Wiltshire Warrior Dragon

Not known to me, but an informative piece about him on BBC Radio 4's Last Word programme on Friday/yesterday.

Et Joyeux Paques a toi, John! (and my thanks to the very pleasant, French woman who works on the check-out tills at the main Tesco's in Salisbury and who reminded me this afternoon that 'Paques' is the French word for Easter!)

I hope for your neighbour's sake that he isn't so tired after a sleepless week that he nods off in the middle of the game!

I mentioned Micheal O'Hehir in the context of Gaelic games. One of his successors for many a decade was Micheal Ó Muircheartaigh who had a strong Kerry accent and inclination to come out with memorable, quirky one-liners in mid commentary, all of which made him as memorable as his predecessor. I suspect I have listed these on this forum before, but these lines from him are well worth another airing: - "Teddy looks at the ball, the ball looks at Teddy..." - "Seán Óg Ó hAilpín: his father's from Fermanagh, his mother's from Fiji. Neither a hurling stronghold." - "Anthony Lynch, the Cork corner-back, will be the last person to let you down - his people are undertakers." - "I saw a few Sligo people at Mass in Gardiner Street this morning and the omens seem to be good for them. The priest was wearing the same colours as the Sligo jersey! 40 yards out on the Hogan Stand side of the field, Ciarán Whelan goes on a rampage… it's a goal! So much for religion." - "The stopwatch has stopped. It’s up to God and the referee now. The referee is Pat Horan. God is God." - "In the first half they played with the wind. In the second half they played with the ball." - "Pat Fox has it on his hurl and is motoring well now, but here comes Joe Rabbitte hot on his tail… I’ve seen it all now, a Rabbitte chasing a Fox around Croke Park!" - "Pat Fox out to the 40 and grabs the sliothar. I bought a dog from his father last week. Fox turns and sprints for goal. The dog ran a great race last Tuesday in Limerick. Fox to the 21 fires a shot, it goes to the left and wide... and the dog lost as well." - "Teddy McCarthy to Mick McCarthy, no relation. Mick McCarthy back to Teddy McCarthy, still no relation." - "And here's Sylvie Linnane, who drives a digger on a Monday and turns into one on a Sunday." - "Colin Corkery on the 45 lets go with the right boot. It's over the bar. This man shouldn't be playing football. He's made an almost Lazarus-like recovery from a heart condition. Lazarus was a great man, but he couldn't kick points like Colin Corkery." - "Stephen Byrne with the puck-out for Offaly. Stephen, one of 12. All but one are here today, the one that's missing is Mary, she’s at home minding the house. And the ball is dropping i lár na bpáirce." - "He's not a big man, he’s not a small man, he’s what you might call a handy man." - "And Brian Dooher is down injured. And while he is, I'll tell ye a little story. I was in Times Square in New York last week, and I was missing the Championship back home. So I approached a news stand and I said, 'I suppose ye wouldn’t have The Kerryman, would ye?' To which, the Egyptian behind the counter turned to me and he said, 'Do you want the north Kerry edition, or the south Kerry edition?' He had both - so I bought both. And Dooher is back on his feet."

Micheal O'Hehir was the main RTE commentator on Gaelic games when I first 'discovered' them in the 1960s. Many in the Irish diaspora, here in Britain and far beyond, would have huddled around a crackling portable radio on a Sunday afternoon to hear his commentaries. I once said to an Irish friend of mine in Bristol, who I knew had been 'back home' and at a particular match the previous Sunday, that it must have been a great game, judging by O'Hehir's commentary to which I had listened. No, I was told, it was a dour affair. This made me realise O'Hehir's skill in making each match sound sensationally exciting, whether, in reality, it was or was not!

I agree. Benaud's great virtue was his ability to distinguish between radio and TV commentaries and, more specifically in the case of the latter, to keep his commentary to the minimum required.

I understand what you are saying, MD, but the sport which, at the age of 74, I still manage to play competitively, adapted some years ago, I am told to secure a TV audience and hence 'survive'. The sport is table tennis and I first played in the Northallerton League, from 1969 to 1974. I next played in the Keighley League, from 1979 to 1988. At the time, and in both those leagues, the match format was that each of three players in a team played each of their three opponents in a singles match - so nine singles sets in all - followed by a final, tenth set, which was a doubles match. I returned to the sport in 2015 - a small matter of 27 years after I last played! - this time in the Salisbury League, and continue to play in that for my village club. What I discovered on starting again in 2015 was that the structure of each set had changed. Instead of having a set decided on the basis of three first-to-21-points games, it was now best of five, with each game just being to 11 points. This means that each server now gets two serves before the serving switches. This contrasts with five serves in a first-to-21 encounter. I liked that five-serves-in-a-row approach; you could think through a strategy of how to vary the five serves you had, but you cannot do that realistically with just two serves at a time. So, why this change from a 21-point to 11-point game? Well, as I say above (and so I am told), the table tennis powers-that-be were told they had to shorten games to appeal to TV audiences. Therefore, us local league players are stuck with this inferior format. I still enjoy the game enough to want to play, but it could be much better. Let me know when you next hear of a table tennis tournament getting widesprwad TV coverage...but I'm not holding my breath!

