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You don't know your history Adam. Long before Margaret Thatcher there was a guy called Alf Robens. He happened to be the usual bussed-in Labour MP for our area. He was appointed chairman of the NCB in 1961. And, I quote from Wikipedia: That's when the major decimation of the coal industry happened. What happened in Margaret Thatcher's era was painful for our area, but it had been coming for many years. Nationalisation did what it always does do: it stifled competition and made people complacent; other countries moved on and produced coal more efficiently at lower prices, and we lost markets. There was a short "golden era" post nationalisation because during the war (WWII) much needed rationalisation didn't happen and nationalisation brought that rationalisation, but it brought with it a command economy which didn't take proper account of market forces. Those 406 mines were closed by a stroke of the command economy pen - by a system you think you now want. But Margaret Thatcher closed nothing, ordered nothing closed; long building economic pressures forced those more gradual closures! Yes, I most certainly have heard of Northern Rock, RBS and Lloyds TSB. I was a Northern Rock shareholder for quite a while, but sold my shares when I saw how idiotically it was being run. I got out before the shares started to nosedive. These were not nationalisations they were government rescues "in order to protect the banking system". Northern Rock should have been allowed to fail. The shareholders would have lost all their money, but the depositors would have enjoyed the usual protections, and the mortgages would have continued under another banner. No public money should have been wasted as it has been. If you search this board you will see that I and others predicted the NR collapse before it happened. Unfortunately the Conservatives and LDs would have done the same silly thing as Labour did - they both said so! It was a big mistake and has cost you and me a lot of money. Not money you can easily appreciate, but future tax revenue that could have been spent on things we really need. There's another factor here called "Moral Hazard", but do your own research on that. It's the ambition of all political parties to attract foreign investment. In the past our area has attracted lots of overseas companies - and so it should it's a great place to come! But it's tough times at the moment, so no one may be looking at setting up in the North East at all. Though, if I was thinking of setting up production or distribution in the EU I'd be attracted to an English speaking country, and an area where there was plentiful labour, and lower living costs. What would quickly send me scuttling off somewhere else would be the prospect of a "bolshie" and militant unionised labour force that was going to strike at the drop of a hat. Or, worse still, a government that seized private assets in order to buy tax payers votes with their own money. Fact: Governments do not create jobs, and can not run enterprises. This has been proven time and time again in every part of the world - capitalist, communist, and every system in between. Governments can only create the conditions in which enterprise can thrive, or be stifled. And, creating the conditions is a s-l-o-w, and at times uncertain, process.

Alcan weren't there in the late 40's! In fact we've never had a nationalised aluminium industry! What do you think that's going to say to other overseas corporations who are thinking of investing in the UK and providing jobs? And name me one nationalised industry that has ever been a commercial success and provided lasting employment? Also please tell me why the Labour Party never nationalised anything in the last half century when they were in power? I'd suggest to you it's because they knew it would end up a total disaster, like all previous nationalisation attempts! The fact is there are no easy answers, and the present coalition is making the best of a pretty poor hand it has been dealt by Gordon Brown. Have you noticed how silent he is these days?

Another correction then: the names aren't spelled the same. Millne and Milne; just as you'll observe at Millne Court. I never thought I'd be caught saying this, but Eddie Milne was a good deal whiter than most of the Labour MPs that have been bussed in by Socialist Central to "represent" us. He was kicked out of the party because he asked too many questions about exactly what was going on in the North East Labour Party in the Dan Smith / Poulson Era.

Curious that something got me thinking about this the other day. i.e. the High Tension (HT) and Low Tension (LT) batteries used by early valve, and indeed later portable valve radios. The ones I'm familiar with used dry batteries - not a million miles away from the transistor radio power packs (the PP7 PP9 etc.) you will certainly remember. Indeed I think you can still buy some of those at a horrendous price. The HT batteries were quite expensive and lasted a good while if you didn't use the thing all the time. However the LT ones didn't last very long at all because they simply powered the heaters in the valves (the parts that glowed in the dark). Anyway, way back wet batteries (accumulators, like a modern car battery) were used for the LT supply instead of the later dry batteries, and that's what is involved here. They had the obvious advantage over dry batteries that you could recharge them, but you still needed an HT supply of around 120 volts, which is not at all easy with wet batteries; though I seem to remember the final generation of valve portables used quite compact 90 volt HT batteries. I'd have been very interested to see what they did for their HT supply.

And if you were PM Adam what would you do? You can't simply issue an order to a Canadian Corporation. Think it through properly and outline what needs to be done that can be done. No political sound-bites please - just concrete proposals that the government can work on. This is a multi-party government that isn't bound by political dogma. One person coming up with an odd good idea is worth a thousand head-in-air petitions that are, quite frankly, a total waste of time!

