Heavy Security For Olympic Flame

Look if the flame comes through South Africa I am gonna scoot off to get a bucket of water. It's been doused, so how can they relight it? In fact they should probably cancel the Olympics already. So my take is nature (human nature) has spoken, and if nature does not rain on this parade, we must. I'll also be there. Where can you a water pistol?

Maybe next time they'll use on of those un-blow-outable candles ;-)

Olympic torch arrives in San Francisco

Guava (PHOTOGRAPHY)

Since I was out of milk this morning I raided my "Canned Goods" section and poured out a glop of guavas into a plate. So I'm sitting there and I raise one of the guavas on my spoon and I suddenly see the beauty and fragility right there...in the fragile tissues...the shining fleshy eye of guava flesh. There is something immediately foetus like about it, and even alien. This is life on earth. And then I ate it, human teeth gnashing the cool soft sweet tissues, transparent yellow-tinged juice swilling like amniotic fluid in the bowl. This was a picture of the human condition, from the point of view of Nature, in all her forms.

Oh Behave!

Steve Hofmeyr makes a sensible argument for who, why and what on his blog, but the point is: as a celebrity, as someone who courts/or simply attracts a lot of attention, isn't there a responsibility to...well, behave. This is the same assumption made once upon a time about Charles and Diana. So things aren't peachy; isn't the deal that you make a few sacrifices - for volk and vaderland - and at least lead a dignified existence since everyone is watching? Isn't this the cost of a priviledged life - that you sort of give up your whims to an extent, and do your - very public - job.

The Charles-Diana thing demonstrated that selfishness now prevails over the need/requirement to demonstrate good mores.
Obviously the public sets something of a double standard. Is the man in the street an angel? Hardly.

I do think in the future we will begin to hold our celebrities increasingly accountable to their extravagances. We will be far less forgiving. It is already happening. Tom Cruise, Mr Hollywood, is finding his image is rupturing badly. In large part this is due to his antics off screen. But as the world gets serious - and we are, and have to - about the state we are in, over-indulgences, the Paris Hilton lifestyle, the Playboy Mansion - all these things will appear increasingly vulgar and out of place and will be shut down, boarded up, phased out of our public consciousness.

Irony and sarcasm will initially be fun (as the current Eskom jokes attest), but as the economic rot sets in, it will no longer be amusing. It will be a matter of making some painful adjustments. One of these may include more walking. The world's pace will slow down.

The future is unlikely to be as filled with staples of Entertainment E. We are likely to be less focussed on voyeurism and more focussed on economic survival. We will have to get down and dirty in order to deal with the practical matter of making a living in a contracting economic framework. Globalisation always was going to be just a temporary blip in our evolution. It is set for permanent reverse now, starting with the shutdown of whole airline companies for example, meaning the world is about to get a lot bigger.

Our behaviour will necessarily have to include a whole shift in lifestyle and habits. We will become slow food nations once again, with transitions to farming and agriculture and railways - that's if small mobs don't form and run amuck torching and looting whatever they find, hoping to perpetuate the getting something for nothing psychology that is now way past its sell by date.

Eskom = Anarchy?

NVDL: Have a look at the story below from SABC news. The mob turned its anger onto the infrastructure and ruined it for at least 6 months. It's not unreasonable to expect this to become a trend in our not-so-civilised African country. That said, if one experienced fuel shortages - here or in Yeehawland - expect more of the same.

Thousands stranded due to torched trains

January 21, 2008, 17:00

Commuters were stranded today in Tshwane after the burning of Metrorail coaches on Friday night during a power failure.

The Commuter Corporation suspended the train service to the corridor for the next six months, saying if people burn trains they will receive no service.

The Mabopane-Pretoria and the De Welt-Pretoria lines will be closed for up to six months for repairs. Between 40 000 and 50 000 people use those lines on a daily basis. Commuters were left with only buses and taxis to ferry them to work.

The cost of this is double the price of a train trip. Many have already bought monthly tickets, and have not budgeted for additional travel expenses.

Reward offered for offenders
The Commuter Corporation and the Tshwane Metro Council are working on a battle plan to help commuters.

"The establishment of the joint task team, which will start to look at operational issues, will be able to identify other modes of public transport which could be used while this crisis is ongoing," says Pule Mabe, from Metrorail.

