Starting Work with JISC infoNet

Thursday 30 January 2003. It was to be my last working day with Myerscough College, though not quite the end of my association with them. I was joining a centrally-funded service of JISC, the name of which had originated as the Joint Information Systems Committee, one of two committees run by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). As a committee JISC could not employ staff directly and so all staff carrying out work for JISC were employed by organisations within the Higher Education Sector. I would be employed by the University of Northumbria which was located in Newcastle.

Until I got involved with the proposed service as a representative of Further Education, I had never been to Newcastle in my life. This night after close of play at Myerscough just north of Preston in Lancashire, I set off to drive there only to find myself driving through snow that at times amounted to white-out blizzards. This shot was taken on the final motorway services just before my turn-off for Newcastle. It was dark, it was cold, it was deserted and I wondered for a while how I would ever find my hotel for the night in these days before SatNavs. They had come out in the 1990s but the US military used to interfere with the signals until 2000 when Bill Clinton told them to stop. They then became more reliable and TomTom first released their system in 2004.

I was staying overnight in a Premier Inn on the banks of the River Tyne right next to the Tyne Bridge. Not having a clue where I was going, I asked someone, but then a drunk came out of the pub and interrupted him to offer me a different set of instructions altogether... "Naw, ye gang oop there..." By the time I had fobbed him off, the original guy had left me with a look of disgust on his face... I found it eventually.

I met up with my new colleagues for a meal in an Italian restaurant somewhere near the quayside. This was by way of softening me up gradually as following this, most team meetings seemed inevitably to include a visit to a curry house. Until then I think I might have tasted curry only once or twice. My Mum's idea of adventurous cooking was shaking a box of mixed herbs over stuff, usually to its detriment, and even the advent of Vesta wasn't going to convince her to try out exotic food when we were kids.

When first married we lived in my parents' Blackpool hotel, where Miss Franny helped with the cleaning and food preparation and you could tell what day it was by which roast we were having... I'd got used to some more rich foods at various governor's meetings and works' meals but they tended to be either game ([CRUNCH] followed by tinkle of lead shot being spat out on plates around you) or meals out with colleagues veering more towards Italian or Chinese than Indian or Thai.

Anyway, we all bonded nicely as we were supposed to and in the early months I got used to the less fiery versions of curry and even managed to avoid the treacle that my colleagues insisted was coffee - "Do you want a baby coffee?" I was regularly asked when visiting the office... My boss did suggest at one point sending me on a course on "How to Drink Copious Amounts of Alcohol" as I was never what you might call even a moderate drinker. This refers to drinks outside working hours I hasten to add...

Most of these photographs were taken around 11:00pm after the meal. Newcastle turned out to be remarkably free of Michael Caine types, throwing people and cars off cliffs into the river or running about with shotguns and I never felt anything other than welcomed during my many visits.

True, it had a somewhat bewildering road system where no matter which way you went you would eventually find yourself crossing the Tyne Bridge into Gateshead and then having to work out how to get back. Also true that it had a tendency to emulate the Grand Canyon every time you walk to and from the station or centre to a hotel on the quayside. Also true that some streets were more staircases stretching 150 feet than roadways. But it had character. And characters plural.

My work for the next 11 years would take me regularly on trips to the far reaches of the UK, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. One fortnight involved all four countries over a 7-day period. One trip involved a conference in Alicante. One trip had me staying in the most bombed hotel in the world. I taught workshops in some of the most prestigious universities in the UK including Cambridge, LSE, UCL, all three universities in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Durham, Sunderland, Bristol, Brighton, Aberystwyth, Cardiff, Swansea, Norwich, Lincoln, Keele, Nottingham, Plymouth, and many more whilst I also did similar work in Further Education colleges in every county of England and in colleges or hotels for F.E. delegates in all the other countries of the UK.

Because of all the travelling I didn't want to move the family to Newcastle only to leave them on their own whilst I was elsewhere so we had come to an arrangement with Myerscough College that I could rent an office at the college with Internet access and I did that for a few years before starting to work from home. I got back from the meeting in Newcastle only to find that Myerscough was not going to be outdone and had arranged for some snow to be sent over...

