Alnwick, a market town of 8,000 residents (in 2001 rising to 8,116 by 2011) including the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland and Harry Potter during term-time. Situated in beautiful country…
… some 35 miles North of Newcastle, it was, traditionally, the “county town” of Northumberland.
Alnwick market square.
The town is dominated by Hogwarts School (AKA Alnwick Castle) with its army of pretend soldiers on the battlements.
Near the castle beside the main road there is window display of note. Known as the “Dirty Bottles”. The pub has been advertising for a window cleaner for nearly three hundred years!…
The other major landmark in town is the Barter Bookshop. Located in what was the old railway station, this bookshop is absolutely enormous. It certainly houses the biggest collection of second-hand books I’ve ever seen. There must be millions of books ranging in price from £1 to £2,000. One of their most famous “discoveries” and subsequent marketing successes was the finding of an original WW2 poster – “KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON”. I reckon there isn’t a single person in the world who hasn’t seen that slogan or a derivative thereof. Yet another useless factoid!
A view of one end of the store.
Since then it’s been snowing here! – but that’s for another day.
Now for today’s true story – well, truish anyway…
When everybody on earth was dead and waiting to enter Heaven, God appeared and said, “I want the men to make two lines: One line for the men who were true heads of their households, and the other line for the men who were dominated by their women.” “I want all the women to report to St. Peter.”
Soon, the women were gone, and there were two lines of men. The line of the men who were dominated by their wives was hundreds of miles long and in the line of men who truly were head of their household, there was only ONE man.
God said to the long line, “You men should be ashamed of yourselves; I created you to be the heads of your households!” You have been disobedient and have not fulfilled your purpose! Of all of you, only one obeyed. Learn from him.
God turned to the one man, “How did you manage to be the only one in this line? The man replied, “This is where my wife told me to stand.”