I’m not sure what the opposite of ‘a hoarder’ is, but I might be an example. I’m wired like William Morris: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

When Wendy and I catch snatches of antique programmes on television, I frequently lament that I would have no hesitation in disposing of whatever’s on display. I long for the day that someone takes an item to The Repair Shop only to be told that it’s a waste of space, but that the parts will be great for recycling. When I was built, the circuits which promote sentimentality for objects were left out.

I wasn’t drawn at all to the objects in Jools and Paul Donnelly’s small exhibition of 1960s mod culture, It’s my life… and I’ll do what I want. I admire their passion as collectors, but there isn’t a thing in this exhibition that I’d keep. Perhaps luckily for the Donnellys, if any of this turned up in my house, it’d be down at the charity shop in the blink of an eye.

I also didn’t learn anything from the exhibition: this was intended as a celebration and reminiscence, so there was no interpretive text. I couldn’t reminisce about a time that precedes my lifetime by decades.

Yet, it was clear that others loved this tiny exhibition—including plenty of people too young to remember the period. I’m the odd one out here.

And, perhaps perversely, that made me enjoy my visit. It’s always refreshing to be reminded that life takes all sorts of different people, and that one person’s junk is another’s treasure. This was not for me, but the world is a better place for containing multitudes, not just exhibitions of things that I like.

More power to the Donnellys’ elbows.

It’s my life… and I’ll do what I want continues until the end of this week, tucked away on the top floor of Newcastle City Library.

The late photographer Tish Murtha has a strong place in the firmament of the North East. She is best known for her documentary photography from the 1970s and 1980s, which brought the reality of life in the impoverished and marginalised urban communities of the North East to wider attention. Her photographs often combine gritty reality with a touch of humorous intrigue. They drew attention to social disadvantage while also celebrating the tenacity and grit of those experiencing it.

She was also known locally as the person who did the first professional headshots of Dec, of Ant and Dec fame.

Newcastle City Council recently decided to name a new social housing development as ‘Tish Murtha House’, and is holding three exhibitions of her work in celebration. ‘Demon Snapper’ is—perhaps bravely—the first of these. It leans into Murtha’s reputation for controversy early in her career, the title taken from an epithet given at the time by a local newspaper.

The controversy stemmed from Murtha’s 1970s work documenting ‘Juvenile Jazz Bands’—groups of children dressed up in military uniforms and parading through the streets playing marching anthems on kazoos and glockenspiels, as a sort of weird tribute to colliery brass bands.

Murtha thought these groups, and in particular their militaristic associations, were harmful. As she said at the time,

a child must put aside all normal behaviour, and become the plaything of the failed soldier, the ex-armed forces members and their ilk; any spark of individuality is crushed by the military training imposed, until the child’s actions resemble those of a mechanical tin soldier, acting out the confused fantasies of an older generation.

Murtha’s photographic contribution to the debate was to create an exhibition juxtaposing her pictures of the uniformed bands with other shots of backstreet kids rejected from the bands imitating them, like the one below.

From a modern perspective, it’s hard to argue with Murtha’s position, but it caused enormous controversy at the time.

I enjoyed this small exhibition partly because Murtha’s photography is eye-catching and intriguing, but also because I respect the fact that the Council is willing to lean into the controversy when celebrating Murtha’s success.

In the modern world, we so often hear about ’cancel culture’ that we can get the impression that even mild controversy is a barrier to long-term success. There is something brave and yet reassuring about the Council celebrating someone’s success and also celebrating their controversy, rather than shying away from it.

Tish Murtha: The Demon Snapper theoretically closed on Friday, but it was still hanging on the second floor of Newcastle City Library when I visited yesterday, so perhaps there’s still a chance to see it (if you’re quick).

The second exhibition in the series (‘From the Inside’) is apparently open in Cruddas Park library now.

The third (‘Camera in Hand’) will be a permanent exhibition inside Tish Murtha House itself, open only to residents. Bravo.

