I didn’t look at the photo and clicked on “unfollow” straightaway so I wouldn’t see any more of Dale’s tweets. Holding this woman up to ridicule in front of the 26,000 people who follow him was abusing his position, I thought.

I love the Guardian, but this article is awful from start to finish. It starts with the above assertion which feels like holier-than-thou nonsense: how did the writer know that a woman was being “held up to ridicule” without looking at the photo? How could she be sure this wasn’t a joke? And is she always so reactionary?

And that’s not to mention that the Iain Dale incident has precisely nothing to do with the popularity of radio, which the headline suggests is the thrust of the piece. Indeed, she doesn’t get onto radio until paragraph seven.

She then goes on to give piss-poor reasons for the popularity of radio, beginning with the assertion that “the licence fee is the obvious first answer”, as though radio is exclusively popular in the UK).

Then, further along, she attempts to classify radio as an “old” or “new” medium (as though this dichotomous, rather than a spectrum), and, working for a newspaper that employs Aleks Krotoski, one of the foremost academics on the subject, turns to Wikipedia for the answer.

Is radio old or new media? The Wikipedia “new media” definition doesn’t mention radio at all, perhaps uncertain whether to lump it in with printing presses or mobile apps.

Then, in the final paragraph, there’s the assertion that the Desert Island Discs archive was opened last weekend. Of course, regular readers of the foremost newspaper for media coverage will know that the online archive actually launched last year.

In any other newspaper, this kind of article would be par for the course. But the Guardian isn’t any other newspaper: it’s one that should strive for first-class journalism, not lowest-common-denominator page-filling tosh like this. It’s really quite disappointing.

Newcastle Airport is brilliant, but – like any airport – it’s at its most pleasant and least stressful when it’s virtually empty!

The punning name of this local sandwich shop rarely fails to raise a smile!

Admittedly, this is a fairly rubbish photo, but it is supposed to show thousands of cars lined up near (I think!) the Port of Tyne. I had intended to take it with a ship in the background, but by the time I got to taking the picture, the boat had, quite literally, sailed.

It wasn’t until I spent time at the HPA that I became aware of quite how much shipping goes on in this country. I mean, it’s fairly obvious that a lot happens given that we’re an island nation, but I’d never really considered the scale or logistics before.

All of which reminds me of this fascinating article from Wired.

As currently featured on my kitchen table…!

Not only does WHSmith appear to have Hallowe’en stock prominently displayed on exactly three months after the event, they’re also charging a whopping 69p for a Creme Egg! Needless to say, I didn’t partake!

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge has always struck me as slightly oddly named: it is named not for the river it crosses, but for the smaller of the two conurbations it connects; and opened some time into the new Millennium. Incidentally, the ugly bollards in the river beneath are due to start being removed any day now.

For all the undeserved flak it has received, Love Never Dies is one of the greatest of all Lloyd Webber’s musicals… the original cast recording sends shivers down my spine whenever I listen to it.

Charles Spencer was always a fan, but seeing an ever-increasing number of positive reviews of the Australian production of Love Never Dies, like Charles’s in the Telegraph today, fills me with happiness. It’s a breathtakingly brilliant musical, phenomenally under-rated and under-estimated. I’ll be amazed if it doesn’t return to London to rave reviews before the decade’s out.

This is a building in Gosforth that I find completely fascinating: it has so many different features that it somehow looks unreal, like something off a film set or out of Disneyland.

This is the fairly impressive roof of Eldon Garden, which is marred by the 80s decor which consists mainly of arched mirrors, presumably to try and make the space look lighter. Given the arty reputation Eldon Garden tries to create for itself, I reckon it would look great with a bit of a renovation and a hanging artwork – something like a mini version of Snow’s Flight Stop in Toronto – but something more local to Newcastle, of course, and perhaps more in keeping with the wrought iron supports.