It started off so well: they said we made a perfect blog meet location. Historic Heidelberg, an Irish pub, Super Saturday. Three nations with a chance of vying for the title. Then the nasty wee bugger cancelled some matches, participants dropped off like superannuated flies, and – with 24 hours to go – the one remaining scheduled match was nixed.
Some of us, made of stronger stuff, were undaunted by the prospect of a pandemic along the lines of Stephen King’s The Stand. We, the strong, the proud, the possibly foolish: Boanova, DropTheClaw, Meades, Xan, the mister and me, and of course our noble, gracious and hard-working hosts, Mister and Missus Iks.
We’d all arrived by Friday evening, so got down to business immediately at Vetter’s. Boa and Xan had arrived a couple of days before, and had some important information to impart.
Boa and Xan’s Top Tourist Tip for Heidelberg: What Not to Visit
As every fule kno, Gurgle is your go-to site for local attractions. Imagine our heroes’ excitement when they found something called the Königstuhl. The King’s Stool! It must be an ancient throne (or something): off we go!
The way was long and weary, 13 km straight up a mountain, but our intrepid adventurers persevered, battling off trolls, Nazgûl, plagues of locusts and football fans. At last, weary and wiping the sweat from their brows, they reached the summit, and found … a construction site.
And a bus stop.
The Plans
Given that there was no rugby on the morrow, a discussion ensued on what to do. The decision was taken to meet at the Irish pub as planned, so the poor buggers had some business, footfall in pubs and restaurants being noticeably down.
MissusIks also promised to find a rugby ball. Our bits perked up.
The Big Day
We all congregated at The Dubliner, only two hours late, and obviously much hilarity ensued. Which shall mostly be hush-hush. But I have previously reported that some of the lads disappeared down an alley-way with the rugby ball, which subsequently suffered the sad fate pictured above. But it remained unpunctured, as you will see.
The next port of call was the Bar Centrale, which was sadly neglected by other customers, but which did serve the greatest G&T ever experienced, and also had a square opposite that was perfect for ball-wanging. It was an unfortunate pass that hit me in the face, bloodied my nose, and sent my glasses clattering to the floor. Fortunately the glasses were uninjured except for the imprint of the ball’s pattern on the lens, discovered in the morning.
Such is the stuff from where dreams are woven.
Then off to dinner, with an enormous bottle of wine courtesy of MissusIks.
Vowing to the rugby gods to return in happier – or at least, less contagious – times, we said our goodbyes.
Ovally Balls 
Can’t find a definition. If I don’t go in I can’t work from home. Should be OK.
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Well, it’s finally the right thing to do, just a wee bit too late for many people.
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banjo time……………….
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Today was a good day to receive a delivery of 24 bottles of Guinness Foreign Export
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oops
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I’m enjoying that gig, Slade, I paused it because I looked something up because I just remembered it – Trucks’ uncle was the drummer in the Allmans for a while, too
Those tiny desk concerts are a great series
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FACK OFF WITH YER BANJOS!
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This isolation is going to be extremely difficult, if there are banjos.
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Poor timing for me, I don’t have the work laptop at the moment.
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I’ll see your banjo (karl) and raise you the Great Highland Bagpipe
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Bought some bourbon
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Prefer the cello version myself
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Times like this call for Frankie Valli missing 2 of the original 4 Seasons
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Need some proper clarification at work – today we were supposedly all key workers. Some of us are finding it difficult to square this with impending redundancy.
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CMW – that’s bitterly funny.
My team has been designated as essential workers (by the client), but we can all work from home. The problem I had this morning was that my desktop in the office had crashed (normally I remote desktop into that to work), and it was a job to find someone in the office to reboot it.
The mister’s also stupidly left his work laptop at the office.
The other thing is that my contract is up at the end of the month. I have bizarrely been promised a year’s extension, but who knows what will happen now, My guess is that it may go ahead, as there’s no better time to do the major system upgrades we’re working on than when all the users are out of the systems, but that’s supposing the client stays in business.
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I’m definitely a key worker.
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@Thaum – There were people there today whose leaving date is Friday. This is absurd.
I haven’t been given my twelve weeks notice yet, but from what I was told last year it’s due probably next week. Now the wider situation may mean they need some of us to stay for longer so there is a chance I won’t get it then and with things being as they are the longer they’ll pay me for the better. Makes me not want to rock the boat, but things are getting silly.
In one sense we are ‘key workers’ in that a chunk of what we do is fundamental to the railway, particularly the older parts of it, being able to be maintained properly. However, for the most part that’s more of a keeping it supplied thing rather than anything that would cause an immediate problem. And some of us, me included, are far more involved in new projects. Now I’m sure Network Rail (not my employer) would like to be able to take the opportunity to get those projects done while the railway is hardly in use, but that seems unrealistic as the work must surely be at risk of being put back due to staff shortages and unavailability of materials from other suppliers as a result of Covid. And it is of course highly questionable whether it is essential in the short term anyway.
