threegee

Having gone off and checked the facts on this one I'd be more than happy to elucidate on the East Coast mainline situation. Before you engage though, please check the official performance figures of the current (and "caretaker") operator against the former regime. The franchise was profitable under National Express too, but with higher customer service levels! And.. the last time I used a National Express train the WiFi was free, not £4.99 and hour!

National Interest is always a hard one to argue - why politicos always quote it when they've run out of other excuses. What was in the national interest is generally evident only with hindsight, and sometimes not even then. Take the various wars as an examples of that. I don't object to the French owning chunks of our infrastructure if they think they can run it better - but you know how I love them! After all, we have simply huge overseas investments ourselves, and have often shown the US of A how to do their thing properly. It becomes highly political when an overseas company is sacking large numbers of British workers and "exporting British jobs", but British companies have done/do exactly the same overseas. It's up to us to get our act together and free up our labour markets again I think. Problem is that there are no longer too many people around that can remember near full employment, and so-called "employment protection" is a political hot potato.

Wow! And, before your back there was private capital which built the railways. It's unlikely we would have had them if it hadn't been for those "capitalist pigs" who put up the money. Many of them backed the wrong horse and lost their money and no one compensated them, but Britain and the industrial revolution always benefited massively. Meanwhile, what did the British state do with all the taxation they raised - some of it generated by the private railways? Ground nuts maybe? But, more likely, it was blown on "the war effort". One of the fundamental laws of economics: Private individuals and their enterprises generate wealth - governments dissipate/waste it! Real nice of you allowing "private companies" to play with the state's (stolen) train sets. But, if nationalisation is so bloody good, why can't the state do a better job with the rolling stock? Does not compute! Maybe you should re-read that article Adam. The dumb mistake was made by the very same civil servants you would have running the whole show. The bill (£40M) for the mistake has to be picked up by the public purse. That's just a low-cost preview of what happens when there's moral hazard involved in running an enterprise - AKA nationalisation.

I meant qe2fields.com not you!

More mature members will remember him from: Twenty six episodes 1963-4. Music by The John Barry Orchestra, but curiously not composed by John Barry.

Seems like I voted twice - count defo went from 17 to 19! Click on the rectangular [Heart] YOUR FIELD graphic folks, under the number - they haven't made this immediately obvious!

Aahhh... class war is alive, and well, and living in Bedlington! Easy prey for the "toffs" in the Labour Party who are peddling the politics of envy to an entirely new generation of suckers (and immigrants - some of them even legal!) just like the old days. Bring back Clause IV I say! Meanwhile, back in the present: Blame on all sides here I think; not just Andrew Mitchell who got above himself. A "bit of common" on any one side and we'd never have heard of the incident.

Excellent scans and a good additions to the gallery Vic! The first one 1960's, despite the sepia. The other ones well pre-war. The church clock face has been painted in rather crudely on the third, which is a tiny shame!

...except... ...the security certificate on the copy my computer has downloaded here has already expired! It says expiry ‎15 ‎July ‎2012 01:59:59! Really really bright Sun Microsystems, you send out a highly critical update to hundreds of millions of people, and sign it with a duff certificate! If other things had the same level of quality control as software I'd be retiring to a dessert island, or finding a deserted mountain top somewhere in Patagonia.

That would seem to be the usual update, for some strange reason a full six weeks earlier than scheduled! http://www.java.com/...d/installed.jsp So... seems to be the way to go.

On the subject of F1 websites, it's perhaps a good thing they have moved on! Way back in the 1990's we found ourselves on the same server as the original UK F1 website hosted out of Yorkshire. Poking around on the machine I was flabbergasted to find that our hosting account had complete read/write access to all their files! Could have been interesting, but for some reason we soon moved on to another hosting company!

