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Leaving us speechless

April 21, 2024 in Life as we know it | No comments

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”

Ibn Battuta

Almost exactly eleven months ago The Girl and I set out on the journey that is not to be mentioned. Since then my only contact with airlines and airports has been to drop off or to pick up those who have themselves been traveling.

The Girl took a much needed break in Mexico at the end of last year, but I was teaching and could not abandon my students. Since then all of the excursions that have taken place have featured her alone. The new job (concerning which I will shortly be able to divulge more) has taken her – since the New Year – to New Westminster, Vancouver, Kamloops (twice), to Seattle, to Prince George and – most recently – to Fort St. John (practically up in the Arctic circle!). That’s a lot of running around…

Now, though, it is finally time for us both to set forth together again on an expedition that has already been trailed in these postings. We leave in a few days time for Scotland – land of my forefathers – for three weeks of touring.

I liked the Ibn Battuta quote that heads this piece not only for its astute reflection on the manner in which foreign lands can initially overtake one’s power of speech, but also for the notion that we return from such expeditions laden with incidents, encounters and experiences which we are just bursting to share with the world. We are able to do this through the medium of storytelling – in any of its various forms. The subject has been in my mind a fair bit of late because Anam Danu’s recent musical creations have included meditations on the importance and relevance of storytelling. That may well indeed prove to be the key topic of our nascent album (regarding which much more later)…

I feel moved to include here a second quotation – this time from Rainer Maria Rilke (a poet whom I have long admired most highly) from the ninth of his Duino Elegies.

“For when the traveler returns from the mountain-slopes into the valley, he brings, not a handful of earth, unsayable to others, but instead some word he has gained, some pure word, the yellow and blue gentian. Perhaps we are here in order to say: house, bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree, window – at most: column, tower. . . . But to say them, you must understand, oh to say them more intensely than the Things themselves ever dreamed of existing“.

More scribblings – and images – to follow…

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Luck of the draw

October 18, 2023 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Just a few short months ago – back in August – I waxed lyrical in a post on these very pages on the subject of the delights and pleasures that we anticipated would be associated with the then upcoming 2023 Rugby World Cup.

This gripping competition has now arrived at the sharp end – with the quarter final matches having taken place this weekend just passed and with only the semis and the final to come.

The gentle reader may be wondering – therefore – why there has been a stony silence in these quarters on the subject since that last posting. Have we not been enjoying the splendid matches with which we have been regaled by the French hosts?

Well – yes, we have. There has been much joyous and exciting play at all levels of the competition – and some great games. It is truly wonderful to see the progress that has been made by a number of the Tier 2 sides.

The tournament has, however, been somewhat tarnished by the fact that – because the draw which resulted in the seeding for the competition was made more than three years ago – a number of sides have found themselves at a considerable disadvantage in terms of their current strengths. I have already made mention of the fact that the poor Scots (before the tournament ranked as number 5 in the world) found themselves in a pool which also included the world’s number 1 side – the Irish – and the number 3 side (and current world champions)- the South Africans. Other sides with considerably lower rankings found themselves in relatively easy pools.

I lamented in my previous post that the Scots would need to play out of their skins to get out of the pool stages – the which they duly failed to do.

This might just sound like the gripings of a sore loser, but the lop-sided nature of the draw has had other and greater effects. For example, the current top four sides in the world – the Irish, the All Blacks, the Saffers and the French might have expected to meet each other in a pair of titanic semi-finals, yielding two worthy contenders for the final. The latter will certainly still happen, but those two eagerly anticipated encounters actually took place in the quarter finals (Ireland/All Blacks – France/South Africa) and the two semifinals will as a result also include two sides who – with due respect to the Argentinians and to the English – are not playing at anywhere near the same level.

This is frankly disappointing and – whereas it will not in anyway diminish our enjoyment of the tournament – should not be allowed to happen again.

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Best game on earth

August 11, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“RUGBY: No Time-Outs, No Blockers, No Pads = Best Game On Earth!”

