Bowls or lawn bowls is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green which may be convex or uneven, it is played outdoors and the outdoor surface is either natural grass, artificial turf, or cotula. Bowls is a variant of the Boules games, which in their general form are of ancient or prehistoric origin. Ancient Greek variants are recorded; the aspect of tossing the balls to approach a target as as possible is recorded in ancient Rome. This game was spread to Roman Gaul by sailors. A Roman sepulchre in Florence shows people stooping down to measure the points. Bowls in England has been traced to the 13th century, conjecturally to the 12th. William Fitzstephen, in his biography of Thomas Becket, gives a graphic sketch of the London of his day and, writing of the summer amusements of young men, says that on holidays they were "exercised in Leaping, Wrestling, Casting of Stones, Throwing of Javelins fitted with Loops for the Purpose, which they strive to fling before the Mark.

It is supposed that by jactus lapidum, Fitzstephen refers to an early variety of bowls played using round stone. On the other hand, the jactus lapidum of which he speaks may have been more akin to shot put, it is clear, at any rate, that a rudimentary form of the game was played in England in the 13th century. A manuscript of that period in the royal library, contains a drawing representing two players aiming at a small cone instead of an earthenware ball or jack; the world's oldest surviving bowling green is the Southampton Old Bowling Green, first used in 1299. Another manuscript of the same century has a crude but spirited picture which brings us into close touch with the existing game. Three figures are introduced and a jack; the first player's bowl has come to rest just in front of the jack. A 14th-century manuscript, Book of Prayers, in the Francis Douce collection in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, contains a drawing in which two persons are shown, but they bowl to no mark. Strutt suggests that the first player's bowl may have been regarded by the second player as a species of jack.

In these three earliest illustrations of the pastime it is worth noting that each player has one bowl only, that the attitude in delivering it was as various five or six hundred years ago as it is today. In the third he stands upright; the game came under the ban of king and parliament, both fearing it might jeopardise the practice of archery so important in battle. Statutes forbidding it and other sports were enacted in the reigns of Edward III, Richard II and other monarchs. When, on the invention of gunpowder and firearms, the bow had fallen into disuse as a weapon of war, the prohibition was continued; the discredit attaching to bowling alleys, first established in London in 1455 encouraged subsequent repressive legislation, for many of the alleys were connected with taverns frequented by the dissolute and gamesters. Erasmus referred to the game as globurum; the name of bowls is implied in the gerund bowlyn, recorded in the mid-15th century. The term bowl for "wooden ball" is recorded in the early 1400s.

The name is explicitly mentioned, as bowles, in a list of unlawful games in a 1495 act by Henry VII. It occurs again in a similar statute by Henry VIII By a further act of 1541—which was not repealed until 1845—artificers, apprentices and the like were forbidden to play bowls at any time except Christmas, only in their master's house and presence, it was further enjoined that any one playing bowls outside his own garden or orchard was liable to a penalty of 6s. 8d. While those possessed of lands of the yearly value of £100 might obtain licences to play on their own private greens. In 1864 William Wallace Mitchell, a Glasgow Cotton Merchant, published his "Manual of Bowls Playing" following his work as the secretary formed in 1849 by Scottish bowling clubs which became the basis of the rules of the modern game. Young Mitchell was only 11 when he played on Kilmarnock Bowling green, the oldest club in Scotland, instituted in 1740; the patenting of the first lawn mower in 1830, in Britain, is believed to have been the catalyst, for the preparation of modern-style greens, sporting ovals, playing fields, grass courts, etc.

This is turn led to the codification of modern rules for many sports, including lawn bowls, most football codes, lawn tennis and others. National Bowling Associations were established in the late 1800s. In the Victorian Colony, the Victorian Bowling Association was formed in 1880 and The Scottish Bowling Association was est

William Mills Maltbie was a lawyer and Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. Maltbie was the son of Theodore Mills Maltbie, a prominent lawyer and politician who served three terms in the General Assembly and two in the state senate. William Maltbie was educated at Hartford Public High School and Yale Law School. On graduation he joined his father's practice in Hartford, he lived in Granby for all of his life. Maltbie served as one of Granby's representatives in the General Assembly in 1913. In 1914 he was appointed assistant state's attorney for Hartford County, where he met Hugh M. Alcorn, the state's attorney, who became a lifelong friend. While still assistant state's attorney, Maltbie served as Governor Marcus H. Holcomb's executive secretary from 1915-7. In 1917 Governor Holcomb appointed him to the Superior Court. In 1925 he was raised to the Connecticut Supreme Court, he held that position until 1950 when he reached the judicial retirement age of 70. Following his retirement from the bench he served as a state referee and conducted two one-man grand jury investigations, in 1951 and 1954.

