The Dew Drop Inn Virtual Rugby Pub, Amaile

First topic message reminder :

Hello and welcome to the Virtual Rugby Pub, a place where you can come in for a sly beverage and discuss whatever's on your mind, or just eavesdrop on the regulars if you fancy a break from all the rugby chat.

The pub has made its way to Amaile on the eastern-most tip of Upolu Island in Samoa - the first place on Earth to usher in the New Year.

So hop on a hammock and let one of the locals pour a kava down your throat as you are trying to read Tusiata Avia's famous poem: "Wild Dogs Under My Skirt" to the sounds of the Yandell Sister's "Sweet Inspiration" blaring in the background.

The only rule in this pub is one of mutual respect for everyone in it, oh and no tampering with the pictures of George Pisi, Census Johnston, Paul Williams, Tony Greig, Christopher Martin Jenkins, Mike Nicholls, Babsy and Jeremy Su'a above the bar.




Previous Pub: https://www.606v2.com/t38437p950-the-dew-drop-inn-virtual-rugby-pub-edinburgh

Glas a du wrote:Connacht tested their players balance by doing exercises (I think they were called vertical squats without resistance, or something like that) which showed the balance between areas of muscular control. The older players were useless and the younger players were better but nowhere near right. The risk of injury is higher without the control.

Ah ha!

The "concussion" thing threw me a bit.

Enjoy Swanny!

Evening all, just caught up on Ripper Street....really enjoyable programme to be fair

Is that programme as cheery as it sounds Prop?

Wotcha folks.

Lloyd Williams' selection in the Wales squad looks to be unpopular!

Billy V leaving Wasps for Sarries has really peeed me off. There were rumours, but he told the club of his decision an hour before Sarries put out their press release, having said he didn't want to move.

Quins fans are similarly not happy with James Johnston signing for Sarries.

Yep it's really cheerful MrsP! Watching Children of the Corn now...never seen it before.

Wow virgin media have phoned me 3 times in a week trying to get me to move to their mobile network...safe to say I wasn't polite this time!!

Bore da pawb / good morning all. Some wag had drawn a c0ck and balls on the ice on the windscreen of my car this morning. I'd give him 6/10.

Prop, I phoned Virgin Media a fortnight ago to tell them I wanted to cancel my TV, phone and broadband with them. They were pretty good and gave me the 2nd February as my cut-off date. But since then I've had four phonecalls asking if there's anything they can do to make me stay. I told each person who phoned that there was nothing they could do, but not clearly enough, apparently.

Bore da pawb / good morning all. Some wag had drawn a c0ck and balls on the ice on the windscreen of my car this morning. I'd give him 6/10.

I have no respect for people like that.

Now if he had used his own to make an impression in the frost...

I'm pretty sure he didn't. If he did, he really liked my car.

Interesting article here:

https://www.606v2.com/t39475-wales-truly-are-the-comeback-kings-of-europe-and-the-world

Yeah lucky, it was rather funny, one of them actually hung up on me when I got a bit frustrated----she was just being too nice! Going to be interesting seeing this Lance Armstrong on Oprea.

It's going to be controlled and convenient prop for Lance to confess to Oprea. If he was really serious about seeking absolution he'd let David Walsh, the Times journalist who said for years Armstrong was doping and wrote a book on it, do the interview. Confessing to Oprea is a joke.

It'll be similar to the press conference Tiger Woods made after his philandering came to light. Remember that? He read a statement and no one was allowed to ask him any questions. Armstrong will have seen beforehand all the questions she's going to ask.

It's staggering how much power that guy has over both the cycling world and the media. As others have said online, if he cries I won't be pitying him. If he had a bit of sense he could release a 'my confession' book where he talks through how he did it however, if he does that he'll have to pay back all his winnings and sponsorship.

Wonder if he does, in his own words, confess? If he does he's going to have to pay a huge amount of money back.

Morning all

Yes Willy, they should get David Walsh... or someone like that guy from 'Hardtalk". Or even a panel of hard-hitting people - journos, his former team mate cyclists and some of his opposition... even some of his sponsors. They would rip him apart in 15 minutes. The 2 and a half hours sounds like a bit of a fireside chat to me! Oprah isn't mean enough to persist relentlessly as others would given a chance.

Oprah & him have already set the frame of reference which is pretty tame & narrow; full of 'can asks' and 'cannot asks'. He can't not answer but he will just babble on in a desparate attempt to make himself look cleaner and give us more cheating lip-service apologies. Think I'll give it a miss!

The 'highlights' will be on the news anyway, Breaker.

