London Welsh kept in suspense over Premiership promotion bid - The Guardian
London Welsh will not find out whether they have met the minimum standards criteria for entry into the Aviva Premiership until a few hours before the first leg of their Championship play-off final against Cornish Pirates in Penzance on Wednesday night.
The Rugby Football Union's board of directors meets that morning and will examine the issue of whether London Welsh, who propose to move out of their Old Deer Park home and play at Oxford United's Kassam Stadium if they are promoted, fulfil the criteria.
The Professional Game Board last Thursday discussed the report of the auditors who assessed London Welsh's bid – the Pirates are not candidates for promotion because they knew they would not meet the criteria – but did not make a recommendation to the RFU.
It is understood that the PGB was divided, with representatives from Premiership Rugby questioning whether London Welsh met the stipulation regarding primacy of tenure. The Kassam Stadium should meet the criteria: it has a capacity of 12,000 and staged two Challenge Cup finals in the 2000s.
London Welsh are not concerned that if the RFU ruled against them it would have a negative impact on their players ahead of the game at a ground where they lost by 21 points in the regular season. The Exiles have an immediate right to appeal, something they would exercise with alacrity through their chairman, Bleddyn Phillips, a senior partner at a major law firm.
London Welsh have told the RFU that it would rather the governing body take its time than rush into a decision. The fact that the board of directors is discussing the matter as part of its regular monthly meeting, rather than deciding by conference call on Monday would indicate that the club's case is considered to have merit.
Leicester's director of rugby, Richard Cockerill, has settled his differences with the England coach, Stuart Lancaster, following their public spat last week over the fitness of the fly-half Toby Flood. The Tigers refused to allow England's physio to assess the player last week but diplomatic relations have been restored ahead of this weekend's Premiership grand final.
Cockerill said he and Lancaster have had "a healthy discussion" and considers the matter closed, although he is still declining to confirm who will start at No10 against Harlequins at Twickenham. "Me and Stuart get on pretty well," said Cockerill, who last week described the England coach as "naive" in his handling of the Flood issue.
"In the future we will discuss things a bit more closely and hopefully avoid any flashpoint or confrontation. He's a good guy. Occasionally we're going to be at odds with our opinions but that's OK."
The 19-year-old George Ford remains on standby to start at fly-half for the Tigers unless Flood makes a miracle recovery from his ankle injury. "Floody is working hard and improving day by day," said Cockerill. "He's not training today [on Monday] but he'll train tomorrow [on Tuesday] and we'll see where he's at. Fordy's an intelligent player … it's not the end of the world." Saturday's game will be Leicester's eighth successive grand final appearance.
The Australia wing James O'Connor will miss next month's three-Test series against Wales because of liver damage, but the outside-half Quade Cooper is expected to be named in the Wallabies' squad after recovering from a knee injury he sustained against Wales in the World Cup third place play-off.
The Wales caretaker head coach, Rob Howley, remains hopeful Warren Gatland will be able to join the squad at some stage in Australia.
Gatland, the head coach, is recovering from the serious heel injuries he suffered in a fall at his holiday home in New Zealand in April.
London NHS trust fined £90,000 for data breach - BBC News
An NHS trust has been fined £90,000 after 59 patients' details were sent to the wrong person.
Personal data, including diagnoses, was faxed to a member of the public 45 times for three months from last March.
The Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust did not have sufficient checks in place, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said.
The trust said the breach was regrettable, but it intended to appeal against the the fine.
'Acted incorrectly'Stephen Eckersley, the ICO's head of enforcement, said: "Patients rely on the NHS to keep their details safe.
"In this case Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust failed to keep their patients' sensitive information secure.
"The fact that this information was sent to the wrong recipient for three months without anyone noticing makes this case all the more worrying."
A spokesman for the trust said: "We deeply regret that the Information Commissioner has decided to impose a fine and so we have instructed our lawyers to commence an appeal against this.
"We consider that the commissioner has acted incorrectly as a matter of law and so we have no alternative but to bring an appeal."
But she added that protecting patient confidentiality was a top priority and the incident, which was a result of human error, was "hugely regrettable".
The trust had apologised to those affected and changes have been made to procedures following an internal investigation.
Watch out London Collections: Men, here come the Women - fashion.telegraph.co.uk
The British Fashion Council has announced plans to promote London designers' womenswear collections with a special showcase in June.
BY Olivia Bergin | 21 May 2012
A model backstage at Matthew Williamson spring/summer 2012 Photo: SEAN CUNNINGHAM
The gap between February and September's London Fashion Week is a large one, so the British Fashion Council have today announced that they are filling the void with a new event, London Collections: Women.
Hot off the heels of the inaugural London Collections: Men - a three-day showcase of the capital's brightest menswear brands and new talents from June 15-17 - Women will promote the growing number of brands and designers selling mainline or Resort collections during this period.
READ: What to expect from London Collections: Men
"Many designers showing at London Fashion Week have now introduced pre-collections, some for the very first time this season," explains Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council.
"There are great showrooms here in London and we want to encourage as many as orders as possible to be written here."
READ: Prince Charles to host London Collections: Men reception
Designers who have been in business for at least three years will be eligible to apply to show under the umbrella. Their applications will be reviewed by an advisory panel comprised of leading opinion formers, press and retail representatives. Established names such as Matthew Williamson, Mulberry, Alice Temperley and Issa have already signed up. June 18 is slated as the official launch date, but designers have flexibility over the duration of their showroom openings.
London ticket grumbles seen as price of success - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - Complaints over elusive and expensive tickets for the 2012 Olympics are a product of unprecedented demand to see live action from Britons, the man behind the policy said on Monday.
"I'd build a stadium with a million seats because we had more than a million applications to see the opening ceremony and the 100 metres final," Paul Williamson, London 2012 director of ticketing, told the Global Leadership Summit at the London Business School when asked what he would have done differently.
Demand for tickets has far outstripped supply, leading to grumbles from Britons about the initial allocation via online ballot, prices and the number of tickets going to sponsors.
Tickets for the opening ceremony cost from 20.12 pounds ($31.80) to 2,012 pounds ($3,200).
Williamson said London organisers had to market tickets for sports like handball which is a mystery to many people in this country. He said handball and other "challenging sports" like archery, shooting and wrestling would now be played out before full houses.
Athletes could also look forward to having their heats staged in a busy Olympic stadium.
"Morning sessions at the athletics, when the preliminaries are held, were always in a half empty stadium," said Williamson.
"We'll have 60,000 plus in London, so we must have got some of the pricing right. It'll be a different audience from the evenings, more families, but a vibrant atmosphere."
Some of those ticketing grouses were voiced at the conference. Brigitte Ricou-Bellan from online ticket market place StubHub told the conference that her company had surveyed Britons and found dissatisfaction "not just on prices but on delivery of tickets".
However, London organisers won heavyweight support from Michael Payne, former marketing chief for the International Olympic Committee, noting demand for tickets.
"This is viewed internationally as by far the most successful (ticket) marketing programme," Payne told the conference. "It will be the model for Rio (in 2016). The problem is success," he said.
Williamson said a further batch of Games tickets would go on sale on Wednesday and that he expected almost everything to sell out in London.
Tickets for soccer at venues like Newcastle and Glasgow were proving harder to shift, he said.
London organisers had talked of selling excess tickets at booths in the capital before the start of the July 27-August 12 Games but Williamson said he did not expect many tickets to be left over to sell in this way.
($1 = 0.6326 British pounds)
(Reporting by Keith Weir, editing by Justin Palmer)
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