The Journal's Graeme Whitfield takes you behind the headlines in his newsroom blog »
Environment campaigner Anna Heywood writes on ethical living »
Malcolm Clarke on life as a professional pool player »
Brenda Boyd - the life and times of a morris dancer »
David Brennan from the website Enjoying Photography writes about how to take good photos »
Emily Sillar, from the Comfort Food Company on North-East food »
Write Said Fred - view from the pram with six-month-old Fred Telfer »
Rebecca Young finds fashion on a budget »
Local GP John Mackay writes about the NHS »
Mark Robertson of the Northumber-February 2008 Archives
Free eco-day out for the kids
Posted by Anna Heywood on February 1, 2008 8:58 AM
If you’re looking for something to do with the children this weekend then take a trip to Washington Wetlands Centre.
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Using Your Loaf
Posted by Emily Sillar on February 1, 2008 12:59 PM
Dare I tell you how long it's taken me to write the title of this, let alone the contents? My first blog - and I've already got Blogger's Block...or whatever you might call it.
My meanderings whilst pondering food matters just made me plain hungry, which meant it was just as well that I had a fresh loaf of homemade bread sitting cooling in the kitchen. Whilst I munched I tried desperately to think of what to write in my inaugural blog.
This in turn caused musings on how different a homemade loaf is to the plastic-wrapped, sliced loaves that are thrown into our shopping baskets in supermarkets, and so I thought I'd share my ponderings with you.
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Stay Steady
Posted by David Brennan on February 2, 2008 10:48 AM
To ensure your pictures are always pin-sharp it is vital to keep the camera steady while the image is recorded. It sounds like common sense but most people can't be bothered to carry a tripod along when they venture out with their camera. It's for that exact reason that they usually return with just snapshots!
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Hereditary pedantry?
Posted by Brenda Boyd on February 2, 2008 8:03 PM
The other evening I went into our office where No2 son was on the internet (it’s actually the little box-room over the stairs).
“Shall I close the curtains, or leave them as they are?” I asked.
He looked at me solemnly and with not a little distain before stating “There’s only one curtain in this room.”
I left wordlessly.
At Tyne Bridge practice that night I recalled this story to Mrs Drummerman. She is a health-visitor and has always taken an active and helpful interest in my boys.
“Ah” she said sagely “that’s what it’s like with autistic children.”
But I’m not so sure.
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Not According To Plan
Posted by Malcolm Clarke on February 3, 2008 4:10 PM
Unfortunately my return to the pro tour events did not go exactly according to plan. I was well beaten in both of my matches and played very badly.
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February seasonal food
Posted by Anna Heywood on February 3, 2008 5:15 PM
Brrr, it’s time for lots of warming soups and stews.
It was husband’s birthday last week and my mother got him his much wished for slow-cooker.
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Freddie or not...
Posted by Write Said Fred on February 3, 2008 9:02 PM
The name’s Fred. Baby Fred (or if it’s Sunday – which it is - Fred Lucas).
Mum chose my first name; Dad chose my second. He still insists it had nothing to do with his Star Wars obsession – an argument which is hard to swallow given the only other names he suggested could have seen my birth certificate reading Fred Lucas Chewbacker R2-D2 Skywalker.
On February 8 I’ll be six months old.
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Fashion on a Budget
Posted by Rebecca Young on February 4, 2008 2:06 PM
For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by fashion. What the clothes are made of, how they’re designed, the inspiration, the colours, the accessories, the trends, how people wear things... The list goes on.
As soon as I was able to, I’d be buying as many magazines as I could afford, pouring over the pages and taking in how the outfits were put together from the hairstyle and make-up to the shoes and everything else in between.
I had found my passion in life and it just keeps on growing stronger the older I get.
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The Rogue Rock
Posted by Malcolm Clarke on February 4, 2008 10:37 PM
Something a bit different today. I was about 3 hours and 20 minutes into what would become a 3 hours a 50 minute journey to the Pool event. I was going through that auto-pilot mode that effects all drivers where we rely on second nature to keep going.
