Oooh, I’m so excited! Come on, Ulster! They are playing in orange, aren’t they? Or are they the ones in white and red? I can never remember. Oh, right, white.
Grand, they’re starting. Why do they kick the ball to the other team instead of hanging on to it? That’s silly. Now look, there’s going to be a scrum. I know what a scrum is. It’s a bit like a cuddle, but then they all stick their noses in each other’s arses and the wee fella chucks the ball in. Then the whistle blows and they do it all over again ten times.
Fantastic, Ulster have got the ball! Oh look, he’s kicked it off the field, the eejit. What do you mean, in the opposition’s 22? Why is everyone standing up for the Ulstermen? Oh, so that’s good then.
Some of those fellas trundling up don’t look very fit at all. They’re a bit fat, like. They should go on a diet: they’re supposed to be able to run around for ninety minutes. Oh, eighty minutes? Close enough. If they could run for ninety, they could run for eighty easily.
Why have the other side got the ball to throw in? We had it last. I think the referee has got this wrong. Look at that: the man threw it to his own team and now they’ve got the ball. Now they’re all over the floor and it’s hard to tell what’s going on.
Wa-hey, that Ulsterman’s got the ball! Whoops, he’s dropped it. Ach well, never mind, it is pissing it down and it’s probably a bit slippy. What do you mean, the others get a scrum? He didn’t mean to drop it. That’s just not fair.
Scrums are boring.
Hooray, a penalty!
Didn’t he kick it beautifully? I bet it’s because his mum raised him on soda farls. Oh, South African, is he? Well, never mind, I’m sure his mother loves him anyway.
HALF-TIME
Boys-oh-boy but that’s a fine figure of a man. Have you any idea if he’s single? I have three daughters. And no grandchildren. Except for two dogs. And they’re both spayed.
SISTER’S INTERJECTION
– Is that Andrew Trimble?
– Yep; how did you know?
– We used to catch the same bus to school.
– Was he nice?
– Yeah, decent bloke.
– He’s retired now; that’s why he’s doing commentary.
– Oh Christ, I feel old.
RETURN TO THE MOTHERSHIP
Have you got his phone number?
SECOND HALF
Oh, d’ye see that fella there? That’s Stuart McCloskey. He goes to my hairdresser. He has lovely hair, so he does. He doesn’t half darken the doorway when he walks into the shop though.
Would you look at that nonsense! All the other fellas are piling on top. That’s bullying. Why doesn’t the referee stop it?
Ach for fuck’s sake the referee is awarding a penalty to the other side! This is a travesty. What do you mean, failed to release the ball? It was his bloody ball and I don’t see why he should give it to them. That’s ridiculous.
Well, this is more like it. Brave boys running down the pitch and putting the ball down over the line.
What’s a TMO? Turd Match Official? Why shouldn’t you be able to throw the ball in any direction you like if you’ve got it?
See that. I was right. Ulster vindicated. I don’t know why there was any dispute.
Well, there you are now, Martin.* Match won despite the other’s side’s cheating and the referee being biased.
*I have no idea where this phrase comes from, but it might be this.
Note: as you may be able to tell, this was mostly originally written a couple of years ago. OvallyBalls prize* to the first person who spots the internal inconsistency.
*This may not be an actual prize.
On the telly this week
Friday 22nd November
| Ulster 28 – 13 Clermont | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 23rd November
| Saracens 44 – 3 Ospreys | 13:00 | Channel 4 / BT Sport 2 |
| Treviso 32 – 35 Saints | 13:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Toulouse 32 – 17 Connacht | 13:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Exeter 34 – 18 Glasgow | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| England 60 – 3 Italy (women) | 15:00 | YouTube (!) |
| Lyon 6 – 13 Leinster | 15:15 | BT Sport 3 |
| Munster 21 – 21 Racing | 17:30 | BT Sport 3 |
| Quins 15 – 9 Bath | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Cardiff v Leicester | 20:00 | S4C / BT Sport 2 |
Sunday 24th November
| Sale v La Rochelle | 13:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Montpellier v Gloucester | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 |
Ovally Balls 
Am looking forward to the joint Johnson-Trump press conference at the NATO meeting next week. But what will be the first question? Labour anti-semitism or the NHS?
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cool. a game of ‘guess the marquee players’
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Exeter have got Hogg and Yosoy favourite Phil Dollman.
