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What do you expect from a rag that is now owned by The Daily Mirror group? I guess it was written by some journo who'd never set foot in the town, and likely never will! Without other evidence I'd back the Leader, they probably even managed to spell Attlee right this time!

Background info: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/aviation/11033148/Two-Lancaster-bomber-planes-fly-together-for-first-time-in-50-years.html

Things could be moving faster than I reckoned: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/11032571/Italys-Renzi-must-bring-back-the-lira-to-end-depression.html But, then again, one should never underestimate the capacity of a Europhile to pig-headedly ignore reality. Anyway, logic says it's going to be a Friday night jobbie. After which can France be far behind? At which point you can safely say auf Wiedersehen to the entire "Euro experiment" - it really won't matter what Spain, Portugal etc. do. I hope it happens before next May, as that will lend further weight to what UKIP has been saying about the whole sorry state of the EU. Whenever, it's going to be very messy, and it really needn't have been, with even a modicum of foresight by the Euro politicos.

This is true. Banks don't lend like they do in the UK, for instance if you want a mortgage you can get maybe half the asking price and the rest you need to find from family resources or savings. Though what actually happens - in the countryside at least, and often in towns - is that you buy the building materials you can afford and build so much. This inflation proofs your money, and you can always sell on the incomplete project, or pass it on to the next generation. Hundreds of incomplete buildings is puzzling to Brits; they say just get a mortgage and finish the thing, not understanding that what they are looking at is not an unusable home, but inflation-proofed personal wealth that's almost beyond what politicians can screw up. In 2006 and shortly thereafter, I got entirely the wrong impression seeing hundreds of semi-abandoned small tracts of land in the countryside. It rather looked like a complete abandonment of land where you could grow things we really value in the UK. In fact the was great stuff growing wild you could just go help yourself to - Italians still do! But what I was seeing was the peak of the delusion that small agriculture was a thing of the past. Over the last few years things have completely changed and people have returned to the land. Not just the few eighty-odd year olds like before, but middle-aged people, bringing with them youngsters to help work the family plot. That's the most obvious testament to the disillusionment with the EU to me. It's easy to see where Bepe gets his 25%+ support from. There may be minor differences of emphasis from UKIP, but the ideas are broadly the same.

Reports of his death sadly not a rumour! Some really weird stuff published over the last few weeks if you do a trawl, but the truth could be a lot simpler: the personality that made him so interesting killed him?

Triple dip are the words I've heard - but personally I've lost count! Third generation euro-puppet Renzi is constantly preaching about reform of this and reform of that, but what he's actually pushed through so far is minimal; certainly the Italian equivalent of the CBI isn't at all impressed. It's still very much a society which doesn't trust banks (and justifiably so), which is geared to live with inflation, and has no appetite for private debt. Trying to couple it directly to the German economy was insanity, and there will be no solutions until the link is severed. It took Berlusconi many years to reach that conclusion, but anyone who opposes the euro-mafia is eliminated.

Hole discovered in the Euro's lifeboat? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/11020183/Germany-close-to-recession-as-ECB-admits-recovery-is-weak.html Easy to see why she's resisting sanctions on Russia. Farcical really, when the EU is the prime initiator of the little local difficulty in Ukraine. That Ruskie missile might just have taken the Euro out!

Word on the street has it that Miliband has recently been warned by advisers that UKIP now presents a serious threat to Labour in places they previously considered safe as a rock. This is interesting because they've previously applied the one-trick-pony label to UKIP electoral success. Labels are something Labour excels at because they are a substitute for thought, and if Labour voters actually started thinking, well... I think the "should not be taken for granted" words have been applied, so maybe they've been reading bedlington.co.uk? First Cameron is pushed into an complete about think, now it seems Labour is catching the drift that people are fed up with London-centric, wealth consuming, lefty liberal mob that spins and manipulates its way to six figure salaries for achieving nothing, and doing precisely nowt! If you have read some of the recent exposés on consultancy fees, believe me that's just the tip of the iceberg where "our betters" are concerned. The profligacy and waste of the Labour years has only been tinkered with, and the foreign aid budget remains a major public scandal when communities like ours are being starved of resources. That's not to mention the huge net sums of our money which go to the EU to prop up that even more ghastly temple to privilege and profligacy. What will Miliband actually do? Well, in reality BA, but I'd expect we are in for some whistle-stop tours to show he really really cares, honest he does! Pondering on what he actually cares about I will leave as an exercise for the reader.

