There’s probably some deep explanation for why information for its own sake can be so important to some people
Posted in General on 09. Aug, 2010
There’s probably some deep explanation for why information for its own sake can be so important to some people. A precocious brat, I was told off by Miss Swainson in the third year of primary school for whispering to a class-mate. I was saying to him (and I cringe to think of it), “You know what my favourite word is? Information.” I’ll just get my anorak.
Watching Arsenal win the FA Cup (ITV) last Saturday, had me checking whether it was in 1888 or 1889 that Preston became the first club to do the Double. Lee was sent off for punching in the opening encounter and, ironicially, is now in Australia with the Scottish Test party. Lewsey cited pressure of exams, but his club consider him in breach of contract.The Wasps lock Simon Shaw is the latest player to pull out of England’s tour to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.Shaw, who has had to withdraw on medical grounds, is replaced by Gloucester’s uncapped lock Dave Sims England now have 19 uncapped players in their 37-man squad.. Neither Leicester nor Wasps managed to prevail against their scratch opponents in the previous two matches, probably because they were in the advanced stages of exhaustion.
Resilient as they may be, Newcastle may well find their task equally thankless this afternoon.The most serious business of the day takes place 100 or so miles to the west, where Bristol attempt to protect their top-flight status from the hungry wannabes of London Scottish. Bristol, meanwhile, may discipline their unsettled England tourist, the utility back Josh Lewsey, for declaring himself unavailable for play-off duty. Yesterday, however, Andrew hinted that he would step aside for at least some of the match against Philippe Sella’s World XV.It should ensure a flicker of genuine interest in what has been dismissed as a meaningless and unnecessary addition to the longest domestic campaign in the history of English rugby. The Exiles won last Sunday’s first leg 29-25 and might easily have done better still; certainly, John Steele, their coach, fancies his side’s chances of a repeat performance.”We played much the better rugby on Sunday and while the slate has been wiped clean for this game, we’ll be looking to play at pace and put a number of scores past them once more,’ he said.Iain McAusland, the Australian Under-21 international, replaces Derrick Lee at full-back. Winning the cup is one thing, but what Llanelli and Ebbw Vale are charged with doing is washing away the bitter taste of record-breaking Five Nations defeats, internecine wrangling between the leading clubs and the Welsh Rugby Union, the loss of one coach and the farcical non-appointment of another and the tragic injury to the Welsh captain Gwyn Jones.It promises to be an intriguing match, but any feelgood factor promises to be shortlived as tomorrow the 221 Welsh clubs will be attending a Special General Meeting to discuss possibly excluding Cardiff from membership and what shape the lower divisions will take next season..
JONNY WILKINSON’S reputation precedes him by such a distance that it is difficult to locate the player himself without the aid of a telescope, but Newcastle’s teenage prodigy is expected to appear in full view in the Sanyo Cup at Twickenham today. The newly crowned Premiership champions are preparing to give the 18- year-old midfielder a first senior start at outside-half, the position he seems destined to fill for England during this summer’s southern hemisphere tour.
Wilkinson has spent all season understudying Rob Andrew, the Falcons’ director of rugby, although he progressed sufficiently to force a place at centre during the latter stages of the title run-in. We lost to Cardiff in the League because we thought we had arrived and we went down to Neath because our eyes were on the Cup final. This is no flash in the pan and I don’t think there is a danger of us freezing on the big day. We have experienced players who have figured in Cup finals before, Tongan internationals who have played at Ellis Park and Loftus Versveldt in South Africa and players like myself, Byron Hayward and David Llewellyn who have been involved with Welsh teams this season.”It is a tough one to call and, heaven knows, the Welsh rugby public need a high-class, exciting spectacle to end their season. “I don’t think there is anything Llanelli can do if we play to our potential. No one can beat Ebbw Vale if we are at our best,” he said.”We’ve reached the final by beating three Premier Division teams, including both of last season’s finalists, and it would be awful if we threw it all away at the final hurdle.
We have taken the tough route to this final and we know that on merit we deserve to win it. The players also know, though, that it is a one-off occasion and we still have to go out and play to our best.”Every game we have lost this season we deserved to lose. The Australian Open followed suit in 1988, leaving Wimbledon as the last oasis.”Some say that grass is for cows,” Rusedski remarked recently. There has always been this idea that having established themselves as a great club, things would automatically tick over. Even now, I hear people saying: “Don’t worry, it will sort itself out.” Sadly, things don’t sort themselves out any more.
It was not, to be fair, just any old kick, coming as it did in the last minute of the 1984 cup final with Bath; had Stuart Barnes, the new boy wonder of English rugby, not allowed the pressure to splinter his usual sang-froid, he would have retained the John Player trophy for his side and, in the view of many romantics, strangled the “Bath era” at birth.That Barnes would soon help transform Bath into the greatest club side of them all remains the most bitter of ironies for Bristol and it is perhaps understandable that his name should remain mud on the Memorial Ground terraces. The good Lord had the perfect surname when you consider what needs to happen to racing’s top brass. The rousing now is to be done by Peter Savill, businessman, racehorse owner, Wakeham-hater and, the description he won’t tolerate, Cayman Islands- based tax exile.
For one, the new chairman of the BHB has been based in Ireland for the last two years. He and his wife, Ruth, have a young son and are expecting an addition to the string “And I’ve never been a tax exile,” he says “I’ve made all my money living abroad. I left England without a penny in my pocket and developed businesses in the Caribbean, America and South America.