Driving it Home

There’s been a lot in the media over the last few days about the advent of driverless cars and the introduction of these vehicles onto public roads in the UK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28551069 The main benefit according to the authorities and motoring organisations is supposed to be keeping to speed limits and reducing accidents. All very laudable I’m sure, but I think you are missing a bit of a trick here guys. Hello? No more designated drivers, no more drinking diet coke all night – or that stupid non- alcoholic beer – I mean what is the fucking point of it anyway? Is anyone really surprised that pubs don’t stock a cellar full of the muck? Rugby players must be over the moon (or maybe under the table) at the idea of being able to have a skinful of Special Brew without worrying about how to get home. Simply set the satnav to ‘Curry Queen’ and hope that someone is still compos mentis enough after a few more Kingfishers to put in your home postcodes (and those for any quiet alley ways for when you inevitably need a waz). No doubt this innovation will seriously piss off the local plods who think they’ve got a quick collar – only to find that you’re being chauffeured by the dead one out of ‘Randall & Hopkirk’. The other brilliant thing will be the driverless coaches for away games – no more trying to sneak a few cases of lager on past the Gestapo behind the wheel. The National Express’ answer to ‘the Ghost of Christmas Past’ won’t be able to speed past pubs, 24 hour McDonalds and public conveniences (aka garage walls) without stopping. All you will have to do is tell the bastard to pull over! Mind you, this may mean that return journeys could last several days or more – now that’s another added bonus that neither of the organisations with the initials AA’ have spotted!

 

Great Expectations

If you’re a fan of England you get used to disappointment – doesn’t matter which sport, we always seem to fall that bit short. We have our moments of course – 1966, 2003, Ashes, Olympics, but we rarely seem to sustain triumph over extended periods – although we are pretty bloody good at cycling at the moment. It’s okay – I mean who wants to be at the top of everything all the time? Well, I do for one – although I’d settle for just being the best at rugby for most of the time. That honour falls to New Zealand who seem to have been at number one for most of my life. Even they have their downs though – winning just two of the seven world cups that have been on offer. I’ve been to New Zealand a few times and they are all totally obsessed with rugby – to the point that they make the Welsh and South Africans look positively indifferent. Not surprisingly therefore, there has been much hand wringing and angst in the land of the long white cloud regarding the national tragedy that ended up with them losing their first ever Commonwealth 7s match and only picking up a silver medal (oh we should have been so unlucky!). The Glasgow 7s was the most watched event of the games in NZ (surprise surprise) and they will have been mortified – the only thing worse would have been if they’d gone down to the Aussies or us! They are now looking to Rio and there is pressure for Gordon Tietjens (the most successful 7s’ coach in history) to include All Blacks in his squad for the Olympics. Guys like SBW, Israel Dagg, Ben Smith and Julian Savea are being mentioned. Sir Gordon has pointed out that 7s is a specialist game that needs adapting from 15s – he has stated that any ABs he adds to the squad will need to be available for the 2016 7s circuit to adjust. This may not be to the liking of Super rugby sides but the lure of a gold medal might actually prevent some big names taking up lucrative contracts in Europe or Japan after next year’s World Cup. Using top players from the full game may not work anyway – as the Aussies found out in Melbourne 2006 when Wendall Sailor, Lote Tuquiri, Chris Latham and Matt Giteau were included. When we played 7s (that’s way back when) it was at each end of the season and there the squad all came from the 1^st XV – we did however, play the game differently to most teams – using 6 backs and 1 forward, our opposition usually had 3 or 4 forwards plus speedy blokes. Bush’s strategy (which is a posh word for how we played) was to have 6 fast blokes plus a serious flyer. We fielded a scrum half (Hickey), stand-off (Locks), 2 x centres (Paddy and me), full back (Bush), open side (Kev A) and a wing (Floss). Boney (wing) and Tay (blind side) made up the squad. Paddy and Bush were chunky enough to hold their own in the scrum with Kev whilst I pissed about with the other backs. There’s a couple of sections in here somewhere about 7s if you’ve got fuck all else to do and you’ve missed Bargain Hunt. We played the game differently to how we played 15s – and that gave us an edge. It worked too – and I have a collection of battered tankards, medals and pennants to show for it (or at least I would if I could be arsed to hunt around in the loft). If you watch the 7s’ circus it is easy to see that it has become a specialist game in its own right – we used it to get fit pre-season, to have fun at the end and to collect a load of useless mementos. I bloody loved it, but wouldn’t have sacrificed 15s to play it all the time (too bloody knackering for a start!)

