THE period of breast beating and atonement upon which the railway companies must surely soon embark appears to have begun rather early. A red carpet had abased itself almost exactly where we stopped from the train at Newcastle Central station; a flower bedecked dais awaited a few feet further away; a pin striped panjandrum hovered, hoovered nearby.

It says much for the way this column's thumb remains on the North-East's pulse, that we'd no idea whatever that at much the same time as we entered the station from one direction, the Queen and Prince Philip were leaving from another, nor that the mean looking hombres leaning against the bar of the Centurion were, in fact, the SAS. They drank black stuff; SASparilla, probably.

The Queen, whose train was three minutes early - such is majesty's continuing clout - was there to acknowledge the £26m restoration that marks the Grade 1 listed station's 150th anniversary

It had been deemed unwise to tell her that one of the sniffer dogs had peed upon the flowers.

Victoria and Albert had opened the John Dobson original (cost £92,097) in 1850, snuck round the back because the front wasn't finished. Prince Albert, it was reported, "skipped about with a sort of sailor frankness", the queen acknowledged the cheering in "the most graceful and condescending manner."

Either the meaning has changed a little, or they should have sacked the sub-editor.

The Victorian royal party dined on grouse ("the finest birds that could be selected") and drank Madeira wine in the refreshment rooms that Dobson reckoned the finest in the railway kingdom.

The same room, long neglected but now richly restored, has become the centrepiece of the Centurion bar and brasserie - named because of Newcastle's Roman connections and nothing to do with anniversaries.

There is a word for a 150th, but it's very long, very easily forgettable and probably wouldn't fit on the sign, anyway.

For almost a century the marble tiling, said to be worth £4m, had been out of sight and mind. A 14ft mural had covered only the floor; for a time it was the police station. Restoration involved a team of Geordie Michaelangelos, two months on their backs cleaning the ceiling tiles with a tooth brush.

It's owned by a company headed by John Sanderson, Hartlepool lad originally, who in the 1980s spent £6m on the Redworth Hall Hotel near Shildon and who now owns the Manor House Hotel in West Auckland and the Victoria in Bamburgh.

Mr Sanderson, pleasant chap, sold his shares in the Redworth after one of the main Canary Wharf contractors crashed owing him £15m.

Unlike the Queen, who'd probably had breakfast, the column had entrained for the sole purpose of a bite at the Centurion - a bit read of the paper, maybe, no fuss, no nowt.

Instead the SAS picked up their guard, having mislaid it, the top brass was burnished, the PR man summoned.

It was the same PR man, a former Mirror Groupie, with whom we once had a substantial bet that Robert Maxwell was dead. He insists the old rogue will surface, and not just belly up.

The building's impressive: in-house delicatessen, cyber-caf, conservatory, upstairs brasserie, even something called a break-out room. Complimentary copies of the Financial Times were available, and the New York Herald Tribune and sundry other titles but not The Northern Echo.

"It's because it's such a good paper that someone's probably stolen it," said the PR man.

The brasserie's evenings only, three courses pushing £20. The caf offers everything from "power breakfast" - fresh fruit and a muesli bar, for heaven's sake - to baguettes at £3 and champagne at £37 a bottle. There's no real ale, about which we protested, just something the menu calls "draft", which we dodged.

Accompanied by the PR man, we ordered a bowl of carrot and coriander soup of the stand-up sort that has now become fashionable and a genuinely delicious mozzarella and parma ham omelette, served on a bath-shaped plate and - come to think - not a great deal smaller.

The gaffers still in close attendance, this Very Unimportant Person didn't even have to pay. Then again, neither does the Queen.

AN inspired move, Wolsingham Supper Club declined to reveal the identity of their Christmas guest speaker - "a surprise," insisted Leo Gooch, the chairman - lest all with one consent follow the example of the parable of the rich man's feast, and begin to make excuse.

The restaurant at the Mill Race was stowed out, therefore, definitely no room at the inn. Nice meal, turbo-charged party poppers, lovely pint of Pedigree.

They're a good bunch, not least the retired vicars of Wolsingham and Stanhope, both wise enough to know that while God's in his heaven, heaven on earth comes little closer than Weardale.

The Rev Leslie Welsh, late of Wolsingham and of the Raintons, took a pragmatic view of the surprise entertainment. "It could have been worse," he said, "I was afraid it was going to be a quiz."

ALSO in Wolsingham, last week's column on Caf Poco suggested that the Italian for terrific might be bellissimo. John Briggs in Darlington looked it up in the Internet Italian Dictionary (or some such) and reckons it's "straordiare" instead. If "poco's" Italian for "tiny", incidentally, what of the word "pokey"....?

Another Italian job, Colin Mills in Darlington sends the menu from Joe Rigatoni's, both the prawn cocktail and the Caesar salad (crispy croutons and fresh anchovies") clearly marked vegetarian. One man's meat....?

And because Eating Owt readers know almost everything, the appropriately named Allan Smart from Sedgefield picks up on last week's reference to Maria Martin - an allusion, he says, to two popular melodramas around the beginning of the 20th Century. One was called Murder in the Red Barn, the other East Lynne. It's the second, says Allan, which ends with the immortal words - "Gone, gone, and never called me mother."

THOUGH it's a bit late to cheer them this year, the season's best Christmas dinner has been at the Cumby Arms in Heighington, between Darlington and Bishop Auckland and named after one of the heroes of the Battle of Trafalgar. Four imaginative, multiple choice courses plus mince pies, coffee, chocolates and the complements of the season were £12.95, replete in both quantity and quality. Book early for 2001.

....and finally, with the thought that what's yellow and goes putt, putt, putt is an outboard banana - and from the editor's secretary that they've made a special Christmas pizza: deep pan, crisp and even - the bairns join us in wishing readers a joyous festive season. The really good news is that six months of anti-coagulant medication ended last week: happy Christmas, Warfarin is over, as John Lennon very nearly observed. We return on Boxing Day with news of the year's best breakfasts.

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