It will cost approximately R2.5 million to restore damaged lines and R150 million to replace the rolling stock.

Metrorail is offering a R100 000 reward for information on those responsible for burning the coaches. Police have opened a case of malicious damage to property.

SA now skunk of the world

South Africa’s human rights reputation is in tatters after a series of “sell-out” votes at the UN on issues ranging from rape and gay rights to tyranny.
This week the watchdog UNWatch ranked South Africa last, alongside China, Russia, Pakistan, Algeria and Saudi Arabia, on a human rights list.

Click here for the rest of this article.

NVDL: There is a picture in the Sunday Times of an attractive white woman dancing with Jacob Zuma. They seem in the middle of a double high-five whilst dancing. What I don't understand is you have this guy who is in and out of court on corruption charges, rape charges, who admits to having unprotected sex with someone with AIDS - and this dude is the frontfrunner for our country's next president? Meanwhile, locals are willingly carvorting with this dude.

The reality is there are 2 South Africa's. There's suburbia, which is sometimes infiltrated by crime and the realities of the other South Africa. The other South Africa is a horrific picture. Children raping one another, parent-less kids orphaned by an AIDS holocaust and plenty of other hollow sounding atrocities that just become cliche. They do not convey reality but a sort of mythical metaphor to the wealthy suburbanites.

I wonder if there was to be a war, where South Africa would stand? With the Middle East, with the East, against America? More to the point, where should we stand? It seems like everyone is corrupt, and we are especially a VROT leg of the human piano. With the storms and floods, perhaps the human species can be washed of its sickly self and born anew. Strong and good.

Nature: Stop Smoking Now (VIDEO)

Still Smoking? Watch This !! - For more funny movies, click here
Want to stop smoking? Need some motivation? Just watch this video once.

"God is too vague a concept to be meaningful"

'For if God’s greatness entails being invisible, intangible and inscrutable, then he can’t be disproved — but nor can he be proved.'

For the rest of this New York Times article, go here.

Climate Change: Why We Must Worry (N)

Life, if it ever becomes blase about itself, ought not to exist at all - NVDL

Very simply put, there are two reasons to be very, very concerned about what is happening right now on our planet. The first is a question of energy, the second, stability. Both of these are in a state of flux far beyond the range of flux that is considered a normal pattern. Let's look at each in turn.

Energy

There are plenty of systems at work. Our own bodies have a number of systems running, from the circulatory system, the respiratory, the excretory, nervous, lymphatic, digestive and others. If any one system breaks down - say, the immune system - it can lead to a systemic collapse.

Yes, it's true, our bodies can function fine - apparently - even though we may strain these systems, say through smoking, whilst old or sick.

Overall though, the system amounts to energy flows, chemical reactions. We can call that life, homeostasis, system - but that's what we're talking about.

This planet is very very rare in the cosmos. Any human being could spend his or her entire life searching for another planet like it. You might spend your lifetime searching through the most powerful telescopes, going through light years of distance and time, and you will find planet after planet that does not have that near magical ability: a life support system. Just the right distance from the sun, the right gravitational field, enough atmosphere to allow some sunlight through, but also a filter to protect the creatures underneath.

The point of that analogy is that life - the way it is on Earth - is not easily found in such abundance. Thus it is incredibly precious, and at the same time, fragile.

It may not seem so if you actually belong to the one planet where there is so much life; and it seemingly continues to exist over an infinite period. And those on that planet believe even if life ends, there's an 'afterlife'.

But never mind that, in terms of energy, the Earth is a system. It receive a constant stream of nourishing energy from the sun. This energy would be deadly were it not for an ancient process of converting solar energy into chemical/potential energy. And so our plants and forests, our alga's have paved the way for all other creatures. We started off with a mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere; now we have a proportion of oxygen in it.

Whatever the balancing mechanism, our millions of years, solar energy was converted into forests. Over millions of years these energies turned into rocks or were crushed into the few subterranean vaults we know today. In 100 years, mankind has successfully converted half of this planet's stored energy. In perhaps half that time we may be able to convert the rest of this stored solar energy into heat and smoke.

So essentially, looking at the entire system, we're seeing an awfully large injection of heat and smoke in an incredibly short period of time. Billions of machines are at work around the clock, 24 hours a day, converting coal, oil and gas into some form of energy, releasing heat and 'excrement' - CO2 gas, methane and the rest.