 

Turnip Town 1 London 0

Rich, Silvi, Annalia and Rafa flew home to Oz last night which was quite sad for us. They were going from Heathrow and so we left with plenty of time (we thought) to make check in. The intention was to avoid the tractors, stray cows and local village idiots which frequently frequent what are laughingly called roads down this way. In fact we sailed through Parsnip valley no problem and motored down the M4 to the exit for the airport. Being rush hour we easily navigated into the terminal which was a delightful collection of friendly and helpful people all eager to be of assistance. Not really! What happened? The reality is that  it took 45 minutes to drive the 200 yards off the motorway – the considerate drivers coming from the right on the roundabout insisting on blocking the road so that just the one car could get through each change of lights. We had such a laugh at their amusing antics – what a nice bunch! I really do miss all that friendly waving and hand gestures and wish I could join in this fun every day. Maybe I should try and get a job as one of the arseholes who shout at you when you try and find out where to go once you’ve finally parked – which at £10 an hour is a right bargain. Obviously I’d have to work on being a lot more obnoxious as the standard is extremely high – I can’t believe they’d employ just any old twat.

Reach for the Stars

Top coaches in rugby are employing ever more innovative ways to ensure that their players are fit – they have nutritionists, fitness gurus, doctors and a whole range of monitoring programmes. However, I have yet to hear of any of them following the advice of a Tory MP who is convinced that his belief in astrology can be a major help in healthcare – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28464009 Apparently he is MP for Bosworth, although I suspect he actually represents Barking. I imagine he would suggest that rugby teams only had forwards born under Taurus, Leo or Aries, Sagittarians and Scorpions would be forced to play on the wing with Pisceans and Aquarians coming off the bench in wet weather. Obviously all refs would have to have been born between September 23^rd and October 22^nd (Libra). No Virgos would be allowed to play on account of them being lying bastards. I can’t myself see Richard Cockerill or Dean Richards trying to recruit Russell Grant to be honest – as neither seem to be the sort to be avid readers of horrorscopes. Just in case you’re wondering how I know so much about the signs of the Zodiac, I read it in the Star! (of course not – I may be a twat but at least I’m not a Tory MP!)

 

Fan Dance

I played in some rugby games where the only support you got was a jock strap, in cup matches where several hundred would turn up and in a 7s tournament at Twickenham before a 70,000 crowd. To be honest it never bothered me much (although I was pretty keen not to make a complete twat of myself at Twickenham) – I played because I loved the game, the camaraderie and the occasional game where I didn’t get injured. As far as I was concerned the main benefit of having someone on the touchline was more that they could drive me to A & E rather than any wildly enthusiastic cheering being involved. However, there’s a baseball team in Korea who are desperately keen to have madly passionate fans egging them on. Trouble is they are not having such a good run of form at the moment, having lost 400 matches over the last 5 years. Understandably the locals have decided there might be something more fun to do – like sticking their heads in buckets of ice water maybe. This team though are nothing (like their scores) if not ingenious and they are filling the once empty stands with robots – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28484536  These can apparently sing, chant (presumably in Korean) and even do a Mexican wave if they get bored. If this catches on over here there are some teams we played against that might want to boost their support – mind you in the West Country they’d need to teach these mechanical farm hands to talk in a weird accent, drive tractors and learn to gob on the opposition when they were within spitting distance (sic). Maybe they could also use them during the week to pull up turnips. Back in London we played some rather posh old boys teams and the need would be to programme them to come up with stuff like “I say old chap that’s just not cricket” whenever their blokes were getting a good shoe-ing from our forwards. However, the main thing all these androids would need to do is to learn to drive and to navigate to the local hospital!

