In the cold light of the next day, it's perhaps worth a recap of yesterdays events.

There is a patch of carpet in my house, just to the right of coffee table which is now a little more worn. That was my spot. That's where I stood. It's right in front of the corner of our L shaped couch, which is my favourite spot to sit. However, between 4:30 and 7pm yesterday, the All Black forward pack couldn't have pushed me into the seat. If I stand there, we do ok.

It's amazing the superstitious bullshit that comes into one's head during a tense sporting match. Stand in the same spot, don't log off work, don't turn off the coverage, don't drink any water, don't change ANYTHING. We lost both wickets yesterday as I checked the score & Taylor was dropped when my family got home and they sat on the couch. I swear to god, if I'd sat down, Bumrah would have held the catch. Even as of this morning, I can't say I don't truly believe that.

I woke up yesterday with that nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. Timmy's couple of wickets the night before giving us a sniff. I'm always much better watching us bowl, than bat, but I couldn't do it yesterday. Went out for a 30 min bike ride at 10, which lasted nigh on 2 hours trying to keep my head off the cricket (sorry boss, not an overly effective day for me yesterday). By the time I got back, India were 5 down I still thought we had a sniff .... so I turned it on, put the laptop in front of me & settled in. And they walked off for lunch. Shit. 45 mins later, I settled in again, meeting coming up at 2pm, what could we do in that hour ... not much for a while. Head accepting the draw. BOOM, Wagner! Back in it. 2pm comes and goes, sit down. A few mins in, "so thats setup, Matt could you please ....FUCKING YESS!!!!!!" ... Oops. Supposed to be working. Trent in the wickets! Time for the inevitable slog from the tail enders. Come on guys, these runs are gold to India .... c'mon .....Timmy! Again, Timmy!

Breather. Shit. I promised the wife we'd go and get some clothes for her sisters 50th this weekend. I don't think I can watch it anyway. Resting heart rate is about 256 as it is. Off we go. 45 mins odd later. Gotta check. 19 without. Tea. Phew, negotiated that first session. At the picture framers now picking up the gift. "What do you think of it hon", she says "sorry, what, just checking the sco...FUCKKKKKKKKKK". Latham's out. Here we go. Phone away, pay attention. Drive home ... unpack car. TV on ... 44/1 .. awesome, under 100 to go. Big appeal and .... shit. Conway. Literally first ball of turning the TV on. What do I do?? Hit up the fern, and offer my predicament. Whilst doing this, an over passes with no drama. It's obvious now isn't it. Leave the TV on & we'll be fine. Hang on ... I've been watching the cricket from this spot, and then checking work / TSF in the over breaks. OK, thats what we do from here on in. Commentator is going on and on about run rates / dot balls. And it's working an absolute treat on me. Nervous shit needed. Can't do that, could cause a wicket. So stick with the plan. Getting fidgety. Drinks. What does that mean? Can I have a drink? Can I sit down? Not sure. Decide to change nothing. Wife leaves to get the kids. And suddenly the runs are flowing. Half way there. What the fuck is a mallet on the pitch for??? What does this mean? Can I drink some water now and have it offset by the mallet? Don't come back wife/kids, we are doing great. Oh, you're back. "Edged and ..... dropped". Jesus Christ. Do I need to kick the family out?? Not sure. Dot balls again. Dot ball commentator is back. Need a shit again ..... and we're scoring again. Under 50 to get. Surely our tail can get this now? Under 40 ... Under 30 .... ... Kane Dropped! It's in the stars, it's happening, nothing can stop us. 50 for Kane! only 7 or 8 to go. We're going to win! Can I have a drink now ... NO!!!!! Ross on strike, it's in the air ... it's 4! IT's over! We've won!! We've won!! We've won!!!

There is enough praise for the team above that there is little I can add honestly. It's a colossal moment in time for NZ cricket & it's so fitting that Ross & Kane had the unbroken partnership at the end. What a team. Perfect balance of youth, new players, legends, and team men. Although arguably they are all legends now.

Jamieson was officially MOTM and this arguably should be shared with Kane. Anchor in both of our innings. However, for me, its the players in the moments which really count, those who step up when the heat is on who should get this accolade. Think Carters drop goal / penalty in 2015 RWC, think Wilkinson for England in 03. Think Stokes for England. It's can be only person for me in this match. 3 times in the one test he had those moments. The value of his 30 runs in the the first innings cannot be underestimated. No lead, no psychological edge. India innings 2, both openers out lbw. No wickets, India without loss going into the last day with a handy lead. Different gravy. Remember I mentioned above India into he tail slog. Who cleaned up the last 2? Extra 20-30 runs on 4/5 less overs. Different gravy.