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CMW – you can be sure that neither your management nor the government understand what it is you do, so keep on providing evidence that you are indispensable.
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Why haven’t the government done a push message to all mobiles in the country? They’ve done it all across the continent.
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@Thaum – the biggest and most hollow laugh is that the closure of the site here will render the company unable to fulfill most of the functions that would be relevant in any sort of emergency as with it the company will no longer employ any engineering staff who are able to work trackside. And will lose the knowledge and experience that means we get involved in certain (rare) investigations etc even if they don’t actually involve work done by us. The management either don’t understand that or don’t care and the end user are in a situation where they have to put up with being given a load of flannel on this (they know they are being) until it is proven that that is what has happened.
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Those versions are all very well, but let’s get back to the source material…
(The crowd is just crazy in this)
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CMW – The management either don’t understand that or don’t care
Well, that pretty much sums up British commerce. Let’s hope that sanity prevails, although perhaps it’s insane to hope that, given the government we have.
Refit – yeah, I know several people (including family members) who will ignore all this, but perhaps a ‘personal’ text might help it sink in.
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I can’t believe Hayseed Dixie haven’t done a version.
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Good luck Thaum and CMW.
I am actually a key worker and thinking about this I can get to my office whilst passing the security guards only so I’m hoping that my computer will be able to wfh after tomorrow.
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OT, while that is fine, this is their greatest moment (including Dec 63):
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Ticht, something to soothe the soul on that rainy day (night)
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Good luck with the lockdown everyone. We’re starting it on Thursday, midnight. It’s basically to allow the mines and smelters here time to be put on care and maintenance properly and then it’s lockdown outside of essential services for everyone for the next three weeks. Infections here have risen sharply in the last few days, and our testing is slow anyway, so we’re probably further down the path than the 400-odd cases confirmed. Luckily no recorded deaths so far. However, we have the world’s highest HIV infection rate (thank Thabo Mbeki, you C*NT!), allied with TB and poverty in vulnerable communities and the fear is that if C-19 takes root in vulnerable communities, it could be devastating.
Thus far, Cyril Ramaphosa and his team have actually done a pretty good job of containing and preempting things, so let’s hope that our creaking healthcare system, ravaged by years of neglect under Jacob Zuma, can cope. It’s all still a bit surreal, and nobody here is really sure of how to react. We’re a pretty casual (read: don’t respect law and authority) nation and the 1st thing my brother in law said after listening to the President’s speech was “let’s have a braai at my house!” He was (gently) put in his place!
BB – that live version of Thuderstruck is gold. GOLD!!!
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Deebee – yes, for a bunch of old guys, they were pretty damn good on that tour (I saw them at Hampden). Incredily so, in fact, because Malcolm was in the early part of his dementia, so he was almost having to learn the songs again every night. There were a lot of complaints at the time that they didn’t change the songs around, or the set list – that’s probably why.
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Good interview with Hoggy on the BBC.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/52010183
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Just been to the Co-op. Got the last loaf, no cheese. Booze shelves completely cleared.
Plenty of cakes though.
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“Booze shelves completely cleared.”
Chimpie’s upped his game.
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Something apt about Thunderstruck on the bagpipes – seeing as the Youngs were originally from Glasgow…
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Trisk – Bon was the piper, though… An excuse (as if I needed one) to put this up. It is indeed a long way to the shops if you wanna sausage roll…
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There’s 5 (normally about 20) people in my office. Looks like I’m going to be lugging my desktop home, to work from.
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I was round at the health centre to get a blood test. There was a surprising amount of traffic around, not as much as there would normally be at 8.30 on a Tuesday, but more than I thought there would be.
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Refit – totally on my own in the office. All I can hear is my computer fan and various other hums from the ac. Really weird.
Luckily I should be able to wfh tomorrow.
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Which is good as I was totally unprepared to wake up at 6am this morning.
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Got sites/ projects shutting down all over the place now. Interesting times to say the least
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6am? You lucky, lucky bastard! I’m up 5am latest every day, then have to run the gauntlet of 3rd world traffic to get to my office and pray there is coffee available! Milk is a godsend and sugar something I’ve heard about but not seen in an office before.
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Thought your office was the nearest restaurant.
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Anyone spot the error in this article on Albert Uderzo (one of the creators of Asterix)?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/24/asterix-creator-albert-uderzo-dies-at-92
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@BB – they’ve mixed up Asterix and Obelix there.
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Chimpie’s long list relative found:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/23/fossil-ikaria-wariootia-bilateral-organism-human-relative
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Deebee – in these times of emergency please forget about your own worries and think about the hardship of others.
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Ffs – long lost relative
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/ohio-texas-abortion-us-coronavirus-outbreak#img-1
Connards will always be connards! What a bunch of sad areseholes!
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Wow, I’m a relative of a bilateral organism!
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#squadgoals
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We can all rest easy now, the Graun have fixed the mistake in the article about Albert Uderzo. Thank dog for that, it would have kept me awake tonight otherwise….
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Anyone infected yet?
*pumps shotgun**
*karl
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