Divvent fo-get Noo-cossel…



And the banks of the Tyne of a sunny Sunday morning; men with their fishing rods dangling over the railings, the baits weighted down in the murky brown water, on the route towards the Sunday market, the sun strong in the East, the cool air.



Then the delicious meal in St. Sushi across from the theatre; thanks to Keith and Geordie friends – mmmmmmm….and the slagging about the new stupid name they’ve put on St. James’ Park – what is it? – SportsDirectArenaDotFuckenCom is it? Great. Probably last as long in peoples’ collective respect as ‘Aviva’ has in the Lansdowne Road case in Dublin.



I told this story last night – the arena beside Giants Stadium in New Jersey was called after the then Governor, Brendan Byrne – in later years they sold the sponsorship to some airline, I think, and dropped Byrne’s name from the title. When asked what he thought about this his reply was



-       “At least I was immortal for a while”



I believe names should be a part of the culture of the area, not corporate culture. Imagine having a stadium called so beautifully picturesquely ‘Candlestick Park’ and allowing it to be called something like 3Com Arena. God.



Had a lovely few drinks and chats with a rake a familiar and friendly Geordie faces after the gig in The Tyne Theatre, a right good after-show civilized hooley; a lot of them have been to Tuam – some a them wearing ‘Toon To Tuam’ t-shirts. Their local rockers ‘The Happy Cats’ have taken their tunes from Toon To Tuam a couple a times now, making friends and fans over in the West of Ireland. Sounds like they’ll be back over in 2012……