Wayne Rooney, benefactor of fallen women, is to go to Basel with the other seedy millionaires. I try to care a little but fail miserably.
What interests me about this story is the spelling of the place name. For the first 60 years of my life I believed the name was Basle, and would have spelt it so should the need have arisen. Basel was the German spelling; Basle I assumed was a borrowing from the French before they decided to drop the unpronounced D and spell it Bâle.
I looked in my old atlas, 1964 vintage, and there it was - "Basel (Basle)". So even back then the German spelling took precedence.I delved further back,1934, and it was simply Basle then. Probably remained so during my schooldays, 1943-55. We were doubtless still using pre-war publications in those austere times. So when, and why did Basel replace Basle? And who dictated the change?
There are many such changes, usually unannounced. When did Leghorn become Livorno? And why was the discarding of allonyms only partial; we don't call Rome Roma, Naples Napoli, Genoa Genova.
I remember the change in spelling of Chinese proper names. Nothing announced that I recall, and no comment from the press who printed the new versions without question. I believe the Chinese government officially adopted the Pinyin version of romanised spelling, while previously British hacks had made do with Wade-Giles. I assume these people just continued publishing press releases from the Chinese government news agency without bothering about spelling. "Mao tse-tung/Mao Zedong, Peking/Beijing, who cares, I'm off down the pub." Do I misrepresent British journalism? Probably not.

Afterthought: place name or place-name? I'm never sure. Perhaps both are acceptable.