Stability

Naturally this has a significant impact on the stability of this system. For the human body it might be light eating 20 000 bars of chocolate in a week. You're basically exhausting a lifetime's supply of a resource into a very short period; choking the other systems with sugars and causing a massive injection of chemicals.

Can the Earth's body withstand such an attack? Possibly, but with the likelihood of it getting seriously sick. It may never fully recover; it may become terminally ill and go on to live a fairly long life in geological terms, but it may never be the same again.

On this planet, human beings are a small subsystem - like the lymphatic system. We're important only in the sense that we act like antibiotics - killing species in one of the world's largest species holocausts in its history. We are weapons of mass destruction from the point of view of Polar Bears, Elephants, virtually every other creature.

In terms of our atmosphere, the massive conversion of fossil fuels to heat, motion and energy creatures an atmosphere that has more heat and more evaporated moisture. Yes, the ice caps are melting, but all that melted, evaporated moisture gets loaded into the atmosphere. The warming adds up to a far more unstable atmospheric system. This system becomes far more conducive to erratic and super powerful storm systems as it attempts to shed its energy load.

Load Shedding

And so we're left with a body that is strained by too much energy, too soon, as so it attempts to dump this energy. A human body would vomit, or develop a fever, or diarrhea, or a combination. The Earth will do the same. It has started sweating. It has started to notice an infection spreading over it. That infection started off benign and helpful, like freckles on skin. We now number 6.7 billion, and we are threatening to collapse the entire system. As a result, we need to be part of that load shedding, and we will. We have breached the capacity of the system. Soon, there will not be enough energy to go around, and then we will see a crash.

Any system that exceeds capacity does not gradually fade and settle back to its equilibrium level. Like a storm, it builds, and with lightning and thunder, the storm finally breaks. We would do well to realise this, because the storm is already generating. But balance will come about whether we consent, co-operate or not.

NVDL: Barry Ronge's comments in the Sunday Time's magazine for me were disappointing. We are still arguing about the fineprint, about who is patronising who, instead of agreeing to get serious about the broad issue. More and more we hear that our survival may be at stake. This ought to be the biggest issue there is. Some idiots take the high ground and say: it's very complex, I'm not intelligent enough to figure it out - no one is.

Are you intelligent enough to magnify everything you do, multiplied by 6.7 billion? Because you ought to know it's going to strain the system.
Life was not designed for each individual to have their own house, own car, own TV, phone computer. We were supposed to share, but in time, perhaps we'll relearn that lesson.

Nature: World's carbon dioxide emissions rising at alarming rate

Carbon dioxide — the greenhouse gas considered most responsible for global warming — has been emitted into the Earth's atmosphere at a dramatically accelerating pace since 2000, researchers reported Monday.

"Carbon dioxide is rising at a much faster rate than before," says study co-author Christopher Field, director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology in California. "In the 1990s, CO2 emissions increased by about 1.3% per year. Since 2000, the growth rate has been 3.3% per year." The researchers calculate that global carbon-dioxide emissions were 35% higher in 2006 than in 1990.

What's especially troubling, notes lead author Josep Canadell of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, is most climate scenarios used by scientists and policymakers to predict temperature increases are based on the 1.3% rise. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide warm the planet by trapping heat in the atmosphere.
From The Oil Drum

NVDL: Meanwhile 5 times the landmass of the United Kingdom has melted in the Arctic over the last 2 years. This amount represents a more than doubling of the melt over a longer, prior period (2002-2005). That is a gargantuan block of ice.
US National Snow and Ice Data Centre, Colorado's Walt Meier: "It's the biggest drop from a previopus record we've ever had and it's really quite astounding." A lot more surprises are in store as we start to wake up to the world beyond opur office windows.

Meanwhile, on Oprah last night, she posited some useful 'Green' pointers:

1). Buy recycled aluminium foil (can you get this stuff in SA? If not, someone - like me - should start making it)

2) Use CFL* bulbs. Although a seemingly cliched thing to do, you can save significant amounts off your electric bill, and apparently these guys pauy for themselves within about a month. A woman on the Oprah show quoted these impressive statistics.

"If every home in America replaced just one incandescent light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified CFL, it would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes and prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of more than 800,000 cars annually."

It seems like a questionable statistic, until you factor in the coal powered stations that need to generate the power every American home requires in a year. The emissions of a single coal power station are tremendous.

