OvallyBalls can now reveal that our operatives have made secret recordings of discussions that took place some years ago. Names may have been changed to protect the not-that-innocent.
Wrigel Nay: Right, chaps, this salary cap is a bit awkward, eh what? If we are to DOMINATE the Premiership and the European Cup, we need you players. And obviously you won’t play as well if you’re not millionaires.
Basil ‘Bog’ Brush: Well, y’need the motivation. I coulda gone inta footba’, and got my money for nothing, and my chicks for free. In rugby, I have t’ make a lo’ o’ no-arms tackles, and tha’ stings a bi’ sometimes.
Maro Match (melodiously): Uhmm, I’ve got lots of arms; I’m like an octopus, mate. Uhmm, but every extra 100 grand grows another arm. Plus, it’s fodder for my political campaign chest.
The Puny Voles: We’ve got our private doctors and personal massage therapists to pay for. It’s not cheap being injured all the time. We are reduced to pretending to go on Z-list sleb programmes to survive. And it’s boring, so the finest Dom is in order.
Maro Match (melodiously): Uhmm, Classic Dom?
The Puny Voles: Nah, mate, Dom Pérignon.
Wrigel Nay: Don’t worry, chaps, I have a plan. You set up some limited companies, and we ‘invest’ in them in lieu of salary.
[Collective sound of gum-guard-sucking.]
Wrigel Nay: I’ll have my people contact your people to explain it all. [Drones on until everyone falls asleep.]
On the telly this week
Friday 8th November
| Connacht 11 – 42 Leinster | 19:35 | TG4 / Premier Sports 2 |
| Edinburgh 20 – 17 Dragons | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Sale 28 – 18 Wasps | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 9th November
| France 10 – 20 England (women) | 13:10 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Gloucester 12 – 21 Saracens | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Zebre 7 – 31 Glasgow | 15:00 | Free Sports |
| Ospreys 14 – 16 Kings | 15:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Cardiff 30 – 17 Cheetahs | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1* / S4C |
| Munster 22 – 16 Ulster | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1* |
| Scarlets 20 – 11 Treviso | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
*Both of these cannot be right. But that’s what the site says.
Sunday 3rd November
| Exeter 17 – 22 Bristol | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
Ovally Balls 
Watford went down to ten men, but it still finished 2-0. Obviously not a blatant elbow to the chops after a bit of minor strangling.
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@Trisk – the reviews are already in:
“Despite the ludicrously far-fetched plot and the cardboard cutout characters it’s hard to escape the notion that the writer’s intentions are serious. Or at least he was seriously pissed at the time of writing. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable read.”
It’s hard to think they haven’t nailed it.
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I seem to remember mentioning that the best whisky is not always drunk by the best people.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/08/boris-johnson-control-tories-election-campaign-leader#img-1
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@tomp, ah yes, in later, more solvent, times I was quite the fan of Hofmeister. That was the gold and orange can, wasn’t it? Suspect I slept through a couple of FA Cup finals courtesy of them. Used to get hammered in the pub then back to whomever’s for a few spliffs and some carry-oot Hofmeister… sound asleep about 15min into the 1st half. Unless there was some amphetamine sulphate around to keep me awake, grinding my back teeth to a paste.
You know, the standard lead-up to a career as an SAP programmer. Cough!
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I’ve just been reminded of the Brexit party’s anthem
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One of my first jobs here was training SAP Programmers basic communication skills. Der Groschen ist gefallen, thanks to ElS.
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SAP is something I won’t really miss when my work shuts. Though I do think it’s time someone went on Mastermind with SAP transaction codes as their specialised subject.
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Wouldn’t be me though as I would be doing Network Rail/British Rail catalogue numbers for signalling infrastructure equipment.
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@CMW
There was a movie about terrorist attack on a N Sea oilrig. Anthony Perkins (of psycho fame) played the terrorist leader (this was well before terrorism became inescapably became associated with swarthy “muslim” types)
Luckily, Roger Moore, at the height of his Bond fame yet sporting a magnificent Shackleton beard, was around to save the day. There was a younger chap who helped out. Handsome Dirk Benedict type iirc
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James Mason’s in that as well, utna. It’s a dreadful old piece of rope. I hope he got paid well for it.
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Rufus Excalibur Ffolkes was the hero portrayed by Roger Moore.
Phlegm, pertinacity and a gloriously British eccentricity.
What a great movie. I wouldn’t dare rewatch it nowadays cos it would no doubt be laughably naive and would spoil my memory.
The day I rewatched True Grit as a “mature” person (not the Coen version) is a traumatic memory
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Here’s the film. Rog is wearing a Welsh supporters bobble hat in the opening scene. I’ll revise my previous opinion and give it 6 stars out of 5.
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If I could have my time over, I may well have liked to label myself as Rufus Excaliber Ffolkes for my Graun account.
Or, the name of my 2nd son….
