THE Rolling Stones, it's said, demand backstage Marmite sandwiches as part of their contract. So does a singer called Dido, not to be confused with Dido and Aeneas. This one's Dido Armstrong, though she's actually Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong on the birth certificate.

Paul Ridout, a British backpacker kidnapped in India in 1994, claimed only to dream of freedom and of Marmite on toast, Ronnie Biggs turned himself in for it, film maker Sir Ian McKellen was delighted to find it in New Zealand.

Boys for the black stuff, all of them.

Marmite, 100 per cent vegetarian and made in Burton from brewers' yeast, was 100 years old last year. A centennial in The Guardian described it as a "national treasure" and (rather oddly) as "the holy grail of foodstuffs"; rich in B vitamins, it is said to help ward off beriberi and anaemia.

For all that the makers lay it on thick, however, it is conceded that Britons love it or hate it, a possible reason for aversion that it looks disconcertingly like the stuff a pathologist has scraped from the lungs of a 50-a-day-man man in one of those anti-smoking adverts.

Marmite soldiers go bravely further, however: you either love it or you're an imbecile, they say. As last week's column promised, we organised a taste test in the Britannia.

FOR many it was a dummy run, or at least a re-run. They'd had it as bairns, stuck on the end of the soother, and if not Marmite then Virol which (said the old enamel adverts on Shildon station) nervous people needed.

Memory also suggests a Co Durham custom of dipping the dummy in cinder water, but older readers may know better.

John Dyson, former railways manager and once landlord of the Bay Horse in Ravensworth, hated it. "Too salty, always regarded as a cheaper version of Bovril," he said, though both are now made by Unilever.

John Briggs, a Marmite has been, was undecided though he'd been glad of it when the kids were little. "We'd put the dummy by the cot, the Marmite by the dummy, grope for them both and then grope for the bairn. It was all achieved without putting the light on."

Sue Carr, the Brit's landlady, is among the one in four said always to have Marmite in the kitchen cupboard. "I've loved it since I was about two years old," she said.

We might have agreed to differ, but for John Dyson. The man yeast likely to buy Marmite was last seen knife in hand. The word appears to be spreading.

THIS, of course, is the column which knows which side its bread's buttered on - which leads us to Darlington MP and Tow Law lad Alan Milburn.

Amid the great epidemic of column inches after his resignation as Health Secretary, did anyone else notice what he had for lunch on the day his departure was announced?

Saints preserve us, a slice of jam and bread.

There wasn't even a plate, says our man in Whitehall, such trappings presumably denied ex-ministers. Nor was it wholemeal bread.

Like Alan Milburn, Gadfly was raised in south-west Durham. Jam and bread was what you had on Wednesdays; bread on Thursdays. Friday was pay day. It may also be the order of the day when leaving a £71,000 a year job. Truly you can take the boy out of Tow Law, but you can't take Tow Law out of the boy.

SINCE the reasons for Alan Milburn's leaving were principally paternal, Tom Purvis in Sunderland recalls Mark Twain's thoughts on Bringing Up Father:

When I was a boy of 14

My father was so ignorant

That I could hardly stand to have

The old man around.

But when I got to 21

I was astonished at how much

The old man had learned in seven years.

Mr Milburn's boys have still a little way to go.

THOUGH she is a little vertically challenged, Chris Greenwell in Aycliffe Village is thinking of buying the "adjustable wench" - 12 inches, as new, 35 - advertised in last Thursday's classifieds. Caution, however, suggests that Mrs Greenwell will first need to be consulted. "I fancy there may be problems in that department."

WE all make mistakes, of course. Quoting Richmond MP William Hague, the Sunday Times says: "Even when you become prime minister you're circumcised, just look at John Major." It's possible that they might have meant circumscribed (unless, of course, Mr John Major knows differently.)

PERHAPS conscious of mortality, recent columns have been looking heavenwards and to the line about the angels singing Bach to God.

Tom Purvis attributes to the Swiss theologian Karl Barth. "Whether the angels play only Bach in praising God I am not quite sure. I am sure, however, that en famile they play Mozart."

The Rev Tony Buglass, guitar playing Methodist minister of Pickering, North Yorkshire, extends it. "When the heavenly choir sings to God, they sing Bach. When they sing for themselves they sing Mozart, and God eavesdrops."

Tony's drawing up his own celestial requests. "If I can't have Classic FM and Dire Straits, I'll sue Gabriel under the Trades Descriptions Act."

...and finally, Eating Owt readers will know that we consider the Victoria in Durham to be the North-East's finest pub.

Before a visit last Thursday, we checked the times of return trains - 8.45pm and 10.10pm - and with wondrous willpower headed for the early one.

It was 65 minutes late, subsequently retimed to 85 minutes late and eventually an hour and a half. Since Durham railway station lacks the ambience (shall we say) of the Vic we searched in silent rage for some slight distraction.

There was a confectionery machine, dolly mixtures £1 a bag. When we'd last had dolly mixtures they were about threepence a quarter, but it seemed edible escapism, nonetheless.

The machine accepted 50p in small change, declined to take a 50p coin and refused to return the original coins

Bereft on a bench, we wondered at the perverse and Pavlovian logic by which so many of us still enjoy trains, and railway stations - for as Monday's punctuality report confirmed, it is very much the mixtures as before.

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

Published: ??/??/2003