Desire 2

Congratulations must go to the England Rugby team for preventing an Australian whitewash on the rugby field.

They strangled Australia out of the game, and forced ordinary performances from the team that destroyed them only a week earlier.

Whether it was a bad day at the office for Australia, or it was England playing far better than even they might have thought, is nobodys business but the coaches. Suffice it say that Martin Johnson and his men must have said something right during the last week. England wanted 'it' more than they have shown in the past few seasons, and rewarded the faithful with a win.

Poor old Rocky Elsom, however. No doubt the Australians were completely exhausted after their efforts, but to have to stand up twice (once for the camera, and once on the stage) and thank everyone for their support, when the fickle crowd had left the stadium almost completely empty, must have been a heavy cross. 

Thank you Australia, we might just have turned the corner. Long way to go, however.

Cheers,

Rucker

Desire

It's all about desire for the footballers. The effort put in to these games seems to be inversely proportional to the financial rewards gained. The England team, undoubtedly better drilled, fitter and more skillful, not to mention infinitely wealthier, than their Algerian opposition, clearly thought that it was 'only Algeria', and figured it would be a lot easier than it actually was. 

All credit must go to the Algerians, as they ran their socks off, especially into the dying minutes, where England seemed to be coasting around the park, assuming the goals would come. They didn't, and a 0-0 draw was all they deserved.

In fact, if it went down to effort, Algeria should have won.

Cheers,

Rucker.

Great Headline

USA Wins, 1-1.

Fantastic. With twice as many US employees than UK employees, they'll be saying the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the UK's fault.
You have to hand it to them - nothing is ever their fault, and even when it's a draw, it's a win for them.
Cheers,
Rucker.

Schooled

It disappoints me to say that the Northern Hemisphere was comprehensively schooled in the arts of attacking rugby over the weekend.

Save for the boot of Dan Parks, Scotland would have been rolled over by the continuous 'go forward' of the Argentine attack. 

England taught the Aussies a lesson in scrummaging, but in the wise words of, someone-or-other, 'a scrum does not a team make'. Everything else in the the game went the way of the Aussies. They knocked us back in attack, defence, the kicking game, even the lineouts were no pushover. Only the (reverting to type) power of the England scrum kept us in the game.

Ireland and France were quite simply blown away but New Zealand and South Africa respectively.

If that is the best the Northern Hemisphere can do (French sides currently hold the 6N, Grand Slam, and the Heineken Cup), we might as well not bother next year.

Once again, (I haven't mentioned it in these pages yet, but it will become a recurring theme) we need to shake up the coaching / management staff. The biggest (best) thing to do would be to admit we were wrong with the appointment of Martin Johnson, and get Jake White in. He came knocking three years ago, and was rudely rebuffed. Now more than ever, we need an establish international coach at the helm, and it has been proven that none of our current crop can cut the mustard.

Frustrated now.

Cheers,

Rucker.

Etisalat SMS Spam

Sorry to bang on about this, but I've had enough.

I very much doubt whoever is in charge of these cr4p SMSs is reading this, but it will make me a lot happier if the names of these w4nkers is out there.

My list so far is:

MAVENSPA

SPRINGSHOES

JEANSWEST

NINEWEST

FreeFifaWC (why? I prefer rugby and sailing...)

PFChangs

AHC

FIFASMS

GLafayette

DEWA

Evision (an Etisalat subsidiary)

etisalat themselves bombard me with cr4p, and they say that you cannot block etisalat promotional messages.

Will you all please just @£$% ^&* and leave me alone?
And just to top it off, just as I'm signing off, someone sends me a spam SMS FROM A PHONE NUMBER! No surprises that no-one answers when I call back, but a brief reply stating that the Police have been informed makes me happy!

Cheers,

Rucker

Concept 2

What a bastard of a machine. There is no hiding place. If you don't try you won't make the distance.

Yesterday, I managed a portly 7253m in half an hour.

Today, at what felt like flat out pace I managed 7246m. 7m shorter.

Bit disappointed with that, although I remember about 10 years ago, when I went on my last erg bender, the first few goes seemed to stick at a portly pace, and then after about 3 or 4 workouts, the pace came on hugely. 

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if I smashed the 7500 barrier tomorrow.

Or would it?

Cheers,

Rucker

Holidays

On a lighter note, we're going on our annual pilgrimage to the motherland in a few weeks, where we hope to catch up with all our mates, and do some sailing!

We bought an Optimist last year, and I hope to get my daughter well up to speed before she embarks on a week long sailing course at the end of summer.

Obviously, I don't fit in an Oppie anymore, so I'll be doing a lot of swimming!

Cheers,

Rucker

Etisalat SMS Spam

Exasperated, I have just received my fourth phone call from Etisalat, having registered a complaint that I receive too much SMS spam.

Unscrupulous government / bank / service provider staff have clearly sold lists of phone numbers to marketing companies, who then bombard the numbers they have with meaningless drivel and promotions which, judging from feedback from friends, no-one is interested in.

Apparently, there is a mechanism to block unwanted senders, but it doesn't work at the moment. This is a formatted SMS to an Etisalat registered code, and has been 'active' for quite some time. I even tried using it a few years back, but more messages pour in.

The solution I was given today (and yesterday, and the day before) was to call the private companies themselves, and 'deregister' my phone number. This is only going to highlight my number as active, and invite further unwanted spam SMS. 

I have a list of twenty companies currently spamming me, and I do not have the time or the energy to call each one and explain to the numpty at the other end that I wish my number to be removed from their SMS system.
Sorry, but, no.

A message to Etisalat - create an option for people to opt out of all marketing SMSs, and publicise it. You will win many more subscribers.

Rant over.

Cheers,

Rucker