threegee

You're nicked for airspace violation! - C.A.A. "Merseyside Police said they had been unaware they needed a licence to fly..." http://news.bbc.co.u...ide/8517726.stm

Confused - what's facebook? Anyone seen my Filofax?

This whole Olympics thing is a lousy piece of marketing. In Winter I want to see sun and sand, in Summer I want to see cool. Therefore the Olympics should always be held in the Southern Hemisphere. Permanent Olympic villages somewhere in South America; look at the money saved! You know it makes sense!

Why don't you write to local business and offer them free advertising in the first year to the value of any contribution? In hard times that has to be an easier proposition than an outright gift. Plus of course an entry on the eternal roll of honour of those that got our community radio off the ground. It would be as interesting to see who didn't appear on that as who did! In fact stick the proposition up here too. Andy will doubtless run your display ads on the banner engine.

The Monsta Mail: "most the trees have gone because man chopped them down" The Times: http://www.timesonli...ticle637004.ece Discover how many trees there are in the World here: http://wiki.answers....re_in_the_world

Euro Area Headed for Break-Up, SocGen's Edwards Says "according to Societe Generale SA's top-ranked strategist Albert Edwards.... Even if governments' could slash their fiscal deficits, the lack of competitiveness within the euro zone needs years of relative (and probably given the outlook elsewhere, absolute) deflation. Any help given to Greece merely delays the inevitable break-up of the euro zone.” Not going to go down too well with the euro-at-any-price politicians that one then. Lehman failed Stephen because the particularly nasty CEO rubbed too many people up the wrong way. Someone HAD to be thrown to the wolves, and the old boy network didn't need much prompting as to who. If NR had been allowed to go the UK situation wouldn't have got quite as bad, and the taxpayer wouldn't be in for quite such a staggering bill. No one would have missed a piddling little regional BS that had got above itself, was being run by idiots, and had near disconnected with its customer base. The small guys would have been fully protected at a tiny fraction of the cost - if any at all - to the taxpayer. And the big boys would have got their comeuppance. Instead the big boys were rewarded for their folly, and the small guys get to pick up the massive bill - though this will be well hidden, and spread over years if not decades. In any form of capitalism companies have got to be allowed to fail. If there's a structural problem you don't paper over the cracks, you pull down and build afresh. The market is pretty good at this if left well alone, but politicians are allowed to meddle, so they do. Meanwhile the final tab just keeps on growing. Essentially what SocGen is saying there.

No, it would be the plant life that would grow in arid regions when we spend just a tiny fraction of what is being proposed on carbon capture on irrigation to grow plant crops to feed starving people. Read the whole thing! There's a job for you with the IPCC, picking what suits you, quoting it out of context, and completely ignoring the rest! "most the trees have gone because man chopped them down" - now there's a scientific fact! Who's allotment would this be on? Been to Kielder recently? The problem with bees is a mystery, there's nothing to connect it with pesticides, and some beekeepers report no problem. Not that trees or bees have anything to do with the subject of this thread. But ask yourself how, if we can't discover what is going on right now with bees flying under our noses, we can predict the climate decades in advance with enough confidence to spend countless billions of pounds on carbon capture in an attempt to change it. The fact is that last night's weather forecast for today has been drastically revised, and they are still pretending that they can predict it five days in advance! But hey, that is weather, and we are talking climate. With climate 15 years is just a statistical blip - except when it's a 15 years the IPCC says is climate and not weather. If this year is particularly warm, this will absolutely prove m.m. global warming. One in sixteen should be good enough for anyone. If it's cool then it will be a small part of an ongoing statistical blip. If the statistical blip extends another 15 years we'll declare a draw - insufficient data - further research needed - you didn't properly fund the research, and retire on our inflated pensions. Win win for the IPCC and it's ever increasing budget. But, no more megabucks for researching the ozone layer; no more "hole in the ozone layer" - get the connection? No, you're too young.

