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Don't agree that Cympil's photos are anywhere near the original one. There's next to no buildings in common between the two lots of snaps, but what little is in common is quite different. Firstly the shop nearest the Market Cross has lost it's sun-blind on Cympil's pix, and the sign seems to have been updated. Also there's now a distinct white band along the top of the front wall cladding on the Co-op. On the original pic the Co-op sports a collector combine (405 line) TV aerial. The need for these was gone in 1970, and being spindly they didn't generally stand a decades storms. So it's very likely it would have been blown down or taken down sometime before 1980. In the newer pix the shops are open, and there's lots more people around; clearly not the case in the original picture, though the Howard Arms, and probably something hidden in the Market Place (Bacchi's?) seems to be - still strong evidence for a Sunday or bank holiday. Then there's the Clevva Clothes evidence which no one has countered, whilst the contribution about the Presto opening tends to support a 70's date. Can't argue with Malc on the cars, but they are not at all distinct on the original pic, and the silver one looks to me like a big 60'/70's gas guzzler. The fuel crisis in the 70's encouraged the adoption of the more compact type of cars shown in Cympil's pix. So there's still strong evidence here that the pictures are several years, if not a decade, apart. This one will run and run!

Well it was near 2am, and I had had a few glasses, but my main excuse is that this new keyboard is enormous with funny flat keys. No? OK, suppose I now have to give you a rep as the only one to notice the err.. "typo".

LOL I think it's at least pan-european, speeds in Italy are way down too.

But hang on Malc, Gordon & Alastair told us a zillion times this was an international problem! Someone else spent all that money not us! So we really don't need to cut ourselves up about it and we'll get it back somehow. My guess is that it was those gnomes in Zürich; you know the ones who stole all the money in the previous Labour governments and were never brought to book. Why they always wait until Labour has been in power a while beats me, but I suppose it's just a coincidence. Anyway I'm going to carry on voting Labour as I'm sure Red Ed has all the answers, and as soon as Alan Johnson finishes reading that book on economics he just bought he'll know exactly were those gnomes live. Obviously exactly the right man to sort out all this international economics malarkey!

... this book will remain on sale at Amazon? One book you are unlikely to find very many people reselling their used copy of!

Even the ones who know (and care) BA about football?? Terriers excepted, of course!

Spelling Bedders with two b's gets you a rep vote from me!

And... how dare that Merlin guy call me a Tory!

Will Britain's next aircraft carrier be called the H2MS Waterloo? ( Half Her Majesty's Ship) And... do we get the bow or the stern if the French don't agree with what we are doing with it? Though, just to get this one right, maybe we should give Sarky half the Falkland's oil - so we have some common interest this time around? Umm.. didn't we invade Suez to protect their Suez Canal Company too? Ignoring the tiny matter of two world wars you'd think they'd figure that they might owe us at least one!

Yes, Marconiphone was the fourth brand that came off the production line. I knew there was a fourth one, but the Pilot brand kept coming into my head, and that seemed to me wrong. Marconiphone was different from the other three brands in that it was sold through wholesalers, and not to Radio and TV dealers directly. Thanks for the memory jog! Fidelity remained an independant company for much longer than most. They were associated with cheap audio rather than TV. A large range of "trannies" ( transistor(ised) radios ) kept them going in the 1960's, until the inevitable rise and rise of far eastern imports swamped them. Wasn't the Fidelity name finally bought by Amstrad?

Thorn - without the e - actually! But it was an independant company before Sir Jules Thorn (British Radio Corporation part of Thorn Industries) bought the consumer side back in the late '50s or early '60s. Ferguson was his main brand; he also had HMV. And (like the British Motor Corporation in those days) branding differentiation ultimately reduced to name stickers and a different bit of glitz on the cabinet. At times they even managed to get the wrong BRC brand in the right box. Ultra still has some professional electronics interests I think; military radios and things if my failing memory serves me right. Under BRC Ultra was always quite flashy and "modern" looking, even if the guts didn't always live up to the good-design image. One particularly iconic bit of advertising showed a female sitting in one of those cocoon hanging chair things - "ultra" sheek in the '1960's, and they still look quite cool. The original company's consumer products were a bit more mundane than under the BRC marketing guys, but that was mostly before my time. Pity you hadn't kept it; I'm likely one of the very few people still around with enough design knowledge of how it worked to fix it - using modern parts! LOL

Yup, +2.9% for the eurocrats is being hailed as a Dave win! -10% would have been a win - pointing to the -20% that our own govt. departments have suffered. The euro gravy train only travels in one direction, and there are no red lights! They're smiling all the way to the celebratory all-expenses-paid nosh-up!

Hmm.. to be #1 we need 2800 votes, and we have seventy odd! With the level of social cohesion we have here I can't see this happening this millennium. If you had a team of several hundred highly motivated door-knockers it would be still be touch and go. Always worth trying - someone has to - but from my own point of view I wouldn't give BT Internet the time of day since they literally stole over £100 out of our account some years back. Sounds like this level of trust is relicated amongst BCOUK workers too! Brave try, but can we try someting easier first, like.. launching our own Mars probe? http://discovermagazine.com/2007/space/how-to-assemble-rover

Didn't someone post on the board about buying some BS title a good while back? Now if he'd though to mention in passing that he was a millionaire we'd have told him... errm... If you are reading this m'lud please come back, we didn't mean to take the !*!@# . You need to understand that it's an ancient imitation ceremony that all Bedlington gentry are required to go through. In order to validate your title of Honourable Sir of Bedlington County it's necessary to sign this small rectangular - but mostly blank - bit of paper bearing the letters patent (H.S.B.C.) in the lower right-hand corner; then stand on the ancient Market Cross and proclaim to everyone on the Front Street the traditional cry "The pints are on me!". You will then be taken by your grateful subjects on a guided tour of all the places of interest in your realm - thus completing the time-honoured ceremony.

