(12 Sep 2013, 7:34 pm)Michael wrote I didn't know that about Fencehouses, 2 different postcodes for next door...
NE or SR haha

(12 Sep 2013, 7:34 pm)aureolin wrote Washington is ran by Sunderland City Council, in a Newcastle postcode area, yet the 'city line' of your address is officially County Durham.

(12 Sep 2013, 8:32 pm)AdamY wrote I don't know if this is true and I've never found any evidence to substantiate this claim but, apparently, the railway station at Blaydon will never close as it was bequeathed to the people of Blaydon by Joesph Cowen.

• A contract of employment
  
• Redundancy Payments
  
• Equal Pay
  
• Equality
  
• Minimum Wage
  
• Maternity/Paternity Leave
  
• A minimum annual leave entitlement
  

(12 Sep 2013, 8:42 pm)gtomlinson wrote It was demolished in the 70s. Cowen's businesses supported the railway but I don't think he ever owned it, he owned a branch line up to his brickworks (I think) The current building is owned and operated by Northern Trains on behalf of Network Rail

(12 Sep 2013, 8:46 pm)aureolin wrote You'd think it were a little known fact it seems, as people take everything for granted. But if it wasn't for Trade Unions, (to name a few) you wouldn't have:

• A contract of employment
  
• Redundancy Payments
  
• Equal Pay
  
• Equality
  
• Minimum Wage
  
• Maternity/Paternity Leave
  
• A minimum annual leave entitlement
  

The list really just keeps going on and on.

Sometimes people are far too quick to take in the negatives which Sky News or Murdoch rags spout out about them. I know I'm certainly thankful that generations past have stood up and have been counted for what is right, and what we all deserve. I'd have been down a pit before I was 10 otherwise.

(12 Sep 2013, 8:56 pm)AdamY wrote You can use the same argument when people stand there and piously boast that they're law-abiding citizens. Truth is, if people didn't break the law then we would not enjoy some of the freedoms we take for granted. Being a 'law-abiding citizen' does not give anyone the moral high ground.

Online shopping: The pensioner who
started a home shopping revolution By Denise Winterman and Jon Kelly BBC News Magazine 16 September 2013 Last updated at 10:02 People spend billions each year shopping
online, but few know it was a grandmother
from Gateshead who started it all from her
living room. It was an order for margarine, cornflakes and eggs that paved the way for an industry now estimated to be worth £117.6bn ($186.1bn) to the UK economy alone.

Grandmother Jane Snowball, 72, sat down in an arm chair in her Gateshead home in May 1984, picked up a television remote control and used it to order the groceries from her local supermarket. She was part of a council initiative to help the elderly. What she - and everyone else with her at
the time - didn't realise was that her simple
shopping list was arguably the world's first home online shop.
With her remote control she used a piece of
computer technology called Videotex. It sent the
order down her phone line to the local Tesco - the goofs were then packaged and delivered to her door.

Mrs Snowball never saw a computer - her television linked her to the shop. "What we effectively did was to take a domestic TV
in a home and turn it into a computer terminal,"
says Michael Aldrich, the man behind the
technology for the system. "That was the big leap." It was years before the world wide web came into being. "Aldrich and his company were very, very advanced for the time," says Kevin Turner, principal lecturer at Brighton Business School, where the
Michael Aldrich Archive is kept.
"It demonstrated that people could do transactions from home."
Aldrich's system incorporated a television with a
chip set used at the time by BT's teletext service Prestel. It was an information service like the BBC's
Ceefax and ITV's Oracle. Using a domestic phone line he connected the TV to
retailer computers which could process the
transactions. He had built a real-time, multi-user
transaction processing computer. Videotex was already being used by companies to
do business, most notably the travel industry. But it
was a Gateshead Council community initiative that
saw it become the world's first business-to-
consumer home online shopping system. The Gateshead Shopping Experiment was about
helping pensioners with mobility problems. Aldrich was keen to provide the technology as he had
been thinking about home online shopping for a few years.
Three retailers, Tesco, Greggs and Lloyds Pharmacy, agreed to get involved. Mrs Snowball was selected to try the system as she
had broken her hip. She was given a standard
television with the chip set and a remote control with an additional button on it that said "phone". Pressing the button brought up a directory of retailers on the TV screen in the format of a standard teletext page. She would choose a retailer and then the goods. With no world wide web, phone numbers had to be used. There was a list of 1,000 items from Tesco alone.
The order was sent down her phone line, packed and delivered by the supermarket. Mrs Snowball paid in cash when she got her shopping as credit cards were not widely used at the time.
It took just 15 minutes to teach her how to use the system. "It was 1984 and you were doing online home shopping, it was amazing and she loved it," says Aldrich.
"It worked very well... and she could just turn off the computer and go back to watching Coronation Street." Mrs Snowball declared it "wonderful", although Aldrich remembers that she missed the social interaction of shopping. "Shopping was a social activity where she met friends," he says. "But the system worked very well for ages."

It was adopted by Bradford Council a few years later but never became widely used. The system worked well for businesses-to-business transactions but home online shopping was not viable until home PCs started to become widespread and the internet more popular.

"It's significant because of its influence rather than its direct impact," says Asher Rospigliosi, senior lecturer in e-business and management
information systems at the Brighton Business
School. "If you only have a few customers it's extra labour for not much extra profit."
Aldrich went on to become an information technology adviser to Margaret Thatcher. Tesco became one of the first retailers in the UK to offer a home online shopping service.

Mrs Snowball was recognised by Gateshead Council for the part she played in the ground-breaking initiative in a ceremony in 2009. But no-one at the time knew the experiment would actually anticipate a transformation of shopping.

Gateshead Council says it has has very few records of the experiment because it didn't realise how significant it was at the time. It would be another 10 years before retailers would see the potential. "It really was a momentous landmark," says
Rospigliosi. But ultimately is was fun, says Aldrich. "If I hadn't invented it someone else would have done," says Aldrich. "All I've ever thought was it was exciting and interesting but above all fun."

Robert Peston Goes Shopping is on BBC Two at
21:00 BST on Monday 16 September or catch up with iPlayer.

(17 Sep 2013, 5:10 pm)Daniel wrote :p

(12 Sep 2013, 7:34 pm)aureolin wrote Washington is ran by Sunderland City Council, in a Newcastle postcode area, yet the 'city line' of your address is officially County Durham.

(17 Sep 2013, 8:40 pm)fozzovmurton wrote East Durham villages south of Peterlee(Wingate, Trimdon, Castle Eden, Station Town, Blackhall etc) have Teesside Postcodes, a Hartlepool Dial Code despite being Co. Durham

(18 Sep 2013, 8:12 am)cbma06 wrote Houghton-le-Spring has a County Durham post code but its part of Sunderland, and Seaham and Peterlee has a Sunderland Postcode but there in County Durham area.

When the areas got changed, there never bothered changing the postcodes as it will confuse the postman lol.

(26 Sep 2013, 9:36 pm)Daniel wrote Haven't got a clue if this is true or not, but I found it funny!