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Nostalgia…

March 27, 2021 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/radfotosonn-8242629/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=3204680">Radfotosonn</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=3204680">Pixabay</a>…as they say… ain’t what it used ter be!

Or… maybe, actually, it is!

Now – my last post offered you more nostalgia to come – and come it will, but events have conspired (as they so often do) to disrupt our good intentions and in this case to cause a slight nostalgia hiatus…

…though – actually – this substitute post also in some ways concerns that very same subject.

”Enough with the cryptic references already!” – I hear you cry.

Fair enough. On with the show…

It seems but a few short weeks back that I was celebrating the fact that the Scots had just defeated the English at Twickenham in the first round of this year’s Six Nations Championship. This was a feat that they had not achieved for some thirty eight years and was thus cause for considerable jubilation.

My next post on the subject of Scottish rugby was a great deal less cheery and documented the sad loss at home by but a single point to Wales – and the further miserable loss, also at home, by a mere three points to the Irish. That post was titled ‘Same Old, Same Old‘ with good reason. In that post I also mentioned the postponed Scotland/France game – as a result of the French frankly playing fast and loose with the COVID lock-down guidelines.

On what should have been the final weekend of the tournament last weekend I could not raise the enthusiasm to discuss the Scots beating the Italians by a handsome margin (because that is what everybody else had done as well) and nor did I refer (drawing, in fact, a discreet veil over the matter) to the English losing to Ireland and thus ending the tournament in fifth place. The Welsh failed to beat the French in Paris and thus did not win a Grand Slam, but the outcome of the chamionship was left hanging: if France could beat the Scots in their rescheduled encounter (which took place today) by a certain amount they and not the Welsh would win the title.

OK – to cut a long story short – not only did the French fail to reach the necessary target but the Scots matched them throughout the game and – courtesy of a little unnecessary French generosity at the end – sneaked the win, 27 – 23. This was the first time that Scotland had beaten France in Paris since they famously did so in 1999 – the last year of the Five Nations before it became six.

Not only does this mean that Wales did eventually take the title (congrats!) but also the Scots have now within the last year broken their hoodoo on winning away games – and  have beaten the Welsh (last autumn), the English and the French on their respective home soils.

Now that is cause for celebration (particularly if you are  a Scot)!

Slàinte mhat!

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Same old, same old

March 14, 2021 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Same old, same old
(Informal)

“Used to say that a situation or someone’s behaviour remains the same, especially when it is boring or annoying:”

Cambridge Dictionary

I started to look back over some of the earliest of the posts to this online journal – to those composed in early 2012 – thinking to re-discover the very first occasion within these scribblings upon which I reluctantly drew attention to my ongoing and painful support for the Scottish rugby XV!

I recall bemoaning the fact that being a follower of these tartan-toting sportsmen involved endlessly repeated rounds of rose-tinted and entirely unreasonable optimism – followed rapidly by by dejection and misery when the Scots yet again failed to live up to the unwarranted expectation.

It is almost worse when they actually start to look as though they know what they are doing – to exhibit some flair for the game – to unearth at last at least one truly world-class talent… At that point they catch the eye of those commentators who would dearly love to see a challenge to the boring prospect of any of the other home nations yet again lifting the annual trophy – and would happily pay good money to watch the Scots rekindle the flame of 1990 (yes – it was that long ago that the Scots famously beat England at Murrayfield to win their last Grand Slam).

(In a small aside at this point I must make reference to an opportunity sadly lost! For the last years of my employ at my last school in the UK before ‘retiring’, the headship of the institution was in the capable hands of a man who – amongst his other obvious talents – had played rugby for England. As it happens the Calcutta Cup fixture in 1990 – in which both Scotland and England had the chance of taking the Grand Slam – was his last match in international colours for England. I always meant to tease him about it but never quite plucked up the courage so to do).

This melancholy musing naturally reflects Scotland’s performance thus far in this year’s Six Nations tournament. I wrote of the famous win against the odds at Twickenham but a few short weeks back but have since been silent on the matter within these pages. One need not search too hard to discover why. The Scots lost by a single point to the Welsh at Murrayfield – having at one stage been well in front before having a man sent off. The French game was then postponed because of positive COVID tests amongst the French squad. Finally – this very morning the Scots lost once again at Murrayfield… this time by a mere three points to the Irish. To be honest the Scots did not deserve to win today. Their line-out barely functioned and they gave away far too many needless penalties.

