It’s Annual Review of Competence Progression (ARCP) time for most medical trainees at this time of year. This is where a panel reviews how we’re doing, and how our training is progressing. Most trainees these days have e-portfolios to collect evidence for these annual reviews, but in Public Health in the Northern Deanery, we still use paper… which requires literally hundreds of physical signatures from supervisors, and other numbers from other people, which can make co-ordination something of a challenge!

This picture shows my portfolio carefully balanced on top of my car, as I prepared to hand it in to the Deanery’s office. I’m glad to finally have it finished for another year!

This is Bottle of Notes, a 1993 steel and enamel sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen which forms text from Captain Cook’s journals into a white bottle; a blue note inside is formed of a line of poetry by one of the artists. It’s about 35 feet tall, and leans at a considerable angle. It was forged a little further north in Hebburn.

Since the bottle’s 1993 installation, mima – the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art – has been built behind it. It opened in 2007, but is (perhaps unfortunately?) best known for hosting Jeremy Clarkson et al’s Top Gear exhibition of automotive art in 2009.

This slightly broken bin has appeared in the road not too far from my house… how it appeared here, I really don’t know! Perhaps it’s a relative of these!

This very distinctive building in Newcastle’s Exhibition Park was originally a temporary pavilion – a “palace of the arts” – in the 1929 North East Coast Exhibition. It proved so distinctive and popular that it was retained and used for a variety of purposes over the years. It’s now Grade II listed.

It’s most recent use was as a Military Vehicle Museum, but the deteriorating state of a temporary building that had far outlasted its designed lifespan led to its closure in 2006. Since then, it’s future had looked uncertain, as the abandoned building deteriorated more and more.

Yet, in May, its future was secured after the building was sold to Shepherd Offshore Ltd who reportedly intend to renovate the building into a museum of horse-drawn carriages and vintage vehicles. It’s great news that the building is to be saved, but I do wonder quite how popular a museum with those contents will be…!

These are the woods in the Tyne Riverside Country Park, as seen during a very sunny walk earlier today.

But, since, everyone’s very excited about the Olympics today, I also thought I should feature something vaguely Olympic related. So here’s my photograph of the Olympic motto from Eau Claire in Calgary, as seen in 2007 during my elective:

I’ve mentioned Newcastle’s quayside kittiwakes before – they’re very controversial because although ornithologists argue that their presence is valuable, they make a heck of a mess around the Tyne Bridge, on which they nest. The hanging sign outside this quayside bar provides a graphic demonstration of the unpleasant mess they liberally spread.

I forgot my photo-a-day yesterday – oops – so here’s a picture of The Shard that I took earlier in the week. Little-known facts about The Shard include the fact that it’s tall, it’s located in London, and it has a lot of glass on it.

This is a bit of water shining in the morning sun in Hyde Park. I think it’s the Serpentine, but it might be Long Water – my understanding of the divisions of Hyde Park’s waterways would be exaggerated by calling it limited.

Anyway, something else has occurred to me as I’ve wandered round London these past few days – with so many sealed post boxes, where are our Olympic visitors supposed to post their official London 2012 postcards? Are there special boxes inside the venues?

This is, of course, BBC Television Centre. Wendy and I were here for a tour today, and also got roped in to being in the audience of a daytime quiz show!

It’s very much a building of its time. It now has a slightly eerie deserted feeling to it – for me, it was a bit reminiscent of working in Newcastle General Hospital right before it closed down. That said, it was a great tour, and I’m glad we took the chance to do it while we could!

This is my contribution to the internet’s wide collection of touristy photos of the Jubilympic Rings on Tower Bridge. They’re roughly the same size as those on the Tyne Bridge, but with five-times the price tag (true story!)

Since that’s a boring choice, here’s a sign that made both Wendy and I wince:

It’s actually a logo for a risk management firm, but immediately made Wendy and I think of diarrhoea and vomiting, outbreaks of which consume fair portions of both of our working lives!

Both of today’s photos come courtesy of suggestions from Wendy… so if you don’t like them, don’t blame me!