To download back issues in Acrobat PDF format: right-click on link and "save as".
Contact Newcastle Stuff:
editorial@newcastlestuff.com
All original material on this site © Marshall Hall 2005
|
|
|
|
Lost in the Toon? Always know where you are, with Newcastle Stuff's essential list of local landmarks
|
The Haymarket 'Turdis'
|
PASSERS-BY COULD BE forgiven for wondering why there are cries of lust coming from a shed-like structure in the Haymarket, after the pubs have closed.
This is a coin-operated toilet installed by the council a couple of years ago, to stop people fouling the city’s doorways and back alleys.
But it also doubles as Newcastle’s only ‘love hotel’ where – for a very reasonable twenty-pee – a few minutes of intimacy can be enjoyed by those who can’t wait for a taxi home.
The low lights and soft music create the perfect setting for that romantic rendezvous: and if you really want to impress, the toilet bowl is ideal for chilling a bottle of wine.
And there’s a treat for bystanders too. The door opens automatically after twenty-minutes, when you’re likely to be confronted by a naked couple desperate for some more change.
It’s just by the Metro Station – you can’t miss it.
Newcastle Stuff issue 18 |
|
 |
LOST IN NEWCASTLE? This month’s Local Landmark is Pasha, on Nelson Street, which sells a large selection of drug-taking paraphanalia. Their window display is a magnet for local charvers, many of whom spend hours gazing at these mysterious devices, before returning home to their buckets and empty White Lightning bottles. As with any congregation of charvs, there’s the usual trail of spit and phlegm leading up to the shop, culminating in a large pool of saliva from their drooling mouths on the path below the window. You can’t miss it.
Newcastle Stuff issue 17 |
|
 |
SCHOOLED BY THE great Ronny Gill – who trained every Evening Chronicle seller in the art of nuisance-shouting – the Big Issue vendor at the Monument is as familiar a landmark as the huge column beside which he stands.
His plaintive cry of “shoo-sa” (which translates as “Big Issue, sir?”) is a beacon for anyone lost in town on a dark, foggy or drunken afternoon.
Newcastle Stuff issue 16 |
|
 |
ANYONE LOOKING FOR Newcastle’s red light district will find it here: Sven’s mucky book store, on Scotswood Road.
Yep, this is Tyneside’s only licensed sex shop, a single room serving a population of 250,000 people.
Every year their licence renewal is fiercely contested by assorted women’s and church groups, despite the fact everything Sven sells can be bought legally through adverts in the Daily Sport – available from every newsagent in the region.
The local press laughably claimed that Sven’s presence in the city hampered our Capital of Culture bid, although this didn’t bother past holders Copenhagen or Stockholm. Liverpool has several dozen sex shops.
But campaigners and the council can sleep easy in the knowledge that this peddler of depravity is confined to a part of town they’re unlikely to visit themselves: Sven’s is located in the heart of Newcastle’s ‘Gay Quarter’.
Newcastle Stuff issue 15 |
|
|
WITH THE football season over, the local press has the tricky task of concocting enough transfer rumours to fill the back pages each day for the next three months. Given the talent and imagination of local sports journalists, most of this will be utter crap.
But Newcastle fans who want to be first to know the comings and goings at St. James Park need look no further than the Toon Car.
Owned by a sixty-year old brewery worker called Tex from Shieldfield, this is the most reliable source of information about new club signings; with their names lovingly – if not artistically – applied to the bodywork with what appears to be a nail varnish brush, before their signatures have dried on their contracts.
The motor currently sports the names of the entire first-team squad, manager, physio and assorted coaching staff, so it’s safe to assume that there’ll be no major transfer action for the next couple of weeks.
However, Tex shows his vintage by devoting the coveted bonnet space to the FA Cup-winning side of 1955, whose players would be delighted to know they are still able to stop traffic and turn heads almost fifty years after their Wembley triumph.
Incidentally, this is at least Tex’s second Toon Car. He previously owned a Capri, decked out in a similar fashion. It’s not clear what happened to this, but one thing’s for certain: it won’t have been nicked.
* Sadly, Tex passed away in 2004. His family donated the car to The Batic, where it was part of an exhibition by the artist Mike Stubbs.
Newcastle Stuff issue 14 |
|
|
|
|
|
 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
LOCAL LANDMARKS
GADGIES' CORNER
ARTING ABOUT
JAZZ CAFE
GALLERY
|
|