Now which organisation would that be? The whole mass hysteria seems to be predicated on the "hockey stick" thing. Would that it is warming up a bit on a permanent basis. Lives will be saved; more food will be grown; less fossil fuels used for heating; etc. etc. Where is the downside to a bit of warming? You can only create a doom and disaster scenario if there's a sudden non-linear take off. So of course you have to invent a computer model which predicts just this. All the records show that no such rapid change has ever taken place in the entire 4 billion year history of the Earth, and that there's a natural mechanism built in to limit the Earth's temperature to just under 25c. And that's despite all the cataclysms the Universe has thrown at it. Granted, 25c is a fair bit warmer than today, but what a gloriously fertile and productive Earth that would be. Lots of extra CO2 would be consumed by the plant life too (self-regulation again). Exactly the conditions that led to mammals and the human race in the first place! In other words if it hadn't been for a warmer Earth we wouldn't be here today. But the tree-huggers need another lever. We are told that the people in the Sahara are going to be fried in order to fuel our greed. But hang on, the Sahara has only been there for a couple of thousand years! Was the encroachment of the desert into formerly very fertile land due to the internal combustion engine and industrialisation? The point is that if such a thing were ever to happen as the "hockey stick effect" the ludicrous (and totally unfordable) sums proposed for carbon capture would feed, clothe, house, and air-condition just about any afflicted area of the earth many times over. And, we'd then be spending money at a point of real need, not throwing it at something which will in all common sense never happen. When people on our Earth are still starving it's totally immoral to be proposing such hair brained schemes as carbon capture, and to promote the silliness of carbon trading. Where's the money for irrigation which would really help these starving peoples? That irrigation BTW would be massively carbon negative, and there's a case that it would be more than economically neutral. What are we going to do with the carbon we capture? Oh yes, bury it underground! Could it be that there's no reason to fund such an obvious, compassionate and moral thing as ensuring the starving people of the world can grow their own food on a decent scale, because it doesn't suit anyone's hidden agenda? What's at the root of all this is an alliance of convenience between the green lobby, a small group of bent "scientists" out for their jollies, and sound-bite politicians. Journalists and teachers do have more than their fair share of the agin-any-sort-of-progress mob, so the hoodwinking and indoctrination can continue. You and I both know that none of this crap would have got past our forefathers. They may not have had the level of education of people today, but they did have good old horse-sense.

Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995 Someone needs to point this out to the Great Thought Lords at the Beeb. Their excuse for stifling all debate is that it has been settled! Maybe there's another IPCC we haven't been told about? Thought: If there was an IPSC (International Panel for Santa Claus), would it have proving Santa Claus was a fiction on its agenda?

It can't be North Terrace because if you look at the shadows they are coming from the South toward the back-doors. And it isn't Shiney Row either (which I initially thought it was) for exactly the same reason. The only one of the long rows with the backs facing that way would be Doctor Terrace. Also if you look right down at the end you can see a large building on the other side of the Glebe Road. That would be the stores (Moores Stores?). An old map would confirm that alignment. I know for a fact that the numbers on Shiney ran from low nearest the Dr Pit, to high at the Glebe Road end. Assuming this was true for all three of the major rows, then this has to be the lower numbers. Lets guess at the teens for now, though it could conceivably be single figures. 1951 says Cympil. Time of day looks about noon. It would be possible to pin that down to about 15 minutes, and have a pretty good stab at the month too.

Thing is this isn't a recession of the type any of us has been through. Those are a bit painful, but things inevitably bounce back in a year or two or three. It's actually a 21st century style depression. We got in this mess through constantly failing to face up to the consequences of overspending. This doesn't need explaining to anyone who has run a real business or even balanced a household budget. But when you attempt to write your own rules, as GB has (even though we've never been favoured with a set-in-stone explanation as to what those five rules actually are) and know no real restraints, then the result is inevitable. More inevitable than the final result of the MPs determining their own allowable expenses. Blunder one was spend-spend-spend through boom; blunder two was simply refusing to recognise it was a boom and extending "the economic cycle" to whatever fitted the convenience of the day. Blunder three was interventionism - remember that of-no-account building society with incompetent management that should have been allowed to fail. Rescuing NR sent all the wrong messages to the big boys. A huge mistake to throw tax payers money at it. And worse: Darling still pats himself on the back that it was the right thing to do! You're right about "neo liberal style economics". The solution to the failure of regulation is apparently more regulation. No mention that the regulation which failed was at heart the self-regulation of the politicians themselves. And the solution to being massively over-borrowed is more borrowing: http://news.bbc.co.u...ess/8513650.stm Today the solution to unemployment is less employment - I though I must have misheard that on the BBC, but no a 21 hour week is being seriously advocated by one quango or another! As Ferguson has pointed out roaring inflation is now locked in to the system. When it does break out you'd better not be on a fixed income, or indeed live in a community that is near dependant on fixed government handouts. There's a cruel symmetry built into this, in that many of those who put this bunch of self-serving incompetents into power are going to be the hardest hit. Who will they blame? Well, certainly not themselves!

