“Please listen to your bodies,” he wrote.

The 19-year-old has been missing for just over a week.

The data comes from The Sentencing Project.

Arch Capital Group Ltd. appointed Nicolas Papadopoulo as CEO and Board member, effective immediately, following Marc Grandisson’s retirement. A spokesperson said, “Arch Capital Group Ltd. [NASDAQ: ACGL, Arch, our or the Company] today announced that Nicolas Papadopoulo has been named Chief Executive Officer and is joining the Board of Directors effective immediately. Papadopoulo has held […]

According to today’s Official Notices, the Bermuda Police Service will be conducting road sobriety checkpoints starting on Friday, March 25th, with the checkpoints set to take place in Hamilton parish, Smiths, Devonshire, Pembroke, Paget, Warwick and Southampton. Road Sobriety Checkpoint Notice 2022 [PDF here] Related Stories Road Sobriety Checkpoints Over Cup Match Road Sobriety Checkpoints Starting On […]

In a filing with the Bermuda Stock Exchange, the Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Limited advised that during the month of March 2024, repurchased for cancellation 338,313 Common Shares at an average price of $30.22 per share. Related Stories Butterfield Senior Management Appointments Bank Of Butterfield Adjusts Rates Bank Of Butterfield Adjusts Rates Butterfield Banking Hours […]

A watercraft that washed up on Bermuda’s shore may have originated in Cuba, according to Keep Bermuda Beautiful [KBB]. In a post on Instagram, Keep Bermuda Beautiful said, “Where in the world did this wreckage wash up from? “CUBA is the suspected answer and this DIY watercraft might have been used by refugees. Research into […]

Arch Capital Group announced that Daniel “Dan” J. Houston and Neal Triplett will join the Company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately. A spokesperson said, “Mr. Houston is a seasoned executive with a wealth of experience in the financial services sector. He is Chairman and CEO of Principal Financial Group, where he is responsible for overall […]

Arch Capital Group Ltd. announced a $1.9 billion special dividend and also announced executive promotions. A spokesperson said, “Arch Capital Group Ltd. [NASDAQ: ACGL, Arch or the Company] today announced that its Board of Directors [Board] has declared a special cash dividend [special dividend] of $1.9 billion to common shareholders, representing $5.00 per outstanding common share. […]

Over one hundred pro hopeful bodybuilders and fitness athletes, both local and international are gearing up for this year’s Caribbean Grand Prix, to be held at the Ruth Seaton James Auditorium on Saturday, March 26th. “The competition is back after proving to be a major success in 2019 and gives athletes from anywhere in the […]

CariGenetics — in partnership with The 2 Frontiers Project and BIOS — led and funded a local study that could help save coral reefs around the world which are being affected by climate change. A spokesperson said, “Since its launch last October, CariGenetics continues to conduct ground-breaking research which will have a positive impact, not […]

The Marc of Excellence Memorial Football Kick, in honour of the late Marco Warren, was held at TN Tatem Middle School in Warwick yesterday [June 2]. It was organised by Warren’s family and marked the first anniversary of his funeral after being killed in a hit-and-run incident in Hamilton Parish aged 29. Warren was respected […]

The Jamaican Association [Bermuda] will host the Marcus Garvey Symposium at the Bermuda College Lecture Theatre next Thursday [November 14]. The event, which runs from 6 pm to 9 pm, will commemorate the anniversary of Mr Garvey’s 1928 visit to Bermuda. Jamaican Mr Garvey was the leader of the Pan-Africanism movement, which aimed to unite […]

Shotocup announced the upcoming 29th Annual Zenji Ryu Shiai will be held on March 17th at Whitney Institute. A spokesperson said, “Shotocup is proud to announce the highly anticipated 29th Annual Zenji Ryu Shiai, scheduled to take place on March 17, 2024, at the prestigious Whitney Institute. This year marks a significant milestone in the […]

The Bermuda Archives is inviting the public to their upcoming 2nd Annual Open House on June 7, 2024, for International Archives Day, themed “Digitize It.” A Government spokesperson said, “The Bermuda Archives formally invites the public to visit us, get a rare glimpse of our repository and collection, and learn more about the Bermuda Archives […]

Thirty-six boxes of 17th century archaeological material have returned to Bermuda after study at William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia. A spokesperson said, “The returned materials include archaeological finds and records relating to the First Forts Project, undertaken between 1993 and 2003 by the Department of Anthropology at the College of William & Mary and the […]

The Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute [BUEI] announced that the topic for this month’s ‘Kids Hour Saturdays’ on March 19 is turtles. A spokesperson said, “Kids Hours Saturdays’ takes place every third Saturday of the month at 11am and 2pm respectively. Each hour will feature the screening of short films followed by a book reading for […]

