Work trip to Shanghai, China - 24th to 28th March 2007

The Asia tour rolled on, into China, and Shanghai to be precise. I very quickly had my first encounter with the famous Chinese bureaucracy. On landing at the airport and trying to enter the country, I had to fill in 3 separate forms, and was warned of the dire consequences if I answered anything incorrectly. This was all despite the fact that I had previously queued up for 3 hours in London to get a visa, and told them a whole load of other information in the process! I did wonder what more they could possibly want to know, how many times they needed telling, and quite how bureaucratic they wanted to be. The biggest joke of all was that one of the forms was a health declaration, to enter the country that invented SARS and bird flu! On the way out there were another 2 forms, asking for exactly the same information.

Over my 4 days in Shanghai it struck me that, as a Westerner, you can pretty much live your life 100% in the way you are used to - only ever seeing imported things, only eating International food, and generally not having an authentic Chinese experience! The number of international restaurants (and yes, McDonalds does technically count I suppose), and foreign products available to buy, mean that you can pretty much totally carry on life as normal. Most things are even written in English as well as Chinese!

I had expected things to be much more difficult to navigate than that - I expected little non-Chinese writing, and little in the way of international or otherwise familiar things. In fact, the Chinese themselves seem to be enthusiastically embracing all things Western - so quickly and comprehensively that they are almost becoming more Western than many Westerners! Shanghai is definitely not typical of the rest of China, but it is a truly internationalised city, much more than I expected. Many of the streets and buildings look very European, and people, especially young people, speak English far more widely, and far better, than I thought would be the case. There are also huge numbers of foreigners in Shanghai, and you can probably eat a far wider range of international cuisine than many other cities that you would imagine to be more cosmopolitan.

One thing that was a bit different was the way you take your life in your hands every time you try to cross a street. Apart from the people on the corners trying to sell you fake Rolexes, DVDs, Mont Blanc pens, and even a computer at one stage (!), crossing the road is an experience that is definitely not for the faint hearted! Traffic is allowed to turn right on red lights - except that unlike in the US, they don't seem to be at all obliged to stop for any pedestrians crossing the road - they just drive at you and rely on you to move. There appears to be a rough pecking order of bus, lorry, taxi, car, bike, pedestrian - and if you are lower in the pecking order than your rival, you had better get out of the way! Amidst all this chaos, things do just seem to avoid hitting each other - I'm not sure how, but they do.

A day of sightseeing and three days of business meetings, all meant that I was whizzing around the city a fair bit. I very quickly ran out of business cards, because literally everybody that you meet, expects to exchange cards with you.

I don't know exactly what I had expected from Shanghai, but I do know that it was completely different to expectations, mostly for the better. Being China, I had expected a very strict place, with lots of proletarian workers all doing their service to the country. What I found was a city that is possibly more capitalist than many in Europe, the adverts for Budweiser, the Nike shops, and the race to buy expensive imported goods is as active here as anywhere else I've been.

What did surprise me was how cosmopolitan and open to the world Shanghai is - trends and ideas from the rest of the world have absolutely no problem in getting to the people here - and you get the feeling that as much as the multinationals want to sell to the Chinese, the Chinese are also extremely keen to buy what they have to offer. Young people in particular all seem to speak good English, and as well as Chinese food, products, culture and ideas, you can get things from literally all over the world here.

I think that Shanghai has something big in common with Dubai, in that there seems to be a huge gold rush on at the moment. Things are happening fast, huge skyscrapers are being built all over town, and the place seems to be changing at such a rapid pace, you could get left behind if you don't move fast. All of that, coupled with the obvious breakneck pace of growth in China, and huge opportunities for the future, makes this an incredibly exciting place to have visited. Shanghai is at the forefront of bringing China into the world, and it is amazing to have witnessed it happening at first hand.