Heavyweight economist Prof. Niall Ferguson has just published an article in the FT titled A Greek crisis is coming to America - the title of which might say it all, except that the article goes on to conclude: I'm convinced that his lecture last year in Westminster Hall has a something to do with the unprecedented numbers of MP's who are standing down at the election. In his Westminster lecture he called the present state of affairs "a repressed depression". An end to the recession, says Mr Darling! To borrow the famous words of W.C.: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Of course we are all completely wrong on this - someone who was born there in 1955 has just mentioned the place on another thread in this section. http://www.bedlingto...654-barrington/ For my part the annoying thing is that I've probably been called out to Double Row on a repair job in the dim and distant past, and on more than one occasion! Certainly the name rang a bell; unfortunately no one was in at the time. BTW this one I've just spotted in Cympil's gallery really captures the spirit of almost 60 years ago in the rows. If it were a painting it would likely be a masterpiece! Where's the one of the free coal deliveries spilling over half the road though? http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/gallery/image/351-ice-cream-man-jack-antoniho-dr-pit-1951/

Sounds like two must-be-there events for anyone with a decent camera, and who fancies themselves as a photographer Owen! Look forward to seeing the resulting pictures. Did anyone put these on the town calendar?

http://news.bbc.co.u...ogy/8512263.stm This sort of thing has to be the way forward, rather than pay the Rupert Murdochs huge sums that they don't need, and that aren't at all justified by the content. http://vimeo.com/9352664 I will be at the front of the queue to tip in a few quid a month. And if bedlington.co.uk were to have a flattr button I'd be clicking on it once a month to ensure Andy keeps up the good work. What's more, if or when Bedlington has a radio station and they ask for support they'd get a regular click too! Bring it on payitbay.com! 10% off the top is a bit much - almost as bad as the 11% odd that Amazon steal from small sellers. So I'd hope that when flattr gets over the initial hurdles it would reduce to something below 5%. But they've got the barrier of the banks creaming off their cut too, so one has to be realistic. BTW Andy is very busy at the moment coding a new project that we are going to see here for sure. This is looking so good that he's already attracted a few voluntary donations from other parts of the globe. It wouldn't surprise me if code originally planned just for this website is deployed on thousands of other websites worldwide. There are some brilliant and enterprising people in our small town, as indeed there have been throughout history.

There's a law against that sort of thing - even if you own it. Local "builders" please note! I'd buy the old infants school from the developer and put up a large monument to the people who don't want to see any change for the better in the town. The inscription might read: "Dedicated to those Bedlingtonians who would rather remain in the 20th century than make a few small compromises and move into the 21st."

It's a good thing that the euro is getting a bit of a bashing. Cheaper holidays, and it gives Gordo something to point to when he, and the grey-haired Edinburgh solicitor who pretends he knows something about economics, (falsely) claim that it's a global problem. Countries that go bankrupt because they hold Olympic Games they can't afford deserve all they get. They're only slightly less dumb than countries that are already bankrupt, and yet still intend to hold Olympic Games they can't afford!

Not a Bedlington Estate Agent, but the funniest thing I've seen for years! http://secretestateagent.blogspot.com/ BTW interesting that not a single Bedlington Estate Agent has had the guts to post an "I'm not like that - our firm gives real service" message. And yes, they have read this thread; at least the less dozy ones! Keep your head down seems to be the best policy then? Or maybe not? When the entire show is replaced by sellers and buyers doing their own thing on the Internet for pennies rather than paying thousands of pounds of unearned commissions, you'll not need to ask the question why. They'll have put themselves out of business!

Silly burka!

Close, but isn't where the Police HQ is almost slap on the Dr Pit head, or at least just a tiny bit South of it? The 'raas' were West and North of this. The most prominent one (nearest the Front Street) was Shiney Row, shown here on the right of Cympil's gallery photo: If you look at the row on the left of this picture (Doctor Terrace) there were some shorter rows running at about ninety degrees way over at the back there. One of them, as I remember, was New South Row. Why it was called this I could never fathom as it wasn't South of anything I could see. Anyway, my guess is that Double Row was 'ower there'. These other rows were the first to see the bulldozer, and I don't think they had the renovation money spent on them the more prominent ones in the foreground had. Waiting to be corrected on any of this! Hey, start a gallery, and get those pictures up there for posterity! Need any help with this then just ask any of the Mods or Admins.

