mercuryg

Surely once you've created it you can store it on the system.

Haven't we had a conversation about your flippany complacency before, Monsta? Allowing the government to outlaw things that people have considered as 'guilty pleasures' for decades, if not centuries, is allowin the first step towards them controlling what we can and can't do to a greater degree. It should be my choice - even as a non smoker - whether i want to drink in a smoke filled bar or not, just as it should be my choice whether I want to drink, or smoke, as each is perfectly legal. You're right, it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would be another step on the way to eroding yet more of our enjoyable civil liberties. You will stop accepting it when they move on to things that affect you.

Pete, Understand your reticence entirely, but to be fair your boycott of pubs and clubs is not going to change the governmebts mind, and isn't helping the publicans, either. I was - and remain - utterly disgusted by the smoking ban, and i'm a non smoker, and while the ban is a contributory factor in teh decline of the pub, it is not the sole reason why people are not frequenting them. The major problem is the price of a pint, and the cheap booze in the supermarkets.

Why am I not surprised that your sense of history goes back no more than five years? Of course the clubs are suffering, as the price of beer in the supermarkets is cheaper - by far - than even they can muster. The smoking ban has, indeed, had an effect, but the downturn in people visiting pubs was eveident long before that. After all, more people - by a very wide margin - don't smoke than do.

BarLass (hello chick, long time no see!) - the problem isn't that nobody is doing anything, it's that times have changed, Bedlington has changed, and you can get a hundred cans of Stella for a tenner at Tesco's. Some geezer in the Wharton the other day was telling me how he and his mates don' go out, they just get a crate in and go to each others houses; I replied that I would rather go to the pub, at which point he declared I was in the minority. the thing is, i'm not: most would prefer to have a Friday/Saturday night out rather than sitting at home with eight cans and a block of cheese watching strictly come dancing, but they can't afford it. I'm single, with few overheads, I can just about afford it. If the Lion was to re-open as a pub it matters not how funky and attractive you make it, nobody will go in. People haven't stopped going out because the Lion shut, they were'nt going in there anyway. Yes , it's a shame given the history of the place, but it's a sign of the times. Strip away the loss leading beer at supermarkets, stop the breweries from charging inflated prices for beer, allow landlords to buy from wherever they want, and you will gradually resurrect the pubs. PS - and bring back afternoons in the Bell watching Deal or No Deal.

Had to laugh at this; checked out mam's address and there she is getting out of the car! She's been googled!

Used to? Have you seen the bell lately? It looks like a mistake in a varnish factory.

It will smell of paint.

People who want to get up with a geetar and sing a song. It's what some people find enjoyable. I dare say you could turn up and rant!

You'd have had a hard job to make it, as it was at the Black Bull. The buskers night at the Tavern used to be worth a visit and was well attended; gemma - who is running the one at the Bull - seemed to have a good crowd in last night although I couldn't stay. If you like a bit of live music they are generally a good laugh.

It's undergoing a redecoration phase at the moment, I believe. The current landlady of the Barrington (Monkey) has taken it on, and it should be openin soon.

Oh, I agree with regard to the toilet situation, and think that's something that the publicans concerned need to attend to, but to state there is nowhere you can hang out and chat is simply not true. There are a number of pubs in Bedlington where I - and many others - are made to feel very welcome indeed, and I can't say in truth that i've found any to be anything less than welcoming of late. As for the issue of tied pubs, it's not just 'some' it's all bar one. There is only one free house in Bedlington, and the rest are hampered - very much - by the brewery tariffs. Having worked in the trade I know how difficult it is to make a decent profit - for that read living - from the prices charged by the likes of Punch Taverns and so on, and am well aware that what I pay for apint is not far over what the publicans pay for it. There is nothing they can do. I may be in a minority, but I view pubs not as a luxury, but as essential to a community. They are, or should be, the social hub of a town like hours.

a date in my diary. Thanks Malcolm.

When were you last in a pub in Bedlington? I disagree that there are no pubs where you can 'congregate .....etc' - I, and many others, frequently do so in the Sun, the Grapes, the Tavern. What is it you want from a pub? As for the inflated prices, this is a problem, but not one that the pubs can do much about. These are businesses, after all, not charities, and the problems with a tied house - that is one owned by and dictated from a brewery (every pub in Bedlington bar the Northumberland Arms) - the publican is held to set rent from the brewery as well as being contractually bound to buy their on tap beer from the brewery, and nobody else. This means that they have no leeway on prices - to make a profit they must charge the prices that are set by the supplier, there is no freedom of choice. Also, where are these wine bars??

That figures. I had heard, malcolm, that it had been relicensed, but I guess you are better versed in these things than me! I also wondered how that could be so when there was nobody in it, but hey. The original plan was for shops and offices - would suit me, I need an office. Now, if they could just open a little bit of the bar, too.....

