The scene: Its 33 BC; Julius Caesar is sitting on his white horse on the top of the White Cliffs of Dover, England, with Vera Lynn beside him, both are looking over the sea

Julius Caesar: Hey-a Viera, its-a been-a yearrrra now hey, whats-a-matter-you-ugh, us-a both-a on this-a bitter coldy island. I feel like-a de celebration. Lets-a call-a-a my trumpeter...fool...hey fool, fool come-a de hererrra, I wanna-a you-a to-a play us-a tune-eh, to celebrate-a a yearrra-a on-a this-err bitter coldy island-a.

fool: Right-ho sir. I'll do my best.

(fool breaks into King Louis  theme tune from The Jungle Book...ah, ooby-do, I wanna be like you-ooh-ooh...)

Julius Ceasar: Hey, what-a de kind-a tune is a de that eh? Don-a be playing some udder's fiddle eh.

fool: Oh no sir, it's also cf's one year celebration - on the web and I was blowing my own trumpet!

Blowing own trumpet

They've come to take him away, ha ha hee hee ho ho they've come to take him away...But there is logic in the loon's lunacy for this week the fool shall be celebrating his fist year on the web - although the Saigonites would've seen it for many years adorning many a pub's ‘office' wall. And hung in there, very loosely, in this week's theme is the moulded notion of ‘nothing is as bad as it seems - and with all the painful whines, hurt and discomfort can be found a time for a chortle or two'. Personal note; it is Mrs fool's, birthday on Sunday (1^st April) - is that just coincidence - I dunno, but you gotta laugh...eh!

Anyway, the often self reminded anecdote of humorous reality is that from ‘Stand Up Virgin Soldiers', when the British army were in Burma and a sergeant major had to break to one of his men that within all the terror they were facing in the insect squalor of the jungle and the plague of war, one of their mothers had died in an air raid back in London; On parade Sergeant X hands out the long awaited post - rattles off a few names, gives them their letters then calls, ‘anyone got a mother alive and well and living in Datchet Road, Catford, South East London, take one step forward - not so fast Perkins!'

And so to our quiz for the onwards and onwards types:

1. What, exactly, inspired Robert the Bruce to coin the phrase (Or so it is credited to), ‘If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again.'?

2. Who wrote the classic Country & Western song Crazy?

3. Which type of sugar is found in milk?

4. What is the largest island in Asia?

5. Who would use a quern?

6. Which sheriff killed Billy the Kid?

7. What is the official language of Chile?

8. Which pop groups with the word ‘New' in their name hit the charts with the following songs? A) I'd like to teach the world to sing b) Blue Monday c) Candy Girl.

And as always you'll find the entire answers and mores quiz's on http://www.cfnr.co.uk/ under *Comps&Results.

This week's new WHO AM I? - ‘I have been likened to Lemmy.'

Is it me?

And now folks let's give a warm welcome to some of cfn's closest chums;

*PACHARAN Tapas & Bodega - bodega - oh baby when you dance like that - is the best spot in Saigon for a piece of Spanish reality.

GTM - is the probably the best garden & leisure furniture exported to the world, from Saigon.

And why we're at it, why not get hooked on a bit of big blue wobbly thing fishing in Phu Quoc - see what's on the end of the line on one of the logos.

Ok, this week in cfn is; *Digger and his season's preview - season starts this week. *Trigger, and this fella knows all the tricks - he's been tipping the snakes eyes dies all the way - seriously, if you want the best form guide for the Aussie gee-gee, have a look at this.

In other stuff, we've got all the usual, plus an *authors blurb, *Rugby in Nam, *cf's Top 100 (unfinished), a new *TiV - is that done yet fool? Maybe, fool. The *fishman doth cometh and dem dere *Bongo Massif Bro's are just-a driving me crazy ah!

But now; ruggerbee:

And in this week's, the celebratory year of our Lord fool on the web, we'll have a slice of the EDF (Eng/Wales cup). The Heineken Cup steps into the quarters. Some Super 14's is in the offering and some tittle-tattle news of no use at all but to tittle your stats- and if I stick to that schedule it'll be a miracle.

Ok, let's talk bollocks: In Wales the Ospreys beat Cardiff 27-10, and The O's scrum half, ex-All Black Justin Marshall and Blues scrum half Mike Phillips, who incidentally is moving to The Ospreys camp next year, had to be pulled apart from a raging bust-up with each other in the tunnel after the game; Justin said, "It was just about mirror space for next season. There's not much of it in the Liberty Stadium, and I was making sure I had mine." - Absolutely. You should've arrested him Justin.