Sightseeing in Shanghai, China - Sunday 25th March 2007

Sightseeing is rare when I go away to work - mainly because it is usually during the week, and I am usually either working, travelling, eating dinner, or sleeping - there just isn't much time, and I never seem to be in any one place for long enough to do it. So, being away for a weekend meant that I had an ideal excuse to go for some sightseeing in Shanghai - it is after all a shame to go so far, and not even see a new place.

The day started in Starbucks for breakfast, or should I say one of the many Starbucks branches in Shanghai. In fact, in a half hour walk, I must have seen about half a dozen, proving indeed that Shanghai is a global city. Walking up Nanjing Road from my hotel, I passed dozens of upscale shops, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and loads more like them. They seemed to have people in them as well - and if you couldn't afford to buy anything in there, there were lots of people in the streets outside, offering to sell you fake bags, Rolexes, Mont Blanc pens, DVDs, in fact almost anything that could be knocked off, was available to buy. Being offered a fake Rolex was vaguely amusing for the first few times, but I must say that by the end of the day, when I was offered one for the hundredth time by a very persistent person, it had become pretty annoying.

The main part of Nanjing Road could pretty much be in any city in the world (Paris springs to mind in parts), making a mockery of the supposed closed economy in China - it was all very familiar. You can get anything in Shanghai that you would expect to get anywhere else, so the Big Macs, expensive coffee, and Adidas trainers were all firmly in evidence. I was also surprised at the number of Westerners that I saw all around the city during the day - more than I recall seeing even in Tokyo, despite the increased remoteness and difficulty of getting into China.

At the end of Nanjing Road, which is basically the main drag through the city, is The Bund (pronounced "bunned") - a wide road and promenade that runs along one bank of the river which cuts through the city. Along this road are some magnificent old buildings, again surprisingly European-looking in nature - reflecting the city's colonial past. Shanghai in particular is far more international than I expected it to be, from the number of Westerners that you see, to the very European and colonial nature of much of the architecture, to the wide array of cuisine that you can get hold of in the city (which extends to literally almost anything). Some of the highlights of the Bund include the old custom house, and the HSBC building, the old headquarters of the bank.

Across the river from the Bund is the more modern area of Pudong, with all of the skyscrapers, and the part of the city that gives Shanghai its futuristic reputation in fact. One thing I did find during my stay was that the visibility across the city was very poor indeed, to the extent that this photo, taken across a river that isn't really all that wide, shows some tall buildings hidden in a very murky sky. I wasn't sure if the bad visibility was due to the weather or the pollution at first, but it thankfully did seem to be the weather, as the city waited for winter to start to turn into summer.

To get across the river from The Bund to Pudong, one could get the metro, or presumably swimming or boating are also options. I, however, got across the river using the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel. This is a small tunnel through which a number of little "pods" run, kind of like small train carriages. As they run through the tunnel, lights and sound effects do their thing, to create what one piece of promotional literature decsribed as a "sensual experience". I think they meant an experience for the senses, rather than anything kinky.

The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel is without a doubt the cheesiest, most brilliantly awful tourist attraction I have ever visited - although to be fair, that was why I went, because my Lonely Planet guide had warned that it was terrible. Basically, different coloured lights flash, and are accompanied by sound effects, and a voice telling you what it is supposed to be. Flashing white lights - shooting stars! Red lights - a volcano! Blue lights - the bottom of the sea! You can imagine the sound effects. This video does a pretty good job of capturing the full horror of the experience. Still, probably better than Madame Tussauds in London!

Across the river in Pudong, I was glad to escape from the horror of the tunnel. This side of the river is where all of the tall buildings are, including the Oriental Pearl TV tower, which is probably the iconic building in Shanghai (the one in the photo here). The Jin Mao Building is also there, the fifth tallest building in the world (before loads more here, and probably hundreds more in Dubai surpass it). This building is special in that the first 50 or so floors are an office building, then a big Hyatt hotel starts on the 53rd floor. So, it seemed rude not to go to the lobby bar for a drink, and get a free view (through the mistyness), out over Shanghai.

