I wait patiently, with no urgency. I have been granted all the time there is. I do not try to make anything of what I see. I hold no expectation or assumption that I know anything at all.
I can believe it. It nearly happened to me years ago. I parked on the slip road on the west bank of Richmond Bridge and went for a sneaky pint with my brother John and his mate Juan on the other side of the river. Half an hour later, as we walked back, we saw a crowd looking over the parapet and when we turned the corner realised that they were looking at our waterlogged ride and laughing. I ran down, up to me knees in water, opened the door, gunned the engine and escaped. The nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. I can remember to this day that the exhaust was already well submerged by the time I got the key in the ignition. Now - because of the video above - we know what would have happened if we had got back ten minutes later.
England and Wales have both selected unchanged starting fifteens for Saturday's match. The underlying psychology is clear to me. Wales are confident; England unsure of themselves.
Gareth TRG and I will be watching the game in the Charles Holden with Gnome Chomsky, Gnomer Simpson, and Sherlock Gnomes. It is good to get out, after all gnome man is an island.
I stumbled across Mint and Mustard in Whitchurch Road when I was back in Cardiff over the weekend; "Keralan passion, British style" and one of the top 20 curry restaurants in the UK according to the Telegraph.
I fell in love with Kerala when we were there for Christmas and the New Year as 2003 turned into 2004, so Mint and Mustard's tasting menus and chef master classes go straight onto my to-do list.
Well I gave him half my kebab and he drank my Phoenix smoked porter,
Winking all the while at next door's daughter
"Come on it's just fun, isn't it hun?"
Then the next day, when I woke up
He was sitting on the edge of my bed,
"Good morning Eggnog,
Hair of the dog?"
Ha ha ha, he he he
I'm Wales' rugby gnome and you can't cwtch me
Ha ha ha, he he he
I'm Wales' rugby gnome and you can't cwtch me
Said the rugby gnome
God he's just climbed up the chimney,
He's so bladdered that he thinks he's Gimli
And I think the strain is gonna kill me
The crafty hound
It was his round
Ha ha ha, he he he
I'm Wales' rugby gnome and you can't catch me
Ha ha ha, he he he
I'm Wales' rugby gnome and you can't catch me
Said the rugby gnome
Gareth the rugby gnome is back home, in plenty of time for Saturday's England game.
Last season Warlingham beat us in league 2, but yesterday (after a season in which we were both promoted) the Old Ruts U15s beat them 43-21 in Surrey's top division.
Here's Jim's match report:
Outstanding performance today from the League 1 team. Probably the best I have ever seen us play. We were 14-0 down after 10 minutes and turned it round to completely dominate the game. We scored 7 outstanding tries, including a sublime flick out the back of the hand from Wes (having brilliantly turned the ball over) which gave Sid a run in on a perfect line. It was a joy to watch.
Our forwards (once again) won us the game. They dominated Warlingham with some awesome control and power from 1 to 8. Even when Ale moved out to centre, we continued to be the better pack by far. The most pleasing thing was as we rolled on the subs, there was no change of gear – hats off to you all.
Obviously there were a few tasty moments, particularly the two nasty attacks on Ben VHO. That type of behaviour has no place on the rugby pitch. It was though to your credit that despite the moments of tension, you all stepped away and did not stoop to their level. While they disintegrated mentally, you boys just got stronger – all credit to you.
We had two boys playing up from League 4, Nathan and George – both contributed fantastically on the pitch – well done.
In two weeks, 20th March, we have a huge day at the Club. League 4 playing Guildford followed by League 1 against London Irish. Both will be properly tough games, but carry on playing as we did today and nothing is impossible. Bring it on!
The Bomber picked up the third try that put us into the lead and was immaculate under high balls all day. All Warlingham's tries were scored by their mercurial winger (Daniel I think he was called) and now that the dust as cleared I am beginning to realise that they didn't really threaten us at all apart from when he had the ball in his hands and we actually dominated throughout.
A win with a bonus point also cements us at third in the table. Two of the seven teams in the division will be relegated this year, and yesterday's victory makes us all but safe. I would have settled for that at the beginning of the season.
The pothole had been there since 2009. Words fail me.
His boys transferred to Esher RFC after the family moved to Thames Ditton, but I still very particularly remember him pulling a folding bike out of the boot of his car at London Scottish, when the kids played mini rugby and all age groups were at the same venue, so he could commute between pitches on it, watching Louis in our age-group and Louis’s brother Nate in the year below. Initially I thought he was off his head, but the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea. A very sad loss.
When I told Ben this morning, he initially thought I meant Louis Cohen's dad, Mitch. You need to be very careful to be clear passing on bad new like this.
Ben is with Rutlish at the U15 Surrey Rugby Sevens 2016 today. He will be playing scrum half unless there is a change of plan. It's live on YouTube so I will get a lot done today I am sure.
Yesterday evening I went on a tour of the Wimbledon Brewery at half past six. Thank you to Charlie, our guide.
