Everything will be all right tonight. Everything will be all right tonight. Or so I keep telling myself, as Ulster prepare to turn and face the strain of Leinster at the RDS. Let’s hope that Ulster can put Big Brother under pressure. It’s simple, really: all we have to do is win. But hope, boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing: we are the dead.
While Ulster have lost Stockdale to injury, one South Effrican is back for us.
But one of Them has apparently recovered from yet another head injury.
Give me steel, give me steel, give me pulsars unreal
In other news – newsman wept (with joy) as he told me – a familiar face is returning to Cardiff.
Someone’s back in town the chips are down
I just cut and blackout
I’m under Mulvihill’s influence and my honour’s at stake
Today is David Bowie’s birthday, in case anyone was wondering.
Onna telly this week
Friday 8th January
| Glasgow v Edinburgh | 19:35 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Leinster v Ulster | 19:35 | TG4 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Bath v Wasps | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
| Sale v Worcester | 20:00 | BT Sport Extra |
Saturday 9th January
| Zebre v Treviso | 13:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Newcastle v Gloucester | 14:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Griquas v Cheetahs | 14:30 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Exeter v Bristol | 16:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Western Province v Sharks | 17:00 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Dragons v Ospreys | 17:15 | S4C / Premier Sports 1 |
| Cardiff v Scarlets | 19:35 | S4C / Premier Sports 1 |
| Connacht v Munster | 19:35 | TG4 / Premier Sports 2 |
Sunday 10th January
| Harlequins v London Irish | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 16th January
| Glasgow v Edinburgh | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
Ovally Balls 
I’ve just pictured Iks in his y-fronts doing his best Tom Cruise ‘Risky Business’ impersonation. It wasn’t his (or my) finest moment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Schnell! Polizei! Da kriecht der berüchtigte Entenstörer Iks mit einer Dose Bier herum!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Christ BB you could have warned me first before posting that.
*disappears into the shadows*
LikeLike
I’ll take the compliment that I can still carry off wearing y-fronts, Deebs.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Craigs – at the moment, they are hoping to reschedule the matches.
LikeLike
Deebs – that was far from being his worst moment, either.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can see every bushel in Heidelberg being overturned by the Polizei and still they won’t find him.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Scarlets Pimperiks?
LikeLiked by 4 people
All this wit on display … anyone fancy writing an ATL for this week? Possibly revolving around beer, ducks and y-fronts.
LikeLike
Can’t promise that, but I’ve got a two or three part yarn about a trip to Cameroon lined up. Just probably not this week!
LikeLike
‘The Scarlets Pimperiks?’
Sounds like a nasty disease
LikeLiked by 1 person
Deebs – I had a mate from Caméroooun (in her enthusiastic pronunciation) yonks ago – she loved the place!
LikeLike
European Cup off. Japanese top league this weekend then.
LikeLike
“European Cup off. ”
Sensible stuff, keeping it factual.
“Japanese top league this weekend then.”
That looks like sailing dangerously close to the wind on the wit front. Wouldn’t risk that sort of thing if I were you.
LikeLike
“Sounds like a nasty disease”
‘Tis but a pimperik.
LikeLike
Thauma, it’s a fabulous place, even if the politics sucks. Although they’re not unique in that aspect.
LikeLike
I’ve been pondering the impact going forward of the Dems and their media’s rush to call the invasion of the Capitol ‘domestic terrorism’ so quick and repeatedly. I fear that every tinpot dictator from Putin and Lukashenko to Museveni, Duterte and beyond will do the same when faced with popular demonstrations. And given that it’s been used by those with the moral high ground in the US, it’s difficult to simply ignore or dismiss as a populist rant. The Dems need to understand that despite Trump’s best efforts, the USA is still a bellwether for political accountability across the globe.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lukashenko’s ahead of the game on that, Deebee. He was calling the opposition domestic terrorists from September last year. Putin, of course, has been on it for years.
I got reminded of the old Latin American joke last week:
‘Why has the USA never had a successful military coup?’
‘Cos there’s no US embassy in Washington.’
LikeLiked by 4 people
CMW, no time for levity. There’ve been reports here on the continent of a spectre haunting Europe, the spectre of Iksy in his y-fronts.
