Act I: Isengard
Uglúk Farrell: Hail, Saruman the White! Rejoice, for I have brought unto you the head of Grishnákh Read, the leader of the Black Uruk-hai of Mordor.
Saruman Jones: It is well done, my servant, but have you also brought unto me the halflings?
Uglúk (pouting, and looking for all the world like a bog brush): The halflings disappeared during the scrummage with the Black Uruk-hai, my lord.
Saruman: How do you mean, disappeared?! The halflings are always lurking around the back of the scrummage, instructing the referee.
Uglúk: My lord, I believe they used some TMO enchantment to escape. But why concern yourself with mere halflings when there are mighty but cuddly Green Uruk-hai to face?
Saruman: You fool! To think that I have wasted years breeding White Uruk-hai only to produce morons who can’t capture halflings, and don’t know what a ruck is!
Uglúk (pouting again): That wasn’t me, that was Uruk-Dylan and Uruk-DOMINATOR.
Saruman: Get out of my sight!
[Exit Uglúk]
Saruman (pacing): Verily, it is a strange thing to have the head of Grishnákh and yet not the Ring. I fear there are some dark-green plots afoot.
Act II: The Forest of Fangorn
Treebeard: Hmm hoom, are you young halflings awake yet?
Merry Handré (bouncing up): Yes, Treebeard, we are full of the beans of life following your magic energy drink! Can we have some more, please?
Pippin Faf: Ooh, yes, please!
Gandalf Rassie: I would not advise drinking too deeply of Fangorn’s potions. Indeed, your skin is already taking on a greenish tinge, as if the moss grew upon it.
Halflings (in unison): Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Gandalf! We will be fine.
Gandalf: Do not then stumble at the end of the 22.
Act III: Dol Baran; night
[Merry and Pippin are huddled in their camp.]
Pippin: That ovally ball that old Gandalf’s got. He seemed mighty pleased with it. He knows or guesses something about it. But does he tell us what? No, not a word. Yet I picked it up, and I saved us from rolling out at the pool stages.
Merry: Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. Go to sleep!
[Pippin waits for Merry to fall asleep, then sneaks out to look at the special ovally ball.
He bends low over it, looking like a greedy child stooping over a bowl of food, in a corner away from others. He gazes at it. The air seems still and tense about him. At first the oval is dark, black as an All-Black jersey, with the moonlight gleaming on its surface. Then there comes a faint glow and stir in the heart of it, and it holds his eyes, so that now he can not look away. Soon all the inside seems on fire; the ball is spinning, or the lights within are revolving. Suddenly it does one of those awkward ovally-ball bounces, and the lights go out. He gives a gasp and struggles; but he regains the ball and remains bent, clasping the ball with both hands like any sensible player approaching a tackle. Closer and closer he bends, and then becomes rigid; his lips move soundlessly for a while. Then with a strangled cry he falls back and lies still (with one eye on the referee).
The cry is piercing. The fatties leap (ungracefully) down from the banks. All the camp is soon astir.]
Gandalf: So this is the thief.
[Hastily he casts his cloak over the ovally ball where it lies.]
Gandalf: But you, Pippin! This is a grievous turn to things! The devilry! What mischief has he done to himself, and to all of us?
[The halfling shudders, his eyes closed. He cries out and sits up, staring in bewilderment at all the faces around him, pale in the moonlight.]
Pippin: It is not for you, Saruman!
Gandalf (sternly): What did you see, and what did you say?
Pippin: I saw a dark sky, and tall rugby posts. Then the lights went in and out. They were cut off by winger-like things. Very big, I think, really; but in the ovally ball they looked like white bats wheeling round the try-line. I thought there were fifteen of them.
Gandalf: Nazgûl! The storm is coming. The Nazgûl are coming! Run, run! Wait not for the whistle, and never mind the offside law! Let not the swift wait for the slow! Run!
Further reading
Yosoy philosophising on Wales’ performance with a depleted team.
TomPirracas’ touching tale of a young rugby fan’s decision on whom to support.
On the telly this week
Friday 1st November
| Wales v New Zealand | 09:00 | S4C / ITV |
| Ulster v Zebre | 19:35 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Glasgow v Kings | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Saints v Quins | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 2nd November
| England v S Africa | 09:00 | ITV / S4C |
| Leicester v Gloucester | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Scarlets v Cheetahs | 15:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Ospreys v Connacht | 17:15 | S4C / TG4 / PS1 |
| Treviso v Edinburgh | 17:15 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Cardiff v Munster | 19:35 | TG4 / Premier Sports 1 |
Sunday 3rd November
| Worcester v Exeter | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
Ovally Balls 
Plus Jo Swinson happily playing the nuclear armageddon card early doors. Always a vote-winner that one.
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@thaum
Most blokes in Essex seem to be called Lee.
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** too soon?
YES
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‘Last week the party confirmed that Jill Hughes, the candidate for the Batley and Spen constituency in West Yorkshire, was to stand down after claims emerged that she believes she comes from the distant star Sirius and that governments across the world were in cahoots with aliens.’
The lizard people got to her.
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Chimpie – at least we can observe sirius. She’s one notch above anyone who thinks they will be with jebus in heaven when they die.
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Maybe she wasn’t being sirius.
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I don’t understand why someone from the Sirius system would join the Brexit Party. Especially when it costs 500 Sirius credits to join.
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Should have joined the LDs. Swinson seems to be on another planet. although whether she’s from one is open to question.
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From Milngavie apparently.
