Jack Penate - Astoria, London - Wednesday 26th September 2007

First gig for a while, although there has been lots of (very successful) football to pass the time instead. On a bitterly cold day, it was off to the Astoria to see Jack Penate, for the millionth time this year (seriously, I make it the sixth). Nowadays, he seems to be pretty famous, so this could be the last time for a while that he plays a "proper" (as opposed to "secret") gig in a venue this small.

I got there too late to really see much of the support bands, although from what I heard of the main support act (which admittedly wasn't very much), it didn't sound like I missed out too badly. The kids (of whom there were loads - the audience was again VERY young for this one) lapped it up, but I wasn't really in the mood. Whilst standing at the bar with a can of Red Stripe, I noticed that Penate was due to be on stage from 9:30 until 11 - surely a bit of a stretch for somebody that has 3 singles, and whose album isn't even out yet.

So it was something of a surprise when he arrived, bang on time, at 9:30, and immediately blew one of his singles by playing Spit At Stars first off. He then followed up with live staple Got My Favourite, which ensured that the whole crowd was immediately on his side. It was a quickfire set, with each song received with rapturous applause and cheering (and some screaming). Forty minutes after he came on, he was saying goodbye, saying that the gig had made it the best day of his life, and ending the set with a crazy version of Torn On The Platform.

There was of course time for an encore, with a slow solo acoustic number that sounded pretty good. This was followed by Jack's cover version of Dub Be Good To Me - last time I heard this, I didn't really like it, and certainly didn't understand the point of slaughtering that particular song. This time though, with a large crowd joining in, it was a real highlight of the set. I'm still not a huge fan of covering songs just so that you have a cover in your repertiore (which I think this was a classic case of), but this isn't bad - and it certainly knocks spots off Hard Fi's appalling and pointless cover of Seven Nation Army.

Final song was a frantic rendition of Second, Minute Or Hour, the re-released single which looks set to hit the Top 20 this week. On the main floor, there seemed to be bodies flying around all over the place, which reflects pretty well the hardcore of super-fans that Jack Penate seems to have amassed now. The band do get better every time I see them, and they weren't too shabby to start with. I suspect that people may tire of them before too long (they only seem to have 2 "types" of song), but I think they'll get significantly more successful before that starts to happen.

Arsenal vs Newcastle United - Emirates Stadium, London - Tuesday 25th September 2007

The first Carling Cup game of the season, after last year's run to the final, and we were pretty unlucky to draw yet another Premiership team in Newcastle United. Last season as well, we draw Premiership teams most of the time, in both domestic cups - it would be good to play a real minnow for a change. Also, with Newcastle not in Europe this year, and unlikely to make the top 4, the Carling Cup could well be their best shot at European qualification - so they were likely to be fielding a decent team, and trying hard. Hopefully, our kids would be up to the task.

Tickets for this game were reduced to a tenner in the lower tiers, and £20 upstairs, mindful of the fact that this was probably the least attractive first team game at the Emirates Stadium so far. The one previous Carling Cup game there was a semi final against Spurs, which doesn't really compare! But, again underlining the huge gap in support between Arsenal and Chelsea, all 60,000 tickets were sold out with a week to go before the game.

Speaking of Chelsea (again), Arsenal's financial results were released the day before the game, giving us comfortably the biggest revenues of any football club in England, and second only to Real Madrid in the world (and that will change next year, now that Beckham has left). At the press event to announce the finances, Peter Hill-Wood seemed to acquire Tourettes syndrome, and said that they would never dominate football. Other columnists seem to have also caught onto the idea that Chelsea are no bigger a club than West Ham. What a shame that the Chelsea backlash seems to have begun, in a huge way!

I was sat in a different seat for this game, dead centre behind the north goal, so I had a very different perspective of the game. I don't think I preferred this position, the Upper Tier roof was right above me, which made it feel much more cramped than my usual seat. The fact that the stadium was full of lots of irregular attendees, and had people trying out sitting in different places, also didn't help the atmosphere much, especially to begin with. Also, of course, London Underground didn't help either - horrendous delays on the Piccadilly Line meaning that the stadium still had around 15,000 empty seats at kick off.

