#have a good night lads. achieve flight

[b4kuch1n]

about ready

[moodswingsabz]

After a match like Sunday’s, one of the worst parts is having to explain, particularly to non football fans, how can you have played well in a match and still have lost, which is a scenario I’m sure many of us found ourselves in this week. Recent outings against Celtic have proven to be torrid affairs for Aberdeen, usually finding themselves badly exposed defensively whilst offering very little threat in an attacking sense. Last weekend’s match showed a marked improvement, with the side making a real fist of the game and despite being a goal behind early on, they continued their good attacking play from the early stages to score an equalising goal and looked set to turn the match into a real contest. Unfortunately, this was shortly followed by an unfortunate ‘what if’ moment when Nicky Devlin’s headed back pass fell to possibly the most clinical Celt who fired them ahead once again and left us all wondering what could have been if the game could have remained level for longer and given Aberdeen a chance to build on what they’d worked hard to achieve. The remainder of the match showed more spirited play from Aberdeen who never stopped trying to fight their way back in and despite losing another late goal, the first home crowd of the season left disappointed but not too dismayed by the early afternoon’s proceedings.

Now we switch from wondering what could have been to what might be possible as we enter our first cup match of the season. The League Cup is generally, for whatever reason, viewed as the lesser of the two domestic cups available however given it’s the last silverware that Aberdeen lifted, there is a sentimental element to the competition for Dons fans and let’s be honest, it’s never the lesser cup if it’s the one you end up taking home. Given our recent history in cup competitions against lower league opposition (don’t say the D word) it will have been a relief to all dandies that Barry Robson has made it very clear that he doesn’t intend to rest anyone for the Friday night fixture and that they are taking the game very seriously. Like myself you might have been buoyed by images of Angus MacDonald on the training pitch, the news that Rhys Williams played a reserve game against Peterhead this week and that it appears James McGarry has fought off jet-lag to immediately start integrating with the squad but it seems from what Robson has said that we may have to wait a little longer until we see the sidelined lads come into the team to make up what you would imagine will be our strongest defence. Whilst it’s disappointing that we won’t get our first looks at Rhys or Jimmy or a chance to reacquaint ourselves with the strapping Angus Mac, I am much more confident after Sunday’s showing that the current stand ins playing slightly out of position, will have enough about them to deal with Friday’s challenge. Moreover, and I’d have spat my pint all over The Bobbin had you informed me ahead of Sunday’s game that I’d be saying this, I’m quite looking forward to seeing Ryan Duncan at left wing back again.

Stirling Albion seem to very much be a club on the up and don’t seem expected to struggle in their own league, despite being freshly promoted. Darren Young’s side have won their opening two league fixtures and already seen off top flight side St. Johnstone in the cup group stages but have lost their last match, a 3-0 defeat to East Kilbride on Tuesday evening. Despite this blip, their form still indicates they will be a threat and I personally always find it makes me a little nervy facing a team who are used to winning ways, regardless of what league they compete in.

For the Aberdeen support it’s another two hour trip south, another sold out allocation and a great excuse to take the Friday afternoon off work to extend your weekend, or potentially write it off completely with too many beers before most have even clocked off. Given the level of support headed down the road it seems the fans and the team are in agreement over the severity of this game or maybe for some it’s the sentiment of returning to the ground where we first got a look at Luis ‘DUUUUK’ Lopes. Let’s just hope that on Friday, the team and the man himself, give us a reason to remember his second appearance for the Dons in Stirling!  

[flowers-creativity]

Small Things

Fandom: The Musketeers Characters: d’Artagnan (Charles d’Artagnan), Porthos du Vallon, Athos (Comte de la Fere), Aramis (René d’Herblay), Jean Tréville, OCs Warnings: Violence, bullying Summary: d'Artagnan has found a new home and purpose in the Musketeers. But there might be some things that are wrong. They're only small things, though. Porthos is good at noticing small things.

AO3 link

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 Chapter 3

They were small things, really.

d'Artagnan knew his life was not turning out too bad. He had come to Paris and almost killed an innocent man for his father's death, but then he had not only been forgiven for the whole sordid affair but had even been granted the friendship of the man he had tried to kill, and of his two brothers. Even Captain Tréville seemed to be appreciative of his talents, especially after the whole thing with Vadim, and so he was allowed to stay and train with the Musketeers, even if he had no money to buy a commission, no one to sponsor him or even enough money to pay his way as a recruit. The Captain had insinuated that him fulfilling his duties alongside his friends and maybe putting in some extra work around the garrison would pay for his equipment and training at least in part, and so he was happy to muck out the stables or chop vegetables for Serge after his duties were done.

Word had it that Tréville was from Gascony himself, and he sometimes heard it in a turn of phrase or something else that made his breath catch at a sudden feeling of familiarity in the man's presence but he hadn't asked the Captain about where in the region he had come from, not sure if this wasn't too personal a question to ask your commanding officer – even if he was not officially a Musketeer – and afraid to discover that the Captain's support was out of some sentimentality towards their shared home or people he might have known back there, not earned on his own merits.

Also, the thought of talking to someone who knew Gascony just hurt too much on days when the buildings of Paris crowded in too closely and he longed for the wind rippling the tops of the grain on the fields like waves. There was barely any wind in the narrow streets of the city.

Not that he talked to anyone who did not know of Gascony about those bouts of homesickness either, of course. It didn't matter.

He was not destitute – he had seen poverty, at home and even more so in the streets of Paris and the Court of Miracles. He had written to his father's right-hand man; Phillipe had agreed to keep things running on the farm until he could make a final decision on how to proceed with it, and he now received a small stipend every month. It was enough to pay for his lodgings at the Bonacieux', keep himself fed and keep up appearances by giving Constance a few coins when she darned and sewed up what little clothes he owned. He did his best to swallow his Gascon pride whenever Athos or Aramis paid for all their wine at the tavern at night, knowing the others would have had the coin for it, or whenever Porthos let him win at cards and grumbled good-naturedly about “Must be your lucky day, lad”. He might be young and inexperienced but he wasn't stupid. But they meant well, so he let it go without a challenge.

He hadn't forgotten about his father's original reason for coming to Paris, but after his passing, he did not see how to help his people. His father had been an experienced, well-respected member of their community, and his words carried weight even beyond it, so there had been hope in him petitioning the king. In comparison, what could an orphaned farm boy hope to achieve? So he had written back home, advising the other leaders in the community to send someone else, hoping the next man to come to Paris would have more luck on the road and with the king. And maybe, when he had gained his commission and made a name for himself in the regiment, he might still be able to help, even if this day seemed a long way off.

And then there was Constance. He knew he was skirting a dangerous edge at times, even if he told himself she was just a friend. He could not have chosen a better woman to fall unconscious at her feet on that first day in Paris. Constance, sweet, determined, caring, fiery, practical and mischievous Constance, so many contradictions wrapped into a lovely package … and married, so married. He was sure that she did not feel much love for her husband but she held her vows sacred, and he couldn't help but admire her steadfastness.

All in all, d'Artagnan had a lot on his mind. That's why little things didn't even register first.

He knew you could never been liked by everyone. He had learned that lesson a long time ago, and why should Paris be different than a small town in Gascony in this regard, especially when you were still young, bull-headed, with a bit of a temper and the inability to keep your mouth shut when you really, really should sometimes? So he had Athos, Porthos and Aramis' friendship, he got along well with Serge and had found a younger friend in the stable boy Jacques, and most of the other Musketeers were friendly enough. So what if there were a few who turned up their nose at him, whether at his inexperience, his mended and darned clothes, or maybe the way he still felt like a country bumpkin when he was surprised by some aspect of the city life and the King's court? He hadn't come here to be liked by everyone, he had come here to become one of the best soldiers France had to offer. Or at least that was why he stayed.

So, little things.

He came out of the kitchen one day to find that his pistol, which he was sure he had left in a dry spot with his other things under the balustrade, was no longer in that spot but was laying in the mud of the courtyard, churned up by a few days of torrential rain and the coming and goings of men and horses. He looked around but could see no one who might be responsible for this, so he sighed and picked it up, pulling out a piece of cloth, and set to cleaning the mud off it, already hearing the words Aramis would have with him if he saw his weapon's state.

Another time he reached for his tack to saddle up for a ride and some training with the others outside of the city, looking forward to breathing fresh air for a few hours, away from the din and smells of too many people living in too little space, and his hand caught on the nail, leaving a long, shallow red scrape  along his finger. The top of the nail had broken off, turning it into a sharp, unforgiving little dagger. He swore under his breath, wiped away the few small blood drops and went to saddle his horse.

The next time, his gloves went missing. He knew he had tucked them into his belt, at the small of his back next to his main gauche, but they were gone. Maybe he had lost them when he had been wrestling with Porthos for fun a bit earlier? But searching the whole courtyard did not turn up anything. He found them in one of the boxes two days later while mucking out the stables, smelling strongly of horse shit.

Then he was walking past a building when someone upended a bucket of dirty wash water out of the window. Within the blink of an eye, he was drenched and sputtering. Porthos and Aramis had lots of fun pointing out that he was looking not unlike a wet dog after its owner had given it a good bath while Athos made a disapproving noise at all of them and told him to go clean himself up. Still, he could have been more unfortunate, he supposed – what if it had been a chamber pot?

And so on.

They were little things, and he didn't think much by it.

***

Porthos noticed little things.

It came from his time on the streets, he supposed, where little things could be the difference between a full and an empty belly, a successful theft or a wild flight from the Red Guards, if you even had the chance to flee at all. The shift of a hidden purse – or a dagger – beneath the clothes, a small change in the expression that told you had been noticed and needed to beat a hasty retreat, the signs Charon, Flea and he used to signal each other when they were running the street together. Those were skills that had served him well as a soldier, too.  Aramis, Athos and he were good at communicating with each other with few or no words at all and they had sharp eyes, too, but meaning no disrespect to his brothers, he knew he was better at spying these small details. Athos was quiet and watchful but had the tendency to get lost in his own head. Aramis, on the other hand, if he did not employ the singular focus of lining up a shot, almost saw too much and lost the overview of which details might be important.

Porthos had learned to differentiate between the small things that were just that, small and unimportant, and those that told a story. So he noticed how their youngest seemed to have a really bad stroke of luck as of late: d'Artagnan's things went missing and kept cropping up in places where he hadn't left them for sure, often in a state poorer than they'd been. There was an unusual amount of stuff breaking around the Gascon, resulting in the one or other minor injury or just more time spent cleaning his things than usual. And even if Aramis and he had had a lot of fun with the wash water incident, he did notice how it lined up with those other things.

He could not yet put a name to it but he knew it awakened some uneasy feeling in his belly, and it was a feeling he knew well.

Then he overheard some of his fellow Musketeers talking, and he only needed to hear the tone in which one of them said “that Gascon farm boy” to know what he had been suspecting was right. There was no need for insults or words plainer than those; Porthos knew the sound of disdain and derision well enough.

He did not speak to the men but made sure to make note of their faces and the names belonging to them before quickly moving away. He would observe some more and then speak to his friends.

Nobody messed with one of his brothers.

Especially not when he remembered all too well going through something similar to what d'Artagnan was currently suffering.

***

There were more little things, more small accidents, and Porthos had seen three more men discussing something covertly with those two he had originally overheard, Gros and Larue. He finally felt it was time to tell Athos and Aramis, and together they would decide what to tell d'Artagnan and the Captain and what to do.

Porthos was a patient man, something people often failed to notice, believing him quick to anger and explode. Oh, he could do that, too, but he knew the virtue of patience, especially in cases like this.

But this time, he wished he had gone with the sin of wrath instead. Because he had waited too long. The next thing was not so small any more.

He would forever curse his horse for making him late to training that day. Though really, the poor beast could not be blamed for falling lame the day before so he had gone to check on it after muster, and who knew what difference it might have made. By the time he got to the practice area, most of the other Musketeers had split up into groups and pairs and were engaged in the first rounds of training. He spied Aramis at the shooting range, demonstrating the loading of the pistol with practised ease to some younger soldiers, and Athos was standing with his arms crossed as he observed those crossing the blades, as he was wont to do if not actively involved in sparring himself. d'Artagnan was paired with Maçon, another younger Musketeer, and a man large enough to almost rival Porthos' own height. Maçon was lacking Porthos' fluidity of movement, though, relying far too much on his strength alone, and as such was having a hard time keeping up with d'Artagnan whose speed and agility easily made up for the difference in strength. The Gascon was positively dancing around his opponent, and there was an amused twinkle in Athos' eye as he observed the pair. “d'Artagnan is having Maçon's pride for breakfast,” he remarked as Porthos stepped at his side, and the dark-skinned man snorted with mirth.

“He's a good sort, though, so I'm sure he will survive,” he returned. It was true, Maçon was not a prideful man but well aware of his failings, sometimes overly so, and Porthos had attempted to teach him ways how to employ his strength in less brutish ways. Those lessons were slow going but there was hope for the young man in his eyes.

Athos nodded and started to turn away from the sparring partners. “How about us, then?” he suggested to his friend. “Or are you needed over there?” He motioned his head towards where hand-to-hand combat and wrestling was being trained. While they never had been explicitly been appointed to it, most of the other Musketeers acknowledged the Inseparables' superiority in their respective specialty and readily accepted them acting as trainers, Aramis for shooting, Athos for swords and Porthos for hand-to-hand.

“Nah, not today – I'd rather do blades,” Porthos said with a grin. It was always fun to spar with his friends, and he relished learning from his older friend who still had a thing or two to teach him, even after all those years they had spent soldiering side by side. Plus, he knew that Athos enjoyed the challenge, too, since Porthos had the ability and willingness to think outside the box and employ some unconventional techniques which kept his more traditionally trained friend from becoming too rigid in his forms.

He was about to draw his sword and salute Athos when a sound from those around them watching d'Artagnan and Maçon drew his attention back to the pair. Something seemed to have broken d'Artagnan's concentration, and he was looking away from his opponent. It was just a moment but enough for Maçon to take advantage of it, and the larger man brought his sword down in a powerful overhead swing. d'Artagnan just managed to bring up his own blade to block it and was forced a bit backwards as Maçon pressed his advantage, bearing down on the smaller man with all of his impressive strength. d'Artagnan went down on one knee, and it was clear to everyone watching that he would need a manoeuvre based on agility rather than strength to escape from the bind his momentary inattention had landed him in.

But before he could do that, a sharp sound rent the air, and d'Artagnan's sword broke, splintering near the hilt. Maçon was as surprised by this as his opponent and was unable to stop as the sudden disappearance of resistance pulled his blade and the strength behind it in the direction they had been aimed at. There was a snap and then a pain-filled cry from d'Artagnan as the blade hit his shoulder with punishing force. Both opponents toppled over, and Maçon could just wrench his sword aside as he landed on d'Artagnan to prevent further damage. As it was, the impact forced the air out of the young man's lungs, and while Maçon immediately gained his feet again, apologies spilling from his lips, the Gascon remained on the ground, looking dazed. Porthos rushed over to him immediately, and he heard Athos call for Aramis behind him.

“d'Artagnan?” Porthos asked as he carefully reached out to touch his friend's shoulder, hesitating at the last minute and switching hands to touch his right, instead of the left he had instinctively reached for – it was the shoulder Maçon had struck.

Pained brown eyes blinked up at him, and the Gascon made a sound that was barely more than a gasp. He struggled to draw breath, and his skin had paled beneath its natural olive tone.

“Breathe, d'Artagnan,” Porthos instructed him, lightly squeezing his shoulder. “In and out, slowly – you can do it.” It took a few tries but finally, d'Artagnan's panting returned to a more natural rhythm. By that time, Aramis had arrived and was nudging Porthos' side to make room for him to check on the injured man. “Where?” the medic asked.

“His left shoulder,” the large man answered, seeing that his friend was entirely busy with breathing through the pain and shock of the accident and could not respond. Aramis nodded and started to palpate the shoulder with gentle hands through his clothes. Porthos stood, giving him space to do his work, and looked around. There was quite a thrum of spectators around them, and he made shooing motions at them, accompanied by a glare and a low growl, to make them stop their gawking and return to training. Athos was standing nearby with Maçon whose face was painted with misery and regret. Athos had a hand on his shoulder and was talking to him in low tones. Porthos had no doubt that he was trying to assuage the young man's guilt at having hurt his comrade – for someone as prone to guilt-tripping himself for any and all things befalling him and those around him, Athos did not suffer it lightly when others did the same.

Concentrating on Aramis and his patient again, Porthos offered: “Maçon fell on him, too – better check his ribs as well.” Aramis only nodded, being in the process of untying d'Artagnan's doublet to more directly assess the injury. “Looks like his collarbone is broken,” he murmured. Porthos winced in sympathy – that was a painful fracture, as he knew from experience. d'Artagnan had his eyes closed, breathing heavily to withstand Aramis' poking and prodding, until the medic sat back on his haunches and said: “That seems to be the worst of it – his chest will bruise a bit but his ribs are whole. Let's get him to the infirmary so I can bind that injury.” He gently touched the young man's cheek. “d'Artagnan, I'm sorry to cause you further pain but we need to move you. Can you manage?”

The Gascon drew a deep breath and opened his eyes, meeting the marksman's gaze with his customary determination. “Don't worry,” he answered, “I'm fine.” His voice was rough with pain, clearly belying his words, but he did his best to push himself up with his right arm. Aramis quickly placed a hand on his chest to stay the movement. “Don't try moving yourself, we have you,” he told him with a small smile. “Porthos?”

Porthos nodded and moved to d'Artagnan's other side, taking his right arm and pulling it over his shoulder to lift him off the ground as gently as he could. Nevertheless, the jostling had the Gascon turn grey, and he hung his head low, his breathing speeding up once more. Porthos stood still, holding onto his friend, until he had settled and nodded slightly to indicate he was ready. Aramis took his arm on the injured side, not pulling it over his shoulder but supporting it, with his other arm around d'Artagnan's narrow waist. Athos and  Maçon were trailing behind as they slowly made their way towards the infirmary.

Inside, Porthos helped d'Artagnan settle on a cot and then worked with Athos to carefully strip the young man of his doublet and shirt without causing him too much pain while Aramis gathered what he needed to immobilise the injury as best as possible. That was one of the difficulties of a broken collar bone – in contrast to a broken arm or leg, it was hard to bind it so that the bones could not shift, requiring the arm on this side to be immobilised as well. d'Artagnan would be forced into inactivity for at least a few weeks, and he knew his friend would chafe at the setback in his training and his hopes to gain a commission.

Stepping back, Porthos frowned as he watched Aramis work. Something about the accident had him unsettled, and after a moment, he decided to follow his gut instinct, turning and leaving the infirmary. He noticed Athos giving him a quizzical look but he didn't react to the unspoken question.

Outside, he hastened back to the training area where normal activity had resumed. Looking around searchingly, he could not find what he was looking for and finally took the arm of a Musketeer standing around and waiting for his turn to spar. “Have you seen the blade d'Artagnan used, the one that Maçon broke just now?” he asked.

The man looked at him in surprise and shook his head. “No, I think someone must have cleared it away,” he replied.

Porthos cursed as he released him. Of course that was reasonable but somehow it made the suspicion spike that was growing in his gut like nausea. He turned away from the confused look of his fellow Musketeer and went to search for the blade.

It took him almost half an hour until he was successful, and a grim smile of satisfaction quirked his lips until it hit home what his discovery meant, even before he had checked the sword which was not d'Artagnan's normal weapon but a training blade. Someone had removed it, and they had not placed it with the other damaged weapons awaiting repair, nor onto the pile of scraps to be thrown away. Rather, it had been hidden behind a barrel near the stables. Someone had made an effort to conceal it but hadn't had the time to remove it completely, which was his luck. But this action meant he did not actually have to check the sword to know something was not right.

Nevertheless, he let his gaze and fingers carefully wander over the blade, and looking at where it had broken near the hilt, he quickly found what he was looking for. Part of the broken edge was not jagged like the rest of it but rather straight and smooth. Porthos let forth a stream of curses and was halfway back to the infirmary before he was even aware that he was moving.

Athos and Aramis looked up when he burst into the room. d'Artagnan was resting on the cot, his chest and shoulder swaddled in bandages, his arm strapped to his side, clearly under the influence of one of Aramis' pain draughts. Maçon was nowhere to be seen – Athos must have sent him away. Porthos strode over to Athos and placed the blade and its hilt in his hands. “Someone's tampered with the blade,” he growled. “It's been filed down to weaken it.” Turning around, he started to pace the length of the room, flexing his fists open and closed. “This time, they've gone too far. They'll pay for this!”

His two friends shared an alarmed look, and Aramis moved to intercept his steps, placing a hand on his arm. “Calm yourself, my friend,” he implored. “Please explain – what do you mean?”

Porthos stood, chest heaving as he struggled to gain control of the rage burning in him, and as he locked his gaze on d'Artagnan's still form, the weight of his knowledge came crashing down on him. “I shoulda done somethin' earlier,” he muttered, “I shoulda stopped it. I knew what was goin' on, and I didn't step in, and now it's come to this. I've failed him.” He hung his head low, unable to meet his friends' eyes. He had thought it was just little things, which certainly were annoying and bothersome to the young Gascon and would hurt once he learned the malicious thoughts behind it, but he hadn't thought they would actually move to hurt him so. And now d'Artagnan had paid the price for his misplaced trust in his fellow Musketeers, even though he knew what some of them were capable of if they disapproved of who joined their ranks. Maybe he had thought d'Artagnan was safe because he was targeted for another reason, lulled into a false sense of security by the pettiness of their actions so far … Whatever it was, it meant he had underestimated the danger and had placed his young friend at risk.

“Porthos,” he heard Aramis' voice, and his friend's hand gently grasped his chin to lift his head up, his eyes searching for his gaze to catch and hold it. “Talk to us. What's going on?”

He scrubbed his hand over his face before taking a deep breath and looking from Aramis to Athos. The older Musketeer still held the blade and hilt, and his eyes were piercing as he looked up from them and met Porthos' gaze. Unable to hold it, he looked away again, shame engulfing him once more. “You noticed that d'Artagnan had suffered a bit of bad luck lately?” he began to speak wearily. “Things goin' missing, gettin' soiled or breakin' ...” Quickly looking at his friends, he saw them nodding.

“It seemed strange to me, and a few days ago, I overheard some others talk about our friend. Nothin' special, just ...” he spread his hands in a helpless gesture, “just the tone they used, you know?” They probably didn't, something in him said with bitterness though he baulked at the disservice he was doing his brothers. “But I didn't know for sure if there was a connection, so I waited some more. Didn't catch any in the act but more little things happened to d'Artagnan, and I saw the ones I'd overheard talk to others, secretly-like. Was about to tell you but then ...” he gestured to d'Artagnan, “this happened. I didn't think they'd go that far! Didn't ...” For a moment he trailed off and looked elsewhere, bile rising in his throat. “Didn't wanna believe there's more of them like this,” he finished, his voice barely a whisper.

Silence reigned as he had ended, and he sat down heavily on an empty cot, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees and bury his hands in his curls.

