For years, this weathered old sign on a wall on the Side in Newcastle has been bothering me. The letters have worn away so much that all I could ever make out was that something was prohibited. I’d looked, I’d stared, I’d photographed, I’d tweaked and twiddled the photographs, but it never became clear.

But I passed it today, and I don’t know if it was the angle of the light, or if the weathering had removed more of the background leaving the letters clearer, or some other thingy, but finally, I could make out the letters!

Solved!

In case you can’t make it out in the picture, it’s Bill Posting that’s prohibited. I feel so much better for knowing that, as it’s not something I was planning on doing anyway.

Bother, up again today. As it was another bright and sunny day, I persuaded myself to go out for a bit. I went into Newcastle to have a proper look at the Mervyn Peake exhibition at the Laing that I mentioned the other day, then wandered down to the Quayside, where I solved a mystery before walking over to the Baltic, where I was planning to have a laugh look at the Turner Prize show, but that was full of similarly inclined people[1], and apparently the queue to get in after them was also full, so I missed out that bit. I’ll probably try again another day…

[1] Many of whom, are, I am quite sure serious fans of modern non-representational art and don’t need to read the labels to know what’s being symbolised by the whateveritis in question.