Up Chuck

We've seen the blue man before, though, i'm thinking last series in a bar with River...

According to the CV of Simon Fisher Becker, who plays him, the character's name is Dorium Maldavar, which is probably a misspelling of Maldovar, given that the bar we saw him in with River was called the Maldovarium. Plus, in that prequel, he claims to hear and see everything that happens there, so I'm guessing he owns the place. Wonder how much of a part he'll play in this series...

As a side note, I like to pretend that the "handsome young time agent" off whom he stole the vortex manipulator for River was Captain Jack, and that the Maldovarium was the bar in which we saw Jack in 'The End of Time'. But that's probably just me, especially on the latter.

Or am I looking too deeply into it?

This is Doctor Who. Ergo, there is no such thing as looking too deeply into it. On that note, it's worth mentioning that we also saw River in a forest last series too.

However, I think that line's more likely to be a reference to something yet to come in this series - especially as it was mentioned in The Brilliant Book in a list of teasers about this series. No point setting up something you've already paid off, after all.

Neil Gaiman needs to write more episodes. That was one of the best episodes ever.

 

"Biting's like kissing, only someone wins."

Actually, that line was (almost certainly) a throwback to Steven Moffat's Jekyll, in which Hyde has the line "Have you ever killed anyone, Benjamin? You're missing out! It's like sex, but there's a winner!"

Anyway, yeah, I was in tears by the end of this. Absolutely PERFECT. I'm only just getting into Neil Gaiman (about 2/3rds through American Gods at the moment), but god, he's superb, isn't he?

...here's some more Nearlytwats...

 

...Lenny Henry...

I'll take credit for this one. I wanted to post my rant here, because I remember being quite proud of it, but it doesn't seem to be in my "Sent" folder

What? Wales won and Butch hasn't been in here crowing about it? I feel like there's nothing I can believe in any more

Anyway, yeah, amazing win for Italy, didn't see Wales vs Ireland but it's a great result for Wales. As for England, big fat meh. Performances like that will not hold up come World Cup time. As far as positives go, Croft took his try well, Ashton was running good angles now and then, Foden looked dangerous going forwards at times, but I can't think of much else. The binding in the scrum from both sides was frustratingly bad. Youngs' usual good ideas didn't have any impact at all, and I think our attack actually sharpened up a bit when Care came on. He was picking his passes more patiently.

I don't know. We've shown we're capable of beating very good sides, we've shown we're capable of playing very well. We're definitely capable of winning most games. But I just can't feel it after performances like that. Looking at the World Cup brackets, I was fancying us to take 1st place in our pool, then get France in the quarter-finals and grind out a result, then if it's our day sneak past Australia in the semis and lose to New Zealand in the final. Now, I'm kind of nervous about playing Argentina.

EDIT: Forgot, massive kudos to Max Evans for that excellent try. That'll be a highlight reel piece for years.

Spoke too soon... we're still top though! Rotten game, harsh as hell for Billy Twelvetrees to miss the last penalty. Hopefully it won't knock his confidence, because he was excellent covering for Flood and Staunton earlier in the season. We wouldn't be top of the table if he hadn't been. Losing to Saracens at home for the second consecutive season has left a real bitter taste in my mouth too. Not happy. We'd better make sure we win fucking EVERYTHING when we've got the internationals back.

Six Nations week off this week, so I thought it was an appropriate time to take a look at the domestic run-in.

Having looked at the games the top few teams have left, I get the feeling the top four will end up being Tigers, Saracens, Northampton and Gloucester. I think Bath are heading into some tough games but they should be taking 5th, leaving Irish and Quins to battle it out for the last Heineken Cup spot (that, however, depends on the LV Cup result, and whether Wasps can mount a late surge). Tigers should be winning all the matches we've got left, but it looks to me like there's room for us to slip up once and still take 1st. Sarries and Saints, I think, will each be fighting it out for a home semi-final against the other, but with Saints 12 points behind, I'm not sure they can catch up. Gloucester, if they can get results at home, should be taking 4th now, but if Bath beat them tomorrow then who knows?

