The Pig Is Falling Apart ... But Not As Quickly As He Had Feared

I was at Plas Piggy over the weekend, doing some thinking and writing. Nothing very creative, just some stuff (technical term) for the King Edward VI Foundation. As ever the island proved a starter for my writing muscles. God, I love that place. Just to make things better, the flying vermin seagulls aren't yet bouncing around on the roof. I know they are nesting (apparently they are monogamous and return to the same nest for up to twenty years) but the chicks and noise haven't started yet. Small mercies.

Which is not what I am going to tell you about. No, my latest little melodrama commenced as I drove the precious Bigster back to Casa Piggy on Sunday - an enjoyable journey listening to Leonard Cohen on Spotify. The only thing that discomforted good old Chortley Chuckles was a growing awareness of a large floater in the left eye - a sort of spider's web hampering my vision. It didn't take long on the old interweb thing to diagnose myself as having a detached retina. Thus was Chortley (Knuckles was left at home) subject to a mild panic. So he joined the queue at the Birmingham Eye Hospital at 8.30 yesterday morning. It opens at 9.00. I was thirteenth in the queue. All was efficient and everyone (except two over-lively children) was on their best behaviour. I was triaged (I assume that's s verb) swiftly and then saw first a nurse and then a doctor within two hours. All thorough, all reassuring. When it works like this the NHS really is a thing of wonder.

PVD

Upshot? Chortley the manic depressive now has another diagnosis to drag around with him - Posterior Vitreous Detachment (PVD). This is much less serious than a detached retina although the symptoms are similar. Basically the jelly behind the eye has detached itself from the back of the eye. Apparently my brain will adapt and learn to live with it although this may take a few months. Phew. Just another signifier of getting old.

They had put some drops in my eyes for the examination by the doctor and warned that my vision would be blurred for several hours. They weren't kidding. I'd had the good sense not to drive (train and taxi in) but it was only when I exited the hospital that I realised I couldn't read my phone well enough to order an Uber. Thus Chortley embarked on one of his tragicomic routines. He phoned the Groupie but she (as Chortley should have remembered) was working and also waiting in for the carpet fitter (Groupie's office - it looks great). No matter, Chortley Chuckles was feeling quite chipper (he had been more scared of the possible diagnosis than he had admitted to himself) and so decided to get a bus into Town and then to get a train. He started towards where he thought the hospital entrance/exit could be found. He got this wrong and was soon in a building site. He turned his blurry eyes back to the hospital and then a blinding (see what I did there - puntastic) idea came to the boy Chuckles. From the dissolute past of rugby Saturday nights, the Chuckles memory dredged up the phone number of that saviour of many a weekend - Star Cars of Erdington. They got him home.  

6N 23.5

Here's a thing - Sean Edwards' much-vaunted France defence shipped ninety-six points in their last two matches of the Six Nations, fifty away to Scotland and then forty-six to the previously impotent England attack. That France still won the championship and, of course, the match against England says much for their searing pace and almost as much for England's imbecile indiscipline. Leaving aside my frustration (this puts it mildly) at the brain-dead behaviour of England's finest, we do have to concede that the two matches (Scotland v France, and France v England) did serve up proof that rugby union can still be thrilling even when it falls into the hands of the mirthless pragmatists. Mind you I could do without advertisements popping up in the middle of play - ITV, stop it please.

Here's another thing - England won only one match. The stirring effort in Paris should not disguise this.  

6N 23.4

On 23 February I blogged about England's brain-dead capitulation to Ireland. I said that I might have a potentially consolatory bet on Italy to beat England. I did. They did. I'm still angry though. Italy are a decent side but I thought the sheer emotion of what they were doing (they had never previously beaten England) actually hampered them - England were so predictably shite that Italy did not have to be anywhere near their best to win. I've said enough.

Let's concentrate on a match that revived the love for the game. Scotland 50 France 40. Rugby - bloody hell. As far from England's constipated box-kickathon as one might imagine. And remember this is a Scotland team who also lost to Italy. I told you Italy were good. 

6N 26.3

Saturday was a funny old day. I seem to have a lot of those - I think I often fall victim to my own contrarianism and also to my bipolarity. In fact the latter was accentuated last weekend because I was in Anglesey and had forgotten to take my anti-psychotics with me. Keep taking the pills Pig, they work for you.

Anyway, Saturday. I awoke early after a fitful night (that's another benefit of Olanzapine, it helps you sleep) and was determined to go out for a decent run, during which I was going to undertake the mental composition of a blog entry excoriating England Under 20s loss to Ireland on Friday night. I even had a title - 'Brainless Behemoths'. Those of you who have been with me on this journey will recall that this is not a new theme. In the end I abandoned the task as my running (up towards Storws Wen Golf Club, for those of you know the local geography) became more and more a painful exercise. At twenty-five minutes I turned back from my route and headed home to Plas Piggy. But stubborn old Pig then willed himself to take control and I embarked on a series of deviations from the straight route home. I reckoned that if I could count my steps to twelve hundred on these deviations I would add enough time to get me to an hour. I did it - bloody knackered but I did it. And I felt a good deal more sanguine about the previous evening's rugby. So mood was now up.

Then England played Ireland in the Six Nations. Mood down again. What a calamity. I counted twenty handling errors from England and lost count of the missed tackles. Outplayed, outthought, outmuscled. Garbage. At moments like these I am relieved that I am at least Irish by marriage. In my defence of this shameless abandonment (I'll be back) of my homeland, I can point out that both of my daugters have Irish passports. 

Wales v Scotland cheered me up. I would have preferred it if Wales had clung on to win but it was an estimable game to watch as a neutral. Mood back up again. Sunday, back home to Casa Piggy to take in the ultimately comfortable French Victory over Italy. But let us get this straight - Italy are no mugs and if England play again as they did on Saturday, they will lose to Italy. I might actually have a bet on that - it makes the game more bearable to watch.  

Pig's last game of golf

Good night's sleep last night and I am due back on the (soggy) golf course early tomorrow with the Seniors at Royal Pype Hayes - I have had a few weeks off to get over the effects of a very poor slog in the mud last time. These things should never become a matter of arduous habit. Keep taking the pills. 

6N 26.1 & 2

I used to have a routine for Five/Six Nations rugby matches. I would usually be playing at my own low level (to take a week off would have been an act of sacrilege) so I would set the video recorder to tape the England game. Now that of itself was a considerable act - there was none of this single-button-programming, much less catch-up services on which you could rely. But the next consideration was this - I don't like to watch sporting events when the result is known to me. So I would play my game (please bear in mind that pitches were far muddier in those days) and then retrieve my car keys from a secret location, clamber into my car and drive home to a hot bath, all without being fore-warned of the result. Then I could enjoy the match at leisure.

I mention this because it serves to remind me just how much magic adhered to the old championship. It felt somehow attached to the amateur game I loved so much. Those days are gone and I have no wish to sound like one of the much maligned old farts who used to run the game. Yes the opportunities to play the game for a living are nice for a tiny minority but the 'product' (as one must so odiously term it) is dangerously lacking in romance. One has only to look at the crumbling edifice of that once enviable structure, Welsh rugby, to know that something is wrong. All of which, in a counter-intuitive manner (certainly for an English patriot like the Pig), makes the result of the Calcutta Cup match last Saturday rather grand. The much (and deservedly so after the Italy defeat) Scots simply ploughed the shell-shocked English into the Murrayfield turf. Galling for the English, yes, but, in the final analysis, rather splendid and redolent of an earlier age.

