Premier League news conferences: Tottenham, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man Utd, Man City – Live – BBC Sport

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Deutsche Welle

Published 6:41 a.m. ET Aug. 24, 2018

More than 300 firefighters scrambled to fight a violent blaze outside of Berlin on Friday, forcing the complete evacuation of the villages of Frohnsdorf, Klausdorf and Tiefenbrunnen. 

Loudspeaker announcements told residents to leave their homes and take only their most important possessions, such as identification papers and medicines.

Most of the 540 villagers stayed with relatives, officials said, although several had to spend the night at a town hall in the nearby village of Treuenbrietzen.

“We’ve had forest fires before but never of this magnitude,” said Treuenbrietzen Mayor Michael Knappe. 

Isolated showers were predicted for parts of Berlin and Brandenburg, but meteorologists could not predict whether the rain would fall on burning areas.

The fire has already begun to affect regional train traffic between Wannsee and Jüterbog, as well as some trains heading from the area throughout eastern Germany. The blaze has not, however, affected air travel into and out of Berlin airports. 

Later on Friday, Brandenburg Interior Minister Karl-Heinz Schröter told the press that the fire had been “dampened,” but that a decision as to whether residents would be allowed to return to the evacuated villages would not come before midday.

Christian Stein, a local official for the district of Potsdam-Mittelmark, told reporters that Thursday’s fires broke out in several places and had expanded to cover a total area of around 300 hectares, an area about the size of 400 football fields. Rising plumes of smoke were reportedly visible from as far as 10 kilometers (around 6 miles) away.

“Our main goal is still to protect the evacuated areas from the flames,” Stein said. “The fire still has not been pushed back, but it also hasn’t taken a building with it.”

Raimund Engel, the Brandenburg commissioner overseeing forest fires, however, said he was expecting major damage. The blaze had developed into a “full fire” that was no longer just burning the ground but had also spread into the treetops, he added.

Authorities also warned that strong winds could fan ash and smoke from the villages all the way to the southern districts of Berlin.

Brandenburg has endured a particularly hot summer this year, and rainfall has been scarce for several months. Vast areas have dried up as a result, increasing the risk of fires.

Engel also warned emergency services could face even greater risks the longer that fires continued to rage. The blaze is located in an area laden with munitions, located between the districts of Potsdam-Mittelmark and Teltow-Fläming. A regional control center for Brandenburg said there had already been multiple explosions. Undetonated World War II bombs are frequently unearthed in Germany. 

“There are places we cannot get to,” an emergency service spokesman said, adding that firefighters were forced to stay on cleared roads in some areas. 

This article originally appeared on DW.com. Its content was created separately to USA TODAY.

 

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What’s more adorable than dogs doing cute tricks? The answer is nothing.

This is probably why dog owners have taken to the #snootchallenge, the objective of which is to get your dog to run to you and put its snoot straight into a small circle. 

Simple concept, delightful results. 

This Golden Retriever nailed it. 

This puppy, not so much. But it’s still pretty darn cute.

Gunner knows his stuff!

You don’t need a snout to ace the challenge, honestly.

This is a good boy!

Just look at this little kissing buddy.

Doughnuts were actually made for the snoot challenge.

This Husky didn’t really get it, but it’s still the sweetest thing ever. 

Other species were also up to the task.

More content featuring tiny wet dog noses, please!

Yelibuya Island, Sierra Leone – Yelibuya, a small town in northwest Sierra Leone, is precariously perched on a sandy, waterlogged stretch of land that juts out where one of the country’s largest rivers, the Great Scarcies – also called the Kolente, yawns into the Atlantic Ocean.

Little more than a few straggly mangroves grows here.

Fresh food and water are imported, and everything from the town’s singular motorcycle to children’s clothes are covered in sticky sand.

But Yelibuya is bustling. 

It sits between the coastal cities of Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, and Conakry, the capital of Guinea, making it an important last stop on a long and historic trade route.

As you can see, there is no method for protection. And it gets worse every year. We only seek God’s protection.

Abdulai Bangura, elderly Yelibuya resident

A majority of the country’s fish and rice is harvested along the river.

With poor road networks, traders brave choppy waters on small canoes to buy Yelibuya’s fish in exchange for cassava leaf, groundnut, clothes, and building materials.

But life in the town is increasingly impossible; the island is going underwater.

Mangrove deforestation, coastal degradation and rising sea levels have led to dozens of homes being flooded each year. Residents make new ones, often on stilts, to lift them above the slush. 