I'm not saying you're lying, but that not only does it seem illogical that, in a time of limited demand, publicans would be happy with a diluted supply, it is certainly at odds with the patrons of the three bars I currently drink in most of all. The problem that Bedlington has is that it has always had an over-abundance of watering holes; we all get used to those we feel comfortable in, for whatever reason it may be. An example of the way the supply and demand sways can be seen in the current state of the Monkey; when the Tavern shut a good number of its regulars went down to the Monkey, the Tuesday night quiz switched there, the Thursday night buskers night too. Those two nights were traditionally pretty decent nights at the Tavern, and have continued to be so - albeit to a slightly lesser degree - at the Monkey. Likewise, many of those who went in the Tavern on Fridays and Saturdays have migrated there on those nights, too. When the Tavern re-opens - which is imminently - it will immediately attract back the quiz night,, and the buskers night, and also revert to its usual friday and saturday format with bands and so on. As the new leaseholder is a Tavern regular, she's pretty much guaranteed her 'old faithful' back. The Monkey hence loses a lot of business. Any dilution of the audience is unwanted.

Sorry mate, but I can't see it at all. People don;t travel to places like Bedlington for a wetherspoons, nd they never did; they came here because when the pubs closed they could hop in a taxi and go to the Palace for the rest of the night. There wouldn't be a kickstart from a cheap pub - it would simply draw custom away from the pubs that already exist, not bring more in from outside the town. Wetherspoons is one of the problems facing the 'general' pub trade at the moment, not a bonus to it. Wetherspoons business operates by being able to buy up almost out of date stock from the breweries, and as it has such purchasing power and can take it in bulk they get a good price, hence you get a cheap pint. Along with the cut price beer in supermarkets this is what is killing the pub trade; the breweries now see pubs as property portfolios, rather than as pubs, so to speak. The problem is not Saturday nights - the pubs turn over a fair bit on the weekends albeit, lik everywhere, nothing like they did ten years ago - but the midweek trade; there is very little to go around, and I can pretty much guarantee that 90% of people who drink in the afternoon rather than th evening would go to the wetherspoons, get their cheap beer, and go home. On Saturdays, more people wouldn't come out because of it, and if they did why go to the Grapes and pay £2.60 when you can get it in the Lion for £1.95? Any publican in favour of a cheap pub at the Lion isn't making sense, and it's interesting that your claims of them being in favour are at direct odds with mine: the Grapes doesn't want it, the Wharton doesn't want it, and the new leaseholders of the Tavern don't want it.

It's not change of use, Malcolm; since it shut it's not been used for anything else. Mr Darn - who, in their right mind, who is in the trade would welcome another licensed premises?? You must be kidding, they want less competition, not more!

As far as i'm aware the Lion was put back up for sale having been relicensed - at least provisionally - after the original plans fell through. I doubt, however, that Wetherspoons are in the least bit interested in it.

Monsta, of course plant life - and animal life - thrives, and then fails to, in response to climactic changes - it always has; that it happens is by no means concrete proof - or anywhere near it - that man is primarily responsible for changes in the climate. As for the bees there is absolute confusion as to why they are suffering at the moment, and pesticides are just one idea to be put forward. And yes, we have been responsible for massive deforestation - that is something nobody can possibly deny. Again, however, this does not point to man being responsible in the main for change in the climate. You'll note that even the IPCC has been forced to admit that the world has NOT been warming over the past ten to fifteen years; their argument is - and will be - that ten to fifteen years is a drop in the ocean, a pinprick in time. They're right, just as basing calculations of doom on an 'average world temperature' was always, and still is, a major mistake that can only lead to problems such as those we are seeing now with interpretation of data. The average temperature across the globe differs so much from place to place - for many a reason - that to take an average results in no indication of the actual state of things - it can't, as the temperature in Siberia skews the figures just as much as that in the heat of the Kalahari! Of course we have been influential on the gases existing in our atmosphere - we're here, we are going to be - but to cite CO2, man made CO2, as the biggest problem facing the world is to tread on very dodgy ground indeed, as we are already seeing. The fact is that the earth is not warming, it has suffered prolonged warm periods in the past when we were'nt even around to be accused of causing it, and it will go on fluctuating for ever more. The Global Warming lobby is a money wasting farce that has little bearing in fact.

I do, but until the full routine's been processed it's best not to say. I don't think it's anyone you know Mr Darn.

Good questions all. Poncey wine bar in bedlington? No chance, wouldn't work - there'd only be Monsta in it! There are large capacity breweries willing to supply, and at much better prices than the tied house versions. On a positive note - and again this is one for Monsta - the Market Tavern has been given a new lease of life and will be opening under new management in the not too distant future. That's one saved from becoming a poncey wine bar or a block of flats.

They have indeed, and it's becoming even worse. When you consider that Punch Taverns - which owns the Tavern (currently shut) the Grapes, and I think the Monkey plus a couple at the station - owes billions of pounds at the moment there is little chance of anyone getting a deal that makes it worthwhile for them to run a pub as a Punch tied house. The problem is exaggerated by the fact that Punch is unwilling to sell the buildings outright in some cases as their entire borrowing capacity is based up valuing the pubs as a proerty portfolio. Without the noose around the neck that is brewery rents and beer prices a public house is actually quite a decent business proposition; with it it's commercial suicide.

Nice one Monsta. Funnily enough, that's about as relevant to knowing all about climate change as the qualifications that the boss of the IPCC holds. He's a railway engineer.

Where's yours??????