Justin?

Ospreys will play Leicester on 15April in the EDF final. Leicester, in the meantime are at home to Stade Francais in the H.C. ¼'s this weekend; where we'll also see the likes of Wasps v Leinster - and the dilly-dally - Dalaglio isn't in the pickings for Wasps these days, as he has heaps of youngsters ahead of him, as he says, ‘Everyone wants to play' - of course they do. Is it goodbye Dally? - I'd say. Thanks for coming.

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Llanelli Scarlets host reigning champs Munster, and probably the best scrum half in the world at the moment, Dwayne Peel of the Scarlets is expecting a big meal ticket; "There's a great hunger in the bellies of our players. Come European time, we seem to click." - For Gad's sake, give them some food before they start clicking all over the place.

Not sure of the other quarter but Super 14's is next and Auckland Blues coach, Aussie David Nucifora has been sharing his knowledge and advice to the shittier than shite current Aussie teams, especially shit-bag carriers of the shite The Warratahs, he said, "They need to find a way to score." - Thanks mate, I'll pass it on.

While all the Aussies are wallowing down in the murky depths - just above The Queensland Reds, who now, coach Eddie Jones has just about blamed everyone else, is now blaming wonder kid, 18 year-old fly half, Cooper's agent, he said, "His manager is pushing him here there and everywhere.". - That's it, sack the player's managers.

Old Abbo, Andrew ‘Johnny' Walker said of their 7^th straight loss, "We've got guys (in the dressing room) bawling their eyes out." - Like that's going to help - this is how you get on with things when in the shit...‘No, they said I hadn't done anything wrong, and I could go and live on an island somewhere.' - Name the film?   Easy wasn't it.

 The Force can hold their heads up high; they take on the Sharks in Perth this weekend. And the Sharks aren't happy with their loss to the Brumbies last week 21-10, but that's tough - go The Force. fool says they'll smash em.

The South African beefy Bulls crept into the record books again; crapped on the Highlanders 22-13, snuck a three on the trot Australasian tour win, and are now creeping off to the Hurricanes, is it?

Meanwhile the All Blacks were back, and half of them in the Crusaders side who thumped the Stormers 36-11. This is how someone described the old heads; Aaron Mauger started off iffishly. Ritchie McCaw started erratically. Leon MacDonald started quietly. Reuben Thorne started anonymously. Chris Jack started quietly - ‘ere, we've had that one! And, Dan Carter started brilliantly. He hasn't played since November, but obviously rugby to him is like riding a bike." - No it's not.

Ok, some smalls; England's RFU have reached some kind of compromise in the Club v country row; the Clubs will receive 5m a year from the RFU, they wanted 12.4m - to strengthen squads, and players will be released for the autumn Tests, the Six Nations, the summer tours and will get weekends off before Tests. - Thus reducing seasonal games to 87 per man!

Ashton wants to beef up his pack for their tour to S.A. this summer, and has been advised that Andy Sheridan, who once bench-pressed 32st will be back fit and so to back fit from his second knee ligament op, and in fighting form is Richard Hill. - Legal Eagle from down the pub has a bet with fool that Jonny won't last the world cup, and will bow out with an injury before England are done...want to add Dickie?

Dickie

Ok, Los Lobos Portugal are the final team in the world cup, they lost to Uruguay 18-12 but won 24-23 on aggregate. And Cyprus beat Greece 39-3 in a friendly - so Greece do play rugby.

Los lebos

Now this...

It's cricket, its world cup, it's got everything:

I'll open with something Paul Collingwood said last week; "Irish win, Bangladesh win, let alone Pakistan and India out. Fred and the boys pissed and murder! It's been a heck of a week and something normal like a win against Kenya would be welcome." - Got it.

Oops

Exactly, where do you start? Let's go with Bob's who dunnit, and we don't need the gruesome details, but this is actually taken from the police report; "Death due to asphyxiation as a result of manual strangulation. Mr. Woolmer's death is being treated by Jamaican police as murder." - Shrewd calypso boys, shrewd.

Former PCB chairman Shahryar Khan is still miffed from last summer's fiasco in England where he was made the scapegoat, but secretly blames Inzamam, as he says, whilst laying down his 30 pieces of silver; "I kept telling Bob and Inzamam they needed to be united and as one. Sometimes there was a little fraying of this." - Hair was the henchman, done up like Bernard Bresslaw in Carry On Up The Kyber.

Carry On

But the real news has it that Bob was hit by al-Qaeda - a Pakistani based bookie associated with gangster and al-Qaeda funder Dawood Ibrahim - doesn't he make cars? Bob was heard to have thrown a bookie out of his room, and then well, as David silverfox Gower said, "It's as murky as it gets."

because...

Ok moving on to something cheerful: Australia thumped the Windies by 103 runs with McGrath taking 3 wickets and etching himself 1 behind the Cup record of 55 by Wasim Akram. Hayden got another ton, which spurred skipper Punts to say, "Matty played a terrific innings. The other guys chipped in around him and our new-ball bowling was excellent." - I think he's happy.

Typical

Lasith Malinga - the slinger snatched 4 from 4 on the trot over the ‘is-it's' - Pollock, Hall, Kallis, Ntini - gone. But S.A. still managed a win! Graeme Smith said, "We dominated the match for 95 overs but I aged from 26-40 in the last couple of overs." - Still South African.

4 for

Black Caps Lou Vincent has gone home with a broken wrist, which is pretty soft really, when you consider all-rounder Jacob Oram was going to cut off his finger if it hadn't mended in time.

And the next bigun is the Barmy Army v the Blarney Army in Guyana on Friday. Fletcher was philosophical and said, "What we have realised is that we have to win every game from here on in." - It only helps; don't get bogged down by it.

But all the fun of the fayre is Irishman Ed Joyce opening for England, who said, "It's a bit of a strange one being an Irishman (full stop), but my first game for England was against Ireland (2 yrs ago), and hopefully I've got that out of my system." "I'm sure there will be a bit of banter with the Irish boys." - No there won't.

Ed

He did go onto compare himself with KP, who 2 years ago was in a similar situation, but refrained from a copy-cat style; "I'm not going to get any tattoos. And if I did they're not going to be on show." - Are you or not?

KP

Ed Joyce's dad, Jimmy, has 9 kids, 3 sons and 2 daughters play sport for ‘their' country, although he supports his son all the way, he says, "It'll be tough wanting your son to lose but I couldn't cheer for England to beat Ireland." - What about the other 4 lazy siblings?

Ed's dad

One of the few Irishmen in the Irish side Kyle McCallen is a teacher at Grosvenor GS East Belfast (N. Ireland) has jus got permission from his head to take another month off work - well they are in the Super 8's after all. He did promise, "I'll certainly be taking things back to put on the walls at school." - I can't even go there - ok, an Englishman's head!

In

Ok, some stats that'll surprise and or annoy you: KP is top of the official ODI rankings. He's also matured, is married to scrummy Jessica Taylor and has a sprog on the way, he said, "When I was single people thought I was flamboyant and into parties. But even then I was working my backside off." - Bloke down the pub doesn't like him and said it should've been him and not Bob!

Not Jessica but Mrs Fred

RP is 2^nd by the way and Hussey 3^rd. In the Tests it's RP, M. Yousef then KP. KP wasn't full of himself though and said, "There are so many good players around and I don't classify my place as the best in the world." - Results are calculated on, pitch conditions, results of match and strength of opposition - they have an arm wrestle.

Argues with that

Other nerdy stat is Colly is one of Wisden's Five Cricketers Of The Year 2007. In 2006 he got 1,121 runs in 14 Tests at an average of 50.95 - don't forget the double century in Adelaide. In ODI's he hit 520 at 34.66 and took 8 wickets. He said, "This is recognition for the hard work, the runs I've scored and the wickets I've taken." "I still believe I deserved my MBE, but this is down to pure cricket stats and what I've given to the team." - That of course was in reference to what Shane said in Sydney; "Fancy getting an MBE for 17 runs - it's an embarrassment mate." - Oh how we're gonna miss Shane.

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Okey dokey, it's ‘other sports' time:

Valentino Rossi sped home in the Spanish MotoGP  in Jerez to notch up his 85^th in all, and said, "I had a great race. I had a great battle with Pedrosa. He's a good rider and I really enjoyed it." - Us too geezer.

Lewis Hamilton has had his holiday in Thailand and is ready for Sunday's F1 GP in Malaysia - he said, "Now I want that win." - Well said.

Lewis

Pot Noodle, alias Ding Junhiu didn't fare too well in the China Open and was knocked out first round. - Not good.

Pot Noodle

And in the world champs in swimming Yank Aaron Peirsol got gold and world record in 100m backstoke with 52.98, someone else broke the record in silver! And Brit Liam Tanock touched in for a bronze record in 53.21.

Meanwhile Ukraine coach Mikail Zukkov 38 and father of Katerinya 19 has been given a 200m restriction order from her after he gave her a beating for 7 minutes in the marshals area after her 200m backstroke heat in The Rod Laver Arena, which is now a pool. - get it, got it, good.

Rod Laver

And now some wobbly bits of news:

Carmen Electra is romping up the FHM's top 100 chicks after her bouts of romping with old rocker and new lesbo pal Joan Jett - an insider who is undoubtedly one of their press agents told of them attending the Dinah Shore Weekend, "It's known as the lesbian prom. Carmen and Joan are planning on enjoying all the fun the weekend has to offer and they'll be making a very clear statement to the world by attending together." - Yes, I'm sure they'll be following the DS Weekend in Inner Mongolia very closely.

Arse!

Which reminds me, the world's tallest man Bao Xishan from Inner Mongolia, who is 7ft 9in has just married 5ft 6in Xia Shujian, who both of course will be following very closely the DS Weekend, as will the whole of Inner and Outer Mongolia.

2 tickets for DSW please

One in 30 passengers has fallen in love on one of the coaches travelling from London's Victoria coach station.

Victoria lines

The A-Team van has just been sold at auction for £8k in Stoneleigh Warwickshire, ‘I've just bought the A-Team van.' - ‘Yeah mate, you've bought a van with a stripe.' - ‘No, straight up, it's the A-Team van.' - ‘Yeah mate.' - ‘No, really...'

A-team van

300. Can't wait for that one eh. 300 Spartans take on 100,000 Persians in the Battle of Thermopylae 480BC. Blood and guts everywhere. It was all filmed in 60 days on a blue screen background in a studio in Montreal. Scot actor Gerard Butler was the main geezer and he said, "Three different people, I had never met before, came up to me and commentated on me being fat. I have this kind of stomach that, when relaxed can do an alien." - Bit of the fool there. In the film it is said that the arrows ‘blot out the sun' to which Gerard Butler's geezer's reply was, ‘good, then we'll fight in the shade.' - No good at rugby though.

Rocket man Yves Rossy has been at it again, notching up 115mph in his rocket jet powered wings, he said, "It was absolutely fantastic - total freedom in 3 dimensions. So much speed and power, it is better than being a bird." For 4 minutes the mad Swiss ex-fighter pilot flew after being dropped out of a plane in Spain, and concluded, with a brochure in his hand, "It would be a great devise for James Bond."

James Bond

The teletubbies are 10 years old this weekend, and they're on tour in the US, today is even Teletubby day in Manhattan. They've sold £500m of related products though. Actress Pui Fan Lee who plays Po was in a raunchy Channel 4 production in 2001 - Metrosexuality, where she played a sex mad lesbian, and did a scene, ‘romping naked with another girl and performing an intimate sex act.' - Eh oh Po, you sauce.

Eh oh

It's been revealed that Anna Nicole Smith's death was an accidental drug overdose. She was on sleeping pills with at least 8 other prescription drugs. Methadone and valium. She had a bacterial infection after injecting medication in her buttocks; this gave her the flu, which also contributed. She was on several antidepressants, antianxiety, longevity medication, vitamin B12 growth hormone, cold medicine, slimfast, nicotine gum and Tamiflu tablets. By buggery, no wonder she's brown bread. - A ‘devoted' fan is selling her diaries on eBay for £300k, in which it says, "I hate for men to want sex all the time. I hate sex!" - I'm not sure she could know.

Its primitive

Speaking of all that lot - Jimi Hendrix's pink flares are up for auction and expected to fetch £5,200 next month in N.Y. Forget the flares - mini-skirts are back - yeeha.

Nice flares

A laptop by London based firm Luvaglio has a £1/2m diamond power button, plus a Blu-ray DVD player - what ever that is - anything to do with Steve Irwin?

Diamonds!

A man in Egham Surrey England stole £300 worth of skin care products and hair dye from a chemist, police said they are looking for a spotty ginger man.

A woman on the Gazza-Egypt border was stopped with three, 50inch live crocodiles strapped around her waist. Security officers said, "The woman looked strangely fat, even though she was veiled and covered." - It's a jungle out there.

Oops 2

And lastly, there is now a viagra patch for women called Intrinsa. It stimulates thoughts of sex, with an increase of 74%. A spokesman said, "It has a frequency of satisfying sexual activity." - You can put it on your belly or your bum and Councillor Phillip Hansen said, "At last women will have something for the weekend." - And men Phil, and men.

Pill for this?

Reasons to be cheerful part 3

Just cf it

cf