Malcolm Robinson

In this day and age any shop should be allowed to service the needs of its customers and if that means being open at 3.00am for someone to buy a pint of milk or whatever so be it. I cannot see it being viable mind but the market will decided. The problem seems to be that the laws controlling this matter are, like most of the statutes, well past their “best before dates!” In a progressive and evolving environment these things need to be checked with some regularity to make sure they are suitable for the times they find themselves in. The trading laws, which have only recently been relaxed, date from a time when supermarkets were just taking hold and the politicians must have thought there was mileage in banning the likes of Sunday trading by all but a very few retailers. Of course trade unions don’t want to see their members exploited or forced to work unsociable hours but by and large these places take on extra staff to do these late nights etc, so extra employment? The thing that would trouble me is that if we have a finite amount of money in the economy then any money taken during these night time openings is effectively “lost” to the normal daytime opening hours and so might mean less staff needed during the day. Shopping online can on exacerbate this problem too so we can probably expect a much different shopping pattern to emerge in the near future and that will be down to people’s needs not some heavy handed and out-dated Gov regulation!

Only if it is used as a noun!

Blank, Is the one at Kingstone park not a Megastore?

MY FLIGHT WAS BEING SERVED BY AN OBVIOUSLY GAY FLIGHT ATTENDANT, WHO SEEMED TO PUT EVERYONE IN A GOOD MOOD AS HE SERVED US FOOD AND DRINKS. AS THE PLANE PREPARED TO DESCEND, HE CAME SWISHING DOWN THE AISLE AND TOLD US THAT "CAPTAIN MARVEY HAS ASKED ME TO ANNOUNCE THAT HE'LL BE LANDING THE BIG SCARY PLANE SHORTLY, SO LOVELY PEOPLE, IF YOU COULD JUST PUT YOUR TRAYS UP, THAT WOULD BE SUPER." ON HIS TRIP BACK UP THE AISLE, HE NOTICED THIS WELL-DRESSED AND RATHER ARABIC LOOKING WOMAN HADN'T MOVED A MUSCLE. "PERHAPS YOU DIDN'T HEAR ME OVER THOSE BIG BRUTE ENGINES BUT I ASKED YOU TO RAISE YOUR TRAZY-POO, SO THE MAIN MAN CAN PITTY-PAT US ON THE GROUND." SHE CALMLY TURNED HER HEAD AND SAID, "IN MY COUNTRY, I AM CALLED A PRINCESS AND I TAKE ORDERS FROM NO ONE." TO WHICH (I SWEAR) THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT REPLIED, WITHOUT MISSING A BEAT, "WELL, SWEET-CHEEKS, IN MY COUNTRY I'M CALLED A QUEEN, SO I OUTRANK YOU. TRAY-UP, BITCH."

A few days ago I was having some work done at my local garage. A blonde came in and asked for a seven-hundred-ten. We all looked at each other and another customer asked, "What is a seven-hundred-ten?" She replied, "You know, the little piece in the middle of the engine, I have lost it and need a new one." She replied that she did not know exactly what it was, but this piece had always been there. The mechanic gave her a piece of paper and a pen and asked her to draw what the piece looked like. She drew a circle and in the middle of it wrote 710. He then took her over to another car which had its hood up and asked "is there a 710 on this car?" She pointed and said, "Of course, its right there." If you're not sure what a 710 is Click Here http://www.hotautoweb.com/cogifs/710.jpg

HP might be stirring it but he is right about the other smaller shops who haven't a hope in hell of compeating against the buying power and business practices of Tesco and if the size of the thing is correct just about every business in the town will be affected coz it must be going to be a superstore. It is about time one of the big boys recognised the strategic place Bedlington holds, pity WDC never did!

