Now that all that distractive World Cup nonsense is out of the way, we can all concentrate on rugby that really matters*: the Big Cup and the Pish Cup.
*Until your team falls out of it, then it’s the league, obviously.
EnzoM has summarised each Big Cup team’s chances nicely, except for one small error, later corrected to read ‘Ulster by 50’.
On the telly this week
Friday 15th November
| Gloucester 20 – 25 Toulouse | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 16th November
| Bath 16 – 17 Ulster | 13:00 | Channel 4 / BT Sport 2 |
| Glasgow 13 – 7 Sale | 13:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| England 17 – 15 France (women) | 13:10 | Sky Sports Action |
| Barbarians 31 – 33 Fiji | 14:30 | BBC1 |
| Leinster 33 – 19 Treviso | 15:15 | BT Sport 3 |
| La Rochelle 12 – 31 Exeter | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 |
| Ospreys 13 – 32 Munster | 17:30 | BT Sport 3 |
| ASM 53 – 21 Harlequins | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Scarlets 20 – 16 London Irish | 19:45 | S4C |
| Bordeaux 40 – 30 Wasps | 20:00 | BT Sport 2 |
Sunday 17th November
| Northampton 25 – 14 Lyon | 13:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Connacht 23 – 20 Montpellier | 13:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Scotland 3 – 17 Wales (women) | 15:10 | BBC Alba |
| Racing 30 – 10 Saracens | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 |
Ovally Balls 
Deebs – clearly in the shite part of Milan as you said.
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Was that in Regina, Saskatchewan by any chance?
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Deebee, that’s disappointing.
Craigs, what are you talking about?
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Not like Italian is bad enough. “Except for stuffed crust with BBQ dip” is diabolical.
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“Was that in Regina”
Karl
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I’m expressing a preference to non Italian food Larry. I’ve never had satisfactory sweet and sour pork balls (Hong Kong style) in Italy.
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Slightly hypocritical that I’m having a panini for breakfast. But I’ve got some HP sauce to liven it up.
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*Don’s tin foil hat*
I’m bored sooo…. Whilst we’re on the subject of food I found this article interesting and amusing:
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/nov/15/richard-berman-convince-america-beef-healthier-meatless-burgers-impossible
Getting past the first 1/3 about the guy been paid to shit on the new meatless burgers there’s this:
The burgers are, “of course ultra-processed”, said Carlos Monteiro, a prominent researcher of processed food at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He said Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat burgers are made “with substances extracted from foods such as protein isolates” that are rearranged to, “resemble food”.
The article then talks about the debate around whether these new burgers are healthy or environmentally as friendly as they are made out to be.
It also says this:
Animal agriculture worldwide produces an estimated 13-18% of global greenhouse gases. Vegetarianism offers a a huge potential environmental benefit, but only about 3% of the US population forgoes meat. In chasing this ambitious goal, both companies have landed on “plant-based meats” – processed foods whose dietary profiles are remarkably close to traditional beef by being high in calories, protein and saturated fat and exceptionally salty.
There’s a link in that segment to here:
https://skepticalscience.com/animal-agriculture-meat-global-warming.htm
I read the whole thing and the important (to me anyway) paragraph in that site is:
How do the numbers get misrepresented?
There are often suggestions that going vegan is the most important step people can take to solve the global warming problem. While reducing meat consumption (particularly beef and lamb) reduces greenhouse gas emissions, this claim is an exaggeration.
An oft-used comparison is that globally, animal agriculture is responsible for a larger proportion of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions (14-18%) than transportation (13.5%). While this is true, transportation is just one of the many sources of human fossil fuel combustion. Electricity and heat generation account for about 25% of global human greenhouse gas emissions alone.
Moreover, in developed countries where the ‘veganism will solve the problem’ argument is most frequently made, animal agriculture is responsible for an even smaller share of the global warming problem than fossil fuels. For example, in the USA, fossil fuels are responsible for over 10 times more human-caused greenhouse gas emissions than animal agriculture.
This does seem to contradict the narrative being pushed towards veganism at the moment by the graun and other media.
I totally respect people’s choice to be vegetarian and vegan BTW but there has been a push to convert people for various reasons which seem to be missguided based on the above.
Unless I’m reading this all wrong?
*removes tin foil hat*
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That was for OT. Craigs, I’m fighting the good fight a few minutes walk from ENI’s corporate headquarters. A very green and responsible building reflecting the sincere commitment of the oil industry to a just transformed energy environment for future generations.
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Craigs, my take on this is that countries that have 6 times more sheep than people are evil climate destroyers. As a 1st step we should ban them from global sporting competition. Starting with SupeRugby next year.
Cough.
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The oil industry will love artificial foods. The chemicals refined from their oil can be made into food manufactured in high volumes. See also: margarine
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Your intrepid traveller had a superb meeting in Parma (sans ham or cheese it must be said) and is now wending his way to to Pesaro. Alas, no time to pop into San Marino.
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Hate margarine.
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Craigs, Monbiot is an interesting read on this subject
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/08/save-planet-meat-dairy-livestock-food-free-range-steak
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I really don’t like meat alternatives, a flat mushroom flavour with garlic and chilli makes for a good burget
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Did you sign for Zebre?
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Ticht – his argument is more about how land is used though rather than emissions. That’s fine, but I don’t think going completely plant based is going to be a panacea like he suggests. There are other alternatives.
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For example, how do you encourage farmers and land owners to re wild their land? They might have other plans.
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Craigs, the biggest threat to farming and farmers is Agribusiness, not changing landuse from grazing pasture to arable
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Guilty secret, I can’t stand margarine, butter, good butter is hard to beat
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OK, but I’m not sure how this relates back to the point about ghg emissions….
