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Having just read the drivel from Emma Reynolds MP, Shadow Minister for Europe on why talk of leaving the EU is "dangerous" I came across an article on cheap solar panels, more on which later. Anyway, apparently it's all about horsemeat: Sounds like a very good use of eight billion pounds a year then? But EU regulation didn't actually prevent this and maybe facilitated it - oh, the answer is more euro regulation then?! A disaster when we pull out; all the phone lines will be cut the instant we fail to pay our euro subs, and no one in Europe will ever talk to us again. International cooperation on food standards never happened before the EU and will never happen after. But I trivialise - just remember all those jobs that depend on the EU! What jobs are those? I never remember a large surge in employment after we joined, but I do remember we pxxxxd off a lot of commonwealth countries when we turned inward and turned our back on them. I also remember that we had a fine free trade area going called EFTA that didn't impose stupid regulations or fund too many politico's jollies. We threw that away too when it could have showed Germany and France how to do free trade without all the political nonsense. Anyway, back to those solar panels. You'd have thought that anything that facilitated and encouraged "green energy" would be popular with the politicos in Brussels. After all they harp on about renewable energy all the time. The economics of solar are finely balanced, even in extreme Southern Europe the sun is not entirely reliable, and critically it's useless for most of the 24 hour cycle. The further North you go the more government subsidy is required. Just shaving the capital cost by 5% can make the difference between success and a white elephant project. The Chinese, seeing a vast market, have geared up for this and can now produce world-class solar panels at a price that makes many previously unviable projects interesting to potential backers. The installers and construction firms are overjoyed at this, it means more business, more jobs. But hang on - German and other EU manufacturers have all the EU regulatory baggage to contend with, they can't produce at anything like the cost. In a free market they'd have to shape up or quit - the market dictates that, and why should all other sectors of the economy be penalised because of their inefficiency? That's not the reaction of Brussels though; they want to impose swingeing 47% tariffs on the Chinese product - a level which makes the German product just slightly cheaper. So much for free trade; so much for encouraging investment in "green energy". Here the EU is exposed for what it really is: not the world's largest single market, but the world's largest cartel. It's a cartel largely working in the interests of Germany, supplying Germany with "cheap" labour and keeping down the value of its currency in order to facilitate German exports whilst putting up trade barriers to more efficient producers in other parts of the world. A cartel we'd be a lot better off without (the eight billion pounds a year membership fee is just a starting bonus). Nigel Lawson has just come clean on this after many years of keeping quiet so as not to embarrass the Tory leadership, and many other intelligent people who have looked at the pros and cons have concluded the same. The LibDems are totally wrong on this matter and always have been. Labour is in reality split, and the official party line is completely untenable - many Labour supporters know this but are keeping quiet. Cameron is totally at sea, and going to do all he can to "rescue" the European political project whilst pretending he's listening to the public and the majority of his party. The time has come for ALL politicians to start listening to the nation. The old political tricks of delay, misdirection, and subterfuge will no longer work!

Thought we had to embrace "foreigners" or be demonised as racist! Just give the kids a balanced view, and let them use their own brains. You don't need to go very far (over the Irish Sea) to see what happens if you force the next generation to own your myopic view of the past.

This is often quoted - but completely out of context! Early on, as an MP she attended an Oxford dinner where she made remarks about society. The academics there - both left wing and right wing - immediately jumped on this and pointed out that this view was wrong-headed and that in the final analysis all that need be considered was the individual. They put up various cogent arguments which she considered for a while and then said something to the effect of perhaps she needed to do a rethink on this and give more consideration to the effect of political policies on the individual. A short while later she revised her views in the light of what she'd learned, and not what the political chattering classes liked to believe the World should be like. This wasn't the delusion of some out-of-touch person as Labour would have you believe, but someone who considered facts, realities, and basic fairnesses. Little mention here of the actual facts surrounding the miner's strike. The kids here are getting an extremely slanted view of what actually happened. No mention that Scargill wouldn't poll his members - because he knew he'd lose! No mention that the actual purpose behind the strike was to overthrow a democratically elected government! No mention that Scargill refused to negotiate, no mention of what had gone before. There are few countries in the World where an open revolutionary trying to bring down a democratically elected government. would be enjoying their retirement in luxury! Indeed there are many where he'd still be in a dark dungeon out of the public eye. It's really sad that local miners chose to follow this man, but no one forced them to do this. To demonise a Prime Minister who did more for their country than any other peace time leader is even sadder! But, the left always demonises when it can't put up a rational argument. The sad truth is that under Mrs T. the miners were forced to take off their rose-coloured spectacles and face reality - holding the country to ransom may have been OK under that pathetic excuse for a Prime Minister, Ted Heath, but it had to come to an end. Labour were very grateful it didn't come to an end on their watch, but the very last thing they were going to do was reverse any of the legislation which they themselves dare not enact. The country as a whole knew the reality, but sadly a lot of local people are still trying to hang on to their illusions. Her true crime: she burst your illusions! Get over it and stop living in the past; in particular stop teaching half-truths to your children and grandchildren, and forcing them to them re-live your mistakes!

