I am a dreamer, the Welsh singer Duffy concluded her performance at Glastonbury which I enjoyed this afternoon as The sun shone intensely on one of the warmest days of the summer this year as I scanned photos onto the computer. I gave the plants and myself a mid afternoon drink of water. Her voice is not clear and there is no wow factor about her performance but she is very enjoyable to listen to, over and over again. This was also my reaction to The Editors. but I only lasted for two numbers with the Raconteurs. I enjoyed the Verve but headliners? MGMT I cannot remember anything.
Last night I was in the midst of writing about the bridges over the River Tyne when I ran into an AOL problem before being able to copy the work. One reason why the writing had taken so long is that I had progressed from explaining the position of the River and its bridges as part of a transport system unequalled anywhere in the UK and which is a brilliant example five local authorities getting together in consultation with the County Councils and the Transport bodies and central Government to achieve a comprehensive integrated systems of roads, rail and bus in an area where there are two major rivers.
The North East is vast area with a population of under two million concentrated around the banks of three rivers, the Tyne, the Wear and the Tees. Once these were important means of transport for passengers as well as goods. Now while they remain ports and undertake ship and oil rig repair work they are navigated up river only for recreation.
Their are two motor way routes to London as far as Leeds, the M1 and the A1 and then they become one roadway to the east of Leeds. The original route, the A1 continues from London to the West of Leeds where it is bisected by the East West Motorway from Hull to Liverpool, the M62. The main London to Leeds motorway the M1 used to end just before the city, but now its skirt eastward to connect with the A1 to form the A1M which continues into Newcastle with a number of fast roads linking to Sunderland and a main spur onto South Shields. The Newcastle road continues across what is the seventh of the bridges across the Tyne to within the inner city area of Newcastle. This is the route for travelling football supporters from Durham and further afield to the Newcastle Football stadium. It is also the route for those wanting to attend the Metro Arena for large indoor popular music concerts, Ice Hockey and Basket ball games.
In North Yorkshire it is possible to take a road to Teesside which becomes the A19 from York and which then continues to one side of Sunderland, and then to Bolden South Tyneside where there is a link dual carriage way to the end of the Shields spur of the A1M. This A19 road continues to Jarrow and the roadway tunnel under the Tyne and where north of Newcastle it joins in the A1 to continue along the North East coast to Edinburgh, the Scottish capital. Work has commenced on a second tunnel under the river at Jarrow through to North Tyneside such is the congestion during rush hours. This will encourage the flow of cars to and from work on both sides of Tyne and of goods vehicles to and from Scotland. There is also a pedestrian and cycle tunnel from Jarrow to North Tyneside previously used for workers in the shipyards and other industrial concerns on both sides of the Tyne, but is now more of a cycle way. These tunnels and the passenger and cycle ferry is the only way to cross the river without travelling the thirteen miles into Newcastle. There was a plan once to create a bridge but the decision was to build the tunnel.
While there is only one direct railway line between London and Scotland on the East coast there are two mainline railway bridges over the Tyne within the central area of Newcastle. One is dedicated just to the railway while the second is a double decker bridge with the railway on the top deck and a recently reopened lower deck only to pedestrians and cyclists, although until its closure for extensive repairs it was also a road bridge with access to the mail railway station. Because there are two mainline railway bridges this means the line is not affected if one the bridge has to close. It is an hour by train from Newcastle to York or Edinburgh. The are also trains going West to Hexham and Carlisle, and a local service to Sunderland and Middlesbrough and o ward to Whitby and Scarborough on the North Yorkshire Coast. The are mainline line trains from Newcastle to Birmingham and the West Country and to Manchester and Liverpool
Within the past decade a new local train service has been created, using some existing tracks, some older unused lines and some new ones and going underground into the cities of Newcastle and Sunderland. There is now one Metro service from Sunderland which includes the university and the bus and train Interchange station, to Hewarth Gateshead where there is the second Interchange station, to central Gateshead, the third Interchange station and then to the Haymarket in Newcastle where close by is the new central bus station, with a separate coach station close to the railway station which is also on the same Metro line and which then continues into Northumberland where there is Newcastle Airport. Thus it is possible to travel from Sunderland to the airport by one train and from Newcastle central station either by a standard train or the new metro trains or to the airport. The mainline train from Sunderland now only stops at Hewarth and Newcastle before going on to the Metro centre Gateshead, the largest indoor and out door shopping complex in Europe. There are 31 stations on the route from South Hylton, Sunderland to the Airport.
