Malcolm Robinson

Nowt the matter with cow heel keith! Tripe when you know what it is, but with a bit of salt, pepper and vinegar......hmmmmm.

Wait till you see the new Heritage Guide for Bedlington...........its good, in fact its very good! I will post it up as soon as I get it in the right format.

Chchchchchchanges........................

My wife and I went to the Great Yarmouth agricultural show and one of the first exhibits we stopped at was the breeding bulls. We went up to the first pen and there was a sign attached that said, 'THIS BULL MATED 50 TIMES LAST YEAR' My wife playfully nudged me in the ribs ......Smiled and said, 'He mated 50 times last year, that's almost once a week.' We walked to the second pen which had a sign attached that said, 'THIS BULL MATED 150 TIMES LAST YEAR' My wife gave me a healthy jab and said, 'WOW ~~ That's more than twice a week! ..........You could learn a lot from him.' We walked to the third pen and it had a sign attached that said, in capital letters, 'THIS BULL MATED 365 TIMES LAST YEAR' My wife was so excited that her elbow nearly broke my ribs, and said, 'That's once a day ...You could REALLY learn something from this one.' I looked at her and said, 'Go over and ask him if it was with the same cow.' My condition has been upgraded from critical to stable and I should eventually make a full recovery..

European money laundering explained...........

Inflation Explained.............just change the Ben Bernanke and the fed to Merve and the BoE.

Quantitative Easing Explained.................same rules apply.

Bank Bailouts explained................. For the Fed hear ECB or BoE. For Ben Bernanke.......Trichet or our own Merve the swerve.

No not ''Will Not Be Liked''………more like ''Whey Not B... (looming) Likely!'' I find that whole argument MW v staffing to be crazy unless anyone wants the UK to be a third world sweatshop! Just as '' the old meaningless socialist e-word always comes up in the first sentence'' whenever free market fundamentalists discuss the subject they always refer to some job creating bonanza if MW was abolished. I just don't see that anyway given other factors in the equation. If that worked the UK should be awash with private sector jobs seeing as our MW is about £6 and on the continent it's about 9 Euros, given present exchange rates that's nearly a 50% differential making labour costs in the UK much lower than other EU countries who have signed up to MW. Can't really see the stampede by continental companies wanting to exploit that? Planning, looking at the local picture we see those 12 proposed flats down the bottom end of town have been turned down by planners. OK there might be valid reasons for that but what struck me was the planning gain imposed on that pretty small development. Having to make contributions to a children's play area AND indoor and outdoor sports provision either on or off site seems a pretty stiff imposition. I also know of two smaller developments which have been told they have to make similar provisions. If we stack that up against the planning gain on what could be the biggest development in the Town, Tesco, if it ever goes ahead, then we see a CCTV camera repaired, as long as it's moved off their building! We should be getting a pretty healthy contribution to addressing the lack of sporting and leisure facilities in the Town instead we are getting a camera resited?????? Unbelievable! Also NCC have just been forced to look again at their policy regarding those notices at the side of the A1 telling passing traffic where different small businesses are and how to get to them. The reason they were banned, driver distraction. Remember when we couldn't get ''Home of Bedlington.co.uk'' on the bottom of the Bedlington signs, the reason, driver distraction! This is the same authority who is selling advertising on roundabouts for 15K a pop! Unbelievable! The building we are trying to regenerate, we can't get free advice because we want to do something with it. If we wanted to tear it down the advice is free?????? Unbelievable! ''No it wasn't lack of regulation, it was lack of transparency caused by over-regulation.'' I disagree if the regulators had understood what was going on they could and should have stopped the worst excesses of a market which was clearly out of control. There probably is too much regulation in the wrong areas, the easy stuff, but the lack of regulation in the ephemeral areas of financial instruments certainly contributed to a huge build-up of toxicity in supposedly sound assets and as soon as someone said the Emperor has no clothes on, the pack of card folded.

Car or boat?????? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQqmp9OOE1E

A man walks into a bar with his pet monkey. He sits down at the bar to have a drink when the bartender screams, "Did you see what your Monkey just did?" "No, what?" asks the man "He just ate the cue ball off my pool table...WHOLE!" "Yeah, that doesn't surprise me," replied the guy, "He eats everything in sight, I'm sorry. I'll pay for the cue ball and stuff." The guy finishes his drink, pays his bill, pays for the stuff the monkey ate and leaves. Two weeks later the guy is in the bar again and has his Monkey with him. He orders a drink and the Monkey starts running around the bar again. While the man is finishing his drink, the Monkey finds a bowl of Maraschino Cherries on the bar. He grabs one, sticks it up his backside, pulls it out and eats it.. Then the Monkey finds a peanut, again sticks it up his backside, pulls it out and eats it. The bartender is disgusted, "Did you see what your Monkey did now?" "No, what?" replied the man. "Well, he stuck a cherry and a peanut up his butt, pulled them out and ate them!" said the bartender. "Yeah, that doesn't surprise me," the guy replied, "He still eats everything in sight but ever since he had to pass that cue ball, he measures everything first."

