Nokia's Lumia 1520 is the latest massive 'phablet'

Nokia Lumia 1520 phablet takes Windows Phone 8 to 6in.

Nokia announced its largest Windows Phone to date on Tuesday, revealing a 6in full HD-screen Lumia 1520 phablet with a 20-megapixel PureView Camera.

The Lumia 1520 comes less than one month after the release of Samsung's latest in its popular phablet series, the Galaxy Note 3, which garnered much attention for its 5.7in screen and S-Pen stylus, and takes Windows Phone to new screen sizes and into a new category.

Nokia's solidly built and colourful phablet - an oversized smartphone, or small tablet - resembles the slim profile and colourful polycarbonate design of its smaller Lumia 1020 and 925 Windows Phone brothers, but features a 6in full HD screen that makes watching movies and Office productivity easier.

High-end specifications

The Lumia 1520 packs high-end internal parts, with a top-of-the-line 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 and 2GB of RAM, which should easily be able to handle multi-tasking and demanding apps and games. A built-in 3,400 mAh battery with wireless charging provides up to nine hours video playback or 29 days standby time.

To store music, movies, apps and games, Nokia equipped the 1520 with 32GB of storage as standard, plus a micro SD card slot for adding up to 64GB of extra storage. Microsoft is also bundling 7GB of SkyDrive cloud storage with each 1520.

Nokia Lumia 1520 phablet stretches Windows Phone 8 to a 6in screen with more real estate for watching movies and Office duties.

Nokia also brings some technology from its top camera phone, the Lumia 1020, to the 1520. Eschewing the 41-megapixel sensor for a smaller 20-megapixel camera, the 1520 has optical stabilisation and oversampling technology for a two-times lossless digital zoom and shake-free pictures, which should make indoor low-light photos better with less blur and noise.

Using the 20-megapixel camera, Nokia has also added the ability to refocus a picture after taking it, using some clever Nokia-developed software algorithms, while the new Story Teller app allows you to browse your photos in a timeline and across map locations provided by Nokia's HERE maps. 

Stiff competition

The Lumia 1520 joins a raft of new phablets that have launched this year, including stiff competition from the 5.7in Samsung Galaxy Note 3, the 5.9in HTC One Max and 6.44in Sony Xperia Z Ultra.

"There are two markets for the phablet – the multimedia market, where the cheapest, largest screen wins, and the professional market, where the phablet with the most value-added features triumphs," said Francisco Jeronimo, research director of European mobile devices for research firm IDC, talking to the Guardian.

Samsung's Galaxy Note line of devices differentiate themselves from the phablet competition, including Nokia's new Lumia 1520, by employing a feature-packed stylus that allows both drawing on the screen and provides multiple multi-tasking modes such as Samsung's multi-window.

According to Jeronimo, it is these value-added features that attract the highly lucrative professional market

"The stylus tips the buyer in the Note's favour at the point of sale because, despite whether or not they will ever use the features, the more features available the more attractive the proposition when the price is equal," he said.

Lumia 1320 the more budget phablet

To partner the 1520, Nokia is also launching a more budget phablet, the 1320, which has a lower resolution 720p 6in screen, a slower 1.7GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage with a micro SD slot.

The 1320 mirrors the design language of Nokia's more affordable Lumia 625, with rounded corners and sports a traditional 5-megapixel camera without Nokia's PureView imaging technology.

Phablets outpacing PCs

Market watchers predicted that 2013 would be “the year of the phablet” in January, after analysing the rapid rise of the large-screened phones in 2012.

Phablet shipments outpaced tablets and portable PCs in the last year in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan), with a total of 25.2m phablets shipped compared to 12.6m tablets (over 7in) and 12.7m portable PCs, according data from IDC.

While phablet shipments are still a small proportion of overall global smartphone shipments, they are seeing a marked increase in sales according to IDC's data.