MajorRage MOTM of the WTC Final - Tim Southee.

What a day.

I was top tier in the temporary seats for 2011 final.

When Cruden got injured and tehre was a delay, i nipped down to get some beers ... in my haste to get back, I tripped over entering the stand (beers were ok though), and as I stood up and continued walking in, the cop/security guard standing there, put his hand out to stop me. I was expecting all sorts of shit, and questions as they were being pretty hard on drunken behaviour. Started panicking about kikicked out etc. Instead he slowly turned his head, looked me dead in the eye and said

"Before you go back to your seat, you need to know that Stephen Donald is now on the field"

SA Rugby In Shock After TMO Correctly Rules In Favour Of The Away Team

Shockwaves went through SA rugby today, when a TMO (television muppet official) correctly ruled against the home SA team for the first time ever in a televised game. Late on in the match, with the Lions looking to close out the match it looked for all money that the Lions had scored with time almost up to put the game beyond reach. Despite the ball clearly having not been grounded, expected transmission began with the assistant referee running in to let the referee know that the ball had indeed been grounded correctly, and he'd had a clear view.

However things began to unravel shortly after, when the referee decided that it was worth another look, leaving all viewers confused. After looking at 3 angles, of which the clearest had correctly been blocked by a spectators head, the TMO then sent seismic waves through the community by correctly saying the ball hadn't been grounded. The Blues then went on to score a last minute winner, although replays clearly showed there were at least 5 potential reasons for the referee to completely fuck up and call it back.

Lions coach Johan Ackermann when asked about the incident was inconsolable and somewhat confused. "I didn't really see it and haven't had time to review it, as like all good coaches I wasn't looking at the 42 live screens in front of me all showing the replays. This is however a huge shift change for SA refereeing, and I'm wondering if there is any point in even having home advantage anymore. Fans don't turn up, and if the referees are going to police things correctly and without bias, then we may as well just play away".

Team captain Warren Whitely concurred, simply saying "it's not my job to comment on referees decisions, but if the home teaming isn't getting all the 90/10's, let alone the 50/50's, it's going to be tough from here on in"

Blues coach Tana Umaga was delighted with the result, the first time in his tenure that his team actually did anything decent. "It's great to get a win against a well coached and strong Lions team, although I don't have time to talk right now, as I've got to help Sonny Bill get a flight to Port Elizabeth - he's got an old pal or something there he wants to catch up with".

SA referees were approached for comment, but politely declined as they, quite rightly commented that like all controversial decisions their view is firmly to have their heads up their arse.

And she's finished ... What a labour of love that was. I can't drive it properly yet as it needs to go through the Caterham check, then the government check (IVA), then registered etc. All of this is expected to take around 6-8 weeks, so it should be ready right about when spring is really kicking in. Perfect timing.

I did take it for a quick spin around the block though ... and the front wing fell off! Which I guess is good, as it gives me something else to fiddle around on.

It's been an absolute labour of love, full of swearing, foul language, frustration, irritation and pure anger.

But look at her. Isn't she beautiful. I can't wait to go and hang the arse out.

All this talk of respect - seriously, fuck off.

Year and years of Richie's a cheat, New Zealanders are classless, the constant fucking moaning against everything NZ rugby, the pissing and bitching from Aussies during RWC visit, I'm totally fucking over it.

I really can't be fucked with insults & advice from Australians about respect in sporting circles.

On the whole, I've done my best over the years to provide some reason where I think we are getting ahead of ourselves / shown arrogance / demeaned the opposition. But over this weekend, there has been a clear narrative to do everything in their power for global "neutrals" to demean the fantastic achievement of 18 wins in a row and divert attention away from it. The usual shit of Ab's offside (we were, we got penalised btw), AB's favouritism from refs, and then the final nail if this shower of shitness, the global attention on Chieka's whinge being FAR FAR greater than that of the achievement of this bunch of blokes.

And people want to talk to us about respect, or lack there of.

@stargazer said in All Blacks v France Test #2:

@tim Good to know that basically nothing has changed since last weekend. Hope the media (esp those of the NH), which generally either lacks intelligence or pretends it lacks intelligence, understands it, too.

[tin foil hat]

Don't be so naive. The NH media has really ramped things up, and you want to know why? Because Gosper, Pichot and co, LISTEN TO THEM. They write unbelievably one-eyed biased bullshit, and will continuously attack attack attack at points which are not really relevant to the context of what happened in the game, to divert away from anything which could be written as positive. And, "co-incidentally" enough, it's always NZ, or if not NZ, at least the SH, which is in the bad.

It's fucking bullshit and frankly, for all that is written about NZ, rule leniency etc being a "blight in the game", it's the cancerous journo's who really are the blight on the game. Here's a short list I've compiled:

Luke Pearce, the English ref. Apparently in test one, he was "let down by his TMO peers", or "leaned by the pro AB crowd", or "succumbed to the world rugby sponsored view that the AB's play to different rules".

Paul Williams, the NZ ref for Ireland - Aus "a disgrace to the game" - this was tweeted DIRECTLY at Gosper. Wanna know why? Because he didn't give Ireland a yellow card for continual Aussie transgressions. Maybe a point, but a DISGRACE? Especially after a week of continual media hum drum about the "unfair yellow" (where the poor young outstanding english ref was let down by everybody around who wasn't english) ruining the game in NZ.

Gardner - "should have certainly taken ALB's run into account", "a red card for ALB shouldn't have been out of the question given his part in it" ... this isn't from rabid one eyed fans, this is from JOURNALISTS ... who are sending messages to Gosper!! Seriously, here's the fucking video:

ALB did JACK SHIT. His eyes were on the fucking ball too, it doesn't even look like he touched him, let alone ran from 50 yards away to directly push poor skinny Fall into Barrett to milk the red card. The world rugby media release here is COLOSSAL BULLSHIT, written purely to appease the same NH media they infuritated with their COLOSSAL BULLSHIT media release from a week earlier about Ofa.

And you want to hear the ultimate shit in the face ? During the England - Tunisia football match, Harry Kane was tackled in the penalty box, rugby style .. One Walrus wrote ... "Some of the high tackling on Harry Kane in the Tunisian box would have even got an All Black carded. Lord Harry I should say"

Not a big deal really, for the pompous alanis morrisette style irony fellow, but you know who liked it?

His BFF Brett Gosper.

[/tin foil hat]

@antipodean said in Bledisloe I:

we don't have many right wingers running around,

Try the politics forum.

Parents have booked a flight out of NZ on the 14th April.

Fingers crossed.

@majorrage said in Racism in England Cricket:

Comes as zero surprise to me.

My son is a member of a club and it’s got quite a few non whites in it. The kids mix and don’t see anything. But at the prize giving it was like a licorice all sort crowd. White parents here, brown parents there.

I will add tho, that it cut both ways.

This post wasn't really clear.

One thing that always irks me a bit is the idea that we are all the same and must be treated the same. Well, that's just not true. Everybody deserves equal opportunities and the same sense of justice / appreciation, but reality is that a lot of immigrant / immigrant descendant people in this country have fuck all in common with the British when it comes to socialising - which is a huge part of team Sport. Vaughn is really in the firing line, but I wonder if his point was perhaps about trying to talk about integration, and he crossed a line.

I'll try and explain this without coming across like a bigoted arsehole. I have a 7 and a 9 year old and there is a huge community feel to our school. And I won't lie, it's awesome. They made us feel really welcome, we have a large circle of friends because of it and it's very very diverse. We have camps, dinners, balls etc. Standard stuff. I would say in each year, there are 5 Pakistani / Muslim families. I get on well with them, often chatting at pick up, talking about all sorts. But here's the thing.

They never go to the camps. Ever. They never go to the balls. Ever. They never go to the charity events. Ever. Occasionally you'll get 1-2 at the dad meet ups, and they don't drink and usually go home early. None of this changes what I think of them, it's just a fact. I'll probably see a couple of drop off tomorrow and we'll talk about the cricket as well as other things. And it'll be nice.

But some lines are never ever crossed, and others rarely. I'm not sure that sort of spirit really works in a team-sport environment & i can see how that could create tension. It doesn't excuse crossing lines, never. But perhaps when comments such as England cricket is institutionally racist there is a bit more to it. I know the world is supposed to be one big friendly melting pot, especially Britain & the US. But almost all of the social problems of these 2 countries come from the fact that multi ethnicity integration has its drawbacks. This to me, just seems like another in an ever-growing list.

Doesn't make those making the comments right, not at all. But lets face it, cricket is a basically a piss up played by lads. You are either one of them, or you aren't.

I'm not sure I'm ever going to feel well again. Shit got real in Singapore. I'm going to tell the story from the start.

When you let an almost 40 year old male with 2 young kids off the leash, in an Asian city for 48 hours, at which time, said male will attend a concert of a 90's rock icon ... I'm not sure what you are going to expect. But it happened.

Blasted down on Friday early doors, straight into a pub to watch the cricket, rugby, consume, consume and consume. At 2am, I was done, having taken about 250 selfies with people due to my red bandana, axl sunnies, and gnr singlet. I walked in in standard white man attire, polo, jeans etc, but somehow at some point, acquired some kit - I have no idea where from to this day. Little was I to know that at current figure, how much I actually did look like the singer - well, when standing on the scales anyway. Anyway, woke up Saturday on concert day with probably the worst hangover seen since the sevens a few years ago. Had crashed on the floor of a mates hotel, after my accomodation source had trap doored earlier on whilst I was busy signing off a bar tab for rining the bell at Mogambo's and subsequently buying the whole bar a shot.

So, as I raised my weary head, and casually checked my wallet to make sure my GnR ticket was still intact, the thought occurred to me that today was going be rather tough. To cut a long story short, after a casual lunch, an hour getting a foot rub and a long shower I started to turn for the better, so casually made my way to meet the boys at a hawker centre for pre loading. The food went down well, the ice cold beers, gentlemen jack less so, but then at 6pm, a mate of ours called Dave announced that our bus was here. So we trudged off and about 50 metres from the car park started to hear the relaxing, dulcet, calming, measured sounds of SWEET FUCKING CHILD OF FUCKING MINE. Our transport, was proper, proper baller. Decked out van, with a sound system Jonah would have been proud of, complete with ice boxes loaded with piss, a smoke machine, a light show and leather chairs .. there was a pole too, but I'm not sure what that was for ....

So we get in, in front of a crowed of about 100 people, and make our way out. Took for fucking ever due to the retardeness of Singapore to hold a 35,000 person concert (apparently) in the middle of nowhere with no public transport. Think Eden Park ... but in the middle of Karaka. Anyway, so fianlly get there, the drivers like I'm gonna fucking own this, and drives right through the crowds of people to drop us off about 2 metres from the entrance. It was fucking epic.

Anyway, get in, make our way to in front of the sound box, have about 15 mins to get some beers in , before they come on stage. So, I guess I should now right about the concert.

Nigh on 3 hours of their greatest hits. Fucking epic set list. Yeah, Axl is fat, and his voice is pretty bloody ordinairy these days, but the band is as good as they have ever been. Slash is just a god, Duff still has it (in a truck driver with egg on his shirt sort of way), Fortus is more of a lead guitarist than an Izzy, but he let nobody down, and Ferrer is arguably a better rock drummer than either Adler or Sorum are (to give credit to Adler though, the Appetite sound is lot to do with his drumming). They didn't miss a beat. The light show was awesome, the rig and setup was great. If I wanted to complain, I could say it wasn't even close to loud enough, but if you read the above, I was ok with that. And maybe the setlist was perhaps just a little too long ... don't get me wrong, but when you play November Rain (complete with about 5 minute intro of Layal), Coma and Estranged in full ... well, thats about 45 minutes right there. I would have happily sacrified a bit of knockin on heavens door, chinese democracy songs, and etc to really hear more of Axl giving it top beans as opposed to saving his voice. 90 minutes of old Axl, would shit on 2hrs 45 of new. He did his best on the jungle intro, and gave it shit for parts of Nightrain, Paradise & a couple of others .... but you know, he's old, he's fat - there's lawns to tell kids to get off these days and cheeseburgers to eat.

Annyway ... so it finished up at around 11:15am ... and given the complete clusterfuck of traffic, we were wondering how it was going to work. Litttle did we know ...

The driver of the baller-mobile, had basically ignored a whole bunch of Singaporeans cannot, and blasted his beast right through where you were supposed to stop and parked up EXACTLY where he dropped us off. People were streaming out everywhere wondering what the fuck this van was - he had paradise playing this time, with full light show, full smoke effects literlaly right in front of the main fucking gate. Oh, and he'd fully restocked the bar with fresh cans of beers, vodka, mixers and kit. I asked him if he had a cheeky durry ... at which point he leanded over and casually flicked open the glove box to see a selection of MArlboros finest. Unbelieveable.

