This is the Normand Installer, an offshore construction vessel moored at North Shields. It’s just six years old, and was built in Norway. The orange paintwork is certainly eye-catching, but perhaps it’s common for seafaring construction vehicles to have highly visible paintwork, like their land-based equivalent. I’ve really no idea whether that’s the case or not!

To my eye, this Christmas “tree” – one of several at the Metrocentre – is spectacularly ugly. It isn’t even festive!

It’s supposed to echo the artwork that you can just about see on the right of the photo. But, if anything, the juxtaposition just makes this particular decoration look even cheaper!

I wonder if anyone recognises where this is? It’s the panelling along a train platform. It’s uniform and superficially quite dull, but the angle of the lighting provides an unusual optical illusion in which it becomes difficult to determine whether the inset panel centres are indeed inset or outset.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t really come across terribly well in this photo!

We’ve all been there: you get to the airport, and with a jolt of horror realise that you’ve forgotten to buy a souvenir gift for your friend or loved one. What will you do? You panic, and then decide that you’ll have to pick something up at the airport.

Luckily, Heathrow has your back on this one…

Simply buy this life-size steel mesh sculpture of Tom Daley, a snip at just £18,000 and oh-so-easy to slip into your hand baggage.

I shouldn’t mock. Nikki Taylor is clearly a very talented artist, and it is sort of nice to see an airport trying something different. I guess the idea is that people might appreciate the art while trapped in an airport in a way that they may perhaps not at other times. But there’s something so amusingly incongruous about the experience that it’s hard not to smile.

Someone must have been feeling a little sign-happy at some point…! Actually, I think each sign refers to a different individual bay, but still…

This second-storey room at St Mary’s Hospital is where Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin on 3rd September 1928 – arguably one of the greatest discoveries ever, and certainly one that has transformed the course of human history.

It took the Scot about a year to come up with the name “penicillin”, referring to it in the interim as “mould juice” – which is certainly a more entertaining name, and one which I think the WHO should consider introducing as it’s recommended international nonproprietary name. “500mg mould juice stat” has a certain ring to it…!

The serendipity of his discovery is sometimes exaggerated: Fleming had dedicated much of his life to finding anti-bacterial agents after watching so many soldiers die of infection during the First World War, during which he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. In fact, he wrote an important paper for The Lancet during the war explaining that applying antiseptic to deep wounds was probably counterproductive. Unfortunately, nobody listened, and it’s likely that countless unnecessary deaths resulted.

I was surprised to discover that Fleming was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. The reputation surgeons carry with regards to antibiotic knowledge is not one that suggests that the father of microbiology is one of theirs…!

Thanks to an on-call that was rather busier than I prefer, I forgot to post a photo last night. So, to make up for that, here’s one from this morning.

According to some plane geeks sat near me, this is the Emirates Boeing 777-300ER, the biggest aircraft to regularly service Newcastle airport. There was quite some fanfare when the 428-seater started running earlier in the year.

In interviews, Emirates pilots describe Newcastle’s as one of the more “challenging” runways on the 777 route, thanks to its short length. To me, 2.3km sounds quite a long runway, but then I’m not trying to comfortably halt a quarter of a million kilos which hits the ground at 150mph, so perhaps I’m not fully appreciating the situation!

Several people have suggested in the last few weeks that I should visit Sunderland Aquatic Centre, on the basis of its “incredible” facilities. So I have, and was duly impressed.

It’s the only 50m pool between Edinburgh and Leeds, and also has a set of 1m, 2m, and 5m diving boards above their own diving pool. Both pools have variable depths.

I’ve never seen a variable-depth pool “in the flesh” before, and was duly impressed! It was somewhat disconcerting to see toddler swims as happening in the diving pool until I realised that the depth is reduced to just 30cm for these sessions. It seems incredible that a 4m diving pool can be reduced to a depth of 30cm at a whim! It reminded me that when I’m a multi-millionaire, I want one of these in my mansion!

After two-and-a-half years of constant use, this happened to my MacBook Pro’s power lead. I’m not sure when it happened, but I noticed it yesterday evening.

And so this morning I paid my second ever visit to the Genius Bar in my local Apple Store, where it was replaced on-the-spot with no questions asked – not even how old it was, or whether it was under warranty, or whether I had AppleCare.

It’s such brilliant service, especially compared to spending £50 on a replacement cable for my last Toshiba laptop after a similar lifespan.

On the day of the announcement of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, evidence of a miracle unseen at Newcastle Airport! Praise the Lord!

This is the second photo today, making up the numbers as I forgot on some previous occasion….!