Six Nations rugby is coming to BBC America again this year :-) Hmm - it conflicts with DS's basketball . . . What to do, what to do? (And no, we don't have a DVR!)
I have to say, BBC America's Trivia Quiz on rugby is a bit pathetic. The correct answers are blindingly obvious, even if you know nothing about rugby. I suspect the goal is to make Americans feel confident that they know enough about the sport to be able to watch it.
We are not a sports-loving family. We don't go out to play or watch team games of any sort, and although the kids occasionally watch (American) football on TV they don't really have much clue about it. So they don't have much experience watching sports on TV. As it was a rainy day, I turned the television on this afternoon so we could watch at least part of the World Cup game between England and the US because DD had asked at lunch "What's the World Cup for and when's it happening?" The commentary was hilarious, but we did have to alternate between watching the game and playing games on the wii because DS really wasn't interested in the game.
DD: What time is it in England now? (Umm - 5 hours ahead of here, but the game's not happening there - it's in South Africa.) Why is it happening in South Africa?(Because that's where FIFA decided to have the World Cup this year.)What's FIFA? (The organization that organizes the World Cup.)Why are they playing soccer at this time of year?(Because this is when FIFA decided the World Cup would be.)
DS: What team is the guy in the yellow shirt on? (That would be the referee.) DD: The guy in the yellow shirt seems to be on the England team.(Again, that would be the referee, and he wasn't on England's side!)
DS: Who's the guy in the orange shirt?(One of the goalies.) DD: Why isn't the goalie staying in the goal?
DS: Why did they move the goal?(They changed the camera angle!)
DS: I think his chest is broken. Someone else is going to have to take his place.(He's probably just fine - they usually are.) DS: I hope the England player gets another yellow card or a red one, then America will win.
DD: Why aren't there any girls playing?(They have their own teams.) Because the boys think they're better than girls?
DS: This is boring! (Repeated loudly every five minutes.)
DD: There's more tomorrow? I thought it was just today! Does it go on for days? (Yes, and no we won't be watching much more of it - probably just the highlights on the news!) DH: What, they don't play until there's a winner?
DD: England would've won if Mia Hamm had been on their team!
. . . there is another sporting event that I will be watching this weekend. BBC America is broadcasting the Six Nations Cup live this year! Woohoo! (That's rugby, in case you didn't know and in the past I've complained about how difficult it has been to find live rugby on TV over here.) Guess what I'll be doing at noon East coast time on Saturday?! The kids, DH and I have been invited to a party on Saturday afternoon, but depending on how the game is going, I may send DH off on his own with the kids to join them later. He will understand ;-)
The first time I ever visited the UK with DH, we left Heathrow sometime around 8:30 on a Saturday morning to head north to my parents' house. There was a rugby game on that afternoon that I would have liked to watch. Wales versus somebody - I don't remember who. Unfortunately, the length of the drive to my parents' house meant that we would arrive there in the middle of the game and I didn't have a key to my parents' house. My mother had warned me that if we arrived while the game was going on no one would answer the door. So, we killed some time en route with a leisurely pub lunch and DH didn't complain. I tried to find the game on the radio, figuring at least I could listen to it, but the only station I could find it on was in Welsh :-(
It's been years since I've seen a game, and I've long since given up following the reports of the games, but I am looking forward to seeing a game or two again after so long. At the very least, it's going to make it easier to know when NOT to call my parents as they don't answer the phone when the rugby's on. Or if they do, it's to hurriedly say, "Can you call back later?" We have ties to England, Scotland and Wales in my family, so I don't really care who wins, but the Welsh do have the best songs.
This is not the Welsh national anthem, but it might as well be. I remember my elementary school principal teaching it to us, telling us that we should know it! It was a church school, and the song is a hymn, but he did make it clear when he taught it to us that this was a rugby song! I don't remember which version of the lyrics he taught us - probably the more traditional one that begins "Guide me, O Thou great Redeemer" - but most people only know the chorus anyway!