Rihanna's hot leads beat Thai crime

Rihanna, the hottest lead in town for Thai police. Photograph: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

To Thailand, and the latest spinoff of the Crime Scene Investigation series. CSI Rihanna has been underway for a few weeks now, as the Thai police appear to regard the singer's social media output as the hottest lead in town.

To date, three Thai men have been arrested following unwitting tip-offs by Rihanna. The first two were picked up a couple of weeks ago, after madam posted a snap of her posing with a slow loris, which is a protected species. Then just the other day, she took to Twitter to opine: "Either I was phuck wasted last night, or I saw a woman pull a live bird, 2 turtles, razors, shoot darts and ping pong, all out of her pu$$y." (Thailand must be ahead of us on Downton.) Without further ado, the police swooped on the Phuket bar in question, and the owner is now up on charges too.

As for Rihanna, she has yet to request assistance from the witness protection programme, but hats off to her record company for realising that police snitch is her most intriguing pose yet.

Single women: how to be happy, dating or alone

Life goes on: Rachel from Friends, Betty from The Golden Girls and Carrie from Sex and the City. Photograph: Channel 4/Getty/NBC

Times have never been better for single women. Long gone are the days when we needed a man to pay the bills and protect us, and our social status was dependent on our spouse. Despite the recent return ofBridget Jones, there are single people of all ages out there going about their business and enjoying themselves, and the word spinster has pretty much been outlawed. And yet, says Zoe Strimpel, who is organising a discussion on the topic at this year's Cambridge Festival of Ideas, being unattached and over 30 remains a source of anxiety for many. Concerns range from mass hysteria over biological clocks through to fear of coping alone in old age, via unhelpful stereotypes of cat ladies and cougars. "Sometimes it's hard to know how to be a neutral single woman," says Strimpel. Joining her in discussion will be relationship counsellor Susan Quilliam, psychologist Cecilia d'Felice and authority on sexual matters, Rowan Pelling. Here is a preview of key tips from the event, entitled How to be a Single Woman in 2013, Whether You're 25 or 60, along with some thoughts from happily single women.

Age 20-30

Don't feel obliged to regale your coupled-up friends with wild tales from dating's front line. There's an immense pressure to be showily "single and loving it", says Strimpel, whose book The Man Diet was published last year. "I have heard some distressing sexual things women have reluctantly done in the name of fun," she adds, "such as going home with unfriendly randoms only to be secretly appalled by their callous and unattractive behaviour, the porn pop ups carelessly left flashing on their laptop." People expect that their single friends will want to talk about men, whether it's about sex, or deconstructing their behaviour per se, "but the more you talk about something, the more entrenched in your mind it becomes," breeding unhealthy obsessions, says Strimpel.

Engage in lofty activities. When you've been burning the candle in search of romance, only to find yourself exhausted and so very tired of bad sex, try staying in to read War and Peace instead. That's what Strimpel did, and it helped her gain some perspective. "I felt so smug," she says, "I couldn't believe that I had bothered with these losers when I was now too busy contemplating the battle of Borodino in 1812."

30-40

Don't feel like a failure; seize the opportunity to find yourself instead. "When you're in a relationship it's very hard to see yourself clearly because you're constantly in response to your partner," says d'Felice. Whereas when you're single, you can take stock, learn from your mistakes and work out what you want for the future. "Particularly for women who have been conditioned to be givers rather than takers," she adds, it's an opportunity to put ourselves first. "This is not an act of selfishness," she says. "It's a very important act of selfhood."

Contentment is key. Tina Andrews, who has been single for a decade, points out that there are happy and unhappy people in and out ofrelationships. "For me it's about being content and, hopefully, that takes you on the right path. I see more pain and misery from women who think they should be in a relationship, who put themselves out there to be knocked back, and lose a sense of themselves. I think: you've wasted 10 years trying to find a man while I've enjoyed myself."

