The GardenDespatches from The Satyrs’ Forest

Page 19

Notes from a walk through Newcastle

¡ Tagged as Newcastle, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, visits, Wallsend ¡ Leave a comment

The gorgeous gorge that is the Tyne valley has no shortage of winsome views, but the most beautiful, in my opinion, is that which appears to one who goes down the Side.α In the Monument’s shadow, after passing the classical columns of the Theatre Royal and descending Grey Street as it becomes Dean Street, finally taking a turn onto the Side at the bottom, the lucky traveller will find themself towered over by the behemoth that is the Tyne Bridge:

The Tyne Bridge, a soaring green arch over the river, held up by two hulking sandstone-brick towers.
Photo by Alex Liivet. Licenced under CC BY-2.0.
A rickety old set of stairs leads into an area obscured by overgrown shrubbery.
The rotting wooden stairs, as seen on Google street view.

I’m not sure any photograph can ever match what it’s like to be there under that bridge. One of the most remarkable things about this view, though, has nothing to do with the view itself, but rather what happens if one walks down the Quayside for a little while, reaches an empty brownfield plot, and clambers up a set of rotting wooden stairs to its right. Because, inexplicably, just a few metres from the most beautiful view in town, one can find the second most beautiful view in town, a glorious lookout on every bridge linking the two banks of the river.

Seven bridges across the Tyne, flanked by Newcastle’s old buildings on the right and Gateshead’s modern regeneration on the left.

We don’t deserve this city.

I had initially neglected to bring a water bottle along with me; i had only intended a quick jaunt to the centre of town and back, and the foolhardy idea of walking all the way to Wallsend came to me spontaneously. This quickly proved a bad idea, and so i made a trek up to the corner shop, who thankfully had all the bottled water anyone could ever want or need.

After leaving fully rehydrated and ready to walk back, i noticed the most wonderful little thing. A parklet, this small opening of green space with some benches and inscriptions, tucked between a housing area and a construction site. I took some pictures — i would have loved to show them to you, but alas, my phone got stolen in the intervening time between this trip and me writing this post, taking the photographs with it.

Nevertheless, if you’d like to visit (or live vicariously through Google street view), it’s that little park adjacent to 5 Belmont Street. (Google stubbornly refuses to give a proper address, but you can’t miss it!)

An *exceedingly* evil looking office building next to a gigantic white cube bearing the logo "TechnipFMC".

An account of my thought process upon seeing the above building complex:

  • That building looks exceedingly evil, but i can’t quite place my finger on why…
  • I’m going to look the company up.
  • Ah, a fossil fuel company — they are evil!

Just a few yards ahead, crossing a foot-and-cycle bridge, i happened upon some strikingly relevant graffiti, alongside some other pieces which really sum up the modern English psyche: an Extinction Rebellion poster, a crossed out “EDL”,β and a cock and bollocks.

Graffiti on a blue bridge wall. Left to right: An XR poster saying 'Act Now', 'Kyle', 'EDL' (crossed out), 'Erok', 'FLK', and a cock and bollocks.

I carried a record from HMV (the Killers’ Hot Fuss, if you must know) the whole way, and let me tell you, my arms were positively aching by the end of it! At least i had a bag…γ

To sign off, here are some photos whose stories weren’t interesting enough to make the cut, as well as a map of the journey. Thank you for reading this disjoint mess.

  • Looking down a set of steps surrounded by trees, onto the river.
Top left to bottom: A picture looking downwards from shortly after the second best view; a nice view of the AkzoNobel factory on the opposite bank of the river; some tower; and the literal wall’s end of Wallsend.

Links for the 18th of June

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Ik ben net klaar met die nieuwe comedyspecial van Bo Burnham die iedereen zo opgetogen over is. Het was geweldig: ik heb gelachen, de liedjes boren hun weg in mijn hoofd, de baard staat hem goed… maar ik kan niet geloven dat ik een lied genaamd „White Woman’s Instagram” moet toevoegen aan de lijst van muziek waar ik naar heb gehuild!

Links voor 4 juni

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Links for the 4th of June

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May 2021 recap

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So this is June
and what have you done?
Another month over
a new one just begun

Films watched

  • Guy Ritchie’s Snatch (2000) (A-)
  • Barry Sonnenfeld’s Men in Black (1999): Ruthlessly efficient. Gets in and out in 90 minutes. (A-)
  • Dreamworks’ Shrek (2001): Watched as it was meant to be seen, in the original Polish (C+)
  • Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998): While sailing across the internet, i happened across a copy of the original draft of the script. It is so much darker, and so much weirder.
    • It’s set in a constructed version of New York City instead of a small town in Florida
    • He finds his own name in a dictionary
    • Truman threatens to kill a baby and it is played completely straight
    • Instead of ending when he disappears out the door it continues and he hijacks a tram and has a shoot-out on the roof of the studio????
    • He hires a prostitute to recreate his encounter with the girl who told him it was all a TV show
  • Anyway, the cut that got released is a very good film to show to your friends who haven’t seen it before and watch their reactions. It’s also — for me personally — one of those Back to the Future-type films, where it’s all so immaculately put together that you can watch it over and over and there’s always something new to enjoy (A+)

Top 10 most viewed pages on the site this May

  1. Index page: 219 views
  2. Linkroll: 82 views
  3. The Garden (front page): 59 views
  4. Toaster shade generator: 46 views
  5. About the author: 35 views
  6. The log of changes: 26 views
  7. Music i like: 21 views
  8. Things i would like to add to my site: 20 views
  9. What i believe: 16 views
  10. Toaster: 15 views

The rest of the “primary” pages on my site (that is, those which aren’t part of any kind of regular series) are, in decreasing order of views, The foreſt of ſhrines, My coat of arms, Discord funny moments, the Marijn van Hoorn style guide, my bucket list, ‘There Are Two Continents’, the Gender Tetrahedron, interesting Wikipedia articles, yelling into the void, Heximal, the NEOcharts (RIP), Quotes and other assorted aphorisms, a calendrical table, My vinyl record collection, s → ſ, the log of dreams, my conlangs, noughts and crosses, ‘this’ll be on my videotape’, Kunstgalerie van Hoorn, A nicer ƿaȝ of ƿriting Engliſh, the Compendium of Good Words, country counting, and songs i have cried my silly little heart out to. Zero views were received by copypastables and holocene history, which… you know, fair enough, they’re both indescribably boring pages.

Top 5 most read entries on The Garden

  1. Welcome to the new Garden
  2. 7AM puzzles
  3. Site statistics for April 2021
  4. ‘Testing, testing… If this goes through, this should be my first successful blog post made from my phone.’
  5. Links for the 22nd of May

Top 10 countries where most people are reading from

  1. The United States
  2. The United Kingdom
  3. Canada
  4. France
  5. India
  6. New Zealand
  7. Sweden
  8. Germany
  9. Hong Kong
  10. Brazil