Six Nations returns

Saturday marked the second happening of the annual rugby Six Nations tournament since I've been here. So after once again nearly dying in a morning spin class, we watched the first game of the tournament at home, which was Ireland versus Italy at 2pm, then around 3:30 we headed out to prepare for the viewing of the 4pm England versus Wales game. We first went to the Fest, but then left to check out the scene at Pitcher and Piano, where we decided things were more to our liking. Despite the fact that they were still celebrating their half price bottle of wine month, we were there to watch rugby so we got beers. Like apparently sitting there with a bottle of pink wine doesn't say 'grr, I'm watching men with thick necks and thighs the size of tree trunks bash into each other like animals'. Perhaps it says 'I'm watching men toss each other up in the air by the seat of their shorts like cheerleaders'. Anyways, we had beer.

After the national anthems were played, you know whatever the Wales one is and then that England business that we've ripped off and turned into some American patriotic song, I could have sworn I heard them playing the graduation song in the stadium. Not sure of what I was hearing, I asked Mark if they were playing the graduation song (aka, Pomp and Circumstance). He goes, you mean the Land of Hope and Glory? I said, no, the graduation song! And sang a few bars. So. I'm sad to say, the song that millions have Americans have graduated to in what some may term a fine American tradition, is also a patriotic England song with the above title. Apparently one of the most patriotic songs. And they don't use it to graduate to (I don't know what they do use, or if they even have a song for that). Like, what's up with that? Why must we have this wide array of songs that we both highly value but in completely different ways?

Back to the rundown of the task at hand. The game started out well enough but right at the end Wales scored a couple trys/touchdowns and ended up winning. In other news, I think a guy sort of standing by us was wearing a man thong. He reached his arms up at one point and I got a quick flash but I was not able to confirm the sighting after this. There was an interesting assortment of people present.

So back to the team. They of course are coming off their loss in the rugby World Cup final. And in my mind as they don't have to play New Zealand, Australia or South Africa, it seems like they should be able to do pretty well. But then they go and lose to Wales, who, by the way, had at least 3 players on the field at any time with the last name Jones. England has a new slightly controversial guy playing for their team, named, well I have no idea what his name is, but it's something a bit funky. He's controversial as he's actually a Kiwi but is now playing for England and I don't know how that works, but he put his hair in little braids with patriotic red and white bits intermixed, and then as soon as he came in made this awesome catch/interception/pass sort of play that earned England a try. But alas, it didn't make much difference in the end.

Aside from a whole lot of Jones, Charlotte Church's boyfriend type plays for Wales. Apparently together they are the Posh and Becks of Wales (which I don't think is saying much). After the game I felt obliged to learn more about this guy. He has a two-hour pre-game ritual that involves a nice bath, shaving his legs, applying self tanner and spending a considerable amount of time on his hair. Uh, yeah.