Don't worry lads, it's only a game

But now let's get to the problems of the England team. Maro Itoje -a titan but one who is coming off a draining Lions Tour as captain and a draining personal tragedy (the loss of his mother). Should we be surprised that he looks drained? Sam Underhill - an old-fashioned sort of a player. He had a bad game - that just doesn't happen. He deserves another chance. I would pair him at flanker with Henry Pollock. Let's address the elephant in the room - Pollock gives every impression of being a bit of a gobshite - but he's our gobshite and just at the moment the force seems to be with him. The centres are a conundrum. There is no disgrace in being outplayed by Jones and Tuipolotu, a pair who rather inconveniently (for the English) overcame their previous torpor with a relish. Don't worry lads, it's only a game - as Ray Prosser used to say, 'Well what the f*** do we have points for?' Big Fat Pig will watch with renewed interest as the defeated England and the (for once) deflated Irish meet this weekend.

France? brilliant.  

You Are The Athlete First And The Rugby Player Second

I think it might have been that other great solicitor/rugby coach, Alan Jones, who coined this phrase. On the other hand it might have been someone else - either way it stuck with me. Let's unpack it and then consider it in the context of last night's England U20 v Wales U20 age-group international.

Athleticism - I think we can take it as read that to function at the top of rugby these days you need to be fit and strong. Yes there are differing types of athleticism (just as shot-putters differ from pole-vaulters) but you have to have some fitness. But being a rugby player, a true footballer to use the old parlance, well that is a mater of mental acuity. I have known some very fit people who were poor footballers and some superb footballers who cared not a jot about physical conditioning. These latter types cannot function at high levels. Not these days at least.

Last night's match was played in appalling conditions - pouring rain and a muddy (by the standards of modern curating) pitch. England won19-16 having been 0-16 down at half-time. England were manifestly the better athletes, you could tell this by the way that these gargantuan young men filled their shirts. The Welsh team equally manifestly contained the better footballers, most particularly Carwyn Leggat-Jones, who looks to be the latest fly-half to be mined from Max Boyce's legendary seam of No. 10s. 

For forty minutes England played a pre-planned game utterly unsuited to the conditions. It was brain-dead rugby. Wales feasted on the English stupidity, most particularly when England gifted them a try. One can only speculate what was said to the England team at half-time, but whatever it was, the result was a direct and forceful display from superior athletes. Had mental acuity been allied to athleticism, the margin would have been much greater. The problem is that sometimes you just can't teach these things - as the great Gary Street once remarked (to a passing opposition back-row) after a particularly notable clearance kick: 'You can't teach that - it's genetic'. As with so much else, Gary had a point, even if his insolence did place his No 8 (your correspondent) at risk of a smack from the aggrieved flanker. I can forgive Gary everything. Genius.  

Advent 15 Canon

My tentative efforts to address the chasms in my reading have proved fruitful. I came to E.M. Forster with no great expectations. As it turns out I should have turned to him at an earlier time. Where Angels Fear to Tread is a concise, clever and provoking novel. It says much about the nature of prejudice and the daftness of English bourgeois attitudes. It contrasts such attitudes to the looser codes of Italian behaviour, though that is to over-simplify the text. It can be light and comedic which makes the intrusion into the plot of tragedy all the more telling. I quote a quite briliant passage on the allure of Italian cafe society, at least for the male of the species. I'm not sure this is quite what that old romantic Tony Blair had in mind.

Italy is such a delightful place to live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite luxury of socialism - that true socialism which is based not on equality of income or character, but on the equality of manners. In the democrarcy of the caffe or the street the great question of our life has been solved, and the brotherhood of man is a reality. But it is achieved at the expense of the sisterhood of women.

A guilty part of me might admit that this is a good description of the milieu of the old-fashioned rugby clubhouses I used to frequent. 

 

 

A Black Wednesday

When troubles come they come not single spies but in battalions. Well perhaps not battalions but certainly double spies last Wednesday. On that day I heard of the death of two men who profoundly influenced me. One was the best of a very good bunch at school and the other a university teacher (though this was only a minor specimen of his achievements) who was responsible for the start of this blog.

John G. Smith succeeded my father as Head of English at King Edward VI Aston. He took up post two terms before I arrived at the school in 1971 and stayed there until his retirement in 2002. In me he burnished the love of literature already encouraged by my father and his rough wisdom still patterns my thinking to this day. On top of that he was the greatest influence on my rugby both as a player and as a coach. The instinct to ruck rather than to maul was hammered home to me and from JGS I learned the desirability of educated roughness. A great man taken too soon although I am selfishly pleased that he lived long enough to know of my doctorate in English. I supect he found it balls-achingly funny and a proper expression of my pomposity.