The Dance Programme at the Berkeley Institute is set to perform “#Trending,” a student-choreographed dance showcase inspired by the influence of social media on daily life, on Wednesday, March 27th. A spokesperson said, “Social Media is an integral aspect of our daily lives, even more so with our youth. This is the inspiration behind ‘#Trending’ […]

During March 2024, the top 10 ‘most liked’ photos on the Bernews Instagram page included BermudAir’s expansion to Canada Irie 98 Radio Station’s new owners, Conor White & Jessica Lewis being named Athletes of the Year, Women In Reinsurance’s Women’s Day Gala, Leilanni Nesbeth signing a 3-year contract with Chicago Red Stars, the Gombeys, Lindo’s […]

Trinidadian soca superstar Destra Garcia, known for her electrifying performances and boundary-pushing music, spoke to us exclusively about her love for soca, her diverse heritage, and her return to Bermuda for “Soca in the City”, happening on Saturday, June 15. A Special Connection With Bermuda Destra’s connection with Bermuda is not just about the performances […]

The Roddenberry Archive has begun a “multi-decade collaboration between The Gene Roddenberry Estate and OTOY...

Arch Insurance announced it has acquired Thimble, a leading insurtech platform for small business customers and agents. A spokesperson said, “Thimble enables small businesses to quickly get insurance coverage by the job, month or year using its award-winning app, website, or over the phone. “The acquisition expands Arch’s suite of digital solutions for small business […]

Arch U.S. MI Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arch Capital Group Ltd., has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire RMIC Companies, Inc. [RMIC] and its subsidiaries that together comprise the run-off mortgage insurance business of Old Republic International Corporation. A spokesperson said, “Once the transaction is closed, RMIC’s $1 billion risk in force […]

Arch Insurance North America, part of Arch Capital Group Ltd, has entered into a master transaction agreement to acquire the U.S. MidCorp and Entertainment insurance businesses, including select specialty insurance programs, from Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE [AGCS] for a $450 million cash consideration to Allianz. A spokesperson said, “Arch estimates its capital requirement […]

Arch Insurance North America, part of Arch Capital Group Ltd. announced it has closed the acquisition of the U.S. MidCorp and Entertainment insurance businesses from Allianz originally announced on April 5. A spokesperson said, “Nearly 500 former Allianz MidCorp and Entertainment employees have joined Arch and will provide continuity to clients and brokers as Arch […]

Apple is planning to launch an AI-powered smart home display as soon as March 2025, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The display will measure in at approximately six inches, and while it is similar to an iPad, it is square rather than rectangular and it has thick bezels around the edges. There is a camera at the top front so that it can be used for FaceTime, plus there are internal speakers for playing music and a built-in rechargeable battery.


Apple will offer the hub in silver and black, and it will use a touch-based interface. The operating system will look like a mix of the iPhone's StandBy mode and watchOS, though it will primarily be controlled by voice. Apple plans to integrate Apple Intelligence for accessing apps and controlling smart home products, and it was designed around App Intents, a Siri system that will be able to control apps and tasks.

Apple designed a customizable home screen with widgets that can be used to show things like the weather and upcoming appointments, a photo slideshow, or important home controls. A software-based dock will be available for launching apps, and multiple systems in different rooms will work as intercoms. Apple plans to focus on security as well, providing alerts and camera footage from connected smart home cameras.

Built-in sensors will be able to determine how close a person is standing to the device, and it can adjust features from there. When no one is nearby, for example, it might show the temperature, but as someone approaches, it can switch to an interface for adjusting the thermostat, much like Nest thermostats. It could also detect how many people are nearby using external sensors that plug into outlets throughout the home, but Apple may or may not manufacture these extra sensors.

In addition to offering smart home controls and FaceTiming features, the device will include several Apple apps like Safari, Apple News, Apple Music, Notes, Calendar, and Photos, but there will not be a dedicated App Store. Apple is designing different attachments, such as a plate for attaching it to the wall and a base with additional speakers for using it in a central location in the home.

Apple plans to position the smart display as a "command center," with the aim of furthering Apple's position in the smart home market. The smart home hub has been in development for more than three years, and Apple CEO Tim Cook has been pushing the engineering and design teams to prioritize the device. It will be a standalone device, but it is meant to work in concert with other Apple products and will require an ‌iPhone‌ for setup.

With the smart home hub, Apple is looking to compete with Amazon and Google, who have similar devices. Amazon has the Echo Hub, and Google offers the Nest Hub Max. Apple will likely need to price the device similarly to these products, and the Echo Hub costs $150, while the Nest Hub Max costs $230.

While Apple has considered creating its own line of smart home accessories like an indoor security camera, it is not yet clear if the company will do so. Apple could get into accessories if the smart home display is a success. Earlier this week, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that Apple was working on a smart home camera with wireless connectivity and deep integration with ‌Apple Intelligence‌, with Apple planning to launch the device in 2026.

In the future, Apple plans to release a robotic version of the smart home hub that can move the screen around, Gurman reports.