If it pans out how I'm envisioning it, then it'll be Tigers vs Gloucester and Saracens vs Northampton in the semis. Very similar to last year, in that Tigers have a not-necessarily-easy-but-very-winnable home semi, and the other one is the same match with the venue reversed. Sarries/Saints is a pick'em, and either would make for a tough, tough final for Tigers. I think from a neutral perspective, the East Midlands derby is the most exciting option for the final, especially if England end up winning the 6 Nations - England's two key back pairings (Youngs/Flood and Ashton/Foden) facing off for their clubs, on the site of much of their International success, for the English title. How great would that be?

That says it all really, doesn't it? The US gets shitloads of channels, but they can't get Al Jazeera? Aren't they also prone to bombing the shit out of their offices as well?

Yep. As I understand it, they were quite keen on Al Jazeera prior to 9/11, dishing out praise for their impartiality, then afterwards things turned sour. I have to admit, for some years, I knew it as the channel that broadcast Bin Laden's messages and nothing more, purely because that's the only time it ever got mentioned in Western media since I've been aware enough to take in the news.

Not yet, but Obama apparently gets it in his office and watches it regularly. There was a Twitter campaign to get it over there during the height of the Egypt protests.

For those who are interested, I've started reviewing Dr Who from the very beginning as part of my review blog. It can be found Here

Christ, good luck with that! Hell of a hefty project. How are you going to do the missing episodes?

And yeah, real sad about Nicholas Courtney. Even if he was still around, Moffat's not that keen on bringing back old faces for the cheap pop, but who knows, there could have been a good story in it. Alas, we'll never get to know.

I'm interested to see how he fits in. Scrummaging against Castrogiovanni isn't going to make anyone's debut easy, let's hope he can step up to it!

EDIT: Step up to it, then completely forget how he did so before Tigers play Irish in May, of course.

Another question for y'all. How do we grow the game internationally when nine of the top twelve teams in the world control all the money and where many decent nations do not have professional structures?

I can't pretend I'm particularly up on the economic situation of the game, but rugby-wise, it seems like slow progress is being made. Professional structure, of course, costs money to implement and run, and that cash can only really come from investment or ticket sales. Investment relies on a club's viability as a business, which in turn relies on popularity. So, we need more teams around the world playing rugby that people want to watch in tournaments that matter. Tournaments mattering mean that clubs need to be playing good rugby, so that people want to see them playing it against each other.

Now, the roots of this seem to be sprouting - anybody who's seen Treviso play this season can see how much they've improved since joining the Magners League, and hopefully in a few years Aironi or another team will have improved similarly, and they'll go back to the Super 10, taking that quality back to their own domestic system. Maybe some Italian teams can cycle in and out of the Magners, but even just for now, it's put Treviso in the position of the new big boys of Italian rugby - and as such, given every Italian fan a reason to want to go along and watch when Treviso come to town.

Going further afield than Italy, who are obviously doing pretty well in the grand scheme of things, I'd advocate dropping a couple of English places in Europe to allow, say, Russia to do something like Romania have with Bucuresti Oaks - IE a team entered into the European Challenge Cup, comprised of players from the domestic leagues. Those players get valuable seasoning against better teams, which they then take back to their clubs, and the quality of rugby across the nation's league gradually improves as a result.

Anyway, this is just me throwing out ideas, and I don't pretend that I'm anything like an expert.

EDIT: Andrew Sheridan's out of tomorrow's game with a back injury, Alex Corbisiero replaces him. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_unio...ish/9393433.stm

Forgot to post on the thread, silly me. If ever it was underlined how much England need an organising scrum half like Youngs, it was when Danny Care trotted out onto the pitch. Phase after phase of rucking, camped out on the Welsh try-line against defence we were never going to breach. What was needed was somebody who had a bit of vision and a voice, instead Care gets bullied into pointless rucking, we give up a penalty and lose possession. Set up the drop goal, keep the scoreboard ticking over, that's the English way. Instead, it was like last year all over again, where we repeatedly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Totally agreed, and not just because I'm massively gay for Ben Youngs (DID I MENTION HE WAS IN MY GIRLFRIEND'S YEAR AT COLLEGE). Youngs adds so much going forwards, and not just because he seems to have a sixth sense for finding gaps in the opponent's line. Again, I think the pairing of him and Flood is of great value, but Youngs really does know how to make the most of an attack, whatever the situation. Unless I'm much mistaken, I think he played at 10 during his youth career, maybe that helps him figure out what the best options are, where the ball should be going etc. But yeah, in comparison, Care's got next to nothing. He's not *bad*, per se, he's just mediocre at international level. I really don't get Johnson's habit of substituting almost everyone who's been any good, dead on the hour, in every game.

