Alex

Well people from Newcastle are referred to as Novocastrians of course but Geordie is far more common. As has been pointed out it used to apply more widely - to people from Tyneside, Wearside and Northumberland and Durham to a lesser extent. But it’s never not been a description of Newcastle folk for as long as anyone can remember. I realise you’re aware of this of course. It’s like the Civil War thing where they also talk about a rivalry from a time when Sunderland didn’t exist

Apart from anything, why the fuck would we steal anything from them? We’ve got our own nationally and internationally recognised identity. They had to run a poll to decide what their own nickname should be and couldn’t even think of an original name for their flat pack stadium

not sure where to start with that. Novocastrian is just a made up name using the latin words for ‘new’ and ‘castle’. I don’t think Novus Castra was ever the name of the settlement (although I could be wrong). As for the rugby team, that’s bollocks too. The Newcastle Falcons were formerly Gosforth (then Newcastle Gosforth iirc). The name change coming after SJH backed the club and rugby Union became professional and they moved from their original base near the Great North Road. Novocastrians still exists. Their ground is next to the ministry at Longbenton. I think they were originally founded as a team for old boys from the RGS. They literally just make any old shit up, don’t they?

I think you’re both right, ie we had sone wriggle room initially because of his frugality. But the lack of revenue streams / lack of sponsorship / shitty sponsorship deals that were struck / outsourcing of catering etc etc means we’ve now reached a point where wages are close to exceeding revenue. I think at worst it just slows us down, the ‘market value’ stipulations probably won’t stand up in any court and the amount of daft deals / partnerships other clubs have in place allows for getting around that anyway. But we know we’re under more scrutiny than almost anyone else atm so we’re trying to stay within the rules as much as we can

Fanks, Mike

Thing is, he couldn’t give a fuck about what Newcastle fans think about him. This is just part of a campaign to make it look like he did a decent job, so the greedy bastard can fleece yet another club out of a shit load of money. Even he hasn’t got the gall to try and make it look like he was hard done to at West Brom

That’s assuming he even had a say in who we signed

For being so shite the owners needed to look for a new manager as soon as they took over 👍🏻 Obviously I’m taking the piss but it’s no more preposterous than some of the things Bruce is trying to take credit for. Actually it’s less preposterous because it’s true

True

It’s a subjective argument anyway. To me it should be: you’ve said racist / offensive things on numerous occasions. You’re guilty, now fuck off. I get there’s various degrees of seriousness to things like this but while it’s maybe not lifetime ban stuff, the punishment seems weak. By releasing that statement the FA just undermine the whole process and they’re anti-racism campaign

Not being top of the league.

You can buy reusable stainless steel pods for nespresso that you put your own ground coffee in. They’re really expensive though (and I haven’t tried them so don’t know if they’re any good).

I’m languidly wasteful 👍🏻

If they’re Italian it’s normally spot on. Two cases in point are Cicarelli’s at Blyth and Pizzeria italia at four lane ends. The latter even comes with Neapolitan attitude. Which is both amusing and preferable to the sort of places you describe (on the whole I would say you’re right though).

I quite fancy it actually. I’ve got a book of Edgar Allen Poe stories which I read a lot as a kid. ‘Tale of Mystery and Imagination’ I think it was called. With ‘Descent into Maelstrom’ and ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ etc

What about the other Teletubbies?

I nearly mentioned him too

They did, aye.

Aye, I remember when the smoking van first came in and thinking that most pubs fucking stank without tab smoke to cover that up

There’s nothing wrong with your tastebuds, instant coffee has always tasted like shit 👍🏻

I bet Right Said Fred have a theory about that

They should have closed the board down after the completely fictitious story about the old gadgie whose wife didn’t make his packed lunch because of Ukraine being invaded resulted in a whip round in the pub to buy him a packet of crisps, one of which was shaped like a lion’s head and drew in crowds to see it. Peak RTG tbh

The best bit for me is that even in the made of story the person telling it wasn’t there

Think it was going to be batteries for electric cars rather than conventional car batteries

I see the proposed car battery plant at Cambois has gone into administration after new investors couldn’t be found, resulting in about 250 people losing their jobs. This was supposedly going to create more than 10x that amount of jobs and be a crucial part of both the UK’s commitment to net zero and UK car manufacturing.