The second Metro route begins at South Shields, a short walk from my house where the old railway station building is now used for a Women's health project and a shopping mobility centre as well as the base for Station Taxis. The new Metro station is over the main shopping roadway where on a parallel road there is the Interchange bus and coach station. There is one coach service from Newcastle to Sunderland and onto London Victoria and one from South Shields to Sunderland and onto London Victoria. There used to be a second Newcastle to London Coach operator where the coach stopped at the Washington Service station for those who wished to join from Sunderland and which I used for the first Live Aid Concert, when assistants were self employed and sold sandwiches and drinks and could make £400 a week if they made the sandwiches themselves rather than buy in to resell for a smaller profit.
The South Shields Metro route connects with the South Tyneside Tyne River towns of Jarrow and Hebburn before connecting up with the Sunderland track into central Gateshead and then Central Station Newcastle where the train then takes a loop first going North along the same track to the airport past Haymarket and Jesmond but then goes East towards the coast to Whitley Bay, then comes back down the coast to Tynemouth and then follows the north bank of the River Tyne to North Shields for the passenger and cycle ferry to South Shields and continues back to Newcastle city centre, finishing at the St James Park Football stadium. The is a total of 42 stations on this line. It also means that there two sets of Metro trains travelling the 12 stations from Pelaw to South Gosforth, that is eight an hour. In order to accommodate this flow of trains some 24 an hour in both directions a new Metro railway bridge was built and which has also become a coloured light artwork for the rest of is decade. Soft floodlighting has been built into the bridge frame work and which is computer controlled and can switch colours according to the notation of music.
There are two more bridges across the city from Gateshead. The first is the low swing bridge which swivels on a central axis to allow vessels to pass on either side. This bridge leads directly on to the Quayside, originally this meant only the Newcastle Quayside where there are restaurants, bars, pubs and night clubs as well as hotels and the new Law Courts. Now it is used for those wishing to go to the Gateshead Quayside where there is the Sage International Concert Halls and the Baltic Contemporary arts centre as well as the shortly to close nightclub ship and a few restaurants and the new Gateshead College complex and new blocks of contemporary flats. Then there is the fantastic Millennium bridge go connect the Law Courts area where there are also bars and hotels to Baltic Contemporary Arts centre and the new contemporary flat developments. The Bridge rather looks like an eye and has separate lanes for pedestrians and cyclists which pedestrians tend to ignore and the whole structure swivels and moves upwards into the sky and is worth a visit into Newcastle just to see this happen. It is also floodlit in many colours at night. So that it was there are seven bridges in the city area. The Millennium, the main road bridge, the Tyne Bridge, the Swing bridge, the combined rail and now pedestrian bridge, the High Level bridge, the Metro Bridge, The Railway Bridge and the new Redheugh Road Bridge.
A little way further west there is also another important Bridge, This caries the A1 in a circular designed bypassing both Gateshead and Newcastle city centre and then swinging west across the top of the city to join with the A19 along the North East Coast to Edinburgh. This bridge road also goes west to Hexham and Carlisle and north to the airport. There is a spur to the Metro shopping centre and to the Scotswood bridge which connects the river banks, so technically there are ten bridges between the administrative local authority areas of Newcastle and Gateshead, as a little way up river there is also the Newburn Bridge.
I nearly forget to mention that yesterday I also viewed the ludicrous film the Matador. This stars Pierce Brosnan as a burnt out assassin who turns up in the middle of the night to the only man who he thinks might help him out of his predicament as helping him to kill his employer who has decided that he is expendable and should be exterminated and which is an appropriate conclusion to an a cold blooded mercenary murderer. The first of many ludicrous propositions is that this man will drop everything to fly across America to help him undertake this last killing. Brosnan attempts to act by making fun of his role as James Bond. I compared the couple and their decorated home for Christmas, having survived a tree crushing into the their house six months earlier, with Kevin Spacey and his wife in American Beauty as both films ridicule the values of small town U.S.A. I did not find the film funny or having any serious point despite being been cut from 140 minutes to under 100 and going to the trouble to create scenes from Vienna, Las Vegas, Moscow, Sydney, Budapest, Tuscon and Manila during their 40 day shoot in Mexico City. I was reminded how good the cinema can be as The Lord of Rings, voted the greatest block buster of all time in a Chanel 5 compilation and the ET was also up their at the top along with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I was also reminded of the McEnroe comment, You can't be serious. The actors are obviously very good actors because of the serious way in which they spoke were about the class of the director during commentaries included on the DVD.
It was a great day for Durham Cricket Club because they beat the present leaders of the Championship in less than three of the four days off the match at Headingley, gaining 20 points against the 3 of Yorkshire. They now have the same points as Yorkshire with a match in hand and are therefore placed top although there are three other counties also within a few points. There is the prospect of Durham winning all four competitions, the prestigious County Championship for the first time, winning the Friends Provident 50 over one day game for the second year in succession, the 20 20 competition where they had the worst record of all eighteen counties and the 40 over one day event where they won the second division title last year.
