RAY Price from Chester-le-Street recommended Paraphernalia, one of those plurals which may never have had a singular, above an antique shop of the same name in Norton-on-Tees, next to the Red Lion. The smoked salmon and dill scrambled eggs were wonderful, he said, the cinnamon toast "adorable" and the waitresses should have MBEs.

Norton is inarguably Stockton's posh end, daffy duck pond at one end of the High Street, bijou little shops all the way down and environmental improvements at the other. All fur coats and nee nonsense, as someone almost said elsewhere.

Upstairs at Paraphernalia is sub-titled the Victorian Tea Room. It's a bit of a period piece, too.

There's a large fireplace, square mirrors, aspidistras, beams and an air of unhurried calm that's more welcome than any of them. Rena Thomas, whose parents were Lithuanian, has run it for 15 years and may have been hiding her light under an aspidistra pot (if not necessarily a bushel).

"We just plod on," she said, self- effacingly.

Almost nothing is over £4 - paninis, jacket potatoes, salads like tomato and feta cheese or chicken and chick pea. Good looking specials boards embrace both puddings and main courses. The waitresses, friendly and efficient, weren't busy. Doubtless they'd earned their medals earlier.

We began with a large bowl of first rate spicy carrot soup with a tasty bun, followed by herby chicken and salad in a tortilla wrap, some of that sweet cinnamon toast and a cup of good, muscular Pumphrey's coffee. With a large Coke, the bill for the lot was just £9.15.

Tortilla is something which usually sounds better than it tastes, and it was the same here, but that's hardly their fault. As for the utterly addictive cinnamon toast, it seems clear that the avuncular Mr Charles Clarke should at once make it a controlled drug, probably grade A*, lest the region become gripped by panic buying.

Get on down: Mr Price was right.

* Ray Price, who bought his first Morris Minor when he was 14, is also an official of the North-East Club for Pre-War Austins, open to owners and admirers of all classic cars. Details on www.necpwa.org.uk or from George Halliday, 67 Baliol Avenue, Westmoor, Newcastle upon Tyne NE127 PN.

AMOS Ale, quite coincidentally described as full bodied, was officially launched at Darlington Snooker Club's beer festival, neatly named Booze and Cues.

By Saturday evening it had become the first among 30 ales to sell out. That the next most popular was something from the Hexhamshire Brewery called Old Humbug was, of course, coincidental, too.

The club's on the corner of Northgate, run by the ever-genial Peter and Rita Everett - mother and son - and already North-East CAMRA's club of the year. They await word of the national panel.

Paul Dobson reports that the handsomely badged Amos Ale is also going down well at the Grand Hotel in Bishop Auckland, where it's brewed - not least because it was lined up next to Old Humdinger, from the Houston Brewery in Scotland, whose pump clip featured old man Steptoe.

As always, the column keeps queer company.

THE Surtees in Crook has had its first beer festival, too, gleaming hand pumps lined up out the back in what may once have been a stable, or possibly the condemned cell. A good place to keep beer, anyway.

The walls were bare brick - "Minimalist," said the Boss, proving what they say about a little knowledge - with just a single poster of local hero Nigel Wright, who fights on Bonfire Night a final eliminator for the British light middleweight boxing title. You can see the headlines now.

Among others present was the wholly unreconstructed Alastair Downie, CAMRA's North-East vice-chairman, who's been appointed official fire lighter at the Black Bull in Frosterley - the first pub in the region to banish lager.

The Bull has three fires. "I'm ready for a pint after all that," insisted Alastair.

Beers at the Surtees included Sozzled Swine, Tipsy Trotter and, of course, old Amos. Homeward, we detoured as far as Eldon Lane - Eldon Lane! - in fruitless search of an open fish shop.

It still wasn't 10pm. Do fish shops now operate a curfew, or what?

WE'RE sitting with a heaped plate of mince and herb cobbler, around £3 at Alma's Caf alongside the A68 at Tow Law, when the door's pushed open and someone else blows in.

"By it's cold out," he says, a weather report about as improbable as going to the Amazon rain forest and announcing that it's looking black over Bill's mother's.

Alma's is a pleasant, narrow, slightly quirky little place - "quirky" means there's a Newcastle United crest on the wall - opposite the graveyard in Dans Castle, the etymology of which has exercised other minds. Cobbler has become a dish of choice, and not just among those on their uppers. This one was very good.

Alma and Jeff Gale, of all the appropriate names, also run the tea hut at Tow Law FC. For £2, there's not a better hot beef sandwich anywhere.

HIS letter headed "Yooz of English", John Todd from Barton, near Scotch Corner, reflects on that improbable, impersonal, pronoun.

The waitress had insisted upon it - "Are yooz ready to come to your table" - when we dined at the Inn on the Green at Waldridge, near Chester-le-Street. John recalls a similar translation - "Do yooz know where yooz is sitting" - from a "delightful" hostess on a flight from Newcastle.

It may not, however, be the yooz of today to blame. John also remembers its being in regular use when he attended Easington Colliery primary school, between 1950-57. For some reason, he adds, it never appeared in that invaluable little volume, First Aid in English.

* Further to the Inn on the Green, Mr F J West suggests that a recent meal didn't "fully accord" with the column's view. "Each dish was delightfully presented and delicious to eat. We were served by courteous and friendly staff and it was by far the best value meal I have eaten in that locality."

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what you feed under-nourished pixies.

Elf-raising flour, of course.

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