WHILST recent columns have been assembling collective nouns - an anthology of pro's was suggested last week for a street corner showing of ladies of the night - what should be the proper noun for a discursion such as this one?

A rag-bag is close but may unintentionally appear deprecatory, a melange is foreign and could need an import licence. Cornucopia, last time we were there, was a pleasant pub in Malton. It is also the column for wet nellies and, as shortly we shall hear, for half price iced buns, too.

Bill Cross from Bishop Auckland, meanwhile, suggests that if it is to be an anthology of pro's it may also be a jam of tarts and a fanfare of strumpets. As a hapless homophone operator might say, this is simply the hors d'oeuvres.

THOUGH we have been most grateful for school song memories, and welcome further childhood snatches, time and space again preclude their rendition.

John Briggs in Darlington also sends the words of the St Trinian's song, which sounds remarkably similar to some others which have echoed this way.

Maidens of St Trinian's

Gird your armour on

Grab the nearest weapon,

Never mind which one...

Neither of the "saints" books hallowing these shelves makes reference to St Trinian, though memory suggests that there is also a St Trinian's Hall near Richmond, possibly in the Easby area.

Mr and Mrs Briggs, loyal lieutenants, have been sent to toil in the Internet mines in the hope of ringing belles. Mr Randall Orchard, squire of Easby and former centre forward of Shildon, may also be able to offer enlightenment.

STRADDLING the North/South divide, as painfully befits a Co Durham lad marooned south of the Tees, we had also been discussing the availability of stottie cakes, the ubiquity of pease pudding and the price of Greggs iced buns.

Greggs, it may be recalled, admitted in last week's column that since a single iced bun - iced fingers, they prefer to call them - cost 25p, a "special offer" of four for £1 wasn't so much special as utterly extraordinary.

Since then, Greggs' PR people have caressed this office sticky fingers. Ignoring the notion - as journalists tend to do - that there's no such thing as a free lunch, they have been shamelessly and appreciatively consumed.

Icing on the cake, Greggs will also offer four iced buns for 50p to Gadfly readers producing today's column at one of their Darlington shops. Others (writes our special correspondent) will find that four fickle fingers remain £1.

JUST as there was nowt so very special about Greggs iced fingers, so Russ Addison is troubled by Tesco's. At several branches, as far apart as Durham and Newton Abbott, a bottle of own-brand lemonade is 47p. A "special offer" twin-pack is 99p - and it's impossible to buy two separate bottles, says Russ, without triggering the "multi-save" on the till.

"I have pointed this out to staff, who when the penny (or 5p) finally drops, scratch their heads and say they hadn't noticed. This special offer has been running for at least four months."

We have popped the lemonade question to Tesco. Their spokesman has so far failed to provide an answer.

LATITUDINALLY, at any rate, Greggs may also have been mistaken in suggesting that Richmond marked the southern extremity of the stottie cake's survival.

They also sell them at the Catterick Garrison shop - just the stuff to give the troops, perhaps - though John McIntyre in Brompton laments the absence of a Greggs branch in Northallerton.

"We used to stock up on stottie cakes at Peterlee en route to the match at Roker Park," he says. "Now we rely on our visits to Darlington or the Boro."

What though of pease pudding, that other ambrosia of the North? Michael Newbould, director of the Middlesbrough-based bakery chain, reckons that they hew six tonnes of the stuff each week - "high fibre, no additives, definitely good for you" - but can't sell so much as a pea soup spoonful in the South.

Lardy cake, seemingly southern, has also been spotted at Tesco on Catterick Garrison. Perhaps the Hampshire Yeomanry are up there?

"There's no North/South divide with either pease pudding or lardy cake," insists the Tesco spokesman. "We sell pease pudding at 450 of our branches, and lardy cake at 250."

He'd never eaten either. "I'm told lardy cake is awful - except for the Tesco variety, of course."

IN the Black Country, says Rob Williams - now in Newcastle, but who got his youthful hands dirty in those adolescent parts - the equivalent of Greggs was Firkins. "Imagine my adolescent pleasure when I could remark with truth that I was going for a Firkin cake."

The lardy cake was wonderful, he recalls, bread pudding for times when the budget was a bit tighter. In Walsall, which may or may not be in the Black Country depending on who you speak to, bread pudding is known as Wet Nelly.

"If you ever get to eat a bit of proper bread pudding, you'll realise that it is an exactly apposite name."

A STIRRING of lardy cake also brought back memories for Kevin O'Beirne, Gloucestershire lad voluntarily exiled to Sunderland. "All I really remember is that we ate it quite a lot as kids and that it was better warm than cold, when it started congealing.

"Did it really contain lard? Good grief?"

For reasons which need not necessarily concern us, the Rev David Wilbourne - Vicar of Helmsley and former chaplain to the Archbishop of York - reports in this week's Church Times that there is a "Lard factory" at Retford. Fat of the land, if ever.

SINCE the column seems to be eating around Britain - perhaps that should be for Britain - Susan Jaleel reports that in her Cheshire homelands, a stottie cake is known as a muffin.

"When I came to Darlington 30 years ago I had to learn a whole new vocabulary before I could fill my shopping bag. A muffin here in no way resembles what I had in mind."

Having got the taste, Susan not only adds that in Manchester (and Coronation Street) they're known as barm cakes, but allows her thoughts to roam back to Manchester's horse shoe shaped black puddings - never better than when eaten warm in Bury indoor market - to Hatters Mild from Robinson's Brewery in Stockport and to Holland's individual suet puddings.

Long starved of such delights, she has at least discovered "wonderful treats" like tripe and cowheel at Harrison's in Darlington indoor market.

Though Mancunian black puddings are indeed magnificent, so far as the last two are concerned Mrs Jaleel is awfully, offally, welcome.

SAINSBURY'S needn't think they've passed unnoticed, either. Martin Snape in Durham spotted a notice in his local branch reading: "You suggested. We actioned."

"I think you may reaction to this with as much astonishment as I do," he writes, "but I expect we shall just have to toleration it."

...and finally, the put-down season may be ending as the grouse shooting begins, but Ken Strachan in Stockton offers a familiar final assault from Winston Churchill - the double barrel blast at a female MP, allegedly the blessed Bessie Braddock, who accused him of being drunk in charge of Great Britain.

"Madam," said Churchill, "I may be drunk but you are ugly, and in the morning I shall be sober whilst you will still be ugly...

Ken's one of those who only buys the Echo on Wednesdays. "I tell my wife it's for the jobs, but as I retired several years ago, I think she's sussed me out."

It's among the nicest things that anyone's ever said. Cross me heart and hope, school songs next week.

Published: 14/08/2002