Update: Product existence and forthcoming launch confirmed by Nokia: the N9 to be launched at a Dublin event in the first quarter of 2011. So not too far away, and it will sport MeeGo from day one. Rumoured to have an AMOLED (Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) display and a 1GH/z snapdragon CPU, but AMOLED seems unlikely on such a short timescale; more likely in the next generation device with an Intel CPU. That nextgen device could come before the end of next year though. We are already seeing the first MeeGo tablets coming to market. Prediction: Wall to wall Android and MeeGo tablets by the end of next year at prices little more than a third that of an iPad. Apple will need to slash prices, add features, and turn up the propaganda even more just to stay in the low-end tablet game.

Later this week Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary, will get to his feet in the commons to announce the sites of eight new nuclear power stations. That's fairly unremarkable except that... he knows that a majority of Lib Dem MPs will vote it down. But... he's not worried about this because he knows he'll still get them built - because... Labour MPs will support him! Confused? It all becomes clear when you recall the LibDem election proposition: a vote for us is a vote for change.

Probably the last ARM base Nokia pocket computer. 2011 / 12 will undoubtedly see an Intel base one. http://vimeo.com/12925392 This is the successor to the N900 - which I now have - and blows the socks off the over-hyped and grossly over-priced iPhone 4. The operating system is MeeGo, which I've mentioned here before. This is a merging of Nokia's open-source Maemo and Intel's Moblin (Mobile Linux). Just like Google's Android (another Linux derivative) you'll soon see MeeGo on other manufacturer's machines too.

LOL Recently saw a post for a "Randomisation Officer" advertised. I've since been trying to figure out what the duties would be, and whether you'd need to supply your own coin.

a ) I'm not a Tory - out and out or any other kind! Though - like all current political parties - I believe in free markets. b ) This sounds straight out of Marx! That's not how modern industry works. Not all union activity is bad, but in recent decades much of it has been completely counterproductive. That's been particularly the case when it has been used to further someone's political ends in the guise of improving working conditions.

A complete myth, though one that the unions would like you to believe. Market forces are responsible for the advancement of living standards, and the unions have been a huge drag on the working man and our country for the past 50 years or more. Yes, there was a time, but both the Labour Party and the Trade Union movement thrive on the past. The traditional unions have destroyed jobs and discouraged the creation of new ones. You've just got to look around the world to see the decline in traditionally unionised industries and the rise in non-unionised ones. Companies only grow when everyone is singing from the same song-sheet, smart managment knows that and smart labour knows that. Them and us, and everybody loses! Anyway, a great day for the Tory and LD parties; they must have been praying for Labour to "return to it's roots" as the unelectable face of class-war! Even (especially?) his own brother knows that this is all going to end in tears for the party.

Wot no Carla Bruni?! Anyway, I predict legal action from the Pasedena Roof Orchestra.

Ah another David Bailey type! Can't give you any advice on camera backs or fronts or bottoms or tops but you'd near certainly do better to buy it in the US of A, providing it isn't going to need an EU warranty repair AND you can get it past HM Customs without getting stung for VAT and import duty. Me? At about the three megapixel mark I bowed out of the expensive camera thing. It's the shot that matters. Most often life delivers you only one opporunity, and you can easily fluk it trying to get the numbers right. My new phone is better than the best digital cameras of ten years ago, and it's always on and always with me.

And who can remember the 'V' Bombers (Victor, Valiant, Vulcan) at the Acklington air shows around 1960 when they were fully operational? Without today's H&S and security hang-ups you could get almost close enough to touch, even when they were taxiing. Real flying displays by the early jet fighters, and not simply static exhibits. The RAF had a genuine German V1 that you could walk around and inspect close-up, and many other interesting exhibits in the Acklington hangars.

We've now had the frank - but long overdue - admission from the BBC that it was "massively biased" in some of its political coverage. http://www.telegraph...k-Thompson.html But is this simply a step on the path to cosying up the the present government? Secret talks on how to break the bad news about real extent of the cuts to the great British public would seem to indicate this. http://www.telegraph...g-the-cuts.html If the BBC is entirely independent of the government, as we've always been told, why shouldn't we be allowed to examine what is being discussed? It is after all our newly *elected* heads of government who are discussing what the BBC should be allowed to charge US, and what portion of that Mr Thompson can hold on to. But hang on, I've misunderstood; that's not what these secret talks are about at all! They are apparently about how the government cuts can be sold to us in a gentle manner. So should these discussions even be taking place at all? Unless, of course, they are really about the aforementioned "what the BBC should be allowed to charge US, and what portion of that Mr Thompson can hold on to". The overwhelming likelihood is that the two matters are mutually dependant, and we really can't be privileged to know any of the dirty details. So, once again, the ongoing myth of the Beeb's total independence hits the buffers of political reality.

The explanation is both simple and embarrassing: we ran out of HD space late last night! This has accelerated our plans to move BCOUK to another, currently grossly underused, machine with a much bigger Hard Drive. This should improve the response times for locals too. A few weeks maybe; meanwhile we will watch the disk space issue carefully.