threegee

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.

Would members posting news items for the homepage PLEASE try to include a graphic. Your article will have much more impact if you do. ...and a reminder that Bedlington.co.uk is looking for a volunteer News Editor. It's hardly a demanding job but will while away the odd hour or two a week. Qualifications are some command of basic English, and a keen interest in local affairs. PM me if you want to give it a try. Good practice for an aspiring journalist, or one in between jobs (will look good on a CV), or someone retired but wanting to use their depth of experience to benefit the community.

No need to look it up, all presented to me on a plate by the Beeb; you only need to join a few dots. I expect Anglo-Saxon and Norse Rape and Pillage required quite intensive research, which obviously came in useful as background material for the fifteen "chick-lit novels" too.

She's a rather nice rat! And she's going to America to be with her hubby and their kids - nowt wrong with that. Sex always wins out - unless you are past it like... The amusing thing is the bitchy comments from other Tory females who seem to resent the "personal support" our Louise has been getting from Dave over the last few months! Having said that the coalition is going through a rough patch. But Cleggie was never going to reform the H of L when the two-faced Labour Party were supporting the Tories all the way. They've had ages to do it themselves, but their own vested interest always put a brake on things. And... Cameron was never going to get it past the right of the party; he must surely have known that all along?

..and I thought you were joking! Could never figure out why I couldn't stand the guy. Now I know.

Bedcordia!

Difficult to figure out where Polaris might be on those!

1997 the time things started to go out of control then? Anyone remember what happened in 1997? All I seem to be able to remember is this guy with a cheesy smile singing "Things - can only get better - can only get better...".

A Tuesday announcement say the rumours. And, from multiple leaks, it's a 16:9 four-incher with a quad core ARM CPU for sure, and little in the way of styling changes. One change that will have even the fanboys moaning is the abandonment of the long established 30pin connector for a new 19pin one, thus rendering all accessories that depend on the 30pin connector obsolete! If this week then Sammy have bounced them into it by alerting the press to a product launch (maybe two) next week. Prior to this Apple had planned an October launch. The Sammy launch could be the Galaxy Note 2. If so they are now doing a lot better at the secrecy game than the guys in Cupertino.

At that time not only 110 Front Street East but no less than three other locations on Front Street East. Will get around to describing those real soon now. The only off-licence I can actually remember well from that era was half way along the Barrington Road. It was sufficiently remote that it didn't need to be too choosy about the age of its customers! This is indeed true! And well into the 1950's too!

I was once foolish enough to buy a Kodak digital camera - mind you at a huge discount. It's in the garage somewhere! Well.. so far I have ordered from Amazon twice, and twice cancelled the order within minutes. If only people took as long choosing a government as I do choosing the latest gismo the World would be an altogether better place (but filled with maddeningly indecisive people)! P.S. My spelling checker wants to change your "Instimatic" to Astigmatic. Maybe it too knows something about choosing cameras? But wasn't the Kodak marketing prefaced on the idea of them being Instant and automatic? And... I'd bet that Apple "owns" iMatic anyway - possibly a revolutionary new machine that SJ invented to wash clothes, before he went to meet his maker Chinese subcontractor.

There's a great Gigapixel panorama here: http://www.willpears...p-of-the-shard/ It's actually shot from the top of the crane! For best results make sure you select full screen mode, else it's nothing like so impressive. Came across it during my continuing (and somewhat pointless) quest for the best budget zoom/superzoom camera for my needs. And no, I still haven't decided - but I will have what he's got! So, have you found the Olympic Park yet?

How many (unaffordable) Community Centre centuries would the cost work out to? Can anyone do the maths?

This is relatively easy (at least in the one without the 'g' I used to play ): you count the number of times the shuttlemebob goes back without landing on the ground. Sometimes even I could manage more than four times against a modestly good player. World class players should be able to manage a tiny bit more than four max!

Same BBC Oxford page lower down: Does this mean that Humes and Wiseman are 'A' list celebs, or has usage of the indefinite article subtly changed quite recently?