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Leicester have got George Ford and Tom Youngs
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Sarries have got err, ah…..
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Nigel Wray and several Saracens players are joint partners in a marquee* erecting business,
* Gazebos as well for a negotiable fee.
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@Tam, and anyone else who might be interested –
The American Jewish scholar behind Labour’s ‘antisemitism’ scandal breaks his silence
Norman G. Finkelstein talks Naz Shah MP, Ken Livingstone, and the Labour ‘antisemitism’ controversy.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/american-jewish-scholar-behind-labour-s-antisemitism-scanda/
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“Sarries have got err, ah…..”
Twice the number of current England internationals plus others according to Dayglo in the podcst referenced in that Times article from the other day. Stephen Jones manages to outdo even himself
https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYWNhc3QuY29tL3RoZXJ1Y2s&episode=Nzk4MjgwY2ItNzUzYy00MGE4LThiYTYtZDQ4MDI5ZTQzNmFi&hl=en-GB&ved=2ahUKEwjxoZzWnojmAhX7ShUIHRI1CYsQjrkEegQICxAE&ep=6&at=1574783766503
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ahem
Twice the number of current England internationals than any other prem club
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hmmm….Bristol cooking an exciting brew/stew!
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Who wouldn’t want to add a semi to their line up
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Bristol’s squad’d be well under the salary cap I reckon. A lot of youngsters and journeymen alongside Luatua, Piuatu(s/x), Nathan Hughes and Afoa.
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Ticht, I’ve read that before. Finkelstein’s a very controversial highly-criticised figure but I find his arguments interesting. There’s a very decent book by Mike Marquese called “I Am Not for Myself”, which is very pertinient on this as well. Marquese wrote a stellar book about cricket. He was a New Yorker who left the States during the Vietnam War and rolled up in London. A great influence for me,
Christmas is coming and I’m going to be getting a book by Daniel Sonabend about the 43 Group. If you don’t know them (Vidal Sassoon was a member), this is a brilliant article/interview: https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium.MAGAZINE-for-these-jewish-vigilantes-the-war-against-fascism-didn-t-end-in-1945-1.8167662
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Radrada is a fantastic signing. Worth breaking a salary cap for, wonderful to watch.
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That’s a very interesting read, Tom, and no I hadn’t heard of The 43.
I linked to the Finkelstein article because he is referenced in a full-throated rebuttal of the chief rabbi’s political intervention by someone called Simon Cohen.
I don’t know who Simon Cohen is (not the Leicester Tigers guy, presumably), so I didn’t post his full piece, but it begins “You have shamed your office today and rendered the Jewish people even more vulnerable to real antisemitism by reinforcing the fake, media-induced antisemitism that you recklessly impute to Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party….”
He also references Justin Schlossberg of the Media Reform Coalition, who calls the antisemitism saga ‘a disinformation paradigm’ after a detailed study of the issue.
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Ticht, forgot to say thanks for posting the link.
I come across occasional anti-semitic comments here in Prague, more likely anti-Roma and anti-Muslim stuff. It’s hard to have an argument about all the time.
A few months ago we went to IKEA. My lad went into the play area, my missus to do the shopping and I sat down in the entrance hall and read a book. A Canadian guy came up to me and started talking, after about two minutes he started on the anti-semitic stuff. We ended up having a row for about 20 minutes, with me challenging him, him backing down and then moving to another point of attack. His nonsense was so bad that in the moment it was kind of fun to talk to him. But when he finally left me alone – his hand unshaken, his absence unmourned – I shook my head, had a think and found I was shaking with anger.
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Always remember this about the Chief Rabbi:
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And on the NHS, always remember this:
“The Americanisation of the NHS is not something waiting for us in a post-Brexit future. It is already in full swing. Since 2017 Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) have been taking over the purchasing as well as the provision of NHS services in England, deciding who gets which services, which are free and which – as with the dentist and prescriptions – we have to pay for. Known in the US as Accountable Care Organisations (ACOs), ICSs are partnerships between hospitals, clinicians and private sector providers designed – and incentivised – to limit and reduce public healthcare costs, and in particular to lessen the demand on hospitals. Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs), the forerunners of ACOs, were pioneered by the US health insurance provider Kaiser Permanente in 1953. President Nixon’s adviser John Ehrlichman explained to his boss the basic concept before the passage of the 1973 HMO Act: ‘The less care they give them the more money they make.’ ”
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n21/john-furse/the-nhs-dismantled
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Aye Tom, I find it easier to discuss/argue about minutiae of leftist policy than to argue about first principles.
