2020 was a fabulous year. If you’re a highly contagious virus. For the rest of us, it meant lockdowns, Brexit, and – most importantly – severe disruption to the rugby schedule.
The Six Nations finished on Hallowe’en, and we had an odd Autumn Nations Cup, in which one nation never played. Leagues were all over the place. Mostly, fans are still not allowed to attend matches, even when those matches have not been cancelled.
On the up side, the Saracens got relegated.
And there is the sheer beauty of this to end the year (thank you, Beeb):
Meanwhile, the OvallyBalls mascot is on the scent of newsworthy items.
She has been paying attention to recent news items, including this article, which contains the following snippet:
This requires not only forwards tracing (identifying who you might have given the infection to) but also backwards tracing (where you got it from).
Obviously, tracing both backwards and forwards is her forté, but it has caused her to wonder if, in rugby, we should refer to the forwards and the backwardses. Or be like the French, and call them the in-fronts and the behinds. She likes behinds.
But enough of that shite….
A new year has just emerged, squalling and puking in the manner of these things, and we have been finally shat completely out of the EU, but we do have the hope of vaccines (along with the knowledge that the Tories will inevitably fuck up the distribution).
And now Chimpie has a fully erect Melbury (no, me neither) that he is preserving and oiling. So that’s good news for him, even if the rest of us may wonder what the purpose of this ‘Melbury’ is.
I raise a glass to all the contributors and lurkers of OvallyBalls, with best wishes for 2021 for yourselves and those you care about*.
Happy new year!
*Except where that involves teams playing Ulster or Ireland.
Onna telly this week
Friday 1st January
| Bristol v Newcastle | 15:00 | BT Sport Extra |
| Scarlets v Dragons | 17:15 | S4C / Premier Sports 1 |
| Cardiff v Ospreys | 19:35 | S4C / Premier Sports 1 |
Saturday 2nd January
| Pumas v Lions | 12:00 | Sky Sports Mix |
| Treviso v Zebre | 13:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Wasps v Exeter | 14:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Sharks v Griquas | 14:30 | Sky Sports Mix |
| Edinburgh v Glasgow | 15:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Gloucester v Sale | 16:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Cheetahs v Western Province | 17:00 | Sky Sports Mix |
| Ulster v Munster | 17:15 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Leinster v Connacht | 19:35 | Premier Sports 2 |
Sunday 3rd January
| Leicester v Bath | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 |
I hope you’re all looking forward to seeing my 3,4 or 8 times tables dance that I’ll be creating to show to the class or my family.
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My digital scrapbook on icebergs will also be something to behold, but I can assure you the highlight will be my informal letter to my future self about the year 2020.
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John Mulvihil leaves Cardiff
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CMW – actually they generally take fairly good care of bears. There is an old family story about how they went ‘above and beyond’ rescuing some bear cubs but I don’t think that the blog is ready for this yet.
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Are you from a family of circus owners?
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Craigs isn’t really an accountant. He’s a bear trainer.
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I saw Gemma Collins walking through the car park at Bedfords Park in Romford the other day. Is that more or less interesting than the bear story?
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unbearably uninteresting.
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Barely registers. I spose you have to know who Gemma Collins is though.
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Just Googled Gemma Collins. Bear story (or non-story) wins.
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ticht, this might interest you:
https://play.acast.com/s/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast/whenscotlandrises
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BK- got a friend in NZ who thinks Jacinda is an idiot. He got fast track immigration to work in the nascent oil industry ( huge reserves just off Pacific shelf, his specialty is deep drilling tech). Says she shut down the industry, forcing international companies to bail out, and says infrastructure and driling rights now bought out by Chinese who are happy to mothball and sit on them until they can walk in and take the country over. He is a bit miffed, cos bought a house and is now stranded and working as a building labourer to try and pay the mortgage.
Interested to know your take on that ?? He is a bit Trumpy reactionary.
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So, in between ww1 and ww2 there was a bear which strayed into my mums ancestral village. Had to be shot because people couldn’t leave their houses and it was destroying stuff*. So my great grandfather killed the bear and they discovered that it was female and likely had cubs.
They found the place where it was sleeping and as suspected they found 2 cubs which she was trying to feed. It’s unlikely that she would have been so aggressive if it wasn’t for the cubs apparently.