It's OK he's just had his old VHS of Scandal out again. But soon he''ll be back to Battleship Potemkin, and all those great classics made under Uncle Joe - my particular fave being: Our Glorious Five Year Plan - #43. Compulsive viewing indeed! (Particularly so if you were a Soviet citizen and didn't want to go on an extended weight-loss holiday in the Gulag.) Don't let on but I'm planning to send him a copy of The Iron Lady for Christmas. He'll surely find it highly educational. We'll likely be treated to a full analysis of how the trade union movement was holding our Country hostage, until she stood up for fairness and the rights of the ordinary citizen.

Maybe HSBC are cleverly anticipating what customers want? They don't want their money going to pay bigger bankers bonuses, or into the mostly pointless activity of moving it around the world (and back) each time on commission, or mixed up with the funny money that's all part of fractional reserve lending. Perhaps HSBC has very wisely said to themselves: we really don't want to be in this retail banking business as it is so boring and risk-free, so we had better step-aside and leave it to someone else. Does anyone know how many tables you could get in if you took out the bank counter? There's an obvious name for this new one: The Shanghaied Shanghai!

I can! Why should people have to travel to Ashington or Blyth? If they want our money they should set up here, and provide some employment in the Bedlington! Let's have several; competition is good! We've always has choice and competition in financial services and, until that returns, we're just the town time forgot.

The idea has been floated here before, especially after the betrayals of our Town by the various national banks! At least this government is listening, and the law has been changed to make credit unions more competitive. Local money ploughed back into local projects, and an opportunity to vote with your purse and wallet against the fat-cat bankers, and their big-bonus culture. http://www.bbc.co.uk...siness-16873350 But where are the enterprising people to make this happen? Come on you silly ex-Northern Rock people; you who thought you were international bankers playing in the big league! Here is an opportunity to get back to your roots and advance real money, to real people, to do real things, in your area. EARN your royal gongs this time around! This has never been more needed than it is now. Can you rise to the occasion and learn from your mistakes, or does someone else need to show you how it should have been done?

http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-16870464 Who's this Mass Market guy they are going to offer 300Mb/s to? Bet he doesn't live anywhere near you or me!

We will need a tiny break while we migrate all the files to another much faster server, with oodles of disk space, and closer to your door. So... it will be necessary to turn the board off for a short while. That's to ensure no one's masterwork gets lost in cyberspace. No fixed time set for this, but soon, and for the rest of our lives.

Why does the inevitable take so long these days, and cost so much of other people's money in the process? Fascism it may be, but it's not old-style might-is-right, just-go-for-it-because-we-can, fascism. More like let the gravy train roll-on just a few hundred yards more (sorry meters!) and damn the ultimate expense - because we've got 300 million mugs out there to fund it (and their children, and their childrens children), fascism! Suppose it amounts to the same thing though. A reckless disregard of common sense; of other people's rights; for other people's point of view, and the pursuit of power whatever the consequences may be. Hey, isn't that Stalinism too? No, wrong; Uncle Joe had a cunning plan - this shower can't think it through far enough to have any "end" to justify their means!

The Groves were defo on BBC! It would have been produced live too. In those days the only option to getting up in front of an on-air camera was a telecine, and the later cost real money; so you only filmed if you could resell it. It took the Beeb a long time to work out that their output could be sold to other TV broadcasters, or indeed was worth the expense of preserving. As an aside, did you know that Tyne Tees TV had one of the very first video recorders, long before the mighty BBC? It was an american Ampex with 2 inch tape and almost filled an OB van. I was in the van when they were showing it off in London at "The Radio Show" exhibition one year. The cost then was massive - millions in today's money. The BBC wouldn't pay the money, though they played around with their own system for years before finaly abandoning it and buying commercial machines. ITV companies had to embrace recorded TV very early on, because their advertising revenue depended on it, and they didn't have all the on-site production facilities the BBC had. Nope! The above is a small modern one. The model that TTTV had is briefly shown here:- http://youtu.be/-USmM6YDa-I

Must have been quite a lot of private houses nationalised too then - the ones that were busily fitting inside bathrooms post-war! Truth is there was a steady and general improvement in conditions. But food rationing went on far far longer than it should have due the the post-war Labour government, and it wasn't until Churchill was returned to power in 1951 that the country got off its backside and we started to see real recovery. By 1958 Britain had "Never had it so good!" - including the miners! Most people around at the time realised this - except the Labour Party who were still fighting the class war, and amongst themselves. Wasn't until Harold Wilson that Labour started to come to its senses. But, he had one hell of a fight on his hands with the communists in the party, and still went on to plunge the country into another financial crisis. Sound familiar? There were some short-term benefits from nationalisation, but it soon became a gravy train, and rendered Britain's Industries uncompetitive. The pit closures (and the modernisations) would have happened regardless, but they were more painful under nationalisation because they resulted from a "command economy", and were far less staggered than they would have been had simple competition been the deciding factor. Immediately post-war many Industries did need consolidating, and nationalisation did just that. But, it brought with it a whole raft of other problems. And.. none of the above is from a book, or a second-hand opinion. I saw it with my own two eyes, and wasn't a member or supporter of any political party then.