Ah, thanks for the heads up merc. That "Trust" guy had used up my full quota.

You don't have an "IP address" as such! It's allocated from a pool depending on your ISP. How long it's allocated for depends on a lot of factors, but it can be from minutes to weeks. (I'm not talking about special ISP arrangements here). So... it follows that a website admin can't make such a statement; the only entity who knows precisely who was using any individual IP at all times is your ISP. Obviously websites can map IPs to user-names in particular timeslots, but they can't prove a negative (who has the same IP when you are not logged in to them). However... you need to be confident in the security of your WiFi. Make sure you are not using WEP for a start. Wired Equivalent Privacy isn't what it is stated to be! And, of course, make sure you use a secure pass-phrase for your WiFi. One that can't be guessed, or inferred, or is similar to any other passwords you use. If you've given it away to anyone in the past then change it (and the SSID too). Dunno why you can't PM me. Does anyone else have a problem here? Feel free to do a test.

I sort of suspect that the site that informed me that the Asus ME180A had an AMD x86 CPU was one of those! Ah, those completely unbiased user reviews; say whatever you want but if we don't like it no more goodies will ever get sent! Now, for a completely unbiased look at technology, this site takes some beating! As a matter of fact I get all my Android news from there.

Another factor why the East is first to go strongly UKIP then? Though, I think our case is not so much about to-region distribution, but what happens when it trickles down to town level. That we put up with constantly being shafted is ample testimony to the combined dumbness and disinterest of local voters. It's all very well electing a few independents who refuse to join in the establishment conspiracy, but they are neutered unless you deliver a shock to the system at both the regional and national levels.

Interested to hear your reasoning on this one. Suspect that you could be one of the many (mainly in Scotland) who haven't thought this one through fully.

Ah, you must mean the sixteen-year-old kids who have absolutely no experience of politics or political machinations? Jihadist suicide bombers come to mind here. Part of me rather wishes that Salmond gets his crazy way - it would certainly be great for the North East here - but the other part has a lot of sympathy for the entirely sane Scots, who seem to be in the majority!

It looks like ya may be able to gain a new understanding of them though, Scotty! http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-07/31/nasa-validates-impossible-space-drive If this is a real affect then it's quite revolutionary, and has implications not just for space travel. If there is something previously undetected to "push-against", then scientists are going to go to seventh heaven. The nature of the something could create all sorts of engineering possibilities. There have been false dawns like this before, but we can still hope. Dark matter immediately comes to mind here. It could be interesting to hear the explanations of why a British guy in his "shed" can discover something $5.5 billion a year of EU money has failed to detect in many years! And... why only Chinese scientists had the common sense to listen. Update: The UK website is here: http://emdrive.com/ It's not the most exciting site in the world presentation-wise, but some of the information snippets are quite stunning. The August 2010 "A Technology Transfer contract with a major US aerospace company was successfully completed." is Boeing, and Boeing are keeping ever so quite about it!

Mick was the natural choice for NUM president. The extreme left of the Labour party and union movement hatched a plot to exclude him. It's those people who should be vilified for the miner's strike disaster not MT. They unleashed forces they couldn't control, and left the government with no alternative but to break the NUM. Mick's proud boast was that he never called a strike for political reasons, but only to benefit the membership, and - like Bob Crow - only picked fights he was certain he could win. Now there's a real hero for Adam. Can't see the Labour party going anywhere near that one though!

A bit cruel Tony; it can come to us all, and shouldn't diminish what we've actually achieved in our lives. Ronnie R ended up a bit "forgetful" too, but it in no way diminishes that he was one of the very best presidents; one who (by actually confronting the problem head-on) ended the cold war and made the World a safer place for us all. Anyway, what's to the point is that Gordon never missed an opportunity to be seen as heir to the MT legacy - he left plenty more clues for the history books! That sounds very healthy. And, I think that your late Bob Crow was one of the better trade unionists. He did what he had to do for his members, and never dragged them in to a conflict where the odds weren't greatly on their side. A latter-day Mick McGahey I'd imagine! That's quite unlike.. ummm.. you know who!

