Hadrian's Wall and the Lake District - Day 2

Friday, 28 August

Got up and had a bath (no shower!) and breakfast before returning to the Bowes Museum. It is an impressive French-style building, in many ways too grand for the English countryside. I wasn't quite as impressed with the collection inside, though it is no doubt magnificent to lovers of porcelain. Highlights were a special exhibition of items from classic British children's television (an original Sooty and Sweep, Bagpuss and Basil Brush), some nice Canalettos, and a mechanical silver swan. We bought a fragrant lemon soap and some potential wedding invitation cards in the shop.

Leaving Bowes, we struck north, avoiding the A roads and driving across the beautiful heather-haloed plains of the Northern Pennines. We particularly enjoyed the black-faced sheep with their long tails, wandering freely (including over the roads) and curiously unmoved by the traffic. We stopped for lunch in a little town called Blanchland, site of a former abbey. Then onward to Hexham, and visited the gaol (the first purpose-built prison in England) and abbey (built with repurposed stones from the Roman camp at Corbridge).

After driving through more lovely countryside (spotted a grouse, or some-such bird), we found our way to the remains at Corbridge. Not a lot to see, but there was an excellent audioguide that made sense of the foundations and brought the place to life in the imagination. This was very near the town of Corbridge itself, where we were staying. We had a nice walk through the little town, across the bridge and alongside the River Tyne, where we found the remains of the old Roman bridge that led to the camp. Stopped for a pint of ale on our return, then had dinner and went to bed. Followed by a rough night's sleep, interrupted by a screaming child.

Hadrian's Wall and the Lake District - Day 1

Thursday, 27 August

Got up at 6:30 (yuck!) and caught a train to Newcastle from King's Cross. Spent 3 hours trying to find a spoon so I could eat my breakfast, as well as trying to ignore the noisy child sitting nearby. Went to pick up the car in Newcastle, then had to run around the sitting trying to print out some proof of address that they suddenly needed. Holidays eh? Who needs 'em!

Drove to Durham, and walked up to the castle, which was unfortunately closed for a wedding. Made do with a one hour tour of the Cathedral that was quite interesting. We learned that women (even Queens) were not allowed in the cathedral, so had their own chapel in the rear; that St Cuthbert is buried here, with a King's dismembered head; and that there is a colony of Pipistrelle bats in the cloisters (we saw one doing laps). They also had some interesting modern sculptures, and a painting of an elderly lady who was described as looking as if she had "had a difficult paper route".

Afterwards we drove on to the villgage of Barnard Castle (via another village with the amusing name of Staindrop), where we had a room booked in an eerie old building. (We later learned that our room was a ghosty one, and that there is an ancient well in the basement that has a subterranean reservoir that can be explored in a diving suit!) Had a grand old walk around the town, visiting the ruins of the namesake castle, the river, churchyard, nearby fields, and the grounds of the Bowes Museum, where they were finishing filming of an episode of Antique's Roadshow!

Had a fish pie and ale before turning in.

August round-up

Yahoo! team offsite

Kew Gardens

Social Saturday - JRA / Wes & Mon

Filmstuff - managed to attend some exciting film events this month. My friend Lovinia from work scored some tickets to a screening of 15 mins of footage from James Cameron's up-coming 3D opus Avatar. I also picked up some tickets for a subsequent screening at the IMAX. This film is going to be awesome, though I still have my doubts about those damned 3D glasses... We also went to a special screening of Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, with a Q&A with her and writer Mark Boal. I got copy of Strange Days signed. Last but not least, we saw an interview with Terry Gilliam, and I met him afterwards and gave him a copy of my short film, plus got a signed copy of Brazil. Yay for London!

Regent's Canal - we did a several hours walk from King's Cross, through Camden, alongside Regent's Park and the Zoo, and ending up in "Little Venice", which doesn't really live up to the name I'm afraid!

James and Georgia's wedding

National Portrait Gallery

Guildhall Art Gallery (painting by Millais)

London Amphitheatre

Museum of London

Not really Anna's cup of tea, but she was kind enough to let me drag her off to the Museum of London for a few hours.

