I personally thought for most of the game against the Aussies, last week,  we were the better team. The difference is that they knew how to score. They knew how to pass, catch and run all at the same time - something that I can only presume must be cheating. We concentrated so much on the battle of the front rows that we forgot about the other 12 players.

Then came the South Africans. I watched the first half at home and then needed to watch the second half in the pub. Everyone in the pub and everyone in the media seem to be of the opinion that Cipriani is the future and Martin Johnson and England just need time.

Unfortunately where Martin Johnson is concerned people are making so many excuses to give him a chance, they are missing the overall picture. The England performance was not about 15 (+reserves) players playing crap, it was about 15 decent players with dreadful tactics. Every ruck - guess what? The ball would be passed to one of two forwards hanging off to the side, the other 6 forwards were in the ruck winning the ball from the one South African who had made the tackle, the result is that you had a huge green defensive line to break through. The media are praising the Sprinkbok defence but to be honest we have no idea how good it is because it was never tested.

If you had a chance to watch the Rugby League World Cup final in the morning you would have seen a group of players passing the ball in front of another player thus allowing them to run onto the ball at pace. Why is this simple and obvious tactic reserved for Rugby League and Rugby Union at schoolboy level (in England). Danny Cipriani might develop into a stand off, but the position requires you to control your backs and get them moving at pace. It also requires some tactical kicking ability. Danny fails at both of the basic attributes of a stand off. Yes, he has flare. Yes, he has potential. Yes, he can make nice breaks once in a while (and yes he has got a good looking girlfriend), but he is an inside center at best and not a no.10.

One last point. We have one player who would walk into any other team in the world and he starts on the bench for England. Matt Stevens is probably one of the best ‘ball carrying’ props in the world and he starts on the bench. Go figure.

I was going to make some long winded post about the whole financial crisis but there are just so many things that are just beyond me. So, please find following a few thoughts and pictures so I can get a few things off my chest.

• As much as I hate Gordon Brown could you imagine David Cameron in charge at the moment?
• Why have the government demanded Banks keep loans to homebuyers at 2007 levels? Wasn’t that the reason we are in this problem?
• This bail-out thing - when and how do we get our money back?
• Who the hell would put their life savings in an Icelandic bank for the sake of an extra .25% interest rate?
• How does Gordon Brown think he can stabilise house prices when they are still over-priced by 10-20%?
• Let me get this straight - the Government has given the banks MY money so they can lend it back to me with interest? (fact is stranger than fiction).
• If you are wondering where the money has gone, look no further than BP with profits of £1200 a second. So we privatised BP and nationalised the shitty banks. Thank God for politicians who obviously have brains the size of planets.
• If the Government want to pass on interest rate cuts to the public why are banks (some of which have had OUR money used to rescue them) still charging up to 30% interest on approved overdrafts and horrendous amounts on credit cards.

‘I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.’
Thomas Jefferson 1802

Lehman Brothers employees staging a protest

Sympathy for Wall Street

The new dollar bill