The final attraction of the day was the Shanghai Maglev train - the fastest train in the world - which gets to go so fast because it floats on a track made from magnets. This covers the 30km or so from the edge of the city centre to Pudong airport, in about 7 minutes, reaching a top speed of 431km/h (that's about 270mph for all you non-metric people). The train goes along at top speed for only about a minute at most, because it is either accelerating or decelerating for all of the rest of the time. But it is an exhilirating journey (just a shame that it is over so soon), and hopefully Ken Livingstone will soon replace the Piccadilly Line with a train that goes this fast!

So, after a busy day, I retired to a restaurant to eat some good food - you can obviously get Chinese food in central Shanghai, but as a Westerner, you actually have to look quite hard for it - nothing to indicate Chinese food ever seems to be translated into Roman letters, so the only food places you can actually read about, tend to be serving international food. But, if you find a decent Chinese restaurant, it is a fun and rewarding experience - made even better if you have Chinese people with you, to take care of the menu reading and ordering! A good day sightseeing - just a shame that I had to start working again the following day!

Work trip to Hong Kong, China - 21st to 24th March 2007

The second leg of the Asia work marathon took me to Hong Kong. I had been there before, in 2000, and didn't really like the place at all. I hated the fact that the streets seemed to have no pavements, and people walk instead along on walkways one floor up. I found it impossible to get decent food - lots of it was completely unidentifiable, and almost all menus except for McDonalds were in Chinese only. I found it amazing what the Chinese are willing to, and actually enjoy, eating - chicken feet, beef tendon, cartilage, all sorts of things that sensible people throw away.

Generally, I found the place and its people bewildering, intimidating, and just plain weird. Hopefully, this was an opportunity to go back, spend some time with locals and people that know the place better, get shown around, and have an altogether better experience.

The majority of the daytimes were spent in meetings in my company's office, and at clients, which meant lots of zipping around town in taxis, and seeing the sometimes crazy pace of things. Particularly pleasing was the fact that, just around the corner from my office, was a very well-named street - the obligatory Arsenal Street - so I got to walk along that several times.

On my first day in Hong Kong, I was taken for some amazing Dim Sum for lunch. Some of the stuff was what can only be described as "strange", but most was lovely, and the best stuff was simply incredible. Obviously elsewhere, much of the food was dubious looking, and probably of dubious origin too - very strange parts of animals seem to be the order of the day all round (and vegetarianim is not much of an option). A restaurant that I went to for dinner on the same day, had the obligatory pet shop at the front, with a room full of fishtanks, which basically formed the menu - choose a fish by pointing at it, and have it for dinner.

After the work was over, I took the chance to go for some sightseeing, basically sightseeing in Hong Kong means looking at the harbour from various angles, looking at a multitude of tall buildings (the skyline is really something special, especially at night), and getting into the busy heart of the city to see what is going on. I started by going up The Peak, the big mountain in the middle of Hong Kong island, and looking at the view from the top. Hong Kong island is very strange, with a small strip of flat land facing the mainland, onto which as many tall buildings as physically possible are crammed. Then behind that is a massive mountain. The buildings cling onto the side of the mountain until about halfway up, when it gets really steep, and they give up trying to build any more. There are even escalators up the side of the mountain, to help workers get back to their apartments uphill.

After that, I went for a sea-level view, from the Star Ferry, which runs between Hong Kong island and Tsimshstsui in Kowloon on the mainland. This old wooden ferry has run continuously for ages, and it still costs exactly the same as when I was last here over 6 years ago. $1.70 for the lower deck, $2.20 for the upper deck. Considering there are $15 Hong Kong dollars to a pound, it is an utter bargain. For the 8-10 minute crossing, you get a brilliant view of the skyline on both mainland and island - it really is the best way to see the city rising up all around you. You feel very small, sat on a boat in the harbour, with massive skyscrapers all around you on land. The skyscrapers themselves have incredible flashing lights in a whole range of colours - it really is like a Christmas light show, just looking at the buildings.