Work Index

A Snowy Trip to Newcastle

Wednesday 23 February 2005. It was a snowy but bright day heading over to Newcastle for a meeting of the Jisc Advisory Services. Besides Jisc infoNet that I worked for, there were Jisc Legal, Jisc TechDis, Jisc Netskills and a few staff from Jisc's central offices too.

As far as I remember, this was a meeting over two days, starting after lunch on the 23rd and ending after lunch on the 24th. It was 140 miles each way journey for me. Some had travelled from London and Bristol. On the way to Newcastle the A66 was looking a bit wintry and I was glad to get over the Pennines safely and onto the A1M. I stopped to take a quick photo of the Angel of the North in snow.

Thursday 24 February 2005. Overnight the snow caught up to Newcastle. This was the view from my bedroom that morning, looking towards Newcastle railway station with a GNER train pulling out on its journey south to York and beyond. The train is on a raised viaduct that now divides the castle keep from its barbican, the Black Gate.

There has been a fortress here since Roman times, guarding the crossing of the River Tyne at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. The son of William the Conqueror, Robert Curthose built a motte and bailey castle here in 1080, being a mound of earth with a wooden pallisade and the current Keep, seen today was built by King Henry II from 1172 to 1177 with the Black Gate being added during Henry III's reign between 1247-1250.

Heading homeward again later that afternoon, the snow was falling heavily on the A66.

The road was still open but there wasn't much traffic attempting it and I knew I had a few exposed roads to come even once I left the A66.

On the West Yorkshire moors the wind was blowing hard, turning the snow into a whirling blizzard and starting to cover the road. At times I had no idea where the edges of the road were but luckily there was always a bit of clear tarmac so that I could see enough to avoid any risk of driving off on one side or the other.

By the time I was approaching Kirby Stephen, the hills were white but the road was reassuringly visible again!

Work Index

Work Trips to London, Newcastle, Chester and London

Sometimes the work trips came thick and fast and this time we'll take a look at just a few of them over the period of May-June 2005.

We will start off in London on Friday 6 May 2005. London was a regular stopping off point as it was easy to get there for national meetings, there were lots of universities and colleges in and around it who could travel in for training sessions and there were several important partners that Jisc worked with, such as the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Association of Colleges and their subsidiary arm, the National Information and Learning Technolgies Association (NILTA). All three of these organisations were based in Centrepoint, just off New Oxford Street.

At 30 storeys, it was one of London's tallest buildings at this time and the view never failed to entrance me. On a clear day you could follow the line of the River Thames down to the Tower of London and make out St Pauls Cathedral, HMS Belfast, The Gherkin Building (30 St Mary Axe as the owners tried to name it, though once the nickname had taken hold of the national imagination it was going to struggle to be anything else) and further down the river to the Canary Wharf building.

Tuesday 10 May 2005. The Sage Building on the Gateshead side of the River Tyne as seen from the Newcastle side. Jisc infoNet was hosted by the University of Northumbria who were my official employers and I would regularly hoist myself over for meetings and sometimes for training (both giving and receiving) or project work.

Sometimes it would be onto a train with a choice of Blackpool to York then York to Newcastle or Blackpool to Preston; Preston to Carlisle and finally across country from Carlisle to Newcastle. Sometimes it would be by car up towards Kendal, then through Sedbergh and Kirby Stephen over the moors and hills of Cumbria and North Yorkshire up to the A66 at Brough to the A1M at Scotch Corner. From there it was north on the A1M to Gateshead, passing right next to the Angel of the North and finally crossing the Tyne Bridge into Newcastle.

Thursday 26 May 2005. Back in London again. Due to the time it took to get there any training sessions in London meant I had to travel the day before and whenever possible I tried to fit in a meeting with either someone from the London or South East RSCs. This evening I remember going for a drink with someone from the London RSC who took me to see the Peter Pan statue at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The following day was spent running a training course for Further Education colleges at International House on Piccadilly, opposite Green Park. This park was enclosed by the Poulteny family on the site of what had been described as a medieval swampy burial ground for lepers. It passed to King Charles II in 1668 and was officially named Green Park in 1746 as it was mainly meadow land with trees but very few flowers.

