threegee

It's going on forty years since I learned about Ebac, and then drove down to darkest Co. Durham to buy one of their "building driers" to solve a humidity problem in a small Bedlington industrial project. In fact a short while before, and on a phone call through then yellow pages, we'd hired one of their dehumidifiers . Dressed in local blue finnegans hammerite paint it wasn't terribly efficient, but it proved we had a problem and that we needed one permanently. When we got to Newton Aycliffe we were shown into a vast new industrial unit with little in it, but there was a short row of brand new two-tone beige driers that had just been produced. They were more angular, more "modern", and there was obviously a process of continuous improvement going on. Out came the cheque book and the machine we returned with to Bedlington ran completely unmaintained for decades in various roles. Over the years It must have pulled enough water out of the air to fill a large swimming pool! That's pretty much all I knew about Ebac - they were North East; they were progressive; they produced good gear, they were approachable, and they supplied local builders - until.. I turned the TV on last year. Lo and behold there was ex-CBI supremo Digby Jones called in to put Ebac back on the straight and narrow! It seems the founder had died and left the whole show to the key workers as a worker's cooperative. Wow, this was suddenly interesting stuff! It got even more interesting when it became clear that they'd bought a bust Scottish freezer manufacturer from a liquidator on the telephone for a megasum, and had never actually eye-balled what they'd contracted to pay for! Their intention was to move the production facilities to the North East and resume freezer production. Where they intended to do this looked remarkably like the empty factory floor I'd visited nigh on forty years before - except, the roof now leaked badly, evidenced by large pools of water! As you might imagine Digby Jones shook his head and grumbled at the lack of "due diligence", overconfidence, and dearth of business nouce. Despite a return months later the program ended inconclusively. Ever-mounting problems meant Ebac still hadn't produced a single freezer, and the original business plan had become a joke! One thing I did pick up from the program was that they'd already moved mass market - into domestic dehumidifiers - and were producing a pretty advanced one in a moulded housing. In the last couple of weeks we've just bought one of the same, but I can't rate it just yet as it hasn't arrived at the final destination. But... the real purpose of this post is to highlight the hot news that this Wednesday Ebac produced the very first washing machine on their production line. The ambitious plan is to take 10% of the UK washing machine market, and add another 150 North East jobs in the process. I believe they will do just that! Keep it up Ebac, you are a shining example of what home grown North East enterprise can achieve when it sheds the crippling state-dependency mindset!

It would be interesting if someone could separate the fact from the folklore here and explain the exact connection. Tony says "he believed in rubbish" which is not entirely true. What made those broadcasts so dangerous, and why most people listened, was that in amongst the propaganda were hard facts our own government was hiding. It took quite a while before the government worked out that coming clean was the best policy, and that the British people could take the truth. Pity it took a foreign dictator to force it out of them! Some lessons there for the current lot I think, and I'm not just talking about the Beeb!

Here's your link Tony: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Haw-Haw William Joyce spoke for the Third Reich - UKIP speaks against the Fourth Reich (the one Miliband and Balls and Cameron and Clegg would rather not mention). Get the subtle difference? Politics aside the Bothal-HawHaw connection is quite interesting. I've heard this local tale before, but AFAIR no one has ever expanded on the details. There were a number of people dubbed Lord Haw Haw, or variants, so we are not necessarily talking about Joyce here. One thing which amused me when little was that there was a popular local conception of Hitler as a "house" painter, which extended to cartoons of him painting a swastika on our market cross. He was of course an artist, and by all accounts a lousy one! I concluded that quite a lot of local folklore probably resulted from mishearings and misconceptions. Apologies if I've posted this before, but as you raise the Nazis you might like to discover where they all went:

Keep saying it and in a Cultural Marxist world it will become true! Fact - in the North of England UKIP support is mostly ex-Labour. If you doubt this look at the Heywood and Middleton result. Five things went Labour's way and kept them in one of their "safest" seats by a whisker: 1) Lib Dems switching to Labour. 2) The usual organised postal vote fraud that Labour pulls (Ukip won on the clean on-the-table ballot). 3) Immigrants expressing their gratitude to the party of uncontrolled mass immigration. 4) Wet behind the ears youngsters who've no real world experience of Labour duplicity and lies. But mainly it was... 5) ...those right wing Tories that you so despise. If just 600 or so had really been the interchangeable Ukip supporters you claim Labour would have lost one of its safest seats! Next time Heywood will succumb to popular democracy and there will be no going back despite those establishment-wedded Tory voters! Labour knows their days are numbered as ever-increasing numbers of working class people wise up to its duplicity. Labour strategy to offset this is to keep the floodgates open to immigrants (whilst pretending it intends to do the opposite, and duplicitously "admitting" to major mistakes), and also lower the voting age to try to con more impressionable youngsters. Won't work! Labour is an early 20th century party (just like the Tories), and it's days are strictly numbered. The real problem is the damage it will do whilst in its death throes. Out of the ashes might emerge a democratic party that once again makes some sense to ordinary people; so, it's in every one's interest that it be despatched as quickly and cleanly as possible.