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I’ll let BB comment on whether that’s a different planet or not.
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Just had an email from Len McCluskey.
Probably asking for more space credits.
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@chimpie
Jo “Britain’s next PM” Swinson.
Apparently it’s called a “bicep kissing” strategy.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jo-swinson-uk-next-pm-three-way_uk_5dba0dc5e4b00d83f7221433
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bicep kissing eh?
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Not yours.
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I’d be a bit disturbed if a politician wanted to kiss my bicep.
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‘The problem, briefly stated, is how to design a message that can be understood by an extraterrestrial intelligence about which you can know nothing with absolute certainty.
This turns the design of interstellar messages into an exercise in identifying universals that can be presumed to be recognised by any entity endowed with higher intelligence.’
Sounds like a job for Rugby X.
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Credit where it’s due, at least she said, ‘So will the prime minister commit today to take part in those three-way debates, or is he going to run scared of debating with ‘a girly swot’?”’
She didn’t drop the “with” after “debating”
I feckin hate that Americanism.
I also feckin hate that Scotland, Wales and NornIron (except when DUP votes are needed, natch) are again being treated as lesser parts of this so-called union.
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Yes slight bit of ironing that she’s demanding representation at the debates with a whole lot less seats than the SNP.
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Sarries could be in further trouble as they didn’t show up for the Not-Heine launch
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Re TV debates, I think they’re a pointless waste of time and effort from all concerned.
However, if we’re going to have them, they have to include every major political party standing nationally, not just the biggest two. Both the LDs and the Brexit Party came above Lab and Con in the last national election (Euros).
I’d have separate debates for Wales and Scotland and NI. Not much point in Sturgeon appearing in the main debates when most of the audience can’t vote for her party.
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@Ticht
Apparently they didn’t show up to the 2010 launch and got fined £4k.
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boo! evil!
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Not sure if the televised debates are a waste of time. They gave us Nick Cle…
No, you’re absolutely right.
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On another website I saw someone say that they thought Jo Swinson gave off “a head girl vibe” but was worried that sounded sexist. They were advised to say she gives off “a Milngavie vibe” instead.
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Milngavie-ers can give off varied vibes in my experience.
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yes not sure TV debates help much. Might make our PM look a numpty though. Actual exposure to scrutiny doesn’t seem to go well for him.
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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIrHmI4XkAELrHF.jpg:large
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Sorry. The caption for the above image from someone on Twitter was “Seumas Milne right now.”
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Lib Dems increasingly depressing awful. Still not sure they are Labour awful. Obviously the Tories are so far in front in the awful race they may as well be orbiting Sirius.
Brexit Party in dark space somewhere. UKIP so far awful they’ve gone back in time and effectively no longer exist.
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I’ll be voting Alliance.
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Oh, and the TV debates are a total shitshow and best ignored.
I’m a happier man having retired from Question Time. Absolutely no chance I’ll dust off the old glass-of-red-and-deep-rage combination suit for 90 minutes of Johnson and Corbyn and, perhaps, Swinson too.
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If only the RWC had been staged a month or so later, then it would have been far easier to ignore this shit show of an election.
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I’ll be voting ENZOM.
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I’m happy to ignore this shit show of an election.
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Vote early, vote ENZOM
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I’ve been following politics less and less recently and can report that the effects have been largely positive for my own sanity.
I can’t entirely reject the idea that I’m being a massive flake though.
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Chekh – we should get t shirts made. You should learn how to dance.
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holy crap!
‘Like Britain and the United States, Brazil is seeing a revival of flat Earth theory: 7% of the population – 11 million Brazilians – believe that the Earth is flat, according to the polling firm Datafolha.’
that’s a lot of people
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“Not much point in Sturgeon appearing in the main debates when most of the audience can’t vote for her party.”
The majority of the electorate may not be able to vote for the third largest party currently at Westminster, but they have the right to hear from someone advocating huge constitutional change which affects them directly, especially when the party is tipped to take 50+ of the available 59 seats they are contesting.
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‘Olavo de Carvalho – a former astrologer who is considered the intellectual guru of Bolsonaro and his inner circle – prompted outrage and ridicule when he tweeted: “I didn’t study the subject of the flat Earth. I just watched a few videos of experiments that show that aquatic surfaces are flat – and so far I haven’t found anything to refute them.”’
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Science not Olavo’s strong point, then?
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@Ticht
I’m not sure that argument flies. Sturgeon’s not even standing in the election. Anyone from England/Wales/NI who cares about the SNP’s position on that major constitutional change (pro independence, surprise!) can find out in a hundred other ways.
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@Craigs
Learn? You assume I can’t already?
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She is the leader of the party with the third largest representation at Westminster, Chek.
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I didn’t study the subject of space travel. I just watched a few cut scenes from the Star Wars Lego games, that show that show intergalactic, faster than light space travel is possible – and so far I haven’t found anything to refute this
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That’s some top quality research there yos.
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Chekh – point made. Learn to dance better. I’ve seen you do the funky chicken enough times on the train home.
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@ticht
Yes, but is leading a party that 90% of UK voters cannot vote for. This is a general election to decide who governs that country.
There should obviously be a platform for the SNP in debates with other Scottish party leaders.
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I didn’t study the history of Belgium. I just watched a few videos of the Smurfs that shows that Belgian people are small, blue, human-like creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest – and so far I haven’t found anything to refute this
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Chek, I think the SNP have had enough of being patronised, hopefully the Scottish people will have, too, the polls seem to suggest that is the case.
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