You're a beautiful woman probably...

The extent, and the increasing prematurity, of the Christmas hype really brings out my Scrooge-like tendencies. As if it wasn't enough to start selling Christmas decorations in October and putting the things up in town centres in November, Look North (our local TV news programme) had a live outside broadcast from Keswick this evening of a choir singing Christmas carols! I wanted to shout at the screen "It's 28th November!" As a sufferer of SAD (Seasonally Affective Disorder) who always feels like going into hibernation from November until early March, I find the whole season quite claustrophobic. We know that Christmas is only four weeks away, so why do we have to be reminded constantly by almost all of the media? All the hype only makes it more impossible for Christmastime itself to live up to expectations. It's not without reason that there is an increase (or, at least, a perceived increase) in suicides around the turn of the year.

I've been thinking for a while that it's time to upgrade my three year old Canon EOS 350D camera. I still like Canon and have no reason to change make, particularly as my three lenses are all Canon fit. Like most people, I'm not rolling in money and, while the 50D was tempting, it's also very expensive. Did I really need 15 million pixels? There were other plus points like the higher resolution display and improved weatherproofing, but the resolution means its photos take up considerably more storage space (particularly if you go for the quality option and use RAW format) and that's a problem. So I plumped for the 40D instead - 10.1 megapixels and, according to most reviewers, with marginally better image quality than the 50D. This saved me more than £300, coming in at about £520 after the £60 cashback. I bought it in Newcastle on Saturday - no price advantage from buying online this time - and was immediately impressed. The whole thing feels solid, the viewfinder i...

John and I went to York yesterday for a day trip (an hour from Newcastle on the train) and confirmed my impression that it's a great place to visit in the colder months, because of the number of good museums. The morning was spent wandering the old streets, and then we had a pizza at the rather good La Piazza restaurant in Goodramgate, in what looked like an authentic Tudor building. Looking round the town again, I was surprised to see that a number of buildings there seem to have survived from the sixteenth century: as far as I'm aware, Newcastle only has one or two (not counting churches or the Castle itself) and Gateshead has none. In the afternoon, we went to the York Castle Museum, somewhere I hadn't been for maybe 20 years, and it was excellent - lots to see. I've only posted one photo on my Flickr pages so far, but I'll try to get my finger out and put one or two more on there.

Q: How many ears has Mr Spock? A: Three. A left ear, a right ear and a Final Front Ear... Q: How many ears has Davy Crockett? A: Three. A left ear, a right ear and a Wild Front Ear... These cheesy cracks (I won't dignify them with the title jokes ) were inspired by a song that I can't get out of my head. It goes "Sa-rah - Sarah Palin. Queen of the Wild Frontier" to the tune of "Davy Crockett". We're told we haven't seen the last of Palin, and that she'll be back. In days when the world is less and less stable, and we're all faced with annihilation in a variety of ways, this is not a comforting thought. Surely the US electorate must be starting to realise that being religious, photogenic and a supporter of "the right to bear arms" are unbelievably feeble qualifications for people looking to run their country.

The fact that fireworks are going off this evening seems fitting - as if to celebrate that the US electorate has finally had the good sense to vote in a President with some intelligence and who - unlike "Dubya" - isn't promoting a foreign policy based on the world view of a 10-year old child. Following the very dubious election result in 2000 and his record of wilful ignorance and incompetence over the subsequent four years, it was astonishing to me (and, I think, many in the UK) that Dubya was clearly voted into power for a second term. Fighting terrorists who were happy to take their own lives using bombs and missiles? Yes, that was always going to work. And by invading a country with which they had no clear connection? Good thinking. The most depressing part of the saga was the enthusiasm with which Tony Blair followed the USA into the disaster of the Iraq War - making him, in his foreign policy, the biggest let-down in UK politics of my lifetime. The number of innoce...

I’m very disappointed by what seems to me the continuing decline of standards in Gateshead’s Tesco store. I’ve been a customer of Tesco at this store for 28 years and I can’t ever remember it being as bad as this. I went shopping there this evening. There were no bananas (something I consider a staple) at all on the shelves. Empty goods trolleys used to stack the shelves seemed to be littered everywhere, most with no staff visible near them, making it very difficult to navigate the aisles. The fridges looked poorly kept, with lots of frost on the frozen food. I could not find any lower fat or chicken sausages more than a day or two ahead of their “sell by” date, making them no use to me, as I shop for food several days ahead. At the till, I pointed out that I had four bags to reuse from previous visits but, when I checked my receipt, I found that the cashier hadn't given me my clubcard points. I then had to queue at the customer service desk. After bypassing the last customer of a ...