Charles II's queen, Queen Catherine of Braganza must surely have been one of England's most unhappy queens. She, as a Portuguese princess, was a Catholic which made her highly unpopular both at Court and generally with the population. Also she struggled with the English language and whilst Charles on occasion defended her, he was not shy about making known his many affairs. Indeed he made her accept his official mistress, Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland as one of Catherine's Ladies of the Bedchamber. When Charles first presented his known mistress to the Queen, Catherine fell into a faint. Lastly she was unable to bear the King a child, suffering three miscarriages during their married life.

There is an oral history (i.e. not written down) that Catherine had all the flowers in Green Park pulled up in revenge after King Charles picked some, only to give them to one of his mistresses.

Friday 24 June 2005. Chester Racecourse on a soggy morning after setting up a stand that I was manning at the annual Summer e-Fair of Jisc's Regional Support Centre Northwest. The RSCs supported colleges with e-Learning which included both online learning and any use of Information Technology inside or outside the classroom. The day before I had been giving a training session in Wales and rather than drive another two hours to home and back again on the following day, I stayed overnight in Chester with the RSC team.

During the period covered in this article there were more trips including Lincoln, Taunton, Tynemouth and probably more that do not appear in any other articles published on the index linked below. Sometimes it rains just too much even for me to contemplate taking photos...

Work Index

Fire and Ice: Joining a Two-Week Cruise to Norway and Iceland

Saturday 29 July 2017. The most leisurely start to a cruise that we've ever had I think, as we only have to drive across to Newcastle upon Tyne to join our old friend the Thomson Celebration for a two-week cruise that will take us further north than we have ever been before. Indeed we would be circling Iceland so would cross over the Arctic Circle.

First though we had to get to Newcastle. Joining us on this trip were near neighbours and friends John and Sue, who we first met on a cruise in Turkey in 2009 and then for the second time on another cruise in Norway in 2013! We have since become friends and occasionally meet up for a meal and natter. It was at one of the band's gigs where Sue first told us of this cruise, saying that it was the only such cruise during 2017 and joking that we should book it. We both fancied the sound of it so we did just that and it made sense to go over in just one car. John and Sue had already booked a car parking space so I offered to drive.

Driving to Newcastle of course brought back memories of driving over to the University of Northumbria for meetings with the rest of the team before I retired. John and Sue had mentioned they had never seen the Angel of the North from close-up before so I stopped for a short while so we could walk up to it. This also meant I could drive over the Tyne Bridge which they hadn't done before.

Thomson Celebration was the ship for our first cruise with Thomson in 2009 - the same cruise we first met John and Sue. This would be our sixth time aboard her, but our first time in years without seeing our great friends Tomas and Maris who used to play in Horizons Bar but are now on the Thomson Dream. We'll have to catch up with them later! Joining a ship at a UK port is simplicity itself and the organisation at Newcastle was excellent.

This will be our itinerary for the next few days: Day 1 Newcastle UK; Day 2 at sea; Day 3 Stavanger Norway; Day 4+5 at sea; Day 6 Akureyri Iceland; Day 7 Isafjord Iceland; Day 8 Reykjavik Iceland; Day 9 at sea; Day 10 Torshavn, Faroe Islands; Day 11 Lerwick, Shetland; Day 12 Bergen Norway; Day 13 Flam Norway; Day 14 at sea; Day 15 Newcastle and home. I might gloss over the days at sea a bit, but there will be a look at all the places we visited including volcanic geysers, waterfalls, whale watching, some spectacular train journeys, old towns, picturesque villages, the rift between the tectonic plates of Europe and America and a Norwegian mountain spirit enticing us into the mountains to be lost forever... (I'm easily taken in, you know...)

So with no more ado, let's go! The Celebration pushes her nose into the River Tyne and we head off from the port at North Shields, towards Tynemouth.

