I have seen the future and it’s . . . asparagus

A couple of weeks back, I went to the last game of the season at Arsenal. They played Stoke. They won easily. The man next to me chanted at the Stoke fans: we pay your fucking benefits, we pay your fucking benefits.

At half-time, I went to the loo. As I walked in, I was hit by a really strong smell. Not piss. Not shit. Not unpleasant but not pleasant either. For a moment, I couldn’t place it. Then I could. It was asparagus-scented piss. Someone had obviously just had it for lunch.

Forget rants about prawn-sandwich eating fans, that just displayed the shallowness of Roy Keane’s cultural horizons. He hadn’t even noticed that prawn sandwiches have been the cheap option in supermarkets for a decade at least. (Then football players, like pop stars, are so cossetted that they often don’t even know you have to actually buy plane tickets and need to remember to take your passport with you.)

No, asparagus-consumption is the new measure of the new football fans. Maybe they could open a farmer’s market at the ground on match days. Maybe that man next to me could start chanting: you don’t even like asparagus, you don’t even like asparagus.

Next up I have seen the future and it eats shoots and leaves