I can tell all of you for nothing that I could readily eat Japanese food by the lorry load on any given day but it is the Japanese culture that fascinates me above all and the fact that one of the fundamentals of their culture is the subject of honour.
Now, I don't know this for sure but given that there are 20 different Japanese dialects, I can only imagine in turn that there are numerous codes of honour that Japanese natives culturally follow. For all that, I would also imagine that every code of honour that exists revolves around the need to act with honesty and a large degree of integrity.
Arsene Wenger is a man that has spent a fair degree of time in Japan of course and there is no doubt that he could give a far greater insight into what the country of Japan is all about than I can ever could.
However, if I didn't know any better, I would think that all he may have learnt when it comes to the subject of honour or honesty and integrity and their true respective values had suddenly disappeared out of the window. Because that is certainly how it looked after I bore witness to what was an absolutely diabolical display from Arsenal on Saturday.
After half an hour I was so disgusted with what I had seen, I switched my telly off and phoned Gazza. We then went to have a 25-minute telephone conversation where we hardly actually said anything to each other at all because we were both so apoplectic.
What made this hurt most of all was that virtually the last thing I said in my article before Saturday's game was that I did not want the Arsenal players to come off the pitch feeling that they had sold themselves short - in the end the Arsenal did exactly that and worse.
Arsenal compounded their abject display with a spate of childish indiscipline and it was no surprise to me that Eboue was right at the forefront of it. I had actually switched the TV back on briefly just in time to see him make an absolutely idiotic challenge on Evra. I was still on the phone to Gazza at this point and almost in unison we said to each other that he was going off.
You know, fellow Gooners, I'm absolutely sick to the back teeth of this lad. AC Milan are supposedly sniffing around looking to acquire his services. Well as far as I am concerned, I would snap their hands off if they out in even a half decent bid for him.
It's too easy for the anti-Arsenal brigade to have a pop at our club without having idiots like Eboue on the books giving them all cheap ammunition they need to sully the name of our club even more.
Gallas, our captain no less, behaved no better. So what if the opposition were showboating - they were blooming 4-0 up after all. In kicking out the way he did, Gallas was not acting out of frustration. He resorted to spite in a misguided attempt to make himself feel better about his personal inadequacies and those of his team-mates.
Even the mild mannered Gilberto eventually made a challenge of intent - the trouble is that came too late in more than one sense and got him a booking that could have been a red under another ref. And on it went. Flamini, having come on late on, crunched into another player but amazingly he escaped a caution.
This whole fiasco was taking place in front of my other mates Gus. He was part of the 9,000 strong travelling Arsenal fans who, save for odd defiant chant, would have been every bit as angry and nonplussed as I was by what they were witnessing. And boy, did my heart go out to each and every one of them.
They had not invested their time and spent considerable amounts of money to watch a bunch of players, most of whom earn more in a week than a majority of the Arsenal fans earn in a year, sell them and the club they love down the river at Old Trafford of all fucking places.
Whilst the players rightly have to share the blame for the fiasco that ensued, there is no question that Arsene has to ultimately carry the can for all of this. The fact is he gave the Arsenal players the licence to effectively throw the game in a manner that even the dodgiest of Far Eastern betting syndicates couldn't have dreamed up.
And in the process, Arsene was guilty of not only allowing his team to dishonour themselves and the FA Cup as a competition but, more than that he allowed his team to cheat, con and embarrass their own fans in the back yard of the one club most Arsenal fans loathe perhaps even more than Spurs. Not only was it all unprofessional, not only was it all unacceptable, it was downright unforgivable.
I didn't mind too much when we were beaten by the Spuds in the Carling Cup semis but what happened at OT was a totally different kettle of fish. Because what this game told me was that a disturbing culture has developed at Arsenal where they think that they can pick and choose where they decide to really play.
Along with the well chronicled rotation policy, this is the same kind of culture that has been in existence at Liverpool for a while now and it is a big factor in why Liverpool for example have underachieved in the way they have and I do not want us to suffer because of the same kind of mentality.
Right now, there is a very nasty taste in my mouth after what happened at Old Trafford. Even now as I'm writing this my blood is boiling at what happened on Saturday and for me, the only thing that is going to make that nasty taste disappear is seeing us win the league.
Having virtually forfeited the chance to progress in both domestic cup competitions on the pretence that they were both low priority targets, Arsene has effectively chosen to place all his eggs in one maybe two baskets.
Well, the gloves are now off. Arsene may have made no secret of the fact the Champions League and the Premier League are his prime concerns and at least he has got what he wanted. But as far as I am concerned, both Arsene and his players owe it to the fans to achieve success now. Because in my eyes, that is the only thing they can do to really make up for the debacle that ensued at Old Trafford and what the 9.000 souls were subjected to there.
