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From the fevered brains of eurocrats who don't live in the real world, and just don't get it? Maybe Rumpy Pumpy doesn't fund this one: http://www.euronews....out-of-eu-deal/ Dave needs to be careful; pushing on the exit door open and showing how blue the sky is outside, he could just get injured in the rush! Any bets on whether a new Catalonia would want to join Dave's EU or the Federal one? Well, the speech has had the desire affect, it's brought Tory rebels back on-board, marginalised the Cleggies (as if this were needed), and totally wrong-footed Red Ed - once again! Filled with those inevitable IFs of course, but if Dave can deliver on most of his five woolly aims, I might even buy a Dave-style EU. Meanwhile I will still be voting UKIP - just to keep the politicos minds focussed on the only long-term thing that really matters.

"In 2006 I was appointed as one of 15 UK Socrates Erasmus Bologna Experts sponsored by the European Commission" So, already on the Euro gravy train! Anyway, it's a bit more detailed than the usual we must be at the heart of Europe BS, so deserves a reply. A fail in the very first sentence. EEC is what we joined, and the great British public was persuaded was the sunlit uplands (including a naive me) - EU is what was later forced on us by politicos. You can't mix and match here; which so-called advantages belong to one and which were a product of the other? It's the old Monty Python what did the Romans ever do for us joke: big long list of things no one can argue with, but misses the essential point that the People's Front for the Liberation... are seeking their freedom from oppression. There's no equation there! Except - in this case - just about every member of that long list is in itself illusory. Pick a couple at random and we will dissect them. Here we go again! The arguments of tired old men who learned the wrong lessons from history. None of our postwar peace had a jot to do with the EU. Read NATO; read universal education; read modern communications; read universal foreign travel; read a less deferential-to-authority media, etc. - my list is long too! OMG "neoliberal economic globalisation, and worsened by its own systemic weaknesses"! Well we know about the latter - buckets of that in the EU. There's nothing very "neoliberal economic" or global" about setting up trade barriers outside your borders instead of inside them - a my cartel is bigger than your cartel, so we'll do things our way approach to trading. No way is this the free trade principal that brought prosperity to large swathes of the World, and brought civilisation and some sort of order to the rest. And.. attention Mr Sweeney... the EU was formed in 1993 - the Maastricht Treaty, remember? Not 60 years ago; and those evil warmongering dictatorships that instantly became peaceful good Europeans must have been 13 years ahead of their time too! And tell me about Kosovo, do? I don't remember too many wars between EFTA countries either - they just got on and promoted mutual free trade without all the political BS. So maybe it's just the contact and mutual self-respect brought about by free trade that's the key here, and peace has little or nothing to do with big politics? "We must play a full part in enabling the union to be a force for good in a multipolar global future." Ummm... yes, bet that translates well into Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish (note cut'n'paste), puts plenty of gravy on the table in Brussels, and accounts for just a few more trees. As a Brit I believe in doing the right thing, not in being told what I should and "must" think. I believe in getting on with the business of putting food on the table, of trading fairly, and generating a surplus which can be used to help others. I believe in small government with as few layers, and as little impediment to wealth generation, as possible. I believe in retaining the discretion to use that surplus wisely myself, and not have it hijacked, even stolen, by huge bureaucracies that contribute nothing to wealth production, and consume obscene amounts of resource in their arrogant assumption that they know better than the people they pretend to serve. On my figures the British contribution to the EU is about £8bn - so this £7bn is a lot closer to the truth than the £4bn offered by most supporters of the EU. It's a fallacy to compare that figure with GNP as it's a direct loss to the UK not a recirculating government spend, not to mention that £8,000,000,000 a year is one hell of a lot of money! Do we get value for it? Most definitely we don't! If it's to be regarded as a membership fee for a club of equals, then it's a peculiar kind of membership of a rather rum club - paid by a very few and not at all by other members. I agree that these kinds of stories are largely crap, and don't contribute to the real debate. But they are a metaphor for the truth that can easily be run by most voters. They are no more fanciful than the distortions and embellishment which comes from the mouths of supporters of a federal Europe, and largely go unchallenged. At this point I note that you haven't provided me with a entry to many of the real points at issue, but it's a brave attempt for which I thank you! I'd like to get on to matters like European defence, where the fattest member of the club sits back and pretends that what we do is in our own interest - so they need contribute nothing, and put no boots on the ground themselves. But, now we are told that all wrongs will be righted, all debts will be squared, when a new federal kind of Europe comes into being. Sunny Uplands Redux, or an increasingly Orwellian nightmare?

