JonM

As a native English speaker, and an adult learner of Welsh, I find Jonathan Davies (in Welsh) and JJB (in English) approximately equally comprehensible, in that I can pick out the odd word, but not always the whole sentence

I have hundreds of issues of Open Rugby & other mags waiting to go off to a good home imminently, so it was easy to look. However, it was also easy to find with google. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_French_rugby_league_tour_of_New_Zealand_and_Papua_New_Guinea

Not really the same. Swinton & Oldham move about from season to season, with no real permanent home.

Not homeless. The RFL own the lease on their ground.

On the flipside, how many of the Yorkshire clubs have ended up homeless, like Oldham & Swinton.

France played 4 games in NZ in 2001, beating South Island in Christchurch, Central Districts in Palmerston North and Northern Districts in Huntly in addition to the test vs NZ where they were nilled. Four games in 11 days before two tests in the same week in PNG. They didn't have a 'test squad' and a 'midweek squad' and many of the players played in five of the six game tour. Doesn't seem like a great idea for France to fly out to NZ for a single game mid-season.

https://europeanrugbyleague.com/articles/2069/kenya-rugby-league-federation-recommended

At least Toulouse, by virtue of not being in the championship this season, have avoided playing a fixture on the Thursday we have off for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee

I've never seen more than about 10 seconds of Only Fools and Horses and yet still knew the line you're referring to I wonder whether there'll ever be anything like that again - a tv programme that becomes universally known. Gene Hackman, 91. Continues to ride his bike, in spite of having been struck by a car when out cycling in his 80s.

Sidney Poitier. He's 94.

Widnes took over 1000 to some away games in 2019. South London is obviously a good bit further than say Oldham or Swinton, and it remains to be seen whether crowds will return to be pre-pandemic levels. But I'd still expect Bradford, Leigh and Widnes to bring hundreds of fans.

Plenty of empty seats didn't stop the hundred being claimed as a success. A stand with 50 people waving the 80s Italian football style flags, or a few people playing instruments can look better on TV than a packed stand watching in angry silence.

Cambridge Crown Court - like most places in town - is pretty difficult to get to by car. For the death by dangerous driving case I had, we had the defendant + family + victim's family + jurors all typically coming on the same park'n'ride bus. And we all trooped into the nearby M&S to pick up sandwiches beforehand, where the judge was doing the same.

Knock-on effect on sales of world cup tickets could outweigh the reduction in Sky contract, if things go well.

Not really. If someone involved in the case recognises you, they can object at that point. But there's no jury selection process like the US, and the days of people turning up with a right wing newspaper under their arm to encourage the defence to object to you are gone. They need some legal basis - that you're not legally entitled to be a juror or similar.

You're allowed to discuss the case afterwards, as we have open justice, but it's illegal to talk about how the jury reached its decision, as that part is not public. You're also warned not to look up online the defendant or anyone else involved, as that could prejudice the case.

We were given dire warnings about what would happen if anyone's phone made a noise in court. We were all nervously sat in the jury's waiting room, about to go in to deliver the verdict. There was then a loud Nokia ringtone (this was a few years ago). Half the jury looked terrified and went for their pockets, only for the usher to reveal that he'd planted a phone under one of the chairs, and everyone burst out laughing.

I imagine that where you do jury service makes quite a difference to the experience. Mine was at Cambridge crown court and it seemed to me that the court officials were pretty sympathetic towards jurors who were self-employed/had childcare issues/ couldn't be spared from their dayjob and mostly those people were let go pretty quickly. They had called up many more potential jurors than they needed. I could imagine that not being the case at say the Old Bailey where they presumably have a rather higher number of potentially long trials. Court scheduling is fairly fluid - due to last minute changes of plea, the unknown length of time each trial will take, availability of witnesses etc. So I turned up on the first couple of days, hung around for a couple of hours and was then sent away before lunchtime. We were then called into a trial, which lasted a day or two, and then told not to come back for the second week as we'd done our bit.

Advice? Take a book, there's quite a bit of sitting round and no guarantee you'll be required on any particular day

Just need to avoid the tourist honeypots. Hebridean way, I saw on average less than one walker per day. West Highland way can have 1000+ people per day in summer.

Cedric Robinson, the Queen's guide to the sands. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/20/man-who-guided-people-across-morecambe-bay-for-56-years-dies-aged-88

France vs Greece at Doncaster has had a date and KO time change, from Monday 25 October 2021, 14:30 to Monday 17 October 2021, 19:30.

Was this the Ferranti Argus? Presumably using silicon transistors by this point?

Pat Cummins I would assume.

Paine isn't the best wicketkeeper available to the Aussies, and some of the other keepers have better batting averages too. But he has been quite a calming influence on the team as captain.