I'm on the way back from another trip to London, which included a very enjoyable visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum. John and I were impressed with its vastness, the elegance of the building and the sheer number of curios and treasures there. What makes London so fascinating to visit is the richness (in more senses than one) of the culture there. When you consider that the V&A is just one of London's museums and that there's also the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery - to name just a few - then it starts to dawn on you how many hundreds of millions of pounds of public money have been (and continue to be) lavished on London, to the detriment of other parts of the country. I know that London has its grim Council Estates and higher property prices, but the arguably greater social problems and higher gun and knife crime than the North must, if anything, be evidence that money spent on a region doesn'...

Traditionally, the August Bank Holiday marks the end of summer - or at least, of summer holidays. As August often seems a lethargic, almost stagnant kind of month, I'm not usually sorry to see it go. Like last year, though, the summer seems to be ending before it's even properly begun. We've had a few days recently when the temperature has approached the usual August values but overall, the last couple of months have been cold and extremely wet. Watching a TV programme that showed that plants coped less well with waterlogging in summer than in winter - the opposite of what you might expect - makes me wonder if that's why the monardas (bergamot plants) in our garden haven't made an appearance this year. For the first couple of years they were great - two to three feet high with unusual, spiky red flowers. Apparently they like boggy ground and seemed very happy in our clay soil with so-so drainage. By last year they seemed to be taking over, having divided into abou...

Being a member of UNISON (one of the major local government unions) unfortunately means I have to go on strike this week - for two days. The Prime Minister has said we have to show restraint, and while his own MPs have rightly concluded that they just wouldn't get away with awarding themselves huge pay increases at the moment, they have just voted to keep their very generous and non-transparent "allowances" package that allows them to claim thousands of pounds per year from the public purse. While I agree that the two-and-a-bit percent pay offer is not enough with the way the cost of living is increasing - and everyone knows that government figures in no way represent "real world" inflation - I voted against striking. This is because I don't think the strikes will achieve anything. The employers are unlikely to increase the offer in a hurry, and how long will it take us to earn back the two days of lost pay - let alone the money lost from any future strikes,...

Our holiday has moved on to the south coast now. Our initial impression of Brighton wasn't great, as it was cool, grey and windy when we arrived, and the hotel was in a rather run-down square with peeling paint, surrounded by tower blocks and a ruined, burnt-out pier. Of course, it's not all like that. It's turned out to be a very colourful town, a strange mix of elegant and tacky, often in the same street - a bit like London crowded into a much smaller space. I have to give a black mark to Brighton Museums. Although they charge £8.50 admission to the Royal Pavilion for tourists, they say "Filming and photography within the Royal Pavilion is not permitted anywhere in the building. However, access may be agreed for professional projects." There are already unofficial restrictions on photography in many public places (because of illogical fears over terrorism and child protection) and the last thing we need is for museum administrators to take a mean attitude. Visit...

I'm back in Torquay again, having last visited 32 years ago. Obviously, looking at the number of years that have passed (already) since I was last here tends to make me feel old, but it's also been an opportunity to indulge in a bit of nostalgia. When I last came here I'd only just left school. It was my first proper holiday (without the parents). My companions were two old school friends, one of whom I'm still in touch with and the other sadly not, as he now lives in a far-off country. Amazingly enough, the place doesn't seem to have changed much since August 1976 - the year of the big drought. Although the harbour area is still looking slightly down at heel, most of the streets are very well kept and attractive, and the coastline is just as spectacular as I remembered. We had a great coastal walk today from Daddyhole Plain to Anstey's Cove, with views as fascinating as the names. We also found a good hotel and an excellent restaurant, and the weather has stay...

It's nice to see that some rain and (at last) some warm weather have brought out the best in parks and gardens. I'm pleased to see a healthy number of bees buzzing around our garden, and that the local tits are keen on my nuts (fnarr fnarr) - although they don't seem to be nearly as enthusiastic about the seeds put out for them. See more (perfectly respectable!) photos on my Flickr pages .

