Mailwatch(ed) Forum

In fairness to Chris Tavare, he did occasionally score quickly in one day games. His hundred here was quicker than a run a ball, and they very nearly overhauled what was an impossible total by the standards of 1989 one day cricket. Sadly it seems like nobody videoed this match's highlights - not even youtube's DM MORDECAI has it.

https://cricketarchive.com/Archive/Scor ... 51397.html

If you fiddle about a bit, cricket archive may let you see the scorecard, not the paywall.

kreuzberger wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2026 10:46 pm The norf is anywhere beyond "Hatfield and the..", and unquestionably in the badlands on the wrong side of Watford Gap.

Going in the other direction, I believe Leicester plays a pivotal role.

On the other hand, Bath City fans sing "you dirty northern bastards" to Gloucester United fans.

A reasonable person would therefore conclude that it's all bollocks, unless you draw a line between where it's raining and it might soon.

The cultural shorthand is not completely inaccurate. See the map on here for constituencies and deprivation.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/re ... /cbp-7327/

The "left behind" bits in the South are a few seaside towns, Cornwall and inner cities. In the North, apart from large rural constituencies, it's nearly all relatively poor. Swindon's always seemed like a dump to me, but it would be better off than nearly everywhere in the urban north.

If you were picking a Reform southern seat I’d say Swindon.

Well beyond the costal areas.

Boiler wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2026 10:23 pm Fascinating. I had no idea Mercia was so large...

It depends when you snapshot the kingdoms.
They merged, warred and traded border areas.

My reading comes from later with four kingdoms.
Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria.
The Danelaw complicates matters.

London has an odd status.
Not the capital, but strategically significant.
At points its status is best summarised as "Within Mercia, administered by Wessex"


Bear in mind that "Saxon that London" is exclusively North of the Thames and West of the Tower.

Boiler wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2026 10:23 pm Fascinating. I had no idea Mercia was so large...

The other aspect that fascinates me (and upsets fans of Mel Gibson in Braveheart) is the Northumbria / Strathclyde border.

It rather breaks the silly idea that everywhere north of Hadrian's Wall was governed by noble Pictish savages.
Folks who need an exclusive origin story rarely get on with historic reality.


What's indisputable is:

Edinburgh has a Saxon name, though it wasn't always so.
Celtic Din Eidyn / Dùn Èideann was altered to Edinbrgh by the new Saxon overlords.

Strathcyde (Valley of the Clyde) retains a Celtic name - Srath Chluaidh or Ystrad Clud.
It's large and the last of the Briton kingdoms.
Capital Dumbarton (Fort of the Britons) which lasted long enough to resist Norse raids.


A little less settled.

Edinburgh derived from "Edwin's Fort" is unlikely.
Edwn was a 7th century Northumbrian rules, but the Edin goes back to the earliest records.

It's confidently states that Strathclyders spoke a Welsh dialect.
I'm not on confident ground when it comes to reconstructing old language, so skimmed this off Google AI.
The language is termed Cymbric (Cumbrian).
The people were sometimes known as Strathclyde Welsh.


Ramble almost over, back to the Cricket.

Final Musing.
Would the Hundred be improved by teams based on the old Saxon Heptarchy?

'The Old North' features heavily in Welsh history and folk traditions. The oldest poetry, that of Aneurin, tells of warriors traveling from near Caeredin down to Catraeth (supposedly Catterick) in order to lose heavily a battle against the Angles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Gododdin

As Burnham has failed to commit to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP (interview with Laura Kuenssberg), I await John Healey's imminent resignation.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... lity-class

Is Burnham’s Oxbridge-heavy cabinet a sign of social mobility or lack of progress on class?
Esther Addley
PM’s team can be seen as backward step even though in some ways it is more diverse. Yet its makeup points to wider access to power

Backward step from whom? Not that useless guy the Guardian chased out the door?

Well, knock me down with a feather, it does mean a backward step from Keir Starmer. Funny how he didn't get more praise for his state-school and not particularly Oxbridgey Cabinet.

All Starmer got from the Guardian was some snide shit about his father being a toolmaker; a very skilled job.

But hey, muck under the fingernails.

Bones McCoy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2026 9:59 am

Boiler wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2026 10:23 pm Fascinating. I had no idea Mercia was so large...

It depends when you snapshot the kingdoms.
They merged, warred and traded border areas.

My reading comes from later with four kingdoms.
Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria.
The Danelaw complicates matters.

London has an odd status.
Not the capital, but strategically significant.
At points its status is best summarised as "Within Mercia, administered by Wessex"


Bear in mind that "Saxon that London" is exclusively North of the Thames and West of the Tower.

Big Mercia suffered from a nasty case of Vikings in the 9-10 centuries, despite having one of the best rulers in Æthelflæd...

I didn't realize that attending Oxbridge was a fail-safe marker of class. Whereas there are a fairly small number of schools which send lots to Oxbridge, these don't tend to be state comprehensives (which were attended by 75% of the Burnham Cabinet). Of course, you get some wealthy parents send their kids to comprehensives, but attending Oxbridge after a state comprehensive might more usually be attributed to something other than class, surely?

I know this stuff is coming from the Guardian, but it reminds me of stuff which came from the Right v Ed Miliband (who was absurdly said to have attended a posh school, rather than the one attended by, among others, notorious poshos Tulisa Contostavlos and Steve McFadden).

If it's of interest 66.2% of Oxford undergraduates and 71% at Cambridge are state educated.

It would have been lower when the Cabinet were attending, but even then it would have been a stretch to treat Oxbridge attendance as a marker of high social class. Not to say that many would be regarded or regarded as themselves as working class, but lots would be middle class rather than upper middle class.

Media obsession over painting Labour as champagne socialists. Meanwhile actual minister who didn't go to no fancy university is characterised as a tarty slag. One may ask why bother?