threegee

Raymond was one of the first people i ever voted for, when i was eventually permitted to vote. I can't remember exactly what he stood for, but what he didn't stand for was the mindless status quo! Yes, paternalism was the ticket in those days, but don't knock the totally genuine concern, and place it in historical context (as I'm sure you do)! Your sentiments that "it matters not one jot what your political affiliation is, it is simply pride in where you come from" are exactly mine. But, if you think that Bedlington has moved well into the 21st Century you've not read too many of the posts here. There has been a major awakening, but sadly it's still far too easy to buy into the likes of Lavery's mantra of victimhood, state dependency, and that the world owes us all a living. Because of this most Bedlingtonians with get up and go still do, and everyone is poorer for it! "Ranting" is what I do best; but I'm steadily working towards making myself a historic curiosity - just like my dear old grandpa! John's talk about cycles earlier on this thread is interesting, but I'm not sure that he has all the background quite right.

That could easily be true, but you need to argue that with the unions who are demanding government action on Chinese imports depressing world markets. The unions must know that the government can't do the necessary within the EU framework. So.. both the Tories and the unions are either kidding themselves or kidding us - you choose! This is currently labelled as one of those "wicked" issues to which there is no easy solution. But it's certainly not one of those; like the resurrection of our fishing and other "strategic" industries there is a very straightforward solution: leave the political EU! Trade and politics do not mix, and the Common Market was sold to the British people as a free trade area. It's time to call the politician's bluff and get back to fundamentals. As you imply, we have a trade deficit with the EU, and they depend on our contributions to keep the whole political project afloat. We call the shots here, and if you meekly accept the EUphile's argument that we are in any way dependant on the EU for survival, you dramatically sell our great country short!

Research the threats on Longridge's life by left wing extremists, and the subsequent events... There are many reasons that such great men have been quietly disowned by their birthplace. I'm not saying the blame was all on one side, but the short-sightedness of local Labour politicos is - and continues to be - staggering. That short-sightedness has extended to the physical destruction of our heritage. Even as I child I could see that what was going on was a betrayal of our heritage, but right then I didn't have the facts to back this up. Was it planned or just sheer ignorance? Well.. a bit of both I think.

Because - like most of our town's "under-performance" - it became highly political! Those people were "evil" Tories, so must be erased from history at every opportunity. The overwhelming left-wing narrative demands no less! And more left-wing votes are to had from that place to the North, so Bedlington and its proud history doesn't even deserve a mention.

One thousand more jobs to go - some of them in the NE - due to Chinese dumping of steel. What does the USA do about this? It applies swingeing tariffs on dumped steel to protect US jobs until the dumping stops and normal fair trade can resume. What does EUCam do? He offers platitudes whilst another major industry slips away. He can't act without the permission of our German overlords, and such permission will never be forthcoming. This wouldn't align with Merkel's view of how things must be. And, what does the EU-centric, EU-funded, BBC tell us about this? Well, whatever you do don't mention the EU dimension to our job losses, as it would blow a hole straight through our propaganda about EU membership being good for jobs. Keep on repeating the lie about three million jobs being dependant on our membership of a political union, and we'll put through this bad patch - until, the next bout of EU damage to our economy. Sad that a once national treasure has been so subverted that we now get more objectivity from Al Jazeera or Russia Today!

Irrefutable Chinese logic there. Everyone knows what the "other" and prohibited use of a knife is! This road sign is entirely logical too (providing you are the sign contractor):

You couldn't make it up! He actually said it! Corbynite Labour policy is now to scrap Trident but not dry-dock our four nuclear submarines - because that would cause job losses! So, we'll be paying for nuclear subs to cruise the world to advertise the fact that we've entirely lost all our marbles! Surely it would be far cheaper, less polluting, and less humiliating for our country, to pay those submarine crews and support workers to build sand castles on the nearest beach? There's artistic merit in this alternative policy too; it needs to be debated at the next shadow cabinet meeting!

Ah, yes: Toka A Anji Lodi in English - in fact just what I was thinking before Google translate came up with the same answer. ない生活は不気味ですか？ Umm.. don't bother to translate that - you'll get: Life without Is it creepy? I leave you to guess what the original English was.

@Canny lass Zero cost (on a PC) can't be extravagant, and one password for everything spells major trouble. Anyway, how do you deal with sites that don't allow you to set your own password, and PIN numbers, and other private information? A good password manager does ALL this for you on ALL sites/occasions, and also makes sure you have them on ALL your devices at ALL times. It can also sign in to site automatically - that alone is a big time saver! Everything could get stolen, and you'd still retain full control of your digital life. The very fact that you do use scraps of paper means that you are avoiding the obvious solution! I challenge you to install Lastpass, and then come back here in a few months time to tell us that your life has not been made a lot lot easier!

The Introduce Yourself forum is still restricted, and besides Live!, there will be other features that are non-viewable by non-members.

What he said, and please note that recovering your password has nothing directly to do with signing in. If you already know your password then there is no point in asking to be sent an email to tell you what you already know. Make sure you are NOT clicking on the Sign Up button. This is not for existing members. There's a drop down menu to the left of that button. You are looking for: Existing user? Sign In That "few minutes" is just a generality. In fact on our mailservers there's rarely any significant delay, the wait is at the other end and completely beyond our control. Your ISPs mail system might be backed up or completely unreachable, in this event ours simply keeps on trying to deliver mail every hour, until it succeeds or it finally gives up after a few days. Mail servers silently talk to each other in the background, and the actual transfer of the email happens in their own time (when both are ready), and that's not when it's sent or when the recipient views it, but at some indeterminate time in between. It might amuse you to know that this transfer starts with a HELO message - yes, with only one L!

