In limbo
Spurs News 24/7I'm currently immersing myself in the game 'Limbo' on iOS. A dark and atmospheric platform game that sees the protagonist make his way through a black and white creepy forest terrain where brutal death is always a moment away. The less said about the giant spider the better. There are no instructions that accompany the presentation of the game. No control mechanics explained pre-game and no back story. You simply awake in the heart of darkness with the sole objective to progress and survive, not really knowing or understanding the whys and wheres. Instinct is your only friend.
Get rid of 'atmospheric' from the above describition and we have ourselves the emotion of the summer transfer window captured as experienced by any given Tottenham fan.
It's not all doom and gloom. The transfer window, that is. We signed Paulinho remember?
Elsewhere (outside of electronic gaming):
Roma have signed Tin Jedavj for £4.3M from Dinamo Zagreb which means it's now the Roma fans responsibility to concern themselves with whether a 17 year old unproven defender will evolve into a top class player. No news yet on Alen Halilović. At the moment this whole episode is looking like Dinamo worked some PR magic to push deals ahead by citing interest from Tottenham. I love how we're always happy to lend a helping hand. Talking of which...
Leandro Damião, the computer generated Brazilian soundbite that doesn't actually exist aside from pixelated images and name check citations is all set for Napoli, where I can only assume the Italians have out-sourced to a Japanese robotics firm to download a projected AI into an android so that he can actually take to the field. Ooookay, so he does exist and there is a player (human form) that finally looks set for European football - just not the Premier League. I don't think our interest in him was ever serious. Just us doing Inter a favour by either directly or indirectly being mentioned to drive his price or promote his availability. I've forgotten whether he was third-party owned or not. Was always a messy potential from the start and it's never played out any differently. If there was genuine interest from Spurs, I'd still box it under 'we didn't really have any other options so we sort of thought about bidding for him' category. It's a popular one that.
Nacer Chadli. There has been no bid, supposedly. I'm beginning to wonder if every single player we're linked to equates to players we have no interest in signing. There's definitely a pattern emerging here. Shakhtar have bid. Villa and Swansea are interested.
Christian Benteke has 'apparently' told Spurs to sign him by Thursday. I'd love to see that fax handed over to Daniel 'there's always tomorrow' Levy. If anything, Benteke hasn't said anything of the sort. It's either made up by journalists or made up by agents. This deal, if it happens, has 'last day drama' written all over it. To define last day drama, that's when we bid 500,000k below Villa's final asking price and Chelsea steam in and offer £5M above the price and sign him.
The biggest story of the day? Benoit Assou-Ekotto tweets a photo of some new pink-laced football boots with the accompanied words 'nice present at work today lol. Cue melters having a go because he called 'playing football' work.
BAE called football work because it *is* work. Regardless of how easy it is for some professional footballers to earn the money they do. Someone I know saw Kyle Walker driving to 'work' one morning, and yawning. One of those 'sod this, it's a hard life' type of yawns. It's all relative. You can't be penalised for earning lots of money for doing very little when what you're doing is basically a specialist job. And BAE has form with detaching himself from the passion of the game. He's in it for the money. At least he's honest about it.
Footballers don't work. Actors don't work. Musicians don't work. Basically, if you're in sports or entertainment, you're taking the p*ss. Bankers and stock brokers, ooh, get them with their calculators and speed boats.
If you work in an office or a building site or local council or a cafe, then you're a working class hero. I work from home via a VPN connection using a laptop and a desktop, which basically makes me better than you. Kneel before Zod.
What BAE did is no different to me sharing a photo of some post-it notes and proclaiming 'nice freebie at work today lol'. Except I work from home, so more likely a picture of a Dominos being delivered. If I was a footballer or a stock broker, I'd probably take the p*ss out of life too and live pretty much carefree. But it is what it is and if you get injured or loss form dramatically, you lose your status and the potential to earn money. Just like any other work out there. Twitter. Where a throw-away thought is shared and discussed for more than the split second it originally deserved in your head.
Finally, special mention to Gareth Bale, the face of 'FIFA 14' (UK edition) sharing the cover with some lad named Messi. Last week, Times Square hosted a massive Bale/Under Armour billboard (guaranteed to have been a mystery to most of New York). Spare a thought for Theo Walcott who will have to make do with a sticker on a lamp post in Plumstead.
Now, away with reality and back to the deep, dark and disturbing forest of Limbo. And that God forsaken spider.