Typhoon?! It will never replace the Hurricane! Maybe they meant a Eurofighter Typhoon? In which case it has probably just lost its AAA rating!

What happens when you live in/near a military playground. Going way back I have two or three recollections. Fortunately they were "near misses"; else you wouldn't be reading this, and the taxpayer would be out a few more tens of millions!

Hopelessly Slanted Bonus Culture Higher Salaries Before Customers Hasta-la-vista Suckers! Bedlington's Closing! But... let's be realistic here; how is someone on a mere £1.25M p/a going to survive these hard times without their £5M bonus?

So is Zeppelin the Wright answer to the wrong question? I'm not aware of any heavier than air stuff in Germany apart from Lilenthal (sp?) in or before 1900, and he was killed before 1900 in a stall. There was an Austrian guy though, who's name I can't recall, messing around with attempted flights off a lake.

Sorry to come late to the show, but I've never seen a "frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh" avocado, and I just ate one today! 1 and 4 are obvious! ...and isn't a tilde (~) a common punctuation mark? Plastered all over dictionaries to signify alternative word endings, and us coders use it all the time not! [Programmers joke] ...surely ... is ellipsis, and not ellipses - oh, OK, so maybe that's the plural! And the Wright brothers are going to be turning in their graves over the above! BTW an airship is not an aeroplane, it's a dirigible. Aero plane = the wingie things, gerrit! Lighter than air does not fly; it floats - as Count Zeppelin would have told you!

Can only but agree. Great chap; at his house at Hotspur Avenue many times in the late 70's, and he was always hospitable. For the record he was responsible for building what is now the Music Shop on Front Street East, and I think had a bingo place at Newbiggin too. Seem to remember that it was near impossible to get them to say their house number, because it was in fact number ...!

Hungary the next candidate for meltdown it would appear, and they are "as mad as hell, and not going to take it!" - at least from the IMF. Back to Chairman Dave: Count the fairs - it's almost as if it were catching from Cleggie. Pity the "...." is Scotland and not the UK! Pity he's talking about a Scottish referendum in relation to independence, and not about a UK one in relation to independence from the EU. Double standards? Nnaaa.. politicians are always totally consistent - when it suits them!

Magic! This has to be the Glebe Road as I don't recognise the shop front at all. I should be able to guess at who some of the "youngsters" are, but the only one that I could be anywhere near is the lady with the dark blouse and white necklace under the 'O' in CARRY ON. If I had to guess I'd say it could be Sylvia Curley. There has to be a "Kit" - who was a real whiz with cycles - in there on the left. Date? Mid 1930's is the best I can hazard. Many thanks for posting a real bit of Bedlington history.

So, Dave does the right thing at the EU summit and refuses to sign the Let's all be German treaty. The other quisling "leaders" meekly go along with it and have the audacity to call us wreckers! The wrecking was done by politicos over a decade ago in adopting an unworkable and solely politically motivated arrangement. But should he get any credit for the stance? Well, no. That's because he is still ducking the referendum issue. Just because the slimy politicos are calling it an accord and not a treaty doesn't mean there hasn't been another fundamental change sneaked through. The Europe we are still part of is going the federal route at a rate of knots, and all the worst warnings of the skeptics are coming to pass. It's time to put the question to the British people. That question can only be do we want the EU to remain the free trade area we agreed to join (despite the hidden agenda of the Ted Heaths of this world), OR are we to become an outpost of the Fourth Reich? Our parents and their parents had a firm answer to this, and we'd do well to listen.

A gem! ...Mr Cameron said the UK would not agree to the transfer of any sovereignty from Westminster to Brussels as part of any future reforms to EU institutions aimed at protecting the single currency area from economic instability. ... Such a treaty was "not likely to happen" in the foreseeable future, Mr Cameron acknowledged. But... if it were to... (must be by March says Sarky, facing HIS voters), he will move the goalposts yet again to ensure that the British public doesn't get any say! What ever happened to the commitment that a treaty change would need a referendum, and - by all three leaders - that we'd have one "in the next parliament"? "The prime minister says he will seek to return powers to the UK at the right time..." We all know when the right time means in politico-speak - it means: sometime never, not on my watch, and isn't it great that the electorate has a short memory!

http://youtu.be/xBPmATZyEg8 http://crave.cnet.co...craft-50006299/