Ian Marchant

And it was near the start of that journey to my PhD that Ian Marchant comes into the frame. He lectured/encouraged me in Life Writing in the second year of my second degree and if you go to the very first entry in this blog (27 January 2010) you will get the gist of what he instilled in us. He was novelist/author of critically accalimed non-fiction/broadcaster/scurrilous performer and an all-around good egg. He was only two years older than me but aeons ahead in wisdom.

God rest you both. 

A Suitable Obsession For The Old

JTC was a wise and amusing man, much my elder. He was a stalwart member and Honorary Life Vice President of our rugby club and, in his more decorous moments, a member of that great seat of affluenec, Little Aston Golf Club. Many years ago I was chatting to him at the bar and mused out loud that I might play more golf. Jim counselled me against this and uttered the sage words, 'play team games for as long as you can'. In this, as in so much else, Jim was right.

I played rugby until a week short of my forty-eighth birthday, by which time I was held together by strategically applied tape and over-medicated on anti-inflammatories. I loved close to every minute of it. I had played my last game of 1st XV rugby at forty and thereafter grew old gracelessly.  

I mention this only because I spent a fun two hours this morning on the practice ground at Clwb Golff Ynys Mon. I was merely tatting around and it was only when I switched on my computer just now that I noticed the date (a boon in being elderly is that the date is a matter of only passing import) - tomorrow is the fifty-first anniversary of my first game of golf. Founder's Day 1974. I love golf in all its infuriating detail but my advice, should you choose to hear it, remains, play team games as long as you can. 

Lions 25.10

The final verdict? A tour bordering on the tedious. Australian rugby is not truly deep enough to sustain a Lions tour, particularly if their test match players are hidden away for the provincial matches. The Lions became a poor shadow of recent Ireland teams, coached efficiently but rather unromantically by an uber-professional Englishman. I was wrong - the series did not end 3-0. I have been wrong plenty of times before. Will be again. Maro Itoje is a great player, notwithstanding anything Murray Mexted might have to say on the subject. In four years it will be New Zealand's turn. Now that really is a tour. 

Lions 25.9 - The Satisfying Sound Of Whinging Aussies

At last a proper edge-of-the-seat test match, albeit one that owed much to an awful first thirty minutes from the Lions. And at the end we had a nice controversy which illustrated much that can go wrong with the current application of the laws. The Lions scored the try that their persistence merited, only for the Australian captain to lobby the (almost but not quite overwhelmed) Italian referee about the estimable Jac Morgan's actions at the final ruck. Here's the truth - rugby is a rough old game and we cannot allow it to be completely emasculated. Justice was served and the try stood. Cue more and more Aussie whinging. Excellent. What everyone should be concentrating on was the theatrical dive taken by the Australian hooker in an attempt to buy the penalty. Sod that for a game of soldiers.

And now a lesson from the Pig's personal history. I was taught tackling technique by Ray 'Taff' John at the age of eleven. No teacher/coach can give you the courage needed to apply those techniques but the bare bones of the method will stand you in good stead. Tackling techniques in the face of a massive physical assault (as Australia predictably brought to the match) are a sturdy resource. The Lions abandoned such techniques and slavishly attempted to 'win the collisions'. They missed scores of tackles. Anyway, all is well that ends well.

One other mention of Taff John (still with us and a great man) - he also taught me French and to this day when I attempt (as I do only in extremis) to speak that language, I do so in a Neath accent.  Bonjour, bore da.  

Lions 25.8

Boring. A hyped-up combination XV playing against a cadre of Lions reserves, several of whom should not be on the tour. The Lions won. As I say, boring.

