A great day today because apart from finishing work at 12.30pm, I will be making the journey north to my parents. A detour over the Tyne Bridge and past St James' Park. Fresh air, here we come!

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Answers

That`s just what I could fancy doing this weekend! Where are you based normally? Are you one of the London BBsers?(:o)

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Fresh Air in Newcastle???? Now thats taking the dream a bit far!!! ;o)

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

How come we always avoid one another DeBuilder? I'm in Northampton tomorrow :))

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Jay:

Believe me the air always seems so much fresher up North.

Galaxy:

I live in Northampton

Gav:

Get yersel doon the Picturedrome matey, great pub. Failing that I think Dan from EastEnders is making an appearance at Eternity Nighclub one night this weekend, so don't go there! have a good un.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Having said that here in Hull, we have a nice mixture of:

Hops, Cocoa, Cooking Oil, Fish, a Tannery, the river Humber and few Landfill Sites thrown in for good measure.

So most places are fresher then here.

Do you mean fresher in colder or cleaner?? ;o)

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Fresh as in cleaner. Mind you I will miss the smell of hops from the Carlsberg brewery, which can enter my bedroom window if the wind is right. Better than the smell from the Egger chipboard factory in Hexham!

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Hmm evocative smells! Is the Formica factory still up there on the Coast Road? Or the TyneBrand factory on the Quay? Hmm-hm!(:o)

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

So Eternity club it is then....that Dan is such a hunk :))

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

You want fresh clean air.....get out to Seghill.....its so clean there even the birds fly upside down!

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Galaxy,

Toon Development Bulletin
The Formica factory is still there.
The Tyne Brand factory?? As far I know it closed down donkeys years ago. The building is still there, complete with "Tyne Brand" sign - I know as I pass it when I go to indulge my passion for fish 'n chips from the N/S Fish Quay. I recently heard someone in the chippy saying there was an art gallery in the TB building!
Eeh ya bugga Ma, we're canny cultured up heor nuw ya knaa - wiv got them art gallery's all ower the place, even on the North Shields Fish Quay!!!!

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Oh Clarky! I could just murder some proper fish and chips!(:o)

Used to get ours from `John`s` in Cullercoats, and sometimes the one in Tynemouth - magic!(:o)

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Galaxy,
How predictable! I just knew I'd get your taste buds salivering - it never fails. I once got ITK going with the same thing.
Having lived away from home myself I used to suffer similar withdrawal symptoms.
The chippy in Tynemouth - opposite the Salutation - is still pretty good, but the best now are sold on the Fish Quay. You can even go in and sit down and be served, straight from the frying pan - they're DELICIOUS! Sorry, I know I'm bent - but you've got the climate; we've got the fish 'n chips!

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Clarky - they are truly clueless when it comes to fish and chips down here. I keep saying that it`s time I had a trip up there. Quite honestly I could happily jump in the car tonight!

I`m really ready for a change of scene. I love my garden and everything, but I am so sick of the sight of it over the last few weeks. Just to cap it all, we`ve had gale force winds for two days, so it is badly in need of some tidying again!

Love the fact that there are art galleries appearing in all these vast old buildings. It`s so much more attainable than it used to be, which is, of course, how it should be! One more thing to visit next time I`m up there! (:o)

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Last time I brought my hubby up there, I took him for a bacon stottie on Sunday morning at the Gibralter Rock in Tynemouth - yum!!!! Nothing quite like that chewey texture!(:o)

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Galaxy,
Hate to tell you this gal, but real stotties are becoming difficult to get hold of. Yes, I lie not!
More often than not they fool you into thinking they're stotties; they look like stotties, but when you cut them - bugger me, they're just regular bread. I blame these bloody supermarkets putting all the real craftsmen out of business.
If the stotty dies, could this be the end of civilisation as we know it? SAVE THE REAL GEORDIE STOTTY, I hear you say!
I bet Pete thinks we're all barking up here?

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Oh no! Not the end of stotties as we know them! I have tried for years to master the art of stotty making - it`s no good, I just don`t have the great big bread making hands of my grandmother`s generation! They used to have great strapping arms too - and they needed them! I`ve got the receipe, but not the technique!

es, Pete did find it a bit of a culture shock, but just to start with! He`s lived with me too long to be shocked by much now! Though, I can still occasionally come up with a word which he just has never heard before, or some daft northern expression.(:o)

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

What the hell is a stottie? I've always wondered since Ciara started mentioning them.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Oh Tre Tre Tre Tre Tre......you sad sad boy.....fancy having to ask that here......you'll be asking what Broon Ale and The Strawberry is next.

Stotties are a type of bread that ONLY Geordies know how to make. They are round, about the size of an average Pizza base (10-12 inches 250-300mm)and about an inch and an half or so (25-35mm) thick, and they are like nothing else on earth......there is nowt like a stottie sandwich. Usually cut twice cross way, into quarters, and then each quarter sliced in half, you put whatever filling you want into them, and you 'doorstep' buttie ends up anything up to three inches (75mm) thick!

My old Granny in Netherton (long since gone, her and the village) used to make the most gorgeous ones on the old black leaded range in the pitmans cottage.........oh those days.

The only commercial ones that came close to the 'real' thing were made by Greggs, and the supermarket ones are really taking the art down market big time.

CLARKY: We had some of the North Shields Fish Quay produce when we were up there at Easter......I can't remember the name of the shop, (Crispins or something?)but they were absolutely wonderful.....I feel really jealous of my mate who has recently bought and moved into the lighthouse about the fish quay....fancy having that on your doorstep whenever you want it.......