Tonight I will take the boys along to U15s rugby training at the Hub in Mitcham and watch the first half of the Arsenal Swansea game over a pint of soda water with lime cordial at the bar while they are being put through their paces.
The insane glamour of it all; it is as if my whole life is the Vanity Fair Oscar Party. The light bulb in my fridge has stopped working.
Madness are to headline their own festival in London this summer. The band have announced plans for House of Common, a one-day event on August bank holiday (29th) on Clapham Common.
Pre-sale tickets will be released at 9am on 2 March to those who sign up on the event’s website.
The Principality Stadium will have the roof closed when Wales kick off against France at five past eight tonight. For us, it’s a chance to keep the Six Nations dream alive after a draw in Ireland and victory over Scotland in Cardiff. Win and we should go to Twickenham in a fortnight to face Eddie Jones’ England with a lot of confidence; lose and we are all but out of the title race.
There is also some previous with a few of the players. In a 2008 Under 20 Junior World Championship match which Warburton described as “the best moment of my life” at the time, Wales came from 19-9 down with three minutes remaining at their home tournament to beat France thanks to a Leigh Halfpenny try. Jubilant scenes at the final whistle were interrupted as a mass punch-up between the two sides broke out.
Wales' squad that day also included Dan Biggar, Rhys Webb, Jonathan Davies and Justin Tipuric. Among the French, Yoann Maestri, Rabah Slimani and Benjamin Fall have all progressed to Les Bleus' senior outfit.
Slimani, who starts at tighthead prop tonight, was banned alongside Jeremy Braille and Djibril Camara, who is also set to win his first senior French cap at the Principality Stadium.
Seconds out, round two?
In other rugby news Rutlish came second in yesterday's 16 team 7s tournament, with Ben scoring seven tries from scrum half in the four games they played. I've never known him to play that position before. This morning he was bemoaning a failure to execute, from some good positions in the final and thinks they should have nicked it.
The Importance of Being Earnest can be classified with Cyrano de Bergerac. If you are capable of watching a production of either without enjoying it then you are so jaded that you should be forbidden from the theatre.
Who wrote that? Oh, that's right, it was me. U15s rugby training was cancelled last night. (Probably no bad thing on balance as there is a schools 7s competition today.) So, finding myself at an unexpected loose end I half-houred up the Northern Line to see a new production of Cyrano de Bergerac which has just opened at the Southwark Playhouse.
As a rule I am not a great one for poncing about with famous works, but this all female version has an interesting framing conceit; the story is told - and thus acted out - by the other nuns to a naive novice at the convent to which Cyrano’s beloved Roxane retires from the world after Christian is killed, and at which he visits her daily.
Cyrano de Bergerac is the most deliriously romantic play ever written, and I think that presenting it as what a young girl would imagine as she heard the story, bumps that essential quotient up even further. You can't - for example - present the fight with a hundred men that sees Lignière safely home realistically because its impossible, but it can work as a fantasy.
The critics don't like it; "a squandered opportunity" blah, blah, blah. Don't even get me started on "while having an all-female cast is an interesting decision and can shed new light on perceptions of gender in a play, it’s not clear what purpose it serves here."
I thought it was tremendous fun, and that - after all - is surely the point.
The immortal Grand Slam being set around Wales playing France, now that I've found it on YouTube, I think we almost certainly will stagger back to my house and watch it after the equivlant game this Friday as well. I don't feel any piracy guilt as I've already bought it twice; once on VHS and then again on DVD.
Prodnose:Rugby gnome exegisis?
Myself: Exegesis, from the Greek ἐξήγησις from ἐξηγεῖσθαι 'to lead out') is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, particularly a religious text, or alternatively of some old David Bowie inspired doggerel of mine.
Friday night:watch Wales v France in the Charles Holden (Andy and Ollie have booked a table) Saturday morning:Virgin Active Gym Saturday lunchtime and early afternoon:seven course tasting menu and The Dairy in Clapham Saturday late afternoon:watch England v Ireland in the Standard strategically supporting Ireland as Welsh people in an Irish pub
They actually want me to bring my brother for free and this weekend is the last chance. So you could replace Saturday morning in the gym with an hour and a half of yoga in a room heated to 40 °C (104 °F) with a humidity of 40%.
While you decide:
Scylla and Charybdis were mythical sea monsters noted by Homer; Greek mythology sited them on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and the Italian mainland. Scylla was rationalized as a rock shoal (described as a six-headed sea monster) on the Italian side of the strait and Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. They were regarded as a sea hazard located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. According to Homer, Odysseus was forced to choose which monster to confront while passing through the strait; he opted to pass by Scylla and lose only a few sailors, rather than risk the loss of his entire ship in the whirlpool. Because of such stories, having to navigate between the two hazards eventually entered idiomatic use. Another equivalent English seafaring phrase is, "Between a rock and a hard place".
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