Contributors this month include 2cross2affliction, dronon, earthfurst, GreenReaper, and Rakuen Growlithe.

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REVIEW – I’ve been updating my EDC and talking about it on my YouTube channel for the past few months. My next category to discuss is flashlights and it turned out to be a good choice because I was recently offered the chance to review the SPERAS ARC Ti Titanium USB-C keychain flashlight. Let’s check […]

During the early reign of King Charles III (Charles the Simple) in West Francia, the area was besieged by Viking invasions, while the memory of the previous and frequent Saracen incursions was still fresh in the minds of the general populace. The Saracens were Muslim - mostly Berbers from Africa – and had only let up on the Franks because they’d been pushed back by the Vikings. The local nobles were left largely to fend the Vikings off on their own.

In Paladins of the West Kingdom, players assume the role of these unnamed nobles (most likely Dukes), working to keep the region safe and spread their faith (historically: Christianity).  I really enjoy this theme, and in fact, playing the game nurtured my interest in the historical kingdom of West Francia.  That’s why I can tell you that while the rulebook notes that the King lends his Paladins to the nobles to aid them in their quest, I’m giving all the credit for the loan to the designers, Shem Phillips and S J MacDonald.  Paladins are a fictional group of knights in French lore (think of them as similar to the Knights of the Round Table in British lore),  or alternatively, a translation of the Frankish royal title of Palatine Count, which was a noble that focused mostly on judicial and governing matters and was not known as a knight.

I’ve won a few and lost a few games of Paladins. It’s a worker placement game that incorporates card drafting.  At the beginning of every round, players draw the next three Paladin cards in their deck and choose one to play for the round, one to put back on top of their Paladin deck to draw during the next round, and one to put at the bottom of their Paladin deck. Each Paladin boosts faith, influence, or strength (usually more than one of these), and also provides a special benefit. If you’ve got players prone to analysis paralysis, this is where they may get stalled, especially in the first few rounds. After Paladins are selected and put into play, workers for the round are selected by each player and put into their personal resource supply. You have many stations on your player board to place your workers during the round,  and when you do so, your moves are independent and walled off from your opponents (they cannot tamper with your player board or placement of your workers on it). However, there is one area on the general board (the King’s Favour card area) where you can also place your workers and those spots are competitive. Also contributing to player interaction – some of the stations on your player board where you place workers allow you to move resources (monks and outposts) from your player board to the main board, consuming a competitive spot that provides a placement reward. And all the resource cards on display around the main board – the townsfolk you can hire, the walls you can build, the outsiders you can attack or convert, the tavern cards you draw workers from, and the suspicion cards you gain $$$ from, are all lucrative items for which players must compete. So we’ve got a good mix of independent action and player interaction in Paladins.  There are not a lot of opportunities for  “take that” behavior in this game, other than perhaps timing your draw of suspicion cards to trigger an inquisition when you know your opponents will suffer a penalty and be forced to take on more debt.

Giving the game more intellectual weight, worker placement on your board and the actions workers trigger often have additional requirements beyond number and types (i.e., colors) of workers. The actions triggered by worker placement may be constrained by your strength, faith, or influence level. And some spots or actions triggered by placing workers in those spots require money or provisions. All of these prerequisites can be gained as rewards from prior actions triggered by various worker placement, so much of the game is finding the most efficient ways to obtain prerequisites associated with the series of actions you’d like to take as the game progresses. I worried this decision making would be a weak point for analysis paralysis (I’m a pretty good candidate for testing potential AP, as I’m prone to it) and while there can be a bit of that during the game, nothing excessive was logged during our plays.  

The artists (Shem Phillips on graphic design and Mihajlo Dimitrievski on illustrations) have printed helpful indicators next to each placement location on boards and cards to identify any prerequisites as well as rewards. It’s an example of how the designers have worked with the artists to layer meaningful game information into the layers of artwork. In fact, all of the symbols implemented across the game components are really quite helpful. Bonus: once you familiarize yourself with them in one of the West Kingdom games, you’ll have learned them for the entire series as the artists reuse the same symbols in all three titles.

Beyond the iconography, the illustrations and other artwork are lovely. As with the iconography, the same style of artwork is implemented across the entire series and it carries the theme well. There was a good mix of cisgender representation, but not a lot of racial diversity, especially as would be suggested by the historical setting of the game (for example, Berbers in the area had skin tones ranging from light to to dark brown).

The components for Paladins of the West Kingdom are well made.

There are wooden meeples, an assortment of foldable boards constructed from cardboard, and various plastic coated card decks. We found the rulebook to be clear and direct, and there weren’t any items we had to look up online. It would have been nice if the designers included a player aid in the components, but I was able to compensate for the oversight by downloading a detailed player aid another user uploaded to the forums on BoardGameGeek.com.

