This post has very little to do with rugby (there is some connection), but I lost the plot after reading about David Frost’s ‘speech’ on Tuesday, in which he repudiated the world-beating, superfantabulistic deal that he and Spaffer Johnson negotiated and signed with the EU less than a year ago.
These morons have no understanding at all of Northern Ireland, and nor do they care to understand. They seem to be only listening to the DUP, who are in serious decline, and whose worldview is anathema to most of the population – a population who you will remember voted against Brexit.
Why do people vote for them, you ask? It’s not because they like them or agree with their politics or religious fetishes, but because they are (were!) afraid of ‘Them-uns’ getting in instead.
It’s true that the Republic of Ireland was rather priest-ridden in my youth, but those days are long gone after the Magdalene Laundries scandal and other events; meanwhile, you will still find signs on the roadsides in NI proclaiming things like FOR THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH, and other lovely, inspirational messages, while abortion remains next to impossible and same-sex marriage has only recently been forcibly imposed by Westminster. Many people in NI who might previously have supported unionism are reconsidering on the basis of these changes and non-changes.
The Belfast / Good Friday Agreement has effected an amazing alteration in the physical and political landscape. Gone are the metal detectors and the tanks of my youth; in their place is a vibrant (yes, an overused word, but it fits here) downtown Belfast, with plenty of two-way cross-border traffic, a great food / café / arts culture, and a general air of tolerance and co-operation. People in East Belfast are learning Irish and playing GAA sports.
Northern Ireland has seen some empty supermarket shelves, but primarily in those retailers who are English-based. Other businesses have adjusted, and are buying in from the Republic and the wider EU. There haven’t been any petrol shortages.
(As for ‘sausage wars’, no honest Irishperson buys the clearly inferior English sausages. Irish sausages are gorgeous, and almost certainly have a lower sawdust percentage [citation needed].)
So along comes David Frost, with the DUP cooing in his ear, to assert that the Northern Ireland Protocol – which, remember, he negotiated and signed and proclaimed to be the greatest deal ever – is not fit for purpose, mostly because it exposes that NI, which remains in the Single Market, is prospering much better than the rest of the UK. And he wants to scrap the whole thing, putting the entire peace process into question.
So in other words, the DUP would prefer to have the Northern Irish people suffer the same privations as those on the island of Britain, because that would make them more British.
It seems that most Northern Irish, of whatever persuasion, don’t agree. They seem to prefer the all-island approach that is clearly advantageous.
And here’s where rugby comes in. Rugby has been an all-island sport since partition, and has seen a massive benefit from that: not just in trophies and matches won, but as a unifying factor. (Football has been divided, with little success for either country.) Ulster has its nine counties, with Tommy Bowe, for example, from County Monaghan. We have punched above our weight for such a tiny country in which rugby isn’t even the second or third sport. We have, in good GFA tradition, fudged the ceremonials by doing two anthems. It might not be ideal, it may irritate others (sorry!), but it’s the best we can do for now, and it works.
The likes of Frost and Johnson are careless of this carefully-built cooperation, and willing to destroy it all on the altar of their own egos. They are willing to send us back to bombs and threats and check-points and feel-ups and knee-cappings and murders. They are willing to divide an island – yet again – that their predecessors have ravaged and pillaged and planted and starved. They are the greatest argument for a united Ireland in my lifetime, and I expect now to live to see it happen.
Onna telly this week
Friday 15th October
| Ulster v Lions | 19:35 | BBC2 NI / RTÉ2 / Premier Sports 1 |
| Dragons v Stormers | 19:35 | BBC2 Wales / Premier Sports 2 |
| Sale v Harlequins | 19:45 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 16th October
| Zebre v Glasgow | 13:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Brive v La Rochelle | 14:00 | FreeSports |
| Wasps v Exeter | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Treviso v Ospreys | 15:00 | S4C / Premier Sports 1 |
| Montpellier v Clermont | 16:00 | FreeSports |
| Leinster v Scarlets | 17:15 | S4C / TG4 / Premier Sports 2 |
| Edinburgh v Bulls | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Munster v Connacht | 19:35 | RTÉ2 / Premier Sports 2 |
| Cardiff v Sharks | 19:35 | S4C / Premier Sports 1 |
| Toulon v Racing 92 | 20:00 | FreeSports |
Sunday 17th October
| Bath v Saracens | 15:00 | BT Sport 1 | ||
| Lyon v Toulouse | 20:00 | FreeSports |
Ovally Balls 
*Goes to check and see if Expro’s posted*
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Nope, he hasn’t.
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2 tries USA. ABs wilting
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Faded Glory Chimpie, they are there for the taking now
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Some of the things the US comms are saying, make me long for Dayglo –
“He went down like the stock market in 2009”
“Not even Wes Craven could direct that – terrifying”.
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@Thaum – Didn’t see any of Ulster’s game and assume the result is some sort of conspiracy to make sure the Irish teams get all of the top four places, but yes I thought Munster fought hard and it was an enjoyable game even though it lacked much in the way of back play with the O’s in particular being very direct and Munster often ending up kicking ahead even when they did move it wide. Stronger or more confident teams than the Ospreys would have pushed for the try on more than one occasion, I was surprised that they managed to get the win just on penalties as I’ve seen that approach fucked up so many times. The win is definitely something to be celebrated, wouldn’t have been all that surprised if none of our lot had managed to turn over any of the big three Irish teams all season but they really earned it tonight.
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Only 104. Pfft
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CMW, I thought the Os were well worth the win.
I also thought the USA were well worth their 14- 104 score line
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@Chimpie – Shall we rule the ABs out as the one Wales are going to beat?