And if Arsene fails to deliver on the back of the situation he has created then, perhaps for the first time, I for one will be asking genuinely serious questions of him and how he elects to do things at Arsenal.
I like to think that I have always tried to defend the honour of the club, the manager and the players that represent us 90% of the time. But when they conspire to let us all down in the fashion they did at OT then I refuse to exonerate them.
From now on, I'm not interested in excuses, hard luck stories, the supposed twists and turns that lie ahead in the title race or whether people think that I don't have the divine right as an Arsenal fan to expect us win the league. From now on, in my mind, Arsenal have no margins for error whatsoever.
Now it's time for me to look at Wednesday night's game at The Grove where we will entertain some team called AC Milan.
There is a divided perception amongst observers about where the current AC Milan side is really at. It's fair to say that the Rossoneri have been dreadful by their standards in Serie A. The major reason for that is that with the season starting in September, the Rossoneri amazingly had to wait until the beginning of January to register their first home win.
In the cut throat world that is Serie A, where lesser clubs are sacking their managers for failing to register a win virtually every other game they play in, Carlo Ancelotti remains at the helm in the red half of the San Siro.
To be fair to Ancelotti, he did guide Milan to revenge over Liverpool in last years Champions League final and he did guide Milan to the World Club title just before Christmas and one can only assume that success is what granted him a stay of execution.
But of course, it's the fact that they are having what is, let's face it, an appalling season in Serie A yet still come into this tie as reigning World and European champions which polarises and divides opinion as to whether this is a good tie for Arsenal or not.
Will the fact that AC Milan have an ageing squad actually be handicap or will their undoubted experience see them through to yet another final in May?
I don't really need to give most of you Arsenal fans a lowdown on who is who for Milan but for me the key man is not Kaka as such or the much vaunted and much hyped Pato. For me, the key men for Milan are Gattuso and Pirlo. They are the men who, in their own ways, allow people like Kaka to express themselves.
I have been looking forward to this game ever since the draw was made and the events at OT have not dampened that one bit. Everyone outside of Arsenal drew a lot of conclusions out of conclusions from what happened on Saturday though and of course all of them were detrimental to Arsenal.
It is now the duty of both Arsene and his players to restore the pride and credibility they not only lost last Saturday but effectively forfeited. A result against Milan will only represent the start that process for me now.
Now, I don't know this for sure but given that there are 20 different Japanese dialects, I can only imagine in turn that there are numerous codes of honour that Japanese natives culturally follow. For all that, I would also imagine that every code of honour that exists revolves around the need to act with honesty and a large degree of integrity.
Arsene Wenger is a man that has spent a fair degree of time in Japan of course and there is no doubt that he could give a far greater insight into what the country of Japan is all about than I can ever could.
However, if I didn't know any better, I would think that all he may have learnt when it comes to the subject of honour or honesty and integrity and their true respective values had suddenly disappeared out of the window. Because that is certainly how it looked after I bore witness to what was an absolutely diabolical display from Arsenal on Saturday.
After half an hour I was so disgusted with what I had seen, I switched my telly off and phoned Gazza. We then went to have a 25-minute telephone conversation where we hardly actually said anything to each other at all because we were both so apoplectic.
What made this hurt most of all was that virtually the last thing I said in my article before Saturday's game was that I did not want the Arsenal players to come off the pitch feeling that they had sold themselves short - in the end the Arsenal did exactly that and worse.
Arsenal compounded their abject display with a spate of childish indiscipline and it was no surprise to me that Eboue was right at the forefront of it. I had actually switched the TV back on briefly just in time to see him make an absolutely idiotic challenge on Evra. I was still on the phone to Gazza at this point and almost in unison we said to each other that he was going off.
You know, fellow Gooners, I'm absolutely sick to the back teeth of this lad. AC Milan are supposedly sniffing around looking to acquire his services. Well as far as I am concerned, I would snap their hands off if they out in even a half decent bid for him.
It's too easy for the anti-Arsenal brigade to have a pop at our club without having idiots like Eboue on the books giving them all cheap ammunition they need to sully the name of our club even more.
Gallas, our captain no less, behaved no better. So what if the opposition were showboating - they were blooming 4-0 up after all. In kicking out the way he did, Gallas was not acting out of frustration. He resorted to spite in a misguided attempt to make himself feel better about his personal inadequacies and those of his team-mates.
Even the mild mannered Gilberto eventually made a challenge of intent - the trouble is that came too late in more than one sense and got him a booking that could have been a red under another ref. And on it went. Flamini, having come on late on, crunched into another player but amazingly he escaped a caution.