“Oh, Porthos,” Aramis breathed quietly, and Porthos felt a hand settle on his back. Another hand joined it on his shoulder, and he managed to raise his head to meet Athos' clear, cool gaze.

“Don't blame yourself, brother,” the older man said. “The only ones to blame are those willing to hurt someone else just because they believe them beneath them.”

At his side, Aramis nodded, his expression warm and full of absolution. “I'm sure d'Artagnan would tell you the same if he were awake,” he told him. “You did your best to watch out for him, and it is not your fault that they moved too fast for you to prevent this.”

Porthos bit his lip, wanting to believe in his friends' reassurances but unsure if he really deserved them, feeling stripped bare after some of the things he had revealed. Finally, he nodded and leaned back a bit, looking up at them. He would try to put these feelings aside for the moment, though he certainly felt the need to search for d'Artagnan's forgiveness, too, once the young man had recovered to some extent. “Alright,” he said, “alright. What do we do now?”

Athos went over to the broken sword he had set aside to come to Porthos' side, picking it up and studying the edge with narrowed eyes. “Who are the men you're suspecting?” he asked, running a thumb over the metal. “Maçon?”

Porthos shook his head with fervour. “No, I don't think he was involved. He's a good lad, it was just bad luck that he was the one responsible for the blade breakin'. You've seen how much he regretted hurtin' d'Artagnan.”

Athos nodded curtly. “Who, then?”

“Gros and Larue,” Porthos answered, “and I saw them speakin' to Royer, Travert and Borde.”

Athos bit back a curse. “Royer gave d'Artagnan this blade,” he said. “There was a problem with d'Artagnan's sword, the hilt had loosened a bit. I told him to get one of the training blades until it had been fixed.” A shadow passed over his face, and Aramis, always quick on the uptake, pointed a finger at him in reproach. “Don't you get started,” he admonished. “Heed your own words, Athos.”

Despite everything, Porthos had to suppress a snort of laughter at that, and Aramis flashed him a grin speaking of his relief to see his friend come out of the fog of guilt and anger somewhat. “So, Royer,” the marksman said. “It's not presumptuous to assume he's been involved in this, at least. Should we go confront him? Or go to Tréville?”

Athos put the two pieces of the sword aside, scratching his beard thoughtfully. “I hesitate to go to Tréville yet but he will need to be informed soon,” he mused. “They were willing to get d'Artagnan seriously hurt with this.”

“He did get seriously hurt!” Porthos exploded, gesturing towards their young friend. “How much more should he have to suffer from these men?”

Athos held up a placating hand. “Peace, my friend. I apologise if my words made it sound as if I'm downplaying what happened. But I want to have as much details and evidence as possible before going to the Captain. Royer is a given, I'd say, but I want all of those responsible to get their just desserts, not just him.” He held Porthos' gaze, the blue eyes unwavering in their certainty. “I swear to you, we won't let further harm come to him, none of us.”

Aramis nodded, giving Porthos' shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Let's not disturb our friend's sleep for now and move to another room to talk about how best to find out more?” he suggested.

***

Later that day, Porthos was found at d'Artagnan's bedside, Athos and Aramis having returned to their duties after they had talked. Normally, Aramis was loathe to leave their side when one of his friends was injured, but while the Gascon's injury was a painful one, there was little to do besides what he had done and no risk of his conditioning worsening; so the marksman had seen that Porthos' need was greater than his own right now, the large man still not able to shake his guilt at not having prevented the incident. Both his friends had repeatedly tried to dissuade him from the notion but had finally given up, understanding that it would most likely need d'Artagnan's absolution and bringing down those responsible for it before he could let go.

Porthos was thumbing idly through a book some former inhabitant of one of the cots must have left behind. He was not an avid reader like Athos or Aramis but right now it provided some welcome distraction from his thoughts which kept circling around the events of the day, his emotions swinging between remorse, fury and despondency, while he waited for their youngest to wake from the sleep induced by the pain draught. He was glad to see that d'Artagnan's colour had returned and he was breathing easily, the pain held at bay by the draught and the stillness of sleep, and for that reason he wished the young man would stay asleep for some time longer – and a part also wanted to delay the inevitable talk they would need to have, while another part could not wait for it so he could beg for d'Artagnan's forgiveness and hopefully alleviate his guilty conscience.

Some little movement caught his eye, and he put the book aside, leaning forward to watch as the Gascon slowly woke, eyelids fluttering a moment before he opened them lazily, his gaze searching until it fell on him. “Porthos,” he murmured, bringing up his hand to rub the sleep from his eyes. A look of confusion passed over his face at the discovery that his left arm was restricted, and Porthos quickly placed a hand on the one bound to his body, holding it in place. “Easy, d'Artagnan,” he said, “Aramis strapped your arm so the bones won't shift when you move it.” Knowing fully well how the combination of pain and Aramis' medicine could addle the mind, he asked: “Do you remember what happened?”

The young man closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, then nodded. “My sword broke, and  Maçon's blow broke something in my shoulder – my collarbone?”

Porthos smiled, glad to know his friend's mind was clear. “Good,” he praised. Seeing d'Artagnan swallow and lick at his dry lips, he helped him sit up and scoot back to rest against the wall behind the cot, then reached for a cup of water Aramis had left next to the cot. He held the cup to his lips for him to drink, ignoring the glare he got for his troubles. “How's the pain?”

“I'm fine,” the Gascon replied. At Porthos' unimpressed snort, he relented and amended: “It hurts but it's not too bad. I can handle it.”

“Alright.” The dark-skinned man nodded. “Do tell when you need some relief. Remember, you'll heal faster when your body doesn't have to waste energy on battlin' the pain.” It was a lesson they had had to drill into the young man repeatedly – though Porthos had to admit it might have been slightly easier if the Inseparables themselves were better at emulating their own advice, none of them particularly good at accepting their bodies' limits after an injury and loathe to be fussed over.

“Aramis and Athos?” d'Artagnan asked.

“Had to go back to their duties – they'll be by later,” Porthos replied.

d'Artagnan nodded, letting his head fall back against the wall and closing his eyes. For a while, they sat in silence until Porthos could no longer bear it. “I'm so sorry, d'Artagnan,” he blurted out.

d'Artagnan startled and opened his eyes, looking at his friend with confusion written all over his face. “What for?” he asked.

“For this.” Porthos gestured to his bandaged shoulder.

If anything, d'Artagnan's frown deepened, confused not only by Porthos' words but also the abject misery on the normally so affable man's face. “Why? You were not involved, you weren't even near me,” he questioned.

“Yes, but ...” Porthos scrubbed his hands over his face, searching for the right words. “I knew someone was targetin' you, and I failed to protect you.”

d'Artagnan already opened his mouth for a quick retort, most likely to protest that he didn't need protection, but reconsidered and instead asked: “Wait, what? Targeting me?” He studied his friend and at his nod, asked almost gently, reading the guilt that was positively radiating from him: “How about you tell me from the beginning?”

Porthos sighed softly but did as he was bid, explaining about his suspicions about d'Artagnan's “bad luck”, the covert discussions between the five Musketeers he had observed, and finally the tampered blade that had lead to the injury. “I shoulda told you and the others earlier,” he finished with another wave of sorrow, “or get them to leave you alone on my own. And if I hadn't been too late to practice today, I'd have seen Royer givin' you the blade, and--” It no longer held him in his seat, and he started pacing again, berating himself for his failure to do something to prevent harm coming his friend's way.

“Porthos,” d'Artagnan interrupted him, dark eyes wide with worry at his friend's distress, “it's not your fault, you couldn't have known--”

He shook his head violently, not letting him finish. “I shoulda known, I know what men like this are capable of, I shoulda--”

“Porthos, please!” d'Artagnan struggled to sit up straight with no arm to support himself since the unbound arm was stretched out towards the large man pleadingly. “Calm down!” His efforts to reach forward to his friend jostled his broken bone, and a pained gasp escaped him.

The sound of pain was Porthos' undoing, destroying the last of the tenuous hold he had on the emotions running wild in him, and the Musketeer backed away, nearly stumbling over a chair standing in his way. “d'Artagnan, I … I'm sorry, I can't--” With these words, he whirled around and stormed out of the room. He almost collided with Aramis who chose just this moment to open the door but barely spared a glance at him as he ran. The marksman looked to d'Artagnan, silently asking what happened, but the younger man just shook his head. “Go after him!” he implored and sank back against the wall in his back as Aramis obeyed and hurried from the room, cursing his inability to go after his friend himself.

It was several long minutes until Aramis returned. He shook his head sadly, and d'Artagnan's face fell. “He's gone?” he asked, nevertheless.

Aramis nodded. “Yes.” Despite his size, Porthos was a fast runner, and his knowledge of the city's streets stemming from his time as a thief growing up on them meant he was exceptionally skilled at giving pursuers the slip and not being found when he did not want to be. Aramis breathed a deep sigh and sat down in the chair so recently vacated by the dark-skinned Musketeer. “How are you?” he asked his young friend.

“Fine,” d'Artagnan answered automatically and ignored the displeased huff Aramis made at the predictability of the answer, his eyes still on the door. He was struggling to keep himself from attempting to go after Porthos himself, even though he logically knew that he had no better chance to find him than Aramis, especially not while hampered by his injury. “But Porthos ...” He trailed off and finally turned his gaze away, looking at the marksman instead. “I don't think I've ever seen him like this, and I've seen him shouldering the blame when there was none to bear before – all three of you.” Athos most struggled with the decisions to make on a mission, d'Artagnan, but also his two older friends, willingly deferring to his natural leadership skills; Aramis was always fretting about doing the right thing in caring for his brothers when one of them got injured; and Porthos always felt guilty when he was unable to protect one of them or on the rare occasions when he didn't know his own strength and caused them damage. But even considering his prior knowledge of d'Artagnan's harassment, his reaction seemed disproportionate this time.

Aramis inclined his head in assent. Truth be told, he had wondered all day at that, too. He thought he had an inkling of what might explain it but was unsure how much of it he could share with his young friend or if it was Porthos' story to tell. “As we have you,” he pointed out instead, referring to all those times d'Artagnan had felt it his fault when things had gone wrong, blaming himself for his inexperience and lack of proper training as a raw recruit.

The Gascon was not so easily distracted, though, and pressed on: “Do you know why?”

Aramis sighed but couldn't help the worry on the young man's face warming his heart, and he decided that his friend deserved to know – he hoped Porthos would forgive him for telling. “I may have an idea,” he admitted, “but I didn't know this particular wound was still paining him so much.” His hand went to the crucifix around his neck, and he fidgeted with it for a while, trying to sort through his thoughts. d'Artagnan, to his credit, let him take his time now that he felt some answers might be forthcoming.

Finally, Aramis began: “When Porthos joined the regiment, things were … difficult for him.” He snorted at his own understatement. “You may be able to guess why. It was not only his skin but also his childhood on the streets and his association with the Court of Miracles that had many of our comrades at the time looking at him askance.”

d'Artagnan nodded. “What did they do to him?” he asked, and Aramis could not repress a small smile at the protective tone of voice, as if the Gascon wished to travel back in time and prevent any harm coming to his friend.

He shrugged. “For the most part, many were satisfied with avoiding him and pointed looks. Then there were similar things to those you've experienced recently, I believe, and there were more than enough insults hurled at him during that time, too.” He threw a sharp glance at the recruit. “I take it they haven't taken that approach with you? Or is there anything we should be aware of?”

d'Artagnan shook his head. “Nothing but the occasional unkind remark,” he said easily, and the marksman nodded, halfway satisfied, while another part burned with anger and shame at his comrades with the knowledge that those harassing their young friend didn't even have the courage to make their feelings clear verbally, hiding behind their anonymity.

“Porthos took it all and didn't let it bring him down,” he continued, pride at his friend's mettle evident in his voice. “He has a thick skin and certainly wasn't a stranger to insults and harassment before, but I can't even begin to imagine what it took to withstand all of that in those first few months. Porthos and I became friends soon enough, having felt drawn to each other as soon as he joined and we met, and with time, many of those who were less hostile were won over by our friend's generous nature and his skills as a soldier – or some of them may just have tired of their games, I do not know.”

The young Gascon smiled at the praise and affection for his friend displayed by Aramis but the marksman's face grew serious again, and d'Artagnan looked at him with trepidation. “But?” he prompted.

Aramis cleared his throat and looked away, the memory clearly still hard on him, too. “When it became clear that he wasn't to be driven away, some of them conspired to get rid of him, more … permanently,” he said quietly. “They almost managed to do it, too – to get him killed.”

Brown eyes widened at those words, and d'Artagnan breathed a shocked “What?”, unable to imagine one of their brothers-in-arms turning against one of their own in such a way.

Aramis' voice was bitter as he continued: “They bid their time – we almost thought it was over since the earlier harassment had all but stopped. But when Porthos was sent on a solo mission – which was a more regular occurrence back then since we didn't have the numbers to send out pairs or groups unless strictly necessary –, they sabotaged his weapons and supplies. We never found out if the bandits that attacked him were part of the plan as the conspirators never admitted to sending them, though I do suspect it was so. Be it as it were, while he managed to kill the two men, their attack left him severely wounded and without supplies, hours from Paris. I'll forever be grateful that Tréville became worried when he didn't return when he was due and sent me to search for him, and that I was able to get to him in time. It still was a near thing, and for a few days it was unclear if he survived at all or if he were to lose his hand to the burns of his pistol exploding in it.”

d'Artagnan noticed he had been holding his breath during Aramis' tale, overcome with fear for his friend despite knowing that everything would turn out fine, since Porthos was hale and healthy and definitely still in the possession of two hands. Forcing himself to exhale and breathe in again slowly, he asked: “But you did find out who it had been?”

The marksman nodded. “Once Porthos was well enough to tell us what happened, the Captain was ruthless in flushing out those responsible. One of them was named as a possible suspect, having been seen near Porthos' horse before he departed, and he was quick to fold and name the others. They were all punished and stripped of their commission in disgrace, and Tréville told everyone that he would not accept anything like this ever again, and whoever did not want to serve at the side of those like Porthos due to their past, skin or anything else had better leave before he found out.” A faint smile tugged at his lips remembering the Captain's incensed words, though there was little actual humour in it. “I think seeing that this threat has been forgotten has opened up those wounds again for Porthos,” he added soberly. “Though I do not quite understand why he didn't come to us or the Captain earlier but--” He shrugged. “No use dwelling on that,” he finished. “All we can do now is bringing those men down, and make sure both you and Porthos can heal.”

d'Artagnan protested: “I'm fine, Aramis. It's Porthos I'm worried about.” As his older friend sighed, he rolled his eyes and amended: “Alright, my shoulder really hurts, and I'm not happy about being banned from training for weeks, probably – and I'm certainly not happy about some of those who might be my brothers-in-arms one day disliking me that much that they'd willingly do me harm. But I'll be good once we've dealt with them and my shoulder gets better, I'm sure. But Porthos ...”

Aramis reached out and took the Gascon's hand, squeezing it lightly. “It does you credit that you're so much more worried for your friend than for yourself,” he said, warmth and fondness colouring his words. “Knowing that and that he has your forgiveness for his perceived failure will be a huge balm on Porthos' soul. Still, do not deny yourself the comfort we're offering because you believe Porthos' need to be greater. I'm sure Athos and I will be able to give both of you our support without overtaxing ourselves.” The last bit was spoken sincerely but with a quirk of his lips and a twinkle in the marksman's dark eyes.

d'Artagnan returned the grin and the invitation to some banter gladly. “Are you sure? I believe it of you but Athos may strain some emotional muscle with that.”

The medic laughed and released his hand, getting up. “You might be right. Now, why don't I give you something for the pain – just something mild to take the edge of, I promise it won't make you sleep if you promise to rest later in turn – and then I go get Athos, and we can tell you about what we've been planning to do so far to make sure we get all of them?”

d'Artagnan bit his lip as if holding back another protest that he was fine but nodded his assent. Anticipating his next question, Aramis added: “You know as well as I that Porthos won't be found if he doesn't want to be. Let's give him some time to cool off. He'll be back by breakfast tomorrow, I'd wager.”

The Gascon looked unconvinced and worried but finally decided to accept his older friend's judgement, knowing how long the two of them had been friends. If anyone knew what to expect from the large Musketeer in this situation, it was Aramis.”Alright,” he agreed softly.

[neverwatchedonepiece]

461: The Beginning of the War! Ace and Whitebeard's Past!

Yeah, I can see why Ace crumbled and joined him.

Really enjoyed the reveal of Ace’s past and how he achieved his infamy. And it turns out Ace was an infamous, powerful pirate in his own right before he joined Whitebeard. That, I was not expecting.

Loved that part at the start of 461 when Luffy was chatting to Ivankov and pulled a Hagrid. Ivankov was wondering if Dragon would show up to the execution because he was certain, absolutely certain that Dragon would not allow the WG to kill his own son.

Luffy, the oblivious rubber child, said within earshot of the entire breakout crew: “Wut? No, Dragon is MY dad. Ace’s dad is Gol D. Roger. He got the cool one, eh? Wait... I shouldn’t have said that. I really should not have said that.”

Oh, Luffy.

Whitebeard

Then, finally, after I don’t know how many episodes of waiting, the main event arrived.

@mrkashkiet asked if I had any predictions on Whitebeard’s powers. I said my first predictions were for a fruit power. Then, when I learned about Shanks and his lack of fruit, I figured maybe Whitebeard would be one of those guys who is so strong he doesn’t need a fruit. If Whitebeard did have a fruit, since he is a big, physically powerful guy, I guessed he would have earth or earthquake powers to compliment the muscles.

Argh, I was so close!

Whitebeard’s entrance was understated but even that showed his supreme confidence in his power. The other two ships popped up beside his, revealing he had brought all fourteen of his commanders with him. Then, in deathly silence, came the chink, chink, chink of someone slowly, deliberately ascending a flight of stairs (there’s those stairs again. Might start shipping Oda x Stairs).

Of course it was Whitebeard. I cheered.

I loved the casual threats he sent Sengoku’s way.  “It’s been a while. You’d better be telling me that my adorable, fiery son is alright?” Sengoku was sweat dropping like he was out at Nandos with the lads and regretted slathering on all the Vusa sauce to show off.

Then Whitebeard turned to Ace and was like, “Yeah, just gimme a sec, son.”

I thought, such bravado from the whitest of beards. But it was not mere bravado.

Whitebeard built up power and (this was so badass I’m still not over it) punched the air so hard it cracked. I wasn’t sure what was going on at first. I figured it was lightning (but then that had already been done with Enel) but Sengoku kindly explained the technique. Whitebeard has eaten the Tremor Tremor Fruit (not sure I got that right). It causes sea quakes! Not earthquakes. Argh, I was so close.

Then the action cut to flashback.

I have never welcomed a flashback as much. Come to think of it, I always enjoy One Piece flashbacks. Up until now, they’ve always served a plot purpose or as a reminder to a viewer (like remember when Luffy beat this guy two hundred episodes ago?) This is in contrast to something like Naruto. If you’ve seen it, how many times did you see Naruto having that sad day on the swings? Exactly.

The flashbacks revealed that Ace has ticked off some awesome boxes, just like Luffy.

Ace’s Past

The flashback opened with a young, fresh-faced Ace, waving goodbye to little Luffy. Almost immediately, Ace was causing chaos. He founded the Spades Pirates (I see what you did there, Oda) and tore the place up to the point he got himself into the OP News.

Garp was mad. He wanted Ace to become an accountant.

Whitebeard also read the OP News. Sage old man that he is, he shook his head. These young whippersnappers are too hasty. Whitebeard revealed  that Ace even refused a request to join the Shichibukai (now that’s really something. I wonder if Sengoku had his suspicions about who Ace was. Maybe Garp was behind the request, subtly prompting the Marines to enlist Ace because it would keep him safe?)

But that wasn’t all. Foolhardy young Ace went to visit Shanks.

He dragged his crew with him up Caradhras a snowy mountain. Spade Crew expressed doubts because this was The Shanks they were crashing in on, uninvited. But Ace was like, “It’ll be fine, stop bitching!”

Ace rocks up with his crew and Shanks was not in Saving Tiny Children Mode, but in Badass Mode. He wasn’t too keen on Ace impinging on his chill time until Ace said, “Nah, I’m not here to fight. I want to say thanks for saving my little bro.” It’s amazing what mentioning Luffy’s name does to Shanks. He thawed immediately and it was party time.

The reveal that Ace wanted to become Pirate King when he was younger was unexpected. I totally assumed that he had grown up hating Roger and everything he stood for, so that when Whitebeard came along as a substitute father, he latched on. 

The reality was different. It took a long time for Ace to come around. Now that I think about it, I like that much better. Ace gave up his dream to be the Pirate King but it took a long time, a lot of convincing and it was his own decision, taken after a great deal of thought and only when trust, mutual respect and a real relationship was established. Good.

I love that Ace fought Jimbei for five days. No idea why Jimbei felt obligated to screen Whitebeard’s appointments like his secretary, but it was cool to get a feel for how tough Jimbei is as an opponent. 

I felt sorry for Ace when after he collapsed, done with Jimbei, Whitebeard sailed up out of the mist and was like, “So I heard one of you was looking for a fight?”

Exhaused, Ace said, “Yes, that would be me. Run, crew!” But Whitebeard was just too strong. Luckily, Whitebeard had taken a liking to Ace (maybe he saw Roger in Ace and suspected?). He extended a massive hand and said, “I like you. You are cheeky. You are valuable. Become my fiery son.”

It was a hard pass from Ace, but he woke up on the Moby Dick. He was not happy. Ace tried (hilariously) to assassinate Whitebeard over a hundred times and got reckt.

He met Thatch, the 4th Division Commander who came a cropper courtesy of Blackbeard (rip, Thatch). Thatch was nice. He gave Ace some good advice: “You can either get off this ship and start again, or stay and wear Whitebeard’s mark.” 

Ace stayed. He made such a name for himself that the Whitebeards started talking about making him 2nd Division Commander. Ace was like, “Who, me? But there are people there who’ve been around longer.”

One of those people was Blackbeard!

That was another interesting thing to learn, that Teach was one of the original Whitebeard crew members. It makes his betrayal all the more disturbing. Ace was sitting casually, with him, worrying if BB would be offended if he went for 2nd Division commander. Blackbeard said: “Don’t worry...

Technically true, but also a such a huge, bare-faced omission of truth it’s equivalent to a lie. Sneaky, evil Teach.

The moment Whitebeard finally won over Ace fully was when Ace knocked at his door one night and told him about his heritage. Instead of being angry that his old rival’s son had infiltrated his crew, Whitebeard was cool about it. “That doesn’t matter. We’re all family.” Whitebeard didn’t care that Ace was Roger’s son. He cared that Ace was his son. Excuse me while I dab my eyes with a nearby handkerchief.

Then Thatch found the Yami Yami no Mi and it all went to shit, complete with black and white “is that a dagger I see before me” flashback with Teach looking demonic and pleased.

Ace was distraught when he found out. He took Teach’s betrayal personally. As Teach’s commander, Teach was his responsibility. Worst of all, Teach had disgraced Whitebeard, Ace’s father’s, name. Whitebeard tried to stop him, said, “This is an exception. I have a bad feeling about this,” probably knowing what fruit Teach had stolen. But Ace was too wrapped up in grief and anger to listen.