Bread of heaven Bread of heaven Feed me 'til I want no more Feed me 'til I want no more
Wales forever Wales forever
Can you hear, the voices calling Singing proud and singing clear All around the sound is rising One by one they join the cheer
gwlad fy nhadau {land of my fathers} gwlad fy nhadau cymru, cymru am byth {Wales, Wales forever}
Can you hear the valleys ring Can you hear the dragon's roar Heart and soul, with pride are singing Land of Wales forever more
Wales forever Wales forever Hear us now and ever more Hear us now and ever more
Oh can you hear the roar of voices Join together, side by side Well now's the hour, the hour of glory Raise the roof, and sing with pride
Wales forever Wales forever Hear us now and ever more Hear us now and ever more
gwlad fy nhadau gwald fy nhadau cymru, cymru am byth cymru, cymru am byth
Mr. Reg Mellor, the "king of the ferret-leggers," paced across his tiny Yorkshire miner's cottage as he explained the rules of the English sport that he has come to dominate rather late in life. "Ay, lad," said the seventy-two-year-old champion, "no jockstraps allowed. No underpants-- nothin` whatsoever. And it's no good with tight trousers, mind ye. Little bah-stards have to be able to move around inside there from ankle to ankle."
Basically, ferret-legging involves the tying of a competitor's trousers at the ankles and the insertion into those trousers of a couple of peculiarly vicious fur-coated, foot-long carnivores called ferrets. The brave contestant's belt is then pulled tight, and he proceeds to stand there in front of the judges as long as he can, while animals with claws like hypodermic needles and teeth like number 16 carpet tacks try their damnedest to get out.
From a dark and obscure past, the sport has made an astonishing comeback in recent years. When I first heard about ferret-legging, in 1972, the world record stood at forty painful seconds of "keepin' 'em down," as they say in ferret-legging circles. A few years later the dreaded one-minute mark was finally surpassed. The current record-- implausible as it may seem--now stands at an awesome five hours and twenty-six minutes, a mark reached last year by the gaudily tattooed little Yorkshireman with the waxed military mustache who now stood two feet away from me explaining the technicalities of this burgeoning sport.
"The ferrets must have a full mouth o' teeth," Reg Mellor said as he fiddled with his belt., "No filing of the teeth; no clipping. No dope for you or the ferrets. You must be sober, and the ferrets must be hungry-- though any ferret'll eat yer eyes out even if he isn't hungry. So then, lad. Any more questions 'fore I poot a few down for ye?"
"Yes, Reg."
"Ay, whoot then?"
"Well, Reg," I said. "I think people in America will want to know. Well -- since you don't wear any protection -- and, well, I've heard a ferret can bite your thumb off. Do they ever -- you know?"
Reg's stiff mustache arched toward the ceiling under a sly grin. "You really want to know what they get up to down there, eh?" Reg said, looking for all the world like some workingman's Long John Silver. "Well, take a good look." Then Reg Mellor let his trousers fall around his ankles.
[ . . .]
Loyal to nothing that lives, the ferret has only one characteristic that might be deemed positive -- a tenacious, single-minded belief in finishing whatever it starts. That usually entails biting off whatever it bites.
[ . . .]
Reg Mellor, a man who has been more intimate with ferrets than many men have been with their wives, calls ferrets "cannibals, things that live only to kill, that'll eat your eyes out to get at your brain" at their worst and "untrustworthy" at their very best.
Reg says he observed with wonder the growing popularity of ferret-legging throughout the '70s. He had been hunting with ferrets in the verdant moors and dales outside of Barnsley for much of a century. Since a cold and wet ferret exterminates with a little less enthusiasm than a dry one, Reg used to keep his ferrets in his pants for hours when he hunted in the rain -- and it always rained where he hunted.
"The world record was sixty seconds. Sixty seconds! I can stick a ferret up me ass for longer than that."
As DH said after reading this: "Ow, ow, ow!" The ferrets' tenacity does explain why Danny wished he'd brought his ferrets on our field trip when we found the rabbit warren. I'm trying to think of any strange American 'sports' that are as weird as this, but can't right now.
We are not a sports-loving family. We don't go out to play or watch team games of any sort, and although the kids occasionally watch (American) football on TV they don't really have much clue about it. So they don't have much experience watching sports on TV. As it was a rainy day, I turned the television on this afternoon so we could watch at least part of the World Cup game between England and the US because DD had asked at lunch "What's the World Cup for and when's it happening?" The commentary was hilarious, but we did have to alternate between watching the game and playing games on the wii because DS really wasn't interested in the game.
