Rag-Doll

Just as long as they give him another go on Sunday. Aust will need as many old fat Brazilians on the pitch as they can get. I only saw the highlights Brazil/Croatia game but some of those Brazil shots at goal were lethal. The Croatians weren't too bad either - they're not going to be an easy side to hold for the Aussies next week - in my newly acquired expert opinion on all things soccer related.

Zico? Very famous footballer in his time. What's with the children holding hands with the players when they walk on to the field? Does each world cup player receive a small child as a momento of having participated? Beats a crappy T-shirt or certificate I guess!

Oh! Thanks for that Daver - not so impressive afterall then. Whimps!

Shiiiiiit! I don't know which is more amazing the line or the fact that judging by the number of tracks at the bottom right of the photo, quite a few people have ridden that cliff without killing themselves. Rag-dolling is only fun if you can ride away afterwards.

Not a die hard fan of soccer but I love the anticipation that such a low scoring game brings with it. A goal for one team or the other changes the nature of the game completely and that isn’t something that one gets with high scoring games. Sometimes the lack of goals/runs is just as thrilling it creates a knife of anticipation that other games just don’t have. I loved last night's Aust v Japan game mainly because of the emotional roller coaster ride of having my confidence in an Aust victory suffer a body blow when Japan scored then having my remaining hope of an Australian come back

194cm is tallish but not THAT tall for a professional sportsman. There are heaps of them in Aussie rules and Rugby. Is 194 unusually tall for a top level football (soccer) player? If so what do those guys do then if they don't play football? The thing that gets me about professional team sports is the inability of most of the players to work it out for themselves. They have trouble following the game plan - like they've never had to get the ball and kick it to a team mate before! You would think that playing at the highest levels and having played the game for most of their live

The Japanese were pretty wasteful. There were a couple of times when they clearly had a break on Aust and simply choked in front of the goal. Not that I know much about these things but the Aust attack looked pretty chaotic and ad hoc. Watching it I couldn't help thinking that against a better organised side, we're gonna get spanked, hard.

"Asian males have the smallest penises of all the major races, this has been proven in clinical studies, that is genetics my friend. Asians are shorter than other races too, genetics again. Aborigines in Australia have a very poor tolerance to alcohol - genetics again. Polynesians are very susceptiple to Kidney diseases, perhaps its in their genetics." snowglider - mate, not commenting on your flame but I wouldn't place too much faith on the above "genetic facts". Most that stuff is racist hogwash. Powwwers is on the right track - smelly stuff in - smelly stuff out.

Big Guus poked a bit of a hole in the hype in the Aust press when he pointed out the Australian team's chronic lack of depth. One or two injuries or a couple of yellow cards and Australia's run will end in a whimper. About the diving thing - it looks bad but watching the rugby this weekend there seemed to be quite a few debilitating injuries that were miraculously cured after the doctor ran on to the field and administered some rudimentary treatment along with what I can only assume were very detailed instrucitons on how to care for the injury. Rugby should allow the coach to iss

Not sure about the hate bit but I reckon the rest is pretty true. Why does reglion find it so easy to justify butchery of those who don't share the exact same view?

Daver That is some pretty erudite commentary there. Despite the UN objecting to the invasion of Iraq, they were subject to a pretty serious direct attack early on. I'm not sure having the UN in place of the US would really change much. Unfortunately there is no way to say this politely but a UN force comprising members of the armed forces of any of those countries above would be worse than useless. They're simply not up to that level of operation. It’s either a Westerner’s gig it would involve a lot of players from around the region. Most Arabs are Sunnis so there’d be Sunnis patrolling

Nicole, the caps were simply because the he said, I said, he said thing was getting a bit confusing. No shouting or agro was intended and I'm sure Ocean, despite his sensitive nature, wasn't offended.

Ocean, This might be one of those agree to disagree situations. Oddly enough, it may be you this time who is adopting a naive view. I'm all for the UN rather than the US having the ability to step in and bang some heads together when it needs to be done. Unforunately it's not going to happen. At least not while we're around.

On the other hand, despite its ability to do so, hasn’t tried to destroy any of its neighbors. Yes it has. Ever heard of Lebanon? DEFENSIVE ACTIONS DON’T COUNT. DO YOU HAVE ANY EXAMPLES OF ISRAEL’S ATTEMPTS TO IRRADICATE ANOTHER COUNTRY? PLEASE DO REMEMBER THAT THE PALISTINIANS WERE OFFERED AN OPPORTUNITY TO CREATE A NATION IN ‘47 AND CHOSE TO MAKE WAR INSTEAD. > Countries with leaders like Iran has with no controlling mechanisms are bloody dangerous. You clearly know as little about Iran, its politics and history as you do about Israel's. Some heavy reading here would hel

CB – I’m not suggesting that you support the idea of an Iran with nukes. But you were bagging the US for taking a lead in preventing Iran getting nuke as if it is wrong for them to do so. The governments of some countries can’t be trusted – some would say that the US is a good example of this and perhaps that’s true but it is at least equally valid that the Iranian government should not be trusted with the ability to make nukes. And I do appreciate that enriching uranium is only part of the bomb making process and that it is probably unreasonable to expect to deny a country technology which i

"US wants Iran not to build nuclear weapons (as does Israel" ...and most of the rest of the world too CB. I wouldn't call France and Russia and China US toadies and they're pretty keen to make sure Iran (which does have a leader expressly supporting wiping Israel off the map) doesn't get hold of nukes. Of course the whole Iran thing is getting distorted. Both sides are playing the propaganda game. I think for the most part though most countries are keen to avoid having a nuke capable Iran whether because of their overt hostility to Israel or because they’re leaders are about as rational

"how did they manage to kill a woman, a child & two other potentially innocent people but not damage the papers/computers or whatever it was they found?" Might be as simple as the roof landing on their heads. Such things tend not to do a lot of damage to books and computer hard drives.

It really is the international aspect that they need to get going isn't it. Does Nagano have a decent airport? Getting that set up to take international flights would be a big benefit for all of the resorts in the area. Pretty soon the massive Chinese middle class will decide that they can afford an overseas holiday and skiing is already becoming a popular thing for the aspirational class. If the Japanese ski industry could successfully tap even a fraction of that market it would revive places like Hakuba over night. The Japanese ski industry should take the initiative rather than wait for f

Long but good, thanks. Does your GF have a sister?

The Chinese experience is gonna be worse than Japan Inc by a very large margin. In one one or the other the PRC Gov have been doing this since '49 - it's not a modern thing.

Thanks - I guess that's a good indicator of where the practical limit is. I did a quick search in the net for piston bully max gradient, etc. and didn't find much.

"What are you using, flatland Elma Fud duck hunting snow shoes??" Kind of sounds that way doesn't it. We were carrying 1230 Atlas shoes. We were moving from rocks to snow to rocks and back again most of the way up. It was often a close call as to whether it was easier to use the shoes or keep to the rocks and existing tracks. With hindsight we should have at least tried them on the conditions – it might have saved some effort. By the way, I’m very impressed with your recent efforts. Please do keep posting your TRs, it’s great to be able to share the adventure. What sa

Someone should convince the local govs that they can spend more money and create more jobs by employing people to rip down all of the old crappy buildings and replacing power poles with underground cables and generally rehabilitating the otherwise ****up countryside.

Not quite on topic, but what is the steepest gradient for grooming? The resorts in Japan tend not to groom anything over about 35 degrees and often a bit less. Is that because they can't or won't?

I think France are just getting a bit old. Haven't some of their stars come out of retirement to play? I think I read it on the BBC website, that the general feeling of Germans and French is that their respective teams aren't much good, or at least aren't as good as their fans want them to be - which is probably closer to the mark. Loved the Netherlands v Aust result but it will be a bit disappointing if Aust start getting a reputation for being thuggish. Now that we finally start getting some international recognition and might start playing games against quality sides, it would be a p