By Myles Palmer
It’s great to read your views on Vieira and other topics.
It’s invaluable for me to know what Arsenal fans are thinking, apart from my private phone calls and private emails.
Some ANR emails come directly to me, some come via Ian Grant, who is a busy man with a very demanding job.Some I see when Ian puts them up.
As I’ve said before, we do what we can when we can.
There are many more things we could do on ANR if we had the time.We have far more ideas than time.
When I DON’T write anything here for three days, or longer, it is because:
1. I’m busy working.
2. Or : I’m out of London and do not have access to my computer.
3. Or : I’m so angry and disappointed by the performances of certain Arsenal players that I do not want to write about them.
So Sunday morning was a good morning on ANR.
I can now see what readers have been saying recently. And readers can see what other readers have been saying.
That’s great because football is about sharing. You share a club, share a team, share a hero.
On the net, you have virtual communities. People who don’t know each other but have a passionate common interest.
Many are abroad, it seems,and it means a lot to those fans to keep in touch with their favourite team.
We help them to do that.
Of course, I annoy some people and make mistakes.
But I never write stuff just to wind people up.
This is a very risky kind of hobby. My stuff does not go through a sports editor or an editor or a sub-editor or a webmaster.
It goes straight onto the net, so it’s a high-wire act, a place where I can make a fool of myself at any time.
I can be in a foul temper, or tired late at night, and get halfway through a piece and think : “I wish I had gone to bed.I don’t have to do this. Nobody is making me do this.”
But I carry on writing because, for the time being, I still enjoy it.
For me, ANR is therapeutic. It’s something outside the formats needed for newsapers, magazines and books.
It allows a freedom of expression both in style and content. It allows a sentence to go for a walk and maybe end up in an interesting place.
If I had more time, it would be much more experimental, more original, both in style and content.
20th January 2002.