Week One has provided some excellent rugby, dodgy refereeing and unfortunate injuries.
I think we can all unite around Uruguay as WC champions.
Other competitions are also starting up, so cancel all engagements and be prepared to spend your entire weekend and parts of the midweek glued to the screen. Hopefully not literally.
For those of you who lack rugby preparation skills, let me remind you to order in adequate supplies of booze, fags and possibly food.
Exciting rugby on the telly this week
Friday 27th September
| Cheetahs 48 – 14 Glasgow | 18:05 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Ulster 38 – 14 Ospreys | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Leicester 27 – 7 Exeter | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 28th September
| Argentina 28 – 12 Tonga | 05:45 | ITV |
| Japan 19 – 12 Ireland | 08:15 | ITV |
| South Africa 57 – 3 Namibia | 10:45 | ITV |
| Northampton 32 – 36 Wasps | 15:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Munster 39 – 3 Drags | 15:00 | Freesports / TG4 |
| Southern Kings 27 – 31 Cardiff Blues | 15:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Scarlets 18 – 10 Connacht | 17:15 | PS2 / S4C / TG4 |
| Treviso 27 – 32 Leinster | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Edinburgh 50 – 15 Zebre | 19:35 | Premier Sports 2 |
Sunday 29th September
| Georgia 33 – 7 Uruguay | 06:15 | ITV |
| Australia 25 – 29 Wales | 08:45 | ITV / S4C |
Monday 30th September
| Scotland 34 – 0 Samoa | 11:15 | ITV |
Wednesday 2nd October
| France 33 – 9 USA | 08:45 | ITV4 |
| New Zealand 63 – 0 Canada | 11:15 | ITV4 |
Thursday 3rd October
| Georgia 10 – 45 Fiji | 06:15 | ITV4 |
| Ireland 35 – 0 Russia | 11:15 | ITV |
Ovally Balls 
Oh do, please tell me craigs.
I think I know what it’ll be
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They’re probably just feeding him all kinds of crap and charging him a fortune for it.
“What’s this?’
“Er, jaguar’s earlobe, sir”
“Aw cool!”
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Well, if you know, then it’s really only something that you can fix. Admission is the first step though.
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OT – you just wish you could eat a jaguar’s ear.
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I once went to a restaurant and everything was written in Chinese. They had no English menu. We randomly chose a few things and hoped for the best. Pretty sure we had squid.
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Andy here with the perfect reaction:
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“Agustin Creevy has described England as boring and claimed that the World Cup match on Saturday will be “like a war”.”
Trying to out-Eddie, Eddie, preemptively.
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Eduardo Juanez
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The more I think about CJ possibly getting ripped off in Japan, the more I want to be there.
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I’m imagining CJ trying to show his respect for Japanese culture by wearing an overpriced kimono.
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That London-to-Leamington train journey is quite familiar to me! Also Leam-to-Brum.
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Think I’ve been on trains more often in Italy while on holiday than I have been on trains at home.
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BB – we took the train from Rome to Sicily this summer. They put the whole train on a ferry.
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Thaum – that would be brilliant! Sicily’s one of the places in Italy I haven’t been to yet that I really want to go see (call it the Montalbano Effect). Trouble is, the flights there from up here at the times we’d be able to go are bloody expensive, and Glasgow airport is the worst – even though we are 5 minutes away from it.
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“A Pro-Brexit protester has tried to set himself on fire outside parliament.”
Sighs. One part of me went off to mock with a Swan matches joke, and the other sunk into misery because it isn’t funny and I’m getting gut-rot from Johnson and his cohorts.
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BB – Sicily was brilliant! The food, the scenery, the architecture, the people. We did go for a wee look-see at Montalbano’s house (which is actually a B&B now, but was fully booked for our dates) and the police station, which is a town hall.
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@MisterIKS
A few years ago none but the swivel eyed fruitcakes really cared about our EU membership.
Now we have gone from fighting in the streets into the mad terrain of self-immolation.
I wonder what horrors are still to come before we go back to not caring?
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Thaum – but were there only about 3 people wandering around in the streets? The only time you see people are the officers standing outside the ‘station’ and others people in the restaurants Montalbano goes to.
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@Pro – just read this article on the guy who has been ejected from his NFL team for that hit you posted. Reading his ‘charge’ sheet, the guy sounds like a Grade A dick and shouldn’t be anywhere a contact sport.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/oct/01/vontaze-burfict-suspension-nfl-tackles
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OT – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/01/nissan-uk-qashqai-no-deal-brexit-sunderland-plant
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This morning Boris spoke of uniting the country.
This afternoon one of his loyal pro-Brexit MPs was expelled from the party conference for fighting with the treasurer of the 1922 Committee.
Armed police and an ambulance were in attendance,
Not a joke, just actual events.
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@Borderboy
Yeah Burfict has anger issues and is a liability.
His temper and violent on-field behaviour goes right back to high school.
Big hits and intimidation does appeal to coaches though. Coaches look at a player like that and weigh up the penalties and suspensions with the fact that receivers will be wary of going down the middle with him around.
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BB – there were shedloads of people around the house, and I’m glad we couldn’t get in there. There weren’t actually a lot of people around the station. We stayed in Ragusa, just around the corner from here:
It wasn’t really much more crowded than shown: people in the cafés and walking up and down.
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@Thaum
That’s just a threat to government to behave themselves in the Brexit negotiations – they say they still plan to build the Qashqai at Sunderland. Meanwhile they continue to invest – here is a press release announcing a consortium I’m part of:
https://www.mta.org.uk/resources/smart-factory-test-bed-drives-manufacturing-innovation
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How to intercept an Australian:
https://www.rugbyworldcup.com/news/491788
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OT, the Rolls-Royce of OB posters.