Now we turn to the side selected for the second test on Staurday. I hope Ellis Genge has gone off on one with the coach because his dropping is a crime. The press seem to be of the view that his has been done to beef-up the impact from the bench as the second half drags on. I righteously despise the term 'impact player' and also all the perfectly lawful 'bomb squad' tactics brought to us by the South Africans. I've said it before, professionalism has much to answer for.

Lions to win.   

Lions 25.7

Yesterday was a day for sports watching - first the rugby and then the third day of the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. Both events started attractively only to descend into a weird and rather boring predictability.

The Lions first. They came out of the traps in an angry rush and, truth be told, they had put Australia away within the first quarter of the match. Huw Jones and James Lowe both butchered try-scoring opportunities but this did not matter against an impotent opponent, Tom Curry and Tadgh Beirne showed themselves to belong in that over-used categorisation 'test match animals'. I must admit that I had been against Beirne's selection - I am an admirer of Ollie Chessum. I was wrong. Beirne was commanding and, in the best sense, destructive. The last thirty minutes of the match desceneded into that product of the modern squad game, disjointed replacement-strewn boredom. I stick by my 3-0 prediction, however the Lions missed a chance yesterday to demoralise utterly their opposition.

It's certainly not his fault but I'm afraid Scottie Scheffler's brilliance on the golf course is a tad boring. He is superb but I doubt that anyone would call him charismatic. I was never a Tiger Woods fan but one does have to admit that he had a whiff of cordite about him. Despite my misgivings, I will be tuned in for the final round of the Open this afternoon hoping to be proved wrong.

Lions 25.4 - 6

The phony war is almost over and on Saturday morning the Lions will play Australia in the first of the three tests. Yes, yes, yes, I hear all the stuff about the difficulties of bringing together players from four nations. Blah, blah, blah. Here's the truth - the Lions should win the series 3-0. I completely concede the sporting excellence of the Australian nation but the fact is that rugby union is in a fallow rut in Aus just at the moment. 

I won't bore you with an anlysis of the latest tour games - each rather tedious for a variety of reasons. What I will excoriate is the complete lack of romanticism in the attitude of the Lions' management. Owen Farrell is parachuted into the squad. Leinster's third choice tight-head prop likewise. The shirt is devalued. Read John Reason's books on the 1971 and 1974 tours if you want to know how magnificent things used to be. It is a sporting civilisation gone with the wind. Oh well.  

And incidentally the most pertinent international rugby of last weekend was played in Argentina where England (shorn of a whole team by the Lions) won a titanic clash with Los Pumas. Maybe, just maybe, Steve Borthwick is getting to grips with this international coaching malarkey. 

Lions 25.1-3

The British and Irish Lions are now well into their tour of Australia. It may be a far cry from the massive adventures of old but hey-ho that is professional rugby for you and I won't grumble on about that subject again. The ship has sailed.

 

Thus far the Lions have endured a predictable roughing-up in Dublin at the hands of Argentina followed by two less than brilliant wins against sub-standard Aussie opposition. It really is time that we stopped demeaning the Pumas and recognised them as full members of rugby's top table. As to the the denuded Force and Reds teams that the Lions despatched, well you do just wonder whether Rugby Australia really understand what they have got in the shape of the Lions. But enough of such churlishness.

What can we say about how the tour is shaping up? The latest speculation that I have read posits that Andy Farrell (a deeply pragmatic coach) will pick as many as nine Leinster players in his test side. I hope not - we all seem to be forgetting that Leinster defeat to Northampton. Tommy Freeman deserves to be in the test side. He is the only English back I would pick. Tom Curry has lost form just at the wrong time. Jac Morgan has refound his mojo and must surely be revelling in playing some unfamiliar winning rugby. The kick-off receiving has been an embarrassing mess. Kelleher is not a better player than Jamie George who has been left to the consolation of touring with England. Nobody seems to have mentioned it but I am particularly impressed by Fin Russell's defence - he looks like a man on a mission to me. Modern strategic myopia and some misguided law changes have conspired to diminish No 8 as a specialist position but I would pick Jack Conan ahead of a converted flanker. This is a subject on which I willingly declare my bias.

