threegee

Yay! Thank you for that rapid response, Glasgow Uni! Edward Snowden elected as rector of Glasgow University

Of course we can't! But at least they are a known unknown, and aren't supposed to be trawling for commercial information to feed to the competition. And, they'd better behave themselves, because come the revolution we know where they live!

Ah, but I've already strategically geo-diversified the secure USB sticks. The computers I pack are simply misdirection!

So Angela Merkel is so p'd off with the yanks for bugging her private phone, and likely all her digital communications, that she's lobbying similarly minded eurocrats to set up new infrastructure that's totally under European (read her) control. This raises the obvious question as to whether you'd trust Fritz any more than Uncle Sam. I think the answer from the UK should be that we are staying with the devil we know - you can spend your own money on this Angela, not ours! Of course this is just something else we'll have our minds made up for us on, as the "good Europeans" we are. If there's any UK money to be spent in the wake of all this it should go on a national monument to Edward Snowden. Who, despite all the huffing an puffing from the likes of O'Barmy and Creepy Clinton, is in fact a very brave and well motivated soul. We should - at very least - be offering to pay the Ruskies his board and lodging!

@mercuryg Well, yes - you have to find something to fill the multiple 24/7 news coverage, and lets keep the whole thing within budget by getting a camera down there and sticking a mike in anyone you can find's face. All they are going to talk about is their own problems, and who they blame. In the old days this was "all them nuclear tests". But at least then the moans were face to face. We didn't have hour after hour of national news coverage, and countless low-budget discussion programs. The other problem is that science is now so highly politicised that any in-depth look at a problem is going to upset someone quite powerful, or some powerful lobby. The current politicians are also like cushions - gently mirroring the last arse that sat on them! And, of course, they need to be seen to be "doing something". Woe betide the leader that isn't seen to be right up at the coal face "leading" with perfect 20:20 hindsight! @Symptoms Ah, yes, them too! Imagine the "controversy" that would follow a truthful "well, actually, I'd just get in the way!"

Nokia just changed the colour of its FB page to Android green as a tease! This hasn't gone down terribly well with its loyal band of WP (Windows phone) users, but I don't think they need to worry as there's no way a Microsoft company is going to ditch a Microsoft operating system - this year, or next! So, real soon now...

Dunno about you, but I've little sympathy for toffs who build their million pound homes on known and historically well documented flood plains, THEN expect everyone else to quite literally bail them out. Somerset is called Somerset because our ancestors had the good sense only to live there during the dryer Summer months. Of course the "solar deniers" at the Beeb will spin this for all it's worth. The reason for the move in the jet stream is that it's now so bloody cold at the poles the temperature difference at the equator is putting a lot more energy into the system. This is what ANY sane meteorologist will tell you when not gagged and fearing for their job. Did you notice how very careful the Beeb was to not mention who was on the ship frozen in the Antarctic? This was so "diplomatically handled" that they even got it by me. The news passed it off as just a party of tourists. But yes, you guessed it; it was a gaggle of so called climate change scientists on a jolly to show how much the ice had retreated. They thought they were onto a winner going in high Summer! If they'd found what they were looking for we'd never have heard the end of it. They didn't, so even the mission itself is covered up. The incident was put down to mere weather. But, is the fact that the ship has been written off now - as there is little prospect of it ever being recovered - an indication that anyone really thinks that this was a mere weather incident? The logical gymnastics they went through on the Inside Science program on Radio 4 to hold the party line had me in stitches. It's really worth a listen, and truly worthy of the best efforts of Stalinist regime. Is it any wonder that people are turning, in droves, to Al Jazeera for their news, as indeed are UK broadcast workers with some sense of dignity!

Yes, unarguably, apathy rules. But there's still a lot of people rooting for Bedlington, even if quite a few of those have already voted with their feet, often through necessity! Tragic when anyone/thing gives up. Even more tragic to burden new generations with a defeatist mindset. I believe the BDT can more than make up for this, and it deserves everyone's full support.

Oh come on Adam! Fort Pon-tee-land was only there because that's where Chief Sitting Bull pitched his Pon-tee-pee. Des-Reses apart It wasn't exactly where anything much happened. Give Vera Baird a chance to deliver a better service. Getting the police out from behind the stockades is a good start. And, as the article points out, the principal decisions had already been made long before she took over. And the official police view from way back in 2008:- Three cheers the man!

My theory too, and I'm still waiting for someone to tell me why not. Is it just that it's too bleeding obvious to be credible? Things don't always have to be convoluted or subtle.

time test

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/923/331/674/marius-the-giraffe-slaughtered-boycott-close-down-copenhagen-zoo/

Someone send this guy a copy of Gerald Ratner's book. He's going to need it to find out how to recover from one of the biggest PR disasters any manager could cause for a business. In his quest to go all environmental he's totally lost sight of where the bread and butter comes from. Somerset levels come immediately to mind. Once humans intervene massively in nature all the environmental stuff has to play third fiddle. He may think his job is an environmentalist, but when the zoo inevitably becomes insolvent, he'll discover natural forces that he never reckoned with! He's running a zoo, not the bleeding Kruger National Park!

The Zombies are gone, but the BT Gnomes are still ready to feed off your credit card. £6.50 minimum charge if you charge a short local call to your card! Yes, seriously! Don't leave your mobile at home, and even more importantly: if you have to use one then get coins (60p)!