This is so true. One day there'll be a musical: T. Dan and his Amazing Disappearing Friends. The problem with the working class representing the working class is that they all too easily get carried away with the trappings of power, and accept many complex things at face value. Isn't history repeating itself right at this moment! When the reckoning comes the old boy network closes up and leaves them holding the baby. Well illustrated in the 1970's Lindsay Anderson masterpiece O Lucky Man! I'm sure they had the Poulson affair in mind when they wrote that.

Monsta you need to study a little of the modern political history of our area. Fact is they have been locked up! And the odd political agent too, though some might say that he took the wrap! When you look back at who we've had representing us over the last 50 years you wonder what the people of this area have been thinking about! There's the infamous ones like Andrew Cunningham and T. Dan Smith of course, but did you know that our smooth-talking barrister Labour MP got two and a half years in clink in 1992 for pretending to be a director of a swiss bank and defrauding two women out of their life savings? The first of our Labour MP's I can remember was Alfred Robens. Now nobody is saying he was a crook, but it's a strange kind of socialist that ends up owning a castle in the South East and sitting on the boards of numerous companies. Alf has the distinction of closing far more pits and sacking far more miners than anyone in history. This is one of the many things that local Labour would rather not talk about. In fact they'd rather not talk about anything at all because they no longer have any ideology or coherent set of ideas. People like Ronnie Campbell and Denis Murphy have not the slightest thing in common with the educated big wigs of the Labour party who are as elitist and self-serving as they come! Ron & Den were put there as a sponge to soak up dumb vote-as-your-parents-did votes for the articulate solicitors and barristers of Nu Labour. I suspect that Denis has probably woken up to this by now; that he's been thrown the very last crust, and that's just about as far as he's going to be allowed to go. Ronnie... well, it might take a while longer to soak in. The reality gap between what is and what people can be made to believe - especially the young and those with short memories - is responsible for the mess this area (and now the entire country) is in today. But rejecting the whole thing like you are doing is putting yourself in the same place as those who have been (and continue to be) duped. You need to turn your brain on and choose the least of the evils & bullsh*t on offer, and get out there and vote.

He'll be turning in his grave if you call him Eddie! A little confusion there I think between the renegade Labour MP for Blyth with one 'L' and the local entrepreneur James H. with two (as in Millne Court)! They were neither related or politically compatible - assuming renegade Eddie could have been politically compatible with anyone. I'm pretty sure there was a huge disparity in collecting libel writs too; 36-0 being the likely final score. The courtyard you are looking for would have been Fogan's Yard. It didn't back onto the Millne orchard but what was at one time the main road North (on its West side) and on the North side were probably allotments, although this was pretty close to the BUDC council yard. The Laird's House (former residence of the Chairman of the Bedlington Coal Company etc. and later James H.) did have both a garden and an orchard. It also had a rather grand tennis court on the North side too, but I don't think it was ever used post WWII. Just about no one will realise when they are using the car park that they are standing in this tennis court. It's responsible for the shape of the car park, and most of the levels (including the grassy slopes down) remain largely unchanged. On the left of the Fogan's Yard arch was an open-windowed wet fish shop (Mrs Todd?), and on the right, and just a few yards down, Mr Alsop [two L's two P's - someone correct me?] the Gents Hairdresser, a competitor of the (in)famous Billy the Barber further down the street near the Market Place. I recall being told that I didn't have to worry when in Billy's chair about his antics (including with the cut-throat razor), as he was the only person in the Bedlington who had a certificate to prove his sanity! Traditional Barber's Shop Singing really did take place, and in Bedlington too!

It was Gordon von Hindenburg-Braun wot done it. Throw away your wallet or purse and dust off the barra; because you'll need it to buy a loaf of bread before too long. Back on subject: Another confirm today that it is 6th May. So, barring a plot to invade Iran and a resulting national emergency being engineered - on previous form a not entirely impossible scenario (WoMD - Warnings of Major Defeat?) - we should see if we can get a bookie to take our money.