sunday supplement

Friendly rivalry:
Recently in the press ,on blogs and at work there has been friendly banter between various nationalities over the Rugby. One strange aspect had been the begrudging support of Welsh, Scots and Irish of the English team. One strange thing is the perceived rivalry by the Celtic fringe. Most English fans would support the home countries against other teams as long as England weren't playing, the reverse isn't true. The problem is that that the Celts think they are our big rivals but we are more interested in beating the all blacks or Ozzies and of course our default foe the French. This same phenomenon works elsewhere, the Dutch always want to beat the Germans more than us whatever we may think.

So here' a cut out a keep guide to who we want to beat most:

Rugby Union Football

France Germany
All Blacks France
Australia Argentina
Scotland Holland
Ireland Italy
South Africa Brazil
Samoa Scotland
Tonga USA
Wales Sweden


With a few tweaks these lists in reverse would be who we would support after England. Except the USA obviously, mainly because they don't really do international team sports, oh and Iraq and George Bush, and their teeth....


Bad Practices:

Another mention on the Andrew Marr show in respect to the postal strike of "Spanish Practices". Are we still allowed to use another Peoples names in derogatory ways like this ? Can we go back to saying that being over charged is a "bit of a Jew", or similar what's wrong with "restrictive practices"? It's not as if it's common parlance as this week was the first time I've heard it used.