Paladins of the West Kingdom is my favorite game of the West Kingdom series. All of the worker types and available actions make sense within the context of the theme, the mechanisms (worker placement, card drafting) integrate tightly with the scoring system to provide opportunities for building a victory point engine, and the game is complex and interesting yet still accessible for new players. The game is also a great value at its price point (approx $50) given you’ll get dozens of multiplayer games in before even a hint of same-o same-o creeps in. Many games with comparable replayability and complexity are double the price of Paladins. There’s also a solo play mode, which provides an additional way to explore the game.

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Publisher: Renegade Game Studios
Players: 1-4 (We played with 2)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 2 hours per game
Game type: card drafting, worker placement
Retail Price: $50

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

The good folks at Stonemaier Games sent us a review copy of the newest expansion for Tapestry recently. We have the base game and the previous expansion, Plans and Ploys, in our game library. Arts & Architecture is designed by Jamey Stegmaier and Mike Young, with artwork by Andrew Bosley and landmark sculptures by Rom Brown. The expansion adds more of the familiar components: five new civilizations, six new capital city mats, 5 new landmark cards with landmarks, twenty new tapestry cards, and eleven new tech cards. Arts & Architecture also adds completely new features to the game, including an arts track with accompanying landmarks, twenty masterpiece cards, twenty inspiration tiles, and an upgraded science die to include iconography referencing the arts track.

The new arts development track is quite useful and thematically blends well with the overall concept of the game.

It gives you the opportunity to place more of your income buildings, score victory points for tech cards and exploration tiles, acquire masterpiece cards which provide benefits during income turns, and place inspiration tiles on your income mat over existing income tracks to improve the rewards gained during income turns. In the first few games I played (2 player), I concentrated heavily on the arts track, progressing to the end of it easily before game end, all the while also making steady progress on two of the base development tracks.

In the most recent game (4 player), I didn’t use the arts track much at all, which was a huge mistake, landing me in third place while the frontrunners leaned on the arts track significantly. I’ve previously noted in my review of Tapestry (https://www.thatswhatjennisaid.com/2020/07/board-game-review-tapestry.html) and Tapestry Plans and Ploys (https://www.thatswhatjennisaid.com/2020/12/board-game-review-tapestry-plans-and.html) that to win the game, you must diversify and progress on at least two tracks simultaneously, but to be careful trying to do much more than that or you’ll spread yourself too thin. With this expansion, I’ll amend that to note you’re unlikely to win the game unless you focus on the arts track as well as two of the base development tracks, as the arts track is really an enhancer for all the other tracks. It will be interesting to see how development track focus will need to be adapted when Stonemaier releases additional expansions for the game (anticipating a religion track at minimum; every civilization has its religious scholars).

The additions to the tapestry deck include a new ability type - continuous. These abilities begin when played and continue for the duration of the game instead of just the current era. There are also new tapestry cards that allow you to place landmarks on them for scoring as an alternative to placing the landmarks on the capital city (or on the map as some civ powers allow you to do). I did not have a chance to play any of the continuous tapestry cards during my recent games (although they look useful), and I passed over playing any of the landmark tapestry cards I acquired as they did not seem as beneficial as the other tapestry cards I had in my hand.  I don’t think I’m a big fan of any of the cards that let you place landmarks on the for points (including the new tech cards with this feature); I prefer to prioritize my city map for landmark placement first. Maybe I’m just doing it wrong, but I haven’t made use of my landmark cards at all, even in the games where I won by a large margin. They seem to be an entirely optional aspect of the game and not necessary for a win.

One more change with the Arts & Architecture expansion is another refinement of the civilization adjustments first introduced in the Plans and Ploys expansion. This fine tuning of civilization powers comes as a result of extensive real-world player testing and aims to rebalance the game for greater fairness. I think it might need further refinements because my husband Chris played the Architects civilization in our last game and the adjustment afforded him 30 VPs at the start of the game as some sort of handicap to balance out perceived weakness, but his city mat was so perfectly attuned to his civilization (the mesa) that he won in a landslide (80 points above the second place player).

Overall, I think that the Arts & Architecture expansion is a great addition to the Tapestry portfolio. It adds more variety, layers in additional ways to strategize and score, and provides some new opportunities for player interaction on the map, without causing any additional complexity. While it’s not a must have for the base game, it’s certainly a nice-to-have addition that I’m happy to recommend.