It was always going to be a bad day for Eaton School, Brussels, the TUC, and Hampstead champagne socialists! Joe Public is wising up, and at an ever increasing pace. If 24% of South Shields voters can see right through the divide and conquer strategy of big politics (and its help mate the British class system) there's hope for absolutely anywhere now. Congratulations to you both, but do stick around a while longer - the revolution has really only just begun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Z19vR1GldRI ..or maybe not!

Bored with their new toy - The Large Hadron Collider - CERN has decided to climb on the techno-nostalgia bandwagon by restoring the very first web page at the same URL as before. The fact that they are attempting to host it on the original hardware will become apparent when you try to download it! http://info.cern.ch/...TheProject.html What!? You expected pictures? You'll need to wait a few years (maybe for the very first bedlington.co.uk page?) for those. BTW notice that although there's a WWW in the URL the bottom level domain is in fact info. It was only later that "www." was widely adopted as the name of the machine that delivered an organisation's http: content. Even today CERN themselves are ignoring this convention and using "web." instead.

It was a Martins - Captain Mainwaring! For many years a Mr Bilton the branch manager. http://www.martinsba...rchive Data.htm Seems like Barclays won't allow the old Martins material to be published. Might just close my account with them - ooops I already did! ============================== Update: Though it doesn't appear to be linked to any longer there's still a brilliant page here: http://www.martinsba... Bedlington.htm - so shucks to you Barclays! Includes a pic of Mr R.Bilton, and of course Mr A. Charlton, who I almost forgot! They don't seem to be able to make their mind up if it was R.T.Bilton or R.L.Bilton, and I'm unable to help on that one just at the mo. In those days few were on first name terms with their local bank manager - unless, of course, you knew the secret handshake!

Ah yes, but the damp rag from Brussels isn't bright enough to work out how to cut off his funding of Ukip - funding which is likely to see a rather large boost quite soon! But it's only what all power-blocks (and parasites) do! Their primary purpose is to ensure their own existence if not growth. Of course that requires the continued existence of the host, but the hosts actual well-being comes well down the priority list! So, logically, it's only ever worth fully supporting organisations who's avowed and sustained aim is to put themselves out of jobs.

No, the... ...comment isn't me - I can spell adhered!

You will need a quite fast machine for this, and a little patience whilst it loads. Fasten your seatbelts and Click Here Hit the space-bar to freeze the motion and try moving the cross-hairs around to get different perspectives. Yes, you can make your own URLs.

In line with our public service commitment all local organisations are currently entitled to one free display advert on bedlington.co.uk on a continuing basis. There are a few common-sense restrictions but generally if you have the enterprise to ask the facility is there for the asking. The real point to make here - and it's a difficult one to get though to many people - is that we really don't care if you are a commercial organisation or not! If you are in Bedlington you are part of our community and your business success is our town's success! Technical Details Display ads must be no wider than 250 pixels (at 96 dpi) and ideally a maximum of 320 pixels deep. The depth of 320 pixels is simply a maximum size and anything below this figure is fine. File size should generally be less than 30KB (though exceptions may be made if the artwork demands it). File format should be .gif .jpg or .png. Generally we won't make free changes to artwork to ensure compliance, but the editors may on occasions do this subject to the availability of free time; so, in order to ensure that your artwork gets accepted, re-read the above specifications carefully! Upload your ad using your existing bedlington.co.uk membership account, and then alert a moderator or admin by Personal Messaging (see your member control panel). In case of difficulties ask for help, and be please be patient! Submissions of ads for events must specify a cut-off date (if it's not already very obvious from the ad itself) - we don't/won't run stale ads here! Optionally you can specify a start date for your ad if you don't want it showing immediately. If you've already submitted a genuine news article to the bedlington.co.uk news pages we will set your ad to click-through to that - for more information on your organisation or what it's currently up to. If you haven't your ad will simply click through to the bedlington.co.uk homepage. T&C Your organisation must be based Bedlington or the immediate surrounding area, and the editor('s') decision on borderline cases is final! Ads may also be rejected if they are deemed detrimental to the town or to the bedlington.co.uk website e.g for services which are ! The primary purpose of free display ads must be to directly promote a local event, firm, or organisation, and not to garner web traffic, or leech on our hard-won top search engine positioning. i.e. Come Buy from Fred's Shop is fine Visit the Fred Shop Website is not! We'll make an exception to this and link to charity or small start-up's social networking pages, but such organisations are encouraged to talk to bedlington.co.uk directly about how we can provide them with free web help. Otherwise our sponsors have exclusive rights to redirections to their own websites, and local company MyURL.co.uk (who currently provide bedlington.co.uk's superb web facilities for no fee whatsoever) certainly aren't here to give their competitors free promotion! If your organisation wants to become a bedlington.co.uk commercial sponsor and so have this restriction lifted then we will be be delighted to hear from you - it costs so very little (£100 for a whole year including your own FTP account to deploy your own pages). Full sponsorship will earn your organisation massive brownie points in our local community by being seen to be supporting it directly. Political Party Advertising Bedlington.co.uk is entirely apolitical. That doesn't mean that adverts for local political parties aren't permitted, it simply means that all legitimate political parties have a right to equal voice. If your political party isn't represented then complain to them about their failing to submit a free advert, and not to the moderators and administrators! Innuendo from local politicos about bias needs to be treated with the contempt it deserves - basically they are saying: we can't be bothered, but we resent the efforts of other parties who are more capable and more motivated than we are. Artwork If you don't have the skills or contacts to do your own artwork we will produce a simple ad for you for only £10 per file. Or £25 for three - to be run sequentially. You'll need to send us the exact text(s) and optionally photo(s) or line drawing(s). You'll need a PayPal account to pay for this, and your funds will be donated to the website development fund. The copyright of such advert(s) will rest with you - so you can use them elsewhere too. The Bottom Line Where else can you get valuable, narrowly-targeted, local publicity for free? The only limit on how many exposures your ad gets is the size of the display queue, so first come gets the best positioning. ========================================== If you are reading this text from hardcopy then please see bedlington.co.uk/community/topic/4415-your-ad-for-free/#entry47143 for a fully up-to-date version - the on-line version is the authoritative one.