Where the Scots are concerned it is yet again a sad case of ‘Same old, same old’!

As I said at the top of this post – I started to look back to see when it was that I very first mentioned the painful predicament of supporting Scottish rugby…

…but then I lost the will to live!…

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Good sports

February 7, 2021 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose”.

Ernie Banks

I changed my mind several times as to the form that this post should take.

The early 1980s are relevant both to the immediate topic and to something else on which I intend shortly to write – the current Channel 4 TV mini-series – “It’s a Sin“. It rapidly became apparent, however, that trying to link these particular two topics together would simply not work – diminishing them both.

Concerned that I have English readers and that I do not wish to offend any of them (unnecessarily!) I could have chosen to tie my main topic in with another related sporting matter – thus giving everyone something to cheer about.

In the end, however, I decided – “What the heck!“. I should leave all other topics for further posts and just go for it! To that end… English readers of a sensitive disposition may wish to look away now:

Yesterday saw the start of the 2021 Rugby Six Nations Championship. The second fixture of the day (once the French had dealt harshly with the ever eager Italians) was the Calcutta Cup fixture between England and Scotland at the home of Rugby – Twickenham.

And here is where the 1980s come into things; the last time that the Scots beat the English at Twickenham was in 1983 (the year that the US invaded Grenada, the year that Thatcher was first re-elected Prime Minister in the UK, the year that BC Place was opened in Vancouver, the year that McDonalds invented the McNugget!) – thirty eight long years ago!

Two years ago they came close in what proved an extraordinary game – the English leading at one point in the first half by 31 – 0 before the Scots scored 38 unanswered points to lead the match with five minutes to go. The English finally woke up and squeezed out a converted try to tie the game.

This time was a much more straightforward affair in some ways, though perhaps no less astonishing in terms of the way the contest played out. The Scots might consider themselves a little unfortunate to have finally broken their hoodoo and won a famous victory by a mere 11 points to 6, particularly given that the game was actually pretty one-sided in almost every respect. Scotland had 65% of the possession, 70% of the territory, made 11 clean breaks to England’s 0 and missed only 11 tackles to England’s 29.

Yes – the Scots probably should have won by a wider margin and indeed they left a number of points out on the field because their goal kicking was below par. This was, nonetheless, a famous and wonderful victory and – given that this year the Scots have three home fixtures still to come – they really ought to be able to do something a little special in the remainder of the tournament.

Well… special in terms of their recent record in any case.

Come on you Scots!

 

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Missing out

November 28, 2020 in Life in BC | Permalink

“You could grow up in the city where history was made and still miss it all.”

Jonathan Lethem – ‘The Fortress of Solitude’

We are – when all is said and done – having a good pandemic!

Now, should the gentle reader take offence at my flippancy (a fair call one might say) consider that – compared to those who have lost loved ones – to those who have themselves been ill – to those who have lost their livelihoods – to those, even, who have had to endure lock-down separated from family or in cramped and unsuitable quarters… we are undoubtedly blessed a thousand times over.

I hope that you will forgive me for wishing that, for us, it will remain that way. I truly wish that all were similarly blessed.

Even so…

It is difficult to look back at the autumns (falls) of previous years without a certain wistfulness adding itself to my habitual autumnal melancholia. Since The Girl and I found our way to these shores more than half a decade ago we have noted that Canadians (well, Victorians certainly) are in the habit of leavening the often dreary run in to the festive season by means of a variety of diversions and entertainments. We have – quite naturally – happily joined in.

Looking back over the past five years of autumnal blog entries I can see that music has featured strongly: Our annual rendezvous with Barney Bentall’s Cariboo Express has become almost a tradition and the season has also featured other regular charity concerts, such as those supported by Victoria’s ‘New Orleans inspired Funk Brouhaha‘ outfit The Hi Fi. The last few years have also seen one or more of us in attendance at gigs by artists such as Simple Minds, Cowboy Junkies and Skerryvore.

