Symptoms

I do like the odd bag of crisps with my bait in the boozer but I only like the ready salted ones ... yuk to all those chemical flavour scabs. As to MrsSyms gravy ... only meat juices reduced in the baking tin to a thickish, but runny gloop (no salt, no gravy powder, no OXO cubes). Yummy, yummy, yummy.

But just imagine Mal ... had there been proper investment at the time it's likely we'd now have working 'clean coal' technology. Folks seem to forget that there's 200 to 300 years worth of RECOVERABLE coal beneath Blighty - stuff Putin, stuff shale, stuff imports.

Vic, I've just checked Multimap's birds eye view and I'm sure the shop must have been on the corner of Bowes and Thoroton. I also went through the balsa model making phase ... my first was a Stuka but for some reason on of its wings had a slight warp to it, maybe I'd put too much tension on the structure before applying the dope.

No salt in any of the cooking and none chucked over my plate ... apart from when I have chips (rarely) as these always need salt. It's funny, MrsSym is an avid viewer of all the cookery programmes on the telly where all the chefs chuck pounds of butter, lashings of cream and tons of salt into everything they make but when she attempts recipies it's olive oil, yogurt and no salt. When I cook I copy exactly what the telly boys do and it does taste better. Oh, I forgot to mention my Mum's Yorkshire puddings with the Sunday lunch and all the baking she did; she also worked full-time so I don't know how she managed it all. For years and years when I used to drive up to the Toon from London, maybe 4 times a year to visit my Mum, she always had a 'traditional' meal ready for me (an exact copy of the boyhood Sunday lunch with lashings of gravy over the top but without the rice pud to follow as I'd bucked-up enough bravery to tell her I didn't like the stuff, so she always made me a lemon meringue pie instead) ... she'd spend a day in the Green Market getting stuff then the whole day preparing the meal for me.

Maggs - many here are of the generation brought-up on making Airfix models of WW2 planes and ships so know quite a bit about what these things looked like. I fondly remember spending my pocket money in a model shop in Blyth (I think it was on Thoroton St) buying these things. Our comics were also full of stories of daring do in the war and much of the telly was showing 1950 war films.

Symptoms current scoffing regime: Breaky (usually mid to late morning) ... porridge with a licking of milk*, followed by some 'rough' bread toast with a smearing of butter** topped with set honey*** Lunch (early pm) ... half the week I don't bother but the rest of the time taken in the local boozer ... bagette and cheese, a bag of crisps washed down with some ale. It's a good excuse to walk the woof to the boozer - exercise! Dinner (usually 7 ish) ... home-made soup**** with bread dippers (much to MrsSym's disapproval), home-made meat & two veg*****/tattie****** combo, washed down with a home-made fruit smoothy for dessert. Supper ... I used to have cheese on digestive biscuits with a side order of half a raw onion and a couple of tomatoes washed down with a glass of milk but I stopped doing this when I turned 60. I don't graze between meals, I don't have monster portions, no sugar in my tea, and no processed nosh is allowed in the house, plenty of exercise with the woof, hence the fine figure of a man you see before you (6'4" x 14 stone = BMI of 23.8 ... constant since the age of 21). * full cream milk ** unsalted 'cos I prefer the taste over salted *** the thick white stuff **** MrsSym's finest ***** Death by a thousand broccoli stalks ******variation of the tattie/couscous/Quinoa/brown rice As to my parent's scoff and the stuff they served when I was a nipper. Standard fare for the time ... I can only clearly remember Sunday lunches, generally meat & two veg with mash and roasties followed by something like rice pudding for dessert (funny thing is the rice pudding was usually singed). I do have fond memories of Saturday afternoon tea of Cheshire cheese, tomatoes and Ritz crackers served up while we watched Hawkeye and the last of the Mohicans on the telly. The grub was always fresh ... we had a large garden that my Dad grew tatties, all sorts of veg, eggs from our hens. Lots of tomatoes from my Grandad when in season followed by lashings of Granny's chutney made from all the green toms. My Mum was a good, adventurous cook whose Bible was Good Housekeeping's Cookery Compendium. She bought her copy in 1952 from the Co-op in Wallsend, as it cost 5 shillings she could only afford to get it on 'tick'. I still have this book and it's remarkable for its time with colour photos on every page of all the menues and flipping through it for this post I'm reminded of all the stuff she made (I've attached some photos of the cookbook below). Happy days. So, in summary. Home-made grub and plenty of exercise

Welcome reports today that Jockoboss Nicola Sturgeon is beginning the process of nationalising Betty Saxe-Coburg and Gotha's holdings up in ChillyJockoland. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2863796/Outrage-Scots-rob-Queen-2-1-million-vow-hold-rights-Crown-Estates-including-Tobermory-Waterfront-shore-windfarms.html

Guy, any relation to Micky Routledge?

