Newgate Street in Newcastle Reopens and The New Football Season Starts

After what seems like years , Newgate Street reopens to busses . This is going to to completely mess with my head as the 36 reverts to it's normal back and forth route rather than the current circular one!

As well as that the new football season kicks off with Sheffield United at Middlesborough , Preston entertain Bristol City and Newcastle visit West Brom for the inaugural BBC televised match. Hopefully there will be many monents like Jeff Stelling's (hartlepool supporter) manic finale to the 2008-9 seaons when the Championship final play off place was grabbed by Preston thanks to goals from "The Beast" Jon Parkin and Sean Saint Ledger:

Another One Bites The Dust...

A pleasant day in York yesterday was marred by the fact the Track Records another independent record shop had bitten the dust (see here for the ongoing saga) . This means there is an "award winnng" DJ shop which seemed to specialise in non descript T Shirts , HMV, and charity shops as the only palces to buy music left in York. This is happening everywhere , and while the internet is a convenient place to shop , and downloading is convenient, if we dont watch out we'll only be able to buy what Tesco deem suitable for us. The non changing Top 30 , X-Factor future seems to be getting closer by the day.

I really don't know what the answer is, I try and do my bit by buying from Reflex , RPM , JG Windows and Roots 2 Music in Newcastle (Spin is still going online only) , but I'm just one person and to quote Joni Mitchell:

"You Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone"

Maybe Maximo Park at RPM have the right idea - "Apply Some Pressure":




Suggestions on a postcard please

The Latest Charver Fashion Accessory

It seems these days that the Charver fashion accessory of choice is a twelve or twenty four pack usually of Fosters or Carling , possibly even Strongbow for the more upmarket minded.

On Newcastle Staion this morning and theres a group of them garnishing their Strongbow with acessories from the local twenty four hour Greggs in the form of pasties and sausage rolls!!

A Bee, See!

There seems to be a lot of worry over the apparent decline in the global Bee population. It doesnt seem two minutes since swarms of killer bees were coming outr way according to the resident scaremongers in the government and the Daily Mail. Apparently you can attract bees by planting Rosemary and Lavender in your garden . We;ve done this and the garden attracts a healthy number of these impossible flying machines. Below is a short montage soundtracked by Jonathan Richman's excellent "Buzz Buzz Buzz" available here:

What If A Deaf Cat Had No Sense of Smell?

Over the past few months we've managed to successfully keep cats out of the garden with a combination of Lion Poo and a Sonic Gun (see entry here) . However today a ginger cat jumped into the rockery and was completely undetered by the sonic gun. Which begs the question what if the cat is deahf and has no sense of smell......


This one was in the parking square in Tideswell , so is OK.

Mouth of Tyne 2009

This year's Mouth of Tyne Festival (Tynemouth & South Shields) looks great with The Script , Dodgy , Baghdaddies, Teddy Thompson and Soznak appearing , as well as the rest of the stuff. 

The Festival is an annual event and far better than the corporate Evolution Festival further inland on the Newcastle Quayside with its no drink except what we sell you , and compulsory wristband policy. The Script headline on Saturday night in The Priory for a (sold out) paid gig , which probably helps with the cost of staging the festival. 

Sunday is free with some great music , street entertainment and drink and food at reasonable prices. Festival Site is here.

Mugged By Apple

It's not out of choice but I have iTunes on my PC . A couple of weeks back I bought Rebel Get By by General Fiasco , and paid my 79p which is fine. However I looked at my list of purchased items and theres two tunes in there that I didnt know I'd bought. Because I'd left myself logged in on iTunes it had done the purchase when I copied the url of the song I wanted to listen.

So if you must have an iPod , and therefore iTunes, beware if you buy stuff off iTunes , log out when you're finished with it!