Last night I was in the midst of writing about the bridges over the River Tyne when I ran into an AOL problem before being able to copy the work. One reason why the writing had taken so long is that I had progressed from explaining the position of the River and its bridges as part of a transport system unequalled anywhere in the UK and which is a brilliant example five local authorities getting together in consultation with the County Councils and the Transport bodies and central Government to achieve a comprehensive integrated systems of roads, rail and bus in an area where there are two major rivers.
The North East is vast area with a population of under two million concentrated around the banks of three rivers, the Tyne, the Wear and the Tees. Once these were important means of transport for passengers as well as goods. Now while they remain ports and undertake ship and oil rig repair work they are navigated up river only for recreation.
Their are two motor way routes to London as far as Leeds, the M1 and the A1 and then they become one roadway to the east of Leeds. The original route, the A1 continues from London to the West of Leeds where it is bisected by the East West Motorway from Hull to Liverpool, the M62. The main London to Leeds motorway the M1 used to end just before the city, but now its skirt eastward to connect with the A1 to form the A1M which continues into Newcastle with a number of fast roads linking to Sunderland and a main spur onto South Shields. The Newcastle road continues across what is the seventh of the bridges across the Tyne to within the inner city area of Newcastle. This is the route for travelling football supporters from Durham and further afield to the Newcastle Football stadium. It is also the route for those wanting to attend the Metro Arena for large indoor popular music concerts, Ice Hockey and Basket ball games.
In North Yorkshire it is possible to take a road to Teesside which becomes the A19 from York and which then continues to one side of Sunderland, and then to Bolden South Tyneside where there is a link dual carriage way to the end of the Shields spur of the A1M. This A19 road continues to Jarrow and the roadway tunnel under the Tyne and where north of Newcastle it joins in the A1 to continue along the North East coast to Edinburgh, the Scottish capital. Work has commenced on a second tunnel under the river at Jarrow through to North Tyneside such is the congestion during rush hours. This will encourage the flow of cars to and from work on both sides of Tyne and of goods vehicles to and from Scotland. There is also a pedestrian and cycle tunnel from Jarrow to North Tyneside previously used for workers in the shipyards and other industrial concerns on both sides of the Tyne, but is now more of a cycle way. These tunnels and the passenger and cycle ferry is the only way to cross the river without travelling the thirteen miles into Newcastle. There was a plan once to create a bridge but the decision was to build the tunnel.
While there is only one direct railway line between London and Scotland on the East coast there are two mainline railway bridges over the Tyne within the central area of Newcastle. One is dedicated just to the railway while the second is a double decker bridge with the railway on the top deck and a recently reopened lower deck only to pedestrians and cyclists, although until its closure for extensive repairs it was also a road bridge with access to the mail railway station. Because there are two mainline railway bridges this means the line is not affected if one the bridge has to close. It is an hour by train from Newcastle to York or Edinburgh. The are also trains going West to Hexham and Carlisle, and a local service to Sunderland and Middlesbrough and o ward to Whitby and Scarborough on the North Yorkshire Coast. The are mainline line trains from Newcastle to Birmingham and the West Country and to Manchester and Liverpool
Within the past decade a new local train service has been created, using some existing tracks, some older unused lines and some new ones and going underground into the cities of Newcastle and Sunderland. There is now one Metro service from Sunderland which includes the university and the bus and train Interchange station, to Hewarth Gateshead where there is the second Interchange station, to central Gateshead, the third Interchange station and then to the Haymarket in Newcastle where close by is the new central bus station, with a separate coach station close to the railway station which is also on the same Metro line and which then continues into Northumberland where there is Newcastle Airport. Thus it is possible to travel from Sunderland to the airport by one train and from Newcastle central station either by a standard train or the new metro trains or to the airport. The mainline train from Sunderland now only stops at Hewarth and Newcastle before going on to the Metro centre Gateshead, the largest indoor and out door shopping complex in Europe. There are 31 stations on the route from South Hylton, Sunderland to the Airport.
The second Metro route begins at South Shields, a short walk from my house where the old railway station building is now used for a Women's health project and a shopping mobility centre as well as the base for Station Taxis. The new Metro station is over the main shopping roadway where on a parallel road there is the Interchange bus and coach station. There is one coach service from Newcastle to Sunderland and onto London Victoria and one from South Shields to Sunderland and onto London Victoria. There used to be a second Newcastle to London Coach operator where the coach stopped at the Washington Service station for those who wished to join from Sunderland and which I used for the first Live Aid Concert, when assistants were self employed and sold sandwiches and drinks and could make £400 a week if they made the sandwiches themselves rather than buy in to resell for a smaller profit.
