Symptoms

alanc wrote: "... Stand on the red square boy bend over and you got 3 of the best with the cricket bat." Alan, during my time at Westridge (62-67) Danny Douglas used "The Wacker" - see below the posting I left here in Nov 2008: .......................................................... "Ah, 'Danny' Douglas (real name Bill) and The Wacker. Remember, if you were naughty or didn't do the homework or didn't answer the question fast enough, he would shout "You boy, out the front and stand on the red square". For some reason there was this single red vinyl square in a sea of grey ones just in front of the blackboard where you had to bend over for whacking on the !*!@# . Hanging by a string from a hook beside the blackboard would be The Wacker (a section of butter barrel); Danny would take it down, chalk a white cross on the end of it and beat you on the !*!@# . The funny thing was that there were always loads of lads wandering around the school white chalk imprints on their grey trousers. I once got sent by Mr Hogg (the Physics teacher whose lab was next to Danny's room) to borrow The Whacker so Mr Hogg could beat somebody, I knocked on the door and went in, before I could say anything Danny said "Stand on the red square for interrupting my lesson" and I got whacked. He also used to take football training in the evenings for the Youth Club. A great bloke! Happy Days."

Brettly wrote: "Going to take the dogs out for a walk as the poor little buggers are looking sorry for themselves for being cooked up quite a bit over the past 2 days. I will post a picture or two when I get the chance." I can't wait to see the snaps of the mutts ...

Has anybody else noticed how similar these two are? Just compare the male-pattern baldness, the horse faces, big teeth ... yep, twins I reckon. The Norwegian, Anders Behring Breivik, was reported to have links with an extreme right-wing UK-based group ... maybe they have several 'safe houses' in a number of castles throughout the UK.

Barton wrote - "It would take three pails to bank the fire up for the night, plus two pails for a late top up." I remember the term "bank the fire up for the night" or "banking-up"; Yep, my Mum would top-up the coal then ash from below the grate was piled on to form a sort of crust over coals... presumably to the slow the burn down (lack of oxygen maybe). Hey presto ... a rattle with the poker in the morning and away the fire would catch. Back boilers to heat the water - not those namby-pamby so called back-boilers found in central heating systems. Good old technology ... cast iron box in the back of the fireplace, flick of the chimney damper, flames wizz up the back of the fireplace and around the back boiler.

I can't remember if St Cuthberts is CofE or one of those other dodgy Prot sects? But isn't the Verger the guy who's meant to look after the upkeep? If not then I suggest herding the Sunday crowd out to tidy the place up. Maybe even start a rumour that Songs of Praise are coming ... that'll soon get a rubber-necking crowd in for their 15 minutes of fame; this lot could then be driven out to tidy up. I'll not have a thing said against Conservation Areas ... they keep the scum-sucking Tory property developers under a degree of control from knocking all the period houses down and felling all the beautiful trees.

Aghhhh ... not the Taxpayers' Alliance! A vile place accurately described as a nest of scum-sucking Tories.

I remember my old Uncle calling, what you referred to as "fuse wire", cap wire. You often used to come across lengths of it in a load of coal delivered to the houses ... clearly, the long runs being severed into bits by the blast and being mixed-up with the coal. The same Uncle, when on a shift break down the pit, would chop bundles of sticks (for fire lighting purposes back home) from wooden pit props; these he bound together with the cap wire. He used to keep the extended family well stocked with sticks.

Merlin wrote: "COWS Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that, during the mad cow epidemic, our government could track a single cow, born almost three years ago in Appleby, right to the stall where she slept in the county of Cumbria ? And,they even tracked her calves to their individual stalls.. But they are unable to locate 125,000 illegal immigrants wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each illegal immigrant a cow." Of course the tracking was easy ... each moo had a yellow plakka tag crimped into each lug. These tags have unique ID numbers so that ALL moo movements and locations were logged. Clearly the round-up and subsequent barbie was a cinch to complete. Perhaps we can develop Merlin's suggestion a little further, rather than give each "illegal immigrant" a moo each, why not grab them and tag them in the same way. The cost of the tags versus the cost a moo each, coupled with the inflicting of lug pain during tag crimping would go down well in the Hallways of the Right. I suppose it'll save the cops (and other agents of the State) from demanding (in a German accent) ... "Your papers please!". They'd simply have to hold the person down and check the code number before hauling them off to gaol.

I've said it before here about that disgraceful extended family of blood-suckers ... Oh, for the good old days in downtown Yekaterinburg.