The Lions should win the series. Should.  

 

A Mad World My Masters

As the pace of change quickens, the good things can get obscured by the avalanche of the inane and the downright immoral that make up so much of modern life. You will not, of course, be surprised if I allude to Donald Trump and his wicked cohorts being at the forefront of much that is bad. However I will steer clear of pontificating on the Donald for now. If, like me, you are a gob-smacked Trump watcher, you will perhaps join me in hoping that he will be brought low by his own glaring crassness. I wish I was more optimistic.

Let us, then, steer clear of global politics. Instead let us consider the precarious state of my two favourite team games - rugby union and cricket. I was passably competent at the former and an occasional fumbler at the latter but it is cricket that I prefer watching. Both games stand at a precipice of commercial oblivion. And when I say this, I am talking about the two sports in their pure forms.

A fanciful imagining of BFP in his prime

Rugby Union Football has been worn down by professionalism to a mere shadow of the glorious, muddied oafdom that was so deliciously available to earlier generations. Fifth team rugby is now a thing of distant memories and it will never return. BDR used to say that if a game is worth playing, it is worth playing badly. This ostensibly glib remark masks a lost truth. I am partly to blame because I played and coached rugby with a distinct desire to win. However I hope I never quite lost the instinct that it does a man (or indeed a woman) no moral harm to be bested every now and again. That is part of sport/growing up. Myriad genies are out of the rugby bottle and cannot be put back: misplaced professionalism; tactical substitutions; impact players; the advancement of the interest of the paying spectator over that of the players. The latest new kid on the block is the wrteched R360, a devil-child rugby version of the woeful and divisive LIV Golf. Shame on you Mike Tindall. I am glad I played when I did, from my early efforts at prop aged eleven to my final joyous season at No. 8 for the fourths at AOE at the age of forty-eight.

As I write this I am listening to commentary of the first day of the World Test Championship between Australia and South Africa at Lord's. I am delighted to say that there is a full-house and will allow prejudice to prompt me to add that South Africa seem to be getting the better of it - I can't be doing with that Steve Smith, brilliant as he can be.

Have you ever tried to watch the entirety of an IPL game? It takes for ever. The ingenuity of the batting, I will grant you, is staggering. The fielding is sublime. But it is nothing more than glorified (very glorified) pub cricket. Pop has eaten itself. Enjoy test cricket while you can - it will not be re-invented.  

     

Bloody Hell, I Didn't Expect That!

Well I did say that I would eat humble pie, so I am. Wales -14, England - 68. No that is not an error - 14-68.

England did get much the more of the luck that was going, but bloody hell, this was a rout. Ruthless, quick, skilful. Dewi, my acquaintance here on the Island, was quite right. After the first match of the tournament (Wales got nilled by the French) I told him I thought there were some small reasons for optimism for the Welsh. Dewi countered by saying, 'No, we're shit'. I bow to his acerbity.    

Some Old Guff

Instead of going to Cheltenham this year I was actually earning, doing a welcome and interesting bit of consultancy work. I sometimes forget how much I can enjoy being a lawyer and the great thing is that these days I get to choose the nice bits. Confidentiality and your boredom threshold means that I won't burden you with any of the details.

I kept an occasional eye on the racing without having a bet but I did hear plenty of old guff about how the Festival can regain its old lustre. Too late. You can rip-off your core customers for only so long. So yet another great sporting occasion has gone - Twickenham is these days a braying corporate disgrace and, now that Cheltenham has prostituted itself, there is very little left. Roll on the European Rugby Finals in Cardiff. Now that is fun.

I am writing this before the final round of the Six Nations kicks off. France will, barring a miracle, win the championship. Ireland will win in Italy but nothing can expunge the memory of their evisceration by France last weekend. I have a mildly dread feeling that England will struggle against Wales. This is an England team that lacks a killer instinct and (yes it's a cliche) Wales will be really up for it. For the Welsh the model of what they must do can be taken from last night's U20 international in which hwyl completely submerged England. You can catch that match on iPlayer and I recommend that you see it. It was notable for a dangerously inept refereeing performance (a performance which I must emphasise disadvantaged Wales more that it did England) and for a Welsh passion that forced the favoured English into mute mediocrity. I hope I am wrong and that I will, humble pie duly eaten, be getting back to you about a famous Scottish victory in Paris and a stout England win in Cardiff.    