No you weren't meant to hear that, it was not for a traditional (old) Labour audience. He let other people put the actual word around, including Tony - but that's the image he carefully cultivated for southern audiences. That's because they don't have one! They do have real policies for real reform though, if you care to read them. http://www.ukip.org/issues You are dead wrong Adam! Yes, local people like you can help, but real and lasting change needs to come at the national level. Malcolm is spot on in his diagnosis of why things don't happen here. We can all see what is needed, but there's absolutely no reason why establishment politicians should deliver, or ever will deliver. That's unless they are shocked into action in the same way that pro-EU Cameron has been shocked by UKIP already. Labour too can be shocked into real action, but even the slightest chance of a UKIP win is the only way that is ever going to happen here. So... whichever way you look at things, and whichever direction you are coming from, the only chance for real and lasting change is to support UKIP. BTW you can't simply dismiss ten disastrous years and a wrecked economy by saying "Tony Blair, he was a wolf in sheep's clothes.". When you vote Labour that's exactly what you get. Old Labour long since worked out that it was unelectable. Only a few tame dinosaurs (like our Ian) are kept on to maintain the pretence that they are "for the workers". Maybe they are for the workers, but they're certainly not British workers, or anyone you know!

There are a lot of Thatcherites in UKIP that's for sure, but there are also a lot of solid working-class and left-leaning people who've seen through the present system. Sometimes they are both, but sadly not that often hereabouts! That's hard to explain to people who've been so heavily indoctrinated that MT was evil personified. The truth is never as plain or simple as most would have you believe, and in a different life MT would be right up there supporting miners - in many ways she did. She also had a deep distrust of snake oil political types, and was a real conviction politician - sadly lacking nowadays! Don't you think it's strange that both Blair and Brown at one time or another have claimed to be her true heir? How do you rationalise that one? It's a real pity that many in our local community are still fighting a battle that long since ended. The real enemy is the London-centric liberal (with a small L) elites, who produce nowt, but think they have a divine right to rule. There are just as many of these in Labour as the Tories, and they are hand in glove with each other! The whole thing is like one of those carefully scripted wrestling matches; anyone with any sense knows it's all pre-arranged, and in awkward places even carefully rehearsed, but people still buy into the idea that it's a genuine contest. Ummm.. it's going to surprise you how many people from Bedlington are thinking like me - and sadly the rest aren't thinking! Maggie it's great to have your input, but you've got things standing on their head. If we go on at the present rate the Germans are going to drag us into their Fourth Reich. There are already moves afoot for an EU army, and in the "post democratic" superstate that's intended, you can bet that WWIII will eventually result. As you say power corrupts, and you have to look no further than the USA to see how easy it is for a few nutty military types to drag hundreds of millions of otherwise peaceful people into a disastrous war - and in situations where none of their own interests are directly threatened, and where none of their own territory is at risk. Just look at Crimea in recent months to imagine what would be made of that by a European superstate. UKIPs policy there is to leave well alone; bringing Ukraine into the EU is destabilising and can only stoke conflict. The Russians quite rightly see this as a land grab by traditional enemies, and feel justified in helping their compatriots by the same sorts of devious means that the US and EU has been helping to stoke up the problem in the first instance. UKIP is the only party that says this is none of our business, and we shouldn't be meddling. The present situation would have been unimaginable to our parents, and their parents generations. As we commemorate the centenary of that first disastrous war, we should try to imagine what they'd want to tell us from their graves! It would surely be don't trust the Germans and their ambitions, and don't let it happen all over again! It's not your everyday German citizen we should be wary of, but expansionism is in the psyche and it repeatedly takes hold of individuals in power. What on earth is the EU if it isn't yet another manifestation of this? We can trade perfectly happily without customs barriers with none of the superstate BS! But (just like with the Common Market / European Union deception already perpetrated on us) there's a hidden agenda, and when it becomes obvious to all it will be far too late. Look at the four main party leaders and ask yourself which one is doing it because he feels a genuine concern for his country and which ones are there simply for self-advancement and raw power. Nigel has already stood down once, and when he achieves his transparent goal he'll step down. He's not after power; he simply wants to break the mould, and then have a peaceful life at the pub or on the golf course. His man-of-the-people persona is not assumed to get votes, he actually is one of us, and like us totally p'd off with the system! That's why the establishment has no answers, and why they will try every trick in the book to cling onto power. Don't buy any of it! You have been - and are allowing yourself to be - hoodwinked by people who actually consider themselves to be smarter than you. It suits the establishment to keep our town in poverty, and, if you continue to vote for an establishment party, that is exactly where it is going to stay! Think Salvation Army not military army - with the emphasis on salvation!

