Lady customer who commented so spitefully yesterday on our pricing of a particularly desirable book -- in an offensive stage whisper -- will perhaps be told by her non-ignorant companion that the yiddish word for brazen cheek is not "footspa."

Americans constantly tell us how much they enjoy our exported television programmes. How, I'm puzzled to know, do they avoid all the mind-numbing junk also produced in the UK ? Perhaps our junk is not so dire as your junk.

Our transatlantic friends might have noticed today -- if they view beyond the commercialised news channels -- that there is not a widespread celebration within the UK of the Iron Lady's achievements. Many are celebrating her death. Tasteless as this may be, the background to this macabre behaviour is worth investigating --- ruined communities, countrywide deskilling, loss of major industries, increase of capital in the hands of the few, privatisation of almost everything, choking of the railways and the National Health system, culture of greed and so on, and so forth. Oh Yes; she did destroy the over-reaching power of some major trade unions, along with all the smaller ones and the already poorly defended rights of the grossly underpaid. "Yes but" they say "what her and Ronny R. about the fall of the iron curtain ?" Well, let's just forget about, festering Polish and Ukrainian resentment over their unfair burden of food provision to the rest, the election of a Polish pope, the Russians themselves choosing Gorbachev, western pop music and the underground culture. I'd rather choose a larger number of smaller heroes and a lot more nuanced history

A few days ago the family watched -- comforted by lots of tea and big sticks of sweet liquorice -- a promising programme on Pompeii and Herculaneum. The Radio Times magazine hadn't marked it as a "repeat." Now here's the cheat: within the whole bloody hour-long bore the same half-dozen already familiar facts were repeated ad nauseam. True, the presenter was filmed walking amongst the same objects but in varying directions and we were treated to a whole Roget's Thesaurus of pointless synonyms. Do you really need a Ph.D. or professorial chair to present such reception class drivel?

Two days ago we watched -- expecting something better -- the Worsthorne prog. on the royals and their medical problems. We should have noticed the crap was coming in the first five minute: "heading off" instead of "going"/ "I'm going to explain why"/ "explore"/"secrets of" and so on. Then we get the 'Hammer Horror Films' tudors. Professors from leading universities get their few quid from the BBC to tell us what we know already. No real medical stuff at all. Not a word about fat Henry's gammy leg, his paranoia and possible syphilis. Bloody Mary gets the usual stuff and on the almost equally bloody Elizabeth we get the usual whitewash job. No nuanced history, as ever. History on the telly -- from the Beeb even -- tends to be simplistic garbage. I'm giving it up -- except for Lent!

The language section is now heaped up with oodles of foreign language versions of English novels. Theology is overflowing with evangelical paperbacks. Bargain books -- at 50p or 5 for �2 -- are falling off the shelves in the yard -- even blowing off in the recent winds.

This site is well worth your time.

All lancastrians will find it delightful.

I'm told the site is doing well. Lancastrian expatriates are visiting in fair numbers.