As usual, the Celts took the up-front hit: Ireland v Wales was cancelled postponed, followed by Treviso v Ulster and Zebre v Ospreys. Then came the news that Mako Vunipola was self-isolating from the England camp, although apparently it’s okay to infect the Saracens camp. (They’re relegated anyway: who cares?) Today’s shocking news is that Italy v England is also sacrificed to Covid-19.
But fear not, rugby fans! There is one person on our side, one person who knows that it’s all a big hoax. A person whose intimate involvement with Scottish golf courses has led to a love of rugby, inspired by Gavin Hastings.
“I think the 3.4% [death rate] is really a false number.
“Now, this is just my hunch, based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this, and it’s very mild – they’ll get better very rapidly, they don’t even see a doctor, they don’t even call a doctor.
“You never hear about those people, so you can’t put them down in the category of the overall population, in terms of this corona flu, and/or virus. So you just can’t do that. So there is no reason for Six Nations matches to be deep-sixed. DBWR are just a bunch of wimps.”
This is of course very comforting, as everyone knows that Donald Trump’s hunches are enormously more accurate than the wild speculations of the World Health Organisation. While it’s true that a vast number of Americans won’t even call a doctor because they can’t afford to, deathly ill or not, the POTUS’s clarion call to laugh and snap our fingers at what the so-called experts are openly referring to as a pandemic will save our Six Nations and Pro-Woo.
The President is being undermined by snivelling lefties who are rejoicing at the thought of millions of people dying, economic Armageddon being unleashed, and – more importantly – rugby matches being cancelled, just to criticise The Donald. As the Guardian (itself a very dubious source) reports:
Peter Hegseth, a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekends, admonished Democrats’ criticism, saying: “They’re rooting for the coronavirus to spread. They’re rooting for it to grow. They’re rooting for the problem to get worse.”
“They’re probably jumping for joy,” Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt said about the Democrats’ reaction to Six Nations matches being cancelled.
OvallyBalls can also reveal that Donald Trump is behind Vunipola’s decision to train with the Saracens:
“If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better, and then when you do have a death, like you’ve had in the state of Washington, like you had one in California, I believe you had one in New York.”
While it turns out that no-one has yet died from coronavirus in New York (it’s only Trump’s home state, so why should he know?), the President’s message is clear: Get to work, you slackers, and you will be healed. Front up to the scrummage. Un-cancel the rugby matches. Work makes you free of coronavirus. Unless you’re dead.
Televisual rugby feasts not cancelled as yet:
Friday 6th March
| Sunwolves 14 – 47 Brumbies | 03:45 | Sky Sports Mix |
| Crusaders 24 – 20 Reds | 06:05 | Sky Sports Action |
| Waratahs 14 – 51 Chiefs | 08:15 | Sky Sports Action |
| Dragons 25 – 37 Treviso (really?) | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| England 22 – 23 Wales U20s | 19:45 | BT Sport Action |
| Worcester 10 – 16 Saints | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 7th March
| Hurricanes 15 – 24 Blues | 06:0t | Sky Sports Action |
| Rebels 37 – 17 Lions | 08:15 | Sky Sports Action |
| England 66 – 7 Wales (women) | 12:05 | S4C / Sky Sports Action |
| Sharks v Los Jaguares | 13:05 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Bulls v Highlanders | 15:15 | Sky Sports Arena |
| England v Wales | 16:45 | ITV / S4C |
| Scotland v France (women) | 19:45 | BBC Alba / website/ button |
Sunday 8th March
| Bristol v Harlequins | 13:00 | BT Sport 1 |
| Scotland v France | 15:00 | BBC One / website / button |
Ovally Balls 
Well, times are a bid odd eh.
Wife is nurse so I’m at home for god knows how long with these 3.
That will be interesting. ….
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Good luck, dov. My missus is a civil servant and is in work 5 days out of 10. Today and tomorrow she’s at home. It’s good to have someone to take the pressure of the insistent demands to play cars or to watch a film or to play on the phone. My son says.
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Challenging times to be sure.
I’ll be doing a lot of work from home in coming weeks, it’s going to be interesting with 4 of us cooped up all day long.
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2 adults working from home with 2 lads off school from Monday.
It’ll be a doddle.
Going to teach my youngest the bongoes and my oldest all the fielding positions in cricket.
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My wife works for what’s called Dept of Social Welfare – effectively what is Work and Pensions in UK (I think) – they’re flat out right now – she worked Saturday, and St Patrick’s Day – and might have to work this weekend.
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Get him following in the steps of Richard Feynman…..??
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@trisk
Thats’s actually not a bad idea. Feynman has some great videos on youtube. Although this one is on congas…
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Although that is probably not Feynman’s best performance. This is the best one where he managed to publicly debunk the attempted NASA cover-up on the Challenger shuttle disaster about what caused it. Turns out lots of people knew it could happen but weren’t listened to before the launch, and the investigation was trying to whitewash this, and the fact that the cold temperatures affected the performance of the rubber o-ring. By Fenyman doing this so publicly they couldn’t maintain the pretence that it was unavoidable
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A lot of Feynman’s second “memoir” – What do you care what other people think ” is given over to his “minority report”. Fascinating what you can do if you ask the right questions at the right level
(I guess you also need a steel trap of a mind to understand the answers and pose the right follow ups)
Movie of this isn’t bad – though William Hurt isn’t who I’d have cast as Feynman.
First came across Feynman through a Horizon doco back in 90s which focused on his “thing” about Tannu Tuva*
(* yeah – sounds like a Samoan 2nd row)
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*Mint is for perverts.*
I prefer my perverts with garlic and lemon.
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Good luck Dov.
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Hope everyone is fine.
Three days in almost total confinement. Great weather and trees blossoming everywhere make the threat even less real. Gets more eerily and silent by the day. It’s like being in one of those distopian movies, unfortunately only at the opening sequence.
People are a bit more disciplined than what I expected, although on my indispensable short trip outside, I passed a jogger huffing and puffing, a bar still open, and supermarket’ clients too close to each others.
The bastards who hoarded food were not just bastards but stupid as well. Shelves full of the usual supplies.
Stay well and don’t wait for Boris to tell you what to do.
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Talk about incompetent….
The information we’ve been getting is that we’ll be in the school building, even after they close tomorrow. Up until half an hour ago. Now all Glasgow Life staff have to go home.
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I just received an email from my new boss saying that he is self isolating. He wanted to come in to meete on Monday but can’t. I might have to go in and collect my laptop and then go home.
I’d still be paid so this could be great.
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Similar situation here, flair. As of today, you need your face covered whenever you go outside. My lad wasn’t overly happy about this until his Uncle told him via Skype that he looked like a proper bandit. We can walk in parks, social distancing etc. Luckily, there’s a disused railway line just beyond our flat so we walked a little down there, further today than 2 days ago. Yesterday we walked in the other direction but the sides were getting a little steep. We’ve not run into anyone on the train line so we slip off the masks, have a chat and then he’ll have a biscuit and I’ll smoke.
From today supermarkets are open to over 65s only between 10 and 12. My upstairs neighbour is a nice old chap who studied in Leicester in the mid 1960s. He’s worried about his heart. It’s not good. He’s always been married for 50+ years to a deeply strange woman. She’s in perfect physical health he said, emphasising the physical. I understood.
I popped to the supermarket just now, the queueing was a bit close. There were two 20-something women there. One had slipped her mask off near the entrance, which didn’t seem very sensible. They bought 10 copies of a women’s magazine that’s giving away a shampoo free this month. Left the magazines and pocketed the shampoo.
The supermarket was well-stocked some meats, eg beef mince, not available but still lots there. No one going mad and buying all the toilet paper. Diet Coke and Coke Zero levels equal.
The staff working in the supermarket have my greatest respect. It’s not glamorous but they were calm and friendly.
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The chuckle Bob Mortimer has that character giving is grand.
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Bob Mortimer is great. If you’re bored and stuck with nowt to do you can do much worse than sit through 50 minutes of his bets bits from Would I Lie To You
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Something to cheers up Chimpie and BB.
Love ll the 70s stuff uncluttered by blokes running in front of the player with the ball. Dummy scissors? get it wrong and thats offside.
Just been watching some seventies English cup highlights.
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Oooh, Mike Slemen could have been sent off for a trip on Andy Irvine there, just before Rutherford scores. Shocked, I am, Mike Slemen was one of my heroes when I was a kid. ( Roger Uttley was top of the tree mind.)
Was at that one. 7-7.