Drunk at Your Door A man is in bed with his wife when there is a knock on the door. He rolls over and looks at his clock -- it's half-past three in the morning. "I'm not getting out of bed at this time", he thinks, and rolls over. Then, a louder knock follows. "Aren't you going to answer that?" says his wife. So, he drags himself out of bed and goes downstairs. He opens the door and there is man standing at the door. It didn't take the homeowner long to realize the man was drunk. "Hi there," slurs the stranger, "Can you give me a push?" "No. Get lost, it's half-past three. I was in bed," says the man and slams the door. He goes back up to bed and tells his wife what happened and she says "Dave, that wasn't very nice of you. Remember that night we broke down in the pouring rain on the way to pick the kids up from the baby-sitter and you had to knock on that man's door to get us started again? What would have happened if he'd told us to get lost?" "But the guy was drunk," says the husband. "It doesn't matter," says the wife. "He needs our help and it would be the Christian thing to help him." So, the husband gets out of bed again, gets dressed and goes downstairs. He opens the door and, not being able to see the stranger anywhere he shouts: "Hey, do you still want a push?" and he hears a voice cry out "Yeah please." So, still being unable to see the stranger, he shouts: "Where are you?" And the stranger replies: "I'm over here, on your swing set."

The truth about growing old. 1) Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. 2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get. 3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down there. 4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster. 5) It's frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask you the questions. 6) Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician. 7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

Three men were hiking through a forest when they came upon a large, raging volent river. Needing to get on the other side, the first man prayed, "God, please give me the strength to cross the river" !*!@# ? God gave him big arms and strong legs and he was able to swim across in about 2 hours, having almost drowned twice. After witnessing that, the second man prayed, "God, please give me srength and the tools to cross the river." !*!@# ! God gave him a rowboat and strong arms and strong legs and he was able to row across in about an hour after almost capsizing once. Seeing what happened to the first two men, the third man prayed, "God, please give me the strength, the tools and the intelligence to cross this river." !*!@# ! He was turned into a woman. She checked the map, hiked one hundred yards up stream and walked across the bridge. Don't quite know about that one remembering my wife's map reading skills!

A woman is in bed with her lover, who also happens to be her husband's best friend. They make love for hours and, afterwards, while they're just lying there, the phone rings. Since it's the woman's house, she picks up the receiver. The best friend listens, only hearing her side of the conversation: "Hello? Oh, hi... I'm so glad that you called... Really? That's wonderful.... Well, I'm happy to hear you're having such a great time... Oh, that sounds terrific... Thanks. Okay. Bye bye." She hangs up the telephone and her lover asks, "Who was that?" "Oh" she replies, "That was my husband telling me all about the wonderful time he's having on his fishing trip with you."

Good point Merlin I like it! So what you are saying is that it is more “Green, eco friendly, natural” and therefore “PC” to let nature take it’s course and smack! Looks to me like someone has given the “lefty tree hugging liberalists” Dave talks about a poke in the eye with that one coz they have won the battle over the way we live our lives now seeing as we all have to be more “organic” and respectful of the “natural order” whenever it suits!

One for Pete, Once upon a time in a nice little forest, there lived an orphaned bunny and an orphaned snake. By a surprising coincidence, both were blind from birth.One day, the bunny was hopping through the forest, and the snake was slithering through the forest, when the bunny tripped over the snake and fell down. This, of course, knocked the snake about quite a bit." Oh, my," said the bunny, "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I've been blind since birth, so I can't see where I'm going. In fact, since I'm also an orphan, I don't even know what I am." "It's quite OK," replied the snake. "Actually, my story is much the same as yours. I, too, have been blind since birth, and also never knew my mother. Tell you what, maybe I could slither all over you, and find out what you are, so at least you'll have that going for you." "Oh, that would be wonderful" replied the bunny. So the snake slithered all over the bunny, and said, "Well, you're covered with soft fur, you have really long ears, your nose twitches, and you have a soft cottony tail. I'd say that you must be a bunny rabbit." "Oh, thank you" Thank you," cried the bunny, in obvious excitement. The bunny suggested to the snake, "Maybe I could feel you all over with my paw, and help you the same way that you've helped me." So the bunny felt the snake all over, and remarked, "Well, you're smooth and slippery, and you have a forked tongue, no backbone, and no balls. I'd say you must be French".

