John North: The finest fare - and no porky pies

Consider, they suggest, the extraordinary success of Friends Reunited. "It works because everyone went to school. This could be just the same; everyone eats pies."

We meet over their lunch hour or so in the Garden House pub near headquarters. One carries Tupperware boxes full of pies, the other a box file full of information.

Like the good news brought from Aix to Ghent, the column has in turn imported a gamut of growlers from Darlington, the pork pie capital of the world.

There are classics from Taylor's, from Prest and Villiers and from the ever amiable Pittaway's, round the side of the Civic. Since the Garden House has a menu of its own, it seems rude to ask for a drop of mustard.

It began in January 2001, when they found themselves working on the much-acclaimed "Turning the Tide" project on the Durham coast, needed something effortless to eat and ended up in Three Cooks in Blackhall.

Could anything be better? Within the carefully chronicled confines of a county council lunch hour, they determined to discover.

Once or twice, they had a pie speed dash to Sunderland, on another occasion to Ferryhill - "two or three good ones there" - though Darlington always proved beyond them and so, less explicably, did Esh Winning.

They have gained a certain expertise - "you can always tell a bought-in pie" - and are particularly wary of what their trade calls a Friday pie. "Grey, weary and been sitting on the shelf all week."

Phil even bought a couple of Harrod's pies in London, offered a £10 note and got no change. "They were like game pies but without a base, not proper pies at all," he says.

"Like a stew with a lid," says Niall.

As a result, they devised a character called Mohammed Al-Pie-Head, but probably the least said about that, the better.

Niall maintained reasonable proportions; Phil ballooned to 21 stones. Their splendours notwithstanding, no one ever supposed that pies were slimming.

"It became pretty much an obsession," admits Niall. Phil disagrees, though it was he who'd be up until 2am crimping the website.

It is necessarily subjective, includes such extra-mural extravagances as sausage rolls and pasties - in the latter regard, we have directed them to the incomparable Courtyard in Bedale - and is by no means as pork pie predominant as one of its North-East rivals.

Pies R Squared, a website run by Tyne Tees Television producer Arthur Pickering from Hartlepool, properly supposes the growler to be a prince among pies and (slightly more debatably) Morrell's of Hartlepool to be first among equals.

The Good Pie guys reckon Storey's from Meadowfield, near Durham, to be the true upper crust and Robinson's of Wingate to be the best value. Now nationwide, their pie spies have even reported that greatest and now rarest of joys, a pie and a pint - HP but no credit - at the Dun Cow, opposite Durham jail.

Though relaunched into cyberspace on Monday, the Guide appears to be having lift-off problems and was offering little further information, however.

It's based, they insist, on careful research. "We're like the Michelin guide, we don't just reach a conclusion on one recommendation or one visit," says Niall.

The site has had visitors from Portugal, Australia and New York. Some even changed the words of pop songs - "you should have heard Angels by Robbie Williams" - so that the lyrics were all about pies.

"It was getting sillier and sillier and ruder and ruder," says Niall. "There was a feeling that it was getting abused somewhat. Probably that's why we took a break."

Appetites restored, the pie may now be the limit.

* www.the-good-pie-guide.co.uk\par PIES-R-Squared, as irreverent as it is geometrical, is unequivocally honest in its preference for a porky.

"Pork pies are best eaten hot from the oven but are just as welcome warm and can rival sex when eaten cold with a pint of foaming ale and a couple of pickled onions," Arthur Pickering concludes.

His website also embraces pasties but will have no pickings with fruit pies and is disdainful of Scotch pies which, Arthur considers, are "crap." Some other pastry cuts by way of flavouring:

"Steak" pies: "Ordinary steak pies are generally made of gravy with a few bits of gristle floating in them. Be careful when hot."

Chicken pies: "The contents of these pies often look as if they've been eaten already and should be approached with caution."

Rabbit pies: "When they are good they can be good, when they're bad they aren't worth chucking at a wall."

Game pies: "Usually very heavy going."

Ham and egg pies: "Rare in shops nowadays and usually made by your mam. Can be lush, especially when you've had a few pints."

The website is evangelical, says Arthur - "to enter a healthy future for pie consumption by introducing younger generations to the joy of pies."

* www.pickrunfreeserve.co.uk

ANOTHER claim to be the world's leading pork pie protagonist - Hartlepool's, anyway - comes from former Hartlepool Mail editor Harry Blackwood, once author of a "definitive" 13-part series on the meaty marvels.

The term "growler", Harry reckons, should be attributed to Arthur Pickering himself. "I'm certain he invented it and then told so many people, it ended up in common use," he says.

Harry also reckons Morrell's pies unbeatable, though a "Pies the Limit" competition in the Mail voted a shop in Greatham top. Harry's characteristically diplomatic - "judging inconsistencies," he says.

SCRABBLE rousing, as it were, the column has been challenged to meet the Mayor of Darlington at the familiar parlour game.

The face-to-face, at the town hall on the evening of September 16, is to mark Darlington Scrabble Club's tenth birthday.

The war of words has started already.

"I've home advantage, you've no chance," insists Coun Ron Lewis, the town's first citizen.

"Nnnnngggg," replies the column, legitimately.

More of the board meeting in September.

... and finally, the publisher has sent two books of poems and short stories by "local author" Alex Heaton. No chance of interviews or further details, however. "The author is a very private individual and wishes to retain his privacy," they add. The name of the book company? Upfront Publishing, of course.

The shoeless wonder of Shildon

SOLE concessionary, our old friend John Robinson approaches without trepidation his barefoot ascent of England's highest mountain.

"I think it might be a first," says the 56-year-old martial arts master, a view unsurprisingly supported by Peter Bell - former landlord of John's local in Shildon - who dreamed up the head-in-the clouds idea in the first place.

"No one in their right minds would have walked barefoot up Scafell Pike before," says Peter, an experienced Lakeland walker who'll be in the big-booted support party.

Last year, it may be recalled, John completed a 20-mile barefoot walk from Chester-le-Street to Heighington. This one really is the steep and rugged pathway, however.

Peter Bell estimates the distance at four kilometres, with a "normal" climbing time of two-and-a-half hours. "There's nothing scary, you can't fall off or anything and it's a lovely environment, it's just that the pebbles and scree might be a bit of a problem underfoot," he says.

The walk was scheduled for August 16, but has had to be postponed because the video company making a film of John's exploits is unavailable.

Should he make it, we've suggested the Swiss Alps as his next toe-curling challenge. Mind over Matterhorn would be perfect.

PS; Down-to-earth Shildon lad that he really is, John has a new wagon with "J Robinson Transport" on the side. "I can't spell logistics anyway," he says.