Beyond the details of the new expansion, I did want to take this opportunity to mention that with repeated plays of the base game as well as across the expansions, I’ve noticed that 4 player games are much more competitive than two player games (at least in our household). There isn’t a single time Chris and I have played the game by ourselves that I haven’t walloped him by 100+ points, yet when we play at 4 players, he has won twice or been neck in neck with the winner, whereas my scores are significantly lower. That’s got to be tied to the dynamics of how this game plays at higher player counts because it doesn’t make any sense that all on my own I could go from being a genius at 2 player to just average at 4 player.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Stonemaier Games
Players: 1-5 (We played with 2 and 4)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 3 hours per game
Game type: tile placement, hand management, dice rolling, area control
Retail Price: $45 direct from the publisher https://store.stonemaiergames.com/products/tapestry-arts-architecture

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

As you all know, I continue to use WordStar for DOS 7.0 as my word-processing program. It was last updated in December 1992, and the company that made it has been defunct for decades; the program is abandonware. There was no proper archive of WordStar for DOS 7.0 available online, so I decided to create […]

I’ve updated my WordStar for DOS 7.0 archive, based on feedback from the thousands of people who downloaded the initial public release (which was version 1.4, dated July 30, 2024).This new version is 1.5, dated August 12, 2024. The new version has the file size of the PDF manuals reduced (which cuts the archive size […]

For those actively following the World's news, here is our monthly quick reference to National Geographic maps which add perspective to today's news stories.

WORLD

The 8.8 Magnitude earthquake in Chile, has left substantial devastation to the port town on Concepcion and left thousands homeless in the Capital city of Santiago. Our recently updated South America Wall Map contains place names for most major and secondary cities, plus physical features, and major transportation networks.



When I first heard about the Tsunami threat for the Hawaiian Islands, Australia, Japan and the islands of the Pacific on Saturday, I turned to our World Pacific Centered wall map. Unlike the wall map you likely had hanging in your classroom, which was Atlantic Ocean centered, our Pacific Centered edition provides a seamless view of the entire Ocean. This different perspective made it easier to understand the path of the Tsunami waves and helped clarify why places such as the California, Oregon and Washington coasts were under the warning as well.

Beyond the Chilean earthquake, this winter seems especially harsh, and on Sunday, France and four other countries were battered by a deadly storm named "Xynthia". In its wake the storm left 51 dead, millions without power, and generated extensive property damage throughout the region. Winds in excess of 130MPH were recorded over the Pyrenees with 100 MPH gusts along the Atlantic coast. National Geographic has a collection of up-to-date reference maps for most of the countries in Europe including: France, Belgium & The Netherlands, Spain & Portugal, and Germany. Additionally we recently revised our Europe wall map, which is available in several styles.


US

Here on the home front, winter weather continued to make headlines last week with the Northeast receiving another record breaking snowfall. National Geographic publishes a wide variety of United States Wall Maps, varying in style, size, and format that will assist with following nearly any US based news story.

The Tsunami warning for the Hawaiian Islands last Saturday had me turning to one of our most beautiful wall maps, The Hawaiian Islands, which exposes the dramatic terrain of the ocean floor around the island chain.




SPORTS

Now that the Winter Olympics have concluded, it's time to turn our eyes south to Arizona and Florida as MLB Spring Training kicks off today. If you're heading to watch any of the games, we have two useful maps for your glovebox, the Florida State Guide Map and the Arizona State Guide Map. Both maps have up-to-date road networks for the State, plus detailed inset maps for the major cities, like the Spring Training hubs of Tampa, Ft. Myers, Scottsdale and Tucson. While I'm a big fan of GPS for turn-by-turn directions, sometimes its just a little faster to use a real map, and you certainly get a better perspective of what's ahead when on a road trip.



As always - we love to hear your comments, questions and ideas for future posts.

The first two panels of yesterday's SMBC: The last two: Back in 1979, David Macauley's Motel of the Mysteries had a much longer story to tell about archeologists' presuppositions. Macauley's plot loosely satirizes the work of Heinrich and Sophia Schliemann in excavating Troy, and also echoes Howard Carter's excavation of Tutankhamunn's tomb. It's 4022, and […]

Belgische architecte: 'We kunnen veel van de Chinezen leren'  De Tijd

If you'd like to subscribe to the newsletter, follow this link. You'll get around one newsletter per month. The newsletters have something about British–American linguistic relations (often linking to blog posts here), a bit about what I've been up to in my Lynneguist life (as well as things in the works), and links to things I've found interesting. 

Click here for the newsletter archive.

Twitter has been my main internet stomping ground since 2009, but I've been withdrawing my labo(u)r from it since October, when it became much more volatile for some reason. 

The New York Times Spelling Bee has been my morning-coffee activity for some of those years, and since November 2020 I've been jokingly tweeting the BrE words that it hasn't accepted. These go in a thread of posts that always start: 

Perfectly Common BrE Words the @NYTimesGames Spelling Bee Has Denied Me: An Occasional Series

Twitter has really degraded this week, which is making me feel a bit sad that perhaps that thread will have to die. (I'm also sad that the thread has frayed along the way—it's very difficult to read it all the way to the beginning because it splits here and there.) So as a clearly procrastinatory measure, I'm putting the list of "perfectly common BrE words" here, with a little more explanation than they tended to get on Twitter.