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Butter… well, dairy in general is why I’ll always struggle to be more than a few days a week veggie.
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Yos – for me it’s diary, fish and meat.
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“OK, but I’m not sure how this relates back to the point about ghg emissions….”
Craigs, Monbiot usually publishes his Graun articles on his own website where he fully references everything in the article, I haven’t checked with the one I put up the link for yet, but in it he says, “All the evidence now points in one direction: the crucial shift is from an animal- to a plant-based diet. A paper published last week in Science reveals that while some kinds of meat and dairy production are more damaging than others, all are more harmful to the living world than growing plant protein. It shows that animal farming takes up 83% of the world’s agricultural land, but delivers only 18% of our calories. A plant-based diet cuts the use of land by 76% and halves the greenhouse gases and other pollution that are caused by food production.”
In fact he has embedded a link in the text to the paper he mentions, I haven’t read it yet but I’ll do so now
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987
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Yos, I’m afraid that not even in my considerable, cough, pomp, cough, would even Zebre be interested in my services. The Kings, on the other hand…
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Gary Younge has started reading Ovallyballs, it would seem
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/15/tories-rightwing-press
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Refit, the swings and arrows of rugby are apparent this weekend – Luke Hamilton starting for Brizzle at 8 after being let go be Edinburgh, Nick Haining starting for Edinburgh at 8 having been let go by Brizzle
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Slings, even
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“YOUR”
CHIEFS SIDE TO FACE LA ROCHELLE
15 Stuart Hogg, 14 Tom O’Flaherty, 13 Henry Slade, 12 Ian Whitten, 11 Alex Cuthbert
10 Joe Simmonds, 9 Nic White
1 Alec Hepburn, 2 Jack Yeandle (capt), 3 Harry Williams, 4 Dave Dennis, 5 Jonny Hill, 6 Dave Ewers, 7 Jacques Vermeulen, 8 Sam Simmonds
16 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 17 Ben Moon, 18 Marcus Street, 19 Jannes Kirsten, 20 Don Armand, 21 Jack Maunder, 22 Gareth Steenson, 23 Jack Nowell
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Up the bears?
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Up the beers, Chimpie.
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It’s like a freakin’ country bear jamboroo around here.
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Ha! Needless to say, I thought Younge’s article was very good.
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He’s leaving The Guardian, unfortunately. Going to be an academic at Manchester University. The not very prolific Andy Beckett is still there, which is something. And Aditya’s ok. Frances Ryan, too.
There’s a good lad called Tom Whyman who’s been impressing me for a while. These are two good pieces:
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/gyzekb/trident-nuclear-programme-jeremy-corbyn-jo-swinson
https://theoutline.com/post/8246/british-election-coverage-regulations?utm_source=topic_recent
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Ticht – that article referenced also says that reducing meat consumption by 50% will achieve most (76%) of the benefit as avoiding it altogether. Coming back to my original point, the argument for full veganism seems overstated.
Further, from what I can see, there was an error in the original article overstating the short term benefits of leaving the land fallow with the co2 removal going from 5.5/yr of the measurement to 2.21. Again an apparent overstatement….
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“Coming back to my original point, the argument for full veganism seems overstated.”
Environmentalism is only part of the argument for full veganism, though.
Dairy has been mentioned a good few times and I love butter to the point that I’d rather go without rather than have margarine – toast and marmalade is just fine.
However the argument against dairy farming is mainly to do with how the cows are treated, it’s brutal.
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I’d rather I’d left out one of the rathers there,
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I’ve been exploring this topic and I’ve completely switched from dairy to soy milk for breakfast cereals and tea – almond milk is fine for cereal but its bowfin in tea, oat milk is the same, yuk in tea, fine for cereal, but ymmv as always.
I do occasionally buy French butter, I’m off the cheese completely but can’t guarantee that will last over Christmas.
I must look into mozzarella production, but otherwise cheese-free mushroom pizza is fine by me.
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@TomP – thanks for those, I didn’t know about Swinson killing the squirrels.
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@Ticht – Mrs CMW had us on the oat milk briefly when she thought milk might be the cause of the Little One’s eczema (it wasn’t). That is one shocking cup of tea.
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Almond milk is pretty resource intensive to make.
Much more than oat milk.
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Chimplet 2 has loads of oat milk, never got into dairy due to his early years milk allergy
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Is dog’s milk ok?
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Holly : Hope they’ve got some odds and sods on board, we’re short of a few supplies.
Lister : [drinking tea] Like what?
Holly : Cow’s milk, ran out of that yonks ago. Fresh and dehydrated.
Lister : What kind of milk are we using now?
Holly : Emergency backup supply. We’re on the dog’s milk.
Lister : Dog’s milk!
Holly : Nothing wrong with dog’s milk. Full of goodness, full of vitamins, full of marrowbone jelly. Lasts longer than any other milk, dog’s milk.
Lister : Why?
Holly : No bugger’ll drink it. Plus of course the advantage of dog’s milk is that when it goes off, it tastes exactly the same as when it’s fresh.
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I had a milk allergy when I was little and have still never attempted to drink a glass of milk in my life though for most of it there’s been no reason that I couldn’t have.
It did mean that I always got the best Easter eggs.
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Mr Fox: – Ok! You’re ready to be a milkman. Better get going – milk gets sour, you know. Unless it’s UHT milk but there’s no demand for that because it’s shite.
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Ticht – OK, sure. But the environmentalism part and the health aspect are used to try to convince people unmoved by the ethics of meat eating. The substitution of meat for something made to resemble food (paraphrasing the professor) where the substitute burgers come in from the original article I was referring to and what got my original attention.
Plus, human breast milk is the healthiest milk to drink given that it’s custom made for babies.
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