Oops! Francophile on board. Put my foot in it again! Chef of Newsnight said there are far less horse-meat shops in France now than there used to be. I'm not sure if they are declining in Italy, but there are still plenty.

...and anagram is a harmanag* of froggyfood. *define: harmanag h'arm-a-nag: A tortured convolution of English words that facilitates another poke at the French - it's mutual! (cf. rosbif (fr))

If only you were right on the end of party politics! How do you get it over to the great British public that they are regularly screwing themselves over by supporting the same old party hacks?! We'll agree to differ on the one-trick-pony for now. UKIP actually have some pretty sensible policies now, and if you regard them as a point around which a lot of level-headed people are now gravitating they are no longer a proposition that is too hard to swallow. Gone is the cop-out that the EU is the most important issue (though it most certainly is!) and all the rest are secondary and will follow on. And, no more nutters than in other parties really - though the establishment, and vested interest, is about to do its very best to counter that view.

UKIP want what the great majority want: free trade with Europe and the right to run our own affairs. If the EU won't play ball they have a lot more to lose than we do. We then have the freedom to negotiate free trade deals with who we want and block those we don't want - not to mention the £8 billion a year we save! We'd get a better deal with UKIP at the helm than any other party. Balance of power wise, well it probably won't be so good. UKIP rules out a deal with Cameron, and the LDs are on the road to oblivion, so the only logical coalition would be with Labour - however daft that sounds! Who knows what Milliband would agree to to get power? He wouldn't be able to pussyfoot on a referendum, but he wouldn't want an in/out one, just a renegotiate one. But UKIPs trump card is that they are prepared to walk away if absolutely necessary and that would likely be stymied. We are due for a major shakeup of politics and major defections from the Tories might just produce a few from Labour too. It's not out of the question that UKIP could become the majority party in some circumstances, though at the next election it's a slim chance without total meltdown in the EU. So yes, it's going to be very messy, but the only sane way to support our country now is to support UKIP. Cameron is going to do all he can to marginalise UKIP, and it's in the other parties interests to passively support this. The Tory party is paralysed between the need to get rid of him and bring many UKIP supporters back on board, and the old-school Europhiles. This is going to be a very interesting 2.5 years.

Billed as the biggest speech of his career. It was to be the 22nd but that would have upset the German-French axis as they were celebrating the anniversary of some political gravy train or other leaving the station, and the timing of what he is about to spring would have been unfortunate. Then it was moved to... but... well, you get the picture. So it's this Friday for sure - probably, or unless some senior civil servant has overlooked that it's Fiona's hair night and he's needed to apply the Loreal. This is the announcement that is going to put him back in No 10 by squaring the circle of UKIP leaning Tories considering defection, and the pro-European LD's in government. Of course Millipede is going to disagree with anything he says - even if he reads it straight out of the Labour manifesto. A tiny foretaste of this from his interview on the Today program on Monday: So so true Dave - I've been p'd off with politicos like you breaking your election promises on this almost ever since I was conned into voting for the Common Market. So... we are going to get the long overdue referendum then? I wouldn't count on it, and bet he will promise one after the next election, just like all parties have - before they realised they were bound to lose the vote! It will be IF this then IF that too. Plus, of course, IF I'm sure it will go my way. Do I trust any further undertakings you give on this matter? N.O.! That's why I will be voting UKIP. What can he possibly say that will prevent a major bust-up over Europe? We await with bated breath.