Ace knows that now. He admitted to causing the omnishambles that is about to kick off. He should have listened. Why did they come?

But Whitebeard said he told Ace to go? Wtf? I don’t get that yet, but I hope he will explain himself in 462.

Good episode, though. 10/10 would watch again.

During a late night father-son chat, Whitebeard reveals the secret of how he sculpts his facial hair.

[getseriouser]

20 THOUGHTS: Bugger

FAR too many assumed we’d be having the biggest grand final in over 30 years this time last week 

Half-time Friday night we all thought we’d got it wrong but alas regular programming prevailed and they then expected Saturday to be the breezier of the two prelims .

Yeah nah.

Now we have third playing sixth in a Grand Final no-one saw pre-season, mid-season, to start the finals or even last week when it was a one in four chance.

Expect the unexpected they say. And they are usually right on that.

 1.       Tigers just win, by five goals plus. As soon as that siren went Saturday, and thousands of male Collingwood supporters suddenly sprouted innies, thousands of Richmond fans grew really firmly in the trouser knowing it was only the expansion kids ahead of them next week now. Giants have won two games by under a kick in the dying minutes, once lucky, twice you’re kidding yourself, three times though, yeah nah.

2.       Actually, lets knock out some Brownlow before getting back to the on field. Interesting year, probably the greatest field of live chances going in for some time. So much analysis available these days that someone out there will get it right but about a dozen others, whilst looking super schmick with their spreadsheets and formulas, will be way off. This column has no idea although liked Fyfe for a while. Gets 2 or 3 votes in each Dockers win. Nice platform.

3.       Otherwise, three randoms to watch – Boak, Yeo and Treloar, could easily podium. And a real smokey from the clouds? James Worpel. One for the exotics.

4.       Back to on field, let’s go back to Friday. Cats missed a Scott Selwood type in the midfield. Getting ahead was one thing, and they did that well to their credit. But when it got tough in the second half, when the Tigs were coming, they lacked grunt and determination like the Giants showed in the final term Saturday, to get the job done. And to be honest its plagued them since the bye too. Can look flashy, can score, but when it needs to get ugly for 15-20 mins, think back to the first half of the first final too, no dice. Kinda like when its past 2am on a Bucks night, usually phantom, usually pass out, usually Ryan Babel.

5.       Alrighty, Saturday. Yikes. Wet weather clearly didn’t favour the Pies. No excuse but it mattered. Why? Well would you like to know who trained in a down pour midweek? The Giants, in their main session. Probably the best training session in that football history given the conditions that eventuated.

6.       So – and thanks to Rohan Connolly for this, who I’m shamelessly stealing from – between 2008 and 2015 only one Qualifying Final winner of 18 lost a prelim final. The last four years where we’ve had a pre-Finals bye, it’s a 4-4 record. Look at the Pies, didn’t turn up until three quarter time, the Tigers at least turned up after half time. Plus last year, the Pies had no right in their matchup with the Tiges and jumped them something shocking in that first half. Might be something to it. Might not be wrong, but there’s something to it.

7.       If you look at the Pies, Tigers and Giants, on balance this all looks about right. Richmond since 2017 probably deserve at least one flag and a go this weekend at a second. The Giants these last four years probably deserve a Grand Final appearance for their body of work. And Collingwood these last 18 months, a toss of the coin Grand Final result probably sits about right for them too.

8.       Difference between Richmond and Collingwood? One covered their injuries a lot better and was better set up for the pointy end as a result. Injuries aren’t the reason the Pies lost Saturday or that they would have been underdogs to Richmond had they won, but it’s the reason Richmond has a better list and is likely to win a second flag in three. Case in point – Richmond’s reserves win the Grand Final a week before their Seniors probably win as well, the Collingwood reserves didn’t even make the VFL Finals.

9.       Bucks getting questioned a bit in the media, ‘oh, that’s 22 years now without a flag, ho hum indeed’. Relax. On that basis we should give Bob Skilton a call, interrupt his midday movie to let him know despite his three Brownlows and everything else he means to South, his Hall of Fame Legend status is getting revoked coz he never won a flag. And that his spot will be taken by Tom Barrass instead, because he has actually won one. That Buckley hasn’t got a flag isn’t news, it might be factual but its not a story. The idea that obviously would clearly yearn for one is also factual, but not a story. Please be serious.

10.   Matt De Boer was excellent on Saturday but then again the Collingwood mids weren’t requiring a tag to be kept quiet. Does he got to Dusty and try and ruffle him again like he successfully achieved last time in Sydney? Won’t matter, Martin goes forward and kicks four on him in that case. Whether Martin gets shut down in the midfield by De Boer or not won’t prevent a Tigers’ flag anyway, lets not bother about that discussion all week.

11.   Norm Smith tip – no Tiger is in better nick than Shane Edwards, otherwise Bachar Houli for a little value with you preferred corporate bookmaker. But Titch onball will be as dangerous for Leon Cameron as nailing your Tinder date in Bali. You better put a clamp on that otherwise you’re in big trouble.

12.   Marlion Pickett was BOG in the VFL GF yesterday. We know that the Tigs have held over Jack Ross and Kamdyn McIntosh in lieu of the incredibly-stiff Jack Graham being doubtful to get up for Saturday. But back on May 28th we said this lad, who was playing for South Fremantle four months ago “would be best 22 by year’s end”. We’ve left it late but whilst McIntosh might be the safer play, Dimma will go very close to debuting the Western-Australian in the hope his mercurial style might just be perfect for an occasion like Saturday. If he’s picked, remember where you heard it first. Or read it first, even.

13.   Presume Kevin Sheedy is on standby to present the cup to Phil Davis and Leon Cameron should the Giants salute, the link to Richmond notwithstanding. The GWS best and fairest is the Kevin Sheedy medal, and unless you’re looking to Chad Cornes or Izzy Folau it has to be Sheeds. On the Tigers side, I think about Dale Weightman, otherwise Matty Knights or even Chris Newman if you want to go more recent.

14.   So yes, Richmond has been the pick for a while and it remains the pick. They are beatable though. Last four games their opponents all had strong chances they didn’t take. Eagles down here, in the wet, stuffed it and lost by a kick. Brisbane the week after got spooked but did a lot right but too late. First final, Brissy again, they kick straight they’re in it up to their eyeballs and then Geelong was leading by 21 points at half time, kick straighter its over five goals and the Tigs are staring down a repeat of last year. They’re not invincible, but it was only ever going to be a hot Essendon or hot Collingwood who stood a chance this finals series. Yet the Bombers lasted as long in September as Saturday Night Rove and then the Pies made a mess of it like The Veronicas on a Qantas flight.

15.   This column gets it right far more often than most and has banged on about the Clarkson-assistants theory for some time. This week’s Grand Final coaches, both ex-Hawthorn assistants. It will mean that after this weekend the last seven premierships will have been coached by Al Clarkson or one of his ex-assistants. Incredible. By this column, that is.

16.   More people in Sydney watched the Giants on free to air Saturday afternoon than people in Melbourne watched the Storm on free to air that night. What do we make of that?

 I love Victorian footy as much as the next Ted Whitten. This column still lapses occasionally and refers to Fitzroy instead of Brisbane, and it’s only been 20+ years. And whilst this column’s position on the Gold Coast experiment is well documented, the idea of a team in Western Sydney has always made sense to me. The population out there alone is more than Perth, Adelaide and Geelong combined.

 So to see GWS successful, largely on their own merit now (Gold Coast with the same concessions stuffed it, and you didn’t see Toby Greene playing on Saturday did we), is a good thing for the comp. Leave Gold Coast and Tassie aside, mind you.

17.   Speaking of Victorian footy, can we just kick the AFL reserves team out of the VFL into a legit reserves comp, and let Williamstown and Port Melbourne and Werribee actualy duke it out for a proper VFL title? Williamstown are long-storied VFA club who were looking for their 15th flag in 155 years of history. They lost to a team who sat out two of their players because they might be needed this coming weekend in a different comp. Don’t like it. Split the AFL reserves from the VFL. And the SANFL…

18.   Great to see Glenelg, another historic club in this country, win its first flag in 33 years. And yes they were playing Port Adelaide, their biggest rival, but half the opposition Sunday were Port Adelaide’s reserves, not SANFL players, so it’s a similar story. Great for the Bays to get up, but let the SANFL Magpies be just that, and then Port and the Crows can have separate reserves teams playing reserves footy.

19.   Speaking of Williamstown, feel for Willie Wheeler. Just a knockabout VFL footballer who had the win on his boot twice in the last term, so to lose by under a kick is devastating.

20.   Still not bothered by trade chatter. It’s all glorified brainstorming and suggestion permeating from the Herald Sun lunch room. When something remotely close to an actual story emerges I’ll get interested. Until then I’ll pass on Ralphy and Sammy and Jay-Z getting far too eggplant about what boils down to guesswork or stuff they dreamt about the night before when their partner slept at her friend’s house once again.

[ifwethinkandwishandhopeandpray]

Do you ever look back at some of the “organic stories” they expected us to believe and just shake your head?

I looked back on this one today. Plot line they want us to believe: Louis is clubbing in London on May 31, 2015 after BGT with Simon, his lads, and Lauren from 5H. The next day Briana contacts him because her period is hours late and she has confirmed she is indeed pregnant. Tour starts on the 5th but Louis feels compelled to fly to LA late night on the 2nd to tell her family. This would be a private bit of info and no one would expect Louis to be travelling. There were no rumors online and no fans were there to meet him and yet...

(Gets long so it’s under the cut)

There are 179 pictures of his arrival.

There were 3 Pap photographers and a Video Pap to capture the arrival at LAX.

As if that wasn’t enough, barely a day and a half later on the 4th, he is papped leaving LAX. This time there is a throng of fans taking videos and almost as many paps pictures as his entrance.

Only 141 pictures of him leaving LAX.

Curious that an impromptu trip to find out you’re a father and to meet the parents, you bring your squad. And get papped coming and going, right?

Well this is where my mind wanders and theories come into play. 

I remember all the chatter during May about Will 1D sign on for another tour? There were articles about 2 million dollar promoter bonuses and Simon was demanding to have a meeting with the boys. (My only thought was their contracts were ending soon and to do another tour they would have to resign and extend with Syco/Modest.) I remember the dates passing with no word. Then on the 4th Simon wrote this tweet.

Oddly enough this same date, late in the night after Louis returned, we started getting these stories. This one is The Daily Mail. The Mirror posted theirs at 1:30AM. The Sun had one too but I can’t find it at the moment. Update-Found it! (omg Liam did a Cheryl remix? lol) I just remember Tour started the next day.

One Direction have insisted that a new report saying they will take a break next year is ‘pure speculation’.

On the eve of their world tour,The Sun reported they will go on a break next year - potentially meaning no new One Direction music in 2016 and breaking the hearts of millions of fans.

The news came as Louis Tomlinson appeared jet-lagged at LAX, heading back to London 24 hours before they are due to take to the stage in Cardiff on Friday.

The band - now without Zayn Malik - resume their gruelling tour in Cardiff on Friday before playing dozens of gigs across the UK, Europe and North America.

It’s not clear why Louis was in LA, where he spent just one day, but as he was spotted at LAX, Harry Styles was seen partying in London with his pal Nick Grimshaw.

Speaking about the alleged break, a source told The Sun: ‘The band are to go on a break after promoting the fifth album next year, possibly with a number of live tour dates around the world.

‘At some point they have to take time off to step back and consider what they want to do next.

‘What’s almost certain is there will be no 1D music next year.’

When contacted by MailOnline, a rep for the band said: ‘It’s all pure speculation and not based on any facts.

‘The band are excited about their brand new fifth album and their upcoming tour.’

The revelation comes just months after Zayn quit One Direction, leaving fans worried the band could be in a fragile state.

The source added that Simon Cowell is said to be comfortable with the boys’ decision as he hopes it will mean they stay together in the long-term.

It adds to ever-growing speculation that Harry has his eyes set on a future solo career, with Louis also said to be considering becoming an X Factor judge.

Harry was seen out partying with pal Nick Grimshaw on Thursday night as they celebrated the launch of his new Topman collection.  

Despite being tipped for a solo career, Styles has insisted he has no plans to follow Zayn’s lead and quit to focus on a solo career.

During an interview with US radio host Ryan Seacrest, he said: 'We have the album and the tour that we’re working on right now. I think when you have so many goals that you feel like you have yet to achieve, it’s hard to kind of see past those.

'It’s important to kind of focus on what’s going on and don’t kind of lose track. So we’re all working hard towards the same thing right now, and I don’t think we’re thinking much past that.

'I think we’re just having a lot of fun and we’re working hard and we’re having a good time.’

I think now at Louis’ statement...

So now I’m wondering if that impromptu trip by Louis and the lads were to meet with Columbia to give the “bad news”. I also remember that strange trip Louis and Zayn made before he quit and there were pictures of Zayn with Mike Navarra so we knew they had met. Was that the trip where Zayn had made his decision?

Anonymous asked: What happened February 21???

saltygoodness-deactivated201611:

Zouis flew from Australia to LA for one day for some “random” trip in between concerts at the start of OTRA tour (the flight itself took longer than their stay in LA) during which Zayn had a meeting with Mike Navarra from Sony / Columbia and Louis went to a college party, we got the first rumors of him “hooking up” with some girl there that everyone laughed about, and the first picture of Louis, Oli, Ashley and Briana was taken. It was the beginning of party boy Louis which led to clubbing in March - May and eventually babygate.

It’s possible that some contracts were signed or stunt arrangements were made during that trip.

Sorry for this being all over the place. I just wonder if that June 2nd-4th trip had anything to do with Briana or if that was what Simon was holding over his head to get them to stay with him. When they didn’t...he set it in motion. I think the plan was in place to be used if needed. I mean, within a few weeks there was the Eli trip and Jay and Dan chilling in LA for a ultrasound and the news then dropped. The bullshit never made sense, but seeing it lined up like this with the early hiatus stories and the quick trips with info from Louis’ Observer interview...it makes you wonder. Blackmail anyone?

[hookysblog]

South America

 TEATRO RIVAL, RIO DE JANIERO 1/12/16

A long trip via Atlanta gets us into Rio the day of the gig, so it is going to be tough, especially for the lads.

Strange being here the same time as New Odour. I notice in interviews that Gillian says she misses me?…..Aah bless! And Steve cracked on he didn’t even know we were here with The Light at the same time…humh? I find both those statements impossible to believe for many, many reasons.

The Brazilian Press have turned it into a bit of an Us vs Them, which could turn out to be quite interesting. In Chile we are actually playing at the same theatre three days apart….Weird!

Weirder still, we split up after The South American Tour in 2006. Ten years ago nearly to the day (and have been at each other’s throats ever since;) God that takes some stamina that doesn’t it? I cannot believe it myself, very New Order.

Anyway we are staying in Copacabana right on the beach and it is glorious. We have played this club before and it is a bit rough and ready but has a great atmosphere. As I arrive I remember one other thing….It is bloody hot! Poor Old Leadfoot is worn out. The gig goes great (Sold Out again!) and the audience are wonderful, I sign a million things and do a thousand photos, before crawling back to bed;)

 BAR OPINIAO, PORTE ALLEGRE 3/12/16

 A much-needed night off, here on the 2nd recharges our batteries. The Hotel surprise me with a lovely welcoming gift. How sweet, tasted lovely too.

This is getting tough for me….Must be my age? It really does get harder every year;( Still I manage the gym again, which is nice and makes me feel a lot better. The gig looms large and this is a big place (Sold Out;) and strangely me and Pottsy have a row??? Not over much, fold-back actually;(…It is years since we’ve had one and thankfully it is over quickly. I think we are all frazzled to be honest! It makes you very cranky these late nights and early mornings, and being an old bloke, that’s the worst one. God knows how I handled it when I was drinking etc., Well, I just answered that question really;) I had actually forgotten what it was like to be mad at some one on tour! Me and Jack bang heads a few times but it’s never over anything disastrous. I come up with a new motto ‘Don’t moan….Phone!’ which everyone loves throwing back in my face as soon as I start moaning…..typical.

Ends up being a great gig, crackling with energy. The audience goes nuts for both sets and we struggle to get out with the amount of people clustered round the van. ‘Is this what it was like for The Beatles?’ asks Pottsy.

I think it was worse for them mate, a little.

CINE JOIA, SAO PAOLO 6/12/16

 Short flight brings us to Sao, and we have two nights off. Brilliant!

 Early on the first night we get a great curry from this really dodgy looking place in the middle of Sao Paolo (Google we love you x). On the way home it starts to rain and one of the gutters bursts, but not with water, with cockroaches!!! An army of them pour out and scare Phil to death (he’d be no good in I’m a celebrity get me out of here). I regale the boys with tales of my cockroach days in Ordsall in Salford. They are suitably impressed/disgusted.  We all get sunburnt rotten the next day and finish off with a typical Brazilian Barbecue meal.

 Amazing to think how in the old days we would go to loads of these and not eat at all! The Promoters, who always took you, must have thought we were mad. But those days are thankfully gone. Nice early night for me, I was feeling a bit weird to be honest. I think I’m getting a cold again. Leadfoot’s got one and hard as I try to stay away from him, it is impossible with his magnetic personality. The gig day dawns and I still feel rough but steel myself and go to the gym, which works….I feel much better….Hooray! Before I know it my old mate Heitor picks me up and after a Japanese meal in Japantown, Sao Paolo. (Turns out Sao Paolo, has the largest Japanese population of any city in the world after Tokyo, go figure?) My other old friend and our Promoter Giuli, drives us to the gig. Now this gig’s stage is the highest I have ever seen, even higher than The Glasgow Appollo. So the audience are way below. A great very young crowd goes mad from start to finish. We play great. It is hotter than hell…again. One wonderful moment when this old geezer climbs up on the stage and goes to crowd surf off during Warsaw, but the crowd just part and won’t support him and he has to jump down going flying arse over tit, bet he’s aching today;)

We play Atmosphere for the Brazilian team lost in the air crash. I watched the funeral in Port Allegre, and it reminded me of Princess Diana’s funeral in England. It was very moving and the footballers were so young. It seems to have affected all the Brazilian people very much. As I sing I see many people in the audience crying one girl in particular makes me choke up too and I have to really pull myself together to get the words out. I think it was because Heitor my friend, a doctor, was a volunteer in Columbia to bring the players back home to Brazil. He was telling me all about the scene and what had happened, a shocking waste of life because of one man’s greed.

A real tragedy.

We give them mercy with Love W. T. U. A. and the ‘Sold Out’ house goes bonkers! Wonder how we’ll fare in the comparison stakes eh world? We shall have to wait and see won't we……Off to Chile very early tomorrow.

 TEATRO CAUPOLICAN, SANTIAGO, CHILE.

God we are knackered. Bed at 2.30a.m. and up at 5.45a.m. for our trip. I am in shock. It’s still dark, but every one is very happy after such a great gig last night. At the airport it takes over two hours to check the equipment in and get to Departures, then a 4hr 45min flight, then 1 hour in immigration and an hour and a half in Baggage to get the equipment out. It seems it has been stored until tomorrow for some reason? We get to our bus, and I must admit it has seen better years, probably around 1960 I reckon. Our greeters seem a bit sheepish and very quiet, almost avoiding eye contact and certainly no conversation. By the time we arrive at the Hotel there is no time to rest and the lads go straight to the sound-check. I crash out (you are allowed if your over 60) and I am just nodding off when all the phone start, almost all at once. At first I thought it was someone pissing around. Then I realise not only are the lads phoning me but also my manager. I finally get the very bad news that the Promoter has not sorted out the advertising for the gig. He had billed it as ‘New Order’ in a cheap attempt, I presume, to get sales off ‘The Others’. He had been warned about their removal and facing legal action, so I had no option but to pull the gig.

I am devastated. This gig in particular was the one I was looking forward to;(

Three days after them? same venue? it was the perfect opportunity to show our worth. We had been checking with this Promoter a lot, to make sure the show could go ahead, I am not daft. This was a problem, even though our gig was booked 4 months before they announced theirs ….Boo… Hiss(hey it is pantomime season;). Right up until the last minute the Promoter had assured us there would be no problems. He is an idiot.

After doing so well in Brazil to be treated like this here was terrible. We have played here twice before…. both sold-out, why this promoter acted like this I do not know.

I can only apologise to all our fans and ‘The Others’ and say when we come back again it will not be with him.  

A welcome early night gets us ready for more obscene travelling.

NICETO CLUB, BUENOS ARIES.

Up at 6.30a.m for our flight to the beautiful place that is Buenos Aries, the Paris of the south. A gorgeous city…… but we are tired, very tired. Thankfully gig wise we are back to normal, with another ‘Sell Out’ and what a gig it is! An absolutely bonkers reception for both sets! I am amazed! It is so welcome after the shenanigins of yesterday.

B.A. I LOVE YOU! All thoughts of that awful night over 10 years ago are forgotten and forgiven…..You made an old man very, very happy. It is times like this that make all the effort worthwhile. Crawl to bed.

Almost human 10a.m start to …..

 MUSIC BOX, MONTEVIDEO.

Our last gig, on this tour.

Jack tells me we have done 49 since Glasgow….WOW! What an achievement. My wife, dog and daughters have forgotten me but it was almost worth it….ha ha! Weird hotel this one, great pool and gym, and a strange 60’s style casino, all of which I have to ignore because of my cold, now in full bloom. The gig is nice and there is always a weird feeling at the end, no matter where you are or ‘who’ you are with. Tonight is no different. The gig goes great and we give Andy Poole, our ex-keyboard player a great send off. He is leaving us for pastures new, sadly.

 Adios mon ami! Love Hooky ‘16

[topfygad]

Travelmag – Surfing Covid on a final tour as Australasia shut down

At the tail conclusion of February a mate and I set off for a 33 working day vacation to Australia, a journey we experienced planned for roughly six months. Great, improved, ideal butted heads with terrible, terrible, and are you kidding as the Coronavirus roared its unsightly head. Nevertheless, we survived. And we learned precious classes all through this month lengthy tutorial, kinds we will don’t forget whether or not we are at household or overseas.

Our Virgin Australia flight Los Angeles to Sydney went without a hitch. In less than fifteen hours, we landed in Sydney and shuttled to our lodge, Castlereagh, in the downtown space. Its area was fantastic for walking to the internet sites of central downtown, Hyde Park, and Circular Quay. The city was alive and vivid, with only a hint of the Coronavirus running havoc in other world wide places when we tuned in to the evening global information. We joined exuberant fellow travellers for going for walks excursions, museum outings, a harbor cruise, bus outing to Bondi Seashore, ferry trip to Manley Beach, a meals tour in the Surry Hills District, Blue Mountain Adventures with Anderson Excursions, a Ben Folds live performance at City Hall, botanical back garden stroll, crafts market place procuring, and, oh indeed, the emphasize for me: viewing “Carmen” at the Sydney Opera Property. We identified Sydney a delight. If just about anything fell into the class of “bad,” it would be that we grew to become a bit like Mary Poppins on two of our days there with on and off rain and umbrellas that wished to acquire to the sky. In addition to that inconvenience, all was a delight.