The starting line up was much changed from Saturday's win over Derby - but was still made up of full Arsenal squad players. These are young squad players, hence the label "kids", but many are full internationals, and they would do pretty well themselves over a full Premiership season. Eduardo is top scorer in England's European Championship group, Senderos played in the 2006 World Cup, Walcott went to the World Cup but didn't play, Bendtner is a Danish international who scored their winner against Germany earlier this season - and Hoyte, Eboue, Denilson and Diarra may all be young, but they are hardly unknowns. So, whilst games like this do showcase the wealth of exciting young players that Arsenal have (nobody that played tonight was over 24), it is hardly like fielding a side that have never played football before - many of this side will make significant first-team contibutions this season.

That said, there was a distinct gap in class between Arsenal and Newcastle, and this was the strongest available team from a club that are currently fifth in the Premier League. The first half was pretty dull (understandable from an Arsenal point of view, as the team on display are not exactly used to playing with each other). But in the second half, Arsenal gradually began to assert their authority. Lassana Diarra had a truly fantastic game in his first start for the club, popping up everywhere, and really reminding me of a Makelele-type player, who just keeps the whole side ticking along. This hard work left Denilson to show his obvious quality, and leading many around me to call him the "new Fabregas".

The goals came late in the game, Bendtner with a great header from a pinpoint cross, which was a well-deserved reward for his hard work all evening. Then, after a scare when Senderos made a last-ditch clearance off the line from Martins, Denilson put the icing on the cake, with a screamer of a 20-yard shot into the top corner. That's one thing about this Arsenal team (both first team and second string) at the moment - not only are we playing incredibly good football, but the goals we are scoring are plentiful and in many cases quite brilliant. It is probably not unfair to say that Arsenal could well be the best football team in the world right now. But as we all know, no trophies are being given out for being good "right now".

I'm hoping for a slightly easier draw in the next round, avoiding any of the Big 4 sides, and hopefully we will be able to win this trophy this time, to really give the history makers something to remember this great young side by. The DJ in the stadium played Teenage Kicks at the final whistle, a cool song to round off a(nother) very encouraging evening.

Arsenal vs Derby County - Emirates Stadium, London - Saturday 22nd September 2007

Last weekend, this game was looking like it would be a top vs bottom game - with Derby lacking a win all season, and looking likely to get tonked by anybody they came up against. Then, last Monday night, they only went and won against Newcastle, sparking brave talk of Premiership survival, and at the very least giving their season a bit of an overdue kickstart. Typical then that their next game, with them properly buoyant, came against Arsenal - although of course, Derby at home really should hold no fear if you aspire to be a Champions League team. Good God, even Spurs beat them 4-0 at home!

We started the game with no sign of Gilberto, and with Van Persie on the bench, as well as missing Rosicky through (another) injury, this time picked up against Sevilla. So, a slightly weakened side, but one that should still have easily been able to do the job. And do the job was exactly what we did - we pretty much tore Derby apart from the first minute, they didn't really have a prayer. Abou Diaby opened the scoring after about 10 minutes, with an unstoppable drive from outside the area, which rifled into the top corner. Reminiscent of the occasional Patrick Vieira piledriver, and useful after his few recent misses, especially against Spurs.

Adebayor and Fabregas then took over the scoring, Adebayor scoring a fantastic hat-trick which really highlighted his positioning, awareness, and the physical threat and defender annoyance that he brings to the team. Defenders, especially average defenders like those that Derby have, must absolutely hate him. He was in the right place at the right time on a couple of occasions, and showed great touch and skill to beat the defence and keeper on both occasions. The other was a penalty that was slotted away quite coolly, although the keeper did get close to it.

As well as Adebayor's hat-trick (which was the first in a senior game at the Emirates Stadium - although somebody scored one in a youth team game there last season), Fabregas scored with another excellent shot from distance. That's a goal in each of the last 6 games now for him, and he seems to be trying other speculative shots from the edge of the area too. If, like Frank Lampard, he gets lucky deflections a dozen times a season, those could be the goals that make a genuine (and successful) title challenge a reality. Speculative shooting like this would have been impossible with Thierry Henry at the club I think, or at least would have attracted scowls from him, so it is possibly another way in which his leaving has set some of the younger players free from their fear of him!

