Bedlington.co.uk Advertising

[mercuryg]

I'm outraged! I'm furious! I just snapped a pencil in anger (although thanks to Maggie and her kindness it can now be revived)!

 

How DARE Bedlington.co.uk advertise on this website! Have other towns been given the chance? I smell one-sided advertising rules that are unfair on the likes of Morpeth, Blyth, even Choppington! It's a disgrace, and I demand an explanation.

[threegee]

I suspect that MyURL.co.uk may actually own morpeth.co.uk and choppington.co.uk if not certainly several other surrounding toons.  So, it would be as significant as the Chronicle advertising the Journal.

 

Why aren't they active you say?  Well.. just at the moment, no one can be ah said!

[mercuryg]

Disgraceful! Outrageous! Is that the best you can do Threegee? You are showing your true, Bedlington-centric colours, which really should not be allowed on a Bedlington website! I shall be contacting The Authorities about you, once I've sharpened this pencil.

[Malcolm Robinson]

We are all right behind you merc.........

[Symptoms]

Safest place to be after merc has honed the tip of 4H.

[Malcolm Robinson]

Thats ecatl;y what irt hought!.................. Got an eraser on the end of your pencil there merc…………

[mercuryg]

Eraser?? What happened to 'rubber'!

[pilgrim]

I may have to write to the 'grauniad' and sign myself as disgusted of somewhere!!

I think its absolutely shameful that we as non residents cannot have exclusivity views on who lives where we don't!!!

We need a xenophobic and fully non democratic view of this and I demand that we be twinned with Keswick as they have a damn fine history of pencils there - further to that I also demand that road signs leading to the shire demand that visitors turn their watches back 50 yrs before entering and anyone visiting has to watch at least 4 episodes of 'the league of gentlemen' and the 'Shire' is also twinned with 'Royston Vasey'

now perhaps that is a potential to boost local economy?? anyone shopping has to be asked 'ARE YOU LOCAL THEN?' if not 50% surcharge -- easy - local economy solved

[Maggie/915]

Aye bluff and double bluff!

Fact and fiction!

Pencils and rubbers who says life is dull!

I am not even mentioning politics!

Maybe I am not keeping to the point!

What or who will be erased in the months to come!

[Malcolm Robinson]

Oh I think its all about politics of one form or another Maggie.

[pilgrim]

..boll(it)ics...

free pencils for all schools should be the thing that would swing it for any party in a vote!! (but strict usage controls of the eraser!! - one dare not use the word rubber these days!! not PC.)- (although that might be a problem as we would have to find someone to teach them to write) - 16,000 million years of evolution since 'the big bang' and the epitome of our evolution is typing with our thumbs?

summat went wrong somewhere...

(I think I could get into the 'disgusted of Tunbridge' thingy -- might have to change my address to 'a small village locally' - 'Teetering on the Brink' twinned with 'Verging on the Ridiculous'

[mercuryg]

I remind you of the (probably untrue) story about NASA spending billions of dollars to develop a ballpoint pen that would work in zero gravity for the space shots. The Russians used pencils. Good old Ivan! Saviour of the Graphite!

[Malcolm Robinson]

Is this the Boris and graphite you are on about merc?

[Malcolm Robinson]

Problems merc?

[mercuryg]

Malcolm, you do know know that the ultimate Latin origin of the word 'pencil' was 'penis'?

[Malcolm Robinson]

Well I know Boris Johnson is a dick head.....any good?

[mercuryg]

Touche!

[John Fox (foxy)]

Getting a bit too cocky yee lads  Symp will be looking for the Kill button !

[threegee]

.. I also demand that road signs leading to the shire demand that visitors turn their watches back 50 yrs before entering ...

 

That really would be a waste of money; there are still enough residents with a mid 20th Century mindset to leave no one in any doubt!  Maybe we've got it all wrong and the only way we can establish some common purpose is to wind the clock back the full 150 years and do a living Beamish.  Nope, a non-starter - too much competition from the people with all the funding up the road.

 

You know if you wanted to curse a town you'd place it as far away from the centre of a country's power as possible. You'd site it inland of any secondary port town, so that it wouldn't see any international trade.  But, you'd still site it tantalising close to a regional capital to drain any regional cultural effort. You'd ensure that the main rail route was diverted away from it it to favour the politics of local aristocracy and land owners, so that historical landed money would be spent in their favoured and posher small town nearby.

 

You'd also arrange that the main highway routed just far enough away to make a stop-off inconvenient, and make the connection to it either painfully indirect or on poor roads. You'd place it in proximity to a slightly larger upstart in the same industry. One that could command a few more votes from any political opposition to the generally ruling party - so that even in times of political change your town had next to no voice.

 

And, just as its principal industry was declining, you'd build half-baked new towns on the other side of it to cull whatever new enterprises could be attracted to the area. Then, just when its shopping facilities were in final decline, you'd arrange for the largest shopping centre in the nation to be built within easy travelling distance. Oh, what have I just described?