For those who don't know the Bee: it's an anagram game where one must use the middle letter. The twist—and what makes it a superior anagram game—is that you can use any of the letters as many times as you like. Here's what it looked like on the 5th of April when I hadn't yet got to Genius level.  (My goal every day is 'make it to Genius before breakfast'. It's nice to be called 'Genius' before you've started work.) 

The game, of course, has its own word list, which is suitably American for its New York Times home. Still, some not-usually-AmE words are playable, like FLATMATE, LORRY and PRAM. But many words that are part of my everyday vocabulary in England are not playable. And non-AmE spellings are generally not playable. 

There's been a lot of attention to AmE words that (orig. AmE) stump non-American players in Wordle. (Here's Cambridge Dictionary's 2022 Word of the Year post, which covers some—and includes a video in which I talk about why HOMER was a great choice for Word of the Year.) Not as much attention has been paid to the Spelling Bee, which you need to subscribe to. I'm sure British players have their own (mental) lists of American words they've had to learn in order to get "Queen Bee" status (finding all the day's words) in the game. If you're one of them, do use the comments to tell us about those weird words.

So, after all that preamble, here are the "Perfectly Common BrE Words the @NYTimesGames Spelling Bee Has Denied Me" words in alphabetical order, with translations or links to other blog posts. But first, a bit more preamble. The disclaimers! 

• Words in the puzzle must be at least four letters long, so some of these are suffixed forms for which the three-letter base word was unplayable. If there's an -ED form but not an -ING form (etc.), that'll be because the other one's letters weren't in the puzzle. 
• Some of these would not have been allowable—regardless of their dialectal provenance—on the basis that they are "naughty" words. I include them anyway. 
• I have checked questionable cases against the GloWbE corpus to ensure that the word really is more common in BrE than AmE.
• Some are Irish or Australian by origin, but they are still more common in BrE than in AmE.
• Sometimes my spelling is a bit liberal here. If I could find one British dictionary that allowed me the word with the given spelling, I included it.  
• Also the phrase "perfectly common" is not meant to be taken too seriously!
• These words were not playable at the time when I tried to play them. The word list may have changed and some of them may be playable now. 
• Red ones are ones that have been unsuccessfully played/tweeted about since I first started this blog list. Green ones have been added to the blog since the original post, but were tweeted-about earlier than that—I just missed them in the tangled Twitter threads when I was writing the blog post. 

AGGRO aggression, aggressive behavio[u]r

AITCH  the letter. Less need to spell it as a word in AmE. See this old post.

ANAEMIA / ANAEMIC  AmE anemia/anemic

ANNEXE  minority spelling in BrE; usually, as in AmE, it's annex

APNOEA  AmE apnea

APPAL   AmE appall; old post on double Ls

ARDOUR   old post on -or/-our

ARMOUR    -or/-our

BALLACHE   something annoying or tedious (usually hyphenated, but some dictionaries include the closed-up version)

BIBBED  I don't know why this shows up more in BrE data, but it does, just meaning 'wearing a bib'

BINMAN / BINMEN  AmE garbage man (among other terms); old post on bin

BINT  derogatory term for a woman

BITTY having lots of unconnected parts, often leaving one feeling unsatisfied; for example, this blog post is a bit bitty

BLAG covered in this old post

BLUB / BLUBBING to sob (= general English blubbering)

BOAK retch, vomit, throw up a bit in the mouth. That was gross. Sorry.

BOBBLY having bobbles 

BOBBY  I think this one might be playable now. Informal term for police officer. In AmE, found in bobby pins. 

BODGE / BODGED make or fix something badly

BOFFIN  see this old post

BOLLOCK / BOLLOCKED  reprimand severely

BOLLOX  This one's more common in Irish English than BrE. To screw something up.

BOKE   see BOAK 

BONCE  the head (informal)

BOYO a boy/man (Welsh informal)

BRILL  short for brilliant, meaning 'excellent'; also a kind of European flatfish

BROLLY  umbrella (informal)

BUNG / BUNGING to put (something) (somewhere) quickly/carelessly. People cooking on television are always bunging things in the oven. 

BUTTY  see this old post

CAFF  a café, but typically used of the kind that is analogous to an AmE diner (that is to say a café is not as fancy in BrE as it would be in AmE)

CAWL  a soupy Welsh dish (recipe); also a kind of basket

CEILIDH  a Scottish social dance (event)

CHANNELLED   post on double Ls

CHAPPIE  a chap (man)

CHAV / CHAVVY  see this old post and/or this one

CHICANE  a road arrangement meant to slow drivers down; see this old post

CHILLI  see this old post

CHIMENEA / CHIMINEA the 'e' spelling is considered etymologically "correct" but the 'i' spelling seems to be more common in UK; I think these kinds of outdoor fireplaces are just more trendy in UK than in US?

CHIPPIE alternative spelling of chippy, informal for a (fish and) chip shop

CHOLLA  a spelling of challah (the bread) 

CLAG  mud; more common is claggy for 'having a mud-like consistency'

COLOUR    -or/-our

CONNEXION this is a very outdated spelling of connection. Not actually used in UK these days, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to play it?

