DI Keith Fowler

Their gate now says final call. Updates as I get them. I'd go have a look but I'd lose my table in the Peaky Blinders themed bar. They've played Red Right Hand 12 times since I got here.

Just walked past the squad in the airport looking bored. You have never seen a bunch of lads who would rather be having a pint in a Peaky Blinders themed bar.

London Red Bulldogs has a nice ring to it. They could maybe launch a caffeinated IPA to coincide with the launch, causing their regular punters to become increasing agitated with each pint and thus derailing their games of cards against humanity.

I would add to this the safety net for keeping players in the game. If you're a academy player looking at your future career prospects would you feel secure knowing if you don't make it as SL level immediately your only option is dropping into the community game? Would a semi-pro league to fall back on not be encouraging when you're deciding whether to fully commit to rugby as a career? Tyler Dupree gets released from Leeds academy and is questioning whether to continue. He takes up a semi-pro contract at Oldham for a season, is then signed by Widnes, within half a season Salford have picked him up, two years later Wigan have paid a transfer fee for him and he's an England international. What does the alternative look like where there's no decent standard semi-pro structure for him to drop into while he develops into an SL standard player? Matty Smith has a half season loan to Widnes before becoming an SL standard player, goes off to win a few trophies, and then returns to Widnes for a couple of years to wind down his career and assess his future options. If you'd asked the 20 year old Matty Smith if he would prefer that when his body starts to give out (at a point in time that he cannot predict) he would be happy retiring there and then because no SL will want him, or if he'd prefer to go back to Widnes for a few years, get paid some kind of salary and work out what it is he wants to do with the rest of his working life, which is he picking?

What if we bundled up all of Salford's loans into tranches and sell that as investment grade securities.

Heard this before about a move to centre. Unless he has reason to believe his legs are going to go in a couple of years it seems madness to move him further infield where his weaknesses will be most exposed, probably the most of any position on the pitch.

What a great thread. Well done to all involved.

They are literally incapable of paying them on time.

Was that in the, "putting [rugby] balls in kids hands" era?

I love it. It's classy, its sensitive to French culture, it reminds me of fruit salad sweets. What's not to like?

I mean the current shirt has elements of it, the navy pinstripes under the arms and allusions to a vee without actually having one. It's essentially a merger of this and that Admiral England football shirt.

Exactly, unless we suddenly wake up tomorrow discover all the clubs exist on the M25 corridor instead of the M62 there's no easily transferable plan. *Bangs drum again* we're not poor because we have bad leaders, we have bad leaders because we are poor.

I don't disagree.

I'm just relieved it's happening at this point.

What?

Apparently John recieves two emails a week accusing him of being a "flaming drongo". What I want to know is, who's sending the other one?

Looking forward to this in his next Chicken Wing blog post.

Haha why is this such a common thing with Morrisons, my local one is the same. That one specific fridge seems to break down constantly. Re: airfrying I tried it it was not ideal, I don't mind deep frying whitebait but you can't really use the oil after as it goes very fishy which seems a waste.

It was very weird and if I was Toulouse I would be fuming at how it unfolded. Tyrer clearly had influence over the decision which just shouldn't happen, even if it's the correct call which from the video you just can't see. Anyway, Widnes won and I've picked up conversational French through watching the youtube stream so it's all good.

Is a chunk of that not the big advertising board they were hoping to put up? It's good if true but I think there was already a marketing uplift in the works.

It's good that they have an actual tribute band now after years of Nigel Blackwell lying to incredulous interviewers (from the music press) that there was a tribute act called, "It Ain't Half Man Mum".

There's an element of good negotiation but you can't work miracles. IMG were involved in the last negotiation but at the point where they'd only just started so nothing had really changed. You can be the best negotiator in the world but you're facing an uphill battle if your pitch is, "OK so you know the thing we sold you last time? It's exactly the same and hasn't changed but we would like more money. Also we have nowhere else to go". The next one is the acid test, you would be hoping to see some uplift or at least some demonstration that through diversifying the TV offering (SL+ etc.) you're bringing in more than you were.

Apologies for dredging up an old post. I think a lot of this is just the nature of art, it's not detached from it's context. The reason why there isn't a new Fawlty Towers is because Fawlty Towers already exists, it's been done and naturally people are going to either build on it or react against it. If we just have people ploughing the same fields you end up with Not Going Out, which has it's charm and can be funny but I don't even think Lee Mack thinks it's important television.

Do they owe you money personally because that is such a banal Linkedin message I cannot conceive of anyone getting annoyed by it?

Hmm, this abomination is representative of Featherstone? It's existence could only be explained as the product of some unholy union betwix man and horse. Which we cannot rule out.