It was around about this point of my journey that I encountered the 'rogue rock'.
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Kiss of death?
Posted by Brenda Boyd on February 5, 2008 9:27 AM
Number 2 son knows that I am a widow. The wedding photo is there for all to see and he knows Phil died before I got together with his father
Or as he said when I was explaining this “Then you got a new man – you bought Daddy”. If only it were that simple, I could trade him in for a quieter model that doesn’t snore, have gout or sort invertebrates in my kitchen (if there's anything that smells worse than a rotting slug I don't want to know about it).
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Embroiled in the Argument
Posted by Emily Sillar on February 5, 2008 10:57 AM
Well, everyone has to have the opportunity to join the great chicken debate, don't they? So here's my turn - I promise to be quick!
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The conversation I have each day...
Posted by Graeme on February 5, 2008 3:35 PM
So here’s a conversation I have about three times a day.
“Hello, is that the newsdesk?”
“Yes.”
“Hi, this is Sian (or Nikki, or possibly Julian) from Really Cool PR (or Wow Marketing, or maybe Look at Me! Media) and we’ve done a survey which shows that men in Newcastle are the fourth most likely to eat macademia nuts in bed. Would you like to do a story on that?”
“No.”
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Six-Month Meltdown
Posted by Write Said Fred on February 6, 2008 1:06 PM
I don't mind telling you I'm pooing myself (which isn't out of the ordinary for a five-and-three-quarters-month old baby, I grant you), but I'm talking metaphorically here.
As I mentioned in my meet and greet, February 8 will see me reaching the grand old age of six months and from what I've just heard, the next few weeks will not be going down as the best days of my life.
Up until now I’ve been happily floating along the babbling baby brook – I haven’t had a flashback to the birth in weeks, colic is a distant (but still rather painful) memory and the little slug which had attached itself to my belly button is long gone.
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A Very English Pogrom
Posted by on February 6, 2008 7:42 PM
Recently, we've had the annual Holocaust Memorial Day; scarcely an occasion for celebration but a necessary reminder as to the consequences of bigotry and tyranny. Something we need to be particularly aware of as the media nd the state gently sroke the fires of developing racial divide here.
Intolerance is not a phenomenon to which we have been constantly immune. Jacqui Smith, should her proposal for an extended period of detention succeed, will have effectively undermined the rule of law which has taken us a thousand years to acquire by atacking one of its constant pillars, no arrest without trial.
This, coupled with the introduction of ID cards should the measure ever prove feasible, will go a long way toward creating the kind of police state we tend to excoriate in other countries. History provides some illuminating lesons, alarmingly close to home.
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"Beautiful" Ashington
Posted by Graeme on February 8, 2008 2:17 PM
At the risk of turning my simmering feud with the PR industry into all-out war, consider the following press release that The Journal has just been sent:
"Close to the city of Newcastle," it says, "the beautiful rural town of Ashington lies where you can find your perfect home..."
Now there are lots of things you can say about Ashington, but I think most people would say that "beautiful" is stretching things a bit, while "rural" is just plain wrong.
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Starting the New Year in Style
Posted by Rebecca Young on February 8, 2008 6:22 PM
It must have been a world record. I had been carrying around £100 worth of Eldon Square vouchers for 11 whole days before spending any of them. I don’t know how I managed it...
A shopping spree was long overdue and much needed, so the first Saturday I had free I headed into Newcastle to spend, spend, spend!
I was fully expecting to come back with nothing considering that’s what usually happens when I actually have money. It’s always the way – I’m penniless and I find loads of things I want. I have money and I see nothing!
Thankfully the shopping gods were working in my favour that day...
