22/10/07 Rugby

The picture is of William Webb Ellis, who allegedly invented rugby by picking up a football and running with it...
Note to today's rugby big wigs....he RAN WITH THE BALL...!! he didn't spend 80 minutes kicking it up in the fucking air...
I don't think the current game would have caught on at all if this had been the original vision...
"So what we do is kick it up in the air, chase after it, then someone from the other team catches it, and we smash into them?"
"That doesn't sound very...um, ...beautiful?"
Bill McLaren used to exclaim "Oh and it's a garryowen!" once or twice in a game...now you get about 40 in a game...
Looks like we need a few rule changes in rugby union...it's all a bit too cautious and playing percentages...
I've been trying to think of existing sports which could spawn new sports by adopting the WWE principal of doing something outwith the rules in the course of a match.
I'd thought of playing a table tennis match, and in the 3rd game produce a large leg of ham and smash it down on the table causing my opponent to miss the ball?
(I'm a bit pissed)
I hosted yet another big sports watching evening in my flat with literally tens of people who didn't really like or understand rugby coming round to watch the final.
My brother showed up later on...
He'd just got the train up from Manchester.
He was complaining that he had to share the "quiet carriage" on the Virgin train with a pissed-up stag party, a tourettes sufferer and a baby who cried for most of the journey (the tourettes sufferer set the baby off every few minutes), and apparently everyone was barking into their mobile phones...
"Quiet carriage my arse!" as Gavin described it...
There's a band playing up at Henry's Cellar Bar this Wednesday called "Cot Death".
I thought I was fairly unshockable...but I gasped a little inwardly at this snappy name.
I'm hesitant about making future predictions, but I really can't see them being invited to do a set at the Royal Variety Show, or be given an opportunity to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest, or have an animated series made about their cheeky exploits for Children's BBC...
It's just not going to happen...
Maybe this doesn't concern them....I don't know....but the thing is, I listened to a song on their Myspace page and they actually sound really, really good...!
If I was their manager, I'd suggest they chose a happier, more positive name...
like "Lung Cancer" or "Bereavement" or "Brain Tumour"?
(actually that would be a hell of a line-up of bands to have on a bill!)
But "Cot Death"?? nah...it ain't going to happen....in terms of commercial potential, it's on a par with a pitch to a TV company for a wacky new programme entitled "Paedophiles Do The Funniest Things!"...

Russell Brand takes a lot of pelters but I think he's a brilliant writer and I'd recommend you read his football column in the Guardian .