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This is an outrage! It's good manners never to make fun of mans' woof. Offenders will be punished.

Beg to disagree with your point about animal language merc.......when I lived in France the locals all said that cockerels sang......."cock-a-rico" at dawn. Now we all know they sing "Cock-a-doodle-do!"

"Looked at that way the Germans (only a tad over 2% of world output) and indeed the entire EU might as well pack it in. " Which is partly the point, and no, I'm not being tongue in cheek. Hard as it is for those employed in the industry, the simple fact is the UK - and Europe - is no longer a major player in the manufacturing trade. We simply can't compete, and that's been true for some time. I'm all for subsidies to keep people in work, but there has to be a line drawn in teh sand, and sadly not the one you are looking for. When it comes to the point where the people who buy the steel the industry produces can't afford to remain loyal to home produce, things need to be looked at carefully. Business is not charity.

Not quite Chief Engineer, Brunel would not have put up with that! Initially he looked after the engines that Brunel had already ordered to his own specifications. Brunel was many things but one thing he was not was a mechanical engineer. His locos were rubbish and that is putting mildly, just like his Great Eastern engines. But just why he decided to knock out his own loco's spec instead of ordering ready made ones from Bobby Stephenson’s outfit at Forth Street is a mystery (Gooch learned his trade there as a draffie long before he met Brunel) and loco building by this time was a well known technology. Anyway poor ol’ Dan stood no chance and the GWR directors were non to chuffed with this state of affairs. He came very close to getting his P45. So what did he do? He did what any other Bedlingtonion would do in the same circumstances, he shopped the gaffa! Brunel was not too chuffed about it but it got Brunel off Dans back. Only one loco was worth talking about and that was the North Star (and even that did not conform to Brunel's specification but they had picked up on the cheap from Forth Street) it was a standard loco for the time and built by non other than Robert Stephenson & co. So what does Dan do? He uses his draffie skills, draws it up and emails the drawings to the family concern in Bedlington and calls the new engines Fireflys. Dan then is recorded as visiting Bedlington supposedly for a night or two on the beer with his old mate George Marshall, I don't believe it. I think he was up collecting his back handers from Longridge, and the rest, as they, say is history! In fact pulling Brunel out of the clarts became a bit of a habit. The South Devon for instance when Brunel got himself in a bit of a pickle with atmospheric propulsion it was good ‘ol Dan who got him out of bother, again, at a price of course. Dan wouldn’t charge a penny where a pound would do or two pound fifty in the case of Brunel. His selling of coal from his own pits to himself and charging the GWR for shifting it was classic. Ah, don’t you just love history?