In a short while the sights of Tynemouth come up on our port bow (that's the one they serve the strong wine on). The statue is that of Admiral Lord Collingwood, the cannons at the base coming from his flagship Royal Sovereign. He was a close friend of many years standing with Horatio (later Lord) Nelson and was his second in command, though first in action at the Battle of Trafalgar. Born in Newcastle and later living in Morpeth, just to the north of Tynemouth, he was wont to walk the hills with his dog, Bounce, with a pocket full of acorns that he planted when he saw a good spot for an oak tree. This was to ensure good English oak for a future navy. Many of his trees must still be growing, the need for them surpassed by the introduction of iron and steel ships.

We are approaching the North Sea and the Newcastle pilot boat (named after our brave admiral) approaches to take off the Newcastle pilot who has sailed down river from the Port of Tyne on the bridge of the Celebration. He leaps aboard from the side of our ship and with a wave the pilot boat veers off to head back to the port.

The North Sea is being kind. Sunshine and only a slight to moderate swell takes us towards Norway, which we shall reach on Monday after a full day at sea tomorrow. Join us next for a look at Stavanger in Norway.

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Andre Rieu in Newcastle

I can't believe this is a whole week since! But it is... Last Saturday we went over to Newcastle to see violinist Andre Rieu with his fabulous Johann Strauss Orchestra.

We really only came across him a year ago when there was a Christmas concert on TV and we enjoyed the mix of classical and easy listening music and the humour that is displayed throughout.

Then Sky Arts has shown a whole series of concerts during the year and we have supplemented them with a few DVDs and almost every week now seems to include an Andre night!

I think it was somewhere around September by the time I realised he was doing a UK tour and by then most tickets had long gone. It was a toss up between heading over to Newcastle or down to Birmingham, but I managed to get two tickets facing the stage but up in the gods, on the third tier right at the back of Newcastle's Metro Radio Arena, but they were on the front row of the tier.

The above photo gives some idea of how far back we were, but I've included it also for a lovely bit of humour that it shows. Whilst the orchestra were playing White Christmas, way above the second block on the main floor a snow machine is at work, dumping an inch or two of snow on top of the audience in that block. TV cameras picked out some of the more hilarious reactions onto the big screens at each side of the stage and at the end of the song the machine let fall an absolute avalanche!

It was the orchestra's twenty fifth anniversary Andre explained and he had brought with him some guests that we have seen on the DVD and Sky concerts. Frédéric Jenniges was there with his zither to play the Tales from Vienna Woods and of course the theme from The Third Man and to entertain us by puffing and blowing with boredom whilst waiting for the orchestra to get round to his bit! Hilarious!

There was also the St Petersburg Trio, a threesome of Russian musicians with a mandolin, accordion and the biggest bass balalaika you've ever seen!

But on the photo above I've chosen one of the regular soloists, the gorgeously scrumptious Carmen Monarcha. Andre jokes that wherever the orchestra go she leaves a trail of devastation amongst the hearts of men! I can well understand it!

And so I'll include another photo of her with the other regular soloists, Kimmi Skota and Carla Maffioletti with the Platin Tenors. The Platins are always a high spot when watching an Andre Rieu concert though it may seem an unlikely combination of Hungarian, Australian and German singers. For me Thomas Greuel, the German singer, has the best tenor voice but together they project such power and jollity into their music that my face must light up whenever they walk on stage!

We had a fabulous night and, I've no doubt, will have many Andre Rieu nights to come in 2013!

Noah? Give Us a Lift?

I got caught up in the flooding this week, though not to any great state of discomfort. It did mean I had to spend an extra night away though and poor Fran was left on her own from Monday to Friday.

The week started off ok, with a trip up to Glasgow, which was gloriously sunny on Monday night. The travel agents had put me the far side of town for some reason - the hotel was probably a couple of quid cheaper than the one by the venue which was in the next street to the station I arrived at, but I then paid six pounds odd in taxi fares getting to and from with my bags... This sort of thing happens when the public sector is under close scrutiny to be cost effective - it becomes less so.