...err... yes! 36 then 38 Front Street WEST! And tony got Millne right too - pity no one managed Dansette! For a brief period in the late '60s NVR had a really novel battery portable called the Discotron, which played disks vertically and looked more like a transistor radio with a handle than a record player. They didn't have much output though, and weren't a big seller. If the firm had carried on and improved it a bit I think they could have been big, but it fizzled out. Result is they are very rare now, and highly sought after.

Totally correct and full marks! Right on through and almost to the end on the left-hand side. In charge of the Records Dept. the amazingly pretty blond Betty Brown (maiden name). She knew her records, and late one weekday afternoon insisted I listen to a newly-arrived record from this noisy new group playing a number called "Love Me Do" - well I wasn't too impressed at the time, and they probably never went anywhere! No headphones; no booths; just a rather good Pye "Black Box" stereo system that lasted quite some years. NVR on Front Street East sold vinyl for a few years in the mid to late '60s, and slightly later an upstairs place nearer the Market Place - think it was imaginatively named The Music Box or similar! I think it's more likely you bought it above what used to be Feasters and Percy Moldens. Some time in the mid '50s Millne's established the first record department there - straight at the top of the stairs in a partitioned off area. Previously they'd been sold from 110 Front Street East - The Cycle Shop. In those days record distribution was closely controlled, and the distributors are very unlikely to have supplied shops within a stone's-throw of each other. What sticks in my mind about this is the extensive use of the new wonder material pegboard, the "comfy" seating, and the strips of red carpet over the regulation lino. Clearly no expense was spared! My other impression is of seeing the first vinyl 7" EPs there. EPs - 33rpm - didn't last too long. 6s 8d (approx 34p) in the mid '60s I think. 45's were stuck at about that price for quite some years - though they attracted (25%?) Purchase Tax and changes to that might have produced some small variations. They likely were 3s odd in the '50s. . The last of the 78's went in a huge bumper sale in the Market Place store. The problem was that over the years thousands of the things had built up, and in those days it was forbidden to sell at below the price stipulated by the record companies (Retail Price Maintenance). In fact you could be taken to court for discounting, or worse have all your supplies cut off! With the move to Millne House (though it wasn't called that until the Coop took it over) there was a huge storage headache with this dead stock. Some time after the move, and after much argument and trepidation it was decided to go ahead regardless and flog them off at 2s 6d (eight for £1). Queues developed as discounted records were unheard of, and just about everything moved in a day or two. The much feared reaction of the record distributors never happened! If you kept yours - and didn't turn them into flowerpots or sling them - you probably have an excellent investment.

