News

Bordeaux-Begles 38 Bath 26

BORDEAUX — Maybe Bath were simply out-battled by a better team in this Champions Cup semi-final on foreign soil, but you wonder if Bruce Craig and Sir James Dyson and the other mega-moneyed types already running clubs in England, or rumoured to be investing soon, are going to redress the financial balance, to help end the drought of success in this tournament that now extends to six years.

Since Saracens and Exeter Chiefs won Europe in 2019 and 2020 respectively, the title has gone to French sides in Toulouse and La Rochelle twice each, followed by Bordeaux-Begles as first-time winners over Northampton Saints in Cardiff last year.

Taking some of the financial brakes off the English game must surely be raised at the swanky dinner tables in the new world of Premiership franchise clubs coming to a town near you, soon.

The scale of spending by the American investors linked to Exeter Chiefs and a new venture in Birmingham has yet to be revealed. No plans to raise the salary cap or even get rid of it have been publicly aired.

But Craig, the owner of Bath since 2010, and still chasing an elusive European title after this defeat, and their Prem title triumph last season, is already worth multi-millions.

And as we saw on the big screens of the stunning Stade Atlantique Bordeaux Metropole, in those classic shots of the Roman emperor-ish line-up in the directors’ box, Craig is now sitting side by side with the similarly cashed-up Dyson, after the latter was recently announced as taking a 50 per cent stake in Bath Rugby.

Dyson made his money from mass-produced vacuum cleaners and you wonder if he yearns to be free to clean up with the likes of Ben Tameifuna, Bordeaux’s New Zealand-born Tonga prop who at 150kgs looks and plays like a fridge-freezer on legs.

To do so, it would help to loosen the constraints of the cap that sits at a basic £6.4m per squad, with a recently introduced salary minimum spend of £5.4m, and payments for England-qualified player quotas.

The practical difference in the strength of an English club squad set against one from France can be as simple as the next brute coming round the corner at you being just a little better and bigger than the one you can throw into the fray.

Or a lot bigger, in Tameifuna’s case.

“Big Ben” sounded the death knell for Bath when he battered over for Bordeaux’s fourth try in the 69th minute, to make the scoreline 31-19, having rumbled on from the bench 18 minutes earlier.

At that time his fellow substitutes were Cyril Cazeaux, a four-times capped France lock, and back-rower Temo Matiu, who made his debut for Les Bleus against England in this year’s Six Nations.

Bath were able to throw on Sam Underhill, Ted Hill and Miles Reid in response, while asking their eminent South African tighthead Thomas du Toit (who is leaving in the summer) to go through 74 minutes.

These are not savage chasms in talent, but differences they are, linked to the money on offer in this country.

And then there are other factors to consider.

Bordeaux are not packed with superstars from outside France, because the “Jiff” system of ensuring French-qualified players are well represented in the domestic league, the Top 14, has mitigated against a team like Toulon in the 2010s fielding a team of galacticos – Jonny Wilkinson, Bryan Habana, Bakkies Botha and so on – to win Europe three years in a row.

But this has also arguably revitalised and reinforced a powerful and proud rugby culture, to their benefit.

When you see 40,000 Bordelais folk massed in a futuristic football stadium for this semi-final, to sing their team through to the deciding showdown in Bilbao in three weeks’ time, you are reminded of the scale and depth of the French rugby ecosystem, nurtured and underpinned by decades of competing in leagues, club against club, town v town.

Laurent Marti, who was a couple of seats away from Craig, has been the chairman of Bordeaux-Begles since 2007, having made a mint in textiles and clothing, but his club also have a list of sponsors as long as both of your arms, and then some.

Read more

Then there is France’s domestic TV contract with Canal +, which is just over double the one in England, when comparing the respective top divisions alone, and so all things considered, the spend on player budgets are generally reckoned to be at least 50 per cent higher here; in some cases much more.

Leinster will be Bordeaux’s opponents on 23 May, and they come from a different system again: centrally funded by the Irish rugby union, well supported by big Irish businesses, with tax advantages to keep players at home, and a wealthy schools set-up underpinning.

Money won’t solve everything for England’s clubs in this competitions, but some influential forces may decide soon that spending more of it could be a substantial help.

Sempre adorei aplicativos de calendário da barra de menus. Eles me permitem verificar os próximos eventos, adicionar eventos rapidamente e acessar minha agenda sem trocar de aplicativo. É uma daquelas pequenas melhorias na qualidade de vida da qual, depois de experimentada, você não pode voltar atrás.

Minha jornada no calendário da barra de menu começou com o Fantastical. É um dos melhores aplicativos de calendário no Mac, ponto closing. Mas quando o Flexibits mudou para um modelo de assinatura, não consegui justificar o pagamento por recursos que não estava usando. Então segui em frente.

Eu então mudei para Dadosque é um aplicativo sólido e me serviu bem por muito tempo. Mas faltam alguns recursos e, novamente, o preço não parecia certo. Eu precisava de algo moderno, mais limpo e mais acessível. Foi quando descobri Dot.

Vale realmente a pena mudar para Dot?

Dot é um aplicativo de calendário do Mac apenas para barra de menu e faz exatamente o que promete, sem qualquer inchaço. Ele funciona com iCloud, Google, Outlook e Alternate lendo diretamente do aplicativo Calendário integrado do seu Mac, portanto, não há uma conta separada para criar ou fazer login.

A interface é limpa e bonita. Na parte superior, você pode ver rapidamente a contagem de eventos de hoje, o dia e an information e um ícone de configurações. Você também pode adicionar uma barra de progresso de Dia e Ano, que mostra quanto tempo resta antes do closing do dia ou ano.

Abaixo disso, há uma visualização mensal com pequenos pontos marcando os dias com eventos agendados, o que facilita a identificação rápida de dias movimentados. Position mais e você obterá uma lista completa dos próximos eventos.

Adicionar eventos é rápido e oferece suporte à entrada de linguagem pure. Você pode digitar algo como “publicar a avaliação de Dot às 11h30” ou “encontrar Sara às 14h” e Dot descobre o resto. Você também pode pular para qualquer knowledge pressionando F e digitando, o que é um toque pequeno, mas genuinamente útil.

O que faz Dot se destacar?

Alguns recursos fazem o Dot se sentir mais considerado do que seus concorrentes. O primeiro é a personalização. Você pode alterar a cor de destaque, escolher quais informações aparecem no calendário e como o calendário aparece na barra de menus.

A preparação para reuniões é outro recurso que gosto muito. Quando você tem uma videochamada agendada, o Dot exibe automaticamente os hyperlinks do seu convite, para que você não fique vasculhando seu e-mail cinco minutos antes da chamada. Ele também suporta ingresso com um clique para Zoom, Google Meet, Groups e Webex, junto com uma visualização de câmera e microfone para que você possa verificar sua configuração antes de começar.

A Barra de Comandos é outro destaque e um recurso que não vi em nenhum outro aplicativo de calendário. Com um único atalho, posso criar eventos, pesquisar minha agenda, consultar relógios mundiais ou copiar minha agenda do dia sem sair do que estou fazendo.

Dot também permite marcar datas especiais em seu calendário clicando com o botão direito em qualquer dia, dando-lhe um título e uma cor, e ele aparece destacado com o rótulo ao passar o mouse. É um recurso simples, mas surpreendentemente útil para sinalizar prazos, dias de pagamento ou viagens.

E esses são apenas alguns dos recursos. Dot é um dos meus aplicativos Mac favoritos que descobri em 2026, e recomendo fortemente que você use seu teste de 14 dias para explorar o aplicativo e confira você mesmo visitando trydot.app.

Se você estiver satisfeito com ele, poderá comprá-lo por um preço único de US$ 14,99 (atualmente US$ 9,99 com o código de lançamento). Não é necessária assinatura nem conta, e seus dados permanecem no seu Mac. Para quem está cansado de pagar mensalmente por um aplicativo de calendário, Dot é a resposta.

Like any successful populist leader, Nigel Farage loves to pose as a straight-talking man who dares take on the smug elites. So despite his public school and City of London trading background, he claims to have always been an outsider. He works hard to burnish a facade as standard-bearer for ordinary folks fighting a complacent establishment, polishing his everyman image with fags, flat cap and pints. Brexit, he declared, was a victory for “real people”. Shrugging off this act of national self-harm, he returned to the political fray two years ago at the helm of Reform UK supposedly to speak up “for the ordinary, decent, hardworking people of this country”.