The old CiF was a great place, I learned a lot from discussions with people who on paper were diametrically opposed to me in a political sense, at least in terms of their views on economics, and I like to think I made a couple of people consider my points of view.
Unfortunately it’s all just noise now.
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That’s a very learned sounding post but I don’t have a scooby what it means beyond a general negative bent on the subject of ‘chief rabbi’
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@tomp that should have been.
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Chimpie, it’s not a position in the Halach (Jewish law) and tangentially the Chief Rabbi is not the voice of all Jewish people in the UK.
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Correct. The only really important religious person is the Pope who, I’m told, is always right.
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Halacha or Halakha or Halaka are the generally used Hebrew-English transliterations. Not my ropey effort above.
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From earlier:
“Every faith leader sends a message like this when a new PM takes power.”
Was trying to find out what a faith leader such as the President of the Methodist Conference said to Johnson when he became Prime Minister – I’m Methodist by descent (maybe a quarter Presbyterian). Very disappointgly it seems they offered no congratulations.
But this did come up in the Google search:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/26/faith-leaders-urge-boris-johnson-to-commit-to-offering-refugees-sanctuary
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Newport’s chocolate mousse river is an attraction for young and old.
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When I go to IKEA I usually get some meatballs.
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Semi signs for Bristol to be near Newport, obs.
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I usually get a headache when I go to IKEA
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Clive James now.
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My mum was Church of England, converted to Catholicism, sent us to a Methodist school. And wondered why I never took to religion. Although to be fair, most of that was down to the army’s use of religion as a weapon of war here. She always saw me as a priest. I went as a prostitute to the priest-and-prostitute party of my youth.
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Don’t think I’ve ever been to Ikea. Feel like I’m missing out on a piece of cultural heritage. Like Little Chefs. Or a jacket potato with fried egg and baked beans on top.* Or a Morris Marina.
*Actually saw this on the Isle of Man.
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“I went as a prostitute to the priest-and-prostitute party of my youth.”
Always knew that we’re kindred spirits deebs.
“Don’t think I’ve ever been to Ikea.”
I hate you.
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if you want a larf
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/27/bad-sex-award-shortlist-announced-for-britains-most-dreaded-literary-prize
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@Chek. The anti-Semitic / Labour Party / Corbyn issue seems closer to your heart than just exchanging opinions on this old blog. I’m just wondering if you’ve done investigative research on this for your job or something?
I don’t want to be intrusive if it is a personal thing, but I’m genuinely curious about the context of your pretty vehement and detailed arguments.
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Hrrmm, lets see how much publicity that gets, Thaum
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“I usually get a headache when I go to IKEA”
Imagine how the IKEA staff feel when a Llama turns up to buy tiles.
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Ticht – don’t hold your breath!
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Why are you selling your piano, Johann Sebastian Bach? You won’t be able to compose any more masterpieces.
– I’d love to keep it but I’m totally Baroque.
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Ticht/Thaum – not sure how neutral that account is in this instance…
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Has anyone read or is planning to read Bari Weiss’ new book?
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Genuine question BTW. I know that she is fairly controversial.
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I’ve been ill all day and am lying on the couch watching Paw Patrol.
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Bari Weiss! Schönnnnnn…
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Craigs – I’ve not investigated the account, but presumably they haven’t faked the letter, which is certainly no more biased than the Chief Rabbi’s.
There are two main Jewish groups in the Labour Party. One of them is very anti-Corbyn, and other is fairly pro-Corbyn. They pretty much divide on their support, or otherwise, for illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine, and Palestinian rights / the peace process.
Many of the anti-Semitism charges against Labour pre-date Corbyn’s leadership, to when … err … Ed Miliband was leader. The same Ed Miliband who was subjected to anti-Semitic tropes by the right-wing press.
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Thaum – I’m fairly skeptical of anything posted on Twitter especially when the account has relatively few followers.
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Craigs: https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/charedi-jeremy-corbyn-labour-antisemitism-letter-signed-by-rabbis-1.469880
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Sorry, that link is about a different letter, but with a similar history.
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Clive James made me laugh a lot in his old Observer columns. A really clever and witty writer.
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