JonM

The story of how it was written is interesting in itself. Very, very unusual to get a £1 million advance (and a huge print run and translation into 15+ languages before publication) for a debut novel that she'd written in her spare time over the course of more than a decade.

One of the most memorable pieces of fiction I've read in years. Nothing like her previous one, and it's the kind of book that a lot of people will hate I think.

Not embarrassing at all. My son could do 17 minutes previously, but he's had a (not running-related) injury which stopped him doing anything for a year and is currently going round in 35-40 minutes. Plenty of people behind him still. The whole point of parkrun is you go at your own speed - plenty of people run a bit, walk a bit or just walk round.

As you said in your post though, it's about tv revenue, and Bangladeshi tv doesn't provide any, which is why they get a 2 game test series once per decade or so. We go there March next year, but only for ODI & T20 games.

Don't miss the clip of what is probably the second worse DRS review ever.

Manchester & Liverpool get water from North Wales too. United Utilities has a regionally integrated system, so water for their customers can be drawn from the pennines, wales, lake district, local reservoirs etc. We don't have a national grid for water as such, but there is a fair bit of regional distribution that goes on, even in the drier bits of the country. Near me, for example, water gets taken out of the river Ouse in Norfolk, goes into an underground pipeline that comes out in the River Kennet near Newmarket, and then there's another pipeline that takes it another few miles into the river Stour. So water moves from the east anglian fens (not that much rain, but not many people) into the Essex rivers (Essex is also relatively dry, but has a lot more people).

RLIF CEO wasn't he?

They seemed to be having fun last night anyway, losing at home to Palace. "Let's pretend we scored a goal" got the whole stadium rocking, along with the chants of "sign him up, sign him up" from a pitch invader who missed an open goal.

Don't see it happening tbh. They *really* care about being better than Ipswich. When Norwich won 5-1 at Portman Road a couple of years ago, pretty much every road sign at the Norfolk border had a reference to it. The whole county supports the team. They love the fact that people like Delia & Stephen Fry own the club rather than dubious oligarchs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Anglian_derby

Next Aussie that sends me a comment saying "the easiest way to get a rapid test is to play England" gets a punch :-)

Still, at least the Wuhan street markets have lost their record for "worst use of a bat".

Outside of Agnew & the BBC commentary team + pals, everywhere I read before a ball was bowled seemed to be expecting a 5-0 whitewash, for all the above reasons, with the only hope of avoiding that that the 5th test might not be played, or we might get rain somewhere, or a double ton from Root to draw a game. Root has still won more games than he's lost as captain - his percentage win record is pretty similar to Strauss & Vaughan, and it's not like England play lots of tests against the weaker countries. Three tests in West Indies in March at least gives us a chance to play one of the other weaker test teams and perhaps find a win.

Yep, really have to hope that the penny has dropped at the RFL. We only have a long-term future as a sport if more people play, coach, referee and spectate. Touch/ tag are the best way to achieve that.

Yes, Hick scored over a hundred centuries in first-class cricket, second highest scorer of all time in first class cricket. As you say, he had to wait 7 years to qualify for England. Fairly mixed test career though, not well handled by the England team.

Every other forum I frequent was debating before the tour started whether England can sneak a draw in any of the games and make it a 4-0 rather than 5-0 loss. This is the only place I've seen any optimism at all - you've certainly shifted the dial a bit

Broad overtakes Graeme Hick in the all-time England test runs table. Would not have guessed that, but I guess he was an all-rounder originally.

Not forgetting that it'll be in Newcastle, in October, with hopefully 50 000 people making some noise. We're a different proposition under those conditions.

ECB have found a solution for Covid. Anyone who puts on an England shirt becomes unable to catch anything.

Been staying up late? I wouldn't bother

Not too surprising - he found surfing and moved to Cornwall didn't he? Not sure where his business running men's nature retreats is based.

It was nice to see a bit of optimism up-thread. Other forums I frequent seem to be debating whether we can snatch a draw in one of the games and make it 4-0 rather than 5-0. It did feel like England had mentally written off this game before the start - wonder what Broad and Anderson would have made of the fairly green-looking, not entirely typical Gabba wicket today.

I doubt there's much difference in house prices between somewhere like Camborne and Wakefield, tbh. Not all of Cornwall is tourism and second homes/ retirement homes, there's some ex-industrial/mining towns too. Very good appointment. Obviously he's coached two different teams to championship success, coached in SL and international teams, but I wonder whether his experience in union might come in handy if they do end up taking on a few locals. I assume he'll have a few players to bring down from Yorkshire too.

I'm not in any way religious, but I found the Italian chapel on Orkney and the history of the POWs creating it really quite moving. The archaelogical sites like Skara Brae and Maeshowe etc. are why I went there, but the islands & causeways are pretty interesting, and Kirkwall is nice to wander around.

Not much to keep you in Thurso or Wick. Seemed to me that the main thing to do there was to have a fight with the people from the next town. If you have time to take the passenger ferry from John O'Groats to Orkney though? There are minibus tours that will pick you up from the ferry and show you the main sights of Orkney in a few hours, if time is at a premium.

I believe he did a couple in Auckland when he was there for the Lions tour in 2019.