'Alas that day I'll ne'er forget'. Thus the balladeer sings of the 'Raid of The Reidswire' - a celebrated fracas which erupted at a truce day on 7th July, 1575.

The complexities and deceits involved in border politics during the Elizabethan age were Byzantine in their entanglements and none more entangled that Sir John Forster, the English Middle March Warden.

By the third quarter of the sixteenth century Sir John was also in his seventies; a doughty fighter who'd borne arms against the Scots all of his adult life and who had been active in suppressing the rebellion of the Northern Earls in 1569 - 1570, he was corrupt to a degree most current politicians would easily recognise.

Last summer the Squire was looking for a new home for a clamshell style paddling pool/sand pit that her children had grown out of.

Fester sometimes accidentally brings home living tadpoles or other mini-beasts in his water body surveys. The water butt was ok as a temporary home, but hardly ideal. We’d wanted to put some sort of garden pond in my garden so the Squire brought the paddling pool up to our house.

The pressure is on, I will be practising more this week as it is now only five days until I go to Solihull for the first event of the tour season.

It will be the first full pro event since I played in Nuneaton in 2003.

Tyne Bridge had an excellent practice on Thursday with 12 dancers turning up.

Little Miss Fiddle was welcomed back after quite a long break doing her Post Graduate Certificate of Teaching, part time whilst working as a peripatetic music teacher. As well as being an experienced dancer she plays the fiddle in the band between times. We have a few dancers who double up and there are times in bookings when there are more people playing than dancing.

Mrs Quilt is approaching a big birthday so we are beginning to think about what to perform at her Diamond Do. As there will, hopefully, be twelve dancers going she suggested doing either a big Grenoside, which can be done in multiples of three, or two sets* of a six person dance. As Grenoside is one of the Squire’s bêtes noire (see previous entry 'When the cat's away'), two sets of Rose&Crown was chosen.

You will all be heartened to hear, as I was, that the PC lobby have invented another 'ism' - specism which may be defined as the act of placing higher moral or ethical value on one species over others suggesting, say, that Newcastle supporters were, in evolutionary terms, ahead of their Wearside rivals, perish the thought; besides 'we're in Heaven - we've got Kevin'.

This is condemned by the thought police as an extension of the logic of racism, the same sort of injustice that discriminates by gender and race. Typical PC tosh of course and as arid as any other of their mantras. What has this to do with local history, aside from giving me a welcome chance to mount another offensive against popular liberal culture. I suspect it has rather a lot to do with history, particularly with the evolution of the Border Reivers, the Steel Bonnets of legend.

There is a genuine sadness in The Journal's offices today at the news that Abdul Latif - curry king and self-promoter par excellence - has died.

It has pretty much been the rite of passage of every young reporter in the North-East to write stories about Mr Latif, such was his genius for marketing himself and his restaurant.

His free offers - curry for life to Jonny Wilkinson, a free meal for every Newcastle United season ticket holder if they win the Premiership - were legend, gaining national fame when Viz started to feature Mr Latif in its pages.

The results of my Ecoballs trial are in. So after 8 weeks of use do they work or not?

A fellow was lecturing yesterday at the National Army Museum ("NAM") in Chelsea. Why does anyone live in London? Judging from a very brief peek into shops in Kensington, the cost of a medium sized handbag would buy you a decent flat up here. At the risk of trotting out another well, if not over-used, expression, the best view to be had of London is looking back as the train slides out of King's Cross - mind you they've made a pretty good job of St. Pancras, nifty landing at Heathrow yesterday too.

My subject was the Battle of Bannockburn 1314, that's the one battle in the 'The Three Hundred Years War' between us Northumbrians and the Scots that the Jocks can clain, pretty fairly, to have won. Obviously if Alex Salmond and the other Bravehearts achieve their desire then prseumably it will all kick off again, time to get the trusty broadsword out from the thatch.

As we may have mentioned before Tyne Bridge is a women’s North West Clog Morris team. This means that the dances we do originate from the mill towns of North West England. They developed in and around the mills during the industrial revolution when footwear of working people (if they had any) was clogs.

Thanks for the replies I've been getting about that special language spoken only by journalists.

As well as the replies to my initial posting, I've had a number of colleagues suggesting words that are only ever used in newspapers but never in real life.

These include: