The Silver Fern

@Bones

@mariner4life said in Christmas Gifts:

SHIT! I haven't got my parents anything.

And you know what, i don't even know what they might need or want. I am so far removed from their lives i have no fucking idea. We talk on the phone maybe once a month. Maybe. And i haven't seen them in 14 months. I am a terrible son. I haven't spent christmas with my family in probably 4 years, but it might actually be 5.

I stopped buying for my sisters a couple of decades ago.

I always get my younger brother a decent present. He’s a tradIe who, as he has 5 kids, 3 of whom he’s put through uni with the last 2 due in the next couple of years, never has anything left for himself. He’s a great Dad and never expects much. A couple of Christmases ago I convinced Mrs JC to let me buy him the car he always wanted. It was worth it just to see the look on his face when he drives it. In return I expect him to research and buy me the best bottle of wine he can find for under 30 bucks.

Well for us kids just weren’t an option sadly. We tried everything but when we first got all the tests done they told us it would be extremely unlikely and they were right. The never ending hormone treatments permanently damaged Mrs JC’s health - one of the fertility experts guilt tripped her into some pretty extreme treatments by saying if she had any second thoughts then she just didn’t want kids enough. So now she’s got anxiety attacks, near constant IBS, blinding headaches about 50% of every month, excruciating period pain, everything except the child she desperately wanted and still misses. The kicker is she is a amazing with kids and would have been the most awesome Mum. Sometimes you just have to laugh because the alternative is you’d never stop crying.

Maybe too dark?

@antipodean said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@booboo said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@antipodean said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@canefan said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@antipodean said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@Luigi said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@MiketheSnow said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

@sparky said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

Not really sure what Matt Todd could do there?

Tackle?

Exactly. It ain’t about intent anymore. Or even it being an accident. If you’re in the way, flailing around like a epileptic squid you’re gonna get pinged. Todd got sent off for being a muppet. Can’t even claim cynicism, just rubbishness.

He's directly responsible for both of Ireland's tries. His YC was deserved - you're supposed to tackle.

Please explain to me the rule that Todd broke? He was inside, the vision clearly showed that. He did not make shoulder or arm contact with the irish player's head. It was at best a collision I would have thought? Honest question

I'd go with foul play obstruction. He made no attempt to tackle and simply plopped himself in the way.

Who is he obstructing. Isn't obstruction preventing someone from playing?

The ball carrier, from playing the ball. I suggest you watch a replay. It's obvious and uncontroversial. Ignore that he got flustered in his explanation, the penalty and card are justified.

I had to go and watch again after reading this. He did not prevent the ball carrier from playing the ball. The ball could have been made available to a team mate at any time and Todd didn’t stop him from trying to do that. He was, for the record, behind the try line when the ball carrier picked up the ball and only moved forward after that. He flopped clownishly at the base of the posts but was onside when he did it. If you called it a tackle or a breakdown then he was on the NZ side of it. If you called it open play then he can be wherever the fuck he likes.

Or are you saying that defenders have an obligation to let a player attempt to place the ball and score a try? Because I missed that law change and so has everybody else who tries to hold up the ball and prevent a score, like in every game ever.

As you’ll have gathered, I’m not accepting it’s obvious and uncontroversial just because you say so.

Of course I could be wrong but you’ll need to cite your source.

@nzzp said in Happiness Scale:

Covid's crazy though, and with no international travel what the hell does retirement even look like? I've realised I'm an active relaxer, but retiring 'from' rather than 'to' fills me with deep apprehension.

Leaving your job for the last time can be a very challenging thing to do, in my experience. I “retired” at 52. I was moving back here to NZ anyway so it seemed like everything was aligning and the time was right. But when my last day actually came I was not prepared. I had flights arranged for a couple of days after, we were looking forward to living in NZ, I had no money worries. But the truth is I didn’t know what I was for anymore. I’d worked for my company for 25 years. Apart from getting married to Mrs JC, pretty much everything meaningful I’d done in my life was wrapped up in my job. That’s a very confronting thing to realise to be honest.

I think for many of us who don’t have kids the only thing we can pass on is what we know, and the place we do that mostly is at work. If you take that away what’s left? I’m not particularly creative and haven’t been blessed with the coaching gene so lacked an outlet for doing anything meaningful. I did some work with charities (still do) but ultimately I started working again because fundamentally it’s what I do. I analyse things. I direct people. Retirement just doesn’t give you those opportunities.

I think some of us just need to accept that for us it's not a bad thing that there’s no realistic chance of ever stopping work. We just need to find something different to do with our time, and as long as we are doing it because we like it rather than through necessity that’s OK.

@nta said in Happiness Scale:

@jc said in Happiness Scale:

I think some of us just need to accept that for us it's not a bad thing that there’s no realistic chance of ever stopping work. We just need to find something different to do with our time, and as long as we are doing it because we like it rather than through necessity that’s OK.