 

“I have a Stream”

There’s a ton of rugby on TV today – both semi-finals of the Super 15 are back to back and the Commonwealth 7s kick off in Glasgow later – not the first time that things have kicked off in that city apparently! Normally I’d have fired up the conveyor belt between the sofa and the fridge to deliver an endless supply of pasties and Heineken to ensure I don’t lapse into a coma from malnutrition. Obviously I don’t really have an automatic mechanical device and usually have to rely on Terry to ensure my nutritional well-being. When she politely informs me to “shift my fat arse” and get it myself I find I have to plod to the Smeg to replenish the calories burned in the very necessary need to re-load my plate and stein. It’s a circular process – I know – and it’s a real surprise that I’m porky to me too! The whole point of this dull preamble is simply to explain (and fill the page) that because a) of the rather nice weather, b) it’s the last weekend of the kids and grandkids being here from Oz and c) of Terry insisting that I play in the paddling pool with Annalia – that this Saturday will be different. For once I won’t be sprawled like a beached whale on the sofa being fed endless delicacies by nubile nymphomaniacs who find me sexually irresistible. Half of that previous sentence is not entirely accurate – you’ll have to guess for yourself which bit I made up. I will, in fact, be turning lobster red in the garden whilst Annalia dowses me continuously with buckets of ice cold water and giggles. She never seems to get bored with this game or feel the need for someone else to be the one with the wet head – all the time Silvi, Lell, Rich, Terry and Rafa will find this mildly amusing whilst tucking into my comestibles (well not Rafa, obviously). I’m especially grateful to Lell who thoughtfully bought the pool! On the plus side Rich & Silvi have the wealth of tech knowledge that has completely passed me by and the rugby will be being ‘streamed’ or ‘showered’ or some other stupid wet euphemism onto the i-pad. So, I will after all be able to watch the games – in between being water-boarded that is! I can’t wait – which (for once) isn’t sarcasm – playing with the family is actually more fun. Note – my apologies to Martin Luther for plagiarising his speech in the title (the Civil Rights’ leader not the Catholic priest, obviously – the monk’s public speaking was rubbish!)

 

Name Game

John Nic sent me this picture a couple of days ago –

To: David Shute
Cc: John Nicolson
Subject: De Shutes Beer

Biggest brand in Portland, you kept that quiet.

Hope all is well, love to Terri

Hope to catch up soon JOHN

I had to look up Portland – apparently it’s in Oregon. I also tried to look up who owns the brewery on the off chance that I’m related (however distantly) and in the hope of them sending me some cans or money (and preferably both). No such luck, but I did find that they have a large range of beers including a Black Butte (which sounds both rude and racist) and one called Obsidian Stout which I imagine is a special brew for morbidly overweight blokes. My other favourite hobby is (big surprise) rugby and in Oz they have a competition called the Shute Shield! Again I looked it up and this one is named after an Aussie bloke called Robert Elliott Stewart Shute – obviously no relation – he might have been a convict but our lot have never been posh enough to have four names. The poor sod died after he was tackled in a game – he was in the front row (so definitely not related) and was only 23. So no long lost relatives about to thrust a fortune on me sadly – think I’ll just have to Google Neville – see if he mentioned me in any of his books (or preferably his will!)

 