Tuesday night saw me on my way to Newcastle where I had another event on Wednesday and then on Thursday I went into the office for my annual appraisal and to wish Doug Belshaw well, as he left to go off doing exciting things with Mozilla (I'm using their Firefox browser right now, Doug!)

So even though I'd been away three nights I stayed for a later train and went out for lunch with the gang, catching the 2:20pm train for Carlisle to pick up the West Coast main line.

All went well for an hour or so. We went through a horrendous rainstorm and I saw a couple of flashes of lightning. Then we reached Haltwhistle. And stayed there.

After a while the conductor came and announced there were floods ahead and we couldn't go on. Also there were floods behind and we couldn't go back. Also the roads were flooded and the bus companies were refusing to come to the rescue...

So as we were at a station, we got off singly, then in groups to gawp up the track. There in the distance was a silver sheen of water and it was coming towards us.

Another 20 minutes or half an hour passed and I looked up from my book and saw a stream passing the train...

So we got out again and trotted to the front of the train.

The water had passed completely under the train and was still flowing under like a fairly fast stream.

Shortly after this we were told they would set off and try to get back to Newcastle. By this time it was gone 4:00pm and we had another hour at least to go before we would get back to where we started from.

We went slowly through the floods, crossed tracks and picked up people moaning at how late we were and a couple of real neanderthals of the type who make railway journeys that much more tedious.

Halfway there we heard that Newcastle station had been closed due to flooding...

Hurrah for Facebook - one of my colleagues had noticed my reports on there and despite the fact that it was gone 5:00pm I got a call asking if I needed a hotel sorting out. Unsure as to whether we would reach Newcastle I opted to stay at the Premier Inn near the Metro Centre and then when I got off there I realised there would be no buses and little chance of a taxi so phoned the hotel for directions to walk it.

The directions started by "Walk through the Metro Centre..." which was impossible as it had been evacuated so I skirted it and came to another precinct of shops who were all ripping carpets up and brushing waves of water out of their front doors. The roof of Ikea had come down. They had brought a new one out of stock but were struggling as some screws were missing or they had one strut too many or something...

Finally getting to the hotel they had a queue of would-be guests who were being turned away. Had I not been booked in by my wonderful team, I'd have been spending the night on a chair somewhere!

I finally got home at lunchtime on Friday after going back to Newcastle and going via York. Even so we got held up at Darlington because of animals on the line... Stranded fish perhaps...

Home felt good.

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In the Land of Ice and Snow...

Well actually it's just about all gone.

I've spent the last two days in Newcastle. There was snow on the way - a few isolated drifts of grey, dirty snow piled up against walls and grassy banks on the A66 going over the moors and even more at Durham Services were I stopped on the way on Monday morning to wake myself up.

They had cleared the paths but the car park still had two inches of ice with a slushy top that made the car lurch sideways when I set off again and had to climb out of the hole in the ice it had settled into.

The snow is apparently coming back on Thursday. That's ok becuse I should have finished charging about the country by then and can knuckle down to planning an online delivery of the Project Management workshop which I've rashly agreed to do in four hourly instalments in the New Year.

Whilst I've been away Fran has put the Christmas tree up. Early reports were that it had survived the cats' attention for the first day...

Doing the Yo-Yo...

I've been up and down the country a bit this week.

I spent Monday and Tuesday in a cold and wintery Newcastle, catching up with the team for a planning meeting, making the acquaintance of our latest team member for the first time, going for our "Christmas" do on Monday night. It was our first opportunity to all get together. Many of the others do a lot of charging about the country like me!

Anyway we went to Oldfields, specialising in locally produced food with a predominantly English menu - sometimes I get quite nostalgic for the Christmas Curries we used to have! I started with crispy duck with a beet coleslaw and then had belly pork on a bed of celeriac mash that was totally scrummy.

On Tuesday I caught the train down to London Kings Cross, after the meeting finished and just had time to spruce up a bit (it doesn't make a lot of difference...) and grab a quick bite to eat before meeting up with a good friend, actress Caroline Munro. We spent the evening chatting in the hotel bar, catching up with the latest gossip about her film work and my band and swapping news about mutual friends.

