Severn Up

Its 40 years since the first Severn Bridge was opened. Boy didn’t they have foresight with that name, eh?

It cost £8 million to build, and at £4.90 a pop to drive over it, that’s only just over 100 cars a day for 40 years to pay for it. So why does it seem like there are thousands using it?

Evening All

In a move that’s a million miles from Dixon of Dock Green, the local police have gone online. They’ve set up www.ourbobby.com, which is a useful contact with local police officers, and also a great name for a website.

I’ve been in touch with the local constabulary after a spate of ASBOs-in-waiting “doing donuts” in the local B&Q car park at night. “We’ll send a patrol car” they reply dutifully. Perhaps an hour later, well after said yoofs are elsewhere, a patrol may arrive. Never mind, I’ll persist with the local council and constabulary, and perhaps something will get done (lock up the car park or the yoofs, or both) before someone gets killed.

Garden Notes

Spent a chunk of time on the weekend pulling out brambles. This stuff grows like wildfire and has taken over some of the bedding areas. I’ve got a nice bunch of war wounds where the brambles put up a good fight. But in the end there was only going to be one winner. Until next spring that is, when growing season starts again.

Rugby Notes

What can I say? We were a shadow of the team from the week before. The three injuries we picked up at Bridgend were all missing this week, and the lack of strength in depth showed in a 7-12 defeat vs the evil empire Newport.

That said, in the words of David Lloyd, “We flipping murdered them”. They didn’t look like scoring a try, and we must have had 80% of the ball. We played a ten-man game, but when the penalties game we didn’t kick them. Bryan Shelbourne missed a couple at Bridgend but thankfully they didn’t matter. This time the four missed penalties would have given us a comfortable win.

Scorers: tries for Andrew Bevan, converted by Shelbourne.

Highlight: Neil Edwards winning almost every Newport throw at the lineout.

Lowlight: Dismal lack of variety. We seemed afraid to pass the ball through the three-quarters.

Personal high spot: Handing out a hefty chunk of abuse to the evil empire’s #14 Michael Poole. He looked like he was out on day release from some institution. He proceeded to muff every ball that came his way.

Football Notes

The NFL is back. Sky’s first game was the Thursday evening season opener between Miami and Pittsburgh. Defending champion Pittsburgh’s defence won it 28-17 in the end with a couple of interceptions. TV coverage was from NBC who haven’t had an NFL contract for years, but looked just like any other channel. They even imported Al Michaels and John Madden to call the game.

The early Sunday game was Atlanta’s demolition of Carolina. The acquisition of John Abrahams looks like a very good one, since he terrorised the Carolina QB Jack Delhomme. Carolina won it at a canter 20-6.

New England won 19-17 late to beat Buffalo.