Ah, it's back to collecting the The Radio Constructor on my bike on wet days again! Looking at the other Walter Wilson pictures, did they EVER repair their sign - shades of Faulty Towers here - or did it gradually deteriorate? Presumably it originally said "THE SMILING SERVICE GROCERS"? BTW further up on the thread re. Moldens I'm surprised no one mentioned Percy Molden. The thing that most sticks in my mind about Moldens is that behind the scenes, in the office, was a shelf with a row of hard back tomes on how to run a business. The fact that these imposing business manuals looked in pristine condition my young mind rationalised with the fact that, if they'd been used, or indeed of any practical use, Percy wouldn't still be occupying only "half a shop" in a small town. Percy was a great character, but as a young boy I had an uncomfortable feeling being sent in there by myself. I was particularly uncomfortable at his insistence on inside leg measurements at every possible occasion. Boy's waists - or lack of them - seemed to be a particular talking point.

This one seems VERY serious, and you are doubtless going to hear a lot more about it when the media gets hold of the news: http://www.theregist..._block_exploit/ The recommendation is to disable Java on your Windows computers right now! Instructions for Firefox are here. Other browsers will have a similar mechanism for disabling it. Update: Someone asked me how to disable Java in MS Internet Explorer. See Here

Maxed the final credit card to meet that one. Nothing happens in August in the Southern Med; come September and it's back to the barricades! And, the Eurocrats will now deliver to the protesters what the Greek politicos are so very resistant to - it's finally dawned on all that Greece simply has to be thrown to the wolves. Rather than anyone being seen to be out of line, and making the first move in isolation, I think we will likely see an coordinated move with a view to minimising collateral damage and maximising the standing of those in power. The script has already been written.

Ah, Goebbels - there's a surname to conjure with! Or... in the case of our parents/grandparents generation... to compose catchy ditties with! http://www.europarl....t_GOEBBELS.html The more well-known branch of the family was disarmingly honest in ITS dishonesty: He may well have gone to hell, but that certainly won't have wiped the grin of satisfaction off his face!

Probably because it was called Pringles not Proudlocks! Una Pringle I believe, and Vulcan Place the location.

Well, Malcolm Hemsted is apparently "website administrator" of "http://bedlington.pl...ay-cricket.com" and has published his email and picture there, so why don't you ask him? Better still ask him to come on board and post what he knows about the family for posterity. If he has photos to post then so much the better. Hemsted rings a strong bell, and if I had to guess I'd say it was one of the shops at the East end of Front Street East, to the right of the banner here http://www.bedlingto...iners-picnic/ possibly the one with a double awning. Am a bit ashamed I can't remember precisely just at the moment. I'd certainly have shopped there on the odd occasion. For the record the one immediately to the left of the banner is Miller's Fruit and Veg, and they also owned the smaller shop to the left of the lamp post, though didn't always occupy it themselves. And I think you do know what happened to that budgie...

Update: I have detected some shadows in the first picture and so submitted the image to intense enhancement and computation. Can now unequivocally determine that the first picture was taken on the 14th June 1958 around 1pm (GMT), and that there's an escaped budgie from that day's show at the library perching on a TV aerial, just out of shot. Anyone know what happened to that budgie? http://www.nrfta.org...rfta/12161.html

A consistent approach brought to you courtesy of the Labour Party. The party which, thorough history, has never missed an opportunity of describing other's tenure as "Wasted Years". http://newleftreview.org/I/24/t-w-twelve-wasted-years http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Three_Wasted_Years.html?id=W2qKGQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y etc etc etc.

You are not alone! http://www.dailymail...s-villains.html Ask BP! Oh, and through marriage Dame Helen has to pretty much an authority on the subject.

And, there's the clean and intrinsically safe Thorium alternative. There's vastly more Thorium on Earth than Uranium, and all of it can be used - unlike Uranium at about 1% usage! If we'd put the money into this, instead of buying into very iffy US PWR designs that don't scale well, we'd be showing the rest of the world (and in particular the French) how it is done - like we once did! Even the anti-nuclear luddites would be at a loss to find anything to exaggerate out of all proportion. Other countries are moving ahead on this, but many of the designs ape Uranium technology and are missing the innovation we could easily contribute. A total lack of leadership and imagination by our Don Quixote politicos! Whoops - I now see you beat me to it Malc!

