Smudgeinthebudge

The headache cure may work for mild headaches as there is some evidence that lavender helps you sleep. Alternative medicines are fine for the worried well but real illness needs conventional medicine. (Free at the point of delivery) See what I did there. Turn any thread political me!

After intensive research (I glanced at youtube) I discovered that his horse did have a gun and his name was Autry not Audrey. Ah well "Back in the saddle again".

Does anybody remember Gene Audrey's horse. It was called Champion (I don't think it was Champion the Wonder Horse from the later tv series). The horse had a pistol attached to its headgear that it could fire with it's tongue and shoot the guns out of outlaws hands. I thought I had dreamt this but when we cleared my Dad's house we found one of my old Gene Audrey annuals. There it was: a picture of the horse with the gun. I've still got the annual somewhere. I'll have to hunt it out and post the picture here.

I'm pretty sure Symtoms is right, I once saw a Fred Dibnah show about castle building and it seems the Normans used the same techniques in their stone building work.

3G Any truth you want is easy to seek out these days, whether you're a moderate social democrat, a one nation Tory, a far right racist bigot or a far left Stalanist loon. It's all there, the truth in infinite shades. Men did not walk on the moon, the earth was created in 7 days, The Lochness monster does exist, Elvis was kidnapped by aliens, Shergar was used in Tesco burgers or kidnapped by Lord Lucan. The holocaust never happened, Hitler had some good ideas and Mussolini made the trains run on time. Stalin was tough but fair and Tony Blair was brainwashed by Margaret Thatcher. It's all out there on this wonderful world wide net. Seek and thee shalt find.

BBC is probably the best broadcaster in the world and I do not mind paying my licence fee. I cannot see any commercial broadcaster coming up to the standards of the beeb. They certainly do not at present. On principle I wouldn't buy anything from Murdoch. Also in political broadcasting the BBC has always been accused of bias by all sides, they must be getting something right. The commercial stations are guaranteed to be on one side only - their own, for making money.

When I was in the army I had North London Jewish mates South London Jewish mates and east London Jewish mates. What's the difference apart from the football teams they supported?

There's nowt rang with pit work. It was a highly skilled job that a lot of folk today wouldn't be able to do. Health and safety (which I think is a good thing) wouldn't let you step into a cage today. When the world comes to its senses the only deep mining will be done by robots. You should be really proud of yourself for the pit work you have done. Anyone who has worked in those conditions and in that amount of danger can hold their head high against any other profession in the world. Because that is what it was, a profession, not just a labouring job and it should have been paid and respected as a profession.

I think the last figures I saw where 21 trillion tucked away in tax avoiding offshore accounts (That's World wide not just the UK). Now we could ask nicely for the rich to pay their taxes or we could threaten to use the money spent on trident to nuke them. Another world wide solution would be to kidnap the super rich and hold them to ransom, just for the tax they owe of course. If 21 trillion was shared between every man, women an child on the planet that's roughly over four grand each. I think that would kick start the world economy. They stole it. Lets steal it back! Then don't nationalise all industry, internationalise it. The workers produce the wealth they should be the ones who own it. Remember most immigrants come here to earn a better life for themselves and their families. It would be a lot worse if all the emigrants came home. We would sink.

A bit of graffiti in the Haymarket in the eighties comes to mind - Fight poverty. Eat the rich.

I've been looking for downloadable fonts with eth and thorn in them but none suitable found as yet, but I'll keep on trying.

More importantly where is my jet pack?

Mama Cass in "Whisper a little prayer for me my baby."

And a bike for a trusty steed?

Shouldn't cowboys and indians these days be called mounted agricultural labourers and native Americans?

Was he a kid at elenbel ave in the fifties? An older brother called Peter?

That's it. Copy and paste.

Is this letter you meant Canny lass;- " þ and Þ (thorn): In Modern English we represent the sounds at the beginning of the word "the" and end of the word "with" with the digraph "th" ("digraph" is a technical term meaning two letters used to represent one sound). Old English had two separate letters for the "th" sound. The first is written like this: þ . It is called "thorn". ð and Þ (eth): Old English scribes could also represent the "th" sound with the letter ð (the capital letter version looks like a capital D with a short horizontal line cutting the vertical line at the left side of the letter in half: Þ). The letter is called "eth," pronounced so that it rhymes with the first syllable in the word "feather." Thorn and eth are used interchangeably to represent both voiced and unvoiced "th" sounds (the sound at the beginning of "the" is voiced; the sound at the end of "with" is unvoiced).

I meant the seventeenth century not the seventeenth of March!

I definitely do not want you to shut up I'm really enjoying this thread. It's not an argument and I've just been making the 'd' and 'th' sounds for a minute or two and you're perfectly right. I'm always happy when I'm learning.

I think the name of the village i.e. Nedderton must have been chosen by somebody who knew the history of the area as it had been named as Nederton rather than Netherton in some old document(s) long ago, remembering that before and sometimes after the seventeenth everybody that wrote just seemed to spell things the way they fancied probably trying to spell phonetically what the natives said.

The demise of the Indians was a sight to see when they had agreed that the cowboys had a Gatling gun. When you were playing Japs and English you didn't want to be captured alive by the Japs. Oh for the innocent days of childhood.

Thanks Canny lass I've just plodged through the book up to Bedlington in the dictionary and what a great resource it is. It's a shame about the lack of the venerable Bede but that was always a very shaky connection anyway. Wishful thinking can always change history if the correct care isn't taken. I learnt that off time team too.

Sorry about the non serious comment. But you know me.I can't be serious about anything for too long. Great research Canny Lass. I do not know if we'll ever find out whether the name has anything to do with St Bede or with some Anglo-Saxon farmer. However what a great subject this is.

Of course there is a more modern theory that a Chinese pirate called Ling Tong was the terror of the North Sea until he was ambushed in his junk at a bend in the river Blyth. Over the years the name of the place changed from 'The Bend of Ling Tong' to Bedlington. But I think this this is a bit far fetched because the only source for this is in this post. If you've heard this theory before it's because I told a lot of people when I made it up in 1962.