This Hong Kong experience was much better than my previous visit. I'm still not 100% sold on the place, but it definitely seemed more endearing this time around. The fact that I had some help to navigate Chinese menus, and some help to get around the place, definitely helped I think. But the city grew on me in other ways too. The skyline and lighting of the buildings at night is amazing, and the way the buildings are crowded onto small areas of flat land, makes it an incredible place. You can be in the most crowded place in the world one minute, then look up and see the almost empty Peak, covered in trees. I'm starting to like the place now.

Work trip to Singapore - 19th to 21st March 2007

This was the start of a long work trip to a few destinations in Asia. After a 12-hour flight to Singapore, I quickly remembered why Singapore is so fantastic. I got to the baggage belt in the airport, to find my bags already there - surely the only place in the world where you can expect that to be the case most of the time. Then into a taxi, and within an hour after the plane landing, I was in my room in a city centre hotel. Everything just seems to work here, like nowhere else I've ever been before. Obviously, the weather was a minor but expected shock, coming from around 8 degrees on Sunday night in the UK, to over 30 degrees and 100% humidity in Singapore.

After checking into the hotel, I decided to go for some food - so I ventured onto the super-efficient subway to get to Newton Food Centre - a paradise of street food that won't make you sick. Open 24 hours a day, I spent a good $10, so just over £3, on more food than I could possibly eat, plus some delicious lime juice to wash it all down. Fantastic stuff, and great food is another reason to love Singapore.

Talking to expat colleagues here, and from both this and past experiences here, it seems that Singapore really is a very easy place for Westerners to live - everything works, the weather is good, the food is good, and the standard of living is very high indeed. The only complaints are that it can be a bit soulless and boring at times, and that because society is so regimented, some of the locals have been deprived of the need, and therefore part of the ability, to think for themselves.

I enjoyed my couple of days in the office, in particular getting the subway from hotel to office and back again. Compared to London, it was a fantastic experience, and if that's what commuting could really be like, I'd love to do it every day. A clean, fast, relatively uncrowded, air conditioned subway train, followed by working escalators at the station, and all for $0.66, or around 25p. Coming from London, it is hard to imagine how this is all possible, and makes it all the more annoying that we pay top prices for awful service.

On my second of 2 nights in town, I went for dinner and drinks in Clarke Quay, a place I'd highly recommend, especially for foreigners in town. It consists of a few big complexes, containing almost exclusively bars and restaurants, all set along the waterfront of the Singapore River. A really nice place to spend time, and although Singapore nightlife is hardly a patch on that of many other cities (especially European cities), it is still possible to have a few drinks and some fun, albeit in a very safe, clean and sanitised environment.

Checking out of my hotel and leaving town, reminded me of just how fantastic the service is in hotels - and this is true all across Asia - you really do get amazing service and value for your (admittedly not inconsiderable) money. There are literally people queueing up to carry bags for you, open doors for you, and do pretty much anything else you need. Europe and the USA has so much to learn from the standards of service available in Asia, from the good hotels.

So, an excellent couple of days in Singapore, marred only slightly by extreme tiredness and jetlag. On previous visits, I had really loved the place, and this visit reminded me why again. Life is easy and good, nice weather, good food, no crime, smiling people - if Disney World were a real country, it would most definitely be Singapore.

Bright Eyes, The Twang, Mark Ronson, Maximo Park - Channel 4 Transmission, Truman Brewery, London - Thursday 15th March 2007

Free tickets to see the Channel 4 Album Chart Show being filmed, are not a bad thing at all - you get to see a mini gig, with a few different bands, that happens to be being filmed for TV. Going to see Transmission being filmed is not quite so good, for a number of reasons.

You do get much closer to the stars, but the waiting around and general hassle is not so great. It is more like Top Of The Pops, with several stages dotted around a disused warehouse cum TV studio. There is no bar in the place, which is very bad indeed, especially since filming goes on all evening. They do at least 2, sometimes 3 takes of everything, which means that you wait around for ages to see the same thing again and again. Still, such is life in TV, and it is still free, so you can't complain too much.