Is that a question or stating the obvious? A typically evil British institution which needs far more federal control. All your reputation are belong to us!

I think the TV is now pointing these two pics much more at 1958 than 1959, and that matches exactly with our "fashion expert" opinion. With quite a few old Bedlington pictures it's possible to make a fairly accurate guess at the time of year, and an accurate guess at the time of day. But there are no shadows in these pictures, so that's out. About exactly this time TV's switched from using very long tubes (70 degree) to significantly shorter (90 degree) ones. Some manufacturers were quicker and made more use of the technology change to update styling than others. UK Philco (not UK Philips) was particularly clued up here - must have been the influence of the US parent. Philco sets made even the major UK manufacturers look outdated, and even they learned some quick lessons. This in part drove the rash of takeovers in the industry. Around this time, or shortly after, everyone knew the difference between 70 degree and 90 degree deflection angle TVs, even if they called it by something else. "Slimline" would have been most often used I think. These were very innovative times, even if the technology was crude by modern standards. Very soon after there would be a change to 110 degree tubes, and that, more or less (117 degree was claimed), is where the cabinet shrink stopped, until very recently. No one in these pictures would have heard of Ena Sharples, "Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960". And - unless they travelled - they would have had to wait a short while to see their very first broadcast advert. ------------------ Technical note for any researchers reading this: The "Electrostatic" bit in the above ad IS significant, though all manufacturers would be able to claim it by then. It meant those two huge weighty ring magnets around the CRT neck were done away with (and the flat lever sticking out of the TV back cover on earlier sets). For a decade or more after kids would salvage these magnets to play with - far better than ones you could buy at toy stores! This was a big cost and weight saving. From then on the focus really didn't need any fine servicing adjustment until the introduction of colour TV. The "In-built automatic focusing" is probably a marketing persons reference to the same thing, and marketing froth. Nothing to do with the TV manufacturer of course, it was simply a newer CRT technology that was generally adopted.

Now who would know a thing like that? I'd need a much closer look, but I can tell you what it isn't; it isn't one of the major brands, because they were all tied up between Millne's and the Coop. Likely something like a Regentone, though there were dozens of smaller manufacturers around in those days - mostly gobbled up by the majors. It's likely a 70 degree deflection angle TV rather than the 90 degree sets being introduced around that time. That's guessed purely from the front styling, the depth of the cabinet (and any rear projection for the tube) would be the decider. Must say I'd quite forgotten there was a furniture shop there before the Gas Board. It can't have lasted very long. OK, having looked at pictures of late 1950's Regentone's - which are close, but not close enough - I'm going to guess at a... Note it's those gramophones again! This advert is taken from a popular trade price book, which the public wouldn't generally get to see. Thus the talk of "sales figures" etc. I'm not sure what the public would have made of some of the (overblown) tech-talk either. Talk of "semi-conductors" would probably have had them scratching their heads. And, these days RGD would surely have trouble getting some of their "automatic" claims past the ASA. The year is much the same as the earlier photo looking the other way. For that we guessed 1958, or 1959 at the latest. At first glance it looks more modern, but logic says there can't be much more than a year's difference. So, a very good chance it was taken at the same time.

Would depend on how they made it. Off the back of "public service" isn't a good indicator. By making real things that real people want to buy would be. Financial services is a grey area; I suppose it would depend on how many people they screwed in the process. Nige must pass that test though, he's just too candid to have much of a hidden agenda. Boris ..well you tell me; but he's sure got the knack of getting genuine people on his side. On the whole though, far better to elect someone with their head screwed on the right way than a dumb-a who can't even hold down a real job.