COOTCH  a hiding place, a shed or similar (from Welsh cwtch)

COUNCILLOR  post on double Ls

CRAIC it's really an Irish one (a 'good time'), but it qualifies here because it's used more in BrE than AmE (and understood pretty universally in UK)

CRIM  criminal

CUTTY  short (in some UK dialects)

DADO  as in dado rail, what's often called a chair rail in AmE (here's a picture)

DEFENCE  AmE defense

DEMOB /DEMOBBED  de-mobilize(d); that is, released from the (BrE) armed forces / (AmE) military

DENE  a valley (esp. a narrow, wooded one) or a low sand dune near the sea (regional)

DEVILLED  post on double Ls

DIALLING  post on double Ls

DIDDY    small (dialectal); see this old post

DOBBED / DOBBING  actually Australian, dob = to inform on someone; see this old post on the BrE equivalent grass (someone) up

DODDLE  it's a doddle  = (orig. AmE) it's a piece of cake (very easy)

DOOLALLY  out of one's mind

EQUALLED   post on double Ls

FAFF / FAFFING  one of the most useful BrE words. See this old post. 

FARL  a kind of (AmE) quick bread, usually cut into triangles; can be made of various things, but here's a recipe for a common kind, the potato farl

FAVOUR   -or/-our

FILMIC cinematic, relating to film

FITMENT = AmE fixture, i.e. a furnishing that is fit(ted) in place

FLANNELETTE = AmE flannel  old post on flannels

FLAVOUR   -or/-our

FLAVOURFUL   -or/-our

FOETAL AmE (and BrE medical) fetal

FOOTMAN a servant or (formerly soldier (of a particular rank)

FUELLED  post on double Ls

FULFIL   post on double Ls

GADGIE / GADGE guy, man, boy (regional)

GAMMON  this post covers the meat meaning, but lately it's also used as an insult for Brexiteers and their political similars

GAMMY  (of a body part) not working well; e.g., I have a gammy knee

GANNET a type of sea bird, but also BrE slang for a greedy person

GAOL  now less common spelling for jail

GIBBET  gallows; to hang (a person) [not really in current use]

GIGGED / GIGGING  to perform at a gig  [playable as of May 2023]

GILET   covered at this clothing post and also at this pronunciation post

GIPPING form of gip, a synonym of BOAK (see above)

GITE French, but used in English for a type of holiday/vacation cottage

GOBBED / GOBBING  form of gob, which as a noun means 'mouth', but as a verb means 'spit'

GOBBIN waste material from a mine

GOBBY mouthy

GOOLY (more often GOOLIE, GOOLEY) a testicle (informal, see GDoS)

GURN / GURNING  see this old post

HAITCH  = AITCH, but pronounced differently See this old post.

HALLO old-fashioned hello 

HENCH strong, fit (like a weightlifter)

HOLDALL  a duffel bag or similar heavy-duty bag; often spelled with a hyphen (hold-all), but at least some places don't. 

HOOPOE a kind of bird (mostly African), which sometimes makes it to England

HOGMANAY it is a proper noun, but I wanted to include it anyway

HOICK / HOIK  to lift/pull abruptly

HOTCHPOTCH  AmE hodgepodge

INNIT invariant tag question: isn't it? 

INVIGILATING AmE proctoring; old post

JAMMY  lucky; old post 

KIRK  church (Scotland)

KIPPING  form of kip, to take a nap

LAIRY  (esp. of a person) unpleasantly loud, garish 

LAMBING  form of to lamb, give birth to lambs. Often heard in lambing time or lambing season

LAMPED  form of to lamp, to hit a person very hard

LARKING  form of to lark,  'to behave in a silly way for fun'

LAYBY  AmE turnout (and other synonyms/regional terms); a place where a car can move out of the flow of traffic (usually has a hyphen lay-by, but I found one dictionary that doesn't require it)

LIDO an outdoor public swimming pool; there's some debate about how to pronounce it 

LILO  a blow-up mattress for floating on in a pool

LINO  short for linoleum

LOLLY  lollipop or (AmE) popsicle (especially in ice lolly)

LOVAGE  a(n) herb that Americans don't see very often  [has been added! Played successfully on 3 May 2023]

LUPIN  AmE lupine, a flower

LURGI / LURGY  see this old post

MEDIAEVAL  the less common spelling of medieval

MILLIARD  (no longer really used) a thousand million, i.e. a billion 

MILORD address term for a nobleman

MINGE  a woman's pubic hair/area (not flattering) 

MINGING  foul, bad smelling, ugly (rhymes with singing!)