Mrs WWD and I heard our first cuckoo of the year this morning on the usual New Forest dog walk.

Wow, Oxford, haven't seen you on here for a long time; welcome back! Agree with your comment. And I take Daz's point about the good performances from some of the less experienced players.

i think the final scoreline caption on the Sky coverage said it was something like 3,638 (or thereabouts)

But the VR would not be involved, MZH. It would be an automated process, determined in a few seconds.

Maybe SL grounds need to be equipped with Hawk Eye to decide if kicks at goal have gone between the uprights!

A good read; I recommend it.

Curses, covusxiii, you've rumbled me! The quarterly magazine NarrowBoat always has the strapline 'The Inland Waterways Heritage Magazine'. The latest (Spring) edition has a photo-feature of barges at Goole Docks; the colour photos date from 1966. One of the photo captions describes 'a tug towing a train of nearly 30 pans..' and then adds that they were "..better known as Tom Puddings further along the A&C", which suggests a more localised use of that term than I had realised. Incidentally, two editions back of the same magazine (Autumn, 2024) had both more 1966 colour pictures from Yorkshire - this time in Selby - and some much older, black and white photos of traffic on the eastern section of the A&C, between Knottingley and Goole. There is also an official, A&C Navigation picture (in effect, a detailed sketch that has been annotated) describing how the hoists at places like Goole Docks worked, to unload the contents of Tom Puddings into larger, sea-going boats. Maybe your barge unloader was like that.

I think Tom Pudding, the legendary Castleford winger of the Northern Union era, used to travel along the Aire & Calder Navigation to get to home ties.

I am not long back home from a very interesting presentation to the RSPB South Wilts local group about swifts, whose numbers in this country have sadly declined at an alarming rate. One amazing statistic we learnt about the swift's life cycle concerned young swifts. As a species they do most things while in mid-air, including eating, sleeping, collecting nest material (to the extent they need any) and having sex. The one thing that usually entices them to stop flying is nest building, which leads to egg laying and brooding. However, swifts are typically four years old before they start breeding. Therefore, when a young swift finally leaves its nest, it may be continuously on the wing for about four years! The wonders of nature never cease to amaze me.

Sorry to be pedantic, Stevo (actually, not that sorry!), but in England in the 12th century, the drink in question would have been ale, I think. It would have lacked the critical ingredient which I think in those days would have made ale different from beer, namely hops. In the early 16th century, parts of modern day Germany were getting quite particular about the contents of beer (both what was permitted and what was not), embodying the requirements in the law; hops were a key ingredient. Concurrently, of course, initially fuelled by the likes of Martin Luther, the Reformation was getting under way. England, in due course, imported both, hence the contemporary doggerel, "Hops, Reformation, bays and beer, came into England all in one year", which I think would date from the middle or second half of the 16th century.

I have been giving some thought to your original question, Phil. On balance, I would take the gig. That you involve yourself with an organisation doesn't mean that you approve of every aspect of its work or of its history. I sing tenor in the Salisbury Cathedral Chamber Choir (it's the 'reserve' choir in the cathedral that sings a service about once a month on one of the day's when the professional choir is absent) and direct, and sing tenor in, a village church choir near Salisbury. However, I am disgusted by some of the child abuse issues within the C of E and how the hierarchy handled them, but I don't think anything is gained by my distancing myself from all the church's work and activities, some of which I think are commendable. I like Old Faithful's idea of wearing RL shirts on stage! OriginalMrC is correct in demonstrating how we can easily fall into the trap of naive simplicity. RU has never been merely a toffs' game. he mentions the Coventry area; I can think of other locations with strong working class involvement in RU, including the Scottish border towns, the Forest of Dean and the Cornish mining areas. RL, conversely, has historically had useful middle and upper class connections, such as the Lords Derby, and the mill and pit owners who were one of the prime forces behind the early NU days; for instance, am I not right to think that the Kilner family (as in KIlner jars) were at the centre of NU developments in Wakefield and thereabouts while simultaneously being factory owners? Enjoy playing...and maybe throw in a subversive comment or two between numbers!

Merci!

Hope you enjoyed Wells, HG. It's a great place. I used to have a part-time job, nominally based there, though in most weeks I was there one day a week and at home (or out and about on work visits) for two.

I am grateful to Sky for showing all games live, but their presentation of some of them still leaves much to be desired. Dave Woods is fine as a commentator and Jon Wells a good analyst of key moments because he actually analyses them; I think he is in fact Sky's best analyst. However, I thought the obsession with replaying incidents such as knocks-on when there was live play going on and endlessly showing us the coaching staff of each team became exceptionally irritating. Maybe the director is more used to rugby union in which, quite obviously, you have many moments when the ball is not in play which you need to fill!

Mine too, Harry. There is a slightly depressing conservatism to the choices that Sky seem to make for matches directly available on Main Event or wherever.

What a brilliant, lovely post, SFG. Many thanks for it!

I think Mourgue's progress has stalled a little in the last twelve months. I cannot think of a better move for him than the SL team coached by Willie Peters. Mourgue will also bring his highly reliable kicking ability. Inevitably, the big question might be how do he and his partner cope with living in a land with a foreign language and culture. We will see!

Half time just now in Avignon where the hosts and Pia are tied at 18 all. It's live on YouTube.