LAST Thursday we lunched at TGI Friday's, an even longer weekend than usual. The chain's first link was forged in New York in 1965 by an unmarried perfume salesman anxious to attract singles - the career crowd, he said. When someone last counted there were 575 in 49 countries. Friday's child had done awfully well for itself.

The newest, sub-titled the American Restaurant and Bar, is on Teesside Retail Park in Thornaby - KFC to the left of them, Big Mac's to the right - intent on offering not just a meal but an entertainment, a truly great Uncle Sam.

It should forthwith be made clear, therefore, that both we and Mr Eric Smallwood - man Friday's on this occasion - are rather traditional and that these observations should be read against that background. "Traditional" is an English euphemism, meaning old.

Eyebrows were raised at some of the prices, soft drinks were long on ice and short on liquid but the food, rich in flavour, could hardly be faulted.

We were greeted jauntily by a lad wearing a star spangled stove pipe who was making a giraffe out of a balloon and proved also to be the juggler, though not at the same time.

A young lady showed us towards the bar, another - who wore a beret in the manner of Frank Spencer - offered a vast drinks menu that also included a glossary of "bartenders' terms". Bartenders' terms in TGI Friday's are rather different from those employed by Fat James in the Britannia.

Most staff also wore red and white striped shirts, braces in the manner of the Wurzels and carried knapsacks, happy wanderers, on their backs.

To the braces were affixed badges, known as dub-dubs, awarded for proficiency in the way that boy scouts get armfuls for knotting ties and tying knots. TGI Friday's brownie buttons for things like "Mile High Sandwich Club Sky Diving", "consistently living our values" and even for dish washing.

The dish washing dub-dub is in the form of a bar of soap.

Master bartenders get an award, too, though that's for learning within two years to mix all 500 cocktails from memory. The Frank Spencer lookalike had to use a crib sheet for the first, a non-alcoholic mix of apple juice and sweet and sour. It didn't say sweet and sour what.

Then there was rampaging the decor, described as "elegant American clutter". Five totems appear in all 575 restaurants - a plaque of Abraham Lincoln ("integrity"), a circus elephant ("balance"), a pair of spectacles ("recognition"), a giant Mars bar ("enjoyment") and a silver trophy, for achievement.

A bike hangs from the ceiling, too. Something about pushing it, perhaps.

The music was relentless, the mood intended to be infectious. So is chicken pox. The chap in the Uncle Sam topper swayed his head to the beat in the odd manner of one of those nodding dogs that people stick in the back of their cars. Eric reckoned his old mum would have hated it, but his dad wouldn't have minded at all. His dad's deaf.

Finally we ordered, the waitress on hunkers by the table like doctors do when they're about to break bad news. Doctors, of course, don't usually wear white fringed cowboy hats whilst doing it. The menu's long and imaginative, built around American staples like steaks, burgers, fajitas, Cajun chicken, Alaskan crab legs, crayfish gumbo and (of course) Friday's fries.

She took the list confidently. "I'll see yuz in a bit," she said, momentarily forgetting the Friday's feeling. It was oddly reassuring.

The Milwaukee potato soup - hot, deep, £3.50 - was made with caramelised onions and spices and served with delicious croutons; Eric thought his Aztec chicken soup equally enjoyable.

An eight ounce "classic" burger was £9.25, topped with mushrooms, onions and melted mozzarella, served with bits of salad and very good fries. Eric's blackened Cajun chicken (£10.95) came with vegetables, black beans and jambalaya rice.

With two puddings (toffee coffee crunch, "cookie madness" without the advertised hot sauce) and two Cokes, the bill reached £37.

It might all have been over the top, but then some of us are over the hill - other generations may less equivocally thank God it's Friday's.

FRIDAY'S finished, another discovery. In a nearby pub called the Talpore - a so-so sort of place named after a paddle steamer that touted the Tees - we paid £2.04 for a pint of Castle Eden bitter. It was the first time in the North-East that we've paid over £2 for a pint of beer - and in that place, at least, it will most certainly be the last.

OLD Smallwood is also helping organise Cleveland CAMRA's beer festival - Middlesbrough town hall crypt, October 26-28, 60 different brews mainly from small independents.

It's the first since 1997, then suddenly they find themselves with another in the line - at Stockton's Arc Centre from February 23-25 next year.

"It's like the proverbial number 11 bus," says CAMRA's Jo Powell. "You wait ages for one, then two come along at once."

THE Kings Arms at Askrigg, in Wensleydale, had in the reign of Syd and Alethea Metcalfe one of the country's great bars. It's pretty good yet.

The handsome log fire still blazes, the ceiling familiarly hung with antlers and blacksmithery and what in equine stables is known as tack. (This is not for a moment to suggest that it's tacky; there's been enough trouble round here of late).

There were plans, locally opposed, to turn the place into holiday flats. Though there's a smell of new cement, bar, back bar and two comfortable dining rooms remain.

We looked in on the way back from Blackpool, the scenic and best route through Ingleton and Hawes. Half Wensleydale seemed to follow apace - men with knees and walking shorts, women in Saturday best frocks, all cheerfully accommodated.

A large blackboard feeds all comers: haddock, chips and mushy peas £6.95, steak and kidney pie £6.50, lamb and leek casserole with rosemary dumplings a few bob more.

The rack of lamb (£9.95) wouldn't have won the rosette for plumpest in show, the avocado and smoked bacon salad seemed a bit limp, but the Wensleydale cheese fritters and the salmon with a lime and coriander hollandaise (£7.95) were very enjoyable and the Black Sheep had clearly repented its ways.

The village remains delightful, especially when the Herri-lot have gone. Next day they'd organised a millennium garden party, which seemed to be tempting the fete fates. So, sadly, it was to prove.

WEDNESDAY was bloody, pursued by the petrol crisis and running on emotional empty. Comfort food was urgently required: after all these years, is there still anything more instantly cheering than one of Mr Taylor's pies?

....and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what happened to the nut which was beaten up.

It was an assaulted peanut.