England are always three men away from a good side. The pack looks very good, as do the half backs and the back three. Then you have Hape and Tindall. Tindall's been around, he's a battering ram and what he does works sometimes, sometimes it doesn't but I'm not sold on Hape. We've spent so long looking for the replacement for Wilkinson and, more pressingly, Matt Dawson's natural successor and I think with Youngs' emergence and Flood's vast improvement, we're looking good at 9 and 10. Now it's 12 and 13.

I think the fact that said 9/10 pairing play together at club level helps enormously too. Youngs and Flood are both tremendous in their own right, and having them play together almost every week means that by now, they know each other's strengths inside out.

Centre-wise, Tindall is still ace on his day, but it's at the point where you have to wonder how many days he's got left. He could prove to be a fairly viable World Cup prospect over the next few games, but I'd much, much rather have us using this tournament to groom someone new for that position - but then, who?

The future looks a touch brighter at 12 and 13, though. As much as I hate to crow about Tigers guys constantly, Manu Tuilagi and Billy Twelvetrees have looked great for us this season and linked up well for the Saxons last week. Obviously both guys are far from being the finished article, but they've both amassed some big-game experience and Manu in particular could be worth a gamble as injury cover for the World Cup. I mean for god's sake, Georgia are in our group, surely a guy who's running in tries in the Heineken Cup can put one or two past them.

EDIT: As I was going to say before I got caught up rambling, I'll be down at Tigers tonight (wouldn't bother if I didn't have a season ticket, the LV Cup's basically a reserve run-out for us this year), will Wales/England be on iPlayer?

Does anyone know a good place to watch Over The Limit online?

firstrow.net is pretty good, as well as the ones mentioned. With justin.tv, there's a good chance the stream'll get pulled at some point (moreso than the other two anyway).

Other than Ryder, Matt Striker was drafted away as a wrestler and then went back as the commentator. Don't believe there's anyone else.

I know you're right about that, but I can't place when his period as a manager was between then. I'm SURE he was wrestling on ECW directly before switching to managing Big Daddy V... did he leave ECW after that? That doesn't seem right...

Both your unabashed and frankly unnerving certainty, and my quiet confidence, proved to be entirely unjustified. Our respective guys all got the mediocrity they deserved this time around.

Shameless bump to celebrate the fact that finally, FINALLY, England have dropped Johnny Wilkinson. A game too late. A few games too late.

Thats gutting. The one thing you can usually count on us for is defence. Shocking to lose that kind of lead.

It was pretty amazing for you to get such a lead in the first place. Discipline was the main thing that let you down today, otherwise that was a thoroughly impressive Scottish performance. Some really sharp attacking in the first half, especially. Can't understand why that last restart wasn't just booted straight into touch, though.

Can anybody confirm if Butch has physically exploded after that match?

who will be the SOLE survivor!?

I knew it. Just Me is behind the whole thing.

If this is a gay scene thing, then why are they advertising it like regular wrestling? Is that part of the appeal?

Announce a venue, get professional photos done, book some wrestlers. Better luck next time.

Apologies for the ol' double-post faux pas. Decent-ish win for England today, we had some nice ideas going forward but ultimately there was a lot of luck on our side. Danny Care pulled out some nice stuff and Haskell was a deserving Man of the Match. Still, I'm not convinced we're title-winning material, let alone Grand Slam... time will tell.

Ireland vs Italy was alright. I was somewhat annoyed by the pundits insisting that Ireland weren't playing to their full potential - why would they when they were winning at half-pace? They picked up a victory with little effort because they knew they could get away with it, and saved up plenty of energy for France next week.

Gutted that Tigers lost today too. I believe to get through, we need Newport to beat Saracens tomorrow without Sarries getting a bonus point. Not hugely optimistic.