So... Labour campaign organiser Rob Sherrington publicly calls the queen a Nazi and tells her to f'off! http://order-order.com/2015/01/05/paid-labour-staff-members-online-queen-is-nazi-rant/ Total silence from the cultural marxist journos at the Beeb! Just imagine how the Beeb would have treated this if it could have been pinned on anyone who was remotely associated with Ukip - even in a private conversation? Much of the time the distortion is not what the Beeb reports, it's what they censor! They've just got around to slanted reporting of the anti-islamisation rallies in Germany that other news organisations have been freely reporting on for some time. Curious though that BBC is broadcasting an attendance at the Dresden rally of 10,000, whilst the internet (including the BBC's own website!) is reporting it at 18,000. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-06/anti-immigration-rally-draws-18000-to-protest-in-germany/6001852 For a detailed study of how the BBC slants the news in favour of the political establishment see: http://biasedbbc.org/ Recently public comment on the grossly over-moderated bbc website has been taking a direction that overwhelmingly doesn't follow the party line. So, in true Cultural Marxist fashion, the Orwellian Beeb have now shut virtually all public input down! Time to scrap the licence fee I think. I'd be happy to see a rump of public service radio broadcasting continue on a vastly reduced public spend, and organised around the World Service and Radio 4. But in my book the BBC, as it's organised today, is surely an outdated relic of 20th century paternalism.

So, yet another tweak that tribal Labour voters failed to notice, and which the London-centric liberal elites who control the party would rather leave highly ambiguous? Our Mr Lavery has started to notice though. Sooner or later he's going to work out that he's in the wrong party. The question is will he have the guts to do anything about it, or will he learn to keep his mouth shut, and so keep his seat on the political gravy train?

Would love to see it Tony! What would making "the right decision" look like?

Well.. the new Microsoft doesn't seem that different from the old Microsoft. A few times during 2014 I'd been tempted to buy a Windows Phone 8 device at an aggressive promotional price, but stalled and ultimately went for something else. What made me hesitate was generally the fact that the device was blighted with only 512MB of RAM or (and it's mostly the or) the long history of Microsoft prematurely abandoning its many failed platforms. Yeah, I've still got a fair number of manufacturer-abandoned MS NBT devices in boxes somewhere, but happily was able to completely dodge Windows RT. That's not an easy dodge for someone who has always been into extreme portability, and a sucker for any new gismo. All I see now is moans from people who gave MS another chance on the strength of the (now abandoned too) Nokia name. Great hardware is useless if it's welded to dead end software. So, I really don't care how good that 40 megapixel camera on the Lumia 1020 is, and how intuitive the operating system, it's surely going the way of just about every other offering from a company that - at core - can't properly relate to its customers. One that struggled to do so in far less competitive days. Can a leading software corporation that always had problems innovating fast enough (and simply relied on total market dominance) ever hope to rescue a hardware one that went down because it was similarly blighted? My advice: WP8 - avoid at any price! In a year or so (when you've forgotten this post even existed) you'll be congratulating yourself that you were so percipient. Think I'm wrong here?

Thank you everybody (including Brian) for those kind words! I can handle the beast - in fact I somehow manage to handle several of them every day - but I don't know about Alison.

No lost postings I'm aware of, but moderators may know more. The camera can only handle a tiny few simultaneous connections at the moment. It was done that way for expediency, and in the knowledge that only accredited members could access it. But, the hardware and software is already there for "broadcast" when we get some time. Our major objective in early '15 is to get a major new release of the site software deployed. It's a complete rewrite and I think members will like it.

Think I'm beginning to suffer the same symptoms as Symptoms! Good thing you never had a job as a headline writer Malc: it would have been the shortest job ever, when the local rag hit the streets with NEWS! heading the front page! I've edited the thread title - a bit!

http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/gallery/image/1698-me-mam-advertising/ Only difficult if you don't glance at the piccies at the top of the current board index page! Tony's mum was called Sylvia, and - if my infant memory isn't addled - was a quite stunning red-head, and quite a personality in the town! I suspect she may feature in other group pictures that have been posted. If I'm wrong here then someone will surely prove this right in the course of time. Anyway, Tony's family, in common with other's in Bedlington, knew more about making bicycles than just about anywhere else in the UK. Making real things featured heavily in the town's economy before WWII, and for a bit over a decade after. During the war they supplied the forces who sent Bedlington bikes all over the World. They still turn up in barns and foreign fields. Interestingly, they also produced the components for those sectional Bailey Bridges you see in the war films. I think Billy Scott - Scotts Engineering Works - up the bank behind the former Elliott's Garage - also contributed here, and there was a good deal of mutual exchange of engineering services.