While there’s no official government data on how much the water is rising, elders in the community estimate that the ocean has encroached inland at least 300 metres over the last 30 years. 

 

According to some estimates, Yelibuya will be completely submerged within two decades.

“As you can see, there is no method for protection,” says Abdulai Bangura, one of the town’s elders. “And it gets worse every year. We only seek God’s protection.”

Mohammed Salie Sesay has lived in Yelibuya for 20 years. He’s lost his home twice, most recently in July. Each time a home is demolished, he builds a new one on drier land with money he makes from daily fishing.

“I would leave, but my business is here, my wife is here, my kids are here. We’re fully dependent on the island,” he says.

Others have one foot in, the other out. 

Alpha Kamara moved to Yelibuya after the 11-year-long civil war and started a family. 

He considers the town his home but has moved to Freetown because of the flooding. Still, he spends half his time in Yelibuya, bringing with him fresh provisions from the mainland and returning with an abundance of cheap, desirable fish to sell in the capital. 

Yelibuya’s relies on imports.

Mohammed Lamin Kamara, a young man who sells fresh water from a neighbouring town at Yelibuya’s market, says: “I’ve built houses out of this business. It’s the main way I’ve made money. I’ve married because of this.”  

Because of climate change, Sierra Leone is expected to witness increased flooding and landslides, such as the Freetown disaster in 2017 that killed more than 1,000 people.

According to the United Nations Development Agency, West Africa is highly vulnerable to climate change, second only to some Pacific Island countries such as the Maldives.

The agency notes that Sierra Leone, despite only contributing .02 percent of global carbon emissions annually, will “severely bear the brunt of the impacts of climate change”.

The country has already experienced a nearly 1 degree Celsius temperature rise since the 1960s and is expected to experience another 1 to 2.5 degree increase by 2060.

Yelibuya’s residents are trying to adapt.

Two of the town’s most important structures, the clinic and the chief’s house, used to sit on the ocean’s edge. They’ve been moved further inland, towards the small mangrove forest. 

Despite being built on heavy cinderblocks however, the clinic is regularly flooded and the chief’s house looks out onto a sandy bank that is perpetually filled with water with the encroaching tide. 

The mangrove patch offers the only barrier between the town and the rising water. 

But because of wood harvesting, the patch is getting smaller. 

In a place with no electricity, no alternative natural fuel, and a constant need for rebuilding, mangrove wood is being used for current problems, rather than protecting against future challenges. 

Yet life goes on, with some recognising the economic opportunity of life on the island.

A bag of rice sells for Le110,000 ($14) in Sierra Leone, and Le325,000 ($40) in Conakry, so Sierra Leonean traders are choosing to live where they can trade upwards rather than settling in a less precarious, but less lucrative, location in the country’s relatively dry interior.

“This is a very important economic area, a very important military area,” explains Kelly Marah, the deputy in command for a navy outpost on the island.

He oversees a small fleet that chases illegal foreign fishing boats, a significant threat to Sierra Leone’s fishing industry.

Kandeh Yumkella, an MP who represents communities along the Scarcies, is trying to give Yelibuya a political voice.

A former UN under-secretary-general and presidential hopeful in the March 2018 elections, he proposes climate justice and private sector solutions. 

“We who pollute the least and make the least greenhouse gases will be most vulnerable,” Yumkella says.

Sierra Leone is a “carbon sink”, meaning the country absorbs more carbon than it emits, he says, adding that Yelibuya would benefit from global funding initiatives aimed at supporting climate-change victims.

“We have a real case where we need a systematic relocation of people who are vulnerable to climate change. Where we get money, and how we do that, can demonstrate to the global community how to do this.”

Climate funds could be used to build schools and a clinic in nearby Mahayla to encourage people to leave the sinking town, he suggests.

But he also wants climate funds to spur development. 

“Aid must bring capacity, global knowledge systems, and build infrastructure and institutions, so that people can reach their entrepreneurial potential,” he says. “This is about creating markets and competitive infrastructure. This is about making money.” 

He has plans for new jetties and fish manufacturing plants that he says will help Great Scarcies communities package and ultimately export their commodities. 

When Al Jazeera visited Yelibuya in July, Yumkella was on the island with a Sierra Leonean-American businessman interested in commercial fishing. 

“We’re not asking for handouts,”Yumkella says. “This place has potential,”.

For now, though, Yelibuya exists in in a liminal state.

