i. ii. The car isn’t stolen it’s just nobody bothered to report it as found. The two friendly women who we handed over £200 to were not a pair of sophisticated grifters posing as a polite mother and daughter. I can’t remember exactly how this sorry episode got resolved but…

i. Ashford in Kent is Toryland, a kind of Thatcherite ground zero. It felt like that to us anyway, as we wandered its streets looking for somewhere to eat, it was a far cry from Shiney Row. Maybe we didn’t leave on Ash Wednesday? I have a vague memory of…

It was maybe 2003 or 2004, I can’t remember exactly, I’ll have to dig out the flyers. Anyway whatever the exact year I had successfully applied for an artist residency with Sunderland City Council. I would spend 6 or 7 weeks in Saint-Nazaire, Sunderland’s French twin town. The residency was…

Brandon Utd 0–0 Willington Ryhope Colliery Welfare 1–2 Newton Aycliffe In their 1981 Peel Session New Order covered Keith Hudson’s Turn the Heater On. The 1975 original is a real earworm. A catchy and heavy dose of melancholic roots reggae. The New Order version is a cold wave goth dub…

Crook Town 5–2 Ryton & Crawcrook Albion In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order. Carl Jung My mate sends me this Carl Jung quote. I’m on the X46 Sapphire to Crook in County Durham. Gateway to Weardale. I haven’t properly read any Carl Jung…

Seaham Red Star 2–3 Penrith In the 1992 film ALIEN³ Ellen Ripley aka Sigourney Weaver crash lands on the prison planet Fury 161 or as it’s more commonly known Blast Beach, Co. Durham. …

Ryton & Crawcrook Albion 1–1 Redcar Athletic This isn’t the first time I’ve been to the Ryton & Crawcrook Albion ground. The first time was the night before. Nearly ninety minutes of bus travel from Gateshead, through the astronomical transit routes of Stella, Stargate and Blaydon. …

Bedlington Terriers 0–2 Heaton Stannington Consett 1–1 Newcastle Benfield Stockton Town 1–0 Thornaby Whitley Bay 3–2 Ashington Easington Colliery 5–1 Bedlington Terriers North Shields 3–2 Consett West Auckland Town 2–1 Bishop Auckland 25 years ago this week I was lying on a sofa in a terraced house in Fallowfield watching…

Birtley Town 2–0 Heaton Stannington “You’re a groundhopper then?” My heart sank as Brian, committee member of Birtley Town FC, asks me midway through his boiled onion and beef burger bap. No amount of 20th Century European philosopher quotes, obscure avant garde cinema references or psychogeographic pretensions will get me…