As scheduled, we flew Sydney to Cairns and shuttled the moment more, this time to Port Douglas for touring the Good Barrier Reef. On the lookout at the weather conditions forecast for the four days we had been to be there, we anticipated rainy weather conditions. A great deal to our fantastic fortune, the weather conditions was wonderful. We joined Calypso Tours (calypsoreefcruises.com) for snorkeling the reef and touring the rainforest space of Daintree. Colors popped alive as we snorkeled from their upscale catamaran. Vivid blues mingled with yellows and reds of each and every shade. We stopped at a few spots to explore the outer Fantastic Barrier Reef. Just one of the crew associates recognized towards the end of our 2nd prevent that I was tiring a bit. He available to give me a noodle to position close to my waistline as he towed me in and out of the reef areas for our 3rd dive. Absolutely, it rated among the my “best ever experiences.” The upcoming working day we went to Daintree Rainforest, the oldest acknowledged rainforest in the planet, relationship back again 180 million yrs. Range is an understatement to describe Daintree with its shorelines, gorges, rivers, waterfalls, mangroves, vegetation, pools, and mountains. Two cassowaries joined us on a path by the public lavatory space. These large flightless birds look relatively like emus but have violent reputations of their assaults with their 4 inches very long claws. This ancient rainforest arrives alive with these living dinosaur-like creatures. Although in Daintree, we took a boat experience to spot crocodiles in the wild. With no this kind of luck, we decided to expend a day at Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures, a park half way between Cairns and Port Douglas (https://ift.tt/2S4f95a). Definitely, this park did not disappoint. We were being able to feed crocodiles, snap photos of their antics, and comprehensively appreciate their savagery. Throughout our remain in this spot, a couple fellow vacationers and guides mentioned the Coronavirus, typically in a half mocking way that it was probably being unduly hyped by the push. We shrugged off these opinions, not wondering significantly about them in the surreal surroundings of The Wonderful Barrier Reef.

Following our itinerary referred to as for us to fly to Melbourne. Just about every possible kind of cafe surrounded our hotel, Brady Resort, just a block absent from the occupied conference place of the Condition Library. Greek, Italian, and Turkish choices joined walls to kitchens of Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese. One could assert to have relished a excursion all over the planet merely by indulging in the extremely reasonably priced gourmand concoctions in downtown Melbourne. Very similar to our continue to be in Sydney, we relished a foodstuff tour, a strolling tour, road art tour, a ghost jail tour, river cruise, tram journey to St. Kilda Beach front, and a live performance by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. A emphasize was our working day journey to Healesville Sanctuary (https://ift.tt/2gWGenP). Achieving this wonderful safety area for endangered animals (a lot of influenced by the brush fires) was a snap applying Zoobus (zoobus.com.au). The hour’s drive weaves out of the town by the suburb of Fitzroy and earlier luscious vineyards and palatial households. Veterinarians devote them selves to the wellbeing of the animals, several stranded or rescued from the new fires. Caregivers passionately secure their rates. A experience of serenity welcomes all who visit. I fell in appreciate with the mom, Mani, and her baby, Chimpu (Good Fellow’s Tree Kangaroos). They are an really endangered species from New Guinea, brought to Healesville as component of a breeding software. Chimpu would poke out his head at any time so generally from mom’s pouch, only to be shoved again in by mom immediately after a brief see by the collected website visitors. Their coloration is heat reddish-brown, and their fur seems to be incredibly thick and luscious. It was a superior way to stop our remain in Melbourne, offering us a feeling that with the help of a person an additional, most typically existence will endure.

Things transformed very speedily. On the night time just before we were being scheduled to fly to Tasmania for 8 days, the governing administration cancelled Melbourne’s Grand Prix. This see arrived at 2 am in the early morning. The race was to begin close to 8 am the adhering to day. All at as soon as, crowds were not to assemble. All at when, dining establishments shut. All at when, we read that tours would not operate. Coronavirus was not a press hyped event. It was to be taken seriously. But, we have been soon off to Tasmania, an island off the southern coast of Australia, a somewhat isolated put that appeared to be immune from worldly cares or hazards. We flew without any issue from Melbourne to Tasmania and shuttled to our b & b in Hobart, The Edinburgh Gallery, for an right away continue to be. The inn was loaded to capacity, and no a single spoke of COVID-19. We walked the trail to Cascade Brewery, halting for a tour and a two-man or woman participate in that depicted the plight of ladies inmates at the Cascades Feminine Manufacturing facility. And early the subsequent early morning we were off with Exciting Tassie Tours. We joined 5 other individuals moreover our manual/driver named Carl, a gentleman heaped in understanding and enthusiasm for Tasmania (funtassietours.com).

For the pursuing six times we certainly were being in La La Land. Convicts developed much of Tasmania. Our minds could not aid but ponder how. They had been displaced from their homeland of England, forced to endure hardships and struggles and discrimination, and usually put in physical isolation for infractions. Yet they did extra than just survive. The like of the lads from Charles Dickens’ novels came alive as we discovered about Point Puer, the juvenile boys jail. When not top a tour for Enjoyable Tassie Excursions, Carl will work as a guideline at the Port Arthur World Heritage Historic Web page. He advised us tales of convicts meticulously positioning stones in its beckoning church, its warden’s property, and its blocks of cells. A horse or two graze in nearby pastures, and flowers and shrubs enhance the gardens with their hues. Afterwards, we would cross bridges constructed by convicts—still standing strongly in historic awe. It boggles the brain at the spirit of the particular person even in the harshest of conditions.

To even more our La La Land practical experience, we sample chocolate, wine, cheese, oysters, ice cream, smoked salmon, and honey. We snap photos of orange colored boulders at the Bay of Fires. We stroll together the pure white sandy seashores at Binalong Bay. We visit gorge reserves and travel by means of breathtaking farming and pasture spots. We understand of Tasmanian devils and those people aiding their rehabilitation initiatives. We feed kangaroos with out any hint of social distancing. We visit blow holes and wait around for penguins to monitor to their nests. In Cradle Mountain, we get pleasure from our wander to Glacier Rock and onward to Enchanted Walk to see gorgeous cascades and the Pencil Pine waterfall. Button grass plains, Eucalyptus forests, majestic mountains, and spectacular lakes are in each individual route. Likely my preferred location was Nelson Falls. Its rainforest engulfs its visitor in an ironic mixture of serenity and electric power. In fewer than 30 minutes, one particular leaves the parking lot and is delightfully swallowed in a planet of pristine mother nature. Close by at Mount Field Nationwide Park the 3 tiered Russell Falls attempts to compete. Certainly, it is a shut simply call. And The Wall in the Wilderness Artwork Gallery in Derwent Bridge leaves its attendees speechless when gazing at the massive wooden sculptures depicting the heroic struggles of the adult men and girls who settled in Tasmania a century or so in the past. We were being quite substantially immune from news of the entire world. Or so, we were being until eventually we arrived back again in Hobart.

Hobart smacked us with reality. We had been dropped off at our identical b & b, The Edinburgh Gallery. Only now, we were being its only guests. The borders into Tasmania had been shut except to its inhabitants. The owner was happy to see us and our hearts ached for him as he predicted economic woes for quite a few months. Our scheduled Hobart Town Tour was canceled. The Salamanca Food stuff and Arts weekly market place was postponed. Our boat excursion and entry to MONA, the state’s controversial art museum, ended up also canceled. And Virgin Australia went in advance and canceled our return flight Melbourne to Los Angeles. To place it mildly, we experienced established forth the 7 days just before on a tour, 1 we will lengthy remember and cherish, only to return to a wholly distinct ambiance and an unidentified as to our following 10 days or so.

Continue forward we did. We flew Hobart to Adelaide, with a transfer in Melbourne. We sat as the lone travellers in our shuttle from the airport to our resort in the heart of the metropolis, Resort Grand Chancellor. The management welcomed us with digital open up arms, even lending us a microwave to use in the home. We scooted around the pedestrian only buying area, noting food items only accessible as get out provider, and several individuals out and about. The subsequent morning we liked a town strolling tour and pay a visit to to the excellent anthropological museum. Then we obtained a disappointing e-mail: our excursion scheduled for early in the morning to Kangaroo Island was canceled. Captain Prepare dinner Cruises and Sealink held out until eventually the final moment to do so. We drop a tear or two, confronted the reality, and headed off to Hertz Rental Vehicles to transform our reservation for the ultimate week of our keep in Australia.

Bravo is an understatement for describing the personnel at Hertz. We were being established with a fairly new Toyota Rava Adelaide to Melbourne, with stops at Grampians and The Excellent Ocean Highway. Considering that there were being only two of us and we experienced been in Australia for a lot more than 14 days, quarantine demands had been not imposed upon us. We were being to retain to ourselves as we walked trails and adhere to social distancing procedures. Our checking in at the motels would be via phone. We would not be offered room service throughout our stays. These limitations had been such insignificant inconveniences that they meant absolutely nothing to us. So, off we drove for close to six hours to Halls Gap in The Grampians Nationwide Park.

In our setting up stages for browsing Australia, we predicted crowded conditions in Halls Gap. Right after all, it is a modest city of about 300 permanent people and 6000 beds. We booked our lodging at Gariwerd Motel months in advance. To place it mildly, there was no require for accomplishing so. The supervisor lived onsite. One other few expended two evenings there. And we occupied the second motel home. But appreciate Grampians, we did! We visited the petro station and marketplace before long right after settling in to our room. Couple of persons were out. This, nevertheless, did not halt the congregation of wildlife. Huge white cockatoos flew and landed just about everywhere, squeaking their squeak and pecking up seeds. Kangaroos achieved like clockwork at 5 pm at the downtown park, as if ready to perform soccer with two becoming a member of emus serving as referees. They dutifully hopped all over, ventured close to us for inspection, and then turned to their fellow teammates to go in advance with their activity. Two days of mountaineering and more climbing loaded our bill in The Grampians. A lot more than 150 kilometers of going for walks tracks dot the Grampians, ranging from 50 percent-hour strolls to overnight treks of difficult terrain. Just about every so generally we spotted Aboriginal rock art although traipsing to waterfalls, overhanging ledges, or sheltered groves. Conveniently, we ended up protected in this outdoor paradise.

We felt we had mastered swerving kangaroos by now so we ongoing our trip to The Terrific Ocean Road, keeping at Portside Motel in Port Campbell. The four hour push matched the pastoral elegance of ours from Adelaide to The Grampians. A few cities dotted the streets, great for bakeries for quick to get takeout foods. Our examining in at Portside duplicated the procedure at Gariwerd. Shortly we were off to see the city and sites west. Straightforward obtain is presented for several sights in Port Campbell Countrywide Park. Sheer limestone cliffs tower in excess of fierce seas. For 1000’s of years, waves and tides have relentlessly sculpted the tender rock into a intriguing sequence of rock stacks, gorges, arches and blowholes. We walked down the stairs at Gibson Methods, happy concrete ones now change the 19th century hand-carved kinds into the cliffs. The Twelve Apostles kiosk and path was shut. Loch Ard Gorge proved to be my favourite. We browse of tales of shipwrecks right here of a lot more than a hundred yrs ago. Highly effective waves dart to the sand, tender and warming beneath one’s toes.

The subsequent working day we explored extra of Port Campbell Countrywide Park, with trails skirting the ocean’s cliffs as nicely as a little bit inland. It was a lovely distinct working day, with waves under us laughing and gurgling at a person one more. Nevertheless, we understood that at near by Cape Otway several ships experienced smashed open towards the ocean’s pressure. We drove towards Apollo Bay, on the average halting about just about every thirty minutes at a lookout at scenes that are, without a doubt, indescribable.

The following day we departed Port Campbell to return to Melbourne in anticipation of our flight to Los Angeles, which our travel agent had re-routed on Air New Zealand by Auckland. We fell in adore with the tiny city of Lorne, squeezing alone in between the waters of Loutit Bay and the bush of the Otway Ranges. Locals detest them and try out to shoo them away: huge white cockatoos by the dozens that group on the town benches, railings and beach front pathways. In contrast, we adored them, chatted again to them, and reassured them of their beauty. The town of Anglesea winds close to gum-green Anglesea River, a very tranquil bush placing. Then will come Torquay, wherever even park benches are surfboard formed in Victoria’s surf capital. We realized we had to take a look at Bells Beach, just 7 kilometers west of Torquay for its famous status of its impressive break and annual environment-championship surfing contest. We gazed down on the basically deserted seaside: two lone surfers in their paradise.

Our scheduled time was before long coming to an close and we drove back to Melbourne to remain the night at the Holiday Inn by the airport in anticipation of our early morning flight to Los Angeles. We returned the car and repacked our suitcases for the next day. We had checked a variety of situations with our travel agent that all was established. We were being recommended a several days in advance of that our flight Melbourne to Auckland experienced been pushed up a day, and so we modified our options for this revision. We traipsed to the airport, located the Air New Zealand counter for checking in, and were advised, “You are not able to board this plane. You have a U.S. passport. Only Kiwis are permitted to enter the country.” I told the airline’s consultant that our travel agent experienced explained to us that we could be getting this airplane for the reason that we would be on a transit in Auckland and not be remaining there. I confirmed the electronic mail affirming this. And, so a cellphone contact was positioned in between the airlines agent and the vacation agent. I experienced sent our vacation company information about two weeks right before a copy of New Zealand’s shutdown, only to have them reassure us that our scheduling was legitimate. Considerably to my chagrin, the vacation agent arrived throughout as arrogant to these operating for the airways, as if it were her responsibility to established other people straight about their govt plan.” This is where by it receives terrible: when another person sitting down at a desk in the United States does not apologize for their error and consider to rectify it, but alternatively blames a man or woman and a state half way around the entire world. I was humiliated to be an American who had savored the attractive country of Australia opening its virtual arms to us even in the chaos and misery of COVID-19.

Air New Zealand advised that we phone the American Embassy to learn how we had been to return to the states. We did so rapidly and acquired that United Airlines had one flight each and every day Sydney to San Francisco and then we could fly to southern California from San Francisco. We termed United, booked a flight in two times, and caught a domestic flight above to Sydney. We stayed once more at the Castlereagh Hotel, welcomed back by the personnel we left there about a thirty day period in advance of.

To say we uncovered significantly from this excursion would be an understatement. Australia is a lovely region, and we arrived to value and enjoy it and its helpful folks. Also, we realized matters that have an impact on our angle toward travelling from this issue on:

1. Understand that even the very best of ideas can change. Really don’t get upset with many others who have no command in excess of the predicament and are carrying out the quite greatest they know how to do, particularly with situations that are not in their control.

2. Double up on the compliments to all those in the journey marketplace who are under stress and making an attempt their ideal to accommodate some others – and continue to keep smiling whilst they do so, even if it be at a length of 6 feet.

3. Travel with an individual who can roll with the punches. I have travelled a number of situations right before with Dorothy, a fantastic good friend of mine for about 30 decades. It doesn’t damage also that she has fantastic tunes on her mobile phone, faces worries with grace, and realizes that if need be, we could generally lease an apartment on The Fantastic Ocean Street until the vacation constraints lifted.

4. Respect that our setbacks have been, indeed, basically setbacks! We normally experienced fuel for the car, food stuff for our tummies, beds for our sleeping, and thoroughly clean drinking water for our showers. Social distancing was conveniently doable. Many in the entire world do not get pleasure from such luxuries. Indeed, we need to have to watch them as luxuries!

5. Carry in your heart a prayer and empathy for these less fortunate. This decade it might be these influenced by COVID-19 another time it may possibly be one thing else that rears its ugly head. We are in this planet together and to help a person another collectively. In other words and phrases, give lots of virtual hugs.

6. Build an perspective that “This Far too Will Pass.” Be optimistic. Be cheerful. Really don’t give up on travel. The business requires you! It will bounce back again with your help!

I am residence now safe and sound and audio from wonderful Australia. I’m preserving my length when I undertaking sometimes from household. I’m assured that we will conquer this dreaded virus. Most likely a trip or two could have to be postponed. But, let us do what we can to support those people in the journey sector. Situations will lighten up. Vacation destinations will seek your assistance. With each other, “We’re Heading to Get By way of This.”

  Copyright © 2020 Bonnie Lynn

source http://cheaprtravels.com/travelmag-surfing-covid-on-a-final-tour-as-australasia-shut-down/

[stroud5aside]

Friday 25 October - Stroud7 Are Champions of Division Two!!

On a day when the new Cheltenham Race Season commenced, it was ‘odds-on’ that it would be trumped by the FNL action tonight. And what a night it was with so many outstanding games!

PREMIERSHIP

There was vital action at the top and at the bottom of the Premiership and let’s start with the match that effected both ends of the table, the game between league leaders Breakaway Boys FC and relegation threatened Not So Athletic.

Breakaway dominated this game but with Scott at the top of his game, in the Not So Athletic goal, and the Unathletic guys defending as though their lives depended on it, this game was destined to be close. In the end there was only one goal in it as Breakaway won by a ‘short head’ with the only goal of the game, that was scored by Brad.

Stroud Old Boys maintained the chase behind Breakaway Boys and produced a masterful display as they swept Netsix and Chill aside, 10-1. With quality on display throughout this Stroud Old Boys team it is difficult to know who to single out. But in their ‘dazzling’ new kit, Kerr, Anthoney, Deano and Freems took it in turn to ‘outshine’ their opponents whilst Butch again looked very impressive between the sticks. With a game in hand on the leaders it is difficult to see anyone stopping them reclaiming the Premiership title.

Nawachusai FC have ‘jumped‘ back up to third, in their see-saw season, with an 8-4 victory over Coaley Crows. Nawachusai maybe ‘outsiders’ to finish in the medal positions this season but I wouldn’t ‘bet against’ them! As for the Crows, they in the ‘claws’ of relegation and need to ‘take flight’ if they are going to avoid the drop this time around!

There was a shock in store for SWR Youth FC, with the team at the bottom of the table, Lioncourt Legends, producing their best form of the season to beat them 8-3! Lioncourt were ‘outsiders’ to win this game before kick off but dug deep to win ‘against the odds’ with Ollie claiming 5 goals whilst Joe and George performed heroics at the back to keep Fin in check! As a consequence of this result SWR slipped to fourth whilst Lioncourt moved up to sixth place and out of the relegation places.

DIVISION ONE

Both the ‘fancied’ teams to be promoted to the Premiership met tonight in a fascinating contest. Without a goal in the first half Ebley Street Elite appeared to have the game won, with their goal in the second half, until Dylan hit the equaliser for the ‘stayers’ Adidas All Stars right at the death to make it a ‘dead heat’ at 1-1 on the final whistle! Ebley remain one point ahead of Adidas at the top but both look Premiership bound.

Walker Construction were is ‘festival’ mood tonight with a sparkling display against relegation threatened Hot Coles. Ryan looked a class act for Walker and but for Neil’s heroics in the Hot Coles goal, this result could have been much worse for them! But the ‘going’ was not good for Hot Coles and an ‘accumulator’ of goals meant that Walker won 10-2!

A much closer contest took place between The Spice Boys and the disco dancers, that make up Warehouse Warriors! This match was so close it needed a ‘photo-finish’ to decide the winner and Warehouse Warriors just about edged it, 2-1.

The ‘going’ has been ‘heavy’ for Vic Vets this season but tonight they went the ‘distance’ with Average Joe’s and turned the ‘form book’ on its head to achieve a credible 2-2 draw.

DIVISION TWO

Stroud7 are champions of Division Two in what has been a fantastic season for them. Jack and his team have been the outstanding performers, in this league, this season and remain unbeaten. Well done lads you are worthy champions.

But it could have been a different story tonight in what was a fantastic game against league newcomers and ‘colts’ S5. Stroud7 were ‘odds on’ to win before kick off but they really knew they had been in a game by the final whistle. In fact there was nothing to choose between the teams throughout with Louis outstanding in the S5 goal and Dean the pick of the players for S5. It looked like this game would end in a ‘dead heat’ until the champions scored 2 late goals to ‘put them in the money’ for all three points!

Automech Spanner’s claimed all three points and a 3-0 win against How I Met Your Mata, to allow The Legends to seriously enter the promotion race and medal poisons. And they took full advantage and defeated a below par Randwick Warriors 10-4. Oli and Chris were in fine form for The Legends and for Randwick, Jay made a very impressive debut in goal. The Legends had a ‘bumper’ second half with a 7 goal bonanza as Randwick had a bit of a ‘mare!’

Making Emile Of It were out of sorts tonight against a star ‘studded’ TGR. Harry scored 7 out of the 10 TGR goals in their 10-4 victory. There was a ‘Stewards Enquiry’ at the ‘finishing line’ but the result was allowed to stand!

CONFERENCE

There were no matches in the Conference as both games were ‘abandoned.’ As a consequence SWI FC and IF Legends both claimed all three Points and 3-0 wins. IF Legends have their ‘ears pricked’ at the top of the table but surely these ‘old nags’ won’t take have the ‘staying power.’ Besides there are also three other teams that will hope to go the ‘distance’ to become the first ever winners of the Conference! This title is very much for the taking!

Great night of football lads with some absolute ‘bumper’ games and just a few ‘novice’ performances! We are now in the ‘final furlong’ of this season and the ‘blinkers’ are off as we ‘canter’ towards the ‘finishing line!’

[jacewilliams1]

“In this business we play for keeps”

I rolled the trim wheel forward, gently allowing gravity to add to the thrust of the paired Continentals. The satin air allowed the airspeed needle to nuzzle the top of the indicator’s green arc. The inky blackness surrounding the craft was broken only by a dim, rhythmic, red flash from the anti-collision beacon, illuminating the wingtip fuel tanks, as an oasis of golden lights grew larger off the nose.

The craft, a 1966 Cessna 310K, the oasis, the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, the composer and sole observer of this performance, a skinny 19-year old lad in command of Eureka flight 747.

An ambitious call-sign utilized for a bank check-collecting route commissioned by the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas for the timely processing of paper transactions in the 70s. The run began in Amarillo just before sunset and, after multiple stops, returned just before sunrise – if there were no “contingencies.”

Flying a Cessna 310 can still make you feel like Ernest K. Gann himself.

As a devotee of Ernest K. Gann’s 1961 book Fate Is the Hunter, I looked upon this route as my own AM-21, the designation of Gann’s usual route as a DC-2/3 pilot with American Airlines in the pre-World War II years. That route in the northeastern U.S. provided Gann with numerous “learning” opportunities as a new copilot with a variety of captains and their unique personalities.

Prior to becoming the commander of Eureka 747, as a 17-year old high school student, I was scolded one morning in homeroom for reading Fate, but I had a very hard time putting the beautiful work down. The experiences that Gann described provided me an understanding of the airman’s world that I had hopes of becoming a part. So much of my foundation as an aviator came from the fascinating writings of Gann, St. Exupery, Len Morgan, Richard Bach and others gifted with the pen. Their elegant way with words provided me with a deeper appreciation of professional aviation along with some very good advice that has stayed with me throughout my flying career.