Newcastle Lane??? Is this the old name for Hartford Road East then running into Hartford Road? If so, I remember 3 farms along there in the 60s: The first was located between Nether Riggs and Elm Drive ... a small market-garden/smallholding type of place. We used to get sent as kids to buy eggs and paraffin. The next one along Hartford Road was on the right-hand side (opposite to where the golf club is now) ... I think it was called Lane Farm (but memory does play tricks) but I can't remember any glasshouses in the 60s. The next one along on the right was Ewart's, or something like that. There was also an old farm house (a red brick thing) near the weir on the river at Acorn Bank. I seem to remember it standing in a wheat field just south of Costain's open-cast site. Not to do with the OP's question, but there was also a small farm down the bottom end of Front Street - located on the right-hand side past Vulcan Place and the Church. Patterson's rings a bell.

Oh, for the good old days in downtown Yekaterinburg.

Ronnie - here's a picture of him 'snipped' from an old school photo ...

Ronnie - I was friendly with a lad called Michael (known as Micky) Routledge in the 60s; he'd be about 59ish now. He lived in the Westlea area.

Keith - I think you might be correct with that memory. I was briefly pals with the publican's son (can't think of his name at the moment) when they had the pub on Glebe Rd and they did take-over the Railway down at Bedlington Station. Mid to late 60s. The pub on Glebe I recall was painted a dark green colour and had lots of painted wood panelling (more green) inside ... I'm pretty sure about the colour or it could have been the effects of dodgy weed. Weed wasn't that commonly available in Bedders then and most that did get in was well past it's use by date

Yep ... the Fifa Executives were obviously plied with much higher-class call girls than Bill Windsor could supply; probably trafficked by all those Russian gangsters in government. I reckon we're better off without it.

Dajazar wrote - "This poses some very profound questions but of course like any other "gentlemans club" there is usually a lot of eating, drinking and amusement to be had outside of the scrutiny of wives and girlfriends. The social scene is very enjoyable though, especially the Ladies Nights." maybe similar to that famous Gentlemans' Club from the Sopranos...

Dajazar – I was suprised to read in your earlier post that the Koran and other holy books are used during ceremonies ... does this imply that Muslims, Jews, Black and Asian people would be welcome in your UK Lodges? Monsta® - The Bullingdon Club could be defined using similar standards to those on your list. Is the Masonic Hall at the top of Hartford Road still there?

A little application of Sharia Law ... snip off their index fingers with a pair of secateurs. You know it makes sense.

Oh, no! Not broken glass on 20 acres! That hallowed ground, that place dreams were enacted (jumpers for goals and banging-in a hat rick for the Toon), learning to ride a bike around the perimeter path, and of course the glorious shows on Picnic Day. Yep, there was dog !*!@# back in the day, but it was white; easy to see and great to score a goal with. The feckless hoodies of today should be ashamed of themselves; I say if they want to smash bottles they should do it at Bedlington Station.

Mal, there is no Middle Class ... it's really just a 'state of mind' which allows those with a superiority complex to look down and sneer on others. Of course it could also be a construct of The Boss Class to tempt or trick others to trample their peers in a stampede to 'succeed' as another means of control. Loads of attempts have been made to define what this so-called group is but none of them convince; perhaps we should start a thread - What is it to be Middle Class? My earlier posts maintain the existance of The Ruling Elite (the Boss Class) and the rest of us (the Working Class) ... you can't get away from that lovely phrase, 'Those who own the means of production'.

Read this Monsta®: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/mar/28/government-plan-football-clubs-fans Are you tempted?

debrad65 wrote: "howay - I've got 2 kids n I know there's nappies n stuff to buy but it costs more when they are at school!!! For God's sake - it costs us well over £20 a week for school dinners, then we have milk money n compulsory trips and the rest to pay - never mind the uniforms etc..!" Blimmey, at school, in uniform and still wearing nappies. and "We should have a revolution - kick all the parties out n replace them with a panel of decent hard working people who know right from bloomin wrong..... " Yep, but how would we choose them ... voting perhaps or we let the guys with the biggest guns run the show. Actually, that's what happened the last time ... the guys with the biggest swords were better organised than the rest of us, until the rest of us got organised about 100 years ago.