The filming started off with some interviews, by hosts Steve Jones and the lovely Lauren Laverne. First up was some bird from Shameless that I'd never heard of (ever having watched Shameless might have helped, and may be why I didn't have a clue who she was/is). Then, the main interviewees, Shaun Ryder and Bez. Being in such close proximity to utter rock royalty was very humbling indeed. They seemed as sober as they are ever likely to get, and Shaun Ryder obviously swore and ranted liberally throughout the whole interview. Excellent stuff. Then, the last interview was with Peaches Geldof - why anybody is interested in what she has to say, I have no idea. She did seem to have decent music taste, professing to be very excited that Bright Eyes were due to play on the show, but otherwise what she said was utterly forgettable.

After the interviews, Maximo Park filmed their appearance on the show. We all decamped to a stage where the band were all set up, then Paul Smith appeared on stage, dressed in a very cool hat, and sporting a black waistcoat. Attached to the waistcoat was some scaffolding, on the end of which was a camera, pointing directly at his face. They played Our Velocity with him singing right into the camera, looking deranged.

Annoyingly, the vocals were not amped very well in the studio, hardly at all in fact, so for those that didn't know the song, they probably wouldn't have got a great impression of it. All we heard was guitars, drums and keyboards, you had to really strain to hear the vocals properly. Despite all this, the performance was extremely intense, in fact it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end at times. After this, the camera came off, and there were 2 more takes of Our Velocity, again with amazing intensity, but again without amped vocals. Paul Smith in particular was going mad on stage - a fantastic frontman.

Maximo then played Books From Boxes, a track from their new album which I was probably one of the few people in the studio to have heard before, given that the album isn't out yet. It is a great song, and their playing of it may mean that it will be the next single - which would be a good choice. I really enjoyed it, and by the third take, the rest of the audience seemed to be enjoying it too.

After Maximo Park, Mark Ronson and his band played 3 takes of their song. Mark Ronson is best known as Lily Allen's producer, and producer of a fair few other albums lately too. His band has keyboardists, bongo players, and a fair few brass instruments, and they performed an interesting cover of The Smiths' Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before. Clearly not as good as the original, and I'm not entirely convinced that it is necessary to cover such songs at all - especially in a style similar to the Brand New Heavies. Still, it sounded OK, as Smiths songs always tend to do.

Next up (after a long and boring delay whilst cameras were moved around the place, of course!) were The Twang, who performed the obligatory 3 takes of their single Wide Awake, from a balcony above the main room. This meant that they were very difficult to hear, and even more difficult to see. Many in the audience were not familiar with their song, so this was probably the flattest performance of the evening, if only because the band were too far removed from the audience, and many of the audience didn't know who they were. But, the performance was good, and confirmed to me what a great song Wide Awake is.

Then, (for me), the final band of the evening, Bright Eyes. On a stage that was pretty much in the middle of the room, I watched them play their new single Four Winds, and it was incredible. I hadn't heard the song before, but it was very much in the vein of those from I'm Wide Awake Its Morning. But the intimacy of the performance, the fact that you could hear the vocals properly, and just how very very very good Bright Eyes are when they play live, made this an utter privilege to watch.

After Bright Eyes, there was the dubious "promise" of a live performance from Fergie which proved far too exciting - so I went home rather than wait around for another half hour for it. All in all, this wasn't as good an evening as the Album Chart Show, especially given the lack of bar in the studio - but standing 5 feet away from Bright Eyes playing live to 50 people, kind of made all that worthwhile.

Arsenal Under-18s vs Manchester United Under-18s - Emirates Stadium, London - Wednesday 14th March 2007

A very strange thing happened tonight at Emirates Stadium. A youth team game, an FA Youth Cup Semi Final First Leg, no less, being played in the main stadium, instead of hidden away at the training ground. Following the holding of the last round home leg there too, Arsenal decided to repeat the trick, with £3 adult tickets, £1 kids tickets, and a nice early kick off so that all the kids could be home to bed in time for school tomorrow.

As a result, the stadium was packed full of kids, either of the 6-year-old variety - screaming and generally looking around in wonder at the whole experience; or of the 15-year-old variety - the cream of Islington's secondary schools and council estates, with hooded tops, low slung trousers, and bad attitudes. On the way out, there were so many of the latter, I wondered how many times I might get mugged before I reached home.

The experience was completely different to a normal Arsenal game at the stadium. For starters, there were very long and orderly queues outside, as first time visitors tried to work out how to put their tickets into the turnstiles. I remember when it was all new to me too - only 7 months ago, but it seems like ages now - proof that the new stadium is becoming like home at last.

There were not really any Arsenal songs at all, the crowd being so different to the usual matchday crowd, that I honestly don't think they knew any Arsenal songs. All that was offered was "Arsenal, duh-duh-duh", repeated ad infinitum. And, much of the game was punctuated by screaming, cheering and booing alone - no banter, no songs, no constant background noise of people shouting whatever was on their minds, in the direction of the pitch. The Mancs get a free kick - boo!!!! It hits the Arsenal wall - cheer!!! It was that simplistic - a game attended by very infrequent (or passive) watchers of football. I'm sure if Arsenal get their way, the whole stadium will be filled with such "spectators" before too long.

The attendance for the game was reported at over 38,000. Arsenal have been lying about their attendances all season (quoting the number of tickets sold, not the number of people in the stadium), and this was no different. There were still, however, probably between 25,000 and 30,000 people there.

The 38,000 figure was around 5,000 more than were at Spurs tonight for a UEFA Cup tie - a game that was amongst the biggest Spurs have played for years. The attendance was as many as the whole stadium capacity at Highbury, and 3,000 more than Spurs' capacity - all for a Youth Cup game. And, what made all this even more impressive was that the first team were playing at Villa Park at the same time, with a 3,000 sellout of the away end there, plus countless others listening at home on the radio, or watching dodgy web streams. Despite the cheap tickets, we proved tonight what a big club Arsenal are, and how many fans we really have.

The free seating in the stadium meant a great chance to try out some alternative vantage points - I tried out the halfway line view for the first half - opposite and facing right down the tunnel. Then in the second half, I moved up for an Upper Tier corner view. This felt a bit too far away from the action for my liking, especially with the club and box levels between upper and lower tiers. Vertigo also kicked in - I am always scared of falling out of our Upper Tier, it is pretty damned steep.

As well as all the excitement detailed above, there was also a football match going on, which I actually found myself not paying too much attention to, such was the novelty of the whole situation. Manchester United had the better of the attacks in general, and the Arsenal defence allowed them to get in behind them far too often. Lucky then, that Gavin Hoyte's pace allowed him to get away with it every time. Fran Merida had some nice touches but not a great game overall, and Armand Traore, who played in the Carling Cup Final 2 weeks previously, looked extremely ordinary! For a player that is clearly rated as a cut above the youth team, he didn't really look like it.

In the end, Arsenal got themselves a 1-0 advantage to take up to Old Trafford for the second leg. And, the first team also won 1-0 - so there were 2 "1-0 to the Arsenal" results in one day! The whole experience was a good one - good for the youth team to play in front of 30,000 people; good for the local kids to come along for £1, hopefully that will help stop too many of them nagging their parents for Chelsea shirts. We have been letting people in cheaply for Carling Cup games for a while now, and have proved that the demand is there - I suspect we will be seeing more Youth Cup games at the stadium before too long - hopefully starting in this year's final.

The Twang - Forum, Tunbridge Wells - Friday 9th March 2007

The Twang seem to have been hotly tipped for success in 2007 by just about everybody lately - including the NME, BBC, The Sun no less, and not least by themselves. They have been compared to Oasis and The Streets simultaneously, which I think makes them not dissimilar to somebody like the Happy Mondays - laddish audience, dance and rap mixed with indie and guitars, and plenty of drugs and self confidence. Anyway, people seem to think that people will soon stop comparing their sound to others, because the sound of "The Twang" will be known by everybody before too long. Their debut single Wide Awake seems to be good enough to make that happen, at any rate.

