rockershovel

Somehow, none of that surprises me.

The RFU was always a disgrace, an Old Boys Club of the worst sort. Don't forget that Bill Beaumont founded his post-playing career on a single Grand Slam. The great problem is that the RFU is largely unchanged. Other than being corrupted by money, it is still the same pit of vipers

I'd agree with most of the aforegoing posts. Rugby Union was an exclusive game and I don't think most people involved were bothered by that at all. It certainly didn't interest me that second or third tier international rugby was, or wasn't played in Ruritania or Whereveristan I'm certain that this was the reason for the widely different nature of the following, relative to the round ball version.

That would be during Wales' "glory days" ... they were very much the "form team" of the time.

Interesting analysis but it omits an important point. The 5N was THE tournament in amateur days. The South Seas and SH sides Autumn Tours, plus Lions made up the season. Tickets were available and affordable - I remember going on a school trip to watch 5N, can't imagine that now Few followers cared at all about the expansion of the game. I'd say that's still the case, to a great extent. The 5N could have been expanded with a rolling invitation to whichever if the South Seas teams was in form, or a Barbarians side. I'll believe in Itaiy when they qualify from RWC pool, and materially affect the outcome of 6N (other than providing the Wooden Spoon playoff). Until then, they remain second raters. Scotland need to improve their act. It makes no sense that a side within driving or rail travel to anywhere in UK, can't sell out for 6N. Murray field is a good day out; I suspect that the increasingly rancid tone of Anglo-Scots press and politics is in play here. The World Cup, don't forget began as an invitation tournament for top tier sides. Then, for commercial reasons it was expanded and the key decision taken that ALL games ranked equally as "Internationals", leading to the present situation of 100-plus cap players when formerly, to achieve 50 was exceptional. Professionalism has also created the present breed of freakish physical specimens and impact, rather than contact based play. It definitely won't solve the concussion problem. Nostalgic? Yes. I don't deny it, but its for a lost world. The effects of commercialism have been entirely negative, from what I can see. Even going to matches now ... I don't hang about in Cardiff after matches and I haven't been to Twickenham for 2 years because my patience is exhausted with the rubbish served up at top tier prices.

Wales are at their lowest ebb for many years. Scotland / S Africa A pulled it off against an England side in complete disarray. Don't get TOO excited... Italy are probably now on the right track, being basically a S Hemisphere Barbarians now. The REAL problem for those who would relegate Italy is that the fundamentally unsound decision to expand the tournament to six, notionally European sides remains. Georgia, the only real contender were badly exposed in both RWC and the Amazon autumn tournament, call it what you will. Amazon have called this one correctly by running an invitation tournament at their sole discretion, and inviting "form" teams from SH - such as Fiji.

A propos the NHS, I'm generally in agreement that the actual care is quite good; the problem is negotiating the bureaucracy to gain admission. We've had a rather difficult period involving my wife's back. We did, in fact get good treatment once we managed to circumvent the admission procedure, but I don't doubt that but for a large slice of persistence and and experience of how bureaucracies work we'd probably still be waiting. The most frustrating part was that there appeared to be no method at all by which patients classified as Urgent or Emergency were monitored. Progress from the general pool of patients awaiting surgery, to an actual surgery date appeared to be wholly fortuitous; we were informed with every sign of satisfaction by the Consultants Clerk that such patients commonly spent three to six months awaiting surgery. There IS a way around this. Some might think it unethical, but I'm not responsible for other people. It DOES work, although I can only speak from local experience.

When I bought my current car (a 20-plate Audi) I spent an afternoon with my son, identifying all the technological wizardry and turning it off. An afternoon well spent. The "tyre pressure indicator" is a thorough nuisance, not least because it is invariably a false alarm and can't be turned off. As to panicked motorists drowning in cars, this must be an extremely rare event. Doors DO have internal handles, so I'd assume that the actual problem was that the windows wouldn't open so the door was held shut by the external pressure. Long ago, I was told to carry one of those little pointed hammers for breaking fire alarms, for such an eventuality. It lives in the drivers door pocket. I've never wanted it, but it is there should I want it....

Can't say I ever enjoyed it, although the GWO Working at Heights is probably the most thoroughly unpleasant course I've had to do.