Tony, I want people who tell it as it is and don't play politics! All parties have their hangers-on, and I'd cheerfully submit that the Wallace and Gromit party have more than their fair share! They certainly had more than their fair share of convicted villains in recent years. Before you echo the establishment propoganda tell my honestly what you don't agree with here: http://www.ukip.org/issues What we have today is not a meritocracy; we have an establishment that's in a cozy duopoly to stitch-up the common man! It's completely London-centric, and loony liberal to an extent of excluding and positively suppressing what most ordinary people in the rest of the country think and feel. UKIP is the country's best - indeed only - chance of a popular revolution. If you support Labour, or the Tories, and in particular if you support the LD's, you are against democracy. That's no more evident than in the inter-party stitch-up to prevent the British people having a say on their own destiny. Cameron has now broken ranks here in order to save his own skin, but he's not to be trusted with this country's destiny, and will return to his elitist roots. None of your regular parties trust the electorate, indeed they hold ordinary people in contempt. A lot of people now see this, hence the rise and rise of The People's Army.

If anyone wants to see this TV program then please PM me, and I will arrange "a private viewing". I'm sure the Beeb would be unhappy about it being made available as a public download. The short Shiney Row bicycle sequence is certainly in that film. Though, as Maggie says, it was taken from Ken's 1960 Monitor program. Why - of course - it's in B&W.

LOL - My FIRST Lenny phone actually, but not my first Lenny gismo by any count. And, it's instead of a cute little Alcatel droid that's my top-pocket communications workhorse, and certainly not to replace the Note 3. Latest toy is a http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-ME180A-MeMo-inch-Tablet/dp/B00G6G08YU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406996724&sr=8-1&keywords=asus+me180a but I only paid a tad over £90 brand new including courier delivery on amazon.it, so it was a no brainier. It may have been a pricing error as they quickly hiked the price Last month's Asus ME172V (impulse chain store purchase) was a bit disappointing so I moved it straight on, but the 8" ME180A is absolutely great, and I wouldn't buy another 7" tab of any make now. I was actually after the Intel powered ME181, but they are still a bit pricey, and the chip is an ageing 32nm one - with 2GB of RAM it would get me more excited. With the ME180A I thought I'd bought an AMD powered x86 device, because some twit reviewer on the Internet billed it as such. But in fact it's a quad core Rockchips ARM CPU that comes in at over 20K on the Antutu benchmark, so no regrets there. Particularly wowing is that it has built-in Miracast (WiDi), and pairs nicely with the Netgear Push2TV. Great display too! Even at £130 'ish it's a really good buy. An extra 64GB of Kingston flash cost £25 and bumped it to 72GB - can't do that with a (Asus made) Google Nexus! Just had a play with a Sammy http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Galaxy-8-4-inch-Tablet-Bronze/dp/B00KLED6Q0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1406997295&sr=8-2&keywords=samsung+tab+s, and wow, is this spectacular? Completely wipes the floor with an iPad in every respect. When I see one around the £200 mark it's a sure buy!!

Hmm.. isn't politics telling people what they want to hear - then when they give you some power you do what you want to do? Its called representative democracy, obviously because you represent it as democracy, whilst it's certainly not! In fact this is one of the things we discussed at the party conference. / I'm sure you will find a full answer in our manifesto when it's published. / But that's not really the question - the real question is... / We need a full and frank public debate about this important issue [after which we will do absolutely nothing, again!]* *delete as appropriate P.S. Vote UKIP - the REAL class war is about to begin! http://www.ukip.org/ukip_scores_by_election_win_in_miliband_s_backyard

...tells you which application/window the unwanted sound has started coming from. Many times recently I've had to chase around closing stuff because something I never consciously selected has started playing - somewhere!

I can think of some slightly more cutting answers for people self-centred enough to be asking some of the questions in the FAQ. Unfortunately they wouldn't add suitable dignity to the occasion! Update: Some rather remarkable and evocative photos of the conflict sites here: http://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-28461026 I admit to pinching one for my desktop.