Avoid women's magazines. Patti Burton, a charity manager who has been single for more than 20 years, cites her disinterest in glossy articles "aimed at people who are part of couples", as one of the reasons she has never felt any stigma about her relationship status.

40-50

Don't be afraid of 40. Andrews felt in the run-up that her options were falling away, but then realised: "I actually don't care. I don't have the urge to have a family, and I don't see 40 as the end of that anyway. As we grow up, our expectations of certain ages change. It's the Friends generation turning into the Sex and the City generation, moving into the Golden Girls. Life continues at all these ages."

Internet dating has brought new opportunities for single women. Photograph: Brian Jackson/Alamy

Give thanks that you're among the last generations who didn't learn about sex from internet porn. "You know sex is a fun, amateur sport, and that's a great blessing," says Pelling.

Single mums can have fun, too. "Of my friends who wanted to be older mums," says Pelling, "more of them had children than not, despite everyone saying their chances were about 2%." And those who went for it on their own with sperm-donor dads are still dating. "The biggest change is internet dating, so you don't have to join the amateur dramatics society and the tennis club any more to meet people."

50-60

Women do not become invisible in middle age. Says Pelling: "some of the most attractive, lusted-after women I know are in their 50s. It's up to you whether you think it's time to withdraw." You do, however, have to be robust in the face of those who want to knock women down. "But it's not as if we're dressing to attract people of 28. … Why should we have to not be a sexual person just because we're on the wrong side of 45?"

Don't be hemmed in by cliches. You can't stop people using labels, such as cougar, says Pelling. "Culturally, we're much worse than, say, the French about older people having sex. Everyone in France expects glamorous 60-year-olds will be, but we're sort of still coping with the idea. There are a load of unpleasant terms out there but it'll get you nowhere having any anxiety about those."

60 plus

Don't take the decreasing numbers of men personally. "Be realistic," says Quilliam, "and face the fact that there are fewer men than there once were and you'll probably live longer than most of them."

Enjoy not having to pick up anyone's pants any more. When her marriage ended, Burton (now 65) assumed she'd eventually have another live-in relationship but what has largely been on offer is "lonely men who need looking after. I've got three children and six grandchildren – I do not need a middle-aged man to look after".

Use a condom. Along with the increasing sexual activity in 50- to 90-year-olds (80% are sexually active), figures published in the British Medical Journal last year showed that STDS in this age group have doubled in a decade.

All ages
Be positive, says Quilliam, "if for no other reason than bitterness is not a good look – to attract a partner, for your friends to hang round and, most importantly, for you." Don't spend the rest of your life saying "... the bastard's robbed me". Do whatever it takes to move on: counselling, talking to friends, rethinking your life.

Be self-determining. It's very easy to be passive, says Quilliam. If you want a partner, try internet dating, or taking other active steps to find one. And if you want to stay single, or have a string of casual affairs, go for it. You now have the freedom.

Connect in a way that's right for you. Burton gets all the human warmth she needs from her family. Or gather friends around you, says Quilliam: "You can get most of what you want from people other than a partner."

Finally, Quilliam quotes the words that poet Seamus Heaney texted to his wife last month when he was on the brink of death and she was facing widowhood: "nolle timere" (don't be afraid). "The key thing about being single is don't be frightened. In today's world as a woman, you have huge status, you can manage on your own, you can chose to build your own life."

JP Morgan's troubles reignite the debate on banks too big to fail

JP Morgan Chase is too big to be managed well, even by CEO Jamie Dimon, whose fiercest critics do not accuse him of incompetence. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America

JP Morgan Chase has had a bad year. Not only has the bank just reported its first quarterly loss in more than a decade; it has also agreed to a tentative deal to pay a fine of $13bn to the US government as punishment for mis-selling mortgage-backed securities. Other big legal and regulatory costs loom. JP Morgan will bounce back, of course, but its travails have reopened the debate about what to do with banks that are "too big to fail".

