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Magpie city
Jun. 14th, 2025 02:56 pmOn Thursday I went into Newcastle for my Reading Group, and as I had promised myself, I took my camera with me.
The town was heaving - the station was heaving, the train was heaving, and Durham station was pretty busy, too - mostly with people in black-and-white football strip. At first I thought there must be a home game, and muttered to myself about there being no closed season these days, but it turned out to be in honour of Sam Fender, local lad and superstar, who was playing that night, the first of three concerts at St James' Park. Much of this I learned from a lady who accosted me as I was sitting on a bench in the town centre: she told me I was the image of her sister-in-law, and wanted to take my photograph. It wasn't yet five o' clock, but the party had already started.
Even in Forth Lane there had been people (it's usually very quiet) but not enough to deter me from photographing the murals. I've started at the end, because that magpie is a detail of a mural which spreads across the wall at one end (the far end, if like me, you started at the Central Station): the lane is too narrow, and the light and shade were too extreme, for more than this detail of the picture, but it's an appropriate detail.
( The Forth Lane Gallery )
Then I went to the Library and had fun talking about comics.
The town was heaving - the station was heaving, the train was heaving, and Durham station was pretty busy, too - mostly with people in black-and-white football strip. At first I thought there must be a home game, and muttered to myself about there being no closed season these days, but it turned out to be in honour of Sam Fender, local lad and superstar, who was playing that night, the first of three concerts at St James' Park. Much of this I learned from a lady who accosted me as I was sitting on a bench in the town centre: she told me I was the image of her sister-in-law, and wanted to take my photograph. It wasn't yet five o' clock, but the party had already started.
Even in Forth Lane there had been people (it's usually very quiet) but not enough to deter me from photographing the murals. I've started at the end, because that magpie is a detail of a mural which spreads across the wall at one end (the far end, if like me, you started at the Central Station): the lane is too narrow, and the light and shade were too extreme, for more than this detail of the picture, but it's an appropriate detail.
( The Forth Lane Gallery )
Then I went to the Library and had fun talking about comics.
