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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.

Aren't you confusing the end of the World with "the end of boom and bust"? Can't fault Labour on that one though: no more boom, all bust!

Looks like your rush to judgement is going to be proven wrong on this one Symptoms. Not only does it appear that a plod has been caught impersonating a member of the public (a novel new offence for the statute book?), but the "peelers" who wrote up the definitive report on the incident didn't quite manage to "lose" the CCTV footage. The "shocked" mini-crowd they detail seems to have comprised the Invisible Man and all his invisible friends. So Mitchell's account of things is now looking a lot more like the unvarnished truth than that of the boys in blue. Sacking?! I think they are going to be put on attachment to the ravens for a good old while!

Is he any relation of the amazingly talented Ed Wood?

Are footballers paid far too much? Yes! Anyone disagree..... thought not! Close topic please Mr Moderator. P.S. To make our ordinary lives just a bit happier just think of the tax they pay - because their peak earnings are all loaded into a few years. Not much in the way of repeat fees for football matches.

He last compeered Treasure Hunt way back in the early 1980's I think. Happy days!

Nige, Terry Smith, and the Norwegian lady win hands down! The posh twits arguments - only Martin Sorrell I recognised - spouted all the usual you'll-be-sorry crap, but had nothing of substance to say. Their big foreign blond may have been fit, but she wasn't making a great deal of sense. Though far more sense than the Labour Party woman, a non-entity who would make even big-mouthed Mrs Balls look sage! Who was this third-rater, and is this really the best the Labour Party can do on such an important matter? If the Labour Party was pathetically indecisive and incoherent, then Boris, for the Tories, was showing his naked ambition - trying to backing both horses for max political gain and offering an easy target to Paxo. Cameron is a bit safer after this performance. The screened-in French female illustrated once again that they think even worse of us than we think of them, and seemed to be operating under the delusion that in mentioning Edward Heath (did she even get his name right?) she'd score brownie points with a UK audience. Exactly what the Train-spotting author guy was mumbling on his screened-in slots from far-away Scotland escaped me, but it seemed to be a-pox-on-all-your-houses you rich Southern scum. I think the lefty element at the Beeb had some input in the selection here, and the editors were hoping that he'd say something about what an independent Scotland would do when the UK finally gets a chance to say no. For a Scotland that has suddenly discovered its preference for the £UK over the Euro this was never going to happen - whoever they invited! Just a minute, there were absolutely no LDs on the program! Now there's a mystery!

Isn't that blackmail / misuse of office? And isn't that a criminal offence? It's a wonder that she didn't put emphasis on her surname, and that people who crossed her shouldn't go anywhere near the moors. Score one for the contention that government shouldn't be allowed anywhere near press regulation!

I think Patrick intended Chris Lintott take over, and certainly relied on him a lot since his stroke. There will surely be several others that will happily stand in for now, so little likelihood the program will end.