Herbert, Sherbet, Maggot and Rusty, as well as Rusty’s pet Metroshoposaurus, make up the very popular Metrognomes. They come out at the Metrocentre during school holidays with free shows to entertain children, performed four times per day throughout the holidays – a brand new show for every holiday. It must surely be the job from hell for the actors by the end of the run, not to mention the workers in the shops nearby!

Despite the frequency if the performance, The Metrognomes always attract impressive crowds for each performance, which I guess is testament to their popularity. There’s also a website with a free-to-join online Metrognomes Kids Club, which entitles kids to a free wristband and Metrognomes comic. The Metrocentre also sells oodles of Metrognomes merchandise, including DVDs and cuddly toys.

Lots of shopping centres have characters and similar schemes that appeal to kids, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that’s quite as successful or comprehensive as this!

This is one of the footpaths on the High Level Bridge linking Newcastle and Gateshead. The top deck of the High Level Bridge carries trains, whilst pedestrians and road traffic cross on the lower deck. It was opened by Queen Victoria herself, and if you’re wondering about the dates and designers, this plaque might help:

The bridge was the world’s first major wrought iron tied-arch design, and spans 1,337 feet across six spans. During the Great Fire of Newcastle and Gateshead in 1854, it’s said that the bridge “vibrated like a thin wire”.

One has to wonder whether these not-so-good vibrations caused the first flaws in the ironwork that developed to severe cracks found when the bridge was due for restoration in 2005. These led to the bridge being closed for three years, and road traffic now being restricted to only taxis and buses in a single direction.

In the first year after it re-opened, though, some 32,000 drivers – my dad and brother included – ignored these restrictions. Perhaps, like dad and Glenn, all of them got lost and confused, ended up at the entrance to the bridge before they knew it, and were unable to turn round!

In response, Northumbria Police launched a crackdown, and fined over 1,000 drivers £30 in a few short weeks. Electronic registration number capturing monitoring equipment now automatically issues fines to anyone who breaks the rules.

The Metrocentre has an intriguing strategy for dealing with empty shop units: they’re spun as evidence of the centre’s constant refreshing, revising, and revitalising of its brand portfolio. To my mind, it’s an approach that beats the near ubiquitous Shopjacket and its clones, which seem a little tacky. I suppose, though, this approach can only work in places where units tend not to stay empty for long – and where the empty shops are relatively few and far between.

I’ve mentioned Newcastle’s quayside kittiwakes before – they’re very controversial because although ornithologists argue that their presence is valuable, they make a heck of a mess around the Tyne Bridge, on which they nest. The hanging sign outside this quayside bar provides a graphic demonstration of the unpleasant mess they liberally spread.

I’ve featured the Millennium Bridge a few times: once with bollards, once during the removal of the bollards, and once without them. But today is the first time I’ve featured it tilted!

It cost £22m to build, and tilted for the first time in 2001. It’s so energy efficient that it costs just £3.60 in electricity to open. One thing that many people don’t realise is that the tilting of the bridge has a secondary function, beyond letting ships pass: it tips any litter dropped on the bridge into special traps, making the bridge uniquely self-tidying!

I know lots of councils put stickers not dissimilar to these on their lampposts, but the personality of these ones in Gateshead never fails to make me smile!

Located just behind The Sage, this is the CoMusica Legal Wall, a space for graffiti artists to legally share their work. The designs on the wall change frequently, but always seem to be high quality.

Check out this section based around Romeo and Juliet, which ties in with a couple of things The Sage is currently hosting with the Royal Shakespeare Company as part of the World Shakespeare festival:

You’ll need a sharp pair of eyes to spot the figure on the end of this bungee rope, right in the centre of the photo.

You can see rather more easily the Sage, the Tyne Bridge (complete with Olympic rings), the Castle Keep, and St Nicholas’s and St Mary’s cathedrals, all of which I’ve featured previously!

You can also see the quayside’s Sunday market in full flow; a bit of the 136 year old Swing Bridge, whose predecessors date back some 1,800 years or so to the Roman Pons Aelius; a smidgen of Robert Stephenson’s High Level Bridge, from which hundreds of people watched the Great Fire of Newcastle and Gateshead in 1854; and the roof of HMS Calliope, the stone frigate on the Gateshead bank of the Tyne.

You can’t see the talented young musicians performing in the North East Youth Steel Pan Festival, part of ¡Vamos! 2012. This festival was actually my reason for visiting the quayside this afternoon, but inclement weather moved it indoors, which would’ve made a fairly dull photo. So you’ve got a bungee jumping nutcase from outside instead!

Meet Jolly, one of the many cardboard cutout corgis currently littering the Metrocentre. This is, surely, one of the country’s strangest Diamond Jubilee celebrations…!

At the Metrocentre this evening, I did have to wonder: is there some kind of celebration happening this weekend?!