gingerjon

45 since it was changed to be that only judges could make that decision - roughly 2005? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prisoners_with_whole-life_orders

The media is overwhelmingly pro Brexit and anti Corbyn.

Indeed. And that's a full-time professional league from top to bottom by the way - which draws bigger gates than most lower level RL matches. And the terms of the deal are really disliked by the teams involved.

Relative to the marketplace most of our clubs are more successful than them.

A couple - literally a handful - of non league clubs have had some very modest success by being 'trendy'. Dulwich Hamlet and Lewes are probably the only two you can really say it about. And the upshot is that the National League (ex Conference) gets a few games broadcast at odd times on BT Sport.

I don't think I saw a single post about it at all. Was there anything?

How many second tier competitions have regular, widespread coverage? We'll take soccer as a given. Any others? The RU Championship is on a handful of times a year at seemingly random times.

I thought they didn't pay - or certainly not enough to cover the costs incurred by the teams who played on a Thursday night?

As long as our free press don't go on about standards to protect British workers and consumers we'll be fine.

There's an excellent (although expensive) Canaletto exhibition on at the Queen's Gallery over the summer. Should any of you be in the smoke and in the mood for some jaw-dropping visualisations (real and imagined) of Venice then it's well worth checking out. Don't bother with the audio guide they foist on you, it's not even value for money at 'free'.

Broadly where I was sitting. Shame you can't see a 'lucky' Great Britain rugby league shirt leap in the air.

The last RU match I went to watch with my camera only went ahead because the away team used an RFU list to call student and ex-players who might be available. They got to a couple short and then were loaned a couple from the home side. And that was a first-team match for a reasonably well resourced club. As I say there may be a swing back and some smaller sports will see growth because they start from a low base (and have lower requirements in terms of competitive commitment) but for now it's obvious that for amateur participants casual and individual sports are where they are heading.

Basically, this. It may swing back but, at the minute, the majority of people I know who participate in 'sport' do so through ones like running and cycling. Things they can work in and around their lives and choose when to commit to big events.

Opera on 3 really is communist propaganda, I agree.

Why? Your tax money (a lot more of it than will ever go to Chris Evans) is going to genuine unaccountable fat cats through opaque government contracts. And, as has been pointed out multiple times, the BBC pays under the market value for pretty much everyone. There isn't a single salary there that would make even a middling US daytime soap bit-part player think, "Oh, must get me some of that action".