Ignore her. She is just being difficult, as women often do. The whole point of modern technology in cars is how unobtrusive it is. It's like the old canard about magneto or points ignition on old motorcycles - that you can "fix it beside the road". In my wife's case, it is saloon cars. It's actually quite difficult to find a modern saloon car, more so a decent second-hand one.

Scattering of ashes next weekend. The American son-in-law has taken it upon himself to organise this - he is rather intrigued, apparently this isn't the American way. He has made a 3-weeks-or-so trip to UK, I find. We had a convivial meeting with the minister who conducted the original service, who apparently took up the vocation after retiring in his 50s. Interesting man, currently "considering his position" as they say in the light of his experiences with the Episcopality.

I encountered similar fixtures on a sleeper train from Cairo to Luxor in the 1980s. The metre-gauge trains I used in Tunisia in 2007-08 were a bit more "contemporary" in their appointments

To quote a period doggerel, "in the fields / we lose strength through joy" which I think is appropriate...

I don't recall when I last read it, either, but it isn't recent. I'll just observe that various WW2 era urban legends persisted well into the 1970s. The "petrol in the latrine" one appears to date back at least to Chaucer. The Romans, probably the first drainage engineers in history, had a practice of floating burning faggots along sewers to clear accumulations of methane.

That has a strong flavour of urban myth about it. Carbide will produce a strong "pop" but it needs to be quite concentrated - I've seen it happen involving carbide lamps on vintage motorcycles - but it produces a strong smell along with a vigorous fizzing in contact with water

Urban myth. There was a widespread practice of pouring a cup of petrol in a tin of sand, and using it as a stove for boiling water.

A couple of coaching points for refs dealing with Ireland.... 1) on penalties, the front-most player moves from side to side. This is not legal... it can be seen clearly in the Daley and Ford missed penalties. Kicking player should kick again. 2) the Irish hooker habitually takes two paces when throwing the ball into the lineout. This is particularly obvious when he virtually hands off the ball to the front lifter, who is facing the touchline in expectation.

Is von Krapenhauser in Puckoon? I don't think so... my vote for the best "exploding toilet" joke anywhere is the extended farce involving Apthorpe's "Thunder Box" in Waugh's "Officers and Gentlemen", with its tragi-comic ending in the single word "Biffed!" A Mention in Despatches for Rik Mayall as Von Richthofen, for his soliloquy beginning with "Cavaliers of the clouds" and ending with a discourse on English lavatory humour. I can't imagine any of that getting on the present BBC, least of all Flasheart's closing line.

Springjocks / S Africa A, you mean....

So... Italy's cheerleaders are out in force because they have won a home fixture for the first time in .... oh, a seriously long time. This is a problem for Scotland; they whip themselves into such a mad frenzy for England, whoever gets them next is already half-way there because they are not yet recovered. What of England? I think that puts the lid firmly on the Farrell era. Don't do stupid things. Don't give away endless penalties. Don't commit endless unforced errors. Don't argue with the ref. Basically, get out there and play a full 80 minutes of actual rugby; nothing else matters.

Weren't the later Vale of Rheidol locos notionally "rebuilds"? I thought Taliesin was rebuilt around the surviving fireman's waistcoat button

My gran was of the opinion that the bicycle was the most important innovation in genetics in an area from Royston to Cromer...

Rhymes with "clucking bell"?

Bill Bryson makes a similar point about American consumer electronics. I believe that excellence in design comes from those who actually make things and understand them; who have their personalities and identities invested in those physical manifestations of design. The great triumphs of American design, from transcontinental streamliner trains to the Saturn 5 rocket (and who can stand beneath this in its museum and not be awed?) were built by engineers, not money-worshippers, nor the ideological obsessives in HR who fill my inbox with messages which defy interpretation. The medieval master masons may have raised Cathedrals to the glory of God, but they had a profound vision of the details of what they were doing. I think this is why politicians can embark on the vast vanity project of HS2, then promise its cancellation as a vote-catcher. The population do not care about it; it says nothing about them, except that they were fools enough to pay for it. It will hurtle through the landscape at huge speed, but they won't ride on it; they can already get to its destinations quite easily, should they wish to. Its trains are built elsewhere. The steel for its rails, the same. The pharaohs created the nation state by building pyramids, but there is no such project among the orange-suited Morlocks of the Chilterns; their works are mostly regarded as a bane by homeowners and those travelling by car.

I see BA are making efforts to convince customers that they are investing in "improving the product".... Good luck with that!