threegee

Bigger than you can imagine, but not as big as in the 1950's - about 25 (real) bands then. Yes, the opening scene is shot in North Ridge, and they are sort-of coming out of there. And.. I can confirm this is 1964 as there's something I put there in 1964 in one of the shots. The only person I immediately recognise is George Woodcock. He's the rather tall and distinguished white-haired guy marching near the front. http://en.wikipedia....trade_unionist) Other faces - mainly Bedlington folk - I do recognise but can't at the moment can't put names to them - always my problem, and an enduring embarassment! Yes again, but it jumps around a lot. Did you notice the black shroud on one of the banners. This signifies a fatal accident at that colliery in the previous year. This banner (with lettered steps on it) is I think the former Weetslade colliery, just north of Gosforth Park racecourse. Thing is I can't turn up any record of an accident in 1963/4. Were they really still mourning the 1951 disaster almost thirteen years later? True. You really are an ex Bedlingtonian then!

This was when things were starting to go downhill, with multiple pit closures. The kids "Jazz Bands" were an attempt to pad things out to make up for all the many, by then missing, brass bands. I think there was an element of copying the American cheerleader phenomena. An interesting bit of research to see when the "Jazz Bands" started, who introduced them, and where the influence came from. Something nobody has so far mentioned is the quaint name of the event. Why was it called a picnic, when in fact it was quite clearly a trade union movement political rally? The answer is that when it was first held in the 1860's such rallies were illegal, so it was dressed up as a day out for the family complete with brass band competition and sideshows. The banners behind which everyone marched weren't those of the trade union branches, but those of the associated colliery bands. But by reading some of the banners - at least by post WWII, and probably long before - a visitor could have been excused for thinking they'd taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in the former Soviet Union. By sheer coincidence I've just dredged up Ken Russel's nostalgia piece from 2005 with clips of the 1960 picnic in b&w. At nearly a gigabyte it's going to take some processing to make it streamable. He's included a bit of colour 8mm amateur footage from somewhere. It looks to me as though this was also taken in 1960. The really exciting thing is that we have some 8mm colour that has never been seen in public. I've probably mentioned this before, so it's about time we got it digitised. It's late '50s, and I will probably be able to pin the year down exactly. This could be the earliest colour film of the picnic, though I doubt it. It's more likely to be simply the earliest 8mm colour film.

In this case that role appears to be to suppress all public debate. http://biasedbbc.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=hotair&thread=865 Like you I don't understand how the appointees come to be where they are, and I guess that's how it was designed to be. Anyway, it isn't democratic, and it smells almost as badly as the previous unsustainable grace and favour system. Tinker at the edges and claim a major reform? They are a registered educational charity, and like all such charities must produce statutory returns. Their policy on only taking funding from private individuals and other public charities is clearly stated. You can bet your boots it will be scrutinised most closely. I'd guess than Nigel has dipped into his own deep pockets to kick it off. He's got nothing to gain from this himself, and unlike Gore (with a large amount of money invested in the carbon trading nonsense) is acting in the public interest. If he wasn't he wouldn't be getting the cross-party support or respected figures that he's persuaded to participate. It probably has. He's an economist, and one of the best money men this country has ever had. Didn't always lick Maggie's boots either. Committing national economic suicide is something he's not going to sit on his hands and see happen. Do you honestly believe we'd be in the mess we are in now if he'd been in control of the economy? Weighted maybe; but we are talking here about the outright suppression of dissenting opinion. I don't believe your 90% figure at all. Thirty one thousand US scientists have so far dissented http://www.oism.org/pproject/ and I think the figure bandied about by the US global warming lobby is one in 5 dissenters? Get an unbiased figure and take into account all the financial pressure being put on dissenters, and the true split could be a lot nearer evens. But in reality there aren't two camps but a whole spectrum of opinions. However the global warmers would like you to believe that there's simply total unanimity plus a few nutters. Look through the leaked e-mails and you'll rapidly glean that even the main proponents of this pseudo-science aren't convinced by their own story. The sad fact is that it's now far more about politics than it is about science. And the politicisation of the matter has come from the global warming lobby who are benefiting massively. Those e-mails illustrate that this is not good science; the data is being shaped to fit a pre-ordained agenda; and dissenters must be silenced by any means possible. They insult the intelligence of the general public too: "the ignorant masses" But - rather like that Iraq dossier - expert opinion still doesn't meet the requirements of senior politicians, who have in turn added their own spin. WMD all over again? Only two videos here, but there are dozens and dozens that shed light on what's going on in the name of science: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=rSfcAhoG3_g Little mention of any of this on the BBC because it doesn't fit the government line, and we "ignorant masses" wouldn't be able to handle the plain unvarnished truth even if they consented to provide it. Good point Merlin. Apparently 7% of Gordon's revenue now comes from so-called green taxes. He's raided every piggy bank, and borrowed to the hilt right into the next generation of taxpayers. The only way to raise more tax is to pretend that he's doing it to save the planet.

