These are a few of the 600,000 pink “mistress” tulips in The Alnwick Garden’s remarkable cherry orchard. At least, I trust that there were 600,000 altogether – I didn’t personally count! It certainly looked very pretty, though!

I think these are kittiwakes, but dad would be more likely to make an accurate identification than me! Either way, they were winged visitors to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art this afternoon – very cultured!

I was at St James’ Park today for a mock exam. Luckily, it didn’t involve any demonstration of footballing skill, otherwise it might have gone rather less well for me.

St James’ Park is, of course, the 52,000 seater home to Newcastle United, now officially called the Sports Direct Arena. Whilst that name is undoubtedly controversial, the old one is more controversial than many people realise. While the stadium’s official name was “St James’ Park” (with an oddly placed apostrophe), both of the local Geordie newspapers refer to it as “St James’s Park”. The nearby Metro station further muddies the waters, with the apostrophe-less name “St James”. And that’s before we even broach the debate about whether there should be a full stop after “St”!

I’ve spent some time today reading Balance’s stuff about responsible marketing of alcohol… then was forced to walk through my local Tesco’s makeshift aisle of discounted alcohol in order to get into the store. Hint: this doesn’t tally with Balance’s idea of best practice.

I don’t often venture into Tesco, but I had some bedding to return today, so popped along. The customer service was truly awful.

The customer before me didn’t speak great English, and had a coupon that had been refused at the checkout. The *two* customer service assistants adopted the Basil Fawlty method of communication, almost shouting at the lady that the terms and conditions on the voucher excluded e-topups. The customer’s protestations were met with increasingly loud insistence, until one of the assistants had the inspired idea of actually reading the terms and conditions. The customer had been right: e-topups were not excluded.

As the customer left, the assistants started a frankly racist conversation about the preceding customer, before one beckoned me over with a wave. I asked to return the bedding, and the assistant continued her conversation, directing only three words at me: “receipt”, “clubcard”, and “card”. They were quite literally the only three words she said to me throughout the encounter. She didn’t greet me, she didn’t ask why I was returning the bedding, she didn’t say goodbye, and she certainly didn’t thank me; her rudely continued conversation with her colleague did provide a live demonstration of parochial bigoted opinions that was deeply disrespectful to the previous customer.

Tesco’s problems, it seems, run deep.

Tomorrow is local election day, and politicians seem to like nothing more than talking about “broken Britain”. So, here’s a square metre or so of Britain that’s truly broken.

Not only has this bus stop sign fallen over, it’s also in the middle of nowhere: closer stops exist to both the local town and the industrial sites in the background. The road it’s beside has a speed limit of 60mph, and has a single lane in each direction: any stopped bus would cause quite the obstruction. There’s no pavement on which passengers can wait, nor anywhere for a disembarking passenger to walk. In summary, this is a broken bus stop in the middle of nowhere, with nowhere for the bus to stop, and nowhere for the passengers to wait.

So, really: what’s the point?

This is Temenos, the first of five planned Tees Valley Giants by Anish Kapoor – perhaps most famous at the moment for the ArcelorMittal Orbit in London’s Olympic Park.

When all five are completed, the Tees Valley Giants will be the world’s biggest public artwork – although given that each sculpture is destined for a different Tees Valley town, there’s surely a philosophical debate to be had about whether they’re really one artwork.

It’s not really the done thing to write off artists’ work, especially when they’re as well-respected as Kapoor – but I’ve never seen anything of his that doesn’t strike me as a bit soulless and bland. He seems to play with scale and materials, but never actually use them to say anything of note. But heck, I’m barely qualified to have an opinion on this, so just look at the photo and be amazed.

This is the North Tower of the former Co-op department store in Newcastle. It’s officially called Co-op House, and opened to the public in 1932. It closed in 2007, leaving just the food hall on the ground floor, which soon felt seriously unloved. It finally closed on New Year’s Eve 2011.

The Grade II listed building is now to be transformed into a Travelodge, work which will include restoring the distinctive clock to working order. But some space on the ground floor will be occupied by a small Co-op shop, ensuring its continuing its presence in this historic building.

Is it really almost May? It really doesn’t feel like it!

Mum and dad’s new puppy, Poppy, fast asleep!

If you look closely, you’ll spot the rabbit that Wendy and I watched as we drank tea at the M6 Tebay services earlier this evening. There can’t be too many service stations where that’s a possibility!