Anyway, the boys piled in, and after rejecting about 5,000 people looking for a way home who were asking to join, trundled off through the crowed. We had the windows down, GnR on full tit, beers flowing for the 90 minutes it took to get back, literally crawling through swathes and swathes of people slowly trudging back to their cars/buses. IT WAS EPIC.

Anyway, the rest sort of peters out after that ... it was another late night and slow start yesterday, but nobody wants to read about that.

So, in summary ... yeah, GnR still have it, Axl less so, but fuckin hell, he gives it a go. Singapore is not a great place to go for a rock concert, but if you organise things right ... there is simply nowhere better.

Absolute clear cut referee bias. No question.

Disgusting result. Absolutely foul.

@MajorRage said in Springboks v Wales - 1st Test:

SA making England looking expansive

10 secs later, SA score after playing expansive rugby.

SA making England looking expansive

I can’t explain my thoughts on Zep without contradicting myself.

For me, as a band, they aren’t even close to the greatest. I’ve listened to all their albums and I can’t think of any time I’ve thought let’s put some Led Zepp on. I can’t say the same for the Stones or even the Beatles. I regularly play a few Stones albums snd frequently play Abbey Road and Sgt Peppers. I’ve got LZ, stones, Ozzy, Fleetwood Mac and now, Macca concerts on my sky box. The only one I’ve never watched in full is LZ …

But yet I know they are the band I want to have existed. My main music genre was basically invented by them. Tool, Metallica, PJ etc would all be very very different without Zepp. Plants voice is epic, Page guitar is one of, if not the best of all time, as well as being one of coolest live guitarists ever.

(People generally wax lyrical about Jones / Bonham here but in my view they’re playing has been surpassed by many).

So yeah. Not for me.

But I don’t know why.

@Victor-Meldrew said in Twitter:

@Nepia said in Twitter:

I doubt he's ever walked into a Halifax branch and been lectured about pronouns. It's just faux outrage. Just don't bank there if you don't like it.

Well, it's a twitter thread which has some great responses and parody comments many of which are genuinely funny.

But there is a serious point to be made about organisations thinking their woke or PC credentials are more important than their customers and core roles in society - particularly when they underpay women, provide shit service and have had multi-£Bn bail-outs from the taxpayer as the management is so crap.

Dunno if you are aware, but there's been more than a few cases of preventable child abuse (some resulting in death) being allowed to continue due to "cultural and gender sensitivity" on the part of police and social services.

Thats exactly the point.

You are correct @Nepia with your observation, and I agree, it's not worth getting upset about, or honestly, even having a real opinion on. It's just something that a company has decided to do to show their way of supporting a community.

The thing is though, is that not everybody see's this stuff as progressive as others. And their is colossal hypocrisy here. I don't really buy into the gender pay gap as much as others, but when one company has such a disparity this wide, there is clearly something going on (either statistics wise, or attitude wise). As somebody rightly pointed out, if you are a girl and you put he/him on their badge, do you then get a pay rise? Thats something to think about.

If people are going to come across all holier than thou, then they have to expect to be exposed for their hypocrisy when it exists.

This is a bit mean of me …. But I am crying over the replies to this (think this is the purple haired land whale) ….

@Victor-Meldrew
This is a cracker too

The replies to this are simply superb! A few quotes

1. Pointing out how much Halifax fails on the gender pay gap
2. Somebody asking if as a chocolate lover they could use her/shey
3. A fat woman asking them if they are sensitive to her, HGV+, community
4. A whole lot of Halifax staffers telling people how to close their account

And many more. I'm close to tears of laughter.

EDIT: New Favourite - If female staff put he/him on their pronoun badges do they get a pay rise?

Blimey that's not cool. Not cool at all.

Not much advice I can give, but those that do go through tough things in life I know find a lot of solace in the company of others experiencing the same thing. Although I'm sure TSF will be a support network, a closer one of people with the same issue will do you wonders.

All the best mate, thoughts are with. Might go and chat to the wife again now after our stupid argument the other day ....

@mariner4life said in Grumpy Old Man:

i think the delivery guy comes to our house every single day out of habit.

Indeed. Amazon dude drove past our house the other day. I assumed he’d fucked up.

Sure enough, he was on the porch 10 mins later,

Had a laugh with him on the above. Says there are plenty of houses he visits every single day. Some, more than once.