Symptoms

Recently released Government papers show Scargs wasn't lying ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25549596 and that Thatch's 'running dog jackals' (NACODS) were instrumental in stiffing the miners. What is remarkable is what a close-run thing the whole dispute was ... victory for the miners was within grasp but appears to have been snatched away by Gorbachev, the traitorous NACODS and the crooked UDM. We may not have to wait long before Thatcher's apologists turn up to spin the same old guff about ballots.

Is the mould on the inside or the outside?

I'm sure I read somewhere that years ago there was a team that went around the North East recording old guys talking ... preserving each towns' variation of our local dialect - perhaps someone here can confirm this? A bit like Alan Lomax, the Yankee music collector, who went around the USA in the 40s recording the old Blues men for the Library of Congress. Just image if Lomax came across Blind Lemon Cramlington Budgie Strangler in the 'Deep South of Geordieland' ... I reckon he'd say "Boy, you ain't got no voice worth putting down on my here vinyl."

When I was a lad growing up in Bedders I have a clear memory local accents which varied from town to town. Friends from Ashington had different ways of pronouncing the same words as folk from Bedders; ditto Morpeth lads.

Adam wrote: " .... shame they have moved more to a normal museum now then a mining museum." Most 'specialised' museums have, maybe in the last ten years, converted into theme parks; it is a form of dumbing-down. I lived in London for 40 years and visited most of the museums early on, and, in later years revisited them. I was disappointed to find that they had become interactive, themed entertainment venues. Gone were the masses of exhibits complete with their labels .. .these allowed close study to get at and understand the subject. The biggest offender is the Science Museum, a glorious place full of real science, now it's just like walking around Disney World. Horrible, horrible, horrible!

Where is Mr Darn? He hasn't been here for nearly 14 months.

I'd second GGG's views about CCleaner, like him I've used it for years on various machines; before that I used Evidence Eliminator. But take care when using it.

No, no, no, Adam! A Geordie is somebody born on the NORTH bank of the Tyne and within 'hockling' distance of it. Folks born south of the Tyne are black'n'tackers; those webbed feet horrors who emerged from the slime of that fetid stream an few miles south of the mighty Tyne are known as mackems. You're correct that folks born in Bedlington are Northumbrian not Geordies. My original objection to CBS's mangled warblings was about how he has reverted to howling in a Geordie accent when he normally speaks in a mid-Atlantic version of Received Pronunciation ... to my ear it sounds plain wrong. It's almost like Betty Saxe-Coburg and Gotha squawking like a Cullercoats fishwife ... imagine that pre-War clipped English, mixed with a guttural Berlin twang, overlaid with 'winkles, penny a pint'. That's what the CBS sounds like.

Why was Glebe Court knocked down? They look to be reasonably modern ... or maybe that was the problem.

I never had a really pronounced accent, however, when I got to London as a student in '69 my Tutor suggested elocution lessons ... cheeky sod. Of course I refused, and I'm glad I did. At the time regional accents were looked down on by the metropolitan elites but subsequently became fashionable. My issue with folk like CBS and Robson Green (a really bad offender) is their deliberate attempt to change how they speak ... it just sounds fake and in no way can be described as a natural modification due to 'new' influences.

Some of us will ensure he never dies.

It was also a distant landmark for all those returning home ... my long train journey from King's Cross to the Toon, the hike up from the Central Station to the Haymarket, the United bus to Bedders, turning into the A1068 off the A1 there in the distance the power station. Nearly home!!!!

And what about Windscale? Our very own nuke accident. Our younger viewers may want to Google.

The Cramlington Budgie Strangler and the Benwell Basher were both seen at the Palace V Toon match. Whilst I applaud CBS's efforts at immortalising the region's past I just can't listen comfortably to his mid-Atlantic twang attempting our accent/dialect ... it really does seems false.

Why should Fritz care? Why should Fritz worry about his lights going out? He'll march over borders and capture his neighbours' generating capacity! He's done it before, he'll do it again!

For I have sent this to my first born as it saves a visit to the shops to buy a birthday card. My flock also have no idea the cost of postage from up here.

There is but one and one only from your humble village with sway up here and I will visit upon him soon. The peadings of my handmaiden Maggs will not go unanswered for I have this very day visited upon my top servant ToonBish thunderously demanding chapter and verse. The poor flock abiding in your humble village may fall to their knees in prayer and seek the answers they crave.

Who's organising the wrinkly bash? Is it the Church/School or is it a local group who hire the hall? Before any action good intelligence gathering is vital.

It would be good to get it over the web ... I can't get it on my cat's whisker set.

Ok, we know the big lass in the middle is Maggs but which one are you Canny? My money's on the one in specs, also in the front row.

It was Audrey Wise.

Northumberland National Park and Kielder Water and Forest Park have been awarded Dark Sky status: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25297684

Here's some more: Netherton Pit Old banner: Netherton Pit new banner: front of Netherton banner and reverse: Ok, you'll notice it says Seaton Burn but it IS Netherton's. When Netherton pit closed the banner was recycled (a common practice) for Seaton Burn pit. Look closely and you'll see the patch sewn over the name area. Cambois: Cambois & Bates (Yep, Adam uses this one): Pegswood: Seghill: More to follow.

It's got to be Wilf.

It is Audrey Wise: I don't think it's Chris Mullin ... Mullin isn't that tubby but there is a similarity