You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2007.
I’ve noticed a slowing recently of many of the blogs I’ve read for years.
It seems that some of the first wave of bloggers are running out of steam. While Facebook might claim to be the “new thing” I prefer to see it instead as a changing of the guard.
I wrote Space Hardware angry. I wrote Our Man in Hanoi in wonder. And I wrote Our Man in Granada with a vague ambition of making cash from writing.
Now here I am writing Our Man in Newcastle.
In the last few weeks I have been sorting out my life. I have all those things now that I fled from when I moved to Hanoi.
I’ve a flat. A new job about to start. A car again.
Most importantly of all my partner, herself new to Newcastle, has joined me. I’m back in normality.
I believe that normality for me is a holiday in itself. This isn’t it for ever. Just for now. The strain of Nicaragua has made me appreciate this normality. Just as much as tropical heat has made me appreciate the cold. I will enjoy both.
Just as I will enjoy gigs, football matches, the theatre, fish and chip shops, family, movies and work.
I am also aware that normality doesn’t make for great blogging. It’s not entertaining reading and it doesn’t inspire me to write. When I was in Hanoi my blog went quiet when life was bad. There is nothing worse than moaning on a blog. Likewise, now, contentment just reads as smug.
But life is good. This isn’t goodbye just notice that I am no longer angry. I’m settling. I am no longer sharing my wonders or woes. Likewise I’m not searching for links nor hits.
So do check back sporadically. I will update occasionally. Maybe mostly with new pics. Or you can simply check out my Flickr.
Also know that as long as I am quiet then I am content.
Life is good.
I’d often wondered about this dilapidated pool on Tynemouth beach.
Pre the bout of research that I am just about to divulge, I assumed it was some ancient relic that had been used by conservative Victorian ladies in even more conservative attire.
Turns out it was in use as late as the seventies. If I am not mistaken 1976 was something of a heatwave. Check out the fabulous first film below of the pool in full use that year. The beach looks more like Spain than the UK. And look at those crowds.
Did we just get soft after we discovered holidays abroad? I can’t comprehend swimming in the north sea now but I spent most of my school holidays, up the coast at Hauxley. I don’t even remember it being particularly cold.
Or was the ‘76 heatwave enough to transform Tynemouth into Tenereife for one season only?
Now? Well apparently in 1996 some genius had the idea of filling it with rocks and making it into a rock pool. I can only assume that it had already fallen into disrepair and no cash was available to keep it open for swimming. Either way it seems like an extraordinarily bad idea.
Anyway, enjoy the films below plus this gem of a link from the year I was born, which has it all (glamour, kitsch and Malcolm Macdonald).
And here’s an even earlier film from the sixties. It’s all making me feel quite nostalgic.
Just in case anyone has been following the job saga. The good news is I am now gainfully employed and expect to start soon.
I don’t know what I was flapping about.
I got a shock when I was walking around town the other day. What did they just do?
So I snapped it with my phone and I was about to write about how the Lego men of Newcastle’s Haymarket, and my blog banner, were being demolished.
But then it turns out they’re just taking a break.
While digging around and trying to follow the whole timeline of the less than popular sculptures, there was suggestions that they’d see out their days in Exhibition Park. But apparently not. They’re coming back.
However, I was concerned that I had bestowed bad luck upon them. Maybe their demolition, albeit temporary, is the Our Man blog curse. Let’s hope Ho Chi Minh’s tomb and Conventino San Francisco fair better.
* Found the pic below while Googling around. Yes everything does look better in black and white. For non British people – it’s a football thing. Pic found here.
