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!

This is Northern Rock’s flagship branch on Northumberland Street in Newcastle – as previously featured ad nauseam on 24hr news in 2007, when there was a run on the bank. It’s just finished its rebrand to Virgin Money – though it’s nice to see that they’ve left the distinctive clock in place.

This is Newcastle’s Town Moor at dusk.

The Town Moor is very close to the city centre: certainly no more than a ten minute walk away. It’s one of the largest urban green spaces in the UK: it’s bigger than London’s Hyde Park and Hampstead Heath combined.

The Freemen of the city regularly exercise their right to graze cattle on the moor, making it surely one of the closest pieces of working farmland to a city centre in the UK. This leads to all sorts of student tales of cows being lead to unlikely places within the city, which one has to hope are apocryphal!

As it happens, the grazing rights of the Freemen also extend to St James’ Park. This could cause LOCOG and the IOC one or two headaches should the Freemen choose to exercise their legal right during the upcoming Olympics – I suspect it could prove somewhat disruptive to football matches!

The usage of the Town Moor is governed by its very own Act of Parliament: the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Town Moor Act 1774, given royal assent by King George III. This is perhaps the only thing that Newcastle owes to a Tory government!

The Act was most recently updated in 1988 – also, of course, under a Tory government (or at least its modern equivalent) – though curiously the city loses the hyphens in its name in the title of the Newcastle upon Tyne Town Moor Act 1988. This legislation mandates that “the Town Moor shall be maintained as an open space in the interests of the inhabitants of the city … to afford air and exercise for the enjoyment of the public” – which is nice to know!

This isn’t the cheeriest of signs to feature, but I drive past it quite often and it always strikes me that, despite its title, it really isn’t a very polite notice. There’s no “please”, no “thank you”, and not even a friendly request. It simply states the desired outcome.

By these rules, me saying “I will have a cup of tea now” is a polite way of asking for a drink. Or perhaps the polite way of discouraging cold calling is to post a note saying “this doorbell is not for salespeople”. Or perhaps not.

Meet Scratch, next door’s cat. Scratch sent us a card when we moved in, which shows remarkable talent for a feline! Otherwise, Scratch seems to just love sitting on the front walls and gate posts of nearby houses, enjoying tickles and scratches from successive passers-by.

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!