Go run a rugby club

Driving around the Port Stephens area of NSW I saw rugby clubs everywhere, and remarked to Mrs TA that I was set like a jelly if we ever wanted to move here

The problem with that plan is that everything I know about rugby I learned on the Fern. So pretty clueless really.

Now, I know what you’re thinking and it’s very unfair.

@junior said in Happiness Scale:

@junior said in Happiness Scale:

Good thread.

I have a great life. My wife is beautiful, kindhearted and good fun. My wife and I both have great jobs with a decent amount of flexibility, intellectual challenge and very good remuneration. We have a great apartment and I have a nice car. We never want for anything and eat out at nice places regularly. COVID-permitting, we can travel anywhere we want and stay pretty much wherever we want when we get there. We live near the beach in a part of the world where the sun shines all year round. We pay fuck all in taxes. I play golf every weekend with a great group of mates.

If you'd asked me 5 years ago what my perfect life would like, that's pretty much it.

But, to be honest, I'm feeling dissatisfied, restless, irritable and a little helpless. Wife and I are and have been for the past 2 year trying to start a family with very little success. The clock is ticking for her and so we have gone the IVF route, which has taken a real physical toll on her and even more of an emotional toll on us both. We've basically got one more roll of the dice before we give up and live our lives as a childless couple, the hardest part of which is watching my wife come to terms with losing a large part of her "purpose" in life. It's difficult for us both right now to see our many blessings, because the truth is we'd give up almost all of them just to have our own little family.

Still working out what this all actually means in terms of my overall happiness, but a few thoughts include (a) that happiness is a completely relative concept, (b) I may have been wrong about at truly makes me happy, and (c) your own happiness can be massively influenced by the happiness (or otherwise) of others.

With the thread having back to life, it's prompted a lot of reflection and a decision to re-read my first post to see what's changed and to see if I feel any different.

In my life, nothing really has changed. I still have the objectively charmed life described above (slightly more money on account of a mid-year salary increase). But, if I'm honest, I am even more miserable now than I was then.

Our last round(s) of IVF were unfortunately unsuccessful. This did not come as a great surprise - in fact, we had both resigned ourselves to this being inevitable, while at the same time being committed not to give up so long as we had the physical, financial and emotional ability to continue on the off-chance that we would be lucky enough to be blessed with a child (something we both really wanted).

The whole process was really such an emotionally draining experience - building up the determination and optimism to continue despite previous failure and the odds stacked against us, only to fail again - that I completely detached myself from the experience as a coping mechanism. As a result, I am completely lost as to the timelines, what happened when, what the outcome was on each occasion, the discussions had with and advice received from doctors etc.

Anyway, I think it must be about 6ish months since we stopped. Since then, we've both put the blinkers on and buried our heads in the sand. I think we are both still processing the whole awful experience, the outcome and what this means for the future. We therefore don't really discuss this together, and I don't know if we are even ready individually or as a couple to do so. I don't think I am. My wife may be, as demonstrated by her opening up to certain people over drinks at her work Xmas party while completely writing herself off (something which upset me quite a lot, given that the people concerned were not friends and have big mouths).

We had previously discussed what our "Plan C" might be for having kids in the inevitable case that IVF didn't work - we don't anymore. I don't think we currently have the energy or inclination to go through the ball ache of, for example, adoption or egg donation or even to talk about it. I don't think I even want kids anymore - probably more of a "if I can't have them, I don't want them" reaction in reality. Still, seeing friends pregnant or with young children makes me feel sick. Being around friends and their kids - particularly very young ones - is galling. Half the conversations they want to have is either about or hi-jacked by their kids.

The last 12 months at work have been tough. It's provided a convenient pretext to avoid thinking or talking about the personal things that need processing. But it's also considerably added to the malaise, as I've basically missed out on Xmas and New Years due to being so busy since at least October. Added to that is the fact that we couldn't travel either to her home or mine for Xmas because of work, which has made matters worse.

We have some light at the end of the tunnel, with a chance of a decent break in February. But all I want to do is go home and see my friends and family, which seems unlikely to happen. At the very least the chances of it getting canned at the last minute due to border closures seems high. Best case scenario it is going to be a logistical nightmare and cost a fuck ton of money.

You tell yourself that the reason you work hard is to have a nice life and build something for your future and your family. Well, if your future doesn't involve kids, what is the point of working your c#nt off now? I can still have the life I currently live by working about 75% as hard as I currently do.

If you can't use the rare times you get a break from work to travel and visit your friends and family, again what is the point of working your c#nt off in those other times? I would have much more free time and flexibility to take holidays at more convenient times by working about 75% as hard as I currently do.

