As I’ve failed to take a photo for today, here’s one from yesterday of someone taking a picture of St James’ Park. Note the white sheet below the football symbol on the right of the picture, which is covering one of the many “Sports Direct Arena” signs.

If you’re confused by the spelling of St James’ Park, you aren’t the only one – as I’ve discussed before!

Wendy and I, plus 42,000 of our closest friends, went today to support Brazil and Honduras in the Olympic men’s football quarter final at St James Park. It was only the third professional football match I’ve ever been to, and Wendy’s first. It was also the first time either of us had been to St James Park for sporting reasons, though we’ve both visited for work reasons in the past!

We were both slightly surprised (perhaps because we’re a little naive) at the level of security – everyone was patted down on entering, and police were peering down from the roofs of surrounding buildings at the crowd around the ground. We also balked slightly at the cost of drinks inside, especially since we couldn’t take liquids in.

But, all-in-all, we had a great time, and it’s brilliant to feel a little bit involved in London 2012!

This pretty fountain sits outside the equally pretty South Shields Town Hall. The building dates back to 1910, but I’m not sure when the fountains arrived!

This is a brilliant Wired feature about a relatively recent outbreak of anthrax amongst intravenous drug users in Glasgow, and Health Protection Scotland’s subsequent investigation. The fact that I loved this article so much is certainly influence by my job as a Public Health doctor, but I think most people will have at least some interest in this fascinating case.

This year, we are – of course – celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. 125 years ago, our forebears were celebrating Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.

As part of those celebrations, a Royal Jubilee Exhibition was held in Newcastle, in the specially created Exhibition Park. It proved phenomenally successful, with over two million people visiting. Other than the very existence of the park itself, this band stand is the only remaining remnant of the Royal Jubilee Exhibition – note the crest above the entrance, and the crown around the spike at the top! It was cast in iron from a Glaswegian foundry, and it’s now Grade II listed.

This is Spirit of Jarrow, a Graham Ibbeson statue commemorating the Jarrow Crusade. Surprisingly, it was commissioned by Morrisons, the supermarket chain; less surprisingly, it’s in Jarrow.

The Jarrow Crusade was, of course, a 300-mile march of 200 shipyard workers from Jarrow to Parliament in 1936, highlighting the unemployment and poverty of the North East. It certainly didn’t result in a quick win: Stanley Baldwin refused to meet the marchers, and the depression in the North East continued pretty much up until the war.

That said, it did highlight the plight of the North East, and generated a lot of popular sympathy. It’s often cited as a milestone in the formation of the modern Labour party: it’s interesting to remember that the formal position of Labour party of the day was opposition, though Labour giant Ellen Wilkinson was its biggest political proponent. It’s perhaps a sad reflection of modern politics that such differences of opinion within a party are rarely tolerated these days.

This is a delightful book that I only came across after it was recommended by Shelagh Fogarty on Twitter.

It’s short, and full (mainly) of short anecdotes and reflections on events in the late Nora Ephron’s life. Sometimes, these take the form of full-on autobiographical anecdotes, such as her story of how she got into journalism. Others are just straight-out opinions, such as her six stages of her relationship with email. All are joyously funny; some are also quite touching. The whole gives a real sense of Ephron as a person. And the quality of the writing throughout is just sublime.

Some reviewers have complained about a degree of “bitchiness” in this book – and it’s true to say that Ephron’s opinions aren’t universally positive about everything. But I read these opinions as honestly held, and found them endearing.

There are glorious descriptions of some of Ephron’s reactions to the absurdity of celebrity, and the challenges of ageing: from how she reacts to finding a dish named after her in a restaurant, to coping with an inability to remember names.

There’s a chapter in this book that deals with Ephron’s “flops”: her films and plays that have failed to become financial successes. She describes with honesty how this feels, how it can never quite be forgotten, and how the failures stayed with her far longer than the successes. I’m someone who generally advocates embracing and learning from failure, and this chapter really made me view this in a different way. In a creative context, “success” and “failure” are difficult to define: Ephron considers her finest play to be one that commercially flopped. How can one learn from failure when, in the liberal arts, failure is very subjective? I know that’s probably obvious to most people, but this chapter really made me consider this in some depth.

I know that some have been irritated by the brevity of this book. It is very short. Yet I find it difficult to criticise something just because it’s brief: this is brief but excellent, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections is available now from amazon.co.uk in paperback and on Kindle.

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!