Things can only get worser! He's appealing to the government to help stop the Remploy factory closures in his constituency, and on behalf of two neighbouring MPs too. Maybe the criticisms of him not properly representing his constituents have finally struck home? Tonight in the House of Commons And who is sporting that pair of glasses over his right shoulder in an otherwise pretty empty HoC? Can it be our very own...?

...and again! Department of Homeland Security: Disable Java 'Unless It Is Absolutely Necessary' Only about 5 months behind the curve, but the security services get there eventually! There is now even a warning in the Firefox Add-in Manager:

They will say that's because of anti-piracy measures - which is a total nonsense! There will always be people who will strongly resist paying, many because they simply can't feed their habit through legal means (notice any parallels here?), but the vast majority of people acknowledge that production costs need to be paid and they need to tip in something, even if it's only by way of a TV licence. The solution is to embrace the technology and make it far easier for people to contribute something, not to attempt to criminalise a huge section of the population. Instead of wasting my time being forced to view legal threats (and putting me in a bloody-minded mood) on something I already shelled out for at the supermarket, why don't they set up a website to collect a small sum post-viewing for people who watched something that they didn't acquire through normal channels? Some sort of tiny reward - like discount codes off legal purchases - could be attached, as an acknowledgement of you doing the right thing. It would be an interesting experiment. Anything which can be viewed or listened to can be recorded - with technology that gets better every year. And sooner or later the material will be released free-to-air anyway for people who refuse to, or can't, pay for it directly. An acknowledgement from the studios that the vast majority of people are honest and will do the right thing (if they make it very easy and aren't too greedy) would be a refreshing development. Maybe in the coming world of micropayments???

Abolishing hereditary peers right to sit in the HoL was a good thing - it's by now (almost) totally clear who bought theirs, or was put there simply to get them out of the way! That said the HoL is a far more cost-effective way of keeping many hundreds of self-important drones who contribute zero to the GNP. In fact if I was a hereditary I'd be pushing for a re-badging to distance my position from all the nouveau riche and political failures in the HoL. "Traditional Lord" would have some appeal. They missed a trick: the issue of classy "You can't buy me I'm a REAL aristocrat!" badges would have been ample consideration for the loss of the privilege. Of course there's the alternative of the compulsory wearing of "Dave fixed it for me!" or "I fixed it for myself!" badges to permit entry. "Labour is now the biggest party in the Lords" -- oh well, in addition to stuffing the electorate out with leftie-voting immigrants Tony has stuffed the HoL out too! So, the present lot have no option but to continue the farce.

When you are suffering those annoying legal threats that you can't skip over, on content you've already paid-for, recall this:- Study Shows MegaUpload Had Positive Effect So surprise surprise, all the nonsense about depriving the rightful owners of essential revenue is total BS. The only people to benefit from dragging casual downloading "pirates" through the courts are lawyers! The full report can be downloaded from here.

"More reasonable"!! Why should they be paid at all? Let's examine the history: Someone once said to me that the first thing Labour will do when they get power is vote themselves an increase - and they were right! So don't blame traditional Tories who have always been moderate on the issue, though the current generation now line up at the trough just like the rest. History proves that if MPs get paid standards deteriorate, and you get people who can't really hold down any sort of proper job. That's not the sort of people we need to be running the country! The Blair/Brown Years: Jan-96 £34,085 Jul-96 £43,000 Apr-97 £43,860 Apr-98 £45,066 Apr-99 £47,008 Apr-00 £48,371 Apr-01 £49,822 Jun-01 £51,822 Apr-02 £55,118 Apr-03 £56,358 Apr-04 £57,485 Apr-05 £59,095 Apr-06 £59,686 Nov-06 £60,277 Apr-07 £61,181 Nov-07 £61,820 Apr-08 £63,291 Apr-09 £64,766 Apr-10 £65,738 Not bad for a part-time "job" that you can stroll in and out of, to fit in around all your other little earners. And, of course, you get your expenses (some of them even justified) and a nice fat pension. The expenses I've come across so far: Travel Free rail passes for: "travel between London and constituency, constituency and ordinary residence, and ordinary residence and London; and to cover air travel" Car Mileage Allowance 40p per mile up to 10,000 miles, and 25p per mile thereafter. Incidental Expenses Provision ???? Staffing Allowance "to allow the employment of up to 3.5 staff". (A biggie - but probably no longer includes employing you own family!) Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure Maximum £24,222. Communications Allowance/Communications Expenditure "increased to £10,400 from 1 April 2008" (Almost certainly doesn't include the free iPads we bought them!) I never realised mobile Internet was so expensive. I seem to be able to get a good always-on service on my smartphone for the equivalent of £7 p/m, with a couple of hours of phone and 120 free SMS thrown in for free. With no reduction in sight of this flat £10,400 it looks like Mr Berkow's cunning plan didn't work! Or maybe he just fancied one for himself? Select committees seem to be terribly popular these days. I wonder how much more gravy attendance of those produces?