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Yes! I forgot about James Mason.
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There are at least two Alistair Maclean books that largely take place on oil rigs. One is good for what it is. The other I found unfinishable many years ago. Perhaps Sag read it after he was done with River of Death.
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There are definitely two Alistair Macleans. The early years, when he was reasonably good (HMS Ulysses is still his best by a mile) and the latter years when he was simply writing to a formula.
Did his for my Sixth Year Studies English dissertation. Which might be still lying around somewhere.
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@BB – there are also of course the ones written by other people. This is what I’m aiming at only without AM’s initial input such as it may have been. Going to need all the beer money myself, he doesn’t need it any more.
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Never read AM nor Wilbur Smith, who seems from the same genre.
In the last couple of years have read a few adventure novels. Enjoyed a lot of Eric Ambler – slightly different feeling I’d wager – and Lionel Davidson (ludicrous but very exciting).
Also, just recently read the rather good Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers about a German Communist’s escape from a Nazi concentration camp.
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Looks like a poor man’s Juggernaut.
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Wouldn’t say Juggernaut is a great film but it has one of the great mid-film gritty set pieces.
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Anthony Hopkins is also in Juggernaut.
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But is Anthony Perkins in it?
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Anthony Hopkins is in a film of one of the better Alistair MacLean books.
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Actual Bond on an oil rig is Diamonds are Forever.
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Misread Perkins. Terrible.
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Desmond Bagley was another 70s thriller writer along the same lines. He wrote Running Blind which was set in Iceland and later made into a TV series.
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@BB – I remember reading High Citadel that I found in our school library.
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Some plane crash survivors in the Andes defend a mountain pass from evil communists with medieval weaponpry fashioned from bits of old mine workings or similar. Some of them trek across the mountains to get help from the good guys in the government. It’s great obviously.
There was a copy of The Vivero Letter on one of my father’s old bookcases so I read that too. Vague memory that it was shit. It was alongside a couple of sub-par MacLeans – The Way to Dusty Death which is terrible drivel and Bear Island which is very silly after quite a grim start. There’s a bad film of that one I think.
Like my father I keep books like this rather than give them away. In my case it’s so that if I also die young then later on my kids can wonder what the fuck I was playing at reading such nonsense. Don’t know what his reason was.
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The thriler set in 1980s Afghanistan by newsman Sandy Gall will certainly have them wondering.
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France v England Women’s is pretty good. 3-3 after 25 minutes.
On Sky Sports Mix, if you have it.
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The film was called ffolkes outside the UK, which is unusual because usually the titles are changed to be more blunt and to the point e.g. for the American market. Same director did The Wild Geese with Rog and the Richards Harris and Burton.
You do wonder if these films were the equivalent of blog meets – an excuse to go on the lash with mates you don’t see very often.
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If you liked Juggernaut then you’d love The Last Voyage, where they sank a real ocean liner for most of the filming.
The film version of Ice Station Zebra meanwhile wounded me greatly when I first saw it on the telly as a nipper. The terrible back-projection work ruined my suspension of disbelief for the first time – like realising (spoiler alert BB) Santa isn’t real for the first time.
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Have we got enough for a 70s Thriller Writers 15 yet?
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@TomP, just by chance I saw about two-thirds of the movie version of the Seventh Cross on BBC2 not so long ago.
It was pretty good. Looking it up it was made in 1944 with Spencer Tracy, but my memory of watching it casts Van Heflin in the role, but there we go.
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‘Mon ra Weedge!
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“Never read AM nor Wilbur Smith“
As far as Wilbur Smith goes, my advice would be to keep it that way.
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Scrappy start but a try at last from Glasgow from Horne The Younger. Pitch looks pretty heavy.
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Bok lock stock shock!
https://m.sport24.co.za/Rugby/Springboks/picture-of-schoolboy-dwarfing-etzebeth-has-social-media-in-a-buzz-20191108
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Second try Glasgow, second try Horne The Younger!
Quite good, isn’t he?
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Try for Hastings! Really good patient build up through the forwards – not a type of game we’re known for playing, but we’re playing to the conditions.
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Bonus point try!
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Aled Brew straight red for running into a player like a moron with his elbow up.
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Zebre player could be in trouble here with a shoulder charge at the ruck. Difference between a yellow and red could be where he hit him.
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Red card. Mega stupid – Zebre had their best bit of possession in the game and were pushing at the Glasgow line.
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Ref in the Barf match looks like a rabbit in the headlights.
The Priest meanwhile was going well, then missed a sitter of a conversion by contriving to hit the crossbar.
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Try Zebre! Comeback on for the 14 men?
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Ryan Wilson getting into trouble! I’m shocked!
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What is happening with the Ospreys?
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I assume they haven’t lost at home to the Kings before and feel that needs to be remedied. What do you want from them?
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Just spent 5 mins watching reset scrums under the Saints posts. Marvellous.
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