The Newcastle trip turned out to be a very “arty” experience. As hoped, the William Roberts exhibition at the Hatton Gallery was both comprehensive and exhilarating. Thursday evening was spent in Art Deco splendour of The Tyneside Cinema watching the confusing but spellbinding “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind” On Friday we crossed the Tyne to Gateshead, pausing to look at emerging silver slug (we liked it honest) which is Sage, the new concert hall, before heading onto the sweeping Millennium bridge and the huge Baltic gallery. Then on Friday evening we went to the preview opening night of the splendidly irreverent Fluxus show at The Waygood Gallery. All sorts of crazy fun to be had here, the highlight of which was a performance by Alison Knowles, which you had to see to understand. On Saturday morning we spent our last few hours checking out the gallery at The Biscuit Factory. So all in all our artistic hunger was pretty well served.

Thanks to the super efficient metro system we even managed to get out to the coast for an hour or so for a brief visit to Tynemouth. Also managed to grab a cup of tea at the amazing home of Newcastle United, what a stadium! Newcastle reminded me a lot of Glasgow, especially in the way that you can move from a very nice area into a slightly dodgy one, simply by crossing the street. Overall though, we really enjoyed our trip to this vibrant city. The only downside was the stag weekend party, which took place on the landing outside our hotel room during most of the early hours of Saturday morning!

Managed to get back to the West Country in time to watch Bristol City’s lamentable performance in the 1st leg of our play off match against Hartlepool. Somehow we escaped with a draw. We will have to play an awful lot better on Wednesday evening, to have any hope of getting to the play off final.