Last night I was ‘forced’ (Mothership usage of term, meaning doing it quite voluntarily) to watch a Peter Green tribute show led by Mick Fleetwood.
There is a star-studded cast of musicians, mostly playing very well, but they insist on playing twelve-bar blues, which must be the most rigid and repetitive form of music in existence, except for the even more terrible ones.
It’s like watching endless pick-and-goes, only there might be a chance of something exciting and different happening as a result of those pick-and-goes. A try might be created, or a horrible mistake might occur that leads to an end-to-end score by the opposition.
No chance of anything like that with twelve-bar blues, even as played by expert musicians. It is going to have exactly the same key and rhythm, the same clichéd lyrical and musical tropes, everything completely predictable and boring. The musical ball gets recycled, stuffed up the jumper, and goes again. And again. And again.
It’s also like watching scrums being reset for what feels like hours, but is probably only about three or four minutes. And the same thing happens in every scrum, but the referee just calls for a reset again. And again. And again. A dystopian nightmare.
But rejoice! There is some rugby available to watch in the near future, and hopefully it will be much more exciting than that.
Onna telly in the next week or so
Showing matches that are televised in the UK and Ireland or on popular subscription services. Bold indicates that it’s on a free to view channel. Times are in the UK zone, so adjust as necessary.
Friday 6th September
| Tonga v Fiji | 04:00 | TNT Sports 1 |
| Japan v USA | 11:05 | TNT Sports 1 |
| Scotland v Wales (women) | 19:35 | iPlayer |
Saturday 7th September
| Bayonne v Perpignan | 13:30 | Premier Sports 1 |
| England v France (women) | 15:30 | BBC1 |
| South Africa v New Zealand | 16:00 | Sky Sports Mix |
| Argentina v Australia | 20:00 | Sky Sports + |
| Bordeaux v Stade Français | 20:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
Sunday 8th September
| La Rochelle v Toulon | 16:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Vannes v Toulouse | 20:00 | Premier Sports 1 |
Ovally Balls 
No. Big bust upfield from the kickoff, but held up in the tackle. ABs scrum on the hooter. Ardie Savea hacks it desperately into touch! Horrible last 20 if you’re a Kiwi, so, so close if you’re an Aussie!
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Absolute try-fest at Thomond Park: 35-33 at full-time.
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Great – we are missing first- and second-choice hookers, as well as Hume & McCloskey.
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Cooney also injured, and Marty Moore.
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‘Mon ra (Champion) Weedgies!!!!
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Fuckers are kicking our arses.
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It’s only 5-0 Thaum, plenty of time to go.
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3-5 now! I’m not feeling optimistic, though.
Baloucoune also seems to be injured.
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TRY Morgan!!! Woo hooo!
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Well, 10-12 at HT feels very much like ‘Whew’.
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Ah! McCloskey being interviewed and sounds like he’s not injured, just an IRFU rest or something.
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Lovely. We’ve got Deebee’s Lions next week, then the Bulls.
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Yellow for Glasgow for shoulder to an Ulster heid.
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There may be an Ulster try after a ‘brave’ decision to go for the corner instead of kicking an easy three points for the lead, but no, there’s a knock-on. However, there was an advantage being played.
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This time they go for the kick-and-go, but again don’t make it – but there’s another card for Glasgow. Another tap-and-go, and … no try.
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At least we’re still in Glasgow’s half, and against 13 men, but we knock it on needlessly.
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TRYYYYYYYY!!!!! (Not sure who yet.)
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Oh, the glorious Dave McCann.
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Well, Doak went off a while ago, and Morgan got an easy kick. Which he missed. My granny could’ve kicked that in heels.
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Fucksteyn scores for Glasgow immediately.
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And Glasgow don’t miss the fucking conversion. 15-19, 76 mins.
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TRY IN THE EIGHTY-FOURTH MINUTE!!!!
I am sorry, BB, we didn’t really deserve that.
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Oh dear. It’s being checked.
