A little later this morning, I’ll be publishing the tenth and final review in a successful series of posts about my favourite Mac apps.

From next week, Wednesday mornings will feature book reviews: some original, some I’ve published elsewhere, and some a combination of the two. This series will continue pretty much indefinitely (read: until I get bored of it). I’ve even created a brand new skeuomorphic post template for this series, so you won’t want to miss that!

This is the MediCinema in Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary. I’ve never had the opportunity to venture inside – my job took me to a different hospital before it opened – but I understand that it’s a full scale 56-seat cinema with Dolby Surround Sound and all mod-cons.

Opened in 2009, it was the first purpose-built cinema within a UK hospital, and gives patients – particularly those in hospital for a long time – the chance to do something a little different to break up the monotony of hospital life. It even has space for people to attend in their beds!

The building of the cinema was supported by a number of local and national companies (from Fenwick to Disney!), and it’s maintained and run in association with the national MediCinema charity. I think it’s a really interesting example of a hospital doing something a little different!

The Great North Road was the original stage coach route from London to Edinburgh via York, beloved by Dick Turpin and his highwayman colleagues. This is the bit that goes through Gosforth in Newcastle (which is a bit far north for Dick Turpin, but I’m sure he had friends up north…!)

In 1921, the Ministry of Transport designated the Great North Road as the A1. The bit of the Great North Road shown above remained part of the A1 until 1988, when the Western Bypass was built. Of course, these days the A1 is but a small part of the E15 which runs all the way from Inverness in Scotland to Algeciras, right at the bottom of Spain. Even Black Bess would struggle with a ride that long!

Towards the end of last year, my Kindle cracked. Despite it being well out of warranty (I’d had it since August 2010), Amazon replaced it for free.

Today, the replacement broke – as you can see, the screen has died. Bizarrely, this seems to have happened totally spontaneously while the Kindle was sat on my desk. I don’t understand how that’s possible…!

Sadly, Amazon wouldn’t give me another free replacement this time around – but they are sending me a replacement for £50. As this model retails at £149, that’s still considerably better than most of Amazon’s competitors!

This is Newcastle’s former Grand Hotel, built in 1891. I’m not sure when it stopped being a hotel, but it now houses a Health Fayre sandwich shop, a branch of Blackwell’s, a Campus Coffee shop and Newcastle University accommodation.

One interesting conundrum about this building is its location. The road you can see running in front of the shop changes at some point from Percy Street (to the left of this picture) to Barras Bridge (to the right).

The Grand Hotel building is listed by the Council (and the architects’ original plans) as being located at 1-24 Barras Bridge. Yet Health Fayre, Blackwell’s, and Campus Coffee – which are all located within the building – are listed being on Percy Street. However, the Newcastle University accommodation situated above these shops, and whose entrance lies between them, is listed as being on Barras Bridge.

So there’s the intriguing reality of several doors located next to each other on the same side of the same building, with the middle one listed as being on a different street to the others!

I’m glad I’m not a postman!

I don’t understand who would rummage through their local clothes dump Zara store for the pleasure of spending £9 and 99 tiny pence for a screwed up, thrown on the floor piece of clothing. However, Inditex’s bulletproof financial performance proves that lots of people do! Mystifying!

If you judge your bloggers by the photos they take, then I expect you won’t be very impressed with me today.

Last night, I visited the art deco masterpiece that is the BBC’s Broadcasting House and its Radio Theatre, but emerged with only a single photograph showing this gimmicky interpretation of the BBC logo, from the Media Cafe.

I was there to watch a recording of Arthur Matthews’s new comedy, The Golden Age. It was very funny. There was even a small amount of audience participation, including singing – I expect that I, along with the rest of the audience, will be signed by Simon Cowell as soon as it’s aired. It was quite interesting to see a Radio 4 audience in the flesh: the stereotypes are all true!

Peering through the window of the Media Cafe, it was fascinating to see the new newsroom. From that perspective, it seemed rather smaller than I’d imagined, though it still looked like a pretty nice office to work in. There was also a corner upstairs for BBC Weather, which surprised me somewhat – I thought all that was done at the Met Office.

Anyway, it was an interesting experience – and free as well. I’d definitely go back!

A few days ago, I mentioned the Royal Victoria Docks Bridge – and since I’m in London today, I thought I’d share a picture of it. As I said, it was built with the capability of running as a transporter bridge like the one in Middlesbrough, but this facility hasn’t been used.

Just a little way from that bridge is the new Emirates Airline. The consensus amongst Londoners that I know is that this is far more a tourist attraction than a serious transport proposal. As a tourist of sorts, I didn’t want to buck the trend, so I hopped on here, at the station on the North bank:

And here’s a pretty picture of the venue formerly known as The O2, but which the IOC now insists on us all referring to as the North Greenwich Arena:

But the most pressing question I had after my brief “flight” was: what’s in the box?

I assume it’s some sort of emergency equipment, but it’s a pretty small box. Do any of my well-informed readers know what’s in it? I’m intrigued…

Autograph is an example of an app that does only one thing, but does it brilliantly. All Autograph does is allows me to sign things on my computer. A simple press of a universal shortcut causes a window to pop up, inviting me to sign my trackpad. I sign the trackpad, press return, and the signature is inserted into whatever I’m working on.

That is all it does. There are other, less elegant, solutions to this problem. I could have a scanned and stored JPG of my signature which I would import into a document as and when needed. But this solution is so simple and so elegant that it’s worth the couple of quid the app costs.

Check out their website, and see if you wouldn’t find a use for Autograph. I really recommend it.

This is a bit of Newcastle’s ancient town wall – specifically, the Durham Tower bit. The wall was built in the 13th and 14th centuries, and was once 2 miles long, 2m thick, and over 7m high. There were 17 towers like this one, all within shooting distance of each other to repel attackers. The construction of the wall was funded through a special tax – a murage – which was levied for a hundred years.

The wall kept the town reasonably well protected from invaders, seeing off attacks from David II of Scotland and the Earl of Douglas among others. By the 18th century, the wall had fallen into disrepair, and Scottish armies were able to invade Newcastle a couple of times. By the late 18th century bits of it started to be knocked down, because it started to get in the way.

These days, it’s a scheduled ancient monument which is also the home to a notable literary landmark: Morden Tower, where many great 20th century poets came – and still come – to read their work. Allen Ginsberg, Ted Hughes, Basil Bunting, and Seamus Heaney are just four of the hundreds of previous poetic visitors! It’s also the place where the band Whitehouse once gave a performance in which the entire audience walked out. I don’t think that’s ever happened to any of the poets!