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Tim,
Varsity Match 1974:
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Got a picture from a mate of mine in New Zealand this morning, literally hours after they shut the country off from the outside world* and the shelves were completely empty, bar a packet of Fritos. One of my colleagues chatted to the chief buyer of a major supermarket chain here yesterday and he was bemused by the panic buying, because all essentials are produced here and produced in large enough quantities to stock the stores without a problem. The only issue they’re having is with some imported goods, because so many of the world’s containers are now sitting in China. The large supermarket groups here have all agreed with government that pricing will remain the same as before the crisis, but smaller outlets (who serve mainly poorer people) are not bound by this and will probably gouge money from those who don’t really have it to start with.
* Very loudly, repeatedly until someone noticed that New Zealand actually exists.
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Great to read this place all.
The baby is hot, tired and grouchy, the mrs seems to be on an upward curve. The twins are dick heads as usual so no worries there.
I’ve just sent them in the garden. Mowed the lawn in a frost this morning so that should kill the grass for a year.
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I gave them a roll of kitchen paper and a bottle of window cleaner and said they wont get tea unless the greenhouse is clean.
I’m a terrible man.
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Talk about incompetent part 2…
That email I got saying that I had to go home? Apparently that information was wrong and I have to stay in school, which was what I was told when Mrs BB and I were on our way home. She can stay off because it was actually staff in the building she works in that had to leave.
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Lot of that incompetence going around at the moment.
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It’s like a virus
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Apparently there are leeches and spiders that bite really hard in the greenhouse.
That’ll toughen them up.
Good news is that despite my accidentally murdering a frog with a lawn mower a little while ago, there appears to be a thriving community.
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The sun is shining, birds are singing, trees are in blossom and flowers are bursting out.
All is quiet in the countryside
Perfect.
We have made a joint commitment to watch ALL of Downton Abbey as our contribution.
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that’s really taking one for the team, Slade
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Kind of worrying, Dova, like the parts of the frog reanimated and cloned themselves, and are preparing for revenge. get the kids inside NOW.
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I trust you gave those children a good pffft-ing Dova
“despite my accidentally murdering a frog with a lawn mower a little while ago, there appears to be a thriving community.”
It’s probably all the frog’s children gathering to wreak revenge on the murderer of their parent.
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The frogs are still pretty sleepy to be honest.
Plotting no doubt.
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They got an almighty pffting chimp.
Not knowing the difference between a leach and a baby slug was disgraceful.
The spiders are pretty big mind.
They’re doing a decent job.
They wont like it when I tell them they need to clear up all the kitchen roll afterwards mind.
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never too young to get a pfft-ing.
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FD’s book is now available to buy online.
However at £75 a pop he can give me one for Christmas instead of me buying it.
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The lawn mowing earlier appears to have attracted blackbirds.
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Probably attracted by the fragments of dismembered frog
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Well, the circle if life I suppose.
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Tomp, as you said about the same here.
Lots of parks closed now. The time slots reserved for elders at the supermarket sounds like a great idea unless they all show up at the same time.
Only thing missing here today were eggs. There shouldn’t be food shortages, but there could be problems when contaminated supermarket workers and/ or lorry drivers will have to stay home.
I think the confinement will last much longer than what they said. Two weeks won’t stop the epidemy and even if it did, it would start again immediately. Forget April and possibly May.
Me? Cheerful, as always.
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See the Graun has Bowie’s Greatest Songs! list. Not looked through all of it yet, but expect Heroes to be number 1.
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Hold on….
Sound and Vision? Really? Now I quite like that song, but Bowie’s best?
Heroes only at number 5, songs like Station to Station and Ashes to Ashes in the top 5? And no Ziggy (the song) at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/19/david-bowie-50-greatest-songs-ranked
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*Warning – May Contain Prog*
Today has been a shitty day, and I’m beginning to be affected by all the crap round about the virus and whether I should be at work (Yes! No! Yes! Maybe!), so I’m in a music mood tonight.
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BB, couldn’t find this one in their, so thought I would add the Bauhaus version. Video fullof evocative hairdoes.
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Played this Saturday night, BB, before leaving UK to return home to Connecticut on Monday, on my old stereo in the shed .
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Remember that version! Plus Bela Lugosi’s Dead (think there was a 12″ version that went on for about 3 hours as well. Didn’t Pete (and his cheekbones) end up in an advert for cassettes at one point?
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It’s a choice that would change day to day for me, BB. Sound and Vision is wonderful, mind.
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The first minute of that song has about 3 riffs that seem to come from other Jethro Tull songs (or songs from other bands too).
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In fact, the very first riff put me in mind of this song (for some reason).
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So here are some Heroes….
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