Given all these plaudits, they are a must-see right now, and it is fantastic that the Tunbridge Wells Forum provides a chance for people in a small Kent town to see bands like this on their way up. You don't get into gigs like this in London, where there is too much of a buzz, and the small gigs all sell out so quickly - but it isn't far to come to get a piece of the action. In the pub before the gig, the band were having a few drinks, and they seemed like a good bunch of lads - you probably wouldn't see that at a London gig.

Their set was, unsurprisingly, pretty similar to this one from London a couple of days earlier - except for the big difference that the singer mentioned Tunbridge Wells all the time - most commonly when saying "Come On Tunbridge Focking Wells". He also remarked how lively the crowd were, and how well the band were being received - presumably surprised that a small town could muster a crowd that was so up for it.

Listening to the set, I really enjoyed it - the bad were extremely polished, extremely tight (despite being well lubricated by the time they came on), and clearly very good at what they do. However, I did think that current single Wide Awake was their best song by some distance - whether that was just because I am most familiar with that one, I cannot work out, but none of the others got from "good" to "great" for me. Given the mix of styles in their music, I can see them playing dance tents as well as indie stages at the festivals this summer - that could be good as well as bad for them.

It could be good because a lot of people are going to see this band over the next year, and many will really enjoy what they see and hear - they are definitely a band that know how to give their audience a good time. But, it is really difficult to see them being all that many peoples' "favourite band", just because they mix genres so readily. Indie kids will always think that they are too dancey, and dance/rap/Streets fans may find them too rock influenced. Most of the people I went with liked them, but I heard few people saying that they are their new favourite band.

In summary, a very good set from an accomplished live band - they are great at what they do, but I felt that they have one absolute standout song, and after that I'm not sure. Plus, their genre-mixing may mean that they will hit a limit on the number of hardcore fans they will be able to pick up. Which means that, despite being good, they may not get quite as famous as everybody seems to think.

Arsenal vs PSV Eindhoven - Emirates Stadium, London - Wednesday 7th March 2007

After the somewhat disappointing first leg of this tie, I wrote:

"I don't doubt that Arsenal are quite capable of scoring twice against that PSV team - the bigger problem is that if we concede one, it spells big trouble indeed."

Well, that is exactly what happened, except that we only managed to score once, not twice, or even the three times that we would have needed to win the tie as it turned out.

A defensive PSV team knew exactly what they needed to do to go through, and they were good enough at defending to accomplish it. They of course needed to sit back, defend in great depth, frustrate Arsenal, stop us from scoring too early, and they were always then going to give themselves a great chance of going through. As Arsenal got one goal, and started to go forward more and more desperately in search of a second, the number one priority was of course not to concede.

But, from their one attack of the game, about 8 minutes from the end, PSV snatched a goal, and thereby ended the contest. Exactly what one could see coming from a mile away ("one" seemingly being everybody except for the Arsenal players and coaching staff), but no less irritating for it. So, we are out of Europe prematurely in my view, but the most depressing thing of all was the sheer predictability of it all - you could see it coming all evening.

The reports of course gleefully highlighted the "meltdown" in Arsenal's season in the last 10 days or so - losing the Carling Cup final, going out of the FA Cup, and now out of Europe too - but for me, the seeds of all of this were sown at the away leg in Eindhoven - just before that run of games started. We had enough chances in that game to have won the tie by half time, a good half a dozen great chances in fact. We failed to take them, and PSV came out for the second half with much more confidence as a result. They scored, then played a very clever game for the rest of the tie to complete the victory.

Our inability or flat refusal to take our chances has defined much of this season for me - definitely a big area where improvement is needed. Whilst "concentrating on the league" for the rest of the season, let's hope we can start to fix it in time for next season's competition.