MODELLED  post on double Ls

MOGGY  a cat (informal)

MOOB  man boob

MOULT    AmE molt (related to  -or/-our)

MOZZIE  mosquito

MUPPET in its lower-case BrE sense: 'idiot; incompetent person'

NAFF  this has come up in posts about 'untranslatables' and about a study that identified common BrE words Americans don't know

NAPPY AmE diaper

NAVVY  a manual labo(u)rer (old-fashioned)

NEEP  Scottish English for what the English call a swede and what Americans call a rutabaga (old post on the latter two)

NELLY in the BrE phrase not on your nelly (= AmE not on your life)

NIFFY unpleasant-smelling

NOBBLE  to unfairly influence an outcome; steal 

NOBBLY  alternative spelling of knobbly (which is more common in both AmE & BrE)

NONCY  adjective related to nonce (sex offender, p[a]edophile) 

NOWT  nothing (dialectal)

ODOUR    -or/-our

OFFENCE  AmE offense

OFFIE  short for BrE off-licence; AmE liquor store  (discussed a little in this old post) 

ORACY  the speaking version of literacy; in US education, it's called orality

PACY  having a good or exciting pace (e.g. a pacy whodunnit)

PAEDO  short for pa(e)dophile

PANTO see this post

PAPPED / PAPPING  from pap, to take paparazzi pictures

PARLOUR    -or/-our

PARP  a honking noise

PEDALLED   post on double Ls

PELMET  another one from the study that identified common BrE words Americans don't know

PENG  slang for 'excellent' 

PIEMAN / PIEMEN this one is usually two words (pie man), but I was able to find a dictionary that allowed it as a single word, so I added it to the list

PIPPED / PIPPING  pip = to defeat by a small amount; often heard in to be pipped at the post 

PITTA another spelling for pita, more in line with the BrE pronunciation of the word

PLAICE another one from the study that identified common BrE words Americans don't know

PLUMMY  see this post

PODGY  chubby

POMMY another Australian one, but English people know it because it's an insult directed at them, often in the phrase pommy bastard

PONCE / PONCY  see this post

PONGING horrible-smelling

POOED / POOING  see this post for the poo versus poop story

POOTLE to travel along at a leisurely speed

POPPADOM / POPPADUM anything to do with Indian food is going to be found more in UK than US

PORRIDGY  like porridge, which in AmE is oatmeal

PUFFA full form: puffa jacket; a kind of quilted jacket; it is a trademark, but used broadly; I did find it in one dictionary with a lower-case p

PUNNET  see this old post

RAILCARD  you buy one and it gives you discounts on train tickets

RANCOUR    -or/-our

RUMOUR     -or/-our

TANNOY  AmE loudspeaker, public address system  (originally a trademark, but now used generically)

TARTY dressed (etc.) in a provocative manner

TELLY  (orig.) AmE tv

TENCH a Eurasian fish

THALI  another Indian menu word 

THICKO  stupid person

TIDDY  small (dialectal) 

TIFFIN  usually referring to chocolate tiffin (recipe)

TINNING  AmE canning

TITBIT see this post

TITCH  a small person 

TIZZ = tizzy (to be in a tizz[y])

TOFF  an upper-class person (not a compliment)

TOMBOLA  see this post

TOTTED / TOTTING  see this post 

TOTTY  an objectifying term for (usually) a woman

TRUG  a kind of basket; these days, often a handled rubber container  

TUPPENCE  two pence

UNEQUALLED   post on double Ls

UNVETTED related to my 2008 Word of the Year 

VALOUR   -or/-our

VIVA  an oral exam (short for viva voce)

WANK / WANKING  my original Word of the Year (2006!)

WEEING  AmE peeing

WELLIE  / WELLY  a (BrE) wellington boot / (AmE) rubber boot

WHIN a plant (=furze, gorse)

WHINGE  AmE whine (complain)

WILLIE / WILLY  penis

WOAD a plant used to make blue dye

WOLD a clear, upland area (mostly in place names now)

WOOLLEN   post on double Ls

YOBBO / YOBBY  hooligan / hooliganish

YODELLED   post on double Ls

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ARCH, the National Respite Network and Resource Center in the United States of America identified that evidence-based research on respite care has, to large extent, been lacking. Across ages, needs and settings, respite is based upon the premise that providing caregivers periodic relief from daily, ongoing caregiving responsibilities will directly benefit them in terms of their physical health, immediate and long-term psychological health, and social-emotional relationships with family members. These benefits are assumed to result in secondary benefits for care receivers and even larger societal benefits in the form of cost benefits or improved employee productivity. Some research studies point to the merits of these assumptions. However, evidence-based research supporting this premise - or going beyond it to demonstrate how to best provide respite care that results in maximum benefits - has not been available. This report presents the findings of an expert panel composed of academics, researchers, service providers, advocates, policymakers and administrators representing a range of age groups, disabilities and professional disciplines. Over a period of 18 months the panel explored the current status of respite research, proposed strategies to overcome barriers to research, and developed a plan to encourage rigorous research in key areas.