It is fully dependent on water, and is being overtaken by it.

A cousin of Manchester City owner Sheik Mansour failed with a record £2bn takeover bid for Liverpool this year.

A Liverpool source told BBC Sport the club was not for sale and there were no ongoing discussions with any group.

They said club owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) regularly receive “proposals of interest”, and this approach had not reached them directly.

Instead the interest was dealt with by a financial services company acting as a “filter and sounding board”.

Regarding the £2bn valuation, a Liverpool source said that “would not be something FSG or any individual owner will have set”.

They added: “Any discussion of figures and valuations should be seen in the context that it was at a vetting process to weigh up credibility of the proposed investor and nothing more.”

However, Liverpool’s owners have said they would “under the right terms and conditions consider taking on a minority investor, if such a partnership was to further our commercial interests in specific market places, in line with the continued development and growth of the club”.

A Daily Mail report on Thursday said Sheikh Khaled Bin Zayed Al Nehayan approached the Premier League club over several months into late 2017 and early 2018, and that any buyout would also have involved another Chinese investor.

The report also said Midhat Kidwai, the managing director of Bin Zayed Group, Sheikh Khaled’s conglomerate of companies, met Liverpool chairman Tom Werner in New York, United States.

The Anfield club source said that meeting “would have been largely coincidental” and “not specifically arranged”, adding that John Henry and Mike Gordon are the two biggest shareholders in Liverpool and “their absence from any discussions is significant”.

Liverpool were bought by their owners, then known as New England Sports Ventures, for £300m in 2010.

Malcolm Glazer’s £790m purchase of Premier League rivals Manchester United in 2005 remains the most expensive football takeover deal.

United were in May valued at around £2.93bn by business services group KPMG – more than Spanish giants Real Madrid (£2.63bn) and Barcelona (£2.5bn), and German club Bayern Munich (£2.3bn).

Liverpool were valued at £1.42bn, Manchester City at £1.94bn, Arsenal £1.89bn, Chelsea £1.58bn and Tottenham £1.16bn.

HONOLULU, Hawaii — Hurricane Lane weakened late Thursday to a Category 3 hurricane as it continued its pass by the Hawaiian Islands. Even so, flooding, high winds and landslides remained a major concern.

The greatest threat of rain and wind has shifted to the islands of Maui and Oahu through Friday, the National Weather Service said, with winds as high as 120 mph a possibility.

More: Shelter shortage? Hawaiian officials face questions as Hurricane Lane approaches

Related: As Hurricane Lane approaches Hawaii, Kilauea volcano simmers down

The hurricane began to pass to the west of the Big Island of Hawaii on Thursday and, by 5 p.m. local time, the NWS had downgraded the danger level for the area to a tropical storm warning.

Five people had to be rescued from a flooded house in Hilo on the east side of the island of Hawaii on Thursday. Two campers who were trapped overnight in the Waipio Valley had to be rescued by helicopter.

The storm was still some 250 miles from the island of Oahu, and the state capitol Honolulu, and both Oahu and Maui were still under a hurricane warnings late Thursday night local time

Lane’s center is predicted to move over or dangerously near the island on Friday.

‘A new experience’

At 4 p.m. Thursday, officials activated emergency siren systems on Oahu to provide an additional hurricane warning. 

The eerie wail of the sirens blasted through Honolulu on a somewhat windy but still warm and inviting afternoon. The streets near Waikiki Beach were full of tourists busily taking pictures in front of high waves and the Weather Channel team that had set up on the beach in front of the Hilton Hawaii Village. 

Most took the extreme weather event in stride. 

“It’s a new experience; I never expected to live through a hurricane,” said Kelly Scholten of Waupun, Wisconsin. She and her daughters had walked from the hotel to take photos of the increasingly high waves crashing into the seawall hear Waikiki Beach. 

“Our hotel, the Ilikai, has been really good. We reserved three more nights in case our plane can’t get out on Saturday. But they said if we could get out earlier they wouldn’t charge us. And they’ve been keeping us really up to date with the storm. We even get messages about it slipped under our door,” Scholten said.  

Hurricane Honeymoon

A couple from Australia who’d planned their dream wedding in Hawaii had slightly different nuptials than planned — though they seemed undaunted by the experience Thursday night as they walked to the beach to take photos just after their hurried wedding.

“We definitely did not expect this. It was a bit touch-and-go,” said Jayde Dixon, 25.

