Ya Canna Cross Here

ST LUKE'S: I've been to some cities renowned for their nightlife. I've been to Sydney, New York, Madrid, Paris, London, Amsterdam and Moscow. This, you would imagine, would be good grounding for a night out in a typical averaged sized provincial UK city. But Newcastle is anything but typical. The entire city seems to be devoted to hedonism. The centre of town, on both sides of the Tyne River, is dominated by the highest concentration of bars, pubs and clubs I have ever seen.

The city itself is quite pretty, built on the banks of an industrialised river it is finally starting to carve out it's own post-industrial identity. There is some stunning architecture and a copy of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The bridge, built and designed by the same firm, was built two years earlier than "our" bridge and, at least in its appearance, would seem to be a test run.

The evening started innocently enough. We checked in to the hostel. Had a couple of quiet beers and then Kate and I headed across the river to the recently completed Hilton to dine in the restaurant. (There were discount vouchers in the Evening Gazette and it would have been remiss not to take advantage of them.) Dinner was lovely and the restaurant came complete with stunning views of the aforementioned bridge.


After dinner we had a brief conversation with some Geordie security guards.

Me: Look can we get past, we just need to bridge.
Geordie: Neeeeoooow.
Me: We don't want to see the bands, we just need to use the bridge.
Geordie: Neeeeoooow.
Me: Are you sure?
Geordie: Ya canna use the breedge.
Me: Why?
Geordie: Neeeeoooow.

And the conversation more or less continued in this fashion confirming the Geordie stereotype.

Then after depositing Kate at the hostel I met up with Lib, Jaq and Elerig to throw some shapes. First club we picked came replete with girls with skirts so short they finished above their navels. But they had a special on Vodka Red Bull - triple shots for £2.50. How could you say no? So we hung out there for a couple of hours necking these beakers of poison being constantly pummelled by a particularly angry strobe light.


The punters were a unique collection of almost naked women and men with terrible haircuts. Kind of like Moscow actually. Dancing was like trying to walk through puddles of mud. You had to concentrate on extracting your foot from the primordial slime of spilt beer, cider, vodka and breezers that had congelead on the floor. But to be fair the entire dance floor wasn't like this. In fact other parts had their own unique carpet of broken glass that crumbled and crunched under foot.

Fearing another blast of strobe would awaken my previously unknown epileptic condition, we fled the club in search of another venue. We found some 70's themed bar and proceeded to invade the dancefloor. After about fifteen minutes Elerig disappeared in search of beers. Or so we thought. Instead he came back with a rainbow wig, a pair of oversized love heart glasses and two pairs of plastic Madonna style conical bras. For the next two hours we grooved to Grease Is the Word and other classics, swapping the props between us. My performance with the boobs and the wig even raised the ire of a particularly homophobic geordie.

The next day wasn't quite as exciting but we did get to visit the Angel of the North, a massive pagan-esque sculpture that overlooks the highway. And there was time for a running visit to Durham to check out, from afar, the cathedral, castle, river and winding streets. Then it was a long drive back to London.