Yeah, that's hard. I've been there, tiptoeing around the elephant in the room, not asking "are we going to stop now?" because you don't want to upset and hurt your wife. I can't give you advice but I can tell you what happened with us. Eventually I just asked because everything seemed strained and weird. Mrs JC went real strange and I thought I'd gone past some point of no return, then we talked and it turned out that she was avoiding mentioning it because she thought she had let me down and I would leave her. Funny, you get inside your own head and disappear up your own arse! It never occurred to me how much worse it was for my wife. We were both grieving but she felt guilty and scared as well. And it was pretty obvious once she said. We opened up and I told her how much I admired her guts in pressing on when things were at their worst and her body was permanently wrecked. I couldn't have done it, and I will always wonder whether she would have stopped earlier and had better health if she hadn't convinced herself that if she did our marriage would be over.

Neither of you have to carry this alone buddy. You're partners for a reason and I suspect it will be much easier to share the load than for each of you to try and do it on your own.

And we're always here...

@Crucial said in All Blacks vs. B&I Lions test #1:

Edit: credit where it is due to a good article by Stuart Barnes. If anyone has cut and paste abilities for the Times others here may wish to read it

Barnes's column:
"The Lions are on the horns of a dilemma. If they play with as much attacking fluency as they did for much of yesterday’s match they open the way for New Zealand to cut them to pieces. If they strip back their game and attempt to take all tempo out of the match they will be criticised on all sides, unless they win. And the chances of that are pretty remote. Remote but not out of the question.

For all the brave talk in defeat, for all the majesty of what was one of the great Test match tries, the Lions are doomed if they see that score as the template for how to win in Wellington. That try was exceptional. British and Irish rugby is not. It may well be that last night was as good as it gets in attack.

There is constant talk of chances being created, not finished. It echoes through the press conferences of this tour. The failure is so repetitive because it takes a higher quality player to turn most chances into tries. Lions make breaks but, most of the time, the support isn’t close enough, the final pass isn’t good enough.

When the Lions get turned over my eyes immediately scan the New Zealanders ready to counterattack. It makes a match into a magnificent spectacle as much of yesterday’s game was. It is also a style of rugby with only one possible ­outcome.

The Lions say they can fix the fault lines from Auckland. The tries not being finished is not easy to fix. Otherwise the squad would have fixed them three weeks ago. Another awful problem that keeps popping up is the lack of discipline and the number of errors. “Discipline wasn’t where it was at,” said Peter O’Mahony. “Discipline and errors cost us,” said Jonathan Davies. The Lions talk about these issues. They do not resolve them. When they play at a pace to which they are accustomed, the penalty count drops to acceptably low levels. However, when the game spins out of control, as it did against the Blues, Highlanders and again yesterday, the penalty count rises into the teens. They haven’t worked out (or maybe acknowledged) that the quicker the tempo of the game, the more mistakes — penalties and errors alike — are made. Things are happening at a level outside their comfort zone. This is when the fixable (yet still unfixed) penalties and errors are made.

The breakdown has been an area of strength, especially against the Crusaders and Maori, where the Lions pack dictated the pace of the game. Not last night, not against the All Blacks. Suddenly the players were puffing, oxygen levels low as they struggled to think straight at the point of contact. New Zealanders, playing at a more familiar lick, bossed the breakdown.

If you lose the breakdown against the All Blacks you lose the match. So it transpired. The stark reality is that no matter how much the Lions finishing, discipline, error count and breakdown improves, only a quantum leap will see them beat a home team happy with a fast game. New Zealand too will improve.

The more committed the attacking intent, the greater the opportunities available for each side. There was something noble about the Lions performance, something truly admirable, but a winning formula it was not. I can envisage a scenario where the Lions play even faster and better and score, say, four tries instead of two. If that happens the All Blacks will probably double their own tally and score six. 60-30 to New Zealand.

The greater the ambition the more the outcome is settled by players and not strategy. Look through the two squads and it is hard not to notice the marked superiority of the Kiwis. Man for man they are more skilled; which is why they tend to take their chances and we Europeans do not. The inability not to link missed opportunities with skill deficits is truly mind-boggling but we are intent on pretending New Zealand are not that much better than the rest of us when the results scream otherwise, year after year.

Play the same game and go down in flames. Play a game with more box kicking, as we saw in the first 30 minutes in Auckland, more kick, more chase — all done well of course — and they might box the Blacks in, in the right parts of the field. Close enough to the line to turn last night’s many excellent line breaks into tries.

An ugly plan will win no friends outside the UK and Ireland. Maybe a few within would prefer their rugby as wondrous as the one try to which we were treated at Eden Park. Such a game will lead to penalties and errors, which ends in defeat. It has happened three times already this tour. Bet your last Kiwi dollar that New Zealand will be praising the Lions attacking game and luring them towards the rocks."