Theatre has also featured strongly. The Belfry usually starts its new season in the fall with us in anxious attendance, hoping for signs that this season will be a ‘doozy’ and that – come springtime – we will not be feeling faintly dissatisfied (as we occasionally do) with the fare on offer. Now is also the time of year that Intrepid Theatre normally goes into full-on fund-raising mode, with its annual ‘Merry & Bright‘ event at The Atrium downtown.

Not this year – of course…

I see also from my retrospective perusing that we have on more than one occasion enjoyed a trip to Vancouver during this season – often with some Rugby involvement. We had tickets this year for the Rugby Canada Halloween Event at BC Place in Vancouver which would have featured Canada, the USA, Fiji and an All Black XV. We had even booked our hotel!

We still have on our mantle a slightly sorry stack of tickets for various events – all of which have been postponed and will (hopefully) be rescheduled when it is safe so to do. But for now…

Sigh!!

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So… Rugby!

November 13, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Now – where was I?

Other more pressing matters have been occupying my attention over the past weeks (not necessarily in a good way) and it has been a while since I last posted a comment on the current happenings in the world of rugby.

Some might argue that focusing attention on a sport in these stressful times is the equivalent of sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears and loudly proclaiming “La la la la…!” – to which I reply – “Too right! That’s the whole idea“.

Now then…

Much has happened since my last rugby update. In my 4th October post – ‘Fourth Quarter‘ – the subject of Bath Rugby’s progress (or lack thereof) in the hastily reconvened Premiership was left on a cliff-hanger: they would make it through to the playoffs if the COVID affected game between Sale and Worcester Warriors failed to take place on the following Wednesday. As it turned out that game did not take place and Bath squeaked through to the semi-finals. Unfortunately there they met the eventual champions (of everything this year!) Exeter Chiefs, who proved considerably too much for them. Still – at the start of the season a semi-final slot would have been scarcely thinkable, so this still counts as a good result.

The Six Nations championship had been abandoned back in March with little more than one round left to play. That final round was eventual played on 31st October, with England away in Italy, Ireland away in France and Wales at home to the Scots. All that need be said was that the English did enough against Italy to hit the top of the table and the French win over Ireland in Paris proved close enough that neither side could overtake them.

The key game (for me, anyway) was the doughty performance of the Scots in dreadful conditions in Wales. It wasn’t pretty but the Scots came away with a 14 – 10 win; their first in Wales for eighteen years. This left them fourth in the championship with three wins out of five – and the best defensive record of the tournament! That definitely counts as a win in my book.

By some quirk of TV scheduling we also got to watch the four Bledisloe Cup games between the Aussies and the All Blacks. The latter took the series (again!) but didn’t have things all their own way. What was refreshing was to see rugby played again in front of a crowd. In New Zealand and Australia the pandemic is significantly more under-control than it is in the northern hemisphere.

And now…?

The Autumn Nations Cup! A (possibly) one-off replacement for the usual Autumn internationals – to be competed for by the six nations plus Georgia and Fiji. The tournament is to be played in two pools and would originally have featured Japan before COVID ruled that out and brought Georgia into the mix.

Anyway – it is starting as I write… so further reporting as things progress.

 

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Fourth quarter

October 4, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

The fourth quarter of the year starts as it always does – with the Kickass Canada Girl’s birthday. There have been times in the past when the celebrations have been really quite elaborate, involving a trip to some splendid resort or reservations at a fancy eatery (or on occasion – both!). We have many happy memories of these celebratory excursions; those to Bath and the Algarve perhaps standing out in particular.

There are other times – however – when something simple at home is the order of the day. In such pandemic-ridden times as these this latter was clearly called for. The Girl seems to have had a good time nonetheless, having seen loved ones and dear friends and having at least been wined and dined on my special homemade pizza accompanied by a rather stonking Chateauneuf du Pape.

Happy birthday to The Girl!

October also means that the first month of teaching is done. We have scampered through the opening laps – acclimatising ourselves to the pace – and we are now digging in for the long haul through to Christmas. There will doubtless be a point – as the climax of the race approaches – at which there will come a moment of truth, when we must needs push through the barrier, discover our true character and determine who the winners and runners up will be.

