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Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Ball games
Murrayfield, the Calcutta Cup, March 1990. England vs. Scotland -
winner-takes-all for the Five Nations Grand Slam, the biggest prize
in northern hemisphere rugby. Will Carling's England are the very
embodiment of Margaret Thatcher's Britain - snarling, brutish and
all-conquering. Scotland are the underdogs - second-class citizens
from a land that's become the testing ground for the most unpopular
tax in living memory: Thatcher's Poll Tax. In Edinburgh,
nationalism is rising high - what happens in the stadium will
resound far beyond the pitch. The Grudge brilliantly recaptures a
day that has gone down in history when a rugby match became more
than a game. This is the real story of an extraordinary conflict,
told with astounding insight and unprecedented access to key
players, coaches and supporters on both sides (Will Carling, Ian
McGeechan, Brian Moore and the rest). Tom English has produced a
gripping account of a titanic struggle that thrusts the reader
right into the heart of the action. Game on. Fully revised and
updated, this special hardback edition is published to mark the
thirtieth anniversary of Scotland's most storied rugby season.
Treat yourself to Second Helpings and more choice cuts in the style
of Simon Brown's much lauded first volume of memoirs, Playing off
the Roof & Other Stories. Exuberantly revisiting his early
years in National Service, at Oxford and as a young barrister, Lord
Brown recalls matters grave and trivial from his time at the Bar
and on the Bench, along the way regaling us with tales of
Paddington Bear, Nigel Lawson and Mozart at the Warsaw opera. He
also has something to say about the current legal scene and
considers such thorny problems as the 2019 prorogation judgment and
whether trial by jury might be dispensed with in order to clear a
mounting backlog of criminal cases. Drawing witty lessons from a
life of trials, Lord Brown finds time to muse on when a judge might
choose to change a sentence already imposed, what to say after
dinner and why the game of golf is strictly for the birds!
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