[mercuryg]

You've described one of many hundreds of small towns in the Uk and elsewhere. The thing is, and I know we've been here before, but do we really want a great big shopping centre? I don't.

[pilgrim]

Some local and relevant employment would be nice, rather than building empty industrial units. I have mentioned it before, if this was some eastern Baltic state, or the sub Sahara zone, the UN would be flying in aid because of the 'ethnic' cleansing regime facilitated by the withdrawal of local facilities and public services.

 Maybe we should look at turning the huge swathes of land around the area into a tobacco plantation, as I noticed that a 'local' representative of the people has many entries in the parliamentary declarations of interest and funding allied with that noble plantation trade. We could then turn back the clock to the 1700's and put those damn uppity workers back in their place.

or maybe everyone in the 'Shire' should form a lottery syndicate and hope - after all the odds of the 'big win' are only 14 million to one - far better odds than anything actually being done!!

[threegee]

You've described one of many hundreds of small towns in the Uk and elsewhere. The thing is, and I know we've been here before, but do we really want a great big shopping centre? I don't.

 

You've just invited me to say: OK find me just one that ticks all those boxes?

 

Did I say I wanted "a great big shopping centre"?  It would have been nice to have maintained a reasonable selection of retailing though.  The sheer volume of through-traffic says this is a reasonable wish.

[mercuryg]

I'm not going to trawl through a thousand towns, 3G, and you know exactly what I mean. Post offices, shops, businesses are closing down in small towns across the country all the time; bigger, better supported neighbours get favoured by councils everywhere; the country is full of 'forgotten' towns. I'm in Lincolnshire right now, and yesterday passed through two small towns on the way to the one where I could shop/buy clothes/take the kids to the swimming pool.I'm no saying it's right, but that it's life.

 

"The sheer volume of through-traffic says this is a reasonable wish."

 

I'm at total odds with you here; the vast majority of traffic coming through Bedlington is from those who live here. there is practically no 'through' traffic thanks to the Spine Road on one side and the A1 on the other. Who is going to divert through the town to get to others nearby? And why would they? The majority of locals - those with cars - are happy to drive five minutes to Asda at Bebside. That will always be the case, as that shop has everything they want. 'We' can't compete with that. Those without cars? That's what we have to look at, the truly local cause. What's the answer? I'm not qualified to say, I'm simply experienced and open-eyed enough to see that a small town such as this trying to compete with the out-of-town shopping centres is on a hiding to nothing.

 

I've said elsewhere, if we ar to create that 'through' traffic, i.e. persons coming elsewhere to Bedlington to experience something we have to offer, it has to be something the surrounding area does not have. That is no retail, as Asda, Manor Walks, and teh retail parks on Cowpen Road have that sewn up.

 

So, what is it? What can we come up with? What original thought have we got?

[pilgrim]

No easy answers - and it is happening throughout the country, but at really basic level there is a huge financial imposition on anyone without a car wishing to access even the most basic of services. The glib answer these days seems to be 'do it online' - all very well but they seem to forget the obligation to have a several hundred pound PC and paying a broadband package. I seem to be able to see a similarity in the rural areas of the same thing happening after the 'black death' and the enclosures acts. - the lost villages of England, many small communities disappeared because of lack of work or facilities. I have posted elsewhere about the potential of a distribution hub, but that might not be feasible or even within the interests of those in authority. The 'Shire' itself seems to have been overlooked for many many years. I think part of the problem is the size, it is neither big enough to be self sustaining or small enough to be a 'village', although I know of many villages where none of the original 'village' buildings are still used for their original purpose and have been turned into housing whose owners have no interest in the locality. Is it too late??

[mercuryg]

"The glib answer these days seems to be 'do it online' - all very well but they seem to forget the obligation to have a several hundred pound PC and paying a broadband package."

 

This is true. I am an advocate of the online route - I work online and see the benefits - but fully understand that there are many for whom this is an unattractive option, in particular those of the older generations. I do believe, however, that in the years to come - and not distant, either - more people will telecommute, work from home, more shopping will be done online, and the effect on traditional retail will be massive. Of course, as many have pointed out, it's great to go to a shop and actually see and feel what you are buying, try it out and so on, but it's only for certain items that you actually have to do that. the sheer convenience of online retail will (and in many cases does) outstrip the inconvenience of having to get out and go to a shop, pay for petrol, and parking, and use up time getting there and back. Thus, the very fabric of the way we live our lives is changing before our very eyes, all the time. As an aside, broadband need not be expensive - anyone with a landline is already paying around 75% of what they need to in order to have a broadband set up (I pay £21 a month, all in) and a laptop is no longer a several hundred pound investment, more a couple of hundred.

 

I think the problem is that we are not (and I'm not singling out individuals, but talking of us all as a whole) not looking at the ay things are moving; more supermarket chains will close more stores as they become unsustainable, for example, it's just the way things are.