Everybody seemed to agree that this was a hugely convincing performance, and was a general pleasure for the neutral, as well as Arsenal fans to watch (although presumably Derby fans didn't really enjoy it too much). Comparisons were being made with the team of 2004, based on this and the last few performances. Whilst its true that we are playing great football, and seem to be thoroughly full of confidence at the moment, we have been playing a number of poor sides, or sides that have been kind enough to have big off days when they played us. Our results have been more flattering than some of our performances suggested (although both performances and results have been good); and our opponents today looked like one of the worst teams ever to play Premier League football.

So, very encouraging indeed, but I'm not getting carried away just yet. Of course, according to the papers, you are either utterly invincible, or in complete crisis. We are at the invincible end of the spectrum, but not quite up there yet. And of course, the word "invincible" has special meaning for Arsenal - we have previous form in that area.

Arsenal vs Sevilla - Emirates Stadium, London - Wednesday 19th September 2007

The first proper Champions League game of the season, after successfully negotiating the qualifying round, and it saw Sevilla come to London. They are the former club of Jose Antonio Reyes and Julio Baptista, and despite having Spurs reject Freddie Kanoute up front for them, they are actually a damn good side - having won the UEFA Cup for the last 2 seasons, and almost winning the Spanish league last season too. Their right back, Daniel Alves, was Chelsea's major transfer target this summer, and he is still with them - all in all they are a very underrated and dangerous team, as Arsene Wenger is all too aware.

Being a Champions League game, it also gives me a chance to post a picture I took before our last European game, against Sparta Prague. I didn't actually go to the game, but in the afternoon before it, I was in the stadium for a couple of hours when it was empty - and I managed to sneak into Block 9 to take a photo of the place. It was really strange being there when it was so empty and quiet, and the fact that there was nobody there really brought home how big the place is. An awesome stadium, and this reminded me how we are all still occasionally able to get views of it from new angles - hopefully the novelty and surprise will continue for a few years yet.

Talking of Chelsea, it was good to see the club that aspires to be the biggest club in Europe, with a gate of 24,983 for their Champions League game the previous evening against Rosenborg - who are comfortably the worst team in the tournament, but against whom Chelsea could only manage a draw. Less than 25,000 for a Champions League game in a stadium that holds over 40,000 is quite frankly a disgrace - and the fact that our stadium was sold out (even though I know that Sevilla are more attractive opponents than Rosenborg), really shows the gap between the two sides in terms of support. We even got 10,000 more than that for a Youth Team game earlier in the year - the biggest crowd ever for a youth game, in fact. Keep trying Chelsea, maybe you'll be as big as The Arsenal one day.

The game itself was possibly the perfect start to the Champions League campaign. Sevilla, despite having a lot of the ball, and looking quite classy in possession, didn't really threaten all that much. To be fair, they didn't look like this was one of their better performances, but to beat a side like them 3-0 at home was very welcome indeed. The scoreline flattered Arsenal somewhat, but it was a good performance all round, and Arsenal were thoroughly deserving winners. Aside from the away game against Sevilla, this is likely to be the most difficult group game, so a win was an excellent result, and Arsenal must now be clear favourites to qualify (as if we weren't already).

Cesc Fabregas once again had a very impressive game, with almost all of the good attacking things being channelled directly through him - almost to the point where you are watching in admiration, but at the same time worrying about what we might do without him. Adebayor again caused nightmares for the Sevilla defenders with his approach to the game - fantastic nuisance value all round! And Matty Flamini again popped up all over the pitch, running his little French socks off. It was pleasing also to see Robin Van Persie scoring a goal again - he needed a goal after a couple of frustrating games recently.

All in all, against possibly one of the half dozen best teams in the tournament (and certainly on their day - which today wasn't - they are highly dangerous), this was a great result. We got slightly lucky to meet a Sevilla team that looked to be off their best, but the performance was excellent, and some of the football (especially the flowing passing move for the third goal) was deserving of victory. The scoreline was flattering, and we must be careful not to get carried away, but as good a start to the Champions League campaign as I had dared to hope for.