The South Shields Metro route connects with the South Tyneside Tyne River towns of Jarrow and Hebburn before connecting up with the Sunderland track into central Gateshead and then Central Station Newcastle where the train then takes a loop first going North along the same track to the airport past Haymarket and Jesmond but then goes East towards the coast to Whitley Bay, then comes back down the coast to Tynemouth and then follows the north bank of the River Tyne to North Shields for the passenger and cycle ferry to South Shields and continues back to Newcastle city centre, finishing at the St James Park Football stadium. The is a total of 42 stations on this line. It also means that there two sets of Metro trains travelling the 12 stations from Pelaw to South Gosforth, that is eight an hour. In order to accommodate this flow of trains some 24 an hour in both directions a new Metro railway bridge was built and which has also become a coloured light artwork for the rest of is decade. Soft floodlighting has been built into the bridge frame work and which is computer controlled and can switch colours according to the notation of music.
There are two more bridges across the city from Gateshead. The first is the low swing bridge which swivels on a central axis to allow vessels to pass on either side. This bridge leads directly on to the Quayside, originally this meant only the Newcastle Quayside where there are restaurants, bars, pubs and night clubs as well as hotels and the new Law Courts. Now it is used for those wishing to go to the Gateshead Quayside where there is the Sage International Concert Halls and the Baltic Contemporary arts centre as well as the shortly to close nightclub ship and a few restaurants and the new Gateshead College complex and new blocks of contemporary flats. Then there is the fantastic Millennium bridge go connect the Law Courts area where there are also bars and hotels to Baltic Contemporary Arts centre and the new contemporary flat developments. The Bridge rather looks like an eye and has separate lanes for pedestrians and cyclists which pedestrians tend to ignore and the whole structure swivels and moves upwards into the sky and is worth a visit into Newcastle just to see this happen. It is also floodlit in many colours at night. So that it was there are seven bridges in the city area. The Millennium, the main road bridge, the Tyne Bridge, the Swing bridge, the combined rail and now pedestrian bridge, the High Level bridge, the Metro Bridge, The Railway Bridge and the new Redheugh Road Bridge.
A little way further west there is also another important Bridge, This caries the A1 in a circular designed bypassing both Gateshead and Newcastle city centre and then swinging west across the top of the city to join with the A19 along the North East Coast to Edinburgh. This bridge road also goes west to Hexham and Carlisle and north to the airport. There is a spur to the Metro shopping centre and to the Scotswood bridge which connects the river banks, so technically there are ten bridges between the administrative local authority areas of Newcastle and Gateshead, as a little way up river there is also the Newburn Bridge.
I nearly forget to mention that yesterday I also viewed the ludicrous film the Matador. This stars Pierce Brosnan as a burnt out assassin who turns up in the middle of the night to the only man who he thinks might help him out of his predicament as helping him to kill his employer who has decided that he is expendable and should be exterminated and which is an appropriate conclusion to an a cold blooded mercenary murderer. The first of many ludicrous propositions is that this man will drop everything to fly across America to help him undertake this last killing. Brosnan attempts to act by making fun of his role as James Bond. I compared the couple and their decorated home for Christmas, having survived a tree crushing into the their house six months earlier, with Kevin Spacey and his wife in American Beauty as both films ridicule the values of small town U.S.A. I did not find the film funny or having any serious point despite being been cut from 140 minutes to under 100 and going to the trouble to create scenes from Vienna, Las Vegas, Moscow, Sydney, Budapest, Tuscon and Manila during their 40 day shoot in Mexico City. I was reminded how good the cinema can be as The Lord of Rings, voted the greatest block buster of all time in a Chanel 5 compilation and the ET was also up their at the top along with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I was also reminded of the McEnroe comment, You can't be serious. The actors are obviously very good actors because of the serious way in which they spoke were about the class of the director during commentaries included on the DVD.
It was a great day for Durham Cricket Club because they beat the present leaders of the Championship in less than three of the four days off the match at Headingley, gaining 20 points against the 3 of Yorkshire. They now have the same points as Yorkshire with a match in hand and are therefore placed top although there are three other counties also within a few points. There is the prospect of Durham winning all four competitions, the prestigious County Championship for the first time, winning the Friends Provident 50 over one day game for the second year in succession, the 20 20 competition where they had the worst record of all eighteen counties and the 40 over one day event where they won the second division title last year.
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