skribbles of the anjaxive wunderkind: i'll take you down the only road i've ever been down

you feel immensely fortunate when your undisputed favouritest song in the world gets performed live on Abbey Road..even more so when you can put on the Live 8 DVD and watch it over and over and over again. performed with Chris Martin on Piano. and when you can't get enough of it at 2.35 am in the morning you can blast it on your phonés inbuilt mp3 player.

gmorning everyone. i speak of Bittersweet Symphony. Richard Ashcroft is demi-God..cos he has modern day equivalent Greek God scruffy bedhead curls. and he is musical genius. he gave us Urban Hymns to worship him with (lol ok i'll stop faffing around)

did you notice, when were young-ish, they used to use Bittersweet Symphony alot in football -related adverts? when i was in primary school espesh..the violins just got to me. sucker for violins as always. and to think, the melody was borrowed off a sample of a Stones song ya'll!- "The Last Time". ZOMG..from the days of black n white. EEK! But hey, if it created such a timeless, malleable masterpiece (its been interpreted w/o strings, acoustically, with just guitars...) Remember when Lukas Rossi did it? i still get goosebumps everytime i hear the song, no matter how its done. its like the angels are lifting you..haha, that's what i thought when i was younger :)

moving along, just thinking of the song and its footie-relatedness made me want to do my Stamford Bridge post. It was all rather surreal and i don't think i'll get over it for a long time more, but visiting the stadium and gushing and retracing the steps of the players was just.. massive. if all stadium visits make you feel this good, like, make the hairs on the back of your neck stand good, then i don't mind going on a Eurotrip cum stadium tour :D well i've stood outside the Allianz Arena before in all its architecturally odd glory (HAHA)..time for perhaps the Nou Camp or the Bernabeu. and San Siro! there we go. just to bask in the awesomeness of its grandiose scale, might as well hit Wembley too eh?

ok PICTURES! some of them are...shaky. that's how FUCKEN EXCITED I WAS YO!

this is the tube station we got off at..on the green (district) line towards Wimbeldon (masterz of the Tube :P) yeah, they have like, 12 different lines or something k..so really! masterz of the Tube heh

got out at the station, went up to the ticket counter, asked where Stamford Bridge was and the very helpful guy told me that it was a 5 minute walk away. That's all it was! less than 5 minutes actually! passed an indian restaurant on the way and i was promptly reminded of my suggestion to hit the Hare Krishna temple at Soho for a free lunch :P Pity we missed the time the lunch was being distributed though. ok moving along, i think i started hyperventilating when i saw this sign..just straight up

dork moment! pity the scaffolding ruined the view. but hey, they gotta make it pretty for next season innit? you can't really see it here but even the lampposts were blue and the security guards were dressed in rather smart pullovers with the CFC logo on the left breast pocket. pity they didn't sell those at DA MEGASTORE

yeah they weren't kidding when they said SALE. stuff from last season that they couldn't sell was going for reaaaaal cheap and DUH i got some duds! but more importantly, we arrived there early to get tickets for the stadium+ museum tour which cost us girls 8 pounds. i almost dropped the change lah..hands shaking mah! then we had about 45minutes to kill at the megastore, all 2 floors of it and its Blue glory. my God the people working there must be sick of the colour blue.. in every shade i tell you! but yeah, that time was just about right to shop and then go muck around for a bit at the main entrance before the tour started

the art of mucking around:

dorkz unite!

eventually we got to the waiting room and this was the view. don't mind my silhouette :P we all got really cool lanyards to wear too! WHEEEEE! we were waiting around in there for quite a bit cos some group of school kids was late or summat but either way, Spanish coon-tail boy provided ample eye candy. drats i dont have a picture!

this was the view from the waiting room/box. you might have noticed that the field is non-existent. they were returfing lah! (as soon as i told Vivek about this when him and the familia picked me up at the airport he was quick to point out how rubbish the field was all season *mutters under breath*) well ok yeah wtv, they're doing something about it innit! as Frank the tourguide later explained, they were reseeding the whole damn thing. and yeah,after the workers left, the pigeons descended upon the pitch WTF PIGEONS GO AND DIE!

these also happened to be lying around in the pre-tour waiting room. oh you know, just the FA and Carling cup. but you'd to pay 20 bloody pounds to take a photo with them and be greenscreened in with the rest of the team. No thanks! a sneaky shot when the security guard wasn't looking will do *wink*

so when it eventually started, Frank asked who was True Blue and all that. there were quite a number of non Chelsea supporters..those who had the cheek to be honest were real,barca,FC Bayern, Leverkusen supporters. then there was the school group of maybe 15 year old kids. annoying punks. when Frank asked why they were there, one of em said "For a laugh". URGHHH!! he was an Arsenal fan so Frank asked, "What'd ya'll win last year? oh, and what about the season before that?" hmm?????

as Fez (from That 70's Show lah) puts it, so succinctly....BUUUURN!

then we started properly and our first stop was the press room. this was the view during the walk there

we got to the pressroom, the same one that they've been using for the last 15 years. the same one where all the signings have been made. the same one where JM gives his statements. the same one Ferguson refused to enter and give a press conference after having been thrashed 5-0 by Chels, having come as Treble champions.

i warmed the seat ya'll!! *FAINTS AND DIES*

we had a bit of time with Frank the tourleader and he was telling us that if we'd come for the 11am tour, we could've seen CASHLEY COLE in the changing room getting a rubdown. ZOOOOOMMMGGGG!! i can't believe we missed that! but nvm, still got to see the changing room anyway. but before that we went to the Away team changing room which Frank called 3-star. yeah..twas pretty barren, but all the basic necessities provided for. then Frank teased us with.."and now i'll show you a 5-star changing room".
WOOT!

hell yeah it was MUCH bigger. but my hands were so shaky i didn't get theportion of the room where Terry and Lamps sit together properly. they're arranged in no particular order..just according to who's chummy with who, which of course is based on the language they speak. CFC is frickin footie united nations mah! so notice, ferreira carvalho and hilario all sit togther. Lamps and Terry BFF, so that one's given. this one team has 4 national team captains on it, namely Terry, Ballack, Sheva and Drogba. BEAT THAT!

check out the shower facilities. open air..so kinky. but i guess they're all chums anyways eh? :P

so while everyone was mucking around Frank went off to turn on some atmosphere music. as in, an actual recording from inside the tunnel as the players prepare to walk out. made us get into 2 lines and then, WOAH lets go!

the view from the inside as we walked out..didn;t have time to soak it all in, but my heart was racing all right! bloody atmos. music playing tricks with me :P

view from immed. exit of tunnel. if only i had a panoramic function to my cam. just imagine what it must feel like to walk out with the stadium filled and with the upsurge in cheering..What A Feeling! (at one point of time i'm quite sure i sang that flashdance song out loud *hides*)

excuse me for grinning but it really was quite something. the scale of things, the fact that i'd just walked out the same tunnel as my favourite players, that i'd trodden on the same ground John Terry has, time and again skjda;sdjaifuja;sfjasf

hullo from the seat that Mourinho sits in every home game! *waves*

climbed up to one of the boxes on the east side i think and the view was quite spectacular. (hello hello) experienced a bit of Vertigo cos we were so high up. and nope, i still use non adidas goods :)

the tour ended at the museum. but we had to literally run through it cos i'd to get back to Maidenhead in time to be picked up by the Subra's (aka one of my oldest family friends). GAVIN PEACOCK's JERSEY! i listen to him every week on the Chelsea Podcast (which has been rubbishy as of late) but i donch care i'll still listen to him anyways

and on the wall of signatures: