Strikes and Rugby what could they possibly have in common ? They both unite the nation either good or bad but the feelings are strong in both cases.

Thursday (yesterday) and today have been considered 'black' days for the public transport system in France. The workers for SNCF (Trains) and RATP (Metro) have had a special agreement for retirement - they get to retire earlier than other members of the work force. Now 50 years ago this was necessary the conditions that they had to work was difficult and manually intensive. The trains and metros are now run on eletricity and in one case its all run by a computer. Logic would have it that the rules would have changed.....No. So to retaliate - most everything has been shut down and as such I had the pleasure of working at home for two days. Wonderful you say ? Yes I get to spend time with Alex but working at the same time is hard as he does not really get my full attentioin. However lets be honest its a nice possibility to have.

Rugby ? Well tonight was the match against Argentina for the 3rd place.Irony will have it that France lost to them in the opening match. Its hard, its on home ground and of course every fan is a subistitue trainer (my pet peeve). Of course for the players its even worse, for many its the last cup and for others well, the end of a dream. In an ideal world we say that its more important to take part than to win - then why do we get so excited when we win ? Its now between South Africa and England (reigning champions). As an anglo saxon I should be happy, but in reality I'm sad that the French team has finished this way, it would have been nice to see them with the cup, oh well we will have another chance in 4 years.

All that and we are ONLY Friday night :) The weekend looks promising :)