In the United States, policymakers chose to include the Volcker rule (named after former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker) in the Dodd-Frank Act, thereby restricting proprietary trading by commercial banks rather than reviving some form of the Glass-Steagall Act's division of investment and retail banks. But senators Elizabeth Warren and John McCain, a powerful duo, have returned to the fight. They argue that recent events have shown that JP Morgan is too big to be managed well, even by CEO Jamie Dimon, whose fiercest critics do not accuse him of incompetence.

Nonetheless, the Warren-McCain bill is unlikely to be enacted soon, if only because President Barack Obama's administration is preoccupied with keeping the government open and paying its bills, while bipartisan agreement on what day of the week it is, let alone on further financial reform, cannot be guaranteed. But the question of what to do about huge, complex, and seemingly hard-to-control universal banks that benefit from implicit state support remains unresolved.

The "school solution," agreed at the Financial Stability Board in Basel, is that global regulators should clearly identify systemically significant banks and impose tougher regulations on them, with more intensive supervision and higher capital ratios. That has been done.

Initially, 29 such banks were designated, together with a few insurers – none of which like the company that they are obliged to keep! There is a procedure for promotion and relegation, like in national football leagues, so the number fluctuates periodically. Banks on the list must keep higher reserves, and maintain more liquidity, reflecting their status as systemically important institutions. They must also prepare what are colloquially known as "living wills", which explain how they would be wound down in a crisis – ideally without taxpayer support.

But, while all major countries are signed up to this approach, many of them think that more is needed. The US now has its Volcker rule (though disputes between banks and regulators about just how to define it continue). Elsewhere, more intrusive rules are being implemented, or are under consideration.

In the United Kingdom, the government created the Vickers commission to recommend a solution. Its members proposed that universal banks be obliged to set up ringfenced retail-banking subsidiaries with a much higher share of equity capital. Only the retail subsidiaries would be permitted to rely on the central bank for lender-of-last-resort support.

A version of the Vickers report's recommendations, which is somewhat more flexible than its members proposed, is in a banking bill currently before parliament. A number of MPs want to impose tighter restrictions, and it is difficult to find anyone who will speak up for the banks, so some form of the bill is likely to pass, and big British banks will have to divide their operations and their capital.

The UK has decided to take action before any Europe-wide solution is agreed. We British are still members of the European Union (at least for the time being), but sometimes our politicians forget that. Sometimes they simply lose patience with the difficulty of agreeing on changes in negotiations that involve 28 countries, which seems especially true of financial reform, given that many of these countries are not home to systemically important banks and probably never will be.

But EU institutions have not been entirely inactive. The European Commission asked an eminent-persons group, chaired by Erkki Liikanen, the head of the Finnish central bank, to examine this issue on a European scale.

The group's report, published in October 2012, came to a similar conclusion as the Vickers Commission concerning the danger of brigading retail and investment banking activities in the same legal entity, and recommended separating the two. The proposal mirrors the UK plan – the investment-banking and trading arms, not the retail side, would be ring-fenced – but the end point would be quite similar.

But the European Banking Federation has dug in its heels, describing the recommendations as "completely unnecessary". The European Commission asked for comments, and its formal position is that it is considering them along with the reports.

That consideration may take some time; indeed, it may never end. Germany's government seems to have little appetite for breaking up Deutsche Bank, and the French have taken a leaf from the British book and implemented their own reform. The French plan looks more like a Gallic version of the Volcker rule than Vickers "à la française". It is far less rigorous than the banks feared, given President François Hollande's fiery rhetoric in his electoral campaign last year, in which he anathematised the financial sector as the true "enemy".