Yeah exactly.

Horrible chopper crash in Vauxhall.

Looks terrible, Breaker.

They're playing 'On the Border' by Al Stewart on Radio 2. His Year of the Cat album is a guilty pleasure of mine.

Classic song. Will always sound fantastic. I was listening to it back in November I think and heard little sound details that I had never heard before - from when I first listened to it 30+ years ago. Quality production.

The Mali situation worries me. What happens if the French get bogged down like in Vietnam (Dien Bien Thu) and they need more help and more forces are dragged into it? Surely they've learned by now that some of these former colonial resource rich but socially poor places are too hot to handle?

Also the retaliation aspect. Don't want to think about that! It's like a trap has been set and they're walking into it. I hope they can get it under control quickly but it looks like quite a large area they have to cover.

80 years ago today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-21013615

Morning folks.

I heard about the chopper crash on the news. Apparently the police grounded their helicopters because of the mist/fog around London. Why did the CAA allow the pilot to fly in those conditions?

In any event it is lucky that there were only two fatalities, given the area would have been very busy.

Linebreaker wrote:Classic song. Will always sound fantastic. I was listening to it back in November I think and heard little sound details that I had never heard before - from when I first listened to it 30+ years ago. Quality production.

The Mali situation worries me. What happens if the French get bogged down like in Vietnam (Dien Bien Thu) and they need more help and more forces are dragged into it? Surely they've learned by now that some of these former colonial resource rich but socially poor places are too hot to handle?

Also the retaliation aspect. Don't want to think about that! It's like a trap has been set and they're walking into it. I hope they can get it under control quickly but it looks like quite a large area they have to cover.

The retaliation point is an interesting one. Ultimately I suspect the key aim is stopping al Qaeda getting a foothold in Africa. Ever since 9/11 there's been a ludicrous western presence in the Middle East. As a result they've largely switched their efforts elsewhere. Where better than Africa? A continent largely ignored by the majority of us except on Red Nose Day. This Mali excursion is probably one of the first by western powers into Africa over the next while.

In other news it has been revealed that most minced beef sold in supermarkets in Ireland contains traces of horse meat. I wonder if it would give you the trots if you ate it.

Putting horse meat in beef burgers really is taking the seabiscuit.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabiscuit

Well at least we know what happened to Shergar now.

Welcome Guns!

I canter-bide Tesco anyway.

Glas a du wrote:Welcome Guns!

I canter-bide Tesco anyway.

I havent shopped there "furlong" time. The "mane" thing is to shop local.

Don't see what the problem is It's all meat (dead animal) isn't it .......... says the vegetarian

I'd think twice before trying their Dessert Orchid.

Burgers for my main meal tonight

I bought a tuna steak on my way home. Well, that's what they said it was...

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:I bought a tuna steak on my way home. Well, that's what they said it was...

Probably has traces of seahorse in it.

PenfroPete wrote:Don't see what the problem is It's all meat (dead animal) isn't it .......... says the vegetarian

Exactly

GunsGerms wrote:

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:I bought a tuna steak on my way home. Well, that's what they said it was...

Probably has traces of seahorse in it.

I don't see any problem with eating horse meat. As has been said it really isn't any better or worse than cow meat.

I do think folks should be able to make that choice for themselves though rather than have someone just stick it in there.

The other concern I would have is that if they have stuck that in there what else have they stuck in there? Do they even know themselves? Do the suppliers even care enough to be careful of what goes in there? If they put it in there deliberately, why did they do that? What other short cuts did they take?

It's about standards and accountablity rather than the fact that it was horse meat.

I don't buy burgers though so...

The time to worry is if you find a human ear in your burger...

Evening All. I'm knackered and I've only been in work one day. It's freezing here too.

MrsP wrote:I don't see any problem with eating horse meat. As has been said it really isn't any better or worse than cow meat.

I do think folks should be able to make that choice for themselves though rather than have someone just stick it in there.

The other concern I would have is that if they have stuck that in there what else have they stuck in there? Do they even know themselves? Do the suppliers even care enough to be careful of what goes in there? If they put it in there deliberately, why did they do that? What other short cuts did they take?

It's about standards and accountablity rather than the fact that it was horse meat.

BANG! Nail on the head!

I envy those of you with full-time jobs where you have internet access! Can't get online at all during the day in this new job. For the first time ever, I'm behind on Irish rugby news.

I agree with what you're saying MrsP. I think this has been blown up by the media. It has shock value because horses are viewed fondly like other domesticated pets. You'd get the same reaction if there was cat or dog in your burgers.