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OT – as it mentions in the article, auto manufacturers don’t want to mention Brexit as a reason for stopping or moving production, because they still want to sell to Brexiters.
But hey – I work on digital solutions for engineering and manufacturing!
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https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/ob-oldham-bitter-smooth-keg/171420/
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Hi OT…
isn’t it possible that the departure of Ghosn and the re-Japanification of Nissan might lead to a change in global strategy?
There may be benits to Nissan in both re-locating production lines and participating in Automotive R&D on a shared basis.
Not that i know!
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@Thauma
Nail on head there.
When Honda closed in Swindon they were careful to say it was nothing to do with Brexit, in total contradiction to what they said about the risks of Brexit in 2018.
Some Brexit agitators not only claimed it was nothing to do with Brexit but also actually blamed the EU.
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God bless the Japanese:
“Wales had the edge in music as well as the on-field battle against Australia on Sunday. Welsh points at Tokyo Stadium were celebrated with a blast from Shakin’ Stevens, Duffy, Tom Jones and even Sixties folk singer Mary Hopkin (Those Were the Days), who all hail from west of Offa’s Dyke.
“For Australian scores, the match DJ’s playlist was rather less eclectic and almost exclusively limited to Down Under from Men at Work.”
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@slade
It might well do – although I have no idea how it will work out in this case. Unfortunately the global car market is a mess, particularly so in Europe.
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OT – you sound a little salty that you haven’t been able to enjoy the live rugby and eel that CJ has.
Plus, I’m not sure if many Japanese people would be offended by ceej in a kimono.
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I wear a gii most days.
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OK, some days.
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OT, from your link:
Ain’t that the troof!
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Damian Willemse is leaving Saracens after a couple of appearances to join the Boks in Japan as Jesse Kriel is out of the tournament. It leaves the Boks with limited options at 13. Gelant or de Allende maybe? Plus, bit of pressure on Jantjies and le Roux.
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@thaum
That’s quite funny. That’s the bit I’m working on. What it doesn’t say is that SME manufacturers don’t like to use these technologies cos they don’t trust the claims of the snake oil salesmen flogging them, which kind of undermines the whole exercise.
That’s a bit of a challenge.
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OT – as someone who has been intimately involved with this type of project for many years, I can say they are quite right not to trust the claims of the snake oil salesmen. ‘Scalable’ is just a nice word to put in a marketing powerpoint.
I notice that Siemens is one of the partners.
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@thaum
Now they’re adding AI/AR/VR to the list of wonder solutions. Which is nice.
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OT – that’s all glorious and fun to play with, but when your massive server farm of monster servers can’t keep up with the data, and the software is buggy as hell – the software you’re now relying on to keep your production line running – you’ve got nuffink. It’s something like a million quid a minute when the track stops. This is why businesses like auto OEMs and banks tend to rely on very antiquated technology that has been proven to work reliably. Ask RBS what happens when you decide to ‘modernise’ (and fire all the people who knew how to keep the systems running).
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@thaum
You get it. A couple of years ago I was talking to a very straight talking MD of a really good West Midlands manufacturer and he said “every time I hear the term Industry 4.0 someone is trying to sell me something. And it’s always something I don’t want”.
Step 1 for a lot of these companies will simply be installing a robot welder or summat.
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If I never hear the phrase “an Australian-style points-based immigration system” ever again, it’ll be too soon.
See also the media appearances of Michael Cheika and Pritti Patel.
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OT – I’ve done a fair bit of work with robot (and human/ergo) simulation with the goal of off-line programming (for the robots only … so far). The latter has never really got off the ground. One company I worked for did try taking the programme and installing it to the robot, but a real person with a touch pendant then fixed it on the factory floor.
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RRS is widely used, though – it’s good for cycle times, reachability and feasibility if not OLP.
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Tomp – really? All it is it taking a score of a person’s qualities, rating them against an index and then deciding whether they can stay or not.
What’s wrong with that?
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Chanel 4 news just did a bit about Backstop two point oh, or whatever it is, they are talking about doing customs checks in warehouses forty miles way from the border.
Doesn’t that all miss/ignore the real problems with a hard border? That of identity?
http://theconversation.com/brexit-is-a-rejection-of-the-good-friday-agreement-for-peace-in-northern-ireland-114965?fbclid=IwAR2V4F3VsahfajavNMnEp9dzSWEsnPx4BMTN8Nb6YSXrdjwEfVdlU9amvII
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I’m not pretending to know anything about this, btw, I’m inviting comments from Thaum, Larry. Mickey Numbers and anyone else who has direct knowledge and experience
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Thaum, a friend of mine who did a job for Bank of Scotland that I never quite understood, she described it as data input but she was in a computer manager type position and was on a six figure salary so it probably was a bit more specialised than data input. Anyway, point is BoS continued to use Unix when other were “upgrading” and “modernising”.
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Ticht – that, and the fact that there already exists an east-west SPS border between NI and GB, mostly due to mad cow disease (at the DUP’s insistence! See Paisley Sr, recently quoted by Spaffer: “Our people are British, but our cows are Irish”). The Tories and the DUP are claiming that the EW trade far exceeds the NS trade, but it’s hard to see how they can know that as there are no checks between NI and the RoI. In fact, logic says it must be bollocks: if I drive to my local, which just happens to be across the border, for a pint, then that is cross-border trade; if I go to the nearest DIY shop for a packet of screws, etc. Who is checking these things? Nobody.
My cousins lived in Donegal but went to school in Derry. How would that work?
I would argue that the Tories broke the GFA by going into partnership with the DUP, as the British government is required to remain neutral by the GFA. It also removed all incentive for the DUP to enter into power-sharing talks to get Stormont back up and running: why would they do that, when they already had the whip hand?
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