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That game was a waste of time as a contest, I suppose the aim is to promote the sport in the US, but getting humped 104 – 14 by a team that is not at its strongest and is barely trying, is that the way to promote it?
That was a classic Thursday night’s training semi-opposed run out for the senior team
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I know you’ve all been waiting to hear.
North Berwick took the spoils in the derby
North Berwick 33 – 19 Dunbar
This moves NB up to second on the Tennent’s East Region League Division 2 (Men’s) table and unfortunately shunts Dunbar down to 6th,
but we have a game in hand and it’s a long way to next Spring
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Hollie Davison has been very good and un-phased by big name players nagging at her
Liked the way she stuck to her guns without getting dragged into the chirping aimed her way. Wasn’t a great match, but was tense and compelling in its own way, mainly whether Ospreys would hold on for the full 80 or not. Munster’s decision making for the last couple of penalties was a bit muddled, to be honest.
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In deebee pleasing news, Nathan mcbeth to weedgieland
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Out damned blob!
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Bad weekend personally on the sport front:
Exeter hammered by LI – the latter were very good, the former very poor.
Man.U hammered by Liverpool – the latter were excellent, the former shocking. I started following Utd in 1961 and have been thrillingly entertained by them. Historically, win or lose the excitement level was high. Now there is more than one thing very wrong.
On the entertaining front, Pakistan were terrific in their T20 hammering of India.
Anyway, it’s a lovely day today!
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@Slade
Despite all the evidence to the contrary before the match, I still expected Liverpool to lose to a dodgy Ronaldo penalty in the 88th minute. Imagine my pleasant surprise when we were not only 2-0 up inside 15 minutes, but didn’t give that up the way we did against Atletico during the week. Felt that Liverpool backed off after the Pogba horror tackle in an effort at self preservation, or it could have been a few more. Fantastic result and one that I think all good people applauded.
Also watched the F1 in the USA. Haven’t watched F1 since Schumacher made it a boring procession back in the day. This was a helluva race though, with Hamilton’s straight line speed up against Verstappen’s better performance in the cornering sections. Great race in the end! Just a pity there was nobody else even close.
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Forgot to mention that the Lions didn’t lose this weekend either.
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The best thing Utd can do now is get rid of Pogba at any price – will be a wake-up call and buy a couple of midfield workers with the change.
I read the motor-racing was good – bit of needle always helps!
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Ben Stokes added to England’s Ashes squad and ‘ready for Australia’
5-0 England. You heard it here first.
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Afghanistan giving Scotland all sorts of strife early on. 46/0 after 5 overs!
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Now 98/2 after 12 overs, both openers gone, and with that, so am I!
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Slade – least said about the weekend’s rugby, the better.
On the other hand, it was indeed a beautiful day today:
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Nice to see that Scottish sport has reverted to the norm by getting thumped. Well played Afghanistan.
Bodes well for the rugby team on Saturday.
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Oops
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Not content with poaching from the Pasifika, the panicking Kiwis are trying to arrest their slide down the world ranking by raiding Germany now:
https://www.news24.com/sport/rugby/the-rugby-mad-german-on-the-path-to-the-all-blacks-20211026
Have they no shame at all?
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If we don’t scare the NH sides with our brutality, those jerseys will do the trick! Not a fan. No continuity of design, no flow, nothing. Just separate elements cobbled together for the sake of a ‘design’ that still gives a nod to the actual Bok jersey, sort of. It’s shit.
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Now in Jerez. Cadiz was great. Swimming, food, layout of the city. Off to another beach later.
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The host in that quiz show did well to keep it together.
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TomP, when you post a twit, you have to remove mobile. from the URL or it doesn’t embed.
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Plus, these people can vote. It explains a lot.
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Like this, thaum?
twitter.com/ashindestad/status/1452944106536194053
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Like this:
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Sod. Didn’t work (obviously).
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You do need the https:// bit!
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yes, just noticed that now – thanks for fixing it (and not TomPs!).
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Wasn’t me, guv. Deebs’ version was already fine, so didn’t bother fixing TomP’s.
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I was just about to post that Deebee, the old knee, y’know.
If talkRadio are posting that they probably think it shows their guy in a good light.
It really doesn’t.
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Might have been me 😃
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@Ticht
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Can’t fix stupid.
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Really not clear what the plan was – unless it was to kick away as much possession as possible. Terrible performance – 1st half vs Stormers was similar but this went beyond….
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It was a bit muddled pretty much from after the disallowed try…. they were in a hurry to go wide without much of a platform.
When I saw the teams, I assumed Munster were going to try to overpower the Ospreys up front. Didn’t go that way or didn’t work hard enough. Young Crowley played well enough at 10. Problems were elsewhere.
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I like donuts.
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You dough, dough you?
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Marina Hyde in very good form on an appalling subject:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/26/cop26-guests-rivers-environmental-conference
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CMW – It’s funny, I had a conversation with a guy in my team at work about this when discussing the Simpsons. Vaguely recollect it being as follows:
Him: I wonder why they call him Homer though.
Me: well, it’s a piss take because of the ancient Greek poet.
Him: eh?
Me: you know the guy who wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey. With Ulysses or Odysseus.
Him: the space cartoon?
Me: no… like erm, trojan war, sirens, ancient Greece etc?
Him:…..
Me: you’ve seen Troy right?
Him: Brad Pitt kills Eric Bana?
Me: yes, that one.
I think there’s a significant sub section of the population who don’t know why everyone is laughing at them.
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*laughs in a non-specific direction*
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Anyhoo, been a busy week so far, been planting the winter concrete crop ready for a spring harvest and use in a patio.
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