For every hundred thousand blowhards who spend their waking hours telling us how to live our lives there is one Gem like this old bloke quietly changing the world. And he almost didn’t because old white men are apparently worth less than others.

Tom Whipple, Science Editor

Nobel prizewinner John Goodenough, 97, was pensioned off by Oxford University aged 65

A 97-year-old academic who has become the oldest winner of a Nobel prize criticised Oxford University for forcing him to retire at 65.John Goodenough was awarded the prize for chemistry for helping to invent the lithium-ion batteries that powered the portable electronics revolution.He is still wor

A 97-year-old academic who has become the oldest winner of a Nobel prize criticised Oxford University for forcing him to retire at 65.

John Goodenough was awarded the prize for chemistry for helping to invent the lithium-ion batteries that powered the portable electronics revolution.

He is still working at the University of Texas at Austin, having left Oxford 33 years ago after realising he would lose his job at retirement age. “I fled,” he said. “I didn’t want to retire. They don’t make you retire at a certain age in Texas. It’s foolish. It’s foolish to make people retire. I’ve had 33 good years since I was forced to retire in England. That’s why I left. I’m working every day.”

He argued that Oxford was throwing away expertise through maintaining its policy of compulsory retirement, which has been abandoned by all other leading UK universities other than Cambridge. “Even if you don’t have all the talent, you have the experience to guide people who have the talent. It’s foolish,” he said.

A change in the law in 2011 ended default retirement ages in Britain but companies and institutions were allowed to keep them if they could argue the case. Oxford and Cambridge claim they must be able to remove professors aged over 67 to help younger academics. Oxford said the policy helped to “refresh” the workforce and promote equality and diversity.

Other academics said that Professor Goodenough was a prime example of why Oxbridge needed to rethink its approach. “The key point is that, for over 30 years John Goodenough, now in his nineties, has been leading the world in his scientific field,” Sir John Meurig Thomas, former director of the Royal Institution and a critic of compulsory retirement, said.

A plaque on the wall of a laboratory at Oxford University marks the spot where Professor Goodenough developed the insights that led to the batteries that now power almost every rechargeable device. The discovery was made in his final years before compulsory retirement and after he had made his name with RAM, a form of temporary computer memory storage.

Professor Goodenough is working on improved methods of energy storage. Helena Braga, from the University of Porto in Portugal, one of his collaborators, said she did not have to make allowances for his age. “Oh my God, he works very hard,” she said. “He works on the weekends too.”

Professor Goodenough was in London yesterday collecting the Royal Society’s Copley Medal, the world’s oldest scientific award. Professor Braga, who was with him, said: “I went to his room and told him ‘You won the Nobel prize’,” she said. “He was lying down. I said, ‘Wake up, wake up! You won the Nobel prize.’ ”

He said that he had not expected it but “I’m very happy to be around long enough to receive it”. He shares the prize with M Stanley Whittingham, a British materials scientist now at Binghamton University, in New York state, and Akira Yoshino, from Meijo University in Japan.

Lithium-ion technology is worth billions but Professor Goodenough said that he had not benefited from any royalties. “I don’t really care too much about the money. The lawyers always end up with the money.”

It is not completely true though that he has not personally benefited from his invention of the lithium-ion battery. He is pretty certain, in fact, that he owes his life to one. “The ticker is still working,” he said. “I have a pacemaker.”

@MajorRage said in RIP 2019:

@canefan said in RIP 2019:

Roxette singer Marie Fredriksson dies aged 61

Roxette's Per Gessle has paid tribute to a "wonderful friend" who "painted black and white songs in the most beautiful colours".

I wasn’t a big fan but they had a lot of hits in the 90s

Often wonder if radio stations have the inside knowledge on some of these things that the end is near .. as recently I've been hearing the song joyride an abnormal amount.

As a hardcore bogan-music-only punk in the 90's, I always kind of liked Roxette. Can't explain why.

So much so that in a job where I had to compile and analyse data from Fact Set, I called the database Faxette Joyride as a tribute.

Hashtag loser.

Never apologise for liking the music that you like I reckon. Unless it’s accordions. Fuck that shit.

I learnt to drive from a guy in my class at school (simpler times!). I sat the test in his Corolla Station Wagon, which was an awesome little car. I could parallel park it because I could see exactly where the car ended. When I came out to the car with the traffic cop (back then cops gave you your driving test) my mate had graciously pulled the choke - something I'de never even noticed let alone used before - all the way out so when I started up the little sewing machine engine revved like a bastard while I panicked and tried to work out what was going wrong. Old mate was standing on the footpath pissing himself. The cop knew exactly what was going on and shook his head and said "Mates, eh?". I just sat there with my crimson face while the cop reached over and pushed the choke back in. I passed, but to be fair back then you had to basically kill someone to fail.

So far 2021 is a beauty.