The Anglo-Saxon Social Model - The Expanded Universe
- Thread starter Rattigan
- Start date
He does more stuff in the vein of Thomas Crown Affair and has a career a bit like a more handsome Liam Neeson.... His performance of Hamlet at the National Theatre in 1995 is still highly spoken-of.
Yes and no. The films are definitely far more auteurish in the sense that each new actor very clearly brings a new style (and, more recently, director) so there's even less of a pretence of continuity. (Yen's films, for example, introduced a completely new, all-Asian, cast and was based out of Hong Kong, not London.) That being said, I don't think any films have had a "you're the new James Bond" scene or whatever...
Rugby: National Football League
Inspired by something that happened the other day...
Rugby in America (where it is still commonly known as ‘football’) was traditionally dominated by the college game, although professional teams became increasingly prominent in the beginning of the 20th century. The Rugby Football Challenge Cup, organised by the American Football Association a forerunner of the NFL, began in 1920, featuring a mixture of college and professional teams. However, the competition remained bedeviled by format changes and persistent conflicts between professional and college organisations for several years, with one estimate suggesting that as many as 15 different professional and amateur leagues and cups came and went between 1920 and 1960.
The NFL was formed in its present guise in 1933, when agreement was reached between certain college and professional teams to combine. In 1943 the college teams agreed to go professional and after the World War several franchises were founded without any prior relationship with educational institutions. In subsequent years, the NFL grew further to beat out the other rugby leagues in North America, taking particular advantage of the growing medium of television in the 1950s. By 1960, formal links had been cut between colleges and franchises, although informal links remain between teams like the Clemson Tigers and Clemson University. The exception are the teams who compete in the Ivy League, where players have the same level of library access and ability to sign up for courses as undergraduate students at the relevant college.
The Alabama Crimson Tide are the most successful team in the competition, winning 13 titles between 1936 and 2010. The Chicago Bears, Pittsburgh Steelers and Harvard Crimson are all in joint second place in the all-time leaderboard, with each team having won six titles.
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The National Football League (NFL) is a professional North American rugby league consisting of 32 teams based in Canada and the United States. The NFL is one of the five major professional sports leagues in North America and has the second-highest average viewership behind Major League Baseball and ahead of the American Soccer League, the North American Cricket League and the National Hockey League. The NFL’s regular season runs from early September to late December, with each time playing 14 games against the seven other teams in their league. The top two teams from each league advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination tournament culminating in the Grand Final, which is usually held on the first Sunday in February.
Rugby in America (where it is still commonly known as ‘football’) was traditionally dominated by the college game, although professional teams became increasingly prominent in the beginning of the 20th century. The Rugby Football Challenge Cup, organised by the American Football Association a forerunner of the NFL, began in 1920, featuring a mixture of college and professional teams. However, the competition remained bedeviled by format changes and persistent conflicts between professional and college organisations for several years, with one estimate suggesting that as many as 15 different professional and amateur leagues and cups came and went between 1920 and 1960.
The NFL was formed in its present guise in 1933, when agreement was reached between certain college and professional teams to combine. In 1943 the college teams agreed to go professional and after the World War several franchises were founded without any prior relationship with educational institutions. In subsequent years, the NFL grew further to beat out the other rugby leagues in North America, taking particular advantage of the growing medium of television in the 1950s. By 1960, formal links had been cut between colleges and franchises, although informal links remain between teams like the Clemson Tigers and Clemson University. The exception are the teams who compete in the Ivy League, where players have the same level of library access and ability to sign up for courses as undergraduate students at the relevant college.
The Alabama Crimson Tide are the most successful team in the competition, winning 13 titles between 1936 and 2010. The Chicago Bears, Pittsburgh Steelers and Harvard Crimson are all in joint second place in the all-time leaderboard, with each team having won six titles.
Doesn't exist. The POD is that blocking is outlawed in America at the same time as for the rest of rugby, which leads to the American and British/Imperial games being ever closer interlinked and then having all their rules made consistent some time c.1890-1913. In the UK, the split between union and league is prevented in 1895 by union recognising professionalism, so there's only one 'rugby football' code by 1920.
Rugby: World Cups
Rugby football is a contact team sport that originated in the United Kingdom in the 19th century. In contrast with association football, rugby football is based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a match is played between two teams of 13 players. In most of the world, the sport is known simply as “rugby,” although in North America it is commonly called “football” (by contrast, association football is commonly called “football” in the rest of the world and “soccer” in North America).
In 1845, the first football laws were written by pupils at Rugby School. Rugby and association football developed largely in tandem until the Football Association outlawed handling the ball at their first meeting in 1863, creating a permanent cleavage between the two sports. A further split within the rugby community, over the question of amateurism, was averted in 1895, when a meeting of the Rugby Football Union voted to allow professionalism. (The question of professionalism would remain a live one in other countries, however, with New Zealand not having a unified league until 1905 and the United States not until 1933.) The last major rules change occurred in 1920, when the northern and southern hemisphere codes were equalized, with northern hemisphere teams adopting certain southern hemisphere rules such as 13-a-side play and a maximum of six tackles before possession is turned over.
Rugby spread around the Home Nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and was embraced by many other countries, particularly those which were members of the British Empire. Notable early exponents of the sport included Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and France. The sport also gained popularity in the United States after the banning, in 1909, of gridiron football as a result of a spate of deaths on the field. Other countries where the sport is popular include the Commonwealth of Independent States, Madagascar, Argentina, Japan, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands.
International matches have been held since 1871. The Rugby World Cup, first held in 1947, is contested every four years. The tournament was originally contested in a round robin format over the course of the English domestic season, with matches being played at a variety of grounds around the United Kingdom. Ahead of the 1967 tournament, agreement was reached with the American rugby authorities for them to send a team and the competition format was changed to one featuring a pools stage and a simple-knockout stage which would be held in a single country over the course of about a month.
Aside from the World Cup, the other major international tournaments are the British Lions tour, the European Championships, the Six Nations and the Big Game. The European Championships are a knockout tournament contested between England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, France, the CIS and the Soviet Union. The Six Nations is a round-robin tournament contested between New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea, Zulu-Natal and Argentina. The Big Game is an annual match contested between the American and Canadian teams. The British Lions are a team made up of players from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland who tour a country in either North America or the southern hemisphere every four years. The major domestic competitions include the Super League in England, the Celtic League in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the Latin League in France and Italy, the National Rugby League in the CIS and Soviet Union, the National Football League in Canada and the United States and Super Rugby in Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and Papua New Guinea. More minor domestic professional leagues include the Currie Cup in Zulu-Natal, the Championship in Argentina and the Top League in Japan.
In 1845, the first football laws were written by pupils at Rugby School. Rugby and association football developed largely in tandem until the Football Association outlawed handling the ball at their first meeting in 1863, creating a permanent cleavage between the two sports. A further split within the rugby community, over the question of amateurism, was averted in 1895, when a meeting of the Rugby Football Union voted to allow professionalism. (The question of professionalism would remain a live one in other countries, however, with New Zealand not having a unified league until 1905 and the United States not until 1933.) The last major rules change occurred in 1920, when the northern and southern hemisphere codes were equalized, with northern hemisphere teams adopting certain southern hemisphere rules such as 13-a-side play and a maximum of six tackles before possession is turned over.
Rugby spread around the Home Nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and was embraced by many other countries, particularly those which were members of the British Empire. Notable early exponents of the sport included Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and France. The sport also gained popularity in the United States after the banning, in 1909, of gridiron football as a result of a spate of deaths on the field. Other countries where the sport is popular include the Commonwealth of Independent States, Madagascar, Argentina, Japan, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands.
International matches have been held since 1871. The Rugby World Cup, first held in 1947, is contested every four years. The tournament was originally contested in a round robin format over the course of the English domestic season, with matches being played at a variety of grounds around the United Kingdom. Ahead of the 1967 tournament, agreement was reached with the American rugby authorities for them to send a team and the competition format was changed to one featuring a pools stage and a simple-knockout stage which would be held in a single country over the course of about a month.
Aside from the World Cup, the other major international tournaments are the British Lions tour, the European Championships, the Six Nations and the Big Game. The European Championships are a knockout tournament contested between England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, France, the CIS and the Soviet Union. The Six Nations is a round-robin tournament contested between New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea, Zulu-Natal and Argentina. The Big Game is an annual match contested between the American and Canadian teams. The British Lions are a team made up of players from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland who tour a country in either North America or the southern hemisphere every four years. The major domestic competitions include the Super League in England, the Celtic League in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the Latin League in France and Italy, the National Rugby League in the CIS and Soviet Union, the National Football League in Canada and the United States and Super Rugby in Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and Papua New Guinea. More minor domestic professional leagues include the Currie Cup in Zulu-Natal, the Championship in Argentina and the Top League in Japan.
