JonM

There were 2 on-the-road games in Edinburgh (Tynecastle) and of course Magic Weekend has been at Murrayfield. Nothing in Ireland.

Three fairly forgettable games. I'd still put him just behind Wally Lewis, in any case.

It's 5 players selected by the RFL's 125 "super fans", presumably one of the criteria was having played for a British club.

Yes, he did.

Gateshead was basically Shane Richardson and Kath Hetherington(with some money from I think also John Stabler, the York chairman.) They ran out of money in the first season. Gary & Kath started Sheffield Eagles with £13k of their own money. Richo obviously had put rather more into Gateshead, but I'm sure I remember him describing it as his "chip shop" - he was buying himself a job running a RL club. This was not a well-funded/ well resourced expansion attempt. We haven't really had any of those in the UK that I can recall.

Which is not to say that governments shouldn't take this outbreak seriously - clearly stopping it from spreading is the correct thing to do and will save a lot of lives. But as an individual, it really shouldn't be on your radar as a thing to worry about.

Ebola was contained by a pretty serious effort by a lot of smart (& brave) people. SARS/Bird Flu turned out not be as bad as the annual winter flu outbreaks, and all the evidence so far is coronavirus will be the same. Half a million deaths from influenza in a good year, a lot more in a bad year.

Can people still donate now that the target is reached?

Some big parkrun attendances in RL towns today - over 1000 running at Huddersfield, more than 750 at Heslington (York Uni), 500+ at Oldham & Widnes, for example.

Yep, the away one is classic Swinton. Not sure about writing Home and Away on the shirts though ?

Saracens RU play at Barnet Copthall Stadium - home of London RL for many years. It's now renamed Allianz Park and currently has a capacity of 8500. The development of that stadium (not the cost of buying the land, just the cost of putting up stands) was over £20 million. Building a 3000 seat grandstand is costing an extra £23 million. We're talking about amounts which are larger than the RFL's income for a year. The only options are to be a partner/tenant with someone else.

Private Eye has a piece on "the 100 novels that shaped the world", I see. Minutes of amusement from playing this, if you're good on book titles: https://caboodle.nationalbooktokens.com/hiddenbooks/?competition=14

I've read 54 of them. Very different set of books from the usual lists.

Seconded. "Why we sleep" felt like it could have done with a bit more editing. I guess we all know that exercise, diet and sleep are important for good physical and mental health, but the data seems to pretty strongly say that sleep is the most important of the three. Probably not a good book to read if you don't have any choice about shiftwork or frequent jetlag though...

We had a policeman knock at the door some time after midnight to tell us that our car was unlocked. My wife nearly called the police on him ? (We have been away for the weekend, leaving our front door wide open. Came home to find that the postman had popped the letters inside the house, but left the door wide open. Also left a car door open (not just unlocked) several times overnight. We live on one of the main roads through the village, not some quiet cul-de-sac.)

Lovely piece with Phil Ford on the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/rugby-league/44905694

Looks like they have a website too. I'll have to tell my son about that - he runs with York AC.

I like it - nice fast course, as you say. Heslington (on York University campus) is also pretty quick.

Peterborough FC have offered free tickets to all Thomas Cook employees this weekend. Talk about rubbing salt into the wound.

We have the guided busway round Cambridge - pretty good system IMO, takes a lot of car traffic off the roads. Even after a few years, there are still occasional numpties who ignore the no entry signs and rails and drive onto it, best one being an HGV driver earlier in the year. https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/guided-busway-cambridge-car-a14-16845022

That is such a lovely little corner of the UK, possibly my favourite spot in England.

Different times indeed. I guess they thought they were hiring people for life. My oldest son is about to start his last year of Computer Science at university. He's already had multiple job offers for next year where there was no face to face interview at all - just an online test and a relatively short video call. I must've interviewed a couple of thousand people when I was working. Definitely if we got to the point of bringing you in for a face to face it was yours to lose.

I remember those from when I was a kid, although I think they're not really children's books. Have they aged well?

Me too. I have also been on a maglev train. I have been travel sick only on the car, coach/bus, train, airplane and boat though. Antarctica is the only continent where I have yet to be travel sick.

A Man City fan just told me he is thinking of going on holiday as it is cheaper after the school holidays... I told him you can't beat the Canaries this time of year.