Suds Law

If you’ve read much of this blog – and a surprising number of people obviously have nothing better to do – you might have noticed that I go on a bit about alcohol and its merits. I started playing rugby at 11 – and, as surprising as this may seem, there wasn’t a great deal of beer quaffing involved. This of course changed when we turned 13 – only kidding I think Jimmy, Lunny and I were at least 15 before we graduated to bitter (the sickly brown ale in the second and third years doesn’t count). Of course by the time we were playing for the school 1^st team beer loomed large in our lives (just as it did with all the other idiots in the side). Earlier in the blog I talked about the school tours to Holland and the effect of Dutch lager – it’s in the bit marked ‘Tours’. Thus, when we first pitched up at Askeans we probably thought we were pretty good on the ale and could hold our own in the after match sessions. Blimey were we wrong – especially me! In the first few years of club rugby I would often wake up around Sunday lunchtime only to find myself in a strange room – and sadly all alone. Usually I had been carried home by one of the more experienced members of the team and dumped in the spare room. Oddly none of their wives seemed to mind and carried on as if this happened all the time (which it probably did). The others, including Ben, Dunky and the Kevs (Murph, Acott and Burnett) would almost certainly be able to tell you of similar incidents that they were involved in – although Dunky was probably luckier and wasn’t always on his todd. This was nothing like what had happened at school – not least because there were no married blokes to look after you. I soon discovered that we were in fact a drinking team that had a rugby problem! It wasn’t that excessive beer drinking was something that only happened at junior clubs – there are plenty of famous international players who were known to chug a load of hootch and there are some great stories in the various autobiographies of these stars. Going professional hasn’t put a complete halt to social belting either – Zac Guilford and James O’Connor both famously know how to have a good time. If either of them had wanted to join us we would have welcomed them with open (Dukes) arms – also at The Crown, Railway Tavern and Around the Corner (Chunky & Graham’s drinker in Blackheath). But I don’t want to give you the wrong impression – rugby isn’t all beer and skittles – there are absolutely no skittles involved – unless it’s a drinking game, obviously

 

Garden Party

We’re just back from a short break in Dorset – which explains the short posts over the last few days (typing one fingered on an i-pad is not my forte). Very nice time with all the family. We called in to see Jools, Katie and Ross on the way (and so good was the grub that we called in on the way back too – ta Jools!). Ross is almost as big as Harro (his old man – as in dad rather than old chap) and plays for Taunton and Somerset (in the pack, obviously). More importantly he runs his own leisure business and had put up a full size bouncy castle just for Annalia (it’s a pretty big garden). To be fair she wasn’t the only one to use it, although Rafa wimped out- I don’t know what’s up with 3 month old kids these days! We did exactly the same last year (without the bouncy castle or Rafa) when the kids came over from Oz – you can see how well I’ve worn in the last twelve months – in the before & after pics! If you squint a bit (alright, a lot) I look just like George (Clooney – not much admittedly, but better than looking like Bush or Osborne, thank fuck)

 

A Sobering Thought

A couple of days ago I wrote about a stupid study that proved (?) that you were more likely to be successful getting a shag if you got up early! I thought at the time that it would be hard to find anything less useful.  But bugger me (that’s an expression not an invitation btw) if a bunch of blokes in white coats in Texas haven’t come up with something that is of absolutely fuck all interest to just about everyone, but especially rugby players. It turns out that they’ve been experimenting on worms to come up with a drug that makes them immune to alcohol. To be honest I wasn’t actually aware that worms getting off their faces was that much of a problem – perhaps gangs of pissed invertebrates are hanging about in bars in Houston, starting fights and chucking up in the street. These boffins (buffoons?) now plan to see if they can make it work in humans – the idea being to make it possible for you to neck a dozen pints and vodka chasers without it having any effect. http://rt.com/news/173396-alcohol-resistant-worms-human-sobriety/ Maybe I’m being a bit slow here – but who the fuck would be interested in a drug that did that? Listen up guys – the whole idea of alcohol is to get trollied – if not you might as well neck diet Cokes all night and save yourself a load of dosh! Rugby clubs have long had a tradition of taking round jugs of beer after the game for your own team and the opposition (although not Sidcup, obviously) – I can’t see you getting much of a welcome if you pitch up to a bunch of front rows asking if anyone “fancies a lime and soda”. Hearing Chunky demand 6 pints of throwing lemonade also has a bit of a wrong feel to it – and would be probably stickier anyway! In Tijuana they flog a tequila with a worm already  inside it – I can just see the little bastards now – looking at you all cocky as they knock on the glass whilst taunting you with – “See? Nothing”.