Rubbish Collection

As if colouring in books for adults wasn’t bleeding stupid enough – the list of best -selling books is now dominated by Ladybird books for grown-ups that parody the kid’s versions from the 1950s.

When I was growing up the adult books were the ones I couldn’t reach in the newsagents!

The Ladybird ones are supposedly hilarious spoofs that you give as gifts – they cost about £7, have only 20 odd pages (each with about 35 words on) and are particularly unfunny. To be fair this makes them perfect for giving to people you really dislike.

The original children’s’ Ladybird books were complete rubbish – but are still a better read than this new load of tripe.

Still, what do I know, the authors will be raking it in for stuff that must take all of 25 minutes to scribble.

I have some new ideas for them

All in the hope that they’ll cut me in on the royalties!

Grow Up!

Terry is convinced that I have a peculiarly juvenile sense of humour

I really can’t imagine why she’d think that!

Grate Job

“Everyone who knows the slightest thing  about rugby take one pace forward”

“Where the fuck are you going Shutey?”

 

Out of 6 Premiership predictions this weekend I managed to get the grand total of 1.5 right! The half being the draw at Worcester.

Well I never saw that lot coming – which is pretty bleeding obvious.

Whilst the Premiership is no doubt highly competitive this year the big surprise is the inconsistency of a number of teams week to week. One Saturday they are on fire and the following weekend the same players find it impossible to catch and pass. I’m surprised some of them could find their way out of the changing room – much less to the try line.

It reminds me of Elton John in the 70s when he’d have a massive hit single followed by one that not even my cat liked.

But enough of my excuses – hands up all those who thought Saracens would go down to the stuttering Quins? I’ve just checked a number of rugby sites and all of them had Mark McCall’s men taking home at least 4 points.

Gloucester won away last week – on Saturday they couldn’t win an argument.

Similarly last week Tigers struggled to beat the Falcons and yesterday they put away unbeaten Bath by a clear 20 points.

PICTURE COPYRIGHT MATT SHORT / MATT SHORT PHOTOGRAPHY Rugby – Leicester Tigers v Bath Rugby Leicester Tigers’ Brendon O’Connor scores a try

The upshot is that my score this week was a magnificent 25% – bringing my cumulative total down from over 80% to just 66.7%

Things can only get better – can’t they?

 

Laughter the Best Medicine

These made me laugh out loud –

Made me feel better too!

Half Baked

Ok enough – I have really had it up to hear about the fucking ‘Bake Off’ being flogged off to Channel 4 and whinging on about not being able to afford to keep it.

Here’s a clue – stop paying everyone so much more than you bleeding need to –

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/20/bbc-journalists-paid-up-to-40-per-cent-more-than-commercial-riva/

The laughable claim by the Beeb has always been that they need to compete with commercial channels for everything so that’s why their costs are so high. 40% more is not competing you muppets – it’s being taken for mugs!

Even funnier is their defence –

“Like any responsible employer we routinely look at how staff salaries compare to those in the rest of the UK industry”

The answer mate is they compare very fucking favourably! That’s why you can’t afford stuff like – well, programmes – although I’m not sorry about  ‘Bake Off’, obviously

I’m clearly in the minority – and it’s even become political ffs!

I won’t miss the ‘Bake Off’ – oh that’s not quite right – I make sure that I miss it every bloody week. Its people cooking and others telling them what it tastes like for christ sake!

If you want to put on a cooking show that I’d watch here are some ideas –

Stick these on prime time and I’m right there on the sofa with a couple of cream slices and a giant fudge donut (not a euphemism).

 

 

Name Calling

I wonder if I’m the only one who is a little taken aback when I hear over the mike the ref calling players by their Christian names during a match.

I am sure that this does not mean that a ref is biased or showing favouritism – although not the bastard who disallowed my try against Sidcup back in 1976 obviously. I was never offside!

Nevertheless there has to be some implication of a certain familiarity between the bloke in charge and often key and well known players and this could lead to accusations of prejudice.

There is a simple way round this – in addition to having some idea of a few of the laws of the game (say around 31%*) refs should be required to know the Christian names of all 46 players likely to take some part in the game. Nicknames would not be allowed – again because it implies over familiarity – so Thomas Waldrom would have to be Tom or Tommy not ‘tank’.

Similarly past use of ‘nobody’ , ‘fun bus’ or ‘chariots’ would not have been allowed – nor the term ‘twat’ as applied to me by several of the blokes with whistles that I encountered over the years.

World Rugby should stop pissing about trying to sort a global calendar and residency rules and instead open an academy for teaching refs how to memorise multiple names and then putting them to faces – or recognisable features like cauliflower ears and broken noses.