When The Girl and I moved to Vancouver Island eight years ago and purchased our lovely home on the Saanich peninsula, one of the first things we did in our new abode was to watch the key matches in the 2015 Rugby World Cup – the which was taking place at that time back in the old country.

Now – as is often the way with such sporting events, the Rugby World Cup takes place every four years; the next tournament was thus held in 2019 – in Japan.

Now, this all means – you’ve got it! – 2023 is also a Rugby World Cup year! This year’s eagerly awaited event kicks off in September and is being hosted by the French. I will doubtless be posting more on the subject as the competition approaches.

What is happening at this point, however, is that the national sides that made it through the qualification rounds to the finals are currently engaged in warm-up matches and we are all watching keenly, looking for clues as to form and potential. This is rendered considerably more tricky by the sides taking the opportunity to experiment with squads and tactics, making it difficult to gauge exactly how each team is progressing.

The Scots (in whom, as you doubtless know, I have an interest) have now played two warm-up matches, the first against Italy (a slightly unconvincing but nonetheless welcome victory) followed by the first of two games against France, who are one of the favourites to lift the trophy in a couple of month’s time.

This match was at Murrayfield and – as expected – the French fielded what was essentially a second string side. Given the overall strength of their squad, however, such matters are somewhat immaterial – as was rapidly demonstrated by the powerful French side storming out to a 21 – 3 lead at half time.

The Scots – having clearly been on the end of some strong words during the break – came back at the start of the second half with a try of their own, but were shortly thereafter reduced to fourteen men following the sending off of prop, Zander Fagerson, for a dangerous clear-out that resulted in a head impact.

There would have been a time when the Scots would have folded, but this cohort are made of sterner stuff. in spite of being a man down they took the game to the French, scored two further good tries, before the nerveless Finn Russell slotted the penalty that won the Scots the game.

Though this was all most exciting and great to see, the Scots really are going to be up against it as things progress. Not only do they have a return warmup fixture this coming weekend in St. Etienne against the French first VI, but once the tournament proper starts in a few weeks time the Scots will have a serious battle to make it out of the group stages, facing – as the draw has most cruelly handed them – both South Africa and Ireland – who, along with France and the All Blacks, make up the top four seeds.

Ouch!

Still, we Scots are expecting – and hoping for – great things!

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Huzzah!

February 7, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Image by <a href=" https://www.vectorportal.com" >Vectorportal.com</a>, <a class="external text" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" >CC BY</a>It is not often that one gets to celebrate happy occurrences two days running. This just happens to be one of those occasions.

In my last post I announced the long-awaited arrival last Friday of my shiny new Canadian passport.

“Hurrah” – says I!…

Then – on the very next day – Scotland triumphed at Twickenham over the auld enemy in the Calcutta Cup.

“Hurrah and twice hurrah” – I cry!…

Yes – it is that splendid weekend at the start of an otherwise gloomy February when the Northern Hemisphere’s greatest sporting event – the Six Nations Rugby tournament – kicks off. This year – being a Rugby World Cup year – promises to be particularly exciting, with the current top two sides in world Rugby – the Irish and the French – taking part. Both sides started with an away win – the Irish convincingly at the Principality in Cardiff – the latter rather more tenuously in Rome against the Azzuri.

The final match was the aforementioned Calcutta Cup clash between Scotland and England at Twickenham. There was a time – not so long ago – that the Scots routinely took a drubbing at the Cabbage Patch. Indeed, one had to look back a long way to find any Scots wins at all. Of late and for the moment, however, the worm has turned. Scotland have won the last three such encounters – including consecutive wins away from home. This is splendid stuff! Over the last six years the English have won once – there was a magnificent 38-38 draw at Twickers – and the remaining four wins have gone north of the border.

So far, so good. However, the Scots are all too aware that they have not, of late, been able to follow up these excellent wins with consistent results elsewhere. Now – no-one is expecting them to beat either the Irish or the French this year, but wins against the struggling Welsh and the greatly improved Italians would be most welcome.

Fingers – etc – firmly crossed and many pious invocations to the rugby gods duly rendered…

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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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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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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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