So we now have a global plan, of sorts, supplemented by various homegrown solutions in the US, the UK, and France, with the possibility of a European plan that would also differ from the others. In testimony to the UK parliament, Volcker gently observed that "internationalising some of the basic regulations [would make] a level playing field. It is obviously not ideal that the US has the Volcker rule and [the UK has] Vickers…"

He was surely right, but "too big to fail" is another area in which the initial post-crisis enthusiasm for global solutions has failed. The unfortunate result is an uneven playing field, with incentives for banks to relocate operations, whether geographically or in terms of legal entities. That is not the outcome that the G20 – or anyone else – sought back in 2009

Grangemouth oil refinery: future in doubt after workers reject pay offer

A worker walks past the Grangemouth oil refinery. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

The Grangemouth oil refinery faces the threat of permanent closure after half its staff rejected management proposals to cut costs at the Scottish site.

Unite said 665 of its members – out of 1,370 staff – had rejected the deal offered by Ineos, which owns Scotland's only refinery and has said it will make a decision about the site's future on Tuesday.

Ineos had given its permanent employees until 6pm on Monday to accept its plan, which included less generous pensions and a three-year pay freeze.

Ineos shut down the giant site on the Firth of Forth last Wednesday and has threatened to leave it shut if its demands are rejected.

Ineos's shareholders, led by its billionaire chairman Jim Ratcliffe, are set to decide on Tuesday whether to go through with their threat of permanent closure.

Pat Rafferty, Unite's Scottish secretary, said the workers who had rejected the plan were "the backbone of the plant, the people who keep the site running and the oil flowing". He called on Ratcliffe to reopen the plant and restart talks.

Ineos attempted to bypass Unite on Friday by putting its "survival plan" for Grangemouth directly to the workforce after months of wrangling with the union. Unite has asked its members, who constitute about 80% of the permanent employees, to give their responses to the union, not to Ineos.

Ineos said it had received about 300 acceptances by Sunday evening. The company had said it would not reopen Grangemouth unless Unite pledged not to strike until the end of this year. Unite said it would give the guarantee if Ineos withdrew its ultimatum to employees and let talks resume.

Grangemouth is a big employer in Scotland, produces most of the country's fuel and supports the economy indirectly in other ways.

Grangemouth houses a refinery that processes about 200,000 barrels of crude oil a day and a petrochemicals operation that produces more than 2 million tonnes of chemicals a year.

Ineos says petrochemicals is its worst-performing division but that closing that operation would damage the refining business because the two are "deeply integrated" and the refinery's byproducts feed the petrochemicals arm.

The company has offered workers up to £15,000 as a one-off payment plus a top-up to the new pension if they accept the deal.

The company claims employee costs contribute hugely to the losses of £10m a month at Grangemouth and that it will only invest to secure the site's future if the workers take some pain.

Why Nottingham is the Bank of England's bellwether for UK growth

The Nottingham skyline at dusk. The city is looking to create a rebalanced economy with creative industries. Photograph: Allan Baxter/Getty Images

Britain's slow recovery from recession may be gathering pace, if forecasts for official growth figures are confirmed this week.

The first glimpse of the nation's economic health over the July to September period, published on Friday, is widely expected to show GDP growth accelerated to 0.8% from 0.7% the previous quarter. And one city that will be watching the figures particularly closely is Nottingham.

A year into its own growth plan, the place described as a bellwether for the wider economy by the new Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, will want to see not just faster but better growth.

Nottingham, like most British cities, was badly hit by the recession, and employment levels have a long way to go to get back to pre-crisis levels. But its council says the economic decline is being turned to the city's advantage.

"In a recession you have a chance to think radically," says Nick McDonald, who is responsible for the city council's jobs and growth work. "What we are trying to get to now is a rebalanced economy with making things at its heart. Not cigarettes and bicycles but creative industries, green technology, biomedical," he adds, referring to the city's heritage as the maker of Player's cigarettes and Raleigh bikes.

When Carney chose Nottingham as the place to deliver his first speech as governor this summer, he talked about the region's diverse economy and hailed its precision engineering and biosciences. He might also have mentioned some less desirable features that symbolise the challenges facing Britain's longer-term economic recovery.

