Behold! I bring you tidings of great joy, for this writer hath just finished bloody work for the year, after a massively stressful month. If she had her way, certain developers and project ‘managers’ would be strung up by the bollocks (in festively fetching tinsel, of course) and hung from the top of the big pine tree on the village green.
Now able to turn her attention to much more important matters, she finds that there is another round of the European Cups this weekend.
Since nearly all the home sides lost last weekend, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen this week, but let us hope that trend continues for matches featuring teams whose names end in ‘ster’.
Onna telly this week
Friday 18th December
| Pumas v Cheetahs | 17:00 | Sky Sports Mix |
| Castres v Newcastle | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Scarlets v Toulon | 19:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Wasps v Montpellier | 20:00 | BT Sport ? |
Saturday 19th December
| Leinster v Northampton | 13:00 | Channel 4 / BT Sport 2 |
| Gloucester v Ulster | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 |
| Clermont v Munster | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Sale v Edinburgh | 20:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Bordeaux v Dragons | 20:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Worcester v Ospreys | 20:00 | S4C |
Sunday 20th December
| Harlequins v Racing 92 | 15:15 | BT Sport 2 |
| Connacht v Bristol | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Cardiff 28 – 0 Stade Français |
Ovally Balls 
The Coliseum which opened in 70 AD could fit in 50 thousand people. But they didn’t have rugby. Twickenham can fit in 82,000 and does have rugby. That kind of progress?
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Slade, my preference would be to use Linux for banking and buying, it’s an inherently safer architecture, but the big thing about it is that it is so little used that it’s just too much trouble to go to the effort of breaching its security for very little gain.
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Having said that, Windows must be pretty secure nowadays, something like 75% of home PC run MS software and whilst there are thefts and security breaches, it’s a very small number when you consider the sheer scale of Windows users.
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SBT – progress with, thankfully, less death (some might add wild animals and Christians)
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…….in the arena, not the crowds (I think)
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Slade – we can talk to each other on the Internet, slavery was abolished in the USA and around the world, women can vote, lifting in the line out was introduced, life expectancy has almost doubled, plagues no longer wipe us out etc etc.
Obviously it is uneven and inconsistent geographically but I’d say we’re getting there.
*awaits snark*
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*snark*
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Jordan Venter is in Edinburgh, currently in isolation before joining up with the team training next week.
What is he, 18? There is a pic of him on the Embra fans FB page, he is bloody huge.
He’s obviously spent lockdown in the gym.
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He’ll need all that strength when he’s waiting around for Henry to box-kick.
What position will he play Ticht? At that size it might be any one he wants to?
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‘slavery was abolished in the USA and around the world’
The ‘official’ version where you could publically buy and sell people. Arguably slavery, the modern version of, is growing more prevalent. the gulf states for example would grind to a halt without huge amounts of essentially indentured labour. People trafficking etc.
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‘we can talk to each other on the Internet’
Greater volume of communication is not necessarily a good thing. Quality counts.
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but enough about my OB posting history.
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‘life expectancy has almost doubled’
Can think of a few people who halving their life expectancy would make the world a better place
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‘plagues no longer wipe us out ‘
Firstly, lets see what the next wee while brings
Secondly. of we had been wiped out we’d no longer be hear to speculate in such a manner
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‘women can vote, lifting in the line out was introduced’
I’ll give you these though. Generously.
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Having a temporary pause on melbury erection on the basis of fatigue.
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…….the llama’s on a roll
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quick – tickle its tummy
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BB, he’s a centre, Venter the centre, if you will.
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Chimpie – agree with you on the slavery point. But the gulf states had slavery then as they do now*. See my point about the geographical variation in progress.
* I can’t quite believe that Dubai is an amazing holiday location for some.
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I don’t think that we had cheese on toast in 1623. But then we didn’t have Chimpie’s version either so maybe we have gone backwards.
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Cheese and bread are both mentioned in writings from earlier than 1623.