I think I have pushed that metaphor about as far as I reasonably can…

The nights are – naturally – drawing in (boo!) and the only remotely good thing about that is that, by the time that we are aware of it, we are more than halfway towards the shortest day. Now I know that the winter proper (as Canadians would have it) doesn’t kick in until January and February but – frankly – that is a problem for another time.

I can’t let this moment in time pass without making further reference to Bath Rugby.

Oh dear, oh dear!

Today saw the final round of matches in the Premiership, the which would determine the final four who would progress to the playoffs. Bath needed only to beat the grim Saracens to get through. Naturally, having led for much of the game they contrived to give up several scores as full-time approached – the fixture ending in a draw! This would have been enough to put Bath out, were it not for the fact that one of the other key fixtures – the Sale/Worcester clash – was postponed after Sale suffered sixteen positive COVID-19 tests! That match has been put back until Wednesday, but if further tests are also positive may not take place at all – which would mean that Bath sneak through to the finals instead.

So – three days (perhaps) on tenterhooks and then a hardly satisfactory outcome – whichever way it goes…

Oh dear!…

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As good as it gets?

September 17, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

What feels like just a few weeks back – but is in fact nearly a month – I wrote a post entitled ‘Welcome Back‘, which raised more than a cheer for the return of Premiership rugby in the UK. In its infinite wisdom (?) the Premiership had decided to complete the unfinished 2019/20 season by the end of October – a feat the achievement of which would require the playing of midweek matches as well as weekend games – before ploughing directly into the 2020/21 season.

Now – rugby is not like soccer (thanks goodness!). It is a contact sport (of course) and a tough one at that… without the dubious protection of the helmets and other accoutrements that are de rigeur in North American variants of the oval ball game.

This means that the players need more recovery time between fixtures than do top level footballers. Of course – there is also nowhere near as much money in rugby, so squads are smaller and one can’t simply run two fifteens in that way that soccer teams can field multiple elevens.

As a result the clubs are all experiencing a particularly intense period right at the moment. The fact that they had plenty of time to prepare during the lock-down has certainly helped – but it is going to be a long haul to the end of the next season.

From the rugby enthusiast’s point of view the more frequent games are rather wonderful – particularly as we went without for so long. If your club is not going so well – of course – it can get pretty depressing, as losses pile up even more rapidly than usual.

If you are doing well – on the other hand…

The gentle reader has probably guessed where this is going. Our team – Bath – has had a run of form such as it has not experienced since the year that we came to Canada. That year they made it through to the final and only lost to the beastly Saracens (boo!). This time Bath have won all of their games subsequent to the return bar one – and have also acquired a healthy crop of bonus points to boot. With two fixtures to go they are comfortably in the top four – which teams get through to the playoff stage.

Now I don’t want to jinx anything (though it is probably already too late for that). The way the season has panned out only the top five clubs have a chance of making the finals – which means that one of them is going to miss out. Bath does not have the easiest of run-ins and the other four are looking strong.

Still – whichever way it turns out this will have been one of their best seasons in recent memory – and that definitely merits a seriously huge cheer.

Come on you Bath!

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Welcome back!

August 22, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

I am delighted to be able to wish a warm “welcome back” to English Premiership Rugby!

Hoorah!

When the 2019/20 season was so abruptly terminated back in March in the face of the pandemic there were still nine rounds to be played and it was by no means certain that the program would ever be completed.

Now here we are – in the dog days of the summer – watching (where that is possible) rugger again and with the prospect of a great deal more of it to come. The 2019/20 season is to be wrapped up by the end of October – at which point the 2020/21 season will start immediately. The remaining fixtures in the abandoned 2020 Six Nations Championship are also to be shoehorned in and there is talk of some additional autumn internationals – which all adds up to a mouth-watering prospect.

The games are – of course – being played in empty stadia, which does take some getting used to. When one watches TV coverage of any of the matches one is immediately aware of the presence of an artificial ‘stadium noise’ soundtrack. This is actually quite cleverly done – incorporating as it does peaks and troughs that go someway towards emulating an authentically live ambience. What I don’t know is if this soundtrack is added only to the TV coverage, or if the players can hear it in the stadia.