A woman three months pregnant falls into a deep coma. Six months later, she awakes and asks the nearest doctor about the fate of her baby. "You had twins, a boy and a girl, and they are both fine," says the doctor. "Luckily, your brother named them for you." "Oh !*!@#, not by brother! He's an idiot! What did he call the girl?" "Denise," the doctor replies. Thinking that isn't so bad, she asks, "And what did he call the boy?" The doctor answers, "Denephew."

TEARS... A woman awakes during the night to find that her husband was not in bed. She goes downstairs to look for him. She finds him sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of him. He appears to be in deep thought, just staring at the wall. She watches as he wipes a tear from his eye and takes a sip of his coffee. "What's the matter, dear?" she whispers as she steps into the room. "Why are you down here at this time of night?" The husband looks up from his coffee, "Do you remember 20 years ago when we were dating, and you were only 18?" he asks solemnly. "Yes I do" she replies. The husband pauses; the words were not coming easily. "Do you remember when your father caught us in the garden?" "Yes! I remember" said the wife, lowering herself into a chair beside him. The husband continued. "Do you remember when he showed the shotgun in my face and said, 'Either you marry my daughter, or I'll send you to jail for 20 years?" "I remember that too" she replied softly. He wiped another tear from his cheek and said, "I would have been released tomorrow"

A beautiful woman loved growing tomatoes, but couldn't seem to get her tomatoes to turn red. One day, while taking a stroll, she came upon a gentleman neighbour who had the most beautiful garden full of huge red tomatoes. The woman asked the gentlemen, "What do you do to get your tomatoes so red?" The gentlemen responded, "Well, twice a day I stand in front of my tomato garden naked in my trench coat and flash. My tomatoes turn red from blushing so much." Well, the woman was so impressed, she decided to try doing the same thing to her tomato garden to see if it would work. So twice a day for two weeks she flashed her garden hoping for the best. One day the gentleman was passing by and asked the woman, "By the way, how did you make out? Did your tomatoes turn red?" No," she replied, "but my cucumbers are enormous."

The joy of e-mail! My thanks to all those who have sent me emails this past year........ I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat !*!@# in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet towel with every envelope that needs sealing. Also,I now have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason. I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown); who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time. I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program ..... Or from the senior bank clerk in Nigeria who wants me to split $7 million with me for pretending to be a long lost relative of a customer who died intestate. I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish. I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day. Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes. Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca-Cola because it can remove toilet stains. I no longer can buy petrol without taking a man along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm filling up. I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me. I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore and Uzbekistan. Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my bum. And thanks to your great advice, I can't even pick up the £5.00 I found dropped in the car park because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg. If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhoea will land on your head at 5:00pm this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbour's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician. By the way....a South American scientist after a lengthy study has discovered that people with low IQ who have infrequent sexual activity always read their e-mails with their hand on the mouse. Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late.

Isn’t the whole thing about TV, film and computer games is that it has trivialised “guns” and weapons in general to some people. There must be a lot of people out there who think you can pull the trigger and if something goes wrong you just press the reset button! Until we get a more mentally stable society I can see more victims like this 11yr old kid in Liverpool. The point about any amnesty is that it might take THE one gun or knife out of the equation which might have been used to main or kill someone and so every single item handed in counts. Might not tidy the whole mess up but who is to say how many other lives have been saved by holding them.