Thank you for the clarification Nigel; I can enjoy my Christmas meal now! Our doctrine-bound simple minded lefties don't seem to be able to get their heads around the fact that it's the intent - and not the precise form of words - that's that's all important. Sadly, we meekly permit them to redefine our language to suit their prejudices!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04vs348 So, has the UK arm of the Apple Marketing Corporation finally turned? Probably not, but some kudos for at least telling part of the truth about the Apple façade. Of course other companies are at least partly guilty of similar practices, but for the most part workers and suppliers have a choice as they're far from monopolistic. There are many great products out there that are functionally better than Apple - all are far better value, and don't fuel an near-evil US monopoly. This is particularly true of the UK, where Apple are quite frankly taking the proverbial out of their blinkered faithful. So, don't be a dumb fashionista: take the advice of your nearest techie before parting with your hard-earned UK£. In the fashion biz it's very easy to become "uncool" in no time at all!

I may well know the answer, but it wouldn't be fair to say, right away. Here's a secondary question that's a lot more difficult: What's the connection?

Downloaded and not downloaded, at the same instant. Actually the Jim Al-Kahlili series is well worth a watch - unlike the whining, fawning, cr*p from the Schroedinger's Cat that is Brian Cox - he's a pretty sharp presenter. Hurry, hurry, last chance on #1: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b04v5vjz

Not quite. In the case of the left discussing right it's you're totally evil. Other way around it's simply please try to use your intelligence, and get your head out of the clouds! I notice Len McCluskey is doing a rethink. Maybe it came to him when he fell asleep during Miliband's speech at the LPC? Seems he's given up on his own man already. Yet more evidence that the current LibLabCon stitch-up is well past it's sell by date I'd say. It doesn't even do anything for the people who pull the strings (with the notable exception of the EU overlords, who have them all in their pocket). Re "No clear cut answers": Putting the EU under the required two year's notice that we want what we were originally sold - a pan European Free Trade Area - is pretty clear cut. There's also quite a few other bloomin' obvious things we can do right away to get out of the present decline. However none of them accord with the self-interest of establishment politicos.

I think my calling her a Chinese Lady has something to do with the traditional Chinese costume she was wearing the last time I saw her, and the fact that I was there shortly after they opened the restaurant a few years back. This indicates to me that she's proud of being Chinese, and wants the World to know it! Most people are in fact justifiably proud of their ethnicity - except creepy pseudo-British lefties who are thoroughly ashamed of theirs; their nation's stellar history, and can only cite negatives about it. Oh, and on the subject of restaurants and restaurateurs: here's a link for Sym to check out another potential self-hater, the MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincs.

Umm... seems those LG-whatsit folk are kippers themselves - how can this possibly count when they are already despicable wacist scum? There's a lot of jockeying for the nomination in this seat because it's very likely to go Ukip at the GE. I suspect he was set up and the leak came from inside - yes, mega-surprise, insider dirty tricks in a political party! Says he was on strong pain killers, well... Anyway, does referring to someone as a "Chinky Lady" really rate Ch***y Lady being scrolled across the BBC News 24 screens fourty times every hour for most of the night, and given news headline precedence over evidence of British government involvement in CIA torture? One suspects that it wouldn't have got remotely as much exposure if it had been uttered by a member of an establishment party (on strong pain killers ). BTW did you know that poor people can't cook? Well... there's an general election coming! Thought: maybe she was a very nice Ch***y Lady, and the word was being used as a term of endearment! I used to regularly send out for a Chinky, and am booked to go out for one at Christmas - a brilliant restaurant where there's a very pretty umm.. Chinese Lady serving - yum! If the 'Ch' word has now been completely redefined (even in darkest Essex), I really really do need to know - and soon!

All these black Kippers suffer from self loathing then? That's Hillingdon BTW, and the same is repeated in many constituencies. Simple fact: immigrants have more to fear from mass immigration than native Brits. A fact very recently confirmed by an academic on the Beeb who'd extensively studied global population shifts and the economics of immigration. The Beeb thought police must have been having the night off!

