I’ve featured Old Eldon Square before, but perhaps this shot from above gives a better sense of the space as it currently stands. I wrote more about the bronze statue of St George last time round.

About nine years ago, I was living in these halls of residence and watched through my window as these trees were planted. This is a curse. I feel as if my first year at uni wasn’t very long ago, but every time I drive past these trees I’m reminded that it was longer ago than I imagine! At least they still look fairly young!

Somehow, despite being a virtually card-carrying Guardianista, I’d never read one of Jon Ronson’s books. This one seemed as good a starting point as any!

The book describes Ronson’s adventures with several extremist groups and conspiracy theorists as he tries to find out more about the Bilderberg Group, who are thought by many conspiracy theorists to summarily control the world. It’s long-form gonzo journalism, with the added edge that Ronson is Jewish, while a number of the groups he meets along the way are, to a greater or lesser extent, anti-semitic.

The narrative of the book is engaging, and some of the descriptions are enlightening. But it feels to me like there’s a central problem in this book: Ronson seems quite conflicted over his feelings about the people he meets. Occasionally, he plays their beliefs for laughs, but, for the most part, it seems reasonably clear that he likes the individuals whilst finding their viewpoints and some of their actions abhorrent. This was and is always going to be a problem in an ethnography like this, but the fact that there’s never any deep reflection on this in the text just gives the whole thing an air of awkwardness.

There’s also a slight weirdness in that it seems to me that the point the book is trying to make is that relatively ordinary people can believe extraordinary things with certainty. That’s a really interesting concept, but, again, there’s no real self-reflection on this. Did this experience make Ronson question any of his own deeply-held beliefs? Has it made him view conspiracies and conspiracists differently? How has this whole experience changed him?

Ronson writes engagingly about the challenge of going through this investigation as a Jew. He reflects on denying his Jewish heritage, and how that makes him feel. Yet the other big questions seem to hang in the air, and I’m left wondering what the gonzo style adds if the majority of the deep personal reflection is cut out of it. I guess it provides a narrative. But it takes away objectivity, and makes us very reliant on the author as the sole source. I’m not sure those trades are worth it if the impact on the author – which is really something I consider to be at the heart of the style – is taken away.

I’m conscious that I’ve now written three paragraphs of criticism of a book that, on the whole, I enjoyed! I learned the truth about the Bilderberg Group (not that I’d heard of it before reading this book). There were several convincing descriptions of how conspiracy theorists interpret events in a way that supports their own world view (though, disappointingly, little discussion of the degree to which the rest of us do that too). The writing brought the characters to life, and the narrative drove the “plot” forward at a good pace.

All-in-all, while I was a bit disappointed by what wasn’t in this book, the stuff that was there was great: I’ll certainly read another of Ronson’s books at some point in the future. As for the star-rating: I’ve dithered for some time now over whether to give this 3 or 4; it’s somewhere in between. On balance, this isn’t a book I’d return to again, and I think its flaws of omission pull it nearer to 3 than 4.

Them is available now from amazon.co.uk in paperback and on Kindle.

This is Little Waitrose in Jesmond. I’ve chosen it only because I really like the name! I know it’s far from unique – there’s 30 or so around the country – but I think it’s great!

The Metrocentre has an intriguing strategy for dealing with empty shop units: they’re spun as evidence of the centre’s constant refreshing, revising, and revitalising of its brand portfolio. To my mind, it’s an approach that beats the near ubiquitous Shopjacket and its clones, which seem a little tacky. I suppose, though, this approach can only work in places where units tend not to stay empty for long – and where the empty shops are relatively few and far between.

This is the Hownsgill Viaduct. It’s 55m high, and a little over 200m long. It used to carry the Stanhope & Tyne Railway, but these days carries only the C2C cycle route. Construction was completed in 1858 to Sir Thomas Bouch’s design.

Bouch would later go on to design the Tay Bridge, which collapsed in use. Seventy-five people were killed, and Bouch’s reputation and career were left in tatters. Whilst the Hownsgill Viaduct is still standing, its fate has become almost as grim: it’s one of the UK’s suicide hotspots. In 2011, there was a death every two weeks. In response, Durham County Council is arranging the construction of a 3m high steel tube and cable fence.