“Our ceremony was supposed to happen at 5 o’clock at a chapel across town. But then last night they rang us up and said they were moving the whole thing to 3 to be safe. And moving it to the Hilton where we’re staying.”

The couple, from Townsville, Australia, had 15 friends and family with them. 

“Not sure when they’ll get home. They were supposed to fly out tomorrow but now they’re staying,” because their flights have been cancelled, said Jamie Dixon, 28.

The newlyweds are staying in Hawaii for their honeymoon and were looking forward to it. 

“As long as the wedding happened in Hawaii, the rest doesn’t matter,” said Jamie.

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There are some things that you either get straight away, or you don’t get at all.

The viral video below, in which Twitter user @kay_dera demonstrates a slightly mind-boggling hand swap trick, is the perfect example of this.

Pay close attention:

Did you get it?

Well, some people had it instantly.

Others, meanwhile, were less sure.

For anyone still wondering what the heck is going on, here’s a handy slow-mo.

Yep: all you have to do is straighten the hand at the back, and clench the one at the front into a fist.

Now go forth and impress the world.

Belgian Grand Prix first and second practice – Live – BBC Sport

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CLEVELAND — There they were. The best team from last season versus the worst, facing off in the third week of the preseason, which is traditionally the dress rehearsal for the regular season.

 

But neither the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, nor the cellar-dweller Cleveland Browns closely resembled their 2017 forms Thursday night at First Energy Stadium. For the Browns, that’s a good thing, but for the Eagles, that’s troubling.

You see, for all the optimistic buzz surrounding the Browns this offseason and preseason, there’s equally as much uncertainty overshadowing the Eagles just weeks away from the season opener.

Make no mistake, fireworks proved scarce in the Browns’ 5-0 win over the visiting Eagles. (No, that’s not a typo or the score from an Indians-Phillies matchup). And it’s the preseason, where nothing is ever as bad as it seems, and scarcely as good as they appear.

But the Browns’ trajectory seemingly continued upward, while the Eagles remained stagnant and coach Doug Pederson left the stadium with more frustrations and questions than anyone would have expected when training camp kicked off nearly a month ago.

Pederson and his players have long maintained that they can’t rest on their Lombardi Trophy laurels. It’s a new year, they said from the time that they reported for spring practices, and they maintained that message as training camp began.

The Eagles understood that things change far too quickly in this league, and although the New England Patriots make it look easy, it’s far more difficult to remain atop the heap than it is to ascend from the basement. 

But no one in the organization anticipated the struggles we’ve seen from Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles and the offense. Thursday, instead of taking steps forward, Foles & Co. regressed.

No one could explain a first-half performance that featured two Foles interceptions, a fumble, a safety, a turnover on downs, and a fumble by running back Matt Jones.

“It’s not fun playing the way I did. I really hurt us tonight,” Foles admitted after the game.

And exiting halftime, Pederson vented to Fox reporter Erin Andrews about Foles, saying, “I don’t know (what’s wrong with him). It’s very disappointing. He was calm before this game, I thought he would settle in. Not the case.”

But Pederson had cooled off for his postgame press conference saying, “First of all, I’m disappointed in the offense. I don’t want to single out one player, so don’t put this all on Nick. I’m disappointed in the offense. It’s obviously not what you want in the third preseason week.”

MORE NFL:

Again, it’s important to remember that it’s the preseason, where teams do little game-planning and studying of an opponent, and play-callers keep their schemes simple. And five would-be starters (quarterback Carson Wentz, running back Jay Ajayi, receivers Alshon Jeffery and Nelson Agholor and left tackle Jason Peters) did not suit up. There was so much shuffling that left guard Isaac Seumalo also wound up lining up at center, left tackle and tight end during the first half.

But it’s how the Eagles played — and have played throughout the preseason – that proved concerning and frustrating for Pederson. Tight end Zach Ertz said it best when he said, “everyone is pressing.”

That’s not good. Throughout their improbable run to the Super Bowl, the Eagles were as loose a team as the postseason has ever seen. They donned rubber dog masks, embracing their underdog billing. They danced, they rapped and sang, and on the field they flew around on defense and on offense. They generated fireworks, running all kinds of creative plays.

But now that they’re pressing, the Eagles are playing into the skepticism that numerous league insiders had about them entering this season.

How would this team handle prosperity? Will these players, most of whom had never experienced postseason success, manage to maintain the same kind of hunger post-Super Bowl? Can they maintain the same high level of play under the weight of expectations?

