Rugby Mad Blog

FakeBob and I held our first joint photographic exhibition last Saturday, at a lovely artsy cafe called The Flea Pit, near Columbia Road. I know it doesn’t sound very salubrious, but its a great space for a little showing off, and we enjoyed the company of many friends who looked over our pictures and said nice things about them.

Just an ego-massaging exercise? Perhaps. But let’s face it, if you don’t blow your own trumpet, no-one else will. And since FakeBob has already made the first tentative steps towards a career in New Media (by finally resigning from the 9-5 drudgery after months of threatening), and I’m seriously thinking about it too, a bit of self-promotion was just what the doctor ordered.

Not only did I show some of my more general photography, such as landscapes, flower closeups and architecture, but I also had a selection of four fine rugby images, which seemed to go down well (not only with the ladies!). They were: Owen Takes A Lineout, Barkley Wrapped Up, Kick On The 22 and The Green Giant

After the event, about a dozen of us toddled off to a great Vietnamese restaurant in Old Street, Cay Tre. Excellent grub and very reasonable! A lovely way to round off the day.

I’ve worked out what England’s jinx has been in the Six Nations this year – ME!

It’s obvious when you think about it:

• England v Wales – excellent win – I’m at Twickenham watching
• Italy v Wales – good win – I’m watching it on the telly with friends
• Scotland v Wales – loss – I’m watching it on the telly ALONE
• France v Wales – tragic loss – I’m watching it on the telly ALONE AGAIN

See the correlation? Whenever I’m at home watching it on my own, we bomb. Watch it live or with mates and we do OK.

So what does this bode for our clash against Ireland, I hear you ask? Sadly, I didn’t get any of the ERSC extra tickets to see it at Twickenham, BUT I have arranged to go to FakeBob‘s for the match – so hopefully this will end the jinx and we will be fine.

And you thought I was deluded? Ha ha.

FakeBob and I were having another of our strange conversations. Nothing new there. We’re both foodies, and a little silly, and the question was posed to me that, if rugby players were dishes [as indeed some of them are!], who would I choose for an À La Carte menu selection.

Never one to resist a challenge, I thought about it for about five seconds, and came up with my answers. Here we go:

Starter: Better known as a great finisher, Mark Cueto (should be pronounced Cute-O I reckon). Always light on his feet, and a nice appetiser.

Main Course: Would have to be the finest example of British Beef, Danny Grewcock [there you go, Bob, my first mention of Danny!!]. Probably would require to be Well Done, bearing in mind how tough he appears on the pitch. But little room left for side dishes or veggies.

After a suitable pause, we move on to Dessert: Kevin Yates, in the great tradition of stodgy puds like Spotted Dick and Custard [please note, I have absolutely no anecdotal evidence to back up this assumption].

Another pause required, and then we move onto a little something with the coffee: You can keep your waffeur thin mints (like Richard Houghton), but carrying on the theme, a wee French Fancy might be Dmitri Yachvili, or possibly Jean-Baptiste Ellisalde. They’re so small, one would probably have both to round off the meal

My menu might not be to everyone’s taste! But I think it would not require further nourishment to be taken on for some days. By the way, you were warned that this Blog has MAD in the title. Twice. You don’t really expect me to be serious, do you?

Well, I’ve had my arm twisted to start a blog, and now its so far up my back I can only type with one hand… So what’s it all about? Will anybody read this stuff? Is anybody out there?

You may be wondering about the title. I was looking for a suitable username, and this seemed appropriate. I’ve only become RugbyMad in the last couple of years. I’ve been generally Mad for a lot longer than that, but hey. The Rugby bit is my mate FakeBob‘s fault. We were yakking over lunch one day, during the RugbyWorldCup 2003, and I admitted that I didn’t dislike rugby (in the way that I dislike bloody football) but I just didn’t know what the hell was going on. A couple of days later, I found an article which he’d poached out of the paper – “An Idiots’ & Girlfriends’ Guide to Rugby” – left on my desk. [As a slightly worrying aside, since I'm not his girlfriend, he obviously thought I must be the alternative...]

Anyway, I read the article, watched the RWC semi-finals, then the Final with England’s fantastic victory, and the rest is history. I went to my first Premiership game in Feb 2004, to my “local” club, Saracens. We lost to Northampton, but it was fun. And I’ve been hooked ever since.

I’m Mad about a few other things too, notably photography. You can see some of my pictures here. And the next inevitable step was to put the two illnesses together, and start photographing Rugby matches. So I did. Rugbypix.com was born…

I’ll write more about my other madnesses later. Or maybe I’ll just forget. For the moment, it’s TTFN.