And most progressive outfits are shifting away from expensive dead-tree shipping anyway. Here's an idea for a new Bedlington based enterprise: Instant On-line Utility Bills. "Just type in your details and we'll bill you anywhere you want for any service you want. Print to your printer or receive a .pdf on your smartphone. Available in any language you select (we have translators)." The natural name for the enterprise.... jobsworthutilitybills.com

Maybe... if Canny Lass had produced her copy of the Koran, and said that she was researching the architecture of the Early British Mosque?

There's no practical limit to the length of a post, so that's actually what was posted. i.e. there was a mistake in editing somewhere before it was submitted. If you are doing more than an odd paragraph or two it's always better to prepare it with a text editor first, then copy and paste. That way you have a backup copy if anything goes wrong. Note that you can re-edit your posts to make corrections or add extra material, so you can hit the button to upload what you've already written then hit the edit button to add more. That's not infallible but it does offer a lot more security to losing great chunks of your typing. And... if you duplicate a post it's not a problem - just add a note to the moderator asking him/her to remove the duplicate (and your instruction).

A chance to see his very last appearance on this month's program, recorded just before he died. That he had no intention of ever stopping is evident from him trailing February's program. http://www.bbc.co.uk..._for_the_Stars/

Are we talking about the same family as "Billy" Mather, who was, as I remember, a very good joiner?

I wonder if everyone is missing the obvious here, and the name of our town is in fact derived from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bede ? It's not as if we don't have very strong connections with Durham, and on the old maps we are marked as a tight enclosure of the Bishop's territory within Northumberland. ---------- -ling A diminutive modifier of nouns having either the physical sense of "a younger, smaller or inferior version of what is denoted by the original noun", or the derived sense indicating possession of or connection with a quality, which may having the sense of "a follower or resident of what is denoted by the stem form". (as an adverb) In the manner or direction indicated by the main stem (object.) http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ling ---------- From Old Norse tún. Noun tun n (singular definite tunet, plural indefinite tun) (dated) an enclosed piece of ground ---------- So Bedeling-tun became contracted into Bedlington? Hardly a giant leap for an etymologist!

Just PM me and I will organise web space for you - either in the Gallery or as a stand-alone download (depending on the metrics). I can also do a video conversions from/to just about any regular format, so the download doesn't have to be restricted to the original encoding.

Only need a couple of sink plungers!

Great bit of work, and a useful addition to the Bedlington Gallery.

Ah, saved by the rider. For a few short seconds I thought you'd been reading the New Statesman again Sym. Not only did that PC mob fail to explain the Kraut thing in proper context, but they were trying to mark him down in history with the ultimate non-PC insult: a BNP "sympathiser". He was not! They've been forced to excise that particular slur. He was a patriot. Now that might be unfashionable, but it isn't illegal - quite yet! No worries on the "Yewtree" thing - I guess he'd likely be leading the "popular press" lynch mob, and advocating a rapid surgical solution.