Perhaps the Eagles will flip the switch once back to full strength on their Sept. 6 season opener against Atlanta. But much work — as much mental as physical — lies ahead in a short amount of time.

Meanwhile, it feels like the Browns have already flipped their switch. This doesn’t feel like the train wreck of a team from the last two years (1-15 in 2016, 0-16 last year). The perception has changed thanks to the credibility new general manager John Dorsey, his staff, and plentiful talent acquisitions now offer.

The offense on Thursday lacked the consistency that we’ve seen the first two weeks of the preseason, but quarterbacks Tyrod Taylor and Baker Mayfield, wide receiver Jarvis Landry and running backs Carlos Hyde and Nick Chubb still flashed.

One NFC scout attending the game offered his take on the new-look Browns, saying, “There’s a lot of talent across the board here now. They’ll be able to hurt you in a lot of ways.”

And to go with all that offensive talent, the Browns have a defense seemingly primed for a sizable leap. Through three games, the defensive starters have yielded no touchdowns and just one field goal. Thursday represented a continuation of the preseason dominance.

Second-year pass-rusher Myles Garrett with his two sacks (one for the safety), three tackles and two quarterback pressures is primed for a dominant run, and his teammates, both on the front end and the secondary are playing with a new confidence.

Garrett and safety Jabrill Peppers say the attitude and aggression with which their unit is now playing stems from the comfort they have in their second season under defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. This year, Williams has been less restrictive of his players. He has given them more freedom in the scheme, and now that they are playing more instinctively, the impact has intensified.

But how do we know this apparent ascension is real and not just preseason fool’s gold?

“It’s just a different vibe that we’re playing with,” defensive lineman Larry Ogunjobi said. “We’re way more confident.”

Explained Garrett, “You know it’s real because those guys aren’t playing around. They want to win as much as us, and even though it’s just one half, they’re giving their all, and so are we. I don’t think we’ve ever held anybody to zero, and they didn’t have some of their starters, but it was an impressive showing by the defense to hold them out of the end zone, and not even give up a field goal, whether it’s preseason or regular season, and I know we can improve.”

Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Mike Jones on Twitter @ByMikeJones.

If you love talking football, we have the perfect spot for you. Join our new Facebook Group, The Ruling Off the Field, to engage in friendly debate and conversation with fellow football fans and our NFL insiders.

It was a Thursday night and I had a date. Or, so I thought. 

Instead, I had an experience of something so strange that I’ve decided it needs a name: “cloaking.” 

I grabbed my backpack, donned my headphones, and blasted my pre-date anthem (Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman,” fyi) as I fired off a hurried WhatsApp to the man I was having dinner with. “Hey! So I’m leaving the office now. Will probs get there in like 20 mins,” I typed and hit send. 

Matthew (not his real name) had asked me to dinner earlier that week after we’d matched on Hinge. We bonded over our shared love of pasta and hatched a plan to go to Padella in Borough Market, London.

But, days after popping the pasta question, I was standing in line at the restaurant, staring ahead in the hope that I’d spot my date’s face in the crowd.

Thirty minutes had now passed since I’d sent my first WhatsApp, but when I checked if my match had read the message, I noticed something. Instead of the usual comforting double tick, there was just one lonesome tick. I text my friend to ask what it meant: “It means it hasn’t been delivered. He’s prolly still on the Tube, though!” I tried to iMessage him, but my message turned green rather than the usual blue. 

Then, when I opened Hinge, our conversation — which had once been peppered with dozens of flirty messages — was completely erased. I tapped out of the conversation and into my list of matches. Matthew was gone. 

“Oh my god,” I whispered to myself, my heart beating fast inside my chest. I jumped out of the queue and into the crowded street. People were whirling around me as I scrambled to find a way of contacting the man who almost certainly wasn’t joining me for dinner. I put my phone to my ear as I tried calling my absent date, but — as you can probably guess — it went straight to voicemail. 

Image: rachel thompson / mashable

This cannot be happening, I thought to myself. I texted my best friend Elisha to ask what I should do. “Have a glass of wine and see what happens in the next 20 mins or so,” she told me. So that’s what I did. As I nervously necked a £10 glass of rosé, I studied the WhatsApp messages Matthew and I had exchanged for clues. He’d been the driving force behind this date: he asked me out; he followed up on Hinge the night before; and he text me on the morning we were due to meet.

I just couldn’t figure out how we could go from extolling burrata to, well, blocked, in the space of a few hours. 

