Posts by Richard Llewellyn
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But I love Guy Fawkes with all the noise and skyrockets and I still think it was sad day when we -- “they” actually -- banned bonfires.
Is this true? - so does that mean, hypothetically speaking of course, that if *someone I know* likes to host gatherings and socialise in the backyard around a glowing brazier, that person is actually breaking some by-law? Just curious.
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Not wishing to resurrect the RWC thread, but I have to say that this Jerry Collins story from todays Guardian is absolutely superb
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OTOH, all those immigrants and bludgers over in Mt Albert have a much shorter copper run than us. Bloody socialism
Oye! - I'll cop to the immigrant part :)
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I've often thought that much of the problem in terms of rugby 'watchability' is that the existing laws just aren't applied or are applied inconsistently (which is the nature of the beast I guess in a sport where referee subjectivity is so influential).
If the offside law was actually constantly enforced, with the assistance of touch judges, there would be a lot more attacking play. Similarly, if the number of people flying off their feet into rucks was reduced, attacking teams would get quicker ball .. etc
I'm not convinced the game is that broken, but game management is not keeping up with the increased size and speed of players (not blaming the refs here, I imagine its a hellish sport to referee).
Rather than rush to try experimental law changes, why not use technology to enforce the laws we have a little better? And on the law changes, why is it just Tri-Nations trialling them, why not the Six Nations as well?
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Oh, and I have to put in a mention for the Mandola cafe in Westbourne Grove, featuring very fine Nth African cuisine at student prices. Compulsory eating on a weekly basis.
And the first hangi I helped on, which meant ripping down the curtains of a friend's place when we realised we had no wet sacking to pack it all down with. Thankfully it all worked just fine.
The foods of childhood summers always stick in my mind too, juicy stone fruit and berries, cherry pip spitting competitions, fresh peas eaten straight out of the pod. Hmmmmm. getting hungry now.
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Dinner at the Curry Club in London, with its plain decor and formica tables, and my friends.
Actually, thats probably much closer to the mark, its not just the time, the place and the hunger that maketh the memorable meal, its the company.
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Gosh, so many memorable meals to consider .... its a time and place thing isn't it?
A fish-burger at the old Roys Takeaways at the end of Courteney Place after a few too many pints of lager
A midnight curry in Brick Lane (funnily enough, after a few too many pints of lager)
The degustation menu at Tetsuyas in Sydney (mmmmmm) complete with matching wine
A Saturday morning pie in the park with the kids from Muzza's in Mt Albert (great pies)
Fresh scallops and oysters in the Picton Sounds while on a holiday (eaten within a few minutes of being caught)
The Sydney Rocks Guinness and Oyster festival any year
Fresh grilled corn dripping with butter from any road-side stall in Thailand
I've also got a very fond memory of a meal in North India which involved freshly baked bread and freshly caught fish rewarding a positively ravenous hunger .......
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Yeah, thanks Guys, you provided a valuable rugby-tragic community service. Sort of a cathartic 'Dear Abby' for those who took more than a few days to get the angst out of their system (I think I'm over it now, albeit with the the very occasional did-that-really-happen? moment.)
C'mon Wellington.
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In another one of the english media's many recent and opportunistic bouts of gratuitous NZ and All Black bashing (and on that subject, the insistence from so many english journos that the AB's are bullies says nothing more to me than that the english have obviously been feeling bullied), I see that Alistair Campbell has taken the chance to settle a few old scores
Most of it is self-serving tripe of course, but it is disappointing (yet not surprising) to see him recycle so unquestioningly the utter irresponsible falsehoods about Pacific Islands being 'pillaged' by AB scouts. Wanker. Sheesh.
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#1,899,075 in my 'Grant Me The Serenity To Accept What I Cannot Change' File.
Heh - well said, and I guess, more importantly (and unfortunately) that includes the result of the game.
Or as Jonah put it, when asked to whom blame should be attached replied, "blame the French. They beat us".
The Radio Sport wing-nut element is depressing. I've stopped listening.
Most honest piece I've read all week has come from Inky ...
It wasn't even the All Blacks' fault. As our representatives we should accept the responsibility for them. They went in with an eighty percent winning record and leave the tournament still widely regarded as the world's most feared rugby opponents. We can't even say they didn't deserve a little gold cup.
It's we who did not deserve this. We do it to them. Our reliance on them for a vicarious sense of worth is too big a burden. We placed them on this pedestal (for pretty sound reasons considering they were winning every trophy in sight), and by sheer weight of steadily coagulating national pressure we almost forced Henry to love his boys. But now they've failed it is our duty to catch our countrymen as they fall from the lofty heights we placed them at. They need our love more than ever. The vast majority of them played terrific rugby, and the ones that didn't were only just underpowered for such mental contests.
The only cure, as I said in my final paragraph last week, will come from cultivating the correct attitude to winning and losing. Even if we think we've finally learned this lesson we will probably still do it to them again in 2011.
The primary concern for this country now should be not royally screwing up the 2011 tournament itself... not terminally shaming this nation with some low rent, totally preventable, vulgar little glitch that will have us sniggered at for decades.
The kneejerk is coming, I can feel a giant cruciate ligament flexing. Some will say it's time for Warren Gatland to become coach, some will plump for Deans. Some will cry for a return to the days of rugby as a fifteen-man game of attrition. Some will say the All Blacks should go back to being a squad of twenty-two and playing every game until injured.
Some will say it's time for Dan Carter to let his body hair grow back.
I say we should suck in our collective gut and take a good long look at ourselves. Twenty-two men losing a game of rugby is far less significant than four million people gnashing their teeth over it like it's freaking Darfur.
And you All Blacks, you can lose a game of rugby on my behalf anytime, even (gulp) if it's every four years like a metronome. If you didn't lose occasionally we wouldn't bother watching. Just keep playing the way you do, like you love it too much, like speed freaks... canyon jumpers, going a hundred miles an hour and overshooting the ramp when ninety would have carried the day.
I'll be right there with you, laughing, and the canyon at least will echo.