To my Australian friends

For some reason, in spite of the worldwide reach of the Net, I tend to have net-friends in clusters. For instance, when the Red Sox won their already-legendary World Series, I found that I had a surprisingly large number of Massachusetts friends and correspondents.

Australia is another cluster, especially since kikei relocated there. And this causes a problem that one or two of my net-friends do not always seem to remember.

This is hardly the first time when I have woken up at six in the morning or earlier, staggered to my computer to see what mail had come in overnight, and found an IM dialogue announcing a message - that turned out to have been left hours earlier, in the middle of our European night. These messages make me feel unreasonably guilty about not answering them. On one occasion, I think, when I could not sleep, I did answer one; and that may have set a bad precedent. Please, folks, I love you all, but remember that we are antipodeans; that when it is morning over there, it is late in the night over here; and try to go for the overlap. I hate to find out that someone wanted to talk to me and could not.

You couldn't make it up no.14: this is sure to be a hotly contested game

One of the high points of the British sporting summer is the Rugby League Challenge Cup. This year's finalists are Leeds RFC and Hull RFC. The chairwoman of Hull RFC is Kath Hetherington. The CEO of Leeds RFC is Gary Hetherington.

And yes, they are husband and wife.

They will never learn

I recently read an article on the historical German right which felt so convincing to me that I archived it.( Read more... )