I've just spent a weekend in London, and looking at the cost of using the Tube brought home to me the shortcomings of the Tyneside Metro - specifically the cost. Using an Oyster card, each journey on the Tube costs £1.50, compared with £1.30 for a single stop up to a maximum of £2.80 on the Metro. Unlike Travelcards on the Metro, an Oyster card requires no great investment - you can charge it up with as little as £5 per time. I know that the London Underground is a vastly bigger system, but this makes me wonder how it can afford to charge lower fares when it has such enormous overheads, including staff at every station. Metro trains are almost always crowded and stop running from Newcastle city centre at about 11.45pm - in a time when we're all encouraged to use public transport, fifteen minutes earlier than they used to. My feeling is that we have much more to complain about than users of the London Underground: infrequent, crowded and dirty trains (my 11 minute wait today a...

I haven't been anywhere for fun this year except Berlin, at Easter. Unusually, I've had two trips away with work, to York and Preston, and it was nice to get a brief change of scene. I'm looking forward to a trip to London at the end of this month, though. Of course, there are lots of things to do indoors there, but it would be nice to get out and have lunch in a riverside pub, or see the wildlife at Richmond Park - that kind of thing. I can put up with cold and dull weather for another week or so, but I hope it improves by then, both there and here.

It's a bit irritating to hear BBC weather people saying on two or three days this week "The temperature at the weekend will be a good ten degrees cooler" and "weather getting much colder" when it hasn't been above 14 celsius here all week. This assessment is purely because the London area has had some nice warm weather. However, it's been about par for the course here for five days, with grey skies and a chilly north east wind. Admittedly the weekend was nice and warm, but we were plunged back into cold again on Monday. Meteorologists shouldn't need to be told that the south east of England is not the same as the entire country!

I'm seriously disappointed at the result of the London mayoral election. To me, it seemed obvious that Ken Livingstone was the best man for the job in terms of skills, experience and commitment to what was right for London. He's followed sensible economic policies, fought for social justice and improved public transport; and the congestion charge must be the way of the future for cities like London. My opinion of Ken has nothing to do with him representing the Labour Party once again. I admit I found myself unable to vote Labour for the first time in my life during Blair's latter years, on account of his unforgivable behaviour over the Iraq War. Although he seems to be an inferior politician, I see Gordon Brown as more sincere and certainly preferable to Blair in that respect and voted Labour again in the recent local elections. I concede that Labour probably did deserve to do badly in these elections. Regardless of that - to me, the battle to be Mayor of London was (or sho...

We did get to the zoo in Berlin, by the way. If you're interested, you can see some of my photos (and some from a past visit) here .

The sun came out at last for more than five minutes today, as I was on my way back from a (rare) trip out with work. I was heading back from York to Newcastle on the train, sheltered from the chilly wind. Passing sights like Durham Cathedral, it looked , at least, a beautiful evening. I was listening to music on my little Sony MP3 walkman, a nice gadget that looks like a cigarette lighter and recently survived being washed (!) in one of my shirts. This is no doubt because it's "solid state" and has no hard disc. 2GB of music is enough for me while I'm on the move, and I don't need a fragile HD device that would no doubt break if dropped, or rattled around in a washing machine! I know Sony are a nasty multinational but I've always found Apple's claims for its equipment overblown, so I wouldn't consider buying an iPod. It's just a pity that Sony now seem to have dropped this design and only make bulkier, less elegant-looking MP3 players. Anyway, to...

I'm in grumpy old man mode today, and have to ask what on Earth is the matter with the weather ? In this part of the country, we haven't had a mild day (that is, with the temperatures in double figures) for nearly a month. It's 5.30pm and, once again, my outside thermometers are showing 6 degrees celsius - yes, the sort of temperature you might expect in February, not mid-April. What's worse, the long range forecast on the BBC say's there's not much prospect of things improving in the next four weeks . In April it's not unusual for it to rain nearly every day (as it has done). But, when the temperature is stubbornly three or four degrees below the average for weeks, and you look at last year's abysmal summer, you couldn't be blamed for believing the horror stories of global warming and the prospect of the Gulf Stream failing and plunging the UK into a much colder climate...

On Wednesday I went to another Northern Sinfonia Concert at the Sage Gateshead with John. The first half (Bernstein's Three Dance Episodes from On the Town , Copland's Music for the Theatre and Barber's Adagio ) was great. To my surprise, the piece I enjoyed most was the Barber. I've tended to think of this as a bit worn out through overexposure (and, indeed, the Northern Sinfonia included it in a concert only a month ago). However, the playing was exemplary - the performers really sounded as if they meant it, and the result was genuinely moving. The second half (Dvořák's Cello Concerto) exhibited all the qualities I dislike in "classical" music - to me it was stuffy, old-fashioned, stylised and full of 19th century musical clichés. The cello can be a beautiful instrument but, here, it simply wasn't. Every time it had a chance to shine, it seemed Dvořák undermined it by adding something distracting or downright tasteless (such as a saccharine flute a...