Sorry for the terminology mistake. The fact remains that the BBC supremos are! Source: the Beeb itself. An open admission of the News Channel when challenged by two concerned members of the public that word has gone down that it is no longer necessary to provide a balanced view. Day-to-day policy? What in reality does that mean? If there is a general directive as to unbalanced conduct then how can you have a balanced day-to-day policy? And who vets those applications? Not the viewing public I'd wager? It is weighted to economists because it's about economic policy. It is avowedly politically neutral and has cross-party support, and it doesn't take money from either side. It would be nigh impossible not to have anyone who mattered who wasn't somehow involved at some time with some commercial interest. c.f. our Parliament. It's not about the scientific or pseudo scientific arguments, but what to actually do in the light of available hard evidence. There are countless links I could have included, but I think this was the most practical one at a time when Gordon is in Copenhagen saving the world (again), and pledging billions of future tax revenue he hasn't got, and never will have! Very tricky, but you have to start somewhere. The point of the post is to point out that you shouldn't accept someone else's pre-digested truth - especially from an organisation that is no longer prepared to present a balanced view.

You can compete on other things than price. Who wants their hair butchered by the person/outfit who is prepared to do it the cheapest? Informed choice is what matters; so I guess we need a few consumer reports on our hairdressers here. Hairdressers are better than empty shops. At least it will provide a reason for some of our considerable through-traffic to stop in the town. It's that it illustrates the lack imagination, and lack of diversity in our service industries that's the real bummer. Perhaps we need to ask local people what is missing in the town, and what sort of businesses they would genuinely patronise? Not just compile a list of aspirations, but a list of genuine service and supplier need. Then we could do a sort of situations vacant in an attempt to encourage those business types to set-up here.

Something to bear in mind when you are subjected to the constant pictures of melting ice, and people living in precarious river deltas etc., is that the BBC Governors have decided. They have decided that there is now no need to make a pretence to balance. That lots of scientists hold a quite different view is something we are not to be burdened with. So the tree-huggers at the Beeb are given full reign, senior staff can no longer steer the Corporation back to a middle of the road view. Time I think to get rid of the BBC Governors and replace them with a democratically elected board properly representative of the people they serve. Meanwhile beware of the BBC propaganda. It's all to easy to led into the belief that there is incontrovertible proof of global warming. That all dissent is now silent, and that there are only flat-earthers left. In fact quite the reverse; more and more thinking people are speaking out to question the hysteria. If you want a balanced view of what's going on then you could do a lot worse than visit http://www.thegwpf.org/who-we-are.html These prominent people aren't on the government payroll, and they aren't on the payroll of energy companies either! And kids, don't believe everything you are told in the classroom. Your teachers are following the government line - or worse! To get at the truth you'll have to start looking into this for yourselves. It's not easy, but you'll find that the junk you are being fed won't stand up to close examination, and that your teachers could be very wrong!

Well, correcting her surname was a good start. She does return on occasions. Use the on-site search as I'm sure someone posted details of the great event a while back. Anyway, all you have to do is wait until the next time, quickly bump this thread, then loudly claim your result. Unless, of course, as the loyal and dedicated Bedlingtonian she is, she's reading this. Then she'll surely post on this thread: "Callum, I was already thinking along those lines, but I'm going to dedicate this trip to you". Then you will achieve instant fame; have to give endless press and radio interviews; get asked to switch on the Bedlington Christmas lights next year; and may even get to be interviewed by a top Bedlington.co.uk reporter in his lunch break! Are you really sure you can handle all this celebrity?