Days Of Wonder

I am here on the island, my ostensible reason being to see a roofer about the leaky chimney, but, in truth, mainly because I love it here. The only downside is that the Groupie has not been able to join me on this occasion. It has been a notable break.

For journeys up here I have abandoned the M6 even though it is potentially the quickest route - the expense of the M6 Toll cannot be justified and, besides, if you get held up on the motorway, you really do get held up. The shortest route is the old A5, also the most scenic. However I favour the A458/A55 - quickish (exactly three hours on Thursday) and scenicish. 

A very productive meeting with the roofer, RJE, on Friday. Like all the tradesmen on the island (in my experience) he is friendly, reasonable and charming. So far , so good then, but it was yesterday (Saturday) that turned into one of those days of wonder. Up early and drove to Anglesey Golf Club where I maintain country membership (ludicrously cheap compared to Birmingham) and I had bitten the bullet and entered a Stableford. Now playing with strangers can be daunting but not at The Anglesey. I was warmly greeted and paired with AJ, a Mancunian who served with the RAF at Valley and married a local girl and stayed here after he left the forces. The course was wet but eminently playable and there was a strong wind that made the back nine very challenging. We were round in three hours. The course won but I had a lovely time. If you see me, remind me to tell you about my birdie on the fourth. 

And as if that was not enough, as I drove back across Mon, Snowdonia (sorry, Eryri) glared at me, sun-kissed and snow lying on the northern slopes. Beautiful. 

I was back in plenty of time to open a bottle of Rioja (Gran Reserva naturally) and watch England subside to defeat to Ireland in the Six Nations. This much was predicatable and I won't bore you with another lecture on the problems besetting the grand old game in England. I then watched the recording of the Scotland v Italy match without knowing the result. Isn't Blair Kinghorn a good player!

Anchovies on brown toast for supper. 

You will notice that I have drawn a sensitive veil over the demolition of Wales by France on Friday evening. I find it best not to intrude on private grief. Mind you, DH the greenkeeper was kind enough to remember that I had been a player and elicited my opinion. I comforted him by saying that England would lose and that Wales have unearthed another quality player in their captain, Jac Morgan.

Slept like a baby. Days of wonder.

Am I Getting Old And Reactionary?

Of course I am. Indeed my friends will tell you that I used to be young and reactionary. No matter, I'm still going to go off on one about the state of three of my favourite sports, most particularly the way that they seem to think they can attract a 'new audience'.

These three sporting passions of mine may be on their way out, certainly in the satisfying manifestations that have enraptured me for most of my life. Let's start with cricket, the state of which I have lamented many times before. I watch the tedious Big Bash from Australia. The commentary is odious. Shouting does not make something more notable. This noise is rubbish.

Next, the sport nearest to my heart, rugby union football. The RFU thinks it advisable to pay its Chief Executive Officer over a million pounds per annum as he signs-off on a year in which the organistaion culled a load of staff and in which the grass-roots game is dying on its feet. The game struggles to make viable a top league which has only ten solvent teams. It denies itself, when fielding a team to represent our country, the services of anyone who has the audacity to ply his trade outside England. This too is rubbish.

And the game I play (very badly) these days - golf. I watched the utter drivel of the TGL indoor game that is being used to line the pockets of Woods and McIlroy. Professional golfers hitting a ball into a screen linked to a computer that traces where the ball would have gone. All the time the commentators roar at us and attempt the impossible of making golfers sound interesting. Good golf is plenty interesting, its practitioners have no need to be. This too is rubbish. 

Test match cricket. Well-coached top-level rugby. Proper golf played under pressure of terrain and climate. Mark my words, we will miss these when they have gone.