3) A third easy change is to buy a canvas bag instead of those plastic bags that function only for as long as the journey home. Another nice touch is the mesh produce bag. Plastic should also be avoided as a storage container for water or microwaving food (because they contains carcinogens like Dioxins).

4) I'm drinking bottled water today (in a plastic bottle nogal). This is also a no no. The energy it takes to transport water, and to make the plastic bottles is extremeley wasteful. Buy an aluminium bottle - note to myself.

5) Another biggie is to change those chemicals we commonly use in the home for stuff like Meyers, Seveneth Generation or Shackley. Not sure if any of these organic, natural cleaning products are available in SA. If you can suggest any, please do so by leaving a comment.

We can also wear green more often. Seriously. Wear earthy clothes, get a culture inculcated of natural and earthy. I don't mean to rain on the parade. I like the idea of doing something. Let's go green, clean up our act, great. But let's also not be fooled that it solves anything. All it does is it delays what right now may be the inevitable. What our species needs to focus on is:
1) Reducing the overall population of the planet
2) Finding an alternative to oil (that means, a real alternative, one that can take up where oil leaves off)
3) Living alternative lifestyles (this implies a radical culture shift across the planet - in terms of our living arrangements, how we work, how we move ourselves around, how we organise our society's, how we treat each other)

Sorry to say I don't see any of these happening on the sort of scale that will ameliorate our situation. We've had our turn though, and it's been a long run. I guess it's something to be grateful for, even if only in an increasingly Dreamy Retrospective.
*Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb

I want my boobs back

Women’s breasts have been annexed by men
By Reporter Janice K.

Theres this funny line about the state of breasts in the book High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. It goes like this. "Attack and defense, invasion and repulsion...it was as if breasts were little pieces of property that had been unlawfully annexed by the opposite sex - they were rightfully ours and we wanted them back."

And that I think pretty accurately sums up what men think of boobs. There is probably no other part of a woman’s body that will have to withstand so much scrutiny and attention.

For the rest of this story click here.

UFO's ARE REAL (UGC VIDEOS)

NVDL: My logic tells me this footage is real. Some of it could be staged, of course it could, but it looks genuine to me. Especially this first one. But even if it is real, so what - know what I mean? How does that change your life, or my life, or anyone's life. Except that maybe we have to rethink the idea that there is one God, and we're His chosen people. Maybe we're not that special to begin with. Just a thought.


Whats That - A funny movie is a click away


Declassified Russian UFO Video - Awesome video clips here


UFO-Haiti - Click here for the funniest movie of the week

Gotcha! Thanks for playing.-)

Pope Back From The Dead (PICTURES)

From Timesnow.tv:
A picture taken of a bonfire at a service marking the 2nd anniversary of Pope John Paul II's passing away, contains what the Vatican is convinced of a likeness of the pontiff himself in the flames, raising his right hand in blessing.

NVDL: Re-he-he-heaaaaallly? (Jim Carrey voiceover.)

The fiery figure on the left side of the image is being hailed as Pope John Paul II, making an appearance from beyond the grave on his 2nd death anniversary; as it bears an eery likeness to the real-life image of the Pope taken back in 2001, seen on the right side of the image.

NVDL: Eeerie? Don't you mean windy?

Believers are convinced [NVDL: well that's what they do - believe and convince themselves and others...] that it's a reappearance from beyond the grave and the likeness has created quite a flutter all around. Details appeared on the Vatican News Service, a TV station in Rome, which specialises in religious news broadcasts.

NVDL: [Elton John voiceover]And it seems to me, you lived your lives like candles in the wind, never stopping to think, when the rains came down...

Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack? (WIRED)

NVDL: Read my article: Do Pornstars Go to Heaven?

by Ryan Singel
Internet pornography is the new crack cocaine, leading to addiction, misogyny, pedophilia, boob jobs and erectile dysfunction, according to clinicians and researchers testifying before a Senate committee Thursday.

Witnesses before the Senate Commerce Committee's Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee spared no superlative in their description of the negative effects of pornography.

Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Therapy, called porn the "most concerning thing to psychological health that I know of existing today."

"The internet is a perfect drug delivery system because you are anonymous, aroused and have role models for these behaviors," Layden said. "To have drug pumped into your house 24/7, free, and children know how to use it better than grown-ups know how to use it -- it's a perfect delivery system if we want to have a whole generation of young addicts who will never have the drug out of their mind."

Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever, Layden said.

Jeffrey Satinover, a psychiatrist and advisor to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality echoed Layden's concern about the internet and the somatic effects of pornography.

"Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance," Satinover said. "That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect."

The internet is dangerous because it removes the inefficiency in the delivery of pornography, making porn much more ubiquitous than in the days when guys in trench coats would sell nudie postcards, Satinover said.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), the subcommittee's chairman, called the hearing the most disturbing one he'd ever seen in the Senate. Brownback said porn was ubiquitous now, compared to when he was growing up and "some guy would sneak a magazine in somewhere and show some of us, but you had to find him at the right time."

The hearing came just days after a controversy over a sexually suggestive Monday Night Football ad that has many foreseeing a crackdown on indecency by the Federal Communications Commission.

It is unclear what the consequences of Thursday's hearing will be since it was not connected to any pending or proposed legislation.

Brownback, a conservative Christian, is also scheduled to be rotated off the sub-committee in the next session.

When Brownback asked the panelists for suggestions about what should be done, the responses were mild, considering their earlier indictment of pornography. Several suggested that federal money be allocated to fund brain-mapping studies into the physical effects of pornography.
Judith Reisman of the California Protective Parents Association suggested that more study of "erototoxins" could show how pornography is not speech-protected under the First Amendment.

The panelists all agreed that the government should fund health campaigns to educate the public about the dangers of pornography. The campaign should combat the messages of pornography by putting signs on buses saying sex with children is not OK, said Layden.

However, as the panelists themselves acknowledged, there is no consensus among mental health professionals about the dangers of porn or the use of the term "pornography addiction."

Many psychologists and most sexologists find the concepts of sex and pornography addiction problematic, said Carol Queen, staff sexologist for the San Francisco-based, woman-owned Good Vibrations.

Queen questioned the validity of the panel for not including anyone who thinks "pornography is not particularly problematic in most people's lives."

Queen acknowledges she can name people who have compulsive and destructive behavior centered on pornography, but argues that can happen with other activities, such as gambling and shopping.

Queen also criticized the methodology behind research showing that pornography stimulates the brain like drugs do, saying the research needs to take into account how sex itself stimulates the brain.

"There's no doubt the brain lights up when sexually aroused," Queen said.

Queen too would like to see more money devoted to research on sex, but thinks it is unlikely that researchers on either side of the divide are likely to receive large grants any time soon.

Studies intended to show the harmful effects of pornography must contend with ethical rules prohibiting harm to human subjects, while sex researchers have a hard time getting any funding, unless their study is specifically HIV-related, according to Queen.

Serial Killer or Computer Geek (POP QUIZ)

BY LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF A PERSON, YOU HAVE TO DECIDE IF HE IS A COMPUTER GEEK OR A SERIAL KILLER. GO WITH YOUR GUT FEELING AND CLICK ON YOUR CHOICE. THERE ARE 10 PHOTOS. Y OUR SCORE WILL BE GIVEN AT THE END.

I got 8/10, my sister got 9. Click here to start the quiz.

Chabal Cited (INCLUDES INTERVIEW)

From rugbyworldcup.com:
PARIS, 14 October - Following the France v England semi-final match in Paris on Saturday, 13 October, a French player has been cited by citing commissioner Dennis Wheelahan.

The French forward Sébastien Chabal has been cited for an alleged dangerous tackle on the England player Simon Shaw. The player and his team management have been informed and a hearing will take place tomorrow, Monday, 15 October, in Paris.


Interview Of Chabal - For more amazing video clips, click here

NVDL: Let's hope none of our players get cited after the fisticuffs towards the end of the Argentina game. Seems like we are being treated to double standards in terms of citing and referee decisions apparewntly being applied more strictly to our side than other teams.

Chabal: The Human Wrecking Ball (VIDEO)

NVDL: Look at this guy psyching out the All Blacks during their Haka. And I like this quote: "In keeping with his primeval appearance, Chabal can make rugby look a thrillingly elemental sport..."

