For all their frailty at the back, Arsenal possessed genuine menace in attack and they carved through Chelsea with ease to restore parity nine minutes before half-time. Aaron Ramsey's pass was perfection and Gervinho took the unselfish option to set up Van Persie for a tap-in.

They made an odd-looking pair. Thomas short, round and tubby with the look of a naughty cherub, Campbell tall, saturnic and inclined to look gloomy under his wide fawn sombrero.

Two years after the flood, my lawyer managed to hammer out a settlement with my insurance company over the damages.

The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy.