Are you sitting comfortably?

Hello, good morning and welcome to this here new blog, interweb fans, exclusively crafted and gilded at enormous expense for the all-singing, all-dancing brand new Rugby League World magazine what goes on sale today (Friday). It is a privilege to have grabbed your attention for a moment before you once again head off down the information superhighway, perhaps Google-ing for the latest rugby league gossip, a fool-proof recipe for chilli con carne (www.chilli-con-carne.co.uk since you ask) or an out of focus mobile phone video of a weeping bride chewing on her own snot (YouTube. Probably).

Honoured as I am to be appointed Rugby League World’s resident online blogger, I have no idea how this thing will develop, nor indeed what it will end up being about. You will just have to keep popping back for a look, follow the odd link from totalrl.com or press a button and subscribe to it or something. Or not. It’s up to you. You can ignore it completely if you like. Isn’t modern technology brilliant? If there is anything you agree or disagree with, feel free to pitch in with your own thoughts below. Try to keep it civil, though, or I’ll set that John Drake on you. Like the magazine itself, I am also there to be followed on Twitter (@tonehannan), where I regularly post 140 characters about absolutely nothing at all.

Mainly, of course, this blog is supposed be about rugby league – the clue is in the mag’s title, I suppose. But given that my life isn’t one hundred per cent devoted to the game – and I suspect yours isn’t either – there’s a fair chance a whole heap of other stuff will intrude from time to time too. You know – why British television weather forecasters insist on addressing us like six-year-olds; why there appears to be no such thing as a ‘professional southerner’; why no one has yet sued ‘comedian’ Marcus Brigstocke under the Trades Descriptions Act; and why the current Archbishop of Canterbury doesn’t trim his eyebrows; that sort of carry on. There might be the odd book review thrown in too, or piece of half-arsed social theorising. And why not? To paraphrase CLR James: “What does he know of rugby league, who only rugby league knows?”

My initial intention is to blog at least two or three times a week – more if time allows and/or the mood takes me. I will try not to ramble on for too long, as I’m sure both of us have far more important and profitable things to do with our day. I may even upload the occasional work-friendly photo or link to sites or blogs even more riveting and/or hilarious than this one. One of the many good things about the internet is that there is plenty of room for everyone, so I expect to live with my fellow rugby league bloggers in absolute peace and harmony. I am coming to the party late and, as the old saying goes, those who drink at the well must dig those who dug it, man, or something. So, in the spirit of entente cordiale and just to get things rolling, here is a photograph of Times rugby league blogger Christopher Irvine picking his nose at Odsal last season (no idea who the vagrant at the front is).