Martyn Sadler

Richard, I think we should come clean. Let's just admit that between us and Dave Woods we gave Ralph an hour of pure hell. By the end of it he was begging for mercy and I believe he's now checked into a health spa to try to recover from the ordeal, while pledging that one day, if he gets his hands on the nuclear button, the TRL Forum will be the first website to be nuked. So, having reduced Ralph to a quivering wreck, I'm sure we will be widely regarded as heroes by the members of this Forum.

Absolutely correct, but the problem for the Democrats is that more and more zealots, who are too inclined to pursue identity politics, are being selected to fight elections.

Given the UK media's approach to Trump it isn't in the least bit surprising that most posters on this forum are strongly opposed to him. To see beyond the media's portrayal of him, as well as the crassness of some of his own tweets, takes some doing. But I would advise you not to restrict yourself to websites with only one viewpoint if you are going to contribute effectively to this forum.

The American voters are clearly not as smart as you.

As you've been saying for an awful long time.

I'm sure he will shock you again. But when the death toll from a hurricane is revised upwards from 64 to 2,975, it at least begs the question of why and how that revision has taken place. This article clarifies that point to some extent, although without necessarily answering all the possible questions about how they reached their conclusions in individual cases to describe deaths, even a few months after the event, as caused by the hurricane. The research team seems to have done a thorough job, but I wonder whether, if every result of every hurricane were subjected to the same level of research, we would have to revise the death toll upwards by the same sort of multiplier.

As I keep saying to you, if you are going to claim to know what I think, please either ask me first or quote me directly. I have never said the working poor are "flocking" to Trump. I have said that enough working people (not necessarily the "working poor") who previously thought of themselves as Democrats have switched sides and enabled him to win the election, while most of those who switched appear to be sticking with him. To have that impact he didn't need them to "flock" to him. He just needed enough of them in the right places.

The op-ed writer still hasn't been unmasked, as far as I am aware. Curioser and curioser!

In my view Obama is by far the most impressive speech maker of any President I have seen in my lifetime, if you judge a prepared speech by the way it is delivered. He has a way of speaking that is remarkably controlled and is very effective at giving the impression of wisdom and statesmanship. Perhaps, when we think of modern politicians, only Tony Blair, when he was riding the crest of a wave of popularity, comes close to him. The trouble arises when you analyse what Obama is saying. He reminds me of my old headmaster, giving us a moral lecture on how we should be behaving while, when I was a kid, the headmaster's own kids were actually the most badly behaved kids in the school. Rather than advising Republicans, Obama should turn his attention to his own party.

Just as an aside, Harry Newman was the first player born in 2000 to make a debut in Super League.

Don't tempt me! 😀

I think those are wise words. There is a distinction between those clubs that can operate as a full time operation and those that can only work in a part-time capacity and perhaps we should face up to that.

If coming onto this website and reading its content makes you furious, then I suspect you need anger management therapy, if only to rein in your insults. On the comparison of our competition with Australia, there is a different culture over there. The clubs outside the NRL have never, with the exception of Newtown, been part of the elite competition and they don't expect to be. They fulfil quite a different role to that of Championship and League 1 clubs in the UK.

I take your points, but it's very difficult to be objective about standards, which vary not so much from season to season as from game to game. There is a tendency for Rugby League supporters to believe that things were better in years gone by. But if you judge the game by the quality of tries being scored, I think you'll find that this year is comparable with any other year on record. In fact I've just been emailed by someone from outside the Rugby League heartland saying he has been so impressed by the games and the skills levels within them that he has seen recently that he would like to start coming to games. Emails like that show me that Rugby League still can appeal to new fans and has a great deal to offer if only we allow ourselves to enjoy it.

You seem remarkably dogmatic, condescending and misguided.