Nottingham is dependent on the services sector, which accounts for nearly nine out of 10 jobs. Unemployment is a problem too. Its proportion of households where no one of working age has a job is one in four, among the worst rates in the country.

But Carney could do worse than follow the fortunes of Nottingham. If local authorities succeed with their growth plan, the city may yet become a model of how to achieve Britain's much talked about but little evidenced rebalancing.

The city council says its long list of projects, grants and business loans are already paying dividends. Since its launch in July 2012 the scheme has made more than £49m of finance available to businesses, and a record 3,762 new companies were set up last year. The council also touts the creation of 200 apprenticeships and 790 jobs.

That goes some way towards the short-term employment goals, but longer-term Nottingham needs to build on its heritage of manufacturing and innovation, says Kathy McArdle, who is charged with regenerating the city's recently rebranded Creative Quarter.

She is a newcomer to the city, but enthuses about its past, from being the one-time producer of Raleigh Choppers, the must-have bike of 1970s children, to Nottingham's older lacemaking heyday. It is this era she conjures up while walking through the quarter. "In the 1850s, this would have been all cobblestones, packed with horses and carriages and buyers and sellers," she says, pointing to grand red-brick buildings with large windows that showcased lace destined for wealthy buyers around the world.

Today the lacemakers are gone and the only reminders of Nottingham's past textile glory are plaques and nostalgically named bars such as The Lacehouse, "purveyors of the finest rums and cocktails".

Empty warehouses and the abundance of "to let" signs reflect the city's industrial decline and the toll taken more recently by recession.

Part of McArdle's job is to get tenants into those buildings and recapture the bustle of the old lacemarket.

"We are trying to bring that sort of vibrancy back to the area," she says. "The whole impetus now is going back to being a place that makes things … now we are making video games, all kinds of designs, new kinds of bicylces."

Local leaders are keen to highlight that pattern of building on old expertise.

In textiles, Speedo is designing advanced swimsuits at its headquarters in the city.

Medicine is also an area where local authorities are seeking to draw in new businesses, attracted in part by Nottingham's history.

In a building that once housed Boots and was the birthplace of ibuprofen, Nottingham has created a "BioCity" that provides labs and offices to more than 70 early-stage lifescience companies.

BioCity director Toby Reid says concentrating a sector in one place has attracted new entrepreneurs and grown businesses already there. "You bring the good ideas together … it's the impromptu meeting that happens on the staircase or what happens in the cafe," he says.

For the creative industries, the council is championing other hubs, including the Antenna building where computer games maker Legendary Games is based. Cofounder Ewan Lamont says that Nottingham offered a cheaper alternative to London. There were other draws too, such as the city's two universities and other technology companies. "You have got a lot of talent here," he says.

For all the optimism from start-ups and the various investment agencies, not everyone in Nottingham is so cheerful about the task ahead.

City council leader Jon Collins wants to see more help from central government.

"What is bizarre is that it is the south or south-east where there has been little or no recession … and yet the local government funding formula is being skewed to help those authorities in the south-east. Over the next three years our government grant will halve," says the Labour councillor.

"You can go into a state of despair, worrying about where the next cut is coming from. Or you say that's the day job and we need to become about bringing growth to the city medium- and long-term."

So he and his colleagues are pushing through the growth plan. But they are also calling for an overhaul of cities' powers. Nottingham has joined with other large cities to call for greater devolution to drive economic growth. They want more control of local revenues – particularly from property taxes .

"On the whole, government departments get in the way of cities developing. They can't help it. Effectively, we are big enough to make our own decisions. Why not pass the responsibility to us and hold us accountable?" says Collins.

Case study: healthy growth

David Wright had been in Hong Kong for 18 years when he decided to set up a new business developing and selling medical devices. After scouting around the UK and beyond, he settled on Nottingham for his new venture.

Now his Vivo Smart Medical Devices is one of the businesses championed by local authorities as they push through a plan to rebalance Nottingham's economy away from dependence on the services sector and back to manufacturing and sciences, particularly life sciences, creative industries and clean technology.