Maltbie published two editions of Connecticut Appelate Procedure during his lifetime. Maltbie did extensive work with the Boy Scouts of America, the YMCA, the Probation Association, the Connecticut Prison Association, the Connecticut Opera Association, the Greater Hartford Federation of Churches, other charitable and non-profit organizations, he was awarded honorary degrees in law from many colleges and universities: Yale, Trinity College, Elon College, Boston University, the University of Hartford. Maltbie married Mary L. Hamlin in 1917.

Ainori "Ride together", or "Car pool" but can be read as "love ride", is a popular television program that runs Monday evenings from 11 pm in Japan on Fuji TV. It debuted on October 11, 1999; the show ended on March 23, 2009 but returned under the name "Ainori 2" on December 25, 2010. Ainori is a reality program where women travel the world riding a pink bus; the program is reminiscent of a travelogue. The participants are led across each country by a native who serves as tour guide, bus driver, friend. Upon reaching the border with another country, the bus stops and participants head out to their next destination country to meet their new tour guide and get into their new bus; the show's twist is that the participants are each young, single people whose goal is to find love with another participant and return to Japan as a couple. When a participant has decided they like someone else, they ask the driver for a ticket back to Japan, they declare their love to the object of their affection, ask that the two return to Japan together.

After a night's consideration, the person who received the love declaration can either answer with a kiss, after which both participants leave the bus for Japan. Otherwise, the jilted participant is left to return to Japan alone. Besides the love declaration, participants are forbidden from talking about their love interests with other participants, but inform the TV audience of their feelings through diaries and confessions to the camera. After people leave the bus, new people are added to the program, they are seen on the side of the road with a painted cardboard sign and brought aboard after a self-introduction. The First Lap Around the World ended in May, 2003, the Second Lap ended in March, 2007. After that, the bus visits the countries which has never been visited on the show, without the route; the 400th episode was aired on May 5, 2008. As of March, 2009, 44 couples have found love through the program, there have been 8 marriages. On March 1, 2005, the first "Ainori Baby" was born, as of mid-2008 there have been 4 babies born in total.

Ainori: Asian Journey Although relationships between staff and participants are forbidden, some incidents involving staff have occurred: In South Africa, a female participant fell in love with the tour guide, when the bus stopped at the country's border she begged the producers to let her confess her love. She did and the two became a couple. In spring of 2006, a female participant got intimate with the audio technician; this incident resulted in the female participant, a male participant, in love with her, the audio technician, a cameraman all returning to Japan. Other memorable incidents include: In Costa Rica, three male participants were arrested by the police for exposing their buttocks to children. After five hours they were released by the staff's persuasion. After leaving Costa Rica, the program avoided Nicaragua because of insecurity of the political condition, visited Jamaica, but the Nicaraguan ambassador in Japan made a protest against the program. So the program visited Nicaragua after leaving Fiji.

The participants were welcomed as the sightseeing goodwill ambassadors. A female participant developed a physical ailment for which the doctor prohibited her from riding on the bus, or any other prolonged sitting position; because of this, the only solution seemed that she would have to be sent home, be eliminated from the show. However, the group came to the decision that they would ditch the bus, walk for the rest of the trip, just so the girl could remain with them. In January 2006, a female participant broke down in tears and explained that three days before leaving for her Ainori trip, a male friend who she had long been harboring feelings for had confessed his love for her, she explained that she missed him could not get him out of her mind, would not find love with any of the participants on Ainori, thus left the show. In the summer of 2006, during a break in shooting when participants were on vacation back home in Japan, a female participant discovered that the male participant that she was in love with had a girlfriend in Japan, indeed had had a girlfriend when he left for his world trip.

After all the participants were back in Europe shooting the show, the man was confronted confessed the truth to his bus-mates, left the show to return to Japan. Since April 2004, the program started; this is a donation for poor countries visited in the program. The money has been used for children living in these countries, the schools called Ainori Gakko have been built. Masami Hisamoto – October 11, 1999 – 2006 Koji Imada – October 11, 1999 – 2006 Haruhiko Katō – October 11, 1999 – March 20, 2006 Eiji Wentz – April 10, 2006 – 2011 Becky – October 2017 – present Mayuko Kawakita – October 2017 – 2018 Audrey – October 2017 – 2018 Shimon Okura – October 2017 – 2018 Asako Ito – November 2018 – July 2019 Natsuna Watanabe – November 2018 – July 2019 Karina Maruyama – January 2020 – present Ryo Kato – January 2020 – present Kouhei Takeda – January 2020 – present To help prevent relationships between the staff and the participants, only staff me