Oxford

I hope you're all okay Stay well!

Oh dear!

I've finished here but notices you'd replied so I thought it'd only be polite to respond. The point was about travel and you moved it to the races and the football both would have included travel and lots from Spain in particular. There were putative reasons why all this was not stopped and most was turly inspired nonsense. I cannot say much more than that on this. Stay safe & keep well Russ

RL journalists have faults but they are one of the strengths of the sport mostly because when we were let down and ignored by the laughably termed "national" papers they created a world of our own where we could read what they wrote and include them in the list of things to be disagreeable about, convince ourselves they're as wrong as refs, as questionable as the RFL & as villainous as opposition players. What more could we ask? Actually I think that might be a good post to finish completely.

I can't imagine that's correct SL everyone has been aware that travel was one of the problems when it came to spreading Covid, probably just as crucial as footballl matches and race meetings. Do you think they might have given you the rounds of the kitchen for some other reason?

Harry, Harry "Meaningful Expansion" is just a meaningless phrase, a ghost people like to dig up even though we've no idea what it looks like. In some scenarios it looks it appears to be years of amateur messing around with no way to progress and getting leathered whenever they meet anyone even half way decent but making a nice if irrelevant appearance being trounced in a WC qualifier, but it doesn't disturb the UK equilibrium, so all in all the perfect model.

One other TGG one and sort of this one, soon to join two lefty ones ( learned to do that on a forum)

I was looking for some music from the forties and there was Al Jolson with whole army of blacked up singers like it wasn't enough one fool doing it.

It is interesting that actions become knee-jerk rather than considered and well discussed. Then again that won't make it stand out anywhere in the UK. The statues in question are fascinating ones where a benefactor to a town or university has been recognised but they will also contain where that ability has been funded by their dark behaviour. Saying do this along the right lines is a non-starter because when people did this they were sidelined, ignored and patronised. Is a history something we should be proud of? And should our monuments speak about what we're proud of and demonstrate our moral and social attitudes? If you think that such statues are perfectly okay for whatever reason would you be as happy with a statue for Jommy Saville for all his charity work or a Monument to Rolf Harris for all his work for the Arts? And what about statues of Hitler and swastikas being on show in Germany and Austria after all it was a significant moment in, and he was a very tangible part of, their history? Of course I'm exagerating some of this but not a great deal in slaver's part in our story and it's also a complete lie to say it was a different time and that's how people thought then. There is plenty of evidence to show that not everyone felt it was all okay and not all of them were quiet about it at the time. Where will it all end ? At the point where our streets are not full of statues for people who kept their christianity and humanity in the bank. These are simple moral and human questions and have little to do with anything else.