So Nige is bringing the tootoo to Bedders. Vote kippers, vote kippers, vote kippers.

Hooray, Pete is back! Now the wait is on for Hamburger Pimp, Cympil, and Monsta.

I don't object the breast feeding in public places. I do, however, object to children being allowed into Claridges. Lowers the tone, don't you know!

' "Maybee when Sym went to uni,he was told insurance meant something else"! LOL... ' Poo! and more Poo! Anyway, insurance can only ever be about risk management. Those who only fill-up their supermarket trolleys with piles of TV dinners, white bread, crisps, cakes, biscuits, pies, sugar, snouts, pop, etc. maybe should take some responsibilty for their own health before leaning on the rest of us. By broadly agreeing with wise Sym Canny (as usual ) writes sagely. My contention is that those who abuse themselves by gorging at the trough should be required to get down to an acceptable BMI before unfairly snaffling a disproportionate amount of NHS resources. Nowhere have I said they shouldn't ever get treatment. Ditto travel, ditto puffers. Of course, the Government could, at a stroke, go some way to fixing the problem. They could legislate for a draconian reduction in harmful ingredients in our scoff but they won't because they're (Tory & Labour) in hock to BigSugar, BigSalt, BigFat, BigBakky, BigBooze.

I might pop over in the Spitfire and give him a burst of the 50 cal. Note to the watching snoops ... this is a joke.

My gripe is with those folk who intentially make themselves fat by consuming all the pies; why should they suck-up a disproportionate amount of funding because of their vice?

Maggs, how dare you: "Then there is a cd for Symptoms:- If on a Winters Night by Sting" The only good use that this CD could be put to would be to scare the wood pigeons away from my cabbages and I'm not just talking about it spinning in the wind.

Perhaps the old folks should get preferential treatment from the NHS having probably forked-out their dues over a long lifetime. I'm not so sure the jelly wobblers should be able to jump roll to the head of the queue for operations without being forced to have layers of blubber reduced by being force fed greens. Ditto, the puffers ... no snouts for 6 months before getting to see the cutter. By all means let them all eat sacks of pies and puff cartons of fags but why should they then be allowed to snaffle precious resources?

So there won't be a tootoo to the Toon?

That should have been, "... quackers the woof leapt out ... ". Careless Sym!!!!

A number of reports this week are suggesting that fatties should be banned by the NHS from having operations. What do you all think? Should they also be barred from flying on commercial flights unless they pay for two seats; ditto, trains and buses? Should pies be licensed and only be available to thin folks?

It's always a mystery when they disappear. It could be for any number of reasons: they've croaked and not left instructions to their next of kin to inform us, they've been lifted by the Peelers and are now in the pokey, they're on the run, they've moved-on having outgrown the childishness sometime on display here. Or, perhaps the guys with their fingers on the kill-trigger switch here have 'terminated' them.

That's my definition of civilisation ... dogs being allowed into boozers. Decent dog owners will always put the mutt's needs first; mine get their nosebag before me, always a towel down when dripping and especially after a hose-down to get the mud off, pride of place on the rug in front of the fire. I remember years ago going out wildfowling with a previous dog on the washes in East Anglia, arriving in the pitch black (about 4am) before the first flight of the quackers the woof lept out the Landrover and ran into the darkness. A loud splash was heard as the woof had run straight into the river - it couldn't see the water as it was so dark. Back it came shivering (this was in the Winter), a quick towel down and the damp dog was ready for a days blast and retrieve in the flooded washes and river. She was a tough dog ... it enjoyed its bowl of beer at lunchtime in the local pub that day. Oh, and I had a fresh wild goose to take home for Xmas dinner.

But what about the tootoo?

Give the Daddy a break, he is only renting his crib

On the news last week there was tons of the stuff blanketing the Yankees ... 6' deep all over - not just the drifts. That's what I want to see. It would mean great fun playing with the woof - having a laugh watching its attempts to retrieve thrown snowballs (being white it can't find them in the white snow). What a hoot.

GGG - I'm not quite clear if you're saying the tootoo train IS coming to Bedders.