I’m in Newcastle, in the northeast, and along the North Sea. I am here because it is close to Berwick, my last stop. I thought Berwick was North Berwick. It is not. North Berwick is in Scotland and Berwick-on-Tweed is in England (at least for this moment in history). North Berwick has interesting geology and Berwick-on-Tweed has interesting history. It turns out that it was a happy mistake. I enjoyed my two days wandering first along the Tweed and then along the coastline with its medieval fortifications. Berwick was once a major port and during the time it was in Scottish hands, the closest Scots port to Europe.
Newcastle is much larger. It was first settled by the Romans and Hadrian’s Wall ran through it. It is famous for its bridges, including the Gateshead Millennial, the world’s first tilting bridge. (Think of a drawbridge that lifts as one piece.). I spent several hours at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, in an old flour mill, after crossing the untilted bridge. The Baltic offers some lovely views out over the Tyne. One ongoing exhibition was by a “neurodiverse” art collective. That was a first for me. UK museums are very focused on inclusion and seem to be still grappling with how to treat their collections and public purpose in the light of British colonialization.
It is 0 degrees C on this Saturday night. It is expected to snow again. (It did snow overnight.) I worked on grading most of the day at the lovely Laneway & Co. and so I stayed out of the cold. I’ll be heading soon to Tyneside Cinema (named after the river), an art deco theater. It was started originally to show mostly newsreels during the Second World War by a great uncle of the director Ridley Scott. I saw Maestro, the Bradley Cooper film about Leonard Bernstein. I saw Bernstein conduct once at Carnegie Hall so I’m excited to see this film. Cooper is amazing and the first half of the film is a cross between a newsreel and a 1940s musical. See it and you might conclude that conducting should be an Olympic sport.
My hostel is brimming with young British men all in their 20s and each with an identical haircut. (Tight, tight, tight on the sides with longer hair combed forward making a sort of brim against the sun? I kept thinking of Highland Cattle.) Most are also in white sneakers and either grey or black sweatpants. This uniform leaves only the torso as distinguishable and there are a great many black North Face puffer jackets in the UK to add to the challenge.
I imagine most of my fellow hostel guests are Man United fans. I was unable to guess if they were going to the match– 9 pm start time to allow for sufficient pub time— or were just here to riot afterward. They would have had reason to as Newcastle won. The streets in the center of town were quiet, nonetheless, as I returned to Kabannas for a not-so-restful night. Since the match had increased prices at nearly every hotel by five times, I got my money’s worth there — and a decent pizza.