Anyway they took the cubs in and called the zoo in Stockholm. Whilst the zoo was getting ready to come and get them my relatives tried to look after them but they were too young to eat solid food. Sooooo……
Apparently one of my ancestors breast fed the bear cubs and they were fine until taken into the zoo. There they lived happily ever after.
That’s the story. I think it’s true. If not it’s kinda funny anyway. The Swedes love their fairy tales.
*Dems were and still are the rools around bears coming too close to villages. And my family have always had permission to carry out this work.
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Just been smashing up furniture and throwing it and radiators into the tip. Great fun.
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Yep – cathartic!
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Why does Gavin Williamson always have a smile on his face like someone has just told him he’s doing a smashing job?
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Trisk – it was. I just hope that we don’t need it when we move back!
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‘Why does Gavin Williamson always have a smile on his face like someone has just told him he’s doing a smashing job?’
‘cos he’s a colossal tit.
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If there’s any lesson I’ve learned – it’s that it tends to be a mistake to hang on to stuff (in general). Keeping stuff on the off-chance you’ll want it at some unspecified point in time is a bad idea.
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I’m going to tell Mrs BB that. Amazing how much crap is in the loft ‘just in case’…….
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In view of the recent topic – this seems apposite
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jan/05/burning-the-furniture-my-life-as-a-consumer
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@craigs
Was that Hampton or Hampton Hill?
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Edinburgh players are getting picked off with ease at the moment, Andrew Davidson to Glaws at the end of the season – cherry picked, you might say.
He is going to be a very good lock forward in the next few years
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Thieving premiership nutsacks
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OT – Gälstad-Lundby
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Squad getting seriously denuded. Can’t really compete with French, English & Irish based budgets.
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Money-chasing traitors.
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On the hoarding versus minimalist thing, try and get a copy of a book called Fisher’s Hornpipe. Not the central theme from memory (read it when it was released in the early 80s), but one of the ongoing themes. A very funny novel.
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@craigs
Is that over Hampton Court Bridge?
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no – under
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Depends which way you are going.
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‘Money-chasing traitors.’
Not really. It’s a short career and they’ve got to make ends meet & go to a club that suits them & allow them to progress. Budgets for embra & weedge are small & established internationals can undoubtedly make more elsewhere.
It’s all Chris Ashton’s fault.
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As for Ulster they thieved our coaches and CEO. They’re the worst.
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TBH this is still partly the 20 odd year hangover from the SRU blazers & vested club interests comprehensively knobbing up the transition to professionalism.
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Anyone got any (sensible) suggestions for a cheap router or access point to insert in my shortly to be electrified and internetted melbury?
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So in the past few days we’ve lost:
DVDM
Davidson
Bhatti
Boo.
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It’s a bit depressing if the ones who qualify by residence bugger off in short order once that time is up.
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@Craigs – I appreciate that it was necessary to shoot the bear. Can’t help noting though that your story of how they go above and beyond the call of duty in looking after bears began with shooting a bear.
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Conversely I think some of Scotland’s better players hung around longer than might have been expected (Russell, Hogg, J Gray) and it would be churlish not to congratulate them on their success elsewhere.
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I said on the Graun that Williamson was the Peter Principle as lived by Frank Spencer. I hope it gains traction as I think it was one of my better efforts.
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Well hark at Iks looking for traction on the Graun, I ask you.
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I think Craigs should do the same with his bear material.
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Who is Frank Spencer? HIs name keeps coming up lately, but I’ve no idea….
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@Thaum – Is that a lack of traction I see before me?
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Traction something of an issue for Frank himself I see.
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The dog watched that with great attention, and then rewound it a bit and made it full-screen. I am not joking.
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Frank Spencer doesn’t work for me. Frank was essentially well-meaning.
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CMW – they could have left the cubs to starve given that they weren’t eating anything else. It’s pretty remote and fairly wild out there and more so in those days. Shooting a bear, wolf, lynx or even a moose that’s getting a bit unfriendly would have been the only option. Otherwise someone would have been hurt or killed.
I remember a dingo stole a baby in Australia a while back as a result of being used to humans. They were preventing something like that.
Saving the cubs in that way is ‘above and beyond’. Thinking about it, it must have been her idea. Imagine trying to ‘sell’ that as a course of action to a breastfeeding mother.
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@Craigs – You don’t need to convince me, still think you should take it to the mob on the Graun…
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