Hey Galaxy.......nostalgia....it ain't what it used to be!

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

I friggin new I'd get that. The Strawberry - plan on going there as soon as I get to Newcastle. Broon Ale - disgusting stuff euircchhh.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

ITK - this nostalgia thing is really beginning to get to me - I just have to go up there for a few days!(:o)

Tre - You haven`t lived until you`ve had a proper stotty! BTW did I jam up your computer yesterday with the picture I sent you? Apologies if I did!(:o)

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Gallaxy

Unfortunately my email is still running on the old sparrow format, years out of date. So I can't recieve pics or things like that, just text messages. Technophobe, me? never. ;-)

I have a couple of digital photo's, well my uncles got them actually. But they are when he was about 6 weeks old and could fit in the palm of my hand. Right now I'd say he's almost fully grown the piece of lard. you can still see the kitten in him, but it's slowly disappearing.

He's not handling our QLD winter (think Newcastle heat wave) very well. We had a cold snap (the real winter) of three weeks in May when he was getting his winter coat and this triggered off a real thick winter coat. So lately he's just been laying around on his back, spread eagled, trying to keep cool.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Another `persian` trait that! George lies flat on his back too, it looks so odd!

So what are you up to this weekend? You too ITK, are you working?(:o)

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

As usual I'm working. I worked last night, crawled in to bed at 1am. Started work again at 10am, finished at 2pm, and start again at 7 pm. Off to my Grandmothers tomorrow for lunch.

Right now I'm at Uni on the computer just trawling the net.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Working the early shift, (7-7) hence the reason I'm around at 8.30 on a Saturday morning.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Is that where you found the Alan Sugar article? Quite thought provoking! I was a bit cynical about the `television` comments though. If I`m not mistaken, didn`t he and his computers go a long way towards encouraging the `big bucks` technological side of footie? (:o)

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

BTW does your Uni computer use Copernic? Excellent search engine, which searches search engines. Copenic 2000 is a free download, and it excellent. There`s also a bigger version, which you have to pay for, not very expensive though, which searches an incredible number of sources of info.(:o)

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

I haven't heard of it or seen it Galaxy. I found the Sugar article on Soccernet.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

good evening/morning all I'm back off to work.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

The web site address is: http://www.copernic.com/engines

Have a great day Tre! (:o)

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

ITK,
I've noticed that someone's doing up the 'Highlights' above the Fish Quay - I presume thats what you mean. I'd assumed it must be some Preservation Society - it was in a hell of a state, and must be costing your mate a large fortune to sort it out. It will be really tasty when it's done.
You must have had your F&C at Kristians. We feel the other one, the Waterfront - opposite the public netties - is a little better.

Tre,
Just to complete the description of the ubiquitious "stottie" the dough is little heavier than regular bread - a little like bagel dough, if you're familiar with that New York delicacy. No idea how they make it, and neither do the supermarkets - hence it has become an endangered Geordie species.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Clarky, you are right on both accounts.....it is my mate who bought Highlight and is doing it up.....he paid about fifteen grand for it......but is probably spending upward of a hundred grand to make it habitable, but when he is finished......boy oh boy, what a view eh.

He also has a flat in what was an old warehouse on the Quayside...... above Flynns.....bloody massive and a great view of the river, but he is renting that out now (still not heard if you are interested in it Dougal) and is living in Highlight.

Also, it was Kristians that we went to.......been the last couple of times we have been up on the recco of wor kid, but we can try the other one next time.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

clarky, the only place where you can stil get proper stotties is GREGGS...they are the best!

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

MARTY that depends.......a couple of years ago, Greggs bought out the old Bakers Oven in the London area, and renamed it as Greggs of Twickenham instead of Greggs of Gosforth and I thought ya hoo.....stotties available at the end of wor road, but they don't even know what they are, let alone bliddy sell them......B@st@ards

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Any idea what the rent is like for that flat over Flynns, ITK?

Idle-ish curiosity, like!(:o)

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

are you sitting down for this. . . . . . . . . . .twelve hundred a month!

No wonder I haven't heard back from Dougal about it.......mind you, it is bliddy massive. It's only two bedrooms, but the small one is bigger that my living room/dining room.....the living room it self is almost as big as wor hoose. You get into the place from the back and from the flat door to the front windows overlooking the Tyne Bridge is about the length of half a football field.....all polished floors, my kids loved sliding round them when we stayed there.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

It doesn`t suprise me ITK. Bit expensive for a holiday flat though! Furnished or unfurnished?(:o)

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Furnished far as I know.....complete with the clock face from the demolished church round the corner on one wall of the living room.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Sounds wonderful - suprised you haven`t let BBC locations in on it! I could just see a new series of Crocodile Shoes from there.(:o)

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

He rented the window space out a few years back to ITV when the Tall Ships race was massing in the river below. They got a superb over the top view of it all......and paid him over 30 grand for one afternoon.....nice work if you can get it!

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Hmm!? I wonder if the BBC would like to rent the space on the top of our wardrobe in the spare bedroom of our place. On a Very clear day, you can just see the Isle of Wight!!!!!!!

Funnily enough, the Beeb were at Pete`s lunchtime local yesterday, sorting out the location for the next series of One Foot in the Grave. Last time they were down Richard Wilson was rather taken by Pete`s car and had a quite a chat with him about it.(:o)

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Marty,
Thanks for that info. mate - I'll check them out.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000