This is our bin for garden waste. Many Newcastle residents have these, and the council pays for them to be emptied fortnightly.

Or at least, the council did pay. In the new financial year, residents have been asked to pay an annual subscription fee of £20 if they want to continue using the service. In times of austerity, garden waste collection was evidently not seen as the city’s most essential service.

Yet, the council has, it seems, dug itself into a bit of a hole. Only 24% of eligible residents signed up for the scheme, which leaves tens of thousands of green bins that need collecting from residents and – more challengingly – storing. The story has even reached the well-tuned ears of The Guardian, which reports that the bins are being temporarily stored in salt depots which are empty at this time of the year.

Where they will go next is anyone’s guess. It’s suggested that they’ll be sold on to other councils but, as you can see, they’re fairly comprehensively Newcastle branded, so who’s likely to buy them?

I do wonder if this scheme might end up costing the council more than in saves, at least in the short term. Oops!

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.

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.

Wendy, her mum, and I lunched in Olive and Bean today. Their paninis are delicious, and the service is always great too. If ever you’re looking for somewhere a bit different for a coffee or a sandwich in Newcastle, Olive and Bean comes highly recommended!

Newcastle is indeed located in Scotland. It is a city, not a capital.

The response from lowcostholidays to Jamie O’Neill’s email pointing out that Newcastle isn’t, in fact, in Scotland. As featured on Bitterwallet.

Editor’s note (26th September 2014):
At the request of a Senior Outreach Executive from the lowcosttravel group, this post has been edited to remove the link to lowcostholidays.

Weetslade Country Park is a landscaped former colliery site just minutes from my front door, yet today was the first time I’ve visited. It boats about 20 hectares of land, including a hill with an artistic sculpture; a reedbed; woodland areas; and a newborn highland cow, called “wee” Slade (see what they did there?)

Unfortunately, I saw little more than the bottom of the hill today, as the heavens opened ten minutes or so after I arrived. I was soaked to the skin, despite my trusty Ikea umbrella!

It looks like it would be lovely to visit when the sun’s out, so I’m sure I’ll be back soon!

This is part of the pretty Royal Quays Marina at North Shields. It’s built around the Victorian Albert Edward Dock, which was opened by Albert Edward himself, in 1884.

This is MS Princess Seaways, one of the big DFDS cruiseferries that runs from North Shields, here in Newcastle, to IJmuiden, in the Netherlands.

It’s probably a ship with deep psychological issues: it was “born” in Germany in 1986 and was christened MS Peter Pan. It underwent a definitive sex change in 2006, when it became Princess of Norway, having used three other fairly gender neutral names in the interim, but has remained a princess of one sort or another ever since.

I always thought it was unlucky to rename a ship, but perhaps I’m wrong…!

I’ve spied the new BHS on Newcastle’s Northumberland Street this afternoon. It’s in the building vacated by Next after they shuffled off into Eldon Square, and is a few doors up from its previous home, which has been subsumed into the expanding Primark.

Graham Soult has some great before-and-after comparison shots to see the impressive scale of the building’s transformation.

On my visit, my eye was drawn to the cafe on the second floor with floor-to-ceiling windows, which strikes me as a little vertiginous. I’m also not entirely keen on having two BHS signs above one another – I understand the logic (the higher one isn’t terribly visible from the doorway), but couldn’t they just have put a logo on the doors? There were six big visible logos on the frontage on my visit (four on posters), and it really cheapens the brand.

Anyway, I’m being picky. It’s a nice looking shop from the outside – certainly moreso than the old, unloved Next – and it’s a relief to get rid of some of Northumberland Street’s scaffolding!