Crossing directly over a very busy DFW airport en route to Love Field, I listened with envy to the clipped, professional conversations between controllers and airline pilots. I imagined that one of the laconic southern drawls from a Braniff flight might be one of my heroes, Len Morgan. Oh how I wanted to exist in that world and had since a boy, filled with awe, watching three “Greek gods,” resplendent in their black uniforms with gold stripes, strolling across the ramp at O’Hare. The occasion was my first flight on an airliner, an event in which the TWA 707 would play a part in changing my life forever. Innumerable airliner models and several cardboard aircraft cockpit simulators installed in my tiny bathroom shower stall followed.

Countless hours were spent watching the sky, from the roof of my Texas Panhandle home, turn cloudy with contrails. With the aid of a slightly out of date Official Airline Guide that my mother secured from a travel agent friend, I would try to figure out what line and which flight I might be observing. The moonlit nights spent shivering on that roof are some of my fondest memories.

I didn’t actually know any pilots but I knew that their calling was special and I wanted to become a part of that brotherhood with the sacred responsibility of safely transporting passengers from A to B. But dues were required to be paid before access to that hallowed world called a cockpit would be granted.

Few dreams worth having are achieved with shortcuts and in flying airplanes there is no substitute for experience. The increase in airman wisdom is recorded on paper in logbooks.

More importantly, the experience gained is remembered in your mind and heart, the rewards being increased skill, finesse in the craft, and survival. There were the summer days between high school and college when I began flying charter flights. Memories of waiting on a pasture airstrip where the increasing heat and dying breeze would make getting the Cessna 210 airborne before the barbed wire and incarcerated cows a near-run thing. I recall those perfect West Texas evenings at dusk on a small town airport, with the gentle wind providing my airplane a soothing voice. I heard her stabilizers telling me, “Be patient lad, enjoy this moment, and know that an airliner cockpit awaits.”

There were my early days of instrument flying, where relief replaces tension as emergence from the clouds reveals the airport ahead after an NDB approach in a crosswind. “Double the correction and pull the tail,” I can hear my ex-Navy chief instrument instructor bellow as if he were sitting next to me.

And those special times, in coat and tie, that I warmed the right seat of a corporate turboprop trying to sound grizzled on the radio and desperately attempting to commit no error that would result in not being invited back. The road is long but my youth allowed me continuous enjoyment in the humbling gathering of experience. But I was also completely, unashamedly in love with flying and the world of aviators. A finer coterie of folks I could not imagine and I was immensely grateful for the work that I was provided, bringing me closer to my goal.

Getting ready for the fight…

Later that summer evening with Eureka 747 westbound from Dallas, a long line of brilliant flashes across my course indicated an uncomfortable meeting would be required to complete my mission. My desire to confront the bully without getting a bloody nose brought to mind Gann’s similar challenge over the Catskills 40 years ago. As a relatively inexperienced copilot, Gann learned much from Captain Ross that evening as he experienced his first bout with a thunderstorm. His wisdom gained that night was on my mind as I entered the clouds and, as Gann, I had no onboard radar and so would be looking for the least dazzling spot to make my way.

I did have a huge edge that night that Gann would have very much envied: a helpful Fort Worth Center controller doing the best he could with his 1976-era radar to provide me a clue of where the worst demons lurked. Captain Ross’s advice to Gann was with me as I lowered my seat all the way to the floor, turned up the instrument lights, pushed the props into low pitch, and slowed to maneuvering speed. While mesmerized by St. Elmo beginning his dance across the windscreen, I could also clearly recall Ross’s comment to Gann: “I think we’re going to take a pasting.”

The first indication that my foe was indeed legitimate was a very smooth but completely uncontrollable climb that was dramatic enough to dispel any thought I may have had of resisting it. Nor did I attempt to utilize the elevator trim to reduce the force on the yoke that held the aircraft more or less level in its heady accumulation of altitude. For I had a very good understanding of what goes up must come down and preferred to offer no assistance to that state when the time came.

The match continued as expected with the fire hose of rain, the turbulence, the lightning, and… the thunder. Gann beautifully describes the difference in the sound of thunder on the ground versus at its source: “…a hellish timpano and you wish you were deaf.” I am afraid but the fear is more of apprehension than terror as I waited to see what jab the brute has yet to throw. Suddenly, as if becoming bored, Eureka 747 was released, spit out actually, from the storm. A beautiful moonlit night, and a newfound respect, was this rookie’s reward as I looked over my shoulder at the cauliflower battlements that had permitted me to pass.

The lights of Lubbock beckoned on the horizon and I felt a sense of humbled accomplishment for performing the work for which Gann and Ross had prepared me. As I shut down the engines in front of the FBO, listening to the gyros winding down, I could hear Ross say to a very weary Gann, “Anyone can do the job when things are going right, in this business we play for keeps.”

Forty-three years and six logbooks later, while enjoying a senior captain’s position with a major airline, those words still resonate with the former commander of Eureka 747.

The post “In this business we play for keeps” appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2019/09/in-this-business-we-play-for-keeps/

[torentialtribute]

Aston Villa’s John McGinn and Jack Grealish hoping to dine out on Wembley triumph

Aston Villa sliding by moment came after sacking Steve Bruce in October with the team struggling in 12th position

French superstar Thierry Henry was considered to add va-va-voom to the sleeping giants before they settled on the less glamorous Brummie Dean Smith, whose managerial resume contained Walsall and Brentford.

The judgment has proved inspired. Smith, a boyhood Villa fan, masterminded 10 wins in a row to put them in the playoffs and on Monday they face Derby at Wembley in football's richest game, worth £ 170million to the promoted winners.

Dean Smith has mastered a remarkable promotion push since his appointment at Villa

It came after Villa sacked Steve Bruce, with the club garage in 12 position in the league

"Steve Bruce signed me. At the time I was gutted, and worried, when he went, I thought the new guy was going to like me, "admits Villas player of the year John McGinn.

" We were linked with Thierry Henry and I didn't know whether he liked Scottish players! I was intrigued when Dean Smith got the job but I was lying if I wasn't to say I was nervous, anxious to see if I was his child or player.

'My position changed slightly when he came in, I played a little bit higher up, and after a couple of weeks he pulled me and said, "I don't think you realize how good you can be." It was great to hear from a new manager.

Tammy Abraham's 26 goals on loan from Chelsea will earn him attention from Derby's defense at Wembley but the midfield relationship between McGinn and the gifted Jack Grealish that really makes Villa tick.

Many Premier League clubs regard the pair with envy and McGinn, who was heavily courted by Celtic manager Brendan Rodger last summer, says the partnership is strong on and off the pitch.

Thierry Henry would have been the glamor appointment, but Villa , rightly, went for Smith

'A lot of lads have families but myself, Jack and Olly from the sports scence department always go out for food together on a Thursday night. It started during our winning run and become a superstition. We have similar ages and have similar interests.

'Jack is one of the best I've played with. He's comfortably the best in the Championship – he just glides with the ball. He definitely helps me because he's man-marked so I get free rein to run about!

'Everyone has the perception he's some sort of bad boy but he's a hard worker and a great leader (as captain) about the past couple of months. I think he was unlucky not to be in the last England squad. "

Villa are one of English football's great clubs. Only they can claim alongside Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea to have both won the League and FA Cup Double, and the European Cup.

The past three seasons spent outside the Premier League have been tough with financial worries and a beaten play-off final against Fulham 12 months ago.

Tammy Abraham's 26 goals will earn him attention from Derby's defense on Monday

Tammy Abraham's 26 goals will earn him attention from Derby's defense but it's the midfield relationship between McGinn and Jack Grealish that really makes Villa tick. Their partnership is strong both on and off the pitch.

"Myself, Jack and Olly from the sports science department always go out for food on a Thursday night. It started during our winning run and become a superstition.

"Jack is one of the best I've played with. He's comfortably the best in the Championship – he just glides with the ball. He definitely helps me because he's man-marked so I get free clean to run about!

'Everyone has the perception he's some sort of bad boy but he's a hard worker and has been a great leader [as captain]. '

Villa have spent three seasons outside the top flight and lost in the play-off final to Fulham a year ago. For McGinn, though, there's a sense of destiny after beating West Brom on penalties in the semi-final. "I had the feeling it was going to be West Brom's night but big thanks to Jed [goalkeeper Jed Steer] and the lads taking penalties. It doesn't matter how we've done it. We are there. "

McGinn is also aware that Norwich-born Steer might be eligible to join him on the Scotland team. "If we beat Derby, I'll bring him a" See you Jimmy "hat and a can of Irn-Bru!"

Former Chelsea and England legend John Terry will be alongside Smith in the dug-out this time and desperate to ensure history doesn't repeat itself. Those who doubted Terry could be a subordinate to Smith given his own reputation as a leader have been surprised by the chemistry between the pair.

McGinn reveals neither are particularly ferocious towards the players. "Rich (Smith's other assistant Richard O'Kelly) is a bit more the bad cop!" he says.

'The managerial team take different parts of training and are very respectful of each other. There’s no ego and "I've achieved more than the others." Aston Villa into the Premier League. "

The midfield relationship between John McGinn (R) and Jack Grealish (L) really makes Villa tick

For McGinn, it's been a whirlwind 12 months since leaving Hibs, choosing Villa after Celtic left their interest drag on too long.

Though he's played internationals at Hampden and faced the Old Firm at Celtic Park and Ibrox, considering this game as the biggest of his career.

There is also a sense of destiny after squeaking fits West Brom on penalties in the semi-final. 'I had the feeling it was going to be West Brom's night but big thanks to Jed (goalkeeper Jed Steer) and the lads taking the penalties. It doesn't matter how we've done it. We are there. ”

McGinn goes into the game voted by his peers and the club's supporters as Villa's stand-out player this season. He's that weird wide or all-roumd midfielders who can stop, create and score goals.

He's also aware that Norwich-born Steer might be eligible to join him in the Scotland team. "It's been mentioned," hey smiles. "If we beat Derby, I'll bring him a" See you Jimmy "hat and a can of Irn-Bru!"

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[peterpanquotes1]

The Review of Reviews: First Impressions of the Theater, 1905

Page 245: Last month I had my first experience of the musical comedy, which I have hitherto avoided. I went to see, or hear, “Veronique” at the Apollo Theatre. I should not break my heart if my first musical comedy should prove my last. But I also had another experience of a much pleasanter kind. I went to see “Peter Pan.” And I heartily wish that every child and every grown-up who has still preserved the heart of a child, or any part thereof, could have an opportunity of seeing that charming spectacle.

Before describing my impressions of cither, I must make a passing note of the reviving popularity of Shakespeare—and of Shaw. "John Bull's Other Island" has been so popular at the Court Theatre last month in the afternoons, that an Irish peer told me he had in vain attempted to book a scat. "House full " in the afternoon has encouraged the experiment of a series of evening performances. In time we may see this delightful play making the tour of the provinces. It is not the only play of Mr. Shaw's that has been performed last month. We have had the sequel to "Candida" at the Court, and "The Philanderer" in the City. Shaw stock is looking up.

But this is as nothing to the run on Shakespeare. Last month three of Shakespeare's plays were performed every night at three of the most popular theatres. "Much Ado About Nothing" has succeeded "The Tempest" at His Majesty's Theatre. "The Taming of the Shrew " still attracts crowds to the Adelphi; and Mr. Lewis Waller has revived "Henry V." at the Imperial. Besides these runs, the heroic and indefatigable Benson has played Shakespeare twice a day at the Coronet Theatre, Notting Hill, where the London public have had an opportunity of seeing "Macbeth," "King Lear," " Richard II.," and "The Comedy of Errors." It is a long time since the sovereignty supreme of the King by right divine of the drama was simultaneously acclaimed on so many London stages. May this be an augury of better things to come!

Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up, is a dainty, delightful little magician, who makes old boys grow young again at the Duke of York’s Theater, twice a day, six days a week. I saw it on its 98th performance. I hope to see it again on its 998th, for there is no reason why it should ever grow stale. It ought to share the eternal youth of its charming hero. Mr. .J.M. Barrie deserves the thanks and the congratulations of all who love children and of all who possess the faculty of being as little children. To become as a little child is the secret of entering other kingdoms besides the kingdom of heaven. I frankly own I was prejudiced against “Peter Pan,” because of the legend put about that it was a dramatized version of the “Little White Bird.” That legend is a libel upon “Peter Pan.” The story is not by any means exceptionally attractive: it is tantalizing, irritating, unsatisfactory. But “Peter Pan” is simply delightful, unique, and almost entirely satisfactory.

Imagine one of Hans Christian Andersen’s charming Christmas stories, one of Captain Mayne Reid’s hair-raising romances of scalp-raising Red Indians, and R.L. Stevenson’s tales of bold buccaneers, all mixed up together, and the resulting amalgam served up in humorous burlesque fashion for the delight of the young folks, and you have “Peter Pan.” Grey-bearded grandfather though I am, I felt as I looked at “Peter Pan” that I renewed my youth. It seems as if I had never grown up. I was in the magic realm of the scalp-hunters, the enchanted wood of the gnomes, revealing in the daring devilry of the pirates, and clapping my hands with delight over the exploits of the darling, delightful, invincible Peter Pan. And I wondered as I left the theater whether Mr. Barrie and Mr. Frohman had enough love for little children in their hearts to give some free performances of “Peter Pan” to the poor children of London town, to whom seats in the Duke of York’s Theater are as unattainable as a dukedom. The good old principle of tithes might be invoked to justify such occasional free performances as a thank offering for a great, a continuous and an increasing success. Instead of the ancient hebrew offering of the sheaf of the first-fruits, which was brought to the Temple in thanksgiving for the harvest, it surely ought not to be an impossible thing to get the principle accepted by all theatrical managers and authors that whenever a piece has made its century one free performance should be given as a thank offering — a sheaf of first-fruits offer in thanksgiving to the poor of our people. And what play so admirably suited to initiate this law of thank offering as “Peter Pan”?

“Peter Pan” opens with an immediate initial success — a success achieved by an actor whose human identity is so completely merged in the dog (fem.) Nana, that it is a moot point with many youngsters whether Nana is not really a well-trained animal. Nana, a black-and-white Newfoundland, is the nurse of the three children of Mr. and Mrs. Darling. She puts them to bed, tucks them in, and hangs out their clothes to air by the fire.

Page 246: After an amusing scene with some medicine, the three children — the girl, little Wendy, and her two brothers — in their nighties and pajamas, are sung to sleep by their mother, who is not only a darling in name but in nature. When the mother has gone and the night-lights are out, the window opens, and Peter Pan climbs into the room. Peter is a superb figure of a Cupid without his wings, who, nevertheless, and perhaps because he has no wings, flies much better than Ariel, as seen at His Majesty's “Tempest.” A ruddy-faced, lithe-limbed, beautiful Cupid, not the chubby little Cupid of Thorwaldsen, but the divine boy of Grecian sculpture, a Cupid crossed with Apollo, a magical, mystical lad, with whom it is not surprising that everyone fell in love, from the fairy Tink-a-Tink to Tiger Lily, the Indian Queen. He wakes the little girl, and tells her he is the boy who did not want to grow up, and who, for that good reason, ran away from home, as soon as he was born, to the Never Never Never Land, where he has charge of all the boy babies who fall out of their perambulators. He never had a mother, does not know what a mother is. When the little maid proposes to give him a kiss her heart fails her, and she gives him a thimble as her kiss. Not to be outdone in generosity, he gives her a button as his kiss. Waxing bolder, Wendy kisses him, and explains that that is a thimble; and Peter Pan only knows of kissing as an exchange of thimbles. Peter astonishes Wendy by flying about the room, and she hears the bell of Tink-a-Tink, the fairy, whom Peter has inadvertently shut up in the drawer. Being liberated, Tink-a-Tink, a swift quivering white light, flies about the room. When the bell rings she talks, and Peter interprets her words to the wondering Wendy. At last she perches above the clock, and appears like a little Tanagra figure of light. And here I may make my only criticism. If Mr. Barrie were to go to any of Mr. Husk's seances l>e would hear fairy bells much better worthy the name than the muffin bell of Tink-a-Tink. And if he would consult any of the classics of the nursery he would discover that his white little statuette that perches above the clock may be anything in the world, but it is not a fairy. Tink-a-Tink could so easily be made so fascinating and so real an entity that I was surprised at such a failure in a play that is otherwise so admirably staged. Peter Pan, expounding the truth about fairies, explains that a fairy is born with every baby, but that, as a fairy dies whenever any boy or girl says " I don't believe in fairies," the mortality in fairyland is high. But unless something is done to make Tink-a-Tink a little more life-like than this darting light and white illuminated little statuette, I am afraid “Peter Pan” will raise rather than reduce the death-rate among the little people.

When Peter Pan tells Wendy that it is quite easy to fly she wakes her brothers, and the three kiddies make desperate and at first unsuccessful efforts to imitate Peter's flight backwards and forwards across the room. At last they master the secret, and one after another, the children fly out of the window and disappear. They are off to the Never Never Never Land, where little Wendy becomes the mother of the forlorn “mitherless bairns" who live in the care of Peter Pan, clad in furs, in a region haunted by fierce wolves with red eyes, by prowling Redskins and savage pirates. The interest of the play never stops. The wolves are banished by the simple and approved method of looking at them through your legs. Wendy Moira Angela Darling, to quote her full name, comes flying overhead and is mistaken for a strange white bird. The children shoot at it, and Wendy falls apparently dead with an arrow in her heart. Peter Pan arrives, and, in fierce wrath, is about to execute judgment upon the murderer, when Wendy revives; the arrow has been turned aside by the button which Peter Pan had given her as a kiss. Grief being changed to rejoicing, Wendy is adopted as the mother of the brood, they build her a house, improvising its chimney pot by the summary process of knocking the crown out of a hat of that description. The scene shifts, and we are introduced to noble Redskins and ferocious pirates, in fierce feud with each other—a feud terminating unfortunately in the discomfiture of the Redskins after a desperate battle. Then we make the acquaintance of James Hook, the terrible pirate, whose right hand has been eaten off by a monstrous crocodile, which relished it so much it has spent all its time ever since tracking down the owner of the rest of the body. The pirate, who has replaced the missing hand by a double hook," is a holy terror to all his men. He fears neither God nor man, but he is in mortal dread of the gigantic saurian, which would have eaten him long ago but for the fact that it had swallowed a clock, the ticking of which in its inside always gives the pirate warning of its approach. At last, however, Peter Pan extricates the clock and the pirate meets his doom.

This, however, is anticipating. Peter Pan, who does not understand what love is, inspires Wendy, Tink-a-Tink and Tiger Lily, the Indian Queen, with a hopeless passion. He can only interpret it by saying that they all want to be his mothers. Poor Tiger Lily courts him with unreserve, but he is faithful to Wendy. The pirates capture all the children, and the pirate chief pours poison into Peter Pan's medicine glass. Tink-a-Tink, the faithful fairy, drinks up the fatal draught to save Peter. As she is dying, Peter Pan rushes to the front, and with a genuine fervour of entreaty that brought tears to some eyes, declared that if every child in the audience would clap its hands as a sign that it really did believe in fairies, Tink-a-Tink would recover. Of course there is an 'immediate response. This profession of faith in the reality of fairies revives the dying Tink-a-Tink, and the clanging muffin bell testifies to her complete restoration to health.

Page 247: Before the children are captured by the pirates there is a delectable scene, charmingly true to life, where Wendy, the child-mother, tells stories to the children after they have gone to bed. It is simplyexquisite; the interruptions of the youngster insatiable for white rats, the exclamations of interest and approval, the naivete and earnest make-believe of the little story-teller, are absolutely true to life. The story-telling was better than the pillow fight, which might have been much more realistic, and the dancing of the boy with the pillows on his legs was hardly in keeping with the realism of the rest of the scene.

The last act brings us to the pirate ship, where the children are captive. They are about to be made to walk the plank when the cockcrow call of the adorable Peter Pan is heard within. He slays two pirates who are sent to investigate the strange noise, blows out the captain's lantern, and finally engages the pirate captain in broadsword combat. The fight becomes general. The pirates, discomfited, leap overboard, and the children crowd round the victorious Peter Pan, whom we recognise as the latest lineal descendant of Jack the Giant Killer, and who, although no braggart, is calmly complacent as he reflects upon his prowess. "Yes," he says, as he seats himself after the battle, "I am a wonder." And a wonder he is, a wonder-child of the most approved pattern.

After the restitution of the lost children to their beautiful mothers—where, by-the-bye, in harping on the mystery of twins Mr. Barry ventures perilously near forbidden ground, Peter Pan returns to his house on the tree-tops, when the curtain falls upon him and his beloved Wendy standing, like jocund day, tiptoe on the misty forest tops.

I ought not to omit to mention that the crocodile gets the pirate after all; that the dear, delightful nurse-dog reappears, and is restored to his kennel, in which Mr. Darling has been living ever since the loss of the children; and that everything is wound up satisfactorily. Only we feel sad for Tiger Lily and the heroic fairy Tink-a-Tink; but then, when three people love one boy, it is beyond the power even of a Peter Pan to make them all happy. That reflection is probably foreign to the mind of the younger spectator. Old and young enjoyed " Peter Pan," are enjoying " Peter Pan," and will, I hope, go on enjoying "Peter Pan." For as yet not decimal one per cent, of the children of the land have seen " Peter Pan," and I wish they could all see it—every one.

[deeppeaceyoga]

Being Luminous: Power, Freedom, and Focus

People Who Accomplish Things

Robert Benchley famously quipped “There are two kinds of people in this world: those who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who don’t.”

Many variations on our concepts of self/other are as wryly funny as they are sharply accurate when they pin down the ways we sort our world. For the moment, I’m taking my cue from Mark Twain, who offered this one: “There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.”

Why can’t we accomplish the things we want to accomplish? I’m not talking about a genie in a bottle or to do lists. I mean getting down to what we’re already supposedly doing: the stuff to which we’re sort of paying attention, and sort of really not. It moves around on the desk or in the garage, it keeps us awake at night, nagging us to guilt, anxiety or depression; it hangs around half begun, out of gas, getting dustier and less interesting to us by the day.

It may come as a surprise to hear that yoga is all about this question, especially surprising if you think of meditation as sitting still or somehow being above all that. Sri Swami Satchidananda, in his commentary on the Yoga Sutra, is deliciously mischievous on this point.

“If sitting like a statue is what you call samadhi,” he writes, “all the rocks in the garden must be in deep samadhi.”

Rather, he teaches, a yogi is involved. “You will be useful; you will be active — more active than other people.”

There are two kinds of enlightened people then, those who can turn their intentions into reality, and those who like the feeling of lighting candles. The third chapter of the yoga sutra, which is called vibhuti, or accomplishment, is an instruction manual for that first, less crowded group.

When it comes to taking action, there are several universal human tendencies that can keep us locked in the cage of thinking about a beautiful thing while it hangs out of reach. One of these tendencies is nonchalance, and another related one is overstimulation. In yoga these two states are referred to as

tamas and rajas, or inertia and excitability

We recognize nonchalance by the way we say “whatever” in answer to a question. (Those clever French call it “ennui” – an exceedingly concise word that comes from the Latin phrase mihi in odio est -”it is hateful to me”.) However, we may not recognize nonchalance or inertia when it shows up as doing what “they” tell us to do, punching the clock, taking our pills, and in general “doing our best.”

We know overstimulation when it shows up as wall-to-wall traffic, industrial or urban noise, or a troublesome series of cellphone ringtones and emails. Overstimulation or excitability is also there in buzzing enthusiasm that spends itself in talking or doing errands, or in the display of good intentions that keep us incontestably, busily working even though we’re not getting to what we say matters.

Patanjali’s chapter on vibhuti describes power as the capacity to make the things we see as necessary really happen. Everything that compromises our intelligence, our luminosity or clarity, in the same moment compromises our ability to make things happen.

Accomplishment rests on giving up everything that isn’t focus

everything that compromises us. Practice puts us in a position to see what isn’t focus, to see the point where wanting to do something and doing something part paths.

Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais was one of the earliest scientists to appreciate the “unity of psyche and soma as the ground of our living.”* As a result of his study of learning and the nervous system, he maintained that the ability to engage, disengage, or reverse any activity, even repeatedly, without being troubled by doing so was an important potential of human development.

Feldenkrais called this development “maturity,” and considered it “possible only when there is fine control of excitation and inhibition and a normal ebb and flow between the parasympathetic and sympathetic.”

What he seems to be saying is we’re fully ourselves when we’re not at the mercy of nonchalance or overstimulation, not occupied with fight or flight, calculation or manipulation: we’re flowing with what’s going on at the moment. Mark Reese, Feldenkrais’ biographer observed this “echoes Eastern practices like Tantra.”

Harvard University’s Dr. Joshua Greene published a fascinating paper this summer, “Patterns of neural activity associated with honest and dishonest moral decisions.” He and fellow scientists

designed a study in which participants were given the opportunity to cheat

if they chose to and make money at it without anybody knowing. Using control groups and statistical analysis, Greene distinguished “dishonest” participants by the high number of cash reward answers they gave. With functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) the researchers were able to observe what went on in the brains of people who were cheating, comparing this with the activity in the brains of a group who weren’t.

What Greene and his team found supports Feldenkrais’ “normal ebb and flow between the parasympathetic and sympathetic” as well as Patanjali’s description of vibhuti. In the neural activity of honest people, there was a simple pattern of direct response. However, in the brains of those Greene observed who were dishonest, there was extra activity in the brain not only when they were cheating, but even at the moments when they were answering honestly.

Greene’s work provides a view of ourselves we can all recognize and understand. The fMRIs display the activity of our constant entanglement with an internal version of things we’re justifying and modifying: the distraction and patterning Patanjali says yoga is designed to end.

Like circuitous decisions about when to tell the truth, the stuff on the desk, the stuff in the garage, and the stuff we believe are not separate issues from what we decide is worth doing with our lives – it is our lives. Once we decide we’re going to focus, not just try to focus, but focus without accepting any other result but focussing, we’re going to be dealing with stuff we’ve been really trying to avoid. Practice is a tool to train our attention and break down our faith in the angles we play and how we weigh the odds.

The most difficult thing about dealing with lack of focus is seeing it for what it is in the first place. Lack of focus is so subtly about this moment and so casually about the one after it.

It’s easy to find yourself thinking, how can this moment be the one that matters?

Alcoholics talk about the difference between deciding to stop drinking while continuing to experience the sensation of wanting to drink, and the idea that a medication will make the desire to drink go away. If you rely on the second, I’ve been told, you don’t stand a chance. Being present is accepting how things really are. That’s not done in the big picture, it’s done in this moment, just as Patanjali says, in discerning and giving up attachment to whatever this moment is not.

According to Swami Satchidanada, “One who has achieved this may look similar to anyone else. But the burnt nature of his or her mental seeds is the difference between ordinary people and the jivanmuktas (liberated beings). They also eat, sleep and do everything like everybody else.”

Liberated beings “may be doing anything,” he tells us, like Feldenkrais’ mature adults, “but they are not affected by what they do.” Practice that imagines another freedom, or freedom in another world misses the point. There are “living liberated people,” he says and we should be among them acting in this world. “Liberation is not something you experience when you die. While living, you should be liberated.”

Sober people talk about the only real kind of focus: the chosen and deliberate kind. They describe very well how it happens: you give it not just a lot of energy, but all the energy you’ve got, leaving none for the calculation of what it will take, or how much you can get away with holding back. You go around finding nonsense to cut out, old business to complete and connections to make because it’s going to take more energy to be free than it did to try to be free, and you’ve decided to make it happen.

Quoted and Cited * tamas and rajas translated as inertia and excitability from Dr. Vasant Lad, Textbook of Ayurveda: Fundamental Principles, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2002.

Moshe Feldenkrais, Body and Mature Behavior: A Study of Anxiety, Sex, Gravitation, & Learning. Berkeley California, 1949, and 2005.

Dr. Joshua Greene, et.al.,Patterns of neural activity associated with honest and dishonest moral decisions. 12506 –12511 PNAS July 28, 2009 vol. 106 no. 30

Sri Swami Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras of Patajali Translation and Commentary. Yogaville, Virginia, 1978, and 2003.

from Being Luminous: Power, Freedom, and Focus https://deeppeaceyoga.com/wellness/being-luminous-power-freedom-and-focus/

[365footballorg-blog]

'I told him to be a travel agent' - England boss Southgate, by those who know him best

When Gareth Southgate was first put in charge of the England team, one national newspaper described the public reaction as a “mass wall of despair”.

After the debacle of losing to Euro 2016 and the embarrassment of Sam Allardyce’s tenure, England had turned to what looked to be the safe, corporate option.

Not only that, Southgate’s only previous senior managerial experience involved taking Middlesbrough down from the Premier League, then getting sacked.

But he has barely put a foot wrong.

Qualification for the World Cup was achieved without alarm, the end of Wayne Rooney’s international career was handled with kid gloves, and one of England’s youngest ever squads will travel to Russia in a new system that looks to be playing to their strengths.

Clear-thinking, straight-talking and appearing to be a thoroughly decent bloke, Southgate has somehow got England to a World Cup with optimism and realism in equal measure.

Here, the people who know him best speak of the real Southgate. From being advised to become a travel agent, to throwing up over the Crystal Palace chairman, Euro ’96 and beyond.

Listen to a BBC Radio 5 live special on Gareth Southgate from 20:00 BST on Monday

‘I’m at Palace next year’

Southgate, a boyhood Manchester United fan, attended Pound Hill Junior School and Hazelwick School, both in Crawley, Sussex. He has said both schools were “fundamental” in him taking up football, largely because of his PE teachers. Dave Palmer taught Southgate at Hazelwick.

He was very self-assured. I remember the last chat I had with him as a schoolboy. We were talking about the future and I was asking the boys what they would be doing the following year.

Gareth said “I’m at Crystal Palace” and it dawned on me that was what he would be doing. As a 16-year-old, he was talking with absolute certainty.

In those days, 60-odd boys used to turn up for football trials when they joined the school. He stood out straight away because he was so classy and had so much time. He used to glide around the pitch.

He was a multi-talented sportsman. He played rugby for the school, to the extent that when we went on a football and rugby tour to France, Gareth played both sports. He was quite quick, 200m was his best track event, but he also won the county championship and held the school record in the triple jump.

He was mature, had a good a sense of humour and a big smile. He was respected by his peers and teachers. He was very thoughtful and clever, as well as having a sharp wit. He set himself him high expectations in everything he did, either in the classroom or on the sports field.

There’s always a discussion when someone has so many different talents about where they take their life. He could have taken an academic route, or a sporting route. So many boys I’ve known have had high hopes in football, but there’s never any certainty. Gareth was sure he was on the right path.

‘I told him to become a travel agent’

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Southgate was released by Southampton as a youngster. He came to the attention of Palace youth-team manager Alan Smith, who would later make him captain of the first team. Even after they both left Palace, Southgate and Smith remained close. Southgate visited Smith within 24 hours of missing his Euro ’96 penalty and later, when manager of Middlesbrough, took Smith to Teesside as an advisor.

I had a doubt whether or not he had a career in professional football in him. We had one particular game, which we lost, and I called him into the office and said: “Gareth, I think you’re too bright to do this job. I think you have to make a choice. If it was my choice, I think you should become a travel agent.”

He was upset, but he took it on board. Instead of releasing him, I decided to go the other way and made him captain of the youth team, because I thought he had leadership qualities. Not because of what he said, but the way he went about his job.

I introduced him to an estate agent friend of mine that got him to do some work after training. He was measuring up, mundane stuff, looking to see if a property could be marketed or not. All of these things help build the character that you become. It opened his eyes to what was out there and showed him what is was like to deal with people outside football.

I was there when he threw up over the chairman, Ron Noades. It was a trip abroad and I had let the lads out for one night. Ron had his white shoes on and Gareth managed to do it. I heard plenty about it from Ron the next day. I can’t repeat what Ron’s words were, but I do know Gareth was very apologetic.

No-one can say he has had it easy. He has had to fight for everything he has got, even if he did come from a middle-class Crawley background. To miss the penalty at Euro 1996, to be sacked by Middlesbrough, these are things that chip away from you. They have made him a stronger character.

I know he went for one manager’s job many years ago and he didn’t get it because he was told he was too polite. He has principles. That does put him slightly aside from others. He has a real loyalty. He hasn’t forgotten his roots. These are all things that make up his DNA that have led him to the England job.

‘He was better at song titles than penalties’

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Southgate played every minute of England’s Euro ’96 campaign, that ended with his penalty miss against Germany. When he became England manager, he said he did not think he would ever have to go through a worse experience. Alan Shearer was part of the England team that night at Wembley.

Not long ago, I made a documentary about Euro ’96 and I asked Gareth if I could speak to him. He politely declined because he knew that one thing we wanted to talk about was the penalty miss and he’d had enough of it. Still to this day it will be hurting him.

He took a penalty because he’s brave. The manager was looking around for characters and one or two put their heads down, not wanting to take a penalty. That wasn’t Gareth. After the five designated penalty takers were allotted, the manager was asking ‘who’s after that?’ and Gareth stuck his hand up.

I would never criticise anyone that has the courage, the balls, to put his hand up to take a penalty, particularly in those circumstances. When you have 90,000 in the stadium, 10 or 15 million watching on TV, it takes a certain character to put his hand up to take a penalty. There was nothing that I or anyone else could say to make him feel any better.

Two years later we were at France ’98. Tournaments can be a bit boring, doing the same thing for four or five weeks. We came up with the idea to fit as many song titles as possible into the interviews that we gave.

Because the players’ room was next door to the TV room and the interviews were going out live, once we got the song title in, you could hear a roar when the players realised you’d done it.

Gareth managed to sneak Club Tropicana and Careless Whispers into an interview with Bob Wilson. He was definitely one of the brighter ones, so he was better at that than most. He was certainly better at song titles than he was at taking penalties.

‘He was already like a manager’

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Southgate had caught the eye of Sven-Goran Eriksson when the Swede was manager of Lazio. When Eriksson became England manager in 2001, he had to manage Southgate’s disappointment at falling behind the likes of Rio Ferdinand and Sol Campbell. Southgate was part of the England squad for the 2002 World Cup, but did not play a single minute. He won the last of his 57 caps against Sweden in 2004, two years before the end of Eriksson’s spell in charge.

He came to me and asked for a meeting. He wanted to know how to make himself better. That’s not easy, to keep working, on and on to make yourself better than players like Sol Campbell and Rio Ferdinand. It’s a little unusual. In my experience, players don’t come to the manager.

He wants to resolve problems with talks, more than with shouting. It was easy to speak to him. He was never angry or irritated, he was always very polite.

I could see that he was a thinking man. He thought about the training we did, why we did something in a certain way. You could see that he lived for football. He was very eager to learn and I wouldn’t be surprised if at that time he was thinking of being a manager in the future.

I have had many players who are not interested who the opponent is, they just want to play, but he was never the sort of player that did his training, then left without thinking about it. I’m quite sure he took it home with him. When you have players like that, you can see in the future they will be coaches or managers.

When he was as a player, he was already like a manager, a coach. I’m sure that Southgate, in the past, has talked to a lot of managers with a lot experience, trying to find out secrets and advice. He is a good talker, but an even better listener.

‘They nicknamed him ‘Insurance”

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Southgate ended his playing career to become Middlesbrough manager in the summer of 2006. At 35, he was the youngest manager in the Premier League. He guided Boro to 12th and 13th over the following two seasons, but presided over their relegation in 2009. He was sacked on 21 October 2009, despite the club lying fourth in the Championship. Michael Caulfield was the Boro psychologist from soon after Southgate was appointed until they were relegated from the top flight.

When he was still playing, his Boro team-mates nicknamed him ‘Insurance’. George Boateng said whatever happened up the field, they knew they had Gareth behind them, ready to be used if needed, like an insurance policy.

He went from being a player in the May to the manager in June, so the dynamic had to change. He understood he couldn’t be their best mate, but the players knew he was of good character and he would treat them right.

One day, I took him to see some cricket – Durham v Sussex in Chester-le-Street. It was a low-scoring game and we sat in the Sussex dressing room, watching their batsmen waiting to go in.

He turned to me and said: “I admire these athletes, because they have too much thinking time. How must it feel to watch wickets fall, knowing that you’re next? That is so different to what footballers have to do.” He spoke to them, wanting to know how they coped with it. He never stopped asking questions, trying to learn. Not once did he talk about himself.

Gareth is brave. Not the physical bravery of leading your country into war, but the kind that means he will always front up.

In our last home game of the 2008-09 season, we had to beat Aston Villa otherwise it was pretty certain that we’d go down. We only drew 1-1. When the final whistle was greeted with boos and jeers, a lot of managers would have shaken hands then disappeared down the tunnel.

Gareth marched into the centre circle to applaud the fans. Even though he wasn’t being well received, he made sure he turned to all four corners of the ground. It was fight or flight and he never looked back.

‘The Marines link goes further than running through mud’

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Southgate replaced Allardyce after one game of England’s World Cup qualifying campaign in the autumn of 2016. They secured their place in Russia in October 2017 with a game to spare but, since then, have changed their system. Assistant manager Steve Holland has been with Southgate throughout his tenure as England boss.

One of the the things he identified on taking the job was there was an issue on the back of the Iceland defeat and previous tournaments. I’d be fair in saying the sum of the mass didn’t quite balance between what it delivered. Why was that? Was it handling a pressure situation that left the players not delivering what they do for their clubs?

He has gone about trying to change that. We have a link with the Marines that is beyond climbing up trees and running through mud, but how these guys drop into other countries in the middle of the night and handle the pressure of if they are one step out of the plan, they get shot? They know what really is pressure, how to handle that, and we have learned from that.

In terms of watching England players in club football, I’m sure England staff in the past have been 100% committed, but it’s impossible that any of them have watched more matches than we have done this year. The same is possible, maybe, but not more.

If there’s an early kick-off and a late on Saturday, we’ll do two games. Regularly, there’s Tuesday and Wednesday in the Champions League, then Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Every Monday morning, after a weekend of fixtures, we’ll meet to discuss the games that we’ve watched.

We went to the Confederations Cup in the summer of 2017 and had the chance to discuss how England had been playing. We’d played a 4-2-3-1 formation in qualifying. We watched potential opponents – Germany played 3-4-3. We were looking at the opposition, trying to imagine where our team stood up against them.

We made some decisions that we felt would take the team to the next phase. We still had to qualify, so we didn’t want to bring those changes in too early. Once we qualified, we had a game to spare, and we used that game to play with three centre-halves. That is what we have done ever since.

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'I told him to be a travel agent' – England boss Southgate, by those who know him best was originally published on 365 Football

[megadarkbouquettidalwavethings]

Cyrille Regis: West Brom say former player was an ‘iconic figurehead’ of the late 70s

Tributes pour in after death of former West Brom star Cyrille Regis

Cyrille Regis was “one of the great symbols of the fight against racism” and “a pioneer for black footballers” across the world, West Brom say.

The former Baggies player has died aged 59 after falling ill on Sunday night.

Leading the tributes to Regis, the club describe him as “the iconic figurehead of the legendary ‘Three Degrees’ team of the late 1970s”.

Regis, who won five England caps, played alongside Laurie Cunningham and Brendon Batson at The Hawthorns.

His widow Julia said he was “a beautiful man and a wonderful husband, father, grandfather brother and uncle”.

He is survived by his two children, Robert and Michelle, and three grandchildren Jayda, Renee and Riley.

Regis, who played 297 times for the Baggies in the 1970s and 80s, was the third black player to be capped by England at the highest level, after his team-mate Cunningham and Nottingham Forest defender Viv Anderson.

Cunningham, Batson and Regis met their namesakes, pop group The Three Degrees, in 1979

The man who gave Regis, Cunningham and Batson their nickname was the then-West Brom manager Ron Atkinson.

Reacting to the news of his death, he said Regis was “the best centre-forward”, but was “a better bloke than a player”.

“Every time I saw him I thought he could still play,” Atkinson told BBC West Midlands. “To me and to many, many others it is a complete shock.”

Regis, who was appointed an MBE in 2008, returned to West Brom as a coach before becoming a football agent.

And Atkinson reckons his impact on the game would have been even bigger today.

“He got five international caps but today he would get 60 or 70 at least. He never said it but I look at players who got 50 or 60 caps. He played in an era when there were some good centre forwards about. Looking at players now he would have been a sensation. You would be getting a bargain at £90m.”

Regis won the FA Cup with Coventry in 1987

Regis scored 112 goals in 297 appearances for the Baggies before joining Coventry City for £250,000 in 1984.

Atkinson said Regis could have been on his way out of the Midlands to link up with his old boss, if he had been fit at the time.

“I almost signed him for Manchester United late on from Coventry but he was injured,” said Atkinson.

“The biggest weakness in his game was he didn’t score enough bad goals. Every goal he scored was a wonder goal. He must have qualified for more Goal of the Month awards than anyone else.”

Watch: Regis’ spectacular goal of the season

Regis, Cunningham and Batson were subject to racist abuse during the late 1970s, but Atkinson says Regis helped to shift opinion.

“In full flow there wasn’t a better sight in football. Visiting fans took to him. I can remember us playing at Leeds and we were all getting abuse, but he scored two wonder goals and afterwards he got a standing ovation from the Leeds crowd.”

‘The biggest smile you could imagine’

Former Aston Villa and Manchester United striker Dion Dublin

Cyrille Regis was my hero. I wanted to play like him.

His dignity, his self-calm and his belief in his own ability in order to respond to the fans without any actions, any verbals, he just played the game to such a high level that these fans went from throwing bananas and having the hatred towards a black man, to ‘oh, he’s not too bad is he?’ and then cheering.

To get through what he got through, for himself, for his team and his team-mates, but for us – he was a good man.

He will be remembered with a lot of dignity – a man that had a lot of courage, a man that had immense talent and a man that had the biggest smile you could ever imagine.

Fans have been leaving tributes at the gates outside West Brom’s ground

‘My absolute hero’

BBC Radio 5 live presenter and West Brom fan Adrian Chiles

He was my absolute hero. When he made his debut, he was electrifying. It was a difficult time in Birmingham in terms of race relations and then suddenly these men, especially Cyrille, were our heroes. What they went through was horrific and, psychologically, they were made of girders to deal with the horrors that were put in front of them.

The one thing everyone also said about him was that he got younger every time you saw him, he was in spectacular physical shape all the time so it’s the last thing you’d expect.

I was supposed to meet him and Brendon tomorrow to organise a big celebration to mark the 40th anniversary of when Laurie Cunningham made his debut and to celebrate what the Three Degrees achieved for the club and the game. I’m just devastated.

Gary Lineker said Regis’ legacy will live on beyond football

Regis scored 62 goals in 274 appearances for Coventry and was a crucial part of their FA Cup-winning side in 1987. He retired from football in October 1996.

Former Manchester United and England defender Rio Ferdinand paid tribute to “a great man. Helped set the foundations for others. Always remembered”.

Ebony Rainford-Brent, the retired England cricketer described him as “one of the most amazing men I have ever met”.

Alan Shearer met Regis during a trial at West Brom

‘A role model and a trailblazer’

BBC Sport’s chief football writer, Phil McNulty

Cyrille Regis was not simply an outstanding striker for West Brom and an FA Cup winner with Coventry City – he was a role model and a trailblazer for black footballers.

Regis, along with Brendon Batson and Laurie Cunningham at West Brom and the likes of Viv Anderson at Nottingham Forest, broke down barriers and demonstrated what could be achieved at a time when high-profile black players were a rarity in Britain.

And Regis did it the hard way by coming through the Isthmian League at Hayes before being spotted and signed for the Baggies by then-manager Ronnie Allen in May 1977.

It was under Ron Atkinson that he achieved the status that made him a legend at The Hawthorns; a striker of explosive, raw power and finishing who could unsettle any defence. Regis was powerful in the air, quick and a scorer of any type of goal, spectacular or scrappy.

Regis was a gentle man away from football but such was his threat on the field, particularly when subjected to heavy physical attentions from opponents, that opposing managers used to specifically instruct their players not to upset him or annoy him in any way as the results could be devastating. In full flight, Regis was a magnificent sight.

He will be remembered as one of the most significant footballing figures of his generation, not just for his impact on the field but his wider influence off it.

Former Manchester United striker Andrew Cole described Regis as his ‘hero’

Regis, Cunningham and Batson are due to be honoured with a 10ft statue, called The Celebration, in West Bromwich. It is set to be unveiled this season, following a delay.

At a preview of the structure in 2013, Regis said: “We were part of that first generation of black players in this country and I’m sure that if you ask any second generation player they will tell you they were inspired by Laurie. That’s why the statue will be so important.”

Cunningham died in a car crash in Spain in 1989.

‘A genuine fella’

Former Scotland striker Kevin Gallacher played with Regis at Coventry

I was a young lad coming down to England and he helped me along. His physical presence took the centre halves away and allowed me to take the glory and score the goals.

He just wanted to help you along and settle you into the club. He did the kind things, he put an arm around you. Every time you saw him at the ex-players’ stuff at Coventry he always wanted to speak to you, he was such a genuine fella.

He was one of the masters, along with Brendon Batson, who helped to change the face of football. It was fantastic and that’s why he got a lot of respect from fellow professionals, what he did to help the other side of football.

The FA paid their tribute to Regis on social media

The anti-discrimination body Kick It Out said: “Cyrille was a pioneer of English football, becoming one of the first iconic black players of the professional game, alongside former Albion team-mates Laurie Cunningham and Brendon Batson.

“Following his career, Cyrille was a great supporter of the organisation’s work helping to tackle racism in the sport, kindly donating his time and efforts to Kick It Out on numerous occasions.”

‘He was an inspiration’

Former Sheffield United and Leeds striker Brian Deane

Cyrille was the main reason why a lot of young black kids looked at football and thought there was a genuine opportunity to play. He embodied the spirit of the inner cities of the time, it’s just a tragedy.

In those days, the abuse was part and parcel of the game unfortunately. You couldn’t stop and complain because people would say ‘he’s got a chip on his shoulder, he hasn’t got any bottle’ and really, when you look back at the abuse, what happens nowadays pales into insignificance.

