This is The YazBlog

But I guess I’d better get back to the task in hand of trying to recall the weeks and months leading up to yesterday! A mighty stroke of luck towards the back end of October, gave me the chance to finally live out two dreams in the space of a month. The first one being to sample the madness of Derby Day in Glasgow, and for those who remember the shocking weather and 3,000mph winds up there on that day [Ok slight exaggeration on my part!], it was certainly an occasion that makes a north London derby in either N5 or N17 or anywhere else for that matter, look like a pre season friendly. I’ve not and probably won’t ever experience an atmosphere like it again at an English football ground, and when you think I’ve actually been live and seen Spurs win at Man City to secure Champions League Football, the 5-1 cup demolition of Yaz’s nearest and dearest [Sorry Babe!], and beating Chelski in the League Cup final, I think you get the picture of just what it means, not just to me being brought up in the Celtic way of thinking, but people worldwide with an Old Firm affiliation! So December 28^th 2011, will mean a hell of a lot, especially when you wait 17 odd years for the chance to go to a game, winning it made it even sweeter!

Jeez  I reckon I’m starting to sound like the gooner bird with all this chatter, but as the blue sky shines brightly over N17 this afternoon as I write this, I suppose I’d better crack on! October’s financial windfall also allowed me to get my hands on two tickets for the Master’s Snooker final, and how appropriate that after two years or so of trying to get Yaz to a night at the darts, that good old Barry Hearn decided to move the Snooker to the Ally Pally! In all honesty, a mate of mine did ask me to get him a ticket for this, so then it came to a straight decision between taking a mate or taking Yaz. Yes yes, I no that mates should normally come first over women but in the case of this particular woman, I will always make an exception to that rule! So let’s think in the space of little under a month, I had to take in Christmas, the trip to Glasgow, the night at Darts and then yesterday. Yazmin may be used to all these high society events, I AINT! And so the day was here, no weirdness or silly panic’s like before, Yaz is the kind of girl that you have no need whatsoever to put an act on around, or at least I don’t feel I need to, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t do so either!

Now being the kind hearted soul that I am, I agreed to meet Miss D over in west wheezy, otherwise known to you middle class lot as WEST LONDON, leave me alone, I’m a north Londoner and norm the only time people like me hit west side, is when they’re going to Heathrow! I was meant to be over that way early yesterday morning, but as it turned out, I didn’t need to. That being said, I was hardly going to let the good lady slum it on the tube down to me on her own now was I! A mate of mine offered to be driver for the day, which came in mighty handy, esp as getting out of Ally Pally can be a pain if the event finishes late! So I arrived at the secret location in plenty of time, though I do wish I’d seen Yaz’s face when she first found out that she was getting picked up in a transit van, it would have been the guy’s merc instead love, but I told him you were tired of that kind of treatment and wanted to see how the other half lived lol!

We got to the palace in plenty of time, by this time my mind was solely on the game taking place in Manchester, which is where I would have been had the numpties at Sky not moved the game to the Sunday! I can’t really moan too much though as walking round with someone like Yazmin aint a bad way to take your mind off things! It was more a day of spotting familiar faces when we first walked in, I think we’d only been in the place 5 mins and as I turned round to check something, there was Mr Jimmy White himself, literally two feet from me! Of course, Yaz didn’t recognise him at first, bless her, I reckon you were too excited about getting your rocket Ronnie t-shirt! A stiff pint later, and it was time to take our seats, cramped as hell, but just happy to be there, or was I more happy at who was sitting next to me, still not sure on that one. I knew myself I was never gonna be too interested in the Snooker while Spurs were playing, so I had my earpiece in listening to the Snooker commentary, whilst constantly checking the Sky Sports app on my phone! Yazmin took great delight when I told her that ex gooner Nasri had put City in front. I think at this point, if I’d been anywhere else, I’d have reacted badly to that score and scorer in particular but had to keep quiet! So the gooner decided to go for a walk to stretch her legs. Lucky enough really because as she was out, Spurs went two down only to draw level just over 10 minutes later. . God knows how I managed to control myself in that seat, but I did! As you can well imagine, all interest in the Snooker was on hold until full time, then the sickener of a 95^th minute pen came through, but no matter how pissed off I was at the time, Miss Gooner def had a calming influence on me, and I even managed a rueful smile, wondering what might have been if Jd had been slightly taller, when that ball came to him. Still, at least now at the mid session interval, I could get it out of my system properly and concentrate on the reason I’d spent out money on these tickets!!! Seemed to me like the afternoon session went on forever, but the biggest wind up was Yaz thinking the gooners were 0-0 at half time and left the arena, only for me to check and see that Utd had scored in stoppage time, I don’t think she was too impressed with me, LIKE IT WAS MY FAULT!!! 

