Amazulu

Quality over quantity
League is a game for meatheads

Retirednow

Yet they’ll hire every NRL player they can get their hands on…

Amazulu

CF=0

In union players have to think. In league they don't

Retirednow

I attend both Super Rugby and NRL games. The athleticism, skill and fitness of the NRL is light years beyond what I see at Brumbies games. No wonder it’s a distant fourth and last in the four codes played in Australia.

Retirednow

I attend both Super Rugby and NRL games. The athleticism, skill and fitness of the NRL is light years beyond what I see at Brumbies games. No wonder rugby is a distant fourth and last of the four codes played in Australia.

brits1

Our main was is “Mr fixit” our two boys use it even now, it came about after we had been in Aus about 2.5 years and had moved to a new sub and had just built a new home (one of the first on a development) finally we had neighbours and the chap opposite just never seemed to “sit still” he was always (and I mean always) working doing DIY (there is nothing wrong with that but…) and when he’d finished painting the fence a few months later he would paint it another colour… he did not talk to other neighbours (fair enough) and we just called him Mr Fixit and it’s stuck to this day

Gordon Barlow

On the topic of household fixits...I've never really taken to air-conditioning. I like it in shops on a hot day, and in my car - but even in the car I usually leave a window down. My house has room-units in the three bedrooms, but that's all. And the one in my room hasn't worked for years. I only ever used it to drown the noise of dogs and roosters, and now it doesn't even do that.

Growing up in the Queensland bush, we didn't even have fans. Dad had a bank of batteries in a shed, which he turned on for one hour every evening; and that produced enough electricity to give us lights for a while. Then: early to bed, early to rise! I can remember when we got our first fridge - which ran on kerosene, not electricity; before that we just had a lead-lined chest to keep the bread fresh. Our stove ran on wood. No fans.

Our neighbourhood school - three miles away - had no electricity at all. In the beginning (1947) it was a one-room shack with a door and a big wooden plank as a sort of window. (I forget what those things are called; any suggestions?) We twelve pupils were taught by a 17-year-old graduate of the teacher-training school in Brisbane, the State capital. It was his first job, poor chap. He was billeted with parents, moving from place to place every few months. When he was with us, my brother and I had to bunk on the porch. The State Education Department had insisted on the billeting, as part of the deal to open the school. Before it came, our mothers taught us the Department's standard syllabus. Our work was sent to Brisbane on the train, and returned to us with our marks the next week. I've no idea if any of the parents cheated; my Mum certainly didn't!

Our parents weren't against cheating on principle. The Department required 20 pupils to be signed up before they would send a teacher, and the magic number was only reached by including the kids of some itinerant shearers, who had long gone by the time the teacher came. In actual fact, I don't think we ever had more than twelve. In three classes; there were three of us in the top class, aged seven.

Amazulu

So keen you told me twice

They're still meatheads - athletic meatheads mind you, but still meatheads

The ones who can think move to union

Gordon Barlow

In the bush, most of our food was mutton, home-raised at a marginal cost that was close to zero. In town, too, our only meat was mutton, out of residual loyalty. But when courtesy has required, at various times in my life, I will eat anything at all. Within reason. When Linda and I were on our youthful travels, I was once offered a sheep's eye by our host in Tehran. As it happens - fortunately - he had lived in the West. As I steeled myself, the eye glaring at me defiantly, he took pity. (The host, not the eye. The eye was pitiless.) "I know it's not a Western thing", he said, “and I won’t be offended if you’d rather give it a miss. But for us it's a delicacy. Why not let me eat it?" So I settled for the tender eyelid-meat that surrounded the wretched organ. That saved me a little bit of "face". Linda wouldn’t even eat that.

It could have been worse. Somebody once told me of a British couple who discovered a restaurant in Madrid whose specialty was bulls' testicles.They loved it, and came back time after time. (Animals killed in the bull-fights were and are sold at the markets, and no part of the beast is wasted.) One night the serving was meagre - as tasty as always, but much smaller than usual - and the couple asked why. The waiter shrugged. "Senor, Senora... You know, the bull doesn't always lose. Very occasionally, it is the matador who dies." Shrug.

It - uhhh - it may not be a true story, but it's worth the telling.

Retirednow

Yeah that’s why so many League players are tertiary qualified. Oh and the Wannabees have lost another player to Japan. They’re losing players at such a rate they’ll be lucky to have a reserve grade side for the WC.

Gordon Barlow

Ummm, fellas... No disrespect, but as I remember the backyard barbies of yesteryear, I think a long-running argument about which is the best, biggest and brightest rugby code in the world would probably be a bit of a downer for the rest of the party. What do you reckon? Does it warrant a whole new thread?

Retirednow

Who cares about rugby? I attend Brumbies games but the AFL leaves them both in their dust…

Amazulu

Use the quote system so that we know who you're replying to

I'm not the one doing the arguing - you'll need to speak to the other fella only - he's the one with the issue

BEVS

Except he isn't replying to any one poster He has simply made a suggestion to move the offshoot convo elsewhere . Not a bad suggestion at all.

abner

When I arrived in Queensland, most recently at that time from Canada, I learned early that "real Queenslanders" don't have much use for either air-conditioning *or* heating, but also that I really preferred to have both available, for when one or the other was needed.

In winter, my wife used to jokingly say that I was a "fake Canadian" for finding Brisbane houses cold at night. But then I looked into local construction standards, and realised that "insulation" was an exotic, foreign concept. ;-)