• Watch Chabal's monstrous tackle on Chris Masoe
  Watch Chabal's full-blooded charge at Ali Williams
  

by John Westerby
Rarely has the term “impact player” seemed so appropriate. At some point during the second half of England’s World Cup semi-final in Paris on Saturday evening, Sébastien Chabal will be unleashed from France’s replacements’ bench, a wrecking ball designed to make huge indentations in England’s defensive wall.

Off the field, he has had just as big an impact over the past few weeks. His imposing features — straggly beard and long, unkempt hair — have glared down from billboards all over France, earning him the nickname “The Caveman” and making him an iconic figure of his country’s World Cup. He has attracted thousands of French women to rugby — they are known as les Chabalistes — and has been voted the sexiest player of the tournament, described by one of his fans as “the antithesis of metrosexuality”.

Memorably Powerful

Happily for Chabal, his admirers also include Bernard Laporte, the France coach, but this has not always been the case. It is more than seven years since Chabal, 29, made his debut for France, but for several years he was mistrusted by Laporte. That changed during an otherwise miserable tour to New Zealand during the summer, when France lost 62-10 and 42-11 to the All Blacks, but Chabal enhanced his reputation with some memorably powerful performances.

X-Factor

Like so many supporters of Sale Sharks, for whom he will play for a fourth season after the World Cup, Laporte could no longer resist Chabal’s rugged charms. Normally a No 8 for Sale, the France coach has found him a fitting role as a replacement lock who emerges to strike fear into the hearts of tiring opponents. “He has that X-factor when he strides on to the pitch,” Kingsley Jones, the Sale head coach, said. “The opposition take one look at him and know they’re in for a tough afternoon.”

For those who are unfamiliar with the brutal ferocity of Chabal’s play, a quick visit to YouTube provides ample evidence. One monstrous tackle on Chris Masoe, the All Blacks No 8, has been watched more than a million times and termed as le plaquage du siècle — the tackle of the century.

Another snippet from that summer tour shows his full-blooded charge at Ali Williams that left the New Zealand lock with a broken jaw. These videos do not appear to have a restricted age limit, but if your children are watching, you may wish to shield their eyes.

Strength

What these clips show is Chabal’s extraordinary strength. “He’s without doubt the most naturally powerful athlete in world rugby,” Nick Johnston, the Sale head of physical preparation, said. “You can look at the likes of Andrew Sheridan [the England prop] and Jerry Collins [the New Zealand flanker], they are players who have trained themselves to be powerful. But in terms of natural attributes, Sébastien has really been blessed.”

Low Fat

At 6ft 3in and 18st, he is not unusually large for an international forward, but, the beard and the hair aside, virtually everything else is muscle. “He has an incredibly low body fat reading,” Johnston said. “His percentage is around 7.5, whereas most professional players have about 14 per cent. When he first came to us three years ago, he weighed 107kg and he now weighs 115kg, but he’s very lean, so it’s all the right sort of weight.”

There will be nothing subtle about Chabal’s approach when he faces England on Saturday. He will run straight, hard and fast and, when he spots a would-be tackler, he will attempt to run over him, rather than round him. In keeping with his primeval appearance, Chabal can make rugby look a thrillingly elemental sport.

Sporadic Force of Nature

So if he is such a force, why has he not won more than 35 caps? Although he could not be described as lazy, Chabal’s contributions in the past have been too sporadic for many coaches. A bullocking run could often be followed by a short spell of introspective grazing away from the ball.

“Twelve months ago, we said to him ‘if you’re going to go to the World Cup, your workrate needs to improve dramatically’ and he took that on board,” Johnston said. “At the end of last season, he was coming in for three or four extra sessions a week. He’s a very good trainer, but he needs to be set specific targets. He particularly enjoys our endurance circuits, which include tug-of-war and wrestling matches, all designed to replicate his game movements.

“When he wrestles against Sébastien Bruno [the Sale and France hooker], all the lads stop training to watch because it’s a real battle. And he once dead-lifted the same weights as Andrew Sheridan, which doesn’t happen very often. We also have our players pulling our Ford Transit kit van with a bungee rope around their waist. Sébastien is very, very good at that.”

Having followed Philippe Saint-Andre, the director of rugby, from Bourgoin to Sale, Chabal is settled in Cheshire, where he lives in Cheadle Hulme with his wife, Annick, and two young daughters.

