This is the first of today’s two photos, since I forgot yesterday! It shows some boats, just at the point where the Ouseburn meets the Tyne at the Quayside here in Newcastle. I’ve featured the Ouseburn once before in this series, a couple of miles or so further upstream at Jesmond Dene.

These boats are actually on the Tyne side of the Ouseburn Tidal Barrage, so are possibly technically on the Tyne rather than the Ouseburn, but who am I to say where a tributary ends and the larger river begins?

I’ve just realised that I forgot my “photo-a-day” yesterday… I’ll do two today to make up for it! Sorry!

I know that quite a few councils have taken to painting on the pavement to discourage dog fouling. I think I’ve read that some councils also engage in spray painting the poo itself. But it’s only within the last few weeks that I’ve noticed them appearing in my neighbourhood.

On the day Apple has announced the new Apple TV, I’ve a question about the current model.

This is the remote. It seems to be a single piece of metal, with the only obvious opening being the small one for the battery at the back, which only gives access to the battery compartment. So, I’m struggling to work out how it’s made: how do the innards get in? Does anyone know?

On reflection, perhaps this isn’t the best thing to have sitting next to my laptop while I’m doing Public Health work. At least it’s short…!

This bizarre flower display thingy (that may not be the technical term) at Wellington Square in Stockton used to be Wendy’s favourite flower display thingy in the whole of Stockton. This wasn’t because it was only a short walk from our house, but was mainly due to the large clusters of amusingly amorous pigeons which used to congregate upon it. Sadly, none were around today when I was taking this photo!

This was my view of my bedside table just now as I clambered into bed and suddenly remembered about “photo-a-day”… Wendy’s on nights at the moment, and so isn’t around to remind me! Goodnight!

I’ve finally completed my Mencap Spellathon challenge, which was to learn to spell 2,500 words. It’s taken me quite a few weeks, but I’ve made it, and want to thank everyone who has sponsored me over the last little while. At the time of writing, I’ve raised £50, which is beyond both my own expectations and Mencap’s target.

But let’s raise even more! Mencap is a great cause, supporting 1.5 million people in the UK with learning disabilities. If you gave me a penny for every ten words – that’s just £2.50 – Mencap could make that go a long way. So get over to the JustGiving page Mencap have created for me, and give them some cash.

Thank you.

As I was going about my business this afternoon in Gateshead, this extraordinarily clear rainbow appeared.

This was remarkably co-incidental, as I had already been planning to go and see Yvette Mattern’s Global Rainbow kicking off the Cultural Olympiad in North Shields this evening. It’s also visiting Preston (not far from my family home) and Newtownards (not far from Wendy’s family home) in the next few weeks, and has already visited New York, Berlin, Toulouse, Nantes, and Utrecht. It is a far more impressive sight than the photos here demonstrate, and has been spotted from 15 miles away in Sunderland.

To give a sense of scale, the white smudge on the right of both of these photographs is the famous St Mary’s Lighthouse.

Neither the real nor the Global Rainbow are especially easy to photograph using a mere iPhone, but I don’t think these turned out too disastrously!

It’s probably cheating to take a photo of the TV, but I really have nothing more exciting to offer today. I’ve just watched Norwegian Wood, having read the book some years ago. I could’ve sworn that I’d written a review of the book on here at some point – but if I did, I certainly can’t find it this evening.

I do remember enjoying the book – or books, I guess, since it came in two volumes – and, indeed, it appears to be listed as one of my favourites on Facebook. In retrospect, I’m not certain I enjoyed it as much as classics like Catch 22 or If on Winter’s Night a Traveller, mainly because as I sat down to watch the film my memory of the plot was sketchy to say the least. But I guess it must have made an impression whenever I was writing that list.

The film was alright, though featured a lot more sex and discussions about sex than I recall from the novel, and felt a bit less existential. But heck, I’m no film critic. I happily sat through it from beginning to end, got quite caught up in it, thought it was worth writing about here. So I guess it must have been quite good.

I’ll try and feature something altogether more interesting tomorrow!