Had I said something to offend Matthew? Had this all been an elaborate set-up? Had I been catfished? 

“Still nothing?” Elisha text me. “Wanna come have dinner with me?” I hopped in an Uber moments later, and my driver, Bashir, asked me how I was. “I’m so angry for you!” he told me after I’d explained what’d happened. “People have no respect.” Seriously though, they really don’t. 

I, too, was angry now. Seething, in fact. Problem was: ordinarily, when someone upsets me, I confront them. I choose a mode of communication — text, WhatsApp, call, Slack, you name it — and I talk it out. But, Matthew had cut me off. 

Because Matthew had completely vanished without a trace, it didn’t feel entirely accurate to use the term “stood up”. This was like a strange and deeply upsetting synthesis of ghosting and getting stood up. 

The thing about Hinge is: when you match with someone, you get their full name. After a bit of not-very-arduous sleuthing, I found his Facebook profile. Next day, I decided to drop Matthew a message on Facebook. I thought long and hard about what I might say to this person, but the only thing I really needed to convey to him was the message that it’s really not OK to treat someone like this. 

Even if he never read it, I just knew it wouldn’t sit right with me if I didn’t get to have my say. 

Image: rachel thompson / mashable

After I sent the message, I felt a weight lift off of me. But, part of me was curious: had other people been blocked by their online matches before a date? Was this a thing? I’ve been ghosted, breadcrumbed, stashed, orbited, you name it, it’s happened to me. But this was a new one.

Eddy (who prefers to use her first name only) says she matched on Tinder with a guy who “ticked a lot of boxes” for her and they spent a few weeks talking on the app before exchanging numbers. 

“We WhatsApped for about a week and set a date for the Saturday — just a glass of wine in town — he even confirmed the date the day before!” says Eddy. 

But, when it came to the day of the actual date, things went awry. “I rocked up to our agreed meeting place and waited inside as discussed,” she says. “Ordered a drink so I didn’t look like a total loser and waited… and waited.” 

After 20 minutes, she realised that her date was a no-show and, at that point, she decided to message him. “I sent a message asking what was going on and what was he playing at?” Eddy explains. “Said that if he’d changed his mind then that was fine but he could at least have had the courtesy and respect for me to have said beforehand.”

Eddy’s Tinder match read the message and promptly blocked her on WhatsApp. She never heard from him again. 

The same thing happened to Shruti (who also prefers to use first names only). After matching with a guy on Bumble early in the work week, she began chatting regularly with him. “Conversation was interesting and he was funny,” says Shruti. “He was responsive — no long pauses, non sequiturs, asked about my life too, flirty but not inappropriate, no dick pics.”

“When I checked to see whether he had sent a message on Bumble instead, I found that he had unmatched me”

They chatted all day every day for three or four days and they decided to meet on the Friday for a drink. 

“I had terrible service in the bar so I couldn’t check my phone without leaving the bar,” says Shruti. “After about 15min I tried sending him a text just to confirm it was the right bar and then I went back in and ordered a drink.”

She says she took her time, and assured herself that her date had perhaps got caught in rush hour traffic. At the 45 minute mark, Shruti says her drink was gone and her date was nowhere to be seen. 

“When I checked to see whether he had sent a message on Bumble instead, I found that he had unmatched me sometime after we confirmed [the date],” says Shruti. “I know because I looked at his profile to make sure I’d recognise him.”

Shruti says she sent him a message afterwards but didn’t get a response. “Shocker!” she said. 

David (who’s using his first name only) matched with a woman on Tinder and they agreed to go for a drink together. “We had been texting each other all day saying ‘looking forward to it’, etc., then 30 minutes after she was due to arrive, I called but got no answer,” says David. At around the 30 minute mark, he says he “had a fair idea” that his date wasn’t coming. But, when he checked WhatsApp and discovered he’d been blocked, this vague idea turned into a certainty. 

He chose not to send a message to his Tinder match afterwards because he felt “quite mortified” and he “didn’t see the point.”  

This activity sadly seems to be something swipers are having to contend with. But, neither “ghosting” nor “stood up” quite do justice to this strange and upsetting phenomenon? 

Given that these people essentially don an invisibility cloak after setting up a date, perhaps the term “cloaking” sums up this practise. 

Vocabulary aside, though, cloaking (or whatever you want to call it) is a horrible, disrespectful act. If you’ve changed your mind about a date, have the decency to tell the person. It’s the right thing to do.