Last week Zoom, the discount airline, went bust. They blamed high oil costs and the credit crunch. They didn’t, of course, blame the fact that they were so desperate to undercut the ‘big boys’ that the prices they charged their customers were simply not enough to cover their costs. I may be doing their management a great injustice, but isn’t it nice to have the ‘credit crunch’ to blame.
‘In debt, it’s the credit crunch’. It’s not because you have spent £1000’s more than have been paid, and chucked it all on your credit card at 2000% interest.
‘Alastair Darling is an arse’. Oh, hang on, he’s not - it’s just the credit crunch!
‘Chelsea failed to beat Tottenham’. It’s that bloody credit crunch.
‘My house has devalued by 10% in the last year meaning I have only made a 200% profit in 12 years’ Bloody credit crunch!!!
‘I am fat, my children are misbehaving and kids are being stabbed in the streets’. Guess what, it’s that dam crunch thing again.
Everywhere you look in Britain today the ‘blame game’ is going on.
The best one to come up recently is that, apparently scientists have found a gene that is passed on by your obese parents, which means that you too will be fat. It has nothing to do with your addiction to lard kebabs with extra lard sauce and your complete lack of exercise. It’s the fault of nature.
You’re out of work - it’s the crappy governments fault, not yours.
No one ever takes responsibility for themselves or their mistakes it always the fault of someone else, and if this continues we will never learn and if we never learn we will never better ourselves.
By the way if you disagree with any of this - don’t blame me!

Yes, that was the opening line in the BBC’s report of England’s match against the All Blacks.
Personally speaking I switched off when New Zealand scored their two tries in the opening 10 minutes of the second half. The first try (in the second half) was scored after a forward pass. If someone passes the ball a yard before the 22 yard line and the receiver takes that ball two yards in front of said line, then chances are it was forward. The linesman was in direct line the referee was there but yet no not one person questioned the try, not even the commentators.
The second try was a result of an England fumble but seconds previous, the ball was knocked forward, by a New Zealander, thanks to a Charlie Hodgson tackle. While the England players stopped, expecting the referee to call a scrum in their favour, the All Blacks scored.
So the final score of 37-20 with 14 points removed makes it 23-20 - hardly put to the sword for a young inexperienced England team.
The English pack, I thought, were amazing and outshone the New Zealand pack (although perhaps only just) but I freely admit that the better team on the day won, but put to the sword - hardly.
I now find the rules of Rugby Union so complicated and the ability of so many people to have different interpretations of these rules that the game now holds little interest for me.
Ask your Rugby mates to explain certain decisions during a match and they will fail to do this or at best will have a completely different view to the next bloke. Once the Rugby Union fraternity (players, coaches, officials and commentators) admit they don’t know the rules we will have a chance to clean up the game for everyone but I am afraid to admit the obvious would be just too embarrassing.

Hopefully, within the next hour or so it will be revealed that Brian Ashton has been sacked as England coach. Hopefully, but I doubt it. The problem is that the RFU would have to admit it has made another mistake and that will not happen.

Anyone who is remotely ‘clued-up’ about English rugby will see that the players play a completely different game at club level from when they play under Ashton. The man is probably a decent coach but he is tactically naive at best and technically ignorant at worst. He is not a manager and that is what England had with Clive Woodward and that is what we need now.

If you are unsure about this, simply watch some club rugby and see how good these players are. Although I personally wouldn’t pick the same 15 as Ashton the players he selected were more than good enough to win the grand slam at a canter.

We have a wealth of good coaches in England, the only problem is, we need a manager and the two are very different positions.

England at last showed some fighting spirit and deserved their victory over France. It does help when we have a front row and they don’t.

Balshaw was again c**p and we must find someone who knows where a full back should be. Still, it is amazing what can happen when you don’t kick away possession all the time.