So the football was conspiring to piss us both off, and that trend would continue. The Snooker improved a fair bit, and having bet on Neil Robertson to win the match by more than two frames, I’m quite happy to see him leading 5-3 at the end of the afternoon session! Now this is where the fun and games really started, wasn’t it Yazmin! The lady was polite enough to get hold of a table in the pub for us to sit down and grab an early dinner. But it also turns out that as per normal, Yaz has a slight tendency to forget things, and in this case certain famous people, and in the 15-20 minutes that I left her to go for a wander, the woman somehow managed to get her picture taken with JIMMY WHITE and DANNY DYER TOGETHER, only for her to then show me the picture and ask me who the guy was standing next to Jimmy White. Apparently you knew the face, but didn’t no the name, hmmmm another episode of loonyville I reckon, least you couldn’t blame me this time LOL PMSL!

I reckon that hearing Utd had scored a late winner probably didn’t make her feel much better either! Dinner was normal pub standard, and done the job quite nicely. Still had plenty of time to kill before the evening session started, so numpty decided she wanted a fag in the freezing cold, so remember my manners, I ended up standing outside with all the other loony smokers! By chance we happened to be outside when one of the referees in Snooker also came out for a fag break, and bless ya Yaz, you didn’t have a Scooby who he was either, I wouldn’t mind, but the guy was about 7 feet tall and has been in Snooker for years now, but at least you never asked him for a picture cos I don’t think you’d have fit in the same shot! I still say that you feel the cold a lot more than most don’t you! If only all the other gooner cuckoos could have seen u wearing my Celtic Jacket, but you looked nice in it. Yes folks, me being me, took my jacket off to let the lady wear it, I don’t feel the cold like Yaz does, I’ve got extra insulation I guess you could say! We’d killed enough time now after going back inside and just chatting about random stuff for a while and some hot drinks to warm the old girl back up again [sorry, couldn’t resist that hun!], and so it was time for the evening session. You could tell there was more of a buzz around the place in the evening, and the very few empty seats that there were during the afternoon had all been taken by the time we got back in the arena, so it was even more of a tight squeeze than before, it’s quite lucky Yaz is a skinny chick [ANYONE THAT SAYS OTHERWISE IS A FUCKIN LUNATIC!], otherwise her poor yet ridiculously long legs wouldn’t have been able to take it! The first four frames of the evening’s play seemed to rattle off in no time at all with the exception of one frame, which I think was another 30+ minute job. So it seemed, Yaz thought this would be the ideal opportunity to go sleep for half an hour, with her head resting on my shoulder, did I really mind a gooner sleeping on my shoulder I hear u ask, nah not really. No darlin, there was no dribble on my shirt, I checked when I got home and having taped all the evening session, sadly there was no camera shot of u sleeping, which is a pity cos it would have been headline stuff!

Mid session interval came and so Yaz decided to take it up another level or so. We were walking down from our seats just to go for a stretch and what not, when she spotted people having their picture taken with the trophy, so of course Yazmin had to do this too. Fair enough, but most people wait in the queue that was forming, not our Miss Daniel, bold as anything, just strolled up to the front of the queue and with her natural charm I’m guessing, the guys already waiting at the front just agreed for this bird in a blue gooner shirt to stroll on in front of them, then started calling me over to take her picture lol! Nerves must have got the better of me, as the picture came out blurred. Most people would accept this and think yeah I’m happy just getting a picture! Oh no, not Yaz, who decided to jump the queue AGAIN, and amazingly enough a different person at the front of the queue, also in his numpty state decided to let Yaz go in front of him! I didn’t believe it until last night, but the woman certainly knows how to get her way, even with random strangers. I just stood there totally gob smacked by it all, but had to laugh at the same time!