Bedington.co.uk will be off-line for about 8 hours next Monday night to Tuesday morning. This is because the server is being physically moved to new racks in another close-by UK data exchange. It will be shut down slightly before 10pm on Monday night (10th Feb), and the reboot is planned to take place around 6am on Tuesday morning. These times were chosen to minimise disruption to commercial customers, but unfortunately they may not suit non-UK members. We apologise for this necessary outage in advance. We're taking multiple precautions to preserve data in the event of unforeseen incidents during the move.

I'd thought of that, but as you say it's historically unlikely. Injury Reserve seems to be a reasonably common soccer term if you try a bit of searching. I drew a blank as to what the 'B' might be for though.

Very interesting read here for anyone who can manage to wade through it all: http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.it/ Just the first few paragraphs are very instructive. It's interesting that Ike (President Eisenhower) foresaw some of the problems we have today way back in 1961. Guess he'd been round the block a few times by then. What he likely didn't foresee was just how far said "scientific technological elite" would be prepared to go in massaging and cherry-pick data sets to suit their unscientific purposes. To the extent that some "scientific research and discovery" could no longer be held in respect, and would become akin to political dogma. How long are our politicos prepared to buy into the current delusion? Well, there are sure signs that the more intelligent ones are backtracking, and the less intelligent ones have sensed that a climb-down could be coming, and that self-preservation means that the best strategy is simply to avoid any discussion. That, of course, doesn't apply to Prince Chucky. His right royal mindset now appears to extend to cohorts of "climate change deniers" bullying ordinary souls into acceptance of their unscientific ideas. Have you noticed how anyone who questions the official line is now branded as a "denier". A holocaust denier; a biblical denier of Christ; a climate change denier; all one and the same bunch of fruit cakes! In fact no one is denying climate change (that escape artist formerly known as Global Warming). Change is what climate does, and true scientists accept no less! But, controlling all the vocabulary (together with controlling the media and shutting down serious debate) sneaks the climate change industry under ever higher logical and observational hurdles.

I've no evidence for this, but my best guess is that the I.R. stands for Injury Reserve(s).

Yup, they are sitting under the central window. And, if you wanted to place your H.G.Wells time machine in the right place to view the entire scene, you'd site it about here: https://maps.google.com/?ll=55.131205,-1.59158&spn=0.000834,0.002178&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=55.131259,-1.591461&panoid=kb7NhCLaTXwQbyGzCtgiqg&cbp=12,117.05,,0,-5.74

Magic! Almost certainly. I'm not sure about the spelling, but neither, it seems, is the caption on the photo. He'd be the last resident at Lairds House under the coal company. I seem to remember old Bill Ayton grumbling there there were a couple of small canon each side of the back door belonging to the house, who's disappearance coincided with his residence or vacation of the property. Bill showed me the places where they'd stood. I can't remember who Bill named as the exact culprit, though he was rather scathing about them, and seemed to take the loss personally. It was, I think, relatives of Mr C. and not the guy himself.

April 7th 2007 photo here: https://ssl.panoramio.com/photo/1668436 Taken by one of our transatlantic cousins - apparently! Google Streetview still has some March 2009 ones, but they look pretty scraggy. https://maps.google.com/?ll=55.131047,-1.595399&spn=0.001613,0.00898&t=m&layer=c&cbll=55.131047,-1.595403&panoid=OaAcx6DZGpmAC-9XFx11Nw&cbp=12,159.55,,2,4.8&z=17

That's pretty good Tony, you even corrected the currently increasingly propagated mistake of calling it "The" Lairds House. The 1777 date above the front door is in fact the rebuild date. There was a farmhouse on the site since 1500 odd, or so I was told. At one time there was probably only The Old Hall and this farmhouse on the ridge, all the rest came later. One interesting fact is that before Glebe Road became the main road North, the road actually went through here: https://maps.google.com/?ll=55.131211,-1.597446&spn=0.000911,0.002275&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=55.131199,-1.59726&panoid=TZ31GBuLg4QKsYEt26Hm_g&cbp=12,14.08,,2,5.08 ..so they've subconsciously put the sign post in just the right place! Maybe there's an ancient ley line or something just there? My source for this (and much else) would be old Bill Ayton, who spent a lifetime as the gardener. The "building at the back" is only a tiny part of what was there before the 1960's vandalism that engulfed all of Bedlington. There was a cottage facing East/West immediately behind the Post Office, and a lot of buildings, including stables and kennels running North/South adjacent to Foggan's Yard. I think you can probably find references to Earl Marshall by doing a search engine search. Technically it wasn't occupied by the colliery manager, I was told that it was the BCC "Coal Agent" (though maybe this was splitting hairs), and I was told he oversaw both collieries. The last coal related occupant was maybe a Mr Cruddas (sp?), but the famous one would be R.J.Weeks. There's a reference to him here: https://www.mininginstitute.org.uk/library/definitions/Bedlington.html Some research there would maybe enlighten everyone. Now I'm open to correction too!

The 105 year old member can't hit the keyboard today - bad case of the shakes after a night out on the gin - but he phoned me to say that he didn't do much Blackpool in the '60s. His current score is more like 25% than 99.5%, but it will likely improve markedly, once he's had his Philosan+65! Anyway, he offers Adolf Hitler for the "under i" in the back row. It's well known that Addo didn't commit suicide in 1945 but sneaked onto the beach from a Jerry sub under cover of darkness and hid out in a Blackpool boarding house. This was a master-stroke in anonymity, and neatly explains why he's never been found since.