Jim Moir (‘aka Vic Reeves’ as the catalogue has it) isn’t best-known for his painting, despite clearly possessing a lot of talent. I popped along to The Biscuit Factory to see his exhibition ‘Hot Buttered Mattress.’

It wasn’t really up my street. Moir is a brilliant representational painter, and also has an interest in ornithology. A lot of this exhibition is paintings of birds, mostly in very literal form, like the Bird Colour Wheel above. I’m not all that interested in birds.

Some of his work is a bit more abstract, like this Mandarin Duck over a Football Pitch, but it didn’t strike me as having anything particularly interesting to say, and it didn’t draw me in.

There are some more comic pieces—see Totally Topless Open Plan Office Environment 1987—but these didn’t do much for me either, seeming rather one-note.

My favourite of his works is the one at the top of this post, Curlews Over Lindisfarne, though I think I’d prefer it without the curlews. With them, it seems literal and representative—without them, I’m left to fill in the gaps much more.

There was a passage in Adam Gopnik’s latest book which was resonated with me:

In our age, the difference between entertainment and art is that in entertainment we expect to do all the work for the audience, while in art we expect the audience to do all the work for us.

I suppose I felt that Moir did too much of the work for me… though this is only my preference. I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of producing anything even remotely as good as anything in this exhibition, given my profound lack of artistic ability.

However, there was much more by other artists within The Biscuit Factory’s walls which I loved, so allow me to show you four pieces that I think deserve attention.

Angelo Murphy’s New Teapot with Flowers is representative still life, but blooming heck, look at how good it is—it’s like a modern Heda. This might be a type of art that’s not usually up my street, but this is genius.

John Brenton’s The Colours of Dusk is a stunning contribution to his collection of coastal artworks that immediately drew me in. It is rich and deep and beguiling.

All of Laura Pedley’s pieces were fantastic, but I pondered Setting Out Again the longest. It seems to me that it represents profound hope and profound despair, capturing both brilliantly and simultaneously. I love it.

Jim Moir’s Hot Buttered Mattress continues at The Biscuit Factory until 2 April.

Same time, same walk, two days later… and it’s no less than seventeen degrees warmer. Spring is mad.

The -5°c walk to work was a shock to the system. At least, unlike this flora, I hadn’t been out in it all night. It doesn’t look as though the flowers enjoyed the chill.

I am nowhere near well-read enough of art to be aware of the (apparently very famous) mid-20th century Scottish artist Wilhelmina Burns-Graham. I therefore didn’t really know what to expect of this exhibition. From the title, I assumed the work would be abstract, which, as I’ve previously mentioned, is right up my street.

It turned out that this large-scale exhibition of seventy chronologically presented paintings and drawings was quite fascinating in the way it showed the development of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’s style.

Barns-Graham’s early work was almost entirely representative: there were a lot of ‘nice’ but plain depictions of ‘nice’ by plain scenes, such as the Cornish landscape. Some of these had a rather idiosyncratic style with some bold brushstrokes, but there was nothing in this work that especially stood out to me.

Later, Burns-Graham painted and drew pictures of Swiss glaciers, which naturally have quite abstract and complex forms. Whether it was due to the hanging of the exhibition or a true reflection of reality, I could feel Burns-Graham becoming increasingly taken with abstract forms over this period. The pictures became much less representative, and much more reflective of feeling and response… much more my kind of thing.

I was very taken in by this 1958 painting, Pink and Flame, which suggested so many things to me, but most especially the warmth of a fireplace in a living room (or perhaps a kitchen?)

From here, Barns-Graham started to experiment with even greater abstraction, teaching me that regular geometric forms can, in fact, be even more abstract than works without clear form.

This is 1964’s Cinders, which stood out to me as a good comparison with the 1958 painting, for depicting a broadly similar thing in a much more abstracted–but more geometric–form. This slightly blew my mind, as I’ve always associated abstraction with a lack of form.

So, what I really liked about this exhibition was the way it flowed, and the way I could follow through the development of this singular artist’s work over decades. I at least had the impression that I was following her thought patterns, which made for a very successful and absorbing show.