Yesterday I was at City University for a meeting of the Inter-University Project Management Group which turned out to be a very interesting day.

I couldn't believe my luck when I got to Euston to find that the next train north was an express to Glasgow, only stopping at Preston - where I was heading - and Glasgow. It took just two hours from London to Preston - and then another 30 minutes to do the twenty miles to Blackpool! But that was much better than the tedious journey it used to be up the West Coast line. It has improved no end. If only Virgin could make the trains comfortable to sit in...

Smaller windows make carriages more stable and safe in a crash, but that combined with the narrower profile of tilting coaches means if you are sitting against a wall rather than a window, your shoulder has to be where your head would be in a comfortable pose. The seats are not exactly generously wide to begin with... and I'm afraid I am...!

Sorry! All old photos again, despite the New Year's resolution to use the camera more!

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Best Overall Photograph

A bit of good news yesterday when I found one of my photos had won Best Overall Photograph in a photo competition at work.

This was the first such competition organised by the University of Northumbria and I suspect there may be more entries next time... But, having said that, I don't want you to get the impression that it was the best out of only three entries or anything! There were some excellent photos on display in the foyer of Northumbria's Ellison Building in Newcastle and I'd not have liked to have been the judge!

I like to think of myself as a serious photographer so it's perhaps a little embarrassing to have to admit that this was taken on my phone! It shows the Tyne Bridge silhouetted against the sunset and was taken as I crossed the river on the Millenium Bridge.

Thanks to Northumbria University and their judge for excellent taste and to Janette Hillicks for wielding the camera to take my photo with my photo for the photo ...er... at the top of the page!

Thanks also to Northumbria for the Boots gift voucher that was the prize. Miss Franny has now given me a list of things to buy with it... She has allowed me to spend some of it on myself too! The list includes razor blades...

Large view of the winning photo at Flickr (click "All Sizes")

Newcastle Night Out

I'm back in Newcastle again for a 2-day meeting and went out for a meal with my colleagues last night at the Baltic Restaurant. This huge art gallery was converted from a flour mill, which presumably explains why there are lots of short people in bowler hats with white faces in the area... (You have to be a certain age and have lived in UK probably to get that...)

Anyway it was a rather posh menu. Which is another way of saying "disguised". What on earth is "ratte potato" for Heaven's sake? Anyway we figured "potato" meant "on a stick" and gave that dish a wide berth...

A very nice meal though - I had duck breast in a jus - another posh way of saying "watery gravy" I usually think! All the old values are going you know - where can you get a decent cup of Nescafe these days?

Anyway it was very pleasant to sit several storeys up and watch the colours of the Millenium Bridge change in the spotlights. We crossed it later on and then the fit young things I work with decided to take a short cut up several hundred steps to a pub near the castle and I got there in sprightly fashion with only a mild heart attack and a period of a mere two hours before I could bring myself to speak again...

Hmmm - could have been why they chose that route perhaps...

Building Bridges

I've spent the first three days of this week in Newcastle and Gateshead.

Tuesday and Wednesday have been the Building Bridges conference for Records Managers held at the new conference centre at Gateshead College, from whose windows this view of the Millenium Bridge over the Tyne was taken.

The conference was organised by JISC infoNet and the brainchild of my colleague Steve Bailey. Records Managers from universities, colleges, local authorities and elsewhere gathered to discuss the future direction of records management and the impact that the growing use of social networking sites such as blogs, wikis and networks such as Facebook have on an organisation's ability to control its data and information.

I gave a session on communications during the implementation of change and facilitated a group discussion session as well as running round with the roving microphone for question and feedback sessions.

It has been a most interesting two days with the benefits of a records management approach pushed to the fore over compliance issues. There was some discussion as to where, in an organisation, does the Records Management function logically sit and there was some disagreement amongst the delegates when HR was suggested (because of the staff development role they usually have) or in Finance (because of the strict controlled way that accountants like to work).

What did come out strongly was that wherever they sit, the Records Manager needs the support of a senior manager committed to driving the records management agenda forward across the organisation. Someone at middle manager level sitting within one team or area does not have the necessary influence over the other functions and structural areas that exist in large organisations such as universities and colleges.

