You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August, 2007.
Okay here goes…
I haver never met anyone who mourned the death of Diana, beyond what you might expect following the death of any public figure.
I don’t know anyone who signed a condolence book. I don’t know anyone who travelled to her funeral. I don’t know anyone who admits to having shed tears.
I am sick of being told by the media that the whole country ground to a halt. I am tired of being told that my fellow countrymen were “united in their grief”.
To make it absolutely clear: I didn’t grieve. Nobody I knew did. Nobody I have ever met did.
Two boys lost their mother. Undoubtedly sad. Like any other death I wish it had not happened.
It is symptomatic of the media mind control that I actually feel anxious about writing this. Like I am coming out of some kind of closet. But I am tired of being told by the BBC how EVERYONE reacted over this. It wasn’t everyone. I doubt it was even a majority and it certainly wasn’t me.
Now we have Ten Years On…
Please, cover the anniversary. Celebrate her life. Honour her memory. But stop lying about the scale of the mourning.
To put it in context I remember a dark cloud over me the day Tony Wilson died. His life touched mine because I had the best nights of my life in his club, dancing like a loon to the music he found, recorded and promoted.
But I am sorry, that is as sad as I get over someone I have never met.
Once more carrying on the theme of late night Skype chats about what is to be expected of Newcastle, it wasn’t so surprising that Greggs eventually came up in conversation.
For the uninitiated, wiki it and you get this info:
Put simply it sells all things pastry and the odd bit of bread too.
Everyone here in the North East takes Greggs for granted. It’s always been around. It’s where your first pasty came from and it’s never let you down when you’ve wanted some cheap stodge ever since.
But at some point it seemed to explode. Suddenly it wasn’t just in Newcastle but right across the UK. Also the dirty blue turquoise branding we had grown up with was replaced by a new swish orange and blue look.
This came with a Soup Nazi style queuing system that regularly proves its worth during hours of peak pie demand.
But anyway, in order to forward info to my Skype chatting friend, I Googled Greggs and the wiki explanation above came up. I kept on reading and noticed this nugget of information:
Actress and model Milla Jovovich is a well-known fan of the store and its pasties, and has gone on record to say she would be willing to become the “face of Greggs” in a new marketing campaign if the firm approached her, though no such approach has yet been made.
Now, as you know, I have been out of town a while so this is probably common knowledge I missed but…WOW.
Anyway, a little more searching and you find out who got her hooked:
Elsewhere on the net there is talk of pie-loving-Milla becoming the official Greggs pastry-pusher but it appears never to have happened although she actually seems to be touting for the job. This is from Aussie paper, The Age:
Well for someone who otherwise has never quite understood the concept of food porn there is an image that does it for me entirely. But the journo is right, Greggs haven’t bitten. One quick look at the website sees it sadly Jovovich-free.
Personally I relish the opportunity to blame my descent into complete obesity on Miss Mila and her persuasive pie pedaling.
For the record the pic above is from flickerererer Southern_Comfort who is not alone as a serial Greggs snapper. He’s part of Greggs Pool that has 37 members including blue me who made this work of genius.
Elsewhere a quick trawl on Facebook finds the Greggs Appreciation Society
Greggs, we salute you.
The best thing about travelling?
Well it doesn’t work for short trips, but if you’ve been away for as long as I have, then you see it all very differently when you return.
I am rediscovering how beautiful Tyneside as I see it with fresh eyes.
In the meantime, I’ve been talking a lot over Skype to ourwoman who is following me soon. Our conversations often take the form of the places we’ll go and what we’ll see when she arrives.
Searching for links to pics to send, I came across this set by Ray Byrne. They are beautiful. I am truly jealous of his talent.
The shot above is also one of Amble Harbour, a place I spent many of my summer holidays as a kid.
I’m looking forward to getting out to the North East coast for bracing walks. After Vietnam and Nicaragua the air seems so pleasingly sharp and cool. Summer is not how I remember it.