His tastes aren't that expensive Sym. Dunno where the champaign socialists are going to get their tipple from though. Not that they'll have anything to celebrate when they work out that they've neatly put Salmond into the driving seat, and that the deep deep cuts Balls will be inflicting fall largely on England (in order to "preserve the Union"). This is why most of the Labour old guard are quitting now. They can see the end of anything which even vaguely resembles traditional socialism coming up very fast indeed. The Blairite PPE technocrats are best equipped to spin the tale that the coalition deficit forced the cruel welfare cuts on them. They'll have those graphs Brand so despises to show that debt spiralled under the coalition. So the fairy story that they'd have done all the right things at the right time will be believable to just enough voters (of that ever-decreasing 33-35% target, topped up by always grateful immigrants). It's a one-term dead-duck government coming anyway, and Kippers don't really care whether it's Lab or Con on the nameplate, because essentially the same dither is going to happen. This is a fact totally lost on Cameron as he bleats on to people about vote Ukip get Labour - in fact in the North exactly the opposite is true, and voting Con now will surely get you Labour. Most Kippers I've spoken to are happily prepared to bide their time whilst even more voters come to their senses. A Cameron pretend re-negotiation of the EU treaty will likely be worse than a bury-head-in-sand, treat the electorate as utter dummies, Labour approach, and it will be a lot harder to undo. Cast-iron Dave has mega-form in ducking promises anyway, and has quite simply lost all credibility, even to much of his own party (the reason for the Tory MP defections). There's also a fair chance that the EU will implode in the interim, but for the Country's sake we really need to be out long before this happens! Getting back to the original subject, Desmond's game isn't short-term either. It's a game of falling circulations in the dead tree biz i.e. who's circulation falls the least in order to bag the available advertising bucks. Cutting through establishment propaganda for an ever-increasing audience is his plan.

Can I buy the film rights? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/11292152/Crane-crashes-into-house-as-Dutch-proposal-goes-wrong.html Stay well clear of Paris this weekend, he might decide to serenade her on the Eiffel Tower.

Here's an interesting snap sneaked recently at somewhere mega-posh: You might recognise the guy on the right as Grant Schapps, the Tory Party hatchet person (read Chairman). He's been mentioned here before by Sym. But who is the guy he is in earnest conversation with? It almost looks like Schapps is expecting something. Well.. the guy he has in earnest conversation is no other than media baron Richard Desmond (Daily Express, The Star, Channel 5, etc.). Why is this significant? Well Schapps is doing what all political parties do with an election coming - going for a media endorsement, and a big cheque, from natural allies. Whoops! Desmond is taking a huge risk in deserting the establishment. Broadcasting licences and many other perks are in the gift of establishment politicians, and they have very long collective memories. It really doesn't matter which of the establishment parties you decide to help, the roundabout keeps on turning and your free ride will come before too long. It's not cricket to spoil the game for other players when it's your turn to bat. But... turn your back on the game and you've rejected the entire system - you are out in the bleak cold! As far as I can tell Desmond's move outside the establishment is unprecedented in modern history. Desmond is no fool though, and knows what his editors have been telling him for some while. He's banking on a sea change in British politics, and has calculated that he can ride out everything that Schapps and all of LibLabCon can throw at him - and you can be absolutely sure that they will! My money is on this (new) Porn Baron, Mr Camerband!

Actually, at core I don't think Tony has views that vastly differ from me. He believes in solidarity, and well.. class war, for want of a better term. I'm simply appealing to him to broaden his solidarity a little, and to see the class war in the modern context, and not the context of fifty or one hundred years ago. Tribal support of the present-day Labour Party is entirely illogical for trade union members. The Labour Party we all knew was dead set against the EEC. In their book the "Common Market" was a device of the bosses to force wages down. Now that these traditional Labour beliefs have some meat on the bone we see a modern Labour party standing on its head, and being more Tory than the Tories could ever have imagined. Miliband & Co go out of their way to avoid discussing the matter. They draw on a stock of carefully rehearsed tactics to avoid EU related questions. I really want to hear how Tony and other trades unionists think about this. You mean you aren't convinced that Ukip is the way to a solution to "something is very wrong in the UK political balance of power at the moment"? Well spotted - Ukip does represent the majority view of its members (many of whom also contribute to the popular press). Pretty revolutionary having a party where the grass roots members discuss and decide on policy, and hand it off to their representatives to put before the electorate. Let's call this entirely new process representative democracy. Joking aside I'd love to hear from you why these populist policies "cannot actually" be provided? The EU is a huge hidden drag on the possible. If you proceed from the hide-bound position of the establishment parties that's surely true - even debate about the possibilities is rapidly shut down. Sure, there will be mistakes and even mass delusion at times, but those mistakes will (once again) be owned by the voters. They won't be the mistakes of a manipulative elite who's sole intent is staying in power, and padding out their pensions with euro non-jobs. The blame game won't be eliminated, but it will become a lot more acceptable to a re-empowered electorate. Farage is keen on saying that there are two types of politicians: ones who take up politics to be something, and those (rarer ones) who become politicians to do something. The ones I see in Ukip at the moment are (almost) exclusively the rarer kind. At this stage of desperation and dis-empowerment that alone is worth a vote!

Ah, you spotted the probably! Did you spot the "I'm coming for you Farage..." threat from the invited Socialist Worker's Party activist when Brand was faltering under direct audience questioning? The Beeb did, so they'll be inviting her back quite soon.