Good Hair Days

It was while he was awaiting the birth of his first child, Lily Rose, almost three years ago that he started to grow his beard and his hair. By the time Lily Rose was born, his wife liked the beard and it had become an integral part of his cult image at Sale. During the World Cup, his club’s Chabal clothing range has been sold out twice over. “I have told him that he looks like a gypsy and that he looks better with short hair,” Lionel Faure, his French team-mate at Sale, said. “But he just shrugs his shoulders, laughs and says, ‘I don’t care.’ ”

Marks and Sparks

Chabal seems to have taken to most things about the English way of life, except for the food, which is a regular source of complaint. He treasures his relationship with his local butcher, who supplies him with choice cuts of veal, and believes that Marks & Spencer is the only English outlet to supply decent French bread. Otherwise, he is a happy, home-loving family man.

“It’s funny that he has this image as an aggressive caveman because off the field he is just the opposite,” Faure said. “We go out for an espresso, we play poker and during the presidential elections, we talked a lot about politics because Sébastien is very well informed. But most of all, he enjoys being with his family. He’s just an ordinary man.”

Animal appeal

Born Valence, December 8, 1977
Height 6ft 3in (1.91m)
Weight 18st (114kg)
Body fat percentage 7.5
Clubs Bourgoin, Sale Sharks
Position No 8 or second row
Caps 35

Nicknames SeaBass, The Anaesthetist, The Caveman

— Lives in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, with his wife and two daughters
— Credited with attracting thousands of French women to rugby and has been voted sexiest player of the World Cup
— Chabal T-shirts have done a roaring trade in Sale during the World Cup; a third reprint has been ordered
— If there is a “hair” apparent to Chabal as rugby’s “caveman” in the England camp, it has to be George Chuter (see image 3, above), the hirsute hooker, who has admitted that “Chabal is my idol in terms of facial hair, but I’m not in his league”. Chuter’s style was not born out of a bid for a new image. “I decided to grow it because I can’t be bothered to shave,” he said.

Max: Euthanasia or Not?

So here's an update on Max. My father says he believes he [the black and white adult labrador-collie] is stabilising. He says he has taken him off the cortizone (for pain) treatment. He is still continuing to administer 2 x half tablets a day (Rydal).

He told me the scans didn't bring up anything like tumors. He must be suffering from some kind of degenerative disease to the spine, associated with rheumatism. And he says it seems not to be getting any worse.

The bleeding feet have developed callouses (these were also being treated with some kind of mercurochrome type substance.

So based on this 'stabilising impression' Max gets to die another day.

Q&A: Ridley Scott Has Finally Created the Blade Runner He Always Imagined (WIRED)

By Ted Greenwald

Photo: Robert Maxwell Feature

Fresh off his second successful movie, an up-and-coming director takes a chance on a dark tale of a 21st-century cop who hunts humanlike androids. But he runs over budget, and the financiers take control, forcing him to add a ham-fisted voice-over and an absurdly cheery ending. The public doesn't buy it. The director's masterpiece plays to near-empty theaters, ultimately retreating to the art-house circuit as a cult oddity.

That's where we left Ridley Scott's future-noir epic in 1982. But a funny thing happened over the next 25 years. Blade Runner's audience quietly multiplied. An accidental public showing of a rough-cut work print created surprise demand for a re-release, so in 1992 Scott issued his director's cut. He silenced the narration, axed the ending, and added a twist — a dream sequence suggesting that Rick Deckard, the film's protagonist, is an android, just like those he was hired to dispatch.

But the director didn't stop there. As the millennium turned, he continued polishing: erasing stray f/x wires, trimming shots originally extended to accommodate the voice-over, even rebuilding a scene in which the stunt double was obvious. Now he's ready to release Blade Runner: The Final Cut, which will hit theaters in Los Angeles and New York in October, with a DVD to follow in December.

At age 69, Ridley Scott is finally satisfied with his most challenging film. He's still turning out movies at a furious pace — American Gangster, with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, is due in November — building on an extraordinary oeuvre that includes Alien, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down. But he seems ready to accept Blade Runner as his crowning achievement. In his northern English accent, he describes its genesis and lasting influence. And, inevitably, he returns to the darkness that pervades his view of the future — the shadows that shield Deckard from a reality that may be too disturbing to face.

For the Q&A interview, click here.
NVDL: I recently watched Blade Runner on VCD and credit to this flick, it is still edgy decades later. The climate change effect and overpopulated city images ring truer than ever.