I try to avoid processed meats because as you say you don't know what they've put in there. You might get some meat in there if you're lucky...

Evening pub

I'm the same Cari, I try to avoid processed meats too. I generally just buy meat from my local butcher, he's supplied by local farmers so we know exactly where it's come from. Costs more but it's totally worth it.

One more exam day for me to do and then it's finished And I'll have accrued enough time owing to be able to take a day off work next week!

It's an interesting moral question, and it's interesting to look at the psychology of it. I'm the same, I wouldn't eat dog or cat. I just love the dogs and cats we've had over the years too much.

But there's no moral difference between a dog and a sheep surely? Or a pig? Pigs are actually a lot more intelligent than dogs in many ways. It's a human hypocrisy.

I was chatting to a friend who's doing a multidisciplinary PhD in Sonic Arts and Biology last night, a lot of his thesis is on how plants respond to sound. He mentioned how the roots of a plant is it's "brain" and I challenged him on it. "How can plants be said to have a brain if they don't have consciousness"

That got him started alright. Turns out many plants emit frequencies to communicate on some level. And they can recognize "siblings" i.e plants that germinated from seeds from the same parent plant. And of course it's well documented how roots grow towards water and plants move and grow towards light.

Consciousness? Maybe not. But where is the moral boundary between eating an animal and eating a plant?

This is the question that will eventually drive all vegans to extinction

I was looking forward to munching on a couple of burgers tonight. I've just had a look in the fridge... and they're off!

I do weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs...

In other news tonight, Saturday's trip to Exeter is under severe threat of being snowed off. Last time we had a couple of inches of snow Birmingham New Street was closed for 24 hours.

Yeah, but that was the train drivers taking coccaine...

Nope, that's what happens when you let a bunch of yo-yo Brummie half-wits run a major train terminus. Feckless dullards the lot of em.

Oroight, ooi wuz awnley jawkin maite.

What I want to know is how the heck they didn't notice a horse falling into their mincing machine? Was it still wearing a saddle? Where is the jockey?

I don't think I'd have a huge issue eating dog. I love our dog and I wouldn't eat her but I don't have an issue with the concept.

I spent a summer at a hospital in Zaire as a student. A grateful patient had given our hosts a goat. They had a 4 year old son and so they initially said they would allow him to keep "Billy" but it rapidly became clear that that was not practical. Good quality protein is not in rich supply there and so it was decided that the right thing to do was put "Billy" to good use by boosting their food supply. But, how to tell the child.

They eventually explained about food supply and waste and waited for the tears. On the contrary, every meal we ate for the next while all we heard was,

"Which bit of Billy is this then?"

"When do we get to eat his ears? How will his nose taste?" etc.

Oh that we had a traditional butcher where I am

The dry, scabby looking chicken and lamb in the local halal butchers is not enticing.

On the food front I've a chicken in Chablis casserole in the slow cooker, marinaded in the wine overnigh with herbs de Provence. Chantenay carrots, Kenyan green beans and Cyprus potatoes will accompany it.

I'm loving having the time to be able to prep some decent scoff. I was always way too knackered after work, but a slow cooker is handy.

Re the dog/cat/horse thing, it is so much a cultural thing - and you do not have to go too far afield to cherchez la difference. The French must be laughing themselves sick at this horse meat furore. In the Andes, the indigenous population have been raising Guinea pigs for consumption for millenia - you can't raise the usual herbivores at that altitude, apart from the fact that they are n ot indigenous to South America anyway. Except camelids like llamas etc, which were/are far more valued for their wool than their meat. And apparently, llama makes pretty poor eating!

Your dinner has travelled further than some people I know Hound!

Hound's dinner sounds yummy!

In other news, my travel plans for Perthshire-Chez Asbo-Hythe-Perthshire are also in serious doubt due to the weather conditions forecast for Friday. Was going to travel down by road, but that is looking increasingly dubious

Hound_of_Harrow wrote:Oh that we had a traditional butcher where I am

The dry, scabby looking chicken and lamb in the local halal butchers is not enticing.

Maybe not in that instance, but thats what I would love about living in London I reckon- so many immigrants from so many cultures = more diverse range of music and food to choose from! My friend DJ is from a Sikh family in London and he's many times regaled me with tales of the legendary curry houses round his way.

Belfast is much more monocultural unfortunately. All we have is the occasional Polish shop and one Thai Supermarket

Hound, I know I'm very lucky, living in the sticks does have it's advantages. Some traditional things are alive and flourishing here, we even have a coal man who delivers to lots of the houses round here.

And I love my slow cooker, I use it regularly