Life needs more whimsy.

This has been recommended to me many times since it was first published in 2015. I’ve slightly put off reading it as I thought it might be a bit dry. It wasn’t.

The book is about the last sailing of the Lusitania, the passenger liner whose sinking in 1915 by a German U-boat made a major contribution to the US’s decision to abandon neutrality and fight for the allies in the First World War.

This was a properly riveting read, with chapters shifting between intimate portraits of life on board that final voyage, the submariners on board U-20, the code breakers in London, and President Wilson in the White House. I appreciated too that Larson didn’t answer every question. The reasoning behind some of the decisions which led to Lusitania’s sinking are lost to history, and Larson reflects that rather than trying to tie up every loose end.

This comes highly recommended.

This year, you may enjoy spending a few moments of Boxing Day last weekend’s Financial Times ‘Life of a Song’ column, in which Helen Brown examines the history of ‘We Three Kings of Orient Are’.

I suspect describing someone as ‘of Orient’ would be deeply offensive these days, but I liked the article for its straight-laced headline (‘Popular carol has been subject to mischievous variations’) and also for its intriguing final line:

Today my own teenage son, raised in Essex, rejoices each Christmas in a version which ends with the Magi “necking Stella Artois”.

It’s sure to raise a Boxing Day smile.

This is Cameron’s Brewery in Hartlepool, established 170 years ago—though the site has been used for brewing since 1572. It is the largest independent brewery in North East England.

Yep, another mosaic.

Dominican monks have a long history in Newcastle, with Blackfriars Priory established in 1239. The Friars wore black tunics over white cloaks, as shown in the mosaic, which eventually led to Newcastle United wearing a black and white kit.

The Priory dissolved in the 1500s in line with Henry VIII’s decree. The church was stripped, but, unusually, the rest of the monastery remained standing and was given over to the city’s guilds—butchers, bakers, tailors and the like—hence the mention of ‘crafts’ in the mosaic.

These days, Blackfriars is probably best known for the restaurant which opened on the site in 2001. The unique location means that one can—as, indeed, Wendy and I have—dine in the oldest purpose-built dining room in the UK. I had steak.

This is the River God Tyne on the wall of Newcastle’s Civic Centre. It was the largest bronze sculpture in the UK when it was installed in 1968 and the artist was David Wynne (he of the nearby swans).

Occasionally, water trickles from his outstretched hand, over his head, and into that little collecting pool (but mostly splashing out of it and all over the place—which, I assume, is why it’s normally turned off).

When I told you that there were twelve mosaics under the A1058 in Newcastle, you may have had one of two thoughts:

1. Aren’t there fourteen? Why yes, that was poorly fact-checked.
2. Does this mean 13 more posts featuring photographs of grimy 1970s mosaics from a dodgy underpass? I can neither confirm nor deny, but this post might give you a clue.
   

Yesterday, in the context of the first passenger service of the new Metro train, I said:

with the UK’s public realm and infrastructure suffering from long term under-investment, it looks like we’ll be stuck with cascading sets of problems for years to come.

And how. By yesterday evening, the Metro network had been bisected: it has been judged unsafe for trains to travel in the tunnels which live under Gateshead’s 1960s flyover, which has been assessed as in danger of collapse.

This means that the Tyne can no longer be crossed by Metro. The works on the Tyne Bridge, as well as the flyover being closed, make road crossings of the Tyne in the city centre challenging, exacerbated by the closure of the High Level Bridge to most traffic some years ago.

The nearby Swing Bridge hasn’t swung in years, and the car park beneath the nearby Redheugh Bridge has been cordoned off because of the risk of bits of concrete dropping off it.

The Tyne Tunnels are restricted at weekends as one is needing maintenance closures to ’protect its long-term future’ only 13 years after its last nine-month refurbishment closure. The ferry across the Tyne has been closing early for weeks, and is expected to continue to do so for months, due to staff shortages.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m so lucky to be able to walk to work and avoid this chaos.

Deep beneath the A1058 in Newcastle lies a subway decorated with twelve mosaics. These were installed in 1979 in anticipation of the 900th anniversary of the city’s founding, celebrated the following year.

Each panel was chosen to represent a key event in the history of the city. With a little foresight, they included the opening of the Metro as one of those seminal moments:

The trains captured in that image have trundled round the system continuously since it opened… but not for much longer. Yesterday, the first of a new generation of Metro trains entered passenger service. Perhaps someone, somewhere is making mosaic to celebrate.

It’s a sign of the times that the new train is having to trundle under Gateshead at a reduced speed due to the risk of collapse of the crumbling Gateshead flyover. Small steps forward are always welcome, but with the UK’s public realm and infrastructure suffering from long term under-investment, it looks like we’ll be stuck with cascading sets of problems for years to come.