Gaz Bottom

In the 1950s the Comics Code Authority in America banned the use of the word 'flick' in case cheap printing caused the letters to run together. 70 years later a lesson still to be noted.

It's Scotland's year, clear favourites.

I remember Ed Slater saying this on a podcast last year. That cases are higher in high intensity athletes whether it's a contact sport or not.

Yeah to be fair I don't have a strong opinion on him which is probably a good thing for a ref.

Ooh that's even worse, at least we get Hollie, there's nothing redeeming there. 😂

To be honest I did A-level French but was far from fluent by the end of it, more half decent. Of course the common sense method is the one I got from my first job that needed me to speak Welsh, they walked me to a Welsh speaking manager and had me chat to her for 5 minutes, verification done.

On the Blood and Mud podcast they have a series of episodes with Prof Tony Collins going into rugby history in several countries. It's only for Patreon members but I think that's only £2.

A big problem is, as the French refs pointed out recently, the bunker official is the least experienced member of the team, however his job is only making very important decisions. The ARs are much more senior but rarely do much other than raise the touch flag and call an offside or two.

Yup incredible pace for a 10.

Yeah the Ieuan Evans jinky try game was 1988.

Chart from Office of Rail and Road (HMG) showing annual and quarterly passenger rail journeys for Great Britain from April 2015 to March 2025.

In Great Britain, there are about 1.7 billion passenger rail journeys each year without serious incident (about 150 million a month). It's worth keeping perspective as news media discuss banning knives on trains or installing scanners at stations.
dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/u...

The Beauden brothers have received more test red cards since 2017 than the entire South Africa and Wales teams combined. It's self preservation.

He was taught by the best at Stellenbosch.

It was "Caribbean descent" rather than specifically Jamaica and he's been released now after questioning. Looks like just the one guy with serious problems, he begged the police to kill him when they arrested him.

YouTube video by Evan Edinger The average cost of groceries in Britain vs America

This video rather surprised me as we were always told everything is cheaper in the US, in fact a friend who moved from Belfast to Chicago swore everything was much cheaper. Probably eating out and other stuff but not groceries it seems.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqu4...

It's a lot simpler than it appears. It's almost entirely phonetic, no silent letters and has a single tense for verbs. It looks more daunting than it is because it uses the same letter set to make slightly different sounds (e.g double d 'dd' is the same sound as 'th' in 'the'). French is harder.

So many clever translators too that have to invent their own pun-filled names for each of the towns and characters as part of the job. I remember the Bard in the Welsh editions was Odlgymyx - a play on odl (rhyme) and gymysg (mixed up).

I read them in Welsh, in the school library in the 1970s. They must be the most translated comics ever.

WRU finances changing with the wind. Enough for £2m uplift for 4 teams in March, skint in May, now fine again for 3 and youth investment. Agreed in the middle to fund women's teams for 2,3 or 4 even though one option obviously costs twice as much.

Also they haven't played in Cardiff for like 7 months. How long did he take to write this article? Lazy bugger. 😂

Who outed Mark Robinson and for what? (I suspect they mean 'outgoing').

The only stipulation is one must be in the capital so theoretically Y11, the current Ospreys owners, could buy the capital franchise, call it Ospreys and play out of Cardiff City Stadium.

The idea is they will tender out 3 franchises, essentially ending all 4 current teams. Ospreys owners could bid for East for example. You buy into a new Capital, East, West team with no say over playing and coaching. Who would do that? This will go back to the drawing board.

Yup and it's why this is far from over. If they want to tender east and west I can see no bidders on those terms. Millionaires want to play rugby manager as part of the deal not marketing in a venture that makes money nowhere. Where they have to hand 27% across to CVC forever for money already gone.

On the WoL podcast Steff Thomas suggested they are not happy with the idea of the WRU running all the playing side. I doubt anyone is, it's daft, but he had a Scarlets source specifically saying it for them.

I'm 100% it's a terrible investment but I was only saying it's the same terrible waste as before just with a new name attached.

It is the same zip line. The headline is awfully timed but in the end they are just swapping the operators on something already built.

Yay, we can afford 4 teams now. North Wales region to launch in 2028.

Blooding the youngsters (well he is younger than Aki).

Shittles.