Leigh, I got the tape today, thanks so much! Ooh, and it has a Prime logo instead of a Channel 7 one, and Canberra commercials...how cute!

This was in an email I received ...

The All Blacks make up the New Zealand team; the Haka is their spine-tingling war-cry and dance performed before they go into battle ... er ... start playing.

"Following complaints made to the IRB about the All Blacks being allowed to motivate themselves by performing the 'Haka' before their games, other nations were asked to suggest pre-match rituals of their own. The IRB Rugby World Cup 2003 Organising Committee has now agreed to the following pre-match displays:

1. The England team will chat about the weather, wave hankies in the air and attach bells to their ankles before whingeing about how they invented the game and gave it to the world, and how it's not fair that everyone still thinks New Zealand is the best team in the world.

2. The Scotland team will chant "You lookin' at me Jimmy?" before smashing an Iron Bru bottle over their opponents' heads.

3. The Ireland team will split into two, with the Southern half performing a Riverdance, while the Northerners march the traditional route from their dressing room to the pitch, via their opponents' dressing room.

4. Argentina will unexpectedly invade a small part of opposition territory, claim it as their own "Las In-Goals-Areas" and then be forcibly removed by the match stewards.

5. Two members of the South African team will claim to be more important than the other 13 whom they will imprison between the posts whilst they claim the rest of the pitch for themselves.

6. The Americans will not attend until almost full time. In future years they will amend the records to show that they were in fact the most important team in the tournament and Hollywood will make a film called 'Saving No.8 Lyle'.

7. Five of the Canadian team will sing La Marseillaise and hold the rest of the team to ransom.

8. The Italian team will arrive in Armani gear, sexually harass the female stewards and then run away.

9. The Spanish will sneak into the other half of the pitch, mow it and then claim that it was all in line with European "grass quotas." They will then curl up under the posts and have a kip until half time, when their appeal for compensation against the UK government will be heard.

10. The Japanese will attempt to strengthen their team by offering good salaries to the key opposition players and then run around the pitch at high speed in a highly efficient manner before buying the ground (with a subsidy from the UK government).

11. The French will declare they have new scientific evidence that the opposition are in fact all mad. They will then park lorries across the half-way line, let sheep loose in the opposition half and burn the officials.

12. The Australians will have a barbie before negotiating lucrative singing and TV contracts in the UK. They will then invite all their mates to come and live with them so they can get on the grog every night.

Warning, self-indulgent rant ahead...

ARGH!!! Had a crap day, have been looking forward to tonight's episode for FIVE WEEKS. Then, about a minute after it started I accidentally pressed something on my TV remote and (I've since realised) detuned my TV from the VCR signal. At the time I couldn't figure out what was wrong so I simply pressed stuff at random and made the whole thing worse. I got upset (and by 'got upset' I mean 'went fairly hysterical'), pissed off my mum with my ranting and ruined the episode for myself because I kept brooding and flicking back to the video channel in the ads to try and fix it, thereby missing some little chunks of the episode. Then I felt stupid and embarrassed for getting so worked up. And if I'd kept my cool I probably could have figured out the problem in two seconds and everything would have been sweet. It's really not a big deal because my friend can make me a copy from her tape but it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing. Stupid clumsy fingers. Stupid technology. Sigh. The painful side of fandom. Next, on Sick Sad World.

Rant Over.

Anyway, I really liked what I saw of the episode, but I have no concept of the pace or tone of it because I watched it so disjointedly. I'll rewatch in a calm state when my friend copies it. And by then it should have aired in the other states.

Oh, and the film vs book thing. I'm not sure that I have a preference. I was a huge reader and a huge watcher when I was a child, and love doing both pretty equally. Although if you forced me to choose, I'd give up my videos and DVDs before I gave up my books.

Oh, Emlah, condolences, that's my worst nightmare. (Well, a close second to what happened to me last week anyway, when I turned over to 7 half an hour before Angel was due to start and it was already on.)

Thank God for tape fairies.

Oh, Emlah, condolences, that's my worst nightmare. (Well, a close second to what happened to me last week anyway, when I turned over to 7 half an hour before Angel was due to start and it was already on.)

Oh yeah, it could have been way worse. At least I was able to watch it. I'm all calm now, and I knew people on this board would understand the horror! My mum's pretty accepting of my fannishness, but this little performance had her completely bemused.

Thank God for tape fairies.

Bless their little hearts and magnetic strip wings.

Edit: I've decided I want Chrissie and Dan to get married and have funny, funny babies and maybe travel Australia in a van solving mysteries.

moonlit - that email is hilarious.

Dude. Just when I think I'm getting too cynical, I realise I still harbour odd notions regarding journalistic impartiality.

Leigh, just to add to your cynicism ... As evidence of the hegemonic influence of the 'hyper-liberal, economic rationalist, global free-trade, possessive individualist, consumerist' ideology on the dissemination of information from a 'news' perspective, here's an example from the British news.

When ITN broadcast a 4 minute feature a couple of years ago on their main national news flagship News at Ten about the launch of a new vaccuum cleaner (Dyson), these were the AP and Reuters news feeds for the same day that ITN ignored:

• World Bank grants Uganda 85% relief on its national debt
• Italy's most senior police official jailed for corruption
• First US McDonalds staff walkout over working conditions
• Cot death in the Irish republic increasses by 70% since 1997
• Neath Council found guilty of killing 2 workmen following chemical leakage into sewers
• Children protest throughout Asia to end child labour
• British tourist attacked and blinded by British trropops based in Cyprus
• Air traffic controllers in Britain claim that near misses have doubled

You might be interested to read Jake Lynch's What Are Journalist's For?

That [the list, not the article] is the most depressing thing I've read in a while. I can't even feel morally superior as an Aussie because I'm sure our media has done similar and worse.

Rugby is funny because it's true. I notice the Welsh are getting let off the hook though? Poor bastards can't even rate as a team in a satirical e-mail anymore. It's very sad.