The operative words here are moored and United States. But there's a germ of an idea here for Bedlington. Perhaps launch free hydrogen baloons from the Market Place with tags inviting a report of where they were found to be made on this site? An interesting map, a compy, and some publicity for Bedders all rolled into one?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe that there's a history book kicking around which says the Bedlas were a Celtic tribe. Many years since I saw it, but doubtless we'll happen on a copy sooner or later. Would really help the community effort if some of the local historians would upload some of their source material. Plenty of help available from lots of directions if the technicals are beyond them. They need only ask, and will of course get full credit, as well as a considerably firmer place in history for themselves. A Wiki would be a great help Fourgee. I'm particularly thinking about stuff in living memory where the mass recollection will be far clearer and more accurate than any individual's. There are bits I can contribute here and there going back to the 1950's and I've a few snippets that I can recall fairly clearly from what I was told as a child by people now long gone. Not enough to write a history, but enough to make a useful contribution to a common effort. We don't need to get all up-tight about this like Wikipedia - just say it's everyone's best effort to pass on what we can to current and future generations.

Noooo wasn't talking about your post - just people in general. Hope you don't take offence at me pinching your ID - SouperCan (But don't worry Fourgee, I may only deploy it for 15 minutes - before replicating it in various colours.)

Different set of people I think. Once you can't tap him for hush money no point in labouring the point. Did he harm any kids? I don't think so! Did the kids enjoy being on his tacky 'ranch'? Yeah, of course they did! Overrated? Yes - but aren't quite a few current pop idols? Deserves his place in history, and doesn't deserve to be bad-mouthed from beyond the grave.

If we'd been a little brighter with our unmatched industrial heritage (and I certainly don't mean the dumb conservation areas) we'd have had an area-beating tourist industry to bring the cash in. Beamish wouldn't have had a look in! Then, of course, there's those cute little woolly things the world is so fond of.

You're going to have to release HP you know - absolutely no one is going to pay the ransom money!

You have to be very careful about taking public donations Cym. The right structure has to be in place and it has to be for a defined purpose and fully accountable. It's not something we'd want to rush into here. And as far as b.co.uk is concerned, frankly we don't need any! All we need is a little bit of commercial sponsorship (read paid advertising) from local business, and more people with ability giving some of their free time. But.. I can see ways that this could get our local radio off the ground.

If money is the real problem then there are other ways of raising the cash other than holding a begging bowl out to uncaring politicians. I think that lots of people and enterprises would be prepared to tip-in a bit if the correct financial structure was in place, and they could see how the money was going to be spent. No mega-donations, just thousands of small ones. There are several ways this could be acomplished on a proper legal footing. And, as for would it fly; well, hasn't the last week shown that there are thousands of motivated people who care about their town and will get behind anything which busts the status quo?

Facebook isn't going to fade away in a year or two, but come back in a year or two and say the same thing and I'll wager you'll have modified your view. The same sort of thing must have been said in the ITV boardroom when they paid an absurd £175m for friendsreunited in 2005/2006. The fact is that facebook has borrowed heavily from other people's ideas and in turn will have its own ideas borrowed. It's the current fad and will go the same way as all the other fads. Yes, Bedlington.co.uk has a very defined audience - Bedlington and Bedlingtonians throught the world. It's a social experiment in itself and there's an intention to clone it. But it's not a profit center for some American corporation or Australian media mogul. It's in the true spirit of the original Internet. It's there for the more enterprising members of the local community to shape. It won't go away because it no longer satisfies the conditions of someone's bottom line (Geocities etc. etc.). It will evolve - perhaps a bit slower than we might like at times - but it's permanence and lack of faddiness will win through to those people who don't quite see the point - yet!

There have been 96 core CPUs around for years that are designed to be run in pairs, and with other boards of same. Granted they are specalist ones that aren't x86 compatible, but they have addressed some of the parallel processing problems. The support software is very important, and here Intel are just playing catch-up. Now there are 192 core versions of the same. I've got a little bit of my hard-earned in this company, but I wouldn't recommend it as a "safe" investment. Where Intel score is the processing technology (that produced the 45nm Atom, and the forthcoming 32nm Moorestown chipset). They are gearing up for 22nm now. Other manufacturers are struggling to keep up (or maybe that should be keep down? ).