It's a brave man that ventures into Faragian territory and dares to even suggest that immigration is working against the interests of ordinary Brits. Double brave when it's a celeb, and triple brave when that celeb depends on the largesse of the Biased Broadcasting Corporation to keep him in the manner to which he has become accustomed. But, Noel Edmonds has done it; perhaps not with the Faragian certitude, and by way of question rather than assertion. He needn't have bothered with fine phrasing: the PC police have already descended on his thought processes, and he must be made to suffer! TV star Noel Edmonds sparks migration row: Am I alone in feeling Britain is FULL, he asks My two penneth is to say no Mr Edmonds you are not alone, and you KNOW you are not alone. Patient, long-suffering, ordinary Brits have had enough of the social engineering thrust on them by both our traitorous liberal elites, and international corporations working hand in glove. We'd like our country back - PLEASE!

I don't see that 3 minute clause anywhere in the contract @Canny lass! And, don't blame the shipper when your delivery office has a long queue - change your mail handler! If you can't guess your own password then it's probably the right password, and you'd be moving in the wrong direction. Anyway, please send me your bank account number - purely for testing purposes. Writing passwords on scraps of paper is something else that went out in the middle ages. Use a secure password manager like Lastpass. They are generally free on a PC, and there's a small sub for the mobile platform. If you use it on both platforms then the magic increases exponentially. Password change? Have a look in your control panel and you'll find all sorts of interesting settings, including resetting that. If all else fails then PM a moderator - THAT will take more than 3 minutes though.

Of course you can submit them Maggie. How much space would you like? Update: You are now a "Contributor" which removes any upload limit. PM me if you have any other problems.

I'm tempted to say the EU forced us to convert to €s - with the usual consequences, but the reality is we seem to have moved to UTF8. Non fretta; all will be fixed anon. Update: The borrowers under the floorboards have returned your quotes. They promise not to do it again.

Yeah, wot he said too - I think. Happy Birthday CL!

If you hit the Discussion Tab you'll get things in the familiar forums format - this should reduce the shock of the new. Other missing features will creep back as time is available.

Well... we've finally gone and done it and moved to the new format! Not all the previous features are back yet, and there are some new ones we'll all need to get used to, but we're surely getting there. If you have any problems or observations then please post them on this thread. Once things are stable we have a number of initiatives planned to move your community forward. So... 2016 is likely to be a year of considerable change, and we do hope it's mostly change for the better. When we first launched hand-held internet devices were almost unheard of, so the mobile support we slowly added was very much ad hoc. The new bedlington.co.uk was designed for mobile devices from the ground up - as you'll discover when you visit from your smartphone or tablet. Enjoy!

EU membership is a truly excellent way to promote intercontinental harmony, and bury all those little past differences of viewpoint. Peace in our time! And... whatever you do Basilski, don't mention the war! Oops, you just did! I bet Mutti Merkel will be hopping mad with our Polish friends when she sees this! Some others in Mutti's entourage on the cover have... err... "been here before".

Apologies to The Spectator for ripping off more of their text than is reasonable under copyright law, but a significant number of people on this thread need an excuse not to face reality. Full article

Probably totally unheard of to current generations he was arguably much more significant to UK (and indeed World) popular culture than the celebrated Brian Epstein, had a much longer run, and covered a far "broader range". He was also a bit of a character, of the sort that would have been highly un-PC these grey days. Telstar: The Joe Meek Story was shown on TV over the holiday period, so he was already on my mind when the sad news broke. Obituary: http://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/631827/Robert-Stigwood-Bee-Gees-John-Travolta-Grease

More news that isn't being reported and another nail in Merkel's coffin: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/631531/Police-Germany-Hunt-1000-Arab-North-African-Gang-Cologne-Sex-Attack-Assault

Though... in other parts of Europe it has never been greener - at least in the last decade. This is just as well as (due to the economically failing EU) there has been a massive return to the land, where people are growing stuff for own/local consumption. Anyone fancy some oranges?

In politics (and the law) you ask questions to elicit a response that demonstrates the weakness of the position of the opposition, and their misunderstandings. You aren't looking too hard then: present day politics is mostly a "State of War" within the parties! A rep score of 0 is still a rep. It's there in the profile for all time. This is la-la-leftie-land supposition, where sixteen year-olds and even babies have the life experience of mature adults. Reference those hilarious trade union block votes of the past for a taste of how things are supposed to work. Back in the real world If you aren't interested and/or can't be a**ed to vote then you don't count! That one got Red Arthur because he knew that he couldn't carry the NUM membership into his strike to overthrow the government. Half a million votes is as good as it gets on gov.uk just at the moment. 98% of the propositions even I can't be bothered to vote on! I actually know of no one who is "anti-immigrant". Adopting a sane immigration policy is not being against immigrants, or even against immigration per-Se. Nor is it against asylum seekers who are genuine asylum seekers. Back in the 1990's mass immigration started being used as a tool by Labour to keep up its fading working class support. We need to counter this cynical political manipulation of our population by calling a pause, and because of the clear and present danger presented by world Islam there's no time like the present. No one will benefit more - from say a five year pause - than our existing immigrants. The penalty for inaction will be major bloodshed!