Blimmey 3Gs, why did I poke my stick into this little bourgeois ants' nest; first out the heap are the soldiers whose task is to repel the system's critics. Yep, the ruling elite – and they're all the same whatever political party they infest - has never REALLY cared about working men and women. Despite their weasel words these shysters systematically deprived the 'old' industries of support which could have led them to a sustained future; shutting down the mines destroyed not only a huge support industry but with it the world leading expertise it had fostered. It doesn't take a genius to extrapolate what opportunities have been lost in our capacity for research and implementation of clean coal and carbon capture technology as a result of this industrial vandalism. Political spite, the obscene scramble for the short term gain, the personal enrichment of those Tory ministers who had shares in RTZ and other mining conglomerates who ended-up supplying imported coal. Let's just take a moment to hang our heads in shame when we remember loads of the stuff came from the sweated labour of the enslaved black miners of apartheid South Africa. Clearly, bourgeois ideology can only be effective if the masses blindly internalise it's thrust and automatically adhere to it's standard form of behaviour. This type of ideological imprinting manifests itself in the form of sterotypes of social participation, the purest expression of class collaborationist ideology is the notion of the 'partnership' between capital and labour; in other words the dialogue/relationship between the boss class and the workers. The bougeoisie wants to con people that there are no antagonistic social classes but only social partners who can come to agreements. Trouble is that trade unionism has fallen hook-line-and-sinker for this social contract policy tosh. What employers want is to impose their demands so that they can continue to enrich themselves, whilst squeezing the last juicy drops of pride and resistance from the workers. Show me a 'small businessman' and I'll accuse him of always attempting to fleece the punter and squirm at paying the minimum wage; as for the banking class, well ...! To those who still believe that the workers shouldn't be allowed to defend themselves from this form of political violence there are countless episodes of successful strike action resulting in demands being met, including securing jobs (just do a Google for "successful strikes†as this'll save me from labouring over a long list). The enemies (those growing fat on the tit of the bourgeois cow) of those whose mission it is to protect the poor working men and women need to realise that they won't disappear ... patience is a fine weapon! To quote Rosa Luxemburg: "Capatilism drips blood from every pore, not just at the time of it's birth, but throughout it's advance across the world. In this way, through ever more violent convulsions, capitalism brings about its own downfallâ€. Of course, the biggest dishonest weeze to control working men and women was the brilliant trick of selling them their own Council houses ... I'll stand back at this point and wait for the usual bleats of complaint from the poor misguided fools who were taken-in by the honour of owing large amounts of money to the banks and building societies ... the morgage shackle frightened the workers into not taking action. The right to buy was a stabilising factor for the existing system. That old regurgitated chestnut, the lack of a national ballot before the Miners' strike, seems to have been swallowed by those who aren't familiar with the NUM rule book. As it had, and still has, a federal structure, each area voted for action in it's own area. What did for the miners was the behaviour of the bosses poodles (NACODS), that breakaway scum in Nottingham, and the typically timid behaviour of the TUC. For a time it looked as if we were French ... a nation with form for collaboration and cowardice! That dispute could have been settled, and nearly was on two occasions, if solidaritry had held. Let's also put to rest that other bourgeois lie that the NUM were against pit closures; the NUM didn't oppose closures when mines were exhausted. Come on 3Gs, nobody or group (unless we consider those universal tools of oppression – the cops) was above the law; plenty of folks were 'lifted' for all sorts of spurious reasons. Remember people are still being clubbed, unlawfully kettled, and killed by the boys in blue even today. Working class resistance is not an outdated or futile concept.

Of course that evil hag Thatcher (sounds of Symptom's lungs, throat and beak being cleared followed by a rather satisfactory hockle) did emasculate the workers back in the day by introducing all sorts of draconian anti-union laws. I'm ashamed that Labour never attempted any real resistance or ever managed to 'shake-off' the legacy of her high-heeled jackboot from grinding down on the workers' necks. And what legacy did she leave? The death of 'mass employment' and the destruction of communities ... you've only got to read the posts on this Forum about the problems for the Town (industrial dereliction and social degradation) to then trace-back the cause of most of them to the actions of her evil regime. Generally, strikes are about ultimately SAVING jobs and the current crop that Monsta® refers to follow that honourable goal. Don't be taken-in by the sh*te published in that scum-sucking rag, The Daily Mail (and it's craven fellow travellers); these actions ARE about resisting redundancies.

"...am sure a dogs turd is less likely to be picked up by a youngin!" An excellent observation Monsta® Perhaps we on the Forum should launch a campaign to ban brats from the parks, verges and woods unless under the direct control of a responsible adult?