DOUBTLESS in the belief that these columns are insubstantial, the admirable Mr John Morgans has been in touch about the Ancient Order of Froth Blowers.

For years he didn't even know they'd existed, assuming the AOFB cufflinks long bequeathed by an elderly aunt in Kent to symbolise the Army Ordnance Fire Brigade, or something rather more extinguished.

The Froth Blowers were nonetheless formed in 1924, existing - said the constitution - to promote the "noble art and gentle and healthy pastime of froth blowing among gentlemen of leisure and ex-soldiers".

Though its aims were charitable, principally to help "waifs" in the East End of London, the handbook went recklessly, fecklessly, further.

The Froth Blowers, it said, were "a social and law abiding fraternity of absorbitive Britons who sedately consume and quietly enjoy with commendable regularity and frequention the truly British malted beverage....and be damned to all pussyfoot hornswogglers from overseas and including low brows, teetotallers and MPs."

The Order's president was Sir Alfred Downing Fripp (1865-1930), august anatomist, social drinker and celebrated surgeon to King Edward VII and King George V. Its membership was said to be huge, its largesse greater yet.

Sir Alfred, reported the Henley Standard in 1927, had been chief guest at a function at the Order's convalescent homes at Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Oxfordshire, at which the company had sung Onward Christian Soldiers and the Froth Blowers' anthem before sitting down to lunch.

Though last Orders were called long since, e-bay watchers can still buy its cigarette cases, arm bracelets and even playing card jokers. In 1981, it is recorded, Col "Mad Mike" Hoare reprised the legend by trying to touch down in the Seychelles with a group of 43 mercenaries in the guise of the Froth Blowers rugby team.

John Morgans lives in Darlington, sells flag poles - standard size - and is a mainstay of the town's rugby club. "No wonder I was confused," he pleads, "the cufflinks look far more efficient and military than the image of Froth Blowers conjures up."

In matters meretricious, it was irresistible also to hope that Sir Alfred had given his name to "frippery". Sadly, the Bloomsbury Concise English Dictionary - to which more links shortly - insists that it is summat and nowt.

AT the seriously swanky Seaham Hall Hotel, where no expense account is spared, the afternoon tea menu includes something called a deconstructed scone.

A little mound of flour, milk, butter and currants, or what?

Though Google offers "deconstructed German chocolate cake" (from San Francisco Bay), "European style deconstructed sandwich plates" (from Massachusetts) and "deconstructed romaine and goats' cheese salad" (from The Independent), there's not so much as a crumb of deconstructed scone.

Each to his own taste, but what on earth are they chewing on about?

The new Bloomsbury, aforesaid, defines "deconstruct" as "a method of analysing texts based on the idea that language is inherently unstable and shifting and thus the reader rather than the author is central in determining meaning". The concept was introduced in the 1960s by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida.

What all this has to do with scones, or plates of sandwiches, is anyone's guess. What may be more immediately relevant is that at Seaham Hall, a deconstructed scone with tea or coffee is £9.50 a head.

A ROMAINE is apparently a lettuce, rather like a cos. Had that great early days stalwart of Tyne Tees Television Mr George Romaine - Shildon's Singing Son - realised he was being called after a lettuce, might he not have changed his name to Georgie Fame instead?

JUST off Durham Market Place they're building 35 "contemporary apartments" - we shall let the usage pass - called Freeman's Quay. "For more information," says a notice, "visit our marketing suit opposite the Gala Theatre."

On this one, the Bloomsbury is more concise. "Suit (6). A business executive, especially one seen as an anonymous bureaucrat."

Could it be possible that they mean marketing suite, instead?

THEY'VE kindly sent a copy of the Bloomsbury - getting on 1,700 pages, hard back - as relevant, up-to-date, lucid and clearly sign posted as it's cracked out to be.

What's hot, it says, are words and phrases like Atkins diet, bling, metrosexual and Yogalates (something to do with Pontius pilates.)

What's not are acidhead, boozed up, Hawaiian shirt (very 2002) and Gameboy.

Other new entries include bed-blocker, blogosphere, chav, chill-out area, and revolving door syndrome, when you can't get shot of the bairns.

That's just PR stuff, the greatest ephemera of all. For £19.99, it's a lifetime bargain, nonetheless - and "frippery" is from 16th century Old French.

MINDING our own business at the Malt Shovel in Wham, a pleasant pub west of Cockfield in Co Durham, we are joined by a chap who wants the column to jump aboard the No. 88 bus.

An improbable route, the 88 runs from Bishop Auckland to Barnard Castle via Witton-le-Wear, Hamsterley, High Lands, Butterknowle, Copley, Woodland, Kinninvie and sundry other rural redoubts. The journey is scheduled to take just 56 minutes.

"It was even worse when they used to have double deckers on there," he said. "Jenson Button himself could hardly drive a bus from Bishop to Barney on those roads in under an hour."

Faced yet again this weekend with an interminable journey on the 213 from Darlington to Peterlee, the column has little sympathy. Compared to the 213, the 88 is a transport of delight.

MIFFED if not exactly martyred, John Briggs points out that, despite his early warning, we overlooked - yesterday - the 411th anniversary of Darlington's last public execution.

The victim was George Swallowell - Saint George of Darlington, John suggests - a 16th century Protestant minister who chose the wrong time to become a Roman Catholic.

Swallowell, who'd been a schoolmaster in Houghton-le-Spring and priest in charge of the 12th century St Mary Magdalene's church in Trimdon Village, spent a year in Durham jail before being brought to Darlington for execution.

His death was slow and grizzly, his body dismembered and disembowelled, his severed head shown to the joyous crowd with the cry "Behold, the head of a traitor."

Though he was beatified in 1929, the belief that he is St George of Darlington appears mistaken. As with a number of other things in the Vatican, canonisation is listed as "pending."

...and finally, David Walsh in Redcar reports that archaeologists have found a second Noah's ark, this one built with several layers and, inexplicably, restricted only to gold fish.

It is, of course, a multi-storey carp ark.

Sic transit gloria, mundi - as the Romans and other froth blowing short termists used to say - the column returns next week. And you don't believe we're on the eve of deconstruction?

www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk /news/gadfly.htm