Through the wonders of the brilliantly portable Asus Eee PC and all-inclusive wireless Internet in (German) hotels, I can post to Blogger from my temporary place in Berlin. The two-stage flight (via Amsterdam) went smoothly and comfortably, although I have to admit that it's not very green. Easyjet used to fly here from Newcastle direct, but now it's apparently more of a money-raiser to fly direct to Krakow. I know there are a lot of Polish people in the UK these days but I still find this puzzling: I would have thought Berlin was a much more popular destination, for all sorts of reasons. Sadly, the weather forecast for the weekend is awful both in Germany and the UK. If the weather isn't too horrible here tomorrow we're off to Berlin Zoo, so here's hoping...

  As it's mid-March, I'm just starting to come out of my customary winter hibernation, and looking forward to a trip to Berlin over Easter. There's a transport strike there at the moment, and the news reports today are rather confusing. Apparently the talks today have broken down, but the strike will be suspended anyway. I think this is good news, unless I've misunderstood it, or it's been misreported. My German isn't very good, but reading it in German seemed to be easier than in the mangled Google Translation . Thankfully, we're staying in Schoeneberg - a central location - so if the strike is still on, getting to most places we want to see should still be possible, if awkward.

I was listening to some Villa-Lobos today and it raised my mood so much that I had to post here about how neglected this composer still is. Eccentric, original, clumsy, haphazard, funny, noisy, stunningly beautiful - his music is all of these things at different times. I see him as rather like an eccentric old uncle who, when you first meet him, you dismiss as just weird. Once you get into his music, it's incredibly loveable. He wrote a huge body of work including seventeen string quartets, at least three of which are masterpieces, five piano concertos and nine Bachianas brasileiras (Brazilian Bach-pieces), twelve symphonies and fourteen Chôros , including two sadly lost. Obviously, not everything he wrote is brilliant, but he's a master of musical development. I first heard Villa-Lobos' music more than twenty years ago. This was when recordings of many of his works were only just starting to appear. Thanks to the Marco Polo and Naxos CD labels, people now at least have th...

I finished reading the final Harry Potter novel last week (possibly the last person with any interest in the series to read it). As I've got a Flexi Day off work today, I thought I'd share my opinions. In case anyone reading this still plans to read the book, I'll try to avoid giving any "spoilers". I thought the book was good value, and an appropriate end to the series. I've now read them all, of course, and enjoyed every one with the possible exception of number 5 ( The Order of the Phoenix ). Books 1 to 4 were all great fun although - as many viewers have pointed out - the darker side got more prominent as Harry grew a little older. Phoenix may have coincided with the peak of J K's wealth, or a feeling of security, complacency or whatever - or it may have just been that her publishers got so overawed by her success that they didn't dare prune 30% off the book's length. The consensus (with which I agree) seems to be that drastic editing was what...

On New Year's Day (a day I invariably find grim and depressing) one of my brighter interludes was on catching some of Tony Palmer's documentary about Ralph Vaughan Williams - called O thou transcendent - on TV. A bit later I decided I'd like to see the whole thing, so ordered the DVD, which arrived last week. Being a twentieth century classical music lover (rather than any kind of music student) for the past thirty-odd years, I was surprised to hear of so many musicians who dismissed RVW's work as second-rate. I'd heard Constant Lambert's comment about "a cow looking over a gate" but hadn't realised such views were as widespread as the film would have it. Palmer definitely had a biased agenda when making his film. He seemed determined to portray RVW as a tortured man whose anguish was shown in his music. To this end, he chose mainly dark and tempestuous extracts from a repertoire that, to me, hardly ever comes across that way. I was surprised to ...

I've been taking a few photos of the Gateshead town centre car park (often referred to as the Get Carter car park), not because I like it but because it's soon to go, and I think it's important to commemorate what I've long seen as a blot on the landscape. Even if it's replaced with something bland, it's almost bound to be an improvement. I get quite annoyed at people who say "You must keep it", because of some misguided feeling that it's of architectural importance. These people almost invariably live in other parts of the country: I've never heard anyone who lives in Gateshead and has to look at the thing every day argue in its favour. Anyway, the argument is academic now, as the structure has deteriorated beyond repair - it has to go. We're still being told that demolition will start soon: since this has already been postponed once, it would be comforting to have a definite date. I'm expecting Gateshead residents to organise a par...