Work trip to Frankfurt, Germany - 17th to 18th September 2007

Something of a flying visit to Germany for 24 hours or so, including a long day's work as well. This time, I had the pleasure of flying from London City airport for the first time in a while - and was reminded how nice airports can be when they work properly, and aren't completely full of idiots. The DLR journey from Bank took 20 minutes, the check in queue was non existent, and the security queue was barely any longer - I literally went from the DLR to the departure gate inside 5 minutes. Amazing, and despite the slightly unnerving and strong smell of jet fuel in the departure lounge, it was a very stress free journey over to Frankfurt.

On arrival, it was absolutely hammering down with rain, and not having any waterproof clothing meant that I was pretty much restricted to my hotel for the evening. They had a strange German tapas bar there, so I grabbed a beer, and sat watching the England vs Argentina women's World Cup match (in football, and we battered them 6-1 I'm glad to say). Whilst the game was going on, a very German take on tapas dishes arrived in front of me. Of course, lots of salami, ham and sausage, and very hot jalapenos (which the Spanish are too chicken to eat at the best of times) In fact, it was not very Spanish at all - more like small portions of German food. All very nice though, and both food and beer went down a treat.

My work the following day was in a fairly new part of Frankfurt, full of office buildings but also apartment blocks, which has only been there for the last 4 or 5 years. On the way there, I saw the Radisson Hotel, which looks like a massive biscuit on its side - a brilliant circular building that you really wonder how it stays upright. Whilst spending the day in an office block that could have been anywhere, I had another encounter with the peculiar German take on "international" food. For lunch, I went to a Mexican restaurant, and had a burrito - which had huge chunks of carrot in it. Not terribly authentic I suspect, but very German in that respect!

After more work, it was back to the airport, and I was reminded how extremely over-zealous the security at Frankfurt airport is. There was a security alert when I got there, because of an unattended bag (when will people EVER learn not to leave bags lying around in airports!), and then I had to walk through 2 x-ray machines between checking in and getting on the plane. That would normally be only slightly over the top - except that the metal detectors were turned up so high that my metal cufflinks set them off. Every single person was setting the machine off - couldn't they have just turned it down to the level that seems fine for EVERY other airport in the world?

Tottenham Hotspur vs Arsenal - White Hart Lane, London - Saturday 15th September 2007

Even when things as an Arsenal fan aren't going anything like as well as you'd hope, there is usually the comforting consolation that it is probably a million times worse being a Spurs fan. So, this summer, we had Arsenal losing Thierry Henry and signing nobody of much significance, whilst Spurs splashed £40 million on lots of people. Added to all the uncertainty about Arsenal's ownership (including dodgy Russians), and Wenger's contract expiring within a year (until this piece of fantastic news last week), it wasn't a great summer, and many were predicting that Spurs would overtake "crisis club" Arsenal, to qualify for the Champions League at our expense. Spurs fans even started talking about a "Big Five" (with Spurs in it!), and some sections of the media started referring to this totally fictional (and fanciful) group of clubs.

So it was an excellent relief when Spurs lost their first game of the season to a newly promoted team, then lost their second by being comprehensively beaten at home by Everton - this restored the natural order, and quietened Spurs fans down a bit. Then their idiot owners (who seem to think that their natural position is as one of the country's top clubs like Liverpool or Arsenal, rather than in the second tier with Everton and Aston Villa), offered the manager's job to somebody else, but got rejected, and only then "decided" to back their manager after all. In short, there have been comedy capers galore at White Hart Lane so far this season, and most Arsenal fans have been loving the way they seem to self-destruct on cue, just as they might be getting a bit good. An utter PR disaster, and amusement for all Arsenal fans.

Sadly, though, there is no worse time for Arsenal to play Spurs than when they are in a bit of a low like this. Their fans get especially lively (in particular if they see any smirking or hear any giggling from Gooners on the way to the ground) - but they do also make a lot of noise, and the team is usually very up for playing Arsenal, because the fans make it pretty obvious how much it means to them. So even though they aren't much good, it isn't easy against them.

