Symptoms

MrsSym's secret roastie recipe: prep the spuds (peel then cut into quarters ... about the size of a matchbox) plop them in a covered Pyrex dish and nuke them in the microwave for approx 5mins (or parboil them in a pan over the gas/lekky 'till almost softish - poke with knife to check) glob a drop or two of olive oil into the dish or pan, put lid on then shake, rattle and roll* the dish/pan to cover the spuds with the oil, - this creates a fluffy outer surface to the spuds ... a mild sort of batter effect after the roasting tip out onto a baking tray and chuck into the oven (200 stoneage, 170 fan) 'till golden You'll never do roasties any other way again! *shake, rattle and roll also helps the fatties on the exercise front.

Joe Cocker has died aged 70: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30582761 He was one of The Greats.

Ah, so the Terrier Plate Works was about steel fabrication and light engineering and not about ceramics. I had visions of crates full of teapots, cups and saucers and gravy boats, all packed in straw, being carted down to the Station and humped onto trains for the start of the long journey across the Empire. Has anybody collated any of this information/history? This is the first I've heard about it and would love to discover more. Oops, I've just looked at that advert for the Plate Works ... they were making plates! But were they ceramic or repousse metalwork ... hard to work-out from the ad.

GGG wrote: "Think I'm beginning to suffer the same symptoms as Symptoms!" Thank goodness! At long last! Sanity reigns with the G. We'll look forward to balanced postings, wise opinions, links to 'right thinking' sites. And the World will be a better place after the G epiphany.

It was in Pink Lane (the short cut to the Central Station from Clayton St). There were a couple of cafes there but the so-called 'all-nighter' shut at 2.30am ... it might even have been a Wimpy Bar. Anyway, its real claim to fame was the meeting place for the London gangster, Jack Carter, to meet his neice in the 1971 film Get Carter.

Of course, the culturally gelded whippersnappers have little to draw on when attemping to make sense of the typical dirges served-up since the 80s. Wall-to-wall Morrisseyesque clones have been infecting the scene for a generation reducing cultural vigor to a trickle. The absence of any real 'greats' during the last half-lifetime has left us with a void being filled by the talentless disc-spinners and their William Topaz McGonagall like lyrics.

The Boss wrote: "I'm going to split this so as not to hijack Maggiel's topic." Where do we find Magg's split?

"... simple minded lefties ...". Come on GGG, let's not get too personal.

Maggs, all sensible people share my views. Wise old owl Sym has spoken. Doors are going to have to be widened, floors reinforced, furniture modified at great expense, an army of shoelace-tying technicians will need to be recruited and specially demarked reserve lanes assigned on footpaths. Crackers, complete and utter crackers .... wow!, there's a thought - feed them on crackers.

Yep, all aboard the tootoo ... fond memories. I've posted here before about getting to and from the Mayfair in the late 60s ... I suppose anybody interested could do a search here. The traincops at the Central Station didn't like us lads hanging around for the train and would chase us off ... we would then buy a platform ticket (out of a machine, maybe cost 2d or 3d) and get on the tootoo with that. Obviously, there was no gadgie at Morpeth checking tickets in the middle of the night. Then the tramp home through all sorts of weather, including once knee deep in snow and only wearing my hippy sandals.

I think we need to be cruel to be kind to fatties. Let's all commit, here and now, to challenge those piling their trolleys high with pies, crisps and cakes to look at the healthy options available to them. Something needs to be done ... they're even appearing on the telly fronting-up news reports about health issues. The irony of it all is unbelievable!

This is shaping-up to looking like 'conspiracy to commit a criminal act'. Sym is innocent, OK.

Yellow bellied custard, green snot pie, Mix it, mix it with a dead dog's eye, Mix it, mix it, mix it thick, And wash it down your gullet with a hot cup of sick. A verse usually sung at school lunchtime.

Oh no! Those Eurofools are proposing to make self-stuffing fatties join the ranks of the disabled. I think that's a terrible slur on the 'genuinely' disabled and I'm sure will lead to precious resources being snaffled off them and be re-directed towards the pie eaters.

Be fair Tony ... remember where the Tories get their loot from: crooked hedgefund bosses, crooked boss bankers, crooked boss businessmen, crooked pensionfund managers, property companies, posh fuedal landowners, mining companies, arms companies, crikey the list is endless!! And these are just the ones that have been registered. Tons of lucre shovelled in through the back door that isn't declared but recent leaks have shown the scale of the problem. Further kindness and support is offered to the top Tory politicos ... paid directorships when in office and even bigger trouser stuffing, via the lobby companies, when they leave office. Crooks the lots of them (including a sizable bunch of Blair's warmongering Cabinet).

Merc wrote: "I take it, Symptoms, you're not a fan of Sting!" Well, were to begin? Actually, I haven't got enough time at the moment to fully answer this but I will later.

Thank goodness Maggs, you've seen the light! You're not going to fund the Cramington Budgie Strangler's next warbling offer.

I must say that Blighy politics is really shaping-up to be quite fun over the next few months ... I can't really remember another GE season like it. We've got a truly Socialist party storming across great swathes of Jockoland putting to the sword the Labourjocks and JockoLibs and Fatty Salmond promising to come South to stir a real shitstorm. Eight Pints and a packet of Rothmans Nige promising his version of the Nuremburg laws on all those without Aryan English blood, whilst that dick Cameroooony doesn't know if he's coming or going being trapped by opposing forces within his party. As for that lot who should really be attending to the needs of the population all they seem to care about is matching the rhetoric of the right .... shame on them! Milliiiiiband should ensure that there's plenty of blue water between Labour and the rest so as to give folks an honest choice. Some here will continue to slag off the Left, some will continue to slag off the Right, none here will even bother to slag off the irrelevant Libs and the EU will continue to exercise many here. All good, clean fun. I've said it before here ... make your pack with the party which will more likely be of some direct support to you and your family.

All that photo proves is that the Uncle Tom Movement is alive and well - opportunists looking for the main chance or poor deluded fools being used or a decent Photoshop job. Throughout history there are well-documented examples of the deluded allying themeselves with those who really don't have their best interests at heart. We mustn't forget that the Nazis created their 'acceptable' face for the World by promoting the Theresienstadt concentration camp (making an infamous film of it, conning the Swiss Red Cross, then killing all the captives who were earlier complicit in the plan), and elsewhere in the other camps using Jewish Kapos to keep order and manage the gas chambers. The Jewish Councils in the gettos, with their Jewish Order Police squads, doing the Nazis work for them. Oh, and one last thing, you don't have to be white to be a racist.

I blame Thatcher for everything that's cruel and unfair in Blighty. Oh, and I blame her for the rise of that war crime thug Blair.

I think the kippers should be honest with 'the great unwashed' - they should just admit they don't like black folks. It doesn't matter how much squirming, wriggling, deflecting, or denying they or their apologists do, dislike & fear of black people is the glue that binds them together.

Another Cockney kipper caught slagging-off the good LGBT folks: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30467897

Thank goodness there's nothing from the Cramlington Budgie Strangler. Wilko Johnson & Roger Daltrey's Going Back Home gets my vote ... turn the volume up to eleven. Raw stuff.

Blimey Foxy ... when I suggested watermarking photos I didn't mean like that

That 300 grand he's just bunged the kippers will certainly pay for all those swinger parties the ex-bosskipper seemed to enjoy with that ex-prospective candidate. I think Nige will need some of it to drown his sorrows down the Dog & Duck on Election Day +1