Cecilia goes shopping

I've been offline a while, not because of the disappointment of the rugby (to tell you the truth, I didn't think we'd get out of the pool, so I was dead chuffed just to see us reach the final) but because I've been brought low by an 'angine blanche'. This illness has recently had a political outing, because according to the Elysée's press machine, the reason Cecilia Sarkozy, ex-First Lady of France, could not attend a picnic with the Bushes, was because she too had an 'angine blanche'.

Now none of us would want to attend a picnic with the Bushes. There'd be the obligatory ants, there'd be far too much toe-curling small talk, laboriously relayed through interpreters (although I have it on good authority that Sarkozy is merely feigning incompetence in English) but most of all it would be teetotal. One shudders at the white-gloved, forced-pleasantries social awkwardness of the thing. I would probably be forced to commandeer a tray of sandwiches from a passing waiter just to allow me to get away from the hosts.

What is just plain stupid, if you're going to use 'angine blanche' as an excuse, is to be caught out shopping the next day. I can tell you that when you have an 'angine blanche' the bug in question eats away through the back of your throat and launches itself down into your glands in a bid for general mastery and domination of the lymphatic system. It takes three days for the antibiotics to kick in. You can't swallow, you are exhausted, you can't sleep for snuffling snot that is maddeningly lurking just between the sniff and hawk ranges and you can't get up even to feed yourself. Between that (although Scouse Doris tried her best, bless her) and the fever, in three days I lost three kilos, (there's always a silver lining). You are in any case in no condition to slip on your high heels and have a quick blast around the shopping centre with the girls.

There must be plenty of plausible excuses for not having to attend a picnic with the Bushes. Having a 'family' prior appointment (i.e. to rearrange your sock drawer), for instance, or being virulently allergic to Chicago School economics. What amazes me is that no-one ever seems to have the courage to tell the Bushes straight that they've got better, more useful, more fun things to do than waste an entire afternoon on diplomatic niceties over ant-filled obesity-inducing American stodge. Like governing another country, for instance. No wonder Cecilia went shopping.

So what would your excuse be?

Chasing the egg.

I'm so excited. I can't wait for the big match.

England 14 and France 9, and going, ahem, home.

Would someone who can reach please give Chabal a hug? I would, but I don't think having his knees hugged would help.

Also I'm English, which might not be favourite right now.

OMG

The French have sent the Kiwis packing. Now THAT was unexpected.
Obviously standing up to the haka properly, and not going into a girlie huddle like the Italians, is what a team needs to do.

We're through

How I don't know, but I suspect the Australians are beginning to hate Jonny Wilkinson's left boot.
Well done guys.

LOVED Provence

I'm back. It was fabulous, and of course exhausting. No, we did not dance on Le Pont D'Avignon, nor did we record ourselves singing the song on a DVD to take home with us. But we saw Salins du Midi's salt pans at Aigues-Mortes, the Roman theatre at Orange, the Roman arena at Nimes, a very well-appointed museum of modern art at Bagnols-sur-Cèze, and a mad mad Provençal print cloth shop in Aix-en-Provence which I had vowed to bring my mother to when I saw it in 2005. I bought so much cloth for tablecloths that I had to mail it to myself. I'm hoping Scouse Doris will help me sew them all.

Good times: listening to the England vs. Tonga match with my father on his tiny transistor radio 1930s stylee, eating fabulous prawns with aioli sauce, rich stew made from a fighting bull calf with saffron rice, fabulous.

I'd tell you more, but I'm sorry, the rugby's on, Ireland versus Argentina, and it promises to be a humdinger. And may I say, the best of Irish luck to a fellow home nation. Wager, anyone? I thought not.

Rugby, God Bless Its Cotton Shorts

Least said about last night's blogmeet, soonest mended, I think.

On another much more interesting note, the rugger world cup has started, and I am in heaven. Big, burly blokes scrumming about all over the place, it all looks horridly violent and then you look at the action replays and you see the ballet of 110-kilo men being lifted into the air for the line-out, the care taken in a tackle to bring the opponent down without hurting him, the way that, in a well-honed team, as he is tackled a player will pass the ball to a team-mate he cannot see but whom he knows is there. You start watching for the eye candy, you keep watching for the beauty of the game.

Last night, in the Stade de France, the French hosts opened the tournament against the Argentines. For reasons probably linked to Laporte seriously underestimating the opposition, they left the terrifying Chabal, whose aspect alone could floor you if you were feeling a tad vulnerable, on the bench until it was WAY too late. La Honte Nationale. As a result, Argentina gave France a wrist-slapping, which will provide me with plenty of ribbing material at work on Monday. As will New Zealand's trouncing of Italy, an up-and-coming rugby country that should have been able to put up slightly more of a challenge. Although I have to say the All Blacks are VERY fit.

That is, if my own country manage to avoid pulling defeat from the jaws of victory again, and survive the unpredictable onslaught of the USA. If not, I shall be taking down the Jonny Wilkinson picture I have put up on my office door and keeping very quiet. Yes I know he's injured and so not playing until later. I just think he's pretty.