Gethin Jenkins, what fantastic footwork! Great instinct there, to kick it rather than scoop it up. Brill charge down!
John Hayes (No. 3) doesn’t look stereotypically Irish; he looks like he’s a member of the Munster family. 😉 (pun completely intentional)
16:16 edit: Wales 16-6 Ireland. It’s tight. O’Gara has made a few mistakes, and tried to make up for them with some good kicking. Wales seem a bit more determined and confident, as evidenced by a 5-man tackle of can’t-remember-who just off their touchline. Ireland are showing the occasional brilliance, but shame about the mutliple mistakes they’re making.
16:48 edit: It may be Morgan’s try, but boy oh boy was Shanklin storming! Great catch, run and pass. Went for the pass for a try rather than the glory. Lovely Welsh teamwork!
17:13 edit:So they’ve hardly touched the ball in the last 10 minutes… At least they finished the game with the ball in their hands… Wales have the Grand Slam!
Hip hip hurray for Wales!
Final score: Wales 32-20 Ireland.
Italy 13-56 France
That gives France a 43-point difference (a grand total of 53-points over their 5 games), one more than they required before start of play today to improve their chance of winning the championship should Ireland beat Wales. No thanks to a complete collapse by the Italians in the last 20 min, the 6-nations championship is still wide open between France, Ireland and Wales. Unless, of course, Wales wins. Come on the Welsh! Oggie-oggie-oggie! (Very quietly, so as not to jinx the result: Oi Oi Oi!)
As it stands:
| Played | point diff | Points | |
| Wales | 4 | 62 | 8 |
| France | 5 | 53 | 8 |
| Ireland | 4 | 37 | 6 |
Who cares about the rest? For once, I don’t give a darn what happens in the last game against the Auld Enemy. This is the tightest Six Nations Championship I can remember, and it’s great!
Edit: And here’s the breakdown from the BBC.
In hot soup over swan
From BBC news: Police swan find hits wrong note
A classic Scottish news story. Some ‘jobsworth’ has decided to investigate the Master of Queen’s Music’s possession of a swan carcass (now, try to dissect the nouns in that one). Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has been warned by the police that regardless of the fact that the swans died naturally, they take his possession of swan carcasses seriously. Thanks to The Times for the classic quote from the spokesperson for the Northern Constabulary: “Our inquiries are continuing,” and their fantastic headline: “Composer may do bird for eating swan”.
Only in the boondocks can such things happen. Perhaps Sir Peter can use this farcical situation to write a comedy opera. 😉
Chromosome pendant, work in progress

chromosome pendant
Originally uploaded by framboise.
I’m in the process of making a silver pendant for myself. The inspiration was originally from a pair of flowers from Linda Macdonald’s collection. I’ve dropped the flowers, and given it a twist so it resembles a pair of mitotic chromosomes, with a few gold rings representing the G-banding. The grooves were cut out using a size 4 saw blade, giving a groove for the 0.5mm gold wire to fit in. It’s not a tight enough fit for the gold to be inlaid, so I’m going to use some gold solder to stop the gold rings from moving around. Close-up of the grooves below.

Quiptic No. 278
This week’s fave clue from the Guardian’s Quiptic Crossword (No. 278 set by Moley):
Issue on the Web in fourteen lines (6)
Highlight to see answer:
sonnet
Wales gives it some welly
Watching the replay ‘cos we went for an invigorating walk this afternoon in an effort to avoid depressing ourselves. The first Welsh try was quite nice work, but the second was yet another mega Scottish blooper. Just what part of don’t do that again did they not understand? (Poor wee souls must be devastated…) Then I lost count of the Welsh tries, but mistakes were made.It was as if the man-marking failed miserably. We have the weakest defence of all the 6 nation sides; even the Italians could do a better job. (Plus, they have a good kicker. Poor ol’ Paterson tries his best, but he’s not one of life’s natural kickers. Not like Andy Merhtens anyway.) Wales definitely walked all over Scotland in the first half. How demoralising. Wales took their feet off the pedal later, and allowed Scotland three rather nice tries. So, Scotland’s defence was pathetic, but at least some tries were scored. That’s some consolation. However pitiful. Come on Scotland. You’ve got to do better against the Auld Enemy.
No luck for the Irish
I was looking forward to a Grand Slam showdown between Ireland and Wales, but a strengthened French side stopped all that. It was decent start for Ireland, with a 9-6 lead, which was soon lost through a pretty good French try. And Ireland never really got a look-in after that. Very nice try by O’Driscoll about 10 mins before full-time. That man is so nimble, jinking here and there; like a rubgy equivalent of Thierry Henry or Diego Maradona in his prime. Shame it was then erased when Ireland were oh-so-careless in their own 22 right at the end, handing the French victory on a plate. Again, Ireland come oh-so-close, only to duff it at the finish.
For once, I’m really hoping that Scotland loses tomorrow to Wales, just so anyone but the glory-two (France/England) wins the 6-nations for once! (Sacré bleu!)
Miniscule chance
From BBC news: Uefa clarifies warning to Everton
How’s this for a silly headline? At the moment, Everton are in fourth place in the Premier League, 8 points clear of the Reds. There is no way Liverpool is going to catch them up for the fourth Champions League place. Plus, it’s pretty likely that they won’t even get to the finals of the Champions League. Really, what are the odds that the Reds can beat Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Juventus, Lyon, Milan, PSV Eindhoven or Porto (possibly)? And to top that, the FA has to request that Liverpool goes through instead of Everton.
Onigiri
In an oriental mood today; made some onigiri to take to friends’ for dinner. Used 3 cups of short-grain rice and followed my usual sushi rice recipe (Yasuko-san’s website has a good graphical guide). Not having a triangular mould for onigiri, I used my half and quarter measuring cups to pack the rice in. By pushing my thumb into the rice, I made a hole, which I filled with a very small amount of red miso paste.
…onigiri preparation
…half-cup triangular onigiri covered in nori
…quarter-cup sesame onigiri
…sesame and nanami onigiri
…and some I saved for my lunch
Edit: I’ve posted the recipe here. And the onigiri went down a treat; shoyu sauce isn’t necessary for the miso-filled balls. It’s definitely good snack food!
Gray Tsumugi
Tried on my gray tsumugi kimono with a red Yuzen nagoya obi. Still can’t get the hang of the taiko musubi; it looks rubbish from the front, back and sides. Am also starting to regret not checking sleeve lengths before buying juban/kimono on ebay. The juban sleeves stick out, and I gather that is a no-no.
Not being Japanese, I found several websites extremely useful for the eleborate process of putting a kimono on, the most useful of which has been kimono.fraise.net. There are extraordinarily clear directions on kitsuke (the technique of wearing a kimono), and brill links to other sites that have photographed step-by-step directions, like Somesho and Tomasan’s kimono school (both of which can be easily translated using nifty or babelfish). Another site I’ve found very useful is Japan Culture Club’s Kimono FAQ, which has photos of the accessories needed for kimono wear, and instructions in English for putting on a tsukesage, and tying a simple obi bow.
