Couple of quizzes to keep you entertained. There are no real rules; I will post the answers after a suitable period of time. Discussion is permitted.
Cwiz 1: Prisons
1. In which novel did Edmond Nantes escape from the Chateau d’If?
2. In which prison was the Marquis de Sade incarcerated?
3. Which South African prison was named after the Afrikaans word for seal?
4. Which Cavalier poet wrote, “Stone walls do not a prison make”?
5. Which US prison took its name from pelicans?
6. Who wrote
I never saw a man who looked,
With such a wistful eye,
Upon that little tent of blue,
Which prisoners call the sky.
7. Tartarus was a dungeon in Greek myth; for whom was it built?
8. Frank Darabont directed which prison movie?
9. Which isolated UK prison opened in 1809 to house Napoleonic War prisoners?
10. In 1952, the Kray twins were held in which historic prison?
This cwiz is courtesy of ProfessorPineapple
Cwiz 2: Scrambled Plays
1. Forgoing toadwit
2. Meth cab
3. Née in lewd farmyards
4. Limp agony
5. Anal seas fathomed
6. Sex up or die
7. A Leo knocking bar
8. See earthling games
9. I scorn hero
10. Sole had soul
Ovally Balls 
South African rugby is famous for provincialism and selection grudges. If the coach was from Pretoria, the side would be packed with Bulls players and similarly from Cape Town, jammed with Province/Stormers players. If you played for ‘lesser’ unions like Transvaal/Lions, Sharks, EP, Free State you had to be much better than the incumbent from the big union – if you played for 2nd tier unions like Griquas, you had very little chance of Bok selection.
Last year some of more lunatic fringe supporters here were going to boycott the Boks in Japan, because Rassie had picked too many Stormers players in their opinion. Especially as the Stormers were mediocre in Super Rugby. Some have clung to that opinion despite the results.
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Danie Craven used to pick lads from Stellenbosch University 2nd XV for WP and the Boks back in the day
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Craven tells one story in The Craven Tapes about a guy called Jan du Preez who played centre for Stellenbosch University and Western Province but Craven thought he’d make a better winger so selected him on the wing. du Preez said “i’d rather play centre in the 2nds than on the wing” so Craven drops him to the 2nds and selects him on the wing.
“I’d rather play centre in the 3rds” – ok, wing in the 3rds.
“I’d rather play centre in the 4ths” – ok, wing in the 4ths.
He ends up in the 5ths, accepts that he’s going to play wing and ends up a Springbok.
On another selection issue Craven says that they made an English-speaker Stephen Fry (not that one) Springbok captain v the 1955 Lions and Craven and Fry both got death threats.
There’s also something I vaguely recall about the influence of the Broederbond in selecting Apartheid-era Springbok sides but haven’t got details to hand.
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Daft Punk on a Tesla coil anyone?
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Looks like Sale will be leaving the AJ Bell in the next couple of years. Good: even though Edgeley Park was objectively a worse ground, I preferred it to the soulless AJB, and it will be good to have Sale play in a Sale post code.
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S4C is to show highlights of the Super Rugby Aotearoa competition – 10pm UK on Sunday.
I’ll be looking for a hooky stream on Saturday morning, if I can get out of bed for 6am
Ah Jacinda, what a contrast you are.
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July 3rd’s the big one. Super Rugby Australia kicks off.
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Do you still find yourself waking up at the time you used to (before retiral), even though you don’t need to get up then?
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The Broederbond had a hand in almost everything back in the day, so that wouldn’t surprise anyone! I can also remember driving to Lephalale (Ellisras, as it was then) in the mid-90s and being confronted with old Transvaal Vierkleur flags on farms. These guys were so right-wing they rejected the old SA flag for having a Union Jack on it. English wasn’t widely spoken.
Kitch Christie also copped flack for picking so many Transvaal players in the 1995 squad, despite them winning Super 10 and being the form side in SA. You just can’t get away from that kind of bias here. Long may it last!
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Yeah, to a point, BB, my body clock hasn’t adjusted yet.
We had to buy blackout curtain linings because we are not used to being woken up by the sun – we’re usually up and away by the time it comes up.
I got bored just lying there trying to get back to sleep at that time, so I started Couch to 5K, I’m in week two. Middle daughter helpfully suggested that it made a change from Couch to Fridge.
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Hopefully you were doing couch to toilet too. That would upped the exercise levels considerably.
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Craigs, I watch on with interest. When the confederate flag was banned at Daytona a couple of years back, every pick-up in this part of Connecticut seemed to sprout one, and a good few of the houses too. Many people flying them could not be described as far right, it was more of a” fuck you , don’t tell us what to do ”
Almost a shame it has come to mean what people perceive as equating to the swastika, similar to the way a Union Flag was perceived in the 80s in the UK, the civil war was about a whole heap more than slavery, that was just one issue of many. and a propaganda tool used by the north to win hearts and minds overseas. Seeing as how we seem to be able to rewrite history almost at will, it may have been advisable a while back to have gently rehabilitated the flag in question, making efforts to remove some of the more extremist connotations.
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Remember what Lincoln said:
“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists.”
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This is interesting reading, OT.
https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2013/05/facing-facts-about-lincoln-and-his-views-slavery/
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@sbt
I read something over the last few days, but cannot find now, that the Confederacy actually offered to abolish slavery if the UK would recognise it as a sovereign state (1862ish I think).
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“Remember what Lincoln said:
“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists.””
He somewhat changed this view part of the way through the war didn’t he?
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Yup, came across that recently too, OT. Can’t remember what the reasoning was, UK considering it when Lee had to withdraw from Maryland or something, and they decided not to risk offending a future trade partner? Lots of cotton shortages around that time, I believe. Blockades of southern ports etc.
