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A friend of mine, as his college project, made a short film about this.I'll see if I can get a copy.

Ha! Wondered which of the resident wags would respond so! Seriously, though, these things are amazing, far better than anything I've worn in the past. Comfortable, with excellent clarity and well worth considering.

Thanks to advances in hearing aid technology I now have, for the first time, the ability to listen to music in stereo. Google BAHA (bone anchored hearing aids).

It's an Iguana house

I think the Pope's already been to several bottoms, God. (apologies).

All fair points, Symptoms, I wasn't attempting to over-ride your comments, but merely raising a couple of - what I thought were - valid points. Your point about the skillsets is a good one; where, though, is the incentive for youngsters to train in such? As for 'apartheid' in Blyth, no; what killed my uncle's business was the proliferation of 'under the counter' goods that he could not - and, being an honest man from a different time - would not indulge in. Quality, which he took pride in, began to take second place to cut-prices. Keith, you have a good point about the breweries greed, but the problem lies deeper than that: tied houses are screwed; the only way to make a pub work is to operate on a freehouse basis. The likes of Punch and Enterprise are not breweries; they view their pubs as assets - as property - and do not have a concern for the price of beer, or the punters. I was once a staunch opponent of JD Wetherspoons, but looking closer at the way Tim Martin runs his business it becoes clear just why this is such a successful one. By occupying and renovating - often sympathetically - already existing buildings he is able to tap into an underlying nostalgic element that is important, and by allowing his managers to source beer from local microbreweries is also covering the local element. I worked for Newcastle United at one point, managing the bars in the stadium; you would think that a 'prestigious' name such as St James' Park would get a good deal from Scottish and Newcastle; on the contrary, I couldn't have made a profit in a pub paying those prices.

Some interesting topics raised above: "the NHS wouldn't function without the effort of countless thousands of workers originally from overseas." The NHS has a finite number of employment positions available; i'd wager there are more native people out of work than that number. "Where would you get that pint of milk or packet of fags at 2 in the morning ... the corner shop run by a hardworking family from the Indian sub-continent?" Maybe the shop run by a hard working local man, such as my Uncle John in Blyth, who was finally priced out of the market by the hard workin asian family down the road? I'm no racist, by the way, just pointing out some things.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, appreciated!

Thanks; I'd forgotten! Foxy, most certainly!!

Thanks Brett, I've already been in contact with Malcolm regards this.

Forgive me for being pedantic, but that 'chairmans announcement' is an utter abomination. Grammatically and in context it reads as though it has been written by a primary school kid; one should never include an exclamation mark in an official, professional announcement such as this - it smacks of ridicule and sensationalism - and, to point out one immediate error, anyone with any knowledge of grammar should be aware the number three should always be written as a word. I could go on, but if the gentleman in question wishes to present a professional image, perhaps he should ask someone to proof his work?

Hi Neil, what's the story here? Would be sad if they were shut down.

Could this not have something to do with the trotter memorial fountain?

Lovely!

Malcolm, you would not believe some of the things I'm asked to write about............

It's an interestign subject: my business is entirely internet based and I have seen the power of online communication and marketing increase by astonishing levels in the past few years alone. Hand in hand with this goes an increase in ease of finding out all you want to know about people who are exposed online. The digital age has been blamed, too, for making people far more impersonal, but conversely it also allows us to communicate easily with people in far flung places (in Keith Lockey's case, Venus). There are, however, parallels in the non-digital world; for many years I worked in the print industry, and one of the most lucrative areas was (and is) Direct Mail (junk mail to you and I). We - legally - purchased lists of names and addresses of specific target audiences, and one of the most morally troubling was the time we ran a promotion for a certain female saintary product. That involved procuring a list of all young girls who had a birthday attaining a certain age that year, and mailing them the promo. As for internet security, it's to be taken seriously and also with caution; as someone said, 100% safety is never attainable, but the number of people who put personal - and useful to others - information on Social Networking sites and are then amazed when they find they have been 'hacked' is astonishing. Furthermore, the level to which the likes of Google can 'read' your browsing and shopping habits is incredible. A recent job of mine involved writing product descriptions for a range of luxury sex dolls (if you want a look, lads, I'll PM you) and for days afterwards my inbox was inundated with spam advertising similart products.

Probably! there was a gale blowing after all.....

Maggie Tate, if you want to know who people are without 'exposing them' on the net you can send them a message. I'm pretty sure most know who I am by now!!

I heard it was a temporary lack of electricity.

It was we at Table 25 demonstrating our power.

For the petrol-heads among you the new F1 season gets underway with the first test at Jerez, starting tomorrow. You can keep up wih all the news at my lovely blog, startin with this little snippet.......http://stevesf1site.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/has-sauber-pulled-a-fast-one/

Now Adam, you don't want to be inflaming the old Anglo-French relations at a time like this......(is it the same for the Italians, but with red and green?)

I seriously worry about you, Mr Lockey. By the way, can I have that dress back please, the black off the shoulder one? Thanks.

Wonky's writing has a sort of James Joyce train of thought element to it. I vote it in.

You're going to bring a picnic table all the way from Mars? Surely Homebase can supply one?