Eyemouth (Scotland)

Connoisseur Naess Hat

Plopped through the letterbox today. Pleased as punch to pick one up after missing out last time. Prefer the navy colourway but decided to stay loyal to my Kangol bucket, which the same colour, and therefore opted for sand - they say variety is the spice of life. The stamp on the wee bag was a nice touch, plus the brown paper bag itself is useful to keep the hat in and also store the build up of CC stickers I've amassed. Will probs keep the badges in there too as I haven't got the nuts to pierce it with them four like! Keeping it nice. After the disappointment of the Tam Weir hat not fitting, pleased this actually does as would have been heartbroken. Delighted with it, you'll be looking at cucumber boy in this, as in 'cool as a'...

Dunston Rocket

I'm not talking about Dunston born Gazza's brain leaving the planet earth - I'm actually referring to Derwent House - dubbed the 'Dunston Rocket'. Time has been called on another one of Gateshead Council's brutalist structures. Like Trinity Square multi-storey (The 'Get Carter' car park) before it, demolition work has started on the spaceship shaped tower block - only this time, unlike Trinity, Sly Stallone didn't lend his weight try to get this one saved. Amazingly someone still tried to get this listed with English Heritage. They failed.

Designed in the 1960s the Derwent had 30 storeys and 196 dwellings, plus an underground car park which became a haven for drugs and crime, and was thus sealed off long before the building was condemned. 1300 residents once lived in this concrete slum but have been long gone for awhile amidst water supply and damp problems.

Still it's a fantastic example of brutalist design not often seen in these parts of the woods. Most have long since gone and other than major metropolises down south, there are not many existing strucutres in Co Durham.

Lock, Stock and Four Hungover Northerners

Couple of tourist snaps from an away weekend in the smoke with a few Sunderland lads in 2008. We saw out a nil-nil draw with Fulham and crashed at a youth hostel-come-nightclub in London Bridge. Early Sunday morning it was round the corner to Borough market to take a few pics at the Lock, Stock & Two smoking barrels location.