But before we talk about the game, I must just mention something else which shows the size of the gap between Arsenal and Spurs. Now, the Arsenal World of Sport, our shop at Finsbury Park station, isn't the greatest retailing outlet in the world - it is pretty tatty and run down, and probably isn't the ideal building for a football shop. But, just north of White Hart Lane, there used to be a petrol station, which Spurs have creatively turned into an even cheaper and more pikey looking shop. All they have done is just to remove the petrol pumps, and put some Spurs bunting at the edge of the canopy! Few away fans ever see this, as it is at the "wrong" end of the stadium, but Spurs should be ashamed of themselves for such a cheap effort! I would like to think that Arsenal would never do anything so embarrassingly tacky.

The game itself was, from one perspective at least, like many that have gone before it, at least in recent years. Spurs took the lead in the first half, and their fans, with amazingly short memories (they always take the lead, but never actually win the game), started acting like they had won the league and relegated Arsenal at the same time. Arsenal, though, came back to equalise in the middle of the second half, and then Spurs collapsed on cue, to let us score a couple more goals, and win the game 3-1. It was nice to actually win the game this time (and sparked celebrations for the rest of the day in the Finsbury Park area), after a couple of recent draws up there, but the theme of Spurs fans celebrating too early was a recurring one.

In the way that we came back to win, there were many positives to take from the game, in particular the goalscoring form of Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor - the latter of whom just can't get enough of scoring against Spurs (like Robert Pires used to). Fabregas scored one and made the other two, and was therefore thoroughly deserved man of the match. Flamini and Toure worked their arses off all game, and Clichy had a good one too. The result took Arsenal top of the league, which is of course a great place to be, even at this very early stage of the season. Without a game against a "Top Four" side until the end of October now, we can hopefully stay there for a while yet.

Looking back, it was a great performance and result, but at the time, it certainly didn't seem easy. We gave the ball away too easily, in bad parts of the pitch - in fact, we gave the ball away incredibly cheaply at times, with some very lame passes that failed to reach their intended targets. And, both teams missed some incredible sitters, as Arsene Wenger noted when he remarked that we had scored all the difficult chances, and missed all the easy ones. Adebayor and Diaby in particular missed fantastic chances, but then again, so did Darren Bent among others for Spurs. If some of the missed chances had gone in, it could have been 5-4 again, like it was a few years ago. You don't expect that sort of openness from a derby game, so it was great to see - even though I'd rather we just scored everything and kept it tight at the back!

Following the good result against Portsmouth, this was another excellent performance and great result, just at the right time. Martin Jol may now get the sack as a result, and the only bad thing is that pundits are now starting to talk Arsenal up as potential title contenders. I think that most Gooners would probably prefer for Arsenal to be off the radar for a while longer - that would help us to get points quietly, and is probably our best chance of mounting a decent title challenge. But, if we have to be top from September, so be it!

Finally, a word about the escape from White Hart Lane. This is usually a dangerous pursuit at the best of times, with the police seemingly unwilling or unable to prevent Gooners coming in for lots of abuse from (usually) angry and suicidal Spurs fans. This time, it all worked a treat - the police arrangements kept Arsenal fans safe, so all we needed to do was blend in by looking miserable during the walk down the road. Whatever the Met Police did this time, I hope they do it again next time!

Work trip to Madrid, Spain - 11th to 12th September 2007

Off to Spain for a day for work, and this was my first trip to the country since the Champions League run of last year - which of course took in a very memorable trip to Madrid along the way. With the weather in London unusually good given that it is mid September (and that this year has been awful for weather so far), I was also looking forward to some 30-degree heat for a day or so.

My plane landed at the new Terminal 4 at Madrid airport, which I later discovered has won architecture awards. It was an absolutely massive building, which took an age to get out of once we got off the plane. There seemed to be endless escalators, moving walkways, and glass corridors. The whole place was really spacious, and I couldn't work out whether that was deliberately so because of the huge size, or whether it was because the airport was just pretty empty. Probably a bit of both. When I thought we had finally found our way out of the terminal, we had to get a train to the real terminal - we were in the "satellite terminal". After a short train ride which reminded me of a ghost train, we had a load more escalators and corridors, before eventually finding the REAL exit to the airport.

