One Year Old

This blog is one year old, but shows no signs of growing up.

In the last few weeks alone, the site has had “hits” (stop me if I get too technical) from Peru, India, the Philippines, Argentina, Portugal, Ireland, Canada, the USA and from across the UK. There have been over 500 visits to the site since I started logging traffic in July. That’s far too many people with an unhealthy interest in rugby and life in the south Wales valleys.

I’d like to thank my fans, my agent … (that’s enough Oscars stuff – Ed).

Cube Notes

We’ve had a new voicemail installed. It’s supposed to enable telephone number mobility for hot-desking and even home-working. Of course, the new system doesn’t work yet.

Instead, if I’m not at my desk callers get the greeting “Welcome to Hi-Path Expressions”. People I’ve spoken to think that they have mistakenly rung either a beauty parlour or a greeting card company.

Astronomy Notes

As we were sitting in week 2 of our Astronomy course at the University of Glamorgan, the strains of a Glenn Miller-style big band could be heard as they practiced nearby at the campus. The song? Van Morrison’s Moondance.

Sustainable BS

I’m tired of being lectured at by politicians and celebs like Bonio on why I shouldn’t fly any more and not eat food that’s travelled more than a couple of furlongs.

Rod Liddle has similarly got his arse in his hand. Here’s an extract from Sunday’s article:

“Somebody should do an audit to work out the size of the carbon footprint left by members of the Green Cretinati, such as pop stars hectoring us on air travel from luxury rainforest lodges and David Cameron scampering up the wrong glacier. This was the week of politically correct environmental destruction by the useless royals. Chazza is planning a round trip of 7,000 miles on a fuel-hungry Boeing to New York simply to pick up a Global Environmental Citizen prize. This jaunt is probably the equivalent of personally strangling 500 dolphins, or uprooting 1,000 trees, or stabbing a couple of pandas in the throat.

“Responding to the furore, Charles said he would not be going skiing in Klosters, a trip he may not have intended to take in the first place. In that spirit I pledge that I will not travel to Mozambique next week. “

Great stuff. The full article is here.

Thought for the day

Only in Britain can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

This week’s sign of the apocalypse

It’s reported that school head Robert Gardner wants pupils to wear slippers so the polished wood floor at the new £5million Willowtown Primary in Ebbw Vale will not be scratched.

Magic Notes

One of the more bizarre things I’ve seen in recent times was the magician with the mullet at Amanda’s 40th bash on Friday night. He was “Vladimir Demetri Kokov from the former Russian republic of Moldovia”. In reality he was a really funny guy with a good magic act and a dodgy accent from Barry.

Travel Notes

1. Had a meeting in Birmingham yesterday. This involved catching a train. Or more specifically, four trains just to get there.

First there was Arriva Trains Wales from Ponty to Cardiff, then First Great Western (Last Worst Western according to some) to Bristol, Virgin Trains to Birmingham New Street and Centro out to the ‘burbs. Bizarrely the return journey was yet another company, Central Trains. If it takes five railway companies to run a service covering 110 miles, no wonder the railway system in Britain is in such chaos.

I have to say that, overall, the experience was a good one; all the trains ran on time and there were seats available. I know that it’s not a representative sample though, and a wider range of views on the state of the railways can be found in this chat forum.

2. My Arriva train into Cardiff was delayed the other morning, so there was an announcement at Radyr that to make up time the train would run “non-stop” to Cardiff.

Of course, this doesn’t actually mean that it goes any faster: it simply stops in the countryside instead of at platforms. It missed 3 station stops and made 3 countryside stops instead. Needless to say we didn’t make up any time at all.

It’s pretty obvious really. Last time I checked trains can’t overtake each other when there’s only one set of rail tracks.

Rugby Notes

Another fine win for Ebbw Vale on Saturday, this time at Swansea, 23-18. It’s not often that we come away from St Helens with a win, which made this result even sweeter. Another great display by the forwards, and they were rewarded with three tries for the front row union. Swansea had the best player on the field in openside Ben Lewis.

Other results mean that we have now opened up a four point lead. Here’s the latest table.

Next Saturday Ebbw visits Llangennech in their first round and last 32 of the Konica Minolta Cup.

Scorers: 2 tries for “meaty” prop Kristian Gay (that’s what the Swansea Evening Post called him – rather them than me) and one for new hooker Ben Roberts. One conversion and two penalties for the ever-improving Dai Langdon.

Highlights: The rolling maul, which finally took hold late in the game and sealed the victory.

Lowlights: The dismal effort by the ref, who singularly failed to penalise Swansea’s wheeling in the scrum, the flankers not binding at the scrum and the endless niggle that always seem to happen in a Swansea game.

In other rugby notes, the picture at the top of this post is of Toulouse’s sub Trevor Brennan landing a punch on a fan, who probably said something naughty to him. There’s a full match report here.

NFL Notes

It was the worst possible set of results on the weekend.

The evil and charisma-free Peyton Manning and his Indianapolis Colts beat the New England Patriots 38-34 in a nail-biter. The Pats had plenty of chances to put the game away, having had a 21-3 lead in the first quarter. A couple of huge drops by Reche Caldwell late in the game gave the Colts the chance to come back. And come back they did.

In the earlier game, the Chicago Bears beat (newly anointed as America’s team) the New Orleans Saints 39-18. Chicago’s Rex Grossman passed for just 144 yards, but didn’t throw any interceptions and their running backs accounted for 199 yards. My worry is that if Drew Brees can get 250 yards against them then the evil Manning could do well.

Full stories are on Sports Illustrated’s website. The Superbowl on 4 February will be Bears and Colts at Miami, and I’ll be firmly supporting the Bears.