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“blessed are the cheese-makers”
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“The notion that toasted cheese was a favourite dish irresistible to the Welsh has existed since the Middle Ages. In A C Merie Talys (100 Merry Tales), a printed book of jokes of 1526 AD (of which William Shakespeare made some use), it is told that God became weary of all the Welshmen in Heaven, ‘which with their krakynge and babelynge trobelyd all the others’, and asked the Porter of Heaven Gate, St Peter, to do something about it. So St Peter went outside the gates and called in a loud voice, ‘Cause bobe, yt is as moche to say as rostyd chese’, at which all the Welshmen ran out, and when St Peter saw they were all outside, he went in and locked the gates, which is why there are no Welshmen in heaven. The 1526 compiler says he found this story ‘Wryten amonge olde gestys'”
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Nearly 500 years later the English (well Craigs anyway) are still trying and failing to make up good stories so not much progress there.
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Best day of the year is 3rd September – Welsh Rarebit Day.
And Papa Was a Rolling Stone Day:
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CMW – cheese on toast in the modern format though?
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You’re right to ask that, craigs. Many, and I include myself among their number, have wondered when cheese on toast evolved from cheese on top of a slice of toast to the modern format of cheese on top of a slice of toast.
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This is writing:
https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2020/01/08/blessed-are-the-cheesemakers/
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ProdCom is very funny to me.
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TomP – That. Is. A. Disgrace.
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Trial
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It worked!
That’s an 18 year old
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@tomp
“ProdCom” sounds like Ian Paisley Jr’s new website.
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You took the words out of my keyboard, Tom
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Sorry, OT, not Tom
Though to be fair Jnr is far more open to dialogue than his old man was
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‘* I can’t quite believe that Dubai is an amazing holiday location for some.’
Source of disagreement with Mrs chimpie, this
‘Lets go there its hot’
‘No, it’s a big expensive city built on slave labour that has few redeeming features, you can get into trouble for random infractions, it’s not majorca. I’ve worked there and don’t want to actually spend money we don’t have to go back. Why don’t we go somewhere nice?’
‘Yeah but it’s hot’
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Jr’s most open to dialogue about expensive holiday destinations.
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Paisley Sr understood during the Mad Cow episode that We may be British, but our cows are Irish. Arlene doesn’t seem to be getting the same point with Covid-19.
Chimpie – ‘it’s hot’ is really not a selling point at all to me, apart from all the other stuff.
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I’ve been to Dubai 6 times I think. The airport only. It is hot.
Laleh Khallili had a brilliant book called Sinews of War and Trade published earlier this year. Dubai’s in there a lot. Well worth checking out.
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Jebus, those are juiced guns
He looks about 30
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ProdComsashMaldives for his holiday snaps.
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Daniel Hannan, soon to be Lord, wrote this a couple or three years back about Brexit:
‘After 43 years, we have pushed the door ajar. ‘A rectangle of light dazzles us and, as our eyes adjust, we see a summer meadow. Swallows swoop against the blue sky. We hear the gurgling of a little brook. Now to stride into the sunlight.’
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The House of Lords is fucking brilliant.
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The weirdest thing about the HoL is that recently they’ve made a lot more sense than the HoC.
Also they had Ruth Rendell.
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When I was a kid we used to call anyone who wasn’t Catholic a Proddy. So it meant during the height of the “Troubles” in the 80s I actually thought Ian Paisley was CofE.
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CofE and not CofI? Still, Paisley would no doubt have condemned them as Papists either way.
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No CofI in my neck of the woods. I used to think most people in the UK were Catholic anyway, something to do with the crap my teachers and the priest were telling us.
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Height of the Troubles in the 80s? Hmm. Although I suppose you could be meaning the tensest parts of the 80s.
thaum, Paisley called Michael Ramasay, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, ‘a Romaniser, an idolator and a blasphemer’ in the late 60s. My grandparents were staunch Unionists but they never spoke kindly of Ian Paisley.
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