LikeLike
TomP, just picking a few examples there. Of course, the next time Putin and Lukashenko can claim added legitimacy from the US debacle. The key point though, was that it opens a Pandora’s Box of gleeful brutality to any thug in power on the basis of protecting the Capitol (or equivalent) from ‘domestic terrorists’. No matter how peaceful or legitimate the protest. I’d imagine Emmerson Mnangagwa in Zimbabwe is licking his lips at the prospect.
LikeLike
Mister Yks is not to be toyed with.
LikeLike
Mister Ypsilon.
LikeLike
Fd’s the man for this stuff, of course.
It’ll be interesting / terrifying to see what happens in the States next week. There’s chatter that last Thursday was a dry run for the 20th. I have no idea how true that all is well but the language of the insurrectionists was very worrying. I read one comment that Trump fucked it by alienating the military top brass. However, there’s still room for a lot of bad stuff if you look at how easy it was for the crowd to get into the Capitol.
One more thing, you’re right about America being a bellwether. Remember how after 9/11 loads of nasty types joined the war on terror and got lots of cash slung their way by the Americans.
Better things are possible and this stuff isn’t inevitable but it’s not looking rosy in the short term.
LikeLike
Fd. professor of coups and Y-frontology.
LikeLike
beethoven composed in his underpants……………………………
LikeLike
………………were they y-fronts?
LikeLike
celebrating 70 years of the pants invented by Jockey:
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/A+brief+history+of+y-fronts%3B+CELEBRATING+70+YEARS+OF+THE+PANTS+THAT…-a0120688914
LikeLike
so…..beethoven didn’t
LikeLiked by 1 person
If the game was played today then Beethoven would be wearing Y-fronts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Deebs – I agree with you. I think that they’ll also use it to clamp down on the press. ‘Look at all these lemons who believed x, y, z. We need to protect the People’s Republic! Democracy doesn’t work etc etc etc’.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tomp – I wonder if this does fit the definition of a coup and what FD would say about that. Did they have an end game in mind with Trump seriously in charge again or did they just want to fuck shit up and stick it to the libtards?
No doubt some did. I just wonder if they had a plan.
LikeLike
I’m starting to agree with John Pilger as I get older, which is a bit worrying.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What democracy? It may have it’s flaws but the US system is still fairly reasonable in the overall world context imo.
All democracies have flaws but to paraphrase a racist arsehole/national hero they are the least worst systems to varying degrees.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
Craigs, it didn’t seem from the footage and reporting that there was any serious plan in place – sitting in Nancy Pelosi’s chair and trashing her office for souvenirs hardly amounts to a serious attempt at a coup. Then again, they found pipe bombs planted outside the RNC and DNC offices? That could be described as an ac t of terror (quite rightly), but it doesn’t appear as if it was a co-ordinated attempt at regime change (or continuation for the pedants who lurk amongst us – and they do, trust me), but a pitchfork mob looking for a fight.
Or maybe it was a more sinister ‘dry run’ for the 20th? I doubt it though, with no evidence at all to back that up. Other than they seem to be too thick to plan that far ahead.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think it was just a terrorism by some dumber terrorists than usual whipped up by Trump. This is probably close to the mark:
LikeLiked by 3 people
This got me a bit worried when the depute at one of my schools posted it…..
FREE volatile substance abuse
Then I noticed the word ‘training’ at the end….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah feck! Thaum (or any other mod type person) – if you have a minute could you remove one of the above. Honestly, no volatile substance abuse was involved….
LikeLike
It was a representative mob of all the people that Trump and his ilk have stirred up for 5 years or more – a move testing if the establishment could be tumbled.
Cruz and other political filth adopted the Trumpian stirring entirely for their own current and future political ends – aiming at a future presidency based on a tower of lies.
Not simply the politicians out of touch but the stirring of a large minority for political gain. – at whatever cost.
A coup in my view:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
LikeLike
and – for American readers:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coup%20d%27%C3%A9tat
LikeLike
Watching the Republican characters reminds me of reading Cicero regarding the leadership of Rome
LikeLike
coup- or was it a nice glass of good cheer to celebrate the New Year?