The Pigeon Detectives, Pull Tiger Tail - Kings College, London - Monday 5th March 2007

Kings College is a great venue - where else do you get a lift from street level to the gigging rooms - then get confronted with a mini Students Union - complete with £2.50 pints, and cheesy chips available from the canteen - when you get up there? Astounding, and more venues should be like this! The Pigeon Detectives had a sold out crowd, full of expectation, especially given their recent chart success with latest single Romantic Type.

The first band I saw were called Pull Tiger Tail, who I had been annoyed to miss supporting We Are Scientists, because of my trip to the US last week. They came on stage and initially played a few decent-sounding songs with just a keyboardist, guitarist/vocalist, and drummer. They lead vocalist in particular was a busy man, with jangly guitars, and quickfire vocals jostling for position in their catchy songs. After a few songs, the keyboardist turned into pretty much a full-time guitarist too, which meant that the songs got that much rockier - always a good thing!

Their set was over too briefly, the last 2 or 3 songs in particular being very memorable. I possibly wouldn't go out of my way to see them headline a gig just yet, but they are absolutely worth turning up early for if they are on a support bill in future. In fact, I hope to see them again soon.

The Pigeon Detectives bounded on stage in a very energetic way - and stayed that way for their whole set. Kicking off with You Know I Love You, then launching straight into Romantic Type after that, they had won the audience over by the end of the second song. The lead singer in particular was crazy - diving into the crowd, jumping off speakers, climbing over the drumkit, and swinging his mike around the whole while.

Their songs were generally excellent I thought, there were very few nondescript ones, and plenty of very good ones - it will make for an album that should be well worth buying. But the stage presence and performance of the lead singer was really what made this show great for me - he had the crowd eating from the palm of his hand, with good banter, fantastic energy and manic jumping around. This is a band with a good-sized collection of very decent songs, but you have to see them live to really get why they are a special band.

Arsenal vs Reading - Emirates Stadium, London - Saturday 3rd March 2007

Arsenal got away with this three points in the end, really, but it should not have been like that. With about 5 players to choose from that weren't either injured, or more annoyingly suspended, it was a bright start, with little doubt in the minds of most that we would be able to overcome a good Reading side. We had not lost at home yet, so even with a weakened team, few thought that Reading would be the side to change that. We even managed to go in at half time without conceding a goal for a change, although we hadn't scored one either!

The second half continued in a similar vein, more Arsenal attacking and pressure, this time attacking the "favourite" end where the vast majority of our goals are scored (in fact, pretty much all of them). Just into the second half, we were awarded what looked to me like a nailed on penalty, when Clichy was totally poleaxed in the box after a great run. Gilberto stroked the penalty home, and ran off with an "angry man" look on his face, although it was probably more a look of relief. Ten minutes later, Julio Baptista doubled the lead with a decent finish after doing very well to hold off the attention of Reading defenders.

After that, it all started to get a little less convincing - "foot off the gas" syndrome kicked in, and allowed Reading to creep back into the game. The man in the photo, Abou Diaby - now a cult hero for kicking John Terry in the head - came on as a sub to a generous reception - at least a better reception than he is likely to get the next time he plays Chelsea! Then, with about 5 minutes of normal time to go, a good Reading move forced a corner, which in turn forced an own goal from an otherwise sturdy Cesc Febregas. The remaining few minutes (including a seemingly very long bout of injury time) were very nervy indeed, and the relief when the final whistle eventually went was obvious all round.

Many of the subsequent match reports quite rightly gave Reading the credit they deserved for coming to our ground and trying to play a football match, instead of just defending. It even cost them points in all likelihood, because they could probably have got away with a draw against our weakened side if they had "parked the bus" in front of our goal. But they tried to play football, with the outcome that this was a pretty enjoyable game to watch. Very few yellow cards as well, so all that (plus the fact that we have taken 6 points from them this season) makes me glad that they are staying up next season. If only more of the Premiership was more like them.