Anyway – when we left them back in March my team – Bath Rugby – were hovering in the exact middle of the Premiership table. They made a good start in the first game back last week – beating London Irish comfortably at The Rec for a bonus point win – and this week they went one better, trouncing old rivals Leicester away at Welford Road. Granted that is not the challenge that once it was, but it is nonetheless still no mean feat. Let us hope that this momentum can be maintained.

It is very good to see live rugby again; a return to at least some semblance of normality.

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The tide turns

March 10, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

My reluctance of but a few weeks back to talk at all about this year’s rugby has magically dissipated. Naturally this has come about because the teams that I support have had a good weekend. Had Bath not been schooled quite so comprehensively and to quite such an embarrassing degree by Exeter at Sandy Park it might even have been a great rugby weekend.

England were far too much for Wales at Twickenham, rediscovering their form from the World Cup at just the right point. The final scores were, frankly, closer than the game merited, as a result of England being down to thirteen men for the final ten minutes (through their own fault it must be said). On the run of the play overall they should have won convincingly.

Scotland – having come close but failed to register a win in their first two encounters – had finally done the business two weeks ago in Rome. Now they needed to beat the resurgent (and Grand Slam hopefuls) France at Murrayfield. The unbeaten French have started each game in the championship thus far at a gallop and have successfully hung on to the ensuing leads. Scotland, however, rather surprisingly find themselves flaunting this year’s best defensive record in the Six Nations – their parsimony with the points almost living up to the national stereotype. This promised to be a good contest…

…and close it was for the first forty minutes. Then – in classic French style – one of their young and hot-headed forwards reacted to a bit of the customary pushing and shoving by landing a hay-maker on James Ritchie’s jaw. Now, Ritchie is the sort of man for whom the term ‘nuggety’ was coined and he simply shook it off. The Frenchman, however, was duly dispatched for the remainder of the game and the Scots turned in an admirably ruthless performance to beat their Gallic opponents comfortably.

Joy!

The tournament itself, however, is now affected badly by COVID-19. Next week’s ‘Super Saturday’ (when all three matches are normally played one after another) has been reduced to just the first game – the Scotland/Wales fixture in Cardiff. The other matches will be played at some future date (probably in the Autumn – if at all) which means that there will be no actual tournament winner anytime soon.

The situation certainly does lend perspective to what is – and the end of the day – just a sport, but it is a great shame nonetheless. Our very great sympathies to all those who have been and will be affected by the virus.

 

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Absence of…

February 15, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“Absence weakens mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out candles and kindles fires.

Rochefoucauld

Those gentle readers who pay attention to such things will be wondering why this journal has not thus far this season featured its usual pithy observations on the great sport of Rugby Union – this, after all, being the time of year that the fabulous Six Nations tournament takes place in Europe.

Of course, those who not only subscribe to these musings but also follow the sport themselves will be very aware of one of the reasons for my silence on the subject – that being the abject performance – both on and off the field – of the Scots.

Actually – that is unfair. To be certain the Finn Russell affair shows everyone involved in a poor light and to lose one’s star player in such a manner goes way beyond careless, but on the field the Scots have actually looked considerably more competitive than they sometimes do. There is no getting round the fact that, however unluckily, they lost to the Irish in Dublin and then had the misfortune of coming up against both the English and storm Ciara at Murrayfield. The English handled the atrocious conditions marginally better than did the Scots and deserved to win, but it was not the game that either side – nor the partisan crowd – wanted to see.

The Scots absolutely must win well in Rome against the Azzuri next time out or things will look really grim. The French seem to have been re-invigorated this year and the final game against a smarting Wales at the Principality is no-one’s idea of a stroll in the park.

The other reason for the relative quiet on the Rugby front this year is that the Americas Rugby Championship – the North and South American loose equivalent of the Six Nations – has been moved from its now customary berth in February to the summer months. This year the tournament will be played in August and September. It will certainly be good not to have to sit on the cold aluminium bench seating at Westhills, nor to have to watch the players struggling with the snow covered pitch, but it remains to be seen how this traditionally winter sport transfers to the summer months.

I will let you know.

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