The new terminal building is certainly architecturally very special - it is a beautiful building, flooded with lots of daylight, and it seems really calm and serene, which is amazing for a busy airport terminal. But, with all the moving walkways to navigate, and the train between 2 separate buildings, it just didn't really seem to work all that well as an airport building - it seems to take ages to get through (although the Lounge in departures was absolutely incredible).

Out of the airport and into a taxi, and I was reminded firstly how bad Spanish driving can be (although, compared with Dubai, China, and I'm sure there are plenty of places that are even worse than those - it isn't THAT shocking); and how almost all Spanish taxi drivers like to talk to you constantly, throughout the journey. This is always in quickfire Spanish, and is always completely regardless of whether you understand a word they are saying. I didn't understand a word, didn't say a word back to the driver, but still the Spanish chat kept coming!

Given that it was 30 degrees outside, it was great to get to a bar as soon as possible, for a lovely cold beer, and some nice jamon serrano. Then off for a good spot of dinner.

My hotel and my office were both very close to the Parque del Retiro, a massive park which is right in the city of Madrid. On the way to work in the morning, I had a lovely stroll through the park. The office was also very close to the Prado Museum, the famous art gallery which is probably the most obvious tourist attraction that Madrid has. The Prado building (or at least the part I saw) didn't look all that remarkable to me, but then I guess nobody is too concerned with what it looks like from the outside, when there is so much good stuff inside.

After a long morning's work (I didn't realise the Spanish could work so hard!), we went out for lunch at just after 2pm, and didn't return to the office until after 4pm. This took me until the time I had to head back to the airport. A very brief trip, but one I'd like to repeat. When I came for football, I didn't think there was that much to do here, but it seems I was just looking in the wrong places.

Kate Nash - Bloomsbury Ballroom, London - Friday 7th September 2007

This was a triumphant homecoming gig in London, after a summer of hit singles and well-received festival shows. It was announced and sold out ages ago, before she hit the big time, but tickets had been changing hands for big money on eBay beforehand. Since the gig was announced, Kate Nash's single Foundations went to Number One, as did the album Made Of Bricks, and next single Mouthwash looks set to do exactly the same. She is really quite famous now, being all over the radio, and playing to a packed tent at Reading in what by all account was one of the must-see sets of the festival. To cap all this, in the week of the gig, she sat proudly on the cover of the NME.

So, a reasonably small gig (she can certainly sell out much bigger venues than this now - and has done so for later in the year), in front of a "home" crowd, on a Friday night, was always going to be good. The venue was the Bloomsbury Ballroom, in a massive building near Holborn station, which I had never really noticed before. The main room was very long and thin, so the stage covered pretty much the whole width of the room, but the room went back for ages. I suspect that the venue is used for more genteel events usually (there were nice thick carpets in the bar and toilets), a nice but strange venue for a gig. The stage had some interesting decoration, with lots of illuminated windows to make it look a bit like a house.

Inside the venue, it looked like over two thirds of the audience were girls. This is good in one respect, as it means no queues for the gents or the bar. But generally, it isn't a great sign if the audience is heavily female dominated. When Kate Nash came on stage, there was lots of screaming, much too much screaming in fact. In fact, there was lots of screaming throughout the show - the audience seemed to know most of the words to most of the songs, so there was lots of joining in for the choruses.

Kate Nash and the band were really, really good I thought, the songs are decent enough, but they really take on a different dimension when you hear them live. I also thought that everything was much more slick and polished than when I saw them at the Camden Crawl earlier in the year. A technically really good set, also including a fantastic cover of Cold War Kids' song Hang Me Up To Dry - which sadly, most of the crowd seemed to have no idea about.

Despite the band being really good, I didn't really enjoy the gig all that much. Because a lot of Kate Nash lyrics are about life from a female perspective - men are horrible, my boyfriend treats me like shit, I am unlucky in love, etc - they seemed to whip the mostly female audience into a frenzy of man-hating. Many of the audience took it all far too seriously, and were screaming some of the more pointed lyrics at the tops of their voices. I was getting worried that, by the end, there would be a ritual chopping off of all penises in the venue, such was the degree of "girl power" on display.

