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….!

This is Whistlestop. Or to give it its full name, Whistlestop Foodwine. So fast are they moving that they can’t even pause for an “and”.

Whistlestop is the shop right next to the domestic arrivals area at Newcastle airport. It markets itself as ideal for picking up some bread, milk, or other sundries on return from one’s travels. The bizarre thing about this proposition is that in all the time I’ve been a regular user of this airport, I think I’ve only seen it open once. It seems to have absurdly restricted opening hours.

Now forgive me, but I would’ve thought that a shop like this would cash in on, for example, travellers who return on a Sunday night and need supplies for the following morning. Other shops are frequently closed, so this small store could cash in. Except it’s not open.

Which begs the question… what is its market?! It’s been here for years, so it must be doing something right!

I love Penn and Teller, and I really enjoyed reading this article from the Smithsonian in which Teller reveals some of the tricks of his trade.

I wrapped my first Christmas presents today during an atypical moment of organisation…! My brother and sister-in-law tell me that they’ve already bought all of their presents, which shows far more organisation than I possess.

Well, I say that, but I did get this year’s Christmas cards printed about 12 months ago, so I guess Wendy and I are a little ahead of the curve on that one!

A week ago, my 13-month old nephew came to visit, with my brother and sister-in-law, which was lovely! Wendy thought that he might be entertained by stickers, and she seemed to have great fun playing with him and them. A week later, I’m still finding stickers around the house… but I’m not entirely sure which of them is to blame!

This book was a very pleasant surprise. I’d read reviews suggesting that this was “no children’s book”, and celebrating the swearing, and I expected some sort of horrendous easy-read chick-lit fantastical romp about caricatures taking wholly unrealistic actions to propel along a slightly crazy plot, with little touches of romance and the odd edgy sex scene shoehorned in to prove it wasn’t for kids.

The Casual Vacancy couldn’t have been further from that. It’s a proper state-of-the-nation epic, deconstructing the casual immorality of the middle-classes with genuine insight, razor-sharp wit, and an unshakable moral compass. Lesser authors make such points by viewing society as an outsider, or transplanting it to somewhere else. Rowling’s precise characterisations allow her to deliver a devastating socialist demolition of conservative small-town parochialism through simple storytelling dashed with black comedy. I don’t think it’s going too far to suggest that her approach is Dickensian, and there’s no question that its successful. I recently said that I was unmoved by One Day: that certainly isn’t true of The Casual Vacancy.

This isn’t a novel that’s thick with plot: it’s a ruminative characterisation novel. The plot, which is mainly driven by the younger characters, functions primarily to reveal more about the characters, especially the adults, through their reactions to events. In that sense, the structure is quite old-fashioned, written in the style that most books used to use before everything became short-chaptered plot-driven romps that make for simple scene-by-scene transitions to cinema. This has led to some criticism from those who expect something plot-driven from the Harry Potter author, but I found it both refreshing and brilliant. The authorship is something of a problem for this novel: I suspect it suffers poor reviews because people want Harry Potter 2, and this novel is simply not comparable. It is quite clearly aimed at a totally different audience.

A lot of reviewers have complained of difficulty keeping track of all of the characters in the novel. I can honestly say that I never found it a problem. Again, I wonder if that’s due to the recent proliferation of filmic novels withs casts of four or five making people unused to tracking wider ensembles. Or perhaps I’m just sympathetic to the novel because I loved it.

All things considered, it’s funny, it’s moving, it’s incisive, and it comes wholeheartedly recommended by me.

The Casual Vacancy is available now from amazon.co.uk in hardback and on Kindle.