Thank you so much Rattigan. In this perfect world, my beloved Wales win the World Cup THREE times!!! Your generosity is thoroughly appreciated! (Interesting to see that Wales uses the St David's Cross ITTL; is the Red Dragon a little bit like the Scottish Lion Rampant ITTL?). While I'm very happy with this scenario, I can't help thinking that if the ball handling code is unified and hasn't fractured into union, gridiron or league, America would win pretty much every World Cup. The thought of OTL gridiron athletes smashing into the likes of Shane Williams is enough to chill my bones 😳 I also wonder if the power of French rugby, drawing on the resources of Rugby a XV and Treize, would lead to a fair bit of dominance from them too.
My thinking with the St David's Cross was that it would make sense given that all the other home nations used their crosses too.
I did think that about the US rugby team but I decided to not have them be so dominant for a number of reasons. Firstly, it would've been a bit boring to have a US-NZ final each time. Secondly, the way that TTL rugby develops - including taking significant elements of OTL League - means that a lot of emphasis is placed on speed rather than brute strength so TTL gridiron footballers might not develop to be as massive as they are OTL. Thirdly, if you're a tall and/or quick athlete in the US TTL you face a lot more choice as to what to do, with professional leagues not only in rugby but also in soccer, basketball and even cricket looking enticing (I've not decided what to do with basketball TTL but it's about) so TTL's NFL teams are fishing in a smaller pool. Finally, the US and Australian teams definitely do have the 'choker' tags attached to them - even if the US has actually won three titles and been runner up three other times.
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Thanks! The interest in sport really comes from my own personal interests (the original thread was much more of a traditional political/economic narrative) but, at the same time, I think it's probably one of the best ways to explain what living in this world might be like. I've also got a few more ideas about TV, movies and music that might be of interest to people.
Haha. Let me know if there's a particular link you'd like me to create an article for...
Yes and no. The first answer is that every country's 'CBC' is called the the CBC, even if some brand themselves as 'CBC Australia' or similar. To go into things in a little more depth, the CBC produces a number of member state-specific programming and some which are meant to be shared Commonwealth-wide. For example, the 24-hour channel 'CBC Sport' is the same around the Commonwealth. Another example are the four-times-daily news bulletins, which are the broadcast at the same time on every country's CBC channels. However, at the same time, the CBC in each country has substantial resources to make its own programming so the CBC in Rhodesia might look quite different from the CBC in Ceylon, for example. It also has significant abilities to buy programming from outside broadcasters according to local taste: so the CBC in Puerto Rico buys a lot of content from Cuba and the rest of Latin America and the Canadian CBC buys a lot from the US. (As you can imagine, this is particularly the case where non-English regional languages are more common.) That being said, it is common for CBC drama and comedy made in one country to be broadcast in others too, even if local politics, chatshows and documentaries tend to have a more local flavour.
There definitely is a sense of the CBC as a single organisation with a single internal culture, even if there's a lot of regional variation. (In that sense it's a lot like the Commonwealth itself.) Think of something a bit like the relationship of OTL's BBC with BBC Scotland, perhaps.
In answer to your questions about what the Commonwealth member states are called, in official government documents they're referred to as "member states," which quietly displaced the older "realm" some time in the 1960s. References to them as "provinces," "territories" or "states" do exist colloquially, though. I know I've been a bit inconsistent about this in the past (in particular I know I called them "provinces" in an earlier infobox but that should be fixed now).
Commonwealth: Official Languages
The languages of the Commonwealth of Nations are languages used by people within the member states of the Commonwealth of Nations.
The Commonwealth has 33 official languages across its 18 member states, of which one (English) has been designated the “Official Procedural Language” and the remaining 32 are classed as “Official Regional Languages.” English is therefore used as the primary language of Commonwealth institutions and there is an assumption that all Commonwealth-related meetings will take place in English unless otherwise agreed. In practice, English is also the language of government and commerce in all of the Commonwealth member states. The Official Regional Languages have a special status within the Commonwealth, with all Commonwealth laws, regulation and judicial decisions being required to be translated into each language and translators for each language being available at Commonwealth events and institutions.
The actual use and spread of the Official Regional Languages varies greatly, with Palauan being spoken by fewer than 20,000 people whereas Urdu and Punjabi, each with over 100,000,000 speakers, are the Commonwealth’s de facto second and third languages. The most widely spoken language in the Commonwealth is English, which is understood by 95% of all adults. Nevertheless, the Commonwealth encourages its citizens to be multilingual and speak two languages in addition to their native language. A number of Commonwealth funding programs actively promote language learning and linguistic diversity. Furthermore, a variety of smaller regional languages and dialects receive differing degrees of official protection without receiving the status of an Official Regional Language.
However, while the Commonwealth actively promotes the use of the regional languages, actual figures for each language’s use can be unreliable. Many people contend that figures given are artificially inflated by regional governments. Furthermore, many contend that actual use of the language is virtually non-existent, with people who never speak it outside of school being classed as "bilingual speakers." Some critics and Anglosceptics argue that certain of the regional languages are functionally extinct and kept alive only by Commonwealth largess. Defenders of the Commonwealth’s language policy argue back that such arguments are often tinged by a degree of Anglo-chavanism and do not appreciate the Commonwealth’s linguistic and ethnic melting pot.
The Commonwealth has 33 official languages across its 18 member states, of which one (English) has been designated the “Official Procedural Language” and the remaining 32 are classed as “Official Regional Languages.” English is therefore used as the primary language of Commonwealth institutions and there is an assumption that all Commonwealth-related meetings will take place in English unless otherwise agreed. In practice, English is also the language of government and commerce in all of the Commonwealth member states. The Official Regional Languages have a special status within the Commonwealth, with all Commonwealth laws, regulation and judicial decisions being required to be translated into each language and translators for each language being available at Commonwealth events and institutions.
The actual use and spread of the Official Regional Languages varies greatly, with Palauan being spoken by fewer than 20,000 people whereas Urdu and Punjabi, each with over 100,000,000 speakers, are the Commonwealth’s de facto second and third languages. The most widely spoken language in the Commonwealth is English, which is understood by 95% of all adults. Nevertheless, the Commonwealth encourages its citizens to be multilingual and speak two languages in addition to their native language. A number of Commonwealth funding programs actively promote language learning and linguistic diversity. Furthermore, a variety of smaller regional languages and dialects receive differing degrees of official protection without receiving the status of an Official Regional Language.
However, while the Commonwealth actively promotes the use of the regional languages, actual figures for each language’s use can be unreliable. Many people contend that figures given are artificially inflated by regional governments. Furthermore, many contend that actual use of the language is virtually non-existent, with people who never speak it outside of school being classed as "bilingual speakers." Some critics and Anglosceptics argue that certain of the regional languages are functionally extinct and kept alive only by Commonwealth largess. Defenders of the Commonwealth’s language policy argue back that such arguments are often tinged by a degree of Anglo-chavanism and do not appreciate the Commonwealth’s linguistic and ethnic melting pot.
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Film: Combined Guilds Awards of America
Pre-emptive apologies for the slightly unimaginative list of winners: basically it's me just typing what I'd have liked this year's winners to be. As I spend more time thinking about the OTL film industry I'm sure I might have to retcon that list. The inbox about TTL's version of the Oscars still stands, though.
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That languages list is making me pretty curious: what was the language policy of the Federation of the East Indies, and what are the demographics of different Chinese languages in Singapore, and in the rest of the Commonwealth for that matter (Mandarin, Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka, etc.)?
Adam Sandler, best actor? When he became an actor, to begin with? This is almost ASB. The cinema machine is cracking, no doubt about it.
I need a reminder about the status of Ireland ITTL. It's great to see almost 2 million speakers of Gaelige (plus 1.2 million of Welsh) ITTL. Is that 2 million actual fluent speakers or 1.95 million who say they understand a few words? If they're fluent, is it the case that the Great Famine didn't happen ITTL or happened in a different way? Or does the Famine predate your POD (sorry, I can't remember). And if the Famine is butterflied away or very different in some way, is the case that there is less Gaelic spoken in Newfoundland?