Suicide barriers are a knotty public health issue: whilst they seem logically sound, it’s difficult to come up with strong evidence of their effectiveness. The most famous study in this area (and one which came up in my Part A MFPH, as it happens) is of the Bloor Street Viaduct in Toronto – where, actually, fewer suicides occurred each year than at Hownsgill. The study suggests that whilst the Luminous Veil barrier prevented suicides from the viaduct itself, it had no impact on the suicide rate as a whole. Of course, study design is a huge problem in this field, but it remains the case that no published study has shown a reduction in the overall suicide rate as a result of the erection of a barrier.

I guess the only thing we know for certain is that suicide is better tackled through comprehensive and wide-ranging suicide prevention programmes rather than through barriers alone. Psychiatry services often suffer when healthcare resources are tight; yet the biggest cause of death in British men under the age of 35 is suicide. Let’s hope that the vital work of mental health teams isn’t dismissed by anyone as “easy pickings” in the ongoing recession.

Over the course of this photographic year, I’ve featured lots of bits of the Ouseburn, a local river that runs from its source, near Newcastle airport, to the Tyne, near the famous Quayside. It also passes fairly near my house.

I’ve featured it so many times now that I know it’s become a groan-worthy subject for some: Wendy included! But today, I wanted to show you the Ouseburn at Ouseburn: the point at which the river flows through its namesake part of Newcastle, in the Ouseburn Valley. This is it flowing under the huge Byker Bridge:

The Byker Bridge was opened in 1878, and, in something resembling current Government policy, its construction was funded by a toll charged for use until 1895. It was designed by Robert Hodgson, who was better known for his rail bridges. It is built entirely of brick, and is almost 100ft tall and over 1000 feet long. This picture gives a better sense of scale:

Perhaps the more interesting construction which lies almost alongside Byker Bridge is the Ouseburn Viaduct, which carries the East Coast Mainline. It was – remarkably – originally a timber construction built in 1839. Thirty years later, the timber was switched to iron. Unfortunately, the viaduct is currently undergoing a £10m restoration, and so all that can be seen today is a web of scaffolding:

I’ll have to visit again when the work is complete… Ouseburn will be back!

This is a temple in Benwell. It isn’t very big, and there’s not much left of it, but then it is about 1,900 years old. It’s rather incongruously located on a residential street, a tiny patch of an English Heritage site sandwiched between two suburban semis.

It was (is?) a temple to the Roman or Brythonic god Antenociticus. This is the world’s only temple to Antenociticus (also called Anociticus for short), which must mean he’s a local Geordie god, I suppose, alongside the likes of Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer. He did also get a mention in the Roman fort at Walwick Chesters.

Antenociticus’s head – or, at least, the head of his statue – was found here in 1862, and is now in the Great North Museum. Apparently, his hair style suggests either a connection to the Greek gods or a Celtic deer god. If the phrase “deer god” didn’t at least raise a wry smile, you’re a more serious, studious historian than me. It, along with a bit of approximate etymology around his name, also gives rise to his cool English epithet: “God of the antler-fringed forehead”.

If you are one of these stunningly clever people who studied A-Levels in either Classical Civilisation with OCR or Archeology with AQA, you’re more than likely laughing at my childlike fascination and misunderstanding of basic historical facts right now, as this tiny site features on the syllabi of both. It seems totally extraordinary that such a poorly understood small site in such odd modern-day surroundings could be chosen – but then, I know nothing about the subjects!

I forgot to take a photo again yesterday, but will catch up with two today!

This first one shows a big industrial apparatus that I pass every day in South Shields. I mean the big thing right in the middle of the shot. This was about as close as I was able to stop to get a photo.

It looks quite fascinating, but I’ve not a clue what it’s for. If you’re cleverer than me and know what it does, please let me know in the comments!

I always love reading about the working lives of people in professions far removed from my own, so this article in The Atlantic really tickled my fancy. The magazine asked its readers to identify the aspects of their job that outsiders don’t appreciate, and then published this A-Z guide. It’s brilliant!