Located just up the road from us, and part of the striking Barbican complex, the museum documents the history of our adopted city from the prehistoric to the present, with detailed stop-overs illustrating the Roman occupation, and the Great Fire of London, among others.

It even overlooks the remains of the original Roman city wall, and contains artefacts from the Temple of Mithras that we have walked past late at night many times, such as the altarpiece above. A great place to visit!

Portsmouth

Despite typically sub-par weather (Rain? Here?), we had a splendid day trip to Portsmouth, England's major naval port and dry dock - and actually England's only island city.

Most of Portsmouth's tourism relates to its naval history, and we visited:

• the HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar

• the remains of Henry VIII 's Mary Rose, raised from the seabed in 1982 and still undergoing preservation work to this day

• Naval museum

• the D-Day museum, home to the Overlord embroidery, a modern counterpart to the Bayeux tapestry
• Southsea Castle (well, we circumnavigated it anyway!)

Sonisphere (Knebworth Park) 02/08/09

Bands:

Killing Joke
Lamb of God
Mastodon
Limp BizkitFour Losers And A Clown
Nine Inch Nails
Linkin Park
Metallica

Nine Inch Nails setlist:
The Way Out is Through
Wish
I Do Not Want This
Something I Can Never Have
Gone, Still
The Frail
The Wretched
Non-Entity
Lights In The Sky
The Downward Spiral
Hurt

So assuming Trent doesn't change his mind after a few years of chilling out with his dog and noodling about in the studio, then I was front and centre for Nine Inch Nails' last ever performance in the United Kingdom. And what an unusual little thing it was. Given that it was a heavy metal festival, I was expecting a "last hurrah" kind of gig and was all pumped up for an hour of hardcore moshing and violence. Imagine my surprise when the several-minute-long piano and ambients track Something I Can Never Have showed up fourth in the setlist, instead of its usual place as a concert coda.

And then followed many more low key and introspective numbers, as parts of the crowd (no doubt the Metallica fans) grew more and more impatient. Fortunately the kick in the nuts that is The Downward Sprial put an end to the less-polite catcalls, while audience favourite Hurt appropriately closed the show to raucous applause.

Trent actually commented on this in the NIN.com forums:

We played a purposely quiet, intimate set. I figured it would either enrage or baffle the metal audience... but to our amazement it went over great!
Really fun set to play in that environment.

What a trickster! Personally, as a life-long and moderate-to-highly obsessed fan, I'm sorry to say that I was a little underwhelmed by this swansong setlist. Certainly the NIN.com forums disagree with me, so I'm glad everyone else felt the magic. I certainly had the wrong expectations, which didn't help, and the songs - though tailored to fans - just didn't fit the festival's atmosphere.

I've often wondered about Trent's song choices (I guess his favourite NIN songs and mine are very different - Non-Entity? Really!?), but every NIN fan knows that it's fruitless to hope for a specific song. So with that in mind, and given that I totally respect his choice as an artist to decide what says "goodbye" for him, I guess this really was a fitting farewell. I'm curious to know what's going to go down at the final few intimate-scaled US shows yet to come!

July round-up

Had an action-packed end of month with two trips to the theatre, Phantom of the Opera for Anna's birthday, and Priscilla: Queen of the Desert (with Jason Donovan) with Megan and her friends. They certainly know how to put on a good show in London, with some great stage designs and song and dance routines.

I managed to catch a special screening of Skin, a movie about a white South African family who had a biological black daughter, during the apartheid regime. Very interesting, with a Q&A with the director afterwards. I also took Anna to Bug, a monthly round-up of music videos at the BFI, hosted by Radio DJ Adam Buxton.

Anna also spent a couple of days at a motivational course at Earl's Court (though it sounds like a cult recruitment affair), and we had a picnic in Battersea Park with Darren and Lily. We've been nearby, but never into the park, so it was great to have a look around - and there are lots of interesting sights like a small zoo, and the large Buddhist "Peace Pagoda".