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And it all led to the Lancashire Cotton Famine, which wasn’t pretty…..
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He did indeed, Chimpie, over 18 months into the war.
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Shouldn’t eat cotton.
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Sbt – I didn’t know that. I have a friend from North Carolina who was a little shocked to see it on a car in Winchester.
On all this statue stuff I think that if we go down this route then we may as well not replace them. In 200 years we’ll be monsters in those people’s eyes.
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In 200 years time there may not be a human race.
Or those that are left will look like gollum and subsist on cockroaches
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Or we could be living on Mars. Who knows?
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Living in the Martian Musk-ocracy
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As a pose to musk-oxcracy
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This is interesting (although I still think he could have switched clubs in Union easily) :
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“Shouldn’t eat cotton.”
Better than eating lead.
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Worse than eating corrots though.
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Craigs, I have a friend I ran into the other day who I last saw leaving here in a loaded truck to live in N.Carolina.
She just came back. I asked her why, and she said that they made it very obvious that they didn’t like or trust yankees, and never would. She gave it best part of a year, and is thoroughly amiable, but just couldn’t live with attitudes like that. A lot of it has to do with reconstruction, and the pillaging of the south, a deliberate attempt to destroy the infrastructure in the south to prevent any repeat of the war. The people that suffered most, of course, were the small, non slave owning farmers. She also said that I would be fine, as they considered that the English had been on their side.
Funnily enough, when Lee marched into Maryland, even tho his army were poorly fed and badly equipped, he enforced strict discipline, executing looters etc. The Union army basically used rape, pillage and plunder as a tactic when it marched into CSA territory.
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Interesting how the tangled webs weave , the group of people she went to live and work with were all artisanal liberals. The town I live in was the birthplace of an abolitionist who is widely perceived as one of the main instigators of the civil war. The towns insignia is a picture of his house. The site is marked by a few hearth stones. It was allegedly burnt down by the local Klan in the 1920s.
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Sbt – I think I need to learn more about this war as it is far more complex than I realised. My friend is one of my best friends wives and she is one of the loveliest and most tolerant people I know. They’ve lived in a few places in the USA (but came back to the UK a while back). She did get shit from her US friends for describing herself as a ‘yank’ as a joke on their wedding website.
We went to their wedding near Wilmington and went to Bald Head Island which was used in the Revolutionary War and to another Fort on the mainland (stopping at a lake nearby we saw a sign saying ‘don’t feed the alligators’ which sent us back to the car more quickly than it should have) and it was cool to see the history of the area.
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I have read that one of the reasons that the South i.e the wealthy southerners, would not give up slavery is that their slaves were included as valued assets on the ‘balance sheets’ against which they borrowed money etc.
If the value was removed then many estates would have collapsed.
Slavery is of course only one aspect of the Civil War………………………
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In North Carolina?
Read this article earlier today – lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n12/thomas-laqueur/while-statues-sleep – it’s very long but rewarding. Includes this:
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“Or those that are left will look like gollum and subsist on cockroaches”
My flaming ears!
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My flaming ears!
MY PRECIOUS flaming ears! Mine!
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Jake, my pug (pictured) had major dental surgery yesterday. Apparently his lower jaw is badly developed. Poor little scrap. 14 teeth removed and on heavy medication. Breaks my heart that he just looked at us without being able to say what was wrong. A week of eating soft food now whilst the stitches do their bit. That said, he’s a tough little bugger and has already destroyed another toy.
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Hmm. Looks like Jono Lance isn’t going to Embra after all. Apparently he failed to get a UK visa.
https://www.edinburghrugby.org/the-clubhouse/club-statement-jono-lance
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Well that’s splendid news
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Bring back duncy
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Poor Jake the Pug (avoids spoofing Rolf Harris lyric). I may have mentioned it but Cat Iks went into the vet for a single, small tooth removal and came out with his prime upper fangs also removed. Like extracting Dracula’s whole reason to be Dracula.
I was well narked at the time as the vet didn’t cross-check before doing the deed, and then Iks had eating problems including jamming a dry food pellet into one of the cavities before the wound had healed, so more vet work to get it out.
Further down the road though it seems he must have been in discomfort with his teeth, because a few weeks later he perked up a fair bit and some fur and skin problems we’d been putting down to allergies cleared up.
So hopefully Jake will get better and feel much better in a couple of weeks.
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Aww, poor Jake and Iks. Hope Jake gets better soon, and as for Iks, I’m sure the local wildlife are grateful. ;-)
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Jake is bouncing back quickly, thanks. Still on soft food, which is suiting him very well as it’s chicken and rice. I think Mrs Deebee and I have gone through more trauma than he has!
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Did anyone see Banksy’s idea as to what to do with the Colston statue in his native Bristol? He says the statue should be put back on the plinth, but perched at an angle with ropes around it leading down to bronzes of the protestors pulling in down.
https://boingboing.net/2020/06/11/banksys-brilliant-idea-to-ma.html
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DB and MrIks, best wishes to the house guests, they’re remarkably resilient
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@ticht
That’s a brilliant idea. I think they should do that. Turns rather a bland statue about some bloke many people had not previously heard of into something more meaningful.
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OT, Colston wasn’t unknown in Bristol. The name is (was?) attached to a boys school, a girls school, a concert hall etc and there was a long-standing campaign to address this.
The statue was meaningful, the text about Colston was meaningful. That’s why the people pulled it down and sent it to the bottom of the harbour.
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Tomp – cheers.
Wilmington was a nice place BTW. Off the beaten track but it had loads to do. And that’s even when you don’t include the Dawson Creek tours.
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Just spent morning giving a course on zoom to a load of important people. The most important of home left after half and hour. Which was awesome.
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I mumble quite badly unless I put a lot of effort into not doing it. As a result I hate talking and having to pronounce words in front of people.
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