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It’s GOOOOOD!!!!
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Morgan missed the (also easy) conversion, but it doesn’t matter. We won by one point.
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When Shanahan (the scorer) came on for Doak, I said to the mister, He’s not the greatest scrum-half, but he’s good at the sneaky scrum-half tries.
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“Fucking scrum-halves, eh?”
As someone recently said….
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:-)
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I’m astonished we were only two points behind at half-time, and that we held out for the first 10 or 15 minutes of the second half, which Glasgow again totally dominated. Then the cards came, and Glasgow seemed to fall apart a bit. We actually got the ball and went on the attack – too slowly and inefficiently – but managed to score eventually. Then that was wiped out by Glasgow’s immediate score.
You can put it down to the 16th
manperson, I think.LikeLike
Argentina were good value for their win against the Boks last night – they have a serious backline, one the best around and tore us another one when Arendse was in the bin. Boks were disjointed and Libbok missed another routine penalty at the death that would’ve won us the match and the RC. Not many positives for the Boks and maybe the much vaunted depth isn’t quite all that?
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Off to Malawi shortly, the land where time not only stands still, but sometimes seems to go backwards. The gin is good, so there’s that.
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And gin it is! Cartoon doing the rounds down here today sees a bloke facing a firing squad. Officer asks if he has any final request. He answers “Can Manie Libbok take the shot?”
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Thauma, the Lions lost the Currie Cup Final yesterday, so will be down in the dumps and easy pickings for Ulster. I’ve got Ulster by 17.
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Oh good. :-)
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Just an fyi, it might be a while before I’m posting properly – I managed to break both my shoulders falling out of bed Friday night/Saturday morning (missed the rugby) and I’m in hospital at the moment.
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Jesus, Refit, you should leave out the contact sleeping!
Hope you heal quickly….
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On the other hand, our side has mow had a month of matches to get the cobwebs out the system and they’ll be hurting after that narrow defeat. LIONS by 27.
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Shit, Refit! Get better quickly mate! Hope the hospital bed has those barrier things on it.
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Christ Refit, did you fall out of the top bunk again?!?!
Hope you get better soon, it’ll help if Bristol keep winning.
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Ouch. Beer involved? Get well and home soon Refit.
Well done Poomas, cracking game.
Aussies arnt as bad as everyone thinks, got some quite combative forwards coming in, and backline gelling. ABs not as good, but Caleb Clarke is the business.
Hope Glaws arnt paying Anscombe much. Christian Wade has already picked up the signature Jonny May wave, jumping up and down on the spot flapping both arms and hands madly while standing thirty yards away from the nearest defender.
Election here hotting up already, noone buying or selling anything, houses, cars, luxuries, holidays, really is having quite marked effect, noticeably unnerved general population, a lot of surprisingly centre/liberals talking about voting for Donald because of a dislike for Kamala. jeez, Elon Musk will probably end up Sec of State, or head of the Gestapo, or something. Good grief.
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SBT – what the fuck is wrong with these people?
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Scary shit, SBT! How can you even consider calling yourself vaguely liberal (or sane) and consider voting for Trump? Disliking Harris is one thing, plunging the US and by extension most of the world into probable turmoil is lunatic fringe.
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It will have no impact on Malawi, however, which remains blissfully in its own little world.
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Stone cold sober SBT.
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Ah! There’s your problem right there. Once you hit adulthood injuries are inversely proportional to the volume of alcohol consumed. Its a scientific fact.
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Hope you had a good night in hospital, Refit. Hope the dinner’s moved on from lumpy stuff in gravy followed by jelly and grainy ice cream!
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The food is surprisingly good DeeBee and the ice cream is very smooth.
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Here’s a top tip for the blokes who knocked on my door just now to see if I wanted my driveway doing: any chance of me hiring you plummeted to zero the second that you addressed me as ‘darling’.
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Just had some incredibly cheesy macaroni cheese for lunch. 😋😋
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