Given this stance, it was curious to learn that this silver-tongued politician quietly pocketed £5m from a crypto billionaire called Christopher Harborne shortly before his surprise return. Farage had, after all, said he did not plan to stand as an MP; now polls suggest he stands on the threshold of Downing Street. He claimed the sum was a gift to pay for his security after being rumbled by a Guardian journalist; perhaps he plans to build a replica of Fort Knox in Clacton. Yet it always pays to follow money in politics. And this cash highlights how the anti-elitist populism sold to voters is a fraud, a rebranding of hard-right, anti-state conservatism by the super-rich and their fellow travellers.

Farage has long focused on leveraging his fame into a fortune while enjoying the largesse of ultra-wealthy people, despite claiming “there’s no money in politics”. His grifting has caused political hiccups, whether it was taking cash for appearances on the Kremlin’s propaganda machinery Russia Today or side hustles such as recording customised messages for Cameo punters.

Now an unsavoury stench wafts from this “gift”, which is being probed for possible investigation by the Electoral Commission after the Tories claimed it was an undeclared donation. Farage denies this and Harborne insists he wants nothing in return. Yet it is hard not to wonder why a tycoon based in Thailand – where he goes under the name Chakrit Sakunkrit – has handed an astonishing £17m to Reform UK and its leader?

Like many expats, the mysterious Mr Harborne – who has become Britain’s biggest political donor – holds a nostalgic view of our nation. A fan of Margaret Thatcher, he said in his first interview last week that he wants to see the country “renew itself and go back to the 1980s…and Nigel is the only person I know who can do that”. As a jet fuel broker, presumably he likes Reform’s hostility to net-zero policies. And no doubt Harborne also approves of Farage’s sudden enthusiasm for cryptocurrency since it is the key source of his immense wealth, which led to an appearance in the Panama Papers tied to offshore accounts. The Reform leader, now an investor and promoter of crypto, is pushing policies to assist this controversial financial sector.

The other big Reform donor is Ben Delo, who has given £4m. He is another crypto billionaire based abroad – living in Hong Kong under China’s repressive dictatorship while claiming to be a champion of free speech – although he says he is returning to Britain to evade new restrictions on foreign-based political donors.

Delo – pardoned by Donald Trump after conviction for breaking anti-money laundering laws – wants to build a war chest to “win back our country”. He also sees Rupert Lowe, the multimillionaire challenging Reform from the right, as “a breath of fresh air” who “shifts the Overton window a little further every day and keeps Reform on its toes”.

Delo, of course, chants the mantra of populism by talking about saving Britain from elites. Yet he funds a party bankrolled by billionaires and dominated by millionaires alongside its phalanx of washed-up Tory defectors. People such as Richard Tice – embroiled in controversy over his shell companies and tax arrangements – and Zia Yusuf, a former Goldman Sachs banker who made a fortune offering “luxury without limits” for the sort of people who instantly need private jets. Party treasurer is Nick Candy, who accumulated vast wealth selling homes to the global super-rich and is reported to have sold his own Chelsea mansion for £275m.

Farage stands before the electorate as the face of a populist force funded and shaped by ultra-rich plutocrats, repackaging their concerns under the banner of anti-elitism. Yusuf and Candy even joined him last year when Reform announced a plan to lure wealthy migrants with a £250,000 fee for 10 years of residency and a special tax regime, lambasted as a “billionaires bonanza” by rivals. The party relies on his unrivalled skill at riding waves of public fury over Westminster failures while posing as an ordinary bloke. And its success will depend on his ability to paper over the cracks between Reform’s base of working-class voters infuriated by crumbling public services and ultra-rich donors wanting to strip back the state and slash taxes.

The Italian media magnate Silvio Berlusconi blazed the trail for this corrosive style of plutocrat populism. But the pin-up is Donald Trump – pushing policies to aid the rich and his own family while distracting voters with culture wars, social media outrage and targeting migrants. I met many American voters during his campaigns seduced by the idea that this self-serving hustler was driven by desire to serve his nation and drain the Washington swamp. They have been rewarded with chaos, alleged corruption and a cost of living crisis fuelled by a foolish war. Aides claim his team – with the richest cabinet in United States history and a dozen billionaires – are “patriotic outsiders” even as the system gets tilted even more in favour of this elite and its interests.

Farage is suddenly trying to distance himself from his idol in the White House, just as he seeks to shake off past promotion of Kremlin propaganda. But as the Reform leader boasts that his party will do “stunningly well” in this week’s local elections, voters should take a hard look at the US and ask themselves if they really want this fraudulent model of billionaire and crypto populism to infect our country?

fonte