The GardenDespatches from The Satyrs’ Forest

A walk down to the Quayside

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1eN8vyVFIM
This article comes equipped with its own optional soundtrack for those who want to follow along with my listening habits as well as my walk.
A decaying building’s brick-arched frontage contrasts with a concrete underpass.
We begin at the Holy Jesus Hospital, whose site served as an almshouse for the poor for seven hundred years.
More brick arches, trailing off into the background.
The current 17th-century building now serves as office space for the National Trust. No noseys allowed (shame!)
The frontage of a shop by the name of “Tile World” (with a globe replacing the O), its shutters now covered with graffiti.
Anyone need some tiles?
I’m pretty sure this is either “Hallelujah” or “Jerusalem”, but i have absolutely no idea which.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQlAEiCb8m0
A hulking grey concrete building scrapes the sky.
Only a scant few BT-branded trucks occupy the parking lot of this hulking concrete husk, surely far too big for its intended purpose.
Four floors of brick flats.
Ahhh — reminds me of home, back in Hoorn.
A worn European Union flag hangs over a balcony.
The tragedy of Brexit.
Quayside Pharmacy
An advert for Greggs’ all-day coffee, reading “Every Hour’s Happy”.
Is it, Greggs? Is it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hHSH9sJUEo
Leafy trees and paths cover another brick flat.
A diagram of the flat of St Ann’s Close has been vandalised with a hammer and sickle, a blurred-out website link, and “1312”.
There’s a lot of commie graffiti scattered along this road, though all of it seems to be by the same person — you can tell because they can’t draw a hammer and sickle.
Walls upon walls absolutely covered with artisan graffiti.
Bloody showoffs. (That reminds me — i have a massive unpublished gallery post of a walk down the full length of the Ouseburn, but never did get around to finishing it… maybe soon?)
Your author’s hand holds a nice ice cream.
The most important meal of the day.1
A ticket to see “Top Gun: Maverick” at the Tyneside Cinema.
I’ve decided to join the Sea Org and give my life’s savings to the military-industrial complex. (In all seriousness, it was a bloody brilliant film — everything a blockbuster should be!)

3 comments

  1. Xanthe says…
    2w8373gz

    I tried to watch the original to prepare myself, but i’ll confess i turned it off halfway through — once i got past the homoerotic volleyball there wasn’t much except low-stakes training plane fights and boring characters. Felt very much like a Dad Movie™ that you’d catch on TV at three in the afternoon.

    The new one is brilliant, but if you like the first one mostly ironically, it <em>might</em> not be worth it? I still recommend it, though — brilliant setpieces, actual stakes, characters you actually care about, and Mr Cruise actually… acts,

  2. Pike M says…

    I just automatically assumed it would not be worth watching. Is it even possible to beat the sheer homoeroticism and naivety of the original? You tell me. I'd love to be corrected on this one.

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