Emery!
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Nice tracks George! I’d never heard any of them before, always good to hear some tracks you dont know.Especially liked the Little Anthony track. More please!
Markyb- Peg trousers! I really liked how they looked. What was the Jazz funk scene like?
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Had a listen to this old record of my dad’s the other day and wondered if it was Northern soul or something else. From 1969 so guessing that’s too early. Was pretty good music.
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Soul-From-The-City-Volume-1/release/3121471
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No Stillarich, not even close.
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Because NS has taken music from the late 50’s until the present day or Y2K soul as it is known there is a massive array of music to choose from it also effects most other genre’s and the dance moves of anything that came after the 70’s are also influenced by NS.
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I think it would have been better called “Northern Dance” after about 1971. For instance, this was called The Lemming Song, at Wigan, because everyone poured off the balconies onto the dance floor when it came on, but “soul” has nothing to do with it.
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