I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the bollards around the Gateshead Millennium Bridge (or the “Vessel Collision Protection System”, to use the proper name) were to be removed. As I walked past this evening, the Forth Sentinel was beavering away at that very task.

This evening, The Guardian reports:

The title will simply be called the Sun, with an identical masthead to the daily, and insiders have been at pains to make it clear that the newspaper is not a “Sun on Sunday” – but instead simply a Sunday edition of the newspaper that will have some “specialist staff” but without its own editor.

This has come as a surprise to many media commentators, but not so much to me. You’ll note that I wrote the following last July:

Why does it need to be “Sunday Sun” or “Sun on Sunday”? What’s wrong with, erm, “The Sun”? [7th July 2011]

Surely the solution is a truly 7-day Sun – no differentiation in title / price on Sundays? [11th July 2011]

A seven-day operation has always made the most sense, and was the direction of travel for the News of the World before this whole controversy kicked off. Why anyone failed to see this is utterly baffling to me, but I do love being able to say “I told you so!”

This is where I’ve been this evening: if you can give blood, you really should too. For more info and to make an appointment, log on to blood.co.uk or call 0300 123 23 23. Shocking pink lipstick isn’t compulsory.

Despite living in the North East for nearly nine years, I had never visited Kielder Water & Forest before today… And it was well worth the visit!

There’s a few more photos below, including one of slightly bizarre ice formations, specially requested by Wendy.

My previously celebrated brownie-baking skills are being severely questioned today, after two successive batches, being made for friends, ended up a little “crispy”, as Wendy would say.

Luckily, I was (partially) saved from an Alfred-esque reputation by Asda’s in store bakery… though it’s a crying shame that a whole kilo of chocolate was wasted in my failed efforts!

I made a quick detour from my usual commute to capture today’s subject, The Angel of the North. It’s not the world’s greatest photo, but I was slightly embarrassed by whipping out my iPhone while surrounded by more photographers with more equipment than seemed reasonable for something that’s already been photographed so much.

Interestingly, a car park has appeared nearby, which wasn’t there last time I visited… although that was probably some years ago! If you’re in the area, I guess it makes it considerably easier to make a quick visit – which is highly recommended!

The Wolfson Research Institute used to be a white shining beacon of academia on the South bank of the Tees. Today, it’s looking a bit dull and grim, like it needs a good scrub – though, in fairness, the grey skies don’t help!

I’ve written about NatWest’s awful customer charter before (here and here).

Those with an exceptional memory might remember Pledge 9, often repeated in their ads:

We pledge to stay open for business if we are the last bank in town and will consider a range of options to ensure a local banking service is available.

You might have interpreted this to mean that they’d keep a branch open if it was the only bank in town. That would clearly have been foolish, as NatWest have now clarified, in response to a complaint about the closure of the Farley branch:

The commitment was to continue providing “banking services” wherever they were the last bank in town … Customers in Farley could still receive a full banking service from the Pudsey branch, just over a mile and a half away.

Yep, hosting a branch in a different town (Pudsey) is considered by NatWest to be providing a “full banking service” in Farley.

The ASA wasn’t impressed by this wriggling, and has promptly banned the ad for being misleading and lacking substantiation.

NatWest’s charter is awful, unstretching claptrap, and yet they can’t even keep to that. I wonder if this debacle will make it into the next “independent review”? Given that the complaint was about an ad based on the charter, rather than the charter itself, I’m confident it will be ignored.

As I always say in these posts: Swtich to Smile. Switch to First Direct. Switch to The Co-op.

Switch to anyone who actually gives a damn about customer service, instead of waiting for change for a bank which clearly doesn’t know how to prioritise customer service, and whose solution to poor customer service appears to commit to more poor customer service.

The more you put up with it, the more these corporate idiots think its acceptable, and the more poor service propagates.

Swtich, switch, switch!

Meet Quiescence, my slightly under-nourished buddy from medical school!

Quiescence’s best friend, Buttons, stands proudly atop a bookshelf. But when we moved into this flat, we never quite found anywhere for poor Quiescence – and so he’s been lazing on the sofa-bed ever since! He doesn’t seem to mind…!

I’ve decided to give the site’s masthead a bit of a makeover, as the old one was starting to feel more than a little dated. The new one still has elements of the old: the same background image, the guillemet, and a bit of bold-italic verdana being the most obvious examples. But I hope the overall effect is a bit more modern, and a bit more typographically interesting.

The old one (see here) had remained basically the same since 2005 (see here), albeit with various different tag-lines, a couple of different size variations, and a short-lived change of background image. I can’t think of another website that’s had the same basic masthead for seven years – and the last masthead itself was an updated version of the original 2003 logo (see here).

Anyway, I hope you like it. I’m sure I’ll tweak it over the next few days and weeks – the curse of perfectionism, I’m afraid – but it’ll settle eventually!