Don't follow it closely, but now that you come to mention it... looks like we are in a classic retreat to something between $1000/oz and $800/oz. There are quite a few producers who are struggling to produce profitably at around those levels and higher so I wouldn't expect it to go much lower. But confidence in it as a store of value has - very rightly - been shaken at these speculative bubble levels. The very people who are now losing money are the people who are reluctant to invest in equities because of the perceived risk - they don't like the idea of any capital loss, so will be doubly put out. Guess they will simply have to leave their money in Euros, collecting a derisory rate of interest in a nice safe offshore Eurozone bank! Anyway, I certainly wouldn't bet my shirt on the gold price! http://www.bbc.co.uk...-asia-22101436

Where the dentist now is, but I don't think it is the same building (Burdon House I've just been told), and the building-line seems to have changed a bit. If you look to the left of it there is no sign of the Clovelly Garden's entrance. Wasn't that developed by Adcocks the builders much later - so likely that whole bit was "remodelled" then. Don't the phone poles look amazing? No conservation area status there then?! The video is a great effort, but the indoor resonance sounds (particularly on the landings) spoil it a tiny bit. Next effort needs some dull outdoor sound dubbed into the audio to do the fine acting full justice. Maybe a bit of horses' hooves background noise too - otherwise very imaginative.

Yet another Android smartphone launch - yawn? Nope, this one is special! This new ZTE packs an Intel CloverTrail+ CPU running at a full 2GH/z. That's more computing power than many desktops had not too many years ago, and better than many netbooks currently in use. It's "binary compatible" with regular PCs too - that means that there's no need for developers to run emulations, they can run the same instructions directly, and use regular PC software tools. Graphics are reportedly three times faster than current generation ARM based phones like the Samsung Galaxys and iPhones. No UK availability date or price yet, but I will try to keep you updated. http://gigaom.com/20...eek-smartphone/

"spiteful rantings"? hhmm.... My real problem with the ultra-left propaganda about Mrs T is that it influences kids who weren't around at the time. Had they been they'd likely have seen for themselves what an almighty mess we were in due to the likes of Scargill. No one else had the guts to stand up to the almighty unions who were holding us all to ransom - neither the Labour Party or the Tory wets like Heath. It had to be done, and if it was so bad why was not a scrap of it ever undone by Labour? But none of this was personal - it's only the loony-left who want to personalise it. If you can't win a logical argument then try to label and demonise - always a good substitute for actual thought! Well said you lefty BBC journo!

Really shabby Sym! Whether you agree or disagree with what she did you demean yourself as a human being by taking that attitude to the death of a frail old lady. You also show an intolerance to the rights of countless millions of people who believe that what she did was very necessary to the survival and long-term well-being of our country. In their honest moments that includes just as many people left-of-center as right.

He's in trouble already! Skeletons in cupboard regarding the five hundred plus stolen babies around about the time of the Falklands War. Has selective amnesia about what happened when relatives asked him for help at the time. His signature has been found on a letter proving he had knowledge of the matter, though he stood up in court later on and said he didn't know what was going on. Not intervening in the circumstances is excusable - several priests who did were bumped off by the millitary. But, it rather looks like he may have been caught out in a porkie! Certainly some Argentinian woman is claiming he's not fit for the job. http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2013/03/16/pope_francis_faces_fallout_from_argentinas_dirty_war_editorial.html

Now that's a load of rubbish, because the profile it is showing for me doesn't look remotely like their sample illustration. Their algorithm is clearly struggling here! Actually it is wonderful, because it illustrates that TWC aren't prepared to take on a shed-load of debt commitments, and in these economically strained funny-money times, that is most certainly something which should be looked UP to! And, whether they choose to acknowledge it or not, Maggie T had a big hand in changing attitudes here!

Uh??? Absolutely anyone can post in Northumberland Chat (and sometimes absolutely anyone does!), so... before it actually appears a moderator has to give it a quick look over. This rule applies even to registered members who are logged in. There may be a work-around to registered members not seeing their posts appear instantly here, but it's not something that comes up too often. The "green bar" bit of your question has me stumped though!

I though this may have been. One thing is for sure: if/when Labour get back into power the measures won't be unpicked. Yes, they will make all the right noises, but they know as well as anyone else that the welfare budget was allowed to get way out of control and is simply unaffordable!

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Nissen_hut ...or maybe they were the Japanese variant? Talking about variants I didn't know about these. Copied from the Nissen Hut design! Anyone recognise a pattern here?

Message from ECB/IMF: Leave any serious cash in Southern European Banks at your peril, and that could even include socialist France. Result: A flight of capital into Northern Europe, or likely outside the Eurozone entirely. The lack of moral hazard all started with our very own Northern Rock and pathetically incompetent Labour chancellor Alastair Darling - as noted here at the time. Now, when introducing moral hazard is forced on the politicos, they characteristically go over the top - because it's far far too late! The US had the good sense to let Lehman Brothers go - it served a dual purpose in evening a few scores amongst the banking fraternity, and so was an easy choice. It's a totally pointless exercise recapitalising the Cypriot casinos, and they should have used a tiny fraction of the money setting up a string of local "savings and loans" to take over the day to day business of the populace - one per town.