The intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as “The OvallyBalls Case” has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, in view of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the blogmembers themselves, to write an account of the whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the sensational rumours which still persist.
It all began when a chap named BorderBoy idly commented, “Wonder who’ll end up killing me first?” BB, as he was affectionately called, seemed only to be referring to a domestic situation engendered by the current lockdown, but his comment brought on a sinister load of abuse, invective and general rotterness.
Poirot, knowing my aptitude for these kinds of cases, has asked me to transcribe my characterisation of the main suspects at this point in the proceedings.
Suspects
OurTerry
Far from having any sympathy for BB’s imminent demise, OT raged that “This lockdown and home schooling has already cost me 250 quid for a better router.”
He later tries to cover his tracks by suggesting that a fancy new router can distract one from the woes of lockdown.
Chimpie
Chimpie seemed to sympathise at first, when he commented that “Lockdown and home schooling is costing me my sanity”, but quickly made it All About Himself when he went on to say “And a melbury. Can I moan about electricians not turning up when they’re supposed to?”
Must investigate this Melbury fellow. Sounds unreliable.
Craigsman
This utter bounder’s callous response to BB’s plaintive question was “Hard to say. There’s so many to choose from.”
I shall keep an eye on him.
Deebee7
His comment that “It’s at times like this that I’m glad my sprog was born 26 years ago…” may seem innocuous, and even supportive of BB, but does it hide darker thoughts?
* * *
Just as I had finished writing out these incisive insights, BB surprised us all by posting again: “Daughter 2 (at the posh end of the table) is 27 and working from home (and still staying here, despite her best efforts to leave).”
What could this signify? I mean, we all thought he was dead. Perhaps, I thought to myself, it is a coded message from his killer, who has hijacked his login. In which case, what could ‘the posh end of a table’ mean? Could it be that BB, posing as a humble librarian, was actually a person so wealthy that his table stretched to different post-codes.
And I fear for his captive daughter, who probably has auburn hair and is rather beautiful.
* * *
A new suspect has emerged.
A dubious character named ClydeMillarWynant has responded to OT’s comment about the £250 router with “My lot will just have to get behind with their wodwork.”
What could this mean? What are these wods they’re working on, and why should they get behind with it?
He also goes on to show an unnatural interest in the case:
“BB listed the candidates. They were Mrs BB, Daughter 2 and, somewhat bizarrely, Chimpie.
“It’s not many when you think about it.”
He then makes suspicious distractions around fractions and cricket. Well, that’s just not cricket. I have my eye on you, you rotter.
* * *
A very disturbing conversation then took place.
The murderer, posing as BB again, wrote, “Think we can safely rule Chimpie out as one of my killers. Next door neighbour’s cat keeps giving me evil looks though, so may count him in.”
This heightened my suspicions of Chimpie (who, by the way, is a llama). It’s preposterous that it could be a cat.
The scoundrel then had the effrontery to reply under his own moniker, “It’s all right BB why would I want to kill you? It’s not like I could eat you or anything…. Legally.”
But then Craigsman remarked that he now has “a rather gruesome image of BB toasted on one side, covered with a massive pile of cheese, being slid under a grill.” And I suspect he has his neighbours tied up with wire.
Chimpie responded, “I’d probably go for charbroiled cutlets. Or maybe even a pot roast.”
To which MisterIks, a known Prog-hater, suspiciously replied, “Well I’m in the clear. No motive whatsoever to snuff out the Blog Progmeister.”
* * *
Poirot read through my notes with great interest, and complimented me on my eye for detail. “But, mon ami,” he said, “You have forgotten one leetle detail.”
“I say, Poirot, whatever do you mean?”
“You forget that BB works with students and does not detest immigrants.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“The murderer himself confessed without meaning to do so, when he wrote about ‘woke poncey student types’.
“That’s right. It was … ExPro!”
Onna telly this week
Friday 22nd January
| Scarlets 10 – 13 Cardiff | 20:00 |
Saturday 23rd January
| 13:00 | Bulls v Lions | Sky Sports Arena |
| 13:00 | Zebre v Edinburgh | Premier Sports 2 |
| 14:30 | Western Province v Sharks | Sky Sports Arena |
| 19:35 | Munster v Leinster | Premier Sports 2 |
Sunday 24th January
| Connacht v Ospreys | 15:00 | TG4 / FreeSports |
Ovally Balls 
Hmmm, Guardian says Launchbury has broken his fibia . What the fuck is a fibia ?
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Aha, the corrected themselves later in the article.
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A fibia is your lying bone. Usually associated with professional footballers who grasp at it with agonised grimaces every time an opposition player gets within three yards of them. It recovers remarkably quickly and elicits a torrent of foul mouthed abuse when the ref waves play on.
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£100,000 of post-Brexit tariffs slapped on Fairtrade bananas from Africa
At least £100,000 of tariffs have been put on Fairtrade bananas from Africa because of Brexit. Several ministers are under pressure to explain why the levies are being charged, despite an announcement that a last-gasp deal was struck between the UK and Ghana on New Year’s Eve. Both banana exporters in the latter country and UK shipping firms are losing money on deliveries, while the crisis continues.
Keith Sadler, managing director of importers Compagnie Fruitiere UK, said his firm was paying weekly tariffs of £20,000, adding: “If you add that up, it would be £1 million over a year. No business can operate with that level of extra costs. This is a serious threat to the banana industry and it needs to be resolved before we have to make difficult decisions.”