Part of their "growth plan" is promoting Nottingham's BioCity, and it was that cluster of companies that attracted Wright."The challenge with any start-up is the isolation in the early stages; squirrelling away in a bedroom or small office is very challenging," he said.

"Here we have got lots of individuals facing the same challenge. And clients like it. A lot of the time the customer is looking for confidence."

His company works with third parties, often clinicians, who have ideas for medical devices gleaned from experience and want to make and sell them.

Wright is working on selling a "pupiloscope" that helps paramedics, nurses and doctors make more accurate measurements of pupil dilation after head injuries. The idea came from a senior anaesthetist."Our vision is for every doctor and nurse to have one of these in their top pocket," he said.

England defeat 'blew away World Cup cobwebs', says Steve McNamara

England lost 15-14 to Italy in their Rugby League World Cup warm-up match in Salford on Saturday. Photograph: Gareth Copley/Getty Images

Steve McNamara is confident that no irreparable damage was inflicted on England by their shock defeat by Italy as the focus switches to the World Cup favourites Australia.

McNamara's squad of 20 players spent Sunday licking their wounds after Saturday's 15-14 defeat to the 500-1 tournament outsiders before going into camp at Loughborough University to prepare for the really serious business, Saturday's opening group game at the Millennium Stadium.

"We were disappointed with the result and we were disappointed with the performance," said the England coach, speaking at the launch of the 14-team tournament at Old Trafford. "We had prepared extremely well but we probably lost our concentration and focus for that game and paid the price.

"We came up with a performance that wasn't great but one that hopefully, as the tournament unfolds, will put us in a better position to win it. The game was designed to blow some cobwebs away and hopefully build some combinations.

"We didn't quite do that – we didn't quite find our rhythm – but, certainly in the process of everything involved, it won't do us any harm. We've looked at that as a group and we're happy that we're in a position to move forward and perform very well this week."

After spending two weeks at a high-altitude training camp in South Africa, McNamara and his squad regrouped in Loughborough on Monday to finalise their build-up. "It feels like going back home," he said. "It's been our base for a number of years and we enjoy everything that Loughborough brings. It's world-class preparation for the group."

McNamara is hoping to finalise his team before they move camp to Cardiff on Thursday and insists that, despite their woeful display against Italy no one played themselves out of contention for the opening game.

The coach expects the Wigan loose-forward Sean O'Loughlin to come into the reckoning after being rested and hinted the Warrington second-rower Ben Westwood would return after missing that match through suspension.

"We all know the qualities of Ben in terms of what he brings," McNamara said. "He'll be a strong candidate for selection. I think for the stability of this group, the earlier we can confirm that ourselves as a team the better it will be and we aim to do that early this week. I'd be hopeful that everyone would be fit. When you have 24 world-class players in your squad, you always have decisions to make."

McNamara also insisted that the South Sydney prop Tom Burgess and the Leeds centre Zak Hardaker were in contention after stepping down to play for England Knights in their 52-16 thrashing of Samoa, which was played as a curtain-raiser at the Salford City Stadium on Saturday.

"They were always in the frame," said McNamara, who watched the Knights game. "They did play well and I thought Brett Ferres was good as well. For them to train with us and drop back there and perform like that was great credit to them. I was really pleased with the Knights' performance. They attacked it and showed us the way forward in terms of their energy and enthusiasm. It was like a cup final for them."

Australia, whose coach Tim Sheens was among the crowd at Barton, are one of only three teams not to play a warm-up fixture – Tonga and Ireland are the others – but McNamara admits he needs to do little homework on England's initial World Cup opposition.

"I think they know us pretty well as individuals and we know them," he said. "There are plenty of other teams in the competition with unfamiliar faces but Australia and England know each other inside out. We've had some good challenges with them over the last couple of years but we've not quite got the wins and we look forward to changing that."