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Normal Service Will Be Resumed

I'm sorry folks, it must look as though I'm being a bit tardy here, but the PC has been replaced and I'm in the midst of taking up broadband through Sky.

The router still has to be delivered as yet though so the new PC is sitting there doing little other than acting as a jukebox.

To be honest I've not had a great deal of time to play on it as last week I was in Newcastle all week on a course - doing homework and taking two exams towards the end of the week. Little was done at all other than work - and eat... I've put on a couple of pounds - Jackie from work taking me for countless curries - must be a staple Geordie diet? The photo was taken one night as we walked back over the Millenium Bridge over the Tyne.

Anyway, to get back to the plot, the chap has been to put the Sky dish up today and I got my first taste of HD TV around lunchtime. So the next few nights could well be spent comatose on the sofa watching the telly.

Whether that's as a result of the HD picture, the lack of access to the Internet unless I get the works laptop out, or the aftermath of an exhausting week's course I leave to your imagination!

I'll be back soon though!

Large Version of the Photo: Tyne Bridge and Sunset

View Across The Tyne

I'm in Newcastle again at the moment, spending a few days working in the office.

I didn't bring my camera with me so I thought I'd have a go at seeing how well my phone takes photos. I'm actually fairly impressed with the quality - click the link below to see the larger version and then click the link on Flickr for "All Sizes" and you'll see what I mean. For a telephone it's not bad. It's totally the wrong shape for a camera of course and so it's hard to take a photo without moving and causing camera shake and the tiny little window of plastic that they call a lens can't hope to compete with my usual Canon digital Eos, but... for a telephone this ain't bad!

Viewpoint from Jurys Inn, Newcastle on Tyne.

Larger Version of the Photo: Newcastle view

What? A Week???

Ah yes... perhaps a little remiss of me, but it has been a busy week.

Since my last missive I've been to Glasgow, Lancaster, Newcastle and Edinburgh for work and there's not been a lot of time to devote to the blog! I've not taken the camera with me either on the trips I've been on.

Last weekend Fran and I drove up to Anchorsholme for a walk along the cliffs and a view of the Riverdance which is still there. As you can see from the photo it is now well and truly on its side and as fast as they empty the fuel out, it has to be filling up with seawater as the tide half submerges it twice a day. My guess is that if the March spring tides don't let the salvage people float her then she will end up being dismantled where she lies - or Cleveleys will have a new permanent tourist attraction.

The roads in and out of Cleveleys - which is the main Fleetwood peninsular road - has been horrendous at weekends with sightseers coming in to have a look.

In an non-customary fit of junk-throwing I unearthed a folder containing a load of old photography magazines from the early 1980s last weekend which have provided a few hours of fun reading through them again.

I used to buy Practical Photography every month, Amateur Photographer every week and Photography most months in the 70s and 80s. Practical Photography I see used to cost 80p in 1982... It brought a load of memories back, of sending off loads of photos and the joy of seeing one in print every now and then. Ex-PP editor Robert Scott also used a couple of photos in the Club Canon magazine and I came across a couple of photos of the gorgeous Collette Caton, a model who got noticed through Practical Photography's annual Photo Girl contest one year. I met her on the PP stand at a fair in Haydock and have a hideously underexposed slide somewhere that totally fails to do her justice!

Ah well, so now at least you know what I've been up to and now I've got to get ready for another trip. Shrewsbury, here I come!

A Touch of Elegance

I like exploring cities as many of our older cities have a character all of their own.

It's not necessarily whilst deliberately walking the streets and looking for features though that you come across them.

I've been in Newcastle for three days now and today whilst walking into the office I noticed this elegant cupola on what appears to be a more severe modern building. When I got round the corner I was able to see that it matched the gates and canopy over the entrance to the Monument Mall.

The old Victorian shopping malls that you come across are often architectural gems. I must dig out some photos I took of Miller Arcade in Preston one day for instance.

Anyway it brightened my morning up a little so I thought I'd share it with you!