What you need to know Stephen is that there was a bit more to tonight's event than met the eye. I won't go into all the details but a few things came together to make it happen. Not the least of this was that we've got fresh faces in places that matter. People who are more in-tune with the Internet Age than the regular old fogies in the town of my age group. However few of these people would see any point in posting on facebook. Don't run away with the idea that you can produce real change in the place by one-off feel good events. Nice though they are this won't produce sustainable employment and make Bedlington a better place to live in for the future. But what you have done is to show an interest and a commitment to YOUR town. That's more than many of the people here who simply run the place down and complain year after year. If only a few of your age group make an effort to understand the real issues we can make real changes. If that sounds a bit boring, well, sometimes it is. But long after facebook and the next fad to replace it are forgotten you'll still have a result, and it will be YOUR result. So ask questions as to why this or that isn't possible. Try to understand the concerns of older generations. Put forward ideas; but be prepared to change those ideas when you discover where the problems are. Encourage your friends to do the same. It's not easy, and it won't generally produce a quick result. But keep plugging away and things will change for the better.

Only the Warm Wide Web kind!

The forum moderator might care to correct the link (missing colon). Unfortunately you wouldn't be able to get one for Xmas because this isn't a real product. And, even if you did, you wouldn't be able to do much with it as there is no commercial software support. Sticking n cores on a chip doesn't give you an n times improvement in a single application. There are huge problems "parallelising" normal computing tasks, and the results are often very disappointing. This multi-core is likely to be used in researching those problems.

Think you've stood things on their head here Mons. It's Google who are to be charged by the news providers. People like that fabulous philanthrop Rupert Murdoch are determined that we consumers will pay for their news. They don't see a future for their organisations if we can all read news on-line for free, and they think the Googles of this world are getting a free ride on their content. It has only taken Rups ten years to work out that the Internet means the end of pushing bits of dead tree through people's letterboxes. But, they are not going to give up without a struggle - however futile that struggle may be. I hear that our own Johnston Press is starting a three months trial of charging for local news content. Their take is that local news, unlike national or regional news, is special and that people will pay for it. What a good thing for them that some towns don't have their own community websites - sites which publish local news before they can even get ink to dead tree!

Well, it still is, but keeping it up-to-date is going to get harder and harder. Lots of people have contributed only to see their content trashed by the Wikipedia elite. Those people won't bother again, or will find somewhere else to contribute to. Speaking personally, I've considered correcting some of the erroneous content on the history of microcomputers from first-hand knowledge. But from what I've seen of how current contributors are being treated have decided that the time would be better spent elsewhere. In the end the Web doesn't need Wikipedia. By the Web's very nature specalist sites will pop up that can provide focus to subjects that Wikipedia can only scratch the surface on. So by trying to be all things to all people it will end up by being very mediocre. It's a catch 22 situation!

Oh, I don't think there will be much need for that; they know the song too: Come gather 'round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You'll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you Is worth savin' Then you better start swimmin' Or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin'. Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won't come again And don't speak too soon For the wheel's still in spin And there's no tellin' who That it's namin'. For the loser now Will be later to win For the times they are a-changin'. Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There's a battle outside And it is ragin'. It'll soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin'. Come mothers and fathers Throughout the land And don't criticize What you can't understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is Rapidly agin'. Please get out of the new one If you can't lend your hand For the times they are a-changin'. The line it is drawn The curse it is cast The slow one now Will later be fast As the present now Will later be past The order is Rapidly fadin'. And the first one now Will later be last For the times they are a-changin'. ...and you didn't check the town calendar.

I think the old infants school has a willing and able developer. It's just all the official BS (and jobs-worths) around these days. One layer of regulation after another! The news pages here tell us there is a public enquiry on the infants school rescheduled for 15th December, but the public won't be able to speak. What kind of nonsense is that? It's quite ridiculous to apply the same planning standards to our town that are applied to highly prosperous leafy suburbs in the South East. That's enshrining the very inequality that has plagued us for decades. The kids think they live in a dump - see recent post elsewhere here - but they can't see things from the perspective of history. Our town is a victim of both the major parties. Ignored by Labour because it's an easy prey to their politics of envy and state-dependence economy, and ignored by the Tories because it's a no-hoper as far as votes go. Other places play smart in the political game, we have played the dumbest game of all time! There is a glimmer of hope, but it's from the youngsters and sadly not from my own generation. They have to stop listening to their parents distorted view of the world and start using their own heads. A hard call when the education system promotes mediocrity, and rewards conformity of thought.