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 
And just to put that ‘Watch with Mother’ intro to bed…
Bill & Ben were fine, gay and on weeeed.
Realising that the Woodentops’ Spotty Dog actually spoke words under his gruff doggy voice – hello to subtle irony, young master Iks.
And Tales of the Riverbank, from theme tune to voiceover to live animals doing their best just ached with a melancholy I still can’t describe but lies in my bones.
And then the Americans took over. Flintstones, Top Cat, Deputy Dog, Mr. Jinx, Tom & Jerry. Escapism, sentimentality and advertising.
I had a point but I lost it on the way.
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Iksy, I got the Omnibus edition of those as he’d gone a few years before I was of an age to read the paper. Brilliant on loads of things – Dallas, Ski Sunday, The Olympics, the Schwarzenegger condom joke.
The poetry was all right, the memoirs quite good but not sure I enjoyed the 1 or novels I read – Brrrm, Brrrm was one. He also wrote some good reviews at the London Review of Books. This one of Judith Krantz starts as it means to go on:
“To be a really lousy writer takes energy. The average novelist remains unread not because he is bad but because he is flat. On the evidence of Princess Daisy, Judith Krantz deserves her high place in the best-seller lists. This is the second time she has been up there. The first time was for a book called Scruples, which I will probably never get around to reading. But I don’t resent the time I have put into reading Princess Daisy. As a work of art it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks, but as best-sellers go it argues for a reassuringly robust connection between fiction and the reading public. If cheap dreams get no worse than this, there will not be much for the cultural analyst to complain about. Princess Daisy is a terrible book only in the sense that it is almost totally inept. Frightening it isn’t.”
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I want to find the clip from Clive James on Television or whatever the programme was called when he showcased Crimewatch New Zealand-style.
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High on a hill was a lonely beaverherd
Layee odl, layee odl layee-oo
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Sag was the only real fan of Beaver-yodelling-time.
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…takes up position with binoculars ready, waiting for LADOAB to come yodelling out of his lodge like a beaver out of hell….
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Casting my eye across the lake it’s nice to see that the Ospreys are sorting themselves out.
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Well it would be if they were, but you know, can’t have everything…
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Things we kind of knew all along:
1. “The potato is of the utmost importance”.
2. Deebee “went as a prostitute to the priest-and-prostitute party of (his) youth”
Surprises:
Chek turns out to be Jonathan Freedland. I thought he was Rafael Behr or Matthew d’Ancona.
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And of course Iks was always going to lose his point on the way back from the Maldives.
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Fitba’, whisky and a bloody big Dairy Crunch. My Wednesday night is truly sorted!
Now to figure out what the hell Clyde’s on about.
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This is good:
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BB – I’m a bit confused about the beaver-yodelling, but otherwise it all makes perfect sense.
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Refit – ha, that could only have been about one person.
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Thaum – I thought the only thing that made sense was the beaver yodeling:
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@Thaum – as well as his enthusiasm for beaver-time Sag was a big fan of the yodelling inherent to any of Daff’s stories relating to female members of his extended family. Other than that I have to be quiet about it now as it’s been known for centuries that if a beaver senses that there are Welshmen about then it will run up a hill and bite off it’s own testicles to stop the Welsh from getting them. And I wish LADOAB no harm.
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That’s got to be a marmot.
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CMW – have a like for that dementedly bonkers post. :-)
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This is the only yodelling I need to hear
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LADOAB – good lord.
I’m now slightly worried what kind of ranking this site will get with all these yodelling beaver references.
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Bought one for my mum on holiday in Austria thirty years ago when we went on the bus up Grossglockner, but it was naked (though furry) and didn’t yodel. She’s still got it.
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OT – oh no, there’s a better yodeller! A Russian, I think. Sadly passed away a couple of years ago.
*Scurries off to search*
Here ya go!
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Ah the yodel thing, I vaguely remember BoomKing being insistent on his choice for top ten yodelling list
I don’t recall the beaver being a thing
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Thaum, someone made that into a marathon that lasted something like a hundred hours or so.
Someone with too much time on their hands, obviously
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That’s because it’s a marmot.
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There is, of course, only one
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Ticht – I will, of course, not be clicking on that link.
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I’m going find me a river, one that’s cold as ice
and when I find me that river, Lord I’m gonna pay the price, oh Lord
I’m going down in it three times, but Lord I’m only coming up twice
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This day will go down in the annals of history of the great beaver-v-marmot controversy discussion.
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Do’t let the hat fool you Thaum, that is one of the greatest musical acts of all time, that guy
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Ticht – apparently the Burns’ documentary on country music that BBC4 has is severely cut from the American version. I’m not sure when or where the full version will be available for us (UK).
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“Don’t let the hat fool you”
That’s what’s making people think it’s a beaver.
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Nah, Ticht, I have been subjected to that person’s ‘music’ before.
BB – that sounds like a mercy killing.
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BB, that’s a shame, hopefully the full version will be available to buy on DVD.
I haven’t had time to watch the first instalment yet
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*mission in life, number 358, convert Thaum to all things Country Music, codeword Jambalaya*
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Ticht – two episodes last Friday, but I don’t think they are doubling-up every week.
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You’ll like this one Thaum
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Ticht – you might as well give up now.
I’m distressed that the code name is Jambalaya, mind, because Jambalaya is delicious.
Hmm, to click on OT’s link or not? I have heard HMHB lauded, but have never listened to them. I suppose a few secs won’t kill me….
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ARGH! It’s all plinkety-plonk!
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Although, mind you, it was a bit reminiscent of Robert Johnson. But too traumatised to give it a closer listen.
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“I’m not sure when or where the full version will be available for us (UK).”
I’ve heard that the full version is available in South Africa, but unfortunately without sound.
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CMW – what do you mean, ‘unfortunately’?
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Musing on Jambalaya, I’ve clearly played this all wrong. I should have professed a love of all things C&W, and a hatred for all things Creole.
Then I’d be getting some great Nawlins music.
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@Thaum – I’m in the other camp.
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Hmph, the Camp of Utter Wrongness.
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@Thaum – you could take the Pan American to get there:
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You don’t fool me that easily.
I’m off to bed, and if I have nightmares about country music, I’ll know who to blame.
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Has anybody here seen Hank?
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The nightmares are the first step on the road to conversion.
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Hopefully Thauma will be hearing this in her sleep. Beaver! Beaver when you hold me tight etc…
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