A HUSBAND IS AT HOME WATCHING A FOOTBALL GAME WHEN HIS WIFE INTERRUPTS, HONEY, COULD YOU FIX THE LIGHT IN THE HALLWAY? IT'S BEEN FLICKERING FOR WEEKS NOW. HE LOOK AT HER AND SAYS ANGRILY, FIX THE LIGHTS NOW? DOES IT LOOK LIKE I HAVE GENERAL ELECTRIC WRITTEN ON MY FOREHEAD? I DON'T THINK SO. FINE, THEN THE WIFE ASKS, WELL THEN, COULD YOU FIX THE FRIDGE DOOR? IT WON'T CLOSE RIGHT TO WHICH HE REPLIED, FIX THE FRIDGE DOOR? DOES IT LOOK LIKE I HAVE WESTINGHOUSE WRITTEN ON MY FOREHEAD? I DON'T THINK SO FINE, SHE SAYS THEN YOU COULD AT LEAST FIX THE STEPS TO THE FRONT DOOR? THEY ARE ABOUT TO BREAK. I'M NOT A CARPENTER AND I DON'T WANT TO FIX STEPS. HE SAYS, DOES IT LOOK LIKE I HAVE ACE HARDWARE WRITTEN ON MY FOREHEAD? I DON'T THINK SO. I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU. I'M GOING TO THE BAR!!!! SO HE GOES TO THE BAR AND DRINKS FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS.................................... HE STARTS TO FEEL GUILTY ABOUT HOW HE TREATED HIS WIFE, AND DECIDES TO GO HOME AS HE WALKS INTO THE HOUSE HE NOTICES THAT THE STEPS ARE ALREADY FIXED. AS HE ENTERS THE HOUSE, HE SEES THE HALL LIGHT IS WORKING. AS HE GOES TO GET A BEER, HE NOTICES THE FRIDGE DOOR IS FIXED. HONEY, HE ASKS, HOW'D ALL THIS GET FIXED? SHE SAID, WELL, WHEN YOU LEFT I SAT OUTSIDE AND CRIED. JUST THEN A NICE YOUNG MAN ASKED ME WHAT WAS WRONG, AND I TOLD HIM. HE OFFERED TO DO ALL THE REPAIRS, AND ALL I HAD TO DO WAS EITHER GO TO BED WITH HIM OR BAKE A CAKE. HE SAID, SO WHAT KIND OF CAKE DID YOU BAKE? SHE REPLIED, HELLOOOOO... DO YOU SEE BETTY CROCKER WRITTEN ON MY FOREHEAD?

Grandmas Don't Know Everything Little Tony was staying with his grandmother for a few days. He'd been playing outside with the other kids for a while when he came into the house and asked her, "Grandma, what's that called when two people sleep in the same room and one is on top of the other?" She was a little taken aback, but she decided to just tell him the truth. "It's called sexual intercourse, darling." Little Tony just said, "Oh, OK," and went back outside to play with the other kids. A few minutes later he came back in and said angrily, "Grandma, it isn't called sexual intercourse. It's called Bunk Beds and Jimmy's Mom wants to talk to you."

Yeah, it seemed to be going in the wrong direction for me too!

Thats right about the concrete GGG, but this road...........I was told it was the brainchild of a certain BUDC official and the plan was to link Bedlington to Ashington by dual carriagway starting at the top end roundabout? The subway what a bliddy saga! There have been several attempts to get it filled in, one by yours truley, but the answer was always the same, "we need access to the underside of the road to check its condition." Honestly, that was the reason given, what a crock! There was presedence and the cops would have loved it filled in but without "political" support no chance! There is another effort ongoing at the moment to get this dumb arsed thing filled in and it looks like it might actually succeed, especailly after WDC is no more next year!

Pete, a drop of washing up liquid on a pummace stone has about the same effect!

Something I never understood, there was a perfectly good tip at Bebside where people took their own rubbish. in their own time and at their own cost, the council sold the "rights" to go through the rubbish to the higest bidder, and they closed it? Might have something to do with WDC owning a waste recycling business of course where you get the punters to do the cleaning and sorting and all you do is amass the "scrap" ready to be sold!

Yeah, Brian was one of the good guys!

No it isn't, he was a little black kid before!!!!