So I’m more than fashionably late to this particular party…!

I didn’t really appreciated the scale of the Olympic Park until I saw it “in the flesh”… maybe that just means I need a bigger TV. I was slightly amused as a fairly elderly couple told me they were standing and waiting to see the Orbit move: it seems a policeman had told them that it had been lifted while onto the back of a huge lorry yesterday, and that the lorry was setting off for Glasgow later this afternoon. I wonder how long they waited?

This is a tiny bit of the Royal Society of Medicine’s incredible library, which is one of the biggest medical libraries in Europe. It’s spread over four floors, holding over half a million volumes – with around a thousand new ones added each year. It holds books dating back to the 1400s – when the occasional outbreak of Black Death was still claiming the lives of young Londoners. Even I couldn’t resist pulling a book off the shelf and reading for a while.

I think bringing Wendy here would be dangerous: she’s can easily spend an hour looking at the fairly pitiful selection of medical books in our local Blackwell’s, and has even taken her mum to the BMA library when on holiday! If I brought her here, she might move in… especially if she knew there’s a Mango nearby!

No prizes for guessing where I’ve been tonight… The Millennium Dome, now the O2, Richard Rogers’s homage to the Festival of Britain’s Dome of Discovery. Its time-obsessed dimensions reflect the reason for its construction: 12 pillars, one pillar for each month of the year; 52m high, one metre for each week of the year; a diameter of 365m, one metre for each day of the year. And there’s that remarkable statistic that the 1mm-thick glass-fibre fabric of the roof weighs less than than the air contained within the dome itself, yet could support the weight of a jumbo jet.

In the furore over the Dome’s innards, it’s often forgotten that the building itself was constructed in just 15 months, and – at £43m – substantially under-budget.

It’s hard to believe that it’s twelve years since my family and I first visited the site, to see the much-maligned (though highly rated by 85% of actual visitors) Millennium Experience. We had a great time, though I recall that we were really rather baffled over what the unifying theme of the attractions was supposed to be.

I’ve returned quite a few times since, usually just to grab dinner when in London and nearby… which is exactly why I was there tonight!

This is the fairly simple set up I use when I record for Calibre – and, since I started recording for Calibre, it’s also the set up I use when recording for The Pod Delusion.

I’ve just finished a book for Calibre today – just shy of 12 hours of audio in total. I hope my voice doesn’t start to irritate people after the first half hour or so…!

Today, I’ve been to visit Northumberlandia, a colossal sculpture of a woman, 100ft high and a quarter of a mile long. It’s made from the excavated material of the open-cast coal mine next door, leading to its more common colloquial name: Slag Alice.

This is a closer view of the face from atop Alice’s right breast. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write!

As the sculpture is new, and still bedding in, it is only open to the public on selected days and at selected times. It’s expected to be fully open later in the year.

This is, erm, Alice’s left nipple, with Shotton surface coal mine in the background, demonstrating where the material of her form was gathered. It is still very much operational. The coal mine, I mean, not the nipple.

The sculpture cost around £3m, and it was entirely privately funded. It was designed by Charles Jencks. As well as making lots of landscaped art, he co-founded Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres, of which there are now fourteen across the UK. They provide evidence-based psychological, emotional and informational support to anyone affected by cancer – whether a patient, relative or friend.

This is a slightly whimsical picture of Alice’s right hand, which points roughly in the direction of the exit…!

Admission to Northumberlandia is free. And here’s a mildly amusing unusual sign:

Tyne Tees is one of the few areas of the UK where Ceefax is still available… but not for much longer! In 12 days, this region will complete digital switchover and we’ll lose Ceefax forever.

The degree to which this really doesn’t matter to me personally is exemplified by the fact that it’s taken me about 10 minutes to work out how to get it on my current TV…! But I used to use it quite a lot, so I feel a little bit sad to know that it will no longer be there!

This is a drum clock manufactured by Potts for the concourse at Newcastle Station, where it still hangs today. It’s about 120 years old or thereabouts. For a long time after I first moved to Newcastle, this clock had no hands. I don’t know whether it was broken and later repaired, or whether the hands were removed for restoration. But after what seemed like years of it being a broken clock, I remember being somewhat surprised to find it in full working order one day.

One of the more widely circulated pictures from the large storms that have battered Tyneside in the last few months is this shot of the very same clock, in which the roof of the station is leaking to such a degree that it looks like it’s raining inside!

Another arch today: this impressive 11m tall Chinese arch marks the northern entrance to Newcastle’s Chinatown. It was constructed in 2004 by engineers from mainland China at a cost of £475,000, and has a pair of guardian Shishi statues. In 2008, the street lighting in Chinatown was replaced by pretty Chinese lanterns, which I might well feature another day!

I was surprised to discover that England has only five “official” Chinatowns. As well as the one in Newcastle, there are Chinatowns in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham.

These are the arches of the Fine Art building at Newcastle University, which lead into the Quadrangle. Until recently, there used to be noticeboards between the two arches on which exam results were posted, but these have now been removed, and it is quite amazing the degree to which this simple action has changed the feeling of the space.

Below is one of the University’s publicity shots for it’s new medical school in Malaysia – NUMed. In an homage to the Newcastle base, they’ve even replicated the arches…!

This is Josef Craig’s gold post box, celebrating the 15 year-old’s world record breaking gold medal performance in the S7 400m Freestyle. He’s certainly become something of a local hero in Jarrow – the bloke painting the postbox said that so many people had come up and told him about Joe that he felt like he knew him!