LikeLike
Done, BB.
LikeLike
That bloody sonic boom set my burglar alarm off earlier.
LikeLike
Hi all. In reply to TomP :-
Have been having a continuing discussion with a few friends over here about the current situation. It started with a couple of Democrats of the mild mannered liberal sort, who insist on vengeance , demanding that Trump is pursued to the ends of the earth, and jailed, for whatever reason possible. I pointed out that that would just feed his craving for the spotlight, and it would be better to just let him piss off to a golf course somewhere. This view was backed up by a group of Republican type rednecks, who voted for him, whilst ALL admitting he was an arsehole, because of traditional political lines. One suggested the best thing to do would be to build him a replica White House at Mar-el-Lago, and fence him in, and he probably wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t in charge anymore which seemed to get a lot of approval.This all going back a month or more.
Now there is a witchhunt going on, and hundreds of fairly innocuous idiots are being hounded as terrorists. All the middle class and blue collar Republicans who would have otherwise been happy to see the back of Trump are getting fired up, which is only likely to feed the frenzy. Its got worrying parallels with the civil war, where half the South joined in, not because they were landed slave owners, but because they didn’t want Yankee ( and by that I mean New England ) industrialists forcing their religious and social mores on the rest of the country.
News from a couple of local stores, gun sales are going thru the roof in Connecticut, hunting season just finished, and the normal slack period until spring is turning into one of the busiest periods in years. Mostly, worryingly, largely tactical weapons, including a massive rush on weaponry that is only available to members of the police or other government agencies, so they are tooling up as well.
Hopefully it will all blow over, and be seen as a storm in a teacup in a few months, but I still maintain that Trump just revealed cracks that were already there, and were being increasingly unsuccessfully papered over, rather than driving a wedge into a united society, and Biden needs to tread very carefully. The excavators are today tearing down the iconic local diner that I used to have breakfast in when I first came here, while just down the road the Tuesday morning free food handout in the local church carpark has gone industrial, a couple of tables of some tinned goods, vegetables and bread has turned into full pallets lined up like a third world food drop in an array that would do any discount supermarket proud, and the handful of dishevelled patrons has become massive queues of seemingly well to do families who would normally be to proud to accept aid in such a public manner. Middle America is hurting, and looking for someone to blame.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Scary stuff, SBT.
LikeLike
SBT
– thanks for that but I can’t agree entirely……………….
Trump and his ilk saw the fissure and scratched and scratched at it knowing that the result would grow their power base. Cruz and other filth piggy-backed through self-interest for 2024.
My liberal leanings would support sending Trump to a Mar a Lago ‘Coventry’ – but this old-fashioned approach has been overtaken by social media. Flames can be fanned from anywhere to the advantage of Trump clan and acolites. Read back through the last 5 years of media speak and the content and volume is truly appalling – and must be addressed somehow.
The fact is that the USA is hopelessly divided and is filled with awful poverty. Values are all over the place – e,g, drive to pick up your food parcel in your new monster 4×4; medicare.
Fact is anglo-saxon whites are becoming a smaller and smaller proportion of the population and Repub. leaders have been doing all in their power to disenfranchise any opposition.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ta Thaum.
LikeLike
After a summer of political violence is anyone surprised by what happened? I was shocked and saddened but not surprised. Someone disappearing down a rabbit hole and then getting so worked up they decide to assault a government building and in one case get shot in the neck and die is a genuinely sad turn of events. It doesn’t matter (to me) that they believed in some horrible crap either. We seem to have reached a point where convincing people that they are in a rabbit hole is almost impossible.
I’m not equating the two sides who rioted either. The attack on the capitol (and by implication US political staff) was obviously worse than the property destruction in my opinion. But when burning down shit and fighting the police became a long drawn out thing then it’s almost normal to do the same for your own fucked up cause. Especially when you’ve been fed lies and encouragement by the current president.
This reminds me of the Vietnam War documentary where they looked at the political violence of circa 1968. Biden will need to do everything he can to bring people together.
I’m ranting, sorry.
LikeLike
This comes back to my objection over the milkshake (if you remember). If you start throwing milkshakes the other side will escalate.
LikeLiked by 2 people