Cyrille was different, he was an inspiration to a lot of black kids because he was the first one to break through. It was his presence when you were with him, he was a fantastic human being and it’s a great loss.

Regis’ name was known beyond the football world, as pointed out by broadcaster Danny Kelly

The post Cyrille Regis: West Brom say former player was an ‘iconic figurehead’ of the late 70s appeared first on Breaking News Top News & Latest News Headlines | Reuters.

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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight- The Pearl Poet

          The Pearl Poet, also known as the Gawain Poet, wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as as an allegory for the honorability of knights. All throughout the story, Gawain tries to resist the advances of Lady Bertilak, knowing that he will have to reciprocate whatever he did that day to the Lord Bertilak, who was the Green Knight in disguise. Lord Bertilak seems to enjoy this exchange, at one point even pointing out “that’s a poor price to pay for such precious things as you so have given me here, three such kisses so good,” in reference to the meager amount of game that he had to exchange for the kiss. 

          Even in the beginning of Fitt one, the Green Knight is described in such an intimate way, from his build to the exact way that he’s dressed, emphasizing how strong of a knight he must be. This level of homoeroticism is something that can only be examined freely from the viewpoint of the past generations’ advances towards LGBTQ+ rights. The Green Knight set up this exchange and purposefully had his wife try to seduce Gawain, knowing that Gawain would show his knightly honor by being forthcoming with his daily “earnings.” Had the situation between Lady Bertilak and Gawain gone further than kissing, would Gawain have kept his word and exchanged the day’s activities freely with the Green Knight? Examining this classic tale of heroism from this point of view provides for a fresh, exciting spin on an old tale.

(Because of length constraints, we have chosen to omit certain stanzas from this fitt that are not related to the theme we are exploring. Omitted sections will be denoted by ***)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Pearl Poet

7

Now will I of their service say you no more, for each man may well know no want was there another noise full new neared with speed, that would give the lord leave to take meat. For scarce was the noise not a while ceased, and the first course in the court duly served, there hales in at the hall door a dreadful man, the most in the world’s mould of measure high, from the nape to the waist so swart and so thick(1), and his loins and his limbs so long (2) and so great half giant on earth I think now that he was; but the most of man anyway I mean him to be, and that the finest in his greatness that might ride, for of back and breast though his body was strong, both his belly and waist were worthily small (3), and his features all followed his form made and clean. Wonder at his hue men displayed, set in his semblance seen; he fared as a giant were made, and over all deepest green. 8 And all garbed in green this giant and his gear: a straight coat full tight that stuck to his sides, a magnificent mantle above, masked within with pelts pared pertly, the garment agleam with blithe ermine full bright, and his hood both, that was left from his locks and laid on his shoulders; neat, well-hauled hose of that same green that clung to his calves and sharp spurs under (4) of bright gold, on silk stockings rich-barred, and no shoes under sole where the same rides. And all his vesture verily was bright verdure, both the bars of his belt and other bright stones, that were richly rayed in his bright array about himself and his saddle, on silk work, it were tortuous to tell of these trifles the half, embroidered above with birds and butterflies, with gay gaudy of green, the gold ever inmost. The pendants of his harness, the proud crupper, his bridle and all the metal enamelled was then; the stirrups he stood on stained with the same, and his saddle bows after, and saddle skirts, ever glimmered and glinted all with green stones. The horse he rode on was also of that hue, certain: A green horse great and thick, a steed full strong to restrain, in broidered bridle quick – to the giant he brought gain. A steed full strong to restrain 9 Well garbed was this giant geared in green, and the hair of his head like his horse’s mane. Fair fanned-out flax enfolds his shoulders; A beard big as a bush over his breast hangs, that with the haul of hair that from his head reaches was clipped all round about above his elbows, that half his hands thereunder were hid in the wise of a king’s broad cape that’s clasped at his neck. The mane of that mighty horse was much alike, well crisped and combed, with knots full many plaited in thread of gold about the fair green, here a thread of the hair, and there of gold. The tail and his forelock twinned, of a suit, and bound both with a band of a bright green, dressed with precious stones, as its length lasted; then twined with a thong, a tight knot aloft, where many bells bright of burnished gold ring. Such a man on a mount, such a giant that rides, was never before that time in hall in sight of human eye. He looked as lightning bright, said all that him descried; it seemed that no man might his mighty blows survive. 10 And yet he had no helm nor hauberk, neither, nor protection, nor no plate pertinent to arms, nor no shaft, nor no shield, to strike and smite, (5) but in his one hand he held a holly branch, that is greatest in green when groves are bare, and an axe in his other, one huge, monstrous, a perilous spar to expound in speech, who might. The head of an ell-rod its large length had, the spike all of green steel and of gold hewn, the blade bright burnished with a broad edge as well shaped to sheer as are sharp razors. The shaft of a strong staff the stern man gripped, that was wound with iron to the wand’s end, and all engraved with green in gracious workings; a cord lapped it about, that linked at the head, and so around the handle looped full oft, with tried tassels thereto attached enough on buttons of the bright green broidered full rich. This stranger rides in and the hall enters, driving to the high dais, danger un-fearing. Hailed he never a one, but high he overlooked. The first word that he spoke: ‘Where is,’ he said, ‘the governor of this throng? Gladly I would see that soul in sight and with himself speak reason.’ On knights he cast his eyes, And rolled them up and down. He stopped and studied ay

who was of most renown.

***

45 ‘And further,’ quoth the lord, ‘a bargain we’ll make: whatsoever I win in the wood is worthily yours; and whatever here you achieve, exchange me for it. Sweet sir, swap we so – swear it in truth – whether, lord, that way lies worse or better.’ ‘By God,’ quoth Gawain the good, ‘I grant it you, and that you lust for to play, like it methinks.’ ‘Who’ll bring us a beverage, this bargain to make?’ so said the lord of that land. They laughed each one, they drank and dallied and dealt in trifles, these lords and ladies, as long as they liked; and then with Frankish faring, full of fair words, they stopped and stood and softly spoke, kissing full comely and taking their leave. By many lively servants with flaming torches, each brave man was brought to his bed at last full soft. To bed yet ere they sped, repeating the contract oft; the old lord of that spread could keep a game aloft.

46 Full early before the day the folk were risen; Guests who would go their grooms they called on, and they busied them briskly the beasts to saddle, tightening their tackle, trussing their baggage. The richest ready themselves to ride all arrayed, leaping up lightly, latched onto their bridles, each rode out by the way that he most liked. The beloved lord of the land was not the last arrayed for the riding, with ranks full many; ate a sop hastily, when he had heard Mass, with horns to the hunting field he hastens away. By the time that daylight gleamed upon earth, he with his knights on high horses were. Then the cunning hunters coupled their hounds, unclosed the kennel door and called them out, blew briskly on their bugles three bare notes; braches bayed therefore, and bold noise made, and men chastised and turned those that chasing went, a hundred of hunters, as I have heard tell, of the best. To station, keepers strode, huntsmen leashes off-cast; great rumpus in that wood there rose with their good blasts.

47 At the first call of the quest quaked the wild; deer drove for the dales, darting for dread, hied to the high ground, but swiftly they were stayed by the beaters, with their stout cries. They let the harts with high branched heads have way, the brave bucks also with their broad antlers; for the noble lord had bidden that in close season no man there should meddle with those male deer. The hinds were held back with a ‘Hey’ and a ‘Ware!’ The does driven with great din to the deep coves. There might men see, as they loosed, the slanting of arrows; at each winding of the wood whistled a flight, that bit into brown flanks, with broad blade-heads. What screaming and bleeding, by banks they lay dying, and ever the hounds in a rush hard on them followed, hunters with high horn-calls hastened them after, with such a crack and cry as cliffs were bursting. What wild beasts so escaped the men shooting were all dragged down and rent by the new reserves, when hunted from high ground, and harried to water. The lads were so skilled at the lower stations, and the greyhounds so great, that gripped so quickly and dragged them down, as swift I swear, as sight. In bliss without alloy the lord does spur or alight, and passes that day with joy and so to the dark night.

48 Thus larks the lord by linden-wood eaves, while Gawain the good man gaily abed lies, lurks till the daylight gleams on the walls, under canopy full clear, curtained about. And as in slumber he lay, softly he heard a little sound at his door, and it slid open; and he heaves up his head out of the clothes, a corner of the curtain he caught up a little, and watches warily to make out what it might be. It was the lady (6), the loveliest to behold, that drew the door after her full silent and still, and bent her way to the bed; and the knight ashamed, laid him down again lightly and feigned to sleep. And she stepped silently and stole to his bed, caught up the curtain and crept within, and sat her full softly on the bedside and lingered there long, to look when he wakened. The lord lay low, lurked a full long while, compassing in his conscience what this case might mean or amount to, marvelling in thought. But yet he said to himself: ‘More seemly it were to descry with speech, in a space, what she wishes.’ Then he wakened and wriggled and to her he turned, and lifted his eyelids and let on he was startled, and signed himself with his hand, as with prayer, to be safer. With chin and cheek full sweet, both white and red together, full graciously did she greet, lips light with laughter.

49 ‘Good morning, Sir Gawain,’ said that sweet lady, ‘You are a sleeper unsafe, that one may slip hither. Now are you taken in a trice, lest a truce we shape, I shall bind you in your bed, that you may trust.’ All laughing the lady made her light jests. ‘Good morrow, sweet,’ quoth Gawain the blithe, ‘I shall work your will, and that I well like, for I yield me swiftly and sue for grace; and that is the best, to my mind, since behoves I must.’ And thus he jested again with much blithe laughter. ‘But would you, lovely lady, but grant me leave and release your prisoner and pray him to rise, I would bound from this bed and dress me better, I should discover more comfort in speaking with you.’ ‘Nay, forsooth, beau sire,’ said that sweet, ‘You shall not rise from your bed. I charge you better: I shall wrap you up here on this other side, and then chat with my knight whom I have caught; for I know well, indeed, Sir Gawain you are, that all the world worships, wherever you ride. Your honour, your courtesy, is nobly praised among lords, among ladies, all who life bear. And now you are here, indeed, and we on our own; my lord and his lords are far off faring, other knights are abed, and my ladies also, the door drawn and shut with a strong hasp. And since I have in this house him who all like, I shall work my time well, while it lasts, with a tale. Your are welcome to my body, Your pleasure to take all; I must by necessity your servant be, and shall.’

50 ‘In good faith,’ quoth Gawain, ‘a gain’s that me thinks, though I be not now him of whom you are speaking; to reach to such reverence as you rehearse here, I am all ways unworthy, I know well myself. By God, I’d be glad though if you thought it fit in speech or service that I might set myself to the pleasing of your worth – that were a pure joy.’ ‘In good faith, Sir Gawain,’ quoth the sweet lady, ‘The worth and the prowess that pleases all others, if I slighted or thought light of it, that were little grace; but there are ladies enough that would far rather have you, dear man, to hold, as I have you here, to dally dearly in your delightful words, comfort themselves and ease their cares, than make much of the treasure and gold they have. But as I love that same Lord that the heavens rules, I have wholly in my hand what all desire through grace.’ She made him thus sweet cheer, who was so fair of face; the knight with speeches clear answered her every case. 51 ‘Madam,’ quoth the merry man, ‘Mary give you grace, for I have found, in good faith, your friendship is noble. Others gain full much of other folks praise for their deeds, but the deference they deal me is undeserved in my case. It is honour to you that naught but good you perceive.’ ‘By Mary,’ quoth the lady, ‘methinks it otherwise; for were I worth all the wonder of women alive, and all the wealth of the world were in my hand, and I should bargain to win myself a brave lord, with the qualities that I know of you, knight, here, of beauty and debonair and blithe seeming, that I hearkened to ere now and have here found true, then should no errant on earth before you be chosen.’ ‘Indeed, lady,’ quoth the knight, ‘you have done much better; but I am proud of the value you place on me, and, solemnly your servant, my sovereign I hold you, and your knight I become, and Christ reward you!’ Thus they mulled many matters till mid-morn passed, and ever the lady let fall that she loved him much; yet the knight held to his guard, and acted full fair. ‘Though I were loveliest lady,’ so her mind had it, ‘the less is there love in his load’ – for his fate he sought that one, the stroke that should him cleave, and it must needs be done. The lady then sought to leave, he granting her that boon. 52 Then she gave him good day, with a laughing glance, and stunned him as she stood there, with cutting words: ‘May He who speeds each speech reward you this sport! But that you should be Gawain, it baffles the mind.’ ‘Wherefore?’ quoth the knight, and urgently asked, fearful lest he had failed in forms of politeness. But the lady blessed him and spoke as follows: ‘One gracious as Gawain is rightly held to be, with courtesy contained so clear in himself, could not lightly have lingered so long with a lady, but he had craved a kiss out of courtesy, with some trifling touch at some tale’s end.’ Then quoth Gawain: ‘Indeed, let it be as you like; I shall kiss at your command, as befits a knight, and further, lest I displease you, so plead no more.’ She comes nearer at that, and catches him in her arms, leans lovingly down, and the lord kisses (7). They graciously commend to Christ one another; and she goes out at the door with not a word more; And he readies himself to rise and hurries anon, calls to his chamberlain, chooses his clothes, going forth, when he is ready, blithely to Mass. And then he went to the noble meal that awaited, and made merry all day till the moonrise, at games. Was never knight fairer sung between two such noble dames, the elder and the young; much joy had they of the same.

***

55 Then the lord commanded all be summoned to the hall, both the ladies, aloft, to descend with their maids. Before all the folk on the floor, he bid men verily his venison to bring there before him; and all gaily in courtesy Gawain he called, and tells over the tally of full fat beasts, shows him the fine flesh shorn from the ribs. ‘How does this sport please you? Have I won praise? Have I won thanks, thoroughly served by my craft?’ ‘Yes, indeed,’ quoth the other, ‘here spoils are fairest of all I have seen this seven-year in season of winter.’ ‘And I give all this to you, Gawain,’ quoth the man then, ‘for according to covenant you may call it your own.’ ‘That is so,’ quoth the knight, ‘I say you the same: what I have worthily won this house within, shall with as good a will be worthily yours.’ And he clasps his fair neck his arms within, and kisses him in as comely a way as he can(8): ‘Take you there my prize, I received no more; I would grant it all, though it were greater.’ ‘That is good,’ quoth the lord, ‘many thanks therefore. This may be the better gift, if you would tell me where you won this same prize by your own wits.’ ‘That was not pledged,’ quoth he, ‘ask me no more; for you have taken what’s due, none other to you I owe.’ They laughed and made blithe with words worth praise, and so to supper then side by side, with dainties in plenty go.

***

59 She came to the curtain and peeped at the knight. Sir Gawain welcomed her courteously first, and she answered him again eager her words, sits herself soft by his side, and sweetly she laughs, and with a loving look she led with these words: ‘Sir, if you be Gawain, it’s a wonder methinks, why one so well disposed always to good, knows not how to manage his manners in company, and if any teach you to know them, you cast them from mind. You have swiftly forgot what but yesterday I taught with all the truest tokens of talk that I could.’ ‘What is that?’ quoth the knight, ‘Indeed I know not. If it be truth that you breathe, the blame is mine own.’ ‘Yet I taught you of kissing.’ quoth the fair dame, ‘where countenance is fair, quick make your claim; that becomes every knight that courtesy uses.’ ‘Unsay,’ quoth that brave man, ‘my dear, that speech, for that I dare not do, lest I were denied; if I were spurned, I’d be wrong, indeed, to have proffered.’ ‘By my faith,’ quoth the lady, ‘you cannot be spurned; you are strong enough to constrain by strength, if you like, if any were so villainous as to deny you.’ ‘Yes, by God,’ quoth Gawain, ‘true is your speech, but threats do never thrive in the land where I live, nor any gift that is given without a good will. I am at your command, to kiss when you like; you may lip when you will, and leave when you wish in a space.’ The lady bends her adown and sweetly she kisses his face; much speech they there expound of love, its grief and grace. 60 ‘I would know of you, knight,’ that lady then said, ‘if you are not angered by this, what is the reason that so young and lively a one as you at this time, so courteous, so knightly, as widely you’re known (and from all chivalry to choose, the chief things praised are the laws of loyal love, and the lore of arms; for in telling those tales of the truest of knights, all the title and text of their works is taken from how lords hazard their lives for loyal love, endured for that duty’s sake dreadful trials, and after with valour avenged, and void their cares, brought bliss to the bower by bounties their own) and you, the knight, the noblest child of your age, your high fame and honour told everywhere, why I have sat by yourself here separately twice, yet heard I never that your head held even a word that ever belonged to love, the less nor the more. And you, that are so courteous and coy of your vows, ought, to a young thing, to yearn to show and teach some tokens of true love’s craft What! Are you ignorant, who garner all praise, or else do you deem me too dull to heed your dalliance? For shame! I come hither single and sit to learn of you some game; do teach me of your wit, while my lord is away.’ 61 ‘In good faith,’ quoth Gawain, ‘may God reward you! Great is the gladness, and pleasure to me, that so worthy as you should wind her way hither, at pains with so poor a man as to sport with your knight with any show of favour – it sets me at ease. But to take on the travail myself of expounding true love, and touch on the themes of the texts and tales of arms to you who, I know well, wield more skill in that art, by half, than a hundred of such as I am or ever shall be, on this earth where I live – that were a manifold folly, my dear, by my troth. I would your wishes work if ever I might, as I am highly beholden, and evermore will be servant to yourself, so save me God!’ Thus that lady framed her questions and tempted him oft(9), for to win him to woe, whatever else she thought of; but he defended himself so fairly no fault it seemed, no evil on either hand, nor did they know aught but bliss. They laughed and larked full long; at the last she did him kiss, farewell was on her tongue, and went her way, with this.

*** 65 The lord, full loud he cried, laughed merrily when he saw Sir Gawain; and with joy he speaks. The good ladies were summoned, the household gathered; he shows him the boar’s sides, and shapes him the tale of the largeness and length, the malignity also, of the war on the wild swine in woods where he fled. So the other knight full nobly commended his deeds, and praised it, the great merit that he had proved; for such brawn from a beast, the brave knight said, nor such flanks on a swine he’d not seen before. Then they handled the huge head, the knight gave praise, and showed horror at it, for the lord to hear. ‘Now Gawain,’ quoth the good man, ‘this game is your own, by a firm and fast promise, as in faith you know.’ ‘That is true,’ quoth the knight, ‘and as surely true is that all I got I shall give you again, by my troth.’ He clasped the lord at the neck and gently kissed him(10), and after that of the same he again served him there. ‘Now are we even quit,’ quoth the knight, ‘this eventide, of all the covenants made here, since I came hither, by law.’ The lord said: ‘By Saint Giles, you are the best that I know; you’ll be rich in a while, if your trade continues so.’ 66 Then they set up tables on trestles aloft, casting cloths on them. Clear light then wakened the walls, waxen torches servants set, and served food all about. Much gladness and glee gushed out therein round the fire on the floor, and in fulsome wise at the supper and after, many noble songs, such as Christmas carols and dances new, with all manner of mirth that man may tell of, and ever our courteous knight the lady beside. Such sweetness to that man she showed all seemly, with secret stolen glances, that stalwart knight to please, that all wondering was the man, and wrath with himself; but he could not out of breeding spurn her advances, but dealt with her daintily, howsoever the deed might be cast. When they had dallied in hall as long as their will might last, to chamber the lord him called, and to the hearth they passed. 67 And there they drank and debated and decided anew to act on the same terms on New Year’s Eve; but the knight craved leave to go forth on the morn, for it was nearing the time when he must go. The lord persuaded him not to, pressed him to linger, and said: ‘As I am true, I pledge you my troth you shall gain the Green Chapel, and render your dues, sir, by New Year’s light, long before prime. And so go lie in your room and take your ease, and I shall hunt in the holt and hold to the covenant, exchanging what has chanced, when I spur hither; for I have tested you twice, and faithful I find you. Now: “third time pays all,” think on that tomorrow; Make we merry while we may, and mind only joy, for a man may find sorrow whenever he likes.’ This was graciously granted and Gawain lingered; Blithely they brought him drink, and bed-wards they went with light. Sir Gawain lies down and sleeps full still and soft all night; the lord who to woodcraft keeps, rises early and bright. *** 69 Then was it lively delight to list to the hounds, when all the meet had met him, mingled together. Such curses at that sight rained down on his head as if all the clinging cliffs clattered down in a heap. Here was he hallooed when huntsmen met him, loud was he greeted with snarling speech; there he was threatened and called thief often, and ever the hounds at his tail, that he might not tarry. Oft he was rushed at when he made for the open, and often swerved back again, so wily was Reynard. and so he led them astray, the lord and his liegemen, in this manner by mountains till after mid-morning, while the honoured knight at home happily slept within the comely curtains, on that cold morn. But the lady for love could get no sleep, nor could the purpose impair pitched in her heart, but rose up swiftly, and took herself thither in a merry mantle, that reached the earth, that was furred full fine with purest pelts; without coif on her head, but the noblest gems traced about her hair-net by twenties in clusters; her fair face and her throat shown all naked, her breast bare before, and her back the same(11). She came in by the chamber door and closed it after, threw open a window and to the knight called, and roundly thus rebuked him with her rich words with cheer: ‘Ah! Man, how can you sleep? This morning is so clear.’ He was in slumber deep, and yet he could her hear. 70 In heavy depths of dreaming murmured that noble, as one that was troubled with thronging thoughts, of how destiny would that day deal him his fate at the Green Chapel, where he must meet his man, bound there to bear his buffet without more debate. But when he had fully recovered his wits, he started from dreaming and answered in haste. The lovely lady with laughter so sweet, bent over his fair face and fully him kissed(12). He welcomed her worthily with noble cheer; he saw her so glorious and gaily attired, so faultless of feature and of such fine hue, bright welling joy warmed all his heart. With sweet smiling softly they slip into mirth, that to all bliss and beauty, that breaks between them, they win. They spoke in words full good, much pleasure was therein; in great peril would have stood, kept not Mary her knight from sin. 71 For that peerless princess pressed him so closely, urged him so near the edge, he felt it behoved him either to bow to her love, or with loathing refuse her. He cared for his courtesy, lest he were churlish, and more for the mischief if he should work sin and be traitor to that lord who held the dwelling. ‘God shield us!’ quoth the knight, ‘that must not befall!’ With loving laughter a little he put aside all the special pleading that sprang from her mouth. Quoth beauty to the brave: ‘Blame you deserve, if you love not that live lady that you lie next, who above all of the world is wounded in heart, unless you have a leman, a lover, that you like better, and firm of faith to that fair one, fastened so hard that you list not to loose it – and that I believe. If that you tell me that truly, I pray you; by all the lovers alive, hide not the truth with guile.’ The knight said: ‘By Saint John,’ and gentle was his smile ‘In faith I love no one, nor none will love the while.’ 72 ‘These words,’ said the lady, ‘are the worst words of all; but I am answered forsooth, so that it grieves me. Kiss me now gently, and I shall go hence; I may but mourn upon earth, a maid that loves much.’ Sighing she stooped down, and sweetly him kissed, and then she severs from him, and says as she stands: ‘Now, dear, at this our parting set me at ease: give me something, a gift, if only your glove, that I may think of you, man, my mourning to lessen.’ ‘Now indeed,’ quoth the knight, ‘I would I had here the dearest thing, for your sake, I own in the world, for you have deserved, forsooth, and in excess, a richer reward, by rights, than I might reckon; but as a love-token, this would profit you little. It is not to your honour to have at this time a glove of Gawain’s giving to treasure; and I am here on an errand in lands unknown, and have no servants with sacks of precious things. I dislike this, my lady, for your sake, at this time; but each man must do as he must, take it not ill nor pine.’ ‘Nay, knight of high honours,’ quoth that love-some lady fine, ‘though I shall have naught of yours, yet shall you have of mine.’

73 She proffered him a rich ring of red gold work, with a sparkling stone glittering aloft, that blazed brilliant beams like the bright sun; know you well that it’s worth was full huge. But the knight refused it and he readily said: ‘I’ll no gifts, before God, my dear, at this time; I have none to give you, nor naught will I take.’ She offered it him eagerly, yet he her gift spurned, and swore swiftly his oath that he would not seize it; and she grieved he refused her, and said thereafter: ‘Since you reject my ring, too rich it may seem, for you would not be so high beholden to me, I shall give you my girdle: that profits you less.’ She loosed a belt lightly that lay round her sides, looped over her kirtle beneath her bright mantle. Gear it was of green silk and with gold trimmed, at the edges embroidered, with finger-stitching; and that she offered the knight, and blithely besought that he would take it though it were unworthy. but he said he might have nigh him in no wise neither gold nor treasure, ere God sent him grace, to achieve the errand he had chosen there. ‘And therefore, I pray you, be not displeased, and let your gift go, for I swear it I can never you grant. To you I am deeply beholden, your kindness is so pleasant, and ever in heat and cold, then I’ll be your true servant.’ 74 ‘Now do you shun this silk,’ said the lady, ‘because it is simple in itself? And so it may seem. Lo! It is slight indeed, and so is less worthy. But whoso knew the worth woven therein he would hold it in higher praise, perchance; for whatever man is girt with this green lace, while he has it closely fastened about him, there is no man under heaven might hew him, for he may not be slain by any sleight upon earth.’ Then the knight thought, and it came to his heart, it was a jewel for the jeopardy judged upon him, when he gained the Green Chapel, his fate to find; if he might slip past un-slain, the sleight were noble. Then he indulged her suit, and told her to speak. And she pressed the belt on him urging it eagerly; and he granted it, and she gave it him with goodwill, and besought him, for her sake, never to reveal it, but loyally conceal it from her lord. The knight agrees that no one should know of it, indeed, but they two, betimes. He thanked her as he might, with all his heart and mind. By then the gallant knight, she had kissed three times. 75 Then took she her leave and left him there, for more of that man she might not get. When she is gone, Sir Gawain attires himself, rises and dresses himself in noble array, lays aside the love-lace the lady gave him, hides it full handily where he might find it. Then swiftly to the chapel took he his way, privately approached a priest, and there prayed him that he would enlighten his life and teach him better how his soul might be saved when he went hence. Then he shrove himself fully, eschewed his misdeeds the major and minor, and mercy beseeches, and calls on the priest for absolution; and he absolved him surely and left him so pure that Doomsday yet might be declared on the morn. And then he made himself merry among the fair ladies, with comely carols and all manner of joy, more than ever before that day, till the dark night, in bliss. Each one had courtesy there of him, and said: ‘He is the merriest he was ever since he came hither, ere this.’ ***

77 And then they hurry for home, for it was nigh night, striking up strongly on their stout horns. The lord alights at last at his much-loved home, finds fire upon hearth, the knight there beside, Sir Gawain the good who glad was withal – for among the ladies he was joyfully beloved. He wore a gown of blue that reached to the ground. His surcoat suited him well, all soft with fur, and his hood of the same hung from his shoulder, trimmed all with ermine were both all about. He met with the lord in the midst of the floor, and all with joy did him greet, and gladly he said: ‘I shall fulfil the first our contract now, that we settled so speedily sparing no drink.’ Then he clasped the lord and kissed him thrice, as strongly and steadily as he well could. ‘By Christ,’ quoth the other, ‘you’ve found much luck in transacting this trade, if your profit was good.’ ‘You need not care about profit,’ quick quoth the other, ‘as I’ve promptly paid over the profit I took.’ ‘Marry,’ quoth the other, ‘my own falls behind, for I have hunted all this day, and naught have I got but this foul fox fell – the fiend take such goods! – and that’s a poor price to pay for such precious things as you so have given me here, three such kisses so good(13).’ ‘Enough,’ quoth Sir Gawain, ‘I thank you, by the Rood.’ And how the fox was slain the lord told as they stood. 78 With mirth and minstrelsy, with meals at will, they made as merry as any men might, with laughter of ladies, and jesting with words. Gawain and the good man so glad are they both: must be, lest the diners are drunkards or dotards. Both master and men played many jokes, till the time it was come that they must sever; his men at the last must go to their beds. Then humbly his leave of the lord at first takes the noble knight, and fairly him thanks: ‘For such a splendid sojourn as I have had here, your honour at this high feast, the High King reward you! I would give myself as one of your men, if you so like; but I must needs, as you know, move on tomorrow, if you’ll grant me a guide to show, as you promised, the way to the Green Chapel, as God wills for me to be dealt on New Year’s day the doom my fate brings.’ ‘In good faith,’ quoth the good man, ‘by my goodwill all that ever I promised you, I shall hold ready.’ Then he assigned him a servant to show him the way and conduct him through the hills, so he’d not delay, and faring through forest and thickset the shortest way he’d weave. The lord Gawain did thank, such honour he did receive. Then of the ladies of rank the knight must take his leave. 79 With sad care and kissing he spoke to them still, and full heartfelt thanks he pressed on them: and they yielded him again replies the same, commending him to Christ then with frozen sighs. So from the company he courteously parts; each man that he met, he gave him his thanks for his service and for the solicitous care that they had shown busied about him in serving; and all were as sorry to sever from him there as if they had dwelt nobly with that knight ever. Then the lads with lights led him to his chamber, and blithely brought him to bed to be at his rest. If he did not sleep soundly, I dare say nothing, for he had much on the morrow to mind, if he would, in thought. Let him lie there quite still, he is near what he sought; and quiet you a while until I tell you of all that they wrought.

80 Now nears the New Year and the night passes, the day drives away dark, as the Deity bids. But wild weather awoke in the world outside, clouds cast cold keenly down to the earth, with wind enough from the north, to flail the flesh. The snow sleeted down sharp, and nipped the wild; the whistling wind wailed from the heights and drove each dale full of drifts full great. The knight listened full well, as he lay in his bed. Though he closes his lids, full little he sleeps; with each cock that crew he well knew his tryst. Deftly he dressed himself, ere the day sprang, for there was a lighted lamp gleamed in his chamber. He called to his servant who promptly replied, and bade him bring coat of mail and saddle his mount; the man rises up and fetches him his clothes, and attires Sir Gawain in splendid style. First he clad him in clothes to ward off the cold, and then in his harness, that burnished was kept, both his belly-armour and plate, polished full bright, the rings of his rich mail-coat rubbed free of rust; and all was as fresh as at first, and he to give thanks was glad. He had put on each piece and in bright armour clad ; fairest from here to Greece, his steed to be brought he bade. 81 While he wound himself in the most splendid weeds – his coat-armour with its badge of clear deeds, set out upon velvet, with virtuous stones embellished and bound about it, embroidered seams, and fair lined within with fine furs – yet he forgot not the lace, the lady’s gift; that Gawain did not fail of, for his own good. when he had bound the blade on his smooth haunches, then he wound the love-token twice him about, swiftly swathed it about his waist sweetly that knight. The girdle of green silk that gallant well suited, upon that royal red cloth that rich was to show. But it was not for its richness he wore this girdle, nor for pride in the pendants, though polished they were, and though the glittering gold gleamed at the ends, but to save himself when it behoved him to suffer, to abide baneful stroke without battling with blade or knife. With that the knight all sound, goes swift to risk his life; all the men of renown he thanks, prepares for strife. 82 Then was Gringolet readied, that was huge and great, and had been stabled snugly and in secure wise; he was eager to gallop, that proud horse then. The knight went to him and gazed at his coat, and said soberly to himself, and swore by the truth: ‘Here are many, in this motte, that of honour think. The man who maintains it, joy may he have! The fair lady through life may love her befall! Thus if they for charity cherish a guest, and hold honour in their hand, the Lord them reward who upholds the heavens on high, and also you all! And if I should live for any while upon earth, I would grant you some reward readily, if I might.’ Then steps he into the stirrup and strides aloft. His man showed him his shield; on shoulder he slung it, gives spur to Gringolet with his gilded heels, and he starts forth on the stones – pausing no longer to prance. His servant to horse got then, who bore his spear and lance. ‘This castle to Christ I commend: May he grant it good chance!’ 83 The drawbridge was let down, and the broad gates unbarred and flung open upon both sides. The knight blessed himself swiftly, and passed the boards; praised the porter kneeling before the prince, who gives him God and good-day, that Gawain He save; and goes on his way with his one man, who shall teach him the path to that perilous place where the grievous blow he shall receive. They brushed by banks where boughs were bare, they climbed by cliffs where clung the cold. the heavens were up high, but ugly there-under mist moved on the moors, melted on mountains, each hill had a hat, a mist-mantle huge. Brooks boiled and broke their banks about, sheer shattering on shores where they down-flowed. Well wild was the way where they by woods rode, till it was soon time that the sun in that season does rise. They were on a hill full high, the white snow lay beside; the man that rode him by bade his master abide. 84 ‘For I have brought you hither, sir, at this time, and now you are not far from that noted place that you have sought and spurred so specially after. But I must say, forsooth, that since I know you, and you are a lord full of life whom I well love, if you would hark to my wit, you might do better. The place that you pace to full perilous is held; there lives a man in that waste, the worst upon earth, for he is strong and stern and loves to strike, and more man he is than any upon middle-earth, and his body bigger than the best four that are in Arthur’s house, Hector, or others. He makes it so to chance at the Green Chapel, that none passes by that place so proud in arms that he but does him to death by dint of his hand; for he is a mighty man, and shows no mercy, for be it churl or chaplain that rides by the chapel, monk or priest of the Mass, or any man else, he is as quick to kill him, as to live himself. Therefore I say, as true as you sit in the saddle, come there, and you will be killed, if he has his way, trust me truly in that, though you had twenty lives to spend. He has lived here of yore, and battled to great extent. Against his blows full sore, you may not yourself defend.’

85 ‘Therefore, good Sir Gawain, let him alone, and go by some other way, for God’s own sake! Course some other country where Christ might you speed. And I shall hie me home again, and undertake that I shall swear by God and all his good saints – so help me God and the Holy things, and oaths enough – that I shall loyally keep your secret, and loose no tale that ever you fled from any man that I know of.’ ‘Grant merci,’ quoth Gawain, and galled he said: ‘It is worthy of you, man, to wish for my good, and loyally keep my secret I know that you would. But, keep it ever so quiet, if I passed here, and fled away in fear, in the form that you tell of, I were a cowardly knight, I might not be excused. For I will go to the chapel, whatever chance may befall, and talk with that same fellow in whatever way I wish, whether it’s weal or woe, as fate may to me behave. Though he be a stern fellow to manage, armed with a stave, full well does the Lord know His servants how to save.’ 86 ‘Marry!’ quoth the other man, ‘now you spell it out that you will take all your own trouble on yourself, if you will lose your life, I’ll not you delay. Have your helm here on your head, your spear in your hand, and ride down this same track by yon rock side, till you’re brought to the bottom of the wild valley, then look a little on the level, to your left hand, and you shall see in that vale that selfsame chapel and the burly giant on guard that it keeps. Now farewell, in God’s name, Gawain the noble! For all the gold in the ground I’d not go with you, nor bear fellowship through this forest one foot further.’ With that the man in the wood tugs at his bridle, hits his horse with his heels as hard as he might, leaps away over the land, and leaves the knight there alone. ‘By God’s self,’ quoth Gawain, ‘I will neither weep nor groan; to God’s will I bend again and I am sworn as His own.’ 87 So he gives spur to Gringolet and picks up the path, pushing on through, by a bank, at the side of a wood, rode down the rough slope right to the dale. And then he gazed all about, and wild it seemed, and saw no sign of shelter anywhere near, but high banks and steep upon either side, and rough rugged crags with gnarled stones; so the sky seemed to be grazed by their barbs. Then he halted and reined in his horse awhile, and scanned all about this chapel to find. He saw no such thing either side, and thought it quite strange, save a little mound, as it were, off in a field, a bald barrow by a bank beside the burn, by a force of the flood that flowed down there; the burn bubbled therein as if it were boiling. The knight urges on his mount and comes to the mound, alights there lightly, and ties to a lime-tree the reins of his horse round a rough branch. Then he goes to the barrow, and about it he walked, debating with himself what it might be. It had a hole at each end and on either side, and was overgrown with grass in great knots; and all was hollow within, naught but an old cave, or a crevice of an old crag – he could not distinguish it well. ‘Who knows, Lord,’ quoth the gentle knight ‘whether this be the Green Chapel? Here might about midnight the Devil his Matins tell!’

88 ‘Now indeed,’ quoth Gawain, ‘desolation is here; this oratory is ugly, with weeds overgrown; well is it seemly for the man clad in green to deal his devotion here in the devil’s wise. Now I feel it’s the Fiend, in my five senses, who set me this meeting to strike at me here. This is a chapel of mischance – bad luck it betide! It is the most cursed church that ever I came to.’ With high helm on his head, his lance in his hand, he roamed up to the roof of that rough dwelling. Then he heard from that high hill, from a hard rock beyond the brook, on the bank, a wondrous brave noise. What! It clanged through the cliff as if it would cleave it, as if on a grindstone one ground a great scythe. What! It whirred and whetted, as water in a mill. What! It rushed and rang, revolting to hear. Then ‘By God,’ quoth Gawain, ‘this here I believe is arranged to reverence me, to greet rank by rote. ‘Let God’s will work! “Alas” – will help me not a mote. My life though it be lost I dread no wondrous note.’ 89 Then the knight called out loud on high; ‘Who stands in this stead, my tryst to uphold? For now is good Gawain grounded right here. If any man wills aught, wind hither fast, either now or never his needs to further.’ ‘Abide,’ quoth one on the bank above his head, ‘and you shall have all in haste I promised you once.’ Yet he then turned to his tumult swiftly a while, and at whetting he worked, ere he would alight. And then he thrust by a crag and came out by a hole, whirling out of the rocks with a fell weapon, a Danish axe new honed, for dealing the blow, with a biting blade bow-bent to the haft, ground on a grindstone, four feet broad – no less, by that love-lace gleaming full bright. And the giant in green was garbed as at first, both the looks and the legs, the locks and the beard, save that firm on his feet he finds his ground, sets the haft to the stones and stalks beside it. When he came to the water, he would not wade, he hopped over on his axe and boldly he strides, blazing with wrath, on a bit of field broad about in snow. Sir Gawain the man did greet, he bowed to him, nothing low; the other said: ‘Now, Sir Sweet, men may trust your word, I owe.’ 90 ‘Gawain,’ quoth the green man, ‘God may you guard! Indeed you are welcome, knight, to my place, and you have timed your travel as true man should. And you know the covenant pledged between us: at this time twelvemonth gone you took what befell, that I should at this New Year promptly requite. And we are in this valley verily alone; here are no ranks to sever us, serve as you will. Heft your helm off your head, and have here your pay. Ask no more debate than I did of you then when you whipped off my head at a single blow.’ ‘Nay, by God,’ quoth Gawain, ‘who lent me a soul, I shall bear you no grudge for the grief that befalls. Strike but the one stroke, and I shall stand still and offer no hindrance, come work as you like, I swear.’ He leant down his neck, and bowed, and showed the white flesh all bare, as if he were no way cowed; for to shrink he would not dare.

91 Then the man in green readies him swiftly, girds up his grim blade, to smite Gawain; with all the strength in his body he bears it aloft, manages it mightily as if he would mar him. Had he driven it down as direly as he aimed, one had been dead of the deed who was dauntless ever. But Gawain glanced at the grim blade sideways, as it came gliding down on him to destroy him, and his shoulders shrank a little from the sharp edge. The other man with a shrug the slice withholds, and then reproves the prince with many proud words: ‘You are not Gawain,’ quoth the man, ‘held so great, that was never afraid of the host by hill or by vale, for now you flinch for fear ere you feel harm. Such cowardice of that knight have I never heard. I neither flinched nor fled, friend, when you let fly, nor cast forth any quibble in King Arthur’s house. My head flew off, at my feet, yet fled I never; yet you, ere any harm haps, are fearful at heart. And I ought to be branded the better man, I say, therefore.’ Quoth Gawain: ‘I flinched once, Yet so will I no more; Though if my head fall on the stones, I cannot it restore.’ 92 ‘Be brisk, man, by your faith, and bring me to the point. Deal me my destiny and do it out of hand, for I shall stand your stroke, and start no more till your axe has hit me – have here my troth.’ ‘Have at you, then,’ quoth the other, and heaves it aloft and glares as angrily as if he were mad. He menaces him mightily, but touches him not, swiftly withholding his hand ere it might hurt. Gawain gravely it bides and moves not a muscle, but stands still as a stone or the stump of a tree that is riven in rocky ground with roots a hundred. Then merrily again he spoke, the man in green: ‘So now you have your heart whole, it me behoves. Hold you safe now the knighthood Arthur gave you, and keep your neck from this cut, if ever it may!’ Gawain full fiercely with anger then said: ‘Why, thrash on, you wild man, threaten no longer; it seems your heart is warring with your own self.’ ‘Forsooth,’ quoth the other, ‘so fiercely you speak, I’ll not a moment longer delay your errand I vow.’ Then he takes up his stance to strike pouts lips and puckers his brow; Nothing there for him to like who hopes for no rescue now. 93 Up the weapon lifts lightly, is let down fair, and the blade’s border beside the bare neck. Though heaved heavily it hurt him not more, but nicked him on the one side, and severed the skin. The sharp edge sank in the flesh through the fair fat, so that bright blood over his shoulders shot to the earth. And when the knight saw his blood blotting the snow, he spurted up, feet first, more than a spear-length, seized swiftly his helm and on his head cast it, shrugged with his shoulders his fine shield under, broke out his bright sword, and bravely he spoke – never since he was a babe born of his mother had he ever in this world a heart half so blithe – ‘Back man, with your blade, and brandish no more! I have received a stroke in this place without strife, and if you offer another I’ll readily requite you and yield it you swiftly again – of that be you sure – as foe. But one stroke to me here falls; the covenant stated so, arranged in Arthur’s halls, so lay your weapon, now, low!’ 94 The other then turned away and on his axe rested, set the haft to the earth and leant on the head, and looked at the lord who held to his ground, how doughty, and dread-less, enduring he stands armed, without awe; in his heart he him liked. Then he spoke merrily in a mighty voice, and with a ringing roar to the knight he said: ‘Bold man be not so fierce in this field. No man here has mistreated you, been unmannerly, nor behaved but by covenant at King’s court made. I hit with a stroke, and you have it, and are well paid; I release you from the rest of all other rights. If I had been livelier, a buffet perchance I could have worked more wilfully, to bring you anger. First I menaced you merrily with a single feint, and rent you with no riving cut, rightly offered for the pledge that we made on the very first night; for you truthfully kept troth and dealt with me true, all the gain you gave me, as good men should. The next blow for the morn, man, I proffered; you kissed my fair wife, the kisses were mine. For both these days I brought you but two bare feints, without scathe. Truth for the truth restore, then man need dread no wraith. On the third you failed for sure, and so took that blow, in faith.’ 95 ‘For it is mine that you wear, that same woven girdle; my own wife gave it you, I know it well forsooth. Now, know I well your kisses and conduct too, and the wooing of my wife; I wrought it myself(14). I sent her to test you, and truly I think you the most faultless man that was ever afoot. As a pearl beside whitened pea is more precious, so is Gawain, in good faith, beside other good knights. But here sir you lacked a little, wanting in loyalty; but that was for no wily work, nor wooing neither, but for love of your life – so I blame you the less.’ The other strong man in study stood a great while, so aggrieved that for grief he grimaced within. All the blood of his breast burnt in his face, that he shrank for shame at all the man said. The first words the knight could frame on that field: ‘Curse upon cowardice and covetousness both! In you are villainy and vice that virtue distress.’ Then he caught at the knot and pulled it loose, and fair flung the belt at the man himself: ‘Lo! There’s the falseness, foul may it fall! For fear of your knock cowardice me taught to accord with covetousness, forsake my kind, the largesse and loyalty that belongs to knights. Now am I faulted and false, and ever a-feared; from both treachery and untruth come sorrow and care! I confess to you knight, here, still, my fault in this affair; let me understand your will, and henceforth I shall beware.’ 96 Then laughed that other lord and lightly said: ‘I hold it happily made whole, the harm that I had; You are confessed so clean, cleared of your faults, and have done penance plain at the point of my blade, I hold you absolved of that sin, as pure and as clean, as though you were never at fault since first you were born. And I give you, sir, the girdle that is gold-hemmed. As it is green as my gown, Sir Gawain, you may think upon this same trial when you throng forth among princes of price, and this the pure token of the test at the Green Chapel to chivalrous knights. And you shall this New Year come back to my castle, and we shall revel away the remnant of this rich feast I mean’ Thus urged him hard the lord, and said: ‘With my wife, I ween, we shall bring you in accord, who was your enemy keen.’ ***

1. This wording is very detailed, leading me to believe that it is charged in a way that is supposed to convey a sexual current.

2. As before, this wording also is very sexualized in order to show how strong the Green Knight is.

3. There is a certain care here to point out that while the Green Knight is a large man, he is not by any means fat and still sports a slim waist.

4. The Knight’s close cling to him in a very fitted way and paid very close attention to.

5. The Knight needs to weapons to display his dominance and power to King Arthur’s people.

6. ‘The lady’ refers to Sir Bertilak’s wife.

7. Sir Bertilak’s wife has been suggestive with Gawain the entire scene, and now she finally kisses him, knowing the pact that Bertilak and Gawain made to share their spoils of the day with each other.

8. The time comes for Gawain to give his day’s accomplishments to Bertilak-- in this case, a kiss.

9. Lady Bertilak has been trying to woo him all day, but Gawain’s resolve remains strong.

10. Sir Gawain kisses Bertilak again after Bertilak shares the day’s game.

11.  Lady Bertilak comes into Gawain’s room with more skin showing, with what we believe to be intentions of seduction.

12. The lady kisses him in a more tender way, and Gawain feels a conflict within on whether to reject or accept her advances.

13. It seems as if Bertilak enjoys Gawain’s kiss

14. Bertilak created this game with the intent for his wife to seduce Gawain, and in turn for him to receive the same “spoils” from Gawain.