This last work, 1966’s Bird Song, stood out to me for quite personal reasons. I find the colours in it, combined with the synaesthesic abstraction, fascinating. Looked at one way, the yellows and oranges are a celebration of spring, of everything that is positive in nature. Looked at another way, they are colours of warning, of danger, of distress.

This struck a chord with me: it’s a weird thing to admit, but I’m not a fan of birdsong. ‘How,’ you might wonder, ‘can anyone dislike birdsong?’

I just find so much of it irritating. It’s the alarm-like aesthetic of repeating sounds, often not even repeated in a rhythm that I can try to tune out. I often want the birds to shut up. It’s the bursts of birdsong that made me stop listening to Scala Radio’s In the Park each morning.

Anyway… I was just delighted that Barns-Graham captured a bit of that element in her painting, intentionally or otherwise.

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: Paths to Abstraction continues at the Hatton Gallery until 20 May.

I like the quality snow lends to daylight. I’ve mentioned that before.

I like the unusual perspective snow brings, the way everything looks a little different.

I like that snow muffles the sounds of the city, though not this time because there isn’t enough of it.

I like walking in from the cold and slipping into a lovely swimming pool, and the invigorating contrast when I leave, but that’s really more to do with the temperature than the snow.

I like that the pool is always quiet when it snows, presumably because the weather puts people off.

I like the way that, contrary to British stereotypes, life goes on as normal when it snows.

I like that warm electric buses can ferry me to where I need to be despite the snow, without relying on burning fossil fuels.

I like that there isn’t much snow, and it will hopefully melt away quickly.

I dislike that some modern infrastructure, like these continuously activating toucan crossings, seem unable to cope with snow.

I dislike how cold my hands and feet get when it’s snowy, wet cold being more irritating than dry cold.

I dislike all the dirt when it snows, mostly from grid trodden inside on people’s shoes.

I dislike the way I can’t trust myself not to slip, especially on frozen snow.

I dislike the myriad tiny ways that my lack of confidence in walking in snow disrupts my life as someone who normally walks everywhere.

I dislike the feeling when a flurry of snow falls from a tree and onto my head, or worse, down the back of my neck.

I dislike forecasts suggesting that more snow is on the way.

In the great, over-stuffed pantheon of things I know nothing about, football looms large. It’s a subject on which I’m not even casually conversant, I’m less well-informed than your average six-year-old. It’s only two years since I was stunned to learn that Aston Villa wasn’t a London team.

And yet, I know that the Carabao Cup Final is this afternoon.

I couldn’t explain what the Carabao Cup is, nor pick it out of a line-up, nor explain why it’s named after a buffalo, but there’s still no fooling me: a big match is happening today.

I know this because I live in Newcastle, and I know of no other city where the football club and the city are so closely enmeshed. It’s partly to do with the location of the stadium right in the city centre, which means that the cheers after a goal resonate through the streets. But it’s also something that’s deep within the psyche of the city.

And so, I know it’s the Carabao Cup Final because the city is festooned with black-and-white bunting. The team’s flag has replaced the city flag outside the Civic Centre. Estate agents have turfed every property out of their window to dedicate their entire displays to supporting the club. Even a local care home has decorated their garden with black-and-white ribbons and balloons.

The talk in my office—where, incidentally, roughly 90% of the staff are female—has not been about whether anyone is making the trip to Wembley, but about who is making the trip. Jokes about silverware and absent goalkeepers are ten a penny.

Most shops and businesses in the city are closing early today to release staff to watch the match, as my friendly Caffe Nero barista had the foresight to tell me last Sunday. It’s a citywide bank holiday in all but statute.

And so: I might not be able to name a single Newcastle player and I couldn’t even tell you with certainty who the opposing team is, but I know it’s the Carabao Cup Final today. I hope Newcastle does well.

The gradual shift towards springtime, which means I’m walking to work in the early light rather than the pitch dark, is richly welcome.

There’s nowhere quite like the North East of England, and nothing quite like living within walking distance of the quayside.