I know that many gigs (at least many of the ones I go to), can be very male dominated, and often even quite laddy. This was the opposite, so it was unusual. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but if a male artist assembled a big crowd of blokes, and they all sang lyrics about how crap women are, it would rightly be called misogynistic and wrong (as indeed many R&B and reggae artists are rightly censured for their sexist lyrics). Of course, Kate Nash's lyrics are pretty witty and clever (and not written to explicitly attack the opposite sex), but many of the people at this gig just took the bluntest part of the meaning on board. Thank god my girlfriend doesn't like Kate Nash or her songs - otherwise I might start to fear for my life!

So, the songs were great, the band were excellent, and made the songs sound even better - really giving them a new dimension. The lyrics are witty and clever, and Kate Nash is deservedly now very famous - and will probably become even more so. A really good artist with great songs, but I probably won't go and see her again - because I just don't care very much for the crowd she now attracts.

Update: Looks like not all Kate Nash gigs are quite as female-dominated as the one I went to!

The Kooks - Buffalo Bar, London - Wednesday 5th September 2007

Back to the Buffalo Bar for another of the excellent Rockfeedback nights - this time tied in with (and arguably somewhat taken over by) XFM's 10th birthday. The Kooks had played at a previous club night here, way back in May 2005, before anybody had heard of them - but they have obviously got significantly bigger since! This show was open to competition winners only, with various different competitions run by The Kooks, Rockfeedback and XFM. This meant a slightly strange and mixed audience, made up of hardcore Kooks fans (more on them later), XFM listeners, and relative Buffalo Bar (and Rockfeedback) regulars.

On entering the venue, lots of things made it clear that this was not a normal night. Firstly, there were lots of people milling around with "Access All Areas" passes - not that there are really many areas available to access in the Buffalo Bar. Secondly, because everybody on the magic list had guaranteed entry (and didn't have to pay), there was no huge stampede to get into the venue at 8pm - so when I got in at half eight, it was quite empty. And, there were loads of people working there for XFM, filming, photographing, and otherwise capturing the gig. Generally, there were loads of people "working", which made being one of the "punters" even more unusual and special - and because there was so much filming and photography going on, the capacity seemed to be even lower than normal.

We had been promised The Rivers as a support band - who didn't materialise in the end - a shame, because the songs on their MySpace site sounded Ok. Still, at a gig which nobody paid to get into, you can't really complain! So, time passed and passed, then just before 10pm, I was standing at the bar, when Luke Pritchard and the rest of the band walked down the stairs into the venue, flanked by a couple of security guards, and proceeded to pick their way through the audience to the small "backstage" area.

At this point, many of the "hardcore Kooks fans" referred to above, started screaming. In fact, for the 5 or 10 minutes before they started playing, there were liberal doses of screaming girls. Most unwelcome. I know that, being at a Kooks gig, you are unlikely to see people shooting up in the audience, and it is likely to be rather on the tame side. But screaming girls is a little bit extreme - and when a few of them started fainting during the set, it was quite embarrassing.

The band came on, and ploughed straight into a quickfire run through of the highlights of their debut album - getting See The World, Eddie's Gun and Matchbox (as you can see from the graffiti-ridden setlist I picked up) out of the way very early on. Last time I saw The Kooks properly, was in Tunbridge Wells, the week their album came out, and it was amazing to see how much more assured and more slick they are at playing live now. They have some great pop songs (even though they have been so ubiquitous as to have become annoying over the last 18 months), and the urgency of the guitars gives them a really exciting edge when they play them live. Luke Pritchard stopped occasionally to talk to the crowd, but sounded drunk as usual, initially really slurring his words, but then sounding more coherent towards the end of the set. Despite the small venue, it was really pretty difficult to see from the back of the room, so it was nice of Luke to continually climb up onto the stage monitors, to give those of us at the back a look at him. The venue was full of people taking photos on their phones, or on digital cameras - in fact, during Naive, all you could see from the back was a sea of mobile phones. The cigarette lighter equivalent for a 21st century gig, you know.