• Note – 31% would have been a bloody impressive figure for most of the bastards who ever reffed when I played.

Fat of the Land

There is a very old joke about a bloke who gets on one of those old fashioned talking scales and the voice says ‘one at a time please’ – luckily for me our scales only has a digital display!

There have been several stories in the news recently about porky people being unfairly picked on – usually whilst they are munching on a low- cal lard burger, super- size fries and a couple of deep fried Mars bars!

Naturally I have an affinity with pensioners and feel sorry for this bloke who couldn’t get in a train carriage (for 10) because there was a family of hippos spread (ha ha) over the seats –

PIC BY JON HORROCKS/MERCURY PRESS (PICTURED: THE SNOWDON MOUNTAIN RAILWAY TRAIN) An elderly tourist was barred from riding a historic mountain railway ñ due to an OBESE family of four taking up too much room in a carriage. Anthony Poppel, 70, had arrived in Llandudno, North Wales, for a much-anticipated five day break last month and was eager to fulfil his lifelong dream of riding the Snowdon Mountain Railway up Mt Snowdon for the first time. But when he arrived for his pre-booked trip on the renowned steam train, he claims when he tried to board it he could not find anywhere to sit, despite having a reserved seat, and was then told by staff the train was full. SEE MERCURY COPY

http://metro.co.uk/2016/09/22/pensioner-told-he-cant-get-on-train-because-of-fat-family-6144027/

He wrote and complained and laughingly this was the company response –

It’s not just here – Air France are planning to charge Jabba the Hut impressionists for two seats –

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/7038141/Air-France-to-charge-obese-passengers-for-two-seats.html

Even better an Italian bloke is actually suing Emirates because they sat him next to a big porker on a long flight –

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3802277/Lawyer-suing-Emirates-airline-enduring-nine-hour-flight-seated-obese-man.html

Here’s a tip for fat porkers – eat less for fuck’s sake!

Ad Break

A few more ads and copy that should have been checked first (see yesterday’s post ‘Ad Coc’)

Of course some might have been the creatives having a laugh and were then surprised when the client approved the layout!

 

 

 

On What Planet?

The boss of Sanzaar, Andy Marinos, continues to defend the format of Super 18 despite the massive and constant criticism of how complex and unfair the system patently is – to everyone except Andy it seems.

New Zealand – the union, franchises and media have been particularly vociferous in their demands for change which is not that surprising –

New Zealand won’t give up its efforts to force a change to next year’s Super Rugby playoff format, but the union is resigned to the prospect of the status quo.

The expanded competition has multiple flaws but the most glaring surfaced at the business end this year when the Chiefs and High-landers were forced to play away quarter-finals against sides who gathered fewer competition points.

There were knock-on effects of the contrived format felt by the Crusaders, who had to wait an eternity to discover where they would play their quarter-final and were then left stranded in Christchurch for two days, waiting for flights to South Africa.

Whilst there are some reservations in Australia and South Africa they are less keen to ditch a structure that does favour their teams –

All five New Zealand teams campaigned for the introduction of a straight top eight next year – where the four teams with the most points, regardless of where they are based, host quarter-finals. But that proposal has been rejected by the South Africans and Australians who want the continuation of a guaranteed home playoff spot for the respective winners of each of the four conferences.

Well – they would wouldn’t they!

According to reports –

Marinos’ personal market research tells him the competition is flawed. He’s had that reinforced in his travels through the foundation countries but says those viewpoints are not right.

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/rugby/news/article.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=11715490

This may of course be because his job depends on Super Rugby and why he is still trying to expand the format to include North America.

Eddie Jones contended last week that NZ control rugby – if he’s right, and I think he probably is, then I expect Super rugby in the current format to change for the 2018 season.

Eddie Jones: Do New Zealand run world rugby?

It would be a good idea if they had a word with Sean Fitzpatrick and his idea for a two tier structure.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11713138

 

 

 

 

 

Golden Days

It was 50 years ago this month that I first played for Askeans.

The actual anniversary would have been a couple of weeks ago but I’m getting a bit forgetful these days and so… I forgot!

I played my last game for the club in 1995 (I think) and my last game of rugby in 2001 in Australia. That one was alongside luminaries like former Lions captain Finlay Calder and knob head Harro (this is naturally simply an excuse to add pics of us with Finlay and with Johnno (who was captain of the Lions on that tour).

I’ve only had a few regrets in my life – joining Askeans and playing rugby wasn’t one of them – although meeting Harro was a bit of a bummer, obviously!

If you haven’t been here before the hilarious stories of my stellar career in rugby is covered in the first couple of hundred stories in this blog. I made up the bit about ‘hilarious’ and ‘stellar’ – again, obviously.