The Department for International Trade was unable to say when tariffs would be lifted – and blamed Ghana for failing to “engage with us fully until it was too late”.
Nice mature response from the DIT. Brexit was sold to Africa as a great chance to expand bilateral trade free of the restrictions and quotas of the EU. Off to a great start. I wonder if there has been a less competent government in UK history? Certainly post-War.
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Article originally from The Independent. Copied it from another source though.
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Deebs: no need to wonder………………they are just awful
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………mildly corrupt and utterly incompetent
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‘mildly’??????
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And still polling 40%.
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Not sure – given what we’ve uncovered (or maybe “opened our eyes to”) over the last 30 years – it would be worth much
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Have you tried to follow the GMC case involving Richard Freeman (formerly of Team Sky? Sean Ingle of the Guardian surely has a book ready once it’s all done and dusted – cause I think it’s the only way any of it will make sense to anyone who’s not sat through the entire proceedings
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The govt may be shit at most things but I’m quite sanguine about the vaccine roll out so far. We seem be ahead of this curve at least.
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have a fully electrified and internetted melbury. Very exciting. I can now hide from the rest of the family
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Bit concerned about this delay to the second dose though craigs. Is this a sensible immunological approach?
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Has the whiff of classic hancock number fudging for political gain.
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@chimpie
For the AZ one it appears to actually increase the efficacy. For the Biontech one there is less evidence but the intention of the programme is to create herd immunity and keep R down well below 1. If you vaccinate more people at a lower efficacy the community should reach immunity more quickly, so it makes sense to me.
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Think it was a medical body that decided on the delay – don’t know if they were ‘pressurised’ by the government though. I have heard that doctors in all 4 countries are asking for the gap to be halved to six weeks, via the BMA.
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‘Prof Anthony Harnden, of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said the evidence was still in favour of delaying the dose, after a small Israeli study on people over the age of 60 suggested a first dose gave just 33% protection from coronavirus.
The JCVI has suggested doses should be given 12 weeks apart in order to give the maximum number of people some protection while supplies are limited. Pfizer, which manufactures one of the vaccines being administered in the UK and is also the provider of vaccines in Israel, has said it has tested its vaccine’s full efficacy only when the two doses were given up to 21 days apart.’
Seems a bit experimental to me. But I’m no virologist.
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Still the best in Europe though. That’s the main thing.
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@craigs
And now the EU is threatening to sieze Pfizer-Biontech vaccines that are due for export to countries that have legally bought them, and all because a French-Belgian contract manufacturer called Novasep can’t produce high enough yields of the AZ one.
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Way behind Portugal, the Czech Republic and Belgium on the two jabs front, craigs.
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One dose appears to offer significant immunity:
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trisk, didn’t even know there was a court case. I’m not really interested in pro cycling. I do like the pictures of the mountains in the tours and vueltas and giros.
One thing is we live about a kilometre from a velodrome that I walk past once or twice a week and every time I walk past I’m surprised to remember it exists and happy that it exists.
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Tomp – one thing I miss about pro was his ability to move goalposts without even realising.
Those aren’t proper countries.
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Way behind Portugal, the Czech Republic and Belgium on the two jabs front, craigs.
Way behind Ireland too. I read that Connor McGregor got a dozen strong jabs in three minutes the other night.
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Deebs – he’s norn iron so one of ours.
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Craigs:
………..”Still the best in Europe though. ”
You’re not in Europe, by democratic process………………
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….at risk of specious argument about geographical vs political nomenclature…………………..
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I’m all about the geography Sladey.
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Dublin’s in Northern Ireland now, is it? West Britain perhaps, some of it, a long time ago.
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Naw…pure Dub.
Now, I personally think he gets too much attention – but to be fair he’s pretty good at generating it generally. MMA/UFC (or whatever TLA they use to promote themselves) doesn’t really interest me…and oddly – given my statement about attention this fight got zero publicity upfront (as far as I was aware).
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Good job you don’t have BT Sport. They were plugging it at every opportunity. Only £20!! To watch a couple of guys having a brawl. No thanks.
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Damn. Could have sworn I read he was from NI.
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Does anyone know how to wire a fan to two independently controlled plugs which may both be on at the same time?
Don’t want a house fire.
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Probably shouldn’t take advice off the Internet for this sort of thing.
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Why do you want to connect it to two plugs?
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correct! – but do you mean plugs or switches i.e. do you want to create a circuit similar to a stair light with a switch at both the top and bottom to control the off/on independently?
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Plugs. It’s a temperature controlled fan but I will have two sensors. So the plugs may both turn on.
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Slade – not like a stair I’m afraid.
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I feel like I need some sort of electrical gate.
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I’d advise talking to an electrician.
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REVEALED: Where craigs get his talking points from:
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Actually it’s the Daily Stormer and Guido mainly.
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The Tories are a bit too left wing for me.
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Genuine headline in today’s Times:
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Think I’ll buy ANOTHER FAN.
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Tomp – some frazzled parents are erecting Melburys as well.
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So let’s get this right. If it gets too warm in a particular room you want it to automatically turn the fan on that particular room. And if it gets too warm in a second room you want it to automatically turn the fan on in the first room.
Very Douglas Adamsesque.
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OT – different parts of a greenhouse
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