After a ten-year absence, the Big One returns, larger than life, to the column.

SAVE for the jokes at the foot of the column, it must be getting on ten years since the bairns made an appearance hereabouts. They're now almost as old as the jokes are.

Last time he got his feet beneath the table, the Big One didn't need to shave. Now he just doesn't.

Ten years ago he got holes in his jeans and returned home in trepidation to explain his youthful misadventure; now they're designer holes with designer patches and - the original raggy arsed rover - he only comes home with his washing.

Ten years ago he was a good lad; he still is.

His mum being blown over by pneumonia, he himself between engagements - as they may still say in theatrical circles - we took lunch together at The Bridge in Stapleton, a mile or two south of Darlington, and were alarmed to find a chalked notice by the entrance warning that lack of parental guidance would not be tolerated.

What had they heard, for heaven's sake? In any case, he's a bit big to put over me knee any longer.

"Have you heard about the man who got the sack from the dodgems?" he demanded.

"He sued for funfair dismissal."

The Bridge is extraordinary, a pub almost as big as the village in which it stands and which claims worldwide gastronomic grasp. The menu lists over 300 global options, plus Barnsley chops, and also claims that "all dishes are prepared and cooked to order".

Prepared to swallow that? It doubtless depends upon definition.

The bairn, whose recent degree is in hotel and tourism management, studied the menu carefully, compared it to War and Peace, supposed that if it were serialised for A Book at Bedtime there might be some pretty late nights at the BBC.

"Where would you find a dog with no legs?" he added.

"Exactly where you left it."

There are also take-home versions of the menu, said to be from 2004, and another card proclaiming "This week's lunches." This week's? Never in a month of Sundays.

In truth, all that may change much this past decade is the prices. The carte is by no means cheap.

Just over the Tees in North Yorkshire, the pub has a small bar area with the rustic rest given over principally to diners. There are potted palm trees and great grottos of fairy lights, delft racks rich with pubby paraphernalia, more blackboards than Timothy Hackworth Junior Mixed.

Even the gents' has more framed prints than it's possible to shake a stick at, or whatever it is that's shaken on such occasions.

Real ale included Black Sheep and Pedigree, the music was Neil Diamond - prompting debate on the gentleman's forthcoming appearance at the Whatsit Arena in Newcastle where for the first time, Mr Diamond is allowing big screens for the benefit of those banished at the back.

Management denies suggestions that earlier reluctance is because the singer wears a wig, though toupee or not toupee may still be the question.

While we recalled that a couplet from I Am I Said had once been voted the naffest lyric in musical history - "I am I said, to no-one there, And no one heard at all, not even the chair" - the bairn wondered if we knew what would make tomorrow's headlines.

Corduroy pillow cases.

Served from Wednesdays, the lunchtime menu is shorter and cheaper, though still with plenty of choice. Most of the other diners seemed to be salesmen, endlessly mobile. A representative gathering, as it were.

Abundant minestrone soup (£3.30) came with rather moreish herby croutons and bread and butter; his "Italian meat balls" bore the mark of the microwave but seemed mama mia enough.

He followed with a "German" panini - there are paninis from all over, this one had bratwurst with chips and side salad - and thought the chips particularly good. So they were, but he'd still to be given a post-graduate tutorial about what par-frying means. Don't they teach them anything in these places?

The very substantial game pie was £6.80, served almost inevitably with one of those preposterous puff pastry lids which look as if they bear the imprint of a size seven Doc Marten. The meat was fine, the stock aromatically old English, the vegetables pretty poor, as if left out in last week's snow.

Few would have had appetite or inclination for pudding, since they cost £4.70 apiece, but the service was amiable, the atmosphere congenial and the company fine and filial. A father and child reunion, no joking.

HIS email perhaps understandably headed "Revolution in Crook", that redoubtable real ale campaigner Alastair Downie reports that two of the town's pubs - the re-opened Royal Sun and the Surtees - now have cask beers. "Black Sheep arrived on Friday, four casks gone by Tuesday," says Alastair. An amble away, the Moss at Sunniside, the Green at Billy Row, the Colliery at High Jobs Hill and the Plantation at Howden-le-Wear are all refreshed by the real thing. "Ah," says Alastair, "whatever happened to the desert?"

AN object lesson to all caterers that the most important ingredient is quality, the incomparable Andrea Savino is marking 30 years at his glorious little bistro - caf, he calls it - near Shildon town centre.

Last May he hoped to retire. Instead he's thinking laterally, has bought the property next door and hopes to recruit his son to play the major expansionist role.

We looked in last Tuesday lunchtime, the usual seamless mix of customers from local pensioners - "I remember you when you used to first foot your Aunty Betty's," someone said, and that's a lot of New Years ago - to Eamonn Seagrave who runs a business in Darlington but comes out to Shildon once a week because there's simply nothing like Savino's in town (or anywhere else this side of the Pyrenees, for that matter.)

"Andrea should be part of Social Services around here," he said.

Lunch comprised half a stone of garlic bread, a bowl of black olives with delightfully dressed salad, a bowl of freshly made vegetable soup and some lasagne, mussels declined for afters. The bill was £8.90.

They serve lunch from 11.30-5.30; when in Shildon, do as the Italians do.

ERIC Gendle in Middlesbrough gently takes exception to the claim in the Fortnum and Mason piece a couple of weeks back that real men don't eat marmalade. "Real men may not eat Golden Shred," he says, "but there's nothing like good old fashioned, thick cut chunky marmalade. The best start to the day I know."

...so finally, since the bairns have hogged most of today's column, Willis Collinson in Durham wonders if we know what a fish says when it bumps into a concrete wall.

Dam.