As the set progressed, the band seemed to be enjoying it more and more, and the NME reviewer seemed to like the gig too. They started to deviate from their planned setlist, playing a song that they hadn't intended, and leaving off You Don't Love Me and Jackie Big Tits - which I was really upset about, as the latter is one of my favourite songs. Given the difficulty of getting on and off stage, and the cramped nature of the venue, the band didn't bother going off stage before the encore, they just played right on through. All in all, a fantastic gig to have had the pleasure of watching - a band with some excellent songs, that play a great live show. Not exactly an example of rock and roll excess, but a brilliant gig all the same.

Arsenal vs Portsmouth - Emirates Stadium, London - Sunday 2nd September 2007

The third Arsenal home game in just over a week (I missed the Prague game in midweek), saw us playing at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday, Wednesday, then again on Sunday. Another annoying Sunday lunchtime kick-off, but this time the game was at least moved for TV, rather than London Underground engineering works.

In the short time since the Sparta Prague game on Wednesday, we have learned our Champions League draw, (including another trip back to Prague); signed Lassana Diarra from Chelsea, minutes before the transfer deadline; and David Dein sold his shares in the club, to a consortium headed by a Russian billionaire. Reading more about our new shareholder doesn't exactly fill the typical Arsenal fan with delight - all that we hate about Chelsea might be about to happen to us, and it is most unwelcome. Suddenly, Stan Kroenke doesn't seem like such a bad option after all, compared with a Russian oligarch. In any case, Arsene Wenger practically refuses to spend the money he does have available, so what is the point of bringing in a sugar daddy - it is just more cash for Wenger (assuming he sticks around) to refuse to spend! And, many of the accusations around our new shareholder really do leave a bad taste in the mouth - it seems that David Dein has not exactly given 2 hoots who he sold his shares out to. All very concerning indeed, and not what I want for Arsenal.

Anyway, to the Portsmouth game, which was preceded by a visit from Bob Wilson to The Rocket pub before kick off. A great man, Arsenal through and through, he collected a cheque for his charity, the Willow Foundation. Inside the stadium, the prospect of seeing Kanu, Lauren and Campbell (who didn't play in the end) again, was filling people with excitement, as well as all of the off-field fun that had been going on for the previous few days.

This game was a hugely encouraging performance all round - at times (and I'll say this quietly), the football was reminiscent of our play during the unbeaten run a few years ago, when we were arguably the best team in the world. Many of the moves were fluent, we had goals from midfield, and we scored early, to put ourselves in the driving seat from very early on. Fabregas and Rosicky had great games, but in truth, most of the side played really well - it was just one of those games when everything seemed to come together.

Arsenal took the lead inside ten minutes, when Van Persie was upended by David James, and Adebayor stroked home the resulting penalty. I thought that James was slightly lucky to avoid any colour of card, especially since Senderos was later sent off for a pretty similar type of foul. An early goal was quite unusual for the new stadium, but most welcome - especially after we enjoyed the same thing in the Sparta Prague game. Cesc Fabregas scored another welcome goal before half time, welcome because he was foraging in the box, and picked up a loose ball to scramble it home. He did well to get into that kind of position, and it was good to see midfielders getting into poaching positions.

Almost immediately after half time, Senderos was sent off for a professional foul - in truth there could be few complaints, but when David James got away with something similar earlier in the game, it didn't make the referee any friends in the crowd. The third Arsenal goal was bizarre - it came from a free kick which Fabregas took close to the corner flag, and passed to Rosicky. The Pompey defence just seemed to stand still, totally switched off, so Rosicky took advantage of the opportunity to drill a shot past them all, into a pretty wide open net. Very nice, and a big thanks to the Portsmouth defence, for completely switching off.

Sadly, we did more of the same (switching off) a minute later, conceding a consolation goal to Kanu, which seemed to just bounce in off his leg - but we then closed out the victory that took us to second place in the league. Chelsea losing their game later in the day, plus a Perry Groves karaoke performance in The Rocket, sent many Arsenal fans home both drunk and happy.

Now, a fortnight of internationals is rarely welcomed by Arsenal fans, but this time, it comes with mixed feelings. It is good to switch off from Wenger's contract uncertainty, and to forget about the Russian takeover. But, we have started to really hit a decent run of form, so we don't need this 2-week break to interrupt us. It is Spurs away next, so hopefully we won't have too many injuries returning from all the corners of the world.