Believe it or not, I’m cold.
So, I have been out of the country for three years.
In that time I have been pretty much cut off from UK change. Not entirely perhaps, there has been a couple of flying visits, I have had a few emails from friends and family and, not forgetting of course, there is the internet.
But you still miss out on so much.
Some things did sneak through. The Libertines for example had started to make ripples in the music scene before I left. At the head of them was singer songwriter Pete Doherty.
Now for reasons I only have the slightest grasp of, the very mention of his name makes otherwise laid back people all but spit on the ground in disgust. Okay so I know the basics Kate Moss, drugs etc. But I have honestly never so much as seen him on TV. I’ve only heard the music.
Talking of music, it all sounds a bit odd. We’d already started to turn the corner from a boyband low before I split and that had to be a good. When I was leaving the Scissor Sisters and The Streets were huge.
I come back and to my ears everything sounds like the aforementioned. Either camp, glam and overproduced or cock-er-ney, cor blimey guvnor stuff. Lily Allen, her music rather than her celebrity persona, managed to appear on my radar but I return home to find that she too has a few sound-a-likes.
Somewhere along the line Oasis seem to have become loved again. I heard the Killers while I was away and I return to find they made it from heroes to zeros inside a couple of albums. Thank God The Darkness have gone.
On TV I keep coming across Russell Brand and I can’t work out why. He’s seems as omnipotent as he does talentless and downright unlikeable.
Honestly, I turn my back for a minute and they’re allowing tossers on TV. Where did he come from? And why did they let him near a mic? I don’t get it. What is his talent?
Other changes are already entirely accepted practice. The cigarette laws may be comparatively new but what is amazing is just how widely they are adhered too. I went to a football reserve game and stood on an old fashioned terraces the other night. I looked around and there wasn’t a single furtive smoker. I was amazed.
Nobody claimed ignorance and smoked and had to be told to put it out. Everyone is either scared or have bought into it 100%. I also recently visited the once smokey Chillingham Arms Pub and it was like some European-style coffee shop. I’m almost sure that is a good thing.
Other changes? Polish people – ie smiley, well educated, motivated people working in places that used to employ pissed off, rude, British kids with less than limited enthusiasm.
Plus lots more Asian kids in the Universities. Fabulous. Newcastle could never really claim to be multicultural, but I like this. It makes the whole place seem to much more colorful. More international. Less dowdy and stuck in its ways.
There are other smaller changes. Chip and Pin is a new one on me but seems both easier and better. I am embarrased to admit that I actually had to Google to find out what a BlackBerry is.
Everyone is a little more eco aware which also has to be admired. Is there less SUVs on the road or am I imagining it?
Of course we have a new PM and that makes it easier for me to come home. But I also like the low profile of Brown. I’ve often argued that the media is celebrity obsessed and overlooks politics and hard news. But it changed. Blair became the celebrity. Now I am actually enjoying just how invisible the government is.
Possibly in reaction to all this, the political blogosphere now has right wing bloggers too in what was previously a predominantly left wing domain. I’d begrudgingly admit that should be positive, although there seems to be less debate and more squabbling.
Terms like astroturfing and sockpuppet seem to prevail and there’s much more anonymous posting and general behaviour that I only ever used to see on football message boards.
Talking of football, my team are getting in on the act. New owner, new chairman, new manager, new captain, new players and Kieron Dyer, football’s premier nob head, is gone.
Socially speaking, nights out are actually being organised using Facebook.
There will no doubt be a million more changes that I will chance upon and I guess they will form the bulk of this blog’s content.
Strangely I don’t feel like I missed out. I mean, Pete Doherty, Lily Allen and Russell Brand – who needs that? But discovering it all at once and without the drip drip of media is a little strange.
Having such little pop cultural understanding feels odd. This is how high court judges must feel.
But I am comfortable with being home and weighing it all up, for the most part, the changes, the ones that really matter, seem to be for the best.
Maybe I am yet to encounter and deal with more subtle changes.