This whole fiasco was taking place in front of my other mates Gus. He was part of the 9,000 strong travelling Arsenal fans who, save for odd defiant chant, would have been every bit as angry and nonplussed as I was by what they were witnessing. And boy, did my heart go out to each and every one of them.
They had not invested their time and spent considerable amounts of money to watch a bunch of players, most of whom earn more in a week than a majority of the Arsenal fans earn in a year, sell them and the club they love down the river at Old Trafford of all fucking places.
Whilst the players rightly have to share the blame for the fiasco that ensued, there is no question that Arsene has to ultimately carry the can for all of this. The fact is he gave the Arsenal players the licence to effectively throw the game in a manner that even the dodgiest of Far Eastern betting syndicates couldn't have dreamed up.
And in the process, Arsene was guilty of not only allowing his team to dishonour themselves and the FA Cup as a competition but, more than that he allowed his team to cheat, con and embarrass their own fans in the back yard of the one club most Arsenal fans loathe perhaps even more than Spurs. Not only was it all unprofessional, not only was it all unacceptable, it was downright unforgivable.
I didn't mind too much when we were beaten by the Spuds in the Carling Cup semis but what happened at OT was a totally different kettle of fish. Because what this game told me was that a disturbing culture has developed at Arsenal where they think that they can pick and choose where they decide to really play.
Along with the well chronicled rotation policy, this is the same kind of culture that has been in existence at Liverpool for a while now and it is a big factor in why Liverpool for example have underachieved in the way they have and I do not want us to suffer because of the same kind of mentality.
Right now, there is a very nasty taste in my mouth after what happened at Old Trafford. Even now as I'm writing this my blood is boiling at what happened on Saturday and for me, the only thing that is going to make that nasty taste disappear is seeing us win the league.
Having virtually forfeited the chance to progress in both domestic cup competitions on the pretence that they were both low priority targets, Arsene has effectively chosen to place all his eggs in one maybe two baskets.
Well, the gloves are now off. Arsene may have made no secret of the fact the Champions League and the Premier League are his prime concerns and at least he has got what he wanted. But as far as I am concerned, both Arsene and his players owe it to the fans to achieve success now. Because in my eyes, that is the only thing they can do to really make up for the debacle that ensued at Old Trafford and what the 9.000 souls were subjected to there.
And if Arsene fails to deliver on the back of the situation he has created then, perhaps for the first time, I for one will be asking genuinely serious questions of him and how he elects to do things at Arsenal.
I like to think that I have always tried to defend the honour of the club, the manager and the players that represent us 90% of the time. But when they conspire to let us all down in the fashion they did at OT then I refuse to exonerate them.
From now on, I'm not interested in excuses, hard luck stories, the supposed twists and turns that lie ahead in the title race or whether people think that I don't have the divine right as an Arsenal fan to expect us win the league. From now on, in my mind, Arsenal have no margins for error whatsoever.
Now it's time for me to look at Wednesday night's game at The Grove where we will entertain some team called AC Milan.
There is a divided perception amongst observers about where the current AC Milan side is really at. It's fair to say that the Rossoneri have been dreadful by their standards in Serie A. The major reason for that is that with the season starting in September, the Rossoneri amazingly had to wait until the beginning of January to register their first home win.
In the cut throat world that is Serie A, where lesser clubs are sacking their managers for failing to register a win virtually every other game they play in, Carlo Ancelotti remains at the helm in the red half of the San Siro.
To be fair to Ancelotti, he did guide Milan to revenge over Liverpool in last years Champions League final and he did guide Milan to the World Club title just before Christmas and one can only assume that success is what granted him a stay of execution.
But of course, it's the fact that they are having what is, let's face it, an appalling season in Serie A yet still come into this tie as reigning World and European champions which polarises and divides opinion as to whether this is a good tie for Arsenal or not.
Will the fact that AC Milan have an ageing squad actually be handicap or will their undoubted experience see them through to yet another final in May?
I don't really need to give most of you Arsenal fans a lowdown on who is who for Milan but for me the key man is not Kaka as such or the much vaunted and much hyped Pato. For me, the key men for Milan are Gattuso and Pirlo. They are the men who, in their own ways, allow people like Kaka to express themselves.
I have been looking forward to this game ever since the draw was made and the events at OT have not dampened that one bit. Everyone outside of Arsenal drew a lot of conclusions out of conclusions from what happened on Saturday though and of course all of them were detrimental to Arsenal.
It is now the duty of both Arsene and his players to restore the pride and credibility they not only lost last Saturday but effectively forfeited. A result against Milan will only represent the start that process for me now.