Ballocks and The Lord's Day

The cricket squares are rolled and manicured, Big Brother has people sunbathing*, builders get sunburn and the North Tours the South. All a bit confusing...

For instance, Wales v Argentina ON A SUNDAY?! What in the name of all that is holy is that all about? Totally beggared-up my day of rest. Have had to do some shopping already today having got up way before the crack of noon, eaten before the Archer's Minibus Edition on R4 and now am sat sweating at the computer trying to get 'things out of the way' in time for the match at 6. This. Surely. Is. Not. Right.

I remember the first time we lost to Manu (nee Western) Samoa. It was the first time I'd ever seen Sunday rugby. I had read about it, mind you, in Greens' The Art of Coarse Rugby, but never actually seen it.

'Twas the proper World Cup in '91. Mark Ring couldn't walk, let alone run, the forwards were erm, an unusual selection and it was played on the Lord's Day at an hour when any self-abusing/respecting rugby fan would be thinking, tentatively, about struggling into Ramone's caff for a full-on, not standing in the west terrace wondering:
i) where and who you were?
ii) which night club's stamp was on the back of your right hand?
iii) was that really spilt lager flowing down the steps and over your laces?
iv) if Phil May really was as old as he looked?

Bloody awful game. And, in those days, the pubs weren't even open when we muttered our way out of the Arms Park. Dreadful day.

So, as my reception class will tell you; Saturdays for Rugby, Sundays for church. It isn't right to have it any other way round. A bit like the Six Nations: no no no no no no no no no no no no no no nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! No games on the Sabbath, please. It just makes for awkward travelling, lame excuses to bosses and messy Mondays.

Quite what Bernard 'Herr Flick' Laporte made of the French league final, yesterday, I have no idea, but any complaints Andy 'LemonFace' Robinson may have about the proximity of league games to international fixtures paled into superficial nothingness. Those French boyos (and Canadian, Fijian, Romanian etc) were tearing lumps out of each other. 'Blimey O'Crikey,' as my 5 year old nephew Remy said. Exactly.

So, anyway. Well done, Ireland. Never mind, Scotland, C'mon Canada and Vamos Cymru!

*So my wife tells me - I would rather pass blood than watch that mind-numbing, pile of ballocks

ps just been onto Wikipedia and the featured article is on... wait for it... Søren Kierkegaard! The power of the blog, eh!

pps can I apologise for the plethora ('lots of' for those of you with George Cross flags on your cars) of exclamation marks in today's blog? I had a Starbar for breakfast and I think the sugar rush has made me go all funny and fidgety. Sorry.