threegee

I will tell you exactly what's at the core of Bedlington's problems. This isn't my personal opinion, it comes from the mouths of the culprits themselves - the present councillors that represent the Town! The problem is that they are very sure of their support base - people who would turn out to vote for them, no matter what! Those people reside mainly in the East of the Town. They also know that people living on the new private estates only sleep in the place, drive straight out every morning in their cars, and generally couldn't give a monkeys! Those folk are hard work for any sort of opposition to garner support from. The consequence is that the people who have to earn their living in the place - either employer or employee - aren't properly represented on WDC. So.. the Town gets regularly shafted! Only when the people who keep this lot of time-servers in office do the decent thing by the Town, and refuse to turn out to support them, will we get any change. Either that or some pretty publicity-grabbing mass civil disobedience, which, given the present apathy, would be very hard to organise. That's the truth of it, and no politician of any political persuasion will say any different in private conversation.

It's the p's and the d's that separate the sheep from the goats! There once was a 1d bar of chocolate, though by my day it was rather tiny. Mind you a 6d (2.5p) bar of Cadbury's Fruit & Nut from Watsons Newsagents lasted several pages of The Eagle comic on the United bus. Sheer quality - except the United bus! http://www.dandare.org/eagle/frontpage/frontpage.htm

On the weekend of 7th - 9th July Trinity Church is holding a Flower Festival. They'd like to combine this with a Scarecrow Festival around the Town, to make it more attractive. Local traders are invited to make a "scarecrow" to put outside their shop. "In tune with the theme of the Festival, it could depict someone who has made a significant difference to the World." "An example might be Sir Daniel Gooch, the railway engineer, whose business began in the Bedlington Iron Works." Revd. Peter Rand would like to hear from shopkeepers "who might be able to co-operate" on 822114. His e-mail address is available on application to me by PM (click on threege on this post then hit the Send a Personal Message link).

You can now sell your unwanted household stuff here on BedBay. No fees, no postage, no delay, low-risk. How's that for FREE!? http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/index.php?showforum=6

Orange were giving SIMs away the other weekend too. They seem to be doing this fairly regularly if you watch the website: www.orange.co.uk £1 credit on these and without registering. The 02 card I got didn't have any credit on it, but it did have a form that gives you £2.50 if you fill your details in and post it to them. Dunno whether that applies to the current freebies though. The best deal - though not free - is to pick a few of the special Virgin Mobile SIMs up for a couple of quid. They each have £5 credit on them without registering. Not all Virgin SIMs give free credit though - look for the flashes on the outside of the packs. Best PAYG mobile supplier at the moment seems to be http://www.tescomobile.com/ though it's very difficult to compare tarrifs as there are so many ifs and buts, and the price often depends on your usage. Tesco Mobile charges are both low and fairly transparent though. From memory they use 02 infrastructure. Beware networks (like Orange) who charge a lot more for cross network calls. The other day they debited 79p for a quick call to an 02 phone at the other end of the Front Street, yet only debited 27p for a 2000 mile international call - also on a different mobile network! ...and don't get me started about international roaming charges, please!

Yes, I'm sure it is! I don't have my own car - can't justify it - and the bus services aren't that good or convenient. Would happily walk or cycle a mile or two though. What limited facilities Wansbeck council provide the people of Bedlington with are poorly publicised and promoted. For most residents they might as well not be there! Bedlington did far better when it ran its own affairs. All Wansbeck Council did was to close down our own swimming pool and fill it in! Bedlington gets a raw deal for the revenue it contributes to Wansbeck. That's a generally held view in the Town, and it's fully justified by both facts and history.

Yes, really! Several hundred million people can't be wrong - except in the case of our entry, of course!

The Klingons won! Though it wasn't the usual close F-i-n-i-s-h! Actually Lori is quite good, and who wouldn't fancy the pretty one playing the keyboard? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lordi Wikipedia had the result chronicled within minutes - a little faster than yer actual Encyclopedia Britannica! There's only one thing you can say about that --- a-m-a-z-i-n-g! [in joke]

All quiet on the Ruski/Finland border tonight then! Do you think Monaco could be anywhere near France? Maybe they use the same blind and deaf Armenian piano tuner? LOL

You don't have to speak French to tell she couldn't hit the notes! Terrrriblee'!!

When: What do you mean by "old"? Where: Picnic Field, 20 Acres, Front Street/Market Place, or Millne House Car Park? What for: ...and do you want them for private use or public showing?

Uhhh...

Yes. Because most people are watchers on the sidelines and not doers. That's a fact that someone, now long gone, pointed out to me. At the time the sage observation was in connection with something completely different. But... as they say... that's another story!

Active, means you have to log-in at intervals and post occasionally. If you don't log-in then you don't get to see if there are any PMs for you - so a bit pointless joining and not doing so fairly regularly.

This - of course - is why the [Quick Edit] button was introduced. You don't acknowledge the typo, and silently correct it - leaving the critics embarrassed, and everyone else thinking what the $%& are they going on about!

As I seem to be the last person in the Town to get to hear these things then perhaps I'm not the right person to write it!

There is some info on this in the board archives from a few years back. Also I remember someone posting a picture (or pictures) of a crowd in a field looking at a crater - probably somewhere in the region of West Ridge. We do intend to restore the Board's archives to the web in a searchable form, but unfortunately I can't give you any timescale.

No not in the park - that was a reference to the TV "drama"! :-) It was behind the Bedlington Station Library, I'm told. Big flap at the time, but turned out not to be foul play, or so says the grape vine. Was surprised nobody posted at the time. An odd few other interesting rumours running around the Town too. Maybe I should start a rumour factory column (under a pen name)?

You mean to say a dead body isn't exciting? Next episode of Rosemary & Thyme to be filmed in the our Park?

Member number 100 was reached a while ago - and I never noticed. The number of members quoted on the index page is the number of confirmed and active members. All boards are plagued with people who subscribe then never contribute anything, or don't even bother to confirm their details. That's providing they managed to input a vaild e-mail address in the first place! So the number of members they display is most usually grossly inflated. That's not the case here. So the current software only gives them so long to confirm, and so long to contribute something, before they're trashed. When they get trashed the lose their PMs, their storage space, blogs and everything else, and the username is released for someone else. Use it or lose it - it's all automated! We've considered giving the top users free @bedlington.co.uk e-mail in addition to the free PMing as an acknowledgment of their continued support. Will get around to coding this sometime.

Don't assume too much on the "American corruption" of the tongue. For the most part the American spelling is the unchanged, original, and correct one, and our current spelling is a Victorian aberration. ... e.g. the heavier use of the 'Z' is Old English. As are words like the Old English "fall" instead of the Victorian "autumn". What has made English the powerful World language it is, is that (unlike say French) it has no hangups about steady change, and no problem with borrowing more meaningful expression from other languages. The way to kill a language is to attempt to standardi(s/z)e it - something the French look well set to find out, the hard way! Clebrate and embrace; it's all phrasing from the same songbook!

Faithfully captured on a DVR near you. Stills - and maybe even a commentary - soon(ish)!

Don't get too excited, it was mainly just the search engines having a trawl for your collective wisdom. I'm not entirely sure why the Chinese one (baidu.com) should be taking such a keen interest in the Town though. Maybe we are due for a new influx of take-away operators?

Hey, the sun has just come out! Get out there and make the most of all half-hour of it!