January 10th, 2010 by Wadds

This Too Will Pass: Half time at St. James’ Park

North East photo blogger Charles Bell posted this snap of me on his This Too Will Pass photo blog after I joined him for my first trip to St. James’ Park to see Newcastle beat Middlesbrough at the end of last year. He even bought me the scarf as a present.

He also accompanied my daughter Freya and I for the Whitley Bay Boxing Day Dip and shot this wonderful series of photos.

Thanks Charlie!

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November 3rd, 2009 by Wadds

Local media mute on boycott of Newcastle home games

View of the Sir John Hall Stand from the techn...
Image via Wikipedia

Newcastle United Football Club owner Mike Ashley is doing his damndest to secure his place as the pantomime villain in the city’s Theatre Royal production of Cinderella this year.

His on, off, on sale of the club is off again. And now his latest idea to raise cash is to flog off the naming rights to St James’ Park.

Newcastle fans are rightly pissed off. It’s a state of affairs that is rapidly becoming business as usual. Ashley’s mismanagement of the club and its relationship with supporters is well documented.

It’s not possible to live in or around Newcastle and not take an interest football. St James’ Park is at the very heart of city both physically and emotionally.

This is a Championship Club that regularly has a home gate of more than 40,000. That’s more people than attend most Premiership games. More importantly by my reckoning it’s close to £1 million revenue for the club.

The solution is simple. Fans need to hit Ashley where it hurts and start boycotting home games. It could be a superb campaigning issue for local media that would guarantee the attention of readers and provide an outlet for the fury of fans.

But so far both The Journal and The Evening Chronicle remain mute. I’ve even baited the Supporters Trust via Twitter but to no end.

And so the farce at St James’ Park – or whatever the stadium ends up being called – will almost certainly continue. As the father and son writing duo Mike and Tom Chaplin documented in their play at the end of last season – You Couldn’t Make It Up.

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May 13th, 2009 by Wadds

Heading to Thinking Digital (#tdc)

The Sage Gateshead viewed across the River Tyne
Image via Wikipedia

I’m heading to Thinking Digital tomorrow and Friday at the Sage in Gateshead. It’s bogglingly billed as TED meets SXSW on the Tyne. The speaker line-up is impressive and the topic areas are inspiring. Give me a shout if you’re attending otherwise follow #tdc for updates from the event.

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May 11th, 2009 by Wadds

Three broadband dongle auto-reconnects

Three has made a very simple change to the software in its mobile broadband dongle. It’s added a feature that prompts the modem to automatically re-connect whenever it drops the signal. Previously you had to do it manually.

I’ve just spent three hours travelling by train from Newcastle to London and enjoyed an almost permanent connection to the internet. And the news (via @adamparker and others on Twitter) that Newcastle is out of the relegation Premiership zone.

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