I know I am a bit of a political anorak but Amy's toxicology results released 23rd Aug after her death on the 26th July. Compare………. Christopher Shale died in a portaloo at a rock concert on 23rd June and still we haven't got his toxicology results. One is a pop singer addict the other a close personal friend of the PM and leading member of his political party. Far be it from me to shout conspiracy theory …………… but certainly double standards on something which might be hugely embarrassing to the PM and his Party!

Schnitzel, that's half a turkey Kiev isn't it Brian, except the cheese is on the outside.

Lest anyone forget.........

Jackie............ http://uk.news.yahoo.com/probe-smith-home-painting-094427223.html

New Olympic logo..............

Lowdown on Hackersgate..........

'Kill the minimum wage…….' WNBL……..That was introduced to stop exploitation of low paid workers, the problem is it has now become a pay scale in its own right, not something it is designed for. Maybe it's time for a pay CEILING! Dole should be based on what has been contributed by the individual, probably for a set term. Planning, I daren't even start with that one! Overregulation in banking led to the present mess….????? Wasn't it lack of regulation which allowed the likes of chaos theory to be used when valuing assets and made these institutions ''too big to fail.'' Share Capital…….the theory doesn't match the delivery! It's the big boys which call all the shots at the expense of smaller investors. The big boys are the super-rich who take equity stakes, pension and hedge funds who have no real interest in the company other than to see it pay out more by way of dividends, banks, venture capitalists and financiers who are only there to make a quick buck. The whole thing has been corrupted to give advantage to a certain group at the expense of the swath of private investors. I will only read and watch the BBC if Peston doesn't have anything to do with it, if there was ever anyone who demonstrated the Peter Principle……… That BBC article sums up what has already been said on this board months ago, you can't have a fiscal union with some sort of political union and trying to drive the latter with the former cannot work, irrespective of what the personal objectives of the EU political class are! As for Greece (and the others) the whole thing is now in the realms of fantasy. They are being forced to sell any national assets they hold, implement an austerity policy detailed by others who have no real empathy with the Greek people and all in the name of saving the Euro project. Greece has no possible chance of being in a position of actually making any sort of reparation to these bailouts and in fact the actions taken will make her end up in a worse position rather than cure anything. At the inception of the Euro there were no polices written down for any country to exit and the fact that most didn't even hit the entry criteria would seem to me to be tantamount to irresponsibility, if not worse, by our political class.

Ahhhhh, if only foxy, if only............

Merlin, I have made enquiries about running a Bedlington Fair, as was, and guess what your favourite bug bear raised its head straightaway, health and safety legislation! There is no chance a community group can get through that! So for the moment we have to work with what we have and at least we have this Heritage Day we can hang our hats on so let's make it as successful as possible. It's all to do with the THI (Townscape Heritage Initiative) and I think we should be thankful the lead officers are willing to promote Bedlington and its upgrades in this way, they don't have to!

Bedlington Heritage Fair taking place Saturday 10th September (10am-3:30pm) in Bedlington Market Place and other venues as advertised. The Fair is being run as part of the Bedlington THI. It coincides with events and activity by St Cuthbert's Church and Sustrans. There are activities / entertainment for all ages, ranging from heritage talks, walks, heritage skills demos, vintage bus tour, music and crafts. Bedlington Heritage Fair p.1 (1).pdf Bedlington Heritage Fair p.2 (1).pdf

GGG, I will read that properly when I have time but I am starting to wonder if the way business raises its investment is the most beneficial or even productive? The 'ism's' don't seem to be able to work for very long maybe we should be looking at some form of mutuality. I can certainly see the case for that in delivery but not too sure how that could work a finance vehicle to preplace private equity? As for the politicos………….

Interesting report just come out which says football fans spend 38% more than any other tourists. So for no real investment if we had the world cup instead of the Olympics we would have attracted the biggest leisure spenders.

If markets continue today as yesterday expect another weekend of hectic activity by world leaders. European debts, American recession, Chinese inflation, Japanese deflation......what price a global economy now?