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Getting The Message Across
Posted by Emily Sillar on February 9, 2008 11:21 AM
On Thursday night, I found myself standing in front of a full house at Comfort at Meldon Park, explaining why I feel so passionately about local produce. Afterwards, I couldn't help but reconsider my motives for using local and seasonal food - it does seem to have become a gimmick for many restaurateurs up here, who simply say they're using local produce and, let's face it, how would anyone know if they weren't?
So I think I'd better explain why I use the produce that I use, and give all of you out there, who are considering supporting restaurants who use local produce, the opportunity to make an informed decision.
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Stuff the flowers and stuff with love instead
Posted by Anna Heywood on February 9, 2008 9:13 PM
Valentine’s Day, a day the planet could do without; but don’t worry I have a number of tried and tested alternatives to the planet degrading usual suspects.
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'Allo, 'Allo
Posted by on February 12, 2008 6:48 PM
The Mid-Northumberland Yeomanry were on the streets in AFV (tha't armoured fighting vehicle for any of you who haven't seen a US war movie), last weekend in support of Ponteland Rep who are doing 'Allo, 'Allo this week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday & Saturday, 715 at the Memorial Hall in Ponteland).
It never ceases to surprise me as a re-enactor (anorak) how startlingly indifferent people remain when confronted by Germans, Free French and a fair sized gun mounted AFV. We attended a large out-of-town garden centre/retail emporium to confront and offer leaflets to the living dead entering and emerging.
Is it me; or is there something dreadfully depressing about these places, do they not represent a microcosm of our doomed, apostate society sinking into a credit crunch fuelled oblivion? Why do we spend time and money we don't have at inflated rates of usury in such depressing temples of tosh?
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Love is in the air
Posted by Graeme on February 13, 2008 5:28 PM
As if to prove the point I made about PR surveys this week, the industry has been working into a lather over rubbish surveys it can peddle around Valentine's Day.
I have literally lost count of the tosh I have been this week, but in a three-hour period this morning, I learnt that:
* 71% of employees would choose to stay late on Valentine’s Day (thanks to Lloyds TSB Insurance);
* 85% of men would dump their girls on Valentine’s Day to watch their club (courtesy of Nuts TV);
* 53% of people in the UK think Valentine's Day has been over-commercialised (Alliance and Leicester);
* and there has been "a massive 40% increase in lip enhancement procedures compared to the same time last year" (Transform).
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They know you know
Posted by Brenda Boyd on February 14, 2008 9:10 AM
This weekend, being the start of half term, we are due to drive down to the land of my fathers for the week. The day before yesterday I tried to start my ten year old Skoda Felicia but was unable to get the key in the ignition. The kindly AA man (got bless them) told me the steering/ignition lock had fallen in on itself, it was due to old age, he’d seen it before and he’d try to get the key in and get it started for me. With WD40 and a picklock he succeeded in pushing the tumblers into place and inserting the key.
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J’Adore Dior
Posted by Rebecca Young on February 16, 2008 3:30 PM
Vintage fashion has always been a bit of a mystery to me, so a couple of months back I went to a vintage fashion fair at the Station Hotel to see first-hand what it was all about. Fuelled with the thought of unearthing some hidden gems, I dragged my poor mother out of bed at some ungodly hour for a Sunday to see what we could find.
Stepping into the hotel we instinctively knew to follow our noses to find the clothes, as the foyer was filled with the musty smell of vintage fashion. The first room we went into was the smaller of the two, but was an eclectic mix of sparkling jewellery, bags, clothes and other pieces dating from the 1920s up until the 1980s. However, the first thing that caught my eye was to be one of the most exciting purchases I’d ever made.
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Tastebuds are officially tickled
Posted by Write Said Fred on February 17, 2008 10:12 PM
Heaven, I'm in baby tastebud heaven...
What has taken her so long to introduce me to cauliflower cheese. It's what I believe they call in the trade, a miracle.
For the past few weeks I've been presented with a variety of mush and I've done my best to smile my way through the likes of "butternut squashy"; "sweet tatoe"; and "turnip delight" - and all the time she had cauliflower cheese in her back pocket.
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